proof of life

Summary:

The day that Baldwin disappears, Harrell doesn’t notice. (Musings on bread, existence, and everything in between.)

Fandom: Blaseball

Published: 27 January 2021

Word count: 1.8k

Ao3 link: proof of life

Notes

A/N: This was written for a prompt swap with Tam @marquis, who sent me a song as a prompt that I completely ignored. (Sorry, dear.) I wrote this whole thing in an hour, so any issues are mea culpa. Arturo, Harrell, and Agan being friends is inspired by this post by @birdlord5000 on tumblr.

Content warnings: (mentioned, involuntary) parental abandonment, and unreality. Specifically, most of the characters in this fic have the lore that they don't exist, including the POV character.

Once upon a time—

No. Wrong. Start again.

The day that Baldwin disappears, Harrell doesn’t notice.

This is an unkind interpretation of events, given that it happened overnight and instantaneously, as all election results do. It does not matter that Harrell doesn’t exist, and it does not matter that by extension she doesn’t sleep, and she should be aware when it happens. The rules of blaseball were built for people like her, people who are not conventionally people.

What this means is that Harrell is both there and not there when the blessings take hold. She is in Hawai’i, that much is undeniable. She is not with the Fridays, and that is unforgivable.

Fletcher tells her later that she should not feel guilty, because she had no way of knowing. There is never a way of knowing. Harrell does not consider herself a knower of things, but she does consider herself… present, for a certain definition of the word.

The crux of it is that Baldwin is gone. She is in Baltimore, presumably, for a sliver of a second, and then she is gone, with all the Crabs.

Fletcher does his best, trying to help everyone heal and make the new teammates feel at home. It helps that Nagomi is there — that she’s back, actually. Harrell played with her on the Tigers, a very long time ago, and now here they are, in Hawai’i together, as though nothing has changed.

Nagomi makes the babysitting schedule for Baldwin’s children while they try to figure something out. Harrell isn’t on it.

She calls Eli, because she doesn’t know what else to do. He seems surprised to hear from her, but he says, gently, “You’re allowed to be sad.”

“I’m not,” Harrell says.

“What are you feeling?”

“Static,” Harrell says, because it is the closest she can come to the buzzing beneath her ribs, how bitterly incorrect it all feels.

She goes to Yellowstone for half a day. She goes to New York and lights three police precincts on fire. She goes to Hades and screams until her throat is bloody, a sensation that defies a lack of body. She does not feel better.

There is a list of things that Harrell knows about Baldwin. Almost all of it is useless. It’s her understanding that this is how people become close.

Harrell does not care to become close with most people. But she always liked that Baldwin was the first to ask after her, like she actually wanted Harrell to be in the room with her. She liked the way Baldwin planned birthday parties for York. She liked the way that Baldwin put her hands on Harrell’s own when they made bread together.

Existence is a tricky thing. Harrell doesn’t care for it most of the time. But it seemed to her that if Baldwin reached for her hands and found nothing, she would be disappointed. She did not want to disappoint Baldwin. And so Harrell existed, whenever Baldwin wanted her to. Arms solid enough to touch. A laugh real enough to hear.

And so she learned about Baldwin. She does not like chocolate cake. She does not believe in astrology, but she has all of her children’s charts memorized, just in case. She does not miss Los Angeli, but she misses what she remembers of Los Angeles. She does not have a favorite type of bread. She does not have a favorite board game.

She lived in Mississippi, a long time ago, and ate her weight in biscuits every time she visited after that. Harrell learned to make biscuits on her own. It was supposed to be a surprise.

Long, long ago, there was a woman that—

Worse. Don’t do that. Focus.

She goes to Breckenridge. Agan and Arturo are both there waiting for her. They do this sometimes, the three of them. The three players that do not exist. Agan calls them the A-Team. She hates it. She does not want to be here.

But being remembered is not a gift to be taken for granted. So Agan calls, and Harrell goes.

“Luis is gone,” Arturo says. The three of them are on a ski lift, going in circles. It’s a way to pass the time. Harrell doesn’t particularly care for heights, but there is cold comfort in the fact that she could never hit the ground. “Tot’s a mess. I think we all are. None of us thought that ascension would be this.”

“We lost Bevan,” Agan says. “And Tot Fox. They’ve both been gone for a while but… it’s still hard. You know? It’s still hard.”

Harrell pauses. This is supposed to be easy for her. She is Alyssa Harrell. She is kinder than she used to be, certainly, she has a stronger sense of justice, but that is different than caring. She does not care about Evelton McBlase II. She does not care about Bevan Underbuck.

“Baldwin,” she begins, and then she realizes, to her utter mortification, that she is on the verge of tears.

“Harrell,” Arturo says warningly.

She looks down. Her feet are dipping through the floor of the ski lift. She imagines it’s quite cold with them dangling in the air. She doesn’t bother pulling them back up. “What are the Crabs like?” she asks abruptly.

Arturo and Agan exchange a look through her. “Good,” Arturo says after a moment. “Ollie’s good. Luis seemed happy.”

