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upontherisers · 4 months

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a/n: ik i'm behind on prompts but i'm in AU hell. in my brain, there lives a summer camp. chaos ensues. huge shout out to @shoshiwrites and @loveduringthewar for listening to my rambling for the past few days.

“Welcome back to a beautiful evening at PNC Park. It’s the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two strikes, one out, the Yankees lead the Pirates 8-4—scratch that—” It’s more exciting to pitch from behind. “Tie game. Egan winds up—”

“Stop talking to yourself,” Brady yells.

No one lets him have any fun around here. He waves his co-counselor off and winds up again, sending a two-seam into Connor’s catcher’s mitt with a satisfying thwack. Diego, the batter, sighs, takes his helmet off defeatedly, and shuffles back to the home dugout. The kid stood no chance, especially not this far back in the batting order.

“Sorry, bud,” Bucky calls. That’s a lie; he’s about to pitch his first no hitter of the summer and he’s carrying his cabin, which has put up an abysmal performance through these first seven innings. Serves them right for naming themselves The Brady Bunch instead of naming themselves after him.

“They named themselves after you last year.”

“You mean the Tampa Slay Buckyneers?”

They’re back-to-back camp champs; they better play like it. This the only pre-season game before the cabin tournament and Bucky needs to put up some serious numbers or he risks losing his stars being poached for the intramural tournament at the end of the summer. Nevaeh Hale in UC05 just started playing national travel ball and there’s no way in hell he’s letting an arm like that end up on Kidd’s team or even worse, with one of the new counselors. Official practices are strictly against camp rules but if The Brady Bunch’s nightly tribal council just happened to coincidentally be on the baseball diamond tonight, he wouldn't complain. He has the speech from Remember the Titans down pat and he’s not afraid to use it. We will be perfect in every aspect of the game. You drop a pass, you run a mile.

His co-counselor will put up a fight, but he doesn’t understand the game like Bucky does. Brady’s a swimmer and swimming isn’t a sport, it’s a survival skill.

Bucky kicks at the dirt and pops his gum as Connor throws the ball back. The kid’s playing well today. His request to play catcher instead of his usual center field had taken Bucky by surprise, but he’s holding his own. It’s not as big of a test as Bucky would like it to be and he’s not sold on it being a permanent change. They need Connor’s height—and more importantly, his speed—in the outfield, especially in their first game against Buck and Benny’s Boyz 2 Men 2 Fast 2 Furious.

“It’s a bad name.”

“It’s a great name.”

“You’re only saying that because it’s Buck’s team.”

B2M2F2F’s (say that five times fast) Chayse Merriweather had shot up three inches since last summer and his counselors are being tight-lipped about how his swing is looking, but Bucky has no doubt that he’s going to have to send his boys deep and have his pitchers prepped to walk him if push comes to shove. The more he thinks about it, the more he makes up his mind. Sorry to Connor, but Xander is a decent enough catcher and since counselors aren’t allowed to play in the actual tournament, Buck needs as much height as he can get in the outfield.

But, on the other hand, Jacob F. is pretty tall and he could—

The dinner bell sounds across camp and two benches of teenage boys jolt upright in sudden, rabid interest.

“Final at bat?” Cros calls from his dugout.

Bucky defers to Brady, who gives him a solemn nod, and he shrugs at the home side. “Sure.”

He scans the field behind him. The outfield’s getting bored: Maxwell and Aiden have been shouting song requests to Dellie and Ken in the booth and doing TikTok dances since the game started, Nolan’s pulled so close to Dominic that there’re practically two third basemen, and even if he started making subs, the dugout’s too busy doing bottle flips to know where they’re at in the game. He loaded the bases to give them some defensive practice, maybe field some ground balls while keeping an eye on their man, start getting into a passing rhythm for double plays, but apparently it’s much more interesting to do a bad line dance to Beyoncé.

He yells to his boys to get back to their spots and is immediately waved off. Nol and Dom don’t even acknowledge him, which hurts a little. The dinner bell broke the remaining shreds of their attempt at concentrating, and he wouldn’t regain control until after they ate.

Sometimes, he feels like he’s the only one around here who gives a shit about baseball.

The Riveters’ fastest runner, Jordan, is on second and wouldn’t steal with Davonte at shortstop. Bucky doesn’t have the rest of the batting order memorized yet, but based on their last few hitters, the other team’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. He’ll lay down a few heaters, make sure the kid doesn’t feel too bad about it (2-0’s an honorable loss), and make sure his boys don’t kill each other getting in the dinner line. He’s not going to save their season from the mound and besides, it’s taco night. He’d develop their roster over a plate of delicious, greasy ground beef and use Brady as an entirely unresponsive sounding board.

