#murrayhall

yep!! and i love writing gay hockey dad fic (this one is not going to be angsty i swear) so thanks annie! i hope u like it! 🥰💕

Samwell was known to be a welcoming and safe environment for LGBT students. The “1 in 4″ rule didn’t exist for no reason. Still, it was hard to change decades of homophobic and toxic hockey culture in the locker room. But Hall and Murray try anyway.

After all, they were young queer athletes once. The constant, lips sealed, eyes down, don’t touch, don’t stare, don’t draw attention was their mantra. Keep your mouth shut because no one can know. Any hope of NHL stardom and acceptance from other players would disintegrate as soon as any rumors started and you didn’t say “God no! Gross!” fast enough.  So they try. Try to make sure they never even hear a whisper of anything homophobic. Try to make sure players feel safe at the rink. Try to make sure that players know they can be who they are without fear. Try to let them know they can breathe and just exist. They try to protect their students in a way that they needed when they played.  But it’s still hockey, and they live in a heteronormative society so none of the boys actually notice the small pride flag in their office. None of them see the matching wedding rings (which to be fair are pretty small but still). None of them seem to realize that they’re together, in love, married.  So it becomes a game: how many times can we be gay in front of our students (while remaining professional) without them realizing? As it turns out, a lot.

_/ \_

The game itself started when they ran into Bitty at the Whole Foods a whole 25 minute drive from Samwell, which usually doesn’t have blond baking hockey players who can’t drive. Lord knows how Bitty got there to begin with.  They’re not being very subtle if they’re being completely honest. Murray is definitely wearing Hall’s shirt (not that Bitty would know that) and they’re standing way too close for professional colleagues to be standing. Never mind the fact that they are clearly grocery shopping together, which implies a certain living situation. But in their defense, they usually don’t see any students from Samwell at a Whole Foods that is a 25 minute drive from campus.

“Oh goodness!” Bitty says cheerfully upon seeing them in the flour isle. “Hello!”

“Hello Eric,” Hall replies smoothly, as if him and Murray were not internally freaking out about seeing Eric Bittle at Whole Foods on 7 pm on a Saturday night.

“Hey Bittle,” Murray adds, raising a hand in greeting. “No big plans this Saturday?”  “Oh no. I’m here to find a specific type of flour for a new project I’m trying out!” Bitty says absentmindedly, scanning labels on the shelf before them. “Ah! Here it is! Well, I’d better get going. See you at practice!”

And then he’s gone.  “Do you think he noticed?” Hall asks turning to Murray.

“Nah, he still hasn’t figured out that Jack’s into him yet,” Murray laughs, taking a package of flour from the shelf. “And we’re getting whole wheat flour this week Haller, you can’t argue with me.”

And thus, the game begins.

They run into Dex and Nursey at Annie’s one day and they’re definitely holding hands at the time. Dex and Nursey seem too busy trying to not make it look like they’re on a date themselves to notice the fact that their coaches are on one.

Jack walks in on them having an argument on whose turn it is to make dinner that night in their office once. He doesn’t seem to notice the topic of discussion because he’s too busy pulling out his play book from his bag.

Shitty completely misses it when Murray accidentally lets it slip that he has a husband when Shitty starts complaining about playing Harvard and their “homophobic douche-ery.”  Ransom and Holster witness Hall slide an arm around Murray’s waist when they walk towards the Dartmouth locker room. Ransom simply comments that “it’s nice that their coaches are best friends” before running ahead to catch up with Holster. Hall and Murray just laugh. 

Lardo and Chowder run into them picking up pizza one Friday night. Lardo nods in acknowledgement and Chowder enthusiastically says “hello.” Both of them miss Hall wearing a coaching jacket with “Murray” stitched on the chest. 

As it turns out, no one on the Samwell Men’s Hockey team is remotely aware of their relationship. But the secret comes out eventually.

_/ \_

It’s after a particularly rough game against Boston. Everyone is tired and a little sad because of the loss. There were a few rough hits too, so a few people have bruises.

As everyone gets off of the bus, Hall and Murray open the doors to the compartments holding the luggage below the bus.

“Can you handle making sure everyone gets their luggage out? Because if so I can grab Larissa and go get keys for everyone,” Murray says after the doors are completely opened.  “For sure. Thanks honey,” Hall says grabbing their shared bag and handing it to Murray, absentmindedly kissing Murray on the cheek as he does so.

“Uhm.”

“Huh?!”

“What the fuck?!”

“How?”

“When?!”

I Need a Woman - Hockey Dad 

Syd, you literally picked the most ironic of titles, thank you

———

When Murray gets hired as SMH’s assistant coach after Hall (finally) gets promoted to head coach — all in the name of making Samwell one of the best NCAA hockey teams in the country — Hall invites him out to dinner. Purely for professional reasons; they’re somehow expected to elevate this program to the next level, despite their lack of experience, and Hall suspects that establishing an excellent working relationship with his coworker is going to be essential to making it through. 

“Your girlfriend is also invited,” he says, then pauses, because they’re both only in their mid twenties, “or wife?” 

“Oh.” Murray shrugs, “I’m not currently seeing anyone.” 

“No worries,” Hall says, and internally breathes a sigh of relief that he won’t have to ask poor Denise to be his beard for yet another work-dinner. “Then mind if we hit up a sports bar instead?” 

He laughs, and Hall doesn’t realise Murray’d been so tense — to be fair, this is their first meeting since Murray’s application interviews, and Hall has been a part of running this program a few years already — until his shoulders practically melt. “That’s a bit more my speed, yeah.” 

They end up in a place slightly out of town, because Hall has become an expert in finding sports bars unfrequented by packs of Samwell student athletes looking to pick his brains– a difficult feat to accomplish in such a small town. Hall’s just about on his third beer, idly watching the Bruins destroy the poor Atlanta Thrashers, but most of his focus is on Murray.

Man, is he sharp. It’s not very often that Hall meets someone who can meet him on the same level when it comes to sparring hockey talk, but here they are, passionately involved in a debate on the Oilers, shitty referee calls from last year’s playoffs, and whether or not SMH needs to change its logo (”It’s literally two hockey sticks, a puck, and our team name!”,“It’s a classic!”). 

He also kind of can’t take his eyes off of him, which is a bit upsetting, considering the Bruins are up 1-7, but also for purely personal reasons, namely that Hall is a gay man working on the collegiate level for a major American sport. 

That said: the way Murray talks with his hands, the strong line of his nose, the heavy set of his eyebrows, and, well, Hall can’t really lie to himself. It’s the hockey talk, and how Murray seems invested in the players they’ll be coaching, rather than only what they can do on the ice. 

It’s exactly why they hired him. It’s exactly why Hall needs to watch the fuck out. 

He’ll give it time; this ill-advised crush on his straight coworker’ll pass. 

thank you annie! i went with the 116 gay hockey dads, hope that’s okay. i’ll probably end up writing the 140 request at some point too lol. enjoy! (this mentions collegiate hockey which i know next to nothing about, and with my minimal knowledge of the sport in general, if any info is wrong, i apologize)

116: “I broke your nose, and I’m sorry for that. But what you’re doing isn’t fair.”