ain't that close to love
Within like a week of finishing Strays, the incredibly obvious occurred to me in form of the question: where the hell is Billy Beane in the hooker AU that features every other regular?
I mean, let's be real. Rentboy!Zito. Billy freakin' Beane. This is one of those things that existed tangibly in the world long before I ever got around to writing it down.
Zito/Beane, 7508 words, NC-17 by rating.
In chronological order:
prequel
this one
strays
sequel
Don't Even Have to Come Up with a Title!
By Candle Beck
Mulder picked Zito up in West Hollywood, and drove him across neighborhood lines to the Greyhound station. It was overcast in that sulky half-assed way of Southern California weather, grayish mist sky and all the cars creeping along like it was a monsoon.
"I made six hundred dollars at this spot in one day," Mulder told him.
"I will not be doing that," Zito informed him, eyes trained out the blurry windshield. Mulder snorted, that sound he made where normal people would have laughed.
"No, that's a fucking record, are you kidding." Quick sliding move through traffic, Mulder on two wheels skidding around the turn. "You're not even on the same level."
Zito nodded, not really bothered by the dismissal coating Mulder's voice. As if being a more successful whore than his pimp was such a great thing to aspire to. He picked at a loose flag of skin at the side of his thumb, set his teeth to it. He'd had the bat dream again last night, first time in weeks, but as a general rule he ignored that. Strip malls and wet palm trees out here, miserable people huddled in bus shelters, and Zito wasn't looking forward to today.
"Here," Mulder said, handing him a flat black comb. "Fix your hair, nobody wants a blowjob from a guy who looks like a junkie."
"I don't think that's true," Zito said, but he fixed his hair, pushing it flat with his palm and not thinking too much about Eric crowding him in the bathroom, happy jerking fingers destroying Zito's hair as soon as he took the comb away.
"Day laborers, see." Mulder pointed at a small clump of damp men in hoodies and baseball caps, hands pocketed as they watched for pick-up trucks full of gear to pull up at the curb. "Cops don't check this place for loiterers on accounta those guys, so it's a good turf on the other side."
"Yeah," Zito said, caring very little about the logistics of the thing. He scratched at his stomach, hungry, always at least kinda hungry these days.
Mulder pulled up around the back of the Greyhound station, pushed the car into park. He reached across to pop open the glove compartment and remove a strip of condoms that he tossed at Zito's chest. Zito folded the strip up accordian-style and tucked it in his coat pocket.
"All right, you know what you're doing?"
"Uh, yeah," Zito said, not looking at him. "Obviously."
"Don't be a smartass. I'll be back to pick you up in three hours, and you better have some fucking money for me."
Little smirk from Zito, darkly amused at how Mark was always trying to be so hardcore. Zito had never bought into it. Mulder couldn't back his shit up, switchblade in his pocket just a prop, nothing he'd ever actually use. He was no threat to Zito and not just because Zito didn't give a fuck anymore.
"Aye aye sir," Zito said, crisp salute with a bitter curl to his lip, and got out of the car. Tires squealed as Mulder roared away, always such a production with that guy.
Kinda cold out here, and Zito zipped up his coat, crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against a dry section of wall. There was nobody else around, smashed Big Gulp cups bleeding on the asphalt, pale cigarette butts scattered everywhere like scars.
Zito waited for awhile, watching the cars go by, on offer. His shoulder blades went numb where they pressed against the bus station. He was trying not to land on any specific thought, letting it all come and go without leaving an impression. A long mermaid-green car came around the corner and for a second Zito's heart stopped because his dad's car was the exact same color.
Wasn't him, of course, never was. Wasn't even a Cadillac. Zito looked at the ground, hands pinned behind him, damp weight misting into his hair.
Some more time passed.
Another car turned the corner, silvery expensive-looking sedan that Zito didn't look at twice because this wasn't Pretty Woman or some shit, and guys who drove cars like that didn't need to pay for it, but then the sedan came to an idling stop right in front of him.
Zito straightened up. The driver's window came down and revealed a man with dark falling-apart hair, wearing sunglasses like this was every other day in the southland, as if there were actual sun. Elbow out the window, long searching look, and Zito gave him half a grin, an invitation.
"Come over here," the guy said, impatience like a base level in his voice.
Zito levered himself off the wall, lowering his eyes and slinking, footsteps gritty against the ground. Buzzing sound built up in his mind, the first defense, forcible detachment. He wanted this part to be hazy, impossible to remember.
