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“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”—Winston Churchill
Courage is What It Takes to Sit down and Listen
“We had a great victory tonight, but that’s not going to give us a win tomorrow night.” Steve’s eyes bored into his team, various members of whom had been swapping jokes and chirps with more levity than Steve approved of when they had games back-to-back nights a moment ago but had sobered under Steve’s stern stare. Willing his teammates to mimic his focus, Steve went on, “Tomorrow night we have a job to do. Let’s concentrate on that and take it seriously.”
He had barely finished the last syllable in “seriously” when a guffaw burst from Brett’s lips.
Glowering at Brett, because he didn’t appreciate Brett’s vexing penchant to be utterly irreverent in circumstances like these, Steve snapped, “Want to share the punchline with the rest of us, Hullie?”
Brett, pounding at his kneecaps with his fists as he continued to roar out his amusement, choked out between gales of laughter, “No. It’s an inside joke.”
Brett’s eyes, wet from hilarity, flicked over to the opposite side of the circle that had clustered around Steve. Very interested in spotting the person Brett was trying and failing to covertly communicate with, Steve caught Pavel in the midst of transitioning from a hunched over, face-off position with an uncanny imitation of Steve’s stoic game face to a straight-backed posture with a grim expression that would have been appropriate at a particularly bleak funeral.
“I see.” Steve’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he clapped his hands. “That’s it. Speech is over.”
As Pavel made to drift off with the rest of the team, who were returning to their lockers and resuming conversation—though in more subdued tones—Steve snatched his elbow and commented crisply, “Not so fast, Pav. I’d like a word with you in private.”
While he let Steve steer him down the hallway to an otherwise empty conference room, Pavel’s eyes widened innocently, and he pointed out, playful as a toddler, “You already have word with me.”
Irritated rather than entertained by Pavel’s literal interpretation of the English language, since he suspected that Pavel was both acting deliberately dumb and mocking him, Steve clenched his jaw. “I meant a whole conversation with you.”
“Oh.” Pavel refused to drop the innocent expression as they entered the meeting room. “What about, Stevie?”
“You know what about.” Steve flicked on a light switch and tightened his grip on Pavel’s elbows, dragging Pavel’s face closer to his own, so he could lock his gaze more intensely on the impish rookie. “I was talking about the importance of being serious, and then, before the words are even out of my mouth, I turn around to find you not only making a joke but mocking me behind my back. You were disobedient and disrespectful, kid, and you know I won’t tolerate either of those things.”
“I not try be.” Pavel was nibbling on his lower lip, and normally such an obvious sign of distress from someone as quiet as Pavel would have made Steve soften, but this time, afraid it was another one of Pavel’s tricks, Steve’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t lie to me,” warned Steve, giving Pavel a firm shake. “Any more lies from your lips will just earn you a worse spanking.”
“Spanking?” Pavel’s jaw sank so far that it nearly brushed against his neck.
“Disobedience and disrespect will always earn you a spanking, and you know that.” Steve settled into a chair and tapped his lap, ordering, “Pull your pants down and bend over my knee.”
“No.” Nimbly, Pavel twisted his elbows out of Steve’s grasp and leapt backward. “Don’t deserve be spanked. I not disobedient. I not disrespectful.”
“You’re being both those things just now.” Steve was losing any semblance of patience with Pavel’s stubborn defiance. Seizing Pavel’s elbows and hauling a kicking rookie, who emitted squawks to shame a chicken, over his knee, he announced tersely as he slipped Pavel’s jeans and underwear down to his knees, which restricted Pavel’s ability to physically resist his punishment, “Your fighting cost you the chance to keep your briefs up, scamp.”
“Not fair.” Pavel squeaked as a barrage of swats was unleashed on his bare bottom.
“No,” corrected Steve, smacking a path down first Pavel’s left buttocks and then his right, “what’s not fair is you disrespecting me in front of the whole team and then trying to act innocent to escape the well-deserved consequences of your actions.”
“Not disrespect,” maintained Pavel, resolute as a rock standing tall against the smashing waves of an ocean. “I just make joke.”
“A joke at my expense when I had just talked about the need to be serious and focus.” Steve shifted his attention to Pavel’s sit-spots to emphasize his displeasure with Pavel’s behavior. “When you make a mockery of me in front of the whole team after I’ve just finished saying how we have to be focused, you’re being extremely disobedient and disrespectful.”
“No.” Pavel’s teeth were gritting so loudly that Steve could hear the sound of bone scraping bone between the strong slaps he delivered to Pavel’s reddening backside. “Didn’t mean to be.”
“You can be disrespectful and disobedient without meaning to be.” Steve’s palm blistered across Pavel’s rump, rekindling flames that had been lit earlier in the spanking.
“You not listening to me.” Pavel managed to transform a hiccup into a protest.
“That’s because you need to listen to me.” Steve tore into Pavel’s sit-spots again, determined to break through Pavel’s obstinacy and bring him to repentance. “I won’t allow you to make me a laughingstock in front of the team, especially when I’ve just explained how important it is to be serious.”
“I be serious.” Pavel went limp over Steve’s lap as Steve, suspicious at this sudden caving, continued to hammer at Pavel’s sit-spots. “No make jokes, especially about you, Stevie. I promise.”
“Remember your promise.” Steve administered a final series of swats to Pavel’s rear, drawing whimpers from Pavel. As he slid Pavel’s pants and briefs up to their original positions, wincing in sympathy as the fabric traveled across scorched skin, he concluded, assuming what he hoped was a strict but affectionate manner, “If you forget, scamp, I’ll remind you with a hand on your butt.”
He attempted to gently guide Pavel to his chest for a comforting hug but found himself rebuffed as Pavel hopped off his lap and hunched into a separate chair, sobbing softly into his hands. When Steve, worried about Pavel’s evasion of his embrace when the young Russian typically craved affection after he was disciplined, reached out to wrap an arm around Pavel’s heaving shoulders, Pavel stiffened and snuffled, “Hate you.”
Feeling as if an arrow had pierced his heart, Steve replied instinctually, “That sucks because I love you, Pav.”
“You lie.” Sniffling, Pavel shook his head. “You hurt me.”
“Come now.” Steve squeezed Pavel’s shoulder. “Your bottom will stop stinging in a couple of hours, kid. It’s not like I beat the hide off you.”
“Not my bottom I talking about.” Pavel spoke with all the dignity that he could with tears streaming down his cheeks. “My heart I talking about.”
“How’d I hurt your heart?” pressed Steve, leaning closer to murmur the question into the shell of Pavel’s ear.
“You not listen to me.” Pavel’s chin lifted. “You spank me without listen to me.”
Realizing that he had in fact disciplined without giving Pavel an opportunity to explain himself, Steve said gingerly, “What did you want to tell me, Pav?”
“That I copy you because I watch you.” Pavel’s face tilted out of his hands so he could eye Steve with a watery earnestness reminiscent of a puppy. “I admire you and want be like you, so I imitate you. Not meant mock you. Maybe meant make you laugh little but not meant make you joke.”
“I’m flattered that you look up to me and want to be like me.” Steve patted Pavel’s cheeks before beginning to wipe the tears off them. His throat thickening so that it was a challenge to get the words out, he went on, “I should’ve let you explain yourself, though I still would’ve had to punish you, scamp, because you’d have to learn that making a joke when your captain has just told you to be serious is disobedient even if it isn’t intended to be disrespectful.”
“Meant to make you laugh.” Pavel’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
“I know.” Steve tapped Pavel’s nose with a finger. “Problem is a joke when I’m serious and told you to be, too, won’t ever make me laugh.”