Chapter Text
So, Kevin… Kevin isn’t what you could call low-key.
Everything he feels, he feels strongly. Everything he says, he says with conviction. Everything he loves, well. Everything he loves becomes an addiction.
After the Moriyamas, after all his secrets are out in the open, he’s trying to find some kind of sliding scale in his soul, some numbers between 0 and 100 that he can comfortably settle at. If Kevin isn’t feeling something 100%, with all his soul, this-is-the-hill-he-will-die-on, he doesn’t feel it. Fear, anger, even love. He’s been trained to push everything down, and he’s so good at it that only the strongest feelings can break through. Fear and anger have been strong a lot. He’s nervous and hot-tempered. But love? Love isn’t easy to fall into with only half of your soul.
He’s been reading some self-help books, trying to puzzle out all these things about himself that he doesn’t understand, all these things that are off or broken or extreme. He’s working. He’d like to be a better person, he thinks. Maybe without so much liquor.
Love, love.
He doesn’t really understand Wymack - his father, he should think, but it’s so hard to think of him as anything but simply Wymack - and his mother, or even Wymack and Abby. The details of his conception are thankfully a mystery to him, but still… in his mind, love requires complete honesty, complete trust, and the assurance that one of the involved parties would tell the other if they happened to have his child, not like Wymack and his mother. In his mind, there’s no such thing as the ambiguity of Wymack and Abby, either, as going undeclared, unclear, not 100%.
Thea, she’s his 100%. Maybe it’s not so obvious, because neither of them is used to love or to showing it partway. Maybe they seem cold, to outsiders, and that’s okay. Everything’s cold until they reach that 100%, alone together, Thea’s strong arms around him and her lungs breathing him in like he’s her only oxygen. It doesn’t have to be sex- sometimes it’s sex but sometimes it’s crying or raging or finally remembering it all, together, clinging to each other like rafts in a raging sea.
She’s told him he’s hers, and he likes that. He likes to know. And he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of them, because he knows. He knows she’s not going anywhere. He knows they’re going to stick together and be there for each other like he knows he’s alive.
That said. That said. There are numbers between 0 and 100 that are coming to light, after all this reading and rearranging and thinking, and he doesn’t- he doesn’t know what to do about them.
Something Nicky says sticks in his mind. A conversation. He’s talking to Neil and Andrew in the locker room after practice about media presence- they’re making a huge mistake, he tells them, not bothering to hide their relationship. The press hasn’t caught on yet, because they aren’t exactly the type to do PDA, of course, but still. They need to take steps to make sure it doesn’t come out, because do they know what that’s going to mean for them in the world of professional exy, in the spotlight?
And Nicky says, “Kevin, stop being a dick.” That’s not the thing that sticks.
Kevin's frustrated, so he wheels on Nicky and snaps, “Look, all I’m trying to do is warn them about the media shitstorm this is going to cause, okay? I’m not saying they can’t be gay, although why anyone would be in professional Exy is beyond me!”
Nicky looks taken aback. “That’s not a choice, Kevin.”
“I don’t know if-” Kevin stops, and his brain catches up with his mouth. That isn’t a great thing to say, huh. He’s starting to work on ‘articulating’ and ‘apologizing’, though, so he forces out, “That’s not what I mean.”
“Sounds kind of like it is,” Neil says. “And I’m not even gay.”
Kevin glares at him.
“Look, it’s okay,” Nicky says diplomatically. “I mean, you should know better by now. But,” he tilts his head, “I mean, Andrew and Neil are gonna go professional one day, so I guess they bother you more than I do.”
Kevin nods stiffly. Andrew rolls his eyes and resumes changing, detaching himself and Neil from the conversation and leaving Kevin to face Nicky alone.
“If you don’t understand, you just have to think it through,” Nicky tells him patiently. Kevin doesn’t love this benevolent look on his face. “Like, if the situation was reversed, and the media was going to freak out if you were dating a woman, would you just date a man?”
“Yeah,” Kevin says, obviously.
Nicky blinks at him.
“It’s kind of an obvious answer, in that scenario,” Kevin says, then thinks it over a bit. “Well. It might be different if I was with Thea.”
Nicky furrows his brows. “I… I guess that’s my point.”
Kevin weighs it in his head and half-nods. “I guess.”
“I’m sort of hung up on that ‘yeah’, though.”
Kevin shrugs. “I mean, you said the whole thing’s reversed, so it makes sense. Different parameters.”
“I think that’s a very interesting thing for you to say, Kevin,” Nicky says. “You think love is a strategic choice.” And that is the thing that sticks.
