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His mother once told Will that passion and love are two different things that should not be mistaken for each other – and that a good relationship needs both to thrive. Will didn’t really get what his mother was trying to tell him then. Her words of wisdom were lost on a teenage boy.
Will gets it now, though.
Because Mack dropping his gloves for him on the ice and fighting a man twice his size is passion…but Mack buzzing around him like a fly while Will is on IR, bringing him his coffee and fluffing his pillows, is love. It has to be love. Otherwise it would just be slightly overbearing.
Will didn’t know what to expect when Mack drove him home from the hospital. He hasn’t been on IR since his clash with Wotherspoon, when he and Mack had still been dancing around each other, awkward and careful. Always scared of getting too close, of saying the wrong thing. He hadn't been able to admit to himself back then what the single-minded, devoted focus of Mack beating someone up was doing to him. (He can admit to it now that they’re married, but not out loud. Will really doesn’t want to give Mack any more reasons to be smug.)
Unfortunately that single-minded focus doesn’t get left at the rink, it follows them home. And the only thing that sucks more than being on IR and having your husband scrutinise each of your steps, like your foot could fall off any minute, is being on IR on your own birthday. It just adds insult to injury.
The injury itself is already an issue when Will has to hobble through the house to find his wayward husband after waking up in an empty bed.
He knows there’s a lecture waiting for him once he finds Mack, that he’ll complain about Will leaving the bed and putting weight on his foot when the doctor told him to take it easy. It just sharpens his resolve.
How dare Mack leave him alone when he can’t go anywhere? On his own birthday nonetheless!
“Mack?” Will calls, annoyance bleeding into his tone.
He hears a loud crash from the direction of the kitchen, followed by a string of curses. He speeds up his wobbly steps, just to be reminded of why he shouldn’t do that with a sharp, stabbing pain in his ankle.
Mack is standing with his back to him, talking animatedly to someone on his phone. He’s surrounded by pots and pans in various shapes and sizes, it looks like he raided their cupboards.
“You should just order in–” Toff’s voice comes through the speakerphone, exasperated.
“No,” Mack hisses. “I can make breakfast.”
“Okay,” Toff says, voice tinged with sarcasm. “Do it then.”
Mack gestures at the phone, as if Toff can see him, holding up two different pans. “Just– how big does the pan for a pancake have to be?”
At the other end of the line Toff sighs deeply. Will can imagine him rubbing his temple as if to dispel a headache…he tends to do that often around them.
“I’m ending the call now, kid. Next time, consider google.”
Mack groans and puts the pans back on the stove with a loud metallic noise that makes Will wince. And as if they’re completely in-tune with each other, Mack turns to him, then.
“Will! What are you doing out of bed?”
Will gives him an awkward smile. It’s not the first time Mack has caught him sneaking around in boredom and it’s probably not going to be the last. “Am I not allowed to move around in my own house?”
“But your ankle–”
“–will be just fine if I move around a little bit. I’m not doing cartwheels in the kitchen.”
Mack fixes him with that damned kicked-puppy look he’s perfected over the years.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Mack.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re doing it again.”
They had discussed the issue already on the way home from the hospital, and then a few more times in the last days…boundaries and all that.
The truth is, Mack is the needier one of them. It takes most people around five minutes to figure that out. But there’s another truth, something Will has noticed over the years: Mack hates it. He doesn’t want to be the one giving himself away.
And Will knows, so for years he gave Mack chances to take care of him in small, unassuming ways. The first time he did it was the day of their wedding – when he leaned into Mack on the ferris wheel and pretended to be scared of heights – and since then Will hasn’t stopped. He chooses horror movies that he pretends to find scarier than they actually are; he asks Mack for help with benign tasks like opening jars. (And Mack, so helplessly wanting to be needed, doesn't question why his husband, a fellow pro athlete, can't open the jar himself.)
Turns out shouldn't have indulged Mack because he created an overprotective, patronising monster.
They’re staring each other down in the kitchen, Mack’s eyes dangerously narrowed. It’s an expression Will knows from the ice, usually reserved for face-offs. Like this is just another challenge to Mack and he’s determined to win.
Will plops down on one of the kitchen chairs, ignoring the pain in his ankle. If he shows any weakness, he genuinely fears Mack is going to tie him to the bed until he’s healed.
“I heard you were making breakfast.”
“I thought I might order in instead,” Mack says with a sheepish grin.
Will shakes his head. “No, go ahead. I wanna see what you’ll come up with.”
It isn’t often that Mack cooks for him. When he does, it’s mostly edible, except that time he tried to make shakshuka and burned it so badly you couldn’t remove the charred leftovers from the pan, no matter how much water or soap you used. They ended up throwing it out completely and Will still finds himself mourning that pan sometimes.
The kitchen fills with a sweet smell and Mack is humming to himself, a song Will recongnises immediately because it’s from his own playlist. It’s homely, comfortable.
The past days Will wasn’t quite sure if he finds being doted on like this sweet or concerning, but this, he decides, is kinda nice. Watching his husband channel his frantic energy into making breakfast instead of policing each of Will’s movements.
