Based on the fact that Xavier Nady had been promised a place in the Mets' clubhouse celebration if they clinched the NL East during their series at Pittsburgh.

Don't own these people, never met these people, don't mean to malign these people, so don't take it that way.

The doorbell rang, its abrupt sound unsettling the quiet night. Xavier, still soundly asleep, missed the first time and ignored the second, once he woke up and swore at it. The third time, he grabbed an old batting helmet and a stray bat and marched to the front door. Pittsburgh wasn't the safest place in the world, and the Duquesne shootings had only highlighted that. If anyone thought they were going to fuck with him, they'd have a fight on their hands.

He opened the door quickly, ready to bash his intruder's head in for disturbing his rest and potentially trying to rob his house and kill him in his sleep. Before he could get the bat head up and bring it around for a home run swing, something cool, wet, and sticky hit him in the face. Some had gotten into his mouth, and it took him a long time to realize *what* exactly it was, having never experienced the feeling before.

Once the stream stopped, he wiped the champagne out of his eyes and struggled to see who had ambushed him. "David? You fuck, do you know what time it is?"

"Morning," David replied cheerfully. "Really early morning, but morning."

"What the hell are you *doing* here?"

David held up the champagne bottle. "We won the NL East."

"Took you long enough to clinch, but what does that have to do with… oh."

"I made a promise. I had to wait a coupla days, 'cause you were on the road, but I wasn'g going to leave you out. You were such a big part of winning the division that the celebration wouldn't have been complete without you. So I hid a bottle of champagne in my locker 'til I could get out here and then I drove out here 'cause people would have started asking me questions if I was on the train or a plane." David shook the bottle again and aimed a second spray at Xavier, but Xavier ducked out of the way.

"Give me that, you idiot, and come inside before the neighbors start complaining." Xavier took the bottle from David's hand and dragged him inside. Once they were both in the hallway and the front door was closed, Xavier said, "Do you know how much you're risking being here? You're the poster boy. If they ever find out about this, you think they'll be selling posters of you anywhere other than Chelsea and San Francisco? That celebration promise was only if you guys managed to win in Pittsburgh, which you really should've done."

"That's how you might have thought it was supposed to be interpreted," David said quietly. "That's not how I thought it was. You're part of this. Just because we had to make the trade doesn't mean you aren't a Met in here." He tapped his heart, and the earnestness and honesty on his face were almost too much; really, he sounded like a cheesy commercial for the way people thought of the game. Of course, those were the people who didn't know better, who didn't know that as beautiful as it was to play in that open space that seemed to go on for miles, there was a business underneath the game; there was a reason why they called it the Show, because that was really what it was, a big show for everyone to ooh and ahhh at. David might be a rookie, but that didn't mean he hadn't been around the game for a while, and he really should have known better.

Then again, that was one of David's things. It would go away in time, but right now, he was still so awed by the game that he didn't see, or perhaps chose not to see, the darker aspects of the game. Worldly and naïve at the same time, he presented an interesting puzzle that it was in everyone's best interests to see solved. He needed a little dirt rubbed on him, to be tarnished a little bit, so that he was on common ground with everyone else; at least teammates and friends would make sure that it was just a light coat in a place where no one else would have to see, whereas if he got it himself, it might be the kind of dirt that never did wash off.

That had been the reason this… thing, for lack of a better thing to call it, had gotten started, or at least that was what Xavier told himself. Only when he ended up in Pittsburgh had he realized that the machismo had only been an excuse in deluding himself, and that he missed David far too much to be healthy.

Not that he'd admit it, of course. Instead, he put the champagne down on a nearby table and pinned David to the wall. David, well-trained and half-hard, worked his hand into Xavier's pants, and the last phase of the Mets' NL East celebration was underway.