Chapter Text
Parse is eleven when he figures out he’s different.
He’s been noticing girls for a little while, had a few girlfriends, kissed a couple of them. He can talk girls with his teammates all day every day, take their chirps about how he can’t keep a girlfriend and chirp them back about their complete lack of game. And, really, it’s a good thing Parse likes girls, likes to talk about them, likes their soft voices and soft hair and soft skin, because girls are quickly becoming the only thing besides hockey that any of the team want to discuss.
None of them ever want to talk about boys that way.
Parse already knows he can’t be the one to bring it up.
Parse is thirteen when this becomes blatantly clear to him.
His center turns over the puck - badly, but they’ll talk about that later - and so Parse has to lay the hardest hit he can on the winger who’s got it, and he’s never felt better to be old enough for checking. He makes the hit, gets the puck free, passes it off in the direction of his best d-man. He can’t see why, but the play is blown dead right as the guy he hit spits on the ice and calls him a faggot.
It’s almost bizarre to him that he hasn’t been called that before, or at least not since he figured out that he wasn’t really straight, but he hasn’t. He’s small and fast and he’s been referred to as a pretty boy more times than he’d like to count, but the vitriol aimed at him before now has largely been kid stuff, calling him a shrimp or weak or occasionally an asshole, but this is new. It feels bigger. Meaner. He wonders vaguely if it would feel that way, like a punch to the chest, if it wasn’t sort of true.
He has a split second to decide how he wants to react to it - fists, denial, shrug and skate away, chirp him about how many more girlfriends Parse has probably had, call him something back…
What actually comes out of his mouth is, “You’re just saying that ‘cause you liked it.”
And, shit, it actually works.
Years from now, he’ll think back to this moment, and it’ll explain a lot.
Parse is sixteen when he goes to the Rimouski Océanic in the first round of the QMJHL draft.
He makes friends easily, and before long he’s got the entire team in stitches as he does impressions of teachers and principals and the dumbest chirps he’s ever heard.
Most of the team, anyway. There’s one guy who looks young, about Parse’s own age though he definitely wasn’t drafted this year, but he’s sitting by himself, serious expression on his face, not making any effort to be included. Though he probably doesn’t need to, really; Parse saw him at practice, and he looked miles better than anyone around him. Still, he must be pretty lonely.
Parse really wants to crack him.
He waits before everyone leaves before he goes to talk to the kid, because he knows if this goes badly he’s probably going to be chirped for weeks. He’s got a few pretty basic options - hello, how are you, handshake, no handshake, I’m Parse, you are? - but again his poor impulse control kicks in and all that potential politeness goes flying out the window.
“Why are you still here?” he ends up asking.
“I could ask you the same question,” the (apparently French-Canadian) boy responds, looking as serious as he did before, and Parse is about ready to give up and die of shame that he couldn’t instantly get through to this guy until he notices his eyes.
It’s not because they’re the color of pond ice around the edges of the “skate here and you’ll die” area, though he can’t pretend that hurts any. It’s because they’re crinkled, very slightly, at the corners. Parse knows faces well, which is why he’s so good at storytelling, and he’s noticed that eyes only do that to go along with a genuine smile.
Which means this kid is incredibly deadpan and probably hilarious, and Parse wants to be best friends with him already, or possibly more, since he looks like that, but he’s a hockey player so probably straight. Best friends will do.
“I wanted to talk to you,” says Parse, completely honestly. “But I asked you first.”
“Extra practice,” deadpan boy answers, and Parse can see that he’s actually serious, not fucking with him or anything.
“Want a partner?” Parse offers, and serious guy stares at him for kind of a long time.
“Sure,” he finally says, and Parse feels like he’s won something or been paid the best compliment of his life, just from that one word, and he’s not quite sure why.
“Kent Parson,” he says, extending a hand.
“Jack Zimmermann,” says the French-Canadian, shaking it, then stepping back. He looks like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Parse would try to figure out why but he’s got more important shit to figure out.
“Zimmermann…” he says, contemplating nicknames, and that serious face goes a little bit dark until Parse says, “why don’t I show you how it’s done, Zimms?”
“We’ll see about that, Kenny,” says Zimms, and Parse doesn’t even have time to chirp him for the lame comeback before he’s being dragged back out to the ice.
