MLB Fic: Chinatown

[hollycomb]

Title: Chinatown
Fandom: MLB
Pairing: Jeff/Brian
Rating: R
Summary: AU, Jeff never signed with the Braves and he's living with Brian, who didn't go anywhere in the minor leagues.
Notes: A million thanks, as ever, to chlorate for the beta and for being my fandom bff. ;_;



Jeff keeps pulling this prank on Brian where he'll set his alarm clock to go off at two in the morning. Brian will turn it off without looking and get in the shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast in the dark as usual. He'll go out and lock the door of the apartment behind him, get in the car, marvel at the lack of traffic, and privately gloat about the fact that he's beat his father to the Academy before he looks down at the digital clock on the car's radio and sees that it's not even three AM yet.

He kind of can't believe he keeps falling for it. The fourth time it happens, it really gets to him, and instead of unlocking the Academy and using the time to hit some balls in the cage without commentary, he peels out of the parking lot and drives back to their apartment, makes as much noise coming up the stairs as possible, throws open the door so hard that it bangs against the wall, and knocks on Jeff's bedroom door loud enough to rattle the windows.

"Hey, motherfucker!" he says, going into Jeff's room without waiting for a response. He's alone and naked in bed, like always, his ass covered by a comforter inherited from the guest room at Brian's parents' house. They've had it for five years and they've never washed it.

"What the fuck?" Jeff mumbles, his face pink with sleep.

"If you fuck with my alarm again I'll kill you," Brian says, pushing Jeff over onto his back. His skin is warm and a little moist and suddenly Brian feels like apologizing and shuffling backward out of the room.

"Oh." Jeff grins, then laughs. Brian punches his shoulder. He wishes he didn't want so badly to lie down next to him and go back to sleep. And for Jeff to curl around him, moan happily and wrap an arm around his shoulders. But whatever. He's given up on the ability to stop wishing for things like that. Once, when he was drunk, he sat beside Jeff on the couch at their friend's house and thought out of nowhere, I've been in love with him since I was thirteen years old. And it was weirdly comforting, though not so much later, when he was sober.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Brian asks, and then his eyes almost water, because he's not talking about the alarm clock anymore.

"Sorry," Jeff says. "I'll quit."

As if he'd even know how. Brian takes another shower, jerks off and thinks about Jeff. It's May, and Jeff will want to start going to the apartment complex's little pool again soon, on weekends and at night when he's bored. Brian thinks about the way he'll look, and the way he looked in bed, his shoulders starting to get thick and almost chubby now that they've hit twenty-five. A quarter of their lives is already over. With that in mind, he thinks of Jeff pushing into the shower behind him and putting his arms around him. But that just makes Brian sad, so instead he imagines Jeff's thumb rubbing in circles over the head of his cock the way his is now, and Jeff's teeth on his ear, and he comes just before Jeff, the real Jeff, bangs into the bathroom.

"Don't pee while I'm in the shower," Brian says, still out of breath. "That's so fucking disrespectful." Jeff is probably naked, that's the thing. He's never been modest.

"I won't flush," Jeff says, like he's doing Brian a big favor.

Jeff eats three Toaster Strudels for breakfast and Brian sulks at the table, pretending to read the sports section. Kyle Davies, a kid they played little league ball with, is the number three starter for the Braves, behind Tim Hudson. Brian shuts the paper and doesn't tell Jeff that Kyle's ERA was under one through April.

"You gonna look for a job today?" Brian asks.

"I've got a job," Jeff says, gesturing to the bottles of acai berry supplements that are stacked all over the kitchen counters. Before this it was security systems, and before that he was going to get his real estate license, but then the market went bust.

"So, what, you're going door to door with diet pills, now?"

"Them things fight cancer, too."

"Yeah. Great. How much did you make last week?"

"You know I didn't go out last week. My leg's been bothering me."

Jeff was going to be a big deal college athlete up at Clemson, and for a few months he was. Then in November of 2002 he got clotheslined by a 320-pound senior and landed on his right tibia, which cracked in half, dislocating his knee and ending his football career in the meantime. He was out of college by December, scholarship wasted, too depressed to conjugate Spanish verbs or put acid on rocks in his freshman geology lab. He was a business major and he could have done the business classes alright, but the periphery stuff just got too hard after the crush of the injury.

