EPIC.
OK, well. I've finished my wildpitch story, and it's uh. Done. And, uh, long. Really long. I was supposed to be writing 'Nate Robertson/Brandon Inge smutty drama, preferably R-NC-17', so at first I was just going to go with a relatively short and filthy little smutlet thing, but somehow or other it morphed into this behemoth. It's, like, really long. Like, jesus fucking christ how did I write so much? kind of long. So, er, that's why it took so long for me to get it done.
So this is my Tigers epic, with smut, and baseball, and a fight, and all the stuff that makes an epic, only, er, slash. And Tigers. And for arami, whom I don't even know, so hi arami! Hope you don't hate this, or pass out halfway through it because it's too fucking long or something. I plan to pimp this around, because, well, I spent so fucking long on it, y'all had better at least read the damn thing. :)
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.
Unfair
The lockerroom of a baseball team is a weird mix of completely public and totally private, depending on who and what and when. Ironically it’s actually more public when the media leaves, because with the media guys there everyone goes on nervous lockdown, everyone’s got everyone else’s back, usually it’s a bunch of guys watching Dmitri say something loud and inflammatory about the latest opposing team and all the little pens scratching away, everything personal tucked into pockets and caught behind clenched teeth.
Inge has never been on a team that’s not in some way the Tigers, so the Detroit media is all he knows. Rock tells him that it’s nothing like New York here, that these reporters are the baby fish that small fry eat for breakfast compared to the New York media, but Inge still smiles broad as he can when he sees the flat shiny press pass, scared of making a bad impression and letting slip something he shouldn’t.
But when the media leaves, then it’s a free-for-all, for real, nothing is off-limits and nothing is sacred. Kyle Farnsworth gets a call from some girl and Jamie Walker steals the cell phone mid-call, starts singing a country ditty he composed on the spot about Farnsworth’s illustrious agricultural background and how his first girlfriend was a lonely but accommodating sheep. Mike Maroth passes around a photo of his son, dressed in a little Nolan Ryan uniform, because that’s the kid’s name, Nolan, and as the photo does the rounds so do a hundred of the usual comments: “Good lookin’ kid, no need to thank me, your wife was pretty good,” and “Wow, that’s a big head, can’t be brains ‘cause I thought those were inherited,” and “Kid knows better than to root for his old man, huh?”
The one thing that is untouchable is when a guy’s on the phone with his wife, because girlfriends are one thing but wives are another, wives are something you always have to come home to, so no one makes more trouble there than they absolutely have to and if someone’s on the phone with the wife they’re given privacy.
Nominally, anyways. The lockerroom’s a small place, and it’s hard to avoid hearing at least parts of everyone’s conversations, and Inge gets to know who’s on what kinds of terms with their wives.
Bonderman’s wife is constantly trying to embarrass him, calling him up when she knows the team’s around and whispering filthy things into the phone, Bonderman’s face getting redder and redder as he mutters back and makes eye contact with exactly no one.
Urbina’s wife only calls when she’s mad at him, and Ugie muffles the phone in his shoulder but Spanish shrieks still echo lightly on the concrete block walls.
Pudge’s wife calls and talks very softly, and Pudge will talk to her for an hour straight, sitting on the floor in a corner with his arm hanging over his bent knees. Maribel seems to know everything that goes on with Pudge, and Inge is dead certain that she knows about Ugie, but she doesn’t seem to mind, and Inge gets the feeling that she has something of Pudge that no one else will ever have, and that she knows it.
So Inge has a pretty good idea of how everyone’s marriages are going, which is why he’s surprised to see Nate Robertson hunched over on a bench after the game, one hand cupped over his free ear to block out the noise of a boisterously victorious team, urgently talking into the phone like he’s trying to placate his wife, calm her down, pleading with her. It’s strange because, so far as Inge knows, Nate and his wife are on very good terms. Nate calls her every night on road trips, will go so far as to turn down a night out on the town if it involves strip clubs. Nate takes marriage seriously and he’s nothing if not doggedly faithful, and Inge can’t imagine what the problem could be.
But Nate’s on the phone with his wife, and it’s none of his business, so Inge turns to his locker and forces it from his mind, concentrates on figuring out which socks are dirty and which are clean, and which Walker has gotten his hands on and will bleed blue food coloring onto his legs if he’s unwary and puts them on, digging through an enormous navy blue pile of them and wondering how he got so many.
He’s halfway through the pile, squatting catcher-style in front of his locker and sniffing the socks he’s really not sure about as a final check, engrossed in the task, and he’s quite forgotten about Nate until a hesitant tap on his shoulder draws his attention.
He cocks his head at Nate, who opens his mouth to say something and stops, closing his mouth and quirking it into a half-smile, which is good because he looked awfully funeral before doing so, and Inge hates to see his friends upset. Nate reaches down and rubs his thumb across the end of Inge’s nose. Inge blinks, confused.
“You have blue on your nose,” Nate explains, apologetically, holding up his thumb to show Inge the blue smudge across it. Inge looks down at the sock he’s holding, clearly a Walker-attacked sock that he sniffed a little too closely. He stretches it between his hands and looks expectantly back up at Nate, settling back on his haunches, craning his neck.
Nate looks at the smear of color on his thumb and addresses it instead of Inge, his voice low and controlled, but only just. “I just got off the phone… with Kristin… I. I was wondering if maybe I could stay at your place for a few days.”
Inge blinks again. “Sure, man, no problem. Shani’s staying with her mom for a few weeks, I’ve got all kinds of room.” He doesn’t ask for reasons, and that’s only fair, because if he asked why Nate wanted to stay somewhere other than home Nate would ask why Shani was somewhere other than home and that’s not something Inge wants to think about much-the yelling, the accusations, the tearful explosions that did nothing but make him uncomfortable. He wishes they would have some instruction on that in the minors, how to deal with crying girls accusing you of things that are mostly true, because when it comes to dealing with his wife he’s definitely still hacking away in single A, the Whitecaps logo neatly embroidered on his hat.
Nate offers his thumb a small smile and says thanks, very quietly, before going over to his own locker and standing heavily in front of it, head down, not moving. Inge is left sitting on the floor, a prank sock slowly staining his hands blue, watching the gentle rise and fall of Nate’s shoulders as he breathes.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate pulls into the driveway in his immaculately shiny pickup truck. Inge is curled on the couch with ESPN magazine, half reading, half watching the road through the curtains. He gets up to open the door and watch Nate carry his bags up the long driveway, leaning in the doorframe and hooking a hand in the belt-loops of his jeans, letting his shoulders fall in the way he knows will pull his white tshirt tight over his chest, because why not, right?
He takes Nate’s bags and leads him to the guest bedroom, dropping them at the foot of the bed. He turns to look at Nate, who’s staring at the walls in a distracted kind of way, looking through the tasteful paint job to something distant. Inge rocks on his heels, this isn’t a situation he’s comfortable in, so he balls his fist and lightly punches Nate on the shoulder, “Hey, OK, let’s order in pizza, there’s the best pizza place ever here, and then we can play video games all night, and drink beer, and talk baseball, guy’s night in, OK?”
Nate finally looks at him and smiles, so Inge gets behind him and shoves him into the kitchen, makes him look at the Pizza House menu and pick out all the things he wants on the pizza, olives and extra cheese and onions and pepper and pineapple, because Inge insists on something sweet, and then they have to set up another pizza because Nate wants meat and Inge insists that you can’t mix all those veggies and things with meat, and he makes Nate call Pizza House and order the pizzas because the list of toppings is so long that Inge can only giggle through the entire litany of them, and Inge thinks that it won’t be half bad, living with Nate for a while, it’ll be college all over again.
----------------------------------------------------------------
They manage to make a respectable dent in the pizzas, although there are plenty of leftovers to shove in the fridge, maybe eat tomorrow because Nate will be here tomorrow, not just hanging out for the night, this is so cool, and they drink steadily through one six pack, and then another, because pizza and video games are made for drinking beer.
They’re playing a racing game, fancy cars on the screen that they could buy if they really wanted, major league baseball players and all, and there’s a sweet comfort in that. All of Inge’s concentration is on his hands and the beer has made everything warm and fuzzy, so he shifts from his compact curl on the couch and splays himself across Nate’s lap, watching the TV screen sideways, his head on a pillow and his hands holding the controller close to his chest, resting on Nate’s thigh.
Nate lets his arms rest on Inge’s hip and takes another pull at his beer. He squints at the screen and crashes his car into the wall for the 5th time. Inge snickers and reaches up, takes the controller from Nate. “You’re too drunk to drive,” he says, then starts giggling again.
“M’not,” Nate protests, but he smiles and tips his face up to the ceiling, eyes closed and not fighting it. Inge rolls onto his back and restlessly scrubs his hands over his stomach, watching the long expanse of Nate’s neck thus exposed. Nate looks down and pauses, letting his eyes focus on Inge, a tricky operation this far into the night. “Why’d Shani leave?” he asks, abrupt and inquisitive but not unkind.
