Chapter Text
The night felt darker than usual, or maybe colder. Maybe it was that the bed was harder under his back or the light from his phone screen was too bright and too white and cast the rest of the room into an odd cool shadow. Kent knew none of that was true. He knew it was himself. The weight of change hanging oppressive around his shoulders, making his insides twist cold with panic. There had been a long time, back in the Q that he hadn’t quite understood what Zimms had called a panic attack, what he had whispered about in the darkness of their shared room on roadies. He wondered now if Zimms had felt that same coldness in the dark rooms that Kent did now. The hotels had always felt fun at the time. Maybe that was just him.
Hey. I’m being traded, thought you might want to know.
It wasn’t the worst text. Honestly, it probably could be read as pretty normal if it was meant for almost anyone else. As it was, the first text in almost six years, it seemed pretty lacking. What else was there to say? I’m sorry or maybe Hey, it’s been awhile? Somehow, both options and all their subsequent variations sounded worse. Like an excuse or like half-truths. Two sentences – maybe a sentence and a half if he was getting really picky, but hey, he wasn’t one of the guys who went to college – and it had taken him over an hour to get to where he was now. Thumb hovering over send and terror twisting tight in his chest. Over an hour and he wasn’t in much of a different place than he had been earlier, when he’d first opened the empty bottle of wine now resting on his bedside table and thought it would be a good idea to text Alexei Mashkov.
Send. He just had to hit send. It shouldn’t be this hard. With shaking fingers, he tapped the button and rolled out of bed, leaving his phone abandoned on the pillows. He needed a lot more to drink if he was going to spend the rest of the night waiting for the damn thing to buzz. Kent Parson was not someone who waited by his phone for a text back, that’s what he’d always thought, the kind of person he had built himself up to be. But tonight, he was. Tonight, he would open another bottle of wine, lay in bed, and silently pray whatever half remembered prayers he could dredge up that Alexei would text him back.
In the kitchen, away from his phone and the weird Schrodinger’s text that maybe would never come because God knew Alexei didn’t owe him a damn thing, it was easier to breathe. When he eased the cork from the neck of the bottle his hands weren’t shaking so badly and when he got his lips around the rim and he drank the wine down the nerves settled entirely. He probably had other things to do around the house, better things then going back to bed and holding his phone so tight his knuckles went white and ached. That was how he found himself, open bottle of wine in one hand and a cat toy in the other, trying to coax Kit out from her favorite hiding spot in the guest room turned cat playroom. Never let it be said Kent Parson didn’t love and spoil his princess the way she absolutely deserved.
“Come on Honey, come out. Daddy just wants to play with you. It’s good for you, exercise and stuff.” Nothing, not even a flick of a tail. “Kit, I’m serious. Aren’t you like, supposed to be nocturnal or something? It’s midnight. Come play with the damn toy. This is your favorite, I just replaced the stupid feathers.” Something about that seemed to do the trick. The large maine coon wound her way around the base of her cat tree. The one she never even actually climbed and just liked to hide behind. Taking one disdainful look at the bouncing toy and Kent’s carefully rehearsed encouraging face, she turned and abruptly strutted out of the room, down the hall and to her food bowl in the kitchen. Kent groaned. “You’re not going to convince me to go check my phone. That’s not fair. I sent the text, didn’t I? That’s adult or something.” He followed after her helplessly and slumped into a stool at the kitchen island. “Swoops would be proud.” Kent insisted. Swoops probably wouldn’t be that proud. He probably would have said something about making amends, or trying to have some kind of healthy relationship with his old friends. Maybe reaching out before he absolutely had to. Swoops didn’t seem to really understand that he was maybe the first and only healthy friendship he’d had maybe ever. And that was only because Jeff had essentially bullied him into friendship.
Watching Kit return to her room without even a sympathetic meow for her clearly suffering father, Kent sighed and took another long drink. He was going to have a headache in the morning but that didn’t really matter did it? Tomorrow he was going to be on a plane and not with the Aces in the T-Mobile Arena running practice. That part of his life was over. Likely, his captaincy was over for the rest of career. And that was fine. It had to be fine. He was trading all of that for something bigger, something better.
Probably.
He hoped.
Heading back to his bedroom because that was inevitable - Kent was more than halfway to drunk and waiting on a text from Alexei Mashkov, there was no way he was getting out of waiting anxiously in bed - he set the bottle in the same ring of demarcation that was already on his bedside table. Kent sank into the blankets and stared at the back of his phone. Pick it up. He could pick it up. It wasn’t like the phone was going to bite him, either there was a reply or not. Instead, he turned away, dug through the junk drawer he always planned to clean out and never did – wouldn’t have to worry about it now – and pulled out the remote to his Chrome box. Queer Eye. That was fun. Stupid. And there was no chance anyone from the team would be showing up at his door tonight. He could indulge a little.
