#sunkillr

there are things jaylen would say if she were a little more brave and a little more cruel. allison, do you know what it’s like? being given one damn way to survive, to take the chance that’s been offered you, and then be blamed for taking it? it makes her sound so fucking innocent, doesn’t it? oh, it isn’t jaylen’s fault. it’s the only way. you’re the one who brought her back; you, allison, and the garages, and every person who got her on that fucking leaderboard, and every person behind the scenes. everyone who put their filthy hands on the binding of the forbidden book and pried it open five years ago. she’s just making sure it wasn’t all for nothing. isn’t that a good thing? shouldn’t they be grateful?

it’s the aftermath of what the news has dubbed as ruby tuesday, and the tigers’ ranks have been decimated down in hades. jaylen is... jaylen would like to believe this is simple. jaylen is simplifying it, in her mind; she’s focusing on the rush of life that sparked her heartbeat into threefold strength after the game was over. it’s almost two months into the season and she hadn’t realized, until the comparison was offered, how dead she still felt. not until she felt alive; some of the smoke siphoning off her skin, dispersing in the air. she is thinking about billowing chimneys, not about the lives she’s taken.

maybe that line of thought doesn’t explain why she’s shown up at the steaks’ stadium. she isn’t pitching today. the time between games tends to skip and glitch and dance around like a busted record player, screeching all the while, but it’s moving in a straight line for once. jaylen thinks that’s ‘cuz of the deaths, but it’ll take more before she can confirm the theory. so she’s in dallas and now she’s in front of allison, and if it’s not to absolve a guilt she doesn’t feel then she doesn’t know why she’s there — because allison doesn’t want her there, and the garages don’t want her in seattle, and nobody’s ready to deal with the fucking consequence her resurrection brings.

maybe that’s why she’s there. ding. got it. she is a consequence. allison looks at her like a ghost, the garages look at her like a murderer. the truth is somewhere in the middle. the truth is unavoidable. 

‘ not having fun, al? ’   jaylen puts on her best grin. it’s the kind she’d give the audience from the stage of a run-down basement show back with the band; the kind that says keep your distance, these teeth are sharp. it’s got more bite to it, now that everyone knows what she’s capable of.

‘ y’know, ’   she says, dropping her voice lower. like it’s a secret, or an oath. something she doesn’t want to say or something allison won’t want to hear.   ‘ you look at me like i’m different, now. you and the band. you all do. but you trusted me before, didn’t you? ’   jaylen gives her a look, roughly translatable to i know you did, we both know you did. crosses her arms over her chest.   ‘ i haven’t changed. maybe you forgot in the last five years, but i’m exactly the person you all decided to bring back from the dead. same old me. ’

if jaylen’s being honest, the garages aren’t a good team. they’re middle-of-the-line as far as the whole league goes, but solidly at the bottom of their division; the fucking moist-talkers are better than them, and jaylen takes that as a personal point of offense, because, y’know, the whole goddamn country of canada and they couldn’t even think of a name for their team that wasn’t gross as hell?

the point here isn’t to ramble on about how shitty the garages are. the point is that jaylen doesn’t care how much they win.

or, y’know, she cares, she’d love to see her team make the playoffs someday, but she loves her team regardless of their star-rating. there’s this feeling she gets when she walks out to the pitcher’s mound, like her heart is about to fucking burst from joy. this sparkle in her eye visible from the goddamn nosebleeds. she loves playing with them, loves going to shitty bars afterwards, loves playing bass during their pre-game and post-game and between-game jam sessions. she loves the garages.

(she might love allison, too. it’s easy to put a word like that to a group; divide the weight of it out between a dozen-or-so of her best friends. harder to apply it to a specific person. she’s figuring it out.)

jaylen wouldn’t trade any of the garages for the world, which is why looking at the election options and seeing steal the top five players and steal a hitter and steal a pitcher gives her fucking hives. most of the team isn’t at risk, but jaylen’s rating is good and only going up from here. she pours her heart into the game. all for the garages. she wouldn’t do that on another team.

the rest of the garages have left, gone back to the hangar to celebrate winning a game. not gonna be enough to get them to the playoffs, but it’s nice, nonetheless. really showed the spies who’s boss. jaylen’s up in the stands, surrounded by the litter of the crowd; peanut shells fucking everywhere and empty plepsi cans and a couple’a big foam fingers sharpied to look like hot dogs, someone’s sunglasses and someone else’s hat and some spies’ fan’s terrifyingly hyperrealistic mask, possibly of their own face. 

she’s been trying to picture what the fans see when they look down at her from here. she’s been trying to picture what it’d be like, playing for another team. if their fans would see her the same way. if any of them actually see her, or just an arm that throws decent fastballs every once in a while, detached from anything real.

allison comes and sits next to her. allison always sees her.

jaylen says,   ‘ what would we do if one of us got traded? ’   we, general, as in the garages, as in the team, the band, the family. we, specific, as in she and allison. whatever sort-of maybe tentative something is there. she’s vague on purpose.

