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Milan is deceptively cold come night. The warmth of day bleeds out into a cloudy, muddling dusk, dragging with it a chill that can seep into bones. By the time Baelor is back from dinner with Maekar, it’s far too cold for the kind of stargazing Duncan seems set on.
“Not even a coat, Duncan?” He calls out to the figure leaning against the railing.
The tall, hulking form whirls around with a hapless flail that belies the grace he moves with on the ice. Truly born on skates, this one. And as gawkish as a newborn foal outside of them. He steadies Duncan with a calm hand at his side, before he can trip down the concrete fire escape stairs and cost their team a star winger on the eve of their most important game. The heat of him is unreal; Baelor can feel it like a brand through the flimsy Team Westeros halfzip he wears. It feels glorious. It feels like a sin.
He ignores his treacherous hand and his treacherous thoughts, and steps back to hold out a far more appropriate jacket he’d taken from their room.
“Oh, that’s—” The flush is a lovely pink against his boyish, open face. “Thanks, Captain. Sorry for the trouble.”
“How many times have I told you to just call me Baelor? We’re not on the ice,” he chastises, though he’s long resigned himself to this rookie forever standing on some burdened politeness with him. This familiar refrain has gone on all season, and several months of the season before it. He doesn’t expect it to finally crack the young man now.
Duncan takes the jacket with gentle hands. He’s not looking at his captain, gaze fixed on the crumpled fabric in his hand. He doesn’t move to put it on, yet. His enormous palms spread wide across the same stretch that Baelor’s had, as if he means to feel the remaining warmth from Baelor’s hands before the cold bleeds it away.
“Thank you, Baelor.” His head comes up.
He meets Baelor’s gaze head on. The flustered, awestruck youth he’s seen all year seems to bleed away in that moment, and underneath it he sees the determined fire that has made this young man into the leading goal scorer in the league. He’s watching Baelor like he watches the opposing goalie before he skates out for a shootout; something predatory, something that means to take him apart piece by piece.
There’s the wailing creak of a rusty door some floors below them, then the spill of drunken laughter of other athletes returning to the dorms after a night in town. The electric charge of the moment fizzles out. Duncan slips into the puffer, then fiddles with the zipper.
He’s returned back to the shy, bashful rookie who won’t meet the eyes of the veteran captain he grew up idolizing. Baelor wonders if the look from earlier had just been a trick of the moonlight. If he’d simply fooled himself into seeing something he cannot even admit to himself.
“I’m not keeping you up, am I?” Duncan asks, softly. “Sorry, Captain. Didn’t mean to miss curfew.”
Baelor shakes his head. Back to Captain already, then? Perhaps he’s asking too much of the youth. He understands it’s not easy, to reconcile a legend with a living man. “No, I was still awake. And there’s still plenty of time for curfew, if you want to stay out. You needn’t keep the same hours as an old man like me, you know.”
“You’re not old!” Duncan is quick to insist, with a frantic ferocity that makes Baelor smile. “And it’s better, anyway, to sleep early. It’s a big game tomorrow.”
“So it is,” Baelor agrees. For Duncan more than him, if he’s honest. He’s already been to the Olympics, has tasted the glory of gold, the exaltation of scoring the golden goal. He wants to bring gold home for Westeros, of course, but ultimately he’s simply proud to represent his home country one last time.
“But tossing and turning all night won’t be of much help, either,” he adds, joining Duncan at the railing. “Is that why you’ve decided to indulge in a bit of moongazing?”
Duncan ducks his head, looking a bit shy. “I suppose so. It reminds me of camping as a kid, I guess. And… it’s really nice tonight, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Baelor agrees, earnestly. “It’s beautiful.”
The moon is a shimmering disc framed in the arms of the snow-tipped mountains surrounding the city. From this high up in the dorm building, the city lights spill across the valley like a twinkling carpet of unfurling stars.
Looking out at it feels a lot like closure, somehow. The cathartic lancing of a festering wound. He cannot change the past, and his time to forge the future is slipping through his hands. But the present, at least, is something he can still hold. Still change.
The warmth of Duncan against his side feels like a promise.
“I’m not really sure how you do it,” Duncan confesses into the quiet, sudden and nervous.
Baelor turns to him. “Do what?”
