Fic: Just ignore all this present tense
Title: Just ignore all this present tense
Fandom: Baseball slash, Blue Jays and Yankees
Rating: R/NC-17
Word count: 4450
Pairing/Characters: A.J. Burnett/Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett/Nick Swisher
Summary: A.J. and Roy come to terms with playing against each other in Spring 2009.
Notes: This is so unbelievably not true. This takes place in my Alternate Universe where any baseball player I want is (a) not married and (b) gay. This is not meant to be a true reflection of anyone alive or dead. Thank you to pun and starfishchick for cheerleading and research help. Thank you to americanleaguer for writing great A.J./Roy and getting me interested in the pairing. The title from a Snow Patrol song.
A.J. and Roy make plans to have dinner Wednesday night. Neither of them even suggest Tuesday, the night they have to face each other.
They both want to win, badly, but Roy knows that of the two of them, only he believes he is going to win. He knows A.J., and as he’s going through his pre-game ritual in silence, mentally facing down the Yankees’ lineup, he’s also seeing A.J.’s rituals, the obsessive rearrangement of the talismans in his locker, the cage of sound he locks himself into with his headphones before warming up, and he knows that right now A.J.’s just praying he won’t embarrass himself.
Funny, how A.J. ended up with Sabathia on the Yanks. Always in second place-something A.J. is predisposed to believe even when it isn’t true. In his darker moments, Roy wonders if that didn’t help A.J. out the door, along with the money, and the chance at a ring, a legacy.
A.J.’s got his stuff, that Roy can see from the first inning, and it’s good stuff, but he knows the Yankees’ lack of offense is going to play with his head, and then it does, there in the fourth, when A.J. gives up four runs.
“How’s he look?” Roy asks Scutaro, once the danger of him pitching a no hitter is past and the guys in the dugout will talk to him again.
“Not as mean as he used to. Maybe New York’s changed him,” Scutaro answers.
But Roy’s watched some of his games. A.J.’s game face is still an unholy sneer, same as it was when he played for Toronto, though now less marred by facial hair.
A.J. looks like he’s going to cry, or maybe hit something, when he leaves the field. That was the kind of mood, after dealing a good game with no run support, that A.J. told him led to the fireworks in Florida. By the time he got to Toronto, he’d learned to keep his displeasure to short sharp bursts in the locker room. Now it looks like he’s also learned to blame himself.
The game ends: Toronto 5-1, another complete game, another W. The fog he enters when he has a start clears while Roy’s slapping hands and asses for the camera. He grins and high-fives Millar. Always good to win the first game of a set. He knows this streak can’t last; they’re not the Rays, too old, too settled into third, even with last year, but it feels great right now, 12 games ahead.
Which brings him right back to the Yankees, six games back. Roy wonders what A.J. does after a bad game now. Used to be he’d come over after a bad start, angling for a pity fuck. And he’d come over after a good start triumphantly demanding a celebratory fuck. He was pretty predictable that way.
Roy has no doubt A.J.’s figured out some way to get what he wants in New York. Roy never asked who came before him, but he’s sure there was a long history there. A.J.’s too good at getting what he wants for there not to be.
But he’s not that surprised when A.J. shows up at his door at two in the morning. Roy’s been asleep for hours. He’d love to be one of those guys who goes out after a win and buys everyone rounds of drinks until he’s the last one standing, but he’s learned through the years that he gets his best night’s sleep after a good start, that when all those demons are put to rest, he can put his body to rest also. It’s the best sleep he gets all week-no need to mess with that.
A.J.’s wearing a long sleeved t-shirt that molds closer to his body than the sorts of things Roy remembers him wearing in Toronto-well, when he remembers A.J. wearing anything besides skin and tattoos. His hair is dried in stiff-looking tufts. Roy can’t decide if he thinks that’s intentional or not.
He’s smiling, though, the little boy grin that makes up for the surly, overgrown teenager he acts like the rest of the time. “You’re still the best,” he says when Roy opens the door. His head is tilted drunkenly to one side.
“Fuck that,” says Roy. He steps back to let A.J. in.
As soon as the door closes, A.J. is only a breath away from them, as if he never left, as if they never stopped this. It’s not hard for Roy to let habit take over, to pull A.J. in closer, to kiss what he can reach with his mouth and run his hands over the rest.
A.J. tastes like red bull and vodka, though, and that’s unusual enough it makes Roy pull back. “Where were you drinking?”
A.J. shrugs and doesn’t quite meet Roy’s eyes. “You know, the old spots.”
**
A.J.’s heard dozens of sports psychologists and coaches tell the teams he’s played for about how you have to visualize your goal, and then believe it. He’s even listened. Like the instruction to “just throw strikes” it’s easier said than done.
He expected the boos. He swore they wouldn’t get to him. Toronto was home for a few years but Florida had fit him better in some ways, not the team, but the humid warmth. People who don't know better think he grew up there.
So he tries not to hear the boos or look at the signs. His arm does what he wants it to, except when he starts to get angry with himself in the fourth, but even then, it settles down again. It does what he wants it to do, but it doesn’t do it well enough, and with the Yanks’ offense what it is these days-Johnny Damon with a helping of Melky Cabrera, and that’s it-one run, and that’s the ball game.
A.J.’s got what he’s got, but what Roy has is better, always has been.
“Dude,” says Nick, when A.J.’s done showering and comes out, towel wrapped low around his waist. “That was brutal. Sorry we didn’t help more, man.” Nick always says stuff like that, stuff other hitters keep to themselves. Sometimes it’s refreshing, now it’s just salt in the wound. Other tough starts Nick would be in his face, driving him crazy until A.J. has to do something, anything, to shut him up, but this time even Nick goes quiet.
