#chaingate

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Halifax is better than Mack expected. It’s not Vancouver, and it’s not Boston, but it’s a sweet in-between—quiet in the mornings, humid in the afternoons, the kind of place where ocean air gets stuck in your lungs and makes you feel like you’re carrying salt inside you.

The Cwench camp is intense. Crosby intense. Sid is exactly what Mack had told Will—the gold standard, the hardest worker, the most humble guy in the room.

Still, Mack can tell Will spends most of camp with his eyes fixed on Sid like a kid watching his hero. Mack doesn’t mind. It’s cute, in a way. Will lights up when Sid calls him over, when he corrects his stick angle, when he claps him on the shoulder. Mack doesn’t even tease him for it—much. He just files away the way Will’s face looks when he’s happy, storing it somewhere deep.

They train hard, then flop back into their hotel rooms, exhausted but buzzing, bouncing between Mack’s room and Will’s until there’s no real difference. Nights blur into eating bad takeout on Will’s bed, playing cards, and falling asleep with the TV still flickering.

And Will’s the one who drags them all to the little market stall strip downtown—he’d found it on TikTok, and Mack had been expecting something cheesy. But it’s sweet. Colourful. The kind of place where every stall has some little charm or handmade food that feels like it belongs to that exact square of Halifax.

Wyatt and Adam tag along, loud and nosy, and Will puts up with them good-naturedly even though Mack knows he wanted it to be just the two of them. Mack wanted that, too.

Still, Will’s smile never dims. He buys cinnamon sugar donuts from a stall run by a woman old enough to be their grandmother, then makes them all pose for pictures. Mack swears Will could find joy in a parking lot if he tried hard enough.

It hits Mack hardest the night before they’re set to leave. He’s sprawled across Will’s hotel bed, still damp from a shower, listening to Will talk about Boston and how he wants to walk his dog in the mornings before his training camp starts.

Mack smiles and nods, but there’s something heavy sitting on his chest. This has been the best stretch of summer he’s had, and tomorrow it’s gone. Will back to Boston. Mack back to Vancouver. Whole continent between them again.

He tries to shake it. Tries not to let it show.

But Will’s sharper than he gives him credit for.

The next morning, Mack’s grabbing his bag when he feels a tug on his arm. He turns. Will is right there, close enough that Mack can see the way his lashes catch the light, close enough that Mack forgets how to breathe.

Will doesn’t say anything at first. Just reaches up, and Mack realises with a jolt that Will’s fingers are at his chain. The one he never takes off. Mack goes still, watching as Will unclasps it, slips the crucifix and coin into his palm, and then carefully, deliberately slides the coin free.

Mack’s throat goes tight. “Will—”

“Take yours off,” Will says quietly. Not a question, not a plea. Just steady.

Mack obeys, fumbles the clasp with clumsy hands, and hands the chain over. His heart’s thudding loud enough he’s sure Will can hear it.

Will threads the St. Christopher’s pendant onto Mack’s chain like it’s the easiest thing in the world, then steps closer, the brush of his fingers careful but sure as he clasps it around Mack’s neck. The coin rests warm against Mack’s skin, heavier than it looks.

“It’s me and you, yeah?” Will says, voice steady but eyes shining like he’s putting more weight behind those words than Mack can carry.

Mack bites down on his lip, hard, because what he wants to say is ridiculous—I never want to be parted from you again. Too much, too soon, too raw. So he just nods, once, sharp. “Yeah.” His voice comes out rough, but it’s enough.

Will smiles, soft and relieved, like he’d been holding his breath too. He presses a hand to Mack’s chest, right over where the pendant lies, and leaves it there for a long, quiet moment.

Later, at the airport, when they hug goodbye in that stiff, manly way that isn’t fooling anyone, Mack can still feel the weight of the pendant against his skin. It feels like Will, like the summer air in Halifax, like the salt still caught in his lungs.

Like something he doesn’t ever want to take off.