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The start of the new hockey season after Scott came out was never going to be easy. They’d talked about it at length: Scott and his agent, Scott and the coaches, Scott and his publicist. Scott and Kip as a couple, too, had talked about it a hundred ways. From schedule pressures to in-stadium optics to the gnawing anxieties that kept Scott awake, staring at the ceiling as dawn crept into the room.
Scheduling was a question of logistics as Scott became a satellite orbiting Kip’s celestial body during the season’s demands. The answer, in the end, was simple: Kip would be here, at Scott’s apartment, as often as he could. The grind of the forty-two away games ahead was enough absence for them to bear.
For home games, they decided that for now Kip wouldn’t be in the stands. It had been Kip’s idea, to which Scott had begrudgingly agreed. All the media circus surrounding Scott’s public declaration had almost overshadowed the fact of the Admirals’ Stanley Cup win. Kip didn’t want to be a talking point. He didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to himself, either. Keeping his privacy had become essentially impossible as it was, without further thrusting himself into the spotlight. He wanted Scott’s next season to be about the sport, and not about the politics.
The anxieties were harder to deal with. For all Scott’s bravery, preseason training had loomed like an unwelcome monolith, its shadow sucking the life out of Scott until he’d finally admitted to Kip, safe in the cocoon of their bed one night, that he was afraid. Kip understood: hockey was not a sport that looked kindly on difference. The pace, the closeness, the danger of the games all led to a sort of sanctioned groupthink and ideological intimacy that was as understandable as it was grotesque.
And so what could Kip have done but hold Scott close, tell him he was brave, and promise that he’d be there to support him as much as Scott needed? It was hardly a chore. Especially when Scott kissed him desperately and held him so tight he thought he might actually crack a rib.
Despite Scott’s fears, preseason training had come and gone without incident, which was unsurprising to Kip. The team’s cohesion was paramount, and the coaches would have made sure everyone understood that. Anyone with dissenting opinions would have been warned to keep things to themselves.
Games were another thing, though. Most nights were fine, and Scott came home riding high from a win or somewhat tense from losing: either outcome generally meant fun things for Kip as Scott worked through the elation or disappointment later in their bedroom. (Or on the couch. Or on the kitchen counter. Or, memorably, pressed up against the apartment’s large glass windows overlooking the city.)
Other nights, Scott came home defeated. Hunched in on himself just a little, nursing a physical or emotional bruise that he didn’t want Kip to see. Scott refused to talk about it, and Kip wasn’t going to push. He did what he could once Scott had washed the game and its events away in the shower: he’d make them food, he’d make actual hot chocolate instead of microwaved protein drink, he’d be the big spoon all night until his arm was numb and he was sure Scott was finally asleep.
While the Admirals might have had their team on-message, that didn’t seem to extend to the rest of the league’s players. Kip hasn’t been there, he hasn’t heard the language, the spite. He was grateful for that, but he hated that Scott was shouldering the weight of it alone.
As far as he’d seen, Scott had never fought over it during a game. Hockey players were, to Kip’s understanding, Neanderthals who were prone to dropping their gloves at the slightest provocation. Scott hardly ever fought anyone, and the bruises he’d borne after those ugly games had been defensive. Instead of fighting, Scott skated harder, played better, scored goal after goal until there could be no doubt as to his skill, his strength, despite…well, despite the other thing.
Kip didn’t like feeling like the “other thing”. The idea that he’d brought any of this upon Scott ate at him sometimes. Scott assured him that he wouldn’t have done anything differently, that living the way he had been was killing him. That Kip made him feel like he could skate a hundred miles an hour, untouchable, just by looking at him. That kissing Kip on home ice that night felt a thousand times better than any goal he’d ever scored.
But the feeling was still there, for both of them. For Kip: the fear that he’d made Scott’s professional life untenable. For Scott: the idea that hockey would find a way to drive him out just for loving his Kip. As if anyone couldn’t love him. One only had to look at him. Scott had been helpless to resist.
This was the reality of coming out, in all its ugly glory. It was never going to be Scott skating victory laps wrapped in a pride flag, no matter how many platitudinous statements the League had begrudgingly made. Coming out hadn’t been an impulse, and it hadn’t been ill-considered, but its echoes were real. They were real in the slurs and the body-checks and the bruises.
