Work Text:
He's never seen a 400-meter track before. Polished lines, a clay surface, a stadium lined with spectators.
It's flattering. Loud. An audience for something grander than high school athletics.
Sean's never felt this much adrenaline pulse through his body. Ever. Never to the point where his fingers feel as though they're on fire. His heart's in his throat, and although he knows other people can't see it, he can imagine it — feel it — swelling until it chokes him. He has to keep wiping his hands on his shorts because his body decides to betray him by coating them with a new layer of sweat every two seconds. It's awful, from a logical standpoint. And he'd love to think he hates it, that the all-encompassing heady buzz is going to kill him if it keeps dusting away his thoughts as though they're unimportant.
Although he's a good liar when the time comes, Sean can't ignore the truth that comes with the quirk of his lips. It's exciting. Elevating. A constant drum in his ears reminding him he's alive, that each breath counts for something. Running does that, and Sean's felt this rush before, but the only difference is now everyone's watching. The thought both scares and delights him. If one measly thing goes wrong, word will spread like wildfire, your name suddenly a joke within the community of sport that athletes share. Stakes are high. But the chance of his talent being broadcast on such a large scale outweighs all the negatives.
Of course, he's been to a track meet before and run all the 100s, 200s, and even 400s — God forbid — if he really needed to. But that was when he was running for the B squad. Now that he's in the A squad, the level of competition has jumped way higher, an entire league up from the rest of the athletics sets — the "premier league", as he'd been so proudly told by the coach. Although, fortunately for his ego, he'd won a lot of those races back in his B days and won a lot of medals that he's now hanging on his cupboard door.
Suddenly he doesn't think that's how it'll fly anymore.
Sean's running the 100 and 200, the most popular of the track races, and while he has convinced himself of being exuberant about participating in this thing, he's also preparing himself for the shame of his life the moment he finishes that race. It's so easy to think about how it can go wrong. A trip. A false start. Somehow getting disqualified for the most tedious of things. He's practised his form, his start, and even his breath pace by pace to prepare. He'd only been told a week ago that he was actually going to run for this meet, meaning that 5 out of those 7 days, he was up an' at 'em, looking like an insane person who'd suddenly felt the urge to exercise despite their mental instability.
Naturally, there're the people with specialities that have about 5 minutes of fame. Some guy for the long jump, some other guy for the high jump, and maybe one more guy on stand by in case one of them tears their ACL. They're already working their magic out in the centre of the track, hopefully doing something important that'll get them overall points. The rest of them are runners, about eight, who are going to participate in the actual track events. Sean, much to his dismay, can give less of a damn about any of them. They all look the same: expensive shoes, headband, blond. The group of them are sitting on the stands, watching with bated breath as one of the high jumpers knocks down the bar. He grimaces. That has to hurt.
He's up next, so he's already down next to the edge of the white lines, sorted into a group of about 7 that look as if they train all hours of the day. Maybe, in some magically delusional way, he looks that way to them. That's the thought that accompanies him as one of the officials guides them to their respective lanes. Thankfully, this is one of the only races where being on the inner lane doesn't matter, but he's not surprised when they put him on the inside lane anyway — the one time he doesn't need to be on the inside lane, he's put on the inside lane. Faster runners are usually placed in the middle. For what reason, Sean had no clue. What he did know is that everyone's probably seen him now and thought, "He's probably so damn slow."
He glances up to the stands, and he's not surprised when he sees that none of his teammates are focused on what's happening, too busy clapping each other on the backs and chugging energy drinks to really try and keep up. He's about to zone back into the lane in front of him when he notices Drew slipping his phone into his bag and looking down at the track, his eyes trailing from the finish line to where Sean's lined up with the rest of the athletes.
