Chapter Text
Macklin can’t remember a time before this line existed, drawn somewhere inside his body, or his soul. He’s not sure which, if it’s both-and, or one or the other. Sometimes, when the litany of dark hotel rooms and plane trips feels oppressive, or tiring, he starts to wonder, but Mack never lets that train of thought go far. Even if he wanted to, he can’t.
So he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t even touch this fractured idea of himself. He just is. Mack takes care of his body, goes to conditioning in the mornings, eats well. He stocks his fridge with green juice and protein. He wakes up at the same time every morning, he tries not to party—and fails, fairly often, because the guys don’t like to take no for an answer.
Mack shakes off the hangover. He shakes off the regret, his dad’s words echoing in his mind. It’s your job to take care of this body, he said, jaw set with an intensity of seriousness that even Mack wasn’t used to. This is the only thing that should matter to you, Macklin.
There isn’t really anything to do except believe it. After all, it’s gotten him this far: to Boston, to the NHL draft, to the Sharks. Macklin bleeds teal, now, when he’s not bleeding red, pressing gauze to his split lip in the dark kitchen of his new apartment, wondering what happened this time.
Because the issue is—the issue has always been—that Mack is playing catch-up. That he doesn’t know when his lip split, or how he got the bruise that purples his cheekbone, or why his shoulder aches in a way that’s toeing the edge of concerning. That when his teammates clap him on the shoulder in the locker room and chirp about the game, Mack’s trying to fit together puzzle pieces, comparing varying shades of teal, goals and assists and saves that he doesn’t remember.
Because Mack isn’t on the ice. Celebrini is.
The line that splits Mack’s entire existence is somewhere in the hallway outside of the locker room, something like fifteen feet down, or maybe it’s ten. Mack’s not sure, hasn’t had any reason to test it, to pinpoint the exact moment. Can’t remember, anyway, because when he opens the locker room door things start to slide, each blink bringing him closer to the brief moment of darkness where Celebrini lives.
Generational talent, the press says. The future of the San Jose Sharks. It’s hard to be bitter when Mack doesn’t have to do any of the work, only the clean-up. Especially when his dad says—and he knows much better than Mack does—that this is the right thing to do. That Mack can focus, now.
So Mack blinks away his rookie season, picks up Celebrini’s pieces. When he takes a high stick to the face and chips his teeth, Mack sits in the dentist’s chair, closing his eyes against the bright light. When he pushes himself too hard on the ice, Mack suffers the soreness. It’s just like compartmentalizing, Mack thinks to himself.
But he’s not absolved from his own form of compartmentalizing, this secret that he’s always holding just under his tongue. It’s not that there aren’t any other hockey players like him, ones that needed a bit of separation, a way to keep the balance. It’s just that no one seems to think fondly of them. Mack’s heard enough chirping about Hughes, enough snide comments in locker rooms about how the former Vancouver captain had been keeping it to himself for years, but it had come to light when he’d been traded to Minnesota. That the split had been the reason for the trade, if you asked any of the Canucks. Nobody wants a captain that can’t handle the responsibility of his own life.
Macklin’s secret will go to the grave with him, he thinks. It’s not important, not when it makes him good, makes him trustworthy on the ice. His teammates love Celebrini, just like they love Mack. It’s not their fault that they can’t tell the difference, or that Mack’s keeping it secret. It’s just not their business.
When Mack blinks back into his body after the game, his body feels heavy, saturated with exhaustion.
“You alright?” Will says, pushing past him with a sidelong glance, headed to his locker. Mack knows the slight pinch of concern between Will’s eyebrows, adds it up with the ache in his jaw. A hit, he thinks. A dirty one, if the way his teeth throb when he grits them tells him anything.
“Can’t believe Perreault did that,” Will grumbles, setting his helmet on the bench and moving to pull his jersey over his head, words muffled by the thick fabric. “Fucker.”
Mack makes a noncommittal noise, one that he hopes matches Will’s frustration. It’d help if I could remember the hit, he thinks. But the best he can do is guess. “You’d think he was jealous,” he says with a grin, a joke aimed at Will. It’s easy, it covers up the fact that Mack has no clue what Perreault did to him. And as a bonus, it makes Will elbow Mack in the side until they’re both breathless from laughter.
As Macklin strips himself from his gear, taking stock of each new bruise, each pain he can’t place, the noise of the locker room reaches an incredible height. Someone claps him on the shoulder—Toff, he thinks—and whoops.
“You boys are coming out tonight,” he says, gleeful and absolutely certain. “No excuses, those goals were beauties.”
Mack grins, and ignores how the smile feels crooked on his face. “Yeah?”
“Can’t forget two assists from Smitty,” Eklund crows from further down the bench.
The pieces of tonight’s puzzle start to fit together, and as Mack listens to the locker room chatter—incessant, like it always is after a win—he feels like the last few hours are a bit more clear. Two goals of his own, two assists for Will. A third goal he can’t place, and what he can only imagine was an incredible game on Nedeljkovic’s part, if the way everyone’s ruffling his sweaty hair affectionately is any evidence.
Mack showers methodically, stepping out into the hall to talk to the media. There’s a slight uncertainty in his eyes that he can never seem to hide, and that the reporters cling onto, attributing it to his age, the weight on his shoulders. He’s humble, they say. He’s just a kid. Sometimes Mack wonders if he’ll still be able to pin it on these easy excuses when he’s older, when his jersey is proudly emblazoned with a C over his heart, when the team becomes his responsibility, not just Celebrini’s.
He smiles into the cameras, answers vaguely, tells a reporter from ESPN that he’s proud of Ned, of the game they all played. Mack’s gotten good at telling when his answers are right, and not just the result of media training—the reporters’ eyes are wide, attention rapt. They nod in all the right places, jot things down in their notebooks. Looking out at the room, he finds the expected reaction there, and feels relieved.
Celebrini has done his job, and now Macklin has done his. That’s just how it shakes out.
“I don’t want to stay out too late,” Will tells him, somewhat uncharacteristically, as they pile out of the arena. The rest of the team walk ahead of them, cold night air not deterring the celebrations, their raised voices.
“Me neither,” Mack responds, thinking about how he should probably already be in bed, should hold up his end of this split bargain. But it’s not that easy, at least not anymore. It hasn’t been, not since Juniors, now that his teammates have the desire and means to celebrate a win. It’s a compromise Mack’s had to make.
