Ohohoho. Wonderwall? What was I thinking? Anyway, that title belongs to almightychrissy. I'm glad I picked Things Behind the Sun
RATING: Hard R, for me :P
*
You, Kyle Farnsworth, have never been asked before to put a teammate back together.
So, originally, it started out third person POV, and I guess that was all well and good, but for some reason, I was compelled to switch it to second person. I don't remember the reasoning behind that change, but overall, I think it worked.
Sure, you've been asked not to curse so much in front of the media types, you've been asked not to bring strange women back to your hotel room when the team's on the road, you've been asked to at least make an attempt to keep your hot-blooded temper at bay. You've even been asked to stop coming to batting practice in the sleeveless t-shirts you like so much because some of the other guys were jealous of the hordes of supple young female fans that flocked to whatever part of the stadium you were inhabiting at the moment.
This little chunk was mostly to begin to set up Farns' character and personality. Ya know, badass motherfucker. One not given to flights of sentimental fancy.
But never in your entire career -- Little League to college to minors to the Show -- have you ever been asked to look after someone else. To fix something you didn't motherfucking break.
Trammell lays it out all nice and clean for you, starting with the divorce right before Spring Training, covering the situation with Urbina, his best friend, the fact that Pudge probably will not see his kids until the end of the season, if not longer.
"We need someone to keep an eye on him. He hasn't been himself lately," Tram says.
"He's going through a really tough time right now. He needs all the support he can get," Gibby says.
Here I kind of pictured Tram and Gibby kind of tag-teaming him into babysitting Pudge. I also wanted to show that while Kyle was a badass, he also respected the history and traditions of the game, including guys like Tram and Gibby, and Lance.
"And you think that person's gotta be me?" you ask.
"You cut quite the imposing figure," Tram says, pensive, his hand on his chin, elbow resting on a copy of the Mariners' projected starting lineup, "and he would have to be out of his mind to cross you. We think you could . . . help him, Kyle."
Yeah, right, me help him, you think, a smirk playing with the corner of your mouth, fighting it but losing badly. "Uh, guys, I'm Kyle Farnsworth. I can barely help myself, let alone a future Hall of Famer. Why'ncha go to Dmitri or something?"
I think it was bakoo who questioned this section, having Kyle say that, but I don't honestly remember why. The reason I wanted him to say that is pretty simple; Kyle is a partier and a "bad boy" and not exactly stable enough to be helping someone else out.
"We wanted to go to a pitcher," Gibby cuts in, arms crossed over his chest. "We thought about maybe Nate, since he's a bulldog, but we settled on you."
Originally, had Gibby saying "We thought about maybe Nate, since he's a bulldog, but we decided to pick you for the task." but americanleaguer aptly pointed out that it didn't sound like something Gibby would say. I think this works better. Because Kyle is obviously not the first choice, but there was something about Nate that made them change their mind. Kind of wanted to give more impressions about Kyle, and how the others view him, rather than flat-out saying that they think this or that.
"So I'm supposed to fucking . . . baby-sit a ten-time All-Star on the road trip?" you ask, sitting back in your chair, drumming your fingertips on the armrest. "Somehow, I don't think I signed on for this when I came to Detroit."
"Consider it chipping in for the betterment of the team," says Tram. "He's been so . . . depressed lately, about the divorce and the trade, that this could help him to the point that it improves his performance."
"Well. Do I even have a choice?" You smirk at the two of them.
"No," Gibby grunts, "you don't."
"Well, ok then," you say, shrugging at them, pushing your chair back and standing up. "Guess I'll be baby-sitting an All-Star in Seattle."
*
Plane rides have become, surprise surprise, incredibly boring since the team banned alcohol from being served during flights (second time, actually, that the team has gone this route; Higginson told you a vague story about flight attendants, alcohol, porno, Jeff Weaver and pot back in Spring Training) and you've taken to plowing through can after can of caffeine-free Diet Coke on flights.
This is entirely true. *facepalm*
You've always believed that you can tell what kind of person a man is by what he drinks on long flights. Dmitri likes fruity alcohol drinks with little pink umbrellas and lemon wedges speared with tiny, neon-colored plastic swords. Guillén and Polanco both drink scotch on the rocks, JJ drinks coffee, black, Brandon drinks sugar-free Pepsi because give the kid anything with sugar in it and he'll be off the fucking walls the entire flight, and Pudge. Well, Pudge doesn't drink anything on flights (not even alcohol when alcohol was allowed) and so you've yet to get a good read on him.
I really liked this section about Kyle observing his teammates and what they drink. I think it shows a more introspective side of him that gets lost in the bravado and the RAWR MANLINESS.
That kid Shelton, the one who can't not hit, it seems, since he came up is dead to the world, slumped to the side in his seat, his forehead on your shoulder.
The mental image of Shelty sleeping on Farns was too cute to resist.
You see Pudge sitting in the back by himself and you kinda want to go speak to him, but you don't want to disturb the kid, maybe stand up too quick and have the kid bump his head on the armrest or something and then have the team have to put the kid on the DL because you stood up too quick or something lame like that.
"Pineapple," says the kid, smacking his lips.
"Shelty?" You look at him, but his eyes are still screwed shut, and his forehead's still pressing into your shoulder. You nudge him a little bit, and his eyelids flutter.
"Banana," says the kid.
"Hey Shelt, look, hookers!"
Not really sure why Shelty was talking about fruit in his sleep, but the "Hey, Shelt, look, hookers!" line is completely borrowed from farnsworthalot and the RP.
Shelton sits up and rubs his fists into his eyes, his movements slow and sleep-tugged. The kid hunkers back down and closes his eyes again, muttering, "Wha?"
"I'ma go talk to Pudge, ok?" You hand him your pillow and he tucks it against his cheek, mumbly and still very much asleep. Weird kid, talking about fruit in his sleep, but, you suppose, everyone has their quirks, even good Mormon kids from Utah (as opposed to bad Mormon kids from Alpharetta, Georgia).
This was one of my favorite lines ever. Kind of constrasts the sweetness and innocence of Shelty with the hardness and instability of Kyle.
You get up and creep down the aisle to Pudge, who's got headphones on, his head leaned back, eyes shut. He's not sleeping though, because he's moving his lips to music that only he can hear. You slide in next to him and press your hand to the back of his hand, your touch light.
Pudge opens his eyes and looks up at you, pulling off his headphones. There's a flash of gold at the corner of your eyes, and you realize that he still wears his wedding ring. "Yes Kyle?" He clinks his wedding ring against a glass of crushed ice and what appears to be water.
First instance of the wedding ring. Also wanted to show Pudge's inability to let go of the past, because he's still wearing his ring.
"What'cha drinking?" you inquire, flicking your index finger at his glass.
"Water," Pudge says, taking a sip. "How's it going?"
The fact Pudge is drinking water is kind of important, I guess. There's a Bible quote that goes "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." and that kind of played into the choice of water for Pudge, a little. Also, because water has no taste and is inconstant and etc.
"Pretty good, but it's so boring. Everybody else is either sleeping, listening to music or whatever, except for us," you say, reclining your seat. Pudge cranes his neck to look at you, his mouth wet.
"Well," Pudge says. "Well."
"Well?" You raise an eyebrow at him as he clinks together the ice cubes in his glass before bringing the glass to his lips.
Pudge sips at his water, and then sets the glass back down, his fingers searching and finding the wedding ring on his finger, twisting it, the ring kaleidescoping ominously under the lights. "A little birdie told me you're my new roommate," Pudge says, his dark eyes twinkling bright and playful, a ghost of a smile hinting at the corners of his lips.
"Guess that little birdie had a good source," you say.
"Guess so," Pudge agrees, setting his glass of ice on the plastic tray across his lap, and your eyes are still drawn to the ring, and you wonder about him. He must have caught you looking at it because then he's looking back at you with one hiked eyebrow.
"What?" you ask.
"What's so fascinating about my hands?" he asks, waving them in the air, vaguely.
