continuing . . .
Livejournal was not about to let me post another thirty pages worth of writing into that last message, so instead, here we are, new message!
third story. very long and closely adhering to this apparent 'style' of mine that people keep talking about.
Title: Fear and Arrogance
Author: Candle Beck
Email: meansdynamite@yahoo.com
Category: MLB, Oakland A’s
Pairing: Mark Mulder/Barry Zito
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Aye.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this is mine, not even the title. It belongs to the good folks who wrote “Bull Durham,” aka best movie ever. (you know . . . “You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance.” “Fear and ignorance. Right.” Ya hayseed!)
Summary: Fucking early season baseball.
Note: Listen, this was gonna be chronological, then it was gonna be quasi-chronological, and it ended up being not chronological at all. Which happens, sometimes. Anyway, it’s based on the 2004 season through mid-May, and most all the games are accurately reported, but I fiddled with a few of the box scores and timelines to make it easier on myself. Call it poetic license, but not out loud, ‘cause you’ll sound like a punk.
Fear and Arrogance
By Candle Beck
The lights at the Coliseum are rectangles of halogen white stuck up like postcards against the slick black sky, huge and unmistakable in the night, and Mulder’s having trouble seeing straight.
Up against the rail, with Hudson on one side of him and a pair of trainers on the other, Mulder’s got his hands on the metal, cool and smooth under his palms, and they’re watching Zito struggle through the third, breaking his motion, hesitating out of the stretch.
Zito’s gone three-and-oh on the batter, but he can’t even give away a pitch, the fastball streaking inside, the batter tearing open his arm protector’s Velcro straps and jogging down to first, moving the runner into scoring position just as easy as that.
Zito’s biting off curses, spitting into his hand. He rubs the ball between his palms like it’s clay, like he’ll shape it into something more his liking.
Mulder’s pretty sure he knows why Zito is having trouble today, but has decided not to care. Not his responsibility if Zito wants to fuck up on the field, too.
Huddy’s face is composed in simple lines, the look he gets when he’s worried. For a long time, when Mulder and Zito first came up and started playing with Hudson, and the three of them were suddenly the brightest and the most promising, for a long time, whenever one of them was pitching, the other two would stick close, shoulder to shoulder in the dugout and at the rail, so that the camera could find them as the commentators tried to find a way to talk about one without talking about all three, the endless comparisons, Mulder’s velocity, Zito’s control, the unhittable slash of Hudson’s sinker, luck and skill and preparation, until they were three men with one name and it was hard to get a sense of themselves outside the rotation.
But people don’t look for the three of them that much anymore. Mulder doesn’t watch every start anymore. He’s lost his interest in being able to pick out the hitch in Zito’s delivery, the almost-not-there bend of his knee as he comes down off the rubber that means he’s losing power, this stuff doesn’t really hold his attention these days.
Zito struggles too much, these days, for Mulder to really care that much.
Zito throws a stupid pitch, a change-up on two-and-one that drifts towards the fat part of the plate like a bad dream, and Mulder can see him cringe even as the ball leaves his hand, the batter grinning maliciously as he begins his cut, and everyone in the stadium is already resigned to the run-scoring double when Chavez breaks gravity’s hold on him, out on the edge of the outfield grass, diving with his arm twisted backwards, his glove stretched for the ball to slam into the mesh, a play that might have been called physically impossible had it not just happened right in front of them.
Zito is saved, briefly, because Chavez fields like other men draw air, and Mulder watches him breathe out carefully, dig his hand into his glove, his face shadowed for a long moment before he looks up for the sign, and Mulder goes down into the clubhouse, not wanting to see one more pitch.
* * *
Everywhere Mulder goes these days, he sees people in formal wear. Tuxedos, shimmering evening dresses, men in white tie and tails like orchestra conductors or statesmen. He sees them on the streets, crowding into coffeeshops, waiting on subway platforms. Everybody scrubbed clean, their faces high with expectation and the chafe of the wind, like this will be the best night of their lives.
Mulder’s got holes in every pair of jeans he owns, ink and paint and ash on every one of his shirts. Zito’s somehow not coordinated enough to fasten his own cufflinks; he can do the left sleeve but not the right, his legendary left hand fumbling with the buttons, the cufflinks slipping through his fingers like jacks. He’s got no qualms about asking his friends to fix his cuffs, holding out his arm with an engaging grin, despite the rolled eyes and the assertions that anyone who can’t put on the cufflinks by himself is clearly not yet grown-up enough to actually *wear* cufflinks.
Mulder knows pretty well what the skin on the underside of Zito’s wrist feels like, where it’s taut and thin and the blue veins cross over each other, forming an X-marks-the-spot of Zito’s pulse.
Little things like this have made Zito unimaginably irritating to Mulder.
Also stuff like Zito always needing to be spotted cab fare, not cheap but forgetful, his pockets turned out empty, maybe a half a roll of Lifesavers and a rubber band and the top of a Snapple bottle, but never anything that might actually come in handy. And the way Zito likes to argue when he gets drunk, needling, looking for a reaction. And Zito’s habit of showing up at Mulder’s house or Mulder’s hotel room without any warning, not even a knock, strolling in like he couldn’t even conceive that he might not be welcome. And Zito’s sick, scared face the night after he’s lost. And Zito’s perfect body, untouched by injury, and the way Mulder still has to take pain medication some nights when the ache drums out from his hip and spurs all the way through him, when he has to close his eyes and gasp against it. And the fact that Zito is supposed to be so much better than this, the fact that they were both promised something more.
All of this tends to piss Mulder off.
* * *
He’s down in the ballpark tunnel, on one of the payphones by the elevators. There’s no cell reception from below all this stone, and it’s too chattering loud in the clubhouse to be able to make a proper call. It’s concrete cold in the tunnel, and Mulder’s got his hands up on the wall, scribbling down movie showtimes on the back of a Muni card. It’s pre-game, Harden’s starting. They’re still in Oakland. Zito hasn’t gotten a win in more than three weeks, and the last time Mulder took the hill, he allowed seven runs and thirteen hits over six and a third, and almost ran over a stray cat on the drive home.
There’s a scrape behind him, and Mulder ducks a look over his shoulder, sees Zito standing there, half undressed to change into his uniform, bare feet at the ends of his stringy jeans and a plain white T-shirt, looking expectant.
Mulder ticks up an eyebrow, goes back to the movie times. When he’s done, he turns and Zito is closer behind him than he thought, their shoulders bumping, Zito’s hand brushing across his stomach. Mulder steps away, his mouth tightening.
“Help you with something?” he asks with a touch to his voice.
Zito tips his head to one side, scratches at the back of his leg with his foot. Mulder’s never been certain if Zito is really this . . . boyish, or if it’s just a role he plays, the way he likes to look in other people’s eyes. Somewhere, Mulder is sure, Zito knows exactly the effect he can have by widening his eyes and letting innocence drift onto his face. It’s a good act, but it’s gotten old. He’s not twenty-three anymore, and he’s not pitching well enough to get away with being called ‘eccentric.’
“You wanna lend me some of that tape stuff you use on your glove?” Zito asks, miming something indistinct with his hands.
“In my locker,” Mulder answers, but Zito doesn’t leave. And neither does Mulder, which is a little strange. But they haven’t really talked in a few days. Not just the two of them, maybe three feet between them, with all that they know about each other now. Mulder’s thinking that the last time he had placed his hands on Zito, in Zito’s next start, he’d had four homeruns hit off him. Mulder’s trying to remember what the reasoning behind this was.
They can hear the music Harden’s picked out blaring from the clubhouse, down the stretch of hallway. These fucking rookies . . . how can anybody really take Slipknot seriously?
They’re standing facing each other, uneven polygons of light around them, and Zito looks vaguely confused, mystified, like he’d meant to see something in Mulder’s face that he doesn’t. Mulder’s thinking about the day after tomorrow, the next time he pitches.
“I was . . .” Zito begins, then stops, his expression drawing before he continues again, sounding unsettled, “I was gonna maybe ask you if you could show me that thing about slotting the fastball you were talking about.”
Mulder’s not in a very good mood. He slept fuck-all the night before, awake every hour on the hour, it seemed, and every minute of this day has gotten heavier and heavier on his shoulders. He’s been feeling . . . reckless, lately.
His smile is sharp, could be interpreted as harmless joking, and Mulder says, “Knowing how to slot it’s not gonna do shit if you can’t get it over the plate.”
Zito’s face flashes, a brief look of wounded surprise, and then blanks. “The fuck is your problem?” he snaps.
Mulder rolls his eyes, says impatiently, “Take a fucking joke, Zito, Christ,” then walks back into the clubhouse.
* * *
It was New York City. A week ago. Maybe two. Time runs up on itself, measuring the early summer by opponents’ batting average and ERA and innings pitched, and it’s hard to keep the days well-defined.
The series opener was a day game, and they’d come into town the night before, and Zito had ended up in Mulder’s room after they got back from the bars.
At first there were a bunch of the guys in there, playing Playstation and pelting each other with cashews, but all the regulars chipped off, ragging the two pitchers for their once-every-five-days work schedule, leaving Zito to lie on the bed dropping M&Ms into his mouth from arm’s length, Mulder sitting on the floor systematically beating all the high scores that his teammates had posted.
Zito’s most recent start, at home against the Angels a few days before, had been the worst performance of his career.
They hadn’t been talking about anything in particular when Zito said philosophically, “Did you feel like you were missing something, last season?”
Mulder looked at him incredulously. “Fuck you, dude,” he answered shortly.
Zito looked at him uncertainly. “What?” he hedged warily.
Mulder tossed down the game controller, half-turned to better face the other man, irritation scrambling through him. “Dumb son of a bitch, yeah, I felt like I was missing something, last season. I felt like I was missing the ability to play. And the reason I felt like that was . . . oh yeah, that’s right, I didn’t *have* the ability to play.” His words twisted into sarcasm, thinking that at least Zito could remember that, at least Zito could escape his own fucking head for long enough to see the loss that bled out of Mulder, the way it might have been.
Zito had the grace to flush at the thoughtlessness of the question, but didn’t back down, saying instead, “That’s not what I meant, though. I mean, like, before you got hurt, did you ever feel . . . off at all?”
Mulder didn’t want to be talking about last year. He spent enough of his time trying not to think about it. He pressed his knuckles into the thin carpet, soft snapping sounds. “Did I look fucking off to you last year?” he grated out.
Zito didn’t seem to have any idea of what thin the ice he was on, shaking his head and saying obliviously, “No, you looked good. Strong. You were pitching like . . . like I’d never seen you before. We all thought you were gonna have an awesome season. But then . . . well.”
Zito trailed off and cleared his throat, finally registering the temper in Mulder’s face, but it was too late, Mulder already on his feet.
“How about you stop saying shit about last season, okay?” Mulder said in such a way that pre-empted any argument. His hands were tight at his sides, and he was weirdly aware of how one of Zito’s shirt sleeves was bunched up around his upper arm, the skin pale and vulnerable.
Zito sat up, uncomfortable. “No, yeah,” he attempted. “Sure. Sorry. Didn’t mean to . . . bring up bad memories or whatever.”
Mulder’s eyes narrowed. Zito decided it would be fun to drag Mulder back through the agony of missing the most crucial part of the season . . . fine, it wasn’t like they both didn’t have demons.
“Why do you ask, though, out of curiosity?” Mulder said, his voice thinly-veiled and falsely guileless. Zito shrugged uneasily, cutting his eyes away, and Mulder had a clear shot.
“I mean, just because I wouldn’t think you would need me to tell you about being ‘off’ last year. You seemed to have a pretty good grip on it all by yourself.” Zito whipped his gaze up, anger harsh and disbelieving in his face, and Mulder grinned coolly. “If, as I’m assuming, ‘off’ is just a nice way of saying that you were pretty much useless for half the summer. Tell me something, how’d it happen that I was out for a month and a half and I still ended up winning more games than you?”
Mulder had never seen Zito look like that before. Rage and shock and hurt and silvery bright cunning, a shrewd flicker of possible responses, not looking much like a young man at all now, not boyish, not feigning innocence, now Zito was a man looking to damage another man, something pure and wicked burning just beneath.
Zito stood, and Mulder was all over again annoyed by the fact that Zito was nearly as tall as him, that he couldn’t tower over the other man, Zito was one of the few people he knew who actually met his eyes steadily on a regular basis.
Mulder was fragmented, suddenly tired, ready to leave this behind. He was turning away, flapping a hand dismissively at Zito, about to invite him to get the fuck out, when Zito’s voice rose, piped in with a kid’s high glee at being cruel for the first time.
“Yeah, and what’s gonna be your excuse this year? I’ve been watching you tip your pitches and overthrow your slider for two months now, and I think you’re gonna have to break your goddamned hip again, because you’re the one shaping up to be fucking useless this time around.”
It was so quick. Later, that’s what Mulder would remember most, that’s the aspect of it that would refuse to leave him alone. Quick, so quick.
