Work Text:
The first thing they wake to is the sunlight, reflecting off her hair while she’s sprawled, at ease, one arm reaching out to drape lightly over their stomach. And then it’s the sound of birds, chirping at each other, the smell of fresh baked bread from just down the street wafting in through the open window.
Acedia blinks. Adri’s starting to rouse, now, too, reaching out with her other hand almost instinctually towards where Acedia’s fist is tucked into her side, so they carefully loosen their grip, entwine their fingers with hers. Adri curls into their side, and Acedia pulls her in close, looks up at the ceiling, tries to gather a train of thought that’s slipping through their fingers like sand.
“G’morning,” Adri says, sleepily.
They’re wondering if Adri can hear their heart pounding through their chest. Just another weird dream. It must have been.
“Morning,” Acedia replies.
“Ready for the big first day?” she says.
“Yeah,” Acedia says, leans over and presses a kiss to their wife’s forehead. “Definitely.”
---
They’re just stirring the cream and sugar into Adri’s mug of coffee when a snatch of the dream reappears to them, all at once, like they’re watching it again.
“It’s coming back.” Someone had said, and they had sounded… afraid. Excited. Resigned. “After all this time, after everything.”
Acedia had turned towards the speaker, to try and see their face, but the scene was already fading.
“Blaseball is back.” They said, and then Acedia had woken up.
“You alright?” Adri asks, back in the present, and Acedia realises they’ve frozen there, still stirring mechanically. They release their grasp on the spoon, bring the mug over and set it in front of her.
“Just a bad dream.” They say. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Maybe you need that coffee even more than I do,” Adri teases.
---
“Dude, that looks so cool, you’re like, a really good artist.”
Scout Bryant leans over to get a better look at Acedia’s sketchbook, perched on their lap in the dugout. The game’s due to start in about a half hour, and they had retreated to the dugout to sketch, had been so absorbed they hadn’t even noticed Scout sit down beside them. They can’t shake the face, shake those eyes, there was something definitive about them. Something about what they had said, and the weight of it in their voice. Acedia had been told once that sketching the dreams would get them out of their subconscious, and it didn’t work all the time, but it at least helped.
“Are they, like, a friend or something?”
“Nah,” Acedia says. “Not really sure who they are.”
“Oh, cool! Have you been drawing a while now?”
Acedia takes one more look at the drawing, one last thought to the dream that had them so unsettled, then back at Scout, back to the present moment. Scout is nice, they can tell they’ll probably be friends, given a bit of time. This is the first day of the very first season, the first actual game with their new team. The dream had just been a dream. It’s fine. They’re fine.
---
When Acedia steps up to bat, the nerves and the anticipation pretty much drown everything else out. In the distance, they can hear Adri calling out encouragements, and the rest of their team too, rowdy and excited. They adjust their grasp on the bat, try to remember everything they practiced, look at the Flowers pitcher, just as determined on the mound. They’d been throwing well.
Strike. Breathe, Cedie.
And there it is – a short hit, not far from the second base, where one of the Flowers scoops it up and throws it to first, a good few seconds before they make it. They let themselves run a few steps past, slow the momentum, turn to walk back up to the dugout. As they do, they look up to the stands, and there they are; the person from their dream.
Acedia blinks, and blinks again, but they’re still there, watching the Flowers pitcher shake out their arm, watching Scout step up to the plate. They’re distinctive looking; long tentacle-like things settled behind their shoulder, a strange glitching blur around them, almost like they’re hard to look at directly. They’re sitting next to someone else who could have been their twin, yawning and checking something on their phone, and on the other side, another person, leaning casually back in the plastic seat holding a Sog Dog. For a moment, they look down, and it almost looks like they’re looking directly at Acedia, like they recognize them somehow.
Acedia breaks eye contact and turns back to their team, and although they look back up later, the fan doesn’t look directly at them again.
---
Another dream.
“…We could head Down to the Core,” a familiar voice was saying, faintly. “See if they’ve measured any spikes in activity.”
Acedia stands, follows the sound of the voices out of the bedroom towards the deck. Two of the fans from the game are there; the speaker from their last dream, and the more human looking one. They’re sitting on deck chairs, facing out towards the city, a couple of books on a side table between them.
“I mean, it seems fine so far, right?” says the other one. “That last game was fun, and the players all seemed okay.”
“Yes. But…”
“Yeah, I know. I… I don’t want to see you take this on yourself, Dot. I know it could go bad, but what if it goes well? What if we really are out for good, and this is some other world where they’re actually going to do it better, safer?”
“It’s just been so long. And then, you know how Peace and Prosperity went.”
There was a pause, and then they add, “But you’re right. You’re right, I shouldn’t assume the worst.”
