FIC: Take Me Out
Title: Take Me Out - Part Four
Pairing: This part, Winters/Nixon, Harry/Kitty, Babe/Roe, mild Webster/Liebgott
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Insert long and winding speech about how they are not mine, here.
Summary: It's the beginning of another legendary season and Team E has been training for this for too long to do anything but win.
Notes: This is, in fact, a modern-day AU. Throw what you know to the wind! Embrace the semi-crack! I have no manner of knowing how many parts it is, but I do have a set ending in mind. In this part, the boys learn of their possible fate, Babe gets pinned with laundry duty, and Harry is a very happy and very drunk man.
PART ONE: In which Nixon thinks about orgies, everyone gets drunk, Perconte tries to be sensible around George Luz, and Speirs is one scary man.
PART TWO: In which Lipton gives Speirs the chance to dig himself a deeper grave, Buck enjoys Malarkey (and his cooking), and Babe gets recruited.
PART THREE: In which Liebgott takes it out on Webster, strip poker happens, and the plot appears.
PART FOUR: In which the boys learn of their possible fate, Babe gets pinned with laundry duty, and Harry is a very happy and very drunk man.
PART FIVE: In which Winters gets a new job, Harry has vicarious sex, and it's Webster versus Liebgott, round 2.
PART SIX: In which Lipton denies the opportunity to play Team Savior, Joe Toye is the centre of attention, and Liebgott has a new mission.
PART SEVEN: In which Talbert has an unspeakable talent with women, bets on nurses are placed, Buck plays chaperone, Babe gets brave, and Speirs may be trying to provoke new legends about him.
PART EIGHT: In which Nixon gets a visitor, so does Webster, and O'Keefe isn't having a good night.
PART NINE: In which Lipton lays down the terms, a press conference is held, and Liebgott tries to clear his head.
PART TEN: In which Winters bears news about the league, Liebgott has no shame, and Babe becomes a man.
PART ELEVEN: In which it's one year later.
“So, what, the league’s in trouble?” Malarkey was questioning as he slopped a good serving of food to the couple of guys who were forming their own impromptu committee after Buck and Lipton had clued them in as to what was going on. Buck had stayed behind and Luz was there with Liebgott, Bull, Martin, Bill and Babe (Babe had yet to really part from Bill’s side, out of some need to cling). “Like we haven’t been busting our asses in practice!”
“Haven’t sold enough seats for the opener, Mal,” Buck said simply.
“So we’re deep in shit,” Martin summarized bluntly, crossing his arms over his body and exchanging a look with Bull (who had yet to take out his cigar and put it out, even if the hotel instituted a fairly strict no-smoking policy that was avoided by always keeping a window open in the brisk autumn weather). “What’s the plan?”
“A lot of corporate this and that,” Buck admitted. “Meet and greets with fans. Peak performance, so you boys can expect double-timing it on practice.”
“Like we aren’t already the best team in the league?” Liebgott bitched, ducking his head from outside the window, cigarette dangling outside as he flicked away the ash. “Not that you’d know we were any good the way Webster trashes us.”
“What ‘us’,” Luz echoed. “That’s all you, Joe. He loves me. Calls me a shining example of old-style charisma and style to the new game,” he boasted. “I mean, so he won’t drive in the same car with me after I very nearly crashed us that one Christmas, but hey, who’s perfect?”
“Sorry, Lieb,” Bull drawled lazily. “Only one he beats up regularly is you.”
“He’s not wrong about your fielding lately,” Buck pointed out mildly. “You’re treating the game like you’ve got something else on your mind.”
All he got for his efforts was the finger before Joe ducked his head under the window and leaned out the window to resume smoking his cigarette.
With Liebgott out of the conversation, the rest turned back to their conversation as Malarkey lit up a cigarette and passed it to Buck to be shared, giving him a waggle of eyebrows that Buck seemed to return with a nod of his head. “We’re heading out for a smoke,” Buck offered. “Don’t let the boys get too panicky. It’s a tough situation and a rough spot, but there’s only so much we can do.”
He left the room, Malarkey on his tail and the rest of the men lingered in the room, shaking their heads.
“I can’t believe I could be out of a job just because the league’s too cheap to pay for us during a downswing,” Martin complained heavily, leaning over to grab his glove and one of the team’s softballs that they used for some of the lighter catching practice. “Bull. Come on, I gotta throw something around before I go down there and punch a couple of faces.”
