Fair Territory

“You’re making me nervous,” Brendon mumbles as Ryan drags him down the long, empty hallway that leads to the locker rooms. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Can you be patient for two seconds, maybe?” Ryan asks, tugging Brendon’s hand and leading him into one of the many meeting rooms on this floor. He shuts the door once Brendon is all the way inside and then he lets out the breath he’s been holding, grinning widely. “I want to ask you a question.”

Brendon, who’s not very amused and is definitely not smiling back, replies, “You couldn’t have asked me this question outside? Or even in the locker rooms? Or hell – in the car on the drive over?”

“I was still trying to figure out exactly what I was going to say to you,” Ryan says, still smiling. He reaches out and takes both of Brendon’s hands in his. “So-”

“Make this fast. I’ve got Alex to meet in five minutes. It’s his first game so he’s probably-”

“Brendon! Stop talking!”

“Oh…Okay. Fine. Go.”

“So. As I was saying,” Ryan glares at Brendon playfully. “We’ve been together for like, a while, right? Six months is a while?”

Brendon nods, narrowing his eyes. “Sure.”

“I love you. You know that, right?”

“Yes and you know I love you too. Ryan-”

“I want you to move in with me.”

“I don- What?”

Brendon blinks, hands still being held by Ryan’s. He’s not sure exactly how to feel right now. Happy, obviously, because his boyfriend just asked him to move in with him. Live with him. As in, live together. Go to sleep together. Wake up together. But apprehensive, too – only because his parents? Yeah, this will not go over well.

“So? What do you think?”

Ryan’s biting his lip now, his grip on Brendon’s hands loosening. Brendon can tell he’s starting to lose the confidence he originally had, now thinking that this was a bad idea. It’s what Ryan does – he pumps himself up, eliminating any doubt or second thoughts and then once he realizes that he might not get the reaction he was hoping for, he cuts back, doubts himself and tries to go back into his little shell that Brendon works hard to get him out of.

“I think I love you more than ever right now,” Brendon is quick to say, removing his hands from Ryan’s and wrapping them around the older man’s waist instead. “I want to. I really, really do.”

Ryan closes his eyes, lets out a disappointed sigh, “But?”

“My parents-”

Ryan groans, pushes Brendon away from him. He turns around and pulls out one of the many chairs that are situated around the long table, sitting himself down in it. His smile is completely gone, now replaced by an irritated expression. “Should have known,” he mumbles angrily.

“Ryan!” Brendon whines, pouting in the way that he knows gets Ryan to feel bad for him. “Ryan you should have known that my parents would obviously play a role in this! I’m nineteen! Of course they’re going to have to!”

“Can’t you make the decision for yourself? You’re not a child – they should accept whatever decision that you want to make!”

“I know. You’re right. But all I’m saying is that I want to run it by them first. I just want to tell them. I…They mean a lot to me, Ry. They’ve supported me in everything I’ve wanted to do. I could at least give them something back by trying to see what their opinion would be first.”

Ryan doesn’t want to agree with him, Brendon can tell. He wants Brendon to just say yes – accept the invite to move in and just not care about what his parents will say or think. But Brendon also knows that Ryan knows how much his parents mean to him. So he’s not going to just tell Brendon what to do.

“Fine. We can drop by their place tonight and talk to them about it.”

-&-

Seeing the stadium from this point of view is incredible, Alex decides in the third inning. He’s standing on the steps that lead up to the field, watching the very first game of his career as a bat boy. Brendon is beside him, chattering about something to do with the way the other team’s colors clash, or whatever. Alex isn’t paying him much attention, occasionally offering a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. He’s too enthralled by what’s playing out in front of him. He’s closer to this field than he’s ever been before. He finds himself sort of wishing that his dad weren’t so pissed off with him. He would have enjoyed this.

“You are not even listening to me,” Brendon observes, clearly not amused. He leans his arms on the fence, shakes his head and punches Alex in the arm to grab his attention. The younger boy flinches at the contact, but his attention is now completely on Brendon, just as he wants it to be. “I was telling such a good story!”

“I’m sorry,” Alex apologizes, blushing under Brendon’s annoyed stare. “I just…I’m excited. This is so…”

“Cool?”

“That’s one word for it,” Alex agrees, glancing back over his shoulder. For the past hour since the game started, he’s been trying to work up the nerve to talk to a few of the players. Martin Johnson has been the nicest out of all of them, voluntarily sitting next to him after he comes in from the field after pitching. Ryan Ross is a close second, but Alex is sure that’s only because he really wants to talk to Brendon. And Caleb and Kyle are cool too. And Gabe Saporta. He’s basically Alex’s baseball idol and he’s been everything Alex thought he would be. But the one person that Alex really wants to talk to that he hasn’t already so far today, is Jack Barakat.

