Archive of Our Own

"Oh my god!" she exclaims, dropping her duffel bag to her side.  She quickly covers her mouth with both hands, a flush gently tiding in her cheeks.

They gently shut the locker door, a bemused expression revealing itself.  A sharp jaw, a quiet peace in their eyes.  Two drifting, docile tentacles that shift and pad the air around them, seemingly inconsistent, quietly effervescent.  "You are the new one."  Polished, a rhythmic tone of voice.  "I see you have packed; yet not an hour has passed."

"Yeah, well, I mean—I just, I've been on the team a while, I'm not new new—"

"Of course.  How long?"  They step forward, two hands in the pocket of a blue Talkers hoodie.

"The, uh, the first season—Day 1, I've been waiting, uh, so long, to meet, someone," her hyperventilation causing her blush to grow crimson, "I mean, you're—you're like—my hero," a worrisome fuzziness breaching the air, her vision beginning to swim, she takes a shaky step forward.

PolkaDot Patterson seems to glide, effortless steps, syncopating only to reach out with a tentacle and guide her to a seat.  "Do you need water?"  Their hands never leave the pocket.

"I have... bottle.  A bottle," she says, scrambling into her bag to reach for her cup, a large bottle with sharpie engravings cast all over it.  She quickly unscrews the lid and starts chugging, and is met with a wave of regret as she coughs it up, spilling a mouthful over her uniform.  "Shit, sorry, I.. oh god."  The bottle quickly finds a new home on the floor as her knees drive themselves up, her body curling quickly into impenetrable defense.  "I just choked on water."

"I am unfamiliar with the concept."  Patterson's right tendril reaches down, lifting the water up to the bench gently.  "I regret having frightened you.  It was not my intention."

"No, it's not your—" a quick cough, "that's not your fault.  I'm an anxiety.  I have anxiety."

"Ah.  I am more familiar with this."  She does not see him kneel in front of her—his stature placing them at level height.  "Is this your first time, seeing this place?"

She doesn't answer for a minute, her breaths evening out, rapidity relaxing to slowness.  "No... I went here when I was younger.  To watch games."  She sniffles, and lifts her head, puffy eyes reddened with a tinge of shame, but glimmering deep in the iris.

"Shirai!" Her mother called, as her eyes scanned back and forth across the parking lot.  "Shirai!  Are you coming?  The game is going to start soon!"

The child pulled herself out from in-between two cars, holding a hat in her hand.  "Mom!  I wanted my hat!"  She ran to the doors.

Her mother chuckled, took the hat from her, and placed it on her head.

"Do you think they'll shutout this time?"

"I bet.  The Moab Sunbeams don't have much in their offense."  Her mother reached forward, pulled Shirai up onto her shoulders.  "Then again, we don't have much in our defense, and Doctor is up..."

"Hey!"  The child exclaimed, lightly thumping her mother's head.  "That's mean!  They're gonna win, they always win."

"I think I might want to watch the games you're watching," she said, in-between a chuckle.

~~~

The lights inside were bold and blue, the flag above waved a quiet welcome.  The grass immaterial was as green as it ever is.  The stadium is peppered with scattered crowds, cheering blocks, and the roar of applause, loudspeakers blared the constant themes of ballpark bravado.  It did not take long before the teams took the field, the Halifax Talkers stepping into their offensive routes, and innings began to pass.

Shirai screamed in joy, waved a pennant back and forth.  "HIT THE BALL!  OVER HERE, HIT IT HERE!" 

Her mother watched, amused, and joined her in her chorus.  "GIVE US THE BALL, MERRITT, COME ON!  MY KID'S DYING UP HERE!"

Their combined voices rang out until both sat back, throats parched and stomachs empty from an excited sort of exhaustion.  The Talkers rotated, went into the outfield, assumed defensive positions.  

Her mother stands.  "Come on, Shirai, let's go get some food."

"But we'll miss the inning!"

"Don't tell me you don't want a donair right now."

Shirai sat, for a moment, looking at the pennant, looking at the field, looking at an empty, donair-less hand.  "Yeah, okay." She jumped from her seat and ran past her mother.

