Work Text:
“What three words describe your game?”
Macklin stares at the computer screen for longer than he should. He’s sure the other guys are just filling out this questionnaire as quickly as possible without putting much thought into it, but he can’t quite bring himself to do that. He knows he needs to prove himself; he’s not confident that there weren’t better options for the Olympic roster, and he wants to show the world that he belongs here representing Canada.
Normally, he would ask Will for help with this, but he’s been trying to avoid Olympics talk with his best friend. Will didn’t make the Team USA roster - not that he thought he would, and he doesn’t seem upset about it - and Macklin doesn’t want to seem like he’s bragging by forcing Will to interact with all of this extra work that’s been dumped on Macklin’s plate.
Not that Macklin is annoyed by the work. He’s going to represent his country. In the fucking Olympics. With Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid and -
And holy shit, he can’t do this. He’s not good enough. He’s only 19 years old, Crosby’s been playing in the NHL longer than he’s been alive, how can he possibly have been selected for this team, someone had to have made a mistake, and he needs to call them and let them know that he’s not qualified, they need to pick someone better, and -
Ok. Relax. Slow, deep breaths. Macklin calms himself down. He’s good at hockey. He can do this. He played with Sid and Nate at Worlds. It’ll be just like that, except it’ll actually matter. Plus, hopefully they won’t lose to Denmark this time.
Three words to describe his game. It feels weird to brag about himself, but he’s pretty skilled. He’s a good puckhandler, he’s got a great shot, and he’s been kind of blowing up the league this year with points and goals. He thinks that Will would probably describe his game as competitive; he can picture the smirk on Will’s face when he would say it. Macklin hates losing to the point that he’s prone to crashing out a little bit after bad losses. The thought of Will puts a smile on Macklin’s face as he considers the last word to use. He’s never happier than when he’s on a rink with Will, but ‘happy’ feels like a weird description. He drums his fingers, lost in thought, before finally typing out the three words.
Skilled.
Competitive.
Joy.
*************
Nate glances up from his iPad, looking out the window into blackness. His leg is bouncing quickly, and he lets himself zone out for a second before refocusing on the video in front of him. He watches as a player scores, then rewinds to see the play unfold.
A hand appears on his thigh, gripping tightly and pushing down. “You have to calm down,” Sid murmurs.
“I’m very calm,” Nate says, a slight tremor in his voice giving him away.
Sid raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re watching game tape of the French players right now,” he says. “And you’re bouncing so much that I thought we hit turbulence.”
“Sorry,” Nate says. “I just - I want this so much. I feel like I can’t do anything about it until we land except study as much as possible, and I don’t want to accidentally underestimate a team and then end up losing.”
Sid’s hand stays on Nate’s thigh, a heavy weight pressing down. “You also need to take care of yourself.”
“Sorry,” Nate mutters, looking away from Sid’s face. Sid is disappointed in Nate - Nate already fucked things up, and they’re still on the plane. His captain thinks he’s not doing a good job.
Sid’s hand leaves Nate’s leg. He gently places it on Nate’s jaw, tilting Nate’s head up until Nate has to make eye contact. “Look at me,” Sid says softly. “Speaking as your captain, you’re the most prepared person on this team. You’ve watched more tape than anyone else, you’ve practiced more than anyone else, and you even went through the effort of putting together an impressive mental health toolkit with your sports psych. I trust you. I believe in you. You have to believe in yourself - and in this team - too, ok?”
“Yeah,” Nate says, voice rough.
“Good,” Sid says. “And speaking as your boyfriend, put the fucking tablet away. I barely get to see you. If you’re too keyed up to sleep, you’re hanging out with me.” He drops his hand to grasp Nate’s, intertwining their fingers.
Nate looks around. “We’re on a plane with all of our teammates,” he hisses.
Sid snorts. “I didn’t mean sex. I’m too old to blow my back out in an airplane bathroom.”
Nate nods and then - “wait, you’re too old, meaning…?”
Sid rolls his eyes. “I was young and stupid once,” he grins.
Nate wrenches his hand away from Sid, looking at him with narrowed eyes. He shoves his tablet into his bag and stands up, pushing at Sid to move. “Come on,” he says.
“Nate-”
“Nope, let’s go. I’m not letting the last person you fucked in an airplane be someone other than me.”
