Elliot’s bed is cold when he curls himself into a ball under the covers. He barely sleeps that night, wakes up every so often and stares into the darkness of his room.
The guys are exhausted when he sees them for their next morning skate. Everyone’s tired, the look on Coach Peterson’s face is grim. Elliot doesn’t expect him to be around next season if the Ravens don’t make it far into the playoffs. He’s scared to think about what their roster will look like.
Elliot tells himself to get it together. They’ve lost two games. It’s not like they’ve lost it all.
They fight hard during Game 3.
They still lose.
It’s not the first time they’ve been here, looking a sweep in the eye.
Elliot sits in his stall, with half his gear still on, long after the reporters have dispersed. There’s barely a chance of coming back from this. Maybe they’ll manage to win the next game. Maybe they’ll even manage to win two. But four? It’s not impossible, but the entire room knows that it’s unlikely. All they can do the day after tomorrow is to play like they haven’t already lost.
He gets home late, exhausted.
When he checks his phone, he has a missed call from Blake and a voicemail. Elliot crawls into bed without listening to it, closes his eyes, but doesn’t fall asleep. He finally grabs his phone and listens to Blake’s message after all.
“Hey, uh, it’s Blake,” he says, “I know you probably don’t want to talk to me right now and we’re not even friends until all of this is over, but… I don’t know, you looked… I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. You don’t deserve this. You’re such a pain in the ass to play against, you know? I don’t… Well, you don’t need me to tell you that this sucks… Anyway. I probably shouldn’t have called. And I’m sorry. I… I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.”
Elliot sighs. Something heavy is sitting on his chest, something restless is living under his skin.
He is so, so tired.
It’s a clean sweep in the end.
Elliot scores twice in Game 4, Andreas scores, Crab scores, but the Knights are always one goal ahead of them and eventually the clock runs down and leaves them with a score of 5-4, the Ravens eliminated from the playoffs, the Knights celebrating on the other end of the ice, crowding around Blake.
Elliot starts to lead the handshake line. They want to get off the ice. Elliot puts an arm around Crab while they wait for Brian Kelly to lead the Knights their way.
Kelly hugs Elliot, tells him they fought hard, that he could tell that Elliot did everything in his power to drag his team to the next round. Elliot tells him to win it all. They’d all rather lose to the team that ends up winning the Cup than to a team that’ll get eliminated during the next round. Kelly smiles at him, pats his head and sends him on his way.
Elliot dreads making it to Blake, not sure if he should shake his hand or hug him. Blake takes the decision away from him, because he’s the one who goes in for a hug in the end. They say something meaningless. A few more players, coaches, then Elliot can finally get off the ice.
Elliot is pretty sure that Crab is close to tears, probably blaming himself for the last goal the Knights scored. Elliot goes and hugs him tightly, then he makes his way over to Swanson, to give his shoulder a squeeze. Swanson scowls.
The post-game interviews are torture, as they’ve been for the entire postseason. Nothing new there. It’s all, yes, of course they’re not happy with this outcome, and, yes, everyone fought hard and, yes, Elliot is still proud of every single player on his team, but the Knights outplayed them in the end.
He stays in the shower for a long time, goes home, goes to bed, on edge, like his brain hasn’t caught up with what happened and still thinks they’ll play another game a few days from now.
They have the next day off and Elliot invites the team out for brunch at a place they sometimes go to after practice. Elliot calls them, his name enough to get them a private room on short notice without any problems.
The next day they have exit interviews, locker room clean-out. Adam invites him over for dinner. “You know, in a week or something. When we’ve got most of the moping out of the way.”
Elliot nods and shuffles away to hug the guys that are leaving town soon – Crab, who’s going to his parents’ place in Halifax, and Andreas, who’ll go to Germany for the summer.
He’s still at the Ravens’ practice facility when he gets a call from Team USA, asking if he’s interested in playing at the World Cup. He says yes without even thinking about it. He’s not done with hockey this season.
Gear in his trunk, Elliot sits in the driver’s seat, staring down at his phone. He thinks about calling Blake.
The Knights have some time off now, because whoever will be their opponent in the next round isn’t decided yet. The Cardinals-Eagles series is tied at two, so they’ll play at least two more games. Blake is probably home.
Elliot should call Blake before he goes all the way to fucking Newark.
He doesn’t. He just starts driving.
#
Blake is taking a nap with Squid when his doorbell rings. It’s the middle of the afternoon. When Blake fell asleep the sun was shining, now it’s
