Fuckin' FINALLY.
I don't even care, I am SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS THING, I'm not even proofreading it, I'm just posting it, because I just want it out there and NOT HARASSING ME ANY LONGER. I'll probably proofread it and fix it and whatever before I post it 'round to the communities, but you choice flist folk get first crack at it in its raw state. Have fun. I don't know why this took so long or ended up pissing me off so much, but there you have it.
There's some het in there, and some gay, I don't know, just read it, it all makes sense, honest. It's all dirty filthy baseball porn, don't read if that ain't your thing, etc. etc.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
Tim Hudson/Kyle Farnsworth
Smirk
Hudson tracks his fingers over the wheel, expensive leather-covered round of it, ticking the bumps with his fingernails. He risks a glance over at Farnsworth, who is trying to slump in the seat next to him but is failing miserably, too big to slump effectively. All he's managed to do is fold his legs up in a twisted jam against the glove compartment, his shoulders pressed hard into the seat, neck twisted 'round so he can stare moodily out the window. Hudson flicks his eyes back to the road, easing the truck to a slow stop at a red light, sheen of crimson in the dark.
Francoeur and McCann, rookie outfielder and rookie catcher, are crammed together in the small backseat of the truck, heads together, quick light whispers, eyes moving fast, whites catching reflected light and winking like fireflies in the rearview mirror. They're sharing an apartment this year, learning the city shoulder to shoulder, and Hudson is pretty sure he knows where he's going. Weird to be driving the rookies to their own place, maybe, but they'd gone at him all big eyes and hopeful voices, Please come hang out with us, we got this new place, all unbroken-in and just waiting to have people over, and Hudson had said OK, but no fuckin' way am I spending the night just me and two rooks, no offense meant, guys.
They'd gone over and done their big-eyed routine on Farnsworth, who was mostly immune to such things, but when Hudson sauntered up behind them, exaggerated eye roll and managing to ask for backup and being cool about it at the same time, of course Farnsworth agreed. He grumbled and grimaced but he promised, fine, he’d come over with Huddy a few days from now, they’ll sit on the new couches and have some drinks and play some video games and break the place in.
There’s a quick succession of events, after that. A smashed window and a stolen radio in McCann’s car, keyed scratches in the cherry red paint. Francoeur doesn’t have a car, keeps meaning to buy one and putting it off, Consumers Digests littered around his locker, inky circles around logos and company names, checks and Xs next to miles per gallon and safety features, so the rookies are begging rides off of everyone else, big eyes getting a workout.
Farnsworth gets in a game and gets the hold, keeps runners off the bases for an inning and an out, only to watch Reitsma come in and serve up the runs like mashed potatoes, a great big shiny scoop full of them, all lumped together and smacking down with a sick, wet sound. Farnsworth scrubs at his hair with a towel, disbelieving and furious and messing it up. Hudson sits down at the other end of the dugout in his jacket, scratching at the sleeves to hear the synthetic fabric sing. He isn’t starting today, this isn’t his mess, because that would just be too perfect.
After something like that Farnsworth wouldn’t normally go out with the guys, would prefer to stay in and drink himself into a boneless oblivion, or go out and give some groupie the ride of her life, he hasn’t been in Atlanta long but already Hudson can see the pattern in it, clearer than new-mown outfield stripes. Farnsworth takes losses hard, takes them personal, but he also takes his word seriously, very, and he promised.
The rookies remember, of course, and don’t have cars, and Farnsworth isn’t in any kind of mood but when reminded he just grunts and glares darkly, follows Hudson out to his truck without further comment, leaning on the shiny black passenger side door and frowning up at the stars barely visible in the yellowish city haze, like they’re responsible for the loss on some cosmic scale, waiting for the rookies to trip laughing out of the park. They all cram into the truck, the rookies in the back having some kind of deep conversation, more serious and less raucous than normal, underbreath and not wanting to be overheard, but Hudson glances back in his rearview mirror again and watches McCann tentatively reach out and touch the back of Francoeur’s hand, and he thinks they’ve just figured something out.
He smirks and looks over to see if Farnsworth sees what he sees, but Farnsworth is still folded irritably into his seat, hand dwarfing the door lock as he fiddles with it, clicking it up and down, watching the street lights slide by.
--------------------------------------------
The rookie apartment is pale and cool, when they get in and turn the lights on. The halls are broad and the ceilings are high, and Hudson thinks that they could do this place up real nice, if they wanted, if they had someone’s wife come in and go over it with a design magazine and some color swatches, but they’re both single and already the edges of the carpet are starting to get curls of paper and unidentifiable crumbs in them, already the walls are sporting haphazardly-hung posters of crisp beer logos and pretty girls lounging on beaches. Francoeur points them into the living room and Hudson is startled as he rounds the corner by a life-sized cardboard cutout of Michael Vick, charging at him in a burst of shiny red and black. It’s a much nicer apartment than the ones he had at Auburn, crumbling dingy places beaten into submission by a steady succession of students, scratches on the floors from dragging kegs into backrooms, so it’s funny to see, same kinds of posters on the walls, and Hudson expects the couch to be beat-up and secondhand, is surprised by its sharp new corners and unfrayed plush cushions.
Francoeur and McCann have disappeared into some other room for an hour now, to ‘have a quick talk’, and Hudson doesn’t believe for a second that they’re still talking back there. He finds the remote buried between two couch cushions and turns on the TV. Baseball Tonight comes on and the lightly swirled Braves A floats across the screen. Hudson flips channels, quickly, before the announcers can give voice to the loss, glances over at Farnsworth, who grunts and heaves himself up off the couch, where he’d been sulking, to stomp into the kitchen.
A lot of clanking and cabinet door slamming comes from the kitchen, a low murmur as though Farnsworth is swearing constantly to himself in a quiet, conversational way. Hudson balances the remote on the point of his knee and spins it with a fingertip, leaning back on the clean cushions.
He could go home, if he wanted. He should go home, probably, the rookies are unexpectedly occupied and there’s no reason for him to be here in particular. He can sit and watch TV at home. But he doesn’t quite feel up to facing his wife and girls just yet, not after that game, and he doesn’t want to leave Farnsworth on his own, not with the mood he’s in right now. And, after all, the rooks invited him over, begged him to come, then abandoned him to his own devices. Serves them right if he decides to just hang out here and crush down their couch cushions and put his feet up on their coffee table, color-saturated magazine covers sliding over each other under his heels.
Farnsworth comes back in, holding two large bottles of Smirnoff Ice in his hands, the necks dangling dangerously from his fingers and the liquid sloshing slightly. He slumps back on the couch and puts one of the bottles on the coffee table, twisting the cap off the other with a deft movement of his hand, strong enough to snap off a 100 mph fastball.
“All they have is fuckin’ girly drinks,” he growls, flicking the cap over his shoulder so hard that it hits the opposite wall, tiny scratch in the paint, and Hudson shifts closer so that he can take the bottle and down a long gulp of it, burning painfully along his throat but not so much that he can’t handle it, not enough to make him cough. He wipes his mouth and passes the bottle back to Farnsworth, fingers brushing and transferring condensation, little drops of cold merging at their fingernails, short and neat and a pitcher’s best friend.
Farnsworth takes two or three drinks for every one that Hudson takes, and Hudson takes note of the furious way he slouches in his seat, legs sprawled every whichaway, of the wet sucking sound his mouth makes when he pulls it, suction interrupted, from the mouth of the bottle. This seems very, very important, and after a certain number of drinks he decides it’s important enough to lean over further and put his hand right in the center of Farnsworth’s thigh, right on top, right where the muscle rises up at the height of its curve, right where the denim of Farnsworth’s jeans is thinned and pale from repeated strain.
