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It's always tough and vaguely bittersweet ending the regular season on a roadie, but Rizzo figures that after nearly six seasons in the majors, he's starting to get the hang of it.
Apparently not.
He blinks, and blinks again, and Kris grins back at him from the other side of the bed. The bed that Rizzo went to sleep in alone. Rizzo tries blinking again, but, no, Kris is still there, tucked under the covers, head resting on a pile of pillows.
Huh.
Maybe he's just not awake enough yet. Rizzo forces himself to yawn, but keeps half an eye on the stubbornly not-disappearing person sharing his bed. Kris beams wider, like he knows what Rizzo is thinking.
Rizzo aims for something succinct like, "what are you doing here?" and "how did you get in?" or "did we go to a bar last night and wow you're supposed to be the designated everything, why the fuck did you let me obviously drink so much if I can't remember sharing a bed with you." He aims for that, but misses like he missed second base against the Giants the other day.
"Bed?" is what Rizzo manages to say. "Mine?"
Kris laughs, a warm rumble that Rizzo can feel somehow reverberate right through the mattress, and his bright eyes dance over Rizzo's face like Rizzo's the punchline to an amazing joke. "Man, you've never been a morning person, have you, Rizz?" His voice is soft and fond.
"I—" Rizzo rolls onto his back and squints at the hotel ceiling. "Yes? No?"
"Y'know, I always wondered why you were so distracted today," Kris says, and Rizzo slides his gaze sideways, reluctant to lift his head off the pillow. Kris looks older somehow, a couple extra lines on his face that Rizzo's never noticed before. Then again, hotel lighting is never flattering to anyone. Rizzo's ass always looks suspiciously big in hotel mirrors, he does not approve. "Understanding is kind of a letdown, I guess."
"I'm distracted because I'm not a morning person," Rizzo says, proud of himself for managing a functional sentence. "Wait. Wait. What the fuck are you doing in my bed?"
He levers himself into a sitting position, but Kris continues to lie there, looking all restful and unfairly attractive and wow, Rizzo's morning brain has no filters at all. He shoves that thought away.
"I'm not entirely sure," Kris says, and shrugs. "You told me it happens at some point, and it's weird to finally know why I end up kinda disappointed today. You wouldn't know it, but I worked myself up all night for the courage to ask you to go swimming. I was gutted when you weren't well enough. Sigh. Cockblocked by myself, wow."
Rizzo blinks again. "Do I need to get you to a doctor? You, uh, you sound a little off." That's an understatement for sure.
Kris pulls a wry face, glances across at the clock on Rizzo's bedside table, and shrugs. "You're probably going to want that doctor for yourself in a few seconds. Wouldn't blame you."
"You are making absolutely zero sense," Rizzo starts, "and I—"
He doesn't get to persuade Kris a doctor would be a good idea, because he's interrupted by someone knocking on the door.
"You should get that," Kris says, and crosses his hands behind his head and his legs at the ankle, making the sheets billow up for a moment. "Don’t let him in. You didn't before. Probably best to keep things the same. Butterflies and all that."
The person knocks again and Rizzo gets off his bed, reaching for the standard hotel gown and throwing it on over his boxers and Try Not to Suck t-shirt, and heads for the door. He hopes it's Grandpa Rossy, or maybe someone with more upper body strength, like Zo or Hammer.
Rizzo opens the door, glad to come face to face with someone more sane—
—and he comes face to face with Kris.
Rizzo blinks, and blinks again. It's a recurring theme, okay?
"Morning, Rizzo," Kris says, and smiles at him, and in the brighter light of the hotel hallway, Kris looks just as young as always.
Rizzo keeps the door open just a little, blocking it from opening further with his foot, and he glances backwards over his shoulder to where Kris is also, yes, still lying on his bed, waving at him. What the fuck?
"Rizz?" Kris-from-the-hallway says, sounding worried.
"Uh," Rizzo says, still apparently nothing but eloquent. "Morning?"
Kris-in-the-hallway grins, and Rizzo's temporarily distracted by his dimples, and as usual, considers for a second how they could use Kris' face as some sort of distraction in-game. Blinded by the Bryant. Hell of a play. Rizzo shakes that thought away too. Dammit. He's losing his mind and it's happening in a hotel room in fucking Pittsburgh.
"You said yesterday about maybe checking out the hotel pool since it's been refurbished since last time we were here?" Kris-in-the-hallway asks, still smiling. "I thought maybe I could come with you?"
"Uh," Rizzo says.
Kris' smile doesn't disappear, but it does falter at the edges. "Oh, uh, no pressure. Just if you're feeling okay."
