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he’s a six-star batter.
he’s a six-star batter who can’t bring himself to swing at the fucking ball.
it’ll float down the fucking line at him, and he’ll see it, how it’s going to curve off out of the strike zone but there’s a beautiful fucking angle right there in its path, where his muscles know how to aim the bat and at what degree without even thinking about it, and he could just fucking slam it out of the park -
and then the ball whiffs by, unstruck. and then it happens three more times and he fucking walks to first base like an idiot. like a chump, like bench padding.
it doesn’t make him a bad player. walks are... fine. he doesn’t hurt the team. that’s his thing, alston knows he’s a fuck-up but by god he isn’t gonna let his problems affect other people. and especially not the team. but it hurts, sometimes. that he can be a six-goddamn-star batter who just doesn’t hit the ball. that he can be handsome and charming and still terrified cedric’s gonna leave him; he can have more money than he’ll ever be able to spend, and he’ll pass some wino on the sidewalk asleep on a worn slab of cardboard and see himself as an old man (if his liver makes it that long). alston has everything. and he can’t put it together to make his life worth anything.
he knows they worry and care about him. the team, cedric especially - but hell, even fans have come up to him after games and said things like i used to drink a lot too or i go to meetings now, you’re always welcome as they hand him an AA one-day chip or, worst of all, it gives me hope that i can be good at something when i watch you play. what are they fucking watching? do they see york out there, half his age and twice as good? or eugenia? a literal pile of trash can hit the ball more often than six-star alston. the metaphor is not lost on him.
what alston doesn’t get is why they worry and care so damn much. it isn’t that he’s essential to the team or anything. hell, dot left at the end of last season, and the team is... well, they’re sad of course, and they miss her, and they worry about her. but the talkers have never been about any single player. they’re a fungal colony - bits can die off or be ripped away and transplanted, but the totality of the organism thrives regardless. they adapt and shift over a changing landscape. or maybe they’re a mass of algae, floating on the roughest waves. what they definitely aren’t is reliant on alston. he needs them far more than they’ll ever need him.
and it isn’t that he’s a great friend, or a great partner. lord knows he tries. you can talk to alston about anything under the sun, and he won’t judge you - he’s probably done worse in one blackout or another anyway. he’ll pick up the phone any time, day or night, as long as he isn’t passed out. he doesn’t let the teens take nips off his flask (and it isn’t just the terrible instinctual gut feeling of if i share then i might not have enough - what the fuck is “enough”, anyway? there’s never been enough, and he can buy anything he fucking wants, but that dumb little voice still yells no don’t share you need that - he genuinely cares about the kids, too. the last thing he wants is for them to grow up thinking he’s cool or worth imitating.) alston tells cedric all the time that he’s beautiful and talented and perfect, buys him flowers for no reason, tries never to pick a fight and always cleans up when he spills beer on the floor. he does his best. he really does.
so why doesn’t it ever feel good enough? why does he still know - not think, know - deep down that they just haven’t figured out how awful he is yet? there’s a cliff somewhere he’s about to stumble over. he can’t see it, can’t tell how close he is to the edge or which direction to go to avoid it. but alston knows that sooner or later he’s going to do something irreversible. he’s going to fuck it all up. that’s just what he does.
alston stands at the plate, vision hazy except for where he works to focus his eyes: on the incoming pitch, as sharp in his sight as pain, clear and coming at him fast. he asks himself why the fuck am i like this? and in the time it takes to think the question, the ball’s already gone by.