where to begin
title: where to begin
rating: hard R at best, but most of it is mostly pg-13.
pairings: beckett/papelbon, with reference to past beckett/burnett and burnett/halladay if you squint.
genre: slash
word count: 29k.
summary: jonathan papelbon decides he wants to room with josh beckett, who talks quite clearly in his sleep.
written for littlestclouds's Porn Battle X prompt: "RPF, Jonathan Papelbon/Josh Beckett, stupid, fire, blister, bump, blood, faulty wiring, absconded, slap." I didn't hit everything as nicely as maybe I would have, but I at least referenced each one of these. takes place in 2010.
He likes demanding to be roomed with people just to see who’s willing to tolerate him and who’s not. Of course, this can only happen on certain occasions, but he, the Master Closer (Except Mariano Rivera) of All Things, can always get his way when the planets align. It’s not like the Boston Red Sox actually make them share rooms (for god’s sake, that’s Marlins-level cheapness), but Pap personally hates having a room to himself. When they’re on the road, he goes to the club until he’s either so drunk or so tired he can’t stand. Usually, he has someone to spend the time with, or he’s so exhausted he doesn’t even realize he’s alone.
But anyway, getting himself roomed with someone is all about circumstances. For one, he needs to get the save, and it needs to be a pretty close save. He needs to make it quick, yet flashy, and he needs to be impressive and smug and larger-than-life. He needs to strike out some people looking, and he needs to get the whole club hyped about him. The next day, they need to be heading out on the road.
So here he is, striking out Evan fucking Longoria, who just blinks at his 102 mph fastball and argues the call weakly before heading back to the visitor’s dugout. That brings them into a tie for second place with the Rays, two games behind the damn Yankees, and now the Rays are heading to play the Tigers, a team streaking so hard that Pap’s surprised they haven’t burst into flames. The Yankees are going to play the White Sox.
Meanwhile, him and his wonderful team in their lovely red socks get to play the fucking Mariners, and a Mariners team sans Cliff Lee is just roadkill for them to drive over, laughing all the way.
He decides he wants to try to room with Josh Beckett on this trip. This is because Beckett has a number of qualities he would like to get to know better: for one, does he actually shave that little patch of hair under his lip, or does it just grow like that? Does he scowl in his sleep, or that only when he comes to Fenway? Does he talk to his mother using that mouth? Does he even call his mother?
These are burning questions in his world, and he desperately wants answers to them. So, he tells Tito he wants to room with Beckett, and when Tito asks why, he laughs and explains those reasons.
“I’ll ask Josh,” he says, only after Papelbon has given him that ‘come on, I’m your star closer, pleeeeeeease?’ look.
“Why can’t it be a surprise?”
“Because, though we probably won’t need you in the series with the Mariners, I’m pretty sure we’ll need you in one piece after that.”
The closer pouts and stomps off.
“That only works if you’re twelve, Pap,” says Tito, to his back, but they can both hear the smile in his voice.
*
Beckett complains and threatens and moans and whines and growls and snaps at Tito, but he eventually bends to share a room with Papelbon. That's the way most of the Sox are - they know better. Pap is as crazy as they come and stubborn as an ass, and he almost always gets his way unless it's something stupidly unimportant. There are only a few people who can out-argue him (Wakefield, mostly, and sometimes Varitek). Of course, the room they get assigned to is definitely larger than their individual rooms would have been, which is a pleasant plus.
"Stay on your side," Beckett says, sharply, and drops his bag near the bed he chooses. Boston has done funny things to the guy's accent, made it a funky mutt of a dialect, and it's a little weird, but Pap still likes it. Beckett is one of his favorite guys to be around, even if it means the possibility of a surprise death. The pitcher has one hand taped up (blisters), and Pap knows the guy is praying he can keep his hand together for his start. He saw it on his previous start against the Jays, and quite frankly, the closer is betting that those blisters go in the fourth inning, slicking the ball with blood and getting him kicked out of the game. The Mariners might like the excitement. He certainly would.
He puts the thought to the side and drops his bag near the other queen-sized bed, flopping down on it. He slept on the plane, like most of the team, and they've actually gained three hours from time zones, so it's 4 AM and he's wide-awake. His roommate, who likes to sleep as much as possible before starts, is, by some kind of magic, already asleep. He peeks out the door of the hallway, sees Wakefield teaching some sort of card game to Buchholtz, and closes the door quietly behind him.
"What are you doing?" He asks, slipping out. Both pitchers look up at him, and he can tell they're both trying to establish if he's here to make trouble or not. He’d be proud of that if he wasn’t genuinely interested in learning how to play.
Apparently he passes inspection, because Wakefield scoots over on the floor and says, "Playing cards. Can't sleep. Want in?"
"Sure," he replies, and sits down.
When he returns to the room at 7am, having been thoroughly whipped by not one by both starting pitchers (in true closer style, he just can't plan ahead), he has a strong hunch something is wrong, mostly because the light in the bathroom is on, and he can hear a soft stream of swears coming from it. He tiptoes towards it, and presses his ear to the door.
"Fuck," he hears Beckett saying, and the water is running. "Jesus Christ, shit, fuck, Johnny'll never let me play with this. Christ. Just a couple more hours. Fuck that fucking dream. Fuck.”
He knocks gently. "Josh?"
"Fuck, Pap, get out." Beckett sounds even angrier than usual, like his start is gone bad and he hasn't even started warming up yet. The sun has barely risen. Seattle seems determined to stay dark and cloudy, or maybe it’s just Beckett’s mood seeping out of the high shower window into the sky. "I'm fine, get the fuck out, go to sleep."
"What's wrong, dude?"
Beckett opens the bathroom door, and sticks his head out. He's got a weird expression on, and at first Pap would have assumed he caught the guy jerking off, but it's not really a blue-balls expression, more like a grimace, twitching down the corners of his mouth, creating lines around his eyes. It’s not quite a traditional Beckettish scowl, but it is something Pap, being a pitcher as well, knows. Pain, mixed with that horror that comes when you know there are two words lingering in your future: disabled list.
"I said get out."
In most cases, the implicit danger in Beckett's voice something to be laughed at, because he's the star closer, and no one hurts him, but something about the way Beckett looks at him with those narrowed eyes makes his hair stand up on end, makes his fingers prickle and stomach drop.
