Chapter Text
The trick to their no-look pass is that Kent waits on it.
Pretty simple. No big mystique about it: he watches the ice, watches Zimms, and skates to where he needs to be when he sees Zimms is ready to catch a pass.
Okay, yeah, it's not that easy in execution. It hasn't always worked. But the concept is simple. The whole "Zimmermann-Parson no-look one-timer" ultimately boils down to one thing: Kent waits for Zimms to get there and then they make it happen.
*
The draft is a nightmare that he smiles through except when he can drop it and not get called out. Usually when yet another reporter asks about Zimms.
Kent's starting to wonder how many times he'll have to give the same vague noncommittal soundbite about "hoping his recovery is going well" and "sorry to miss him this year" before they take the hint. He's not ending the whole rivalry mythos built up around them with an insult.
Being that much of an asshole would be a train wreck to his image. After everything they did in Juniors, he's going to be watched even more to see how he handles the transition to the show: to see if he really is what he's been aiming to be, if he really is what he's spent all this time working to prove he is and can and will be.
Or to see if the Aces just got second-best for their first pick, now that Jack Zimmermann's out of the draft.
Kent sticks to his soundbite and otherwise keeps his mouth shut. Kicking Zimms while he's down would put his new teammates off, and his parents would chew him out for the callousness once they're all off-camera.
Besides, it's not over yet.
It's not like Kent ended up in Edmonton. He's got options. And there's always re-entry. They've got options, if Zimms will just answer his fucking phone already.
*
It's a pretty dick move to break up with someone by text message, no matter how shitty you are at dealing with stress.
Kent almost writes that, deletes the response at the last second, and then glares at the phone with a clenched jaw for nearly twenty minutes.
Of all the--fucking fine, maybe Jack couldn't handle saying it to Kent's face. Fine. But he couldn't call? Would that have been that hard? Did it have to be--fuck, who else has access to Jack's phone?
Kent feels his stomach lurch even more.
Jack always immediately deleted texts he didn't want to answer or deal with seeing in his history later. Would this count? This would count. It'd count.
Is he still in the observation ward? How much privacy does he get there? Bob and Alicia must've vetted the staff that interact with him. There wouldn't be anybody stupid enough to lose their job for going through his phone after the fact. Are they allowed to do that?
Fuck, he doesn't know enough about overdoses. But if they let Jack have his phone back, it's some kind of good sign, right? Baby steps or whatever. It's not like they'd be worried about him trying to contact his dealer, he did this with legal pills.
Kent drags a hand through his hair and wonders if that matters. It was still an OD. There has to be protocols or something.
He should ask some of his cousins, they'd know. At least two of them are charge nurses, and he's pretty sure at least one still works in the ER.
He's worried over nothing. Jack would've deleted it. Nobody else is going to see it. No one would be allowed around him who'd use it against him later, even if.... But just how bad is the media going to keep dragging him through the mud? How far are the tabloids going to go?
He tries to make himself wonder if Jack would hand the text over to someone on purpose.
He wouldn't. Kent's pretty sure he wouldn't. He obviously didn't know as much about Jack as he thought he did, but there's no--that'd be beyond assholery. Jack wouldn't do that to him.
Right?
...He wouldn't. Not with the way Jack wrote this. The point of the text is pretty damn clear to Kent, but the actual words are vague enough to pass as unexceptional if anybody else saw it. It could be read out on Hockey Night in Canada or Sports Central and neither of them would start getting calls from the media.
Eventually the plane starts taxiing down the runway and the flight attendant's making her way up the aisle. She's already asked him to turn his phone off.
Alright, Kent writes back, one word he still has to retype three times because he's hitting the screen too hard to spell right.
He punches send and then shuts the thing down and stuffs it in his duffel.
He turns it back on while they're landing, in the last few minutes he's got on his own before the plane pulls into the gate and he gets picked up to head to the Aces' office. Jack hasn't replied, hasn't called, hasn't made any kind of contact. Apparently that's how finished they are.
Fuck you too, then, Kent thinks.
He rubs his eyes viciously and smooths down his hair and puts his hat back on, and gets his game face together as the deplaning message starts.
He's the goddamn 2009 first pick. He deserves to be here. Fuck anyone who tries to ruin that for him.
Fuck Zimmermann's neutral PR congratulations in the middle of telling him to stop calling and that everything that's done is done. They're--at the least, they were friends.
*
After several months, he's calmed down.
He splurges on new skates, carbon-fiber and kevlar-laced, as soon as the GMs confirm what equipment the club will and won't cover. Kent's not planning to change his play style, even if it started out with him adapting to the less expensive, less protective stuff he had to work with; but he's going to be a target on the ice and he knows it.
The first couple months in Vegas, if he goes out with any guys on the team, Kent never buys more than two drinks. If they start to rag him too hard, he tips the bartenders to give him water in shot glasses and dredges up memories of Jack at parties to act like he's getting drunk but hiding it well. If he still feels pushed, Kent drops a couple reminders about his age until the veteran defenseman he's boarding with comes over and tells everyone to knock it the fuck off before somebody calls the Sun. He doesn't relax until he's sure he's got down how all the guys on the team deal with each other.
He puts up with being chirped for constantly wearing tank tops and shorts until the guys get bored with it, because it's fucking hot. He makes peace with his hair forever looking wrecked if he takes his cap off for more than two minutes, because it's also windy. Freaking desert.
He sends his mom pearls for her birthday. He gives his dad an ATV for Christmas, only to have Mom ask why he's determined to make her a widow.
It stops feeling like the media's watching to see whether he's going to prove he was always second-best, the runner-up who made first pick by default. Kent drives McGuire crazy by constantly leaning out of the bench to watch video replays over his shoulder whenever he misses a shot or an assist, so he won't make the same mistakes again.
He buys the second-most ostentatious watch he's ever seen after he hits the ten goals requirement for his Schedule A bonus, since the guys would never let him live down the first-most. Also, he was a little worried he'd accidentally blind himself with it.
The Aces finish the 2009-2010 regular season ranking third in the Pacific, the first time the club's ever risen high enough to make the playoffs. They lose in the first round, but they got there. They made it clear to the league they're going to be a contender from now on.
Kent tours a couple apartments recommended by a relative of one of his linemates, signs the year-long lease instead of the six-month one, and moves out of Waller's guest room. He buys a good car after he gets the Calder.
He saves. Bob gave him and Jack plenty of warnings about what happened to guys who didn't keep enough in the bank to fall on once injury or age pushed them out. That's not happening to him.
He gets tapped for captain in the 2010-2011 season when it's clear Reboul isn't going to come back from the elbow surgery. The Aces name another one of the veteran d-men as their second alternate. During training camp Kent tries to herd the band of dumbasses that is his team into a group that's a little more likely to make it past the Cup quarterfinals this season and a little less likely to end up on an episode of Jackass.
After over a year, Kent can remember the good times again.
He still doesn't call.
*
The captaincy's more of a weight than he predicted, but he plays through it.
The front office gives him more media training. One of the PR guys tells him what escort services have known connections to TMZ--it'd be faster to just tell him which ones they'd be okay with him using, Kent thinks, but maybe that's too borderline procurement. His alternates are both in their thirties with experience he can pull on. And the first alt, Waller, has pretty clearly been told or just decided to mentor him since his rookie year. The Aces are just as invested in Kent not crashing and burning under the pressure as he is.
It's nice to know that management's got his back. Kent knows that ultimately it comes down to protecting their investment, but still. It's nice. Sometimes it feels like he’s been on his own for a long time.
