Login

***sköldpaddor*** · 08-12-2021, 11:48 AM

(oh no this is still happening)

There are no fucking fairytales in hockey. That’s the thought that keeps circling in Gunnar’s mind as he goes through the motions after the seventh game of a series they had three chances to close out, and couldn’t, as he answers media questions and tries to process the fact that it’s all over.

It would have been a nice story for him personally, anyway. Coming back from an injury, several seasons deep into regression, putting up a career best regular season, going on to contribute in the playoffs and win another cup, getting past the team that he sustained said injury against last season, and finally beating the team that eliminated them that season, too, all in the same magical year that his personal life managed to sort itself out as well.

It would have been one hell of a story.

But that’s not the story he gets to tell.

And of course, it’s nobody’s fault, not one person, anyway, because you win as a team and you lose as a team. But Gunnar didn’t play his best hockey in those playoffs, and he knows it, and it’s very hard to let that go. It’s always been hard for him to let go of his own picture-perfect ideas of how things should go once they don’t pan out, especially when it looks at first like there’s a chance of everything lining up.

The story Gunnar gets to tell is a different one, where it’s game six that maybe reminds him the most that he can’t put too much stock in the what-ifs. Game six, at home, with a chance to win a cup on home ice, and Gunnar doesn’t even let himself form complete thoughts out of the what-ifs, but they’re there anyway, little fragmented wishes and hopes. There’s a velvet box tucked into a safe pocket of his equipment bag, an if we… lingering in his mind that he doesn’t allow himself to finish, and maybe it’s a silly thought anyway but it’s there nonetheless. And then they lose the game, and they have to go back to Buffalo, and there’s some sense of dread already in his mind even then, because something just doesn’t feel right anymore.

The story he gets to tell is another story of coming so close and coming up short yet again, of stepping onto a plane home with nothing material to show for the past season in which they kept playing as long as they possibly could. It’s not a bad story, really, because there are so many other positives from this year that he will find much easier to focus on later, but at the moment, the disappointment is fairly overwhelming.

Gunnar knows he should probably come up with something captain-ly to say, something to make this suck a little less, but at the moment, he is equal parts too empty to come up with anything, and too full of emotion to put it into words. They all know what they could have had, and they all know they’re going home without it, he doesn’t need to remind them of that. And he’s told everybody on the team how proud of them he is, how grateful he is to play with them, so many times in the past week, it feels redundant at this point, so instead he stands at the door as everybody gets onto the plane, making sure to offer a smile or a pat on the back to everybody. He locks eyes with Corey for a moment as Corey gets on, and there is a split second where he’s absolutely sure that even though there are no words exchanged, Corey knows every last thing he’s feeling, everything he’s thinking but can’t say. He sums it up with a nod and a quick squeeze of Corey’s shoulder closest to him, and then behind Corey there’s Mat, and that’s when he has to say something.

“Hey,” he says, stopping him for a minute to stand squared up, lowering his voice so it’s just between the two of them. “You were fucking phenomenal. Don’t forget that. I am so proud of you.”

He waits until the last few guys are past him and on the plane before he goes and sits down next to Jean-Uhtred, who has made this doomed trip with them out of nothing but the goodness and affection in his heart. They have worlds coming up, pretty much immediately, and they aren’t going to get to play together there either, although the banter and the rivalry is always fun. It’s not quite time for all the summer plans they’ve made just yet. For the moment, what they have is this space, this hour and some in the air back to the city that brought them together four years ago.

Gunnar looks over, reaches out, and grabs Jean-Uhtred’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and he still doesn’t say anything at first, because what is there to say? There are a lot of things weighing on his heart in that moment - plans he’s made that didn’t work out, plans he’s still making, but he’s aware that there are things you don’t say when you’re so emotional that you’re not thinking clearly. So he doesn’t say any of those things, not the ones that he was going to say on the ice in Chicago if they’d won game six, and not the things he’ll inevitably say when he falls apart once they’re back home.

The plane ride back to Chicago is less than two hours, but it’s spent mostly in silence because nobody really knows what to say, least of all Gunnar. Something has shifted, something in his heart, something that has left him more exhausted than he thinks he’s ever been after a season. Something in him is so devoid of energy that he has no idea where he will find more of it ever again, but somehow, he knows he will. That nagging voice in the back of his mind is back - how many more years do you really think you can do this? And as always, he answers back at least one more.

He has worlds to think about, has already been trying to focus on that at the same time as trying to get this done. Even though he’s not done in Chicago, he already knows this is the last time he’s suiting up for Sweden at worlds, he’s made that clear publicly and has come to terms with it in his own heart. And now that this season is over, the magnitude of that decision is really settling in, because it’s without a doubt one of those steps he’s taken to transition into whatever the next phase of his life is going to look like.

He wonders whether his ideas about the future outside of hockey will look any more like reality than the way he’s imagined things will go on the ice. Because as much as hockey has been his whole world for nearly his entire life up until now, he has always known that there will have to be something on the other side, that he cannot do this forever, and the other side is much closer now than it’s ever been. So he has let himself dream, has let himself plan for that future with hope and joy in his heart. He’ll keep the place in Chicago, but he’ll go where Jean-Uhtred goes, wherever that might be, until Jean-Uhtred is done playing hockey, too. He’ll keep himself busy along the way with projects here and there (he’s already threatened to remodel Jean-Uhtred’s existing kitchen), maybe he’ll write that memoir he keeps thinking of writing, and maybe they’ll raise a kid or two (or three, or four, Gunnar is no stranger to large families). He has all of the dreams he needs to look forward to once he’s done.

