fic that's like. offseason is about establishing boundaries, right? it's about creating places where the two of them aren't two halves of one messy whole. they don't talk about it, but it's how it is, and when they leave their 1-bd in beacon hill, mack goes to europe to win, and then he loses instead. loses with the c on his chest and his dad watching. thinks maybe if he'd insisted a little harder, they would've given that c to sid, and then canada would've won, and mack would have a gold medal for his country. something he could lay at the feet of hockey and say look what i did for you.
instead, he gets on a plane with no medal at all. flies to van to turn twenty - sticky, hazy, gorgeous van - and that's it. no longer the league's favorite teenager, no longer hockey's favorite boy. he's a man now - it really does happen overnight - and it doesn't matter what records he broke last year, because he's got nothing to show for it now that he's twenty. no gold medal and no cup and no girlfriend and no playoff-ready team. his best approximation of a friend sits in a brother who resents him and like, connor bedard? who does not have time for mack's shit, too deep in his own 1oa tragedy, burning himself out in chicago or maybe he's being burnt out in chicago? either way, mack can't win and connor's got no one to play with, and they run mountains together and don't talk about it and skate marathons together and don't talk about it and get drunk on gross, cheap beer together and don't talk about it. they aren't really friends, but misery loves company and it's something to do, someone else to lean against who is hockey to his bones. mack watches will's private stories over and over and over - sun-kissed, happy, rosy, loved - and wonders if that untagged hand in that one photo is leonard's. navigates to their messages: hbd mack. read at midnight. no reply, because mack couldn't bring himself to write anything other than i want you to be here. which is cringe, and he's a man now, so instead, he wrote nothing at all.
and it's like this - will's never been to van, and mack thought that might be a good thing, to be in a place that's just for him. a place he can map in his head without every touchstone equating to a sense memory of will. that's all boston is anymore - a city that used to feel like maybe something that could be mack's, which has become a minefield of will: this is what will smelled like when we tried blank street for the first time, and this is where we got brunch with gabe and will laughed at my joke about french fries, and this is the bar where will said my name in a way he's never said it before and this is the esplanade where i swear i could've kissed him and he would've let me. san jose is even worse. was never mack's to begin with, not in a way that mattered, not in a way that could compete with the san jose that is ours. our favorite tequila bar and our favorite jewish deli and our favorite to-order sushi and our favorite early-morning run and our favorite drive down the highway, ourourourourourourourour, an unending tangle of it, from the ocean to the hills to the bay to the rink. the center of mack's universe: hockey, and will, and these days it feels like they are one and the same. where hockey is, is where mack's home is, and where will is, is mack's hockey.
but van is just mack's. and it seemed like such a good idea at the time. mack, middle child, is not good at sharing. mack, a burgeoning star from the very beginning, has been raised selfish, and he's learned to live with that. never been good at blurry lines: not mine, but not yours, either. never been good at ambiguity or doubt. clear, defined boundaries. clear, defined rules: yours; mine. but mack - twenty, loser, tired - sits on the back porch of his parent's new house and watches the sun paint pink over blue, nice breeze and the evening birds calling, and he has never wanted a place to belong to him less. has never wanted to share a thing more than he wants to share this sunset with will. feels will's absence like a presence, like a second person inside of him, slightly smaller and made up mostly of the bruised, gooey, awful-good hurt that he feels every time he's ever rolled over in a hotel bed and found will still asleep: mouth open like a loser, delicate blond hair, skin sticky because mack runs too hot. mack's winger, his partner, his best friend.
he'd share anything with will, he thinks. gladly and without thought. every memory he's ever made, every win and every loss, every night and every morning and every greasy breakfast and every terrible hangover and every time he's ever thrown a punch and every home he's ever had and every hotel bed and ice rink and game-winning goal. he'd give it all to will, would lay it all out at will's feet, if that would make will his. for good this time; not just the season. thinks maybe it all belongs to will already, anyway.
takes out his phone. hbd mack.
i want you to be here, he writes. deletes. writes. deletes. takes a picture of the sunset. doesn't capture it right because he's a twenty-year-old hockey prodigy with no gold medal and the closest thing to a soulmate that anyone has ever had, so what would he know about art?
his thumb hovers. he hits send. waits. thinks about the apartment waiting for them in san jose. waits. thinks about ours. waits. thinks about how everything in his life is so saturated in will that it probably makes sense that his first big win won't happen until it's something they share, too. something that he can lay out at will's feet. i won this for you, i won this with you.
will [photo attached]: northeast haze with a yellow circle hovering above the horizon line in scorching orange-amber.
mack doesn't know anything about art. but he wants his best friend to share a sunset with him, so he sends the sunset to will, and will sends the sunset right back.
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