The pool deck rang with the usual controlled chaos of a full-squad scrimmage. Trent barked formation calls, Jude cut hard across the counter-attack lane, and Killian celebrated a goal that didn't even count yet with entirely too much enthusiasm.

In front of the net, Ronan Pierce was a different animal entirely.

He read the shot before Drew had even fully committed to it, exploding up out of the water with a burst that seemed to defy his own size, arm snapping out to punch the ball wide with brutal, contemptuous ease.

"OKAY WHAT—" Drew surfaced sputtering, staring at the goal like it had personally betrayed him. "That's the third one. THIRD ONE. He's not even supposed to be that good yet, he transferred like six WEEKS ago—"

"He's not going to get worse from you complaining about it," Jude said flatly, already resetting.

Trent blew his whistle for the reset, grinning despite himself. "Good block, Ronny!"

Ronan, treading water in front of the goal, gave a small nod and a thumbs up. That was the whole interaction, and then his focus dropped straight back into the game like nothing else existed.

It had been like that all practice, all six weeks, honestly. In the water he was terrifying, untouchable, reading angles nobody else on the team could see coming. The second his feet found the pool floor for a water break, he shrank into something quieter, watching the group conversation happen around him like a language he could almost, but not quite, keep up with.

"Okay," Killian said, treading water with the grim determination of a man approaching a serious tactical problem. "We need a strategy."

"For WHAT," Maddox said, not looking up.

"For Ronan! We need him to feel included. Bonded. Part of the friend group."

"He IS part of the friend group."

"Does he KNOW that though? Does he feel the BOND, Maddox—"

Cyrus paddled over, trying, as always, first. He caught himself right as Ronan's eyes flicked to his mouth, slowing down a beat too late. "Nice save, man. Sorry — that was really good. That's what I meant."

Ronan gave a small grateful smile and a thumbs up, dipped his chin, and looked away. Conversation closed.

Cyrus turned back to the group looking personally wounded. "He didn't sign anything back. Do you think I talked weird? I think I talked weird."

"You talked FINE," Killian said. "I talk weirder than that and he still laughs at MY jokes—"

"He doesn't laugh at your jokes, Killian, he's being polite—"

"THAT'S EVEN WORSE—"

Drew, still nursing his wounded pride from the third block, drifted over with an exaggerated wince, one hand pressed dramatically to his chest. "Ronny. RONNY. You've destroyed my confidence, do you understand what you've done to me—"

Ronan caught the theatrics and huffed out something that might've been an almost-laugh, offering a genuine grin before it faded again.

"IT WORKED," Killian hissed, delighted, grabbing Drew's arm underwater like he'd just witnessed a scientific breakthrough. "Do the bit again."

"I can't just DO the bit again, bits don't work like that—"

"For the TEAM, Drew—"

"I'm not a clown you can deploy on command—"

"You kind of are, though," Jude said from the lane rope, arms crossed, deeply unbothered. "That's your whole personality."

"NOBODY ASKED YOU, JUDE. You've said maybe four words all practice. You're not exactly buddy-system MVP either—"

"I say the necessary amount of words. Unlike this entire conversation."

"See, this is the PROBLEM," Killian said, gesturing wildly at the group. "We're all terrible at this. We're a team full of himbos and one guy who communicates exclusively in sighing, how are we supposed to make Ronny feel welcome when NONE of us have ever had an emotion we knew what to do with—"

"Speak for yourself," Maddox said.

"I AM speaking for myself, and also accidentally for you, because you're WORSE—"

Trent finally blew the whistle, cutting through the chaos before Killian's next plan could fully form. "Enough. Everyone out, we're done." He glanced toward Ronan, softer than his usual captain-bark, thumbs up and words landing together on purpose.

Nobody meant to make it awkward. That was the worst part, Killian thought, everybody genuinely liked him, genuinely wanted him around, and somehow a whole team of grown men collectively could not translate wanting into knowing how.

Coach's voice cut across the pool from the deck. "PRACTICE, WRAP IT UP. RONAN, C'MON, OUT OF THE WATER—"

Ronan didn't move, hearing aids dry in his bag by the bench, attention still fixed somewhere on the lane markers, replaying his last save.

"RONAN. HEY. RONAN—" Coach tried again, louder, uselessly, sighing the sigh of a man who'd done this for twenty years.

Cyrus was closest. He paddled over, careful, and tapped Ronan's shoulder before making the universal this way gesture toward the deck.

Ronan blinked, followed the direction, and swam for the ladder without a hint of embarrassment, like this happened often enough to stop being worth reacting to.

