fic: red right hand
Title: Red Right Hand
Author: cutfastball
Pairing: Nick Swisher/AJ Burnett, Nick Swisher/Joanna Garcia
Rating: we'll call this R, for vague fucked-upness.
Disclaimer: i don't own this, this is no way reflects the ideas, real lives, proclivities or plans of the people in this story. it is a work of fiction.
Prompt: from lovelyracketeer: "You said 'where I'm from there is a lock and key/ If you'd be so kind as to follow me /I will show you the way to the rest of my sins.'" -Secret by Missy Higgins
Summary: Even though they're sleeping together, there's something off about AJ that Nick can't put his finger on.
Nick likes to think of people in terms of archetypes. Obviously he knows that there is more to everyone, especially this group he’s been so delightfully thrown in with, but it makes a lot of things easier in his mind. He’s a simple guy like that. Most of the archetypes he makes up, too, so it’s not that shallow of an idea.
There are a few guys on the team who fall squarely into one category, like Jeter (The Captain, El Capitan) and Rivera (The Wise Sage), but almost everyone else is a hybrid of two or more. He, for example, is half-Rock Star, half-Grandma’s Boy. And then there’s Granderson, half-Inner City Kid, half-College Professor. Posada is half-Grumpy Old Man, half-Secretly Approving Father. And the list goes on, because one day when his knee was especially bad he sat down and decided to write down everyone he could think of, sort them into groups. The list is still in his locker somewhere, but he’s not quite sure he wants to dig through all his crap to find it.
On that list, AJ Burnett is the only one who has question marks next to his name. Next to Burnett, it says ‘southern gentleman party boy headcase neurotic pitcher ??????.’ There’s something more to Burnett, something deeper, something... well, something odd, that he just can’t put his finger on. Every time Nick thinks about this, he laughs, because it seems funny that he knows less about the guy he’s fucking than everyone else on the team. It’s a pretty easy relationship, very few strings attached, but that doesn’t seem right. Being with a guy with issues like Burnett’s should be complicated. It should be difficult. There should be a lot of Burnett staring moodily out hotel windows and Nick wrapping his arms around him and asking what’s wrong. There should be more of Burnett tossing and turning, unable to sleep fitfully. There should be more drama. It’s not that Nick doesn’t love having this thing, so uncomplicated, all about physical pleasure and bodies, but this year it’s seemed so damn off. All of this even comes before the wreck of a season that Burnett is in the process of having - which may or may not be an entirely different issue, and one Nick isn’t even going to try and figure out.
For example, when Burnett comes in sporting that spectacular black eye that no one could stop talking about, he doesn’t tell Nick why. He doesn’t really tell anyone why, but Nick feels particularly offended because hell, he’s fucking sleeping with the guy, both fucking and getting fucked by him on a regular basis, and Burnett won’t tell him about the black eye. He could ask, but that isn’t the point. The point is that when you’re having sex with a guy, telling him about how you got socked in the face should just be part of regular conversation.
I’m just a private guy, Burnett tells him, not trying to be offensive, just the way he is.
So today, he’s pulling on his cleats and Burnett is tying the laces of his sneakers (not pitching today), and he is watching the back of that blonde head speculatively. He’s trying to decide whether to ask him if he’s all right, whether to talk to him after the game, whether to suggest they head back to Nick’s apartment for beer and sex. Burnett is oblivious to the stare into the back of his head, talking to David Robertson about something, and eventually the two pitchers walk off into the dugout. Nick is left chewing his lip and thinking too hard, and he manages to somehow tie his fingers into the knot in his cleat so bad he needs Gardner to help separate his hand from his shoe.