One second he was standing there half-turned away, kicking Zito out, and then the next second he was whirling, his hands were in Zito’s shirt and he was using the force of his spin to sling Zito against the door, the muted thud as his shoulder hit, the door shuddering in its frame, Zito’s eyes squeezed shut against the impact, and then Mulder was across the protective space between them and he had his hands up flat on the door on either side of Zito’s body, trapping him in, and Zito winced when Mulder got close, Mulder stepping toe to toe and leaning forward, their two bodies strumming heat, nearly overlapping, and Mulder got his lips as close to Zito’s ear as he could, his nose brushing Zito’s hair, growling low, “Nine fucking runs over four.”
That had been Zito’s line against the Angels the week before.
Zito’s face warped, and he tried to get a hand up flat on Mulder’s chest, but Mulder just grabbed hold of his wrist, pressed both their hands down on Zito’s chest. Zito swallowed hard, and jerked his head, Mulder’s mouth briefly touching Zito’s cheek before he pulled back.
Mulder was shaky, weak with anger and something else, something best left unexamined. Zito’s hand was moving slowly under his, pinned to Zito’s chest. Mulder could feel Zito’s knuckles against his palm, the calluses at the tips of Zito’s fingers tapping at Mulder’s wrist.
“Nine runs over four, so who’s useless?” Mulder said roughly, an unaccountable edge to his voice. Zito swallowed again, his throat clicking audibly. There was a loose strand of hair on Zito’s cheek, a tiny scar just above his right eye.
Mulder was thinking of Boston in October, the American version of old, the devotion of Fenway during the playoffs, and Mulder was thinking of the thin, glittering pain that still kept him awake some nights, and Mulder spread out his hand on Zito’s chest, dragged it carefully downward, a motion airlessly explicit in its sheer modesty, just Mulder’s hand on Zito’s chest, on his stomach, but there could be little question what it was doing there, as Mulder snuck his way up under Zito’s T-shirt and lowered his head, his teeth and tongue against Zito’s throat and shoulder, Zito trembling hard and snapping his head back and forth and stuttering out curses occasionally, his hands fluttering without assurance around Mulder’s back.
The tips of Mulder’s fingers touched the waistband of Zito’s boxers, the heel of Mulder’s hand steady on the plane of Zito’s stomach, and Zito, his eyes still closed, managed to say hopelessly, “The fuck, what the fuck do you think you’re doing to me?”
Mulder bit Zito’s shoulder, slid his hand into Zito’s shorts and caught Zito’s gasp before it could even completely escape his lips, Mulder’s mind wild and filthy and untethered until he finally broke away from Zito’s mouth to answer breathlessly against his neck, “Doesn’t matter, not much more I could do to fuck you up than you do to yourself anyway.”
And Zito’s hands wrenched on Mulder’s body, one in his hair and the other curved around his side, Zito’s hands were strong and there was voiceless fury in his face, but then Mulder tightened his grip and snarled, because there could be no question of who was in charge tonight, and Zito came snapping back to kiss him hard, a sting of teeth and the sharp peppermint taste of the mints Zito’d been popping all night, fiercely working against each other, Mulder pressing Zito to the door, flush together and sparking with heat and Mulder thought briefly of the place where violence and desire intersect, thought briefly about getting Zito down on his knees, and then he forced himself to stop thinking about anything.
* * *
It was bad April baseball that they were playing. All through New York, their fifteenth story hotel room windows and dawn busting through the skyline, filling the newly-broken holes, a bitter wind stinging by outside their hotel, the last freeze of the winter. They were swept that series and that hadn’t happened to the three of them in a really long fucking time.
Jason Giambi referred to Hudson and Mulder and Zito as nothing but ‘kids’ in an interview he gave prior to facing his old team. The reporter called him on it, and Giambi laughed it off, saying how McGwire still called *him* a kid. Mulder remembered teasing Giambi for being an old man when they’d first been playing together, but for some reason he hated hearing Giambi call them that now. He wanted to say, ‘look motherfucker, we’re not rookies anymore, we’re not at the start of anything.’
But Hudson and Zito didn’t really care, so what could he do?
Huddy broke a sweat holding the Yankees to just one big inning in the first game, the A’s offense hacking away at Mike Mussina (fucking Mike Mussina with his unassuming face like the face of the kid who grew up next door to you, the kid you built a treehouse with and whose older sister you had a crush on, fucking Mike Mussina who didn’t look like anyone you would ever be afraid of, fucking Mike Mussina bending from the waist, fucking Mike Mussina who had, years ago, taken a perfect game into the ninth before Sandy Alomar showed him how much perfection is worth, fucking Mike Mussina with his pinpoint control and his softly wicked smile, standing on the mound like some sort of strange young king), Huddy leaving in the seventh with the lead, a lead that didn’t last after the Yanks hammered out a six-run eighth and held on for the win.
Hudson probably would have been more upset, but he’d just become a father for the second time, absent-mindedly buying the whole team drinks, sitting in the hotel hallway talking on the phone to his wife at three in the morning, and the robbed win couldn’t really make much of a dent.
That night they strayed a bit outside the lines, because April was almost over, and soon this slow start, an old friend of theirs, come to visit every year, would settle in with their doubt and their healed injuries and sink them deep, maybe deeper than they’d ever gone before.
So they were manic, first at the hotel bar and then up in Scott Hatteberg’s room, the hallway littered with playing cards, trails leading up to doors, red and blue Bicycles slick under their socked feet.
Some insane mini-bar tab was racked up, some bottle of duty free airport vodka was consumed at a record pace, and somehow Mulder, who hadn’t even really been drinking, ever-conscious of his start the next day, ended up asleep on the far side of the bed, under the curtains, with his hand curled around the leg of the nightstand.
It had been a long day, anyway. Waking up to no evidence of Zito save the candy bar stolen from Mulder’s backpack, and the taste in Mulder’s mouth. Going out for a long run around Battery Park as the South Street Seaport docks began to clack and knock with life, coming back and taking a scalding shower, like he could burn this off his skin. Out to the ballpark and seeing Zito look nervous and defiant by turns, Mulder looking away whenever Zito gnawed on his lip or laughed. Waiting for Zito to mention it, all before the game and during the game and after the game, wire-tense in the dugout, expecting some patented Zito slip-up, some neon sign for the whole world to see, but Zito didn’t say a word, didn’t look at him, didn’t even really come near him.
All day, all night, Mulder had been traced by the potential for power and the potential for destruction, which is the kind of thing that will really knock a person out.
Asleep on Hatteberg’s floor, carpet print on his face, Mulder had a dream about Ted Williams and Willie McCovey, and then awoke with a start, his hands trembling like it had been a nightmare.
He didn’t know where he was, levering up on his elbows and looking around the dark room. Hatteberg was strewn across the bed, his head half buried under a pillow, the blankets wrapped around his knees. Bobby Crosby was on the floor by the dresser, snuffling in his sleep.
Mulder pulled himself to his feet, stumbled for the door. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed the slash of light from the bathroom door, a long skinny stripe dashed across his body. He could see part of a shoe, the edge of a sole, a Nike symbol.
He went over, nudged the door a little further open. Sticking his head in, Mulder saw Zito, sprawled on the floor, hotel towels bunched up under his head, plastic cups scattered about, one knee hiked up, his leg hanging in the bathtub, the untied laces of his shoe wet. The room was just barely long enough to accommodate his height, his hair brushing one wall and his foot almost out the door. Zito looked pale, the white tile floor and the strict fluorescent light casting his face clean and unmarked.
Zito’s left arm was at a strange angle, twisted in its socket, his elbow against the cabinet. Mulder sighed, came into the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the tub, his knees up.
He looked at Zito for a moment, the numbed shadow of his outline on the tile floor, then poked the other man’s side with his foot. “Hey.”
Zito’s brow lined, his hand twitching on his stomach. He didn’t wake up.
Mulder kicked him a little harder. “Hey. Jackass. Wake up.”
Zito’s face tightened, his shoulders shifting away, before he opened his eyes slowly, blinked in Mulder’s general direction. “Dude?” he questioned, his voice thick. “Where are we?”
Mulder hooked his arm under Zito’s calf and lifted Zito’s leg out of the tub, let it fall unceremoniously to the floor. “New York,” he replied. They were talking low, a rustled echo.
“Oh,” Zito said, ticking that through his mind, fitting it into its right place. His eyes sharpened. “You’re pitching tomorrow, you should be in bed.” He propped himself up on his elbows, looked around for the first time. “How come we’re in a bathroom?”
Mulder rolled his eyes, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. “Because every time you drink, it’s like a fourteen year old at a frat party.”
“Not that bad,” Zito answered, but didn’t seem to take offense. He sat up, got onto his knees to lean over the counter and turn on the sink, cupping his hands and drinking messily, water on his shirt collar, running in lines down his forearm.
“That’s pretty gross, man,” Mulder said, though it wasn’t, not really. Zito pulled away with a gasp, his mouth wet, and shook off his hands before sweeping them through his hair, spiking it up in the back.
“Thirsty,” was Zito’s only defense as he sank back down, his back against the cabinets, looking at Mulder.
Mulder was wondering what the fuck had happened the night before. What the fuck was happening now. He’d done his duty, woken Zito up, got his arm out from being bent in that weird manner, he’d done what he’d came to do and he was starting the next day and he should be asleep, but here he was, watching Zito watch him, cotton fibers from the towels in Zito’s hair, the ghostly pattern of the tile on his cheek.
“I think you gotta tell me what’s going on,” Zito said evenly, and Mulder snapped his eyes up.
“What makes you think I know?” he shot back.
Zito shrugged, rubbed at his shoulder. “You seemed to know pretty well last night,” he answered, and Mulder thought with surprise that Zito should have been able to see through that, Zito should be too smart to read Mulder’s carelessness as confidence.
Zito shrugged again. “I mean, I guess probably you should let me know. So that . . . I’ll know too.”
Mulder got pissed off, quickly. “I’m not here to draw you a fucking map, man. You’re a big boy, you can figure it out for yourself.”
Zito’s eyes flashed. “So what *are* you here for?” he taunted, angling his chin up, his face blurry young, like somebody for whom self-destruction is still an abstract concept.
Mulder’s mouth was dry. The dare hung up between them, impatient and tense with anticipation. Mulder let his eyes trail down Zito’s face, the wet spots on his collar, his arms looking strong and well-intentioned, his shirt pulled taut across his stomach, his long legs and his feet close to Mulder’s.
Without a word, Mulder reached out, slowly pulled the bathroom shut, and when the lock clicked, he lifted his eyes to Zito’s again, saw something black and uncaged in Zito’s gaze, and then Zito was pushing off the cabinet, on his knees again, his hands crashing against Mulder’s chest so that he fell back into the tub, the back of his head cracking hard on the porcelain, a burst of dizzy pain and immediate ferocity, and Mulder spit out, “Motherfucker,” was about to haul himself up and out and beat the hell out of the other man, when suddenly Zito crawled up his body, kneeling between Mulder’s legs, splayed over the edge of the tub. Zito’s hands were skinning up his sides, under his shirt, and Mulder breathed out, tried to keep still, felt Zito’s mouth making its clumsy way on his stomach and chest, and Mulder let his head drop back, a confusing scrawl of images rioting in his mind, and he thought, ‘i just hit my head, this must not count.’
* * *
The shit Mulder knows that Zito doesn’t know. In no particular order.
Zito’s wanted Mulder from day one. There was a certain look of surprise on Zito’s face when they met, a certain way his eyes scrolled down Mulder’s form. Mulder’d seen the same look a hundred different times, from a hundred different people. Zito didn’t know what it meant, because Zito doesn’t exactly have a tendency to think things through. Zito just always came out to the bullpen to watch Mulder warming up, sometimes stood too close to him in line for the movies. Half the time Mulder wanted to shove him away, when he turned to find Zito with a breath separating them. Half the time Mulder wanted to push Zito, hard, and say to him, “Personal space, jerk, learn it, know it, love it.” But he never had.
Mulder’s a better pitcher than Zito, except for some days when Zito’s a better pitcher than everybody.
You can’t fuck around with a teammate and not expect it to get complicated.
Zito’s terrified by his slow start, he’s frozen in place, struck dumb. Zito’s thinking that last year wasn’t as good as the year before, and what if this year’s not as good as last year, what if this is how his life is going to be from now on, just worse and worse as time passes, what if he’s already been the best he’ll ever be, what if he’d been twenty-four and at the height of everything and he somehow missed it?
Zito doesn’t really like Mulder all that much.
Neither of them believes in God, but they both spend an awful lot of time praying.
Mulder has fucked guys before, but he’s never fucked the same guy twice.
Some part of Zito is happy that Mulder got hurt last year, somewhere Zito’s glad there were no real comparisons to be drawn at the end of the season.
And Zito’s just stupid enough to believe that anything is better than tracking baseball’s aching retreat from him
* * *
In Oakland, Zito won’t stop ragging the offense for their anemic run production. It’s theoretically all in good fun, but there’s a slivered tone of cold in Zito’s voice, a near-restraint in the laughter of his teammates.
