toss me a cigarette i think there's one in my raincoat
it's short, it's self-explanatory. repressed mulder is one of my favorite of all mulders.
Wake Up
By Candle Beck
Wait.
Fuck, where are we?
Oh, okay, okay. Sure. New York City. Three game set before Baltimore.
Did I fall asleep? Must have. All right, probably a good thing. Sleeping. Yeah.
How come I woke up? Lights . . . no lights. Dark as all hell. Except the window, right. New York, something I know by heart. Always known it here. The street out there, brighter than at noon. Could blind a person, I bet. Well, no, probably not.
What was it, waking me up, a noise? Hang on, hang on, be still for a second.
No, it’s quiet. *Too* quiet. Heh heh.
Mulder still over there? Gah, stupid blanket, go away.
Yeah, okay, he’s there.
Oh, but wait, he’s not asleep, is he? Hang on, hang on . . . he’s got that little hitch on every third breath when he’s asleep, I wonder if anybody knows that but me. Not hitching now, though, is he? No, definitely not.
Hmm. *I’m* awake. *Mulder’s* awake. We’re the only two people in the room. Did Mulder wake me up? With one of those really unsubtle throat-clearings, maybe? Coughing my name and then feigning sleep? Maybe he kicked my bed. Wouldn’t put it past him.
But Mulder hasn’t woken me up in a month.
Hmm.
Hang on, hang on. You’re not the only one who can feign sleep, my friend. I’m better at it than you, anyway, I don’t got no weird third-breath hitching thing going on.
Hmm. Hmmmmm.
All right, now I’m bored. Humming’s no fun when it’s in your head. Not that it’s, like, my source of entertainment at other times or something. Because that would be crazy.
But this is pretty crazy, huh?
Yankees tomorrow. Huddy’ll do fine. He’s picking it up, isn’t he? Sincerely. Had a rough spot of it, but he’s back on his game, now. Then I’m up in Baltimore. But the Orioles suck. But, shit, don’t think like that, overconfident punk. See what happens, you start underestimating teams. Mora’s making a run for it, what’s he up to now, .330? .335? Something like that. Nothing to sniff at. And it’ll be . . . who for Baltimore, what’s the match-up? Hentgen? Sounds right. He has his moments, but we’ll be okay.
Jeez, Camden’s a beautiful park, huh? That’ll be cool. Love the Coliseum, but sometimes you wanna see something other than gray concrete. Like Pac Bell. Be a much bigger fan of playing in San Francisco during interleague if it didn’t mean playing Bonds. But, hell, he’s just one guy. Got the whole game scared half to death, but he’s just one guy.
Yeah, but he’s Barry Bonds.
All right, shut up, you’re not helping. Baltimore, Baltimore. Focusing, here. Camden Yards, can you see it?
Yeah, I can see it.
Shit, you know what I’m doing when we get back home? I’m definitely going surfing. No doubt. Gotta get out to Mavericks. Oh, cool, I can take Highway 1. I love Highway 1. Pacifica, man, those cliffs. Half Moon Bay, that place we get pumpkins for Halloween. Christmas trees for Christmas, too, out by the prison, where you have to cut it down yourself. Very old-school. Like pioneers or something.
What the hell was that?
Is he choking on something over there? Careful, careful, stealthy, we’re feigning sleep here, remember?
All right, he’s not asphyxiating. Jeez, that was the weirdest noise ever. Half-cough, half-groan, half-gasp. Wait, that’s three halves. A third all those things, then.
Was that to get my attention? Maybe that’s what he did to wake me up. He’s a pretty weird guy.
Mulder, for Christ’s sake, I know you’re awake, will you just get on with it? Gotta wake up in like five hours, man.
Ah, he doesn’t care. He likes to drag it out. Well, no, I’m sure he doesn’t *like* dragging it out, lying there working up his courage, having arguments about whether or not he’s really going to do this again, all the reasons we shouldn’t do this, the reasons that always sound so good in the full light of day, but don’t have much significance at four in the morning in a hotel room when it’s just me and him.