*
It’s a good game to be a Yankee and not a good game to be Tiger, unless you’re Johnny Damon. Damon slugs two home runs, one to each side of the outfield and both with runners on and provides every single RBI the Tigers get in the game. The rest of the Tigers are generally unimpressive, starting with their big-necked starter Jeremy Bonderman and ending with Miguel Cabrera’s 0-for-5 performance. Hughes is pitching, and Nick hears him talk about awesome it is that he doesn’t have to intentionally walk the guy once today. It’s an especially good day to be Nick Swisher, who bangs a triple (though it’s officially a double and an error- thanks, Raburn) and practically prances into home plate when Teixeira hits this enormous no-doubter into left. It’s the kind of home run that everyone knows is gone the minute they hear the ball hit the bat, and Bonderman must know even before that, because the pitch is just a giant meatball.
After the game (they win, 8-5), him and Damon go to a bar Damon likes and they drink. Nick remembers Damon as talented at two things: baseball and drinking, and he’s already rocked one today, so it’s time for the other. Damon talks about Detroit, which is a city that he actually really does like, and the fans are a really great bunch, and he has Phil Coke, who is also crazy. Swisher talks about how Granderson is seriously a really nice guy, and that he misses these crazy drinking adventures, and Cervelli is still the baseball equivalent of the dorky little brother that is just a tad over-enthusiastic. Nick is trying to get him to stop pointing at every damn popup, but it’s just not working.
Eventually they start talking about girls, speaking in drunken voices, curled up in the corner of the bar where no one will bother them. Damon is talking about his wife - he’s always been loyal, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, because Nick has a sneaky suspicion Damon is a great fuck. Nick talks about Joanna, because god she is beautiful and wonderful, and even okay with his thing with Burnett. Nick confesses that he wants nothing more than to get both of them in bed together. Damon quirks an eyebrow and drinks and rolls his eyes.
Leave it to thinking of Burnett, of course, to put him in this mood, and Damon can probably tell, because he asks what’s wrong. God, could he ever go on.
AJ is a noble suffering hero, he says, rolling his eyes and scowling. Burnett is not noble nor a hero, and Damon snorts at him.
Damon suggests Nick pin him until he talks about it, and that seems to be everyone’s advice these days. Nick orders another beer and inquires about the Tigers clubhouse. Damon goes with the subject change with a grimace.
*
He is lying in bed with Joanna curled into his side, all brown hair and soft skin and beauty, and his thoughts are far away, considering a scowling blonde with features too harsh to be attractive. They’re polar opposites, Joanna and Burnett. Joanna will come home after a day of shooting and everything she says will be what has happened today and how she felt about it, and how it could have been better or worse, and what everyone else had to say about it. Then she will ask for his opinions on everything, if she should have said something else, if what someone else did was a good idea, and so on. Nick loves listening to what goes on in her day, loves replying in kind.
With Burnett it’s different. Burnett replies to his questions in one or two words answers, just shrugs and shakes his head about whatever is going on for him at home. Burnett asks him how his day was, but Nick can tell that Burnett honestly doesn’t really care. Plus, in most cases, Burnett knows how his day was - they work together, after all.
Joanna plays her fingers across his chest and laughs at his distant expression.
You’re thinking about your boyfriend, she accuses, laughing and kissing his chest. You need to sit him down and demand he tell you what’s wrong.
Nick decides that when his fiance tells him that he has a problem with his teammate/fuckbuddy, it might be time to actually do something about it. Meanwhile, he tries to shove Burnett into a much smaller corner of head. It’s pretty easy, because Joanna is so beautiful right here, and she has such a nice body that’s all for him, and before long he’s barely thinking straight at all.
*
A few days later, Burnett is lying in his hotel bed wearing a threadbare Blue Jays t-shirt that’s tearing at the seam in his shoulder, mostly likely worn soft by approximately a thousand washes. He’s on his side, face hidden so far in his pillow that Nick would be surprised if he could see at all. He’s also wearing a pair equally ragged boxes, and Nick wants to stick his finger in the hole that’s opening up over Burnett’s thigh.
“Hey,” he says, sitting down on the other side of the bed.
“Hey,” says Burnett, into the pillow.
“What’s been bothering you lately?” Nick asks, trying not to fidget.
Burnett’s head sinks deeper into the pillow, if at all possible. “Nothing,” he says, and Nick has to really listen to understand him, his mouth muffled.