Zito says, “And hey, Chavvy, next time Brown gets two strikes on you, you gotta look for the slider, when was the last time he threw anything else when he gets ahead?”
Chavez half-smiles and Mulder throws his mitt into his locker too hard, rattling loud, everyone looking over to see him say shortly, “For Christ’s sake, Zito, would you mind shutting the fuck up? How much of this shit do we have to listen to?”
There’s a brief awkward moment, some of the team smirking secretly, agreeing with the sentiment, others hiking their eyebrows, looking idly concerned.
Zito’s face is more angry than hurt. ‘Good,’ Mulder thinks. ‘At least he’s learning something.’ Mulder can almost see the mean shape of ‘fuck off,’ forming on Zito’s lips, but then Zito darts his eyes around, apparently seeing that such a scene would solve nothing, and settles for glaring at the other man, looking futile.
That night, Chavez asks him cautiously as they watch the Daily Show, “The fuck is going on with you and Zito?”
Mulder shrugs, gives nothing away. He’s wondering, an irritating little tug on his mind, if he could find Zito’s apartment, where he’s only been a few times before, in San Francisco, he’s wondering if Zito would let him in if he showed up. He’s pretty sure Zito would slam the door without a word, but it’s almost worth making the trip just to see the look on Zito’s face.
“He just pisses me off, sometimes,” Mulder answers unconcernedly. This, at least, is true, though it’s not like honesty is really much of a tenet of his, these days.
Chavez looks like he didn’t expect much else, says caustically, “Well, if you end up having to kill him, could you at least wait until the off-season?”
Mulder grins. “No promises.”
A couple of hours later, messing around on the internet to put off not being able to sleep, Mulder’s cell phone rings, vibrating itself right off the desktop, thumping to the floor and continuing to buzz down on the carpet.
Mulder picks it up and checks the caller ID. It’s Zito’s cell, which maybe should be unexpected, but really isn’t.
Mulder answers it, saying casually, “Past your bedtime, dude.”
Zito breathes out an impatient laugh. “Not past yours, it would appear.”
“So it would appear.” Mulder pauses, listens to a dog barking. He can’t tell whether the dog is outside his window or reaching him through Zito’s phone, wherever Zito is now. “Where are you?”
“Um . . .the street,” Zito says unhelpfully.
Mulder stands. He’s wearing his jeans and no shirt, because the air conditioning’s busted and it’s subtropical in here. “Which street?” he asks low, hears Zito’s breath hitch once.
“Yours,” Zito whispers back, hating the sound of it.
Mulder lets him wait for a moment, hearing the doubt in his breathing, and then says in a close rasp, “Don’t fucking move.”
Mulder breaks records getting through the house to the front door, not even bothering to keep quiet, Chavez being the sort who could sleep through a nuclear war, and it’s not until he’s out in the yard that he realizes he’s still not wearing a shirt or shoes, the night perfect warm and resting heavily atop the lawn, bending the blades of grass down.
On the sidewalk, hopscotch chalk on the bottoms of his feet, Mulder sees Zito’s car parked in the turnoff, not as well-hidden as he should be behind the overgrown shrubs, and Mulder can see Zito’s profile in the window, his eyes down, held back from something.
When Mulder gets in the car, Zito looks at him with his eyes wide. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” he says distractedly.
“Smart one,” Mulder replies, and gets his hand wrapped in Zito’s collar, pulling him close, Zito’s short ragged nails scratching at his shoulder, Zito breathing hard against his neck, Zito’s even teeth tugging at his ear, and it’s not long before Zito’s head is thrown back, it’s not long before Mulder muffles a yell and jerks, his knee slamming into the glove compartment, biting down on the side of his hand hard enough to leave a half-circle of tiny gnawed dents all the next day.
They’re still for a minute, catching their breath and settling, slowly pulling their clothes back into a semblance of propriety, and Mulder has to remind himself that he can’t fall asleep in Zito’s car, that would probably be a bad idea.
Eventually, Zito says, a little too much uncertainty in his tone to be passed off as matter-of-fact, “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
Mulder stretches his arms out in front of him. His mouth feels swollen, his hands dirty. He’s thinking he’ll probably be able to sleep now, once he gets rid of Zito.
“I was an asshole before, too. You expected that to change?” he responds.
Zito is looking out the window, studying the front of Mulder’s house with dedicated attention. “No,” he says, sounding removed.
“Good,” Mulder says, and gets out of the car, the wind touching the new bruises on his body, the thin blood on his shoulders.
* * *
Also, Zito needs this more than Mulder ever will.
That’s something that Mulder’s just learned about Zito.
* * *
Nothing they do makes it better.
It’s like they’re glued to third place in the western division, except for the times when they slip into fourth. The Angels are playing like they played two summers before, catching Anaheim no easier than catching your own shadow, ever trying to make up for the bad that you’ve done. It’s not April anymore, they’ve got no real excuse.
There’s an article online about former ace pitchers who have sunk into mediocrity. ‘When Good Pitchers Go Bad,’ like a special on Fox. Zito is the prime example cited of this phenomenon, and Mulder doesn’t know if the other man has read the article, but he suspects Zito has, if Zito’s nervously tightened grip on his change-up is any evidence.
Mulder thinks about buying a new car, and finds himself falling down on a semi-regular basis, his mind swimming, nose-diving, and he awakes to pavement under his hands, bits of carpet in his mouth.
The city’s unforgiving, and he sees Oakland A’s baseball caps everywhere he goes.
Zito’s taken to not looking at him at the ballpark. This suits Mulder all right. He’s having a bitch of a time getting his curve to stay down, for some reason struggling to get left-handed batters out, and he doesn’t want to deal with Zito right now, he’s got more important things to worry about.
Drunk at a bar one night after dropping the second game of a three game set to the Twins, Zito’s too loud, banging on the table with his hand, spilling drinks and playing dirty Hangman on a napkin with Jermaine Dye, the two of them snickering like twelve year olds.
Mulder’s rigged up somewhere between annoyance and boredom, and he swipes the napkin from under Zito’s hand, piecing together the word, half the consonants missing, but he figures it out.
“‘Fellatio’?” Mulder says uncharitably, sneering at Zito. Dye’s giggling into his arm, his eyes flicking between the two pitchers. “Real original.”
Zito snatches the napkin back, unsteady and short-tempered. “Fuck off, you probably don’t even know what it means.”
Mulder scoffs, wonders if he’s being set up, having already disproved Zito’s claim pretty unilaterally, thinking that there are easier ways to get a guy to suck your dick. “At least I know how to spell it right.”
Zito blinks, looks down at the napkin in his hand, his eyebrows pulling together and his lips moving softly as he counts the letters. Seeing his mistake, he doesn’t let up, unsupported anger in his face, because Mulder hasn’t actually said anything that bad to him yet.
“Whatever, you think you know everything, but you don’t know shit about shit,” Zito bites off, glaring at him, Dye’s eyebrows lifting at the true hostility in his words.
Mulder laughs, dismissive and unthinking cruel. “Oh, yeah, and what do you know that I don’t, huh?”
Zito’s eyes snap quickly with a kind of useless rage, and Mulder knows that he’s forgotten where they are, and Zito says foolishly and too loud, “I know you can’t just fuck with me and then-”
But Mulder’s already up, his gaze crashing with warning, and he’s got a wrenched handful of Zito’s shirt, dragging him out of the chair and across the bar, their teammates watching them go with confusion, Zito protesting weakly and scrambling to get free of Mulder’s hold.
Once they’re outside, Mulder shoves Zito, almost knocking him off his feet until Zito gets an arm slung around a parking meter, catches himself.
Mulder’s maybe never been this angry before.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he hisses, wanting to beat himself clean on Zito’s body, wanting dislocated knuckles and asphalt burn on his elbows, wanting to see Zito with blood on his face.
Zito jerks up, pulling his shoulders straight. He’s scared now, but he won’t step back, because there are worse things in the world than getting the shit kicked out of you.
“The fuck is the matter with *you*?” he says defensively, checking his shirt for rips. “I didn’t even say anything, you didn’t have to go all ballistic.”
Mulder’s hands are tight in fists, his nails biting into his palms, a neat smile. There’s just barely a moon tonight, a crescent no wider than a knife’s blade, a hook in the sky.
“This isn’t gonna work if you don’t keep your fucking mouth shut,” he grates out, thinking that this is already too much trouble, this has been too much trouble from the start and why is he even bothering?
Zito’s eyes widen for a second, outrage, righteous indignation. “I *did*,” he insists, his face bright. “You’re being paranoid, touchy motherfucker.”
Mulder’s hands are back in Zito’s shirt without him even being aware of it, and they’re nose-to-nose, close enough for the air to get mixed up between them, and Mulder is making some predatory noise, something savage in the base of his throat, and Zito’s eyes are as scared as all hell, but he laughs, he laughs right in Mulder’s face.
“You dumbshit, you can’t hit me out here,” Zito says, and it’s enough to push Mulder past the point of not caring, because fuck if he’s gonna start letting Zito tell him what he can and can’t do, but before he can pull back far enough to get in a good swing, Zito is already continuing with his voice scraping and rough, a scoured whisper, “You can’t do anything you want to do to me out here, can you?”
It’s impossible, it’s the exact truth. And all around Mulder are the lines left for him to cross, the line where his fist first makes contact with Zito’s face, the line where his mouth attaches itself to Zito’s neck the way it wants to, the line where Mulder could ruin them both, as swiftly as anything he’s ever done before.
Mulder pushes Zito away. Zito’s still laughing at him, and somewhere vague Mulder kind of wants to kill him.
Zito quiets, watches Mulder standing there drawn with fury ringing tightly through him.
“I think you’re probably coming over tonight, huh?” Zito asks softly, and Mulder wants to sneer or snarl, cut Zito down.
But the attempt is weak, as everything at this moment, and Mulder hears his own voice, staggered, saying hollowly, “I’m so tired of this.”
Zito’s eyes dart with something akin to fear, but he just repeats, “You’re coming over tonight?”
Mulder doesn’t answer, walks away.
Ends up at Zito’s place at four in the morning, the sun up by the time they’re finished with each other, and Mulder tells him, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to the other man, “Don’t pull that shit like you were doing with Jermaine last night.”
“This again?” Zito’s voice is unperturbed, mildly disinterested.
Mulder turns to look at him, wanting to pin him down. Zito’s yawning, sprawled out lazily. He looks so easy, this all looks so easy. Zito’s fingertips are stained with ballpoint ink, smears of newsprint on the heel of his hand. He’s having trouble keeping his eyes open, the sex-then-sleep instinct running strong.
“I’m serious,” Mulder says, the muscles in his back aching. “I’m not about to haul you off every time you say something stupid in front of the guys.”
“Oh, no? Funny, you seemed to enjoy it earlier,” Zito snarks.
Mulder pulls on his socks to keep his hands busy. He tries to keep his voice strict, is idly surprised at his success. “You want me around, you keep your mouth shut.”
Zito raises an eyebrow. “And when I don’t want you around anymore? Then I can open my mouth again?”
Mulder looks back at him. The dawn’s no friend to either of them. It washes Zito out, fades his color, draws out every last part of Mulder’s strength.
“When you don’t want me around anymore, you can do whatever the fuck you want,” he says wearily, because it won’t really matter then, will it?
Mulder stands, pulling on his shirt. Zito’s looking to get lost in the shadows on the bed, shifting away from the light unconsciously.
Zito buries his face in a pillow, rolling over onto his stomach. He mumbles, “See you at the ballpark, man,” and then falls asleep, and Mulder steals two CDs and a bottle of Gatorade, goes out down the service elevator, finding a parking ticket on the windshield of his car, the sun blinding as he drives east.
* * *
By the time they get to Detroit, Mulder’s stopped wondering how long Zito’s gonna let things go on like this.
Whatever’s happening between them and whatever they’ve lost, somehow they’ve managed to confuse baseball with each other. If they’re looking to destroy themselves, it’s well deserved, because they’re hanging everything on the second half and Mulder can’t do shit except let the game get away from him in the middle innings, and Zito can’t do shit except get raked while fighting to stay under a hundred pitches over five innings.
Somewhere, this has everything to do with their slow start, that’s the only reason this even happened. Somewhere, Mulder knows that hope and fear have everything to do with one another, and this they should have learned long ago.
Mulder’s found himself digging deep for one more inning’s worth of pitches dozens of times. Found himself held motionless by Zito dozens of times. None of this is doing anything to help.
In Detroit, it’s numbly hot, the baffled Midwestern humidity that Mulder grew up with. Zito’s unaccustomed, his skin damp with sweat, his hair plastered down on his forehead by his cap. Zito walks around looking slightly askew, laughs like there’s something broken loose in his chest.
There’s a bunch of them hanging out in Chavez’s hotel room, trading magazines and arguing over what to play on the boombox, and Mulder stands, his back cracking.
“I’ma go down to that place on the corner for some candy or something. Anybody want?”
