It's Like Running Away

"Hayes!"

Dodge was running.

The track was 400 meters long, and he didn't know how many times he'd been around it today. He'd watched the other team members drop like flies shortly after they finished their requirement for practice: Stevie first, as usual, not exhausted but simply bored; then, the boys who did pole vault slowly dropped away; finally, he was the only one left running long, lazy circles. It was easier out here, with the wind whipping around him, to think clearly. He had just begun to think about his sister, Moira, when the faint noises he'd been hearing grew louder.

"ARE YOU DEAF, HAYES?"

Slowing to a stop, Dodge looked around to find that he had come back to the near side of the track. The General looked a bit overworked and his left eyebrow angled up towards his hairline. "No sir," he managed to breathe, the run finally catching up with him. He leaned over to rest his hands on his knees while his coach addressed him.

"Good. I'd hate to find out you could no longer hear the starting gun. Now, if you'd been here five minutes ago when I started calling you, then I'd be able to introduce you to your new team member. As it is, he's now retreated into the locker room."

"New teammate, sir?" Dodge asked, drawing back up to full height. Posture was one of those things he controlled without noticing now, after so many years of training. "You mean the guy taking Reeve's spot on the 100?" He didn't actually know who the boy was, but since Reeve had dropped track for football, he knew that there was a replacement.

The General nodded. "Hartland. Fifth year. I'm not used to putting the older ones on the sprint, but he's new and I don't want him worrying about hurdles. Point is, he's got raw talent but no training. I'm assigning you to help him out a bit. Posture, energy conservation, beginner stuff." He was distracted now, dragging his pen down the clipboard he carried everywhere during practice. "So get on that." He was lost in his notes now, not intereste in hearing any of the protests Dodge might have had. He knew that Dodge had way too much going on for any of this, with the scholarship evaluations he had coming up, not to mention his rogue sister. The General refused to be disputed, and Dodge knew it would be useless.

There was no steam coming from the locker room, so Dodge entered without signaling his presence. He'd gotten used to some of the guys being uncomfortable in the showers with him, so he'd gladly begun to announce himself on the way in. There was no one under the showerheads, though; only a guy his age sitting on the bench in the middle of the locker room, unlacing his racing flats. The first thing that passed through his mind was that he didn't recognize the boy; the second was that he was undeniably cute. A smile crossed his face and he cleared his throat. "Hartland?"

Aiden wondered to himself again why he had chosen to even bother with trying out for track. He wasn't athletic in any way -or at least he didn't think he was, apparently other people thought different- and the seasons would just about murder his allergies. But he had tried and he had succeeded. He had tried his hand out at running just for the heck of it, and now he was part of the school's athletes. Just what he wanted his last year of school. Ai had always just been so good at blending in to the background, never drawing attention to himself, and now he was part of something. It sort of upset him, but it was his only fault he decided for even trying.

He had spent just a little time at running, to see how he would do while other people worked around him. After a rather short while though, he decided he would rather not make a fool of himself and retreated away to the locker room. If anything were to be expected of him someone was going to have to show him the ropes, since Aiden didn't know the first thing about running anywhere. And he also knew that his parents would probably disapprove of this once they found out. It wasn't dignified enough or something. And Aiden cursed the fact that they were descended from an old English line, where family and dignity were more prominent.

Ai was just untying his shoes, having not even been in the locker room for five minutes, when he heard approaching footsteps. He ignored them, figuring it was just another guy and not really bothered by it. At least not until he heard his name. Aiden looked up. "That would be me," he said. "Why are you asking?"

Well, obviously it's you, Dodge thought, but when he opened his mouth, something quite different came out. "Hi, I'm Dodger Hayes. I run the 1500." It felt strange having to introduce himself to someone his own age. Usually he had to have this chat with the 1st years when they came in from their first practice, looking like they might keel over any minute. "The General...I mean, Coach Redmond....asked me to kind of help you get situated around here." He leaned over towards the bench and stuck his hand out to shake.

Aiden just sort of looked at Dodger for a moment. He really wasn't that great with people. Most of the times he just felt awkward and ended up looking foolish. "Aiden Hartland," he said, then made a face, figuring Dodger would already know that. He had after all addressed him by name and not by 'new guy' or something like that. And he never, never, never knew what to do with handshakes. Touching other people was weird to him. So normally, he just looked at the other person's hand like an idiot for a moment until it was retracted.

Dodge waited a moment, then saw that he was doing nothing but looking like an idiot with his hand hanging in the air. He instead swept it up to wipe the beads of sweat on his forehead, casually scratching the back of his leg with one foot. "Aiden, nice name. Not familiar, though. What house are you in?" Dodge studied the boy's face, trying to remember ever seeing him in a class or a club. It was weird to run across someone that he didn't know, much less couldn't place at all.