The guy in the car hesitated, and then pulled off his shades and said, "Do you recognize me?"
Squinting look, distantly registering the guy's sharp even features, dark eyebrows like punctuation, pretty good-looking all things considered, even though Zito had mostly stopped noticing shit like that (good-looking or not had ceased to be a factor a long time ago). Zito didn't recognize him at all.
"Sorry, man," Zito said. "But, uh, don't feel bad. I don't watch much TV, if you're on a show or something."
The guy blinked at him, and then barked out a strange simulacrum of a laugh, shaking his head.
"Perfect. Get in the car, huh?"
Zito took a step forward, sliding his hand along the cold slick roof of the car, fingertips weightless. He smiled his best crooked smile, cocked his hip ever so slightly.
"You gonna make it worth my while, baby?"
"Oh my god." The guy covered his face with his hand, huffing through another weird wrenched-out laugh. "Get in the goddamn car, kid."
Zito hurried around to the passenger's side, beautiful warm leather seat bundling up around him. He touched the smooth coffee-colored wood of the car interior, and shot the guy a roughly pleased grin. Moving up in the world and everything, thinking sardonically that maybe it was gonna be like Pretty Woman after all.
"You got a name?" the guy asked, and Zito had whatever you want it to be all cued up and ready to go, but he bit it back at the last second, seeing how the guy was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and staring resolutely at the road and radiating something a little too close to violent panic for Zito's taste.
"Ricky," Zito said, because it was a name he reacted to as thoughtlessly as he reacted to his own. "You?"
The guy was silent for a moment, and then like a sigh, "Billy."
That was probably a lie. Like eighty percent of the stuff tricks told him was bullshit, but Zito nodded right along. "Billy and Ricky, we sound like we should be on 'Leave It to Beaver' or some shit."
Billy snorted, cut him a brief glance before his eyes flicked back to the road. They went a few long blocks, humming awkwardness between them.
"Where're we going?" Zito asked eventually.
A jerk like a half-formed shrug, and Billy said, "I don't--where do you usually go?"
Zito studied him, watching the anxious knead of Billy's hand on the steering wheel, the hard shape of his mouth like anger.
"You've never done this before, huh?"
There was no immediate answer, and Zito nodded to himself, a bit of warmth twisting in his stomach, though his hands were still chilled and felt blue. Billy glared at the dulled scene, seedy bars and gun stores leeched of color, deserted gas stations.
"That's okay," Zito said, bending his fingers back to pop the knuckles. "I'll walk you through it."
"Oh, thanks," Billy said, rich with sarcasm and scowling fiercely. "Where the fuck are we going?"
A smile itched at Zito's mouth. "I know a place."
He directed Billy to the Hacienda Motel, shotgun blasts scarring the wall of the manager's office long since plastered over. Billy went in to get a room and Zito swiftly searched his glove compartment (William Lamar Beane, which meant nothing to Zito other than that he'd been telling the truth about his name, which shouldn't have meant anything) and the backseat of the car, where there was a battered gym-type bag full of baseball gear and one kicked-to-shit Dodgers cap, one brand new with the brim not even broken yet. Nothing interesting.
The room was the same as every other crummy by-the-hour place in this town, wallpaper peeling at the corners and scorch marks on the rug like there'd been a minor barrage of asteroids or something. Billy paced around, taking a flask out of his jacket and swallowing a mouthful big enough to make Zito wince just watching.
"Share and share alike, what do you say?" Zito asked anyway, and Billy handed the flask over. Whiskey, and good stuff too, slippery clean fire down Zito's throat, little gasp. His skin took up tingling.
"Not fucking around, are ya." Zito gave the flask back, swiped the side of his hand across his watering eyes. He blinked at Billy, waiting for his bleary lines to solidify, and showed an appropriately charming grin. "All right, man, it's your dime. What do you wanna do first?"
Billy stared at him for a long moment. Zito stared back, thumbs hooked in his pockets, waiting.
"Well," Billy said slowly. "What's on the table?"
Zito shrugged. "Most things. I mean, nothing stupid, we play safe and you can't tie me up or shit like that."
"Yeah, no worries." Billy rolled his eyes but Zito kinda figured that was just so he could look away. "And what're--I don't know about prices or anything, but I'm not looking to get fuckin' fleeced either."
