fic: Dishes in the Kitchen Sink
Yep. Baseball fic. Genderswap baseball fic. Rick Porcello/Ryan Perry.
for caruso for help_haiti. Was supposed to be posted yesterday, but then I got a job that was like, "Can you start immediately?" which meant nine PM to 3 AM, at which point I came home and collapsed like a Brewer bowling pin after a Prince Fielder walkoff.
Anyway. So fic.
Dishes in the Kitchen Sink
PG-13, Perry/Porcello, 4200 words.
Rick Porcello disappeared two years ago, and the Verlanders meddle in the affairs of others. Kind of.
DVD commentary + deleted scenes.
Perry doesn't think there is any good reason for thirteen innings and dramatics, not in May and especially not against the Royals. He's tired and in a foul mood when he gets home, and it's late and there is an accident on 75 that takes traffic down to one lane, held in place by bright pink flares and rubbernecking.
Rick is curled up on the couch under the glow of the TV and a blanket from his old life, hair in his face and small hands curled up under his chin, and he might have been asleep except he sits up when Perry comes into the room.
The blanket is old and worn, fraying at the edges, Rick's school colors. Perry finds it interesting that out of everything, this blanket is a part of Rick Porcello that has persisted.
"Good game," Rick says, even though they both know he didn't watch. That is a part he has given up.
"Yeah," Perry says absently, sitting at Rick's feet. "What're you watching?"
"Oh, nothing. Well, I don't know. It was something about the Spanish royal family and inbreeding." Rick shoved the blanket down to his lap and sat up straight, cracking his spine all the way down the column and shaking out his hair. It was getting long, Perry notices, funny pull under his stomach. It's glorious hair, thick and slightly curly and almost always tangled. He leaves little hamster-sized clumps in the shower.
In the beginning, when all of this was very new and freshly terrible, Rick kept his hair very short, like he wasn't about to concede that, too. Perry is abruptly angry with himself that he didn't notice when that changed.
"Probably infomercials now," he says, scowling at the TV. His stomach growls, because he left the stadium without picking at the spread. "Hey, I'm gonna make some scrambled eggs. You want something?"
He doesn't wait for an answer before he heads for the kitchen, but he can hear Rick toss the blanket aside and follow after him. He gets out the big frying pan and sets it on the stove, and leans back against the counter and watches as Rick pulls some plates and a bowl down from the cupboard. Rick's wearing an oversized t-shirt that rides up to show the bare backs of his thighs and just a peek of pale-colored underwear. Perry can't tell if the shirt is his or one from Rick's old life, and that bothers him a little. He thinks it's his, though.
"Ryan? You okay?" Rick says, and Perry blinks. Rick is looking at him with one eyebrow raised slightly, a little amused. That was nice to see; usually he just looked like he wanted to die.
"What? Just checking out your ass," Perry says, leering. Rick rolls his eyes and hops up on the counter next to the stove, drumming his heels on the cupboard below. Perry goes back to what he was doing, grabbing the egg carton and milk from the fridge and taking the bowl Rick holds out.
"There's some ham in there, if you want to add that," Rick says, pointing at the fridge.
Perry grabs the ham. Rick wouldn't suggest it if that wasn't what he wanted, and Perry doesn't care.
"Don't forget, the Tiger Cubs thing is tomorrow," he says a little while later, pushing eggs around in the pan.
Rick nods. "Yes," he says. "Emily Verlander emailed me. Six times."
"She's very thorough," Perry agrees.
"And I already told you I was fine with it," Ricks says, sounding tired. Perry wonders if Rick'll fall asleep on the couch again tonight, and if it's still weird for Perry to carry him to bed. Perry isn't entirely sure where he stands in this arrangement, to be honest.
"I know that, but you can still say no. It's going to be boring, or it'll be sad, or worse and it's both." He burns his left wrist on the pan, swears, and turns down the burner. "I don't even want to go, except I have to."
"I want to go," Rick says, kicking the cupboard for punctuation. "Maybe it's the girl hormones or something, but I'm kind of looking forward to getting dressed up and going somewhere. I feel like all I do is wallow and look like I just crawled out of prison." He pauses, scraping his hair back out of his face. "Anyway, I want to go."
Perry gives him a dubious look, but nods okay.
Rick doesn't fall asleep on the couch, and he stops in his doorway to say goodnight. "Maybe you'll win tomorrow," he adds.
Perry gets home from the next day's afternoon game to find Rick in the living room again, folding clothes from one laundry basket and stacking them inelegantly into another, the History Channel on for white noise. Perry stands in the doorway, swinging his keys around his finger and watching Rick fold a shirt then a pair of compression shorts, once in half at the medial seam and then into thirds, same as always.
Rick pauses, staring at his fingertips against the material, then looks up. "How was your day, dear?" he asks, smirking.
"Hey, we won," Perry says, tossing his keys onto the little console table by the door and heading into the living room.
"Take that, Kansas City Royals," Rick says. He reaches down to put the shorts into the folded basket on top of a pile of Perry's stuff, and then he grabs another shirt from the other.
Perry grins and sits down on the La-Z-Boy on Rick's other side. "I should probably eat something before I get ready," he says.
"I've got another load waiting to go in," Rick says. "It's more colors. Your sheets, some towels." He holds the shirt out and shakes out any wrinkles. It's small and dark blue with the D on the chest, sized for his new body. It says Perry on the back, white letters to match the 45. Perry has to look away.
