Savard's Choice (4/4)
Jun. 22nd, 2008 12:37 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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2minsforslashingCharacters: Marc Savard; Vladimir Sobotka; Phil Kessel; Zdeno Chara; Shawn Thornton; David Krejci; Milan Lucic; Marco Sturm; Andrew Ference
Rating: R (for denoument)
Time: Training camp 2008
Summary: The Bruins close ranks.
Author's note: The title of this series is a play on the expression "Hobson's Choice."
Disclaimer: A fictional story, with no truth involved.
Vladimir Sobotka walked unsteadily over the brick sidewalks of the North End, blinded by unshed tears. His foot hit an uneven brick and he tripped, falling heavily to his knees. The shock rattled his body. His ass hurt. His head hurt.
Get the fuck out of my life.
He staggered on, his feet steering him home, even as his mind reeled. It couldn't be because of Phil, could it? That would spark only a jealous reaction, perhaps some anger. He knew Savvy that well. At least he thought he did. This was far, far beyond that.
Why, Marc? Why?
Vladimir didn't know. All he knew was he had to go to practice tomorrow. And share a locker room with the man he loved. A man who hated him.
He wept then, his tears fallling unheeded to the bricks below his feet.
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Marc Savard waited outside Ristuccia Arena for Shawn Thornton to arrive at practice. "Hey, Shawn!" he shouted when he saw the burly forward climb out of his car. "Over here!"
"What is it, Marc?" Thornton asked, following Savard around the side of the building. "What - hey!"
Savard lunged, slamming Shawn up against the wall. "You BASTARD!" he shouted. "Why did you do that? Why did you have to ruin my life?! Why? What the FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!"
Thornton shoved Marc away easily. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, more puzzled than pissed.
"I've been outed, you bastard! And you did it! I know you did! My EX-WIFE knows! I'm going to lose everything! Everything!" he choked on the word. "Everything."
"Marc, I didn't tell anyone anything! I swear! Just Marco and Andy! And Erin, geez, Marc, you know Erin loves you - she wouldn't tell a soul!"
Savard seemed a beat behind in processing Thornton's words. Finally, he blinked. "You... you didn't..."
"No, I didn't," Shawn said. "And really, Marc, what the hell are you doing? You know I could kill you with one hand. Jesus."
"Maybe you should," Savard looked at the ground. His shoulders slumped.
Thornton looked at his teammate. "There's only one thing for it," he said. "Let's talk to Chara." He grabbed Savard by the arm and pulled him to the door of the arena.
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Sobotka entered the locker room with his head down, hampered by a slight limp. He walked slowly to his locker next to David Krejci, who was talking animatedly with Milan Lucic. Krejci turned his sunny smile on his countryman, only to falter at the look on Vladimir's face. The young Czech center's eyes were red and he looked as if he hadn't slept all night.
"Bad dreams again, Vladdie?" Krejci asked. Sobotka regarded him for a long moment, then nodded, silent. David turned to Milan. Lucic shook his head.
The big Canadian leaned over Sobotka. "Vladdie, what's wrong? What happened?" he asked bluntly.
"Nothing," Vladimir said. He pulled his arm violently away from Krejci's touch. "Nothing! Leave me alone!"
At that moment, Thornton walked in, dragging Savard along. He took in the scene, noticed the way Sobotka recoiled at Savard's appearance, fear flashing in his face, and narrowed his eyes. Catching Andrew Ference's eye, he jerked his head and pulled Savard out into the hall. Marc felt like a rag doll.
"Where's Chara?" he asked.
"Weight room," Andy said. "What's going on?"
"Get Marco and meet us there. We've got to talk to Zee," Thornton said, yanking Savard away.
"So you got outed and you took it out on Vladdie, did you?" Shawn hissed, dragging the center down the hall to the weight room. "Nice move, Savard. Jesus."
Marc finally jerked his arm out of Thornton's iron grip. "You don't understand anything," he said. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Your teammate, dammit. And Vladdie's too." He banged the door open and shoved Marc into the room. Chara lay on a bench, lifting hand weights. He dropped them to the floor at their entrance. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Marc will tell you." Thornton shoved Savard forward. Marc glared at Shawn as the door to the locker room opened and Ference and Sturm came in.
