(Untitled)

[little_moons]

The summer I was eight years old, I came for the first time...I remember mom in her red dress. Rose tinted glasses, big plastic earrings and a bottle of Nehi in her hand. I remember how she smelled that day, but more than that, I remember the smell of dirt and fresh cut grass. I remember the nervous flutter in my belly, and I remember his smile and

Comments

[weary_head]

"Dude, this is..." Dean trailed off, walking the length to the pitcher's mound slowly as he looked around. "So normal."

[little_moons]

Laughing, throwing the ball up once in the air and catching it, cigarette bobbing between my lips, I say, "I know, right? Might as well be back in fuckin' Kansas."

[weary_head]

"Right." Dean hadn't actually visited too many fields, save for the one haunting down in Mississippi, but he knew normal when he saw it. "So what are you doing," he said with a nod towards the ball. "Holding tryouts?"

[little_moons]

"No," I snort, shaking my head and tossing him the ball in my hand, "I don't play. Haven't in a while. I hear they're puttin' together teams though. 'm I gonna get to see you run around in a uniform?"

[m_pinocchio]

It's been a long time since he's played. A couple glorious years in high school, when his pitching arm had distracted him from the tense chaos at home. Then, maybe a pick-up game or two in the army, but not much since then. He's here to look at the field, think about playing again. Wondering if he can still do it worth a damn. Thinking about back when things were both simpler and a hell of a lot harder.

He doesn't see him immediately, and he's mildly surprised when he does. It seems like a strange place for Neil to be, though he supposes it's not really any stranger than the playground.

"Hey," he says, moving towards him. "You okay?"

[little_moons]

I notice movement first, just a shape in the distance, coming closer, but before I can see his face, I know that it's him. The slump of his shoulders. That little bit of shuffle in his walk. I keep quiet, rolling the ball in the palm of my hand and smoking my cigarette, watching him scan the field, and if he never sees me then maybe I'll let him just walk on by.

Luckily, he does.

"Yeah, 'm fine," I say with a slow nod, exhaling and letting one corner of my lips tug into something like a smile. It's not a lie. "What are you doin' out here, huh?"

[m_pinocchio]

He shrugs, smiling a little crookedly. "Thinking, mostly. What're you doing out here?" He's not sure why he feels like deflecting the question. Maybe the past feels too near. And it hadn't even been that especially painful; messy divorce, sure, but a lot of kids go through that. Dad who drank more than was good for him, but it's not like he'd been coming home and beating anyone up. He's been through far worse and talked about it. It just feels a little too... raw.

[little_moons]

"Thinkin'," I answer, throwing him a little teasing smirk, but there's somethin' else underneath. What goes on in that head of yours?

"Used to come out on the field all the time. Announced all the local league games, back home."

[out_of_realm]

He'd heard that the field was finished, but for whatever reason it had taken him a while to make it out. In high school, he'd played football, good old Midwestern bread and butter, and hey, he'd done pretty well. Well enough to make varsity, but nothing to get him noticed by NFL scouts. Baseball...he hadn't played baseball since little league, back when you got free ice cream after the games, win or loose. Walking out onto the field, he couldn't help but grin. The last time he'd had time to think about baseball was years ago, checking to see how the Yankees were doing against the Red Sox. This...this was different. Maybe playing baseball actually made it interesting.

"Hey," he said when he spotted Neil, familiar with a plume of cigarette smoke and skinny shoulders. He cocked his head at him, grinning tentatively, suddenly unsure. "Didn't expect to see you out here."

[little_moons]

"Afraid I'll ruin the fuckin' ambiance?" I ask with a sly grin, smoke curling from my parted lips, and maybe my eyes are just a little bit red-rimmed but otherwise I'm just as loose-limbed and indifferent as always.

[out_of_realm]

"Ambiance? In a baseball field?" Tom said, grinning. "Didn't know there was such a thing."

Settling down beside him, Tom pressed a quick, chaste hello-kiss to his cheek, fingers briefly tracing his jaw.

"Hey," he said after a few moments of silence, watching him carefully. "You okay?"

[little_moons]

"I dunno. I think so," I murmur, flicking ash to the sand and leaning in to return the kiss, letting mine linger for a few seconds longer. "Just thinkin', really."

Weirdly, I find it kinda hard to wallow with him around.

[homerinexile]

Crab leads him to the strangest places. Places that he'd not always go himself, jogging behind the dog, resigned. "Crab," he shouted out his name, not realising until he was face to face with the other man just who the dog had run up to.

"I think he senses the presence of balls." It was a fairly lame joke, and had come out stilted, even as Donald lunged for the beasts collar. "He seems to like you."

[little_moons]

"I gotta way with old strays," I mutter, lips curling, and the spark in my eyes is dulled, strained, and I find that I can hardly look at him.

The dog's more interesting anyhow.

[homerinexile]

It's easier for him to let Crab have his way, letting loose the collar so the dog can sniff about as he wants. Likely he'd get tired of it and run off anyway, or so Donald hoped. For all that he would like to be pleasant, this is awkward. "I'm sure he just smells your dog on you. He can be a bit excitable."

[little_moons]

"Just bein' a dog," I murmur, reaching up to scratch behind the mutt's ears while he noses at the ball in my hand.

[onlythedusk]

Moritz hadn't experienced love and loss quite like Neil had, though he did have his own trials and tribulations. Having recently experienced his own -- slightly disturbing sixteenth birthday, he can sympathize somewhat with what Neil's feeling.

Though, at the moment, he's just looking for a place to finish Edward II. He smiles politely at Neil and sits a little ways off in the grass. "Hello..." he waves. "Is it alright if I read here? It seems like a very good place, and I promise I will be quiet. But I can go, if you wanted to be alone."

[little_moons]

Blinking up at the kid, skinny to the point of being almost gaunt, pale enough that it seems almost unnatural, I lift one shoulder in a shrug, shaking my head and exhaling a stream of smoke.

"No, it's fine. Can't really call dibs on the whole fuckin' field," I smirk.

[onlythedusk]

"Fuck?" Moritz blinks a few times, not having learned the fine art of swearing in English. He moves a little closer to talk to Neil properly. "What does this mean?"

[little_moons]

Snorting out a laugh, I say, "Uh, it's a curse. Sometimes you use it talkin' about sex, but sometimes it's just, you know, a curse. 's not real polite, but I never had any manners."