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Scott Hunter had learned, over the years, to live with a certain low-grade hum of anxiety.
It came with the territory of being an NHL captain. You worried about your lines, your rookies, the backup goalie who’d taken a puck to the collarbone and insisted he was fine. You worried about travel delays, ice conditions, officiating, media narratives. You worried constantly, professionally.
But Kip Grady wasn’t supposed to be part of that hum.
Kip was safe. Kip was quiet evenings and soft sweaters and half-finished art history papers spread across the kitchen table. Kip was museums and lectures and annotated footnotes and warm hands tucked into Scott’s hoodie pockets when they walked together in the cold. Kip was the part of Scott’s life that existed outside the rink, outside the constant bodily risk that came with hockey.
Which was why Scott didn’t worry when he boarded the team charter for a five-game road trip through the Midwest.
Kip had kissed him goodbye at the airport, lingering like he always did, fingers curled into Scott’s coat like he needed anchoring.
“Text me when you land,” Kip had said.
“Always do,” Scott replied, bumping their foreheads together.
“Good luck, Captain.”
Scott had smiled at that, the familiar swell of pride and affection, and then he was gone—security, teammates, noise—leaving Kip behind in their quiet apartment.
Everything normal. Everything fine.
Kip slipped on the ice three days later.
It was stupid, really. He’d lived in New York long enough to know better. The stairs outside of his classroom building were slick, a thin sheet of black ice disguised under fresh powder. He had his scarf pulled too tight, his phone tucked under his arm, his mind still halfway in the seventeenth-century Venetian chapel that the lecturer had been raving about.
His foot went out from under him.
He hit hard, the breath knocked clean out of his lungs, pain blooming sharp and immediate along his side. Kip lay there for a moment, staring up at the flat gray sky, heart hammering, lungs burning as they struggled to pull air back in.
Someone asked if he was okay.
Kip said yes.
He shouldn’t have.
But embarrassment came easier than honesty, and besides—he knew enough about injuries from being around Scott to guess that it was just a couple of bruises ribs. They might hurt like hell, but they'd heal. No need to disrupt his schedule.
And Scott was on a road trip.
So, Kip waved off help, took a rare Uber ride home, and spent the evening lying very still on the couch, breathing shallowly and telling himself he was being dramatic.
By the next morning, he knew he wasn’t.
When he woke up and had to roll sideways to get out of bed, he grudgingly admitted that it might be time to get some medical help.
It took him ages to get dressed and make his way down to the street to catch the Uber that he'd splurged on again.
The waiting room of the urgent care that he'd chosen (because no way was he going to a full ER) smelled faintly of antiseptic and sweat. Kip sat stiffly in a molded plastic chair, coat still on, breathing shallowly because it hurt less that way. Every time he shifted, pain flared sharp and bright along his side, a reminder he couldn’t quite ignore.
The X-ray was quick. The verdict wasn’t.
“Two cracked ribs,” the physician’s assistant said, turning the screen slightly so Kip could see the faint fractures. “Nothing displaced. Painful, but stable.”
Kip nodded, relief and dread tangling together in his chest.
“So… just rest?” he asked.
“Rest, ice when you can, avoid deep twisting,” she said. “And I’m going to write you a prescription for pain medication. Ribs can be brutal, especially when you breathe shallow to compensate. That’s how people end up with pneumonia.”
The word pneumonia stuck unpleasantly in Kip’s head, so he took the prescription slip that the doctor offered him, even as he waffled on whether or not he would bother getting it filled.
Later that night, lying carefully on the couch with a pillow tucked against his side, he stared at the orange bottle on the coffee table and thought about Scott.
About a conversation they’d had months earlier, sprawled on the same couch after a game, Scott’s ribs bruised purple under his shirt. Scott had been quiet that night, thoughtful in a way that always meant something weighed on him.
“They hand this stuff out like candy,” Scott had said, holding up the prescription bottle the team doctor had given him. “Guys take it because it’s easier than dealing with the pain. Then suddenly they can’t sleep without it.”
