Chapter Text
The beginning of the 2014-2015 hockey season leads to everyone sprawled on the floor of Scott and Kip’s apartment with their calendars open.
“Okay, so that’s the preseason covered. First regular season game is October 9th at 7 PM. Any obvious conflicts for anyone?” Elena announces.
“Getting in will be tight with my late class that day, but I can make it.” Kip says.
“No conflicts here.” George is the only one flipping through a literal, physical calendar.
“I’m free.” Maria said.
“I can switch shifts that night when we get to it.” Kyle scrolled idly through his phone.
“No events that night for me, thankfully.” Shawn confirms.
“Alright. Scott, put us down for six tickets that night.”
“You really don’t have to –” Scott sputters out.
“Nonsense. It’s your first game of the season, we’re all going.” Elena says firmly. “Alright. Next games, October 11th, 3pm and October 12th, 8pm, road games. Anyone who can, meet at the Kingfisher. Next home game, October 14th 6pm. Known conflicts?”
“Catering event that night.” Shawn says.
“Tight with class schedule but workable.” Kip contributes.
“I’ve got a shift I can’t get out of.” Kyle says.
“Same.” Maria contributes.
“I’m free.” George says.
“Alright, so it’s Kip and George that night because I’m also not free. Now, we’re into the point where work schedules are iffy so we’ll just note down when the games are and where and figure it out as well go. Next, October 16th–”
Scott tries to not be too obvious in scanning the crowd during warmups – he’s never had so many people here for him before, and he doesn’t want anyone to catch on to that fact and ask about it, because he doesn’t know how to answer without his whole heart spilling out. Fortunately, most of the team is oblivious to his search.
He finds them all right where he expects, in the seats he had set aside. What he hadn’t expected was the outfits. All six of them are wearing his jersey. They’ve hoisted a banner with his name on it above their heads and wave it wildly when they see he’s noticed them.
Scott waves in return and blinks back tears before returning to his warmups.
“What was that about?” Eric Bennet asks.
“Oh, nothing. Just looking at the crowd.”
For the first time in a long time, Scott achieves a hat trick in the opening game of the season. He’s the happiest he’s been in a long time.
Afterwards, he finds everyone already set up at his apartment to celebrate.
“So what was that you got? A rat trick, right?” Shawn says.
“A hat trick, and Shawn, please, I know you’re messing with me now.” Scott begs.
“Of course I’m not!” Shawn protests. “They’re different things?”
“Shawn, please.”
Kip really loves the routine they’ve fallen into for Scott’s road games. It’s so nice to be able to gather together at the Kingfisher to watch Scott play with his friends, with their friends. They cheer obnoxiously whenever they see Scott on the screen, and Kyle only performatively complains about them hauling in take-out to watch there. After a couple arguments where Kyle physically defends their remote access to keep the game on, the other patrons acquiesce to the fact that the Kingfisher is now an Admirals hockey bar on road game days. And by halfway through the season, everyone in the Kingfisher is cheering along.
One day, Kip hopes that Scott can see this.
“UUUUGHHH.” Kip groans, flopping over the couch into Scott’s lap and dramatically throwing an arm over his eyes. “People are the absolute worse.”
“What happened?” Scott asks, running a hand through Kip’s hair.
“Fucking Reed.” Kip grumbles. “They’re ticking me off.”
“What’d they do this time?”
“So, the other grad students are going out for drinks tonight.”
“And they didn’t invite you? They’re icing you out?” Scott’s voice raises in anxiety.
“No, no, not that! They did invite me, I just declined because I wanted to spend time with you. Told them that my boyfriend just got back from a work trip and we want to spend time together.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“And then they told me you could come out with us.”
“That’s nice of them.”
“Yeah, I said that but reminded them that my boyfriend is closeted so won’t be coming out with us. Most of them were understanding about that, but Reed decided to be a huge dick about it.”
“How so?” Scott asks warily.
“Just, all kinds of useless bullshit you don’t need to hear.”
“Tell me? It’s upsetting you.”
“It was just a bunch of complete nonsense about how I deserved someone who didn’t hate themselves and was proud of who they are and it’s selfish and unfair for you to still be in the closet. Just absolute bullshit.”
Scott is quiet for a moment. “They have a bit of a point.”
“No! No, they don’t!” Kip straightens up and made intent eye contact. “They have no idea about who you are and the circumstances you live in and what your life is like. They don’t know the incredibly valid practical safety reasons why you’re still closeted. And even if those didn’t exist it was still an incredibly shitty and untrue thing to say about someone. Coming out is a deeply personal choice to make when you feel ready, not because some asshole thinks there’s only one right way to be queer.”