“Hold your horses, Johnny,” Bull announced, stubbing out his cigar as he groaned and wandered inside. “I’m coming.” He craned his head to the side. “You boys feel like having an impromptu game?”
“Nah, promised Web I’d grab a drink with him,” Luz offered with an apologetic shrug.
Liebgott heavily rolled his eyes. “I hate that you’re all so buddy-buddy with him, you know that?” he muttered under his breath. “Thought you were supposed to be loyal to the team.”
“Yeah, but he gets me free passes to the Sports Illustrated parties,” Luz pointed out. “Models, Joe. Models. And the guy’s not so bad,” he protested. “I mean, he was nearly in the league until he decided to go write.”
“Like I haven’t heard that a dozen times from him,” Liebgott muttered. “Fine, go on. Have your martinis or whatever the fuck you girls drink. We’re going to play. Right? Bill? Babe?”
“Yeah, we’re in,” Babe agreed, already wandering out the room.
Liebgott held down Luz’s stare for a long moment, not even bothering to put out his cigarette as he cradled it between his lips and exhaled a puff of smoke in the air, shaking his head at Luz as if disappointed.
“Whatever,” Luz muttered to his back as he went. “Just cuz he won’t let you screw him into submission,” he added under his breath when there was no fear of recrimination from the older man. He swooped down to pick up one of the abandoned packs of cigarettes, a random set of car keys (he’d return whoever’s it was) and headed out to meet Webster at the bar.
*
Babe had been forcibly parted from Bill when he was sent to do the team’s laundry at the nearby laundromat because ‘new guy does it’, Welsh had explained with a shit-eating grin (a cigarette dangling past his lips), ‘and I’ve got a date with Kitty’. He was the new guy by all of eight hours and yet he was the one carrying around four full duffel bags of practice gear.
“Jesus Christ,” Babe muttered as he yanked another zipper loose. He honestly didn’t think people could sweat as much as they did and yet, here was the evidence otherwise. He held the bag as far as humanly possible away from his face, shoving Hoobler’s crap along with everyone else’s into the wash and sitting on the machine to keep it from walking.
All he even had with him to read was a bunch of comics that Liebgott had loaned him.
He barely even heard someone talking to him until the very last minute because of the constant stream of profanity running through his mind.
“…said, are you using this?” said the voice, seeming almost distant to Babe, who was in his own little world. When Babe glanced up, he found himself drawing in a laugh before he broke and let out a sharp guffaw because of all the people it could be, here he was sitting before Mr. ‘Only Calls Me Edward’ Roe.
Babe grinned broadly, kicking the washer that he was sitting on lightly with his heel. “What, this thing? You could open it, but the combined smell of sweat and soap might knock you out.” He just hoped whatever lame jokes he could muster would distract him from the noticing of the way Roe’s face was knit together in concern, as if even doing laundry gave him something to think about.
“Got the medics gear to do before we get on the road,” Roe offered, taking a step to the right to load up the nearest washer, which meant that he was there to stay.
Babe wasn’t sure if he was thrilled, anxious, or some combination of a lot of fucking strange emotions.
They were headed to North California in a couple of days for the first game and the team buses were already lurking in the lot of the hotel, prompting a general air of anticipation to go along with the stomach-sickening news that the league might be out of money soon enough and they’d all be shut down but for one team. One team and Babe was just a replacement. He didn’t have a hope in hell of making it onto some version of All Stars that just wasn’t called as much.
“You drew the short straw for laundry?”
“Not so much that as Joe Toye told me you were here,” Roe answered, not even skirting his gaze away as he replied, looking at Babe. “I was glad to hear you’re replacing Blithe, seeing as you headed off with Bill the night I was trying to talk to you.”
That night was still a blur to Babe. All he remembered was a bar, booze, and too many broads around. It was a formula for success, as Bill liked to say.
“You were trying to talk me up?” Babe blurted out suddenly before realizing that maybe Roe didn’t mean it exactly like that. “Shit. I mean, talk to me. Fuck, I didn’t mean to imply you were hitting on me or anything.” Not that he would have minded, coming from a guy like Gene Roe. Yeah, so maybe he wasn’t about to give it up to just anyone on the team. Hell, even Bill was a territory he didn’t want to venture into for exploratory purposes. And yeah, yeah, he liked women just fine. He just didn’t think many men would have it in them to reject Roe if he showed the slightest bit of interest in them. The man was beautiful in his own way and the whole ‘healing of the hands’ thing got Babe going in a way he sort-of hoped other men felt. So yeah, maybe he’d bend happily for Roe in a couple of ways.
