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chapter five: what is a father if not a living nightmare?

a/n:

if you relate in any way to (my attempts) at writing a complex relationship between rory and her father, I am very sorry. this story will be very rough for you, though, so please be careful.

tw(s) -- strained parent-child relationship, descriptions of a panic attack and derealization, and an adult being creepy and slightly violent toward a child.

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Rory lifts her hand in a peace sign as Julie points the camera in her direction and smiles for the picture. The blonde, who's never been this far off the East Coast in her life, became adamant about documenting as much of the trip as possible as soon as she saw a palm tree, and that resulted in the three girls nearly breaking curfew just walking around Los Angeles trying to find her a camera. Rory figures that she doesn't mind too much because her entire life has been in front of the camera, but, while Connie's scared anyone out of giving Julie any grief and ruining her excitement, most of the rest of the team is growing weary with the pictures.

Kenny, for example. Wholly unprepared for the picture, he frowns deeply after Julie as she walks away.

"Wait! I blinked!"

The brunette laughs as he then pushes through the group to chase the blonde down.

Anticipation for their first game has really brought the team to life. There isn't a kid who isn't bouncing with energy as they walk down the path toward the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum -- well, maybe for the exception of Dean, who listens to music on his Walkman and pretends to humor Fulton as he, not noticing that his friend is preoccupied, points things out.

And Averman, thrilled to be in Los Angeles, tells her all about his feelings on the Karate Kid.

"It's just that-- God, that kick to the face was so satisfying." He shoves his hands in his pockets. "After all that shit he pulled it was just so... I have a list of guys who I wish I could do that to."

Rory cocks her head to the side. "Really?"

"Mhm. I could even tell you off the top of my head: McGill, Larson, Peter Mark..."

As he continues on to recount his list of greatest enemies, he loses her to her thoughts.

"What?"

"Hm?"

"You've got this weird look on your face."

"Oh, I was just," Rory gnaws on the inside of her cheek and she struggles to find the words, "isn't it important to acknowledge that Johnny, like, regretted his decisions? He didn't want to sweep the leg. He looked kind of horrified."

"Yeah, well, he still did it."

"Because Kreese asked him to."

"That's not a solid defense." He points out.

"I think it's more solid than you think it is."

"So, you're saying that, if Bombay told you to, you'd go hook someone in their broken leg?"

"Not if Bombay did, no, but for my father?" She leaves the question open, shrugging her shoulders.

Averman just stares at her.

"Look, I'm not saying Johnny wasn't a dick. He was. It's just that, even if I've had my fair share of bullies, I know what it's like to be the stupid jerk who lives under the mean man. If Mr. Miyagi had taken him under his wing, perhaps it would've been a different story."

"So, your dad's Kreese?"

"Yeah." She answers without hesitation.

"Who's Mr. Miyagi?"

"No clue."

For whatever reason, he has no response to that, and frowns as they enter the stadium. There's already a very large, bustling crowd gathered and they're escorted to a roped-off spot where they can wait for someone, likely Don Tibbles, to point them in the direction of their locker room.

Charlie's eyes bounce around the room. "I didn't even know they had a hockey rink here."

"Anywhere they've got a field and sheets of ice they've got a hockey rink." Bombay says with a shrug.

Rory, ignoring them, keeps a smile on her face and waves at a little boy dressed in red, white, and blue. "Guys, you've got to smile at the people. They're our supporters and they will appreciate it if we're kind to them."

"You worry me, Myrtle." The coach claps her on the shoulder.

She can't quite tell if he's joking or not. She doesn't get the chance to ask him, either, because someone pokes her on the arm.

"Uh, Rory, there's a man in a suit gunning it for us-- and he's looking directly at you."

Her heart leaps to her throat as she turns to follow Adam's gaze.

She heaves a breath of relief, though, when it isn't who she thinks he is. Her smile does warble around the edges but she pushes through and takes a few steps toward him as the committee's security unclips the ropes to let him past.

Someone whispers a who don't you know? in her wake.

"Miss Rory." He stands in front of her, removing his sunglasses and tucking them in the breast pocket of his suit.

"Joe." She greets him, rocking on her heels with her clasped behind her back, trying to give the illusion of aloofness. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with dad? Or my grandfather? Is my grandfather okay?"

Joe Rivera has been the family's driver and head of security for longer than she's been alive -- her grandfather's most trusted member of staff and the man who might be considered her father's only remaining friend. He's seen her through everything. Including, but not limited to, a breakup, the loss of her only friend, and the deaths of a few family members.