"Yeah," Rizzo says. "I mean no." He winces. "I mean, I want to? But I feel—" He wonders how to say like I'm losing my goddamned mind without Kris immediately going to fetch the men in white coats. "—a little off-color," he finishes. "Rain check?"
Kris-in-the-hallway's smile is definitely fake at this point, but he nods. "See you at lunch, then."
"Sure," Rizzo says, mentally adding if I'm not in a padded room trying to convince Nurse Ratched to let me go to the bathroom. "Lunch."
Kris-in-the-hallway's fake smile slides to genuine concern, and he steps forward, hand outstretched towards Rizzo, and Rizzo jerks back, holding tightly onto the door. He thinks for a moment about opening the door fully, let hallway-Kris see the Kris in Rizzo's bed, and Rizzo realizes just how much of that is at all explainable. Zero. Less than zero.
"Uh," Rizzo says. "I didn't sleep well. I'm sorry."
"Nothing to apologize for," Kris says, immediately, but he's not bothering to even fake smile anymore. "I'll see you later."
Rizzo nods, and Kris walks away. Rizzo leans out into the corridor briefly, to make sure he is seeing what he thinks he's seeing, and then he throws himself back into his own room, slamming the door behind him so hard the fire escape plan fixed loosely to the door rattles. Rizzo stalks towards the Kris still in his bed.
"Okay, buster," Rizzo says. Kris sits up slowly, and Rizzo pushes right into his personal space to push an accusatory finger into Kris' chest. He feels real. All solid and warm muscle and shit, Anthony, now is not the time to feel up your teammate. Or the doppelganger of your teammate. Or his secret identical twin. Or his clone. Or whatever the fuck is going on. "Explain yourself," Rizzo says, prodding him again because he can't help himself before stepping back and folding his arms over his chest.
"I'm Kris Bryant," Kris says. "Only I'm not your Kris Bryant." He tilts his head to one side, watching Rizzo intently. Even in the dim hotel room, his eyes are the brightest blue. They're always very distracting. Rizzo wonders how many of Kris' career walks have been because pitchers have gotten a peep of those baby blues and devastating eyelashes and lost all concentration. More than one, he's pretty sure. "Well, not yet," Kris adds.
"Um," Rizzo says. Mostly because he's still confused. Maybe his confusion is three percent caused because words like your Kris Bryant will always hit him like a warm, fuzzy gut punch.
"I'm 27," Kris says.
"Ah, buddy, see, whoever you are, if you're trying to make me think you're the real Kris Bryant? You've got it way wrong." Rizzo steps back, casting around for something to use as a weapon, because yeah, this Kris has to be some weird sort of impostor. For sure. Rizzo's cellphone is the other side of the room, but the hotel TV is in reach. Pick it up, throw it at fake Kris, run for the hallway and raise the alarm by shouting like hell. Rizzo needs to buy time. Talking seems to be doing it for this fake Kris. "I'm the one that's 27, man."
"In this time, yeah," Kris— fake Kris— says. "But that's because I'm not from this time. I'm from the future."
"Sure you are," Rizzo says, and makes a lunging grab for the TV.
"I can prove it!" Fake Kris yells.
Rizzo looks back over his shoulder skeptically. Fake Kris is sitting with his palms out. Now he's not lying in the bed under covers, Rizzo can see what Fake Kris is wearing — a pair of ash-grey sweatpants, and a blue t-shirt that reads Chicago Cubs, 2016 World Series Champions in heavily faded text.
This is probably the most elaborate hoax Rizzo has ever been hit with, and he wonders with sinking dread where the cameras are. The others are never going to let him live this down.
Rizzo snorts. "Sure you can, buddy. Go on, prove to me how you're from the future."
"Okay, so I can't prove to you I'm from the future exactly—" Fake Kris says.
"Ha, knew it."
"—but I can prove we've become closer over the last three years by telling you things that you told me in confidence. Things you've never told anyone else before," Fake Kris says.
Rizzo makes a song and dance show of rolling his eyes for the benefit of all the hidden cameras making this epic prank happen. "Go ahead," he scoffs.
"When you were eleven," Fake Kris says, "you stole five dollars from your mom's purse. She never knew it was you."
Rizzo narrows his eyes, and feels a tug of guilt because damn, now his mom's probably going to see all of this on YouTube and bust his ass belatedly.