~~~

In the concessions line, with the aroma of nachos drifting down, Shirai heard her mother's stomach grumble.  "Didn't expect it to be this long."

Shirai's feet patted back and forth, as she swung her mother's arm out as far as she could, returning it back in a pendulum motion.  Her eyes scanned the indoor horizon, and saw something in the distance—a display case with a shiny gold plaque atop it.  She tugged on her mother's hand, and with a cautious permission, ran over to it.

Reading aloud, slowly, "Cascades Merritt," stumbling slightly over the numbers, "Nineteen six eight, the glove that won the championship."  Her eyes, reflected in the glass in front of her, widened as she realized what she stood before.  A real pitcher's glove, a champion's mitt.  Her hands reached out to palm the glass, holding her own hand in front of the glove, and she squinted.  Her vision blurred the two together.

"You like that old thing?" a sharp voice asked from just behind her.

Startled, she quickly stepped away from the display case.  She turned around, and in front of her was a tall woman, eyes enshrouded by a hat, with a glowing green eye that pierced through her skull.  "Oh wow.  Are you—are you Jenkins Good?"

"Yeah, I am, but you can just call me Great." A toothy smile, mysterious and welcoming.  She knelt in front of Shirai, her one green eye fixed on the child's two golden ones.  "You like Blaseball, kid?  I do too, I love it.  Every second I'm up there is another second that I feel like everything is right in the world."

"Huh?"  Shirai's face twisted into one of confusion.  "It's not like the world can be wrong."

A quick laugh, curt, loud.  "That's a good way of thinking about it.  I think what I mean is that it makes me happy."  She looked at the glove in the display case.  "I wasn't there when they won, but I hope I can stay on for as long as we need, so I can know what that feels like."

Shirai's eyes, encompassing the entirety of Jenkins, were almost as wide as her mouth.  "I know you can."

Jenkins looked back down at Shirai, and her grin grew bigger and bolder.  "I know we can too.  Long as people like you keep coming up, showing up, telling us we can," she said as she stood, turning away, "I know we can do it.  All we need is you."

Shirai blinked, watching Jenkins walk away, looking at her hair—her hair!  She suddenly looked down, saw the hat on the floor in front of her, and with reverent, slow hands, picked it up.  "You forgot this..." she whispered, deliberately watching to make sure Good is gone.

She took her old hat off, and put her new one on.

"Indeed."  Polkadot takes a deep, even breath.  "What is your name?"

Another sniffle.  "Shirai.  McElroy, Shirai.  I'm a Moist Talker Shadows player and I've been waiting to play since Season One."  Her breath is almost clear now, an even smile crossing her face.  "I've watched all of you for a while.  I know you aren't really, like, aware of me, or my friends."

"I know some.  Vorhees remains in the Shadows of Charleston.  Morse stays in the Shadows of Seattle."  A quiet sigh.  "It is hard to keep their memories together, in focus."

"I guess that's not much of a problem, for you."  Her hands gently fiddle with each other, fingers crossing fingers, a restlessness in the back of her head formed into physicality.  A constant habit.  "You must see a lot."

"I do."

"Yeah.  I, um, when you joined the team, back in Season Two, I watched you pitch."

There is no noise from Patterson—merely bright eyes staring back at her.

"It's dumb.  But uh, you always, had this glare, on the mound, you know?  Like you knew exactly where you were going to throw—"

"—as if nobody could stop my pitch."  They smile for the first time, and it is calming, soothing.  "Yes, you are observant too.  I was not always like this."

"It's, uh," she stammers, avoiding eye contact.  "It's not just the blessings, right?  'Cause people in the bullpen keep saying that it's all 'cause of the blessings that you're good."

"Oh."  

"I'm sorry.  I don't think so, like, I mean—"

A tentacle drifts in an offhand motion, dismissing worry from the room.  "I have no real need for practice, it's true.  Blessings make up a great sum of who I am."  They stand, looking up at the field.  Ï"I have thought long about how much blessings and elections make a player."

"I don't think that's right." Her voice is suddenly stern, and a step takes her to their side.  "I think there's more.  There's gotta be more."