Acedia realizes somewhere during the conversation that they might have forgotten to breathe, might not have moved for minutes, hours, maybe even days.
“I’m always right.” The other tosses out, lighthearted, and then adds, gently, “Do you still want to go to the game tomorrow?”
“I do, if you don’t mind.” they answer, and then stop. Slowly, they turn, as if they’ve heard something, look over at where Acedia is standing.
“Hello?” they ask, and then Acedia wakes up.
---
Acedia wakes later, stumbles to the bathroom in the small hours of the morning, shivering, exhausted enough that when they open the door to find the fan already standing there, looking in the mirror, it takes them a long, long few seconds to realize how off it is. Then by the time they do, they’ve flickered back out, leaving Acedia alone with just the dripping of the tap.
---
Acedia excuses themselves early from the next game and follows the three of them out the stadium doors. The path they take is incredibly familiar, the same turns Acedia knows by heart. They keep wanting to call out, but something holds their tongue, so instead they just follow. The three must know that someone is following them at some point, but if they don’t, they must figure it out when they arrive at Acedia’s apartment building, buzz their way in, when Acedia slips in behind them.
When they step into the elevator, Acedia does too, standing in the corner, not speaking, in case it breaks something. They know, before one of them presses the button that it’s going to be the sixteenth floor, and they know before they emerge from the elevator which unit they’re going to.
They stop in front of 1606, and Acedia pulls out their key at the same time the human-looking fan does, stares at it in their own hand as the three of them let themselves into Acedia and Adri’s apartment.
“Wait,” Acedia wants to say, but outside their mouth the words are silent, and the first two just go in, like they haven’t heard them at all, and as soon as they cross the threshold they’re gone, just like that, and Acedia can see their own silent apartment, their furniture and art and vintage dining room table.
The last one, the one from their dreams, pauses before they enter. Turns back, looks at Acedia. For just a half moment, the scene flashes – they can see the other two fans inside, and a dog rolled over on his back, one of them on one knee scratching his belly.
“Are you a ghost?” Acedia blurts out, almost surprised to hear their voice actually working this time. As they speak, the scene shifts again, back to their apartment. “From some really old version of the league?”
The fan tilts their head.
“Your jacket. The logo’s all wrong,” they add. It looks a lot like the logo from their own team, but the proportions are off, and the colours are wrong. “Also, that’s not like the ones they sell in the gift shop. That’s a coach’s jacket. Were you a coach?”
“You’re perceptive.” They say, studying Acedia back.
“Is there something I can do to help you move on or something?”
They laugh warmly, incredulously at that. “That’s just – no, I’m not a ghost. I mean, technically all three of them sort of are, but…” and at this, they indicated the apartment, which swapped again for a moment to the two fans and the dog, but then seemed to think better of it. “No. I’m not, and I appreciate the offer, but I’m definitely not interested in moving on.”
“Then why do you keep showing up? Why are you in my apartment?” Acedia asks, blinking to see the scene change yet again. “Why are you here?”
“This is my apartment.” They say. “Or – we must have the same apartment. That would make sense. You’re at your apartment, and I’m at mine, but they’re in the same space, on a different…”
At this they trail off, studying Acedia again like they're going to be able to solve some puzzle just by looking at them.
“I’m Dot.” They say, at last. “Workman…” they point them out, “Alto, and Beasley are just inside.”
“Acedia.” They reply, still caught on the superposition of apartments, on the things Dot had left unsaid. “Why are we seeing each other?”
Dot tilts their head again, like the question confuses them.
“The dreams,” they say. “You remember them, don’t you?”
Acedia nods.
“I dreamed it was coming back. And then I wake up and there you were, just looking at me.” Dot continues. “You must have some kind of abilities of your own, to connect that way. Possibly dream projection of some kind.”
“That’s possible.” Acedia replies, still a little dazed.
“Interesting.” Dot remarks, and something’s a bit off, a bit strange about the way that they say it, but Acedia can’t bring themselves to ask. “Anyway, we – Alto and I – figured out after a while that it wasn’t our plane that blaseball was coming back for, that it was yours. And then I come to the game, and there you were.”
“Right.” Acedia says.
A hundred questions are catching in their throat, almost feeling like they’re going to choke on all of them. They open their mouth, try and ask at least one of them, but one of the fans – Alto – calls out to Dot, and they turn, and then they’re gone again and Acedia is left in an empty hallway, looking into an empty apartment, understanding nothing and maybe a little too much all at once.
---
That night they’re standing in the living room, lights down low, the lights of the city glittering outside the window. In their hands, a picture of them and Adrianna, taken on the first game day, the two of them with their arms around each other, each holding a brand new ILB-quality bat.
They set it down and go pick up another one. The two of them at a restaurant. Another: a wedding photo, dancing against a nondescript wall.
