Chapter Text
It’s cold. Bdubs shivers in his green puffer jacket and exhales a heavy sigh. His breath billowed out into the mist, and he watched as it dissolved into the field in front of him. The whistle blowing and shouting fell away to a faint hum, and Bdubs lost himself in seeing the hazy figures in front of him dart as quick as fish with a streaking white ball.
Maybe his friends and family were right- Washington was not for the faint of heart. He could just hear his mother’s insistent voice, “Bdubs, you don’t know anyone out there! Pick someone closer to home for your first job, trust me.” Cleo could make anyone question their decisions. But, he traveled anyway. He left the rolling hills of the South for cloudy swaths of gray so so close, he swore he could feel the mist on his face.
There was a certain kind of beauty here, though. So many different hues of coffee, the pattering on the bus windows in its own harmony, and the exhausted smiles of each player after a long day.
It hurt, sometimes. To watch the players weave in and out, to hold such strength evident in the cords of muscle wrapping their knees. To have lost his chance to play because he simply was not born tall enough and with a permanent ache in his knee. To throw the decade of playing away and to settle for the next best thing- helping the players that were born tall and healthy enough. And so, after years of studying he quit his job and moved. He has spent four months in the farthest place he’s ever been from home. He is always asking himself, was it worth it?
His answer streaked past him on the sideline. A flash of silver hair, narrowed eyes, and pale skin. Iridescent dew scattered into mist as the ball slipped through a gap at his feet, sleek black cleats with blue chrome accents. Bdubs lost himself in the sinews disappearing beneath his socks, in the harsh lines of his quads as he dribbled up the line.
Etho. Number 11, starting left wing, or position 7, right dominated, but trained ambidextrous. Takes corners with left for an outswing and right with an inswing. Captain, no fights on record, and leading goal scorer from Alberta, Canada. A quiet demeanor that keeps players in place, but quick to laugh and quicker to make a joke at himself. His eyes crinkle when smiling, and Bdubs cannot recall if he had ever seen his mouth. For whatever reason, he had always worn a gray gator-like mask. He had never seen the captain get questioned for it before. It was odd. Intriguing.
Etho was just intriguing, nothing more, he told himself.
And suddenly it happens all too fast- a large figure looming, left leg in the defensive stride, hips jutting to force him to the line, and Etho’s lithe form suddenly seeming too fragile, too precious for this game as he loses traction on the snow- and the ball skids to the side as Etho collapses onto white.
Bdubs is up in a second, running over without even remembering to bring his bag.
By the time he reaches the field in a couple of strides, he can already see the tears glittering in the defender’s eyes. Gentle giant Skizz, somehow always playing with his sleeves rolled up in blizzard weather and somehow always getting a yellow card. His teammates began to jog in once Etho made no effort to get up. Bdubs watched with no interest at all as the captain’s navy long-sleeved shirt darkened as the melting snow seeped in and clung to his skin.
So not immersed, he almost missed the “Oh, fuck, you’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.” murmured behind him. Gem reached him as soon as he shooed all the players away from him, instructing Impulse to lead Skizz through his breathing exercises to stop his tearing, and he knelt to analyze the Etho-shaped mass on the floor.
“Hey, Etho. Quite a tumble huh?” Bdubs quirks as the man’s gaze sweeps to him with the left half of his face pressed to the floor. The trainer takes in his laboured breathing and his eye squinting in pain. His face looked almost gaunt and lighter than the snow.
“Tho-ought the snow looked comfy today,” Etho replied, voice shivery, and muffled by fabric.
“Har har. Alright funny guy, what are you feelin’?” Bdubs resisted the urge to brush back the hair plastered to his forehead.
“I- I uh felt this sharp pain when I tried to accelerate.” He exhaled shakily. “Then I lost traction and my leg just- just buckled and I felt like I had just nothing. No power.”
Skizz tries to reach for Etho but Impulse holds him back. “You know I didn’t mean it, cap!” Impulse, always with the sweetest smile on his face, yet their toughest defender in the back. He is known for taking multiple shots near the half line and scoring. Bdubs swore that the soccer ball looked the same size to his thighs sometimes.