Farnsworth doesn’t pull away. And when Hudson slides his hand up, higher, until his fingers are twitching at the tight blue streaked folds that join the top of the jeans to the legs of them, Farnsworth goes minutely still, movement, breath, suspended for a long second, before he exhales and slides down further on the couch, legs falling even farther open, Hudson’s mind slowing to a sluggish drunken crawl and focusing slowly, but surely.
He gets down onto his knees in front of Farnsworth, massaging him slow at the top of his thigh, in, in, until he’s kneading his zipper, until there’s no mistaking what is going to happen, until Farnsworth is pressing up into his hand and making a little hissing noise that means his jeans have become uncomfortable. A little too drunk to tease, and Hudson gets Farnsworth’s pants undone easily, swiftly, gets his mouth involved with no delay, salt on his tongue and pressure on the insides of his cheeks, the back of his throat.
Glancing up to gauge how much tooth will work here, whether that wince is of pleasure or pain, and Hudson sees how Farnsworth’s eyelids have fallen half-shut, giving him a shuttered, dangerous, slitted look. He’s not sure if this is a sign that Farnsworth is drunk or turned-on, but either way, it’s a good look on him.
As he watches he can see something glitter in the slits where Farnsworth’s eyes are, and he realizes that Farnsworth is focusing his eyes, focusing on him. A big hand slides off the couch and cups the base of his skull, thumb rubbing just behind his ear, keeping him on task without forcing the issue, and Hudson has to close his own eyes for a moment, the weight of Farnsworth’s drunken gaze and the heat of his broad hand and the insistent welcome pressure in his mouth all too much.
The pale carpet is driving his jeans into his kneecaps in hard little points and he feels tiny down here, kneeling between Farnsworth’s long legs, flicking his eyes up Farnsworth’s long torso, Farnsworth’s long fingers cupping his head. The rookies could finish up their business and come out at any moment, probably, and Hudson knows this in some locked-away corner of his brain, but right now everything is too bright and sharp and roaring hot to make him care.
Farnsworth begins thrusting up into his mouth, a little bit, and Hudson has to press the flats of his hands onto Farnsworth’s hipbones, arch himself up, apply hard steady pressure to his palms, because he’s seen Farnsworth pitch, he’s seen Farnsworth throw chairs, he knows how strong he is and how powerful he could be, unchecked, thrusting with choking force. Farnsworth jerks up against his hands and Hudson presses down more firmly, holding him to the couch, sealing his lips around the head of Farnsworth’s cock and sucking hard, vacuum intake.
When he comes, Farnsworth doesn’t make a sound, but his eyes slide closed all the way, glitter under his half-shuttered lids winking out, and his head falls back against the couch, his chest heaving in great huffs of air like he’s just been pulled from a lake where he was drowning. Hudson swallows it down, the bitter taste making him pull a wry face, mixing funny with the sharpness of the vodka residue on his tongue.
He leans forward and rests his head on Farnsworth’s thigh, nose close to Farnsworth’s open zipper. He cants forward on his knees and squirrels his hand into his own pants. Farnsworth hasn’t moved, still with his eyes closed and his head thrown back, his breath slow and shallow, and Hudson spares a thought for how he’s going to get him out of here if he’s passed out, how on earth is he going to drag him out to the truck, before the quick movements of his hand blot out such mundane things.
A few practiced squeezes of his fist more and he’s losing his eyesight, everything turning twisted and blurry at the edges, and he needs to close his eyes, white creeping into his vision in streaks and blobs, but he forces his eyes open, eyelids quivering with the effort. He can see Farnsworth laid out like a magazine dream, cock blurry right in front of his nose, narrowly defined waist behind that, broad chest behind that, wide shoulders behind that, sinewed neck behind that, the edge of his jaw barely visible over and behind it all. Hudson thinks, as much as he is capable of thinking at all, that he may never get to see this again, he can’t let his eyes screw shut, he has to look as long as he can, as long as is possible, kneeling here at Farnsworth’s feet, his head pillowed on hard thigh.
At the very last second his eyes squeeze shut, unavoidable, like a sneeze. Snow bursts behind his eyelids and something molten hot explodes in the exact center of his brain, sends whitehot tendrils shooting out to his very fingers and toes. As he slowly relaxes, tensed muscles slumping back, fingers wet and sticky and cramped in the close space behind his zipper, he lets his cheek sink heavily against Farnsworth’s leg, just for a minute, denim deeply patterning his skin there, hot brand without the steel.
From the next room over he hears a squeak of bedsprings, a failed attempt at whisper, a thin gasping squeal terminating in, “Holy shit!”, and he smirks to himself, absurdly happy chuckle threatening to bubble up out of his chest. He staggers to his feet and stretches languidly, rearranging his pants and wincing a little at the mess inside. The cardboard cutout of Michael Vick glares balefully at him from across the room, red and black, stark and shiny like an accusation. He gives it the finger, then feels stupid for doing so, then feels stupid for feeling stupid about it.
He looks down at Farnsworth, who is undeniably passed out by now, and sighs. He’s going to be a while getting home. He hopes Kim didn’t stay up waiting.
--------------------------------------------
The next day at the ballpark the rookies both have goofy smiles on their faces, unrelated to things happening around them, and Hudson catches them giving each other little glances all throughout practice. He tries to do the same, but cooler, sidling up to Farnsworth as he obsessively rubs his glove down with oil on a bench in the clubhouse, fingers deft over the black leather.
“Hey,” Hudson mutters, fingertips barely playing over Farnsworth’s shoulder. Farnsworth shrugs him off irritably, not looking up from his glove, from the small rag he’s using to rub in the oil, little circles of reflection being rubbed down into matte black perfection, soft to the eye. Hudson snorts, amused, and persists, tapping the top of Farnsworth’s deltoid with featherlight touches, teasing and quick, until Farnsworth surges up off the bench and grabs Hudson by the bicep, throwing his glove down and dragging Hudson off to the video room.
It’s small in here, cramped, the walls lined with creaky black plastic rectangles, not much larger than they had in Oakland, Hudson thinks, the industrial light overhead a cold bluewhite that kills all shadows and makes everyone look washed-out, tired. Kyle Davies is in the room, reviewing some film, but he turns around when they enter and all Farnsworth has to do is jerk a thumb backwards over his shoulder, say, “Scram,” in a dangerous sort of voice, and Davies is gone in a clatter of untied cleats and fearful deference.
Farnsworth slams the door shut and Hudson is looking at the little table, wondering if he’s going to get fucked on it or against it, or maybe against the door, or maybe on one of the plain stacking chairs. He breathes deeply through his nose, stomach whirling away in happy anticipation, and flicks his eyes up to Farnsworth, looking for that half-shuttered gaze.
He freezes.
Farnsworth does not look turned-on.
Farnsworth has his furious face on, the face he constructs when he’s just seen a lead dribbled away by some other, less skillful member of the bullpen. The face he constructs when he’s about to destroy several hundred dollars’ worth of team equipment. The face he constructs, Hudson knows from close video perusal, when he’s about to beat the shit out of an opposing player who has infuriated him.
“What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?” Farnsworth hisses, eyes narrow in anger and not half-shuttered in pleasure, no, the difference is minute but ever so large, and Hudson is blindsided by this, not at all what he expected, his mind slowing to a screeching halt and slowly revving back up to speed.
“Yesterday,” he says, feeling his way, gripping the edge of the table behind him with his hands, unconscious effort to draw back his shoulders, make himself look bigger, more able to match up, “yesterday. At the rooks’ apartment. We.”
