Work Text:
Death is Only the Beginning
By crabmoney3
Tot Clark died for a second time sixty-seven days ago. Ze waited in the secret base, alone with hir own thoughts, watching, lurking. Ze was comfortable in the base, a dark space reminiscent of hir tomb. But ze was never one to stay inside hir sarcophagus for long.
Ze cracked open the door to the base, allowing a sliver of light to illuminate the stronghold. Ze peeked out of the door to see if the coast was clear. It wasn’t. As hir unbandaged eye looked out on the field, an Umpire looked back. Tot’s eye met the burning gaze behind the Umpire’s mask, and ze knew what was coming.
Ze’d died before, many, many eons ago. Long enough that ze didn’t quite remember what it felt like, but ze’d always remember the moments just before, when the air around was hot and sticky and a hush fell over everything. Ze’d always remember how the hush only exists for hir, the world allowing a pre-emptive moment of silence to let the fallen mourn hirself before ze falls. Ze thanked the air for its warning and braced hirself for what was to come.
Tot hoped ze would be too small a target for the Umpire to hit, but that was always a foolish belief. The Umpires had better aim than most pitchers in this game. Sometimes ze and Luis speculated the Umpires to be creatures much like the two of them—relics of a time even earlier than the married immortals had known. Players from a game that left few remnants behind. The flames flew towards hir, lower than ze’d expected them to. That’s when ze noticed it. A strip of hir bandages fluttered outside of the secret base. What kept hir ancient body together ignited and the fire began to travel up and around, a lit fuse making hir a pile of gunpowder ready to explode at any moment. Ze was going to die there in the secret base, sealed within its walls.
This was not how Tot intended to die a second time. Between the warning from the winds and the time given by a traveling flame, ze would make sure everyone knew an immortal only dies when ze is ready. Ze still had enough time. Ze felt the flames begin to melt the bottom of hir cleats as the top of the inning drew to a close and the Millenials took to the field. Ze stood hir ground while Oliver Mueller hit a home run in hir honor, unaware that there was not yet ash within the sarcophagus. Teddy Duende stepped up to the plate and hit a foul ball straight behind. This was hir chance, when everyone was turned around. Schneider Bendie leapt away from his post at second base and the burning body of Tot Clark took to the bag. Teddy stared at the glowing ghost on second and let a pitch fly by straight down the middle. Strike, looking. Everyone was looking. The Garages were looking, the Millenials were looking, their catcher was looking and dropped the strike. Tot took the moment of silence and ran, leaving flames along the baseline in hir wake as ze stole third base. The stadium cheered for the half-dead undead clawing hirself from hir tomb into the realm of the living once more. Teddy made contact with the ball, trying to bat the burning mummy in. But Tot Clark would never reach home.
Tot Clark died for a second time sixty-seven days ago. Ze did not reach home plate, but ze managed to reunite with another home—hir husband, Luis. Since then, the pair have been inseparable. Since hir second passing, whole teams have come and gone, but that does not matter to Tot and Luis. The pair has watched the world shift and change together time and time again. Empires have risen, fallen, and risen again since the two first fell in love. Blaseball is falling, and something else will rise in its place, and the two of them will still be there waiting to see what grows.
Well, they hope to see what grows. This time, the undead stayed dead. Tot is in the trench, an underwater burial ground that ze has no way out of. Ze is here with Luis, but even they long for more to explore.
“I really wish you could have seen it!” Luis says. “Before the Hall flipped back, I could have shown you around where the Crabs were when we ascended! You would have loved the swamp.”
“Hm.”
“What?”
“You say that like you think we’ll be here forever.”
Luis leans against Tot and ze feels the buzzing energy of their hologram husband tingling against bandages. “I dunno! Sure seems like we might be dead for real this time.”
“But it changed before,” ze counters. “Things always change.”
“You don’t.” Luis kisses Tot on the cheek.
“You knew what I meant.”
Luis laughs. Of course they knew. They always do. A change is coming, they can feel it just as well as Tot can. Over centuries you begin to tune your senses to the little things. A shift in temperature, one man voicing his thoughts, the slightest hiccup in tectonic plates below. Luis knows their husband is right, and things will not be the same for long.
Tot Clark has been dead again for sixty-seven days when the Trench begins to shake. Ze feels the rumbling beneath hir feet and hears the crash of Hall statues knocked to the ground in the distance. Ze tries not to fall as ze clambers through the quaking to grab hold of Luis all while listening to a sound like faucets at full blast as the Hall begins to flood.
“Well?” Tot asks.
“Things always change,” Luis replies.
“Shall we watch the Earth shift, my love?”
“Of course!”
The two begin to make their way towards the entrance of the Hall, the epicenter of what’s to come. As they begin to make their way down the long, ever-growing corridor of statues, the pieces begin to fall into place.
Tot is now ankle-deep in salt water, hir bandages becoming soggy. This does not deter hir. Ze can feel hir newest tomb flooding around hir, and instead of fearing being trapped below, ze knows what this means. In order for water to get in, there must be some way to get out.
“Do you remember when we renewed our vows?” Luis asks, climbing over a statue of Moody Cookbook now snapped in two.
“Which time?”
“Second,” Luis replies.
“The Titanic?”
“Yeah!! This is just like that! The flooding, the climbing. It’s super romantic, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hm. I guess it is. That was a fun night.”
“So is this one!”
“Is it even night?”
“Maybe!” Luis exclaims with a grin.
By the time they reach Jaylen’s statue, the water is up to their waists. It seems like it will not go any higher, like the Hall has some sort of drainage system in place in order to keep it from joining the likes of Alexandria’s library. Tot stares at the stone face of hir friend.
“Do you think she’s mad you died during a game and not from her hunting you for splort?”
“Hm.”
“She put a lot of effort into it! That’s how you know she’s a good friend.”
“Maybe she’ll still get her chance,” Tot says.
“Not if you kill her first,” Luis adds in a cheery tone.
“Maybe so.”
Ze takes Luis’s hand and the husbands continue their journey forward. That’s when Tot sees it. Where there once was a wall of glowing blue water now stands a gaping black abyss. The entrance to the burial chamber, no longer sealed, no longer hidden from both those outside or within.
“A way out,” Tot remarks.
The two stare, hand still in hand.
“Do you think it’s a trick?” asks Luis.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you wanna find out?”
“Of course.”
The husbands squeeze tightly. Here they are, the twice dead becoming the twice undead. They have been around long enough to know when things are changing, and when an opportunity is worth the risk. They will always come back together, below the waves or on the surface while they watch tides change right before their eyes. The Hall has opened, the Monitor has fled, and now Tot Clark stands within the stronghold of the burned, peeking hir unbandaged eye out from the darkness and towards something else. Ze and Luis begin moving forward into the cramped blackness, eager to see what’s to come. Tot is comfortable in the tunnel, a space reminiscent of hir first tomb. But ze has never been one to stay inside hir sarcophagus for long.