(no subject)
Golden Boys
John Tavares/P.K. Subban
PG-13, ~4,200 words
For hockeyrarepairs, prompt #35; also, proof that given a choice I will always write about World Juniors. Thanks to cominginside for giving it a once-over with her eagle eyes.
“Yo, Pernell! This song is old as shit, change it!”
Secretly, John is glad he doesn’t have the locker next to the stereo. Of course, the team wouldn’t have to suffer through P.K.’s outdated music collection if he did, but he would also be deprived of the entertainment of P.K. getting ribbed constantly every single day about his woefully outdated music collection. Eventually P.K. will probably cave and update his iPod, but right now he’s flipping off Hodgson and DiDomenico and yelling something about all Britney being classic Britney, and that is absolutely worth sitting through what John is pretty sure is the exact same playlist from last year’s World Juniors.
There’s a brief scuffle, the music cuts out, and somehow the iPod winds up in the hands of Zach Boychuk. He scrolls gleefully through P.K.’s tunes while Eberle peers wide-eyed over his shoulder and P.K. slumps over sadly to sit next to John on the bench.
“This is the meanest team I’ve ever been on,” he says. “Everyone is terrible.”
“Not everyone,” John says, grinning and elbowing him in the side. “Just you. You’re terrible.”
“You’re terrible. You’re the worst ever.” It’s probable that P.K. has a few more choice words for what a failure of a human John is, but he’s interrupted by the iconic strains of Destiny’s Child filling the locker room, and P.K.’s pouting is immediately curtailed by the sight of Teubert and Boychuck serenading poor Eberle with ‘Bootylicious’. He laughs and throws an arm around John’s shoulders, jostling him enthusiastically.
“I think this might be the best team I’ve ever been on,” says John. Then, after a moment’s reconsideration, “Dance skills notwithstanding.”
“Oh, like you can judge, boy wonder,” P.K. says.
There is nothing about the Czech Republic that John doesn’t remember fondly, but home ice is a whole ‘nother game. Not the hockey, of course, but the people, the wild and wonderful legions of Canadian fans constantly flooding the streets and Scotiabank Place; the media on a brand new level of ravenous; and the bold ‘A’ stitched firmly to the chest of John’s Team Canada sweater. John’s lucky he has teammates who are good at talking to journalists, because otherwise he’d probably have to lock himself in his hotel room to escape from all the questions about The Next Next One and The Drive For Five.
P.K. has told him at least twice that he would absolutely read a comic book with that title. P.K. says a lot of dumb stuff, though. It’s one of the reasons they’re friends. It’s one of the reasons John likes him so damn much.
“See, this is what’s wrong with the world,” P.K. is saying now, sprawled stomach-down on John’s bed in his Belleville sweats and a national team t-shirt, gesturing at the commercials on TV with the remote. “When we were kids, MuchMusic actually showed music. What’s up with all this, like, Gossip Girl, Greek crap? MuchMusic, man.”
“Yeah, P.K., that’s completely what’s wrong with the world,” John says. He’d been in the bathroom brushing his teeth before he emerged to P.K.’s political commentary, but now he flops down next to P.K., shoving at him to make more room. P.K. seems to often forget that he has his own bed five feet away, which is something John will discuss with him one day if it starts to bother him. “It has nothing to do with, like, starving kids in Africa or anything.”
“You know what I mean,” huffs P.K. “It’s super dumb. I just wanna watch sexy music videos.”
“Try the internet,” John suggests, and P.K. gives him a look that clearly indicates that John is crazy, P.K.’s laptop is all the way across the room and already turned off and all the effort required to retrieve it would not be worth the payoff no matter how many ladies and/or gentlemen were shaking their butts for the camera in any given music video. John rolls his eyes.
“Shut up. Come here,” P.K. says, making the command impossible to follow anyway by pushing at John’s shoulder until he rolls onto his back. John goes easily, but makes a face to be sure P.K. knows how he feels about being manhandled like this. P.K. looks unbothered, though, and grins wide when he goes in for the kiss.
“Really, here and now?” John asks when P.K. pulls back after a minute. He’s not complaining-his involvement in the kiss had not been unenthusiastic. But they hadn’t done this last year, and John was thinking maybe it was just a summer thing. A thing for P.K.’s basement where the thump of feet on the stairs warns them when they need to stop, or a thing for John’s bedroom when his parents are out.
Whatever it is, it’s a thing without a label, and John’s okay with that. P.K.’s never been an easy person to slap a label on. It’s part of why they’re friends.
P.K. laughs. “Because there’s a better time and place than when we literally have a room?”
John thinks about explaining that when he meant was more of the national stage/international tournament setting, not the hotel bed with the deadbolt on the door done up. It all seems kind of silly upon review, though, so instead he puts a hand on the back of P.K.’s neck and pulls him down to bite his lip. It drives John crazy when P.K. gets the first move in and he has to play catch-up, but he does like catching up.
They wipe the floor with Kazakhstan fifteen-nothing and sail to a 5-1 win over Germany and John has never felt better on the ice. When he’s playing, he thinks in nothing but the endless patterns of ten skaters moving around each other, traffic versus open ice, dekes and dangles and the back of the net, the intricate poetry of hockey that writes itself for him to translate to his own feet and hands. Off the ice, though, he marvels at this team: their bottomless well of talent and determination, and the family they’ve already built in the short time they’ve had together.
