Author’s Note: Hey! This piece of fic was written for the Blaseball Zine Jam 2022, and was for the collab zine To The Hall and Back: A Zine About Marriage, Divorce and Everything In Between. Please consider checking out the zine and the whole collection!
They stare down the television. The tiny CRT sits on top of boxes and milk crates in the equipment shed. Usually, things wouldn’t be…this tense. The fear of the idol board isn’t unknown amongst the players in Hawai’i, but they’ve felt nothing like Don’s instant rise to stardom.
The boss’ announcement comes, MVPs are awarded, and the man in question groans in ache.
Ego sits well on his skin when the modification takes. It’s Yosh’s eyes who meets Don’s now amber tinged first. This wasn’t new to the Fridays, but back in San Francisco, ego was the far from their concerns. Don was talented, Don was good. A part of him wished that Don Mitchell would put his energy into anything other than a love for the things and people he cared about.
This, Yosh knew, was out of the question.
He gets it.
Yosh gets it.
He’d be hypocritical. All things considered, the ache in his bones from several seasons back makes that no clearer. They both did what they did for love, it’s how they both got here in the first place.
The discussion from the team and the word from management is “wait it out, see where the vibes take us, we can try to prevent you from getting vaulted if we can.”
Being an optimist has never been Yosh’s forte.
Yosh comes to him with the idea.
“I’ll learn to bat, it will be fine, if you’re not on base, that will get the statisticians off of your back.”
Out of his entire blaseball career, Don has pitched a ball a total of maybe twenty times. Most of which, were homoerotic flirting attempts with his husband, or inebriated bets that varied wildly in result. He’s used to the run, he’s used to the fast-paced nature of the lineup.
He knows the sting of Ego. He knows his husband’s fear embedded in FaceTime calls and texts between timezones and air travel.
He says yes.
Yosh is a smart, smart man. It’s something Don has always admired, but even then, calling up his husband for the weekend so both of them could teach him to pitch as a bit…much.
He tugs at his collar, the height of the mound has him looking bouncing between the Sandford’s eyes as his catcher and Yosh’s eyes as the batter. Percival is serving as their ump, Roland is in the outfield, this is for him. He knows this whether feedback demanded it or not they are here for him.
Don can’t tell if that makes the shining weight in his stomach and lungs feel lighter or heavier,
He pitches the ball.
“Strike Three!”
Percy is grinning under her mask. He watches Sandy squeeze the ball in his mitt. Yosh’s grip on the bat loosens, and he signs.
“You’re a natural.”
Don steps off the mound, and runs his free hand through his hair, cringing at the stick the pine tar has against it.
“Well I had good people to learn from.”
Sandy takes off his mask, rolling his eyes, “You sap.”
Percy hollers for Roland to come in from the outfield, and goes off to the dugout to clean up, “You three got it here?”
Yosh nods, “Yeah, yeah, we got it.”
Laying in bed now, Don feels an ache in his shoulder, and he groans, “How the hell do you two do it.”
Sandy laughs, “Honest answer? It’s all in the elbows.”
Yosh chuckles into the pillow, and Don lightly hits him on the chest.
“Okay haha you shitheads.” Don is grinning too, despite everything, and he lets out a sigh.
“Are you two gonna be okay?” Don doesn’t finish his question right away, and the air hangs still.
“Like, if I really still get vaulted, are you two going to be alright?”
It’s more than the ego that makes his chest feel tight.
“Don-” Yosh starts. “This isn’t the first time the thought of losing someone has been at the forefront of my mind.”
Right. Fuck. Right.
“And because of that, I know that, whether you are vaulted, I will still have my love for you.”
Both him and Sandy are staring at Yosh now.
“I know I can’t speak for you Sandford, but, when Sebastian and I-” Yosh chokes on his words, and he takes a breath, “When we got married, we knew that with everything we had going on in our lives, that letting ourselves fall into grief would only hurt us. I miss him, I miss him every day.”
He pauses.
Yosh lets himself set his hand against Don’s bare chest, and Sandford joins him.
“He told me while we were living back in Trinidad, that if something were to happen, he wanted me to keep going, to keep trying, to keep loving, to not let myself break the cycle of filling the world with some tangible part of me, and of him.”
“Don, whatever we can do to keep you out of that vault we will do. But even if the worse comes to worst, we will keep going, for me, for you-” Yosh squeezes Sandford’s hand, “For us.”
Sandy rests his head on his shoulder, “You’ve always had a way with words, Carpenter.”
Yosh chuckles, “I try.”
They don’t talk about it anymore, at least for now. Sandford is quiet drawing his finger up and down Don’s chest hair, focusing on the slow pulse of the ceiling fan.
Don moves his arms, ignoring the strain in his shoulder. He wraps his arms around the pair, and pulls them close.
“Hey, we have the night to ourselves, why don’t we just enjoy it instead?”
“If by ‘enjoy it’ do you mean fall asleep in ten minutes?” Sandford smiles against his neck,
“Shut the hell up you old man.” Don kisses the top of his head, then turns to offer Yosh the same