Fic :: "loves comes from the dirt in my own backyard" (1/2)

[cinderlily]

(Art by the awesome mausi:) )

“Bullshit.”

David Cook paused at the end of the locker bay, taking just a second to lean back and check the aisle that led out. When he saw that it was empty he turned and smacked his friend Michael Johns on the back.

“Hey, you better not let Seacrest hear you say that,” David grinned. “I hear you still owe him the better part of a pay check from your first meeting.”

Johns rolled his eyes and shrugged, “Rumor, Cook. Besides, let the little Leprechaun just try and con me out of my cash.”

David laughed as he opened his locker and shrugged his bag off of his shoulder. He had changed before he left the hotel that morning, but still double-checked his work out clothes.

“So what exactly is the bullshit I missed?”

“Castro is trying to pull one on us.”

Jason shrugged. “If you believe it or not it’s still true.”

“He doesn’t even look old enough to be a bat boy,” Johns protested.

In the three years that they had all been playing for the Omaha Royals he had come to realize just how futile it was to try and get something straight from those two, so he shifted his attention to lacing up his cleats.

When a foot hit the back of his shin he made a quick yelp of protest but Johns didn’t look apologetic. He followed the jerk of Johns’ head and caught sight of someone at the other end of the row. For a minute he just stared and wondered what he was supposed to be doing but when he turned towards them David realized just what it was. A tuft of messy dark hair, nervous smile and wow. The kid was cute, he could give him that, but he was indeed a kid.

He gave an awkward wave and smiled at them all before he closed his locker and walked to them with his hand out.

“Hi, I’m David Archuleta,” the boy smiled, first taking Jason’s hand, then Johns’. He went to offer it to David while he added. “I’m the new catcher.”

David’s mouth opened of its own will, “Bullshit.”

“I’m sorry?”

Before he could pull himself back together enough to apologize a familiar voice came over the loud speaker to break the din of the locker room.

“Meeting in five, boys. Hustle.”

There was something so intrinsically condescending when it came to Ryan Seacrest calling them boys. He was in his mid twenties; Seacrest wasn’t even a decade older than him. It was… well. Frustrating to say the least. He swallowed the urge to say something (the guy had a gift for walking in when David said stuff like that) and smiled at the group around him.

“I guess that’s our cue.”

*

"Gentlemen," Simon stepped to the front of the room with his usual grimace on his face. "I trust you all had a perfectly adequate vacation filled with events I would not enjoy hearing about. It's time to get back to the real world."

David didn't think it was fair to call a group of guys playing baseball a 'serious business' like Simon seemed to think of it, but he nodded like he agreed whole-heartedly. Next to him Johns made a comment under his breath that even without knowing what he was talking about he knew was stupid and Jason's laugh didn't help the case. He looked over and found the two of them laughing at each other and just barely kept from rolling his eyes.

"We have a few new faces, so I trust you will all make them feel welcome," Simon frowned, and flicked his wrist towards Ryan. He nodded at the group of new people across the room and they all lined up.

Ryan looked down at his clipboard and then put a painfully fake smile on his face, "This is David Hernandez, he’s going to start at short stop. Chikeze Eze and Danny Noriega are in the outfield. Colton Berry at third. And David Archuleta as our new catcher."

"Must we have three Davids on one team?" Simon rolled his eyes. "If your first name is David, you will be going by your last name."

David wanted to protest (he had been on the team first) but anyone on the team for longer than a day realized just how futile it was to argue with their Skipper. Johns had called him Cook for long enough that he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be too hard. David Hernandez, or he guessed Hernandez, looked like he wouldn’t make it more than three weeks. Not that it was fair of him to make that assumption, but he had been around just long enough to know the nervous twitches and just what they meant. Then there would be two of them, and Archuleta could work to earn his name.

*

It was still spring training, so most of the first day was a series of trial and error. The pitching coach, Coach Jackson, had a tendency to get a little overly invested when it came to the “pump up” speech and he zoned out for the entirety of it until he started pairing people off to go and do warming up.

“Cook, you take Archuleta,” he pointed in the direction of where the other David sat. He looked like he might actually be buzzing with excitement, making David wonder when he had become a little bit jaded. Even before he stood up Archuleta was on his feet and at his side, imaginary tail wagging with excitement.