“Nathan!” Sid whispers sharply. “The entire team is gonna see us. Fucking - Jon Cooper is here, we can’t -”
“We can,” Nate says stubbornly, shoving at Sid again. “Come on, let me blow you at least, it’ll get my mind off of everything. It’s the responsible thing to do.”
“It’s responsible to let you blow me in the bathroom of an airplane surrounded by all of our teammates?”
“Yep.”
Sid sighs. He’s wanted Nate from the moment they greeted each other, but they haven’t had a chance with all of the craziness, their teammates, and the flight. He glances around and sees that nearly everyone seems to be dozing. They probably won’t notice.
“Handjobs,” Sid says, standing slowly. “I’m not letting you fuck up your knees in an airplane bathroom.”
Nate grins, suddenly feeling light and happy. He’s with his boyfriend, he gets to play Olympic hockey, and everything is going to be great.
Fifteen minutes later, as they emerge from the bathroom, ruffled and pink-cheeked, the back of Nate’s neck prickles. He looks around and spots Celebrini staring at the two of them, wide-eyed and tense. Sid hasn’t noticed, and Nate can’t bring himself to care in his post-orgasm relaxed state. He grins at the kid and breaks eye contact, following Sid back to their seats. He curls up and passes out until they land.
*************
Macklin immediately pulls out his phone. He’s not a gossip, but it’s Will. Will made Macklin promise to tell him everything. He quickly types out a message - I think Crosby and MacKinnon just fucked in the bathroom???? - and waits for a response.
Aren’t you on the plane?
Macklin grins. Yes.
There’s no fucking way Captain Canada and his sidekick just had sex in an airplane bathroom.
Of course Will doesn’t believe him. It’s a pretty unbelievable thing. Ok, do you have another explanation for them leaving the bathroom together?
The three dots appear and then disappear. It takes a few minutes, but they reappear again, and then a message finally comes through. Maybe they have a secret Canada voodoo ritual that has to be done in a bathroom over the Atlantic.
Macklin has to shove his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Reasonable.
More reasonable than two NHL players secretly fucking.
Macklin frowns down at his phone. It can be lonely, sometimes, even surrounded by teammates, when no one else is like you. He forgets that Will isn’t like him. No one else in the NHL is.
Well. Maybe Nate and Sid are. That would be huge. Will’s probably right, though. There’s no way two of the best players in the league are fucking. NHL players aren’t gay. Maybe their secret voodoo ritual is fucking each other in the bathroom.
The response comes a moment later. Get some sleep, Mack.
A clear dismissal. Will doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He probably shouldn’t have said anything; despite Will’s protests about not caring about being left off Team USA, Macklin is sure he’s hurting that he’s not on his way to Italy. He curls up in his seat and tries to find sleep; he comforts himself with the thought that maybe, just maybe, he’s not quite as alone as he thought in the league.
*************
Macklin glues himself to Nate’s side after they get off the plane. They go through customs, walk what feels like five miles through the airport. “Are we staying in the village?” he asks, desperate to try to make conversation with Nate.
Nate snorts. “No,” he says, not expanding on that.
He tries for a moment to figure out how to transition the (lack of) conversation to what he saw on the plane, but he can’t figure out a subtle way to do that, and the next thing he knows, he’s on a bus to a hotel, Nate breaking off from him to sit next to Sid. Everyone seems to be sitting with their teammates or their buddies from being at Four Nations, and Macklin feels a little awkward. He sits by himself, ignoring the excited chatter. Nate and Sid are a couple rows up from him and a diagonal, so he entertains himself by trying to watch them to see if he notices anything out of the ordinary. He doesn’t, of course, aside from Sid catching his eye a few times, looking more and more confused as the bus ride continues.
When they get to the hotel, there’s a lot of standing around and waiting in the lobby for their room keys. Macklin usually prides himself on being charismatic and friendly, eager to chat with strangers, but as small groups break off, he finds himself on the outside again. He’s pretty sure the person closest in age to him is Harley, but he’s still five years older than Macklin. He misses Will. He fidgets around, tries to look busy on his phone (as if everyone he knows isn’t asleep right now).
An arm wraps around his shoulder suddenly. “Hey, Mack,” Sid says, smiling at him. “Feeling good?”