He gets caught up in Modern Marvels, military technology on the TV and the soft sound of laundry next to him. He thinks that if he weren't good at pitching, he probably would've joined the Marines, could be driving one of those tanks.
"I'm going to get something to drink," he says a little while later, when it occurs to him that he's staring slack-jawed at the TV. He peels himself out of the chair, which squeaks in protest, and goes into the kitchen. He pours a glass of whatever's in the pitcher in the fridge, something oversweet and murky bright red. Rick made it, even though he doesn't drink anything but water, and Perry doesn't have the heart to tell him to use less sugar.
He leans over the counter and rubs his forehead with his left hand. He has half a headache right behind his eyeballs, and his shoulder is sore in a way that worries him but not enough to talk about. He hasn't pitched in a few days, and he's trying to convince himself it's not pain, it's just disuse.
"You should just tell them you're hurt," Rick says behind him, coming into the kitchen. Perry glances up and smiles tiredly, taking in the picture Rick makes with the basket full of folded laundry tucked against his hip. It's uncomfortably domestic, especially since the compression shorts ended up on top. He wonders if they were Rick's, but he is too far away to see.
"I'm fine," he says.
Rick gives him a look that isn't even a little convinced, then passes behind him to toward the stairs. "I'm going to put this stuff away, then I have to start getting ready for the charity thing. I need to shave my legs." He makes a face. "You're going to have to take the laundry out when it's done. I'm sorry. I know you hate laundry."
Perry shakes his head, standing up straight again. "No, that's fine," he says. "Actually, here. I'll take care of that. You just go shower." He takes the basket, his hand brushing Rick's for a moment and startling both of them. They usually go out of their way to avoid touching each other, because Rick doesn't touch anyone and Perry doesn't want anyone else but isn't sure how to deal with that.
Rick stares hard at the basket, then looks up and smiles. "Thank you," he says.
"Your brother called me today," Perry blurts out, and he's glad he has a good grip on the basket when Rick jerks away and staggers back a step or two, hitting the counter behind him. "He wanted to know if I wanted to go out with him when we're in New York. Have fun, maybe head out to Rick's grave. You know."
"I'm not dead," Rick says.
"Hey," Perry says. Rick doesn't look up, staring so hard at the fridge that Perry's glad he isn't telekinetic on top of being trapped in a girl's body. He sets the laundry basket down by their feet and touches Rick gently, cupping his shoulder in his palm. He considers it a win when Rick doesn't pull away, just closes his eyes and sucks his lips into his mouth. "Hey, I know that," he says. "You know that. Rick."
Rick looks up and shakes his head. "Not dead, but not coming back, either," he says. He shrugs Perry's hand off and tugs the elastic from his hair, scratching viciously at his scalp like that will fix everything. Perry steps back and picks up the basket, looking down at the folded clothes. Sure enough, the shorts were Rick's, he can tell by the waistband. Perry wears whatever he pulls out of the drawer, but all the ones he bought for himself had bare elastic, because he isn't a picky son of a bitch. The ones Rick used to buy have a fancy covered waistband, and while Perry is willing to admit it's more comfortable, his shorts aren't exactly a pressing concern most of the time.
Weirdly, though, seeing the covered waistband is just awful. He has to close his eyes against the sudden rush of sick in his stomach, how his headache ratchets up about ten degrees until everything is bright and hot and loud inside his head.
"I'm going to go shower," Rick says, sounding more composed. Perry looks up, and Rick looks away again, pushing his hair back away from his face.
"I'll go put this stuff away," Perry says.
Rick is dressed and ready long before Perry is, which is pretty normal. Perry finally emerges from his room, still unhappy with his hair and his tie and the state of his shoe polish, to find Rick standing in the kitchen, reading a cooking magazine at the counter with his weight balanced on one foot.
"We're going to be late," Rick says, not turning around. He rubs his bent knee against the cupboard, toes webbed with stockings skidding on the linoleum. "Your hair is fine, I promise."
Rick's ass looks fantastic in that skirt, Perry thinks, distracted. It's almost unfair, tight and black to just above the knee, and since Rick's six feet tall, that's still a lot of bare leg.
"Are you wearing heels?" Perry asks.
Rick glances over his shoulder so Perry can see his single arched eyebrow and half-smirk. "Dude, I'm already taller than half your infield," he says. "Anyway, I make most of the other wives nervous."
Perry is pretty sure that has nothing to do with Rick's height and everything to do with the fact he never smiles, but whatever gets Rick through charity events.
"So," Perry says after a moment, "you're not wearing heels?"
Rick rolls his eyes and turns back to his magazine. "Your knot is sloppy," he says helpfully.
"You can retie it in the car," Perry says, gritting his teeth. "Can we go?"
"Are you ready?"
Perry glares at his back and doesn't respond.
Rick grabs the keys and spins around. "Well, okay then," he says. "Let me grab my shoes and we'll be on our way."
Rick has been on one of his control-freak kicks lately, cutting his own hair in the bathroom mirror and baking his own bread and driving everywhere, and Perry is mostly content to let him do whatever he wants. Rick comes from a state with even more fucked up traffic patterns than Michigan lefts, which don't bother him at all; Perry hates driving around Detroit, constantly missing turns and having to pull into parking lots and side streets.