He grabbed his mitt and led the way to the corner of the field they used for group warm ups.

“So, where are you from?”

He paused in his step and turned to see eager brown eyes looking up at him. Jesus he thought, this kid is young.

“Blue Springs, Missouri.”

“That’s nearby Kansas City, right?”

David nodded.

“That is so cool! You’ll be right next to your family when you get called up. My family is in Utah, which… isn’t far. No Salt Lake teams though, so I won’t be that lucky. How long have you played for the Royals?”

He frowned, “I got called up two years ago.”

“Before that you were in Arkansas?”

“Yeah.”

David was pretty sure he was being rude, it was just that it had been so long since he had actually seen someone so damn eager that he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to handle it. Somehow it didn’t seem to be much of a deterrent, and even if it should be kind of grating to have someone following him around like a reporter in training, it wasn’t.

“How long were you there? Have you always been in the Royals farm system?”

“A few years, and yeah.”

Before he could get to another question, they had reached their destination and the other David jogged ahead to where the other catchers were squatting. David took a moment seemingly to stretch the glove in his hand but actually for him to get his head back into the game completely. He leaned down to grab a ball from the tin that was in between where he and Jason stood.

Jason smiled at him widely, “See, told you so.”

“He might be a player and he might be 18,” David conceded. “But he acts like he was raised in Pleasantville.”

Jason laughed, “What ever you say, Old Man.”

He laughed, even if that felt a little to close to the truth for him to really think it was funny. In the off-season David had spent countless hours practicing the mechanics of his pitching. It was weird to think, but he couldn’t help but feel an imaginary clock ticking somewhere. He was twenty-six, not sixty-five, but in all sports there did seem to be an expiration date set early on and every player seemed to know that. It was just a game of trying to run out that clock, to see how long one person can go.

He took the ball into his glove and stepped up to line. Took a moment and concentrated on the space where the imaginary strike box was. Inhaled, exhaled and then wound up and threw.

*

As was tradition, the end of the first day meant a trip to King Kong’s, a small restaurant not far from the stadium. The food was good, and plentiful, but mostly they loved that it was quiet and yet didn’t mind them being loud rowdy hooligans. Even if his joints were aching and he was pretty sure he needed to just go home and crash, there was just no way he would miss it (Nor did he think he could, he was pretty sure Johns would have dragged him).

When he had asked Archuleta if he wanted to come it had mostly been because they invited everybody, but the smile he had gotten for doing so had given him an odd tug of guilt about it. The guy was young, sure, but he couldn’t help that. After a day of working with him, he also could tell that he had talent, and what problems he had were easy to fix as he was open to hearing any critiques. And maybe that should be annoying, but it wasn’t.

“Wha’ we gunna do b’t your name?” Johns asked, his mouth still half full with a gyro.

To his credit, Archuleta mostly hid his obvious desire to cringe at the sight of food stuffed into Johns’ mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Archuleta is a bit unwieldy,” Johns said, having swallowed the last bit of his food. “What you need is a nickname.”

The boy in question paused with food halfway to his mouth. “Nickname?”

“A nickname,” Johns nodded. “Like take Cook, last season we called him ‘Wild Thing’.”

David stopped the three guys with a deadly serious glare, “Johns, don’t.”

“Um… my family calls me Dave sometimes?”

David couldn’t help but chuckle at the obviously lame attempt to stop the conversation. The other David turned towards him sheepishly. He shook his head and smiled. “Nothing, man. Nothing.”

“Archuleta…” Johns started, like he had entirely ignored the other responses to the question. “Arch-chew-leta. Choo…Chewie?”

Jason, who was seated right next to David, almost choked in the middle of bite of food. “Ch-…ch… Chewie? You want to nickname him Chewie?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“For one thing, he’s short,” Jason pointed out. David watched as Archuleta’s ears went pink. “What about Leta?”

Johns laughed, “He isn’t a girl, Castro.”

Archuleta’s cheeks had gone pink as well, and with the sudden desire to just put the kid out of his misery he said the first thing that came to mind, “How about Archie?”

Johns had been about to make a point, lost whatever point he was trying to make and shrugged instead. “Archie?”

“Yeah, like the cartoon.”

