All We Need is Daylight

Frank changes into his practice gear as quickly as he possibly can, eager to get out on the ice, and feel it beneath him for the first time in what feels like forever. He skated yesterday, but still, it feels like at least a couple of years to him.

Frank gets on the ice maybe five minutes later, because when he is in a hurry, he gets shit done. He doesn’t want to waste any more time though, he wants to feel the ice beneath his skates.

He hurries back into the auditorium, opening the double doors and then walking past the bench so that he can join his new team. He’s ready, far beyond ready, do prove to them why he’s here, because once he’s on the ice, there won’t be a doubt as to why. The second he’s on the ice, it’s like returning home. It feels familiar, comforting, and right. He thinks he’ll be able to get used to this place, somehow, it feels more open, larger, even though he knows it isn’t. It feels different though, good different. He might learn to love it here.

Frank watches the skaters passing by him, not intent on looking at their faces yet, because on the ice, he doesn’t really care who is who. They’re all his teammates, so he relies on all of them individually and as a team.

The boy with the eyebrows who looks like he spends his free time researching medieval torture devices, gives Frank this look, like he has already plotted his demise. It gives Frank what he would call the heebie-jeebies, were he not a grown fucking man. Sort of. He may be the size of a small child, but according to his driver’s license he’s a legal adult who just so happens to have both the mind and body of a small child. But like, a small child whose good at skating around and hitting things with a stick.

A guy skates up to him, stopping immediately in front of him, kicking some ice at his feet. Frank looks up to see the guy, and it’s the one who’s got the colossal bush of hair.

He holds out his hand, and with a voice Frank is surprised to hear come out of this man, says, “I’m Ray, I’m your roommate. Nice to meet you.”

“Hey, hi. Frank,” Frank says, taking his hand, and nodding at him in what he hopes is a friendly way. He’s not good at making friends, never has been, probably never will be. His two loves are skating and thinking about skating when he’s not skating, there’s really not a lot of time in between for friends. In perspective, he’s never even really had a friend. He’s had acquantances and people who he spent time with but that was because of convenience. Anytime after third grade, when every kid was invited to birthday parties, he hasn’t even hung out with anyone outside of school. He’ll run into a classmate at a grocery store every now and again, but he’s never been to a friend’s house, apart from his neighbor, but she doesn’t really count because technically she was his babysitter.

Frank looks at the rest of the players on the ice, none of whom have stopped to pay him any mind, but then again, none of them will be living five feet away from him for the next year. Frank watches as they run some basic passing drills, and then directs his attention back to Ray. Ray is a goalie, a goaltender, strictly speaking, judging by his skates and padding.

“Nice to meet you, Frank,” Ray says. “I gotta keep warming up, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Frank nods, and says to himself, “you’ll be the only one.”

Coach fills Frank in, and sets him off to jump into the drill. Frank gets into the swing of things pretty easily, though he feels weird without his own hockey stick with him. He couldn’t exactly carry a hockey stick on the plane, or at least he couldn’t if he didn’t want an elderly lady to think he was about to bludgeon her to death in an airport bathroom, so that’s being shipped with all of his other stuff. This stick feels weird to him, the tape job is all wrong, the grip is weird, and if it’s not his stick than it’s just stupid. He can’t wait till that gets here, because he’s not going to be at the top of his game until it does.

Frank doesn’t get passed the puck for the first twenty minutes or so, because he’s still a stranger on foreign ice to these people, but eventually, a vaguely Scandinavian looking guy which considering this is hockey is not that surprising, passes him the puck and Frank can finally feel like he’s being some use.

After that, people start to accept that Frank is on the ice and he’s unavoidable because of that. The assistant coach, whom Frank quickly finds out is bad cop, while Coach is good cop, keeps yelling at Frank for not being where he wants him to be. But how the fuck is Frank supposed to know where to be? He hasn’t seen any game plans, he doesn’t know any of these guys fucking names let alone their skills or strengths? He’s just sort of here right now.

