EDELWEISS

Part 1

 

Reech is sitting next to me with a big grin on his face.

"San Jose goal, scored by number 18, Mike Ricci," the announcer's voice comes over the loudspeaker. Wild cheers erupt from the home crowd, and many of the fans make the "chomping" motion with their arms.

"Assisted by number 17, Scott Thornton," the announcer continues. That's me, sitting on the bench with a silly grin on my face. I look over at Reech, who's smiling broadly. Scoring a goal never gets old.

"And by number 24, Niklas Sundstrom." I look in the other direction at Sunny. He's already deeply absorbed in watching the players on the ice. That's Sunny, never one to get caught up in celebrating the battle when we haven't won the war.

The line with no name has delivered again. We're leading the Canucks 2-1 in the third period with only three minutes to go. Nabby is looking antsy, shifting about in front of our net, but you can tell he's completely focused; three minutes is more than enough time to tie the game and send us into overtime.

Tick ... tick ... tick ... Marleau wins the faceoff against Morrison and our guys make a series of quick passes, moving into their zone ... tick ... tick ... tick ... the Canucks get possession of the puck after our shot on goal and pull Cloutier for the extra attacker ... tick ... tick ... tick ... shot - easy glove save by Nabokov ... tick ... tick ... tick ... BUZZ!

It's over, we've won. We all hop onto the ice to celebrate, grinning from ear to ear, hugging and clapping each other on the backs. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Markus Naslund, still sitting on the ice leaning against the boards where he'd been checked by Marchment. He's staring daggers at me, which kind of surprises me since I'd never known him as the kind of guy to get that pissed off at a loss. But here he is, glaring at me with a fiery vengeance.

I decide to ignore him - I've never done anything to him as far as I know. Whatever his problem is, he can deal with it, I've got a victory to celebrate. With that in mind, I turn to Sunny, planting a kiss on his cheek. He gives me a small smile, and then ... sighs? I'm not sure, the cheering on and off the ice is too loud for me to tell.

He's been doing a lot of that lately, giving little sighs. Looking even sadder than he did before. It's true he doesn't seem that way - he smiles readily when you're joking around with him, and he comes out to bars with us all the time. He's always got a girlfriend, or at least someone he's banging. But there are moments, when he thinks he's alone or nobody's looking at him, that he lets his guard down. And he looks so sad and lonely and pained that my heart aches for him, and I want nothing more than to make whatever's troubling him go away.

Damn, that came across wrong, didn't it? It sounds like I'm in love with him or something - I'm not. I just care a lot about him, as a friend. He's been my best friend on the team practically since the day I showed up at training camp in 2000 after I was signed as a free agent. I called him "Cloud Strife", after the character from the video game "Final Fantasy VII", because of his spiky blonde hair, and he called me "Yuffie", which really pissed me off because that's a female character. We had very different personalities, that much was clear. He's easy going, I'm intense. He's on the shy side, I'm outspoken. He's smart, puts a lot of thought into his words and actions, and I'm ... fuck, I walked into that, didn't I? I guess that just proves my point.

But he's always had that air of sadness. Sometimes when we're sitting together on the plane, not talking, just enjoying the silence the way old friends do, he gets deep into thought like he's remembering some past hurt and I can sense the pain and sorrow he feels. When it gets bad, he gets up to go to the bathroom. I have to stop myself from following him because I know he goes in there to cry - I've seen his red, watery eyes when he comes back - and I don't want him to know that I know about it because he doesn't seem ready to talk about it yet.

I have to do something though because whatever's bothering him seems to have gotten worse since the season started. Even the less perceptive guys on the team have picked up on his mood occasionally. But they just figure that it's problems with Kirsten or something like that and expect me to talk to Sunny since I'm the closest to him. And so I ask him about Kirsten and he says everything's fine, and I see them together and they genuinely look fine. They don't look like they're in love, but they don't look like they're fighting either. I ask him gingerly about everything at different times, about missing his family in Sweden (no Scott, I see them for three months a year), about being unhappy in San Jose (nah, I like it here), about being frustrated with how he's playing (why, have I been sucking lately?), about being lonely (he tilts his head and gives me a strange smile, no Scott). And after I've asked him about everything that I can come up with, I simply ask him why he's so sad. And his lips quiver and he says that he doesn't want to talk about it and that there's nothing I can do anyway.

"See you Scott, get all the rest you can before the road trip." Reech imparts somes words of wisdom to me as he heads to his car, waving goodbye.

"Catch you later, Reech." I walk slowly to my car, glancing over at Sunny. His hands are shaking slightly as he holds his keys out to unlock his car. You may think that I can't help you, but I'm going to do everything I can to fix whatever is wrong because it's killing me to see you like this.

 

EDELWEISS

Part 2

 

"I am not playing this game with you." I'm looking dubiously at the case of a bizarre Playstation 2 game called "The Adventures of Cookie and Cream" that Sunny expects me to play with him.

"Scott, just shut up and play. It's fun, especially with two people." Sunny's already got a controller in his hand and tosses the other at me, hitting my hand.

"Ow." I say, picking up the controller. Why am I picking up the controller? "Dude, there are bunnies with floppy ears as big as their bodies in the game. With funny things on their heads. We have to play as bunnies with funny things on their heads."

"They're crowns. Given to them by the celestial roosters." he babbles insanely. "Please, just give it a try. I thought it was stupid too then I played it with Kirsten's little sister and ..."

"Fine, I'll give it a try." I always give in to him way too easily. I figure I'll spend a few minutes on this before I can safely say that I've given it a fair chance and I hate it. Then we can go back to playing Madden like we usually do at his place when we're both bored.

An hour later, I'm screaming at Sunny. "Fuck, dude, why did you move the fucking platform, you made me fucking drown!!!" My bunny's floppy brown ears are slowly sinking beneath the water, where moments before there had been a platform. Until, of course, Sunny pulled a lever.

"Shut the fuck up Cookie, if you had kept your grip on your crocodile, it wouldn't have bit me, and we would have shitloads of time left." he swears, as the "Time Up" message flashes on the screen, telling us we are big fat losers who have to play the level again.

"Don't fucking call me Cookie." I'm really irritated that he made me drown. "Or I'll shove those pink floppy ears where the sun don't shine."

At this, we both burst into laughter. He punches me in the arm as he's laughing, and I glance at him through my laughter, really happy to see him smiling again.

"OK, no more 'Cookie and Cream' tonight." Sunny says, standing up. "Hey can you start Madden up? I gotta take a leak."

I search for the Madden case and find it, popping it open. The "Grand Theft Auto 3" CD is in there. I open the GTA3 case. "Final Fantasy X" is in that one. I open all the cases but can't find the Madden CD so I head into Sunny's bedroom to look for it there. Yes, the man has two Playstations.

Bingo. Found it in the bedroom Playstation. I grab the disc from the tray and am heading back out to the living room when I notice something. It's a brown leather-bound book with gold metal corners sitting on the corner of his dressing table. It has discolored fingerprints along the edges of the cover, and it has a soft, worn look. It screams, "I am Sunny's journal. Read me!"

I take a fearful step back from the journal. Now, I'm the kind of guy who hates people poking around in my business. I can pretty much handle any problem that comes my way, and if I can't, it's usually gone by the time I wake up in the morning anyway. So I don't need or want people knowing or talking about things that are private to me, even if they're well-meaning. If I kept a private journal (and I don't), and I found out someone had read it, I'd probably beat the shit out of them.

But I also don't go around moping all day with my own personal raincloud hovering over my shoulder. And I have a two inch and twenty-five pound advantage over Sunny.

I look over at the closed bathroom door adjoining the bedroom. I'll be able to hear him flush and put the book back before he comes out. He won't know a thing. And if I can find out what's wrong with him I might be able to fix it.

That last thought convinces me to pick up the journal and open it to the most recent entry.

"It's been ten years and it still hurts. Ten fucking years. Ten years since since what would have been the happiest moment of my life. I can't even fucking write about this without getting teary-eyed. Every fucking thing in that letter was right. I deserved it all. And the sad part of it is that with all that shit about me in that letter, I think I still love ..."

*flush* Damn it! I wish I didn't read so fucking slowly. I close the book and slap it back on to the dressing table, racing out to the living room and quickly popping the Madden disc into the PS2. I land on the couch heavily, trying to look casual. Nothing to it. I hear Sunny open the bathroom door and walk over to the living room.

*thud* Fuck. I close my eyes. I did not just hear that sound. I did not just hear the sound of a hastily placed, unbalanced brown leather journal falling off the table on to the floor.

Sunny's footsteps stop. Oh shit. He walks up to me, and looks me in the eyes. "You read my journal."

His voice is so soft it scares me. I expected him to scream and yell at me, or push me around, but not this. "Yeah, I, uhh, well you've, umm, been down lately, and ..."

"You read my journal." he repeats, interrupting me. His eyes grow steely and he holds me in his gaze for long seconds before he abruptly turns away.

I feel about two inches tall. "I wanted to help, I hate seeing you ..." I'm practically stammering at this point. I'm feeling really guilty and ashamed of myself, then I realize I'm only feeling that way because I got caught, which makes feel even more guilty and shamed. Damn it. And I think I hurt him, too, which is the worst part. Way to go, Scott.

