Work Text:
The blooddrain changes with every game. Today it’s raining, a thick, warm drizzle that never seems to let up. Dix hates it. Blood’s fucking gross. Impossible to get out of clothing. Most of the team have stopped bothering to remove the stains from their clothes, but he hasn’t yet. That’s giving up, and he’s going to be damned if he lets blaseball make him stop caring about his clothes.
But here he is, stuck in the outfield as it pours down blood on the whole team. Velasquez is twelve years old today, and she’s wearing goggles, the kind that kids wear in swimming pools, Shoe Thieves yellow and blue. Esme’s wearing a hat with a wider brim, and even that’s not enough to stop her from getting blood in her face. Dix isn’t trying particularly hard to stop the blood from hitting their clothing, but they are shielding the grappling hook. God forbid they gum up the works with blood.
It’s pouring down, blood getting thicker. One of the Wild Wings steps up to bat — Horne, Dix thinks. Something Horne. He gets a strike, and then another strike, and Dix is barely paying attention, because this game is boring and this fucking guy’s not about to score the first point.
Then: thunder.
He looks up on instinct, wincing as he prepares for a faceful of blood, but instead there’s nothing. They’re left looking up as the rain seems to suspend over them, slowing to a halt, droplets stationary in the air. Everyone on the field is staring up.
Then Horne starts coughing, and every eye flies over to him. He collapses onto his knees, gagging. When Dix looks close enough they can see blood dripping out of his mouth, but it’s dripping upward, suspended in the air.
“What the fuck,” says Howell, just barely loud enough for Dix to hear.
The blood keeps flowing upwards in a steady stream until Horne collapses onto his face, chest heaving as he tries to breathe. Dix watches the blood floating, moving.
It’s not just moving up, they realize. It’s moving towards the pitcher’s mound.
Beasley Gloom looks up and howls. Dix has heard the dog howl before, of course he has, it’s a loud fucking dog. But this sounds different. It’s strange and mournful. It doesn’t sound like Gloom’s dog, it sounds like a wolf.
Beasley’s still howling when the blood forces its way down his throat, and he cuts off choking. Velasquez shouts something and starts running towards the pitcher’s mound, and Howell is close behind. There’s blood all over Beasley’s mouth. The rain comes crashing down again, a wave of blood slamming down on all of them.
Dix is glad that everyone’s busy looking at the dog, because it affords them a discreet opportunity to turn and retch for a minute. Fucking blooddrain.
When they look back up, Vela and Howell are moving back to their spots. Beasley’s whimpering. Horne is getting to his feet, surrounded by his teammates, but they head back to the dugout as umpires start to approach.
Dix runs his fingers along the handle of his grappling hook, a comforting weight at his hip. They know every groove, every divot, the places where it’s worn smooth. They run their fingers along it and they don’t think about the blood.
#
The thing is, it’s hard to avoid the blood. It’s in nearly every game. It’s in his hair. It’s in his fucking cleats. He’s never cared much about those shoes, but he sits for hours after games scrubbing at them with a toothbrush because the smell won’t leave.
Cornelius keeps pitching in suits. Dix doesn’t know how he does it. Dix also doesn’t ask.
#
The worst type of blooddrain — well, all types are the worst, but Dix hates the games that Esme calls “a lake of fucking blood.” It splashes everywhere. One time Dix forgot about the blood lake and used the grappling hook to try and slide home, and didn’t realize their mistake until they were covered head to toe in bloody, dripping mud.
Today, against the Tacos, is a lake of fucking blood, although it’s shallower than it’s been before. It’s not even deep enough to slosh over the toes of Dix’s cleats.
It turns out that even after years of blaseball, Dix is pretty naive, because they think that maybe that could be a good sign. As if there’s such a thing.
It’s hard to keep balance like this. Dix has gotten better at it, but it’s a tricky thing. Standing on bases and on home plate is easier, but one wrong move and you wipe out.
He’s playing catcher today, standing carefully, trying not to lose his balance. Basilio Fig, the weird living palm tree, is on first. They’re edging closer to second base, trying to sneak their way towards a steal. Dix is about to try and signal Snyder on the pitching mound when they slip and land hard on their ass, blood splashing up around them.
“Whoa,” says Lachlan, today’s first baseman. “You good?”
“Yeah, I’m—” Fig tries to get to their feet and then curses when they slip. “Can I get a hand?”
Lachlan moves over, taking slow, careful steps. Dix realizes after a second that Snyder’s not pitching. Everyone is watching this. Maybe that’s a bad sign.
“Here.” Lachlan reaches both hands out and takes one of Fig’s. “Up and at ‘em, let’s go.”
Fig starts climbing to their feet, but they slip again. Their fingers slide down the inside of Lachlan’s forearm, and because their fingers are made of wood, they scrape hard against his skin. Angry red lines appear almost immediately and start oozing blood.
Lachlan hisses in pain and goes to pull his arm back, but Fig grabs his hand and holds on, tight. They start getting to their feet, much steadier now. It strikes Dix for the first time that Fig is tall. Certainly taller than Lachlan, who tries to tug his arm back, to no avail.
“Sorry,” Fig says, almost like an afterthought, and then lifts Shelton’s arm to their mouth.
It’s completely different from what happened to Beasley. The slip seemed like an accident, but this isn’t accidental. The blood at their feet is moving slowly, gentle waves lapping higher and higher.
