Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Listen.” Kent suppresses a sigh, glances over at where Presty is getting up in Butcher’s face over some girl who’s long since vanished from the VIP lounge. “I’m gonna go grab a smoke.”

Dickers looks up from his half-sulk, surprised. “Smoke? Since when?”

“It’s cheat day as of—” Kent flicks his watch out from under his cuff “—half an hour ago. Plus it’s practically New Year’s. Why not break a few rules before the resolutions kick in, huh?”

“Mac’ll kick your ass, man.”

“Hey, what the Doc doesn’t know…”

Kent slips out of the lounge with a wave, giving Presty and Butcher a wide berth —even though they’re hugging now, because of course they are— as he steps past the velvet rope. He lets himself get swallowed up by the throbbing bass, the smell of sweat and spilled beer, and the rolling wave of bodies, more or less moving in time to the music.

He’s not in the mood for it tonight. Hasn’t been in the mood for it for a while, and is frankly pretty fucking sick of being not in the mood for it.

Kent finds himself pretty boring, lately. And he hates being bored.

Past the expressionless nod of Kurt the Bouncer and the heavy tomb-like door to the club, the parking lot feels like the arctic and smells like a field of flowers. Metropolis bills itself as a pretty high-end ‘exclusive’ sort of place (probably the only thing they could do to lure the money this far off the Strip) and tonight is invite-only, so there’s no line of shivering hopefuls outside the door waiting to get in.

The quiet falls around him as heavily as the music had inside.There’s no one to see as Kent lets out a long breath that he wasn’t even aware he was holding.

There’s no gratifying puff of condensation that goes with it, though, because it’s Las Vegas and fucking 55 degrees out. Still, Kent hunches his shoulders a little, wishing he’d brought his jacket out with him. Kent at fifteen, hurling himself around Poughkeepsie winters in sometimes little more than a sweater and a scarf, would be disgusted with how soft he’s gotten just ten years later.

Ten fucking years.

Kent has a pack of American Spirits in the Jag, still mostly full and crumpled up in the glove box. But he’s going to head back inside in a bit, and he doesn’t want to be that guy who gets the valet to bring his car up only to drive it right back.

It’s fine, anyway. He has a backup plan.

“Lou, Jake, Murphy,” he says, striding casually down to the curb, which is the closest the paps can legally get to the club. “Guys having a good night?”

“Probably will in about two hours, if the guest list is anything to go by,” Lou says with an easy smile. “How about yourself, Parson? You guys had a good game tonight, I thought you’d all be in bed.”

“Gotta celebrate, man,” Kent says. “Bad luck not to. You know how hockey players are about luck.”

They probably don’t –  Las Vegas as a whole still isn’t used to the supremacy of their hockey team – but they know enough to keep an eye on the Aces. The team’s an out-and-about bunch of guys, for the most part. And that translates to some highly entertaining tabloid front-page shots. Which is impressive, given that it’s Vegas.

Kent seems to hover somewhere in an in-between zone as far as the paparazzi goes. They like him because he’s famous, he’s hot, and he’s usually out there with his team when they’re getting their most scandalous high-living done. But they don’t chase him around because he doesn’t run from them, he never loses his cool around them, and he never seems to do anything that’s particularly worthy of their attention. Beyond being, you know, famous and hot.

Maybe he’s boring. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t present much of a challenge.  

“Can I get a smoke off of one of you guys?”

“And that’s how you celebrate?” Murph comments, pulling out a lighter and a pack of Marlboros and tapping out two for Parse.

“Every man’s got to have his vices,” Kent puts the cigarette between his teeth and grins around it. His eyes flutter shut as he lights it, dragging deep and filling his lungs. He exhales slowly, opens his eyes to see Jake watching him a little too close. Dark hair, blue eyes – Kent looks away.

Murph raises his camera with an ‘I’ve got to, man,’ apologetic kind of smile, which is hilarious enough that Kent’s own grin is at least half genuine. He doesn’t bother to drop the cigarette out of frame, and looks right into the camera.

He leaves them laughing (“Taylor? She’s a great girl, but I mostly just hang out with her so I can party with her cats”) and is rewarded by the gift of Murphy’s lighter: a cheap red Bic. “I’ve got a ton of them in the car,” Murph says.

