stan (fivehole) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-08-15 00:02:00 |
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Current music: | fireworks - the tragically hip |
Entry tags: | hockey |
Who: Hockey and Claire Prosser (NPC). Mostly silly narrative.
What: Getting settled in Newark.
Where: Community rink.
When: Early Sunday morning.
Warnings: Language, minor sports violence.
If there's a goal that everyone remembers, it was back in ole '72... we all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger...
Claire groaned as the Tragically Hip song blared through her bedroom and when she rolled over to check the brightly flashing numbers of her digital clock, she groaned even louder. Why the hell was Stan calling her at six AM? But she knew it was him; after all, he'd added the song to her cell phone to serve as his ring tone. Her voice was still thick with sleep when she answered, blurry eyes barely able to open and focus on the boxes that still littered her new apartment in Newark. "Nnghwhaddayawant?"
Stan's voice, in contrast to her own, was bright, happy, and entirely too cheerful for six in the morning. "Get up! Get dressed! I bought an hour worth of ice-time at the rink down the road from your place but I could only get it starting at 6:30. Come on, get your equipment together and let's go!" Claire groaned lightly in protest, but that only served to egg Stan on. "There's coffee waiting for you in the car, Claire-bear. Get your ass down here!"
Ten minutes later, a very grumpy Claire was curled up in the passenger seat of Stan's Audi and two bags of rather smelly hockey equipment had been shoved haphazardly into the back. After Claire had chugged down the cooling coffee, she made a remark about how all of Stan's cars started to smell like a mix of stale sweat and old ice, but Stan just brushed it aside as they pulled into the parking lot of the area; twenty minutes after that, Claire left the dressing room and looked out onto the ice from the visitor's bench with a bit of a wistful smile on her face.
Stan really did look best in his own element, she thought to herself. In the middle of a game, however, there was so much going on around him that it was difficult to zero in on him and, for instance, notice the years of training that went into the complicated movements behind his wrist shot. When he was alone on the ice, though, he was a vision of strength, glory, and it helped that he was so damned- bang. A puck, fired with much more force than Claire could put into a wrist shot, zipped past her head and struck the glass behind her, Stan lifting the blade of his stick and blowing on it smugly, like one would the smoking end of a gun. "Tell me, Claire-bear, does wearing an Avalanche jersey make you feel just a bit closer to being one of the boys?"
Claire glared at him as she did up the snap of her helmet and stepped onto the ice, skating a lazy circle around Stan and taking in his red practice jersey and red and white socks. "Tell me, Stan the Man, does wearing Canadian colours make you feel like less of an intruder into a Canadian game?" Claire was American, of course, but she did know that Stan had an unusual attachment to their northern neighbours, and any shot that made Stan scrunch his nose up at her was a shot worth taking. They rolled their eyes at each other before separating to opposite ends of the ice to warm up.
Every team had a specific routine for pre-game warm-ups and individual hockey players were no different; Stan and Claire each took half of the ice and went through their own routines, not talking as Claire stretched, as Stan skated suicides, as Claire did push-ups, as Stan took ten slap shots in a row to loosen up his arms. After fifteen minutes, though, they met at centre ice, Stan juggling a single puck on the end of his stick and smirking at Claire like he simply couldn't wait to annihilate her. Eventually, he let the puck drop to the dot in the center of the circle, both Stan and Claire sliding into tense, ready, face-off stances. One tap of their sticks together - N - two taps - H - three taps - L - and they were off.
They couldn't actually play hockey; they were only two of them, after all. But they did play, something that was a mix of keep-away, tag, and wrestling. It was very fluid, Stan-the-forward being poke-checked by Claire-the-defence, who became Claire-the-forward, sneaking around Stan-the-defence and managing to get a shot by the desperately scrambling Stan-the-goalie. They barely kept track of the score, as each team only having one player made the possibility of easy goals, but they were having too much fun deking, faking, checking, swerving, shooting, to really care about who was winning.
And Claire was holding her own against the NHL star. She'd learned to skate soon after she'd learned to walk and had been raised in a family that discussed the merits of no-touch icing over breakfast, gave each other wrist shot tips over lunch, and bashed the Red Wings in detail over dinner. she didn't have as much brute strength as Stan, but what she lacked in that area, she made up for with speed and an intimate knowledge of her client's playing style that enabled her to anticipate his next move with enough consistency to even the playing field. Stan, for his part, was keeping himself within the mortal parameters for talent and playing ability but didn't hold back on his publicist; soon enough, they were both drenched in sweat, breathless with exhilaration and laughter, and aching with the satisfaction of playing against a well-matched opponent.