Kip had listened, tracing the lines of Scott’s knuckles, filing the worry away.
Now, he turned the bottle slowly, reading the label. He wasn’t anti-medication. He understood pain management. But he also understood how easy it was to let something routine become something else.
“I’ll take it if I really need it,” he murmured to the empty apartment.
For now, he decided, he could handle it.
Cracked ribs were routine injuries, after all, or at least that's what he thought.
It turned out that cracked ribs were insidious in ways that Kip would never have expected. Every movement pulled at the injury. Laughing hurt. Coughing was unbearable. Even breathing too deeply sent sharp reminders through his chest.
Still, he didn’t tell Scott.
He texted like normal. Asked about games. Sent a photo of a half-finished sketch he was working on for a seminar presentation.
Scott sent back locker room selfies, sweat-damp hair and crooked grins.
Miss you, Scott texted after a win in Chicago.
Kip stared at the screen, chest tight for reasons that had nothing to do with his ribs.
Miss you too, he typed back. Proud of you.
He didn’t add I fell or I’m in pain or I’m scared.
Scott had enough pressure. Kip had heard him talk often enough about it—how being captain meant carrying the team emotionally, how injuries stacked up and momentum mattered and distractions could derail everything.
Cracked ribs were routine.
He could handle this.
By the fifth day that Scott had been gone handling it became harder.
Kip’s breathing grew shallow without him quite realizing it. It hurt less that way, which felt like a small mercy. He skipped a lecture, then another. Told himself it was temporary. Told himself he’d catch up.
The fever started quietly.
He thought it was exhaustion at first, the way his skin felt too tight, too warm. When he started coughing, sharp and wet, pain tearing through his ribs with every spasm, Kip finally gave in and went through the process of getting dressed enough to go to the corner store for cough medication and soup.
He collapsed in the lobby of the building.
Scott was in Pittsburgh when his phone flashed with the notification of a phone call from the office of his condo complex.
He almost didn’t answer. They were between periods, up 2 to 1 but the game had been chippy and the win was far from sure, and his assistant coach was mid-sentence, talking about screening strategies. Scott’s phone buzzed again.
Something twisted in his gut.
“Sorry,” Scott muttered, stepping away. He answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi Mr. Hunter? This is Joey from the Archstone.”
“Hi Joey, you know you can use my first name,” Scott said falling back on the familiar exchange with the kid who'd recently been hired to run the building front desk during the day. He recognized the voice, but the tone....he didn't like the anxious energy that filled the kid's voice. “Is everything ok?”
“Oh of course, sorry...Scott. I just - sorry to interrupt your night sir. I know you're in the middle of a game and I really didn't want to bother you..."
The anxious rambling filled the phone, only making Scott's pulse tick up higher with each word. "Joey, it's fine. Has something happened?"
Joey took a breath, seeming to gather himself for a moment before responding slowly. "It's just, I thought you'd want to know that I just had to call an ambulance for Mr. Grady...I mean Kip?"
The world narrowed to a pinpoint.
“What?” Scott said. “What happened?”
"I don't know! He came downstairs like 30 minutes ago and he didn't look so hot, so I went to get the door for him and he just sorta collapsed? I think I heard the EMTs say something about his breathing, but they wouldn't give me any details except that they were taking him to Lenox Hill."
Scott felt cold all over.
“He collapsed?” he repeated. “Was he conscious when he left in the ambulance?”
“Kind of?" Joey's tone was now doubtful, cautious as if he was carefully reviewing his memories as he answered Scott's question. "I mean his eyes were open, but he wasn't making a lot of sense. And he was breathing really weird and coughing a lot."
Scott’s knees nearly gave out.
“I—ok,” he said stupidly. “I’m— Joey can you do me a favor? I'm going to try and get there as soon as possible but in the meantime I need you to call Kip's dad? Let him know what happened and that I'll give him a call as soon as I'm on my way?”
“Of course, sir. Whatever I can do to help. I really hope he's ok. Maybe it's just a bad cold?"
