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“Have you seen my inhaler?” Will asks as he rounds the corner into the kitchen. He walks towards Mack, who’s sat on a stool by the island scrolling through tiktok.
He looks up at the sound of Will’s voice, says, “It’s here,” and picks it up off the side and stretches his arm to press it into Will’s hands.
“Oh. Thanks.” And places a kiss into Mack’s hair before he pockets the inhaler.
Mack locks his phone and pulls Will in by the neck. Game days are long, so Mack’s gonna make the most of the time they have before they need to head to the rink.
Will laughs into his mouth and Mack swallows the glorious sound, before trailing a hand underneath Will’s shirt. Will shudders beneath his touch.
Mack smiles.
Will’s pressing a hand against his chest. He sees it in the corner of his eyes as Toff yaps at him about fuck-knows-what, Mack hasn’t been paying attention.
He twists his stick in his hands as he tapes the blade, sits in his stall in his base layers. He’s just finished annihilating everyone at sewer, because he’s fucking amazing with a soccer ball, and he’s gotta make sure he remembers to rub it in Delly’s face later.
He glances back at Will, finds him rubbing these little circles against his sternum that Mack knows means his throat’s feeling tight. Will’s so easy to read, he thinks. Mack could write a book on all of his tells, if Mack wanted to. Or well, maybe he could do a podcast, ‘cuz writing’s like, hard, and Mack didn’t like doing it in school.
Mack gets up and wanders over to Will, ignores Toff’s indignant, “—but what was I supposed to—hey, Mack!” as his voice fades the further away he gets, “Where are you—oh never mind.”
“Will?” Mack says.
He looks up at Mack’s approach, shows Mack the glassy film to his sapphire eyes, and he opens his mouth to reply but coughs and quickly turns his head away and coughs again.
“You good? Inhaler?”
Will’s throat bobs as he swallows and shakes his head, “It's fine, it’ll go away before warm-ups.”
“Okay,” Mack says, and it probably is. Will knows how to manage his condition, isn’t new to it, so Mack leaves him to it.
And Misa chooses that moment to come bounding over, and he sucked at sewer today, so Mack chirps the shit out of him until they hit the ice for warm-ups.
Will wears his neck gaiter, has it high up and over his nose, and takes his first few laps easy, like he always does.
He joins Mack for the parts of warm-up that they share, and it’s all fine, all normal, expect Mack doesn’t like the Will keeps coughing.
It’s infrequent, once here, once there, not something the trainers would worry about, but is something that Mack’s never been able to not worry about.
They hit the room again once warm-ups wrap up, and Will’s not talking. He’s leaning forward, elbows resting on his thighs, eyes focused in a way that could be misinterpreted for being locked in but Mack sees right through.
Mack hobbles over on his skates, ignores the glances from his teammates that make him realize that Warso’s in the middle of his pre-game speech and he’s just—stood up in the middle of it—but whatever. This is Smitty they’re talking about.
“Hey, inhaler. Please.” Mack murmurs. He sinks down into a half-kneel half-lunge as low as his gear allows, and rests his gloveless hands on Will’s quads.
Will nods, but doesn’t move. From this close Mack can hear the high-pitched exhales—the wheezing—coming out of him and notices that Will avoids taking any deep breaths.
Mack reaches to the side, into the back of Will’s stall where he keeps a spare inhaler, and pulls it out of the small pouch he stores it in. Mack shakes it and brings it up to Will’s mouth, says, “Breathe out, Smit,” before pressing it to Will’s mouth.
He listens—like he always does—to Mack, and Mack presses the button, watches Will inhale and hold the breath in before letting it out slowly.
“Want another one?” Mack asks as Will clears his throat. He pauses, considering, but shakes his head.
Mack stays where he is, perched in front of Will, until cheering and yelling rises around them. Speech’s finished then, he thinks. Mack turns to stand and finds trainer Scott standing at his side.
“Hey Smitty,” Scott says, glancing at Mack before Will, “come with me real quick? We want a peak flow reading before you hit the ice.” Will nods.
Mack—Mack’s gotta head to the ice, the anthem’s gonna start like, so soon.
“C’mon Celly,” someone shouts but Mack doesn’t look around to find out who. Fuck it. Will hasn’t moved yet.
“Let’s go, Will, we got a game to win.” He says and grabs Will’s hand, tugging him up and leading the way to the medical room.
“Macklin, you gotta—”
“Nah, it’ll only take a minute, I’ll wait with Smit.”
Mack wonders how often medical devices lie.