“Nagomi was good,” Agan says, and then pauses, embarrassed. “I mean— obviously, she’s not there anymore, but she got along with them. They’re good people.”

Baldwin is not supposed to be with good people. Baldwin is supposed to be teaching Harrell how to make sourdough. They made plans. It was supposed to happen today. Baldwin was one of the only few people who actually made plans with her. Harrell had never gotten a calendar notification before Baldwin Breadwinner.

“Good,” Harrell says at last. Neither of them believe her. She doesn’t care enough to try to convince them.

Baldwin Breadwinner asked once if she could call her Alyssa. Harrell had stared at her blankly and said that people did not call her Alyssa, and that was what she preferred. It was stilted. It was horrible.

Baldwin Breadwinner was the first person who asked since Landry Violence, a full decade ago. Harrell forgot what that felt like: to be asked. To be considered.

“They’re good people,” says Sutton Dreamy.

The Fridays are all much more tangible than Harrell, and she prefers it that way. She likes being able to control the contact. Dreamy, unfortunately, also seems to like it. She’s quiet, quieter than Arturo and Agan, but she seems to want Harrell to fill the space.

“I miss them,” Dreamy continues. “It’s hard, not knowing. Trying to act as though nothing has changed when everything has changed.”

Harrell visited Baldwin’s children yesterday. They did not recognize her. It is not the first time this has happened. She should not have hoped. This is what hope brings her: disappointment. This is what disappointment brings her: loneliness. This is what loneliness brings her: Sutton Dreamy.

“The season is starting soon,” says Dreamy. “Are you any good?”

“No,” Harrell says. Dreamy laughs. Harrell doesn’t. “If I could put you back and have her here, you would already be gone.”

Dreamy smiles. It is not horribly kind, and it is not horribly patient. “You say that like it’s supposed to be a bad thing.”

Let’s talk about the time that—

Worst yet. Could you take this goddamn seriously?

The Fridays do not do well in season 11. Neither do the Jazz Hands. It is by silent agreement that Harrell and Agan go to all of the Garages’ games in the postseason.

“You can tell me about her,” Agan says. They’re sitting on top of the scoreboard together, watching the Garages go against the Pies. It’s the best view in the stadium, although it would turn Harrell’s stomach if she had one. She wonders if the ski lift was Agan’s idea. They seem not to have the same problem with heights that she does.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Harrell says after a moment. A lie. There are six hundred and ninety-three things that she remembers about Baldwin Breadwinner. Many of them are not words. Some of them are the song she used to hum while kneading, so quietly it might’ve been subconscious. Some of them are the way she used to fix her hair. Some of them are the marks of flour that she left behind on Harrell’s clothing.

She remembers six hundred and ninety-three details about Baldwin Breadwinner. She is afraid to know how many she forgot.

Harrell kicks a foot against the scoreboard, letting her heel thud back against it. Agan watches with interest. “You never used to do that,” they say. They sound curious, or perhaps intrigued.

“What is it like wanting to exist?” Harrell says. Her voice is despondent. A tone. That’s new as well; Agan clearly notices. “What is it like to miss it?”

They grin, an expression that is comfortingly dizzying to look at. “Horrible,” they say. “Arturo misses it. They say it’s terrible.”

“And you don’t?”

“I can at least choose it. When I want to be, I am graced with existence. You could be, too.”

“I have never wanted to before,” Harrell says. It is an honesty that she has not afforded most people. “I may want to now.”

“Condolences,” Agan says. “Talk to Artie.”

“I won’t,” Harrell says.

She might. Agan probably knows that. She can’t particularly say she minds.

“Why did you choose it?” Harrell says.

Dreamy looks at her. “Why wouldn’t you?” she says, and she sounds just as perplexed as Harrell. “Have you never stood on a boat? Heard an ocean? Tasted something warm? Dug your fingers into the sand? Why would you choose anything else?”

“Because it hurts,” Harrell says. She has felt more in the past season than she felt in the last ten combined. She has felt a throat inside a neck that should not exist. She has felt spit caught in hair and sand caught under fingernails. She has felt loss. Over and over and over. Every time she chooses to become, every time she stands at bat, every time, she feels it. It does not go away. She wants it gone. She wants to be empty.

“Of course it hurts,” Dreamy says, as though it’s obvious. “It’s better that way. It’s better to experience it. I was a dream once. I was something that was wanted, and then I wanted to want, and now I am.”

“But why?”

“I am wanting,” Dreamy answers. “What are you?”

For a moment Harrell is flesh and bone. For a moment Harrell is snow in a mountain. For a moment Harrell is ascended. For a moment Harrell is ascension itself.

“I don’t know,” Harrell answers. “But I am afraid I might be something.”

Dreamy smiles. It is a knife. It is the kindest she has looked yet. “Lucky you,” she says.

This is not how friendships begin. Harrell is disappointed to discover they might be friends anyways.

Alyssa Harrell loses Baldwin Breadwinner.

Alyssa Harrell exists.

There. That’s how you tell a story.

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