“Come on, tell me what’s wrong.”
“No.”
The straight-up refusal stuns him into a momentary silence.
“Besides,” Burnett continues into the pillow, “I don’t think you’d care.”
The shock quickly morphs into an indignant kind of anger, and for the first time in his baseball career he’s pretty glad he took it easy on the Red Bull after the game. He’s pretty sure that his usual post-loss, hyperwired self might have exploded in some gruesome faction.
“Where’d that come from? Of course I’d care. I care about you, AJ.” Nick actually sounds out the letters, and it sounds more like age. He shifts on the side of the bed, his anger cools, and suddenly he feels more confused than anything else. “I mean, I care about you more than I care about a lot of other people. I wouldn’t do this thing with you if I didn’t, you know, consider you a really close friend. And pitching totally aside, seeing you miserable all the time and pretending to be happy for everyone makes me really upset. If there’s some way I can help, I’d like too.” The words fall from his mouth slowly, carefully. He’s no good at this therapist thing, and for just a split second thinks that asking might have been a bad idea. But it’s too late now, and so he’s here feeling out each word.
Of course, Burnett sees right through him. “Please.” he says, and Nick can practically hear the eyeroll in his voice. The pitcher finally sits up and stares out of the hotel window, says nothing else. Nick finds himself wondering why he wanted this tension. It feels heavy, like being down 0-2, like having absolutely no idea what pitch is coming. It makes him a bit queasy.
“What I mean is that I don’t think you’re, um...” he pauses, and Nick can imagine that mean little smile curling across his mouth, “Not really equipped to deal with my drama. Drinking a lot of Red Bull and yelling at the wall is not going to make my problems any better. As a matter of fact, it’ll probably just give me a migraine. And since that’s how you’ve dealt with every problem you’ve ever had, I figured that’s how you would deal with this one.”
“Um, first of all, AJ, I’m not stupid. Just because I like to keep it light doesn’t make me like, some retard or something.”
Burnett snorts.
“And second of all, I don’t really think it’s right of you to be judging every problem I have had on the two-and-some years we’ve known each other. You don’t know what I’ve been through, or how my life was, really, before that.” It’s easy to be mad now, and much easier to want to dismiss whatever problems are plaguing Burnett when the guy acts like such an asshole. Nick knows Burnett can sometimes be insensitive, and shaking it off isn’t hard, but he’s trying to care and Burnett is basically skewering him about it. “I’m not going to drink Red Bull and shout at the wall if you tell me what’s wrong. I might actually make suggestions.”
“I think that when you find out, you’ll just run away. Or, maybe not run away, not at least not be interested in helping. And you can’t help, anyway, so you might as well not bother.” Burnett’s head drops, and he draws one tattooed hand through his blonde hair. Nick reaches out and grabs that hand, tugs on it. Burnett snaps it out of the outfielder’s grip, puts both hands in his own lap.
Nick stands and crosses his arms across his chest. He’s trying to keep the anger off his face, trying not to scowl too much, because yeah, he’s been judged before as a clown, a joker, someone who doesn’t take things seriously. This is nothing new. But those judgements were by the press and fans, and they never know anything; here is AJ Burnett, his fuckbuddy and teammate, saying shit he’d only expect from some bandwagon fan from out of state. It’s hard not to get frustrated, but he has a feeling that Burnett’s goal is just that, to get him to give up and stomp off. That’s something he would do.
But not this damn time.
He sighs once, blowing out air and annoyance. “What can I do to help? If that means we stop sleeping together, fine, we can do that. Hell, if you think that never talking to me again would work, I’d deal with it. I want you to be happy, man. That’s it. I don’t have some sort of secret ulterior motive. I don’t even care if you don’t pitch for shit, but seeing you miserable like this just .... really rubs me the wrong way.”
“You can’t do anything,” repeats Burnett tonelessly, “So just let it go.”
“AJ.” It’s getting harder not to just growl at him and throw him down and demand he say something. He resists the urge to stomp, just makes his way over to the other side of the bed, but Burnett turns his whole body to face the wall, unwilling to look at him.
