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All We Need is Daylight

Out of the Frying Pan...

The leaves on the sidewalk are not the crisp autumn ones that Frank is used to. They’re damp, and under his feet, there is no satisfying crunch. The pavement is also a deep grey color, showing the signs of the recent rain. The chill in the air feels more like snow than rain, but Frank feels the barely-there sprinkles of rain as they fall from the pure white sky above him.

It’s just his luck to come upon his new town on a day like this. The entire town is asleep, huddled up indoors, no faces to give him either an unfriendly or warm welcome. It’s just empty, or so it feels. Like an old mining town, now turned into a ghost town. No one at all. He expects to see the Scooby gang wondering about, going in one door than coming out a completely different one.

His footsteps sound loud and echo off of the empty city streets. The wheels of his suitcase being pulled behind him slipping every which way on the wet ground, and kicking up the water from the ground as well, making his feet even more damp than they were already.

Frank isn’t exactly expecting a welcome committee, he’s sure that he’s the last person anyone here actually wants to see, but still, he didn’t expect he’d have to walk two miles from the airport in the rain. The guy he’d spoken with on the phone, made it sound like a relief that Frank was coming. He thought there might be an ounce of hospitality for him. Evidently not.

The town, despite it’s cold first impression, is actually quite beautiful. It’s quaint, and the shops are all small, locally owned ones that have seen better days, but it’s the kind of town that Frank always envisioned himself living in. He’s not really a big city guy, he’s a small college town guy. If the town has more than one bakery, and it’s not owned by a sweet old lady, than it’s not really the town for Frank.

The school campus of Armstrong University looms over him like a monster, too big, and too intimidating for Frank to bare. He has to keep walking though. He doesn’t have a choice, but he’s afraid. He’s afraid of the unknown.

Frank doesn’t actually know where to go. He doesn’t have enough information; this has all been like an afterthought. He’s in the middle of a town he’s never even heard of, been given little to no information on why he’s here, and no one is available to tell him any more information than that.

Frank stops in front of what has to be the main building, because it’s the only building that looks nice. The rest of the campus looks like it was thrown together with spare bricks that were lying around somewhere. This building looks like it was made with intent. It’s got one of those fancy ass domes at the top and the school flag hanging on either side of the field in front of it. It’s nothing to write home about, but it would make a semi-decent postcard.

Frank just stares at it for a good few minutes, and he sees an actual human being cross in front of the building, backpack clinging to their side, so at least this confirms that a bomb didn’t explode somewhere, wiping out the entire population of this town. Either that or this guy is the sole survivor who takes his education way too seriously.

Frank sighs, and he walks forward up the long thin path that leads to a short staircase. He climbs the steps slowly, as he has to pick up his suitcase and drag it up the few steps with him, but he’s exceedingly thankful to enter the lobby of the building a moment later, because of the warmth that greets him. The inside of the building is admittedly not as grandiose as the outside would have you believe. There’s a desk shoved to the side, with awful brown carpet beneath his feet that would surely cling to Velcro were you to try it out. There’s an arched doorway behind the desk that leads to the administrative office, and then doors on either side of the room, one labeled as the school museum, and the other appears to lead into a longer hallway, most likely filled with lecture halls.

There’s a lady behind the desk, clearly a student, who looks up when she sees him. She’s rather pretty, cropped dark hair and a contagious smile, so she radiates a feeling that Frank’s sure he won’t get a lot of, a welcoming one.

“Hey, uh, I’m Frank Iero, I’m new. I was just transferred here?”

“Yeah, we’ve been expecting you,” the woman nods. “You’re the new replacement for the hockey team, right?”

When Frank nods she continues, “I hope you’re as good as they say, because we really need it.” She stares at her screen, clicks a few things, and then the sound of a printer groaning fills the room. Frank waits for her to stand up, walk into the small office behind her, and then she grabs a couple of papers as they come from the machine, returning a few seconds later.

“Here you go,” she says, handing them to Frank when she walks back over. The papers are still warm from the printer and Frank stares down at them. “This first one is your room assignment, you’re in the Lancaster building on the south side of campus. Your roommate is named Ray, he’s another team member, and a very nice guy to the best of my knowledge, so hopefully you’ll be able to assimilate into campus well, but you’re going to have a lot of catching up to do since you’re starting late.”