He knows he hasn't. The team's been good; the coaches have been good; his mom watches his games and brags about his wins at work and church and to the neighbors to a point it's kind of embarrassing. He's got a lot of people in his life who've got his back.
Just none of them are Jack, anymore.
He still fumbles a few infuriating times at the start of 2010's preseason, because there's training camp and then there's the actual cameras. The first couple games Kent has to fight himself to remember it's a C on his jersey now, not an A.
When Scrappy gets himself ejected for butt-ending the Sharks' d-man who boarded Waller after Waller kept hip-checking him, Kent asks himself what in the hell he's going to do with this team. He catches himself wondering how Jack would manage things more than once.
Preferably without the spectacular failure at the end Kent tacks on a couple times, until the nasty aftertaste of the words finally trains him out of thinking any of it.
*
Kent makes it through the regular season without a head injury, which is more than a lot of guys in the league can say. He chews out his center when he discovers Vichy lied about his TBI symptoms to stay to the end of a January game, and he drops by a couple times a week with some of Vichy's friends while he's off the roster recovering to help him make dinners.
The Sharks beat them out to become top of the Pacific, but the Aces still make it to the Cup playoffs again.
And then they win and move on to the conference semifinal.
And then they win and move on to the conference final.
And then they win and advance to the goddamn Stanley Cup finals in his first year as captain, and Kent spends the next six hours ping-ponging between so hyped he's ready to play the first game right now and feeling like he wants to throw up because he can't lose this.
At one point he thinks that if this is how Zimms felt all the time it's a miracle he held on for as long as he did.
And then for about an hour Kent adds wanting to curse until his throat's raw to the list.
He gets into a Twitter chirping war with a Bruins player instead, the obnoxious 2010 second pick Seguin. It lasts over that night and into part of the next morning, until Kent's exhausted and starts to worry about his phone bill and also remembers he showed his parents how to follow his account.
So he adds a post saying Mom, don't read anything below this, only to get dogpiled even harder by the Bruins and also his own team, the treasonous fuckers.
"Great teamwork, guys," Kent finally calls out a couple hours later to the bus in general, while they're heading to TD Garden for practice. Nobody replies out loud; his phone starts blowing up even more. Kent resists the urge to bury his face in his hands.
His name ends up trending on Twitter for the next couple days. He also gets a ridiculous amount of DMs after that post about how cute he is--metaphorically or literally, it's not always clear--mostly from girls, which at least shuts up his team. Kent has to spend way more time than usual that afternoon on roughly varied responses hitting the right note of appreciation and flattered rejection. He wants a nap when he's done.
But when the article goes up on Puck Daddy, the majority of it is about the "mom-friendly" chirps and not the really vicious shit he and Seguin wrote before their teams' PR managers got into their accounts and deleted it all, so. It worked.
*
They win the Cup.
Kent keeps it hefted over his head during the circle even though he knows he's fucking up his cracked ribs more. The Aces fans are losing their shit in the stands, the arena lights glint off the dent Dallas left in 1999, all he can hear is his heart pounding in his ears and the screaming of all the people around them, and Kent has no idea what he's feeling. Still too keyed up to stop skating. So tired he wants to lie down and sleep on the ice. A little freaked out because he doesn't know how he's supposed to be reacting.
He can't go crazy like the rest of the team because he was supposed to do this, supposed to revive the Aces' struggling brand and haul them up out of obscurity. He's Kent Parson, one half of the legendary Océanic team of Zimmermann and Parson, the 2009 first pick that bad teams tanked for. This is only the first time he's going to hold the Cup. He's gotta act like it.
He hands the Cup over to Sunny since the man's been on their defense from the club's first year and then promptly gets swarmed by the rest of the guys, hauled into the celly of shoulder pounding and head butting and shouting because they're the Las Vegas Aces and they just won the fucking Stanley Cup and Kent's whole body is aching and his chest is pulsing with pain and so tight until it finally shatters like a flood sweeping through and he's raising his arms and yelling too, completely lost in joy with the rest of the team.
Of course that's the picture that ends up in the papers.
He looks beyond uncool, somewhere between unphotogenic and hopelessly bro. He didn't even know his eyes could look that squinty. "Goddammit," Kent mutters into his coffee, scowling at the Globe's sports section front page in the hotel dining room.
Across the table, Mitts shakes his head and then winces as it pulls the stitches in his ear. Kent prods his foot under the table and tells him yet again to quit that.
"Real fuckin' shame," Vichy commiserates, settling into a chair at the table beside them. "Sorry, Parser. Secret's out. People know you have actual human emotions under that smoother-than-the-fuckin'-ice exterior." He claps Kent's shoulder, carefully on his good side. "We're here if you need to, you know, emote about it."
"That'll be the day," Kent replies, rolling his eyes as Mitts snickers.
*
The club convinces Toronto to lift the ban on the Cup going to casinos, but only for twelve hours and only for a charity event, and they're not supposed to touch it while it's in there except for "incidental contact." Scrappy and Mitts start a contest with each other on who can brush the Cup the most while posing with fans. Scrappy's winning by the time the keeper yells at them.
"Fuckin' Rangers," one of the defensemen gripes to Kent during a water break. "We can't even give Stanley the proper Vegas experience."
"Right?" Kent grins, waving at a couple people on the other side of the lobby who're taking a photo of them. "Probably for the best."
Showy rolls his eyes at the ceiling. "You are way less fun since they made you captain, Parse."
"Who was it that almost got arrested right in this building?" Kent asks. "Remind me. I think I'm forgetting."
"Almost."
"I can't believe they let us back through the doors."
"It's been over a year, worse people've come in," Showy replies. "Besides, we're winners now. That changes everything."
"No shit," Kent agrees, looking at the Cup again. It's still there. This is really happening.
He drains the last of his water and tosses the bottle at a nearby trashcan. "Alright, we're back up."
Showy shakes his head but downs the last of his water and leaves the bottle on the table as he follows.
"Great makeup, by the way," Kent adds as they're heading back to the Cup's dais.
"Fuck off, I know it is," Showy retorts. "One of the girls here put it on."
Kent laughs. "For real?"
"She said I couldn't go out with the bruise, my face'd scare kids right off playing."
"Damn right. Smart lady, you oughta ask her out."
"Fuck off, I already did. We're getting dinner after this," Showy says, and Kent laughs harder.
*
His parents collect all the articles about the win that they can, getting relatives and friends and coworkers to send them the sports sections from different newspapers even though it's mostly the same Associated Press report. Kent presses a hand to his eyes when his mom shows him the scrapbook after he comes home for his Cup party.
"Why?" he pleads. "That was the worst photo, don't save that."
"It was not," she retorts, shutting it. "If you don't like it, then get a better one next time."
"Yeah, yeah," he grins. "All right."
While she's putting it back on the bookshelf, his dad clears his throat. Kent thinks aw god, he's almost twenty-one do they really still have to do this Father-Son Moment stuff. He straightens his shoulders and braces himself.
"It's not a bad photo," his dad says awkwardly. "I can't remem--it's been a while since you've looked that happy."
Kent blinks, fumbles for a breath, then recovers and grins again.
"'Course I'm happy," he replies. "Everything's going great."
"Alright," his dad says after a moment. He wraps an arm around Kent's shoulders and gives him a one-armed hug. Kent holds in a wince. "Good job, Kenny. We're real proud of you."
"Absolutely," his mom agrees, coming over to squeeze both their shoulders.
