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The first thing you ever know is fire. You’re born in a roiling blaze, flames licking the sides of Calder’s Flamingo and lungs filled with smoke, and there you sit until strong arms and an unknowing face pick you up and deliver you to Chicago herself, who takes you in her arms made of iron and soot and holds you till the morning comes.
She speaks to you whispers of purpose and words of the Fire, lullabies of the importance it holds and limericks of how it must stay in balance. Songs of the miraculousness of the city and how you must protect in small ways everyday but in a big way when your time comes; and these words sink into your skin until they fuse with your blood and every fiber of your being and you know. At the end of all this she drops you off with her handpicked few, the firefighters, and tells you that they will take care of you until you’re ready. For what, you don’t know.
It’s no more than a few months later when a blindfold appears on your bed one morning after you wake up, or so the firefighters tell you. It’s the sign of someone that has been specially chosen by the City of the Hearth to be an arbitrator of what is Just and what is Right and other lofty concepts you can’t quite understand yet. But your bedtime stories are filled with the legends of those that have worn it before you, those you are meant to follow, and it paints a picture of exactly who you’re supposed to be.
You spend your early years running through the halls of the Firehouse, getting underfoot and pouting every time you’re not allowed to go out on a call. Instead, whenever everyone else is out you’ll spend hours figuring out as many paths through the ancient building as you can, the layout changing as fast as you can map one out. It’s a game of hide and seek with the city itself, and maybe something more than you can realize at the moment.
She visits you in your dreams some nights, this manifestation of the city looming large in the distance. She stands taller than anything you’ve ever seen; ribs made out of cross beams and a neck of railroad tracks, hair long and flowing into the Chicago river. All around she’s shrouded in smoke, curling up and swirling around her ankles and billowing up around her. Her voice is always muffled, like you’re hearing it through the end of a radio receiver, and she speaks to you words of solace and importance.
The other dream you get with some frequency is a hazy vision of you in the main hall of the Firehouse as flames lick up the walls and you’re filled with a distinct feeling of dread. Somewhere off in the distance you can hear the glass in the garage crack and pop under the pressure. Through the smoke all you can see is a tall figure with a set of scales in one hand and a blindfold in the other. Words you can’t understand blare through the receivers, echoing and reverberating against your skull and it’s so disconcerting that the first time it happens you wake up choking down a scream with tears streaming down your face. This happens dozens of times, and you always leave not quite knowing what to think.
It gets harder the more time that passes because there’s no time or space for games anymore; the hours when you are alone are spent training and studying and trying to be what you’re supposed to become. You’ll sit with piles of books holed up in your room, or be a tiny speck in the wide open empty kitchen, but there’s no more running through halls, no more giggles echoing against the empty walls. And you beg, you beg desperately to be a part of the team in a way that matters, to show you’re worthy of what you’ve been divinely chosen to do, but the whole team stands firm against it. They say “when you’re older” and “it takes time, love”, but all you can see is them robbing you of your chance to prove yourself.
You’re finally allowed to join them 16 years after you’d first come to the Firehouse (though something in you feels much much older, and you don’t know if it’s the part of the city that lives inside you or something else entirely, but you have not missed the fact that you’re the only one you know with a halo and a set of wings just starting to bud.) The past few years have been filled with rigorous training and first aid classes in between the textbooks and makeshift lessons the firefighters have cobbled together to give you something resembling a passable education. 16, by your count, is much longer than you would have liked for joining the squad, even though you sometimes hear muttering under closed doors that they think you’re still too young.
It isn’t until a couple months later when you arrive at a scene a second too late and the entire lot is razed to the ground that you have an inkling of why they may have said that. Everything that you are made of is built out of a need to protect and serve this city, to keep The Fire in balance, and this is the first time you’ve failed to do so. The ground is still smouldering as you walk through it, and it’s hard to grapple with, the lives you failed to save, the memories held in this place that have just evaporated away in the space of a minute.
It’s only in that moment that you realize the fullness of what you’ve agreed to do, that none of this is about you, not in the way you thought, no matter how chosen you may be. It’s about people's lives and families and hopes and dreams and the potential for that all to be dashed in an instant. All of this is so much bigger than you, even if you were specially designed to fight it. It is, you suppose, your weight to carry, the gravity of what happens when the balance of the Fire shifts, and somewhere in the back of your mind you know it’s only going to continue to grow till you’re carrying the weight of the entire city on your shoulders.
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It’s like a switch in you has flipped, and so a couple years fly right past you, your days and nights both filled with running all over the city from fire to fire and most times you get there in time but sometimes you don’t, and there’s nothing left to do in those times than keep moving. Even when you’re off shift, more times than not you find yourself working the switchboard, or giving a lesson at the elementary schools, or washing down the trucks. Someone will usually flag you down, tell you to go get some sleep; and somewhere in you, you know what you’re doing is probably the definition of burning the wick at both ends, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
Sarah, who used to rock you back to sleep on those nights you’d wake up gasping for breath, comes up to you one day and gently taps the red square on the diamond on your uniform, and that speaks more than thousand words that you probably wouldn’t have listened to. Red is the colour of burnout, of the smoke that you’ve been choking on since you’ve learned to breathe, the colour of confusion and isolation and loss. She tilts your head down to meet hers (and oh, it wasn’t that long ago that she had to tilt it up to meet her eyes,) and simply says:
“You’ve spent enough time trying to prove yourself, my love. Let yourself breathe again. This is as much a part of our job than anything else.”
There are moments when you think of giving this up, of giving all of this up, of just running fast and hard away from all of your duty and responsibility and all of this god damn pressure. You’re tired, just so tired of the pressure and the expectations and this image of who you’re supposed to be, and on top of that there’s so much loss inherent in everything you’re doing. The buildings and lives you don’t get to in time, the people you fail to save that still haunt you. It could be so easy, you think, with your wings that have finally grown in and the fire running in your veins, to just fly away one day and never come back. But your need to keep this city safe is so ingrained in you, in your blood and in your bones and in every breath you take that you don’t know if you could ever turn your back on it, if that’s even possible. So you stay, and you work, and you try to find joy in all of it again, try and remind yourself that this is where you want to be and why you do it, try to feel alive.
You do, however, take a vacation, because even an quasi-angel divined to do this exact job has a few weeks of paid overtime, it turns out. So you pack a bag and head out to Baltimore, because Evan (who taught you how to climb a ladder for the first time) came from there before he heard the Call, and it seems peaceful enough, with enough water around to make you feel comfortable. His sister puts you up for a couple days, and you spend some time exploring a new place for the first time in your life.
It’s different from being in Chicago, because you have literally known the layout of the city since you were created, and for the first time ever there’s no voice in the back of your head, no internal map to tap into. You know you could reach Her if you really needed to, but for the first time you’re kinda alone in your head, and it turns out to be exactly what you need.
That first night there you find yourself at a seedy basement bar that’s turning show after show, glitter and beer spilt everywhere. It’s like there’s a beating heart in the center of this place that’s drawing you in, because you can see fractions of yourself in everyone in this room, pieces that are shining forward. It’s a release like you’ve never felt before, to be anonymous in a crowd of hundreds just like you and for once not be the most head turning thing in the room. For better or for worse, back home everyone knows who you are, knows who all of you are. But here you can’t even compete with the gorgeous creatures up on stage, a cacophony of gender and vibrancy and life like you’ve never seen, and it’s kind of rewriting your world in a way you never thought was possible.