They play the radio too loud to talk on the way, mostly Perry's doing, because he can't for the life of him think of anything to say and he hates awkward quietness more than he hates the Twins. Rick hums along tonelessly, makes smooth left turns, and ignores him completely.
Traffic downtown is a disaster, of course, with the Pistons in the playoffs and the Lakers in town. Rick fiddles with the radio for info, but all the stations are playing pop songs about pretty girls, so he growls to himself and shifts into crazy New Jersey driver mode. It seems to have a calming effect every time someone honks at him, even though Perry shrinks back in his own seat and checks his seatbelt every couple of seconds.
For whatever reason, the charity dinner is being held at the ballpark. Perry doesn't pay a lot of attention to details, just times and locations when and where he's supposed to show up, and this is a Tigers Wives function anyway. Rick's been complaining about Emily Verlander's overly cheerful reminder emails for two weeks ("She's, like, seven months pregnant," Rick had said one night, after Perry got home from a game and collapsed next to him on the couch. "She needs to calm the fuck down.").
The parking lot attendant checks Perry's pass and waves them through, barely glancing up from her paperback or moving out of the reach of her little portable fan. Rick parks next to Dan Schlereth's little black sportscar and nearly dents it with a careless door, shooting Perry an only slightly repentant oops face.
"Way to go," Perry says, unable to resist. Rick shrugs.
It isn't until they are walking into the clubhouse that it really hits Perry what a colossally terrible idea this is, putting Rick in a crowd like this. He stops in the doorway and presses the meaty insides of his fingers against his mouth. Rick bumps into his back and ricochets, two years down now and still not used to the smaller frame.
"What the hell?" Rick says.
"I'm sorry," Perry says. "I'm an asshole."
"Um. Okay?"
Perry turns around and waves his hand vaguely over his shoulder. "This," he says. "This whole thing. I didn't even think how it might, you know. How it might be for you." He scratches the back of his neck and watches as the understanding trickles down across Rick's face, his eyebrows pulled down and his lips flattened. He isn't wearing any makeup and his bangs are uneven, and Perry's still willing to fight anyone who says he's not the most beautiful girl in the room.
"It'll be fine," Rick says after a second, looking down and off to the left. "They know me."
"No, they don't," Perry says gently.
Rick smiles that same half-smile he always puts on when the conversation strays in that direction, looking back into the past, crease between his eyebrows like a headache or a bad song on the radio. "Well, okay," he says. "But come on, let's just go in. We're blocking the door." He squares his shoulders and smoothes out imaginary wrinkles in the skirt, one hand on his hip and the other toying with the tips of his hair where it falls over his shoulder. Perry glances behind him. There isn't anyone there, but he figures that isn't really Rick's point.
"People are looking at you," Rick adds. "You're important, you know, Mr. Closer. Try to look like you want to be here?" Perry rolls his eyes and offers his elbow, figuring the first step to that is walking in with his pretty, sad-eyed girlfriend on his arm.
Emily descends upon them immediately, black hair flying around her face. She's almost completely spherical, and wearing a black dress with v-neck. She looks slightly harassed. "Oh, thank god, somebody who doesn't suck," she says, grinning at Rick. "Hi, Ryan," she adds a beat later, flashing him a smaller smile.
"Hi," he says, nodding.
"Kate, I need to borrow you," she says, turning back to Rick, who gives Perry a brief, miserable look then nods to Emily and offers a hand.
Perry watches them go and shakes his head, and then he gets pulled into a group crowd by Casey Crosby, easy conversation about basketball that has to be better than whatever Rick gets to deal with in the land of women.
Later, after dinner, Perry finds himself sitting with Phil Coke, Schlereth, and Jensen Lewis, shooting the shit like they do everyday in the bullpen. He's been idly watching Rick all night, split up from him by circumstance almost the entire time. Rick seems to be avoiding most of the guys he played with, but luckily Rick's one year and was before all the old contracts expired. Most of those guys are long gone, and it doesn't seem to bother Rick to stand with Crosby or Sizemore or Jackson and their wives.
And then Verlander corners him by the buffet table, and Perry ignores the story Lewis is telling about this one time in Cleveland to watch Rick's spine go utterly rigid. Rick catches his eye across the room and looks briefly panicked, even if whatever Verlander is saying is probably innocuous.
"Hey, excuse me," Perry says to the guys, and he cocks his head toward the door. Rick nods and extricates himself from Verlander, stumbling a little in his haste.
It's nice and cool outside in the parking lot, and Rick's face is strange, like noticing the moon is crooked or falling over.
"Justin and Emily are planning on naming their baby Frederick," he says, then covers his face.
Perry blinks. "Wait, seriously?"
"They're going to tell you tonight, but he wanted to run it by me, see what Ryan's girlfriend thought. 'He was the closest to-to Rick, you know, Kate? It's important that he be cool with it.'" He mocks Verlander's steady, slightly nasal voice and widens his eyes meaningfully at Perry.
Perry scratches the side of his neck. "Like, Rick, or Freddie, or what?"
Rick scowls at a nearby car. "Freddie. I asked."
"That's fucking… ironic?"
"Oh, fuck you."
