soy un perdedor
it should be noted for the record that i'm writing these very quickly and posting them in first-draft form. it's just a writing exercise, kay? it's a good one, though. i like.
undercurrent
for lissa
There is, of course, a letdown to getting everything he’s ever wanted.
Mulder should have seen that coming.
The scratch on his throat is not yet healed, and Zito is staying up late every night to watch some dumb cartoon, coming to bed with his feet freezing cold and his mind ticking with audible quickness, keeping Mulder awake. Mulder cannot fall asleep without Zito beside him, and cannot fall asleep with Zito twitching and mouthing song lyrics at the ceiling.
He groans, rolls over and half-covers Zito with his body, still expecting Zito to pull away, get up and get his stuff, walk out without bothering to shut the door behind him. Zito just breathes out a little laugh against the side of Mulder’s head, whispering, “hey, you still up?”
“Unfortunately,” Mulder mutters, but Zito’s fingers are sliding through his hair and touching the back of his neck, and the bruises on Mulder’s shoulder blades are fading so swiftly he can feel it happening.
Zito starts talking about a commercial he saw, a car he wants to buy, and Mulder responds with hums and grunts, wondering if he’ll ever sleep again. He won’t tell Zito to be quiet; he can’t.
Zito’s low voice, this close like Mulder always wished him to be, Zito’s clean chest under his own, and it’s just sleep. He can get by without sleep.
It shouldn’t have gone down like it did, that back alley and a near-death experience, an improbable rescue by a man barely able to keep himself above water, most times. They should have found a beginning more mundane, because how can anything live up to that? They’ll spend their life together anticlimactically.
Zito is forgetful and he drinks all the orange juice, never remembers to buy Mulder’s brand of cereal. Secretly, Mulder doesn’t really like Cap’n Crunch. It hurts his teeth. Zito doesn’t just assume that Mulder’s coming over every night, and sometimes the door is locked, sometimes Zito doesn’t answer his phone because he’s already asleep, and Mulder’s got to drive back to Oakland feeling cheated and betrayed, his headlights bounding off the walls of the tunnel, his eyes wide and dry in the rearview mirror.
At the ballpark, Zito smiles at him and tucks the tag in on the back of Mulder’s shirt, and then goes to talk to Hudson. There are still moments when the closest Mulder gets to him is watching him pitch, the curve cutting down like its legs have been kicked out from under it, and Mulder remembers every time he’s ever seen it, every time pushed a little bit farther.
But Zito doesn’t have the curve working every day, and for weeks it’s a rarity, a parody of itself.
Zito follows him home and Chavez grins to see him trailing behind Mulder like it’s nothing. The three of them go out to dinner and come back to play videogames until the moon is high. Zito and Chavez chatter at each other easily, and Mulder is tired, mostly happy, a tight curl of fear in the back of his mind.
He knows he’s come a long way, but somewhere Mulder’s hair is still wet with rain, somewhere he’s still sneering at guys who won’t hesitate to hit back, somewhere his name is still John.
Zito glances back over his shoulder, checking on him, Mulder realizes, making sure he’s okay. Mulder bends a slight smile at him, and Zito winks, blows him a kiss. Mulder chuffs out a laugh and lets his head fall back. It’ll be years before he can get over the simple fact of Zito’s youth.
Zito talks about how maybe he’s a little drunk until Chavez suggests that he spend the night, and Mulder can see the flick of Zito’s mouth, just what he wanted. Mulder has touched him and Zito is still here, no worse for it despite the marks on his throat and his lower lip a bit swollen from Mulder sucking on it. This should have killed them both, but Mulder has felt Zito’s pulse in his mouth and heard his own screaming in his ears, and they wake up every morning.
Zito sneaks into his bedroom after about an hour, and his hands are pale streaks as he takes off his shirt, pushes borrowed sweatpants off his hips. Mulder’s mouth is dry and his eyes hurt from trying to see too much at once, and as Zito crawls into bed with a sharply unsettling grin on his face, Mulder isn’t actually sure that they’ll make it out alive after all.
It’s not a good idea to be so intent on this, to believe that Zito’s heartbeat is more important than his own, especially not if Zito’s going to annoy him at times with his innocence and his goddamn cartoons. Sometimes Mulder wants to shake him and yell, “I almost died for you, will you fucking let me sleep.” And that scares the hell out of him.
Mulder can’t even tell him, I’ve never felt like this before, because he’s been feeling like this for years. Astonishingly, disastrously in love. Something not to be trusted. Like one wrong step and the world could fall out from under him.
There are moments when Mulder misses being fucked up. The freedom of it, the easy excuse. Zito will be his backstory, someday, he’ll be the reason Mulder doesn’t take risks or tell anybody anything that matters. Three weeks since Mulder almost got killed in an alley, and he’s already planning how he’ll mourn this loss. He’s already preparing himself for it.
And then one morning he wakes up in Zito’s apartment and wanders out to find him sitting on the floor with a book of card tricks and a deck in his hands, bridge-shuffling and passing hidden cards clumsily from the bottom to the top. Zito’s hair is falling down into his eyes and he’s wearing one of Mulder’s shirts, the lights off and the curtains drawn so that Zito is sketched out in newsprint colors, the green face of his watch glowing dimly.
He looks up and smiles tiredly at Mulder. Mulder sits down beside him and Zito leans back, settling his weight on Mulder’s shoulder. He’s warm, still damp from the shower, and the muscles in his arm tighten and relax as he fiddles with the cards. Mulder puts his arm around Zito’s shoulders and breathes in the expensive smell of Zito’s shampoo.
Zito says, “watch this, man,” and his hands flick, clubs turning into diamonds, aces into kings, the room quiet but for the riff and snick of the cards, the brush of carpet under their feet, and Zito says softly, “see, it’s magic,” and Mulder is falling all over again, like it’s brand new, and he is reminded once more that this is worth everything to him.
This is his life, and right now his life is perfect.