There’s a chorus of orders, none of which Mulder bothers to make note of, because Zito has stood up too.
“I’ll come with,” he says, shrugging into his coat.
Mulder blinks. “Think I’ll be okay on my own, dude,” he answers.
Zito gives him a look he can’t interpret. Their teammates are watching with bored interest. “Wanna stretch my legs,” Zito says, and Mulder wants to direct him to the hallway, perfect for pacing and other leg-stretching activities, but their teammates are watching and there’s really no way to brush Zito off without making it into a thing.
Mulder leaves, not looking back to make sure Zito is following, but he can hear the other man, running his hand along the wall, shuffling on the carpet. In the elevator, Zito punches the button for the lobby about twenty-seven times, inordinately fond of buttons in all their forms, and says without looking at Mulder, “I don’t think you’re any good for me.”
Mulder leans back against the wall, watches the numbers over the door counting down. “No?”
Zito sighs, his fingers spread out on the lit buttons. “Not the way things are right now, no.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Mulder answers unequivocally, “Well, this is how things are. How they’re gonna stay. So.”
The elevator gets to the lobby and they stop talking, moving across the room. Out on the street, a stiff wind pegs by, stray pages of the newspaper blown against them, wrapping around their legs.
Zito says, “I’m just . . . I’m not really dealing with stuff very well, I don’t think. I’m kinda . . . having trouble.”
Zito’s hands are in his pockets, his hair knotting in the wind. Detroit rumbles around them like they’ve stirred something powerful. The air’s sharp and industrial, streaked with steel and grease.
“What, on the mound?” Mulder asks, though he’s pretty sure that’s not what Zito’s talking about. “I noticed.”
Zito’s face hardens. “And thanks for your concern,” he replies sarcastically.
“Look, I’m not the guy who’s gonna, like, pep you up or whatever. What you do on the field, it’s nothing to do with me.”
And Mulder kind of remembers a time when he couldn’t tell Zito’s pitches from his own, when each of Zito’s losses got seared into his heart, when the path of Zito’s talent followed along moment-by-moment with the path of his own, but it’s been two years since Zito was worth what he used to mean to Mulder, it’s been two years and Mulder’s gotten tired of waiting for Zito to recover.
Zito doesn’t answer, his eyes scanning restlessly down the street. They get to the corner store and buy candy and sodas, a pack of baseball cards for no other reason than that it’s been a long time since Mulder bought a pack of baseball cards.
They haven’t finished whatever they were talking about. Mulder doesn’t really want to pick the conversation up again, he’s content to leave it to wither away on its own.
But back on the sidewalk, Zito says, his voice weirdly calm, “You don’t like me much, huh?”
Mulder glances at him. Zito doesn’t look away, doesn’t look like he’s about to break down or anything.
“I like you all right,” Mulder replies, feeling like he’s lying, at least a little bit.
Zito doesn’t believe that, shrugs. “Whatever. It’s no big deal. It’s not like you’re my favorite person in the world these days, either.”
Mulder stops. Zito’s a few steps farther down before he realizes, double-takes, turns to face him.
“Why are you talking about this now?” Mulder asks, thinking that Zito must be speaking in code, there must be something happening beneath what he’s saying out loud.
Zito smiles sadly, shakes his head. “Ah, I don’t know. Detroit fucks me up.” He waves a hand in the general direction of everywhere, encompassing the whole city.
Mulder rolls his eyes. “Don’t blame the city. You came fucked up.”
Zito’s gaze narrows, the line of his jaw taut. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?” he shoots back.
Mulder’s tired of this conversation, tired of Zito, moves to continue down the street, but Zito catches his arm. The streetlight gathers carefully on his face, his eyes hooded and dark.
“I’m not asking you for anything, okay?” Zito says, looking intent with his hand curled around Mulder’s arm. “I’ve never asked you for anything, have I?” He pauses, but Mulder doesn’t even grace him with a headshake, wanting to get this over with.
Zito sighs, takes his hand away. “You just . . . Christ, Mulder, do you really think this is healthy?”
That’s actually funny, and Mulder laughs quickly. “Healthy? As in, what, low fat? No calories?”
Zito looks like he wants to hit him, or shove him, something, but he doesn’t touch Mulder again, saying sharply, “You know what I mean.”
Mulder tucks his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels. “I never know what you mean,” he answers, a cold edge in his voice. “And this . . . I don’t really think about this all that much. It’s not of much interest to me.”
Zito’s face is wiped clean for a moment, staring at Mulder blankly, then unplanned refusal jags into his eyes, and he scoffs, “Bullshit.”
Mulder shrugs, watching the streetlight fuzz at the corners, the diluted blur of black and gold. “Believe what you want.”
Zito studies him for a moment, looking for the things Mulder’s keeping secret. He doesn’t seem to find anything, and blows out a breath, pushing a hand through his hair.
“I’m sick of trying to figure you out,” he says quietly.
“Then stop trying,” Mulder replies, wondering how much longer they’re going to be out here on the sidewalk together, wondering when someone will come looking for them. SportsCenter will be on soon; Mulder wants to see the Mariners’ highlights.
Zito looks at him for a long moment, then mutters, half under his breath, “Just thought this would be easier.”
Mulder’s not looking at him, already turned away, tells him plainly, “You thought wrong,” and goes back into the hotel, not realizing that Zito isn’t behind him until he gets to the elevator and there’s no one to poke at the buttons like an idiot.
* * *
It’s later that night when Mulder finally gets it.
Zito, upon opening his room door to find Mulder standing there, is indecisive, his hand twisting on the knob, before Mulder makes an impatient noise and Zito steps back, letting him come in.
Zito hadn’t been asleep, the light’s are on, the television murmuring its way unobtrusively through an episode of M*A*S*H. His mitt and a baseball are on the bed, his notebook beside them, all the league’s weaknesses printed out in his careful hand.
Mulder’s half-expecting to have to kill some time before he can get off and get gone, thinking that Zito will want to finish that conversation they didn’t really have on the sidewalk, Mulder’s thinking that he’ll have lie to Zito some more before Zito will come anywhere near him, but then Zito knocks all the stuff on the bed onto the floor and pushes Mulder down, Mulder blearily surprised and thinking that maybe he’ll be able to get back to his own room sooner than he’d thought.
Zito’s hands are clenched tightly around his wrists, pressing him down, and Mulder’s got his head tipped back on the bed, his mouth open and his eyes closed, the lines smoothed out from his face, and a crystalline thought scatters through his mind: ‘we’re never gonna pull out of this skid if we don’t change the luck.’
Mulder gasps, and Zito moves up to kiss him, but Zito’s got nothing to do with it, Zito’s been sinking for a long time now, longer than this slow start, longer than this young season would have you believe, Zito’s been on his way down and Mulder’s been bound to him, because Mulder forgot to break the old ties that once linked him so tightly to the other man.
Zito’s on his way down and Mulder’s not going with him.
After, Mulder waits until Zito’s breathing evens out again, but before it deepens into sleep, and Mulder says, “I’m done.”
Zito snorts a laugh, his face against Mulder’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know. Give me some credit.”
Mulder rolls away from him, sits up. “No. With you. Done with you.”
He glances over his shoulder. Zito’s blinking at him, confused. “What’re you talking about?”
Mulder flips a hand, the blankets pulled all out of form, the pillows on the floor. “Done, Zito. Finished. Not gonna do this anymore.” He rescues his boxers from the floor and slips into them, feels marginally better about his entire position.
Now Zito sits up, the sheet falling to his waist, his hair standing up as if to provide exclamation to his words. “What the fuck are you talking about? Why?” he demands, but then his face gets scared. “’Cause of all that stuff I said earlier?”
Mulder shakes his head. “No, it’s not . . .” but then figures, why the hell not, as good as any other reason, and amends, “I mean, yeah. ‘Cause you’re right. I’m no good for you, you’re no good for me, the whole thing’s doomed, so on, so forth.”
He doesn’t mean to sound that flippant, but he’s tired, he’s having trouble finding his shirt on the floor, too tired to worry about the tone of his voice or the stuff he’s saying.
But Zito’s waking up more with each second, and Zito knows him pretty well. “Stop fucking lying, why don’t you,” he says flatly, his eyes sketched with accusation.
Just because Zito can tell when he’s lying, though, that doesn’t mean Mulder has to tell him the truth.
“Hey, fuck off. I don’t know what you thought this was, but I never said shit to you about sticking around.”
It’s weird, that this is happening with Mulder in his boxers and Zito stark naked under the sheets. It’s weird to be talking to Zito with so much of them both showing. Mulder has never really been able to see Zito before, it’s all been dark and fast and half-unclothed. To see that the lines of Zito’s body should run like that, that he should look hazy at the edges of his shoulders, crisp in the planes of his face, that his collarbones should move like that under the skin, that his chest should look so smooth, that this should be something that Mulder will not miss.
Now Zito’s shaken, and fighting for this out of sheer spite. Competitiveness, maybe, the other thing they’ve always had in common. That Mulder is leaving and Zito would prefer him stay-in the simplest terms, down to Mulder winning, Zito losing. And, no, neither of them can stand to lose.
“You fuck around with me for a few weeks and then say ‘done,’ just like that?” Zito asks incredulously. “I mean . . . what the fuck, dude? I know you got a lot invested in denial and repression and shit, but could you give me a fucking break already?”
It’s a little strange, that Zito should still be able to work him up like that, that in an instant it’s red behind his eyes and the tenuous grip he’s always had on control slips in his hand. Mulder wouldn’t have thought that he really cared about what Zito thought, not all that much.
Before he does something pointless and certain to be regretted, Mulder snaps his T-shirt from under the bed and pulls it on, standing and moving a few steps away to drag his jeans on. He speaks in quick, broken-off cuts, “Maybe you were under the impression that this was something more than just fucking around to kill time, but that’s pretty much tough. I don’t have to give you two weeks’ notice just because I got bored.”
Zito’s lip curls up in a sneer that doesn’t look at home on his face. “Yeah, well, I think you’re just a fucking coward.”
There is a moment, a wholly clear moment, when Mulder can see everything perfectly, when he can see despair and hope and friendship and doubt and envy and vengeance and history and all the things that drove them to this place, Mulder can see all that he hasn’t admitted to himself and the true consequence of this long night, Mulder can see the fear and arrogance behind his every word and every breath, but this moment is brief, and when it has passed, the only thing he wants to do is hit Zito as hard as he can.
He occupies his hands with the buttons of his shirt, wrenching them into their holes, roughly snapping the collar. He says low, not intending to waste much more oxygen here, “I don’t know what you want from me, but I can basically guarantee that you’re not gonna get it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before he can get to the door, though, Zito’s voice catches him, eternally exhausted, “All right, okay, but wait. Listen. I want you to tell me the truth about why you’re doing this. Just once and then you can say whatever you want for the rest of your life. Would you please do that one thing for me?”
Mulder turns back. Zito’s had the anger and the fight dragged out of him, sitting there with his shoulders slumped, his eyes bruised. Zito doesn’t look like he needs to beaten up anymore; he looks like he needs to be tucked in.
Mulder shrugs. What harm? He keeps his eyes level on Zito’s, figuring at least this much sincerity is owed. “Okay. I’m pretty sure you’re bad luck. And this isn’t worth it.”
Then he walks out.
* * *
When Mulder starts against the Royals two days later, he pitches a three-hit complete game shutout, a no-hitter through seven. He is brilliant, masterful, he is as far away as he’s ever been from pain and disappointment. He stands up there and no one has ever seen anything like it, because under this starkly beautiful crow-black sky, he is everything that he was promised to be.
Zito’s ERA is almost double Mulder’s. He’s stunned and quiet in the dugout, he hugs his mitt to his stomach and Mulder can see him trying to keep his hands from shaking. He’s only won three games on the year, almost two months into the season, and no one will meet his eyes anymore.
They are not friends anymore. They don’t talk much, these days. With everything they have behind them now, the box scores are still the only thing either of them can see, the lines from their starts. Somehow, this is all they are to each other now, the two lives that came from one.
And if Mulder could have known beforehand all that would happen, he would have done everything the exact same.
(here’s a secret neither of them know: so would zito)
Summer comes to California and Mulder watches a meteor shower in the eastern hills, one clean night in late May, and he thinks for the first time that it’s going to be a great fucking season.
THE END
Endnote: I made claims to the theory that Rich Harden listens to Slipknot, and that’s really kind of an insult. Sorry, Rich Harden. And, um, sorry, Slipknot fans.
Musical reasoning:
when I fell
on the concrete
it was lovely
‘cause you could see
what’s been running
so hot in me
but when I fell
on the concrete
you went white as
a sheet
wished that nothing
in this world
would ever hurt me
well, keep wishing
‘cause when I look
in my future
I don’t see you
and don’t wish to
--Okkervil River (“Maine Island Lovers”)
oh, that story is tough. i think i'm going to hell . . . i was wondering idly the other night why no one slashes 'bull durham.' and then thinking that newman already *admitted* that 'butch cassidy and the sundance kid' is a love affair between two men, and yet no one slashes that either. argh. that's my childhood, what the fuck.
third story. very long and closely adhering to this apparent 'style' of mine that people keep talking about.
