#i mean.. u asked for sad jdghdgj

[asterlark]

listen i am always here for Kent Parson Being Sad so: anything u want involving kent + being sad

Kent doesn’t know why today has sucked so fucking bad.

It’s not like he did anything all day to warrant being this exhausted. It was a rare off day, so he’d scheduled absolutely nothing to give himself a break from being so goddamn busy all the time. Turns out, that was a bad plan. An empty apartment with too much time to think and no motivation to do anything productive was a dangerous combination. It was like the world’s most depressing math equation.

He’s been huddled up on the couch all day wearing his comfiest sweater and beanie with a thick blanket he’d stolen from his mom’s when he got signed. Swoops makes fun of him for that– “You know you live in Vegas, right, the actual desert?” – but fuck him, Kent keeps his apartment at a nice 55 degrees at all times to be able to wear his New York clothes. It’s cathartic, okay. And he hates the desert.

Kit’s been ignoring him, too, which isn’t out of character for her, but it still stings. She’s perched haughtily on the back of the couch, and scratches him whenever he moves.

It’s just been… a bad day. He woke up feeling off. And things kept happening– he spilled his cereal, he cut his hand opening Kit’s food, he has this hangnail that’s been bugging him all day– and they aren’t big, or important, but today they felt gigantic. Everything today has just been a reminder of the ways that he fails, the ways that he can’t keep up with the rest of humanity. The ways that he’s well into his twenties and can’t take care of himself.

He’s been watching game highlights all day, which is the only thing calming him down at the moment. Hockey has been the one constant in his life, something that’s always been there for him; he puts work in and it comes back to him. It’s simple. Nothing else has ever been that simple.

Then– then. A video comes up in his “Up Next,” because YouTube is fucking evil and knows he’s watched this video over and over, and he doesn’t even try to scramble for the remote because who fucking cares, and it autoplays and he sees his own seventeen-year-old self stepping onto the ice.

He taps gloves with a few other guys, then laughs way too loud at someone’s joke, someone who’s out of view. But Kent knows who it is.

He and Jack line up at center ice, and they share the Look, the fucking trademark look, and within ten seconds of the faceoff ending they’ve snapped the puck clean into the goal. And, God, he remembers that celly. They’d hugged so tight, and Kent had whispered something stupid in his ear, and Jack had grinned at him, the way he only did on the ice, elastic and carefree– that part wasn’t captured on camera. Neither was the kiss they shared when they got back to the hotel.

Kent doesn’t recognize that blonde kid smiling in the video. He was so fucking happy, and he’d encountered obstacles but he’d gotten over them, he thought he could do anything– he thought they were in it together–

He can’t fucking breathe, and he turns the TV off before it gets to the worst part, the short interview their coach had added at the end of the highlights reel, where Kent can’t stop grinning and Jack’s accent is so thick, Kent’s hair too short and Jack’s too long, both of them untouched by the world yet, both of them invincible–

He can’t breathe. He pulls his beanie off and throws it as hard as he can, but it’s not satisfying when it lands. He wants to throw the remote at the TV. He wants to break everything, it’s been years and he can’t do this, it’s been years and he doesn’t know why he’s not over it, normal people get the fuck over it. He just can’t stop fixating. He just can’t stop holding himself back, holding everybody back. Not even his own cat fucking likes him.

It’s not even mostly about Jack right now, though, is the thing. He can’t get over how happy he used to be. He doesn’t understand what happened, how he let himself get to this point where he didn’t recognize himself. He doesn’t know how to describe himself anymore. He used to be this carefree guy, the class clown, the wild child. The only thing that’s stayed the same about him is being good at hockey, and that’s only because he has no fucking life. He used to do things, hang out with people, make connections. Now he has one friend, tops. And his team probably only tolerates him because he’s captain.

He wishes for the millionth time that he could just get away, that he could just stop. That if he woke up tomorrow and decided to take a vacation, it would be okay. He misses Syracuse, misses snow and his mom and sister, misses their tiny house his mom refuses to sell. He misses his home rink and his peewee coach who was more of a father than his actual dad.

Kent loves hockey. He really, really does. But sometimes he wishes he could just be that little gap-toothed kid again, learning to skate for the first time, his mom cheering him on from the bleachers.

He pulls his mother’s quilt tighter around himself and tries not to think about the last time something besides hockey made him truly happy.

While he’s trying to talk himself out of whatever this is he’s feeling right now– y’know, everyone has bad days, so what if the bad outweighs the good, at least you have good in the first place, shithead– Kit actually steps down from the back of the couch and settles in his lap. He doesn’t dare move for fear she’ll leave or scratch him again, but she seems to be asleep already. He tentatively places a hand on her fluffy side and feels that she’s purring and almost cries like a sappy moron.

“Hey, at least you validate me,” Kent says. “That’s probably just because I feed you, though, huh.”

Kit sighs in her sleep and flops onto her back. Kent places his hand in the middle of her ridiculously soft stomach, something she’d never let him do if she was awake, and tells himself again– Everyone has bad days. At least you have a damn cat.