Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not like Tillman actually gives a shit about Baltimore.

Like, woah, the Crabs ascended. Fuckin’ good for them. He’s seen their record up wherever the hell they’ve gone, and they went 1-98 last season — they’d be doing a hell of a lot better if they’d taken him with them, but like, their loss, yeah? R-I-V to them, but he’s —

Still down here. Playing with the Shoe Thieves, except it’s siesta time right now, so he’s not playing at all. He’s got mixed feelings on blaseball at this point — literally dying for a splort will do that, it’s not unreasonable, and besides, he’s always right about this kinda thing — but it feels wrong not to be playing. He hasn’t aged in the last eleven years. Spent one of those years dead, though it felt like so much longer, wherever the fuck he was. Still. Eleven years, with a bit of a gap for bein’ dead, doing the same thing, over and over. Nine of those years in the same place.

He’s not homesick. That would be stupid. There’s just something brutal about growing up somewhere, giving your literal life for a dumb fuckin’ splorts team that comes from there, and then coming back and finding yourself unmoored. Like, Charleston can’t even figure out where the fuck it is. Swaps around the dozens of Charlestons all over the world at random. He’s getting really, really sick of opening the door to his apartment and finding an unfamiliar neighborhood has sprouted up around him as he slept, Choux Stadium the only constant on the horizon. He doesn’t care about Baltimore, but like, he can appreciate that it knows where it is on the map. Can point to Maryland with its fucked-up silhouette and say yeah, that’s home.

But Tillman Henderson is not a person who cares about home, so of course he doesn’t miss it.

Likewise: he’s not lonely.

He played with the Thieves for a whole season. Obviously he could have made friends with them, if that were something he cared about — or, y’know, could’ve called up the Crabs that got yeeted to Hawai’i before they had the chance to go up or climb (R-I-V to them but he’s — well, he’s not that much different, here, is he?), if that were something he cared about. Clearly, it isn’t. Evidence: the fact that he never actually saved any of the Shoe Thieves’ numbers; his recent texts are all from months ago, before the siesta, and are all nameless pleas-slash-threats for him to show up to practice for the love of god. (Like he needs the practice. Best pitcher in the league, that’s him. Suck it, Hotdogfingers.)

Doesn’t really matter that the Crabs are gone. It’s not like they were his only friends. Like, he’s got this heel schtick on lock, but he’s also irresistible. Charming as all hell. Totally, heartbreakingly cool. People are practically lining up to be friends with him; he’s turning them away at the door, no thanks, my schedule’s already booked, got my MySplace top eight already locked in, try again next season, looooser.  

He doesn’t miss them. He’s not a guy who misses people.

It’s just — The Shoe Thieves fought a god, and he was dead. The Crabs fought a god, and he was there, but not anywhere he could reach them. And he’d tried. There’d been part of him aching to vault over the fucking barrier and go hit a signature Tilly Triple and save the day — classic Tillman, they’d be thanking him for years to come, hailing him as a damn saint — but he’d been frozen. Like, totally stuck. He blames the peanut. Sure, his teammates around him were moving around, cheering whenever the Hall Stars made a hit, but the peanut must’ve just been, like, totally scared of his epic blaseball power. Peanut-induced cringe panic attack. Whatever.

He’d sat frozen as Quitter hit a single and the Crabs all but collapsed onto the field. He’d sat frozen as they limped to the side, only a couple’a yards from where he was seated. He’d sat frozen as the Hall Stars appeared, and won, and he’d sat frozen as the Crabs had looked at one another like they knew something was coming and then, a moment later, disappeared into the goddamn sky. Just — poof, and there they went.

Some reward for their victory. Congrats on the championships, now get fuckin’ pwned by a peanut and then disappear forever. Wouldn’t have happened if he’d been on the team.

But he wasn’t. He was wearing the wrong color jersey, sitting in the stands.

So the Crabs are gone. And the Shoe Thieves aren’t his team in anything but name, so why even bother getting close to them? And —

Well, the only other person he’d had hasn’t called since he came back from the dead. Declan’d texted once, a full month after Tillman dragged himself out of hell and landed doing a cool pose right in the middle of Choux Stadium (and certainly not, say, coughing up grave dust and feeling like he was still burning alive), and had just said “hey.” Which, like, Tillman came back from the fucking dead. He thinks he’s worthy of a little more than a hey, thanks.

(So he hadn’t replied, obviously. Fuck that. He’d deleted the text for good measure, and then the whole conversation, and then, to hammer the point home, Declan’s number.)

It’s all fine. He is neither homesick nor lonely. He’s totally content to sit in his shitty Charleston apartment, and not look outside at the always-unfamiliar skyline, and play video games until he passes out.

***

It takes Tillman four months of siesta to move back to Baltimore.

