Note: Since the summary can only be so long for this site

Advantage Rule: Also called Advantage Clause. Rule whereby the Referee has the responsibility to not call an obvious foul if, by stopping play at that moment, the effect would be to cause greater harm to the team that was fouled.

Axel Lea felt like he was finally succeeding at adult life; dream job, two great kids he now gets full time, good relationship with the ex-wife, inherited house with a fence and everything. Youth soccer coach too. Nothing said to your old home town that the screw up who set the YMCA pool on fire and got the granddaughter of the most influential woman in town pregnant in high school had grown into a responsible human like being a youth soccer coach. Of course, he didn't count on unruly children, even worse behaved soccer parents, an assistant coach with an attitude and a juvie record, his daughter's first crush, the first love he hasn't talked to since senior year when there was a hard to explain incident with a girl staying with her grandmother over Christmas break, and a boss that seems to hate him for no good reason except suspecting him of trying to sleep with his husband all working together to drive him insane.

Based on a plot bunny by Cameron Claire

Chapter One:

"Shirt!" Axel threw out the word as a command, not even looking in his son's room as he threw open the door and shouted through the entryway, eyes already focused on the impetus for his soon to come next order-pick up- shin guards and a remote control helicopter perched precariously on the top two steps of the stairs a few feet away, something he'd soon regret.

"Pants!" The return fire came in two senses of the word as a wadded up pair of chocobo pajama bottoms struck the side of Axel's head with force.

"Reno Keiji Lea," Axel assumed his authoritarian face, a stone wall look he wasn't sure was more or less effective with his hair slicked back and makeup covering his tattoos. He let the name hang, wondering, more along the line of hoping, that the full name alone would be enough to trigger an apology. He milked the moment further, bending to pick up the offending garment up off the floor then holding it up to shake at the eight year old who stood barefooted, bare chested, and sporting impressive bedhead flashing him a smug missing tooth smile that made him look more like a midget who'd gotten into a bar fight than adorable scamp. "Did you just throw your dirty pajamas at me?" Rhetorical question was a solid move. He could always count to three next. Counting to three usually worked.

Reno shrugged a bony shoulder, "I was trying out a new good morning. I figure if you can substitute 'shirt' for 'time to get up' I can workshop a little myself."

"You think you're funny?" The corner of Axel's mouth twitched just slightly. The little shit was slightly funny,; not in the words he used himself, except the shirt and pants thing which really was kind of clever, but the amount of sass. Pride surged in his chest. The kid really was a chip off the old block. All the more reason not to look amused though. Parenting was a constant war and Reno was consistently gaining ground as it was.

"You do," Reno shot back, crossing his arms over his chest, "because you're old and weird."

"You're shivering," Axel changed the subject instead of sinking to the level Reno obviously expected him to and making a crack about Reno admitting only a weirdo could think he was funny. That was Reno's prime tactic, getting him to act like they were both eight and friends not parent and child. It still worked a disproportionate amount of time. "You need to put on a shirt."

"The black shirt with the lightning strike on it that glows in the dark?" Negotiation. Why would someone a third of your height that you had given life to think they had the right to start negotiations?

"Your school uniform shirt. Put it on your body. Come on, what's your deal, little dude? We go through this every morning. You don't have a problem with the pants." The transformation from attempted sternness to overdramatic whining was probably setting the whole war thing back, but Axel had never been a morning person and he tended toward pathetic more often than grumpy when tired.

"It's casual Friday today." Reno didn't even blink when lying. It was scary stuff sometimes.

"Nice try. Schools don't have Casual Friday and it's Wednesday. Shirt on body"

Reno let out a disgruntled noise and picked up a wrinkled wad of white material from the floor to shake out. "Shows how much you know. If you have enough spirit points, you can have Casual Friday once a month."

Axel leaned against the doorframe, showing he was relaxing but continuing to watch until the shirt was actually on the redheaded child's body. He'd been burned before. "Oh, and how many spirit points do you have?"

Reno put his arms through his dress shirt, buttoned a single button, and then got down on his knees to look under his bed for his school blazer. "Zero. I keep getting deductions."

Axel filed that information back to talk about that night. One issue at a time. "Button."

"I'm not a dog. I can process more than one word commands." Reno retrieved the blazer and slipped it on.

"Button. The. Shirt. You're making us late."

Reno buttoned a second button but no more. "Ah, you see what my plan was all along, Pops."

Axel pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He would not give this child the satisfaction of seeing him laugh or curse. He did switch tactics and tease to see if it would have better results than being-mostly-serious, "It's not too late to leave you on the doorstep of a fire station. I have a replacement coming on the train today, and she'd help cover for me with your mother if I promised her a dog."

Reno shook his head but buttoned the rest of his buttons. They were uneven, but it was as close as they were going to get today. "No, Xion loves me the most in this family."

"Impossible. We all love each other the same in this family. Tied first place love all around," Axel corrected without missing a beat, going over to his son and pulling on the bottom of his shirt to try and take out some of the wrinkles. "Tuck that in and I'll comb your hair. We multitask." He really regretted not reminding Reno to hang up his uniform or checking behind him yesterday. Too late now. He grabbed the comb from the dresser.

"Even you and mom?" Reno looked almost innocent with eyes gone wide.

"Yeah, of course," Axel didn't look directly at the puppy look, choosing instead to focus on Reno's cowlicks, licking his thumb and smoothing the unruly locks like a cliche mother hen.

"Gross," Reno complained, ducking away, vaguely referencing either the assurance or his father's spit, Axel couldn't be sure. "Can we get McDonald's for breakfast?"

Axel had been planning on it. He straightened up and smoothed out his own clothing wrinkles. "If you pick the junk up off the stairs and put it away before we head out for school."

"The shin guards? I need those for practice."

"First practice isn't until Monday." Axel was counting down, as he was sure Reno was too, one of them more excited than the other. He hadn't known he'd be changing jobs when he'd volunteered to be a coach for the youth league and he'd been fired up, united in anger with Xigbar about how useless the coach their kids had been assigned to last season was (Didn't care about rotating kids, and, even worse, didn't even pick the better ones to play more. Couldn't stand up to the refs. Kept plays so simplistic he'd obviously just come up from coaching the preschoolers and kindergartners and should go back, not thinking that if he rose to the bait of "somebody competent needs to step in" that he'd be the one parents yelled at and gossiped about. Still, it won him major points with Reno, he loved soccer and kids, and it couldn't be that hard. He'd played coach for his intramural college team (most qualified since he'd played through high school). Kids soccer could only be simpler and he'd have an assistant coach (Who he really should have made time to meet in person already instead of just sending him an email with his proposed gameplan for the season and a game and practice schedule. Time just got away) and there were sure to be plenty of nice, involved parents. It'd be fine.

"I'll put my shin guards under the bed."

Axel opened his mouth and then shut it. He needed to pick his battles. "Get the toy helicopter too."

"That's Rude's. He left it."

"Then bring it with you and give it back to him at school."

Reno's grin said Axel had made a grievous error in delivering what he thought was a sane solution. Oh well, if something came of it, that was a problem for future Axel who didn't have a long day ahead of him and wasn't already risking being late to his first day at his new job that he was already going to have to leave early to meet his daughter's train. He'd told them and of course, with her being an unaccompanied minor and the ticket already having been bought before he knew it would be his first day, there had been no complaint. Kingdom Hearts was a very family oriented company after all. Still, it was all the more important he make a good first impression in the hours he had before ducking out though.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Time to face the day