"You cheated on the vocab section of your SATs by copying off the girl sat next to you. You beat your brother's score by ten and never told him it was because you cheated," Fake Kris says. "Once, you accidentally left a tootsie-roll in your locker and it melted, fusing your math textbook to the bottom, and you scraped it off and switched books with Matthew Jacques. Even when you ran into Matthew getting roasted in the parking lot by his librarian mom for disrespecting a book, you never said anything. Once, you ate nothing but RizzOs for three days straight, but told the nutritionist you'd stayed on plan. Oh, yeah, the first time you saw the Frozen storyline on Once Upon a Time, you cried when the Snow Queen—"
"—hey, that's enough," Rizzo says and tightens his grip on the hotel TV.
"And when you were fourteen, you kissed a boy for the first time, and you liked it better than you'd liked anything else, better even than baseball," oh-shit-somehow-not-Fake Kris says, staring at Rizzo, and Rizzo can't look away. "You knew at that point you were gay. And for five minutes, before your Nonna told you that you were a struppiau patz, you thought that's why you got cancer, because you couldn't make yourself like girls the way you should."
Rizzo drops the TV back onto the counter with a thud that sounded a little like someone's getting a bill for those damages. His head is pounding like there's an actual bass drum in his skull. It can't be a prank. The only person he told that to was his Nonna, and she wouldn't have told a soul.
"Your pronunciation is terrible," Rizzo says, slightly dazed. "Um. I guess your accent's okay, for a medigan."
"That's not the first time you've told me that," Fake Kris says. Wait. Future Kris. Rizzo's head hurts. Just Kris, then. It'll have to do for now. Kris leans back on his hands, smiling fondly in Rizzo's direction. "I can't believe you were gonna throw a TV at me, man. I'm mocking you so hard when I get back."
"Get back," Rizzo repeats. He tilts his head. "Back to the future?"
Kris barks a laugh. "Yeah." He makes an amused noise in his throat and gives Rizzo a weirdly appraising look. Rizzo feels self-conscious.
"Do you know— did… did future me tell you how long you were here?" Rizzo asks. Time travel. The possibility is higher that he's insane. Strapped to a bed and drooling, more than likely. He shoots a silent apology to the poor nurse assigned to his bedside. She's probably not paid enough to deal with this kind of shit.
"Not much longer, I think," Kris says, and he gets to his feet, curling his bare toes for a moment in the hotel carpet. He moves a little closer to Rizzo, his eyes never leaving Rizzo's face. "Man, I forgot how cute you were at 27."
"Excuse me?" Rizzo says, aware his heart is racing a little faster, because Kris is moving closer. If Rizzo's not actually severely ill, and Kris keeps shooting little glances at Rizzo's mouth — oh, that's a heady combination of events for sure. Another thought strikes. "Wait, am I not cute in the future?"
"Well," Kris says, "I'm pretty sure I'm the cute one in the relationship, so. Comparably less so, I guess."
Rizzo has to run through Kris' words in his head again before he can parse meaning from them, but by then it's too late — future Kris slides a hand up Rizzo's right cheek, fingertips stroking the skin there like Rizzo's something sure but also something so special, and then Kris leans in and kisses Rizzo.
A warm thrill chases up Rizzo's spine, shoots down his nerves and spreads to every bone in his feet. Kris is patient with the kiss, pressing in with his lips until Rizzo opens up to him, because he can't help it. Because it's something Rizzo's been aching with want for, for months, and pushing down, and pushing aside, and pushing away, and just for this moment, it doesn't matter if it's not real. Rizzo settles his hands on Kris' hips and melts into the kiss, Kris' movements comfortable and awakening all at once.
Kris pulls back after what's probably a few minutes, but what should be labelled instead as not long enough, too short, why did you stop, keep going forever in Rizzo's opinion. Kris' lips are enticingly red, a little swollen, a little kiss bruised, and Rizzo feels like his cheeks are on fire, whoops, stubble burn.
"Damn, I always wondered why you were always so good at that from the very beginning," Kris murmurs breathlessly, his other hand clinging to the back of Rizzo's neck, like he's hanging on for dear life. Rizzo understands the sensation. "Gonna own your ass when I get home for letting me think it was all natural talent."
Rizzo nods, even though he doesn't know exactly what he's agreeing to. "So this— this is going to happen to, uh, my Kris?" His cheeks burn brighter at the phrasing, something that makes this Kris grin shamelessly wide. "He's going to just… disappear one day, and turn up in my bed?"
"Yeah," Kris says.
"And you— you're sure you're gonna go home again?" Rizzo chews on his bottom lip nervously, suddenly worried.
"Yeah," Kris says. "I got some advice from the team shaman after the whole magic thing— I can't really talk about it, but… the goats, man, in 2018, that's gonna blow your mind. And the Championship Cup wish thing, wow. Wow. You've got so much to look forward to, Anthony Rizzo."
