incidentally
author's notes & content warnings
1) I love new Lift 2) I love siblings 3) Tad's on new Lift and Chandra just fell and I went yeah that's siblings. What more is there to say tbh. Some game details might not be right, but Reblase currently doesn't work so like prove me wrong I dare you. This went from the Google doc to the posting box so mistakes and inconsistencies probably exist. But it's fine.
Tad (he/him) and Chandra (she/xe) are twins and half-kelpie half-human. Katy (she/her) is a kiln tech. Vernon (they/them) is a grandpa and maintenance worker.
Tad lands in Tokyo. It’s a soft landing, all things considered: a jump on a trampoline and he cartwheels above the skyscrapers until he’s tired of it and ready for solid ground beneath his feet again. Real ground, with things like grass and cracks in the pavement, and not just Vault-solid nothingness.
The elevator takes him down and he walks until he finds grass, and then stands in it without moving, and stands, and stands. He always liked Tokyo. His second-favorite city in the world.
Eventually someone takes notice of him, standing there, still and peaceful and windswept. “Hey,” she says, dark lipstick and heavy fringe and kind eyes. She asks a question in English, and then repeats it in Japanese: “Are you from the team?”
Tad blinks at her for a second. She gestures at his jersey. “Blaseball.”
It’s still his Flowers jersey, but the cuffs of it are turning Lift pink, vibrant and cutting through the faded lavender. The rest will follow soon.
“I guess so,” he says after a moment. “I don’t recognize you.”
“I’m not on the team.” She pauses. “Yet. Have you met everyone?”
Tad shakes his head. Some of the kelp in his hair falls to the grass. He ignores it, and so does his almost-teammate. “Is there a team to meet?”
“Oh, buddy,” she says, “there’s a team. I’m Katy.”
“Tad.”
“Tad,” she says. “Where are you from?”
He blinks at her dumbly. He’s never known how to answer that. Finally he points at the Flowers logo on his jersey, which is slowly stitching itself into a Lift arrow.
Katy nods. “I don’t know where that is,” she says. “America.”
“Yeah, America.”
“Most of them are.” She reaches out and grabs him by the bracelet, a sturdy leather cuff. “Let me take you.”
#
It would be hard to call the Vault a lonely place, despite its best efforts to feel lonely and isolating and horrific. Glabe had pulled the Flowers in herself, and Tad had been clinging with Jasper and Ruffi and Salih for dear life, not letting themselves slip through the cracks the way that the shadows do.
The Vault was full of people trying to bring life to it, a lot like putting Christmas lights on a coffin. Parties and home-cooked food and talking and talking and god, Tad likes people well enough but there was always someone who wanted to talk. He knows his team’s shadows and so he stuck close to them and always had friends, real friends that had been there longer than him, friends that stopped coming to games even when their lives depended on it.
The Vault was not lonely and it was not isolating and it was not private, although it could’ve been private, everyone needed privacy and they had codes and ways of asking for it. Living teams and dead teams and long-dead teams and stories and life, and so much joy. And it was good. It was a good place to be. It could’ve been a lot worse.
But Chandra wasn’t there.
So really, it was the loneliest he’s ever been.
#
Katy doesn’t let go of the leather bracelet until Tad gently shakes her off. She doesn’t seem bothered by it when he does, still hewing close to his side. The team introduces themselves, explains falling, explains they’ve been fixing up the Legscraper, explains that there’s a room for him if he wants it and beds for him if he wants a roommate, and has he had something to eat yet?
One person, an old, old man, looks at Tad for a long time. “Excuse me,” they say, “but I think we’ve met.”
“Have we?”
“You had a sister,” says the man. They have kind eyes. It’s good that they have kind eyes because Tad suddenly can’t breathe anymore. “You visited sometimes.”
“Yes,” Tad says, punched out of him. “Sorry, I don’t—”
“Vernon,” they say. “I worked here. And then I joined the Lift. Shadows at the end of the world.”
“You saw Chandra,” Tad says. It’s a dizzying sensation, saying xyr name. He doesn’t realize he’s getting dizzy until Katy grabs his elbow and steers him somewhere, and pushes him until he’s sitting, and then he gulps for air like he’d forgotten how. “You were with her?”
