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When Matthew and Leon broke up, it was amicable.
We just wanted different things, and I was moving to Florida, it was just time .
He must have gone through the script a million times by the time he does get to Florida. It wasn’t even technically a relationship. They never had the exclusive talk, never defined the relationship, never even told people. It’s just, they never hid it or denied it.
Naturally, their families and teams eventually found out. Some players from other teams might have picked up on it, but no one ever approached Matty about it, so he can’t be too sure.
It would’ve never worked out, anyway. Leon didn’t want to come out and Matty didn’t want to be kept a secret. Sure, they were compatible in bed, as well as in most decisions, and sure Matty might’ve been deeply in love with Leon. All that didn’t matter to Matty if Leon spent most of the time lecturing him for hours any time they were seen together. It had only happened a handful of times, but it was enough to get Matty self conscious, and thinking Leon was just ashamed of him.
So he missed Leon the moment he got on a flight to Florida. Missed him the moment he got to his new apartment. Misses him even months later, when he’s settled into the new apartment and the new team. Sure he still yearns to call Leon, to see him one more time, but he’s been heartbroken before, he can survive another one. So What? He’ll get over it.
What he won’t get over, is Leon’s new years post.
Leondraisaitl : Happy New Year’s Day! The start of a new year is a lot like the start of each season. You take time to think about what you want to change, what your goals will be, and how you can be better overall compared to the past year. This year, I started to think about who I want to be in five years, and what I can do this year to get there. In five years, I want to be someone who loves and accepts everyone, especially myself. I’m gay. I’ve come to terms that it means I will be scrutinized even more by the media. It means other players will hate me for no reason other than I make them uncomfortable. It means having more setbacks than I would’ve, had I not come out. But it also means I would be free. Free to date, free to love, and free to just live my life without overthinking every single move I make. If this post also means other players who are coming up from Juniors, or even players already in the NHL, don’t have to feel like I did these last couple of years, then I’m happy. I’m thankful for those who came before me, I’m aware I’m not the first professional sports player to come out, not even in the hockey world, I’m grateful they paved the way for me and others. To my family, thank you for giving me the strength and love needed to get here. To the Oilers organization who backed me up when I mentioned coming out, thank you for our years together, I hope for many more. Finally, thank you to Connor for being a wonderful captain and amazing friend. Love you bud.
What the fuck .
Matty barely finishes reading the post before the phonecalls come in. He only answers Brady, who’s home with Taryn and the parents for the holidays.Matty’s still in Florida, getting ready to play a game the next day. He wishes now he could’ve had New Years off, at least to process this.
“How are you feeling?” Brady asks. Matty hears Taryn in the background saying what a dumb question , but he can’t bring himself to laugh.
There’s a long pause where Matty tries to tell himself it would be stupid of him to cry right now. He’s happy Leon came out, honestly. That’s good for him. Matty wouldn’t be brave enough to come out on a post. His plan’s always been more, keep showing up to awards with a man on his arm, maybe kiss in public enough times so people pick up on it. He’s happy for Leon. It’s just-
“What does it mean that he wouldn’t come out for me, when I was so sure we were both so in love with each other, but he comes out now?”
Taryn makes a noise, sounds like she’s about to jump in but Brady shushes her.
“Like,” Matty continues, “it was such a big deal to him, that he wouldn’t even consider it, but I guess I wasn’t important enough for him to consider it. Now, now he’s out and he could date anyone, and I’m happy for him, but all I keep thinking is, does that mean he didn’t love me ?”
Taryn scoffs, “Matty, if he told you he loved you, you can’t take that away. His coming out isn’t about you. I know it sounds mean, I know you don’t want to hear that right now but you have to accept it now, before you spiral. His coming out isn’t about you. You can’t get upset about that. Get upset about everything else, like how he hasn’t called you, how he let you jump on that plane to Florida without saying goodbye, how-”
Brady makes a noise in the back before coming to the phone. “Alright! Your pep talk sucks, you’ve lost phone privilages. Matty, as much as it pains me and you know it does. Taryn is right. You can’t let this upset you, because it’s about him, not about you.”
Matty makes a noise, and changes the topic, pretends he’s not actually upset anymore. He understands what his siblings are saying, but he’s still upset. He still, however, likes Leon’s post but then uninstalls his Instagram. He can be supportive without seeing Leon make a post about his new boyfriend, whoever it is that Leon liked enough to come out to the whole world.