"Just... be all right," he says, and walks away from the door. Beckett nearly slams it, and he hears the water start running again.
"Tim," he says, knocking on the other starter's door, "Are you awake?"
Wakefield opens the door, tilts his head to the side, noting the unusual concern in the closer's voice. Wakefield is the father of the pitching staff, and is in every way the perfect dad figure to this group of guys. He is possibly Papelbon’s favorite guy, everything from his relatively, clean mouth and his ability to switch between bullpen and starter at will, to his crazy knuckleball and his ability to play pitching staff therapist. "Yeah, what is it, Pap?"
"I think something's wrong with Beckett. More than usual."
He frowns. "Like?"
"Like he's locked himself in the bathroom, is swearing about how he's going to miss his start, and won't let me come in?"
Wakefield sighs and closes the door behind him. He leads the knuckleballer into his room, where Tim knocks on the door and leans against it. Beckett is still swearing inside.
"Beckett, it's Tim, and I am not Pap, and you cannot pull this with me, so open the door and let's see what's wrong with you. Missing a start is not the end of the world. It's more important you don't hurt yourself further." Wakefield takes a step away from the door, and it clicks open in the most grudging fashion a door can manage. Beckett is staring at Wakefield, challenging him to come in and ask him about his problems.
Pap has the fleeting thought that the Red Sox pitching staff is the most hopelessly dysfunctional family he has ever been a part of. Not like he makes it any better, but even though everyone calls him the crazy one (a title he's proud of), no one is much saner than him.
"Are you going to let me in there, or am I going to have to drag you out?" Wakefield asks, putting his hands on his hips.
Slowly, Beckett pushes the door open all the way.
Papelbon, as a ballplayer, is accustomed to bad-looking injuries; he has been hit by balls, lobbed or pitched in his direction, seen brilliant rainbow bruises show up on flesh, seen that terrible offness of snapped muscles or dislocated tendons, knows what Tommy John surgery and major rotator cuff injuries look like. He is familiar with the elbow and shoulder and knee scars ballplayers accumulate and the weirder ones, like hands and hips. But baseball injuries aren't bloody, and while his mouth doesn't exactly drop open, he certainly stares. Beckett's hand is bleeding pretty furiously, staining the porcelain sink pink, and the guy is holding one hand with the other, causing blood to drip in tiny little waterfalls around his fingers. It's distracting, somehow, blood leaking from him, like pure talent dripping down the drain. Beckett's blood is redder than he would have guessed, and has the smoothness of top-shelf tequila and flows as endlessly and efficiently as it can. In some ways, Josh Beckett's blood is just like Josh Beckett. The wound looks bad, but somehow Pap wants to get closer to it, examine the ragged edges of the flesh. He takes a step forward, wondering about the sudden dryness in his mouth and the wrench in his gut, then holds back, and looks at his own thought process and blinks.
He then coaxes his thoughts out of whatever strange hole they just fell in as Tim's talking. No one seems to have noticed him, and while this would usually bother him immensely, this time he’s glad.
"You really thought you were pitching if you could hide that from Tito and Farrell." Wakefield says, giving Beckett a god, you are such a fucking moron kind of look. "Really."
"It's a fucking blister," Beckett replies, staring at his hand like it insulted his mother, "I don't why it's bleeding like crazy." He grabs some toilet paper and wraps his hand.
"Pap, go tell Tito," Tim looks over his shoulder at the closer, who has regained his ability to blink. "And Farrell."
"I was having this crazy dream, and I fucking whacked it against the bedside table." Beckett is saying as Pap leaves.
Tito is certainly not happy, and Farrell just shrugs, and one of the trainers starts patching him up and muttering about it.
"This is not a blister, Josh,” says the trainer, “This is a gash. You're gonna need stitches."
"Fuck."
Wakefield is frowning, and shrugging, and maybe Papelbon doesn't know as much about missing starts (he was never any good as a starter), but you don't need much of a brain to see how pissed off Beckett is at his hand, and by extension, himself. Beckett spends all day scowling at his hand in hopes it will improve, but, of course, no dice. The guy doesn’t even go to the game, which (by some miracle) they win behind Delcarmen’s shockingly lackluster fill-in start.
Pap’s spent some time at the bar, nothing serious, just enough to get him just on the bare fringes of drunk, enough that the world has a pleasant fuzziness to it, an alcohol-induced haze that he’ll easily be able to shake off in case he needs to go tomorrow. He’s thinking about Josh Beckett, and the rumor that he can fall asleep at any time in any place.
Beckett is, in fact, asleep when he returns.
He flops on his bed and studies the guy, who has ignored the covers entirely. He’s shucked off his t-shirt onto the floor, still wearing his jeans, and is using every inch of his 6’5 frame to cover the bed. He’s dreaming, and Pap watches move and kick and shift and mutter, and then he lifts his injured hand and the closer bolts up, steps on Beckett’s back to leap over him, and grabs the offending wrist before the sleeping pitcher can destroy his stitches for the second night in a row.
Suffice to say, being stepped on and having his wrist jerked wakes the guy up.
“Pap, what the fuck?”
“You are going to hurt yourself in your sleep again.” He lets go of the wrist and slips off the injured starter’s bed. “You were about to open your stitches.”
Beckett looks at his hand and sits up.
“Bad dream,” he says, sighing, and rolls over. “Thanks.”
Pap opens his mouth to say you’re welcome, but he’s already asleep again.
Might be some truth to that rumor, after all.
*
Papelbon, who is powered almost exclusively by fastballs and nervous energy, is not a big sleeper, like Beckett. This works out, because he gets to watch the guy fight his dreams (nightmares?) and occasionally yanks the blanket (with him on it) one way or another to keep him from hurting himself. Beckett is possibly the most active person the closer has ever seen, and once or twice he actually makes out what is being said. It’s actually kind of, well, cute. Beckett is not a cute person. This is cute.
“I didn’t take your shit,” Beckett mutters and rolls over, dragging his hand across his face, “And your signs are fucking dumb.”
Okay, this is getting interesting.
“You all are fucking terrible, and get out of my team. No, my team. Definitely, my team. Of course my team is hot. That’s obvious. It’s fucking Florida.”
Aww, he’s dreaming about the Marlins.
*
They win the next game, too, and Ellsbury comes over to his locker and asks if he wants to go to the club. He turns down the offer.