“Forget it, Swish,” he says.
“Man, I can’t figure you out.” He knows he sounds frustrated, and damn does he just want to stomp out and complain to someone (maybe Gardner, he’s always good for complaining to), but he knows that if he leaves, this’ll be over, and he probably won’t get another chance to solve this. “Everyone else, they have a thing, or they act in a certain way, and they do certain things, but here you are, acting like a brat with issues. I’m trying to help you. I might not be Eiland or Girardi or, I don’t know, Roy Halladay or something, but here I am.”
Burnett finally looks at him, and Nick feels ice cold. Burnett has those light blue eyes, and they feel like icebergs today, staring him down. He doesn’t have much of a record verses the guy, and honestly he doesn’t distinctly remember any at-bats, but he’s pretty sure it must have felt like this, all shivery and pulsing with nearly-tangible dislike, to bat against him.
Then Burnett stands up, and it gets worse; Burnett towers over him, a good five inches, and it seems like more because every fiber of the pitcher’s being is radiating animosity. This must be what it’s like to catch for the guy, and Nick doesn’t envy Cervelli, wonders if Posada avoids this because he can imagine the grumpy veteran catcher and the occasionally-sour pitcher getting into fights on the mound.
“You really want to know what’s bothering me?” He says, in a tight, controlled voice.
Nick is not confrontational. He’d rather avoid the drama and start a party, rather skate on a surface of fake grins than get down to the scowls underneath it. Every part of him right now is screaming to leave, to back off, to lower his head and mutter an apology or make an off-color joke. But he sucks in a breath for confidence and matches eyes with those blue glaciers; he pushes his chest out and his shoulders back and has the sudden memory of having hit a home run against Burnett, a long time ago.
“Yeah,” he says, not looking away.
“Well,” Burnett starts, and he breaks eye contact first, strolling away in that same controlled matter he has in his voice. “For starters, I’m pitching like shit. Bottom of the barrel, rookie ball shit. Absolutely embarrassing shit that makes me a little sick when I get paychecks. New York hates me. The rest of the major leagues is laughing their ass off. I am untradeable but everyone knows this organization wishes they could dump me. I’m a project. Something to get ‘fixed.’ To make it worse, the person in front of me in the rotation is CC Sabathia, practically New York's god. We are the extremes of pitching contracts.”
“Is that it?” Nick stares at the back of his head, tries not to run from the intensity, the force in everything Burnett is doing: his stride, his clenched hands, the way he’s probably staring holes into the wall.
“Also,” he continues, and the tightness in his voice turns into something casual and deadly and terrible, and Nick’s stomach sinks. “My wife thinks I’m cheating on her. It’s just a hunch - she has no proof, of course, but all she needs is a hunch to call the fucking New York Times, even though she says she won't.”
“AJ, if you want us to stop---”
Burnett stops and leans against the hotel door. He crosses his arms across his chest, looking down at one of his hands. “Meanwhile,” he continues, as if Nick hasn’t spoken at all, still looking at his hand, “I fantasize about leaving bloody gashes in your face. Start my nails right where you wear your eyeblack, and draw them down so it looks like you’re crying and sweating blood all at the same time. I think about your agonized cries and the scabs you’d have. After we were done, I would take care of you - really good care, hold cloth and bandaids and antiseptic and kiss you very gently and make sure no one disrupted you when you were healing, of course. But when I think about bleeding you when I’m jerking off, I come so hard that I have to bite down on my own fist to stop from crying out and I have, on multiple occasions, drawn blood from biting so hard.” He reveals the hand, which has several tiny little scabs on it.
Nick imagines he must looked comically shocked, eyes wide like dinner plates.
Burnett smiles a helpless little smile. Despite the obvious harm that the pitcher wants to do to his face, Nick finds himself suddenly overwhelmingly sad.
With a sad whuff of a laugh, Burnett continues, “And that’s just the beginning.”
I tag americanleaguer with:
"Send out your skeletons; sing as their bones come marching in - again."
