Fic: Completion
Title: Completion
Pairing: Lapierre/Bieksa, (Lapierre/OMC)
Rating: nothin
Summary: Maxim fell in love with a teammate.
Super tempted to use Russian letters as my scene breaks. It'd be pretty cool.
Maxim thought this would be the love that changed him and it did, but not in the way he wanted. He still doesn’t know what he wanted, just knows that it’s not this, because this, this isn’t a change so much as a breaking, and there’s not much that could make him wish he’d never met Marc, but this - he doesn’t want to feel this. The way he feels now, it makes him wish so many things. It makes him wish he’d never picked up a hockey stick so he wouldn’t have wanted to end up where he did, playing on the Habs. It makes him wish he only liked girls, because then he’d fall in love easy and safe. It makes him wish he didn’t choose the seventh locker from the right, because then he wouldn’t have ended up next to Marc, because Marc has a smile he can’t resist and blue eyes that make him stammer in English even though Marc’s talking to him in their effortless French. It makes him wish he’d been traded sooner, but he’d have to have been sent away within a week to avoid falling in love with Marc. It happened so fast. Maxim isn’t sure he managed to escape even the first day without being drawn in, held tight, the first of a thousand pieces starting to break.
Marc didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t set out for Maxim to be powerlessly swept away. He didn’t try to make Maxim fall in love with him. Marc watched his back on the ice and hugged him first after goals and slept on his shoulder during late night flights; Maxim had no invitation to fall in love, but everything seemed to demand it, all these things he was powerless to resist.
On trades deadline day, Maxim was terrified. He watched so closely for Marc’s name that he forgot to look for his own, and when Marc called him, it interrupted Maxim selecting his number to tell Marc we made it, and instead it was Marc telling him they’re sending you away.
Marc drove him to the airport, and he hugged Maxim so tight, standing there on the sidewalk next to his car. Why did it have to be you, he’d sighed, and Maxim thought - thought wrong. I don’t want to go, he’d said, because, I - I have - feelings for you, and whatever he’d wanted, he didn’t get it. Marc said oh Max, looked the wrong kind of sorrowful, because when he walked away, all he had to hold onto was I’m sorry and I’ll miss you and I’m so sorry, not what he wanted to hear at all.
He hadn’t been in a hotel room without Marc for a long time, and when he got to that empty room in Anaheim, he didn’t cry like he thought he would. He’d felt on the verge of tears the entire flight and all night long, sleepless and torn apart, and he still couldn’t cry. It felt like waiting, like he’d already fallen apart and was just waiting for the realization to hit him, falling and knowing where he’d end up, and this, this is just waiting for the end of the fall.
0o0o0o0o
A month later, Maxim still feels the same. He still feels like he’s about to break apart, permanently on the verge of tears that won’t come. He’s quiet because he’s afraid, doesn’t know what words will trigger the break he knows is coming. Everyone seems willing to accept this; they’ve stopped looking at him like they’re waiting for him to prove himself, like they’ve accepted that whatever it is that made Anaheim want him, he left it behind in Montreal. No one knows he left it everywhere else, spread across the cities.
He left his sense of humour in Dallas, where Marc dropped his keycard in the pool and they spent an hour trying to fish it out before just jumping in. He left his compassion in Raleigh, where Marc got a call from home saying his dog had died, and he sniffled until Maxim said it must be so hard and Marc was able to cry. He left his gratitude in Detroit, where he worried his scoring slump meant far worse things and Marc made him feel like the world wasn’t ending, wouldn’t end for a long, long time. He left all the best things about himself everywhere, lost to rooms he’ll never see again. Maxim left his hope in Montreal, and he knows exactly where it is - right there on the sidewalk by the airport, faded away.
It took Maxim four seasons to fall in love, two months for Anaheim to give up on him, and five minutes for Kevin to decide not to give up on him. He doesn’t wander away like everyone else does, deem him some kind of hopeless, like they can somehow tell that he spent the summer homesick and too afraid to go back. Kevin doesn’t leave, he follows Maxim around and when he gets tired of that, drags Maxim along with him. He talks when Maxim can’t and he doesn’t ask questions until February, when they’re in a quiet Minnesota hotel room, and then he asks what happened.
0o0o0o0o0
Maxim’s quiet, and Kevin knows it isn’t natural. He has no idea how he can be so sure of this, because he’s never seen evidence that it’s true, but Kevin’s positive. Sometimes, Maxim’s eyes light up when he smiles, which is rare in and of itself, and the first time he actually looked thrilled, Kevin suddenly realised there was a whole level of pride he never knew existed. Kevin’s been proud of himself before, but not like this; this made his heart race and made him crave more. It felt like he changed the world. Not enough, because everything slipped back to the way it was within a few seconds, but enough that he’d felt the difference, felt so surely that this was the way things were supposed to be.