She also hands him a school badge, one without his picture, and she tells him that it’s just a temporary one so that he can get into his dorm, but he’s going to need to apply for an official one soon.

“Okay,” Frank nods, and she shuffles the order of papers around to show him the campus map, where she then gives him directions to get to his dorm, and then shows him where the rink is. It looks like he’s in the dorm closest to the rink which should be convenient. His course schedule isn’t completely finalized yet, but she assures him that he should be getting an email anytime soon.

The suddenness, and odd circumstances that have led him here today are hugely inconvenient for all parties involved, but luckily, it’s only a month into the semester, so hopefully he’s only going to be killing himself a little bit to catch up, rather than totally and completely. It’s been a whirlwind of a week, Frank’s not sure how he’s standing here with all the uncertainty and confusion that he’s faced the past few days, but he tries to reassure himself that it’s worth it. There are far more positives to this dramatic change than there are negatives.

“As soon as you drop your stuff off, you’re going to want to go to the hockey rink, there’s a practice right now, you’re actually already late.”

“My plane only got in a little while ago,” Frank says, “and I couldn’t get a taxi, I had to walk.”

The woman shrugs, “just make your way over there quick as you can, because the team might not be as understanding of that as I am. The whole school is pretty bummed, we lost our only good player, so you’re going to face the butt of that, unfortunately.”

“Yeah, I know,” Frank nods, aware that this was going to be a likelihood. No one wants to be the replacement, and when you’re replacing one of the only decent players the team even has, that just makes you everyone’s least favorite person. After a quick thanks, he rushes out of the office, and then back into the chilly air outside. He makes his way down the steps, his suitcase clunking along with loud, unpleasant bumps behind him.

Once Frank finds himself in the heart of campus, he realizes that the buildings aren’t what make this school beautiful. It is undoubtedly beautiful, though. The trees are all a bright orange, or red, or burgundy color, as if showing off their plumage like a haughty male bird. The grass is a dazzling green that perfectly fits the aesthetic of the nature taking over. The school, and even the town, looks as though it’s being overtaken by nature, and it’s beautiful. The buildings just seem like they’re intruding on this tiny little spot of heaven, tucked into the smallest, most insignificant part of the world.

The whole town smells of pine, like a Christmas town getting ready for the season, but it’s only early October. He can’t imagine how beautiful this place must get in the winter.

As soon as Frank makes his way through the actual campus of the school, he starts to see real people for the first time. He’d come to believe that this town might just be completely deserted. No one actually looks at him for more than a second, not interested in who he is or why he’s starting school a month into the semester.

Frank didn’t even know he’d be switching schools until three days ago.

Frank got a call, out of the blue, right in the middle of his calculus class, asking him if he would be interested in a full four-year scholarship to a school he’d almost chosen to attend, playing for a hockey team that hasn’t won an NCAA tournament in over forty years. From the little information he was given, it seems that their team captain had a career ending knee injury a few days previously and Frank was at the top of their list to replace him. Why on earth he was at the top of their list, he doesn’t know but that is the situation as it has presented itself.

It’s all been pretty much a whirlwind, he hasn’t had enough time to get his feet underneath him. He’s not sure why he’s here, why he even left Boston, one of the best teams in the D1 League, for a school in the lowermost tier. Hell, they haven’t even competed in the Frozen Four since Frank’s been alive. The sixty thousand dollars he saves a year might have something to do with his decision, and by ‘something,’ it of course has everything to do with it.

Even the threat of a bad team can’t change the dramatic scholarship he’s been offered. With that kind of offer, he’s barely going to have any student debt at all in four years. That’s just too good to pass up, even if the team isn’t exactly the greatest.

He finds his dorm, it’s not hard when there’s street signs all over the place pointing in the direction that Lancaster Hall is. one of the taller buildings on campus, but according to the paper in his hands, he’s only on the second floor, in what appears to be the wing that houses mainly students involved with sports, according to the itinerary on the second sheet down.

