steven r mcqueen & he/him / cismale ‷ watch out , gunner dunn has crash-landed into roswell !! they look thirty two years old and celebrate their birthday on november 1st . they are from rockport, ma, reside in moonbeam gardens and are currently working as a general manager / head coach for the new mexico starships. one thing you should know about them is he used to be a professional football player, but after a relatively gruesome injury, he was forced to retire, and decided to hole himself up in roswell to avoid the tabloids.
at one point in his life, gunner had been at the top of the world - with four superbowl rings and already well on his way to his fifth, there was nothing he wanted for, even if the tabloids believed differently, always pointing out that despite his status as an eligible bachelor, he never seemed to date anyone. there were lunches with too many people to count, but never any intimate moments caught on camera, no evidence that it was ever anything more than platonic, and maybe that’s because that’s exactly how gunner wanted it. for the star that he was, he’d never been a public person, always believing that it was never anyone’s business, that things like who he dated didn’t matter in the long run, so he simply... didn’t share. kept it quiet. things were easier that way.
his privacy extended to other parts of his life as well - no one knew anything about his childhood, beyond the fact that he was never seen in the town he grew up in, hadn’t returned as far as anyone could tell. people speculated, tried to figure out what it was that made gunner dunn tick, but nothing concrete ever came to light.
and then there was the accident. only one game away from officially going to the superbowl, gunner had thrown himself into the game, had tackled to keep a member of the other team from swiping the ball out of the air, and that was the end of his career. the tackle cemented the win for that game, led them to the superbowl, but it’d also done something else - his shoulder, virtually pulverized, a solid bone not to be found all the way down to his forearm, and pain being the only thing he could feel.
he spent nearly nine months living in a rehab facility, unable to care for himself with only the use of one arm and no one at home to actually help, and when he was released - he’d retired to roswell, ashamed of the spectacular end to his career. his team gave him a superbowl ring after they won that year, honoring him because they knew they wouldn’t have made it there to win without his talents that year, but other than that, gunner had isolated himself from the world he thrived in, shying away from the spotlight as much as he could... but he didn’t have very many talents beyond the sport he’d thrown his entire life into, and so he found himself applying to the open sports reporter position at the local radio station. the spot has turned him into something of a local celebrity - closer to the spotlight he’d once had, but much smaller, and he forces himself to be content with this small fact, and spends his nights at the local bar, because sometimes a big house only makes you feel more alone when you go home and it’s always empty.
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it was easier not to discuss such matters , to swallow emotion and hardship with a veil of pain . it was half the reason fletcher had created his little fight club , a place where the disenfranchised and the lost were welcome to throw punches without consequence . when it came to emotional pain there was no quick fix , there were no pills to pop to make it better , no surgery nor bandaid to numb the discomfort ; in the basement of the sports complex , the physical manifestation of a punch could be worn as a badge of honour . was it a healthy coping mechanism ?? far from it , but at this point fletcher hadn’t much of a choice outside of what he already knew . his own arm was rid of the dusting of fine hair , and a stencil was placed perfectly against the line of his bone . at the very least this pain was meaningful — he’d have a design to flaunt , rather than a shiner to camouflage . “ i’d be pretty concerned if i didn’t know you , after all this time , “ the male smirked , “ there aren’t many people that can put up with me this long . gotta hang onto them for as long as i can , or i’d be a total recluse , “ the idea became more and more tempting each and every day .
