Bonding with Coach and communing with the Golden Gods
Wells got a text.
Come to the condo. New track. Bonding with Coach.
Wells stared at the message for a long moment.
Then he read it again.
Then a third time, because there were several ways to interpret Bonding with Coach, and every single one of them sounded like trouble wearing a whistle.
He arrived just after dark.
Coach opened the door before Wells knocked twice.
He looked normal.
Mostly.
Shiny black wet-look spandex compression tights. Gold-and-black trainers. A shiny metallic gold spandex T-shirt with COACH printed across the chest. His black Coach baseball cap worn backwards, which somehow made him look less casual and more dangerous.
His eyes were too steady.
Wells noticed that immediately.
“You look intense,” Wells said.
Coach stepped aside. “Come in.”
“That is not a denial.”
“It was not meant to be.”
Wells entered slowly. The condo was prepared in that very Coach way: curtains drawn, lights low, speaker on the table, water beside the chair, everything positioned like a drill had already started and Wells was late to realizing it.
He looked at the chair.
Then at Coach.
“So,” Wells said, “bonding?”
Coach’s mouth barely moved.
“Correct.”
“Is this athletic bonding, emotional bonding, or the kind where I should have stretched first?”
Coach’s gaze did not shift.
“Yes.”
Wells blinked.
Then smiled despite himself.
“That is not an answer.”
“It was not meant to be.”
The air between them was warm, close, charged in the way it always got when Coach stopped explaining and started expecting Wells to obey the rhythm. Wells knew that look. The calm. The control. The patience that made resistance feel like a warmup.
Coach gestured to the chair.
“Sit.”
Wells did.
Slowly.
Like he was proving a point.
Like Coach was not already winning.
Coach stood in front of him, close enough that Wells could see the gold shine of the shirt, the black gloss of the tights, the steady rise and fall of his chest. The whole room seemed to narrow down to Coach’s voice, Coach’s posture, Coach’s command.
“Tonight,” Coach said, “you listen.”
Wells swallowed.
“Just listen?”
Coach leaned down slightly, one hand braced on the arm of the chair, voice low enough to make the word land under Wells’ skin.
“Start there.”
Wells’ grin flickered.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Okay.”
Coach pressed play.
The track began with a slow pulse. Low. Heavy. Deep enough to settle into muscle before thought could get defensive. Then Coach’s recorded voice entered beneath it, calm and firm, wrapped around the beat like hands around a barbell.
Breathe in.
Wells inhaled.
Hold.
He held.
Let go.
His shoulders dropped.
Coach’s live voice joined the recording, slightly behind it, doubling the command in the room.
“Good.”
Wells’ eyes half-lidded.
That was always the dangerous part.
Not the track.
Not the chair.
The trust.
Coach knew exactly where Wells held tension. Jaw. Neck. Chest. Hands. Hips. Thought. He guided him through each one slowly, carefully, until Wells felt himself unwinding by degrees.
No rush.
No force.
Just pressure applied in the right place.
“Focus on my voice,” Coach said.
Wells did.
“Let the noise drop.”
It did.
“Let the body answer.”
It did.
The room blurred gold at the edges.
Wells’ breathing slowed. His hands relaxed against the chair. His body felt heavy and awake at the same time, as if every muscle had been switched on while everything else went quiet.
Coach’s voice sank lower.
“Bonding means trust.”
Wells’ throat moved.
“Bonding means response.”
The pulse deepened.
“Bonding means you stop fighting what already knows how to follow.”
Wells tried to make a joke.
It never reached his mouth.
Coach stepped closer.
“Good boy.”
The words hit like a spark dropped into gasoline.
Wells exhaled hard, and the room tipped.
Coach’s voice changed.
Not suddenly.
Not obviously.
It simply expanded, growing too large for the condo, too old for the speaker, too heavy to belong only to one man.
Deeper.
Wells fell.
Not from the chair.
From himself.
The condo vanished.
Gold rose around him.
When Wells opened his eyes again, he stood inside the Golden Temple.
Vast columns climbed into impossible light. Gold fire burned in silent bowls along the walls. The floor beneath him shone like polished metal, reflecting him not as he was, but as the Gold remembered him.
Player.
Brother.
Jock.
Guardian.
Chav.
Warrior.
All of them layered in the reflection. All of them watching him back.
At the far end of the temple stood the Golden Gods.
They were not statues.
They were not men.
They were pressure given shape. Strength given light. Brotherhood made vast and ancient. Their faces were half-seen, their bodies bright as molten gold, their presence so overwhelming that Wells dropped to one knee before he could decide whether he meant to.
The temple trembled.
The Golden Gods spoke.
Not with mouths.
With power.
With certainty.
With voices that entered him whole.
Wells.
His head bowed.
Something is coming.
The words moved through him like heat under skin.
Something hidden. Something hungry. Something that reaches for the Golden Bros.
The light brightened.
Wells saw flashes.
Gold spreading across water like sunrise.
Brothers standing shoulder to shoulder beneath banners older than language.
A temple door opening from the inside.
Mirrors turning toward him one by one.
A hooded figure in gold stepping through light.