Kent smiles more. "Thanks.
"But please hide that before the Cup keeper gets here," he adds. His mom snorts.
*
It's not hard to catch up on Jack in 2011. Once the postseason and talk about the Cup finals end, news hits its usual lull before the awards and the draft; and whenever that happens, the media always turns to hockey's prodigal son, Jack Zimmermann. Especially now that he's wrapped up his coaching stint with his mites team, so they actually can talk about him again without the liability of getting minors and their angry parents involved. Jack's applying to U.S. colleges with hockey teams.
Kent's pretty sure that's illegal even if you're Bad Bob Zimmermann's son, but when he checks he finds the NHL added an unpublicized loophole to the rules a couple years back, for cases where injuries sabotaged a draftee's chances before the pick. A few other guys have already taken it up; Jack's just the most famous, and the only one so far where the injury wasn't physical.
Going the college route is a hell of a drop from the draft, but. Looks like Jack's getting back in the game, no matter what it takes.
Kent follows the news for a couple months more, learns what school Jack's picked, and alternately thinks and aggressively doesn't think about how there's still options.
*
During the season it's easy to not date: there's no time, especially since Kent practically lived in the clubhouse his first couple seasons. There's team practice, workouts, games, roadies, personal practice and then more team practice, off-ice stuff to help the group stay cohesive, a legitimate concern that if he doesn't keep these guys on the ball they'll make another potato bazooka since that's the kind of bonding activity that gets the cops called. It's a good cover.
Offseason is harder, but parties and clubs cover that. Las Vegas has some really good ones, and when he goes to them with anyone on the team Kent's finessed a trick of disappearing, pissing out the alcohol and chugging water so he'll only be waking up tomorrow with a minor hangover instead of a massive one, and then returning about thirty minutes later grinning and saying "Gentlemen who don't kiss and tell get more pussy" when the guys hoot at him. It works.
He's not in denial or internalizing homophobia or whatever else navigating real life gets called. His parents know, which is why Jack never got to come down and visit when they were both going to be out at work, but other people could hang out at home alone with Kent.
He's not sure if the Zimmermanns know. They never had the same rule about him visiting for Jack, and they let them sleep in the same room the couple times Kent stayed overnight. He's pretty sure a couple guys on the Océanic wondered about them, but they never got caught doing anything that couldn't be written off as joking around while drunk. As long as he doesn't fuck up in Vegas, nobody can prove anything.
He's a realist. He's just getting started. Kent wants to make his name for what he does: he wants his reputation connected to his points, his plays, his assists and goals. To hockey.
He doesn't want to be shorthanded in the media to "that gay player" anymore than he wanted to be "that guy on Zimmermann's line."
So he manages that part of the game as well.
The Cup win means even media attention, so once his ribs are better Kent dates a woman he meets at a charity fundraiser during the offseason. She's only in Vegas for a month and a half longer, doing some kind of reorg change management more corporate buzzwords thing for Caesar's Palace, so the relationship has a deadline from the start. It helps.
Though if he's honest, the real reason he rolls with the hookup is because she's the opposite of a puck bunny. She knows Gretzky and Orr and Bad Bob, but that's it. When the Aces' PR manager who came with him and the other 'class of 2009' guys introduces them, she says: "Vegas has a hockey team?"
"Jesus," Kent replies, "you wanna drive that knife in a little deeper? Maybe throw some salt in there? We could go get some tequila shots after this, ask for an extra shaker."
She snorts and says, "I'll take you up on that," before adding, "So the Stanley Cup, that's some kind of trophy, right?"
"Now that's just rude," Kent answers, injured. She snickers into her program.
He finally has to turn off his phone ten minutes after they leave, because Mitts spread the news and now the whole team's blowing it up about it being goddamn time and seriously a fundraiser not a club? How old is he? Kent vaguely wishes success wasn't such a pain in the ass.
In addition to the deadline and the fact that he and Inez are both upfront about not looking for anything longterm, it also helps that she seems to write off the fact that his knowledge of straight sex is culled from porn and a couple awkward girlfriends in junior high as just being due to his age. Kent almost asks once how old she is, but then decides if he really is doing the Mrs. Robinson thing the guys are chirping him for, maybe it's better not to have details.
Their schedules usually only mesh for early evening dinner and booty calls and sometimes lunch on the weekends. Kent eats probably more African food than he will in the rest of his life, trains up from decent to pretty good at straight sex, and learns how to milk the hotel industry for every possible perk. All in all, it's a pretty good time.
The last week she's in town Inez texts that her dinner partner got sick and asks if he wants to take the spot. Kent looks up the restaurant, decides it's worth the abrupt rearrangement of his plans since he'll never have the patience to try getting reservations there himself, and texts back to warn he'll have to head home by eleven tops because he has conditioning practice tomorrow and also to find out the dress code.
Wear your jersey, hockey boy. Everyone'll understand you didn't know better, he gets back.
A- chirp, Kent sends. Seriously, do I need a sports jacket?
Dress like it's a fundraising event, but not a fundraising dinner.
Kent sends back a thumbs up emoji and thinks about how much has changed in the last few years that that made perfect sense.
The food at Bartolotta is good but not what Kent would consider worth a two-week waiting list for a lower-level window table. But then, this is definitely a place to Be Seen as well as to eat, so.
Every once in a while, it still hits him just how much he's really living the dream.
The problem with thinking about how much has changed in the last few years is that eventually, he starts thinking about how that's true for more than just him.
It's early August. Jack should be heading to Samwell soon, if he's not there already for training camp.
Later that night, Kent checks the time on his phone and starts to pull up flights to Boston while Inez is in the shower. But then he makes himself stop and put his boxers and slacks back on instead, and goes to wash his face. He can check when he's home.
The Aces play the Rangers in early December, but that's pushing too late. There's the Bruins in mid-October. All the other east conference games were assigned to other teams.
Kent tamps more water on his cowlick and tries to figure out how much time Jack would need to acclimate to college before another new thing gets dumped on him. He tries to remember how well Jack handled abrupt changes that weren't on the ice. It feels like it was badly, but that might just be Kent's sour memories biasing the past.
The Bruins game is a better bet. It'll be a shorter trip, and besides, at the Rangers game his parents will want to see him. Kent was going to get them a hotel room and take them to breakfast in NYC before he had to head out; he'd have to visit Jack before the game to fit everything in, and he's not sure he wants to risk that.
"You okay?" Inez asks from the shower.
Kent raises an eyebrow in the mirror. "What's the tell?"
"You fuss with your hair more when you're distracted."
He makes a note to train himself out of that unless he's got a hat to cover for it. "Thanks."
"No problem," she answers. "But, are you okay?"
"Yeah," Kent says, flattening the cowlick one more time before forcibly stopping. "Just...figuring out plans after the season starts. Nothing big."
"Ah." She makes a vague agreeing noise. "What's her name? Or would you rather not say?"
Kent gives the shower a confused look through the mirror; and then he replaces the pronoun and gets it.
"Geez." He jerks his head around to stare. "How--?"
She raises a hand over the frosted glass of the shower, ticking points off on her fingers. "One, it is literally my job to catch lies." Fair enough. "Two, I don't think I've ever heard you say 'plans' in reference to games before. Three, you're twenty-one. It is very obvious when you're talking about someone you were in a serious relationship with, both from your tone and because there's a limited amount of time you could've had a relationship that intense or started getting over it."
He's never dating anyone in industrial psychology again, no matter how handy her info about benevolent social manipulation's been for working with the team. "Jesus."
