i remember every moment of this
i am in an intensely baseball-centric place right now. i watch games, i keep up with like six teams, i spend all my time at rfk (six out of ten home games so far, y'all. the lady at the ticket booth recognized us last time (seriously)), i play mvp baseball until the wee hours (we played heroes (stars from the '70s and '80s) and legends (stars from the 1880s till '50s) and pitched walter johnson against nolan ryan. it was amazing), i watch 'field of dreams' on dvd and 'major league' on tbs, i go to the yard to play catch between classes, it's half our conversation and constantly featured in our plans.
i blame it on huston street. i'm blaming everything on huston street, from now on.
anyway. interestingly concurrent to that, here's what i've been doing for the past month:
It’s the best baseball movie ever. I got the idea over Thanksgiving, but couldn’t get ‘round it till now. The title and section headers are robbed wholesale from Ron Shelton, who wrote the script, except the first, which is a quote from the Bear himself.
Wherein Zito is stupid, Mulder is kinda pathetic, and everybody falls asleep and wakes up a bunch.
This takes place in 2002.
Artists and Pitchers
By Candle Beck
in baseball, you don’t know nothing.
The game on the television is in black and white, baggy heavy-looking uniforms and worn hats, but the commercials are new. Yogi Berra makes cracks for a car insurance ad, then gets forty years younger instantaneously, and crouches behind home plate.
Zito sits Indian-style on the floor, the coffee table pulled close and his hitter notes spread across the top. He leans forward to take sips of Coke through a bendy straw, eyebrows hunched in concentration. He’s good through the Central, all up and down the Midwest his numbers are amazing. The East has given him some trouble. The West, ever-present, he mostly does well against them in August and September. Which is understandable.
Mulder comes in and slumps onto the couch. His knee presses into Zito’s shoulder in a pay-attention-to-me sort of way, and Mulder asks, “You do that every night?”
“No,” Zito answers, not looking back, tapping the pencil eraser on his nose. “Four times a week. Rick says it’s good to have a routine.”
“Oh, well, if Rick says.” Mulder tilts forward over his knees, picking up one of the papers. “How’s this work?”
Putting his elbow on Mulder’s knee, Zito half-turns and points, “That’s the dude. That’s how I should pitch him.”
It’s pretty transparent, locations and pitch selection, ‘fastball, fastball, curve,’ ‘curve, change, fastball, change,’ and the only thing is that the letters of ‘curve’ are scrolled like city names. Mulder flicks at the last column. “What’s that?”
“That’s what will definitely strike them out.”
Mulder squints, and Zito thinks it’s possible that Mulder needs glasses to read and stuff, but is trying to avoid looking like a tool. Mulder shakes his head, “But you don’t throw a splitter. Or a slider. You could try to throw a cutter, but I think you’d hurt yourself.”
Zito scowls, and tries to get the page back, but Mulder holds it away. “Yes, thank you. I’m aware. But it’s what I’d throw if, you know, I could. Just in case.” He sighs, slides off Mulder’s leg. “Someday, I’ll throw a two-seam, anyway.”
Mulder grins for no discernible reason. Mulder throws seven different pitches and so gets to talk shit sometimes. “Someday,” he says, and steals Zito’s pencil, leaning back. “I wouldn’t go first ball heat on this guy, though,” he adds, and starts scratching on the paper.
Zito checks the game on television and it’s still taking place before anything he recognizes, but he figures that between Whitey Ford and Mark Mulder, he could learn everything there is to know about baseball tonight.
*
young men are uncomplicated.
Mulder’s happy enough, late on a Saturday afternoon after they’ve already beaten the White Sox, to play videogames and start drinking before the sun goes down. Zito comes around because he’s got nothing better to do, and gets sneaker prints on the carpets even though Mulder said he had to take off his shoes.
It’s their third year, so they must still be friends.
Zito takes quarters for bridge toll from the spare change on the kitchen counter, and talks to Eric Chavez’s mom on the phone when she calls. Mulder beats him handily a few times at the race game, and then Zito decides videogames are kid’s stuff and stretches out on the couch, reading a months-old copy of Maxim. Mulder always has shiny classy not-quite-porn lying around; it’s something Zito has come to count on.
Zito leaves at around ten o’clock to meet some friends at a club, and Mulder walks him to the door in a weird sort of callback to proper manners. In the hallway, he lets Zito take his Michigan State cap out of the closet and pull it down backwards over his hair. “Don’t roll in too hungover tomorrow,” Mulder advises.
Zito smiles. “’Kay.” He doesn’t invite Mulder out with him anymore, because the two of them have the tendency to fight pretty badly when they’re both drunk. They only ever go out in groups these days.
“Tell me what happens.”
“Always do,” Zito answers, and then he’s a flash of teeth turning away, the white stitching of the S on Mulder’s cap, and Mulder sees his wristwatch catch a piece of the streetlight, and then Zito’s gone.
*
announce my presence with authority.
Zito does like the way Mulder pitches, especially on cold nights. Bats splinter more often the colder it gets, and Mulder lives for swinging bunts, squibs, weak comebackers that he can field with style.
Zito likes the way Mulder stands on the mound, weight shifted to one side like his left hand is just a little bit heavier, and the draw up of his knee and the way he angles his gaze down and to the side, eyelids almost shut, just before he takes his stride.
Down in the clubhouse, Mulder’s using an X-acto knife to cut the long sleeves of his undershirt so that they’ll come to just past his elbows. Zito’s got the other razor, and he’s carefully slicing letters out of a piece of white paper. Mulder keeps an eye on him like he’s afraid Zito’s gonna cut himself.
“What’s the hardest you ever threw?” Zito asks, eyes focused on the work at hand.
Mulder shrugs. “Fastest I ever saw on a gun was ninety-nine.”
“That’s pretty fast,” Zito nods.
“One time, I broke the backstop. That mighta been faster.”
Zito looks up, his fingers going still on the knife. “You broke a backstop?”
Mulder snaps some loose threads off with his teeth. “I was really pissed off. Forget why. And I just hauled off and pegged the ball. The backstop was all wood, because it was the old field, and it, like, exploded, little pieces of wood flying everywhere. There was a hole the size of my fist.”
“Dude.” Zito looks at him jealously. “Dude.”
Mulder shrugs again. “I was pissed off.”
Zito snorts, and holds up the page he’s been hunched over, dark eyes through the cut-out letters. “Remind me to piss you off more often,” he says, and the letters read, ‘HI MARK,’ like a message in lights.
*
well, actually, nobody on this planet ever really chooses each other.
They get paired up a lot, because they’re both left-handed and they both take a handsome picture, and they’re filming commercials for the second half, out in the Coliseum’s parking lot on a Tuesday afternoon. Huddy’s sitting on a car hood off to the side; he’s not in this commercial, but he was at the ballpark early and came out to say hi.
Zito leans next to Hudson every free moment, saying “be right back, man,” and walking over, leaving Mulder standing there feeling awkward and uninvited. By the first word, Hudson and Zito are grinning already, Zito’s elbow back and his hands woven together. It looks like high school all over again, waiting for friends to get out of class. Mulder attempts small talk with the tech guy until they’re ready to go again.
Zito makes nice for the camera and then punches Mulder in the ribs. Zito’s got some fucked up ideas about what having a big brother means. It’s not all wrestling and bickering. Not when you’re twenty-four years old. Mulder’s not having much luck teaching him, because Hudson totally encourages it.
“You’re bored, huh,” Zito says while they’re waiting for the guy to get the next shot set up, angling into him.
Mulder pushes Zito away. “What tipped you off?”
Zito doesn’t take the hint and slings an arm over Mulder’s shoulders, Mulder again irritated that Zito is tall enough to do that. “Feeling neglected, baby?”
Now Mulder jerks his elbow back hard into Zito’s sternum and feels the blast of air against his neck. Zito falls back, but he’s got a sharp grin on his face.
Mulder sees Hudson over Zito’s shoulder, watching them casually with one leg over the side of the car, and Mulder feints at Zito, just to show no hard feelings, just to play along and make Zito happy, make Zito stick around for a little while.
*
in the show, everybody can hit a fastball.