Hey, when we finally get through all the reasons why we shouldn’t do this, the last can be that if we keep this up for any sustained period of time, we’ll kill each other.
Heh. I should tell him that. ‘Dude, it’s not because we’re both supposedly straight, or that it’ll seriously fuck with our careers, or any of that, it’s just that we’re gonna incinerate each other one of these nights, we’re gonna light the whole place on fire.’
Yeah, he’d take that well. Not.
Because that would involve breaking the number one rule, right? Don’t talk about, don’t ever do anything that would make it harder for Mulder to believe this isn’t really happening.
God, get over it, already. Jeez.
But, yeah, I think the sheer fucked-upedness of the whole thing is definitely part of the appeal for him. Perish the thought that Mark Mulder ever do anything the easy way.
All right, lie there, enjoy your inner torment, say hi to repression for me, re-decorate the interior of your closet, I’ll just be waiting over here when you finally give up the illusion.
But I’ll be damned bored in the meantime, so, you know, if you wanna be a little quicker about it, that’d be just fine.
It has been a month, hasn’t it? Jeez. Last time was . . . Seattle. After he threw a four-hitter with only one earned run and still managed to be pissed off about it. Perfectionist. Wants a no-hitter every day. Wants a twenty-seven strikeout perfect game, every single time he takes the mound.
Though if there was ever anybody who could do it, it’d be him.
Yeah, he woke me up that night, though, didn’t he? Didn’t take much time about it, either, just climbed on in, I was still half-asleep when it started, which was . . . fun. Heh. Awesome. Strangely hallucinatory. But then, he’s always kind of done that to me. Not that I could say that to him. Not if I want to continue life without a broken jaw.
He didn’t wake me up for the rest of the trip, though, and it was a long one. Then the homestand . . . and now we’ve been on the road for another week, and he’s still been letting me sleep the night through.
Not that I’ve been waiting for him or anything.
Thought maybe it finally got too fucked up for him, maybe he was done with it, maybe he’d come across some reason that he couldn’t argue away. Kinda been half-expecting him to reach that conclusion ever since the very first time, way the hell back, spring training, flat and dry and hot in Arizona, when I fell asleep watching SportsCenter with him and woke up with his hand under my shirt and his mouth on my neck.
*That* was a little surprising.
But, hell, what was I gonna do? Pretend I never thought about him like that, pretend I never sneak looks in the locker room, pretend I hadn’t been imagining . . . well, fuck. Clearly I wasn’t too subtle in my whole having-a-crush-on-a-teammate thing, because he’s maybe the most oblivious person on the planet, and he picked up on it.
Took him long enough.
But, yeah, I’ve been waiting for him to end it, just like he began it, with no warning, no discussion, just never getting up in the middle of the night and slipping into my bed again, never coming back.
Because even he can’t be this oblivious for very long. I mean, he’s so the guy living two lives, right now. One guy during the day, another at night. Like Batman. Except without the cool car. Or the crime-fighting. And with more gay sex. Hmm.
Eventually, he’s either gotta come to terms with the fact that he’s attracted to me (which is, like, duh), or he’s gotta go all the way back into his denial, decide he’s *not* really attracted to me (like, not), and therefore stop sleeping with me.
And I, you know, I’m not really holding my breath that it’s gonna be the first one.
I mean, I’d *like* it to be. Sincerely. That’d be great. I don’t really know how that would work, but I bet it’d involve him sleeping with me a lot more, and I am seriously on board with that plan.
Maybe we could talk about it, then, too. Maybe I could say some stuff to him.
But it’s not gonna happen. Or at least, chances are slim. Tigers-making-the-World-Series slim. Chances are anorexic, is what they are. Chances are Kate Moss. She just had a baby, how’s that possible? Woman weighs like fifteen pounds. All the supermodels have babies now, huh? Maybe there’s some really stylish maternity line that they all have contracts with. Although that’d be weird. Like, sexy clothes for pregnant women? Hmm.
Wow, I’m hungry.
Hey, wait, movement! Is he . . . what the hell is he doing?
