A Slow, Continuous Burn

by Tammy
Summary: A kind of character piece on Todd Harvey. He's a punk, a little guy with a lot of attitude who plays as if he's bigger than he's actually is. Maybe he got hit so many times he's forgotten. Lira writes fantastic Harvey/Bradley and I imagine the trade yesteryear had to fuck Harvey up. Someone walks in on Preissing and Harvey after a game.
Pairing: Harvey/Preissing, Harvey/Bradley
AN: Ray/any trainer pov, really. Uh, Ruutu hit Preissing from behind in February. There was this article about it afterwards that described Todd sitting inside his locker after the game. I think it was written by the Chicago Sun. This is mostly dead, but could be resurrected at some point. More could be written, but I also think it's fine on it's own.

***

There is a quiet intensity about Todd, always, even when he isn’t on the ice. It’s obvious there; he has no qualms about running through guys, and there is the constant glare and scowl--his poker face--as he stares down opponents.

Off ice, it’s a little harder to see. He walks deliberately, with a focus and a purpose that he tries so hard to translate onto the ice. He moves with a certain amount of grace in the rink, as all hockey players do, but then there is the clunk and the stumbling, and the realization that he does not have the exact same finesse as his European peers. His moves are controlled as he navigates his way past fans, through the parking lot, at the grocery store. He is calm and ever aware of himself and others; he carries himself differently. He’s likely to snap and easily agitated on ice. Perhaps he is the same away from the rink--a haphazard sock here, an empty juice carton in the refrigerator, wet towels on the bathroom floor could set him off just as easily.

I don’t really know, but that seems a little too loud and chaotic. A little too loose for his demeanor.

He listens to heavy metal, and screams obscenities at boys with the best of them, and throws his equipment at the wall when he’s overly frustrated, so it’s not as if he’s a quiet, easy going guy. There is just a fierce stillness to him. It’s always there, but easy to miss with all his distractions. He is one of the few people I’ve met who has managed to not call attention to himself by making as much noise as possible. But when he stops, when no one’s looking, the stillness is there. The intensity is there. It bubbles to the surface of his skin, and then he twists and curls it into a knot, and it sits in his stomach for hours.

A hit forty seconds in, and I see it bubble. The guys are quick to stand up and scream from the bench, but mostly Todd sits and stares. He looks at the jumbotron, but he’s not watching the replay. He glances at the time and the scoreboard, and he twists and curls any rage into a tight little bundle.

And he waits.

Half way through the game he fights, and gets thrown out for 17 minutes. He mostly sits inside his locker, focusing on his gloves. When I check on Tom, he’s still sitting there, flicking his wrist and visualizing an imaginary play. I realize he’s thinking about his missed chance in the first.

“How’s the hand?”

“Good,” he replies automatically. He sits quietly, and then a few minutes later the rest of the team bustles into the locker room. He’s lost in the shuffle, swallowed by his teammates. When they begin to leave, he’s still sitting. He’s never the first person on the ice, and he’s never the last. There is no inherent order to how the boys jump onto the ice. That is, until the playoffs. But that is all superstition, and the regular season is all comfort and respect: you let a veteran go in front of you, or behind you, or wherever he pleases. The first and last ones to hit the ice are generally the leaders, or the team clowns.

Todd isn’t much of a leader in the locker room. He doesn’t really have a presence, and keeps to himself. He’s… reserved. All methodical and calculated. But when he steps towards the line to leave the locker room, people move. Never enough for anyone to ever really notice, but Mark will stop a beat, or Scott will take an extra long stride to open just the right pocket. He never says anything; he commands it with his steps, unlike his teammates who squeeze in, or say something to the guy in front of them.

I used to think he was trying to prove something. The little guys always are. I thought he was a fake, all bravado, but the intensity is constant. The intensity is Todd.

