And Heaven Too
Appendix A
Dell is really used to disappointment. She’s had some tough fucking classes. Getting into first grad school and then post-grad had both been months-long trials littered with expenses and rejection. Publishing . . . don’t even get her started.
Despite all of her experience with rough times she’s so completely unprepared for the start of the Capitals’ season. She’s not prepared for Mike showing up at her place after another away loss, looking the entire world like he’s just watched a beloved pet get hit by a car. She couldn’t have ever imagined the defeat in his eyes, so clearly visible even from her seat across the ice after a home game.
She didn’t think it’d be this hard to watch her boyfriend’s frustration and irritation build, able to only give him hugs and hold on tight during the harder nights.
Dell was also totally not expecting to find it so hard to watch games. When she watches him go down behind the goal hard, time and time again, she swears her heart is going to bust free from her chest in a glorious arch of blood and fear. She thinks she should stop going to home games because her sanity can’t take this.
And then Mike goes and gets himself injured. She half watches the first rematch between the Caps and the Bolts since that ass kicking on opening day, focusing on another chapter to her thesis, when Mike gets hurts. There’s no announcement. Nothing seems off. The Caps win and Mike never shows signs of injury.
When he gets back though, later than she ever stays up, he’s slow crawling into her bed. He doesn’t even bother stripping, just crashes in an undershirt and his boxers. It’s the first time since the season started that he hasn’t tried to get into her pants the next morning. She comes awake to him quietly watching her instead. She’s surprised. It’s rare that he gets up before her.
“Hey, handsome. Good game last night.” He smiles back softly and presses a kiss to her forehead before wrapping her up for a hug. He’s favoring his lower body; she hugs him back because he’s always affectionate but almost never without ulterior motives. This morning, though, he absolutely does not try anything more than the hug.
She makes him breakfast before she has to head to work and he sends her off with a lingering kiss and the promise that he’ll call her later. By now it’s not strange at all that he remains at her place, probably to get some more sleep, instead of going back to his own.
He doesn’t call later. Dell doesn’t even realize they’ve kept up radio silence all day until she’s at home, making dinner for just her. She pauses and calls him, just to see what he’s up to. They don’t see each other a whole lot, what with the schedule, and it’s usual for them to spend lots of time together when he’s in town.
He doesn’t answer. She frowns at her phone but ignores it. Part of that whole ‘dealing with Mike’s disappointment and frustration’ thing has been giving him as much space as he needs. He always comes around.
She finds out he’s hurt at work, actually. Christian and Cecilia both corner her, demanding explanations for why Mike left practice early yesterday and the words ‘undisclosed lower-body injury’ make her freeze. She stares them both down before grabbing her phone and walking to Anders’s office. Her boss is gone so she’s got peace and quiet for her call.
Mike picks up this time and he sounds wrecked. Utterly displeased and angry and frustrated and defeated. “I got fourteen games, Dell. Just fourteen games.”
She collapses into a chair and listens to Mike describe the game in Tampa, pain in his hip. It sounds like a hip flexor, or maybe a groin. He’d told her, not two weeks ago, about his surgery last year. She can tell he’s struggling with all of this. “It’s not bad, though. Right? You finished out the game.”
He scoffs and she hears people in the background. He’s gotta be in New York. The team’s got a game tonight too. “I’m not playing against the Rangers. This sucks, so fucking much.”
She doesn’t know what else to say so she just tells him to take it easy and call her later if he needs to.
He doesn’t call.
The Caps have a long home stand coming up. When the team gets back late Sunday she makes sure she’s waiting at Mike’s for him and she just holds her arms open for him when he stumbles through the door. He really isn’t getting around too great, she realizes. She takes him straight to bed, not for sex. Instead she gets him sprawled out across her chest while she rubs out the kinks in his shoulders.
“What if this is it? What if I never really get better? Guys who retire before they’re 30 are like cautionary tales in this league: don’t ever fuck yourself up too bad.” Mike is mumbling, wondering aloud, and she hates to hear him like this.
“I’m gonna have arthritis pretty soon. How can I keep this up if I’m injured all the fucking time?” She shushes him before she bends and kisses the top of his head.