"No, I'm just saying, like, of course this happens. And of course he tells you." Perry isn't sure he can deal with any more of Rick's hangdog, why-me-universe-why-me attitude. Not after two years, not after funerals and memorial services and all the missing persons reports, comforting a sobbing nineteen-year-old younger brother and failing to find words to comfort a grieving mother, not after two years of sharing houses with a ghost in a girl's body.
Rick looks like he wants to hit something. "Look, I appreciate the irony. Believe me, I appreciate the fucking irony. Much like attending my own funeral. People really liked Rick, but gosh, he was so serious. And such a talent lost."
"You know, it's pretty selfish of you that I'm the only one who gets to know," Perry blurts out. "Do you know what that's like, when everyone's all weepy, 'poor Porcello, out there dead somewhere, rotting corpse, bones in the water, something' and I have to stay quiet because no, actually, poor Porcello is back home on my couch, with boobs."
"I'm sorry you're so put-upon, Ryan," Rick says softly, not quite rising to the bait, but he's got a dangerous look in his eye.
"What? You want to play my girlfriend, fine. But even that looks unhealthy. We look codependent and too close, and." He pauses and reaches out a hand, but Rick turns his entire torso away. "Rick, we don't even touch."
Rick squawks and takes an angry step forward, arms out in a bring-it gesture. "Is that what this is about? You want to fuck me? Is that it?"
And that's maybe a little of it, because two years ago Rick picked a fight with Perry in their Lakeland condo and ran off and disappeared, and he came back cursed. He lost five inches of height and gained great tits, and he still walks around in his underwear half the time, like he just forgets, like he doesn't even realize what he's doing.
"That's not the point," Perry says.
"Of course it's the fucking point," Rick snaps. "You want to fuck me? Fine, let's fuck. Right now, come on. Hell, I'm even wearing a skirt, so nice easy access." He slaps his palms on his thighs and makes this awful screechy sound that makes them both flinch. Perry turns his face away.
Rick's not done, though.
"But you know what, that explains why you're so fucking upset about all of this. I'm sorry this is all such a drag for you, Ryan, but gosh, it's sweet of you to keep me so close, and respect me so much to keep your hands to yourself while I deal with some highly unprecedented and life-ending shit. I'm a ghost. I have literally less than nothing. I don't even have a name! But by all means, let's make this about your sexual angst"
"All I wanted was you!" Perry interrupts, flexing his fingers against his palms and itching to shake Rick until he's quiet. "Right now, ten minutes ago, three years ago. You!"
Perry covers his mouth with his hand. Rick recoils, mouth open and one hand sort of outstretched between them, like he isn't sure he wants to snatch it back but can't quite figure out what else to do with it. He makes a gurgling sound, then says shakily, "Ryan, three years ago I wasn't-"
"Exactly," Perry mutters. He gives him a helpless look and takes a step backward, rubbing his forehead and wondering what the hell possessed him to say anything at all. How did they get from Justin Verlander's spawn to this, he wonders.
"Ryan-"
"No, you listen for a second," Perry snaps. Rick closes his mouth and looks nervous. "It has nothing to do with your tits. They're nice tits and all, but they're yours. I was just starting to get okay with what was going on in my head about you, and then you were gone. And it was terrible. Worst Spring Training of my life. You have no idea what it was like for us those couple days right after. I don't know what you were doing then, either, I guess, I can't even imagine what it's like to get whacked on the head and wake up in a new body. But it was pretty awful for us, too, just not knowing.
"But then you came back to me, except cursed. 'Hey, everybody, meet Kate.' And that was like a fucking gift, believe me, but it wasn't even necessary. I was beyond caring if you had a dick or three eyes by then.
"So there you go," Perry says, when it's clear Rick has gone nonverbal. "Yes, I want to fuck you. Like, a lot, sometimes. Actually, no, pretty much all the time. Sometimes, I have leave the room and get away from you because you're just there, and I wouldn't-I never wanted to do anything you didn't want, so I just left. In fact, I'm going to leave you now and go back inside and let Justin find me to tell me he wants to name his kid after my dead best friend." He waves his hand awkwardly. "So there you go. You were right! Congratulations! It's just not 'cause of what you thought."
Rick doesn't say anything, just stares at him with his lips slightly parted and his eyes almost completely round. The streetlight illuminating the parking lot casts heavy sleepless-looking shadows across his cheeks, and Perry just wants to put a hand on his cheek and press himself against him. That seems wrong, though, so Perry turns and starts back for the door.
"Wait."
Perry stops but doesn't turn around.
"I knew most of that," Rick says, sounding hoarse. Perry half-turns and crosses his arms over his chest, hunching down like waiting to get hit. "Maybe not in so many words, or explicitly, but. I knew it. Emily said something like that to me once, at Opening Day last year, I think. You were down in the 'pen with Justin before the game and we were watching. And Knapp stopped you both for a second so he could say something to Justin, and you looked up and caught my eye and smiled, like you were so pleased just to see me standing there. And Emily turns to me and says, 'He looks at you like you're the best thing in the room, you know. That's rare.'"
Perry nods and holds out his elbow. "Well, come on. Let's go back in," he says.
So no scene breaks, and it's linear. I didn't think I was ever going to write something linear again.
I'll post the several thousand words of deleted scenes and other stuff later tonight, after my presentations. 2008 Baseball season PowerPoint, for example.
DVD commentary + deleted scenes can be found HERE.