Frank pretty much tunes out the world for most of the next three hours, he tends to do that when he’s on the ice. He just sort of gets into his own and lets the ice speak through him. He meets some of his teammates in passing, a guy called Travie whose unsettlingly pretty considering that they’re all sweating buckets. Travie is nice, a forward like Frank, and good on his skates, but he needs some work when it comes to sharing the ice, he’s not very aware of his own place on the team, which Frank supposes makes sense when you consider how fractured this team seems to be. They’re not working together properly, it’s like all these guys have been thrown together by picking names out of a hat, and now they have to try to work together. They need more direction, and judging from how consistently the assistant coach is yelling at them, they’re not listening. They’re getting the feedback they need, they’re just not listening to it.

The guy is yelling at them all the same complaints Frank has about them, but no one is listening, especially not Eyebrows, the guy who keeps giving him the stink eye in the very brief intervals when he’s able to make eye contact with him. The team is not coordinated, that’s what they lack, they lack direction and teamwork. They’re a bunch of guys who are good on ice, good at passing, but they’re not working together. Frank doesn’t have any problem with being a bossy little know it all if he has to be to make this team better, so he stores all his critiques into a little crevice of his brain, so that he can bring them out at a later time.

Another guy Frank meets, mostly in passing, is called Brendon and he gives him a wary look before his eyes keep darting over to number 14 like he knows something Frank doesn’t know. Number 14 is the guy with the eyebrows, who, according to his jersey is named Fahey. He’s one of the few with their jerseys on, the rest of them are all just wearing practice jerseys, not even Ray, who thus far has been the only genuinely friendly person besides the coach, is wearing his jersey.

Frank tries to ask Brendon what that guys problem is, but he’s skating away before Frank is given a chance. It’s alright, though, Frank knew not everyone would like him. He’s made enemies before, that’s one thing he’s good at. They’re not so much enemies though, rather people who are jealous of him. Frank has a habit of being the center of attention when he’s on the ice, usually because he skates circles around everyone else out there.

Frank actually feels like he might empathize a little with Eyebrows. He’s been that guy before. Eyebrows is a forward, and by the looks of it, he’s one of the best guys on the team. Eyebrows is probably used to being the best guy on the team, and he’s probably bitter that the new guy is about as good as him. That’s pretty much how everyone reacts when they see Frank on the ice for the first time, though. “Oh shit, he’s good,” is the catchphrase that follows Frank wherever he goes. Eyebrows Fahey is probably feeling a little intimidated by him right now which is saying something because he’s got to be at least five inches taller than Frank.

Frank is literally only ever intimidating when he’s on the ice. He’s a small, rather naïve, extremely uncoordinated noodle when not on the ice. Put him in skates and you’ve got yourself a Greek god, but off, not so much.

Whatever it is that Eyebrow Fahey dislikes about him, it is directly correlated to his hockey ability, because other than that, Frank has nothing to be jealous of, because Frank has nothing else. His sense of humor is sour, his math abilities are severely lacking, he can’t make friends, and he is very bad at not injuring himself, and on occasion, others. He doesn’t hurt people on purpose, disaster just follows him when he’s not on the ice, which is why skating is an escape.

Frank never feels second best when he’s on the ice. So, he’s not going to let a guy whose eyebrow game is admittedly far stronger than his ruin that for him.

“Alright team,” Coach says, after about three hours of what Frank would call extremely easy practicing. Frank is used to intense practices, ones that leave him stiff and in pain the next morning, and honestly, that’s the type he prefers. That’s when he knows that he did a good job, got a lot of work done. “Let’s pack it in for the night.”

Coach gives the team what Frank would call a pep talk if they deserved it, but since they really don’t, it’s undeserved flattery. The team is not that good. They do not deserve a pep talk, they deserve a ‘get your shit together’ talk. From the looks of it, the assistant coach is thinking the same thing Frank is.