It’s so captivating that you find yourself back there every night for the rest of your trip, soaking it all up and drinking it all in. You’ve never been a shy person, but here you mostly stay by the sidelines, not starting up conversations unless others approach you, and it still leads to some of the most thought-provoking talks you’ve ever had.
Your last night there, you’re sliding next to the bar (ordering a virgin cocktail because your need to stay alert and ready surpasses just about anything else) when you see him, and the world stops for a second. Someone literally made of fire should have your guard up in a thousand different ways, but instead you just stand there a little slack-jawed because there’s something that is just so utterly compelling. He meets your eyes and gives a grin, making his way over and introducing himself as Landry Violence after calling you out on your staring, holding himself with an air of confidence like you’ve never seen before. Your grin grows as you make a little small talk but when he asks you for your name you falter for a second.
(Everyone has always called you Justice, ever since you got that blindfold. You don’t even know what they called you before that, if they did at all, but Justice has always felt foreign on your tongue, like it isn’t really yours. It’s almost claustrophobic, a signal of what you’re meant to be (in so many ways, some that you’re just starting to question tonight), the expectations that you still sometimes feel are shackling you down, no matter how hard you try. You know what an honour it is to hold this title, but Justice has always been more of a moniker than a name; and even though it’s truly all you’ve ever known, you’re in a new city with a new person and maybe you don’t have to be a paragon of anything for a second and hasn’t this whole trip really been about finding yourself apart from that pressure anyways? So when he asks again, you introduce yourself like this:)
“Sorry, Olive. Tyreek Olive.”
You have a feeling that if you were to try and refer to yourself like that back in Chicago, you likely wouldn't be able to even say it at all, but you’re not and it feels good. It feels like a spark of something, like a possibility. Possibility of who you are and who you can be, of who you can become. But that’s not something you have to mention right now so you don’t, and instead you and Landry just talk, and talk, and talk.
The two of you talk about what it’s like to carry the weight of an entire city on your back, and the dread of being contained to something so small as a body when the essence of what you are is so much bigger than that, and you talk about duty and love and life and everything in between until the bar closes down and the two of you are staggering out into the street just as the stars are blinking out of view. You don’t share a kiss, but on the train ride home you do think about how searing it would be, his fiery lips pressing against yours, and it leaves you grinning uncontrollably until you push that thought away and school your face into something more reasonable.
-------
So you go back to Chicago with a clearer mind and a lighter heart (and an address in your pocketbook). Your days and nights are still filled with frustration and tragedy more than you would like, but you force yourself to take more breaks and more breaths and keep moving forward. You write Landry once a week, twice if you’re lucky (or particularly heated), and it’s nice and new until it’s not and then it’s just nice. You make sure to actually go out when you’re off shift, spending early mornings by the lake and nights out in every club you can find that reminds of those nights in Baltimore. You check in with the city more, and yourself, and through some trial and error, you’re starting to feel more at home in your body and mind than you’ve ever felt before, almost like you’re reclaiming it back for yourself, and it’s both a sigh of relief and completely exciting and invigorating.
It goes on like this for a good long while; you learning how to feel at home in your own skin and mind, and at some point along the way, you start forgetting to count the years. Mx. Chicago still visits you in your dreams sometimes, looming large in the fog, whispering words of duty and the future in your ears, and you take it as it is, no longer scared but feeling something closer to resignation.
For longer than you can really parse together you’ve been acting somewhat as her eyes and ears on the ground, and it’s started to bring new people into your life. There’s Rivers Rosa, who is training at the fire academy just outside the city, and who is young and bright and passionate and is as sharp as a whip. You’ll meet up at a bar once or twice a month, listening to her complain about the infuriating boys in her class while splitting a deep dish, and her eyes are so full of hope that all you can do is pray she never gets as jaded as you once did.
Then there’s Joshua Butt, who is doing some pretty brilliant work over at Fermilab, and once you start grabbing coffee every so often you can tell from the way they talk about their work that they’ll be a fantastic firefighter if they choose to accept the call when it comes, because their heart is so big and open and they care so deeply about everything.
One time, she directs you all the way out of the city to Joliet, where you meet the angriest 18 year old you’ve seen, Edric Tosser who’s working in the mines and cussing up a storm, but when you two talk you can tell he’s looking at you with recognition and admiration and curiosity the same way you did with those performers back in Baltimore a lifetime ago, and you think he might just be okay someday if he let himself try, so you slip him your email and hope it can make a difference.
In one way, you’re keeping tabs for her, biding your time until she decides whether to call them or not, but more than that: you’re making friends, and at some point it becomes less about her and more something you’re doing for yourself. You fit them into your comfy life, which is something you never thought you’d be able to say. And that’s not to say it’s easy- because it’s not. There are horrible, horrific days and earth shattering nights, and sometimes you forget to breathe in the chaos of it all, but there’s a rhythm and a comfort to it that’s easy to fall into. At the end of the day it’s still step after step and breath after breath, until it all starts to go wrong.
It’s an unusually cold night that spring when the recurring nightmare that you used to have comes back for the first time in many, many years. Your nightmares as a kid were hazy, murky things, but the one you have that night is the opposite; sinister and haunting and there’s a bizarre sense of deja vu that creeps up your spine.
It’s vivid, technicolour, and horrific and you find yourself in the firehouse with your blindfold is gone, but you’re alone and there’s so much smoke that you can’t even see your hand in front of you, and the air is so thick it’s an actual tangible weight on your body. There’s no one to be seen, and as you sputter and choke on the thinning oxygen around you, you’re being overwhelmed by heavy feelings of guilt and dread and failure and you can’t breathe as tears are streaming down your face and you were never one to be affected by temperature that much but god, it’s so hot. You’ve never felt heat like this before and it’s burning, even the ground is stinging you and blistering as you try to crawl towards the exit. The sound of the flames crackling and roaring in your ears is deafening, and it’s the only thing you can hear.
Even through the pain you keep dragging yourself towards the door with burnt palms and ash in your lungs, and just as you’re about to collapse entirely you see a figure through the haze. Standing tall and strong is a statue with a set of scales in one hand and your blindfold in another. They’re a bit broken on one side, cracks filled with gold runnin through their eye and down their face towards their arm and through the smoke with the blaze of the flames backlighting their head, they look more like an angel than you ever have. They speak no words, at least none that you can hear, but you call out and ask who they are because at this moment they seem like the biggest saviour you’ll ever meet; holy and shattered all in one. You get no response, but just as you’re about to collapse the last thing you hear is these words echoing through the radio dispatch:
“I’ll be waiting for you, Tyreek Olive.”
You wake up choking down a scream.
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It all starts with Sarah, who was not particularly young when you were found to begin with. She gives up her mask to put on a child during one of the worst calls you’ve ever been too; an elementary school where the wiring burst and spread like wildfire. You manage to somehow miraculously get everyone out, but by the time she staggers through the burnt out front doors you can tell that something was wrong. It turns out that Chicago’s powers to protect you all truly only stretch so far, and the amount of time Sarah has spent inhaling all that smoke has pushed past that limit. It hurts, because even though you were raised by the whole team (and the city itself), she was by far the most maternal, the closest thing you had to a mother, and it’s a kind of loss that you’ve never felt before, sharp and searing, cutting straight through your chest and stabbing into your ribs.
