ravenvsfox:

He’s watching tapes from their last game with one sweating hand flat on the desk, the other prodding the rewind button over and over again until the loops stop being anything but cheering and colour. Their lines are sloppier with more people in them. He can see where they’re stretched too thin and where the strikers are overcompensating.

He can see the tension in their ranks even though they’re trying to pull together, like they’re slapping a bandaid on a broken leg.

“Knock knock.”

Wymack looks up to find Abby hefting food through the doorway like some sort of dream. She unpacks armfuls of it onto the table and gives him a private smile when he catches her eye over the wavering paused TV.

“That for me?”

“Well this would be a hell of a show if it weren’t,” she laughs, piling a wrapped burger on top of a plastic container of caesar salad.

“Didn’t want to assume,” he grumbles, reaching for one of the burgers. She slaps his hand away.

“Wash your grubby hands first.”

He raises both hands in surrender, muttering, “you let the kids eat finger food with blood on their hands but I can’t hold a burger without scrubbing down—“

“David,” Abby interrupts pointedly. “The faster you clean the faster you eat.”

He rolls his eyes on the way to the bathroom and then rolls them all the way back to his office, keeping his affection in a headlock. Abby’s sitting with her legs crossed and her food unwrapped when he gets back, and he spies two ketchup packets lined up beside his burger, just how he likes it. He’s biting on a smile when his phone rings.

Abby startles, Wymack fumbles in his pocket, Neil’s name blinks up at him.

“Can’t you eat lunch at noon like a normal person, Josten?”

There’s a shifting noise, like paper sliding over the receiver, and then Neil says, “Coach?”

Wymack frowns at Abby across the room. She gives a little questioning head shake with her eyebrows raised, perfectly poised to be upset. He hates that they’re always bracing for fucking heartbreak around here.

“Yeah, Neil. Talk to me.”

“Uh, yeah, listen. Andrew might have killed someone.”

Wymack closes his eyes. Breathes in for three long beats, holds his hand up when he hears Abby shifting to her feet. “What do you mean might have? And think about the words you’re about to say to me, Neil, because if you try to cover Andrew’s ass I’ll get real impatient real fast, understand?”

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