Had this reunion happened in a private place, he'd probably have embraced her.

"Rory, dear, your grandfather is fine, but I want you to listen to me when I say that I offer you my biggest, sincerest apologies."

The solace that the man who gave her all that she has is okay is so short-lived that she gets woozy.

"What?--"

"Lola!"

Oh.

Looking up at Joe as if he's just slipped a knife between her ribs, Rory struggles to breathe.

Meanwhile, unaware of her turmoil, one of the team (Goldberg, maybe) guffaws at her childhood nickname.

"No."

"I'm sorry." Is all that Joe can say, trying to put every ounce of sincerity in his body into the apology.

"Lola, dear, where are you?"

Oliver Myrtle arrives, parting the crowd like Moses himself, with a cloud of astonished whispers and camera flashing. He smiles when their gazes meet and the taste of blood fills her mouth.

(They have the same eyes.)

(She thinks that's why her mother hasn't ever liked her that much.)

"There you are."

"Dad." She whispers and exhales all of the air in her lungs.

"Come here. Give a hug." As soon as she's within arms reach he puts a hand on the back of her neck and pulls her into him, cradling her against his chest.

Caught off guard, she stands there stiffly, her face pressed into him, until the cooing of the crowd reminds her to hug him back. His cologne burns her eyes and tickles the back of her throat as she tries not to cry.

"What are... why are you here?"

He shouldn't be here. He should be two thousand miles away, more than halfway across the country.

Does he know that she ate what she wasn't supposed to?

Did someone tell him she didn't go to the gym two days in a row?

Did he hear her outside calling him a bad man?

"I've come to surprise you, Lola." He rubs her back, speaking into her hair. "Tibbles said you'd appreciate it."

(Oh, that son of a--)

Her friends are all going to pick him over her. She realizes it, horror rolling over her like ice-cold water, as she pulls back to look up at him.

They're all going to pick him because he's the father that flew all the way to surprise his daughter on her big day. They're going to see the charisma -- the front of a man who buys and sells entire lives without a blink -- and they're going to think that she's crazy. Crazy for even being remotely upset about her life when she's rich and this, this enigmatic force, is her father.

She just told Averman that her father was her Kreese and now he's surprising her.

(This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen.)

"Aren't you happy to see your father?"

"Yes." Rory says it a little too quickly. "Of course. I'm just-- It's just a big surprise, that's all."

She holds his gaze a moment, trying to ascertain whether he's buying what she's saying.

Oliver just nods and lowers his head closer to her, his voice even quieter than it was. "I'm sorry for what I said to you and for how I acted. I should have been to see you off."

Rory blinks. The shape of his face is burned into her eyelids like she's staring into the sun.

"It's okay."

"You know how my knee gets," He keeps going, and guilt, against her will, grows in her gut, "I never intended to hurt you."

"I know. I understand." She swallows thickly.

"Good. Now, why don't you introduce me?"

The conversation that only spanned a few minutes (though, to her, it felt like hours) ends with Rory leading her father by the hand like she did when she was a toddler. Her team are all staring, shocked, when she finally gets enough courage to look up from the floor.

"Guys, this is my, uh, father, Oliver." She gestures to him. "Dad this is-- "

Hand in the small of her back, he hums critically, "Speak up, Lola."

"This is Team USA Hockey." Rory raises her voice and tries not to fidget like a scolded child.

Oliver pats her back condescendingly.

"Forgive my daughter, we've been working on her public speaking." He gives Bombay his attention and she winces as soon as his eyes are off her. "You must be Gordon Bombay. Tibbles assured me that you're the best of the best."

"He did, did he? Well, no pressure, right?"

Oliver cracks a grin that doesn't meet his eyes and sticks a hand out for shaking. "Pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure's all mine."

(Rory, vaguely, ponders the validity of that.)

"Are you here to watch Rory play?"

"I came here on a business venture but, due to unforeseen circumstances, I am prolonging my stay to look after my Lola." His hand, now on her shoulder, squeezes tightly. "She's never been away without her mum or I-- wouldn't want to leave her all by her lonesome, now would we?"

A low groan comes from the back of her throat.

"No, we wouldn't."

The tension between the two men gets so thick that Rory can almost see it in the air and she'd laugh if she wasn't so afraid that she was going to puke. A staff member bursts the bubble by whispering in their coach's ear.