He started this season motivated. Didn’t have time to be sad, and didn’t even think to be sad because he knew Leon would never come out, it would never be a long term relationship. Now though, now he’s just thinking maybe it meant something more to him than it did to Leon.
He starts the new year grieving the relationship he never even knew he could actually have.
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The Florida Panthers social media team decides to have a Valentine’s campaign where they bring in the player’s significant others to record some Newly Wed style videos. Matthew avoids the rink in the weeks they film them, and avoids the many phonecalls the social media team make. They know he’s single, of course, but they want to make funny singles videos with some of the players alongside the cutesy ones. He’s just not in the mood to be reminded he’s single, thank you very much.
The Edmonton Oilers social media team, on the other hand, have taken to promoting You Can Play for Valentine’s, by making videos of Leon going on blind dates with men picked at random from the list of season ticket holders. Matty is having fun watching these on tiktok he swears. It’s not like every time Leon smiles at someone else his heart breaks into a million little pieces. It’s not. He’s enjoying these videos, he loves these videos.
He doesn't make it past the third Tiktok about it before blocking the official Oilers Tiktok.
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By March, Matty is ready to be past the heartbreak. He’s barely eating, getting yelled at by the team’s nutritionists, crying himself to sleep every night, and waking up to thoughts like, I thought we loved each other , and Why was I not enough? , and Why hasn’t he reached out?
Taryn suggests he get on dating apps. Brady says to go to a bar and pick someone up. His mom says to take the time to go to a therapist and process the grief, and his dad mentions this is for the best.
If you like both, why don’t you choose a nice girl. Don’t ruin your career, son .
It’s a great month, March. At least for his stats. He’s eating, sleeping, and living hockey, it’s the only thing in his life right now. He’s thankful the only two games they had against the Oilers was before the new years, when he still told himself the breakup wasn’t his fault, when he actually bought the amicable breakup line he told everyone.
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April straight up sucks. Matty knows he shouldn’t think it can’t get worse than this because then it invites the universe to make it worse, but he goes into April thinking that. Which means he gets injured and they don’t make it to the playoffs. Which means all the work he put in these last couple of months meant nothing, just like the work he put into the relationship with Leon was for nothing.
Funny how the universe really loves a parallel.
He’s quick to book a flight home to St Louis right after the locker room clean out. Brady’s at the playoffs, so his parents and Taryn are with him, but they understand Matty plans on spending the rest of April locked in his home that’s too big for him, avoiding all things hockey, and wallowing into ice cream, or maybe alcohol. Maybe both.
He catches up on TV shows he missed this season, and watches movies his team mates made fun of him for not watching, but he’s honestly still bored out of his mind, now that he has all of this unlimited time available to him.
He redownloads Instagram.
It’s fine, it’s good. Matty hasn’t seen all the posts his family and friends have made, has only caught glimpses from teammates’ phones or from screenshots Taryn sends him. It’ll kill some hours at least.
If nothing else, Matty has self control. No one else thinks he does but it comes with being an oldest sibling, with having an A on his uniform, and being a role model to up and coming hockey players everywhere. It’s not like he’s going to jump to looking at Leon’s account right after downloading the app. He’s got integrity. He’s got self control.
He’s got- Leon’s account pulled up already.
There’s not many posts on his account after New Year’s. One posted January 2nd thanking everyone for their support. Another posted mid January, that’s just a picture with his family, thanking them for the surprise visit. A picture posted the first week of February promoting the Oilers’ You Can Play Valentine’s blind date videos. Another post made at the end of February, just a highlight video of his hatty. There’s nothing on March, and then a post in April excited to be in the playoffs.
Something about seeing someone’s life through social media post, when you’ve tasted every inch of their body, and heard all their late night thoughts and early morning whispers. Something about having to see the highlights from Leon’s life through Instagram when he used to be the first to know anything and everything.
Whatever, that’s just the alcohol talking. He’s so over Leon.
Except- well, there’s almost no pictures of Leon to on his instagram for Matty to drool over, so he should maybe check his tagged pictures, just to get the whole idea of what Leon has been up to lately.
