SOTM: ScratchnMoney, Julius&Jared; the buddy system
For the prompt: Scouts POV of the Jared and Julius show after the trade. Are they in awe or terrified of their combined bitchiness? Or does Julius surprisingly show his softer side?
The moment they land in Vancouver, Little Caesar disappears. And Joey means disappears. He also means the ‘moment’ part: dude is first off the plane and by the time they reach the terminal there’s no Halla to be found.
“Buddy system!” Coach says. He’s been so strict since they lost Keebler for 16 hours. He was fine. Eventually. “Buddy system, Scouts! No man left behind!”
Joey reaches out blindly, and Scratch squeezes his hand.
“Buddy,” Joey says.
“Husbuddy,” Scratch agrees. “Don’t pout, Willy.”
“I don’t want to be your buddy anyway,” Willy blatantly lies. “Where’s Caesar?”
Joey looks around for his platinum blond head. He doesn’t find it. Not right away, and not after the Scouts have all obediently found their partners, and he goes to grab Coach before he can do his headcount in the bus and get disappointed in them again. Disappointing Coach is bad for team morale.
“We lost somebody,” Joey says.
Coach pinches his nose. “We literally just touched down. Is it Keebler? He really needs to pay attention to where he’s walking.”
“Little Caesar,” Joey says. Which is very unlike him! Maybe he got kidnapped.
“He hasn’t been kidnapped,” Coach says, waving Joey off. “He’s getting picked up by a family member. He got my okay.”
“But—“ Joey says. “The buddy system!”
“You not have a buddy, Money?” Coach asks. “There a marital spat I need to hear about? You guys need non-adjourning rooms?”
“No spitting here,” Joey says. “All buddied up, Coach.”
“Buddies for life, Coach!” Scratch pipes up beside him.
“Good men,” Coach says. “Off you go.”
“He cleared it with Coach,” Joey reports to Willy, who’s still craning his head around, muttering something no doubt uncomplimentary under his breath.
“Well,” Willy huffs. “Apparently I don’t have a buddy.”
“Would you like to be our triple buddy, Willy?” Scratch asks.
“No!” Willy says. “That’s not a thing!”
They start on their way.
“Wait for me!” Willy says, and trots to follow them.
“Triple buddies?” Joey says, holding his hand out.
“I’m not holding your hand,” Willy mutters, but he sticks close enough that he doesn’t need to.
*
Team breakfast, and Little Caesar isn’t there. Not against curfew or anything, apparently he told Coach. Lunch? Not a single Caesar to be found, except on the menu. And when they get on the bus to the arena, he’s sill missing.
Considering their next game is in Edmonton, AKA Little Caesar’s former territory, followed by a game in Calgary, which is where his in-laws are — and, if Joey remembers correctly, Erin was planning to fly in — Joey figures he’ll turn up eventually, but still.
The buddy system lasted all of one trip. One trip! Joey is disappointed but not surprised. At least he doesn’t have to worry about Little Caesar’s safety. He can fend for himself in the Canadian wilds.
*
Little Caesar pops up for the first time deep, deep in enemy territory. Like, so deep that Scratch and Joey shouldn’t actually be here, but they got confused looking for the hall that’s extra good for kicking around a soccer ball and went the wrong way, and then took directions from a Rogers Arena employee who was either also directionally challenged, or thought that fucking with them would be fun. The point is, they should not be here, and neither should Little Caesar. Erin’s brother is allowed, though. He’s the enemy after all. This is his territory. You can’t just tell people they can’t be on their own territory, that’s rude.
“Little Caesar, you live!” Joey says.
“I live,” Little Caesar says, so flat he may as well be dead. “Why are you here.”
“And Erin’s brother!” Joey says.
Erin’s brother gets all puffed up. “I have a name.”
Joey would assume so, and also assumes he’s been told it before, but if so, he does not remember it. Wait, he does! “Matheson!”
Which is really just ‘Erin’s brother’ all over again, considering that is also her name, but maybe he’ll take it less poorly.
Matheson tilts his head, and Joey swears it’s like looking at Erin. Without the expression you could still pretty easily tell they were related, but with it? Full on ‘I bet this makes Little Caesar extremely uncomfortable whenever he thinks about it too hard’ resemblance, like Scratch gets when Casey and Joey laugh the same.
“Has anyone told you—“ Joey starts, and Little Caesar sends him a look that’s half cutting and half desperate plea to shut up.
“—you look uncannily like your sister?” Joey finishes, because never let it be said that he can take a hint.
Matheson suddenly looks extremely pissy.
“Hey, that’s the face Erin made when I beat her at darts!” Scratch says. “Right before she said things that hurt my feelings.”
He gives Joey a look, and this one Joey listens to.
They flee before another Matheson can hurt them.
*
“Why are they running,” Jared says.
Julius shrugs.
“Why do your married teammates have to be the weird ones?” Jared asks. It’s not exactly like he was going to go ‘hey, you guys also married a dude, let’s be friends’, because he is full up in the friend department, but still.
“They’re all weird,” Julius says.
“Has Erin been terrorizing your teammates?” Jared asks.
Julius’ mouth tips up. “She does not like to lose,” he says.
“Well, obviously,” Jared says. That’s a universal Matheson trait, and the reason they’ve never believed in family game night. Dad’s the worst, but he has a lot of competition. “Are they still running?”
Julius squints down the hall. “Yes,” he says.
“So weird,” Jared says under his breath, and Julius gives him a look of silent suffering in response.
“Are they going in the right direction?” Julius asks.
“Nope,” Jared says.
Julius mutters something under his breath. All Jared catches is ‘coach’ and ‘furious’.
*
“You know,” Coach says, when it’s seven minutes until they have to take the ice for warmups, and ScratchnMoney are nowhere to be found. “I really thought the buddy system was going to prevent these situations. Does that make me naive? Am I naive, boys?”
“You may have been slightly optimistic,” Tate says. “But it’s not bad to be an optimist.”
Coach sighs. “Isn’t it, Willy?” he asks. “Isn’t it?”
“We got lost!” Money says, bursting into the room with five minutes to go. “We got so lost, and we never got found, and there is no reception! No reception in the tunnels! Which is a crime.”
“A crime!” Scratch chimes in as he trots in after Money. “Definitely psychological warfare! And the staff colluded! We should report them!”
Coach looks at Tate. Tate looks back.
“You deal with them,” Coach says tiredly, then retreats back to the glorified closet that’s designated as the office for visiting team coaches.
“And you!” Money says, pointing at Little Caesar. “How did you get here!”
“I followed the signs,” Little Caesar says blandly.
“You followed the enemy, that’s what you followed!” Scratch says.
“Multitask getting dressed and assigning blame,” Tate says. He knows better than to ban assigning blame entirely. They’ll just say he let down his triple buddies or something.
“And who was supposed to be our triple buddy, huh?” Money says, turning on him as expected, but he’s yanking at his shirt and kicking his shoes off as he does so, so Tate decides to consider himself lucky. Not too lucky, but lucky enough.
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