Brian didn't go to college at all. He got drafted by the Braves in the twenty-ninth round after a horrible senior season, went to rookie instrux in the fall but got released because he couldn't handle the pitchers. It was kind of a relief, except that he had to come home and face his father, who is now also his boss. Brian's older brother was released by the Royals' AA team a couple of years later, and Brian tried not to be glad for the company. Now it's the three of them running the Academy, the washed up McCann Minor Leaguers. Brad coined that, but he'd never say it in front of their father.

"If your leg's bothering you, why don't you go to the doctor?" Brian says. He's tired and in a horrible mood. His dad will keep him at the Academy until ten, and by the time he gets home Jeff will be asleep on the couch, still broke as hell and not contributing to the rent. Brian lies to people and tells them Jeff can sell anything. He could, once, but now it's a labor just to get him to try.

"There's nothing the doctor can do for me," Jeff says, as if his leg is having some sort of spiritual crisis that the medical community wouldn't understand. "I just gotta rest it."

"Still? It's still bugging you this week?"

"S'alright, I can do some cold calls."

Brian groans and heads for the door. He's going to be late for work, which is funny, because at one point this morning he was three hours early.

"Will you be around for dinner?" Jeff asks just before Brian can get himself out the door. Lately he's been hanging at the apartment more and more, not seeing his old high school friends or his even his ex-girlfriend, who married a minister last year but still seems to be holding a candle for Jeff, or at least willing to listen to him whine on the phone for hours at a time about how he never should have taken that football scholarship. He was drafted by the Braves, too, first round, but he turned them down.

"I'll be back late," Brian says. "Dad'll want me to stay for the after-school lessons."

"Ain't school out for the summer yet? You're not going to be doing late lessons after May, are you?"

Brian lingers at the door. Lately Jeff has been doing this, too. Getting his hopes up by wanting him around.

"I don't know," Brian says. "Try to make some money today, alright?"

He's got twenty-six dollars in his back account until his father pays him, and the Academy isn't doing well. If Brian or Brad had actually made it to the majors, even for just a couple of years, that would be one thing, but currently Howie McCann can only advertise his baseball instruction as a sure fire way to get close enough that you end up without a backup plan when things don't pan out.

Brian is not actually unhappy. That's the problem. He knows that whenever Jeff gives in and marries some advertising executive-type girl who will take care of him, then he'll be unhappy. But in the meantime he's got things to look forward to. When he gets off of work he and Jeff will order almond-fried chicken and steamed dumplings from Hong Li and stay up until two in the morning playing Mario Kart against people in France. When he doesn't have that anymore things are going to go downhill fast, but until then he'll just try to be grateful, though Jeff is also slowly driving him insane.

He gets to the Academy at 8:30 and sees his father's truck parked out front, and Brad's Sentra beside it. He curses himself, and Jeff, and sits in the car for awhile, staring at the business his father built from the ground up after he was fired from UGA for being argumentative, which was an institution-approved way to say that he was a mean drunk. He's actually grown to be a much friendlier drunk over the years, and Brian thanks God for small miracles.

"Well, you finally dragged yourself out of bed?" Brian's father says when he walks in. Brad is across from him in the main office with his feet up on their father's desk, Howie bent over his master schedule. Brad is eating an Egg McMuffin and smirking at Brian with competitive sympathy.

"I've been up since two," Brian says, throwing his duffel into the chair next to Brad's.

"What for?" Brad asks.

"I just have," Brian says. He gets some water from the cooler Howie keeps in the corner and looks over the working schedule that is posted on the wall. He's got two one-on-ones back to back at nine and ten. He hates the one-on-ones, the way the kids stare at him like they're waiting for him to make balloon animals. They're always the worse kids, and their desperate parents always hover, watching like they think Brian can cure the kids' naturally floppy wrists and general disinterest in hard work.

"I need you here at seven," Howie says sharply. "Your brother had to do all your prep work this morning."

"Yes, sir," Brian says. He runs a finger over the venetian blinds that hang over the window of Howie's office, which looks out on the cages. They're dusty as hell. His mom used to come in on Saturdays and clean the whole Academy, but she hasn't been around in awhile.

"You see that article about Kyle this morning?" Howie asks, like the article was about Kyle blowing up a mini-mall, not doing well in the majors and becoming a hometown hero.

"Yeah," Brian says. He turns to look at Brad, but he's staring at his McMuffin mournfully.