It doesn’t last long. “Hey, where’d you go out when you lived here?”
“You think getting shit-faced is gonna help that slump?” A.J. asks nastily.
Nick makes a face. “Can’t hurt. I’ve tried everything. We need a rainout except the Rogers center has a retractable roof.”
“We’ve had enough rainouts.”
The Hooters is a particularly dirty example of the breed, but it’s a tourist bar, not a baseball bar, so it works. Every TV is tuned to hockey. Nick talks non-stop when he’s drinking, which makes exactly no change from when he’s sober.
A.J. listens enough to respond when he needs to but mostly Nick’s chatter makes a comfortable background for A.J. to drink steadily and decide whether he wants to bring Nick back to his room for a nice exchange of blowjobs. Nick’s good for it, but A.J.’s still feeling that wild edge he gets when he almost loses it on the mound, like he has to get the crazy out of his system before his next start.
And that means Roy.
**
There’s something orange on the side of A.J.’s mouth. Roy goes to wipe it for him before remembering that maybe they don’t do that anymore. It’s dried barbeque sauce.
A.J. turns his face toward Roy’s fingers. “Hooters’ wings still suck,” he says, sticking out his tongue to lick off the sauce and catching some Roy’s fingertips in his mouth as he does.
That wasn’t one of the old spots. Well, it’s old, but they never hung out there.
“I didn’t want to be recognized,” says A.J..
“Come on,” says Roy, steering A.J. into the living room. He’s not walking too steady. “What’s it like being a Yankee?” he asks. It’s not what he wants to know, or it at least it’s far more general than what he wants to know. He doesn’t care who A.J.’s fucking, or rather, who A.J. is getting to fuck him (because that is how A.J. works and always has) but he wants to know how A.J. passes the time in a new dugout. Who is the recipient of what passes for A.J.’s wit? Who does he play “how would you get that guy out?” with?
“You know,” says A.J., unhelpfully, palming Roy’s dick through his boxers. “Joe is very serious. Jeter’s hot, but not as much as he thinks.” He sinks to his knees and mouths Roy through the fabric, and mumbles something.
“What?”
“I don’t wanna talk.” He starts tugging down Roy’s boxers. If this were the usual post-start fuck, Roy would know what to do, but not now, when A.J.’s drunk, and he’s the one who beat him. He lets A.J. lick him hard, and he’s starting not to care if he doesn’t know what to do-his dick hasn’t gotten this much attention since, well, since A.J. left-when A.J. sort of slumps down in front of the couch, and lets out a loud, wet snore.
“That was sexy,” Roy says out loud, but not expecting A.J. to hear. A.J. stirs and mumbles something, but he’s nowhere near consciousness, so Roy pulls up his boxers and helps A.J. onto the couch. A.J. never quite wakes up, but he does give Roy a closed-eyed smile when Roy puts a throw over him. It’s one of those fuzzy polyester Blue Jays blankets, in the bright baby blue of Roy’s least favorite uniforms. It barely covers A.J.’s absurdly long limbs.
**
It’s hard to say when Roy first becomes aware of A.J.’s interest in him. They spend 2006 and half of 2007 sitting next to each other on the bench when neither one of them is starting, playing the usual games to pass the time, talking pitches, talking girls, talking batters. It doesn’t matter if it’s A.J. or Lilly or Towers, Roy says the same things, nods the same nods. He and A.J. are friendly, but they aren’t friends.
It isn’t until after they both recover from a rash of freakish injuries: appendicitis, finger slammed in a car door, leg broken by a line drive, that Roy begins to notice something. A.J. starts calling him “Harry”, and grins demonically when Roy fixes him with a blank stare, as if that reaction is some kind of win.
No one calls him Harry. No one calls him Leroy either. He’s been Roy since elementary school. Now he’s “Doc” just as often, but never Harry.
Then A.J. is always there next to him, not a rotating succession of whoever wants the empty seat, but always A.J., asking questions, “How do you pitch this guy?” “How do you get out of a bases loaded situation and A-Rod’s up to bat?” It gets so the other pitchers leave the spot open for him.
“You walk ‘im if Gibbons lets you, otherwise you paint the corners and hope he freaks himself out,” Roy answers.
“Does that work?”
Roy stretches his legs out next to A.J.’s. They are exactly the same length. “Sometimes. A-Rod gets into his head a lot. You try not to let it get to that.”
The starting pitcher always chooses the music in the clubhouse. A.J.’s tastes run to metal, rap, rap, rap, and more metal, so Roy knows something is up when he gets Aerosmith and Guns ‘n’ Roses instead.
“Did you lose your iPod?” he asks A.J. after the game, a great win against the Orioles.
A.J.’s grin spreads slowly across his face-totally different from the smirk he wears when he’s annoyed or trying to annoy someone, activities that, it appears to Roy, take up ninety percent of A.J.’s time. “Nah, just thought I’d mellow out a little. You like my man Fitty, right?” A back-slap that lingers for just a moment. “I’ll make sure to play him next time.”
That’s the night Roy looks past all the tattoos-some of them incredibly stupid-to the long lean muscles underneath, the loose way his legs attach to his hips, his boneless saunter. A few nights later they go out, and Roy ends up pushed up against the wall just inside the door of his apartment, A.J.’s long fingers wrapped around his dick, A.J.’s goatee tickling over the sensitive spot on his neck, and the firm lines of A.J.’s back yielding under his hands.
