Descent into Ruin: Day 3

 Word Count: 18,287

Summary of Events:

Chalmers, to his disappointment, started the preseason on the second line, but was heartened by the fact that he scored two goals on his first shift of the preseason against a team that had soundly beat the Wheat Kings in every single game they'd played against one another in recent seasons. The following two preseason games didn't go so well, and Chalmers in general felt frustrated and disheartened, as Coach Leslie ordered him and Coach Seaborn to stop having extra one-on-one sessions, which Chalmers had been enjoying, and still didn't seem to view him with anything outside of contempt. During the warmup for another day of training camp, Chalmers ended up colliding with one of the goalies, whose helmet's jaw ended up scraping Chalmers' jaw as they disentangled, prompting Chalmers to take a moment in front of the net to investigate . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Bringing his hand away revealed bright red blood that, as Chalmers had observed from his earliest boyhood days, was practically the same shade of red as was the main colour of the Montréal Canadiens’ home jerseys.

“Are you okay Chalmers?” Coach Seaborn asked urgently.

“Finn’s helmet just scraped me, I’m fine,” Chalmers muttered.

“You’re bleeding like a stuck pig,” Coach Seaborn said. “You should maybe go see Gunn about that.”

With a reluctant sigh, Chalmers abandoned his stick and glove on the net and skated over to the bench, crossing the area his teammates were skating across only when there was a suitable gap.

Eddie Gunn, the team’s athletic therapist, was waiting for him with a gauze pad already out of its paper packaging. He pressed it onto Chalmers’ jaw firmly, his blue-latex-gloved thumb balancing his hand by resting on Chalmers’ throat.

“Did Finn scrape you with his helmet as he was getting up?” Eddie asked.

“Mm hm,” Chalmers replied so he wouldn’t have to move his jaw.

Relieving pressure on the pad, Eddie removed it and examined the wound.

“He certainly got you good,” Eddie said.

Discarding the blood-soaked pad, Eddie turned to his medical bag and fetched a fresh one that was also thicker, as well as his medical tape. He secured the pad to Chalmers’ jaw expertly.

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” Eddie said. “You’re feeling alright otherwise?”

“From a medical standpoint,” Chalmers replied, doing his best to move his jaw as little as possible to prevent the medical tape from pulling on his skin.

“You certainly have seemed to be struggling this camp,” Eddie said, sitting down beside him and passing him a water bottle.

Chalmers took a drink, and sighed as he watched his teammates skate around.

“Is your grandma doing alright?” Eddie asked.

Chalmers nodded.

“Is there something else that’s got you off your game?” Eddie asked.

“The scowling thing in the tracksuit,” Chalmers replied.

“Oh,” Eddie said. “I’m sorry the two of you’ve gotten off on a bad foot.”

“We got off on a foot?” Chalmers asked dryly.

Eddie chuckled, but then sobered. “Well, I do seriously hope that the two of you can figure it out.”

“It’d be easier to learn Arabic,” Chalmers replied.

“I think you’re smarter than that,” Eddie said. “Even if you haven’t figured out what Eddie’s short for any more than anyone else has.”

“I’m sure that’d be easier than figuring him out,” Chalmers said.

“Come on, don’t beat yourself up like this,” Eddie said. “You’re brain isn’t even done developing yet, and it can’t go to pot until after that, that means you’ve got plenty of smarts in there to figure things out.”

“If you say so,” Chalmers muttered.

“I don’t think I was hearing things when I thought I heard Finn say Eeyore,” Eddie said. “You really seem in an Eeyorish mood. Have you even smiled since you scored those two goals?”

Chalmers couldn’t say that he had, nor did he want to, there was nothing worth smiling about.