Jason considered it while he took another bite of his burger. After he drank some of the tea in front of him he mirrored Johns shrug. “Does that mean we can call Johns ‘Jughead’?”

To his credit he ducked the fry that Johns threw at him with the deftness he would dodge a ball hit towards his head. He grinned, obviously satisfied with the annoyance he had caused Johns and took the fry from where it had bounced off his arm and onto the table.

“Laugh it up,” Johns shrugged, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “But it won’t be so funny when your jersey reads ‘Veronica’.”

David looked over to find Archie looking a little more relaxed, not quite as flustered or embarrassed. He gave him a tentative smile and when he got what looked to be a totally genuine smile back David had the weird feeling like that action alone could count as a win.

*

By the time his first start had come around he was feeling a mixture of anxiety and excitement. Practice was nice, but there was something different about walking up to the center of the diamond and throwing out his first real pitch of the season.

He had had, what at least felt like, the best training session of his baseball career so far. He was able to get into it easier than he had in a while and he had found that his focus had somehow increased over his time off. He had been working on it, after all, so he was pretty proud at the idea of it finally taking hold (Only six years in the minors, he chided himself).

The catcher he had been working with the season before, Blake Lewis, had been traded to the Brewers during the off-season. After what was probably the shortest contest in recent memory David Archuleta, or Archie, was made the new starting catcher. David didn't mind, not really, but it was almost annoying to think that the kid could basically walk off the bus and onto the field. If it weren't for Archie's sincerity and smile, David would probably hate him on principle. Instead, he found that he somehow liked him already.

"You ready?" Archie asked, the picture of relaxation and poise barring the way his hands couldn't quite stay still and he had a ball rolling back and forth in his catcher's mitt.

David shrugged and gave a wry smile, "Ask me again after the game."

He got a crooked smile and head tilt, the one he was beginning to realize translated roughly to, 'You're weird.' Over the loud speaker the opening chords to their walk on song began and David swallowed and turned his best smile towards Archie.

"Ready or not," he jerked his head and both ran onto the field (Taking care to hop over the first base line... he wasn't superstitious but he also wasn't one to tempt fate).

They were playing the Isotopes, a team that he had struggled with in the past, and the nerves that he had kept at bay for the days leading up to it hit him in one fell swoop as he watched the first man come to the plate. He looked straight forward and at where Archie squatted behind the plate. He watched the first signal, shook his head at the suggestion of a slider and waited again till Archie gave him the one he thought could work best. (He trusted his knuckleball far more than his curveball.)

He took a deep breath, tugged his hat down a little, took a second to breathe before a quick check to make sure his grip was loose, and threw.

Strike one, strike two, strike three.

"Sit down," he muttered, mostly out of habit.

The home crowd cheered raucously and he relaxed. Good way to start the season.

*

By the top of the sixth he had stranded three people on base and was still scoreless, while his team had gone out and gotten him four runs as a buffer. He felt the warm feeling of contentment he liked to think made him play better, the confidence in his team translating as a confidence in himself.

The first guy to bat was the short stop, who was new but had already put up some pretty aggressive attempts on his pitching earlier in the night. David tried to ignore the way the man crowded the plate, making his easy go to pitch just a little bit dangerous. Archie made the signal again for him to try a slider. It wasn’t one of the ones he was comfortable with.

He put a hand into fiddle with the ball in his glove, shifted his stance and fiddled with his hat. The batter finally put a hand up and stepped out of the box and David knew that he was taking too long. Archie started to stand up, like maybe he was going to come up to the mound and David just shook his head.

He could do this. He was ready for this. He didn’t need his catcher to baby him. With a long inhale and a quick nod before he planted his foot and tried.

It was almost in slow motion as he watched the ball he had thrown head straightforward and just as the player turned in he saw the ball hit the guy square in the shoulder. The ump pointed towards first and David groaned. The guy had been crowding the plate! He had turned into the pitch. That wasn’t a hit-by-pitch!

The crowd seemed to agree with him, calling out catcalls and boos that he hoped was more directed at the ump than himself. He looked over towards the dug out but found that Cowell still had the blank frown he wore during all the games.

He felt the blood in his veins start to churn but ignored it as the next player came up to bat. This time the guy wasn’t crowding the plate and he was able to go with a pitch more comfortable with him, but somehow that didn’t help. With in four pitches it was 3 balls to the one strike and he could just feel the annoyance mounting in his gut.