a short snort escapes gunner’s lips, his head cocking to the side just a touch as he felt the familiar bite of a needle in his skin, inking the design of the silly ghost onto his skin forever. “i ever tell you i considered lookin’ in to buying an island after..?” he doesn’t say the word - doesn’t mention his injury verbally, only implying it, but they both know what he’s talking about. “thought i’d go all fuckin’ castaway or whatever. didn’t do it, because i got money but i don’t got island money, but... i wanted to disappear. didn’t want to be perceived, at all. s’why i ended up in roswell. middle of fuckin’ nowhere, desert as far as the eye can see...” it’s the bite of pain on his calf that keeps him grounded, so he doesn’t just ramble on - thankfully, because he hated what opening up made him feel like. “my career was over, i didn’t have anywhere to go, really. no family to take me in, so i just... picked somewhere. s’not so bad, i guess. people i’ve met haven’t been half bad.” which was the closest he’d probably get to properly complimenting the other man, but it was enough. it wasn’t a lie, after all - gunner had cut his parents off and certainly wasn’t going back to them after his injury, which was really for the best, since it brought him to roswell in the end.
there weren’t many people that fletcher deemed as a friend , but those select few were those that were complicated , that mirrored his own messiness and reflected it back upon him . to some people he was just the gym guy , the rich guy — in some aspects that was true — and yet they weren’t privy to the moments in his lonely evenings , those snapshots of a solitary man who wished nothing more than to have somebody by his side . “ well , then they clearly don’t know you enough . i never thought of you as just the something guy , y’know ?? but i get that . i mean , god , the amount of assumptions people make about me .. “ it was near comedic . gunner’s words formed a lump in his throat . he hadn’t realised it until he opened his mouth to speak , swallowing around an aridity , coughing to dispel the discomfort brought by the reflection on his dating past . it was messy , murky , unable to discern — was he really happy , when every attempt at companionship was a desperate claw towards understanding , fletcher fighting tooth and nail to keep his head above water . in that moment , the male was glad for the impending sting of a tattoo gun to ground him in the now , to root him to the ground , to remind him he wasn’t threatening to float into the heavens . “ let’s get back to gettin’ hurt for fun , eh ?? “
a brief snort escaped gunner’s lips. “man, you’re probably the one person in this town who actually knows me,” he hummed, though he knew it wasn’t entirely true. at least, it wasn’t when you counted jaden, but even jaden was someone he kept more at arm’s length than anything. he had never gotten used to the idea of letting people in, and his entire career had been plagued by people making assumptions about him and selling them to the closest tabloid, so now he almost took it for granted. that people would believe one thing about him and nothing else, so what was the point in trying to explain everything that went on in his head to other people? “well, you can’t go wrong with that,” he hummed, laying his head back as his artist grabbed a razor to clear the hair from his leg for the tattoo design. “it’s one way to describe it, at least.”
a tut of his tongue to his upper teeth . fletcher knew of , from first hand experience , the looming gaze from roswell’s pension population , being the target of a few leers and giggles himself . it was one of the many , countless reasons why satellite sports complex had become his home for all workouts , big or small , for then , at the very least , he could enjoy his exercises in privacy . the story of his ink was far different , and yet here they were — two men getting inked spontaneously for the sheer thrill of it . every piece , every line and design and intricacy behind the meaning , had been calculated by fletcher liu , as was every move in his life , a set of carefully studies chess moves replicated on the checkerboard of reality . a spot was identified — up the bone of his ulna — and pointed out to the artist , who was pulling sheets from her flash and drawing over the design onto transfer paper . “ i’m testament to that , buddy . the moment it starts feeling like work is the time where you jump ship and get out of that damn place . i commend you for having the strength to do that , “ and the courage to completely uproot his comfort and start anew . when the conversation was directed to his court , fletcher’s nose scrunched ; “ well , let’s just say my solo days may be done . i don’t want to tempt fate , but cupid’s arrow is , for once , teetering in my favour . “
“well, my hatred of other sports probably helped,” gunner laughed lightly, watching his own artist getting the cartoon ghost onto a piece of transfer paper. “feel like most people see me as a sports guy and think i like all sports, but the only one i’ve ever liked was football.” soccer, baseball, softball - every other sport he was required to do a recap on when it came to his radio job? he hated every second of it, because that meant he had to watch the games, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. he lays his head back lazily as a faint hum falls from his lips. “no shit?” gunner couldn’t relate - had never liked someone enough to date them after he’d graduated high school and ended the one relationship he’d ever had - but he was happy for the other man. if he couldn’t be happy, he wanted fletcher to be happy. “well, knowing you, man, i don’t think it’s tempting fate to mention it. the fact that you even want to? s’worlds more than you’ve given me about anyone else you’ve ever been with.”