Each fire you get sent to after that only seems to get worse and worse, increasing in intensity at an alarming rate. The city has a certain amount of infrastructure built up to deal with the fires at this point, so the fact that more and more buildings are burning down is of concern. More of you are getting injured, and that is concerning too, because part of what the city provides is protection for her fighters, and either her power over that beginning to slip or the fires evolving bad enough to interfere with it is very bad news. You even find yourself laid up for an entire week, burns crawling up your chest, replacing old scars with new ones.
The energy in the firehouse is tense always, both because you’re losing people far more than you should, but also because there’s this general feeling around that you’re not doing enough, that you’re failing at this job, and it permeates the air. The feeling of frustration and horror is so thick in the room, it’s almost as suffocating as the air outside. After you respond to your third fatal fire of the week, the whole firehouse pours into one of the board rooms. Heated discussions last long into the night, yelling and shouting abound, but ultimately the decision is made to evacuate the city, following procedures made almost a century ago, after the last Great Fire. It’s a hard decision to make, but it’s clear that things are only going to get worse from here, and something must be done.
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You don't know how to breathe without smoke in your lungs anymore.
(You don’t know if you ever did, really.)
It’s all you can taste anymore, the acridness of ash that has settled on your tongue and is coating everything, every inch of your lungs and every breath that you take. It’s everywhere you can see, painting the bricks of the buildings that won’t burn, blowing past you from the ones that do. You were quite literally born out of fire but this- This is the worst you’ve ever seen. It’s so much worse than you ever could have imagined. You were told quite often as a child that to die in a fire is a death of honour, but all it seems like now is dark and callous.
The flames roil, licking their way up building after building and the air is so heavy and thick that it’s suffocating, even for you. It’s everywhere you look, as far as the eyes can see and there are just not enough of you to handle it. Your team, these people that have loved and cared and raised you, you’re losing them faster than anyone can deal with as the fires rise and grow, consuming everything in its path without discrimination.
In the course of a day you lose five of them, and then another five and then you’re spread so thin that no one is making rational decisions or able to attend to everything properly, and so you lose another five. It’s down to you and two others who had joined a few years back when the blaze finally reaches city hall. The three of you try with all your might, but in the end you’re the only one to stumble out, eyes stinging and barely able to catch your breath.
(You’ve heard stories of these Great Fires for as long as you can remember, words of warning and legends of old. You know they’re supposed to precipitate times of great change and strife, and that they’re supposed to be necessary, like a controlled burn on to turn the field and renew it, except there’s nothing controlled about this. You’ve heard the legends, but they never say anything about just how brutal it is, to see the bodies of so many people, the people who raised you, the people you could have saved printed in front of you everytime you close your eyes, to taste nothing but ash and thick, heavy smoke, to see everything you’ve ever known razed to the ground.)
You haven't slept in 5 days and there’s no one to man the phones and you’re stretched so thin it’s like you’re a rubber band about to snap. You find yourself on your knees outside of city hall that night crying out and begging and praying to the city for anything: any mercy, any help, any relief. The dispatch does nothing but whine and crackle in response and you don’t know why because it’s never not responded before, there’s always been a voice on the other end, no matter how muffled.
Somewhere amongst the roaring of the flames you can hear the purring of a motorcycle, and all of a sudden you see Rivers, who last you had heard, had taken a job out east in Ann Arbor while waiting to hear back from the city. She looks more harried than you’ve ever seen here, mismatched eyes wide. Behind her you can see Edric, who looks just about as confused as you are by this, and you know later you’ll have a hundred questions to ask, but for now all you can do is sweep both of them up into a vice-like hug.
(Later, after everything has been brought down to ash and smouldering ground and you can breathe again for the first time in almost a week, you’ll find out that the call came so intensely that she ran out of her briefing immediately, her coworkers calling after her. Somehow she found herself in Joliet without knowing why until Edric appeared out of nowhere, finding himself being pulled to there, and neither of them questioned it because everyone knew there was more pressing things about.)
Your mind is in such a haze that the three of you just start working, and soon you’re joined by Josh, looking about as confused and harried as the rest of you. Others start arriving, some you don’t know the names of, but there’s the guardian of Lake Michigan and a frog looking man that you’ve both liaised with a little before that when you’re back in your rational mind will remember as Wes and Swamuel. Most alarmingly, the statue from the park a little ways down the street has appeared to come to life, and it’s that that makes you feel a little bit guilty because you realize that perhaps the reason the city wasn’t answering you was because she was too busy trying to gather all these people, and she might just be a spread thin as you are.
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It isn’t until the next day when you’re sitting on the steps at the back of the Firehouse, trying to gather yourself together before heading in that you start to sob, partly due to sheer exhaustion, in part the shock starting to lessen, and partially the overwhelming feeling of loss. You all had worked straight through the night fighting back the blaze and getting the fire under control so you are going on 6 days with no more than a couple hours of sleep, and it feels like a strong breeze could topple you over at this point. Most of that night was spent choking down tears behind your mask because all of a sudden you were the leader and you couldn’t cry in front of these people when you had to show them what to do. You had always imagined being able to teach the way of tending to the Fire to someone, but you never imagined it happening like this, in the absolute worst way possible.
When you get back you have a dozen very angry, frantic messages from Landry, who had been calling incessantly, not knowing that there was no one there to answer the phone; just that you weren’t picking up. You phone him back and you can barely get any of the words out before you start shaking and the tears are pouring down your face. There are no words for you to properly describe what you’ve just been through but he listens to the words you do manage to get out, matching your breath to slow yours down, tells you over and over again how glad he is that you’re alive because he had seen the news even in Hades, and you wish so badly that he could be holding you as you cry, that you could feel his arms around you in whatever form they would take, that you could just be enveloped in a warmth that feels like home, and has for too long.
You’re heading back to your room, absolutely and completely drained in a way that you’ve never felt before, a little like a sponge that has been wrung harshly dry when you stumble across the living statue, an incomprehensible look on their face. You had shown everyone else to some of the empty on-shift rooms earlier, explaining that you’ll find more permanent rooms later for whoever wants them, and you will, but for now the idea of having to go through all those rooms feels like the most impossible thing in the world, and if you’re being entirely honest you don’t know if you’re even going to be able to handle it, not now (not ever), so this have to do for now. But the statue (who still doesn’t have a name) had seemed confused by the concept then, and that might explain why they’re now just standing in the middle of the hallway.
When you ask if they need help finding a room, they ask why, and when you explain the purpose, they respond that they don’t sleep, so after some back and forth you direct them towards the makeshift library that lives on the 3rd floor, because right now they’re filled with questions and wonders and that’s the best you can do in your present state.
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The next morning, before anyone else is up, you choose to go for a run, your feet hitting the ash filled pavement hard and fast until you reach the shore of Lake Michigan. Even with all the destruction surrounding it, the lake remains unchanged and pristine. So you sit down gently on the sand and begin to meditate, forcing your mind to slow down with sure steady breaths, letting the brisk sharp air hit your lungs and percolate there before exhaling. Eventually, you’re able to bring yourself to the point where you can tap into what you’re looking for, which is your connection to the dispatch and the city itself. Taking a deep breath, you speak out to her, not knowing if she’ll hear, but you continue anyways:
“Hey, uh, I know you blessed me with this blindfold, and I know how much it means, I know the weight of it, and I’m proud to have carried it for so long, but I think it’s time. I’ve tried to do my best to carry it, but I’m tired. And I think I can serve the city better without it. These people, they need a leader now, someone to show them the ropes, and I can’t carry the weight of both. It’ll break me, I know it. So I’m sorry, but I have to give it up,”
There’s no response. You even peek one of your six eyes open a little to see if she’s giving you any kind of sign, but there's nothing. Part of you wonders if she’s even listening at all, if this is completely fruitless, but you steel yourself and continue.