It takes awhile for a batter to step up to the plate and if they’re the ones who want one more swing, they shouldn’t waste his time. It’s getting chilly as the sun goes down and the mosquitos’ll be out soon, and he much rather deal with the 15-year-old boy’s tirade against bug spray in the privacy of his bunk. He gets some plate-to-mound reps in with Connor before standing up and setting his hands on his hips. “What’s taking so long?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Cros says, flipping through papers on a clipboard, “hitter change.” Are they fucking printing out their batting orders now? Since when? No offense to the other bunk, but they’re much more… feelings based than Bucky and Brady’s. Cros emphasizes enjoyment over wins, which is fine, he supposes, but there’s a reason they haven’t made the playoffs in the five years Bucky’s been at camp. And now they’re printing out their batting order, like that’s gonna help.

Maybe Jean took Harry to a game, opened his eyes to the joys of the spirit of competition, made him see that there’s as much confidence building in holding yourself to a standard as there is in “having fun.” Maybe this’ll be a year when more than two cabins are putting in effort.

After a few moments, someone finally steps out, bat in hand. It’s Rosie, much to Bucky’s surprise. He doesn’t know much about Cros’ new co-counselor, but he knows he’s full of surprises.

It had been a shock when Bubbles announced to the counselors’ group chat that he wouldn’t be returning this summer, passing up eight weeks in the mountains for a “once-in-a-lifetime” Master’s exchange program in Paris. Bucky didn’t understand; you have to pay to go to Paris, they pay you to be at camp.

And Cros put on a brave face during returning counselors’ orientation, pretending that he wasn’t shitting himself about doing his first summer ever without his partner in crime, nodding nervously at Chick’s assurances that they found him a good co-counselor. Everyone was surprised when Rosie showed up the next week. It’s not like they were expecting anything in particular, but they weren’t expecting someone so… so perfectly suited to the environment, frankly. A law student, the newest Head of Academics for the kids who take summer classes, and vouched for by Izzy in the front office.

Bucky held the man at arm’s length for a few days due to being unimpressed by his “I don’t really follow the Yankees” answer when Bucky tried to connect over Rosie being from Brooklyn.

“There’s more than one professional sports team in New York,” Gale says, taking his seat next to Bucky for a fire safety orientation they’ve seen too many times.

“Yeah? Name one.”

“Or,” says Mahalia as she leans forward and sticks her head between the boys’, “get this: some people don’t root for their hometown teams. Some people get so infatuated by a group of uniforms hundreds of miles away that they betray the land that raised them.”

“You know what?” Bucky snaps, turning around.

Chick clears his throat from the front of the room and gives a warning, arched brow. Bucky flips Mahalia off over his shoulder.

Even thinking about her partially ruins the respect he’s built for Rosie.

It took a week or so for him to realize that it’s not an act, that the new counselor is as genuine as he presents himself to be—patient, smart, gives good advice but isn’t parental about it. Instead of the usual mess of interbunk seating at dinner on the first night of camp, the majority of Rosie’s campers opt to sit with him at the cabin table rather than catching up with all their friends, full of questions and listening intently as he introduces himself. Their team name is in the intramural Google spreadsheet by Day 3. Rosie’s Riveters. It’s rare that a bunk names themselves after a counselor even once in the ten summers they’re together, let alone a new guy coming in seven years late.

He’s a good fit for UC16. Cros’ group has always been on the quieter side, tending to stick with each other and spend a quiet night playing board games in the bunk rather than trying to wreck as much shop as they can before curfew. A gentle but strong spirit who stays calm under pressure (look, Harry’s trying but he’s not there yet), a natural leader, and a complete lack of FOMO makes Rosie the perfect guy to keep his boys in a low pressure environment.

He’s the darling of the front office, the clear favorite of the kitchen staff, and one of the only counselors allowed within the sacred walls of the nurses’ cabin. Bucky’s never been on the nurses’ porch let alone inside the bunk, and he's known all of those girls for years.

“Maybe that’s why they don’t want you in their personal living quarters.”

Whatever, Mahalia. He’s grown up a lot since starting at Lake Harding, okay?

So it surprises him as Rosie walks to home plate with confidence, taking a couple of half-swings before digging a heel in the box and hiking the bat up. He looks ready.

Bucky’s impressed, but not deterred. “I don’t go easy on counselors,” he says.

“That’s fair,” Rosie shrugs with a gentle smile.

Alright, well. The Brady Bunch still wants to get to dinner and a few of them have homework to do before tribal council and lights out.

“Bottom of the ninth,” he whispers as he winds up, savoring the familiar drag of clay under his shoe, “bases loaded, two outs, Yankees lead 2-0.”

