Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1966 (movie takes place in 1962)

Chapter 1

It had been a bit since the “Babe Ruth incident”, but baseball was still America's pastime, and the boys of the Sandlot were still very good friends.

It was the day before freshman year, for everyone except Benny, who was a year older than them, and Scott Smalls, wasn’t as worried as he felt he should be. He remembered the year before when Benny was a freshman, freaking out about the first day of school, but when he had met them at the Sandlot later, he was fine. Benny had told them it wasn’t that much different than junior high, and to not worry, so Scotty didn’t.

Only two people were on edge about the first day of school, Squints, and Benny. Squints was worried about seeing Wendy Peffercorn again, because he hadn’t actually talked to her since that day he kissed her, but that fear was nothing compared to Benny.

Benny needed to get on the varsity baseball team. It was all he talked about, at the Sandlot, when he was with Scotty at Mr. Mertle’s, everywhere. And Scotty, he would know, Benny had been talking up a storm about the varsity thing, so much so that Scotty told him to sneak into his house (via window) at night, so he could just talk about it, he told Benny to just consider it like a free therapy session.

So, every night Benny would come over after Scotty’s parents went to bed, and would talk. He would talk about making varsity and how he had too, because the year before when he tried, the coach told him that freshman wouldn’t be on varsity, and Benny had to be on JV.

Scotty liked when Benny came over and talked, it was nice. It was calm.

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Benny had a crush. He couldn’t seem to figure out who though, which was stupid, because it should have been obvious. It was obviously Scotty who he liked, but for some reason, he couldn’t wrap his head around it. All he could do was acknowledge the fluttery feeling in his chest, and accept it.

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School had been fun, Scotty had classes with Benny for Science (because he was moved up to higher classes), and English, and the rest of his friends were his other classes. They all shared the same lunch, and they all managed to avoid getting detention for a day, so they could go play at the Sandlot.

They played for longer than usual, because it one of the last times they could all play together, because Benny and Kenny were trying out for the baseball team, Scotty had joined the newspaper earlier that day, Yeah-Yeah, Timmy, and Tommy were going to get a lot of detentions because there was no stopping them, and the rest of them didn’t want to play on such a small team by themselves. When Scotty had finally made it home, sweaty and tired, he had dinner, and went straight up to his room to shower and sleep.

He showered quickly, and flopped down on his bed, wearing sweatpants, and a loose fitting tank top, when the window opened. It was Benny as usual.

“Hey, Smalls.” Benny whispered as he clambered through the window.

Scotty yawned, “Hi.”

“You look tired.” Benny observed, sitting on Scotty’s bed.

“I am. I could die. Why did you never look this tired last year? I look like a zombie or somethin’.”

“Smalls, you're taking advanced classes, and you're like the parent of the team, so you’ve been, like….fussing all day, making sure everyone knows where to go. I didn’t do any of that shit.” Benny said, chuckling.

“Ya still wanna talk?” Scotty asked, curling up on his bed.

“Nah, you look like you’re gonna pass out, get some sleep man, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Benny said, as he climbed out the window, and scaled down the tree.

Scotty just pulled his blanket over him and fell asleep.

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Chapter Text

The next day, Benny woke up refreshed, and felt weirdly content, like it was going to be a good day, but he was very wrong.

It had been alright, he had found out about the date for baseball tryouts, and had been assigned a group project with people who would all help, instead of just leaving it for him, and taking the grade, but then lunch.

Veronica Simmons, had come up to their table, the Sandlot table, and asked out none other that Scott Smalls. It had been a shock to them all, especially to Scotty, who after agreeing to go with her, sat there in a daze, blushing, for the rest of lunch.

For some reason that Benny couldn’t quite explain, he hated it. Why did Scotty say yes? Wasn’t him and the rest of the team good enough? Wasn’t he good enough?

Oh.

Oh no.

Benny slowly became aware of his thoughts, and it was then that he knew who his crush was on.

Benny needed a minute. Or two, or maybe 5,000.

