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Doug can't see too great out of his right eye, or at all out of his left, really, but he can hear just fine and the roar that goes up when the clock winds down is pretty much the best thing he's ever heard in his life. And as it turns out his ankle's not actually too fucked, so that's good. Parky looks at it after he finishes stitching up Doug's face, and he just says, "Elevation, ice, and rest. And stop fucking bowing at me, fucker."
So it looks like he's gonna miss some time, but that's okay; he's known all along that he won't have much to do in the postseason. But the idea of his team out there without him to watch their backs makes him a little antsy anyway. Plus it would be so fucking amazing to play in a playoff game, even just one, even just to be on the bench for it. So he tells the guys they better win and keep winning, just says it over and over, slurring a little from the painkillers, until they tell him to shut up. After that he just thinks it at them, willing the thought to go from his brain to theirs. He shoots the message out of his eyes--well, his eye--as hard as he can in the locker room, in the showers (that gets kind of awkward, especially since Doug's not showering himself or even naked, just sort of propped up all awkward and bleeding in the corner), on the bus, and when they're at the bar celebrating the Highlanders' first playoff berth in five years.
Mostly the guys aren't even paying attention, though. Stevesy's too busy holding up Gord's beer so Gord can cry into it, and Coach is too busy telling the jukebox how fucking proud he is of it. Belchy, meanwhile, is just doing what he always seems to be doing, which is shouting at the Russians.
"Give me back my fucking bunnyhug!" is what Belchy's shouting right now, and Doug has to laugh, because that's a really funny word for it. But totally right, when you think about it, because it's fuzzy and warm and it goes around your arms exactly like a hug.
"I hug your mama's bunny last night," Oleg says, holding the hoodie out of Belchy's reach. "So soft, I can't stop petting it all night."
"He mean he fucked her," Evgeni adds helpfully, taking it from Oleg, grinding it into his crotch, and then tossing it back, "because your mama's pussy is hairy like little rabbit. That's why joke is."
"Yeah, I fucking got that, you fucking vodka-for-brains, Anastasia motherfuckers!"
It'll probably be a while before Belchy gets it back, but Doug knows that it isn't really about the hoodie so much as the Percocets in the pocket, so he stops Belchy and passes the dutchie. Belchy actually kisses the pills that Doug shakes into his palm and then looks at Doug really intensely, sort of gratefully, but mostly just scarily, then leaves to... commune with his stash some more? Whatever, Doug knows exactly how he feels. He goes back to doing his own grateful staring at the rest of his teammates. Every so often, he catches Xavier looking back, smiling around the girls in his lap.
*
Eventually he has to go home, because even all the beer and painkillers and happiness in the world can't keep you upright forever. It was probably a terrible idea to come out in the first place but he wanted to be here with his team and he figures he's got plenty of time ahead of him to rest his ankle, so tonight it's okay to sit at a bar for a while and then limp home using Xavier for a crutch.
That said, he starts listing pretty heavily to the right somewhere around the 7-16 so Xavier has to struggle a little to hold him up, but Xavier's still smiling anyway. In fact he hasn't stopped smiling since the game ended. Doug knows exactly how he feels. Even slipping on the late spring slush for the millionth time can't bring him down. He lands weirdly on his ankle this time and it really fucking hurts, though, even through the fog of the pills, so he can't help swearing.
"Tabernacle!" he says, and Xavier starts laughing. "What? That's what you say, right?"
"No," Xavier says, snorting. "Your French is fucking terrible, man."
"No, you're fucking terrible, and French," Doug says. Xavier just laughs harder.
They make it up the steps and through the door just fine, but getting past the leaning tower of pizza boxes is a little trickier. Doug thinks that maybe, now that he's got some time to kill, he should take those out to the recycling bin. The empties, too. It's kind of funny how taking out other people's trash back in Orangetown was the worst chore but in Halifax it's a great idea for something to do on a day off. It's probably because it's different when it's your place.
Xavier gets him into his room eventually and dumps him onto the bed. He turns to go, but Doug has something really important to say, so he grabs Xavier's hand and pulls him down to sit.
"I gave it a month," he says, and he tries to look at Xavier really hard like before, with a lot of meaning and feeling and shit, because he wants him to understand, but Xavier just looks puzzled. So he explains, "You told me to wait a month and see if I felt the same way. And I do. All that stuff Gord said about being a family--"
"That's complete shit, " Xavier says, shrugging and looking down at his hand where it's still enveloped in Doug's. "It's just something to say before a game to get everyone going."
"No, I mean it," Doug says fervently. "And Gord meant it, too. This is a family, for real. It's like I have all these new brothers now, and a dad who's actually proud of me, and a sister, too, except I don't really want Eva to be my sister because that would be kind of weird, and Pat is our crazy cousin who we wish could visit more and Ira is like my other brother, the gay one, on account of how he's also my gay brother in real life. You know?"
Xavier keeps looking down, but not at their hands now. More like at the floor. Doug's maybe not the sharpest skate in the skate sharpener, but Xavier almost seems like he's embarrassed or something. He actually looks really young. Doug always forgets how young he is, how he's just a kid, really. A kid who got lost.
"And me?" Xavier says finally, looking up at Doug through his eyelashes. "I'm in your family, too?"
"Yes!" Doug says, so happy that Xavier's finally getting it. "I look at you and I'm home. And I don't want to forget that. Even though I wouldn't forget it anyway, because I don't have amnesia, and also I'm not a fish."
Xavier rolls his eyes and looks kind of confused, but he also pats Doug's hand after pulling his own away, and even smiles a little as he turns out the light. "Bonne nuit," he says, and for the first time it doesn't even sound sarcastic.
"Bonne nuit," Doug says back. It's kind of their thing now, he guesses.
*
When Doug wakes up the light’s slanting across the room and his mouth has grown fur. The apartment is silent, so Xavier's gone, probably at the practice Coach scheduled mercifully late in the day. Doug fumbles on the bedside table for the glass of water that wasn't there last night, swallows the two pills next to the glass, and reads the note under the pills. It says, in careful, rounded letters, "I'mWe're going to win this one just for you. –X". Doug smiles at it and, even though Xavier's not actually there, he can't help saying, "Thank you, that's so nice of you." Because it really, really is. Then he puts the note in the drawer where he keeps all his important things made of paper, like Loupy and his ticket stub from the Assassins game that gave him his thing.
When he gets up, eventually, hobbling, he takes out the trash, and he e-mails his parents about making the playoffs because he doesn't need to hear their disapproval over the phone. Then he sits down with beer and soup and a fuckton of ice to find out who the Highlanders will be playing in the first round. When he turns the TV on, it's paused in the middle of Finding Nemo. Doug grins and thinks about how they'll all swim to Sydney together.