His fingertips are hardened, callused from years of handling baseballs and bats, gloves and dirt, and there's a patch of white, roughened skin over his knuckles where he's almost continually taking foul balls, getting it jammed into the dirt, stepped on by spikes. His hands are like the rest of his new, impressive physique -- thin and tanned, roughened from his years behind the plate and at it, and you wonder if the rest of him is that rough or if just a little bit of him is still soft and untouched, like the little scrub-headed kid with the golden bat who used to prowl the old, battle-scarred ball fields back in Puerto Rico.
You say, "Oh, nothing."
This was also an important part, because I wanted it to show that there was a lot going on under the surface that Kyle didn't let anyone on to. He thinks all this beautiful stuff about Pudge's hands, but can't say anything about it because it would be out of character for him to do so, and he just doesn't know how not to be Mr. Testosterone.
"Would you like something to drink?" A pretty blonde, blue-eyed flight attendant puts a cool hand on your shoulder, and you look up at her. She gestures to a cart of drinks, her smile red and painted on, and too wide, her teeth too white, have to be crowns, fake, everything about her has to be fake.
"Um, sure," you say. "I guess. I'll have another caffeine-free Diet Coke."
The flight attendant, Beth, smiles at you, her plastic name-tag shining as she bends over to get you a Diet Coke, giving you a good view of her tits. "Would you like ice with that?" She might as well have asked you if you wanted a blowjob in the bathroom.
"Uh, no thanks."
Pudge hides a smirk behind his hand, and you nudge him gently in the side as Beth the Flirty Flight Attendant opens up a can of Diet Coke and puts it on a little cocktail napkin for you.
"Enjoy, Kyle," she says, giving you a wink before slinking down the aisle with her cart.
Pudge snorts. "Must never get tiring, aye?"
"What? That?" you ask, sipping your Coke, raising your eyebrow at him.
"Women are always throwing themselves at you. Must be fun," he says.
"If it happens all the time it could get pretty boring, couldn't it?" you suggest.
"Perhaps." Pudge winks at you. "But I don't think it does, not for you."
You chuckle and finish off your can of Coke, crushing it in your palm, accordioning it in your fist. "You'd be surprised."
This was indeed the first hint that Kyle was not quite 100% heterosexual.
*
The team has an off-day before the series in Seattle begins, mostly, as Tram points out, to get some batting practice in and then see the sights, see all that Seattle has to offer.
Which, in your esteemed opinion, isn't much, but Jeremy is pretty excited, hasn't seen his mom and dad since before Spring Training, wife's come down from Pasco too and they're going to spend time together while Jeremy's serving his suspension.
I messed around here with artistic license and changed the rotation. Also, I know that Seattle has a happenin' area called the Pioneer District, but I didn't think it was that important to mention, because I don't think Kyle would have known about it, or cared much if he did. Also there was more detail about Jeremy Bonderman here, his wife and the extra tickets he had to purchase, but it seemed kind of extraneous.
The first night, the usual suspects go out for drinks at a cool little dive in downtown Seattle, some place you'd never have expected to find in Seattle, seeing as the place has never been known as a nightclub hotspot.
Nate and one of the other relievers, some big fuck covered in tattoos, some May call-up whose name you never can remember, get into a drinking contest, which is ok, because Nate doesn't start until the Oakland series and the big fuck (whose name you later on learn is Spurling) can handle his liquor better than pretty much everyone on the team.
I had to give Spurl a cameo. The reason I messed with the rotation and stuck Nate's start in the next series was so that I could have him getting drunk off his ass with Spurl.
Spurling and Nate are off in their corner of the darkened bar, slamming tankards full of beer on the table like idiot manchildren, gibbering to each other in pitcher drunk talk, which you've found out is a lot different than position player drunk talk, and Magglio Ordo–ez and Carlos GuillZ?n are sharing war stories with a wide-eyed Omar Infante, who's eating up every word his countrymen are saying, regardless of whether or not it's the honest to God truth, and Dmitri is slow dancing with a pretty dark-skinned girl in dreadlocks, and Shelton is the only one who's tee-totaling since he is a good Mormon kid, sipping a Coke meekly and looking around the bar with wide eyes, like he's never been in one before.
It's then that you realize Pudge is nowhere to be seen. He's not pussing out and drinking coffee with Vance, and he's not being a weird hyperactive fucker with Inge, who's bouncing off the walls because he had a Smirnoff Ice or two or five, and he's not sitting back at the hotel with Maroth, who doesn't go to bars when Brooke comes on road trips with the team.
I liked this part. I'm not sure why. I think it painted a nice picture of the teammates.
"Did anyone see Pudge?" you call out, over the barroom din.
Spurling slams a full tankard on the table, beer sloshing over the sides. "No. Is Pudge even here?"
"I don't think Pudge came," concurs Nate, slamming his tankard in response.
Stupid fuckers, you think, stupid drunk fuckers. "Ok, I'm pretty sure he, like, came with us."
"Why're you so worried? He's probably ok," says Nate, polishing off his tankard of beer in one chug, beer spilling down the sides of his face as Spurling cheers him on.
"Drunk fuckers," you mutter and get up to go look for him.
He's not anywhere in the bar, so you head outside, head down and hands shoved deep into your pants pockets, trying to be as inconspicuous as a six foot four guy can be loitering on the sidewalks of downtown Seattle. You wander a little bit toward the parking lot, kick aside wet newspaper clinging to the concrete like leaves, eyes peeled, every sense of yours heightened, expecting trouble.
"You look familiar."
You look up at the voice, your heart in your throat. What the . . . You head for the direction from where the voice came, hands in your pockets fisted, ready for trouble now, not just expecting it.
"I look like a lotta guys," comes the reply, a very familiar voice, and your stomach drops.
Fuck, Pudge. You put your hand out on wet brick and turn the corner, expecting to find Pudge at the mercy of some mugger, and for all your talk, you don't know if you could fight off a mugger with a gun or a knife. You've never had to, for all you know you'll end up wetting your pants and curling into a fetal ball while some fucking punk attacks Pudge and possibly kills him.
"Nah," says the mugger, "I know you."
"Let him go, you fucker!" You grab the mugger around the shoulders and pull him away from Pudge, jerking him to the ground, into a pile of trash bags, falling on top of him, hands clutching at the front of his shirt.
This part, with Kyle perhaps overreacting to a point, was to show how fired up and irrational he could be when something or someone he cared about was threatened, or perceived to be threatened. Pudge was actually in no danger of anything, except getting a blow job. Kyle jumped to conclusions that Pudge needed protecting. That's kind of what precipitates their relationship anyway.
"Kyle? Kyle, what are you doing?" Pudge is breathing hard, his chest heaving, his pants undone, his eyes wild and his pupils dilated.
Wait a minute . . . You look down at the struggling form underneath you, and he's got one of his hands clutched into a fist, around a foil packet of condoms, eyes squinched shut, his lips trembling. You roll off of him and jerk him to his feet by his collar.
"What the fuck's going on here?" you ask, eying the guy, and his clutched fist.
"A business transaction," Pudge says, buttoning and zipping up his jeans, flattening his hands down the front of his shirt, and even in the dim light, you can see red marks on his throat and chest where his shirt is unbuttoned a little bit, exposing skin.
"Fuck, Pudge." You give the guy a shake. "Get lost, ok, pal? Scram." You let go of him and give him a shove in the opposite direction. The guy's so eager to get away from you that he stumbles and falls to his knees and crawls away on his hands and knees before leaping to his feet and running, footfalls slapping on concrete, gunshot loud.
Pudge is looking at the ground when you approach him, still playing with the buttons of his shirt, his hands shaking. "It was nothing, Kyle," he insists, softly, pausing to fiddle with a button, pointedly not looking you in the eyes.
I was kind of picturing Pudge really struggling here, but trying to put on that air of "I'm still in control of the situation." I thought him buttoning the shirt, with his hands shaking, was a good way to show that.
"Pudge, come on, you gotta know how it looks to m -- " you begin, but he cuts you off, turning his gaze on you, eyes fiery, mouth pink and swollen, his angular jaw set and determined.
"How does it look, Kyle?" he asks, breathlessly. "How does it look to you?"
"Well, it looks like you were gonna get your dick s -- " and again he cuts you off, like he doesn't want to hear it from you.
"Well, you're wrong," he says. "You don't know what you just saw." He tries to shoulder his way past you, but you put a large hand on the center of his chest, pushing him back gently.