Mulder gets roughed up in his first May start, eight hits and six runs over four and a third, and Hudson and Zito get to see it all from the rail. It looks to Zito like he’s tipping his pitches, but Hudson says it’s his shoulder, and Hudson’s got a good eye for injury.
Ramon Hernandez goes out to talk to him after the fourth run scores, and Mulder pulls his shoulders all the way up, lifts his chin, makes the most of his height. Zito always wants to know what Mulder’s like in the midst like this, because he knows it’s different than any other time. Hernandez says that Hudson’s drawl gets so thick during games, you can’t understand a word he says. Zito, himself, curses nonstop when his catcher comes out.
Mulder fists the ball deeply into his glove and snaps his head, abruptly dismissing Hernandez and striding off the back of the mound. “He’s gonna be so annoying tonight,” Zito mutters.
Hudson folds his fingers together, forearms on the rail, and the side of his mouth pulls up. “More annoying than usual.”
Zito nods. “Somebody’s gonna buy him shots trying to help him sleep and he’s gonna spend the rest of the night arguing with me about situational fucking approach.”
“Sounds about right.” Hudson bumps their shoulders, swaying slightly with his cap tucked in his belt at the small of his back, a tight slender stretch of jersey. “You could just stay away. Let him talk to the walls for once.”
“It’s no good, man. He makes me crazy even when he’s not around.” Zito bites the inside of his cheek, guides Mulder’s slider down with his eyes and it’s good enough to end the inning.
Mulder comes down into the dugout right past them without even glancing over. Zito’s aware of him at their backs, with his cap off and a towel around his neck. Mulder hasn’t thrown anything straight all night, every pitch breaks, and Hudson’s probably right about him pitching through pain, because Mulder never goes without his fastball unless he’s got no other choice.
*
molecular attraction and timing.
It’s real early in the morning, catching the first flight out to play in Seattle at noon. On the bus to the airport, Zito’s drinking coffee from a Thermos and not offering it to anybody. It’s not actually selfishness, it just doesn’t even occur to Zito. If it did, he surely would.
He starts talking about deep space as they’re driving over the highway overpass. Chavez and David Justice are murmuring quietly to each other in back, but everyone else is quiet and slumped over with their arms crossed, the day still bruise-colored out the windows, still mostly night, so Zito’s voice carries even though he’s only saying it to Mulder sitting next to him.
Mulder yawns and nods. Sometimes Zito pauses so Mulder can say, “yeah.” He leans his temple on the window and keeps his eyes closed. Zito saw an astronomy special on the Discovery Channel last night. He’ll remember this stuff for all of a day, but he’ll put it to good use while he’s got it.
“So, like, stuff gets farther away, you know? And the stars change and stuff. And in five thousand years you won’t recognize any of it.”
Mulder’s not planning on being around in five thousand years, but Zito’s prodding at Mulder’s arm, keeping him awake. It’s too early for this kind of talk, and the airport access road isn’t helping, all smooth and uninterrupted.
“It’s not a very good map, okay.”
Mulder peeks out the corner of his eye. “What’s not?” he asks.
Zito smiles and reaches out to touch Mulder’s hair, randomly, and Mulder slept through the alarm this morning and didn’t get a chance to fix it up. Usually he’d hit Zito away, but he’s stuck right here, half-asleep.
“The sky, dude,” Zito tells him, his thumb on Mulder’s forehead, and that’s not quite right but it’s close, because a half-hour later in the airport bathroom, Zito puts his hand on Mulder’s shoulder and presses him down to the stall door, kisses him all coffee and cinnamon gum, and it’s been coming for awhile now, it was looking for the best angle.
Now Zito uses his teeth for a split second and then draws away, fingers in Mulder’s collar. They’re not anything close to drunk, as sober as Mulder has been in weeks, and that’s a bad way to start this.
Mulder kisses him again, though, levering off the stall door and holding Zito near to him, and he decides immediately that the next chance he gets, he’s picking a fight with Zito, and he’s gonna win.
*
and where can i go?
It doesn’t come up again until the second city of the trip. Zito talks to the bartender the whole time they’re out, learns about Baroque era painters and how the head bouncer’s sleeping with three of the waitresses. He watches Mulder getting along very well with a bunch of strangers, waits for Mulder to center on one of the girls and let his eyes close halfway, the way he does when he’s trying to pick someone up.
Mulder only ever smiles his photo-day smile, but he also never checks for Zito in the crowd, so Zito can’t really draw any conclusions.
Zito’s lost track of time when Mulder comes to the bar for another round. Mulder rolls a glass in his hands and glances at Zito occasionally, but Zito just looks at Mulder’s hands, trying to remember how he held Mulder down in the airport bathroom, where his hands had been and if Mulder had maybe touched his back or something.
Mulder leans over and he has to half-shout to be heard over the music: “Are we gonna mention it, like, ever?”
Zito flinches, mostly from Mulder close on his arm, Mulder’s fingers spinning a nickel on the bar. He lifts his shoulders in a defensive shrug, turning to call guilelessly, “Mention what?”
It’s a familiar expression on Mulder’s face, the quit-acting-dumb look. Mulder’s eyes look pale in this light, more silver than blue, more white than silver.
“This is your shot, man,” Mulder tells him plainly, hardly even raising his voice.
Zito licks his lips. “Again?” he asks, feeling adrenaline cut through him as Mulder’s eyes widen a little bit, as Mulder’s hands slow and stop and the glass looks dented by the pressure of his fingers.
Mulder gets up and walks out of the bar. Zito follows without even settling his tab, leaving behind another place where he can never come back. A block down the street, under the metal steps of a brownstone, against the boarded-up door of the basement apartment, they spend twenty solid minutes getting to know exactly the right way to do this, and Mulder holds one of Zito’s wrists for a long time, his arm hooked around Zito’s waist and both their hands pinned to Zito’s back.
*
latent homosexuality being re-channeled.
And Zito wakes up in Mulder’s hotel room and he doesn’t freak out because hotel rooms are all the same and it might as well be his own, save Mulder sleeping on his stomach with the whole of his back laid out to Zito. Mulder shifts, and one shoulder blade rises, the other sinking away.
Zito waits until Mulder wakes up on his own, not wanting to piss him off unduly. It’s probably fifteen minutes before Mulder turns over and opens his eyes, seeing Zito and freezing. Zito starts laughing at the look of shock on his face, and Mulder hits him with a pillow.
“Guess you didn’t expect to find me here,” Zito says, grinning.
Mulder sits up, keeping the blankets modestly around his waist. “Yeah I did,” he says defensively. “I remember what happened.”
“You can’t argue drunkenness if you admit to remembering it,” Zito informs him, waving his hand around in unclear demonstration.
“Who said I was gonna argue?”
Zito stops, and blinks up at Mulder. Zito’s already got his counterpoints all worked out, he’s gonna explain to Mulder that this won’t fuck anything up and they don’t have to worry, but now Mulder’s just looking at him steadily, all kinds of calm in his eyes.
“Have you ever done this before?” Zito asks.
Mulder nods too quickly, looking away. “Sure. A hundred times.”
Zito snorts. “Liar.”
Mulder doesn’t answer, just reaches out and puts his hand on Zito’s stomach, which is actually an answer all on its own. He doesn’t meet Zito’s gaze, though, and he’s blushing pretty badly.
“Let’s just,” Zito starts, then trails off, distracted by Mulder’s hand, moving a bit now, wide-palmed and long-fingered and a really nice thing to feel first thing in the morning. “Um.”
Mulder lifts his eyebrows, smirking. “Yes?”
Zito swallows, and shakes his head. “Never mind.” He sits up and pushes Mulder down, rolls on top, touching their foreheads. Mulder jerks and arches his back, his head back and his neck stretched out.
“god, never mind,” Zito breathes out, happy for both of them to be gay right now, even if never again, just right now is good enough.
*
oh my goodness. we got ourselves a natural disaster.
The rain starts falling hard by the third, and Hudson comes off the mound when the umpires finally call time, jumping on Zito’s back and hanging on with his feet off the ground, soaking Zito’s back and leaving a long wet stripe on his chest where Hudson’s arm slices across.