Frank has a lot of work ahead of him. He would stay on the ice and train through the night, except he feels like he might fall asleep where he stands. Traveling always does this to him, he doesn’t know what it is about airplanes, but even the flights that only take an hour feel like three years. He needs sleep, and he’s got a long few weeks ahead of him, so whatever he can do to recharge himself in preparation for that is greatly needed.

Coach dismisses them after only a few minutes, and then a hoard of men, much like wildebeests, are all storming to get to the locker room first.

“Out of my way,” Eyebrows says, whacking Frank’s shoulder with his own, not hard enough that he can even really feel it through his padding, but it’s not an entirely polite gesture. Intentionally walking into people tends to be an antagonistic thing to do.

Frank decides that if he is the underappreciated somehow athletic nerd in a teenage romantic comedy, then Eyebrows is the slightly older, far better at attracting the opposite sex jock who will play no original, or even effectively climactic role in the movie other than to demonstrate the clichéd traits that are meant to represent what every girl wants in a man. Basically, Eyebrows is a character on Glee, and Frank is another character on Glee who is slightly more relatable, a lot gayer, and a little bit less of a douche. But let that not say that Frank is not slightly a douche, as it comes with the territory. No man whose life revolves around a sport isn’t at least slightly a douchebag.

Frank shrugs it off and he follows the rest of his teammates into the locker room, coming last, not wanting to disrupt any of their lives given that he’s already done it enough.

To be fair though, none of this is Frank’s fault. He didn’t cause this Lance guy to go and break his knee or whatever. He didn’t get asked to be recruited here and disrupt the order of the team. He didn’t ask to be thrust into any of this, least of all not this suddenly, so why he’s being treated like a villain here, especially by this Eyebrows guy, is a wonder.

No one really wants to look at him once they’re in the changing room. There’s no eye contact, there’s no looking at him while his back is turned and then abruptly looking away when he turns to face people. There’s no angry glaring. There’s just ignoring him. They all start into their own little conversation, chatter filling up the small echoing space, people talking about this or that, that and this, no one really bothering to engage Frank in the slightest.

Until Frank turns around, that is, and he’s met with a man whose somehow managed to change already, and he’s holding out his hand with a big dorky smile on his face that Frank thinks he could get used to.

“I’m Pete,” he says, grabbing Frank’s hand and shaking it even before Frank has the time to process what’s going on. He just grabs Frank’s hand from his side and decides to shake it, because that’s just apparently the guy’s personality.

“Uh, Frank,” Frank says.

“Yeah, I know,” Pete says. “I’m the team captain, nice to meet you.”

“Oh hi,” Frank says, and he stops what he’s doing, puts the shoes he’d been about to pull on down, so that he can get on the good side of this guy, because if there’s anyone you don’t want to be on the bad side of, it’s the team captain. If it’s possible, he’d like to be this guy’s best friend, because if the captain likes him, maybe Frank will be given a better chance to show the team what he’s got.

“We should talk. Coffee?” he offers, “soon as you’re finished changing?”

“Uh, yeah,” Frank says, blushing slightly. He’s not used to people being so forward, and it’s kind of invigorating. Pete’s kind of attractive, and Frank’s kind of thirsty. He knows that the guy only wants to talk because Frank is the new recruit, but he has a wild imagination, and eighteen years of built up tension.

“Great,” Pete nods, and then he shouts across the locker room to somebody, “Toro, you want to get coffee?”

“Is the sky blue?” ‘Toro’ shouts back, and when Frank looks to see who this guy is, he’s surprised to find that it’s his roommate. So maybe he’ll make two whole acquaintances on his first day. That’s got to be a record for him.

“Did someone say coffee?” a kid who honestly looks like he’s younger than Frank which is a lot coming from the guy who gets mistaken for fifteen on a good day. He’s lanky, and thin, with the physique of a piece of dental floss. Frank feels like a doting grandma encouraging her grandson to eat a shit ton of protein, because honestly, this book looks like he could get sucked into an escalator, or lost between a couch cushion. He’s also got these bags under his eyes that make Frank want to call a doctor, because he can’t have gotten any sleep in the last three months. So, he’s a freshman.

