Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Taylors
When Tim Riggins landed on the Taylors’ couch, he considered it the lowest point of his life. That was really saying something for a guy of his standing. Absentee mother, fair-weather father, a brother shacking up with his ex-girlfriend? There was no shortage of fucked up in the Riggins family.
Before last week, at least Tim could say he’d never had to beg for a place to sleep. That’s exactly what he had done when he dragged his drunk self to Tyra’s doorstep. Okay, maybe begging another ex-girlfriend to save him from homelessness was lower than this.
Standing in the Taylors’ living room, watching Mrs. Coach make up the couch with spare sets of sheets from the linen closet, Tim could not shake the thought that this was it. He had finally reached the most pathetic point he possibly could.
Well, besides sleeping with Lyla while Street was in the hospital. Or all those other times.
“There you go, honey,” Mrs. Coach said, distracting him from his self-pitying thoughts. She took him by the arm, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “Bathroom’s down the hall, second door on the left. Help yourself to the kitchen. Don’t mind Gracie Belle, you’re liable to hear her tonight, she’s teething. Get some rest, Tim.”
“Thanks,” he managed around the thickness in his throat. It was the only word he was able to force out. Mrs. Coach gave his arm another squeeze before disappearing down the hallway and leaving Tim to his own devices.
He grabbed a pair of sweats and his toothbrush from his duffel bag and headed for the aforementioned bathroom. Tim didn’t figure that Coach would much appreciate his sleeping in his boxers as he preferred. Avoiding his reflection in the mirror as much as he could, Tim changed and brushed his teeth, pilfering some toothpaste. He didn’t have any of his own, but someone—probably Julie—had left a tube of Crest right there on the counter.
Tim creeped back down the hallway, hesitant to make any noise, knowing that the Taylors—or at least Julie and Gracie Belle—must be asleep for the night. He doubted Coach and Mrs. Coach had turned in for the night yet. They were probably talking about what to do with the pathetic excuse of a person that was currently lying on their couch.
Grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes, Tim willed himself not to cry. This didn’t warrant crying. Street’s injuries, Dad leaving again, Billy’s initial betrayal—yeah, those all called for the too-familiar, too-angry tears he was used to shedding when he got mad. The sheets smelled like flowery detergent when he pulled them up over his head.
Tim stared at the blackness given to him by the tented sheets until, finally, he fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
***
He woke the next morning to the smell of pancakes and quiet voices.
“So, like, he’s homeless?” Taylor. Well, Julie. He was surrounded by Taylors in this house; he would need to be more specific. Tim buried his head back into his borrowed pillow, trying to will himself back to sleep.
“Julie,” Mrs. Coach reprimanded softly. “Some tact, please. Tim is not homeless; he simply needs a place to stay for a bit.”
“I’m pretty sure couch surfing falls under the umbrella of homelessness.” The soft click of plates joined their hushed conversation. There was a sizzle and, a moment later, the smell of bacon wafted into the living room from the kitchen. “Ew.”
“I know, the consumption of meat is an offense to your vegetarian sensibilities, but last time I checked, most teenage boys like bacon.” Tim continued to feign sleep, eavesdropping on the breakfast preparations taking place between mother and daughter. That lasted for a while, with Julie and Mrs. Coach arguing over how much food they thought Coach and Tim could collectively put away. Eventually, though, Mrs. Coach’s voice raised in volume as she oh-so-subtly called out, “Eric, honey, are you ready for breakfast?”
Tim was fairly certain the call was meant to wake him as much as it was to summon Coach. Reluctantly, he emerged from his cocoon and pushed himself up from the couch, rubbing his eyes to sell the idea that he had barely woken up.
“Oh, good morning, Tim,” Mrs. Coach greeted from the kitchen, a wide smile on her face as she plopped Gracie Belle in her highchair. “Hungry?”
“I could eat.” He was waved over to the table, a pointed finger from Mrs. Coach letting him know he should take a seat on the left side of the table. Julie was already there, slathering pancakes with butter before drowning them in syrup. “Morning, Taylor.”
“Did you use my toothpaste?” She asked, a possessive edge to her tone even as she offered the syrup to him. Tim smiled sheepishly, clearly caught.