And he’s not done, not yet, but in moments like this, the life to come seems a little closer than it does most of the time. He gives Jean-Uhtred’s hand a squeeze, and leans over close, keeping his voice low.

“You are the love of my life, you know that, right? That’s not just…shit I say to be cute on twitter or whatever,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t wait for an answer to the question before pressing on. “Thank you. For being here, for being with me.”

And it’s then that the tangle of emotions in his heart starts to sort itself out into identifiable feelings. There is sadness, of course, there’s the bone-deep sorrow of knowing what could have been. There’s disappointment, in himself, in the result, in the lost season that came so close. But it’s all tinted with the soft light of other things that he’s starting to put a finger on. There’s absolute adoration for the person sitting beside him, and the constant awe Gunnar finds himself in that he gets to call that person his own. And perhaps the most constant link between all of the things he’s feeling is gratitude.

Gratitude that out of all the teams in the league, all the people on the planet, he has the privilege of sharing a locker room and all the highs and all the lows with this team in particular. There is nowhere else he would rather be, no other group of people he’d rather find himself with in these inevitable moments. Because none of it would mean anything otherwise. He wouldn’t want any of it with anybody else, wouldn’t want to play anywhere else, even if it meant winning more often, even if it meant not having to feel this kind of disappointment. And he wouldn’t want to lose with anybody else, either, wouldn’t want his destiny tied to any other team.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the seat, and he takes a long breath, exhaling some of the tightness in his chest, and he holds onto Jean-Uhtred’s hand like it’s the only thing holding him together, because at the moment, it is.

There are no fairytales in hockey, nothing ever goes exactly the way you intend for it to go, nothing ever looks exactly like you dreamed it would. But Gunnar takes that hour and a half on the plane to replay the past year in his head - a slower, more deliberate thing than the flashback of emotions that he experienced when they actually won the cup in S57.

Rehab, the constant determination to get back to a level that would meet his own playing standards, the months of agonizing work that went into that.

Weeks of being inexplicably out of sorts over someone else getting traded in a way that he hadn’t been since he was traded himself, and the ensuing realization that the reason was that he was in love with that someone else. And then weeks of trying to ignore it before the earth-shattering epiphany that he wasn’t alone in that, that this is something he actually gets to keep, even if the distance is hard sometimes.

Coming to terms with the fact that he might not be as good a player post-surgery as he was before the injury, only to unlock some level of something he didn’t even know he was capable of in the second half of the season.

Making decisions he hadn’t anticipated having to make for a team that wasn’t supposed to be his just quite yet, and finding the strength somewhere inside of himself to do that while still making the deepest of playoff runs at the same time.

Leaning a little more on his new agent for emotional support than either of them probably signed up for, and discovering that he could not have entrusted his career and his friendship to anyone better.

Listening to Jean-Uhtred give him shit about the way he’s been playing hockey (as is tradition), and realizing right in the middle of it, laughing hard enough that his sides hurt, that he wants to spend the rest of his years on earth with this man, that there is no part of his life he doesn’t want to share with with him, no part of himself he doesn’t want Jean-Uhtred to know. Telling himself that those are thoughts for later, that’s a question he can ask once the season is over, when he has focus to devote to other things, and buying a ring anyway for when the time is right (and now that the season is over, still having no idea when the time will be right).

Trying to live up to the legacy of a captain he would still follow directly into hell, while said captain is still on the team, trying to forge his own path in that regard.

Trying to be everything he possibly can to everyone who needs him to, and coming to terms with the fact that it is physically impossible for him to share that much of his heart with the world without losing himself along the way, and then working to find a balance that lets him maintain his sanity while also doing as much good as he possibly can.

Getting past the nemesis he never asked for or wanted but is constantly thrown against through fate or just some sick twisted sense of humor on the part of the hockey gods (why is it always Calgary?), and the short-lived sense of quiet that came from that.

It is all so much to feel, and there is a breakdown coming under the weight of it all and he knows it, but not yet.

The plane touches down in Chicago in the early morning hours, in that lost time that always feels like not today but not tomorrow either, and Gunnar gets up as soon as they’ve stopped, waiting at the door for everybody to leave, making sure to say a quick drive safe, good effort, good season to anybody who’s actually paying attention, and he keeps it together even after the last of them have left the plane.

He waits for Jean-Uhtred, and they walk out together, out to where Gunnar left his car (he always drives his own car to the airport for playoff games; it’s been part of his ritual as long as he can remember and he’s not stupid enough to mess with a ritual even if it obviously doesn’t always work), and he keeps it together then, too. He presses the button to start the car, then rests his hands on the steering wheel for a moment, letting out a long sigh, before driving them home, navigating the empty streets in near-silence, some unspoken understanding between the two of them hanging there in the air with the quiet sound of a song playing on the radio.

He still keeps it together as he pulls into the driveway at the house, as he gets out and locks the car behind them, as he opens the front door and shuts it behind them, as he takes off his hoodie and hangs it by the door along with his keys and his shoes on the rug there beneath the coats. Then he turns to face Jean-Uhtred with a look on his face that says nothing but I need you, before grabbing him by the hand and pulling him along down the hall to the bedroom.

And then, and only then, he finally lets go.

***Aleris*** · 08-12-2021, 12:21 PM

roastpuff · 08-12-2021, 02:10 PM

Grapehead · 08-12-2021, 03:03 PM

Wow, that was something special to read.

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us