Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

Multi

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Kip Grady/Scott Hunter

Characters:

Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Carter Vaughn, Kip Grady

Additional Tags:

POV Outsider, Coming Out, Relationship Reveal, POV Carter Vaughn, Scott Hunter Loves Kip Grady, Fluff and Humor

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-27 Words: 2,988 Chapters: 1/1

Carter Vaughn Does the Math

Summary

“Hey man, did the LASIK already fade? Thought it was supposed to last longer—my sister was thinking about it, and I told her how well it went for you and Jonesy.”

Hunter looks up from the table, confused, “Huh? No, my eyes are great. Still recommend it.”

“Oh, I saw the contact lens solution, and I thought…” Carter trails off. He suddenly realizes he’s prying, something he hates doing in general but learned long ago not to do with Hunter specifically. Hunter opens his mouth and then shuts it. His whole face looks like a rabbit caught in crosshairs.

“I, that was,” he stammers, pauses for a beat. “My cousin visited. Thanksgiving. She forgot hers, and I bought some for her.”

---

Carter Vaughn does not want to pry. But he does want to know what's going on.

Notes

Hunter is meticulous about hosting. At minimum, he always throws a pre-season hype-up dinner, a lavish Christmas feast, and an end-of-season commiseration or celebration, depending on how well they did. 

The first time Carter suspects something is going on with his captain, he brushes it off. 

Carter doesn’t typically think of Hunter as high-strung, necessarily; a lot of things that stress out other guys seem to roll off his back. He doesn’t stress about attention, media, and is rarely bothered by heckling. Hosting brings out something neurotic in Hunter. Like, he could just get a pile of pizzas and cases of Coors and call it a day. Hockey players aren’t that picky. But he always gets events properly catered—nothing crazy: a sit-down dinner with proper steaks from Canada or insane Italian deli sandwich platters that cover the entire table. He hosted a Super Bowl party once and got a seven-layer dip so heavy that the whole team took turns seeing how many reps to failure they could curl. He always gets a variety of drinks: he buys fancy import or out-of-state beers from wherever a new recruit has just arrived from. When Andersson joins the team from Sweden, he makes everyone start the season with a round of akvavit. No one could chirp him for being fancy about it, but there’s an effort there. 

Carter typically comes over before everyone else, helps set up, and generally distracts Hunter while he carefully unloads the drinks, lining the labels to face the front. 

This year, for the first time, Carter is joining for Christmas. His sister is with her in-laws and his parents are on a cruise. They’d been worried about it, but he told his mom all about the big “orphans and Europeans” (Hunter’s words) dinner, and his mom had been pleased. She’d sent Carter her Black Cake recipe, even though he’d insisted it was catered. She admonished him that it was rude to show up empty-handed on Christmas. Overall, he’s kind of relieved to just stay in New York, not have to fly commercial to Michigan and back so quickly. 

He shows up early to Hunter’s, cake in hand. 

“Since when do you bake?” Hunter asked, staring down at the tin on his counter. 

“Listen man, my mom insisted. She also says not to judge it because the fruit is supposed to soak in rum for, like, months, and I only gave it a few days.”

Hunter peeks below the tin foil, “Well, it looks incredible. Send her my thanks, we don’t usually have anything homemade at these things.” 

Hunter says this while standing in a kitchen with a full, perfectly cooked turkey next to a chafing tray of potatoes the length of Carter’s arm. 

“I think we’ll be okay,” Carter laughs. He goes to Hunter’s oven and sets the temperature. The oven is pristine—in fact, Hunter’s apartment is usually tidy, but today it is like, medical-grade clean. Carter sets the cake to bake and then goes to help Hunter decorate. He has a whole plastic tree that he’s putting up himself, a bunch of tinsel to wrap around it.  

“Thanks for the help. I usually get this all done before, but I just didn’t have time this week,” Hunter says, screwing plastic branches together. “It’s a little much, but it’s nice to have a tree.” 

“Hey, my pleasure, I’d just be sitting around smelling that cake at home.”

