Chapter 23
H e didn’t remember ever learning it, but the first time he’d noticed he could handle pain better than his teammates, he’d been fourteen. His dad had started talking about the Gresham Institute, where the hockey team was good enough about a quarter of their graduates made it to the Premier League, and Kallen knew what it meant. He needed a scholarship if he wanted to go, and to get a scholarship, he had to prove his worth. As a school, Gresham didn’t technically have a one omega per team policy, but looking at team rosters from previous years, they might as well have.
It made sense, actually, when the Premier League had hundreds of vacancies for alphas (and technically betas) and just a few for omegas. Less, really, since omegas continued in their role even while injured, only officially retiring when the injury was permanently disabling, or they were too old to perform well.
Even then, some teams took their time sweet choosing a replacement.
You couldn’t play without a goalie, and you’d struggle if your offensive line was short-handed, but getting by without the soul of your team on site for a few months was doable, apparently.
As long as you had that poor soul stuffed full of team babies, or at least available for the team to fuck on the regular.
It worked out because there weren’t that many omegas playing hockey at a semi-professional level anyway, though as a kid Kallen hadn’t understood why.
But he had to stand out, and maybe in his local team he was a bit famous for his sharp goals and stickhandling, but that wasn’t the real world. If he wanted to be picked, he had to shine despite his phenotype. He’d always been dedicated, but when his dad started talking about Gresham and his mum kept shutting down the conversation saying he was too young, he’d began doing strength training in earnest in his free time.
Unlike most of his teammates who were getting a surge of hormones to help them buff up, Kallen still looked like a child. Omega men had reduced testosterone levels, which was one of the many reasons given for why they wouldn’t have excelled in rough sports like hockey or rugby even if given the chance to join in greater numbers. Only the very best of them were good enough to play professionally.
Kallen was good, but if he wanted to be one of the best, he knew he had to put in the hours.
And there was no denying strength was where his weakness lay, so he didn’t. Instead, he designed a training schedule that would help him overcome it. Later, his mum would apologise to him for not noticing what he was doing, but he’d never blamed her. How was she supposed to know that he spent most afternoons and evenings in his room lifting weights he’d bought with his pocket money instead of chilling with a film or doing homework?
He should have known better than to do it on his own. Only his coach had just given him some basic planks when he’d asked for help and even when he held them for ages, he could see no changes. There had been some speech about letting his body grow naturally as well that he’d withstood with his mouth shut like his dad had taught him. Coach’s word was law as far as Graham Guin was concerned.
And that’s how he’d ended up fucking up his knee on a stupid turn. Apparently, he’d strained the muscle by lifting too much weight, weakening it instead of strengthening it. They said his technique had probably been off too, but Kallen didn’t believe that. Maybe he’d done too much, he could accept it, and he could put his leg up and suck it up while it healed.
Except for how it hadn’t. Not really. He’d been out for three weeks, a little more just in case according to the doctor, and the pain had subsided even when he’d stopped taking analgesics. But then, the day of his check-up, he’d stood up to a fiery flare up his thigh.
His dad had seen him wince, so he’d had to admit to it.
But then, absurdly, they’d gone to see the doctor and even done a scan and there was nothing wrong with his knee anymore, it’d healed.
His dad had told the doctor about the pain, and Kallen had admitted it’d been at least an eight in the pain scale. But it hadn’t made sense, so the doctor had suggested he keep an eye on it and make notes. It could be lingering neuropathic pain, he’d suggested. It didn’t make much sense, but Kallen had wanted to believe him, so he had. He’d started back at the rink on his own at first, feeling like he could breathe for the first time in weeks, and by the time he’d gone home, he’d decided it must have all been in his head after all.
HE COULDN’T STOP THINKING about it, and thinking was one of the few things he could do on his own these days, so it was kind of stuck in a loop in his head. It didn’t make sense because it was just hypothetical. Yes, he’d have taken having his legs functioning even if it didn’t mean he could go back on the ice. It was simple logic, really, but it didn’t feel that simple. Hockey was everything to him, it was supposed to be everything. He’d known from before he’d been able to speak in complete sentences that the ice was where he belonged.
“You ever think what you’d do if you weren’t playing?”
Levy blinked sleepily up at him from the other side of the sofa. The away games had been tough on him this time around and he’d declared he wasn’t going anywhere for the two days they had free. Kallen even believed it had nothing to do with keeping him company.
“Um, I guess... coaching?” he said slowly. “I mean, I thought I might not make it, and that would have been a way to stay on the ice. Plus, kids are awesome.” At that, he smiled, eyes bright when they met Kallen’s. He was beautiful like that.
“Kids for sure,” Kallen agreed. “I mean...” He lowered his gaze. “They seem to make you happy.” He shrugged a little. “And I bet you are great with them.”
Levy didn’t answer right away. “I’m alright with them, I think. But I like people in general, helping them and just being with them. You probably think I’m crazy,” he added with a teasing lilt.
Kallen shot him a mock glare, then shrugged. “I do, but more people for you, less people for me. Works out.”
The snort of laughter made one of Levy’s legs stretch towards him to keep him from overbalancing and Kallen reached out and grabbed his ankle as it landed next to his own foot, unthinking. Levy’s sweats were a little too short and the bare skin where was hot under his hand. He should have let go at once, played it off, smacked Levy’s leg away. But he didn’t.
Levy sat up, using the hold to bring his whole body closer. And then his hands were on Kallen’s knee, squeezing. “What about you?”
“Huh?”
“You ever thought about what you’d do if you weren’t playing?”