Afterwards, he’s exhausted in a way he’s never been exhausted before. He’s always been the best, no matter where he was, never really had to push himself or compete for a spot on the top line. But Zimms… Zimms is so much better than he is that it’s almost depressing. Instead, though, it makes him want to improve, so he deserves to be on a line with Zimms, so he can challenge Zimms, so they can score tons of goals and celly together every time.
So maybe he begs his billet family to let him pull a Crosby with the dryer, and maybe he shows up to practice early to work his stickhandling on the ice, and maybe he stays after to do suicides until his knees feel like jelly.
It’s not for Zimms, it’s for hockey.
The day he finally beats Zimms at something during their extra practice really doesn’t go like he imagined it would.
They’re doing speed and accuracy drills, blasting pucks at the empty nets as quickly as they can. Zimms finishes a fraction before Parse, just like he always does, but this time his last shot pings the crossbar and bounces off. Parse’s doesn’t. He turns to Zimms, ready to chirp him for the next couple minutes until Zimms wins again like normal, but stops when he sees his expression, watches him viciously kick another puck into place, wind up hard, and bring the stick down, catching the ice and snapping it in half. The puck still ends up in the net, but it’s obvious that doesn’t matter to him at this point, as he flings the handle into the boards and makes his way to the locker room. The carefully controlled way he glides towards the exit makes kind of an interesting contrast to his attitude, but Parse can see that every ounce (or kilogram or whatever, it is fucking Canada) of his body language is screaming that he wants to stomp out of here like a spoiled kid throwing a fucking tantrum over ice cream or a pony or some shit. Weirdly, it’s almost nice knowing there’s something Zimms can’t do, even if that thing is “stomp off the ice like an angry child.”
Parse follows him, cornering him in the locker room to ask if he’s OK (which is bullshit, because 1. he obviously isn’t and 2. Parse loses all the time and doesn’t act like a fucking child, and he’ll definitely have to be annoyed about it after he fixes this), but Zimms has a few inches and a few more pounds on him, shoving past with embarrassingly little difficulty.
“Lucky shot,” he says as he leaves.
Parse wants to punch him in his stupid fucking face.
When he gets back to his billet house he does what he should have done a long time ago and Googles Jack Zimmermann to see if he’s got a MySpace page or some shit like that, something that’ll give him some background on the family Zimms never talks about, and oh. That Zimmermann.
So it explains why he’s so serious, and he thinks he can see it explaining the sore losing too - he beat 2 NHL d-men? At 12? It probably also explains why Parse seems to be his only real friend.
So he corners Zimms in the locker room again after the next practice. This time Zimms doesn’t try to leave.
“Look,” says Parse, and Zimms is giving him that look like he didn’t know Parse could be serious about anything but hockey (which, to be fair, he probably didn’t), “I’m about to say some embarrassing shit, alright? So you need to sit there and listen.”
“I promise,” says Zimms, and holy shit his eyes when he’s completely serious almost make Parse forget what he’s trying to do here.
“I’m a cocky shit, Zimms,” he says, and he can see that Zimms is about to chirp him. He’s torn between wanting to see him smirk and actually saying what he needs to say here, but it does actually need to be said before Zimms can get angry and leave again so he takes a breath and continues, “and you’re better than me, and it makes me angry, but I use that anger, and it makes me better. And I know, I know I’m not on your level right now, but maybe I will be soon, and I want you to use that anger too, so when you push yourself harder I can push myself harder.”
He expects Zimms to get pissed and leave and never talk to him again, but Zimms is quiet and still and obviously thinking about it, and after what feels like a million years his expression clears and he says, “Nobody else will be as good as us,” and fuck, he’s actually smiling? Hello, horrifying and inadvisable crush, nice to meet you.
“Good,” says Parse, ignoring it. “But you can’t pull that shit from yesterday again. Don’t think of it as a failure, think of it as a place to improve, or some bullshit thing like that.”
“I promise,” Zimms says again, and then they fucking light it up.
Parse is sixteen when he finds out Zimms is into dudes.
The season is over, and they’ve won, and now the entire team is having a party at someone’s parents’ secluded lake house so they don’t all get arrested for noise violations or underage drinking or some shit.
Parse is getting pretty drunk, throwing his arms over a lot of shoulders, telling a lot of his teammates that he loves them, bro, when he gets the urge to find Zimms, ‘cause it’s been almost 15 minutes since he saw him last and it feels weird somehow, being in the same place but not being together.
