Archive of Our Own ^beta

i.

A light enters the shadows of the grove with far less caution than many others. There is death here, held in the network of roots and whispered by the wind between the branches. Knots in the tree bark blink at the sudden intrusion; and, in fact, the light blinks back.

Sutton Picklestein does not know these trees. That, at least, is not a side effect of the death or necromancy. That is not the result of going away. Sutton does not know these trees because when Sutton was alive, they knew better than to come here. Even now, the ground shifts and breathes as the trees search for something new to consume.

Sutton has been consumed. Sutton has been consumed, revived, consumed, revived, and so on. They still remember the cold-damp-wet of the undertow, feel it tugging at their shins when they stand still too long; the trees of the Grave Grove, in comparison, are hardly a blip.

They take a seat on the mossy earth and let the glow beneath their skin fade, become a dim ambience rather than a spotlight. This is how Owen finds them, later, peaceful even as the roots reach up from beneath to grip their thighs.

Sutton, Owen flickers, too quick, too fast. Sutton, the trees.

Sutton would smile if they had a mouth to do so. Instead, they nod their head slowly. Their own light is dull in comparison to Owen, but they still flicker fine.

They like the dead, Sutton explains. A root creeps its way up their thigh; Owen reaches out to swat it away, but Sutton cuts Owen off. Let it be. I’ve survived worse.

Owen is still full of hesitation. Sutton can see it in the line of Owen’s shoulders, the way Owen’s fingers press into the skin of Owen’s palm.

Sutton pats the earth beside them. Come on, sit. They won’t bother you.

It’s one of the benefits, Sutton thinks, of having died twice. No one ever wants to deny them the small pleasures of living, even if those pleasures are sitting quietly in a forest of the dead. And, predictably, Owen is not immune; after just one moment more of doubt, Owen drops to the ground beside Sutton.

Owen takes hold of their hand. Sutton allows it.

Just one moment more.

ii.

There is someone waiting for Oscar when they arrive to the park. This is hardly a surprise; never have they been able to come or leave from this place without Bevan the Wise knowing about it, without the old man himself showing up to demand some kind of explanation for behavior Oz would consider excessively ordinary.

“Well, well,” Bevan intones, with his arms crossed over his chest. The sun is setting, turning the sky a deep red; it would be an imposing picture, if not for the bedraggled state of Bevan’s robe and hat.

“Lose a game of tag again?” Oz asks. “Or is the singed hem an intentional choice?”

Bevan scoffs, but Oz doesn’t miss the way he shifts to push the tail of his robe behind him and out of view. “I was dealing with important matters you would never understand.”

“So you were trying to shave your beard with a fireball again.”

That finally gets him to cough and sputter in indignance, and Oz doesn’t even try to hide their satisfaction. They move past him with more smoke than is strictly necessary; if their hoofprints set small fires off amidst the patchy grass and dirt, it’s hardly their concern.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Oz says. Their eyes scan the trees on the horizon, the river rushing past, Washer’s geyser spouting off in the distance.

Nothing has changed in all this time. Nothing here reflects the ordeals they’ve been through. The ache in their chest is nothing but anger, the frustration of not being properly appreciated. It could never be anything more; they have not missed this place, not for one moment.

Bevan grunts and once again stomps around to stand in front of Oz, between their harsh gaze and the rest of the park. “Haven’t done anything. Just let it do what it wants, you know that. Now shoo, you’ve seen what you want.”

“How do you know what I want?” Oz counters. But they don’t move to push past Bevan a second time. If nothing has changed, if no one has been waiting for them, then what more is there to see?

Something in Bevan’s expression shifts. He rocks back on his heels and lets out a gravely sigh. “There’s a new shelter with your name on it. Told them not to bother. It’s even got your ugly mug hanging inside.”

“Ah,” Oz says, and doesn’t allow their voice to betray them one single, solitary inch. “I see.”

“I’m headed to clean up the trash bins. If you want to see, you’ve got to help. Fair trade.”

Oz takes a moment to consider. They cross their arms over their chest and nod. “I suppose I have time to help an old man.”

That sets Bevan off again, back to calling Oz every name under the sun even as he makes his way back into the park and motions for them to follow. It’s almost like old times. Almost.

iii.

It is difficult for a rover to conceptualize an absence. Cory-12 is aware of this discrepancy. Cory exists to analyze what is there, and Cory cannot analyze something when that something is not with Cory. This is the extent of what it means to miss a thing, to Cory’s understanding.

