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Landesbarrie #20 (You’re in a coma and I confess all my feelings only for you to wake up)?

"You’re not here,” Gabe says. The hallucination that isn’t Tyson but does appear to be sitting in Tyson’s favorite chair snorts.

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Those brains why they made you captain?” It sounds like Tyson. It’s got Tyson’s wry smile and the glint in his eyes when he’s teasing, the way he’s got of looking at Gabe like he’s inviting him in on the joke even when it’s Gabe he’s chirping. And yet--

“You’re in Toronto,” Gabe tells him. “You have a game tonight.”

“That’s what you’re hung up on, not the fact that I just appeared here?” Tyson asks. “Or--” he waves a hand, and it goes right through the arm of the chair. “Cause that’s what’s really getting me, I’ve got to say, but you’ve always had weird priorities. Like still preferring savory over sweet, that’s--”

“It’s not a health thing it’s a taste thing,” Gabe snarks back, the latest volley in the long-running argument, then stops. He’s arguing with a hallucination. Great way to start a season. “I’m going insane.”

“Brain that size in a head that small, it was inevitable,” Tyson retorts, but it’s got an edge to it--an edge that Gabe knows, knew, the edge that means Tyson’s using his humor to cover up the fact that he’s freaking out. Because Gabe can’t even hallucinate a Tyson happy in Toronto--his brain’s not that masochistic that he’ll think that. He’s apparently a bad enough person that he’d prefer Tyson miserable and not with him than happy and traded. “Nice to know that I’m the symbol of you going insane. That makes sense, really. Couldn’t drive you there when I was here so maybe when I leave, eh?”

“You didn’t drive me insane,” Gabe says. That’s not the point. “You leaving--” His phone buzzes. He’s prepared to ignore it, but then it buzzes again; it’s a call, not a text. Gabe pulls out his phone. Nate Dogg, it tells him.

“You should probably get that,” Tyson says, and his smile is wry and tight, like after bad losses. Gabe’s not worrying about a hallucination, because that’s insane. Instead, he answers the phone.

“I’m going to Toronto,” Nate says, without any prelude. He sounds--his voice is rough, like he’s been crying.

Gabe blinks. “What? Our first game’s in four days, I know you miss Tys but you can’t just--”

“You didn’t hear?” Nate cuts him off.

“Hear what?”

Nate swallows. “Tys, there was--it was a car accident, it was really--”

Gabe’s hand clenches over nothing at all. “It was what, Nate? Is he okay? Is he--” Nothing can have happened to Tyson. Not Tyson, who’s the most vibrant, alive person Gabe knows.

There’s a long pause before Nate answers, which is an answer in itself. “He’s in a coma,” Nate says at last. “The doctors--they think he’s going to wake up, but they’re not sure.”

Instinctively, Gabe looks over to where the Tyson-hallucination was sitting. He’s not there.

----

Nate goes to Toronto. Management throws a fit, but Nate goes anyway, and they all know that no one’s scratching Nate for the opener.

Gabe wishes he could do that too, but he’s captain, and he’s not...Nate and Tyson are Nate and Tyson, and Gabe isn’t that. Gabe isn’t--what Tyson was to him was something different, and something that lived close to his heart but not out loud, so he didn’t have a good excuse to just leave.

So he stays and goes to practice, and gets terse texted updates from Nate and repeats them to the rest of the team.

“Wow, that’s a shitty tape job, and I played with Jamie Benn.” Gabe jumps and drops his stick. It falls through Tyson’s outstretched hand. Tyson looks down at the hand. “Huh. That’s still weird.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Gabe hisses, looks around. A equipment guy is giving him a weird look, but no one else is here.

“He can’t see me,” Tyson says. “I’ve tried but it’s just you. Maybe you’re magic,” he hums, sounding considering. “Or maybe it’s something Swedish. I should go bug Willy, see if that works.”

Gabe quashes the immediate protest that if the Tyson hallucination should be bothering anyone, it should be bothering him, and definitely not some Leaf with good hair. Gabe ignores the fact that usually, he rather likes William Nylander. Also, there are more important things, like, “Yeah, they can’t see you, because you’re a hallucination.”

“So we’re sticking with that story, eh?” Tyson nods. “It sort of begs the question of why you’d be hallucinating me, though.” He pauses, then looks at Gabe’s face, and grins. “You miss me!” he crows, jabbing a finger at Gabe, like that’s a surprise and a success. “You miss me so much you think hallucinating me makes sense! Aw, Landy. You know I miss you too.”

“It doesn’t make sense, it makes more sense than anything else,” Gabe snaps. He doesn’t know why his subconscious is driving home how much he misses Tyson. How much he didn’t say. “Given that nothing else makes any sense, that’s not hard.”

