#bryce.

You can't hide in here forever, Wymack said to him, after a week or so of Bryce staying his apartment and doing just that. Watch me, he'd said, knowing it was a done deal even then and so, here he is, in a gym surrounded by Foxes on a Tuesday morning like he never fucking left.

If he hadn't left, if he'd stayed, he'd be getting ready to play for a spot in the Championships. Instead, he's sitting on the sidelines, haunting the team he used to be the fucking Captain of, waiting to see if the lawyers that Wymack hooked him up with can strike a deal to keep him out of fucking prison. Keeping his fingers crossed that they'll send his brother there instead.

Although, who knows—maybe, if he had stayed, the Foxes wouldn't have this shot at all. Maybe he'd have kept running the team right into the fucking ground. The fucking butterfly effect, or whatever.

He listens to Wymack, with one notable exception. Figures that, after however many years of picking up lost causes just like Bryce he knows what he's doing, what he's about. But if Wymack made Bryce Captain and he sucked at it, then which of them fucked it up worse? He's stared at the back of Wymack's head for days now, wanting to ask—What did you see in me? You must be kicking yourself now, huh?—but he hasn't been brave enough yet.

But brave is what he needs to be now, walking into a gym full of Foxes he left behind. He's never been big on apologies, and he isn't about to start now. Not when it feels like he'd never be able to fucking stop if he started, like he'd just have to bleed and bleed until there was nothing left. Easier not to, even if it doesn't make him very many friends. Never back down, never explain.

"Need a spot?" He asks, keeping his tone level, his face blank. Like it's just another day in the weight room.

He isn't about to ask for the reverse. That seemed like a surefire way to end up with a barbell to the neck. Though that'd solve a few of his problems, at least.

Sitting in the stands, he's not sure what outcome he was hoping for. Oh, he knows the right answer, knows it's something like: the Foxes will always be my team, and I'm rooting for them to succeed. But that feels like saccharine bullshit, the kind of media-ready soundbite he was never good enough at saying even when the Foxes really were his team.

Now they're not, and watching them win their way into the Championships without him feels like shit, actually. Being closer to Exy than he's been since he gave this all up and ran back to Florida only to end up more fucked than he's ever been in his life feels like shit, actually.

No one invited him to Eden's, technically, after the game, and he's not sure if that means his invite was implied or if he's crashing a party that no one wants him to be at. But it doesn't matter, because Eden's is where he wants to be after watching the game for one very simple reason: they have alcohol, and he wants it.

So he's drunker than he should be by the time the fists start flying and the cops show up, but it doesn't take him long to get with the program. And, when he does, he knows he has to get the fuck out. That there's no way he can let the cops pick him up at a bar brawl in South Carolina when he's only here because Wymack convinced the court in Florida that he'd be on his best fucking behavior while they sort things out, going to school and Exy practice for a team he isn't even fucking on like a good boy that shouldn't go to prison even if he did get caught running away from the scene of a crime with a fucking gun.

So he knows what he has to do which, incidentally, is the thing he tried to do before: he runs. But he doesn't fucking trip anybody, just grabs the sleeve of the Fox closest to him and drags them both down a back hallway and out a side door, keeps fucking moving until they're a few buildings down and it's clear that no one's chasing them.

"Fuck," he says, raking his hands through his shorn-short hair and then bending over double with his hands on his thighs to brace himself, breathing hard less from the exertion of running away and more with something that feels like panic. "That was close."

after years of practice she knew exactly how long it took bryce to get from his house to hers. she had it down to a SCIENCE. she waited in her room for a few minutes before making her way down the stairs. once she saw him walking up the sidewalk she grinned. “hi bub,” she chirped after opening the door. her arms reached up to wrap around his neck as she pulled herself closer to him.

elodie had spent the entire day and the night before with bryce at the hospital. well, she had spent that entire time with an asleep bryce. she wasn’t sure if it was still the sedatives or if it was just his migraine. elodie laid with her head rested on his chest, she cold feel his chest move up and down as he breathed. she had one arm wrapped around his torso and her eyes were shut. she didn’t know if he’d wake up anytime soon but she was content to just lie with him for hours, as long as he knew she was there and wasn’t going anywhere.