Roe seemed somewhat bemused by Babe’s inability to be smooth as some of the other guys on the team and he internally cursed them for not letting him pick it up via osmosis.
“So uh, what’d you want to talk to me about?” Babe managed, trying to jump headfirst back into the topic that he’d derailed.
“Just wanted to talk,” Roe assured as he closed the door of the washer and gave Babe such a long look, so intense, that maybe he was starting to wonder if he had something on his cheek that he’d forgotten about somewhere. But the look ended and the silence began all over again. “So you come from Philly…”
“South Philly, just like Bill,” he provided with a nod.
“Hear it’s a nice place.”
“It’ll do, but here’s better,” Babe replied easy enough and didn’t feel he had to explain whether he meant ‘here’ as in California or the more specific ‘here’ of the laundromat. “’Sides, it’s not like Philly’s so great soon as November rolls around, y’know? Gimme California any day.”
“Sounds like you got a plan for yourself, Edward.”
Babe flinched because every time he heard that goddamn name, he thought of nuns and their rulers waiting to smack a wrist here and there. It figured that the last Catholic school in his hometown was still run by strict nuns who had no patience for his ‘hair of the devil’ and ‘mouth of a demon’. Here Babe had just been trying to have a good time.
“Everyone just calls me Babe, you know,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’m not everyone,” was Roe’s quiet reply, tinged with the smallest bit of a smile on his lips. “So tell me about home…”
And with that, Babe launched into a conversation that spanned almost hours and felt like he had hardly been with the other man for minutes.
*
Practice started promptly at seven in the morning on the field so as to avoid the worst heat of the mid-day and second practices began at four in the afternoon. It was six twenty-seven when a loud set of crashing noises woke both Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon from their sleep in one shared king bed.
“I didn’t touch your booze!” Nixon swore immediately as he roused, voice addled with a hangover and exhaustion. His eyes darted around the room and, finding nothing truly threatening, he fell right back to sleep with a muttered, ‘damn raccoons’.
Winters was not so easy to be sent back to sleep and slid into hotel slippers as he palmed a key card and tugged on a team shirt, walking in the direction of all the noise.
Lightly, he tapped on one of the open doors where all the noise appeared to be coming from and poked his head inside to find a mess of a man on the floor, swearing to himself and picking leaves from off himself. “Harry,” Winters deadpanned. “Why did you come in using the window? You know you have a door, right?”
Harry stumbled heavily and it took him approximately twenty-two steps before he found his way to the bed, the path swerving and curving all around.
And not once in his walk did he stop grinning lasciviously at Winters.
“Hey Dick,” he offered giddily, a giggle to his lips as he reached across his bed to grasp a cigarette. “Guess I forgot about that.”
While the men weren’t supposed to be drinking, it wasn’t as if he could say anything and have it stick with the way Nix liked to drink and so he’d made it clear that they would not be excused from practice unless they were suffering the very grave illness of death or missing a limb.
“Harry, you’re drunk,” Winters observed.
“And you’re redheaded. I’m good at this game,” Harry indicated with a slaphappy grin. “This state the obvious one.” He closed his eyes as if pretending to summon up suspense and lifted up a finger to the air. “I’m drunk and in love, you’ve got red hair and don’t touch a drop of booze, and Nix touches enough for twenty men and you still love the man. How’m I doing?”
Winters might have also been more cross with Harry if they weren’t old friends and went back to the times when they used to run spring training camp with each other. While Winters had gone into coaching, Harry had opted to stay within the league and play. That he knew he was in love with Lewis Nixon was something of old news and he crossed the room as he uncrossed his arms, sinking down onto the bed beside Harry and watching him suck at his cigarette like it was more than just that.
“I love Kitty,” Harry announced again, shaking his head as if the very voicing of such a statement was shocking. “I tell you yet? If we somehow evade closing down the league, I’m gonna propose. I’ve got the stone for the ring from the tour we all took in the Rockies last year, when we were in Colorado and I found that hunk of gold.”
“You’re a lucky man, Harry.”
“No shit,” Harry agreed. “How I got a girl like Kitty to look past my teeth, I’ll never know.” He groaned as he lay flat on his back in the bed. “Fuck me, Dick, are you actually saying I have to practice in twenty minutes. I’m clearly,” he announced with a lazy laugh, “still drunk.”