Sean didn't react profoundly when he found Drew's name on the register sheet. He knew that Drew came to these things. What did surprise him, though, was that Drew's a long-distance runner. Sean's pretty sure that when they were doing that awful cross-country torture, he was at the back, or at least tremendously close to the back. And if he was near the back and Drew was behind him — how else would he have noticed Sean on the ground? — Sean made the connection that, hey, Drew's just slow, and that's so valid.
Oh, how wrong he was.
The register included times next to each runner's name, their personal best from the season. Drew's running the 800, the 1500, and the 3000. Sean might as well shoot himself in the head for even suggesting he himself could run that set of races if he tried. 1 minute and 56 seconds for 800 meters? He remembers being out of breath even thinking of maintaining that kind of speed for so long. Sean can't run that fast for 20 seconds.
It's a different kind of skill, Sean knows, but something is telling him that with a time like that in the eleventh grade, maybe genetic testing should be involved.
Taking it easy is perhaps the better way Sean could've described that day. The guy had probably lapped them all.
A sudden silence is what knocks Sean out of his stupor. He shakes out his hands and doesn't bother to look for a set of eyes he should not be hoping are watching him. He needs to focus and give his absolute all. It's not the time, a time he can prove himself, to be allowing his mind to drift off. He needs to run. He needs to breathe. Relief settles over him when a static begins to drown out the noise of the audience, adrenaline pumping through his system.
It feels like fire.
It feels like sparks, like the engine of a well-oiled machine.
He knows what to do, how to do it.
Now all he needs to do is execute it.
With most of the stands quiet, a white flag lifted from both the starting and finishing positions, the woman to Sean's left lifts a megaphone.
"Take your marks."
The worn texture of his shoes rubs against the starting block, dragging his hands to the divot behind the line in front of him. He doesn't dare to glance around him, both unwilling to intimidate himself and reveal his anxiety to everyone. A pause settles over the crowd. Dead silence. Anticipation.
"Set."
He lifts his torso, the clay under his body serving as a final moment of pure, raw focus.
She lifts a gun, finger on the trigger.
Another too-long-of-a-pause.
With a bang, he's over the line.
It's a really good start, so good that he's practically in front of everyone at first.
His starts to catch people gaining after halfway. His feet hit the ground too slowly; he can hear every breath. The crowd's cheering, bellowing for whoever they want to cross that line first.
Sean knows his eyes are wide, uncannily wide. He's never had a good sprinting face.
He falls back near the end, pinpricks of the afternoon air after biting at his skin. Amazingly, only 3 people manage to pass him before he's over the finish line.
It's so quick each time. Sean chuckles to himself after a few seconds of jogging past the line. He places his hands on his hips after he's stopped, sucking in all the air he's lost, and gazes lazily towards the crowd of people roaring from his right. People are on their feet for whatever reason, clapping as though England's won its first medal in the Olympics. His team's clapping ever so slightly, disinterested, just to be polite. Drew's clapping too, but it's more genuine than the others. If Sean didn't know any better, he'd say Drew's impressed. He looks away before the pride that comes from the sincerity of someone clapping shows on his face.
It wasn't first, but as his debut race, it's pretty good.
The 200 wasn't bad either, and being in the middle lane wasn't terrible. It meant he wasn't in such a bad position that he had to run wide on the turn or start decades behind and grapple to catch up. He came fifth out of the 7 that ran, but he broke his PB, something that's always better than a podium position — positive mindset, he reminds himself. His knee aches a bit from the exertion of the day, but he'll ice it when he gets home. He will bask in the indirect victories while he can.
Overall, a good day of running.
The only thing that's put him off about the whole thing is the program of races. The shorter distance races were put first, a mercy in some ways compared to the other meets where short distances are the last races to run. By 6:00, Sean's able to wrap himself in a jacket, sit back, and watch the rest instead of having to face the cold just because their uniform didn't have matching tracksuits for everyone or something.
