Chapter Text
The ice is ice. That’s all it is—it’s frozen water, and beneath it is paint and beneath that is concrete. Under the concrete is the coolant system, which has never failed as long as Loren has had the immense privilege of skating on home ice.
Montreal is home. This is home ice.
It’s the same as it has been the last hundred times he’s skated out into the flashing lights of the pre-game show—Niko ahead of him, Nilsson behind. The red, white, and blue of his sweater are the same as they have been for the past three years—23 painted across his back, Eckhart sewn into his nameplate.
He can hear the roar of the crowd from the tunnel, swaying back and forth on the edges of his skates. It’s a bad habit, really—too sharp of a sway and he could over-extend an ankle. But that’s the nature of the game, right? One wrong move, one dirty hit, one badly angled slam into the boards and that’s it. It’s over.
His trap hurts, and he feels unsteady on his skates in a way that he hasn’t felt since he was in mini-mites back in Toronto.
Toronto—they’re playing Toronto tonight. He couldn’t remember that when he woke up this morning and it freaked him out so bad he had to go drown himself in the shower for thirty minutes to try and calm down. Standing hunched in the spray, eyes squeezed shut, burning water running over his shoulders, he was almost himself again.
Niko catches his eye from where he’s leant up against the tunnel wall, a silent are you okay dancing in the reflection in his dark eyes. Loren shakes his head—don’t ask me that now. He doesn’t need Niko’s concern, not now, when they’re about to play against Loren’s hometown team. He can handle himself—probably. Everyone’s doing their last-minute rituals: chest bumps, handshakes, hopping up and down in place. Usually, Loren would be right there with them, but his limbs feel like they’re submerged in molasses, held down by his sides.
And then—it’s go time.
For a moment, when he steps out into the rink, blades sliding across the cold, hard ice, the world goes quiet. To Loren, it sounds like he’s underwater—like he’s five again, sitting crosslegged at the bottom of his grandfather’s swimming pool, seeing how long he can hold his breath for before the darkness starts to creep in.
But Loren’s not five anymore, and he’s not sitting crosslegged at the bottom of the pool he learned to swim in—he’s adrift in unfamiliar waters, pulled under by the waves, breath burning in his chest, somersaulting with no way of knowing what is up or down. Praying that eventually the tumbling ceases. Knowing that he’s running out of air.
He barely hears the anthem, head hung low, chin to chest pad. He can feel Niko standing beside him, the familiar teeter tottering of him standing in one spot on skates reverberating through every nerve in Loren’s body—grating his last resolve into shreds. He aches to reach out to Niko, to slip his hand into his, but there are a dozen cameras on them and anyway, he left any chance for even those small comforts in a sunlit condo in the Old Port.
As the anthem’s final notes ring out, the crowd comes roaring back into focus—thousands of people screaming for them. Screaming at them. Montreal is only kind when their players perform. Even then, Loren has discovered, their kindness feels more like stabbing himself with candy-coated needles over and over again.
He feels outside of himself, slotting into place for the center-ice faceoff—behind Niko and to the left, just like he always does, tensed to take the puck should it come his way. Everything goes quiet again, this time for real—a hush falls over the crowd, like they’re hungry for blood. Loren only has one thought as the puck drops—
I can’t do this any more.