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Will has always been an early riser. Usually he spends his mornings with a cuppa and lets the news run on the telly while the dog picks through the garden for a wee. Not this morning, though. This morning he is going to tackle the next big item on his to-do list, and has the sense that an early start is called for. Will has decided to organize the closet in the back of the boot room, a task he’s been wary about since signing onto the Richmond team. Nate had seemed avoidant of the entire thing, and Will had informed his own superstitions about it after he had opened it for the first time on a whim and seen what felt like football narnia on the other side. Or some Doctor Who physics at the very least. Hadn’t opened it up again since on fear of triggering an avalanche. But he’s determined, now, and made a goal to clear everything out by the end of the month so here he is at the dog track, just barely beating the sun over the horizon.
He’s got gloves and a half dozen rolls of paper towels at his disposal and a spare stack of those heavy duty COVID masks that are finally going to have a use again.
He gets a quarter of the way through before disaster.
One of the front stacks of boxes sways ominously before the entire precarious thing buckles. He manages to dodge most of the cardboard, but one lands right on his temple—bringing more pain and weight than it should have. The sound it makes is inconsistent with the other hollow thunks, instead cracking into his head with an indelicate ‘shurlunk’.
The box ends up on the boot room floor upside down, but hasn’t opened up on impact. Will, head throbbing and eyes watering, goes down on his knees and tips it onto its base to take a proper look at the contents. There’s the typical tissue paper wadded up on the inside, discolored from age or moisture Will isn’t sure, and when he moves it aside he finds a liquor bottle that’s a third of the way full nestled amongst the paper. It’s not an expensive brew, so he can’t fathom hiding it like this, but he’s thankful it hadn’t been full when it hit him. He winces when he touches his throbbing head and feels the starting swell of a knot.
He puts the bottle aside and instead goes to find a mirror so he can assess the damage. He’s got a killer headache starting, but he doesn’t want to bother the medical staff with something so trivial. They’re here for the players, after all. It hasn’t bruised yet, though he had fully expected it to. It is starting to swell up a bit, and he hopes it doesn’t get much worse. It’s tender to the touch but not bad enough to dissuade him from finishing the task he’s set himself. Problem is he keeps forgetting about it and reaching up habitually whenever it twinges.
Can’t ever stop himself prodding at a wound. Mum used to make him sit on his hands to keep him from picking at scabs and making himself bleed again. Most times he didn’t notice he was even doing it until he’d already reopened the wound. Dad had the same bad habit; a carpenter with indelicate fingers who always managed to sport a bruised thumb or a dented pinky. It drove mum mad, but she always sat him down at the kitchen table after his shift and dabbed antiseptic on his frayed skin, all tender and tidy even as she berated him his carelessness and threatened not to bandage him up the next time. She never kept her word about it; always kept a box of plasters near the stovetop and a script of admonishment in her head. Will doesn’t think that a plaster will help his visage in this instance, but he can stop by the chemist on the way home for painkiller and a wound patch. It’s not such a big deal, really.
He goes back to the boot room, figuring there’s still most of the day left and he’s not in too much pain not to stick it out. The fallen boxes are still sprawled at the mouth of the closet, which makes it a little easier, he supposes, to separate the work into bite sized chunks. He sits on the floor and starts opening and organizing boot boxes. Almost none of them have any actual shoes, surprisingly enough. Actually, most of them just have assorted sport equipment or a hodgepodge of loose paperwork so inconsequential that it should have gone straight in the bin. Got to be about a decade old, some of the things he unboxes. Old water bottles that are still in their original packaging and personalized with the names of the 2003 Richmond team. A case of brand new sweatbands that have misspelled the team name and sport the old logo. A single pair of broken nail clippers in a box all their own. There’s not any sense of organization or thought behind any of it.
He’s only just started to organize the small pile of boxes he’s sorted through when Colin comes into the room to switch out boots before training. Will hardly felt the time pass. Hadn’t even heard anyone arrive. Colin laughs when he sees the semicircle of items surrounding him and asks, “Celebrating a Richmond victory a bit early, Boyo? Game is still a week away.”
At first, Will doesn’t follow, but when he looks up to follow Colin’s eyeline he sees that he’s referring to the mostly drunk bottle of alcohol that’s been propped on the outer circle of items. Will grins a little at the thought when he explains, “It’s not mine; found it in one of the boxes.”
“Fuck.” Colin snorts, “Must be a souvenir from Cartric. Used to hide drinks all around the building when he was coach. Tradition says if you find one you’ve got to finish it, but nobody has done it since O’Brien found one in the vent some years back and it turned out to be full of piss. Had to have been years old, cuz he cracked it open in the training room and the smell immediately made half of us sick. Nobody could go in there for a week.”
Will really hopes that it isn’t a piss bottle that’s come down on him and eyes it warily. Before he can dwell on it, though, another voice chimes from the doorway, “Mornin’. Jesus fuck, mate, what you do to your head?”
It’s Jamie. He’s leaning on the doorframe and his eyebrows are twisted down while he squints across the room at him. Probably just got in on account of the glittery rings still on his hand. Colin looks at Will again, now, clocks the injury, and frowns while Will explains, “it’s nothing. A box fell, it isn’t a big deal. Doesn’t hurt.”