Inge bites his tongue and thinks about it. He waggles his fingers and Nate gives him his beer, that silent understanding that really good guy friends have, that teammates have. Inge licks the mouth of the bottle and is just drunk enough to think that it doesn’t matter what he says.
“She found some o’the team photos,” he explains. Nate just stares at him silently so he tilts back his beer and sucks down a long swallow of it, gestures with the bottle to clarify, “With, like, the guys with no shirts on and in, like, jocks, and stuff.”
A little furrow forms between Nate’s eyebrows as he thinks about this. “But, that’s, we always do that, take pictures in the lockerroom, that joke stuff, we all have those photos.”
Inge sighs. “Well, OK. OK, yeah, but they were in a box. With, like, some magazines, and stuff. With, like, you know. Guys with no shirts on, and, uh, you know.” He suddenly wishes he hadn’t said anything, lying on Nate’s lap while he’s saying this is maybe not the best position ever to be in, to tell your teammate and good friend that you’re kind of, sort of, maybe gay.
Nate stares out at the blank TV screen, rolling his beer bottle in his hands, condensation wetting his palms. He doesn’t kick Inge off his lap, but Inge doesn’t know if this is because he’s too drunk to notice or what. This is kind of an interesting perspective from here, his spine curving weirdly to fit the hard masses of Nate’s thighs, looking up at broad jaw and rough reddish-brown stubble from underneath. Nate swallows and Inge watches the motion, an ocean swell in flesh.
“I called Kristin after the game,” Nate says, quietly, still looking at the TV. “I wanted to… I just wanted to talk to her, you know. And, and she didn’t pick up. It was a guy, who picked up. And he said, who’s this? And I said, it’s Nate, who’s this? And I heard him say, say to her, don’t bother getting out of bed, it’s just some guy named Nate, you know this guy? And I could hear her scramble for the phone, yelling at him, why’d you pick it up, I told you to not pick it up, and. I hung up.”
He pauses and closes his eyes, still rolling the beer bottle with his fingers, and Inge stays quiet, because what can you say?
“I called her back, and she picked up, and she was… all, I don’t know, hysterical, like it was my fault for calling and finding out she was… she was. Well.”
Inge watches Nate’s face, which with his eyes closed is quiet and impassive and strong, but the tiny waver in Nate’s voice belies this, and he sounds like a little kid, lost in a strange and vast place, “It’s not fair, you know, it’s, I’m the baseball player, I’m the one traveling around with groupies all over and I. If anyone was going to cheat it would be me, right? It doesn’t work this way.”
“Yeah, well.” Inge pushes a hand up against Nate’s stomach, fingers stretched wide, he’s drunk and Nate knows and he may as well. Nate opens his eyes to look down at him and Inge smiles, ruefully. “I’m a baseball player, I’m not supposed to, like, like guys. It doesn’t, you know, work that way. Either.”
Nate snorts and puts down his beer, looks at the cold water on his hand. He wipes it off on Inge’s tshirt without even really thinking about it, and Inge breathes in, puffs his stomach out to plaster the wet against his skin.
“So I’m getting cheated on by my wife, which isn’t fair, and you like guys but are married, which isn’t fair, and here we are, all. All drunk, and talking about the not fairness.” Nate seems amused, sad and amused, and Inge can’t stand it, it’s too much like fatalism, it’s too much like giving up in the 3rd inning when a couple of hits would put you right back in the game.
He slides his hand higher, grabs a handful of Nate’s shirt and hauls himself up, so he’s upright, sitting in Nate’s lap, and he shuffles around until he gets his knees on the outside of Nate’s thighs, pressing into the couch, one hand fisted in Nate’s collar and the other coming up to cup his cheek, untrimmed early beard cuttingly sharp in funny ways, bright pin pricks where Inge doesn’t have calluses on his palms, distant scratch where he does, a pattern mapped out by years of handling bats and balls and gloves.
“Let’s, OK, let’s do something about that. Like, a thing.” Nate’s watching him with narrow eyes, but he’s not shoving Inge off and he’s not knocking his hand away, and Inge rubs his thumb deliberately over Nate’s chin, which is strong and blocky and firm.
“Your wife was, was sleeping around, so. So you sleep around on her. Like, justice. And I like guys, so, so I do something about that, and, like everyone wins.”
Nate tilts his head to one side, but slowly, so Inge’s hand remains on his cheek, is not knocked away. “Everyone wins,” he says, quietly, and Inge feels big hands slide up his thighs, come to rest on his hips, bearing down lightly there. Nate rubs his thumbs along the bony points where Inge’s pelvis tops out, just at his waist, and Inge dips his head, complements the tilt, presses his lips to Nate’s.
He runs his tongue out, tasting beer and salt, and Nate lets his mouth fall open easily, alcohol paving the way but Inge is definitely drunk too, probably more drunk, he’s smaller, so he doesn’t care, so far as he’s concerned logic and morality are all in perfect accord right now, this is exactly the right thing to do, his tongue sliding slickly against Nate’s, and the rasp of Nate’s beard on his face is the most perfect thing in the universe.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate pitches and he can’t buy a strike, everything that’s not a ball is hit, and Nate pushes his hat up while standing on the mound, draws his forearm across his hairline in dismay. The newspapers are filled with speculation: his control was gone, he has a hurt elbow; his speed was gone, he has a hurt shoulder. Nate ducks his head in the lockerroom after games, the Detroit media respectful but insistent, soft susurrations of disbelief when he says he’s not hurting anywhere.
It’s Bob Cluck, the pitching coach, as usual, who spots the actual problem. Nate’s not pushing off properly with his lower body, so he’s not getting any power, and his mechanics are thrown off to try to compensate.
Cluck talks to Nate, quiet and urgent. He has Nate close his eyes and throw so that he can’t see anything, can only feel his motion and can sense the path of every bone, the flex of every muscle. It helps, a little, but Nate is still pushing lightly off the mound, no power from his legs and hips, and Inge hangs on the bullpen wall next to Jason Johnson, who has also wandered over to watch.
Johnson has, beyond all expectation, turned into their workhouse this season, throwing 8 innings of quality baseball per start like he was born to it, like anything less than 8 innings is some kind of personal failure. He always does this, though, pitches well to start the season and falls apart in the second half, so he doesn’t watch Nate struggle with casual disinterest. Everyone’s waiting for his drop-off, and Johnson watches Nate carefully, closely, like this is stuff he’ll need to know later on.
Inge has no excuse for being there, why a third baseman should care about the esoteric problems of starting pitchers is beyond explanation. If anyone asks he’s got a story all planned out, he used to be a catcher so he’s there to see if he can pick out anything in Nate’s delivery that will help. It’s a tenuous excuse, at best, but no one asks anyways, Cluck and Johnson both occupied with the way the ball floats weakly out of Nate’s hand, and Inge can lean his chin on the wall and simply watch.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate’s hands are big and powerful and sure on Inge’s belt, on the button of his jeans. Inge wriggles, he’s a wriggler, and his jeans slump down his legs, are kicked away across the floor. There are a lot of things happening, too much for him to keep track of it, with sucking on his neck and a big, hot hand scouring his back, fingers reaching everywhere and leaving tiny specks of golden heat in their wake.
There are big arms around him and he’s borne up, and over, and deposited on the bed, limbs wantonly awry. His boxers go the way of his jeans and there’s Nate looming over him, shoulders heavy and wide as the outfield in Comerica, too big for one man to traverse by himself, so Inge has to use both his hands to smooth over the pale hills of Nate’s trapezius muscle and anchor himself.
His legs are nudged up by insistent pokes and there are fingers working at him, but Inge digs his own fingers into the broad shoulders above him and gasps out, “Nuh, don’t need. Want… ready, I’m fine, just, now, Nate,” and there’s something much more blunt and much more sizable pressing him into the mattress. It’s just this immense pressure, this bright stretch, and then Nate is in, huge and present and with his head bowed down in concentration, reddish hair loose over Inge’s face. Inge gets a mouthful of it and sucks, chews, wets the section of hair he can reach.
Nate pulls back, and Inge thinks that all of his innards are being dragged out, his kidneys will be pulled out and laid bare on the sheets, but then Nate leans forward, arms like pillars on either side of Inge’s chest, and all of his internal organs are rearranged in new and deeply fundamental ways, and it’s always like this, it always feels like new.
He feels it in his stomach, he feels it in his goddamn throat, Nate is so deep inside, pausing at the deepest, arms shaking slightly with the effort of holding still so Inge can adjust, and Inge holds onto Nate’s shoulders like if he doesn’t the pressure will blast him straight backwards through the wall at the head of the bed, will blast the top right off his skull, and try playing baseball with only half a skull, those hats can only hide so much.
Somehow he manages to make a small assenting noise and Nate begins to thrust in earnest, his hips snapping crisply and powerfully. Inge’s back is starting to hurt, a little burn from the sheets making friction with his skin. The slap of Nate’s balls as he hits the deepest part of his stroke is sharp and wet and staccato, and Inge arches his back clear off the bed, his head and shoulders and feet touching down, everything else pressing up, muscles pulled impossibly tight.