Scrolling past the fans tagging Leon on their merch, and the spam accounts, as well as the fan boys tagging him on their thoughts of his game, there in between all the garbage, he finds gold. A Leon Draisaitl Updates Account. He’s too excited to stay on the couch, instead closes down his house, turns off all the lights, and settles into bed, scrolling through the account all the way back to New Years.
LDraiUpdates. Bless the organized fan girls , Matty thinks.
He swipes all the way down to New Years, and there’s posts of teammates or friend’s that tagged Leon on their stories or post, congratulating him on coming out. He checks every single picture on each carrosel posts, and reads all the captions. He only scans the comments a bit until he sees someone say, Matty’s silence on this is so loud. They were friendly last season, even seen hanging out, and he can’t show his support to his friend?! I told y’all he wasn’t as good a guy as y’all said.
Matty frowns but keeps scrolling, ignoring the comments now. After the first couple of weeks in January, the content turns mostly to pictures or videos Leon posted on his Instagram stories. It starts mostly with some more thank you posts to people or companies who have showed their support in different ways, like the You Can Play organization for opening seasonal hockey camps in Edmonton under Leon’s name.
Over the weeks, it turns to just pictures without text or captions, sometimes with music, sometimes only the pictures. Of a building downtown. Of a chipped door on the Calgary Saddledome. Of his bedside table with a glass of water on it. Multiple sky pictures with different songs from Goo Goo Dolls, or Mumford and Sons, or even one Frank Sinatra.
With every scroll, he feels his skin buzzing. This can’t- he’s overthinking it isn’t he? All of these posts make sense to everyone else, it’s not just in reference to the time Matty and Leon spent together. It’s got to be a trend or something. Matty checks the comments once more.
29.19.88 : Leon in his photographer era
Oilers14739805 : more like horrible photographer era
29.19.88 : omg that’s so mean!
Hockey44 : what do these even mean?
chamie89 : he’s in his vague era
emily.loves.u : omg go leon give us nothing
000.weirdo.0000 : is anyone else reading into these like tswift easter eggs?
emily.loves.u : @ 000.weirdo.000 like you think this means 1989 is next?
chamie89 : @ emily.loves.u shfkasjdhsdjf Leon in his tswift easter egg era
Matty… doesn’t understand the comments but he understands that no one understands.
That is.
Matty understands these posts aren’t for everyone to understand. He’s reluctant to think so, but it seems, maybe, that these Instagram stories are for him and him only.
Or for someone else he’s dating right now, that he chose over me , his devil side interjects.
Except there’s no way someone else knows the importance of the chipped door on the Saddledome, they can’t , that was fixed before Matty even left Calgary.
He still thinks about me.
It echoes in his mind as he falls asleep, when he wakes up, when he cleans the house, when he makes breakfast, when he looks up the Oilers scores, when he calls Taryn to tell her what he found.
She’s not happy about it, mostly unhappy he didn’t go on her account and liked all the posts he missed, but somewhat about the fact that he’s thinking maybe there’s something there. Maybe, if he calls Leon, maybe they can get back together.
Maybe-
“Maybe it’s how he processes the break up to move on with his life, and he’s now dating someone else.” Taryn tells him. Rather rudely, he thinks.
“Maybe he wants you to text him so he can break up with you again” Brady texts him later.
“Maybe he just wants to talk to you to get closure” his mom tells him.
“Maybe you should stop spending time on social media and focus on the next season.”
That’s his dad, of course, and maybe for once, his dad has a point.
So he’s got his summer planned, training and vacations on his calendar. He’s already gone through the rest of the year in his mind, and knows everything about it, and he’s ready. Nothing can surprise him.
Nothing except the door bell ringing when he knows for sure his family is still in Ottawa with Brady.
Maybe it’s Rob, or maybe it’s Barkov, or maybe it’s-
Leon. At his front door, holding a suitcase close to his feet.
Huh.
In theory he knew the Oilers were just knocked out of the playoffs, but it never registered that it might mean Leon would jump on a plane just to come see him.
There’s a second where Matty freaks out, thinking how he pictured wearing a suit when they saw each other next, one tailored to show Leon just what he’s missing, not these workout shorts and an old band tshirt.
The doorbell rings again and Matty sighs and opens the door.
Leon pushes past him towards the living room, pausing at the back of a sofa, shoving his suitcase out of the way, in a corner of the room.