Last year, John’s team won a gold medal. This year, he wants to lead his team to one.
He’s doing sit-ups on the floor of the hotel room the morning after Germany; P.K. is holding his feet, waggling his eyebrows any time John grunts or breathes heavy. P.K. is kind of a dick.
“You know my boy Tangradi’s with the States this year,” P.K. says. He’s grinning, his fingers curled strong around John’s bare ankles.
“Tangradi’s not your boy,” John says without breaking pace: Curl up. Exhale down. Up again. He probably should have put a shirt on for this; the carpet is rough against his back. “Not ‘til you’re back in Belleville. I’m your boy here.”
“You’re always my boy, J.T.” P.K. leans forward and props his chin between John’s knees. John gets treated to a few extreme close-ups of his face as he finishes out his set, then he huffs a laugh and sprawls back on the floor. P.K. drops a kiss to his kneecap then smacks him soundly on the thigh.
“Switch places,” he says. “My turn.”
John pushes himself up so they can do that, and he holds P.K.’s feet while he does his own sit-ups. When P.K.’s done, he lays back and grins up at John. It’s a good look for him.
“How much time do we have before practice?” P.K. asks
John cranes his neck but he can’t see the clock unless he actually gets up. “Twenty minutes?” he guesses. “Why, you wanna make out?”
“Always,” says P.K., and John can’t argue with that.
They are three goals down more than halfway into the first period and John thinks: fuck it. There is no way they are losing this game. He elbows Hodgson next to him as they go over the boards for the power play, as if he can actually transfer his determination through contact alone.
“We got this,” John says. “We got this.”
“Damn right we do,” Cody says, jostling him right back.
John barely even feels the first one, snapping the puck into the net as soon as it finds his stick just outside of the crease, and the celebration-the guys all hugging, P.K. yelling in his ear-is basically lost on him. They still need more.
He feels the second one all the way down to his bones, though, as if everything from his stick to the puck to the ice itself is his own flesh and blood. Later on SportsCentre he’ll hear the commentators saying what a pretty move it was. In the moment, it seemed like the most natural thing he could do.
After the third one, with less than a minute on the clock and Team USA’s lead long forgotten, P.K.’s joyous leap knocks him into the glass so hard he might see a few stars, and by the final buzzer John is so full of pride for his teammates he thinks he’ll never find the words for it.
They celebrate with a bunch of the guys in the room Boychuk and Pietrangelo are sharing, yelling and dancing around like idiots as the year comes to a close. They’re all a little bit drunk, but mostly they’re just high on the win and the bye to the semifinals they just bought with that comeback.
“CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA!” P.K. chants, jumping on Petro’s bed and smacking his palms against the ceiling. Petro whoops and joins him, and so does Ryan Ellis, until Hickey tries to jump up with them and they all go toppling over. John laughs when Eberle yelps from the other side of the bed, having clearly just been landed on, but then he’s greeted suddenly by an armful of P.K., still jumping even though he’s not on the bed anymore.
“Hat trick Johnny!” he whoops, looping his arms around John’s neck and squeezing. John laughs and rubs his hands all over P.K.’s head until P.K. punches him in the side. “What the fuck was up with the empty netter, huh, couldn’t you even get a real hat trick?”
“Talk to me when you score a goal, dumbass,” John says, punching him back, staring a scuffle that ends with them both tripping over Jamie Benn and landing on their asses.
The party continues apace until Hickey flips on the television and yells, “Two minutes to midnight!” and everyone in the room immediately crowds around: Eberle jumps off the further bed onto Teubert’s back so he can see over people’s heads; Ellis tries the same thing on Petro and the pair of them go down with twin yelps, then scramble back up so they don’t miss anything.
John has pretty much the best seat in the house, on the floor in front of the TV, but P.K. flicks him in the head so John huffs and moves up to the bed to sit with him instead. P.K. winds his arms around John’s shoulders and John leans into him, easy and happy even as they devolve into a competition as to who can shout the countdown louder. P.K. plants a smacking kiss on his cheek at midnight, and usually John would laugh and shove him away but this time he just hugs him tighter, smiling so wide it hurts.
Two days off seems like two years off, even with practice and team meetings and the quarterfinals keeping everyone on edge until it’s confirmed that, of course, they have to go through Russia to get to the medal round. John shakes off the elation from the win over the States and buckles down to focus-all the guys do. Even P.K. is more serious than silly; the night before the game, John feels like their room might combust from the sheer concentrated determination between them.
“Russia,” P.K. says. “Then Sweden or Slovakia.”
“We can beat them,” John says. He’s sitting on the floor, stretching. P.K. is perched on his bed, watching, but not in the way he does sometimes with the glint in his eye and his lips curling up at the corners. He’s watching like he’s got something to learn. John doesn’t often feel the ‘A’ around P.K.; right now, though, he feels like it’s been carved into his chest.
“Which?”