Lachlan doesn’t look in pain, exactly, but he looks stunned as Fig’s wooden lips move against his arm. Dix has to swallow down bile.
After a minute, Fig drops the arm. “Sorry,” they say again.
“I think there are splinters in my arm,” Lachlan says. He sounds dazed.
The inning ends, and Stu ushers Lachlan into the dugout, where there’s a first aid kit waiting. Dix is the last one there, trailing behind, shoes sloshing through the blood.
Esme’s waiting, looking worriedly at the field. Her eyes snap to Dix as they get closer. “Do you think it was on purpose?” she says, voice low. Dix shakes their head, and her lips press into a thin line. “I don’t like this blooddrain shit one bit.”
“Neither do I,” Dix admits. And then, because they still haven’t learned a fucking thing from seven years of blaseball, they say, “But at least it’s never happened twice in one game, right?”
#
Four innings later, Vela steps up to bat. She’s 22 today, brimming with energy, clutching her bat tight. She’s staring straight at Wyatt Pothos on the pitcher’s mound, all bravado and vigor.
Dix notices too late the way the blood is swirling around her ankles, just like it was for Fig and Lachlan. He notices too late that she shouldn’t shift her stance. He opens his mouth to say something, but there’s no time.
Velasquez shifts, and her feet go out from under her. She falls on her face hard, blood splashing up around her. She shouts, although it’s a horrible, wet noise that’s immediately replaced by the sound of retching as blood enters her mouth.
Every one of the Shoe Thieves is sitting at attention. Stu’s on her feet, at the edge of the dugout. She looks about ready to run onto the field. Dix would tell her not to, if they could manage to look away.
Pothos bends down, arm reaching out, and then her eyes glaze over. She drops the ball on the mound and scoops blood up with both her hands, cupping them and bringing them to her mouth. She drinks the blood greedily, messily. It’s dripping down her wrists and down her chin. She doesn’t seem to notice Vela thrashing, unable to lift her face. She doesn’t notice Vela screaming like she’s drowning.
And then it’s over. Velasquez finally rips her head out of the blood, gasping and choking. She gets to her knees, then her feet, swaying on the spot. She’s drenched in blood, her hair and her jersey, blinking furiously to get it out of her eyes.
Pothos looks up, and the blood drops from her cupped hands. She opens her mouth but Velasquez says something sharp, too quiet for Dix to hear from the dugout. Pothos just nods and picks up the ball.
As soon as Velasquez strikes out and starts stumbling to the dugout, Stu says, “Does she have an extra uniform? Does anyone?”
“I have a jersey in my bag,” Snyder says immediately. “It’ll be a little big, but—”
The rest goes unspoken. But at least it’s clean.
Velasquez makes her way back to the dugout, and Stu and Esme get to work dumping water bottles over her head, trying to wash the worst of it off her face. “Vela,” Esme says, voice low. “You okay?”
“I think my nose is broken,” Velasquez says. She doesn’t speak for the rest of the game.
#
It is impossible to say if Dix is actually in love with his husband.
He certainly was when they got married. They were young and bold and deliriously in love. He was so impressed by Cornelius, so put-together, so suave, so… good. They fell apart slowly, unraveling stitch by stitch until now. They don’t live together. They don’t speak to one another, most days.
Love seems such an uncomplicated word for the way he feels about Cornelius. It’s almost laughably insufficient to call it love. But they haven’t talked about it, never even formally agreed to separate, so Dix is left trying to check off boxes on an impossible list.
Is it love when Cornelius pitches a winning game? Is it love when they make eye contact across the locker room? Is it love when Dix can’t sleep at night because they’re reminiscing about the elopement, about when they could hold each other’s hands just because they wanted to? Is it love when—
Love is an uncomplicated word for what Dix feels on the day Cornelius gets blooddrained.
They don’t actually see it happen, which is an unforgivable sin and an unimaginable relief all at once. It’s the easiest kind of blooddrain today: instead of blood on the field, or in the sky, it’s just the equipment. No matter what they do, all the bats and balls are coated in a thick, slimy layer of blood that they can’t wash off.
They’re playing against the Magic. Dix is in the dugout with Velasquez, because she’s two years old today and it’s their turn to babysit. They’re in a back corner, which means they’re nowhere near the entrance of the dugout when Cornelius lets out a shout, and then there’s the sound of a body hitting the ground.
Dix stands up sharply, wincing when Velasquez starts wailing. “What’s happening?”
“Aliciakeyes fucking hit him,” Snyder bites out. They sound rightfully fucking pissed, more than Dix has ever heard. “Right in the goddamn arm.”
For a second Dix’s blood runs cold. The only other pitcher who’s ever hit anyone with a pitch was Jaylen fucking Hotdogfingers, and that was to mark people for death. “Was it—”
“I’m so sorry!” a new voice says. “I’m so sorry, are you okay? My hand slipped, the blood on the ball was so—”
“Get her away from him,” Dix barks, but it’s too late. They can’t see Cornelius; the rest of the team is flanking him, and they’re all blocking his view. He doesn’t know what it looks like. He barely knows what it sounds like, because Esme shouts something and then the rest of the Thieves are moving. Dix can’t tell if they’re trying to pull Cornelius away or push Aliciakeyes off.
Velasquez is still crying her little eyes out. Dix sits down and pats her head. “Let’s go back to reading,” they say, voice strained.