The down side was that his rest time was shorter, meaning he literally had to walk from the 100-meter finish line to the 200-meter start. Usually the longer races were done in between the short-distance sprints to create a smoother schedule, one where the sprinters have time to rest before the next race and the long-distance runners get more time to cool down. Maybe it's because the people that do long distance are more well-known, if judging by the crowds' all-consuming cheers from all corners of the stadium when they're on the track. It gave the spice of anticipation, leaving the longest for last.
He's not really complaining — he's the one under a jacket.
Drew did not have the same luck.
The 800 came first, and having absolutely smashed that, Drew had about 15 minutes before he had to get back on for the 1500, and having absolutely demolished that, he had half an hour before the 3000. Sean finds it funny how basically the same people run the same races, to the point where he knows some of them by surname because of the announcements on the speakers. At least for this one, some different athletes have entered the mix, hair still slicked in place just to be ruined by the wind.
Sean's eyes drifted across the group of people, scanning each of them and making internal bets with himself. The guy with the neon shoes, last. The guy who looked absolutely terrified, probably somewhere in the top. Of course, he recognised some of them — Arnolds, Dalton, Sheppard — from the last few.
All the athletes are perched along a curved white line, and unlike the classic kneel-down start that's given him both back and knee problems, they're all standing. It's almost too serious, for him at least, when some of them bend down so close to the clay that their foreheads are practically grounded — a creative way, he supposes, to take a "grounded" mindset into full swing. One guy starts jumping up and down, another slapping his thighs as if it'll awaken some secret weapon. It's way too serious for his taste, actually.
His hands begin fiddling with the stitching on his shorts. Second-hand anxiety is possibly the worst feeling to have. If Sean's getting nervous from watching, he can't imagine how the tension between the runners is. A terrible, terrible thing to have to deal with, most likely.
"Silence in the audience, please," someone reprimands through the speakers. Surprisingly, quiet settles throughout the stadium. It is way too serious.
Sean realises it's the woman with the starting gun on the inside of the track that's made the announcement, a walkie-talkie raised to her mouth with a steady hand. She lifts the gun above her head. Sean stares with rapt attention.
It's like waiting for a climax.
"On your marks."
The athletes steady their footing. They raise their arms next to their sides. Sean tries to spot Drew within the mass of bodies and lets out a breath when he sees him somewhere around the middle. He always starts the same: centre-pack, not close enough to seem like a threat but not far enough away to lose sight of the front completely. Always, like a strategy unknown to other players, he's able to catch up to the front, track down the leader, and pass them with enough time to run the last 100m without any last-minute pursuers. By then, they've lost their steam.
"Set."
Drew somehow seems to find a steam nobody ever catches first. Sean has no doubt he'll find it again; it's just a question of if he'll find it fast enough.
The gun goes off, and they're gone, some sprinting to make front lines, others lagging back to save energy. Drew stays near the middle group, squeezing in behind an extraordinarily tall guy that Sean recognises as "Simmons" — came, like, fifth in the 1500. With the first lap of the track done, Sean watches him pass the guy wide, moving back into the group, which Sean now sees is about five or six people, behind the guy that's trailing the leader. This puts him in a comfortable position: third in the group, the leading pack only a few meters ahead.
Sean leans forward on the edge of the concrete at the end of the second lap, cheering silently to himself when Drew passes that guy, slotting right behind the group leader. 800 meters done. The next two laps follow along the same way, the distance of the front group not stretching any further. Sean's feeling pretty positive this'll go the same way the other two have. He settles back, leaning his back against his seat, and watches it unfold.
On the fifth lap, Drew decides to move forward, surpassing the leader of the pack and setting the pace of the group. By the end of that lap, they can't keep up, and he's at the back of the front line. It's scenic, the way it happens; a win almost too predictable that Sean's surprised none of his "teammates" are off their asses and cheering like the arrogant bunch they are. The crowd is practically shaking the walls of the stadium with how enthusiastic they are, and Sean actually wants to join them with just how excited they are about a high school athletics meet.