“Sorry. Didn’t think to grab mine before storming out of Billy’s place,” he admitted. Though Julie initially narrowed her eyes at him, full lips pursing as she studied him, she ultimately shrugged.
“It’s fine. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever.”
Coach appeared at the table with his hair still damp from a shower. He greeted Mrs. Coach and his daughters all with kisses on the cheeks and then clapped Tim on the shoulder.
“Oh, we get Saturday breakfast because we’ve got company?” Coach asked, earning himself a little smack on the shoulder from Mrs. Coach. She smiled, though, and accepted a syrupy kiss on the mouth from her husband. “Don’t get used to the spoiling, Riggins. Tami runs a tight ship ’round here.”
He nodded quietly, trying to use Julie’s plate as a judge for how much food to take for himself. Three pancakes, like hers, but since Julie apparently didn’t eat meat, she couldn’t use her as a guide for the bacon. He turned to Coach for that, mirroring the two strips set on the side of his plate.
“Got plans this weekend, Jules?” Coach seemed determined to smother the slightly awkward atmosphere with genial breakfast talk.
“No,” Julie pushed a piece of pancake into a little pool of syrup. “Just homework.”
“Really?” Coach pressed. “Figured we’d see Saracen around at least tonight. He’s usually around on the weekends.”
“Not this weekend,” Julie snapped. Did Coach not know? All of Dillon High knew that Saracen and Julie were through. On the other side of the table, Mrs. Coach pointedly cleared her throat, staring hard at her husband.
“What?” Coach asked. Tim watched Mrs. Coach raise her brows, waiting futilely for Coach to catch on. He didn’t. “What? I can’t ask about our daughter’s boyfriend now?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Julie glared up at her father. “Ask questions about him if you want, but don’t call him that anymore, because he’s not, okay?”
“Okay,” Coach agreed immediately. Softly. “I’m sorry, honey. I missed the memo.”
“It’s fine,” Julie said again, though unlike the toothpaste incident, it clearly wasn’t.
***
The first weekend with the Taylors passed in much the same way Saturday’s breakfast did. Stilted conversations, awkwardness coloring most actions, as Tim felt out his place in the household. He managed to survive until Monday morning, where he made a snap decision about attempting to pull his weight around the house.
“I got it,” he told Mrs. Coach, taking a full trash bag from her hand. She was a flurry of movement before school, running this way and that as she tried to get herself and Gracie Belle ready for the day. Taking the trash out was the least he could do.
“Oh, thank you. Hey, Tim, what do you say to taking Julie to school with you?”
It wasn’t something he had ever considered, but one look at Mrs. Coach’s frenzied eyes, and Tim knew he couldn’t say no. “Yeah, no problem. Where is she?”
“Running late, like always. Here,” Gracie Belle was in the crook of his free arm before he could protest, “take that trash out and hold the baby a minute and I’ll get Julie.”
“Okay.”
Tim let Gracie Belle tug at the ends of his hair while he saw to the trash. He bounced the baby on his hip the same way he had seen Mrs. Coach do, walking aimlessly around the living room with her while he waited. When Julie emerged from the hallway, it was with her ponytail swishing moodily behind her.
“C’mon,” was the only greeting she spared him, apparently unaware of the baby he was holding. Mrs. Coach was right behind her oldest daughter, relieving him of the baby’s weight.
“You two have a good day at school!” She called, mostly after Julie, who was waiting with her arms crossed beside the passenger side of Tim’s truck. Her eyes were squinted in the early morning sunlight, lips pouting. Tim took a little longer than necessary getting down the driveway to his truck, just to watch her blonde brows furrow and that little line of annoyance appear between them.
“So,” he said casually, starting the truck while Julie slid into the passenger seat. “You and Saracen, huh?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Julie jammed her seatbelt on and crossed her arms across her chest.
“Obviously, since Coach didn’t even know.” Her only response came in the form of an eye roll. Tim had to bite his cheek to keep from grinning. Messing with Julie was… well, it was fun, even if it was earning him the ire of his new roommate. “Got anything to do with that Swede guy?”