Scott hung up the phone after giving Joey the contact information for Kip's dad. For a moment he just stared at his lock screen. At the photo of Kip, haloed in sunshine and head thrown back in laughter.
Kip. Quiet, careful Kip, who never complained, who always put Scott first, who had been texting him I’m proud of you while he was so sick.
Scott turned back toward the room, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
“I have to go home,” he said.
Kip wakes up because he can’t breathe.
Or—he is breathing, technically, but it feels wrong, shallow and stuttering, like his lungs can’t remember how to do it properly. Each inhale scrapes, burns, ends too soon. Each exhale rattles, wet and ugly in a way that scares him more than the pain.
His chest hurts. Not sharp, not exactly, more heavy and muffled like it should be excrutiating but something was holding back the sensation.
Pneumonia, the doctor had said, and Kip had nodded like it was an abstract concept instead of something actively happening inside his body. Like there wasn't a tube sticking out the side of his chest draining all kinds of nastiness out of his lungs.
The room is dim, lights turned low for night. Machines hum softly around him, a steady electronic heartbeat that doesn’t quite match his own. There’s an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. He hates it. He hates the way it smells sharp and dries out his mouth with every breath.
Kip stares at the ceiling tiles and tries to breathe the way the respiratory therapist told him to. Slow in. Slower out.
It hurts.
Every cough feels like his ribs are being pried apart from the inside. He clamps down on it, swallowing the urge until his eyes sting with tears. The nurse had warned him not to suppress it too much, but pain has a way of overruling good advice.
He shifts, tries to move up the bed a bit more, and immediately regrets it.
“Okay,” he whispers hoarsely to no one. “Okay. That was… ambitious.”
He lets his eyes fall shut again.
This is his fault, he thinks—not in a spiraling, catastrophic way, but in the quiet, factual sense that feels worse somehow. He fell. He downplayed it. He didn’t take the meds. He didn’t tell Scott.
Scott.
The thought of him hits harder than the pain does.
Scott would have insisted he go to the hospital sooner. Scott would have hovered and nagged and set reminders and watched Kip breathe like it was his job. Scott would have known this wasn’t nothing.
Kip swallows hard, throat sore and dry.
“I didn’t want to distract you. Didn't want to worry you,” he murmurs, like saying it out loud might make it sound more reasonable.
He pictures Scott on the road, in hotels that all look the same, carrying the weight of the team like he always does. Focused. Responsible. Captain.
Kip squeezes his eyes shut.
He’d been so proud of Scott this season. The leadership. The calm. The way the guys looked up to him. Kip had loved watching Scott thrive in that role, loved knowing he had some small place in Scott’s steadiness.
He hadn’t wanted to be another thing Scott had to worry about.
The irony tastes bitter now.
The monitor beeps softly when his breathing stutters again. A nurse appears at his side almost immediately, efficient and gentle.
“You’re doing okay,” she says quietly, adjusting something he can’t see. “Your oxygen’s good. Try to relax your shoulders.”
Kip tries. His body doesn’t listen.
Through the struggle Kip hears her continue, voice soft in the quiet of the room.
"Your dad is down in the waiting room. Visiting hours are technically over, but we can let you see him for a couple of minutes if you want?"
Kip’s stomach swoops. He nods before he can overthink it.
His dad arrives a minute later, looking older than Kip remembers—eyes tired, shoulders held tight, worry carved into every line of his face. He steps close to the bed but doesn’t touch him right away.
“Hey, son,” he says softly.
Kip swallows around the dryness in his throat. “Hi, Dad.”
For a moment, neither of them speaks. Kip can hear his own breathing in the oxygen mask, too loud and too thin.
His dad exhales shakily. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Kip looks down, guilt curling hot and heavy. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” His dad finally reaches out, resting a hand carefully on Kip’s forearm, warm and grounding. “When I got that call - I almost didn't answer, you know how I feel about numbers I don't recognize. But I'm glad I did. That guy who works at your building, Joey? He seems real nice. Seemed practically ready to come drive me here himself."
