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Sometimes, Troy could just tell a hit was going to go wrong. Something about the angle, or the pressure of the game, or just little clues his brain picked up on but couldn't articulate. He saw Toronto's enforcer coming for him, saw the distance between his body and the boards, and knew this hit was going to go wrong. He braced himself, but when it came, everything still exploded with pain.
"Barrett," said an accented voice directly into Troy's ear. "Can you hear me?"
Keeping his eyes squeezed shut, Troy flailed his left hand around until he found Ilya's forearm. "M'okay," he gritted out, still breathing through the first shock of pain. A moment later, Ilya helped haul him to his feet.
The movement sent another shock through Troy's chest. Fuck. He'd almost certainly broken something. Soft tissue injuries sucked the most - they took so long to heal and often still hurt for ages afterward, but there was nothing like the punch-to-the-face initial pain of a break.
Troy carefully schooled his expression into something neutral as he shuffled off the ice, left hand gripping his right side like he could hold himself in one piece, but tears still stung the corners of his eyes - both of pain and of frustration. This was the first game against Toronto since Pride Night and he wanted to be there to kick their asses. The Centaurs gathered around him.
"You okay?" Bood asked.
Troy dropped his voice low. "Might be broken."
"Shit."
Dykstra helped Troy off the ice to where Coach was waiting with a creased brow. He took one look at Troy and gestured him down the tunnel, giving him a little pat on the butt as he walked by then set to reorganizing the lines for the rest of the period. The team trainer, Elaine, met Troy on his way to the treatment room.
"That looked painful!" she said cheerfully. Like Harris, Elaine was always cheerful.
"You're not wrong," Troy mumbled.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Just my chest and shoulder here."
"Your head?"
"Totally fine. My shoulder took all the impact."
"Alrighty, give me a striptease, my friend, and we'll see what we're dealing with." She started rifling through her bag, and Troy tried to tug off his jersey.
But his arm wouldn't go up high enough.
"Uh. Shit."
Elaine's brow creased. "Oh, dear. That bad?"
"I think I broke my shoulder or something."
"Oh, wow. Usually that gets more of a reaction than this. Alright. Here." Slowly and carefully, Elaine helped Troy wriggle out of his gear until he was just in his undershirt. She delicately moved various parts of his body, testing this and that, until he flinched or yelped in pain. "I think you're right about the break. We should -"
"Troy!"
Troy ducked his head to hide his smile as he heard Harris' footsteps flying down the hallway. Harris burst through the door, panic written all over his features. "Oh my god. Are you okay? What happened? Is he okay?"
"I'm okay." Troy grabbed Harris's hand and tugged him in close. "I'm okay."
"We're just packing him up to go to the hospital," Elaine said. "You want to ride along?"
"Hospital!" All the blood drained out of Harris' face. "I thought you said you were okay?"
"I meant, like, I'm not dead. I probably broke something. Hopefully just dislocated."
Elaine grimaced. "I think you broke your collarbone, champ, but sure let's hold out hope. We don't have an x-ray here, so we'll have to pop to the hospital to confirm. Shouldn't take too long. If you're up for it, we can just take the car, but if you prefer the drama, I can get the EMTs to put the sirens on for ya."
Troy snorted and shook his head, and Elaine picked up her phone to text someone.
Harris glared. "You think my barometer for my boyfriend being okay is dead or not dead?"
Troy didn't say anything for a moment then realized he was just staring stupidly at Harris.
"What?"
"Just like it when you call me your boyfriend."
Harris turned to Elaine. "Is he on drugs already?"
"Not unless he took them himself!" she said brightly. "Let's go, big guy."
"Can't I see the rest of the game?" Troy asked.
"Indeed you can, from the TV in the hospital waiting room. Scoot."
Harris's anxiety was palpable as they walked out to the waiting car. Troy leaned in to whisper in his ear. "You okay? I'd get it if you don't want to spend any more time in hospitals."
"What?" Harris frowned.
"Well, you've spent enough time there. It probably doesn't feel great to have to go back. I can call you when I'm done."
"Are you kidding me? Troy Barrett if you think there is any fucking chance I'm letting you go to that hospital, by yourself, to sit and wait to find out if you have a broken bone, they need to check you for a concussion too, because that's crazy."
Troy tamped down a grin. "I've been hurt before. It's no big deal. You know I'll be alright, right?"
"I know. But on the way to alright there's often a bunch of pain and some not alright, and I want to hold your hand for that, okay?"
"Okay."
"I mean unless you'd rather I -"
"No." Troy squeezed Harris' hand. "I want you there. I always want you everywhere."
"Okay, good."
Elaine helped Troy get settled in the back seat, a rolled up towel tucked against his side to keep his arm in the right position, then she climbed in the passenger seat and started making phone calls. Troy leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes, focusing on staying immobile against the wobble of the car. He could feel Harris typing on his phone next to him and he wondered if he was texting or tweeting updates about the game.