“You’re invited too if you bring your brother,” Pete says, and Frank charges through getting the rest of his stuff put away so that he’s ready. He’s never been invited to a social gathering before, he wants to be sufficiently prepared to go on a moment’s notice, because he doesn’t know how these things work.

“And I thought you liked me for my body,” the boy responds sarcastically, but he doesn’t look too upset.

“You wish,” Pete says, laughing at him before throwing something at him that does not look washed, and Frank wonders if that’s what having friends is like nowadays. Throwing dirty clothes at each other and making vaguely sexual jokes. Sounds like something people would do, but he’s never engaged in this whole friendship thing before so he could be watching an ancient mating ritual and he wouldn’t know the difference.

One thing he does know about hockey players, though, is that they do not dig the whole gay thing. They’re totally fine with calling each other gay, because sports players have inherently archaic mindsets, but they do not like the concept one bit. As an insult ‘gay’ is superb, top of their list, but that’s where that list ends. So, Frank, like he has for his entire life, and will likely continue to do for the remainder of his life, says nothing on this topic, keeping his mouth zipped shut.

“Morgan, you wanna get in on the coffee action up in this bitch?” Pete asks a guy, and since Frank is trying to learn these guy’s names and faces, he looks at the man who Pete’s talking to.

It turns out to be Eyebrows Fahey, who gives Pete a grimace, “with you fruits? Not a chance.” What’s that scent Frank smells in the air? Ah yes, the familiar fragrance of institutionalized homophobia.

Frank has to reconcile this new name, Morgan, with the guys face and his already ever diminishing opinion of him. Or rather, he has to adjust to his name being Morgan, and not Eyebrows.

“No blueberry muffins for you,” Pete says, because apparently, this is a taunt that means something.

“I’ll live,” he replies, scathingly. He brushes past Frank in much the same fashion as earlier, hitting his shoulder intentionally and then smirking menacingly at him as if to dare Frank to say something about it. Frank, being the unconfrontational pansy that he is, says nothing and looks down at his shoes, making Morgan laugh at him.

“What’s his problem?” Frank asks when he’s confident that the guy is gone and out of earshot.

“Morgan’s just a jerk,” the guy who had introduced himself as Brendon says. “That’s like his thing? Ya know? Like some people are funny, some people are good at telling stories, some people are poets. Morgan just likes being a dick.”

“As opposed to you, who likes sucking dick,” says a voice from behind them, Frank can’t say from who, because there’s still a good dozen or so large men crowded into the locker room, but a couple of them chuckle at this, because that’s just what locker rooms are like. That, and so putrid smelling that it could kill a small child.

Brendon just rolls his eyes, and finishes stuffing his gear into his backpack, saying sarcastically, “Oh how you’ve wounded me.” He doesn’t waste any more time before he’s walking past Frank and he hears a faint, “catch you later.”

Frank watches him walk away, trying to decide if this Brendon guy is on his side or not. So far, he just seems neutral.

“Hurry your ass up,” Pete says, kicking at the lanky kid’s gym bag, before being met with a huff in response.

“Calm your tits, I’m going as fast as I can,” the boy replies, he gets his shoe on and then he’s grabbing his things and walking over, apparently ready to go.

“Took you long enough, sunshine,” Pete says, and Ray gives the guy whose name Frank still does not know a look in agreement.

“That’s why I need coffee,” the guy says, and Pete starts off, with the others in his tow. Frank follows the boys out of the locker room, feeling a little nervous at the prospect of interacting with other people in his age group, a foreign concept that he thought was reserved to TV shows and his imagination. No one had been this friendly at Boston, no one gave two shits about him off the ice. On it, he was a star, the guy everyone wanted to get close to, but off of it, he was like a piece of equipment.

