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chapter eleven: rory, indisposed

a/n:

this chapter is a wild fucking ride y'all.

tw(s) -- mentions of blood and violent, unnecessary sports violence, rory's emotions are all over the place, coach blood, and oliver myrtle.

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"He's leaving you flowers."

Those four words, said almost angrily by Julie as she pushes the door to their room closed behind her, make Rory come to a halt at nine o'clock in the morning.

She had, like she seems to be most mornings since the start of this competition, been too busy looking for her lucky friendship bracelet to hear the knocks on the door, and her mind was far too addled from the burgeoning anxiety attack over facing Iceland on the ice to hear Julie's repeated can you get that's through the bathroom door. Now, she stands helplessly in the center of their room, her fraying bracelet in her trembling hand, and stares at the furious blonde as she holds a bouquet out from her body like they're diseased. Rory blinks, owlish, and glances at the flowers. They're sunflowers and baby's breath.

Julie shakes the flowers and Rory finally remembers to grab them.

"He's leaving you flowers." Julie repeats herself, ripping the towel that was drying her hair from her head as the brunette continues to mutely stare at the bunch in her hands. "Loverboy is leaving you flowers, and you are ignoring him."

"I'm not ignoring him."

It's Julie's turn to pause, then. The blonde stops drying her hair, briefly, to narrow her eyes at Rory, disbelief written into her features.

"You are. You haven't spoken to him in a day and a half because he, a stupid man who does stupid man things, hurt your feelings, and now he's crawled up my ass and died there because you won't even look at him--"

"Okay!" There are many things to admire about Julie, in Rory's opinion, but her ability to bluntly assess situations is definitely up there on that list. "Maybe I'm avoiding him a little, but ignoring him? I'm not ignoring him."

"They mean the same thing."

"They do not."

Julie's face falls into a deadpan.

"To ignore him I'd have to be acknowledging his presence." Rory informs her, her voice high-pitched and squeaky as she goes into the bathroom. "And I'm trying not to do that, so."

"Look, I understand being mad at him, but don't you like him? Why not just hear him out?"

"Because I don't want to like him."

She fills one of the pitchers they have in the dorms with water.

"Why not?"

"Liking people is, generally, my downfall." Rory puts the flowers in the water. (She can't just leave them there to die.) "I was only here to play hockey. I didn't even know I was going to make friends, let alone fall head over heels for someone, and now look at me. I haven't worked out in days, and I keep crying-- my feelings for Lester Averman are a distraction, and, until I figure out how to deal with them, I'm going to distance myself."

When she steps back into the main room, Julie stares at her like she has three heads.

"You need to let yourself be happy, Ro."

She sighs, choosing not to comment on that, and puts the makeshift vase on the desk closest to her bed. Julie's words echo through her mind as the blonde helps her fasten the bracelet around her wrist.

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"I'm going to throw up." Rory covers her mouth with her hand as she groans, swallowing the bile that dares to crawl up her throat.

Adam, who's helping the queasy brunette with her pads, instinctively leans back and stares up at her warily.

The Iceland game had taken a back burner in her mind, but it was front and center, now.

Even if they've crushed all competition so far, Rory has no confidence in their ability. She can just feel it in their bones. What is Italy's hockey team compared to Iceland's? Insignificant. That's what. The teams they have faced didn't hail from countries that reputedly enjoy hockey, and they certainly aren't coached by Wolf Stansson.

"Don't be nervous. We've got this." Charlie says as he slips a bucket into her lap and smiles at her sympathetically.

"That's easy for you to say! Your dad didn't go and tell the coach who likes to punch teeth out that you're going to beat his team."

A beat. "Well, I'd have to have a dad for that to happen."

His attempt at a joke doesn't make her feel any better.

It just reminds her of their coach's current status.

"Did I ever tell you guys that Stansson was the one who tore my dad's ACL the second time?" Rory asks weakly, her voice thready. The locker room grows quiet and all eyes turn to her. "Yeah, that's some pertinent information, isn't it?"

"You're going to be fine. We've got you." Adam tries to smile at her as he finishes fastening her pad.

Do they? Do they, really?

Rory just pushes the bucket from her lap, swallows down more bile, and gets back to the task at hand.

"Alright, are we ready for some warm-ups?"

Bombay looks worse than she left him.

Dressed in black-tie attire, he looks like a little kid wearing his dad's clothes.

If she weren't so sick of him (and generally just sick) right now, she'd have felt a little sympathy.