“Nah, you miss me.” Tyson grins, pats his chest. “Don’t worry, I miss you too. None of the Leafs have a mane quite like yours.”

“Not even Willy?” Gabe asks, before he can help himself. Tyson snorts.

“Yes, your hair is the best even among Swedes, don’t worry, Mr. Gabe the Babe. Your crown’s untouched.” He tsks. “I should tell you that all of the Leafs have better hair than you, that’d keep you in the penalty box our first game.” His mouth twists. “If I’m there for the game.”

“You will be,” Gabe says, because he has to. Because that much he has to believe. “You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Tyson’s mouth does the thing again, where he can’t quite keep back his cynicism.

“You will be,” Gabe repeats, every bit of certainty he’s ever mustered in that statement, and Tyson smiles again, but it’s--it’s the soft, almost incredulous smile that only comes out occasionally, that Gabe maybe holds tighter than he should, because it’s the one that’s gotten through all of Tyson’s walls of BS.

“God, Gabe, you’re so--I’ve missed you too,” Tyson says, and this time he sounds like he means it. “You and your...” he trails off.

“My what?” Gabe prompts. Maybe this is some weird exercise in narcissism, but he wants to hear what Tyson likes about him, in Tyson’s voice, from Tyson’s pretend mouth. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop wanting to hear Tyson complimenting him.

“Your big fucking head, what do you think?” Tyson retorts, but he’s flushed red.

Something bangs, a hallway away--Gabe glances over. When he looks back, Tyson’s gone.

----

The Tyson-hallucination keeps on coming back. Gabe knows he should be worried, should be going to doctors and getting MRIs and that he’s probably dying of a brain tumor or something, but--he doesn’t.

He tells himself it’s because it’s something he can deal with himself, but he’s pretty sure it’s just that he likes having Tyson around, in some form. To have Tyson snarking at his elbow and giving him shit and hanging out in his kitchen as he cooks. It feels like--it doesn’t feel normal, because Tyson was never around this much even before, but it feels like what Gabe dreamed about, sometimes, when he let his guard down. Tyson inextricably intertwined in his life. Gabe still goes to sleep alone, and he can’t reach out and touch, but he doesn’t want it to stop, either.

Then Nate comes back. He’s pale and quiet and he practices with the sort of single minded intensity that he only has when he’s ignoring everything else, and he barely says a word to anyone, not even when EJ’s doing his best to draw him out. It’s when, Gabe can’t help but think, Nate needs Tyson--Tyson always knew how to lessen the load on Nate’s shoulders, how to make him remember he was just a person too.

The whole locker room needs that--the rookies chatter because they’re rookies, but Nate’s there like a cloud and Gabe tries but he doesn’t know how much better he is, and everyone can feel what’s hovering over the whole locker room. It’s not the best way to start a season, for sure. Tyson would fix it, Gabe can’t help but feel. He almost asks his hallucination what to do, but he knows the answer, which is there’s nothing he can do. The locker room will learn how to be without Tyson and his morale. The question is if Gabe can.

The day after Nate gets back, Gabe follows him home, waits as he feeds the dogs, nukes some leftovers. Then--

“Are you okay?” Gabe asks, and Nate chokes out a dry laugh.

“Am I okay?” he repeats, incredulous. “Yeah, it was a great trip to Toronto, why do you ask?”

Gabe can take the hit, if it means being there for his friend. “Nate.”

“It’s bullshit. He shouldn’t have been there at all, we need him, and now he’s in fucking Toronto and I’m here and--” Gabe puts his hand on Nate’s arm. He’s shaking. He’s so young, Gabe remembers sometimes. Younger than he should be, for this. Not that Gabe thinks he’s handling it much better. Nate swallows. “His dad’s gotten him the best care, of course, and if it doesn’t get better soon they’re moving him to Vancouver anyway. His parents are with him all the time. And it should be--the doctors all said he should wake up, soon.”

Gabe hums. That’s good, he reminds himself. That the prognosis is good. Even if it means Tyson’s not awake now, not somewhere in the world being his loud, energetic self, making another locker room laugh.

“He just looked so--there were all the tubes, you know?” Nate goes on, gulping air. “Hooked up everywhere, and all I could think was that Tyson would make so many jokes about tentacles, and I just--” Gabe smiles despite himself, because he would. “I can’t stop thinking, what if--” Nate stares down at his hands. “What if he doesn’t wake up?”

“Tell him I love him,” Tyson says, on Nate’s other side. He’s leaning over Nate, and Gabe can’t see his face but he knows that broken voice. “Tell him he’ll always be my Dogg, and that’s--no matter what.”