It’s not homesickness, it’s practicality, because he is capable of that, contrary to popular belief. The revelation had gone like this: why keep paying rent on his shitty Charleston apartment when he had a place of his own, like, actually his own, back in Baltimore? If he’s gonna be in a shitty apartment regardless, it makes more sense to do it in a city he doesn’t completely hate. Absolutely neutral vibes towards Baltimore, thanks very much.

He waits until Charleston is in West Virginia, and then books it. There’s no law saying blaseball players have to stay in their team’s city on the off-season, as far as he knows — and also, if there was, following the law’s for squares, anyways. It’s a win-win situation. Either he’s doing something completely legal, or he’s doing something illegal and therefore cool as hell.

He doesn’t have many things. Not much in the way of stuff. He’s been rocking that minimalist lifestyle, which is to say, he got brought back to life and Charleston was in Australia for an infuriating amount of the off-season between seasons ten and eleven, and sixteen-hour flights are not his jam, so he never actually went back to Baltimore to collect his shit. Bought new clothes. Wore the jerseys the Shoe Thieves gave him. Made a point of paying for his new kicks, not stealing them, because theft is only cool if it’s not literally in your job description.

One-hour flights, though. That he can manage.

So he’s got his headphones on, and he fast-tracks through airport security, and people stare at him but they don’t approach for autographs. (They so clearly want to, though. He’s just, like, super intimidating now that he’s undead.) He walks onto the plane. He sits down, first-class, lots of leg room, just the way he likes it. If Tillman’s gonna be stuck somewhere for an hour, like hell is he doing it all cramped between rows of seats that are way too close together, with someone’s kid screaming behind him. Like, he’s done that enough watching blaseball games. Same deal, basically, except one is way more potentially deadly.

Headphones on. Music up far enough that the guy across the aisle from him gives him a dirty look, and Tillman thinks if he’d come back the way Jaylen had, with debts to pay, he’d throw a blaseball at the guy. Like, this is who you’re messing with. But he’s debt free, so he leans back into his seat, turns the volume up even further.

The plane is just taking off when his phone’s notification sound dings overtop the music, startles him out of the half-sleep he’d found himself in. And then it dings again. And again. And again.

unknown number: hey tillman
unknown number: u still around charleston? i uhhh kinda miss seeing you haha i know i know thats cringe etc its just been. a while
unknown number: if u dont wanna see me that;s totally fine and all tho. must b real busy! with like. undead stuff! i get it!
unknown number: just let me know i guess! 💗
unknown number: wait ignore that emoji haha, typo

By the time he’s done reading (and rereading, and trying to figure out if there’s any way it’s someone other than Declan, or a wrong number, or something), the plane’s high enough in the sky that his reception is toast.

The next hour is the longest of Tillman’s life.

***

Tillman lands at BWI and does not open his texts.

Tillman walks through the airport, stops for the customary five minutes at the glass statue of the Mother Crab that was, for some reason, never taken down after the city rose up and killed her. This seems like an oversight to Tillman. It’s not even Crabs-themed; it’s blue, which is — or was — decidedly not one of their colors.

Still. It feels like home, walking past it, so he stops and stares at it for probably too long, and he does not open his texts. And he gets in an Uber to his place, and he keeps his headphones on so he doesn’t have to listen to the driver try to make small talk. And he doesn’t open his texts.

He takes the elevator up to his apartment and skips four songs in a row for something to do with his hands. He digs around, super cool-like, in the flowerpot next to his door for his spare key, because his got incinerated with him and he left it somewhere in the void, because asking the dead to keep track of things is a fucking joke. 

Key retrieved, he opens the door, and then there’s nothing left but two years’ worth of dust to distract him from the texts on his screen.

tillman henderson: lmao charleston sucked ass
tillman henderson: im back in bmore now
tillman henderson: like literally just got here l m a o

He’s not gonna acknowledge anything else Declan said. Declan misses him? Well, fuck, they should’ve called, then. Been a while is a shitty understatement, two years and change after Tillman fuckin’ died and more than a year since he clawed himself back to solid ground. Been a while is what you say when it’s been a month since your teams played in the same place and you wanna go get pizza, and maybe make out a little in the back of Declan’s shitty car.

Been a while. Whatever. Declan knows where he lives, but Tillman’s not gonna roll out the fucking red carpet for him. If he wants to show up, he can. If not, Tillman’s got a suitcase full of video games. More than enough ways to occupy his time.

He throws his phone onto the couch, ripping the plug out of his headphones as he does. Music blasts into the open air of his apartment, loud enough that the neighbors will know he’s back.

Tillman walks through his apartment, and he does not feel like a ghost, even when everything seems to be slightly out of place — wasn’t that coffee table a couple inches further to the right, where he wouldn’t bang his shins against it when he tried to walk past? Was his coffee machine always close to teetering off the counter? 

Who made his bed, after he died? He sure as fuck didn’t. He never does. Waste of time, when he’s just gonna get back in it to sleep a couple hours later.