Title: Fear and Arrogance
Author: Candle Beck
Email: meansdynamite@yahoo.com
Category: MLB, Oakland A’s
Pairing: Mark Mulder/Barry Zito
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Aye.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this is mine, not even the title. It belongs to the good folks who wrote “Bull Durham,” aka best movie ever. (you know . . . “You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance.” “Fear and ignorance. Right.” Ya hayseed!)
Summary: Fucking early season baseball.
Note: Listen, this was gonna be chronological, then it was gonna be quasi-chronological, and it ended up being not chronological at all. Which happens, sometimes. Anyway, it’s based on the 2004 season through mid-May, and most all the games are accurately reported, but I fiddled with a few of the box scores and timelines to make it easier on myself. Call it poetic license, but not out loud, ‘cause you’ll sound like a punk.
Fear and Arrogance
By Candle Beck
The lights at the Coliseum are rectangles of halogen white stuck up like postcards against the slick black sky, huge and unmistakable in the night, and Mulder’s having trouble seeing straight.
Up against the rail, with Hudson on one side of him and a pair of trainers on the other, Mulder’s got his hands on the metal, cool and smooth under his palms, and they’re watching Zito struggle through the third, breaking his motion, hesitating out of the stretch.
Zito’s gone three-and-oh on the batter, but he can’t even give away a pitch, the fastball streaking inside, the batter tearing open his arm protector’s Velcro straps and jogging down to first, moving the runner into scoring position just as easy as that.
Zito’s biting off curses, spitting into his hand. He rubs the ball between his palms like it’s clay, like he’ll shape it into something more his liking.
Mulder’s pretty sure he knows why Zito is having trouble today, but has decided not to care. Not his responsibility if Zito wants to fuck up on the field, too.
Huddy’s face is composed in simple lines, the look he gets when he’s worried. For a long time, when Mulder and Zito first came up and started playing with Hudson, and the three of them were suddenly the brightest and the most promising, for a long time, whenever one of them was pitching, the other two would stick close, shoulder to shoulder in the dugout and at the rail, so that the camera could find them as the commentators tried to find a way to talk about one without talking about all three, the endless comparisons, Mulder’s velocity, Zito’s control, the unhittable slash of Hudson’s sinker, luck and skill and preparation, until they were three men with one name and it was hard to get a sense of themselves outside the rotation.
But people don’t look for the three of them that much anymore. Mulder doesn’t watch every start anymore. He’s lost his interest in being able to pick out the hitch in Zito’s delivery, the almost-not-there bend of his knee as he comes down off the rubber that means he’s losing power, this stuff doesn’t really hold his attention these days.
Zito struggles too much, these days, for Mulder to really care that much.
Zito throws a stupid pitch, a change-up on two-and-one that drifts towards the fat part of the plate like a bad dream, and Mulder can see him cringe even as the ball leaves his hand, the batter grinning maliciously as he begins his cut, and everyone in the stadium is already resigned to the run-scoring double when Chavez breaks gravity’s hold on him, out on the edge of the outfield grass, diving with his arm twisted backwards, his glove stretched for the ball to slam into the mesh, a play that might have been called physically impossible had it not just happened right in front of them.
Zito is saved, briefly, because Chavez fields like other men draw air, and Mulder watches him breathe out carefully, dig his hand into his glove, his face shadowed for a long moment before he looks up for the sign, and Mulder goes down into the clubhouse, not wanting to see one more pitch.
* * *
Everywhere Mulder goes these days, he sees people in formal wear. Tuxedos, shimmering evening dresses, men in white tie and tails like orchestra conductors or statesmen. He sees them on the streets, crowding into coffeeshops, waiting on subway platforms. Everybody scrubbed clean, their faces high with expectation and the chafe of the wind, like this will be the best night of their lives.
Mulder’s got holes in every pair of jeans he owns, ink and paint and ash on every one of his shirts. Zito’s somehow not coordinated enough to fasten his own cufflinks; he can do the left sleeve but not the right, his legendary left hand fumbling with the buttons, the cufflinks slipping through his fingers like jacks. He’s got no qualms about asking his friends to fix his cuffs, holding out his arm with an engaging grin, despite the rolled eyes and the assertions that anyone who can’t put on the cufflinks by himself is clearly not yet grown-up enough to actually *wear* cufflinks.
Mulder knows pretty well what the skin on the underside of Zito’s wrist feels like, where it’s taut and thin and the blue veins cross over each other, forming an X-marks-the-spot of Zito’s pulse.
Little things like this have made Zito unimaginably irritating to Mulder.
Also stuff like Zito always needing to be spotted cab fare, not cheap but forgetful, his pockets turned out empty, maybe a half a roll of Lifesavers and a rubber band and the top of a Snapple bottle, but never anything that might actually come in handy. And the way Zito likes to argue when he gets drunk, needling, looking for a reaction. And Zito’s habit of showing up at Mulder’s house or Mulder’s hotel room without any warning, not even a knock, strolling in like he couldn’t even conceive that he might not be welcome. And Zito’s sick, scared face the night after he’s lost. And Zito’s perfect body, untouched by injury, and the way Mulder still has to take pain medication some nights when the ache drums out from his hip and spurs all the way through him, when he has to close his eyes and gasp against it. And the fact that Zito is supposed to be so much better than this, the fact that they were both promised something more.
All of this tends to piss Mulder off.
* * *
He’s down in the ballpark tunnel, on one of the payphones by the elevators. There’s no cell reception from below all this stone, and it’s too chattering loud in the clubhouse to be able to make a proper call. It’s concrete cold in the tunnel, and Mulder’s got his hands up on the wall, scribbling down movie showtimes on the back of a Muni card. It’s pre-game, Harden’s starting. They’re still in Oakland. Zito hasn’t gotten a win in more than three weeks, and the last time Mulder took the hill, he allowed seven runs and thirteen hits over six and a third, and almost ran over a stray cat on the drive home.
There’s a scrape behind him, and Mulder ducks a look over his shoulder, sees Zito standing there, half undressed to change into his uniform, bare feet at the ends of his stringy jeans and a plain white T-shirt, looking expectant.
Mulder ticks up an eyebrow, goes back to the movie times. When he’s done, he turns and Zito is closer behind him than he thought, their shoulders bumping, Zito’s hand brushing across his stomach. Mulder steps away, his mouth tightening.
“Help you with something?” he asks with a touch to his voice.
Zito tips his head to one side, scratches at the back of his leg with his foot. Mulder’s never been certain if Zito is really this . . . boyish, or if it’s just a role he plays, the way he likes to look in other people’s eyes. Somewhere, Mulder is sure, Zito knows exactly the effect he can have by widening his eyes and letting innocence drift onto his face. It’s a good act, but it’s gotten old. He’s not twenty-three anymore, and he’s not pitching well enough to get away with being called ‘eccentric.’
“You wanna lend me some of that tape stuff you use on your glove?” Zito asks, miming something indistinct with his hands.
“In my locker,” Mulder answers, but Zito doesn’t leave. And neither does Mulder, which is a little strange. But they haven’t really talked in a few days. Not just the two of them, maybe three feet between them, with all that they know about each other now. Mulder’s thinking that the last time he had placed his hands on Zito, in Zito’s next start, he’d had four homeruns hit off him. Mulder’s trying to remember what the reasoning behind this was.
They can hear the music Harden’s picked out blaring from the clubhouse, down the stretch of hallway. These fucking rookies . . . how can anybody really take Slipknot seriously?
They’re standing facing each other, uneven polygons of light around them, and Zito looks vaguely confused, mystified, like he’d meant to see something in Mulder’s face that he doesn’t. Mulder’s thinking about the day after tomorrow, the next time he pitches.
“I was . . .” Zito begins, then stops, his expression drawing before he continues again, sounding unsettled, “I was gonna maybe ask you if you could show me that thing about slotting the fastball you were talking about.”
Mulder’s not in a very good mood. He slept fuck-all the night before, awake every hour on the hour, it seemed, and every minute of this day has gotten heavier and heavier on his shoulders. He’s been feeling . . . reckless, lately.
His smile is sharp, could be interpreted as harmless joking, and Mulder says, “Knowing how to slot it’s not gonna do shit if you can’t get it over the plate.”
Zito’s face flashes, a brief look of wounded surprise, and then blanks. “The fuck is your problem?” he snaps.
Mulder rolls his eyes, says impatiently, “Take a fucking joke, Zito, Christ,” then walks back into the clubhouse.
* * *
It was New York City. A week ago. Maybe two. Time runs up on itself, measuring the early summer by opponents’ batting average and ERA and innings pitched, and it’s hard to keep the days well-defined.
The series opener was a day game, and they’d come into town the night before, and Zito had ended up in Mulder’s room after they got back from the bars.
At first there were a bunch of the guys in there, playing Playstation and pelting each other with cashews, but all the regulars chipped off, ragging the two pitchers for their once-every-five-days work schedule, leaving Zito to lie on the bed dropping M&Ms into his mouth from arm’s length, Mulder sitting on the floor systematically beating all the high scores that his teammates had posted.
Zito’s most recent start, at home against the Angels a few days before, had been the worst performance of his career.
They hadn’t been talking about anything in particular when Zito said philosophically, “Did you feel like you were missing something, last season?”
Mulder looked at him incredulously. “Fuck you, dude,” he answered shortly.
Zito looked at him uncertainly. “What?” he hedged warily.
Mulder tossed down the game controller, half-turned to better face the other man, irritation scrambling through him. “Dumb son of a bitch, yeah, I felt like I was missing something, last season. I felt like I was missing the ability to play. And the reason I felt like that was . . . oh yeah, that’s right, I didn’t *have* the ability to play.” His words twisted into sarcasm, thinking that at least Zito could remember that, at least Zito could escape his own fucking head for long enough to see the loss that bled out of Mulder, the way it might have been.
Zito had the grace to flush at the thoughtlessness of the question, but didn’t back down, saying instead, “That’s not what I meant, though. I mean, like, before you got hurt, did you ever feel . . . off at all?”
Mulder didn’t want to be talking about last year. He spent enough of his time trying not to think about it. He pressed his knuckles into the thin carpet, soft snapping sounds. “Did I look fucking off to you last year?” he grated out.
Zito didn’t seem to have any idea of what thin the ice he was on, shaking his head and saying obliviously, “No, you looked good. Strong. You were pitching like . . . like I’d never seen you before. We all thought you were gonna have an awesome season. But then . . . well.”
Zito trailed off and cleared his throat, finally registering the temper in Mulder’s face, but it was too late, Mulder already on his feet.
“How about you stop saying shit about last season, okay?” Mulder said in such a way that pre-empted any argument. His hands were tight at his sides, and he was weirdly aware of how one of Zito’s shirt sleeves was bunched up around his upper arm, the skin pale and vulnerable.
Zito sat up, uncomfortable. “No, yeah,” he attempted. “Sure. Sorry. Didn’t mean to . . . bring up bad memories or whatever.”
Mulder’s eyes narrowed. Zito decided it would be fun to drag Mulder back through the agony of missing the most crucial part of the season . . . fine, it wasn’t like they both didn’t have demons.
“Why do you ask, though, out of curiosity?” Mulder said, his voice thinly-veiled and falsely guileless. Zito shrugged uneasily, cutting his eyes away, and Mulder had a clear shot.
“I mean, just because I wouldn’t think you would need me to tell you about being ‘off’ last year. You seemed to have a pretty good grip on it all by yourself.” Zito whipped his gaze up, anger harsh and disbelieving in his face, and Mulder grinned coolly. “If, as I’m assuming, ‘off’ is just a nice way of saying that you were pretty much useless for half the summer. Tell me something, how’d it happen that I was out for a month and a half and I still ended up winning more games than you?”
Mulder had never seen Zito look like that before. Rage and shock and hurt and silvery bright cunning, a shrewd flicker of possible responses, not looking much like a young man at all now, not boyish, not feigning innocence, now Zito was a man looking to damage another man, something pure and wicked burning just beneath.
Zito stood, and Mulder was all over again annoyed by the fact that Zito was nearly as tall as him, that he couldn’t tower over the other man, Zito was one of the few people he knew who actually met his eyes steadily on a regular basis.
Mulder was fragmented, suddenly tired, ready to leave this behind. He was turning away, flapping a hand dismissively at Zito, about to invite him to get the fuck out, when Zito’s voice rose, piped in with a kid’s high glee at being cruel for the first time.
“Yeah, and what’s gonna be your excuse this year? I’ve been watching you tip your pitches and overthrow your slider for two months now, and I think you’re gonna have to break your goddamned hip again, because you’re the one shaping up to be fucking useless this time around.”
It was so quick. Later, that’s what Mulder would remember most, that’s the aspect of it that would refuse to leave him alone. Quick, so quick.