“If you think you’re done, you will be.” He lifts his head up so she can get a good look at his face. He looks so fucking sad and it rips into her heart in a new and horribly exciting way. She aims for nerdy reinforcement. “Never give up. Never surrender. You were practicing for months without injury. This is probably just your body’s way of telling you it’s not ready for this style of play.”
His eyes grow dark and he frowns. “This style of play is all we’ve got. I either adapt or I don’t. There’s no slowing down.”
She really can’t argue that. Half his frustration has been the ‘Oates System’. She settles for brushing his hair away from his eyes. It’s so thick now that it just falls right back into his face. She presses her palm to his cheek instead. “I’ll never give up on you. Not again; I’ll be hard pressed to forget what that feels like. If I can keep the faith, so can you.”
She smirks a little and kisses his forehead. “This, too, shall pass. And it doesn’t fucking matter if you guys make the playoffs or stay in last place for the rest of the season. You’ve still got miles to go before you hang up your skates.” He doesn’t look pleased about the reminder that the Caps aren’t winning but he at least cracks part of a smile. “Besides. When I get to be a doctor, you won’t even have to worry about not having a job. You can come work for me on some digs. I’d love to get you in the field with a shovel.”
She squeals with laughter when his fingers find her ribs. She’s just recently started joking about having her PhD and taking care of him. They’re both pretty sure that she’ll never actually need to but there’s an underlying finality there; she’s really starting to consider him in her future long term. She can tell by the way his face looks less stressed that he’s pretty okay with it too.
He kisses her deeply before pulling her against his chest. “I could never go to the field with you. You’d make me take my shirt off all the time and I’d get horribly sunburned.”
She laughs and snuggles inside his embrace. “You are a rather pasty Canadian. You’d tan fast enough, though.” She actually really likes thinking about having Mike on a dig with her: long and hard days, relaxing swims in the ocean at the end, campfires and singing and lazy sex under the stars. She shifts a little at that thought and Mike’s groan behind her is warning enough to stop rubbing against his crotch.
The season is still new. Mike is still hurt. Like she said, there are miles to go still and so much could happen.
Despite all of her experience with rough times she’s so completely unprepared for the start of the Capitals’ season. She’s not prepared for Mike showing up at her place after another away loss, looking the entire world like he’s just watched a beloved pet get hit by a car. She couldn’t have ever imagined the defeat in his eyes, so clearly visible even from her seat across the ice after a home game.
She didn’t think it’d be this hard to watch her boyfriend’s frustration and irritation build, able to only give him hugs and hold on tight during the harder nights.
Dell was also totally not expecting to find it so hard to watch games. When she watches him go down behind the goal hard, time and time again, she swears her heart is going to bust free from her chest in a glorious arch of blood and fear. She thinks she should stop going to home games because her sanity can’t take this.
And then Mike goes and gets himself injured. She half watches the first rematch between the Caps and the Bolts since that ass kicking on opening day, focusing on another chapter to her thesis, when Mike gets hurts. There’s no announcement. Nothing seems off. The Caps win and Mike never shows signs of injury.
When he gets back though, later than she ever stays up, he’s slow crawling into her bed. He doesn’t even bother stripping, just crashes in an undershirt and his boxers. It’s the first time since the season started that he hasn’t tried to get into her pants the next morning. She comes awake to him quietly watching her instead. She’s surprised. It’s rare that he gets up before her.
“Hey, handsome. Good game last night.” He smiles back softly and presses a kiss to her forehead before wrapping her up for a hug. He’s favoring his lower body; she hugs him back because he’s always affectionate but almost never without ulterior motives. This morning, though, he absolutely does not try anything more than the hug.
She makes him breakfast before she has to head to work and he sends her off with a lingering kiss and the promise that he’ll call her later. By now it’s not strange at all that he remains at her place, probably to get some more sleep, instead of going back to his own.
He doesn’t call later. Dell doesn’t even realize they’ve kept up radio silence all day until she’s at home, making dinner for just her. She pauses and calls him, just to see what he’s up to. They don’t see each other a whole lot, what with the schedule, and it’s usual for them to spend lots of time together when he’s in town.