Because then he thinks about it. And he wonders. He wonders about all those numbers between 0 and 100 that he hasn’t noticed.
Because, well, is it not something he can choose? Kevin can distinctly remember thinking about it. He can remember when he learned what gay was, and how he was taught immediately afterwards that he was not allowed to look at boys that way. He can remember thinking okay, then, I won’t. And simply deciding. He’s done that for a lot of things, unquestioningly. He takes in and executes commands like a robot. This wasn’t different.
See, but now he’s supposed to be deprogramming. Wymack certainly wants him to.
So, he thinks about it a lot. And it’s probably not something he should think about, not a door he should risk opening. But if he doesn’t at least test the lock, he won’t know if it’s secure.
Kevin is inputting his own commands.
The group is going out to dinner after practice, an unexplained treat from Abby, who’s in a particularly glowing mood. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t do this in the middle of the season, especially not the day before a big game against the Trojans. Kevin’s past the point of tired, head spinning with plays and strategies and speculation about the way Knox is going to direct his own team, and Kevin’s trying not to hide it so much as he used to. His feet scrape against the pavement just slightly and sweat cools on the back of his neck. His posture, though, is as rigid as always. He’ll keel over before he lets a single vertebra even think about shifting out of alignment.
So they’re walking down a street in town, passing all sorts of high-end clothing stores and restaurants with juice bars when Dan grabs Allison’s arm and whisper-shouts loud enough for everyone to hear, “Oh my god. Did you see that guy who just walked past us?”
Every head turns. “What, is there something wrong?” Matt asks, worried.
Dan laughs. “Christ, no. But, wow. He had the face of an angel and the body of a Greek god.”
Most of the foxes’ attention drifts away, but Nicky snickers.
“I’m,” Matt says, “I’m right here.”
She playfully slaps his arm. “Oh, come on, babe. I’m just window shopping.”
That’s an idea. That’s something.
Kevin surreptitiously glances behind them. The guy is easy to spot, still relatively close, and he is fit. But, well. But nothing. Kevin doesn’t really feel the need to feel anything about him.
That’s a good sign.
He keeps track of Dan and Allison’s attention as they walk. Occasionally, one of them will point something out. To his chagrin, it’s usually nothing, a nice display or an interesting storefront. The girls are not as boy-crazy as he’d like them to be. And the stores are all the same, fancy clothes and stick-thin mannequins. The fluorescents inside are starting to hurt his eyes.
But then they come upon a sportswear store with its window display absolutely loaded with blown-up photographs of extremely fit models and a couple of relatively well-known athletes, probably paid through the nose for their endorsements. Most of the foxes at least spare the models a glance - excluding Neil and Andrew, who don’t react at all, whose disinterests are either total or well-practiced.
Kevin watches the expressions of the other foxes. Kevin is learning to watch. Kevin is learning to window shop.
But none of the models are really doing it for him, he realizes. Not even the sports stars, some of whom he vaguely recognizes but none that he knows. Sure, he can appreciate how much work must have gone into their impressive physiques, male or female, and he notes the skill and artistry required to take pictures worthy of an entire storefront - but, well, but nothing. There’s no spark of attraction, not that he notices. He doesn’t think it’s even that he’s not letting himself feel it. It just isn’t there.
Which is a relief, because now he knows that even the fittest of men aren’t doing it for him. He can wipe his hands clean of this passing thought, this little curiosity. He’s straight as an arrow. A well-crafted, unwarped arrow. An arrow pointing toward women. Straight toward them.
It’s a very satisfying conclusion.
Then.
“Hey, isn’t that Jeremy Knox?”
Kevin looks up. He looks up to an eyefull of Jeremy Knox, captain of the Trojans, filling up almost half of the display window, gripping an exy racquet, clad in tight, designer athletic shorts and nothing else.
And it’s not the surprise of seeing a familiar face that stops Kevin in his tracks, not at all. It’s not the lighting of the photo or the artistry, though it would be an outright lie not to call this Jeremy Knox a work of art. It would be an outright lie to say that Kevin is noticing these details for pure, objective observation: not the delicate trails of sweat streaking down Knox’s strong exposed abdomen, nor his intense stare into the artistic middle distance as though he’s ready for a fight, nor his delicate but firm grip on the exy stick- which could be seen as a stand-in for a lot of things, if Kevin thinks about it, and boy is he thinking about it. Knox looks like he’s just stepped off the court in this ad, but in a sort of stylized way, with all the intensity and work but none of the exhaustion or body odor. It makes Kevin want to go to the court and practice until he faints. Next time he sees Knox, he won’t be able to forget this photograph, so he’s going to have to work hard to impress the Trojan captain and measure up to the power he’s displaying in the picture. Or that Kevin already knows he has. This picture of Knox is affecting him so much more than any of the other photos on the display because Kevin knows Knox and he knows how much work the man puts into his playing, his strength, and his image. This photo- it isn’t selling sex or comfy athletic wear to him. It’s selling Knox’s dedication and mindset and -
“Kevin, are you okay?” Dan is looking back at him, concerned. He’s been standing still for too long, and he flushes when he realizes the group is now a few paces ahead of him.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding with false confidence, “it’s Jeremy Knox, like you said.”