They try not to pay attention when Curry Aliciakeyes starts apologizing again, even more avidly tearful than before. They focus on Velasquez, playing with her and reading. They don’t think about the sounds of everyone bandaging Cornelius up, or about Lachlan giving low, calm advice on how to handle the drain.
They do, however, notice when Cornelius sits down heavily across from them. He’s still wearing the suit, but one arm is torn off at the elbow. The rest of his arm is covered in thick bandages. Dix makes a mental note to ask if any of them actually know how to dress wounds or if they’re just guessing. Wounds from blooddrain heal overnight, with players in peak condition for the next game, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get infected.
They’re staring at Cornelius, they realize. And he’s staring at them too.
“Corn,” Vela says, bouncing on Dix’s lap. “Corn, Corn, Corn—”
Dix lifts an eyebrow. “Can you take her?”
What they mean is: is your arm okay? They’re not sure what Cornelius hears, but his face stiffens. “Of course,” he says, voice hard as though he’s offended, and reaches out.
Dix is exceedingly careful passing Velasquez over, because two years old means she’s wriggly as all fuck, but she settles on his lap nicely and starts bouncing away. They’re almost jealous. Kid has no idea what’s going on.
They have questions to ask, but they don’t bother opening their mouth. There’s no narrowing down to just one question, just one thing they want to know, and Cornelius wouldn’t appreciate the onslaught. And besides, they feel abruptly nauseous, thinking about the bloodiness of it all. They should’ve been there. They should’ve helped.
“I’ll live,” Cornelius says quietly.
“I know,” Dix snaps. He has to pause, jaw working, and swallow around the thickness in his throat. “I know.”
They don’t speak for the rest of the game. But even with the injured arm, Cornelius pitches a goddamn shutout. It is a reduction to say that in that moment, Dix is in love with Cornelius. But it’s also the truest it’s been in years.
#
Workman Gloom gets blooddrained. Dix doesn’t care much one way or the other — they were never close with Gloom, never even played on the Thieves at the same time — but the rest of the team wants to watch the replay, so Dix watches too.
It’s surprisingly benign. There’s blood swirling on the field. Marquez Clark from the Mints steps up to bat, then turns to Gloom on third base and says, “I do believe the blood wants to drag you towards me.”
“What?” Gloom says. They’re wide-eyed — not afraid, but wary, concerned. When they look down, it’s clear that Clark is right: the lake of blood is swirling around Gloom’s ankles, rising up their calves, with a current heading towards home plate.
“The weather has decided to drain you,” Clark says. It’s surprisingly kind. “As I am of the vampiric persuasion, I’d like to offer to make it painless.”
So Clark drains Gloom’s blood, the way that vampires do. Afterwards Gloom gets first aid from one of the Talkers. As far as blooddrains go, it’s surprisingly… bloodless to watch.
Dix never hated Gloom, but he hates them now as he watches this. It’s not their fault, and it would be childish to call it unfair. But after Lachlan, after Velasquez, after Cornelius— Workman fucking Gloom gets a gentleman vampire. Of course they do.
#
Gloom’s incinerated three weeks later. Can’t win ‘em all, Dix supposes.
#
He only hears about Yeong-Ho Benitez because everyone else is talking about Yeong-Ho Benitez. He hasn’t had a problem with them from any games against the Pies. They seem nice enough. Photographer. Just a normal person who got swept up in blaseball like the rest of them.
He never watches the clip, but Vela and Stu talk about it a lot. Apparently Benitez blooddrained Sixpack Dogwalker. Apparently they ran off-base to tackle her off the pitcher’s mound. Apparently it started raining after they were done. Apparently they apologized, but they were laughing while they said it, so nobody believed them.
He makes a note never to cross Benitez. They don’t seem mean, but apparently they’re a real motherfucker when they’re thirsty.
#
It’s a blur playing against the Pods, obviously. Dix doesn’t realize until hours later that all of them are covered in blood. He doesn’t remember the blooddrain happening during the game. He doesn’t remember most of the game, other than scoring one single run. Other than the Pods scoring and scoring and every run feeling like a knife in their stomach.
All of the Thieves have been sitting in the locker room for hours. They’ve been taking turns answering phone calls. It’s hard because most of them just want to sit down and sleep, but everyone and their goddamn mother in the ILB wants to hear firsthand that they’re okay.
They’re not. They couldn’t possibly be. But nobody wants to hear that.
Dix sits next to Cornelius — well, a handful of feet away, but there’s nobody in between them, so it’s the same thing. He’s staring ahead blankly, and he doesn’t react when Dix slides closer. They’re pretty sure they haven’t spoken to him in weeks, but now feels like as good a time as ever to bridge the gap.
“We’ll get ‘em next time,” Dix says, and it’s precisely the wrong thing to say, which means that Cornelius gives them a severe look. Dix ignores it. “We made it out.”
“We made it out,” Cornelius agrees. His voice is ragged. He didn’t pitch in the game; that honor went to Jaylen, because she’s the kind of person who would push people out of the way for a chance to fight a god. More importantly, Cornelius didn’t pitch because Dix pulled him back and forced him to sit down, a rare moment of interaction, a rarer still moment of physical contact.
Dix goes quiet for a second. There are things they could say that spouses are supposed to say to one another. There are things they could say to make Cornelius relax, to stop that muscle in his jaw from twitching — although, admittedly, Dix isn’t completely sure what those magic words are. He hasn’t been good at reading Cornelius for a long time now.