@sunkillr​:   we’ll see the places where we met to share our secrets again.

it’s relentlessly hopeful and jaylen can’t help but smile. even with all her useless fucking turmoil over results that’re still a week away, seattle’ll always be home. the buzzing hum of the overhead lights in the stadium, lit for only the two of them. the feeling of seeing allison’s nail bat glinting in the lights across the field.

‘ yeah, ’   jaylen says. leans back in the chair, eyes to the ceiling. through the skylights, she can see a sliver of the sunset. everything’s all pink and orange.   ‘ sounds romantic when you put it like that. all... romeo and juliet, clandestine meetings under cover of night, forbidden romance, etcetera. i mean, minus the ending. not planning on dying anytime soon. ’

jaylen’s not sure she was ever so fucking conscious of all the warring impulses that make up a person before her untimely demise. case in point: the mix of emotions boiling up her veins, making her pulse boom-boom-boom when she rests her fingertips against the fragile bits of her own neck, is indescribable. she wants to see allison. she knows that her pitches have been doing... something, to players she hits. her aim is off. it’s more than aim. she doesn’t wanna hit someone on allison’s team, or allison herself. she doesn’t know if that’s true. if she cares, or just wants to think she might care. the flicker-glow of death seethes from jaylen’s skin. there’s debt to be paid. she’s been around long enough to know that isn’t good, regardless of whether or not the effects are clear to her, yet. (they won’t be for another week. part of her already knows. violence begets violence. death begets more death. there is always a fucking price to be paid in blood.)

jaylen was dead, and a part of her will always be dead. it’s contagious, y’know?

games tend to blur these days. one moment, she’s in the hotel the team’s gotten for their overnight stay in dallas. it used to be that they’d double or triple or quadruple up on rooms, pile onto a king-size and do shitty karaoke between games ‘til they got a noise complaint. jaylen always seems to have a room to herself, now. doesn’t know if the garages’ budget got bigger or if it’s fear that keeps her teammates distant, puts walls between them. the next minute, she’s on the field, lining up a pitch. (ball. strike. strike. strike. and a steaks batter’s out. someone she doesn’t recognize. they didn’t play the steaks many times season one. batter recognizes her, clearly, but everyone does, don’t they?)

and it’s the bottom of the third, and she hits a steak. marco something. and it’s the top of the sixth, and allison gets a home run. and it’s the bottom of the sixth, and jaylen hits another of the steaks. she sees the pair of them shining over on the bench, corner of her eye. and it’s the bottom of the ninth and the steaks have won, but they’re fussing over marco whatever and sam whoever, all worried even if they can’t see the deathsmoke jaylen can, and that feels like a sort of victory, too, in some distant and hazy way —

and then it’s after the game.

she blinks and she’s outside the stadium, got a cigarette in one hand, leaning against the wall cool-as-can-be. doesn’t question how she got out there. nothing about blaseball’s ever been linear; the endless games of the void move so fast, anyways, she was blurring nonstop by the time mike pulled her outta there. what’s a couple minutes lost compared to that? she doesn’t realize she’s been watching the exit doors ‘til the person she was watching for comes out of them, and then it’s crystal-clear.

they haven’t talked since jaylen came back. it’s one of the few things she can very solidly say that she wants, talking to allison. something a little normal amidst all the... you know. all the blaseball. it’s weird out here.

‘ al, hey, ’   and jaylen’s already half-jogging to catch up. spares a half-second for thinking about the way the game went, the pitch-hits, the void lingering around the edges of her. spares even less time thinking about the impossibility of what if she doesn’t want to talk to me.

once those thoughts are out of the way, though, she doesn’t know what to say. there’s options, sure: try not to get on any umps bad sides, being burned alive is really, really painful (too honest); i’ve missed you (definitely too honest); good game (too... distant); i’ve missed you (same fucking problem as before, jesus christ, jaylen, get it together).   ‘ you did good out there. wish you were still with us, of course — coulda really used that home run. but, y’know. good job. ’