#sydney001

[yahnaa-padney]

WHERE: Tavern WHEN: 24th of July WITH @sydney-grayson

“Anyone who is looking for someone to sing the next song with! I am game! It’s ‘A Whole New World’ and I can’t do it by myself! I need my Jasmine!” Yahnaa was halfway to the stage, her arms in the air as she called for company. She found someone giving her just a little too much attention, and hooked her arm with hers. “You look perfectly gorgeous! Come join me!” 

[glxryhoskins]

Location: The Foyer Date: Friday, February 1 Time: Post-Game, Press Duty (@mccraysydney)

She’s gone this long without doing press duty, she hadn’t even thought to listen for her name until it had already come out of Wymack’s mouth. Maybe she should be thanking him: he isn’t throwing her to the wolves in a game where she’s had a red card, or even a yellow. Except for the fact that the Foxes lost, it’s as much of a softball as he can give her. 

But, of course, they did lose. Glory’s got a scowl on her face that she can’t wipe off as easily as she wipes the sweat from her brow, can’t make herself look pleasant after a game like that. She doesn’t try, it could be a story either way: if she smiles, she doesn’t care that her team just lost; if she scowls, then she’s difficult with the press. What’s the point in trying? She doesn’t know how to play these games. Even after she signed her contract and joined the Foxes, she still can’t believe that anyone could want to talk to her. 

The key, the media trainer had told them, weeks ago, is confidence. She’d scoffed, then, she hadn’t thought it would be a problem for her—she’d always been the stubborn one, the one who wasn’t afraid of anything. But as she takes her seat facing the gathered reporters, staring into the lights and the lenses of what feels like a thousand cameras, she feels herself faltering. 

She’s just Glory Hoskins. Just a girl from Owls Bend, Indiana. She doesn’t belong here. She can’t. 

“Tough game out there,” the first reporter says, and Glory imagines it’s supposed to be commiserating. “You guys looked strong against the Aggies, what happened?” Glory blinks, clears her throat. The microphone picks it up, and she just barely controls her wince. “Well, the Jackals are a better team than the Aggies,” Her voice sounds louder than she expects it to, echoing in the room. Her accent sounds thicker. She keeps going. “We just—lost. I don’t know what else there is to say. Obviously, I’m not happy about it.”  

She doesn’t know how much of an answer it is, but it’s what they’re going to get, and she leans back in her seat, away from the microphone. The reporter turns their attention on Sydney, then, and Glory gets a moment’s reprieve. “I’m sure that first goal is one you wish you could take back. Sydney, why don’t you walk us through what happened there?”

[asterlingfox]

Location: Eden’s Twilight | Patio Date: Saturday, August 18 Time: 12:38 PM   ((closed to @mccraysydney​)) 

Not even the amount of drinking the Foxes did - reckless coming off of summer break and clutching at the last remnants of it as it spilled through their fingers - could make Sterling capable of dealing with Eden’s for the entirety of the night without some kind of respite. There were too many people - drunk people, at that - who demanded interactions, who wanted things from him in ways he didn’t fully understand: Was that scowl intended for him? Had that guy meant to touch him as he passed? Was she looking at him, or past him? He knew that he belonged with the Foxes, at Palmetto, but when the team was taken from its context of campus, of the Tower, of the court? That sense of ‘other’ rooted more firmly, flowered more fully. The blur of alcohol didn’t so much help with the deciphering, but it certainly lent him a swell of confidence, a brassy surface of shallow self-assurance that he was doing a good enough job of faking his place in all of this. Maybe he belonged here... but he probably didn’t.

But the small outside area that was sectioned off behind the club - all dim lights and bare-bones seating meant to discourage people from lingering away from the expensive bar - felt like an oasis, the sticky summer air almost cool in comparison to the oppressive heat inside the building. He lifted his hat from his head, the leather (more an aesthetic choice than a practical one) tacky with sweat, and raked his fingers through his hair as he tugged a lighter and a joint from his back pocket. Consoled by the ritual and familiarity of the smell, the click of the lighter, the burn, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back as he exhaled a plume of smoke at the muggy night sky. 

[rollinsgrant]

Location: Eden’s Twilight Date: August 19th Time: 2:00am (closed to @mccraysydney​​)

Exhaustion was a familiar feeling, but not one he usually experienced because he’d spent too much time at Eden’s Twilight of all places. Grant slept like shit half the time, but he still preferred to be asleep before two am if possible, especially when he knew his own internal clock was going to wake him up in just a few short hours regardless. 

Going home wasn’t an option yet though, not when there were still a few Foxes scattered about the club, and especially not when some of them were clearly going to need help making it back to Palmetto safely. Grant couldn’t count the number of times over the years that he’d had to pick one of them up, half carry them to the bus or a car, shove waters at them when they’d clearly gone beyond their limits.

He wasn’t the only Fox on the job at least. Grant found Sydney at one of the tables inside, evidently looking for a calmer place to rest as much as he was. He settled in the chair beside her, looking out at the club around them. The party had slowed down drastically by now, with some getting drunk too quickly, others disappearing with one another as the night went on. Only a few were still at the bar for last call, and for a moment Grant felt bad for the staff. Eden’s was never the cleanest place, but somehow the Foxes managed to leave it even messier in their wake, always finding a way to leave their mark wherever they were.

His attitude towards the social aspect of Exy had shifted sometime over the past year, but it didn’t change his own distaste for the chaos of Eden’s. The team always went, always claimed it was good for them to go out like this together, but he’d never felt like he connected with them here—that happened on the court, during the games, the places Grant was truly comfortable in his skin. “Think any actual team bonding happened tonight, or should I just assume the team’s using that as an excuse to get drunk?”