Harbinger Of Glory

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

He might have ignored it had it stopped after the first three, but the banging got incessant and annoying.

With no other option, Leo surfaced from sleep and for a moment, he just lay there, blinking at the ceiling stain like it might explain what was happening.

The banging outside, though, continued.

”Bloody hell,” he muttered, and then something less printable after it, pushing himself upright with the energy of a man twice his age and half his motivation.

The tracksuit had creased in new and creative ways overnight, and his mouth tasted like someone had carpeted it while he was unconscious.

He reached for his phone, and then the numbers that greeted him when he turned it on.

8:04.

He looked at the numbers for a moment before rolling his eyes a bit.

”Doesn’t feel like it,” he said to no one, and set it back down.

The banging came again as he got to his feet.

And the moment he did, the hamstring announced itself with a dull throb, indicating the stress it had been put through, but after a few steps, it disappeared as quickly as it had happened.

”Huh?” Leo sighed questioningly as he dragged himself to the door, where he immediately heard two familiar voices on the other side.

He opened the door, and with his usual haughtiness, Jake came in first, because Jake always came in first regardless of whether he had been invited, and he was already talking before he had fully cleared the frame.

”Do you actually want to play that badly?” he said, turning to face Leo with an expression that sat somewhere between genuine concern and an exasperation that only close friends are licensed to deploy.

Leo looked at him.

Then he looked at Ezra, who had already moved past both of them and was heading directly for the tabletop fridge in the corner.

”What is it this morning?” Leo said, bringing his attention back to Jake and pressing the heel of his palm into his eye socket, trying to rub the sleep out from somewhere behind it.

Ezra had the fridge open, was already scanning its contents with the focus of a man on a mission, when he turned his head back toward Leo without fully turning his body.

”There’s an article,” he said simply.

”It dropped this morning, and it was talking about the hamstring that you played with yesterday, even though it is still bad.”

He paused, locating whatever he’d been looking for in the fridge before continuing.

”There’s a section of fans going at it online. Saying Wigan shouldn’t be doing this. Questioning Dawson and why he allowed it since there was no way he didn’t know.”

Leo stood with his hand still half covering his face, while Jake picked up from there immediately.

”Do you want to ruin your career?” he said as Leo dropped his hand back to his sides.

He looked at Jake for a moment, then across at Ezra, then vaguely at the middle distance between all three of them where the answer was presumably floating.

”There are five games left,” he said, his voice still carrying the rough edges of someone who had been asleep some 7 minutes ago.

”Six, maybe, if we somehow get past United in the semi.” He moved toward the bed and sat on the edge of it.

”Wigan needs everything it can get right now.”

Jake’s expression didn’t shift.

”And you’re that? Even if it means destroying your leg to do it?”

Leo shrugged, and the shrug was so immediate and so unbothered that it almost looked rehearsed.

”It’s not that serious,” he said.

But even as he said that, he knew it could be.

He knew it in the same part of him that had heard every word Navarro said and had filed them somewhere he wasn’t currently prepared to open.

But the other part, the part that had watched the table tighten over his absence— that part had voted first, and it had voted loudly.

Jake looked at him for another moment.

Then he exhaled, long and slow, and shook his head with the quiet resignation of someone who had arrived with a full argument and discovered there was nobody home to receive it.

He dropped onto the small sofa near the window and said nothing further while Ezra the fridge clicked shut as he also settled down in the same chair.

...

The session had been running for thirty minutes by the time the 11 o’clock start properly found its rhythm.

They normally had late sessions after games, but with the games coming at them fast, there was no other option to get their game sharpness up to speed before they rested.

”Higher, Thelo, you’re too deep, push up!” one of the positional coaches barked from the sideline, clapping twice to punctuate it, and in reaction to that, the shape adjusted.

”Again! Again, don’t stop when you win it, move!”

On the far side, a small collection of supporters had gathered beyond the fencing, some in scarves, some just in jackets, watching through the gaps with varying degrees of patience.

A few had their phones out while most were just watching.

Their moods, if you stood among them long enough, were not entirely uniform.

Nolan drifted up beside Dawson, both of them standing with their arms folded at the edge of the pitch, watching the session with the concentration of men reading something written in a language they had spent years learning.

”I’ll say it,” Nolan muttered, not looking at him. ”I was right to have him sit this one out.”

On the pitch, someone overhit a pass, and one of the coaches let them know about it without delay.

”Weight of the pass, weight of the pass, think!”

Dawson said nothing for a moment and just watched, alternating his gaze between the session and the crowd behind the fence.

Then, without particular urgency or defensiveness, like a man stating something he had already made his peace with: ”We can’t start cowering now.”

Nolan glanced at him, wanting to hear what the former wanted to say.

”It’s make or break,” Dawson said as he unfolded his arms briefly, then refolded them. ”We’re going to need all the help we can get, especially in this next game.”