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There’s a rhythm to being hurt.
A rhythm that James is unfortunately familiar with.
He slides into the routine of it like an ice bath, with weary resignation of both the necessity, the pinprick of pain and a healthy level of avoidance.
The avoidance is healthy as far as he’s concerned - he’s a professional athlete, he wants to play, he doesn’t want to be sidelined for any reason, whether he needs to be or not. Paul has other words for this particular form of avoidance. Most include the word stubborn paired with any number of colorful words that all mean ass.
For all his complaints, Paul slips into a rhythm too, he can’t help but be a caretaker and he makes bigger breakfasts, relinquishes control of the remote more often, wears a parrot head at the Bucs game. Somehow James’ favorite sheets end up on the bed after the housekeeper comes. Despite his inherent stubbornness and his desire not to be hurt - James will admit that being hurt with Paul is better than being hurt without him.
Game day is the thing that really sucks though. The way the schedule works is that even though he’s hurt James is mostly still part of the day-to-day operation of the Pens as a team. He isn’t on IR, there’s no limit on his return, and as Paulie keeps reminding him - his job right now is to do everything possible to get better.
They drive in to the rink together and James has to check in with the trainers and do about 816 different range of motion activities and measurements [the more often he’s hurt the more he’s convinced that there’s some kind of secret trainers club that basically involves developing the strangest things to measure and track]. At one point he’s standing on one leg, holding his right foot against his ass with his left hand and holding a kettlebell straight out from his body with the other while someone times how long it takes for him to rebalance. God knows he’s probably also facing north while he does it.
Of course it’s at that moment that Duper and Kuni wander in looking for the secret watermelon bubble gum stash and before they leave James has dropped the kettlebell and had to restart the entire thing twice and Duper is laughing so hard he actually has to put his head between his legs for a minute.
He skates with Mike while the guys who are practicing lift and lifts with heavy trainer supervision while the active guys practice. But he still has to go to meetings. He still has to watch film and hang out with Geno and Beau and Jussi and do linemate stuff. In the end he basically does everything short of actually practicing with the team and playing in the game.
He even gets to take a nap, curled on his side with Paulie pressed against his back snoring lightly in his ear while James plays 2 levels of Candy Crush and then passes out himself.
It’s the second trip of the day to the rink that will be different. There will still be suits and ties and walks through the locker room. But he won’t replace his wingtips with skates, Duper won’t artfully arrange his hair with a hockey stick and in the end he’ll wander up to the pressbox and try not to throw himself onto the ice.
There’s a fine balance of watching games from the pressbox. There’s a fair amount of smiling for the cameras and talking to people and making sure everyone on earth knows that he’ll be back on Geno’s wing just as soon as the sadistic trainers let him out from under their thumbs.
There’s also his own painful desire to watch the game, to watch the development of plays from a different perspective and try and learn from it and imagine the ice under his skates and taking his shifts and all that comes with doing the one thing he loves more than anything.
And then there’s Paulie.
James is sometimes surprised by his desire to take care of Paulie. He’s been a lovable spoiled brat for basically the entirety of his life. A position borne of an acres load of talent from a young age, a dad who coached him for years followed by a lifetime spent away from home and his mom’s inability to deny anything to her first born. He’s a distracted dater, always thinking about hockey and his own pleasure and whether or not he’s bored and how this is going to end for him.
Everything changes with Paul. He slides in, like a puzzle piece, like the long straight tetris piece after 18 zigzags, a welcome relief from trying to be something he’s not. James fell in love with Paul without ever meaning to, without ever expecting to and now it seems more comfortable than anything he’s ever done before.
That doesn’t stop him from being entirely overprotective however.
All of this manifests itself in the completely insane habit of obsessively tracking Paulie’s ice time. James’ excuses for this practice basically don’t exist. But when pressed he’ll admit that maybe it mostly has to do with the fact that the NHL’s website and the GameCenter app on his phone make it so FUCKING easy. It’s right there, in his pocket, in a convenient list, and thank the good Lord that it can’t be sorted by ice time. Because it’s bad enough that it seems like Paulie’s out there all the damn time. Now he has proof, actual, mathematical, financial, some damn kind of numerical proof that he actually is out there all the live long day.
It’s not that James doesn’t understand it, they’re all guilty of the love of the game, and it’s ingrained when Dan taps any of them on the shoulder to go over the boards for a double, or the kill or a powerplay. They’re all somewhat inept at saying no, at saying give me a minute my legs don’t actually work right now but in 80 seconds I’ll be good to go again.
But instead it’s like an addiction, being in the thick of it.
It’s worse somehow because Tanger’s hurt, and there’s Paul rolling out to run the point on the powerplay and picking up the places where Tanger usually would slot in all while maintaining the places he was already slotting in.
It’s probably something that the coaches and trainers would legitimately laugh at, the realization that somewhere up in the rafters of Consol there’s a hurt second line winger who is obsessively monitoring his boyfriend’s ice time in between standing awkwardly with his hands in his pockets making terrible small talk and trying to avoid reporters who have somehow gotten the idea that his injury is somehow Wiffle Ball related.
It’s not something he’ll ever vocalize anywhere. He’s not that guy. He’s the guy who’s going to be worried all game, and watch like a hawk for any sign that anything has changed. And at night they’ll go home and James will wrap his arms tight around Paul instead of the other way around.
So instead he does what he knows how to do. He makes sure that there’s Gatorade in the fridge and that Paulie’s favorite cookies get added to the grocery delivery list. He pulls the blankets straight after he stumbles out of bed and tries to slyly and awkwardly make sure that the pillows get kind of fluffed too.
And mostly this. He greets the team post-victory outside the locker room. He high-fives and slaps asses and rests a hand on the back of Paulie’s sweaty neck just for one additional second. He doesn’t say anything about practically 25 minutes of ice time, he doesn’t have anything to add when it is suggested that goal scoring is the best thing Paulie can do on his knees and without any argument he drives home after the game.
It’s either a nod to Paulie’s understanding of James’ neurosis or the fact that he was on the ice for more than half a hockey game, but Paul just hands over the keys and slides an arm around James’ waist as they walk out to the car.
At home they’re quiet, domestic in a way that James can’t help but appreciate. Steady and settled in a way that he’s maybe not entirely prepared to analyze. There’s so much normal, Paulie makes peanut butter toast and James switches the laundry from washer to dryer. Paulie sorts the mail on the kitchen counter while he eats his toast and James tries to decide if he wants a protein shake. Paulie looks longingly at the slouchy couch cushions and James bullies him up the stairs and into bed.
The sheets are cool and not wrinkled and their bed is seriously so comfortable that it’s probably a miracle that they ever leave it. Paul comes to bed in boxers and a ragged Manitoba Moose tshirt that mainly exists because it is by far the most ridiculously named hockey team James can think of. His hair is ruffled and crazy from changing shirts and the warmth of his skin mixes and mingles with James’ bare chest until they’re in their own cocoon together.
The light from the window makes Paulie’s eyelashes seem a mile long and James presses his lips against his forehead and his lips before guiding his head to rest on the jut of his clavicle, inhaling the minty shampoo that James associates with late night post-road trip showers and collapsing in bed after long days.
He slides his hands through Paulie’s hair as his breathing evens out.
Their life slides so quickly into routine. Home by 11, in bed by 11:30, hopefully asleep before midnight because another day of practice is only 12 hours away. In the meantime James presses a kiss to the side of Paulie’s head, slides an arm around his waist and marvels at the easy synchronization of their breathing as he slides to sleep.