He thinks Celebrini would understand. Thinks he’d put the team’s chemistry high on his list of priorities, just like Mack does. Not for the first time, Mack wonders what he’d say, how his own face would react to what Mack’s doing. It’s an impossibility that he really does try not to imagine, because it’s sort of pointless. It doesn’t really matter.
So Mack goes out to the bar, but he doesn’t stay out late. It’s only after three shots and an Uber ride back to the hotel with Will that it occurs to him to ask why he hadn’t wanted to linger.
“Why the early night?” Mack asks, glancing at Will in the elevator as they ascend.
Will shrugs, noncommittal. “Sort of wanted to keep an eye on you after that hit, and I knew you wouldn’t want to stay up all night.”
“I’m all good,” Mack says easily, even though his jaw hurts. Really, he feels fine; he’s had worse. Perreault is a name on a long list of players who’ve hit Mack—Celebrini, he thinks, not me—and left a mark.
But that’s where Mack comes in, to handle the injuries, to treat this body well so it can be piloted by another.
“Just pisses me off,” Will sighs. “Like, it’s fucking weird of him to go after you like that for no fucking reason, y’know?”
“Yeah,” Mack shrugs. “But hey, I’m okay.” He slides his key into the door of their shared hotel room. “Want to watch the game footage?”
Will rolls his eyes, but the look is fond. “I should’ve known you’d ask.”
Celebrini opens his eyes to the bright expanse of ice in front of him, the lights overhead. He remembers, vaguely, stepping off of it, only to fade into a momentary blackness, only to open his eyes again and find himself here.
Home ice, he thinks, eyes scanning the familiar logos underneath it. Colors, and shapes that he recognizes. Celebrini feels the slick surface underneath his skates, and searches for teal.
It’s always like this, his focus sharp, vision narrow. He warms up, puts his body through the paces, stretches his legs that are no longer tired, even though that doesn’t make sense. Celebrini’s aware that there are many things that don’t make sense, that he’s missing something, like there are words always stuck on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach.
If this feeling was new, he’d be concerned, but it seems to be a constant. Luckily, hockey comes easily despite this lingering worry, this tiny bit of deja vu. It always does. Celebrini’s puck finds Will’s tape, ends up in the net. The crowd loves this. Celebrini loves it, too.
When he scores his own goal halfway into the second period, the clamor and pressure of his teammates around him feels like the best thing in the world. Will, next to him. Eky, arms around them both. Toff and Wennberg and Mukh crowding into his side, faces bright. Celebrini beams as someone rubs their teal-gloved hand over his face.
“Nice one, Celly!” a voice exclaims, and underneath the A on his chest, Celebrini’s heart beats with unbridled joy, the deja vu forgotten.
When the game’s over, the stands beginning to clear out, Celebrini blinks slowly and feels the familiar curtain of darkness beginning to fall. As his teammates knuckle their gloves into his, he looks out at all of the lights, tries to wonder what comes after this. Celebrini can’t help but wonder if this room is all there is, if all of the teal-wearing fans also fade into blackness when they step out of the doors, opening their eyes only to find to a new game in front of them.
This curiosity is new, but it’s momentary. The last one off the ice, like always, Celebrini steps onto the bench and shuts the door behind him. He blinks.
“You could be well on your way to a Rocket Richard,” Grier remarks, leaning back in his desk chair and fixing a pleased gaze on Macklin.
“Oh,” is all Mack can think to say. He crosses one ankle over the other, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “I hadn’t realized, I guess.”
“That’s understandable,” Grier responds. He never looks entirely sure how to talk to Mack, uncannily aware that the man sitting in front of him is not the face of the Sharks, the one Grier is responsible for. “I imagine it’s hard keeping up.”
“Yeah, sometimes,” Mack admits, cautiously.
Grier’s suit bunches as he leans forward, elbows resting on the desk. “I realize your situation is more complicated than many others. But San Jose is pleased with your performance this season, so far. It brings up questions about the captaincy.”
“Oh,” Mack says again, his mouth dry.
“I don’t think it’s possible to promote you without speaking to—well, the other you,” Grier explains. “We’ve talked it over, discussed all the possibilities. Ultimately, without pulling you aside on the ice to talk about it, there’s no way to promote you without activating the implant off-ice.”
Mack’s eyes widen. “You can…you can do that?”
“It will require a conversation with a specialist,” Grier says, delicately. “In a controlled environment. Not here.” he laughs. “We don’t want the other Macklin walking around here, in the same places you frequent. I’m told it weakens the effectiveness of the implant. Or, at least, that’s what happened with Hughes.”
The look he levels at Mack is serious, and clinical. Grier has been more supportive than Mack could’ve expected in a manager; thoughtful and almost kind. Almost. The mention of Hughes makes Mack’s heart beat a little too fast. The rumors have been unpleasant to hear, striking far too close to home.
“I’m not Hughes.”
“We know,” says Grier, placating. “You’re Macklin Celebrini. This situation simply requires a high standard of care, don’t you think? We’re ready to give you the captaincy. We just need to be sure that you—sorry, the other you—knows what he’s responsible for.”
Mack can’t come up with an argument. All he can think of is his dad, his strict voice, his insistence on keeping the procedure and its effects a secret. The way he’d study the scar at the back of Mack’s neck as it healed, his face proud, and tell him, you’re going to be something special. We’ve made sure of it.
“I understand,” Mack says. “Tell me what I need to do.”
When Celebrini opens his eyes and there’s something other than ice in front of him, his heart races instantly. The room is warm, too warm. His body feels small and vulnerable, bare skin where he’s used to thick padding. He shivers, and it doesn’t stop, uncontrollable.
“Macklin,” a voice says, careful, tactful. He glances towards its source and finds a woman, brown hair pulled into a neat bun, glasses perched on her nose.
“What,” he blurts out stupidly, his mouth dry. “Where am I.”
“You’re safe,” she replies, eyes flicking to the notepad in her hand. “Macklin, we just need you to breathe.”
Celebrini is idly aware, in a detached sort of way, that his name isn’t Macklin. He doesn’t think he’s ever been called that—maybe Mack, once? He thinks he can remember the shape of the word on Will’s lips. He’s not sure why it feels familiar, why this woman is calling him the wrong name, and his body wants to turn, to respond.
