Here’s the thing about Kent Parson: he’s always been a city boy. The only difference between then and now is that back then, he was a poor city boy. Now he’s as rich as they come.
—
Growing up, it wasn’t easy–sharing a one bedroom apartment with his mama. The walls and pipes and wiring just a half step up from decrepit, furniture and clothes and everything second-hand. Mama coming home for half an hour between jobs before rushing off to the next one. Sometimes having to choose between food and heat and–but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
Maybe asked for a little more, but he was loved and they were happy, and it was enough.
—
Then there was hockey.
—
His troubles didn’t disappear whenever he was on the ice, but they became distant. More manageable. No one cared if he was the kid who came to school without a backpack, without food or money for lunch, dressed in old boots slightly too big and clothes with fabric worn thin.
None of that mattered.
During a game it was only a matter of playing his best. And his best? Was a hell of a lot better than everyone else’s.
Suddenly there was something that he could do–that he was good at–and people would give him things so long as he just kept playing.
—
Then along came Jack Zimmermann.
—
When the media talks about his “story,” that narrative that they’ve created to make things more interesting to non-hockey fans (why would they even care?), they talk about him like he’s not even a real person. Like he’s just some place holder in a fairy tale.
A bright shining star. Hockey’s golden boy. America personified. King of Aces.
The particularly cynical ones call him a thief, stealing Jack Zimmermann’s glory out from under him. Or a greedy traitor. Or, for the ones really into conspiracy theories, a saboteur–responsible for Jack’s downfall.
Truth be told, he can handle all that. The bad and the relatively good.
No one ever calls him Cinderella story.
He’s not sure how he’d react if they did.
—
Hard work doesn’t mean shit if you don’t have a fuck ton of talent and luck to back you up.
He knows this, it’s his entire fucking life.
But sometimes, if you don’t have either, faking it can get you part of the way there.
~
A/N: Ugh, Kent Parson, you beautiful, disastrous asshole. You fucking all American, glorious trash can, I love you.
I dunno, this is actually some of my more articulate feelings since the rest of it is just incoherent shrieking.
I have no idea if any of this contradicts with canon? But, like, what even is canon for him?
Gotta confess, I was trying to find a way to stick Kit Purrson in there somehow.
JackSGreyson Says 