“Right, right. I know that intellectually, it just. Hurts sometimes to know that other queer people think that about people like me.”
“I know. That’s their problem though, and they can get over themselves. Fuck Reed.”
“Yeah, fuck Reed.” Scott settles further into the couch. “Now, how was the rest of your day?”
“Great! Class today was SO interesting—”
Scott honestly isn’t expecting anything, the first home game that neither Kip nor George can make it to. There’s no obligation bringing any of Kip’s friends to matches other than their friendship with him, and none of them are really into hockey, why would they show up?
He played his whole career before he met Kip without someone personally cheering him on. He can handle doing so this game, too, he tells himself.
So seeing Shawn and Kyle in his seats holding a completely ridiculous banner with the words “GO SCOTT” on it in sparkly letters is something he’s absolutely not prepared for.
He plays the whole game with a grin on his face, something which Rozanov makes fun of for the entire night, but Scott couldn’t care less about that.
Kyle and Shawn are waiting for him afterwards, and he sweeps them into a hug.
“Thank you so much for showing up.”
“Course we did, no need to thank us for that.” Shawn waves it away.
“Still, you didn’t have to show up just because the Gradys couldn’t make it.” Scott shuffles his feet awkwardly.
“What are you talking about?” Kyle asks.
“You don’t even like hockey though? Or know things about it? Why else would you show up?”
“Scott, come on. I don’t need to know shit to appreciate hot guys doing warmup stretches in front of me.” Shawn says.
Scott chokes on air.
“Yeah, your goalie is really hot.” Kyle jokingly fans himself. “Worth it just for that.”
“Yeah.” Shawn agrees. “Besides, you’re our friend. We show up for our friends.”
It’s been long enough that Kip and Scott would really like to do things together in public. They’ve always wanted that, to some degree, but it’s been an impossibility. Scott’s gotten over some of his nerves about it, enough to try again, but does have quite a few reasonable concerns about being regularly recognized with Kip. A recent situation where Troy Barrett got mobbed in a restaurant he’d made a habit of eating at had made Kip newly wary about exactly how much attention Scott gathered wherever he went, and how capricious and sudden it could be. Scott was a captain, the star player of the New York Admirals, not an admittedly good asshole player from Toronto who didn’t have a lot of media attention even though he was playing hockey in Canada. It was potentially far, far, far worse if people recognized Scott.
The solution was, in some ways, absolutely ludicrous, but it worked. Two guys getting a meal together was a little suspicious, especially when one of them looked like a well-known hockey player with no known relationships outside of hockey.
A whole bunch of people getting a meal together, though? Still weird when one of them looked like said well-known hockey star, but far less telling and suspicious. How likely is it that that’s Scott Hunter? Fairly unlikely, that’s just some guy out with his friends.
It was a little . . . odd, to say the least, to have their dates be not just third-wheeled but also fourth and fifth and sixth wheeled, but they were actually going out in public together and doing things. That was the important part.
They could now get dinner in public, or go on a walk, or hang out at a bar. Not alone, not yet, that would be years from now, but this was good, too. Scott still panicked sometimes, completely understandably (Kip did too, sometimes, when he thought he saw a phone pointed in their direction after going into a terrifying late night deep dive about celebrity paparazzi sightings), but he was getting more and more comfortable with it.
The summer of 2015 begins differently than last summer. For one thing, it starts later, with New York making it to the second round of the playoffs before being knocked out by Detroit. They’re more settled in their relationship, not as skittish and uncertain with each other. It’s easier to settle in to relax and watch the rest of the playoffs unfold.
They’re settled in together on the couch to watch when the Montreal Metros win the cup. Scott’s expression is soft as they watch Shane Hollander hoist the cup over his head, a serious expression on his face.
“He’s a good kid.” Scott admits begrudgingly.
“But you wish it was you.”
“But I wish it was me.” Scott says.
Two weeks later, they’re crowded together on that same couch surrounded by Dad and Maria and Elena and Shawn and Kyle to see the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Kip pretends he doesn’t see the tears trickling down Scott’s face as the ruling is announced, busy with his own tears. Sure, gay marriage had been legal in New York for four years at that point, but this was still huge.
Realistically, marriage is still a long ways out for them, but it’s possible now in a way it hadn’t been before. There is a long path ahead of them before that – Kip figuring out what he’d do after grad school, Scott retiring and coming out, figuring out what the rest of their lives afterwards would look like together – but that path forward is a lot clearer than it was yesterday.
Kip’s been dating a hockey player for over a year at this point and hasn’t gone skating with him once. Clearly, this is a tragedy that must be rectified. Which should be simple enough this summer, he assumes.
“You should take me skating sometime.” He says casually.
“That would be nice.” Scott says wistfully. “Have you ever skated before?”