"How's Stacy?" Brian asks, kicking Brad's chair. Stacy is Brad's wife, and she's four months pregnant.

Brad yawns. "She has heartburn all the time," he says irritably.

Brian envies his brother, and not just because fell in love with a girl. Brad gets to take care of his wife, and has a reason to go to Kroger at four in the morning for lemons if she suddenly wants to eat them whole, skin and all. Brian has always been moved to take care of Jeff this way; he likes buying his groceries knowing that Jeff will eat them, too, and watching college football all day on his rare Saturdays off of work, just because Jeff wants to. But Jeff isn't exactly carrying his child, so he's got to feel guilty about it.

The one-on-ones drag by slowly, as they usually do. Brian doesn't feel like enough of an authority to tell anyone how to hit, not even a shaky eight-year-old who flinches every time his father speaks - especially not him. But it's this or tearing tickets at the movie theater, 'cause he never learned how to fix cars or talk people into buying them or anything else practical, so he kneels down beside the eight-year-old and tries to feel like he knows what he's talking about.

"Were you on the Braves?" the kid asks.

"Almost," Brian says.

Later Brian hears Howie telling one of his older students that Brian was on the same little league team as Kyle Davies, and that Kyle sucked back then, which is not true, and that Kyle was a real ugly kid, which is true but mean. Brian hurries past before he can get drawn in to the conversation, and grabs Brad's elbow.

"We're getting our lunch out," he says.

"What's wrong with you?" Brad asks as Brian pulls him toward the door.

"Nothing," Brian says. "I'm tired."

"You sound like mom."

They go to Captain D's and Brian tries to be healthy by ordering his shrimp grilled instead of fried and drinking a Sprite instead of a Coke. He's getting fat, but so is Jeff, finally, and it makes him smile sometimes, to see the tiny pudge that's starting around the waistband of Jeff's boxer shorts.

"How's your deadbeat roommate?" Brad asks.

"Still a deadbeat," Brian says. "Probably beating off right now, in fact." His cheeks go red, but he keeps saying things like that because he wants Brad, somebody, to guess.

"Lucky," Brad mutters. He doesn't like this job, either. If Stacy hadn't gotten pregnant, he says he would have gotten work on a cruise ship and spent the rest of his life drinking Captain Morgan and sleeping with Jamaican women, but Brian doesn't think he means that.

"You're not going to raise your kid like we were raised, are you?" Brian asks. "Like, 'yes, sir' and all that?"

"Why not?" Brad asks. "What's wrong with 'yes, sir?' I'm telling you, it might seem a little strict but if you don't raise your kid that way they end up a disrespectful loser who nobody likes."

"Didn't we turn out that way?"

Brad laughs. He knows Brian well enough to understand that he's not serious, or at least not completely serious.

"But you won't want him to play ball, will you?" Brian asks. Brad shrugs.

"He can if he wants," he says, already defensive. "And who's saying it's a boy? Could be a girl."

"I think it's a boy," Brian says. He has no idea why. Brad looks up from his fish sandwich and grins.

"Me, too," he says.

Driving back to the Academy with Brad taking one of his famous two-minute naps in the passenger seat, Brian feels lucky to be alive. It happens sometimes. He digs his cell phone out when they're at a stop light and calls Jeff.

"So what are they fighting about on Judge Mathis this afternoon?" Brian asks, and then he hopes Jeff won't take that the wrong way. For reasons he could never explain to Jeff, he loves the idea that Jeff is sitting at home, watching TV and eating toast with grape jelly, answering on the first ring. For years after Jeff returned from Clemson he was always on the go, and Brian was usually the one waiting in the apartment. Something's changed in the last year. Brian hopes that Jeff isn't depressed, but he's pretty sure that's not possible.

"I don't know," Jeff says. "How are the nine year olds pitching this afternoon?"

Brian laughs. "I'll try to get off early tonight," he says, like Jeff asked him to. But maybe he did. Brian feels strange, like he's smiling in a way that he never has before, and it's a shame that no one's around to see it, not even Brad, who's still asleep.

"You want pizza or Chinese?" Jeff asks. "My treat."

"With what money? Did you actually sell some of them pills?"

"Yeah, my sister came by and bought a bunch of them. She's trying to lose weight, you know."

"I hope you don't expect me to start taking them." Brian looks down at his stomach. It's sizable. He probably shouldn't have had fries with his grilled shrimp and Sprite.