**
When Roy wakes up, A.J.’s gone, and the blanket is folded and placed over the edge of the couch.
**
On November 13, the Yankees sign Nick Swisher from the Chicago White Sox.
On December 18, 2008, the Yankees sign CC Sabathia from the Milwaukee Brewers and A.J. Burnett from the Toronto Blue Jays.
The ink is still drying on A.J.’s contract when he hears CC Sabathia had also been signed. The same fucking day. He’s prepared to dislike CC until the moment they meet at the Yankees press conference. CC is smarter than he looks, and nicer than A.J. has any right to expect. CC has also spoken truth to power, but he is better at it than A.J. will ever be. And he isn’t anything like Roy.
A.J. goes into Spring Training looking to leave behind his old reputation as much as possible, but it follows in the questions the beat writers ask, harping on his injuries, his attitude. He enjoys all the fans at Legends-Steinbrenner-field, though, and his teammates are welcoming. Derek Jeter gives him an unmistakable up and down that A.J. returns, but neither of them follow up on it.
**
Nick Swisher never shuts up. He doesn’t have a shy bone in his body, and as soon as he shows up for Spring Training, he’s everybody’s best friend. He plays hip hop and rap and metal and classic rock, and even the occasional old school country song to keep everyone in the clubhouse happy.
He also gives A.J. the once over when they’re in the clubhouse, although it’s a lot less proprietary than Jeter’s and A.J. likes it better.
In A.J.’s first spring training start he pitches four perfect innings. He goes back to his locker to find a text from Roy: aj, perfect for 4? nice dealing
He texts back, usually they want 9, and leaves it at that. Roy stays home when Toronto comes up from Dunedin to play them. He doesn’t text after A.J.’s next spring start, which doesn’t go quite as well, but Nick’s there. “Nice job,” he says, slapping A.J. on his ass over his towel when they’re changing as the minor league guys round out the eighth inning.
“Fuck you,” says A.J., with no heat.
Nick doesn’t look like he’s taken offense. “I mean it,” he says. “Pitching’s hard work, man. Like I tell CC, I couldn’t do it. What you guys do to your elbows . . . nice work today, man. You’ll be ready.”
He goes for burgers with Nick and CC for dinner that night near the apartment complex where most of them are staying. Jeter has a house on the bay, but everyone else stays in these cookie-cutter condos. They’re nicer than Dunedin, but A.J. can’t decide if it’s better. There he shared with Roy, didn’t live in splendid isolation with only thin walls for company.
CC has one beer and leaves early, leaving Nick, chattering on about something-White Sox spring training-across from him.
“You still have those nipple piercings?” Nick asks brightly when CC is gone.
“I took ‘em out.” Three years ago. Nick knows one fact about everyone, and this must be his. “They chafed.”
Nick laughs more than the comment merits, but it doesn’t seem like a put on, just like Nick lives in a world that’s more vivid, more fun, than the one everyone else does.
A.J. lets Nick maneuver him back to Nick’s apartment on the flimsy excuse of seeing Nick’s copy of Rock Band. It’s not the right video game for only two of them, so instead they play Halo. When Nick starts losing he tries distracting A.J. by tickling him.
A.J.’s squirming and laughing and still trying to kill bad guys when Nick’s hand goes just a bit lower than it should. A.J. lets it happen, and happen again, until Nick’s got him out and strokes him while A.J.’s aim goes to shit, and he lets the controller fall from his hands. When he comes he’s thinking about pinstripes and fielding batting practice and what it means that Joe Girardi stays in that good shape, but he’s also thinking about Roy, just a little bit, his power and pinpoint control.
**
When Roy meets A.J. for a late dinner, Toronto has lost 8-2, and A.J. has enough giddy post-win energy that Roy wants to ask if A.J. thinks he had something to do with it.
“The offense is back,” he says when Roy asks. “They were all, like, gone, but they’re coming back.” He shrugs and smirks. “Sorry.”
Roy looks sharply at him, as if maybe he can detect something from the night before, some evidence of whether it was really A.J., or some too-real dream, that showed up on his doorstep last night, got him hard and then passed out. A.J.’s not giving anything away, but he is talking a mile a minute, full of puppyish enthusiasm. “Andy, you know, he doesn’t quite have it anymore, but he’s Andy Pettitte. If I could learn to keep stuff out of my head like he does, it’d be so much better.”
“Yeah, A.J., you think too much.”
A.J. makes a face. The sarcasm isn’t lost on him. “You know what I mean.”
They settle into the old routine while eating their steaks, talking baseball, golf, movies, well worked tracks they move along with ease. A.J.’s knee bumps against his under the table. The restaurant is nearly empty, this late, but the waiters keep their distance, and don’t betray with a single flick of an eyelash if A.J. is giving away too much, when he presses his calf firmly against Roy’s.
“It’s true about the Yankees,” A.J. says when Roy is signaling for the check. “We get our own rooms.”
“That’s heresy,” says Roy, thinking about the rooms they shared on the road, the beds too short for two sets of long limbs.
“Whatever. Come back with me.” Sheepish grin. “I gotta make up for last night.”
“So that was you. I thought I was just having nightmares.”
“Fuck, man. I’m sorry. My head was messed up after . . . I’ll beat you some day.”
Roy snorts. “After we retire, maybe.”
“If that’s what it takes.”