It was true when he said it; talking to Colin had made him kind of forget to think about the pain, but now that his attention is back on it he can feel the faint throb of his heartbeat beneath the surface ache.
Colin is pale, and asks him earnestly, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Oi, you can’t do a trick question on an injured person, that’s, like, against ethics.”
Indeed, Colin has left his hands at his side rather than holding any fingers up at all, but Will thinks it’s a bit unnecessary anyways. It doesn’t stop the pair of them for talking themselves into believing that Will has a concussion—despite that he doesn’t show a single sign of damage besides the lump and a minor headache.
He should’ve predicted what comes next. Colin disappears and returns flanked by various footballers in states of undress, and the team immediately decides he’s been dealt a mortal injury. A bit dramatic, considering the kinds of injuries that go along with the sport, but they mean well. Isaac keeps calling it a ‘civilian injury’ for some reason, and immediately takes over to go through concussion protocol with him while the rest of the players interject to give him tips and advice from their own experiences.
Higgins very kindly offers him to nap on his office couch and to drive him home at the end of the day, but that feels a bit too much so he settles for taking Isaacs offered paracetamol and taking it easy for the day. It’s harder than he had anticipated, on account of boredom and the lads not letting him scroll his phone. ‘No screens’ is apparently the part of concussion protocol that most of the other lads struggle to adhere to as well, but they’re being firm about it. Trent is gracious enough to read him the news while they sit on the damp grass at the sidelines, though its actually rather difficult to discern the topic of any of the news articles because Trent interjects every few sentences to complain about syntax or compliment a writing style or otherwise complain about whichever journalist penned the piece. He could be a talk show host in another life, Will thinks.
When training finishes and Will makes to stand he is immediately stared down by Beard. Well, he thinks he is, anyway. Hard to tell with those sunglasses he wears. He sits back on the grass to be on the safe side. His shorts are damp from the dew, and Trent holds out a headphone as he gets comfortable.
“Can’t,” Will apologizes, feeling guilty, “Richard said music will make it worse.”
“Richard listens to grime music at full volume. It makes everything worse, not just not-concussions.” He says, in the way that Will can’t tell if he’s joking or serious but takes the earbud all the same. Pops it in his ear and is unsurprised that Trent is listening to the Chicago soundtrack.
On the pitch he watches players make the rounds to pick up the flimsy orange cones in the grass. It stings a little, knowing they’re out there doing his job for him, but it warms him a little, too. Thierry is whipping them across the pitch like frisbees to try and hit Colin’s back with them, which isn’t Wills recommended approach to the job, but it does make him laugh a little when one clips over Moe’s head and he jumps like a spooked cat. It’s nice being part of a team that can make his job fun—that don’t mind humbling themselves a little just to help their kit man because he’s got a bruise and a not-concussion.
The pitch is empty by the time he’s allowed inside, and Isaac forces him to accept a ride home. Colin was keen to do it, but Will really would end up with a concussion if he got anywhere near Colin’s Lamborghini. It feels weird being home after a day of not doing much. Weirder still to go to bed before he’s tired, little dog tucked up under the cover with him. He can try to finish his organization tomorrow, he tells himself as he falls into sleep.
He meant it when he thought it. He really, really did. Had woken up with a headache, swallowed a chalky pain tablet, and had left an hour earlier than usual, only, there’s nothing left to be done when he arrives.
The team is circling through the changing room like red and blue bumblebees and have completely taken over his duties for the day. It should horrify him; that he’s become so useless to them in the span of a day that they’ve all had to pick up his slack, but….the anguish never forms.
Jan Maas has sprayed every pair of boots in the boot room, to the point it becomes a breathing hazard just to walk past it. Isaac is measuring out Gatorade and water with no real notion of proportion. Colin and Jamie are beaming at him and folding up clean towels in the center of the room. When they notice him they all go a bit frozen and stare-y. Like they’ve been caught burying a lavender-toweled body.
And all Will can do is smile as he takes in the scene in front of him. Every one of them has found something to do, and the more he looks around the prouder they look to show him. And he IS proud—feels like a mother bird. He’s pretty sure they messed up every single step of the way, but it’s nice to know for certain that they don’t just care about him because of the job. He’s never had a job like that where he is friends with people like them. Always been a bit quiet, really. Still is for the most part, but nobody here seems to mind it.
They’ve even make a sizable dent in the boot room closet, where Jan Maas informs him they found an abandon nest that some creature must have been dwelling in at some point. The consensus is that it belonged to some sort of possum, but Dani is a holdout with the insistence that a very small man had to have been living in there. Will imagines he must mean some kind of a football leprechaun when he says that, but doesn’t ask him to clarify. Dani is enthusiastic about the idea despite being alone in its belief, and it doesn’t seem worth it to pick apart his joy by using logic. Saves his head the pain of thinking much more, anyhow. He thinks next time he decides to complete an ambitious project he will call for backup—if not for their skill, but for how glad they all seem to be to assist him for a change. He still doesn’t think he has a concussion, though.