Zito shakes him off, flicking water out of his hair, and Hudson ricochets away to find someone else to waste his energy on. Zito sits on the bench next to Mulder and the rain is so thick they can’t even see the foul lines. There are dark, person-shaped blurs pulling a blue tarp over the field, and the dugout feels like a submarine, all safe and undercover.
“It’s supposed to blow off,” Eric Chavez says, coming up from the tunnel. “Strong winds from the east.” Chavez is always the one coming up with shit like that, predictions and forecasts, but it’s hard for Mulder to believe because the rain seems unstoppable right now.
Zito starts shivering, bumping Mulder’s arm. Half the team is sitting around in wet clothes, Hudson leaving footprints behind him and Chavez’s hair looking like ink, but Zito’s the only one it seems to be affecting. “You should change,” Mulder tells him.
“I’m not cold,” Zito answers, spiky pieces of his hair trembling on his forehead. He cups his elbows in his hands.
“Yeah sure.”
Zito looks at him sidelong. “You gonna come with me if I go?”
Mulder shrugs. “You gonna go if I come?”
Zito smiles at him in that peculiar new way that makes him look vaguely threatening, and then stands. There’s nothing they can do right now, because everyone’s drifting into the clubhouse as the rain delay stretches longer, they can’t just disappear, so this is actually an innocent moment for the two of them, something that’s been happening less and less.
Mulder pulls the good chair over to Zito’s locker and keeps up the conversation as Zito puts on a dry T-shirt and jersey, uncharitably noticing Zito’s pale chest and the way you can see his ribs all the time, thin arms and no sort of definition. Never in a million years would Zito be Mulder’s type, he’s basically the exact opposite of Mulder’s type.
When goosebumps rash across Zito’s stomach, though, Mulder finds it hard to look away. And when the rain lets up and the players head back to the dugout, Mulder hides in the side hallway and waits for Zito to come find him.
*
i’m not gonna fall in love with you or nothing.
Zito goes to Mulder’s hotel room to tell him that they’re leaving for dinner in ten minutes, and Mulder’s still only wearing his jeans, a shirt on a hanger neatly laid across the bed. Zito sits down as Mulder wanders around getting himself ready, and fiddles with the shirt buttons, two open, three, thinking about the dent in Mulder’s sternum and the scruff right in the middle.
“So, listen,” Zito begins, hoping that Mulder will let him pop a button or two later tonight, hoping he can promise to buy a new shirt. “Wanted to, um. Clarify some stuff.”
Mulder comes out of the bathroom, pulling his belt through the loops. Zito thinks it’s lucky that Mulder’s so fucking good-looking, it makes this easier. “Yeah?”
Zito gestures between the two of them. “You and me, like, friends, right?”
Mulder gets a T-shirt from his bag, pulling it over his head and answering with his arms up and his face covered, “’Course.”
Zito smiles, relieved. Mulder gets it perfectly, they’re totally on the same page. “And the other thing, it’s just for fun.”
Tucking the shirt in, Mulder meets Zito’s eyes in the mirror, looking guarded. “What do you mean?”
Zito stands, taking the button-down off the hanger and bringing it over to Mulder. “Like, we’re not giving up anything and nothing changes. It’s just. Extra.” He kisses the back of Mulder’s neck, smooths down Mulder’s hair with the flat of his hand. “I think it’s probably a bad idea to make it more complicated than it already is. To pretend like it’s something it’s not. You know?”
Mulder isn’t looking at him anymore, staring at his own hands putting on his watch. He’s quiet for a long moment, but just as Zito’s about to ask again, Mulder says softly, “yeah, I know.”
Zito flips Mulder around and pushes him back. He can see his own face in the mirror over Mulder’s shoulder, smiling widely, and he carefully opens his hand on Mulder’s stomach. “It’ll be good,” Zito says happily. “You and me, ‘cause it doesn’t mean anything and nothing will be different.”
The button-down hangs between them in Zito’s hand, and Mulder leans back against the mirror, pulling Zito with him so that their chests are together and their legs mixed up, and Zito doesn’t notice Mulder shaking his head slowly, his eyes shut so tightly he looks like he’s in pain.
*
white balls for batting practice.
Peterson and the other coaches tell Mulder and Zito to keep throwing, and then they go down into the clubhouse to meet with Howe and Beane. Zito immediately makes his escape, calling for Myers, the bullpen catcher, to take five, and jogging over to the infield, where the position players are taking BP and having a lot more fun.
Zito hates bullpen sessions, always has. He doesn’t like throwing without a tangible point to it, and can’t stand being bored while pitching, but he never complains because he knows it’s necessary. He still weasels out of it every chance he gets, though. Mulder keeps throwing, feeling uncomfortably like a good little pitcher who follows orders without question.
He can hear Zito laughing from all the way across the field, and watches him flitting around driving everybody crazy, before charming his way onto the mound and hollering for someone to take him up on it.
Chavez steps up and Chavez has never hit lefties for shit. The first couple of pitches, Zito goes easy and lets Chavez rope liners into the gaps, but then Mulder sees Zito’s knee, hiked all the way up and the slow cross-body motion of Zito’s real delivery. Chavez swings, but doesn’t even come close.
Zito strikes him out on three pitches, and Jermaine Dye immediately steps to the plate. They all want to get a hit off Zito now, to prove that they can, but Zito’s taking this seriously and they don’t have a chance in hell.
Mulder tries to remember the last time Zito lost a game, tries to figure out how Zito could have gotten this good without him noticing. Mulder winds and throws and he’s not locating, he’s pitching blind because he doesn’t want to take his eyes off Zito and he can’t explain why.
*
god, that was beautiful. what’d i do?
There’s another airport and another hotel, and all that’s different is room and flight numbers. They talk about television reruns, really old commercials. Eric Chavez paces the aisles on the plane, does push-ups in the back by the bathrooms, because he’s always been claustrophobic, and it’s certainly not gonna go away now. Zito mostly sleeps on planes, he’s good at it.
There’s still a fairly constant strain of jetlag, all of them passing out in weird places and getting hungry three hours before a decent meal time. They’re never not tired, and they all have specified nap times, to crash out and catch up.
Then they’re landing in Oakland and everyone’s turning their watches back with relief, California time, at fucking last. It’s been a long trip.
In the parking lot of the Coliseum, the sun’s setting over the highway, into the ocean. Zito takes Mulder’s bag without even asking, and Mulder was supposed to ride home with Chavvy, but Chavvy will get over being ditched. It’s happened a million times before.
They drive north and when they’re in line for the Bay Bridge tolls, the city of San Francisco shines a little ways away, and Zito slouches into the driver’s seat with his forearm on the wheel and his sunglasses on, and Mulder’d be worried about him just falling asleep right there, except Zito hasn’t pitched in four days and he’s been unconscious a lot during the past week, so there’s no reason for him to still be exhausted.
Zito pays the toll in Canadian coins and says like he says every time, “I can’t believe that works.”
“It’s definitely illegal, dude. It’s like. Fraud, or something.”
“I got all these coins, they’re totally useless.” Zito goes up to Canada pretty regularly during the off-season, and he always forgets to bring the leftover money from the last trip, it just collects on his front hall table.
They’re on the bridge, through the tunnel. Zito gets in the far right lane so they can see the whole city, the sun moments from gone and hitting the west facing of every building, lit up gold. Mulder wants to tell him to watch the fucking road, but he understands. It’s one of the best things he’s ever seen.
Zito changes the song, and pushes his sunglasses up into his hair. The skin around his eyes is pale, because there’ve been three day games in a row, and he sucks on the corner of his lip as his eyes flick from the view to Mulder, then back again. Mulder thinks about winding a hand in Zito’s shirt and doing something untoward, but he ends up just taking Zito’s head in his hands and forcibly bringing his eyes front again, and Mulder tells him, “No getting us fucking killed, rule number one, all right?”
Zito straightens up and starts paying attention, and Mulder keeps his hand on the side of Zito’s neck, just to make sure, until they’re down in the streets again and there’s nothing to fall into.
*
it’s a long season and you gotta trust it.
Zito hits the wall in early June. He’s lucky to get his seventh win against the Mariners, because though everything stays high, he can still change speeds enough to keep them off. The boys get his back in a serious way, and they congratulate him afterwards, but Zito’s aware that he won’t get away with a start like this again.
