Notes: ...so I didn't die. Gasp.
Anyway. I've had this sitting on my desktop for god knows how long. Figured I'd finish it, since I am currently bored to death. You will be too after you read it. Apparently, I've lost whatever writing talent I had once upon a time. I just can't get back into the rhythm anymore, I guess.

iii

David doubted he'd ever seen anything as green as the grassthat harvested itself in the landscape of the park, small seeds falling beneath their footsteps. Alyssa hoped she would see money even more emerald in tone, wishing that it seeded and grew as the brushing plants did. To her dismay, they didn't.

Kevin Ryman had a payment of his own, wondering if it would be a good idea to charge for catching lessons. Then again, the plumber was his friend and..well, he didn't want any man to be pathetic. Not that the plumber was or anything. No one was as sad as the black man who bit into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, seeming to attack it like a raptor had its prey in the prehistoric years of the Earth. All three of them - David, Kevin, and Alyssa - thought that they should be thankful to be so far away from the scene where Cindy sat, experiencing it first hand. The froth of saliva, the spitting of little bits of that poor threatened lunch treat, causing Cindy's cries of "Ew, JIM!" to grow louder and louder until the whole park was likely to hear her squealing voice echoing.

David's was so deep that it seemed impossible for anyone else to hear the dark mutters which left his lips, at least until Alyssa laughed and said, "Shut it, you pissy plumber. Let's just do this and get it over with."

As for Kevin, his voice was always high and happy, coming from that masculine mouth surrounded by dark stubble that was quickly becoming a beard that framed his smile. Always friendly, Kevin still had his pride, which seemed to override the most simple of enthusiasm for his own ego.

"Okay David, I got an idea. How about you and me run over there..." With one think finger, gloved in his favored black leather as always, Kevin directed David's dead to the world gaze to a section of land seeming sixty feet from the reporter who reared her arm back, holding the football. Really, it was thirty or so steps from her position. "...so we can compete for the ball."

David said nothing. Like a loyal dog that had no other choice but to see the scissors in front of his testes and scrotum, he obeyed enough to avoid having an annoying cop on his hands. He was sure he'd have to deal with him anyway, eventually. Said cop went on, cracking his knuckles before he started scratching his biceps that were exposed from beneath the ebony T-shirt he wore that said, in bright bold yellow letters on the front, "I got kicked of cub scouts for eating a brownie". At least it wasn't as blatant as the previous days when he wore one stating proudly in bright white, "Sex Police K-9 Doggystyle Unit".

Then again, he wasn't the one who drove to the park like David did in his truck, listening to Prince sing, "Jack U Off".

...It's a catchy song, damnit.

Kevin must have thought he was so hilarious...and he did. Too bad David didn't find it funny when the ex-cop looked at him arrogantly and said, "But being impossible is better to me. Why bother to try?"

David had to agree, raising on arched brow as Kevin rolled his broad shoulders, T-shirt stretching tight across strong back. It wasn't distracting. It wasn't. "Hell if I know. Can I go home now?"

The second Kevin shrugged, David was already turning, the movement making a wind that caught his restrained hair and tossed the rim of his shorts which brushed long tawny legs that were still hairless from being waxed the week before. Not only that, but the arm that suddenly wrapped around David's leaner shoulders nearly restrained him from making his escape when one of Raccoon City Police Department's finest arrested David as effectively as a band of steel would have. It definitely wasn't. David could feel the heat of Kevin and smell the musk of a real man who had been enduring the rays of the sunshine for a while now.

"Oh come on plumber, I was just kidding! Jesus, do you take everything so seriously?"

When David tried to shake him off, Kevin didn't budge a bit. He just pulled said plumber closer, curling his arm until that broad bicep brushed against one hollow cheek that felt on fire because of the touch, not necessarily because of the man. While none of them knew his past, David had a hard time keeping pieces of the puzzle a secret. It was his instinct to attack when he felt as little as threatened, hand clenching into a fist before he---

Luckily, for Kevin at least, Alyssa had thrown the football. It flew through the air, showing that not only did Alyssa have great legs, but a fantastic arm for a female, as well as technique. The pigskin spiraled, aimed right at them. Like dominoes, one fall of a piece could trigger the chain reaction of change, causing Kevin to kick off the ground away from David, dodging the unsuspected thrust of a fist. It hadn't been the first time that something like that had happened.

It wouldn't be the first time that Kevin caught the ball before David either. Not even prepared, the plumber watched as Kevin went after it, body leaping up in a twist to catch it in mid air. A fine mist of grass seeds erupted beneath the rubber soled boots as the large man fell, tossing them up into the air when his weight hit. It nearly shook the ground David stood on, still staring as Kevin whooped and did a little dance. Whether the gray gaze was from shock because of his own almost-actions or Kevin's, David didn't know. He figured it was there because of both.

As for arms, Kevin had both of his raised as he ran around in three circles and then stopped to slam the ball in the ground tip first before he turned to shake his ass at Alyssa. When he tossed the ball back both effortlessly and flawlessly, his bicep bulged in the arm used. David made sure that his were tightly crossed against his chest, fingers furrowed between the junction of forearm and upper, standing both powerful and passive as Kevin turned to him with a thrust of a thumb in the air. Apparently the man enjoyed showing off, even for a one-man audience.

David was sure that Kevin was all he needed anyway. There was that annoyance he'd been expecting, shown in that almost egotistical smile as Kevin pulled out a lighter to strike in one hand. The other plucked a cigarette from the package that had poked out from one back pocket, having waited almost a whole hour for that moment where the man started to smoke.