“Yeah, for sure,” Macklin responds. Sid steers him away from the others, breaking off into their own private conversation that no one else can overhear.
“Great,” Sid says. “Hey, remember when we played together at Worlds?”
Macklin scrunches his face. Is this a concussion test? Does Sid think he forgot? “Um. Yes?”
Sid nods his head in approval. “Right, good. And do you remember how you got over the whole staring thing after, like, five days?”
Macklin turns bright red. “It’s not - I mean, I wasn’t trying to…”
“Hey, it’s fine. I get it. I played awful hockey in my first year in the league sometimes because I’d get all hyperfocused on Mario. I just thought we’d gotten past that at Worlds, you know?”
He doesn’t think his day could get any worse. “It’s not because you’re good at hockey!” he squeaks, and, ok, yeah, his day can get worse. What a dumb thing to say. “I mean, not that you’re bad at hockey. Obviously. It’s just -” he cuts himself off, but Sid is waiting patiently to see how that sentence ends. Fuck. “Do you have any weird rituals that help Canada win gold?”
Sid furrows his brow in thought. “Feeling superstitious?” he asks. “I’ve got a lot of routines, but there’s nothing specific to international play, it’s all the same as my routines on the Pens. Hockey is hockey, eh?”
Macklin nods like he understands anything happening in his life right now. “Ok. Yeah. Makes sense. So, like, you and Nate don’t have a Matthew Tkachuk voodoo doll that you were setting fire to in the plane bathroom together?”
He blames the word vomit on his current levels of exhaustion. Before Sid can respond, Nate walks over with a hotel key envelope. “Scaring the kid, Croz?”
Sid gives Nate what must be some sort of meaningful look. “No. Actually, Macklin was just asking me why the two of us were in the bathroom together on the plane.”
Nate turns bright red. Macklin didn’t think he was asking that, exactly, but it works. Nate opens and closes his mouth a few times before responding. “We were. Y’know. For Canada!”
Sid gives an exasperated sigh. Before Macklin can stop himself, he says, “You were fucking for Canada? On the plane?” Sid buries his face in his hand.
“It was just handjobs!” Nate says defensively. Sid removes his face from his hands so he can slap a palm over Nate’s mouth.
Macklin hesitates a moment. “Are we all supposed to be pairing off and - like, for Canada?” He hopes not. There’s 25 guys on the team, and odds are, he’ll be the one left out again.
“No,” Sid says quickly, wrinkling his nose. “God, no, please don’t do that. Unless you want to, obviously. You can hook up with anyone you want, as long as it’s consensual, and you’re safe about it, and - do you need condoms? Do you know how they work? I picked up a box for each of the guys, I can probably find a way to demonstrate-”
“Sid,” Nate cuts him off. “He’s 19, not 10. He knows how a condom works.”
Macklin nods his head quickly. He wants to get as far away from this conversation as possible.
Sid runs a hand through his hair. “Right, yeah, sorry. Anyway. We’re good on the whole staring thing now?”
Macklin grins. “As long as you promise to never try to give me a sex ed talk again.”
“Sorry,” Sid mumbles, blushing, as Nate cackles. “Let me know if you need anything, ok?”
Nate responds before Macklin can. “Like an entire box of condoms?”
“Shut up, Nate.”
“Did you get one for me, too?” Nate can’t hold back his laughter as he asks.
Sid frowns. “I know you don’t need them, but… I didn’t want you to feel left out.”
It clicks suddenly. Nate doesn’t need the box of condoms. Sid knows that Nate wouldn’t need that. Nate definitely does not have a girlfriend because he stayed far away from the arrangements people were making for their partners getting to Milan. “Are you two…,” Macklin starts. “It wasn’t for Canada?” He’s not sure what expression he’s got on, but he’s doing his best to not show any emotion. His hands are shaking a little.
The smile immediately drops off Nate’s face, turning to a look of concern. He exchanges a long, meaningful glance with Sid before turning back to Macklin. “Why don’t you put your things down and get settled, then come to our room for a little?” Nate says softly.
Their room. The whole purpose of coming to a hotel instead of staying in the Village was so they didn’t have roommates. But Nate and Sid are still staying in one room. Macklin feels a little like he can’t breathe.
