Chapter 207: Foppa XVII

A/N: Thanks Jad!!

 

Chapter 206: Foppa XVII—Small Victories

            “Do you know,” Peter said after he took a mouthful of water and spat it onto the grimy boards. He looked at Keaner, “Ho come we get punished when the goalie pulls out a shit performance?”

            Keaner blinked and half grinned. “Aw come on, it wasn’t all Patty.”

            Forsberg rolled his eyes, huffed, “We scored five goals on Friday, that’s more than enough for Patty to hold the fort and we end up with a tie. You really can’t tell me Keaner that you felt we were defensively that bad.”

            “Sure,” Keaner replied. “I can tell you anything you want to hear sweetheart.”

            Peter shrugged. “I’m sorry, Keaner,” he said. “I know Patty’s your friend and everything… I mean I know he obviously wasn’t feeling well but dammit…”

            “Naw,” Keaner replied. “Say what you want, don’t matter to me much just don’t dwell on it think of it this way you’re getting a good workout.”

            Peter sighed. On Saturday they had clawed back from a three goal deficit for a 5-5 tie in Ottawa. Although it always felt good to come back from a deficit, it also irked him to see Patty so ill prepared to play. Throughout the whole game, that cough that had been nagging at Patty came back with a vengeance and no one thought to tell him to sit out. Peter liked Patrick, and he worried about him, sometimes more than he should and he had noticed Patty discreetly spitting a darkish fluid a few times. He had made eye contact with Patty once and the goalie’s eyes had begged him, “please don’t tell.”

            And dammit, Peter was mad at himself because he didn’t tell. Still, the goalie’s game had certainly been affected and the fact that everyone pretended that it hadn’t been that it was merely a defensive issue, irked him.

            It was a cold, humid day in Nashville, a day that Peter would definitely have preferred to curl up in bed in the hotel, drinking something hot and watching television until game time. Instead, Coach Hartley’s insistence that they were not playing well defensively as a five man unit had them skating an extra long practice for the second day a row. It was a practice that also included forty minutes of grueling laps around the rink, in full gear.

            “God!” Peter groaned as he and Keaner were taking advantage of a quick ten minute break. “Why the hell did Kat get left home, I could really use her after this practice!”

            “Heh,” Keaner said. “Not to mention just looking at her before a game…”

            Peter grinned. “Yeah, that works too.”

            “How about small victories?” Keaner said to Peter as they skated onto the practice ice. “That helps get me through a practice.”

            Peter frowned, “What do you mean?”

            “Well,” Keaner replied. “Everytime you complete a pass, receive a good one, score a goal, just jot it down as yeah you just had a victory, and it’s a sweet one. Pat yourself on the back for practically every little thing you do good, you know like a goalie would do it.”

            Peter grinned. “Hey I don’t know if I can do that.”

            Keane frowned. “Of course you can’t sissy, you obviously hate yourself. You need a small bit of self esteem before you can even attempt to make a small victory for yourself.”

            With that the red headed winger skated to the other corner of the ice. Peter felt his heart tremble, anger in his gut that Mike would dare say a thing like that to him. What the hell was that pit bull bastard trying to say to him? Ugly pit bull at that, the man didn’t even have half the hair he was born with to begin…

            “Alright,” Hartley barked after he had blown the whistle. “We’re running a PK drill. I want to see some aggressive men on the puck and not the passive box which burned us for four on Saturday.”

            Peter wanted to roll his eyes as he took the face off. It’s not like the penalty kill unit hadn’t been trying. He was tired, he wanted to go to bed, and it wasn’t fair! He won the face off and since his unit was the power play group he took a quick glance at Aebischer who was in net. Abby sometimes overplayed the side to side movement during a penalty kill; if they got some quick passing done they might be able to confuse the kid.

            Peter saw Keaner’s red beard and inwardly groaned. Why the hell was HE on the power play unit with him? Christ it couldn’t get worse could it? Briefly he met eyes with Keane and he noticed the puck smack onto his stick and Keaner instead of passing it to him, began to skate around the zone with it, slipping away from the penalty killers.

            “Come on!” Peter yelled. “Keaner give it to me!”

            Keaner grinned and dodged Joey, “I didn’t hear you!” he barked.

            Forsberg narrowed his eyes. “Keaner!”

            “What?”

            Forsberg stopped skating, wanted to throw the stick from his hands and scream but he merely cried out. “Keaner come on!”

            “Come on and what?” Keane barked back and he slipped through two defenders. Damn, Forsberg thought, why doesn’t he play this good during a game or does our penalty kill suck just that badly?

            “Come on and GIVE IT!” Peter yelled and he smacked his stick up and down on the ice to emphasize his point.

            “You want it baby?” Keaner cried and he skated behind the net, deked back, escaped Blake’s grasp.

            “Yeah I want it!” Peter snarled. “I WANT IT!”

            “You want it bad?” Keane grinned and he skated quickly around Blake who crashed into Footer. “And who can give it?”

            “You can!” Peter barked. “Only you Keaner now come on give it to me!”

            “You want it?”

            “I want it!”

            “And it’s only me for you?”

            Forsberg felt his cheeks flaming in anger and with something else, “Only YOU!” He cried. “ONLY you Keaner!”