"I'm your teammate and, uh, I'd like to think we're friends, Pudge . . . You can tell me if anything's going on . . . If you're. You know, that way," you say, trying to be helpful but kinda sounding awkward like a newborn foal taking its first steps, all legs and stumbling all over the place.
"It's none of your fucking business," he says, grabbing your wrist. "Let me go."
"I can't do that. I've got my orders," you insist.
"Orders? The fuck?" He glares at you, tightening his fingers around your wrist and you're surprised at how strong his grip is. For such a small guy, he's got a powerful grip, so powerful it feels like he could crush your wrist bones in one squeeze.
Here, I wanted to show that Pudge may be stronger than he appears, when in actuality, the "strength" is merely superficial. Pudge tries to appear put-together, but he's really not put together at all.
"Tram and Gibby, uh, hired me to tail you," you say, shrugging your shoulders, feeling so lame and stupid, were a hole to open up in the earth right then, you wouldn't hesitate to jump in.
"They what? Why?" he asks, letting go of your wrist, probably shocked that the manager and his number one henchman would ask someone to baby-sit their superstar, someone like you.
"They're worried for you, man," you say, lowering your eyes to the ground, feeling inexplicably ashamed. "They're . . . afraid for you."
"They don't have to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt myself," he snaps, turning from you, his hands on his hips. He leans his forehead against the brick wall, presses his hands against it, eyes shut tight.
"Well, you are hurting yourself. By doing this. You are."
"And how would you know?" He looks back at you, his eyes watery, and you aren't prepared for that, you aren't prepared for how pretty he is when he's crying.
You swallow. " ÔCause I did kinda the same thing when I was in Chicago, man," you say, reaching out a hand to him. "I had anonymous sex all the time Ôcause it was no strings attached, you know? I didn't have to call them back, didn't even have to remember their fucking names if I didn't want to . . . It was easy . . . but it was also fucking dangerous. And not to mention stupid."
A couple people questioned why Kyle would kind of just spill his life story to Pudge like this, but the way I figured, Kyle is desperate to keep Pudge from falling apart and he thinks maybe taking Pudge's mind off of it with a story about himself will help. And also, he's trying to relate to Pudge's situation, and show him he's actually a nice guy, and cares about Pudge's welfare.
"Well, you probably weren't meeting strange men in alleys, were you?" Pudge says, weakly, his shoulders flagging. He moves closer to you and lets you put your hand on his shoulder before curling into your touch, and you loop an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tight.
"Well, no . . . but it doesn't mean I don't know what you're going through, man . . . I had this girl in college," you murmur, rubbing a hand down his arm. "Her name was Shayla and we were pretty much engaged all throughout college. I mean, like, we were seriously talking marriage and kids and all that good shit, she was gonna be a cosmetologist, she was gonna be a hairdresser and I was gonna be a ballplayer, and we were gonna get married. Make a life together. Make a life for each other." You pause.
Again, people questioned why Kyle would tell Pudge all of this. Basically, I saw it as a kind of purging for Kyle. He's kept this inside for a long time, and Pudge kind of acts like the turning of a valve, and it all comes out. So to speak.
He looks up at you, eyes shining. "What happened?"
"Well . . . I got drafted, by the Cubs and they sent me to some place out in the sticks in Iowa, nothing but cows and farms and shit. And Shayla's back home in Georgia waiting for me, right?"
"Yeah," he nods, "right."
"That's what I thought too. After I got back home to Alpharetta after the end of the minor league season, I come to find out she's shacked up with some fucking car mechanic and pregnant with his kid. I mean, the fuck, man? Aye? I was gonna give my life to that bitch and she fucking . . . cheated on me." Your arm around his shoulders, and you didn't think it would feel this nice to have another man this close to you. "Well, I was like, 'Fuck that shit. If she's gonna be a slut, I'm gonna do her ten times better.' I totally went wild, cancelled the engagement and tossed her on her ass, started fucking anything that crossed my path. As long as she had a pulse, pretty much."
A little bit of his motivation for becoming a manwhore, too. :P
Pudge leans into your chest, his hand over your heart. "That's kind of what happened with me and . . ." He trails off, thinning his lips. "I'm not sure I should tell you this."
The first instance of hands-over-hearts, too.
"Come on, man, I just spilled out my life story. You owe me," you tease, giving him a poke in the shoulder. Pudge bites down on his bottom lip, hand still resting on your chest.
"Well . . . Ugie and I were best friends, and we've always been close, as long as we've known each other. Well . . . when he came to the team last year, he didn't have a place to live in and I offered to let him move in with me, since I've got this big empty place with Maribel and the kids down in Miami and all . . . And, well, he moved in. And then things happened . . . Ugie and I, we began sleeping together because we were both so lonely. Me with Maribel so far away, and Ugie with his wife and sons in Venezuela, and it just . . . happened."
You nod, barely registering the fact that Pudge just pretty much outed himself to you, as well as another current Major Leaguer. "Shit happens."
Originally Kyle's dialogue here was longer, and more stilted, but he does seem to be a man of few words. I think cutting the words worked here.
"Well. I guess we were careless because Maribel found out and she . . . she asked for a divorce. She said she did not have a problem with me being with other women, but me and Ugie . . . That was something she couldn't abide by," he says, and he's not looking at you now, his eyes are fixed on something on the wall behind you.
You turn around and there's a bible quote spray-painted on the wall, In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing and you murmur, "Don't pay that any mind. Just some fuckin' street kid. Fuckin' graffiti."
Yeah, Jenna, I think it was, thought this was a little transparent, because what random street kid would spray paint that whole sentence on the wall, but I wanted to leave it in there. Mostly because I dig the quote, I think it's from Jeremiah but I am admittedly not brushed up on my Bible. And also because it kind of furthered along the story, too.
"But it's true," he says, his fingers reaching for the silver chain around his neck, silver chain that's been tucked under his shirt, force of habit, you suppose, stroking down over the metal cross.
Crosses! I think I've managed to fit in all my kinks in the first fourteen or so pages! Go me!
"Come on, let's go back to the bar, ok? The guys're probably wondering where we are," you say, trying to steer him back toward the bar, squeezing his shoulders tight, worried for him, a funny feeling uncoiling in the pit of your stomach.
Pudge is still stroking his silver cross, his eyes are still locked on the quote scrawled onto the red brick wall. "It's a sign from God," he whispers.
"It's not a sign from God, Pudge. It's a sign from some street thug."
"It's a sign from God." Pudge squeezes his hand around the cross, the sharp edges biting into his palm, cutting into his flesh, but his hand is callused and so he doesn't feel anything. "Oh Lord," he murmurs, "forgive me for my sins, please Lord, forgive me. I am a sinner. I am unclean. Please, Lord, absolve me of my sins. Make me whole, make me good, make me clean."
I think there was some hidden significance with Pudge holding onto the cross so tight it digs into his flesh, and him not being able to feel it, but it seems like it's too subtle for even me to pick up. Lol.
Your heart is not in your throat anymore, it's in your mouth, and you wrap your arms around his waist, pulling him toward you, panicking, not sure of what to do, wondering if maybe he's having a breakdown, wanting to cry but not, because you've gotta be strong for the both of you.
"Pudge, fuck. Stop it. You're not a sinner. You're a good man. You're good."
But he's not listening to you, his knees are buckling and it takes everything in you to keep him from falling down.
Pudge is splintering before your eyes, and so you put your arms around him, try to hold him together, try to keep the pieces of him from falling to the ground.
After the first three paragraphs of the first chunk, this part and that which follows is the next thing I wrote. The rest of the fic was filling in what happened to lead up to this moment in in the alley, and what happens after. Sometimes it seems transparent, and, like, all of this fic is built around this one scene and is mostly filler, and other times it seems like it works as a fic.
He puts his fingertip over your wrist, where your pulse is throbbing and you think that maybe he can tell how much you have no fucking idea what to do. "I don't need a baby sitter, ok?" he says, squirming against your grip.
You keep your arms locked around him. You're not going to lose him, not this time. "I think that maybe you do."
