Rating: PG-13
Original Date of Completion: May/September 2003
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone, but I wish I did. This is all fake, conjured in the confines of my demented little mind. So please, don't sue me.
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“What a game by Marc Denis,” The TV sports reporter praised. “A 44 save shutout over the Blues, he was incredible,”
“He really was spectacular,” The anchor woman chimed in. “And really, Denis’ game was made more difficult by the complete meltdown of Brent Johnson. The Blues were desperate not to be embarrassed any further,”
“Without a doubt. 7 goals on 23 shots, it was an embarrassing night for Johnny out there,”
Glaring at the TV, Brent slammed back a shot of bourbon, wincing at the bitter taste. He whistled for the bartender, and with a flirtatious smile she came to refill his drinks. He paid no attention to her, ignoring her exquisite beauty, and how she’d undid another button on her blouse as she poured his drink. His mind was far from that bar, still on the ice of the Savvis Center, watching goal after goal slip past him. Embarrassing didn’t begin to describe the night for Brent; there was no word he could think of that properly could. He had played the worst game of his life. No matter what he had done, the puck still managed to get by. He’d cost his team another victory, two precious points in the hotly contested Central Division, to a division rival. And he knew what fate awaited him for it.
Slamming back another shot, Brent found the only word that could describe that night: Terrifying.
To the outside observer, Brent was a perfectly normal man, relaxing after a rough day at the office. But on the inside, he was anything but the way he appeared to be. Beneath the gruff exterior lay a troubled soul, one who fought desperately to handle the pressures of his life. He often asked himself if he’d made a bad decision choosing hockey, specifically goaltending as a career. The answer was always a resounding no, no matter what may be going on in his life; hockey was in his blood. But the pressures he felt were enormous, at times overwhelming.
There were times still, seven years later, that he wished he’d won the back-up job in Colorado, instead of being traded to St. Louis where he was almost immediately hailed as the savior the Blues had been waiting for. He knew how much simpler things would be for him now had that trade never happened. The eventual success of the team wouldn’t rest completely on his shoulders; he wouldn’t take the full blame for every loss his team suffered. There would be no media breathing down his back if he had a bad game, or allowed a bad goal; nobody cared about the back-up as long as the starter played well. There would be no Scott; he wouldn’t live his life in the perpetual state of fear that he did, and had since the moment he stepped onto St. Louis ice. For Brent, that one thing was the most appealing of all.
Of all the hardships in his life, Scott was by far the worst. He was the reason for Brent’s current state; sitting alone in a rundown bar on the far outskirts of St. Louis, dreading returning to his own home. Brent had went there with the sole purpose of avoiding Scott, for one simple reason: he was afraid. He knew Scott was waiting for him at home, sitting in the dark, at the kitchen table, with a leather strap in his hands. As soon as he would walk through the door, Scott would be on him, and Brent was dragged down into another night of hell.
Scott never yelled, but for Brent that was so much worse. He expressed his rage in silence, few times could Brent remember him even raising his voice. He never had to. Every thing was spoken in his eyes, fiery brown screaming everything Brent needed to know; that he was a failure, a disgrace to his team, and more than deserving of everything he got.
Brent had protested Scott’s treatment only once that he could remember, and it was one vivid time he could recall Scott speaking to him in those moments. Everything he had said had struck Brent deeply; it had answered questions Brent had asked himself so many times before. “Do you think anyone would care if you told? You deserve every bit of this. You’re a nobody, no one gives a shit what happens to you. No one would care if I slit your throat right now and left you for dead on the freeway. No one cares.” Those thoughts were some Brent had always had, even throughout his childhood. He had always yearned to have them denied, to hear someone tell him that none of them were true. But a part of him had always known, deep down, that a day would come when those thoughts would be confirmed. Scott had provided that confirmation that night, and from that day forward, he’d went along with anything Scott wanted like an obedient puppy. He never barked, he never growled, he never fought back. He was essentially the perfect pet. Except for the rare times that he slipped his leash, and wound up wandering into a strange bar far away from home.
It was these times, and only these times, that Brent contemplated rebellion. Spending time alone, away from the pressures of his teammates, his thoughts were always on what life would be like without Scott. He hadn’t been raised to need Scott’s form of motivation. Before Scott, he had been driven on his love for the game, and his desire to be the best. Such notions had long since abandoned him. His drive came now from a place he didn’t want, but felt now that he needed. Somewhere in his mind, he knew those feelings were wrong. There was still a small part of him that believed he was talented enough to play the way those around him had always expected. That was why in these moments he imagined breaking free, returning his life to it’s pre-Scott state. But always came something to stop him, a trigger of some sort to jog his memory and remind him how bad he really was. A newspaper, a television report, a joke on the radio, the trigger was never the same. The reminders varied each time, but one constant remained the same: they were always unwanted. And for Brent, that night’s reminder could very well have been the least desired.