“I’m sorry for giving up on you, even for a second. It wasn’t right, and I know now you were doing everything you could to help us, and I’m grateful. You’ve always said that I’ll know who to pass this thing on to when it’s time, and I think it’s them. I think it’s the statue. They don’t have a name after all, and they seem to want to do so much good. So I’m going to give it to them.”
You don’t mention the dream, but you think she might already know. Watching the waves lap up gently to shore, you wait for minutes to see if you’ll get any kind of sign from her that she heard you at all, but just as you’re getting up you hear the radio on your jacket crackle and she says,
“And what will you call yourself after all these years, my child?”
There’s a strange kind of relief that floods your body when you say it here for the first time, in this city that’s been your home for as long as you can remember. It feels like every part of you has come home to rest, settling in in every nook and cranny of your being when you say:
“Tyreek, ma’am. Tyreek Olive.”
------
Justice is suitably excited to take hold of the title, it turns out. It’s a relief, a weight off your shoulders, and you’re excited to be a mentor to guide her through it; something you never got, as hard as your family tried. It’s a bright spot in a time where there’s not a lot of that, and it helps. The city is slowly rebuilding, people coming back and piecing their lives back together, and you’re working overtime to keep everything going between Justice, training the new firefighters and bringing them up to speed, and helping where you can around the city. The exhaustion is running through your bones, and you’re pushing yourself to the brink more than a decade after you promised yourself that you wouldn’t anymore, but there’s still so much to be done.
Before you know it, it’s a month and a half later and the new team still doesn't have permanent rooms because you’re still balking at the idea of cleaning out the old ones. Even though most of them have offered to do it, there’s stuff there that probably only you know how to deal with and plus, it isn’t fair to anyone to make them do it when this was your family. So you try but it’s heartbreaking and after the third time you call Landry breaking down crying in as many days, he comes to Chicago for a week and helps you clear all of it out.
It’s nice having him there, even though you can tell there’s a distinct level of discomfort that he has with the whole thing, and you can’t blame him because fire is not the most popular thing at the moment, you suppose. There’s a reason he hasn’t come before, just like after visiting Hades five or so years back you haven’t returned. (In fact when the two of you have managed to find time to meet up, it’s almost always been in Baltimore, which seems to be some sort of neutral ground for you too, and the added nostalgia doesn’t hurt.) His last night, after all the rooms have been cleared out and cleaned up and moved into, the two of you just lie next to each other, and it’s the best sleep you’ve had since the beginning of all this.
After that, you keep moving forward, because you have to. There’s no other choice, no matter how seemingly impossible some days, and you keep busy but remind yourself to breathe when you can. Mx. Chicago keeps sending you new people, and the fresh faces are exciting even though it’s a stab in the heart each time, but you put on a brave face and get them acclimated.
There’s Isaac who works at the beef packing plant and is a union leader and keeps bringing food to every meeting and is filled to the brim with great ideas and concepts that you can’t wait to work on.. Declan leaves you questioning Her judgement for a second, and is a little bit of a mess but doesn’t seem hopeless, and he gets along with Edric in a way that scares you, if you’re being entirely honest. Lou shows up out of thin air one day, and if you weren’t so tired it would have thrown you, but she’s strong and smart and takes to the job like a duck to water. And Caleb rounds out the newbies, quiet but headstrong, and he quickly becomes a whiz at the switchboard.
Everyone starts settling in nicely, and it’s a sigh of relief when it all starts to come together. After being the youngest member of the team for so many years, it’s weird to be on the flip side of that. You find yourself mediating arguments and putting out (figurative) fires more than you would like, but they’re starting to become your family too and going to look at the grand mural where every firefighter rests starts to hurt a little less too. Every so often you’ll go when you just want to see someone’s face, or tell Sarah about how well these kids are doing, and it helps too.
But you have not forgotten your lessons from when you were a kid, namely the one about how Great Fires always precipitate great change, and yet, so far nothing has happened. Despite all the things you’re juggling in the air, there’s been no communication with Chicago, no hint of anything, and it feels stagnant, until the whispers start floating around again about someone trying to bring back Blaseball. They’ve been going around for years but no one took it seriously, almost always brushing it off as a joke. This time, however, there’s a certain weight to it, and when it gets brought up a chill runs down your spine for a reason you can’t interpret. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, and your dread keeps building until one day it’s confirmed and the rosters appear. Front and center you can see it: Chicago Firefighters, and you have not known fury like this in all your years, not even in your desperate moments on the city steps.
In your whole life you’ve never been this angry with your creator. Despite everything you know and the way you keep your ears to the ground, despite the rumours that have been flying around for years about the league reforming, you didn’t see this one coming, naively thinking it would never happen, and it has you kicking yourself. You’ve heard what the games used to be like, bloodthirsty and brutal, not one drop of concern for safety. And now this family that’s just started to come together, that you’re all working to build is going to be torn apart, and for what? You’ve all been entered into a contract that none of you agreed to, and you’ve never been this furious.
You head up to the roof, even though you can hear your phone going off behind you, and you sure your fellow firefighters must find you absolutely insane for a moment as you start yelling at the city. She doesn’t respond, of course, and she won’t in this state, but you’re too angry to process that at first. It takes her voice out of your radio to calm you, telling you:
“Not now, my child. Tonight.”
And she keeps her word. That night she appears in your dream, as gigantic and intimidating as always, but it does not intimidate you this time.
“How could you? Why in the world would you agree to this?” The words out of your mouth are cold and callous in a way that they’ve never been before.
“There are things happening that are bigger than you, Tyreek, I would have thought you'd have learned that by now.”
“This isn’t about me. This is about the team that we’re only starting to build back up. None of us signed up to do this. Every one of the people came to fight fires, not be forced into a bloodsplort out of nowhere.”
“There’s a bigger picture than you or them or the city or even me, Tyreek. It is necessary or I wouldn't be doing it. I thought you learned not to question my judgement after all this time, child.”
You’re left feeling a little bit like a scolded toddler, but the fury doesn’t go away, not after you wake up, not after a frustrated phone call with Landry, not as the team fills out and you enter practices. It sits hot and burning in your gut and you feel tainted, but it doesn’t go away.
------
Your two final teammates come soon after the announcement, and you don’t know whether they were Called before that or after, or if they were all. You saw their names on the list, but when you pictured Atlas Guerra and Baby Triumphant, you certainly weren’t expecting a waif-like teenage girl and a literal baby. The way Atlas is shaking a little, terror and trepidation painted on her face, is enough to almost push you over the edge a second time, but you manage to clamp down the rage and paste a friendly smile on your face, welcoming them in.