It makes his skin crawl, the thought that someone else has been here in the time he was gone. His mood sours in a snap; he scrambles for his phone to turn off the shitty, too-loud music, and suddenly it’s dead silent, and that’s worse. Baltimore’s a louder city than any of the Charlestons, but the traffic outside the window isn’t enough to stop his breath from echoing around the room, suddenly claustrophobic.

It’s barely nine at night. Way too early for him to go to sleep. What is he, fuckin’ old? If time moved normally in blaseball, and if he hadn’t lost a year to death, Tillman’d be in his thirties by now. But time stagnates, and he looks the same as he did the day he joined, his hair just a bit longer. Feels mostly the same, too. Just a few more burn scars.

It’s way too early. But he doesn’t feel like existing in the too-quiet not-quiet-enough of the apartment that no longer feels like his, in the city he knows is no longer his. It’s all an eighteen-wheeler veering hard off the cliff of genuine emotion, and he is not going to stay awake long enough for it to hit the ground, thanks — so he untethers the perfectly-made sheets from their moorings, and then fucks them up completely for good measure, only climbs into bed when they’re in a lopsided pile that barely covers half of his body.

He dreams, as he has every night for the last eleven years, of blaseball.

***

Tillman is woken up by some asshole knocking on his door.

He knows they’re an asshole just like he knows, without looking at a clock or outside the windows, that it’s way too early to be knocking on peoples’ doors. Like, if this is the neighbors here to complain about his music being loud for fifteen minutes last night, then — first of all, they should get better taste. His music is good. Anyone should be ecstatic to listen to it through the walls. Tillman has the best taste. But second: they can at least wait until it’s a reasonable time for people to be awake. C’mon. Common courtesy.

He thinks about not answering. The urge to give whoever-the-hell a piece of his mind wins out. He hasn’t really talked to anyone in a while, and there is some fire flickering deep in his gut that wants to be hated by someone — it’s the only feeling he’s gonna get, and he’s good at making it happen, and sometimes it’s satisfying, knowing someone’s putting that much energy into thinking about him.

(Or, you know, he’s just an asshole. That’s probably also true.)

He rolls out of bed and lands on his feet. Passed out in his clothes last night, apparently, which means he doesn’t have to worry about being decent to answer the door. If he’s honest, he wouldn’t have worried about it, anyways. Worrying is for losers. He has more important things to do, like telling off whatever neighbor decided to wake him up at ass-o-clock in the morning. Don’t they know he’s jetlagged? Doesn’t matter that it was only an hour-long flight in the same timezone; jetlag’s just like that.

He starts saying “The fuck do you want” with the door open only a crack. He only gets three words in before it’s fully open, and he is, suddenly, face-to-face with —

Well, face-to-face is a strong phrase, given that Declan is, currently, kneeling on the ground, digging through the potted plant next to Tillman’s door. What the fuck.

“Uh,” says Declan, hastily standing and wiping his hands (dirt-covered) on his jacket (now, also dirt-covered.) "I was. Uh. Looking for the key."

“What the fuck, dude.”

“I can,” Declan starts, and then seems to lose his voice. Just points back down the hallway instead, towards the elevator. I can go.

“What the fuck, dude,” Tillman says again. There’s nothing else to say, really. Except Declan shrinks into his way-too-big jacket a bit and starts taking hesitant steps back down the hallway, and, hey, that isn’t what Tillman meant at all. “Did you seriously come here from Chicago? I just told you I was here, like, two hours ago. Speaking of which: way too fuckin’ early to be showing up at people’s doors. Like, I need my beauty sleep if I’m gonna keep looking this good.”

Declan freezes, turns back to face Tillman, and Tillman catches the tail end of an eye roll, which is — rude, but probably also the most normal thing that could be happening, so he’ll let it slide. “Okay, in order: yeah, I came here from Chicago, where the fuck else would I have been? No, it wasn’t two hours ago, because third of all, it’s like, one in the afternoon.”

“Still way too early,” Tillman says.

“Yeah,” says Declan, “but I brought donuts. Well. Donut, singular, because they only had one chocolate glazed left, and I was gonna get a dozen but I know you won’t eat any other kind, so.” He pulls a paper bag out of his jacket pocket, crumpled to all hell. Donut in it’s probably squished as fuck. Still. Declan remembered his favorite flavor. “A, uh, an apology, for waking you up. And for showing up, I guess.”

An unbearably awkward moment passes, in which Tillman is looking back and forth between the Dlunkin bag and Declan’s face. Jesus, he’s not nearly awake enough for this. Somewhere between death and resurrection he lost the ability to actually talk to people. This is already the longest conversation he’s had in who-knows-how-long, and it fucking sucks.

“Okay, yeah, still not over the fact that you, what, saw that I was back in B-more and just immediately hopped on a plane? Kinda weird, bro.” He does reach out to take the donut bag, though. Gifts are gifts, and Tillman’s hungry, even if he is all eyebrows-raised skepticism at Declan right now.