“Hey, Macklin,” a man says, and Celebrini turns to the source of the voice, and finds a face that he feels sure he’s seen before. “I’m Mike Grier. The manager for the San Jose Sharks.”
He holds his hand out to shake, and Celebrini moves his body like he knows he’s supposed to, raising his own hand. He’s surprised to find his fingers bare, pale instead of padded teal like he expects. Grier’s grasp is firm, his skin warm. Celebrini feels a tug in his chest, wishes this room was colder, wonders where the ice went.
“Hello,” Celebrini replies, forcing his breath into a steady pattern.
“I have good news,” Grier says, and Celebrini feels too warm. “We’re essentially ready to give you the C, kid. We know you’re young, and it’s a lot of responsibility, but you’re up for it. The entire organization has a lot of faith in you.”
The pride that swells up in Celebrini’s chest is distracting enough that he stops wondering about the ice, searching for the coolness and the bright lights that are all he knows. This room has beige walls, linoleum tile. Celebrini flexes his ankle, and looks down to find himself wearing tennis shoes.
Where are my skates? Celebrini thinks, where’s Will?
He must say it aloud, because Grier looks at him with something like curiosity, or amusement. “You’ll be back to the rink in no time,” he assures him. “You and Smith, we’re very happy with you both.”
The doctor writes something down in her notebook as Celebrini finds himself rolling his ankle, perplexed by the feeling. He drags his gaze back to Grier, feeling slightly ashamed for the distraction. “Sorry,” he says. “Where am I?”
“Don’t worry,” Grier tells him. “Just get ready to be the youngest captain in the league, Mack. You’re almost ready.”
Celebrini blinks, and blinks, and it feels like the conversation in the strange small room was a dream. Stepping out on to the ice for warm-ups, ignoring the clamor of fans at the glass, he wonders if he even can dream. He’s certainly never done it before, that’s for sure. He supposes that might be the only way to explain this room without ice.
“I had a weird dream,” he remarks to Will, shooting a puck at the net, top right corner.
“Yeah?” Will says, looping behind him. “About what?”
“I went to this weird place,” Celebrini explains. “Grier told me I was going to be captain.”
Will screws up his face, eyeing Celebrini with confusion. “What? Mack, you’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not,” Celebrini says, and feels suddenly stupid, like he shouldn’t have mentioned it. There’s definitely something wrong with him. He knows the world is teal, and bright, and cold—not that strange, warm, beige room.
“You’re so weird,” Will mutters under his breath, shaking his head. He leaves Celebrini standing on the ice near the net, watching his teammates circle the ice like hungry sharks, wondering if he’s missed something. He has the distinct feeling that he has, but can’t name it.
In the first period, Celebrini takes a hit so hard that he goes down, and stays there. Head pounding, he tries to get to his feet and rejoin the game, but something spikes hot and painful at the back of his neck. He tries to rejoin the play, but a whistle blows when his knees crash back down on the cold surface of the ice, hand clutched to the back of his neck. This room, with all its loud sounds, and bright colors, suddenly feels quiet and dark.
And cold. There’s nothing but cold, damp and seeping, clawing its way through Celebrini’s bones. Celebrini’s never thought that the cold could hurt like this before, has never considered it dangerous. Now, it crawls up his nose, climbs the back of his neck, and there’s no blink, there’s just nothing.
Mack wakes up strangely warm, with a pounding headache that almost makes him wonder if Celebrini has taken up binge drinking. Blinking in the dark, he takes stock of a few things: he’s no longer wearing his gear. The sun has set. He’s laying on Will’s chest, his arm slung over Mack’s side, his face pinched with worry even as he sleeps, his head on Mack’s pillow.
“Will?” Mack says, because he’s struck with a serious sort of concern, one that doesn’t spare a moment to panic at the idea of Will in his bed, Will with his arm around him, Will in a stupid fucking Boston College t-shirt but one of the soft ones that he wears to sleep.
Under him, Will stirs, opening bleary eyes and immediately widening them when he sees Mack. “Hey,” he says, his voice relieved. The arm around Mack’s waist moves away quickly, like it had been unintentional. “Jesus, Celly, you scared the fuck out of me.”
Mack’s head is too hard to hold up, the pain in his neck insistent and throbbing, so he lets it fall to the pillow. “What happened?”
“You took a hard fucking hit,” Will says, and Mack thinks his voice is shaky. “I actually thought you might’ve died, like, you were so still. Like a dead body.”
“Well, I’m not a dead body,” Mack replies, reaching up and lightly touching the spot where the pain is radiating from. He’s unsurprised when his fingers land on the scar that he knows is there, hidden behind his hair. “Sort of wish I was, though, fuck.”
“The doctor said you’d feel pretty bad for a few days,” Will explains, brows furrowed. “They said you might not remember the game, or what happened after it.”
“I don’t,” Mack replies, admitting for the first time in his life that he can’t recall a single minute of his time on the ice, or on the bench.
“That’s okay,” Will says. “You’ve got a little time to recover. Couple days.”
He seems to realize how close they’re laying, how Mack’s body had overlapped with his, and uncertainty flickers across his face. “Sorry, I can go back to my room if you want, I just thought—well, I really thought you could’ve died, I didn’t want to leave you by yourself. It’s kind of stupid,” Will adds, shrugging
“It’s okay,” Mack admits, nodding a little and gritting his teeth at the way his neck feels. “It’s fine, Smitty. You can stay.”
“Okay,” Will says, and he looks at Mack. It’s a little too soft, sort of an unfamiliar edge. Mack feels like he’s misaligned, here, in more ways than one. He wonders if the hit to his head has done more damage than he’s aware of, if he’s seeing things that aren’t there.
“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Macklin says, wincing at his own flat tone.
“It’s not your fault,” Will replies, and he reaches up to brush Mack’s hair from his cheek. The touch is careful, so careful. Will’s hand is soft. Mack thinks, for one insane moment, that he should suck Will’s gentle thumb into his mouth, lap along the pad of it. He doesn’t.
“Come on, let’s go back to sleep,” Will tells him, and Mack can’t find any reason to argue. Closing his eyes to the dark room, he watches the colors that bloom across his vision in the dark until awakeness slips from his grasp. Mack doesn’t dream. When he wakes again, twitching with pain, Will strokes his side until he’s lulled back into some sleepy, dark interstice. It’s like a blink, he thinks. Maybe Celebrini will bear the pain for him, this time.