The two of them put the tree together, wrap it in gold garlands that Hunter unfolds, new from a box. The apartment fills with the familiar spiced smell of his Mom’s cake, a defining smell of home, sending Carter into a fond, nostalgic mood. Staring at the tree in the fragrant, spiced air, he realizes it’s kind of sad that Hunter thinks putting up a tree is “a little much.”

“It’s nice that you do this,” Carter says, “Like, go all out with it.” 

“I kind of love doing it,” Hunter says, looking mildly embarrassed. “I know how shitty it is to have something half-assed. At school, we would have this tragic turkey drumstick meal. But then in my junior and senior years, the new principal did a whole thing, like, his wife cooked and they put up a tree in the mess hall. It was really nice. So I try to be like that principal. At the holidays.”

Hunter rarely talks about boarding school or his childhood in this way: this is probably one of a handful of specific stories Carter has heard directly and personally, rather than an impersonal speech. 

“That principal sounds like a great dude,” is all Carter can think to say.

Hunter makes a noise of agreement and goes to put the boxes away. 

Half an hour before everyone else arrives, they’re starting to put the trays in the oven, assemble the dishes, and set the table, when the oven goes off. He leaves Hunter to it to finish the last step of his mother’s cake, which involves drizzling yet another cup of rum into it. He’s nearly done when a small splash of the hot rum bounces back onto his wrist. 

“Shit, shit,” he yelps, dropping the measuring cup with a messy clatter, and shaking his hand. 

“You okay? What happened?” calls Hunter from the table. 

“Nothing bad, one sec,” he turns the tap to cold and runs it over his wrist for a moment. “It’ll be fine, just a little burn.” Carter assesses his wrist, “Yeah, no big deal. Do you have polysporin or something?” 

Hunter is counting glasses, distracted. “Uh, yeah. Should be some in the hall closet, there,” he nods to it. 

Hunter, he is not surprised to see, is someone who stocks up. There are two bottles each of generic, cheap-looking drug store soap and shampoo, as well as a fancier curly hair conditioner. And next to that, two full bottles of contact lens solution. Hunter, he knows, has perfect vision. Better than, even. It’s part of the job, and Carter knows for a fact he got LASIK two years ago to make up for some minor latency. On the shelf below is a neat plastic first-aid box with Band-Aids and the tube of Polysporin he’s looking for. As he reaches for it, he can’t help but stare at the contact lens solution, trying to factor this information into his brain, come up with a reason. Two bottles, not a one-off, last-minute purchase, but a reserve. 

One obvious conclusion drawn, he places a dot of polysporin on the small welt on his wrist, turns around, and asks Hunter, “Hey man, did the LASIK already fade? Thought it was supposed to last longer—my sister was thinking about it, and I told her how well it went for you and Jonesy.”

Hunter looks up from the table, confused, “Huh? No, my eyes are great. Still recommend it.”

“Oh, I saw the contact lens solution, and I thought…” he trails off. He suddenly realizes he’s prying, something he hates doing in general but learned long ago not to do with Hunter specifically. Hunter opens his mouth and then shuts it. His whole face looks like a rabbit caught in crosshairs.  

“I, that was,” he stammers, pauses for a beat. “My cousin visited. Thanksgiving. She forgot hers, and I bought some for her.”

“Oh, that’s nice of you,” Carter says, accepting the very bad lie to put Hunter out of his misery. “I’ll move the cake out of the way so we can get the ham in the oven now.”

Carter has accepted Hunter’s secrecy over the years. He considers Hunter a good friend, definitely his best hockey friend. Hunter is generous with his time but protective of his space. Anything too personal and he shuts down on a dime. Carter chalks it up to the whole tragic orphan thing—not that he’d ever say that to anyone. 

Based on the reaction, whoever the contact lens solution is for, it’s not something Hunter wants to talk about. They have a Christmas dinner to prepare, eat, and enjoy, so he pushes away the question. 

¹⁺¹⁼²

At this point in his career, Carter doesn’t have to share a hotel room on the road—but the Olympics are different. Team spirit has them all in the athlete’s village. He rooms with Hunter and jokes about snoring and his ability to share since Hunter hasn’t had a road roommate in years, not in all the time Carter has been on the team. But of course, Hunter is a quiet and neat roommate. No complaints.