When his next pitch, a perfect execution of a change up, was called the fourth ball he had the sudden urge to question the validity of the ump’s parents marriage at the time of his birth. He was livid, his skin felt too hot and he was just… not okay with the whole arrangement. Somewhere, in the rational part of his brain, he could hear the teasing from last season. (“Watch out, here comes Wild Thing.”)

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” he yelled, and the ump lifted his mask to level him with a look of challenge. And David? Wasn’t one to back away from that. He felt himself launch forward, but his foot hadn’t even left the dirt mound before he felt Archie right in front of him.

“Hey hey hey,” Archie said, surprisingly capable of keeping David from moving forward. “Let it go, come on. Take a moment.”

David still felt like he was fuming but he exhaled and inhaled a few times. “That was a strike! How big is his strike zone, six inches? What the fuck?”

“Are we going to have a problem?” the ump said, coming up behind them and David had the beginnings of just how much of a problem they were going to have when Archie turned back and answered for them.

“No problem, just need a second,” he said, and even with his face turned away from him David knew he was turning that thousand watt smile that could sell ice to Eskimos.

He tried again to get his breathing back, his blood pressure easing just slightly enough that he could relax one of his fists. The ump looked at him, again with challenge but also maybe just a little curiosity. He gritted his teeth and nodded, letting out a tight. “Yeah, just need a minute.”

“Okay, you got it?” Archie looked up at him, his arm finally lowering a fraction back and off of David’s chest. He couldn’t help but nod. Maybe he just needed a second. He could feel himself relaxing back already. He got this.

He was proven wrong when the next pitch gave the other team a homerun and brought the score to 4-3.

*

It hadn’t been a bad day, not really, they had gotten a win in the end and it even went in his win column as well. After the home run he had somehow got himself back into it enough to finish the inning before asking for relief. The nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach was that he hadn’t played well enough. He had let himself get put into a jam and almost cost the team the win by shoddy pitching and loss of control in his last inning and it just didn’t settle well at all.

He was almost home free, his clothes on and his bag slung over one shoulder when Archie came up next to him with a huge smile. His hair was still damp and his shirt damp against his chest. He must have barely let himself dry off, as David had left at the beginning of the ninth to get showered, stretched and iced while Archie had stayed back to watch the last inning.

“Are you coming?” Archie asked hopefully.

“I’m not really that hungry,” David said with a shake of his head.

Archie tilted his head just slightly and gave him a puzzled look. “Not Kong’s. It’s Friday?”

“So?”

“They’re showing fireworks!”

Coming from anyone else it would sound like a joke but the look on Archie’s face, wide smile and happy glint in his eyes, was totally sincere. He wanted to say no, it wasn’t like Archie would fault him for wanting to go home and even if he did he knew he would never let David see it. Still… the smile on Archie’s face was the most relaxed he had seen in the two weeks he had known him and he was almost shocked to find that he really didn’t want to take that away from him.

“Sure, why not?” he conceded, throwing his bag back into his locker and slamming it shut.

Archie’s smile somehow got just a little bit wider and he rocked back onto the ball of his feet and rubbed his hands together, “Awesome! I think I know where we can go and watch. I got lost the other day when I was trying to find the bathroom and there was this door and it was totally perfect. It might be a little cramped but there aren’t even trees or something but it’s private, which would be nice if you want? I mean we could… um. Go out to the grass? But then it might be …”

Part way through the ramble David had walked the last few steps to the locker room door and with a flourish opened it up and motioned for Archie to walk ahead of him. “Lead the way.”

“Okay. Cool… um,” he replied, as he stepped through and then hesitated looking down the hall in each direction. Finally settling on left he took a few steps and then changed his mind and backtracked right. “This way.”

David didn’t get a chance to answer because Archie was off like a shot once he figured out which direction to go. His legs were definitely longer so it wasn’t like he had to run to catch up but it did take long strides and a fast pace to keep from losing him. (Which he should have guessed after Archie’s triple that should have been a double from earlier.)

After three years at Rosenblatt stadium he would think that he knew the place by heart but it really was huge and a little confusing at times. By the time they made it to a black door he couldn’t have told you where they were or how to get back to the locker room.