In the end, it’s his husband who breaks the silence. Cornelius says, “Next time, don’t stop me.”
Dix snorts. “No promises.”
“And why’s that?” Cornelius turns to him, eyebrows raised, eyes tired. Dix can think of a dozen questions he could actually be asking here. Why did Dix stop him? Why won’t he make a promise? Why are they here talking, when that’s always been what other married people do, and their marriage has been in name only for upwards of seven years?
“Because,” Dix says, “even if it hurt you too, at least you were sitting down when it happened.” There. A bad answer to a bad question.
They don’t speak for the rest of the night. But nobody sits between them. Instead they sit together, nearly close enough to touch, if they wanted to.
#
Siphon is an ugly word. Dix doesn’t think he likes it. But—
But everyone flinches whenever a ball flies towards them. But the pitchers just give up sometimes, allow walks like it doesn’t matter. But Dix has now seen every single one of his teammates cry in fear or in frustration, even Esme, even Velasquez, even Jaylen fucking Hotdogfingers.
This will not be enough to keep his teammates safe. But, but, but.
#
Their first game is supposed to be in blooddrain, and Dix doesn’t know what to expect. They might lose control. They might bowl one of the Fridays over and just start vampiring them. They might lie down in the blood lake, or cup their hands and try to drink the bloody rain.
But when they get to the stadium, the field is dry.
Nobody else seems bothered by it, but it’s all Dix can think about. There’s no blood in the sky, no blood on the balls, no blood on the field. They drink water bottle after water bottle and everyone else on the team stares and they’re still the thirstiest they’ve ever been in their life.
They’re playing catcher today, standing behind home plate. They feel rubbed raw, too tense to actually focus. It only takes until the first at-bat for them to snap.
It’s Fletcher Yamamoto. He’s been drained before — Curry fucking Aliciakeyes got him too, and she wasn’t gentle about it. Dix can be gentle. Dix knows what to do. Fletcher’s a bird. He doesn’t need to stand, he can fly.
So Dix reaches out, quick as anything, and snaps one of his legs.
Yamamoto shrieks, a horrid cacophony of shrill noise filling the air. Blood starts trickling out of the snapped joint in his leg. People are shouting; the Fridays from the dugout, Dix realizes. They’re probably upset with him.
The Thieves are all in the outfield, at their defensive positions. They’re all staring.
Dix adjusts the catcher’s mask just enough to lift his fingers to his lips. The blood is sweeter than he was expecting, a little fizzy on his tongue. He’s not happy about this, not the taste or Yamamoto warbling in pain. But he doesn’t mind that the umpires add an out. And he certainly doesn’t mind that he’s not thirsty anymore.
#
The Fridays aren’t vengeful. At least, Dix doesn’t think they are. But half a dozen innings later, Blood’s at bat when someone lets out a low, guttural cry.
Baldwin Breadwinner, halfway across the field, attacks. She’s playing shortstop, so she has to sprint to charge Blood. She’s smaller than he is, but her eyes are wild, and he wasn’t expecting it, so he goes down.
She has a bread knife. Dix notices at the same time as the rest of the Thieves. Howell makes a choked-off noise of horror, and that’s all any of them have time for before Breadwinner is carving Blood’s arm open. She lifts their wrist to their mouth and drinks as blood oozes out. Dix is the only one who doesn’t look away.
#
Yeong-Ho Benitez is the first baseman for the Pies. This turns out to be bad news.
When Simon steps up to bat, Benitez runs at her. No warning, not even a sound beyond heavy breathing and feet pounding on the grass. She goes to the ground, hard, and shouts something unintelligible, but Benitez shoves her head into the ground, holding her still. She shouts again — this time, Dix can hear that it’s a clear “no” — and then Benitez surges in, teeth bared.
All the Thieves are frozen in the dugout. Velasquez has a hand by her nose. Blood’s cradling his arm to his chest. Dix doesn’t look at Cornelius.
If this happened last season they would be shouting. Dix can see it in his mind’s eye: a year ago they were so angry and full of fucking life. They would be running onto the field, but— but they’re scared now. Not even Jaylen Hotdogfingers moves.
So instead they stand. And they watch.
It’s several agonizing minutes before Benitez backs off. Dix sees a flash of their face as they turn back to the base. It looks like they’re grinning. There’s blood on them, nose to neck. He thinks he can see bits of muscle in their teeth. He thinks he can hear them apologize, carelessly.
They look up at the sky expectantly. Nothing. Not a drip. Not even a cloud.
Simon’s crying when he climbs to his feet, massive, tremulous sobs that echo all the way to the dugout. Dix thinks he sees a flash of bone in their arm. He didn’t even know Simon had bones.
He looks at the wound, the ragged edges of muscle. He does not tell anyone that his mouth starts watering.
#
It happens to Stu the next day. It’s Benitez again. It’s even the same arm.
Simon meets her at first base with a first aid kit and bandages. The umpires don’t stop them. Dix doesn’t listen too closely, but he hears Simon say, “It’ll be healed by tomorrow.”
“Fuckin’ hurts today,” Stu mumbles. Simon doesn’t answer.
#
It doesn’t feel like Dix expected, the second time. They were expecting it to be something feral and animal and terrible. They were expecting it to be a loss of control. They were expecting to be hungry.
And they are, sort of. But it’s an afterthought. Mostly, they just do it because they want to.
