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Everyone knew Chants wasn’t okay. That hit Jackson took, okay, that was nasty. No one would say different. And they all knew how close those two were, just seriously best bros. Cute. He hoped they kept that, kept the closeness. Different teams, different conferences. Friendships had withered for less.
Except apparently they didn’t know just how not okay he was, not until two nights ago and Dasker. Not until the next day, a cracked door, and Chants saying, “Right, but my husband does.”
He felt like his ears were ringing for a second after that. Not- he wasn’t an asshole, he wasn’t some homophobe or whatever. He could count. Ten percent, wasn’t that what everyone said? So there had to be guys in the league, probably guys he’d played with. He just...hadn’t known about them.
Suddenly, the way Chants seemed carved open, angry and hyper-focused all the time, made a lot more sense. Losing his shit on Dasker made more sense. There was a whole, very quick and almost wordless conversation, Hertl and Bergie glaring down anyone who looked like they weren’t shaping up. One or two guys left, clearly not wanting to be part of it.
He didn’t know Chants as well as some of the guys. He was a third-liner, not on track for anything special. He was a solid player, he knew that, but he was never going to be up for an award. No one was asking for him to come play in the Olympics.
He stayed. Chants barely acknowledged the teasing that passed for support. Head down. Eyes hollow.
Shit.
**
Amanda is so mad. Pissed.
Terrified.
The sort of terrified that makes her feel sick to her stomach. Jesus Christ. Luc Chantal just came out to his coach and his whole goddamn team. Pretty boy Chantal, face broken to match the brokenness in his voice when he said, scary flat, that he wasn’t sorry. She grips the steering wheel hard in front of her.
Anxiety tries to crawl up her throat.
Amanda takes a deep breath. Three. Five. Nine. She pulses her hands on the wheel and thinks deliberately of nothing until her body calms down.
Right.
She is going to fix this.
Chantal is a sweet kid.
Who loves his husband.
Jesus. She doesn’t know how they are managing that.
Okay. Okay. That’s not her problem. She can’t solve for long-distance or get them on the same team. She can only solve the problem in front of her. She narrows her eyes at the traffic.
By the time she gets home, Amanda has the beginnings of a game plan.
**
Rick couldn’t say he was surprised when he got the phone call. Oh, maybe that Jackson was calling, but not the contents. They’d all been reluctant to fuck with Chantal’s momentum, but that fight with Dasker made it clear they were going to have to do something.
Jackson laid it out clear. He didn’t ask questions, just explained one piece at a time, no hesitations, no attempts to walk around it. Extra workouts. Restricted eating.
“There’s some, uh, religious stuff, superstitions, but that’s not really your wheelhouse,” Jackson said, sounding a bit uncertain for the first time.
“Stuff he should be talking to the team psych about?” Rick asked. No one was going to be excited about that, but it was obvious Chantal’s head wasn’t screwed on right.
“Yeah,” Jackson said after a pause. “Can you make an appointment? Just tell me when, I’ll get him there.”
Rick opened another tab from where he’d been taking notes and got into the schedules. He told Jackson when. Thank fuck he wouldn’t have to be the one dragging Chantal in there. That wouldn’t be pretty. He swallowed the urge to apologize and promise to look after Chantal better. “Thanks,” he said instead.
**
Claude tried to wrap his head around it. Tried to imagine what he would do if Ryanne were concussed and he couldn’t go to her. He had to go splash cold water on his face after that. Crisse. What a fucking nightmare. It was bad enough having Jacks injured here, in his guest room.
He watched Chantal’s games, because Jacks asked him to. He wanted to know how his boy- his husband, the mind boggled- was doing. At first, Claude just told him about the points. Four points. Two. Three. Then, as he got slowly better, Claude reluctantly mentioned the fights.
Claude watched Chantal, watched him play brutal hockey, watched his face get hungry.
Watched him lose his entire fucking shit on Dasker, watched Dasker break something in Chantal’s face.
He updated Chantal daily on Jack’s health. He wondered if Chantal realized he was doing the same in reverse.