He exits the penalty box, takes a few more shifts, and as the game ends, takes an elbow to the face. It never really fazes him; there’s never a cessation, or pause, and later when I catch him in the trainer’s room with Tom, he’s still burning, and pressing against him with an intensity that never seems to lull. It’s an exhausting way to live. There’s a reason the playoffs only last so long, and by the end of it, everyone is drained. I think about, as he kisses Tom, the reasons for his focused movements, for his control as he weaves through the parking lot. He throws himself, sometimes with reckless abandon, into the corners of the rink; he’s not afraid to get hurt.

He is just as passionate off ice, but he is a bit more careful. Now, afterwards, and I think about how Tom is twenty-five, but not from Ontario. I wonder if Todd is ever tired. I wonder for how much longer he can keep this up: this game he plays, where he never stops moving his feet, never stops moving his skates, never stops pressing and pushing and kissing. He has to get tired eventually, right? There has to be a point where he finally just pauses and catches his breath. Where he lets his guard down and just is. I wonder about that Todd.

I think about hormones and the sympathetic nervous system, and the simple things I learned my freshman year of college. It seems so long ago, now, because I can’t imagine my life any other way than it is now, but the guys too often remind me of my fraternity brothers. Their pranks and their laughter, and Todd’s laughter--it’s just as controlled as he is. Intense, and maybe forced. Not always. He’s happy and grateful to be playing again after his stint in the minors. He’d been sent down, because he’d lost his game. Lost his mind, really. It was a long summer, and a harsh ending to the season prior to it, and I can’t help but think back to March and wonder if that had something to do with it.

Synapses, acetylcholine, and nonepinephrine. I make lists in my mind: groceries and drugs and hormones and cds I’d like to buy. The many faces of Todd Harvey. The guy who jokes around during post game interviews, the player who’s all business once he hits the ice, the teammate who screams obscenities at the ref, and the quiet, softer Todd who signs autographs for the kids that hang around the rink after practices. They’re all different versions, but the intensity runs through them all, and I wonder why I ever questioned it.

If anything, I should have questioned this. I’m still standing in the doorway, watching them and making lists, and comparing Todds. Intensity and control, and it’s not just his movements anymore--it’s something more. Increases in blood pressure, breathing, and heart rate, and he’s still kissing him, but it’s not the same as before. Everything’s different from last season, and it’s not just where we are in the standings. It’s the dynamic of the rooms, the style of play, and the faces. They’re younger, and not much older than I was when I studied the body and all it’s intricacies.

I remember taking sports psychology because it was an easy A, and they should have taught you how to spot a player’s bullshit. It should have taught you the intricate footwork of deciding when a player was lying to you, and when he really was okay to go. Instead, I had to learn these things over the years on my own. I’m fairly good at spotting it, so maybe I’m a bit miffed that I didn’t spot it earlier. Or maybe I’m wrong and it’s not there. Perhaps it’s all truth and love, right before my eyes. Or the very least, truth and lust.

But. I can’t help thinking about my lists, and here’s a new one: Todd, Matt, Tom. And maybe I‘m just mistaken, and the wrong synapses are firing on accident, and there’s something more than fear motivating Todd. But. I can’t help but think about flashcards and multiple choice tests and “flight or fight,” and he’s running scared, kissing scared, and he’s thinking about everything he could lose and everything he’s lost.

Or maybe I’m just projecting. It was sports psychology, not psychology, and I’m no psychoanalyst; I watch them skate and I patch their wounds. I only see half of their lives, and have to guess about the rest, filling in the blanks and connecting the dots with half stories and snippets of conversation.

Things are different, now, though. He was never wound quite this tightly, which is why I wonder when he’s going to rest. When he’s going to take a break from this fervent pace, where he’s all movement and no thinking. Or rather, all controlled movement and controlled thinking.

He was intense before, but he always seemed refreshed. Something recharged him, and now he’s clinging, desperate, to his routines and he keeps giving, keeps skating, and when is he finally going to crash?

“Hey.”

My hand is still on the doorknob. Still standing mutely in the doorframe, and I swallow.

“This isn’t a God damn peep show. Close the fucking door.”

I do. I hear Tom’s muffled laugh, and I have to imagine Todd’s response.

end