Chapter Text
sometimes your boyfriend
who’s not your boyfriend
who you make out with sometimes
comes back from the dead
and leaves you on read
and you’re not sure that he’s even alive
“Dec? Are you paying attention?”
Declan Suzanne stuffed his phone into his back pocket. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll be right there.”
Two days. It had been two days since Tillman Fucking Henderson left him on read. He’d been back since the beginning of the season (11) and still didn’t bother to even send a “hey” back.
A surge of guilt washed over him. Rivers Rosa was being so patient with him and he was wasting her time. He needed this extra batting practice, asked for it even.
He stepped up to the plate. He watched the rise and fall of Rosa’s shoulders as she hefted the ball in the air and swung at it with her blattle axe. Whiff. Strike one. Okay, he’d get the next one. Whiff, strike two. That was a ball, he shouldn’t have swung. Whoosh . Strike three went by and he just stared at it.
“Alright, that’s it!”
Uh oh.
Declan watched as the aforementioned Rivers Rosa marched off the mound, right up to him, and plucked the bat out of his hands. “Practice is over. We’re going drinking.”
He scowled, confused. “What?”
“You,” she jabbed a finger at Declan’s chest. He just stared at her. “Need to get over that boy.”
“Uh.” He felt his face flush. “What boy?”
Rosa’s playful smirk melted into a sigh, and then a pitying look. Declan hated it. “Listen Dec, this isn’t about your horrible taste in men. It’s about getting you drunk.” He opened his mouth to protest, but Rosa pointed her axe at his face. He wisely shut his mouth. “And also about the fact that the Garages are playing at my favorite bar. And their new player is apparently an absolute BABE and I’m not going alone.”
Rosa lowered her axe and Declan breathed a sigh of relief. The thing was, he already had plans for the night; eating a bowl of ice cream, sitting on his too-soft couch that hurt his back, rewatching The Great British Blaking Show again while playing Clookie Cllicker, staring at his texts (one text) for hours.
“...Are you sure you can’t bring Lou?”
Rosa raised her axe.
The Garages were, by nature of being a baseball team, an incredibly well-known and well-liked band. They still only performed in bars, though. Something about “the principal” of it or something, Declan wasn’t paying attention when Rivers explained why a dimension-renowned band was playing at a shitty bar in Chicago.
The performance was great, as Declan expected. The Garage’s fame wasn’t undeserved in the slightest. He found himself enjoying the show in spite of himself. He scanned the bar idly, looking for a gap to get a drink when he spotted a familiar face.
Mike Townsend leaned against the bar, sipping a bubbly drink through a straw. The drink was still sitting on the countertop, and Mike had to stoop to drink it. Rivers had already found the new Garages player, Goodwin Mornin, and was chatting her up. She didn’t notice Declan slip away and to the bar.
“Sup?”
Mike Townsend startled when Declan sat down next to him. He stared for a moment, expression unreadable, before smiling. “oh haha, hey declan. you can see me?”
“Uh, yeah.” Declan’s eyebrows furrowed, and he scratched the inside of his right ear. Something about Mike was off.
“your ears are fine, this is just a shadows thing.” One of the colored spotlights-- blue-- swung around and passed over Declan. He understood, now, why Mike’s drink was on the counter. The light passed right through him.
“hey mal, can you get a puget draft for this guy?” Mike ordered him a drink while he wasn’t paying attention. The bartender nodded and began to fill a tall glass with a dark, foamy liquid.
“Oh! You didn’t have to do that,” Declan insisted. Mike waved a hand dismissively.
“i wanted to. for keeping me company.”
They sat in a surprisingly comfortable silence, listening to the Garages play another encore while Declan’s drink arrived. He took a tentative sip and nearly gagged. It had a bitterness to it that was completely unpleasant. “Jeez, how do you drink this?”
“hm?” Mike had been staring at the stage. Declan gestured to his beer and Mike grinned. “oh, i don’t." He gestured to his own drink. "this is an americano. cocktail. that shit's horrible, it's why we order it for people."
Declan stared at him for a moment. Then he laughed harder than he had in weeks. It spilled out of him, like water through a broken damn. It wasn’t that funny, but for a moment he was able to surface through the heaviness that had been weighing him down the past season. The death of his not-boyfriend, the return of his not-boyfriend, being ignored by his not-boyfriend. For a few seconds he was in a world where Tillman Fucking Henderson didn’t exist. Or even better, a world where he was right by his side.
That last thought, of course, sent his mood plummeting. It was mindless habit to pull out his phone and open his texts. Still no change.
“waiting for someone?” Mike asked casually.
“Huh? Oh, no.” Declan checked the time. He had been staring at his phone for at least two minutes.
“haha are you sure man? you were looking like you--” Declan fixed Mike with a glare and he cut himself off with a gulp. “uh. nevermind.” A moment of tense silence passed. Declan almost regretted how harshly he looked at Mike. “want to talk about it?”
“No.” He answered immediately. It was Mike’s turn to fix him with a look; his wasn’t harsh, it was in fact the opposite. Soft, encouraging. Genuine. Declan sighed. Maybe he did. “Tillman Fucking Henderson won’t text me back.”
“oh?” Mike sat up a little straighter, prompting him on.
“Yeah.” Declan chewed his lip, thinking of how to explain. “You won’t say anything, right?”
“scout’s honor.” Mike made a heart-crossing motion and Declan snorted.