Kip closes his eyes. God. He hates picturing that—how it must have sounded.
“But listen,” his dad continues, voice softening, “Scott knows. He called me on his way to the airport. He’s trying to get here as fast as he can.”
Something in Kip loosens and hurts all at once. His next breath shakes.
“He—he knows?” Kip whispers, blinking back tears at the sudden rush of longing that swept through him, and then the rest of what his dad had said registered. "He's coming, now? But....the game?"
“Of course he knows, who do you think gave Joey my number to call?” His dad brushes a thumb over his arm in a clumsy, comforting gesture. “I talked to him just a minute ago. He was just about to board so he's probably on the plane by now. He sounded… scared, Kip. Really scared. From what he told me he left the game after the first period. Though to be honest he barely mentioned it, seemed far more concerned with getting an update on you.”
Kip’s chest tightens, and this time it has nothing to do with infection.
“Oh,” he breathes.
Relief hits him first—warm, immediate, overwhelming. Scott is coming. Scott will be here. The room feels less empty just knowing that.
Then guilt crashes in, sharp and sour.
“Oh no,” Kip adds weakly.
His dad gives a low, fond huff that’s almost a laugh. “Yeah, I imagine you two are gonna have a conversation about all this.”
Kip groans softly.
The nurse pokes her head in. “Time’s up, I’m afraid.”
His dad squeezes his arm once. “He’s on his way. Try to rest.”
Kip...doesn't rest. Not really.
He stares at the doorway long after his dad leaves, heart thudding unevenly, lungs aching with every breath. He imagines Scott’s face when he heard. The fear first. Then the anger when he'd realized that Kip hadn't told him. The questions Kip doesn’t have good answers for.
“I’m sorry,” Kip whispers into the quiet room, practicing it in advance.
He curls his fingers into the thin hospital blanket, holding on, breathing as best he can, waiting for the sound of familiar footsteps in the hall. Eventually he drifted into an uneasy, restless doze.
Scott had barely registered the rushed conservations with his coaches ("I have to go." "Family emergency.") or the the sympathetic looks from teammates who’d heard the news and clapped his shoulder as he'd rushed to gather his belongings from his stall.
The last-minute flight he'd managed to book was a blur of turbulence and adrenaline.
As the plane rumbled beneath him he'd replayed the conversation he'd had with Kip's father just before boarding. Words like pneumonia, pneumothorax, and fractured ribs haunted him and kept him from daring to do more than sip at the ginger ale that the friendly flight attendant had been happy to give him.
God Kip. What had happened? How had it gotten this bad? He tried to think back over their communication over the past several days, searching for signs he’d missed.
How are you? he’d asked.
Good, Kip had replied.
Scott clenched his fists until his knuckles ached.
By the time the plane landed, Scott was vibrating with barely contained panic. He didn’t stop moving until he was standing at Kip’s bedside, the hospital smell sharp in his nose.
Kip looked small.
Paler than Scott remembered. Dark circles under his eyes. Oxygen mask covering half of his face, chest rising shallowly beneath thin blankets with a myriad of tubes snaking out from beneath the edges of the worn white material. The thicker tube that poked out from near Kip's chest sent a particularly harsh stab of worry through Scott, as he recognized the chest tube that Kip's father had warned him about.
His eyes flicked open when Scott came in.
“Oh,” Kip said softly. “Hey.”
Scott swallowed hard and took Kip’s hand, careful of the IV.
“What the hell, Kip?” he whispered.
Kip winced—not from the words, but from the emotion behind them.
“I didn’t want to distract you,” Kip said, voice raspy. “It was just cracked ribs.”
Scott laughed once, sharp and broken.
“Your ribs are broken,” he said. “You were in so much pain that you couldn't breathe properly and ended up with pneumonia. Your lung collapsed. And you didn't want to distract me?"
“I’m sorry,” Kip murmured. He took a breathe, closing his eyes as he waded through the pain that the action caused, before flicking his eyes open again to take in the rumpled, worried looking form of his boyfriend. "I guess I just figured....well you had those rib injuries last year and it seemed so minor. You deal with this kind of stuff on like, a monthly basis."
