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Wilbur wasn’t a big player, but he was tall, and though it pained Phil to even admit it mentally, he was used to taking hits. So, while Phil didn’t enjoy watching any of his players get knocked around, it was—to some extent—a crucial part of the game. He didn’t tolerate fights—not on a theoretical level—but it wasn’t like there was anything that he could do when they inevitably popped up, save for getting on the ice and getting thrown out if a tussle started.
“What do you think you’re doing?” exclaimed some kid from the other team, pushing up against Schlatt, who looked like he was ready to throw a punch. The two engaged in a little skirmish before Schlatt backed off. It was normal. Something he might have chided Schlatt for later, but otherwise a perfectly average occurrence. Then, the other player threw a dirty hit, going for it after Schlatt turns to stop.
“Hey, get off of him—” Wilbur had skated over, looking like he was trying to break up the fight. Elbowing between the two, the debacle—luckily or unluckily—took place right outside SMP’s bench, and therefore right under Phil’s stare.
“You want a piece of this?” the words weren’t loud enough for anyone to hear but the players in the vicinity, and Phil—surely not the crowd. All they saw was a big kid, stick up—somehow he’d managed to keep it, despite the scuffle—advancing at Wilbur.
There was a moment where the rink was a sedated beehive; an area that should be full of sound and fury and chaos instead covered in the ever-reliable tranquilizer of shock. Lethargy coated the watching players, silence crushed the people in the stands, even the buzzing of energy from the rink itself was smothered.
The kid’s stick arced up, the fulcrum jabbing as he slammed into Wilbur, who fell in slow motion. His head snapped back with the force of the blow, ramming painfully back against the boards. A gasp echoed and a penalty—intentional slashing or something—is immediately called, but Phil didn’t hear it over the swelling of emotion—anger, fear, guilt—that rang in his ears.
Fumbling with the gate—the gate he’s opened a million times—it was only a few moments before he was on the ice, sprinting over to Wilbur with an awful feeling rising in his gut. Head injury, his brain was chanting, a phrase that no one ever wants to hear.
The distant music and neon glow of the rink lights added an oxymoronic show of muted whimsy that failed the moment Phil stepped onto the ice. Like actors suffering from the crumbling facade of a bad tv show, all pretenses of ‘oh, it isn’t so bad,’ and ‘he’ll get up,’ were dropped. A nasty crack sliced the air, juxtaposing the silence as a smile at a funeral did.
The ref was probably admonishing Phil, just as the ice was probably cold under his knees, but all of his senses not pertaining to Wilbur’s hunched form, low whine, gasp of pain, were muffled as if he was underwater.
“Shit.” A voice came from behind him, familiar enough that it cut through the haze, and it took Phil a moment to distantly register that it was Techno, and that was bad because Techno didn’t curse, and—
He had to blink the spiraling panic away to focus on Wilbur. Wilbur, curled on the ice with his hands thrown over his head, limp like a ragdoll tossed carelessly down. His legs twitched as he presumably tried to stand up, letting out a hiss that should be so much more. The thing Phil hated the most was that Wilbur looked like he was used to it, that he had to get up, or else. Kneeling over him, it only took one look to know that this was a concussion—a pretty serious one. He’d seen concussions before, but they were terrifying every goddamn time.
“Wil?” he tried, every bone in his body soaked with tension and then hung out to dry. “Can you hear me?”
“S’ry,” he whined, the words warped and twisted by his injury, rendering a normally eloquent man almost unintelligible. “I’m okay—you don’t have to sub me out—”
Phil shushed him gently. “Where does it hurt, mate?”
It felt like they were the only two in the rink, despite the chaos erupting around them. “My ‘ead. Sorry, I’m stronger than this, I—”
“Someone get the trainer!” The call came from the other team, but Phil shook his head decisively.