Etho’s eyes crinkled. “Skizz, buddy, you didn’t even touch me.”
Bdubs smiles softly. “Can you wiggle the toes in your right leg?” The man half nods. “Hear a click or a snap when you fell?” He shakes his head. “Can you try to bend your knee.” Etho’s face contorts into concentration but he sharply inhales and his expression crumbles. “Uh- yeah no can. B-but- don’t you worry Coach! You know I’ll be there for our game in uh- 3 days.” He tried to reassure Gem.
Gem just sighs again, shaking her auburn curls. “Sure you will, cap. Wait till Lizzie comes back from her 3rd coffee run, she’s gonna whip you guys into shape for the next game without Etho.”
“… wouldn’t mind if Lizzie whipped me,” Joel whispers to Grian next to him, who simply scoffs with a chuckle. Bdubs decides that Joel needs some whispering lessons as Gem wrinkles her freckled nose in disgust.
Joel and Grian, quite possibly the worst duo on the team. With a streak of green in his hair, and one of the shortest on the team, he stood out constantly on the field. He relies on his brute strength and his anger issues to bulldoze through entire back lines. Grian, the other striker, seemingly meek and thin, has twice the wit of Joel. Constantly slipping through players with grace, megging them, and leaving them with their pants by their ankles once or twice. They both have gotten more than a few talks with the ref for being “more than slightly deranged.” Their synergy with each other and their natural leadership must be the reason Gem still keeps them on the team.
Everyone else too caught up with the thought of sprints, groans. Martyn is the loudest with some interesting swear words.
”Martyn, you know you need it the most if you’re gonna hold down the middle.” She eyed him with a severe glare. “You hafta know that the cardio you do with Ren isn’t enough, huh?” She grins as the team erupts into shoving and shouts, as Martyn and Ren shrink with rosy cheeks. Martyn may be one of the slowest on the team, but he makes up for it with his ingenuity and game knowledge. He maintains the position of holding center mid, balancing the other two attacking mids and supporting the defense. Ren is one of the attacking mids with Mumbo, who is a newer player. Ren is a little clumsy, a little shy, but all heart and smiles. He has charmed more than a couple referees to let Joel and Grian off without a card.
“Alright, alright folks let’s give Etho some space so we can check him out.” Bdubs says.
Gem glances at her phone. “Bdubs will take care of him, you all can get back to the scrimmage. I gotta call the coaches.” She pointedly looks at each of the players with dark green eyes. “You guys know to be careful with acceleration on the more drenched sections of the field. Focus on connection today and less of physicality.” She walks off, throwing up her hands as she rambles on the phone with Pearl animatedly.
He notices that Joel lingers. “Hey, you think you can flip over so you can walk back?” Etho nods and rolls onto his back, all while grimacing with pinched eyebrows.
Bdubs wants to cry.
Ever the professional, he instead grabs Etho’s left arm and puts it around his neck. He ignores the comforting warmth. “Joel, you think you can grab his other side?”
“Yup, yup,” he swoops underneath and together, on the count of three, they lift Etho up with his weight onto his left leg. Bdubs worships the small victories which meant that the man was pressed up next to him, he smelled like dew and linen. He pointedly ignores that Etho is much taller than him and has to lean into him to be supported.
“I’m no doctor Etho…” Joel contemplated, examining Etho closely as they limped to the sideline. Bdubs suddenly did not like the way Joel pronounced Etho’s name in his British accent, like “Eefo.” “But this may be a symptom of that horrible injury.”
“Uh huh, Joel enlighten me?” Etho huffs out. Drops of perspiration had collected by his hairline with the effort needed to hobble along. Bdubs worries this would last more than a month.
“I think… I think it’s called washed-up syndrome.” Joel could not even finish the line first, before he was already cackling. Etho looks at him with boredom and shoves him off abruptly.
“Oh, somebody thinks he’s funny. Shoo ‘n go score a goal or something.” He pats the arm that Joel is pretending to cradle.