Frank makes quick work of dragging his one, sad, lonely little suitcase into the dorm. He’s also got his gym bag, but of course he’s got his gym bag. The rest of his stuff he’s going to have shipped, but the short notice didn’t allow him a lot of flexibility. He finds his room easily, taking a deep breath before he steps into his new home for the first time.

On first appearance, his roommate seems to be fairly tidy, not exactly up to Frank’s standards, but they’ll manage. He’s got posters hung up on all the walls, everything from Iron Maiden to The Bouncing Souls, so Frank imagines he’s going to be getting along very well with this guy. Frank’s bed is elevated, with a desk underneath it, and he looks around, realizing that there’s not enough room to take it down, like his roommate has done, with his desk shoved against the wall. Frank’s just going to have to live with being in a bunk, but luckily, he’s short enough that he won’t be hitting his head on the ceiling.

Overall, it looks quite a bit like his room at Boston, only the slightest bit larger, and without the hurricane of a mess that his roommate left behind whenever he touched anything. Frank liked his roommate at Boston, not like they were best friends or anything, but he definitely could’ve had worse.

There’s not much about Boston that he did like, though. The team was good, and really that’s all that mattered. Armstrong’s team is not nearly as good, some would say they’re downright bad, but sixty thousand dollars is a lot to turn your nose up at. Besides, Frank is a good hockey player, and one of the best fucking skaters this side of the Mississippi. Even if he does have a shitty ass team, that doesn’t mean he can’t shine. He’s done it before, pulled Jefferson, his high school, on his back like Atlas, if he could pull that train wreck of a school forward, he can do it again.

Frank doesn’t spend too much time settling in, he instead throws his suitcase under the bed, and then jogs out of the dorm, in search of the rink. Strictly speaking, he is going to sleep in that bunk for the next eight months, yes, but it’s not his true home. His home will be the ice rink.

Frank lives on the ice. He doesn’t feel right unless he’s on the ice. He hasn’t gone a day without scabby, bruised feet since he put on his first pair of ice skates, and he doesn’t think he ever could. He would rather die than not be on the ice. He’s also spent every single day of his life on the ice, save for when he gets his biannual cold, or occasional case of pneumonia.

When Frank does lay eyes on the ice rink for the first time, the place where he’s going to devote every tiniest bit of his energy for the next four years, it’s a greatly important moment to him. He’s going to spend every single waking hour not in class in that ice rink.

Frank sees it looming before him the second it comes into eyesight. It’s huge, of course it is, it’s a hockey stadium, but Frank is always blown away by how big a new stadium is. He only just got used to how big Boston was, now he’s going to have to strap himself in for another world of disbelief.

Frank runs towards it, eager to get out of the now harder pouring rain, and eager to just breathe the air in there. He won’t be able to put all of this change into perspective until he steps foot in that stadium, once he does, things are sure to become a whole lot clearer.

Frank throws the double doors open excitedly, and he’s met with the familiar entryway. All schools have pretty much the same entrance for every hockey stadium, only the trophy case for this school is rather barren. Regardless, Frank smiles just being in his new home for the first time, and he familiarizes himself with every little thing he can as he makes his way towards the ice.

The hall leads into the stands almost immediately after the less-than-grand entry way, and Frank looks up and around him, trying to memorize every tiny little thing. It’s not a big stadium, of course, or at least not compared to a professional stadium, with only ten rows of seats which wrap around the entirety of the rink, and some elevated seating on the long sides that add an additional ten rows. The seats are old, greying ones, and the ceiling above him is primarily made of windows, making the entire building a bright white to reflect the color of the sky outside. In front of him, Frank’s met with the school’s name printed in enormous letters, encompassing all of the back wall. At center ice is the team logo, the Green Knights, and Frank feels pride at his new team’s name, even though he’s only just arrived.

He’s already bonded with the team, it’s going to be his after all, he just is wary about the players. It’s not the game he’s worried about, because he’s damn good, it’s the players liking him and cooperating with him that he has to deal with now. This is his team, he’s a Green Knight, now he just has to wait it out until everyone else comes to grips with that.

Something about this school does however click in a way that Boston hadn’t. Somehow, he feels more comforted by his surroundings here, maybe it’s the ambiance of the town, maybe it’s just the cushion that his scholarship allows him to feel. Whatever it is, he feels far less wary about the next four years when he’s in this ice rink, far more so than at Boston.

