saw a video on twitter that pissed me off about jean talking about being trafficked to the ravens as a teenager and then it cut to kevin being like well my mom died :/ and anyway not once in the entire trilogy does Kevin talk about his mom outside of 1) when Abby tells him she would be proud of him he spins it and says "not just me" (referring to Wymack) and 2) the interview he does outing Wymack as his father (something he never wanted to do much less publicly) he brings up her death in reference to joining the ravens, lmao fucking christ
in the words of Jean fucking Moreau keep his name out of your ignorant mouth
pre-tfc ficlet below the cut !! #yay #ijustmadesomebullshitttt
The drive to Arizona was longer, duller and much more frustrating than Kevin had anticipated. Since he'd arrived at Palmetto State, it'd been a constant rush of new experiences, each one less comfortable than the last. Kevin easily decided traveling 29 hours in a cramped car with two other people threatened to top all of it.
It was too big of a risk taking the rest of the team, and given the Foxes' funds, renting out a bus for three people was unthinkable. So off in Wymack's car they went, with neither of them taking the passenger. Wymack's Top 100 Radio Hits station, occasional bursts of road rage and mild reckless driving were a sharp change from the familiar press cars with silent drivers. When Kevin's files slid out of his lap for the third time that hour, he wasn't sure which he preferred.
What was possibly more jarring was Kevin's company. Andrew had taken it upon himself to come with, seeing as Kevin was going, and had spent thirty minutes beforehand hassling Wymack into allowing him his racquet, though everyone was pretty clear on what he was planning to do with it. Kevin wasn't unfamiliar with public protection, nor the public in general. Like all things Andrew, it was a gamble with uncomfortable promise to pay off.
As they sped past another town farewell sign, Kevin rearranged the papers in front of him. Well, paper. The information they'd received on Neil Josten was minimal, barely spanning over three fourths of the page, but promising. He'd been searching for a window of quiet to properly look it over, and seeing as Andrew was fast asleep for once, he took it.
Kevin ran his thumb down the side of the paper. There was no parent contact information, but for a Fox, it wasn't unusual. What mattered were his statistics, printed next to his game history. It didn't go back further than the last year.
Neil was decently short, and didn't look like much, but he could run faster than any amateur striker Kevin had seen, and his mile time was worth lingering on. Amongst a lineup of high schoolers lacklusterly clacking their sticks together, Neil drew attention. With a necessary regimen and a heavy amount of effort, he could feasibly stand to give the Foxes the edge they so desperately needed.
Maybe.
Kevin's moment of peace was shortly disrupted when Andrew jerked awake, cutting his train of thought cleanly off. Andrew's left arm hurled straight into Kevin's side, and he startled, the files spilling to the floor of the car all over again. Kevin opened his mouth to complain, but Andrew beat him to it.
"Haven't we crashed yet?" Andrew asked, the rare sleepy haze shaken out of his eyes already.
Kevin scooped the paper back up, dusting it off. "We'll have to order him a new racquet. We don't have any that fit his height, and I'd like to try him out on a longer one first."
Three fingers tapped harshly against Kevin's temple, and he looked over at Andrew. "It's rude not to answer a question, Kevin. Being presumptive as always, are we?"
"He won't say no," Kevin said, leaning his head away from Andrew's hand.
"Oh, but he could."
Kevin briefly entertained the notion that Neil might reject him - someone the previous week, he wasn't sure who, had warned him about it, but he'd written it off as little faith and a refusal to try. But it was a full ride, 24 hour access to the court, and the chance to play Exy on a collegiate level. Anyone who thought themselves to be a dead end would be stupid not to take it, and he told Andrew so.
Andrew just smiled at him, wide and cheerful. "Maybe he's stupid."
"Not everyone plays like you," Kevin argued back. "Which is still, somehow, barely. When we sign him, you'll have no excuse. He needs to hone his skill, and I will be there to see him through it. He's going to want to practice with an exceptional goal-"
The rest of Kevin's sentence was quickly drowned out by tuneless humming, the volume increasing gradually as Kevin built up his argument. He cut himself off a little over midway through, frustrated, beginning to launch into a different slew of insults when Wymack's hand reached out, dialing the radio up to an unbearable volume to drown them out.
"We have thirteen hours left on the road," Wymack snapped from the driver's seat, death-gripping the wheel. "Shut the hell up or I'm throwing you both out the side."
Kevin slumped down in his seat, frown deepening. As if it wasn't already bad enough, the racket going on around him wasn't doing much to help with his thoughts. If the radio told him to feel the rain on his skin one more time, he was going to yank it out.
Whatever.
In a little less than a day, they were going to park in Arizona, and Andrew would see for himself just how wrong he was. Kevin was nothing if not adamant.
Hi, I noticed your story has conflict in it, and I was wondering why you didn't just write people who are right doing everything correctly with a note saying "I enthusiastically co-sign everything in this story"? Must be some kind of mistake haha