In honour of finishing my first Heated Rivalry fanfic, have a fanart that I've been staring at entirely too long. Affinity and I are slowly getting better at communicating but we're still mere acquaintances.
Read The Weekend on AO3!
Scott and Kip get a lot of invitations now that they're the one couple everybody talks about. But this invitation is just a little bit different from the usual. At least neither of them had expected to be asked to spend a weekend at Shane Hollander's cottage, with Shane. And Ilya Rozanov. Especially since there's a little bit of history between Scott and the other two players.
But sometimes, a relaxed weekend in the middle of nowhere is just what you need.
since tumblr and AO3 aren't cooperating on link sharing for me right now, I guess I have to promote my new chapter the old fashioned way
Once they’re back in the flow though, a question that has been bouncing around his head for a while now comes tumbling out.
“I was wondering. Is Shane on the spectrum?”
Ilya frowns, eyes still laser focused on the ball as he deftly deflects it back to Kip’s side of the table. “Spectrum? What spectrum?”
Kip has to reach pretty far but he just catches the ball and whacks it towards Ilya again. “Autism,” he finally answers.
He isn’t sure if Ilya is familiar with that term but it doesn’t really matter because Ilya catches the ball in one swift movement with his left hand and then turns around and shouts “Hey Shane, are you on autism spectrum?” at a volume that makes Kip jump.
There’s a marked silence from the direction of the lawn chairs, a bird calls out in the woods, and Kip hopes that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t hear Ilya.
But of course they did.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“I think, for me, the weirdest reaction to my coming out—I mean you expect the hate and you’re grateful for the love—but the weirdest reaction was from people who complain that … I’m not gay enough?” He sounds honestly confused.
“What, they want you to start painting your nails or something?” Shane asks, frowning again.
“Wouldn’t be a bad look for you, Hunter.” Ilya waggles his eyebrows at Scott but Scott mostly ignores him.
“I don’t know. I guess. Maybe. I honestly don’t really get them. Shouldn’t they be happy there’s a gay player at all now? Out, I mean.”
Both Shane and Ilya agree but Kip hums absentmindedly. He’s actually been thinking about that one for a bit and he’s got a theory that might explain that so he’s not ready to write those people off as completely weird or crazy. Although they are annoying.
He finally notices the heavy silence and looks up to find both Shane and Ilya looking expectantly at him and Scott has half turned in the embrace as well.
“Anything you wanna share with the rest of the group, hun?” Scott asks, demonstrating he knows Kip too well by now.
Chapter Six is up 🥳
Four guys in a cottage, still talking, although Kip gets to let out his nerd in this one and does most of the talking.
An idea my brain surprised me with when I woke up this morning XD
I love the "sorry can you pretend to be my boyfriend for a moment" meetcute trope so I imagined what would happen if Kip approaches Scott like that (not knowing who he is) (why is Scott at the club? Idk. Why is Kip confident Scott won't punch him? Idk) because he's trying to shake off his stupid ex boyfriend. Scott is too startled to really protest (also Kip is very hot) and the next moment Kip is kissing him (because the ex can't take a hint).
Only problem is: somebody took a picture so next morning, the headlines are "Scott Hunter seen kissing man in NY club" etc. and Kip is absolutely MORTIFIED and is scrambling to make a press statement, having to tell all of NY that he accidentally kissed (outed) Scott Hunter because his ex boyfriend was annoying.
And Scott's at a crossroads because he's got two choices now:
double down on the closet. Except now that the idea has been planted in peoples' heads, it's probably even more difficult to pretend and he'll probably have to marry some poor girl just to get out of this
or embrace the opportunity he's been given because wouldn't it be nice if he could kiss a boyfriend in a club? (the bf conveniently looking like Kip in his daydreams because the kiss had been brief but nice)
The idea comes with extra helpings of
Scott dithering so long on how to react that it's basically too late to deny now
Kip being a complete anxious mess because he fucked up so spectacularly
Scott being an anxious mess but trying to reassure Kip because he doesn't actually blame him (more himself for being in the club)
George very much not knowing how to help his son with the mess he's gotten himself into
a conversation between Scott and Carter that goes basically
S: no, that wasn't my secret boyfriend. I don't have a boyfriend
C: awkward, but he was cute
S: ...what if I was gay though?
C: As your best friend, I'd be a little sad you never told me but of course you'd still be my best bud
S: ... okay. I'm gay.
C: As your best friend, I'm a little sad you never told me but of course you're still my best bud
S: Thanks. Okay
C: Okay
*teary-eyed hug*
Scott awkwardly asking Kip out for real, Kip being very flustered and awkward but when Scott starts backtracking (because omg, did I come on too strong???), he basically leaps into his arms
Ilya and Shane being very confused on the side
Could also include:
ex bf going "your new bf is SCOTT HUNTER?!?!" and Kip going shocked pikachu
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Did you sleep well?” Shane asks the next morning when Kip and Scott make their way into the kitchen.
“Did you have fun?” Ilya adds with a shiteating grin, eyes travelling over them and taking special notice of their entwined hands. He’s sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping coffee, while Shane is busy preparing breakfast.
Kip doesn’t need to turn towards Scott to know he’s rolling his eyes. He can practically hear it. But Kip just smiles, squeezing Scott’s fingers.
“Yes, both. Thank you.”
His voice doesn’t waver a bit, sounding casual and cheerful. He doesn’t even react when Scott makes a sound next to him that somehow manages to be both a snort and a sigh. There’s probably another eyeroll in there, too.
Kip’s smile grows a little wider.