            “Yeah babe!” Keaner snarled and he again twisted away from Joey, “Who is it for ya?”

            “YOU!” Peter cried and he smacked his stick again, he could feel himself burning all over for just the feel of the puck smacking against the tape of his stick, he knew he would have Abby’s top shelf corner pegged. “It’s you Keaner!”

            “Say it!” Keane whooped. “SAY what I wanna hear sweetie, SAY IT!”

            Forsberg gripped the shaft of his stick and felt his body bubbling as he screamed. “You’re me KEANE MAN! Only YOU!”

            “King or Keane?” Keaner barked. “What did you say? I’m your KING!”

            “Dammit!” Forsberg snarled. “You’re my KING now give it!”

            “YEAH!” Keaner barked and he snapped the pass and Peter almost exploded with ecstasy as he felt it smack the tape of his stick and vibrate up to his elbows and he wasted no time in blasting the puck right into Aebischer’s net and when Peter saw the netting ripple with the puck he howled. “OH YES! YESSS! YESSSSS!” He felt Keaner’s body against his own and he squeezed him in a hug as he tingled with joy. “GOD DAMMIT!” Peter howled. “Keaner I need you on my power play!”

            “Yeah that’s what I’m talking about,” Keaner laughed.

            “Sure,” Forsberg said. “Hey Keaner that… that…” Peter’s voice died off as he realized that their voices were ricocheting inside the arena and they were the only voices. He felt himself prickle with embarrassment as he slowly let go of Keaner and realized that the entire team was standing stock still and staring at them, blinking, bunched into one group. Peter cleared his throat, heard Keaner laugh silently. He looked at Aebischer.

“Hey Abby,” Peter said meekly, “You… how come you didn’t try to stop that shot?”

            Aebischer had his helmet lifted, was squinting and grinning. “I don’t think any of us were trying to stop you in the end,” he purred.

            Peter sighed and looked back at the team who were still standing, blinking, staring. He saw a huge grin on Patty’s face, horrified looks on everyone else.

            “Shit!” Mike Modano broke the silence. “And you guys thought I was gay?”

            “Heh,” Keaner replied. “Maybe we went a little too far.”

            Peter had to laugh, there was nothing else to do.

            “Hey Peter.”

            Peter looked into the pale eyes of his captain as he crawled off the exercise bike, muscles feeling as numb as pudding, as hard as rocks. “Yeah Joe?”

            Joe looked around as if to make sure no one was listening and then he said in a low voice. “Are you okay Pete?” he asked.

            Peter felt his cheeks burn, there was no way he was gonna live that display down any time soon, at least Keaner had a sense of humor and welcomed attention like that but dammit! “Sure, Joe, heh I think things just got kinda weird you know.”

            Sakic raised his eyebrows, “Kinda weird!” He leaned forward and Peter did as well, noticing the closeness of… “Pete, I thought you and Mike were just gonna do it right there if you catch my drift.”

            “Sure,” Peter said. “You know this is somehow all Keaner’s fault I know it.”

            Joe grinned. “I’m sure it is. Still… it was a rather disturbing sight.”

            Forsberg smiled, imagined how it would have looked. “Yikes,” he said. “I still blame Keaner.”

            Joe nodded. “Fair enough but Peter, it could mean, well…”

            Peter saw Joe shift on his feet, and take a deep breath.

            “How are things going with you and your girl?” Joe finally asked. “I mean was there some sort of repression showing through, I mean were you needing to unload some…uh.. some excess energy? Has she not been um…”

            Peter grinned. “Joe are you telling me I need to bone my own girlfriend?”

            Joe’s eyes widened and he looked absolutely distraught. “No! No! I mean not if she doesn’t… isn’t ready to, I don’t mean to force her to… but if it’s important to you to you know play better if you’ve had some… some…”

            Peter couldn’t help his smile. “Are you telling me I should CHEAT on my girlfriend? Captain how could you!”

            “Noooo!” Joe gasped. “I mean not really… I mean… dammit Peter!”

            Peter shrugged. “Hey captain’s orders are captain’s orders.”

            Joe shook his head. “No I mean just maybe you should do what you feel you have to in order to avoid further displays like that in the future.”

            Peter yawned and stretched. “Nah,” he said. “Just as long as I’m not in Keaner’s influence I think I should be fine.”

            Joe smiled and laughed. “That rat.”

            Peter laughed as well and was about to reply when he heard a loud, whining, “Captain!”

            Joe raised his eyebrows and turned around. “Yeah, Tiger?”

            Alex Tanguay had a pouting look on his soft face. “Can I room with you again on the next roadtrip? Please!”

            Joe laughed. “What?” he exclaimed.

            “Cause Modo didn’t want to room with me the past couple nights so he switched rooms with Footer and that made Patty all pissed off and that made Footie all pissed off so he decided to be a veteran and he makes me do bad things!” Tangers huffed.

            “Oh really?” Joe said in voice dripping with patronizing glee. “Like what?”

            Peter leaned over Joe’s shoulder, grinned at Alex.

            “Well,” Tangers said. “I made a list.” He pulled out a paper and handed it to Joe. Peter only had a glance at the list scrawled upon it and he collapsed on the carpet laughing.

            “Woah!” Joe exclaimed. “Tell Adam that’s a good one! And yes you can room with me again on our next road trip.”