He’s in a shitty mood the way he always is when his game deserts him, and he’s not up to hiding it right now. He gets irritated at Byrnes when Byrnes is just being normal, and calls him an obnoxious fuck who can’t say shit until he bats his weight, politely in the earshot of half the team, and Byrnes looks stunned and wounded before he slinks off, not looking at anybody.
Hudson cracks Zito hard upside the head, tells him, “Real nice, Z,” with his voice caught between anger and disappointment, as if Zito really needs to feel worse than he already does. Nobody talks to him after that, and nobody will until he apologizes to Byrnes, which Zito will do just as soon as Byrnes stops pouting.
Everybody leaves without saying goodbye to him, and Zito feels like he might cry, so he goes across the BART overpass to the cheap little Mexican place under the train tracks. He sees Mulder trailing him like a cop, his hands in his pockets and his cap pulled low, and Zito doesn’t want to think about what he’ll say if Mulder tries to fuck with him or cheer him up.
The guys inside the cantina don’t recognize him or don’t care, and Zito drinks gold beer on the curb, eats quesadilla out of a white paper bag as Mulder strolls down the sidewalk and sits next to him as if they came here together.
Zito’s arm hurts, his arm and his head and his knee where the surgery scar loops around the cap. He’s sick of everything and dreaming of the All-Star break, though if things keep going like they are, it won’t be much of a break for him. Maybe he’ll slow up and get his three-day weekend. But probably he won’t.
Mulder’s legs are bent, his forearms balanced on his knees, hands dangling. He’s placidly watching the BART trains pass above, not even trying to beg any of Zito’s beer. He looks like he could sit here until the sun comes up, if Zito doesn’t want to go home.
Zito rolls his neck and feels the resistance in his arms and back, thinks about throwing through melted wax the way he is these days, everything forced and painful. Mulder yawns, and Zito counts the fillings in his teeth, his nose scrunching, because manners, dude, cover your mouth. Mulder meets his eyes and bends a slight tired smile in his direction.
Zito wonders what it takes to knock down something like this, what kind of strategy he should use. It’s June and that means months left to take for his own. Months left of Mulder keeping him company when his curve is being read the way the hitters are reading it right now, Mulder sticking around when Zito proves to be an asshole, Mulder staying quiet when Zito would kill him for talking, a good kind of assurance to have.
On their way back over, Mulder chucks Zito’s empty beer bottle way off over the scrag-brush and railroad tracks. The concourses of the Coliseum are wide and gray and empty, and the players’ lot is just their two cars, and Zito follows Mulder to Mulder’s big car without a word. Mulder smirks and saunters, and Zito takes his wrist, leads him to the shadowed side of the car, the chain-linked fence cutting diamonds on the asphalt.
His back against metal and Mulder’s hands on the glass, and Zito wraps his arms as tight as they will go, wanting to squeeze some of Mulder’s strength into his own muscles.
*
i’ll send you a postcard.
Zito gets up early in Seattle and goes out to buy a bunch of postcards, because they’ve been gone for awhile and he hasn’t sent anything home yet. He’s been doing this for years, letters written on napkins and postcards bought on the street, friends and family and anyone whose address is in his little red notebook.
There’s this girl he knows from high school, who was once in love with him but isn’t anymore, and they’re much better friends now. He sends her postcards like it’s his job, because she is still utterly charmed by getting mail, and he’s been to visit, seen the big corkboard on her bedroom wall, pinned up with movie stubs and theatre programs and every postcard he ever sent, the pictures facing front, boats and fields and American League skylines.
He’s thinking about her and her wall, wondering if you could track his career by the postcards he sent. There’s a toothless misty rain, and when he gets back to his hotel room, he almost slips on a torn-off sheet of paper stuck under his door, Mulder inviting him out to breakfast by writing the name of the diner down the street and adding, ‘you buy.’
Zito picks up most of their checks, these days.
Mulder’s in a booth by the window, straightening the silverware atop the paper napkin, and Zito doesn’t sit right across from him because neither of them will be able to stretch out their legs if he does. He tucks his knee against Mulder’s under the table, orders some coffee and carefully explains to the waitress how to properly make his omelet.
Mulder’s glowering at the tabletop, looking vindictive the way he does in the morning. Zito can still see the crease in his T-shirt where it was folded into his suitcase, a horizontal line across Mulder’s chest.
They don’t talk much because there’s a window to look out, and anyway it’s early. The sunlight looks waxed, the streets black plastic. Zito thinks about how when he was a kid, he’d wake up sometimes at five or six in the morning, a car horn or a dog bark and then he was up for good. He’d go out to the kitchen, bare feet on the linoleum, and his parents would always be there, no matter how early, sipping coffee and listening to the jazz station on low volume, passing sections of the newspaper across the table. He remembers being probably four years old and being convinced that his parents never slept, spent the whole night quietly killing time in the kitchen, waiting for him to wake up.
At a newsstand halfway back to their hotel, Mulder stops suddenly, and takes a magazine down from the rack. He smiles, his eyes down and his head tipped to the side. Zito crowds near his shoulder, pestering for a look, and Mulder holds the magazine out. It’s the latest Sporting News. Zito’s on the cover.
Zito beams, touches his own face, traces the number 75 on his jersey. It’s a good picture; he only looks a little bit stoned.
Mulder claps him on the back, his voice uneven in Zito’s ear as he teases, “Everybody wants a piece of my boy.”
*
i know. i have that dream all the time too. we’re almost home.
Chavez drags Mulder out straight from the airport, because Chavez is trying to start something with a waitress at the bar they go to a lot, and he’s missed a week and a half of flirting. Zito attaches himself to Chavez’s belt and tags along, antsy from the flight and wanting to follow them home and sleep on their couch.
Chavez says he’s gonna stay till close, but Mulder and Zito leave an hour or so before, when Zito realizes that he’s fully supporting Mulder’s weight and the wall is fully supporting his own. With Mulder’s arm around his neck and his hand hanging down Zito’s chest, Zito guides them towards the door, the world in need of refocusing, Mulder warm against his back.
“How much you wanna bet Chavvy comes in in the same clothes tomorrow?” Zito asks, and feels Mulder shudder as he snorts a laugh, nodding and clonking their heads together.
“Seven thousand dollars, at least.” They’re outside now and it’s seventy degrees, t-shirt weather at one in the morning, and it’s welcome after the humidity inside. Mulder’s heavy and sliding his hand up to pet Zito’s neck.
Zito hails a cab, grateful that they’re a small-market team and aren’t well enough known to get caught for this shit.
Mulder falls asleep on the ride and Zito worries that he passed out, because how the fuck is he supposed to wrangle an unconscious Mulder into the house, but Mulder squirms when Zito pokes him and mumbles, “punk, fuckin’ zito, quit it,” when Zito pulls at his ear.
In the driveway, Zito pays the cabbie with Mulder back on his shoulder, and he thinks about laying Mulder down on the grass and calling it done. Instead, he fishes Mulder’s keys out of his pocket and Mulder wakes up a bit and stirs in confusion.
“It’s okay, man,” Zito tells him, one arm around Mulder’s waist, his hand full of keys and clinking as he pats Mulder’s chest. “We’re all the way back now, we’re gonna go inside and fall asleep.”
Zito looks around Mulder at the dark house, the moon all collarbone-white and hooked over the chimney. Zito’s pretty drunk himself, though at least he’s sort of maintaining, and he won’t remember that this isn’t where he lives until he wakes up there in the morning.
*
that don’t make me queer, right?
Mulder gets up and goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, rain on the windows of Zito’s bedroom, making him think about rain delays again, stadiums with roofs. He brushes his teeth because he’s got a bad taste in his mouth, though he didn’t have that much to drink tonight. He’s not sure whose toothbrush he used, but it might have been one of his.
He climbs back in bed, hands cold, and Zito shivers when he slides near to him, wakes up and blinks at him foggily. “You still here?”
Mulder’s hand screws into the sheets. “I was gonna maybe go.”