In this way, Cory has missed Yellowstone. And, as far as Cory can tell, it is in this way that Eizabeth has missed Cory. She runs up to the top of the hill Cory is sitting on at a speed that would be considered atypical and, upon reaching Cory, kneels down to place two hands on Cory’s ocular attachment.

“Cory-12,” she says, displaying ten teeth in an abnormally large smile. “How did you get here?”

Rovers are designed to cross long stretches of hostile terrain.

“You walked?” Eizabeth runs a hand over the top of one solar panel. It comes away covered in dried mud. “You could have asked one of us to come and get you! We have time for those kinds of things now.”

That would be a waste of resources.

Eizabeth rolls her eyes. Cory rotates a camera lens. Eizabeth laughs, and Cory rolls back and forth just slightly. It is not joy; it is a repetition of interactions developed based on previous data collection. But Eizabeth pats the top of Cory’s camera, just like the data indicated she would, and Cory knows now that the data does not need to be updated to match this universe. This is a positive result.

“Next time you want to come home, just tell me,” Eizabeth insists. She stands fully and looks down at Cory, eyes narrowing. “You haven’t kept me up to date on your research.”

This query is one Cory had prepared for. Cory pops open a hatch on Cory’s sample compartment, revealing several dozen rocks and plant samples collected from the Boston Gardens.

My systems need to be recalibrated to properly categorize these samples against those found in Yellowstone.

Eizabeth gasps, leaning forward to get a better look at what Cory has brought to her. She reaches in and plucks out a potted plant, juniperus communis.

“Wow,” she says. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Rovers are not programmed to feel joy. But Cory thinks the data collected so far renders this interaction a success, and that is very nearly the same.

iv.

There aren’t any tunnels. In her memory, there had been; she had stepped through the doorway between second and third, and the tunnels had spread out before her like an anthill. Tiana hadn’t wanted to walk through them at the time. She wanted to go home. But there hadn’t been an exit, then, and there was no one to ask for help.

There’s still no one to ask for help. Or maybe there are people, somewhere, but Tiana doesn’t have the words to form a question.

She knows the basics. Start with one of the five W’s, and then a verb. The subject should come at the end. Eiz had explained it once before, writing out the grammar on a notebook in her lap, but it wasn’t what Tiana needed. Tiana knows the questions she wants to ask. They sit on the tip of her tongue, but they get caught up behind her teeth, her lips. They never quite make it out.

What happened to me? Where did I go? What does it mean to lose your soul?

Tiana wants to ask them now. There’s no one around to hear; only her and the doorway to the secret base, standing in the quiet of the early morning. It wouldn’t answer and she knows that. It feels silly to even consider something so empty and void would have answers. She certainly doesn’t.

“How,” she starts anyway, and then pauses. Tiana presses her lips together in a thin line and hums, hums until her lips start to tingle unpleasantly and she remembers what it means to have them. “Why?”

The empty doorway doesn’t answer her. It has fewer words than she does. She feels, as she often does, that there are answers hidden in there somewhere. The tunnels still exist, and she could find what she needs if she would just open the door one more time.

“Tiana?” Logan’s voice jolts her, and Tiana realizes with a start that she’d been reaching a hand toward the empty space in front of her. “What are you doing here?”

He’s got a trash bag in one hand, half-full of old paper plates and cups. Tiana considers for a moment if she should lie, if she should tell him that she was out here cleaning up. But the truth is hard enough sometimes, and falsehoods are even harder. So she doesn’t bother.

“I want answers,” she says, the best attempt at summarizing the void of understanding inside.

Logan’s eyes flicker between her and the secret base, once, twice. He takes the trash bag and ties it shut, throwing it over one shoulder. “I think we should get you something to eat. Tea?”

It’s not what she wants. But then, Tiana thinks, it would be very hard to find what she’s looking for anyway. She nods, and when he makes his way off the field, she follows after.

v.

Kurt has gotten used to fishing in San Francisco. The water is different there than she’s used to, salty and colder and home to things with sharper teeth, to stronger currents. This, he thinks, is vastly preferable; sitting on a lake still enough to reflect the sun up above, or clear enough to see straight through. The wind sends ripples over the surface and gently rocks the tiny rowboat, but Kurt has never minded that too much.