Not attacking.
Not hunting.
Sent.
The gods spoke again.
We sent the Golden One.
The temple shook.
To help the Golden Bros remember.
The flames bent sideways.
To help them return.
A final pulse of gold moved through him.
Protect the brothers.
Trust the bond.
Wells tried to ask what was coming.
Tried to ask how to stop it.
But the temple cracked with light.
A final command struck through him.
Wake.
Wells jolted upright in the chair.
His breath came sharp.
The track was still playing.
Low.
Steady.
Ancient.
For one second, he did not understand why the room felt so close.
Then he looked down.
Coach was kneeling between his legs.
One hand was braced against Wells’ thigh. The other gripped the edge of the chair. His head was bowed, shoulders rising and falling slowly, like he had been pulled into the track just as deeply as Wells had.
And his eyes were glowing gold.
Wells froze.
“Coach?”
Coach lifted his head.
The gold light burned behind his eyes, calm and empty and terrifyingly beautiful. His face was too close. His body was too still. The room felt hot, silent, charged with all the wrong kinds of unfinished instruction.
Wells swallowed.
“Coach. Look at me.”
Nothing.
The pulse continued.
Remember.
Wells reached past him and shut off the speaker.
Silence hit the condo hard.
Coach staggered back, one hand catching the chair arm. The gold in his eyes flickered once, twice, then collapsed inward like a light vanishing behind glass.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then his eyes focused.
“Wells?”
“Yeah,” Wells said, voice rough. “Me. Still here. Very awake. Very concerned.”
Coach looked at where he was kneeling.
Then at Wells.
Then at the speaker.
His jaw tightened.
“What happened?”
Wells stared at him.
“That is what I was about to ask you.”
Coach pushed himself up slowly, one hand pressed to his chest as if something inside him was still echoing. For a moment, he looked less like Coach Stone and more like a man who had woken halfway through someone else’s command.
Then his expression sharpened.
He looked at Wells.
At the chair.
At the silent speaker.
At his own hands.
Whatever had happened through the track had not only reached Wells.
It had reached him too.
Coach’s jaw tightened.
“There is something I need to tell you.”
Wells went still.
“That sentence is never good.”
“No.”
Coach sat down slowly, like the weight of the night before had finally caught up to him.
“Last night,” he said, “after I saw Ambrose in the alley, I followed him back into the gym.”
Wells’ expression changed immediately.
“You saw Ambrose?”
“Yes.”
“In the alley behind the gym?”
“Yes.”
“And you followed him inside?”
Coach gave him a look.
Wells raised both hands. “Right. Continue.”
Slowly, Coach told him the rest.
The gold tracksuit. The back door. The empty gym. The mirror. The Golden One stepping through the glass. The command to remember. The gold essence forced into him like breath and fire. Ambrose and the Golden One speaking with the same voice.
Wells listened without interrupting.
For once.
By the time Coach finished, the room felt smaller.
Wells rubbed both hands over his face.
“So Ambrose was there.”
“Yes.”
“And the Golden One.”
“Yes.”
“And you decided not to mention the mystical mirror assault before inviting me over for a track called Bonding with Coach?”
Coach’s jaw tightened.
“I did not understand what had happened.”
“That is the worst possible answer.”
“It is the true one.”
Wells exhaled, then looked toward the silent speaker.
“Okay,” he said. “Then it’s my turn.”
He told Coach about the temple.
The columns. The fire. The Golden Gods. The way his body knelt because something inside him remembered the motion. The reflections of himself in gold. The mirrors turning. The hooded figure stepping through light.
Then the warning.
Something is coming.
Coach’s face changed.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Wells knew that look. Coach was building a list.
“They said it was hidden,” Wells continued. “Hungry. Reaching.”
Coach looked toward the dark window.
“For what?”
Wells shook his head. “They didn’t say.”
The silence after that felt worse than an answer.
“What else?” Coach asked.
Wells swallowed.
“They said they sent the Golden One.”
Coach went perfectly still.
“To help the Golden Bros remember,” Wells said. “To help them return.”
The room went cold.
No names.
No explanation.
No clean target.
Just the warning, heavy and ancient, settling between them like smoke.
Something was coming.
And it was coming for the Golden Bros.
Coach reached for his phone.
“We tell Brody.”
“Immediately,” Wells said.
Coach unlocked the screen.
The condo stayed silent around them, but it no longer felt empty.
It felt watched.
Waiting.
Listening.
Wells looked once more at the chair, then at Coach.
“So,” he said carefully, “bonding track worked.”
Coach glanced at him.
Wells lifted both hands.
“Too soon?”
“Yes.”
“Noted.”
Coach’s mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then his thumb hovered over Brody’s name.
Wells stood beside him, no longer just the subject of the drill.
Now he was a witness.
The Golden Gods had spoken.
Coach had remembered.
And whatever was coming for the Golden Bros had just lost the element of surprise.
The Gold is calling louder now. Stand with the brothers, trust the bond, and prepare for what is coming. Join the Golden Army, contact our recruiters: @alton-gold77, @polo-drone-125
Mentions: @brodygold, @chavambrose