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“You gon’ pitch a fit if I can’t?” Birdie returns. There’s little reason for him to help the very person who’s gone ahead and spoiled his hard work. He isn’t all that surprised: Folks will always fix to feel entitled first, compassionate later. Better to apologise for something than avoid causing problems altogether, particularly when those problems have been caused for someone else.
“What do I look like, man, a goddamn mall map?”
a faint crease forms between gunner’s eyebrows at the question, before he gives a small shake of his head. “no, of course not. i’d never do that,” he mutters, tongue darting out to wet his lips as his hand came up to have rub at his left shoulder. phantom aches - three years on, and he still felt them in his old injury, which was probably another reason he was instinctively trying to avoid the sports writer. if he had to face the press, he didn’t want to face them in anything less than ideal conditions, and today wasn’t a good pain day for him. “you don’t look like a mall map. i just thought- a map would show me where stores are. wouldn’t tell me which ones would be busy or not, you know?”
vic hums in agreement, free hand drumming against the brick as she takes another drag. what do a deadbeat former model and retired nfl star have in common if not the kind of poor life choices that land them both outside of a shitty dive bar indulging in bad habits? she can’t tell if that’s comforting or depressing and ultimately decides thinking about it at all is a mistake. a “hm?” sounds automatically, though she did hear him, just processes the words slowly. “i don’t know if i’m on my break, but i’m definitely taking a break. energy in there’s weird tonight, right?” bleaker than usual, all of the negativity and none of the relief from a session of venting and shooting the shit over cheap beers. misery loves company, she supposes, and it’s especially contagious in there. or maybe she’s just sensitive to it tonight, trapped in her head in a feeble attempt at exposure therapy. ‘it’s important to feel,’ they say. ‘you can’t have the good without the bad.’ and even with the trap glaring her in the face, she still aches to scream out that she’s managed it this long. can’t the ends justify the means? …or maybe work’s just different nowadays, the constant turnover of employees bypassing her while everyone else seems to move on. “is it me or has libra season been fucked?” great, now she’s doing it too.
“donnie ain’t here tonight.” it’s something you notice, when you come to the bar as much as he does, and is as quiet as he usually is. the bikers that hang out by one of the pool tables are usually a pretty stoic bunch, but there’s one particular one who’s loud and always making them all laugh, and that light energy tends to infect the patrons around them, like some sort of disease... even if it is a good one. but when the big guy isn’t there? sometimes the quiet gets so loud it’s crushing. he leans back until he can feel brick against the back of his head, digging in in a way that’s almost enough to feel like something, though not quite enough to hurt. her comment, though, has him snorting, one of his eyebrows quirking up just a touch. “is that what it is? libra season? can’t say i new it was libra season, but hey, you’d probably know more about it than me. and i’m not about to tell you you’re wrong, because...” things definitely had been tense in a way that felt wrong, beyond wrong, and he couldn’t explain it. “well, i just assumed i’d spent too many nights alone here, but hey, if i can blame it on libra season, i’d much rather do that.”
the faded grey hoodie—plucked off the peg by the door where it’d been hanging for months, maybe even years before she claimed it—dwarfs her, with sleeves that dangle well past her hands and enough room to fit two or three of her within the zipper. it does the trick though, blocking out the slight chill as she fishes her box of cigarettes from the pocket and pushes outside. the weather’s shifting, only noticeable at night, though that seems to be the only time she finds herself outside. or awake at all, really. her body loosens with the first inhale, enough to notice someone else leaning against her usual spot, near a crack in the sidewalk that kind of looks like a face, especially when she’s been drinking. “what are you in for?” she drolls by way of greeting, taking up the space next to them instead and letting the smoke curl up to the stars.
