#coach thomas

tws: abuse, scar mention, the US legal system being garbage

Joan, as both a rationalist and one of the few owners of the Aces Brain Cells, recognizes that, realistically, there is little that either they or Coach Thomas can do about Logan’s parents at this particular moment

this isn’t to say that they are complaisant, because they’re not. they’re furious, actually -- at Logan’s parents. at  Logan’s old coach. at themselves -- but Logan is an adult, which makes any sort of legal action tricky to pursue. CPS won’t be willing or able to do anything now that Logan is 18, APS will likely turn down any potential case given the fact that Logan doesn’t fit the qualifications for a “vulnerable adult” under their standards, and although the statute of limitations for Minnesota would allow for Logan to take his parents to court if he truly desired to do so, two major issues keep Joan from truly entertaining this option: 1) the (presumed) lack of physical evidence that abuse occurred, and 2) Logan’s reluctance to disclose any information about his past. 

Joan doesn’t know about the scars, after all, and although Logan said a number of incriminating things over the two weeks immediately following his concussion, he would need to be willing to talk about them at length while entirely conscious and coherent for there to be a chance of the court taking him seriously. even then, abuse cases are hard; Joan has no doubts that Logan was abused -- and admitting it to themselves hurts, it hurts more than they ever thought it would -- but it would be Logan’s words against his father’s, and from what Joan has learned, these sort of cases don’t tend to end with justice being served.

in other words, although Joan wants nothing more than to learn more about Logan’s past so that they can more effectively deal with his parents, they concede that it’s a lost cause at this time. forcing Logan to talk about it -- especially when he’s still suffering so heavily from PCS symptoms -- would only serve to needlessly stress him out, setting back his recovery, and it isn’t as though Joan needs any concrete details to handle Logan more cautiously moving forward anyhow. they know that Logan was abused, and although they desperately want to find a way to make his parents pay, they’re ultimately willing to shelf the problem so that it can be readdressed later, when Logan isn’t actively struggling with post-concussion complications.

tldr; Joan’s priority is taking care of the current issue at hand -- Logan’s concussion. until Logan recovers from that, they contend that the issue with his parents is better left alone. 

Coach Thomas, on the other hand, refuses to accept that point of view. while he knows that Joan wants what’s best for Logan, Joan doesn’t get it. PCS is unpredictable. the worst of it can last 6 months, or it can last forever, and they only have a two year time frame before Logan's out of college. moreover, the old trauma is intimately connected to the new trauma; Logan’s feelings about his parents will effect his recovery from PCS, just as his feelings for his teammates will. his fear/love/hatred/what-have-you -- it’s important for Thomas and Joan to fully understand them so that they can avoid setting Logan back on his pathway to recovery. that said, Thomas believes it’s imperative that they learn some details about Logan’s parents and address those problems now so that Logan’s recovery can go as smoothly as possible.

(and if Thomas happens to unearth enough to get Logan’s parents incarcerated? well, he won’t exactly complain)

tldr; Thomas’s priority is also taking care of the issue at hand, but he can see no way of doing so without having more explicit details about the trauma that Logan is dealing with. furthermore, if Logan’s parents are still a source of fear for him, Thomas contends that it’s better that they do everything in their power to get them far, far away from him by any possible means

---

it’s worth noting that, although the decisions that both Joan and Thomas make regarding Logan’s parents are all founded off of the desire to help Logan, there are some selfish underpinnings to each side as well. Joan, for instance, does genuinely want to avoid triggering Logan by bringing up his past while he’s so emotionally volatile; however, they themselves are trying to avoid the topic because it hurts them to think about how many signs that they missed. along a similar vein, Thomas does genuinely want to know what Logan’s parents have done so that he can avoid being anything like them; however, he also has a habit of pushing harder than strictly necessary if only to soothe his own fears, unintentionally hurting Logan in the process 

neither approach is entirely right or wrong. Joan, as the authority figure that Logan trusts the most, should probably do more to unearth the mystery of Logan’s upbringing, especially because they could do so with more subtlety than Coach Thomas. Coach Thomas, on the other hand, should learn how to better read Logan and more carefully consider his actions so that he doesn’t end up needlessly upsetting his starting goaltender while trying to help

tws: medication mention, panic attack mention, allusions to abuse

so Thomas wakes Logan up by slamming his own foot against the kitchen table, hobbles across the living room to flop down in the general vicinity of the couch, and then he settles in for what begins as one of the most one-sided conversations that he has ever had in his life

Thomas starts, for some reason, by offering Logan the cold McGriddles. he doesn’t know why he does this, because the McGriddles are -- as Thomas has already established -- Very Cold. 

