Work Text:
New York City, 3 June 2008
The Grand Hyatt
When they'd taken off from SFO, everything'd been fine. Somewhere over Pittsburgh, though, the pilot had come on the PA to say they were being redirected to La Guardia because of a fire on the runway at JFK. As they descended from cruising altitude into the city, everyone watched in a trance as the sky darkened over Manhattan and as they circled, the lights of the five boroughs began to blink on.
For awhile Rich Aurilia - the Brooklyn boy - came over and sat next to Tim, since he was on the right-hand side of the plane. Aurilia was pointing out the landmarks - that's the Chrysler Building, there's Shea, look, you can see the blue lights, naw, that's not the Brooklyn, it's the Triborough - and they could see the smoke in the distance, way the fuck out there, what kinda place is that to put an airport?
But after two and a half hours of circling, the team'd drunk all the mini-bottles of booze and there was no more Coke or Sprite. The flight attendants' eyeliner was beginning to smudge, they'd taken off their high heels, and back in the galley, they were banging stuff around.
//
The Giants' New York hotel is the Grand Hyatt, so-called because it's in midtown on the east side, right next to Grand Central. Tonight, even though it was already late and the air outside was still hot and dense with summer, Zito'd insisted that they walk over to the Terminal and see the renovations, stand under the clock, walk through the kissing room. They would've had oysters if Tim hadn't just put a stop to it and turned back towards the doors, holding his room card above his head like a tour guide leading a pack of senior citizens.
Tim hates that feeling when the hotel door closes behind the bellhop and he's alone in another deliberately neutral room, where the corner of the bed's always a little too firm to his touch and there's little white plastic signs above everything - the phone, the TV, the bottles in the bathroom, even the fake-leather guest services book. Every hotel room's like a crime scene where the traces of what happened before have been erased, just like the nights he's spent in hotel rooms with exactly the footprint of this one. If he has to, he knows exactly how to grope his way to the door in the dark.
He hangs up his traveling clothes - they're not allowed to wear jeans on the plane - but he doesn't bother unpacking anything else. He's learned to kick the suitcase into the floor of the closet, where he can find everything by touch, the three shirts and two pairs of jeans and his Rainbows, the insoles smooth and dark with the print of his feet.
He calls down and has room service sent to Zito's suite - a club sandwich with no lettuce, fries and a Coke, cold, no ice.
//
When Tim emerges from the shower, his feet sliding perilously across the glassy marble tile of the bathroom, Zito’s sitting in bed, propped up against a bank of pillows. He’s got his tortoiseshell reading glasses on and he’s doing the Monday New York Times crossword puzzle, which he’s folded into a quarter sheet against his knees. His hair’s still wet from his shower, his brow’s furrowed with concentration. It strikes Tim, not for the first time, that Zito looks like a realtor or a lawyer or a banker - anything besides what he is, a baseball player.
- Seven-letter word for a Baltic city across from Helsinki? queries Zito, sucking furiously on the end of his pen.
Tim thinks a minute while he’s toweling his hair.
- Tallinn, he says suddenly, - capital of Estonia. Two Ls and two Ns.
Zito’s writing furiously: - I - N - N, yeah, that’s it. The last N of HYDROGEN’s seven down.
And then Zito leans back against the headboard and bonks his head back explosively, making the abstract silkscreen above his head rattle against the wall.
- Fuck, says Zito, - you never read a book cover-to-cover in your life. How the hell do you know what's the capital of Estonia?
- I never did, says Tim calmly, - and I probably never will, but I had this insane geography professor at UW, hated jocks, totally had it in for us, and I had to pass that course to keep my GPA high enough to play sophomore year, so I learned it. I wasn’t that hard. And once something’s in my head, he says, smiling a little, - it tends to stick.
He strips off the towel and flings it across the room, where it lands on the edge of the sleek, ultramodern couch in the sitting room of Zito’s suite. He pushes back the edge of the down comforter and slides in next to Zito.
- You’re wet, says Barry, - and cold, and -
- perfect, says Tim, snaking his arms around Zito - any more ones you want to ask me about? You have three minutes.
Zito’s doing his best to ignore him, but Tim’s got both of his hands under the covers now, and Zito’s breath catches when one of them finds its target.
- Kay, this is the last one, says Zito. - Four letters, ‘opp. of aft.’
- ‘FORE,’ says Tim, - like ‘before.’
Zito fills in the word, then clips the pen to the folded-up page and flings it off the edge of the bed. Tim’s taken Barry’s reading glasses by the bridge and now he’s pulling them off slowly, like a striptease. And then he’s twisted himself up and he’s straddling Zito, pinning Barry's shoulders back against the pillows, and sinking a kiss on the place where his collarbone meets his shoulder.
Tim doesn’t need to see it to sense it - Zito flinches a little when Tim’s swirling tongue meets his skin, and Barry's whole body curls up in response, his belly hard with holding in his breath so he can just keep feeling it.
- Like ‘foreplay,’ Zito murmurs, and the breath he sucks in whistles between his lips and his teeth, his back arching him up against Tim’s chest as Tim stretches both their arms out, hands clasped, as though they’re ready to fly, mouth on mouth, skin on skin.