"Get the fuck out." he interrupts again, still not facing me. He's still using that quiet, scary voice. I think about talking to him some more but his tone is so final. I don't want to upset him any more right now, so I get my stuff and leave his apartment. It's going to be hard to fall asleep tonight.

EDELWEISS

Part 3

 

I'm lying in bed in the dark, trying to fall asleep. Clear your mind. Imagine yourself floating on your back in a warm tropical sea. The trouble is that Sunny is the one who told me to do that. And thinking about those things make me think about him. And thinking about him keeps me awake.

I rub my eyes and blink at my alarm clock. It blinks back at me, "1.53 AM". Great. I'm going to be the bright eyed and bushy tailed one tomorrow at practice. Hmm, the phrase "bright eyed and bushy tailed" reminds me of that NyQuil ad and it strikes me as the perfect solution to my insomnia. I guess advertising does work.

I drag myself out of bed and stagger over to the bathroom. I open the medicine cabinet, then pour the disgusting green liquid into the plastic cap. "Down the hatch." Blecch.

I crawl into bed, and wait to be swiftly knocked into a dreamless sleep. Instead I slide into a tropical paradise with a white sandy beach and azure water as far as the eye can see. In my right hand, I'm holding a coconut filled with pink liquid and ice cubes, topped with one of those ridiculous miniature toothpick umbrellas. In my left hand, I'm holding a giant shuriken.

"Yuffie, where's my fucking drink?" Sunny's voice calls across the beach. I look over and see Sunny lying on a beach towel, clad in a pair of Speedos. (It's a European thing.) He's ridiculously tanned, making his spiky hair look even blonder. He has a seven foot long sword lying on a beach towel to his right and he's rubbing suntan lotion on it.

I walk over to him. My body feels really strange, as if I ... oh shit I have breasts!!! Wait, if I have breasts, that means I'm probably missing ... I gulp and peer down at my crotch. There's a reassuring bulge where one should be. Suddenly the bulge flies out of my shorts in a flurry of green and red, flapping its wings and making strange bird calls. Really annoying screeching bird calls. Screeching that sounds just like ...

... my phone. With my eyes still closed, I swat at the top of the bedside table, trying to kill the phone. I hit the clock instead as I sweep my arm back, and it attacks my face in retaliation. "2.37 AM", it blinks furiously. Annoyingly awake now, I reach over to pick up the phone. "Urngh" I grunt groggily.

"Scott? It's me, Sunny. I'm sorry for calling so late. I'm going to make this quick." He doesn't sound angry, just worried.

"Grn Sun ..." I respond.

"You're not going to tell anyone about what you read, are you?" he asks, his voice trembling a little.

"Sunny." I'm trying to gather my wits, what little I have, about me."Why the fuck would I tell anyone about what I read?"

"Please answer me - will you or will you not keep your mouth shut?" he's raising his voice and he sounds a bit desperate.

"Yes!" I respond. "I mean no! No, I'm going to tell anybody. Can we talk about this tomorrow? I'm really out of it right now." Thank you, NyQuil.

"Thank you." he says quietly. He seems to have calmed down a little. "I can't let anyone know that I'm gay."

I freeze mid-yawn. "What did you just say?"

"Huh? That I can't let anyone know I'm gay. I mean it's totally fine in the Bay Area but being an outed NHL player is kind of a problem and ..."

"I did not read that in your journal." I say, still stunned by his revelation. "All I read was about some shit that happened ten years ago and some letter."

"Oh, so you didn't know," he says, haltingly, and pauses. "Are you, umm, I don't know, are you going to say anything now, now that you know?"

"No, I wouldn't do that, man, you know that." I say as reassuringly as possible.

There's an awkward silence. He's probably waiting for me to freak out and unleash a torrent of homophobic crap at him and then never speak to him again. Not going to happen. Live and let live, I say. I have no problem with what gay people do. Well as long as they don't do it to me. It doesn't bug me that Sunny's gay, although that does make some things I know about him not make sense, like Kirsten, which I plan to clear up with him tomorrow when I'm actually awake. The dream image of tanned Speedo Sunny suddenly decides to drift into my mind completely uninvited.

"Sunny, you're my best friend, and I would never do anything to hurt you." God, my speech is starting to get slurred.

"Umm, I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you." I quickly qualify.

"Thanks." he says softly. "Oh and Scott?"

"Yrm?" I'm losing the fight against the NyQuil.

"I'm writing my journal entries in Swedish from now on." he hangs up.

I fall asleep, and spend the rest of the night working on Yuffie's tan.

EDELWEISS

Part 4

 

"Rough night, boys?" Our captain, Owen Nolan ruffles Sunny's hair. Sunny and I turn to look at each other. He looks like shit and I'm sure I do too.

We’re sitting on a bench in the locker room, slowly removing our equipment after practice. The practice itself actually went surprisingly well, considering our lack of sleep, and considering that Sunny and I were so uncomfortable around each other that we were barely talking in the locker room before we got on the ice.

Now that practice is over, the lack of sleep has caught up to us, and it's taking a lot longer than usual to shed our gear. Sunny is much more affected by sleep deprivation than me. He’s currently on his third attempt to remove his left skate.

"Oh yeah." I reply weakly to Owen. "It was whiskey and whores night at Sunny's place." Sunny and I don't have the energy to laugh, and Nolan gives a little chuckle as he walks away. Knowing now what I know about Sunny, I can't help but see his actions in a new light. Specifically, right now I'm pretty sure he's checking out Nolan's ass.

I elbow him violently in the ribs and he jerks away, scowling at me. "What was that for?" he hisses as he rubs the spot where I poked him.

"You were totally checking out Owen's ass." I whisper back. "Really obviously."

"I was not!" he denies, but his face flushes. Realizing he's been betrayed by his red cheeks, he adds softly, "Although it is a great ass."

It's my turn to blush furiously. "Could you not talk about Owen's ass that way please? Actually don't talk about his ass at all." At that moment, Nolan bends over to pick up his equipment bag, proudly thrusting his butt into the air, and Sunny and I slap our gloves over our mouths to stifle the laughter that's about to spill out.

"You brought it up first." Sunny manages to sputter. Owen looks in our direction and we both completely lose it, doubling over with laughter. He shakes his head in mock exasperation and leaves. "I don't want to know. Bye, girls."

I wonder why we're laughing so much - the situation isn't really that funny. But I'm glad we're laughing instead of crying. I look at his face and he seems more peaceful, less burdened, and it makes me feel warm inside. Was this why he was so sad all the time? Because of the strain of having to hide who he is from everyone, even me? I want to believe that his problems are gone, that the sadness will no longer take him at unguarded moments, but I have the nagging feeling that it isn't over yet.

Sunny's stopped laughing as well and has returned to struggling out of his gear. There's an awkward silence between us. That never happened before last night. Is this how our relationship is going to be from now on? Uncomfortable silences interrupted by meaningless small talk. Twenty minutes of ice time and four hours of awkwardness. I can't let that happen to our friendship.

"We have to talk." I state, finally. Sunny nods slightly in agreement. "I'll wait for you outside."

It's a clear, sunny day - pretty much every day is like that around here. It gets a little colder in the winter, and a lot hotter in the summer, but there's almost never a cloud in the sky.

"Where are we going?" I turn around at the sound of Sunny's voice. "I was thinking we could just go for a drive."

He nods, and we walk over to my black Dodge Viper and climb in. We get onto 280 North and I try to figure out where to begin. I think back to the conversation we had last night, and how it ended.

"So, uhh, why did you write your journal entries in English?" I ask uncomfortably.

Sunny stares out the window at the hills. "When I first came to America, I wanted to improve my English, so I started keeping a journal. Just keeping track of events at first, writing about anything, just for the practice. But then I started writing more personal things, and that's the only stuff I write about in there any more. I kept writing in English out of habit."

"Oh." Silence.

We're leaving Santa Clara and entering Cupertino now. My car's a beast but I'm sticking to 15 above the limit. Fucking speed traps.

"Kirsten." The question is pretty much self-explanatory. Sunny smiles wryly but keeps looking out the window. He hasn't looked at me since we left the parking lot.

"She's a really good friend of mine. We dated for a bit in New York during my I'm-not-really-gay-I'm-just-confused phase. Then we slept together and she told me I'm gay."

"Umm, she told you that you're gay?" I'm pretty confused.

"Apparently she's an I'm-not-really-gay-I'm-just-confused magnet and she's really experienced with these things." he shrugs. "She said she could tell my heart wasn't in it. Anyway, she came up with this arrangement. She's at a stage where she doesn't want a boyfriend, and it helps for me to keep up appearances. So to the world we're boyfriend and girlfriend. A few months after I was traded, she happened to get a dot com job in the Valley. So when she moved here, it looked like she'd moved to be with me."

I pause, digesting the information, then try to make a feeble joke. "You should have told me about Kirsten being available. She is so hot, I would have been all over her."

Sunny finally looks at me, gazing at me with his blue eyes as if he's trying to read my intentions. He must be wondering if he can trust me. He has to know he can. He's my best friend, and sometimes I think he's the most important person in my life. I tell him everything - my worst and darkest thoughts - and he's never judged me, never made me feel inadequate or freakish like so many other people do just to make themselves feel better. He's never betrayed my trust and I hope he understands that I won't betray his.

Sunny turns to look out the window again, but his lips curl upward in a smile and he laughs. "She's not interested in anyone right now. Not even you, stud."