Farrell Seagull steps up to bat. Dix is playing catcher again today. Esme and Cornelius have been putting them in the outfield, after Fletcher, but they insisted on being catcher today. Everyone agreed. Nobody said it was because of Simon, or because of Benitez, but they all knew.
Farrell Seagull steps up to bat, and Dix can smell her. Her shampoo is something that’s supposed to smell like rainwater or ocean breezes, but it’s all just chemicals. Her jersey smells terrible, too clean, too artificial. Everything smells fake.
But they can smell her. The sweat on her skin, souring as it dries. Her breath, warm and even and a little sweet. They can smell her blood. They can smell her blood and they can almost taste it.
It’s so dry. It’s too dry. And Dix can hear her heartbeat.
They fist a hand in the back of her jersey and pull back. She lets out a shout, but they’re too busy trying to pull off the catcher’s mask to acknowledge it. They end up tugging her neckline down and biting into the meaty part of where her shoulder meets the neck. It’s not a major artery, but it’s close.
They can tell right away that they don’t like it. It’s too messy. They’re never going to be able to get it out of their jersey. And they don’t like how close it is, that they can hear her shouting right in their ear. It’s annoying. Makes it hard to savor.
It’s over too soon, and not soon enough. They let her go, and she whips around to stare at them. Both of her hands are clapped over her neck. They have to stop themself from lunging in to lick at her fingers. It wasn't enough. Their mouth is still so dry.
“Games,” she says, voice hoarse. “What the fuck was that?”
“Felt snackish,” they answer. They wipe the back of their hand across their mouth. “You were closer than the vending machines.”
She doesn’t laugh. All the Pies are staring at them. Cornelius is on the pitcher’s mound. He’s staring too.
“Throw the fucking ball, Cornelius,” Dix says.
Farrell strikes out looking.
#
Next inning the Shoe Thieves force Dix into the outfield. None of them will look him in the eye. He washes his face and keeps playing. He considers feeling guilty. He even considers apologizing to Farrell.
Then Yeong-Ho fucking Benitez corners Sebastian Woodman as soon as they step up to bat. Sebastian sees them coming. They hold out an arm, a peace offering, a plea for mercy. Benitez still tries to rip them open with their teeth.
Dix stops feeling guilty. Dix starts planning instead.
It takes a little longer for him to spot an opening, but eventually Benitez is up to bat again. It’s too far to use his teeth again, but Dix didn’t like that anyways. And he has a backup plan, something he’s itching to try out.
Benitez gets a strike. Benitez gets another strike. Benitez is looking at Cornelius.
The thing about the grappling hook is that you can’t aim it where you want to go. Dix has learned this after hundreds of games playing with it, using it to steal bases and slide home. No, you have to aim past your goal, so that the hook catches on something when it retracts.
This means two things. First, it means that when Dix fires the grappling hook past Yeong-Ho Benitez, they think it misses, and their mouth opens up into a sneer. But secondly, and more importantly, it means that they don’t see it coming when the hook comes back and sinks three prongs into their torso.
Dix smiles.
There’s a heartbeat where Benitez’s only reaction is their mouth falling open, and another where their only reaction is falling to their knees. But that’s not enough, so Dix starts reeling the hook in, and Benitez screams. It’s like nothing he’s ever heard before, stunned and scared and agonized. Their head is thrown back. In that moment they’re not a threat. They’re only a person in pain.
Dix counts to five before retracting the grappling hook the rest of the way. There’s resistance, of course, but the hook is fucking strong. It rips through Benitez’s side, tearing chunks of flesh out and leaving gaping, bloody gashes. They’re howling in pain. Dix thinks about Simon trying to fend them off and has to turn away, not out of guilt, but so he doesn’t fire at them again.
There are bits of viscera on the hook, intestines and bits of muscle. He runs a finger through them and lifts it to his mouth. And this, oh, something about the hook or the vengeance or the mood he’s in makes it the best thing he’s ever tasted.
He barely even notices when the umpires call a third strike.
#
“Vengeance isn’t safety, Dickson,” Esme says, after the game, after they’re the last two left in the locker room.
Dix shrugs. “Doing nothing isn’t safety either,” he says, and she doesn’t try to argue with that.
Yeong-Ho Benitez is incinerated four days later. Dix can’t say they’re sorry about it.
#
The hook, it turns out, is the secret. The blood tastes better, feels better, feels more like it’s supposed to be Dix’s when it comes off the hook. They learn to sharpen it, and better ways to clean it. They learn repairs. They learn to aim better.
There are plenty of games not in blooddrain weather, and those are tolerable. And many of the blooddrain games are the same as before. Most of the Thieves are polite enough not to stare when Dix drinks the bloody rain, head tipped back and mouth open wide. Hotdogfingers calls it fucking gross when he drinks from the bloody lake, and that’s the worst of it.
But the best games are the dry games. Because those are the games when Dix gets to drink.
#
He doesn’t think he’s getting carried away. Not until the Thieves play the Fridays and he goes after two players in one game. And even then, that’s not particularly bad, nothing he hasn’t done before. He’s not worried about revenge. It’s the goddamn Fridays. They don’t do revenge.
He’s at bat, grappling hook at his hip, Hotbox on first base, when he smells it. He starts salivating on instinct at the thought of getting to drain someone, but then he stops. This smells wrong. It almost smells familiar. It almost smells smoky.
Dix turns just in time to see the pitchfork spear Hotbox through the chest.