Because the trainers told him the reading was fine, was normal but Will’s taking shorter shifts, skating off earlier than he should be, and is lagging behind him on plays they’ve done a hundred times. On the bench he folds himself forward, and Mack can see how he struggles for breath.
The trainers hand him his inhaler more than once in the latter minutes of the period.
The horn blares for intermission, and as they’re stumbling down the tunnel Will won’t stop coughing.
“Get me his inhaler!” Mack shouts, and doesn’t care if it’s rude.
He grabs onto Will when he trips over the mat and goes careening sideways. He’s wheezing—coughing, and grabbing at his chest. The look in his eyes is glassy—panicked.
A hand presses Will’s inhaler into Mack’s, and he shakes it twice, three times, and passes it to Will.
Will seals his lips around the mouthpiece, presses the button and inhales. He coughs between each puff, and Mack guides them both into the medical room once they make it through the maze of hallways.
“Hey, what’s—oh shit,” Scott says as they fall into the room, “get him on the plinth.” Mack does, shoves Will in that direction until he pushes himself up onto the medical bed, and when he starts tugging at his tarp, Mack helps him get that off too.
He’s down to his base layer—chest and shoulder protectors discarded haphazardly on the floor—when Scott dumps the nebulizer beside him. “Take his compression shirt off too,” he says, fiddling with the machine.
Will’s still gasping between the puffs he takes from his inhaler but the wheezing edge has eased.
Mack grabs his shirt from where it sits near his waistband and pulls it over his head, then flattens the blond curls that stick up from where the damp fabric had dragged over them.
Scott barges in, pulls the mask over Will’s head and moments later it mists with each breath Will takes. Mack fixes the pieces of his hair that get tangled in the straps.
A stethoscope gets pressed to Will’s chest, courtesy of Scott, before he moves to do the same on his back moments later, and then Scott stands and watches the movement of Will’s ribs.
Mack knows the drill by now. Hates that he does, hates that Will’s lungs are so mean to him.
Will’s still grabbing onto his forearms, but Mack watches as his shoulders start to relax as the medication helps him breath. Eventually Will seems to realize he’s clenching onto Mack, and the dumbass tries to apologize, which—Mack’s not having that.
“Shut up,” he says, and has Scott looking over at him, eyebrows raised, and whoops, Mack forgot for a second that they weren’t alone, “none of that. You know I don’t care, Willy.”
Will leans forwards, tips himself forward into Mack, and Mack steps closer into the space between Will’s spread legs.
He brings one of his hands up and scratches Will’s scalp as he presses his body into Mack’s. They both ignore Scott's grumble about some optimal breathing posture nonsense. The hiss of the nebulizer fills the room, a background hum that’s occasionally interrupted by a shout from the locker room—and yeah, they haven’t been playing great, so that’s probably the coaching staff, and they’re probably not happy that Mack’s missing yet another intermission speech. But. Mack doesn’t care.
They should know by now that Will comes first. No matter how many times they tell him that ‘the trainers have it under control’, and ‘he doesn’t need you in there, he’s an adult,’ Mack will always choose him first.
“Better?” Mack mumbles into Will’s hair.
He feels Will nod.
Mack strokes a hand along Will’s back, it sticks in places from where he’s still sweaty, but has Will shivering all the same, and it sends a bolt of heat into Mack’s gut. Not the time, he thinks, but it’s Will. It’s not his fault his Will is so—
The nebulizer beeps, and has it really been ten minutes?
But then Will’s pulling away, and Scott’s taking the mask off of his face, and Will exhales, shakily, and his shoulders have lowered, his neck not so tense anymore.
“How are you feeling, Smit?” Scott asks, grabbing his stethoscope again and walking over.
Will nods, replies with words that Mack doesn’t hear as he glances towards the closed door as voices rise.
He turns back and watches Scott press his stereoscope to Will’s skin, and Mack watches his ribs move up and out, down and in.
He trails his eyes up over Will’s abs, the divots and curves, and up over his pecs—Mack’s favorite place to bite. Up and over his neck—Mack’s favorite place to suck, and up to his eyes—Mack’s favorite place to stare.
He finds clear glacial blue, no longer glassy and scared, but tired and—embarrassed, ugh.
“Stop it,” Mack says, then realizes that’s not very clear, and clarifies, “stop being, like, feeling bad, Will.” He brings his hands up to cradle Will’s face. Gets a little lost. “You’re so pretty.” He says. And watches the color—the pink—return to Will’s cheeks.
He can’t help himself. Mack leans forward and sucks Will’s bottom lip into his mouth, envelopes himself in Will’s heat, his touch.
Scott clears his throat, but Mack ignores him. This is his Will. Everyone else can wait.