I grin and breathe an inner sigh of relief because I have a strong feeling that everything's going to be okay.

We're past the speed traps now, and I move into the fast lane and step on the gas.

EDELWEISS

Part 5

 

I'm still driving north on 280 with Sunny in the passenger's seat, dangling his arm out the window to feel the wind.

He perks up as if something has suddenly occurred to him. "Hey Scott, could you pull over, please?"

I raise an eyebrow at him, but do as he requests, pulling to a stop in the breakdown lane.

I turn to face him. "So what's this ..."

And then I'm in a world of pain because Sunny has just slammed his fist into my nose.

"FUCK!" I scream. My nose feels like its been shattered into pieces and my eyes are watering from the pain. "Son of a fucking bitch!!! Goddamn it, Sunny! Fuck!"

"That's for messing around in my personal things." I look through my tears and see him nonchalantly wiping my blood off his knuckles. "We can go now."

I start the car and pull back onto the freeway, glaring balefully at him. I don't do or say anything to him though. I fully deserved that. If I was in his position I would probably have done a lot worse. Sunny thoughtfully hands me a paper towel to wipe the blood off my face.

In a sick way, I'm kind of glad he hit me. It's helped alleviate some of the guilt I've been feeling ever since I read his journal. I look over at Sunny, who's smirking blatantly. This is the same Sunny who just doesn't get into fights when he's on the ice. I wonder if he decked me just to make me feel better.

"So since you so nicely brought up your journal," I grimace at how much it hurts from the minor facial movements I make to talk, and he smirks at my pain. "You wrote about some letter you got ten years ago ..."

Sunny's expression hardens. He looks down and says slowly and simply, "The letter was written by someone I was involved with. He let me know, very clearly, that he wanted to end things." His voice cracks and just listening to his voice almost brings me to tears because I can tell how hard it is for him just to say those words out loud. There is so much raw emotion in his voice, even after all the time that's passed, that I know he must have really loved this person. And probably still does.

That thought makes me feel really uncomfortable and it irritates me because it really shouldn't. I'm just pissed off at how this guy treated my boy. Yeah, that's it.

"So you really loved him?" I ask, trying not to let the anger come through in my voice.

"I did. And I thought he loved me too. Our love, was," he pauses on that word, as if he's having trouble speaking about it in the past tense. "It was, pure, special. We were soulmates. We both knew it. We were never jealous of each other because we loved each other like we were two halves of a whole. Jealousy springs from the need to own another person and make them yours and that never happened with us. We always took care of each other and looked out for each other. I would have died for him, Scott."

Shit. Sunny's practically glowing from just remembering this guy and what it was like to be in love with him. I wonder what they looked like when they were together. Halos over their heads and fucking harps playing in the background. I keep this picture in my mind to get rid of the lump in my throat.

"Have you been with anyone since you ... broke up?" I don't know what else to call it.

Sunny winces, but responds. "Not with another man, no. I entered my confused phase right after that."

He hasn't had anybody for ten years. He must be so lonely. I have to help him.

"Hey Sunny, one sec, I've got an idea and I gotta call someone." He raises an eyebrow at me but doesn't say anything.

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and call Cameron. Cameron is a guy I go shopping with every three months or so to make sure that I'm not a fashion disaster, and also to talk and catch up. He's a friend of an ex-girlfriend I don't even talk to any more, and he also happens to be the only gay person I know well enough to ask for the advice that I need.

"Hi, Cameron? It's Scott Thornton."

"Scotty, sweetheart! How are you? You sound like you have a cold." Cameron's always really cheerful.

"Yeah, my nose is kinda' blocked." I glare at Sunny, who just snickers at me. "Hey, I need a recommendation for a good gay bar in San Francisco."

I hear a surprised gasp over the phone. Cameron pauses before bursting out, "Scotty! I'm so hurt! I mean, I'm so happy you finally came out, but I wish you'd told me sooner." Sunny is punching my arm, mouthing "what the fuck" at me.

"Cameron, it's not for me, it's for my friend who would really like to - OW! - meet - OW! - somebody." Sunny is punching me even more vigorously, and I can't defend myself because I have to keep one hand on the steering wheel.

"Oh, well, tell your friend that my place at 8th and Folsom is pretty good." Cameron says the word "friend" as if he still thinks I'm talking about myself.

"Cameron, seriously..."

"I'm being serious. The bar is called 'My Place'. I hope your friend has a good time and meets somebody." I hear some voices in the background. "Hey Scotty I have to go, call me and we'll go shopping soon, okay? You tell me if you pick up any hotties tonight."

He disconnects before I can get my denial out and Sunny, who's been fuming quietly, lets loose. "What the hell are you doing, Scott?"

I grin at him. "We're going to my place tonight."

EDELWEISS

Part 6

 

"We should go back." Sunny fidgets nervously. "Let's go back. Yeah, please, let's go back to your place. You can kick my ass at Madden again."

"Dude, just relax." I say. "And we're not going back. I don't want to be playing some fucking Playstation 2 game on the last night I can get wasted before the road trip." I also don't want him to miss the chance to meet someone.

Thanks to my noble efforts to rescue Sunny from loneliness, we are now sitting in a cab on the way to "My Place", where Sunny will meet the man of his dreams, or at least somebody he halfway digs, and I will get blissfully smashed beyond all recognition. I'm funny that way, getting really drunk makes me really happy, even if I'm in a bar surrounded by complete strangers. Ironically enough, getting fucked up is the state in which I'm least likely to pick a fight.

According to Kirsten, who very nicely came over to Sunny's place to help him get ready for tonight, he looks "extremely hot". I look over at him. To me, it just looks like his hair's a bit spikier.

And we are finally here, at "My Place", the sign outside the bar announces. We get out of the cab and, nudging an unwilling Sunny, we step into the dark, smoky, techno-pounding, alcohol-drenched building. I love it.

We go straight to the bar and order a couple of beers. I practically chug mine and ask for another. Sunny's killed about a quarter of his. I look around the bar and I notice that a lot of the men in the bar are checking him out. Not just casually glancing at him either, but staring at him from head to toe. I guess Kirsten was right, he does look hot.

"You're getting a lot of attention." I smile at him. "I'm gonna get a few more drinks - why don't you go dance or something? So people don't think you're with me."

"Umm, okay, err, after I finish this beer." Sunny runs his hands nervously through his hair.

I'm on my fifth beer by the time Sunny finishes his first. I smile inwardly at his delaying of the inevitable. "Now GO !" I say, giving him a little shove.

He grins goofily at me and heads off to the dance floor, with about twenty pairs of eyes following him, and about five pairs of legs actually getting up the nerve to follow him. Looks like he'll have his hands full. Satisfied that he'll be fine, I proceed to fill my system with as much alcohol as is humanly possible.

As I'm finishing my last Long Island iced tea, I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around. "Sunny, you sure seem a lot shorter." I slur. He seems to have shrunk by at least four inches.

"Hi, I'm Dave." says shrunken Sunny, extending his hand to me.

I blink and shake my head. It's not Sunny. It's a blonde guy with brown eyes who looks nothing like Sunny. I grab his hand and give him a firm handshake. "I'm Scott, and you are ..."

"Dave!" he says, loudly. "The music's a little loud in here."

I nod at him, smiling happily. Ahh, booze.

"Hey, want to go over there?" Dave points at a couch in a dark corner. "It's a little quieter over there. We can talk."

"Sure!" I agree with great enthusiasm, and stumble over to the couch, collapsing on it gratefully.

Dave sits down next to me, and starts to press his body against mine. "Dave, buddy, there's a lot of space on this couch." I hiccup.

He ignores my hint and whispers to me, "God, you are so sexy." Then he starts nibbling on my ear.

Something seems very wrong about what's going on, but I can't quite figure out what it is. I look around the bar as, what's his name - Dave, pants heavily into my ear and starts squirming. There seem to be very few women in this bar, wherever the fuck I am. Actually, there seem to be NO women in this bar at all.

Realization dawns upon me suddenly. At that moment I feel a bulge being pressed into my thigh. The tongue on my ear departs and slides back into lips that start to approach the rest of my face. "Whoa!" I bellow, moving away from him.

"What's wrong?" he frowns at me. "Don't you find me attractive?"

"Uhh ... Dave," I blurt out, having remembered his name. "I'm sure you're very attractive. To gay men. But I'm not gay."

"You're not? That's too bad, you are so fucking hot." he says, his dick still pressing against my leg. I feel vaguely flattered. "Do you mind if I just, uhh, rub against you?"

At this point, I'm so hammered I don't really think I could stop him, and I don't really give a fuck. So I'm lying there on the couch, Dave humping my leg with a rapidly increasing pace. Little blonde-haired Dave. As I look at his hair I'm reminded of Sunny and suddenly I'm hard. Fuck, this is very wrong. Dave notices my hard-on and takes it as a cue to grab it and start pumping. I'm about to grab him and throw him off the couch when he comes, groaning into my ear.

"Thanks." he grunts happily. "I'll be right back."

I watch him walk away, feeling somewhat used. "Hmm, looks like you're the one who got lucky tonight." I turn my head at the sound of a familiar voice. It's Sunny, the right height and all, looking at me with a very bemused expression.

He flops onto the couch next to me. "Hey Sunny," I say, somewhat uncomfortably, looking down. At least my dick's not hard any more. "Have you gotten any yet?"

