(Third Person)
"Get up, Max. Now."
Max pushed himself up onto one elbow, testing his weight, and pain shot bright and immediate through his wrist where it had taken the fall.
"Easy." Knox was there before Coach Reyes could even cross the ice, dropping to a crouch, hand hovering near Max’s shoulder without quite touching it. "Don’t move too fast."
"I’m fine."
"You’re not fine, you went down like a sack of bricks." Knox’s eyes flicked up toward Lucian, sharp now, none of his usual easy warmth left in it. "What the hell was that?"
Lucian hadn’t moved. He stood there, chest still heaving from the drill, staring down at Max like he was seeing something he hadn’t meant to create.
"It was a clean hit," he said, but it came out rougher than he meant it to, less certain than the words themselves.
"That wasn’t clean, Cross, that was a bag skate straight into a full-speed check on a guy who’s been skating for a month." Knox helped Max sit up, careful of the wrist he was already cradling against his chest. "You need to get your head checked."
"Watch it."
"No, you watch it." Knox’s voice sharpened, real anger breaking through for maybe the first time Max had ever heard from him. "Whatever’s going on with you, it’s not his fault. He didn’t do anything to deserve that."
Coach Reyes finally reached them, crouching to check Max’s wrist with brisk, practiced hands. "Can you move it?"
Max flexed his fingers, wincing. "It moves. Hurts."
"Probably a sprain, not a break, but we’re getting it looked at properly." Coach Reyes helped him up, then turned, voice going hard in a way Max hadn’t heard from him yet. "Cross. My office. Now."
"I’m fine to finish practice."
"That wasn’t a request."
Lucian’s jaw worked once, hard, and he skated off the ice without looking back, the rest of the team parting silently to let him pass.
Knox walked Max to the trainer’s room himself, staying while the wrist got wrapped, arguing quietly with the trainer about whether it needed an X-ray until she finally agreed to send him for one just to be safe.
By the time they were done, most of the team had cleared out, the rink gone quiet except for the hum of the ice machine somewhere behind the boards.
"You want me to drive you?" Knox asked, watching Max flex his newly-wrapped wrist with a careful, testing motion. "I don’t think you should be dealing with him right now."
"I’m fine."
"You keep saying that like it’s going to start being true eventually."
Max managed a small, tired smile. "Thanks. For today. All of it."
"Anytime." Knox hesitated at the door, something more serious flickering across his face than his usual easy grin allowed for. "Seriously, Max. That wasn’t normal, even for him. If it happens again—"
"It won’t."
"You don’t know that."
"I know him." Max said it before he’d fully decided to, and something about the certainty in his own voice surprised him as much as it seemed to surprise Knox.
Knox studied him a moment longer, then nodded, letting it go the way he always did, and left him alone in the quiet of the trainer’s room.
Max found Lucian outside twenty minutes later, sitting on the curb near the parking lot, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing.
He didn’t look up when Max sat down beside him, wrist wrapped and throbbing, careful to keep some distance between them that hadn’t existed in weeks.
"You could’ve broken something," Lucian said finally, voice low, rough in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion.
"I didn’t."
"You could have."
"I’m fine, Lucian."
"Stop saying that." He turned then, and whatever Max expected to find in his face — anger, defensiveness, the usual wall — wasn’t there. Just something raw and unguarded, closer to fear than anything Max had ever seen him show. "I hit you. Full speed. I wasn’t even thinking, I just—" He stopped, jaw working, and looked away again. "I don’t know what happened out there."
"I do."
Lucian’s eyes cut back to him, wary.
"You were still angry about last night," Max said, quiet, careful. "You didn’t stop being angry. You just started skating instead of talking."
"That’s not an excuse."
"I didn’t say it was an excuse. I said it’s what happened."
Lucian didn’t answer that. He just stared out at the empty parking lot, shoulders tight, hands loosely clasped between his knees, and Max watched him for a long moment before reaching over — slow, careful, giving him every chance to pull away — and resting his uninjured hand lightly on Lucian’s forearm.
Lucian went very still.