Logan doesn’t respond to this offer -- which is reasonable, Thomas thinks, because the McGriddles are are cold, why would he want something cold, what was Thomas thinking? -- and so Thomas offers to warm them up next, throwing in an ill-timed joke about the dangers of his own cooking because he figures that a little brevity would go a long way in easing his player into this conversation and also because he is an anxious little man who doesn’t have an off switch

Logan doesn’t laugh at the joke, which is fair. it wasn’t a very good joke, probably more sad than anything else, and so Thomas is left in silence once again, scrambling for the right words to say. 

Logan continues to stare, and his eyes are dark and dead and exhausted. much too exhausted, Thomas thinks, for someone so young. (much too exhausted, Thomas thinks, for someone he was supposed to have been looking out for)

and Thomas doesn’t know what to do to fix it, which is the kicker. he doesn’t know what he can say to make anything that Logan has gone through -- anything that Logan will go through over the next few months -- any less devastating.

at the very least, though, he can address the scholarship

Thomas sets down the bag of McDonald’s, slides it across the table in a last-ditch effort to get Logan to eat. he takes a moment to compose himself, draws in a careful breath, and he speaks

“so,” he says “your scholarship?”

then, a sequence of events: Thomas tells Logan about Virgil’s texts, offhandedly noting how Logan’s fists bury themselves into the blanket pooling at his lap. Thomas jumps to reassure him that the scholarship is still his, of course it’s still his, (Thomas should have started with that, that was on him, really, just like it always is) --  

and Logan looks him right in the eyes before asking, in the smallest voice that Thomas has ever heard, a question that completely pauses every single thought that Thomas has running through his head

“why?” Logan asks.

and... okay. Thomas is officially lost.

---

so Logan asks why the scholarship that he has worked for all semester is his after he sustained a season-ending injury playing for this team, and Thomas finds himself -- not for the first time -- at a complete loss for words

“because it’s… because it’s yours?” Thomas tries, and he can sense, instantly, that this isn’t the right response. “because it belongs to you?”

Logan shakes his head, clearly unsettled, but before Thomas can ask what on earth is happening right here, right now in this conversation, Logan is saying something about Joan

and okay. yes. this makes sense. Thomas can work with this.

“they’ve been fighting with administration about it for the last two weeks,” Thomas says, because it’s the truth. and, in retrospect, that was probably when they should have reached out to Logan and made sure that the goaltender knew about the whole scholarship situation. again, Thomas’s Bad on that one.

and that should be the end of that. Thomas has told Logan that the scholarship is still his, and he has further reassured him that someone competent is on the case. conversation complete, right? 

except Logan keeps going

he says something about a contract -- about the months he was supposed to play, the months that he actually did -- and his voice is every bit as tired as he looks. Thomas doesn’t understand any of it, doesn’t understand why Logan seems to think that this is an issue. and he considers waving it off, considers reiterating that the scholarship is Logan’s and that Logan can leave the details up to the coaching staff, but he can’t leave it like this. he doesn’t want to leave it like this.

so “i don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” Thomas admits, and Logan teems with something before him -- overflows with some emotion that Thomas has no idea how to name

“i didn’t carry out my contract,” he says, and it could be frustration or it could be desperation or it could be nothing at all. “by university standards, i don’t deserve this scholarship.”

and Thomas still isn’t sure if this is the entirety of the problem, but at least he knows what to say

“before you came to this university,” he starts, “the longest win streak this university had ever seen was five games long...”

he lays out some stats, some facts and figures that he had prepared in case the university had tried t revoke the scholarship for some stupid reason or another. he isn’t entirely sure on the numbers, but Logan seems to follow, doesn’t protest as Thomas tells him that the team record has improved, attendance has gone up. Logan’s made this team money -- has he seen how many jerseys that there are with his name in the crowd -- and even if he’s going to miss the last few months on an injury, that isn’t anything new

“Richardson has played a grand total of two games since you joined the team, and he still has his scholarship,” Thomas says. “Roman was off for two months for his dislocated knee, and he still has his, too. why would this situation be any different?”

“it should be different,” Logan replies, “because when i got injured, it effectively undid any and all progress for the team.”

and... oh. there it is.

Logan blames himself. he... blames himself? he -- he blames himself , and that’s wrong, that’s one of the most irrational things that Thomas has ever heard, because yes, the team is actively falling apart, and yes, a lot of the conflict revolved around what Logan’s concussion means for the future, but that isn’t Logan’s responsibility. the team’s self-destruction isn’t his responsibility. 