Another quick shrug, a shallow grin. His dad's face flitted through his mind, and in defense Zito started replaying The Empire Strikes Back, Hoth all white and clean and far away, Eric next to him in a sleeping bag on the living room floor, singing along with the theme music.
"Full hour goes for a hundred dollars. You in a hurry or something, I'll suck you off for thirty bucks, quick fuck for fifty. But you already paid for the room, right?"
Vague disbelief rose on Billy's face, and he rubbed his palm on the leg of his pants. He wouldn't look Zito in the face, scraping glances at his body instead, his long legs in torn jeans. Zito preferred it like that anyway.
"Why don't you just-" Billy started to say, and then stopped. Complicated mix of fear and aggression on his face, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. "Come over here."
Zito half-smiled, thinking of Luke Skywalker getting smacked across the face by the Abominable Snowman, and walked slowly to him, stripping off his coat and letting it drop close to the bed. Billy's eyes widened but he didn't move, didn't flinch. Lines of steel ran under his muscles, showed up in the set of his face, the hard bridge of his shoulders.
Came too close, all the way up into Billy's space and then Zito was breathing on his cheek, angling their hips towards each other--not touching. It was important to build the suspense.
"What now?" Zito asked in a whisper, lifting his hand to rest his fingertips lightly on Billy's belt.
Billy sucked in a fast breath but still didn't move, eyes flashing and breath starting to lose its rhythm. He put his hand on Zito, touched his chest briefly and then landed solidly on his shoulder, the bare side of his neck, and Billy was thrumming, already taking it so seriously.
"Get on your knees," Billy told him hoarsely, and that was exactly what Zito would have bet his money on, if he had any money.
He went down with all possible grace considering the circumstances. The motel room carpet was gritty and uneven but far from the worst Zito'd had to deal with. Hands right to work on Billy's belt and fly, standard eager-seeming smile shot upwards, and behind Zito's eyes, Han Solo was wrestling his best friend into a steaming white-gutted Bantu carcass, and Eric Chavez was crunching unpopped kernels between his back teeth, mouth and fingers shiny with fake butter and TV light.
Billy got fully hard against Zito's tongue, slid a careless hand into his hair and tugged just to the edge of painful. Zito hummed unconcernedly, and sucked him down, deep and expert right from the start, because that was what the man had paid for. Billy made a choked awe-struck sound, and Zito glanced up to find him staring raptly down, mouth hanging open and eyes black with lust.
Zito pulled off his cock, wicked twist of tongue and his hand working slick and tight, keeping Billy right there. Billy gasped audibly, then bit his lip so hard Zito felt a faint twinge in sympathy. The hand in Zito's hair clutched, jerked like he didn't know where he wanted Zito to go next.
"This working for you, baby?" Zito asked, pitched way low and specific, well-used mouth curling.
"Jesus, don't talk," Billy said, and dragged Zito back in.
Zito went down on him slow, letting his eyelids flutter shut. Back on Hoth, a snowspeeder zipped across the frozen dawn landscape, come to rescue the heroes, and Eric was talking about that flight back to Echo Base with Luke and Han all gross and smelling like wampa guts and everybody probably hurled all over the place, and Zito was laughing really hard, his eyes scrunched shut.
Zito couldn't breathe. He took all of Beane, took him down until his nose was flush to Billy's stomach and there were tears burning in his eyes. Billy moaned and cursed, hips thrusting forward recklessly. Zito was so used to this by now, his head bobbing and his fingers pressing perfectly at the base of Billy's cock, the tight shift of his balls against Zito's palm. Fingers wrenching in his hair was Zito's only hint of warning, and then Billy was coming down his throat, hard shuddering.
Zito pulled off just in time to get the last stripe hotly across his cheek, and Billy sounded drunk, almost broken, "Oh god," and then his legs gave out and he sat down abruptly on the bed.
Sitting back on his heels, Zito swiped the back of his hand across his cheek and affixed a lazy grin. He rubbed the heel of his hand at his dick through his jeans, half-hard already because Pavlov had been right: do something long enough and it would start to stick.
"Jesus Christ," Billy said, still all stricken and amazed. His face was flushed and his eyes kept dipping down to Zito's working hand, and Zito smirked, seeing right through him.
"You're not just new at paying for it, huh?" Zito said, daring because Billy wasn't dangerous; Zito had a really good sense for the dangerous ones.