“I was drunk,” Farnsworth says, eyes still narrow and suspicious. “I was about as fuckin’ drunk as I can get.”
Hudson allows himself a smirk. He’s good at smirking, and the expression slides onto his face with accustomed ease, angling his goatee and doing his jawline all kinds of favors. He knows he looks good with a smirk on. “Fuck that, you liked it.”
Somehow Farnsworth manages to soften his expression, without seeming to move his face, and it’s disconcerting, because he looks almost pitying in a way. “I was drunk, Huddy,” he repeats, quietly. “I was wrecked. Fuckin’ gone. It was warm an’ wet an’ a mouth. I wouldn’t of known if it was the Queen of England blowin’ me at that point.”
“You can’t say you didn’t… you didn’t fucking like it,” Hudson says, insistent, reigning his voice in before it sounds pleading and pathetic. Farnsworth turns on a smirk of his own, slow, natural, and Hudson has to admire it, the way that Farnsworth lets it evolve smoothly from a slight twist of the lips into a dangerous, cruel sort of smirk, the kind of smirk that could fell young women at 20 paces, the kind of smirk that Hudson can feel tear parallel claw gouges into his heart, and Farnsworth hasn’t been a Brave for very long, still has the claws of a tiger or a bear.
“I don’t make a habit of doin’ married women,” Farnsworth smirks, still, hard and sharp. “I’m not makin’ a habit of doin’ married men either.”
Of all the arguments that could have been made, Hudson is least prepared for this one, his hands going slack on the table edge. He’s coached a guy or two over the penis barrier before, they say they don’t want it, they protest their straightness to the heavens, but in the end all he has to do is smirk at them, let his tshirt ride up to reveal a slice of hard stomach, and they just get all confused, and things can progress nicely from there. He’s done that, he knows how.
But this, this marriage thing, it never even occurred to him that someone would object to that, that Farnsworth would object to that. He hitches the smirk carefully back onto his face and tilts his head a little, cocky, wrapping cool around him like an early frost in fall.
“Oh c’mon man,” he sneers, a little more mocking than he’d intended, but no backing down now. “Like we haven’t all seen you in the clubs, winkin’ at groupies from the bus, checkin’ out chicks in the stands. If it moves you’ll fuck it, don’t tell me you fuckin’ check to see if they’re married first.” He reengages his grip on the table behind him, tightening up his chest muscles in a way calculated to look very very good and quite unintentional. He’s charming, he’s cool, he’s snarky and scrappy. He’s Tim fucking Hudson, and people would kill puppies for this chance.
All of the amusement has sapped out of Farnsworth, though, and if Hudson has gone cool, Farnsworth has gone glacially, icily cold. He’s not even looking at Hudson anymore, his eyes hazed and focused on the TV screen over Hudson’s shoulder, Davies’ unfinished tape still rolling brightly along.
“Standards,” Farnsworth says, eyes reflecting video light off of the blue, and it’s a hell of a time to notice that he’s got blue eyes, really, Hudson knows he should be talking, insisting he didn’t mean to be insulting, but he can’t, because, man, blue. Blue!
“Standards,” Farnsworth repeats, low and growly, sliding his eyes away from the screen and turning to leave the room, palming the door handle. “Thanks for noticin’, Huddy, but shockin’ as it may seem, I have ‘em.” His wide-shouldered back turned to Hudson, tshirt taut in horizontal, one second left to say, I didn’t mean, before he strides out of the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Hudson shut in, alone with the teetering stacks of tapes and the gentle whirring sound of the one Davies had been watching, reels still ticking along in the VCR.
Hudson blinks, realizes he’s still smirking, reaction automatic, and lets his mouth fall slack. The harsh fluorescent lights aren’t helping the cold blue dancing at the back of his retinas, and he turns around to lean on the little table, hunched over, catching his breath although he’s not sure how he lost it in the first place. A twitch of familiar movement catches his attention and he raises his eyes to the TV screen.
It’s him there, tiny figure pitching with a wide swing of legs pushing off the rubber and the sweeping arc of his hand, inscribed through the air, the easy motion that means this was one of his good games. He’s wearing old home whites with green and gold script across the chest, and the little video figure zips a sweet fastball over the plate, towards the camera, drops a splitter down that sprays dirt and the batter spins back on his heels, fooled and struck out.
The fact that Davies was studying him, his pitching, his grips and his motions, all so closely, it hits Hudson somewhere in the chest, along with the uniform on the screen, along with everything else that has just happened. The man throwing there, inches high, with the cocky tilt to his head and the ball going just where he wants it, Hudson doesn’t feel like that man right now. He doesn’t feel like anyone a rookie would want to study and scrutinize. He doesn’t feel as though any of his motions right now would contain anything like a good teaching.
--------------------------------------------
They roll into Chicago in late August and Farnsworth is excited, normally stoic demeanor replaced by bright eyes and a quickness to chatter, a readiness to tell any and all who would listen about this and that adventure back in Chicago, back with the old Cubbie teammates, and Chicago groupies, man, nothin’ like ‘em.
Farnsworth has got a crowd of rookies around him in the guest locker room at Wrigley, listening intently as he relates one of the more graphic groupie stories, young heads nodding seriously with locked eyes, Hudson wouldn’t be surprised if they started whipping out pads of paper, taking notes. Francoeur and McCann stand shoulder to shoulder, nudge each other and snicker secretively as Farnsworth launches into a glorious Technicolor account of certain acts that Hudson would doubt, coming from anyone else, but with Farnsworth, just maybe.
Francoeur whispers something in McCann’s ear and the catcher turns a bright shade of pink, high on his cheeks and at the tips of his ears. Francoeur snags a forefinger in his beltloop, tugging his hip closer, just best friends man, nothing to see here, for someone new to the scene.
Farnsworth gestures freely with his hands to better explain exactly how he was fucking the girl, and her friend, and Kyle Davies giggles nervously, a little awed, and Francoeur is rubbing his thumb surreptitiously over the point of McCann’s hip, and Hudson is across the room tying and untying his cleats, over and over, not noticing.
--------------------------------------------
The relief pitchers head out to the bullpen while Hudson is still warming up, and he watches the way Farnsworth saunters in, little wave to the yelling Cubs fans just behind the field, half acknowledgement, half mocking.
Hudson windmills his arms, an accepted warmup that lets him remain in one place and not move, and he watches Farnsworth stretch his arms high above his head before sitting down, sprawling comfortably, lacing his fingers at the base of skull as though he owns the place.
There’s a small group of fans high in the bleachers wearing eyecatching lime green tshirts, K-Y-L-E blocked out in black print across their respective torsos, jumping and cheering, and Hudson sees John Foster spot them, lips moving as he spells out their message to himself before snorting and reaching over to tap Farnsworth on the shoulder and point them out.
Farnsworth smirks and laughs, at one with the people and the ivy, and Hudson’s shoulders loosen, nice and easy, along with all the muscles of his chest. It’s a hot sunny day, the kind of day where the infield dirt sparkles when the light hits the broken grains of quartz just so, the kind of day where he feels sleek and untouchable.
One inning, two innings, three, five, nine, no one in the bullpen needs to stand up at all, not today. Hudson lets the splitter roll right off his fingers, through them, and he’s just like the kid in Oakland colors on Davies’ tape. A rookie could learn something from him today, if they weren’t distracted by the green-clad walls, or the smiling ease in the bullpen. If they knew where to look.