Mack knows he shouldn’t feel this way, the thought bitter, but he can’t help but think that he’s always the one picking up the pieces. Surely, surely, Celebrini can take this for once. It’s only fair.
When Celebrini opens his eyes to the bright lights, the cold, he’s surprised to take stock of his body and find it not so worse for wear.
“How does it feel to be back on the ice?” someone shouts from behind him, and Celebrini sees the number 73 flash by, dragging a puck along the ice with him.
“Beautiful,” he shouts in return, tasting the cold air on his tongue. There’s a moment of hesitancy that confuses him, makes the back of his neck ache. Back on the ice.
Celebrini’s always felt like he’s missing something, at least until the game starts, until he takes the first face-off and tears down the rink. The game takes every bit of his focus, of his body. He puts all of himself into it, because this is all there is. This cold room, the teal, the crush of bodies around him, sticks held triumphantly in the air. More often than not, lately, it’s felt victorious.
There’s just one problem, which is that Celebrini is sure that there’s something else past the door, the place where he closes his eyes and reopens them an instant later to find himself reoriented, the clearing stands suddenly full once again.
The warm room sits heavily in his mind, so distracting that he misses a pass from Will, watches the puck careen into the boards and get picked up by someone clad in red and white. Celebrini only hesitates for a second—thinking about the strange, solid ground beneath his feet, the unfamiliar thin clothing—and then he’s back in the game. He chases. He checks into the boards. He grits his teeth in the penalty box.
When Celebrini comes off the ice at the end of his shift, Warso’s hand lands on his shoulder. “You alright?” he asks, and Celebrini’s sure that this is another one of those questions, the ones that he doesn’t quite understand. He’s missing something, but he nods.
“I’m alright.”
“Good,” Warso says, eyes fixed on the game. “Keep it up, kid. Just stay focused.”
“Got it,” Celebrini says, and he resolves to follow through. He will follow through, because this is what he knows how to do, what he’s good at.
The wrongness that lingers down his spine and up the back of his skull is easy to ignore as he hops back onto the ice. It’ll disappear when I blink, he thinks, like the aches and pains of the game so often do. When Will is at his side, the puck flying between them like they’re the only ones on the ice, Celebrini doesn’t think about anything else.
The world is teal, and cold. Will’s glove, rubbing viciously over his face and helmet, is familiar. The sound of the goal horn makes Celebrini’s blood sing, the roar of the crowd inescapable. The ice, steady under his feet. At the end of the second period, when Asky approaches and knocks their helmets together with unbridled glee, Celebrini blinks.
When Mack steps into the locker room, he knows immediately that something’s wrong. No one’s slipping off their skates, no one’s cheering or moping or engaging in the various forms of ridiculousness that Mack’s learned to observe as research, to help him add up the most important moments that he’s missed. He glances around the room, and most of the guys are sitting on the benches, some gulping down water from bottles, a few shedding their jerseys but nothing more.
Brows furrowed, Mack looks to his side, at Will. He’s sitting on the bench, legs stretched out in front of him, eyes closed as he catches his breath. His lips are chapped, parted. Mack looks away quickly.
“Celebrini, catch,” Eky shouts, and a protein bar hits Mack in the chest.
“Uh, thanks,” he says, turning over the small package. Oatmeal raisin, it says.
Eky tosses a snack to Will, too, and he’s quick to snatch the bar out of Mack’s hand, setting his own in its place. Mint chocolate chip.
“I swear, he never remembers that’s your favorite,” Will grumbles good-naturedly, glancing at Mack through his eyelashes. He’s smiling, tongue stuck out between his teeth, and Mack looks back at the protein bar in his hands.
This is a puzzle, but he’s not sure how the pieces fit together.
Get it together, Mack, he thinks. Add this up.
Will’s trade, without any discussion; the satisfied look on his face, the tinge of something else that Mack isn’t sure how to name. The way he’s seen this look before, a little too soft, in the dark. Mack jolts where he’s sitting. Something is wrong, something is really, really wrong, and all he knows is that Celebrini likes mint chocolate chip protein bars. Likes them enough that Will trades them to him, without any discussion.
“Thanks,” Mack says, his voice feeling distant as he looks out at the locker room, takes in the scene. Reaves is shirtless, gesturing wildly as he tells some story to Misa and Chernyshov, who are laughing with rapt attention. Toff’s re-taping his shin pads. The mood is light, so they’re winning.
Will glances at him, and speaks a little more quietly. “You okay?”
“Um, yeah,” Mack replies, cursing himself at the uncertainty in his voice. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” Will asks. “‘Cause I was kind of surprised when you came off of IR so soon. I mean, that concussion was nasty, is all.”
They’d been calling it a concussion, and Mack supposed it was one, but there just wasn’t any way to say so there’s this implant in my brain, and smacking my head into the ice seems to have fucked it up, somehow. He’d kept that thought to himself, even when faced with blinking back into existence in front of the traveling team doctor, even though he knew better.
This was probably a catastrophic failure of his duty to this team, to Celebrini, but Mack just didn’t know what to say. There were so few people in San Jose that knew—Grier, Warso, the team’s head doctor. The woman who had shone a flashlight across his eyes and followed concussion protocol didn’t have any idea about Mack.
He was sure he should tell her, but the words wouldn’t come out, and Mack was pretty sure that it would break some sort of NDA, anyway.
“It was pretty bad,” he agrees with Will.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Celly?” Will says abruptly, watching Mack’s face with concern. “I just can’t shake this feeling, like—”
He’s interrupted by Warso calling them all back to the ice, the next period starting. Mack gets to his feet and breathes, preparing for the blink as he walks back down the tunnel. It’s all he can do, to relinquish the control back to Celebrini, who can brush off any prying questions by skating well, by putting the puck in the net. Mack hears the locker room door close behind him, and the lights wash over his face.
He blinks.
He opens his eyes, and stumbles over his skates. The view in front of him is unchanged, the yellow logo at center ice, the crowd in black and gold. Mack’s blinked, and Celebrini is nowhere to be seen.
“Alright, let’s go,” Warso shouts, and Will and Chernyshov hop the boards, blades cutting eagerly into the fresh ice. Skating out for the face-off, Will looks back at the bench in confusion when he realizes that Celebrini isn’t right behind him.
“Celebrini, you’re first line,” Warso bellows, eyes narrow as he takes in Mack’s uncertain stance, the loose grip on his stick.
