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There are days that come and go so badly that they don’t belong to anybody. He is underwater, trapped under something, and everytime he feels ready to come up and take a breath and go under and fight again, the wind is knocked out of him because he’s stuck, trapped, and doing everything he can. Kicking his legs only tires him. Fighting back feels useless.
He crawls into his bed lazy and fluid and curls up like cat and holds the hot anger in the core of his stomach. Post-game workout sweat still pools at the nape of his neck, where the hood of sweatshirt bunches up, the sweat turned cool from the slight chill of late October air.
A tired refrain of blame echoes in his head until the narrative exhausts itself and he clicks his phone on -- time passes so slowly, he can’t believe it’s only been minutes since he laid down -- and the phone, recognizing his face, unlocks. As if it knows, it opens to his messages with Teuvo, the last one reading: “I’m so sorry.”
He taps the call button without even thinking, knowing that it’s late, that anybody would be exhausted at this hour, and that Teuvo could very well be sleeping, but the line rings its bubbly ring for only a second before Teuvo answers.
His voice is steady and sturdy. Just to hear him, syllables familiar and in a language he doesn’t have to think twice about, is enough.
“Hello?”
Sebastian, who has been holding his breath, can only manage one syllable before he chokes, and doesn’t even try to brush it away. He just lets it out. Any semblance of restraint is completely blown by the hot tears that spill sideways over his cheeks and onto the pillowcase.
Teuvo lets him be for a moment, and then says: “I’m coming.”
The line beeps, declaring the call ended. Sebastian is frozen in place, soft sobs wracking his body. It’s not fair. He replays every minute of ice time in his mind and catches every place he could have been better. Should have been better. He should have been better.
After everything, he can’t believe the first goal--the first goal he would really count as his own--would come like this, in such a soul crushing defeat. After everything, after the effort and the immediate success, it comes crashing down. They took it for granted. Maybe he took it for granted, too. Or maybe he didn’t work hard enough.
He should have been better. It’s not fair.
A warm body curves around his. He hadn’t even heard Teuvo enter. Warm arms wrap around his torso, pulling his back flush against Teuvo’s stomach. He feels Teuvo’s grip tighten and then relax, and he lets out the beginning of a sigh before it catches in his throat, and he chokes out another cry.
Teuvo is murmuring to him now, softly and nonsensically. Sebastian wriggles about awkwardly until he manages to turn and face inward, burying his face in Teuvo’s chest. He smells like the fucking locker room with a distant hint of soap and the scent of new clothes that hangs on the fabric of his sweatshirt. Sebastian curls one arm around Teuvo’s back and grips the fabric of the sweatshirt in his hands, trying to shake off every thought in favor of slipping his other hand underneath the frontside of Teuvo’s shirt and laying his hand flat against Teuvo’s warm chest, reveling in the feeling of skin on skin.
Now he presses a tender kiss in Sebastian’s slightly damp hair and gently pushes thick strands of hair from his forehead. Now he buries his face in the brown hair and breathes a hot breath into it. Now Sebastian pulls back slightly, looking up at Teuvo with dark, frustrated eyes.
He shoves his head back down and buries it in Teuvo’s sweatshirt, and Teuvo starts to twirl a strand of hair in his hand. “It’s not your fault,” he says.
Sebastian fights every urge to counter this with every mistake he’s made, every lapse in judgement, every moment of too-slow-skating. But Teuvo doesn’t even allow it. “You gave it everything you had.”
Something far away in him tells him that this is true, but he shoves it down. All he can think is it’s not fair. He should have been better.
Teuvo, knowingly, lets out a small sigh. He reminds Sebastian that all he needs to do is breathe. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, blowing warm air against the top of Sebastian’s ear, and Sebastian sighs quietly but heavily.
“Good,” says Teuvo, something like a smile of approval tugging at one corner of his lips.
He lets himself melt into the embrace. He feels Teuvo’s arms curled around his body. He rubs his foot against Teuvo’s, curling their legs together.
Then he pulls back and looks at Teuvo again, this time something different about his gaze. Frustration still seeps through, but something like thankfulness starts to show in the way the light reflects in his puffy, red-from-crying eyes. Teuvo brushes his finger against Sebastian’s jawline. Sebastian involuntarily parts his mouth, letting a breath out between his lips.
Teuvo asks with his eyes. Sebastian answers by leaning in and kissing Teuvo’s lips delicately, as if something will break if he kisses him any harder than this. Maybe it will. Teuvo’s hand rests on Sebastian’s cheek and thumbs faintly over his cheekbone as he kisses him back.
He’s not sure who pulls back first. They look at each other quietly, just-kissed lips wet and warm.
Away melts the media scrums, the flukes, the mistakes, every moment of shame coursing through his veins as he works out harder than he had ever worked out before. Something is born in the space between where Sebastian’s lips end and Teuvo’s begin, and Teuvo brings Sebastian’s hand to his mouth and presses kisses into each cool knuckle. Something fresh hangs between them, and Sebastian summons his first words.
“It’s not fair,” Sebastian says.
“I know,” says Teuvo.
“I should have been better,” Sebastian says.
“You gave it everything you had,” says Teuvo.