Chapter Text
It makes the news. In fact, it surpasses local news and makes the national news, which Axel finds comical. It's not a "ha-ha" funny though; it's funny in a way that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, like coffee dredges in a mug on Monday before class when all you'd rather do is sleep.
The segment is nestled between a briefing of the town's new bridge blueprint and a double homicide in Stockholm. A shot of the ice rink and university splashes across Axel's television. "Prominent players of Jönköping University ice hockey team walked out during practice today," the reporter says.
"That's bullshit," Axel says, and nobody even scolds him for swearing. He wants to say, "It wasn't during practice, it was after, at the team meeting." He wants to explain how Emil said a lot of big, bad words and then he was clenching his fists on his knees and he was standing. His legs were moving on their own, but he hadn't been the one to walk out first.
It was Max.
Max, who, quiet as always, pushed back his chair and strode purposefully out the door. A man of few words and even fewer facial expressions, stubborn as a mule, tenacious and far more headstrong than any other player on the team – set an unintentional precedent for the moments that followed.
Instead of talking about Max, since Axel thinks too hard about Max most days anyway, he reaches past Alice and goes for a second chocolate chip cookie. She raises an eyebrow at him; she's his oldest sister, and she knows that he doesn't go for the dessert unless he's upset. Axel thinks "upset" isn't a strong enough word for the tumultuous storm of regret and anxiety swirling in his intestines, but he eats the cookie anyway.
It takes another four hours after the news broadcast before their parents disappear into their bedroom, leaving Axel and his three older sisters, the youngest of the family out with some friends on the windy Thursday evening.
"So, spill," Agnes demands as soon as their father closes the door firmly behind him. "What really happened today?"
"Exactly what the news said," Axel grunts, though it isn't true. There'd been a lot more to it than "Captain, assistant captains, prominent forwards and goalie tandem walk out on university hockey team during routine practice." But that was what the reporter had said, more or less. Anna raises her eyebrow. She's very good at narrowing her eyes at him, just like their mother. She's very good at non-verbal communication, unlike his other sisters, who are more like him, more like their father – blunt, and to the point.
"Don't think too hard," Alice tells him. "Just tell us what really happened."
"I said some things I shouldn't have said," Axel tells them. "They came to my defense."
"And you all quit the team because of some things that shouldn't have been said?" Agnes asks.
"Well," Axel sighs. "That, and the fact that they walked in on one of the junior defensemen trying to shove his dick down my throat."
"Oh," Alice sighs.
"Oh," Agnes agrees.
Anna narrows her eyes again.
Axel sighs. "I'm going to my room now. You girls should probably go home."
"We are home," Agnes grins, in a Cheshire cat kind of way. Alice smacks her lightly.
"He means back to our apartments, dipshit. Not all of us are babies like Axel and can't find our own places-"
"It's not my fault the housing market in Jönköping is terrible," he counters back without any heat. "I can't find an apartment in the city if my life depended on it."
"I'm sleeping here tonight," Anna declares.
"Me too," Alice says.
"I'm sleeping in your room," Agnes tells Axel, because her room had been taken over by Moa, their youngest sister, the moment it was available.
"It's too late to drive to Kristianstad anyway," Axel tells them. "Just suck it up and you guys can all stay."
"In your room?" Alice asks with a grin.
"Fuck," Axel swears.