- The Pretender, Foo Fighters
Author: cutfastball
Pairing: Nick Swisher/AJ Burnett, Nick Swisher/Joanna Garcia
Rating: we'll call this R, for vague fucked-upness.
Disclaimer: i don't own this, this is no way reflects the ideas, real lives, proclivities or plans of the people in this story. it is a work of fiction.
Prompt: from lovelyracketeer: "You said 'where I'm from there is a lock and key/ If you'd be so kind as to follow me /I will show you the way to the rest of my sins.'" -Secret by Missy Higgins
Summary: Even though they're sleeping together, there's something off about AJ that Nick can't put his finger on.
Nick likes to think of people in terms of archetypes. Obviously he knows that there is more to everyone, especially this group he’s been so delightfully thrown in with, but it makes a lot of things easier in his mind. He’s a simple guy like that. Most of the archetypes he makes up, too, so it’s not that shallow of an idea.
There are a few guys on the team who fall squarely into one category, like Jeter (The Captain, El Capitan) and Rivera (The Wise Sage), but almost everyone else is a hybrid of two or more. He, for example, is half-Rock Star, half-Grandma’s Boy. And then there’s Granderson, half-Inner City Kid, half-College Professor. Posada is half-Grumpy Old Man, half-Secretly Approving Father. And the list goes on, because one day when his knee was especially bad he sat down and decided to write down everyone he could think of, sort them into groups. The list is still in his locker somewhere, but he’s not quite sure he wants to dig through all his crap to find it.
On that list, AJ Burnett is the only one who has question marks next to his name. Next to Burnett, it says ‘southern gentleman party boy headcase neurotic pitcher ??????.’ There’s something more to Burnett, something deeper, something... well, something odd, that he just can’t put his finger on. Every time Nick thinks about this, he laughs, because it seems funny that he knows less about the guy he’s fucking than everyone else on the team. It’s a pretty easy relationship, very few strings attached, but that doesn’t seem right. Being with a guy with issues like Burnett’s should be complicated. It should be difficult. There should be a lot of Burnett staring moodily out hotel windows and Nick wrapping his arms around him and asking what’s wrong. There should be more of Burnett tossing and turning, unable to sleep fitfully. There should be more drama. It’s not that Nick doesn’t love having this thing, so uncomplicated, all about physical pleasure and bodies, but this year it’s seemed so damn off. All of this even comes before the wreck of a season that Burnett is in the process of having - which may or may not be an entirely different issue, and one Nick isn’t even going to try and figure out.
For example, when Burnett comes in sporting that spectacular black eye that no one could stop talking about, he doesn’t tell Nick why. He doesn’t really tell anyone why, but Nick feels particularly offended because hell, he’s fucking sleeping with the guy, both fucking and getting fucked by him on a regular basis, and Burnett won’t tell him about the black eye. He could ask, but that isn’t the point. The point is that when you’re having sex with a guy, telling him about how you got socked in the face should just be part of regular conversation.
I’m just a private guy, Burnett tells him, not trying to be offensive, just the way he is.
So today, he’s pulling on his cleats and Burnett is tying the laces of his sneakers (not pitching today), and he is watching the back of that blonde head speculatively. He’s trying to decide whether to ask him if he’s all right, whether to talk to him after the game, whether to suggest they head back to Nick’s apartment for beer and sex. Burnett is oblivious to the stare into the back of his head, talking to David Robertson about something, and eventually the two pitchers walk off into the dugout. Nick is left chewing his lip and thinking too hard, and he manages to somehow tie his fingers into the knot in his cleat so bad he needs Gardner to help separate his hand from his shoe.
*
It’s a good game to be a Yankee and not a good game to be Tiger, unless you’re Johnny Damon. Damon slugs two home runs, one to each side of the outfield and both with runners on and provides every single RBI the Tigers get in the game. The rest of the Tigers are generally unimpressive, starting with their big-necked starter Jeremy Bonderman and ending with Miguel Cabrera’s 0-for-5 performance. Hughes is pitching, and Nick hears him talk about awesome it is that he doesn’t have to intentionally walk the guy once today. It’s an especially good day to be Nick Swisher, who bangs a triple (though it’s officially a double and an error- thanks, Raburn) and practically prances into home plate when Teixeira hits this enormous no-doubter into left. It’s the kind of home run that everyone knows is gone the minute they hear the ball hit the bat, and Bonderman must know even before that, because the pitch is just a giant meatball.
