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It’s Charlie who starts the tutoring thing.
Of course it is. Charlie’s the heart of the team; Fulton’s been able to tell that even back when they were 12 and he’d just been a spectator watching his future team mates skate with magazines taped together as shin guards.
He’d been an outsider, sure he looked out for the kids-you sorta had to in their neighborhood. There was an unspoken rule that survival rested on numbers. It was why the kids of the neighborhood flocked together, it was why even as an outsider they were friendly with him even when they weren’t friends. But he had still been an outsider, people talking more about him than to him, teachers giving up on him and adults steering their kids away from the big kid with greasy hair and a dirty coat who hung out on alleys shooting pucks at passing cars.
And then coach Bombay became the first person to actually ask about Fulton-to actually talk to him instead of about him, to actually see him.
Coach Bombay bought him skates, gave him a team. Suddenly there were more people who were willing to see him too.
And then there was Charlie, even back then. Bombay may have been the ones to get him the skates ('I can’t…this is too much I can’t accept it’ he had said in a soft voice that seemed to have surprised Bombay and that would probably surprise everyone. A beat after the surprise however he was clapping him in the back saying 'Sure you can. All the other ducks got new equipment too. We look after our own Fulton’)
Bombay had put him on skates and taught him the basics, but it was Charlie who had caught on to the fact that Fulton had less experience than everyone else. Who had looped back when skating with the others to give him pointers ( 'You need to keep your skates apart, yeah like that now try this' )
The tutoring had actually started back then too, because Fulton’s repeating grade six and is on his way to repeat it again until he’s over at Charlie’s house. ( a lot of the Ducks spend time at each other’s houses. It’s not something Fulton’s ever done but he had started getting used to it. A lot of the parents seem intent on feeding him and that he’s not really sure what to make of )
It’s one of those nights he’s eating over at Charlie’s house when Ms. Conway says something about getting their homework started
"You wanna stay? Work on homework together?" Charlie asked open and friendly in that soft way he was with the whole team.
Fulton had figured it was either that or shoot hockey pucks at passing cars until it gets dark- and the weather had looked too ugly for that; figured he just has to stare at his book like it makes fucking sense and he’ll be left alone. (it’s what always happens at school)
Except Charlie’s got a stubborn streak even back then and after a couple of questions Fulton finds himself snapping that no, he doesn’t really understand the stupid question okay-hasn’t understood the stupid questions since the beginning of stupid chapter two.
Charlie had stared at him for a beat before saying “I can help you if you want” bringing his own book and sitting down on the bed next to Fulton “I’m stupid at math too but Averman showed me this trick”
Fulton had been too stunned to say no and after that Charlie had just…kept inviting him over. They’d have dinner, take out their notebooks and go over them shoulder to shoulder at the dinning room table of the Conway house, or on the floor at Charlie’s room, or even at the dinner where Charlie’s mom worked heads bent together over both their notes and beat up textbooks.
"your handwriting’s like chicken scratch" Charlie would say as they ate leftover pie "how do you read this"
"I don’t I read yours" Fulton would shoot back.
By the time Fulton gets around to asking why he’s helping him so much Charlie just looks at him like he asked if the sky’s blue.
“Because you’re my team” Charlie says-and Fulton looks down and fidgets with the sleeves of his still dirty as fuck coat because he’s not sure exactly what he’s supposed to say to that but there’s a warm feeling in his chest, a smile tugging at his lips- like it’s a simple as that.
And to Charlie it really is.
Fulton passes grade six and grade seven-not with any stellar grades but he’s finally out of that classroom and dam if he never thought he would be- and then come the Goodwill Games and Team USA and they’re in Los Angeles.
And then Coach Bombay decides to get a stick up his ass and Fulton fights the urge to go off on him every time Charlie gets that look on his face.
He’d seen Charlie hang on to every word the man said, stick to him like some lost puppy and the way a soft smile from Gordon would leave the boy starry eyed. The entire team loved their coach of course but there was no question with Charlie there was something more.
‘The rest of us have our parents’ Jesse had explained one time when it had gotten brought up if anyone felt like it was favoritism, and Fulton had been grateful he didn’t flinch at that ‘Charlie…he needs Coach Bombay more. Don’t tell him I said that’
Fulton gets it. Bombay had been the first adult to give a shit about him, the first adult to believe he could be anything more than a goon. Bombay had given him a future-had believed in him when no one else did.
There was a reason he had been with Charlie on the ice on that forfeited match even when the rest of the team had walked.
Fulton may not hang on every word Bombay spoke the way Charlie did but the betrayal-the fact that he was acting like some past foster parents-like the kids he had said he cared about were worth nothing more than what they could bring and he could forget about them when something shiny came. It's still there, rings similar enough he can empathize.
It hurt. Fulton isn't sure if he was angry because Charlie made that face more and more or because he had thought maybe he’d never feel that sting again. Maybe it was both.
Not that it stops Gordon from pushing them harder.
Their grades start to suffer because of course they do. It’s impossible to get good grades when you’re skating laps into the night and can barely keep your eyes open when you’re done. (it’s impossible Fulton is finding, to get better at hockey too when you’re skating laps into the night. Every session leads them to drag their feet more on the next one, to Charlie missing passes, to Golberg missing shots, to Fulton skating sloppy and it leads to more training and jesus this sucks)
So he’s not surprised when-after Bombay turns Captain Blood then disappears, Charlie shows up at his door clutching books and a binder.
“Like old times?” he asks and there’s a hint of desperation at the end of it that sets Fulton’s teeth on edge as much as it soften something in him.
“Yeah, alright” he says looking inside the room he shares with Portman. His roommate’s out but Fulton knows the moment he comes back in he’ll be blasting heavy metal-not that he usually minds but it’s not exactly great for studying. “let me just grab my stuff”
Charlie’s quiet and subdued as they walk towards an open spot to study.
“it’s weird to be walking” Fulton says, because after a while, the silence feels awkward and he’s never handled that well.
And besides, it does feel weird. Ever since the year started they’ve been on skates more than off of them ( hell most of the time they’re on skates )
Charlie shrugs, says nothing. Fulton feels his teeth grind. (he remembers looking like that when adults let him down, hell he probably still looked like that when he and Portman saw Bombay with the Swedish girl)
“Look Charlie” he says when they find a place to sit and spread the books out “don’t let Bombay get to you man he’s not-“
He stops himself from finishing ( ‘he’s not worth it’ he was about to say, because that’s what he usually tells himself) at a sharp intake from Charlie. Fulton looks at him and shit-the other boy’s about to cry.
“Can we just study?” Charlie asks after staring at some point behind Fulton for a bit; and if his voice wobbles and breaks a bit at the end, Fulton gives him the courtesy of ignoring it
(He’s an enforcer okay, was one at the core even before Portman and the Bash Brothers title came into his life. Ask him to bash in heads or shove people into walls to protect his team he can do that-has done that, will always do that. Give him a crying teammate? He’s not sure what to do-except that whatever he does will be the wrong thing)
“Yeah” he says knocking shoulders with Charlie, relieved when it gets him a small smile from the other boy “yeah let’s study. What chapter are we even on man, I haven’t looked at this book since like…since school started”
Charlie rolls his eyes but the smile stays in his face “Miss Mackay wants us to read up on the American Revolution”
“Great, old dead guys” Fulton deadpans, scoffing when Charlie throws a balled up paper at him “alright so what page again?”
They study well into the evening and by the end of it, Charlie walks lighter, smiles more.
Fulton finds that he does too.