Archie pushed the door open and then grinned back at him, “Found it!”

It was a little patch of green that couldn’t be more than 6 feet wide and maybe 8 feet deep but when he looked up he saw the clear open sky. The show hadn’t started yet but he heard the announcer’s voice indistinctly in the background, which meant it would be starting soon. At first he sat cross-legged, looking up, but trying to put pressure on his palms made his shoulder ache so he conceded defeat and lay back. Archie was already beside him, his hands folded behind his head and eyes trained up in anticipation.

It didn’t occur to him that he was staring until Archie turned his head with a look of worry, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered and turned to look up just in time for a loud pop and bright flash of white light in the sky.

The light show was pretty enough that at first they both just watched. It was weird that after who knows how long he had forgotten just how calming it actually could be. He watched the sky and felt something indescribable unwind in his chest. Beside him Archie was humming, like always, and it was just loud enough for him to catch over the distant thumping of whatever music was supposed to go along. The song made him smile and at the chorus both he and Archie started to sing along.

“Hands… touching hands. Reaching out… touching me, touching you….”

David paused just in time to hear Archie belt out the next bit, his smile so wide by the end of it that he thought his face was going to bust in two.

“Hey, no fair,” Archie said, obviously embarrassed. “That’s the most fun part to sing.”

David couldn’t help but disagree, “Nah, more fun watching you do it.”

Even in the dark he could see the deep red on the top of Archie’s cheeks. He was suddenly aware of just how big the kid’s smile was, and even more aware at just how little he actually thought of him as a kid. He watched as Archie drummed his fingers on his chest and looked up again at the sky. It was the second time he could get caught staring but he honestly stopped caring.

The lights were flashing still in the background and he watched at just how happy that seemed to make his friend. It was weird, as that is what he was all of a sudden. Not a teammate, but a friend. And maybe he should have pieced together how miserable he had seemed a little sooner but he figured better late than never.

“You okay?” he asked, shocking even himself.

Archie turned a little and looked at him with an awkward smile for a second before his face relaxed into a little bit more serious of a stare. Like he had been testing the waters to see if maybe David was joking, and that made David feel like he had been a pretty shitty friend on his end.

“Yeah, I’m… fine,” Archie said and even if David was as dense as his sister in law said he was he could still see the lie. He quirked an eyebrow and leveled a long stare. After a moment Archie amended, “I’ve been a bit… homesick.”

Well fuck, David thought. Of course he is.

Archie bit at his lower lip and looked back up. “It isn’t so bad anymore. First week it was pretty bad. My family and I … well. We’re close?”

“Mine too,” David said, choosing to look back up in the hope that it might keep Archie talking longer. “My brothers and I. Well. My… brother and I. We’re close.”

When he felt Archie turn to look at him he realized just what he had said. It wasn’t like he didn’t talk about Adam to people, he just hadn’t really brought it up in a while. It was a weird pull of guilt when he thought about it. He should have been there, he thought, more. But he couldn’t change any of it.

For some reason though, he felt compelled to keep going a little. “My brother Adam died of cancer. Now it’s just Andy and I, but we’re closer I guess. I keep 5 as my number to keep Adam close… It’s just the way it goes.”

“Oh Cook,” Archie said from beside him, and suddenly he felt a warm hand on his forearm. He turned to see Archie looking at him with wide glassy eyes, and when did this get to be about him? He had meant to cheer Archie up.

He shook his head and forced a smile, “Give it a while, the boys become your summer family. Trust me.”

“Really?” Archie looked skeptical.

David smiled, “Yeah. Johns is the cousin no one talks about, Castro is the one you go to when you want to party… Simon is the surly drunk uncle and Ryan is the distant third cousin no one likes but still gets invited somehow.”

After a pause they both laughed, more to break the tension than anything thing else. David was thankful as they just watched for a while longer, light show reaching crescendo into a fit of red, white and blue. A minute or so after Archie gave a long sigh.

“That was awesome,” he said emphatically and David couldn’t help but agree.

They both sat up and started to dust off the grass from their clothes. When they reached for the door handle David looked back to see Archie’s face screwed up in thought and he felt his stomach give an odd flip. “Everything okay?”

“Next time we should bring blankets,” Archie said distractedly.

As he shut the door behind them he couldn’t help but smile, “Definitely.”

