Work Text:
i.
there are, perhaps, hundreds of stories that you could tell of the years before the game–you've painted dozens of them in stark grays and reds and blacks–but when you look back what you think of is this: brock, lying in the quiet dark of the apartment as his body rewrote itself, and you, falling head over heels in a way you wouldn't realize for decades to come. edric, heaving panicked breaths over a phone line, the weight of prophecy too heavy on their shoulders. a city, finding ways to rebuild where they can.
a city, mourning, even if they don't realize.
ii.
the best way to describe that first season, you think in retrospect, is a story of a child surrounded by titans.
you aren't very good, any of you. but you want to be.
a hunger permeates the streets of the city, different from the kind that did years ago– the hunger for blood and forgiveness and change. it's more striking, this; a hunger for greatness and so much more.
when the season ends and the sunny skies with it, you can see that wave of change starting to grow. it'll take time, but most good things do.
iii.
edric calls you the day tyreek dies. neither of you know how to deal with this– despite all you've lost, you've never done well with grief.
tyreek was a good friend–never knew how to be anything other than–and you'll always be grateful nora introduced you.
the day after, she's gone too.
something has shifted in the bones of the city, something aching and raw, like someone digging their claws into shattered skin. something like penance or punishment or misguided absolution. a new world is coming, and you don't know what to make of it.
you just paint, trying to save the past.
iv.
the two of you get married–officially for “tax purposes”, not-so-officially because you want brock by your side for the rest of your life if you can–in the siesta between seasons 3 and 4. in another world you throw the biggest party you could imagine, but instead it's just the two of you and tillman and ken at the courthouse– plenty good to you.
a year later, edric will call you in tears again, almost as bad as when his dad died. his brock–for lack of a better term–is gone, and in 10 days, he will be too.
v.
you find bright zimmerman a bit of an enigma, a puzzle to figure out.
you've never been good with puzzles.
she's equal parts naively bold and shy, and sorely lacking in friends outside her team. in the past five years, you've pitched endless games against each other as you've gotten better and she's gotten worse, and you've never been one to apologize for achievements, but something sinks in your stomach when you see how the crowds react to her losses.
she reminds you of edric, almost, before he grew into his skin. prophesy or damnation, the weight of a city still remains.
vi.
the crabs win blessings, and then a championship. it’s both a blessing and a curse.
axel gets shelled and you start pitching twice. your arm aches with the strain of it the same way your resolve is starting to strain under the pressure.
there’s some good, honestly– debt is just a blip on the radar and not much more. fifteen straight games with the firefighters the season after means you get to spend time with edric, relearning a new version of him. you win, again. you get a break.
most of siesta is spent high, and falling in love. it’s, admittedly, pretty great.
vii.
it is like this: everyone has heard the story of the frog in boiling water, that they will just sit in the ever-rising heat until it’s too late. but you are the frog and the water is success, or ascension, or the threat of ascension and really, at that point you’re just mixing metaphors. the point is this– things hit a breaking point in the depths of season 9, to say the least, and you’ll never know if you meant for it to or not.
decarcinizing is one of the hardest things you do, just behind losing what you’ve yet to.
viii.
the inevitable can’t be delayed any longer– you ascend, and descend, and return to an edric that’s broken, and a bright that’s well on the way to be. josh dies, and the crabs all trek out to chicago together– not knowing it’s one of the last things you’ll all do together. things change. you win a championship, tinged with paranoia. baldwin’s off to miami, luis leaves for ohio, nagomi comes back and the city calls it a homecoming until she resurrects her son in the blood of the bay.
you ache for stability, not blood on your hands.
ix.
you and brock renew your vows quietly, in the shadow of val and pedro’s wedding. it’s joyous, and bright, and for all that things have changed, this has not. no, it’s him and you and the love that sits in your stomach, that curls around your wrist like a tether, that keeps you anchored to the shore.
when a consumer takes a chunk out your side, he’s by your side. when moses mason dies his first game in boston, you’re there and waiting. it’s steady, and soft and so much more than you thought it could be.
and so you try.
x.
you can see the creeping of ego before it actually hits you; in fact, it's only league-wide blackmail that saves you at first. the gold, it creeps into your irises and the chitin cropping up, like a stain you can't get rid of, no matter how hard you try.
it's haunting you like moses is still haunting brock– if not in reality then in spirit.
you win the crabs a championship and they get rid of your curse and send you off to boston for your troubles. it's almost a kindness, you think, or at least it would have been.
xi.
you get a glorious nineteen days together before brock burns at the top of the first.
this is the reality: the hall is transient at best, these days, but brock is still there and you are not. it has been more than a half-century of him by your side, steady, present, and the way you've gotten through is with him.
edric and bright come, bring by food and do what they can. pedro camps out in your spare room until he can't any longer, dunn spends long, quiet mornings on your porch.
brock may be gone, but you are not alone.
xii.
you spend the next season sewing away goodbyes, utterly convinced that the semi-centennial is bound to consume you.
of course, in the end, it's not what does.
you're on the mound as the sun explodes, as nic mora lights a match for the rest of you to burn from. you land back in boston, and four days later, you burn too.
there are regrets you have (too few/too many), but this is not one: for all the stories you have to tell, the most important is you and brock, together as the world ends. it has to be.