“Thanks for your help though.” Bdubs pretends not to stare at the way his thin hand rests on Joel’s bicep a second too long and the glimmer in his eyes. Joel smirks back at him and salutes the two of them before running back on the field.
“What a guy,” Bdubs says, perhaps with some contempt in his voice. Etho turns, his tall frame looming over him and Bdubs feels his heart jitter at the eye contact. “Oh, for sure,”
The shorter man almost drops him with how spooked he was. Sure, they’ve had brief, typical conversations about past injuries and slight brushes of hands, but never has he been this close to see the faint scar on his brow bone and the purple stark beneath both eyes. He thinks that his delicate eyelashes will feel like fresh snow on his cheekbones when they kiss.
“Uh- you think you can stand while I bring the golf cart around to go get you checked out in the office?” Bdubs cannot hold the heat of the eye contact and flits his gaze away to the mist blanketing the mountains. The sky was just beginning to dim in shades of purple and it was past eight, which always amazed him.
“Would you mind if you checked me out here? I want to be there for the wrap up at the end of practice.”
“No problem,” Bdubs replied and regrettably, pulled away from Etho’s warmth to help him lie chest down onto the bench. Through a lot of wincing and breaths, Etho murmurs, “I’m so glad no one else is here. I can finally be weak.”
“Oh, you’re plenty strong.” Bdubs says absentmindedly as he analyzes the tendons wrapping around the back of the knee. The area was already inflamed and looked tender. “You okay if I touch you now?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Etho breathed out, once again his head facing Bdubs as he watched him work.
The trainer slid down his sock to analyze the knee, checking for inflammation and signs of patella strain, often connected to the hamstring and abductors. He sighed with relief. “Most likely nothing knee related, thank goodness.” Bdubs continued up, cautiously raising his shorts, wet with cold from the snow, and he felt entirely too large for his skin. “You have some bruising along the back and your IT band.”
He tries to be as gentle as possible, brushing the area for any knots or abnormal swelling. At a particular spot, he hears the faintest whimper and Bdubs freezes in place. Oh fuck. He looks over and Etho is breathing heavily, pale skin glistening. “Ohmygosh, I am soso s-sorry! Didn’t realize that area was so tende-“
“No-no, ‘Dubs, you’re fine.” Etho chuckles sheepishly, his brows furrowed with embarrassment. “Guess I’m just sensitive.”
Sensitive. Bdubs thinks he’s melting. Where else was he sensitive? He can almost feel the pads of his fingers digging into his waist as Etho is buried within him. He’s slick with sweat but his hands are cold and they feel like snow. The man is whispering sweet things into his ears, and Bdubs crumbles at the appraisal and endearment. Does he make those whimpers when he is just about to-
He snaps out when he feels the blush spread to his face. What the fuck is he doing?
He is their athletic trainer. There are strict rules against this and he is already being too carefree. He cannot afford to lose this job at the start of his career and lose the best team he has ever been with. Etho was just being friendly. This was just attraction, he repeated to himself. Nothing else would spiral from this.
It was time to go back to normalcy.
Bdubs finishes the exam with firm touching. He felt along the other leg to compare it as a baseline, and grimaced at how tight the muscle was. It seemed like every part of his body was heavy with exhaustion but bunched up like a knot. “Okay… most likely a grade two hamstring tear. It’s not a complete tear, but you must have gotten through most of it when your leg buckled.”
Etho sighed heavily, shutting his eyes. “How long am I out for?”
This was his least favorite part. “At least a month. You should be back in time for championships.” Bdubs met eyes with him somberly. “Recovery would do you great though, Etho you’ve been stressing yourself out too much. I can feel it and see it.” He tried to say it as gently as possible. “I played too much and jacked up my knee for life, you gotta rest it sometime.”
Etho looked at him with curiosity. “You played?”
“Just high-school, wasn’t healthy enough for college.” He looked at the hues of cascading blues in the sky and all the shouting on the field faded past him. “The usual, ya know?”
Ethos cheeks rose, and Bdubs wondered what his smile looked like. “Bet you were too short and slow as hell.”