Not surprisingly, Beckett is still asleep when he gets back to the hotel. The guy hates showing up to games while he’s injured, and Pap can understand that; being on the DL is like being dragged by your fingers and toes by your team. He lets the door close, flops on his bed, looks over at Beckett (still sleeping), his injured hand hanging off the bed, near the still-bloody bedside table.
"That's not going to end well," he says to no one, and wonders when Beckett is going to start talking about the Marlins again. To prepare, he walks around the other side of the bed and shoves the guy back a few inches.
Professional athlete’s reflexes dart out and snap up Pap’s wrist, and his dreaming grip is like a vice. He tugs away once, twice, with no avail, so he sits on the end of Beckett’s bed and rolls his eyes. “Guess I’m stuck with you, huh?” he says.
“Fucking… team is missing something,” Josh growls in his sleep, and jerks on Pap’s wrist. “Socks. That’s it. Teal is ugly. Red.”
Pap busies himself imagining the Marlins wearing red socks, which causes him to snort back his laughter. Beckett tugs on him again.
“No fucking socks?” He murmurs to some invisible person. “Fuck you. Finding some fucking socks.”
“You go on adventures in your sleep, don’t you, Joshie?” mutters Papelbon, and he finds himself stroking Beckett’s goatee, which he does, by the way, trim every night. “Well, I guess I can go on ‘em with you.”
Beckett grins slightly, shifts closer to the closer’s hand.
“Found ‘em,” he says, and his other hand finds Papelbon’s knee. “Perfect.”
Jon looks down at the starting pitcher that’s some managed to end up half-curled around him. He grins, runs his empty hand through the dark hair, and rolls his eyes, almost laughing.
“I wonder what Timmy and the rest of them would think of big, scary Beckett cuddling with his closer while he’s asleep.” He pauses, notices that the hand he’s been protecting from danger has relaxed and is resting gently on his arm. “But don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Not even you.”
The gentle smile on the pitcher’s is very un-Beckett, and Papelbon decides that he likes it.
*
The roadtrip is one of their longest of the season (if not the longest), and he discovers quite by accident that when he got himself into rooming with Beckett, they got booked together for the entire trip. It becomes a joke in the team, that they’re boyfriends, one of those funny inside jokes. and they both take it good-naturedly, Beckett with his scowl and Pap laughing. It blooms into something Pap likes, a good, solid friendship with a good, solid guy, who just happens to have with a busted hand, and Beckett is always there to talk about his pitches or comment on his stance or talk about his wife in his Beckettish way - generally, having something offensive and negative to say about everything. He asks about baseball cards and Beckett brings out the box he brings with him everywhere, his top fifty or so cards, some worth hundreds of dollars. They talk about guns and Texas and Louisiana and the Red Sox.
He pranks Beckett and talks endlessly about superstitions and 1800’s-era cures for injuries and ridiculous-sounding stretches; Beckett tells him, in his particular way, to shut the fuck up. He grins his cocksure grin and headbutts him in the shoulder playfully; Beckett squeezes his shoulder and rolls his eyes, his mouth a scowl but his eyes grinning just a little. They bump knees in the clubhouse, Beckett elbowing him, and he laughs, swings his arm around the guy’s shoulders, tackles him to the couch. Beckett always manages to get on top, though, and he laughs and flails at Beckett helplessly, and Beckett says something witty and a little mean, which makes him laugh harder, and Beckett starfishes a hand across his face to get him to shut up, and he bites that hand, if he can.
Beckett tells him to do his closerly duty. He winks back and tells him only on good days.
In the meantime, he gets the delightful job of watching over Beckett as he mutters about the Marlins in his sleep. He usually talks in generalities, but sometimes he drops specific details about games, and when Pap is bored he tries to find the specific games Beckett talks about. He talks about AJ Burnett a lot.
The other thing he learns about Beckett is that the guy remembers nothing about what he says or does, and he says some pretty funny things, things that Pap tells him about. Sometimes he just curls up around the closer, who sits on the edge of his bed and strokes his hair. Sometimes Pap gives him a ball or his knee or his fist, and Beckett’s hand snaps into a fastball grip by force of habit. Sometimes Beckett doesn’t say anything, and Pap wonders if he’s reliving bullpen sessions or warm-up games or spring training. Sometimes, he curses and swears and Pap has to play the game of ‘move Beckett around so he doesn’t hit himself on anything or fall off the bed.’
Pap would never admit this to anyone’s face, but he much prefers nights where he gets to sit and watch Josh Beckett talk in his sleep over going to an obnoxious club. He finds himself uninterested in the girls and in the drinks, and gets buzzed before getting bored and taking a taxi back. Ellsbury and Lester get used to having him come and leave early, chalk it up to the fact that he’s Jon Papelbon and it’s just what he does.
One night towards the end of the trip, Papelbon is drinking a rum & coke (mostly coke, though), and Beckett is sleeping, hands over his face, actually under the covers for once, and he says, “Hey, Burnett.”
Pap looks up from his drink, glances at the clock (1:48 AM), and looks back to Beckett.
“Hey, Burnett,” Beckett says again, and one hand slides off his face, “Fucker, where the fuck are you, you owe me.”
“I’m right here,” Pap says, because it seems funny and dumb to do.
“We’ve got time if you want to have fun,” Beckett murmurs, turning more to face him. One hand reaches out for something, probably a piece of the pitcher he’s dreaming about, and it gropes helplessly before Pap gives in and sits there, and Beckett’s hand finds his knee. “You know you’ve got the best fucking mouth in the world.”
Pap startles, and Beckett pats his knee gently. “We’ve got time. Gonna be on the same time forever, I hope. You and me, we’re gonna rule the world. With your mouth. So good,” he says, and he smiles a sleepy, relaxed smile.
The closer brushes his hands through Beckett’s hair and wonders if he should be reading deeper into things.
Time for research.
*
They’re loading their shit back onto the plane, with him standing on one side of Beckett and Lester standing on the other, but Lester is on the phone with someone, and Pap is thinking about the wonderful and obnoxious Boston fans, and they’re finally going home. Everyone is looking forward to going back to Boston, exhausted and relieved. Nothing like seeing their beautiful, lovely Green Monster and their beautiful city and the fucked-up roads and going back to being the home team. He’s also thinking about what Beckett said last night, considering the more explicit details about AJ Burnett’s anatomy that Papelbon finds it hard not to think about. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really - it’s baseball, thirty fit guys sweating in uniforms, taking showers together, patting each other on the ass in celebration. Statistically, there’s bound to be gay baseball players. It’s just that he didn’t suspect Beckett to be one of them.