“Well, that’s your own fault.”
“Kitty’s fault,” Harry corrected, a nostalgic grin on his face. “She’s coming down tonight so she can ride on the bus and cheer us on up in the north. We uh,” he burst into soft laughter, the love for that woman clear in his eyes, “we played a little game of truth and dare. …incidentally, that’s probably why you’re going to have Tab complaining that we gave out his room number, why Luz is probably livid that his smokes are missing.”
“And the window?”
“The what?”
“Does that explain the window?” Winters asked patiently.
Harry craned his neck to stare at the window he had crawled in through, as if stunned by its sudden presence there. “I almost wish it did, but I really did forget I wasn’t back at Kitty’s parents’ place.” He glanced clock-wards, which read 6:37 and groaned loudly. “Have mercy on me, Dick,” he pleaded. “Let me sit this one out.”
“I could do that,” Winters provided, “but I might need to get Nix to break your legs just so the others don’t think they can sleep around all night, drink it up, and still start. You’ll be lucky if I get you on the roster for the first game.”
“Yeah, but she’s worth it,” Harry said with a blissful smile on his lips. “I’ll be there, but hey, if I puke on Lip’s leg…”
“He’ll probably forgive you and find you a hangover cure within minutes,” Winters assured easily, clapping Harry tightly on the shoulder before getting to his feet. “Good luck staying vertical Harry.”
He got a mumbled and completely incoherent string of words in reply, which only made Winters grin a little broader. He rose to his feet and closed the door behind him before sliding back into his own room and into the bed with Nixon. It didn’t take him very long at all before Nix roused enough to drape an arm across Winters’ waist with a smack of skin on skin.
“Who was it?” Nixon asked tiredly.
“Harry,” Winters replied, prying Nix’s arm off of him. “Time to get up, Nix. We have to be at the field in five.”
“So I’ll see you there in fifteen?” Nixon interpreted with a sleepy mumble as he turned over and adjusted his pillow, already snoring by the time Winters could respond with a positive. He gave a slight rub of Nixon’s chest lightly and patted there before getting up to change into his official coach’s gear.
“See you there, Nix.”
tbc
Pairing: This part, Winters/Nixon, Harry/Kitty, Babe/Roe, mild Webster/Liebgott
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Insert long and winding speech about how they are not mine, here.
Summary: It's the beginning of another legendary season and Team E has been training for this for too long to do anything but win.
Notes: This is, in fact, a modern-day AU. Throw what you know to the wind! Embrace the semi-crack! I have no manner of knowing how many parts it is, but I do have a set ending in mind. In this part, the boys learn of their possible fate, Babe gets pinned with laundry duty, and Harry is a very happy and very drunk man.
PART ONE: In which Nixon thinks about orgies, everyone gets drunk, Perconte tries to be sensible around George Luz, and Speirs is one scary man.
PART TWO: In which Lipton gives Speirs the chance to dig himself a deeper grave, Buck enjoys Malarkey (and his cooking), and Babe gets recruited.
PART THREE: In which Liebgott takes it out on Webster, strip poker happens, and the plot appears.
PART FOUR: In which the boys learn of their possible fate, Babe gets pinned with laundry duty, and Harry is a very happy and very drunk man.
PART FIVE: In which Winters gets a new job, Harry has vicarious sex, and it's Webster versus Liebgott, round 2.
PART SIX: In which Lipton denies the opportunity to play Team Savior, Joe Toye is the centre of attention, and Liebgott has a new mission.
PART SEVEN: In which Talbert has an unspeakable talent with women, bets on nurses are placed, Buck plays chaperone, Babe gets brave, and Speirs may be trying to provoke new legends about him.
PART EIGHT: In which Nixon gets a visitor, so does Webster, and O'Keefe isn't having a good night.
PART NINE: In which Lipton lays down the terms, a press conference is held, and Liebgott tries to clear his head.
PART TEN: In which Winters bears news about the league, Liebgott has no shame, and Babe becomes a man.
PART ELEVEN: In which it's one year later.
“So, what, the league’s in trouble?” Malarkey was questioning as he slopped a good serving of food to the couple of guys who were forming their own impromptu committee after Buck and Lipton had clued them in as to what was going on. Buck had stayed behind and Luz was there with Liebgott, Bull, Martin, Bill and Babe (Babe had yet to really part from Bill’s side, out of some need to cling). “Like we haven’t been busting our asses in practice!”
