Work Text:
When Agan was a kid, a sinkhole opened up in park down the street. It swallowed up the swings, the jungle gym, and everyone’s attention for the next four months. The city tried to cover it, keep kids out, and all those sensible things, but no fence they put up could ward dumb kids away from the maw that had claimed their play area.
Agan had disavowed her friends’ clandestine excursion, and then followed after anyways, because someone needed to be there to tell everyone what a bad idea it was and how much trouble they could all get in.
In the dark, lit by streetlamps and stolen torches, the great gash in the earth had left her feeling sick in a way that she had never been able to explain.
Now, years later, as the gaping maw opens up beneath them in the dugout, they think they start to get it. All this time focused on burning, and they forgot how hungry the earth could be, too.
--
Agan sputters, tasting sod and blood in eir mouth. Ey’re face-down on some kind of pavement, and the pavement is cool, and dry, and the space around them is dark, and quiet, and maybe ey can stay here for a bit.
“Oh fuck, Bestie, we got a new guy!”
There’s a clattering of footsteps and what concerningly sounds like skittering.
“Oh hey, a Mill! Let’s go Mills baby love da Mills! How are we doing, are we good again?”
Agan groans in response.
“That bad, huh?”
Being prodded in the side by some kind of spiny stick is what prompts them to finally prop themselves up, glaring blearily at the newcomer who’s so rudely interrupted their lay-on-the-floor-time.
The voice belongs to someone wearing an old Dale uniform. Agan swears that he’s seen the face before, but he can’t place it. There’s something uncanny and mechanical about their bearing as they squat down to match hir eye level, sticking a hand right into hir space.
“Hi! I’m Chorby II!” the name is familiar too, but Agan still can’t place it. Ey accept the hand, initiating a handshake that lasts probably a bit too long.
“Uh, hello?”
“And this,” the familiar stranger gestures to the side, “is Forrest Best! But you can call them Bestie.”
Forrest, a monstrous mannequin marionetted by massive crustacean limbs, aggressively signs something at Chorby that is far too quick for Agan to catch.
“Ok, uh, only I can call them Bestie, “Chorby amends, ”sorry!”
Agan nods at the creature. “Right, hello, Forrest.”
Forrest opens its face—mouth???—to show off several very impressive mandibles. Agan smiles back, pleading and praying that it’s a friendly gesture and not some kind of threat display.
“Anyway!” Chorby claps their hands together, “Welcome to our gamer cave!”
Agan sits up fully, taking in her surroundings. She hasn’t been in Toronto in years, but she has to do a double-take for how much everything looks like the PATH, emptied out of all life and color. “Your… gamer cave?”
Chorby shrugs. “Well, no one has figured out where we really are, and we’re gamers, and this is probably a cave, so?”
They shoot upright, extending a hand for Agan to grab. The effort of pulling hir up almost topples them forward, and its only Forrest grabbing the back of their shirt that stops the both of them from sprawling all over the ground.
Agan almost faceplants into the ground anyway. Everything hurts. They check their legs, and somehow, their uniform isn’t completely torn to shreds despite the fact that it feels like they’ve been chewed up by a meat grinder.
Chorby must see the pain on their face, because they wince in sympathy. “Consumers, huh?”
“Is that what that was?”
“Yeah, they’re nasty. Haven’t really got anyone in a bit, so it’s just been me ‘n Bestie. I thought everyone had bats now or something?”
“Never got one,” ey mumble, “and I’m not sure if it would’ve stopped it in the end anyway.”
“Those assholes are relentless, yeah.” Chorby turns, gesturing for Agan to follow. He sees the name SOUL II emblazoned across the back of their jersey, and a few things click in to place. It’s almost easier to match the replica in front of him with the smiling photo the Millennials had set up in their memorial than it is to match it with the grim face he saw across the field during the Centennial, but this is Chorby Soul, alright.
And xie was complaining about Consumer attacks.
“Well,” they continue, “we don’t really got a care package for you or nothing, but we do have a den you can hang out in. Get a break and everything?”
“Honestly, that sounds absolutely lovely.”
---
It’s slow going, finding the den that Chorby was talking about. Nothing stays where it outta, they explain. Doors will lead to new rooms; tunnels open up and close and shift in scope. It is, by their technical understanding, “kinda spooky.”
In exchange for what little information they have about zer new home, Agan tries to update them on what’s going on in the league. It’s rough going, because Agan doesn’t know half of the league and neither Chorby nor Forrest seem to know anything about the ULB. It hurts to think about how no one knew anything about the ULB. Their teams, their records, their friends, all gone. Erased at the whims of a higher power, revealed only when it suited them to do so.
It's a really shitty situation, all-in-all.
“So the Mints are just… gone? The whole team?” Chorby looks sick. That’s another weird thing, how the idea of losing an entire team is some new level of horror for these players, and not a simple fact of life.
“Well, everyone but the fire-eaters. They’re on the new team.” Agan doesn’t envy those poor fools.
“Huh.” Chorby seems to be processing. There’s a slight tug on the back of Agan’s shirt. It’s Forrest, who’s been quiet except for the skittering of their movements.
“Crabs?” it signs, little pinching motions followed by a question mark.
Agan’s able to keep hirself from wincing, but it’s a near thing. “They were fine, before I, well, got here, but… their schedule isn’t…” ze trails off. Forrest just nods. There’s not much else to say.