As his eyes caught glimpse of that trigger, Brent couldn’t stifle a glare. Marc Denis stood near the door, laughing with various teammates Brent couldn’t identify. Of all reminders he could receive, Denis was to Brent the worst. The media could trash him, that was a part of goaltending all goalies had to deal with. The hometown fans could boo him, as they had tonight, and countless nights before. But none of those things, no matter how vicious would strike him as hard as seeing Denis. Their first encounter had happened over seven years prior, but Brent still harbored the same bad feelings he’d developed that day. Marc Denis had provided that first clarity, broken down the walls that held back Brent’s own doubts. When his name had been called in the first round, by the team Brent had been convinced would draft him, he realized for the first time that he wasn’t good enough.
Even as their careers went in opposite directions, and Brent garnered the more success of the two, that feeling remained. It loitered in his mind, staying relatively silent, waiting for the moment Denis returned to the forefront. That had happened tonight, with a 44 save shutout over Brent’s Blues, while Brent himself allowed 7 goals on barely 20 shots. Any defeat caused the feelings of failure to surge for Brent, but against Denis, they raged even worse. Suddenly, Brent found himself wishing he’d went home after that game. The punishment Scott inflicted was less than that inflicted by his own mind with just one glance at Denis.
Slamming back one last shot, Brent stood up from his stool and stretched. To his dismay, his mind wasn’t as clouded as he’d hoped it to be. He could still form coherent thoughts, and all of them centered on his reason for leaving the bar so soon. He glanced to Marc’s table, and at that same moment, Marc turned his attention to the bar. His eyes locked onto Brent’s, an in an instant he was frozen in the cool blue.
Realization of whom he was staring at quickly set in. Marc had watched him on the ice all night, struggling to stop even the simplest of shots. It was a feeling Marc himself knew all too well, and he couldn’t help but sympathize, even as his mind reminded him just who he was watching. He remembered vividly their first conversation, it was the one bad moment in his otherwise perfect day. That day, he’d developed a strong dislike for Johnson, that had simply stretched onto the ice as they had met throughout the years. More often than not, Brent had come out on top of their confrontations, which had done nothing but increase Marc’s dislike. As the years had went by, and Brent had finished with sparkling stats, and playoff berths, Marc had heard all the talk. As he struggled in Colorado, everyone had whispered how they’d made the wrong decision on which goalie to keep. When Brent had emerged as a star, amassing record setting win streaks, and league leading statistics, Marc had sat by as Brent was hailed as the hidden gem of HIS draft, and Marc was written off as another first round bust. Brent had stolen the spotlight, staking his claim as an elite goalie-in-training, and the true star goaltender from a day Marc considered a crowing achievement.
Marc had set out that night to prove a point, to prove to his critics that his spot had been deserved. He had done just that, making 44 incredible stops en route to the most spectacular shutout of his career. But, he took no solace in the victory, Johnson had been off his game. Nothing had been proven to Marc himself, and he was left with an unwanted feeling of sympathy. It was things like that which made Marc believe he was too nice for his own good.
Disobeying his objective mind, Marc flashed a tiny smile, catching Johnson off guard. Brent was lost quickly in the shine, managing no other response than to blink. His mind screamed at him to react as he should, with a string of curse words, a certain finger, or even a glare, but he couldn’t do it. He could do nothing but stare back, shocking himself to the core. He’d spent that entire night cursing the very air that Marc Denis breathed, and stood now staring at him, with no other thought than how nice his smile was. The alcohol he’d consumed had brought a much different effect than he’d intended, one that was far from desired. But still he couldn’t pull his eyes away; it was that inability which finally brought back his initial thoughts.
“Hey Johnson, great game!” Jody Shelley shouted across the bar, smirking at Brent.
“Jody, shut up,” Marc snapped, slapping him in the back of the head.
“Lighten up, Marc,” Jody laughed, batting at Marc’s hand. “He sucked, you kicked ass, enjoy a victory for once,”
That was the last thing Brent heard before his disdain for Denis came rushing back, sweeping over him like a stiff breeze. His mind hissed, finally able to permeate his thoughts with the proper reaction. With a quick flip of the finger, Brent glared, fixing his attention directly on Shelley.