a brief snort escaped gunner’s lips as he leaned against the brick, a cigarette between his lips as he did. “poor life choices,” he hummed back, the quip leaving his lips instinctively as a a smirk lifted the corner of his lip just a touch. he was at the wild pony most nights, really, so it wasn’t rare to find him sitting at a bar stool, or here in the shadows for a smoke, because drinking and smoking were the only two vices that gunner dunn had ever allowed himself. his head turns enough from where it leans to look at her fully, one of his eyebrows quirking up. “on your break, vic?”
when: october 4th - 06:12pm
where: roswell mall
who: open ( @roswellstarters )
Skeletons, bats, pumpkins and ghosts dangle and cackle from every corner of the Roswell mall. Motorised ghouls screech when their sensors go haywire, jerking the odd scream and laugh out of unsuspecting shoppers on their way to snatch up Halloween goods.
In the spirit of yearly spooks, the mall has suggested ( read: mandated ) that the staff of all partaking establishments embrace the festivities a little early on. Some have jumped on such a chance, enthusiastic in their guises of Myers, Krueger, Frankenstein’s monster and many more. Others scrape by with a pair of contacts and dark clothes.
Birdie stands somewhere in the middle.
Clad in his beloved baggy jumpsuit, he mops at puddles of sticky sauce and fizzing soda with an ever-twisting stomach bubbling with embarrassment. His jaw’s tense around a surprisingly convincing pair of fangs that Rudy, from the upstairs sandwich place, had shoved into place over the course of a wasted smoke break. He’d split a fake blood pellet over Birdie’s neck, too, staining the jumpsuit and earning himself a frosty glare— one Rudy had ended up cackling at.
What? You look hot, man!
A pair of careless feet turn a blind eye to the CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign Birdie uses to barricade his chosen spot. They slip and drag muck over strips of sparkling epoxy flooring. Stilled by the disregard, Birdie fixes them with the very same cold ire he’d shot at Rudy post forced dress-up.
gunner’s gaze darted back over his shoulder quickly when he came to a stop directly in front of the other male, clearing his throat before he tugged on the brim of his baseball hat, bringing it down lower, as if it was going to hide his features. “sorry, i know, i’m making a mess,” he starts, a faint red hue coming over his cheeks at the admission. the start of the football season meant he’d had a few interviewers calling and asking how new mexico’s team was looking for the coming season - and while there was a time in his life where he was used to less respectable paparazzi hounding him, he was trying to ease back into the public part of his career. and while the person he saw outside was only a sports reporter looking for a comment, there’d been a brief stint of panic as soon as he’d recognized them, and he’d darted into the mall without a second thought, and now he had to pay the consequences. “c’d’you think of a quite store or somethin’ out of the way i could go to, uh, lay low? just for a half hour or somethin’.”
a cock of his brow , half in disbelief and half in approval . although their training days were long behind them , fletcher could only recall seeing the tops of the ink work — an entire back piece was no easy feat , and it was something the male had managed to avoid up until that point by focusing on intricacies at his shoulders , spine and the small of his torso . “ you’ll have to show me the full thing some time , buddy , like a strange and fleshy show and tell . and , hey , way to go on the job thing , “ thumping the male’s back in a testosterone-fuelled show of companionship , fletcher led the way into black box and greeted the stoney-faced receptionist who seemed more interested in filing her nails than paying attention to oncoming clientele . he , more than most , knew the stresses associated with a career overhaul , with a loss of everything you’d ever known in favour of what was best — for yourself , for the country , for a family . once a slot had been confirmed they were led to two adjacent tattoo beds , fletcher shrugging off his jacket and eyeing up his arm for free space .