Kent heads back up towards the club, finding himself a dark patch of wall out of the way of the door. He takes another drag, palm open over his mouth and cigarette pressed between his middle and ring finger.

This isn’t a vice, really. Certainly not one that Mac should give him any shit over, considering the vices she pretends not to see on the regular. And besides, it’s not like it happens often. Cheat day, game win, yadda yadda, yes, that was all bullshit. But it’s still not something that he does, really.

Kent doesn’t have a smoking habit. What he has is a fucking tell.

Or, had a fucking tell. It’s been more under control for a while. But hey, slips happen. And heading out for a smoke is still the easiest way to get space and clear his head. If he happens to really need it.

He exhales. It might not be a real winter, he might not be up in Poughkeepsie or Montreal or fucking Boston. But this time he’s got his plume of smoke. He watches it rise and dissipate above his head, and feels a little less cold.

He'd scowled over the cost of cigarettes on the way out of Boston. Which hey, dick move, multi-millionaire Kent Parson.

But it’d been a long time since he’d needed a smoke, and a longer time since he’d had to buy a pack for himself. Kent threw around his money like it was nothing (it pretty much was), but the weirdest things still sometimes struck him as Too Expensive. Starbucks. Undershirts. And cigarettes, apparently.

Old habits.

But he bought a pack anyway, of course. And cracked the window of the rental he might or might not have been allowed to smoke in, roaring down the Southeast Expressway and thinking of nothing at all.

Maybe it was because it had been a while. Maybe it was because he’d gone for an unfamiliar brand, just because it was among the cheapest. Or maybe it was because he wasn’t in that falling-apart hockey frat shithole, in Jack’s infuriatingly normal-looking room, with Jack Zimmermann standing in front of him and clouding everything up the way he always did.

Whatever the reason, the cigarette just wasn’t burning everything out the way it should.

Because he had been in that falling-apart frat shithole. Because he had put his arm around that cute blond kid Jack had been curled towards like the guy was some kind of magnet, and he had smiled for a picture. And because Kent had snuck up to Jack’s room, remembering which door was his even a year later.

And yeah, he had opened that door and Jack hadn’t kicked him out right off the bat, and then everything that happened had… well, happened.

It was going to take more than one cigarette to wind him back down, after all of that.

Once upon a time, there had been two kids named Jack and Kent who, in each other, had found the peace they thought could only be theirs on the ice. And when the ground had started to give way under them, Parse had glided on forward, sure that the friction was temporary. It hadn’t been.

Now with Jack, it felt like Kent’s first concussion. When he could only sit still and watch the motion shuddering around him and hope that soon, that very soon, the ringing in his ears would stop.

But, whatever. He stopped being fucked up about that half an hour after putting that campus in his rearview mirror. He and Jack were what they were, and he’d had years to get okay with how not okay he was with that.

No, what was fucking him up after, driving him over to a gas station and up to the cigarette counter, was that whole stupid party. That stupid house. And Jack’s room, specifically. That— Kent vaguely aimed his next exhale out the window, getting most of it whipped back in his face by the wind— was what really got under his skin.

It was such a student’s room, was the thing. When they were in the Q, Jack hadn’t gone in for decorating much. Not that you could exactly go nuts with knocking holes in the wall, since as welcoming as your billet family was it still wasn’t your room. But what personal touches Jack had allowed had been so typical Jack: hockey shit, hockey shit, more hockey shit. A framed picture of his family, and one of his dad on the ice in his Penguins sweater. Everything controlled, everything neat. Any of the messy or weird shit was tucked away, pushed under the bed in bags that Zimms never would get around to unpacking.

At Samwell, it was all out there. Books open on his desk, an assortment of pictures and posters all over the wall, clothes overflowing from the lopsided hamper, post-it notes and random flyers and DVDs spread over the place. Jack had – incredibly enough – allowed himself to get a little messy.

But even given that, Kent had kept it together. He’d seen Jack’s room before, after all, and it wasn’t like it was that different from last year (except that it was, and the blond guy wasn't living there last year, and it was different). So he’d made his way downstairs again, giving them all the high fives and pictures and smiles that they wanted, and that had taken enough focus to keep him from thinking about Jack’s fists in the collar of his shirt, his breath in Kent’s face.