After the game (they win, 8-5), him and Damon go to a bar Damon likes and they drink. Nick remembers Damon as talented at two things: baseball and drinking, and he’s already rocked one today, so it’s time for the other. Damon talks about Detroit, which is a city that he actually really does like, and the fans are a really great bunch, and he has Phil Coke, who is also crazy. Swisher talks about how Granderson is seriously a really nice guy, and that he misses these crazy drinking adventures, and Cervelli is still the baseball equivalent of the dorky little brother that is just a tad over-enthusiastic. Nick is trying to get him to stop pointing at every damn popup, but it’s just not working.
Eventually they start talking about girls, speaking in drunken voices, curled up in the corner of the bar where no one will bother them. Damon is talking about his wife - he’s always been loyal, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, because Nick has a sneaky suspicion Damon is a great fuck. Nick talks about Joanna, because god she is beautiful and wonderful, and even okay with his thing with Burnett. Nick confesses that he wants nothing more than to get both of them in bed together. Damon quirks an eyebrow and drinks and rolls his eyes.
Leave it to thinking of Burnett, of course, to put him in this mood, and Damon can probably tell, because he asks what’s wrong. God, could he ever go on.
AJ is a noble suffering hero, he says, rolling his eyes and scowling. Burnett is not noble nor a hero, and Damon snorts at him.
Damon suggests Nick pin him until he talks about it, and that seems to be everyone’s advice these days. Nick orders another beer and inquires about the Tigers clubhouse. Damon goes with the subject change with a grimace.
*
He is lying in bed with Joanna curled into his side, all brown hair and soft skin and beauty, and his thoughts are far away, considering a scowling blonde with features too harsh to be attractive. They’re polar opposites, Joanna and Burnett. Joanna will come home after a day of shooting and everything she says will be what has happened today and how she felt about it, and how it could have been better or worse, and what everyone else had to say about it. Then she will ask for his opinions on everything, if she should have said something else, if what someone else did was a good idea, and so on. Nick loves listening to what goes on in her day, loves replying in kind.
With Burnett it’s different. Burnett replies to his questions in one or two words answers, just shrugs and shakes his head about whatever is going on for him at home. Burnett asks him how his day was, but Nick can tell that Burnett honestly doesn’t really care. Plus, in most cases, Burnett knows how his day was - they work together, after all.
Joanna plays her fingers across his chest and laughs at his distant expression.
You’re thinking about your boyfriend, she accuses, laughing and kissing his chest. You need to sit him down and demand he tell you what’s wrong.
Nick decides that when his fiance tells him that he has a problem with his teammate/fuckbuddy, it might be time to actually do something about it. Meanwhile, he tries to shove Burnett into a much smaller corner of head. It’s pretty easy, because Joanna is so beautiful right here, and she has such a nice body that’s all for him, and before long he’s barely thinking straight at all.
*
A few days later, Burnett is lying in his hotel bed wearing a threadbare Blue Jays t-shirt that’s tearing at the seam in his shoulder, mostly likely worn soft by approximately a thousand washes. He’s on his side, face hidden so far in his pillow that Nick would be surprised if he could see at all. He’s also wearing a pair equally ragged boxes, and Nick wants to stick his finger in the hole that’s opening up over Burnett’s thigh.
“Hey,” he says, sitting down on the other side of the bed.
“Hey,” says Burnett, into the pillow.
“What’s been bothering you lately?” Nick asks, trying not to fidget.
Burnett’s head sinks deeper into the pillow, if at all possible. “Nothing,” he says, and Nick has to really listen to understand him, his mouth muffled.
“Come on, tell me what’s wrong.”
