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At first Ted thinks it’s Jane — whatever had lit up Beard’s phone in the middle of lunch and then had him staring at it, face blank and frozen with a half-chewed bite of sandwich in his mouth.
“Everything okay?” Ted asks, preparing himself for an answer that once again highlights the wider-than-ever gap between his and Beard’s definitions of ‘okay’.
“It’s Mr. Willis,” is Beard’s unexpected response and Ted blinks.
“Your old teacher?” He brightens, a little relieved, and puts down the delicious turkey sandwich Beard had made to lean forward and ask, “Hey, how’s he doin’?”
“He’s dead,” Beard says, his gaze still locked on his phone screen.
“Oh.” Ted swallows. “Oh, Coach, I’m so sorry. I know how much he meant to you.” He slides his chair back, preparing to get up and circle around to Beard’s side of the office when Beard suddenly shoots to his feet.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Wait, where are you—”
But before he can finish his question, Beard’s gone.
–
He reappears in time for afternoon training and Ted’s gut finally stops its tumble-dryer impression. Still, he keeps an eye on him all session. Beard’s quieter than usual — not in his words, there isn’t much wiggle room for him there, but in his energy. The boys seem to sense it too and Ted switches things around so that Beard’s with him instead of working solo. Roy raises his eyebrows but jogs off to take over working with the second stringers for the rest of the day.
Beard doesn’t acknowledge the change, just smoothly steps into place like this had been the plan all along, and Ted tries to follow his lead and focus up on practice, at least feeling better knowing Beard is standing right beside him.
He doesn’t bring it up again until they’re towards the end of their walk back to their respective flats. “Wanna go for a drink?” he asks as they pass the Crown & Anchor, though he knows Beard has plans with Jane tonight. “We don’t have to talk about…what happened if you don’t want to but I…” He shoves his hands in his pockets, letting them fidget against his thighs instead of fumbling in the air. The tumble-dryer in his stomach is making itself known again.
“Thanks, Coach, but I think I’d rather be alone.”
Ted’s eyebrows shoot up. “Alo…you’re not meeting Jane?”
Beard shrugs. “Maybe later.” He taps his temple with two fingers. “Got some stuff I wanna think about.”
Ted nods slowly, though he’s not quite sure how to feel about this turn of events. Still, there’s not much he can say to that. So when Beard turns right at the fork where Ted’s supposed to turn left he watches him go, but he can’t help himself from calling out a “Be careful!” to Beard’s retreating back, which Beard acknowledges with a wave of one hand. And then Ted forces himself to turn on his heel and walk in the opposite direction, back to his own flat.
–
The next morning, Ted’s just started brushing his teeth when his front door buzzer rings. He stumbles into his bedroom to blink at the clock on his bedside table, rubbing blearily at his eyes with the heel of his other hand to make sure he’s reading it right. He’d slept in fits and starts all night, his anxious Beard thoughts and anxious Beard dreams all blurring into one big anxious Beard ball until it’d become hard to tell reality from truth. In the end he’d barely gotten forty-five minutes of sleep, all told. Still, assuming that (a) this isn’t a dream and (b) he’s reading the time right, it’s far too early for anyone to be at his door.
He hurries over to the door to press the intercom button and he’s so relieved to hear Beard’s voice on the other side of it that his toothbrush falls out of his mouth. When Beard pushes open the door thirty seconds later, he finds Ted still in his pyjamas, crouched over the floor with a paper towel, his hair still sticking up every which way.
“Drop your toothbrush again?”
Ted nods, straightening up. “Did I miss another British clock change or somethin’?” he asks, keeping his voice as light as possible. The hoarseness from his lack of sleep definitely doesn’t help.
Beard shakes his head. “I needed to talk to you about something. Here. Now, before I…” He takes a deep breath, and Ted is officially into Really Worried territory now. “I need you to help me break up with Jane.” Ted blinks. “Well. Technically I broke up with her last night. But I need you to help me make sure I don’t…unbreak up with her.”
