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Sunshine meant nothing to a world choosing to live blind.
“You don't have to do this,” Kip said, voice shaking.
“Yes, yes I do.”
Confidence was a funny thing, really. Scott squeezed Kip’s hands, shaking. Taking a look around him, he saw his teammates with their families, girlfriends, kids… with their people. Scott was ready to show the world his person, his love and his forever. It was both like every other kiss they shared and nothing like anything he ever experienced when their lips finally met. Scott raised a hand to Kip's face, holding him like he knew. Like he knew the people preferred the comfort of the darkness rather than the shine of sunshine.
He just didn’t know the lengths they would go to snuff their light.
“Cut the cameras!”
The voice of… someone, Scott couldn't even identify the voice under the pure disgust it carried, pulled him back to earth from his personal heaven. Pulling back, he turned around but didn't let go of Kip. He couldn't. It felt like a deep breath after a long dive, to be able to have his love right next to him where he belongs.
“Hunter, off the ice!”
This time he knew who the voice belonged to. His coach, face red like always.
“Go, I’ll go back to my seat.” Kip’s voice was shaking, so was his hands. Scott held him as they walked to the boards, making sure Kip didn't slip on the ice. He deliberately did not look at any of the audience’s faces as he walked towards his coach nor did he listen to the words he heard from voices he called his brothers. He did not stumble when something was thrown at him as he exited into the tunnel either.He did not cry when the coach was screaming at him, or when the GM was screaming at him, or when he was made to wait until everyone finished in the locker room. He did not. He sat, stood, listened, nodded and shrugged yet he did not apologize. Instead, he kept his head down when his teammates walked past him near the locker room, saying words that cut like razors and made themselves at home deep under his skin like glass shards.
Scott knew, more than most of the guys in the team thanks to his captaincy, how the management wanted the players to behave. He knew how to be media friendly, how to pick and choose his words and actions to portray the image everyone expected of The New York Admirals. He knew how the coach looked when he wanted a specific change on the ice, knew the media manager’s little fidgeting before she asked them to do a photoshoot for socials. He knew these people because they were also his people. However, he was now learning new things about the people he called his people. He never knew how the GM sounded like when he was disgusted, or how his coach looked when he was actively avoiding touching him. He saw the media manager, peeking behind the wall with sadness in her eyes. Scott has never seen her sad, at least not to this degree. Tears waiting to fall in her eyes did not suit her, not like the wide smile she had most of the time.
“...benched, Hunter! Have some fucking shame and dont show your or your- your friends face anywhere in public until we figure out what to do!”
Scott didn't even know who he was nodding to, but he nodded as he was yet again surrounded by people after taking his gear off and showering in the now empty locker room.
“...did you hear me? No media, you will not even say no comment. Get away from here you…”
He was starting to feel like a bobble-head at this point but he could not bring himself to verbally answer. Finally, when the crowd around him started to leave and no one was addressing him anymore, he walked to his car with his bags. The media was of course right there, different voices asking him questions he didn't even know the answers to. The arena security was there at least, making a path for him to walk to his car and drive off. A traffic light, a dog chasing a ball, cars, and home. Scott could barely make sense of his sense of reality when he finally opened the door of his apartment and walked in, closing the door behind him.
The artpiece near the door was one of Kip’s favourites. Scott could admire the beauty of the colors and the imagery but he could never see beyond the paint and the canvas like Kip could. It was like magic, how Kip could see so much life in an image, how he could see the creator from the creation. Scott faintly remembered Kip wanting to go to a gallery next week, saying maybe they would find something for the bedroom. Idly, Scott wondered if, like everything else, that plan was just a dream now as well. A dream made out of soft murmur of people, Kip’s lemon hand cream and the soft touches they would share under the new painting. A dream so fragile that it has shattered even before it could be real.
After all, not all dreams were to come true.
Scott was starting to realize that.