Nate gets a good rhythm, hard and steady and bruising, and once he’s settled into that he can shift some of his weight to one hand, pick up the other and drag it down Inge’s chest, over his stomach, scratching in the dark blonde trail leading down before wrapping tightly with the surety of a pitcher gripping the seams of a baseball. Inge tries to arch up further, into Nate’s hand, making small breathy noises, and he’s going to have trouble sitting down tomorrow, he’s going to be bruised and marked and sore.
He’s starting to lose it, he can feel random muscles start to contract impossibly more, his eyes are rolling back, he’s actually being pushed across the bed a little with the force and intensity of Nate’s thrusts, and in a moment of strange clarity in all the humid clouds Inge wonders, wryly, why Nate can’t get this kind of power from his lower body on the mound.
----------------------------------------------------------------
“Why can’t you get that kind of power on the mound?” Inge has a way of bringing up questions that follow a narrative only happening in his mind, stuff related to things that happened days or weeks ago, so Nate is startled and confused, looking up from the careful and ritualistic tightening of his glove laces just before a start, clear acrylic glasses settled comfortably in his thick hair. Inge reaches over and steals them off of Nate’s head compulsively, clacking the stems open and shut, open and shut, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Power,” Nate muses. “That kind of power? What kind of power?” Inge flushes a brilliant red, right to the very tips of his ears, stares into the lenses of the glasses and won’t look around, and Nate snorts. “Oh, that kind of power. Not like it’s the same motion, or anything.”
“I know that,” Inge mutters, still blushing, still looking away. “I know that. But. I mean, if you can do it somewhere, I mean, some of it’s the same muscles, and. You know.”
The team is starting to filter out of the clubhouse, up the steps, into the sunlight of the park. Nate stands, glove tightened to perfection, and snatches his glasses deftly out of Inge’s hands. He puts them back on his head and gets a hold of Inge by the elbow, hauls him off the bench and up, so he can lean down and quietly breathe into Inge’s ear.
“Maybe I just need some motivation.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate gets the first batter to fly out but lets the second work a single, and walks the third. Inge fidgets at third base, eyeing the runner on second, communicating with Omar Infante through a complex series of hand motions. He glances over at the mound and Nate has stepped off, is irritably handling the rosin bag, little puffs of white emerging from between his broad fingers.
He throws the bag down in a small cloud and starts to turn back towards the mound, but freezes minutely when he sees Inge at third. Inge holds his eyes for a second, then very deliberately turns around and bends over, slowly scrabbling at his cleat as though he’s tying his shoe. He straightens one leg out behind him, making a long line of blue-sock-encased calf and baseball-pant-encased thigh and raising his ass into the air. He pretends to lose his balance a little and waggles his behind, for good measure.
This takes all of 10 seconds, and when he straightens up and turns around Nate is still standing there, eyes locked. Inge risks a small smile and hitches at his belt, uses his throwing hand to briefly but vigorously adjust himself, in the time-worn baseball tradition.
Nate licks his lips, eyes narrowed behind the clear glasses. He reaches into his glove, gets a good grip on the ball and strides swiftly back up the mound, a new fire in his stance, a new surety in his footing.
He strikes out the next two batters and everyone trots briskly into the dugout, slapping each other on the shoulders. Cluck pulls Nate aside, wants to make sure Nate knows whatever it was he did that brought his push-off back to full strength. Nate smiles and puts his glasses up on top of his hat, and halfway down the dugout Inge giggles helplessly at a bad joke Pudge is telling, swinging his legs and scraping the tips of his cleats on the ground.
----------------------------------------------------------------
There’s a man from the Detroit Free Press standing in front of him, little pen poised over a yellow scratchpad, and Inge smiles broadly, friendly and approachable. He answers questions in an easy tone, towel slung over his bare shoulder. Nate catches his eye from behind the reporter and makes an obscene gesture with his hands. Inge bursts into laughter and the reporter looks around, confused.
“S’just my teammates being… being goofballs,” Inge assures him, gasping for breath. The reporter catches sight of Nate, who smiles, runs his thumb along his new, ruddy mustache, and turns to head to the showers.
The reporter looks back, confused, but Inge has been turned around and is being led firmly away by Rondell White, who bends down to mutter, “Watch it, stupid,” before veering back to intercept the reporter on his own. Inge does feel stupid. He almost gave the media gold, he almost gave away something that he really can’t afford to give away. Rock was looking out for him, team lockerroom code, everyone’s got everyone else’s back, so he didn’t, but he was close, far too close.
A situation that he thought he had control of is turning out to be less controllable than he thought, and Inge closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. He’s not sure what this is for Nate, but he’s pretty sure it’s not what it is for him.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Things are settling into a shape, a certain way of living. Nate goes back home, and Shani comes back with her big black suitcases and her eyes huge, filled with hopeful tears. She hugs Inge and sniffles and says things like, “We can can work this out, Brandon, we can get over this together.”
Inge isn’t at all sure this is a thing that can be worked out, and he’s not sure if he wants it to be. For a week after Shani returns he tries, he does, he sets little tests for himself. He takes Shani out to a fancy dinner and surreptitiously watches the other patrons when she gets up to go to the bathroom. He makes himself gaze at a young woman with pillowy cleavage, floating in a tight red dress, but his eyes slide over to the man across the table from her, the slim shoulders wrapped in dark suit jacket, the sharp jawline that’s just begging to be licked, the wrists in dress shirt cuffs that Inge finds himself wanting to grab and pin to a bed.
Shani sits back down, crossing her legs with a sweet smile, and Inge’s hands twitch lightly on the tablecloth, feeling ghosts of wristbones shifting in his palms.
----------------------------------------------------------------
He loves playing at home, because Comerica Park is his park. When he settles in at the plate and looks out, sees the statues of past Tiger greats frozen in bronzed action high along the wall in center field, the tigers looming large over the massive scoreboard, orange and black striped cats pushing into a clear blue sky, when he dusts at his sleeves and runs home white fabric through his gloved fingers, the ornate navy Detroit D flush over his heart, Inge is home in every sense of the word.
The road has its charms, though. There’s no Shani, looking up from her side of the bed with heated hope, sobbing in the kitchen and throwing plates, a darkened shadow standing, staring out the windows. There are smartly turned out hotel rooms and video games at all hours, mini bars to be opened at the turn of a key, cool clean beds without tear-stained wives in them.
Trammell wants to have rookies rooming with established players, so he has Inge staying with Chris Shelton, the wide-eyed, scrub-headed kid with the bat of solid gold. Inge tolerates this until around 1 am, when he kicks Shelton out. Tomorrow morning Jason Johnson will stagger into his room, squinting against the sunlight and disheveled from a night of sybaritic pleasures, to find Shelton and Tony Giarratano, the other rookie, passed out in a tangled little heap of young infielder on the floor in front of the TV, video game controllers still held loosely in their hands and drool pooling on the carpet, but Inge doesn’t know about that and wouldn’t worry about it if he did.
After he’s herded Shelton out of the door he picks up the tan hotel phone with its clunky receiver and dials a short number, squinting at the back of his hand for inked reference. He keeps the conversation casual and light, never know who’s listening, no sense in risking it, and asking Nate if he wants to come over to play some Donkey Kong is a normal, harmless thing.
A few minutes later and Nate is in the room, kicking off his shoes, and Inge is pushing him down onto the bed, holding his chest down with one hand and tracing the zipper of his jeans with the other, listening to gasps hitch in Nate’s throat. This is inspirational stuff, and it inspires Inge to lean up and get his teeth involved, pulling Nate’s tshirt collar all out of shape to bite at a part of his shoulder that won’t be exposed when in uniform.
Under his hand Nate is trembling and Inge loves this feeling, having 220 pounds of solid muscle shaking underneath him. He pauses to sit up and pull his shirt off, hastily slide out of his pants and boxers, and Nate does the same, blue eyes locking with Inge, no glasses or game in the way, it’s bright and sharp and clear and intense, it’s enough to take Inge’s breath away and replace it with something better.
Licking his lips Inge leans down again, drags his teeth over Nate’s chest, leaving faint red lines over the muscled forms. “How,” he starts, pauses to lick at a rib, watches the way the yellow hotel lamplight catches on the wet spot, “how do you. Want it.” He draws a hand down to the hard plane of Nate’s stomach and leaves it there, fingertips just barely pressing.
The bed dips as Nate wordlessly rolls over and pushes up onto his hands and knees. Inge bites his lip and runs his hand down Nate’s back once before leaning over the edge of the mattress to fish around in his bag. He leans over Nate, resting his chest on Nate’s back, one arm wrapped around Nate’s abdomen, reaching back with the other to stroke and push and probe with his fingers.