“Fuck,” Sid mutters under his breath. “Come on, just follow us,” he says to Macklin, and then he’s being steered toward the elevator as he’s making small, desperate gasps for air. Sid’s hand on his shoulder helps ground him a little bit, makes him feel a bit calmer through the panic.
*************
He’s not alone anymore.
He scores a goal at the Olympics - he scores the first goal for Team Canada at the fucking Olympics. He turns to celebrate with Will, but Will’s not on the ice. Obviously.
He’s not alone anymore, but after the game, as he thumbs through dozens of congratulatory texts, there’s one person who didn’t say anything, their text thread stuck in time from several days ago. There’s been nothing from either side since Get some sleep, Mack, and Macklin isn’t sure the last time he went more than 24 hours without talking to Will. He tries to think of something to say to his best friend, but for the first time since they’ve been on the Sharks together, he’s drawing a blank.
He strips the red-black-white jersey off himself. He loves representing his country, but a small part of him misses teal.
Macklin shakes himself off and shoves his phone away. He’s at the Olympics. It’s only a couple of weeks, and then he’ll be back in San Jose. He needs to focus on winning. He needs to help his team get the job done.
*************
Macklin rests his forehead on the boards and tries to hide his face. This is entirely his fault. He wasn’t good enough. He wants to drown out the noise in the arena. He can’t drown out the noise in his head, the replays of chances he had that didn’t go through, the opportunities he had to put the game away, the whispers of doubt creeping in that maybe he shouldn’t have gone first overall - maybe he shouldn’t even be in the league at all, not if he couldn’t be good enough in Italy.
His teammates are unmoving next to him, but his entire body is shaking. He desperately wants to get out of here because he knows that everyone blames him for this. A hand finds his shoulder, rubbing his back gently, and he presses into the touch. He lifts his head up to see who it is and immediately tenses, turning away. Sid is already on the bench, dressed in full hockey gear despite his injury, face blank. This was Sid’s last chance for a third gold, and Macklin let him down.
“I’m so sorry,” Macklin says, over and over again, and he’s not even sure who he’s saying it to. His team, Sid, his parents, his siblings, Canada, Will.
“It’s ok, Mack, take a deep breath,” Sid says calmly. “It’s not your fault. No one is mad at you.”
Macklin shakes his head. It is his fault. If he wasn’t the way that he is, he’d be better at hockey. Hockey players can’t be… they’re supposed to marry beautiful women and have perfect children and not crush on their best friends who are also their teammates.
He wants out of this stupid red jersey with the number that isn’t even his fucking number and he wants to be alone where no one can see him cry but he has to go through a handshake line and get a silver medal placed around his neck instead. He stands between Bo Horvat and Thomas Harley as they play the US national anthem. Horvat shuffles closer to Macklin, as if he knows Macklin needs some physical comfort right now. He’s trying not to break apart in front of all the cameras, and then it’s finally over and they can go back to the locker room and Macklin sinks down into his stall and sobs. He can’t bring himself to care that his whole team is there, watching, and his coach is trying to talk.
Cale walks by and ruffles his hair for a moment, and then Shea Theodore does the same. Wilson gives him a quick pat on the back, Binner does the weird stick tapping routine the two of them had started after the first game when Macklin still knew how to smile, and Mitch kneels in front of him before wrapping him in a long hug.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers to everyone who comes by, but none of them seem to hear it. They don’t understand that all of this is his fault.
Nate sits in his stall, staring blankly at the floor. He hasn’t moved a muscle since they got back to the locker room. Sid has spent some time whispering to him, but Nate hasn’t reacted once.
Connor, taking to the C like everyone knew he would, sits next to Macklin. “This isn’t on you,” he says, voice rough.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” Macklin says, voice small.
Connor tenses, angry. “That’s bullshit,” he says loudly. “You were one of the best guys out there for the entire tournament. Fuck, you’re only 19, and you’re already better than almost everyone in this room.”
“That’s not-”
“Yes, it is,” Connor says, not letting him argue. “Go shower,” he says, projecting his voice to the whole room. “All of you. We’re meeting in the hotel lobby in two hours, no exceptions.”
“What for?” someone asks.
Connor takes a moment to compose himself. “I know we just lost a game. I know we’re heartbroken. But we just won a silver medal at the Olympics. Silver isn’t nothing. We should be proud of our team and our accomplishments. I want to celebrate that with all of you before we have to leave tomorrow morning.”