“I thought it was an invitation! You didn’t say not to,” Declan says, almost frantically. Shoves his hands deep into his pockets the way he does when he’s really anxious about something. There’s a part of Tillman that hates that he knows Declan well enough to know that kind of body language, and another that hates that he cares, that seeing that makes him want to lay off of the usual asshole schtick. 

“Also,” Declan mumbles, “I’ve never actually been to Baltimore outside of, like, games.”

“Bal-tim-ore,” Tillman says-slash-mocks, with the same over-enunciation Declan gives it. His mouth is taking a second to catch up to his brain, and the decision to stop making Declan look like he’s about to spontaneously combust hasn’t quite clicked in, yet — but Declan snorts and there’s the start of a smile on his face, so it’s probably fine. And then Declan’s words catch up with him, and Tillman pauses halfway through walking back into his apartment, whirls back around: “Wait, seriously? Never? What the fuck?”

Declan, who’s been following through the open doorway like some kind of stray puppy, takes a step back. “Yeah?”

“We never went together? Back when we were —” and Tillman cuts himself off before he says something embarrassing and untrue, like dating. God forbid. “— hanging out?” Nice save, Tilly.

“Uh, no? I suggested it once and you said it was, quote, cringe, unquote.” As if Declan doesn’t say cringe, too. Fuckin’ poser. Tillman thinks before he speaks, for once in his life, and decides not to call Declan out for it.

“I mean, it is cringe, I wasn’t wrong. I’m never wrong, Dec, you know this.” Tillman sits on the back of his couch, pulls the donut out of the bag. It is, as he predicted, completely squashed — like, hilariously flat, almost two-dimensional — but he takes a bite out of it and it still tastes fine, so it’s a win. “But like,” he says with a mouthful of donut, “you’re here anyways. Might as well show you around, or whatever.”

***

They end up at the Inner Harbor.

Or, more accurately, they end up on the outskirts of the Harbor, Tillman steering them away from the Harbor proper. He’s gotta have a buffer of at least three buildings in between him and the Crabitat at any time. It’s not really a decision, and it’s only half-consciously that he tugs on Declan’s sleeve and pulls him from place to place away from the inner Inner harbor — but he can feel its presence, out in the water, and it makes his skin crawl in a way he doesn’t really want to examine, thanks-very-much.

They skirt the sides of the water, the areas where the Harbor’s once defined boundaries spilled out into the streets years ago and formed rivers and lakes, half-sinking Baltimore. (That’s what happens when you build a city right on the water, idiots. Gonna fall into the sea at some point. Between global warming and conducting a city-wide uprising against the local god crustacean, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.)

Tillman’s telling a fucking riveting story about the time Nagomi went swimming in the harbor and came out with a crab claw, complete with sound-effects and threats to splash Declan if they interrupt again. “Like, sucks to be her, I guess. I’ve gone swimming there a billion times and didn’t get any fucked up mutant shit outta it. Now she’s gotta walk around in Hawai’i with a claw? No thanks. Shoulda, like, asked me first, so I could tell her no, harbor’s like, super radioactive, if you fall in they can’t get you out without a fuckin’ hazmat suit, wouldn’t go swimming there if I were you. I’m pretty much the expert here.”

“Didn’t you just say you’ve gone swimming in it before?”

“Yeah, and?”

“You went swimming in the radioactive harbor.”

Tillman rolls his eyes. “I was here when the whole deicide thingy happened. It’s different. Obviously.”

“Sure.”

“Could push you in, test the theory,” says Tillman, with a grin bordering on wickedness.

Declan takes several steps away from the water, and for good measure, moves to put Tillman in between himself and the water. Like Tillman was actually gonna go through with it. Fucking coward.

“Hey, what are those?” 

Tillman thinks Declan’s trying to trick him, gonna push him in instead — which, whatever, Tillman’s good at swimming, but he’d rather not get gross-ass harbor water on his new shoes — but when he follows where Declan’s pointing, all he sees is rows of stupid harbor paddle-boats instead. They’re the ones shaped like knock-off Loch Ness Monsters. (Or, more likely, the Loch Ness folks ripped off the Chesapeake Bay Monster. Chessie definitely came first, Tillman thinks. Baltimore’s way more dope than France or Ireland or wherever the fuck Nessie’s supposed to be. Evidence: it’s where he lives. Voted coolest person in blaseball, like, two dozen years running.)

“The paddleboats? Those are for babies.”

“Babies can’t paddle.”

“Sure they can,” Tillman says. Points to a boat out on the harbor, its sea monster head poking out dangerously close to the water. It’s far enough away he can’t make out who’s rowing it, but still, with complete and utter confidence, he says: “See those? Babies. Toddlers at the most.”

Declan squints into the distance. “Those look like adults to me. You need glasses?”