*

No matter how much David loved Johns (and he did, really, love him) he had learned halfway through the season previous that the worst thing possible for him was to room with him on the road. It wasn't that either one of them had something they did that annoyed the other, or even that they just didn't have the same personality. They actually had a little too much in common and they were maybe a little too compatible. In the long run, partying till three in the morning and drinking till who knows when just wasn't meant for two people who wanted to go somewhere when it came to baseball.

It had been a silent agreement to just room with other people.

("Aww, you planning on giving me the break up speech, Cookie? Trust me, I know it isn't me, it's you. That you are growing in a different direction, that you just need some time to find who you are."

"Shut up, you prissy Aussie bastard."

"Fine, alright man, let the hurt out.")

When he was told that Archie would be his roommate he frowned but was more or less okay with it. He was still getting his bearings for the boy but he seemed like a decent enough guy. Maybe a little withdrawn but really that could be a plus in his favor. Even just imagining coming back to the room to find Archie holding a fifth of liquor or the number of a strip club was more than enough to make David laugh until his sides hurt. Not that he would tell it to Johns, but maybe he needed a little chill in his life.

The cool thing was that it gave him sometime to really get a feel for the new guy, even if he left most conversations less sure of what he knew about Archie than when he started. He found that he laughed a lot more with Archie around, which left him relaxed and helped him to get to sleep a lot easier than when he had someone hell bent on distracting them.

*

"Has anybody seen Archuleta?"

David looked up from where he was zipping closed his duffel to see the entire locker room look around at Ryan's request. His locker being directly next to Archie's meant that he could see quickly that he hadn't been back to change out yet and that his duffel was open and on the ground.

"Last time I saw him he was signing autographs," Jason offered, voice muffled by his head still rooting around in the back of his own locker space.

With a laugh, David gave Jason's leg a playful nudge, "Dude, we've been here three days. You can't lose stuff in three days."

Jason pulled back with a triumphant smile as he brandished a set of keys, "Whatever. Found it!"

"Cook, could you please go do some catcher wrangling?" Ryan asked, his voice somehow teasing and annoyed at the same time.

Without a word David gave a salute and then a wink and obliged. It wasn't like they were in their hometown, how many people could seriously want autographs? He rounded the corner and out onto the small landing meant for autographs and found that, in fact, a lot of people could want them.

He wasn't entirely sure how long it had been, long enough that he had taken a shower and was in his travel clothes but there were still at least a dozen people milling around Archie, though the mean age was probably 9 or 10. Archie, for his part, was smiling wide and happy, looking like he hadn't just been playing a game for two hours nor like he wanted to leave. He was amiable to a fault, David was sure of it.

"Hey Archie," David said, which got Archie to turn around with a huge grin. "It's alm--"

Archie's pleased laughed cut him off, "Awesome! Cook. Wait, you have to see this..."

David had a point to make, a point that Archie needed to hear but that fell from his lips as Archie leaned down and away from him. A second later a little boy, one that David hadn't even seen when he first came out, walked forward with his head tilted down and a sign clutched to his chest. An adult behind him, probably his dad if David thought about it, nudged him a little.

"Come on Benny, show him," the man urged, and the little boy turned an embarrassed glare towards his dad and then turned back with a tepid smile.

He inched forward cautiously and David gave in to the urge to kneel down just in time for Benny to turn the sign around. It wasn't the first time he had seen his face or name on poster, not that it happened that much but it wasn't completely unheard of. But it was, actually, the first time he had seen one so obviously made with love.

For a long moment he silently gaped at the work that had obviously gone into it. In the center was a printed out picture of his face, with a printed out crown on top. Above in careful kid’s print were the words, “TIME FOR A WILD ROMPUS” and just below his face the added “FUTURE WILD THING” and an arrow pointing down. It was… well. It was silly and sweet and so very perfect he felt himself choke up. (Man he was thankful only Archie was there, the other guys would never let him live that down.)

The boy suddenly moved to take it back and David realized that he probably thought that he didn’t like it. He put his hand out and stopped him, taking the sign with a deliberate care.

“Did you make this all by yourself?” he asked.

Benny gave a shy nod and then a quick correction; “My dad cut the pictures out for me.”