But. They were also real in the emails Scott’s agent had forwarded from high school kids and college players and guys in weekend beer league games. Other people who felt seen, felt brave, because of what Scott did. The echoes reverberated in the way Scott and Kip could do something as mundane as walk down the street holding hands and have it be seen as some sort of revolution. They felt it in the way Scott walked taller, his movements lighter, his eyes clearer. Those last things, especially, were priceless to Kip.
Worth so much more than any hateful words spat out to scatter across the ice, ill-willed caltrops meant to puncture and wound.
And so Kip watched the games from home. And Scott came back in one piece. He didn’t fight.
Until he did.
Kip doesn’t know what sets him off, but it must be bad.
He’s watching the game on Scott’s obscenely large television. The Admirals are in the second period of a home game against Pittsburgh, and he sees Scott get checked into the boards by McKinley. It looks like a nasty hit, and Kip’s stomach twists in sympathy.
Scott is skating off with a glare on his face, ready to move on, but then McKinley is saying something, shouting something at Scott as he turns away. And in an instant, Scott transforms.
He flings his gloves off, moving across the ice to McKinley with alarming force. McKinley sneers, the cameras catch his mouth moving again, before Scott is on him, a right hook glancing off McKinley’s visor and cracking into his nose with juddering force.
It’s ugly. McKinley’s head snaps back, blood pissing from his nose and down the front of his jersey, speckling the ice. Scott swings again, an uppercut into McKinley’s midriff, before Carter and Breezy are on him, pulling him back, getting between them while still hurling insults at the Pittsburgh team members who’ve rushed to join the fray. Multiple refs are breaking the fight up. It’s absolute chaos. And there, centre screen, is Scott, incandescent with fury, his hand either bleeding or bloodstained, saying nothing, his lips twisted into a tight, white line.
Scott’s given a five-minute penalty. Pittsburgh score during the power play, tying up the game. The mood must have shifted in the stadium, because the Admirals struggle for the rest of the night. Pittsburgh win in the third period. The home crowd is baying for blood. The Admirals skate off the ice in defeat.
Kip turns off the television, hands shaking. He’s never seen Scott like that. It’s frightening.
Waiting for Scott to come home is agonising. He paces for while, chewing at his thumbnail. He turns the television on again and switches to a Law and Order marathon. Not even Olivia Benson can soothe him, though. By the time he hears the front door open, he’s ready to jump out of his skin. He mutes the TV and turns to the door.
Scott drops his bag with a thud. He’s taking his time coming into the room, and Kip knows that he’s drawing it out on purpose. He probably thinks that Kip is going to be mad.
That’s not what Scott needs.
Kip waits for him to step into the room properly.
Scott looks terrible. His hair is a mess. His hand is bandaged and bruised-looking, his knuckles split. His face is genuinely hangdog as he looks at Kip with something like shame.
“You saw that, huh?” he asks, his voice low.
Kip nods. “I did.”
Scott looks away, then straightens his spine, his jaw setting. “I’d do it again.”
Kip steps towards him, reaches a hand out to catch his fingertips in the front pocket of Scott’s hoodie.
“What happened?” he asks. “Talk to me.”
Scott shakes his head.
Kip steps closer, slips his arm around Scott to splay fingers over his waist, skin firm and warm under fleece.
“I assume that prick deserved it,” he starts. “But you don’t fight. You never fight, Scott. It was scary, I was scared—”
“You didn’t hear him,” Scott cuts him off. “I can take a lot, but not…not that.”
Kip rubs his thumb over Scott’s side, feeling the flare of his ribs as he breathes.
“What did he say?” he asks. He doesn’t want to know, but they need to air it, to exorcise it.
“No. You don’t need to know.” Scott winces.
“Scott, I guarantee you I’ve been called everything under the sun at one point or another—”
“So have I!” Scott shouts, startling Kip. “You think I haven’t heard it all before this season? The number of times I’ve been called a fairy, a cocksucker, light on my skates, and worse. It doesn’t mean shit, and it doesn’t hurt worse now they all know it’s true.”
Kip can just stare at him, just gently rub his heaving sides as he lets it out.