The Yankees are staying at the Hilton near the CN Tower. Roy sees a few bodies he recognizes in the lobby as they walk through. A.J. waves, and Andy and A-Rod wave back. He has a moment of nerves-is being seen like this gonna matter?-but he glances at A.J. and decides not to care. Everyone knows they’re close.
The nerves translate into something else as soon as the door to A.J.’s room is closed. Roy didn’t know to miss this until it was gone. A.J. was always there when they were both Blue Jays. Roy would have said that familiarity bred contempt, but it didn’t take familiarity with A.J.. A.J. came up with that attitude, and the dubious distinction of having been asked to leave the Marlins. It took familiarity to breed any kind of respect at all.
He doesn’t remember wanting A.J. like this since the first couple times, or maybe after a few wins when he felt like his own body couldn’t contain him, and A.J. was right there to bleed off his excess energy. This is different. He pushes A.J. down on the bed, on top of the polyester duvet that who knows how many people have fucked on.
A.J.’s face wears a relaxed expression. “Did you miss me?” Roy asks. A.J. doesn’t have to say it, Roy knows this as well as he knows A.J.’s pre-game rituals, as well as he knew they were going to fail, but he wants to hear it anyway.
“’Course,” says A.J., hitching Roy up more on top of him.
“Are you all lubed up for me?” Roy asks, wine and steak and still three days before another start making him bold. “Remember when . . . ?” And he whispers in A.J.’s ear about that time when they sneaked into the clubhouse during a game. A.J.’d been nursing a sore shoulder, but that didn’t prevent him trying to suck Roy’s brain out through his dick.
“Not tonight.” He rolls over to reach the supplies but in such a way that he’s pressing his ass back into Roy’s crotch. God, he missed A.J.’s shamelessness too. He’s never been quite as good at seeing what he wants and taking it. A.J. taught him about that.
A.J. rolls back and puts the condoms and lube into Roy’s hands.
The first couple times Roy fucked A.J. he didn’t know just how much A.J. loved it. He should have known, but he was the less experienced one, and at the time he thought A.J. was just trying to break him in gently. Now he knows, loves the way A.J. wants to be pushed over onto hands and knees, the way he pushes back against Roy’s fingers, and then his cock.
Roy stares at the bad pastel hotel painting and tries not to come too fast, as A.J. rocks back against him, slow and even and hard enough that Roy barely has to move. This could be any hotel. They could be teammates again, on the road together, sharing a room. And then A.J. starts saying all those dirty things Roy remembers, plus a few new ones, in his voice that Roy sometimes thinks could make him come from its sound alone. He’s looking at the patterns of ink over A.J.’s muscles when A.J.’s voice hitches and he comes, pulling A.J.’s ass hard against his hips.
Afterwards A.J. puts on ESPN in time to catch the baseball highlights including the Yankee win, although he looks away when they flash back to the night before. “Fucking ESPN,” he says, mouth on Roy’s shoulder. “Buncha Red Sox fans.” Roy waits for A.J. to say something about how Roy deserves to be with a team that has a chance, like he used to, but A.J. doesn’t mention it. If last year taught them anything, it’s that anyone has a chance, and that the playoffs are not some kind of Yankee birthright. Not that that stopped A.J. from choosing them anyway.
Then A.J.’s rubbing him hard again with his long, clever fingers, and climbing over Roy finish the blow job he started last night, his tongue as obnoxiously skilled as it ever was. There’s never been anyone better.
When they shared a room on the road, Roy always went to his own bed after they were done fucking, but now he stays. They fall asleep with the TV on. Sometime during the night A.J. turns it off, and Roy wakes in the silent early morning darkness to the old, familiar sounds of A.J.’s breathing. He’s thinking about getting up and going back to his own apartment, but A.J. seems to read his thoughts and sleepily loops his limbs around Roy’s to hold him there.
**
A.J. has nothing to do after he’s done helping field batting practice, but sit and watch and chat. And he can see that Nick is getting discouraged. Nick who cheers them all up, who has never brought the clubhouse down. A.J.’s there when he comes into the dugout after yet another strikeout, punching at Nick a little, but then putting a hand on his arm, “Hey, you’ll get it back.”
Some guys wouldn’t like something even as heartfelt as that, but Nick does, and at least he goes out and walks the next time up.
He doesn’t know Nick well enough to guess whether he’d prefer a blowjob or another picture for his ridiculous collage to cheer him up. A.J. decides on both.
**
The Yankees win again the next day, although not as easily as the previous night. In Jays’ dugout there are jokes about how the Yankees can’t seem to take advantage of all the walks, at least while Tallet is on the mound. He was a better reliever, and while Roy hopes he makes it as a starter, thirteen years of watching more hopes fade than become realized tell him how unlikely that is.
Those jokes quiet down when the Jays are at bat, and Tallet’s back on the bench, and they fall a little flat, even as Roy tries to prop them up. The Jays have as many players on the DL as the Yankees, but they’re ahead now. They could last, Roy thinks, if only they keep believing it. Believing counts for a lot.
It isn’t until the Yankees leave that Zaun sends Roy the clip of A.J., toneless and mumbling on YES before his Tuesday start. “Roy Halladay is one of the most important people in my life,” he says to the interviewer, defeat already written in his eyes. They’re electric blue on the screen against the blue background. “He taught me everything I know about discipline and consistency.”
Yeah, but you left, fucker, Roy thinks, but his heart isn’t in it. A.J. hardly sounds like himself in this video, his voice thick and mushy with the Arkansas accent Roy thought he’d shed years ago. A.J. usually has a gorgeous voice, a deep bass rumble.
It’s gone missing in this clip, but if Roy calls him up, he’ll hear it again. He dials the number.