The other members of the team notice as well. They laugh at him, though she thinks he might be too far into this to pick up on the derision, and start to compliment him in mocking tones. Dean and Fulton even, for whatever reason, get up in his face.

"Nice jacket! Did you get two pairs of pants with that?" Averman makes the joke as he walks up to him.

Rory doesn't laugh with the rest. She's too in her head, strapping the last of her pads onto her body and suppressing gags.

He turns to her to see if she laughed, and then frowns when he sees that she didn't.

Against her better judgment, she lets a nervous smile warble across her face.

He tries again as she pulls her jersey over her head. "Nice haircut, did you lose a bet?"

The thumbs-up he gets in response isn't what he wanted, but he figures it's better than nothing.

Team USA is met with raucous cheering as they skate onto the ice for warm-ups.

She focuses on taking deep breaths as she goes, smiling and waving at the crowd just like the rest of her team. When she gets to the end of the rink, she finds that Averman and Goldberg are hanging out by the net. With them is a cameraman who stands on wobbly knees on the ice.

"And there is Lorelei Myrtle!" Averman points to her until the cameraman turns. She gives an awkward little wave. "She's awesome--"

"--and one of our best scorers. Her effort, combined with mine, is what's going to win us this game." Goldberg cuts in, rolling his eyes.

"Wow, Goldberg! No pressure or anything!"

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Just as Rory feared, the Iceland Vikings are absolutely wiping the floor with Team USA.

Dean got kicked off the ice not even five seconds into the game for accidentally knocking the referee over after getting a bad call, leaving them without one of their heaviest hitters when he was needed most (and, of course, opening up the possibility that the men in stripes, who make no calls in favor of the US team, are being paid off by someone.) Kenny and Luis have gotten the brunt of the brute force, the former ice skater having to get taken off the ice so he could puke, but it seems that the boys are taking no prisoners. Their opponents seem to be playing to hurt them more than they are playing to win, and it's made apparent by the way that Wolf Stansson has spent more of the game staring at the side of Rory's head.

Which is why, when Bombay turns to her, she knows she's done for.

Give all my Earthly possessions to the poor and needy.

"Myrtle, you're in. Take the face-off."

And donate my inheritance to Greenpeace or something.

He leans down, too close for comfort, and whispers into her ear. "Don't disappoint me, kid."

Trembling in her skates, Rory slips her mouth guard between her teeth and follows his orders. She's so busy mentally signing her will that she doesn't notice the shouts of encouragement that follow her coach's foreboding words.

She comes face to face with Gunnar Stahl as she skates into place.

"Hi."

His piercing eyes glare at her through his shield. He doesn't return her greeting.

"I know you don't owe me anything, and I know your coach has said a lot of things, but please don't kill me."

The Nordic monster's lips curl up at the corners and he says something to her in Icelandic. The words rumble in his chest and, even if she hasn't a clue what he just said, she knows, just like she knows he will show her no mercy, that it wasn't anything good.

Still, she lowers herself down so they can get on with the play and continues to talk to a brick wall.

"What does that mean? I, uh, forgot my Icelandic to English dictionary at the bench."

"You'll find out."

"Oh. Yay."

The puck gets dropped and she gets the gist of what he must've said very, very quickly.

Stahl, rather than take the puck, upward strikes Rory's chin with his elbow.

The hit knocks every sense out of her as her head, and thus her body, jerks to the side. Her ears ring, her vision blurs, and both her mouth and her nose get flooded with something metallic.

The shield of her helmet also goes flying, but she's too dazed to notice.

Time seems to skip like a record and, next thing she knows it, Rory's sprawled out on the ice.

And then, when she turns over, Gunnar Stahl does the unthinkable.

He brings his skate down on her knee.

It's not quite a stomp, but it isn't gentle, either, and he isn't phased when the pop in her joint makes the younger girl release a strangled cry.

"Tell your father Iceland says hello."

Fulton punches Stahl to the tune of Rory's quiet plea: oh god, oh no, oh god.

Actively sobbing, tears and globs of blood gathering under her chin, she struggles to rip the gloves from her hands.

Oliver told her what it was like to tear his ACL. He'd described it in such detail that the sound of it-- that godforsaken pop-- haunted many of her childhood dreams. Her cold, shaky fingers try to pull the leg of her pants up so she can see if she's already swelling, but a hand stops her.

"You're alright, kid." The medic uses a warm and even tone. "I've got you."