Generally this is the other way around, Inge on his back or knees with Nate looming large above him, but Inge doesn’t question it. He’s certainly more than willing to do the honors here, and if Nate feels like being on the receiving end tonight, well, fine. It’s Jeremy Bonderman pitching tomorrow, good, solid Bonderman who is embarrassed by his wife’s dirty side and probably cannot even imagine what they’re doing here, the point is that it’s not Nate pitching next, so Inge doesn’t feel like he has to be too gentle.
He works his way in, panting harshly, until he’s pressed up flush against Nate and can lean forward, plant an open-mouthed kiss right between Nate’s tensed shoulder blades, his hips twitching involuntarily, drawing small whimpers from between Nate’s clenched teeth.
They won’t talk about this, like they won’t talk about being straight or gay, like they won’t talk about Kristin or Shani. When Johnson is finding the rookies asleep on his floor tomorrow morning Inge will be waking up to Nate stretching and complaining that he’s sore. Inge will tease him about being a whiner, and Nate will toss Inge over his shoulder and run around the room with him until Inge threatens to throw up all over the place.
Inge hits better at home but is living for the road.
----------------------------------------------------------------
There is a strange tension in the lockerroom, which Inge ignores, because he had a good day, 2-for-4 with an RBI, he just assumes that everyone else is upset over the loss. It’s not until he hears Nate snap at a reporter that he brings his head up and looks around. Nate is never short with the media. Never. Inge starts to amble over to where the interview is quickly deteriorating, thumbs hooked determinedly in the belt-loops of his baseball pants.
He’s intercepted by a hand on his chest, halting him in his tracks. Pudge pushes lightly, giving Inge a silent warning look, before turning them both away from Nate and slinging his arm around Inge’s shoulders, saying something mild about having a good game and doing what he could for the team before disengaging with a pat on the back and another swift warning glance, heading back to his own locker.
There are little pens scratching away, media passes glinting dully all around the room, and Pudge is looking out for him, telling him to not be a fool, to not let slip the worst secret a professional baseball player could let slip in a heated moment of anger.
He’s right, of course, and Inge goes back to his locker, chagrined. He fiddles aimlessly with his cleats, picking tiny clods of dirt off the soles, waiting for the media to leave so the tension will leave the clubhouse.
The media leaves, but the tension stays. Pudge and Urbina are looking at anyone and anything but each other, little Tony G is shooting anxious looks at Carlos Guillen and his wrapped knee (all that stand between the kid and AAA, and Inge feels bad for that, that Tony should have to hope for Guillen to stay hurt), Bonderman is being even more taciturn than usual but glancing sidelong at Kyle Farnsworth, whose two innings of perfect relief weren’t enough to win the game, and who is methodically smashing a chair to small pieces in the corner.
Inge goes to talk to Nate but Nate is on the phone, one hand cupped over his ear, his wife on the other end. Inge puts a hand on Nate’s shoulder, curls his fingers around, but Nate shrugs him off and gestures, annoyed, at the phone. Something more important here, get back to me later.
A piece of chair, possibly a metal bolt, goes sailing past his head and Inge is glad of the excuse to flinch. This is not exactly like a punch to the stomach, like a baseball to the ribcage, but it’s not far off.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone is settling into their seats on the plane, Franklyn German as usual complaining that he doesn’t have enough leg room, Walker as usual collecting the barf bags from everyone’s seatbacks, and they long ago gave up asking why he wanted them all, resigned to some elaborate future prank involving the impervious plastic-lined stuff they’re made of.
Rondell, Rock, he’s one of Inge’s best friends on the team, although really that’s not saying much, because Rock is friends with everyone, just an all-round great guy, but Inge is a little sulky about sitting with him for this flight. The plane is set in rows of two, and Nate is sitting several rows back with Mike Maroth, ostensibly talking about lefty things, pitching things, but probably talking about wives and boobs and presents of jewelry, all kinds of heterosexual stuff and Inge starts absentmindedly shredding the in-flight magazine, staring at the blue seatback in front of him but kind of seeing red.
Someone’s stumbling up the aisle, not standing up or moving really well, they thump a heavy hand onto the top of Inge’s seat, and he looks up to see Urbina swaying dangerously, eyes red-rimmed. The smell of cheap alcohol hits Inge in a warm wave, a palpable thing, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste.
For some reason Urbina has fixated on Rock, is staring him down as best he can in his inebriated state. Rock, worried, half stands to ask Urbina what’s wrong, and that’s when Ugie explodes, starts screaming obscenities and slurring abuse. People are getting out of their seats, moving down the aisle towards the scene, and Urbina calls Rock something horrible, something completely uncalled-for, something Inge never thought he would hear on the team plane, in this day and age. Rock is his friend, and Ugie is at that moment just some crazy drunk guy, attacking his friend, so Inge bursts out of his seat in a ball of fury and fists and goes at Urbina.
People are shouting, some guys clearly heard what Urbina said and are egging Inge on, some are yelling at him to stop it, to hold back, but everything has come down on Inge at once and there’s no way he’s letting up. He twists Urbina’s arm back and that’s Rock, he punches Urbina in the stomach and that’s Shani, he gets him good on the sternum and that’s his sexuality, he catches him sharply on the jaw and that’s Nate. Urbina, drunk as he is, gets in a few good punches of his own, a sharp slam to the side of Inge’s head, the red in his vision exploding into little crimson stars, and he figures that’s probably Nate too.
The fight is hampered by the narrow aisle of the plane, only so much damage that can be done with seats hemming them in from both sides, but by the same token it prolongs things, because it’s hard for their teammates to pry them apart in the confined space. “The friendly confines, just like Wrigley,” Inge thinks, hysterically, getting in a few more solid punches before someone finally gets a solid grasp on his waist and pulls him backwards.
Arms come up across his chest, restraining him, Pudge has forced Urbina down and is screaming at him in Spanish, and Inge feels a familiar sharp pinprickling of short, stiff, unshaven beard hairs along the back of his neck as Nate leans in close. “You maniac, what the fuck are you doing?” Nate hisses, tightening his arms so Inge won’t lunge forward, and Nate’s body is warm warm warm behind him. Inge closes his eyes, red striping with black behind his eyelids, and grinds his ass back into Nate as hard as he can.
Nate pulls back sharply, but can’t go too far because of the backlog of Tigers clogging the aisle behind him, still pushing forward to see what’s going on or, in some cases, to push past and try to get a swing or two at Urbina themselves. Nate’s eyes are shadowed and mistrustful and Inge wants the clear blue, doesn’t know how it got back to this, and he’s still seeing red, sparks shooting across his plane of vision, breath coming in gasps from having it half knocked out of him by a crazy relief pitcher.
He’s pretty sure that he’s flushed, his blonde hair tousled, his lips wet and parted, his chest heaving. He’s pretty sure his eyes are a little bit crazy and his shirt is torn a little to reveal just a sliver of skin at his beltline. He’s pretty sure he’s basically fucking irresistible right now.
But Nate closes his eyes, turns around, and bulls his way back through the rest of the team. Inge is mobbed by them, Rock trying to work his way around him to slug Urbina, Johnson pounding on Inge in a friendly way and calling him a “good ol’ scrapper”, Dmitri hollering, Tram yelling, Kirk Gibson coming up from the other end of the plane with a joyful, insane gleam in his eye and his sleeves rolled up, and Inge lets them move him around like a rag doll, all the rage gone from his body, the red seeping from his vision and leaving everything pale and colorless.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Urbina is traded, gone, and in his place is this weird little guy with the lumpy skull, and Omar Infante is in a panic, his roster spot suddenly in doubt, alternating between calling Carlos Pena to ask what the weather in Toledo is like right now and lashing out violently at anyone who even dares to say the word ‘Toledo’ in his presence. Pudge is quiet and downcast, Farnsworth makes a stink about having to pay for the chair, but for all that it’s much less tense in the lockerroom.
You don’t listen in on a guy’s conversation when he’s on the phone with his wife, but it’s a small clubhouse, and Inge can’t help but overhear things, which is how he hears that Nate and his wife are on great terms again, like they were before, like nothing ever happened to keep them apart.
Nate goes back to behaving blamelessly on road trips, he’ll go so far as to turn down a night out on the town with the boys if it involves strip clubs, he takes marriage seriously. Inge calls him on the hotel phone, asks if he wants to come over to play Donkey Kong, and Nate says sure, can Bonderman come too?
Inge presses the phone into his cheek and says in a low, pained voice that he means Donkey Kong the unsubtle code, not Donkey Kong the actual game, and Nate hangs up, leaving Inge feeling stupid and desperate and pathetic.
Nate throws a complete game, 9 innings of powerful pitching, and Bob Cluck congratulates him heartily on working out his mechanical issues. Inge whiles away the time at third base by thinking up ways to waggle his ass at Nate when he looks over, but he never does look over.
In the lockerroom afterwards a reporter sidles up to Inge, flashes his Detroit Free Press ID, starts asking questions about the game and how Nate threw and the homerun that Chris Shelton hit. Inge gives all the right answers, mechanically, watching the little pen scratch lightly over paper, taking down the tripe.