“He’s going to wake up,” Gabe says, because he has to believe that. If he doesn’t--he has to.

“But what if he doesn’t?” Nate asks. Tyson puts a hand out to his shoulder, and it falls through. Gabe can see Tyson’s fist clench. “What if--I think the last thing I said was some shit about the season, it wasn’t--” A tear drips onto Nate’s hand.

“Gabe.” Tyson looks up, and there are tears on his cheeks. “Tell him. Please.”

Gabe can’t. Gabe doesn’t want this to be happening. Gabe doesn’t want to pretend Tyson’s here, because he’s not and Gabe has hold it together for Nate when Gabe can’t think this, can’t think any of this.

But he has to. And Gabe does what he has to. And Tyson’s looking at him with that tear-stained face, his hand hovering over his best friend’s back.

"Tyson loves you,” Gabe tells Nate, because he doesn’t need any hallucination to tell him that. “That’s--you guys are forever, you know that. It doesn’t matter what happens.”

“I know.” Nate sniffles. “I know, I just--” he swallows. “I’ll be okay. Tyson’ll be okay.” He lifts his head. Tyson’s hand drops from where he was holding it, but he’s still looking at Nate like he’d give anything to just be able to hug him. Gabe would give anything for Tyson to be here to hug Nate too, so him and his subconscious are on the same page with that. “They’re doing some procedure tomorrow anyway, it’s supposed to help? I don’t know. But it’ll--he’ll be fine,” Nate repeats, like a mantra. “He’ll be fine.”

Gabe swallows. “He’ll be fine,” he echoes, because it has to be true.

---

He drives home later, after trying his best to distract himself and Nate with TV and game tape. Nate was looking a little better when he left, but--Gabe can’t stop thinking about it, now. What if. Tyson has to be better, he has to, but what if--

“You’ve got to take care of him,” Tyson says, from the seat next to him. Gabe’s too used to it to even jump, he just pulls into his driveway. “If anything happens, or even if I’m just in Toronto. He’s Nate but he’ll try to do too much if you let him, you can’t let him--”

“I know what my team needs,” Gabe snaps, as he gets out of the car, heads inside.

“I should have left a manual, the Care and Keeping of Nate Mackinnon. With commentary by Sidney Crosby, that’d be the real selling point. Maybe I should have had one for you too. Volume 2, the Care and Keeping of Gabriel Landeskog. Chapter 1: make sure to deflate his head sometimes, otherwise it’ll get dangerously big and he might float away, Up--”

“Stop it!” Gabe yells, and Tyson’s mouth snaps shut. Zoey, who had been greeting him by running at his legs, whines and pulls back. Gabe puts a hand on her head. “You can’t do this anymore, I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” Tyson asks. “Listen to me talk? Because let me tell you, you had a big improvement there if you wanted that to stop--”

“Pretend!” Gabe growls. “I can’t--you’re not here, you’re in Toronto and I can’t just go on like you’re here with me!”

“Well I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Tyson retorts. “I’m not the one hallucinating me. Or summoning me. Or--I don’t know why I’m here, but you get the point.”

“You’re not here!” Gabe throws back at him again. “You aren’t, however much I want to pretend you are, you’re in a hospital and a coma and--fuck,” he says, as it hits him. He drops onto a chair. “And you might not be okay,” He says, looking up at Tyson. Tyson’s got his serious face on, looking down at him, and his cheeks still have a hint of that flush from fighting that Gabe’s always wondered if he could get with other things, and Gabe never wants to stop looking at him. “You might not wake up.”

“Aw, come on. Where’s that captainly belief?” Tyson chirps, but Gabe can see the look in his eyes too. He knows it, and he’s terrified. Because Gabe knows, he reminds himself. Because this isn’t Tyson, it’s just a reflection of what Gabe thinks, what he wants. Which is Tyson, here. “Giving up on me, Landeskog? Not like you.”

“Never,” Gabe says, and means it like a vow, but also, “But--at least Nate knows.”

Tyson’s mouth twists, and he reaches out, only for his hand to move through Gabe, too. “I love you, Landy. You know that too.”

Gabe thinks about Nate, about his worry about the last thing he said. This isn’t Tyson, but it’s--he might not ever get the chance to say it to the real thing. It has to be better than wondering.

“Yeah,” he says, and looks up into Tyson’s warm eyes. “But I’m in love with you, and I don’t know what you’d do with that.”

Tyson freezes. “What?”