“They can spit whatever hate they want at me and I will take it, I will take every stick to the face and I will take the boarding. I don’t have a fucking choice. I’m not going to fight back because it’s not worth it. It’s certainly not going to change anyone’s fucking mind.
“But tonight…. Look, I can deal with it, if they wanna call me a bitch or a faggot, I can deal with it. But if they say something about you—”
Scott grabs Kip, suddenly and fiercely, pulling him in against his chest, curling him into his arms.
Oh, Kip realises. A fierce protectiveness bubbles up inside him—not for himself, and not for Scott alone, but for the two of them together.
Their togetherness has not come lightly. It was hard won. They respect it and protect it because they had clawed hard at the world to keep it.
“Kip,” Scott says, just once. His voice breaks slightly, and he pushes his face into the crook of Kip’s shoulder and neck, where Kip can feel his breath, damp and hot.
“It’s okay,” Kip whispers, rubbing his hands over Scott’s back. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay, and Scott murmurs as much into Kip’s shoulder.
“You’re already putting up with so much for me, and I just snapped,” he mutters. “I felt like a fucking animal. And I knew you’d hate it, that you’d hate me for fighting, but I felt good, Kip, it felt right to break that fucker’s face.”
The words are muffled, but Kip hears them clearly. He pulls back, just a little, and looks straight at Scott, whose eyes are damp.
“I do not hate you for fighting,” he says. “I don’t even blame you for fighting. I don’t like you getting hurt. Yes, I was scared. But for you, not of you. You are the kindest, most gentle person I know.”
Scott doesn’t respond, except to press his face back into Kip’s shoulder.
“You know,” Kip continues, rubbing his hands over Scott’s back again, soothing. “When I was a junior in high school, I came to my locker one afternoon and saw this piece of shit kid, Dane Langford, drawing a dick on my locker door, under a very predictable slur. Terrible penmanship. Bad artist. It was barely recognisable as a cock and balls.”
Scott laughs softly against his shoulder.
“Anyway. I’d put up with a fair amount of shit from this guy. He was a bully. I wasn’t out at the time, I was still coming to understand that I was gay. He just pushed the wrong button.”
“What’d you do?”
“I punched him in the face, is what I did.”
Scott laughs for real this time, squeezing Kip tight.
“How did that go?” he asks.
“About as well as you’d imagine. It really hurt my hand. He got a black eye, but I think I ended up worse off. Two weeks of detention. And it’s not like there’s some great moral here. It wasn’t like he never bullied anyone again, or some after-school special ending. He continued being horrible, right up until graduation.”
Kip turns, kisses the side of Scott’s neck.
“But I’ll never forget that I did that. That I even could do that. That I can stand up for myself, or the people I love, when it matters.”
Scott just holds him, and Kip can feel dampness on his collar where Scott’s face is pressed. They stay like that for a long while, Kip running his fingers through Scott’s hair, rubbing circles on his hips, squeezing him back just as tightly.
“I love you,” Scott murmurs.
“I love you, too. Do you want to do something nice? I can make tea. There’s endless SVU on the TV.”
Because what more can he offer, other than to be here, now, together?
Scott’s arms tighten around him just a little.
“Which episode is on?” he asks, voice thick.
Kip peers at the muted TV screen. “It looks like it’s that one where Stabler eats tiger meat.”
Scott sniffs. “The one where Cragen pulls that monkey out of a basketball?”
“That’s the one.”
“That episode is weird,” Scott says, his voice thick.
“It is.” Kip kisses the side of Scott’s head, runs his hands over Scott’s hair, works the knot of muscle at the back of his neck. “Come on, then.”
They end up on the couch, slotted together like nesting bowls, Kip encircled in Scott’s arms. Scott kisses him, softly, behind the ear, on the side of his neck, along his cheek. His touch is gentle.
Kip is careful with Scott’s injured hand. He weaves Scott’s other fingers with his own and leans into the embrace.
The credits roll. Another episode starts. Kip turns the volume down and then twists in Scott’s arms so they can kiss properly. Softly.
They fall asleep like that, pressed together, chest to chest, heart to heart, the television a quiet witness to the moment. The fight has gone out of them for now. The battle is won. And to the victors, the spoils.