Kenny.

While posing for another picture, Kent’s gaze had slid involuntarily to the side just in time to catch two dudes in Samwell Soccer hoodies share a quick, chaste kiss before one of them headed in to the kitchen. Kent’s eyes tracked right past the moment, already moving around the room again. Not that he really saw any of it, after that.

Nothing to get upset over. It’s nothing he didn’t already know. No reason he shouldn’t have expected to see it at a hockey party.

Samwell University. Fucking full of gays, apparently, like a non-stop Pride parade every goddamn day. Throw Samwell on Google, and you get link after link to Top Five rankings, kudos, awards, the whole nine.

If you’re going to college, if that’s the path your life is taking, and you have any kind of same-sex interest, well. It would have to make most guys’ lists. College is the time of life to enjoy it, right? That’s the time of life when you can experiment, really figure yourself out, bust out of your shell in safety and anonymity, right?

So Kent had heard, anyway.

“I’m gonna grab a smoke,” he said to the stranger with his arm over his shoulders, politely declined a few offers of lights from a bunch of other strangers, and pushed past them all to finally get out the front door and away from that fucking house.

In the car, throat a little less tight and head a little more clear, Kent had already made a dent in that shitty pack. His mouth tasted like garbage, and the nicotine was making his hands twitch on the wheel.

Fuck college, anyway. He’d never wanted to go. He’d known he would never go, practically from when he was thirteen years old.

There were the things that he wanted, and the things that he would have to give up in order to get them. It was a black-and-white equation, and college and guys were the two variables that he thought wouldn’t be an issue. An issue, sure (though maybe neither had seemed so critical when he was thirteen). But not a big issue. Not if he managed to get all the way to where he wanted to be.

Jack had chosen hockey over college too. And Jack had chosen hockey over that part of himself, the one that had (Kent learned later) locked on to Kent and said ‘yes’ the minute Kent took off his helmet in that first practice.

Guess there was no way to have all three. For a while, they’d had hockey and each other, and hadn’t given a shit that the college touring was never going to apply to them. Then Zimms lost the game, and got himself a ticket to a shiny twenty-something college experience, surrounded by gay exploration and enthusiasm. Parse got the NHL, the life that one 25-year-old in a million got to experience, and had not only no Jack but no one else either.

And sure, since his thoughts were leading that way, why not go all the way there? It had been a long time. It had been a long fucking time. Unless you were counting what happened on dance floors or in bar bathrooms, which Kent generally didn’t.

It got the point across and stopped people talking, at least. And anything more from those girls, or the ones his teammates tried to set him up with, or the ones waiting around at their public practices, wasn’t exactly going to happen for Kent. Though it certainly could, if he really made the effort.  

But Kent had a pretty damn good memory when it came to Jack. And there was that one fight close to the end about “beards,” and the benefits of said ladies when it came to explaining the hickeys Jack was leaving all over Kent’s chest to their teammates. It had just been some dumb shit Kent was saying because he was horny and wasted, but it had kind of got out of hand. Jack was all defensive about these completely hypothetical women and how wrong that would be, and Parse got pissed and snapped that since Jack had the option that Kent didn’t, what was he sticking around for? That Jack didn’t understand what it was like, and of course Jack always got to have it all and… well. It hadn’t been a great night.

Anyway, every time Kent had had the option to take a girl home, he got a horrendously picture-perfect image of Jack underneath him, his hands still on the small of Kent’s back. Eyes very blue and so terribly, perfectly sincere as he’d said “You can’t use someone like that, Kenny.”

So, there you go. Fuck Jack Zimmermann, but there you go.

And by all accounts Jack was going to get hockey back (even if it was with the Falconers, Jesus, Kent just didn’t get that at all). And there was his teammate, who had looked up at Jack from the hallway floor with the whole world in his eyes.

If it was possible to have it all, it just about figured that it’d really only be possible for Jack.

Kent threw the rest of his cigarette out of the car window, though it was only about halfway smoked. After a second’s thought, he fumbled for the rest of the pack and tossed it out too.

He could buy another pack at the next station, if he wanted to. He could buy one at every fucking gas station from here to the hotel, if he wanted to.

He had the money for it. And he’d earned every million of it.