"I think maybe no." Pudge gives up trying to escape and lets his cheek rest on your chest, over your heartbeat. He presses down, locks his hand on your belt, threading his thumb through the belt loop. You wonder what he could possibly be listening for.
You breathe into his hair, "I got my orders, Pudge," your lips near his temple.
I kind of saw this as Kyle losing control of the situation. Which, like, he can't lose control, because he's there to keep it, and keep things from going wrong, and he fails.
He shudders and rests his hand on your wrist. "You can let go now."
"What are you going to do? Go to another club? Get hammered and get yourself killed?" you ask, loosening your grip just a little bit so that he can breathe, keeping your arms around his waist, you're not letting him go.
"I'm not going to get myself killed, if that's what they told you," he says, resting back against your chest, reaching up and brushing his fingertips over the skin of your throat where it's thin and rough like sandpaper.
You let out a soft sigh before you can close it off, before you can swallow it down. "No, that's what I've seen with my own eyes."
"You don't know what you've seen," Pudge says, managing to pull your arm from around his waist. He steps aside and you let your arms flop to your sides, feeling like a failure already. Pudge scrubs a hand through his short black hair, deflecting his gaze to the asphalt, to his own eyes staring back at him from a puddle. He turns his head.
Pudge not being able to look at his own reflection in the puddle was an important detail, at least, IMO.
"Maybe you could fill me in," you say, hooking your thumbs into your belt loops.
"Just let me go. Tell them I kicked you in the balls or something. Tell them I fought you. Just let me go."
Pudge's eyes are wide and scared, and you can feel something in your chest giving way. Something important.
And then Kyle loses it completely. And that's when things go *air quotes* wrong.
Your right hand twitches at your side, ghost stitches under your fingertips. Fastball grip. "No, I can't let you do that. I have my orders."
"Fuck your orders." Pudge knots a hand in the front of your shirt, pulling it out of your jeans, his muscles pulled tight, the veins standing up on his arms like rivers.
Pudge loosens his fist and turns to leave, but you grab onto his arm. "Fuck, Pudge. Don't go."
He stops and turns around and then you slide your hand around his neck, neck, pulling him into your chest. He presses the flats of his palms against your chest, breathing deliberately, his bottom lip snagged between his teeth, shallow breaths now, and then he leans in, shifts closer to you in your arms.
You lean closer to meet him, sliding your arm low around his hips, pulling him as close as you can get him, rubbing your cheek against the side of his neck, hearing his breath clicking in his throat, feeling his fingers at the back of your neck, then his hard body against your chest, his thighs against your thighs, and then his mouth against your cheek, wet and hot, a brand.
I tried to purposely make the kissing scenes and the sex scenes kind of feverish and vague, the way I would have imagined them happening in Kyle's mind.
"Why do you want me to stay?" he whispers thickly, his teeth at your earlobe, sounding so small in your ear that you're almost surprised, rubbing his fingers down your arm, under your sleeve. His mouth pressed against your mouth, and then his tongue on your tongue, and you forget all that you wanted to say to him, all that you wanted to ask him. Your hands go places on his body that you never thought you'd ever get a chance to touch, and you hook your hands around the back of his neck, holding him tight against you, squeezing him against you, shuddering as he explores the inside of your mouth with his tongue. His hands move under your shirt, fingernails scraping down your chest, and you bite down on his bottom lip, harder than you mean to, and he gasps into your mouth, pulling away from you, and instantly, you miss his warmth against your chest, his mouth on your mouth, his tongue on your tongue.
The repetition in the sex/kissing scenes was intentional. Kind of just me trying to hammer over the head that Kyle is kind of swept up in this, and has no control of the situation.
You open your mouth to speak, but, oh surprise, your brain isn't working. "Pu-Pudge." There we go, a start. You scrub a hand over the warm back of your neck, and flatten your other hand down over your shirt, over your stomach, rub, then onto your hip. Idle hands are the devil's tool, so they say.
"Ky-Kyle." He quirks a little smile at you, just a brief tug at the corner of his lips, his dark eyes flashing unreadable.
You swallow at the thickness in your throat, hadn't noticed that before, how odd. "What. I mean. Pudge? What was that?"
"Whatever you think it was," he says, his tone soft, and his eyes soft too.
You reach out and trip your fingertips down the side of his neck, tentatively, afraid if you push too hard he might just walk away. He leans into your touch, and you pull him closer, hooking one arm around his shoulders and then the other one, enveloping him, pulling him close.
See, I look at it like this: Kyle doesn't know what he's doing, and Pudge does. There's this reversal of positions, 'cause Kyle was supposed to be the one in control, and Pudge was supposed to be subject to that, I guess. Now, Kyle's lost control of the situation and Pudge has taken it.
"Well?" he asks, pressing his lips to your throat, over your Adam's apple, then pressing his lips to the side of your neck hard.
"I think maybe it was this." You have to bend down to kiss him again because he's so much shorter than you, and your back cries out, but you push it into the back of your mind, crushing against his lips, your arms locked tight around him, you'll have to be fought to let him go, and even then you won't let him go.
He pushes you against the wall hard, bodies thumping against each other, your back thumping against the wall, his hands bracketing on either side of you, scraping against brick, and when he rubs the heel of his hand under your shirt his palm is sandpapery, scraped. "Come on," he whispers into your mouth, "someone might see us."
"I don't care." You lean forward to kiss him again and he ducks his head.
He presses his hand to your chest and when he moves away you can see a little streak of blood from where he scraped his hand, a little streak of blood over your heart.
Yeah, another *bashes you over the head with the log of metaphor* metaphor. Pudge's blood over Kyle's heart. Yeah. And I know it's probably pretty unlikely Pudge would bleed enough to leave a stain on Kyle's shirt, but come on. Artistic license.
*
You make it back to his hotel room but you're not quite sure how you got there, your mind blank to anything, everything but Pudge, your finger hooked into his belt loop, never letting go, not thinking of anything but Pudge, his mouth, his hands, his tongue, his tongue colliding with your body.
You slip into his room and press your back against the door, and he leans over you, turning the deadbolt, his body warm and dry, one of those old-fashioned hotel rooms that still use keys, not keycards, all nonchalance as he brushes his lips against the side of your throat.
Your heart is trying to escape through your throat, he can probably hear it, and you breathe in deep and fill your lungs with his smell, his cologne tumbling your stomach, turning you back into Kyle Farnsworth, kid with a high school crush, Kyle Farnsworth, kid with butterflies in his stomach, Kyle Farnsworth, not Kyle Farnsworth, just Kyle Farnsworth.
I am kind of fond of this part, because it shows a different side of Kyle. The uncertain side of him.
He ends up pressing you to the door, the doorknob digging into the small of your back, and he's ghosting his hand down over your chest, then his hand under your shirt, then he's creeping it up over your stomach. A flash of skin, and Pudge leans closer, wetting your navel with his lips, and you can't help but shudder. He moves his mouth up your chest, kissing, fingers unbuttoning with rabbit-quick speed, undetectable to the naked eye, pushing your shirt off your shoulders, his teeth on your collarbone and then his teeth on your throat, and then his mouth on your mouth.
You let your hand flutter to his side, why are you so nervous, and then you weather a hand through his hair, large fingers at the back of his neck, his mouth on yours. He pushes his tongue past your lips, meeting no resistance, obviously, still pressing you against the door, his thigh against your thigh, his eyes wide open, your eyes wide open, your eyes seeing everything and nothing all at once.
Your eyes seeing nothing but his eyes.
Pudge's hands on your shoulders, Pudge's tongue in your mouth, and you can't breathe anymore, involuntary or not, your mind still blank to everything but him, everything but his touch, your lungs burning, your lips burning, burning, everything burning, especially your heart.
He breaks apart from you, squeezing down onto your shoulders, and you arch toward him, unwilling to lose his touch even for a few seconds. He feathers his fingertips over your lips, shaking his head gently. "We need to stop this," he breathes.
"No," your voice rumbling in your chest, little earthquakes all inside you, and you shuddering apart at his touch, "no."
Again with Kyle and his loss of control (and Pudge getting it back). Maybe I overdid it. Although it kind of seems like a transference of roles; Kyle transferring his role of The One in Control to Pudge and Pudge transferring the role of The One Who Has Lost Control to Kyle . . .