“Kevin,” Nicky says slowly, “his face is in the photo.”
Kevin nods brusquely and speeds to catch up to them. “Yeah. Exactly.”
Nicky looks at him like he’s grown a second head, but the moment is quickly forgotten.
Kevin doesn’t forget it, though. Later, when he’s the only one awake in his dorm, it churns in his head. What does it mean? Why did he feel like that?
If he had to give it a number, he would give it a solid 67%.
Which. Well, that’s unacceptable, isn’t it?
It has to be a fluke, he tells himself. He has to test it.
That’s what he tells himself when he looks up Knox’s complete photoshoot. When he follows some links to more, swimsuits and underwear brands- who knew Knox was a model? When the only light in the room comes from his computer screen. When his heart flutters with every click-
He freezes and slams his laptop shut. What the hell? What the hell? He’s not gay. He does not feel anything for Jeremy Knox. He has a girlfriend, one he loves totally, completely. He has to play against the man tomorrow! And he has roommates, so.
He rolls over in bed and closes his eyes, willing the confusion and guilt from his chest. He just won’t think about it. He just won’t. He has an answer now to the question he was asking, but he doesn’t have to accept it. Not at all.
His sheets are rough and uncomfortably warm, but he pulls them to his shoulders anyway. He needs some kind of comfort. And this is the best he has.
Naturally, he wakes up too early the next morning, drenched in sweat and a sour mood. His bags are already packed beside the bed, but somehow the thought of getting ready for the long bus ride ahead of him is still almost too much to stomach. He throws on some clothes and heads out to Abby’s place, where the bus waits and the foxes have decided to meet for a protein-rich breakfast that will only serve to make Kevin more nauseous. Not that he would ever consider skipping the most important meal of the day. His body is a machine.
It could use a bit of straight gasoline, though.
He’s the first one in the kitchen. Abby isn’t even there yet, having opened the door looking like she’s literally just woken up. Kevin beelines for the liquor cabinet and cracks open his drink of choice. He takes a swig of vodka directly from the bottle. If the others were here, he’d at least pour it into some orange juice, but they aren’t, and he needs this. He needs to clear his head. He’s justified.
“Jesus, Kevin.”
Kevin almost spits out his mouthful of vodka at the sound of Wymack’s voice behind him, but quickly recovers and swallows it down. “Coach,” he says.
Wymack sighs, pulling out a chair at the table. “I thought you were excited to play against the Trojans today,” he says, running one callused hand over the back of his neck. “I was banking on you being in a good mood.” He eyes Kevin’s bottle, then holds out a hand.
Kevin grunts and passes it to him.
“It’s not even eight in the morning,” Wymack mutters, glaring at the bottle. “You’re a fucking mess.”
Kevin raises an eyebrow. Wymack drinks.
“You can tell me what’s bothering you, you know,” he says, passing the vodka back. “I sometimes attempt to help.”
Kevin pauses. Wymack looks tired, his brows furrowed, the lines on his forehead more pronounced. Kevin sees echoes of himself in Wymack’s features, his dark eyes, the shade of skin, the set of his jaw. It makes him uncomfortable. It seems so obvious now.
“It’s nothing,” Kevin says.
Wymack studies him for another moment, then nods reluctantly. “Okay.” Almost as an afterthought, “Don’t let it mess up your game.”
“I won’t.” There’s something uneasy about this. The mood. Wymack with that look on his face, with his hand on his neck. Self-soothing. Riko is- was- always better at reading people, but he taught Kevin how to pick out the most obvious signs of distress. Hiding thumbs. Rubbing necks.
Kevin takes another drink and waits.
Wymack lets out a sudden, violent sigh, and his hand drops to the table with a thud. He looks up, his eyes hooking Kevin’s, and he says, “Abby’s pregnant.”
The vodka burns in Kevin's mouth, but his throat is locked and refuses to swallow.
There’s an axis between Wymack’s eyes and Kevin’s - the same eyes - and the world is frozen around it.