"Also, question retracted," Inez adds, pulling her hand back down. "Sorry."
Kent starts to drag his hand through his hair again, and then catches himself and grips the lip of the sink.
"It's not like that," he replies. "We're not--I don't want to date her anymore."
It's weird to say it out loud.
"Okay," Inez says.
Even without the pronoun swap, it still feels really weird to say. Weird enough that Kent's starting to wonder if he's been lying to himself these last few months.
He misses having Jack on his line. He misses the good times they had. Not the parties, since he's not sure when Jack started hiding how much he was drinking and it sours all those memories; but he misses the roadies, the pranks, cursing their coach's name under his breath beside Jack during bag skates, just hanging out.
It's been two fucking years and he still misses having Jack somewhere in his life. He misses having a place in Jack's. Even if the draft had gone the way it should've and they'd been picked for different teams, they still would've talked. It wouldn't have been like this, where the only stuff he knows about Jack anymore comes from the media.
Kent misses them being friends.
And okay, yeah, all right, if he's gotta be honest, having sex regularly again is making him miss it with Jack. It'd probably be better now, if they could manage not to be the macho dumbasses about it they were as teenagers. The past month has been okay and a definite step up from his hand, but all it's really done is make him remember how different it felt with Jack. How it meant more with him. How Zimms always cussed at him in Quebecois when he was embarrassed, his fingers digging into Kent's upper arms as he scowled at him and bared his teeth to hiss the words out, and the fucking challenge there just spurred Kent on harder to--
--Aaaaaand he's going to stop thinking about that now, before his dick gets any more ideas. Kent turns the cold water on and throws more on his face.
As he rubs it out of his eyes, he thinks that's probably an answer to whether he's more bi or gay. Alright.
So. Yeah. Okay. He liked the sex. But even more than that, he misses Jack.
He shuts off the tap and dries his face before looking at the shower again. "Hey, it's getting late--I'm gonna head out."
"Sure," she answers. "I need to consolidate some more reports tonight."
"Good luck," he answers, heading out to get his shirt and hat.
Kent pauses in the doorway, and glances over his shoulder again. "...See you Wednesday, lunch?"
"Still on if you are," she replies, and he can hear the easy smile even if he can't really see her. "Have a good practice."
Everything about this has been so easy; and by the last couple months before the draft everything with Jack just felt so fucking hard.
Kent can't want to date him any more. That'd be beyond stupid. But they could still be friends.
"Thanks," he answers, and leaves.
Kent grabs his shirt and pulls it on before leaving the suite. He fixes his hat in the elevator, and doesn't use the brim to conceal his face from the hotel's cameras.
That'd defeat the point of this. Or make it look like he thinks there's something wrong with what he's doing. He doesn't need to fuel tabloid fodder.
The quick lunch before Inez's flight out was Kent's suggestion, so he'd know they were closing things on an official amicable note. If they're both done now like they'd agreed, he wants it clear and the separation in person. No text-message-on-a-plane bullshit.
Kent fixes his hair one last time before tugging on his hat and heading into the deli.
Once this is wrapped up, he's finished with dating for as long as he can get away with it. No matter how casual or useful. He'll go back to faking hookups in clubs if he starts feeling side-eyed again.
*
A couple days before October, he checks bus routes from Boston to Samwell again and then compares rental car costs. He prints a map of Samwell's campus and checks Jack's dorm building off on it. It was almost disturbingly easy to find: Kent skimmed a couple issues on the student rag's awkward website, read an article with a headline about escalating pranks between the Men's Hockey and Men's Lacrosse teams, and there was the dorm printed right by Jack's name. At least they didn't put in the room number, but seriously what the hell. Jack let that pass?
Over the week before they face the Bruins, when he's not focused on the coming games, Kent asks himself what the hell he's doing. Should he call first? Or at least text? Would Jack delete them without reading or listening? Would he take off so Kent wastes his time heading there only to find Jack's gone? Does he even have Jack’s right phone number anymore?
If he does and he doesn't call, how's he supposed to find Jack when all he knows is his dorm? Is he just going to walk around it until he finds Jack's room? That's some stalkery shit.
And he's only got so much time to do this. He has to be back in Boston by four a.m., five tops, so he's there by team breakfast and nobody wonders where he disappeared to and he doesn't hold up the bus. He's had to pay a stupid amount in team fines already this year with Patsy friggin' out to get him.
Just what the hell does he think he's doing?
Kent knows everything couldn't have always been this hard when it came to Jack. It just feels like it.
He finally decides on the rental car two days before they face the Bruins, and then he makes himself put it all out of mind so he can concentrate on the coming game. He's doing this; he'll manage the rest of the details as things play out.
*
It's getting on evening when he finds a spot in a visitors' lot. Kent pushes the car door shut with his good arm and then exhales slowly when even that makes his ribs ache.
He rubs his eyes hard and stares at the campus lights for a couple seconds before fumbling his phone out of his pocket. It's not like Jack can tell him not to come now, he's already here.
When he hits Jack's number, it rings twice before an unfamiliar old woman's voice answers. "Bonsoir?"
"Uh," Kent replies. Shit. Jack did change his number. He should've figured.
"Qui appelle?"
"Sorry. Ah--désolé," he remembers. "Wrong number."
"Ahh," she agrees, and hangs up.
Kent does the same, and then jabs the phone back into his pocket. Alright, well, he fucking tried didn't he?
He tugs out the map instead, figures out where he is, and starts making his way to the dorm.
He was going to find the well first and take a selfie for the hell of it even if he couldn't post it anywhere, but that was before a Bruin boarded him so bad in the third period that his shoulder and torso still hurt even with ibuprofen. Kent really wants an Oxycontin, but there's no way he was going to take that before meeting Jack.
Worse, they fucking lost after Scrappy was penalized for catching up to Lucic on his next shift and cross-checking him from behind. Which, yeah, Kent appreciated it. But he would've rather won.
Christ, he wishes Jack had answered his phone. He's too wrung out right now to have no idea what he's heading into.
Kent passes by groups of people mostly talking about stuff he doesn't know as he makes his way to the dorm. He recognizes some history stuff from Jack, and one conversation sounds like something like feminism. Then there's...philosophy? And something about authors and cannons, what. So--English? Showy or Vichy would know. Doesn't anyone take math here? Fucking liberal arts schools. Fucking Massachusetts.
Kent breathes out steadily and reminds himself that college would've made him fall behind. He didn't even like high school, except for a couple classes. He's where he wanted to be. He can always go back for a degree after he retires, if he needs one.
When the dorm comes into view, Kent pushes the map into his pocket gingerly and then thanks the group of girls who hold the door for him as they see him coming up. It's passkey-locked; he didn't think of that. Fucking colleges.
At least it has an elevator. Kent scopes the lobby, adjusts his hat with his good arm, and tries to figure out where to start.
The people at the tables on the right aren't wearing any sports paraphernalia he recognizes except some football stuff in the school colors. There's a TV in an alcove to the left and he's pretty sure he recognizes the sound of ESPN, so Kent slides his hands into his pockets and starts that way.
It's not ESPN, it's NBCSN, playing the start of the Lightning and Capitals' game, which is a great sign. There's about six guys sitting around--that's Jack.
. . . Has he gotten taller? He was already six foot last Kent saw him, come on. He thought he'd finally almost caught up.
Kent wishes he'd had a couple more seconds, been able to check a mirror and make sure his smile was right, but he's already here. He heads into the alcove.