"What?" Distracted tone, and Billy curled a hand around his spent cock, looking down at it with an expression of poleaxed betrayal.
Knee-walking, Zito closed the space, slipping easily between Beane's sprawled legs. Zito wrapped a hand around Billy's calf, delivered an open-mouthed kiss low on his thigh, fine-woven fabric tasting like dry silk, no barrier at all.
"How many guys have you fucked around with in your life, Billy?" Zito asked, sweet-voiced.
Billy's hand found its way into Zito's hair again, and Zito hummed, angling so that Billy would jerk him back. Very dark look on Billy's face, spurring a heated reaction in Zito that he was surprised to recognize as genuine, unfeigned.
"Am I paying you to talk," Billy said hoarsely, missing out on the question part.
Deliberately, Zito pulled open his jeans fly and pushed a hand into his shorts, got a nice tight grip around himself and then a shiver, a blur of arousal that started in the bottom of his stomach and stretched outwards.
"Pretty good way to figure out what you like, I guess. If you can afford it." Zito layered his voice with an appropriate degree of breathlessness, watching Billy's reactions. "Wanna see how suckin' dick feels, mine'd be more'n happy to break you in."
"Shut up," Billy said. He grabbed at Zito's shirt, tugging. "Here, get this off."
Zito yanked his shirt up, and before he even got his head clear, a warm hand scraped over his collarbone and down his chest, fingers spreading out wide. There was a ridge of calluses on Billy's palm, soft dizzying sandpaper feel to it.
"I'm gonna fuck you," Billy promised him. Zito nodded, kinda lightheaded now.
"Yeah, you should definitely do that."
Pushing up with his hands braced on Beane's tense legs, Zito licked at his jaw, bearing him down onto the bed. Beane's fingers closed like vises on Zito's hips, and he craned his head back and away when Zito tried to kiss him on the mouth.
"Don't be like that," Zito murmured, stroking his fingers under Beane's shirt. "Kissing's not what makes this gay."
"Shut up, what did I tell you," and Billy rolled them suddenly, clean swing of weight and at once Zito was the one on his back, his shoulders in Billy's hands. "I order you to quit talking. For the duration."
Zito laughed, weird uncomfortable feeling jammed in his ribs because he was almost enjoying this. "Oh, we're doing orders, now? Sir yes sir."
"God, how do you not get the shit kicked out of you on a regular basis," Billy muttered, rising to his knees to strip his shirt off.
Zito ran his hands up Billy's bare sides, warm solid muscle and a few scattered bruises that looked about the size of fists.
"You're the one looks beat up, man," Zito said, pressing his fingers on a bruise and noticing with increasing urgency that Billy didn't even wince, hiss of breath through his teeth but that seemed to be a happy sound more than anything else. Zito was starting to get pretty fucking into the whole scene.
"That's not--those aren't from fighting."
"Oh yeah? What do you do, train bears or something?"
Billy shook his head and grabbed Zito's hands from where he was idly feeling him up, trying to get something started for the next act. Zito allowed Billy to pin his wrists over his head, arms falling slack. Billy looked down at him, narrow-eyed and attempting to reestablish some kind of control.
"Who the hell trains bears? You're not supposed to be talking, also."
"Yeah, how's that working out for you?" and just to be a punk Zito arched his body into Beane's, thrilling rush of skin on skin, rasp of the hair on Beane's chest and their hips locking together for a glorious moment.
"Good," Billy gasped, all shock and awe, and then shoved Zito back against the bed with frantic strength. "C'mon, quit, quit fuckin' around."
Standard grin for such a moment, and Zito tugged one hand free from Billy's grip (he wasn't even trying, it was all for show), reached over the side of the bed to get at his jacket on the floor, the strip of condoms Mulder was always so helpful in providing. Getting to the little tube of slick in his jeans pocket was more challenging, seeing as how Billy was sitting on top of him, but ultimately rewarding.
Billy wasn't saying anything, just watching with his mouth tight and starting to look desperate. Zito shot him another grin, that charming surface grin that most kids who'd survived the foster care system could affect without effort, and got his legs under him, rolled them over. A minute's work to rid them both of their shoes and pants and shorts, and then Zito straddled Billy's bare thighs, felt how Billy's stomach was trembling, his chest hitching with every other breath.