On the final lap, someone rings a bell to alert the athletes, and Sean sits up again, twisting his fingers just to do something with his hands. It unfolds exactly the way he expects. Drew passes the first of the four runners of the leading pack with ease, settling into third. Halfway through, he's past the next, sliding in cleanly behind first place. That's when the poor guy, "Miller", he allows himself to think, starts to get cocky and speed up, hoping to shake him off, leaving the other two behind. Drew follows him, not even looking slightly phased by the shift in pace. It's along the final length of the track that Drew begins to drift wide, taking advantage of the sudden deceleration of pace. Sean almost laughs at the circumstance; the guy's lost his steam.
Sean's about to turn away to get his stuff together; the ending of the race is practically sealed and closed, and that way he's getting an early exit to avoid traffic. Out of his periphery, an arm sticks out from the soon-to-be-dethroned leader and shoves. It's so abrupt that the crowd doesn't even register what's happened until Drew's on the floor. Sean stands up just as the crowd gasps, the concrete beneath his shoes scratching harshly as he runs up to the barriers of the stands, eyes wide and all too concerned, his bag forgotten.
Over the past few weeks training with Drew, silence has become less of a blessing and more of a burden. He feels it in those few seconds, a weight heavy enough to ignore the half-hearted burst of energy from the crowd as Miller closes the gap to the finish.
The way Drew stands is too slow; the way he lifts his right leg to relieve some of the pressure off of it reminds him just how tight he's holding the steel of the barrier. The other runners continue to push onwards, faster even, now that the possibility of a better finishing position is within reach. Sean searches for an official on the inside of the track, desperately trying to reassure himself that urgency's in play now. There has to be someone. Someone had to have seen it and recognised it as a violation of the rules or something.
Sean watches as Drew looks up toward the stands, tracking the eyes staring right back at him with sick attention, and eventually, finding Sean. The gaze lingers for a long moment before he's shaking off the fall and running again. The audience absorbs the drama, clapping at the determination of the athlete currently at the forefront of their stage. It's just the curve. None of the other runners have caught up yet, still making their way down the length of the track.
He holds his breath as Drew tackles the final bend, his teeth snagging the inside of his lip. When he crosses the finish, Sean nearly allows himself to collapse into his hands, forehead against his palms. He doesn't; he just loosens his grip on the metal the slightest bit so that his fingers won't cramp, but he certainly thinks about it. He twists his head to see the other guys murmuring to each other, spitting insults at the level of professionalism that had just been shown as if they'd been absolved in the event the whole time. He doesn't bother acknowledging them before tossing his bag over his shoulder and storming his way through the crowd and down to the track.
He doesn't need to listen to the results; Sean knows they've won.
The bustle of people Sean has to manoeuvre his way through gets thicker as he approaches where the other athletes have ended. He tries to keep himself from cursing as someone bumps into him, not even apologising before they're back on their own journey. As he gets close to them, Sean begins to scope the area. Some part of him's hoping that Drew's made an exit, taking the earliest opportunity to leave to avoid the questions he's inevitably going to be attacked with.
Maybe he hadn't, though. A part of him is hoping for that too.
He spots Miller. He's practically glowing with victory, accepting any and all handshakes he receives for his "well-deserved" win. Sean bets people are praising him for not letting himself crumble beneath the pressure, that he must've intimidated Drew to the point where he lost focus and tripped over his own feet. It's a different kind of ego to have, Sean thinks, to not feel guilty about clearly doing something no one's noticed. He glares at him as he passes. Maybe he'll get him to at least double-take at what it took for him to even have a chance.
Sean's gaze softens slightly as he finds a better and more welcomed sight to bear. Drew, leaning against the side of one of the high-jump mats, has his head turned away from him. To stop himself from practically sprinting over, Sean takes a deep breath before approaching, simultaneously preparing himself for the potential onslaught of colourful words he'll have to take if he has to help. If there's one thing Sean's learnt about Drew over the past few weeks, it's that to outwardly declare a vulnerability about him would mean self-suicide.
