Work Text:
When the others described Elsewhere they said it was boring. No one could pinpoint what it looked like. Instead they shared the feeling: Like a blanket of pale cold fog that hung low. Like a desaturated world, the dullness of shadows. Like a heavy gray dusk on a cloudy evening. Like being a ghost, or, like the whole world had become ghostlike around you.
When you were Elsewhere it felt like you lost the pieces of yourself that made you you. When you were Elsewhere, that didn’t seem to matter.
When Wyatt Mason X Echoed themself Elsewhere, NaN heard the static.
NaN had heard the static almost constantly since Day 72. It started when they turned on the PsychoAcoustics. It sounded like the crackle of an open channel on a radio, the noisy silence before someone speaks. It lived in his head just behind his ears, a low hum that turned to white noise.
He remembered doing a double take when the Jazz Hands stepped onto the field on Day 73. The Hands had a new batter. And NaN could have sworn that batter was him, that he’d seen himself walking out of the opposite dugout, wearing the wrong colors, holding a bat.
But no, that wasn’t right. He didn’t look like that anymore. The kid on the field wasn’t him. That was Wyatt.
Wyatt.
He remembered them suddenly, or perhaps he’d never forgotten. Wyatt Mason had been a batter for the Los Angeles Tacos. That thought felt slippery. It took considerable focus to hold on to it. NaN knew Wyatt Mason. He had heard Wyatt’s voice in his head- multiple times now- louder than his own thoughts. Wyatt had saved Jaylen. Wyatt had reminded the League to Have Hope. Wyatt had helped kill a god.
What the hell were they doing back here?
The light shifted and NaN realized: Wyatt wasn't solid. Their image flickered like a projection and shimmered in the sunlight. At the wrong angle the perspective warped just enough to be uncanny. When they moved they left a faint trail of afterimages behind them.
Their name on the scoreboard confirmed it: Wyatt Mason II. Not the original. An Echo.
After the game the Jazz Hands lingered by their dugout. The Echo of Wyatt Mason II mingled with them. NaN watched from the bullpen, burning with questions he didn’t want answered.
The Hands left the field soon after. NaN didn’t follow them.
The news spread quick and the League buzzed with excitement. Thirteen Wyatt Masons scattered across thirteen teams. Their savior, the voice of the League, back with them at last. But NaN didn’t join in celebrating or speculating. Static roared behind his ears, an ocean of electricity, and he couldn’t get it out of his head. Something about this was wrong. Wyatt couldn’t be here because Wyatt wasn’t a player anymore. Wyatt was something else now. And the player that used to be Wyatt Mason...
NaN didn’t try to hold on to that thought. He let it slip away. Maybe it would be fine. Wyatt must know what they were doing. They had to. He hoped.
In the middle of the next game NaN heard the first Echo. Hello? Hello? Who are you? Who are you? Who are we? Who are we? It was Wyatt’s voice but not the way he remembered it. It rattled around in his head, unfocused and confused— so loud, too close. The energy hit him like electricity and at first he thought it was another flicker but no, this was different. NaN looked at his hands and for a moment they weren’t his hands at all. For a moment he was someone else entirely.
The Echoes copied others and he copied the Echoes and he didn’t have a choice. Their energy hummed through him, frantic and uncontainable and wild.
And then a moment later he was himself again, for the most part. That reflection of someone else still lingered on top of him like a shadow in reverse.
He could feel the eyes of the other Firefighters in the bullpen on him. When they looked at him, what did they see? Could they see it too? He never knew how much to tell everyone else. To them this must be scary, but to him it was just another weird thing he had to deal with. He took a deep breath and shook off a shudder. Fine. This was fine. This had to be fine.
And then, four days later, the first Echoes turned to Static.
Wyatt Mason IX and Wyatt Mason XI met on the field and Echoed each other into oblivion.
They weren’t dead. They weren’t in the Hall. They were gone. Gone beyond the reach of Idols or Shadows or Wills. Gone like they’d never been there at all. The League went quiet. Excitement turned to dread.
And then it happened again.
And then it happened again.