Zito nods, lays his head back down, his face perfectly unlined. “Yeah, you should go.” He curls his fingers around Mulder’s arm, the heel of his hand in the bend of Mulder’s elbow. “In a little while, you can go.” He falls back asleep.
Mulder won’t watch him sleeping and he thanks god for the rain, the show at the window, lightning like camera flashes and the blur of the world outside the lines.
onwards!
i blame it on huston street. i'm blaming everything on huston street, from now on.
anyway. interestingly concurrent to that, here's what i've been doing for the past month:
It’s the best baseball movie ever. I got the idea over Thanksgiving, but couldn’t get ‘round it till now. The title and section headers are robbed wholesale from Ron Shelton, who wrote the script, except the first, which is a quote from the Bear himself.
Wherein Zito is stupid, Mulder is kinda pathetic, and everybody falls asleep and wakes up a bunch.
This takes place in 2002.
Artists and Pitchers
By Candle Beck
in baseball, you don’t know nothing.
The game on the television is in black and white, baggy heavy-looking uniforms and worn hats, but the commercials are new. Yogi Berra makes cracks for a car insurance ad, then gets forty years younger instantaneously, and crouches behind home plate.
Zito sits Indian-style on the floor, the coffee table pulled close and his hitter notes spread across the top. He leans forward to take sips of Coke through a bendy straw, eyebrows hunched in concentration. He’s good through the Central, all up and down the Midwest his numbers are amazing. The East has given him some trouble. The West, ever-present, he mostly does well against them in August and September. Which is understandable.
Mulder comes in and slumps onto the couch. His knee presses into Zito’s shoulder in a pay-attention-to-me sort of way, and Mulder asks, “You do that every night?”
“No,” Zito answers, not looking back, tapping the pencil eraser on his nose. “Four times a week. Rick says it’s good to have a routine.”
“Oh, well, if Rick says.” Mulder tilts forward over his knees, picking up one of the papers. “How’s this work?”
Putting his elbow on Mulder’s knee, Zito half-turns and points, “That’s the dude. That’s how I should pitch him.”
It’s pretty transparent, locations and pitch selection, ‘fastball, fastball, curve,’ ‘curve, change, fastball, change,’ and the only thing is that the letters of ‘curve’ are scrolled like city names. Mulder flicks at the last column. “What’s that?”
“That’s what will definitely strike them out.”
Mulder squints, and Zito thinks it’s possible that Mulder needs glasses to read and stuff, but is trying to avoid looking like a tool. Mulder shakes his head, “But you don’t throw a splitter. Or a slider. You could try to throw a cutter, but I think you’d hurt yourself.”
Zito scowls, and tries to get the page back, but Mulder holds it away. “Yes, thank you. I’m aware. But it’s what I’d throw if, you know, I could. Just in case.” He sighs, slides off Mulder’s leg. “Someday, I’ll throw a two-seam, anyway.”
Mulder grins for no discernible reason. Mulder throws seven different pitches and so gets to talk shit sometimes. “Someday,” he says, and steals Zito’s pencil, leaning back. “I wouldn’t go first ball heat on this guy, though,” he adds, and starts scratching on the paper.
Zito checks the game on television and it’s still taking place before anything he recognizes, but he figures that between Whitey Ford and Mark Mulder, he could learn everything there is to know about baseball tonight.
*
young men are uncomplicated.
Mulder’s happy enough, late on a Saturday afternoon after they’ve already beaten the White Sox, to play videogames and start drinking before the sun goes down. Zito comes around because he’s got nothing better to do, and gets sneaker prints on the carpets even though Mulder said he had to take off his shoes.
It’s their third year, so they must still be friends.
Zito takes quarters for bridge toll from the spare change on the kitchen counter, and talks to Eric Chavez’s mom on the phone when she calls. Mulder beats him handily a few times at the race game, and then Zito decides videogames are kid’s stuff and stretches out on the couch, reading a months-old copy of Maxim. Mulder always has shiny classy not-quite-porn lying around; it’s something Zito has come to count on.
Zito leaves at around ten o’clock to meet some friends at a club, and Mulder walks him to the door in a weird sort of callback to proper manners. In the hallway, he lets Zito take his Michigan State cap out of the closet and pull it down backwards over his hair. “Don’t roll in too hungover tomorrow,” Mulder advises.
Zito smiles. “’Kay.” He doesn’t invite Mulder out with him anymore, because the two of them have the tendency to fight pretty badly when they’re both drunk. They only ever go out in groups these days.
“Tell me what happens.”
“Always do,” Zito answers, and then he’s a flash of teeth turning away, the white stitching of the S on Mulder’s cap, and Mulder sees his wristwatch catch a piece of the streetlight, and then Zito’s gone.
*
announce my presence with authority.
Zito does like the way Mulder pitches, especially on cold nights. Bats splinter more often the colder it gets, and Mulder lives for swinging bunts, squibs, weak comebackers that he can field with style.
Zito likes the way Mulder stands on the mound, weight shifted to one side like his left hand is just a little bit heavier, and the draw up of his knee and the way he angles his gaze down and to the side, eyelids almost shut, just before he takes his stride.
Down in the clubhouse, Mulder’s using an X-acto knife to cut the long sleeves of his undershirt so that they’ll come to just past his elbows. Zito’s got the other razor, and he’s carefully slicing letters out of a piece of white paper. Mulder keeps an eye on him like he’s afraid Zito’s gonna cut himself.
“What’s the hardest you ever threw?” Zito asks, eyes focused on the work at hand.
Mulder shrugs. “Fastest I ever saw on a gun was ninety-nine.”
“That’s pretty fast,” Zito nods.
“One time, I broke the backstop. That mighta been faster.”
Zito looks up, his fingers going still on the knife. “You broke a backstop?”
Mulder snaps some loose threads off with his teeth. “I was really pissed off. Forget why. And I just hauled off and pegged the ball. The backstop was all wood, because it was the old field, and it, like, exploded, little pieces of wood flying everywhere. There was a hole the size of my fist.”
“Dude.” Zito looks at him jealously. “Dude.”
Mulder shrugs again. “I was pissed off.”
Zito snorts, and holds up the page he’s been hunched over, dark eyes through the cut-out letters. “Remind me to piss you off more often,” he says, and the letters read, ‘HI MARK,’ like a message in lights.
*
well, actually, nobody on this planet ever really chooses each other.
They get paired up a lot, because they’re both left-handed and they both take a handsome picture, and they’re filming commercials for the second half, out in the Coliseum’s parking lot on a Tuesday afternoon. Huddy’s sitting on a car hood off to the side; he’s not in this commercial, but he was at the ballpark early and came out to say hi.
Zito leans next to Hudson every free moment, saying “be right back, man,” and walking over, leaving Mulder standing there feeling awkward and uninvited. By the first word, Hudson and Zito are grinning already, Zito’s elbow back and his hands woven together. It looks like high school all over again, waiting for friends to get out of class. Mulder attempts small talk with the tech guy until they’re ready to go again.
Zito makes nice for the camera and then punches Mulder in the ribs. Zito’s got some fucked up ideas about what having a big brother means. It’s not all wrestling and bickering. Not when you’re twenty-four years old. Mulder’s not having much luck teaching him, because Hudson totally encourages it.
“You’re bored, huh,” Zito says while they’re waiting for the guy to get the next shot set up, angling into him.
Mulder pushes Zito away. “What tipped you off?”
Zito doesn’t take the hint and slings an arm over Mulder’s shoulders, Mulder again irritated that Zito is tall enough to do that. “Feeling neglected, baby?”
Now Mulder jerks his elbow back hard into Zito’s sternum and feels the blast of air against his neck. Zito falls back, but he’s got a sharp grin on his face.
Mulder sees Hudson over Zito’s shoulder, watching them casually with one leg over the side of the car, and Mulder feints at Zito, just to show no hard feelings, just to play along and make Zito happy, make Zito stick around for a little while.
*
in the show, everybody can hit a fastball.
Mulder gets roughed up in his first May start, eight hits and six runs over four and a third, and Hudson and Zito get to see it all from the rail. It looks to Zito like he’s tipping his pitches, but Hudson says it’s his shoulder, and Hudson’s got a good eye for injury.
