Would You Rather

10 - WYR: hash it out with your brother in a normal way, or get bloody on TV?

edit 3/19: continuity error

FIDAN

"How are you feeling about tonight?" Nico squats in front of my dressing cubby, catching my eyes with a wave of her hand. My gear has settled weird across my shoulders and I think I need to cut a piece of velcro down to get it to stop chafing. I can't think about it right now, though.

I blink, pulling my headphone off one side of my ear, "with... Kasper?"

She nods.

"I mean," I chew my bottom lip. "Fine."

"Just..." her hand lands on top of my knee pad. "If you need to come off the ice to cool down, tell me and I'll make it happen. I can't have last year happening on my ice."

"Right." I slide my headphone back over my ear.

Last year my lovely lovely brother broke my nose four minutes into the first period of my game against Nashville. This year I want to make it at least five.

The shudder of the roaring arena shuts it off, at least a little bit, but there's not much shutting off that can be done about twenty-one years of intense rivalry.

Kasper is only ten months older than I am.

It's for reasons you might expect.

Kasper Koskinen got drafted in the first round. I did not. Kasper got pulled up immediately to the pros. I did not. Kasper is taller than me. Kasper was way more committed to hockey than me. Kasper started lifting weights to improve his game two years before I did. Kasper worked one on one with my Dad for most of my childhood. Kasper played for the best teams. Kasper...

Kasper did not win the Calder trophy for most accomplished rookie season. Kasper has not scored as much as I did in my first two months of playing in his first three years.

Kasper is a fucking dick. Kasper has always been a fucking dick.

I line up in the hallway, head down, counting my breathing, trying not to let the giddy rush of adrenaline take over my body before racing out onto the ice.

Fenrir is running up the hall, shouting, chest-bumping with Rocket, slapping Håkon on the back, screaming into Greenie's cage.

I look up, centered on the moment, shedding everything that isn't just this second.

"Gimme some!" Fenrir shouts at me and I leap up, slamming shoulders with him, letting the rattle of the impact rile up the adrenaline, letting it run wild in my chest, in my hands, in my arms.

With a deafening shout, we run toward the light at the end of the tunnel and the thunder of the music in the arena, breaking one-by-one out onto the ice.

The second my skate hits the glass surface, that adrenaline that drives me grabs me by the throat, turning to an unruly, snap-of-my-fingers burst of excitement.

It's just so goddamn fast, so goddamn good. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of my life on an empty rink drilling shot after shot after shot and it's all for this. I'd be nothing without this. It's everything I love all in one spot. It's thundering music and spotlights and the burn of my muscles, it's shoulder-checking Hugo for fun in warm ups, it's trying to ring shots off the bars to scare the fans by the glass, it's focusing on my hands, stretching my hips on the ground, it's flicking a puck into the air for Greenie to catch on his stick, it's hockey.

It's me and it's fucking hockey.

Between warmups and the start of the game, we're corralled to the sides, discussing our opening plays, getting a bit of water, talking to each other. Some of the guys skate to the midline, meeting up with old friends on the Predators, talking to people they know.