Aiden went back to his shoes, having only gotten partially through pulling one loose when Dodge had walked in. "Um...Remington," he replied, not looking back up. He would rather much prefer getting done and back into shoes he actually liked so that he could get out of the seemingly cramped locker room. Being outside much better suited Ai, even if the time spent there was also spent sneezing like a madman.

Frowning slightly, Dodge wondered why the boy was being so short with him. Normally, people knew who he was or could at least tell that he was a friendly guy. His frown deepened as he wondered if the boy had heard of him, and if that was the reason Aiden didn't seem to enjoy his company. Dodge didn't encounter many homophobes at school, and it would be a pity if this boy was one of the small group. It'd be awkward seeing him all the time, and besides, he was cute. Too bad he'd probably never get to see him smile; he seemed too on edge to actually interact. "Well, I'm about to head back out. Maybe we can meet up sometime before next practice to go over some tips?" he asked casually, hoping he didn't get shot down. It wouldn't go over well with The General if he didn't do the job he was given.

Aiden looked up from the task of his shoes, which he wasn't really doing anyway, just messing around with the laces to keep his hands busy for the time being. "Er...yeah. That'd be okay," he mumbled, looking back down. Ai sneezed once then, allergies having been stirred up by the dust in the air. That made him frown. It wouldn't do to be running and then erupt in a fit of sneezes.

"Bless you," Dodge muttered automatically. "I guess I'll meet you out here Sat..." he paused. He had a GSA meeting and homework to do on Saturday. "On Sunday," he amended, "around 10. We'll try to finish up before the heat gets too bad." He raised two fingers and saluted before turning, even though Aiden wasn't watching. "See you then." He quickly cleared out of the locker room, glad to be back outside. He wanted to get at least another three or four laps in before he hit the showers. It had been hard getting his time for the 1500 back under 4 minutes after the summer, and he knew he needed to be in top shape for scholarship evaluations. He cast a sad glance back at the locker room, wondering if Sunday would go any better than his first awkward meeting with his new teammate had.

Aiden just nodded as Dodger set up a time and day for the practice. It meant he would have to wake up a couple hours earlier than normal that day, so they would see how that worked out. If there was one thing Ai couldn't stand it was waking up early on a weekend, or just waking up early in general. It made him a cranky panda. He finished up what he had been doing in the locker room and headed out to do something else.

Three days later, Dodge was up before dawn. He'd really meant to do his homework on Saturday, honestly, but when the GSA got together there was no telling how long they'd end up hanging out for. They never actually got much done, but they had a good time and he had made a lot of friends there over the past couple years, not to mention the few guys who had asked him out. So, he was stuck working all morning on his Statistics homework, bored and strangely nervous over his meeting with Aiden.

He went down to the track at about 9:15 to warm up before his new teammate arrived, stretching and jogging a lap to get his muscles loosened up. He was in the middle of a set of jumping jacks when he saw the boy he was supposed to be meeting. He continue on, counting the last few jacks. "98, 99, 100. Hi." His body moved fluidly from the exercises to a walk that took him to meet Aiden. "Ready to learn a little bit about track?" he asked, giving him a big smile. Hopefully he'd be more at ease today and their tense meeting would turn out to be a fluke.

Aiden hadn't woken up til 9:45 that Sunday morning, and so he was a few minutes late and more than a little frazzled when he got to the track. Some of his hair stuck up in odd angle and he was scowling. "I'd rather be sleeping than practicing, but I'd rather practice than look like an idiot, so what choice do I have?" he said in response to Dodger.

"Ouch, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Dodge said, only partially joking. Poor Aiden looked like he'd had a rough time getting himself down here. "Anyway, I would guess your other choice would be not to run track, now wouldn't it? But we don't want that. The General says you've got raw talent, and we need somebody after Reeve just abandoned us." His hand wandered up to his hair subconsciously, smoothing it down as he looked at Aiden's which was adorably messy. Wait, adorably? That wasn't what he'd meant, but oh well. "Anyway, you might wanna stretch up a little first."

Aiden raised an eyebrow at Dodger. "My bed is against a wall, there's only one side to get off of," he said. He knew that Dodger had meant it as a joke, but he was too tired to deal with jokes. Instead he just wordless started stretching, already knowing that he was supposed to do that without being told. Muscles cramping and stuff were pains. After he had stretched he looked at Dodger, feeling more awake. "Okey, now teach me stuff."

Dodge stopped pretend to stretch his quads and dropped his foot to the ground. "First thing you need to worry about," he began, stepping over to the boy, "is posture. If you don't hold your body correctly you'll be slow AND you'll end up hurting yourself." He looked over Aiden's posture, which had improved slightly now that he was more awake and stretched. "When you come out of the blocks, you have to lean into the run," he said, demonstrating with his own body. "And as you go further, you straighten up so you can see where you're going." He chuckled and remembered how one of the first years had run straight off the track at a meet. Standing back up, he noted another problem. "Also, you always have to keep your head," he muttered, taking a step closer and gently easing Aiden's chin back, "right above your shoulders."

