#rowing au

Ian stares for too long when he's supposed to be changing for their outing. And startles when Peterson (who rows at stroke) calls him over to the ergs to warm up. 

The new guy is also the shortest in the room by a way, Ian guesses about 5'7". Which is maybe why Edwards--asshole that he is--says, "You the new cox?"

There's no way he actually thinks that. The guy isn't tall, but he's way too bulky to be a cox, even if he wasn't wearing rowing lycra. Edwards is just being a dick. 

New guy turns to him, eyebrows raised in threat, front teeth resting on his lower lip. It's threatening. Ian shouldn't be turned on by it. He's glad he's sat on the erg because the slide and pull of the rowing machine is probably the only thing that stops him from getting hard. 

“The only cock I see here is you,” new guy says. 

Edwards responds in kind, straightening up and squaring off. Peterson is on it immediately, standing between them with a warning hand on Edwards' chest.

“Settle down. Edwards, warm up.” The six-two hulk rolls his shoulders and backs away with a snarl. Peterson turns to the new guy. “Which of the new guys are you?”

“Milkovich. Mickey. Your new number 6.”

Fuck, Ian's going to be sat right behind this guy.

Peterson nods. “Edwards is a jerk,” he says, with a glare over his shoulder. “But try not to let him rile you. Warm up once Gallagher's done.”

Which reminds Ian that he's supposed to be warming up, rather than eavesdropping. 

He pushes through a final few strokes on the machine, then stands up, nodding to the new guy, Mickey, who sits on the rowing machine without hesitation. 

Ian tries not to watch. He does. But he checks the news guy's form... Straight back, good posture as he works through his arms, then back, half legs and full legs until he's rowing full strokes on the machine and it's kind of beautiful to watch. Muscles flex in his arms and shoulders and Ian hopes he never wears sleeves. 

The other new guy--a lanky six foot blond whose name Ian doesn't catch--arrives last, flustered, and warms up. Their new cox is there shortly afterwards.

She's not much shorter than Mickey, but slight and fine-boned. Strong cheekbones and long brown hair. Pretty, if you like that sort of thing. She has a Russian accent, but her commands are instantly understandable as she arrives and, without preamble or introduction, orders the crew out to get the boat. 

***

When they're on the water, the cox (who does eventually tell them her name is Svetlana) starts their warm up. Half the boat at a time. 

Ian's sat in the middle of the boat, tall and strong at number 5. Mickey's just in front of him, and Ian catches him in profile more than once, staring at the river bank when he's not actively rowing. But he's quick to pick up his blade and row when it's their turn, perfectly in time with Peterson and Thompson at stroke and 7. 

It's fucking distracting, is what it is. It's hard to pay attention to the feel of the oar in his hand when he's got a view of Mickey's back. 

A view he'd be more than willing to revisit under different circumstances. 

“Five! Feather your blade. Keep together.”

Ian clears his throat and glances through his rigging at the blade he's holding way too straight. It's only been three weeks since his last outing, and this is all muscle memory by now... He shouldn't need to think about it. But apparently something has fucked him up. Someone.

Someone by the name of Mickey Milkovich. 

***

He gets into a rhythm after a while. Overcomes his initial distraction. Rowing is like that. And even though Mickey and the lanky blond are new to this crew, they're obviously experienced rowers. It doesn't take them long to pull together. 

They do a push, down the widest part of the river, listening to shouted instructions from Svetlana (as well as various berating comments and the odd token of encouragement).

It’s familiar, that burn in the muscles. The breeze in his ears. It might be a different cox, but the shouted count is familiar. The sounds of the boat; the gentle swish of oars over the water as eight rowers roll forward on their slides, perfectly together. The clunk of the rigging as eight oars hit water at the same moment and push back again.

Ian’s still staring at the back of Mickey’s head, but it’s purposeful now. Keeping in time. Following his movements. He twists one way while Mickey twists the other, but when they push back it’s all in perfect unison.

“Hold it up!”

It’s a hard stop, oars pushing into the water, blades straight to stop the boat. They come to a stop and Ian looks up, breathing hard, adrenaline rushing through his blood as he wonders whether this was an unplanned stop or if Svetlana was just testing them.

He looks over his shoulder and sees the problem; there’s another boat turning on the river in front of them, novices probably, fucking up their turn and taking up the whole river while they do it. Then he sees why; a swan or a goose or something is pecking at their bow rower as the crew tries frantically to get away from it.

Ian can’t decide whether to laugh or not as he watches the hapless crew trying to push the swan gently away with their oars while it hounds them and hisses loud enough to be audible even at their distance.

“Fucking amateurs,” Mickey grunts, and his voice does something to Ian, rough at the edges in all the right ways. He glances back to the front to see Mickey’s also looking back, a look of mild scorn on his face.

“Deal with many angry swans?” he asks.

Mickey meets his eye, and Ian doesn’t know if he’d really given Ian a second look back in the boat house, but it’s clear he does now, blue eyes giving him an unmistakable once over.

Ian hasn’t spent a whole lot of time imagining his perfect man, but if he had he’s pretty sure he’d have come up with something pretty close to Mickey Milkovich.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m not really one to tangle with birds.”

Did he…? Was that…? Ian blinks in confusion until the situation on the river ahead seems to resolve itself and they’re starting up again. Mickey winks at him before turning to face back towards the stern.

Ian’s so distracted for a moment that he almost lets his oar sail clean over his head… because catching a crab is exactly what he needs. He holds it, though, just, pulling his blade up and resynchronising with the rest of the crew while his heart pounds in his chest for reasons that aren’t entirely related to the physical exertion of their previous push.