Justice quickly swoops in and takes Baby (she had found a book about parenthood last week, and at least looks more confident than you feel) and you give a sigh of relief and turn to Atlas. She’s quick-witted and perceptive, and when she asks if you’re upset about having her here, it almost breaks your heart. You choose your words carefully because you heard she had a pretty successful career in the underleagues, but you respond in a quiet measured tone that you’re mad that no one seems to have much choice in the matter. It’s not right, you say, for any of us to be forced into this, but especially people so young. Then you ask her if she wants to be a firefighter, and it’s the first genuine smile you get from her.
It’s a heavy load, juggling firefighting and getting everyone at least fighting shape before this season starts, and even just the thought of figuring out schedules for the onseason is giving you a headache. The resentment is building, simmering only slightly below the surface, and when it gets too much you force yourself to go out and remind yourself of what your true purpose is. Sometimes Rosa comes, or Issac, helping you deliver food or clothes or whatever your people need, mowing lawns or helping out or simply just stopping and talking to people when it seems they need it. It’s getting harder to keep your temper in check, but this helps a little, the reminder who you are, who you can be.
You mostly stay hands off when it comes to Baby. Partly because unlike some of the others, you’ve never had much experience with kids (even as a child you never really interacted with other children), and you certainly never had siblings, unlike Edric who’s the second oldest of five, or Declan with his gaggle of sisters. But part of you, the part that’s too ashamed to admit it to anyone, is reminded too much of yourself when you look at them. It’s different, because Baby doesn’t have the same connection you have to the city, nor (if you can make sure), the pressure that comes along with it, but still, they are a child, chosen too young with a burden they should never have had to carry.
You believe Mx. Chicago loves all of you, you do, but you are increasingly beginning to question her judgement. Her decision to make you looms large in your mind, the decision to forge a child out of fire and her own spirit, and to have them see too much too soon. You think of the ways it’s ruined you, of the cracks that’ll never truly mend, and you see how she’s opening the possibility for it to happen again to another one. You remember the callousness she showed as the city burnt down, and the way she’s essentially sending a team she just rebuilt out for slaughter again, and god, you could see red. You know she loves all of you, but you don’t know if that’s enough.
------
The thing is: you could see yourself liking Blaseball if it wasn’t for all the danger and sheer lack of consent all around. You’re not like Rosa or Edric or Declan, who all played in high school, or Atlas, who actually played in the Underleagues, because there was no time or space or anyone to play with; but you’ve always been agile and strong, and even you can’t deny the special kind of release that comes with hitting a ball perfectly with your axe. There’s a part of you that enjoys it, no matter how much it sickens you to admit, and it only adds to your frustration.
The thing is: even though you don’t play a single game against the Tigers, you talk to Landry more than you ever have. Sometimes that looks like you two catching each other in between layovers and stealing a quick hug, sometimes it looks like you driving up your phone bill falling asleep on the phone, but the two of you speak more days than you don’t. You’re both coming from the same place; of fear, of trepidation, of anger, of knowing how badly something like this can go. And on nights when you can’t sleep, you think of all those times he’s held you, in Baltimore, in Hades, in the third airport you’ve been in that week. You think of the way he cupped your face when you couldn’t stop crying the week after the fire, and the warmth you’ve only ever felt with him, and it helps.
The thing is: for a team of people who were thrown into this and whose primary career is something else entirely, you’re not that bad at it. Not bad at all, it turns out, as you all find yourself not only making it to the postseason, but quickly making your way through the semi finals and all the way to the finals. You don’t win but for a rag-tag team, it’s bizarrely impressive, and you kind of hate the part of you that’s proud of it. But you learned a long long time ago that you’ve got to take the happy moments when they come, and so you cheer with the rest of the team as you all eat together on the steps of the firehouse, and it’s something.
The thing is: when you wake up on the morning of the election, you’re filled with a terror you've never felt before, and that’s even before you see the news about the mayor of Seattle being incinerated. The forbidden book, you know, was closed for a reason. And you can’t fathom for a single second why anyone would choose to mess with that, choose to taunt forces that are far more powerful and far more dangerous than anyone can imagine. It only only adds fuel to the fire roiling inside you, the one that wants nothing more than to rage at everyone responsible for this; at the commissioner in all his bumbling leadership, at the people you’ll never know who saw fit to reinstate a horror show, at the so-called fans who have decided to mess with things far beyond their comprehension with little regard for the consequences that people like you and your family will face, and at your creator, who allowed this to happen. Some days you just want to unleash the fire and rage until the entire world burns to the ground, and it scares you.
The thing is: you’re just trying to stay afloat while keeping the people you care about as safe and sane as you possibly can without losing hope, and you don’t know how much longer you will last, not with this fire of rage building inside you, not with all the forces outside of your control. What you do know, is that you will die before you will let anything happen to anyone on this team, because they are your family, the only one you have. You have to, because if you don’t, it’s going to be the type of failure you can’t live down, not to yourself, at least. These days you only have one feeling flowing in you besides bitterness, and it’s terror.
-----
On the 26th day of season 2, you wake up with a certain sense of unease. The reason why you can not place, but you take a few deep breaths, press that feeling to the side like you’ve done so many times, and start getting ready for your day. You meditate and train with Justice, who has grown leaps and bounds since you started, and you go on a run with Isaac, tossing ideas back and forth for the petition the two of you are putting together for the league.
(In a fit of frustration after the election the two of you started reaching out to other teams with the suggestion to unionize. First the Crabs and the Tigers on your side for obvious reasons, but Isaac knew people on the Spies and the Garages and you don’t if it’ll become something, truly, but it’s the first glimmer of hope in all of this that there is some way for you, for everyone trapped in this, to take some kind of control back.)
When you get back, you help Josh finish making breakfast, as you try and do on as many game days as possible. This week’s shift schedule is already up, and you have to get next week’s drafted, so that’s next on your list.
(You’ve been teaching Rosa how to do them; you’re stretched in so many different directions these days, and for all her bluffing and grandeur, she’s a really terrific firefighter. The only other one on the team to have formal training, to have studied this for years and passed all the tests, and you think having this to ground her, the knowledge and responsibility might help a little bit to cut through her bitterness, or at least you hope.)
Edric joins you for your last task before the game, where Mrs. Katz had packed up all of her late husband’s clothes and has asked you to help bring them to the shelter by the blean that had agreed to take them. Sometimes it just feels like loss is so present everywhere and this is no exception, because you’ve helped take the Katz’ to their weekly appointments for years, and now he’s gone. After all these years you’d thought it would get better but it hasn’t, and sometimes you still feel like you’re 16 and standing in the middle of a burnt out building, just as hopeless now as it seemed then. You and Edric work steadily but quietly, moving bag after bag to the back of the truck in near silence, which is out of character for him. It isn’t until you’ve unloaded all the clothes at their new home and are heading towards the stadium that he speaks, mentioning that things seem off today; with you, with the weather, with the energy coating the city.
(Edric’s always been more perceptive than you’ve given him credit for. He gives off a good front of not caring, of brushing past his feelings or those of the ones around him, but you can tell in this moment that he’s feeling the same dread as you are. It’s been becoming omnipresent, the fear in the air ever since Jaylen died, but it feels heightened right now, charged somehow, and you have a distinct feeling something is going to happen today, just like you had a feeling after that after Sarah died, just like you had a feeling going into that fire in city hall. It scares you.)