"Nah," Jeff says, and something in that one syllable is the kindest thing Brian has heard in years.

Back at the Academy, Brian wakes Brad up and they shuffle inside for the two o'clock group of high schoolers that they teach together. It's just five kids now, but once more of the area schools let out for summer, the class will be up to fifteen, and they'll all look at Brian and Brad like they're old men.

Their attitudes don't bother Brian, not today, not even Toby with his habit of snorting monstrously every time he gets into his stance. Howie's part-time secretary has the light rock station playing in the office, and that "True Colors" song is blaring. For some reason it's kind of nice, and Brian is starting to feel optimistic about things in general, until he turns around to see Jeff's father leaning on the cage and watching him reposition Toby's left shoulder.

"Hey," Brian says, and he does a gulp-swallow thing when he remembers Dave Francoeur once telling him very seriously that "hey" is for horses after being greeted that way. Today Dave just lifts a hand and grins as sincerely as he can. He's understandably suspicious about Brian's continued tolerance of Jeff.

"Everything okay?" Brian asks, because as far as he can remember Dave has never come near the Academy before. He's a high school principal, and truly born to be one, with scary eyebrows and perfect enunciation. He grew up in Boston and makes Brian feel like a hick, even though Jeff is the one who introduced him to George Straight when they were thirteen.

"Everything's fine," Dave says. "I was just wondering if I could talk to you for a moment."

They walk out back, where there is a dirt running track spotted with weeds and some outdoor cages that hardly ever get used. Dave is dressed for school in a white collared shirt and slacks; his tie is yellow with blue diamonds. Brian has never been able to see much of Jeff in Dave, or in Jeff's mother, who is tight-lipped and heavy-lidded. Dave puts his hands in his back pockets and sighs. Brian should have known to be suspicious when things started to feel too sweet and easy, even for just a few hours.

"I'm a little worried about Jeff," Dave says. "You understand?"

"Yes, sir." Brian has a tartar sauce stain on his sweatpants, and he feels like such a disgrace in Dave's presence. He waits to hear that the reason Dave is worried is that Brian is hovering and creepy and keeping Jeff from achieving anything real.

"He was once a very ambitious person." Dave sighs. "That setback in college, that really hurt him."

As if Brian needs to be told. He remembers going to see Jeff in the hospital after the injury, after they'd told him he'd never again be able to do any serious running, which ruled out everything he'd ever been gloriously good at. Jeff would barely look at him, as if Brian were part of the world before it ended and he'd turned translucent and irrelevant.

And Dave calls it a setback. Brian doesn't think Jeff ever really was very ambitious. He was just good, and it was all fun for him, everything, once.

"He's not working, is he?" Dave asks, and this feels like an accusation lobbed at Brian.

"He's selling this medicine," Brian says. "It fights cancer."

"Selling, or trying to sell? Or talking about trying to sell?"

"He ain't making a lot of money if that's what you're asking."

"This might be way out of line," Dave says, and Brian doesn't know what's going to happen - is he going to have to punch Dave? Shout? He's never been much of a liar, and what will his father think? Has Dave already talked to his father?

"But I was thinking he might fit in pretty well around here if your dad has any work for him," Dave says. "I hate to ask on his behalf, he's a grown man, but I've heard him talk about this place before and he seems to really admire it. And I think it would mean a lot to him. But I understand if your father isn't looking for help right now. I just thought I'd throw that out there. What do you think?"

Brian takes a moment to recover and smiles. He sees Jeff in Dave, suddenly, in the pleading tilt of his eyes, the kind of person who will always get what he wants but still feels bad for asking.

And then he understands something about Jeff, halfway, about what he's maybe been asking for for quite some time.

"Yeah!" Brian says. "Sounds awesome. I'll talk to my dad. Jeff would love it. Yeah, great idea!" He already can't help imagining what it would be like: driving to work with Jeff every morning, bullshitting with him during the lunches with Brad, and laughing on the way home about their favorite and least favorite students. It'd be much better than having him waiting at home, which is already so good.

"Thanks." Dave smiles and touches Brian's shoulder in a high school principal kind of way, a friendly threat. "You've always been a good friend to him."

Brian talks it over with Howie, who rolls his eyes. He's never liked men who are taller than he is and Jeff towers over him by almost five inches. Also, he thinks Jeff is a bum.