"You're doing pretty good for your first time. So far, I mean," Zito commented, and started jerking Billy off very slowly.
"Oh god, wh-what is wrong with you," Billy said, straining. His hand scratched on Zito's thigh, eyes flashing white as he visibly tried not to writhe. "Worst rentboy in the world."
Zito surprised himself with an unthinking laugh. "Yeah, say that in about five minutes and maybe I'll believe you."
He took Billy's hand on his leg and got their fingers all tangled together around Billy's cock, and then Zito pulled free. Slow smile down at Billy as he got himself ready, and Billy was panting like he'd run ten miles to get here, the long muscle in his forearm flexing as he tightened his grip around the base of his cock. Zito chased the jerky spiraling feel, shifting on his knees and closing his eyes, biting his lip.
A flash, sense memory. This position was an old favorite. The cheap slippery fabric of the motel comforter, and in Zito's head he was in the backyard tent with Eric's spaceship sleeping bag crushed under his knees, lovely black-haired bare-chested boy staring up and breathing raggedly through his mouth as Zito found a place for him inside.
Zito couldn't allow that image to linger, couldn't deal with it right now. Zito stashed Eric's face away and looked down at Billy. Billy was a better-than-average thing to look at, anyway.
Zito got them started off slow, sinking down with his thighs taut, but he coulda guessed that wasn't going to last. Billy wrapped his hands around Zito's hips, stunning reminder of the strange callus patterns on his palms and fingertips, and Zito became pliant and obliging, letting Beane guide him back and forth and up and down, grinding inside so good and rough and deep. Zito went swiftly to pieces, forgetting the where and why and who and losing himself to the rhythm, the feeding sense of it, encompassing warmth everywhere and all around.
Billy made a choked profane sound, curling a hand around Zito's dick and once, twice, three slick strokes was all it took. Crushing pleasure slammed through and Zito shouted out loud, came messily all over Billy's stomach.
"Fuck," Billy said, sounding wobbly and reverent, and thrust crazily into Zito a few more times before finishing with a sharp cry.
Immediate succession to all-out collapse, Billy limp on the bed and Zito limp on top of him. Zito's cheek was against Billy's chest for a moment, sweaty and twitching, spine arched at a weird canted angle, and then Billy shoved him over and Zito rolled onto his back on the bed, his body separating from the other man entirely.
They lay side by side for awhile, catching their breath.
The ceiling was a dingy off-white color, and as Zito's heartbeat faded out of his ears he could hear the rain clattering against the window, actual rain instead of just the promise of it, at long last. No control over his mind's drift, nothing coming into focus, floating out there with the stranded satellites and distant moons, and Zito appreciated the brief moment of peace for what it was.
Eventually Billy made a groaning sound like a jammed door coming unstuck, and got up, snatching his boxers off the floor before hobbling into the bathroom.
Zito, not much for ceremony, wiped clean with the corner of the bedspread and then shoved the whole thing off the bed. The blanket underneath was burnt orange and had a couple frayed holes where cigarette burns had been cut out. He lay back still naked, folding his arms under his head, long sigh as the rush diminished to faraway surf.
Billy came out, scowled at Zito before picking up Zito's shorts and tossing them at him. "Where do you think you are, a porn shoot?"
Smirking, Zito slid his shorts on and answered, "Just trying to make sure you get your money's worth, man."
Beane rolled his eyes and made no reply, fumbling with his pants and belt and having trouble, still kinda shaky around the hands. There was a skittery look on his face that made Zito suspect belated panic was rising like floodwaters in Billy's mind.
Blackly amused, Zito leaned back on his elbows and asked, "So how'd that compare to fucking a girl?"
"It was fine," Billy said, his face flushing dull red as he yanked his pants up. Zito smiled a mean little smile.
"Only fine? And here I was hoping I'd converted you to our team."
That caused Billy to flinch hugely for some reason, hands falling away from the hanging ends of his belt, the buckle jumping against his leg. He searched Zito with a fast digging look, and then curled his mouth in a sneer.
"Not quite, kid."
"Well, give it a day or two." Toothy hard-edged grin, and Zito continued, "You shoulda tried this out twenty years ago, man, I can't believe it took you so long."
Billy's face twisted, a mix of outrage and regular rage and a feinting doubtful thing similar to bone-deep terror, and he said harshly, "Don't talk about shit that you don't know about."