One second he was standing there half-turned away, kicking Zito out, and then the next second he was whirling, his hands were in Zito’s shirt and he was using the force of his spin to sling Zito against the door, the muted thud as his shoulder hit, the door shuddering in its frame, Zito’s eyes squeezed shut against the impact, and then Mulder was across the protective space between them and he had his hands up flat on the door on either side of Zito’s body, trapping him in, and Zito winced when Mulder got close, Mulder stepping toe to toe and leaning forward, their two bodies strumming heat, nearly overlapping, and Mulder got his lips as close to Zito’s ear as he could, his nose brushing Zito’s hair, growling low, “Nine fucking runs over four.”
That had been Zito’s line against the Angels the week before.
Zito’s face warped, and he tried to get a hand up flat on Mulder’s chest, but Mulder just grabbed hold of his wrist, pressed both their hands down on Zito’s chest. Zito swallowed hard, and jerked his head, Mulder’s mouth briefly touching Zito’s cheek before he pulled back.
Mulder was shaky, weak with anger and something else, something best left unexamined. Zito’s hand was moving slowly under his, pinned to Zito’s chest. Mulder could feel Zito’s knuckles against his palm, the calluses at the tips of Zito’s fingers tapping at Mulder’s wrist.
“Nine runs over four, so who’s useless?” Mulder said roughly, an unaccountable edge to his voice. Zito swallowed again, his throat clicking audibly. There was a loose strand of hair on Zito’s cheek, a tiny scar just above his right eye.
Mulder was thinking of Boston in October, the American version of old, the devotion of Fenway during the playoffs, and Mulder was thinking of the thin, glittering pain that still kept him awake some nights, and Mulder spread out his hand on Zito’s chest, dragged it carefully downward, a motion airlessly explicit in its sheer modesty, just Mulder’s hand on Zito’s chest, on his stomach, but there could be little question what it was doing there, as Mulder snuck his way up under Zito’s T-shirt and lowered his head, his teeth and tongue against Zito’s throat and shoulder, Zito trembling hard and snapping his head back and forth and stuttering out curses occasionally, his hands fluttering without assurance around Mulder’s back.
The tips of Mulder’s fingers touched the waistband of Zito’s boxers, the heel of Mulder’s hand steady on the plane of Zito’s stomach, and Zito, his eyes still closed, managed to say hopelessly, “The fuck, what the fuck do you think you’re doing to me?”
Mulder bit Zito’s shoulder, slid his hand into Zito’s shorts and caught Zito’s gasp before it could even completely escape his lips, Mulder’s mind wild and filthy and untethered until he finally broke away from Zito’s mouth to answer breathlessly against his neck, “Doesn’t matter, not much more I could do to fuck you up than you do to yourself anyway.”
And Zito’s hands wrenched on Mulder’s body, one in his hair and the other curved around his side, Zito’s hands were strong and there was voiceless fury in his face, but then Mulder tightened his grip and snarled, because there could be no question of who was in charge tonight, and Zito came snapping back to kiss him hard, a sting of teeth and the sharp peppermint taste of the mints Zito’d been popping all night, fiercely working against each other, Mulder pressing Zito to the door, flush together and sparking with heat and Mulder thought briefly of the place where violence and desire intersect, thought briefly about getting Zito down on his knees, and then he forced himself to stop thinking about anything.
* * *
It was bad April baseball that they were playing. All through New York, their fifteenth story hotel room windows and dawn busting through the skyline, filling the newly-broken holes, a bitter wind stinging by outside their hotel, the last freeze of the winter. They were swept that series and that hadn’t happened to the three of them in a really long fucking time.
Jason Giambi referred to Hudson and Mulder and Zito as nothing but ‘kids’ in an interview he gave prior to facing his old team. The reporter called him on it, and Giambi laughed it off, saying how McGwire still called *him* a kid. Mulder remembered teasing Giambi for being an old man when they’d first been playing together, but for some reason he hated hearing Giambi call them that now. He wanted to say, ‘look motherfucker, we’re not rookies anymore, we’re not at the start of anything.’
But Hudson and Zito didn’t really care, so what could he do?
Huddy broke a sweat holding the Yankees to just one big inning in the first game, the A’s offense hacking away at Mike Mussina (fucking Mike Mussina with his unassuming face like the face of the kid who grew up next door to you, the kid you built a treehouse with and whose older sister you had a crush on, fucking Mike Mussina who didn’t look like anyone you would ever be afraid of, fucking Mike Mussina bending from the waist, fucking Mike Mussina who had, years ago, taken a perfect game into the ninth before Sandy Alomar showed him how much perfection is worth, fucking Mike Mussina with his pinpoint control and his softly wicked smile, standing on the mound like some sort of strange young king), Huddy leaving in the seventh with the lead, a lead that didn’t last after the Yanks hammered out a six-run eighth and held on for the win.
Hudson probably would have been more upset, but he’d just become a father for the second time, absent-mindedly buying the whole team drinks, sitting in the hotel hallway talking on the phone to his wife at three in the morning, and the robbed win couldn’t really make much of a dent.
That night they strayed a bit outside the lines, because April was almost over, and soon this slow start, an old friend of theirs, come to visit every year, would settle in with their doubt and their healed injuries and sink them deep, maybe deeper than they’d ever gone before.
So they were manic, first at the hotel bar and then up in Scott Hatteberg’s room, the hallway littered with playing cards, trails leading up to doors, red and blue Bicycles slick under their socked feet.
Some insane mini-bar tab was racked up, some bottle of duty free airport vodka was consumed at a record pace, and somehow Mulder, who hadn’t even really been drinking, ever-conscious of his start the next day, ended up asleep on the far side of the bed, under the curtains, with his hand curled around the leg of the nightstand.
It had been a long day, anyway. Waking up to no evidence of Zito save the candy bar stolen from Mulder’s backpack, and the taste in Mulder’s mouth. Going out for a long run around Battery Park as the South Street Seaport docks began to clack and knock with life, coming back and taking a scalding shower, like he could burn this off his skin. Out to the ballpark and seeing Zito look nervous and defiant by turns, Mulder looking away whenever Zito gnawed on his lip or laughed. Waiting for Zito to mention it, all before the game and during the game and after the game, wire-tense in the dugout, expecting some patented Zito slip-up, some neon sign for the whole world to see, but Zito didn’t say a word, didn’t look at him, didn’t even really come near him.
All day, all night, Mulder had been traced by the potential for power and the potential for destruction, which is the kind of thing that will really knock a person out.
Asleep on Hatteberg’s floor, carpet print on his face, Mulder had a dream about Ted Williams and Willie McCovey, and then awoke with a start, his hands trembling like it had been a nightmare.
He didn’t know where he was, levering up on his elbows and looking around the dark room. Hatteberg was strewn across the bed, his head half buried under a pillow, the blankets wrapped around his knees. Bobby Crosby was on the floor by the dresser, snuffling in his sleep.
Mulder pulled himself to his feet, stumbled for the door. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed the slash of light from the bathroom door, a long skinny stripe dashed across his body. He could see part of a shoe, the edge of a sole, a Nike symbol.
He went over, nudged the door a little further open. Sticking his head in, Mulder saw Zito, sprawled on the floor, hotel towels bunched up under his head, plastic cups scattered about, one knee hiked up, his leg hanging in the bathtub, the untied laces of his shoe wet. The room was just barely long enough to accommodate his height, his hair brushing one wall and his foot almost out the door. Zito looked pale, the white tile floor and the strict fluorescent light casting his face clean and unmarked.
Zito’s left arm was at a strange angle, twisted in its socket, his elbow against the cabinet. Mulder sighed, came into the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the tub, his knees up.
He looked at Zito for a moment, the numbed shadow of his outline on the tile floor, then poked the other man’s side with his foot. “Hey.”
Zito’s brow lined, his hand twitching on his stomach. He didn’t wake up.
Mulder kicked him a little harder. “Hey. Jackass. Wake up.”
Zito’s face tightened, his shoulders shifting away, before he opened his eyes slowly, blinked in Mulder’s general direction. “Dude?” he questioned, his voice thick. “Where are we?”
Mulder hooked his arm under Zito’s calf and lifted Zito’s leg out of the tub, let it fall unceremoniously to the floor. “New York,” he replied. They were talking low, a rustled echo.
“Oh,” Zito said, ticking that through his mind, fitting it into its right place. His eyes sharpened. “You’re pitching tomorrow, you should be in bed.” He propped himself up on his elbows, looked around for the first time. “How come we’re in a bathroom?”
Mulder rolled his eyes, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. “Because every time you drink, it’s like a fourteen year old at a frat party.”
“Not that bad,” Zito answered, but didn’t seem to take offense. He sat up, got onto his knees to lean over the counter and turn on the sink, cupping his hands and drinking messily, water on his shirt collar, running in lines down his forearm.
“That’s pretty gross, man,” Mulder said, though it wasn’t, not really. Zito pulled away with a gasp, his mouth wet, and shook off his hands before sweeping them through his hair, spiking it up in the back.
“Thirsty,” was Zito’s only defense as he sank back down, his back against the cabinets, looking at Mulder.
Mulder was wondering what the fuck had happened the night before. What the fuck was happening now. He’d done his duty, woken Zito up, got his arm out from being bent in that weird manner, he’d done what he’d came to do and he was starting the next day and he should be asleep, but here he was, watching Zito watch him, cotton fibers from the towels in Zito’s hair, the ghostly pattern of the tile on his cheek.
“I think you gotta tell me what’s going on,” Zito said evenly, and Mulder snapped his eyes up.
“What makes you think I know?” he shot back.
Zito shrugged, rubbed at his shoulder. “You seemed to know pretty well last night,” he answered, and Mulder thought with surprise that Zito should have been able to see through that, Zito should be too smart to read Mulder’s carelessness as confidence.
Zito shrugged again. “I mean, I guess probably you should let me know. So that . . . I’ll know too.”
Mulder got pissed off, quickly. “I’m not here to draw you a fucking map, man. You’re a big boy, you can figure it out for yourself.”
Zito’s eyes flashed. “So what *are* you here for?” he taunted, angling his chin up, his face blurry young, like somebody for whom self-destruction is still an abstract concept.
Mulder’s mouth was dry. The dare hung up between them, impatient and tense with anticipation. Mulder let his eyes trail down Zito’s face, the wet spots on his collar, his arms looking strong and well-intentioned, his shirt pulled taut across his stomach, his long legs and his feet close to Mulder’s.
Without a word, Mulder reached out, slowly pulled the bathroom shut, and when the lock clicked, he lifted his eyes to Zito’s again, saw something black and uncaged in Zito’s gaze, and then Zito was pushing off the cabinet, on his knees again, his hands crashing against Mulder’s chest so that he fell back into the tub, the back of his head cracking hard on the porcelain, a burst of dizzy pain and immediate ferocity, and Mulder spit out, “Motherfucker,” was about to haul himself up and out and beat the hell out of the other man, when suddenly Zito crawled up his body, kneeling between Mulder’s legs, splayed over the edge of the tub. Zito’s hands were skinning up his sides, under his shirt, and Mulder breathed out, tried to keep still, felt Zito’s mouth making its clumsy way on his stomach and chest, and Mulder let his head drop back, a confusing scrawl of images rioting in his mind, and he thought, ‘i just hit my head, this must not count.’
* * *
The shit Mulder knows that Zito doesn’t know. In no particular order.
Zito’s wanted Mulder from day one. There was a certain look of surprise on Zito’s face when they met, a certain way his eyes scrolled down Mulder’s form. Mulder’d seen the same look a hundred different times, from a hundred different people. Zito didn’t know what it meant, because Zito doesn’t exactly have a tendency to think things through. Zito just always came out to the bullpen to watch Mulder warming up, sometimes stood too close to him in line for the movies. Half the time Mulder wanted to shove him away, when he turned to find Zito with a breath separating them. Half the time Mulder wanted to push Zito, hard, and say to him, “Personal space, jerk, learn it, know it, love it.” But he never had.
Mulder’s a better pitcher than Zito, except for some days when Zito’s a better pitcher than everybody.
You can’t fuck around with a teammate and not expect it to get complicated.
Zito’s terrified by his slow start, he’s frozen in place, struck dumb. Zito’s thinking that last year wasn’t as good as the year before, and what if this year’s not as good as last year, what if this is how his life is going to be from now on, just worse and worse as time passes, what if he’s already been the best he’ll ever be, what if he’d been twenty-four and at the height of everything and he somehow missed it?
Zito doesn’t really like Mulder all that much.
Neither of them believes in God, but they both spend an awful lot of time praying.
Mulder has fucked guys before, but he’s never fucked the same guy twice.
Some part of Zito is happy that Mulder got hurt last year, somewhere Zito’s glad there were no real comparisons to be drawn at the end of the season.
And Zito’s just stupid enough to believe that anything is better than tracking baseball’s aching retreat from him
* * *
In Oakland, Zito won’t stop ragging the offense for their anemic run production. It’s theoretically all in good fun, but there’s a slivered tone of cold in Zito’s voice, a near-restraint in the laughter of his teammates.