He sighs. "I've gotten a lot of hands on my ass."

"I'm not surprised. Your ass is even nicer than Owen's." I declare, interrupting him. I seem to have completely lost control of the words coming out of my mouth.

He turns to look at me and says, "I don't know if you could even be called an intelligent life form right now. Umm, anyway, I don't, uhh, all these guys here, all they seem to want is sex. I just came from the bathroom, and all the stalls are being used for other purposes, and one of the urinals is blocked by a couple of guys taking turns to give each other head."

"Cool." I say, starting to smile contentedly, having already forgotten Dave.

"I just, what I was hoping for tonight, was to meet somebody I would like, and talk to, not to get a quick fuck. You know, I've never even had sex, with a man, before. The night we were going to, was ... it was the night he gave me that letter. So even though I'm lonely, I mean, you're right, I am, this isn't the way to ..." His voice is so sad, so mournful, so filled with yearning that I can't bear to hear it any more. I have to make it stop.

Sunny never gets to finish his sentence. I've pushed myself off the couch and pinned his body under mine, and I'm kissing his lips hungrily. I can feel his body stiffen with surprise, but I keep kissing him forcefully. He's gripping my arms tightly like he's about to push me off, but instead he starts kissing me back, squirming in my embrace. I thrust my tongue past his parted lips into his mouth, and he does the same to me, our tongues twisting and twining.

The very last thing I remember from tonight is some short, blonde guy I don't know standing to my right, saying, "Not gay, my ass."

EDELWEISS

Part 7

 

The pounding. Oh god, the pounding. And the throbbing. And the nausea. And the sharp spikes twisting their way into my brain.

I'm pretty sure that I got really fucked up last night. Even though I can't really remember last night, all the signs seem to point to that conclusion.

A sudden panic grips my heart. The last time I got so wasted that I didn't know what I'd done the night before, I woke up next to a girl so fucking heinous, calling her "coyote ugly" would have been a compliment.

I look carefully to my left, then to my right, then to my left again. There's nobody else in the bed. I breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Then the phone rings, sending me into infernal agony with every excruciating sound it makes.

"Fuck." I spit, pushing everything off the bedside table. "Fuck. Fuck. Motherfucking fucker. Fuck."

Mercifully, the phone stops ringing, having been yanked out of the wall jack. It's huddling in a little pile on the floor, with the alarm clock, my wallet, my cell phone, a copy of Hustler, some change, three unused condoms and one empty condom wrapper.

A loud groan erupts from the living room.

"Who's," I start, hurting my head with the sound of my own voice. "Fuck. Who's out there?"

"Sunny." the reply drifts into my bedroom.

Reasonably satisfied, I go back to sleep, praying that the war zone in my head will be gone by the time I wake up.

I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep and am awakened a few hours later by the smell of bacon. The pounding in my head has subsided to a tolerable level, and my stomach growls, encouraging me to get my ass out of bed and to the food.

I shuffle to the kitchen to be greeted by a wondrous sight.

"Sunny!" I exclaim, eyes open wide in amazement. "You can cook!"

"Jesus, Scott, you're looking at me like I just discovered the cure for cancer. It's eggs and bacon, you pretty much throw it onto a frying pan and it cooks itself." Sunny's wearing an apron that was left behind by one of my ex-girlfriends, and hence is way too small for him. His hair has reached extraordinary heights. I wish I had a camera.

He brings the frying pans over to the kitchen table where he's already set the table for two. He gives me about two thirds of the eggs and bacon and goes to put the pans away. "I don't know how you like your eggs, so I just fried them. Hope you don't mind."

I don't answer because I'm already cramming food into my mouth. I feel SO much better. I'm feeling so grateful to Sunny that I almost want to kiss him.

A disturbing sensation of deja vu washes over me.

"Hey Sunny," I say hesitantly as he sits down next to me, eating his breakfast. "Did we, umm, could we possibly have, umm, do you think we, umm, kind of, uhh, made out a little bit last night?"

I can feel my ears turn beet red, as I wait for his reply, not wanting to look at him.

He bursts out laughing. "If, by made out, you mean that you suddenly pounced on me, held me down and kissed me like there was no tomorrow, then yes, I'd say we made out." He's still sniggering, which is sort of a good sign, I guess, but sort of weird at the same time.

"Umm, you're not ... mad?" I'm having a little difficulty talking now.

"Dude, you were so fucking out of it last night!" he explodes into laughter again. "You let some little guy get off on your leg, and then you practically raped me when I sat down next to you. It's lucky you passed out or I might have had to fuck your pretty little face up again."

I touch my nose self-consciously. "Ow."

"I mean, thanks for trying to help me out and all, but ..." He has another laughing fit. "But I think, for your own sake, we probably shouldn't go to a gay bar together again."

I feel very belittled and eat my breakfast meekly. Bits and pieces of last night are slowly streaming back to me. "Hey!" I suddenly exclaim. "You kissed me back! I remember you kissing me back. What was up with that?"

Sunny blushes a fiery shade of red. "Err, you weren't the only one who was drunk last night." He pauses, then gives me an evil grin. "And umm, you're a good kisser, in fact you're so good, I want to kiss you right now!"

He pretends to lunge at me, lips puckered. "FUCK OFF!!!" I scream. "Stay the fuck away from me!" But I'm grinning from ear to ear.

It's strange, I expected last night (once I was able to remember enough of it) to really fuck things up between us but it hasn't, and for that, I'm truly grateful.

We leave on our road trip the next day, hitting Nashville, Columbus, Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota and Anaheim in quick succession. We decimate everyone but Chicago, who we tie, and Detroit, who we lose to 4-1, thanks to Brendan fucking Shanahan. We play really well through the holiday season, racking up a 24-10-3-0 record by the end of the year.

Kirsten finally meets somebody actually worth her time in mid-November so she "breaks up" with Sunny. The poor fucker she's dating is terrified at first because she lets him think that Sunny's going to rip him a new one for stealing his girlfriend. Kirsten can be pretty sadistic at times.

With Kirsten out of the picture, and most of his friends and family still back in Sweden, Sunny and I end up spending every holiday together. We finish "The Adventures of Cookie and Cream" over Thanksgiving, having finally mastered the art of not getting each other killed. Sunny follows me home for Christmas and meets my mother, who loves everyone (Sunny included), my father, who hates everyone (Sunny included) and the rest of my family. Apart from an embarrassing incident where my sixteen-year-old cousin Sharon tries to seduce Sunny (and me, at the same time, but I'm trying to block that part of it out), we have a pretty good time there.

But Sunny's still sad. And I'm beginning to understand why.

He tells me more about his ex-lover when I get him in the mood to talk about it. Mostly he talks about stuff they used to do. Camping in the summer. Staying up late to watch the stars come up because the sun set at ten. And then staying up even later to watch the sun rise at four. Sneaking kisses in secret places. Having picnics and then just lying there on the blanket, holding each other. Sometimes he talks about the kind of person his ex-lover was. Gentle, caring, helping others out without letting anyone know he was doing it, always supportive. If it were a different world, they would have been talking about getting married and growing old together. They were that kind of couple.

Hell, if I'd met a woman like that and we felt the way those two felt together we'd be married with three children by now.

And if I lost someone like that, I'd be as heartbroken as Sunny is.

I've gleaned enough details from his stories that I know that this guy was someone from his hockey club in Sweden. He's probably in the NHL now. He won't tell me who it is though.

I've learned a lot of things in the past year. But I'm going to learn a hell of a lot more in January.

EDELWEISS

Part 8

 

A tiny plastic bag with a small, white pressed flower drifts slowly to the ground in front of me.

"Hey Sunny, what's this?" I pick it up and start examining it.

Sunny turns his head to look at me over his shoulder, grunting as he tries to get a better grip on the box of books and miscellaneous crap that he's moving to storage. "Give me that." he says, putting the box down and sticking his arm out towards me, palm upturned.

"No." I say, being difficult. "You have to tell me what it is, first."

Sunny sighs and walks over to me. "It's an edelweiss. Now hand it over."

I do as he asks. He rummages around in the storage box and gets an envelope from it, then carefully places the flower into the envelope.

"So why do you have it? Are you a hardcore dried, pressed flower collector?" I snicker. It's New Year's Eve and Sunny's got the brilliant idea that it would be the perfect time to put some stuff into storage to kill time before Nolan's party at his place. I've decided that playing Grand Theft Auto 3 while he's lugging heavy boxes around is an even better idea. Having just picked up a ho in the game, I drive to a secluded spot and stop, putting the controller down as the car starts to bounce up and down on the screen.

"He gave that to me a long time ago. It has ..." he pauses. "... sentimental value." He places the envelope back into the box.

"Does that flower have any significance? You know, like giving someone a yellow rose means 'yeah you're okay, but I'm not fucking you'?"

"You don't know the story of the edelweiss?"

I think back to my childhood and recall some godawful movie about children singing and prancing about on hills. "Umm, something about patriotism and nazis?"

Sunny sits down next to me, staring at his feet. Taking no notice of my response, he starts his explanation. "The edelweiss flower grows at high altitudes, a lot of the time in places you can't reach except by climbing the mountain where it grows. It became a popular challenge for young men to get them and give them to their lovers. Many of them fell to their deaths trying. It was seen as being very romantic."

"So he actually went and climbed some incredibly dangerous mountain to get you that flower?" I ask. I see the vision of Sunny and partner in halos again.

