by me
Rating: R
Summary: Some musings from both sides.
Notes: Appearance by two of my favorite Baby!Braves
Disclaimer: Tim and John aren't mine. Everyone and everything else is.
***Kyle's POV***
I woke up, and it took me an entire minute to figure out where I was. Damien�s floor, with his head on my shoulder. Blinking, I peered at my watch. It was just after six. My small movements caused him to stir, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes. �Morning,� I said, out of anything better to say.
�Hey. We have practice this morning.�
I groaned. �I better go home then. I�ll see you at seven?�
He stood up and reached down to help me to our feet and didn�t let go of my hand for a minute. �Thanks,� I said finally.
�Oh, yeah,� he said, shaking his head. He let go of my hand and handed me my book. �Bye.�
I waved and left through the front door. I took my time walking home, my hand still tingling from his touch. The air was cold and it felt sharp in my lungs, but it cleared my head some and let me think. About Damien. Of course I hadn�t just assumed he was gay simply because his father was. But sometimes now he looks at me differently. Different from how a friend looks at you. And I think he doesn�t want me to notice.
And he�s so busy trying to keep me from noticing that he misses that sometimes I look at him that way, too. The thought scares me a little, that I can think of my best friend that way, but Coach Titon helped me work the through the being gay thing a long time ago. I unlocked the front door and crept noiselessly through the house. I peeked in at Liz, and she was still asleep, so I�d wake her up before I left at quarter of seven for practice. I closed the door to my room and went to take a shower, checking my watch. It was only 6:15, so I had plenty of time. I stepped under the spray, letting the warm water pour over me and take away some of my weariness. People are not supposed to sleep on floors with 6�4� pitchers using them for a pillow. I squeezed shampoo into my hair.
Not that I complained. The thought of him all cuddled up to me caused a reaction I didn�t really want to deal with. I rinsed the soap out of my hair and checked my watch again. Well. I had plenty of time. I let my hand drift down, lightly brushing my abdomen, and grasped my cock, a small sigh escaping my lips. I have a vivid imagination (all that visualization stuff that pitchers are supposed to use on the mound pays off) and it didn�t take me long at all to conjure up some useful images. The water washed away all traces of my indulgence and I finished washing and turned off the water. I could hear noise from the kitchen as I dressed, my parents were up. Throwing my school and baseball stuff together, I shook Liz awake and went in to at least get a cup of coffee before practice.
�Where were you last night?� Dad asked as Mom gave him a plate of toast.
�Studying at Dame�s house. It was late, I feel asleep, sorry.�
I poured coffee and put the requisite three spoonfuls of sugar and enough milk to cool it as Dad started going on about how he didn�t like that Damien kid. �He seems like trouble to me.�
I rolled my eyes with my back to him. �You don�t even know him.�
�He lives with his father, doesn�t he? That�s bad enough, right there.�
I turned around, sipping my coffee and keeping my emotions to myself. �His dad�s a doctor, though.�
�That means he works a lot. All the more dangerous. You be careful around him.�
�Dad, he�s-� Whatever I was going to say was caught as he grabbed my left wrist tightly, enough to bruise and enough to hurt. Automatically, as I knew he�d reach for me when I spoke, I�d pulled my pitching and arm around behind my back. I�d been doing that for years now, by instinct. I never protected myself with my right arm...I always used everything else to protect it. I�m not a complete idiot.
�Don�t talk back to me!�
�Yes sir,� I managed, and he let go of my arm.
�You need to go, dear,� Mom said, sounding nervous like she always did when Dad hurt me. She poured my coffee, some of which had spilled, out of my left hand and poured into a Styrofoam cup.
Not saying anything, I put my backpack on and slung my bat bag over a shoulder. I took the coffee and left the house, waiting until I was out of sight to let the breath I�d been holding. The bruises were already visible on my wrist, which was aching. Fuck it, I was going to get the third degree from Coach. Like he doesn�t already know what happens.
I spent all of practice trying to hide my arm. I don't know if Damien noticed but he didn�t comment, and Coach didn�t notice. He did, however, go through all of batting practice with a goofy grin on his face that I didn�t realize the origin of until Dame and I were walking to class. �He looks just like Ryan did this morning,� he mumbled.
�Just like...oh. Oh, right.� I�m slow this morning. �So it went well?�
�Yeah,� Dame said, smiling a little as we went into calculus. �I think Ryan really likes him. He really needs somebody, Kyle. I�m kind of realizing that I�m leaving home after this year, and he�ll be alone, and I don�t like that.�
�I hope things work out for them,� I said, sighing.
Dame furrowed his brow. �Are you ok?�
�Yeah, yeah I�m fine,� I waved off his concern. What I really wanted to do was spill everything to him and feel his strong arms around me and hell. I�m never going to get through a calculus test.
****Dame�s POV****
I watched Kyle out of the corner of my eye the entire test and as a result probably failed it miserably.
I don�t get why he won�t tell me what�s bothering him. We�re supposed to be friends, but he doesn�t want to tell me. I sighed and Mr. Kinney looked in my direction. Oh right. Test. I looked back down, but I couldn�t focus on integrating y=x^3-x+4 from -4 to 4 when Kyle was looking all pitiful beside me. Finally, mercifully, the bell rang and I turned in my disaster of a test to Mr. Kinney and pushed my way out of class, waiting for Kyle.