Kevin knows exactly why he picked tonight. It’s because on the plane today, Maxim was trying to sleep and getting frustrated with trying to prop his pillow against the wall of the plane, and when Kevin pushed up the armrest between them and set Maxim’s pillow against his own shoulder, Maxim gave him an entirely new smile. It was soft and grateful and Kevin’s been inexplicably in love with Maxim for a while now, but this felt like the reason, like he’d always known he’d find this, in love before he knew exactly why.
“What happened?” he asks, and Maxim is quiet.
“When?” he finally says. “With what?”
“To you.” Kevin doesn’t explain any more, because he can see from the look on Maxim’s face, hurt he wants to kiss away, that Maxim understands.
“I fell in love with a teammate.”
It’s so - so easily given, like Maxim’s giving Kevin something he knows he can hold, and Kevin’s never wondered if Maxim trusted him before because it never occurred to him that Maxim felt anything towards him. Maybe he should have been able to see at least something, because Maxim gave this up so easily, it was like he’d already told Kevin and is just reminding him.
He gave it up easily - because this isn’t it. Kevin realises that the moment Maxim looks away.
“Maxi,” he pleads softly, and then - then Maxim starts to cry. He buries his face in his hands, but Kevin’s still climbing onto his bed a second later, pulling Maxim into his arms.
“I’m doing it again,” Maxim whispers, “I told Marc and he said he was sorry and he didn’t get mad or anything, but I missed him so much when I left and he still talks to me but it isn’t the same and I lost that and then I came here and you wouldn’t leave me alone and it’s the same and it’s different and it’s even harder because I know what’s going to happen this time.” He’s never said so much to Kevin all at once, and it’s a moment before Kevin can register the words because he’s still hung up on Maxim’s voice. “He changed everything,” Maxim says quietly, “but I got used to that.”
“What can I do?” Kevin asks helplessly, wipes tears off Maxim’s cheek with his thumb. Maxim says something - it might be don’t be like him, or just don’t be him, but Kevin can’t understand, Maxim’s voice muffled as he buries his face against Kevin’s shoulder. “I promise,” Kevin says, so quiet he isn’t sure Maxim can hear him, but then Maxim hugs him tight, and Kevin knows he understands. It doesn’t matter what Maxim said; Kevin would promise to do anything for him.
0o0o0o
It’s a year before Maxim can tell him.
He realises it slowly, in pieces he doesn’t realize all lead to the same thing. At first, he’s grateful he was traded from Anaheim to Vancouver, because Kevin is impossibly nice to him. Then, he’s glad they’re roommates, that they sit together on the plane and bus, because he doesn’t want to be with anyone else. Over the summer, he loves the decision to stay in Vancouver because he gets to see Kevin almost every day.
And then - then Maxim looks at him and he’s so, so happy he’s here, and that’s when Maxim realises. He’s glad he’s here - he’s glad he was once in Montreal, fell in love and broke apart, grateful for every step that brought him here, made him someone Kevin felt like he had to save, couldn’t let go of once he wasn’t broken anymore.
Maxim suffered to get to Kevin, and suddenly, he’s come to a place where he can realize that it was worth it.
“Remember when you asked me what happened to me?” he asks Kevin when they’re sitting on the floor of Kevin’s balcony, in the middle of a discussion about what furniture would fit out here. Kevin nods, and even in the dusk, his eyes are so blue. Maxim used to think of Marc, until this colour, just like the feeling of I just need you, came to mean Kevin. “I was so scared to fall in love with you,” he says, and his pulse is racing but he’s not afraid, because this is Kevin, and he can’t be hurt. “I thought it’d end the same if I told you I love you.”
“I’m different,” Kevin says softly.
“How?”
“Because,” Kevin’s so close to him, and he’s looking at Maxim like he’s the only thing in the world. Maxim hasn’t been able to recognise this, because it’s always been the way Kevin’s looked at him. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”
Maxim wasn’t looking for a love that would change him. He didn’t want to be changed, he wanted to be completed, to find a place created for him, waiting for him because he’s the only one who belongs there. Kevin’s been here waiting for him for such a long time, for Maxim to come home on his own. Kevin met him when he was abandoned and sent him looking for his place, and Kevin’s been waiting, hoping Maxim would find him, and it’s taken a long time but they’re finally here, this love that made them whole.