The group is doing a half-assed job of hiding the fact that they're drinking alcohol. Kent automatically starts to check if Jack has a cup in his hand, and then reminds himself that it's not his job to keep tabs on that anymore.
Most of the guys are facing the TV and not the door, but one of them spots him and almost drops his cup. "Holy shit, no way," the guy drawls, and the rest of them look over.
As soon as he sees Jack's face at the sight of him, Kent knows he fucked up.
He thought two years was more than long enough, but apparently not. He tried to go too fast, to capitalize on the Aces getting the Cup to get a verbal agreement laid out even if an official contract had to wait until 2015. He rushed the move.
But he's already here. So. Fuck it, nowhere to go but forward. "Hey, Zimms."
By ten minutes in, Kent's so pissed he needs to take off soon no matter how weird it looks. He doesn't know how much longer he can keep his face straight.
This was the stupidest waste of his time. He was prepared for Zimmermann to be angry at him for showing up out of nowhere, to be jealous about the Calder and the Cup, to still be pissed about 2009; Kent hadn't expected him to apparently hate his guts.
That's a lie.
Kent curls his fingers before he catches himself, then forces them to relax again before anyone sees.
He needs to just get up and go. They're creeping out Zimmermann's teammates. The captain's been trying to keep the conversation level despite Zimmermann's escalating edged comments, but the rest of the guys have fallen silent or started keeping their cups to their faces longer than normal. The one sitting closest to Zimmermann shifted so he's leaning slightly away, and he's been watching Zimmermann with genuine concern and disturbance for the past couple minutes. It's obvious none of them have ever seen him like this before.
Kent wants to demand Do you even see what you're doing? but that's not his job anymore either. Zimmermann can manage his own damn PR.
He sees Zimmermann glance at the guy next to him, and then look away from the group and shift his feet.
Like hell Kent's going to let him be the one to walk away first after this, so he seizes the next awkward lull in the conversation to check his watch.
"Hey, it's been cool meeting you all," he grins. "But I gotta head out."
Nobody calls him on it. The captain leans forward and shakes his hand, firm grip but mild shake. Must've seen the hit Kent took earlier tonight. "Pleasure to meet you, Parson."
"Same here," he nods. "Good luck on the next game."
"Same."
"Thanks." Kent pushes to his feet, then bites down a hiss when his shoulder spasms again. "Motherfu--"
He huffs to cover it and gives the room a final nod. "See ya."
He gets a chorus of similar responses as he turns to leave. Kent's in the archway of the alcove when Zimmermann asks, "How bad is it?"
Kent waves dismissively and keeps walking. "It's fine."
"You want to end up in the news getting pulled over because you couldn't drive steady?"
Kent jerks and nearly snarls Fuck you! before he catches himself.
Zimmermann adds, "I've got aspirin. If it'll help."
When he looks over his shoulder, Zimmermann's standing. His face is mostly blank now; but Kent can see his hands are shaking.
He's still grimacing in anger. Kent forces it off his face, and then covers by touching a hand to his side. "...Yeah. Alright. Thanks," he adds. "'Preciate it."
Jack nods and starts heading out. The guy next to him rises from his seat too, but Jack shakes his head. "I'll be right back."
"Okay," the guy answers, sounding concerned but nodding.
Kent moves out of the alcove and into the wider space of the lobby before Jack can pass him. Jack's got his hands jammed into his pockets now. Probably trying to hide the tremors.
Kent told him, more times than he can count, that if he'd just hook his thumbs out of them when he did it he'd look more confident. Then he could at least fake it until he felt it.
But Jack never took his advice. Or maybe he was always too high to remember it for long. Kent gave up saying it eventually.
In the lobby, Jack starts for the stairs before visibly stopping himself. He hesitates a second longer, and then turns to the elevator instead. "...It's on the fourth floor."
"All right," Kent repeats.
Nobody else joins them in the elevator, which both sucks and is a relief. Kent lets himself slump against the wall after the doors shut. Jack stays on the opposite side, as far from him as possible.
"You should've called first," he says tersely, glaring at the doors as they start rising.
Kent doesn't even bother replying. He tugs his phone from his pocket, pulls up his contacts and hits Jack's number, and then puts it to speaker and holds it out between them as it starts ringing.
Jack looks at it. Three rings in, the old woman's voice comes on. "Bonsoir?"
"Désolé," Kent says, catching Jack's gaze and holding it. "Wrong number."
"Mm," she answers, sounding crosser than last time. When she hangs up again, Kent wedges the phone back in his pocket.
Jack rubs his face and exhales tiredly.
". . . Still," he mutters, as they hit the fourth floor.
"Whatever, man," Kent answers. He pushes away from the wall with his good shoulder as the doors open. "Why don't I just leave. See you around."
"No," Jack says. "Just." He rubs his face harder and then catches the edge of a door, holding it open. "It's on the counter. This way," he nods to the left.
Kent huffs a breath out through his nose, but steps into the hall.
Jack takes the lead in a couple of strides, and Kent follows him down the hallway until he stops a few doors down and pulls out a key. "I'll be back in a second."
"Whatever, Zimmermann," Kent finally bites out. "I'm not going to fucking stand around in the hallway waiting." He jerks around back the way they came, clenching his jaw as he heads for the elevator.
He can buy more ibuprofen from any convenience store he drives past. He doesn't have to put up with this insulting bullshit. It was stupid of him to think Zimmermann would want on the same line as him again. They're not kids anymore.
This was a waste of his time. All it's done is answer one of the questions Kent never wanted resolved.
"Fine," Zimmermann growls out. Kent hears the sound of metal scraping. "Just--" he hisses something else harshly. Kent's forgotten some of the little Quebecois he knew, but it sounds like a curse.
He exhales slowly through his teeth, jaw still clenched, but makes himself turn around.
Kent waits until Jack finally steadies himself enough to get the key in to unlock the door. He shoulders it open, storming inside; Kent has to catch it with his good arm when it bounces off the wall.
The inside of the dorm room is so ridiculous Kent can't help snickering despite how pissed he is. "What's with the odd couple setup?"
Jack gives him an irritable look over his shoulder where he's stopped by an built-in counter. Kent just gestures widely at the room, eyebrow raised, biting down another snicker.
Jack huffs and goes back to shifting books and pulling clothes off the counter. "He said he'll clean it up soon."
"When'd he start saying that?" Kent asks.
"...September." He finds the bottle. "It's not that bad," he adds, more defensively than Kent expected.
He gives the room another look. It's really not--Kent's roomed with guys who shlubbed up hotel rooms way worse over just a night--but even mild clutter looks bad next to Jack's obnoxiously tidy space.
It's kind of weird to see. He's only sure which side is Jack's because he recognizes that old blue-gray comforter. The desk, with its post-it notes and casually stacked journals, is all that looks normal for him: organized without being overkill.
Two years suddenly seems even longer.
"What dosage did you take?" Jack asks, and Kent turns back to him. He's got the bottle open. His hands have stopped shaking.
"Eight hundred milligrams," Kent answers. "Ibuprofen. About..." he checks his watch "--three hours ago? Four-ish."
"It shouldn't have worn off yet," Jack replies, but he shakes out two pills. "Get looked at if it's still bad in the morning."
Yeah yeah, cap, is reflexively on the tip of Kent's tongue; but he catches himself.
Jack holds out the pills. "One now's okay. But wait at least two hours on the second."
