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clegan baseball AU | part 7 | masterpost here | can you tell i'm actually putting some effort into this now??? let's go!!!!

Thursday | April 20, 2023 | Yankee Stadium; Bronx, NY

John's still drunk when he's summoned to the team manager's office at eight o'clock that morning -- it takes him until at least eight-forty to physically land his ass in the padded visitors chair in front of Chick Harding's desk.

The man looks like he wants to laugh as he takes him in -- mussed up hair, bloodshot eyes, and reeking of the five or six bars he made it to before somehow finding his way home to eventually call it a night at sometime after four that same morning.

Chick just whistles lowly as he shakes his head, their team bench coach -- Red Bowman -- biting back as grin as John's own pitching coach, Jack Kidd, defeatedly puts his head in his hands with a sigh.

"I'm still not starting, right." John croaks out -- the whole reason he went and did this to himself in the first place -- slumping down further in the chair with limbs that feel like jelly.

Chick chokes out an incredulous laugh, almost spitting out his cigarette in the process. "No, son, you definitely ain't starting with the shape you're in, damn."

"John..." Jack starts, rubbing tiredly at his face and looking all the world like he'd rather go back to bed himself, "are you okay to even be here, right now? We can...I don't know, come back to this later--"

"The hell we can," Chick whips his head to look at him, "we're three days out from Milwaukee, we get this sorted out now or not at all." He demands, jabbing at the air with his cigarette, zero to sixty just like normal.

On any other day John would egg him on; today he just wants to throttle him.

"Chick, c'mon, we can push this to tomorrow, no one's left yet," Jack reasons, stepping in closer to John, clearly picking a side. "This really doesn't need to be done today." He sasses and John feels himself grin.

He's always appreciated the pitching coach despite how often they but heads and generally annoy one another, plus every time Jack falls for one of his pranks he always takes it like a champ and without complaint. John respects that in a man.

"Let him just spit it out, coach." He pipes up in a croak, puffing up in his chair, tired of the back and forth. "Well?" He huffs out, annoyed.

"Oh, settle down." Red waves him off, perching himself on the corner of Chick's desk, the other man quickly yanking a couple papers away with a glare. "You're not in trouble, if that's what you're wondering. Well..." he trails off, wrinkling his nose as he seems to catch a whiff of him, "not yet at least, Jesus," he rears back as John yawns widely into his fist, "what the hell did you even do last night?"

"Nothing much." John informs them with as much faux cheer as he can muster, his smile more of a grimace.

Jack sighs the sigh of the truly wearied.

"On to business, then!" Chick claps loudly, John jumping in his seat at the sudden crack of it. "Drunk or not, let's just get this over with! Egan, we're moving you to closing pitcher for the away games next week, Ferg's gonna be your relief in case something happens."

"What the hell!" John shoots up in his seat, brain whirring away like an overworked laptop fan in an attempt make sense of it. "I'm signed on as a starter!" He argues, Jack stepping in closer to steady him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't think of it as demotion, it's not permanent," Red soothes, shooting Chick a glare over his shoulder for his shit delivery, "you did one hell of a job closing up shop for us the other night, we wanna see if you can do it again." Red holds up a hand as John opens his mouth to protest. "We're up against some pretty solid stats next week between the Twins and the Rangers, so we're gonna need someone who can hold the line when it comes down to it." He looks at John meaningfully. "Can you do that for us?"

John lets Jack push him back into the chair, hands still clenched around the armrests as he mulls it over. He's not thrilled at the idea, closing pitchers oftentimes getting slapped with a big ole failed starter label, but he'll at least be able to play in more games while they're on the road.

And since their away schedule's going to conflict with trying to set up an appointment time with Rosie, well...

"Fine, alright, I'll do it," he throws his hands up, "but if whoever starts shits the bed then there's only so much I can do to help with that." He roughly combs back through his hair, looking between Chick and Red expectantly.

"Heard loud and clear, son," Chick nods approvingly, rapping his knuckles twice on the desk. "we're still working on the lineup, but we'll get with Coach Huglin to make sure you're taken care of in the bullpen." He confirms, exchanging a look with Red, both of them giddy at getting their way.

God, they're annoying. "Is that it." John questions, unimpressed and wanting to go home to marinate in his day off.

"One more thing." Jack speaks up, rounding to stand in front of him, blocking out the amused faces of Chick and Red. "The PR team's reached out about...hell, I don't even know what to call it, but they wanna use you for some kind of promotional thing for the team?" He makes a face, clearly out of his depth.

John's right there with him. "PR for what? They already did the whole gay special thing when I signed." He reminds him with a squint, someone tittering behind Jack until they're silenced with a dull slap.

John's pretty sure it was Chick seeing as the man acts like an overgrown child on a good day.

"No, nothing like that." Jack, bless his heart, tries to redirect them. "It has something to do with some video Gale Cleven posted last night? Are you free this afternoon?"

