Thrown Off the Ice

by Taylor Fitzpatrick

“I’m not tiny,” Fitzgerald says, sounding offended. “I’m concentrated.”

Mike can’t help but grin at him, this pint-sized destroyer. Mike knows he was that young, once, but he doesn’t think he was ever that young. “Okay, kid,” Mike says, placating him, and unexpectedly, Fitzgerald grins right back. Mike thinks, in hindsight, that might be where the trouble starts.

Maybe he lost a bet with one of the other rookies: ‘go sit with the grumpy enforcer, hope he doesn’t eat you’.

The kid’s comprised half of obvious tells and half of shit Mike can’t figure out. He doesn’t know why that bothers him, but it does.

Mike isn’t the most popular guy in the room, but Fitzgerald’s already pretty damn close, seems to have decisively won over the majority of the room by being the kind of annoying that circles right back into endearing. So again, the fact that Mike’s suddenly inherited a full-time shadow is downright inexplicable.

“You sick or something?” “No,” Fitzgerald says, scowling fiercely, stomping off in a teenage sulk, and Mike remains confused for the rest of the fucking day until he puts it together. He’s not stupid, and Fitzgerald’s not subtle: Fitzgerald was attempting fucking bedroom eyes.

Fitzgerald doesn’t take his hand back when he’s finished pouring himself a refill, and after a minute, Mike pointedly does it for him, pours himself another drink of his own.

Liam kisses back slow, easy. Drugged, practically, like he’s settled, like all it took was someone fucking his mouth to get him comfortable in his skin.

Liam seems to take that as permission to plaster himself against Mike’s back, nose between his shoulder blades. Mike nudges him back, because they’re not fucking cuddling, and if they are, Mike is not the fucking little spoon, and Liam goes peaceably enough, giving him the wide, dopey smile of the freshly laid.

There should be a rule against fucking impressionable rookies, just in case they imprint on you like ducklings.

Liam bounces out of Mike’s place, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, managing to press a kiss against Mike’s jaw while he’s distracted, then disappearing before Mike can tell him that no fucking way are they doing that, no, bad rookie.

They’re halfway through a level when Liam theatrically yawns, and Mike senses movement out of the corner of his eye. “If you try to put your fucking arm around me right now, I am going to break that arm,” Mike warns, not looking away from the screen.

He’s not even entirely sure what it is he wants, exactly. Wants to take him apart and put him back together. Wants to wreck him, and is afraid he could.

Liam may find the whole idea of it hot, the risk, the chance of getting caught with their pants down, seems to get off on it, but Mike managed to go years and years without a soul in the NHL knowing his dick is indiscriminate, and he doesn’t plan on that ever changing.

Mike should have known, as annoying as Liam was on the last road trip, that that was actually good behavior from him. In fact, Mike is starting to realize, to his absolute horror, that Liam was actually on his very best behavior when he came to the Oilers, and he’s only letting his true brattiness show as time goes on.

“Sorry,” Liam says, then stops, like he didn’t think of anything to say past that point, figured that would work like a password into Mike’s place. It doesn’t. Mike has some dignity left.

Liam watches him do it, sipping a beer, sitting at the table like a grown-up, for once, instead of his usual behavior: hopping on Mike’s counter and swinging his legs until Mike smacks him with the nearest kitchen utensil.

but he still sits with him at breakfast, hair in his half-closed eyes, the same exact kid who once fell asleep in Mike’s shower, a fact Mike was alerted to by a thud and a yelp.

Mike repeatedly has to save him from getting shit written all over his face, though he shouldn’t even bother, because Liam deserves it: what is he thinking, sleeping around all these assholes? Mike should definitely be included in that number. The kid is ruining his asshole reputation.

Mike realizes, with dawning horror, that the kid has him wrapped around his finger, and has for awhile. Liam thinks he’s being clever about it, a kid trying on seductive, but Mike can see through every game he plays, every front he puts on. He won’t admit it, though, because the truth — that Mike wants him enough that it doesn’t matter how smooth or not he is — is too fucking embarrassing to bear.

He doesn’t like the fact that what they have is going to be temporary, but it’s fine. He doesn’t like that he doesn’t like that fact, for god’s sake. Why should he even mind? The kid’s a fucking menace.

Liam has to look up at him, flashing that grin of his that’s actually irresistible, not that Mike would ever tell him that, give him that kind of ammunition.

He gets Liam’s chin between his fingers, makes sure Liam’s looking him straight in the eye. “I am not your boyfriend, brat,” he says, slow, so that Liam can’t pretend not to understand him. “I am never going to be your boyfriend. If you want one, go find some naive idiot who’ll take you.”

Liam’s never able to leave well enough alone. Except maybe Mike actually got through his idiot head this time. Maybe this time he actually said something that stuck. Shame it wasn’t something he meant. Seems like Liam chose a bad time to start listening.

Mike wants him so much it hurts a little, but then, he always does, so it’s an ache he’s learned to live with.

Liam doesn’t answer, just leans down and kisses him, and Mike kisses him back, reflex. He’s grown so used to the feel of Liam’s mouth that he felt genuinely at sea without it, because he’s fucked, he’s so fucked here, strands of Liam’s hair between his fingers and Liam getting a knee between his thighs. Liam pushing and Mike going because this is where he wants to be.

