[Fic] Double Play
Jun. 20th, 2009 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coley_merrinTitle: Double Play
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: G
Pairings: Kibum/Donghae
Genre: AU, baseball
Summary: On the field, they were a team... Off the field, it's anyone's game.
Fic Archive
***
Part One ** Part Two
***
Baseball was a serious game. Intense, pensive. It could also be equal parts gleeful and competitive. The team rose and fell together... As a team. They had their own places, things they were better at, and he didn’t know anyone on the team that didn’t love the game. There were rhythms to baseball, a logic to baseball. It was luck and talent, heartache and fun.
It was their game.
Some loved it more obviously than others, though. Donghae, who was his other set of arm and glove, was not shy about showing it at all. During practice rolling in the short grass with a belly-shaking laugh, sending Kibum wide grins in the middle of games as something went their way. Sometimes he seemed sixteen rather than twenty six. In the dugout, Donghae sat at his knee as they waited, their places in the lineup far enough apart that they had time to discuss the previous inning, and any plays. He saw enough of those smiles in the months since he had joined the team that he could probably count Donghae’s teeth just by closing his eyes.
He was not the first player out of the dugout when they won a close game, as the crowd around them cheered or dripped with discontent. He wasn’t the first player into the mob when they got the last out and men churned around each other like ants on food as they celebrated.
It took him a while to realize, as he was patted and buffeted, and smiles broke out all around - it felt great to win! - that when he turned his head to see who had squeezed him into the crush, who had yanked him into the celebration, that it was almost always Donghae’s smile he saw. Even if they were separated by ten whooping men, it seemed their eyes caught, Donghae’s alight as though he were shouting, Kibum, isn’t this amazing?
He loved baseball, he accepted the fame, and he worked hard. Donghae loved it, but where Kibum was quiet and did what he needed to do... Donghae was tireless, fearless. As short stop he leaped after balls he had almost no chance of getting, and sometimes... He got them. But to his own detriment. Kibum had stopped counting the number of scrapes and cuts he’d watched being bandaged up, as the trainer clucked at him. Kibum had begun to feel it every time he watched Donghae’s shoulders thud into the dirt, watching a ball triumphantly emerge from Donghae’s glove, and arc into Kibum’s waiting one as though there was a string between them that guided it.
People chattered that they were the best active team in baseball. The double plays they turned were flawless. They covered the middle of the field with deceptive ease. An asset to the team.
It was like being complimented for breathing. They could be worse, but there was always, always room to improve.
But the word ‘active’ was key. And it was never so clear as they heard the crowd hush with concern, Donghae’s chest against his arm as they watched Zhou Mi being led off of the field with his injured arm cradled to his chest. A good team was broken just that quickly. It didn’t take physical injury to do it, either. Strife between second baseman and short stop, that distracted from the game, from their goals... It could be devastating. He had learned not to pull away quite so far, so that even the illusion of closeness between them was preserved for Donghae, who seemed to crave it.
“Hey, partner!” Donghae bubbled into his ear, his sunglasses propped on the brim of his cap. “Ready?”
When a ball was screaming through the air, a line drive off of the bat that was heading straight at him, he had no time to think. There was reaction, or there was nothing.
Sometimes he wondered, as he turned to check that Donghae was ready on the field. He wondered if his heart hadn’t reacted for him.
***
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: G
Pairings: Kibum/Donghae
Genre: AU, baseball
Summary: On the field, they were a team... Off the field, it's anyone's game.
Fic Archive
***
Part One ** Part Two
***
Baseball was a serious game. Intense, pensive. It could also be equal parts gleeful and competitive. The team rose and fell together... As a team. They had their own places, things they were better at, and he didn’t know anyone on the team that didn’t love the game. There were rhythms to baseball, a logic to baseball. It was luck and talent, heartache and fun.
It was their game.
Some loved it more obviously than others, though. Donghae, who was his other set of arm and glove, was not shy about showing it at all. During practice rolling in the short grass with a belly-shaking laugh, sending Kibum wide grins in the middle of games as something went their way. Sometimes he seemed sixteen rather than twenty six. In the dugout, Donghae sat at his knee as they waited, their places in the lineup far enough apart that they had time to discuss the previous inning, and any plays. He saw enough of those smiles in the months since he had joined the team that he could probably count Donghae’s teeth just by closing his eyes.
He was not the first player out of the dugout when they won a close game, as the crowd around them cheered or dripped with discontent. He wasn’t the first player into the mob when they got the last out and men churned around each other like ants on food as they celebrated.
It took him a while to realize, as he was patted and buffeted, and smiles broke out all around - it felt great to win! - that when he turned his head to see who had squeezed him into the crush, who had yanked him into the celebration, that it was almost always Donghae’s smile he saw. Even if they were separated by ten whooping men, it seemed their eyes caught, Donghae’s alight as though he were shouting, Kibum, isn’t this amazing?
He loved baseball, he accepted the fame, and he worked hard. Donghae loved it, but where Kibum was quiet and did what he needed to do... Donghae was tireless, fearless. As short stop he leaped after balls he had almost no chance of getting, and sometimes... He got them. But to his own detriment. Kibum had stopped counting the number of scrapes and cuts he’d watched being bandaged up, as the trainer clucked at him. Kibum had begun to feel it every time he watched Donghae’s shoulders thud into the dirt, watching a ball triumphantly emerge from Donghae’s glove, and arc into Kibum’s waiting one as though there was a string between them that guided it.
People chattered that they were the best active team in baseball. The double plays they turned were flawless. They covered the middle of the field with deceptive ease. An asset to the team.
It was like being complimented for breathing. They could be worse, but there was always, always room to improve.
But the word ‘active’ was key. And it was never so clear as they heard the crowd hush with concern, Donghae’s chest against his arm as they watched Zhou Mi being led off of the field with his injured arm cradled to his chest. A good team was broken just that quickly. It didn’t take physical injury to do it, either. Strife between second baseman and short stop, that distracted from the game, from their goals... It could be devastating. He had learned not to pull away quite so far, so that even the illusion of closeness between them was preserved for Donghae, who seemed to crave it.
“Hey, partner!” Donghae bubbled into his ear, his sunglasses propped on the brim of his cap. “Ready?”
When a ball was screaming through the air, a line drive off of the bat that was heading straight at him, he had no time to think. There was reaction, or there was nothing.
Sometimes he wondered, as he turned to check that Donghae was ready on the field. He wondered if his heart hadn’t reacted for him.
***
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 04:20 am (UTC)<3 Thanks! :D:D