"I’m not made of glass," Max said, softer now. "You don’t have to be so scared of hurting me that you’d rather hurt me trying to prove you don’t care."
Something in Lucian’s throat moved, like he was swallowing several different responses before settling on none of them at all.
He looked down at Max’s hand on his arm, then up at his face, something unbearably open in his expression for one unguarded second before he caught himself and looked away.
"Get your wrist looked at," he said, standing abruptly, voice back to something careful and controlled. "I’ll drive you to the hospital."
"Lucian—"
"Max." He turned, and the raw thing from a moment ago was still there, just barely leashed. "Please. Let me do this one thing right today."
Max nodded, slow, and let him.
The emergency room was quiet at this hour, a handful of people scattered across the waiting chairs, the fluorescent lights making everything look slightly too pale.
Lucian sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, close enough that Max could feel the tension still radiating off him even now.
"You don’t have to stay," Max said, shifting his wrapped wrist in his lap. "You could go home. I can call Mom."
"I’m staying."
"Lucian—"
"I said I’m staying." His voice wasn’t sharp, just final, and he didn’t look over when he said it, eyes fixed on some point across the waiting room like staring hard enough might make the wait shorter.
A nurse called Max’s name twenty minutes later, and Lucian was on his feet before Max had even fully processed it, following him back through the double doors without waiting to be invited.
"Family?" the nurse asked, glancing between them, pen hovering over her clipboard.
"Brother," Lucian said, flat, immediate, like the word had stopped costing him anything at all somewhere in the last hour.
The nurse didn’t question it, just made a note and waved them through, and Max filed that away — how easily it had come out this time, no hesitation, no flicker of resentment behind it.
The X-ray took ten minutes. The waiting for results took longer, Lucian pacing a tight, restless line at the foot of the exam bed until Max finally caught his sleeve and tugged, wordless, until he sat.
"It’s probably just a sprain," Max said. "Coach said so already."
"Coach isn’t a doctor."
"Neither are you."
"I know that." Lucian’s jaw tightened, and he looked down at Max’s wrapped wrist instead of at his face. "I just need to actually hear it. From someone qualified. Before I—" He stopped himself, exhaled hard through his nose, and didn’t finish it.
"Before you what?"
"Nothing."
"Lucian."
The doctor came in before he had to answer, flipping through the scan with brisk efficiency. "Good news — no fracture. Clean sprain, moderate grade. Splint, ice, anti-inflammatories, and you’ll want to keep off it for hockey for at least a week, maybe two." She glanced between them, a small, knowing smile tugging at her mouth. "Your brother can help you manage that, I’m sure."
"I will," Lucian said, before Max could answer for himself.
The doctor left them to sort out the paperwork, and for a moment neither of them said anything, the quiet hum of the exam room settling heavy between them.
"A week," Max said finally, testing the shape of it. "Maybe two."
"You’re not touching the ice before the doctor clears you."
"I know."
"I mean it, Max."
"I said I know." Max managed a small, tired smile, nudging his uninjured hand against Lucian’s knee. "You can stop being scary now. I’ve had a long day."
Something almost like a laugh escaped Lucian before he caught it, dragging a hand down his face instead. "You’re impossible."
"You’re the one who checked me into the boards."
"I know." His voice dropped, quieter, rougher. "I know, and I’m going to be apologizing for that for a long time."
"Good," Max said, but there was no real edge in it, just something warm and tired underneath the teasing. "Start now."
Lucian looked at him for a long moment, something working behind his eyes that Max couldn’t quite read, before he reached out — slow, careful, the same way Max had reached for him on the curb — and gently tucked a loose strand of hair back from Max’s forehead.
Neither of them moved for a second after that.
Then Lucian’s phone buzzed, sharp and sudden in the quiet room, and his whole expression shuttered the instant he glanced at the screen.
"What is it?" Max asked, sitting up straighter despite the twinge in his wrist.
Lucian didn’t answer right away. He just stared at whatever was on the screen, jaw going tight, all the softness from a moment ago draining out of his face.
"It’s my father," he said finally. "He knows we’re here."