“No.” Kallen admitted. “I— I didn’t let myself doubt. I couldn’t, or...” He sighed. He’d thought he couldn’t afford to, or he’d lose his focus. Lose hockey. It was difficult to argue that point now, though.
Levy hummed. “What else makes you happy?”
You , Kallen thought, and swallowed. It wasn’t an answer, even if it’d still been remotely possible, he’d have gone stir crazy at home all day. And besides, he could sort of cook now, but given a choice, he’d have let someone else do it for him most of the time. Hardly a recommendation to be a house omega, was it?
“Not sure,” he said instead.
“You could be a hermit,” Levy piped up, and Kallen looked up to see the light in his eyes had changed. “Go hide on top of a mountain, away from all the idiots.”
Kallen offered him a smile. “No food delivery,” he pointed out.
“Hey.” Levy shrugged. “No job is perfect,” he said philosophically.
Except hockey , Kallen thought, and then immediately had to take it back, because even in his head it felt like a falsehood too big to hold. Hockey wasn’t perfect, Kallen loved it with his whole body and soul, but it asked things of him he didn’t want to give, that he couldn’t give.
“Word,” he told Levy, trying to keep it light, but his mind was already a hundred miles away, speeding towards something he couldn’t quite see yet. Something that was calling too loudly to ignore.
HE’D THOUGHT HE WAS fine, but then, on his first time back at practice a few days later, he’d felt it again. With the helmet on, no one had seen him grimace, so he’d slowed down a bit until it faded, and then rejoined the drills.
Ignoring pain was part and parcel of playing at the level he did, and this pain wasn’t real, he knew because his leg performed the same as before and as well as the other one. It just hurt, often a sharp stab that seemed intent to throw him off his stride. He practised for it, pushing himself to exhaustion sprinting until it would flare up and he could keep going right through it. It was the only way he could think to prepare for when it happened during a game.
As a hockey player, it was a magical skill. Nothing could slow him down or stop him. His stamina improved and so did his scoring, even if he often was seeing double by the end of his shifts. He saw well enough to find the goal during, that’s what mattered. A couple weeks after being allowed back on the ice, he got in trouble for falling asleep in class, so he started taking a thermos of black coffee to school. He had to take it to training afterwards, too, so he wouldn’t crash. It was that or an energy drink, and everyone drank those anyway.
It couldn’t last, as an adult, he could see he’d been a trainwreck waiting to happen. But back then, playing had been all that mattered, his whole attention and self poured into it. He’d even stopped jerking off, since it meant less time for the now coach-approved exercises and anyway, he’d lost interest in it around that time.
On the last game of the season, right after scoring the game winning goal, his knees had given up on him, both at once, and sent him crashing into the ice. His teammates had been close enough to slow his fall, but no one had been able to get him back to his feet.
THIS TIME THERE HAD been no pain. In a way, that added to the betrayal.
Since that second time when he’d spent the whole summer out of the ice, he’d never ignored an ache again—dutifully reporting everything and resting even when the physical cause was unclear. He’d listened to his body. He’d still trained hard, of course, but he’d worked smart instead of simply hard. Maybe he could work through pain that would have sent anyone else to their knees, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t pay for it later.
It truly wasn’t worth it, especially because as he grew older, he realised that his stickhandling really was that good but that his reflexes could use as much work as his muscles.
The next year, he’d been invited to Gresham and his mum had sat him down to ask him if he understood what choosing hockey professionally would mean.
“I get it, the sex part,” he’d told their carpet, ears burning and stomach churning. He’d been so worried about the awkwardness, and also already horny all the time. The idea of sex made him nervous, but it didn’t scare him. “You don’t need to worry.”
He’d have no notion of how different sex could be from heat.
“Worrying is my job,” his mum had argued. “And this isn’t... Baby, there is a reason they stopped doing this to omegas. It’s not—”
Or how differently a man would behave with a partner than he would with someone he saw as a perk of his job.
“What?” He’d shot to his feet, teeth and fists clenched. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard such a thing, of course, but he’d never heard it at home. “Like... What did you expect to happen? I have been working for this my whole life . And now you are saying you are against it? When I have a real chance to be happy?”
She’d looked up at him, mouth twisted and eyes full of fear that only made him angrier. “I don’t know if it will make you happy, that’s all I’m saying, Kallen. I thought maybe you wouldn’t—” She cut herself off, but he could guess.
“You thought I wouldn’t make it,” he said, shaking his head. “So much for having faith in me.” She’d always repeated that, that she believed in him, that he could do anything he put his mind to. And he’d believed her, in fact, if she’d only shown him this doubt sooner, she might have completely ruined any chance he had of making it. He snorted. “Too bad, I guess, because I believed you.”
It’d taken him a while to forgive her, though it’d helped that she’d agreed it was his decision to make. Once he’d been at Gresham, it’d been easier to miss her and to forget she couldn’t see the future he was building for himself. His dad had promised to talk to her, and he had because on their first visit to see him in school, they’d also signed the agreement by which he would spend his heats with Robert when they began.
She’d shown up to every important milestone of his career, and if she’d had doubts, she hadn’t told him again. And now it turned out she was more right than he’d wanted to believe, that the contracts and the support system he’d been promised weren’t enough to keep him safe.
He couldn’t even pretend like he had ever believed in them himself. He’d wanted to, but in his gut, he’d known the truth.
Knowing was very different from speaking it, though. Especially to his mother, who’d been right all along. She’d never betrayed him like he’d thought all these years. On the contrary, she’d been the only one truly on his side.