“It’s totally awesome. Best poster I’ve seen,” he said and was surprised when he realized it was true. The little boy’s face was bright pink and he couldn’t quite meet his eyes but David saw his huge smile.

“Can I…. would you… sign it for me?”

David felt a warm pull of pure happy and he nodded enthusiastically, “Of course, but … one condition.”

“What?” Benny’s eyes were wide and his voice was up an octave.

Archie had handed him a pen a moment before and David stood up a bit to reach in his pocket and grab a piece of paper, “I’m going to need yours, too. I mean, ‘future Wild Thing’ and all.”

The little boy beamed up at him and grabbed the pen to scrawl in huge letters “BENNY” on the back of a receipt from the truck stop from days before. When David handed the pen back to Archie he was given a face splitting grin.

“…what?”

Archie shrugged. The smile slipped, as he looked away, “Nothing.”

“Hate to break it up,” Ryan’s voice came from behind them and David jerked around to see Ryan’s annoyed face in the doorway. “But we would like to make it back before the game tomorrow.”

*

Later, somewhere on the highway leading back to Omaha, David turned to find Archie with a serious look of concentration.

“Think any harder and you might make smoke,” he teased.

Archie’s face relaxed, “Sorry. I was just wondering… Um. Well. Never mind.”

“Come on, we still have three hours left in this bus, might as well talk about something.”

“You don’t like the nickname ‘Wild Thing’, do you?”

David froze for a second, regretted asking for him to go on but knew there wasn’t really point in trying to lie. “I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It started off as a joke,” he said, his face averted to looking past Archie out the window at the scenery going by. “Because I can’t be trusted… my pitching style can’t be trusted. I’d be playing perfect, really laying it on and getting it right and then… boom. It’ll go all wrong, and there the Wild Thing is all over again.”

It had been embarrassing when he first heard the name used, the way it was used. It made him feel… like he hadn’t come too far. He had ended the last season with a promise to himself that he would get himself under control and that he would come back and not be that guy again and for the most part he had done that. He was more dependable, his pitching a lot more consistent.

“I think it fits you,” Archie said, and David turned quickly back to him. Archie looked horrified and then shook his head. “Not… not your pitching style. Not… yeah. No. Not that. I meant, like… you. It fits you. You are … different. You are awesome. And you have fun, and you make mischief but… you aren’t a monster or anything. You’re just.. you know…”

And it might have been fun to just watch Archie walk around his words for a little while longer but he decided to give him a break. “I get it… I think. I’m Max, not the actual monsters.”

“Yeah,” Archie said, visibly sinking back in relief at David interrupting him. “You’re creative and different.”

David smiled and winked, “Also, that makes me king.”

“Guess so,” Archie turned his head slightly so he was looking at the chair in front of him. “I still think it fits you… you know. I just can’t say why.”

His smile got a little bigger, “You know, it’s beginning to grow on me.”

*

There was always a fine line in the profession, between building team morale in an attempt at becoming a cohesive team, and becoming too close. It was inevitable that there would be teach switching and players being called up or sent down. Team line ups change all the time, and, save for the guys he had come up through the ranks with, he had avoided forming too close of bonds, because it was only a matter of time.

The night before the All Star break found them at King Kong's and David sat with his side pressed up against Archie again and he realized just how close he had let himself get to Archie. He told jokes and found himself waiting to hear Archie's laugh. He ordered wings, and without thinking he turned the plate for Archie to be able to grab them. Not that he would admit it, but it felt weird to think that not to long ago he wouldn’t have been there with them.

With the possibility of four straight days off most players hadn’t even bothered to come in the first place, but the ones that did were loud enough to make up for it. When they all had finished their food and split the bill up the party didn’t quite feel ready to be over.

“Meet up at my condo,” Johns offered the few people still there. He stood up and smiled, “This is a bring your own beer occasion, kids. I’m not made of money.”

David was exhausted, beyond exhausted actually, but was never one to turn down an invite. Archie looked like he was going to decline the offer but David cut him off. “I’m not in the mood to drink. You should come, keep me company while they’re all drunken and depraved.”

“I don’t think I’d be much fun,” Archie frowned. “You should go.”

“Come on Archie,” Jason jumped in. “David needs someone to be boring with.”

Eyebrows knit together, Archie conceded with a weak shrug, “Sure?”

part two