“Be so calm, before games like this,” the youth explains, in a stuttering rush. His elbow is hot against Baelor’s own, as they both lean against the railing. He’s worrying his fingers into nervous knots. Baelor’s gaze drifts down to them; his hands are perhaps twice the size of Baelor’s own, powerful enough to blaze a shot into the back of the net hard enough to break twine, strong enough to throw down gloves against the veteran fighters in the league. They’re also a sign of his age and inexperience— no scars from years of broken bones and surgeries, nails and skin picked at to bleeding from a nervous habit he’s yet to break.
Baelor doesn’t know what possesses him to finally reach out and cease that anxious feedback loop with his own hand, after spending the entire season watching him do it on the bench and refraining from interfering.
Duncan stills under his touch, like he’s been caught doing something wrong. Like he’s expecting to be reprimanded.
“Be sure to put ointment on this before tomorrow,” Baelor murmurs, tracing the bloodied lines his young teammate has carved into his own hands. “You don’t want to be bleeding under your gloves.”
That’s a surefire way to end up with an infection. Maekar had learned that the hard way, when they were young. He used to have the same bad habit in juniors, before big games. Coupled with his equally poor habit of using the same superstitious pair of gloves all season, he’d had a case of infection so bad Daemon joked they’d need to cut off his finger.
“And there’s no great trick to it— the calmness, I mean,” he continues, answering Dunk’s earlier question. “It’s experience, mostly. And the cultivated practice of a good winding down routine. You’ll find your rhythm too, just give it time.”
“Time,” Duncan repeats. Baelor doesn’t move his hand, and Duncan doesn’t move his, either. He lets out a breath. “It never feels as if I have enough of that.”
Baelor cannot help but laugh. This young man, in the prime of his youth, with his whole wonderful career wide open before him has nothing but time. He has so much it baffles Baelor, who can only look back at that era of his own life with a fond and exasperated nostalgia. He too, had felt as if he had so much to prove and no time to do it. He wanted to be as good as his father, to live up to the legacy of their family name. He wanted to win every award and every gold medal and have his name enshrined on the Stanley Cup more times than anyone else in his family. It was a sort of bottomless greed he can’t ever see a hard-working and earnest man like Duncan being burdened with.
“You have plenty of it,” Baelor denies. “You’re a young man, Duncan. You have your whole career ahead of you, and the talent to make it a good one. Isn’t that enough?”
There’s a look in Duncan’s eyes as he stares at him, a hunger Baelor doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. Not even in the playoffs last year, in a home ice elimination game, down by one and heading into the third period.
Duncan holds his gaze. “Not if you’re not there with me.”
Baelor’s breath gets caught in his throat. “... What?”
Duncan averts his gaze. “I didn’t mean to but I— I heard you, tonight, with your brother. Is it true? That you’re retiring after this year?”
Baelor sighs, shoulders dropping. He should have expected as much. The Olympic dorm walls are notoriously thin. Duncan hadn’t been in when Baelor and Maekar had returned from dinner, so he figured their empty shared room was a good enough time and place to finally break the news to his little brother, and his alternate captain for the Westeros Olympic hockey team. It was yet another piece of news he’d been late to tell his brother, and predictably, the fallout was apoplectic. It was no real wonder Duncan could hear it, even if he hadn’t intended to eavesdrop from outside the room. No real wonder that he’d retreated to the outdoor stairwell Baelor has found him brooding on through the entire tournament.
“Yes,” he admits, heavily. “This is probably going to be my last year.”
Duncan can’t hide the wounded look that bleeds across his face. “Oh,” he says, sounding very young and small.
Baelor wouldn’t normally indulge like this, would keep the same honorable distance he has all season, but his heart lurches in his chest at the sight of this impossibly wonderful boy being so hurt by his choices, that he can’t help but close the distance between them. Duncan is far too large to bury into his chest like a child, but his young rookie does his best to do it anyhow. When Baelor opens his arms he ducks into them without pretense and clings to him so tightly Baelor can feel all the bruises of two weeks’ worth of games screaming in protest. Despite that, he doesn't make any move to break from Duncan’s hold. He doesn’t think anything could pull him from this moment, the secret thrill of his teammate’s body pressed against his own, without inches of pads and jerseys between them.
“It’ll be alright, Duncan.” He presses his palms along the stretched plain of muscles across the other man’s back. Relishes the heavy, visceral heat of him. “Just focus on the game tomorrow, yeah? We can talk about the rest of it later.”
It takes a while before Duncan responds, face buried into Baelor’s shoulder. “Yeah. Okay.”
//
Baelor remembers the day they first met, although Duncan would tell the story differently.