"Umm, no, actually he got it from a souvenir shop at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps." he laughs softly. "But it's special to me because he gave it to me the first time he told me that he loved me." Sunny swallows slowly and stands up, picking the storage box up to put it away.

The New Year's Eve party at Nolan's house is pretty cool, not that I'll remember much about it. I drink myself silly, completely undeterred by what happened the last time I consumed massive amounts of alcohol. Whatever happened only happened because I was in a gay bar. At least here I know I won't do anything stupid, like say, make a pass at my best friend.

The home game against Dallas the day after New Year's ends in a tie, with Patty Marleau and Teemu scoring a goal each for us. It's nice to see my old team-mates again but my place is here now, and being with them feels kind of like randomly dropping in on your old high school.

Today we're facing Colorado and everyone's trying to get really focused because they creamed us 4-0 the last time we met.

"Niklas." Sunny turns his head when he hears his name. We're walking down the hallway to the locker room together. I turn around and see Peter Forsberg. There's nobody else around.

"Peter." Sunny returns the greeting without much enthusiasm.

"Bork, bork, bork." Forsberg says in a snide manner.

"Bork, bork, bork." Sunny replies, stony-faced.

Okay, so they're not exactly saying those words, but that's pretty much what Swedish sounds like to my untrained ears. I stand here, feeling foolish and left out as they exchange words.

The conversation, which didn't sound that friendly to begin with, seems to be taking a turn for the worse. Both their faces are getting flushed with anger and Forsberg suddenly turns to me and spits out something that sounds incredibly derogatory, sneering at me. I almost punch him right there and then even though I don't understand a word he said.

As it turns out, I don't have to because Sunny immediately punches Forsberg hard in the stomach, causing him to double over, then grabs him by the hair and knees him in the face. As Forsberg crumples to the ground, Sunny crouches over him, snarling something that sounds incredibly profane, then stands up and stalks away, leaving Forsberg to gasp in pain on the floor.

I hurry after him. "Sunny! What the hell did Forsberg say?" I've never seen him this angry before.

"You don't want to know." Sunny says through gritted teeth.

"Look I memorized what he said, I'll ask Rags if you don't tell me." I lie outlandishly. I have zero chance of recalling what Forsberg said.

"Fine." he says, stopping and turning to face me. "He was speculating about how good you are at servicing me and how good of a fit you are, only he said it a little more crudely than that. Satisfied?" His fists are still clenched, and his face is flushed with rage. I'm stunned by how angry he is. Sunny's one of the most tolerant people I know, and I can't even guess what else Forsberg must have said to provoke him into such a state.

"Oh." My first instinct is to go pummel Forsberg. It's a reflex. You just don't let people get away with saying shit like that about you. I turn around and look down the corridor. Forsberg has vanished. "What the fuck is his problem anyway?"

Sunny doesn't reply. "Sunny?" I say, trying to look him in the eyes. He doesn't seem to want to look at me. Oh shit. I just realized that Forsberg was in the same club as Sunny in Sweden ten fucking years ago.

"It's him, isn't it?" I ask softly.

"What?" he asks, looking at me with a searching expression before quickly staring at the ground. "No, it's not, Scott." Sunny's lying.

Peter Forsberg. Maybe he was once the man Sunny loved. But all he is to me now is the cause of Sunny's pain and sadness.

I can't wait to get on the ice.

EDELWEISS

Part 9

 

I look at the scoreboard. 27 seconds into the game and I'm already watching the players on the ice from the penalty box. I deeply regret not having been quick enough to drop my gloves to pound the shit out of Peter Forsberg. Instead, I've been called for roughing, drawing "What the fuck are you doing?" looks from my team-mates, and a "What the fuck are you doing?" bitching out from Darryl Sutter.

Sunny's on the ice for the penalty kill and he gives me a disapproving look before skating into position for the faceoff. Forsberg's on the ice too, and he looks deliberately at Sunny, turns to smirk at me, then turns to Sunny again. Oh shit, what's he up to? Now I'm really regretting not dropping my gloves in time.

The puck drops and we win the faceoff. Reech passes the puck smoothly to Sunny, who skates across the blue line out of our zone, looking around for a clear passing lane, and finding one back to Reech. He doesn't see Forsberg skating at him full speed, not slowing down at all even though Sunny's already passed the puck.

"Sunny!" I scream, jumping to my feet. But he can't hear me. I watch in horror as Forsberg rams into him sending him headfirst into the glass. He crumples to the ground and lies there. Forsberg stands there next to his unmoving body, then leans over and spits on him.

And then suddenly I'm here, on the ice. *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* He's not even trying to avoid the blows any more. *thwack* *thwack* I feel somebody grab one of my arms, and I try to keep hitting with the other one, but somebody else has grabbed a hold of that arm as well. I struggle violently, but I'm pulled off the prone body of Peter Forsberg.

I can hear voices around me. "Looks like Forsberg's going to be serving his penalty time in the hospital." "Jesus, they need to put a muzzle on Thornton." "At least Sunny managed to get off the ice on his own two feet."

I turn in the direction of the last voice. It's Owen, talking to Reech. "Sunny ..." I start to say to him.

"He's being examined." Owen frowns at me. "Scott ..."

But I don't stick around to hear what he has to say. I wriggle myself free and I'm already halfway to the examination room when my game misconduct is announced.

"... should be okay if you don't feel any symptoms, you know, dizziness, headaches, blah, blah, blah. Here it's all in the pamphlet if you're not already familiar with it, and I really doubt you're not." The doctor's voice drifts out of the examination room.

"Sunny," I say, stepping inside the room. He turns to look at me. His lip is cut and bleeding, but he looks all right, otherwise. His blue eyes are clear and focused. Seeing that he's all right, I'm overwhelmed by a sensation of relief. That's when my knees buckle, and I grab on to the door frame for support.

"Oh hello, Mr. Thornton, care to have that cut under your left eye sutured? Oh and I have another concussion pamphlet here for you. You're probably going to need it." Dr. King motions for me to take a seat.

Cut? Under my eye? I reach up to check and the left side of my face explodes in a shower of pain.

"Yes, Mr. Thornton, very good, you've found it." Dr. King cheerfully gets his equipment out. "Mr. Sundstrom, get out." I'm fairly sure that Dr. King hates all hockey players and enjoys seeing us in pain. His work day must be like one continuous orgasm for him.

"I'd like to stay, if that's all right." Sunny says quietly, his expression inscrutable.

"Whatever." Dr. King waves the needle merrily right in front of my eyes and I quickly close them.

"Umm, Sunny, do you know how I got this?" I mutter, trying to move my face as little as possible as Dr. King works on stitching up the cut.

"That would probably be from Blake. Or maybe Foote. Could have been de Vries." Sunny replies.

"Oh, was your vision blurry?" I grunt. Dr. King starts whistling.

"Nope, they all had a go at you at some point. I think there was talk of busting out some tranquilizer darts for you." He sounds vaguely amused. Fuck. I never even saw them. After I'd seen what Forsberg had done, it was like a red haze descended on me, and then the only things that existed were my fists, and Forsberg's face, and my fists hitting his face.

"Right then, all done!" Dr. King chirps. I open my eyes warily, half-expecting the needle to be pointed at one of them. "Concussion examination time."

I go through the usual sequence of strength, sensation, balance, reflexes and memory tests while Sunny tells me about how he passed out for a few seconds after the hit, and was dazed for a while, but feels much better now.

"Well, Mr. Thornton, it looks like my initial assessment was wrong, you do not have a concussion. You didn't do that well on the memory test, but that can probably be attributed to the fit of uncontrollable rage you entered when Mr. Sundstrom here was hit." He starts scribbling on a chart. "Of course, in your case, a less experienced doctor than myself would probably diagnose a concussion even if you were in perfect health."

I feel my hands clenching into fists, causing fresh jolts of pain from my split and bleeding knuckles. Sunny smirks at me, and then gives me a mock expression of sympathy.

"Mr. Sundstrom, be sure to have somebody stay with you tonight in the unlikely event you start to die suddenly. Read the pamphlet for details." He frowns at me. "And if Mr. Thornton is the one staying with you, please be sure to read the pamphlet to him. Both of you, please come back for my services any time, I'm more than ready to assist you. Now get out." Dr. King points at the door, beaming broadly at us.

The game is still scoreless. During a break in play, Sunny tells Sutter that Dr. King thinks Sunny will almost certainly be able to play on Monday, after he's examined again of course. Sutter doesn't even speak to me, except to say he'll deal with me later. I take grim satisfaction in the fact that I don't see Forsberg on the ice or on the bench. We watch the rest of the game in silence and it ends with a 2-1 victory over Colorado, with Teemu scoring the game winning goal near the end of the third period. It feels great to win, but it's just not the same when you've barely had any ice time. In my case, that would be 27 seconds.

"So," Sunny says slowly as we leave the building. "Want to help prevent my possible untimely death?"

"Sure." I respond. "I'll drive you home."

He accepts my offer, and soon we're cruising along 280 North.

"Peter Forsberg is not who I was picturing as the love of your life." I try to start a conversation.

"That's because it's not him. Do you even listen to me?" Sunny sighs in exasperation.

"It's not? Then what was all that shit that went on between the two of you before the game?" I ask.