Ilya raises his coffee cup at Kip with a nod before turning to Scott. “I like your boyfriend.”
“Yes, I’m aware. Thank you. I happen to like him, too.”
Chapter Three is up 🥳
Four guys in a cottage, talking, because they're all gay(/queer). That's it. That's the fic. They have a lot to talk about ...
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“So,” Ilya says, sipping from his can of coke, “tell us how you found your hot boyfriend. The real version, not press version.” He grins, a twinkle in his eyes.
“Rozanov.” Scott’s tone is pure warning. It’s deep and growly and does things to Kip he tries very hard to ignore, seeing how they’re in company and all that. He’s maybe a little bit obsessed with Scott’s voice (and everything else about him).
“What? It’s true. It’s a compliment.” Ilya waves at Kip as if to support his words with evidence and Kip shifts a little under his gaze. “You don’t think your boyfriend is hot?”
Scott groans. “Of course I think he’s hot!” Now he sounds like he’s losing an argument with a toddler and is not handling it well.
Kip stifles a chuckle in his own can of ginger ale.
Chapter Two is up! 🥳
Four guys in a cottage, talking, because they're all gay(/queer). That's it. That's the fic. They have a lot to talk about...
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Ilya laughs and steals a pancake from Shane’s plate even though there’s still plenty available. “Is okay. We do not need to argue on your last morning.”
“Don’t make it sound so terminal. We’re just flying back, not dying!”
“Yes, please don’t die. I need to beat you in the playoffs this season. Get the cup back.”
Scott grins. “Feel free to try.”
“Ooh, someone’s getting cocky after … how many cup wins? One?” Shane leans back in his chair, arms crossed, and grins at him.
“Oh fuck both of you!”
Kip pats Scott’s arm, trying to swallow the laughter bubbling in his throat.
“I wish I could refer to this conversation the next time someone asks what it’s like hanging out with hockey players. But, uh, I won’t. For obvious reasons.” He waves at Shane and Ilya and the whole ‘not out’ of it all.
[this is technically going to be a part in The Weekend at some point but I'm deep in my feels right now and I kinda like this raw, almost dialogue only version of it and I think it stands well enough on it own so I'm posting it anyway]
“Hey.
“Hey. Sorry, I couldn’t sleep anymore and thought I might as well try to catch the sunrise out here.”
“Okay.” Then, after a pause. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.”
“Kip …”
“It’s nothing. Just a bit of bad brain weather or something. I’ll be fine.”
“Kip … talk to me.”
“It’s … it’s nothing.”
“Clearly not.”
“Scott—”
“Please, darling. Just talk to me. Whatever it is.”
Kip bites his lip hard, avoiding Scott’s gaze. But after a while he gives in.
He still doesn’t look at him.
“Sometimes I’m afraid that you’ll figure out that you don’t actually love me. That you just latched on to your first boyfriend with all the desperation of too many years of loneliness and mistook that for love. Or … that maybe you do love me but it’s not the forever kind of love, just that first excitement of being so close to someone, but that you won’t ever admit that to yourself because you’re stubborn and you see things through and so you think you’ll have to see this through, too, even if you no longer love me and then you’ll be trapped again and I know marriage is all about ‘promise to love me until we’re fucking dead’ and all that but I don’t … I mean I want that, I hope that’s how it’ll be because I love you so fucking much but I couldn’t bear to be the one trapping you again in a situation you don’t want to be in and I … I know that I’m being unfair to you and that I should trust you to know your own feelings and what you want and I do, for the most part I do, but sometimes …”
“Sometimes you’re afraid.”
“... yes.”
Scott takes a step forward and wraps his arms around Kip, pulling him close until he can bury his nose in Kip’s curls. Eyes squeezed close, Kip clings to Scott, clings to his solid warmth and his familiar body and his comforting, steadying presence.
They stand like that for a long time before Scott finally speaks.
“I can’t promise you I will love you forever. I can only promise you that, right now, it feels like I will. That I’ve been feeling like this for a long time now. You’re right, you’re technically my first boyfriend and yes, maybe I did imprint on you like a fucking duckling the first time we met,” Kip snorts at that, “but you’re not the first man I’ve been with. There’s been Hollander and Rozanov, obviously, but also all those one-night stands in Europe during all those summers and sure, those were just about the sex, too, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some guy every now and then where I thought about what it would be like to be in a relationship with him. Where I wished things were different so I could at least try if it worked out. But you … you,” he chuckles fondly, “I would have moved fucking continents if I’d met you in Rome instead of Brooklyn.”
“Yeah?” Kip laughs, wetly, trying to imagine a version of their lives where he had somehow managed to get to Rome but was jobbing in a pizza place or something.
“Absolutely. I guess I just got really fucking lucky that my first boyfriend is also the guy I really, really want to marry.”
“Okay. … can you still promise me something?”
“Hm?”
“If that ever changes, please tell me?”
“Only if you promise to do the same.”
“ … okay.”
“I’m not sure if we should really write our own vows…”
“Why? You think ‘I promise to tell you if I no longer want to be married to you’ is not super standard wedding stuff?”
“I don’t know. But no, probably not.”
“Well, we’re us. And it only has to work for us.”
“Hm. You’re right.”
“You’re not angry with me, right?”
“Angry? Why would I be angry with you, sweetheart?”
“For … for doubting you? And your love for me?”
“I mean … I’d much prefer if you didn’t do that but I get it. And I’m constantly terrified that you’ll one day decide this isn’t worth all the effort and hassle so … I guess we’re even.”
“You are so worth the effort and hassle, babe. So worth it!”