"C'mon, guys, they're going to take us to the locker room, now."

"Right, you have a game." Oliver wets his lips with his tongue. "Well, off you pop, then."

Rory stumbles forward a step when he nudges her.

"Oh, and one last thing, darling-- your grandfather sends his regards."

Shoulders tight and back, and that faux smile back on her face, Rory nods.

Numbly, she follows the rest of her team toward the locker room, her eyes on the floor so she doesn't have to meet any of their gazes. What the hell was that for? What unforeseen circumstances was he talking about? Why can't he just go home? Someone had a hand on the small of her back and their thumb rubs small circles, but she doesn't look to see who they are.

Before she can enter the room, Bombay stops her.

"Can you do this?"

The question holds a hundred questions in itself.

She nods. "Yeah. I can."

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(News flash: Rory can't do it.)

Sitting with Julie on the bench, she stares forward and chews on her mouth guard mindlessly. She's too consumed with the itch that comes with the thought that her father is watching her to have her head in the game. She doesn't hear the boy who's heckling them, and she doesn't notice that Jesse gets onto the ice already too pissed off to play properly, and she doesn't know that Bombay is trying to get her attention until he snaps his fingers in front of her face.

"Myrtle," He barks, and she startles out of her trance, "I've been saying your name for several minutes now. Are you sure you're alright? Because if you aren't okay--"

"Put me in." She breathes.

(She has to get over it.)

"I don't know."

"Please. You have to put me in."

He needs to see her play. If she doesn't get put in, her life is going to end.

Bombay has to think it over. Her breath in her throat as he just stands there, his lips pursed and his hands on his hips.

"...Fine. Next time we switch out, you're on the ice, alright?"

"Alright."

Just like he promised, she does end up in the game.

And she struggles, even then, to get her head in the game as Dean and Fulton wreak havoc around her.

Even though they were fighting just a few days ago, they're working in tandem now.

There's something beautiful yet terrible and crude about the way that they play, checking kids into the boards as hard as they can and knocking them straight off their feet--

Now, it's nothing that Rory hasn't seen before. Throughout her short life, she's been on several different teams, and each has had its own version of both the boys. She might even prefer the two of them to all the snarky, rich daddy's boy enforcers that she's met.

It's just a bit of a shock when, after their attacks lead to her scoring a goal, they each grab one of her arms and hold them up in the air.

"You did it!" Fulton shakes her, a big grin on his face.

"Yeah!" Dean says. "Way to go, priss!"

Rory forces a small smile. "Yeah. I did!"

It falls from her face immediately when she finds her father in the VIP section.

He's not smiling.

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With just a minute left in the game, Connie passes the puck to Kenny and he scores the winning point.

Rory does her best to be enthusiastic for her friend. She cheers his name with the rest of the team and claps for him, but is unable to shake the sinking feeling inside her. (All her father is going to see is that it wasn't her that scored the final goal. He is, in some nonsensical way, only going to see that a kid who only started playing hockey less than a year ago beat her.)

When Averman, in his excitement, hugs her, she hesitantly hugs back.

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They have their first press conference after the game.

Rory tried to give them a pep talk -- a brief rundown of the do's and don't's of talking to the press squeezed in between Don Tibbles' babbling and orders from a team of people who were getting them ready, a reminder that nothing about this is about them as a woman combed her hair until it would fit under a cap -- but she's pretty sure it fell on deaf ears. They all, as they've taken to doing when she opens her mouth, stared at her like she was just speaking another language, and that, on top of Oliver Myrtle's sudden appearance, was enough of a hit to her ego to render her silent.

A person in a bear costume runs around them and reporters ask asinine questions as Rory does her best to keep her eyes on the floor. The Hendrix hat is heavy on her head, almost heavier than Oliver's gaze, and Bombay's answers are almost worse than the inquiries. (Just because he isn't nervous about them playing the Iceland team doesn't mean they aren't.)

She doesn't want to be here.

There are a million places she'd rather be than here.

Her eyes flicker up from the floor when Bombay claps her on the shoulder and meets her father's. He mouths 'smile', pushing at the corners of his lips with his pointer fingers for emphasis.

She smiles immediately and looks away.

"...But we're Team USA and we're going all the way."

"Team USA's going down." Some man with a foreign accent says as he approaches, a group of boys behind them, and everyone quiets to murmurs around him. "That's where you're going. See you on the ice, Bombay."

As the press erupts around them, jumping from their seats to ask questions or take pictures, and security swarms the man, Rory narrows her eyes at him. She thinks she knows him, but from where?