--------------------------------------------
They lose the middle game, badly, but come back to win the third, and Farnsworth gets in the game at the end. He goes 1.1 innings with no runs given up, 3 strikeouts, his very first save as a Brave, coming against the team that raised him up into the majors. It’s all very bite-the-hand-that-fed-you, but Farnsworth has always had a little tooth to him.
When Farnsworth gets a save he clenches his fist after the last out, bounding off the mound with his forearm rounded up into a form so big and solid that Hudson thinks it should be illegal.
Apparently his first save with a new team, against a team that shunned him at the end of last year, is cause for celebration, because when Hudson bumps the door of Farnsworth’s hotel room open later, looking for a pair of sneakers he might have left there during last night’s teamwide Halo tournament, he finds Farnsworth sitting up in bed, leaning casually against the headboard, wholly nude, a slender young blonde on her stomach between his legs, one of his hands resting like an afterthought in her hair, which is thick and shiny with expensive shampoo, crowding his lap, her hidden mouth making thick wet sounds.
“’Lo Huddy,” Farnsworth says, careless, his eyes half-shuttered, and it’s not alcohol that does that to him. The girl lifts her head and tucks her hair behind her ear to peer over her shoulder at Hudson, who is frozen in the doorway, embarrassed and horrified and he can see all of Farnsworth now, hard and shining with saliva, a startling sort of thing to see when you’re not expecting it.
The girl smiles like Christmas just came early and twitches her neck to flip her hair in what she must think is an enticing fashion. “Hey cutie,” she murmurs, fluttering her eyelashes at the shadowed shape of him in the doorway and rubbing her hands up and down Farnworth’s thighs. “How ‘bout you come over and join in the fun? Room for one more.” She arches her back and lifts her rump into the air, round and firm, and Hudson can see why Farnsworth picked her, she looks clean and healthy and despite the inevitable heavy makeup seems quite pretty for a groupie. Her voice is husky and a little scratched, like she’s just had something taken out of her throat, which, Hudson realizes, she probably has just done.
He knows that some of the guys like to share, and he’s not one of those guys, but Farnsworth has a kind of mocking, challenging smirk on his face, and the girl looks hopeful, anticipatory. Hudson smirks back at Farnsworth and kicks the door closed. He peels his tshirt off over his head and as he’s unbuckling his belt he notices his sneakers next to the TV, neatly lined up.
The bed dips as he crawls on top of it, palming the girl’s ass and leaning forward to lick her ear. “Hey darlin’,” he breathes, enjoying the way she smiles and shivers. “Name’s Tim. Nice t’meet you.”
He backs off to roll on a condom scrounged from his jeans pocket and she lowers her head again to Farnsworth’s lap, opening her mouth wide around him and pausing before relaxing her throat and sinking down. Hudson slides two fingers into her and is unsurprised to feel that she’s more than ready. He pulls her hips up into a better position, raising himself on his knees, and slides in, slow and steady, easy as a split-finger fastball on a good day.
At first he just concentrates on the sensation, hot and grasping, getting himself into a rhythm. The girl makes pleasing little muffled moans around Farnsworth’s cock as he moves in and out of her, and after a few minutes he raises his eyes and looks directly at Farnsworth.
It’s hard to read Farnsworth’s face in the dim light of the hotel room, with his eyes partially closed, but he’s definitely still smirking, and it’s definitely challenging. He messes one hand in the girl’s hair, tangling it up, the other one cupped behind his head, just like out in the bullpen at the start of a game, and Hudson can see the muscles of his stomach twitching as he works himself down the girl’s throat, backing off only when coughing noises start to outnumber the stifled groans.
Ridiculously Hudson thinks to himself, “Been there, done that,” and he feels like laughing. He waits until Farnsworth looks up, looks him right in the eye, and smirks, bright like a 100 watt bulb. He speeds up his thrusts, tensing his arms to make the muscles stand up and out, the sharp movements of his hips making the girl quake between them.
She starts to moan continuously, Farnsworth hissing quietly from the velvet vibration, and her pelvis begins to rock helplessly back against Hudson, who hangs on and works her faster, lower lip between his teeth and his breath coming in short gasps. Coulda had this, he thinks, eyes locked on Farnsworth’s face, all this coulda been yours, fucker, see what you’re missin’ out on.
Farnsworth’s eyes slide closed, his head tips back, his fingers tighten in the girl’s hair, and yeah, Hudson has seen this before too. Farnsworth breathes deeply, his chest expanding with air, freezing for a second and very clearly enunciating, “Fuck,” before his hips cant up and the girl makes a startled choking noise, throat working frantically, lines of white creeping out of the corners of her mouth, stark against the red of her lipstick.
Hudson can feel himself losing his rhythm, thrusting raggedly and quick as his own orgasm rips through him, but he hardly notices it, sober sober sober this time and watching Farnsworth like he’ll be tested on him later, like he’s got to memorize this or he’ll fail life, he’ll fail existence.
Coulda had that, he thinks, slumping over the girl’s back with his eyes closed, his forehead pressed to her spine. Coulda had that, fucker.
--------------------------------------------
From that night on Farnsworth treats him like a friend again, like they’re back on normal proper footing. The two coolest guys on the team, and Farnsworth will clap him on the back after another complete game, buy him drinks at the bar afterwards with the rest of the thankful bullpen crew. When they get drunk he’ll let Hudson slump against his side and laugh that Huddy’s gettin’ to be more of a lightweight, he musta been hangin’ around the rooks too much, Hudson butting Farnsworth with his head, muttering that he’s tired, he just pitched 9 fuckin’ innings, man, cut him some slack.
The year moves on in fits and starts, leading the division but not winning consecutive games, really strange but Hudson is used to strange seasons, strange clubhouses. Francoeur and McCann are still inseparable, giving each other little touches throughout the day. During rain delays the relievers will slink back through the clubhouse and up into the dugout, bored and cold.
Francoeur sits on the ground between McCann’s legs to get a shoulder massage, and Joey Devine giggles at them and flicks peanut shells at the back of Francoeur’s neck until McCann threatens to shove them up his nose. Chipper huffs out a laugh from the end of the bench, stretched all the way out, precariously balanced with his cleats in the rain, little rivulets streaming down his laces, and Farnsworth taps Hudson on the inside of his wrists, his hands dwarfing the blue ink, wants to know what the tattoos mean.
Hudson tells him that they’re the zodiac signs of his daughters, to which Farnsworth nods with a dry, tight-lipped smile. He sweeps two fingers over the tattoo on Hudson’s right wrist, up towards his hand, letting his fingernails skate over Hudson’s palm and click against his wedding ring. The sound is tiny and metallic and probably no one in the entire park can hear it, except for them, a fact which Hudson catches at and carefully tucks away.
Farnsworth takes his hand away and drapes it across the back of the bench, casual good friends, nothing more, and Hudson looks ‘round to peer at his face, but Farnsworth is looking out at the field, rain pattering down in steady broken ropes, hint of a smirk on his face and his eyes catching the cool gray and blue shades of the day and reflecting them back in live, wry hues, like well-worn denim laid over with glass.
There’s a bright peal of rookie laughter down the dugout, and Hudson wants to flip them off, then feels stupid for wanting to, then feels stupid for feeling stupid about it. He looks out at the rain, which is a kind of nice thing to look at, shading the field in new, unique ways. He rotates his wedding ring with his thumb and thinks about decisions, and pitches, and wanting to throw a sinker but sometimes the catcher calls for a fastball, man, sometimes he does. Sometimes he’s wrong. Sometimes he’s right.
Hudson smirks, broadly, settling into his seat. They’re still the coolest guys out there, tall and short, hard throwers, inked arms and southern origins. No one can smirk quite like them, and he kicks Farnsworth’s cleat with his own, just to be annoying. Farnsworth snorts and whacks him on the back of the head, still looking out at the rain, and it may not be enough, not in the land of could have and might have and maybe if, but it’s something, and it’ll do.