NaN heard it each time it happened. A ringing. A rush of noise. The dissonance of opposing chords, echoes out of sync. A wave of static, louder and louder, rising like a swell till it crashed down upon itself. Then, silence. Complete, staggering silence.
Familiar. It felt familiar. Like he’d been torn through infinite worlds, like he’d been pulled out of himself and stretched too thin, like his soul had been rearranged and snuffed out. It felt like dying.
He couldn’t stop it. He had to keep playing. All he could do was watch.
There were 13. Then 11. Then 9. Then 7. Then 5. Then 3.
NaN wondered if the rest of the League understood now. He’d understood it the moment the Wyatts showed up: They weren’t a blessing. They were an omen.
///
When NaN felt Wyatt Mason X Echo Elsewhere on Day 97, he didn’t fight it. After being bombarded by Echoes, after waiting for the next inevitable static, Elsewhere couldn’t possibly be worse. It didn’t seem possible to Echo into Elsewhere, but then again of course it was. So he didn’t question it. He welcomed the fog as it washed over him. He let himself be swept away. He let the static roar itself into silence.
He anticipated the rush of apathy and the fade to gray, but the pull didn’t take him all the way. He felt a feeling (not unfamiliar) of being stuck between two worlds. He was still there with the Tigers, somewhat, still in the bullpen at the game. But his teammates looked at the place where he once stood like they could see right through him.
Still, he breathed a sigh of relief. This half-Elsewhere felt close enough to how they described: Peaceful, cool, quiet. Maybe here he’d be safe. Maybe here he could rest until things sorted themselves out.
NaN leaned back into the fog and wondered if that Wyatt was here with him. A spike of fear threatened to return and instead he let the fog smother it.
He closed his eyes. He couldn’t help Wyatt. He couldn’t even help himself. Maybe it was better if he just stayed here.
He ignored the unnerving sense that he was forgetting something important. He couldn’t remember it now, so maybe it was better if he didn’t.
Then the game ended. He shuffled ghostlike off the field and out of the stadium and on to the next and the next and then Sun 2 rose on Day 99 and he realized with a jolt of dread—
He hadn’t called her.
///
Day 79, two days after the first Wyatts Staticed out, the same day he flickered to the Tigers, 16 days before he echoed Elsewhere, she’d called him.
“Is this what it’s felt like for you this whole time?” Quitter’s voice crackled through the receiver.
Fear rose in his throat. He’d felt her become an Echo right after he swapped with Dunlap. At first he thought it might just been aftershocks from the flicker. The truth of what happened to her seemed impossible.
“Yeah, kinda,” he replied, barely above a whisper, “But never as bad as this before.” He’d stolen away to a corner of his new clubhouse to take the call where the team wouldn’t look for him. He’d learned how to keep his distance.
“You can feel it too, right? The static. Each time it happens it’s like my feet keep falling asleep. And my fingers. It’s really weird. All pins and needles.”
“Mhm,” he mumbled. He wanted to help her. He should be the expert on this brand of weirdness. He should have known what to say to comfort her. But the words wouldn’t come.
Neither of them spoke, and for a moment it was only their breaths coming through the line, and it sounded too much like the static, and NaN wondered if they even really needed the phone or if this was just a charade to make them both feel more normal.
He wondered if it was dangerous for them to even be talking at all.
He decided he didn’t care.
“You’ve seen the forecast.” She wasn’t asking a question.
“Yeah, I have,” he replied. He’d pulled the matchups and weather reports for the rest of the season as soon as he’d figured out the conditions to look for. He did the horrible work of charting out when the rest would go. To see who’d be left.
“Well. The other Echoes— they’re gone. Gone gone. They didn’t last an inning when they met each other on the field. I think this might be it for me too.”
“Don’t say that. There’s still a chance.”
“Just— Call me right before game 99 okay?” He could hear the frown in her voice. She was never this serious. That scared him more than anything else.
“I will. I promise.”
///
He remembered that promise from that place half in the bullpen, half-Elsewhere. Adrenaline shot through him. It scattered the fog of apathy instantly. He pulled out his phone in that ghost-like state and tapped her name, his fingers all pins and needles. Maybe it would connect. Maybe it would still work. It had to still work. Weirder things had happened.