***

"You're gonna give this man a heart attack, you know that, right?" Benny informs him from the living room, scrolling through his phone while laid out on Gale's sofa with Meatball draped across him. "And I still can't believe you conned me into letting you borrow my dog to woo some, some -- sports floozy, what the hell is wrong with you?!" He exclaims hotly, Meatball whuffing in annoyance as he's jostled from the dramatics of it all.

Gale just rolls his eyes at him from where he's in the kitchen making them a late breakfast, the open floor plan of his apartment giving him a front row seat to the Benny DeMarco show.

"I'm serious." Benny stares him down as much as someone can while lying down. "What's going on, you don't do stuff like this." He waves his phone wildly. "People think Taylor Swift has her shit on lockdown, but clearly they've never met you, she's practically an open book compared to you."

"What's so wrong with keeping my personal life, personal, huh?" He tries not to snap, annoyed at Benny's innate ability to call him on his bullshit. "Plus it ain't a crime to hang out with someone, is it? It's called making friends, I'm allowed to do that, right?"

"Yeah," Benny draws out slowly, like he's stupid or something, "but you're notoriously private about it -- now you're out here with some, some--"

"Sports floozy?" Gale repeats sarcastically, just to rile him up.

"First of all, fuck you." Benny flips him off defiantly. "Secondly, straight dudes don't typically film other dudes' asses no matter how tight they are, you're aware of that, right?"

"I'm aware." Gale does snap, setting down a pan of scrambled eggs with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. "What's your point, Benny?" He sighs out tiredly, oven mitted fists propped on his hips in exasperation.

"Gale..." Benny starts, losing some of his huff, "people are just confused, I'm confused, this guy--"

"John."

"Yeah, John, whatever," he rolls his eyes, shoving at Meatball until he hops down from the couch, "he's not someone you'd normally talk to -- ah, ah, ah, admit it." Benny cuts him off before he can even start, struggling to his feet and damn near falling into the coffee table in the process. "You know it, I know it, they know it." He gestures broadly at the bay windows overlooking south Central Park. "We're just confused." He repeats, limping towards the kitchen, one leg or the other apparently having fallen asleep on him.

Gale shoves a plate of eggs at him, unimpressed. "Again," he reiterates pointedly, stabbing a fork into them for him, "your point?"

"You tell me." Benny takes a bite, shrugging as he slides his phone across the counter, Gale's Instagram reel from last night playing on a perpetual loop in front of him.

He looks down to watch as John juggles Meatball's tennis ball excitedly between his hands, the dog going crazy as he winds up for a pitch -- his sweatpants pulling obscenely tight across the supple curve of an ass cheek and the solid tree trunk thickness of a thigh as he jokes here comes Egan with the wind up -- before launching the ball in one well oiled maneuver, twisting to look at Gale with a cheesy smile on his face only to realize he's being filmed, shock taking over his features right as it loops back to the start.

Benny's point is probably less about the man's ass and more about the fact he captioned it with look at this wild thing and set the whole reel to The Troggs' 1966 hit single, Wild Thing, because he thinks himself funny like that.

In retrospect, now that the evidence's all laid out before him, he can see how it might read as kind of...questionable to some people.

Maybe a lot of them.

"Alright," he admits weakly, pushing away Benny's phone and pulling off his oven mitts, feeling a little overwhelmed, "I can see how people might see that as kinda..." he trails off, making a face.

"Gay?" Benny supplies unhelpfully, "or at least not straight?"

"Benny--"

"I know," Benny cuts him off gently, "I know you like your privacy and you're doing all this for your mom and Marge and god knows who or what else at this point, but dude...you gotta remember to love yourself, too, yeah?" Benny reminds him. "The last time I know you had sex was two years ago during Paris fashion week, because you had it with me." He brags gleefully and Gale groans, sinking down to face plant on the counter. "You've made it, dude, you're done, you're at the top of your game...nothing's gonna take that away from you so go after something you finally want for once." He feels Benny ruffle at his hair. "When was the last time that happened, huh?"

Gale frowns down into the polished marble of the countertop, thinking it over. Benny's right -- almost infuriatingly so -- about everything, all of it: his hang ups, his fears, his shit ideas of self-care.

The last time he actually got off with someone other than himself.

"I'm scared." He admits to the marble, his breath fogging against it's chilled surface. "I'm scared because John's just...so free about himself, he knows who he is and he's comfortable with that and I wish..." he swallows roughly, "I wish I was more like that too."

"Well," Benny muses lightly, his fork scraping across his plate in a way that sends a shiver up Gale's spine, "maybe he can help with that. You said meeting him was...whatever that big ass word was that you used."

Serendipitous.

Sheer dumb luck.

The very thing his daddy built their livelihood on before it all came crashing down around them, Gale's mother running one way and him another, years wasted and lost between them as they both tried to pick up the pieces of their respective lives without the man formerly known as father and husband.

Now here he is, in a Manhattan high rise with a view to die for, scared as hell to tell a boy he likes him for fear he won't like him back.