Also, this is my official ticket to hell. Not Wincest, not CW RPS. This.
for caruso for help_haiti. Was supposed to be posted yesterday, but then I got a job that was like, "Can you start immediately?" which meant nine PM to 3 AM, at which point I came home and collapsed like a Brewer bowling pin after a Prince Fielder walkoff.
Anyway. So fic.
Dishes in the Kitchen Sink
PG-13, Perry/Porcello, 4200 words.
Rick Porcello disappeared two years ago, and the Verlanders meddle in the affairs of others. Kind of.
DVD commentary + deleted scenes.
Perry doesn't think there is any good reason for thirteen innings and dramatics, not in May and especially not against the Royals. He's tired and in a foul mood when he gets home, and it's late and there is an accident on 75 that takes traffic down to one lane, held in place by bright pink flares and rubbernecking.
Rick is curled up on the couch under the glow of the TV and a blanket from his old life, hair in his face and small hands curled up under his chin, and he might have been asleep except he sits up when Perry comes into the room.
The blanket is old and worn, fraying at the edges, Rick's school colors. Perry finds it interesting that out of everything, this blanket is a part of Rick Porcello that has persisted.
"Good game," Rick says, even though they both know he didn't watch. That is a part he has given up.
"Yeah," Perry says absently, sitting at Rick's feet. "What're you watching?"
"Oh, nothing. Well, I don't know. It was something about the Spanish royal family and inbreeding." Rick shoved the blanket down to his lap and sat up straight, cracking his spine all the way down the column and shaking out his hair. It was getting long, Perry notices, funny pull under his stomach. It's glorious hair, thick and slightly curly and almost always tangled. He leaves little hamster-sized clumps in the shower.
In the beginning, when all of this was very new and freshly terrible, Rick kept his hair very short, like he wasn't about to concede that, too. Perry is abruptly angry with himself that he didn't notice when that changed.
"Probably infomercials now," he says, scowling at the TV. His stomach growls, because he left the stadium without picking at the spread. "Hey, I'm gonna make some scrambled eggs. You want something?"
He doesn't wait for an answer before he heads for the kitchen, but he can hear Rick toss the blanket aside and follow after him. He gets out the big frying pan and sets it on the stove, and leans back against the counter and watches as Rick pulls some plates and a bowl down from the cupboard. Rick's wearing an oversized t-shirt that rides up to show the bare backs of his thighs and just a peek of pale-colored underwear. Perry can't tell if the shirt is his or one from Rick's old life, and that bothers him a little. He thinks it's his, though.
"Ryan? You okay?" Rick says, and Perry blinks. Rick is looking at him with one eyebrow raised slightly, a little amused. That was nice to see; usually he just looked like he wanted to die.
"What? Just checking out your ass," Perry says, leering. Rick rolls his eyes and hops up on the counter next to the stove, drumming his heels on the cupboard below. Perry goes back to what he was doing, grabbing the egg carton and milk from the fridge and taking the bowl Rick holds out.
"There's some ham in there, if you want to add that," Rick says, pointing at the fridge.
Perry grabs the ham. Rick wouldn't suggest it if that wasn't what he wanted, and Perry doesn't care.
"Don't forget, the Tiger Cubs thing is tomorrow," he says a little while later, pushing eggs around in the pan.
Rick nods. "Yes," he says. "Emily Verlander emailed me. Six times."
"She's very thorough," Perry agrees.
"And I already told you I was fine with it," Ricks says, sounding tired. Perry wonders if Rick'll fall asleep on the couch again tonight, and if it's still weird for Perry to carry him to bed. Perry isn't entirely sure where he stands in this arrangement, to be honest.
"I know that, but you can still say no. It's going to be boring, or it'll be sad, or worse and it's both." He burns his left wrist on the pan, swears, and turns down the burner. "I don't even want to go, except I have to."
"I want to go," Rick says, kicking the cupboard for punctuation. "Maybe it's the girl hormones or something, but I'm kind of looking forward to getting dressed up and going somewhere. I feel like all I do is wallow and look like I just crawled out of prison." He pauses, scraping his hair back out of his face. "Anyway, I want to go."
Perry gives him a dubious look, but nods okay.
Rick doesn't fall asleep on the couch, and he stops in his doorway to say goodnight. "Maybe you'll win tomorrow," he adds.
Perry gets home from the next day's afternoon game to find Rick in the living room again, folding clothes from one laundry basket and stacking them inelegantly into another, the History Channel on for white noise. Perry stands in the doorway, swinging his keys around his finger and watching Rick fold a shirt then a pair of compression shorts, once in half at the medial seam and then into thirds, same as always.
Rick pauses, staring at his fingertips against the material, then looks up. "How was your day, dear?" he asks, smirking.
"Hey, we won," Perry says, tossing his keys onto the little console table by the door and heading into the living room.
"Take that, Kansas City Royals," Rick says. He reaches down to put the shorts into the folded basket on top of a pile of Perry's stuff, and then he grabs another shirt from the other.
Perry grins and sits down on the La-Z-Boy on Rick's other side. "I should probably eat something before I get ready," he says.
"I've got another load waiting to go in," Rick says. "It's more colors. Your sheets, some towels." He holds the shirt out and shakes out any wrinkles. It's small and dark blue with the D on the chest, sized for his new body. It says Perry on the back, white letters to match the 45. Perry has to look away.
