Page 9 of Game Misconduct

It didn’t.

He was still the same asshole who’d knocked a guy over rather than fight him or decline, just to humiliate him at a home game. He was the same asshole who wouldn’t talk to his fucking sister, because he was afraid of what she’d say to him; because he was afraid she’d noticed the prescriptions and the drinking. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and for a moment he felt a loneliness so intense it hit him like a punch to the solar plexus.

It passed. It always did.

No one recognized him, and he was glad of it. He left through the open gates, nodding absently to the guard in the booth, and started the long walk into the dark. The wide sidewalks of Broad Street gave way to narrower crosswalks that zigzagged under the overpass. He could hear the noise of horns in the distance; cars still moved at a snail’s pace onto 95.

He kept walking.

The Navy Yard was a strange area of the city. It wasn’t exactly a neighborhood: it was mostly industrial sites, corporate offices, and actual government buildings. They’d built a hotel there, but with that one exception, almost everything was closed by ten p.m. and it was relatively deserted except for traffic to and from the stadiums, the occasional late-night runner, and flocks of aggressive geese. The hotel wasn’t far into it. All the buildings sat in the midst of long green fields, the older brick and stone, the newer glass and metal.

Footsteps behind him, a hand grabbing his shoulder. Danny whirled, tensed to fight, and didn’t relax after that. Sato. He was wearing his street clothes, all black. Beat-up black leather jacket. Black skinny jeans, ripped at the knees; a hoodie with a band logo Danny couldn’t even begin to recognize. His hair had started to grow in just long enough that you could probably get your fingers into it if you really tried. He didn’t look surprised or worried when he saw Danny’s stance. Just those dark brown, almost black eyes boring into him.

He could feel them like a hook in his stomach.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t you fight me for real?”

Danny just looked at him. At first, he couldn’t say anything. He was so tired. All he wanted was sleep. He knew he should walk away, but Sato pulled him like a magnet. A planet orbiting against his will. He couldn’t walk away, not yet.

“Your ribs’ll tell you it was real tomorrow,” he said finally.

Sato’s lip curled up. “Some bruises. What-fucking-ever, dude, I’ve cracked my ribs before, some bruises ain’t shit. Why didn’t youfight me?”

He moved forward and Danny moved back. It wasn’t a retreat. They continued that dance, like neither of them knew what they were doing. But Danny knew exactly where Sato was maneuvering him. And he knew Sato knew why he was doing it. Around the back of the hotel, toward an area fenced in high concrete and wooden doors that must have held generators. One of the doors was open.

He had no illusions about what was going to happen next. He could not look away from Sato’s face. Could not look away from the black ink tattoos that curved around his neck, thought about putting his hand there and closing his fingers against Sato’s skin.

Then they were over the threshold into the little fenced-off generator yard, and Sato shoved him hard against the concrete. Danny let him. It felt reassuringly solid behind his shoulder blades.

“Why didn’t you fight me?”

“It was easier,” Danny said, honestly. “I don’t need to fight you when I can just take you down.”

Something complicated happened with Sato’s face. Rage and disgust and arousal flickered across it, chasing each other. Then he was just glaring. “I fucking hate you, you know that?”

Danny knew that. He didn’t answer, just extended his hand into the space between them and pressed it hard against Sato’s chest, his ribs, his heart. Where he knew there were probably bruises already, the color rising without making a show until the next day. Sato hissed at the contact but didn’t pull away. Danny pressed again. He knew it had to hurt. He watched Sato’s face, his eyes. He couldn’t have looked away if he wanted to.

“I wasn’t going to do this,” Sato was saying, and he sounded angry,sofucking angry, “Iwasn’t—I fucking hate you, this is supposed to be about hockey, this is supposed to—”

Danny dug his fingers into the bone and muscle, and Sato made a strangled noise halfway between a gasp and a moan. Danny thought he could listen to him make that noise for hours without getting tired of it. More than that, maybe.

“This is...this is supposed to...”

The blows came as a surprise, though they shouldn’t have. Sato’s hand knocked Danny’s away and his elbow slammed into Danny’s throat. Gasping, Danny let him do it. It hurt, of course. He could feel Sato’s bony elbows catching him in tender places that had deep-layered bruises already, feel Sato’s fists against his bone. It didn’t matter. He didn’t move to cover his face, didn’t move to fight back, not yet. The blows jolted feeling back into his body. Sharp pains against the dull background ache he always felt.

It was a gift he was offering Sato. Danny could take it. Could take whatever he had to give.

When he’d had enough, though, he extended his hand and did what he’d wanted to do earlier. Grabbed Sato by the throat, tightened his fingers, framing the black ink hands on Sato’s neck. Sato never stopped fighting, although whenever the kid struggled or tried to knock Danny’s hands away, he just tightened his grip again, slow and inexorable. He could feel Sato swallow hard, Adam’s apple pressing against his fingers. See him lick his dry lips, desperately. Meet his hot, furious eyes, so close now.

“Is that what you wanted?” Danny asked, for the second time that night, and Sato, his voice croaking, said,“No.”

Danny let go and Sato gasped for air. They were so close Danny could feel his breath on his lips. Sato stepped back, rubbing his throat, wheezing a little. The generators’ low hum almost drowned it out, but Danny felt like he would have been able to hear the smallest noise Sato made anywhere, through anything.

“What did you want?”

That complicated dance across Sato’s face again. Danny wondered if he even knew what he wanted. He didn’t think so, somehow.

Sato licked his lips again and said, “Ioweyou,” and went down on his knees. “I don’t like owing anyone anything. Especially assholes like you.”