Ted stares at him.
“You’re dripping,” Beard says, his finger tapping at the corner of his lip, and Ted suddenly remembers his half mouthful of toothpaste.
He hurries over to the kitchen sink to spit and rinses a couple of times before he turns around, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Beard is watching him, something oddly pleading in his face, and Ted remembers he’s been asked for something.
“Yeah! Yeah, bud, ‘course. Anythin’ you need.” He’s trying his best to keep everything neutral — his words, his voice, his face — still not quite sure what he’s working with. “Can I ask, uh, did something…Why the sudden…” As grateful as he is to be having this conversation, he’s desperately wishing they weren’t having it first thing in the morning after a night of almost no sleep. His brain feels like it’s booting up slower than that old PC he had when he first started working at Wichita State.
Beard’s brain, on the other hand, fortunately seems to be fully up and running. “How much have I told you about Mr. Willis?” he asks.
“Enough to know that he mattered a lot to you,” Ted replies slowly, wondering what that could possibly have to do with Jane.
Beard’s face crumples briefly, and Ted finds himself taking a couple of steps forward as Beard starts speaking again. “He saved my life. More than once.”
With the way he says it, Ted doesn’t think he means metaphorically. He swallows, slowly inching further forward. His palms are itching with the need to make some contact with Beard’s body, to feel his breath, or the movement of his muscles, or his warm skin — anything to reassure him that he’s still here, with him.
Beard doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking at Ted but his gaze seems unfocused, caught somewhere Ted never was, somewhere Ted never will be able to be. “And when I found out he died…” Beard continues and Ted freezes, breath held. “I just think he’d be…” His eyes refocus on Ted as he shifts foot to foot, uncomfortable in a way Ted rarely sees him. “This is going to sound weird, but I guess after all the work he put in to keep me out of harm’s way, it feels kind of disrespectful to be…doing that to myself.”
Once again Ted finds himself staring at Beard, at a loss for words. This has to be some kind of record-breaking conversation between them, possibly the first time ever Beard’s total word count has been higher than his own.
He knows Beard’s got his demons, the things in his past that have led him to self-harming behaviors again and again, in every version imaginable. Just like Beard knows Ted’s got his reasons for putting everyone and everything else before him, no matter the damage he takes in doing so. But they don’t go around talking about it. Not without one or more of them under the influence or something, or one or more of them in danger of too much influence of something. And they definitely never talk about any of it this side of sunrise.
Still, Ted’s brain is at least awake enough to know that voicing any of that would be probably one of the least helpful things to do right now. “That—” He clears his throat. “That doesn’t sound weird at all, Coach,” he says quietly. “Sounds like the perfect way to honor him, if I’m bein’ honest. And I—I’m happy to do what I can to help.”
He’s finally close enough to Beard that he can touch him, and he does, slowly, telegraphing his every move as he raises one arm towards Beard’s shoulder. The first contact is such a relief that he shudders. Or maybe that’s Beard he feels shaking, but he doesn’t have enough time to figure it out because all of a sudden Beard’s got both arms wrapped tight around him, the scratch of his facial hair rough against Ted’s still stubbly face as he presses himself into him, and Ted lands one hand on his back and the other in his hair, holding on as hard as he can.
He still doesn’t quite have the full picture here but something’s shifted in Beard, a shift so big it’s moved something in Ted too, dislodged whatever had been causing an ever-present ache in Ted’s chest whenever he was around Beard. It’s not completely gone, at least not yet, but that little reprieve is enough to have Ted choking down a lump in his throat.
“I forgot what it’s like to feel like this,” Beard says as he finally pulls back, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face.
“Like what?” Ted asks. He’s a little shocked at how wet his own voice sounds.
“Hopeful.”
Ted sniffs, looking at him, at the tiniest of smiles tugging at the corner of his lips, at the brightness in his eyes, and feels something long-dormant stir in his gut. “Me too, Coach,” he replies softly. “Me too.”