“No.”
The straight-up refusal stuns him into a momentary silence.
“Besides,” Burnett continues into the pillow, “I don’t think you’d care.”
The shock quickly morphs into an indignant kind of anger, and for the first time in his baseball career he’s pretty glad he took it easy on the Red Bull after the game. He’s pretty sure that his usual post-loss, hyperwired self might have exploded in some gruesome faction.
“Where’d that come from? Of course I’d care. I care about you, AJ.” Nick actually sounds out the letters, and it sounds more like age. He shifts on the side of the bed, his anger cools, and suddenly he feels more confused than anything else. “I mean, I care about you more than I care about a lot of other people. I wouldn’t do this thing with you if I didn’t, you know, consider you a really close friend. And pitching totally aside, seeing you miserable all the time and pretending to be happy for everyone makes me really upset. If there’s some way I can help, I’d like too.” The words fall from his mouth slowly, carefully. He’s no good at this therapist thing, and for just a split second thinks that asking might have been a bad idea. But it’s too late now, and so he’s here feeling out each word.
Of course, Burnett sees right through him. “Please.” he says, and Nick can practically hear the eyeroll in his voice. The pitcher finally sits up and stares out of the hotel window, says nothing else. Nick finds himself wondering why he wanted this tension. It feels heavy, like being down 0-2, like having absolutely no idea what pitch is coming. It makes him a bit queasy.
“What I mean is that I don’t think you’re, um...” he pauses, and Nick can imagine that mean little smile curling across his mouth, “Not really equipped to deal with my drama. Drinking a lot of Red Bull and yelling at the wall is not going to make my problems any better. As a matter of fact, it’ll probably just give me a migraine. And since that’s how you’ve dealt with every problem you’ve ever had, I figured that’s how you would deal with this one.”
“Um, first of all, AJ, I’m not stupid. Just because I like to keep it light doesn’t make me like, some retard or something.”
Burnett snorts.
“And second of all, I don’t really think it’s right of you to be judging every problem I have had on the two-and-some years we’ve known each other. You don’t know what I’ve been through, or how my life was, really, before that.” It’s easy to be mad now, and much easier to want to dismiss whatever problems are plaguing Burnett when the guy acts like such an asshole. Nick knows Burnett can sometimes be insensitive, and shaking it off isn’t hard, but he’s trying to care and Burnett is basically skewering him about it. “I’m not going to drink Red Bull and shout at the wall if you tell me what’s wrong. I might actually make suggestions.”
“I think that when you find out, you’ll just run away. Or, maybe not run away, not at least not be interested in helping. And you can’t help, anyway, so you might as well not bother.” Burnett’s head drops, and he draws one tattooed hand through his blonde hair. Nick reaches out and grabs that hand, tugs on it. Burnett snaps it out of the outfielder’s grip, puts both hands in his own lap.
Nick stands and crosses his arms across his chest. He’s trying to keep the anger off his face, trying not to scowl too much, because yeah, he’s been judged before as a clown, a joker, someone who doesn’t take things seriously. This is nothing new. But those judgements were by the press and fans, and they never know anything; here is AJ Burnett, his fuckbuddy and teammate, saying shit he’d only expect from some bandwagon fan from out of state. It’s hard not to get frustrated, but he has a feeling that Burnett’s goal is just that, to get him to give up and stomp off. That’s something he would do.
But not this damn time.
He sighs once, blowing out air and annoyance. “What can I do to help? If that means we stop sleeping together, fine, we can do that. Hell, if you think that never talking to me again would work, I’d deal with it. I want you to be happy, man. That’s it. I don’t have some sort of secret ulterior motive. I don’t even care if you don’t pitch for shit, but seeing you miserable like this just .... really rubs me the wrong way.”
“You can’t do anything,” repeats Burnett tonelessly, “So just let it go.”
“AJ.” It’s getting harder not to just growl at him and throw him down and demand he say something. He resists the urge to stomp, just makes his way over to the other side of the bed, but Burnett turns his whole body to face the wall, unwilling to look at him.