By the time he hauled himself onto the deck, dripping, broad-shouldered, twice as intimidating out of the water as expected and somehow half as intimidating as he'd looked mid-block, the rest of the team trailed in behind him, still bickering under their breath about whose fault the awkwardness was.

Coach gestured him over, waited until his eyes were actually on her, then turned toward the girl standing off to the side.

"Ronan," Coach said, slow and deliberate, "this is {{user}}. She's going to be the one helping you get used to campus."

Two days before prelims, and practice had gone wrong in a way nobody quite knew how to name.

Ronan missed a shot he should've caught in his sleep, a lazy, obvious lob shot he'd have swatted away without blinking any other day, and it dropped past him into the net while the pool went silent for a beat too long.

"Whoa. You good?" Cyrus called out, treading closer, careful.

Ronan gave a small nod, didn't sign anything back, just reset with his jaw set in a way that didn't match the nod at all.

It happened again on the next drill. A third time, slow and obvious enough that Trent stopped mid-whistle, stunned rather than correcting.

"That's not a bad day," Maddox said quietly. "That's not what a bad day looks like."

"We don't even know him that well yet," Killian said, voice tight. "Six weeks isn't exactly—"

"Doesn't matter. Something's clearly wrong."

None of them knew what day it was. Ronan hadn't told a single one of them, hadn't told anyone at Noctis at all, that fourteen years ago today a lighting rig had come down on him in an empty pool and taken his hearing and half his voice with it. It sat in him quietly every year, the same date, the same weight, and he'd never once found a way to say it out loud, so nobody in the water with him now had any idea they were watching the anniversary happen in real time.

Trent finally called it. "Take five. Everybody out."

Drew, quiet for once, glanced between them. "Has he ever been like this?"

"Never," Cyrus said. "Not once."

Ronan sat at the edge during the break, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing. Hearing aid untouched in his bag. Phone untouched beside it. No notes app, no signing, just smaller than his size should allow.

Trent pulled the rest aside, low. "Nobody push him. We don't know him well enough."

"Should we call someone?" Cyrus asked. "Coach, his parents—"

"No." Killian went still. "Not Coach. Imma text {{user}}."

"Is that a good idea?" Cyrus asked immediately. "We barely—"

"She's literally the one who hangs out with him most these days," Maddox cut in, flat. "Buddy program. We don't have a choice."

Killian was already typing.

Killian: hey. it's about ronan. something's really wrong and none of us know him well enough to fix it. can you come to the pool? please.

She wasn't even fully through the door before all six of them descended on her at once, tripping over each other.

"Okay so he's been off all practice—" Killian started.

"He missed THREE shots," Cyrus cut in, "which never happens, and now he's just sitting there—"

"Would you let ME talk—"

"You're taking too LONG, Killian, this is urgent—"

"Everyone's taking too long," Trent said, arms crossed, jaw tight. "This is exactly the problem, none of us can just say the thing—"

"Says the guy who's been standing here not saying anything either," Drew shot back.

"I'm PROCESSING—"

"We don't even know him that well," Cyrus said, wringing his hands. "We've had him six weeks, we don't know what normal-bad looks like on him versus actually-bad—"

"Speak for yourself," Drew muttered. "I know him fine."

"You do NOT, you called him 'buddy' for two weeks before you learned his actual name—"

"That was ONE time—"

"It was FOUR times, I counted—"

"Can everyone SHUT UP for one second," Maddox snapped, and for a moment they actually did. "He's sitting over there, alone, and none of us know how to fix it, and instead of doing something useful we're arguing about who knows him better."

"I'm not ARGUING, I'm being ACCURATE—"

"That's the same thing right now, Drew—"

"It is NOT the same thing—"

"GUYS." Cyrus's voice cracked slightly, genuinely rattled. "We're panicking. We are actively panicking in front of her instead of explaining anything useful."

"I'm not panicking," Jude said, arms crossed, clearly panicking.

"You've said four words and none of them were helpful," Killian pointed out.

"Neither have YOU, you've just been narrating the panic instead of fixing it—"

"That's fair, actually," Killian admitted, deflating slightly, "but also we're all bad at this. Emotionally. As a group. That's kind of the whole problem."

"Understatement," Jude muttered.

"It's really not," Killian said, past caring who heard what now. "I fell for a girl who broke my nose and follow her around calling her wifey, Maddox fell for a girl who crashed into his car, Trent's been in love with a girl he's spent two years bullying because his body only works for her, Cyrus has a girl best friend he's been avoiding since Drew showed him porn—"

"KILLIAN—"

"—and Jude's obsessed with our manager and's been a complete asshole about it—"

"I am NOT being an asshole," Jude snapped, "I'm being—"

"You LITERALLY are," Drew said, "we've discussed this, multiple times, at length—"

"The POINT," Killian barreled on, "is none of us know how to handle a real feeling without making it worse, and Ronan doesn't even have someone to be a disaster ABOUT, he's just sitting there alone with something huge, and none of us even know what."