"What are they doing here?" Savard asked. Sturm looked offended. "Thanks a lot, Marc. I thought we didn't have any secrets. And as for Andy, he knows. He should know what's going on. If there's something wrong, we want to help."
Marc slumped onto a bench. "It doesn't matter. Nobody can help me. She's taking the kids away from me... she said I'm... I'm... a pervert," he whispered. Sturm looked at Thornton, who glared back. "It wasn't me, Marco! Don't look at me like that!"
Chara stood up. "Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that a father can't lose his children. What is she threatening, exactly?" Marc told him. Chara listened carefully, his eyes intent. Then he leaned over and cupped Savvy's cheek briefly. "Don't do anything rash. I'll be back as soon as I can." He walked out of the weight room and into the hall, heading for Coach Julien's office.
"He - he's not going to say anything to Claude, is he?" Savard looked around at the other players, stupefied. They shook their heads, unsure.
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Chara knocked and entered the coach's office. "Yes, Zee?" Julien said. "Ready for practice?"
"Claude, I've to got take a couple of days off," the big defenseman said. "It's an emergency."
Julien blinked. "Two days of training camp? Really? Family emergency?"
"Yes," Chara said. "Family."
"OK, Zee," the coach said. "Just keep us posted, all right? Want me to call Peter?"
"Thanks, I'll talk to him myself," Chara said, and left, amost running out of the arena and jumping into his car. He headed for Boston, flipping open his cell phone as he drove.
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Vladdie wouldn't look at him, wouldn't acknowledge his presense, would barely accept his passes. Kessel just reacted like a frightened kitten whenever Savard came close, skittering away. Marc didn't blame either of them. His murderous fury had ebbed away, leaving behind an aching melancholy that made it difficult for him to even move, let alone skate.
He fell flat for the umpteeth time, and his chin connected with the ice, opening a substantial cut. The trainer waved him over and pressed a towel to his face. "Stitches," he said. "Fine," Marc said, staring gloomily at the needle. "Daddy, I don't want to get a shot!" a piping voice echoed in his head. "Needles are bad! They hurt!" He closed his eyes as tears slipped out, rolling down his cheeks as the needle pierced his skin.
He drove home alone after practice, didn't bother with dinner, and sat in his apartment the rest of the night, staring at the walls.
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"There's something decidedly fishy about this," Ference said quietly to Sturm as they dressed side by side after practice. "Shawn didn't say anything. Marc hasn't been with anyone outside this club. He hasn't been prowling around gay hangouts. Where did this story come from?"
Sturm shrugged. Andy looked at him, then his eyes glazed over. The sound of cursing filled his ears. A Nova Scotia accent. Black gloves flying through the air. The crowd screaming. Savvy skating away, a quick rejoinder on his lips. The door of a penalty box slamming.
"Pittsburgh," he said slowly. "That's got to be it. Pittsburgh!"
"Pittsburgh?" Sturm repeated. "Huh?"
"Just a hunch," Ference said. "I gotta go home and make a call. I'll call you if anything turns up." he hurriedly threw on the rest of his clothes and rushed out.
"Pittsburgh?" Marco said.
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Ference sprinted from his car to his North End condo, slammed the door open, and breathlessly started pawing through the desk drawers under his computer. "Where the hell is that address book?" he muttered. There! He opened it, quickly leafed through to the O's, and punched a number into his cell phone.
"Brooksie? Hi, it's Andy Ference. Great, how are you? Say, Brooksie, you got some time? Are you alone? I need to ask you a few things. Yeah, it's really important. Very important. No, I'm not being overly dramatic. Just listen, OK? Do you remember when we played you guys, in Boston, just before the playoffs..."
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Sturm was eating dinner with his family when his cell phone rang. His wife rolled her eyes. "Marco, you're supposed to turn that thing off at dinner, remember?" He smiled sheepishly, but pulled the phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Andy.
"I got it," Ference said. "Can you meet me here in an hour?"
"I'll be there," Sturm said.
