Page 36 of Game Misconduct

He wouldn’t.

He had a bunch of unread messages from Mike, but he locked the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. Gears’ mouth was pressed against Danny’s shoulder, his breath warm and humid against it, and Danny closed his eyes too. He was exhausted, in too many ways.

Mike was in a shitty mood, which wasn’t anything new. He was usually in a shitty mood, he just usually hid it better.

Currently the problem was that he hadn’t really realized how much he talked to Danny until Danny wasn’t talking to him anymore. The apartment seemed really fucking quiet now that Bee was over at Mäkelä’s a good portion of the time. Before, it hadn’t mattered, because he’d been busy bothering Danny whenever any kind of stupid thought popped into his head, knowing he’d respond eventually. He’d been alone, but he hadn’t really beenalone.

Mike messaged Danny a few times about the drills and his progress, but Danny’d just read them and let it go, and Mike was starting to feel something that was like...the closest way he could think of to describe it was like being stir-crazy, like he was actually locked in his apartment with nothing to do. He wasn’t, of course. He could leave whenever he wanted to.

He was still traveling for games and he was still going to optional skates and he was still killing himself running through Danny’s drills in the spare time that was left after all of that was over. Mike was busier than he’d ever been, and he was playing better than he’d ever been. It was a grind, because he wasn’t getting the kind of minutes he’d need to show off the tighter skating and the way he was trying to pay attention to what was going on, to think strategically about how he was approaching the other team’s forwards and the empty ice. Even if Coach didn’t notice, Mike did.

It was hard not to notice when you were playing the best fucking hockey of your entire life.

Like, he scored two more goals over the next two weeks, bringing his season total to three, which was the most goals he’d scored in such a short period in his entire professional hockey career. And he couldn’t even tell Danny about it. Well, he’d told him, but Mike was at the point of getting ghosted where it felt pathetic to keep trying, rolling over and showing his belly like a dog. Just begging, please, pay attention to me, look at me.

He’d just gotten used to having someone to talk to. Someone who could make him laugh when he felt shitty. Someone who gave him shit and pushed him and forced him to be better. And now he didn’t have that, and he felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin.

He threw himself into working out even though he shouldn’t have. He benched. He did dead lifts. He did squats. He pushed himself past his one-rep maxes and kept going. It was one of those months where he was having more than one emotion at the same time for more than one day and that alone kind of made him furious. Except this time, he couldn’t even be mad at Danny, because it definitely was not Danny’s fault. So that just left being furious at himself, which he was good at doing. But even being good at beating yourself up didn’t make the whole situation easier to deal with.

He sat in his empty apartment when he got home from games or practices or the gym and did more push-ups or pull-ups or whatever the hell hurt worse that day. At least it got his mind off of the situation, which was rapidly going from bad to pathetic. He jerked off, but it wasn’t, like, well. He came, eventually, but it didn’t feel good. He just kept thinking about the times he’d jerked off listening to Danny talking him through it and even when he was coming, he felt fucking like. Not sad. He wasn’tsad. He felt something. Several things. All the time, unceasing.

He didn’t know how to fix it. It would’ve been one thing if they lived in the same place and he could just show up at Danny’s house and, like, make things better. Except the only way he could think of doing it was offering to blow him. But you couldn’t use your mouth to make things better if you weren’t anywhere near the other person, ever. And he didn’t know what to say to someone who wouldn’t answer him, and he didn’t know what to do when he’d fucked up so badly, except keep working so hard it hurt. Which felt good, and again, like the right thing to happen. The worst part wasn’t even that he didn’t know how to fix it, it was that he had to admit to himself that he...he didn’t hate Danny.

Not much. Not at all.

It felt bad, admitting that.

“You okay, buddy?” Singer asked him after practice one day.

He’d sort of herded Mike off to the side of the rink, using his sheer size to steer him away from the rest of the team as they trooped back toward the dressing rooms. It was a move that reminded him so much of Danny that he bit his lip. He could see Bee looking over her shoulder at them, worried, but when Mäkelä put his hand on her shoulder, she let him lead her away.

“I’m fine,” he said, automatically. “Uh, why?”

“You’ve been killing it during the games, but you just—you don’t look good, Mike.”

“Thanks,” Mike said, sour. “Real nice, Cap.”

Singer’s blue eyes were painfully earnest. “I wasn’tinsultingyou, Mike, I’m worried about you.” He reached out and knuckled his smelly glove against Mike’s face.

Mike spluttered in protest, unable to keep the wounded disbelief from his voice. “Did you justface washme?”

“I want you to take it seriously, and you’re not gonna, apparently. What’s going on? Let mehelp.”

Mike thought about telling him to get his own house in order first. Singer’d been grumpy as fuck since Reed had started bringing around his girlfriend, a smiley college athlete with long legs, blond hair, perfectly tanned skin, and a 4.0 GPA. But he couldn’t bring himself to be that much of an asshole. Not again.

Instead, he said, “I’m not sure if you can help me with this one, Cap.”

“At least let me try? You really...look...yeah.”

Mike tried to rub his face on his shoulder, scrub the smell away with the fabric of his practice jersey. It didn’t work. “Umm. It’s personal stuff, okay?”

Singer was still watching him with that implacable, steady gaze, boxing Mike in with his body, and he wasn’t going anywhere. The words tasted sour in his mouth, like he was puking up bile.

“I, uh—I said something pretty shitty to, uh, a friend. Like the kind of thing you can’t take back. And I’ve tried talking to, uh, my friend, and it’s just not working. And it just...”

“Your friend.” Singer’s jaw worked briefly, like he was trying to think about how to phrase it, and Mike suddenly had a brief moment of panic, like he’d said too much, exposed too much. “You tried apologizing and your friend won’t accept your apology?”

Mike stared at him.

---