When he told Jacks about the fight and the suspension, the kid just closed his eyes. There was something so tired about that look. His mouth went grim, his chin determined. “Can you- find me a picture. Not,” he waved a hand, “not the fight. Before. As clear a shot of his face, his body, as you can.”
Claude didn’t know what he was looking for, exactly, but he fucked around on his phone until he had it. “Alright. This is the best I can do.”
Jacks had just barely been cleared for screen time. It sucked that this was the first thing he looked at. He looked hard for a long minute, zooming in and then back out again. Then he handed Claude’s phone back to him and sighed. “Fuck.”
Claude waited. Jacks had that making-a-plan face on.
“I need some phone numbers,” he said after a minute. “Someone in the Shark’s training staff, someone in coaching. As high up as you can get me. The Hertls.”
Claude spent a couple hours pulling strings, trading favors, and calling in old markers. Eventually, he returned with three phone numbers. He wrote them down on a piece of paper, and left Jacks to it.
**
Obviously, Marta knew. She knew her boy was hurting from the second her husband came home with that look on his face. It ached, that Luc was going through this alone, so determined to push everyone away. She almost went over so many times.
It hurt more, somehow, when she got a call from Oliver Jackson, asking her to take his husband in.
Her heart just about cracked when she saw him huddled on the floor in front of what looked awfully like an altar to her.
“Oh, my poor boy,” Marta said. She packed for him, socks and underwear and clothes. Goodness, he really didn’t have anything but suits and gym clothes, did he? Computer, chargers. She lingered for a helpless moment, wanting to bring something to comfort him. Should she try to bring his Lemieux poster? Only that seemed tied up in whatever was happening on his mantle. Perhaps not.
She would just have to provide comforts from home, then. Squaring her shoulders, Marta nodded once, collected Luc from the floor, and chivied him into the car.
**
Dr. Maria Clarkson couldn’t say she was surprised when Chantal was booked with her. She’d had at least two players and three colleagues mention they were concerned. He came in with his shoulders high and avoided eye contact.
“Chants,” she said, shaking his hand. “Sit wherever.” Formality got her nowhere with hockey bros. She’d been doing this awhile. He sat on the edge of an armchair. She sat across from him. “So, what’s up? Why are you here?”
She got a tense shrug. She waited.
“Jacks says I gotta,” Chantal muttered.
Okay. She’d had way, way worse. “Why’s that?” Friendly, low-key.
“I’m not-” He straightened and looked at her. “I’m not crazy. But I’m not, you know, doing great. Right now.” He fidgeted. “Jacks said you could like...give me some training exercises?”
“Sure,” Maria agreed, because this was actually a great starting point. She took a moment to appreciate how well Jackson had set that up. “Why don’t you get me up to speed on what’s not working right now, and we’ll make a training plan.”
That seemed to relax Chantal. His shoulders lowered a bit. “You know that, uh, that Jacks took a bad hit? And that we’re married?”
She did, in fact, know both those things. “Yep.”
“Okay, so like, that was a big deal. And it’s, I kind of-” His face did something, sheepish, defiant, resigned. “I guess I gotta start with the hockey gods.”
Hockey gods. That was a new one. The longer he talked, though, the less new it seemed. There were plenty of hockey players who had routines, who thought certain things were lucky or unlucky. This was more of the same at its core.
Maria made a few quick notes. She gave him two exercises to do, and finished with a brisk, “We’ll meet 3 times a week for the next month, then twice a week for another month. Then we’ll see how you’re doing.”
The nice thing about hokey boys was that they were used to being told by professionals what their schedule was going to be. Chantal was no exception. He nodded dutifully.
**
Jacks knew it was bad in glimpses. He thought it, but he still got confused a lot at the start. Luc had been in a fight, but had he been in a different fight? He couldn’t check. Didn’t want to worry G by asking.
Then, when the confusion had mostly faded, he couldn’t figure out how to get what he needed anyway. He could ask G how Luc was, but how would G even know?
It wasn’t until the Dasker fight, until Luc got fucking suspended and Jacks used his first bit of screen time to look at a picture of Luc, down too much weight, that he really knew, in his bones, how bad things were.
He scraped all the pieces he needed together, set up the play, and called Luc to get him into position.