Since the team is up at bat right now, most of them are sitting on the benches, talking amongst themselves and watching the game. Kyle is up at bat and Caleb is on deck, taking a few practice swings. Jack is just sitting there, staring out at the field and not talking to anybody. Alex isn’t sure if that’s because nobody has anything to say to him or he just isn’t in the mood to talk and the other players are respecting that. Alex doesn’t want to upset him – that’d be embarrassing and he’d never forgive himself.

“Is there a reason nobody’s talking to Jack?” Alex finds himself asking just as Kyle strikes out, ending the third inning. The team collectively gets up from the benches, finding their gloves and sunglasses to go back out onto the field. He watches Jack closely, finding him tending to stay farther away from the others.

“Not really,” Brendon responds, taking the bat that Kyle hands him and putting it back in its rightful spot. “He’s just moody. Nobody knows when he’s going to be happy or angry. It’s hit or miss with him.”

“Oh…right. Okay.”

“You should talk to him, though,” Brendon suggests, leaning over the fence and looking back over at Alex. “He’s nice for the most part.”

“I don’t know…maybe.”

Brendon shrugs, looks back at where Ryan is sitting on the bench, talking to Squire, probably about something pitching-related. Then he turns back to Alex, smiling widely as he says, “Ryan asked me to move in with him today.”

Alex isn’t exactly sure why Brendon is telling him this information. They’ve known each other for no more than twenty four hours. Are they suddenly such good friends that Brendon feels as though he can tell Alex the little private details of his relationship? Apparently, Alex decides. But he doesn’t mind at all. Alex has never really had a real friend – not one that talks to him about relationships and stuff like that, at least. All the guys on his school and summer baseball teams kind of hate him. Just because all he talks about is making it to the majors. So Alex will accept his sudden friendship. He might as well.

“Oh, really? How long have you guys been together?”

“Six months. We met in September when I joined the team at the end of the season. We clicked instantly and spent a lot of time together during the offseason. And we started dating in late December. I’ve sort of been waiting for him to ask me, to be honest,” Brendon explains as he picks up one of the baseballs from the floor. “My parents might not be as excited, though.”

“Why not?”

Brendon shrugs. “They’ve always supported me in what I wanted to do. When I said I wanted to go to UNCSA – University of North Carolina School of the Arts – they were fine with it. And that was when I was eleven. Then I told them I was gay in ninth grade and they were fine with that too. Then, I started dating Ryan. And although they weren’t a fan, they still accepted it. But moving in with him? That’s where the issue is going to be.”

Alex nods, trying his best to act like he understands. He doesn’t – only because he doesn’t have parents nice enough to accept his decisions. But he tries, asking, “Why don’t they like that you’re dating Ryan?”

“Because they don’t like that he travels so much. I mean, this job is only until I can get enough money to start paying for school. After that, I’ll be in North Carolina and Ryan will be all over the country. That’s their only problem. But I told them I don’t care and they seem to have accepted it.”

“Oh, well maybe-”

“Urie!” Squire interrupts, calling from the other side of the dugout, “Get over here! I need you!”

Brendon grimaces, rolls his eyes and then makes his way over to Squire, shoulders slumped and signaling that he really just wants to sit down and do nothing, not work. So Alex, now alone for the most part, sits down in an empty space on the bench a few feet away from Ryan and looks out at the field.

The team is winning, but only by one run. They’re playing against the Brooklyn Cyclones, which is the Triple A team of the New York Mets (Triple A meaning the step just below the majors, really). Although the Mets and the Yankees aren’t exactly the biggest rivals in baseball, their triple A teams definitely are. John and the Cyclone’s captain Zack Merrick loathe each other. Alex has never understood why the two teams hate each other so much, but he figures there’s got to be some sort of reason. One day, he swears he’ll find out. Maybe he can ask Brendon about it later. But for now, he just sits in the dugout and watches the game in silence.

Until the guys come back in because it’s their turn to bat. Martin Johnson, who’s been sitting all the way across on the other side of the dugout, wringing his fingers and watching Dallon pitch, is now standing sort of right in front of Alex, still looking as nervous as ever. Jack Barakat notices how nervous he looks and, with a small smirk, he adjusts his batting gloves and rests the bat on his shoulder, striding over to him determinedly.