He gets caught up in Modern Marvels, military technology on the TV and the soft sound of laundry next to him. He thinks that if he weren't good at pitching, he probably would've joined the Marines, could be driving one of those tanks.
"I'm going to get something to drink," he says a little while later, when it occurs to him that he's staring slack-jawed at the TV. He peels himself out of the chair, which squeaks in protest, and goes into the kitchen. He pours a glass of whatever's in the pitcher in the fridge, something oversweet and murky bright red. Rick made it, even though he doesn't drink anything but water, and Perry doesn't have the heart to tell him to use less sugar.
He leans over the counter and rubs his forehead with his left hand. He has half a headache right behind his eyeballs, and his shoulder is sore in a way that worries him but not enough to talk about. He hasn't pitched in a few days, and he's trying to convince himself it's not pain, it's just disuse.
"You should just tell them you're hurt," Rick says behind him, coming into the kitchen. Perry glances up and smiles tiredly, taking in the picture Rick makes with the basket full of folded laundry tucked against his hip. It's uncomfortably domestic, especially since the compression shorts ended up on top. He wonders if they were Rick's, but he is too far away to see.
"I'm fine," he says.
Rick gives him a look that isn't even a little convinced, then passes behind him to toward the stairs. "I'm going to put this stuff away, then I have to start getting ready for the charity thing. I need to shave my legs." He makes a face. "You're going to have to take the laundry out when it's done. I'm sorry. I know you hate laundry."
Perry shakes his head, standing up straight again. "No, that's fine," he says. "Actually, here. I'll take care of that. You just go shower." He takes the basket, his hand brushing Rick's for a moment and startling both of them. They usually go out of their way to avoid touching each other, because Rick doesn't touch anyone and Perry doesn't want anyone else but isn't sure how to deal with that.
Rick stares hard at the basket, then looks up and smiles. "Thank you," he says.
"Your brother called me today," Perry blurts out, and he's glad he has a good grip on the basket when Rick jerks away and staggers back a step or two, hitting the counter behind him. "He wanted to know if I wanted to go out with him when we're in New York. Have fun, maybe head out to Rick's grave. You know."
"I'm not dead," Rick says.
"Hey," Perry says. Rick doesn't look up, staring so hard at the fridge that Perry's glad he isn't telekinetic on top of being trapped in a girl's body. He sets the laundry basket down by their feet and touches Rick gently, cupping his shoulder in his palm. He considers it a win when Rick doesn't pull away, just closes his eyes and sucks his lips into his mouth. "Hey, I know that," he says. "You know that. Rick."
Rick looks up and shakes his head. "Not dead, but not coming back, either," he says. He shrugs Perry's hand off and tugs the elastic from his hair, scratching viciously at his scalp like that will fix everything. Perry steps back and picks up the basket, looking down at the folded clothes. Sure enough, the shorts were Rick's, he can tell by the waistband. Perry wears whatever he pulls out of the drawer, but all the ones he bought for himself had bare elastic, because he isn't a picky son of a bitch. The ones Rick used to buy have a fancy covered waistband, and while Perry is willing to admit it's more comfortable, his shorts aren't exactly a pressing concern most of the time.
Weirdly, though, seeing the covered waistband is just awful. He has to close his eyes against the sudden rush of sick in his stomach, how his headache ratchets up about ten degrees until everything is bright and hot and loud inside his head.
"I'm going to go shower," Rick says, sounding more composed. Perry looks up, and Rick looks away again, pushing his hair back away from his face.
"I'll go put this stuff away," Perry says.
Rick is dressed and ready long before Perry is, which is pretty normal. Perry finally emerges from his room, still unhappy with his hair and his tie and the state of his shoe polish, to find Rick standing in the kitchen, reading a cooking magazine at the counter with his weight balanced on one foot.
"We're going to be late," Rick says, not turning around. He rubs his bent knee against the cupboard, toes webbed with stockings skidding on the linoleum. "Your hair is fine, I promise."
Rick's ass looks fantastic in that skirt, Perry thinks, distracted. It's almost unfair, tight and black to just above the knee, and since Rick's six feet tall, that's still a lot of bare leg.
"Are you wearing heels?" Perry asks.
Rick glances over his shoulder so Perry can see his single arched eyebrow and half-smirk. "Dude, I'm already taller than half your infield," he says. "Anyway, I make most of the other wives nervous."
Perry is pretty sure that has nothing to do with Rick's height and everything to do with the fact he never smiles, but whatever gets Rick through charity events.
"So," Perry says after a moment, "you're not wearing heels?"
Rick rolls his eyes and turns back to his magazine. "Your knot is sloppy," he says helpfully.
"You can retie it in the car," Perry says, gritting his teeth. "Can we go?"
"Are you ready?"
Perry glares at his back and doesn't respond.
Rick grabs the keys and spins around. "Well, okay then," he says. "Let me grab my shoes and we'll be on our way."
Rick has been on one of his control-freak kicks lately, cutting his own hair in the bathroom mirror and baking his own bread and driving everywhere, and Perry is mostly content to let him do whatever he wants. Rick comes from a state with even more fucked up traffic patterns than Michigan lefts, which don't bother him at all; Perry hates driving around Detroit, constantly missing turns and having to pull into parking lots and side streets.