The second time Carter suspects something, well, it’s a little hard not to. 

In Sochi, Hunter seems mostly normal—as normal as you can be at the Olympics. But in between, Carter keeps catching Hunter doing what could best be described as “dramatic yearning,” staring off into the middle distance when he thinks no one will notice. Looking like a puppy left out in the Russian winter. From experience, he knows if he asks directly about it, Hunter will be cagey, and they have a medal to focus on. 

The Olympics playoff schedule is as brutal as the MLH: back-to-back games leading up to a single day off in between the semi-finals and the knockout gold medal game. The energy is rowdy—it’s a constant party of patriotism mixed with the shuffle of newfound camaraderie across their home team lines. 

Carter is taking a moment of peace for himself before the last day and their gold medal game: he’s scrolling on his phone on the toilet. He hears the sound of Hunter coming into their room through the paper-thin walls of the hastily-built hotel. It doesn’t occur to him that Hunter thinks he’s alone, doesn’t realize Carter is in the bathroom, until Hunter’s voice comes through the wall, clear as day: 

“Hi baby, I, I’m so glad you watched. It’s great to hear from you, I—“

Carter doesn’t hear anything after this, because he drops his phone with a clatter, and then noisily flushes and washes his hands, drowning out whatever very personal call Hunter is making. 

When he exits the bathroom, Hunter is staring pointedly at his phone. He takes a beat and then says with feigned nonchalance, “Oh, hey man.” 

Carter nods a greeting and sits down on his bed, waiting to see if Hunter says anything. Carter hates silence, hates tension, so he finally says: “The Finnish team is doing the after-party for the Bronze game later, you in?” 

“Yeah, man,” Hunter breathes, seeming visibly relieved. “When are you heading to the game?” 

For the rest of the day, all the way into the closing ceremony, Hunter is in a good mood. Obviously, they won a fucking Olympic medal. But the sad-puppy-in-the-window act is gone—Hunter stares at his phone, grinning a lot. Whoever he was calling baby on the phone seems to have answered his call. There’s not really any math to do here: his lonely friend finally has a girlfriend. Carter is thrilled.

¹⁺¹⁼²

The third incident Carter will only remember months later, when the pieces fall into place. 

They’re at an away game in Toronto, after interviews and post-game check-ins, putting on their suits. Hunter is mid-sentence, buttoning his suit pants, saying something about the Leafs’ second line when their teammate Jalo interrupts him:

“Dude, what is happening with your pants?” 

They all turn and look. Hunter’s pants fit at the waist, are tight at the thigh, and then stop 4” too short, exposing several inches of bright, Admirals-red dress sock. 

Hunter looks down, and his whole face turns the same red as his socks. 

“Oh, man. Must have been a mix-up at the dry cleaners,” he says, trying to tug one leg down. It doesn’t move. 

“What, did they give you Charbs’ pants?” calls their goalie, Bennett, from his end of the locker room. 

“Hey, we’re the same fucking height,” calls Charbanneau from the other. 

“Yeah—when you’re in skates, and I’m in the net,” replies Bennett.

There’s a laugh. 

“You going to the bus like that?” Carter asks his captain. 

“I guess so, don’t have another pair,” Hunter says, looking embarrassed with some kind of unreadable expression in his eyes. 

They call him Captain Short Pants for two weeks until Charbs’ blue sharpie explodes all over his pants while signing autographs, and he becomes Blue Balls, and everyone forgets about Hunter having another man’s pants in his luggage. 

¹⁺¹⁼²

The fourth time, well. It’s an accident. Sort of. And he’d have to be blind. 

Carter is over at Hunter’s playing Call of Duty on an off day. Hunter, who used to have Carter over all the time, has been cagier, more coordinated in the timing. No more last-minute drop-ins. If he’s honest with himself, Carter has been inviting himself over to try to suss out a growing suspicion, see if he can gather more clues for the mystery without scaring his friend. 

They’re in the middle of a round when Hunter pauses the game to take a phone call in his room. 

He comes out and says, “Sorry, my friend left something here by accident yesterday. He’s just going to drop by and pick it up.”