There's some het in there, and some gay, I don't know, just read it, it all makes sense, honest. It's all dirty filthy baseball porn, don't read if that ain't your thing, etc. etc.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
Tim Hudson/Kyle Farnsworth
Smirk
Hudson tracks his fingers over the wheel, expensive leather-covered round of it, ticking the bumps with his fingernails. He risks a glance over at Farnsworth, who is trying to slump in the seat next to him but is failing miserably, too big to slump effectively. All he's managed to do is fold his legs up in a twisted jam against the glove compartment, his shoulders pressed hard into the seat, neck twisted 'round so he can stare moodily out the window. Hudson flicks his eyes back to the road, easing the truck to a slow stop at a red light, sheen of crimson in the dark.
Francoeur and McCann, rookie outfielder and rookie catcher, are crammed together in the small backseat of the truck, heads together, quick light whispers, eyes moving fast, whites catching reflected light and winking like fireflies in the rearview mirror. They're sharing an apartment this year, learning the city shoulder to shoulder, and Hudson is pretty sure he knows where he's going. Weird to be driving the rookies to their own place, maybe, but they'd gone at him all big eyes and hopeful voices, Please come hang out with us, we got this new place, all unbroken-in and just waiting to have people over, and Hudson had said OK, but no fuckin' way am I spending the night just me and two rooks, no offense meant, guys.
They'd gone over and done their big-eyed routine on Farnsworth, who was mostly immune to such things, but when Hudson sauntered up behind them, exaggerated eye roll and managing to ask for backup and being cool about it at the same time, of course Farnsworth agreed. He grumbled and grimaced but he promised, fine, he’d come over with Huddy a few days from now, they’ll sit on the new couches and have some drinks and play some video games and break the place in.
There’s a quick succession of events, after that. A smashed window and a stolen radio in McCann’s car, keyed scratches in the cherry red paint. Francoeur doesn’t have a car, keeps meaning to buy one and putting it off, Consumers Digests littered around his locker, inky circles around logos and company names, checks and Xs next to miles per gallon and safety features, so the rookies are begging rides off of everyone else, big eyes getting a workout.
Farnsworth gets in a game and gets the hold, keeps runners off the bases for an inning and an out, only to watch Reitsma come in and serve up the runs like mashed potatoes, a great big shiny scoop full of them, all lumped together and smacking down with a sick, wet sound. Farnsworth scrubs at his hair with a towel, disbelieving and furious and messing it up. Hudson sits down at the other end of the dugout in his jacket, scratching at the sleeves to hear the synthetic fabric sing. He isn’t starting today, this isn’t his mess, because that would just be too perfect.
After something like that Farnsworth wouldn’t normally go out with the guys, would prefer to stay in and drink himself into a boneless oblivion, or go out and give some groupie the ride of her life, he hasn’t been in Atlanta long but already Hudson can see the pattern in it, clearer than new-mown outfield stripes. Farnsworth takes losses hard, takes them personal, but he also takes his word seriously, very, and he promised.
The rookies remember, of course, and don’t have cars, and Farnsworth isn’t in any kind of mood but when reminded he just grunts and glares darkly, follows Hudson out to his truck without further comment, leaning on the shiny black passenger side door and frowning up at the stars barely visible in the yellowish city haze, like they’re responsible for the loss on some cosmic scale, waiting for the rookies to trip laughing out of the park. They all cram into the truck, the rookies in the back having some kind of deep conversation, more serious and less raucous than normal, underbreath and not wanting to be overheard, but Hudson glances back in his rearview mirror again and watches McCann tentatively reach out and touch the back of Francoeur’s hand, and he thinks they’ve just figured something out.
He smirks and looks over to see if Farnsworth sees what he sees, but Farnsworth is still folded irritably into his seat, hand dwarfing the door lock as he fiddles with it, clicking it up and down, watching the street lights slide by.
--------------------------------------------
The rookie apartment is pale and cool, when they get in and turn the lights on. The halls are broad and the ceilings are high, and Hudson thinks that they could do this place up real nice, if they wanted, if they had someone’s wife come in and go over it with a design magazine and some color swatches, but they’re both single and already the edges of the carpet are starting to get curls of paper and unidentifiable crumbs in them, already the walls are sporting haphazardly-hung posters of crisp beer logos and pretty girls lounging on beaches. Francoeur points them into the living room and Hudson is startled as he rounds the corner by a life-sized cardboard cutout of Michael Vick, charging at him in a burst of shiny red and black. It’s a much nicer apartment than the ones he had at Auburn, crumbling dingy places beaten into submission by a steady succession of students, scratches on the floors from dragging kegs into backrooms, so it’s funny to see, same kinds of posters on the walls, and Hudson expects the couch to be beat-up and secondhand, is surprised by its sharp new corners and unfrayed plush cushions.
Francoeur and McCann have disappeared into some other room for an hour now, to ‘have a quick talk’, and Hudson doesn’t believe for a second that they’re still talking back there. He finds the remote buried between two couch cushions and turns on the TV. Baseball Tonight comes on and the lightly swirled Braves A floats across the screen. Hudson flips channels, quickly, before the announcers can give voice to the loss, glances over at Farnsworth, who grunts and heaves himself up off the couch, where he’d been sulking, to stomp into the kitchen.
A lot of clanking and cabinet door slamming comes from the kitchen, a low murmur as though Farnsworth is swearing constantly to himself in a quiet, conversational way. Hudson balances the remote on the point of his knee and spins it with a fingertip, leaning back on the clean cushions.
He could go home, if he wanted. He should go home, probably, the rookies are unexpectedly occupied and there’s no reason for him to be here in particular. He can sit and watch TV at home. But he doesn’t quite feel up to facing his wife and girls just yet, not after that game, and he doesn’t want to leave Farnsworth on his own, not with the mood he’s in right now. And, after all, the rooks invited him over, begged him to come, then abandoned him to his own devices. Serves them right if he decides to just hang out here and crush down their couch cushions and put his feet up on their coffee table, color-saturated magazine covers sliding over each other under his heels.
Farnsworth comes back in, holding two large bottles of Smirnoff Ice in his hands, the necks dangling dangerously from his fingers and the liquid sloshing slightly. He slumps back on the couch and puts one of the bottles on the coffee table, twisting the cap off the other with a deft movement of his hand, strong enough to snap off a 100 mph fastball.
“All they have is fuckin’ girly drinks,” he growls, flicking the cap over his shoulder so hard that it hits the opposite wall, tiny scratch in the paint, and Hudson shifts closer so that he can take the bottle and down a long gulp of it, burning painfully along his throat but not so much that he can’t handle it, not enough to make him cough. He wipes his mouth and passes the bottle back to Farnsworth, fingers brushing and transferring condensation, little drops of cold merging at their fingernails, short and neat and a pitcher’s best friend.
Farnsworth takes two or three drinks for every one that Hudson takes, and Hudson takes note of the furious way he slouches in his seat, legs sprawled every whichaway, of the wet sucking sound his mouth makes when he pulls it, suction interrupted, from the mouth of the bottle. This seems very, very important, and after a certain number of drinks he decides it’s important enough to lean over further and put his hand right in the center of Farnsworth’s thigh, right on top, right where the muscle rises up at the height of its curve, right where the denim of Farnsworth’s jeans is thinned and pale from repeated strain.