They play the radio too loud to talk on the way, mostly Perry's doing, because he can't for the life of him think of anything to say and he hates awkward quietness more than he hates the Twins. Rick hums along tonelessly, makes smooth left turns, and ignores him completely.
Traffic downtown is a disaster, of course, with the Pistons in the playoffs and the Lakers in town. Rick fiddles with the radio for info, but all the stations are playing pop songs about pretty girls, so he growls to himself and shifts into crazy New Jersey driver mode. It seems to have a calming effect every time someone honks at him, even though Perry shrinks back in his own seat and checks his seatbelt every couple of seconds.
For whatever reason, the charity dinner is being held at the ballpark. Perry doesn't pay a lot of attention to details, just times and locations when and where he's supposed to show up, and this is a Tigers Wives function anyway. Rick's been complaining about Emily Verlander's overly cheerful reminder emails for two weeks ("She's, like, seven months pregnant," Rick had said one night, after Perry got home from a game and collapsed next to him on the couch. "She needs to calm the fuck down.").
The parking lot attendant checks Perry's pass and waves them through, barely glancing up from her paperback or moving out of the reach of her little portable fan. Rick parks next to Dan Schlereth's little black sportscar and nearly dents it with a careless door, shooting Perry an only slightly repentant oops face.
"Way to go," Perry says, unable to resist. Rick shrugs.
It isn't until they are walking into the clubhouse that it really hits Perry what a colossally terrible idea this is, putting Rick in a crowd like this. He stops in the doorway and presses the meaty insides of his fingers against his mouth. Rick bumps into his back and ricochets, two years down now and still not used to the smaller frame.
"What the hell?" Rick says.
"I'm sorry," Perry says. "I'm an asshole."
"Um. Okay?"
Perry turns around and waves his hand vaguely over his shoulder. "This," he says. "This whole thing. I didn't even think how it might, you know. How it might be for you." He scratches the back of his neck and watches as the understanding trickles down across Rick's face, his eyebrows pulled down and his lips flattened. He isn't wearing any makeup and his bangs are uneven, and Perry's still willing to fight anyone who says he's not the most beautiful girl in the room.
"It'll be fine," Rick says after a second, looking down and off to the left. "They know me."
"No, they don't," Perry says gently.
Rick smiles that same half-smile he always puts on when the conversation strays in that direction, looking back into the past, crease between his eyebrows like a headache or a bad song on the radio. "Well, okay," he says. "But come on, let's just go in. We're blocking the door." He squares his shoulders and smoothes out imaginary wrinkles in the skirt, one hand on his hip and the other toying with the tips of his hair where it falls over his shoulder. Perry glances behind him. There isn't anyone there, but he figures that isn't really Rick's point.
"People are looking at you," Rick adds. "You're important, you know, Mr. Closer. Try to look like you want to be here?" Perry rolls his eyes and offers his elbow, figuring the first step to that is walking in with his pretty, sad-eyed girlfriend on his arm.
Emily descends upon them immediately, black hair flying around her face. She's almost completely spherical, and wearing a black dress with v-neck. She looks slightly harassed. "Oh, thank god, somebody who doesn't suck," she says, grinning at Rick. "Hi, Ryan," she adds a beat later, flashing him a smaller smile.
"Hi," he says, nodding.
"Kate, I need to borrow you," she says, turning back to Rick, who gives Perry a brief, miserable look then nods to Emily and offers a hand.
Perry watches them go and shakes his head, and then he gets pulled into a group crowd by Casey Crosby, easy conversation about basketball that has to be better than whatever Rick gets to deal with in the land of women.
Later, after dinner, Perry finds himself sitting with Phil Coke, Schlereth, and Jensen Lewis, shooting the shit like they do everyday in the bullpen. He's been idly watching Rick all night, split up from him by circumstance almost the entire time. Rick seems to be avoiding most of the guys he played with, but luckily Rick's one year and was before all the old contracts expired. Most of those guys are long gone, and it doesn't seem to bother Rick to stand with Crosby or Sizemore or Jackson and their wives.
And then Verlander corners him by the buffet table, and Perry ignores the story Lewis is telling about this one time in Cleveland to watch Rick's spine go utterly rigid. Rick catches his eye across the room and looks briefly panicked, even if whatever Verlander is saying is probably innocuous.
"Hey, excuse me," Perry says to the guys, and he cocks his head toward the door. Rick nods and extricates himself from Verlander, stumbling a little in his haste.
It's nice and cool outside in the parking lot, and Rick's face is strange, like noticing the moon is crooked or falling over.
"Justin and Emily are planning on naming their baby Frederick," he says, then covers his face.
Perry blinks. "Wait, seriously?"
"They're going to tell you tonight, but he wanted to run it by me, see what Ryan's girlfriend thought. 'He was the closest to-to Rick, you know, Kate? It's important that he be cool with it.'" He mocks Verlander's steady, slightly nasal voice and widens his eyes meaningfully at Perry.
Perry scratches the side of his neck. "Like, Rick, or Freddie, or what?"
Rick scowls at a nearby car. "Freddie. I asked."
"That's fucking… ironic?"
"Oh, fuck you."