Then the front door bursts open.
“Good morning everybody!” Nicky calls in a loud singsong, heading straight for the stove. “Y’all ready for some fuckin’ bacon?”
Wymack’s face shutters, and his posture straightens. The axis breaks, but Kevin’s still standing on it, watching it crumble before him.
“Shut up,” Aaron groans, heading straight to the table and flopping down. Andrew follows him and takes a seat on the opposite end, unphased by the sudden chaos their group has brought. Neil, though, stays in the entrance way, eyeing Kevin and Wymack with those infuriatingly piercing blue eyes of his like he can see straight through them.
Kevin would curse Neil’s psychic abilities if he had any space in his mind to register that the other people are in the room. His focus is still locked on Wymack.
“Why would you tell me that,” he forces out through his teeth, gaze hot enough to burn a hole in his coach’s skull. “Why the fuck would you say that right now.”
Nicky pauses at the stove and turns around, face falling. “Um, guys-?”
“Kevin,” Wymack hisses, eyes wide. “Don’t-”
“You know we have a game today, right? Don’t you?” Kevin can feel himself heating up, a star in his chest about to go supernova, pulling him inwards with crushing gravity. His tone rises toward madness. “Do you even know what’s been going on?”
Wymack’s face is going slightly red, too. “You realize I asked, right?”
Kevin slams the bottle down on the countertop, spilling a few drops onto his hand. “When?” he demands.
“Jesus, do you really not notice how hard I’ve been trying with you?”
Kevin inhales sharply, then spins and storms toward the door, shoving Neil out of the way. He has to get out, get some air, clear his head - he shouldn’t blow up like this - he should remove himself from the situation, like those self-help books have been telling him to -
“And where the hell are you going now?” Wymack shouts.
Kevin throws the door open. “If I stay here, I’m going to make some big fucking mistakes!”
Kevin can’t bring himself to care about the chill drizzle of rain outside. He stomps to the porch stairs, then throws himself down onto them and puts his head in his hands with an angry sigh. He can practically feel the steam coming off of him, rising into wet air. He’s thinking, but not thinking. His gears are trying to turn, but they’ve just ended up grinding on each other.
He knows he should be- something other than this. Not so fucking livid. Not such a terrible person. He knows his teammates will be happy, and they probably are now, asking dumb questions and teasing Wymack, so I guess you two really are fucking, I thought Abby was too old for this, and on and on. Why does he feel so different? He shouldn’t always self-destruct like this. He doesn’t - he doesn’t even think of Wymack as his father, he knows that. He doesn’t need that kind of thing. He should be laughing along with his team, or at least standing in the background in reluctantly pleased silence.
He just can’t make himself get up and go back in there.
The door opens behind him. He doesn’t look up. He recognizes the cadence of the footsteps approaching him, the smell of whiskey and cigarettes and something solid, something warm.
Andrew thuds down on the stair above him and lights a cigarette. He breathes smoke silently into the sky, his foot tapping beside where Kevin sits.
Kevin lets it go on for a minute, feeling growing inside him, then finally looks up and grits out, “Who sent you out here to babysit me?”
Andrew doesn’t answer, substituting another drag for words. He’s looking at Kevin, his hazel eyes unreadable, filled with familiar stone. He watches.
After a long beat, Andrew says, “I see you’ve learned something from those books you’ve been reading.”
“Oh?” Kevin growls.
“I do prefer not being subjected to screaming matches before nine a.m.,” Andrew says neutrally, “in general.”
Kevin’s mouth twists. “Are you proud?”
Andrew’s silent.
Kevin shifts, looking away, resting his chin in his hands. His spine is still curled inward, and he knows it’s bad posture, but he doesn’t sit up. He says nothing.
Andrew’s foot continues tapping, minute by minute. It’s the only sound. Tap, tap, tap, tap. He doesn’t usually do that. The message is clear: I’m waiting. Spit it out.
Kevin doesn’t resist Andrew’s demands, as a rule. He could ask anything. If he asks Kevin why he’s out here, why he’s upset, Kevin will answer. But he won’t. And that’s why he’s here.
Kevin is suddenly angry at him. Burningly, blindingly angry. What exactly are you waiting for? Why are you here? He doesn’t say it. Andrew is a wall. Everything Kevin throws at him will just bounce right back. He doesn’t want a wall. He wants to hurt someone, to cut deep, to push some of this mess inside him into someone else. To know he has the power to. To know.
“Did you ever like me?” The question bursts out of him, breaking the air between them.
The tapping stops. A moment passes.