Rory tries to blubber her way through a sentence but isn't able to.

Did that just happen?

Did that actually just happen?

"Can you stand? We have to get you off the ice."

"I-- I don't know." Her voice warbles as she tries to speak through the sobs that wrack her body.

"Alright. Can one of you help me?"

The question is directed at her team, who have swarmed around her on the ice. She doesn't know who hooks her other arm around their neck but, suddenly, she finds herself being hoisted and then carried off the ice.

Cold anger swims in Bombay's eyes when she looks up at him.

MacKay replaces Fulton and takes his half of Rory's weight when the medic tells him to return to the ice. The enforcer casts his teammate one last nervous look, one that she can only respond to by staring back at him blankly, before reluctantly doing as he's told.

The two adults carry her limping body to the locker room.

"Holy shit." Dean drops the thing he was about to throw at the sight of her.

Neither of the adults comments on how he's destroyed the locker room, nor his language, as they sit Rory down on the treatment table.

"What the hell happened."

Ignoring the question, she lifts her head sluggishly and looks the medic in the eye.

"It's not my ACL, is it?"

"I don't know." He flashes a light in front of her eyes. "How does your head feel? Any headaches?"

"No." She hiccups. "My nose hurts."

Is that her voice? Did she sound that nasal before?

MacKay rubs her back as Dean watches, stunned, from across the room.

"Yeah. It's bleeding, but it doesn't look broken. Here, wipe it with this."

The tutor, kindly, takes the moist towelette and wipes Rory's face for her. "You're okay, honey." She whispers. "You're alright."

Tears spring anew to Rory's eyes.

"Rotate your ankle for me?" The medic's instructions are a welcome distraction from the woman's soft touch. "Good. Now bend your knee for me. Good."

Digging the palms of her hands into her eyes, Rory sniffles miserably and waits for a semi-professional diagnosis. He pulls an ice pack from his bag and cracks it.

"I don't think it's your ACL, kid, but I want you to humor me and ice it, alright?"

Sniffing, she nods and puts it on her knee.

"You're a good sport, you know." He hums as he packs up.

"I just cried like a baby for billions of people to see."

MacKay frowns. "Don't say it like that, Rory."

The medic, meanwhile, shrugs. "You're still a kid. Athlete or not."

His parting words leave her as stunned as the hit to the jaw.

MacKay dotes on Rory as the game picks up again. She makes the teenager drink some Gatorade and gives her packet of tissues to Rory, who thanks her quietly, while Dean is glued to the television. He gets rowdy again, eventually, and MacKay gets so nervous that she goes back out to rally for the rest of the team, too (since no other adults are going to, apparently.)

In her absence, Dean resumes his fit. He throws small objects around and punches lockers, and Rory flinches every time his voice raises above a certain decibel.

"Dean."

"What?"

To his credit, his eyes do soften at the sight of her.

"Please, just stop." Her voice breaks. "Please?"

With a huff, he puts a pin in his destruction and walks up to her. When he takes a seat by her feet, the two of them sit in silence, both willfully ignoring the game they've been removed from.

A moment later, he sticks his hand out.

She holds it when she gets what he's trying to do.

"Which one of them did it?"

"Stahl." She whispers. "It's my dad's fault."

Dean doesn't hear her. He's just saying the name under his breath, presumably so he'll remember it.

Julie gets kicked off at the dawn of the third period for knocking Sanderson and Stahl off their feet.

She stands on the threshold of the room and soaks in the whole scene before she nods, slowly. "I know how you guys feel."

Her monotone voice makes Dean snort a laugh and hops down from the bench so he can go back to watching. Julie removes her jersey and her pads as she goes, and then takes Dean's place, rubbing Rory's calf comfortingly.

"Are you alright? That was gnarly."

"Yeah. I think that's the first time I've ever been punched in the face."

Julie manages to crack a grin.

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The crestfallen team file into the locker room when the game is over.

Twelve to one. They lost twelve to one.

"Twelve to one. Twelve to one." Bombay all but shouts. If this was a cartoon, his head would be a nineteen-thirties work whistle, and he'd be blowing steam as he stomps around the room like a toddler. "You know what word comes to mind when you think of that? Hm? Pathetic!"

Rory watches him pace with a set, aching jaw.

(If this were a cartoon, her face would be purple, too.)

"You guys were brought here to play hockey--"

"What about you?" Jesse is the first to snap, glaring at their coach.

Bombay leans in closer, condescendingly. "What about me, Jesse?"