The guys grumble a bit, but get moving on stripping their jerseys and heading to the showers. Nate still hasn’t moved a muscle. Macklin wonders if he’s going to puke again. He’d prefer not to be anywhere near that this time.
*************
Nate can’t put an exact date on when he fell in love with Sid, but he can put an exact date on when he realized it: May 18, 2015. Nate was not quite 20, and Sid was not quite 28. They had just won Worlds together, and Nate was deliriously happy, drinking beer and dancing and singing with all of his friends. He was young and dorky and so happy to finally be playing with his childhood hero. They spent the night partying, and in the morning, when he got down to breakfast, Sid immediately sat down next to him.
“Watch tape with me?” Sid asked, pulling out a tablet. He hit play on a clip from their game the day before - the game that won them the gold medal. It was a breakdown in the offensive zone, a good chance that never materialized. “I can’t figure out what went wrong here.”
The morning after winning gold together. That was the moment Nate knew he was in love.
It took three more years of solid friendship before Sid realized he felt the same way, and it took several months of convincing that an eight year age gap wasn’t too much before Nate could tell Sid how he felt.
Nate can put a date on their first kiss: November 28, 2018. Sid finally relented, giving them both what they wanted, pushing Nate up against a wall and kissing him senseless after the Avs beat the Pens 6-3. Sid had a hat trick, and it still wasn’t enough to win them the game, but Sid didn’t seem to care at all about the loss when he had Nate instead.
Nate can also put a date on the first time he actually said the words out loud to Sid, when it was much too soon for their new relationship considering the distance between them: February 22, 2019. They’d been together for less than three months, and they were on the phone which was probably the wrong way to do that, but the words came out of his mouth without warning.
Seven years to the day after Nate first told Sid that he was in love with him, he lost Sid his final Olympic gold. There’s a ring in a box in Nate’s suit pants pocket, and the thought of putting that suit back on makes him want to throw up. His ears are ringing as people talk in the locker room. He wonders if Sid remembers the importance of this date. He wonders if Sid would have even said yes. It’s been seven years, and Sid has never mentioned anything like this. Maybe if they’d won today, Sid would have been so happy that he would have said yes.
Nate will never know.
The locker room clears out slowly around Nate, but he doesn’t move. He thinks about a future where Sid retires and moves to Denver, where they have matching rings around their fingers and maybe a kid or two running around. Nate would have someone to toss a puck to at pre-game warmups. That future will never happen, because Nate isn’t good enough. He let Sid down. He didn’t put the puck in the net.
Arms appear under his own, lifting him up and off the bench in front of his stall. “Shower,” Sid says. “I’ll be right here waiting for you after you finish. Everyone else left already. We need to get you in shape to be around the guys in an hour or so. I bought us some extra time from Connor.”
Nate stares blankly at Sid. Sid shoves him toward the showers, and Nate walks there on autopilot. He scrubs his body, relaxing under the warmth of the spray.
It’s fine. Sid still loves him, even if he wasn’t good enough. He loves the relationship he has with Sid, and if they never take the next step - well, that’s fine, too. Sid has made it crystal clear in the past that he’s never going to break up with Nate because of the outcome of a game, so Nate isn’t worried about that. It’s going to be ok. He can get through this. He’s lost big games before. A memory of Matt Duchene potting the puck over Nate’s shoulder pops into his brain, and he quickly tries to push it away.
He shuts the water once he’s clean and wraps a towel around his waist, walking back toward the locker room. Sid is there, holding out Nate’s clothes to him one piece at a time as he slides them on. Underwear first, then socks, then his undershirt. Sid hands him his button-up, and Nate slowly does up the buttons one at a time. Sid grabs his pants out of his locker and drops them on the floor.
“Oops, sorry,” Sid says, smiling sheepishly at Nate as he picks up the pants. Nate can be particular about his clothes sometimes, but this is not one of those times. Nate clocks the moment Sid’s entire body tenses up, and he realizes -
“Wait, don’t - I can grab my pants,” he says, panicked, the first thing he’s voiced in a long time, but it’s too late. Sid is holding a small velvet box in his hands. He opens it and stares. “Just - ignore that, ok?”
