Chapter Text
They don’t talk about it. They’ve been playing on the same team for years, had run into each other in Juniors before that, and they’d never had a hard time talking about anything else.
In fact, Swoops would say, it was getting Kent to shut up that was the trick. And Kent knew it was true. He’d just throw words out, rambling on and on and hoping that somewhere in there his meaning would come across. But this one thing, this one, life-altering thing, was off limits. It was an unspoken rule, from the moment Jeff got traded to the Aces, that they would put a stop to whatever had been building between them for years.
Sometimes, they’d slip back into old habits. Kent would wake up from another nightmare about the bathroom in a Montreal hotel room, and without his conscious permission, he’d grab a pen and scribble something on his arm. Moments later, he’d feel the sting of a reply. But come morning, they’d both show up for practice with freshly scrubbed skin. And even in those late-night moments of weakness, they never mentioned who they were to each other. It could almost be a conversation with anyone, with a random stranger, but Kent knew it couldn’t really be with anyone.
You only got one soulmate. Kent was just unlucky enough to never really get his.
*
They kept it secret. As a teen, it had been popular to show your soulbond off, like it was the newest gadget your parents bought you. Kent had always been a little more cautious, knowing from an early age exactly where his soulmate would lead. By sixteen, he’d already been half in love with Swoops, the mystery guy who scribbled song lyrics and random reminders on his palms, and he’d known their bond wasn’t platonic.
So he’d played his cards close to his vest, especially once he’d hit the draft. Thankfully, hockey players could be a surprisingly private bunch, and discussions of soulmates were generally kept between the veteran players who’d known each other for years, rookies had bigger things to worry about.
But then his place on the team was cemented, he was a leader, and so it seemed a little odd that he never talked about his soulmate. Soon enough, teammates stopped asking, and it became just another quirk.
*
It actually took Kent an embarrassingly long time to realize Jeff was his soulmate. Their bond had its limits. Nothing personal, no specific information like names or locations. Kent had managed to convey, as a teenager, that he was in Canada, and doing something that meant he couldn’t be covered in ink constantly, but beyond that, any information about their lives that could lead to them finding each other just… didn’t go through. Alicia had told Kent once it was so soulmates didn’t find each other before they were ready. Once they met, Alicia told him, they’d be able to communicate anything. Kent had thought that was bullshit, but wisely kept the thought to himself.
Once Jeff joined the team, Kent had felt more settled, but he’d put it down to how well the Aces were doing in the preseason. He hadn’t even considered it was because his soulmate was with him, not until he scribbled a reminder to schedule extra practice with one of the rookies and saw Jeff check his hand.
Their eyes met across the locker room, and Kent saw his own panic mirrored in Jeff’s eyes. Kent was standing there, pen in hand, clearly having just written a note, and there was Jeff, with that same note on his own palm.
Jeff’s hand formed a fist, and Kent tried to look as calm and collected as possible as he put the pen back in his bag.
“Swoops, you wanna grab dinner?” he called over the locker room racket. They ate together all the time, Kent reminded himself. It wasn’t weird, the team even teased them about being joined at the hip. Jeff just nodded, and turned around to finish packing up his stuff. Once they were both done, they left the locker room and Kent tried to keep his walking speed normal.
They didn’t speak until they were both secure in Kent’s car.
“It’s you,” Jeff said quietly. His voice was full of wonder, full of joy and fear and all the things in between, and it was so raw and real that it hit Kent like a blow to the stomach.
“It’s you,” Kent echoed, and even to Kent it sounded like a death sentence.
*
They drove to dinner, ate and talked like normal, and that was where it really started. If Kent could do it over, redo that whole night, he’d take Jeff back to his apartment, and they’d talk, really talk, about how they wanted to handle things and what this meant for them. But instead, he’d driven them to a Thai place nearby, and by the time they got a table, Jeff had perked up and started acting like nothing had ever happened, and Kent… well, Kent couldn’t stand to see his soulmate sad, so he’d played along.
Maybe if they’d talked about it more, Kent could’ve been ready.
Maybe it they’d talked at all, Kent would’ve been prepared.
And maybe that was a lie, because nothing could’ve made it okay when Jeff sent him a text at three o’clock in the afternoon on an offseason Sunday with three simple words.
I’ve met someone.