He'd rather be the helper than the helpee, all day, any day.
He lets himself take a few steps before clearing his throat, trying for a casual approach to ease away any tension. Drew winces, waiting for the awkward moment to pass before turning to face him. It's obvious that something's happened to his lower leg region, somewhere around the ankle area, and Sean keeps his eyes level so that he doesn't reveal that he knows anything. It's hard, considering the harsh limp Drew's harbouring. Is it too evident that Sean's trying to ignore it? Well, can't do anything about it now.
"Tough race, huh?" He says, going for a cheap laugh at the end. Casual.
Drew leans heavily on the mat, just breathing for the next minute. Eventually he meets Sean's eyes with a wry smile. "Why are you here, Sean?"
A breath of disbelief escapes his lips before he can stop it. "Would you rather I leave?"
"Yeah, that'd be nice." Drew shifts his position against the mat so that his back's fully supporting his weight. He closes his eyes, tilting his head up.
Sean knew that it wasn't going to be easy; he knew that Drew would make it harder. Of all his other qualities, patience is one of his best and, probably, by now, the best. At some point along befriending strongly opinionated individuals, he'd say patience also became a skill. He still believes it is now. The funny thing about having that skill is that he had the chance to use it to his own benefit, meaning he had the chance of winning against someone with less of that skill.
His point is, Drew does not have patience. Sean does.
"And I'm guessing you have medical supplies with you?" Sean continues, allowing smugness to sneak into his voice. "I mean, if you're letting me leave, you must be all set."
"Does it look like I need them?" Drew bites back.
"Dude," he says, gesturing to Drew's ankle. "You literally got pushed to the floor."
Sean watches as Drew climbs up on top of the mat, swaying his legs. "I tripped."
Out of all the answers Sean's expecting, he most definitely was not expecting that one. Drew is anything but ashamed. If the guy got pushed to the ground, Sean would expect some sort of retaliation or at least for him to jump at the chance to blame it on someone else. He certainly looks ashamed now, staring at the ground, shoulders slumped. The way he's displaying his attitude almost makes him look defeated, and on Drew, it looks strange — mostly because he wouldn't dare to show that kind of thing.
Sean's in uncharted territory now, and with no way of backing out, the only thing he can do is cautiously look for any outward signs of discomfort. The only problem with that: Drew is not known for displaying his heart on his sleeve. He has to make a move, though, or otherwise the situation could turn real bad real quick. To give himself time to think of what to say, he walks forward so that he's just to the right of him. Drew doesn't move his line of sight at all. He just keeps swaying his legs very subtly, almost like a nervous tick.
"I'm guessing you have a car, right?" Sean asks, his voice taking on a gentle edge that he usually keeps reserved for people he knows better. It feels right to use now.
Taken off guard by the sudden change of subject, Drew's eyes widen, and he leans back so that his elbows rest against the cheap plastic of the mat. He meets Sean's gaze suspiciously but answers, "had one since I turned seventeen."
Sean raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement. "Fair enough. I would've expected you to have, like, a private driver or something."
Drew's expression doesn't change when he responds, "I like driving myself."
An unfamiliar warmth settles in Sean's chest. He chuckles quietly. "Me too."
They're one of the only people left on the track, most of the other occupants having left the moment the last race ended. It makes the conversation have weight to it, in a way, because there are no people around to break the tension. He doesn't point it out, but he notices the newfound force of it filling the space of Drew's eyes, bringing out the exhaustion in them that Sean hadn't noticed before.
"How's your knee?"
Sean looks down absentmindedly at where he'd taped around his knee, some starting to peel from both sweat and just overall disturbance. "Pretty good; I think it'll be back in shape soon."
Drew shrugs. "Just be glad you didn't tear your ACL."
"Oh, trust me, I am," Sean laughs.