Farnsworth doesn’t pull away. And when Hudson slides his hand up, higher, until his fingers are twitching at the tight blue streaked folds that join the top of the jeans to the legs of them, Farnsworth goes minutely still, movement, breath, suspended for a long second, before he exhales and slides down further on the couch, legs falling even farther open, Hudson’s mind slowing to a sluggish drunken crawl and focusing slowly, but surely.
He gets down onto his knees in front of Farnsworth, massaging him slow at the top of his thigh, in, in, until he’s kneading his zipper, until there’s no mistaking what is going to happen, until Farnsworth is pressing up into his hand and making a little hissing noise that means his jeans have become uncomfortable. A little too drunk to tease, and Hudson gets Farnsworth’s pants undone easily, swiftly, gets his mouth involved with no delay, salt on his tongue and pressure on the insides of his cheeks, the back of his throat.
Glancing up to gauge how much tooth will work here, whether that wince is of pleasure or pain, and Hudson sees how Farnsworth’s eyelids have fallen half-shut, giving him a shuttered, dangerous, slitted look. He’s not sure if this is a sign that Farnsworth is drunk or turned-on, but either way, it’s a good look on him.
As he watches he can see something glitter in the slits where Farnsworth’s eyes are, and he realizes that Farnsworth is focusing his eyes, focusing on him. A big hand slides off the couch and cups the base of his skull, thumb rubbing just behind his ear, keeping him on task without forcing the issue, and Hudson has to close his own eyes for a moment, the weight of Farnsworth’s drunken gaze and the heat of his broad hand and the insistent welcome pressure in his mouth all too much.
The pale carpet is driving his jeans into his kneecaps in hard little points and he feels tiny down here, kneeling between Farnsworth’s long legs, flicking his eyes up Farnsworth’s long torso, Farnsworth’s long fingers cupping his head. The rookies could finish up their business and come out at any moment, probably, and Hudson knows this in some locked-away corner of his brain, but right now everything is too bright and sharp and roaring hot to make him care.
Farnsworth begins thrusting up into his mouth, a little bit, and Hudson has to press the flats of his hands onto Farnsworth’s hipbones, arch himself up, apply hard steady pressure to his palms, because he’s seen Farnsworth pitch, he’s seen Farnsworth throw chairs, he knows how strong he is and how powerful he could be, unchecked, thrusting with choking force. Farnsworth jerks up against his hands and Hudson presses down more firmly, holding him to the couch, sealing his lips around the head of Farnsworth’s cock and sucking hard, vacuum intake.
When he comes, Farnsworth doesn’t make a sound, but his eyes slide closed all the way, glitter under his half-shuttered lids winking out, and his head falls back against the couch, his chest heaving in great huffs of air like he’s just been pulled from a lake where he was drowning. Hudson swallows it down, the bitter taste making him pull a wry face, mixing funny with the sharpness of the vodka residue on his tongue.
He leans forward and rests his head on Farnsworth’s thigh, nose close to Farnsworth’s open zipper. He cants forward on his knees and squirrels his hand into his own pants. Farnsworth hasn’t moved, still with his eyes closed and his head thrown back, his breath slow and shallow, and Hudson spares a thought for how he’s going to get him out of here if he’s passed out, how on earth is he going to drag him out to the truck, before the quick movements of his hand blot out such mundane things.
A few practiced squeezes of his fist more and he’s losing his eyesight, everything turning twisted and blurry at the edges, and he needs to close his eyes, white creeping into his vision in streaks and blobs, but he forces his eyes open, eyelids quivering with the effort. He can see Farnsworth laid out like a magazine dream, cock blurry right in front of his nose, narrowly defined waist behind that, broad chest behind that, wide shoulders behind that, sinewed neck behind that, the edge of his jaw barely visible over and behind it all. Hudson thinks, as much as he is capable of thinking at all, that he may never get to see this again, he can’t let his eyes screw shut, he has to look as long as he can, as long as is possible, kneeling here at Farnsworth’s feet, his head pillowed on hard thigh.
At the very last second his eyes squeeze shut, unavoidable, like a sneeze. Snow bursts behind his eyelids and something molten hot explodes in the exact center of his brain, sends whitehot tendrils shooting out to his very fingers and toes. As he slowly relaxes, tensed muscles slumping back, fingers wet and sticky and cramped in the close space behind his zipper, he lets his cheek sink heavily against Farnsworth’s leg, just for a minute, denim deeply patterning his skin there, hot brand without the steel.
From the next room over he hears a squeak of bedsprings, a failed attempt at whisper, a thin gasping squeal terminating in, “Holy shit!”, and he smirks to himself, absurdly happy chuckle threatening to bubble up out of his chest. He staggers to his feet and stretches languidly, rearranging his pants and wincing a little at the mess inside. The cardboard cutout of Michael Vick glares balefully at him from across the room, red and black, stark and shiny like an accusation. He gives it the finger, then feels stupid for doing so, then feels stupid for feeling stupid about it.
He looks down at Farnsworth, who is undeniably passed out by now, and sighs. He’s going to be a while getting home. He hopes Kim didn’t stay up waiting.
--------------------------------------------
The next day at the ballpark the rookies both have goofy smiles on their faces, unrelated to things happening around them, and Hudson catches them giving each other little glances all throughout practice. He tries to do the same, but cooler, sidling up to Farnsworth as he obsessively rubs his glove down with oil on a bench in the clubhouse, fingers deft over the black leather.
“Hey,” Hudson mutters, fingertips barely playing over Farnsworth’s shoulder. Farnsworth shrugs him off irritably, not looking up from his glove, from the small rag he’s using to rub in the oil, little circles of reflection being rubbed down into matte black perfection, soft to the eye. Hudson snorts, amused, and persists, tapping the top of Farnsworth’s deltoid with featherlight touches, teasing and quick, until Farnsworth surges up off the bench and grabs Hudson by the bicep, throwing his glove down and dragging Hudson off to the video room.
It’s small in here, cramped, the walls lined with creaky black plastic rectangles, not much larger than they had in Oakland, Hudson thinks, the industrial light overhead a cold bluewhite that kills all shadows and makes everyone look washed-out, tired. Kyle Davies is in the room, reviewing some film, but he turns around when they enter and all Farnsworth has to do is jerk a thumb backwards over his shoulder, say, “Scram,” in a dangerous sort of voice, and Davies is gone in a clatter of untied cleats and fearful deference.
Farnsworth slams the door shut and Hudson is looking at the little table, wondering if he’s going to get fucked on it or against it, or maybe against the door, or maybe on one of the plain stacking chairs. He breathes deeply through his nose, stomach whirling away in happy anticipation, and flicks his eyes up to Farnsworth, looking for that half-shuttered gaze.
He freezes.
Farnsworth does not look turned-on.
Farnsworth has his furious face on, the face he constructs when he’s just seen a lead dribbled away by some other, less skillful member of the bullpen. The face he constructs when he’s about to destroy several hundred dollars’ worth of team equipment. The face he constructs, Hudson knows from close video perusal, when he’s about to beat the shit out of an opposing player who has infuriated him.
“What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?” Farnsworth hisses, eyes narrow in anger and not half-shuttered in pleasure, no, the difference is minute but ever so large, and Hudson is blindsided by this, not at all what he expected, his mind slowing to a screeching halt and slowly revving back up to speed.
“Yesterday,” he says, feeling his way, gripping the edge of the table behind him with his hands, unconscious effort to draw back his shoulders, make himself look bigger, more able to match up, “yesterday. At the rooks’ apartment. We.”
“I was drunk,” Farnsworth says, eyes still narrow and suspicious. “I was about as fuckin’ drunk as I can get.”