“Nope! But I’ll have a good teacher!” Kip beams.
Scott looks at him with a haunted expression.
“. . . Earth to Scott?”
“Absolutely not. You’re taking a lesson with someone else first.”
“Why? You can teach me, that would be convenient. And more romantic.”
“I am a professional athlete.”
“On skates who knows what he’s doing.”
“Exactly. And you are not. And I have done this for years so I do a lot of it automatically and I haven’t the first idea how to teach someone the basics.”
“We can figure it out, it’d be low stakes. I want to do something fun with you that’s a part of hockey.”
Scott’s face softens. “I’d love that, but I’m not sure I’m the best teacher for you.”
“I believe in us.”
Scott snorted. “I don’t. I’ve seen some of the other guys try to teach partners and it ends in disaster. I’m not messing with that curse.”
“Curse?”
“I’ve seen things.” Scott gazes into the distance.
“I’m sure you’d do a better job than whatever teammate you’re thinking of who messed it up terribly.”
“Alright, but if this goes wrong, I am saying I told you so.”
When Kip wobbles onto the rink in skates, he’s immeasurably glad that Maria has dragged him out to go roller skating with her a couple times, because he’d be completely lost otherwise. The balance is mostly the same, just with blades and not wheels.
He grips onto Scott’s hands tightly as Scott skates backwards, further into the rink, very glad that Scott had insisted on wearing some protective gear. Scott had gotten two of his helmets from the equipment managers, somehow – Kip didn’t ask questions about it – and Kip feels very aware that it’s Scott’s hockey gear he’s currently wearing, of the 21 emblazoned on the helmet.
Scott drops his hands and glides effortlessly to the side, and Kip feels his absence keenly.
“Hey!” he protests.
“You’re going to mess up your balance if you’re clinging to me the whole time.” Scott explains. “I want you to try moving forward on your own before we try actually skating together.”
“Okay,” Kip breathes out. “I’ve got this.”
“You’ve got this.” Scott repeats.
Kip pushes off and does his best to mimic the smooth motions he’s seen Scott do so many times from the stands. He’s partially successful, wavering a lot rather than skating straight, but he can kind of feel how to skate more smoothly, to move like Scott does. It’s there, just out of reach of his capabilities, which is frustrating and exhilarating.
“Not bad.” Scott says appraisingly.
“Not bad? That’s all you’ve got to say?” Kip teases.
“Well–” Scott says, and launches into a long and highly detailed critique of Kip’s technique. Kip can kind of see why Scott was worried this wouldn’t go well, but Kip loves seeing the spark in his eyes as he teaches Kip how to do the thing he loves.
Kip can feel himself improving as Scott runs him through his paces, gradually absorbing the tips and tricks that Scott is imparting to him. He keeps falling, though, which is irritating.
“You’re not going to catch me?” Kip asks.
“Falling is learning.” Scott says. “So, uh, no. Sorry.”
Kip laughs.
After a while, Kip’s able to skate smoothly enough for Scott to stop being an instructor (mostly) and to just skate with him. It’s really nice, to just make laps together while holding hands. He looks over at Scott and finds him looking back already. Kip blushes, and Scott smiles fondly.
“You’re holding back.” Kip observes, noting how evenly Scott is keeping pace with him. Also that Scott is deliberately taking the inner side so that he’s turning faster and more sharply than Kip, so that Kip doesn’t have to worry about turning as much.
Scott shrugs. “Well, yeah. You’re new to this and I’m a professional.”
“No, yeah, I get that and I appreciate it. I’m just saying, if you want to go all out for a bit, I’d love to watch.”
“Really?” Scott says. “I thought the point of this was to do it together.”
“Yes, but I only see you skate at a distance during a hockey game. I kind of want to watch you just go be yourself with this.”
“You do?” Scott checks.
“I do.” Kip confirms. “Show me what you’ve got, Hunter.”
Scott’s grin is blinding as he takes off. One moment, he’s skating sedately hand in hand with Kip, and the next, he’s rocketing down the rink, almost a blur from how fast he’s moving.
Kip can’t tear his eyes away.
He’s seen Scott skate before, but it’s even more mesmerizing up close. Scott’s skating is beautiful, so fluid and graceful and natural, as though Scott was made just to skate. He looks at home on the ice, and Kip can’t look away.
Which is a problem when he spends so much time looking at Scott he forgets to turn and almost skates into the boards.
“Ah!” he yelps as he fumblingly braces himself against them to not fall over.
“You okay?” Scott slows as he skates up to him and gently catches his elbow.
“Yeah, I’m great.” Kip beams. “Thank you, again, for teaching me.”
“Any time,” Scott says, leaning in to kiss him.