InsaneJournal

Friday Night Lights fic: Game Face On (Gen, PG, early season 1)
This is to settle a bet with innie_darling. Although I've had all summer to settle that bet; at this point, it's just an excuse. First FNL fic (Eep).


Title: Game Face On
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen with reference to Coach/Mrs. Coach, Lyla/Jason, Tyra/Tim, PG
W/C: ~2,000
Disclaimer: Friday Night Lights is the property of NBC. If anything is being owned around here, it looks like it's me.

a/n: Many thanks to musesfool for the beta-read. Vague spoilers up through "Who's Your Daddy."

Summary: Football isn't the only thing that causes pre-game jitters. Tyra, Lyla, Tami, and Julie manage in their own way.




Tyra: Worked Up Over Nothing
(Wind Sprints)

It was just plain stupid, the way her stomach was jumping around. She'd learned long ago not to worry over anything too much. Life was guaranteed to kick you in the teeth anyway, and the best thing was to suck it up, take a deep breath, do whatever had to be done. Maybe that philosophy was an offshoot of living in Dillon, where people got themselves worked into a frenzy over a few yards of Astroturf. That's what football had taught Tyra: don't get too worked up.

She put her damp, sticky palm against her belly, over the cotton of her t-shirt, and clenched the fingers of her other hand around the steering wheel. Tyra had also learned not to set too much store in one person.

So what the hell was it with the butterflies? When she'd started, she was so angry she was practically shaking.

The thing was...

A car rushed by, the back-draft sending a hot breeze through the open window of her truck where she'd pulled over onto the shoulder.

The thing was, it wasn't like she'd curl up and die if she couldn't have Tim Riggins, if she couldn't wake lying on top of him, both of them warm and sweaty in the burn of the sunrise poking through the window, if she couldn't taste him, watch him shove back that stupidly long hair that she kept threatening to cut.

Tyra took another deep breath and leaned her elbow on the rim of the open window, staring ahead through the dirty glass of the windshield. She'd do just fine without being able to screw Tim Riggins.

But. The thing was...

She couldn't do fine without knowing Tim was around, without knowing that she could spot him at school, in town, at a distance, any minute now. Or watch him thunder down the field.

At least if he was around, she could hate him. And better to be able to hate Tim Riggins than him being dead with the front of his truck crumpled against a fence or a tree, beer bottles in the footwell after the jackass had finally managed to kill himself.

With another deep breath -- and what was she so afraid of, anyway? -- Tyra curled her hand into a fist and pressed it against her stomach, pushing, like she was threatening those butterflies, making them behave.

"Simmer down," she whispered, and licked the salty sweat off her upper lip.

Then she turned on the engine, threw the truck into gear, and pulled out onto the long ribbon of highway to find Tim.



Lyla: Ribbon
(Pilot)

She got nervous before games sometimes. Good nervous, excited nervous: a giddy, bright feeling. Like spinning around and around in a field under perfect, fluffy white clouds and blue sky wider than the whole universe.

Leaning forward over the sink in the girls' bathroom, Lyla applied lip-gloss, wand smooth and familiar against her lips. The lip-gloss was a nice, muted red with glitter in it. Cherry red would be overdoing; the key to good makeup was that no one could see you were wearing it.

Her left foot twitched, the rubber soles of her sneakers squeaking against the tiles. Her muscles were the boss when it came to cheering, especially right before a game when she felt like she could barely sit still. Arms, legs, body wanted to be moving, with the roar in the stands so loud that after about five minutes she could barely even hear it anymore and it became almost gentle, making her think of the ocean. She'd only been a few times, but the sound of breakers hitting a beach was one of her favorite sounds, and she'd never forgotten it. Jason hadn't seen the ocean, not once -- she'd have to do something about that.

Lyla reached for a tissue and daubed the excess gloss away, stared down at the lip-shaped imprint before she balled up the tissue and tossed it in the trash can.

She stared her reflection in the mirror. She looked fine. Right? She looked great.

Turning, she assessed herself first from the right, then the left, then reached up for the blue, yellow, and gold ribbon in her hair. She tied the ribbon tighter around the elastic holding her ponytail in place, her fingers sure against the ridges in the material. By the end of the night, Jason would have undone all her careful arrangements, but that was all right. Being undone by Jason Street was a different kind of rush than cheering -- giddier, hitting her deep down in a place cheering could never touch.

One more time, she recited the new cheers in her head, although she'd had them memorized since the team first received them last week. It could never hurt to be sure, and Lyla liked to be sure, loved the precision of the work she and her teammates did, knowing exactly where her foot should go, who would be to the left and right, who would hold her up for all of her world to see. A lot of it was about trust, and she saw that mirrored out on the field -- they all kept each other from falling.

Lyla finished up and paused, putting her hand to her chest.

Her heart was beating a little faster than usual tonight.




Tami: The Comfort of Caffeine
(post-Wind Sprints)

The first day, she wasn't nervous.

