Work Text:
Head down, eyes straight ahead. Gordy weaves through the crowd, threading between friends and strangers alike, all obstacles to his goal of solitude. You don't change a pattern that has worked for three years - no, your whole life really - no matter how big the chaos around you gets.
Brougham's there, making his periodic check-in, but there are other writers too, campus press reps, students, and a mix of onlookers that are drawn in, more every week, just by the curiosity of a crowd that looks like it might mean something. And that's on top of the dozens of crew members threading between each other, raucously comparing notes from the end of day races.
All these eyes on him makes the sport less alluring, not more. Fortunately, when you're hidden in the middle of a fast-moving, 60 plus feet frame filled with eight other men, finding camouflage is possible and definitely the best coping mechanism he has. It's not like he's gonna give this up now. Who would quit the best thing they have going for them?
Besides, it's even easier to hide when they are on land because, after both wins and losses, someone else is always ready to talk. Joe, Chuck, and Shorty get especially verbose from victory, while diplomatic declarations easily fall off Jim and Don's tongues after defeat. Of course, Bobby has words to offer in every scenario, plenty to opine on not just after the big races, but the routine all-boats sprint on Friday afternoons.
The crowd sure seems more prevalent lately, days edging closer to their trip south, then east, then... well, no need to get ahead of themselves.
Gordy keeps on walking, the spill of people thinning out as soon as he passes through the wide shell house door. The cave-like locker room swallows him, and he greets it with a slow, easy exhale.
It feels good - really good. A counterweight to everything - the darkness after the race in spring light, the solitude after pushing in sync with seven whole other people, going harder, faster and now slowing down to a full stop, resting on a solid bench in a still room.
The aches in his muscles are precise in a way that is more than familiar, something like validation. The layers of training, of months of work, of learning the minds and bodies of the boys around him day in and day out - it all presses together to make this. The exact pieces of each practice and each skill, clicking into place in a way that pulls Gordy into himself with every stroke.
His routine is firm, especially at the end of the week. Post practice time means a hot shower (he usually forgoes these to help keep his washing up time short), a pot of coffee or tea, and tucking himself in bed under his quilt of choice.
He has a lavish collection of them, at least it feels that way when you're in a house of boys who have one thin pillow each and are used to wearing a couple layers to sleep in to manage the coldest winter nights. But to Gordy, the quilts aren't to preserve warmth. They are more like signposts.
There's his first one, made of mostly straight squares and stitched edges. Even with his grandmother guiding every step, it seemed so complex at the time. The years to come illuminated how gentle of a start it really was. But he doesn't despise a simple beginning; there's no other way to get on when you think about it. He is still especially fond of that first pattern, blues and whites, crisp in their contrast and comforting in their familiarity. He couldn't part with it, so it traveled to Seattle with him, folded now at the foot of his bed.
Then there was the Y block pattern, the second quilt he made. He was told to come up with the whole design, colors and shapes both. It took a few years, mostly just for grandmother to set aside and save up the right colors and enough fabric to make the whole thing. Certain things stuck in his mind forever after that - how squares and triangles are kind of alike, building blocks to the same idea, that pieces like space and measurements and building can braid together to create something new. The colors in that quilt are his mama's favorite. It stayed at home, draping across his parents every night since he left them alone to themselves in their rough-hewn and merciful house.
His first year of high school, he was proudly told he was ready, good enough to make a Dresden quilt. The way her eyes were failing, he did most of the work on his own. Work and athletics took up so much time that he'd get home after dark most nights, making for another long, slow project. The work was his company through most winters of his high school years. Graduation passed but with more courses needed to go on to college, he promised he'd finish both courses and the quilt. Both could be done in the year to come.
It was March when he came to the last step, binding raw edges but without someone to check the stitches, tracing with cold knobby fingers. He finished, but that quilt has never felt complete.
When he gets to his room, he wraps himself in it anyways.