There are more tears and fights at home and there’s a big hulking mass of jagged emotional magnet standing 10 feet away rubbing a towel over its head and Inge thinks that there was never an interview given by the New York media, no matter what Rock or anyone else says, there was never an interview as hard as this.
So this is my Tigers epic, with smut, and baseball, and a fight, and all the stuff that makes an epic, only, er, slash. And Tigers. And for arami, whom I don't even know, so hi arami! Hope you don't hate this, or pass out halfway through it because it's too fucking long or something. I plan to pimp this around, because, well, I spent so fucking long on it, y'all had better at least read the damn thing. :)
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.
Unfair
The lockerroom of a baseball team is a weird mix of completely public and totally private, depending on who and what and when. Ironically it’s actually more public when the media leaves, because with the media guys there everyone goes on nervous lockdown, everyone’s got everyone else’s back, usually it’s a bunch of guys watching Dmitri say something loud and inflammatory about the latest opposing team and all the little pens scratching away, everything personal tucked into pockets and caught behind clenched teeth.
Inge has never been on a team that’s not in some way the Tigers, so the Detroit media is all he knows. Rock tells him that it’s nothing like New York here, that these reporters are the baby fish that small fry eat for breakfast compared to the New York media, but Inge still smiles broad as he can when he sees the flat shiny press pass, scared of making a bad impression and letting slip something he shouldn’t.
But when the media leaves, then it’s a free-for-all, for real, nothing is off-limits and nothing is sacred. Kyle Farnsworth gets a call from some girl and Jamie Walker steals the cell phone mid-call, starts singing a country ditty he composed on the spot about Farnsworth’s illustrious agricultural background and how his first girlfriend was a lonely but accommodating sheep. Mike Maroth passes around a photo of his son, dressed in a little Nolan Ryan uniform, because that’s the kid’s name, Nolan, and as the photo does the rounds so do a hundred of the usual comments: “Good lookin’ kid, no need to thank me, your wife was pretty good,” and “Wow, that’s a big head, can’t be brains ‘cause I thought those were inherited,” and “Kid knows better than to root for his old man, huh?”
The one thing that is untouchable is when a guy’s on the phone with his wife, because girlfriends are one thing but wives are another, wives are something you always have to come home to, so no one makes more trouble there than they absolutely have to and if someone’s on the phone with the wife they’re given privacy.
Nominally, anyways. The lockerroom’s a small place, and it’s hard to avoid hearing at least parts of everyone’s conversations, and Inge gets to know who’s on what kinds of terms with their wives.
Bonderman’s wife is constantly trying to embarrass him, calling him up when she knows the team’s around and whispering filthy things into the phone, Bonderman’s face getting redder and redder as he mutters back and makes eye contact with exactly no one.
Urbina’s wife only calls when she’s mad at him, and Ugie muffles the phone in his shoulder but Spanish shrieks still echo lightly on the concrete block walls.
Pudge’s wife calls and talks very softly, and Pudge will talk to her for an hour straight, sitting on the floor in a corner with his arm hanging over his bent knees. Maribel seems to know everything that goes on with Pudge, and Inge is dead certain that she knows about Ugie, but she doesn’t seem to mind, and Inge gets the feeling that she has something of Pudge that no one else will ever have, and that she knows it.
So Inge has a pretty good idea of how everyone’s marriages are going, which is why he’s surprised to see Nate Robertson hunched over on a bench after the game, one hand cupped over his free ear to block out the noise of a boisterously victorious team, urgently talking into the phone like he’s trying to placate his wife, calm her down, pleading with her. It’s strange because, so far as Inge knows, Nate and his wife are on very good terms. Nate calls her every night on road trips, will go so far as to turn down a night out on the town if it involves strip clubs. Nate takes marriage seriously and he’s nothing if not doggedly faithful, and Inge can’t imagine what the problem could be.
But Nate’s on the phone with his wife, and it’s none of his business, so Inge turns to his locker and forces it from his mind, concentrates on figuring out which socks are dirty and which are clean, and which Walker has gotten his hands on and will bleed blue food coloring onto his legs if he’s unwary and puts them on, digging through an enormous navy blue pile of them and wondering how he got so many.
He’s halfway through the pile, squatting catcher-style in front of his locker and sniffing the socks he’s really not sure about as a final check, engrossed in the task, and he’s quite forgotten about Nate until a hesitant tap on his shoulder draws his attention.
He cocks his head at Nate, who opens his mouth to say something and stops, closing his mouth and quirking it into a half-smile, which is good because he looked awfully funeral before doing so, and Inge hates to see his friends upset. Nate reaches down and rubs his thumb across the end of Inge’s nose. Inge blinks, confused.
“You have blue on your nose,” Nate explains, apologetically, holding up his thumb to show Inge the blue smudge across it. Inge looks down at the sock he’s holding, clearly a Walker-attacked sock that he sniffed a little too closely. He stretches it between his hands and looks expectantly back up at Nate, settling back on his haunches, craning his neck.
Nate looks at the smear of color on his thumb and addresses it instead of Inge, his voice low and controlled, but only just. “I just got off the phone… with Kristin… I. I was wondering if maybe I could stay at your place for a few days.”
Inge blinks again. “Sure, man, no problem. Shani’s staying with her mom for a few weeks, I’ve got all kinds of room.” He doesn’t ask for reasons, and that’s only fair, because if he asked why Nate wanted to stay somewhere other than home Nate would ask why Shani was somewhere other than home and that’s not something Inge wants to think about much-the yelling, the accusations, the tearful explosions that did nothing but make him uncomfortable. He wishes they would have some instruction on that in the minors, how to deal with crying girls accusing you of things that are mostly true, because when it comes to dealing with his wife he’s definitely still hacking away in single A, the Whitecaps logo neatly embroidered on his hat.
Nate offers his thumb a small smile and says thanks, very quietly, before going over to his own locker and standing heavily in front of it, head down, not moving. Inge is left sitting on the floor, a prank sock slowly staining his hands blue, watching the gentle rise and fall of Nate’s shoulders as he breathes.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate pulls into the driveway in his immaculately shiny pickup truck. Inge is curled on the couch with ESPN magazine, half reading, half watching the road through the curtains. He gets up to open the door and watch Nate carry his bags up the long driveway, leaning in the doorframe and hooking a hand in the belt-loops of his jeans, letting his shoulders fall in the way he knows will pull his white tshirt tight over his chest, because why not, right?
He takes Nate’s bags and leads him to the guest bedroom, dropping them at the foot of the bed. He turns to look at Nate, who’s staring at the walls in a distracted kind of way, looking through the tasteful paint job to something distant. Inge rocks on his heels, this isn’t a situation he’s comfortable in, so he balls his fist and lightly punches Nate on the shoulder, “Hey, OK, let’s order in pizza, there’s the best pizza place ever here, and then we can play video games all night, and drink beer, and talk baseball, guy’s night in, OK?”
Nate finally looks at him and smiles, so Inge gets behind him and shoves him into the kitchen, makes him look at the Pizza House menu and pick out all the things he wants on the pizza, olives and extra cheese and onions and pepper and pineapple, because Inge insists on something sweet, and then they have to set up another pizza because Nate wants meat and Inge insists that you can’t mix all those veggies and things with meat, and he makes Nate call Pizza House and order the pizzas because the list of toppings is so long that Inge can only giggle through the entire litany of them, and Inge thinks that it won’t be half bad, living with Nate for a while, it’ll be college all over again.
----------------------------------------------------------------
They manage to make a respectable dent in the pizzas, although there are plenty of leftovers to shove in the fridge, maybe eat tomorrow because Nate will be here tomorrow, not just hanging out for the night, this is so cool, and they drink steadily through one six pack, and then another, because pizza and video games are made for drinking beer.
They’re playing a racing game, fancy cars on the screen that they could buy if they really wanted, major league baseball players and all, and there’s a sweet comfort in that. All of Inge’s concentration is on his hands and the beer has made everything warm and fuzzy, so he shifts from his compact curl on the couch and splays himself across Nate’s lap, watching the TV screen sideways, his head on a pillow and his hands holding the controller close to his chest, resting on Nate’s thigh.
Nate lets his arms rest on Inge’s hip and takes another pull at his beer. He squints at the screen and crashes his car into the wall for the 5th time. Inge snickers and reaches up, takes the controller from Nate. “You’re too drunk to drive,” he says, then starts giggling again.
“M’not,” Nate protests, but he smiles and tips his face up to the ceiling, eyes closed and not fighting it. Inge rolls onto his back and restlessly scrubs his hands over his stomach, watching the long expanse of Nate’s neck thus exposed. Nate looks down and pauses, letting his eyes focus on Inge, a tricky operation this far into the night. “Why’d Shani leave?” he asks, abrupt and inquisitive but not unkind.
Inge bites his tongue and thinks about it. He waggles his fingers and Nate gives him his beer, that silent understanding that really good guy friends have, that teammates have. Inge licks the mouth of the bottle and is just drunk enough to think that it doesn’t matter what he says.