“Nah, man, I’ve got, like, 30-30 vision. Better than 20-20.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Yeah, yeah, what do you know about it?” Tillman elbows Declan in the side, and in the same motion, loops his arm around Declan’s, pulling him towards the stand next to all the boats. “Two tickets, or whatever,” he tells the woman sitting there.

“Wait, what?” Declan says.

“You wanted to go on them, so we’re going. Duh.” 

Declan looks surprised. Fuckin’ weird, in Tillman’s opinion. Tillman’s always extremely nice, and generous, and every other good adjective in the dictionary. Whatever.

They sign a few safety wavers, stating that the paddleboat company has no liability for any accidental carcinization induced by bay water — Declan tries to explain that he’s already from Chicago, and doesn’t think he’s capable of being affected by any other cities, and Tillman tries to explain that he’s already the best blaseball player on the Crabs and therefore totally immune to any crab bullshit, but the woman, unimpressed, makes them sign on the dotted lines anyways. And then they’re out on the water.

The boat is cramped. Their knees are about an inch from touching, sitting face-to-face. Tillman does not bridge the gap, and refuses to even consciously think about the fact that he wants to.

“So,” Tillman says, once they’ve paddled into the middle of the water and are just sitting there, awkward as all hell. (Tillman doesn’t do awkward. If a situation is uncomfortable, it’s because he made it that way himself.) “Everything you dreamed of? Like, obviously, you woke up this morning just dying to be on a shitty boat in the middle of the most toxic water in the state of Maryland, so: mission accomplished? Gonna write in your diary about this moment? Gonna call all your friends back in Chicago and be like, hey, sorry, I’ve found my true home, fuck being a Firefighter?”

“Yeah, all my dreams revolve around being on the world’s tiniest boat with you and not talking about shit,” Declan says. Mutters. Whatever it is, he does it with an edge of bitterness that, if you ask Tillman, is entirely fucking undeserved.

“The fuck is there to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” Declan says, and Tillman hopes for an idiotic second that that’ll be the end of it, but it turns out it’s more sacrcastic than that. “The fact that you died? Came back from the dead? Didn’t call me?”

“You didn’t call either, dickhead. Why the fuck is that on me?”

“I tried! I texted you.”

“Once. Great fucking job, Dec, you sent me one fuckin’ word, like, the world’s worst booty call.”

“Do you not know what a conversation is? Usually, when someone sends you a greeting, you send one back, and then, you know, actually talk.”

“Yeah, because things are totally normal here. Neither of us fucking died, of course a conversation would just, you know, happen normally. Oh, wait.”

They’re both getting angrier by the word. They’re definitely loud enough to be drawing some looks. It’s the strongest Tillman’s felt anything since the Crabs ascended, though, so he keeps going: “Sorry me dying was fuckin’ inconvenient for you. Shoulda said that before I got blown the fuck up. Like, hey, Tillman, I’d rather you didn’t go get your shit wrecked by an ump, for totally gay reasons. I mean, dying’s a fuckin’ blast, so I might not have listened anyways — so yeah, you’re right, blame me for all of it.”

Declan opens his mouth like he’s gonna answer, and then closes it again. Doesn’t make a fucking sound. He’s not even looking at Tillman, but at some point over Tillman’s shoulder — and Tillman’s about to call him a coward for it, when Declan says, softly, “I’ve never seen it from this angle before.”

“What the fuck are you —” talking about, Tillman’s about to say, but he’s already twisted around and looked past the stupid purple tail of their boat to —

The Crabitat sits smack dab in the middle of the Harbor, half submerged, with footbridges crossing the water to and from it. It is a decaying, hollowed-out shell. Doesn’t even have a fuckin’ team to play in it and give it life anymore.

All of Tillman’s words lose their way between his lungs and his throat, and take his breath with it, careening off the track.

It’s in this moment that he realizes maybe — just maybe — showing Declan around Baltimore wasn’t his smartest idea. Which like, saying something, because Tillman’s ideas have, historically, run the full gamut between absolutely spectacular Nobel Prize winning genius moments and the shit emoji, which is worse than just saying they were shitty, because it has a dumb fuckin’ face on it, mocking him. This one is somewhere in the middle, leaning heavily towards the shit emoji side of things.

He knew, logically, that he hadn’t been back to Baltimore since the Crabs ascended, but it’s different to see the stadium right in front of him, looking more like a dead god than it ever has before. How many fucking hours has he spent in that stadium, only to die three thousand miles away from it? Not like there was even a body to ship back. He wonders for a second if whatever pile of ashes was left over from his incineration was collected, or if it was just swept off the field with all the other trash of the day, and — he can’t keep thinking about that or he’s gonna dive into the fucking bay to avoid showing cringe feelings in front of Declan, radioactivity be damned.