Mike wakes up angry. “It is growing increasingly likely that I’m going to murder you,” Mike says without opening his eyes. He thinks that’s a fair statement, considering someone — one guess — has currently turned his comfortable, supportive mattress into a fucking bouncy castle.

Mike buys groceries on his way home, sneaks a pint of Ben & Jerry's into his basket, texts Liam to tell him to actually show his sorry ass face around Casa Rogers before they get Child Services called on them, and then eats his despair in the form of a pint of Chunky Monkey while watching home renovation shows. It isn’t his finest moment, but sadly it doesn’t even crack the top ten of the most pathetic things he’s done lately. They all involve Liam.

It’s a fair call, probably. Davidson’s a sniper, not a brute, and that hit would have been considerably less disastrous on someone who wasn’t the size of a munchkin.

MUNCHKIN

Liam hovers even after they attempt to shoo him from the room, first earnestly, then with weary acknowledgment that his stubborn ass isn’t going to move. Liam has that effect.

He looks worse today, sporting some pretty extensive bruising around his eyes, the full raccoon look. Still, he leans sleepily against Mike’s shoulder and makes himself a nuisance while Mike’s trying to pour them coffee, so he’s clearly at least mostly okay.

Liam quickly figures out the position that is the most intensely, annoyingly cuddly, and also avoids hurting his nose. Mike tolerates it, but he puts his foot down when Liam tries to make him watch cartoons.

Mulligan’s royal takedown made that as obvious to everyone else as it was to him that he took shit personally and he took Davidson down too hard. That it was a fuck up. That he lost his shit because he saw Liam bleed. He knows that, and Liam knows that.

Liam puts on clothes for a total of five minutes when he’s on delivery guy duty, but other than that, he’s basically become a nudist in an attempt to sway Mike from the no-sex policy he’s enforced since Liam’s face met glass. It doesn’t work, but the view’s nice.

After, Liam’s sated and wrecked, his skin a map of where Mike’s been, what he’s spent his time on, blotchy red from sucking bites and beard burn. He looks like Mike’s. It’ll fade.

“Yeah, because you’re clearly making great adult decisions here,” Rogers says. Mike is vaguely offended. He may be a shitty decision, but it’s not buddies to say so.

“Do you know what you’re doing, here?” Rogers asks, when Mike’s in street clothes. “No,” Mike says, completely honest. “I have no fucking clue.” For some reason that seems to be the right answer.

“I’m just trying to look out for Fitzy,” Rogers says. “I know you are,” Mike says. “I like that you are.” Rogers is quiet for a minute. “You’re really fucked, huh,” he says finally. “I really am,” Mike says miserably.

“He thinks he’s in love with you,” Rogers says. Mike exhales, slow. “He’ll get over it,” he says.

“Why can’t I just stay with you?” Liam asks. Mike stares at him. “Because I’m not a fucking lunatic,” Mike says. “And I would become one if I had to deal with you all the fucking time.” “I’m here all the time anyway,” Liam says. “And I’m already one day away from killing you,” Mike says, sitting down on the stairs beside Liam. Liam leans his head on Mike’s shoulder, and no amount of shrugging will make him get off.

Mike wraps his arm around Liam’s shoulder. “Not your boyfriend,” he reminds him. “Says you,” Liam mutters, and Mike graciously ignores him, just turns his head, face pressed to Liam’s hair.

He’s going to go down one day, and he isn’t going to come back from it.

“You remind me of that guy from Twilight,” Tom says, breaking the comfortable silence. “You read Twilight, Tom?” Mike says. “Don’t need to, know all I have to,” Tom says. “Old sulky dude obsessed with a teenager and being angsty about it. Sound about right?”

The next morning he has no memory of getting home, and, far more soberingly, an outgoing call to Liam at two in the morning that lasted just over seventeen minutes. He hopes, dimly, that he’d waxed poetic about Liam’s ass rather than telling Liam about his idle searches of how long it would take to drive to Halifax (thirty hours), or whether there was any flight there that didn’t take an absurd, ridiculous route (no).

Fuck, Mike’s impressed that Liam remembered Mike existed after he left the country. He’s heard that infants lack object permanence.

THIS IS SUCH A BURN

Mike told Liam to find himself a nice Canadian boy his own age before they ever fucked, but even then he knew they wouldn’t know what to do with him. Wouldn’t know where to fucking start.

There’s a text from Liam, apparently pulling the technology age equivalent of running across the moors. im in love w u, it says, and Mike rests his head against his steering wheel, exhales. You’re really not, he texts back, and drives his sorry ass home.

Mike mutes the TV when the knocking morphs into a scratching sound, and when that scratching becomes kind of ominous he goes to the front hall, yanks the door open to Liam crouched on his porch with a fucking paper clip. “Are you seriously trying to break into my house right now?” Mike asks.

“You’re nineteen,” Mike says. “You have the attention span of a fucking goldfish. You couldn’t last four months without getting your dick sucked. And you’ve decided that you love me, because what? I’m the first one who had their dick in you? I couldn’t shake you the fuck off?”

“You keep calling me immature,” Liam asks. “You’re the one who can’t have a fucking conversation without running away.”