Mack can’t do anything but nod and step out on the ice. He’s thankful, so thankful that the ability to skate seems mostly transferable, that he can move on the ice in the same way that he sees Celebrini do in post-game replays. It’s not the same, but it’s close enough. Mack hasn’t been the one on the ice since Bantam, when his dad had pulled him aside and said, Mack, you’re too in your head out there. We’re going to see a doctor, we’re going to fix this, and you won’t be hesitant anymore.
Celebrini has none of Mack’s hesitation, and Mack feels woefully unprepared as he leans down for the face-off.
“Hey, little shark,” says the man in black and gold, grinning. “Lots of bigger fish around here, eh?”
The puck drops and Mack’s too slow, watches as it slips between his feet, lands on the tape of another Penguin. He’s helpless on the ice, floundering between Will and Cherny, so much so that Warso pulls him early. Mack’s benched, breathing heavy, his stick forgotten beside him.
Each shift feels like a sick repeat of the first, a humiliation ritual. Macklin has never been more aware of the line, the split within him. It must be in his soul, he thinks, because nothing else would explain how deep the gap is between himself and Celebrini, that generational hockey talent that’s now seemingly hidden underneath the buzzing, aching sensation in Mack’s skull.
The Sharks lose, and though no one in the locker room directly blames Mack, he can feel eyes on him in the quiet as he changes. There’s no real puzzle to put together this time, only disappointed chatter. Mack knows the score, knows each fuck-up that necessitates improvement, because they all belong to him.
He thinks about the meeting with the doctor, the way he’d prepared to blink in that sterile office, the discussion of captaincy that preceded it. If this is who he is, who Mack really is, at his core, he can’t help but think that he never deserves that C on his chest. Mack hopes that maybe, after tonight, someone will change their mind.
Toff would be a good captain, he thinks. Wennberg would be his alternate.
Mack strips off his sweaty jersey, glad that there’s no A to add unnecessary weight to it, glad that this embarrassment hadn’t occurred at home. He closes his eyes tight, and when he opens them, he’s still himself. What a shame.
“Okay, what’s going on,” Will says, shutting his car door and turning his full attention to Mack, in the passenger seat. “And don’t give me any of that bullshit you’ve been giving me, because I know something’s wrong.”
Mack is stunned at the certainty in Will’s voice. “Huh?” he says, stupidly.
“I’ve known for a few weeks now,” Will continues, sharply. “I’ve been noticing. Mack, you’re not—” Will pauses, glancing out the windshield to make sure that there’s no one else around, no media hungry to catch this moment on camera, to make sure it’s over every sports media page by morning. “You’re not severed, are you?”
Mack’s mouth goes completely dry, and he opens it to say something, to say anything, but Will has already noticed the look on his face, like he notices weakness on the ice, a shark to blood in the water.
“Mack,” Will’s voice is devastated, horrified. “Mack, no. Tell me I’m wrong, please tell me that’s not it.”
It’s too late. Neither can take back the realization, the truth that has settled over both of their shoulders. “You can’t tell anyone,” Macklin says desperately, his voice raw and afraid.
“Celly, who did this to you?” Will says, frantic. “When? Was it Grier? Why would he do that, when you were so—at Boston, you were—”
“It wasn’t Grier,” Mack shakes his head. “Will, stop, please.”
“How?” Will asks. “How could I possibly—Mack, this isn’t okay, it’s like, illegal or something, I think.”
“It’s not,” Mack says, shivering in his teal hoodie.
“Fuck,” Will curses, knuckles whitening around the steering wheel of his car, still stationary in the lot. “Was it at BU?”
“No,” Macklin answers, fingers scratching over the fabric of his pants, catching where his fingernails are chipped and sharp. “Will. Stop, I promise—I promise it’s okay.”
The look Will levels at him can’t be described as anything other than devastated, and suddenly there’s a lump in Mack’s throat.
“It was the right thing to do,” Mack explains, hoping to ease the expression on Will’s face. It doesn’t work. In fact, it only seems to make it worse—there’s a glittering sheen to Will’s blue eyes and a tightness in his jaw that weren’t there before.
“No way,” Will says, his voice cracking. “You can’t be serious, Celly.”
“Mack,” Macklin responds, figuring that there isn’t any way this can get worse, that now the secret’s out in the open there’s no more damage he can do. “Celebrini is—” he pauses. “He’s Celebrini. Celly. Not me.”
Will runs a hand surreptitiously across his cheek, and then follows the motion with his sleeve, his shoulders hunching inwards. Blinking like it’ll hide the fact that tears are inching down his face, or that his voice has an uncharacteristic, broken quality, he sniffs. “Mack, you’re always you, even if—” he inhales sharply, shakily. “Even if someone made you think you aren’t.”
“That’s just not how it works,” Mack retorts, suddenly upset. “Why the fuck do you think you know how it works better than I do, Smitty, Jesus.”
“I’m not trying to say I know better than you,” Will frowns. “I’m—fuck, Mack, I’m upset that someone did this to you! That you think it’s okay!”
“It was the right thing to do,” Mack grits out, because it’s what he’s been telling himself his entire life, and if it’s not true then it means that all of this suffering—all of this work—has been for nothing. And Mack knows it hasn’t been: his game stats prove it, his status as the first overall draft pick proves it.
“How?” Will asks, incredulous.
“I wasn’t any good before!” Mack exclaims. “I was too in my head, too anxious. It’s better this way, there’s no room for overthinking. I let him take care of everything on the ice, and I—I keep up with everything else.”
“You were good,” Will scoffs.
“When I was in Peewee?” Mack retorts. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Will.”
The realization of exactly how long it’s been since Mack’s mind belonged only to himself forces Will to pause, eyes wide, breath caught in his chest. It’s uncomfortable—the realization that he’s never known Macklin Celebrini, has only ever witnessed these fragmented parts of him. That he’s laughed off Mack’s symptoms as forgetfulness, that he’s known him for years, and hasn’t ever truly noticed.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Mack repeats.
“Then what are we going to do?”
“Nothing!” Mack explodes. “Will, we aren’t going to do anything!”
“How can you be okay with that?” Will levels a shocked gaze at him, his back stiff and straight in his seat. “Your life’s split in fucking two, and you—” he stills, realization washing over him for the second time that night. “And something’s wrong, isn’t it. With the implant.”
“No,” Mack hisses, but for the second time tonight, Will is too perceptive to fall for the lie.