He doesn’t answer. She frowns at her phone but ignores it. Part of that whole ‘dealing with Mike’s disappointment and frustration’ thing has been giving him as much space as he needs. He always comes around.
She finds out he’s hurt at work, actually. Christian and Cecilia both corner her, demanding explanations for why Mike left practice early yesterday and the words ‘undisclosed lower-body injury’ make her freeze. She stares them both down before grabbing her phone and walking to Anders’s office. Her boss is gone so she’s got peace and quiet for her call.
Mike picks up this time and he sounds wrecked. Utterly displeased and angry and frustrated and defeated. “I got fourteen games, Dell. Just fourteen games.”
She collapses into a chair and listens to Mike describe the game in Tampa, pain in his hip. It sounds like a hip flexor, or maybe a groin. He’d told her, not two weeks ago, about his surgery last year. She can tell he’s struggling with all of this. “It’s not bad, though. Right? You finished out the game.”
He scoffs and she hears people in the background. He’s gotta be in New York. The team’s got a game tonight too. “I’m not playing against the Rangers. This sucks, so fucking much.”
She doesn’t know what else to say so she just tells him to take it easy and call her later if he needs to.
He doesn’t call.
The Caps have a long home stand coming up. When the team gets back late Sunday she makes sure she’s waiting at Mike’s for him and she just holds her arms open for him when he stumbles through the door. He really isn’t getting around too great, she realizes. She takes him straight to bed, not for sex. Instead she gets him sprawled out across her chest while she rubs out the kinks in his shoulders.
“What if this is it? What if I never really get better? Guys who retire before they’re 30 are like cautionary tales in this league: don’t ever fuck yourself up too bad.” Mike is mumbling, wondering aloud, and she hates to hear him like this.
“I’m gonna have arthritis pretty soon. How can I keep this up if I’m injured all the fucking time?” She shushes him before she bends and kisses the top of his head.
“If you think you’re done, you will be.” He lifts his head up so she can get a good look at his face. He looks so fucking sad and it rips into her heart in a new and horribly exciting way. She aims for nerdy reinforcement. “Never give up. Never surrender. You were practicing for months without injury. This is probably just your body’s way of telling you it’s not ready for this style of play.”
His eyes grow dark and he frowns. “This style of play is all we’ve got. I either adapt or I don’t. There’s no slowing down.”
She really can’t argue that. Half his frustration has been the ‘Oates System’. She settles for brushing his hair away from his eyes. It’s so thick now that it just falls right back into his face. She presses her palm to his cheek instead. “I’ll never give up on you. Not again; I’ll be hard pressed to forget what that feels like. If I can keep the faith, so can you.”
She smirks a little and kisses his forehead. “This, too, shall pass. And it doesn’t fucking matter if you guys make the playoffs or stay in last place for the rest of the season. You’ve still got miles to go before you hang up your skates.” He doesn’t look pleased about the reminder that the Caps aren’t winning but he at least cracks part of a smile. “Besides. When I get to be a doctor, you won’t even have to worry about not having a job. You can come work for me on some digs. I’d love to get you in the field with a shovel.”
She squeals with laughter when his fingers find her ribs. She’s just recently started joking about having her PhD and taking care of him. They’re both pretty sure that she’ll never actually need to but there’s an underlying finality there; she’s really starting to consider him in her future long term. She can tell by the way his face looks less stressed that he’s pretty okay with it too.
He kisses her deeply before pulling her against his chest. “I could never go to the field with you. You’d make me take my shirt off all the time and I’d get horribly sunburned.”
She laughs and snuggles inside his embrace. “You are a rather pasty Canadian. You’d tan fast enough, though.” She actually really likes thinking about having Mike on a dig with her: long and hard days, relaxing swims in the ocean at the end, campfires and singing and lazy sex under the stars. She shifts a little at that thought and Mike’s groan behind her is warning enough to stop rubbing against his crotch.
The season is still new. Mike is still hurt. Like she said, there are miles to go still and so much could happen.
9/9/13