The car pulled up at a back door of the hospital, and Elaine spoke to someone briefly, before ushering Troy and Harris in, a Cens security guy going with them. They waited in a small room with no TV, so Troy just let his mind drift to keep it off the pain. He didn't think about the games he would miss or the physio he'd have to do or how he was going to wash dishes one handed, he just thought about nothing, nearly dozing, as the adrenaline wore off.
They took him in for x-rays which involved contorting into several deeply uncomfortable positions, then asked him about a thousand questions. Then a doctor sat him down and told him Elaine was right, his collarbone was broken.
"Fuck," Troy huffed. "Eight weeks?"
"If you do everything you're supposed to, could be more like six. It's not a terrible break, thankfully. You won't need surgery to repair anything, just a sling and physio. We can't put a cast there, so you have to be very careful with it until the bones have reknit and then you can start rehabbing. We'll get you some painkillers to help you sleep. We'll need you to stick around for another hour or so to process everything, get you detailed instructions, and have another ortho take a quick look just to be sure there's no other intervention, but looks pretty standard, all things considered."
Harris squeezed Troy's hand.
"Okay, great. Thanks."
It took nearly two hours for Troy to be released. While Harris was out figuring out what Troy needed to sign, the game ended and Coach came and checked in - they won, but he seemed more worried about Troy than happy about the win, to Troy's surprise.
"Don't worry. I bounce back quickly. I'll do the work. I'll be back on the ice in six weeks."
Coach squeezed his good shoulder lightly. "I know. Let me know how I can support your healing. You played a great game today, Barrett. Just bad luck."
"Thanks, Coach."
Harris came back with a stack of papers, and ten minutes later, they were back in the back of the car. They made a quick stop at a pharmacy to fill a few prescriptions, then arrived at Troy's apartment.
Inside, Troy took a deep breath in and let it out. The adrenaline had all completely worn off, as had the initial shot of something nice they'd given him to help with the x-rays. Now he was tired, sore, and facing six weeks stuck in his bland, boring, lonely apartment, squeezing resistance bands and waiting.
He immediately found himself wishing he'd moved up the real estate shopping timeline. He had wanted to get his house in the country in time for the end of the season, so he and Harris could really enjoy the moving in process, take their time. They hadn't even really confirmed that Harris would be properly living with him. They'd flirted with the idea, talked around it, hinted, joked, and everything in between, but Troy hadn't gotten the guts to say, "I want you to move in with me. I want the place I buy to be ours."
A house surrounded by fields and trees would be a much nicer place to recover, but here he was in his grey apartment in grey winter weather looking down the barrel of six very shitty weeks. He didn't even have all of his time-killing stuff, what little of it he owned. He usually didn't bother with things like movies or video games much until the off-season, so he'd left it all in storage, knowing he wasn't going to be living in this place for long.
Harris squeezed his elbow. "Feeling okay?"
"Yeah." Troy sat down on the couch. "It's just catching up with me. I'm tired now. And this hurts."
"I'll make you some pasta so you can take your pills on a full stomach."
"You don't have to do that."
Harris shot him a look. "Red sauce or alfredo?"
"Alfredo please."
Troy closed his eyes and listened to Harris move around his kitchen. He always had premade pasta meals in the freezer, so it wasn't long before a plate appeared in front of him and an ice pack was rested gently on his shoulder. He wasn't that hungry, but he could imagine the face Harris would make if he didn't eat, so he started shoveling pasta into his mouth. "Thanks, sweetheart."
Harris smiled and squeezed Troy's ankle. "I texted Gen and she's going to bring my car over. I'll have to pop home and grab a few things, but I'll wait until you're all set up to do that. I asked Ilya to take Chiron for a few weeks because he hasn't really nailed the whole not jumping on broken people thing yet. I was thinking I'd pop out to get groceries in the morning, but then I remembered you're a millionaire and we don't really talk about that very much but maybe this is one of those times we throw money at the problem and have food delivered, what do you think?"
Troy just stared. Maybe the shot was still having an effect after all, because he was feeling a bit loopy. "Are you staying the night?"
"Uh. I was going to stay the whole six weeks. Do you not want me to? I can sleep on the couch if you're worried I'll bump your shoulder."
"No, I'm not worried. I guess I just assumed you'd head home since I'm not going to be much fun like this."
Harris' frown deepened from worried to genuinely upset. "Do you think I only sleep over so we can have sex? I thought we were past that point in our relationship. Sort of feels like you've spent all afternoon trying to get rid of me. Which, if that's what you want, I need you to just say so."
"No! No, I don't think that and I don't want that. Hold on, this isn't coming out right."
"Okay…" Harris waited.
Troy rubbed his good hand over his face and took a deep breath in and let it out. "I want you to move in with me."
"Um? Okay, I'll admit that's not what I was expecting you to say."
"I know we've been dancing around the topic a little bit, but I need to make sure you know that I really mean it. I want to pick a new place you love too. I want it to fit both our lives. And I want you to move in with me there and for it to be our shared home. I know we haven't been dating that long but -"
"I want that too. I already told my landlord I probably wasn't going to be renewing. I want that."