“Worried that Weekes is gonna blow it?” he asks, elbowing Martin in the ribs, “Calm down buddy. We’ve got this. Don’t have a panic attack.”

“I’m not worried,” Martin mumbles, just loud enough for Alex to catch, before pushing Jack weakly away from him and going back over to the other end of the dugout. He joins Squire where he’s talking to Brendon and looking at a calendar, his hands making big motions. Guess it’s an intense conversation, Alex decides.

Alex is startled when Jack drops down into the empty space beside him. At first, the older boy just unties and reties his cleats, smiling contently to himself. It’s strange, because before he went out into the field at the top of the inning, he looked angry and miserable. But now, he’s playfully poking Ryan’s arm and trying to get him mad, obviously. It’s cute, almost. But it’s confusing and weird and Alex almost wants to get up and move away from him cause he’s kind of creeped out. But he stays because seriously, it’s Jack Barakat. Like Brendon said, he’s hit or miss.

“So, you enjoying the view?” Jack finally asks him, looking over with a big smile and his thumb jerking towards the field. “Sweet, huh?”

Alex widens his eyes slightly, clears his throat and says, “Yeah, it’s awesome,” and he mentally thanks his tongue for not tripping over itself like it usually does. “I never thought I’d be here-”

“Me either, man, but hey!” Jack grins wider, drops his bat by his feet where it makes a loud clunking noise when the wood hits the pavement. “Here I am!”

“Yeah,” Alex mumbles, smiling and looking down at his feet. “Hopefully I’ll be here in a year or two, actually playing the game.”

Jack hums, lifts his left foot up to rest on his right knee cap and he starts brushing the dirt off his shoe. “Tough shit getting moved up from here, though. Seems like it takes a lifetime.”

Alex hesitates, not sure if he should say what he wants to. But Jack seems to be pleasant, seems to be in a talkative mood. So he shrugs his shoulders, leans his head in his hands as he says, “Well you made it there for a while, didn’t you?”

Apparently it’s definitely the wrong thing to say, because as soon as the words leave Alex’s lips, he wants to take them back. Jack tenses up, his eyes grow dark and he furrows his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he spits out, “And they fuckin’ brought me right back down again less than a month later.” He stands up, kicks at the wooden bat he left on the floor. It hits the short wall across from them and everyone turns to look as he stalks off towards the opposite end, all eyes wide and nervous.

Alex sits there, horrified as Jack knocks over the shelf with the batting helmets, sending them all to the floor. Evan, the shortstop hurries out of Jack’s way and Brendon scrambles to pick them up. What the fuck just happened?

-&-

“This is exactly what they were talking about,” Jack mumbles, his head pressed against the wall in the locker room. He sighs, tries to regain his composure, the redness in his cheeks just starting to go away. “Get a grip. Calm the fuck down.”

Talking to himself is not exactly at the top of Jack’s ‘concerns’ list. He sighs deeply again, lifts his head and weakly punches the wall with his fist. He’s fucking pissed at himself. He cracked – again. And at Alex, too. A poor, innocent little high school kid who probably just wanted to have an interesting conversation with a baseball player that he may or may not look up to. He’s probably sitting in the dugout, traumatized. Jack doesn’t blame him. He’s scary when he’s mad.

“Hey Jack? You in here?”

Jack groans at the sound of John’s voice at the other end of the room. Of course he came looking for Jack to see if he’s okay. Of course. He is the captain, after all. He is the one who is the best “team” player. Not Jack. Never Jack.

“I’m here! I’m fine!” Jack calls out, agitated at the fact that John apparently feels like Jack needs a babysitter. “I’ll be out in a few!”

“I…” For a minute, it seems as if John is going to protest and he’s going to continue walking into the room only to try and get Jack to talk to him. But then Jack hears him sigh loudly and say, “Okay,” and the door opens up, the sounds of the game briefly being heard before it’s shut again.

“God,” Jack mumbles, rubbing his knuckles. “Get it together.”

-&-

“My leg keeps cramping,” Grieco complains as he sits down on the bench. He’s just run in from third base, scoring the third run on the game. The team is up by one now, leading 2-1. He catches Flyzik’s eye as he speaks, blushing lightly under his stare.

He’s not sure why, but the way Flyzik is looking at him is making him a bit uncomfortable. Not in a bad way, entirely. Just…he wants to know what it means.

“Did you stretch enough?” Evan asks from beside him.

“Yes…” He’s lying, but he won’t tell Evan that. Him and Flyzik spent most of their allotted warm-up time giggling and laughing and barely getting anything done. He probably should have run that mile that Squire suggested.