Last time he was in the Crabitat, he was frozen completely to his seat, watching his team (on paper) lose to his team (for real) and then his team (for real) lose to a god (fuck gods), and he’d only been back from the dead for a fucking week, and he’d been so bone-deep sure that he was about to die again. Not killed by the peanut or by a bat to the head, just — he saw the Hall Stars dissolve into light at the end of their game, and he’d known they were really and truly gone, not wherever the hell he’d been in the time between life and life-two-point-oh. Just — gone. And then the Crabs had gone up. And between those two, it’d seemed like at least one of them should’ve included him. It’d felt wrong, that he was just… left there. Sitting in a stadium he knew, but without any of the people that went along with it, surrounded by Shoe Thieves assholes who didn’t give a single shit about anything that just happened.

“Tillman?” Declan’s voice is soft, behind him. All the energy has deflated from Tillman in an instant — feels like he’s been twisted in his seat staring at the Crabitat for, like, hours, but it can’t have been more than a few minutes. Still way too long to go without saying anything, without cracking some stupid joke — classic Tillman, you know, not affected by anything, neutral vibes — but he can’t think of anything to say.

“It’s fine,” Tillman says, quick. Like it’s an instinct. Like saying it makes it true. He turns back towards Declan, ignoring how wrong it feels to turn his back to the Crabitat, just in time to see Declan’s hand reaching out towards him — only a few inches from reaching its mark and brushing Tillman’s shoulder, but Declan pulls back, shoves his hand back into his pocket. 

There’s no way to say hey, do that, please, no one’s really touched me since I came back from the dead, they’re all too scared of my dope zombie skills or whatever, and I’m kinda dying here, being this close to you and not really close at all without it sounding lame as fuck, so he doesn’t.

He never had to actually put it into words, before he died. Back when they were not-quite-dating. They’d just sneak off to Declan’s car after games when they were in the same place, make out for a while in the backseat, and sometimes they’d go back to one of their apartments and they’d play video games and wake up curled together and Tillman would think, oh, this is really nice, actually, and never, ever say it aloud. 

And now Declan’s knees are inches away from touching his own, but Declan’s shrunk as far back in his seat as he can to avoid it happening. Now Declan’s reached out and then stopped himself from reaching out, and Tillman’s stupid fucking traitorous brain won’t shut up about it.

“It’s fine,” Tillman says again, more bite to it, as if Declan’d been arguing. They weren’t. That means Tillman’s just arguing with himself, but hey, he’s no stranger to that. “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Just a shitty, stupid stadium. Doesn’t even have a pool in it. What kinda blaseball stadium doesn’t have a pool? Dale’s the only good stadium, for real.”

Declan’s still just looking at him. Tillman can’t read their expression. “What?”

“D’you miss them?” Declan pauses a second. “You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to. But. If you wanna talk about it. Not gonna tell anyone if you get emotional, or whatever.”

“I’m not gonna get emotional, when the fuck have I ever gotten emotional?”

“Just saying, if you need to?” And then Declan does reach out a hand. Only halfway, but he leaves it palm-up on his knee, and Tillman makes himself count one-one-thousand two-one-thousand three-one-thousand in his head so he doesn’t look like some kind of desperate loser before taking it and squeezing probably-too-tightly.

“Nah,” Tillman says, even as he glances back behind him at the Crabitat. “I just. I haven’t been here since, you know. I was there. Couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t say goodbye to them.” He snorts like it’s a joke. Kinda is, on a more cosmic scale. “Fuckin’ sucks, man.”

“Yeah,” Declan says, like he gets it, which — how could he? But he trails his thumb in circles against the back of Tillman’s hand, and Tillman forgets to be angry. “Yeah, it does suck.”

“It’s been a year. More’n a year. Stupid to still be feeling like this over it. Stupid to feel anything. Like, they brought me back just ‘cuz it’d be fun to kill me again, and I’m missing them? Jesus.”

“I, uh.” Tillman looks at Declan, but Declan’s looking away, into the water. They haven’t been peddling for a while, just floating in the middle of the harbor, letting the faint currents move them a few inches at a time. “You know you’ve got a grave? In your family’s plot. Only other time I’ve been to Maryland outside of a game, was a little less than a year after you, uh, died.”

“What?”

“I brought flowers. I mean, it seemed like it was the right thing to do? But I bought them before I got on the plane, so by the time I got to the cemetery here, they were, like, super fucked up, and half the petals were gone —”

“Kinda gay, dude —”

“— but the point is, there were already a bunch’a flowers there. And cards, too, from your team. People gave a shit, Tilly.” Declan pauses. Looks away from the water and at their hands, and Tillman doesn’t know what to do with his heartbeat running fucking marathons in his chest. Before he was incinerated, he got this feeling, this warmth in his bones that shouldn’t have been there, and he’d known what was coming. This feels like that. This feels like that, except the warmth feels right.

While Tillman has a minor crisis over that thought, Declan continues, as if he’s purposefully trying to make Tillman multitask on how many crises he can have at once, the bastard. “I give a shit. I missed you. I, like, mourned you.”