“No,” Andrew drawls, a beat too late for his detached tone to stick. “You’re infuriating. I have never willingly spent time in the same room as you. Next question.”
“I’m serious.” Kevin scowls at his hands, tensed as though they’re trying to get a hold on the emptiness in front of him. “I mean, like…Not just... You’re gay. Did you?”
Another moment draws out, cold and quiet and dark.
“Kevin. Hm.” Andrew says finally. Kevin looks at him. “If you want someone to love you, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
He puts out his cigarette on the stair and stands. Kevin stays. His mind is numb.
Kevin’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket and looks at it. A text from Wymack: That was not at all how I wanted that to go.
“Are you coming inside?” Andrew asks him.
“No.” Kevin locks his phone. “I’ll wait on the bus.”
Thankfully, he’s able to pry open the doors to the vehicle. He takes a seat in the back and tries not to think about how pathetic and hateful he is. And how nobody wants him. And how he’ll never be good enough.
He fills his head with Exy.
His phone buzzes again. He doesn’t want to pick it up, but he does. He expects another text from Wymack, either telling him he’s a horrible person and a shame of a son or that Wymack’s sorry and won’t ever hurt him again. It’s neither. It’s from Thea.
Will be in SC next week on the fifth. Make plans?
Always right to the point. He loves that about her.
Kevin closes his eyes, imagining her there, wrapping her strong arms around him. Holding him close. He imagines the smell of her, cedar and dark, and the quiet she brings to his head. He imagines a nice hotel room and finally doing some of the things they talk about late at night, when no one can hear them, and he imagines being surrounded by her and her safety and her understanding and her eyes just for him.
It’s hard to convey all that in a text message.
Okay. he sends back. Hotel?
Yes.
He breathes slowly. A room just for her, just for him. It’s been far too long since he’s let himself breathe her in.
I will make a reservation.
Ok.
If he can just make it through this next week, Thea will make everything okay. He can forget Wymack and he can forget Jeremy Knox and he can forget whatever else is on his mind. She’ll be there. That’s all he’ll need to think about.
He watches the world outside, cars flashing by on the street, leaves rustling in the trees, tiny drops of rain speckling across the wet asphalt. Most of him is numb, but there’s a sufficient warmth deep down in his core.
His mind is quieter by the time the rest of the team starts piling onto the bus. He avoids looking at any of them, especially Andrew, and most especially Wymack. He stares out the window, letting the ugly feelings simmer without bubbling over. Feelings of anger, embarrassment, resentment. Jealousy, no. He’s a grown man.
Andrew taps his finger once against the back of Kevin’s seat, right by his neck, as he brushes by. It startles Kevin, just a little. He looks up, but Andrew isn’t seeming to pay him any mind at all as he slides into a seat toward the back beside Neil. Kevin isn’t used to much… acknowledgement, emotionally, from Andrew. Andrew would usually just let him sit and agonize over his own conversational ineptitude. It would be a sort of directly-indirect revenge. Did you like me? definitely would deserve it. Kevin doesn’t know if he’s ever said anything so mortifying to Andrew before.
But he’s doing a lot of things he’s never done before, and apparently so is Andrew.
He doesn’t know what to read from that.
Is Andrew - could Andrew be someone to talk to about all… this? Numbness and extremes and confusing emotions about men in athleisure ads?
He certainly knows about all of those things.
But. No. Kevin shakes his head, clearing the thought. He’s not the type to talk to people like that. He doubts Andrew is, either. Kevin, personally, would much rather read self-help books alone in the dark and memorize lists of coping skills than admit any of this out loud. Especially not to Andrew. Who would understand. Who would have to understand, but who still seems just so far above it all.
Kevin has seen Andrew at his most vulnerable - he insisted on being there in the courtroom, during the trial, he saw the photographs and heard the stories that turned his stomach inside out - but he still can’t wrap his mind around the idea that Andrew could ever fall prey to the same weaknesses and doubts that cripple his own mind. The difference might be that Andrew had no choice but to be exposed, and this, going to him, asking for help, would be Kevin willingly putting himself on the line. Asking. And somehow that’s worse.
To him.
And he would have to admit to maybe perhaps improbably looking at Jeremy Knox. And that is simply not going to happen, anyway.
Kevin furrows his brows and closes his eyes, leaning back in a fruitless attempt to get comfortable and catch some sleep on the long bus ride. He isn’t successful, but thankfully the other foxes take the cue to leave him alone, or at least pick up on his sour mood. It’s long and boring without them, trapped in his own head. He tries not to think. As usual, he fails.
He should’ve had more of that vodka.