Chapter Text
He woke up horribly hung over, but comfortably in his bed, with a deep sense of regret.
He checked his phone. 15 snaps from Jackie Pike.
What the fuck did he do?
He shot up in bed, checking over his notifications. Nothing from anyone important, and he had a rule to not check his phone any further until after he'd eaten breakfast.
His eggs and toast sat heavily in his stomach as he opened his phone, remembering what he did the last night. He could've ruined his teammate's marriage if Jackie had taken it the wrong way. And it looks like she did, if the amount of snaps she sent were any indication.
He tapped through them, fiddling with his hair.
The first thing he learned was that Jackie had been out with friends last night. He had kind of gathered, Hayden tended to not go out alone unless Jackie was also out, not while they were in Montréal.
The second thing he learned was that Jackie had liked the photo.
he's so cuteeeeeee the first snap had said, a blurry picture of three women all gathered around the phone in selfie mode.
i love how red he gets when someone flirts with him, said the next one. A bit less tame than before, but nothing too bad.
And then it got worse.
By the fifth snap, JJ had begun to know way too much about his teammate's sex life and his wife's desire for threesomes with Ilya Rozanov of all people, so he elected to tap through the rest as quick as possible.
Laughing to himself, he put his phone down, heading off to shower.
+1 (514) 000-0000
hi jj this is jackie, hayden's wife
please do not open any of the snaps i sent you
i'm so sorry
Too late
i was so drunk i'm so sorry
I was too
This conversation will look so bad
It sounds like we are cheating
Not you being overly enthusiastic about pictures of your husband
ugh im too hung over to think about it
Eggs and advil, work like magic
But really, I do not want to know what you and Pike get up to
Not my business
hayd's gonna kill me
He will see the humour in it
Eventually.
ugh
can you send me the rest of the photos please?
After Hayden had threatened him within an inch of his life over snapping Jackie photos of him being dumb, JJ was back to his quest. His gay ally quest.
Hollzy groaned, "Don't call it that, JJ."
"Do you have a better name for it?"
He sighed.
"Then you can't complain."
He was talking to Hollzy because Hollzy, like the insane captain he was, kept a list of appropriate team bonding activities. JJ wanted to ask him for it, so he could adapt them for his project. He'd said no, because apparently he didn't want it falling into the hands of the enemy, but he offered to use it to help him.
"Movie nights tend to go off well," Hollzy clicked on something on his laptop, "They're private enough that everyone can come, but not too boring."
Hayden walked in, peeking over Shane's shoulder, "does that have a numerical rating system?"
And then it devolved into a chirp-fest.
JJ elbowed Hollzy, who was engrossed in a hockey game. Bears vs Admirals. At least he was in the spirit, with the Admirals' captain and all. A thought was nagging at him.
"I don't know about this, JJ, it feels offensive," Comy said after the first hour.
"Yeah, kinda," Taytay winced when Tom Hanks said something else stupid.
"I think you should turn to internet or something, JJ, is bad," Andy complained.
r/advice
We found out that one of our coworkers might be gay, how do we make him feel included without him outing himself
u/805463716
I work in a tight-knit group in a homophobic industry. This summer, our manager kinda hinted we should crack down on our homophobic language because one of our colleagues is gay. We agreed we won't try to guess who it is, so to make him feel included, and also not make him out himself, since we determined our colleagues can't think we're all gay, we're going to do gay things together. We tried going out to gay bars, but not all of us like clubbing and one of our colleagues could get into a lot of trouble if his family hears about him supporting gay people. We tried a movie night, but the movie we selected was bad, and we just ended up watching an Admirals game, since they have a gay captain and we all like hockey.
Anything we can do better?
u/potentiallyABBA
Not what he meant.
"Watching drag TV shows? There's a really famous one, Rupaul's Drag Race, or something?" Taytay suggested.
"I was reading up on her, actually," Kochy piped up, "she kind of seems like bad news. Like, uses her money to hurt people kind of bad news."
"We'll wait on the drag race until we get more information," JJ hadn't been a captain since he was a teenager, but this was bringing him back. Well, instead of setting up plays on the ice, he was organizing a locker room cultural revolution, "Gagny, ideas, homme."
"We ask Scott Hunter."
JJ could've kissed him, "Gagny, this is why you're my D-partner, you know what? Give me your cheek."
He laid a sloppy kiss on Gagny's cheek, who only sighed.
"We play New York next week, we'll ask him then."
"So, volunteers for who wants to ask Hunter about locker room culture."
"Alright, Taytay, you're out, you've got an obvious man-crush on him, Kochy, you can barely tell your head from your ass when you put those skates on, no offense, Mitty, you'll be in the crease, Comy seems like our best option."