"Please," Brian says. "You'd be surprised. He's really smart. And he'd always show up on time, always. He'd help me show up on time, even. And he'll stay late whenever. He'd be so grateful. He'd be such an awesome addition to the team. Like, you could advertise him as a first round draft pick. For the Braves! It'd be perfect."

"A first round draft pick who was too good for baseball," Howie says. But it wasn't that. Brian still doesn't know why Jeff turned down the chance to sign with the Braves, but it wasn't that.

"Just think about it," Brian begs.

"Oh, hell." Howie finishes re-lacing the glove he was working on and sighs. "Bring him in tomorrow morning and we'll see what he can do."

Brian thanks his father a thousand times and then leaves early without asking. It's seven thirty and just barely beginning to get dark outside, warm and pretty. He's always loved the beginning of summer, all the promise of the the weather and the ball games and the long days still ahead. He drums on the steering wheel on the way home and thinks about calling Jeff, but decides to surprise him instead. He stops at Fellini's and gets a large sausage and mushroom and a two-liter of Coke. They'll stay up all night. It'll be the best, like always, and Brian will pretend it will stay this way forever.

When he gets to their apartment complex he can smell someone grilling hamburgers. The scent makes the whole world seem tamer and closer, like he's living in his parents' backyard. Even the little beep of someone's automatic lock across the parking lot makes him smile. He lets himself into the apartment, juggling the pizza and the Coke, and waits for the punchline, like Jeff fucking a girl on the coffee table or overdosed on acai berries, but he's just sitting on the couch with the remote clenched between his hands and his eyes on the TV.

"Hey," Jeff says. "You got pizza."

"Yep. Hungry?"

"Yeah. Here, come look at this."

Brian sits down beside him on the couch, the pizza in his lap. Jeff reaches into the box and takes a slice out without taking his eyes away from the TV. He's watching the highlights from the night before. Kyle pitched a one-hitter.

"I never thought he'd be that good," Jeff says.

"Beginner's luck," Brian says.

"Don't be like that."

"Fine, great, I hope he wins the Cy Young. Hey, listen. My dad wanted me to ask you if you've got any interest in teaching at the Academy."

Jeff turns from the TV and looks at Brian as if he doubts the truth of this. Then he smiles.

"You talked him into it," he says.

"I did not!" Brian says. "We need the help."

"I'll do it," Jeff says, nodding to himself. "Lay that Coke on me."

They drink the whole two-liter straight from the bottle and eat half the pizza. They've got the game on, and the Braves are losing, which they pretend not to enjoy.

"You're going to have to get up early," Brian says. "We gotta be there by seven."

"That's okay," Jeff says. "Jesus, I'm gonna be rusty, though. Ain't picked up a bat in awhile."

"It's like riding a bike," Brian says, though it isn't really. But Jeff was a natural. The kids will love him.

"Brad wants to quit, doesn't he?" Jeff asks.

"Who knows. He's moody."

"Stacy doing okay?"

"Yeah. Well, she has heartburn."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Brad didn't seem too worried about it."

"You ever sad that we won't have kids?" Jeff asks, and he says it so casually that Brian opens his mouth to answer, then frowns when he considers the question.

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"I don't know, forget it." Jeff reaches for the pizza box like he's going to get another slice, but then leans back onto the couch. Brian stares. Jeff's mouth hangs open for awhile, and then, without looking at Brian, he says, "Sometimes I just want to kiss you, is that dumb? Do you ever get that?"

Brian has been waiting for a sign and never expected one so obvious. He takes Jeff's chin in his hand and turns his face to check and see if he's serious. Jeff laughs, but his lip is shaking.

"I can't believe you," Brian says. "I can't fucking believe you."

He kisses Jeff clumsily; it's been so long. Jeff is good at it, though, and also he's Jeff, which makes Brian flush with something like panic as Jeff leans onto him and pushes him on to the couch, heavy and hot like he's been in the sun all day. Brian is wild for it, squirming and wrapping his thick legs around Jeff's back, imagining how hilarious they must look and licking Jeff's tongue until he's hard and bucking up against him. Jeff laughs and groans and strokes his thumbs over the flush that sits high on Brian's cheeks, just under his eyes.

"Is this crazy?" Jeff asks. "Are we screwed up?"

"You ever go on Craigslist and look at the listings for men seeking men?" Brian asks, breathless and throbbing but ready, too, to have this conversation. He's been doing this for years and wanting to tell someone, because it hurts, pretty bad, and he can't seem to stop. Jeff frowns.