“no shit? at least i know you’re not using me as a piece of eye candy like half the middle aged women in moonbeam do when i go for runs,” gunner joked, giving a small shake of his head as he did. his tattoos were things he got when the mood struck - usually to mean something, sometimes not, and he’d had most of them so long that for the most part, he didn’t even realize that he hadn’t been born with them. from the raven and dragonfly on his arm - you have to kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you wanna be, or at least that’s what it meant to him - to the roman numerals on his ribs or the full back piece, they were all things that he probably wouldn’t know what he looked like without if it wasn’t for old paparazzi photos. sitting himself on the tattoo bed, gunner lifted his leg up and tugged the bottom of his jeans, fingers folding it up neatly and quickly until it was around his knee, leaving his calf on full display. “thanks- i figured it was about time for me to not hate my job.” it was - mostly - a joke, but his shoulders lifted in a small shrug anyway. “what about you? what’s new in your life?”
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featuring gunner dunn as jareth the goblin king ! in keeping with his yearly tradition of choosing costumes that generally surprise people who don’t know him well, gunner has opted for going as jareth from labrynth this year. costume complete "dragon” skin tights, a flowing white shirt, and a leather holster vest, a blonde wig might even make an appearance early in the night before he gets sick of it and tosses it aside ... he’s noticeably bulkier than the character from the movie, but he’s not about to let that stop him . ( @rocketfm )
fletcher wasn’t the most seasonal of individuals . when it came to holidays , especially halloween , the male dressed up purely to humour his sister ; he was overtly aware of his expired childhood and so the very idea of being marked with anything so juvenile was even worse than his previous playboy suggestion . “ seriously . it’s like you’ve never met me . i ask one thing — “ interrupted by the other’s lunge forward , the oldest liu was quick to eat his words . “ — y’know , that’s pretty damn cool actually . maybe on my arm , or my finger .. “ although he was covered , there were a few parts of his body which were rather bare in comparison to others . certain parts of his flesh were earmarked for specific pieces ( his back , his ring finger , the backs of his ears ) but gunner was right — a sword was very him . “ you’re welcome to get the cartoon ghost for yourself . my treat . “
“i know it’s cool,” gunner smirked, one of his eyebrows lifting as he said it. “if my back wasn’t completely covered, i’d get it blown up and put down my spine, personally.” but no, his back was almost entirely covered in ink, no spare centimeter of skin available, all because he’d decided to get a full-color tattoo over the expanse of it. he’d never been one to do half measures, naturally, which is how he’d ended up with the piece - all because he was pig headed enough to to insist on going through with the idea he’d come up with as a teenager when his father had told him to go to hell. “yeah? don’t tempt me, man, because you know i’ll do it.” where would he put it? he had no idea - maybe his calf, just for shits and giggles. “okay, then, let’s do it.” his smirk turned almost wicked. “it’ll symbolize the death of my life of obscurity, with the new job title.”
although every limb was occupied with something , fletcher still had a large portion of space to fill — his tattoos were the small kind , the odd representation , a name or a phrase or a tucked-away symbol with a relevance only admitted to himself . for a man who’s life and career was dictated by routine and regime , the idea of putting his fresh ink into the hands of somebody else was a sacrifice that spoke volumes — the very meaning of the tattoo he had yet to commit to was the fact he hadn’t slaved over significance and , instead , plucked a random design off a sheet at somebody else’s will . “ you know that , if you land me with something humiliating , i’m gonna give you the most extreme workout routines . every day ‘til you drop . “ a real threat , one he hoped would weaken gunner’s knees on the spot .
“i’m not gonna stick ya with somethin’ humiliating,” gunner laughed lightly, giving a small shake of his head as he eyed the designs on display, his head cocking to the side just a touch. his hand comes up, resting against his jaw before he’s rubbing it lightly, a curious expression settling over his face as he does. “i guess a cartoon ghost is out of the question, huh?” he hesitates for another moment before he steps forward, finger tapping one of the images behind a pane of glass. “that one. the sword.” he shoots the other male a lopsided grin. “don’t know why. it just screams very you.”
black box tattoo & piercing !