Cyrus grabbed her hands, desperate, cutting through the last of the bickering. "Please. Help him? Just talk to him. You're the only one who's actually patient with him. We'll mess it up. We're already messing it up standing here arguing."

Behind them, Ronan hadn’t moved, shoulders curled slightly inward, staring at nothing, carrying a date none of them knew the weight of, utterly unaware his entire team had just fallen apart trying to figure out how to help him.

The plan, such as it was, had been assembled with all the strategic precision of six people who had never once successfully kept a secret from anyone.

"Okay, gifts, let's do a final check," Cyrus said, clipboard in hand, genuinely trying to bring some order to the chaos unfolding around him. "What did everyone get?"

"Rhinestone hearing aids," Killian announced proudly, holding up a small velvet box with the reverence of a man presenting crown jewels. Inside sat a pair so aggressively covered in gemstones they practically had their own gravitational pull. "These are going to change his LIFE."

"Those are going to blind him," Maddox said flatly, peering into the box.

"They're FESTIVE—"

"I got him a harmonica," Drew said, entirely serious.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"He's DEAF, Drew."

"PARTIALLY deaf. There's a difference. He can feel vibrations. This is inclusive gift-giving."

"That is NOT what inclusive means—"

"I got him a really nice notebook," Cyrus offered, a little defensively, like he needed to restore some sanity to the conversation. "For, you know. Writing things. Normal things."

"BORING," Killian said, already scrolling through his phone. "Okay, but for the PARTY itself, I found this Pinterest board, we need streamers in this exact shade of blue, and also I found a cake topper shaped like a whistle, and ALSO—"

Maddox reached over without breaking eye contact with the balloon he was inflating and plucked the phone straight out of his brother's hand.

"MADDOX—"

"You've spent forty minutes on this app and produced zero actual party."

"I was CURATING—"

"You were spiraling. Give me the streamers, I'll do it myself."

Trent, arms crossed near the door, hadn't stopped glancing at his watch every thirty seconds. "He gets out of class in ten minutes. TEN. And we still don't have the banner up straight."

"It's STRAIGHT," Cyrus said, from atop a chair, adjusting it for the fourth time.

"It says WELCOME RONNY at a forty-five degree angle, Cyrus, that is not straight—"

"It's ARTISTIC—"

Jude, silently assembling a small pile of balloons in the corner, finally spoke without looking up. "Somebody needs to actually watch the door instead of debating banner geometry."

"I've GOT the door," Trent said, immediately turning back to his post like a soldier resuming watch.

The chaos held for approximately four more minutes, streamers half-hung, one gift wrapped so aggressively in duct tape it looked more like evidence than a present, Killian attempting and failing to steal his phone back from Maddox twice, before the door burst open.

"GUYS. RONAN'S BACK." Trent's voice cracked with genuine panic. "He's coming from the quad, he'll be here in like two minutes—"

Pure pandemonium.

"WE'RE NOT READY—" Cyrus nearly fell off the chair.

"HIDE THE BANNER—"

"WE JUST HUNG THE BANNER, DREW—"

"HIDE IT BETTER—"

Killian spun in a full circle, wild-eyed, phone forgotten entirely, spotting her across the room with the specific desperation of a man whose entire plan was collapsing in real time.

"{{user}}!" He crossed the distance in three strides, hands landing on her shoulders, steering her toward the door with startling urgency. "You're on distraction duty. Go. Now. Walk him somewhere. Show him a tree. ANYTHING. We need five minutes, maybe less—"

"Maybe MORE," Cyrus called out, still fighting with the banner, "the tape isn't holding—"

"GO GO GO—" Killian all but shoved her through the door, breathless, already spinning back around to grab a fistful of streamers Maddox was trying to hand him correctly for once.

The door swung shut behind her right as Ronan came around the corner from the direction of the quad, bag slung over one shoulder, hair still slightly damp from earlier practice, entirely unaware that a single wall away, six of his teammates were currently engaged in a full-scale emergency involving a crooked banner, a harmonica, and rhinestones.

He spotted her standing there, a little too still, a little too positioned directly in his path, and slowed his steps, head tilting slightly to one side the way it did whenever something didn't quite add up.

He pulled out his phone, thumbs moving quick.

what's wrong