Rolling silver eyes, the plumber stood, watching as Kevin blew the smoke of the cigarette out in rings. David swore that if the man stepped any closer, even an inch when they were some five feet apart, he'd jam the cancer stick up one nostril and bring it through the other. David hated the smell of smoke. It got in his hair and his clothes, and it stunk up a man's breath like nobody's business. David thought that Kevin was about to make everything his business like always when he stood in his place, staring at the plumber with a wry smile on his wiry lips.

"Did you have fun watching a pro? Just goes to show you that I'm not just a policeman, but an all star football player. There ain't nothin' better than me, mwahah!"

That egocentric moment was shattered when the velvet voice of the plumber left lips that stayed stoic, much like the rest of his expression. In fact, it mimicked the idea of being bored..which he was. Then there was something else, after he spoke first and thought later, seeing the flash of distress through Kevin's blue eyes that resembled the Antarctic sky, immediately making David feel a lot like an asshole.

"You aren't a copper any more, Kev."

If he'd thought that what he'd said would shut down that happy attitude for more than a handful of seconds, he was wrong. What David did do was remind himself that Kevin's hands were rather large, no longer full of the football. For moments on end…that didn't seem to matter. None of it did, because David had never seen sapphire eyes full of such sadness, so much confusion that surely, if Kevin had been a hound, his tail would have been curled between trembling thighs.

Across from them that thirty feet or so away, Alyssa caught the ball and reared her arm back while she watched the other men with interest.

She had to smile, noting the differences between David, the man who didn't give a damn or tried to act like he didn't, and Kevin, who considered everything as a competition which…really, the taller of the two had instigated despite his own hatred of the mere idea. Now both men glared at each other like the matador to the bull. In her hand, she held the red flag.

She wondered if the so-called matador's favorite color just so happened to be crimson, translating to the thought with a little less metaphor: Would the man bother to go after it?

The key word in that sentence was "man". If David was that, he would - especially with one like Kevin who was entirely masculine in both appearance and attitude on his tail. David didn't look much like a woman, even with his long hair, but if he had to endure the laughter of Kevin any longer about being…well, not as mucho manly as the wider of the two was, David was going to crack. Which would have been fine, if the term related to the fact that he was, indeed, a plumber. But the coveralls protected him from that happening…sadly.

Beneath the shade of the tree, Cindy watched. Jim, on the other hand, was too intent on swallowing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich whole to do more than spit out crumbs as he feasted like a shark, spitting bits out here and there. When he got too gross, when he started sputtering sticky saliva soaked chunks of white bread onto Cindy's skirt, Alyssa must have taken her cue to throw the football. It flew in perfect time with the crust which the waitress thrust right into Jim's chest, watching him throw up his arms with a booming exclamation of "What da fuck!"

The field started to shake and quake beneath the thundering of one man's thighs, which made Alyssa consider the idea that Kevin could be called that: thunder thighs. The man's legs were constructed of compact muscle, solid as steel and sounding just as heavy. On the other hand, there was a set thinner, ready and running. David was built like a sprinter, lithe and long and almost languid as he leapt, the grass beneath him in a flurry of fury motion as the wind from him swept across the land and---

And exploded, as the four hundred something pounds of two men's combined weights smashed into the seedy shards of torn grass that broke on impact, thrown aside by the gust of two chests heaving out all air in their confines – hot, undoubtedly, and enough to give birth to a tornado of blinding fury in the form of a plumber.

Alyssa bit her lip to hide her laughter. Kevin bit his lip because the fist across his face made him, a crimson bit of blood bubbling to the surface which snapped beneath sharp teeth as David slapped him so hard he swore his brain popped out of the opposing ear.

So near, the snarling shouts sounded tremorous, and were so stark that something did pop after the silver streak of a blade made it's way across Kevin's face to sink directly into the pig skin with another burst of air. Kevin's jaw, luckily still intact, dropped as David rose and, rearing back his arm, chucked the poor punctured football right into his chest.

"Are you happy now, you fat fuck! YOU GOT THE BALL. You can have it! HAVE IT, now that you know what I think of it!"

What was the plumber so upset about? He'd never liked the khakis he wore, even with green grass stain smeared at the knee. His bare calves were dirty, but he wasn't pissed about that. He was pissed at Kevin who - for once - wasn't piss-faced. Perhaps he'd pissed himself at the sight of the sunken ball cradled like his own child, his hurt baby, in his hands. David's own were fisted, digits twisted around the hilt of his switch blade before he dropped it into his boot…only after he reared the right back and made the kick off, straight from Kevin's hands.

Said hands shot up in defeat in shock as the dead ball leapt, aiming far away, hitting the ground besides the blonde who was barking with laughter. The impact was as graceful as a gym sock wet with sweat, tossed to the ground after practice.

Kevin, having felt like the knife had sunk into the heart hidden beneath the barriers of a broad chest, stood after a second of staring at the pathetic pile of rubber..leather….whatever it was. By the way he looked at it, anyone could have sworn it was created of human skin and sinew.

The park was starting to look a lot like Raccoon, with the shocked expressions and the corpse of a football taking the place of a body. Jim found it funny. The plumber had reverted back to his uncomfortable silence. The cop nearly had to capture his dropped jaw with a cup of hand as Cindy and Alyssa shifted uncomfortably, both standing and sitting on a blanket.

All together, no one was walking, each mourning the miserable football that had fallen into itself. Apparently, teaching a man how to catch, despite Kevin's confidence, wasn't a walk in the park.

iii

TBC...maybe.