Aiden hadn't even really considered posture for anything and so he listened and nodded to Dodger's explanations. It was all going well, until Dodger moved to physically change Aiden's posture instead of just explaining it to him. Ai's body tensed up completely, which he had no doubt was bad for his posture in every way and he grimaced a little. Once he realized the reaction he took a step back and muttered, "Sorry."

Dodge could just feel Aiden go completly rigid. A dark cloud formed in his mind and he scowled. So the kid had heard of him. Great, there was another guy in the world who was afraid he was going to molest them. "What, you don't like being touched?" he asked sourly, crossing his arms.

"No, actually I don't," Aiden muttered almost quietly, somewhat startled by the giant downfall in Dodger's mood. He couldn't think of a thing that would have caused such a change, unless he'd insulted him somehow, but Ai didn't know a way that he could have.

"Yeah," Dodge said skeptically, casting his eyes to the ground. He stood there a moment in silence before realizing that it would be totally unlike him to just take this. He wasn't ashamed of who he was, and he wasn't going to let someone make him be. "Look, just because I'm gay doesn't mean I'm going to try to jump you out here on the track, no more than any of the girls on the team are. And if I'm going to teach you, I'm going to have to touch you. So put up or shut up, okay?" He didn't like having to be so rude and blatant, but he wasn't the kind of guy who could take OR give hints.

Aiden looked at Dodger, expression somewhat bewildered. That was news to him. "You're gay?" he asked, putting two and two together to get fish. "That explains your reaction then I suppose...But I really just don't like to be touched, by anyone. It just really freaks me out." As to why it freaked him out, he wasn't going to give that away.

Dodge's mouth went dry as he realized what he'd just done. This poor guy didn't even know he was gay, and he's assumed that he was holding it against him! "Wow. I am so, so sorry. It's just that...." Dodge trailed off when he realized where his sentence was going. His dad wasn't something he wanted to bring up though, so he moved on. "I tend to get the wrong idea a lot. My mind doesn't work half as fast as my body." He gave a nervous laugh and looked back up at Aiden, bothered by the awkward silence. "But yeah, I'm gay. I figured everyone knew by now." He realized that they were on a tangent instead of practicing, but he felt really terrible knowing what he'd just done to Aiden.

"I've never been part of everyone," Aiden mumbled, flattening out his hair for something to do, "until now it seems." This wasn't quite how he had expected to start his Sunday off, but it seemed that was how it would go. "Sorry for...causing all this. If I hadn't tensed up..."

"No, no," Dodge reassured him, "it's not your fault. If it's anyone's fault it's mine. Not everyone is a physical person like me. I should have at least warned you." He dragge his foot across the ground beneath him, subconsciously drawing a Do Not Cross line. He didn't want to alarm Aiden ant more than he already had, and this was starting to look like it would be the most awkward practice ever. He scratched stallingly at the back of his neck, wondering if getting his sexual orientation out of the way would make things better or worse. "Anyway, head above shoulders, natural body lean, rise up," Dodge said, wanting to move out of the tense spot they'd managed to put themselves in. "Always keep your hands down near your waist, and don't let then cross your body." He frowned at his own stationary demonstrations, that somehow seemed ineffective. "How about I run the 100 out here on the track so you can see how it's done?"

Aiden just sort of looked at Dodge, not entirely sure what to do, since he wasn't good at moving passed awkward points quickly. So, he nodded. "Sure, have at it," he replied. He just sort of wanted to distracted himself, so that he wouldn't end up saying something stupid out of awkwardness.

Receiving the go-ahead from his sort-of student, Dodge jogged onto the track, at the starting point. There were no blocks set out, but his body knew the starting position well enough that he fell into it natural, palms splayed out in front of him in the rich mahogany dirt and one leg arched back behind him, ready to push off. He set the delay on his watch-timer and controlled his breathing, eyes set on a spot on the track in the distance. His last clear thought was that he had someone to impress, and then the buzzer sounded and he was gone.

Running the 1500 was a thinking process. He always had to wait, control himself, watch the competition. The 100 was....visceral. He could feel the speed in his gut and the smallest atoms of his body jumping with electricity, certain to fly off at any moment and leave him a cloud of fluttering particles on the wind. He was free, he was real, he was.....done.

The worst thing about the 100 meters was that it was over in 100 meters.

His stop watch clocked the second he crossed the finish line and, forgetting completely the fact that he had company, he reached down to check it. He gaped. "10.2?!" he yelled, incredulous.