carry me home [ongoing]

hopeless

"He's not ready. Why did the coaches decide to pick him up?"

Aces shrugged uselessly, and Atlas buried his face in his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He may be talented, but we have talent already. We need someone that can work with the team. We need that missing piece, and Halo-"

"Isn't even from the same puzzle."

"He's too used to hard carrying his teams in ranked. He ults when the fight is already lost, he even argues we still had a chance. He's trying to prove something, but the only thing he's proving is he isn't ready."

"So talk to him." There was a short silence while Aces took a long sip from his coffee mug, and Atlas waited for him to admit what a ridiculous idea that was.

"Yeah." The support player scoffed, resting his chin on his hand and smiling sardonically. "Me. Talk some sense into him... 'hey bro, I know you just got picked up by the biggest team in the league and your ego is like, majorly massive right now, but can you pause for a second and realize this isn't a single player game?'"

"We aren't the biggest team in the league anymore." Aces was looking down and spoke quietly, as if he was afraid of the reaction that would come next.

Atlas didn't respond immediately, feeling his face get hot before muttering, "Yeah, I know. Whatever. I'll try to talk to him."

"It's late enough in the season for pick ups, let alone dropping a player and replacing them with a new one. He's our only shot. And you're our only shot to make it work with him."

And what if I can't? Atlas wanted to say, but he didn't have the option. His team was counting on him. And he couldn't let them down.