Sid is silent for another moment, seemingly unable to form words. Finally - “what, exactly, am I ignoring?” Nate doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. “Is this for me?” Sid asks.
“No,” Nate says, and then he watches Sid’s face fall. “I mean, yes,” he says quickly. “But not - it wasn’t supposed to be like this. And I know you probably don’t even want to - or, like, you don’t want to with me, and that’s fine, and I love how we are now, and it’s good, and we should just keep doing what we’re doing, and I’ll throw that away. Just forget about it.”
“No,” Sid says, slipping the ring out of the box and holding it up to examine it. “I’m not forgetting about it and you’re not throwing it away. It’s mine.” He puts it on his finger.
“You, uh. You want it?” Nate asks.
Sid nods.
“Ok. Well. You have to give it back,” Nate says, a small smile on his face.
“No.”
“Sid, I’m pantsless in the locker room after we lost the gold medal game. Give me the ring back so I can redo this.”
“No,” Sid says emphatically. “It’s mine. I’m not taking it off.”
“I’m not wearing pants. I didn’t even get to ask you - god, Sid, you have to let me do this right.”
Sid throws Nate’s pants at him. “Put your pants on if it’s bothering you so much,” he says, eyes glued to his hand. Nate obliges. “You can still ask me if you want. Even though you know the answer.”
“Here?”
“Why not?” Sid asks.
“Can I at least have the -”
“No.”
“Stubborn,” Nate says, smile on his face now. He kisses Sid, then takes a deep breath and gets on one knee, holding Sid’s hand in his. “Sidney,” he says, voice shaking slightly. “Will you marry me?”
“Of course I will,” Sid says, and then Nate is standing again and kissing Sid like his life depends on it.
A while later, while they’re heading back to the hotel, Sid leans over to Nate. “I’m glad you learned something seven years ago.”
“Hmm?”
“Seven years ago today,” Sid says. “You told me you loved me for the first time. While we were on the phone. I couldn’t kiss you.”
Nate blushes. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do. I’m just glad that you didn’t do this over the phone.”
“I wouldn’t propose to you over the phone,” Nate grumbles, shoving Sid.
“Yeah, yeah, you’d just do it half-naked in a locker room,” Sid grins.
*************
A few hours after the loss, Macklin feels a lot better. Connor was right; they won a silver medal, and that’s something to be proud of. He loves these guys - this team was incredible, and he’s so grateful to have had the chance to be here with them.
As guys filter in and out of the bar they’re at, Macklin pulls out his phone and thumbs through what feels like hundreds of texts. He scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, and when he finally gets to the bottom of everything that came in today, he sees a message he’s become too familiar with.
Get some sleep, Mack.
Macklin lost the biggest game that he’s ever played, and still - nothing. He frowns at his phone.
“Why are you being antisocial on your phone in the corner?” Nate asks, sliding into the circular booth next to him.
Macklin shakes his head. “I’m fine. I dunno, guys have been in and out over here.”
“I’m gonna grab drinks for me and Nate, want anything?” Sid asks.
“Sure,” Macklin says. “Anything is fine. Just - nothing blue.”
Sid shrugs, confused, and walks over to the bar. Nate is quiet, and Sid returns a few moments later with three drinks. He places a glass in front of Nate - clear liquid, probably a gin and tonic, and then he hands Macklin another glass before settling in on Macklin’s other side.
Macklin looks down at the soda in front of him. Probably Jack and coke. He takes a sip and - well, that’s certainly coke, but he can’t taste any alcohol. He takes another sip, trying to see if maybe the alcohol all pooled at the bottom or top, but all he gets is coke again.
“Is it ok?” Sid asks, watching Macklin take sips of the drink.
“I think the bartender forgot to put the rum in,” Macklin says. “S’fine, though.”
“You’re 19,” Sid says cautiously.
“Jesus, Sid, we lost a gold medal game today. He’s 19. It’s legal here. And in Canada. Go buy him a real fucking drink.”
“Sorry,” Sid mumbles as he slides out of the booth.
“Wait!” Nate calls after Sid. Sid looks up at him, eyebrow raised. “Take this back,” he says, shoving the soda toward Sid. “And get him something without sugar.”
