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***sköldpaddor*** · 05-28-2021, 01:47 PM

(you didn't think I was done with this nonsense did you? Part 1 is here. also if you have complaints about how realistic this is or is not, please remember this is fake hockey supposedly taking place in the year 2025 in a league with literal animals playing in it so just try to suspend your disbelief.)

They close out the series with Calgary in six games, and Gunnar gets the extra day of downtime he was hoping for. He also makes good on his promise to himself that he’ll go see one of the trainers once it’s over. He knows their hours by now; even though things tend to get a little up in the air during the playoffs, he’s relatively sure he can try to keep this between himself and his favorite of their trainers, a guy named Devon who would probably still be playing himself if it weren’t for his own injury history.

After practice, once everyone else is long gone, Gunnar heads down the hall to the training room, and Devon is indeed inside, where he looks up from sorting rolls of tape as Gunnar comes in.

“Hey man, what’s up? Thought you guys were all gone.”

“Yeah, it’s just me, everybody else left. Uh, I have this knee thing I was hoping you could take a look at,” Gunnar says, trying to sound as casual as possible. Just a little knee thing. No biggie.

“Sure,” Devon says, standing up and walking over to one of the tables. Gunnar closes the distance between them and scoots onto the table. “What’s going on with it?”

“Well, right now, not much actually,” Gunnar says. “I just came down on it weird the other night and uh...you know, I felt kind of a pop.”

Devon’s eyebrows go up.

“The other night?”

Gunnar chews on his lip, and doesn’t say anything.

“Which night, specifically? Lie down for me.” Devon gestures towards the other end of the table, and Gunnar tilts back and lies down.

“Game two,” he says quietly. Devon gives him a look, and he adds. “I know.” He doesn’t make any excuses, and Devon doesn’t scold him. They both know how this goes. Devon gets Gunnar’s leg situated, wrapping one hand around the back of his ankle, the other under his thigh, and applies some pressure, rotating Gunnar’s lower leg slightly.

“What happened?” Devon asks, and Gunnar stares up at the ceiling, trying to remember. Devon moves one hand up to just under Gunnar’s knee, and wedges one of his own legs underneath his thigh and applies some different pressure. This time, Gunnar can tell by the look on his face that he’s located the problem, which is what he expected anyway.

“It was really fast,” Gunnar says, as if that doesn’t describe basically everything in hockey. “I took a hit against the boards, not a hard one, just came down and tried to push off and don’t know, I think maybe my blade got wedged in along the boards or caught an edge or something.”

“How has it been since then?”

Gunnar shrugs against the table.

“It was swollen at first, but now it’s fine, I guess. Like, I’ve been wearing that brace I asked you for, and it’s really not bothering me that much, it just feels…kinda wobbly, every now and then. Not a lot.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you go walking around with ligaments all out of whack,” Devon says, and Gunnar sighs but doesn’t talk back, because he knows he probably deserves that. “You can go ahead and sit up.”

Gunnar does, swinging his legs over the side of the table.

“What do you want to do here, Gunns?” Devon asks, sitting down on the table across from the one Gunnar’s on, facing him. “You know what this is. You're the one who has to walk on it and play on it.”

“Yeah,” Gunnar lets his breath all out at once in a long, slow sigh. “I want to play, man. I have to.”

“No,” Devon shakes his head. “You’re choosing to.”

“Okay, fine, yeah, I need to play. Me, personally, I need to play. I don’t…” Gunnar falters then, and is absolutely mortified to find that his throat is tight and achy with emotion, choking up his words until he swallows hard, forcing all of that back down until he feels like he can talk again. “I don’t know how much longer I have left. Can you just tell me…am I going to make it worse?”

Devon shrugs, palms up.

“Maybe? Maybe not. You wear the brace, that’ll help. I have a better one I can give you, now that I know what’s going on. Maybe you stick it out and you’re fine, you look at surgery in the off season, if it comes to that. Maybe you’re out there and you put your weight on it wrong and it gives out on you and you just completely eat it face first into the boards. I don’t really have any way of knowing that. That’s my biggest concern here, decreased stability.”

“Okay, okay,” Gunnar sighs. “I get it. Give me the brace. I promise to come back if it starts to feel less stable, does that work?”

Devon gives him a look that says very clearly that he does not think much of this plan, but he’s obviously resigned to the fact that Gunnar’s mind is made up here.