“She found some o’the team photos,” he explains. Nate just stares at him silently so he tilts back his beer and sucks down a long swallow of it, gestures with the bottle to clarify, “With, like, the guys with no shirts on and in, like, jocks, and stuff.”
A little furrow forms between Nate’s eyebrows as he thinks about this. “But, that’s, we always do that, take pictures in the lockerroom, that joke stuff, we all have those photos.”
Inge sighs. “Well, OK. OK, yeah, but they were in a box. With, like, some magazines, and stuff. With, like, you know. Guys with no shirts on, and, uh, you know.” He suddenly wishes he hadn’t said anything, lying on Nate’s lap while he’s saying this is maybe not the best position ever to be in, to tell your teammate and good friend that you’re kind of, sort of, maybe gay.
Nate stares out at the blank TV screen, rolling his beer bottle in his hands, condensation wetting his palms. He doesn’t kick Inge off his lap, but Inge doesn’t know if this is because he’s too drunk to notice or what. This is kind of an interesting perspective from here, his spine curving weirdly to fit the hard masses of Nate’s thighs, looking up at broad jaw and rough reddish-brown stubble from underneath. Nate swallows and Inge watches the motion, an ocean swell in flesh.
“I called Kristin after the game,” Nate says, quietly, still looking at the TV. “I wanted to… I just wanted to talk to her, you know. And, and she didn’t pick up. It was a guy, who picked up. And he said, who’s this? And I said, it’s Nate, who’s this? And I heard him say, say to her, don’t bother getting out of bed, it’s just some guy named Nate, you know this guy? And I could hear her scramble for the phone, yelling at him, why’d you pick it up, I told you to not pick it up, and. I hung up.”
He pauses and closes his eyes, still rolling the beer bottle with his fingers, and Inge stays quiet, because what can you say?
“I called her back, and she picked up, and she was… all, I don’t know, hysterical, like it was my fault for calling and finding out she was… she was. Well.”
Inge watches Nate’s face, which with his eyes closed is quiet and impassive and strong, but the tiny waver in Nate’s voice belies this, and he sounds like a little kid, lost in a strange and vast place, “It’s not fair, you know, it’s, I’m the baseball player, I’m the one traveling around with groupies all over and I. If anyone was going to cheat it would be me, right? It doesn’t work this way.”
“Yeah, well.” Inge pushes a hand up against Nate’s stomach, fingers stretched wide, he’s drunk and Nate knows and he may as well. Nate opens his eyes to look down at him and Inge smiles, ruefully. “I’m a baseball player, I’m not supposed to, like, like guys. It doesn’t, you know, work that way. Either.”
Nate snorts and puts down his beer, looks at the cold water on his hand. He wipes it off on Inge’s tshirt without even really thinking about it, and Inge breathes in, puffs his stomach out to plaster the wet against his skin.
“So I’m getting cheated on by my wife, which isn’t fair, and you like guys but are married, which isn’t fair, and here we are, all. All drunk, and talking about the not fairness.” Nate seems amused, sad and amused, and Inge can’t stand it, it’s too much like fatalism, it’s too much like giving up in the 3rd inning when a couple of hits would put you right back in the game.
He slides his hand higher, grabs a handful of Nate’s shirt and hauls himself up, so he’s upright, sitting in Nate’s lap, and he shuffles around until he gets his knees on the outside of Nate’s thighs, pressing into the couch, one hand fisted in Nate’s collar and the other coming up to cup his cheek, untrimmed early beard cuttingly sharp in funny ways, bright pin pricks where Inge doesn’t have calluses on his palms, distant scratch where he does, a pattern mapped out by years of handling bats and balls and gloves.
“Let’s, OK, let’s do something about that. Like, a thing.” Nate’s watching him with narrow eyes, but he’s not shoving Inge off and he’s not knocking his hand away, and Inge rubs his thumb deliberately over Nate’s chin, which is strong and blocky and firm.
“Your wife was, was sleeping around, so. So you sleep around on her. Like, justice. And I like guys, so, so I do something about that, and, like everyone wins.”
Nate tilts his head to one side, but slowly, so Inge’s hand remains on his cheek, is not knocked away. “Everyone wins,” he says, quietly, and Inge feels big hands slide up his thighs, come to rest on his hips, bearing down lightly there. Nate rubs his thumbs along the bony points where Inge’s pelvis tops out, just at his waist, and Inge dips his head, complements the tilt, presses his lips to Nate’s.
He runs his tongue out, tasting beer and salt, and Nate lets his mouth fall open easily, alcohol paving the way but Inge is definitely drunk too, probably more drunk, he’s smaller, so he doesn’t care, so far as he’s concerned logic and morality are all in perfect accord right now, this is exactly the right thing to do, his tongue sliding slickly against Nate’s, and the rasp of Nate’s beard on his face is the most perfect thing in the universe.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate pitches and he can’t buy a strike, everything that’s not a ball is hit, and Nate pushes his hat up while standing on the mound, draws his forearm across his hairline in dismay. The newspapers are filled with speculation: his control was gone, he has a hurt elbow; his speed was gone, he has a hurt shoulder. Nate ducks his head in the lockerroom after games, the Detroit media respectful but insistent, soft susurrations of disbelief when he says he’s not hurting anywhere.
It’s Bob Cluck, the pitching coach, as usual, who spots the actual problem. Nate’s not pushing off properly with his lower body, so he’s not getting any power, and his mechanics are thrown off to try to compensate.
Cluck talks to Nate, quiet and urgent. He has Nate close his eyes and throw so that he can’t see anything, can only feel his motion and can sense the path of every bone, the flex of every muscle. It helps, a little, but Nate is still pushing lightly off the mound, no power from his legs and hips, and Inge hangs on the bullpen wall next to Jason Johnson, who has also wandered over to watch.
Johnson has, beyond all expectation, turned into their workhouse this season, throwing 8 innings of quality baseball per start like he was born to it, like anything less than 8 innings is some kind of personal failure. He always does this, though, pitches well to start the season and falls apart in the second half, so he doesn’t watch Nate struggle with casual disinterest. Everyone’s waiting for his drop-off, and Johnson watches Nate carefully, closely, like this is stuff he’ll need to know later on.
Inge has no excuse for being there, why a third baseman should care about the esoteric problems of starting pitchers is beyond explanation. If anyone asks he’s got a story all planned out, he used to be a catcher so he’s there to see if he can pick out anything in Nate’s delivery that will help. It’s a tenuous excuse, at best, but no one asks anyways, Cluck and Johnson both occupied with the way the ball floats weakly out of Nate’s hand, and Inge can lean his chin on the wall and simply watch.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate’s hands are big and powerful and sure on Inge’s belt, on the button of his jeans. Inge wriggles, he’s a wriggler, and his jeans slump down his legs, are kicked away across the floor. There are a lot of things happening, too much for him to keep track of it, with sucking on his neck and a big, hot hand scouring his back, fingers reaching everywhere and leaving tiny specks of golden heat in their wake.
There are big arms around him and he’s borne up, and over, and deposited on the bed, limbs wantonly awry. His boxers go the way of his jeans and there’s Nate looming over him, shoulders heavy and wide as the outfield in Comerica, too big for one man to traverse by himself, so Inge has to use both his hands to smooth over the pale hills of Nate’s trapezius muscle and anchor himself.
His legs are nudged up by insistent pokes and there are fingers working at him, but Inge digs his own fingers into the broad shoulders above him and gasps out, “Nuh, don’t need. Want… ready, I’m fine, just, now, Nate,” and there’s something much more blunt and much more sizable pressing him into the mattress. It’s just this immense pressure, this bright stretch, and then Nate is in, huge and present and with his head bowed down in concentration, reddish hair loose over Inge’s face. Inge gets a mouthful of it and sucks, chews, wets the section of hair he can reach.
Nate pulls back, and Inge thinks that all of his innards are being dragged out, his kidneys will be pulled out and laid bare on the sheets, but then Nate leans forward, arms like pillars on either side of Inge’s chest, and all of his internal organs are rearranged in new and deeply fundamental ways, and it’s always like this, it always feels like new.
He feels it in his stomach, he feels it in his goddamn throat, Nate is so deep inside, pausing at the deepest, arms shaking slightly with the effort of holding still so Inge can adjust, and Inge holds onto Nate’s shoulders like if he doesn’t the pressure will blast him straight backwards through the wall at the head of the bed, will blast the top right off his skull, and try playing baseball with only half a skull, those hats can only hide so much.
Somehow he manages to make a small assenting noise and Nate begins to thrust in earnest, his hips snapping crisply and powerfully. Inge’s back is starting to hurt, a little burn from the sheets making friction with his skin. The slap of Nate’s balls as he hits the deepest part of his stroke is sharp and wet and staccato, and Inge arches his back clear off the bed, his head and shoulders and feet touching down, everything else pressing up, muscles pulled impossibly tight.
