The Baseball AU (or Happy Birthday were_duck!)

[fullygoldy]

Because I am not awesome enough to write something new in time for were_duck 's bday (today!) and because I will probably never actually finish this thing (which is 2 yrs old already!), I am sharing now.  My first fannish DW post!  Something wot I wrote! Something that combines were_duck 's fledgling interest in the one-true-sport and her (OUR) OTP!

 

The Baseball AU

 The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian American League baseball team with an up-and-down history. Sometime in 2004, their owner just becomes underwhelmed and decides to sell them. The only person interested and able to take the team is a multi-millionaire heiress, Elizabeth Weir, and the only city she can persuade to take on her whim of the moment is Charlotte, NC. Weir is an old-school baseball fan, thanks to the influence of an older, beloved relative from Atlanta, so she gives a lot of thought to renaming the team. She settles on The Charlotte Blues, as a nod to the Jays’ former history, and a thanks to their new home nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As a side-benefit, the Blue’s team colors don’t even have to change much. Unfortunately, Charlotte doesn’t actually have a state-of-the-art baseball stadium, so the Blues will have to share Bank of America Stadium with the Carolina Panthers for the first couple of years, until Weir can get one built for them.

Now the Blues have another problem. They have this pitcher, a Canadian, that’s really upset about being uprooted from his “home” town, where he’s the local hero. Yankee Stadium may be “the house that Ruth built,” but Rodney McKay is Toronto’s golden boy, the master of the hill, with a real talent for saving his own game. His genius on the mound is legendary, but he lost his juice when his long-time catcher was involuntarily retired in 2003 as a result of defending home plate. 2004 was a terrible year for McKay. He lost a record number of games; catcher after catcher refused to partner him after increasingly disastrous outings. None of them were willing to tolerate his tirades on or off the mound, nor could they calm or settle or even handle him in the way needed to keep McKay’s performance steady. Weir’s received tons of unsolicited advice on how to handle the “Rodney problem,” and the calls for trading him have increased in volume and pitch as the season opener looms, but she’s determined to bring him back into the fold. She knows he could return to his former glory if only the Blues can acquire the right catcher. Spring training goes okay for the team, and they’re mostly looking forward to the new season in their new home, but McKay is still half of an un-energized battery. 

~~~

Weir arranges a soiree for the luxury box crowd to meet their new team up close, and McKay grudgingly attends. He manages not to snap off too many heads by planting himself between the bar and the buffet, and keeping his mouth too full for insult-slinging. Late in the evening, he spies Weir crossing toward him with purpose, towing a rather fit and messy-haired man in her wake. “Rodney McKay, this is John Sheppard. He’s your new catcher, and I’m expecting him to last the season.” This is punctuated by an eloquent glare and delicate eyebrow lift combo. McKay musters his everyday level of sarcasm, which is usually enough to cow anyone in his path, to greet the interloper.

“McKay, it’s good to meet you too. Oh hey, is that …?” Sheppard swipes the last shrimpy delight from Rodney’s plate, pops it in his mouth and grins around his prize. Weir is obviously suppressing a chuckle at Rodney’s outraged squawking.

“Rule number one.” A blunt finger is pointed at John. “Never, never, take food off my plate.”

“Aw, Rodney, didn’t your mom teach you to share?”

“You can leave my mother out of this, you overgrown toddler. I’ll have you know I’m hypoglycemic. I must eat at regular intervals or I’ll collapse. It’s not pretty, and if you’re the cause of it, you’ll regret it. So keep your hands to yourself.”

“All right. If you say so.” John doesn’t really look convinced as he’s loading his own little plate from the buffet. He snags a beer off a passing waiter’s tray while he’s at it, and salutes Rodney before taking a deep swig.

“Where the hell did they find you? You don’t even look like a catcher.

John shrugs, and says, “Oh, you know, Caldwell had to have someone. I’m just the proverbial ‘player-to-be-named-later’.”

“That’s just great, as if I’ll pitch to just anyone they drag up from the minors.” Turning to Elizabeth, he says, “Please tell me he was at least double-A.”

Elizabeth does no more than nod. “That’s where I was when they “dragged” me up here. It’s not like this is exactly convenient for me either, McKay. Finding a place on such short notice is bound to be a bitch.” Sheppard’s ability to go from unimpressed eye-rolling through three other expressions before ending up in a glaring pout almost earns Rodney’s admiration. His lip starts to twitch up automatically, but he tamps it down with a vengeance.

“You mean you don’t have a swarm of large-breasted baseball-groupies hanging around outside, begging to take you home?”

“Yeah, right,” John snorts. “Although it’s good to know you think I rate them.” He grins unrepentantly, knowing exactly how that sounded. “Hey, McKay, I bet you have a place to stay….” 

Elizabeth hides her smile behind her hand and demurely looks down at the floor.

“What? Of course I do, I had my agent…” he stops the automatic flow of babble just in time to suspiciously say “why do you ask?”

“I just bet you did. Your agent got you a nice big condo or penthouse, didn’t he; fully furnished, room for guests, great view, the whole nine yards?”

“So what if he did?”

“Then you do have room for guests. Namely, me. It’s awfully nice of you to offer like this Rodney. I can’t thank you enough.” 

John’s self-satisfied smirk is maddening, but McKay can’t seem to do anything more than splutter for awhile. Finally, he manages to say, “Now look. I may have to play with you, but that doesn’t mean I have to live with you. You’ve got no right to invite yourself into my house!”

“Rodney,” and really, John is just the picture of reasonableness. “It’s only until I find my own place. You’re the reason I even need to find a place. The least you can do is help out for a few days.”

Elizabeth interrupts, “John. Rodney. I’m glad to see you’re getting off to such a wonderful start.” She nods and drifts away, eyes twinkling.

“Harrumph. I cannot believe you did that in front of Elizabeth. Now I’m stuck with you!”

“I’m glad we could come to agreement on this Rodney. Now let’s get out of here.” Sheppard sets his dishes on the nearest flat surface, and proceeds to dispose of McKay’s dishes as well. McKay is standing there a little slack-jawed over the entire exchange.

“Rodney? You can’t possibly be enjoying this shin-dig. Let’s beat feet. I’ve got beer in my car.”

“Beer? Beer, is supposed to make me do your bidding?” But Rodney is already heading for the lobby.

“Well, it is Canadian beer. It ought to count for something.”