Pairing: Lapierre/Bieksa, (Lapierre/OMC)
Rating: nothin
Summary: Maxim fell in love with a teammate.
Super tempted to use Russian letters as my scene breaks. It'd be pretty cool.
Maxim thought this would be the love that changed him and it did, but not in the way he wanted. He still doesn’t know what he wanted, just knows that it’s not this, because this, this isn’t a change so much as a breaking, and there’s not much that could make him wish he’d never met Marc, but this - he doesn’t want to feel this. The way he feels now, it makes him wish so many things. It makes him wish he’d never picked up a hockey stick so he wouldn’t have wanted to end up where he did, playing on the Habs. It makes him wish he only liked girls, because then he’d fall in love easy and safe. It makes him wish he didn’t choose the seventh locker from the right, because then he wouldn’t have ended up next to Marc, because Marc has a smile he can’t resist and blue eyes that make him stammer in English even though Marc’s talking to him in their effortless French. It makes him wish he’d been traded sooner, but he’d have to have been sent away within a week to avoid falling in love with Marc. It happened so fast. Maxim isn’t sure he managed to escape even the first day without being drawn in, held tight, the first of a thousand pieces starting to break.
Marc didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t set out for Maxim to be powerlessly swept away. He didn’t try to make Maxim fall in love with him. Marc watched his back on the ice and hugged him first after goals and slept on his shoulder during late night flights; Maxim had no invitation to fall in love, but everything seemed to demand it, all these things he was powerless to resist.
On trades deadline day, Maxim was terrified. He watched so closely for Marc’s name that he forgot to look for his own, and when Marc called him, it interrupted Maxim selecting his number to tell Marc we made it, and instead it was Marc telling him they’re sending you away.
Marc drove him to the airport, and he hugged Maxim so tight, standing there on the sidewalk next to his car. Why did it have to be you, he’d sighed, and Maxim thought - thought wrong. I don’t want to go, he’d said, because, I - I have - feelings for you, and whatever he’d wanted, he didn’t get it. Marc said oh Max, looked the wrong kind of sorrowful, because when he walked away, all he had to hold onto was I’m sorry and I’ll miss you and I’m so sorry, not what he wanted to hear at all.
He hadn’t been in a hotel room without Marc for a long time, and when he got to that empty room in Anaheim, he didn’t cry like he thought he would. He’d felt on the verge of tears the entire flight and all night long, sleepless and torn apart, and he still couldn’t cry. It felt like waiting, like he’d already fallen apart and was just waiting for the realization to hit him, falling and knowing where he’d end up, and this, this is just waiting for the end of the fall.
0o0o0o0o
A month later, Maxim still feels the same. He still feels like he’s about to break apart, permanently on the verge of tears that won’t come. He’s quiet because he’s afraid, doesn’t know what words will trigger the break he knows is coming. Everyone seems willing to accept this; they’ve stopped looking at him like they’re waiting for him to prove himself, like they’ve accepted that whatever it is that made Anaheim want him, he left it behind in Montreal. No one knows he left it everywhere else, spread across the cities.
He left his sense of humour in Dallas, where Marc dropped his keycard in the pool and they spent an hour trying to fish it out before just jumping in. He left his compassion in Raleigh, where Marc got a call from home saying his dog had died, and he sniffled until Maxim said it must be so hard and Marc was able to cry. He left his gratitude in Detroit, where he worried his scoring slump meant far worse things and Marc made him feel like the world wasn’t ending, wouldn’t end for a long, long time. He left all the best things about himself everywhere, lost to rooms he’ll never see again. Maxim left his hope in Montreal, and he knows exactly where it is - right there on the sidewalk by the airport, faded away.
It took Maxim four seasons to fall in love, two months for Anaheim to give up on him, and five minutes for Kevin to decide not to give up on him. He doesn’t wander away like everyone else does, deem him some kind of hopeless, like they can somehow tell that he spent the summer homesick and too afraid to go back. Kevin doesn’t leave, he follows Maxim around and when he gets tired of that, drags Maxim along with him. He talks when Maxim can’t and he doesn’t ask questions until February, when they’re in a quiet Minnesota hotel room, and then he asks what happened.
0o0o0o0o0
Maxim’s quiet, and Kevin knows it isn’t natural. He has no idea how he can be so sure of this, because he’s never seen evidence that it’s true, but Kevin’s positive. Sometimes, Maxim’s eyes light up when he smiles, which is rare in and of itself, and the first time he actually looked thrilled, Kevin suddenly realised there was a whole level of pride he never knew existed. Kevin’s been proud of himself before, but not like this; this made his heart race and made him crave more. It felt like he changed the world. Not enough, because everything slipped back to the way it was within a few seconds, but enough that he’d felt the difference, felt so surely that this was the way things were supposed to be.