The frustrated little squeal that Julie gave broke his resolve. A wide smile spread over his face before he could help it. “Shut up!” Julie threw another glare at him. “Has Matt been telling everybody?”
“Just first string,” Tim admitted, turning toward Dillon High. “Don’t sweat it, Taylor, it’s just a sob story. He’s not even blaming you or anythin’. Just feeling sorry for himself for losin’ out to another guy.”
“Oh.” That seemed to take all the fight out of her. She deflated a little in the front seat.
After that first drive to school, Tim decided living with the Taylors wasn’t going to be so bad.
***
Tim wouldn't lie and say he had thought much about Julie Taylor before living with her. His thoughts about the girl had never gone beyond 'Coach's daughter' or 'Saracen's girl'. But she wasn't Saracen's girl anymore. She was still Coach's daughter, though. That should have been enough to keep certain thoughts out of Tim's head.
Like how cute she looked at breakfast time on the weekends, her hair tousled and her face bare of makeup.
Or how easily he'd managed to memorize the pattern of freckles across her nose.
Or how when she read a book, she was oblivious to everything around her, and how much he liked watching her in her own world.
But even having Coach Taylor under the same roof, more often than not in the same room, had not been enough to keep the thoughts from sprouting in his head. Not that Tim ever acted on them. He knew better than that, though that wasn't to say he didn't very much want to act on them. Tim wasn’t proud of it, but he knew himself. He knew burying himself in the first warm, willing body was his favorite way to cope with his feelings. Since living with the Taylors over the past month, more than a few rally girls had been all too happy to oblige him.
None of them were anything like Julie Taylor, though. They didn’t roll their eyes at him or offer him the biggest roll at the dinner table. They didn’t gripe about his commandeering the couch before folding themselves into the armchair and sticking their cute little freckled nose in a book. Not a single rally girl possessed even half of the personality that overflowed from Julie Taylor.
One night, Time walked past a window in the Taylor household to see Julie lying in the backyard, her face turned skyward. A bemused smile spread across Tim's face as he ducked out the back door.
"What are you doing out here, Taylor?" he asked. The sound of his voice startled Julie into sitting up.
"There's gonna be a meteor shower," Julie told him. Even in the dark, Tim could make out the excitement in her eyes. "Have you ever seen one?" She asked, and Tim shook his head. Julie scooted over on the blanket she'd placed on the ground and patted the empty spot beside her
"Come watch with me."
Now, in all his life, Tim Riggins had never paid much attention to the stars in the sky. He would even go so far as to say he didn't give a damn about them under different circumstances. But nothing would have stopped him from looking at the stars with Julie Taylor that night.
"Alright," he'd said in his Texas drawl, flopping himself down beside her on the blanket.
"I love meteor showers," Julie told him. He liked the childlike excitement in her voice. "One of the only good things about living in Dillon is that there isn't a lot of light pollution."
Tim had never heard of light pollution before, but he nodded at her, happy enough to be laying on that blanket with her. There had been many times he'd imagined hanging out with Julie, truly hanging out with her, since he had been staying in her house. He never thought they really would, though. Not past dinners and morning drives to school.
Julie Taylor wasn't like the girls he usually hung around, and they both knew that all too well. Tim had kept his distance from her for good reason, even though it went against what he wanted.
"You have no idea what that means, do you?" Julie asked him, turning her face from the sky to look at him.
Tim smiled sheepishly at her. "Not a damned clue."
She giggled, and an urge to kiss her swelled up inside Tim's chest, which he promptly suppressed. This was Julie Taylor. Not Tyra or Lyla or one of the countless rally girls.
This girl was too good for Tim. Or so he thought.
Too good or not, Julie and Tim kept looking at each other in silence. He could feel the tension between the two of them, but it was broken when a flash of light caught Julie's eye.
"Look!" She exclaimed, grabbing Tim's hand in one of hers and using the other to point to the sky. "It's starting."
Julie didn't let go of his hand, not even when they had both moved to look at the streaks of light moving across the sky. On impulse, Tim moved his hand inside hers, threading their fingers together.
For just a moment, Julie looked away from the sky to smile at him. She still didn't try to remove her hand from his.
Even though Tim watched the flash of meteors up above, he was more focused on how soft and small Julie's hand was in his.