He remembers the shocking sight of him, so tall he nearly ducks to get into the locker room, hunched over himself in his stall as if to make himself appear smaller. As if the bulk of him isn’t exactly what this team needs.
Baelor can’t even remember the young man’s name or draft number, though that’s not a matter of Duncan being forgettable, but rather of Baelor’s rather chaotic off season this year. He’s been bouncing between their AHL team and the show throughout the preseason, as the coaches decide where best to put him. Then an unfortunately timed shoulder injury had him sitting out the first half of the season on IR. He’s shy in the locker room but a hulking behemoth on the ice. Baelor cannot fathom how he’s ended up a winger and not a d-man with that size, but he has a deceptive grace on the ice. And a mean backcheck. And a forecheck that has the opposing team scrambling their line combinations.
Then it’s Duncan’s first real game in the show, and they put him on Baelor’s line for the powerplay.
He finds Baelor within seconds of the puck drop. Their chemistry is electric. Duncan finds the lane to him through opposing traffic, and then the puck’s bar down off a one-timer. Baelor scored the goal, but the team crashes into Duncan for the celly. His first game and first assist in the NHL. By the end of the night he has two apples, both on Baelor’s goals, and a goal with an assist from Baelor. They shut out the Devils 3-0 in an electric start to the kid’s NHL career.
That’s how Baelor remembers him. The rookie who blazed them through to a playoff spot last year. The kind of winger with a long and fruitful career ahead of him. A kid with the longevity that Baelor, a veteran on the edge of retirement, could only wish he could give him.
But there’s nothing to be done about his age, and nothing about his long and storied career to regret. Baelor could mourn the loss of a future that will never be, or he could accept and appreciate the reality that was given to him, and the time he still has yet to play. They may never have the chance to lift a Stanley Cup together, but Baelor imagines he could at least play a part in this kid’s story, be part of the path that takes him there.
Looking back on this year, he can’t help but think he’s not doing enough on that front.
He’s still a quality player by every metric, still a danger on the ice, but he can feel it in himself, where the media and the commentators and even his teammates and his coaches seem to overlook it— his heart isn’t here, anymore. He’s tired. He has more gold medals and championships than he can count on one hand, more trophies than he knows what to do with, and has lifted the Stanley Cup more times than most guys in the show can even dream of. His number will get retired in the storied halls of the Original Six team he’s been blessed to spend his entire career with. He’ll make the Hall of Fame, and has played for or against all the living legends of his generation. The name Baelor ‘Breakspear’ Targaryen will forever be in the history books.
He has so much to show for this life, for his unimpeachable career as an athlete, and yet it feels like nothing at all. The previous year taught him that. It was a lesson a long time coming, but one he had willfully ignored until he was coming home to an empty, spotless house; an entryway devoid of the boys’ clutter of sneakers and hockey gear, a bathroom bereft of Jena’s army of skincare products. Even that, he’d ignored for as long as he could, until Maekar stayed over after their game, and he finally had to admit the truth. That he was perhaps the most decorated player of their generation, that he was the captain his team needed, but not the husband his wife needed, not the father his boys needed to see.
They flame out of the playoffs in the second round to the Avs, who take it all the way. Baelor doesn’t watch it. He leaves Chicago immediately, spiriting off in a way unbecoming of his captaincy, to lick his wounds back home in Westeros for the off season.
It’s a hard few months of hard talks between his now ex-wife, his agent, and his team. All his lawyers are a constant flock around him, both in a professional and personal capacity.
He drags himself out of his daze for Olympic training camp, not necessarily by intent but rather by the sheer force of will that is Duncan Pennytree’s personality.
His unfettered and effusive joy at making the Olympic training camp is infectious on his own, and he charms everyone at orientation within minutes of meeting him. Somehow, impossibly, he’s bulked up even more in the off season, and where Baelor used to just worry about Duncan sending their opponents to the hospital with some of his checks, he’s genuinely concerned he’s going to send them straight to the morgue. Maekar swears profusely when he sees him for the first time, already lamenting how obnoxious it will be to play them in the upcoming NHL season.
But as far as the Olympics go, they are teammates and countrymen in arms, so his brother keeps the worst of his chirps to himself for training camp. He does not, however, keep his comments to himself during the season afterwards.
“Shocked to see that big guard dog of yours isn’t lumbering behind you, as usual,” his brother says as he lets himself into Baelor’s house, sticking his nose around the corner as if he expects Duncan to pop out of the shadows.