Ramon Hernandez goes out to talk to him after the fourth run scores, and Mulder pulls his shoulders all the way up, lifts his chin, makes the most of his height. Zito always wants to know what Mulder’s like in the midst like this, because he knows it’s different than any other time. Hernandez says that Hudson’s drawl gets so thick during games, you can’t understand a word he says. Zito, himself, curses nonstop when his catcher comes out.
Mulder fists the ball deeply into his glove and snaps his head, abruptly dismissing Hernandez and striding off the back of the mound. “He’s gonna be so annoying tonight,” Zito mutters.
Hudson folds his fingers together, forearms on the rail, and the side of his mouth pulls up. “More annoying than usual.”
Zito nods. “Somebody’s gonna buy him shots trying to help him sleep and he’s gonna spend the rest of the night arguing with me about situational fucking approach.”
“Sounds about right.” Hudson bumps their shoulders, swaying slightly with his cap tucked in his belt at the small of his back, a tight slender stretch of jersey. “You could just stay away. Let him talk to the walls for once.”
“It’s no good, man. He makes me crazy even when he’s not around.” Zito bites the inside of his cheek, guides Mulder’s slider down with his eyes and it’s good enough to end the inning.
Mulder comes down into the dugout right past them without even glancing over. Zito’s aware of him at their backs, with his cap off and a towel around his neck. Mulder hasn’t thrown anything straight all night, every pitch breaks, and Hudson’s probably right about him pitching through pain, because Mulder never goes without his fastball unless he’s got no other choice.
*
molecular attraction and timing.
It’s real early in the morning, catching the first flight out to play in Seattle at noon. On the bus to the airport, Zito’s drinking coffee from a Thermos and not offering it to anybody. It’s not actually selfishness, it just doesn’t even occur to Zito. If it did, he surely would.
He starts talking about deep space as they’re driving over the highway overpass. Chavez and David Justice are murmuring quietly to each other in back, but everyone else is quiet and slumped over with their arms crossed, the day still bruise-colored out the windows, still mostly night, so Zito’s voice carries even though he’s only saying it to Mulder sitting next to him.
Mulder yawns and nods. Sometimes Zito pauses so Mulder can say, “yeah.” He leans his temple on the window and keeps his eyes closed. Zito saw an astronomy special on the Discovery Channel last night. He’ll remember this stuff for all of a day, but he’ll put it to good use while he’s got it.
“So, like, stuff gets farther away, you know? And the stars change and stuff. And in five thousand years you won’t recognize any of it.”
Mulder’s not planning on being around in five thousand years, but Zito’s prodding at Mulder’s arm, keeping him awake. It’s too early for this kind of talk, and the airport access road isn’t helping, all smooth and uninterrupted.
“It’s not a very good map, okay.”
Mulder peeks out the corner of his eye. “What’s not?” he asks.
Zito smiles and reaches out to touch Mulder’s hair, randomly, and Mulder slept through the alarm this morning and didn’t get a chance to fix it up. Usually he’d hit Zito away, but he’s stuck right here, half-asleep.
“The sky, dude,” Zito tells him, his thumb on Mulder’s forehead, and that’s not quite right but it’s close, because a half-hour later in the airport bathroom, Zito puts his hand on Mulder’s shoulder and presses him down to the stall door, kisses him all coffee and cinnamon gum, and it’s been coming for awhile now, it was looking for the best angle.
Now Zito uses his teeth for a split second and then draws away, fingers in Mulder’s collar. They’re not anything close to drunk, as sober as Mulder has been in weeks, and that’s a bad way to start this.
Mulder kisses him again, though, levering off the stall door and holding Zito near to him, and he decides immediately that the next chance he gets, he’s picking a fight with Zito, and he’s gonna win.
*
and where can i go?
It doesn’t come up again until the second city of the trip. Zito talks to the bartender the whole time they’re out, learns about Baroque era painters and how the head bouncer’s sleeping with three of the waitresses. He watches Mulder getting along very well with a bunch of strangers, waits for Mulder to center on one of the girls and let his eyes close halfway, the way he does when he’s trying to pick someone up.
Mulder only ever smiles his photo-day smile, but he also never checks for Zito in the crowd, so Zito can’t really draw any conclusions.
Zito’s lost track of time when Mulder comes to the bar for another round. Mulder rolls a glass in his hands and glances at Zito occasionally, but Zito just looks at Mulder’s hands, trying to remember how he held Mulder down in the airport bathroom, where his hands had been and if Mulder had maybe touched his back or something.
Mulder leans over and he has to half-shout to be heard over the music: “Are we gonna mention it, like, ever?”
Zito flinches, mostly from Mulder close on his arm, Mulder’s fingers spinning a nickel on the bar. He lifts his shoulders in a defensive shrug, turning to call guilelessly, “Mention what?”
It’s a familiar expression on Mulder’s face, the quit-acting-dumb look. Mulder’s eyes look pale in this light, more silver than blue, more white than silver.
“This is your shot, man,” Mulder tells him plainly, hardly even raising his voice.
Zito licks his lips. “Again?” he asks, feeling adrenaline cut through him as Mulder’s eyes widen a little bit, as Mulder’s hands slow and stop and the glass looks dented by the pressure of his fingers.
Mulder gets up and walks out of the bar. Zito follows without even settling his tab, leaving behind another place where he can never come back. A block down the street, under the metal steps of a brownstone, against the boarded-up door of the basement apartment, they spend twenty solid minutes getting to know exactly the right way to do this, and Mulder holds one of Zito’s wrists for a long time, his arm hooked around Zito’s waist and both their hands pinned to Zito’s back.
*
latent homosexuality being re-channeled.
And Zito wakes up in Mulder’s hotel room and he doesn’t freak out because hotel rooms are all the same and it might as well be his own, save Mulder sleeping on his stomach with the whole of his back laid out to Zito. Mulder shifts, and one shoulder blade rises, the other sinking away.
Zito waits until Mulder wakes up on his own, not wanting to piss him off unduly. It’s probably fifteen minutes before Mulder turns over and opens his eyes, seeing Zito and freezing. Zito starts laughing at the look of shock on his face, and Mulder hits him with a pillow.
“Guess you didn’t expect to find me here,” Zito says, grinning.
Mulder sits up, keeping the blankets modestly around his waist. “Yeah I did,” he says defensively. “I remember what happened.”
“You can’t argue drunkenness if you admit to remembering it,” Zito informs him, waving his hand around in unclear demonstration.
“Who said I was gonna argue?”
Zito stops, and blinks up at Mulder. Zito’s already got his counterpoints all worked out, he’s gonna explain to Mulder that this won’t fuck anything up and they don’t have to worry, but now Mulder’s just looking at him steadily, all kinds of calm in his eyes.
“Have you ever done this before?” Zito asks.
Mulder nods too quickly, looking away. “Sure. A hundred times.”
Zito snorts. “Liar.”
Mulder doesn’t answer, just reaches out and puts his hand on Zito’s stomach, which is actually an answer all on its own. He doesn’t meet Zito’s gaze, though, and he’s blushing pretty badly.
“Let’s just,” Zito starts, then trails off, distracted by Mulder’s hand, moving a bit now, wide-palmed and long-fingered and a really nice thing to feel first thing in the morning. “Um.”
Mulder lifts his eyebrows, smirking. “Yes?”
Zito swallows, and shakes his head. “Never mind.” He sits up and pushes Mulder down, rolls on top, touching their foreheads. Mulder jerks and arches his back, his head back and his neck stretched out.
“god, never mind,” Zito breathes out, happy for both of them to be gay right now, even if never again, just right now is good enough.
*
oh my goodness. we got ourselves a natural disaster.
The rain starts falling hard by the third, and Hudson comes off the mound when the umpires finally call time, jumping on Zito’s back and hanging on with his feet off the ground, soaking Zito’s back and leaving a long wet stripe on his chest where Hudson’s arm slices across.
Zito shakes him off, flicking water out of his hair, and Hudson ricochets away to find someone else to waste his energy on. Zito sits on the bench next to Mulder and the rain is so thick they can’t even see the foul lines. There are dark, person-shaped blurs pulling a blue tarp over the field, and the dugout feels like a submarine, all safe and undercover.