“I--”

But Tyson’s not stopping. “You honestly say that now, like, deathbed confession? That’s dramatic even for you, Landy, wow. And what, I’m supposed to-- I can’t even--” he reaches out, and his hand falls through Gabe’s face too, no matter how much Gabe wills himself to believe that he can feel Tyson’s touch. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Gabe shrugs. “Nothing, because you’re not real,” he says, honestly, because if you can’t be honest with the hallucination of the guy you’re in love with, who can you be honest with? “I just needed to say it. I wish I’d told Tys, when I could.”

“You are so--how are you like this?” Tyson demands, and throws up his arms. “Seriously, did you wait for the moment when it’s the most dramatic?” Despite himself, Gabe smiles, because--because Tyson, and his rants and Gabe loves him. Even when the him is Gabe’s apparently very good reconstruction. “What’s next, you fly to Toronto and kiss me awake?”

“I think True Love’s Kiss doesn’t work if it’s one sided,” Gabe points out, and Tyson rolls his eyes.

“I said what I said, Gabriel,” he informs him, and Gabe’s heart thumps once before he remembers that of course his subconscious would give him that. It’s not what Tyson actually feels. “But I’m also in a coma and tied down with a lot of tubes which is way less kinky than I’d imagined, and--you had years! Years and years, and you say it now?”

“I need to stop pretending,” Gabe says. He takes one more look at Tyson, lit up and half-smiling and so so bright, and then closes his eyes. “This needs to stop.”

He almost thinks he can feel--something, the brush of warm lips against his forehead, so light that he probably imagined it. When he opens his eyes again, Tyson’s gone.

----

The Tyson hallucination doesn’t come back. Not that day, not the next. It must have worked, Gabe thinks, and tries to be happy about it. It’s healthier, he knows that, he just--he misses Tyson, so much.

Then his phone rings. Nate, it tell him, and Gabe swallows as he picks up.

“Yeah?”

“He’s awake,” Nate says, and Gabe stumbles down to a kitchen chair. “He’s awake, he’s okay, it’s going to be okay.”

“What?” Gabe asks. It feels like he can’t breathe. Now that it’s done, it feels real again. Tyson--fuck, Tyson.

“Tyson woke up this morning, whatever surgery happened yesterday worked!” Nate sounds like he could sing. Gabe thinks he could too. “It’s--apparently it’s going to be a long road but he’s going to be okay.”

He’s going to be okay. It sings in Gabe. He’s going to be okay, and--fuck, Gabe needs to--

“I’m going up there as soon as we can, but I think next week’s the first time we have the days,” Nate's saying, “Tyson won’t let me skip practice for it. But it’s--” Gabe’s phone buzzes, and he glances at it to see--

He swallows. “Nate, I’ve got to go,” Gabe cuts him off, “That’s Tys.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Nate says, and there’s something in his voice like he knows something Gabe doesn’t, which would annoy him at any other time.

He switches calls. “Tyson,” he says, “How are you?”

“You know, I always kind of thought doctors were sexy, but that fantasy is definitely dead,” Tyson says, and Gabe laughs, for what feels like the first time in months.

“Um. Also. So,” Tyson goes on. Gabe can hear the hum and beep of monitors beyond him. “Apparently I’m not the symbol of you going insane?” Gabe stops laughing. Gabe hadn’t told anyone about the hallucinations, or the conversations. “And true love’s kiss wasn’t necessary to wake me up?”

“What the--what?”

“Yep, that was my reaction too,” Tyson replies. “Who knew coma ghosts were a thing?”

“I--you--”

“Yeah.”

“So you remember--”

“Yeah.”

“And you heard--”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Gabe swallows. So Tyson--he knew. All of what Gabe had told him, he knew that now.

“Yeah.” Gabe can hear Tyson take a breath, knows what he sounds like when he’s squaring his shoulder for something. “We can forget about it, if you want. I think there’s some sort of ‘thought you were a hallucination while you were in a coma and maybe going to die’ amnesty that gives you take back power on confessions?”

It’s an attractive option. But--True love’s kiss, Tyson had said, and it hadn’t been Gabe’s subconscious cutting him a break. And he doesn’t want to think about the what ifs again, not like it had been. He wants to stop pretending.

“Or I could come up there,” Gabe offers. “And we could not forget about it.”

He can’t see Tyson, but he knows what his voice sounds like when he’s beaming. “I’m not letting you skip practice for it,” Tyson warns, and Gabe knows what that means, hears it for what it is. “I told Nate and I’m telling you, I’m still going to be here and you sitting here distracting the nurses isn’t going to help. Or maybe I should let you come, do a little bit of sabotage--”

He keeps going and Gabe grins at nothing at all as he does, warm and ridiculous and so very very real.

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