“All of them.” John looks up at him from where he’s bent over one leg, the stretch deep and good all through his calf and quad. “But it doesn’t matter. Russia first, that’s what matters.”
P.K. nods. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then says, “I really wanna win this thing, Johnny.”
“Me too, buddy,” says John. He sits up and shakes his leg out, then sighs and gets up to sit next to P.K. “What, you need me to tell you we’re gonna do it?”
P.K. rolls his eyes. “You’re not psychic, John. Telepathic, maybe, because I know you’ve been cheating this whole time somehow-”
John laughs and shoves him. “Hey, fuck you.”
“I’m pretty sure I could win anything in the world with you on my team,” P.K. says sincerely, and it’s such an abrupt departure from his joking a second ago that it takes John a moment to process.
He bumps P.K. lightly with his shoulder. “Hey, you’re pretty good yourself.”
“Nuh-uh,” says P.K., bumping him back. “I mean, yeah, I’m good, and you’re damn good, but what I mean is you’re my best fucking friend and the only time you’re allowed to lose is when it’s to me, so I’m going to do everything possible to put that gold medal around your neck again.”
John stares at him for a moment, and when he does find words, they’re embarrassingly gruff: “You deserve that medal as much as me,” he says.
P.K. grins. “I didn’t say I don’t want it for me, too.”
John rolls his eyes and tugs P.K. in by his t-shirt to kiss him. “You,” he says, “are ridiculous.”
“Probably true,” P.K. agrees, tilting his chin up for a better angle. “But you like me, so.”
Some other time, John thinks, he’ll take that like and fixate on it, roll it over in his head and taste it on his tongue, jumble it around and see what other L-words it might make, but not right now. Right now is for kicking the comforter off P.K.’s bed when they sprawl across it, for laughing when P.K. gets tangled pulling his t-shirt off, for P.K.’s hand pressed to his heart like a letter in and of itself.
And tomorrow is for Russia.
“Have I ever told you that you have the dumbest orgasm face I’ve ever seen?” P.K. asks, grinning at John from the bed.
John throws a washcloth at him.
The atmosphere in Scotiabank Place is crackling when John takes the ice with his team for the semifinals. He soaks it all in as he skates through warm-ups: there will never be anything better, he thinks, than playing for the country he loves with teammates he loves, on home ice, where almost everyone in the building bleeds the same colors John does. He catches P.K.’s eye across the ice and P.K. beams at him. John nods back, game-faced.
He wins the first faceoff, and then John doesn’t breathe again for fifty nine minutes and fifty four point six seconds.
After that, after Jordan scores them one at the buzzer and one in the shootout, it feels too easy for John to just snap the puck past Zhelobnyuk, like the momentum they’re flying on is going to carry him straight through the rest of his life.
They pile into Boychuk and Petro’s room again, but it’s not like New Year’s. It’s a collective sigh of relief, sitting together and watching the TSN highlights as the adrenaline slowly drains away to post-game exhaustion. John curls up at the head of Zach’s bed with P.K., Goloubef and Hickey squishing in on either side of them; Zach himself is laying across the mattress with Ellis and Eberle, and they’re all taking turns kicking Jordan whenever he shows up on the television.
“Oh my god,” P.K. says, laughing. “I love how Ebs gets this miracle goal for us and the commentators are still jacking off over ‘the magical play of Tavares’.”
“Shut up,” John says, but he’s still grinning, and he kicks Jordan appreciatively for good measure.
“Ow,” says Ebs.
No one wants to say out loud that they thought, maybe, even for half a second, that they wouldn’t be here. And that’s okay, John thinks, because they are here. He leans his head on P.K.’s shoulder, hiding his smile against it for a moment. The only reason he knows he can be happier than he is right now is because he’s won gold before.
The television cuts to a post-game Eberle interview and Hickey stretches forward to tickle the sole of Jordan’s foot. Jordan yelps and jerks, knocking Ryan Ellis off the bed as he does; Benn and Teubert immediately hop up from the floor to claim the free bed-space, and John’s view of the TV is blocked by a pile of his teammates vying for room to lay down.
“You know, this is actually my bed,” Boychuk says, barely clinging to one side of the mattress as Ellis tries to shove the entire pile over from the other side so he can have his spot back.
“Share the wealth, man,” Teubert laughs as he and Benn elbow each other, basically sitting on Eberle.
“Guys,” says Eberle, giggling and covering his head with both arms. John can feel P.K.’s whole body shaking with laughter next to him; he pokes him in the side, exchanges glances with Hickey and Goloubef, and the four of them move as one to shove the entire group of scuffling boys off the end of the bed.
The ensuing chorus of surprised noises is punctuated by DiDomenico’s traumatized “What the fuck!”, which causes P.K. to break into new laughter as John exchanges guilty looks with Hickey.
“I didn’t even know he was down there,” Hickey says innocently, and John cracks up, too.
By the time John and P.K. shuffle sleepily back to their room, it’s later than they should even think about being up, but John can’t imagine having been tired enough to sleep any earlier. They get ready for bed in companionable silence and brush their teeth shoulder to shoulder in front of the bathroom mirror. Usually they’d stand there brushing stubbornly for upwards of five minutes, seeing who would break and spit first, but it’s late so tonight they get it done quickly and only elbow each other a few times before P.K. kicks John out of the bathroom so he can take a piss.
John lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling, reflecting. One more game. Sweden for the gold. It’s just like last year, except for the million ways that it’s completely different. John is a different person, this year: older, a better player, a veteran and hopefully a leader. Last year, he had kissed P.K. exactly twice in his life, at home over the summer before they left for Belleville and Oshawa, and wouldn’t kiss him again until their seasons were over. This year, he’s waiting for P.K. to get out of the bathroom because he wants to kiss him before he goes to bed. He’s not sure what that means, whether it’s more about him or P.K. or this tournament. Mostly he feels like he’s growing up.
After a few minutes, P.K. emerges. John looks over at him, sits up and waves him over. “Hey, c’mere.”
P.K. does, plopping down on John’s bed with a smile. “What’s up?”
“I was thinking,” John says, and then leans in and kisses him soundly on the mouth.
“I see,” says P.K.
“Just, you know,” says John, grinning a little despite himself. “We haven’t lost yet, so there’s always the off-chance that kissing you is good luck or something.”
“Oh, right.” P.K. nods, laughing. “That’s totally possible, especially since it’s definitely not the other way around, nothing involving your face could ever be good luck.”
John makes an affronted noise, but he can’t argue because P.K. kisses him again, closed-mouthed but firm.
“Just make sure you lay one on me before Sweden so when we win I can take all the credit,” P.K. says. John laughs and shoves him away.
“Go to bed, stupid,” he says, but once the lights are off he spends a good ten minutes grinning into his pillow before he falls asleep.
John uses the day between the semis and the finals to breathe, to focus, and to ground himself. Everyone is still buzzing from the game the night before but they know, really, they haven’t won anything yet. There’s still more hockey to play.
When he’s not with the team, John calls his parents and his uncle. He trades texts with a lot of friends he’s been neglecting since Christmas and spends a good chunk of time on the phone with Sam until he has to hang up to go take his pre-game nap in Edmonton. P.K. is across the room on his own bed the whole time chatting away with his mom and dad and brothers and sisters; John sends his regards secondhand and tries to keep half an ear on the conversation. P.K.’s family is the opposite of John’s, big and sprawling, and P.K. loves them fiercely .
“How’s everyone doing?” John asks when P.K. hangs up. “How’re your brothers? Malcolm’s with the Marlboros right now, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s doing awesome,” P.K. says, and launches easily into stories about his siblings’ current exploits. John rolls onto his back and listens to P.K. babble, humming and chirping in the right places even though P.K. doesn’t really need much encouragement to keep talking, ever. His voice is warm and familiar and listening to him is probably the most relaxing thing John could do right now.
They have dinner as a team later, because it’s the last night they have where the gold is still a possibility, not a fact or a failure. P.K. sits across from John so they can kick each other under the table. Eberle and Hodgson are sitting on either side of John, and P.K. keeps laughing at them and asking if they’re on the power play. John kicks him under the table, and they get in a brief, silent war until P.K. accidentally kicks Cody instead and they call an apologetic cease-fire.
As they’re finishing up their salmon and pasta, Jordan turns to John with a shy kind of smile and says, “Hey, so, I dunno if now is the time to say thanks, but.” He shrugs. “You’ve been a really great leader for me here, so. I mean, if I come back next year, I hope I can be like that.”
“I hope we have you next year,” John says, nudging him companionably. “You’re already unbelievable, man.” It feels like cheating, letting someone like Jordan give him so much credit, but he doesn’t know what else to say. He settles on: “Keep the streak alive, eh?”
Jordan grins. “Definitely.”
John grins back, then glances over at P.K., expecting some comment about John leading people, probably off a cliff, but P.K. is just watching with a proud little smile-well, little for him anyway, like when he’s got a happy secret that he’s not going to keep for long.
“What,” John says, amused.
“Oh, nothing,” P.K. says. His smile widens, and he kicks John under the table.
The Swedes are out for blood, but P.K. bangs one in not even a minute into the game and they just can’t seem to catch up. The final score belies how hard-fought the game was, scrapped out tooth and nail, and when John sees their faces at the end-some familiar from last year, some new, all absolutely crushed-he is intensely grateful that that is something he is never going to feel. Not in this tournament.
And it turns out he was right: winning gold again is even more elating than the Russia game. It’s beyond incredible: the distinct weight of the medal around his neck; P.K. beaming at him as they skate the flag around the ice, each clutching a corner in one hand; the sound of 20,000 people all singing ‘O Canada’ at the top of their lungs, so loud that John can’t even hear the music over his teammates on either side of him.
The cheering goes on so long and so loud that John is pretty sure the ringing will never leave his ears, and he is absolutely okay with that. He wishes he could carry this feeling with him forever.
“I dunno, man, I don’t think this was luck at all,” P.K. shouts in his ear when they’re hugging, again, for the fourth or fifth or fiftieth time since the clock hit zero.
“Yeah, but I think I’m gonna keep kissin’ you anyway,” John says, laughing, as someone hits him with a hug from behind, then another, and he lets himself get lost in the celebration.