Fandom: Baseball slash, Blue Jays and Yankees
Rating: R/NC-17
Word count: 4450
Pairing/Characters: A.J. Burnett/Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett/Nick Swisher
Summary: A.J. and Roy come to terms with playing against each other in Spring 2009.
Notes: This is so unbelievably not true. This takes place in my Alternate Universe where any baseball player I want is (a) not married and (b) gay. This is not meant to be a true reflection of anyone alive or dead. Thank you to pun and starfishchick for cheerleading and research help. Thank you to americanleaguer for writing great A.J./Roy and getting me interested in the pairing. The title from a Snow Patrol song.
A.J. and Roy make plans to have dinner Wednesday night. Neither of them even suggest Tuesday, the night they have to face each other.
They both want to win, badly, but Roy knows that of the two of them, only he believes he is going to win. He knows A.J., and as he’s going through his pre-game ritual in silence, mentally facing down the Yankees’ lineup, he’s also seeing A.J.’s rituals, the obsessive rearrangement of the talismans in his locker, the cage of sound he locks himself into with his headphones before warming up, and he knows that right now A.J.’s just praying he won’t embarrass himself.
Funny, how A.J. ended up with Sabathia on the Yanks. Always in second place-something A.J. is predisposed to believe even when it isn’t true. In his darker moments, Roy wonders if that didn’t help A.J. out the door, along with the money, and the chance at a ring, a legacy.
A.J.’s got his stuff, that Roy can see from the first inning, and it’s good stuff, but he knows the Yankees’ lack of offense is going to play with his head, and then it does, there in the fourth, when A.J. gives up four runs.
“How’s he look?” Roy asks Scutaro, once the danger of him pitching a no hitter is past and the guys in the dugout will talk to him again.
“Not as mean as he used to. Maybe New York’s changed him,” Scutaro answers.
But Roy’s watched some of his games. A.J.’s game face is still an unholy sneer, same as it was when he played for Toronto, though now less marred by facial hair.
A.J. looks like he’s going to cry, or maybe hit something, when he leaves the field. That was the kind of mood, after dealing a good game with no run support, that A.J. told him led to the fireworks in Florida. By the time he got to Toronto, he’d learned to keep his displeasure to short sharp bursts in the locker room. Now it looks like he’s also learned to blame himself.
The game ends: Toronto 5-1, another complete game, another W. The fog he enters when he has a start clears while Roy’s slapping hands and asses for the camera. He grins and high-fives Millar. Always good to win the first game of a set. He knows this streak can’t last; they’re not the Rays, too old, too settled into third, even with last year, but it feels great right now, 12 games ahead.
Which brings him right back to the Yankees, six games back. Roy wonders what A.J. does after a bad game now. Used to be he’d come over after a bad start, angling for a pity fuck. And he’d come over after a good start triumphantly demanding a celebratory fuck. He was pretty predictable that way.
Roy has no doubt A.J.’s figured out some way to get what he wants in New York. Roy never asked who came before him, but he’s sure there was a long history there. A.J.’s too good at getting what he wants for there not to be.
But he’s not that surprised when A.J. shows up at his door at two in the morning. Roy’s been asleep for hours. He’d love to be one of those guys who goes out after a win and buys everyone rounds of drinks until he’s the last one standing, but he’s learned through the years that he gets his best night’s sleep after a good start, that when all those demons are put to rest, he can put his body to rest also. It’s the best sleep he gets all week-no need to mess with that.
A.J.’s wearing a long sleeved t-shirt that molds closer to his body than the sorts of things Roy remembers him wearing in Toronto-well, when he remembers A.J. wearing anything besides skin and tattoos. His hair is dried in stiff-looking tufts. Roy can’t decide if he thinks that’s intentional or not.
He’s smiling, though, the little boy grin that makes up for the surly, overgrown teenager he acts like the rest of the time. “You’re still the best,” he says when Roy opens the door. His head is tilted drunkenly to one side.
“Fuck that,” says Roy. He steps back to let A.J. in.
As soon as the door closes, A.J. is only a breath away from them, as if he never left, as if they never stopped this. It’s not hard for Roy to let habit take over, to pull A.J. in closer, to kiss what he can reach with his mouth and run his hands over the rest.
A.J. tastes like red bull and vodka, though, and that’s unusual enough it makes Roy pull back. “Where were you drinking?”
A.J. shrugs and doesn’t quite meet Roy’s eyes. “You know, the old spots.”
**
A.J.’s heard dozens of sports psychologists and coaches tell the teams he’s played for about how you have to visualize your goal, and then believe it. He’s even listened. Like the instruction to “just throw strikes” it’s easier said than done.
He expected the boos. He swore they wouldn’t get to him. Toronto was home for a few years but Florida had fit him better in some ways, not the team, but the humid warmth. People who don't know better think he grew up there.
So he tries not to hear the boos or look at the signs. His arm does what he wants it to, except when he starts to get angry with himself in the fourth, but even then, it settles down again. It does what he wants it to do, but it doesn’t do it well enough, and with the Yanks’ offense what it is these days-Johnny Damon with a helping of Melky Cabrera, and that’s it-one run, and that’s the ball game.
A.J.’s got what he’s got, but what Roy has is better, always has been.
“Dude,” says Nick, when A.J.’s done showering and comes out, towel wrapped low around his waist. “That was brutal. Sorry we didn’t help more, man.” Nick always says stuff like that, stuff other hitters keep to themselves. Sometimes it’s refreshing, now it’s just salt in the wound. Other tough starts Nick would be in his face, driving him crazy until A.J. has to do something, anything, to shut him up, but this time even Nick goes quiet.