They exit back into the rink, and then have to make their way through the entrance to get to the doors.

“So, Frank,” Pete says, “what are you majoring in?”

“I’m, uh, I’m undeclared,” Frank says, because he hasn’t given any thought at all to what he wants to do in his life. College isn’t even about getting a degree, it’s just a tool to play more hockey, to be on the ice. In two years, he still probably won’t know what he wants to do with the rest of his life. If it’s not skating, it’s not worth it.

“Ah, cool,” Pete says. “Life is only about hockey, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Frank nods, blushing a little bit, but the three other guys all nod along like they agree with him.

“Hockey and, like, Star Wars,” the thin one says, and Frank laughs at that. “Dude, what? Fucking fight me?”

“No, man Star Wars is great,” Frank says, still laughing.

“Damn right,” he replies, and then seems to remember that he hadn’t introduced himself, “I’m Mikey by the way.”

“Frank,” Frank replies. He’s going to get sick of introducing himself soon.

Frank heads towards the door, but Pete stops him, and Frank watches, eyebrows screwed up in confusion when they all head back to look at the stadium. Frank follows them though, to see that the Coach and assistant coach are still there, talking to each other about something. Frank supposes they might be talking about him, or about how they’re going to strategize this season now that he’s here.

“Gee,” the guy whose name is Mikey yells at the two, and the assistant coach turns to look at them.

“Yeah?”

“Coffee?” Mikey asks.

“Fuck yeah,” ‘Gee’ calls back. “Just gimme one minute.”

Frank stops, and waits, a little annoyed, because four people is a lot of people for Frank to try to communicate with at one time. His limit is usually two. He doesn’t like interacting with any more than that, because life gets difficult beyond that point. But he’s in a new town, people are actually making an attempt to get to know him, so he’s going to be polite and put up with however many people he has to. Besides, if he’s lucky, and plays his cards right, he might actually make a friend which will be an achievement that is comparable to the Stanley Cup for Frank. Actually, that’s inaccurate. Frank would have way less trouble winning the Stanley Cup than he would making a friend.

The rest of them all turn to each other as they wait for what Frank hopes is the last of their party, and Pete starts talking about, well, hockey.

“But like that goal that Morgan made in practice, that was fucking gorgeous, wasn’t it?”

“I was distracted!” Ray says, like he’s trying to defend himself, unlike the goal he’d been stood in front of earlier, “I totally could have blocked that, but I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

“Dude, he’s your teammate, you can at least pretend to appreciate him,” Pete says.

“He’s a dick,” Mikey says, because apparently, this is the running theme of opinions about this Morgan guy amidst the team.

“But he’s a dick who is great at hockey,” Pete says, and Frank has to admit, he makes a valid point. “I don’t like him anymore than the rest of you, but man, he’s going on to the NHL for sure.”

Frank doesn’t have much to say about him, because, from what he saw, Pete’s right, the guy can play, and he works as a part of the team better than some of the other guys out there today, but off the ice, he doesn’t seem to have that same streak.

“Whatever, man,” Mikey rolls his eyes.

“Frank,” Pete says, and Frank gets worried that he’s going to ask Frank’s opinion of the guy, but instead he says, “you were really good out there today.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Frank says, pink flushing the tips of his ears.

“No, seriously dude,” Pete says, “you’re flat out awesome. Lance is pretty tight too, don’t get me wrong, but he was kinda, I don’t know, set in his ways. Lance was captain, so I’ve only been in charge for like three days, but man, I feel like I’ve got a chance to turn us around.”

“You need it,” Frank says, and then regrets saying that, and he turns pink, while Pete just laughs at his words.

“Don’t we know it,” he replies, hitting Frank in the shoulder which Frank supposes is a friendly gesture but it kind of hurts. Without his gear on, Frank bruises like a peach. He bruises like a peach with it on too, but it’s not as noticeable.