~~~

It turns out Sheppard drives a candy apple-red Testerossa. McKay is torn between smug superiority over the obviousness of the choice, and reverent delight at being in its presence. “I can’t believe you’ve got room in there for beer, much less your luggage.”

Sheppard just smirks and lets McKay in. “Where to?” He nods at the address and pulls out of the parking structure smoothly. They’re in McKay’s neighborhood before he realizes Sheppard never asked directions.

“Hey! How did you get here so easily? I barely know how to get here myself.”

Sheppard shrugs and says, “What’ the matter Rodney? No sense of direction? Want to grab that beer while I get my duffel?”

~~~

 

~~~

“Dammit!” The sound of an open-handed smack against metal nearly drowned out the epitaph. 

Sheppard raised an inquiring brow. “Trouble, Rod-ney?” The glower was enough to let him know drawing out those two syllables was suitably irritating.

“Damn locker. Why can’t we have real lockers like any other major league team? I never had any trouble with my locker in Toronto.” The locker continued to rattle and shake under McKay’s hands. “You’d think that a city that could afford XX million dollars to move us here,” the sarcasm ratcheted up with each word “could come up with lockers that fucking OPEN when you want them to!”

Reaching past his ranting teammate, Sheppard slid the catch upward while gently pulling the door outward. “I don’t think they like being slammed into, Rodney.”

“What?! How did you..?” Sheppard just shrugged and McKay deflated considerably, “But I…. Oh.” Not for long though. “Oh, that is just great. Lockers that work for everyone but me…” He continued ranting about the inadequacies of Carolina’s locker room equipment while simultaneously stripping a power bar of its wrapper, and disposing of it in three furious bites. Sheppard had a startling vision of what a season of being Rodney’s catcher, roommate, keeper would really mean. He made a mental note to stock up on power bars as he began stripping off his clothes.

The thing with the locker turns out to be a “thing-with-the-lockers,” where Sheppard is called upon to open McKay’s on an almost daily basis. It becomes ludicrous when Sheppard, so conditioned to reaching over and pulling the door open, starts doing it on the road as well. The rest of the team notices of course, and it becomes something of a locker room gag. Any time anyone has trouble with a door, a zipper, a button or switch, they call on Shep. His suspicion that not everything even needs his touch isn’t entirely paranoid, but being a human light-switch is a small price to pay for being in the show.