“I was with her,” says Vernon. They sit down next to Tad and pat his knee, a move that reminds Tad so much of his ojiichan that suddenly there are tears, on top of the trouble breathing. “She was fine.”
“She was?”
“She was brave.”
“Well, obviously,” says Tad, and Vernon laughs kindly. “Was the Horizon… bad?”
Vernon hums in consideration. “No,” they say at last, “not bad, not quite. She’s okay.”
“You sound sure.”
“Are you worried about those you left behind?”
“Of course.”
“Worry less,” Vernon says, and then laughs at the look on Tad’s face. “If you can.”
Chandra is alive, somewhere out there. It’s enough to quash one of Tad’s worries. Unfortunately, it’s also enough to light fuses of worries he didn’t know he had, all of them now quietly ticking away in his fingers and the back of his skull.
#
They were born in Boston. Their mom always said it was the middle of the night and their dad always said it was early evening, so Tad figures that they were born around dusk. That’s the way a lot of things went in their household growing up.
They were loud kids, both of them, but different types of loudness. Tad brought friends home almost every day. Chandra took singing lessons and practiced at all hours. Tad was on the soccer team. Chandra was on the student council.
Every school year was in Massachusetts but every summer was in Tokyo. Boston: Dad’s family, friends, cold, frozen, a depth of history and revolution, bright and natural. Tokyo: Mom’s family and heat and sweat and adventure and concrete and skyscrapers and dreams.
Tad liked Tokyo. Chandra loved it. Xe was always like that, a dreamer in the most practical way. He knew he wanted to stay in Boston but he wasn’t surprised when Chandra sat him down at the end of their junior year of high school and told him that xe wanted to go to Tokyo, and stay in Tokyo.
“I’ll visit,” he said, “and that’s a threat,” and she cried until she laughed, and he never had to tell her that he was going to stay in Boston. Xe knew.
#
He spends the day before games start swimming. The Legscraper has a swimming pool that’s briny enough for him to enjoy, and so he leaves his leather-and-silver cuff on the side and lets himself transform.
Katy, who’s there to keep him company and adamantly refused to swim with him, says, “Whoa.”
He’d told her about his mother, how she was a kelpie, how he can’t take the form of a horse very long because she couldn’t. But he loved the freedom. The harbor in Boston. Feeling a mane and tail trail out behind him in the water. Feeling fresh and new.
So he swims. Katy watches, mostly drawing something but occasionally clapping and cheering. Most of the applause comes while Tad is swimming straight, not doing any tricks or anything. At one point Katy starts hooting and hollering when he stops, and he kicks a spray of water towards her, and Katy shrieks with laughter.
Chandra hated that. The water. She loved to run, hooves clattering on pavement and dirt and whatever else she could find. They liked forests and camping, both of them, but Tad has always loved swimming.
He waits until he’s exhausted and then pushes a little further, then clambers out of the pool and slides the bracelet on. There he lays, at Katy’s feet by the side of the pool, breathing hard.
She nudges him with the toe of her sandal. “You good?”
Tad manages a thumbs up, and closes his eyes. Chandra’s in the darkness somewhere. He likes to imagine that xe’s lurking somewhere behind his eyelids, in a crevasse or abyss within his mind. It’s reassuring.
#
They would alternate visiting each other. Chandra would spend a week in Boston in April, and then Tad would go to Tokyo for a week in August.
And they went to ball games together. They were too young to grow up going to Blaseball games, except for the Coffee Cup, and Tad remembers sitting next to Chandra and both of them staring around them, looking at the not-quite-cities and the makeshift stadiums, players who seemed relaxed and kept shouting at one another, friendly teasing.
They were fans of Light and Sweet, both of them. Chandra idolized Lance Serotonin. Tad tripped over every word he knew when he met Beck Whitney.
Joining the shadows was never a joke. Oh, they acted like it was, because it was easier to back out if they changed their mind. But Tad said one day, “Have you ever considered,” and Chandra said yes, and then they teased each other about it. Wouldn’t it be funny if we both signed up? Wait, what if we did it in the season? We could totally be in the shadows. Maybe one day kids will want to see us in stadiums, wouldn’t that be something?
