Requiem [COMPLETED]

Pretending Everything is "Fine"

            The kids slouched onto the field for morning practice before school. Coach had a giant brewing carafe set up next to the water coolers.

"Okay, kids," he began, his loud voice carrying on the breeze, "Safety talk first." Kids moped, ready for the lecture, barely half awake at 6:30 in the morning. Coach chuckled then. "Just kidding, coffee first! Safety's like 3rd or 4th. No one do stupid shit and die or you'll ruin it for the rest of us."

Sighs of relief rippled through the loose assembly and they merged around the coffee carafes set up on a folding table. Most of them were farm kids who'd started drinking coffee in elementary school, as soon as they were tall enough to peer over the steering wheel of a tractor and drive in straight lines for hours.

"You should have to PAY to be outside on a day like today," Coach yelled, earning groans from the students who'd heard it for years playing football. "Start laps in 5, kiddos!"

"Question of the week," John announced in an old lady's voice, coming up behind Seamus and I. "What is one of your favorite childhood memories?" He sounded a bit like Julia Child. It was a bonding game they'd done for the last year; I obviously loved it and took it seriously, and perhaps out of humoring me, or actually also loving it themselves, what started out as a sarcastic satire of 'girls bonding' on a football trip had turned into a regular thing. Honestly, it seemed like Seamus and John enjoyed it too, though they were too worried about looking tough to admit it.

I thought over it for a long time. "One of them is definitely when I'd fall asleep on the couch as a little kid, like, so young I wasn't in school yet, and the next morning I'd wake up in bed. I totally thought I could teleport for awhile."

Seamus grinned. "Okay, that would be legit awesome."

John went next, in his regular voice. "Going to the family lake cabin. It was actually like my grandma's sister's place or something but we'd go for a week every summer. When she passed away her kids took it over and we never get invited anymore."

"I think one of mine is the first day of kindergarten," Seamus said seriously.

"Really? Did you go to a different school then?" John asked.

Seamus punched him and continued quietly. "I was having a hell of a summer, man, and then that first day I met you and Sven...and you guys...you both had—had marks too," he ended almost muttering to his cleats. I was startled by him actually referencing that, but neither of us pretended we didn't know what he meant. "And it was like, we just looked at each other and understood. And that was it, I had my peeps, you know? I went to school kinda scared about life and then scared of this school stuff and then by the end of the day we were the three musketeers. And I just knew stuff was gonna be okay."

I slung an arm around his neck. It wasn't often that one of them shared something like that, but we never teased each other about it. That was part of the magic, instinctively feeling where the landmines were hidden and not trodding on each other's vulnerabilities. "I think that's the first time you've admitted you don't hate me," I said mildly, and hugged him with one arm briefly and let go.

"Well don't get used to it. I don't like feelings," Seamus huffed, speaking more loudly again.

"Yeah, we know," John replied dryly. "Bro love, no homo."

"No homo, bro," Seamus repeated, smacking John's chest with his helmet. "We all know who the big softie is."

"I am secure in my masculinity," John said with over-empathized dignity.