"Shirai McElroy, pitcher.  Two and a half stars."

"Two and a half, huh?"  The coach in front her flipped open his clipboard, rubbed his goatee.  "It's not much.  And we've been really struggling on the rotation recently."

"I know I can do it," she responded, her voice firm, her words practiced.  Her eyes meet the coach's and do not back down.

"Let's see you on the mound."

She walked to the pitcher's position, a basket of blaseballs by her side, the net set up in front of her.  Her muscle memory kicked in, immediately finding her stance, finding footing in the sand, cleats digging in, calves flexing.  Her hips warmed up from stretching, but ached from the hours of practice the day before.  She took a step forward, and launched.

Whoosh, clap.  "Strike."  Whoosh, clap.  "Ball."  Whoosh, clap.  "Strike!"  Whoosh, clap.  "Ball." 

Shirai took a deep breath, steadied her stance.  She adjusted her Halifax Talkers hat, blocked the sun from her eyes.  She took a deep breath, her shoulders square, then relaxed.   She found her footing.

Whoosh, clap.  "Strike!"

She grinned.  Her eyes flicked over to the coach, jotting down notes, not making eye contact.

"You're not bad.  Good form, good posture, and I can tell you practice.  Two and a half?"

She shrugged.  "I'm just not magic enough, I guess."

"Maybe." He swings the clipboard around, taking a look around, calling out the next name.  

She stared at the coach's back for a second, blaseball in hand, but relaxed, placie it in her glove and walked back into the line—and she is summarily pushed by some prick with blonde hair and wide shoulders.

She looked back at Shirai with a hint of amusement.  "Sorry, halfsies.  I gotta get up there," her tone dismissive, curled around Shirai's shoulders, dug into the back of her skull.  For a minute, she considers beaning her in the back of the head, but the thought passed by without much hesitation.  She was good as she was.

Blondie walks past the coach.  "It's Berkeley," she says, sauntering up to the mound.  "Five stars."  A couple murmurs from the crowd followed, staccato whispers passed back and forth.

"Five stars, huh?" The coach scribbled a couple notes and turned around.  "Give us the best you—"

BANG.  BANG.  BANG.  The catcher in the net had ducked out of the way, replaced by three smoking holes in the back of the net, and half destroyed blaseballs embedded in the chain-link fence behind it.  "Strikes," he hesitatingly called out.

Berkeley looked over to the coach.  "Good enough?"  Then she looked at Shirai, and smirked.

They look back at her.  "Perhaps," and she can hear their hands gently shift in their pocket, but not leave.  "But perhaps there are other reasons, as well."

She blinks, a thousand questions forming in her skull, an enduring curiosity waiting to be fed.  She finds herself unable to ask, a sudden clutch in her throat.  

Patterson opens their locker, pulling out a picture frame, a captured memory of a older, wide man with a toothpick and a chipped blaseball bat sitting on the bench just outside, right in the field.  The initials K.A. in the bottom right corner.  "Do you know who this is?"

She can't respond.  Kennedy Alstott.

They look for a moment, holding out the picture frame, and then return it to the locker.  "We were friends.  He was a reminder, to me.  I needed many reminders," and to this a slight humor curls around the phrase, "back in the day."

She swallows.  "I was there, I think.  Watching everyone play.  But you weren't there that day, right?"

"No, I was.  In the dugout.  Morse... asked me to watch him pitch.  To give him 'pointers'.  Morse needed many reminders, as well."

"Is there something I didn't know?  I could only see what I could see from the bullpen."

Their eyes glance back at them, but now they are faded, they are tired.

Screaming, fire, running, the crack of blaseball against bat.  Season Three, Day 19.  

Shirai clung to the fence of the bench, the furthest she could reach out without violating her contract, and stared at the hulking behemoth of an umpire that now trawled through the field.

"PLAY MUST CONTINUE.  PLAY MUST CONTINUE."  The announcements blared, the stadium lit up in dangerous, flashing red.

"Come on, Shirai," Denim pulled on her uniform.  "You gotta stay out of the way.  We've got no damn clue whether those things can see us or not."