"It was stuff about him. It was Peter telling me how I was never worthy, how I was lucky, how he was probably just sorry for me, how I never deserved him ..." Sunny's voice trails off, his face stoic.

"Look, could you please just tell me who we're talking about? I'm not going to out him, I'm not going to go beat the shit out of him, I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to do, okay?" I say tiredly.

Sunny looks at me for a while with his piercing blue eyes, then looks down at his hands and nods.

"Okay, I'll tell you who it is."

EDELWEISS

Part 10

 

"Umm, I don't mean to hurry you, okay, maybe I do, but ... who is it?" I ask. "The suspense is killing me."

"I'm hungry." Sunny responds.

"Excuse me?" I'm starting to get impatient. "Did you get a harder knock to the head than I thought you did? Tell me who the fucker is already!"

"First of all ..." Oh shit. He's got that smirk on his face. The one that means he knows he's got the upper hand in a situation and he's going to toy with me for a while. It's one of the charming traits he's picked up from Kirsten.

"Scott, still listening? First of all, you don't get to call him a fucker because you don't even know who he is." Sunny stretches.

I clutch the steering wheel tightly. Damn you, Kirsten. Damn you to hell.

"And, like I said, I'm hungry. So you're going to buy me dinner first. At Shebele, it's an Ethiopian restaurant. I'll give you the directions."

I swear, if the man didn't have a concussion, I might try to give him one right now. I glare at him viciously, but my expression relaxes when I see that he's nervous, shifting around in his seat. He really doesn't want to talk about this. I guess this is his way of delaying it.

Oh well, I'm hungry too.

We reach the restaurant shortly to find it almost deserted, even though it's Saturday night, albeit late Saturday night, and are seated immediately.

"You order since you've been here before." I don't even look at the menu.

"Okay, I'll just get a mix of stuff then. It's family-style, by the way." We both order beers, and Sunny gives the waitress our food order.

The waitress disappears briefly, then reappears with our drinks. Sunny stares at me curiously as I sip my beer.

"What?" I say, feeling a little disturbed by the way he's looking at me.

"It's just that I've never seen you drink beer quite so slowly before." he says innocently.

"I'm driving, you fucker." Drinking (too much) and driving is just not a good idea. Especially when you're driving a Viper in a neighborhood where the cops have nothing better to do than stick their thumbs up their asses.

The food comes almost right away since we're the last customers of the night. It's a big platter with mounds of food in varying shades of brown on a big, floppy, spongy pancake. We also each get our own plate of floppy, spongy pancakes, folded into quarters.

"She forgot the utensils." I say, trying to get the waitress' attention.

"No, Scott, you eat it with your hands. It's kind of like fajitas, but not really." Sunny demonstrates by tearing off a bit of his pancake, then grabbing a little bit of dark brown meat(?) with it and shoving it into his mouth.

I do the same, picking up the same stuff that Sunny did. "Okay so tell me who he is already." I cut to the chase, placing the pancake and meat(?) in my mouth.

"Markus Naslund." he replies.

I cough and sputter and choke.

"Scott? It's not that much of a shock, is it? I mean, you pretty much knew it was someone from my club in Sweden ..." Sunny says, surprised at my reaction.

"Fuck, are you ... trying to ... kill me, Sunny?" I spit out the spiciest thing I've ever had in my life and gulp down my beer. "Need ... water ... NOW! "

Sunny laughs at me as he asks for some water on my behalf. "I didn't know you couldn't handle spicy food."

"Fuck you." God damn it, my mouth is on fire. I hate spicy food. I'm the kind of guy who gets the mild sauce when I go to Taco Bell. You know, the shit that's less spicy than mayonnaise.

"I'm sorry, I should have asked." he says, completely unapologetically.

When I've sufficiently recovered after downing a glass of water, I steer the conversation back to what we were talking about before. "Markus Naslund, huh? Okay, that I can see." I'm really relieved that it isn't Forsberg.

"I can't believe you think so lowly of me that you think I could have been with ..." Sunny makes a face. "... Peter Forsberg."

"Dude, I'm sorry, I just jumped to conclusions. You were acting all dodgy when I asked if it was him, so I assumed it was." I also got too excited about putting two and two together, remembering that he and Forsberg were in the same club, and somehow forgetting that there were other people in his hockey club too. "So what bug crawled up his ass and died anyway? Why's he so pissed at you?"

"He sort of took Markus' side after the, uhh, break up. He'd keep bothering me and talking shit to me. Markus just stopped talking to me altogether." Sunny takes a gulp of his beer. "But Peter's just always been an asshole. It's like, he has all this talent, and everything comes really easy for him, not just hockey. He's never really had to work for anything - I mean, that's not the image he projects, but that's how it is. So he kind of sees himself as being better than everybody else, and that's the way he behaves. He thinks he should get everything he wants."

I nod. Yeah, I can totally see that. A thought occurs to me. "Hey isn't Markus married with two kids?"

"Yeah, I guess I must have scared him straight." Sunny says bitterly, downing the rest of his beer.

Shit. Great going, Scott. It would just be too hard to think a little before I open my fucking mouth.

It's a silent drive back to Sunny's place. I'm trying to put my brilliant new "think, before talk" philosophy into action, but everything I can think of to say is probably going to hurt Sunny by bringing up more painful memories. Sunny, for his part, seems happy to remain quiet.

When we enter his apartment, he heads straight for his bedroom, telling me he'll be right back. I take a seat on his couch, where I'll be sleeping tonight. Ugh. I'm six-foot-three and this couch is not long enough for me. I'm going to be aching all over when I wake up tomorrow.

Sunny comes back holding a letter in his hand. "I've never told anybody what's in this letter before. Since this seems to be the night of revelations, I think it might be time." He sits down next to me, takes a deep breath, and translates Markus' letter for me.

God, it's excruciating for him to do this. He's crying when he finishes and I hold him close, feeling him sob into my shoulder as I stroke his hair. "I'm so sorry ..." I whisper into his ear. The relief I felt earlier at finding out that it was Markus, not Forsberg, who had been with him has vanished. Markus is twice as twisted as Forsberg for writing this letter.

"You know none of that shit is true, right, Sunny?" I say, when he's stopped crying. "You're the best person I know. Any man would be lucky to have you."

A tiny smile creeps onto his face. "Thanks, Scott. Any man would be lucky to have you too." We both laugh, and I punch him in the arm, wincing a little at the pain in my knuckles.

"You know, given your purpose for being here tonight, you should probably sleep in my room." he says finally, changing the subject. "I've got a sleeping bag you'd probably be more comfortable in than this couch, anyway. At least you'd be able to stretch your legs out."

I follow him into his bedroom. "Where do you want this?" he asks, unrolling the sleeping bag.

"Wherever it's least likely that you'll step on me when you wake up." I chuckle. He smiles and places it between the bed and the closet.

We both strip down to our boxers and he turns out the lights, then gets into bed. I lie down in the sleeping bag and zip myself in. For the first time that night, I think about how it's going to be a long time before I get to play in a game again. And the thing that pisses me off is that I won't be on the ice to protect Sunny. What the fuck am I thinking? Protect Sunny? He doesn't need my protection, he's never needed it.

Then a little thought creeps into my mind. Maybe it's not that I need to protect him, it's that I want to protect him. And I want to protect him because ... I quickly stamp the thought out because somehow I know it will breed other little thoughts that I'm not ready to think just yet.

Physically and emotionally exhausted, sleep comes quickly for me tonight.

EDELWEISS

Part 11

 

A ten game suspension and money.

That turns out to be the price for my revenge on Peter Forsberg. I'd definitely do it all over again if I had the chance to. Maybe pound him a little harder so he'd be out longer than a couple of weeks.

I'm taking a shower right now, still breathing heavily from the punishing ten mile run I just completed at a pace that just about killed me. Before that I'd done three hours of bench presses, squats, curls, tricep extensions, lat pulldowns, push ups, abdominal crunches, lower back extensions, shoulder presses and anything I else I could think of to push myself to the edge.

I haven't seen or talked to Sunny outside of practice since the night I stayed with him after the Avs game, and even during practice I try not to talk to him too much, and definitely not about anything important. I feel kind of guilty that I've basically started ignoring him, especially after he revealed his deepest and most painful secret to me.

I just ... I just don't want to think, and that's why I'm pushing myself so hard physically. As long as I focus on straining my body, I won't be able to think about the kind of stuff I was thinking about the night I stayed at Sunny's place.

My cell phone is ringing as I walk out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist. I check it, planning to not answer if it's Sunny, but it turns out to be Owen.

"Hi, Owen."

"Hi, Scott. You're an idiot." One of the things I like about Owen Nolan is his bluntness.

"Thanks, Owen, I know." I sigh, as I hold the phone to my wet ear. "And I'm sorry about what I did."

"No you're not, and we don't really give a flying fuck about what you did to Forsberg. We all saw what he did to Sunny." He says, calling me on my insincerity. "And by the way, you got off really fucking easy, probably because they don't want to be accused of being biased against us, after that unfair suspension against me two years ago."

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks, I think. So why am I an idiot?" I say, feeling as if I've just set myself up to be the punchline of a joke I won't be able to understand.

"Because you're avoiding Sunny." Owen says gruffly.

"I'm not -" I start.

"You are the worst fucking liar I have ever known. Sunny has been really depressed this past week and I know what good friends the two of you are. So put aside whatever the fuck your problem is and start talking to him before I fucking kick your ass." Owen hangs up on me.