“It’s supposed to blow off,” Eric Chavez says, coming up from the tunnel. “Strong winds from the east.” Chavez is always the one coming up with shit like that, predictions and forecasts, but it’s hard for Mulder to believe because the rain seems unstoppable right now.
Zito starts shivering, bumping Mulder’s arm. Half the team is sitting around in wet clothes, Hudson leaving footprints behind him and Chavez’s hair looking like ink, but Zito’s the only one it seems to be affecting. “You should change,” Mulder tells him.
“I’m not cold,” Zito answers, spiky pieces of his hair trembling on his forehead. He cups his elbows in his hands.
“Yeah sure.”
Zito looks at him sidelong. “You gonna come with me if I go?”
Mulder shrugs. “You gonna go if I come?”
Zito smiles at him in that peculiar new way that makes him look vaguely threatening, and then stands. There’s nothing they can do right now, because everyone’s drifting into the clubhouse as the rain delay stretches longer, they can’t just disappear, so this is actually an innocent moment for the two of them, something that’s been happening less and less.
Mulder pulls the good chair over to Zito’s locker and keeps up the conversation as Zito puts on a dry T-shirt and jersey, uncharitably noticing Zito’s pale chest and the way you can see his ribs all the time, thin arms and no sort of definition. Never in a million years would Zito be Mulder’s type, he’s basically the exact opposite of Mulder’s type.
When goosebumps rash across Zito’s stomach, though, Mulder finds it hard to look away. And when the rain lets up and the players head back to the dugout, Mulder hides in the side hallway and waits for Zito to come find him.
*
i’m not gonna fall in love with you or nothing.
Zito goes to Mulder’s hotel room to tell him that they’re leaving for dinner in ten minutes, and Mulder’s still only wearing his jeans, a shirt on a hanger neatly laid across the bed. Zito sits down as Mulder wanders around getting himself ready, and fiddles with the shirt buttons, two open, three, thinking about the dent in Mulder’s sternum and the scruff right in the middle.
“So, listen,” Zito begins, hoping that Mulder will let him pop a button or two later tonight, hoping he can promise to buy a new shirt. “Wanted to, um. Clarify some stuff.”
Mulder comes out of the bathroom, pulling his belt through the loops. Zito thinks it’s lucky that Mulder’s so fucking good-looking, it makes this easier. “Yeah?”
Zito gestures between the two of them. “You and me, like, friends, right?”
Mulder gets a T-shirt from his bag, pulling it over his head and answering with his arms up and his face covered, “’Course.”
Zito smiles, relieved. Mulder gets it perfectly, they’re totally on the same page. “And the other thing, it’s just for fun.”
Tucking the shirt in, Mulder meets Zito’s eyes in the mirror, looking guarded. “What do you mean?”
Zito stands, taking the button-down off the hanger and bringing it over to Mulder. “Like, we’re not giving up anything and nothing changes. It’s just. Extra.” He kisses the back of Mulder’s neck, smooths down Mulder’s hair with the flat of his hand. “I think it’s probably a bad idea to make it more complicated than it already is. To pretend like it’s something it’s not. You know?”
Mulder isn’t looking at him anymore, staring at his own hands putting on his watch. He’s quiet for a long moment, but just as Zito’s about to ask again, Mulder says softly, “yeah, I know.”
Zito flips Mulder around and pushes him back. He can see his own face in the mirror over Mulder’s shoulder, smiling widely, and he carefully opens his hand on Mulder’s stomach. “It’ll be good,” Zito says happily. “You and me, ‘cause it doesn’t mean anything and nothing will be different.”
The button-down hangs between them in Zito’s hand, and Mulder leans back against the mirror, pulling Zito with him so that their chests are together and their legs mixed up, and Zito doesn’t notice Mulder shaking his head slowly, his eyes shut so tightly he looks like he’s in pain.
*
white balls for batting practice.
Peterson and the other coaches tell Mulder and Zito to keep throwing, and then they go down into the clubhouse to meet with Howe and Beane. Zito immediately makes his escape, calling for Myers, the bullpen catcher, to take five, and jogging over to the infield, where the position players are taking BP and having a lot more fun.
Zito hates bullpen sessions, always has. He doesn’t like throwing without a tangible point to it, and can’t stand being bored while pitching, but he never complains because he knows it’s necessary. He still weasels out of it every chance he gets, though. Mulder keeps throwing, feeling uncomfortably like a good little pitcher who follows orders without question.
He can hear Zito laughing from all the way across the field, and watches him flitting around driving everybody crazy, before charming his way onto the mound and hollering for someone to take him up on it.
Chavez steps up and Chavez has never hit lefties for shit. The first couple of pitches, Zito goes easy and lets Chavez rope liners into the gaps, but then Mulder sees Zito’s knee, hiked all the way up and the slow cross-body motion of Zito’s real delivery. Chavez swings, but doesn’t even come close.
Zito strikes him out on three pitches, and Jermaine Dye immediately steps to the plate. They all want to get a hit off Zito now, to prove that they can, but Zito’s taking this seriously and they don’t have a chance in hell.
Mulder tries to remember the last time Zito lost a game, tries to figure out how Zito could have gotten this good without him noticing. Mulder winds and throws and he’s not locating, he’s pitching blind because he doesn’t want to take his eyes off Zito and he can’t explain why.
*
god, that was beautiful. what’d i do?
There’s another airport and another hotel, and all that’s different is room and flight numbers. They talk about television reruns, really old commercials. Eric Chavez paces the aisles on the plane, does push-ups in the back by the bathrooms, because he’s always been claustrophobic, and it’s certainly not gonna go away now. Zito mostly sleeps on planes, he’s good at it.
There’s still a fairly constant strain of jetlag, all of them passing out in weird places and getting hungry three hours before a decent meal time. They’re never not tired, and they all have specified nap times, to crash out and catch up.
Then they’re landing in Oakland and everyone’s turning their watches back with relief, California time, at fucking last. It’s been a long trip.
In the parking lot of the Coliseum, the sun’s setting over the highway, into the ocean. Zito takes Mulder’s bag without even asking, and Mulder was supposed to ride home with Chavvy, but Chavvy will get over being ditched. It’s happened a million times before.
They drive north and when they’re in line for the Bay Bridge tolls, the city of San Francisco shines a little ways away, and Zito slouches into the driver’s seat with his forearm on the wheel and his sunglasses on, and Mulder’d be worried about him just falling asleep right there, except Zito hasn’t pitched in four days and he’s been unconscious a lot during the past week, so there’s no reason for him to still be exhausted.
Zito pays the toll in Canadian coins and says like he says every time, “I can’t believe that works.”
“It’s definitely illegal, dude. It’s like. Fraud, or something.”
“I got all these coins, they’re totally useless.” Zito goes up to Canada pretty regularly during the off-season, and he always forgets to bring the leftover money from the last trip, it just collects on his front hall table.
They’re on the bridge, through the tunnel. Zito gets in the far right lane so they can see the whole city, the sun moments from gone and hitting the west facing of every building, lit up gold. Mulder wants to tell him to watch the fucking road, but he understands. It’s one of the best things he’s ever seen.
Zito changes the song, and pushes his sunglasses up into his hair. The skin around his eyes is pale, because there’ve been three day games in a row, and he sucks on the corner of his lip as his eyes flick from the view to Mulder, then back again. Mulder thinks about winding a hand in Zito’s shirt and doing something untoward, but he ends up just taking Zito’s head in his hands and forcibly bringing his eyes front again, and Mulder tells him, “No getting us fucking killed, rule number one, all right?”
Zito straightens up and starts paying attention, and Mulder keeps his hand on the side of Zito’s neck, just to make sure, until they’re down in the streets again and there’s nothing to fall into.
*
it’s a long season and you gotta trust it.
Zito hits the wall in early June. He’s lucky to get his seventh win against the Mariners, because though everything stays high, he can still change speeds enough to keep them off. The boys get his back in a serious way, and they congratulate him afterwards, but Zito’s aware that he won’t get away with a start like this again.
He’s in a shitty mood the way he always is when his game deserts him, and he’s not up to hiding it right now. He gets irritated at Byrnes when Byrnes is just being normal, and calls him an obnoxious fuck who can’t say shit until he bats his weight, politely in the earshot of half the team, and Byrnes looks stunned and wounded before he slinks off, not looking at anybody.