�Nope, Dame, I don�t want to talk.�
�You�re � something�s wrong!�
�No. Nothing�s wrong. Everything is normal, ok?�
He turned down the hall towards his next class and I stood and watched him go, oblivious to the mass of people pushing past me. They way he�d said that...�everything is normal�. I didn�t like the way it sounded. At all. Suddenly normal was scaring me. Finally, I turned to English, trying to calm my own thoughts. He�d said he was ok. He said nothing was wrong. I needed to relax. I took a deep breath, settling back on some pitcher techniques to calm down. He�d be fine. We�d be fine.
Practice was ok. I apologized for prying and Kyle grinned at me and said it was fine and I believed him, so we threw some bullpen and long toss and took batting practice and infield and went our separate ways home. Ryan was already home when I got there, luckily for me, because he�s a great cook and I�m, well, not. It was nice, to have a real dinner with him and talk about our days and stuff. All domestic. Those are kind of rare, between baseball and medicine. So he told me a little about Coach Titon and I told him I was killed by my calculus test even though I know perfectly well how to calculate area under a curve. I offered to clean up, and he smiled at me and disappeared upstairs with the phone.
I finished and started the dishwasher, then went into the living room. A Braves game was on TBS, so I settled down to watch. Atlanta was winning 4-2, already into the bullpen, and one of their young guys was pitching, a hard throwing righty. I watched him get out of the inning and registered that he was absolutely adorable as I watched him go into the dugout and sit next to another young guy I didn�t recognize. The announcers identified Spooneybarger�s companion as John Foster, a recent call-up, then went to commercial.
The camera stayed on those two in the moments before the bottom of the eighth began and Spooney was laughing at something Foster said, the lefty�s arm around his friend�s shoulder and I got a sudden flash of being that lefty, in a major league dugout, being so close to my teammates like that.
Of course, I couldn�t imagine anyone but Kyle in Spooneybarger�s place. Suddenly tired, I flipped off the TV and went upstairs. I could hear Ryan�s soft laughter as he talked on the phone and I couldn�t help the smile that slipped onto my face. To know he�s actually making an effort at a social interaction with someone outside of work is encouraging. I shut the door to my room, and pulled my shirt off, flopping down on my bed, my hand automatically going to the ring around my neck. �How did you know, Dad?� I asked it, wishing the glint of the light off the metal would give me some sudden insight. �How did you know it was Ryan so quickly? I just don�t know...I don�t know what I�m feeling.�
There were no bursts of revelation. I sighed and pulled my pants off as well, tossing them in the general direction of the laundry basket. I flipped off the lamp by my bed and pulled the covers up to my waist, one hand still clenching the ring, even as my eyes drifted shut.
I was pitching. I couldn�t tell the score or anything, but I was wearing home white. I couldn�t tell what team my uniform was for, or who I was playing against. But the stadium was huge, with tons of people. I didn�t feel nervous, though. Just confident. I took the sign from my catcher and threw the ball. It was a strike, apparently strike three, apparently out three, and apparently the end of the game. People, my teammates, piled around me, cheering, and suddenly among the blurry faces I found Kyle, smiling at me. He was wearing a uniform, too. And then he kissed me. It didn�t seem weird to me at all to be kissing him on a baseball field, and then I couldn�t feel anything but that, but his lips, and I think I fell over, but then I wasn�t on the field at all but in a bed, and he was above me. I could see his blue eyes, clouded with passion, just like I knew they�d be, and his blond hair tickled my face. I didn�t even know what he was doing, just that I felt so fucking good, and then he kissed me again...
I woke up gasping for breath. I was so hard it was painful, and there was no way I was just going to roll over and go back to sleep. I pulled my boxers down a little and wrapped my hand around myself, closing my eyes and remembering how he looked in my dream, sweaty and passionate and beautiful above me. Two minutes, and my cum washed over my knuckles. I reached for a towel on the floor and cleaned up some. It was only 2:46, and I pulled the covers back up, over my shoulders this time, and shut my eyes again.
When I woke up again the sun was too high for it to be early. I sat up quickly before the realization that it was Saturday and I didn�t HAVE school washed over me, and I settled back into bed, sighing. My dreams were pretty screwy. And pretty enjoyable, I had to admit.
It was still only 7:30 and my body wanted more sleep. I settled down again and slept three more hours without dreaming. The doorbell woke me this time and I put on clean boxers before going downstairs. Kyle was standing there, and he blushed when he saw me. Like he hasn�t seen me in various stages of undress every day since tryouts started. �Sorry, did I wake you?�
�Nah, I was up,� I lied. �What are you doing today?�
�I don�t know,� he shrugged, stepping inside. �But I thought I�d see if you wanted to do it with me.�
�Yeah...just give me a few minutes to get ready, kay?�
He nodded and went into the living room while I showered really quickly and dressed. �So where do you want to go?� he asked me as we stepped into the sunshine.
�I don�t know...you�re the one who came over here.�
�Well, I was hoping you�d have a plan,� he said sheepishly, and I laughed, suddenly really happy. For no other reason than I was with my best friend. It didn�t matter what we did, I was glad we were doing it together.
I was struck by the total cheesiness of that thought and the only thing that crossed my mind was, �maybe that�s how you know.�
TBC...