As a matter of fact, he would have been less surprised to hear the entire New York Yankees team consisted of all the gay players in the league. He grins to himself, looks over at Beckett and hops onto the plane.
For the first time in a while, he doesn’t sit next to the guy, lets him guy sprawl out over three seats so he can sleep more comfortably. Instead, Pap sits alone in the back, closer to the Wakefield, who prefers silence on his plane rides. The veteran knuckleballer has an air of calm around him, like he usually does. He’s casual, like his slow pitches, and is playing solitaire, muttering about what cards should go where.
Even so, being around him is immediately relaxing. When you’re around a guy who’s been so good in baseball for so long, how can you not be calm?
Maybe if you’re wondering if your new baseball best friend is gay.
In the All-Star Game last year, Papelbon got into a discussion with Roy Halladay about the effectiveness of a splitter, a pitch that Pap uses and Doc doesn’t. They resolved to carry on the discussion further, after the break was over, but baseball must have happened and now he’s got the guy’s number in his phone and hasn’t talked to him in more than a year. He dials, thinking amusedly of typical airline flights that don’t allow cell phone calls to be made.
”Hello?”
“Roy Halladay?”
”Speaking…”
“It’s Jon Papelbon. Do you have AJ Burnett’s number?”
There’s a lengthy pause.
”What about AJ Burnett?” asks Halladay, and there’s a sudden, careful edge to his voice, tinny with distance. His voice lowers, and suddenly, Pap doesn’t even need to call to know everything is true. ”You’re Josh Beckett’s friend, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, and I just wanted to talk to him about Beckett and a few things.”
To his surprise, Halladay gives him the number.
”Listen,” says Doc, and his voice is low and sharp - dangerous, like Beckett after a bad start, the kind of guy who would strangle you. ”You stay away from AJ Burnett.”
Before Pap can open his mouth and respond, Halladay hangs up on him.
He looks up the jet to where Beckett is sleeping, looks at the scrawled number for AJ Burnett, looks at his phone, and imagines Roy Halladay staring at his, too. He looks at the time at his watch, does a little math - it’ll be noon in New York now, hopefully late enough for the guy to be near his phone and early enough for him not to be in the middle of whatever pregame rituals he has.
He dials.
The phone rings four times; he glances out the window, probably somewhere over Detroit. The phone picks up after the fifth ring, and he hears conversation in the background. Burnett must be at lunch.
”Hello?” says a voice, in a light Southern accent - not quite Texas, maybe Mississippi or Tennessee or near there.
“Is this AJ Burnett?”
”Yeah….”
“This is Jon Papelbon.” He looks up from his seat, around the plane. The relievers are playing cards, with the exception of Okajima, who is staring out the window. Lester, Lackey, and Daisuke are talking about changeup grips, with Daisuke’s interpreter helping. A number of the infielders are asleep or reading, besides Ortiz and Pedroia, who are rocking out to something leaking from two pairs of headphones attached to a splitter and one of their iPods. Near him, Wakefield is on the phone, talking in a low voice. Feeling as confidential as you can get on a plane with thirty other guys, he swallows.
”The Red Sox closer?” Burnett sounds skeptical, which is understandable. Someone at the table shouts, ”Keith Foulke was better!”
“Yeah, the same. Um, can I ask you about Josh Beckett?”
He’s not sure if this pause is longer than the one from Halladay, but it might be; he can almost hear the pitcher blinking at the phone, at whomever it is he’s eating with, if anyone. Then, Burnett’s voice again, though it’s not directed at him.
”Yeah, he wants to talk about Beckett… yeah, we played on the Marlins together. He got the MVP when they stomped you.....Oh, like I wanted to be out? Oh yeah, that’s a vacation, some quality time with Tommy John..” Laughter. “Yeah. I’ll be back in a second. If you leave without me, you’ll be in trouble.” More laughter.
Then, the sound dies down, and he must be in a bathroom or an alley or something, and his voice is a little shaky.
”What about Josh?”
“Were you….” He pauses, looks at his feet, looks at the sky outside the plane, “Involved?”
”What kind of question is that?” There’s a surliness in his voice, and he imagines a Beckett-esque scowl on the Yankee’s face. ”Why the fuck are you asking?”
“Josh, he, um, talks in his sleep. He said…”
”Shut the fuck up.”
It’s almost painful how much Burnett is reminding him of Beckett right now. He opens his mouth to say something, but Burnett keeps talking.
”You stay away from Beckett, and don’t ever call me again.”
He hasn’t been hung up on twice in one day in a long time.
Well, if Burnett is anything like Beckett (and he is), everything Beckett said in his sleep is absolutely true.
They finally arrive at Boston and they’ve got the offday, even though it’s technically now night, around 7. Pap goes home, laughs at his wife and his kids’ antics, and manages to stop thinking about Josh Beckett and AJ Burnett, even if it’s only for a night.
“How are the girls?” asks Ashley that night, teasingly, and she sits in bed with her computer on her lap. Even in the dull glare of the computer reflecting across her face, she’s still beautiful. She folds the computer shut and puts it on the bedside table, beckoning him towards the bed. He flops over, putting his head in her lap.
“No girls,” he says, simply, and closes his eyes.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Jon.”
“No, I’m not. I would tell you. I have, remember?”
She cocks her head at him, and kisses him on the forehead. “Any reason?”
“I have to look after Josh Beckett. He moves around in his sleep, and I spend my time making sure he doesn’t bash his hand open any worse than he already has.”
“Sounds boring.”
He considers defending Beckett, could talk about how it’s fun to watch the guy mutter and fight and sometimes pitch in his sleep, could talk about how Pap has learned more about the guy during the night than during the day, could talk about the placid smile the guy wears, about the feel of his hair through his fingers, the long-limbed tangles in the sheets that he ends up in, sometimes that Pap has to extricate him from.
Instead, he just shrugs, smiles, and nuzzles his wife’s chest. “It’s not too bad,” he says.
“Well, I guess he must be nice, if you’re giving up sex for him.”