Troy let out a tight breath. "Okay, so I want you to keep that in mind when I say: I wasn't picturing you being here for this recovery. Not cause I don't want you here! It's just - It's ugly. I wanted moving in together to be more fun. And at our new place. Not you having to haul a bunch of stuff over here to heat up pasta in this boring-ass grey box and listen to me grumble about not being able to take a proper shower for like three weeks.
"I've never really been taken care of. My mom tried, but my dad didn't make it easy for her to be the kind of mom she wanted to be. My only other serious relationship wasn't like that. At all. My 'friends' in Toronto…" He sighed.
Harris snuggled up close, gently tucking himself between the arm of the couch and Troy's unbroken side. He pressed a kiss to Troy's neck and it was like a thousand pounds lifted off his shoulders. "I'm here because I want to be. This isn't us moving in together. That's going to be amazing, and silly, and probably very messy, and we're going to argue about how to put together Ikea furniture and if bright green is a valid bathroom paint colour, and Chiron is going to chew up your favourite socks. But even if we weren't planning on moving in together any time soon, I'd want to stay with you for this. Taking care of people is part of how I love them, and I love you. So I want to be here. And I want to help. And I want to feed you and I want to wake up at 2 a.m. to remind you to take your pills. And I want to also grumble about you not being able to take a proper shower for like three weeks."
Troy laughed, making Harris glow.
"And that's why. Because healing sucks - trust me, I know - and not being able to be yourself and do the things you want to do also sucks, but it's way easier if someone's at least there to make you laugh."
Troy wrapped his arm around Harris and squeezed him as much as he was able, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "I love you so much. Thank you. Please stay."
"Okay. Now that that's settled, how many pillows do you have? Cause I'm thinking you'll need to sort of prop -"
"Barrett!" a familiar voice yelled from the hall outside Troy's front door. Several other familiar voices echoed it.
"Uh…"
"I'll get it!" Harris said brightly. He hopped up, swung open the front door, and released a tsunami of hockey players into Troy's relatively small living room.
"Barrett!" Ilya proclaimed. "You're alive!"
"Uh, yeah," Troy gestured to the sling. "Broken collarbone."
"Ah fuck," Dykstra said. "Those are a bitch. Do you have one of those special shoulder shaped ice packs?"
"Um. I don't think so."
"Add it to the list!" he yelled at someone Troy couldn't see from his seat.
"Is this really all you have in the fridge?" Bood asked, sticking his head inside. "What do you eat?"
"I had been planning to go grocery shopping tomorrow." Troy blinked at the entire Cens team filling up his apartment. Even Gen was there, talking with Harris. "What are you guys doing?"
Ilya sat down on the couch next to Troy and handed him a popsicle he'd produced from nowhere. "We are checking on you. Make sure you are not fatally wounded, you know?"
"I'm fine." Troy looked at the popsicle. It was an orange one with the weird white stuff in the middle. He peeled off the wrapper and stuck it in his mouth.
"Where should I put this?" Luca said, holding up two grocery bags with unknown contents.
Ilya waved him off. "Bood will help you put it away."
"Okay." He frolicked off like an adorable Swiss lamb from a children's book.
Wyatt sat on the coffee table. "I was hoping you would have a cast so I could sign it. Bummer."
"We could sign the sling," Ilya suggested, a worryingly creative light blooming in his eyes.
"Fuck off," Troy said. "No one is bringing markers anywhere near something I have to wear every day for weeks."
That made Wyatt snort and Ilya pout. Wyatt tapped his hand against the side of Troy's ankle. "You need anything, bud? We can set up a carpool to the gym if the timing doesn't work out for Harris. When can you start on physio?"
"Two or three weeks, after followups. I can take a cab…"
"Pff." Wyatt looked up. "Oh, shit, I think the rookies are going to try to do your laundry. Guys! Don't mix whites and darks!" He stood and hustled off towards Troy's bedroom.
Troy looked at Ilya, who was grinning at him with that infuriatingly knowing smirk he always wore. "What the fuck is happening? Shouldn't you guys be out celebrating the win?"
Ilya laughed. "Welcome to Ottawa, Troy Barrett. Like it or not, you have a family now." He patted Troy's knee. "Now get better, cause I'm going to need you on my line when we make the playoffs." He paused. "But maybe not too fast because Harris asked me to keep Chiron while he stays here."
Harris called Ilya over, presumably to discuss those very details, and Troy sat and watched the Cens fill up every bare inch of his place. Drinks and food appeared out of nowhere, the TV came on and the remote was immediately fought over. Wyatt walked through the apartment carrying Troy's sheets with a small train of rookies following after him, apparently getting a lesson on cold water washing.
Suddenly, it didn't feel like a small, grey box anymore.
Troy shifted into a more comfortable position, stretching to the limit his shoulder would allow, then settling back down again. He might just get used to this whole being taken care of thing after all.