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It’s not like there’s even fans in the stadium for this, thinks Jaybot, sneaking a glance at the field from behind a row of T-shirts. No one’s heard from the fans since the world got eaten by the black hole(black hole); the closest they’ve come was that one cacophonous crash that rang through the sky, which turned out to have been Parker knocking the microphone off his desk at 3 AM. For the semicentennial, this place had been a spectacle; all the lights had been blaring; all the fans (faceless, shouting, screaming) had been packed so tight they could hardly find seats. There had been confetti and chaos and about twenty different catastrophes, enough that when gilded hands had covered Jaybot’s mouth and dragged her beneath the earth it hadn't even counted as a main attraction. By comparison, now this place is—
—Is it rude to call it “deathly quiet” when the place is mostly ghosts? It’s probably rude. She hasn’t…well, she hasn’t avoided the Prehistory teams. Even Lōotcrates had seemed surprised when the three teams had managed to sprint to the Vault doors—on the same day, even, like a collective flashback at the end of the world. They keep to themselves, mostly. It’s all of them as the main audience now, wandering about the field, some of them braving the stands in the absence of anyone to stop them; she’s not sure they’ve even heard of peanuts before today, let alone Day X. They’re going to look up at the screen and have no clue who the fuck Jaylen Hotdogfingers is.
Jaybot…doesn’t really feel like fielding questions from a bunch of ghosts, is the thing. There’s a couple living-ish players mixed among the crowd, but they’re at least more likely to know the concept of Alternates. What they’d ask is do you remember this at all, which is straightforward enough to walk away from. What the ghosts would ask is what was it like, and she’d be expected to ask them to clarify, and if she did they’d ask what was it like to kill a god, or maybe what was it like that season where no one died, or maybe what was it like to come back to life—
Anyway: No.
But she’s wandered around the stadium before, for lack of many other hobbies, so she kind of knows the place. There are a bunch of long, winding, indistinguishable hallways—which she’s pretty sure shouldn’t physically fit in the stadium, but when has that ever stopped anyone—and in the middle of one of them there’s a door to what might have been a press box. Practically sparkling despite the years, but with all the tables and chairs missing, leaving just the view of the field. With all this stadium’s ties to the apocalypse, she doubts exploring the place is most people’s idea of a fun time. From up here, maybe she can watch without being watched back.
Of course, as she sneaks down the hall thirty minutes before the rewatch, she hears someone’s voice.
“Where are those even from,” York Silk is saying.
Jaybot takes a few quiet steps toward the door. Pitching Machine, who has a pair of those plastic eclipse glasses perched on its barrel, lets out a whirr.
“Season two? Holy shit put those on eBay or something.” A quick flurry of pointed beeps. “Or not, jeez—”
The floor squeaks below Jaybot’s cleats, and she freezes.
“Ma I’m an adult and I died this is like barely top three bad things anymore so if I wa—” They turn around, then blink. “Oh.”
“Hey,” Jaybot says, offering a small wave. “I’ll. Go.”
“No, I—d’you—we can go find a different spot, if you—”
“It’s fine—”
“No, we can just—”
“This way,” comes a not-very-quiet whisper from down the hall. “Really good view of the hole from up here, too, sometimes I can almost get a signal.” Ivy pokes their head around the corner, with Jessica Telephone trailing a few steps behind them. “Oh, hey Jaybot!”
“Hi,” says Jaybot.
“Mmrmghfgh,” says York.
“Nice secret,” says Jess, raising an eyebrow.
“I know, right?!” says Ivy, crossing the rest of the hallway. “Oh, uh…hey, you two.”
“Mmmnnh,” York says, dragging a hand down their face. “Hey.” Behind them, Pitching Machine does something that’s probably a wave.
“I didn’t know we were having, like…” Ivy looks up at Jess. “Does this count as a reunion? I mean, I guess I can stand in for Wyatt if I gotta…” Pitching Machine whistles something, and York makes a pained expression. “Huh?” says Ivy. “Sorry, I don’t really…something about the Tacos?”
There’s a millisecond where Jess’s eyes widen, and then a millisecond where the corner of her mouth twitches, and then she’s making direct, perfectly innocent eye contact across the hall. “Sure,” she says. “If any of you can do shadows stuff I can grab PBae if you want.”
“I—” York breaks off, staring at her in despair. “You’re calling them PBae too now?” Jess tilts her head. “Okay, what—whatever—I was gonna say, I know how to, but if it’s me I gotta dodge around all the Funko Pops that’re—” PM trills abruptly. “Okay no I’m not gonna invite—” More beeping. “Shut—they weren’t even there—”
“Neither was I,” says Jess, just a bit too lightly.
“Same,” says Ivy, shrugging one shoulder. Jaybot half-raises a hand.
“I.” York runs a hand through their hair. “…Yeah, I guess, huh,” they mumble. Pitching Machine bumps into their side. “Sure. Okay, alright. Make it a party.”
“Excuse me,” says Patel Beyonce, taking a large step over the impromptu Replica DnD session by the door. “Sorry. Nice to…meet you?” One of the Pitchings Machine pitches a d100 at them. “Ow—”
It really is quite the view, Jaybot muses, leaned up by the corner of the window. The whorls of the black hole (black hole) spinning across the sky; the giant screen Lōotcrates has summoned from somewhere, upon which the Crabs are already getting score after score; the tiny, tiny figures milling about below. From up here—this far away, watching when players start burning—from up here, you could almost pretend it’s not people at all.
“Okay,” says one of the Yorks, leaning over Patel’s shoulder. Patel is holding a character sheet in one hand, tapping their pencil against their mouth thoughtfully; Ivy’s cross-legged beside them, taking notes. “So to make your guy, first you gotta—”
“Hey,” says Jess, leaning on the railing next to Jaybot.
“Mn,” says Jaybot, with half a wave. Onscreen, the Crabs are destroying the sun. Down in the field, she can sortakinda make out the colors of the ghosts’ uniforms. Next to her, Jess is audibly chewing on the worst bubblegum known to man, tapping her fingernails a little too animatedly against the glass; Jaybot manages to wait until Jess elbows her to mumble, “What.”
Jess sweeps her hair back, meets Jaybot’s eyes, and says, lightly, ultracasual: “Fucked up, huh.”
Jaybot snorts so loudly that this body’s vocal cords sting. Then the emergency alert starts blaring from the speakers, and the two of them turn back towards the field, and they watch as the strangers with their faces play ball.