Nate gets a good rhythm, hard and steady and bruising, and once he’s settled into that he can shift some of his weight to one hand, pick up the other and drag it down Inge’s chest, over his stomach, scratching in the dark blonde trail leading down before wrapping tightly with the surety of a pitcher gripping the seams of a baseball. Inge tries to arch up further, into Nate’s hand, making small breathy noises, and he’s going to have trouble sitting down tomorrow, he’s going to be bruised and marked and sore.
He’s starting to lose it, he can feel random muscles start to contract impossibly more, his eyes are rolling back, he’s actually being pushed across the bed a little with the force and intensity of Nate’s thrusts, and in a moment of strange clarity in all the humid clouds Inge wonders, wryly, why Nate can’t get this kind of power from his lower body on the mound.
----------------------------------------------------------------
“Why can’t you get that kind of power on the mound?” Inge has a way of bringing up questions that follow a narrative only happening in his mind, stuff related to things that happened days or weeks ago, so Nate is startled and confused, looking up from the careful and ritualistic tightening of his glove laces just before a start, clear acrylic glasses settled comfortably in his thick hair. Inge reaches over and steals them off of Nate’s head compulsively, clacking the stems open and shut, open and shut, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Power,” Nate muses. “That kind of power? What kind of power?” Inge flushes a brilliant red, right to the very tips of his ears, stares into the lenses of the glasses and won’t look around, and Nate snorts. “Oh, that kind of power. Not like it’s the same motion, or anything.”
“I know that,” Inge mutters, still blushing, still looking away. “I know that. But. I mean, if you can do it somewhere, I mean, some of it’s the same muscles, and. You know.”
The team is starting to filter out of the clubhouse, up the steps, into the sunlight of the park. Nate stands, glove tightened to perfection, and snatches his glasses deftly out of Inge’s hands. He puts them back on his head and gets a hold of Inge by the elbow, hauls him off the bench and up, so he can lean down and quietly breathe into Inge’s ear.
“Maybe I just need some motivation.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nate gets the first batter to fly out but lets the second work a single, and walks the third. Inge fidgets at third base, eyeing the runner on second, communicating with Omar Infante through a complex series of hand motions. He glances over at the mound and Nate has stepped off, is irritably handling the rosin bag, little puffs of white emerging from between his broad fingers.
He throws the bag down in a small cloud and starts to turn back towards the mound, but freezes minutely when he sees Inge at third. Inge holds his eyes for a second, then very deliberately turns around and bends over, slowly scrabbling at his cleat as though he’s tying his shoe. He straightens one leg out behind him, making a long line of blue-sock-encased calf and baseball-pant-encased thigh and raising his ass into the air. He pretends to lose his balance a little and waggles his behind, for good measure.
This takes all of 10 seconds, and when he straightens up and turns around Nate is still standing there, eyes locked. Inge risks a small smile and hitches at his belt, uses his throwing hand to briefly but vigorously adjust himself, in the time-worn baseball tradition.
Nate licks his lips, eyes narrowed behind the clear glasses. He reaches into his glove, gets a good grip on the ball and strides swiftly back up the mound, a new fire in his stance, a new surety in his footing.
He strikes out the next two batters and everyone trots briskly into the dugout, slapping each other on the shoulders. Cluck pulls Nate aside, wants to make sure Nate knows whatever it was he did that brought his push-off back to full strength. Nate smiles and puts his glasses up on top of his hat, and halfway down the dugout Inge giggles helplessly at a bad joke Pudge is telling, swinging his legs and scraping the tips of his cleats on the ground.
----------------------------------------------------------------
There’s a man from the Detroit Free Press standing in front of him, little pen poised over a yellow scratchpad, and Inge smiles broadly, friendly and approachable. He answers questions in an easy tone, towel slung over his bare shoulder. Nate catches his eye from behind the reporter and makes an obscene gesture with his hands. Inge bursts into laughter and the reporter looks around, confused.
“S’just my teammates being… being goofballs,” Inge assures him, gasping for breath. The reporter catches sight of Nate, who smiles, runs his thumb along his new, ruddy mustache, and turns to head to the showers.
The reporter looks back, confused, but Inge has been turned around and is being led firmly away by Rondell White, who bends down to mutter, “Watch it, stupid,” before veering back to intercept the reporter on his own. Inge does feel stupid. He almost gave the media gold, he almost gave away something that he really can’t afford to give away. Rock was looking out for him, team lockerroom code, everyone’s got everyone else’s back, so he didn’t, but he was close, far too close.
A situation that he thought he had control of is turning out to be less controllable than he thought, and Inge closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. He’s not sure what this is for Nate, but he’s pretty sure it’s not what it is for him.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Things are settling into a shape, a certain way of living. Nate goes back home, and Shani comes back with her big black suitcases and her eyes huge, filled with hopeful tears. She hugs Inge and sniffles and says things like, “We can can work this out, Brandon, we can get over this together.”
Inge isn’t at all sure this is a thing that can be worked out, and he’s not sure if he wants it to be. For a week after Shani returns he tries, he does, he sets little tests for himself. He takes Shani out to a fancy dinner and surreptitiously watches the other patrons when she gets up to go to the bathroom. He makes himself gaze at a young woman with pillowy cleavage, floating in a tight red dress, but his eyes slide over to the man across the table from her, the slim shoulders wrapped in dark suit jacket, the sharp jawline that’s just begging to be licked, the wrists in dress shirt cuffs that Inge finds himself wanting to grab and pin to a bed.
Shani sits back down, crossing her legs with a sweet smile, and Inge’s hands twitch lightly on the tablecloth, feeling ghosts of wristbones shifting in his palms.
----------------------------------------------------------------
He loves playing at home, because Comerica Park is his park. When he settles in at the plate and looks out, sees the statues of past Tiger greats frozen in bronzed action high along the wall in center field, the tigers looming large over the massive scoreboard, orange and black striped cats pushing into a clear blue sky, when he dusts at his sleeves and runs home white fabric through his gloved fingers, the ornate navy Detroit D flush over his heart, Inge is home in every sense of the word.
The road has its charms, though. There’s no Shani, looking up from her side of the bed with heated hope, sobbing in the kitchen and throwing plates, a darkened shadow standing, staring out the windows. There are smartly turned out hotel rooms and video games at all hours, mini bars to be opened at the turn of a key, cool clean beds without tear-stained wives in them.
Trammell wants to have rookies rooming with established players, so he has Inge staying with Chris Shelton, the wide-eyed, scrub-headed kid with the bat of solid gold. Inge tolerates this until around 1 am, when he kicks Shelton out. Tomorrow morning Jason Johnson will stagger into his room, squinting against the sunlight and disheveled from a night of sybaritic pleasures, to find Shelton and Tony Giarratano, the other rookie, passed out in a tangled little heap of young infielder on the floor in front of the TV, video game controllers still held loosely in their hands and drool pooling on the carpet, but Inge doesn’t know about that and wouldn’t worry about it if he did.
After he’s herded Shelton out of the door he picks up the tan hotel phone with its clunky receiver and dials a short number, squinting at the back of his hand for inked reference. He keeps the conversation casual and light, never know who’s listening, no sense in risking it, and asking Nate if he wants to come over to play some Donkey Kong is a normal, harmless thing.
A few minutes later and Nate is in the room, kicking off his shoes, and Inge is pushing him down onto the bed, holding his chest down with one hand and tracing the zipper of his jeans with the other, listening to gasps hitch in Nate’s throat. This is inspirational stuff, and it inspires Inge to lean up and get his teeth involved, pulling Nate’s tshirt collar all out of shape to bite at a part of his shoulder that won’t be exposed when in uniform.
Under his hand Nate is trembling and Inge loves this feeling, having 220 pounds of solid muscle shaking underneath him. He pauses to sit up and pull his shirt off, hastily slide out of his pants and boxers, and Nate does the same, blue eyes locking with Inge, no glasses or game in the way, it’s bright and sharp and clear and intense, it’s enough to take Inge’s breath away and replace it with something better.
Licking his lips Inge leans down again, drags his teeth over Nate’s chest, leaving faint red lines over the muscled forms. “How,” he starts, pauses to lick at a rib, watches the way the yellow hotel lamplight catches on the wet spot, “how do you. Want it.” He draws a hand down to the hard plane of Nate’s stomach and leaves it there, fingertips just barely pressing.
The bed dips as Nate wordlessly rolls over and pushes up onto his hands and knees. Inge bites his lip and runs his hand down Nate’s back once before leaning over the edge of the mattress to fish around in his bag. He leans over Nate, resting his chest on Nate’s back, one arm wrapped around Nate’s abdomen, reaching back with the other to stroke and push and probe with his fingers.
Generally this is the other way around, Inge on his back or knees with Nate looming large above him, but Inge doesn’t question it. He’s certainly more than willing to do the honors here, and if Nate feels like being on the receiving end tonight, well, fine. It’s Jeremy Bonderman pitching tomorrow, good, solid Bonderman who is embarrassed by his wife’s dirty side and probably cannot even imagine what they’re doing here, the point is that it’s not Nate pitching next, so Inge doesn’t feel like he has to be too gentle.