“Haven’t sold enough seats for the opener, Mal,” Buck said simply.
“So we’re deep in shit,” Martin summarized bluntly, crossing his arms over his body and exchanging a look with Bull (who had yet to take out his cigar and put it out, even if the hotel instituted a fairly strict no-smoking policy that was avoided by always keeping a window open in the brisk autumn weather). “What’s the plan?”
“A lot of corporate this and that,” Buck admitted. “Meet and greets with fans. Peak performance, so you boys can expect double-timing it on practice.”
“Like we aren’t already the best team in the league?” Liebgott bitched, ducking his head from outside the window, cigarette dangling outside as he flicked away the ash. “Not that you’d know we were any good the way Webster trashes us.”
“What ‘us’,” Luz echoed. “That’s all you, Joe. He loves me. Calls me a shining example of old-style charisma and style to the new game,” he boasted. “I mean, so he won’t drive in the same car with me after I very nearly crashed us that one Christmas, but hey, who’s perfect?”
“Sorry, Lieb,” Bull drawled lazily. “Only one he beats up regularly is you.”
“He’s not wrong about your fielding lately,” Buck pointed out mildly. “You’re treating the game like you’ve got something else on your mind.”
All he got for his efforts was the finger before Joe ducked his head under the window and leaned out the window to resume smoking his cigarette.
With Liebgott out of the conversation, the rest turned back to their conversation as Malarkey lit up a cigarette and passed it to Buck to be shared, giving him a waggle of eyebrows that Buck seemed to return with a nod of his head. “We’re heading out for a smoke,” Buck offered. “Don’t let the boys get too panicky. It’s a tough situation and a rough spot, but there’s only so much we can do.”
He left the room, Malarkey on his tail and the rest of the men lingered in the room, shaking their heads.
“I can’t believe I could be out of a job just because the league’s too cheap to pay for us during a downswing,” Martin complained heavily, leaning over to grab his glove and one of the team’s softballs that they used for some of the lighter catching practice. “Bull. Come on, I gotta throw something around before I go down there and punch a couple of faces.”
“Hold your horses, Johnny,” Bull announced, stubbing out his cigar as he groaned and wandered inside. “I’m coming.” He craned his head to the side. “You boys feel like having an impromptu game?”
“Nah, promised Web I’d grab a drink with him,” Luz offered with an apologetic shrug.
Liebgott heavily rolled his eyes. “I hate that you’re all so buddy-buddy with him, you know that?” he muttered under his breath. “Thought you were supposed to be loyal to the team.”
“Yeah, but he gets me free passes to the Sports Illustrated parties,” Luz pointed out. “Models, Joe. Models. And the guy’s not so bad,” he protested. “I mean, he was nearly in the league until he decided to go write.”
“Like I haven’t heard that a dozen times from him,” Liebgott muttered. “Fine, go on. Have your martinis or whatever the fuck you girls drink. We’re going to play. Right? Bill? Babe?”
“Yeah, we’re in,” Babe agreed, already wandering out the room.
Liebgott held down Luz’s stare for a long moment, not even bothering to put out his cigarette as he cradled it between his lips and exhaled a puff of smoke in the air, shaking his head at Luz as if disappointed.
“Whatever,” Luz muttered to his back as he went. “Just cuz he won’t let you screw him into submission,” he added under his breath when there was no fear of recrimination from the older man. He swooped down to pick up one of the abandoned packs of cigarettes, a random set of car keys (he’d return whoever’s it was) and headed out to meet Webster at the bar.
*
Babe had been forcibly parted from Bill when he was sent to do the team’s laundry at the nearby laundromat because ‘new guy does it’, Welsh had explained with a shit-eating grin (a cigarette dangling past his lips), ‘and I’ve got a date with Kitty’. He was the new guy by all of eight hours and yet he was the one carrying around four full duffel bags of practice gear.
“Jesus Christ,” Babe muttered as he yanked another zipper loose. He honestly didn’t think people could sweat as much as they did and yet, here was the evidence otherwise. He held the bag as far as humanly possible away from his face, shoving Hoobler’s crap along with everyone else’s into the wash and sitting on the machine to keep it from walking.
All he even had with him to read was a bunch of comics that Liebgott had loaned him.
He barely even heard someone talking to him until the very last minute because of the constant stream of profanity running through his mind.