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"Sidney Crosby," Sturm said. "That little shit. Why, Andy? Why would he pull something like this?"
"I don't think there's much love lost between him and Savvy, to put it mildly," Ference said. "You know Marc's not exactly the most popular guy in the league. That said, I don't think this is any sort of vendetta by Crosby - he just saw a way to make Marc look bad. Did he ever."
From the sketchy details his former teammate Brooks Orpik had provided, Andy had pieced the story together. Crosby has missed practice after his night with David Krejci and had told - in strictest confidence, yeah right - a couple of like-minded teammates that he'd spent the night with Marc Savard. And that Savard had decidedly weird tastes. Frighteningly weird. So weird that, well, they were better left to the imagination, because he wasn't going to go into detail.
Juicy gossip travels faster than the speed of light. Andy imagined that the story quickly spread to some players' wives, and that the tale grew in the telling. Marc's ex-wife must know someone, or know someone who knows someone... Andy didn't bother going down that trail. As Zdeno said, it didn't matter.
Marco opened his phone and hit the speed dial for Zdeno Chara.
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Savard slogged his way through another practice the next day. The Bruins were in two-a-days, giving him hours to stink up the rink. He missed shots, fell on his ass, bounced off the boards. Sobotka wasn't much better, and Kessel even worse. "What the fuck is up with the centers on this team?" shouted Doug Houda. "You can't get out of your own fucking way! Give me 20 wind sprints! NOW!"
The three players put their heads down and skated grimly, all collapsing at the finish as their teammates left the ice. Sobotka got up first and wobbled off, followed by Kessel. Savard lay face down on the ice, his eyes closed, chest heaving, until Houda shouted at him to get his ass out of the rink, goddamit.
He staggered to the locker room and peeled his equipment off slowly, staring into space. He showered even more slowly, letting the water pound him, and re-entered the locker room to find it all but empty. Only Sturm, Ference and Thornton remained, chatting quietly. As Marc pulled on his boxers and reached for his pants, his cell phone buzzed, signaling a text message. He sighed, pulled the phone of out his pants pocket, and looked at the screen.
U WIN SAME VISIT
Marc blinked and stared. "Wha - what?" he said aloud. "What?" He looked up. "Marco! Look!" He waved the phone.
Sturm snatched the phone, looked, and broke into a dazzling smile. He handed it to Ference, who showed it to Thornton. They grinned.
"How... how...?" Marc stared at his teammates.
Sturm and Ference looked at each other. "Chara," they said, in unison. Andy handed the phone back to Savard. It buzzed again in his hands. He looked at the screen and pressed a button. A new message popped up.
LUV U DADDY
Marc burst into tears.
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Kessel met Savard at the door of the arena the next morning. "Savvy, I'm sorry," he said, before Marc could open his mouth. "Zee told me everything. I'm so fucking sorry. I never should have been in your apartment, I never should have touched Vladdie, I never should have done that to you, when you were trying to deal with all that shit. I'm an asshole."
Savvy shook his head. "I'm the asshole, Kes. I hurt you, I hurt Vladdie. I hate myself for that. I'm sorry. I... I'm so sorry."
The two players smiled sheepishly at each other. Marc cleared his throat. "Where's Chara?" he asked.
"In the trainer's room," Kessel said. "Talking to Vladdie."
As they entered the locker room, the door to the trainer's room opened and Chara came out, alone. "Outside," he said to Marc. The two players went back out the door and stepped into the warm sunshine.
"I owe you, Zdeno," Marc said. "I owe you everything."
Chara shrugged. "That's what I'm here for, Savvy."
"No, it isn't. This is above and beyond, Zee," Savard said. "I just have to know - how? How did you do it?"
"I just told her the truth, Marc," Chara said. "That it wasn't you. A case of mistaken identity."
"You told her it was David, not me." Savard said.
"Not David," Chara replied. "Me."
"You?" The breath caught in Marc's throat. "No, Zee. You didn't. You couldn't. Why? Why, for God's sake?"
"Because David is a boy, Marc. New to the NHL, barely established. He can't stand that kind of hit to his reputation. I can. Simple as that," Chara said. "Besides, it's much more believable if I'm telling tales on myself, rather than a teammate. Don't you think?"