The question worms its way through their brain slowly. For a moment they’re so afraid to ask it that they put the picture down, as if it’s going to break something. But the question has been thought, and Acedia has never been the type to let anything go if they don’t know. Can’t understand.
“Adri,” they ask. “I feel really ridiculous asking this, but where was our wedding, again? I’m having trouble remembering the name of the venue.”
“Oh.” Adri says. “Here in Halifax.”
“Yeah, but what was the name of the actual place?”
“I…” she starts, then trails off, looking just as confused. “I don’t remember either. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” They reply. “It was fun though, wasn’t it?”
“The greatest,” she says, the feeling of it lighting up her face. Acedia remembers that too; not the name of the venue, not even when, or even the date of the anniversary, but they do remember the feeling of holding her, that first dance, how proud they were to finally be her spouse; that’s all crystal clear.
“Now, c’mon, I want to finish this episode before eleven.” She says, and Acedia settles down beside her.
---
“Are you sure you want to know?” Dot asks, quietly, looking out at the Atlantic rather than at Acedia. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. And you can take more time to think about it, if you want. But if you want that information, I will share it with you.”
No. Yes. Maybe.
And maybe it’s something in Dot’s tone, something a little too careful, and maybe it’s something Acedia already knows, on some level, maybe even since the beginning, since that first day they stepped onto the field. They’ve always known a little too much for their own good. Maybe it’s just the way they are; that bad news is better than not knowing, it always has been, because at least you don’t have to wonder anymore.
“Yes.” They say, nodding, looking to the sea themselves.
And so Dot tells them, sitting there on that park bench, everything they know. Some of it is speculation, and some of it is inference, based on fifty years (fifty years!) of their own league, and some of it is measurements, performed by their Mechanics back home.
They pause, a moment, before that last, heavy thing.
“Are you sure?” they ask, one more time, and Acedia nods, needs to know, needs to hear it all out.
“Alto and I think the plane may be unstable. The readings are all wrong - it might not necessarily have… have existed forever, or will exist forever.”
“Oh.” Acedia says. “How long?”
“We don’t know. Maybe a year. Maybe five. Maybe even ten. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.”
“I understand,” Acedia says.
Dot lets it hang for a moment, lets Acedia digest, then says, “I’m here. If you want to talk about it, or anything else.”
Acedia nods, reflexively, even though they know they probably won’t. They know now; that’s enough. The two of them lapse into a comfortable silence, listening to the gentle cacophony of the people in the park, their faces blurring and melding into each other as they perform the delicate dance of being alive.
---
That night, they go home to their wife. They make dinner for her, a fancy kind of pasta dish, something they know she likes. Then they go out together on a walk, stroll down to the little gelato place four blocks away from the apartment. Adri likes tiramisu, always gets the same kind, and Acedia tries the feature flavor, which happens to be orange creamsicle, and then they each try each other’s too, just for good measure. They wander all the way down to the water, watch the waves lap against the sea wall. Eventually they go home, stand together in the bathroom while they’re brushing their teeth, crawl into bed.
“I love you,” Acedia says, running their fingers through her hair, as she settles in sleepily. “So much.”
“I love you too,” she says. “Goodnight, Cedie,”
“Goodnight, Adri.” They say, and they feel her weight beside them, and her warmth mingling with theirs, and it’s truer than anything else they’ve ever known in their life.
---
“I just wanted to see if you were doing alright,” Dot catches them to say, before the game the next day, after their teammates have started warming up. They look worried; apologetic even.
Every word of what Dot said is still ringing in their ears, has been all day. But there’s a peace in it, too. Like now they know, something in them can let it go. Can just play.
“You know what, I think I am.” They say, more confident than they had realized they were. “I think it’s going to be okay.”
---
When they step up to the plate, they take a moment to look up to the stands. Dot and Workman and Alto are there, and Beasley too, far too big to be a lapdog but draped over Workman’s lap anyway. They’re all leaned forward, watching them intently. Workman shoots them a thumbs-up, and they smile.
Then they look back, to all the people they’ve gotten to know over the weeks. To Scout, leaned over the edge of the dugout, tapping xyr fingernails against the wall, and Nico, chattering excitedly to Butch. To Adri, always to Adri, who they’ve known for as long as they remember, who they’ve loved even longer than that. To Adri, who will always be there to welcome them back home, in every sense of the word.
The season’s been good to them so far. Something doesn’t have to last forever to be real, they’re thinking, as they lift their bat into position.
Acedia faces down the pitcher. Breathes. Narrows all their focus to the arc of that arm.
Then they swing, collide with the ball, and take off running, and in the moment, it feels like they could keep running forever and ever under the stadium lights.