“That’s why you played like shit,” Will continues, like he’s talking himself through this, putting the pieces of his own puzzle together, teal and icy-cold. “After that hit—you’ve been so weird, something was wrong, and I knew it.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Macklin protests. “It’s, like—it’s fine. It’s fine! I’ve lived with it for years, I know how to handle it.”
“Clearly not,” Will says, and Mack shifts uncomfortably. He has a point, and he knows it.
“Will,” Mack exhales, frustrated, and the sound comes out brokenly. All of the stress, the aching, the anxiety of the past few weeks is so heavy, and Mack feels his shoulders slump with the weight of it. Chewing on his lip, he meets the eyes of his best friend, ashamed.
Will studies him for a moment, his jaw still clenched. Mack watches the way that Will’s eyes scan his face, taking in the details of him in the dimly lit parking garage, the damp strands of hair that have fallen over his forehead. Mack’s eyes, the tired rings around them. His nose, bruised from a high stick in Calgary. His lips, cracked from the cold rink air, worried over his own teeth.
When Will leans over the space between them and wraps his arms around Mack, he’s not sure what he was expecting from the sudden movement, or how to react. Will’s body trembles, just a bit, and he presses his face into Mack’s shoulder and breathes in deeply. Slowly, Mack allows his arms to come up, to wrap around Will’s back and hold him close.
They sit, clutching each other for a long moment, a moment Mack’s sure would never occur somewhere more public, now that Will’s sniffling into his hoodie uncharacteristically.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“You could’ve told me,” Will’s voice is muffled.
“No, I couldn’t have,” he replies, and the way Will’s shoulders slump is proof enough that he understands.
When Will sits back up, corrals his body into his own space, not Macklin’s, he wipes away the slight dampness on his cheeks. Generously, Mack doesn’t mention the wet spot on his shoulder, the darkened teal fabric that neither of them can wipe away. He’d probably make fun of Will, if he didn’t also feel like crying.
“You can’t say anything,” Mack starts, and when Will nods and begins to say I get it, Mack shakes his head. “I don’t just mean to anyone, I mean—to Celebrini.”
Will swallows like the idea hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh.”
“It’s dangerous,” Mack explains, the lump in his throat feeling larger, heavier. His neck aches. “He can’t know that he’s—well, that there’s a life outside the rink. The doctors have told me so many times, it’s—like, it’ll fuck things up. Bad.”
“Okay,” Will says, thoughtful, running his tongue along his teeth. The car is silent for a long while, the rush of other vehicles in the parking garage sounding distant, other players and employees vacating the rink. “Let’s…let’s go home. And we can talk more.”
Mack nods, and while Will drives, he rests his head against the cool glass of the window. The sensation seeps into his skin, like ice. Time seems to slip through Mack’s fingers strangely after that, and before he can start to feel concerned, Will parks the car at their apartment building.
“Come on,” he says, scrubbing at his face with a sleeve-covered hand once more. He looks tired, more tired than he should be from tonight’s game. Mack can’t help but feel guilty about it, like it’s his fault, or maybe Celebrini’s.
“I’m sorry,” he says, after they’ve braved the lobby and the elevator, while Will turns his key in their lock.
He looks sideways at Mack, that same look he keeps seeing lately, that he’s not sure how to interpret.
“Macky,” Will breathes, turning to face him, stopping him from walking farther into their apartment. The entry is dark, and Mack thinks Will’s reaching out to turn on the light, but instead his hand lands on Mack’s cheek.
The touch is so gentle, and Mack feels his lip wobbling slightly as he realizes he’s been missing something this whole time, something more than just the nights spent on ice, the morning practices where he blinks in and out of existence.
“I’m so sorry,” Will says, his voice thick with emotion. Mack’s hand comes up to curl around Will’s wrist, around the hand that’s cradling his cheek so softly, and he thinks, for just a moment, that Will is going to kiss him.
Will doesn’t.
He knocks their foreheads together so carefully that it’s more so a brush of skin, a pale imitation of what Mack’s seen on countless game replays, the slam of their helmets into each other. There’s usually a laugh that follows, a wide smile splitting Celebrini’s face, and Will’s, too. But not now.
Will steps back, sets his keys on the counter, and walks down the hall, leaving Mack standing in the shadowy entryway. Mack watches as he runs a hand through his hair tiredly, moving slowly. He’s quiet, unlike himself, while they embark upon their usual post-game rituals.
He gets a snack, Mack watches the game tape with a Gatorade in hand. Sometimes, Will points things out too, watches the footage with him. Tonight, before they can talk any more, Will falls asleep at his end of the couch, his neck bent uncomfortably as his head rests on his hand.
“Will,” Mack whispers, when it’s past midnight, the sounds of traffic on the street outside nearly inaudible from their living room. “It’s late.”
Will wakes with bleary eyes, rubs them again—they’re starting to look red, raw, Mack thinks—and yawns. He gets to his feet, and Mack begins his retreat into his room. He changes efficiently, tries not to think about the ache at the back of his neck.
He’s surprised when Will walks into his room, clad in his usual sleepwear, faded Boston College shirt and shorts. He looks at Mack, and his expression is determined. “If you think I’m leaving you by yourself to, like, fry your brain in the night or whatever, you’re stupid.”
“Yeah, okay,” Mack says, because that’s easier than saying I’m not going to fry my brain, idiot, or what he thinks might be the worst thing he could possibly blurt out, it might be too late for that, Smitty. Instead, he goes through the motions, brushes his teeth, and digs out a phone charger for Will to plug into the other nightstand.
It’s not like they make a habit of this, he thinks, as he gets into bed, glancing over at Will, laying under the covers and looking at his phone. It’s a new thing—waking up in Will’s arms after his concussion had been unexpected, and a bit strange, if he was honest.
“Will?” he asks, turning over on his side to look at him. “I, um—”
“I know,” Will says. He lets his phone flop down on his chest, reaches out across the bed and rests his hand near Mack, palm open.
Mack stares at the offering for a long second before he rests his hand in Will’s, and allows their fingers to curl together, just slightly. His eyes are tired, they’re so tired, and as they slip closed he feels Will reach out with his other hand and turn off his bedside lamp. The room is shrouded in darkness, and he hears Will exhale slowly, his fingers twitching against Macklin’s.