"I'll get with Marge," he decides to be brave, peeling himself off the counter to rub at the red spot burning in the middle of his forehead, "see what kind of plan we can come up with."

Benny stares at him in wide eyed shock, fork paused halfway to his mouth. "Holy shit." He breathes. "You're actually going to do it."

"I've been comfortable with my bisexuality for a long time, now," Gale reminds them both firmly, "it's just time for everyone else to know it too," he shrugs, Benny still in awe across from him.

"Besides," Gale grins to himself, tidying up with a newfound giddiness at the hope of it all, "I haven't exactly been subtle about it, I'm sure John's figured it out by now or at least suspects something."

Benny just looks at him dubiously. "Sports floozy, Gale." He reminds him, scrambled eggs falling off his still held aloft fork. "Sports floozy."

***

"Thank you so much for meeting with us so last minute, Mr. Egan." Some woman John doesn't remember the name of beams at him from across the board room table. "We really appreciate it!" A second one chirps and John can't help the look he exchanges with Jack seated next to him, his brain still trying to play catch up with how off the rails his morning had been.

Even now he's entirely too hungover for whatever's about to happen even after the all bagels and coffee Chick and Red had pumped into him sometime around noon in preparation for this very meeting.

"Our pleasure, ladies." Jack speaks up on his behalf, diplomatic as always. "And what is it that we can do for you, exactly? Coach Harding wasn't very...forthcoming with the details." He chuckles nervously and John tries not side eye him.

"Oh, it's nothing too demanding at all." The one woman in head to toe athleisure wear assures them. "This meeting is just a formality, really, to ensure Mr. Egan's aware and comfortable with how we'd like to promote him for the next couple of games."

"Okay," Jack looks at him and all John can do is raise unsure eyebrows back, "and this promotional stuff would entail...?"

"We'd like to frame Mr. Egan as the Yankees very own wild thing, if you will, like Mr. Cleven captioned in his Insta reel!" The younger of the two women blurts out, immediately blushing as both John and Jack swivel in unison to stare at her. "It's just...he's so famous!" She chuckles nervously, flustered. "The demographic we could reach through using him alone--"

"No." John barks out, startling even himself. "No." He repeats more firmly after clearing his throat. "I'm not...fetishizing a friendship just so you all can make more money." He grouches, Jack twitching in place next to him. "If that's about all...?" He moves to get up, the older woman waving him frantically back into his seat, shooting daggers at her colleague.

"I assure you, Mr. Egan, we would never." She says pointedly, glancing at the other woman as though daring her to say something. "We only want to expand on Mr. Cleven's good humor, he's certainly creative, we'll give him that." She trills uncomfortably. "Our idea is to simply highlight your entry onto the field when it comes time for you to play, there's not a thing you even have to do except walk right out of that little...thingy."

"The bullpen?" Jack asks incredulously and John can't help but snort, trying to cover it up with a cough.

Both women look decidedly unimpressed.

"If that's really just all..." Jack looks between all three of them, still clearly out of his element, "then I guess that's alright...what do you say, John? You up for it?" He prompts, the man practically pleading for some kind of input with his eyes.

John's not thrilled about the idea in the here and now -- or his hangover isn't, at least -- but he does think it's something that would normally be right up his alley on any other given day.

He's always been great at playing a role, after all.

It's something he's been trying to work on.

"Guess I gotta watch this video now to know what all I'm getting myself into, huh?" He agrees wryly, Jack sagging in relief next to him as the PR women jump to, talking over one another as the younger one whips out an iPad to no doubt queue up Instagram.

He has been meaning to watch the video since learning about it, he's just been...scared, too worried that Gale's somehow found him out -- somehow looked close enough to see John's growing crush on him and decided to be mean about it.

John doesn't really think he will, but still...wouldn't be the first time someone's decided to make his life hell.

***

Gale's already crawled into bed for the night when his phone lights up in the black of his room, a blinding glow that has him squinting at the screen despite having it set to dark mode.

thanks for filming my ass i guess lol, John's texted, the first Gale's heard from him all day, something he's pointedly tried not to worry about; Benny was probably right when he said he'd give the man a heart attack with his tragic flirting methods, didn't realize it was so thicc??? he continues and Gale barks out an unexpected laugh as John keeps typing, anyways they wanna broadcast it more so i hope you're happy with urself mr bigshot director man

I've always been a sucker for a good view Gale texts back smoothly, may have to actually watch a game or two ;)

Gale waits and waits and waits, but John never does reply.

He really hopes he didn't just kill the man before he even gets to experience the wonder that are his thighs.

That'd be just downright tragic.

Who's who in this AU?

bri's basic ass baseball 101 guide

chick harding > manager/head coach

red bowman > bench coach (right hand man)

jack kidd > pitching coach

huglin > bullpen coachrocat

ferg > some random player i made, hi ferg!

#another great chapter!#I'm really enjoying this fic #it's comforting to read it on a bad day #wild thing john hahaha #baseball au