Work Text:
Two eyes with different underlines drift towards the other end of the room, the same room, the same room he’d been seeing every day for too long already. How could he ever forget what sort of new hell he’d been dunked into?
As far as Lucky could tell, it was just too much time.
Too much time was an idea he couldn’t really articulate to most people, or at least it seemed like it would be an impossible task. They all talked about having more free time, more relaxation, more days off in a year.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
It was normal for Lucky to always be doing things, doing something in every moment of his day, to pursue whatever needed pursuing.
It made too much sense now why he wanted to be at bat.
As a pitcher, he was left to zoom out after he threw. Scan over the crowd and all their faces, how many of them were staring at him? with what sort of feeling?
On the bench, he could only think about how the metal was too cold or too hot under him or struggle with how long it had been since he last rose or how these stupid uniforms were definitely scratchier than the ones last year.
Now that he was here?
Here in this cold place with not enough sunlight and not enough action and being told there was only so much he could do, for the moment, for the months,
for his life?
Told he had to heal up. Well, what was healing? It wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t making so much motion, wasn’t a struggle like everything worth doing had been to him.
Fading. Fading with every moment that passes.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. He’d been doing everything he could. Everything. Everything.
Don’t they understand that it was everything?
Staying still, moving too slow, too bland and too gentle and using that tone that felt like they were hiding some kind of mockery.
Every moment he wasn’t doing something was a moment that everything else crept up his spine, crawled into his head, and tried to make a slideshow of everything this was supposed to save him from.
save me from?
is that what I stuck into it?
something better?
or was I just running from it?
He needed to run. There was nothing behind that point that he ever wanted to return to. Nothing else made sense.
When he ran, his mind was full of his own motion, his own form, every action and reaction that composed Maximo ‘Lucky’ Jonronero in flight running down the lines ‘round the bases and heading for home.
He was supposed to be running, wasn’t he?
Not here.
Not within these walls.
Trying to steer away from the echoes he wasn’t supposed to be facing ever again. Take the ball. Throw the ball. Do it with your off hand. It’s fine. Throw the ball. Watch the ball. Catch the ball. Don’t take your eyes off of the ball. Never take your eyes off of the ball.
The near-sphere, weathered off-white, crimson stitches racing around it to keep it in the form it needed to be in. Feels right in the hand. Just heavy enough. People never think about how attuned they need to be, but he could feel this one was a little light. Everyone cut corners nowadays. Cutting corners. Cutting away, away, away from what was supposed to be right, and explain it away, away, away later on. Act like it’s fine.
Of course it isn’t fine.
He’d heard her mutterings. Something about people who were supposed to be good at this being laid off. Cut, cut, cut, cut. She was trying, but she wasn’t supposed to take that place.
Humans aren’t supposed to do everything. Different people were good at different things, made to do different things, not to break like this. Not to shatter like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Was she just good at checking on people? Was that her thing? What about that weirdo with the clipboard? Shouldn’t he be in some kind of haunted house?
That girl, that boy. What were they going to be? That other girl was gonna be an artist, for sure.
Samurai. What was his place in the world? His purpose? He didn’t say much. Was he just there to listen?
Do some people exist just to exist?
Keep watching. Maybe it would help.
But not as much as being back out there was. Being able to push himself. Trouncing the others. They said he always pushed too far, but he was doing everything he could and they weren’t.
Why didn’t they? What the hell was wrong with them? If you’re where you need to be, why would you do anything less?
this wasn’t supposed to happen.
i’m not supposed to be here.
And sometimes nothing makes sense, and sometimes there’s sound and fury in the hall, and that’s almost as good as doing something himself.
It’s real. Not like television could be. Television all felt fake and flat, a workshopped image made to shine but never to last.
Made to be thrown away.
Thrown away like a crushed can.
Shining but never lasting.
Propaganda, talking heads, he couldn’t even look at himself one last time through the screen. There’s something wrong about that now, more than it was before.
It wasn’t him anymore.
it’s not me anymore, they can’t see me in this state, so
Just an impulse, a remnant making its way in the same circles every time. Rounding the bases and heading for home. Not a person. Just an afterimage. Something that doesn’t matter anymore.
It hurt.
i don’t deserve this please tell me how i failed i won’t do it again
Thoughts like that hurt worse.
The ball was spiked into the floor, where it bounced off towards the bathroom. Better than a bedpan. Could be worse, could always be worse.
Worth a chuckle.
Raise up, resisting the mattress calling his name. Turn about, other arm other arm, ugh, just a little support, legs off the edge and then feet on the floor. No cleats in the hospital.
Step, step, step by step, make way to the ball resting against the door, having committed no sin, merely being at hand when it all became too much for him.
…
Was that it? Had he simply been at hand when something above, something below, something more had too much in their own head? Do they play that closely to the games of just…people?
Or was it on purpose? Was there something he just wasn’t getting about life, and this was some kind of redirection?
Or…maybe this was supposed to put him in the right direction for something even greater than the glory before?
or maybe you’re just overthinking it.
it’s a ball, Lucky.
a ball without sin.
Maybe he was losing his mind in here, too. But at the same time…maybe he was getting to know it better?
He’d just have to see.