---
The ‘den’ appears to be some sort of break room that they inexplicably entered via an emergency hatch of a subway tunnel. Chorby warned them not to think too hard about it, and it turns out that that was pretty salient advice.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” Chorby anxiously flutters about the space, picking up blankets and pillows off the floor and shoving them into a pile in the corner. There’s a light switch, Agan notes, but Chorby doesn’t touch it. “We weren’t uh, excepting guests, haha.”
Forrest skitters, spider-like, up the wall, somehow managing to fit all of its limbs through a hole in the ceiling, vanishing from sight. Another thing to just not worry too hard about.
“’Aight, so, grand tour time. That-“ Chorby points to the ceiling, “is Forrest’s room. Invite only. It values its privacy.” Agan cannot possibly imagine what would drive em to barge into Forrest’s space, but ey appreciate the clear boundaries. “This-“ they gesture to a pile of chairs and blankets, arranged into a sort of tent-fort construct, “-is my, um, room. Please knock, I guess. There’s only one microwave right now, so please don’t break it, the CCTV room never shows anything real, any puzzle books you find should be shared, and we’ve got pinball in the safe room. Okay, end tour!”
Then they’re pulling blankets and pillows out of a cupboard and pressing them into hir arms. “I’m sure you’ll wanna explore or something, but trust me, you’re gonna want a break if you got got by a lot of Consumers. Go cozy up somewhere. Let me know if you need anything!” And then they climb into their blanket fort, as if that’s sensible place to leave things off.
A long, spindly crab leg extends from the ceiling, with some kind of battered stuffed ungulate in its claws. The plush cow-thing is deposited on top of Agan’s pile of blankets, and then the claw retreats back into the ceiling.
“Um, thank you?” Agan says at the stucco paneling. There’s no response.
At a loss for what to do, she sets up her pile of blankets into a makeshift bed, and tries to get some rest.
---
Agan hasn’t slept in… longer than xie knows, really. You don’t actually sleep when you’re dead, it turns out. Yet suddenly, xie has all the time in the world to sleep. It’s a luxury that’s hard to comprehend. A whole day of nothing, just lying in bed, sleeping, resting. If it weren’t for the lingering pain from the attacks, Agan would call this place heaven.
The next day, Chorby shows off the scavenged art supplies they’ve found. Agan decides that maybe now is the time to actually learn to sew, and Chorby shares all of the dumb stories they know about Agan’s old new team, and then some. It’s cold, and it always sounds like something is crawling in the walls, and Agan has gotten lost seven times already, but it’s nice.
The pain hasn’t gone away, but just being able to hang out is still relaxing, despite that. Agan hasn’t been relaxed since… becoming a fire protector, really. They’re not doing anything, but it is relaxing. They don’t have to worry about the league, or their team, or the exploding suns in the sky, or the revenant on the mound, or the people who might die because they wanted to hide in a hole, or, or, or
And maybe it’s that slow spiral that gets the door to open.
It’s not a regular door. Nothing about this place is regular, but just looking at it, she can tell that it’s different. She can tell that it leads somewhere different. It leads out.
Forrest finds em, sitting in front of the door. “You don’t have to go.”
“But I could, right? It leads out?”
Forrest folds its legs into a sitting position in front of hir. “You might not get batted in.”
Agan sighs. “This place is… nice. I think you’ve made something nice here, for what it’s worth.”
“Yes. But?”
“How do you stand being here, and not knowing? Not being able to tell what’s happening out there?”
Forrest tilts its head to the side, considering. “You make peace with it.”
Ze buries zer head in zer hands. “I don’t know what to do!”
“You don’t owe anyone out there anything, you know?” a voice rings from behind them. Agan hadn’t even heard Chorby enter, but there they are, pulling up a chair of all things. “You don’t have to go out there and save the world or anything.”
Agan gapes slightly. “I’m not- I don’t think I’m the person who fixes all that, I don’t-“
“But you feel like it’s your job anyway?”
“… Yeah.” It’s not even that hard to admit it. They saved the Artists; they got dragged out of the hall to do it again for another team. Why not save the whole league?
“Besides, you go out there, get batted in, you just end up in on the bench anyway.”
Maybe it’s cruel, that ve’s even sitting here debating it while Chorby doesn’t even have the option to leave. “You’ve been a pretty good host, you know?”
They look a little baffled by the non-sequitur. “Huh?”
“You really have made something nice here. There’s not a lot of nice things in the world, right now.”
“Oh, uh, thanks?”
“So,” Agan stands, continuing,” I want you to know that I’m not going out there because you guys are bad company, or anything.”
Chorby stumbles to a stand. “Wait, what? You’ve decided? You don’t have to-“
“I want to, Chorby. Maybe I can’t protect anyone right now, but… I can’t stay here, not knowing what’s going on up there. I need to see it through to the end.”
“Alright. I’m not gonna try to talk you out of it, then. The door‘ll close while we debate ‘bout it, anyway. Do you-“
Agan interrupts them, pulling Chorby into a hug. “I needed to be here, I think,” she mumbles, “so thank you, for the break.”
They squeeze back, before separating. “Ok, ok, we can’t get too mushy, Forrest is very sensitive,” they turn zem around to face the door. Forrest just peers down at zem, before placing its hand on zer head with a gentle pat. “Do you have everything you need?”
Agan peeks over their shoulder at the both of them. “Thanks, guys. I think I do.”
Ze steps through the door, and out onto the field.