"I'll do us proud, boys!"
"You've got this, Comy, just skate up to him when the play stops."
"I can do this."
"You can do this."
"Oh!" JJ winced as Comy was laid out by a haymaker from Vaughan.
"Now what was that for?!"
"They're probably a bit protective of their captain, after all that has happened."
"So we can't approach Hunter. Gagny, ideas?"
"The boyfriend?"
"The boyfriend, we'll approach him at that bar, the Kingfisher, right?"
"The Kingfisher, yeah," Drapey's already got his phone out, tapping at it with gusto, lucky bastard was a goalie and got to browse tinder whenever he wasn't on ice, "closes at 2:00, apparently he sometimes meets fans there after games."
"We'll ask him then."
They looked back at Coach warily. He hadn't said anything when they were doing their homophobic shit, but he didn't say anything to them about Hunter other than to play a clean game. Hollzy was bouncing off the walls, like he always did on roadies where they played Boston, and would be worthless at redirecting Coach if he was mad.
Given the set of his jaw when he jumped on for his last shift, he was mad at Comy for provoking. Speaking of, the boys were still trying to figure out what got the Admirals so riled up about Comy specifically.
"I think they don't want anyone approaching their captain individually," Roy suggested.
"They let Hollzy do it," Couilles shot back.
"Hollzy and Hunter play at the All-Stars all the time, Hunter's probably called off his dogs on his buddy."
Discussion was tabled for cellying after Hollzy's buzzer-beater.
JJ had elected to take the night off to regroup, gather his thoughts.
He was brainstorming with the whiteboard Hollzy had given him after the game.
Hollzy seemed a little miffed, but maybe he was just tense. Sexually tense. He pretended, but everyone knew he had a regular lay in Boston.
JJ originally thought it was more like a long-distance girlfriend, but Hollzy's response to questioning made it seem more like a situationship, which, ouch, Hollzy deserved better than that.
He digressed! He was scribbling down ideas, he read somewhere there were pride hockey leagues, when his phone nearly rocketed itself off the nightstand of his hotel.
It was Gagny.
"Hello?"
"Boizy, they were waiting for us."
"Who?"
"The Admirals, we didn't even cross the threshold before they fucking attacked us."
"At least you know you're in the right place."
"Olsson's got a black eye, Wils is soaking his tooth in bodega milk, Berker's probably got a concussion, oh, Calisse, Hollzy's gonna kill us."
"We are so fucked."
"We'll probably have to tell Coach why we have three guys on IR."
"Fuck me, was Piker at least with you?"
"No, he's with Hollzy, remember?"
So they didn't have Hayden to smooth things over either.
They were so fucked.
JJ's breath caught in his throat when a knock came against his door. Hollzy had a really soft, nervous way he knocked.
"Hollander?"
"Hayden's on the phone with Jackie, and it's getting a little too-"
"Say no more, Captaine," JJ scrambled off the bed, thankful Gagny had just hung up after they organized the fleet of ubers back to their hotel. He didn't want to deal with angry Hollzy tonight.
Hollzy came in, sheepish, dressed in his classic t-shirt and shorts combo, before sitting awkwardly in the cuck chair, as the rooks had so affectionately dubbed it, that seemed present in every hotel room.
"I can't believe Comy got himself punched," Hollzy groaned, tapping away at his phone, "I mean, I can, the guy's always been running his mouth, but he didn't even say anything!"
"Exactly! It is so strange!"
They talked about the Detroit versus Florida game that happened that afternoon, and were in the middle of discussing whether they thought Florida's starter goalie would be back on ice by the time they got down there when Hollzy's phone buzzed. And didn't stop.
"It's PR, I gotta take this."
JJ felt the blood leave his face.
"I'll forgive you for this, JJ," Hollzy looked livid, absolutely fuming. He only had a single vein in his neck bulging, but his tone became very measured like he was struggling to enunciate in his rage.
"Thank you Hollzy, I can't-"
"As long as you're the one who goes and interrupts Hayden in the middle of phone sex to tell him what happened."
"Hollzy, Shane, please."
"Do it." Hollzy ground out.
For the sake of avoiding bag skates, which he knew Hollzy would convince Theriault to do, he hustled.
"Theriault wants your head on a pike, JJ," Hollzy knocked on Theriault's door.
"Fuuuuuck."
"And I'm tempted to let him do it, so explain to us why we're in Theriault's room at 10:00 at night calling up guys from the NALH."
"Come in," Theriault said, voice measured.
Theriault looked livid, a well-loved flannel robe wrapped around him and the covers and some extra blankets he knew weren't from the hotel thrown back on the bed behind him.