“Fuck the trainer, he needs a hospital.” The only thing that Phil knew how to do was take action, and, thankfully, it was the only thing he could do. “Schlatt, you carry him. Be careful with his head. He’s going to be in a lot of pain. Techno, call the emergency number. We’ll meet the ambulance outside. I need you to stay here, though.”
Schlatt was frozen for a second, pure distress coloring every inch of his usually jovial expression, the guilt evident even just seconds after the incident. “I didn’t mean—”
“Not your fault,” Phil managed to get out. “It’s—don’t worry. He’s going to be fine.” That was potentially a lie, just in the tone. Phil wasn’t sure of anything right now, but he also couldn’t have his players falling apart on him. “Now pick him up, be careful, and—”
Wilbur flinched at the loud words coming from Phil, breaking under the commanding tone. “I’m sorry,” he slurred, again. “I—”
It was Schlatt that shushed him as Phil followed behind, fisting his hands to keep them from trembling. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he mumbled, uncharacteristically subdued as his heavy footsteps—there was no time to remove his skates—tramped across the halls, crowds thankfully parting to make way for their dreary entourage.
Phil tried to steady his breathing to the beat of the ambulance’s siren as it pulled up. As much as he wanted to be selfish, Schlatt’s white-fisted knuckles destroyed any thought of who would ride with Wilbur. Urging him on after babbling a few details to the paramedics, he got in the car. The amount of time he spent to get to the hospital was potentially illegal—he wouldn’t be surprised if Wilbur and Schlatt arrived after him, with all the speeding he’d been doing. There was no time to take a breath; Phil was fairly certain that his nerves would only ease out after getting confirmation that his player was going to be okay.
Three hours in a hospital chair later, next to a sleeping and very concussed hockey player, with Schlatt on his side and Techno on the phone (someone had to stay at the game), Wilbur finally stirred. Eyes gliding open, glassy but awake, Schlatt shot up and Phil went absolutely still. Despite the doctor’s reassurances that it was a nasty concussion but should be a normal recovery, they were both on the highest of alerts.
“...hey,” Wilbur said finally, sounding marginally better than before, though the words clearly took him effort.
“You’re a fucking idiot, Soot.” Anyone who didn’t know Schlatt would say that he sounded pissed as hell, but Phil didn’t miss the tremble of his hands, or the last three hours spent in whispers, begging Wilbur to be okay. It wasn’t anger; it was pure terror. “You’re—just don’t do that again. Ever.”
Wilbur’s eyes drifted closed again, and Phil held his breath, but he finally spoke. “What ‘appened?”
His throat dry, Phil managed to get out an impossibly gentle, somehow normal-sounding sentence. “You have a concussion, mate. Got brained with someone’s stick.”
“I ‘ad to go out o’ the game?”
“You’re at the hospital now.”
“Fuck, ’m sorry, I—” Wilbur tried to lurch forwards but cut himself off with a whine at the headache that shot through his skull, pounding even when he quickly leaned back again. “I know it’s a waste of time if I get injured; I’ll do better next—”
“What are you talking about?” Schlatt asked, even though it had already dawned on the both of them. Helplessly, he begun again. “Soot, it’s me and Phil. That fucking dickhead isn’t here—he hadn’t been here.” Wilbur didn’t really respond, just humming vaguely in an ambiguous nonanswer. Schlatt turned to Phil, demanding some sort of answer. “Is he—”
“The doctor said it’s normal. He’s just a little confused right now, mate—he should be fine in a bit.” Thank Prime that Phil had seen concussions before, otherwise he’d be panicking the same as Schlatt. “Wil?”
A tiny nod was all the response that he got.
“Dunno if you can here me—and I’ll say this again once you’re rested up a bit—but you’re safe now. If you get hurt, we drop everything—including the game—because you don’t deserve to be in pain, okay?”
There wasn’t an indicator that Wilbur truly understood his words, per se, and there would be a longer conversation about this later, but as he drifted to sleep again, the name that he murmured was Phil’s own.