Thirty seconds later, Parse is out on the dock. Zimms is there, alone, right where Parse knew he’d be.
“Hey, Zimms,” says Parse, and sits down next to him, much closer than he ever would sober. It feels nice, being so close to Zimms, like he fits by his side.
“Hey, Kenny,” says Zimms, looking like he’s maybe actually had a drink or two himself.
Parse smiles. Zimms smiles back. He looks a little sleepy and a lot adorable and not at all sad for once, and Parse has been really good at restraining himself but he’s kind of drunk right now and still not great at impulse control even when he’s pretty sober so he leans over a couple inches (or centimeters? centimetres? Oh, fuck Canada, he’s way too drunk for this) and kisses Zimms.
It’s kind of sloppy, because drunk, obviously, but Zimms hums into it, sits up straighter and takes Parse’s face in one hand to deepen the kiss, and Parse is so fucking relieved Zimms is into this that he sighs, and Zimms leans back suddenly. Parse almost falls over trying to follow his mouth, catches himself on Zimms’ thighs.
“You’re drunk, Kenny,” Zimms says, robot face engaged.
“I know what I’m doing, Zimms,” says Parse, and it’s a huge fucking tragedy that he has to take a hand off Zimms’ thigh to put it on his face, but he does, and runs his thumb over that fucking cheekbone, which pretty much makes up for it.
Zimms turns away from it. “I don’t play gay chicken, Kenny.”
“Gay chicken’s for straight people,” says Parse, and he feels Zimms flinch but barrels on because fuck it, still drunk, “so I don’t either.”
Zimms is looking at him again, and he thinks maybe he should really have said he doesn’t start gay chicken, because he does play it if he gets challenged, obviously, he’s not a loser, but Zimms doesn’t say it, and everything is very still and heavy, the distant laughter and music from the party feeling unreal, unimportant.
“Can we make out now?” Parse asks, because he can’t take it anymore.
And they do.
Parse is sixteen when he starts dating his first boyfriend.
Parse is nearly eighteen when he realizes just how high he’s going to go in the first round of the NHL draft.
He and Zimms really are the best, just like Zimms said they’d be. They’re the biggest stories in hockey, bigger than Sid, than Stammer, than pretty much anyone in recent history. It’s a heady feeling, and he’s excited to see his future happening.
Las Vegas has the first draft pick this year. Parse has been looking for housing in Houston.
It’s possible he could end up in Seattle, behind Tavares, but he doubts it.
He’s only looking for temporary housing in Houston, of course. If recent history holds, which it probably will, they’ll be trading him midseason to Montreal or Boston or some other actually decent team for as many 2010 draft picks as they can get their hands on. He’s pretty OK with that, with not having to shoulder a rebuild - or just a build, since these Aeros are an expansion team that never got off the ground in the first place.
Of course, the whole thing would be a lot easier if he didn’t keep having to convince Zimms of their draft order.
As time goes by, he reassures him less often. It’s one thing to know you’re second best, to be comfortable or even happy with it. Saying it all the time, though… it gets hard.
And, anyway, Zimms doesn’t seem to need as much assurance now that he’s got those pills.
Parse is almost eighteen when he finds his first love unconscious on the bathroom floor.
At the hospital, Zimms stops breathing for exactly ninety seconds.
Parse will feel the numbers burn every time he puts on his jersey.
Parse is almost eighteen when he’s drafted first overall by the Las Vegas Aces.
Parse is eighteen when he visits Zimms in the hospital for the first and last time.
Zimms tells him to fuck off.
Parse can read the pain on Zimms’ face as well as he’s ever read anyone, and he realizes there’s not a single fucking thing he can do to help, and he feels wrong and sick and wants it to stop and why didn’t he say anything to Zimms’ parents and how did he not know there was something wrong and why can’t they go back so he can stop this from happening?
Parse is eighteen when he throws up in a hospital corridor, just outside the room of the boy who may never love him again.
Parse is twenty-four when he proves that hypothesis, alone in Zimms’ room with a shitty frat party going on downstairs and a little blond outside the door.
(Parse is eighteen when the Aeros trade Tavares to the Islanders, and just for a minute he forgets Zimms, fiercely glad to be an Ace, because fuck the Islanders so much, seriously, and that would have been him, if Zimms hadn’t...
Parse is eighteen when he tries to drink the shame away in a shitty bar in Toronto.)