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*

Hello, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk!

It's Friday again, and that means another chapter - thank you for your feedback on the latest chapter, it was a pleasure to read your thoughts on the piece, and I hope you'll give equally plentiful feedback on today's chapter as well!

As always, remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Don't get beaten up!

Cheerio!

*

It took everyone some time to file out of the room, mostly attributing to the number of artificial limbs and wheelchairs and respirators among us. The last to go was Dwayne, his electric chair driven by his assistant and through the swinging doors.

I pretended to be busy with the chairs. I knew from the moment Simpson told me to do them that this was going to end out like this. We both knew it was an excuse. What else could it be? A hospital tech would usually come around to do this, it was part of the deal. Send someone in to clean up after the cripples. We weren't really expected to do it ourselves. Sometimes we did.

Simpson rolled around and parked himself, paws resting against the brake handles, kind of a reflex you grow into, I suppose, when that chair is part of you.

I just hoped he wouldn't start with any crap. Sometimes he did. He'd done this whole therapist thing a bit too well for his own good.

"We didn't really get to talk so much about your past week this time, seemed that we had so much to say about everything else," he started out after clearing his throat.

I slammed one of the plastic chairs on top of another and hobbled over for the next one.

"I suppose so," I said.

"How're things, Tate?"

Slam.

It was ending up to be a pretty good pile.

"All's fine," I lied.

"How's work?"

"Starting next month," I replied, "got to hear about my work practice placement. Some kind of a small local company that does websites and support for local businesses."

"Well that's great news, Tate! How long is it?"

"Three months," I said, "then a few classes over December and more classes and practice over the spring."

"Sounds like you've got it all lined up," he said.

Slam.

"Yep."

"How about everything else? Family, friends?"

My fingers clenched on the backrest of the chair I was holding, really hard. I probably left some clawmarks there. My body tensed. He could see it, bet he could, the angle of my tail, my ears, my body...everything.

Slam.

"I phone my mom every Saturday," I said.

"Is your family well?"

That always sounded so strange, coming from someone who frankly managed to look goddarn badass despite being all ass and no legs, sitting on that chair of his, with that drill instructor voice.

"Everyone's got their own lives," I replied, "mom's doing alright. Keeping busy with herself now. She's joined the church choir."

For fuck's sake, if anyone could see the two of us like that...Jesus Christ.

"Hold onto that chair," Simpson said, "why don't you sit down for a moment?"

I was about ready to throw the entire pile of chairs to the wall, but I didn't dare to not to comply. I put the chair down and sat down. That meant I had to face him. He was looking back to me all too calmly, that...that damned therapist face.

"Sure," I said, once I was already down.

"Have you been home recently?"

"I went once, earlier this year," I said. "Mom wanted me to see dad's grave."

His ears didn't betray much emotion. There was a brief smile of compassion, though, or so he thought.

"Yes, I recall that your father passed."

"He drank himself to death," I said. "Pancreatitis."

"Indeed."

Indeed...a word to cover the painful end of a horrible drunk's pitiful death.

"You seem tense, Tate," he opted for familiarity again...man to man...soldier to soldier ,"I can't help but notice it."

"I'm fine," I lied.

Goddamn I wasn't fine. I'd made a total fool out of myself and I'd spoiled any chance of reconnecting with my old friends in any way possible. How could Cobb be friends with me now? How could Victor even try to forgive me for bullying him if he was gay and I...and I'd been such a coward that I'd bullied him even though I was a goddamned faggot myself? I couldn't face them anymore...I couldn't face up to the idea that the ideas I'd had going on in my head for months now had been blown up in the space of a couple of seconds on Victor's nice leather couch.

"You know that if you don't want to talk to me, I can always refer you to someone. If it's your head troubling you, you could go talk to Doctor Hopkirk, or you can go to Sam Weller if it's your prosthetics and then there's Amanda Stokes who's specialized in phantom pain syndromes."