The most embarrassing thing about having a stupid, obvious gay-panic tell was that Kent wasn’t even the first one to realize that he had it.

Six months into juniors, Jack had put it all together. Which was downright impressive, given that it was all any of them could do to get from one day to the next through their grueling intro to the league. Kent barely had the presence of mind to remember his teammates’ faces, let alone their names.

He’d remembered Jack’s though, of course. Right from the start.

They were in that sweet spot, after getting more comfortable with the guys but before the really wild times started. Back when the parties were still mostly people he knew and there was nothing on offer except for beer and maybe a little weed.

Still, no matter the size of the party or who was there or what they were off their faces on, guys were always going to talk shit.

Kent had escaped out to the porch of Shoobey’s billet house for a smoke, meditatively puffing his way through his cigarette and pointedly not thinking about anything in particular. And had unfortunately just taken a deep breath in when Jack said, “You don’t do that too often,” from the shadows behind him.

“Sorry,” Jack said, grinning sheepishly at Kent and stepping closer, as Kent bent over and tried to get his coughing under control.

“Jesus—“ Kent wheezed, and took the Solo cup Jack was handing to him which was —oh wow— at least four parts vodka, shit. “You can’t just ghost up at people like that, come on.”

“Said I was sorry,” Jack said easily. “You know that’s bad for you.”

Jack Zimmermann, on his way to getting shitfaced and still able to deliver an anti-smoking PSA. Typical.

“It’s not like, a thing,” Kent said, defiantly taking another drag. “I don’t do it that often.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “I’ve only ever seen you do it after one of the guys gets on your case about girls.”

Kent didn’t choke on the smoke that time. Small victories. He let it out in an even stream, eyes on Jack’s face.

He hadn’t realized Jack had been in the room for that conversation, actually. He was pretty sure that Steiner was full of shit and absolutely had not had a foursome ever, let alone twice, but he had been able to laugh along with everyone else about it. Until Steiner had got red in the face and started interrogating him.

“Well, how many chicks you fucked, huh Parse? How many? Give me a number, man, come on.”

Kent hadn’t thought about it, about getting up for a smoke when he’d had about enough of that. Maybe he had done it before. Maybe he’d done it too many times before. Maybe everyone already knew. Maybe they were in there right now, talking about it, and maybe word would get out to the coaches and his agent and—

“Yeah?” was all Parse said to Jack, which was something of a fucking miracle given the full-blown freakout that was happening behind his rapidly vanishing smokescreen.

“Yeah,” Jack said, and stepped closer.

He reached for Kent’s hand, eyes on the cigarette instead of Kent’s face. Carefully and slowly, like he was conducting a medical procedure or some shit, he took Kent’s wrist and turned his hand palm-up. With the other hand, he carefully took the cigarette from between Kent’s middle and ring fingers.

Kent made no attempt to stop him. The thought didn’t even occur to him. If he was thinking anything, it was about how interesting a guy’s fingers could be when all they were doing was wrapping around the bones of your wrist.

With his hand still a gentle pressure over Kent’s pulse, Jack brought the cigarette up to his own mouth and took a deep drag. That was when he looked at Kent, eyes bright and one corner of his mouth coming up in a challenging smirk.

Must’ve been something he’s done before, Kent had thought hazily, I coughed like a bitch my first time.

Kent exhaled at the same time Jack did, eyes on Jack’s lips. Before the smoke between them had fully dissipated, Jack was tucking the cigarette back in Kent’s hand, releasing his wrist, smiling, and turning away.

Parse watched him go back inside, shock and fear and excitement having one hell of a fight deep in his gut.

Nothing happened, and was not happening in a very pointed way, for another few weeks.

“Nothing happening” also seemed to include a whole lot more lingering looks in the locker room and casual contact on and off the ice But Kent honestly wasn’t sure if that was any different from how they’d been before, or if he was just letting himself notice what had always been there.

Anyway, the topic of girlfriends had come up at another party out in a friend-of-a-friend’s cabin by the lake, and Junior had just wanted some advice. But wasn’t letting it go, no matter how casually Kent had shrugged off every question.

Kent headed out and lit the cigarette with steady hands. He put his back to the cabin. If he didn’t look, he wouldn’t be disappointed if nothing happened.

