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Kent V Parson was born on July 4th, 1990, and by July 10th his dad had one foot out the door. By the time his first birthday rolled around, it was just him and his mom.
Now, contrary to popular belief, Kent Parson did not have Daddy Issues. For there to be any issues, he would’ve had to have had a dad in the first place. But it’d only ever been him and his mom, and for a while there his half-sister Bri until her paternal grandparents wanted to take her.
And maybe Kent worked too hard, because he could see his mom breaking her back between three jobs and raising a punk ass kid, could see how her hair went grey before she’d hit 35, could see the callouses and blisters and aches and pains long before she even noticed them. And she did all that so he could do what he loved, so he could play hockey.
So yeah, Kent had worked his ass off, practiced drills until he could run them in his sleep, watched tape until his eyes were raw and red, dedicated his body and mind to the sport that had very little love for him. He’d broken bones, rattled brains, scraped skin and lost teeth, all before his fifteenth birthday, and the hockey world did nothing but laugh.
Until he met Jack.
From there, it was like a whole new sport. What he’d previously only put his mind and body into, he now pushed his heart and soul alongside. Everything he was, was consumed by either hockey or Jack. And the two things were so similar they might as well be the same.
Hockey was fast-paced, heart-pounding, pure adrenaline and victory or heartbreaking defeat. As he and Jack got closer, it became a lot more of the former than the latter. After each victory, they’d collapse into each other the second their motel door latched, and Kent thought he could still hear the crowds cheering every time Jack sighed his name.
Their hockey was something electric, entirely unique, and it was never quite as good with anyone else. Kent could see their future so vividly, going first and second in the draft, playing against each other or alongside, it didn’t really matter, so long as he could feel that electricity forever. It had seemed so certain, for Kent, that he’d never really thought to tell Jack any of it.
You know what they say about the best laid plans.
*
His pills were blue.
That’s all Kent really remembers. Blue, just like Jack’s eyes, just like the sky outside their billet house in the Q, just like the jeans Kent had peeled off of Jack time after time.
It takes a long time to see blue without flinching.
Good thing the Aces play in black.
*
He plays, because it’s all he has left. He wins, because he doesn’t know any way to go that isn’t all out. He brags, he drinks, he dances, he pretends it doesn’t rip him apart every time the sportscasters compare him to Zimmermann -older, or younger, it doesn’t matter, both sting- and sometimes he tricks himself into thinking he’s okay.
But something in him breaks, and he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what prompts it, but he knows he has to see Jack, right now, has to try one last time to get him back from whatever spiral of self-loathing and anxiety that stole him away in the first place.
So he goes, and he tries, god does he try, and because he doesn’t know any other way, he goes hard. He doesn’t pull a single punch, he uses everything he has to try and get Jack to see, try to get him to understand, and…
Jack doesn’t care. Doesn’t give a shit about what they’d had - what Kent thought they had - doesn’t care how much Kent has been hurting, and doesn’t want anything to do with Kent now.
And Kent thought he was broken before, but now? Now he’s fucking shattered.
*
The game is a shitshow long before the Aces even touched down in Providence. From the moment the press questioned Kent, questioned his preparation, like Kent had ever been anything but an excellent captain, like somehow Zimmermann was supposed to fuck up his goddamn professionalism, it had been a mess.
Then they take the ice and Kent sees Jack and feels -
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
It’s like facing a fucking stranger, and somehow that hurts more than if he had felt that old synergy sparking up between them.
He doesn’t know this Jack, but fucking hell he doesn’t want to, he just wants the old Zimms back.
So he plays reckless, he plays full-throttle, harder than he should, harder than is safe or smart or even sane. He goes for the goal, because like hell is going to let Jack take hockey from him. Peace of mind, sure, confidence, naturally, but not fucking hockey.
Hockey belongs to Kent, and he wants to be damn sure Zimmermann knows it.
*
Victory was never supposed to hurt like this.
Winning is in Kent’s soul, in his blood, and it isn’t supposed to sting like salt in a raw wound. It isn’t supposed to grit under Kent’s nails and prickle under his skin. It’s not meant to make his stomach tie itself in knots so that he can’t even have a beer with the boys after the win.
It’s not supposed to taste like iron, like he’s grinning not around a drink but a mouthful of blood.
It isn’t supposed to clog his throat with unwanted tears.
He’s supposed to be happy, ecstatic, but he can’t help but feel he’s broken something precious.
But winners don’t cry unless it’s out of joy, and even then it’s meant to be hidden under rivers of sweat.
So he flashes a grin made of knives, and acts like it doesn’t cut his tongue every time he speaks. Acts like the blood isn’t choking him with each laugh. Pretends that each congratulations is actually a joy, and not just a reminder of what it feels like to shove a knife into a wound just to make sure it keeps bleeding.
Maybe one day it wouldn’t hurt so much. Maybe one day he could look at Zimmermann on or off the ice and see just another player, and not see all their history, all the pain, all the faults on both sides.
Maybe one day a victory would actually feel like a victory, if only because Jack had no part in it.