-------
From the beginning the game is rough, like something feels off. Balls keep missing, and the air tastes of static charge as well as smoke, and you don’t like it. You don’t like it one bit. Everything is just a little bit off, from the crowd filled with their own trepidation, to your teammates who seem to be just on edge as you. More than anything, though, it’s the ump that catches your eye. They’re moving differently than usual in a way you can’t quite place, but as you move past them, resetting at the top of the 2nd inning you hear a whisper, barely comprehensible but still there, utter words that shake you to your core:
“We know who you are, Tyreek Olive, and what you’ve been saying. And it might be time for you to learn a lesson.”
The ump’s head picks up, with it’s bright red eyes, and it’s looking straight ahead, not to you but to Justice; you realize, and immediately you know what you have to do. Suddenly you’re running faster than you’ve ever run before, leg over leg and heaving lungs, scrambling to get there in time, but you do. Standing in front of her as the ball is flying towards you, getting closer and closer, times slows.
For a moment, it’s like everything is frozen in time, just you and the ball. A quiet sort of acceptance overtakes you. This, you think, is the moment Mx. Chicago has made you for. You’ve lived so hard and lost so much. You think of all the firefighters who raised you, who looked after you and kept you safe when you were too young to understand; all the ones who died in the great fire, joining the mural like so many before them, and how you’re going to find yourself there sooner than you thought, but that’s okay. You think of Justice, who has just started her duty and who is just learning to live, for who there’s so much more left to do, and deserves so much more than a fate like this. (You learned years and years ago, and a thousand times over since then, that you can’t save everybody, but you can save her.)
You think of Edric, so full of rage for someone so young, and so much yet to become, and you hope that you’ve managed to help, even just a little bit, that you’ve shown him there’s so much more to be than just angry.
You think of Rosa, who is a firefighter through and through, who’s so good at her job and so angry at the world, and you can tell she’s already becoming what you hoped she wouldn’t, bitter and jaded like you once were, and all you can do is hope that this won’t push her farther.
You think of Josh, who is just as passionate as they were when you first met them, but is finally starting to come into their own despite (or maybe because of) all of this, and you hope the pressure that’s about to come won’t split them down the seams.
You think of Atlas, who came here scared and missing her sisters, apart from them for the first time in her life, but who’s thriving now even through the tears. You think of Lou, strong and proud and from a whole other time entirely, and Declan, so filled with mismatched bravado but has a kind heart to go along with it, and Caleb and Wes and Issac and every single one of them until you land on Baby. Baby, who reminds you so much of yourself after being Called so young. It’s a different context and a different time and a different situation all together, but you know all of these people will take care of them so well, and do their best to raise them the same way your team raised you, and maybe this time, that might just be enough.
Last, you think of Landry. Landry, who you’ve talked to at least once a week since you met, through tears and laughter and everything in between and who has been your person for more than a decade or a dozen. You think about him hearing about this in an hour or two, maybe from Rosa, maybe from Butt, maybe from it blaring on screens across the league. You hope he knows you love him. You know he’ll carry on because there’s No Looking Back, is there?
So you step in front of the ball, absolutely full of conviction that when it hits you you’ll become one with the Dispatch, just like every firefighter that came before you.
But you don’t.
------
When you wake up, you’re alone, in a hall that you can’t see the end of. For the first time since you entered the world, everything is completely silent. You grew up with a backdrop of sirens and water flowing and the voice of an entire city in the back of your head and now there’s just… nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s like the point of connection between you and Her is sawed off, and it’s just disconcerting beyond belief. It takes you taking in a few harried breaths when the panic of that hits you to realize that you hadn’t, in fact been breathing up until then, and everything that had just happened comes flooding back to you in a rush.
Almost immediately, without even thinking if you’re being entirely honest, you start assessing yourself the way you’ve been taught since you could barely walk. Pulse: none. Injuries: not any that you can tell. Breathing: doesn’t appear to be necessary, but the feeling of smoke is still there, and the taste of ash sits heavy and bitter on your tongue.
So, it seems for all intents and purposes, you are in fact dead, but you know this wasn’t supposed to happen. Every firefighter since the beginning of time has become one with the dispatch, and there’s no one here. Plus, you still seem to have your body, as jumbled and mangled as you feel, so that can safely be ruled out. If you were more in your own mind, you would have started walking, trying to figure out exactly where you are, but you’re still so disorientated by the sheer lack of noise that you just sit, and sit, and sit. The scared irritational part of your brain can’t help but wonder if you somehow made the wrong choice, that you messed up somewhere along the way, or didn’t work hard enough or you just weren’t enough and this is the cities way of letting you know, of rejecting you, because for as far as the eye can see there’s no other person in sight, not even another blaseball player.
Thinking back to what had happened earlier this season, by your counts, there should be 3 others here. Jaylen, who was struck down ruthlessly. Massey, who died two weeks ago at that fridays game, and Maldonado, who had been the primary subject of your last phone call with Landry just a few days ago. Logically, they should probably also be here, but as far you can see, it’s wide open empty expanse, and that scares you more than you say. Not that there’s anyone to say it to.
Before, in situations like this, when everything is filled with confusion and hurt and is so overwhelming it should probably just blow you over, your response has been to stay and fight and find ways to take care and help, but this time there’s no one to help, nothing to do, and so you freeze. It feels so foreign to you, the way you can’t seem to control your limbs to get yourself to move at all, the way that your breath won’t stop catching in your throat, the way you can’t seem to do anything but sit curled up in the middle of this wide expanse.
It seems like an eternity, sitting there with thoughts running endlessly through your head, and you quickly learn that you can’t actually sleep here, but curling up on the floor seems like the closest you’re going to get. You don’t know how much time passes, but it seems like an eternity later when a sound makes you lift your head.
Staring down at you is an old friend, Nora Perez. Your insistence on hanging around the harbour whenever you were in Baltimore led you to meet her, a harried PhD student in marine biology, and you and Landry would get drinks with her and Adalberto Tosser whenever you were in the city. It’s both a relief and devastating to see her here, but she doesn’t seem phased by it at all, her hand outstretched to you and a grin on her face.
“Wow, Olive. You’ve never seemed to be the type to just sit there and mope. Come on, I think I know how to find the others.”
------
“Are you sure about this?”
“Someone needs to do it, Olive. Plus, he came and asked me himself, so who was I to say no?”
“The Monitor asked you himself? I don’t know, Nora. Aren’t you worried you might be getting in too deep?”
“I think I can trust my own judgement perfectly well, thank you very much.”
“Okay! You’re right, you’re right. It’s not that I’m doubting your judgement, I’m just worried. We don’t know very much about him.”
“I know, and that’s what makes you such a good friend. But I think I’m making the right choice here. You’re still going to help me, right?”
“As if you could get rid of me.”
(Later: you and Nora sit cross-legged down in the part of the trench where people tend to spawn. You’re laughing as you start yet another round of a thumb war, waiting for whoever will show up next.)
---
“You’re a big dumb idiot.”
“I did the exact same thing that you did! Don’t think I didn’t hear about how you jumped in front of Justice, so don’t even try me.”
“Okay, maybe I’m a hypocrite then.”
“Well, I could have told you that.”
“........”
“Gods, I missed you so much.”
“...Me too.”
“I think this is the longest we’ve gone without talking since we met.”
“I know I should wish you weren’t here, but I just can’t. It hurt too much.”