“Forget it, Swish,” he says.
“Man, I can’t figure you out.” He knows he sounds frustrated, and damn does he just want to stomp out and complain to someone (maybe Gardner, he’s always good for complaining to), but he knows that if he leaves, this’ll be over, and he probably won’t get another chance to solve this. “Everyone else, they have a thing, or they act in a certain way, and they do certain things, but here you are, acting like a brat with issues. I’m trying to help you. I might not be Eiland or Girardi or, I don’t know, Roy Halladay or something, but here I am.”
Burnett finally looks at him, and Nick feels ice cold. Burnett has those light blue eyes, and they feel like icebergs today, staring him down. He doesn’t have much of a record verses the guy, and honestly he doesn’t distinctly remember any at-bats, but he’s pretty sure it must have felt like this, all shivery and pulsing with nearly-tangible dislike, to bat against him.
Then Burnett stands up, and it gets worse; Burnett towers over him, a good five inches, and it seems like more because every fiber of the pitcher’s being is radiating animosity. This must be what it’s like to catch for the guy, and Nick doesn’t envy Cervelli, wonders if Posada avoids this because he can imagine the grumpy veteran catcher and the occasionally-sour pitcher getting into fights on the mound.
“You really want to know what’s bothering me?” He says, in a tight, controlled voice.
Nick is not confrontational. He’d rather avoid the drama and start a party, rather skate on a surface of fake grins than get down to the scowls underneath it. Every part of him right now is screaming to leave, to back off, to lower his head and mutter an apology or make an off-color joke. But he sucks in a breath for confidence and matches eyes with those blue glaciers; he pushes his chest out and his shoulders back and has the sudden memory of having hit a home run against Burnett, a long time ago.
“Yeah,” he says, not looking away.
“Well,” Burnett starts, and he breaks eye contact first, strolling away in that same controlled matter he has in his voice. “For starters, I’m pitching like shit. Bottom of the barrel, rookie ball shit. Absolutely embarrassing shit that makes me a little sick when I get paychecks. New York hates me. The rest of the major leagues is laughing their ass off. I am untradeable but everyone knows this organization wishes they could dump me. I’m a project. Something to get ‘fixed.’ To make it worse, the person in front of me in the rotation is CC Sabathia, practically New York's god. We are the extremes of pitching contracts.”
“Is that it?” Nick stares at the back of his head, tries not to run from the intensity, the force in everything Burnett is doing: his stride, his clenched hands, the way he’s probably staring holes into the wall.
“Also,” he continues, and the tightness in his voice turns into something casual and deadly and terrible, and Nick’s stomach sinks. “My wife thinks I’m cheating on her. It’s just a hunch - she has no proof, of course, but all she needs is a hunch to call the fucking New York Times, even though she says she won't.”
“AJ, if you want us to stop---”
Burnett stops and leans against the hotel door. He crosses his arms across his chest, looking down at one of his hands. “Meanwhile,” he continues, as if Nick hasn’t spoken at all, still looking at his hand, “I fantasize about leaving bloody gashes in your face. Start my nails right where you wear your eyeblack, and draw them down so it looks like you’re crying and sweating blood all at the same time. I think about your agonized cries and the scabs you’d have. After we were done, I would take care of you - really good care, hold cloth and bandaids and antiseptic and kiss you very gently and make sure no one disrupted you when you were healing, of course. But when I think about bleeding you when I’m jerking off, I come so hard that I have to bite down on my own fist to stop from crying out and I have, on multiple occasions, drawn blood from biting so hard.” He reveals the hand, which has several tiny little scabs on it.
Nick imagines he must looked comically shocked, eyes wide like dinner plates.
Burnett smiles a helpless little smile. Despite the obvious harm that the pitcher wants to do to his face, Nick finds himself suddenly overwhelmingly sad.
With a sad whuff of a laugh, Burnett continues, “And that’s just the beginning.”
I tag americanleaguer with:
"Send out your skeletons; sing as their bones come marching in - again."
- The Pretender, Foo Fighters