“Yeah,” he says, and wonders what Beckett is doing now.
next >
rating: hard R at best, but most of it is mostly pg-13.
pairings: beckett/papelbon, with reference to past beckett/burnett and burnett/halladay if you squint.
genre: slash
word count: 29k.
summary: jonathan papelbon decides he wants to room with josh beckett, who talks quite clearly in his sleep.
written for littlestclouds's Porn Battle X prompt: "RPF, Jonathan Papelbon/Josh Beckett, stupid, fire, blister, bump, blood, faulty wiring, absconded, slap." I didn't hit everything as nicely as maybe I would have, but I at least referenced each one of these. takes place in 2010.
He likes demanding to be roomed with people just to see who’s willing to tolerate him and who’s not. Of course, this can only happen on certain occasions, but he, the Master Closer (Except Mariano Rivera) of All Things, can always get his way when the planets align. It’s not like the Boston Red Sox actually make them share rooms (for god’s sake, that’s Marlins-level cheapness), but Pap personally hates having a room to himself. When they’re on the road, he goes to the club until he’s either so drunk or so tired he can’t stand. Usually, he has someone to spend the time with, or he’s so exhausted he doesn’t even realize he’s alone.
But anyway, getting himself roomed with someone is all about circumstances. For one, he needs to get the save, and it needs to be a pretty close save. He needs to make it quick, yet flashy, and he needs to be impressive and smug and larger-than-life. He needs to strike out some people looking, and he needs to get the whole club hyped about him. The next day, they need to be heading out on the road.
So here he is, striking out Evan fucking Longoria, who just blinks at his 102 mph fastball and argues the call weakly before heading back to the visitor’s dugout. That brings them into a tie for second place with the Rays, two games behind the damn Yankees, and now the Rays are heading to play the Tigers, a team streaking so hard that Pap’s surprised they haven’t burst into flames. The Yankees are going to play the White Sox.
Meanwhile, him and his wonderful team in their lovely red socks get to play the fucking Mariners, and a Mariners team sans Cliff Lee is just roadkill for them to drive over, laughing all the way.
He decides he wants to try to room with Josh Beckett on this trip. This is because Beckett has a number of qualities he would like to get to know better: for one, does he actually shave that little patch of hair under his lip, or does it just grow like that? Does he scowl in his sleep, or that only when he comes to Fenway? Does he talk to his mother using that mouth? Does he even call his mother?
These are burning questions in his world, and he desperately wants answers to them. So, he tells Tito he wants to room with Beckett, and when Tito asks why, he laughs and explains those reasons.
“I’ll ask Josh,” he says, only after Papelbon has given him that ‘come on, I’m your star closer, pleeeeeeease?’ look.
“Why can’t it be a surprise?”
“Because, though we probably won’t need you in the series with the Mariners, I’m pretty sure we’ll need you in one piece after that.”
The closer pouts and stomps off.
“That only works if you’re twelve, Pap,” says Tito, to his back, but they can both hear the smile in his voice.
*
Beckett complains and threatens and moans and whines and growls and snaps at Tito, but he eventually bends to share a room with Papelbon. That's the way most of the Sox are - they know better. Pap is as crazy as they come and stubborn as an ass, and he almost always gets his way unless it's something stupidly unimportant. There are only a few people who can out-argue him (Wakefield, mostly, and sometimes Varitek). Of course, the room they get assigned to is definitely larger than their individual rooms would have been, which is a pleasant plus.
"Stay on your side," Beckett says, sharply, and drops his bag near the bed he chooses. Boston has done funny things to the guy's accent, made it a funky mutt of a dialect, and it's a little weird, but Pap still likes it. Beckett is one of his favorite guys to be around, even if it means the possibility of a surprise death. The pitcher has one hand taped up (blisters), and Pap knows the guy is praying he can keep his hand together for his start. He saw it on his previous start against the Jays, and quite frankly, the closer is betting that those blisters go in the fourth inning, slicking the ball with blood and getting him kicked out of the game. The Mariners might like the excitement. He certainly would.
He puts the thought to the side and drops his bag near the other queen-sized bed, flopping down on it. He slept on the plane, like most of the team, and they've actually gained three hours from time zones, so it's 4 AM and he's wide-awake. His roommate, who likes to sleep as much as possible before starts, is, by some kind of magic, already asleep. He peeks out the door of the hallway, sees Wakefield teaching some sort of card game to Buchholtz, and closes the door quietly behind him.
"What are you doing?" He asks, slipping out. Both pitchers look up at him, and he can tell they're both trying to establish if he's here to make trouble or not. He’d be proud of that if he wasn’t genuinely interested in learning how to play.
Apparently he passes inspection, because Wakefield scoots over on the floor and says, "Playing cards. Can't sleep. Want in?"
"Sure," he replies, and sits down.
When he returns to the room at 7am, having been thoroughly whipped by not one by both starting pitchers (in true closer style, he just can't plan ahead), he has a strong hunch something is wrong, mostly because the light in the bathroom is on, and he can hear a soft stream of swears coming from it. He tiptoes towards it, and presses his ear to the door.
"Fuck," he hears Beckett saying, and the water is running. "Jesus Christ, shit, fuck, Johnny'll never let me play with this. Christ. Just a couple more hours. Fuck that fucking dream. Fuck.”
He knocks gently. "Josh?"
"Fuck, Pap, get out." Beckett sounds even angrier than usual, like his start is gone bad and he hasn't even started warming up yet. The sun has barely risen. Seattle seems determined to stay dark and cloudy, or maybe it’s just Beckett’s mood seeping out of the high shower window into the sky. "I'm fine, get the fuck out, go to sleep."
"What's wrong, dude?"
Beckett opens the bathroom door, and sticks his head out. He's got a weird expression on, and at first Pap would have assumed he caught the guy jerking off, but it's not really a blue-balls expression, more like a grimace, twitching down the corners of his mouth, creating lines around his eyes. It’s not quite a traditional Beckettish scowl, but it is something Pap, being a pitcher as well, knows. Pain, mixed with that horror that comes when you know there are two words lingering in your future: disabled list.
"I said get out."
In most cases, the implicit danger in Beckett's voice something to be laughed at, because he's the star closer, and no one hurts him, but something about the way Beckett looks at him with those narrowed eyes makes his hair stand up on end, makes his fingers prickle and stomach drop.