"Hollander says you have an explanation for why I'm having to call three men up from the NALH tonight and arrange an emergency dental surgery."
"Boizeau. This is fucking stupid, but I'm allowing it because it's done no harm and it seems to be doing the team good on the ice. Don't let this happen again, am I clear?"
"Of course, Coach."
"You tell Pike or Hollander what you're up to from now on."
"Of course."
"Now, I have calls to make."
"Sorry, Coach."
"Don't tell Hollzy, just tell me. He gets squirrelly about gay things," Hayden warned.
"Like in a homophobic way or-"
"No, you know him, he'd never. I think he's worried about spilling the secret. You know how he is."
"Oh, right."
"In other news, I think he and that situationship patched things up."
"No shit?!"
"No shit."
"Damn, good for him. So are they official?"
"I think so, yeah."
"And he still won't tell you?"
Hayden shook his head.
"Weird."
"It's a shame we can't find anything we all want to watch."
"We're all different people, Gagny, the only thing we have in common is-" JJ sat up, knocking his controller off his lap, which made Gagny's partner, Laurence, jump, "hockey. Gagny, we have hockey in common."
"Hockey is the straightest sport in the world," Laurence piped up.
"NHL hockey is," JJ waggled his finger at her, pulling out his phone, "the women's league has a bunch of out lesbians."
"But that's looking at women, isn't that the opposite of gay?" Gagny pointed out.
"For your context. Not for a woman!"
"True!" JJ laughed, "true! But we have a gay team! The Dragons!"
"We could go see a Dragons game!" Gagny accepted the cheek kiss from JJ with grace, "when's the next one?"
"Already on it," JJ showed the two of them the Dragons' website, "unfortunately, we are on a roadie during their next one."
"But we're not playing or practicing during it."
"Hotel room watch party?"
"You fucking bet."
"Now this is what I'm fucking talking about!" Comy yelled, "look at those guys fucking go!"
"Homme, she'd got a braid."
"Even fucking better!"
Even Hollzy had taken a break from his ridiculous pre-game routines to join the team where they were all piled up in JJ's room, notepad in hand.
"They're not as good as us."
"Probably never got opportunity," Andy pointed out, "plus they are older. And is casual, beer league."
They cheered as the Dragons' team one centre landed a sweet wrister into team two's goal.
"How did you get a stream anyway?" Hayden asked.
"Contacted their team and asked them to set up a camera for us," JJ shrugged, "cost a little bit, since I had to buy the filming equipment, but it's worth it for MCG. And the Dragons'll know we support them."
"That's fucking dedicated, dude."
"It's for a good cause!"
The next time they were home and the Dragons were playing a game, they were there.
"JJ Boizeau, we're so happy to meet you," the president of the Dragons said, practically bouncing over, "thank you so much for the filming equipment, we aren't really the kind of league people come and watch, so it never crossed our mind."
"We're trying to broaden our horizons at the Metros, and support local teams. Hollzy over there," he pointed to where Hollzy was hunched up in a hoodie and shorts, bent over a notepad, "already has some notes on you guys' plays and how we can incorporate them."
The president looked ready to faint at that, "You know we're-"
"That's why we're here," JJ put an arm over his shoulder, "listen, you can keep a secret, right?"
He nodded.
"Well, if about 10% of the population isn't straight, that's one in ten people, right? It's probably less common in the NHL, given how terrible the sport is for people who stick out, so we'll say closer to 8%. That's still at least one guy in a 22-man team. We're calling him our mystérieux coéquipier gay, and we've got it on good authority he exists. So, we make him feel at home, show our support for gay things. Let him hide in plain sight, too."
"That's…"
"Which reminds me, we're on the hunt for a good gay bar, have any suggestions?"
"Some of the players are going to Rocky after this, if you'd like to meet them."
"We'd love to," he shook the man's shoulder, letting him go, "I'll get out of your hair, you have a hockey game to run."
The boys fucking loved Rocky. Between the Metros who elected to join them and the Dragons players, they bullied the bartenders into tuning the TVs into an Admirals game, and they were getting smashed.
JJ was listening with rapt attention as one of the Dragons centres, a 'turbo-dyke' named Marie, explained to him what a u-haul lesbian was.
"You know, I have a friend like that," JJ mused, more than a little drunk, "he's a dude, sure, but moved in and married a woman within a year of meeting her. They have four kids now."
Marie laughed her ass off, because she was also super drunk, "he can be an honorary lesbian, it's okay. He's earned the u-haul title."
"I think his wife would faint at the thought."
"In a bad way or-"
"Lust. Definitely lust. She always asks for pictures of him being flirted with when we go to gay bars."
"Oh, oh, it's like that!"
"Yuuuup."