John Tavares/P.K. Subban
PG-13, ~4,200 words
For hockeyrarepairs, prompt #35; also, proof that given a choice I will always write about World Juniors. Thanks to cominginside for giving it a once-over with her eagle eyes.
“Yo, Pernell! This song is old as shit, change it!”
Secretly, John is glad he doesn’t have the locker next to the stereo. Of course, the team wouldn’t have to suffer through P.K.’s outdated music collection if he did, but he would also be deprived of the entertainment of P.K. getting ribbed constantly every single day about his woefully outdated music collection. Eventually P.K. will probably cave and update his iPod, but right now he’s flipping off Hodgson and DiDomenico and yelling something about all Britney being classic Britney, and that is absolutely worth sitting through what John is pretty sure is the exact same playlist from last year’s World Juniors.
There’s a brief scuffle, the music cuts out, and somehow the iPod winds up in the hands of Zach Boychuk. He scrolls gleefully through P.K.’s tunes while Eberle peers wide-eyed over his shoulder and P.K. slumps over sadly to sit next to John on the bench.
“This is the meanest team I’ve ever been on,” he says. “Everyone is terrible.”
“Not everyone,” John says, grinning and elbowing him in the side. “Just you. You’re terrible.”
“You’re terrible. You’re the worst ever.” It’s probable that P.K. has a few more choice words for what a failure of a human John is, but he’s interrupted by the iconic strains of Destiny’s Child filling the locker room, and P.K.’s pouting is immediately curtailed by the sight of Teubert and Boychuck serenading poor Eberle with ‘Bootylicious’. He laughs and throws an arm around John’s shoulders, jostling him enthusiastically.
“I think this might be the best team I’ve ever been on,” says John. Then, after a moment’s reconsideration, “Dance skills notwithstanding.”
“Oh, like you can judge, boy wonder,” P.K. says.
There is nothing about the Czech Republic that John doesn’t remember fondly, but home ice is a whole ‘nother game. Not the hockey, of course, but the people, the wild and wonderful legions of Canadian fans constantly flooding the streets and Scotiabank Place; the media on a brand new level of ravenous; and the bold ‘A’ stitched firmly to the chest of John’s Team Canada sweater. John’s lucky he has teammates who are good at talking to journalists, because otherwise he’d probably have to lock himself in his hotel room to escape from all the questions about The Next Next One and The Drive For Five.
P.K. has told him at least twice that he would absolutely read a comic book with that title. P.K. says a lot of dumb stuff, though. It’s one of the reasons they’re friends. It’s one of the reasons John likes him so damn much.
“See, this is what’s wrong with the world,” P.K. is saying now, sprawled stomach-down on John’s bed in his Belleville sweats and a national team t-shirt, gesturing at the commercials on TV with the remote. “When we were kids, MuchMusic actually showed music. What’s up with all this, like, Gossip Girl, Greek crap? MuchMusic, man.”
“Yeah, P.K., that’s completely what’s wrong with the world,” John says. He’d been in the bathroom brushing his teeth before he emerged to P.K.’s political commentary, but now he flops down next to P.K., shoving at him to make more room. P.K. seems to often forget that he has his own bed five feet away, which is something John will discuss with him one day if it starts to bother him. “It has nothing to do with, like, starving kids in Africa or anything.”
“You know what I mean,” huffs P.K. “It’s super dumb. I just wanna watch sexy music videos.”
“Try the internet,” John suggests, and P.K. gives him a look that clearly indicates that John is crazy, P.K.’s laptop is all the way across the room and already turned off and all the effort required to retrieve it would not be worth the payoff no matter how many ladies and/or gentlemen were shaking their butts for the camera in any given music video. John rolls his eyes.
“Shut up. Come here,” P.K. says, making the command impossible to follow anyway by pushing at John’s shoulder until he rolls onto his back. John goes easily, but makes a face to be sure P.K. knows how he feels about being manhandled like this. P.K. looks unbothered, though, and grins wide when he goes in for the kiss.
“Really, here and now?” John asks when P.K. pulls back after a minute. He’s not complaining-his involvement in the kiss had not been unenthusiastic. But they hadn’t done this last year, and John was thinking maybe it was just a summer thing. A thing for P.K.’s basement where the thump of feet on the stairs warns them when they need to stop, or a thing for John’s bedroom when his parents are out.
Whatever it is, it’s a thing without a label, and John’s okay with that. P.K.’s never been an easy person to slap a label on. It’s part of why they’re friends.
P.K. laughs. “Because there’s a better time and place than when we literally have a room?”
John thinks about explaining that when he meant was more of the national stage/international tournament setting, not the hotel bed with the deadbolt on the door done up. It all seems kind of silly upon review, though, so instead he puts a hand on the back of P.K.’s neck and pulls him down to bite his lip. It drives John crazy when P.K. gets the first move in and he has to play catch-up, but he does like catching up.
They wipe the floor with Kazakhstan fifteen-nothing and sail to a 5-1 win over Germany and John has never felt better on the ice. When he’s playing, he thinks in nothing but the endless patterns of ten skaters moving around each other, traffic versus open ice, dekes and dangles and the back of the net, the intricate poetry of hockey that writes itself for him to translate to his own feet and hands. Off the ice, though, he marvels at this team: their bottomless well of talent and determination, and the family they’ve already built in the short time they’ve had together.