"Do I ever go to what and do what?"

"It's this thing. This gay sex thing, I don't know. Business guys in town, looking for someone to show up at their hotel room, get fucked and leave. I never sent no one my picture, but, I don't know, don't you ever think about that, that kind of stuff?"

Jeff chews his lip. "Hell no," he says. "I mean, yeah, but mostly only with you. I only want to do that stuff, that dirty stuff, with you. And it wouldn't even be dirty, don't you think? Don't you think it'd just be good, me and you?"

"So far," Brian says, breathy and doe-eyed. "So far it is, yeah, just good, nothing but good."

Jeff smiles, and Brian thinks about how much harder this would have been if Jeff hadn't gotten injured and come home. Or how it never would have happened at all. He's not glad for the injury, he's just glad for the world he lives in, the whole thing, even the parts that make what they're doing so scary.

They rub each other off and it should be enough, but then they go into the bedroom and figure out how to do blow jobs pretty easily, and at three AM Brian wakes up, slicks Jeff's cock with his bedside jerk off lotion and guides him in, and he's half-asleep while Jeff pushes into him and moans out his gratitude, and Brian just floats, his hand spread across Jeff's ass and his cock jammed against Jeff's stomach.

"God, you feel so good," Jeff says, weak like it's gonna break him, and Brian comes harder than he has all day, because for some reason he's always really liked making Jeff feel good.

They fall together afterward, kind of stunned and definitely spent, Brian eying the bedside clock. They'll have to be at work in four hours. It's almost hilarious. Brian rolls onto his stomach and lets Jeff crawl up to cover him as if it's cold in the room. They're both sweating like crazy.

"Why didn't you sign with the Braves?" Brian asks three hours later, driving to work with Jeff slumped into the passenger seat beside him. It was weird to wake up with him, and it's weird to be taking him to work. They didn't have time to shower and still smell like two guys who had sex in a totally non-Craigslist kind of way. Like two guys who slept together all night long and woke up at five AM just to kiss each other with their eyes still sealed shut with sleep.

"I was afraid," Jeff says. "If I went with you, if we both signed. I was afraid this would happen." He looks over to smile. He's so tired that he's barely got his eyes open, and Brian has never seen him look more harmless and possessable.

"Well, now it has," Brian says, shifting in his seat. He's trying not worry. Not every day is going to feel like that one did, hamburger-scented and easy. Summer ends, and the offseason is still hard, even though they haven't played ball in years.

"It's like that guy," Jeff says. "You know the one. Who slept with his mother."

"Jesus, what we're doing ain't that bad!"

"No, no, I don't mean because of that. You know that guy! Remember, from high school? The Greek myth or whatever? His dad knew he was gonna kill him so he tried to get rid of the guy but then the guy ended up killing the dad anyway because he'd tried to dump him. Get it?

"Trying to tell me you're not gonna make it through the work day without killing my old man?" Brian asks, smirking. He kind of knows what Jeff is talking about. It started with an 'O' and he had to do a poster presentation on it freshman year. Othello? Yeah, that's it.

"Shit, I ain't making any promises about not killing Howie," Jeff says with a scoff.

"The guy gives you a job and you already want to kill him."

"That's how I roll." Jeff reaches over to squeeze Brian's thigh, and Brian has to sit up straighter and go tense to keep from getting excited.

"Shit, what are we gonna do?" Brian asks. He's wanted this problem for so long that he's forgotten to worry about the reality of having it. "Nobody can find out, you know."

"Oh, sure." Jeff rubs his eyes and yawns. "But if they did, it wouldn't be the end of the world."

Brian knows Jeff only feels that way because the world ended for him on the football field at Clemson when his leg betrayed him by snapping in half. Brian can't even imagine that kind of pain. And Jeff, being Jeff, didn't even pass out, just writhed in agony until they sedated him. Brian had been watching on TV with his father, who kept saying 'Holy shit,' and his mother, who made a fluttery moaning sound like she was mourning the fact that she couldn't reach through the TV and save Jeff. Brian had said nothing, just sat there having evil thoughts. It had been two months since he'd seen Jeff, and things were going terribly for him in the minors, and he had nothing to look forward to until Jeff broke his leg. It was a funny thing to love someone so much, see them in that kind of pain and only be able to think, before anything else, He's coming home, he's coming home, he's coming back to me now.