“Something like that,” Bdubs felt miserable seeing Etho’s face crumple at his dull response. He could not help but notice his resemblance to mist. Never demanding anything, but gorgeous all the same in the way they made things around them feel natural, and raw in a way.
Speaking of raw, Bdubs wanted-
Aw, fuck he had to pull it together.
Etho follows his gaze to the sky. “It’s always breathtaking. Doesn’t beat Canada, though.” Bdubs murmurs, “never been. Maybe someday.” And together they watch the clouds move for just a second or two. He is taken out of the moment as the players neared, all interested in hearing the diagnosis.
“Etho! What’s the say?” Scar saunters in, with a slight limp. The goalie had loved soccer for all his life, but an injury in his teens had prevented him from playing on the field. On good days, he is a ray of sunshine cracking jokes all while stopping cannon shots. On worse days, he will sit with Bdubs and talk about everything from Star Wars to his adorable cats in his dorm(no one tell the resident advisor!!) and Bdubs cherishes every second of it. Once Bdubs saw how attentive his teammates were to his health, never overbearing, he knew that this team would become much closer to him than simply clients.
“Grade two hamstring tear, I’ll be out for a month or so.” Everyone groans and sighs quite dramatically.
“But, but! I’ll be back in time for champs,” Etho looks over to him with gleaming hope in his eyes. Bdubs smiles and nods. “Yes, Etho will be back by then if he ices everyday and does his physical therapy.”
Everyone devolves into cheers and their conversations become a comfortable rhythm. Bdubs hides his grin at Etho’s attempts to look dignified, enthused with his amicable talking with Skizz and Impulse despite the pain. As Gem nears with a quite frazzled looking Lizzie, Bdubs realizes he needs to clean up and finish the paperwork of yesterday, and uh, the day before that too. He realizes the need to distance, and figures that Gem could cart Etho over after closing practice.
With that, Bdubs begins his walk back to his office and tries to find beauty in the snow that begins to flit down gently. He imagines it burying his thoughts forever.
★
Twenty minutes or so has passed. He’s walking back from the bathroom when he hears voices around the corner.
“Y’know, I like it when you’re against me.” Bdubs stops right in his tracks.
A breathy voice chuckles. “I knew I should have let coach cart me back.”
“Oh come on, Etho. You know you need me.”
”What I really need right now is a break, come help me to this wall.” Bdubs hears his laboured breathing and his heart pangs. It’s quiet for a bit and they seem farther.
”Etho,” Bdubs hears him say, and he now knows for sure that it is Joel by his enunciation. “You know I can take care of you. Don’t gotta be such a tough guy.”
He hears him sigh. “I know Joel, you’re good to me.” Bdubs hears fabric rustling and he cannot resist it longer, he walks softly to the corner and looks around.
Joel has Etho leaning into him, gripping his waist. Etho is facing away from him, so he cannot see his facial expression. It seems so natural, his body leaning into the shorter man’s warmth. Bdubs watches as Joel’s fingers wander up from his waist to his jaw. He does not ignore how the silver-haired man folds into the touch.
It’s faint when he next hears Joel speak. “Come over tonight. It’s been too long.”
Bdubs steps back before he can hear Etho’s response and once out of earshot, walks briskly to his office. He locks it up in a haze and before he knows it, he is sitting in the warmth of his car with his fingers gripping the wheel tightly. It grounds him in a way, and he just sighs heavily. He shrugs off his puffy, turns on the car, and combs his unruly hair. The sun has now set, and it is his favorite time of day- dusk. He revels in the darkness intermingled with purples and looks up to see the faint stars dotting the sky. It reminds him of his family and home.
Whatever that was, was not his business. He was here to do what he loved and support the team. It is only then does he realize he was supposed to formally give Etho his instructions on how to care. Bdubs gives himself this one chance of weakness. He will play it off as an emergency and will message him the instructions later.
Bdubs finally lets his head the wheel as he lets out a heavy breath. From now on, he will be perfect. He will not talk to Etho again, unless he must.