“I want it on record that I’m advising against this,” he says, even though they’re both aware that this whole conversation is happening very much off the record.

“Can you also just keep this on the DL?” Gunnar asks. “I haven’t really…nobody else knows.”

“How many years have I been gluing you back together now, you don’t trust me with your medical information?” Devon asks, and Gunnar gives him a slight smile.

“Yeah. I know. Sorry, I just…you know, had to ask.” He slides off the edge of the table and stands up. At the moment, his knee feels fine - looks exactly the same as the other one. If he didn’t know there was something wrong with it, he doesn’t think he’d even be able to tell.

“When we get to Buffalo,” Devon tells him, “come in early, I’ll have the other brace for you then. Keep wearing the one you have for now, you'll be fine walking around, especially since you said you aren't having any trouble with it yet, but this new one will help more when you’re actually playing. There's some exercises you can do, too. Won't help much immediately, but wouldn't be a bad idea, especially if you're going to have it repaired this summer.”

“I'll do all the exercises,” Gunnar swears. Devon is watching him like he wants to say something else, and Gunnar is pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear it, but he also feels like he should at least ask. “What?”

“This isn’t like you, that’s all.” Devon shakes his head. “Out of all the guys on this team, you’re not the one I’d expect to be in here asking me how to play through an injury.”

“I know,” Gunnar sighs. He lifts both hands up, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes, suddenly very tired, the effort from practice beginning to catch up to him. “I promise, if it gets worse, I’ll sit. I just…look, with everything changing, with expansion, with guys leaving, with me just…you know, continuing to get older, I don’t want to waste my chances.”

“Yeah,” Devon nods. “And that’s the only reason I’m letting you get away with this. If it was earlier in the season…” 

“If it was earlier in the season, I wouldn’t even be asking.” Gunnar assures him. “It’s like ten more games, if we get through this round, and then worlds, and then I’ll get it fixed.”

“Oh, it’s worlds now too?”

Gunnar makes a face, because he hadn’t really intended to mention that.

“Well, I’m-“

“Not my jurisdiction,” Devon says, pretending to plug his ears. “You can take that up with your Swedish trainers, maybe they can talk some sense into you.”

“Maybe,” says Gunnar. “But first, Buffalo.”

“Yeah, take care of that first, then we’ll talk about what comes next.”

The brace Devon gets him really does help; he doesn’t feel like his knee is in any immediate risk of giving out on him, but just the same, he tries to play smart. He does end up coming clean to at least a couple of teammates (and also Johnny Hamilton, who does not actually yell at him), and it turns out it’s a lot better to not have all that burdening his conscience. Despite his physical concerns, his mental well-being is starting to take an upward trajectory, even when they immediately go down three games in the series against Buffalo.

They win game four, and avoid the sweep, but Gunnar knows just how much of an uphill battle it would be to come back completely, and he was really hoping they could play well enough to avoid taking the series to seven games. It is what it is, though, and he’s determined to make the most of the chance they have.

The day of game five, Gunnar is uncharacteristically quiet, not saying much through morning skate or even when a lot of them go to get food. He hopes everybody will just assume he’s nervous about the game - which he is, in more ways than one, but he’s pretty subdued right up until they’re all nearly ready to head out for warmups. He stands up then, and clears his throat, and this feels weird, because he’s not this team’s captain, that’s Corey, Gunnar doesn’t even wear an A, but he has stuff he wants to say, and now he’s standing there and eyes are on him so he presses on.

“Guys, I just want to say…” He clears his throat. “Look, no matter what happens out there today, I know I’m gonna come back in here after this game and I’m going to be so fucking proud of us. I’m always proud of us.” He swallows hard, and looks around, trying to commit every single face in the room to memory. It’s not that he thinks he’s done after this; he knows he has more hockey left in him, and he’s going to deal with the knee thing in the offseason. It’s just that he knows this team is going to look very different next year; management has already shifted, and there’s expansion coming up, and while Gunnar is reasonably sure he himself is going to still be here next year, he knows there are people who won’t be, and that’s just a lot to think about on top of all the other stuff he’s been dealing with.

“I’m proud,” he says again, “of everything we’ve done here. No matter what.”

And then it’s game time.

Matteo · 05-28-2021, 02:57 PM

roastpuff · 05-28-2021, 04:45 PM

What a read. Thank you.

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