“Why would he be here?” Baelor asks idly, one eye still on the chicken in the oven, even as he pops the cap off two bottles of his brother’s favorite Cider Hall Pale Ale. “I’ve never hosted a rookie, nor do I continue to host one long after his rookie year.”
His last comment is fashioned with a pointed look as he slides one bottle over the kitchen counter for his brother to take. Maekar just sniffs at him. “Aerion’s moving out next season.”
Baelor rolls his eyes. “That’s exactly what you said last season.”
Dinner is always quiet between the two of them, but especially so in season, and doubly so in Chicago, where Baelor’s new apartment feels all at once stiflingly small and yet hauntingly cavernous. But he hadn’t seen the point in keeping the house he’d had with Jena when she would have full custody of the boys anyway. At least when they meet up in Michigan, Maekar’s unruly brood (plus Aerion) are always around the table causing noise and chaos.
“He trails after you like a lost puppy, you realize,” Maekar says, after they’ve finished up dinner and migrated to the couch with their beers to watch highlights from the moving trainwreck that was the Canucks game yesterday.
“Who,” Baelor says, defeated, even though they both know who he’s talking about.
“Pennytree of course. Who else?” Maekar snorts. “He looks at you like you hung the moon and stars in the sky.”
Baelor merely raises a cocky brow. “How is that any different from any other rookie on the team?” They don’t call him the Crown Prince of Westeros hockey for nothing.
“Because he’s different.” Maekar gestures at him with his beer. “It’s a shame about his shoulder last season— maybe if he’d been uninjured, you would have had a real shot at the cup. You definitely have one this year, with him healthy. Don’t tell me you don’t see it.”
“I see it,” Baelor says. Of course he does. There’s a reason Duncan was tapped for Olympic training camp. They might not have announced the full roster, but Baelor doesn’t doubt the man’s name will be on it.
Maekar leans towards him. “So why don’t you do something about it?”
Baelor feels his shoulders tense. “Like what?” It feels defensive, and he’s shocked Maekar doesn’t pick up on it.
“He already trips all over your shadow, you may as well let him. You need to be mentoring him, not letting him flounder around with coaches who don’t understand his potential. He should be here tonight, learning from you, from both of us. He should have been your billet his rookie year. You’ve been a captain for longer than I have. You know team chemistry is built both on and off the ice.”
Maekar’s right, and they both know it. Baelor hasn’t been the captain he should be, not this season, and not for his young winger in desperate need of mentorship. Duncan deserves better. And Baelor isn’t sure he’s the man Duncan needs. Not when, in the throes of his own loneliness, he sometimes catches the way Duncan’s hair glints gold in the sun, or the way his eyes look like ice chips when they’re reflected underneath the arena lights. It’s a dangerous thought to have, about any teammate, but particularly one that’s nearly half his age and worships him as a living legend of the game.
But that’s Baelor’s failing, not Duncan’s.
At the very least, he can pretend to be the man Duncan needs, and make a better effort to be the glue of this team he always has been, to not let his personal failings get in the way of what his team needs. For this last season, if nothing else.
//
Duncan is ten when he meets his idol for the first time.
Baelor Targaryen probably doesn’t even remember it. A quick toss of his puck over the glass to a wide-eyed, starstruck youth with sandy hair and big blue eyes during warmups. A smile in response when Duncan gathers himself enough to give him a tentative wave.
Duncan feels honored to have been there for the man’s debut game. It feels special, to have been there to see Baelor score his first NHL goal, to skate his rookie lap across the ice to the cheers of a city expecting greatness from the young star. And it feels even more special, to get to skate his rookie lap himself, with Baelor watching him from the bench as his captain. And then to score his own goal off the pass from his childhood hero, in the city where they first met.
It takes ages for Duncan to even work up the courage to stutter out a greeting to the legendary captain. Longer still to manage to hold a conversation with the man that’s not on the bench revolving around line changes.
The entire year feels like a dream.
He wishes Arlan was here to see it all— the day he was drafted to his hometown team, sweaty and nervous in a jersey that swallowed him up whole in black and red; his first shift on the ice, his first playoff run. He knows Arlan would be proud of him. His adopted father could be gruff and distant with his affection, but hockey was his passion and it was something he passed down to Duncan.
If he could, he would be here now, up in the stands of the Milan arena with a drink in hand, hollering louder than anyone else in the crowd for Dunk.
He wonders if it would make him more or less nervous, to have someone who means the world to him watching his performance on the ice.