Last year, John’s team won a gold medal. This year, he wants to lead his team to one.
He’s doing sit-ups on the floor of the hotel room the morning after Germany; P.K. is holding his feet, waggling his eyebrows any time John grunts or breathes heavy. P.K. is kind of a dick.
“You know my boy Tangradi’s with the States this year,” P.K. says. He’s grinning, his fingers curled strong around John’s bare ankles.
“Tangradi’s not your boy,” John says without breaking pace: Curl up. Exhale down. Up again. He probably should have put a shirt on for this; the carpet is rough against his back. “Not ‘til you’re back in Belleville. I’m your boy here.”
“You’re always my boy, J.T.” P.K. leans forward and props his chin between John’s knees. John gets treated to a few extreme close-ups of his face as he finishes out his set, then he huffs a laugh and sprawls back on the floor. P.K. drops a kiss to his kneecap then smacks him soundly on the thigh.
“Switch places,” he says. “My turn.”
John pushes himself up so they can do that, and he holds P.K.’s feet while he does his own sit-ups. When P.K.’s done, he lays back and grins up at John. It’s a good look for him.
“How much time do we have before practice?” P.K. asks
John cranes his neck but he can’t see the clock unless he actually gets up. “Twenty minutes?” he guesses. “Why, you wanna make out?”
“Always,” says P.K., and John can’t argue with that.
They are three goals down more than halfway into the first period and John thinks: fuck it. There is no way they are losing this game. He elbows Hodgson next to him as they go over the boards for the power play, as if he can actually transfer his determination through contact alone.
“We got this,” John says. “We got this.”
“Damn right we do,” Cody says, jostling him right back.
John barely even feels the first one, snapping the puck into the net as soon as it finds his stick just outside of the crease, and the celebration-the guys all hugging, P.K. yelling in his ear-is basically lost on him. They still need more.
He feels the second one all the way down to his bones, though, as if everything from his stick to the puck to the ice itself is his own flesh and blood. Later on SportsCentre he’ll hear the commentators saying what a pretty move it was. In the moment, it seemed like the most natural thing he could do.
After the third one, with less than a minute on the clock and Team USA’s lead long forgotten, P.K.’s joyous leap knocks him into the glass so hard he might see a few stars, and by the final buzzer John is so full of pride for his teammates he thinks he’ll never find the words for it.
They celebrate with a bunch of the guys in the room Boychuk and Pietrangelo are sharing, yelling and dancing around like idiots as the year comes to a close. They’re all a little bit drunk, but mostly they’re just high on the win and the bye to the semifinals they just bought with that comeback.
“CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA!” P.K. chants, jumping on Petro’s bed and smacking his palms against the ceiling. Petro whoops and joins him, and so does Ryan Ellis, until Hickey tries to jump up with them and they all go toppling over. John laughs when Eberle yelps from the other side of the bed, having clearly just been landed on, but then he’s greeted suddenly by an armful of P.K., still jumping even though he’s not on the bed anymore.
“Hat trick Johnny!” he whoops, looping his arms around John’s neck and squeezing. John laughs and rubs his hands all over P.K.’s head until P.K. punches him in the side. “What the fuck was up with the empty netter, huh, couldn’t you even get a real hat trick?”
“Talk to me when you score a goal, dumbass,” John says, punching him back, staring a scuffle that ends with them both tripping over Jamie Benn and landing on their asses.
The party continues apace until Hickey flips on the television and yells, “Two minutes to midnight!” and everyone in the room immediately crowds around: Eberle jumps off the further bed onto Teubert’s back so he can see over people’s heads; Ellis tries the same thing on Petro and the pair of them go down with twin yelps, then scramble back up so they don’t miss anything.
John has pretty much the best seat in the house, on the floor in front of the TV, but P.K. flicks him in the head so John huffs and moves up to the bed to sit with him instead. P.K. winds his arms around John’s shoulders and John leans into him, easy and happy even as they devolve into a competition as to who can shout the countdown louder. P.K. plants a smacking kiss on his cheek at midnight, and usually John would laugh and shove him away but this time he just hugs him tighter, smiling so wide it hurts.
Two days off seems like two years off, even with practice and team meetings and the quarterfinals keeping everyone on edge until it’s confirmed that, of course, they have to go through Russia to get to the medal round. John shakes off the elation from the win over the States and buckles down to focus-all the guys do. Even P.K. is more serious than silly; the night before the game, John feels like their room might combust from the sheer concentrated determination between them.
“Russia,” P.K. says. “Then Sweden or Slovakia.”
“We can beat them,” John says. He’s sitting on the floor, stretching. P.K. is perched on his bed, watching, but not in the way he does sometimes with the glint in his eye and his lips curling up at the corners. He’s watching like he’s got something to learn. John doesn’t often feel the ‘A’ around P.K.; right now, though, he feels like it’s been carved into his chest.
“Which?”