"No, I'm just saying, like, of course this happens. And of course he tells you." Perry isn't sure he can deal with any more of Rick's hangdog, why-me-universe-why-me attitude. Not after two years, not after funerals and memorial services and all the missing persons reports, comforting a sobbing nineteen-year-old younger brother and failing to find words to comfort a grieving mother, not after two years of sharing houses with a ghost in a girl's body.
Rick looks like he wants to hit something. "Look, I appreciate the irony. Believe me, I appreciate the fucking irony. Much like attending my own funeral. People really liked Rick, but gosh, he was so serious. And such a talent lost."
"You know, it's pretty selfish of you that I'm the only one who gets to know," Perry blurts out. "Do you know what that's like, when everyone's all weepy, 'poor Porcello, out there dead somewhere, rotting corpse, bones in the water, something' and I have to stay quiet because no, actually, poor Porcello is back home on my couch, with boobs."
"I'm sorry you're so put-upon, Ryan," Rick says softly, not quite rising to the bait, but he's got a dangerous look in his eye.
"What? You want to play my girlfriend, fine. But even that looks unhealthy. We look codependent and too close, and." He pauses and reaches out a hand, but Rick turns his entire torso away. "Rick, we don't even touch."
Rick squawks and takes an angry step forward, arms out in a bring-it gesture. "Is that what this is about? You want to fuck me? Is that it?"
And that's maybe a little of it, because two years ago Rick picked a fight with Perry in their Lakeland condo and ran off and disappeared, and he came back cursed. He lost five inches of height and gained great tits, and he still walks around in his underwear half the time, like he just forgets, like he doesn't even realize what he's doing.
"That's not the point," Perry says.
"Of course it's the fucking point," Rick snaps. "You want to fuck me? Fine, let's fuck. Right now, come on. Hell, I'm even wearing a skirt, so nice easy access." He slaps his palms on his thighs and makes this awful screechy sound that makes them both flinch. Perry turns his face away.
Rick's not done, though.
"But you know what, that explains why you're so fucking upset about all of this. I'm sorry this is all such a drag for you, Ryan, but gosh, it's sweet of you to keep me so close, and respect me so much to keep your hands to yourself while I deal with some highly unprecedented and life-ending shit. I'm a ghost. I have literally less than nothing. I don't even have a name! But by all means, let's make this about your sexual angst"
"All I wanted was you!" Perry interrupts, flexing his fingers against his palms and itching to shake Rick until he's quiet. "Right now, ten minutes ago, three years ago. You!"
Perry covers his mouth with his hand. Rick recoils, mouth open and one hand sort of outstretched between them, like he isn't sure he wants to snatch it back but can't quite figure out what else to do with it. He makes a gurgling sound, then says shakily, "Ryan, three years ago I wasn't-"
"Exactly," Perry mutters. He gives him a helpless look and takes a step backward, rubbing his forehead and wondering what the hell possessed him to say anything at all. How did they get from Justin Verlander's spawn to this, he wonders.
"Ryan-"
"No, you listen for a second," Perry snaps. Rick closes his mouth and looks nervous. "It has nothing to do with your tits. They're nice tits and all, but they're yours. I was just starting to get okay with what was going on in my head about you, and then you were gone. And it was terrible. Worst Spring Training of my life. You have no idea what it was like for us those couple days right after. I don't know what you were doing then, either, I guess, I can't even imagine what it's like to get whacked on the head and wake up in a new body. But it was pretty awful for us, too, just not knowing.
"But then you came back to me, except cursed. 'Hey, everybody, meet Kate.' And that was like a fucking gift, believe me, but it wasn't even necessary. I was beyond caring if you had a dick or three eyes by then.
"So there you go," Perry says, when it's clear Rick has gone nonverbal. "Yes, I want to fuck you. Like, a lot, sometimes. Actually, no, pretty much all the time. Sometimes, I have leave the room and get away from you because you're just there, and I wouldn't-I never wanted to do anything you didn't want, so I just left. In fact, I'm going to leave you now and go back inside and let Justin find me to tell me he wants to name his kid after my dead best friend." He waves his hand awkwardly. "So there you go. You were right! Congratulations! It's just not 'cause of what you thought."
Rick doesn't say anything, just stares at him with his lips slightly parted and his eyes almost completely round. The streetlight illuminating the parking lot casts heavy sleepless-looking shadows across his cheeks, and Perry just wants to put a hand on his cheek and press himself against him. That seems wrong, though, so Perry turns and starts back for the door.
"Wait."
Perry stops but doesn't turn around.
"I knew most of that," Rick says, sounding hoarse. Perry half-turns and crosses his arms over his chest, hunching down like waiting to get hit. "Maybe not in so many words, or explicitly, but. I knew it. Emily said something like that to me once, at Opening Day last year, I think. You were down in the 'pen with Justin before the game and we were watching. And Knapp stopped you both for a second so he could say something to Justin, and you looked up and caught my eye and smiled, like you were so pleased just to see me standing there. And Emily turns to me and says, 'He looks at you like you're the best thing in the room, you know. That's rare.'"
Perry nods and holds out his elbow. "Well, come on. Let's go back in," he says.
So no scene breaks, and it's linear. I didn't think I was ever going to write something linear again.
I'll post the several thousand words of deleted scenes and other stuff later tonight, after my presentations. 2008 Baseball season PowerPoint, for example.
DVD commentary + deleted scenes can be found HERE.
Also, this is my official ticket to hell. Not Wincest, not CW RPS. This.