It rang and rang and rang and rang and rang and went to voicemail.
“Hey it’s Quitter. Leave a message. Or don’t. ‘Kay bye.”
The message beep nearly shattered him. He took a shaky breath and spoke:
“Hey. I don’t know if you can hear me but— This can’t be the way I say goodbye to you. You’ve been there for me since the beginning, back on the Tacos, before anyone else cared. You’re the one who taught me how to never quit. Even when the odds are impossible. And we have faced impossible odds.
“So don’t quit now. Please, please hold on. You have to be there when I get back. Just be there and we can figure this out together. Okay? See you soon.”
He hung up. He breathed out. Game 99 started.
He couldn’t see it clearly from that halfway-between space. The Tigers had turned on Tokyo’s game in the bullpen, but the sound was garbled and the picture glitched. So instead he closed his eyes and counted the seconds.
One moment passed. Then another. He heard the staticy crack of a bat over the TV. The fuzzy cheer of the crowd. He didn’t hear an echo. A few innings must have passed by then. This was longer than any of them had lasted. Still he didn’t hear an echo. Maybe she had a chance. Maybe she’d make it out okay.
He felt it when it happened.
A hollow ringing where his heartbeat should be. The static behind his ears. The sudden, staggering silence.
She was gone. Gone gone.
He screamed. He thought he might never stop screaming. There was no sound.
And then suddenly the fog cleared and the color rushed back into the world and his heart slammed back into his chest and he was no longer Elsewhere and he wished he still was.
Too loud, too bright. The Tigers— his teammates, he reminded himself— gathered around him in the bullpen with concerned looks on their faces. He buried his head in his hands. His tears spun in fractals from the places his eyes should be.
He was back but the echo of Elsewhere was still on him. He could feel the fog lingering and silently he begged it to pull him under again. He wanted to go back. He craved the cool numbness, the emptiness, the quiet. Anything but this.
He pulled a bit of that numbness closer and invited it in.
He raised his head, eyes dry.
“NaN I’m so sorry,” Paula Mason consoled, “I know she was your friend.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. We knew it was going to happen.” Monotone, bland. He looked past the team like he could see right through them.
A crease of worry on her brow. “It’s okay to grieve. We know, we’ve lost a lot of friends too.”
“Were you joking then?” he snapped, “With that motto you won’t stop repeating?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just doing what you said. Never look back.”
Paula frowned. “That isn’t an excuse not to remember.”
“I don’t care.”
He got up off the bench and walked away. He had to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. He listened to the static in his head and tuned out everything else.
///
The Tigers made the playoffs despite him. On other teams he’d survived as a batter by blending in with the rest. He wouldn’t win or lose a game by his skill or lack thereof. But ever since the Worms made him pitch, he’d garnered a reputation as an instant loss for his team.
The Tigers didn’t hide their disappointment. He’d taken one of their original players from them. Dunlap Figeuroa had been universally beloved. And skilled too. The Tigers, unlike NaN’s original team and many he’d visited, were accustomed to winning. They expected it. And NaN was a wrench in that finely tuned machine.
The rotation had skipped him while he’d been half-Elsewhere. The traces of fog still lingered. He hadn’t heard another echo since. Maybe he’d get skipped again. He wished he would.
What was the point of even playing anymore? He hardly cared about who won the finals. How could he care about something as pedestrian as that after what had happened with the Wyatts, with Quitter. How did the games matter when he still felt like he was drowning in waves of static.
Only two Echoes left now. One still Elsewhere. And the other...
The echo of Wyatt Mason IV had been quiet up till then. NaN hadn’t heard them Echo all season, but on Day 110 they found their voice.
I’m here, I’m here, still here, still here. They seemed to shout each time they Echoed. NaN gripped the edge of the bench with shaky fingers. Each time the Echo happened, it was like he was Wyatt. Like he was on the mound in their place. And then it was like he was Lars. And then he was Sandoval, and then Dudley, and then Richmond, and then— and then— and then it was like he ceased to exist.
And then he pulled himself back, the ringing still in his ears. After a moment his stomach settled but not all the way.
He didn’t know if he should be happy that there were two Wyatts left. Still two Wyatts left. Only two Wyatts left.