“…said, are you using this?” said the voice, seeming almost distant to Babe, who was in his own little world. When Babe glanced up, he found himself drawing in a laugh before he broke and let out a sharp guffaw because of all the people it could be, here he was sitting before Mr. ‘Only Calls Me Edward’ Roe.
Babe grinned broadly, kicking the washer that he was sitting on lightly with his heel. “What, this thing? You could open it, but the combined smell of sweat and soap might knock you out.” He just hoped whatever lame jokes he could muster would distract him from the noticing of the way Roe’s face was knit together in concern, as if even doing laundry gave him something to think about.
“Got the medics gear to do before we get on the road,” Roe offered, taking a step to the right to load up the nearest washer, which meant that he was there to stay.
Babe wasn’t sure if he was thrilled, anxious, or some combination of a lot of fucking strange emotions.
They were headed to North California in a couple of days for the first game and the team buses were already lurking in the lot of the hotel, prompting a general air of anticipation to go along with the stomach-sickening news that the league might be out of money soon enough and they’d all be shut down but for one team. One team and Babe was just a replacement. He didn’t have a hope in hell of making it onto some version of All Stars that just wasn’t called as much.
“You drew the short straw for laundry?”
“Not so much that as Joe Toye told me you were here,” Roe answered, not even skirting his gaze away as he replied, looking at Babe. “I was glad to hear you’re replacing Blithe, seeing as you headed off with Bill the night I was trying to talk to you.”
That night was still a blur to Babe. All he remembered was a bar, booze, and too many broads around. It was a formula for success, as Bill liked to say.
“You were trying to talk me up?” Babe blurted out suddenly before realizing that maybe Roe didn’t mean it exactly like that. “Shit. I mean, talk to me. Fuck, I didn’t mean to imply you were hitting on me or anything.” Not that he would have minded, coming from a guy like Gene Roe. Yeah, so maybe he wasn’t about to give it up to just anyone on the team. Hell, even Bill was a territory he didn’t want to venture into for exploratory purposes. And yeah, yeah, he liked women just fine. He just didn’t think many men would have it in them to reject Roe if he showed the slightest bit of interest in them. The man was beautiful in his own way and the whole ‘healing of the hands’ thing got Babe going in a way he sort-of hoped other men felt. So yeah, maybe he’d bend happily for Roe in a couple of ways.
Roe seemed somewhat bemused by Babe’s inability to be smooth as some of the other guys on the team and he internally cursed them for not letting him pick it up via osmosis.
“So uh, what’d you want to talk to me about?” Babe managed, trying to jump headfirst back into the topic that he’d derailed.
“Just wanted to talk,” Roe assured as he closed the door of the washer and gave Babe such a long look, so intense, that maybe he was starting to wonder if he had something on his cheek that he’d forgotten about somewhere. But the look ended and the silence began all over again. “So you come from Philly…”
“South Philly, just like Bill,” he provided with a nod.
“Hear it’s a nice place.”
“It’ll do, but here’s better,” Babe replied easy enough and didn’t feel he had to explain whether he meant ‘here’ as in California or the more specific ‘here’ of the laundromat. “’Sides, it’s not like Philly’s so great soon as November rolls around, y’know? Gimme California any day.”
“Sounds like you got a plan for yourself, Edward.”
Babe flinched because every time he heard that goddamn name, he thought of nuns and their rulers waiting to smack a wrist here and there. It figured that the last Catholic school in his hometown was still run by strict nuns who had no patience for his ‘hair of the devil’ and ‘mouth of a demon’. Here Babe had just been trying to have a good time.
“Everyone just calls me Babe, you know,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’m not everyone,” was Roe’s quiet reply, tinged with the smallest bit of a smile on his lips. “So tell me about home…”
And with that, Babe launched into a conversation that spanned almost hours and felt like he had hardly been with the other man for minutes.
*
Practice started promptly at seven in the morning on the field so as to avoid the worst heat of the mid-day and second practices began at four in the afternoon. It was six twenty-seven when a loud set of crashing noises woke both Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon from their sleep in one shared king bed.
“I didn’t touch your booze!” Nixon swore immediately as he roused, voice addled with a hangover and exhaustion. His eyes darted around the room and, finding nothing truly threatening, he fell right back to sleep with a muttered, ‘damn raccoons’.