"Zdeno..." Savard said helplessly.
"Just one more thing, Marc," Chara said. "Vladimir."
Savard looked at the ground. "Vladimir. Yes." He steeled himself.
"Talk to him, Savvy. That's all I ask. What you say is up to you. I'll only make one small request. Be kind."
Marc nodded, relieved, and turned toward the door. "Oh, there is something else," Chara said. "Could you send David out here?"
He entered the locker room and saw Krejci and Sobotka sitting together, their heads almost touching, talking quietly, almost certainly in Czech, he thought. "David," he said. Both players looked around. "Chara wants to talk to you."
The blood drained out of Krejci's face, but he stood up and walked out past Savard, who stood in the door, looking at Vladimir. Sobotka met his gaze. His eyes were red and swollen. "Vladdie..." Marc started to say.
"We have to practice," Vladimir said, turning away and reaching for his shoulder pads. Marc went to his locker and changed quickly as Krejci, his complexion miraculously changed from snow white to tomato red, hurried back into the room and followed suit. They were all happy to take the ice at last.
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"Much better!" Houda called, as Savard snapped off a perfect pass and skated crisply around the net. "Glad to see you got your head out of your ass, Savard!"
"You and me both," Savvy muttered as he zipped past Sturm. Marco smiled. Houda blew his whistle. "That's it!" he shouted. "Be back on the ice at three!"
Savard skated up behind Sobotka as they headed for the bench. "Vladimir, we need to talk," he said. "Meet me at my car, OK?" Sobotka nodded, not bothering to turn around.
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Marc was sitting in his car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, when the passenger door opened and Vladimir climbed in. The young center stared straight ahead as Savvy looked at him, wondering what in God's name he was going to say. Finally, Sobotka broke the silence.
"I'm sorry Marc," he said. "Forgive me, please."
"You haven't got a damn thing to be sorry for, Vladdie," Savard said. "Not a goddam thing. There's no excuse for what I did. None whatsoever."
"Zdeno told me..." Vladimir started to say.
"That's no fucking excuse," Savvy interrupted. "I hurt you, Vladdie. I'd rather die than hurt you again."
He turned away. "You're too good for me, Vladimir. Just too goddam good. I don't deserve you."
Sobotka took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Say it. "I love you!" he shouted.
Marc turned and stared. "What did you say?"
"Yes, I say it! I love you!" Sobotka looked at him, his eyes filling with tears. He swiped at them angrily. "Marc, Marc, you, please... please, you say? Yes? You?" his English, never perfect, was growing worse by the moment. "I know you... fuck!" He spat out some rapid-fire Czech, then tried to compose himself. Savvy almost laughed. Vladimir took another deliberate breath.
"I say it, because... I not lie," he said. "No lie, Savvy. Tell me."
"Jesus, Vladdie," Savard licked his lips. "I... I..."
"TELL ME!" Sobotka shouted.
"I LOVE YOU!" Savard bellowed. "You goddam ridiculous Czech bastard! I... I... I love you," his voice dropped to a whisper.
Vladimir smiled, then giggled, rubbing at his eyes. "I knew it," he said.
"Oh, Christ," Marc said, resting his forehead on the steering wheel, and laughing weakly. "I'm a fucking emotional basket case. I hope you're happy."
"I'm happy," Sobotka said. "Can we go eat lunch now? I'm hungry."
"You're always fucking hungry," Savvy said, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot. "My Vladimir."
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One car remained in the back row of the parking lot. The windows were steamed up. Inside, Zdeno Chara leaned back, his legs spread open, as David Krejci knelt between them, his captain's cock in his mouth.
"Consequences, little one," Chara said. "Remember - in life, there are always consequences."
David nodded and relaxed his throat muscles, taking in as much of Chara's massive shaft as he could, swallowing as the big defenseman climaxed. Lesson learned.
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Date: 2008-06-24 02:23 pm (UTC)Chara's a piece of work, isn't he? That team does belong to him, no doubt about it.
Thanks for reading and commenting! Keeps me going!