For a second he can’t even process it. Hotbox is only halfway corporeal on the best of days. It shouldn’t exist enough to have a chest to spear through, but it’s pinned to the ground. There’s blood clearly leaking out of the holes in its chest, holes that aren’t refilling with smoke, holes that aren’t closing up.
“What the fuck,” Dix croaks. None of the Fridays even look at him.
He’d forgotten, or maybe just hadn’t thought about, other siphons targeting them. With Benitez gone, nobody had tried to drain the Thieves. But maybe he should’ve been ready for the Fridays. They got their vengeance for Yamamoto. It makes sense that they’d want revenge for… for… well, for whoever the fuck it was Dix had drained yesterday.
“Scuse me,” says a voice, and Spears Taylor saunters over from the outfield, carefree as anything. “Sorry about that. Looks like I misplaced my property.”
Hotbox lets out an angry, gurgling noise, bits of bloody smoke dripping out of their mouth and wisping away into nothing. After a second, it collects itself enough to say, “Fuck off.”
Taylor smirks. Dix is expecting them to pull the pitchfork off and lick the blood off, like a civilized person, but they don’t. Instead they bend down and press their palm to Hotbox’s chest, fingers curling through the tines of the pitchfork. Dix realizes he’s holding his breath, although he doesn’t know why.
Taylor presses down on Hotbox’s chest. It shouts, blood and smoke seeping out of the wound. Taylor drags their fingers through the mixture and straightens up. They turn to Dix, slow and deliberate, and smile. And then they start licking the blood off their fingers. They’re making a show of it. Like they’re savoring it.
Dix takes a deep breath, trying to think straight, but they can only see red. Vengeance isn’t safety, Esme had said. Vengeance isn’t safety, and Hotbox isn’t safe, but—
Spears Taylor isn't expecting it when Dix springs at them. They're certainly not expecting it when he reels back and swings his bat into their head. They fall to the ground in a heap, looking dazed, blood still smeared on their hand and their mouth.
Dix wants to say something, some kind of action movie one-liner, but he just growls instead. Taylor blinks up at them, and then their mouth curls into a sneer. “Feeling defensive?”
“Fuck you,” Dix spits. They turn to Hotbox. “This is going to hurt.”
Hotbox only whimpers in response. Dix grabs the handle of the pitchfork and looks up at the dugout. Simon and Stu have assembled what they call their big fuck-off emergency kit, for bloody situations. They hope it’s ready for something like this.
Dix pulls the pitchfork out. They consider spearing Taylor through the throat with it, but instead they throw it down into the grass next to them. They’re still thirsty, throat achingly dry. They consider taking some of Hotbox’s blood, but that’s a violation. Dix isn’t going to do that to their teammate.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Spears says. Esme and Stu are running out for Hotbox; Dix can hear them getting closer. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
The next inning, Taylor gets Velasquez through the leg. It’s fucking hideous. They use a massive fuck-off pike and get her clean through the calf, blade going in one side and out the other. And they take their time with this one. At one point they start rocking the pike back and forth, like they're sawing at the wound in her leg. She screams. They laugh.
It takes the combined efforts of Howell, Esme, and Hotdogfingers to keep Dix from running back out on the field to cut Taylor’s fucking head off. In the end Fitzgerald finds a scarf in her bag and Esme ties Dix’s fucking hands behind his back, like he’s a goddamn animal or something.
He ends up sitting in the corner of the dugout. Cornelius comes to stand near him, doesn’t bother sitting down. “In the future,” he says, voice low, “consider refraining from antagonizing the people who could kill us.”
“They antagonized me first,” Dix says. Cornelius turns on his heel and leaves.
Velasquez ends up scoring a run, starting with a signature Twofer double. Dix is proud of her. Dix is going to eat Spears Taylor alive.
#
There’s something of an agreement among the siphons to leave each other the fuck alone. It’s not really a formal thing, but they all came to the same conclusion after a couple of pretty nasty bouts of blooddrain. It’s an informal truce — not enough to keep Dix from bashing heads in with a bat, naturally, but enough to keep him from hooking people.
Besides, there’s a kind of camaraderie there. Beasley’s the only Thief that ever siphoned someone, and he’s on the Moist Talkers now, so that leaves Dix alone with the worst craving of his life and nobody who understands. So even if they don’t talk about it, there’s a consensus with the siphons, a quiet understanding. Sympathy, almost.
Then Knight Triumphant takes a sword to Nagomi Mcdaniel and siphons her. The truce is gone, and so is the support. But at least Dix has a clear path to going after Spears Taylor.
It’s only a handful of days after the truce is broken that they get the opportunity. It’s pretty straightforward. They even sharpened their hook in preparation.
Spears Taylor is on third base. Dix is in the outfield and their mouth is drier than it’s ever been. They haven’t wanted something this badly since Benitez. Hell, they haven’t wanted something this badly since they got married.
The grappling hook catches them in the ankle, ripping their Achilles tendon in half. They go down with a shout, and when they push themself back up to a sitting position, Dix takes aim and shoots again. This time the hook barely scrapes them, but the scrape his high on their neck, just underneath their jaw.
“Dickson,” someone says sharply. They don’t bother looking to see who it is. Instead they take aim again. This one’s the jackpot: Spears has one hand clapped up to their neck, so the hook catches at their underarm. One prong is digging into their bicep. Another sinks into their chest. They reach for it with their free hand, but Dix tugs, hard, and the prongs dig deeper into the meat of their body.