But he heard a sound behind him, turned, saw Jack standing there. Hands in his pockets, hair hanging in his eyes. Not drunk yet, but loose, easy, ready. Perfect.

Kent threw the cigarette to the ground and went to him before he’d had time to breathe.

It’s winter in Vegas, they just played a fucking awesome game against the Islanders, New Year’s Eve is a week away, and tomorrow’s a cheat day full of the blissful promise of a morning in and all the pizza they can eat.

Needless to say, everyone’s getting a little sloppy. Most of all Presty, who’s getting downright embarrassing over some chick who is, it must be said, much more interested in Butcher.

Kent looks around the VIP lounge of Metropolis, which is half Aces guys and half celebrities he only vaguely recognizes, and registers a little too late that Dickers is talking to him.

“Sorry man, what was that?”

Dickers is a rookie, but a fucking promising one. He hasn’t played much with Kent outside of practice yet, but he’s attached himself to Parson with puppy-dog enthusiasm. Which is just surreal when the kid has a good three inches on Kent, is easily twice as wide, and has more of a beard than Parse could ever hope to grow.

It gets more surreal, now Kent knows that booze makes Dickers maudlin and in need of a hug.

Dickers sighs. “It’s not a big deal, Parser. But you know you can tell me this stuff, right? I feel like I can tell you this stuff about me and Kelsey. I don’t want you to think that you can’t trust me the same way.”

Kent’s drink is empty, but he toys with the idea of faking a sip anyway. “If I was seeing anyone seriously, you’d know, Dickers. These girls –” he waves a hand, hopefully conveying the vast array of women who he has absolutely had so much sex with “—I just don’t talk about them because there’s not a ton to talk about.”

“And,” he adds, Jack’s blue eyes in his mind again, only for about the hundredth time tonight, “it’s pretty shitty, the way guys talk about who they’ve been with. You know?”

Dickers snorts, apparently not having heard that last part. “Come on, Parse. We all know you broke curfew in Boston to see someone.”

Kent’s focus snaps to Dickers, even as Presty gets to his feet and starts yelling over the electronica grinding out over the dance floor.

“What?”

“You weren’t in your room that night. One of the guys saw your car wasn’t downstairs, Hap heard you coming in late, you know,” Dickers says, at least having the grace to look embarrassed at the Aces grapevine of snoops. “Plus, you were a little, uh, off the next day.”

“I wasn’t— right, yeah, I did break curfew, but it wasn’t like that.”

“That’s just what I mean,” Dickers says, wounded. “You break curfew, you go driving off late at night and you’re in a funk about it for weeks after because you miss her – that’s not casual, dude!”

Parson is maybe a little too buzzed to control himself, so he laughs. Too loud, and too rough, but Dickers doesn’t know him well enough to take it as anything other than encouragement. Unfortunately.

“Come on, man, I’m just curious. What’s her name? What’s she like? Is she a student?”

“It’s nothing,” Parse says firmly, still smiling a little. “Maybe I tried, but— it’s nothing.”

“Oh,” Dickers says, deflating. “Sure. Right.”

Kent feels a familiar pit opening up in his chest, and looks around the lounge again.

Seems like there’s a lot of women in here, suddenly. And it’s all in his head, he knows it is, but it seems like a lot of them keep glancing at him. Smiling, laughing, moving to the music, weaving around his teammates— a hand on a chest here, a casual touch on the cheek there. They’re so incredibly beautiful, all of them, and all of them looking at him.

It’s all in his head. Or. It’s probably all in his head.

But he looks past them, and that’s something he’s given up trying to pretend is just in his head. He’s always looking past them, looking for dark hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders and strong hands that would fit perfectly in the small of his back.

And he’d had that. He’d had that just weeks ago, when being pressed up against Jack’s piece of crap desk at his piece of crap college had lit Parse up more than years of fumbling around on dance floors, faking his way through everything he just didn’t feel.

Jack’s mouth on his neck, his hands in Jack’s hair. If that’s the last of it he ever gets, he can die a happy man.

If that’s the last of it he ever gets, he’s going to fucking lose his mind.

Kent suppresses a sigh, glances over at where Presty is getting up in Butcher’s face.

“Listen, I’m gonna go grab a smoke.”