“Cringe mourning for your fail —” and he cuts off, because he can’t say friend and he can’t say boyfriend and there’s no good word here, and is it weird that he wishes there was? Jesus. Tillman’s not good at all this sappy shit. It’s like, the only thing he’s bad at. It’s why he never did it, the first time around. It’s making things really unnecessarily difficult now.

“Yeah, I get it. I’m just saying… It’s okay? If you wanna, you know, mourn for them. And, uh, who knows. Maybe they’ll come back, too.”

“How many people does that happen to? Me. Jaylen. Could count the Hall assholes, but they’re, like, dead- dead, now, and if that’s the fuckin’ trade then no thank you.”

“They’re not dead, though, they’re just —”

“Can we not talk about it?” It comes out choked at the edges, half-desperate, and Tillman hates his voice sounding like that. He’s extremely aware of their spot in the middle of the harbor, floating dangerously close to the Crabitat with every shift in the waves. It’s like there’s a spotlight shining directly on them, and eyes on him from every angle, and — usually Tillman’s good with being center of attention, it’s what he does, he acts like an idiot and people look at him, but. Not like this. “I don’t — I don’t wanna talk about it, Dec.”

“Right, yeah, okay. If you do, though,” and Declan waves his free hand a little vaguely, but Tillman gets what he’s saying, which is as comforting as it is concerning.

“Can we just paddle back,” Tillman says, under his breath, low enough that he’s worried Declan won’t hear him, but like hell is he going to repeat it.

Declan does, though. They carve a clean path through the water, only accidentally turning themselves in circles twice, and make it back to the dock with all the Chessie paddleboats in a neat row, bobbing up and down in the blue.

Tillman scrambles onto solid ground (graceful as hell, thanks), and pulls Declan with him via the hand he’s still holding. He finds he doesn’t really want to let go, at this point. He should. By all rights, he should just… walk away, go back to his apartment, play Smash ‘til he passes out. Do what he’s been doing for the last four months. He hasn’t been homesick, and he sure as fuck hasn’t been lonely — he’s Tillman Henderson, and he doesn’t need people.

But Declan’s hand is warm, and it’s still the chilly half of spring. So Tillman keeps holding it as they make their way to a bench, under the shade of a building, blocked fully from the Crabitat’s view. As if those eye stalks have seen anything in years.

“Missed this,” Tillman says, softly, and realizes only a moment later that he’s said it aloud. He realizes a moment after that just how true it is.

“Me too. I, uh, wasn’t kidding, when I said I missed you, in those texts? And on the boat, I guess? It’s — it’s stupid, I know, but.” Declan looks like he wants to say something else. He looks very intensely like he wants to say something else, but his mouth remains stubbornly closed.

“What, you gonna say you love me or something?” Tillman says. It’s a joke. He’s laughing, as he says it.

And something in Declan’s face twists sour, embarrassed, like that time Tillman told them it was Crabs tradition to eat lemons like apples and they’d believed it and bitten into one and immediately regretted it. They turn away, as close as they can get to turning their back while their hand is still gripped in Tillman’s.

“Oh,” Tillman says.

“You don’t — you don’t have to say anything,” Declan says, half-desperate. It sounds like he doesn’t want Tillman to say anything, which is stupid — it only makes sense if he thinks Tillman’s gonna, you know, make fun of him for it. Which, granted, is a Tillman thing to do. He would’ve, before he died. Hell, he would’ve if this had happened an hour ago.

Tillman’s been on a fucking emotional roller coaster today. Not even a good one. Like, a Hershey Park kiddie ride of a roller coaster. A State Fair coaster. More exhausting than exhilarating.

On the one hand, he’s not looking to add more feelings to that. He’s been too genuine as it is, and there’s only so much of that he can take before he feels like finding the nearest umpire and getting himself incinerated again. Fuck being genuine. All his homies hate being genuine. (He has one homie, now, and said homie is currently looking at the ground in the most heartfelt moment Tillman’s had, like, ever, but whatever.)

On the other hand. He really, really wants Declan to look at him again. And it’s nice, holding his hand. And he wants — he wants Declan around. It isn’t a surprising thought, even though he thinks it really should be; since when does Tillman want anyone around? He’s had this lone wolf schtick going for years, now. Sure, he’d go get matching tattoos with Loser or annoy Parra into playing Mario Bros with him, or tag along on Best’s pre-game crime sprees. But lone wolf, first and foremost.

Except that’s fucking sucked, for the last year. Two years, if he counts the time he was in the void. (He will, this time. There were other people there, he knows, but it was still lonesome in a way words can’t understand. Lonely as in a shadow of yourself, missing yourself. Missing everyone else, too.)