 

~~~

“All right, let’s get this over with.”

“That’s not a very friendly attitude.”

“Oh, please. Don’t pretend you’re here to be my friend. The only reason you’re here is to catch my stuff, and since it’s highly probably that you won’t be here by next week, I see no reason to extend the olive branch anywhere in your direction. So. Are you ready?”

“Oh, I’ve been ready. Just waiting on you.”

“Right then. Let’s get this over with.”

They walked out to the bullpen in silence, and McKay pulled up at his usual place. Sheppard continued on to the other end, and hunkered down for the first throw. McKay looked nothing but focused on the task at hand as he started through his repertoire of pitches. Sheppard let him run through it several times before he started signaling for certain pitches.

“What? What is that?”

“I thought it was the sign for your change up.”

“It is. Why are you giving me that sign?”

“I want you to throw your change up.”

“Right. I’m just going to start throwing whatever you call for.”

“That’s kind of the point, Rodney.”

McKay threw another fastball. Sheppard caught it and returned the ball. “Nice heat.” He signaled for a curveball.

“What are you..? How did you get my signs?” McKay was totally affronted.

“Rodney. I am a professional ballplayer. They’re paying me a lot of money to catch YOU. You’re the most anal pitcher in the league. You think I’m gonna come out here unprepared? Now shut up and throw the damn ball.”

“Hey. I’ll throw when I’m ready.” He fired off a curveball. They fell into a rhythm, with McKay mostly throwing what Sheppard asked for. After awhile, Sheppard caught another change up and said, “Let’s try something else for awhile.” He didn’t let McKay’s snappish reply of “What?” faze him. “I want to try out my new gear.”

“I thought you were trying out your gear.”

“No. I mean, I want to break it in. Want to help?” He grinned his most devilish, I-dare-you grin.

McKay’s mouth twitched up on one side. “What did you have in mind?”

“Just throw what I ask for, okay?”

Sheppard hunkered down again, and signaled for [basic pitch]. McKay wound up, and just as he came over the top, Sheppard let his hands fall to his sides. The ball crashed into his chest protector. He produced another ball from his pocket and tossed it to McKay.

“What the hell..?”

“Come on Rodney. You can do better than that. I barely felt that one.”

“You don’t seriously mean for me to throw at you?”

“Of course I do. How else am I gonna get this stuff broken in? It’s so stiff I can barely move. I’ll never be able to throw out a steal with it like this.”

“You miss a steal, and I’ll have your head.”

“Exactly. Now throw me something good.”

McKay wound up and fired. “Ooof. Okay, that’s better. Again.”

It only took a couple more balls for McKay to begin grinning. He started bouncing on his toes waiting for the return balls, and John could see him calculating where to throw the next one. He reflected that there really wasn’t much difference between breaking in new gear and breaking in new pitchers. But McKay wasn’t some generic pitcher like his gear, and he found himself quickly cataloging expressions and hand positions. After several more balls, McKay paused.

“More?”

“Sure. Think you can knock me down?”

“Do I…? Shit.” He launched a fastball before he finished his thought. It rocked Sheppard back on his heels hard, and he had to fling out a foot for balance.

“Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about.” Sure, McKay was loud and obnoxious. But he knew his stuff, and he had loosened up just fine. Honestly, John had no idea why no one wanted to catch him. He couldn’t wait for the first game. He fired the ball back. “Again.”

McKay finally nailed Sheppard so hard in the center of his chest that he was bowled over backwards. “Oof! Ow.” After a moment, he rolled up onto his shoulder and started to push up from the ground when he felt hands on him, yanking him up and then patting him down all over his chest and back.

“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you did I? Oh my god, Beckett’s going to flip if you’re DL’d already.”

Sheppard’s grin split his face apart so hard, it almost hurt. “Rod-ney. I’m fine. Just a little winded. What do you say we call it a day?”

McKay backed up a little and looked relieved. He started fidgeting and acting like he didn’t know what to do with his hands now that his glove was 90 feet behind him. “Yeah. Okay. You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Let’s hit the showers.” If he felt a little warm and breathless, it was probably from the workout. But it didn’t explain why McKay suddenly wouldn’t meet his eye. They gathered up their stuff and headed back inside.

~~~
There's all kinds of other stuff that happens in this AU. Including the Pr0n!  But alas, it is all in my head, and not on this screen.  However, anyone who wants to play in this 'verse is more than welcome - Nay, encouraged! Please! Pretty Please!  I want to read the rest of this epic story someday!