Title: Reflecting infinity

Author: Bernie

Pairing: Marc Andre Fleury / Mario Lemieux

Rating: NC-17. non-con

Dediaction Caerleigh and Kris.

Thanks Camille for the read-through ::hugs you::

 

The title is from here:  http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/look_into_infinity.html

 

A/N's: Ian White is a defenseman with the Canadian national junior team

Sidney Crosby is a forward with the Canadian national junior team

 

*   **     *** *  **   *

 

If you were someone else looking at you, if say, you were Ian White who is right now standing behind you, not much would have appeared to have changed since the last time the two of you were together at last years World Junior championships in Halifax Nova Scotia.

 

You don't flinch when Ian drops his hand on your shoulder and leaning into you whispers; 'it looks like there is a new phenom on the block."

 

And the pair of you laugh.

 

You don't back away from the cameras, the lights or the relentless questions. Although you do, with your typical grace, politely demur on answering yet another question about the Penguins financial state.

 

You smile at team mates, you reconnect, laugh at dinner, which goes on far later than it should given that you have a nine thirty practice, you relax back into the systems of the Canadian team.

 

Much later that night Ian bumps against the side of your bed when he gets up half asleep to take a leak. And your heart leaps into your throat and your hands ball into fists in the blankets.

 

There are monsters under the bed.

 

Eddie has asked you to stay for a moment to talk. Although you are not the only two people left, he is here as well, hovering just out of earshot.  Eddie asks you if you /want/ to go to the World Juniors. If you do you will be released, if you don't you can stay and blame the Pen's management. Either way you will be paid, either way you will not be blamed.

 

"Yes." You say. You do want to go. You want to win.

 

Your steps echo walking down the hallway to the parking lot. You have finally learned the way to your apartment. A small but satisfying victory. Outside your breath hangs in the air, and the sound of your feet is drowned out by the sound of his feet.

 

If you were standing outside the arena, say at the back of the pack of fans that are waiting you would hear one teenage girl say to another 'to wait, Mario and Marc Andre always come out last – together.'

 

You would blush at how she made your name a caress; how she made your name falling off her tongue sound like it was sliding over your skin.

 

If you were a different person, looking into the car stopped at the traffic lights you would be struck by your poise. And you actually don't really take the losses personally, even though they are piling up on top of each other like layers in a trifle. Even though you would never admit it to yourself, you don't think that you can be blamed for most of these losses, your team sucks.

 

But that doesn't matter, because you are playing in the NHL and even if you are the worst team, even with the odd monster, even if you can't even see the play offs they are so far out of your grip, there is still no place you would rather be.

 

You even have a personal chauffer, at least for a little while longer until you grow accustomed to the roads and the route and the crazy drivers in America. And Montreal is supposed to be bad?

 

Sometimes he drives you home, but tonight Dick is the one drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, driving just above the speed limit, stopping right in front of your building.

 

You stare for a moment at your reflection in the car window as he checks for cars making sure it is ok to pull out into the traffic again. Will you be caught walking through the parking garage? Or by a troll under the stairs, or like today, simply waiting by the door and sliding into the apartment after you.

 

"Marc." The breath whispers across your cheek, getting into your eyes and making you blink and close them.

 

"Marc." His hands slide up your sides to rest against your neck to trap your chin in a monster's embrace. You are pinned against the door. You had never noticed how /big/ his hands were until you met him face to face. How insignificant things look held in them, how tiny a puck looks cradled in his palm.

 

To yourself you think that you prefer to be called 'Marc Andre' but when you open your mouth to say this he takes it an invitation and slides his tongue between your parted lips.

 

If you had been around the league for a while, if say, you were the ghost of another legendary netminder the Pen's had had play for them, maybe Tom Barasso to look in the recent past, you would know that one's first career shut out must be celebrated.

 

You babble excitedly in a mish-mash of French and English and happy. You are too buzzed to be concerned about making sense and even the most cynical of the reporters smile at you and ask you easy questions and leave you alone quickly.

 

You are tidying up your equipment, untangling ties and buckles and leaving it just as you prefer, letting the fading buzz of the room wash over you when it is darker than before. You look up at the looming shape blocking the light and smile at Marty.

 

"What are we going to do with you to celebrate?" he asks and the two of you grin crazy-huge at each other, as maybe this season won't be totally lost. Where there is life there is hope right?

 

You happily let them take you out, bar-hopping around the area, and get you a tiny bit drunk. When you finally arrive home, pushed out of the taxi by a sniggering Ryan Malone you forget to look in the shadows for he who will surely be lurking there.

 

He has never followed you here before. Out from under the bed, down the hallway to the spare room, all the way across the continent to Montreal, and back to you new place here in Pittsburgh.

 

"I didn't get a chance to congratulate you." He says and holds out his hand that has the game puck in it. It looks tiny in his paw.