"We can't do this," he says, leaning his forehead into your neck, winding an arm around your waist. He moves to pick up your shirt and he holds it up, dangling it from his fingertips, holding it out to you but you won't take it. "Come on, put your shirt back on."
"Pudge -- " you begin, but he pulls your shirt around your shoulders, patting it down, patting out the wrinkles like Shayla used to do. Despite your best efforts to the contrary, a laugh escapes your lips.
"We must stop now before we can't stop," he says, nodding at you, dark eyebrows knit together, still with his hand over your heart.
"What if I said I didn't care?" you ask.
Kyle's still kind of young, if not in age, then in mind. His response here strikes me as such a little kid response.
Pudge just smiles at you and shakes his head. "No, Kyle."
There's a knock on the door and you jump and twist away from it like you're surprised that someone is knocking on it, and, well. You did go to college but you didn't go for the education.
I mean, you really think Kyle went to college to be a farmer?
Pudge waves you off to the bathroom to finish buttoning your shirt, and he opens the door a crack. "Hello? Who is it?" You finish buttoning your shirt and peer over Pudge's shoulder, trying to get a good look at the person on the other end, your hand resting smartly at the small of his back. He leans back into you and you smile.
"It's Nate. You wanna come with me and a coupla the guys to a bar?" Nate says, leaning heavily against the other side of the door, Pudge leaning back.
A couple of my betas wondered why Nate would invite them to a bar after having just returned from one. And the only thing I can say is "Continuity error that kind of became a Plot Device!" 'Cause I'd kinda forgotten about them already being at the bar, and when I was writing this, I was like, "Nate can invite them out for drinks." Then I remembered, uh, yeah, the whole setup for Pudge/Farns was at a freakin' bar, so I played it off like Nate was inviting them to go out again. But I didn't make that too clear in the revisions, I think.
"Uh, I dunno," Pudge says, looking back at you. "Can Kyle come too?"
"Sure," says Nate, "I don't see why not."
"Ok, we'll be right down." Nate leaves and Pudge nudges the door shut and locks it behind him, leaning against it, bonelessly, head tilted back and his neck exposed, eyes slitted, corner of his mouth upturned.
You approach him with unsure steps, drumming your hand against your blue jeaned thigh. "We will, will we?" You lean your shoulder into the wall and he lets a slow smile spread across his face.
"You have something else in mind?" he asks, moves his hands to your waist, locking one fist in the hem of your shirt, not pulling you closer, just holding on like he doesn't ever want to let you go.
"Maybe."
"I'm all ears." He dives in and presses his lips against yours, and it seems like you've been doing this for a long time, seems to be coming naturally now.
You squeeze onto the soft inside of his elbow, his mouth is so hot and wet and his hand is drifting down lower, past your navel, to your belt buckle. He unsnaps it and works it from your belt loops, winding it around his hand and then letting it slither to the ground with a quiet hush, like a snake.
This was a biblical reference, with the snake reference and all. Also, some wondered why Pudge and Kyle would have sex after Pudge stopped him earlier. Basically, that's Kyle's doing. Leading him into temptation, or whatnot.
*
After.
After, he's curled against your side, balled up, one arm locked around your waist, his face crushed into your chest. You've been stroking your fingers through his hair for so long, you've lost track of time, but you don't mind.
You run your fingertips down his soft, downy cheek and he squeezes closer to you in his sleep, and as he begins to emerge from his sleep, rubbing at his eyes with his fingers, you the first thing he sees when he wakes up, the smile on his face enough to last you a million fucking lifetimes, you wonder with a little smile if this is what Trammell and Gibson had in mind.
I'm kind of fond of this part, because I was able to visualize it in my head, and then put it down on paper (so to speak) and have it translate pretty well. And also, it's a fun mental image. :P
*
The series in Seattle doesn't go well.
You lose more than you win, and you don't get into a single fucking game.
This was a lie, he did get into one game, I think.
But really? You could care less.
*
You move on to Oakland, who is riding into the series on a wave of good feelings and ungodly, gaudy numbers in the last fifty games, and it's a tall task that's been set before you.
Seriously, I think they were, like, 35 out of their last 50 or something. Insane, totally insane numbers.
But you have faith. You know that you can win at least two out of the three in Oakland, especially with Jeremy in the final game of the series, against some guy with a .500 record and a name better suited for hockey than baseball.
That'd be Kirk Saarloos, back when I thought he was FInnish, not Dutch. Haha.
In the first game, you run up against Harden, and even though he's not as sharp as he has been in the past, he gets the win, and any disappointment at not facing his old A-ball friend Bonderman is pretty much forgotten.
Harden really didn't pitch that well. I don't remember his line, but he was pretty erratic. A lot of hits and walks, and yet we couldn't get a guy over home plate to save our lives. Indicative of the whole series, I'd say.
Then the second game, Nate's game. Nate takes a perfect game into the fourth inning and still you end up losing 9-5 and Pudge gets himself thrown out, and then does some throwing of his own, throwing baseballs onto the field and then his catchers' gear.
Oh, this is the game where Pudge went apeshit and got himself kicked out of the game. I kind of skipped over Nate's start in Seattle. I kind of wish I'd skipped over this one too. :P He has a perfect game going into the fourth and ends up taking the 9-5 loss. Really, I think a part of my soul died that day. I thought I might see my second perfect game (first was Randy Johnson with the Diamondbacks) or at least a no-hitter, and then all hell broke loose. At least Pudge made it entertaining.
After the abomination of a game, he sits in his locker and broods, an intense, dangerous look glinting in his eyes as he strokes his fingers down the new growth of beard on his chin, his elbows resting on his knees.
You sidle over to him, unsure of what to say to him, all things considering. "Hey. Hi."
He looks up at you and then down at the floor, seemingly intent on brooding. "Hi."
"Mind if I pull up a seat?" You don't wait for an answer and you drag your stool over to his locker and plop down next to him, leaning your shoulder against his knee.
He leans away, tugging his fingers down his pant leg. "I guess nothing I can say is gonna stop you," he mutters.
Pudge is kind of emo here, and Kyle isn't really sure how to snap him out of it, so naturally he thinks SEX! Haha.
"What'sa matter?" you ask.
"I got ejected. We lost. Stuff." Pudge sighs and relents, leaning back into your shoulder with his knee, still looking at a spot on the carpet.
"Stuff? What kinda stuff?" you ask, resting your hand on his ankle. He taps his foot.
"You know. Stuff. That kind of stuff," he murmurs under his breath.
Stuff here being SEX.
You look up at him and he's looking back at you, a strange, black hunger in his eyes that you can't recall ever seeing before, his lips pursed, his hand on his knee, his fingers drumming to a rhythm in his head.
"That kinda stuff?" you ask.
"Yeah." He stills his hand.
"Is this a good thing?"
"Maybe." He sighs again and drapes an arm around your shoulders, resting his temple against your forehead. You rub your thumb over his ankle in slow, circular motions and take quiet pleasure when he doesn't flinch away from you.
"Wanna hang out tonight?" you ask, mumbling into the soft, warm v of skin connecting his neck to his shoulder. He smells like sweat and soap, comfort, nice, Pudge.
"Sounds good to me," he says, quietly, tugging his fingers through your hair. He rests his arm on your back and his fingers are at the base of your neck, stroking, his touch light but full of promise.
I kind of like that they don't say anything explicit in here because it's the clubhouse, and it's not the kind of thing you talk about in the clubhouse, but they still kind of manage to break the "Not in the clubhouse" rule anyway. And I'm fond of the final line.
*
You look once over your left shoulder and then once over your right before slipping into Pudge's room with a bottle of 1776 as a gift. It's shitty stuff, tastes like gasoline, but it gets the job done.
According to my brother, 1776 tastes like gasoline. If he knew what I was mining him for, his head'd probably explode.
When you let yourself in, Pudge is laying out on his bed in nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs, one arm thrown over his face, his other hand resting on his belly, scratching idly, legs sprawled wide.
"Pudge?" You set the bottle of vodka down on the nightstand next to his bed and he raises his arm off of his face.