Then he meets Baelor’s eyes across the ice during warmups, and realizes he already has his answer.
It’s the gold medal game against Tyrosh, which everyone and their mother expected to be an explosive matchup, but still somehow takes Duncan by surprise nonetheless. Mainly because he, naively, forgot what it meant to be living during the era of a hockey dynasty. They call Baelor the Crown Prince of Westeros— the golden captain who’s brought home more gold medals for their country than Duncan can count on one hand. Maekar, his younger brother and the alternate captain for Team Westeros, is also often referred to as a Prince. It’s an homage to their father, yet another Olympian, and even their grandfather before that. Duncan cannot fathom what it would feel like, to have to live up to a legacy like that. To constantly be measured by a standard you have no control over.
But it must be what fashioned Baelor into such a just and honorable captain, and what made Daemon Blackfyre into such a cruel one.
They’re second cousins, or something to that effect. They both captain teams in the NHL and for their respective countries. But where Baelor has more accolades than Duncan can be bothered to list, Daemon’s best known for his crashouts after his team flames out of the playoffs once again.
He expected the game to be scrappy, but the reality is much worse.
He hates that this is Olympic hockey, and he can’t just take matters into his own hands. As the game goes on, the urge to just drop his gloves and knock out the rest of Daemon’s teeth gets overwhelming. He plays dirty fucking hockey, and he doesn’t have much in the way of skills to back him up. Despite his best efforts to keep himself out of trouble, Duncan gets hauled off multiple times by an amused Lyonel Baratheon, or by a less amused Maekar Targaryen, depending on what line he’s bouncing around on.
“Calm down, Dunk,” Lyonel gently hip checks him away from his latest bout with one of the linesmen, after Baelor took an elbow to the face that went mysteriously uncalled. Worse, Tyrosh somehow ends up with the man advantage as Corbie’s sent to the box. “We need you on the PK.”
“They’re taking cheap shots at him and they’re fucking letting them!” Duncan protests, so angry he really might just break Blackfyre’s nose, even if it does get him ejected from the game. “We can’t just let them get away with it!”
“This is what they want from you,” Lyonel smacks him on the shoulder. “They want you out of the game. But you’re a fucking unmovable brick, and they know it. This is their only way to get to you.”
That, somehow, is even worse.
How is Duncan supposed to play the rest of this game, knowing the entire Tyroshi team is targeting his captain, just because of him? Of course, Baelor is one of the most dangerous players on the ice at any given time, so he’s always a target for the other team. Now, he just happens to be an even more desirable one, if it gets Duncan to get himself ejected from the game.
He hears it from everyone, the whole damn game, and he fucking hates it. Even Baelor gives him a look, as he skates to the dot to take the faceoff after an icing call. It’s a look that makes Duncan feel young and small again, like he’s doing something wrong. But he’s not. He’s supposed to be protecting his captain, and he can’t even do that.
The next opportunity he has, he slams Quentyn Ball into the boards so hard the shitty Milan rink almost comes apart at the seams. The crowd goes wild behind them, as Duncan skates off with the puck and Ball off with a limp. The look Baelor gives him afterwards as he climbs triumphantly over the bench probably isn’t quite as admonishing as his captain intended, especially with the way he pats Duncan’s bucket as he passes.
For all that landing some solid—and legal— hits on the Tyroshi calms the fire in his blood, the game still sits at 0-1 in favor of Tyrosh by the time the third period starts, and none of them are happy to see the gold medal slip from their fingers like this. Least of all Aerion Brightflame, one of the stars of the team who is both most likely to win them a medal and sink the whole rink into chaos.
With the opposing team stalling Baelor and his line at every turn, their best chance at tying up the game comes from an awkward line change onto Aerion’s shift that has the star forward charging the net.
Duncan doesn’t see it, too busy trying to gracelessly haul himself over the boards, completely gassed after taking a double shift. He hears the roar of the crowd first, then the shrieking of whistles. There’s a mad scramble on the bench as the team tries to careen for a better look. When Duncan manages to find a seat and blink up at the jumbotron, they’re finally playing the replay. He swears viscerally under his breath when he sees it. Fucking Aerion. He’s going to get a hooking for that.
As predicted, a positively incandescent Aerion skates over to the penalty box and proceeds to break his stick as the linesman calls out the penalty.