Zito says, “And hey, Chavvy, next time Brown gets two strikes on you, you gotta look for the slider, when was the last time he threw anything else when he gets ahead?”
Chavez half-smiles and Mulder throws his mitt into his locker too hard, rattling loud, everyone looking over to see him say shortly, “For Christ’s sake, Zito, would you mind shutting the fuck up? How much of this shit do we have to listen to?”
There’s a brief awkward moment, some of the team smirking secretly, agreeing with the sentiment, others hiking their eyebrows, looking idly concerned.
Zito’s face is more angry than hurt. ‘Good,’ Mulder thinks. ‘At least he’s learning something.’ Mulder can almost see the mean shape of ‘fuck off,’ forming on Zito’s lips, but then Zito darts his eyes around, apparently seeing that such a scene would solve nothing, and settles for glaring at the other man, looking futile.
That night, Chavez asks him cautiously as they watch the Daily Show, “The fuck is going on with you and Zito?”
Mulder shrugs, gives nothing away. He’s wondering, an irritating little tug on his mind, if he could find Zito’s apartment, where he’s only been a few times before, in San Francisco, he’s wondering if Zito would let him in if he showed up. He’s pretty sure Zito would slam the door without a word, but it’s almost worth making the trip just to see the look on Zito’s face.
“He just pisses me off, sometimes,” Mulder answers unconcernedly. This, at least, is true, though it’s not like honesty is really much of a tenet of his, these days.
Chavez looks like he didn’t expect much else, says caustically, “Well, if you end up having to kill him, could you at least wait until the off-season?”
Mulder grins. “No promises.”
A couple of hours later, messing around on the internet to put off not being able to sleep, Mulder’s cell phone rings, vibrating itself right off the desktop, thumping to the floor and continuing to buzz down on the carpet.
Mulder picks it up and checks the caller ID. It’s Zito’s cell, which maybe should be unexpected, but really isn’t.
Mulder answers it, saying casually, “Past your bedtime, dude.”
Zito breathes out an impatient laugh. “Not past yours, it would appear.”
“So it would appear.” Mulder pauses, listens to a dog barking. He can’t tell whether the dog is outside his window or reaching him through Zito’s phone, wherever Zito is now. “Where are you?”
“Um . . .the street,” Zito says unhelpfully.
Mulder stands. He’s wearing his jeans and no shirt, because the air conditioning’s busted and it’s subtropical in here. “Which street?” he asks low, hears Zito’s breath hitch once.
“Yours,” Zito whispers back, hating the sound of it.
Mulder lets him wait for a moment, hearing the doubt in his breathing, and then says in a close rasp, “Don’t fucking move.”
Mulder breaks records getting through the house to the front door, not even bothering to keep quiet, Chavez being the sort who could sleep through a nuclear war, and it’s not until he’s out in the yard that he realizes he’s still not wearing a shirt or shoes, the night perfect warm and resting heavily atop the lawn, bending the blades of grass down.
On the sidewalk, hopscotch chalk on the bottoms of his feet, Mulder sees Zito’s car parked in the turnoff, not as well-hidden as he should be behind the overgrown shrubs, and Mulder can see Zito’s profile in the window, his eyes down, held back from something.
When Mulder gets in the car, Zito looks at him with his eyes wide. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” he says distractedly.
“Smart one,” Mulder replies, and gets his hand wrapped in Zito’s collar, pulling him close, Zito’s short ragged nails scratching at his shoulder, Zito breathing hard against his neck, Zito’s even teeth tugging at his ear, and it’s not long before Zito’s head is thrown back, it’s not long before Mulder muffles a yell and jerks, his knee slamming into the glove compartment, biting down on the side of his hand hard enough to leave a half-circle of tiny gnawed dents all the next day.
They’re still for a minute, catching their breath and settling, slowly pulling their clothes back into a semblance of propriety, and Mulder has to remind himself that he can’t fall asleep in Zito’s car, that would probably be a bad idea.
Eventually, Zito says, a little too much uncertainty in his tone to be passed off as matter-of-fact, “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
Mulder stretches his arms out in front of him. His mouth feels swollen, his hands dirty. He’s thinking he’ll probably be able to sleep now, once he gets rid of Zito.
“I was an asshole before, too. You expected that to change?” he responds.
Zito is looking out the window, studying the front of Mulder’s house with dedicated attention. “No,” he says, sounding removed.
“Good,” Mulder says, and gets out of the car, the wind touching the new bruises on his body, the thin blood on his shoulders.
* * *
Also, Zito needs this more than Mulder ever will.
That’s something that Mulder’s just learned about Zito.
* * *
Nothing they do makes it better.
It’s like they’re glued to third place in the western division, except for the times when they slip into fourth. The Angels are playing like they played two summers before, catching Anaheim no easier than catching your own shadow, ever trying to make up for the bad that you’ve done. It’s not April anymore, they’ve got no real excuse.
There’s an article online about former ace pitchers who have sunk into mediocrity. ‘When Good Pitchers Go Bad,’ like a special on Fox. Zito is the prime example cited of this phenomenon, and Mulder doesn’t know if the other man has read the article, but he suspects Zito has, if Zito’s nervously tightened grip on his change-up is any evidence.
Mulder thinks about buying a new car, and finds himself falling down on a semi-regular basis, his mind swimming, nose-diving, and he awakes to pavement under his hands, bits of carpet in his mouth.
The city’s unforgiving, and he sees Oakland A’s baseball caps everywhere he goes.
Zito’s taken to not looking at him at the ballpark. This suits Mulder all right. He’s having a bitch of a time getting his curve to stay down, for some reason struggling to get left-handed batters out, and he doesn’t want to deal with Zito right now, he’s got more important things to worry about.
Drunk at a bar one night after dropping the second game of a three game set to the Twins, Zito’s too loud, banging on the table with his hand, spilling drinks and playing dirty Hangman on a napkin with Jermaine Dye, the two of them snickering like twelve year olds.
Mulder’s rigged up somewhere between annoyance and boredom, and he swipes the napkin from under Zito’s hand, piecing together the word, half the consonants missing, but he figures it out.
“‘Fellatio’?” Mulder says uncharitably, sneering at Zito. Dye’s giggling into his arm, his eyes flicking between the two pitchers. “Real original.”
Zito snatches the napkin back, unsteady and short-tempered. “Fuck off, you probably don’t even know what it means.”
Mulder scoffs, wonders if he’s being set up, having already disproved Zito’s claim pretty unilaterally, thinking that there are easier ways to get a guy to suck your dick. “At least I know how to spell it right.”
Zito blinks, looks down at the napkin in his hand, his eyebrows pulling together and his lips moving softly as he counts the letters. Seeing his mistake, he doesn’t let up, unsupported anger in his face, because Mulder hasn’t actually said anything that bad to him yet.
“Whatever, you think you know everything, but you don’t know shit about shit,” Zito bites off, glaring at him, Dye’s eyebrows lifting at the true hostility in his words.
Mulder laughs, dismissive and unthinking cruel. “Oh, yeah, and what do you know that I don’t, huh?”
Zito’s eyes snap quickly with a kind of useless rage, and Mulder knows that he’s forgotten where they are, and Zito says foolishly and too loud, “I know you can’t just fuck with me and then-”
But Mulder’s already up, his gaze crashing with warning, and he’s got a wrenched handful of Zito’s shirt, dragging him out of the chair and across the bar, their teammates watching them go with confusion, Zito protesting weakly and scrambling to get free of Mulder’s hold.
Once they’re outside, Mulder shoves Zito, almost knocking him off his feet until Zito gets an arm slung around a parking meter, catches himself.
Mulder’s maybe never been this angry before.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he hisses, wanting to beat himself clean on Zito’s body, wanting dislocated knuckles and asphalt burn on his elbows, wanting to see Zito with blood on his face.
Zito jerks up, pulling his shoulders straight. He’s scared now, but he won’t step back, because there are worse things in the world than getting the shit kicked out of you.
“The fuck is the matter with *you*?” he says defensively, checking his shirt for rips. “I didn’t even say anything, you didn’t have to go all ballistic.”
Mulder’s hands are tight in fists, his nails biting into his palms, a neat smile. There’s just barely a moon tonight, a crescent no wider than a knife’s blade, a hook in the sky.
“This isn’t gonna work if you don’t keep your fucking mouth shut,” he grates out, thinking that this is already too much trouble, this has been too much trouble from the start and why is he even bothering?
Zito’s eyes widen for a second, outrage, righteous indignation. “I *did*,” he insists, his face bright. “You’re being paranoid, touchy motherfucker.”
Mulder’s hands are back in Zito’s shirt without him even being aware of it, and they’re nose-to-nose, close enough for the air to get mixed up between them, and Mulder is making some predatory noise, something savage in the base of his throat, and Zito’s eyes are as scared as all hell, but he laughs, he laughs right in Mulder’s face.
“You dumbshit, you can’t hit me out here,” Zito says, and it’s enough to push Mulder past the point of not caring, because fuck if he’s gonna start letting Zito tell him what he can and can’t do, but before he can pull back far enough to get in a good swing, Zito is already continuing with his voice scraping and rough, a scoured whisper, “You can’t do anything you want to do to me out here, can you?”
It’s impossible, it’s the exact truth. And all around Mulder are the lines left for him to cross, the line where his fist first makes contact with Zito’s face, the line where his mouth attaches itself to Zito’s neck the way it wants to, the line where Mulder could ruin them both, as swiftly as anything he’s ever done before.
Mulder pushes Zito away. Zito’s still laughing at him, and somewhere vague Mulder kind of wants to kill him.
Zito quiets, watches Mulder standing there drawn with fury ringing tightly through him.
“I think you’re probably coming over tonight, huh?” Zito asks softly, and Mulder wants to sneer or snarl, cut Zito down.
But the attempt is weak, as everything at this moment, and Mulder hears his own voice, staggered, saying hollowly, “I’m so tired of this.”
Zito’s eyes dart with something akin to fear, but he just repeats, “You’re coming over tonight?”
Mulder doesn’t answer, walks away.
Ends up at Zito’s place at four in the morning, the sun up by the time they’re finished with each other, and Mulder tells him, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to the other man, “Don’t pull that shit like you were doing with Jermaine last night.”
“This again?” Zito’s voice is unperturbed, mildly disinterested.
Mulder turns to look at him, wanting to pin him down. Zito’s yawning, sprawled out lazily. He looks so easy, this all looks so easy. Zito’s fingertips are stained with ballpoint ink, smears of newsprint on the heel of his hand. He’s having trouble keeping his eyes open, the sex-then-sleep instinct running strong.
“I’m serious,” Mulder says, the muscles in his back aching. “I’m not about to haul you off every time you say something stupid in front of the guys.”
“Oh, no? Funny, you seemed to enjoy it earlier,” Zito snarks.
Mulder pulls on his socks to keep his hands busy. He tries to keep his voice strict, is idly surprised at his success. “You want me around, you keep your mouth shut.”
Zito raises an eyebrow. “And when I don’t want you around anymore? Then I can open my mouth again?”
Mulder looks back at him. The dawn’s no friend to either of them. It washes Zito out, fades his color, draws out every last part of Mulder’s strength.
“When you don’t want me around anymore, you can do whatever the fuck you want,” he says wearily, because it won’t really matter then, will it?
Mulder stands, pulling on his shirt. Zito’s looking to get lost in the shadows on the bed, shifting away from the light unconsciously.
Zito buries his face in a pillow, rolling over onto his stomach. He mumbles, “See you at the ballpark, man,” and then falls asleep, and Mulder steals two CDs and a bottle of Gatorade, goes out down the service elevator, finding a parking ticket on the windshield of his car, the sun blinding as he drives east.
* * *
By the time they get to Detroit, Mulder’s stopped wondering how long Zito’s gonna let things go on like this.
Whatever’s happening between them and whatever they’ve lost, somehow they’ve managed to confuse baseball with each other. If they’re looking to destroy themselves, it’s well deserved, because they’re hanging everything on the second half and Mulder can’t do shit except let the game get away from him in the middle innings, and Zito can’t do shit except get raked while fighting to stay under a hundred pitches over five innings.
Somewhere, this has everything to do with their slow start, that’s the only reason this even happened. Somewhere, Mulder knows that hope and fear have everything to do with one another, and this they should have learned long ago.
Mulder’s found himself digging deep for one more inning’s worth of pitches dozens of times. Found himself held motionless by Zito dozens of times. None of this is doing anything to help.
In Detroit, it’s numbly hot, the baffled Midwestern humidity that Mulder grew up with. Zito’s unaccustomed, his skin damp with sweat, his hair plastered down on his forehead by his cap. Zito walks around looking slightly askew, laughs like there’s something broken loose in his chest.
There’s a bunch of them hanging out in Chavez’s hotel room, trading magazines and arguing over what to play on the boombox, and Mulder stands, his back cracking.
“I’ma go down to that place on the corner for some candy or something. Anybody want?”
There’s a chorus of orders, none of which Mulder bothers to make note of, because Zito has stood up too.