"Coach Stansson knew everything about us. They were ready for us!" Julie voices from beside her.

Rory clenches and unclenches her fists over and over.

"And you spend your time driving around in convertibles talking to those sponsor fools--"

"Or with that Iceland lady." Fulton cuts Luis off and her eyes snap up to him. "We saw you two the other night."

Oh.

How interesting.

"Eating ice cream with the enemy, huh, Coach?" Dean rasps, arms still crossed over his chest.

Like dominos, everyone around the room seems to process everything one after the other, all of them whispering and looking around. Rory, meanwhile, picks him to pieces in her head-- she watches as his facade crumbles for a moment before he manages to put it up, again.

"Hey. Hey, what I do is none of your business-- am I clear?"

After a beat, he gets reluctant murmurs.

"Everyone stay in gear." He says as they start to get undressed. "We have practice."

She wants to shake him by the shoulders.

What are you doing, Gordon? She wants to scream. Who do you think you are?

"Tonight?" Goldberg voices the team's indignation.

Bombay nods, this quick jerk of his head, and turns to Rory. "Not you, though. You're useless. Go back to the hotel."

The coil that's been winding for days snaps, then, and Rory turns to Bombay with all of the fury of a teenager who has spent a whole lifetime being the good (dog) who sat at her father's feet.

(Hell is a teenage girl, after all.)

"What did you just say?"

"You heard me-- "

"Oh, I did." She says coldly, a mirthless laugh thickening the quality of her voice. "I was just giving you a chance to take it back."

The air is stagnant, tense, very suddenly as Bombay raises an eyebrow. Her teammates glance between the two of them with mixed expressions -- they're shocked, maybe even a little frightened, and that, combined with the ire left over from the coach's speech and the exhaustion from the game, sucks all the life from the room.

"Excuse me?"

"Who are you to call anyone useless? This is all your fault. You're supposed to be in charge of us!"

Julie knocks her on the arm and tells her to just quit, but Rory holds Bombay's gaze.

"Stop talking, Myrtle. That's an order."

She scoffs "You might be my coach but you don't order me to do anything."

Bombay gets a tick in his jaw.

"What? Do you think that, because they put you in big boy clothes and put you on a piece of cardboard you're special? That you're important?" Even if her knee hurts, she gets off the table and walks up to him, shrugging off an arm that tries to stop her. "They always have a replacement, Bombay."

In her skates, she's taller than him.

"At the end of these games, if we win or lose, you are going to return to life as you knew it. They're not giving you shit! You were just the only person stupid enough to accept the offer!"

"Every word out of your mouth is another lap you'll be doing tomorrow--"

"Do you know who I'll be at the end of this, Bombay? I'll still be a Myrtle." She speaks over him. "Who will you be, again? A has been? A never was? A washed-up lawyer who's stuck in the middle and pretends he's coaching hockey because he wants to live vicariously through kids?"

Silence.

Deafening silence.

And then a whisper. "Everybody get on the ice."

"But coach--"

"On the ice, now!"

The team scrambles to file out around her, but Rory doesn't move outside of wiping Bombay's spit off her face.

"I want you to pack your shit." He says, his voice wavering. "Pack your shit and leave. You're off the team."

Her heart skips a beat.

She doesn't let him see that.

"Alright."

"I mean it! You're gone! Done!" He shouts at her as she gathers her stuff.

"Yeah, go ahead, Gordon. Yell at the injured little girl. It makes you look good."

Gordon follows her as she walks out of the locker room. The team is watching them through the boards and she, even if she's sure they heard, turns to them.

"Looks like I'm going back to Detroit!" She throws her arms up. "See you guys later."

"What--"

Rory doesn't bother to stick around to see the aftermath. She just keeps walking on her unsteady legs and ignores the tears that burn her eyes as she pushes the doors to the stadium's secret exit open.

A whole entourage is waiting for Team USA in the lobby of the hotel. Her father, who is out of his chair the minute their eyes meet, and Tibbles, who notices a moment after him.

He struggles to keep up with her father as Oliver meets her in the middle.

"Lorelei."

"Sorry, Father, but I can't talk right now. I have to pack my stuff."

She pushes past the two men, and they are forced to follow.

"What?"

"Coach's orders." Rory presses the buttons to the elevator. "He kicked me off the team and told me to pack my stuff."

In the metal of the doors, she watches Tibbles' face drain of color as her father swivels about to face him.