She yanked herself away from Squall, and stared at them with astonishment.  "Those are our teammates, Denny, we can't just sit here.  What if they get hurt?"

"You'd break your contract for that?"  Another voice echoed, Carter Turnip standing, his arms crossed.  "Work your whole life, and then risk it all just for a single person?  What about you, Shirai?"

"I don't want to hear it."  She turned back around, eyes glued to the abomination.

"No, you're the best in this bench, and you're telling me that you'll throw away your chances?  We're your team.  They're the players."

"We're all Talkers," she began, tears rolling down their face.  "We're all Talkers.  This is our home."  Her jaw clenched, her forehead pressed against the barrier, her focus blurring. "Why am I so helpless right now?"  Her breaths become rapid, her arms start to shake. 

"Carter I swear to Christ if you made her cry—" 

"Look, no, I'll go get some water, some ice, you calm her down." 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she says, over and over again.  "Why can't I do—can't I.  Can't I do?"

"You seem exhausted."

"I have been playing for a long time." Their shoulders seem to slump, in the slightest fashion.  They let out a sigh.  "It is incredibly easy to feel exhaustion.  There are ways of relieving it.  It is much harder to relieve regret—or, grief."

Shirai's mouth formed a flat line, and her hands find a tentative purchase on Polkadot's shoulders.  "I'm sorry."

They do not look at her.  "You have done nothing wrong.  It is the system we live in.  The way things are."

"No, but I kind of did." Her eyebrows furrow.  "I idolized you, for how you played.  I loved you for how many wins you gave us.  I never thought... really.  I just kind of never thought about it." Her hand slips from his shoulder.

There is no response from them, but a gentle turnabout.

"I guess..."

"No.  You do not."

A cold rush sweeps through her face, her head.  She freezes, and her lungs begin to close up again.

Then there is a hand on her shoulder—not a tendril.  A hand that seems to waver in its handness, but finds firm purchase.  Then there is another, and they squeeze.

"My reality is not your reality.  I am not you," they say, now with a tone that feels like certainty, like four balls being thrown in a row, like a hit lining up in the swing.  "I think there is much for you to hope for.  I think that you will find a way to be Shirai, in this League."  Then that humor returns, louder, less curt.  "There are very little who would say my life unenviable."

A quick laugh involuntarily leaves her chest, and she stops any more, but she relaxes, and she begins to chuckle, slightly, reproachingly.  "Man, I—I really wasn't expecting such an emotional conversation for my first day on the Talkers.  I was pretty sure there was gonna be maybe a team welcome and then a practice."  She looks up, and Polkadot is not smiling, but looks at her with a gentle concern.

"Shirai McElroy.  Do you know why you are here?"

She blinks, stammers.  "Uh, I'm pretty sure I was called up.  They gave me a letter in the mail—well, I guess.  They knocked on my door and told me to check the mailbox, it said I was active, I—" she stops, and that train that seems to go through her head comes to a screeching halt, and her ears begin to ring.  "Dot," she begins, slowly, fearfully, "do you know why you are here?"

"To pitch."

"On the Core Mechanics?"

"On the Moist Talkers."

"Oh no."  And she slips away from their grasp, not falling, not stumbling.  Taking steps towards her bag, irregular, shaky.  Grabbing the letter, nervously, anxious.  Swallowing down her nerves.

The Moist Talkers chose to bring Shirai McElroy forth from the shadows, via a foreshadow swap with Mooney Doctor.

"Oh boy."

The Moist Talkers voted to target PolkaDot Patterson for the plunder.  The Mechanics and Moist Talkers made a trade.

The letter falls from her grasp.  It is crushed beneath her heel into the tile.  "You're joking."

"I am not."

The room is red.  The air is hot.  Her fists clench into themselves, her shoulders rising.  She is breathing quickly now, and there is a storm surging forward.  "I can't believe," she starts, turning to face Polkadot, "that you stood there.  While I thought that I was going to play for my team, and you were my replacement."

"McElroy, I—"

"Save it.  Save it for your teammates.  I work for years—YEARS—and I'm just.  I'm just."

There is no response.

She does not say anything else.