Why did he even bother to list out the familiar names? I'd seen all of them, several times, in fact, because I was supposed to, meant to. Getting the names again didn't help at all. It just made me feel inexplicably angry.

"I know the drill," I said, "I'm fine. I don't need any maintenance on any part of me, thanks."

I just needed to feel happy again. Happy with myself, with life, with everything.

"But still it doesn't seem that everything is fine," Simpson continued, "You've got a temper."

"I've always had a temper," I spoke back a bit too quickly, I knew immediately, because his ears jumped.

"It can be a good thing or a bad thing," he said, "on a soldier, it's most often a bad thing, though on occasion it's been known to make men do extraordinary things on the field."

Oh, gee, like shove tongues down the throats of straight men you thought were gay?

"This isn't Fallujah," I said.

"Might as well be," he tapped one of his wheels, "we're at war with our bodies and minds every day. Didn't that come clear enough today, with all this talk about our bodies and how other perceive them? How sometimes we even gladly hide behind our injuries or illnesses?"

The things I hid from couldn't be spoken aloud.

"I'm doing alright," I said, "my prosthetic fits, like I said, I had a beginnings of a sore but I took care of it so it's all good now, and my phantom pain is being controlled with Elavil - "

"You've done better, though, Tate," Simpson observed.

"Maybe I'm having a bad day," I said, my tail moving tensely behind me.

"It doesn't have to be," Simpson said. "There are ways to cheer up."

Nothing he could tell me could make me cheer up, I thought.

"It's a beautiful day out there, you could go out and take a nice walk."

"I'm with Marker," I replied, my excuse as good as ever, "he doesn't like going out in public much."

"It'd do him good."

"I'm not his minder," I said, "I can only occasionally tell him to stand up and just fucking do it."

At least Simpson didn't mind the language.

"Maybe today is one of those days."

"I don't feel like parading around," I grunted.

"Have you been going to the gym?"

"Sometimes," I said.

"It does you good," Simpson said, "physical activity clears the mind, too."

Why couldn't he stop speaking these meaningless things? Did he really think I needed to hear all that again and again?

"I know," I said.

"I have to skip gym today," he said, "I'm taking the kids out to the mall to do shopping. They'll probably be running their old dad around the place."

It was so damn difficult to picture this tough as shit dog with two teenaged kids strolling around the mall. Then again, it was difficult to picture him with kids at all, or even the fact that he'd had them after he'd come back from Desert Storm.

Images.

"That's meant to make you smile, Tate," he rumbled.

I obliged.

"Good," Simpson replied. "That's better."

I harrumphed.

"Is there something else?" I asked.

"Well, could you ask Marker to come in when you go out?" Simpson said. "I know he's waiting outside, and there was something I wanted to talk to him about before he goes."

"Sure," I said.

"Good!" he said, paws falling to his sides as he clapped his brakes off again and rolled over towards the table that held the coffeemaker and stuff, and where he kept his bag. "Damn it..."

"Yeah?" I rumbled, already halfway to picking my crutch from where I'd left it.

"I was supposed to give it out these brochures today..." he complained, paws rummaging through his bag, "I had planned we would talk about body image and sexuality some more next week, and these brochures are brand new..."

"Too bad," I said.

"Catch you next week then," Simpson said, "do remember you can always call if you feel like it."

"Sure, "I said, slipping into the corridor.

Marker sat hunched on a bench, mostly hidden behind a plastic plant, when I walked over.

"Simpson wants to see you for something," I said, "I don't know what it is."

"Eh?"

"Don't ask me, "I shrugged, "he wouldn't tell."

Maybe he wanted a second opinion on me, I thought, dully, as the wolf got up and went back into the room, leaving me to take over the seat he'd just left empty.

*

Thank you for reading my story!

I hope you had an interesting time, and I hope to read your feedback, too. Also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well.

See you on Monday!