Work Text:
Vince cleared his throat in attempt to gain attention of the Gladers. This was his first year taking over the Exy team for the Western College of Ketson Dakota. The WCKD Gladers.
And they were wicked awful.
He looked around at all of them and sighed heavily. This would be more work than he was looking to handle, but if anyone could do it…
He turned to the whiteboard behind him and grabbed a marker and started scribbling. As suspected, the chatter began to die down.
“’The Four Areas of Success’?” Aris asked adjusting the bright orange beanie on his head. “That’s a weird number.”
“You’re a weird number,” Gally spat.
Aris simply flipped him off.
“Have to agree,” Teresa nodded toward Aris. “Shouldn’t it be three? Or five?”
“Does it matter?” Newt asked, eyes still closed where he leaned against the locker. “None of you are gonna follow it anyway.”
Sonya was the only one who smirked up at him, but that was expected. She was the only one who ever seemed to get his humor.
Vince finished his list and turned around. “Minho,” he nodded at the only member of the team who seemed to give a damn about it. “Can you read these off for me?”
“Education, Exy, Work Ethic, Family.”
Vince nodded. “Okay. Why don’t we go down the list?” he turned to the board. “Education. Well, considering I also grade your math classes and you’re all failing, let’s knock that off the board.” He picked up the eraser and wiped ‘Education’ from the list.
“Much better,” Teresa nodded, Frypan nodding somewhere behind her.
“Okay, next,” Vince continued. “Exy. Your current record is 3&10, so we’re gonna go ahead and knock that off the board as well.”
“How are you gonna take the actual sport itself off the board?” Winston asked.
Vince ignored him and continued down the list. “Work Ethic.” He turned to Mary, their resident nurse/therapist. “Mary, how many times have you seen these kids in the gym working out?”
Mary snorted.
“I resent that,” Minho said.
“I’ve been in the gym,” Newt shrugged.
“She said working out,” Teresa clarified, “not body-guarding.”
Newt leveled a stare at her, held eye contact as he lit his cigarette.
Minho reached over and pulled it from his mouth.
Vince held his breath, waiting for the inevitable punch to be thrown, but then again – he knew Newt would never throw a punch at Minho. In fact, he might be the only safe one on the team.
“Just because we’re not at the gym doesn’t mean we’re not working out,” Gally added.
Brenda put her face in her hands next to him.
“Why is she even here?” Winston asked.
Harriet shoved him. “She’s basically part of the team.”
“Why because she’s fucking him?”
Fire flashed in Newt’s eyes – this, Vince could expect. Newt hated the idea of Gally and Brenda dating. But then, Newt and Gally had never really been the best of brothers anyway.
“Can we focus please?” Teresa pleaded.
“Yeah, I have bath bombs waiting for me,” Aris added.
“If only they were real bombs,” Winston murmured.
Newt moved, but Sonya stood to stretch just in his way to Winston. Their gazes met and Vince waited for the unspoken conversation to finish.
When Newt finally found his place against his locker again and Sonya took her seat next to Harriet, Vince continued. “Okay so this leaves Family.” He looked around the group.
Newt was in his place, stoic and still. One leg – injured from last year still - propped over the other. Next to him was Minho, eyes on the board, Exy stick leaning next to him. Next to them was Aris, picking at his nails. A few feet to the side sat Gally, eyes closed where he leaned back against the locker and his girlfriend, Brenda – who wasn’t even on the team, but still somehow joined the meetings.
There was a large enough gap between this group and the next, which started with Frypan and Teresa on the bench, eyes on the board – focused enough, but Vince knew they’d forget the lesson as soon as they left. Sonya was just a bit to the side, rainbow hair twisted in a braid that she pulled spare strands from. Next to her sat Harriet, hands wrapped – mostly from the fight they’d encountered last week, but a little bit for the aesthetic of it, probably. And next to her was Winston, dazed as usual.
“Winston,” Vince nodded to him.
“Hm?”
“What does Aris do in his spare time?”
“Who the fuck is Aris?”
There was a ripple of laughter from one half of the room as the other half seemed to glare on.
Vince shook his head. “Okay, someone who’s not high right now?”
Newt grinned on the side, looking all the bit like an evil child from The Shining . Vince could practically hear the pills rattling in his pocket.
“Teresa,” he gestured to her.
“Um,” she turned and looked over at Aris. “He…he hangs out with Newt and Minho.”
Vince exhaled through his nose. “Gally, what’s Sonya’s major?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Right,” Vince nodded. He picked up the eraser and swiped it across the board.
