Short NHL One-Shots

#11 Brendan Gallagher

"Superheroes"- The Script

******

"Oh God..." I mutter as I see Seguin shoot in a bomb past Condon,  putting the Stars up by 2 with less than a minute left in the 2nd period. My teammates come to the bench, pissed as hell and knocking things around around as I hop on the ice. 

"Come on guys, we just gotta keep pushing!" I shout, even after losing the face-off at the center dot. Even Captain Patches isn't looking hopeful, but I continue to encourage the team as we head to the locker room. They'll probably be even more angry now that Eller is in the box for hooking. Great.

"What the hell was that?" Coach asks in a rather calm voice, and we all look down, knowing that this passive tone precedes lectures. We weren't wrong this time...

***

"On your left, on your left!" I shout to Pleky, who takes the hit to pass the puck up the boards. I get a nice strong clear, and the crowd cheers as the penalty expires and Eller escapes the box. 

From then on, things are cruising well, and Chucky manages to get a goal with eight minutes to go in the 3rd. Things are looking hopeful, until there's about 15 minutes gone in the period. Alex is speeding up the center alongside me and Patches--we didn't get time for a line change--but all of a sudden Roussel comes along and lays a massive hit on the Russian--ahem, I meant American. 

Of course, the four of us on the ice immediately head over, along with the other Stars' players, and while everyone starts a scuffle I kneel down beside my friend. "Are you okay?" I ask, seeing him curled up by the corner boards. He doesn't answer, his face scrunched up as he holds his shoulder and head. "Trainer!" I call, but he's already next to me as he examines Alex, gesturing for me to back up. 

Meanwhile, no one has challenged Roussel, with him and Ales Hemsky standing and watching the three fights. I stride right up to Antoine and growl, "You think you can pull shit like that?" He just laughs and pushes me away, but I won't go. "You're just a big bully, all you do is fuck up other players and get paid for it. Doesn't sound like such a noble cause to me."

"Such a nice fellow, standing up for his little boy," he teases. "You his babysitter?"

"Shut the fuck up, he's my teammate and my family!" 

"You wanna go?" He asks, and I gulp as Hemsky smirks. This is one of the toughest fighters in the NHL challenging me--what do I have to lose?

"Hell yes." I flick off my gloves, my stick already having been beside Alex as Roussel does the same and immediately grabs onto my jersey. He jerks me around as I throw a punch, causing me to almost fall from the force of it. 

"You think you can pull shit like that and win?" Antoine taunts, catching my jaw with his left fist as I see stars--no pun intended. "You're fucking wrong, bud." I duck his next punch, getting in a few before he finally knocks me down. The refs rush over to separate us, and both of us are ejected along with anyone else who fought, seeing as there are only 3 minutes left. There's no point in having us sit in the box for the rest of the game.

Alex is in the locker room being tended to when we arrive, and to my surprise I see his sister by his side with a hand on his arm. I immediately stiffen, looking around awkwardly and sitting down on a bench near them. "Brendan?" She asks, and I gulp and glance over to her. She beckons me over with a little wave, and I feel my heart start to race as I come to stand beside her. 

"How is he doing?" I ask vaguely, not expecting (y/n) to answer. 

"The hit gave him what we think is a concussion and a broken ulna," she says softly. I know she's a nurse in training, but I didn't think she'd make the diagnosis. "It'll put him out for at least 6 weeks, possibly more." I swear under my breath, running a hand through my sweaty hair as I mumble,

"That's practically the rest of the season..." I sigh, looking down at my injured friend with empathy and sadness. "I'm sorry, Alex."

"It's...not you," he gets out in a pained voice, "He's just a...a bastard..." I nod, and (y/n) and I are asked to step back as medical staff place him on a stretcher and carry him out to the ambulance. I sigh again, continuing to mess with my hair as I sit down on a bench and look up at the tv in the corner of this closed off part of the locker room. 

"I'm sorry," I repeat to myself. "I should've beat the shit out of him..."

"There's no way you could've done that," (y/n) says. How uplifting. "He's an experienced fighter, you're experienced in everything else. I'm upset too, but I know you tried your best. You held your own pretty darn well against him." I look over in surprise at her compliments, and she's already staring at me. I curse at myself as my cheeks flush at our eye contact, but hopefully the fact that I'm already red-faced from the exertion of hockey disguises it. I hear a loud noise from the arena, and I hope it's something good.

"Thanks...I really could've done better though." I brush it off, but she sets a hand on my arm as I shift my gaze to it. Now I'm really nervous, my heart about to beat out of my chest as she murmurs, 

"Stop putting yourself down, Brendan, you're an amazing hockey player and a wonderful person. Don't ever doubt your ability." My breath hitches in my throat as her hand moves to caress my cheek, and I make an embarrassingly squeaky noise. She giggles, and I look down to see the tears faded from her face.

"I-I--um--thank you," I stammer, my hands unsure of what they should do as I fiddle with my sleeve. "That-that's a very nice c-c-compliment."

"To a very nice man." Out of the corner of my eye I see her lean in with lips pursed, and out of a burst of confidence I turn my head at the last second. My excitable heart stops, then leaps for joy as she kissed me softly with her hands on my cheeks. 

"Oi, get these lovebirds outta here!" Emelin shouts gleefully, breaking the bliss I'd been experiencing over the past--I don't know, maybe a minute?

"Oh shut it, Lex," (y/n) laughs nervously, standing up and dusting off her jeans. "You didn't see anything..." After she goes to talk with the nurse, leaving me with a parting wink, I ask the boys, 

"Why so happy?" 

"We won!" Exclaims Mitchell. "Me and Patches got a couple last minute trick shots behind Lehtonen--his was like a buzzer beater, there was like 30 seconds left and boom! It was in!" I smile broadly, seeing my bruised and battered teammates grinning wildly.

"You deserve every stitch of that "A"," Patches tells me as we head to change. "All the guys were talking about what you said when everything got cleaned up and the five of you went off. Just...thank you. I couldn't have done it better myself." I'm in awe as I sit down at my stall, wondering how in the world my chastisements and shouts of encouragement were able to uplift the entire team.

I suppose with the right mind-set, we can fight through anything.