“Happy birthday!” The stack of pancakes Mack serves him is a little uneven, leaning to the side like the tower of Pisa. They’re drenched with chocolate syrup and topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. Will didn’t even know they had sprinkles. Out of the two of them, he’s the one who bakes so he has a pretty good overview of what ingredients their kitchen is stocked with, which means Mack went to Target this morning to buy sprinkles. To put them on Will’s birthday pancakes. The thought does not make Will feel warm and fuzzy, at all.
Mack is looking at him expectantly, waiting for praise – praise that Will easily gives.
“This is delicious. Thank you.”
At his words Mack grins, baring his teeth. Only once he’s received absolution in the form of Will’s approval does he sit down at the table with him. His own stack of pancakes is a little less crooked, but also lacks the charming sprinkles, Will notes.
“How would you want to spend your birthday if you weren’t injured?” Mack asks through a mouthful of pancakes. There's some whipped cream clinging to his upper lip. Will wants to brush away with his thumb.
“Go to the club. Get stupidly drunk, I guess.”
“We can get stupidly drunk at home.”
“Yeah, but it's not the same. You have to do it in a dingy club where the floor is sticky.”
“The floor is sticky.”
“That’s your fault. It was your turn to mop the kitchen this week.”
“Not fair.”
“You know what else isn't fair?” Will asks, pointing to his injured foot. It’s a real knockout argument. Mack seems to think so too since he just mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like ‘l’ll mop the floor tomorrow’.
“We should head back to bed,” Mack suggests after they finished their breakfast. Another less than subtle attempt to get him to rest. Fine. Two can play this game. Will wants to bargain, at least.
“Okay,” he says, much to Mack’s relief. And then to his chagrin Will immediately adds; “But I want to watch Home Alone.”
“It’s March,” Mack protests.
“The spirit of Christmas doesn't have fixed dates.”
“It does. That's what December is for.”
“I’m injured, take a little pity on me!”
“Didn’t you say you want to be treated normally?”
“Well, yes, but you should still spoil me a little.”
He should not have said that because Mack, endlessly determined Mack, seems to consider this a challenge and scoops Will up from the kitchen chair like he’s picking up a sack of potatoes.
“Oof, you- you’re heavier than you look,” Mack huffs.
“I’m a hockey player like you,” Will replies drily. “Of course you can't just pick me up.”
That’s just another challenge to Mack that he wants to pass with flying colours, he huffs again as he adjusts Will’s weight in his arms.
It’s weird. Will is pretty sure the last time someone carried him around he was still a toddler, and now he’s being carried back to bed by his husband, bridal style. Maybe his stomach flutters a little at the thought. It’s not like anyone needs to know.
“If you fuck up your back carrying me Warso will have my head,” Will warns him.
“What we do at home is none of Warso’s business.”
“He’ll make it his business if you suffer a slipped disc at 20.”
–
They end up watching Home Alone and Home Alone 2 since it’s Will’s birthday and afterwards they fire up the Switch.
Mack had never been that interested in video games before, but Will insisted on teaching him how to play Mario Kart so he could play with him and Grace whenever she visits. Rookie mistake. Of course the most competitive man on earth would also want to win something with such low stakes.
“Mercy!” Will yells as a red shell hits his kart and Yoshi flies past him, directly over the finish line.
“No mercy when it comes to Mario Kart,” Mack says with a shark-like grin. “Weren’t you the one who taught me that?”
“Asshole.”
While Yoshi is driving his celebratory winning lap on screen, Mack crowds Will against the bed to steal a kiss – and then jumps back as if he’s been burned.
“You’re good. You didn’t even touch my foot,” Will assures him, “I won’t break.”
“Promise?”
“Promise what?”
“That you won't break. I need you with me on the ice for another twenty years.”
“Twenty! You can’t just be the youngest, you also have to be the oldest.”
“You love my drive.”
Mack is still hovering above Will awkwardly, like any touch would be agony to him.
“You know, I’m not a little glass figurine you can drop on accident,” Will deadpans. He can’t believe this is the same person that usually bites and scratches him like a man possessed. Mack’s different now that Will is injured. Careful. Reverential. Will could almost get used to it.
“Or are you just not going to touch me until I’m off IR?”
What a great injustice that would be. Doesn’t he deserve some birthday sex?
“It would be for the better…” Mack replies, thoughtfully.
“You could at least give me a handjob.”
“Wow, I’m swooning. My husband is such a romantic.” Mack says but he eases up a little, letting his body melt into Will’s, finally.
“You love me.”
“I do love you,” Mack mumbles and presses a kiss to Will’s neck. “Next year we’ll do something fun for your birthday.
“I am having fun.”
“If you’re gonna say something cheesy like ‘I always have fun with you’ I’m gonna throw you out of bed.”
“You won’t. I’m very fragile, remember?”
Mack does shove him then but it’s the tiniest, most pathetic shove imaginable.
Will closes his eyes and lets out a fond sigh. “Love you too, idiot.”