"Hey," he says, smiling, turning his palm up to you, still scraped. "What'd you bring me?"
You smile. "Shitty vodka."
"Sounds perfect," Pudge says, pulling himself into sitting position. He crosses his legs Indian style and rests his arms across his thighs, as you pull off the foil and unscrew the cap.
You tilt back and take a long pull, choking on it, before handing it off to Pudge. "It's pretty shitty, man."
"Alcohol is alcohol," he says, with a little Mona Lisa smile playing on his lips, taking a big swallow of it. He licks his lips before motioning to you to lean in. When you do, he presses his lips to yours, licking at the inside of your mouth, licking at your tongue, the vodka burning down your throat.
I've never actually had shitty vodka. I've had Stoli, which I enjoyed, so I'm only guessing on the 1776. And going by my brother's reaction, which was, "HOLY FUCK, THIS SHIT IS NASTY! LET'S DRINK THE WHOLE BOTTLE!"
Pudge laughs against your mouth and loops an arm around your waist, hands squirreling under your t-shirt, nibbling on your lips.
"What are we gonna do?" you ask, your mind blazing, bottle of shitty vodka clutched in one hand, Pudge in the other.
"Whatever we wanna do," he laughs, pushing it out of your hand. The bottle of 1776 falls to the carpeted floor and begins to spill out, but you pay it no mind as Pudge straddles your hips, pressing you against the headboard, squeezing you between his strong thighs.
"I think I know what I wanna do." You pull him close, arms winding around his waist, his chest hard against your chest, and you press your mouth to his collarbone, sucking, licking, moving down his chest, as he rocks against you, you still held tight between his thighs, your fingertips scraping down his back.
He presses his mouth to your throat, his hand wandering down your bare chest, down to your waists, then between your legs, squeezing, and you gasp, never ready for it, always surprised at the way a callused hand feels on your dick than the soft, cool hands of women, girls.
I think here I meant "as opposed to," rather than "than." And only I would comment on grammatical errors in a fic DVD commentary. Commencing in shutting up.
He presses against you through your blue jeans, and you groan into his sh
oulder, tightening your arms around his waist as he works his hand into your pants. He wraps his fingers around your dick and presses his mouth against your mouth, sliding his tongue past your lips.
Your eyes shut tight and then you're seeing stars, and then the stars melt away and then.
And then just Pudge.
I am master of the fade-to-black. Fade-to-black is my middle name. Along with Tease, Evil, and Satan.
*
You wake up and he's sitting in bed looking at you, tracing his fingertip over your jaw line, whispering things to you in Spanish that you don't understand, you're not that advanced, all you ever bothered to learn were the curse words, the good stuff so that you could call Omar a faggot if he botched a double play, or tell Peña that you took a big steaming shit on his mother if he wasn't covering first. You never bothered to learn the Spanish words for things like love, honesty, beautiful, pussy stuff, and you kinda wish you had.
This was one of my favorite parts to write, and actually, the second or third part written, after the alley stuff. I like the idea of Kyle being sentimental in a totally not sentimental way.
He rests his fingertips on your cheek, his touch light, and he hasn't noticed that you're awake now, watching him as he strokes his fingers over your cheek, still murmuring to himself in Spanish, and for all you know he could be cursing you out, calling you a son of a whore, cursing your family to the third and fourth generation, and even then it would still sound beautiful.
You stir against his side and he smiles down at you, moving his hand from your face. "Ah," he says, "you're awake."
"Mmhmm," you mumble into the pillow, as he slides next to you under the covers and presses his palm between your shoulder blades. He leans close and brushes his lips over your eyelids, and then presses a light, chaste, close-mouthed kiss to your cheek.
"Good morning, cariño," he says, resting his cheek against your shoulder, fitting his mouth against your neck, "good morning." He presses another kiss to the side of your neck and fits his arms around your waist.
"Mornin'," you mutter, huddling closer, pulling the blankets tight around your shoulders.
"How'd you sleep?" he asks, voice barely above a whisper, resting his cheek against the top of your head. He drums his fingertips on your bare shoulder, his mouth against the smooth skin of your forehead.
"Pretty good."
"I'm glad." He sighs and gives you a little squeeze. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
"We gonna call for room service or something? I don't feel like getting out of bed," you laugh, flopping onto your back, sprawling out your arms and legs all over him. He laughs and pushes your hands out of his face, resting a palm on your thigh.
"We might have to at this rate," he says, with a happy, bright chuckle, running his hand up and down your thigh, then sliding his palm to the inside.
You bite down hard on your bottom lip as he moves his hand up, and then closes it around. "Mm."
"You like that, aye?" he asks, breath hitched slightly, his fingers rough against your warm, flushed skin.
"Whaddaya think?" You shift your hips into his lap and he laughs, a bright pealing sound of laughter that may very well be the most beautiful thing you have ever heard.
*
You and Pudge get to McAfee Coliseum and the clubhouse is completely deserted. The door to Tram's office is open, and he pokes his head out.
"Kyle, you're just the one I wanted to see," he says, smiling at you. "Pudge, Gibby would like you on the field right now. He says it's important." Alan motions for you to join him in his office as Pudge changes into his batting practice jersey and pants and scampers out to the field with a stack of fungoes under his arm.
"Hi Tram," you say, flopping down in one of the threadbare chairs next to Trammell's desk. "What's up?"
He shifts some papers on his desk and fiddles with them before looking up on you, his lips twisted into a grimace. "I'm afraid I have bad news, Kyle," he says, rubbing his hand over his forehead.
Your heart seizes. Fuck, they know. They know. "What? What sort of bad news?" you ask, your chest tightening, and fuck, this must be what it's like to have a heart attack.
"There's been a trade," says Trammell.
Yeeeah. :\
Oh, fuck. "You're fucking with me, right? Tell me you're fucking yanking my chain." You can't feel your fingers, your arms gone numb, and yes, this must be what it feels like to have a heart attack.
"I'm sorry, Kyle. I hate this part of the job," he says, and you have no doubt that he does, but that doesn't really do you any good, now does it?
"Where? For who?" you ask, clenching your hands down on the armrests, and it's everything in you to keep from dying right there in Trammell's office and voiding the trade Dave Dombrowski has just made.
Kyle's inner monologues, and in particular, these inner monologues, were actually some of my favorite parts of the whole affair, and my favorite parts to write.
"Atlanta," he says. "At least you'll be going home to Atlanta. For Roman Colón and Zach Miner."
I imagine this must've been an awkward conversation for Tram, and that he tried, in his Tram kind of way, to soften the blow.
"Is this because I wouldn't sign?" you ask. "Is this Dave's ultimate, 'Fuck you, Kyle' 'cause I wouldn't sign?"
Trammell sighs and shakes his head, looking down at his hands, his hardened, callused hands. "We decided that since you weren't interested in resigning, it would be best to trade you now and get the most out of the deal while we had the chance."
"I wanted to finish out the season here," you insist, choking on it, rough and unfamiliar, feeling weak like a newborn and sick to your stomach. "I wanted to give us -- you guys a chance at the Wild Card, at least."
"I know this hurts," he says, but he doesn't, he's just saying that to make you feel better, goddamn him. Goddamn Alan fucking Trammell spent his entire career with one team and you're already onto your third.
Fuck Alan Trammell, fuck the Tigers, fuck Dave Dombrowski, fuck the motherfucking Braves.
While I was writing "Fuck Alan Trammell," (*cringes*) I was mumbling to myself, "Bless me father, for I have sinned," and praying for my soul. Even thinking about writing "Fuck Tram" sends me into seizure.
You stand up, your arms held ramrod straight at your sides, your hands fisted, and Trammell's eyes are trained on you, like he's waiting for you to pull a Kyle Farnsworth and beat the shit out of the office furniture.
You don't give him the satisfaction; instead of taking out your rage on the chair you had been sitting in, you stomp out of his office and run smack into the center of Pudge's chest.
Pudge puts his hands on your shoulders, his eyebrows knitted in confusion, his lips pursed. "Kyle? Everything ok?" he asks, fitting his nylon chest protector on over his head, buckling up the straps and then going for his plastic-and-nylon shin guards. He looks up at you just then and stops what he's doing, letting the shin guards fall to the ground forgotten. "Are you all right? Ky?"