“So I come out and all you do is like the post? You couldn’t even text me or call me?” Leon’s voice gets louder towards the end.
Matty frowns, walking towards him. “You broke up with me, why would I be the one to call you ?”
This is not what he meant to say but Leon always brings the fight out of him.
Leon shakes his head in disbelief. “What do you mean I broke up with you? It was amicable!”
“Fuck off,” Matty scoffs, “that’s not the truth and you know it.”
“All I know is you got traded to Florida and you said we should break up.”
They’re so close now, argument heated enough that they’re screaming at each other’s faces, but all Matty keeps thinking is, close the gap and kiss me !
“I said ‘I’d understand if you want to break up’! I didn’t say we should !” Matty yells.
Leon pauses, “Wait, how is that different?”
There’s a noise coming from the back of Matty’s throat that sounds dangerously close to a sob, and he can not cry right now. “One is giving you an out, the other one is something I’d never say because I never wanted to break up!”
“Then why did we break up?!” Leon grabs his face to keep eye contact. “Matty, look at me, did you want to break up? Please don’t lie to me.”
Matty scoffs, “Of course I didn’t want to break up with you, all I wanted was for you to acknowledge me in public and not be ashamed of me.”
Leon’s arms wrap around Matty, and the fight leaves him. “Matty, I was never ashamed of you. I think I had something to overcome so I wasn’t ashamed of myself, of letting myself live the life I so desperately wanted, but that wasn’t about you .”
“Yeah,” Matty smiles wrily, “I heard all about how your coming out had nothing to do with me.”
Leon steps back, “Oh no, my coming out had everything to do with you. I had this hope that you would see it, then call me and change your mind about breaking up with me, and then we’d date a couple of weeks, make the relationship public, and I could make that picture of us at that beach house my profile picture, but I knew realistically that couldn’t happen if I wasn’t out.”
Matty frowns, “I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to come out. I mean, I knew I said I wanted you to, but it’s not like-”
Leon cuts him off. “I didn’t do it thinking that was the only way you’d be with me. I know where you were coming from, I know I was getting too overwhelmed when we went out in public and I shouldn’t have put that on you.”
“So,” Matty drags the word out, “what you’re saying is technically neither of us broke up with the other, and we’ve been broken up almost a year for no reason?!”
Matty’s phone pings with an alert and Leon reaches over to get it from Matty’s couch behind Matty to pass it to him. There’s an Instagram notification on the lockscreen.
NEW POST!
LDraiUpdates : Leon’s stories from this week!
Leon laughs, “I wondered why you weren’t watching my stories. I thought if you’d see them you would maybe want to be together again.”
“Well, I deleted Instagram after New Years, only got it back this week. At first I thought I was reading too into the stories, but I’m starting to think I wasn’t.”
Scoffing, Leon tosses the phone back on the couch. “I’ve only showed up at your doorstep to tell you you’re reading too much into my Instagram stories”
“Oh fuck off, it’s not like you called me or messaged me!”
Leon shrugs, “It would’ve hurt too much if you ignored either of those. I think Instagram stories were easier to lie to myself that they weren’t for you.”
“I should’ve known your stories were for me when you posted Player’s Baby Come Back” Matthew grins.
“Actually that was about one of my blind dates.” Leon drawls.
Matty shoves him, “Oh fuck you, you’re ruining this moment.”
Leon grabs Matty’s arms, stopping any more shoves, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we broke up, and I’m sorry I let that happen and didn’t even tell you I was never ashamed of you. You are one of my best decisions, and breaking up is one of my worst. I’ve missed every single thing about you, and I hope you say yes when I ask you to get back together.”
Matty bites back a grin, “Is this you asking me to get back together, or will I have to wait even longer for that?”
“This is me asking you… baby come back ”
Matty laughs, “you’re such a fucking jerk, you can’t even make this a cute romantic moment.”
“You’re impossible and wrong. I am so romantic.” Leon whispers, leaning in slowly to kiss him.
“I’ve waited months to kiss you, the nicest thing you could do is just hurry up .”
Leon does kiss him then, wrapping his arms around Matty’s lower back and pushing him into the back of the couch.
“I thought about you every single day over the last couple of months, but I think that kiss was better than any first kiss back I could ever think of.” Leon sighs into his mouth.
Matty grins, “Oh, I don’t know. I think we can do better than that.”