///
At the end of Game One of the Wild League Championship the Tigers and the Tacos watched the sky and held their breaths. Day 99 was the last risk of Static they’d known about beforehand. Now they didn’t have the forecast. Nan on the mound for the Tigers, Wyatt Mason IV for the Tacos. If Wyatt Echoed, NaN could become an echo too. And if they Echoed again…
The skies shifted. NaN’s heart beat loud in his ears. Then— Peanuts. He never thought he’d be so happy to see peanuts.
He didn’t know what he expected to feel when he saw Wyatt IV on the field. They had the same strange shimmer that all the Echoes did. When you looked directly at them they were solid, but when you turned away the picture fizzled and faded, like an afterimage on a bad TV.
They looked exactly like the other Wyatts.
The game started and the top of the first came and went and when it was time to switch places they passed each other on the field. NaN left the bullpen and walked toward the mound as Wyatt stepped down. As they approached, it struck NaN how similar they were. It was like Wyatt could be his shadow. Or maybe NaN was the shadow. Or maybe they both were.
Wyatt smiled at him. They looked as scared as NaN felt. A buzz of static electricity ran up NaN’s arms as they walked by each other.
NaN took his place atop the pitcher’s mound and suppressed a shudder. The floodlights overhead shone down. He’d gotten over the fear of being up there alone but now a new kind of fear took its place. He kicked his cleats into the dirt, rubbing out the traces of Wyatt’s footprints. The smell of rancid peanuts drifted on the wind. The remnants of a dead god. A reminder.
He didn’t want to let the Tigers down. He’d faced off against his original team many times over the seasons but this was the Wild League Championship. The Tacos that NaN had played for many seasons ago couldn’t dream of holding their own against one of the great dynasties of the League.
Maybe that’s why he couldn’t help but throw softballs all game, or maybe it was that he still hadn’t quite shaken the fog of Elsewhere, or that he was too focused on smothering thoughts of Quitter, or that maybe he couldn’t have beaten his old friends even if he’d been trying.
Unlike him, Wyatt IV was a good pitcher. They shut out the Tigers. The Tacos won.
NaN ignored the looks of disappointment on the Tigers’ faces and ignored their words of reassurance as he returned to their bullpen after the game ended. Instead he looked across the field to watch his former teammates celebrate.
He thought about going over there to congratulate them. But as Mcdowell gave Wyatt IV a pat on the back, as Sexton ruffled their hair– NaN’s stomach twisted. It felt dangerous to get too close. After Quitter, he couldn’t take that risk.
///
After the Fans left the stadium and his teammates had receded to the locker room, something on the field caught NaN’s attention. From the bullpen, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wyatt IV standing there alone on the pitcher’s mound. They looked so small under the few remaining floodlights, their face turned up toward the dark sky.
Their translucent shimmer was even more apparent at night. Their appearance shifted in and out of see-through and they had a pale glow all around them, like a halo of soft magenta light. NaN wondered if anyone else could see it. He wasn’t going to ask.
Maybe the others just saw a kid on the field, but NaN could see the truth. Wyatt was ethereal and uncanny and terrifying.
That thing in a Tacos uniform stared up at the sky. The lights were too bright to see any stars. Their eyes looked empty.
Before NaN could stop himself, he’d left the bullpen and started walking across the field. Fear bubbled up in his stomach and he had to remind himself that they were safe now. The field was quiet. No more chances they’d face each other in Feedback and Echo to oblivion.
He had decided he didn’t want to talk to any of the Wyatts from the moment they’d showed up, but maybe that had been a lie. Now that he had a chance it was like a kind of gravity pulled them toward each other. He wanted to ask Wyatt so many questions. He wanted to give Wyatt a piece of his mind for what they put him through. He wanted to grab Wyatt by the collar and yell at him How could you? How could you let this happen? How could you let this happen to her?
As soon as he got close NaN felt the buzz of static electricity flare up again. Wyatt must have felt it too, because they turned over their shoulder as Nan closed the distance between them.
Wyatt’s face was hard to focus on. For one, it didn’t stay very solid. It flickered in and out of translucence. And more, it was like looking in a mirror. Except not quite. The image wasn’t reversed so it was uncanny and uncomfortable, and NaN had to remind himself again he didn’t actually look like that. Not anymore.