( open for — @roswellstarters )
there were inked etchings all over fletcher liu , from his knuckles to the tops of his feet , the scars he chose to inflict upon himself at a premium price — he trusted nobody with his body but the artists at black box and so , standing with biceps crossed over his chest , he scanned the sheets of flash pinned to the inside of the window , eyes narrowed in consideration . eventually he’d run out of space , tainting every inch of skin with hanzi characters or scripture holding relevance only to him . for now , though , he revelled in the spontaneity of entering the store without prior thought to what he’d emerge with . nudging an elbow against his fellow flash aficionado , fletcher spoke : “ what do you think i should get ?? i’ll entertain anything but the playboy bunny , “
“well now where’s the fun in that?” gunner questioned, one of his eyebrows quirking up as a smirk spreads over his lips. “ask me what i think you should get, then puttin’ those kinds’a limitations on me...” he’s only joking, of course, his eyes flicking over the various designs. all of gunner’s tattoos meant something - from the piece that spread out over the entirety of his back, to the tiny cactus under his arm that you only saw when he lifted the arm in the air, it all meant something to him, but that had never stopped him from showing up at black box to admire everything, always debating if he wanted a new one or not. his legs had yet to be touched, after all. “you seem like a guy who needs a flaming heart.” another joke, of course.
“ shit, ” the vulgarity tumbles through his lips with a few chuckles, “ makes sense then. ” but what didn’t make sense was this: sitting on a couch that belongs to GUNNER DUNN , NFL LEGEND . the physical embodiment of everything darryon had worked for but wasn’t able to become. not yet. he could practically feel his jaw at his feet when he recognized him the night before but one more shot wiped his memory; everything went black. now ? there’s that pounding in his head begging for some form of hydration outside of liquor and the terrifying thought of just how much he humiliated himself in front of his idol. “ i still can’t believe it, man, i’m sorry. ” he can recall sitting in his living room chair watching dunn’s final football game. in awe, the crushing realization that life, a tricky thing, doesn’t always go as planned. and it’s not just his ego talking now, but he can see a lot of himself in gunner. two people, meant for greatness, who got fucked over by life’s other plans. “ you’re a goddam legend, you know that ? for real, i still got DO IT FOR DUNN in my twitter bio. i wanted to be you, i wanted to kick your ass on the field. that last superbowl win, it was yours. one hundred percent. ”
“yeah - luckily for you, i’m king of hangovers, so. drink up,” he nodded at the glass before settling a bit. “didn’t know what your pain med of choice was, but i’ve got all of them if you want one.” his medicine cabinet was stocked - ibuprofen, alieve, tylenol, he had just about all of them in an effort to combat the pain his shoulder injury still left him with. usually he wasn’t so ready to admit about the practical pharmacy his bathroom had become, but the other male had made it obvious enough that he was a fan the night before - and gunner knew that of anyone, someone who’d been a fan of his career would know why he had what he had. “i don’t know if i’d call myself a legend,” he started, ever humble and unwilling to acknowledge everything he’d accomplished. as much as he’d ever swear he was just a guy good at throwing a ball, the only time his former team had ever gotten back-to-back superbowl wins - all of his rings, won in consecutive years - had been because of him. “honestly, you have no idea how good it feels to hear that.” he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed people telling him that they admired him, not until now - and it’d always felt good, had always made him feel special when he normally didn’t. “i’ll let you in on a secret that not many people know-” he leaned over slightly, as if about to divulge some sort of forbidden information. “my team got me a ring for that year, even though i was out of commission. guess they agreed with you - that i deserved the win because i got them to the game, even if i didn’t play in it.”