I put my cell phone down onto the bedside table, and dry myself off. Another thing I like about Owen Nolan is how much he cares.

Fuck. I just can't talk to Sunny right now, Owen ass-kicking or not. I collapse on my bed, still naked, my muscles sore and aching. And then I remember who we're playing tonight.

There's somebody on that team I do want to talk to.

The Canucks come to San Jose with a three game winning streak, and riding on a wave of confidence, they're leading 3-0 by the end of the second period. I saw Markus Naslund before the game started, but Peter Forsberg, who claimed he didn't feel up to travelling yet, was with him. The sight of his bruised and swollen face gave me a small surge of pride. When he saw me, he grunted something offensive and Markus looked in my direction, his eyes narrowing in anger. I turned and walked away. I don't need to get any deeper in trouble than I already am and I certainly don't want to talk to Markus with Peter Forsberg at his side.

I don't even fucking know what I'm hoping to accomplish, I just feel compelled to talk to him. To see if I can catch a glimpse of the man that Sunny loved so much. To get an explanation. To see if I can somehow make things better for Sunny.

We make a valiant attempt to come back in the third period, with Harvey and Sunny scoring a goal each in the first half of the period. I cheer so loudly when Sunny scores that my lungs hurt. Unfortunately the Canucks shut us down the rest of the game, and score an empty-netter in the last minute of the game, winning it 4-2.

I barge into the visitors' locker room after the game, getting some curious stares from Canucks in various states of undress. They're happy with their win, though, and they ignore me and quickly go back to their locker room banter.

"Markus." He turns around at the sound of my voice. He's standing there naked, drying his face and hair with a towel. Seeing him like that suddenly brings an image of him and Sunny together to my mind, and I look away. "I need to talk to you."

"You do?" he says, as I hear him putting his clothes on. "Like the way you talked to Peter?"

I turn my gaze back to him. I can feel everyone's eyes on me. They don't stop talking or doing what they're doing but they're letting me know that they're watching me. "No, Markus, I just want to talk." I forcibly relax and unclench the fists that had formed reflexively when I heard Forsberg's name.

"Fine, talk, but make it quick." Markus begins putting his things away.

"In private." I add.

Markus looks at me as if I'm fucked in the head. I meet his gaze evenly. After reading my expression for a while, he agrees, to my surprise, walking out of the locker room with me. "You know what will happen to you if -"

"I know." I cut him off. I close the door to the small, empty office we're in. Now that we're here, face to face, I'm speechless. Markus, bristling with impatience, breaks the silence.

"So you're Niklas' new boyfriend?" he says, angrily. "I hope he treats you better than the way he treated me."

"You're talking about how he treated you?" I almost scream in outrage. Calm down, Scott. Calm the fuck down. I'm struggling to keep from slugging him right then and there.

"You're the one with the fucked up notion that the two of you together were unholy. You're the one who called him filthy and disgusting. You called him a sickness that infected you." The contents of Markus' letter come rushing back to me.

"What the fuck are you talking about? What kind of shit has Niklas been filling your head with?" Markus shouts. The bastard is trying to deny it.

"The fucking letter you wrote to him. Do you even know what that did to him?" I don't know how much longer I can restrain myself. I'm already getting that familiar feeling, the one I always get before I start a fight. Fuck, why did I think talking to him would be a good idea?

"Peter was right, you're incredibly fucked up, Thornton." Markus says, shoving me hard against the wall as he moves to the door to leave the room. "I never wrote him any fucking letters. Get your fucking story straight."

Then his voice drops to almost a whisper, his hand on the doorknob. "Niklas was the one who wrote the letter."

"What?" I put my hand on his shoulder. He whirls around, ready to fight if necessary, but it isn't, because all the fight went out of me when I heard the tone of his voice. A tone that was all too familiar. Except that I was used to hearing it in Sunny's voice.

He sounds like he's on the verge of tears. "He wrote me a letter. Explained at great length how repulsive I was. Told me how the prospect of sleeping with me woke him up to how disgusting it was for us to be together. Told me never to speak to him again or he would -"

"Or he would have to kill himself out of shame and self-loathing at hearing your voice and remembering you had been together?" I finish.

His face tightens in anger. "So he did tell you ..."

"He showed me, Markus. He showed me the letter." I interrupt. "The letter that you supposedly wrote."

He slumps against the wall, realization sinking in. "I never wrote ... then who ... does that mean, Niklas didn't ... he didn't ..."

And then he's crying. I can't imagine how he's feeling right now. His body convulses with huge wracking sobs, and I find myself with my arms around him, patting his back, comforting him. I think about how many years have passed since they were ripped apart. I think about what those years must have been like. I think about how special their love was, how pure. I think about what might have been.

"Go to him." I whisper to Markus, releasing him. "Tell him."

He looks at me, wiping the tears from his eyes, nodding wordlessly. He is calm now, quiet, at peace. He's almost glowing.

I watch him leave with the knowledge that he is going to the man he loves, the man who still loves him and I see that perfect image I have of them in my head again, only now it will become a reality. I've done it. I've succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. Given Sunny what he's needed.

And then it hits me in the gut. Hard. So hard that I fall to the floor, choking. I have never felt such an overwhelming sense of loss in my life. I don't understand where this feeling is coming from but that doesn't make it go away. It just gets worse. I feel like my soul is being crumpled and crushed. I can barely lift my head up, but when I do, the feeling of loss is slowly replaced by something else.

Fury.

I see Peter Forsberg standing in the shadows. And I don't need to see the look of undisguised longing on his face as he watches Markus Naslund walk away to realize what I already know.

EDELWEISS

Part 12

 

Peter Forsberg is a great hockey player. He's well-liked by his team-mates. He's a hero in the eyes of many. He's rich. He's wined and dined with celebrities. He's won an Olympic gold medal. He’s even on a stamp.

Right now I'm grinding his left hand under my foot. Some of the stitches on his face have burst and the wound has reopened.

"Thornton, stop ..." he murmurs, blood running from his mouth.

Peter Forsberg also happened to rip apart two people who loved each other more than life itself because he couldn't have one of them.

I've only had him in this room for a couple of minutes. I'm trying to find out just what kind of a person would try to crush a love as pure and sacred as the love Markus and Sunny had.

"Why would I do that? I mean, I just started." My voice is cold with the fury that runs through it.

"That was a brilliant idea you had, Peter. Great letters. Wonderful penmanship. Did poor heart-broken Markus seek comfort in your arms? Someone to help him forget about Sunny?" I nudge his broken nose with the toe of my shoe and he yelps in pain.

"No." he says, venomously. "He never even looked at me. All he ever wanted was his precious Niklas."

"So it didn't even work. And you kept them apart anyway. You could have put an end to it at any time, and you never did. Isn't that right?"

Forsberg doesn't respond. "Isn't that right?" I repeat, bringing my foot down heavily on his stomach.

"Yes!" he manages to gasp.

I back away, completely repulsed by him.

"I did you a favour, Thornton." he says, trying to stand up. "If I hadn't done what I did, you wouldn't have Niklas now."

"I don't have him." I say. Why does my voice sound so bitter? "It's not like that between us. Markus knows what you did. He's gone to Sunny."

Forsberg starts to chuckle. "You are such a fool. How long have you been deceiving yourself?"

"You don't know anything." I mutter. I lean back against the wall to steady myself. I'm starting to feel like the one who doesn't know anything. I start to breathe in ragged bursts, and I concentrate on shutting those thoughts and feelings out, the ones I've been trying to stop for longer than I know.

"I'm not even gay." I add.

Upon hearing this, Forsberg laughs condescendingly. "Thornton, you stupid fuck, you're gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide."

"Shut up." I say, kicking him half-heartedly. He falls down again, groaning.

I'm not gay. I'm attracted to women. Like Kirsten. Oh fuck. Kirsten. I'm attracted to Kirsten, the I'm-not-really-gay-I'm-just-confused magnet.

I close my eyes and try to picture the last girl I fucked. Instead I see the image of dream Sunny, tanned and muscular and almost naked. Fuck. I try to picture the woman from the last porno I jacked off to. Instead, all I can remember from the tape is the guy who was fucking her, because he looked like Sunny.

Oh my god. I've heard about guys who are in denial that they're gay. Apparently my denial skills are so well-honed that I've been in denial about being in denial. And everything seems to be unravelling right now.

"Did caveman just discover fire?" Forsberg taunts.

I'm so distraught that I don't respond to him. This is insane. I just turned thirty-two a couple of days ago, for Christ's sakes. How could I not have known about being gay all this time? I went through the whole questioning my sexuality thing in my teens. I've been in locker rooms with naked men for half my life - you'd think I'd have had some hint.

But I was never attracted to any of those men. Just Sunny. My Sunny. And then I forget about all the gay or not gay stuff because I'm struck by something much more important.

I love Sunny.

I'm IN love with him. From the moment we met I've been falling in love with him. I got to know him, how smart he is, how genuine, how tolerant, how completely unmarred by hatred and bitterness even though he's spent the past ten years believing that he was reviled by the man he loved. And the more I knew him, the more I loved him.

"Congratulations, by the way." Forsberg continues, when I don't say anything. "You've just reunited Sunny with the love of his life. That must be a very rewarding feeling."

