“I wanna take a nap,” Blake mumbles.
“Okay, I’ll…” Noah trails off, because something’s buzzing. “Your phone, Fish.”
“Who is it?”
“Uhhh… Elliot.”
Blake sighs. Of fucking course it’s Elliot. Blake can’t really not answer. “Can you pick up?” Blake doesn’t want to open his eyes right now and he also doesn’t want to move or even talk, but he’ll spare ten seconds to tell Elliot that he’s still kicking.
“Me?” Noah asks.
“Or hand me the phone, I don’t–”
“No, I got it,” Noah says. He shifts away. “This is Blake Samuels’s personal phone answerer, how can I help you?”
“Noah,” Blake grumbles.
“Shut up, Fish.” Noah gives his arm a squeeze. “Elliot asks if you have a minute.”
“Yeah, just…” Blake squints at him and regrets it, closes his eyes again and Noah pushes the phone into his hand.
He gets up and mumbles something about Blake’s fridge. There’s nothing in there and Noah will figure that out in a few seconds, too. He’ll probably order them takeout, not that Blake is actually hungry.
“Hey,” Blake says. “Are you calling with a formal apology from your out-of-control rookie?”
“Are you okay?” Elliot asks, ignoring him.
“Concussion.”
“Yeah, we saw as much, but… How bad is it?”
“Not so bad that I won’t be able to murder your entire team during the playoffs,” Blake says. “On my own.” He regrets that sentence. It was long. Doesn’t even know if it made sense. Took it out of him. He really wants to take that nap.
“So it’s not…”
“They’re hopeful that it won’t last too long, but it’s still a concussion, so…”
There a moment of silence and Blake isn’t sure if it’s awkward or not, but then Elliot says, “Crab wanted me to tell you that he’s really sorry and that he obviously didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Tell the kid that I’ll kick his ass,” Blake mumbles.
“I…”
“No, don’t tell him that.” Blake huffs. “I’ve never been in a fight, Elliot.”
Elliot laughs. Blake would be glad to hear it if it didn’t make his head hurt even more today. “I think you could take Crab.”
“Of course I could, he’s tiny. But still. Tell him I won’t kick his ass, how’s that?”
“He’ll be so happy to hear that.”
“I’m sure,” Blake says. Shit, he’s so tired. He rolls onto his side and it doesn’t hurt so much, but his head still hurts like it did before.
“I’ll let you rest, but… Blake?”
“Hm?”
“I’m glad that you’re… well, that you’re gonna be okay.”
“Mm, hopefully.”
“We’re in town for a couple of days, in case… I don’t know, if you need anything…”
“It’s okay, I have…”
“Your personal phone answerer?” Elliot asks.
“Yeah. That.”
Blake opens his eyes long enough to hang up his phone after Elliot has said goodbye, then he closes them again with a groan. A moment later the couch dips, and fingers gently brush his hair back.
“’m gonna nap,” Blake says.
“I’m gonna go out and buy some food,” Noah says, fingers lingering in his hair. “Can I borrow a key?”
“Mmm.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.”
Noah gets up, footsteps barely audible, then something soft lands on Blake. Blanket maybe. He doesn’t need a blanket, but he doesn’t tell Noah that. He’s too tired to say anything.
He’s asleep before Noah’s even out the front door.
When he wakes up, Angus is on his feet and Squid is next to his head, staring at him like he’s about to eat him, which reminds him… He’s about to start sitting up when a hand on his arm stops him.
“Where are you going?”
Noah.
“Cats need food.”
“I can do that. I think.”
“Thank you.”
“Drink some water. You want food?”
“No, I don’t know, maybe,” Blake mumbles and sits up enough that he can drink the water Noah just handed him.
“I bought soup, because I don’t know how to make soup,” Noah says.
“I don’t have the flu.”
Noah gives him a look that shuts him up quickly and then wanders off to feed the cats, who both dart away as soon as they hear the sound of food hitting their bowls in the kitchen.
Blake needs to buy Noah a present and write him a thank you note because he doesn’t mind spending his day off doing essentially nothing at Blake’s place, feeding his cats and buying him food, even though that definitely isn’t part of their deal. He returns to Blake, sits down with some space still between them, smiling down at Blake.
“He sounded really worried,” Noah remarks.
“What?”
“Elliot,” Noah says. “He sounded worried.”
“I think his rookie was scared that he killed me and that I’d come back to haunt him or something.”
Noah hums. “Poor kid. When I was still in Bridgeport, I clipped a guy’s neck with my skate and it wasn’t, like, deep or anything, but knowing that if it had been in a different spot or if it had been just a little deeper, he could have…”
“Yeah,” Blake says. He doesn’t blame the kid. Two seasons ago, he tripped up a guy with his stick, it was Remi Flaubert from the Seals, and he went into the boards head-first and he walked out of that game with a concussion, too. Blake apologized, and Flaubert turned out to be fine, is still playing.
They play hockey, they get injured.
Noah’s fingers are back in his hair and Blake can’t decide if it makes his headache better or worse.
Eventually, because he doesn’t know how to bring himself to ask Noah to hold his hand again, he plucks Noah’s fingers out of his hair and holds them and falls asleep, Noah’s hand still in his.
#
Elliot tells Crab that Blake won’t come for him the next time they see each other. All Elliot gets in response is nervous laughter, a frown and
