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i.
Baby stands up to bat.
It’s the second game of the season, and bright peals of brass ring across the field before the sky darkens in a flash, and a shiver runs up xir spine. They heard about it last night, on the news blaring in xir hotel room, but still; there’s an inherent discomfort to it all in a way he can’t voice. The itch under their skin is building as xir body screams to be let loose, crying as the power ripples through xir limbs, begging to be let free.
Still, Baby takes a deep breath and swings.
ii.
Baby has always been a restless sleeper.
First as a teenager, tossing in the dripping summer heat of the California valleys, then still in the bitter cold of Chicago winters. Xe remembers the ten years spent pressed between Edric’s chest and the edge of Declan’s shoulder in a queen sized bed, what it felt to be cocooned in something approaching safety; how in retrospect it could never last any longer than that (how, in some ways, it was doomed from the start). It’s still phantom in his bed some nights, as xe tosses and turns and tries.
Xe doesn’t dream.
iii.
The hum in the stadium is one xe hasn’t heard in years; heightened, piercing, and cutting through the static in a way that makes xir hair stand on edge. So, when xe looks and Ike is in bright purple Baby isn’t so much surprised as xe is deeply, deeply furious.
Xe thinks, for the first time, xe may understand fully Rivers’ fury; the burning hatred and the way it mixes in with with the helplessness to form a deep well of anger. It’s the closest xe’s ever felt to striking a match and watching it burn.
iv.
It’s the first time they’ve properly seen each other in probably 10 years when Edric steps onto the field across from him, laughing with a grin that could break the sky. Baby knows he can see the storm brewing on the horizon as well as xe can, that they’re still highly tuned to sirens in the air; but he’s always been one to laugh in the face of danger.
(The two of them have always been a bit like jagged puzzle pieces–Declan was the centerpiece that held them together. So they don’t quite fit, but Baby thinks they can try.)
v.
“What did it feel like, in there? I mean, I know what Declan says, but–”
They’re sitting on the balcony of Edric’s apartment, legs hanging off with not-opened scotch and a pack of cigarettes between them. Edric talks about the cold that sat in their bones, just like Declan described, how even the heat of the smithy wouldn’t help.
“–It was safe though, you know. Well, until the guild, and now there’s this new weather and instability and– I don’t know if anywhere is, really.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Terrified.”
Baby sneaks xir hand across to grab his and squeezes.
“Me too.”
vi.
Xe tries to remember their life before blaseball, sometimes. Not that it's gone, just faded in the way a photograph fades in the sun.
There’s flashes of fighting with Knight in their backyard, the way the sun would hit the vines and xe would relish in it. Then there’s the fires and the thread-bare-tired car that got them to Chicago; the overwhelming heat and smell of smoke and burning rubber. At the end, it was all just ash and ground sticky with malort, covered in sweat.
Xe should probably give Knight a call, but xe knows xe won’t.
vii.
They’re watching playoffs on the floor of Declan’s apartment when xe decides to broach the subject.
“I’ve been talking to Edric,” Xe says, taking a swig of xir beer and looking anywhere but Declan’s face.
“Oh?”
“I talk to you still, don’t I? It’s not weird–”
Declan gives xem a look. “No need to get defensive!”
“When was the last time you…”
“Too long.” Declan held onto Edric a little longer, and Baby wonders if it’s that making him curt, or the fact that Edric made it out again.
“Would you want to play again?”
“I don’t know.”
Fair enough, Baby supposes.
viii.
“Ah, my dear sibling–”
Baby hangs up before they can finish the sentence. When it starts ringing again xe picks it up, albeit reluctantly.
“–As I was saying, we must talk, sibling.”
“Why are you calling, Knight?”
“It’s the end of the world, we must mend bridges–”
“–Why are you really calling, Knight?”
“You’ve always been so obstinate, Baby–”
“Call me Ruthless.”
“...Ruthless, then. We must come together, no matter what misgivings–”
Xe barks a humourless laugh. “We’re all about to burn and that’s what you’ve got?”
“Baby–”
Xe hangs up. The guilt almost stings, but not enough to matter.
ix.
The air around xem starts to feel more static, in a way that is both charged and disconcerting. There’s a storm brewing, plain as day, and Baby may have fought in the Great Fire, but xe knows this will pale in comparison.
Xe thinks of all the bridges xe’s burned, the smouldering ashes that lead between xem and Knight. Xe thinks of Declan, the way it fizzled out and wasn’t, in the end. Xe thinks of Edric; charged tension and even bigger destruction, molten glass in the embers.
A person can be only filled with so much regret, Baby thinks.
x.
“I’m about to die on the fucking Jazz Hands, Ruth.”
Xir head is leaned back against the cool glass of xir window, staring from her spot on the fire escape. “Edric…”
“No, I mean, I love them, I really do. It’s just–” Edric’s voice cracks on the other end of the phone. “–If I’m gonna die, I’d like for it to be at home, and y’all are the closest I got.”
Baby knows he’s thinking about his Chicago, the one xe only ever heard of in whispers and vestiges of smoke. But xe can hope he means them too, even a little bit.
xi.
The entire team watches the semi-centennial from the mess hall in a mix of horror and trepidation. Xe can feel the way Declan tenses when Tillman is forged, and Baby wants to break Henderson’s nose for a third time.
But when Mcdowell calls and says he needs a hand, they leap to action. Baby isn’t sure what xe was expecting, but a still half-dead Gerund Pantheocide definitely isn’t it. She’s sputtering, lungs full of water and ichor as xe rubs her back.
“So,” She says between coughs. “We’ve got some fires to fight then?”
“Yeah,” Baby says. “I suppose we do.”
xii.
Xe’s still not really sure how they’ve reached this point after a decade and a half of not talking, but when Edric asks to spend the day before the next season with him, xe says yes.
It’s quiet in a way that signifies how they’ve grown into themselves, xe supposes. When he tells Baby to close xir eyes and follow him, he’s shocked to still find trust there, like a tenuous leash.
It’s– well, a garbage can xe remembers from when Edric first came. Xe feels something press into xir hand, a worn box of matches.
“A new start.” Edric says.