With ten minutes left in their ice time, Claire broke up one of Stan's attempts to slip it past her and into the net and instead took the puck the length of the ice, Stan battling with her for the entire journey from end to end. Crossing the blue-line, Stan got a bit desperate, planting a firm elbow in her ribs as they began to near the net that Stan was supposed to be protecting. Claire grunted in a mixture of anger and disbelief at Stan's dirty play as her sense of balance was upset and one of her skates lost its edge. Her left leg slipped up from under her and she fell, sliding. Since Hockey had been leaning hard on her form in order to pressure her into giving up the puck, he lost his own balance and the two hockey players, one mortal and one divine, went careening into the back of the net, a tangle of blades, sticks, and jerseys.
Somehow, Stan had ended up on top of the pile however, and he grinned down down at Claire, shifting on top of her as he tilted his head too look out into the crease, where the puck was sitting. "Didn't cross the goal line, Claire-bear." His voice was smug as Stan turned to look down at the woman beneath him. Claire had been about to retort when the arrogance drained from Stan's eyes, becoming replaced with that soft, affectionate gaze that she had always treasured so much, that had stopped happening after Sonja, that tiny figure skating bitch, had flounced her way into their lives. Months, it had been months, and even the bead of sweat that rolled down Stan's nose and dropped to her cheek wouldn't stop Claire from savouring the moment for as long as was humanly possible. She didn't know why it was happening now and she didn't know why she always felt so intrinsically drawn to Stan, but she wasn't about to question it, not when Stan was gazing down at her like she was the only person on earth.
"Stan..." He didn't seem to hear her, however. That look she'd missed was shifting quickly to the look she definitely hadn't missed. It had happened occasionally, at the worst of times; Stan would look at her and seem to look right through her instead, seeing someone else, someone who wasn't her.
"Hayley." Stan murmured and that? Claire wasn't about to tolerate that. It had happened once before, before Sonja, in bed, and Claire hadn't said anything. But Stan had abandoned her; it wasn't her responsibility to allow him to cling to his occasional delusions. "Claire." She hissed and then her knee shot up between his legs. And even though Stan was wearing hockey pants and a cup, he hissed in pain and quickly rolled off, away, into the crease, and was left to stare up at the rafters as Claire quickly stood up and skated stiffly off the ice, her lips pursed tightly.
Hockey sighed; it wasn't his fault that he had Hayley on his mind. It had been eight years, yes, and he was usually able to forget about her during the four year breaks between the Olympics. Really, he should have stopped thinking about her a week after the most recent Games, but they had taken place on home ice and Hayley had read the Athlete's Oath. It really couldn't be helped and it definitely didn't help that Claire - beautiful, intelligent, talented Claire - looked so much like Hayley. No, not his fault, he thought to himself as he dragged himself up from the ice and skated a few lazy, careful laps in order to cool down and try to organize his thoughts.
He knew Claire inside and out. She was angry, yes, Hockey could feel that much radiating off her, for all that she was a ways away from him, showering off after their workout. But if she was waiting for him in the parking lot once he'd showered off... well, their day, and friendship would be salvageable, no matter what revenge scheme she'd likely already worked out.
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Claire tapped her foot impatiently, leaning against the hood of Stan's Audi as she waited for her client to finish his laps, to shower, to dress. She had time to think, of course, but she didn't want to think about how absolutely infuriating it was to be so close to the man that seemed to be everything she wanted, seemed to represent everything she wanted to be, and yet feel so far away from him. And what was she to him? A workout buddy, a friend, a publicist, a convenient lay, and a reminder of his past, a past she didn't even understand; Claire's lips pursed even further. No matter how unbalanced it was, though, she wasn't going to walk away. To do so would feel as horrible as getting rid of her skates.
But there was something she could do...
Finally, Stan walked up to her tentatively, Claire holding up a finger as he opened his mouth to speak. "What time do you want him there? Ah, brilliant. Yes, he has a tuxedo. He's honoured to be representing your charity. Thank you." Claire closed her cell phone with a snap and smiled up at Stan, the smile that told Stan that something very, very bad was coming.
"Guess what, Stan? You're going to be the headliner in the upcoming bachelor auction for the Children's Aid Society."