"Isn't it pretty?" Julie said in a reverent whisper. Her eyes were following the trails left by the meteors, so that she didn't notice Tim's gaze fixed on her. In Tim's opinion, Julie's excitement and wonder was a better view than the meteors themselves.
The meteor shower doesn't last long—ten minutes, tops—but neither made a move to get up when the last meteor fades from their sight. They stayed laying on the blanket, hands intertwined. Tim gave hers a squeeze, testing the limits. She didn’t pull away.
“So, you and Saracen…”
“Not this again.” He could practically hear the eye roll in her voice. Grinning, he let his head loll back toward her.
“I was just wonderin’,” Tim shrugged. “You’re not planning on getting back together with him or anything, are you?”
“Didn’t you tell me he’s using last summer as a sob story?” Julie asked, quirking a brow so that it disappeared under her bangs. “I messed that one up.”
“Getting a crush on a guy is barely messing up,” Tim pointed out. “It’s not like you slept with his best friend or anything.”
“Landry would never go for it,” Julie told him, “even if Matt were paralyzed in the hospital.”
“Ouch, Taylor,” Tim slapped his free hand to his chest, just over his heart. He fell quiet for a moment before admitting, “I deserved that.”
“I know you did. Lyla’s hardly alone in what happened.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was there, remember?” Julie nodded, rolled herself onto her side. Her knee knocked into Tim’s thigh. She still didn’t let go of his hand.
"You're not as tough as you look, you know. I've seen you play with Gracie Belle." All the teasing had drained from her face.
"Well, that's not fair. No one looks tough playing with a baby." He wasn’t sure where she was taking this and that made him nervous. Tim put his other hand behind his head, turning his eyes skyward once more.
"I've also seen the way you bow your head and say 'Yes, ma'am' to my mom."
Tim laughed. "Hey, now. Mrs. Coach can be a scary lady."
"Just take my compliment," Julie said with an eye roll. "I meant it in a good way."
"Alright," Tim said with an easy smile. "So, I'm not as tough as I look."
They were quiet for a few moments. Tim worked his hand free of Julie’s grasp only to draw lazy circles across her palm with the tip of his finger. “Is that a good thing?”
Julie took her time answering, staring at him from across the blanket. "You know, you’re kind of a pain in the ass, but I'm really glad you came here to live with us," Julie told him eventually. "I don't think I ever would have gotten to know the real Tim Riggins if you didn't. I like the real Tim Riggins. I never thought I’d see you stargazing."
Tim shrugged. "Only because you asked me to."
Julie smiled wide at Tim, catching onto the emphasis he put on the word ‘you’, her nose crinkling. "You wouldn’t do this for Tyra or Lyla?"
"Neither of them would ever think to go stargazing."
"Or for one of the rally girls?"
This time, Tim chuckled. "Julie, you know those girls only think about doing one thing with the Dillon Panthers."
They fell quiet again, just looking at one another. Her hair was almost white in the moonlight, her freckles mimicking the constellations above their heads. “Want me to knock Saracen on his ass next time he’s bitching about the Swede in the locker room?”
He mostly said it because he needed his mouth to be doing something before he did kiss her. Goddamn, did he want to. Instead, he watched Julie’s nose crinkle again as she giggled. “Does he talk about it a lot?”
“Only when he breathes.” Another giggle.
“I think we should go inside. My parent’s are gonna be home from dinner soon.”
“Yeah,” Tim agreed, still tracing the lines on her palm. “Be a real shame to let them catch us staring at the sky like TV hasn’t been invented yet.”
“More like, my dad wouldn’t hesitate to tell the whole team about finding his scary fullback staring at the sky like TV hasn’t been invented and then the whole locker room’ll be talking about you instead of the Swede.”
“Fair enough.” Though he didn’t want to, Tim pushed himself up from the ground. He extended a hand to Julie, which he took, and pulled her up to her feet. Then he retrieved her blanket from the ground, folding it as they walked back inside. “Nigh, Julie.”
She started at his use of her first name before tossing a smile over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Tim.”
Living with the Taylors, Tim decided, was actually the best thing that had ever happened to him.