It always baffled him, how Tan France managed to get his hair to do that. He had the most gorgeous hair. Probably no cowlicks either. Maybe he just wore a lot of product, Kent could wear a lot of product, hell, he already did what was a little more? Absently he reached for his phone to Google how Tan France styled his hair and froze.
2 New Messages
The shaking his hands returned full force as he typed in his passcode and swiped into his messaging app.
Me: Hey. I’m being traded, thought you might want to know.
Alyosha: Oh, Little Rat is texting again? I am thinking you forget all about me.
Why am I caring you are traded?
Kent felt sick. It wasn’t the worst that had been said to him, not really. And last time Alexei had even bothered to say anything to him at all he’d threatened bodily harm. Maybe it was a step in the right direction? Swoops definitely wouldn’t be proud of that, him making excuses for the guy. It wasn’t healthy or something. He deserved that anyway. Way back when, Alexei had been the one who reached out over and over and Kent had said nothing. Not even a goodbye
. . . .
They won. They won the fucking Stanley Cup. Kent wasn’t even nineteen and he lifted the cup, kissed it. His name was on it, or was going to be on it. Was currently being put on it? He wasn’t entirely sure when that was supposed to happen but it was going to happen. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered because Kent was drunk and happy and a Stanley Cup winner.
“We did it! We fucking did, Alyosha!” Laughing, he reached for his roommate’s drink, snatched it from his hand and downed the whole thing. Kent gagged and turned to stare at the massive Russian defenseman. “What the actual fuck dude. That’s just straight vodka. And nothing.”
“Da, am Russian. Stories are true, Little Kenya.” Alexei grinned and patted Kent’s back hard as he coughed.
Kent glared at him. “Stop laughing, asshole. Why would you even want to drink that. It doesn’t even taste good. Like, at least put some juice or soda water in it or something. You should enjoy what you’re drinking. Otherwise what’s the point?” It was an old argument in their apartment. Alexei insisted in buying the good vodka and when Kent mixed it with anything he managed to look like Kent had kicked his puppy. With Alexei still laughing, Kent grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the bar. “Come on. I’m getting you an actual drink and then we’re dancing.”
The rest of the night went a little fuzzy from then on. There were drinks with umbrellas and the taste of sugar and fruit on his lips. Jokes from some of the older guys about his girly drinks. How he should drink like a man. Usually it made him bristle. It always had in the Q. Tonight he didn’t care. Tonight all he cared about was the drink in his hand, how heavy the cup had been when he lifted it for his lap around the rink and the feeling of Alexei against him, surprisingly good at moving his big body, not at all like Jack had been, all awkward bouncing and two left feet.
Alexei was good, warm, and fluid as he pressed in closer than any of the other teammates he had convinced to dance earlier in the night. He rolled his hips against Kent, rested his hands on his waist and it made Kent feel small in the best way.
“We are getting out of here now?”
And it was all Kent could do to nod and whisper: “God yes.”
Sloppy and still high off of their win and the unbelievable sound of the final buzzer, they barely made it into the back of the cab before their lips were on each other. It was stupid. They were drunk. They were in public. At least they made it into the apartment and managed to lock the door behind themselves before they started peeling off their game day suits.
The next morning with heads pounding they met with management to talk about the off-season. Kent was given a training schedule to follow and a tip that he was probably going to end up with the C now that Barney was retiring. Alexei didn’t mention what he was given.
The morning after that Kent woke up to moving boxes. He didn’t say anything, he had another meeting with management.
And the morning after that he woke up to an empty apartment and a text.
Alyosha: Is okay Kenya. We are staying in touch. Big NHL star now, good money for plane across country, yes?
Kent never answered
. . . .
They had been close, before the trade. Kent wished he didn’t know exactly when it had started making him feel like throwing up when Alexei’s name flashed across his screen. There had been a few months he’d thought about deleting his number all together. But every time he got close he could never go through with it. The What If’s were too overwhelming. What if Alexei had never been traded? What if Kent had been braver? What if something had happened before that night? What if nothing had happened at all?
It wasn’t like that was the first time they’d felt that kind of pull toward each other. Alexei had always been a physical person, something about Western cultures being touch adverse. That was what Kent had gathered from his broken English in the early days. That, and Kent imagined it was easier to feel close to someone by touching them when half the time Alexei couldn’t communicate what he wanted to. Kent couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been, how lonely.
He stared down at his screen, at that name.
Me: I’m a Falconer.