When he first noticed how much Jack knew about dosages and times, Kent thought it was because he wanted to stay in top condition or it was just something he'd picked up from his dad. And after that, he'd thought it meant Jack was managing his anti-anxiety medicine well. It took a while before Kent finally figured out Jack was so precise because he was calculating the maximum amounts he could take or mix with alcohol and not die.
Zimmermann hassled him a lot about the work Kent put into his image, but when it came to hiding behind a front Kent was never a match for him.
"All right," he says, holding out his palm. Jack drops the pills into it, from just high enough he won't even accidentally brush Kent's hand.
Kent shoves the second pill into his pocket as Jack crosses over to the bed and rummages under it. When he pulls out a can and straightens up, Kent snorts.
"For real," he drawls. "Ginger ale."
"The bathroom's down the hall if you want water," Jack says evenly.
Kent snorts again, quieter, and pops the aspirin. He catches the can by the bottom so their fingers won't touch, since that's apparently how they're doing this. Jack releases it.
Kent hooks a foot around the nearest desk chair and settles into it more gingerly than he let himself do in the lobby, cracking open the soda. Jack shifts on his feet before crossing to the other side of the room.
He leans against his desk after a couple silent moments. "Who's the hit from?"
Kent notes to himself that Jack apparently didn't watch his game, which shouldn't be a surprise but still feels like a slap.
"They didn't run clips?" he tests, because he's a masochist.
Jack shrugs a shoulder.
Over four years since they first met in the Océanic, and still Kent's never a hundred percent sure if Jack really pulls this crap because he doesn't think about the impact of what he's saying or if these little digs are intentional. Even knowing how Jack sounds when he genuinely is trying cut a person down, slights like this always seem so fucking obvious to Kent that he can never fully believe Jack doesn't realize he's doing it.
He's not going to say anything in reference to the Cup when Jack's finally backed down, so Kent shrugs his good shoulder. "Third period, s'all."
"Mn." Jack looks past him, fingers curling around the desk.
Kent exhales through his nose and takes another sip of ginger ale.
The tiredness is really hitting him. Maybe he should've waited in the hall, even if it felt like Jack was spiting him. It would've kept him on his game, being in public. It's going to be harder to get it back up now.
It's not like he hates that part of being a celebrity. It's never been a burden, not like it was for Jack. But he still needs a break sometimes.
Not that this was the place. Kent's been fucking up left and right tonight. He shouldn't let his guard down around Jack the way he used to. They're not those kids anymore.
Kent pushes a foot against the floor idly, turning the chair so he's tilted away from Jack's bed. The comforter is starting to weird him out. It's too familiar, when everything around it is new and abnormally different. He drains the soda.
"Why are you here?" Jack asks. He's looking at the wall, not Kent.
Yeah, no. He doesn't feel like being rejected yet again tonight. Jack's made it pretty fucking clear how he feels about the Aces or Kent being part of his life again.
He shrugs once more. "Was in the area, thought I'd say hi."
Jack looks back at him, expression flat and disbelieving.
Kent tosses the can at the trash across the room and mentally gives himself a point when it goes in. "It's not like I'm in Massachusetts much."
"Why are you here, Kent."
He kicks the floor again, pushing the chair until it hits the opposite wall. Jack's fingers are still tight against the desk, but he won't stop looking at Kent like he sees right through him.
"I was here," he says shortly. "What's so weird about that? I missed you, I wanted--"
Kent cuts himself off sharply and clenches his jaw. "...If I'd known you were gonna be like this I wouldn't've bothered."
Jack's still looking at him like he doesn't believe him.
Screw this. "Whatever. Thanks for the aspirin." Kent pushes himself out of the chair with a grimace. "See you around."
"...Kenny." Jack exhales slowly. When Kent glances over, he's slumped against the desk, looking exhausted. "Why are you here?"
"I told you--" Kent starts, and then he presses a hand to his face and rubs his eyes hard.
...It's not like this is the first time Jack just can't fucking believe what Kent says to him. It never mattered how how many times Kent told him things would be fine or that the game was good or he was just saying shit in the moment and didn't mean it, Jack never really believed him. The only things he ever took as Kent being sincere was the bad stuff. He never accepted the good things.
Kent already knew he did that. He already knew Jack would probably do it again. He saw this coming.
So--fine. Fine. All right, whatever. Not everything has changed in the last three years, and of course it's the stuff Kent wanted to see Jack get over that's remained. Fine.
He's here anyway. This shouldn't--it doesn't have to be a waste of his time. It's not like there's much more to lose. Nowhere to go but forward.
Kent rubs his eyes harder and then drags his hand away and looks over again. "You're going the college route?"
Jack's shoulders tighten. But after a breath he nods.
"Got anywhere in mind afterward?"
Jack makes a short, harsh laugh that he swallows down quickly.
Kent thinks without wanting to about some of the media comments when it first came out that Jack was going to Samwell: how he was abusing the loophole to get back in.
Of all the things Jack picked to wreck his career with, it had to be drugs. Anything else, he could've gotten away with nothing but a couple months' bad press and some league fines. But no, he had to pick substance abuse. The one vice the whole sports world won't tolerate, because talking about it could reveal just what a grist mill the game really is.
In the back of his mind, almost subconsciously, Kent decides to skip the Oxycontin tonight.
"It's too early to say," is all Jack offers at last.
"It's a good time to start prepping," Kent replies, adjusting his hat and watching Jack closely. "If you were going to consider Vegas."
Jack doesn't flinch at that, which is...something. But he does swallow and look away.
Kent finishes with his hat and waits.
Jack finally shrugs a shoulder jerkily, curling his fingers back around the edge of the desk. "I'm not . . . I don't know yet. I have to--I'm committed to Samwell right now, and anything after that is...." His knuckles are going white. "It'll depend on how I play here. So I can't--I don't know if--"
Chrissake, Kent thinks reflexively, crossing the room. Fine, so their baseline is excellence, but they set that themselves didn't they? It's not arbitrary, it's what they do. He catches a handful of Jack's hair and tugs. "Zimms. Quit it."
Jack jolts and then grabs his wrist tight, teeth bared.
--Yeah, okay, right. Right. It was reflex--it was one of the few things Kent could always count on to get Jack out of his fucking head for a minute so he'd listen--but they're not those kids anymore. Kent lets go and keeps his fingers splayed open. "Okay.
"I'm not saying give me an answer now," he adds, easing the stakes since Jack's not meeting his eyes. "I know you're obligated 'til you graduate. But, like--give me an idea by Winter Classic. That'll still be enough time. I've got capital to draw on," he points out. "I can start seeding the idea, get the groundwork down. Make sure we've got the cap space in 2015. Then when you're done here, it'll all be ready."
Jack swallows again, harder, still looking more at his shoulder than his face. He's holding Kent's wrist looser now. "I don't...."
Jack grits his teeth a couple short breaths later. "I can't think about it now," he finally says. Evading. "I can't get ahead of myself like that, Kenny. We've barely even started the season. I can't--"
"So don't give me an answer now," he interrupts. "There'll be plenty of time in January. Get back in, win some games, think about it. Give me an idea by Winter Classic."
Kent tugs his phone out of his pocket even though he has to use his bad arm to do it. Jack hasn't let go of his wrist yet; and he doesn't want to pull loose.
Or really, just one part of him doesn't want to--the dumbass part that still remembers the good times, the part that keeps reminding the rest of him how easy it used to be to get this close and how goddamn long it's been since Kent last saw him. No matter how much Kent wants that part to shut up, it's still there. "Look, what's your new number?"