Sitting in one of the seats near the entrance is a man who turns to look at Frank as soon as he steps forward into the stands. The man immediately jumps up and hurries over to Frank, probably to kick Frank out because it’s supposed to be a closed practice.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” the man says, stopping Frank before he can even see the players. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I’m Frank,” Frank says, to the man. He’s not an official looking man, but he’s wearing an official looking jacket that says ‘Assistant Coach’ so Frank is given to believe that this man is far more official than his outward appearance would suggest. He looks like a hobo, but like a charming hobo. Like a hobo who does art maybe, because his hands are covered with either paint or marker or something artsy. His hair is long and scraggly, and kind of unwashed which is the main trait that makes Frank think he looks like a hobo, but he’s also got clothes that are three shades greyer than they once were, and also happen to be at least two sizes too big for him.

“Frank?” the guy asks, looking down at his clipboard and then shuffling through the papers to find anything that would indicate as to why a person named Frank would be here. “Oh… Frank. Like Lance’s replacement?”

“I suppose?” Frank shrugs, because he hadn’t known the name of the guy he’s replacing, but Lance is as good a name as any.

“Right, great,” the guy says. “So, the team are kind of tetchy about that right now, but like, good luck out there,” and then under his breath he says, “you’re going to need it.” He allows Frank to walk past him, without offering him any more words than that. Frank walks past him, nervously, totally unsure of what to do now.

“Wait, so, uh, where do I go?” Frank asks.

“Go talk to Coach,” the man replies.

“And where might I find him?” Frank asks.

She is over there on the bench,” the man says, pointing to the penalty bench, where a woman is leaning over the side watching the players, all of which are on the ice, and their sheer number is intimidating to Frank.

Frank walks over to the woman, feeling trepidation. She’s not an older lady, but not a younger one either. She’s got very distinctive graying blond hair, and the beginnings of wrinkles starting to form on her face, making her look wise and all-knowing. When Frank walks over to her, she doesn’t even look at him until he clears his throat, too entranced with the drills her team is running.

“Frank, you’re here,” the woman says, turning to look at him. Frank is relieved that the woman knows who he is, and seems excited by his presence, but all of a sudden, the entire rink of skaters are all looking at him too, and he doesn’t know how to handle that much attention. He’s being eaten alive by many people all at once, and it’s unsettling to say the least.

“I am,” Frank nods, and she smiles, far more welcomingly than he had expected.

“Great!” she says, and then turns her attention to her team, who have all gathered near the penalty box to get a good look at him. Frank can now get a good look at some of them as well, and they’re terrifying. All large groups of men whom you’ve never met before are, though. There’s fifteen of them in all, and Frank looks at all of their faces, knowing that he’s going to have to memorize all of these faces in the coming weeks. Some of these people are going to become the most important people in his entire life very soon, he’s sure of that much. Some of them he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to trust.

There’s one guy, an average heighted guy, with the fiercest of eyebrows the world has ever seen. His hair is dark brown, his face turned into what looks to be a permanent scowl. Frank thinks that he’d rather see Slenderman coming at him in a dark alley than this guy.

Then there are some less intimidating faces, such as the guy whose helmet can barely contain his crazy head of hair. There’s one guy who looks like he spends his life sucking on a lemon, or maybe that’s just what he feels about Frank, but Frank can tell even while he’s got his pads on that he is too thin to be at all threatening.

“This is our new forward, Frank Iero, who’ll be taking Lance’s place,” the woman says, and turns back to Frank. “I’m coach Meryl Bertie, but you can just call me Coach.”

“Hi, Coach,” Frank says uncomfortably, and then semi-addresses the team, “I’m Frank.”

Coach looks back at her team, and tells them to keep running the drills they’d been doing, and the assistant coach who’d stopped Frank earlier takes to yelling at them when they don’t immediately do as she’d asked.

“I’m glad you’re here, Frank,” she says, focusing her attention on him for a moment, rather than the team, “I was really hoping we’d get you this year, very unfortunate the circumstances that brought you here, though.”

“Yeah,” Frank says, “I heard about what happened. It happened during practice?”