Hudson allows himself a smirk. He’s good at smirking, and the expression slides onto his face with accustomed ease, angling his goatee and doing his jawline all kinds of favors. He knows he looks good with a smirk on. “Fuck that, you liked it.”
Somehow Farnsworth manages to soften his expression, without seeming to move his face, and it’s disconcerting, because he looks almost pitying in a way. “I was drunk, Huddy,” he repeats, quietly. “I was wrecked. Fuckin’ gone. It was warm an’ wet an’ a mouth. I wouldn’t of known if it was the Queen of England blowin’ me at that point.”
“You can’t say you didn’t… you didn’t fucking like it,” Hudson says, insistent, reigning his voice in before it sounds pleading and pathetic. Farnsworth turns on a smirk of his own, slow, natural, and Hudson has to admire it, the way that Farnsworth lets it evolve smoothly from a slight twist of the lips into a dangerous, cruel sort of smirk, the kind of smirk that could fell young women at 20 paces, the kind of smirk that Hudson can feel tear parallel claw gouges into his heart, and Farnsworth hasn’t been a Brave for very long, still has the claws of a tiger or a bear.
“I don’t make a habit of doin’ married women,” Farnsworth smirks, still, hard and sharp. “I’m not makin’ a habit of doin’ married men either.”
Of all the arguments that could have been made, Hudson is least prepared for this one, his hands going slack on the table edge. He’s coached a guy or two over the penis barrier before, they say they don’t want it, they protest their straightness to the heavens, but in the end all he has to do is smirk at them, let his tshirt ride up to reveal a slice of hard stomach, and they just get all confused, and things can progress nicely from there. He’s done that, he knows how.
But this, this marriage thing, it never even occurred to him that someone would object to that, that Farnsworth would object to that. He hitches the smirk carefully back onto his face and tilts his head a little, cocky, wrapping cool around him like an early frost in fall.
“Oh c’mon man,” he sneers, a little more mocking than he’d intended, but no backing down now. “Like we haven’t all seen you in the clubs, winkin’ at groupies from the bus, checkin’ out chicks in the stands. If it moves you’ll fuck it, don’t tell me you fuckin’ check to see if they’re married first.” He reengages his grip on the table behind him, tightening up his chest muscles in a way calculated to look very very good and quite unintentional. He’s charming, he’s cool, he’s snarky and scrappy. He’s Tim fucking Hudson, and people would kill puppies for this chance.
All of the amusement has sapped out of Farnsworth, though, and if Hudson has gone cool, Farnsworth has gone glacially, icily cold. He’s not even looking at Hudson anymore, his eyes hazed and focused on the TV screen over Hudson’s shoulder, Davies’ unfinished tape still rolling brightly along.
“Standards,” Farnsworth says, eyes reflecting video light off of the blue, and it’s a hell of a time to notice that he’s got blue eyes, really, Hudson knows he should be talking, insisting he didn’t mean to be insulting, but he can’t, because, man, blue. Blue!
“Standards,” Farnsworth repeats, low and growly, sliding his eyes away from the screen and turning to leave the room, palming the door handle. “Thanks for noticin’, Huddy, but shockin’ as it may seem, I have ‘em.” His wide-shouldered back turned to Hudson, tshirt taut in horizontal, one second left to say, I didn’t mean, before he strides out of the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Hudson shut in, alone with the teetering stacks of tapes and the gentle whirring sound of the one Davies had been watching, reels still ticking along in the VCR.
Hudson blinks, realizes he’s still smirking, reaction automatic, and lets his mouth fall slack. The harsh fluorescent lights aren’t helping the cold blue dancing at the back of his retinas, and he turns around to lean on the little table, hunched over, catching his breath although he’s not sure how he lost it in the first place. A twitch of familiar movement catches his attention and he raises his eyes to the TV screen.
It’s him there, tiny figure pitching with a wide swing of legs pushing off the rubber and the sweeping arc of his hand, inscribed through the air, the easy motion that means this was one of his good games. He’s wearing old home whites with green and gold script across the chest, and the little video figure zips a sweet fastball over the plate, towards the camera, drops a splitter down that sprays dirt and the batter spins back on his heels, fooled and struck out.
The fact that Davies was studying him, his pitching, his grips and his motions, all so closely, it hits Hudson somewhere in the chest, along with the uniform on the screen, along with everything else that has just happened. The man throwing there, inches high, with the cocky tilt to his head and the ball going just where he wants it, Hudson doesn’t feel like that man right now. He doesn’t feel like anyone a rookie would want to study and scrutinize. He doesn’t feel as though any of his motions right now would contain anything like a good teaching.
--------------------------------------------
They roll into Chicago in late August and Farnsworth is excited, normally stoic demeanor replaced by bright eyes and a quickness to chatter, a readiness to tell any and all who would listen about this and that adventure back in Chicago, back with the old Cubbie teammates, and Chicago groupies, man, nothin’ like ‘em.
Farnsworth has got a crowd of rookies around him in the guest locker room at Wrigley, listening intently as he relates one of the more graphic groupie stories, young heads nodding seriously with locked eyes, Hudson wouldn’t be surprised if they started whipping out pads of paper, taking notes. Francoeur and McCann stand shoulder to shoulder, nudge each other and snicker secretively as Farnsworth launches into a glorious Technicolor account of certain acts that Hudson would doubt, coming from anyone else, but with Farnsworth, just maybe.
Francoeur whispers something in McCann’s ear and the catcher turns a bright shade of pink, high on his cheeks and at the tips of his ears. Francoeur snags a forefinger in his beltloop, tugging his hip closer, just best friends man, nothing to see here, for someone new to the scene.
Farnsworth gestures freely with his hands to better explain exactly how he was fucking the girl, and her friend, and Kyle Davies giggles nervously, a little awed, and Francoeur is rubbing his thumb surreptitiously over the point of McCann’s hip, and Hudson is across the room tying and untying his cleats, over and over, not noticing.
--------------------------------------------
The relief pitchers head out to the bullpen while Hudson is still warming up, and he watches the way Farnsworth saunters in, little wave to the yelling Cubs fans just behind the field, half acknowledgement, half mocking.
Hudson windmills his arms, an accepted warmup that lets him remain in one place and not move, and he watches Farnsworth stretch his arms high above his head before sitting down, sprawling comfortably, lacing his fingers at the base of skull as though he owns the place.
There’s a small group of fans high in the bleachers wearing eyecatching lime green tshirts, K-Y-L-E blocked out in black print across their respective torsos, jumping and cheering, and Hudson sees John Foster spot them, lips moving as he spells out their message to himself before snorting and reaching over to tap Farnsworth on the shoulder and point them out.
Farnsworth smirks and laughs, at one with the people and the ivy, and Hudson’s shoulders loosen, nice and easy, along with all the muscles of his chest. It’s a hot sunny day, the kind of day where the infield dirt sparkles when the light hits the broken grains of quartz just so, the kind of day where he feels sleek and untouchable.
One inning, two innings, three, five, nine, no one in the bullpen needs to stand up at all, not today. Hudson lets the splitter roll right off his fingers, through them, and he’s just like the kid in Oakland colors on Davies’ tape. A rookie could learn something from him today, if they weren’t distracted by the green-clad walls, or the smiling ease in the bullpen. If they knew where to look.
--------------------------------------------
They lose the middle game, badly, but come back to win the third, and Farnsworth gets in the game at the end. He goes 1.1 innings with no runs given up, 3 strikeouts, his very first save as a Brave, coming against the team that raised him up into the majors. It’s all very bite-the-hand-that-fed-you, but Farnsworth has always had a little tooth to him.
