Chapter Text
Kip watched his phone buzz across the desk as his Postmodernism seminar ended, Scott flashing on the screen. He felt his heart squeeze. He’d never even added a picture to go with the contact number. They’d been that careful.
And having to be that careful had been Kip’s breaking point. He hadn’t spoken to Scott in almost four months. Why he was calling now was a mystery, and maybe one Kip should let go to voicemail, but four months meant nothing in the long run, he was still weak as fuck when it came to Scott.
“Hello? Scott?” Kip said cautiously.
“Hey, man,” said a voice that was definitely not Scott. “Sorry, this is Carter Vaughn. I’ve got Scott’s phone. Is this Kip?”
“Yeah,” Kip said. Carter Vaughn was one of Scott’s teammates. Number 19. Kip had seen him on the ice, teeing Scott up for goals.
“I don’t know if you saw the game tonight,” Vaughn said, “but Scott took a bad hit. He’s in the hospital while they monitor the concussion.”
Oh fuck, Kip thought, falling back into his seat. Ariana, who’d been waiting for him to finish packing up so they could walk out together, gave him a concerned look.
“Anyway, doctors think he’s going to be fine,” Vaughn continued, “but when he woke up he was asking for you. I face scanned him to get his phone open and find your number. Are you in town? Could you stop by for visiting hours?”
Scott must be confused as hell if he was asking for Kip. Especially in front of his teammates. Kip should say no, that he was a friend from outside New York. He lived in Vancouver or Hawaii or England. Scott was quite literally concussed, he didn’t actually want his ex-boyfriend showing up. It had been made abundantly clear that Kip and Scott’s friend groups would not be meeting each other.
“I—yeah. What hospital is he at?” Kip said.
-
On his way to Mount Sinai, Kip watched an excruciating clip of the game where some asshole on the Chicago Mariners rammed Scott into the boards head first, knocking his helmet off and leaving him in a crumpled heap on the ice.
Gameplay had been stopped for a full ten minutes as team medical personnel swarmed onto the rink, eventually looping Scott’s arms over their shoulders and steering him off the ice to the sound of muted applause.
Jesus, Kip thought, swallowing the lump in his throat.
He’d just check that Scott was okay. Vaughn hadn’t seemed to suspect anything about their relationship. Scott was a little loopy and asking to see a friend, there was nothing wrong with that. And maybe Kip could still be his friend. He’d asked Scott for a clean break—no late night booty calls to let off steam, nothing that would drag Kip back to what was only going to break his heart again. But four months on, Kip still missed him. He still wanted to know that Scott was okay.
The doors to the hospital slid open and Kip blinked against the harsh fluorescent lighting. Vaughn had said he’d meet Kip in reception to take him up to Scott’s room. With all the possible intrusion attempts from media or gawkers, they weren’t letting anyone in unescorted.
Kip had never seen Carter Vaughn without a helmet and jersey on but he was easy enough to spot after months of watching Admirals games. Kip raised a hand in greeting and Vaughn trotted over to him. “Hey man, thanks for coming.”
“No problem,” Kip said. “I don’t know what help I can be, but I’m happy to keep Scott company for awhile.”
Vaughn nodded, leading Kip toward the elevator. “That’s all he needs really. Concussions fucking suck. He’s in that heightened emotional stage. Honest to God looked like he was gonna cry when he was asking if someone could get you and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Scott cry.”
“You’ve known him a long time?” Kip asked, trying to breathe through the pain suddenly jabbing at his heart. He’d seen Scott cry once—just the once, when Kip had zipped up his bag and left Scott’s penthouse for the last time.
“Since we were rookies,” Vaughn said. “Are you guys old friends? He barely talks about his life outside hockey. Focused as hell.”
Kip shook his head. “We’ve only been friends for a year.” And that was rounding up. “Not sure what made him think of me right now.”
Vaughn laughed. “Dude, my last concussion, they told me afterwards I was asking for Scarlett Johansson. Still don’t know if that was just Huff fucking with me. Mostly I remember being dizzy as shit.”
The elevator doors opened and Vaughn led Kip down a quiet, squeaky-floored hallway to room 421. Inside, Scott was lying on his back on a hospital bed, eyes closed. His face was almost as white as the sheets. Kip felt a little dizzy himself.
“Benny, this is Kip,” Vaughn said to a man sitting in a chair by the window. “Kip, Eric Bennett. He’s our goalie.”
Bennett unfolded from the chair and reached out to shake Kip’s hand. “Nice to meet you. He’s been in and out,” Bennett said, motioning to Scott. “Asked if you were here again. Looked heartbroken as hell when I said no.”
Exhaustion washed over Kip. Even now he had to lie. To act like it was strange for Scott to want someone he loved, or someone he’d once loved anyway, when he was hurt. “What have the doctors said?”
“Confirmed concussion. No brain swelling which is good. He hasn’t been able to successfully answer all the usual orientation stuff though which isn’t.” Kip gave him a questioning look. “Where he is, what’s the date, who the president is, all that,” Bennett added like this was old hat. It probably was to him, to anyone who played hockey and got their body routinely pummelled in pursuit of sporting glory.
On the bed, Scott stirred. Kip dropped his bookbag on the floor and moved over to his side. “Scott?”
Scott’s eyes blinked open. He looked confused and a little scared in a way that tugged Kip’s heartstrings. He reached out a hand to pat Scott’s forearm where it rested on the sheets.
Scott’s arm twisted until he was holding Kip’s hand instead. “Kip,” he said, sounding relieved, “you’re here.”
“Of course, buddy,” Kip said because he couldn’t say of course, baby. He felt suddenly choked up and cleared his throat. “Heard you took a bad hit on the ice.”