(Later: you and Landry are lying together in a quiet corner of the hall, as private as you can get. Neither of you need sleep, not here, but you’re together, and that’s enough.)
-----
“Hey, sorry, normally Nora does this, but today you get me, unfortunately. I’m Tyreek-”
“I know who you are.”
“...Well, that’s a first. Sorry I can’t return the favour. You are?”
“José. José Haley.”
“Weren’t you on the Wings?”
“I got traded to the Firefighters at the beginning of the season.”
“Oh. That would explain why you know me, then. Well, this can be a bit of a tough transition for some people, but if you need anything, you’ve got me! Us firefighters have to stick together, right? Though I’m sure Miguel is going to be- well, not happy to see you but you know what I mean. It can be pretty lonely being the only person here from your team, but you’ve got the both of us, even if we didn’t know each other up there.”
“...Thank you.”
(Later: the sounds of Miguel and José laughing echo across the cavernous walls of the trench. It’s the most joyous sound there’s been in weeks.)
---
“Sorry, it’s only a little bit further, I promise.”
“Has it always been this complicated?”
“Yeah, I mean, when I first got here I couldn’t find anyone else, not that I tried very hard, mind you. But it took Nora finding me to find the others. It was harder because there were only the 5 of us back then.”
“Not trying… That doesn’t sound like you, from what Justice told me.”
“We all have our moments, I guess.”
“Understandable. Hey, Tyreek?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think she misses me?”
“Whit, even I could see how much Justice loved you, and you had only just met at that point. I’m sure she misses you.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right. She misses you more than anything.”
“Not a day goes by where I don't miss her. She was the closest thing I ever had to a sister. And that ache, it doesn’t go away, but you and I? We’re going to be okay.”
(Later: you catch Whit’s eye from across the hall. You both give a nod as if to say: I see you and you see me.)
---
“Tyreek Olive?”
“That’s me!”
“I’m Thomas Kirby.”
“Oh! José has told me about you! Well, all of you, really. Sorry to see you down here, my friend.”
“José? Oh god, I still feel really bad about how- You know what? That’s not why I’m here.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“I don’t know if you know this, but the firefighters, they- They made a fund for widows and children of incinerated players after you died, in your name. And it’s just really good to know my wife and kids will be taken care of.”
“I… don’t know what to say, to be honest.”
“I’m thanking you because I can’t thank them, but Tyreek, they wouldn’t have done it in the first place if you hadn’t taught them that. It was Rosa and Ike that got it up and running. You can’t tell me that didn’t start with you. I handled a lot of the paperwork, I know what you and Isaac were working on when you-”
“ -Got incinerated. Yeah, sorry. Can’t say I’m that great at taking praise, or used to people knowing me anymore, to be honest.”
“Well, Chicago never forgot you, that’s for sure. And that fund has helped people from all over the league, even if they don’t know it. Your impact is bigger than you might think, Tyreek.”
“...Huh.”
(Later: you and Kirby sit on either side of Derrick Krueger, his hand on their shoulder, and your hand on their back. The three of you breathe together in sync as the pain slowly bleeds out of Derrick. For somewhere where no one technically needs to breathe, panic attacks still happen far too often.)
---
“Landry, I’m scared…”
(His hands cup the sides of your face, your heads tilted together.)
“Me too, hun, me too.”
(The seconds are ticking down on the clock. The fourteen of you in a line.)
“I don’t know what’s going to happen once this is done, but if we don’t see each other after this-”
(It’s so loud. There’s chaos and commotion everywhere, people yelling, but the air is tense, heavy.)
“Don’t say that.”
(Another dozen bags of peanuts fall to the ground, cracking and shattering and rolling away. You flinch.)
“If we don’t see each other after this, just know that I- I…”
(You and Landry spent an hour last night sitting with Nora, trying to make it like the old days. If you could have had a drink, you would have.)
“You love me?”
(You’re clenching his hand so hard it should bruise.)
“Yeah.”
(If your heart was beating now, you would hear your blood rushing in your ears, you’re sure of it. Loud, omnipresent, overwhelming.)
“I love you too. So much.”
(The clock chimes, reaching zero. The hall falls silent and for a second you wonder if that chime is going to be the last thing you ever hear.)
“We’re going to be okay?”
(You hold Landry’s hand in front of you and Kiki’s behind you, gripping both as hard as you can. All of you, together like a lifeline.)
“We’re going to be okay.”
(All you see is light.)
-------
A light flashes.
Deep Breath. Steady your feet.
A ball flies past your head, much too close for comfort.
You can still feel the breeze of it.
Jaylen stares you down, eyes unseeing.
(You would sit with her some nights in the trench, not knowing if she noticed, but you didn’t want her to have to be alone.)
You run, run, run.
Your foot catches on something.
You fall.
A fire lights up Sebastian.
You all flinch.
A bat hits the ball.
Crack!
A bat hits the ball.
Crack!
A bat hits the ball.
Crack!
Pothos hits a ball that flies right to your chest. It might be the most pain you’ve ever felt.
Jaylen starts to flicker.
Axel is throwing a pitch right at your head.
You hit a home run.
You run the fastest you ever have in your life.
The sky is warring red and blue.
You’re bent over, heaving, out of breath.
The crack of Dom’s bat hitting the ball is the loudest sound you’ve ever heard.
You run you run you run you run you runrunrunrunrun
The monitor descends.
It’s over.
------
All the lights warring in the sky disappear, and with it so does the tension that was thickly permeating the air. As if you were being held up by strings and they just got cut, you stumble forward, barely catching yourself before you hit the ground. You’re still struggling to catch your breath, lungs burning, but you don’t feel like you’re alive. No, this is something else entirely, you think, because it feels like you’re floating; barely held together, hardly contained, like you could dissolve into nothing and float away at any second.
You look around and the shelled one and the monitor- they’re both gone. It’s just the hall stars and the pods, everyone looking more than a little shaken. You can see Axel and Jaylen talking by the pitching mound and the Marijauna brothers in a corner but your eyes quickly find exactly who you’re looking for.
Landry’s form is the most unbridled you’ve ever seen it, flames escaping and shooting up every couple seconds; like you, you can tell it’s just barely holding itself together. If this were a movie the two of you run and tightly embrace, but it’s not, and you’re both so old in a way that can’t be quantified, so instead it’s a slow, stumbling walk towards each other, and when he gets there, you grab for his hand and bring it to your heart.
(The voice of Chicago has been echoing in your head ever since you landed. At first it was just soft static, barely audible, but it’s getting louder, more urgent. She’s crying out for you and you feel the tug of it, but for this moment you don’t care.)
You just stand there for a second, looking in his eyes. Reflected back in them you can see all the years, all the laughs, all the crying and arguments and quiet moments. You think about him, sitting on the edge of your bed in the Firehouse, holding you as sobs wrack your body, and you think about you, sitting next to him on his couch back in Tartarus, the two of you bowed over laughing as you impersonate yet another Crab. All the moments in cold airport lobbies so tired neither of you could speak, all the time spent sitting arm to arm in the trench, it’s all in fragments spinning past you. He has been your person for so long, and you his, through heartbreak and frustration and loss and joy, and it feels like if you let go of him, you’re going to dissolve into nothingness right then and there.
(She’s shouting now: “Tyreek, my child, I need you! You have to get Duffy and Holloway and bring them home!”)