“Then it’s weird that you’re cramping,” Rian Dawson says as he starts putting his catcher’s gear back on. “You usually never do.”

Again, Grieco catches Flyzik’s eye just as the physical trainer interrupts and says, “He’s getting a bit lazy.”

Rian laughs, shakes his head, “You would know. You two are practically dating.”

And with that, Rian gets up, cross over to the other side of the dugout where Brendon is leaning over the fence and trying to reach a bat that was left behind by one of the players, leaving Grieco blushing hard and Flyzik laughing. Evan just looks uncomfortable and mumbles something about going to make sure Jack doesn’t punch another wall.

“You look like you’ve just seen you mom holding up a huge ‘We Love You Alex!’ sign,” Flyzik teases, taking the empty space that Evan left behind.

“Shut up. That wasn’t funny, douche.” He weakly punches Flyzik’s shoulder and then buries his face in his hands, his cheeks burning even more at the memory Flyzik just brought up. His mom is embarrassing. Grieco doesn’t like to think about all the things she’s done to embarrass him.

Flyzik laughs and wraps one arm around Grieco’s shoulders, “Sorry. It’s so easy to tease you though.”

“Get off me or else everyone else will think we’re practically dating, too,” the younger boy mumbles.

“Is that such a bad thing?”

Grieco hesitates. No, he thinks, it definitely wouldn’t. But at the same time it definitely would. There’s a line. A very, very thin one. And Kyle and Caleb have crossed it. And, so have Brendon and Ryan (sort of – bat boys aren’t exactly team members). But Grieco isn’t sure he wants to do that. It’d be weird, working with the person you’re dating. Seeing them every day. Traveling with them. Staying in hotel rooms with them. Wouldn’t it be awkward if they had a fight? Or if they broke up? Yes.

“I…I don’t know,” He finally admits, shrugging his shoulders, “I think-”

He doesn’t really get to say quite what he thinks, however. There’s a sudden roar from the crowd, clearly not pleased with something that occurred on the field. The entire team is up from the benches, some of them walking up onto the field. Grieco is confused – most of the players look pissed off, especially John. He’s standing on the top step, glaring at the opposing team’s dugout. Grieco taps Alex, the new batboy, on the shoulder.

“I wasn’t paying attention. What happened?”

Alex grimaces, “DiGiovanni just hit Gabe in the shoulder with a pitch.”

-&-

“You fucking asshole!”

Martin slams his apartment door, the loud ‘bang’ it creates enough to send Kona scrambling out of the room and into the kitchen, tail between her legs. He cares, but yet he doesn’t care at the same time, because he’s furious – no, more than furious. He just can’t pick a word to explain it.

Zack is sitting on the living room couch, TV remote in his hand, pointing at the screen. He was clearly in the middle of flipping through the channels in an attempt to find something for them to watch before bed, but now he’s just staring, frozen, with wide eyes and a bewildered expression. “What did I do?” He asks innocently, but Martin doesn’t buy it.

“You know what you did! Your pitcher hit Gabe on purpose!”

“What?” Zack is standing now, remote control still in his hand. “Are you kidding me?! That’s ridiculous! Why would I-”

“Because Dallon almost hit Kurily in the third inning so of course, you being captain just couldn’t let that go, could you?”

“Martin, you’re being ridiculous! I had no part in that! It was an accident!”

“I’m really not! Now Gabe’s got a bruised shoulder and that’s his throwing arm so he’s probably going to have to sit out for a day! Thanks a lot, asshole!”

Martin throws him one last glare before huffing and turning around to go into the kitchen. He pulls a water bottle from the fridge, picks Kona up from her hiding space underneath the table, and then heads back out into the living room. “Goodnight,” He says, emotion void from his voice. He walks down the short hallway to the bedroom and closes and locks the door behind him.

As he’s getting dressed into his sweatpants and t-shirt, he hears Zack on the other side of the door, shuffling his feet. He ignores it, rolls his eyes as he stands next to the bed. He’s pissed off. He knows the way it goes – the opposing pitcher almost hits your batter so you’ve got to retaliate and do the same, actually hitting them. It’s the most ridiculous thing in baseball (in Martin’s opinion) and it fucking sucks that Zack went along with it.

“Don’t you trust me?” Zack mumbles from outside in the hall and Martin hears him rest his forehead on the door. When he gets no response, he says. “Fine. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Martin groans, sits down on the edge of the bed. Kona snuggles up beside him, licking his hand and nuzzling her nose into his side. Winning the game today is now completely insignificant.