“I’ll come with,” he says, shrugging into his coat.
Mulder blinks. “Think I’ll be okay on my own, dude,” he answers.
Zito gives him a look he can’t interpret. Their teammates are watching with bored interest. “Wanna stretch my legs,” Zito says, and Mulder wants to direct him to the hallway, perfect for pacing and other leg-stretching activities, but their teammates are watching and there’s really no way to brush Zito off without making it into a thing.
Mulder leaves, not looking back to make sure Zito is following, but he can hear the other man, running his hand along the wall, shuffling on the carpet. In the elevator, Zito punches the button for the lobby about twenty-seven times, inordinately fond of buttons in all their forms, and says without looking at Mulder, “I don’t think you’re any good for me.”
Mulder leans back against the wall, watches the numbers over the door counting down. “No?”
Zito sighs, his fingers spread out on the lit buttons. “Not the way things are right now, no.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Mulder answers unequivocally, “Well, this is how things are. How they’re gonna stay. So.”
The elevator gets to the lobby and they stop talking, moving across the room. Out on the street, a stiff wind pegs by, stray pages of the newspaper blown against them, wrapping around their legs.
Zito says, “I’m just . . . I’m not really dealing with stuff very well, I don’t think. I’m kinda . . . having trouble.”
Zito’s hands are in his pockets, his hair knotting in the wind. Detroit rumbles around them like they’ve stirred something powerful. The air’s sharp and industrial, streaked with steel and grease.
“What, on the mound?” Mulder asks, though he’s pretty sure that’s not what Zito’s talking about. “I noticed.”
Zito’s face hardens. “And thanks for your concern,” he replies sarcastically.
“Look, I’m not the guy who’s gonna, like, pep you up or whatever. What you do on the field, it’s nothing to do with me.”
And Mulder kind of remembers a time when he couldn’t tell Zito’s pitches from his own, when each of Zito’s losses got seared into his heart, when the path of Zito’s talent followed along moment-by-moment with the path of his own, but it’s been two years since Zito was worth what he used to mean to Mulder, it’s been two years and Mulder’s gotten tired of waiting for Zito to recover.
Zito doesn’t answer, his eyes scanning restlessly down the street. They get to the corner store and buy candy and sodas, a pack of baseball cards for no other reason than that it’s been a long time since Mulder bought a pack of baseball cards.
They haven’t finished whatever they were talking about. Mulder doesn’t really want to pick the conversation up again, he’s content to leave it to wither away on its own.
But back on the sidewalk, Zito says, his voice weirdly calm, “You don’t like me much, huh?”
Mulder glances at him. Zito doesn’t look away, doesn’t look like he’s about to break down or anything.
“I like you all right,” Mulder replies, feeling like he’s lying, at least a little bit.
Zito doesn’t believe that, shrugs. “Whatever. It’s no big deal. It’s not like you’re my favorite person in the world these days, either.”
Mulder stops. Zito’s a few steps farther down before he realizes, double-takes, turns to face him.
“Why are you talking about this now?” Mulder asks, thinking that Zito must be speaking in code, there must be something happening beneath what he’s saying out loud.
Zito smiles sadly, shakes his head. “Ah, I don’t know. Detroit fucks me up.” He waves a hand in the general direction of everywhere, encompassing the whole city.
Mulder rolls his eyes. “Don’t blame the city. You came fucked up.”
Zito’s gaze narrows, the line of his jaw taut. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?” he shoots back.
Mulder’s tired of this conversation, tired of Zito, moves to continue down the street, but Zito catches his arm. The streetlight gathers carefully on his face, his eyes hooded and dark.
“I’m not asking you for anything, okay?” Zito says, looking intent with his hand curled around Mulder’s arm. “I’ve never asked you for anything, have I?” He pauses, but Mulder doesn’t even grace him with a headshake, wanting to get this over with.
Zito sighs, takes his hand away. “You just . . . Christ, Mulder, do you really think this is healthy?”
That’s actually funny, and Mulder laughs quickly. “Healthy? As in, what, low fat? No calories?”
Zito looks like he wants to hit him, or shove him, something, but he doesn’t touch Mulder again, saying sharply, “You know what I mean.”
Mulder tucks his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels. “I never know what you mean,” he answers, a cold edge in his voice. “And this . . . I don’t really think about this all that much. It’s not of much interest to me.”
Zito’s face is wiped clean for a moment, staring at Mulder blankly, then unplanned refusal jags into his eyes, and he scoffs, “Bullshit.”
Mulder shrugs, watching the streetlight fuzz at the corners, the diluted blur of black and gold. “Believe what you want.”
Zito studies him for a moment, looking for the things Mulder’s keeping secret. He doesn’t seem to find anything, and blows out a breath, pushing a hand through his hair.
“I’m sick of trying to figure you out,” he says quietly.
“Then stop trying,” Mulder replies, wondering how much longer they’re going to be out here on the sidewalk together, wondering when someone will come looking for them. SportsCenter will be on soon; Mulder wants to see the Mariners’ highlights.
Zito looks at him for a long moment, then mutters, half under his breath, “Just thought this would be easier.”
Mulder’s not looking at him, already turned away, tells him plainly, “You thought wrong,” and goes back into the hotel, not realizing that Zito isn’t behind him until he gets to the elevator and there’s no one to poke at the buttons like an idiot.
* * *
It’s later that night when Mulder finally gets it.
Zito, upon opening his room door to find Mulder standing there, is indecisive, his hand twisting on the knob, before Mulder makes an impatient noise and Zito steps back, letting him come in.
Zito hadn’t been asleep, the light’s are on, the television murmuring its way unobtrusively through an episode of M*A*S*H. His mitt and a baseball are on the bed, his notebook beside them, all the league’s weaknesses printed out in his careful hand.
Mulder’s half-expecting to have to kill some time before he can get off and get gone, thinking that Zito will want to finish that conversation they didn’t really have on the sidewalk, Mulder’s thinking that he’ll have lie to Zito some more before Zito will come anywhere near him, but then Zito knocks all the stuff on the bed onto the floor and pushes Mulder down, Mulder blearily surprised and thinking that maybe he’ll be able to get back to his own room sooner than he’d thought.
Zito’s hands are clenched tightly around his wrists, pressing him down, and Mulder’s got his head tipped back on the bed, his mouth open and his eyes closed, the lines smoothed out from his face, and a crystalline thought scatters through his mind: ‘we’re never gonna pull out of this skid if we don’t change the luck.’
Mulder gasps, and Zito moves up to kiss him, but Zito’s got nothing to do with it, Zito’s been sinking for a long time now, longer than this slow start, longer than this young season would have you believe, Zito’s been on his way down and Mulder’s been bound to him, because Mulder forgot to break the old ties that once linked him so tightly to the other man.
Zito’s on his way down and Mulder’s not going with him.
After, Mulder waits until Zito’s breathing evens out again, but before it deepens into sleep, and Mulder says, “I’m done.”
Zito snorts a laugh, his face against Mulder’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know. Give me some credit.”
Mulder rolls away from him, sits up. “No. With you. Done with you.”
He glances over his shoulder. Zito’s blinking at him, confused. “What’re you talking about?”
Mulder flips a hand, the blankets pulled all out of form, the pillows on the floor. “Done, Zito. Finished. Not gonna do this anymore.” He rescues his boxers from the floor and slips into them, feels marginally better about his entire position.
Now Zito sits up, the sheet falling to his waist, his hair standing up as if to provide exclamation to his words. “What the fuck are you talking about? Why?” he demands, but then his face gets scared. “’Cause of all that stuff I said earlier?”
Mulder shakes his head. “No, it’s not . . .” but then figures, why the hell not, as good as any other reason, and amends, “I mean, yeah. ‘Cause you’re right. I’m no good for you, you’re no good for me, the whole thing’s doomed, so on, so forth.”
He doesn’t mean to sound that flippant, but he’s tired, he’s having trouble finding his shirt on the floor, too tired to worry about the tone of his voice or the stuff he’s saying.
But Zito’s waking up more with each second, and Zito knows him pretty well. “Stop fucking lying, why don’t you,” he says flatly, his eyes sketched with accusation.
Just because Zito can tell when he’s lying, though, that doesn’t mean Mulder has to tell him the truth.
“Hey, fuck off. I don’t know what you thought this was, but I never said shit to you about sticking around.”
It’s weird, that this is happening with Mulder in his boxers and Zito stark naked under the sheets. It’s weird to be talking to Zito with so much of them both showing. Mulder has never really been able to see Zito before, it’s all been dark and fast and half-unclothed. To see that the lines of Zito’s body should run like that, that he should look hazy at the edges of his shoulders, crisp in the planes of his face, that his collarbones should move like that under the skin, that his chest should look so smooth, that this should be something that Mulder will not miss.
Now Zito’s shaken, and fighting for this out of sheer spite. Competitiveness, maybe, the other thing they’ve always had in common. That Mulder is leaving and Zito would prefer him stay-in the simplest terms, down to Mulder winning, Zito losing. And, no, neither of them can stand to lose.
“You fuck around with me for a few weeks and then say ‘done,’ just like that?” Zito asks incredulously. “I mean . . . what the fuck, dude? I know you got a lot invested in denial and repression and shit, but could you give me a fucking break already?”
It’s a little strange, that Zito should still be able to work him up like that, that in an instant it’s red behind his eyes and the tenuous grip he’s always had on control slips in his hand. Mulder wouldn’t have thought that he really cared about what Zito thought, not all that much.
Before he does something pointless and certain to be regretted, Mulder snaps his T-shirt from under the bed and pulls it on, standing and moving a few steps away to drag his jeans on. He speaks in quick, broken-off cuts, “Maybe you were under the impression that this was something more than just fucking around to kill time, but that’s pretty much tough. I don’t have to give you two weeks’ notice just because I got bored.”
Zito’s lip curls up in a sneer that doesn’t look at home on his face. “Yeah, well, I think you’re just a fucking coward.”
There is a moment, a wholly clear moment, when Mulder can see everything perfectly, when he can see despair and hope and friendship and doubt and envy and vengeance and history and all the things that drove them to this place, Mulder can see all that he hasn’t admitted to himself and the true consequence of this long night, Mulder can see the fear and arrogance behind his every word and every breath, but this moment is brief, and when it has passed, the only thing he wants to do is hit Zito as hard as he can.
He occupies his hands with the buttons of his shirt, wrenching them into their holes, roughly snapping the collar. He says low, not intending to waste much more oxygen here, “I don’t know what you want from me, but I can basically guarantee that you’re not gonna get it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before he can get to the door, though, Zito’s voice catches him, eternally exhausted, “All right, okay, but wait. Listen. I want you to tell me the truth about why you’re doing this. Just once and then you can say whatever you want for the rest of your life. Would you please do that one thing for me?”
Mulder turns back. Zito’s had the anger and the fight dragged out of him, sitting there with his shoulders slumped, his eyes bruised. Zito doesn’t look like he needs to beaten up anymore; he looks like he needs to be tucked in.
Mulder shrugs. What harm? He keeps his eyes level on Zito’s, figuring at least this much sincerity is owed. “Okay. I’m pretty sure you’re bad luck. And this isn’t worth it.”
Then he walks out.
* * *
When Mulder starts against the Royals two days later, he pitches a three-hit complete game shutout, a no-hitter through seven. He is brilliant, masterful, he is as far away as he’s ever been from pain and disappointment. He stands up there and no one has ever seen anything like it, because under this starkly beautiful crow-black sky, he is everything that he was promised to be.
Zito’s ERA is almost double Mulder’s. He’s stunned and quiet in the dugout, he hugs his mitt to his stomach and Mulder can see him trying to keep his hands from shaking. He’s only won three games on the year, almost two months into the season, and no one will meet his eyes anymore.
They are not friends anymore. They don’t talk much, these days. With everything they have behind them now, the box scores are still the only thing either of them can see, the lines from their starts. Somehow, this is all they are to each other now, the two lives that came from one.
And if Mulder could have known beforehand all that would happen, he would have done everything the exact same.
(here’s a secret neither of them know: so would zito)
Summer comes to California and Mulder watches a meteor shower in the eastern hills, one clean night in late May, and he thinks for the first time that it’s going to be a great fucking season.
THE END
Endnote: I made claims to the theory that Rich Harden listens to Slipknot, and that’s really kind of an insult. Sorry, Rich Harden. And, um, sorry, Slipknot fans.
Musical reasoning:
when I fell
on the concrete
it was lovely
‘cause you could see
what’s been running
so hot in me
but when I fell
on the concrete
you went white as
a sheet
wished that nothing
in this world
would ever hurt me
well, keep wishing
‘cause when I look
in my future
I don’t see you
and don’t wish to
--Okkervil River (“Maine Island Lovers”)
oh, that story is tough. i think i'm going to hell . . . i was wondering idly the other night why no one slashes 'bull durham.' and then thinking that newman already *admitted* that 'butch cassidy and the sundance kid' is a love affair between two men, and yet no one slashes that either. argh. that's my childhood, what the fuck.