The ball slams into Connor’s glove, a high and tight four-seam, without so much as a twitch from the batter.

With no refs, Bucky has to call his own games. “Strike one.”

Rosie nods at the ground with a contemplative pout before preparing again. If it’s going to be this easy, Bucky might as well change things up a bit. The wind is blowing south east, toward home plate, and if he can sink his change up just right…

He winds up, aims, and fires, and the most beautiful noise he’s ever heard—the expressive, roaring, galant crack of ball meeting bat—thunders across the field. It takes him a second to track the ball against the darkening sky, and up it goes, higher and higher over the short chain link fence at the end of the outfield.

Rosie takes a few stumbling steps toward first with the practiced momentum of a man who’s gone yard many times in his life but just wants to be polite about when he starts running, and lets the bat fall to the dirt as he starts a light jog. It’s silent except for the evening birdsong when the ball finally disappears into the first few feet of forest, and then the home dugout erupts. The Riveters pour out onto the field like they just won the World Series, hats and mitts flying into the air, whooping and jumping on each other.

Bucky is dumbstruck. He’s never been grand slammed, not once in five years and a week of pitching, but as Rosie is rounding the bases, he finds Cros’ gloating, smug ass smile still in his dugout and furrows his brows. What the fuck, bro?

“Brooklyn College, Division II Men’s Baseball National Champs,” Cros shouts over the victory cries of his boys, “2020 through 2023.”

“Where the hell is Brooklyn College anyway?” Bucky asks later as he’s pulling his tray through the taco bar, replaying the sound of Rosie’s homer over in his head.

“Brooklyn,” Brady says with a laugh.

They take their seats at their table where Connor and Davonte, the traitors, are animatedly regaling two UC05 girls with the story of The Miracle on the Diamond.

“You think he’d coach?”

Brady drops his fork into his plate with a scowl. “I’m your assistant coach.”

“Well, you weren’t much help today.”

“How was I supposed to know the guy’s a national champi—”

“Heard you boys got your asses kicked by a lawyer,” Mahalia says, plopping down on Bucky’s left.

Brady returns to his dinner in silence and Bucky gathers up a taco in his hand. “People lose sometimes.”

“I don’t,” Mahalia says innocently, stabbing the greens in her neatly arranged taco salad. What the hell is wrong with her? “I stood on business today. Parenthesis-Withdrew-parenthesis in italics didn’t know what hit ‘em.”

Ah, yes, (Withdrew), Ev and Dougie’s latest scheme to trick opposing teams into not showing up to their matches, automatically forfeiting and giving them the win. The worst part is, Mahalia did stand on business. Getting pinched on the last possible pitch hurt like a bitch, but not as bad as whatever the UC08 girls did to their opponents on the volleyball court. The shell-shocked faces of (Withdrew)’s valiant soldiers told Bucky everything he needed to know about their game when the Bunch got back to the boy’s side of Upper Camp.

Mahalia bumps his shoulder with hers, causing half his taco to spill all over his plate. “It’s funny,” she starts, “Nevaeh plays so well. I can’t believe she hasn’t tried volleyball before.”

He already doesn't like where this is going.

“She had a lot of fun out there. She might pick volleyball over baseball when intramurals start.”

She's poaching his fucking players. Bucky’s vision goes red and he’s about to get up and leave (he learned last year that he and Mahalia are not allowed to get into screaming matches in the dining hall) when she reaches over and nabs his cookie off his plate before standing and sweeping over to her own table. He’s too stunned to speak or to look away, even as she turns over her shoulder and bites down on the treat with a coy smile.

He’s going to kill her.

#mahalia summerton #straighten up and fly right #my writing #lake harding #mahalia x bucky

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storiesaremylife · 1 year

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Teaser 1

A/N: This is an introduction to some of the characters in my TSC future AU, some were created by my friends but most were made by me. My ask box is always open, so let me know your thoughts, questions, and who you think I should do next.

Clary refused to admit Jace won.

Others may have said it wasn’t a competition, but it totally was and Clary lost. It was all the more bitter that she didn’t so much mind the loss, as it had changed her life for the better. Never as a teenager would she have imagined she’d end up here, her heart this full, her home this… loud.

Three kids. That was the compromise. Jace wanted eight, Clary wanted one, so they’d agreed on three. No more, no less. Marriage was, after all, all about compromise.

She was thinking about all of this as she moved through the Institute late one August night, checking on each of their sleeping children. Clary pushed open the door to the first room, the one that used to be Izzy’s, and wondered not for the first time how she could have produced such a daughter.