“they’ve played without you before,” Thomas points out, because they have. the fact that they can’t at the moment is their own fault, is Thomas’s fault, not Logan’s. it’s important that Logan understands this, but Thomas can’t afford to get too emotional on him right now, not when he’s fresh off of a migraine, not when he’s fresh off of a panic attack in Thomas’s living room (one that Thomas himself caused). “and if they need to, they can play without you again. you don’t have to worry about that.”

“i... i see,” Logan says. he thanks Thomas for the reassurance. says that he will be taking his leave now, “if that’s all there is to discuss.”

except it isn’t. Thomas really, really wishes it were, but it isn’t. there’s still so much to ask, so much to work out, and Thomas is riding the high of the first successful conversation, won’t make the mistake of waiting too long before addressing the next issue like he did the scholarship

so “that isn’t all I wanted to talk about,” he admits. “actually, there’s...” -- a few, a dozen, maybe a few hundred -- “...there’s one more thing.”

Logan settles back down, which is -- it’s good. it’s great. he’s still willing to talk, and that’s fantastic. 

but it would be so, so much better if Thomas actually knew what he wanted that ‘One More Thing’ to be

---

Logan -- rather unexpectedly -- agrees to another conversation, and Thomas mentally speedruns the five stages of grief as he realizes that he has no idea where to go from here

after all, he spent a good chunk of his night planning for the conversation about the scholarship, and even that went awry. now he’s expecting to just blindly waltz into the next topic and NOT make an absolute mess out of everything? who does he think he is? why did he think that this was a good idea? (Who, Exactly, Let Him Be In Charge Here?)

he considers calling it all off, but Logan is staring at him again, as patient and tired as ever, and the thought of missing this rare opportunity to actually communicate with his player makes every part of Thomas want to scream, so he resolves to see it through and runs through his list of options instead

he thinks about  Logan’s parents. thinks about how he’s Logan’s emergency contact. he thinks, briefly, about the panic attack from yesterday, and it’s too raw, too soon, too much

he thinks about asking about Logan’s past, thinks about Logan’s eyes (dark and dead and exhausted), and he knows that it’s not the time for that

“so, logan,” he says, going for casual even as his mind reels. “how’re the treatments going for the post-concussion syndrome?” 

and, alright. he can make this work.

---

they talk about treatments. Logan mentions therapy. Thomas remembers, suddenly, that there were two bottles in Logan’s backpack, and he tries not to sound too desperate as he asks where the anti-depressants came from, was that a concussion thing, or...

they’re from before the concussion. Logan’s had them since Freshman year. Thomas didn’t know, how didn’t he know, he should have -- shit. he’s talking out loud.

he tries to think about literally anything else, and he ends up asking about Logan’s summer. what’s the plan there? what’s he going to do?  

“i don’t know,” Logan admits. “i’m sure – i’m sure that’s something i can discuss with my dean the next time i see him, or the therapist herself. they wouldn’t – the university surely has some sort of precedent for this sort of situation.”

Logan grows agitated -- restless -- and Thomas realizes, at once, that he has made a mistake 

“i don’t know what i’m going to do,” Logan repeats, but the words come out shakier this time. his voice warbles. “what – God, what can i do?”

and Thomas shouldn’t do this. really, he shouldn’t, because he hasn’t worked out the logistics, and he hasn’t talked to Joan, and he doesn’t know what his legal options will be if it all goes horribly wrong. but he can’t let Logan keep spiraling like this. he won’t be responsible for another panic attack. he’s going to fix this.

“you could stay here, at the apartment,” Thomas says. “i have a guest room, and i – i know people that could help you.”

…and, oh. oh, this is bad. he should not have done this.

—

Thomas offers his home up far before he’s actually had a chance to work out a plan, and Logan spends the next few minutes resolutely looking anywhere that he can except for at Thomas himself

Logan stares at the coffee bar. at the artwork on the wall. at his own hands, and that ugly, terrible vase.

Thomas hopes that it will be enough to get him to speak -- no one else on the team can resist working a quick dig in about it -- but Logan has never said anything about the vase before, and he carries on that record today, ignoring it in favor of letting his gaze wonder to the empty hallway.

Thomas doesn’t know what Logan’s thinking, and it scares him. (the last thing that he wanted to do was push Logan too far -- did he do it anyway?)

“Logan?” Thomas asks

and Logan finally speaks.

“…i’ll think about it,” he says.

he packs up his things. thanks Thomas again. he does not ask if there is anything else to talk about, which is probably for the best.