“I’m going to make some calls,” he says quietly. “To—to Hughes, maybe. I don’t know. Someone. I won’t tell them anything, I just need to…I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Mack says, well aware that he should discourage Will, should shut this line of thinking down. The less people know, the better. But if Will wants to talk to someone, to ask someone who is just like Mack, equally as fractured, who can’t possibly tell anyone else, anyway—”Okay, Will.”
This new routine becomes familiar quickly: Mack dresses in the locker room. Will rests his hand on his back as they walk down the tunnel. It stays there when Mack blinks, when Celebrini opens his eyes. During warm-ups, Celebrini finds the eyes of number 2 on him more often than not, and he can’t decipher the look in the blue, the almost-teal.
The routine doesn’t seem to have any affect on his skating, at least not any bad one. He keeps passing, blindly—Will is where he wants him to be, more often than not, and they bounce goals off of each other with an insistence that feels almost like proving himself, over and over. Celebrini watches the numbers rack up on the scoreboard, watches the light in Will’s eyes, and grins.
When Will grins back, Celebrini hopes it’s directed towards him.
They win games. Celebrini doesn’t blink away another period of the game, at least not entirely, but he starts to become aware of small snatches of time that completely vanish, the game clock run down a minute or two more than expected. When he pauses in confusion, blades scratching on the ice, Will is always there, his hand resting on the small of his back.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” he responds, glancing up at the game clock.
“Come on, faceoff,” Will nudges him towards center ice. “Get me a puck, Celly.”
This, Celebrini knows how to do, and he says so.
He gets Will the puck, gets it into the goal. Will whoops with excitement, skidding across the ice and spinning Mack around in a circle. He knocks their helmets together, teal into teal, and Celebrini loses time for a minute.
He thinks he might be standing somewhere dark, somewhere warm, where there’s no smell of ice. He thinks Will’s forehead might be pressed to his, no helmets between them, no pads or gear bulking up the outline of their bodies.
A pair of hands comes to his shoulders and shakes him, celebratory, and Celebrini digs his skates into the ice and gets back into play.
How silly, he thinks. There’s nothing but ice, and teal, and cold.
But he knows better, by now. Celebrini remembers the warm room, the woman with her hair pulled tight in a bun. How he got there, he’s not sure—can’t imagine a way that the huge, cold rink could exist in the same world as something like that.
Maybe I’m daydreaming, he thinks.
Even though they lose the game, Will’s hand is on his back as they walk off the ice together, and Celebrini feels warm inside, like he’s won something.
“Does it still hurt?” Will asks Mack, eyes on the road in front of them. There are two smoothies in his car cupholders, one dark green for Mack, one viciously sweet for Will, a shockingly unnatural shade of orange.
“What, the chip in my head?” Mack responds. It’s nice to be honest with Will, at least, to have someone who knows about the implant, someone who doesn’t skirt around the topic like it’s forbidden, even though Mack supposes it is.
“Yes, idiot.”
“I dunno,” Mack shrugs. “Yeah, a little. Less, maybe?”
“You’re still, um,” Will says inelegantly, tongue between his teeth. “He’s still sort of, I don’t know. Different.”
“Like how?” Mack interrogates, furrowing his eyebrows.
“I don’t know,” Will sighs, flicking on his turn signal. “I don’t know. Nevermind.”
When Celebrini opens his eyes, for only the second time he can remember, he’s not on the ice. This time, he’s not far from it, standing behind the benches, the familiar teal and green and cold not far away.
He lifts his foot up and looks at it, confused. “Where are my skates?” he asks, looking up at Will, who’s standing in front of him, leaning casually against the boards. It feels strange, standing so close to the ground.
“In the locker room,” Will says, and his gaze feels careful, perceptive.
Celebrini’s eyebrows furrow slightly, like he’s not quite sure what Will’s talking about.
“Don’t worry about that,” Will tells him. “I’ll get them in a minute, and then we can skate.”
The idea seems to settle Celebrini, the familiarity easing the tension in his shoulders. “Why, um…” he looks around at the empty stands, the empty ice. “Where is everyone?”
“It’s just you and me today, Celly,” he chirps, a wry smile on his face. “What, am I not allowed to miss you?”
Celebrini’s cheeks flush, and he thinks about so many teal things, the touch of Will’s glove to his face, the shape of his body. “No, you’re allowed,” he retorts, sticking his tongue out at Will. It’s immature, sure, but it earns a laugh that has Will gently shoving him.
“Hey, before we skate,” Will says casually, “has your neck been hurting?”
“Yeah,” Celebrini says, frowning. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” Will replies, hand on Celebrini’s shoulder as he brushes his hair upwards, taking a look at the back of his neck. Celebrini shivers, feeling suddenly vulnerable, fragile under Will’s careful touch.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Oh, nothing,” Will says casually. “Just checking to see if you have a bruise.”
Celebrini runs his fingers over the back of his own neck, and finds that the sensation is deeply unpleasant, a sort of gut-wrenching pain. He hisses through his teeth, jerking his hand away like he’s been burned. “Is it a bad bruise?”
Will eyes him carefully, like he’s thinking about what to say. “Not too bad, I don’t think.”
He leaves Celebrini with that thought while he goes to the locker room to grab their skates, and then helps Celebrini lace his up, because all of a sudden Celebrini’s hands are uncertain. It’s like he can’t remember how to do it, his fingers clumsy on the laces. He frowns.
“It’s okay,” Will reassures him. “I think you just got hit in the head a little harder than I thought, big guy.”
Celebrini rolls his eyes at the nickname that feels like a chirp. “Alright, Smitty.”
“Race you to center ice,” Will says in return, and he’s off, pushing away from the boards with unexpected speed. Celebrini can’t remember ever seeing Will skate like this, can’t figure out why the absence of teal feels so strange in his head, like it’s tugging at a tether fastened at the back of his neck. He pauses before he leaps onto the ice, running his fingers over his hairline.
It hurts. He frowns, but he supposes it’s not surprising, if he hit his head.
The trouble is just that Celebrini doesn’t remember hitting his head. It feels like there are a lot of things he’s missing lately, little things that just slip into the momentary dark gaps between the ice, the few handfuls of seconds where everything isn’t teal and cold and sweaty.
He shakes off the feeling before he meets Will at the center of the rink, rolling his shoulders as he lets his eyes follow the shape of Will, black shirt and sweatpants.
“I never get to see you like this,” he complains, and Will just grins.
