apparently prayer really works (see: huston street)
carpet burn
for myr and mara
Obnoxiously, Harden was right and there’s not enough alcohol in the world for Mulder to not remember. That pisses him off a little bit.
He wakes up sensitive to the light, spidery little pinpricks of pain in his sinuses, and his jeans are still open, tugged down on his hips. He’s a mess. There’s nothing Mulder hates more.
He goes to take a shower and kicks Harden’s door as he passes it, just because, what the fuck. Since when does being drunk on the carpet constitute permission for some fucking kid to come along and molest the hell out of him, and then just fucking get up and walk away like it’s nothing.
Fuck that shit. Mulder’s gonna beat him so sincerely the next time he sees him.
Of course, Harden’s voice calls roughly through the door, “What? Go away,” and Mulder gets spooked, half-runs down the hall. He locks his bedroom door and then jams a chair under the knob for good measure. He paces around and pulls his clothes off, hating the stiff feeling of his fingers and the bump on the back of his head.
He did not invite Harden to move in with them so that Harden could pull this shit on him.
The water’s approximately three hundred degrees and that’s good, he can burn this off if it won’t wash away. Soap’s not enough; he needs lye and steel wool. There’s got to be a new skin under what he’s got now, something untouched.
His throat and eyes and stomach are scalded, and Mulder doesn’t feel any different. He’s hungover and blind with anger, shaking with it, because he did not ask to get fucked up. He never asked for that. His boxers don’t seem to fit anymore.
Mulder climbs into bed and covers himself up completely, his hair dampening the pillow, his face as red as everything else. He wants to sleep and sleep until it’s just the drunk and there won’t be anything else to blame. Because he just lay there and took it. He can barely remember; did he even say no?
Rich Harden wants to be gay, fine, fucking whatever. But he doesn’t get to be gay with his hand down Mulder’s pants. There are rules against that. There are, like, laws. Mulder thinks absurdly, ‘i’ve been violated.’
He can’t get to sleep, because Harden’s hand is hot and scuffed and moving cleanly, his mouth on Mulder’s shoulder and the rake of his teeth, the slide of his tongue, this fever dream that won’t go away.
Mulder will go find him, he’ll pin him against the wall and say, never again. He’ll say, pick on someone your own size. And keep your goddamn hands off of me.
But to do that, he’ll have to put his hands on Harden. No. Bad idea.
Mulder locks his hands between his knees, bangs his head on the bed a few times. It’s only been a few hours, he can tell because he’s still hungover. Sleep through until it’s deep in the past, that sounds okay. He can’t really kill Harden. They need him. Maybe he’ll move out. Christ, how can he not? How can he keep sleeping two doors down from Harden’s room? They can’t be trusted, either of them.
He stays in his room until it’s dark outside. Lying in bed replaying it sickly like the car crash he was in when he was fourteen, that time he almost died. Restless, nauseous, biting through his lower lip and getting hungrier with every hour until he’s got to get something to eat.
The house is dark and Mulder eats some cold pizza in the kitchen, worrying that in this new and impossible world, he is the only person left. But the back door is sliding open and Harden is wandering in, that motherfucking smirk on his face again, his eyes lighting up when he sees Mulder.
“Hi,” Harden says, so casually Mulder wants to scream. Mulder wants to hit him until he’s not pretty anymore.
But he just finds himself saying in astonishment, “hey.”
Harden’s smirk widens, close to a smile now, and he leans back against the wall. Mulder’s heart is pounding with the need to run away. He can’t stop looking at Harden’s mouth.
“Sleep all right?”
NO MOTHERFUCKER OF COURSE NOT.
“Um. Yeah. You?”
Mulder’s eyes growing huge, unable to believe this.
Harden shrugs, hooking a thumb in the waist of his jeans and Mulder can see him moving his knuckles lightly across the low place where his leg meets his stomach. Mulder can hardly breathe.
“Coulda been better.” And Harden smiles full, tips his head to the side. “C’mere for a second. Wanna show you something.”
Mulder’s gonna shake his head and say, no fucking way. Gonna say, get the fuck away. Gonna say, I will kill you and bury you in center field. But he ends up just following Harden to his room, struck dumb.
Harden closes the door behind Mulder and puts his hand on Mulder’s back, says curiously, “You’re, like. Shaking.”
Mulder clenches his teeth and each breath in is one more chance lost, and idiotic repetitive flipbook images are scanning behind his eyes. Harden is touching him like he’ll break and Mulder wants nothing to do with him, nothing except his mouth, his hands, this right here.
He turns to face Harden and says haltingly, “Don’t worry about it.”
Harden grins at him and pushes his hand up under Mulder’s shirt onto his stomach, and all Mulder can think is, ‘why the fuck am i not drunk?’