The feeling that hit me earlier tonight returns full force, causing me to inhale sharply. I had watched Markus walk away, practically walking on air, feeling happy that the truth had finally come out. Then I'd thought about the implications of Sunny finding out the truth, and how he and Markus would be together again.

And the thought of him being with someone else had buried me with a profound sense of loss. God damn it. Why did it have to take the thought of losing him to make me realize that I love him? And why did it have to take Peter fucking Forsberg to make me face up to it? Because now the only thing on my mind is how much I love him.

I'm flooded by thoughts and desires. I want to lie under the stars with him. And I want to still be lying with him when the sun comes up. I want to climb mountains with him. I want to cook for him even though I don't know how to. I want to play stupid video games with bunnies in them with him. I want to take him into my arms and kiss him forever.

I want to grow old with him.

"I've lost him." I mutter defeatedly.

Forsberg looks at my face, studying me. I know how I must look right now. Anguished. Heartbroken. Devastated.

"I always knew you were his little bitch." Forsberg spits triumphantly.

I look at Forsberg's face, right into his eyes. He has talent, fame and fortune but it's not enough for him and it will never be enough. He will always want more and he will do anything to get it, no matter how brutal he has to be, no matter how many people he has to hurt. And when he gets it, he will move on to the next thing. He could own the world and he would still be the bitter, twisted man I see before me now. Any joy and happiness he could ever hope to experience will be robbed from him by his desire and lust.

Any pain I can inflict with my fists is nothing compared to the pain he will inflict upon himself for the rest of his life.

I help him to stand, hooking my arms under his and pulling him up roughly, as he flinches from my touch. His face is wretched and bleeding. I suddenly feel profoundly sorry for him.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this, but I move my face forward and kiss him gently on the lips, leaving him stunned. Then I leave the room, the taste of his blood in my mouth.

I have to find Sunny.

I look in the locker room but everyone is gone. I try his cell phone but it goes straight to voice mail. I leave a message telling him to call me right away. I drive over to his apartment and ring the doorbell, but there's no response. I let myself in with the key he gave me to make sure he's not there. The place is empty.

I know he's with Markus somewhere.

And I know I've lost him.

EDELWEISS

Part 13

 

"Scott, wake up." There's a hand stroking my forehead slowly, brushing my hair back.

I open my puffy eyes and rub them blearily. I'd reached home and gone straight to bed. There was no way I could sleep though, with all the thoughts and emotions that were filling my head. I thought of going to get drunk, but that would have just made me happy, and I didn't want to be happy last night. I wanted to be in pain, I wanted to fucking hurt. I wanted to feel as much as I could because I wasn't sure when I would ever be able to feel again. So I cried and cried and when the tears wouldn't come anymore, I fell into an exhausted sleep.

"You didn't answer when I rang the doorbell so I let myself in." Sunny's sitting on my bed by my side. He's stopped patting my head and I miss his touch already. "You look like shit."

I feel like shit. Sunny, on the other hand is radiant. If I squint just right, I think I can see a halo above his head. Seeing how beautiful he is right now brings a warmth to my heart. And then I remember who he was with last night, and know what, or rather who, is responsible for him looking that way, and the warmth quickly fades.

"I didn't check my messages until this morning, so I'm sorry I didn't call you back." he says. "I turned my phone off last night. I wanted to talk to Markus without any interruptions."

Like me. I'm an interruption. I swallow, a lump building in my throat.

"I couldn't believe it when he told me the truth. How we'd wasted so much time, just ..." his voice is cracking. He pauses for a moment to collect himself. "Thank you, Scott. I will never be able to repay you for what you've done."

I close my eyes and sink into my pillow. I would do anything for you.

"I went back to his hotel with him. We talked the whole way. We told each other everything that had happened in our lives. The big things and the small things. He talked about his wife and little daughters." Sunny smiles.

A spark of hope ignites within me. His wife and children. Maybe he and Sunny hadn't gotten back together. Maybe Markus didn't want to because of his family. I take a deep breath and prepare to tell Sunny I love him.

"And then we slept together." he says quietly, looking away from me as he says it.

NO! I scream inwardly. This can't be happening. Not now. Not when I've finally figured out that I love you so much it fucking hurts. Not when I've finally realized how much I need you to love me too. Not now.

An image comes to me just then, in the midst of my misery. It's that fucking edelweiss flower that fell out of Sunny's storage box. I remember the story he told me about it. I think about the stupid fucks who climbed mountains for them, even though they knew they could fall to their deaths any moment.

I think of Markus Naslund and how I will never ever compare to him. I think of everything Sunny and I have gone through together.

And I think about how I would happily be one of those stupid mountain-climbing fucks for the chance to pick an edelweiss.

"Sunny." My voice is scratchy. I've let him do all the talking until now. "I have something to tell you."

He looks at me, his hair golden in the sunlight, his blue eyes bathing me in their beauty.

Summoning all the courage I have within me, I croak, "I love you."

He kisses me lightly on the forehead and whispers in my ear. "I know. I've known for a long time."

"What?" I say, alarmed. I sit up in bed. "How did you know?"

"Well, first of all ..." Fuck, there's a list? "You haven't had a girlfriend in months. Not even a one night stand."

"How would you know?" He's right, though, I haven't. "About the one night stands I mean."

"Because you always smell like sex the next day when you have one. Another thing, you let me punch you for reading my journal." He continues.

"Not so much let, as, wasn't ready for." I argue, feeling a little upset about the "smell like sex" comment.

"But you didn't hit me back, did you?" Sunny asks. I nod my assent.

"You fucking demolished Peter after he checked me into the glass. Very sweet of you, by the way." he adds.

I sigh.

"There's other stuff too, but the number one clue ..." I groan. Even I know what this one is. "... is you kissing me that night in the bar."

"I was drunk, Sunny. You said it yourself, I let some stranger, umm, use me that night." I grumble.

"Yeah you were fucking wasted, but when you kissed me you did it like you meant it. I knew for sure then." He takes my left hand and squeezes it lightly, causing me to shudder at the touch of his skin, at how good it feels.

After hearing all he's said, I can see all the signs of my being in love with him pretty crystal fucking clear. A three-year-old would have been able to see it. Fuck me. I may be an idiot but I'm in the 99th percentile when it comes to denial.

Speaking of being an idiot, I finally realize the implications of him already knowing that I loved him.

He slept with Markus anyway.

He made his choice. He doesn't want me.

And I fucking lose it. I thought I'd cried myself out last night but apparently I haven't, because here come the tears again. I'm so fucking pathetic.

"Scott? What's wrong? Why are you crying?" Sunny moves to hold me, but I shrink away from him. If he holds me, he'll just remind me of what I can't have, and that would just hurt even more.

I try to calm down, taking deep breaths. Finally I've stopped crying enough to say, "Because you don't want me."

"Scott, why would you think that? I love you." he says, cradling my face in his hands.

It feels so good to have his hands on my face that I almost believe that he said that the way I want him to say it.

"But you're not in love with me. You're in love with Markus. You slept with him." I pull his hands down from my face and push them away.

Sunny takes a deep breath. "That's not why I slept with him, Scott."

"Then why?" I don't understand.

"Because we both needed it to happen." Sunny pauses, looking as if he's trying to figure out how to explain things. "We had both wanted it so much back then, that it just sort of became this milestone before it even happened. What Peter did was he interrupted something that was meant to happen. And because it didn't we've never really moved past that stage of our lives, emotionally. It just left this void so huge that we couldn't really go on. Markus is married and has a family now, but he's always felt like there was a barrier between him and then. He thinks it's gone now, and now he can really love them."

Sunny pauses, then looks at me, his face tranquil. "It's like we're whole again ... Scott, do you understand what I'm saying?"

I'm trying to, but I haven't been through what he's been through. "I don't know."

"After it was over, we wished each other the best and said goodbye. Maybe things could have been different, but he's a part of my past now ..." Sunny's voice trails off. "Scott, you're, I mean I hope you want to be, part of my present and future. You have no idea how happy I was, still am, to hear you say that you love me."

"But you already knew, even before I said anything." I'm trembling, trying to convince myself that this is really happening. That he really loves me.

"But you didn't know. I had to know that you fully accepted loving me." Sunny's lips are full and red, and they're slightly parted.

In a split second I'm kissing them, just like I did when we were in the bar. But this time, I'm doing it sober, fully accepting my actions and their consequences, and with the knowledge that this is what I really want. I wrap my arms around him, pulling him closer.

"Ow, it scratches." I say, unused to the feeling of the feeling of facial hair on someone I'm kissing.

"Fuck, Scott, you don't complain when I break your nose, but you whine about my stubble ?" Sunny snickers at me, then quickly presses his lips to mine to stifle my response. I surrender happily, tilting my head back as he moves down to kiss and nibble on my neck. I feel incredible and tingly all over.

"I love you, Niklas." I've never called him by his first name before, and I like the way it sounds. Personal. And new. Just like our relationship.

"I love you too, Cookie." He grins back at me.

And then he pushes me down onto the bed and attacks my chest with a flurry of kisses. I counter by pushing his shoulders away and tackling him, laughing as he struggles and squirms under me. We wrestle and kiss and nibble and laugh until we collapse in a happy, exhausted, tangled pile of limbs.

It's a beautiful day with no clouds in the sky, and the air is crisp and clear.

It's too bad we never make it outside to see it.

 

THE END