Jack exhales heavily once more, shoulders slumping. It puts them closer to the same height than before, and Kent keeps his eyes off Jack's mouth. That's not what he's here about.
"I don't..." Jack says, and then he shakes his head and lets go of Kent's wrist. Jack turns and looks at his desk.
"I don't remember it yet," he mutters, fishing a phone up from beneath his wallet and a couple pencils.
"It should be under your settings," Kent replies, shifting his phone to his good hand.
Jack thumbs through the cell until he finally retrieves the number, and gives it to Kent. It's a U.S. one now.
"...It'd be four years," he says afterward, not looking up. "If it's anywhere."
"It's gonna be somewhere," Kent replies, replacing the number in Jack's contact. "And that just means time to handle the prep work. It's gonna be fine, Zimms."
Jack's hands clench around the phone. "Don't act like it's so easy to--"
He hisses out another breath. "I know you listen to the news."
"A bunch of average players who do media because they couldn't go better after getting forced into retirement," Kent retorts. "Everybody mediocre hates talent if you show you're human too. It'll be fine, Zimms. They talked shit about me at first too, and now look."
"That's you," Jack says, bitter.
"Don't do this," Kent replies, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
Yeah, he had the origin story the American media loved--lower-middle-class kid breaks into the sport, does good and matches up with second-generation Canadian hockey royalty--and yeah, he exploited it whenever it helped. But it's not like Jack didn't have his advantages too.
It's not like Kent didn't tell him how he could use his own story: how Jack should own the way the media always talked about Bob when they talked about him, how he should make that into an underdog angle, get people to root for him as he made his own name even while he carried on the legacy. It's not like Jack didn't take the advice sometimes, at first.
Jack grips his phone tighter before abruptly shoving it back onto his desk. "I know you listen, Kent," he says tersely. "The Aces are finally succeeding. You really think they'll risk that by taking on a liability like an addict?"
"Oh, fuck that," Kent says in exasperation. "Yes, they will. The chance to be the team that has you and me both again? Of course they will." He tries to grin. "I mean, c'mon Jack. It's Vegas. They've always been on thin ice with the legalized gambling, what've they got to lose?"
It doesn't work. Jack just shakes his head again. "Don't push it, Kent."
Jack curls his hands around the edge of the desk again, leaning back against it. Pulling away. "What if they trade you instead?"
Dick, Kent thinks; but instead he snorts. "For who? Unless some kid comes up in the draft that's better than either of us, that'd be the dumbest possible thing they could do."
That also doesn't work, because now Jack has that bitter look on his face again. "Yeah," he says flatly. "I guess it would."
The jealousy is another thing that hasn't changed that Kent really, really wishes had, because he's so sick of this. "I earned this," he bites off. "All right? It's not like this just comes to me, Jack. I worked for this."
"I know," he replies, back in that neutral PR mode. Kent clenches his hands into fists and then hisses when it makes his shoulder spasm again.
He moves back, pulling away until there's a tiny dorm room's worth of carpet between them. It's not enough.
This--this is why he shouldn't have come here. Why he should've taken the breakup as an opportunity to make his name stand on its own without having "Zimmermann" somewhere nearby. To move forward and never look back. What was he expecting to happen?
Jack was never going to consider the Aces. He can't even stand being in his dad's shadow; he'd never be willing to be in Kent's too, skating under his captaincy.
Jack Laurent Zimmermann always has to do everything on his own, because if anyone else gives him an assist then it doesn't really count. Because if anybody dares try to fucking help then it means he's failed to be better than Bad Bob.
Why did he want this back in his life?
"Good," Kent replies. And then he doesn't stop himself from adding, "One of us had to."
Jack clenches his jaw again, breaking that PR face at least. "Just--leave, Parse."
"Yeah, sure," he drawls, turning toward the door. "See you around, Zimmermann."
Jack doesn't reply. Kent sees himself out without looking back.
He uses the warped reflection of the elevator doors to make sure his face looks at least mostly neutral before he hits the lobby. Kent keeps it in that expression as he crosses through it, eyes on the exit, not looking over at the alcove.
He gets off the campus and heads up the highway back toward Boston, cruise control set to two miles over the speed limit because his uncle volunteered for Citizens on Patrol and told Kent when he was learning to drive that it's not worth an officer's time to pull anyone over for that. He stays in the right lane and lets other cars pass him even when they're douches about it.
Once it's dark he exits the road at the first superstore he sees.
Kent skids the car into a parking space far enough from the store that no one's going to walk by but not so far that it'll catch anybody watching the security cameras. He cuts the engine and punches the steering wheel.
And then he does it again, and again and again and a few times more, until his fist's starting to go numb. Kent finally forces himself to stop, because the last thing he needs is some article about "Aces' captain vandalizes rental car after Bruins loss" or worse yet for one of Jack's teammates to talk about him coming by Samwell and somebody to put two and two together.
Why did he ever think he wanted this shit back in his life? Why did he come here? All this did was answer one of the questions he never wanted resolved.
If he'd realized how bad Jack was getting Kent never would've helped him hide it for so long.
He noticed when Jack started drinking more at parties--but they'd all liked to drink, they were teenagers. And Jack was good at hiding the empties so no one could tell how much he'd actually had. And he didn't do it before games, so it's not like it affected his ability to play.
Kent learned about the anti-anxiety meds when they started rooming together on roadies in their second year, but at that point he'd already noticed Jack stressed out about stuff way more than him. And anyway, his dad was Bad Bob Zimmermann. Stressing seemed reasonable. It wasn't like it was that noticeable when Jack was on the ice.
It wasn't until Kent had absently read the label on the meds' bottle while he was trying to find Jack's razor after the handle on his own cheap travel one had snapped--when he'd learned what a discrepancy there was between the dosage Jack was supposed to be sticking to and the number of pills he'd told Kent were fine--that Kent realized Jack didn't have his shit together half as much as he pretended.
Even then, he thought Jack would get better. Kent had gone clean after fucking around some, so of course Jack could too. He thought they'd go through the rest of Juniors, get drafted, Jack would stop stressing so damn much, and then their futures would go on the way they were supposed to. He thought it was just the circumstances.
Being so good at the game was stressful, Kent got that. But you kept going. If you had to freak out for a while or have three extra beers one night, fine, whatever, they'd all done that. There were always going to be rough patches. But you kept moving forward. It was Jack; the only direction he and Kent were supposed to be going was up.
He thought it was temporary. He thought he'd been helping Jack cover it up so he wouldn't get in trouble with the coaches until he shook the nerves off and got back to normal. He hadn't thought that was normal for Jack.
He hadn't thought he'd been helping Jack almost kill himself.
Kent wrenches his hat around to yank it over his face and slumps down in the seat, shaking.
If he'd realized, he would've tried to stop it instead of just monitoring it. Would've gone to the coaches if he couldn't. Or gone to his parents. Gone to Jack's parents if that's what it took, even if Jack made good on the threat to cut him out of his life if he did. That fucking happened anyway, so it wasn't like Kent had anything to lose. He would've. He didn't understand how bad Jack was managing. Kent knew he was stressed; but he thought Jack would play through it.
He doesn't know if Jack knows that. Or if Jack....
Or if Jack thinks he was doing it on purpose. To get rid of the competition.
Jack looked so fucking furious when he first saw him tonight, it couldn't have just been jealousy. Kent told himself he hadn't expected Jack to hate his guts after two years, but that would be a good reason for him to. If he thought Kent was deliberately enabling him.