For a moment Scott froze, and then he was by Kip's side, cradling both of his hand's gently in his own grasp. "Ok first, most of the time I'm just dealing with bruises. And even that I do under a ton of medical supervision. Second, I in no way expect you to deal with injuries the same way that I do. In fact I am so, so glad that you largely don't have to deal with injuries like I do."
Scott paused to take a deep breath, gently lowering his head to press featherlight kisses along Kip's knuckles. Once he was done he looked back up, running a fingertip under Kip's eye, following the line where the deep bruising of exhaustion met the flush of a fever. "Promise me. Promise me next time you'll take better care of yourself. And you'll let me know as soon as you get hurt. Stubbed toe, burnt tongue, I don't care. I want to know."
A brush of a laugh left Kip's lips and the younger man felt the tension that he'd carried since Scott had kissed him goodbye five days ago finally leave his body. He slumped deeper into the thin pillow behind him even while he squeezed Scott's grip back. "Copy. You've gone full mother hen mode. But. I promise."
This time they both laughed a bit and Scott pressed their foreheads together, breathing him in, grounding himself in the fact that Kip was here. Alive. Warm.
“I was so scared,” Scott admitted.
Kip’s fingers tightened weakly around his.
“So was I,” Kip said.
The days that followed were slow and heavy.
Scott barely left the hospital. He slept in the chair, ate vending machine snacks, answered texts from management with clipped reassurances. The Admirals would be fine. The team would manage.
Kip came first.
The chest tube came out at the end of the first day. A procedure that Scott swore had given him a couple new grey hairs.
The doctors had rolled Kip on his side, facing Scott who'd pressed closed, offering as much comfort as he could. The sting of the needle delivering the lidocaine had put a wrinkle between Kip's eyes, which Scott had been quick to sooth away with a gently kiss, but the actual removal of the tube had been the worst bit. The squelching, suctioning sound of the tube sliding from Kip's body, the half moan half whimper that had left Kip's lips at the same time, the shake in Kip's fingers from where Scott held them steady. It had burned its way into Scott's memory and he was sure he wouldn't be forgetting it anytime soon.
Of course, after that there was still the pneumonia and rib fractures to recover from. Which was miserable. Kip coughed until tears streamed down his face, pain flaring with every breath. Scott learned how to brace Kip’s ribs with a pillow, how to time pain meds, how to read the nurses’ expressions for reassurance.
“You don’t have to stay,” Kip said one night, voice barely above a whisper. “You have games.”
Scott shook his head without hesitation.
“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I trust the guys to hold it together while I'm gone.”
Kip smiled faintly at that, eyes glassy.
“You’re a good captain,” Kip said.
Scott kissed his knuckles.
“I'd rather be a good boyfriend.”
When Kip was finally discharged, still weak but improving, Scott brought him home with the same careful focus he brought to playoff hockey.
Pill schedules taped to the fridge. Extra pillows on the bed. Soup simmering on the stove.
Kip watched him from the couch, wrapped in blankets.
“You’re hovering,” Kip said.
“Correct,” Scott replied easily. “And I plan on continuing to do so for the foreseeable future.”
Kip laughed, then winced, then laughed again anyway.
Scott joined him on the couch, arm around Kip’s shoulders, gentle and sure.
“I'm so glad we're home,” Scott said quietly.
“Me too,” Kip replied. “Though I'll admit this isn't exactly what I'd hoped we'd be doing when you got back.”
Scott rested his chin on Kip’s hair.
“Well next time you fall down the stairs,” he said, “you tell me. And we'll make sure you're ok. And then I'll reward you for good behavior.” His tone dropped to a deep croon at the end. He punctuated the response with a kiss to Kip's neck, just behind his ear.
Kip smiled into Scott’s chest.
“God, that sounds so much better. You've got a deal.”
Outside, winter pressed cold and hard against the windows. Inside, everything was warm, quiet, and healing—exactly the way that Scott intended to keep it.