It doesn’t last long. “Hey, where’d you go out when you lived here?”
“You think getting shit-faced is gonna help that slump?” A.J. asks nastily.
Nick makes a face. “Can’t hurt. I’ve tried everything. We need a rainout except the Rogers center has a retractable roof.”
“We’ve had enough rainouts.”
The Hooters is a particularly dirty example of the breed, but it’s a tourist bar, not a baseball bar, so it works. Every TV is tuned to hockey. Nick talks non-stop when he’s drinking, which makes exactly no change from when he’s sober.
A.J. listens enough to respond when he needs to but mostly Nick’s chatter makes a comfortable background for A.J. to drink steadily and decide whether he wants to bring Nick back to his room for a nice exchange of blowjobs. Nick’s good for it, but A.J.’s still feeling that wild edge he gets when he almost loses it on the mound, like he has to get the crazy out of his system before his next start.
And that means Roy.
**
There’s something orange on the side of A.J.’s mouth. Roy goes to wipe it for him before remembering that maybe they don’t do that anymore. It’s dried barbeque sauce.
A.J. turns his face toward Roy’s fingers. “Hooters’ wings still suck,” he says, sticking out his tongue to lick off the sauce and catching some Roy’s fingertips in his mouth as he does.
That wasn’t one of the old spots. Well, it’s old, but they never hung out there.
“I didn’t want to be recognized,” says A.J..
“Come on,” says Roy, steering A.J. into the living room. He’s not walking too steady. “What’s it like being a Yankee?” he asks. It’s not what he wants to know, or it at least it’s far more general than what he wants to know. He doesn’t care who A.J.’s fucking, or rather, who A.J. is getting to fuck him (because that is how A.J. works and always has) but he wants to know how A.J. passes the time in a new dugout. Who is the recipient of what passes for A.J.’s wit? Who does he play “how would you get that guy out?” with?
“You know,” says A.J., unhelpfully, palming Roy’s dick through his boxers. “Joe is very serious. Jeter’s hot, but not as much as he thinks.” He sinks to his knees and mouths Roy through the fabric, and mumbles something.
“What?”
“I don’t wanna talk.” He starts tugging down Roy’s boxers. If this were the usual post-start fuck, Roy would know what to do, but not now, when A.J.’s drunk, and he’s the one who beat him. He lets A.J. lick him hard, and he’s starting not to care if he doesn’t know what to do-his dick hasn’t gotten this much attention since, well, since A.J. left-when A.J. sort of slumps down in front of the couch, and lets out a loud, wet snore.
“That was sexy,” Roy says out loud, but not expecting A.J. to hear. A.J. stirs and mumbles something, but he’s nowhere near consciousness, so Roy pulls up his boxers and helps A.J. onto the couch. A.J. never quite wakes up, but he does give Roy a closed-eyed smile when Roy puts a throw over him. It’s one of those fuzzy polyester Blue Jays blankets, in the bright baby blue of Roy’s least favorite uniforms. It barely covers A.J.’s absurdly long limbs.
**
It’s hard to say when Roy first becomes aware of A.J.’s interest in him. They spend 2006 and half of 2007 sitting next to each other on the bench when neither one of them is starting, playing the usual games to pass the time, talking pitches, talking girls, talking batters. It doesn’t matter if it’s A.J. or Lilly or Towers, Roy says the same things, nods the same nods. He and A.J. are friendly, but they aren’t friends.
It isn’t until after they both recover from a rash of freakish injuries: appendicitis, finger slammed in a car door, leg broken by a line drive, that Roy begins to notice something. A.J. starts calling him “Harry”, and grins demonically when Roy fixes him with a blank stare, as if that reaction is some kind of win.
No one calls him Harry. No one calls him Leroy either. He’s been Roy since elementary school. Now he’s “Doc” just as often, but never Harry.
Then A.J. is always there next to him, not a rotating succession of whoever wants the empty seat, but always A.J., asking questions, “How do you pitch this guy?” “How do you get out of a bases loaded situation and A-Rod’s up to bat?” It gets so the other pitchers leave the spot open for him.
“You walk ‘im if Gibbons lets you, otherwise you paint the corners and hope he freaks himself out,” Roy answers.
“Does that work?”
Roy stretches his legs out next to A.J.’s. They are exactly the same length. “Sometimes. A-Rod gets into his head a lot. You try not to let it get to that.”
The starting pitcher always chooses the music in the clubhouse. A.J.’s tastes run to metal, rap, rap, rap, and more metal, so Roy knows something is up when he gets Aerosmith and Guns ‘n’ Roses instead.
“Did you lose your iPod?” he asks A.J. after the game, a great win against the Orioles.
A.J.’s grin spreads slowly across his face-totally different from the smirk he wears when he’s annoyed or trying to annoy someone, activities that, it appears to Roy, take up ninety percent of A.J.’s time. “Nah, just thought I’d mellow out a little. You like my man Fitty, right?” A back-slap that lingers for just a moment. “I’ll make sure to play him next time.”
That’s the night Roy looks past all the tattoos-some of them incredibly stupid-to the long lean muscles underneath, the loose way his legs attach to his hips, his boneless saunter. A few nights later they go out, and Roy ends up pushed up against the wall just inside the door of his apartment, A.J.’s long fingers wrapped around his dick, A.J.’s goatee tickling over the sensitive spot on his neck, and the firm lines of A.J.’s back yielding under his hands.
