the thing about mattdrai is leon is humble, but he knows he's good, so he can be cocky when he wants to be. but matthew is not 'humble', he's self depricating, and sometimes, especially on the ice, he uses cockiness as a defense against his own insecurities. and yeah, leon gets annoyed by that because, before he gets to know matthew, he thinks it's fucking annoying that he's so cocky.
in reality, matthew is over there, all false bravato, just praying that no one else notices that he doesn't belong, that he has never been good enough to be where he is. when he gets glimpses into matthew's imposter syndrome it's fucking eye opening. like matthew giving himself the 85 rating is not a silly little joke he genuinely fucking believes that's his nhl24 rating. and like i can imagine leon making that little joke "oh, i dunno probably 85, eh?" with a cheeky little grin. but that's not matthew. like sure! you can totally read it as him being humble but it's NOT it's him REALLY TRULY believing it. it's him playing a stanley cup game in a run he practically won for his team with a broken sternum bc he still had to prove himself (????) and the thing is like why else do you play a stanley cup game when you couldn't even get yourself dressed in the morning??? like he saw that as letting his team down and that's fucking DEVASTATING. and no one around him thought "oh! maybe just this once we should tell him 'matthew, you don't need to prove anything. you did fucking amazing. you got your team here, but you need to heal now though. you need to lay your ass back down and fucking HEAL because YOU are more important to us than a fucking TROPHY." AND YES i know he'd worked his LIFE for that moment but one has to wonder what that does to someone. to constantly chase that glory and to never feel good enough until then?? and THEN even when you reach the peak, you will feel like you still were not good enough, you didn't deserve it, you never will. and there is NOTHING you can do to fill the emptiness. not even the one thing you thought you needed most in the world. because. fuck. the thing you needed most is actually someone to give a shit. about YOU. not your perceived value on a team. not your accomplishments. but YOU. when you are laid up in bed, can't move, hurt. when you are waking up slow. when you aren't doing anything at all. when the mask is off and you're just breathing. that's what you need. and. fuck. leon can give that to him. because leon isn't thinking about those things. he's thinking about how matthew is brightest when he isn't performing. when he's there, curled up with a book in an oilers sweatshirt he'd never be caught dead in. when he's telling leon how much he loves him. when he lets himself breathe.
and that's the thing!! leon is so so good at motivating the people he loves to love themselves by just. believing in them? and i think that belief would change matthew's whole life. i think he'd start maybe believing it too. that maybe all the shit he's gotten from the people who he trusted the most was not fucking true. that maybe he is worth everything that leon is telling him he's worth. that he can. that he will. that he IS.
i think leon gets choked up when matthew says something good about himself. he'd never admit it, but he does. and i think to be loved by matthew would be the most overwhelming thing in the world, because it is utterly selfless. disregarding of anything. because that need of matthew's, that one to be loved with no conditions? it comes out subconciously in the other direction. it is unavoidable. it's fucking pure. and when he loves, he loves hard. leon almost doesn't know what to do with it, until he realizes it's a gift, and he will never ever deny it. in fact, he will work his entire life to carefully wrap his own love in gift paper, and give it to matthew at every possible moment.