“Well see how bad I suck from the playoffs, which is a place you’ll be lucky to ever see,” Brent growled. “I’ll send you a postcard, bitch.”
Brent walked from the bar without another word, not noticing the annoyed look on Denis’ face directed at his teammate. The feelings he’d tried all night to drown were back now with a vengeance, clearer and louder than they had been all night. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already believe how bad he was, hearing the words from Shelley’s mouth had hammered them home. He’d played the worst game of his life, and made the one person he wanted to do no favors for look even better in the process. He could easily admit that he’d played horrible, but hearing it from someone so close to Denis sent his mind reeling. For the second time that night, he wished he’d went home and endured whatever Scott had planned for him. Scott never told him of his failure, he simply made him accept it. He’d found that easier to deal with, even if he avoided it all as best he could.
The feelings of anger began to subside as he stepped outside, leaving Brent with just the feeling of failure he had struggled with all night. As he walked along the cobblestone sidewalk toward his car, he felt a tear slip down his cheek. He sighed in frustration, wiping his face on the sleeve of his jacket. Tonight had been a night he would care to forget, but knew he would have no such luck. Seven goals on barely over 20 shots was not easily forgettable to anyone, especially himself. And it had happened against Denis, the person he cared most about his performance against. He’d had a meltdown against his greatest personal competition.
The feeling of failure rumbled in the pit of his stomach. Normal losses were hard enough, but he’d never be able to forgive himself for that one. He had let himself down, throwing away everything he’d worked so long to prove in one night. And instead, he’d proved the one thing he’d tried so long to disprove: that he simply wasn’t good enough.
“Brent,” Marc said hesitantly from behind Johnson, freezing the other man in his tracks.
Marc approached apprehensively, his footsteps clomping softly as he walked. A part of him was waiting for Brent to turn and lash out, deservedly so for the treatment his teammate had given, but the other part didn’t care. As he’d watched Brent storm from the bar, he could see the emotions clearly on his face. A mixture of anger, disappointment, sadness, and pain were all blatantly obvious on Johnson’s face. Marc had been almost overwhelmed with the feelings he’d felt staring at Brent. His teammates had mocked him when he’d professed his intentions to follow Johnson, all of their words amounting to the same “You want to fuck him!” He’d shrugged their teasing off, his intentions were completely pure. He really had no intentions at all. He couldn’t even explain the need he felt to follow Johnson at all, let alone know what his plans were if and when he caught up with him. He had been struck with an incredible sense of sympathy, and unexpected longing to help him. Both were feelings Marc couldn’t explain, and he trusted neither. But still he’d left, ignoring the teasing of his teammates, and following after Brent. He stood now only a few feet away from him, waiting somewhat nervously for Johnson’s reaction.
“What do you want, Denis?” Brent asked harshly, leaning back against his car.
Marc bit his lip, scuffing his foot lightly on the sidewalk. “Are...are you okay? I mean, with what Jody said...”
“You think that bothered me?” Brent sneered. “I can handle heckling from some asshole. What’d you think, little fifth round Brent couldn’t handle a few bad words from some fucking goon? Did you expect to come out here and comfort me while I had a breakdown? You just can’t get enough of being the hero at my expense, can you?”
Marc blinked, taking a step back as Johnson pushed himself from his car. He crossed his arms across his chest, fixing a glare on Marc. Marc’s mind battled valiantly to make sense of Brent’s words, but victory remained elusive. Johnson had been harsh, cold, the way Marc had expected him to be. The look of contempt could be seen plainly on his face, but still Marc couldn’t bring himself to turn away. He was held captive, the icy blue of Brent’s eyes like a magnet that kept him there. It was more than obvious from his words that Johnson wanted none of Marc’s help. But deep down, Marc could still see Brent’s pain, and call it curiosity, or that unexplainable feeling he’d struggled with all night, he knew he couldn’t rest until he knew for sure what, if anything was really bothering Johnson.
“I’m sorry,” Marc said quietly, looking down at the sidewalk. “You just looked upset. I know that I get upset after a bad game...”
“A bad game?” Brent snarled in interruption. “The great Marc Denis has those? Color me fucking shocked,”
Marc blinked, his brow furrowing as he struggled to find a reaction. When he did, it was more bitter and angry than any he could’ve hoped for.
“What are you talking about? EVERYONE has bad games?”
“Even the great Marc Fucking Denis?”
“Especially me!” Marc snapped back, anger enveloping his voice. “Have you seen my GAA? You’ve got NOTHING to be upset about, at least YOUR’S still begins with a 2!”