When Farnsworth gets a save he clenches his fist after the last out, bounding off the mound with his forearm rounded up into a form so big and solid that Hudson thinks it should be illegal.
Apparently his first save with a new team, against a team that shunned him at the end of last year, is cause for celebration, because when Hudson bumps the door of Farnsworth’s hotel room open later, looking for a pair of sneakers he might have left there during last night’s teamwide Halo tournament, he finds Farnsworth sitting up in bed, leaning casually against the headboard, wholly nude, a slender young blonde on her stomach between his legs, one of his hands resting like an afterthought in her hair, which is thick and shiny with expensive shampoo, crowding his lap, her hidden mouth making thick wet sounds.
“’Lo Huddy,” Farnsworth says, careless, his eyes half-shuttered, and it’s not alcohol that does that to him. The girl lifts her head and tucks her hair behind her ear to peer over her shoulder at Hudson, who is frozen in the doorway, embarrassed and horrified and he can see all of Farnsworth now, hard and shining with saliva, a startling sort of thing to see when you’re not expecting it.
The girl smiles like Christmas just came early and twitches her neck to flip her hair in what she must think is an enticing fashion. “Hey cutie,” she murmurs, fluttering her eyelashes at the shadowed shape of him in the doorway and rubbing her hands up and down Farnworth’s thighs. “How ‘bout you come over and join in the fun? Room for one more.” She arches her back and lifts her rump into the air, round and firm, and Hudson can see why Farnsworth picked her, she looks clean and healthy and despite the inevitable heavy makeup seems quite pretty for a groupie. Her voice is husky and a little scratched, like she’s just had something taken out of her throat, which, Hudson realizes, she probably has just done.
He knows that some of the guys like to share, and he’s not one of those guys, but Farnsworth has a kind of mocking, challenging smirk on his face, and the girl looks hopeful, anticipatory. Hudson smirks back at Farnsworth and kicks the door closed. He peels his tshirt off over his head and as he’s unbuckling his belt he notices his sneakers next to the TV, neatly lined up.
The bed dips as he crawls on top of it, palming the girl’s ass and leaning forward to lick her ear. “Hey darlin’,” he breathes, enjoying the way she smiles and shivers. “Name’s Tim. Nice t’meet you.”
He backs off to roll on a condom scrounged from his jeans pocket and she lowers her head again to Farnsworth’s lap, opening her mouth wide around him and pausing before relaxing her throat and sinking down. Hudson slides two fingers into her and is unsurprised to feel that she’s more than ready. He pulls her hips up into a better position, raising himself on his knees, and slides in, slow and steady, easy as a split-finger fastball on a good day.
At first he just concentrates on the sensation, hot and grasping, getting himself into a rhythm. The girl makes pleasing little muffled moans around Farnsworth’s cock as he moves in and out of her, and after a few minutes he raises his eyes and looks directly at Farnsworth.
It’s hard to read Farnsworth’s face in the dim light of the hotel room, with his eyes partially closed, but he’s definitely still smirking, and it’s definitely challenging. He messes one hand in the girl’s hair, tangling it up, the other one cupped behind his head, just like out in the bullpen at the start of a game, and Hudson can see the muscles of his stomach twitching as he works himself down the girl’s throat, backing off only when coughing noises start to outnumber the stifled groans.
Ridiculously Hudson thinks to himself, “Been there, done that,” and he feels like laughing. He waits until Farnsworth looks up, looks him right in the eye, and smirks, bright like a 100 watt bulb. He speeds up his thrusts, tensing his arms to make the muscles stand up and out, the sharp movements of his hips making the girl quake between them.
She starts to moan continuously, Farnsworth hissing quietly from the velvet vibration, and her pelvis begins to rock helplessly back against Hudson, who hangs on and works her faster, lower lip between his teeth and his breath coming in short gasps. Coulda had this, he thinks, eyes locked on Farnsworth’s face, all this coulda been yours, fucker, see what you’re missin’ out on.
Farnsworth’s eyes slide closed, his head tips back, his fingers tighten in the girl’s hair, and yeah, Hudson has seen this before too. Farnsworth breathes deeply, his chest expanding with air, freezing for a second and very clearly enunciating, “Fuck,” before his hips cant up and the girl makes a startled choking noise, throat working frantically, lines of white creeping out of the corners of her mouth, stark against the red of her lipstick.
Hudson can feel himself losing his rhythm, thrusting raggedly and quick as his own orgasm rips through him, but he hardly notices it, sober sober sober this time and watching Farnsworth like he’ll be tested on him later, like he’s got to memorize this or he’ll fail life, he’ll fail existence.
Coulda had that, he thinks, slumping over the girl’s back with his eyes closed, his forehead pressed to her spine. Coulda had that, fucker.
--------------------------------------------
From that night on Farnsworth treats him like a friend again, like they’re back on normal proper footing. The two coolest guys on the team, and Farnsworth will clap him on the back after another complete game, buy him drinks at the bar afterwards with the rest of the thankful bullpen crew. When they get drunk he’ll let Hudson slump against his side and laugh that Huddy’s gettin’ to be more of a lightweight, he musta been hangin’ around the rooks too much, Hudson butting Farnsworth with his head, muttering that he’s tired, he just pitched 9 fuckin’ innings, man, cut him some slack.
The year moves on in fits and starts, leading the division but not winning consecutive games, really strange but Hudson is used to strange seasons, strange clubhouses. Francoeur and McCann are still inseparable, giving each other little touches throughout the day. During rain delays the relievers will slink back through the clubhouse and up into the dugout, bored and cold.
Francoeur sits on the ground between McCann’s legs to get a shoulder massage, and Joey Devine giggles at them and flicks peanut shells at the back of Francoeur’s neck until McCann threatens to shove them up his nose. Chipper huffs out a laugh from the end of the bench, stretched all the way out, precariously balanced with his cleats in the rain, little rivulets streaming down his laces, and Farnsworth taps Hudson on the inside of his wrists, his hands dwarfing the blue ink, wants to know what the tattoos mean.
Hudson tells him that they’re the zodiac signs of his daughters, to which Farnsworth nods with a dry, tight-lipped smile. He sweeps two fingers over the tattoo on Hudson’s right wrist, up towards his hand, letting his fingernails skate over Hudson’s palm and click against his wedding ring. The sound is tiny and metallic and probably no one in the entire park can hear it, except for them, a fact which Hudson catches at and carefully tucks away.
Farnsworth takes his hand away and drapes it across the back of the bench, casual good friends, nothing more, and Hudson looks ‘round to peer at his face, but Farnsworth is looking out at the field, rain pattering down in steady broken ropes, hint of a smirk on his face and his eyes catching the cool gray and blue shades of the day and reflecting them back in live, wry hues, like well-worn denim laid over with glass.
There’s a bright peal of rookie laughter down the dugout, and Hudson wants to flip them off, then feels stupid for wanting to, then feels stupid for feeling stupid about it. He looks out at the rain, which is a kind of nice thing to look at, shading the field in new, unique ways. He rotates his wedding ring with his thumb and thinks about decisions, and pitches, and wanting to throw a sinker but sometimes the catcher calls for a fastball, man, sometimes he does. Sometimes he’s wrong. Sometimes he’s right.
Hudson smirks, broadly, settling into his seat. They’re still the coolest guys out there, tall and short, hard throwers, inked arms and southern origins. No one can smirk quite like them, and he kicks Farnsworth’s cleat with his own, just to be annoying. Farnsworth snorts and whacks him on the back of the head, still looking out at the rain, and it may not be enough, not in the land of could have and might have and maybe if, but it’s something, and it’ll do.