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“Oh, come on, please,” Poppy rolled her eyes yet in a playful manner upon Gunner stretching his arms; it was truly a sight for sore eyes.. for both her and everyone else who actually did stop and watched the show. “That’s quite a crowd you’ve gathered around,” to which she laughed but upon him mentioning the crime scene, she knew immediately what he was talking about. The scars could be seen, but it was not up to Poppy to ask questions. Perhaps it was due to her profession, but she was never the one to ask questions when it came to diseases or conditions - if people wanted to talk about it, they would. “That’s a sports injury. When and how?” Orthopedics wasn’t her forte, considering she had chosen specialty that was focused on brain, but she was a doctor after all. “Considering the injury, swimming is the best for you, but considering my lifestyle that includes great hair every morning, I don’t have time for swimming.. though I could try. However,” she shrugged though kept smiling, “maybe I should just throw a pool party. If I do that, consider yourself invited, Gunn.”
his gaze darted around, catching sight of the eyes lingering on him, and a short laugh escaped his lips, his head shaking just a touch. “you mean our neighbors don’t stare at everyone walking down the street?” he asked, playing innocent despite the fact that he knew they didn’t. “uh- three years ago? four?” he’d stopped keeping count. “four, i think.” he’d just turned thirty, he remembered that much, and he was turning thirty-four in two months. “it was an accident, on the field during a game. tackled a guy, sent us both directly into...” what it was was blurry in his memory - something metal on the sidelines of the field, he knew that much - and that’s what mattered, really. “realized where we were goin’ and twisted us. decided my shoulder hittin’ it was better than his head.” a half second of pause. “shattered everything from my shoulder down to my elbow on impact.” he’d been pieced together with wire, because there hadn’t been enough bone left to put pins into - and the lasting nerve damage meant that he still had bad days, and his arm still moved without his permission from time to time - which never failed to make him grumpy. “swimming is just one part of my daily workout - i do it more because i like it than for the injury.” as she mentioned pool parties, an easy grin spread over his face, as if he hadn’t just been talking about his career-ending injury. “earned myself an invite to the pool party, huh? i’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
straining his ears to listen to the tinny voice on the other end of the phone , his features perked the more gunner discussed the prospect of returning to the sporting world . once the phone was hung up and his friend’s attention firmly shifted back to him , the male reached to bump the knuckles of his fist against the other’s . “ i’m making you do what i wish i had done , what i wish i had the strength to do .. “ but what was stopping him , now that gunner had made that leap ?? did it not make him a hypocrite , lecturing his friend on the pitfalls of being too scared to take a first step in the knowledge that he , himself , was stuck behind an invisible wall , terrified of breaking the mould . fixing computers , unsticking keys and putting phones in rice , was comfortable , but when did comfortable ever mean happy ?? becoming a father had remixed his morals . being an IT technician wasn’t his dream , and it never had been . “ i always dreamed of starting up a little basketball team for kids like me , kids with disabilities or mental health issues … kids that just need a second chance , y’know ?? if i can’t have my dream , i wanted to help others get there instead of me . it would be a real shot in the dark , we’d have no money for a while , it would be a risk … “ dark eyes fluttered up to meet gunner’s , shrugging his shoulders beneath the cotton of his age-old graphic t-shirt , “ but i guess i should listen to my own advice and just bite the bullet , right ?? what’s the worst that could happen . “
“i can’t pretend to understand why you’d willingly be surrounded by a bunch of ankle biters,” gunner started, a brief snort escaping his lips before he shook his head. “but i say the same thing about teachers and parents, so you can’t listen to me about that. what matters is what you want to do.” he lifted his cup of coffee to his lips, taking a sip as a faint hum fell from his lips. gunner was good with kids, really - but he didn’t particularly like them, so the concept of coaching teams for kids was lost on him, but he’d support jaden in any way he could with achieving his dreams. it was the least he could do, after all. “sometimes you need to take that leap. even if you gotta be talked into it, like i was, you know? and at the end of the day, you’re always gonna regret it if you never try, at least.”