**
When Roy wakes up, A.J.’s gone, and the blanket is folded and placed over the edge of the couch.
**
On November 13, the Yankees sign Nick Swisher from the Chicago White Sox.
On December 18, 2008, the Yankees sign CC Sabathia from the Milwaukee Brewers and A.J. Burnett from the Toronto Blue Jays.
The ink is still drying on A.J.’s contract when he hears CC Sabathia had also been signed. The same fucking day. He’s prepared to dislike CC until the moment they meet at the Yankees press conference. CC is smarter than he looks, and nicer than A.J. has any right to expect. CC has also spoken truth to power, but he is better at it than A.J. will ever be. And he isn’t anything like Roy.
A.J. goes into Spring Training looking to leave behind his old reputation as much as possible, but it follows in the questions the beat writers ask, harping on his injuries, his attitude. He enjoys all the fans at Legends-Steinbrenner-field, though, and his teammates are welcoming. Derek Jeter gives him an unmistakable up and down that A.J. returns, but neither of them follow up on it.
**
Nick Swisher never shuts up. He doesn’t have a shy bone in his body, and as soon as he shows up for Spring Training, he’s everybody’s best friend. He plays hip hop and rap and metal and classic rock, and even the occasional old school country song to keep everyone in the clubhouse happy.
He also gives A.J. the once over when they’re in the clubhouse, although it’s a lot less proprietary than Jeter’s and A.J. likes it better.
In A.J.’s first spring training start he pitches four perfect innings. He goes back to his locker to find a text from Roy: aj, perfect for 4? nice dealing
He texts back, usually they want 9, and leaves it at that. Roy stays home when Toronto comes up from Dunedin to play them. He doesn’t text after A.J.’s next spring start, which doesn’t go quite as well, but Nick’s there. “Nice job,” he says, slapping A.J. on his ass over his towel when they’re changing as the minor league guys round out the eighth inning.
“Fuck you,” says A.J., with no heat.
Nick doesn’t look like he’s taken offense. “I mean it,” he says. “Pitching’s hard work, man. Like I tell CC, I couldn’t do it. What you guys do to your elbows . . . nice work today, man. You’ll be ready.”
He goes for burgers with Nick and CC for dinner that night near the apartment complex where most of them are staying. Jeter has a house on the bay, but everyone else stays in these cookie-cutter condos. They’re nicer than Dunedin, but A.J. can’t decide if it’s better. There he shared with Roy, didn’t live in splendid isolation with only thin walls for company.
CC has one beer and leaves early, leaving Nick, chattering on about something-White Sox spring training-across from him.
“You still have those nipple piercings?” Nick asks brightly when CC is gone.
“I took ‘em out.” Three years ago. Nick knows one fact about everyone, and this must be his. “They chafed.”
Nick laughs more than the comment merits, but it doesn’t seem like a put on, just like Nick lives in a world that’s more vivid, more fun, than the one everyone else does.
A.J. lets Nick maneuver him back to Nick’s apartment on the flimsy excuse of seeing Nick’s copy of Rock Band. It’s not the right video game for only two of them, so instead they play Halo. When Nick starts losing he tries distracting A.J. by tickling him.
A.J.’s squirming and laughing and still trying to kill bad guys when Nick’s hand goes just a bit lower than it should. A.J. lets it happen, and happen again, until Nick’s got him out and strokes him while A.J.’s aim goes to shit, and he lets the controller fall from his hands. When he comes he’s thinking about pinstripes and fielding batting practice and what it means that Joe Girardi stays in that good shape, but he’s also thinking about Roy, just a little bit, his power and pinpoint control.
**
When Roy meets A.J. for a late dinner, Toronto has lost 8-2, and A.J. has enough giddy post-win energy that Roy wants to ask if A.J. thinks he had something to do with it.
“The offense is back,” he says when Roy asks. “They were all, like, gone, but they’re coming back.” He shrugs and smirks. “Sorry.”
Roy looks sharply at him, as if maybe he can detect something from the night before, some evidence of whether it was really A.J., or some too-real dream, that showed up on his doorstep last night, got him hard and then passed out. A.J.’s not giving anything away, but he is talking a mile a minute, full of puppyish enthusiasm. “Andy, you know, he doesn’t quite have it anymore, but he’s Andy Pettitte. If I could learn to keep stuff out of my head like he does, it’d be so much better.”
“Yeah, A.J., you think too much.”
A.J. makes a face. The sarcasm isn’t lost on him. “You know what I mean.”
They settle into the old routine while eating their steaks, talking baseball, golf, movies, well worked tracks they move along with ease. A.J.’s knee bumps against his under the table. The restaurant is nearly empty, this late, but the waiters keep their distance, and don’t betray with a single flick of an eyelash if A.J. is giving away too much, when he presses his calf firmly against Roy’s.
“It’s true about the Yankees,” A.J. says when Roy is signaling for the check. “We get our own rooms.”
“That’s heresy,” says Roy, thinking about the rooms they shared on the road, the beds too short for two sets of long limbs.
“Whatever. Come back with me.” Sheepish grin. “I gotta make up for last night.”
“So that was you. I thought I was just having nightmares.”
“Fuck, man. I’m sorry. My head was messed up after . . . I’ll beat you some day.”
Roy snorts. “After we retire, maybe.”
“If that’s what it takes.”
The Yankees are staying at the Hilton near the CN Tower. Roy sees a few bodies he recognizes in the lobby as they walk through. A.J. waves, and Andy and A-Rod wave back. He has a moment of nerves-is being seen like this gonna matter?-but he glances at A.J. and decides not to care. Everyone knows they’re close.