“Sweet,” Frypan laughed. “Now there are no Areas for Success.”
“To succeed is to do nothing,” Winston hummed.
“That’s the opposite of success,” Teresa lowered a brow.
Vince ran a hand down his face. “ The point ,” he emphasized loudly, “is that you’ve all seriously been lacking in these four areas. So, we’re going to start from the top. Education,” he wrote the word on the board again. “If you don’t average up to a C in your classes, you’re off the team.”
“Bullshit,” Gally barked.
“I’m serious,” Vince leveled a glare at him. “You don’t think math is important here? Physics?”
“Tell me how reading comprehension is relevant and I’ll backflip,” Aris said to his phone.
Vince snatched a rule book off the desk and flung it over to him. “I give you a week to learn.”
“The rules or the backflip,” Teresa snorted.
“Exy,” Vince continued, writing on the board. “You’re all here for practice on time five days a week. You show up late? An hour of laps. No exceptions,” he eyed Newt.
Newt simply responded with a leveled stare back at him, mouth in a line.
“Finally,” Minho sighed.
“Which brings us to our next point,” Vince turned back to the board and rewrote ‘Work Ethic’. “You’re each to spend three hours a week in the gym under Mary’s instruction.”
“Oh, come on,” Harriet groaned. “I don’t like to work out in front of people. I’d rather just do it in my room.”
Aris snorted. “As if you actually ever do.”
Sonya shifted in her seat and glanced at Harriet.
Vince ignored the exchange of smiles. “Again – no exceptions. If she tells me you missed any of that time, you run for the missed amount of time at practice.”
“You’re telling me if I miss three hours at the gym I have to run for three hours at practice?” Gally asked.
“Yes, and if you show up late it’s another hour on top of those.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Oh please,” Newt rolled his eyes. “Just go with it, Gally,” he waved his hand lazily.
“No, no,” Vince pointed a marker at him. “There’s no just going with it anymore. You’re all stepping up. Last bit: Family.” He scribbled the word on the board. “Next week, you’re all coming in here with one fact about each of your teammates – no repeating. If someone says your fact first, you better figure out a new one quick.”
“Easy,” Newt shrugged. He pointed at the others in succession: “Asshole, Asshole’s girlfriend, Hyper, Obsessed-With-Exy, Too-Nice-For-His-Own-Good, Too-Bitchy-For-Her-Own-Good, The-Only-Person-Here-Who-Deserves-Any-Modicum-of-Respect, Bitch, Should-Have-Been-Shot-Three-Weeks-Ago.”
Vince rubbed his eyes as the locker room exploded in a myriad of objections. Finally, he slammed his palm on the board and let the sound echo around them. When they were all finally looking at him he pointed the marker at them again. As he spoke, he eyed each of them separately, finally lingering on Newt. “Solid facts. Nothing objective.”
When no one objected to this , he capped the marker and tossed it onto the desk. “Now,” he started. “There’s one more order of business.”
He walked to the door and opened it and disappeared into the hallway for a moment. “You ready?” he asked the boy leaning against the wall, hands shoved deep into his pockets.
“Can I say no?”
“No.” He grabbed the boy by his shoulder and ushered him into the room in front of the others.
Everyone’s gaze landed on him immediately.
“The fuck is this?” Gally asked.
“This,” Vince answered, feeling the way the boy’s shoulder tensed under his grip, “is your new teammate, Thomas.”
“What?” Minho asked.
“New?”
“That scrawny piece of shit?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“One more word,” Vince spoke out over all the comments blossoming out, “and you’re in the gym in five getting a headstart on your laps.”
The commotion finally calmed and he dropped his hand from Thomas’ shoulder. “You wanna say something, kid? Introduce yourself?”
Thomas simply shifted his gaze to meet Vince’s, mouth steady in a line.
“Great,” Vince nodded. “You’ll fit right in.” He pointed to the group for Thomas to join them.
He watched as Thomas’ eyes roved over the group.
To Vince’s shock – and probably others’ – Newt shifted and slid down one locker further.
Thomas eyed him from the front of the room, flicked his gaze to the space next to him and back to Newt. Newt, bored expression ever-present, simply tucked his hands in his pockets again and stared back at him.
Thomas held his gaze as he walked down the row of benches and took the seat next to Teresa.
There was a small flicker of muscle in Newt’s jaw, but nothing much more to show how he felt about the pass.
Vince didn’t have time nor patience to care about the Gladers’ personal affairs anyway. They had a season to win.