"What?" This time, it isn't directed at her.

"I-- I-- no. He can't do that. Rory, kid, don't pack your stuff-- I'll call him Oli, I'll sort it all out."

He rushes off and Oliver, slowly, turns back to her.

"What did you do?"

"I told him how it is." Their reflections meld in the warped, scuffed metal. "He's going anywhere but up working for Hendrix the way that he is."

She can't tell where she begins and he ends, anymore.

The doors open. Rory steps on, and he steps on behind her.

Oliver hits the button until it's just the two of them trapped in the big metal box and then, without turning to her at all, addresses her.

"You've got four floors to cry."

With his permission, her body slumps into the corner and she chokes on a sob.

Useless. Off the team. Useless. Off the team.

God, she messed up badly this time.

"Two floors." Oliver's clear voice cuts through her quiet cries.

That seems to be a big theme in her life. Letting her emotions get the better of her and messing things up.

"One floor--"

"He called me useless." She grits her teeth and forces the words to come out without breaking. "Useless."

Oliver's shoulders grow tight as the doors open. When he steps out onto her floor, she follows him. Then, too suddenly, he's turning to her and grabbing her jaw.

"Stop crying."

"I can't just--"

"You are fifteen years old. Stop. Crying."

Staring up at him, she blinks back her tears.

"You aren't useless. You're my daughter."

"But--"

"And, you needn't fret. I will always get you out of the messes you get yourself into."

"I know." She says in a much quieter voice. "I love you."

"And I, you. Now go rest that knee while I deal with Tibbles."

When he releases her, she demurely looks at the floor. All that fire from earlier quelled with a single look, an admonishment from her father-- the reminder that he is the only person who has ever loved her.

He's gone too quickly, too.

She blinks and he's already back on the elevator, the doors closing behind him in a motif that represents her childhood a little too closely.

Her (former?) teammates come back from their 'practice' too early for her liking, too.

She's in the bathroom, brushing her hair after her shower, when Julie and Connie finally stumble in. They look exhausted and frustrated, but they don't get angry at her in the way she expects them to-- in fact, the blonde tiredly asks her if she's feeling better, and the brunette tells her that she thinks she's badass.

Rory catches sight of herself in the mirror.

It's easier to stomach her mother's face when it's battered, bruised, and puffy from crying.

She splashes herself with some water and moves on.

The girls are already asleep when she's done, so she grabs her book and turns off the lights in their room before exiting.

In the lounge, she finds Averman.

He catches her before she can run away.

"Rory!"

She freezes in the doorway. "Hey, Les..."

"Can we talk?"

While the question makes her cringe, Rory does slink into the room and takes the seat next to him on the couch.

"I'm sorry." He breaks the silence, the words pouring out of him at breakneck speed. "I didn't realize that you were going to be so hurt by what happened at Les Habitudes because I wasn't thinking about your feelings as much as I should have been. I never wanted to hurt you."

Oh, her poor fool.

"I even comprised a list of things that are great about you that don't have anything to do with the fact that you're rich."

"Les--"

"One, your eyes. Self-explanatory, really."

"Les--"

"Two, your sense of humor. I've never met someone who can somehow be so snarky but also be so kind at the same time."

"Lester."

"Three, and I just added this on a few minutes ago, that thing you did with Bombay where you--"

"Averman, I like you."

Her confession catches him off guard. The redhead sits there, silently stunned for a few long, heavy moments. Something crawls up her throat and makes it hard to breathe.

"I figured it was best to come clean now that I might never see you again." Her poor attempt at a joke gets no reaction out of him. "This is where you tell me you like me, too... Or, reject me. But I don't think it's very smart to reject a girl who just had a public mental breakdown."

He grins big and wide. "Of course, I like you."

She smiles, too, and tucks her knees to her chest. "Good."

"And, even if I really want to, I'm not going to kiss you right now, because you just had a public mental breakdown," He clears his throat, "and also because I'm a little scared that it'll end the great dream I'm obviously having right now."

Rory breathes a laugh and shakes her head.

He yelps when she pinches him on the arm. "Hey--"

"There. Now you know you're not dreaming."

Out of respect for her, though, Averman opts to kiss her hand.

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a/n:

i am michelle mackay's number one stan, actually

this is like my only love confession that doesn't have a kiss right after it.

the ducks just taking care of rory like she's their pet is so funny to me. she's worried that they don't like her and they're worried that she's going to die if she's experiencing too much stress.

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you