“What the fuck is your issue?” Brent demanded, stepping closer to Denis. “Did you come out here to tell me how good I have it? How you’d just love to be in my position? Believe me pal, you don’t want to fucking be me!”
“No, I definitely don’t,” Marc agreed, nodding his head. “I don’t want to be a guy who jumps all over someone who tries to show concern for them. I won’t make that damned mistake again,”
Marc turned and began an angry stomp from where they stood. Brent watched him in silence, Marc’s words echoing in his ears. They struck him deeply, the anger in Denis’ voice had washed away his own. Anger had boiled his blood, seizing control of his voice and actions, but he had still meant everything he’d said. He had vented feelings he’d struggled with all night, against one of their causes, and in the process achieved a minor feeling of relief. But with Denis’ rebuttal, that feeling of relief was lost, and a new, different feeling took its place. And unlike any other he’d encountered that night, this was one he could not explain.
Before he even knew what he was doing, he found himself chasing after Denis. He struggled to make sense of his actions even as they happened, but he came up blank for an explanation. His feet seemed to be moving of their own accord, following after a man he didn’t like, and one with whom he’d just engaged in a shouting match. His mind was a swirl of confusion and jumbled questions, no one clear thought could be deciphered. Even as he caught up to Denis, he continued to ask himself just what he was doing. Unsurprisingly, no answer came. Delving further into the unexplained, he tapped Denis on the shoulder. Marc spun instantly around, hands clenched into fists, and sneered at Brent.
“What do you want?” He growled through gritted teeth, clenching his hands tighter at his sides.
Brent stepped back immediately, biting at his bottom lip. He stared at Denis in silence, wracking his brain for an answer. Still, nothing came to him, to his great displeasure. As the seconds stretched on, he could see Denis' patience fading, and softly, he heard the cracking of knuckles. He knew that something had to be said, but he could think of nothing that would suffice. He was no closer now to explaining his actions than he had been when he'd taken the first step in pursuit of Marc. His mind refused to give motive, leaving him with no other recourse than to speak the truth. Swallowing over a lump in his throat, he ran a hand through his hair.
"I really don't know," He mumbled, dropping his eyes to the sidewalk.
Marc cocked an eyebrow. "What?"
"I have no idea," Brent laughed softly, raising his eyes up to Marc's.
"Okay..."
"Look," Brent sighed, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets. "I was a dick earlier, and I'm sorry. You were just being nice. I was pissed off, and I took it out on you. I'm really sorry, what say I buy you a beer to make amends?"
Marc blinked in surprise, quickly replaying Brent's statement over in his head. He fought quickly to make sense of it, but his efforts yielded no results. Johnson's offer simply made no sense, not after the events of that night. Marc's mind ran rampant with likely reasons, none of which ended well for him. He knew that the proper reaction to Johnson's offer would be an unpleasant decline, and a quick return to his teammates to avoid any physical issues. That was the response he wanted to give, but his brain refused to make voice. Each time he tried to speak, his mind hissed, and refused to allow him to. An almost alarming confusion swept over him, like a tornado unleashed on his thoughts, twisting and mangling them in a raging fury. But beneath the mayhem was a tiny little voice, whispering to him that this was an opportunity he couldn't let pass him by. That voice served only to confuse him more, but he denied this time to grapple for an explanation. Instead he opted to accept Johnson's offer, on blind faith, and hope that the confusion that had surrounded that night would eventually explain itself.
"Okay," Marc said suddenly, shrugging his shoulders. "But I hope you brought a lot of cash, I'm not a cheap drunk,"
He flashed a quick grin, then pulled open the bar door and disappeared quickly inside. Brent stared at the door for a moment, scratching his head in confusion. He was still at a loss to explain a thing that had happened that night. When the day had began, he never would've imagined it ending in such a way. Things had happened that night that he never could've expected, from not just himself, but from a man he was all but convinced reciprocated his hatred. As unsure as Brent was as to the motives for their actions, he was as unsure about his trust for them all. The thought lingered in the back of his mind of what could result from such events, but that thought could not make it to the forefront. Just as it had been from the first moment he'd went after Denis, his body seemed to be moving on its own, in some bizarre form of autopilot taking Brent forward, no matter his objections. He had given up fighting it the second his offer had slipped from his mouth. He moved forward untrusting, somewhat frightened, and more than a little confused; but he moved forward nonetheless.
Digging into his jacket pocket, he pulled from it a wad of money. He looked at it briefly, before slipping it back into the pocket of his jeans. Then with a shrug, and a light sigh, he pulled open the bar door and stepped inside.
© 2003 Triple X
Read On: TWO: Do I Wanna Let It Pass Me By?