Gabrielle Celine Herondale, whose first word had been “sparkle” and whose bedroom was decorated with so much pink and frills that teenage Clary would have gagged. However, she felt nothing but pride, knowing Bri had made that comforter herself. Her eldest daughter would be eighteen next month and had been showing interest in running the Institute after her parents’ retirement. She had such confidence. The only evidence of herself Clary saw in Bri came from the desk in her room that was littered in sketchbooks. Even her looks: her hair was more orange-pink than red, her eyes green but speckled through with gold.

Not that her next child was any more similar, Clary thought as she peaked into the next room. While it was more blue than pink and sleek than frilly, it still far more a girl’s room than Clary ever had. Posters of famous Mundane teenagers were tacked up alongside those of famous ballets. Emma Lucine Herondale, who was two days shy of her seventeenth birthday. Emmie probably worried Clary the most. She seemed to have no interest in the Shadowhunter lifestyle these past few years, which was fine except she’d begun to alienate her friends and family at the same time. Even her best friend, Micah, seemed to be held at arm’s length.

Unlike her elder sister, though, there was no doubt Clary’s genes ran through Emmie’s veins. While tall, proud, and beautiful like her father, she had Fairchild eyes. And her hair… her hair fell in long, near white curls. Like her cousin, Ash. Like Ash’s father.

The next three rooms were nearly interchangeable as far as who slept in them. The first two were across the hall from each other, and for the last fourteen years there had been many sleepless nights thanks to the doors opening and closing.

The first belonged to their third child, the one Clary had assumed would be the last. The perfect three, the goal, and another girl. But when Brother Enoch had come in and announced that their three was actually four, that they would be having twins… well it was that moment that Clary knew she had lost.

The room itself wasn’t changed much from the standard Institute bedroom. It was however… a mess. Papers and books littered almost every surface, and those they didn’t were littered in clothes. She could hardly see her daughter– Aurora Paige Herondale, better known as Rory– through the multitude of blankets and pillows stacked on her bed. Looks and personality wise, Rory was certainly the one most like her mother: fiery red hair, introverted, small build. Her twin was pretty much the polar opposite of her.

Aiden James Herondale. Julian Blackthorn had jokingly called them the Blaze Twins, both because their names meant dawn and fire (respectively), and because of the way the pair tended to blaze their way through every Institute they’ve ever visited, Aiden in the lead.

As much as Rory was like Clary, Aiden was a miniature Jace. He had those gold curls Clary loved, that sarcastic troublemaker grin, and the charm that got him out of that same trouble. Something did keep the twins from being perfect clones. Clary remembered when their eye color had settled, the confusion both she and Jace had had, the sadly fond looks Tessa and Jem had given the babies. She just couldn’t fathom how *her* babies ended up with *Alec’s* eyes.

Aiden’s room was also the opposite of Rory’s with that same obsessive neatness Clary had never really understood about his father. It was also stacked wall to wall with books. Two full walls were dedicated solely to bookshelves, and there was a neat stack of them by his bedside. There were books of sheet music and comics on his desk, along with a few loose papers of what he was working on at the moment.

After the twins, Clary was done. She’d agreed to three. She’d had three pregnancies. She’d ended up with four kids, which was four more than she’d ever pictured herself with when she was younger. And Jace had agreed. They had their beautiful family. They were happy.

It was about 8 years later. Clary smiled at the memory as she pushed open the third door, the room with almost as many instruments as the music room itself. Jace had been on business in Wales, while Clary had been attending a local crisis: Emmie had taken some of Bri’s clothes and gotten them dirty. He’d returned a mess. He’d told her all about a boy he’d met in Swansea, whose eyes had reminded Jace of himself at that age.

They knew about the process intimately, thanks to Rafe. There had been a lot of traveling back and forth between New York and Swansea, lots of fine print needed, but they’d had a new addition to their family: Rhys Morgan Rainwind, now Rhys Herondale. They’d been a bit worried, as he was only two months older than the twins, but the three of them immediately took to each other, referring to themselves now as triplets.

That should have been it. It really should have been. Ironic, honestly, for the girl who created the birth control rune to be the one to find out it wasn’t *one hundred percent* effective.

The last room belonged to their youngest. Marylyn Stephanie Herondale, who would be four later that year. Her room now was decorated in a soft pink, filled with books and stuffed animals that her many siblings and family members felt she just *had* to have. She had blond curls like Jace, and green eyes like Clary, and the stubbornness and attitude of both of them combined. Mare could be anything when she grew up, and Clary had no doubt that she would be. Her daughter. Her baby.

So. Six. The agreement had been three, but of course nothing ever went the way Clary planned it. And of course, Jace won. And Clary couldn’t really bring herself to mind. So really, all was as it had always been. Clary closed the door and headed back to the room where her husband was already sleeping, looking forward to what tomorrow might bring.

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