More people are shouting now. Dix remembers, belatedly, that in order for this to seem believable, they should stop and taste some of the blood at some point.
They wait another minute, just for good measure, and then draw the hook back fully. It slices through the muscle and bone cleanly, almost so cleanly that there’s no blood left on it. They have to be careful when they start cleaning the hook, laving over it with their tongue. Don’t want to cut their mouth.
Spears Taylor gets caught trying to limp their way to fourth base. They end up collapsed on the field, chest heaving, but they turn to look at Dix, naked hatred in their eyes.
“Whoops,” Dix says, and pointedly holsters the hook. “Looks like I misplaced my property.”
“I’m going—” Taylor coughs, blood bubbling at their lips. “I’m going to fucking destroy you, Games.”
Dix smiles. “Good luck with that.”
#
It becomes a trade, a horrible back-and-forth. It’s Dix and Spears, but it’s much, much more than that. It’s the Shoe Thieves and the Fridays, caught up in their war.
Dix hooks one of the Evelton McBlases through the knee and rips a tendon out of the back of his leg. Two innings later, Taylor uses a spear to get Esme through the meat of her shoulder. She shouts and curses the whole time, kicking up a fucking storm.
Two days after that Dix hooks Jacob Winner in the stomach and cracks a rib retracting the hook. The next day Taylor gets Howell through the hip. It takes fifteen minutes to get him back on his feet, and even then Snyder has to come out of the dugout and stand with him for the rest of the game so he doesn’t collapse.
“You’re going to get someone killed,” Hotdogfingers says conversationally. She’s the only person who talks to him, some days. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.
“We don’t die outside of incineration,” Dix answers. “And the wounds all heal.”
She shrugs. “Suit yourself. Keep maiming your teammates.”
Dix doesn’t understand until the day Spears attacks Sebastian Woodman twice in one game. Sebastian’s made of wood, so they’re a real motherfucker to drain. It always starts out as sap, but it turns bloody after a while.
The first attack is a scythe that nearly cuts off their left hand. The second is a spear that goes through their head, taking out a chunk of their face in the process. They’ve always been quiet, but as Taylor hacks part of their face to pieces Dix can hear the pain in their voice, little gasps through gritted teeth.
After the inning, Dix makes a point of finding Taylor. “I want a truce.”
They snort. There’s still sappy blood in their face, stuck on their sharp teeth. “Why’s that?”
Because Dix actually, literally printed out a photo of them and taped it over a ball that they used for batting practice. Because they’re half an inch away from beating them to death right now, just to see if it sticks. Because the Thieves have all been through more than fucking enough, and they don’t need Spears goddamn Taylor adding to that.
“I want a truce,” Dix says again.
Spears gives them a considering look. “I’ll think about it,” they say at last.
They spear Hotbox through the chest and drain its blood, but they’re brutally efficient about it. Afterwards, they wander over to Dix. “Truce starts now.”
“Fuck you,” Dix says, but they’re too tired to argue, and too worried about the rest of their team to risk this falling apart.
Spears Taylor is an asshole. But they’re true to their word. The Thieves don’t get drained for the rest of the season.
#
Towards the end of the season, Esme drains one of the Pies.
It’s fast, faster than Dix was expecting. The sky is pouring bloody rain down on all of them, so intense that even Dix halfway wishes it would stop. They’re at bat. Esme is on second base.
Dix blinks. Esme is at the pitcher’s mound.
They blink again. Her teeth are in Ruslan Greatness’s shoulder, tearing at the fabric, scrabbling for flesh underneath.
They blink one more time. She’s backing away. Her eyes are narrowed.
Dix looks at her. She looks at him. She turns away. Dix strikes out.
“Was it on purpose?” he asks her later.
Esme’s quiet for a moment. He can see the gears turning in her head. “I wanted to see if I could feel the way you felt,” she says, so quietly, like it’s a confession. “Like it was justified afterwards.”
“Was it?”
“None of this is justifiable,” Esme says. “But we’re all doing it anyways.”
The Thieves win the game. They’ve been having a good season.
#
Dix wasn’t expecting a knock on the door. He also definitively wasn’t expecting it to be Cornelius standing there wearing a suit, Shoe Thieves yellow and pristine. It’s almost enough to make Dix feel self-conscious about the blood that’s been crusting in their hair, or the stains left on most of their clothes.
They move out of the way silently, and Cornelius steps inside. “Richardson,” they say quietly, and that on its own is enough to get Dix’s hackles to rise. “You need to stop.”
“No,” Dix says. “Do you want wine? I have wine.”
“Don’t try to distract me.”
“This isn’t a distraction,” Dix says, irritated despite themself. That’s the thing about marriage: Cornelius knows the fastest way under their skin. “You’re asking me to stop siphoning. I don’t think I can. The conversation is over.”
“You don’t think you can,” Cornelius repeats skeptically. “You seem like you’re in control of it.”
Dix barks out a laugh. “Control is relative. You can’t control when you’re tired, but you can control when you sleep. That’s all I’m doing.”
“It’s cruel.”
“All of us are cruel now.”
“Do you really think that?”
“You’ve never stopped me,” Dix says. Cornelius’s mouth tightens for a second. Clearly that’s a touchy point. Dix decides to push it. “Is that what this is? You think if you’d just come by and asked me nicely sooner, we wouldn’t have so many bloodied Fridays players?”