"That's, uh, Stansson. Coach of the Iceland team-- he's wound a little tight."

As if he feels her eyes on him, he looks up to pin her gaze. Her stomach flips.

He grins maliciously.

Oh. She knows him alright.

"Stannson from the NHL? Wolf 'The Dentist' Stansson is coaching? You didn't tell me that."

Tibbles leads Bombay down the steps of the stage and the team starts following him.

"That guy's a dentist?" Kenny squints in Wolf's direction as the man shouts about his right to free speech.

Rory shakes her head sympathetically and pats him on the back.

"That's his nickname." Charlie informs. He, too, stares at their opposition with unease. "That was his nickname. Played one year of pro, collected more teeth than goals. He even punched out his coach."

"I heard they ran him out of the league and the country." Julie says a little too casually for the now actively panicking Kenny.

"That's his team? Those guys are huge!"

"Well, he hates my dad, so if anybody's getting their teeth punched out, I'm definitely a prime candidate."

Charlie grabs Rory's hand to help her down. "No offense, Ror, but I don't think anybody likes your dad that much."

The sentiment makes her smile.

"I guess you're right... We have a security team for a reason."

Her captain doesn't let go of her as they make their way through the crowd and pointedly ignore the paparazzi around them. They're moving so fast that when someone grabs her bicep her body jerks almost painfully.

She whips around to see Wolf Stansson.

"Hey, what the?--" Charlie pauses, eyes wide at the sight of the other coach.

"Can you please let go of my arm?" Her words get mangled in her throat.

Where is their coach? Or her father? Or Joe, even?

"Is that any way to speak to an adult?" He tilts his head, condescending to her. "I just wanted to congratulate you on your team's win. It must be strange for you, coming from a family of losers and all."

Rory can feel her team coagulating behind her like she can feel the chill that shoots down her spine.

"I'm sorry that you see that as offensive, but I am being very polite. Please let me go."

The grip on her arm is so strong, so tight, that she can feel her pulse beat in her arm. It's likely to bruise.

"Yeah, man, let her go." Charlie tugs her closer to them.

"I don't know what it's like where you come from, sir," Connie snarks, "but you can't just grab little girls here."

"Let her go!"

"Let the girl go, man."

"She didn't do anything--"

"Wolf!" Oliver's voice carries over the team's rallying cries and Stansson drops her arm like she's burned him. "I see you've met my daughter, old friend."

Rubbing her arm, she allows her team to drag her out of a space that her father now occupies. They fawn over her in hushed voices, rubbing her arm and asking if she was okay.

She never takes her eyes off the Icelandic coach.

"You're going to do this now? In front of all this press?"

"I wasn't doing anything." Wolf hums with a shrug. "Was I, Marria?"

The blonde woman at his side shakes her head. "No."

"You never grow up, do you? Forever a crying child throwing a fit."

"It'll be you who does the crying, Oliver," Wolf leans over her father, "when we crush your puny daughter and her precious little team."

"I have utmost faith in my daughter. She's ten times the player that you ever were."

(Why do men always think they can do the fighting for her?)

"Well, only time will tell."

With one final smile, the man leaves with his team, the mass of them like a pack of feral dogs roaming the streets. Oliver watches them leave before he turns to her.

"Are you alright, Lola?"

"I'm fine."

"If you bruise, I'm pressing charges."

"Dad, really, it's okay."

Putting a hand on her shoulder, he leads her in the direction of the team's bus. The rest follow them.

"I'm upping your security." He insists. "With that prick around, who knows what you'll stumble into."

"Dad--"

They stop in front of the bus and he holds her at arm's length, scanning her over with his eyes.

"Dad, I'm okay. You don't need to do any of that, really. I've taken harder hits while in Chuck's car."

That anecdote catches him off guard but he doesn't comment.

"Alright then... Children, do you all have decent clothes back at your dormitories?"

He gets scattered, hesitant nods from her teammates. Rory lifts a brow.

"Well, tell that bloody useless prick that sponsors you that I want to take you to dinner." He straightens to his full height again. "A fine dining, full course meal to reward you for your successes-- and to meet my Lola's teammates, of course."

The rest of them start to talk amongst themselves, and Rory wonders if her nightmare will ever end.

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a/n:

not tibbles calling oliver because rory intimidates him ✋

remember when I said he was so much worse this time around? yeah, next chapter should be so much fun.

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you