“Alcohol is fine but sugar isn’t?” Sid chides as he grabs the glass of soda. He returns a few minutes later with another gin and tonic, sliding it over to Macklin. Macklin takes a sip and tries not to wrinkle his nose. He probably would have preferred the soda.
“Feeling any better?” Nate asks quietly.
Macklin nods. “Yeah. Right after was rough, but I’m doing ok now.”
“So why are we sadly scrolling through our texts?” Sid chimes in.
Macklin blushes. “It’s nothing, really. One of my buddies hasn’t said anything to me about the game. I haven’t heard from him in a while, actually, and I was kind of hoping - but, really, it’s nothing.”
“Well,” Nate says. “If it makes you feel better, Toff’s been bitching to Kempe who’s been gossipping to Gabe who’s been informing me that for the past three weeks, there has been a very sad Shark in San Jose.”
“I bet he’s happy that USA won,” Macklin grumbles.
“My sources tell me the opposite, actually,” Sid says.
“Your sources?” Macklin says, eyebrow raised.
“My lips are sealed, but the very sad Shark apparently upended a coffee table when Hughes scored in OT.”
“Like, he was celebrating?”
“No,” Sid says slowly. “More like he was really pissed off and now he owes Marleau a new coffee table.”
Macklin takes a sip of his drink to hide a grin.
*************
The moment his skates hit the ice, his mind goes blank. He’s always loved the pure act of skating a quiet lap alone around a rink. He gains speed and lets all of his worries wash away behind him, too slow to keep up with his crossovers. A teal practice jersey makes him feel like he’s finally at home, like maybe everything that happened over the past three weeks were a vivid dream. He hasn’t felt this weightless since the plane took off to take him across the Atlantic. Hockey is his first love, but something was missing from his game in Italy. He’s not quite sure what.
He hears another pair of skates take the ice and he glances over to see Will. He’s half a rink behind Macklin, so Macklin slows down a bit to let Will catch up.
“Hi,” Will says simply as they skate together, step for step.
“Hi,” Macklin says back.
They skate in silence for a few laps, never drifting apart. Finally, Will speaks up. “I should have texted you.”
Macklin stops abruptly. Will leans against the boards, panting slightly. “Why didn’t you?” Macklin asks, trying to disguise the hurt in his voice.
“I was jealous,” Will admits. “Not about the Olympics, but - you were playing with Crosby, McDavid, MacKinnon. After that, coming back here, it must feel like a disappointment. There’s no ‘Mac’ line here, just me and Toff and Ekky.”
“It’s not a disappointment,” Macklin says shortly.
“Ok,” Will replies. They stare at each other for a moment before resuming their laps around the rink.
“I was right, by the way,” Macklin says. “Crosby and MacKinnon were fucking in the bathroom on the plane.”
“No fucking way.”
“They were! They told me. Well, MacKinnon said it was ‘just handjobs’, but I don’t know if I believe him.”
“Are they…?”
“Yeah,” Macklin confirms, safe in the knowledge that Sid and Nate weren’t actually trying to keep things secret, and they explicitly told him they don’t care if he tells Will. “They’re together.”
“Wow,” Will says. “I would not have predicted that.”
“Yeah,” Macklin agrees. And then, a moment later - “I’m gay, too.”
Will is silent for a beat too long, and Macklin starts to panic. “Do you also only date first overall picks like MacKinnon and Crosby, or are you less picky?”
Macklin channels every bit of inner strength before responding. “I think I could handle being with a fourth overall as long as he wasn’t a BC fan.”
“What if he’s more of a Sharks fan?”
“I could probably make that work,” Macklin says, pretending to deliberate. “Why, do you know any fourth overall pick NHL players who are also Sharks fans that you could set me up with?”
“Hmmm,” Will says, slowing to a stop. “Didn’t you just play with Makar and Marner? Think they root for the Sharks?”
“Something tells me they don’t,” Macklin says, sliding into Will. They’re standing very close, and Macklin’s hand is around Will’s waist. Will is looking at him intensely, and the moment feels frozen in time until Will’s lips find his, slotting together as perfectly as Macklin imagined they would.
*************
He gets a perfect pass off the boards from Will and dekes around a defender. The opening is there - goalie is low - and he shoots it over the glove and into the back of the net. Happiness explodes inside of him, and then Will slams into him and the feeling multiplies.
He finally realizes what was missing in Italy.
Joy.