“I think,” Cornelius says sharply, “that you need to stop using the team as an excuse. Your little war with Spears Taylor took part of Sebastian’s head off.”
“They got better. You all did.”
“You still haven’t been drained."
Dix shrugs. “I’d like to see them try,” they say honestly.
Cornelius is quiet for a long minute. One of his hands is rubbing circles into his opposite wrist. It takes Dix a second to realize that it’s the arm that Aliciakeyes blooddrained.
They want to kick themself. All this vengeance for their teammates and they never once thought to avenge their husband? They should see when they play the Magic next, give that little brat a taste of—
“We were on different teams once,” Cornelius says abruptly, drawing Dix out of their thoughts.
“We were,” Dix agrees, uncertain of where this is going. It was so long ago it’s almost laughable to think about now.
“If we were on opposite teams,” Cornelius says, and there is more trepidation to the question than Dix was expecting, “would you have attacked me?”
“Of course,” Dix says. Cornelius frowns, which they ignore. “Have you ever wondered why I use the hook?”
“Because you prefer it,” Cornelius says. It’s not quite a question.
Dix shakes their head. "Distance," they say. Cornelius tilts his head; a gesture of intrigue, a gesture asking them to go on. “When I blooddrained Farrell Seagull, I could feel her heartbeat in my mouth. I could tell you what her skin tasted like. If I wanted to I could tell you her iron levels, or if she’s getting sick. It’s warmer when it’s coming directly from the source.”
Cornelius doesn’t say anything. Dix takes a step closer. “If it were you,” they say, voice low, “I would be careful. Teeth are messy, and muscle is messier, but there are ways to do it safely. A good, sharp knife would do the trick.”
“A knife,” Cornelius repeats. They can’t read his voice.
“Wherever you wanted,” Dix says. When they step closer they’re only a handful of inches away from their husband, the closest they’ve stood to one another on purpose in years on end. “It hurts less when it’s sharp. You said you don’t think I can control it, but I can control myself for you. I can cut you however you’d like. It would be the most delicate thing I’ve ever done, if you asked me to.”
“Richardson,” Cornelius says. His voice is strangled. It doesn’t feel like an indictment this time. It’s more like an endearment.
They feel bold — no, beyond that, they feel manic, like their whole body is on fire. They move even closer, nearly chest to chest. Normally they can’t sense blood outside of the drain, but right now it’s all they’re aware of: Cornelius’s heartbeat, the flush in his cheeks, the warmth of his breath, the sweet, lovely smell of his husband in front of him.
“It would be a privilege,” Dix says, “to consume you, if you’d let me.”
For a dizzying second they think it worked. Cornelius is looking at their mouth. The two of them haven’t been on romantic terms in years, but in this moment Dix is in love all over again. Dix is ready to careen off the edge of this cliff. All they need is a yes.
“Richardson,” Cornelius says, voice low, and Dix is ready to close the distance between them. But Cornelius presses his fingertips against Dix’s chest, oh so lightly, just enough to hold them back. “I came to ask you to stop.”
It’s like an ice bath. It’s like rainwater when all they want is blood.
Dix takes a step back. It’s not far enough. “Get out,” they snap, voice rough.
Cornelius doesn’t say anything as he leaves. Dix doesn’t watch as he goes.
#
Their next series is against the Magic. Aliciakeyes isn’t pitching in blooddrain, so Dix drains two of her teammates and calls it even. Cornelius doesn’t speak to him about it. Cornelius doesn’t speak to him at all.
There’s a tally at the very end of the season. Richardson Games has siphoned nineteen times. He’s tied for fifth in the league.
All that, and he’s tied for fucking fifth.
#
There’s a coin in the sky. She’s old, not new enough to gleam, but she speaks all the same, bigger than the moon, rotating above them all.
Dix is trying to pay attention, he really is, but there’s a lot on his mind. Mostly he’s relieved that the Thieves lost the series. He couldn’t handle another game like last season. The Crabs got bodied by the Pods, even worse than the Thieves did; it’s enough to make him feel better, almost.
Then there were the Hall Stars. Workman Gloom got to blooddrain Jessica Telephone, because even after they’re dead they find a way to piss Dix off. It’s not enough for them to be one of the best batters in the league, they get to siphon Jessica fucking Telephone? It makes his blood boil.
Maybe, if he’s lucky, Telephone will be playing again next season and he’ll get his shot. He has a list. He doesn’t think blood type matters much, or how good of a player he’s draining, but it’s the principle of the thing. It’s like how Benitez was the first one he ever hooked. It tastes better when it’s personal.
So next season he’s going to drain Spears Taylor a dozen times over. Maybe he’ll even mix it up and use knives, or something else sharp. He’s going to gut Curry Aliciakeyes for touching Cornelius. Ross on the Steaks got Esme and Sebastian once, and Dix needs to get him back for that. Wyatt Pothos drained Velasquez, and she’s on the Pods besides, so that’s two strikes against her. Hell, every single Pod owes him blood. Maybe he should go for Patterson and Mcdaniel just in case. Even if they weren’t on the team, they were in those shells for a long, long time. He can get them with the hook. That’ll probably be fun. A squid and a crab? It’ll be just like going fishing.
The coin says, “Blaseball is a mess.” Several of the Thieves laugh, or murmur agreement. Cornelius and Esme both even look at him.
Dix wonders what that means. But only for a second. Then he goes back to his list.