“Yeah,” Scott said, frowning, like he didn’t quite remember. “I think I did. It hurts.” He was looking at Kip with his shiny, sad eyes, the way he had sometimes before he’d said something vulnerable or asked to be held, kissed. “Can you—”
“Bennett’s getting the doctor for you,” Kip cut in before Scott could say something compromising. Kip would have given almost anything to lean down and kiss him, to pretend he was imparting some magical medicine that would make Scott feel better, but they were past that, and they weren’t alone anyway. “And Vaughn’s here too.”
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Vaughn said, coming closer. “Found Kip for you.”
“Thanks, Vaughny,” Scott said, smiling, oddly sweet, and then he closed his eyes again, out like a light.
“He hasn’t called me that in a long time,” Vaughn said quietly to Kip. He rubbed a hand across his face as a doctor came in, trailed by Bennett. “Hi, doc. He’s back out again.”
The doctor nodded, checking the vitals machine Scott was hooked up to. “Did he say anything?”
“Not much,” Vaughn said. “He recognized Kip.”
“He said ‘it hurts’,” Kip added. “Can you give him anything else for pain?”
“I’ll put an order in,” the doctor said, moving over to the corner of the room to type something into the computer. “Have the nurse’s desk page me if he regains consciousness again.”
It was strangely not awkward to pass the time with Vaughn and Bennett. Bennett surfaced a deck of cards from somewhere and dealt out a hand of poker. A few minutes into the round another man came into the room. “Hey guys, kids are down for the night. How’s he doing?”
“Hey Huff,” Bennett said. “He’s woken up a few times and the scans came back okay. Doctors don’t seem too worried.”
“Good,” Huff said. He looked at Kip curiously and extended a hand. “Huff.”
“Kip. Scott’s friend,” Kip added, to give some kind of explanation for why he was there, haunting Scott’s room alongside the people he considered family.
“Didn’t know Scott even had non-hockey friends,” Huff said but he sounded pleased about it. He pulled over a chair and Bennett dealt him into the game.
-
“Kip, your call,” Vaughn said.
“Oh, sorry,” Kip said. The hours had slid by, making his mind wander, and he’d been staring at Scott on the bed, thinking about how this might be the last time he saw him for a long time. “Fold.” Kip put his cards face down. “This is Scott’s third concussion, right?”
“Second at least since I’ve known him,” Huff said. “He got one back in 2011 during the playoffs.”
“There was one when we were rookies too,” Vaughn put in. “From that asshole Michael Gorgin boarding him.” Huff and Bennett made grumbling noises, clearly in the loop about who Gorgin was in the hockey world.
“Scott made this joke to me once,” Kip said, because he’d spent a lot of time not being able to talk about Scott and now he could, for a little while. It felt liberating. “He said he’d only had two concussions and then he held up three fingers.” He shook his head, smiling, remembering how Scott had looked in his running clothes, his back to the window at Straw+Berry.
Vaughn gave a delighted grin. “That’s my joke! Scott stole my joke, he thinks I’m funny!”
“Funnyman,” Huff said, flicking a card at Vaughn.
Kip felt his smile slip. It wasn’t really funny though, was it? “How many— How bad is it…to keep getting head injuries like this?”
Huff and Bennett exchanged a glance. “I mean, it’s not great,” Huff said. “My wife’s got a rule for me. Four concussions and I’m retired, no matter how many good years anyone else thinks I have left.”
Kip swallowed, the click of his throat loud in the sudden quiet.
“Scott’ll be fine,” Vaughn said, patting Kip on the shoulder. “Coach will keep him on the Injured Reserve List for a couple weeks so he can rest up.”
“What I’m worried about is the fact that we’re fucking leaving tomorrow,” Huff said. “Our next four games are on the road. You know the doctors are going to want someone to be with him for monitoring after he gets released and he doesn’t have any other family.”
“I could keep an eye on him,” Kip said, like an idiot.
“Would you?” Vaughn asked, looking relieved.
“Sure,” Kip said. It would be fine. He could handle being around Scott for a few days and if Scott didn’t want him there, they’d figure something else out. “I mean, as long as he’d just need someone to hang out. I’m not a nurse or anything. I’d have to move some work shifts around but that shouldn’t be a big deal.” Kip still needed to hustle to pay off his undergrad loans but getting the scholarship to grad school had taken a huge weight off.
“You’re the best,” Vaughn said. “I can’t believe Scott’s never talked about you before.”
-
Where this left Kip was alone is a hospital room with Scott at six o’clock in the morning, struggling to wake up as a doctor shone a penlight in Scott’s eyes and asked him if he knew where he was.
“At the hospital,” Scott said, but he was looking at Kip, not the doctor.
“Can you tell me your name and date of birth?”
“Scott Hunter. July 28th, 1986.”
“And can you tell me the current date?”
Scott frowned. “I—I’m not sure.”
“That’s all right,” the doctor said. “Difficultly remembering is a common symptom of concussion. Take it easy and things that are fuzzy now should start coming back to you. This is who we’re sending you home with?” she asked, motioning toward Kip.
“Yes,” Kip said, standing up to take the focus off of Scott who looked like he was about to start hyperventilating. The monitors he was hooked up to would probably alarm any second now.
“Wonderful,” the doctor said. “A nurse will be in to go over the discharge instructions with you and we’ll get the two of you out of here. The main thing Scott needs is rest and he can get that at home in the comfort of his own bed.”
“Thank you,” Kip said.
“Kip…,” Scott said when the doctor had left, closing the door behind her.
“You didn’t say anything compromising,” Kip promised him. “You just asked for me. And I came, as your friend.”
Scott let out a long breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. He reached out a hand and Kip stepped forward to take it. “I do want you here, more than anything.”
Not more than anything, Kip thought with a pang, but it was a nice fantasy.