“All of them.” John looks up at him from where he’s bent over one leg, the stretch deep and good all through his calf and quad. “But it doesn’t matter. Russia first, that’s what matters.”
P.K. nods. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then says, “I really wanna win this thing, Johnny.”
“Me too, buddy,” says John. He sits up and shakes his leg out, then sighs and gets up to sit next to P.K. “What, you need me to tell you we’re gonna do it?”
P.K. rolls his eyes. “You’re not psychic, John. Telepathic, maybe, because I know you’ve been cheating this whole time somehow-”
John laughs and shoves him. “Hey, fuck you.”
“I’m pretty sure I could win anything in the world with you on my team,” P.K. says sincerely, and it’s such an abrupt departure from his joking a second ago that it takes John a moment to process.
He bumps P.K. lightly with his shoulder. “Hey, you’re pretty good yourself.”
“Nuh-uh,” says P.K., bumping him back. “I mean, yeah, I’m good, and you’re damn good, but what I mean is you’re my best fucking friend and the only time you’re allowed to lose is when it’s to me, so I’m going to do everything possible to put that gold medal around your neck again.”
John stares at him for a moment, and when he does find words, they’re embarrassingly gruff: “You deserve that medal as much as me,” he says.
P.K. grins. “I didn’t say I don’t want it for me, too.”
John rolls his eyes and tugs P.K. in by his t-shirt to kiss him. “You,” he says, “are ridiculous.”
“Probably true,” P.K. agrees, tilting his chin up for a better angle. “But you like me, so.”
Some other time, John thinks, he’ll take that like and fixate on it, roll it over in his head and taste it on his tongue, jumble it around and see what other L-words it might make, but not right now. Right now is for kicking the comforter off P.K.’s bed when they sprawl across it, for laughing when P.K. gets tangled pulling his t-shirt off, for P.K.’s hand pressed to his heart like a letter in and of itself.
And tomorrow is for Russia.
“Have I ever told you that you have the dumbest orgasm face I’ve ever seen?” P.K. asks, grinning at John from the bed.
John throws a washcloth at him.
The atmosphere in Scotiabank Place is crackling when John takes the ice with his team for the semifinals. He soaks it all in as he skates through warm-ups: there will never be anything better, he thinks, than playing for the country he loves with teammates he loves, on home ice, where almost everyone in the building bleeds the same colors John does. He catches P.K.’s eye across the ice and P.K. beams at him. John nods back, game-faced.
He wins the first faceoff, and then John doesn’t breathe again for fifty nine minutes and fifty four point six seconds.
After that, after Jordan scores them one at the buzzer and one in the shootout, it feels too easy for John to just snap the puck past Zhelobnyuk, like the momentum they’re flying on is going to carry him straight through the rest of his life.
They pile into Boychuk and Petro’s room again, but it’s not like New Year’s. It’s a collective sigh of relief, sitting together and watching the TSN highlights as the adrenaline slowly drains away to post-game exhaustion. John curls up at the head of Zach’s bed with P.K., Goloubef and Hickey squishing in on either side of them; Zach himself is laying across the mattress with Ellis and Eberle, and they’re all taking turns kicking Jordan whenever he shows up on the television.
“Oh my god,” P.K. says, laughing. “I love how Ebs gets this miracle goal for us and the commentators are still jacking off over ‘the magical play of Tavares’.”
“Shut up,” John says, but he’s still grinning, and he kicks Jordan appreciatively for good measure.
“Ow,” says Ebs.
No one wants to say out loud that they thought, maybe, even for half a second, that they wouldn’t be here. And that’s okay, John thinks, because they are here. He leans his head on P.K.’s shoulder, hiding his smile against it for a moment. The only reason he knows he can be happier than he is right now is because he’s won gold before.
The television cuts to a post-game Eberle interview and Hickey stretches forward to tickle the sole of Jordan’s foot. Jordan yelps and jerks, knocking Ryan Ellis off the bed as he does; Benn and Teubert immediately hop up from the floor to claim the free bed-space, and John’s view of the TV is blocked by a pile of his teammates vying for room to lay down.
“You know, this is actually my bed,” Boychuk says, barely clinging to one side of the mattress as Ellis tries to shove the entire pile over from the other side so he can have his spot back.
“Share the wealth, man,” Teubert laughs as he and Benn elbow each other, basically sitting on Eberle.
“Guys,” says Eberle, giggling and covering his head with both arms. John can feel P.K.’s whole body shaking with laughter next to him; he pokes him in the side, exchanges glances with Hickey and Goloubef, and the four of them move as one to shove the entire group of scuffling boys off the end of the bed.
The ensuing chorus of surprised noises is punctuated by DiDomenico’s traumatized “What the fuck!”, which causes P.K. to break into new laughter as John exchanges guilty looks with Hickey.
“I didn’t even know he was down there,” Hickey says innocently, and John cracks up, too.
By the time John and P.K. shuffle sleepily back to their room, it’s later than they should even think about being up, but John can’t imagine having been tired enough to sleep any earlier. They get ready for bed in companionable silence and brush their teeth shoulder to shoulder in front of the bathroom mirror. Usually they’d stand there brushing stubbornly for upwards of five minutes, seeing who would break and spit first, but it’s late so tonight they get it done quickly and only elbow each other a few times before P.K. kicks John out of the bathroom so he can take a piss.
John lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling, reflecting. One more game. Sweden for the gold. It’s just like last year, except for the million ways that it’s completely different. John is a different person, this year: older, a better player, a veteran and hopefully a leader. Last year, he had kissed P.K. exactly twice in his life, at home over the summer before they left for Belleville and Oshawa, and wouldn’t kiss him again until their seasons were over. This year, he’s waiting for P.K. to get out of the bathroom because he wants to kiss him before he goes to bed. He’s not sure what that means, whether it’s more about him or P.K. or this tournament. Mostly he feels like he’s growing up.
After a few minutes, P.K. emerges. John looks over at him, sits up and waves him over. “Hey, c’mere.”
P.K. does, plopping down on John’s bed with a smile. “What’s up?”
“I was thinking,” John says, and then leans in and kisses him soundly on the mouth.
“I see,” says P.K.
“Just, you know,” says John, grinning a little despite himself. “We haven’t lost yet, so there’s always the off-chance that kissing you is good luck or something.”
“Oh, right.” P.K. nods, laughing. “That’s totally possible, especially since it’s definitely not the other way around, nothing involving your face could ever be good luck.”
John makes an affronted noise, but he can’t argue because P.K. kisses him again, closed-mouthed but firm.
“Just make sure you lay one on me before Sweden so when we win I can take all the credit,” P.K. says. John laughs and shoves him away.
“Go to bed, stupid,” he says, but once the lights are off he spends a good ten minutes grinning into his pillow before he falls asleep.
John uses the day between the semis and the finals to breathe, to focus, and to ground himself. Everyone is still buzzing from the game the night before but they know, really, they haven’t won anything yet. There’s still more hockey to play.
When he’s not with the team, John calls his parents and his uncle. He trades texts with a lot of friends he’s been neglecting since Christmas and spends a good chunk of time on the phone with Sam until he has to hang up to go take his pre-game nap in Edmonton. P.K. is across the room on his own bed the whole time chatting away with his mom and dad and brothers and sisters; John sends his regards secondhand and tries to keep half an ear on the conversation. P.K.’s family is the opposite of John’s, big and sprawling, and P.K. loves them fiercely .
“How’s everyone doing?” John asks when P.K. hangs up. “How’re your brothers? Malcolm’s with the Marlboros right now, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s doing awesome,” P.K. says, and launches easily into stories about his siblings’ current exploits. John rolls onto his back and listens to P.K. babble, humming and chirping in the right places even though P.K. doesn’t really need much encouragement to keep talking, ever. His voice is warm and familiar and listening to him is probably the most relaxing thing John could do right now.
They have dinner as a team later, because it’s the last night they have where the gold is still a possibility, not a fact or a failure. P.K. sits across from John so they can kick each other under the table. Eberle and Hodgson are sitting on either side of John, and P.K. keeps laughing at them and asking if they’re on the power play. John kicks him under the table, and they get in a brief, silent war until P.K. accidentally kicks Cody instead and they call an apologetic cease-fire.
As they’re finishing up their salmon and pasta, Jordan turns to John with a shy kind of smile and says, “Hey, so, I dunno if now is the time to say thanks, but.” He shrugs. “You’ve been a really great leader for me here, so. I mean, if I come back next year, I hope I can be like that.”
“I hope we have you next year,” John says, nudging him companionably. “You’re already unbelievable, man.” It feels like cheating, letting someone like Jordan give him so much credit, but he doesn’t know what else to say. He settles on: “Keep the streak alive, eh?”
Jordan grins. “Definitely.”
John grins back, then glances over at P.K., expecting some comment about John leading people, probably off a cliff, but P.K. is just watching with a proud little smile-well, little for him anyway, like when he’s got a happy secret that he’s not going to keep for long.
“What,” John says, amused.
“Oh, nothing,” P.K. says. His smile widens, and he kicks John under the table.
The Swedes are out for blood, but P.K. bangs one in not even a minute into the game and they just can’t seem to catch up. The final score belies how hard-fought the game was, scrapped out tooth and nail, and when John sees their faces at the end-some familiar from last year, some new, all absolutely crushed-he is intensely grateful that that is something he is never going to feel. Not in this tournament.
And it turns out he was right: winning gold again is even more elating than the Russia game. It’s beyond incredible: the distinct weight of the medal around his neck; P.K. beaming at him as they skate the flag around the ice, each clutching a corner in one hand; the sound of 20,000 people all singing ‘O Canada’ at the top of their lungs, so loud that John can’t even hear the music over his teammates on either side of him.
The cheering goes on so long and so loud that John is pretty sure the ringing will never leave his ears, and he is absolutely okay with that. He wishes he could carry this feeling with him forever.
“I dunno, man, I don’t think this was luck at all,” P.K. shouts in his ear when they’re hugging, again, for the fourth or fifth or fiftieth time since the clock hit zero.
“Yeah, but I think I’m gonna keep kissin’ you anyway,” John says, laughing, as someone hits him with a hug from behind, then another, and he lets himself get lost in the celebration.