Silence settles again, and for once, Sean doesn't feel like breaking it. Maybe he'll let Drew try and strike up a conversation. Although, he realises his mistake when Drew fully lies down on the mat, just his feet hanging off, signalling a lack of energy to even care about whether the quiet becomes uncomfortable. Sean breathes out slowly, closing his eyes.
"So," he starts, keeping his eyes shut. "Still want me to leave?"
"It's more whether you're up to staying here until I'm ready to leave," Drew murmurs from his place on the mat. "I might stay here a while."
Sean opens his eyes. "I've got time."
Drew speaks up again after another minute of silence. "I don't need your help, Sean."
"I'm willing to wait until you do."
Suddenly, Drew jumps down from the mat, brushing off his shirt, and starts to shuffle, however slowly, away from Sean, and Sean, still shocked from the abruptness of it, doesn't move until Drew's almost halfway to the other side of the track. Irritation leaks into his expression — it's impossible to work with stubborn people.
The moment he catches up with him, without thinking over the consequences, he reaches for Drew's wrist. Unreasonably surprised, Sean jolts when Drew yanks his wrist back full force, leaving a sting in place of where Sean was grabbing it.
"What the hell, dude!" Sean yells, still stalking forward to keep up. "I'm just trying to help."
Drew mutters something under his breath that Sean doesn't catch, constituting a rise of at least another three levels of exasperation on Sean's behalf. Suddenly his patience isn't nearly as good as he thinks it is. They reach the track lanes next to the stands, and with a mixture of desperation and annoyance itching at his skin, Sean reaches out his hand again.
"Drew," he breathes out, his hand now latched onto his shoulder. "Just let me talk—"
Almost instantly, he's shoved back. He trips over his feet, only preventing himself from hitting the ground by taking a few clumsy steps to balance himself. He looks back at Drew, stricken.
"Do not touch me."
With an apology already scripted in his head, Sean opens his mouth, but Drew's back is already toward him, roughly dragging his own bag over his shoulder from where he left it next to the stands. Sean straightens up slowly, adjusting the strap on his shoulder from where it was jostled, standing embarrassingly still as Drew wanders down the field next to the track, toward the parking lot. Guilt starts to bleed from his chest into his lungs, choking him speechless. The urge to say something digs harshly at him, but he can't get anything to pass through his lips.
The limp is sharp, Sean allows himself to think, as he watches Drew lurch toward his car. His knee aches in sympathy — he knows exactly how it feels, and it sucks. He could've been the one to stop it.
He just stands there for a while, allowing the cold to sink deep into his bones. The fleeting thought that what happened wasn't necessarily all his fault passes briefly, but he quickly shoves it down, the grating reality knocking it straight out of him. Most of it was probably his fault. He should've known that it was stupid to initiate contact after the first attempt was quickly shut down. In fact, he should've known before he even tried. It's one of the only times ever since trying to branch a relationship with Drew that he felt maybe it would've been nice to talk to someone about it.
Advice would've really helped.
But he was also just stupid.
It's late when he gets home, showers, and climbs into bed.
His parents aren't home, so he's able to make as much of a fuss as he wants without worrying about noise. He bangs around in the bathroom, punches a few pillows, and tosses a few pillows across the room, all without the worry of waking someone up. The shower he takes is long and helps him cool down from the events of the day. Although that doesn't stop the pounding in his head when he's all alone in bed — his phone acts as the only distraction to keep him away from the chaos of his thoughts.
He's scrolling mindlessly, trying to find something to latch onto. He does this for about fifteen minutes before he decides it's a useless idea and tosses it next to his bed, not bothering to plug it in.
He shuts the lights off, buries himself in his pillow, and squeezes his eyes closed. The sound of the fan is eventually enough to get him into a lull of some sort, and just as he's about to drift off, his phone buzzes.
Sean groans, turning onto his back, and reaches across his bedside table to see who's decided to message him at that hour.
You ran well today.
Drew [22:48]
Oh, hell.
He is not going to sleep anytime soon.