Winters was not so easy to be sent back to sleep and slid into hotel slippers as he palmed a key card and tugged on a team shirt, walking in the direction of all the noise.
Lightly, he tapped on one of the open doors where all the noise appeared to be coming from and poked his head inside to find a mess of a man on the floor, swearing to himself and picking leaves from off himself. “Harry,” Winters deadpanned. “Why did you come in using the window? You know you have a door, right?”
Harry stumbled heavily and it took him approximately twenty-two steps before he found his way to the bed, the path swerving and curving all around.
And not once in his walk did he stop grinning lasciviously at Winters.
“Hey Dick,” he offered giddily, a giggle to his lips as he reached across his bed to grasp a cigarette. “Guess I forgot about that.”
While the men weren’t supposed to be drinking, it wasn’t as if he could say anything and have it stick with the way Nix liked to drink and so he’d made it clear that they would not be excused from practice unless they were suffering the very grave illness of death or missing a limb.
“Harry, you’re drunk,” Winters observed.
“And you’re redheaded. I’m good at this game,” Harry indicated with a slaphappy grin. “This state the obvious one.” He closed his eyes as if pretending to summon up suspense and lifted up a finger to the air. “I’m drunk and in love, you’ve got red hair and don’t touch a drop of booze, and Nix touches enough for twenty men and you still love the man. How’m I doing?”
Winters might have also been more cross with Harry if they weren’t old friends and went back to the times when they used to run spring training camp with each other. While Winters had gone into coaching, Harry had opted to stay within the league and play. That he knew he was in love with Lewis Nixon was something of old news and he crossed the room as he uncrossed his arms, sinking down onto the bed beside Harry and watching him suck at his cigarette like it was more than just that.
“I love Kitty,” Harry announced again, shaking his head as if the very voicing of such a statement was shocking. “I tell you yet? If we somehow evade closing down the league, I’m gonna propose. I’ve got the stone for the ring from the tour we all took in the Rockies last year, when we were in Colorado and I found that hunk of gold.”
“You’re a lucky man, Harry.”
“No shit,” Harry agreed. “How I got a girl like Kitty to look past my teeth, I’ll never know.” He groaned as he lay flat on his back in the bed. “Fuck me, Dick, are you actually saying I have to practice in twenty minutes. I’m clearly,” he announced with a lazy laugh, “still drunk.”
“Well, that’s your own fault.”
“Kitty’s fault,” Harry corrected, a nostalgic grin on his face. “She’s coming down tonight so she can ride on the bus and cheer us on up in the north. We uh,” he burst into soft laughter, the love for that woman clear in his eyes, “we played a little game of truth and dare. …incidentally, that’s probably why you’re going to have Tab complaining that we gave out his room number, why Luz is probably livid that his smokes are missing.”
“And the window?”
“The what?”
“Does that explain the window?” Winters asked patiently.
Harry craned his neck to stare at the window he had crawled in through, as if stunned by its sudden presence there. “I almost wish it did, but I really did forget I wasn’t back at Kitty’s parents’ place.” He glanced clock-wards, which read 6:37 and groaned loudly. “Have mercy on me, Dick,” he pleaded. “Let me sit this one out.”
“I could do that,” Winters provided, “but I might need to get Nix to break your legs just so the others don’t think they can sleep around all night, drink it up, and still start. You’ll be lucky if I get you on the roster for the first game.”
“Yeah, but she’s worth it,” Harry said with a blissful smile on his lips. “I’ll be there, but hey, if I puke on Lip’s leg…”
“He’ll probably forgive you and find you a hangover cure within minutes,” Winters assured easily, clapping Harry tightly on the shoulder before getting to his feet. “Good luck staying vertical Harry.”
He got a mumbled and completely incoherent string of words in reply, which only made Winters grin a little broader. He rose to his feet and closed the door behind him before sliding back into his own room and into the bed with Nixon. It didn’t take him very long at all before Nix roused enough to drape an arm across Winters’ waist with a smack of skin on skin.
“Who was it?” Nixon asked tiredly.
“Harry,” Winters replied, prying Nix’s arm off of him. “Time to get up, Nix. We have to be at the field in five.”
“So I’ll see you there in fifteen?” Nixon interpreted with a sleepy mumble as he turned over and adjusted his pillow, already snoring by the time Winters could respond with a positive. He gave a slight rub of Nixon’s chest lightly and patted there before getting up to change into his official coach’s gear.
“See you there, Nix.”
tbc