I had a couple problems with this part, with Pudge calling him Ky, because I can't imagine anyone calling him Ky, but I decided that Pudge would be the kind of guy to give his boyfriend-slash-fuckbuddy a pet name.
You shake your head, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes, hating yourself so much right now for being so fucking weak. You had always been so careful in never showing your hand, and now everyone can probably read you like a fucking book, they probably already know how this story ends. "Fuck, Pudge. I'm not ok," you whisper.
He moves closer to you and puts out a hand, resting it on your shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asks.
"I'm gone." You lower your hands and look him in the eyes for the first time, and the entire world comes to a grinding halt.
"You were traded," he says, fiercely, seizing your wrists with his hands. "You were traded, weren't you?"
You nod, feeling so weak, and then feeling ashamed for feeling so weak. "Yeah. Atlanta. For some dude named Roman Ramon and some minor league prospect named Miner."
Pudge presses his thumbs against your pulse in each wrist, locking down and not letting go. "What. Why? Why would he do this? Why would Dave trade you?"
"I turned down his offer and he was, like, pissed off or something," you say, even though that's not exactly truth, and now he's squeezing down so hard that your wrists are starting to hurt.
"This is a cruel joke," he says, eyes flashing dark and unreadable again.
"It's not a joke, man," you say, lowering your eyes to the ground, feeling shame and not even knowing why. "I've been traded. I'm not a Detroit Tiger anymore."
He clutches your jersey out of your belt, pulling it, bunching it in his hands, his arms straight like bridge cables but trembling, his eyes big and scared. A look you never thought you'd see on his face, a look you never wanted to see on his face. "You're lying."
"I'm sorry," you sigh, covering his hands with your own, trying to pry them off of your jersey, trying to wrench away from him.
"You can't leave," he whispers, barely even a whisper at that, eyes still so big like the ocean, and black like oil, still tugging on the front of your jersey. "You can't. I won't let you."
"I'm sorry, but. But I have to." You manage to work your jersey out of his hands, flatten your hands down the front, choking on the unfamiliar tightness in your throat, everything about you tight and weak and uncomfortable and not Kyle Farnsworth, at least not the Kyle Farnsworth you know.
I tried to balance out the angst of Pudge with Kyle kind of fighting himself, and his own emotions. As much as this thing with Pudge has opened up parts of Kyle, there are parts of him that are still closed off, and parts of him that he'd rather leave closed off.
"You could have just resigned," he accuses, and yes, you knew this was coming, didn't you? But it still hurts to hear him say it.
"Free agency," you say, lamely, shrugging your shoulders because what else can you do?
Here, Pudge and Kyle represent the different attitudes toward Kyle's rejection of D2's offer, trade and testing of free agency (post-trade). Pudge's view is that Kyle should have resigned. Kyle's is that he wanted to test free agency. Pudge's, I think, is the typical fan view, while Kyle's is more pragmatic and "inside" baseball.
"You could have accepted the offer," he says. "You could have gotten closer money, you could have stayed here with me."
"I'm sorry," and it seems to be the only thing you can think to say to him. "It just didn't. It didn't work out. Barry and I, we talked about it and we ran over the different scenarios, and you know. You know, there's still a good chance I could sign here after the season ends," but his eyes go hard, but you both know how nearly impossible that sounds.
Atlanta will offer you a deal to stay in your hometown, the Yankees will offer you a deal just because they're the Yankees and there's never been a season when the Yankees didn't have their hand in someone else's cookie jar, the Red Sox will at the very least appear mildly interested because of their bullpen implosion, maybe even Philly because there've been rumors floating around that Wagner intends to retire.
Uh. I was right about the Yankees, apparently. >.>
And Detroit. And Detroit.
"We both know that's not going to happen," he says coldly, his eyes glazing over, his hands in fists at his sides.
"I like it here, don't think that I don't," you beg, unbuttoning your jersey and then buttoning it back up, unbuttoning, buttoning, unbuttoning. Idle hands, and all that.
Second instance of the "idle hands" phrase. Here's it's meant to convey his discomfort with the situation, without flatout saying he's pretty fucking uncomfortable.
"Then why aren't you staying? Why didn't you just tell Dave you'd negotiate, why didn't you tell him I n -- " Pudge stops himself before he can finish his sentence, chokes it over and swallows it down.
I really think Pudge gets too dependent on Kyle, and that he comes to think that he needs Kyle to stay normal.
"Tell him what, exactly?" you ask.
"The truth!" Pudge's eyes flare, and the last time you saw him this animated was when Ugie pretty much fought his way off the Tigers and onto the Phillies, when Pudge practically had to shoehorn Inge off of him and sit on Urbina until he calmed down.
"And what exactly is the truth?" you ask. Pudge's eyes snap wide with shock and you realize he's misunderstood you.
"You mean. You. You would." Now it's his turn to go blank. He thins his lips and pivots away from you, punching his fist into the nearest wall.
Here, Pudge thinks that Kyle is rejecting him and their relationship.
"Fuck, Pudge, don't do that!" you snap.
Pudge wrings out his hand, glaring at you. "You could have just stayed."
You move to touch him, take his hand in yours and inspect it, make sure he hasn't injured it further, but the clubhouse doors open and teammates begin filing in, heads hanging, chest sunk in, arms held loosely at their sides, they've just gotten the news, and no one is in the mood to finish batting practice and fielding drills.
Infante turns his big black doe eyes on you. "Tell me this is all a mistake, papi," Infante says, moving between you and Pudge, Pudge slinking away with his arm held against his chest, flexing his hand. You try to peer around Omar, but he stands firm.
"I'm sorry, Omar," and you seem to be saying that a lot today, since learning about the trade. "I wish it was a mistake, man."
Yeah, Omar, go fuck someone's wife!
Bonderman makes a beeline for the trainer's room to have his arm worked on before catching sight of you out of the corner of his eye, and he turns on his heels, marching back to you, holding his arms out, shoulders turned up in question. "Come on, man, tell me this was a mistake, tell me you're not a fuckin' Brave, man."
Do you know how hard it is to capture Jeremy Bonderman's speaking voice? Normally I listen to interviews to catch the syntax and the tone, and whatnot, but I didn't have one handy for Bondo, so I just, uh, turned him into a mumbling idiot?
You shake your head, and begin to notice the teammates starting to swarm around you, all of them except Pudge, that is. "Yeah, man, I was pretty fuckin' surprised. At least I'm going home to Atlanta, aye?"
"I guess, but fuck, man. We need you more than Atlanta does," Bonderman says, heaving a big sigh. "You're our fuckin' closer, man. In Atlanta, you'll only be set-up."
You swallow hard. "I know, but . . . well, you know."
"Jesus Christ, man, I don't like this," the kid says, the look in his eyes telling you he wants to say more, probably go pussy on you and tell you how much he loves you, what a great teammate you are, how much the team is gonna miss you.
"It's ok, man. Things'll work out," you say before he can get out what he wants to get out.
I really like this little exchange between Kyle and Jeremy. It's like, Kyle knows how Jeremy feels, so there's no need to "act like a girl" in the clubouse over it.
"Well . . . Good luck in Atlanta, man. Don't forget about us." Bonderman gives you a slap on the back before continuing to the trainer's room.
The teammates are still buzzing about you when Tram, Gibby and the rest of the coaching staff finally steps into the clubhouse, shutting the doors behind them.
The finality of it echoes and reverberates in your ears.
"This will only take a few minutes," Tram says, moving to the front of the room, hands tucked into his back pockets, grim-faced and thin-lipped. "I'd like to address the trade."
You look around the clubhouse and everyone is there except Pudge.
"This trade's a fuckin' joke," Dmitri grumbles, always the first to speak up, pulling his batting gloves out of his pocket and tucking them in the upturned helmet in his locker. "We started the season with three fuckin' closers and now we got none."
"I understand," Tram says, "but it's a move we had to make -- "
Pudge cuts him off, and you hadn't even realized he'd moved to your side, his nylon chest protector hanging from one arm, his jersey pulled out and disheveled, his face sallow and gray, his eyes haunted. "We didn't have to make this trade. We shouldn't have made this trade," he says, his arm brushing against your side, and you feel him press back against your side ever so slightly. "We need Kyle."