“Sorry, Celly,” he retorts. “What, you don’t think I look good in teal?”
Celebrini rolls his eyes, skating a lazy loop around Will until he joins him, hand coming to rest at the small of his back where the sensation is now familiar. It makes Celebrini think of game-winning goals, his knuckles crashing into Will’s, their heads bumping together—
Will laughs softly, and Celebrini realizes that he’s staring, eyes fixated on Will’s face as the other skater leads him around the rink. “Maybe it’s a good thing we’ve both got helmets on during the game, you know, because I’m starting to think you’d get too distracted staring at my face.”
“Maybe,” Celebrini admits, even though it feels like something he shouldn’t say, something that makes the back of his neck prickle. There’s an underlying sensation of misalignment that he just can’t explain, a feeling that he’s getting distracted. Like he’s not doing his job, somehow. “Why’d you bring me out here to skate, anyway?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Will explains, letting go of his grasp on Celebrini and skating backwards instead, facing him.
“About what?” Celebrini replies. “I mean, what is there to talk about, really?”
“I don’t know,” Will tilts his head to the side, like he’s curious. “Maybe you can just—well, tell me what’s been on your mind.”
“Lots of things,” Celebrini says. “You want me to, like, make a list?’
“Sure.”
“It’s kind of weird that everything’s always cold,” Celebrini starts, and watches a flicker of confusion cross Will’s face, and then disappear. “And, well, I know we’re not a playoff contender this year, but I’m proud of the way things have gone. We’ve won more than we’ve lost, right?”
Will nods.
“So I guess, that’s been on my mind. I’m proud of that. Lots of other things, like, your slapshot in Buffalo,” Celebrini holds up a finger, and keeps counting as he talks. “I like having Eky or Graf on our line, but I like Toff, too. I missed you when you were out on IR, Chernyshov’s great but he’s not you. And I don’t know, stupid stuff. Like it’s been a while since I’ve seen Mukh, right? And I hope he’s okay, I don’t know where he is.”
Celebrini licks his lips, and keeps talking. “I keep feeling like I’m missing something, right, like this weird itch I can’t scratch. But the funny thing about it is—well, it goes away when you’re around.” He looks at Will, brows furrowed and perplexed. “Funny, right?”
“Funny way to come onto me, Celebrini,” Will says, and then his fingers are tangled in the neckline of Celebrini’s hoodie, and their lips are pressed together.
Strangely, it’s not the kiss that makes Celebrini glitch, losing a few precious seconds of time, but the way their foreheads bump together. That odd sense of deja vu is back, the words on the tip of his tongue there for a heartbeat, and gone in an instant. He exhales—frustrated—and pulls back, opening his mouth to tell Will that it’s not him, that Celebrini hasn’t ever wanted anything more, except maybe a goal.
“It’s okay,” Will says as he opens his mouth, his hand gentle on Celebrini’s cheek, his jaw set with something that Celebrini recognizes as determination. “I know.”
“Something’s definitely wrong with your implant, you know,” Will says from the other bed in the hotel room, staring at his phone. Mack, rustling through his suitcase to find his shampoo, sighs.
“Okay, genius, and what do you want me to do about it? Tell Grier, or Warso? I’ll be a liability, and they won’t play me. Or worse, they’ll have someone cut me open and fuck around in my brain.”
“You didn’t have an issue with that before,” Will says, his tone an attempt at lightness, one that falls terribly flat. Mack throws his shampoo—found it—at him.
“Dude.”
“Sorry,” Will grumbles, turning his attention back to his phone. Mack isn’t sure what’s up with him, but something’s definitely off, and it has been since they’ve been on the road. Will has been tetchy, frustrated, even as he’s visibly tried to tamp it down into something productive and helpful.
“What’s your deal,” Mack needles, abandoning his suitcase to sit halfway on Will’s bed, staring down at him. “You’ve been acting like, I don’t know, weird.”
“Oh, and you haven’t?” Will sits up, eyeing Macklin carefully, almost face-to-face.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Well, I don’t have a single clue what’s going on with you, for one,” Mack says, exasperated. “Come on, Smitty. What’s the issue.”
Will sighs, resting his hands behind him and leaning back, putting a little space between himself and Mack. “I don’t even think I’m, like, allowed to tell you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Like, with your chip, idiot. Isn’t it bad if I tell you what’s going on with Celebrini, or whatever?”
“No,” Mack scowls. “Just the other way around. It’s him that doesn’t know I exist, dumbass.”
“Well,” Will says, licking his lips almost nervously. “Let’s say I, hypothetically, might’ve kissed him.”
“Dude,” Mack exclaims, and he’s aware it’s the wrong sort of response, but he can’t stop himself from getting up and pacing around the hotel room. “What the fuck.”
Will eyes him suspiciously. “Are you mad about it? Really?”
“No, I’m not, I’m—” Mack gestures wildly, running a hand through his hair. “Really, him?”
“What, as if that’s the craziest thing you’ve ever heard in your life, or something?”
“No, but—”
“Are you jealous?” Will asks, and when Mack stills on the path he’s wearing out in the carpet, his eyes widen. Will sits up, slips out from under the blankets. “Because you know how much of an idiot you are if you’re jealous, right? Of the guy who’s never fucking seen anything but ice, who doesn’t even know where—” Will gets a little breathless, “where his friends on IR go, or why someone else’s there in their place.”
Mack swallows hard. The back of his neck aches.
“Mack, you idiot,” Will repeats, and there’s a strange heartbroken lilt to his voice, at doing this twice, at the difference. He leans forward and kisses Mack, lips chapped and rough.
Macklin’s hands fly up to Will’s shoulders, instinctive, like he might push him off. He doesn’t, only stills further, the frustrated panic within him dissipating. He kisses Will back, feels the stubble on his cheek under his hand, and lets the tension fall away from his shoulders, as much as it can.
“You idiot,” Will repeats against his lips. “You’re so stupid, you know. I wanted to kiss you first, I would’ve done it weeks ago, if you weren’t hurt, if your chip wasn’t—”
Mack shuts him up by kissing him again, fearful that if Will thinks about the chip too much he’ll take this back, will think that Mack’s damaged goods. It lasts for what Mack thinks could be a few long seconds, his heartbeat thundering in his ears, before a searing pain flashes through his neck, lights up every single nerve with alarm.
He staggers backwards, hand flying up to his neck and then—blinks.