Hudson cracks Zito hard upside the head, tells him, “Real nice, Z,” with his voice caught between anger and disappointment, as if Zito really needs to feel worse than he already does. Nobody talks to him after that, and nobody will until he apologizes to Byrnes, which Zito will do just as soon as Byrnes stops pouting.
Everybody leaves without saying goodbye to him, and Zito feels like he might cry, so he goes across the BART overpass to the cheap little Mexican place under the train tracks. He sees Mulder trailing him like a cop, his hands in his pockets and his cap pulled low, and Zito doesn’t want to think about what he’ll say if Mulder tries to fuck with him or cheer him up.
The guys inside the cantina don’t recognize him or don’t care, and Zito drinks gold beer on the curb, eats quesadilla out of a white paper bag as Mulder strolls down the sidewalk and sits next to him as if they came here together.
Zito’s arm hurts, his arm and his head and his knee where the surgery scar loops around the cap. He’s sick of everything and dreaming of the All-Star break, though if things keep going like they are, it won’t be much of a break for him. Maybe he’ll slow up and get his three-day weekend. But probably he won’t.
Mulder’s legs are bent, his forearms balanced on his knees, hands dangling. He’s placidly watching the BART trains pass above, not even trying to beg any of Zito’s beer. He looks like he could sit here until the sun comes up, if Zito doesn’t want to go home.
Zito rolls his neck and feels the resistance in his arms and back, thinks about throwing through melted wax the way he is these days, everything forced and painful. Mulder yawns, and Zito counts the fillings in his teeth, his nose scrunching, because manners, dude, cover your mouth. Mulder meets his eyes and bends a slight tired smile in his direction.
Zito wonders what it takes to knock down something like this, what kind of strategy he should use. It’s June and that means months left to take for his own. Months left of Mulder keeping him company when his curve is being read the way the hitters are reading it right now, Mulder sticking around when Zito proves to be an asshole, Mulder staying quiet when Zito would kill him for talking, a good kind of assurance to have.
On their way back over, Mulder chucks Zito’s empty beer bottle way off over the scrag-brush and railroad tracks. The concourses of the Coliseum are wide and gray and empty, and the players’ lot is just their two cars, and Zito follows Mulder to Mulder’s big car without a word. Mulder smirks and saunters, and Zito takes his wrist, leads him to the shadowed side of the car, the chain-linked fence cutting diamonds on the asphalt.
His back against metal and Mulder’s hands on the glass, and Zito wraps his arms as tight as they will go, wanting to squeeze some of Mulder’s strength into his own muscles.
*
i’ll send you a postcard.
Zito gets up early in Seattle and goes out to buy a bunch of postcards, because they’ve been gone for awhile and he hasn’t sent anything home yet. He’s been doing this for years, letters written on napkins and postcards bought on the street, friends and family and anyone whose address is in his little red notebook.
There’s this girl he knows from high school, who was once in love with him but isn’t anymore, and they’re much better friends now. He sends her postcards like it’s his job, because she is still utterly charmed by getting mail, and he’s been to visit, seen the big corkboard on her bedroom wall, pinned up with movie stubs and theatre programs and every postcard he ever sent, the pictures facing front, boats and fields and American League skylines.
He’s thinking about her and her wall, wondering if you could track his career by the postcards he sent. There’s a toothless misty rain, and when he gets back to his hotel room, he almost slips on a torn-off sheet of paper stuck under his door, Mulder inviting him out to breakfast by writing the name of the diner down the street and adding, ‘you buy.’
Zito picks up most of their checks, these days.
Mulder’s in a booth by the window, straightening the silverware atop the paper napkin, and Zito doesn’t sit right across from him because neither of them will be able to stretch out their legs if he does. He tucks his knee against Mulder’s under the table, orders some coffee and carefully explains to the waitress how to properly make his omelet.
Mulder’s glowering at the tabletop, looking vindictive the way he does in the morning. Zito can still see the crease in his T-shirt where it was folded into his suitcase, a horizontal line across Mulder’s chest.
They don’t talk much because there’s a window to look out, and anyway it’s early. The sunlight looks waxed, the streets black plastic. Zito thinks about how when he was a kid, he’d wake up sometimes at five or six in the morning, a car horn or a dog bark and then he was up for good. He’d go out to the kitchen, bare feet on the linoleum, and his parents would always be there, no matter how early, sipping coffee and listening to the jazz station on low volume, passing sections of the newspaper across the table. He remembers being probably four years old and being convinced that his parents never slept, spent the whole night quietly killing time in the kitchen, waiting for him to wake up.
At a newsstand halfway back to their hotel, Mulder stops suddenly, and takes a magazine down from the rack. He smiles, his eyes down and his head tipped to the side. Zito crowds near his shoulder, pestering for a look, and Mulder holds the magazine out. It’s the latest Sporting News. Zito’s on the cover.
Zito beams, touches his own face, traces the number 75 on his jersey. It’s a good picture; he only looks a little bit stoned.
Mulder claps him on the back, his voice uneven in Zito’s ear as he teases, “Everybody wants a piece of my boy.”
*
i know. i have that dream all the time too. we’re almost home.
Chavez drags Mulder out straight from the airport, because Chavez is trying to start something with a waitress at the bar they go to a lot, and he’s missed a week and a half of flirting. Zito attaches himself to Chavez’s belt and tags along, antsy from the flight and wanting to follow them home and sleep on their couch.
Chavez says he’s gonna stay till close, but Mulder and Zito leave an hour or so before, when Zito realizes that he’s fully supporting Mulder’s weight and the wall is fully supporting his own. With Mulder’s arm around his neck and his hand hanging down Zito’s chest, Zito guides them towards the door, the world in need of refocusing, Mulder warm against his back.
“How much you wanna bet Chavvy comes in in the same clothes tomorrow?” Zito asks, and feels Mulder shudder as he snorts a laugh, nodding and clonking their heads together.
“Seven thousand dollars, at least.” They’re outside now and it’s seventy degrees, t-shirt weather at one in the morning, and it’s welcome after the humidity inside. Mulder’s heavy and sliding his hand up to pet Zito’s neck.
Zito hails a cab, grateful that they’re a small-market team and aren’t well enough known to get caught for this shit.
Mulder falls asleep on the ride and Zito worries that he passed out, because how the fuck is he supposed to wrangle an unconscious Mulder into the house, but Mulder squirms when Zito pokes him and mumbles, “punk, fuckin’ zito, quit it,” when Zito pulls at his ear.
In the driveway, Zito pays the cabbie with Mulder back on his shoulder, and he thinks about laying Mulder down on the grass and calling it done. Instead, he fishes Mulder’s keys out of his pocket and Mulder wakes up a bit and stirs in confusion.
“It’s okay, man,” Zito tells him, one arm around Mulder’s waist, his hand full of keys and clinking as he pats Mulder’s chest. “We’re all the way back now, we’re gonna go inside and fall asleep.”
Zito looks around Mulder at the dark house, the moon all collarbone-white and hooked over the chimney. Zito’s pretty drunk himself, though at least he’s sort of maintaining, and he won’t remember that this isn’t where he lives until he wakes up there in the morning.
*
that don’t make me queer, right?
Mulder gets up and goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, rain on the windows of Zito’s bedroom, making him think about rain delays again, stadiums with roofs. He brushes his teeth because he’s got a bad taste in his mouth, though he didn’t have that much to drink tonight. He’s not sure whose toothbrush he used, but it might have been one of his.
He climbs back in bed, hands cold, and Zito shivers when he slides near to him, wakes up and blinks at him foggily. “You still here?”
Mulder’s hand screws into the sheets. “I was gonna maybe go.”
Zito nods, lays his head back down, his face perfectly unlined. “Yeah, you should go.” He curls his fingers around Mulder’s arm, the heel of his hand in the bend of Mulder’s elbow. “In a little while, you can go.” He falls back asleep.
Mulder won’t watch him sleeping and he thanks god for the rain, the show at the window, lightning like camera flashes and the blur of the world outside the lines.
onwards!