--------------------------------------------

So... I rowed a bit in uni, and I've had this idea in my head for ages. I have no rationale for how they got there, and I did zero research into rowing in Chicago, so all the terminology I've used is the stuff I was taught and I have no idea if it's different elsewhere (my uni tended to have its own stupid vocab for a lot of stuff). As are the locations I've imagined in my head. I did Google whether there are swans in Chicago, though.

I don't want to have to dump a glossary for a daft one shot, but I've no idea how well these come across, so:

Erg: nickname for rowing machines.

Cox (short for coxswain): crew member who sits at the stern and commands the crew and steers the rudder.

Catching a crab: when the rower loses their grip and the oar goes over their head. Sign of shitty rowing (yes I did this a lot, including once during a race 🙃).

Blade: another name for oar.

Feathering: twisting the blade parallel to the water when rolling forward.

Stroke: the rower at the stern by the cox who sets the pace for the others.

Bow: the front of the boat, or the rower at the front of the boat.

"Or at least eat less," Wilson Callaway said, altogether more reasonable as he took a sandwich and lightly kissed his daughter's cheek. "Thank you, dear."

She watched with hard-won satisfaction as the team of men dug into the dinner, chewing contentedly, and took a glance at the chalkboard, still blank. "You getting anywhere?" she asked lightly, removing her hands in the pockets of her sweater, an old varsity cardigan of her father's, so she might cross them against the evening chill in the upper floor of the boathouse.

"It's a tough field, like they always are." Harding turned to look from the board to the young woman surveying it with crossed arms, and something seemed to dawn in his blue eyes. "Who do you like, Miss Callaway? You've been out here all week, I'm sure you've got some thoughts."

The room seemed to freeze a moment. Cord paused, looking for a moment at her father to see if she really had permission to give her lowly opinion to the head coach while Red and Becker shifted visibly in their seats. "Now, Chick, what kind of a question is -"

"No, no, Red, I want her opinion. She's been watching teams long enough to have seen as many good boats as she has bad ones," Harding said with a serious look. "She'd be out there herself if I could put up a women's team. I trust her to give us an honest answer - not some nonsense about who looks cute." He looked back up at Cordelia. "Well?"

Cord looked at the board again, taking a breath and composing her thoughts and trying not to be deluged, as Coach had charged her, by the comments about who Phoebe and Mae and the rest had thought were cute. "Cleven's got to be one," she said, straight off. "Be a fool not to pick him, he works well with everyone. DeMarco, probably, and the - the tall one with the red hair. Kitt?"

"Kidd," Harding filled in with ease.

Cord nodded. "Him, yes, he's got focus." The faces she'd been watching all week were flickering in her mind like practice film, bits and starts from the beginnings of the punishing practices, and the ends. What her father and the others saw out on the river was already known to them, documented in pencil in their books and stopwatch takings. She had only the boys themselves and how they moved with their fellows. And that was important, too - a boy who was brash on shore might not be a team player when the boat was out, and one quiet and reserved might prove a better oarsman. "Blakely, maybe, although I'd put him up front rather than the engine."

"How do you like Egan?" Harding's gaze was direct and serious, a professional seeking advice from another professional.

"Egan?" She repeated the name in bald surprise. That was one of the boys that the girls on shore had liked an awful lot, but she wasn't sure he had a chance for the team. Had he been quick enough to take Harding's instructions as he had been to notice the watching girls? "He's…tall. And strong, I suppose." I know he likes to smile and make jokes - saw enough of that, too.

"Be a good pick for the stroke seat, I think," Harding said aloud. "Your father and I were talking about it earlier. Seems to work all right with most of them." He watched her carefully. "But you don't agree."

Cord tried her best to master her face and remember her manners. "He pulls well enough on his own, but he - he doesn't follow the cox. Doesn't seem to follow anyone at all," she added, and almost surprised herself with how bitter she sounded.

"He was helping the other boys in between sets - coaching them." Her father's advice was calm and collected. "You wouldn't have seen that, Cord. Put him at stroke, Neil. I think he'll surprise us. He wants what's best for them all. He'll follow when he knows he can respect what's being asked of him - what he knows will work." Her father smiled at her, somehow still pleased that his daughter had spoken with such authority. "I think we'll have that coffee now, Cord, and then you should go home. No sense in you staying up all night, too."

Eric looked out over the iridescent water. In the west was the sunset, and to the east the full moon was rising. There was a small party planned at his uncle’s lake house tonight, though for now Eric was content looking at the water from the deck.

He heard the door open, and glanced over to see his uncle walking out to stand with him.

“Are you feeling any better?” his uncle asked him. 

“I’m fine, really,” he insisted. “But I wish I knew who got me out of the water this weekend.”

“The coaches were pretty quick to search for you,” his uncle said. “I really think you might have just been a bit delirious with your head being hit.”

“I don’t think that’s it. It was… different.”

“I know, I know, you saw a young woman,” his uncle sighed.

Suddenly, Eric’s dog started barking.

“What is it, Max?” Eric said. “Woah! Wait!”

Max started running down the stairs at the side of the deck to the lake shore, and as quickly as he could, Eric followed him.

Walking along the shore was a young woman, dressed in some kind of canvas or burlap, but not a regular dress.

She ran over to him as soon as she saw him.

“Hello?” Eric asked. “Do you need help?”

She shook her head hesitantly.