Rizzo shakes his head slightly, perplexed and wondering if he ate some bad cheese and is dreaming. "Like you," Rizzo says, because Kris said relationship and kissed him, and he hopes to any god that is listening that he's perfectly sound of mind. Even if it means believing in a future where they have a team shaman? What the fuck?
"Yeah," Kris says. "Like me." He beams and leans in and kisses Rizzo again.
Rizzo smiles into the kiss, closing his eyes to sink into the moment. After a brief second, the pressure against his mouth is gone, and he opens his eyes to an empty hotel room.
Rizzo sinks against the table, shakes his head and touches his mouth thoughtfully.
#
It's weird but Rizzo doesn't think of it much. Mostly because if he remembers the incident, he lingers over it. And if he lingers over it, the ache of not getting to kiss Kris builds in his chest until it's unbearable. And then he's too busy kicking ass, taking names, and, oh yeah, finally winning that glorious wonderful beautiful Championship Trophy.
Rizzo might have maybe sort of slightly shed a tear over the Snow Queen's fate in Once Upon a Time, but he definitely cries a waterfall over the trophy win. So much so he has to run and hide in the Clubhouse a couple of times while the team scream it out in the party room, because the amount of tears are a little embarrassing.
Kris finds him in there the second time, something blue clenched in his hands.
"Overwhelming as fuck," Kris says solemnly, not ragging him for the tears.
Rizzo smiles, because Kris is the best, forever. Throughout time. Rizzo's met future Kris; he knows it for certain.
"Maddon gave us these," Kris says, and holds out a blue item for Rizzo, and Rizzo takes it, putting aside his tissues and unraveling the material. He's slow to grasp what it says as beside him, Kris is unraveling his own and sliding on the brand new t-shirt.
"Hey, what do you think?" Kris asks, tugging down the hem.
Rizzo looks at him, at the bright blue of the new Chicago Cubs, 2016 World Series Champions t-shirt stretched over his chest and wide shoulders. He thinks about how if Kris wears it to bed a lot, it'll probably age quickly, get soft and comfortable and well worn. He doesn't realized he's already crossed the small space between them until his hand is on Kris' shoulder, his fingers registering how soft the material is, already knowing viscerally how much softer it will feel in a couple of years' time.
Kris' eyes are wide and tracking across Rizzo's face, and Rizzo delights in the warm curl of feeling that blossoms in his gut when Kris visibly swallows at his proximity.
"I think," Rizzo says, and he slowly raises up one hand, tentatively, like the whole moment might evaporate with one wrong move, but he has the confidence of a known future to guide him, and his hope is validated when Kris moves imperceptibly to push his cheek into Rizzo's palm, "that it looks amazing on you."
"Yeah?" Kris says, his voice a little high.
"Mmhmm," Rizzo says, and leans in to a kiss that Kris tentatively meets half-way. And if, say, he uses a little of his ill-gotten knowledge in how Kris Bryant likes to be kissed to his advantage, well, future Kris has already promised to own his ass in punishment on his return anyway. If he's gonna do the time, he might as well do the crime.
"Wow," Kris says breathlessly as Rizzo pulls reluctantly away. Kris rests his forehead against Rizzo's, and his breath is warm on Rizzo's face. Rizzo's cheeks burn. Alas, stubble rash is apparently going to be something Rizzo will have to learn to deal with. "What was that for?"
Rizzo shrugs. "I wanted to. Is that okay?"
Kris smiles back. "Way more than okay." He shakes himself slightly. "Damn, though, Rizz, where the hell did you learn to kiss like that?"
Rizzo smothers a smirk. "I had a great teacher. Maybe I'll tell you about it. Sometime in the future."
"Yeah?" Kris' eyes are wide with curiosity. "Why not now?"
Rizzo shrugs. "I'm busy now."
Kris is about to say something, but Rizzo covers his mouth with his own again, and Kris apparently wants the kiss more than he wants answers. When it comes to Kris Bryant, Rizzo understands that feeling completely.
[THREE YEARS LATER]
("I can't believe you let me think that was our first kiss," Kris says.
"Well I can't believe you had a golden opportunity to give us a hint for the future on how to avoid being nearly drowned in goat blood, or that thing with the monster in the party room, or that thing in San Francisco with the kraken and all you said is goats, wow," Rizzo snits back.
"Well," Kris says, "we had fun after each one of those things. I didn't want to spoil you." He narrows his eyes. "I spoil you enough."
Rizzo's eyes crinkle warmly. "Yeah, you do." He tilts his head and opens the covers of their bed invitingly. "I think you promised me something in 2016 about owning my ass, though?"
Kris reaches nonchalantly for the contents of their bedside nightstand. "Well, I like to believe I'm a man who always delivers on his promises.")