She'd looked forward with quiet anticipation to the job, to having somewhere else to be other than the house. Something to do beyond housework, something to give her brain a work-out beyond navigating Eric or debating with "the girls" about who had the most hustle and how her husband should be doing his job. The women all seemed to expect she would dutifully convey each and every word of advice. In fact, Tami did, mimicking their exact inflections, enjoying the way Eric's eyebrows quirked up as she coaxed from him an incredulous smile or even a laugh.

The second day an edge had crept in, and she lingered a little longer over the cup of coffee she drank at her desk.

It became a ritual, with a twinge of pre-game jitters every morning, small bursts rather than the long build of tension Eric went through every week. His shoulders under her fingers on a lazy Sunday morning weren't the same as the shoulders under her fingers on a Thursday night, and she could trace it reliably as the advance of days on her calendar.

Most mornings, she had coffee at home with Julie and Eric but poured herself another cup when she got to school. School coffee tasted flat, but it was hot. Strangely, the caffeine seemed to calm her down rather than rev her up, which was new, and she never did figure out why. Maybe it opened her nerves, shook them up, so she was more attuned, more ready for what the school day might bring.

Tami arranged the pens in the holder, tossing the ones that were out of ink. Checked the stapler to make sure it was full. Raised the blinds to let in more light, figuring that was cheerier than the fluorescence. Stared up at the acoustic tiles in the ceiling like the answers would be there scrawled in Sharpie marker.

Now here she had a brilliant idea: someone really should have video taped all prior guidance counselors. Then she could study them the way Eric went over each week's game film, learning what went wrong, what went right. She had books on child psychology and her copy of Reviving Ophelia (which scared her every time she reread it) and experience. Lowering her gaze down to her desk, she snorted at herself, at her own self-pity, thinking about how nobody (Eric) got that what she did was tougher than football.

Better they come to her and talk to her than not; but every girl, heck, even the boys, made her think of Julie, made her gut twist. Julie was a smart kid and somehow they seemed to be doing right by her. Please, God, don't let us mess that up, okay?

When the coffee was half done, she opened her office door, smiled at whoever was out there waiting, and the jitters settled. A stillness spread over her, almost contentment, the knowledge that she was doing good, maybe keeping one less kid from screwing up her future.

The first class bell was like a whistle blowing (game on).



Julie: Making It Look Easy
(Who's Your Daddy)

Julie lay on her side, eyes wide open in the gentle half-darkness. The porch light cast a pale, slanted rectangle through the slits in the blinds. With an impatient huff of breath, she kicked off the covers, went to the window, and tugged the curtains closed.

Back in bed, she turned over, only to find herself face-to-face with the vivid red numbers of her clock radio.

Turn-step-one-two-and

She flopped onto her back and bit her lip.

As Julie had cleared the dinner dishes that evening, Mom had asked her, head tilted to one side, "You worried about the recital, sweetheart?"

"A little," Julie'd said.

"Well, I'm sure you'll do just fine."

Adults delivered sweet platitudes all the time but Mom said things in a way that made you believe it was the truth. Even if she was obviously trying to just "brace her up," as Dad would say.

Dad's eyes had flickered between the two of them, brow furrowing. It was a bye week, but he still seemed distracted. He'd sworn he'd be there to watch her, and she believed him.

Don't forget your timing and turn and step and

The digital clock read 3:17.

With a muffled whisper-scream, Julie got out of bed, snagged her boom box and a hoodie, then padded in her bare feet through the quiet house. The patio doors slid open with a swish and she closed them carefully behind her.

Twist-bend

She didn't bother with switching on an outside light. Instead she relied on the lamp beside the couch, which gave enough soft yellow glow that she wouldn't trip over her own feet. She didn't want to wake the neighbors, or her parents, but figured it was all right if she kept the volume down very low.

The day had been warm, but her breath misted into the night. As she began, the twitchiness inside of her settled. Relief curled around her like a warm blanket as her body carried out the dance moves instead having trapped spinning in her head. Under her feet, the patio cement was cold and bumpy but that went away once she got into the routine. A truck roaring by on the highway beyond the trees occasionally drowned the soft mutter of the music.

A shadow threw off her concentration. Julie stopped and turned to see Dad standing in his pajamas and bathrobe in the living room, half a sandwich in his hand, watching her. He froze sheepishly when he saw she'd spotted him.

Julie turned off the music and opened the sliding doors.

"What are you doing up?" he whispered, coming over to her.

"I could ask you the same thing," she said.

"I was hungry." He shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, chewed, swallowed.

She fidgeted with the rubber seal at the edge of the door. "I couldn't sleep," she said. "I have the recital tomorrow..."

"Don't stay up too long," Dad said. "You need to be sharp." He started to walk away, then paused. "Hey, you looked good." His head jerked towards the patio. "That must be difficult. You make it look easy."

"Um. Thanks," she said, and watched him walk away, unsure what else to do. Dad gave out compliments sparingly; if you got one from him, then you knew you'd really done it right.

Julie gathered up her boom box and returned to the warmer air of the house, carefully sliding the doors back into place, knowing that now, she'd be able to sleep.

~end