Xe called him as soon as xe got out of xyr scouting meeting. “I think they really liked me, Tad,” she said, and he knew then and there that it wasn’t a joke anymore.
At the end of Season 14, Chandra got signed to the Lift. Tad was happier for xem than he was for himself — because, after all, he got signed to the Flowers on the same day.
#
Six days into the season, Kaj Murphy falls out of the sky and lands squarely on top of Natha.
“Oh, hell,” Kaj says, wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”
Natha doesn’t answer. Kaj gets to their feet, and Tad figures it out immediately: Natha’s gone, no longer crushed to the dirt.
Silvia’s phone starts ringing a second later. She flips it open and puts it on speaker. “Natha?”
“I’m fine,” says Natha’s voice, and everyone exhales in relief together. “I’m still here. I don’t think you can see me. Or feel me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I just tried to punch you in the arm.”
Silvia looks at her arm. “Really?”
“Other arm,” says Natha, “which I think proves the point.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I really am. I’ll be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Of… whatever I need to be careful of.”
The call ends. Tad glances around, but there’s no sign of Natha: no footprints in the dirt, no floating items as she packs up her things.
He catches Katy’s eye and then jerks his head towards Natha’s equipment, and the two of them pack it up in silence, putting things strewn throughout the dugout together and dropping the bag off in the locker room.
It takes a few minutes, but then Katy’s phone buzzes with a text from Natha, which she proudly shows to Tad: Thank you.
#
The last time Tad talked to his sister was well before the end of the world. They texted during Season 24 but he couldn’t bring himself to answer her calls, and then when he started calling it was because Chandra had been swallowed by an endless black hole and he didn’t want to believe it.
But the last time they talked was the day before the Semi-Centennial, and they sat and talked for hours. Chandra talked about exes and concerts and old stories from a job he’d forgotten that xe had. Tad talked about Boston and history and all the places he wanted to bring her.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Chandra sighed. “Do you?”
“No,” Tad said, “but we’ll find out.”
He supposes that was a little presumptuous of him. They were incredibly close to not being around to find out. And now here he is, finding out: not life after Chandra, just life without her.
#
Tad misses the first call because he’s on the pitcher’s mound. He misses the second call because Juice answers it, although she won’t tell him that for a long time. He almost misses the third call, but then the inning ends and Juice is waving him frantically into the dugout. She presses his phone into his hands and says, “Answer.”
He doesn’t look who it is, just swipes to answer and lifts his phone. “Hello?”
“Pitcher, huh?” says Chandra, and something must show on his face because Katy grabs his elbow and steers him to sit. “Hey.”
“Chandra,” Tad says. “Chandra, Chandra—”
“I’m in San Francisco,” Chandra says, and the air leaves Tad’s lungs. Already he’s trying to imagine how to get from Moab to California and back. Maybe he doesn’t need to come back. Maybe he can go there and stay, except— “I fell to the Garages. They can’t see me or anything, but—”
“Right,” Tad says. “Chandra.”
“Tad.”
“You made it.”
“Took my sweet time, too, as far as I can tell.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Tad says, but his voice cracks in the middle. “Chandra.”
“I can’t believe you’re in Tokyo,” she says. “What are the odds.”
“Chandra—”
“Can you say words that aren’t my name?”
“Not really,” Tad says, and xe laughs at that, and it’s a relief, because he remembered how it sounded but he was starting to forget how it felt. “I can’t wait to see you again.”
“Well, you’re going to be in Seattle in a few days. So I’ll see you soon.”
“Not the same.”
“No,” Chandra says, “but, see, I’m selfish. I just miss my brother. So I don’t really care if it’s one-sided. At least not right now.”
Tad leans his head back against the wall and lets the tears trail down his cheeks, down the sides of his neck, trickling hot and uncomfortable and he doesn’t care. Not as much as he cares about this.
“Yeah, Chandra,” he says, and closes his eyes. “I missed you too.”