NaN stopped on the far side of the pitcher’s mound and for a moment neither of them spoke. What do you say to a piece of your soul that isn’t yours? What do you say to a material god made immaterial?
Finally, NaN just said: “Hi.”
This was always going to be awkward.
Wyatt snorted a chuckle. “Hi.”
Wyatt’s voice echoed in NaN’s head, like it was coming from inside him rather than just a sound he heard. He tried not to wince.
Wyatt’s smile faded. “I’m not really here, am I?”
At that, NaN went still. All his righteous anger fizzled out. Hearing Wyatt say what he’d suspected all along didn’t give him any comfort. Instead his head went quiet.
Wyatt continued. “I haven’t really talked about this with the team since they seemed so happy to have me back but— I don’t think I’m actually back. I don’t think I’m really here.”
NaN’s heart beat faster. “Why tell me this?”
“You’re a good listener.”
NaN frowned.
“Okay bad joke. But seriously. The others don’t get it. You do.”
“I really don’t.”
Wyatt got a distanced look in their eyes.
“Out there I could do things— things that could really help. But I think I messed up. And I don’t know if I can fix it.”
This is what NaN had been most afraid of. Wyatt was the League’s champion. Wyatt was supposed to be good and capable and powerful. Wyatt was supposed to be everything NaN wasn’t.
“I don’t think I can help you,” NaN said. He looked down at his shoes. He wasn’t special. He didn’t wield any real power, he got tossed around in the spin cycle of aftermaths. A pariah more than a champion.
“It’s okay. If it wasn’t obvious, I don’t think I can help me either,” Wyatt breathed another sad laugh. Then, quietly: “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I felt it every time the other Echoes Staticed out. I know you did too. And what happened with Taiga-”
“Don’t,” NaN stopped them. He’d started to say “Don’t apologize” but it didn’t get out past the hurt. Hearing that name hit something deep in his core. Taiga. Quitter’s name had been Taiga before it had been Wyatt’s. He couldn’t remember it before, and even now he felt it slipping away again.
NaN clenched a fist. “We’ve carried you with us this whole time. We didn’t have a choice. And now we’re paying for it.” An accusation and a concession. None of them chose this.
Wyatt’s gaze fell. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Or maybe it was. It’s hard to tell. I can’t see like I used to and it’s getting harder to remember.”
NaN took a breath. He asked the question he’d been wondering since the first Static. “What happens when there are none of you left?”
Wyatt looked back up, fear plain on their face. “I don’t know.” Their voice broke. “Wyatt Mason was supposed to die a long time ago. So maybe I already have. Maybe this is just what’s left of me getting a chance to say goodbye.”
NaN couldn’t feel Elsewhere’s fog of apathy anymore. Instead he just felt raw.
He looked at the kid across from him and he saw a stranger and a reflection and a player and himself and a demigod and nobody at all. The League needed Wyatt. But also, this reflection of them couldn’t hold the plane on their shoulders. This kid didn’t deserve to die.
“You’re going to make it to the end of the season.” NaN told him. He meant it to be reassuring.
“Are you sure that’s a good thing?” Wyatt asked quietly, “What about next season? Moses, Sixpack, you— As long as I’m still here, what happened to Taiga can still happen to all of you.”
NaN couldn’t deny it. This wasn’t over. But, oh—
“This isn’t over. You’ve got to have hope.”
Wyatt grinned. “That’s my line.”
“Doesn’t mean it can’t still be true. Impossible things happen all the time. You should know. The Tacos are about to beat the Tigers in the Wild League Championship after all.”
“There are different kinds of impossible.”
“I know.”
The Echo of Wyatt Mason IV took a long breath. NaN listened for the buzz of static. Still there, humming in waves behind his ears. Still there.
“So now what?” Wyatt IV asked.
“We keep playing I guess. You gonna go win the championship?”
Wyatt IV flashed a toothy grin, a genuine one this time. “You know I play for the Tacos, right?”
NaN laughed.
“No offense but I hope I don’t see you again.”
“Yeah. You too.”