"We didn't have a choice," Trammell says. "When Kyle and his agent turned down our deal, we felt it would be wise to move him now rather than lose him for nothing during the free agency period."
But Pudge needed him more.
"I would have liked a chance to make a run at the Wild Card with the team," you say, speaking up for the first time, and then twelve sets of eyes turn on you.
"I know you would have," Trammell says, apparently unhappy at having to be the bearer of Dombrowski's bad news, his hands on his arthritic hips. "But it wasn't my call. If it had been my call, obviously, we would have kept you."
I think here I was kind of indicating that Tram was a bit of a puppet, whether it be for D2 or Toupée, he doesn't have control over the situation. A harbinger of things to come!
You shrug once, weakly, then push your cap off your forehead and run your arm across your face. "I know."
What else is there left to say?
There's a game to be played.
Kyle totally hung out in the clubouse after the game and didn't leave for Atlanta until well after, around midnight or so. Normally a guy would've been on the first flight to his new team, but Kyle hung around for hours (the game was an afternoon game) and didn't leave until the wee hours of the morning. Hm! Hm indeed!
*
No one is in the mood to play any game, regardless of who the competition is. The team goes down meekly to the surging Athletics; they're lacking that extra bounce in their step, that extra snap to their swings, that extra hum to the fastball and the extra dip to the curve.
It's just not there.
*
After the game you call up Southwest Airlines to catch a flight to Atlanta; the only flight available is one at midnight, one that's leaving from San Francisco International, so you'll have to call a taxi to take you across the Bay Bridge.
Your clothes are strewn over your bed in various states of disarray. Pudge is sitting on the edge of his bed, watching you with blank eyes, and you don't even think he's really watching. His eyes look dead and hollow, like all the life's gone out of them.
You toss your clothes into your bag, along with your toiletries and your iPod, and zip it up, before looking back at him, worry gnawing away at your stomach, along with a case of hyperactive butterflies.
"Ivan?" you ask.
He looks at you, impassively. "Yes?"
You open your arms to him and he takes you into an embrace, stroking a hand down the back of your neck. "I'm going to miss you."
"Don't go," he whispers, "don't go."
"I have to, Ivan." You kiss his forehead and tighten your arms around him, wishing you could just hold on to him forever.
"You don't have to go," he says, but you know that he knows how futile the prospect is.
You clear your throat, kissing his temple, brushing your lips over his earlobe gently. "I've got a flight leaving for Atlanta at midnight," you sigh, lowering your face into his shoulder, your arms draped loose around his waist. "I want you to come with me, to wait for the cab, ok?"
"I don't think -- " but you cut him off.
"No objections. You have to," you say, holding him at arm's length, reaching up to thumb through his hair. He rubs his cheek against the heel of your hand, eyelids fluttering closed.
"No objections?" he asks, stroking his fingertips over the back of your hand.
"No. No objections allowed." You rub your thumb over his lips, your heart caught in your throat, and fuck, man, you're not gonna fucking cry. Not now, not when you've come so far, not when you can't go back.
Not when you have everything to lose.
You blink, hold the back of your hand against your eyes. You feel his hand pressing on your chest, fingers spreading out wide over your heart real slow, and you know then that you'll only ever love him.
There will be other people in your life, you're pretty sure of this, there will be other women, maybe even other men, but there will only ever be room enough in your heart for him.
This is kind of, like, the climax of the story or something. I dunno, it seemed like an important revelation when I wrote it.
"Ok," he breathes, his mouth against your neck, his eyelashes tickling under your jaw line, "I'll go."
That whole part killed me inside to write.
*
You and he sit out in front of the hotel together, your suitcase between you, and you haven't said anything to each other since you sat down on the stone bench.
You haven't needed to because you already know how he feels, and he already knows how he feels.
This wasn't a typo.
He leans against you, his cheek on your shoulder, whispering things in Spanish, sweet-sounding things you never bothered to learn. You learned the Spanish words for pussy, faggot, motherfucker, whore, but not beautiful, dear, darling, love, sweetheart.
That's Kyle, being sentimental. Big sentimental lug.
You never learned the Spanish word for forever.
Either way, you're fine with not knowing what he's saying. Just that he's saying it is enough for you.
"Corazón," Pudge says, under his breath, stroking his hand down your bare arm, his touch light, "Corazón de melón. Mi machote."
You nuzzle your lips against his jaw line, closing your eyes, pressing your forehead against his neck.
"Cariño." He plants a firm kiss on your cheek, rubbing a hand through your hair.
The taxi that's going to take you to the airport, take you from Pudge to some new team, to some guys you don't know, pulls in front of the hotel and you sit up straight, pulling on your shirt instinctively, reaching out to give the back of his hand one last squeeze.
He looks up at you, eyes gone blank again. "Adios, mi amor," he murmurs, standing up to put his arms around you, hug you, and you hug him back awkwardly, more arms than body contact, an awkward manhug but wanting to do more. "Te guardaré en mi corazón."
The cabbie, a large man with a thick black beard and small, beady eyes makes his way over to you, holding out his hand. "Your bags?"
"Oh, of course. Uh, thanks." You hand your bag to him and glance back at Pudge, who seems to have retreated into himself, looking so much smaller and weaker, that you think for a second you should just stay, fuck the Braves, you've got more pressing concerns.
But he steels his eyes and sets his jaw. "Adios," he says, raising his hand to you, waving. "Mi corazón."
You get into the backseat of the cab while the driver puts your bag in the trunk and Pudge is still standing next to the stone bench, his arm still raised.
The taxi starts up and you pull away from the curb, pull away from your team, away from the only place you want to be.
You wave at him from the back window, and he's still standing where you left him, feet planted wide, his hand raised and his fingers curled, and somehow, deep down, you know that this is the last time you've ever gonna see him, ever gonna see him like he is just now.
You close your eyes, the image of him standing there burned into the backs of your eyelids, something you're never gonna forget, something of him that you'll have forever.
You turn around and face front, face the future, face the Braves, face everything the future could possibly throw at you.
You don't look back.
*
Yes, slight Biblical allusion here.
I wanted to leave the ending a little ambiguous, and leave the readers wondering what happened. Does Pudge completely fall apart? Does Kyle ever get over his fear of being in love? Does Pudge move on? Does Kyle move on? Did Tram and Gibby know what they were doing when they assigned Kyle to look after Pudge? I decided to leave that to the readers to decide.
During the initial beta process, some people wondered about the nature of their relationship, and the fact it seemed to happen pretty fast, within a week or two. Yeah, that was on purpose. The reason I didn't set it up, or have the story start earlier was that I wanted it to be a bit of a whirlwind romance, in the vein of Romeo and Juliet. (Only without a joint suicide.) I tried to show the tumult of the situation with Kyle's disjointed narration during the alley scene and during the sex scenes, mostly just to convey feeling rather than tell a story. The decision to do that was purely to evoke feelings, rather than to write a narrative that made sense from a literary perspective. Some also wondered about Pudge telling Kyle about himself and Ugie. The way I saw it, Pudge was a man on the edge, and ready to fall, and with Kyle's prodding, Pudge does go over the edge, so to speak. Another point of interest was Kyle's willingness to tell Pudge about Shayla; that was purely to get Pudge to open up. A strategic move, if you will.
Well, I think that's it. If you have any more questions, let me know.
And, anyway, that concludes the DVD commentary for Pudge/Farnsy epic. I'm happy I was able to take the fun out of you figuring this shit out on your own by writing a 40 page fic commentary about a 26 page fic! :D
DISTRIBUTION: Nope
DISCLAIMER: If you think this happened or possibly could happen, step away from the fanfiction, you giant douche.
PAIRING: Pudge Rodriguez/Kyle Farnsworth
SUMMARY: Kyle Farnsworth has never been asked before to fix anything he didn't motherfucking break, so why start now?
A/N: A lot of this is filler. Also, *breaks out the artistic license* *flashes it*
A/N2: Thanks to everyone for looking this over for me, especially beckla30, americanleaguer and bakoo. Also, thanks to naniris for the help with the Spanish.