“Alright, coffee,” a new voice says, and Frank is surprised to see that the guy who they had been waiting for has joined them. He didn’t even see the guy approaching.

Pete grabs his hand and Frank witnesses, for the first time in his entire life, one of those dorky ass bro handshakes that he honest to God thought were fabricated by the television industry. He’s tempted to voice his sheer surprise, but he decides not to, because what if everyone has those handshakes with people, and Frank just doesn’t know about it because he has no friends. While unlikely, that eventuality is not completely off the table.

“Frank?” the guy asks, when he notices Frank amongst the group.

“What?”

He stops and just stares at him for a minute before he’s saying “You skate weird.” He says it like an insult but it doesn’t even reach that level of indecency.

“Okay?”

“Like, you skate like a girl, did you know that?” the man tells him, which Frank’s heard before, and he’s sure to hear again, because he does skate like a girl. He was trained by a girl, his neighbor, a girl who went on to win four statewide figure skating gold medals before retiring, so he’s not going to be offended being compared to someone as good as her. She is probably the closest thing that Frank ever had to a friend, but more than that, she’s his role model.

“I don’t take that as an insult,” Frank replies.

The man nods, looking surprised but pleased with his response. “You’re still going to get eaten alive, kid, but not for nothing, I think you might be able to take it.”

Frank literally doesn’t have anything to say that, before he’s contemplating whether this guy likes or dislikes him, because the answer is not clear.

“I’m Gerard, by the way, and I’m the guy who’s going to be putting you through the most hell,” and he winks, and Frank definitely turns pink at that. Frank has become ever more uncertain whether he has just made a friend or foe, but he’s sure that the drama will play itself out in its due course.

Frank decides that this Gerard guy is pretty once you get past his slightly homeless appearance. His hair is in desperate need for both a cut and a wash, but his face is nice. He’s got the cutest nose Frank thinks he’s ever seen, so he desperately hopes that this guy turns out more as a friend than an enemy, but the chips will fall where they may.

“Ugh, Gerard, stop flirting,” Mikey says, whom Frank infers must be Gerard’s brother. Frank goes a little pinker, but he puts his head down, and just shrugs. The guys respond to a sound Pete makes that translates to ‘should we go?’ and they begin to make their way back towards the front door. The detour wasn’t even really a detour, when you consider how small the arena really is.

Before they can leave though, someone is calling out for them to wait.

“Ya’ll have got to be kidding if you think you can get coffee without me,” says the boy who Frank thinks was called Travie. He’s very attractive, and Frank has to contain himself a little bit, because he’s in a new place surrounded by literally so many pretty people and it’s going to make him explode. Everyone though, is fucking gorgeous, and it’s killing him. He wants to flirt with everybody, wants to be flirted with, but not as a joke like he knows it’s going to be for the rest of his hockey career.

Frank just takes a deep breath and tells himself that he can hold himself back, he’s resisted temptation fairly well for the last eighteen years, he can continue to do so.

Maybe it’s something in the water here, but everyone is way prettier than they were back at either Jefferson or Boston. Now to be fair, in high school, everyone had acne and they wore Nike shirts, but still, it’s insane how attractive people are here.

“Coffee, coffee, coffee,” Mikey starts chanting as they finally walk out into the crisp October air, the rain having stopped but the sky is a dark black, swallowing the lights of the streetlamps around them with no hint of remorse.

Frank smiles a little to himself, because there’s something charming about this little group of guys. A part of him, actually the majority, is terrified, because this might be his first and last chance to actually make friends. Frank is hopeful, because at this point, he doesn’t have anything to lose, but he has a whole hell of a lot to gain. All he really has is hope, and hope, he thinks, is all he really needs.

Notes

So, in case you hadn't noticed, I changed the title of this fic from 'Broken Wings' to 'All We Need is Daylight' and I cannot recommend enough the song (Daylight by Young Guns) the title is from. Please leave a comment, I love you all for reading!