"Just... be all right," he says, and walks away from the door. Beckett nearly slams it, and he hears the water start running again.
"Tim," he says, knocking on the other starter's door, "Are you awake?"
Wakefield opens the door, tilts his head to the side, noting the unusual concern in the closer's voice. Wakefield is the father of the pitching staff, and is in every way the perfect dad figure to this group of guys. He is possibly Papelbon’s favorite guy, everything from his relatively, clean mouth and his ability to switch between bullpen and starter at will, to his crazy knuckleball and his ability to play pitching staff therapist. "Yeah, what is it, Pap?"
"I think something's wrong with Beckett. More than usual."
He frowns. "Like?"
"Like he's locked himself in the bathroom, is swearing about how he's going to miss his start, and won't let me come in?"
Wakefield sighs and closes the door behind him. He leads the knuckleballer into his room, where Tim knocks on the door and leans against it. Beckett is still swearing inside.
"Beckett, it's Tim, and I am not Pap, and you cannot pull this with me, so open the door and let's see what's wrong with you. Missing a start is not the end of the world. It's more important you don't hurt yourself further." Wakefield takes a step away from the door, and it clicks open in the most grudging fashion a door can manage. Beckett is staring at Wakefield, challenging him to come in and ask him about his problems.
Pap has the fleeting thought that the Red Sox pitching staff is the most hopelessly dysfunctional family he has ever been a part of. Not like he makes it any better, but even though everyone calls him the crazy one (a title he's proud of), no one is much saner than him.
"Are you going to let me in there, or am I going to have to drag you out?" Wakefield asks, putting his hands on his hips.
Slowly, Beckett pushes the door open all the way.
Papelbon, as a ballplayer, is accustomed to bad-looking injuries; he has been hit by balls, lobbed or pitched in his direction, seen brilliant rainbow bruises show up on flesh, seen that terrible offness of snapped muscles or dislocated tendons, knows what Tommy John surgery and major rotator cuff injuries look like. He is familiar with the elbow and shoulder and knee scars ballplayers accumulate and the weirder ones, like hands and hips. But baseball injuries aren't bloody, and while his mouth doesn't exactly drop open, he certainly stares. Beckett's hand is bleeding pretty furiously, staining the porcelain sink pink, and the guy is holding one hand with the other, causing blood to drip in tiny little waterfalls around his fingers. It's distracting, somehow, blood leaking from him, like pure talent dripping down the drain. Beckett's blood is redder than he would have guessed, and has the smoothness of top-shelf tequila and flows as endlessly and efficiently as it can. In some ways, Josh Beckett's blood is just like Josh Beckett. The wound looks bad, but somehow Pap wants to get closer to it, examine the ragged edges of the flesh. He takes a step forward, wondering about the sudden dryness in his mouth and the wrench in his gut, then holds back, and looks at his own thought process and blinks.
He then coaxes his thoughts out of whatever strange hole they just fell in as Tim's talking. No one seems to have noticed him, and while this would usually bother him immensely, this time he’s glad.
"You really thought you were pitching if you could hide that from Tito and Farrell." Wakefield says, giving Beckett a god, you are such a fucking moron kind of look. "Really."
"It's a fucking blister," Beckett replies, staring at his hand like it insulted his mother, "I don't why it's bleeding like crazy." He grabs some toilet paper and wraps his hand.
"Pap, go tell Tito," Tim looks over his shoulder at the closer, who has regained his ability to blink. "And Farrell."
"I was having this crazy dream, and I fucking whacked it against the bedside table." Beckett is saying as Pap leaves.
Tito is certainly not happy, and Farrell just shrugs, and one of the trainers starts patching him up and muttering about it.
"This is not a blister, Josh,” says the trainer, “This is a gash. You're gonna need stitches."
"Fuck."
Wakefield is frowning, and shrugging, and maybe Papelbon doesn't know as much about missing starts (he was never any good as a starter), but you don't need much of a brain to see how pissed off Beckett is at his hand, and by extension, himself. Beckett spends all day scowling at his hand in hopes it will improve, but, of course, no dice. The guy doesn’t even go to the game, which (by some miracle) they win behind Delcarmen’s shockingly lackluster fill-in start.
Pap’s spent some time at the bar, nothing serious, just enough to get him just on the bare fringes of drunk, enough that the world has a pleasant fuzziness to it, an alcohol-induced haze that he’ll easily be able to shake off in case he needs to go tomorrow. He’s thinking about Josh Beckett, and the rumor that he can fall asleep at any time in any place.
Beckett is, in fact, asleep when he returns.
He flops on his bed and studies the guy, who has ignored the covers entirely. He’s shucked off his t-shirt onto the floor, still wearing his jeans, and is using every inch of his 6’5 frame to cover the bed. He’s dreaming, and Pap watches move and kick and shift and mutter, and then he lifts his injured hand and the closer bolts up, steps on Beckett’s back to leap over him, and grabs the offending wrist before the sleeping pitcher can destroy his stitches for the second night in a row.
Suffice to say, being stepped on and having his wrist jerked wakes the guy up.
“Pap, what the fuck?”
“You are going to hurt yourself in your sleep again.” He lets go of the wrist and slips off the injured starter’s bed. “You were about to open your stitches.”
Beckett looks at his hand and sits up.
“Bad dream,” he says, sighing, and rolls over. “Thanks.”
Pap opens his mouth to say you’re welcome, but he’s already asleep again.
Might be some truth to that rumor, after all.
*
Papelbon, who is powered almost exclusively by fastballs and nervous energy, is not a big sleeper, like Beckett. This works out, because he gets to watch the guy fight his dreams (nightmares?) and occasionally yanks the blanket (with him on it) one way or another to keep him from hurting himself. Beckett is possibly the most active person the closer has ever seen, and once or twice he actually makes out what is being said. It’s actually kind of, well, cute. Beckett is not a cute person. This is cute.
“I didn’t take your shit,” Beckett mutters and rolls over, dragging his hand across his face, “And your signs are fucking dumb.”
Okay, this is getting interesting.
“You all are fucking terrible, and get out of my team. No, my team. Definitely, my team. Of course my team is hot. That’s obvious. It’s fucking Florida.”
Aww, he’s dreaming about the Marlins.
*
They win the next game, too, and Ellsbury comes over to his locker and asks if he wants to go to the club. He turns down the offer.