You’re still looking in his eyes and you can see it. You both know it, are feeling the same thing, that there’s a finality to this.
“So this is it, huh?”
(“Tyreek, I can’t hold on to this much longer. You have to get the nuts and leave or i’m going to lose you completely.”)
You try and laugh, but it comes out as a choked sob.
“Yeah, I think it is.”
(“Tyreek!”)
The laugh he gives back is humourless, but not unkind.
“Well, if there’s anyone I would have wanted to have spent a lifetime with, it’s you.”
(“TYREEK!”)
The two of you lean together and it’s like that kiss that you had dreamed of on the train all those years ago but it tastes bittersweet and so much better and worse all in one; full of emotion and sorrow and joy, but not one inch of regret.
(“Tyreek, you need to go, now!”)
You pull back, and somehow you know this is the last time the two of you are going to see each other. Your heart is cracking in half, breaking open and spilling out of your chest and, god you want to cry.
“I love you.”
(“NOW!”)
“I love you too.”
His hand leaving yours is like a physical pain scorching you, it hurts it hurts it hurts and you want it back so badly but you have no choice. You’re sprinting across the field and if you thought the game was the fastest you’ve ever run, then this is beating it by a mile. You can’t breathe, your heart is pounding in your head, and you feel like you’re about to burst; but you grab Duffy and Holloway by the wrists, pulling them towards you and you feel her voice in your head loud and clear:
“Good job, my child. I’m coming for you now.”
The three of you vanish.
------
After it’s all said and done, after you and the nuts land back in Chicago in the field out behind the Firehouse, her voice calls to you gently.
“You have until the end of the day, Tyreek. I can’t keep you in this form for much longer, even with all the power in the city to aid me. They already know. I’ll come collect you in a little bit, and we will go for a walk, I think.”
You nod in acknowledgement. It’s more than you could have asked for, really, and you’re grateful to be able to see your family one last time at all. But it’s strange, because when you bring the nuts to the door of the Firehouse, both dazed and a little confused, part of you feels tentative to knock on the door. So much has changed, in you and in them, and in this place. If there’s one thing you’re not, though, it’s a coward, so you do it and are greeted by the shocked face of Lou Roseheart. She barely misses a beat in recovering before leading you in, and as soon as you’re through the door, you’re nearly tackled by both her and her shadow.
Much of the night goes like that. Duffy and Halloway are welcomed in quickly, as confused as they are about it. At one point you get handed Baby, who has barely grown at all, despite all the years you’ve been gone, but looks happy to see you nonetheless. There’s Socks, who seems disgruntled to meet you, and Goobie, who greets you with a big smile, friendliness radiating off of him. Rosa is a bit more weathered and grizzled than the last time you saw her, and a whole lot more jaded. When you talk for a bit, she confides in you that her distaste towards Blaseball at the beginning of the league has grown to sheer hatred, and your death didn’t help much. You can’t blame her exactly, but you warn her against it, because god it made you caustic, but you also tell her what you were told right before it happened, ending with: “The team needs you here. They need you, Rivers.” You hope it’s enough and you commend her and Isaac on what they were able to start up, passing on what Kirby had said to you.
All in all, your family is looking as happy and healthy as they could be, and you’re so grateful. Justice and Edric are both looking at you strangely though, and avoiding you all together. It’s hard not to be thrown off by it, and it’s a little upsetting because they were the two you probably thought the most about in the trench. When you ask Josh about it, he gives a long, convoluted explanation having to do with decrees and alternate realities, so as things start winding down you wave them over. Reluctantly, they let themselves be led up to the roof.
Sitting on the edge, you talk. They talk about the version of you that they knew, how they were completely different and also not at all. Edric talks about what it was like to lose everything; his family, the life he was trying to build, himself. Justice talks about the quiet adjustment, learning how to live out of one purpose and then another, and how hard it was. You talk about being in the trench, how it started with so few of you and grew and grew and grew, how looming and tense the atmosphere was. You know you’re not who they want you to be, and you can’t be. But for a little bit you can be something, and that’s enough, you think.
Eventually, the two of them head inside, asking if you’ll follow, but you shake your head. Your body is getting less solid by the moment, and even sitting there you can feel your weight getting less heavy against the ground. You can tell your time is almost up, and so you look out at the skyline that you’ve spent years and years watching and trying to protect, tracing every detail in a desperate effort to commit it to memory. Finally, you lie back and look at the sky, lying against the building where you were raised and lived and cried and died. The stars are extra bright, and in your minds eye you have the memory of lying out here with Landry one night, smoke still clouding the sky but the stars shining through above it. You try to hold onto the smile that it brings, breathing one last time before getting up, and there She is, hundreds of stories tall.
“Come, my child.”
She reaches her hand out to you and after you climb on, lifts you up to her shoulder, waiting for you to sit, and then together you walk.
----
The two of you move gracefully along the Chicago river towards the lake, her hair flowing down to meet it and becoming one. You’re not quite sure what this conversation is meant to be about but soon she speaks.
“You’ve done well, my child.”
“I’ve always tried my best, you know.”
“I do. And I thank you for it, I could not have asked for a better representative. And I was very upset when that dreaded creature took you from your rightful resting place. The gall to call themself a god, honestly… No matter, I suppose. I suspect you’ve felt similarly about me at times, despite not being a god.”
“I mean, I won’t deny my frustrations. I didn’t at the time.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t.”
“Do I agree with everything you did? No. But with the time I’ve had… Blaseball has completely changed the world as it is now. And things will continue on after it’s gone, but I understand the bigger picture a bit better now; how you could have seen a bit of what was coming.”
“When you’ve been around as long as I have, my child, you begin to see the inevitability of things, the way the wheel turns and will ultimately end up in the same place. This empire will soon fall, but I needed you to be able to fight this battle, and I will need my children to fight the next one too.”
“It’s like the cycle of the fire: light leads to warmth which leads to destruction and then the smoke, only for it to happen all over again.”
She laughs, delighted.
“Someone certainly has their lessons well learned. I’m so proud. But yes, it’s like the Fire. The cycle of life too, as it were.”
The two of you have reached the edge of Lake Michigan and you stare out at it, vast and cold and unmoving. Even from all the way up here, you still can’t see the end, and you wonder what it'll be like to not see it everyday.
“I love you so much my child, and I am so proud of you. Soon you will return to where you’re meant to be and become one with the dispatch. But Tyreek?”
“Yes, my lady?”
“I’m afraid I have one more thing to ask of you.”
-------
You stand at the base of Calder’s Flamingo, staring down into the fire. This child, they’re so small and scared, crying out, not knowing what’s about to happen. They have no clue of the heartbreak they’re going to experience, the mind numbing loss and panicked breaths and tears and nightmares. They have no idea of the joy yet to come, the utter bliss and stolen kisses and breath stealing laughs. They can’t possibly imagine the families they’ll have: first, here in the firehouse, then the one they build up themselves, carefully and without prejudice, and after, the one in the trench, filled with ghosts and lovers all in one. You think of all the pieces of themselves they’ll find, in a club in Baltimore, while hitting the streets of Chicago, in airport lounges and burnt out buildings and stadium locker rooms, in the bottom of the ocean. As you pick the child up, cradling them in your arms, you look at all of this and think, yeah, they’ll be okay.
Your wings take off, and you start to fly.