The nerves translate into something else as soon as the door to A.J.’s room is closed. Roy didn’t know to miss this until it was gone. A.J. was always there when they were both Blue Jays. Roy would have said that familiarity bred contempt, but it didn’t take familiarity with A.J.. A.J. came up with that attitude, and the dubious distinction of having been asked to leave the Marlins. It took familiarity to breed any kind of respect at all.
He doesn’t remember wanting A.J. like this since the first couple times, or maybe after a few wins when he felt like his own body couldn’t contain him, and A.J. was right there to bleed off his excess energy. This is different. He pushes A.J. down on the bed, on top of the polyester duvet that who knows how many people have fucked on.
A.J.’s face wears a relaxed expression. “Did you miss me?” Roy asks. A.J. doesn’t have to say it, Roy knows this as well as he knows A.J.’s pre-game rituals, as well as he knew they were going to fail, but he wants to hear it anyway.
“’Course,” says A.J., hitching Roy up more on top of him.
“Are you all lubed up for me?” Roy asks, wine and steak and still three days before another start making him bold. “Remember when . . . ?” And he whispers in A.J.’s ear about that time when they sneaked into the clubhouse during a game. A.J.’d been nursing a sore shoulder, but that didn’t prevent him trying to suck Roy’s brain out through his dick.
“Not tonight.” He rolls over to reach the supplies but in such a way that he’s pressing his ass back into Roy’s crotch. God, he missed A.J.’s shamelessness too. He’s never been quite as good at seeing what he wants and taking it. A.J. taught him about that.
A.J. rolls back and puts the condoms and lube into Roy’s hands.
The first couple times Roy fucked A.J. he didn’t know just how much A.J. loved it. He should have known, but he was the less experienced one, and at the time he thought A.J. was just trying to break him in gently. Now he knows, loves the way A.J. wants to be pushed over onto hands and knees, the way he pushes back against Roy’s fingers, and then his cock.
Roy stares at the bad pastel hotel painting and tries not to come too fast, as A.J. rocks back against him, slow and even and hard enough that Roy barely has to move. This could be any hotel. They could be teammates again, on the road together, sharing a room. And then A.J. starts saying all those dirty things Roy remembers, plus a few new ones, in his voice that Roy sometimes thinks could make him come from its sound alone. He’s looking at the patterns of ink over A.J.’s muscles when A.J.’s voice hitches and he comes, pulling A.J.’s ass hard against his hips.
Afterwards A.J. puts on ESPN in time to catch the baseball highlights including the Yankee win, although he looks away when they flash back to the night before. “Fucking ESPN,” he says, mouth on Roy’s shoulder. “Buncha Red Sox fans.” Roy waits for A.J. to say something about how Roy deserves to be with a team that has a chance, like he used to, but A.J. doesn’t mention it. If last year taught them anything, it’s that anyone has a chance, and that the playoffs are not some kind of Yankee birthright. Not that that stopped A.J. from choosing them anyway.
Then A.J.’s rubbing him hard again with his long, clever fingers, and climbing over Roy finish the blow job he started last night, his tongue as obnoxiously skilled as it ever was. There’s never been anyone better.
When they shared a room on the road, Roy always went to his own bed after they were done fucking, but now he stays. They fall asleep with the TV on. Sometime during the night A.J. turns it off, and Roy wakes in the silent early morning darkness to the old, familiar sounds of A.J.’s breathing. He’s thinking about getting up and going back to his own apartment, but A.J. seems to read his thoughts and sleepily loops his limbs around Roy’s to hold him there.
**
A.J. has nothing to do after he’s done helping field batting practice, but sit and watch and chat. And he can see that Nick is getting discouraged. Nick who cheers them all up, who has never brought the clubhouse down. A.J.’s there when he comes into the dugout after yet another strikeout, punching at Nick a little, but then putting a hand on his arm, “Hey, you’ll get it back.”
Some guys wouldn’t like something even as heartfelt as that, but Nick does, and at least he goes out and walks the next time up.
He doesn’t know Nick well enough to guess whether he’d prefer a blowjob or another picture for his ridiculous collage to cheer him up. A.J. decides on both.
**
The Yankees win again the next day, although not as easily as the previous night. In Jays’ dugout there are jokes about how the Yankees can’t seem to take advantage of all the walks, at least while Tallet is on the mound. He was a better reliever, and while Roy hopes he makes it as a starter, thirteen years of watching more hopes fade than become realized tell him how unlikely that is.
Those jokes quiet down when the Jays are at bat, and Tallet’s back on the bench, and they fall a little flat, even as Roy tries to prop them up. The Jays have as many players on the DL as the Yankees, but they’re ahead now. They could last, Roy thinks, if only they keep believing it. Believing counts for a lot.
It isn’t until the Yankees leave that Zaun sends Roy the clip of A.J., toneless and mumbling on YES before his Tuesday start. “Roy Halladay is one of the most important people in my life,” he says to the interviewer, defeat already written in his eyes. They’re electric blue on the screen against the blue background. “He taught me everything I know about discipline and consistency.”
Yeah, but you left, fucker, Roy thinks, but his heart isn’t in it. A.J. hardly sounds like himself in this video, his voice thick and mushy with the Arkansas accent Roy thought he’d shed years ago. A.J. usually has a gorgeous voice, a deep bass rumble.
It’s gone missing in this clip, but if Roy calls him up, he’ll hear it again. He dials the number.