Oh, I see, he’s fighting with the pillows. Because, yeah, Mulder, it’s the pillows that are to blame. Damn them!
Maybe if I yawn. Big ole arm-stretching yawn, just to let him know I’m getting pretty tired over here. Maybe that’ll speed up this whole routine of his. Or scare him away. Yeah, it’ll probably scare him away. Skittish motherfucker. Likes to imagine he’s not scared of anything, but I think I scare him, a little bit. This inexplicable thing of ours.
He hates it when he can’t explain something. Hates it when stuff doesn’t make sense. So if he’s still trying to convince himself that he’s, like, die-hard heterosexual, this has got to be screwing him up something fierce.
He’s a totally straight guy, except for the times when he accidentally sleeps with me.
Heh. ‘Accidentally.’ Whoops, I tripped! Sorry, dude. Heh heh heh.
All right, the pillows seem to have surrendered, cowardly bunch that they are. Now what? Anytime, now, Mulder. Come on.
Jeez.
Guess I gotta figure out some stuff for myself, though, too. Like why I keep doing this with him. I mean, I’m not, you know, quite so much in Narnia as he is. Not so far in the closet that I’m finding Christmas presents. I definitely got over all that stuff in, like, high school. Well, maybe college. Definitely by the minors, though, sincerely.
It’s just, it’s never been that big of a deal. I’m happy to get any action, it doesn’t really matter if it’s with a guy or a girl. I mean, why be picky? Where’s it written that only girls are supposed to be hot? Well, I mean, not counting the Bible. Hell with the Bible, though.
Um.
That didn’t come out like I meant it to.
Anyway, seriously, what’s the big problem with sleeping with a guy? Guys are hot! Not all of them, of course. But lots. I figure, if we both have a good time, why stress? Doesn’t have to be this giant Greek-tragedy soul-searching neurotic extravaganza. Who cares if you’re gay, if you’re straight, if you’re somewhere in between? I mean, obviously, people *do* care, but *you* shouldn’t care.
So my problem’s not that, it’s why I keep doing this with *him* of all people. All stubborn and stupid and whatnot, the way he is. Like, sincerely, I probably deserve somebody who’ll kiss me when the sun’s up, at least once, who’ll stay in my bed for the night after it’s over, not go crawling back into his own bed the second he can gather his strength again. Someone who’ll talk about it, who’ll let me say stuff to him. Someone who won’t stay away for a month and make me think it’s over.
I dunno.
He’s just, it’s like, this double-life he’s leading, the two different parts of him that won’t come together, I’m the only one who knows both sides. Like, I can laugh with him and hang out with him in the dugout or back in Oakland or whatever, I can go out to bars with him and watch movies with him and play ball with him, and have him be, like, one of the best friends I’ve ever had, one of the best pitchers I’ve ever seen throw a baseball, and then on the road, in these dark hotel rooms, I can wait for him to climb into my bed and then suddenly he’s one of the best of something else I’ve ever had, so it seems to be working out pretty well for me.
Still.
Sometimes . . .
He just needs to get over it. Quickly. Like, before I fall back asleep.
Mulder, you want me, okay? And I want you, and it’s four in the freakin’ morning, so will you please just-
Whoa, did he just hear that?
The ability to read my mind, that’s definitely the last superpower I want him to have.
Is he . . . he’s sitting up. Definitely sitting up. Am I still pretending to be asleep? I forget. Let’s say I am, but let’s keep my eyes open, because I love to see him coming, watching him right now is one of my favorite parts, sliding out of his bed, his crazy long legs, how he looks in the darkness, the shadows and his eyes and all the things he can’t hide anymore.
Looks more real now than he does at any other time, now when he’s finally said hell with it, finally given in to it, he looks young and fearless, invincible, on the edge of my bed, pulling down the covers, and hey, Mulder, and yeah . . .
Don’t want to think about anything now, don’t want to think about what this means or how it’ll end or if it’ll end, don’t want any of that now, just want him, and even though after it’s over, he’s gonna leave me again, I’m not too worried, because he’ll be back.
Oh, this is my favorite part.
THE END