“Poggers.” Mike frowned slightly. Declan smiled wryly, only for a moment, before pressing on. “We were like-- I dunno, something? A thing but not a thing , you know? And then he. He got.” The words stuck in Declan’s throat. He could still see it when he closed his eyes, the close-up shot of the umpire’s eyes turning white and Tillman’s flesh burning, melting, carbonizing--
“i know.” Mike patted Declan’s hand, but didn’t linger. His touch was like TV static.
“Yeah.” He took a shaky breath. “And that was. It wasn’t okay, but I mourned him and everything. I was coping. And then he came back.” Declan smiled, slightly, at the memory of his surge of joy when Tillman Fucking Henderson hit the perfect place on the idol board. When he clawed up and out of the ground and into the Shoe Thieves’ dugout. “I guess I thought that we could go back to normal? So I texted him, and he hasn’t texted back.”
“shit dude, that’s rough.” Mike said unhelpfully.
“Yeah.” Declan laughed humorlessly. “You know what he’d say right now? ‘Wow Dec, are you talking about your feelings right now? That’s pretty cringe of you.’ And yet for some reason I still--” His throat tightened around his words and heat began to pool behind his eyes. He snapped his mouth shut almost audibly and took another sip of his shitty hipster beer.
“you know what you need to do?” Mike’s expression was impassive. Declan felt a hot spike of anger pierce through him.
“What?” he snapped. He didn’t mean to snap. Instead of apologizing he gritted his teeth.
“write a song.”
“A song,” Declan deadpanned.
“yeah.”
Declan couldn’t tell if he was joking. He’d never written music before. He didn’t know how to sing. He hadn’t picked up a guitar since he joined the Firefighters.
Mike looked like he could sense Declan’s doubts. He turned to face him, fully, instead of facing the bar. “come with me back to my place.”
Declan choked on his drink. “What?”
Mike rolled his eyes. “trust me. i want to show you something.”
His place, as it turned out, was a hotel room. Of course it was, they were in Chicago. Bellevue was thousands of miles away.
“What did you want to show me?”
Mike’s room was dim, but otherwise nice. Spacious. Clean. A duffle bag and guitar case were the only items out of place. Mike opened both. His guitar was electric, signature Garages blue and red. From the duffle he retrieved a well-worn notebook. Several coils were coming over the top, and pages stuck out slightly like they’d been ripped. A coffee stain took up most of the cover. “This.”
“Woah! You sound--”
“Different, yeah.” Declan took another look at Mike. His lanky form was more present, solid. His posture had changed too, it was much less hunched. He hadn’t realized how tall Mike was. All of his features were more in focus. An angular jaw, a mop of dark brown curls, sharp hazel eyes. “It’s easier to focus with less noise. The dark helps. Here.” He tossed the notebook at Declan; dead center where his strike zone would be.
“Same place, every time.” Declan murmured. Mike scowled and he immediately regretted it. “Sorry?”
Mike exhaled a "ha" and said nothing. Declan didn't push it.
The contents of the notebook were intense. Haphazard, smudged lines of blue ink filled every page. They were song lyrics, raw and powerful. He traced the pages with awe, feeling the indents of a pen pressed too hard.
He could feel the emotion in every word, charged with betrayal and anger and crushing loneliness. His hands shook slightly as he skimmed through page after page of lyrics and doodles and rips. He felt like he was holding Mike Townsend’s soul.
“I wrote those when I got kicked out of the band.” Mike was sitting on the edge of his bed now, and gestured for Declan to sit as well. Behind him was the guitar. “It hurt, but writing songs helped me get it all out. I was able to like, process everything, yknow?”
“Yeah,” Declan breathed. “Do you think I can make something like this?” Mike’s lyrics were beautiful. Doubt creeped at his mind, surely he wasn't capable.
Mike shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” Declan closed the notebook and passed it back to Mike like it was precious. Mike, in turn, tossed it carelessly on top of his bag. “And you really think this can help?”
Another shrug. “It helped me.” He picked up his guitar. “You play, right?”
“Haven’t in years.”
“Show me what you got.”
Declan stared at Mike. Mike stared back. Finally, he took the guitar, breathed in deeply, and opened his mouth.
Declan woke up in Mike Townsend’s hotel room bed. He was woken up by the deafening snoring of one such Mike Townsend, sleeping on the floor. Declan watched as his form flickered between completely solid and barely there. It was terrifying, but not as terrifying as the texts he missed last night.
“Mike.”
“huh?” Mike Townsend propped himself up on his elbows, blinking blearily.
“Mike I gotta go.”
“yeah. Yeah, okay.” Mike became more sold as he reached for a spare notebook on the floor beside him, ripped out a page, and scrawled out a phone number. Declan took it. “I’ll get us some studio time in Seattle this Sunday.”
“Oh! Alright, yeah. Pog.” Declan added the number to his phone, and grimaced again at Rosa’s messages. “Okay I like, really have to go.”
Mike gave Declan a small thumbs up before flopping over and going right back to snoring. Declan shrugged and left the hotel room quietly as possible, with two pieces of notebook paper folded carefully in his pocket.
“But you’re not my teammate.”
“Close enough, it fits better than ‘You borrow Mike Townsend’s guitar.’ This is about you, not me. Stretching the truth a little is fine.”
“If you say so.”
Pride plucked at the edges of Declan’s mind. Mike was right, writing a song was helping. He left lighter than he had felt since Tillman got incinerated. On the bus ride home, he unfolded the second piece of paper and reread the intro that he and Mike had written.
so you pick up the phone
and then you set it down
and you borrow your teammate’s guitar