Kent couldn't get into the hospital to visit in the couple days before he had to go to the draft; Jack's visitation rights were restricted to family only. Every phone call or text he sent was ignored until Jack texted him on the plane. He's seen the Zimmermanns occasionally at charity or promotional events--usually Bob but sometimes also Alicia--and they've always been polite even if there's an undercurrent of tension since none of them want to mention Jack first. But it's not like that means anything. They both know how to manage a public face too, and they'd never do anything to stir up more rumors around their son. Kent can't trust that smiling and shaking his hand when cameras are around doesn't mean they don't think he played a part in the overdose.
He did. He should've told someone instead of helping Jack hide it. Kent knows he played a part in it. But it wasn't that one. If he'd fucking realized he never would've--
Jack's called him vicious before when all Kent was trying to do was point out how the game worked. If all he ever believes from Kent is the bad stuff, why would he think any better about him on this?
He's never tried to ask if that's what Jack thinks. He doesn't want to know. If Jack thinks he's that despicable, if his best friend thought he would do that on purpose, if the person who he's been more honest with than anyone else in his whole life thinks he's that much of a monster, Kent just doesn't want to know.
He scrubs at his eyes and nose harshly with the sleeve of his shirt.
He should've just fucking told someone. But he thought Jack would throw him out of his life. The worst fight they'd ever had was the night before the start of the Memorial Cup playoffs, and they'd yelled at each other so much that the guys on one side of the hotel wall had banged on it and tried to get into their room to see what was wrong and a guy on the other side had gotten the coaches.
They were hauled into the coaches' room and lectured on acting like the captain and alternate they were. The men told Jack and Kent that meant they had to keep the team's morale up and not pull this crap, and then tried to make them say what was wrong.
He should've said something then. But without Jack they might have lost the playoffs; and the reason for the fight felt so petty and stupid Kent didn't want to talk about it; and Jack's hands had been clenched in his pockets and he kept glancing at Kent like he was terrified Kent was going to rat him out.
Jack had been lower on points that year, and he'd had a bad practice that morning. He was locked in the bathroom when Kent returned from the hotel's gym, claiming he was reading and that he wanted some peace and quiet; but Kent could see the book he'd brought on the trip sitting on the table under their stuff and he was sick of Jack thinking he was too stupid to know when he was being lied to. It was around then that Jack's phone started buzzing.
After the third text came in under five minutes, Kent finally checked the phone in case it was something he could use to talk Jack out. But they were all from Bob.
Jack wasn't coming out or unlocking the door, but he was at least talking to Kent, which meant it wasn't as bad a freakout as it could be. Which meant it could get a lot worse if his dad called instead and Jack had to force himself through talking to him like this.
Which was why when the fourth text came, Kent tried to remember how to spell in Quebecois, then gave up and just wrote Désolé--team meal soon. I'll call after.
Bob sent back an okay and a good luck for tomorrow, and that was it.
It wasn't like Kent even read the texts. He got the vague impression they were about coordinating something for Alicia's birthday, or an anniversary, or whatever. He wasn't trying to snoop. He was just trying to buy more time to get Jack out of another goddamn slump.
But when Jack did finally come out, and later checked his phone after dinner and saw what Kent had written, he'd lost it. Even though all Kent was trying to do was help. He wasn't selling Jack out to his parents, he was just trying to help, not that Jack appreciated how goddamn hard it was to deal with him sometimes.
By the time the assistant coach banged on their door and ordered them to open it, Kent was so enraged he wanted to slug Jack. The only reason he hadn't was because he couldn't: Jack had him boxed against the wall, using their height difference like an asshole.
That was the only reason Kent hadn't hit him.
He slumps deeper into the seat and hisses when it makes his side and arm ache more. Kent wrenches his hat further over his face and scrubs at it again, harder, before finally laughing hoarsely.
. . . He should just. Never seriously date anyone again. Never have any kind of sincere relationship again. That's the simplest solution. Then he'll never have to learn if this was a one-time thing, or not.
If this is just how it always gets between him and Jack, fine. It's not fine, but at least it means it's just him and Jack who can't get their shit worked out off the ice. They could still play together; they just have to keep it all business, and stay away from each other the rest of the time. That's not impossible. It sucks, but it's better than doing this over and over again.
But if this isn't just him and Jack....
If this is the way Kent's always going to end up acting in any real relationship he's in, he's not sure he wants to know that about himself.
So. Better to never find out.
He finally gets it together again later. Kent balls up his over-shirt and throws it on the passenger floorboard since it's covered in tears and snot and he's not wearing that out in public. He goes into the store and rinses his face in the bathroom and buys a couple bottles of water, and gets back on the road.
It's almost eleven when he returns the car and gets back to the hotel. When he finally lets himself into his room, he finds Vichy and four more guys playing poker.
"Look who the cat dragged in!" Vichy grins.
"Fuck's sake," Kent groans, exhausted. "I'm getting a shower. Beat it before I'm done or I'm putting on--clown porn or something. Bears in masks. Get out."
"Goddamn, Parse," Waller says, and fuck's sake now they're all looking at him seriously. "What happened to you?"
"Fucking Bruins," Kent mutters, shoving his over-shirt deep into the laundry bag. "Out."
"Ain't what I was asking," he barely hears Waller say under his breath, and then Patsy's reaching into the cooler to snag a beer and crack it open.
"You are obviously a man in dire need," he says, pushing the can into Kent's hand. "Your charm's slipping."
The fuck do you think you know, Kent thinks.
"Whatever," he mutters instead. He chugs the beer.
When he drops the can on the bureau, Patsy starts to grab another one, eyebrow raised.
Kent holds up a hand. "Not 'til the painkillers wear off," he says. "I mean it. Bears in masks. It has to be out there. Beat it."
When he comes out of the bathroom every single one of those assholes is sitting exactly where they were, which is honestly pretty much what Kent expected.
It looks like they're starting a new round. Kent settles on the edge of the bed and holds out his hand, wriggling his fingers. "Deal me in."
Patsy does. "Put a shirt on, pretty boy, who're you trying to impress?"
"Your mom," Kent answers, sweeping up the cards from the floor. "We're Skyping later. I told you to leave, can't say you weren't warned."
Patsy just gives him a long look. "Seriously," he drawls. "How old are you."
"Young enough to be your son," Kent grins. "You really oughta talk to her about that fetish, it's gonna get weird soon."
"Jesus," Scrappy groans, waving at the cooler from the chair he's got his leg propped up on. He catches his ice pack when it starts to slide off his knee. "Someone give him or me another two beers, I don't care which."
Patsy tosses him another can while Kent cackles until Vichy pelts him in the face with a shirt. Not his. He's not sure whose. Kent slides carefully down to the floor and settles against the bed to give his back more support, tucking it behind his head. "What's the game? Snarples?"
"Go Fish," Vichy answers.
Kent pinches the bridge of his nose and wonders what his life is. "Sure, why not."
"Nobody's playing for money with you," Waller replies. "Not with your poker face."
Kent clucks his tongue and watches out of the corner of his eye as Scrappy organizes his cards. "Don't get jealous just because you're bad about giving tells."
"Sure, Captain Pechorin," Vichy drawls. Next to him, Burr snickers.
Kent recognizes it's a reference but doesn't know what to. He snorts derisively and shakes his head to cover, then stops with a wince when it pulls on his shoulder. They settle into the game.
*
Next time he sees an image of Jack again, in a news blurb about Samwell's last few games, Jack's cut his hair.