“Jesus, dude, I’m not good at the whole — words, thing. Like, the only thing I’m not good at. Fuckin’ olympic level at literally everything else.” He tugs at Declan’s hand until he turns towards Tillman, looks him in the eyes. “It’s weird, being back here. Like, alive again, yeah, but also just. Back in Baltimore? Fuckin’ weird. Like…” He wracks his brain for a simile. Literally anything will do. “Y’ever turn off a game, and then when you turn it back on, someone else has been playing, and you’re a couple levels away from where you left off and you have no clue what the quests are, and it’s like, not even fun anymore, because it’s been tainted, now? It wasn’t all just you doing it, someone else has come along and moved shit around. You know?”

“Uh,” Declan says. “You know I mostly play, like, rhythm games. But I get the idea.”

“Okay, first of all, lame as hell. Second. I dunno where I was going with all that, just. Felt like everything else had moved on while I was gone. So, obviously,” and he’s not going to say it aloud, but he thinks Declan can jump from point a to point you would have moved on, too.

“Nah,” Declan says. “Just didn’t want to push you? I mean. I’ve never come back from the dead before, I don’t know how much of a recovery period there is.”

Tillman laughs. It’s only a little bitter. “Yeah, I’ll let you know when I figure that one out.” He squeezes Declan’s hand. He shifts a little closer, and he can see the moment Declan’s breath catches in his throat, as if he didn’t basically just say he loves Tillman — and Tillman’s no good at words, but he can do action, and he can lean forward just a little bit more until he’s kissing Declan.

It’s way too soft. Barely even there, really. Absolutely nothing like the last time they’d kissed — Tillman doesn’t remember exactly when that was, because he’d always assumed, back then, that there’d be a next time and that each time didn’t need to carry that weight of being the last kiss before one of them fucking died. (Maybe he should’ve. Blaseball’s a dangerous splort, after all.) It’d all carried the same frantic pretending-to-be-casual energy, then.

This one’s over almost before it starts, but it carries the promise of something deeper, and… well, that’s fucking terrifying, almost worse than dying was. But his eyes drift back open, and Declan’s smiling at him, and it’s so fucking open it makes his heart do a little twist in his chest. Tillman thinks why does love feel so much like dying, and then he thinks oh, and then he thinks so this is love. Huh. Wild.

“I’m pressing pause on sappy shit,” Tillman declares. If any more deep emotional revelations happen today he thinks he’s literally going to explode. They’ll have to carve him another gravestone, put some godawful statues of angels on it, or whatever. He doesn’t know what the custom is for a person’s second grave.

“Got it,” Declan says. “Pause button pressed. Can I still hold your hand?”

“Yeah, obviously you can keep holding my hand, dumbass.” He stands up, swings their joined hands between them a little bit as Declan stands as well. “I’ve made a decision.”

“Shocking. Never seen you do that before.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’ll take my decision back.”

“Nooo, don’t change your mind, you’re so sexy, haha.”

Declan can’t quite keep a straight face, and then neither can Tillman, and they’re both bursting into laughter, leaning against each other to stay upright. It feels good. Feels organic.

“Anyway,” Tillman says, once they’ve recovered. “We did this shit wrong, the first time. So. This is a date, now.” He pauses. “If you want it to be, I guess. Be pretty lame if you didn’t, but I’m not gonna tell you what to do with your life.”

“So we’re dating, now?”

Tillman shrugs. Looks pointedly down at their hands. Looks back at Declan.

“Okay,” Declan says, slowly. Tillman smiles up at him; has to crane his neck back, as close as they are, to actually look him in the face. “So if this was a date, what’s your date plan? Gotta have a plan.”

“Of course I have a fuckin’ plan, who do you think I am?” By their linked hands, Tillman tugs Declan down the sidewalk, towards the row of shops at the center of the harbor. He has a destination in mind. The best possible date destination, actually.

“Do I get to know what the plan is?” Declan’s got a laugh in his voice as he asks.

“Hm,” Tillman says. He stops walking and turns to Declan, looks up at him again. Pastes on his shittiest smile. “What do I get if I tell you?”

Declan leans down and kisses him on the forehead. Tillman — Tillman, uh — his brain short-circuits, a bit. Just a little. It’s not a big deal, but he’s left feeling like Luis looks when someone fucks with their hardlight projector, all glitched out and stuttering. Declan fuckin’ knows it, too — he sees that grin on their face, and he tries to scowl, but his cheeks are definitely warm.

“Okay,” he says, his voice coming out just a little too high before he coughs and fixes it. No big deal. “Uh. Right. Epic date speedrun, any percent: we’re going to the candy place on the corner up there and filling our pockets with chocolate coins. And then we’re gonna sit somewhere away from the water and eat all of them. Maybe rinse and repeat if we feel like it. Fuckin’ foolproof. I’m, like, leagues better at gay heists than all the Shoe Thieves combined.”

It turns out, getting chased out of a store hand-in-hand with your boyfriend, laughing your asses off the entire time, makes for a pretty good technically-first-date, even if they don’t end up getting any chocolate out of it. As they catch their breath leaning against the side of the Blarnes and Noble, Tillman’s face buried in the shoulder of Declan’s jacket, it feels like home.