“Oh, yeah, Lance is never listening to what I ask of him, and this time it went downhill fast. He fell on his knee wrong, and it’s serious. The teams heartbroken, because he may never be able to play again. That’s why we needed a replacement ASAP, and I’m the one who requested you.”

“Really?” Frank asks.

“Well, I had some other people in mind if you declined the offer, but I think you’re going to be a very good fit for this team. We need a fresh face around here anyway.”

“Why me though?” Frank asks, because it’s the most burning question on his mind, “there’s tons of good hockey players out there, surely there was someone, maybe even at this school, who could have replaced him?”

He understands why they would recruit a freshman to take the place of the injured guy, because there’s no way that they’d be able to steal some other teams MVP, but what drew Frank specifically into the mix is a mystery.

“Someone to fill his place, maybe, but no one to replace him. Not like what this team needs at least, we need someone great. Truth is, you attended my old high school, and the Hawks hadn’t seen a good season in several years, but you brought us back, singlehandedly I might add. I want to see you do that for both my alma maters, so call me biased if you have to.”

Frank feels an almost instant connection at this, because that does explain a few things. He’d had a few scouts who’d been eyeing him, Armstrong University included, but why a university would reach out to him in mid-October hadn’t made much sense until now. Team loyalty is one of the biggest fuels in any sport.

Frank wouldn’t say he was the reason for why Jefferson, won their first state tournament in over ten years, but he was certainly a contributing factor. But he’s just being modest, of course, he is definitely the reason they won. He carried that team, and now that he’s gone, they’re surely going to resort back to mediocrity.

“We’ve already got a small enough team, smaller than almost all the other teams in the league, we can’t afford to go without another player.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Frank says, “only sixteen?”

“We’re not on the top of most people’s lists when it comes to teams.”

“Well, no offense, but I get why,” Frank says, because when you haven’t won anything in over forty years, it’s not hard to guess why people don’t tend to want to go to this school.

“But we’re gonna make a comeback this year,” Coach says, “but that’s what every coach says every year when their team sucks. But I’ve got a good feeling about it this time round.”

Frank shrugs and nods a little.

“Well anyway,” Coach says, looking at Frank, and noticing his bag, “You’ve got your gear then?”

“Well, pads and stuff, yeah,” Frank says.

“Great, I’ll order your jersey soon, but right now I want you to get on the ice and warm up,” she says, “you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“I’m sure,” Frank nods, and he follows where she points, contemplating a lot of things all at once.

He’s absolutely terrified right now. It’s almost like starting college all over again. It’s like the first day of kindergarten even. He doesn’t know anybody, he’s intimidated, everyone is bigger than him, and everyone seems as though they’re goal is to dislike him.

But at the same time, Frank is ready to spread his wings and make this place his own. And he does intend to make it his own, Frank has a habit of claiming his own territory, and when it comes to ice, he always owns it. He’s always been that way. As a kid, skating on the small pond near his house, it was nicknamed Iero’s pond, because there was never a moment when you couldn’t find Frank practicing something on the ice, whether he was having a hockey game with the neighbor kids, or choreographing a routine, it just became his to a point where people just ran with it. It happened again at the Jefferson arena, because there wasn’t a doubt who owned that rink. They even named a bench outside of it after him, because he was the one who brought that team to victory, three years in a row.

Frank intends to make this rink his own too. He’ll share it of course, but no one will ever doubt that he was meant to be here, never question his right to belong, because he is meant to be wherever the ice takes him. And here he decides, is as good a place as any to start his life and prove his worth to anyone who doubts him.

Notes

I'm not too sure how much I like this first chapter, but I've been working on this fic for at least a couple of months and I want to finally share it. Please leave a comment if this interests you so far, and I promise that it will get better from here on, despite this first chapter being kind of bland.

Comments

life is too short to not read every single frerard fanfic you can find

trashcore trashcore
4/8/19

@Helena Hathaway
sorry, i may have phrased that wrong. i love the story and i can't wait for the next update.

@kobra-poison-ghoul
there was literally an update a week ago

best fic I've ever read! is there ever going to be an update?

This is one of the only fics I read anymore! I can’t wait for the update :)

Zero percentile Zero percentile
5/22/18