Jonnor, Please!

Chapter 3

Chapter written by G8rguy and originally posted on AO3 on January 14, 2016

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Connor stood in his dorm room excited for tonight. Tonight he would become a full and official member of the Samwell Men's Hockey Team and he got here on his own! Being the son of a professional athlete has never been easy for him, especially the son of the famous Adam Stevens, former star of the Arizona Diamondbacks, with three World Series rings. His father had played baseball in college and had racked up an impressive set of statistics before being picked up by Arizona and playing with them for 16 years while becoming a household name. And that was just for being an athlete then there were his endorsements and the fact that he dated, married, and divorced the famous fashion model and movie star Amanda Davies, who had remarried some European financial guy less than a year after they divorced and moved to Monaco leaving Adam a single father with a four year old Connor to be raised by nannies with the occasional visit by his grandparents.

While his dad had pushed him to get involved with sports, preferably baseball, Connor who had been competitive by nature knew he wanted two things. First he wanted nothing to do with baseball and being compared to his dad, and second loved sports and competing. But he wanted to play something as different as possible. On a trip with his grandfather to visit New York, since his dad was in the playoffs that year, he got to attend a Rangers/Bruins hockey game and that was it!

From that moment on Connor became a hockey nut and begged and pleaded till his dad gave in and let him take lessons. Connor was a natural and quickly developed significant skill playing with others until his dad, upon retiring from his professional career, suddenly noticed that his high school son played a sport he knew nothing about and it was too late to change. Adam instead had thrown himself into working with the Diamondback organization and a number of endorsement deals and left Connor to his own interests as long as he didn't bother his father or cause him any embarrassment.

He had even been invited to play in the US national juniors after a rather impressive career in high school but he decided he wanted to go to college instead. Connor didn't really see himself as a professional athlete like his dad, for a number of reasons, so playing for a college team was good enough for him.

After looking at a number of schools and getting some pretty generous offers, Connor was leaning towards Michigan when he saw an interview with Bad Bob Zimmerman where he talked about his son playing for a small school near Boston...Samwell University. Now Connor knew all about Jack Zimmerman: from his time in the Q, to his dynamic duo years with Kent Parson (who now played for the Las Vegas Aces), to his public meltdown before the draft. It was sad but Connor had always felt sympathy for another son of a famous athlete and had felt that the story that everyone told about Jack didn't quite ring entirely true.

Deciding on a whim to check out the Samwell Hockey Team, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that their team was pretty decent. But it was seeing the comments and articles about the Samwell "reputation" with the LGBT community, "one in four, maybe more," people said with a smirk, which sold Connor on the school. Being Adam Stevens' son was tough enough for him normally, but he didn't know if he could handle the pressure and disappointment that would come from his father if he was instead known Adam Stevens' gay son, so he had pretty much stayed in the closet since middle school. He had only kissed one boy before coming to Samwell and that was a dare during a game of Spin the Bottle with a straight guy from the baseball team who was so drunk he didn't remember, though his girlfriend did and teased him about it mercilessly.

Connor remembers his first day on campus moving in to his dorm. He was by himself, naturally, as Adam had some "thing" in New York to do so, once again, Connor was on his own. But he really preferred it that way. His father had been surprised by Connor's decision to come to school here, but they had a good academic program for Connor as he wanted to go pre-med, and when he casually mentioned he would be playing with Bob Zimmerman's son, his father had been impressed enough to agree. Not without his usual snide comment of "bet he is glad to have a son who takes after him" that Connor had heard numerous times before.