It’s easy to fall into a rhythm. Bait the line, cast it out into the water, reel in a catch and then release it. Bait, cast, reel, release. Kurt’s calloused fingers take to the work diligently and without complaint, and the fish seem to take the whole ordeal with grace. Kurt will thank them all later, and the lake and the sun and the park itself, once the silence has shifted from meditative into something more overbearing. But it is not the time yet; for now, the only sounds are the hiss of the fishing line and the buzz of the insects in the trees at the edge of the water.

They should come home more often.

The thought arrives unbidden, unprompted and perhaps even unwanted; Kurt barely manages to avoid pricking their finger on a fishhook in surprise. This has not been home for quite some time, and even San Francisco needed to work to earn that designation. There are parts of this park that leave a bitter, metallic taste on the back of her tongue, places she would rather never visit again.

But with that said, she knows it’s right. This is a home, and could become hers again if she would only let it. It is not that simple, but it could be someday.

The scales of a fish flash silver in the water beside Kurt’s boat, bumping softly against the wood and jolting him out of his thoughts. Kurt has fallen out of his rhythm, and the lake has noticed. He offers a quiet apology and begins once again.

Bait, cast, reel, release. Repeat.

vi.

It used to be that eight arms was not enough. Inky remembers the struggle of trying to pick who would get hugs all at once and who would have to wait, an ordeal that sea found stressful at the time. But in comparison, there is something much harder about wrapping shore arms around a team half the size of what sea’s used to.

There is no need to push or pull or negotiate. Inky walks into the break room and can, all at once, wrap all of shore former teammates up in shore many arms and pull them close. It is everything sea had hoped for, except for the part where so many people are missing.

“Welcome back, Inky,” Francisco mutters into the soft flesh of shore uppermost left tentacle. “It seems like maybe you missed us?”

Inky squeals and nods shore head vigorously, despite the way it tips everyone off-balance and almost sends the whole group careening to the floor. Bevan shouts in indignation and Eiz lets out a loud laugh, and Inky is so happy sea wants to rotate through every color in the book until sea finds the one that fits best.

It is hard to be away. It seems harder to come home, sometimes, when sea knows other people are sad without shore there. But with everyone pulled close together like this, laughing and joking and pulling to get away, Inky wonders why it is that sea took so long to visit.

Francisco is laughing, too, still smiling at Inky despite the way he’s struggling to catch his breath and stay upright. “I have great news for you, buddy. Everyone else is already here. They’re waiting outside.”

Octopodes move much faster in water than on land. But Inky doesn’t really let that stop shore from hurrying out the back door, as quickly as shore many legs will allow, to find the remainder of shore teammates gathered at a picnic table in the sunshine.

There are not a lot of perfect days in blaseball, and Inky has learned to live with that. Sea takes a deep breath and burbles quietly, preparing to fully enjoy the opportunity to tackle the rest of shore team to the ground.

vii.

The coarse fur beneath her fingers is as close to a familiar sensation as Chorby can get, these days. Big 6 is steady and patient beneath her as she adjusts her weight and finds a place for her feet, leans forward to press her stomach to their spine.

“Take me to first base,” she says, the words halting and stilted. And Big 6, just as they always have, begins the trek over rough terrain faster than her own legs might carry her.

There is a hollow, empty space in her chest. It came with the loss of her soul, she knows, although knowing the cause has not let her come up with any kind of resolution. No amount of new teams, of staring at the New York skyline or digging her fingers into Boston earth, has fully repaired the damage.

Even here, balancing herself against Big 6’s familiar gait, she can’t quite find the missing pieces. But she breathes in, and the crisp air of an oncoming autumn fills her lungs, and that is almost enough.

Big 6 reaches first base faster than Chorby wants them to. But the ride isn’t over yet, as they turn and begin the trek to second without her prompting. She feels their heartbeat, slow and unchanging, in the tips of her webbed fingers.

Chorby holds on tighter as their hooves splash through the river between bases, and the feel of cold water on her legs startles a laugh out of her. The noise spurs Big 6 on, makes them pick up pace until they’re nearly running.

Their hooves thump, thump, thump against the ground as they round second and race for third. Chorby pushes herself upright at long last, holds both hands over her head and watches the earth fade to a blur beneath them. The wind whistles past her ears, and she is hollow but she is living, and she can feel the way the world around her resonates with the sentiment of not-quite-being.

When Big 6 reaches third base, she does not need to tell them what to do. They are ready and racing and moving, but she grabs hold of them again anyway and urges them forward.

“Take me home,” she insists, voice still barely above a whisper.

Big 6 does, just as they always have.