Kevin knows exactly why he picked tonight. It’s because on the plane today, Maxim was trying to sleep and getting frustrated with trying to prop his pillow against the wall of the plane, and when Kevin pushed up the armrest between them and set Maxim’s pillow against his own shoulder, Maxim gave him an entirely new smile. It was soft and grateful and Kevin’s been inexplicably in love with Maxim for a while now, but this felt like the reason, like he’d always known he’d find this, in love before he knew exactly why.
“What happened?” he asks, and Maxim is quiet.
“When?” he finally says. “With what?”
“To you.” Kevin doesn’t explain any more, because he can see from the look on Maxim’s face, hurt he wants to kiss away, that Maxim understands.
“I fell in love with a teammate.”
It’s so - so easily given, like Maxim’s giving Kevin something he knows he can hold, and Kevin’s never wondered if Maxim trusted him before because it never occurred to him that Maxim felt anything towards him. Maybe he should have been able to see at least something, because Maxim gave this up so easily, it was like he’d already told Kevin and is just reminding him.
He gave it up easily - because this isn’t it. Kevin realises that the moment Maxim looks away.
“Maxi,” he pleads softly, and then - then Maxim starts to cry. He buries his face in his hands, but Kevin’s still climbing onto his bed a second later, pulling Maxim into his arms.
“I’m doing it again,” Maxim whispers, “I told Marc and he said he was sorry and he didn’t get mad or anything, but I missed him so much when I left and he still talks to me but it isn’t the same and I lost that and then I came here and you wouldn’t leave me alone and it’s the same and it’s different and it’s even harder because I know what’s going to happen this time.” He’s never said so much to Kevin all at once, and it’s a moment before Kevin can register the words because he’s still hung up on Maxim’s voice. “He changed everything,” Maxim says quietly, “but I got used to that.”
“What can I do?” Kevin asks helplessly, wipes tears off Maxim’s cheek with his thumb. Maxim says something - it might be don’t be like him, or just don’t be him, but Kevin can’t understand, Maxim’s voice muffled as he buries his face against Kevin’s shoulder. “I promise,” Kevin says, so quiet he isn’t sure Maxim can hear him, but then Maxim hugs him tight, and Kevin knows he understands. It doesn’t matter what Maxim said; Kevin would promise to do anything for him.
0o0o0o
It’s a year before Maxim can tell him.
He realises it slowly, in pieces he doesn’t realize all lead to the same thing. At first, he’s grateful he was traded from Anaheim to Vancouver, because Kevin is impossibly nice to him. Then, he’s glad they’re roommates, that they sit together on the plane and bus, because he doesn’t want to be with anyone else. Over the summer, he loves the decision to stay in Vancouver because he gets to see Kevin almost every day.
And then - then Maxim looks at him and he’s so, so happy he’s here, and that’s when Maxim realises. He’s glad he’s here - he’s glad he was once in Montreal, fell in love and broke apart, grateful for every step that brought him here, made him someone Kevin felt like he had to save, couldn’t let go of once he wasn’t broken anymore.
Maxim suffered to get to Kevin, and suddenly, he’s come to a place where he can realize that it was worth it.
“Remember when you asked me what happened to me?” he asks Kevin when they’re sitting on the floor of Kevin’s balcony, in the middle of a discussion about what furniture would fit out here. Kevin nods, and even in the dusk, his eyes are so blue. Maxim used to think of Marc, until this colour, just like the feeling of I just need you, came to mean Kevin. “I was so scared to fall in love with you,” he says, and his pulse is racing but he’s not afraid, because this is Kevin, and he can’t be hurt. “I thought it’d end the same if I told you I love you.”
“I’m different,” Kevin says softly.
“How?”
“Because,” Kevin’s so close to him, and he’s looking at Maxim like he’s the only thing in the world. Maxim hasn’t been able to recognise this, because it’s always been the way Kevin’s looked at him. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”
Maxim wasn’t looking for a love that would change him. He didn’t want to be changed, he wanted to be completed, to find a place created for him, waiting for him because he’s the only one who belongs there. Kevin’s been here waiting for him for such a long time, for Maxim to come home on his own. Kevin met him when he was abandoned and sent him looking for his place, and Kevin’s been waiting, hoping Maxim would find him, and it’s taken a long time but they’re finally here, this love that made them whole.