Not surprisingly, Beckett is still asleep when he gets back to the hotel. The guy hates showing up to games while he’s injured, and Pap can understand that; being on the DL is like being dragged by your fingers and toes by your team. He lets the door close, flops on his bed, looks over at Beckett (still sleeping), his injured hand hanging off the bed, near the still-bloody bedside table.
"That's not going to end well," he says to no one, and wonders when Beckett is going to start talking about the Marlins again. To prepare, he walks around the other side of the bed and shoves the guy back a few inches.
Professional athlete’s reflexes dart out and snap up Pap’s wrist, and his dreaming grip is like a vice. He tugs away once, twice, with no avail, so he sits on the end of Beckett’s bed and rolls his eyes. “Guess I’m stuck with you, huh?” he says.
“Fucking… team is missing something,” Josh growls in his sleep, and jerks on Pap’s wrist. “Socks. That’s it. Teal is ugly. Red.”
Pap busies himself imagining the Marlins wearing red socks, which causes him to snort back his laughter. Beckett tugs on him again.
“No fucking socks?” He murmurs to some invisible person. “Fuck you. Finding some fucking socks.”
“You go on adventures in your sleep, don’t you, Joshie?” mutters Papelbon, and he finds himself stroking Beckett’s goatee, which he does, by the way, trim every night. “Well, I guess I can go on ‘em with you.”
Beckett grins slightly, shifts closer to the closer’s hand.
“Found ‘em,” he says, and his other hand finds Papelbon’s knee. “Perfect.”
Jon looks down at the starting pitcher that’s some managed to end up half-curled around him. He grins, runs his empty hand through the dark hair, and rolls his eyes, almost laughing.
“I wonder what Timmy and the rest of them would think of big, scary Beckett cuddling with his closer while he’s asleep.” He pauses, notices that the hand he’s been protecting from danger has relaxed and is resting gently on his arm. “But don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Not even you.”
The gentle smile on the pitcher’s is very un-Beckett, and Papelbon decides that he likes it.
*
The roadtrip is one of their longest of the season (if not the longest), and he discovers quite by accident that when he got himself into rooming with Beckett, they got booked together for the entire trip. It becomes a joke in the team, that they’re boyfriends, one of those funny inside jokes. and they both take it good-naturedly, Beckett with his scowl and Pap laughing. It blooms into something Pap likes, a good, solid friendship with a good, solid guy, who just happens to have with a busted hand, and Beckett is always there to talk about his pitches or comment on his stance or talk about his wife in his Beckettish way - generally, having something offensive and negative to say about everything. He asks about baseball cards and Beckett brings out the box he brings with him everywhere, his top fifty or so cards, some worth hundreds of dollars. They talk about guns and Texas and Louisiana and the Red Sox.
He pranks Beckett and talks endlessly about superstitions and 1800’s-era cures for injuries and ridiculous-sounding stretches; Beckett tells him, in his particular way, to shut the fuck up. He grins his cocksure grin and headbutts him in the shoulder playfully; Beckett squeezes his shoulder and rolls his eyes, his mouth a scowl but his eyes grinning just a little. They bump knees in the clubhouse, Beckett elbowing him, and he laughs, swings his arm around the guy’s shoulders, tackles him to the couch. Beckett always manages to get on top, though, and he laughs and flails at Beckett helplessly, and Beckett says something witty and a little mean, which makes him laugh harder, and Beckett starfishes a hand across his face to get him to shut up, and he bites that hand, if he can.
Beckett tells him to do his closerly duty. He winks back and tells him only on good days.
In the meantime, he gets the delightful job of watching over Beckett as he mutters about the Marlins in his sleep. He usually talks in generalities, but sometimes he drops specific details about games, and when Pap is bored he tries to find the specific games Beckett talks about. He talks about AJ Burnett a lot.
The other thing he learns about Beckett is that the guy remembers nothing about what he says or does, and he says some pretty funny things, things that Pap tells him about. Sometimes he just curls up around the closer, who sits on the edge of his bed and strokes his hair. Sometimes Pap gives him a ball or his knee or his fist, and Beckett’s hand snaps into a fastball grip by force of habit. Sometimes Beckett doesn’t say anything, and Pap wonders if he’s reliving bullpen sessions or warm-up games or spring training. Sometimes, he curses and swears and Pap has to play the game of ‘move Beckett around so he doesn’t hit himself on anything or fall off the bed.’
Pap would never admit this to anyone’s face, but he much prefers nights where he gets to sit and watch Josh Beckett talk in his sleep over going to an obnoxious club. He finds himself uninterested in the girls and in the drinks, and gets buzzed before getting bored and taking a taxi back. Ellsbury and Lester get used to having him come and leave early, chalk it up to the fact that he’s Jon Papelbon and it’s just what he does.
One night towards the end of the trip, Papelbon is drinking a rum & coke (mostly coke, though), and Beckett is sleeping, hands over his face, actually under the covers for once, and he says, “Hey, Burnett.”
Pap looks up from his drink, glances at the clock (1:48 AM), and looks back to Beckett.
“Hey, Burnett,” Beckett says again, and one hand slides off his face, “Fucker, where the fuck are you, you owe me.”
“I’m right here,” Pap says, because it seems funny and dumb to do.
“We’ve got time if you want to have fun,” Beckett murmurs, turning more to face him. One hand reaches out for something, probably a piece of the pitcher he’s dreaming about, and it gropes helplessly before Pap gives in and sits there, and Beckett’s hand finds his knee. “You know you’ve got the best fucking mouth in the world.”
Pap startles, and Beckett pats his knee gently. “We’ve got time. Gonna be on the same time forever, I hope. You and me, we’re gonna rule the world. With your mouth. So good,” he says, and he smiles a sleepy, relaxed smile.
The closer brushes his hands through Beckett’s hair and wonders if he should be reading deeper into things.
Time for research.
*
They’re loading their shit back onto the plane, with him standing on one side of Beckett and Lester standing on the other, but Lester is on the phone with someone, and Pap is thinking about the wonderful and obnoxious Boston fans, and they’re finally going home. Everyone is looking forward to going back to Boston, exhausted and relieved. Nothing like seeing their beautiful, lovely Green Monster and their beautiful city and the fucked-up roads and going back to being the home team. He’s also thinking about what Beckett said last night, considering the more explicit details about AJ Burnett’s anatomy that Papelbon finds it hard not to think about. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really - it’s baseball, thirty fit guys sweating in uniforms, taking showers together, patting each other on the ass in celebration. Statistically, there’s bound to be gay baseball players. It’s just that he didn’t suspect Beckett to be one of them.