He works his way in, panting harshly, until he’s pressed up flush against Nate and can lean forward, plant an open-mouthed kiss right between Nate’s tensed shoulder blades, his hips twitching involuntarily, drawing small whimpers from between Nate’s clenched teeth.
They won’t talk about this, like they won’t talk about being straight or gay, like they won’t talk about Kristin or Shani. When Johnson is finding the rookies asleep on his floor tomorrow morning Inge will be waking up to Nate stretching and complaining that he’s sore. Inge will tease him about being a whiner, and Nate will toss Inge over his shoulder and run around the room with him until Inge threatens to throw up all over the place.
Inge hits better at home but is living for the road.
----------------------------------------------------------------
There is a strange tension in the lockerroom, which Inge ignores, because he had a good day, 2-for-4 with an RBI, he just assumes that everyone else is upset over the loss. It’s not until he hears Nate snap at a reporter that he brings his head up and looks around. Nate is never short with the media. Never. Inge starts to amble over to where the interview is quickly deteriorating, thumbs hooked determinedly in the belt-loops of his baseball pants.
He’s intercepted by a hand on his chest, halting him in his tracks. Pudge pushes lightly, giving Inge a silent warning look, before turning them both away from Nate and slinging his arm around Inge’s shoulders, saying something mild about having a good game and doing what he could for the team before disengaging with a pat on the back and another swift warning glance, heading back to his own locker.
There are little pens scratching away, media passes glinting dully all around the room, and Pudge is looking out for him, telling him to not be a fool, to not let slip the worst secret a professional baseball player could let slip in a heated moment of anger.
He’s right, of course, and Inge goes back to his locker, chagrined. He fiddles aimlessly with his cleats, picking tiny clods of dirt off the soles, waiting for the media to leave so the tension will leave the clubhouse.
The media leaves, but the tension stays. Pudge and Urbina are looking at anyone and anything but each other, little Tony G is shooting anxious looks at Carlos Guillen and his wrapped knee (all that stand between the kid and AAA, and Inge feels bad for that, that Tony should have to hope for Guillen to stay hurt), Bonderman is being even more taciturn than usual but glancing sidelong at Kyle Farnsworth, whose two innings of perfect relief weren’t enough to win the game, and who is methodically smashing a chair to small pieces in the corner.
Inge goes to talk to Nate but Nate is on the phone, one hand cupped over his ear, his wife on the other end. Inge puts a hand on Nate’s shoulder, curls his fingers around, but Nate shrugs him off and gestures, annoyed, at the phone. Something more important here, get back to me later.
A piece of chair, possibly a metal bolt, goes sailing past his head and Inge is glad of the excuse to flinch. This is not exactly like a punch to the stomach, like a baseball to the ribcage, but it’s not far off.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone is settling into their seats on the plane, Franklyn German as usual complaining that he doesn’t have enough leg room, Walker as usual collecting the barf bags from everyone’s seatbacks, and they long ago gave up asking why he wanted them all, resigned to some elaborate future prank involving the impervious plastic-lined stuff they’re made of.
Rondell, Rock, he’s one of Inge’s best friends on the team, although really that’s not saying much, because Rock is friends with everyone, just an all-round great guy, but Inge is a little sulky about sitting with him for this flight. The plane is set in rows of two, and Nate is sitting several rows back with Mike Maroth, ostensibly talking about lefty things, pitching things, but probably talking about wives and boobs and presents of jewelry, all kinds of heterosexual stuff and Inge starts absentmindedly shredding the in-flight magazine, staring at the blue seatback in front of him but kind of seeing red.
Someone’s stumbling up the aisle, not standing up or moving really well, they thump a heavy hand onto the top of Inge’s seat, and he looks up to see Urbina swaying dangerously, eyes red-rimmed. The smell of cheap alcohol hits Inge in a warm wave, a palpable thing, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste.
For some reason Urbina has fixated on Rock, is staring him down as best he can in his inebriated state. Rock, worried, half stands to ask Urbina what’s wrong, and that’s when Ugie explodes, starts screaming obscenities and slurring abuse. People are getting out of their seats, moving down the aisle towards the scene, and Urbina calls Rock something horrible, something completely uncalled-for, something Inge never thought he would hear on the team plane, in this day and age. Rock is his friend, and Ugie is at that moment just some crazy drunk guy, attacking his friend, so Inge bursts out of his seat in a ball of fury and fists and goes at Urbina.
People are shouting, some guys clearly heard what Urbina said and are egging Inge on, some are yelling at him to stop it, to hold back, but everything has come down on Inge at once and there’s no way he’s letting up. He twists Urbina’s arm back and that’s Rock, he punches Urbina in the stomach and that’s Shani, he gets him good on the sternum and that’s his sexuality, he catches him sharply on the jaw and that’s Nate. Urbina, drunk as he is, gets in a few good punches of his own, a sharp slam to the side of Inge’s head, the red in his vision exploding into little crimson stars, and he figures that’s probably Nate too.
The fight is hampered by the narrow aisle of the plane, only so much damage that can be done with seats hemming them in from both sides, but by the same token it prolongs things, because it’s hard for their teammates to pry them apart in the confined space. “The friendly confines, just like Wrigley,” Inge thinks, hysterically, getting in a few more solid punches before someone finally gets a solid grasp on his waist and pulls him backwards.
Arms come up across his chest, restraining him, Pudge has forced Urbina down and is screaming at him in Spanish, and Inge feels a familiar sharp pinprickling of short, stiff, unshaven beard hairs along the back of his neck as Nate leans in close. “You maniac, what the fuck are you doing?” Nate hisses, tightening his arms so Inge won’t lunge forward, and Nate’s body is warm warm warm behind him. Inge closes his eyes, red striping with black behind his eyelids, and grinds his ass back into Nate as hard as he can.
Nate pulls back sharply, but can’t go too far because of the backlog of Tigers clogging the aisle behind him, still pushing forward to see what’s going on or, in some cases, to push past and try to get a swing or two at Urbina themselves. Nate’s eyes are shadowed and mistrustful and Inge wants the clear blue, doesn’t know how it got back to this, and he’s still seeing red, sparks shooting across his plane of vision, breath coming in gasps from having it half knocked out of him by a crazy relief pitcher.
He’s pretty sure that he’s flushed, his blonde hair tousled, his lips wet and parted, his chest heaving. He’s pretty sure his eyes are a little bit crazy and his shirt is torn a little to reveal just a sliver of skin at his beltline. He’s pretty sure he’s basically fucking irresistible right now.
But Nate closes his eyes, turns around, and bulls his way back through the rest of the team. Inge is mobbed by them, Rock trying to work his way around him to slug Urbina, Johnson pounding on Inge in a friendly way and calling him a “good ol’ scrapper”, Dmitri hollering, Tram yelling, Kirk Gibson coming up from the other end of the plane with a joyful, insane gleam in his eye and his sleeves rolled up, and Inge lets them move him around like a rag doll, all the rage gone from his body, the red seeping from his vision and leaving everything pale and colorless.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Urbina is traded, gone, and in his place is this weird little guy with the lumpy skull, and Omar Infante is in a panic, his roster spot suddenly in doubt, alternating between calling Carlos Pena to ask what the weather in Toledo is like right now and lashing out violently at anyone who even dares to say the word ‘Toledo’ in his presence. Pudge is quiet and downcast, Farnsworth makes a stink about having to pay for the chair, but for all that it’s much less tense in the lockerroom.
You don’t listen in on a guy’s conversation when he’s on the phone with his wife, but it’s a small clubhouse, and Inge can’t help but overhear things, which is how he hears that Nate and his wife are on great terms again, like they were before, like nothing ever happened to keep them apart.
Nate goes back to behaving blamelessly on road trips, he’ll go so far as to turn down a night out on the town with the boys if it involves strip clubs, he takes marriage seriously. Inge calls him on the hotel phone, asks if he wants to come over to play Donkey Kong, and Nate says sure, can Bonderman come too?
Inge presses the phone into his cheek and says in a low, pained voice that he means Donkey Kong the unsubtle code, not Donkey Kong the actual game, and Nate hangs up, leaving Inge feeling stupid and desperate and pathetic.
Nate throws a complete game, 9 innings of powerful pitching, and Bob Cluck congratulates him heartily on working out his mechanical issues. Inge whiles away the time at third base by thinking up ways to waggle his ass at Nate when he looks over, but he never does look over.
In the lockerroom afterwards a reporter sidles up to Inge, flashes his Detroit Free Press ID, starts asking questions about the game and how Nate threw and the homerun that Chris Shelton hit. Inge gives all the right answers, mechanically, watching the little pen scratch lightly over paper, taking down the tripe.
There are more tears and fights at home and there’s a big hulking mass of jagged emotional magnet standing 10 feet away rubbing a towel over its head and Inge thinks that there was never an interview given by the New York media, no matter what Rock or anyone else says, there was never an interview as hard as this.