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The date was all anyone could talk about. Scotty was definitely very excited, and now that Benny was very aware of his feelings, he could think with certainty that Scotty was very cute when he was excited, but that didn’t make the situation any better.

Baseball tryouts were that very day, so after school Benny, and Kenny headed over to the boys locker room, Scotty made his way to Ms. Martin's English class for a newspaper meeting, Yeah-Yeah and Timmy headed to the detention room, and Tommy (who managed to not get detention), Squints, Ham, and Bertram headed home.

Tryouts had gone well for Benny, even though he had been distracted for most of the day, after coming to the realization of his feelings toward Scotty, and he had made it past the first list of cuts, along with Kenny.

After tryouts Benny, Kenny, and Scotty headed home together, they would have taken Yeah-Yeah and Timmy, but they had gotten in more trouble during detention.

Kenny parted ways with them after a while, and then it was just the two of them, the first time they had been alone since Benny’s realization. Scotty talked up a storm about his date, and how excited he was, and Benny just nodded and grunted at parts, afraid he’d make a fool of himself, because he was now hyper-aware of everything.

“Hey,” Scotty said, “wanna come over tonight? We can talk, I wanna hear about tryouts!”

Benny nodded and waved goodbye as Scotty made his way to his house. After he was out of sight, Benny let out a sigh, he had definitely made a fool of himself hadn’t he?

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Chapter Text

Later that evening, Benny washed up, and headed over to Scotty’s. He took extra care in choosing his clothes, even though half of his mind was telling him to stop, he just couldn’t. Since his realization about his crush, he just couldn’t help worrying what Scotty thought about him, his personality, his looks, all of it.

He clambered through the window, thoughts running through his mind, but as soon as he placed his eyes on Scotty and his room, his thoughts stopped. The room was covered in clothes, like entirely covered. Shirts, on the bed, pants on the desk, and Scotty was in the middle, frantically sorting through the mess.

“Uhh, what’s happenin’?”

Scotty jumped, “Oh, Benny! It’s you! Hi,” He kicked some clothes out of the way, “come in! Don’t just hover in the window, I said I wanted to hear about tryouts, didn’t I?”

Benny pulled himself into Scotty’s room, “Sooo…whatcha doin’? And…why?”

“I’m planning an outfit for my date with Veronica!”

Benny cringed internally.

“But don’t worry about that! Tell me about tryouts! How’d it go? Did you kick Phillips' ass?”

Suddenly Benny had no words to say, “Uhh…yeah, I did good, an’ so did Kenny, yeah.”

This was awkward. Benny had no clue what to do, or talk about, he was just standing in the middle of Scotty’s room, surrounded by clothes.

Should he say something?

“I…I told my-uhm parents that I’d be on a walk, I need to get back…uhm…bye!”

Nonononono! Why did you say that! Benny thought to himself.

“Wait!” Scotty said frantically, “does this look good?”

He held up a pair of khakis, and a nice, blue, button up shirt. Benny had recently become aware that he thought Scotty was cute in anything he wore, but it was a good outfit, even without his bias, but something stopped him from saying that.

“I dunno, man, it looks kinda strange, but hey what do I know? I really gotta get goin’.”

Why would I say that? Why would I even say that? Benny thought to himself. Are you trying to get him to like you or hate you?

Scotty looked at him in a weird sort of way, “Ok, Benny…see ya tomorrow.”

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Scotty was really, really excited for his date with Veronica, he’d told his mom all about it, and all the boys were way too excited for their own good, but also Scotty was confused. Benny, it seemed, was happy for him, but only sometimes, sometimes, it was like he hated the fact that Scotty was going out with Veronica. Actually, Benny had been weird lately in general. Scott was blaming it on pressure from tryouts.

Whatever, Scotty thought, Benny is fine, and this outfit looks good, I dunno what he was sayin’.

Benny was acting weird though, and Scott couldn’t get him out of his mind. Just something about how Benny had been acting was bothering him.

Scotty purged those thoughts from his mind, Benny was fine, nothing was going on. If something was going on, Benny would have told him, Scotty assured himself. Then, he laid down, and went to sleep.