As a matter of fact, he would have been less surprised to hear the entire New York Yankees team consisted of all the gay players in the league. He grins to himself, looks over at Beckett and hops onto the plane.
For the first time in a while, he doesn’t sit next to the guy, lets him guy sprawl out over three seats so he can sleep more comfortably. Instead, Pap sits alone in the back, closer to the Wakefield, who prefers silence on his plane rides. The veteran knuckleballer has an air of calm around him, like he usually does. He’s casual, like his slow pitches, and is playing solitaire, muttering about what cards should go where.
Even so, being around him is immediately relaxing. When you’re around a guy who’s been so good in baseball for so long, how can you not be calm?
Maybe if you’re wondering if your new baseball best friend is gay.
In the All-Star Game last year, Papelbon got into a discussion with Roy Halladay about the effectiveness of a splitter, a pitch that Pap uses and Doc doesn’t. They resolved to carry on the discussion further, after the break was over, but baseball must have happened and now he’s got the guy’s number in his phone and hasn’t talked to him in more than a year. He dials, thinking amusedly of typical airline flights that don’t allow cell phone calls to be made.
”Hello?”
“Roy Halladay?”
”Speaking…”
“It’s Jon Papelbon. Do you have AJ Burnett’s number?”
There’s a lengthy pause.
”What about AJ Burnett?” asks Halladay, and there’s a sudden, careful edge to his voice, tinny with distance. His voice lowers, and suddenly, Pap doesn’t even need to call to know everything is true. ”You’re Josh Beckett’s friend, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, and I just wanted to talk to him about Beckett and a few things.”
To his surprise, Halladay gives him the number.
”Listen,” says Doc, and his voice is low and sharp - dangerous, like Beckett after a bad start, the kind of guy who would strangle you. ”You stay away from AJ Burnett.”
Before Pap can open his mouth and respond, Halladay hangs up on him.
He looks up the jet to where Beckett is sleeping, looks at the scrawled number for AJ Burnett, looks at his phone, and imagines Roy Halladay staring at his, too. He looks at the time at his watch, does a little math - it’ll be noon in New York now, hopefully late enough for the guy to be near his phone and early enough for him not to be in the middle of whatever pregame rituals he has.
He dials.
The phone rings four times; he glances out the window, probably somewhere over Detroit. The phone picks up after the fifth ring, and he hears conversation in the background. Burnett must be at lunch.
”Hello?” says a voice, in a light Southern accent - not quite Texas, maybe Mississippi or Tennessee or near there.
“Is this AJ Burnett?”
”Yeah….”
“This is Jon Papelbon.” He looks up from his seat, around the plane. The relievers are playing cards, with the exception of Okajima, who is staring out the window. Lester, Lackey, and Daisuke are talking about changeup grips, with Daisuke’s interpreter helping. A number of the infielders are asleep or reading, besides Ortiz and Pedroia, who are rocking out to something leaking from two pairs of headphones attached to a splitter and one of their iPods. Near him, Wakefield is on the phone, talking in a low voice. Feeling as confidential as you can get on a plane with thirty other guys, he swallows.
”The Red Sox closer?” Burnett sounds skeptical, which is understandable. Someone at the table shouts, ”Keith Foulke was better!”
“Yeah, the same. Um, can I ask you about Josh Beckett?”
He’s not sure if this pause is longer than the one from Halladay, but it might be; he can almost hear the pitcher blinking at the phone, at whomever it is he’s eating with, if anyone. Then, Burnett’s voice again, though it’s not directed at him.
”Yeah, he wants to talk about Beckett… yeah, we played on the Marlins together. He got the MVP when they stomped you.....Oh, like I wanted to be out? Oh yeah, that’s a vacation, some quality time with Tommy John..” Laughter. “Yeah. I’ll be back in a second. If you leave without me, you’ll be in trouble.” More laughter.
Then, the sound dies down, and he must be in a bathroom or an alley or something, and his voice is a little shaky.
”What about Josh?”
“Were you….” He pauses, looks at his feet, looks at the sky outside the plane, “Involved?”
”What kind of question is that?” There’s a surliness in his voice, and he imagines a Beckett-esque scowl on the Yankee’s face. ”Why the fuck are you asking?”
“Josh, he, um, talks in his sleep. He said…”
”Shut the fuck up.”
It’s almost painful how much Burnett is reminding him of Beckett right now. He opens his mouth to say something, but Burnett keeps talking.
”You stay away from Beckett, and don’t ever call me again.”
He hasn’t been hung up on twice in one day in a long time.
Well, if Burnett is anything like Beckett (and he is), everything Beckett said in his sleep is absolutely true.
They finally arrive at Boston and they’ve got the offday, even though it’s technically now night, around 7. Pap goes home, laughs at his wife and his kids’ antics, and manages to stop thinking about Josh Beckett and AJ Burnett, even if it’s only for a night.
“How are the girls?” asks Ashley that night, teasingly, and she sits in bed with her computer on her lap. Even in the dull glare of the computer reflecting across her face, she’s still beautiful. She folds the computer shut and puts it on the bedside table, beckoning him towards the bed. He flops over, putting his head in her lap.
“No girls,” he says, simply, and closes his eyes.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Jon.”
“No, I’m not. I would tell you. I have, remember?”
She cocks her head at him, and kisses him on the forehead. “Any reason?”
“I have to look after Josh Beckett. He moves around in his sleep, and I spend my time making sure he doesn’t bash his hand open any worse than he already has.”
“Sounds boring.”
He considers defending Beckett, could talk about how it’s fun to watch the guy mutter and fight and sometimes pitch in his sleep, could talk about how Pap has learned more about the guy during the night than during the day, could talk about the placid smile the guy wears, about the feel of his hair through his fingers, the long-limbed tangles in the sheets that he ends up in, sometimes that Pap has to extricate him from.
Instead, he just shrugs, smiles, and nuzzles his wife’s chest. “It’s not too bad,” he says.
“Well, I guess he must be nice, if you’re giving up sex for him.”
“Yeah,” he says, and wonders what Beckett is doing now.
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