Carter glances over to see Scott arranging something on the desk nearby. Carter shrugs and locks his eyes back on the screen, “Yeah, no worries, man. You jumping back on player two or what?”

They get back to the game quickly, Carter not thinking anything of it until there’s a knock on the door, and suddenly Scott is jumping up to answer it. 

The man who walks in is on the short side but muscular, dressed nicely in a button-down, pants, and a beat-up messenger bag around his chest. Without even thinking about it, Carter clocks him as athletic, even in his glasses, but not a hockey player—he has a broad upper body, the kind of build that doesn’t help on the ice. Carter doesn’t recognize him at all. These facts together surprise him: he didn’t think Hunter had friends outside of hockey, other than the mysterious girlfriend he’s hoping to find answers for. So, a gym friend? 

“Sorry for interrupting,” the man says. “Just grabbing—”

“It’s on the desk,” Hunter says, nodding toward it. He is standing by the large room divider, one arm across his chest. “Sorry, I’m being rude. Vaughny, this is my friend Kip. Kip, this is my teammate, Carter Vaughn.”

Kip is at the desk, having picked up some kind of large file folder, and is leafing through it. He looks up at the introduction and smiles a big, bright smile at Carter and waves. “Hi, nice to meet you! I’d join for a round, but I’m running to an interview.” 

“Good to meet you,” Carter says from the couch, a little uncertain about the dynamic that’s going on here. There is something unspoken, unclarified in the air. He adds, his voice rising because he’s not sure what to say: “Good luck with the interview?”

“Thanks,” Kip says and taps the file on the desk, and then puts it in his messenger bag. He swings it back in place. 

“Good luck today,” Hunter says, still standing at the divider. He pauses and says, “Oh, you’ve got something—” Hunter steps toward his friend and reaches out to grab a bit of fluff off the middle of Kip’s chest. 

Kip looks down at Scott’s hand and then up at Scott. The look that passes between them is electric, unambiguous. Before he can stop himself, before he even realizes he’s going to make a noise, Carter Vaughn says, out loud: “Oh.”

Both of their heads swivel to him, Scott’s hand pausing for a moment in mid-air and then falling to his side. 

“What?” Scott says, stepping back. 

“Nothing, sorry. Hey, random question, Kip, do you wear contacts?” Vaughn asks. 

“Huh? Uh, sometimes, yeah?” Kip answers, looking confused and glancing between them. 

“Cool, just… wondering. Well. It was nice to meet you,” Carter says, trying to be amiable, neutral. “I’m switching to Mario Kart,” he tells Scott. 

Scott walks Kip to the door, and Carter hears them murmuring for a moment before the door clicks shut. Carter can’t help it: he smiles to himself. He feels like he’s had a puzzle in the back of his mind for four months, and he just found the last piece. He clicks absent-mindedly through menus of the game until Scott comes back, sits down, and picks up his controller. 

“Scotty?” Carter says as they stare ahead at the TV and not each other. “Was that your friend, ooor…?” Carter draws out the or dramatically. 

“Yeah,” Scott sighs, clicking rapidly through a turn. “Yeah. Or.” 

The silence is long before Scott continues, “That was my boyfriend.” 

“Wow. That’s great,” Carter says. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Scott responds, ducking his head with a smile in Carter’s peripheral vision. “It is great. It’s really great.” 

“I’m assuming no one on the team knows? And if you want to keep it quiet, I get it. But if that’s the case, it is probably a bad idea to bring Kip, like, anywhere. You two have the most obvious ‘we’re fucking’ eyes I have seen in my god damn life.”

“Oh my god,” Scott says, putting his controller down and letting Mario drive right off a cliff. “Was it that obvious?”

“Dude, it’s like I wasn’t even in the room. Like I’d been sucked into outer space. Like I ceased to exist. You looked at that man like he was the Stanley Cup stacked on top of the Hart Trophy.” 

“Oh my god,” Scott says again, laughing. 

“Get him back here, I have a lot more questions,” Carter says, nudging Scott with his shoulder, still driving Luigi around the map that Scott has abandoned.

“Well, uh,” Scott pauses. “He actually lives here. So he’ll be back for dinner.”

“I fucking knew it!” Carter crows.