Work Text:
Drag Me Down
By crabmoney3
The black hole stopped singing.
It’s the first thing Derrick notices when he opens his eyes. He can’t remember the last time he sat in silence, floating through the emptiness of the black hole. She always sang, for as long as they’d been swallowed, everyone heard her sing. But he doesn’t hear her now.
Someone grabs his shoulder. It’s Shaq.
“Do you hear it?” they ask.
Derrick stares back, blinking, trying to make sense of it.
“Do you hear her singing?” they ask again.
“Do you?”
“No, man, I don’t. Why else would I be asking?” Shaq looks around in a panic. No one else is waking up. No one else is missing their lullaby. It’s just them and Derrick and the void and the silence.
“Do you think we’ll be okay?” Derrick asks.
Shaq squeezes his arm tighter. “So you don’t hear it anymore.”
Derrick shakes his head. “No. I don’t.”
They wait and they listen to the silence. They don’t know what happens next, how it happens. Something is coming. Something is coming for them.
Derrick is too scared to scream when the first hand reaches around his ankle. It begins to pull. Another hand extends from the hole opening up beneath him, clinging to his thigh. When one grabs his arm, he finally remembers to scream.
Shaq pushes themself away and instantly regrets it. Hands keep reaching up for Derrick, grabbing blindly. Shaq reaches back for him, but the hands swat them away. They try to count how many as more and more spawn, dragging Derrick down through the ever-widening gap in the horizon. They lose count and yell for Derrick. They reach out again, but Derrick is already gone.
The Charleston Shoe Thieves reaches into the Horizon and steals Derrick Krueger.
The hands ease up as Derrick takes a gasp of air—real air, oxygen filling his lungs with dry air, not the wetness of the trench, not the hollowness of the black hole—for the first time in years. He’d forgotten what it felt like for lungs to work. It’s bright where he is. Bright and cool and loud, but not loud like the black hole’s song. There’s… cheering. An air of celebration. His eyes adjust and he finally recognizes what’s attached to the hands that dragged him from the void.
It’s a whole team. The Shoe Thieves. Their stadium is decorated in celebration and a framed certificate is hung by the dugout: Season N1 Champions.
He turns his head to the blessing results, transmitted onto the scoreboard. There is one blessing awarded to the Thieves.
Steal Best Pitcher.
Derrick looks down at his arm. He makes a fist and rolls his shoulder. “Best pitcher?” he croaks out softly through worn-out vocal chords.
Strike Zero.
Shaq can only stare as the hole swallowing Derrick collapses and leaves them behind. The pit of their stomach tightens and they feel like they might vomit. They don’t want to go back, not like that, not clawed at and pulled down like they were never alive to feel it.
But that isn’t how they go.
Their ears pop as they feel pressure building up in the black hole. It pushes in on them and they feel like their sinuses might crack. They hear the black hole again, not singing this time, but grumbling around them. They don’t recognize this sound.
The Black Hole Burps out Shaquille Torres to the Chicago Firefighters!
The noise it makes as the hole spits them out is excruciating. Shaq covers their now-ringing ears as they fall through the air, down, down. They take a breathe and they wish they hadn’t. The black hole’s burp reeks of sulphur and burns their nostrils, but they can’t help it. They need to breathe again. For the first time in a long time, they need to breathe.
Shaq lands in a safety trampoline, carefully spread out and held in place. They know they must be in Chicago. Only the Firefighters would be this prepared to catch a crash-landing. They remember Edric telling them about it. How the Firefighters care about safety.
They look around and start to thank the team for catching them, but no one seems to care. No one will meet their eyes. Shaq is surrounded by a chorus of grimaces and frowns and they don’t understand why. They look up at the election board.
“Worst overall player?”
The Firefighters sigh and let Shaq to the ground gently. The pit of their stomach tightens more and they feel like the black hole, ready to burp out bile and sulphur. At least they’re alive. And at least Derrick is, too.