 

When you reach for it he closes his fingers over yours and pulls you close. "It's cold out here." He whispers into your hair. "Lets go inside."

 

You blame your contract status and bolt.

 

If you were another person at the airport when you arrive home, if you were the fight attendant traveling through to meet her boyfriend after a long week away from home, you would see a young man tired from his flight and an uncertain future. You would see the young man lighting up when meeting his family.

 

And you would think the nervous person biting his nails on the plane and darting looks over his shoulder was just someone who didn't like flying.

 

When you get home, when it is finally quiet and your agent is gone and your parents are in bed and the lights are all out and the phone is turned off and the doors are locked and you have rechecked all the windows are closed you go to your room.

 

It is the very same room that you left a couple of months before. But your mother has vacuumed and put away the clothes you left on the floor.

 

You close the door and then check the bathroom, the closet and under the bed. You find no evidence that what was let out in Pittsburgh has followed you here.

 

You lie down and pull the covers over your head.

 

You shake.

 

You dream of monsters.

 

You are half asleep and warm, wanting to hold onto the day and process the memories of playing and being good and the chance to stay here and not go back to Cape Breton, and you enjoy the woozy, disorientating, comfortable feeling of falling into sleep.

 

The house is still and your dozing brain is still half processing the day when you sense the door open and he walks in.

 

Has he got the wrong room?

 

He moves slowly, clearly looking for something… his hands are reaching out to touch the foot of the bed, and now his steps are surer, more certain of where he is headed.

 

It is to where you are lying.

 

He sits down on the bed next to you and for lack of anything better to do you pretend to be asleep.

 

He pries the covers from you fake-sleeping fingers and pulls it down. His eyes sweep up and down you and then his hand slides down your chest and without stopping or pausing underneath the waist band of the shorts you wear to bed and when your eyes fly open he knows to lean down and smoother your gasp with a kiss.

 

"Marc." He whispers against your shocked lips. "Marc."

 

"You are up late."

 

You spin around and smile even though your heart is in your mouth and beating a million beats per second.

 

"I… Thought I would have some ice cream. Nathalie said…."

 

"Help yourself." Mario laughs. "This is when you want ice-cream? At two in the morning?"

 

"Yeah. Usually."

 

He looks at your skinny frame, "you probably need filling out, and do you want company?"

 

"Sure, are you having some..?" You gesture to the bowl but he shakes his head.

 

"Not right now."

 

Your eyes have adjusted to the dimness of the room and you sit facing each other at the table. You demolish half the bowl before you two have even finished talking about the game.

 

You eat more slowly talking about hockey in general and Mario steals your spoon and a bite, he reverses the spoon and offers the rest of the desert on the spoon to you.

 

You take it without thinking but are a bit weirded out by that so you take the spoon back and play with the melting chocolate in the bowl.

 

He leans over and runs his fingers across the back of your hand, "you're cold." He whispers and his fingers trace up you arm to run across your face, "cold inside and out?"

 

And his fingers are hovering an inch from your lips.

 

"Daddy." You both jump and his hand disappears. Austin is standing illuminated in the light from the living room.

 

"There are nightmares in my room." He announces unhappily rubbing at his eyes.

 

You smile, the weird spell from before broken as Mario reaches out to the little boy and Austin clambers inelegantly onto his lap. He buries his sleepy face into his father's neck and sighs already falling asleep as Mario strokes his hair.

 

"Did you leave your door open to let the nightmares out?" Mario asks his son, who nods back.

 

"But there are monsters under the bed." Austin says. "They won't leave."

 

You catch sight of your reflection in the glass doors of the Mellon Arena and for the hell of it you grin at yourself. You have glass doors behind you, so you see yourself there as well, reflecting back and forth endlessly, into eternity, proving you are here. In the big leagues.

 

Holy fuck the NHL. You couldn't wipe the smile off your face if you tried. You don't try, holy fuck the NHL!

 

Eddie is introducing you to everyone and showing you around. You hope to remember at least a few of those names and faces at the end of the day. You turn around when you feel a hand on your shoulder and you are smiling at Mario Lemieux.

 

"Marc?" He asks and puts out his hand for you to shake. Usually you correct people, say that you prefer to be called 'Marc Andre'. But this time you do not, you smile and nod.

 

Mario has huge hands you notice. Eddie says something and you don't hear it feeling his hand and your hand slide apart. He smiles at you and you smile back.

 

He smiles bigger, and you smile bigger back.

 

Holy fuck you are in the NHL.

 

If you were standing behind you, right now, as you push open the glass doors of the arena in Nashville you would see a young man reflected in the glass doors of the Gaylord Entertainment Center. It is draft day and you are projected to go first over all. You look nervous but calm.

 

You /are/ nervous but calm. Anyone looking at you would never guess how you feel.

 

End.