The bench is a flurry of activity as the coaches start calling out lines for the penalty kill. Duncan has played top minutes the whole tournament, but this game in particular has been a rough spate of penalty kills and bad line changes. He’s not even sure if he can still feel his legs, but something blazes within him despite the pain. He’s not letting Aerion’s poor temper lose them a gold. He’s not letting anyone or anything lose them a gold medal. Not when he’s finally playing on the same line as Baelor Targaryen himself, on Olympic ice, for the gold medal game. Not when this is his first and last opportunity to do so, the only time in his life he’ll ever get to have the other man like this.
He meets Baelor’s gaze as they both haul themselves onto the boards. Coach hasn’t called the full line for the PK, but there’s no doubt they’re both on it.
He doesn’t care that Tyrosh has the man advantage. He doesn’t care that the odds aren’t in their favor. They’ve got two minutes to make something happen, and come hell or high water, Duncan will make it happen. Even if he has to bend fate to his will by the sheer force of his determination, he’ll do it.
“I’m your man,” Duncan says, eyes a glorious, blazing blue framed against the ice and the crowds. “Find me out there, Captain. I’m your man.”
Baelor looks at him with wide eyes. Under the flashing lights and cameras, they look so washed out Duncan can barely discern their unique colors. He knows what Duncan is trying to say. What he wants to do. He doesn’t question it.
They skate to the dot. The crowd is a roaring, ravenous thing. Alive and writhing, a melting riot of color and movement. He has eyes for none of it. Baelor takes his spot in the center, Lyonel squares up on the wing opposite Duncan. Sweat drips into his eyes, but he doesn’t blink, all of his focus centered on his captain. Everything in the world narrows until it’s just him. Just Baelor and him, and the ice that belongs to them.
The linesman drops the puck. Baelor wins the faceoff cleanly. He passes it to Duncan, sharp and decisive. They sweep it through the neutral zone in an offensive push Tyrosh doesn’t expect. They’re not killing minutes. They’re out for blood.
Baelor draws the pick. Swipes it between his skates back to Lyonel gliding down the blue line. Then to Duncan, who fights for it all along the boards behind the goal. He doesn’t give an inch, throwing his weight around as he handles the puck past the swarm of defenders in his path. He’s an immovable object in the force of their fury. He waits, patient, for the moment his captain needs him.
The narrow lane opens just as he expects.
Baelor finds him. He lands the pass right on his captain’s tape. Baelor flicks it over Fossoway’s glove with a beautiful turn of his wrist.
Then the goal horn blares, and there’s blood on the ice.
The rest of it comes to Duncan in pieces.
If not for Lyonel, he wouldn’t have just knocked out Blackfyre’s teeth— he would have killed him, there in front of all the crowds and cameras. His captain is lying face down on the ice and Blackfyre is fucking laughing. Maekar has a fist in Blackfyre’s tarp, but he’s looking down at his brother with an ashen, bloodless face. It’s a wonder Lyonel even manages to catch him before he sees red.
He doesn’t hear it as the linesman convene on Daemon and haul him out of the mess of players in front of the Tyroshi net. At that point, his anger has cooled into a shaky, panicked fear. The medical team is already on the ice, surrounding Baelor. He’s still not moving. He hears someone mentioning his head. Duncan’s breath comes out butchered and uneven. He drops to his knees next to his captain, a nuisance to the first responders, no doubt. Even Maekar, his brother, knows better than to get in their way. Duncan doesn’t care. He needs to see— he has to open his eyes. He has to be okay.
When those mismatched eyes finally flutter open, Duncan feels his heart stutter. His breath comes out wet and shuddering, as if he was the one hit in the back of the head.
“Baelor,” he reaches for him.
“Kid, we need to get him off the ice.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, a medic most likely, reminding him that they have a stretcher out on the ice and Baelor’s still not moving, even if he’s opened his eyes.
Panic rises again in his chest, at the thought of Baelor being taken from him. “I—”
Baelor reaches back for him. His glove brushing against Duncan’s. It steals the protests right out of his mouth. “Game’s not done yet, Dunk.”
His breath hitches. “Baelor—”
“Score one for me?” He smiles, tired and weary.
Duncan grabs his hand in both of his. He knows they need to take Baelor off the ice. He knows there’s a game still left to play, an overtime that Baelor’s won them. One last shot to bring home gold for his captain.
“I’ll win it for you,” he swears, eyes never leaving Baelor’s. “I’m your man, remember?”
Baelor’s eyes slip shut. He’s still smiling. “Yes, you are.”