Chapter Text
Clay had never liked the way the afternoon sun hit the football field. It turned everything too bright, too sharp, like the world was overexposed. He preferred the floodlights at night games—controlled, focused. Predictable.
Practice was winding down. The coaches were yelling about conditioning drills tomorrow, but Clay's eyes kept drifting to the bleachers.
Tommy was there again.
Not watching practice. Not really. He was sprawled across the third row like he owned it, one leg hooked over the bench in front, red-and-white hoodie slipping off one shoulder. His blond hair was a mess—wind-tousled, catching gold in the stupidly perfect light—and he was laughing at something on his phone, head thrown back, throat exposed for half a second before he righted himself.
Clay's grip tightened on his helmet.
He shouldn't be looking. Tommy was a sophomore. Loud, obnoxious, always trailing after Tubbo or Ranboo like a hyper puppy. He didn't do sports—actively avoided them, from what Clay had overheard. When the PE coach tried to rope him into flag football last semester, Tommy had gone on a ten-minute rant about "capitalist exploitation of child athletes" that ended with him getting detention and the whole class in stitches.
Pretty, though.
Not in the polished way some of the cheer girls were. Not trying. Just... there. Blue eyes that looked almost too big for his face when he got excited, freckles dusting his nose like someone had flicked a paintbrush at him, mouth always curved like he was two seconds from saying the most unhinged thing imaginable.
Clay hated how easy it was to notice.
"Yo, Dream!" Sapnap waved from the sideline, water bottle in hand. "You good? You've been staring into the void for like three minutes."
Clay blinked. Forced a grin. "Just thinking about how I'm gonna smoke you in sprints tomorrow."
Sapnap snorted. "Sure, man."
Behind Sapnap, Techno was packing up his gear in silence. Brown hair tied back, pink streak catching the light. He didn't look toward the bleachers, but Clay knew he knew Tommy was there. The guy had a sixth sense about his little brother. Last week some junior had made a dumb comment about Tommy's "annoying laugh" in the cafeteria; by the next day the kid was suddenly very polite and very quiet around the Craft family.
Techno and Clay didn't talk much. Teammates, not friends. A nod in the locker room, a "nice throw" after a good play. That was it. But Clay had seen the way Techno's eyes sharpened whenever anyone got too close to Tommy.
Like right now.
Tommy hopped down from the bleachers, phone still in hand, yelling something over his shoulder—probably at Tubbo, who was jogging up from the parking lot. His hoodie sleeve flapped loose. He looked ridiculous. He looked untouchable.
Clay turned away before Techno could catch him looking.
He told himself it was nothing. Just observation. The same way he read defenses on the field. Patterns. Weak spots. Nothing personal.
But as he walked to the locker room, helmet under his arm, he could still hear Tommy's laugh echoing across the field—bright, careless, impossible to ignore.