Zito snorted a laugh, unthreatened. "What, you think you're the first one that's ever paid to fuck a guy while still in the closet?"
"Jesus," and Billy's hands made a frustrated grasping shape, "I seriously don't know how you've survived this long with that fucking mouth on you."
That was an easy one, and Zito showed a lazy purposeful smile, licking his lips. "It's 'cause I also use it for things other than talking."
"Yeah," Billy said, diverted for a moment, eyes stuck to Zito's mouth before he dragged his focus back into a stony glare. "You still don't know shit. Maybe I got a really good reason for not fucking guys, you ever think of that?"
"Like what?"
Billy didn't answer at first, a muscle in his jaw working. Zito gave him more than enough time, and then made a told-you-so kinda noise. Billy's glare sharpened a few degrees further.
"Just because I'm not gonna tell you about it doesn't mean it's not a good reason," Billy said.
"Yeah sure." Zito didn't bother to put much sincerity into it, still smirking like hell. "You army boys take that 'don't ask don't tell' stuff pretty serious, don't you?"
He was just fishing, taking a blind shot at it, but the way Beane's eyes snapped back to him made Zito think he'd hit kinda close to home. Zito hummed approvingly, sweeping a glance over Beane's lean torso, the heavy muscles in his shoulders, imagining what he'd look like wearing dogtags.
"I'm not. In the army," Billy said, broken up in such an obvious way it was like he wanted Zito to know that he was lying.
"Don't worry about me," Zito said, sitting back up with his trustworthy smile firmly applied. "I'm not the blackmailing type, generally. And who the fuck could I even threaten to tell, it's not like the Pentagon would take my call."
There was a bizarre pause like a skip in the CD, and then Billy huffed out something that was pretty close to a laugh, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "Whatever," he mumbled, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
Zito's shoulders straightened, his gaze zeroing in, pinpoint focus. Battered brown leather wallet and it was over-stuffed, credit cards and more cash than anyone who didn't also carry a gun should have on him. Bright ache of want in Zito, his head suddenly crowded with grocery stores and diners and new shoes because his were wearing through.
"Hundred dollars, right?" Billy asked impersonally.
"Plus tip." Billy gave him a look, and Zito responded with his best smile, scooting forward to hook his fingers in Billy's belt and tug him closer. "I think I earned it, yeah?"
"You're lucky I didn't kick you out of the car after two minutes of your shit," Billy said, but he wasn't moving away from Zito and his voice had an interesting bendy quality to it, hands frozen on his wallet.
Zito hummed and ran his fingertips across Billy's stomach, up to one particular bruise on his chest, darkest color, diluted blue ink. From this close, Zito could make out a faint impression of baseball stitches hooking shallowly across the heart of the bruise.
"I'm only trying to help you out, Billy," Zito told him solemnly, looking up. "Seeing as how it's your first time and all."
Billy scoffed, color rising fast to his face, and he stepped away from Zito, snapping five twenties out of his wallet. Zito took the money and disappeared it inside his sock, ignoring the instantaneous and devastating flash of his dad's (Eric's dad's) face, which accompanied most of Zito's transactions of this sort. He lifted his eyebrows at Billy. "Plus tip?"
"Just get dressed," Billy said, back to orders again, like maybe he was a drill sergeant or something. Zito exhaled, dissatisfied but obliged to hide it, and stood up on rubbery legs.
It was still raining when they left the room. Zito felt sore and itchy, disarranged under his clothes, and Billy wasn't really looking at him anymore. Zito sheltered in the vending alcove while Billy returned the room key, staring at the Kit-Kats and his own tenuous reflection in the glass.
In the car, Billy asked, "How long have you been doing this?"
Zito looked over at him, knee bent against the dash. "Couple of years."
Billy nodded, staring fixedly through the steady thwap of the wipers. Zito rubbed his thumb on the leather seat, thinking that it would probably be months before he had another chance at such luxury.
"You could--I mean. There are other jobs."
Zito squinted, studied Beane for a second. His jaw was tight, his hands locked around the steering wheel, like he didn't want to be saying it but couldn't stop.
"Not for me," Zito said easily enough, casual little shrug thrown in for good measure. He could feel the nice part of this day receding behind him as tangibly as the motel in the rearview mirror. He felt like he was being taken back to Hoth.
"You're not stupid," Billy said, catching Zito completely off-guard. "You're irritating as fuck, but you're not stupid. You don't have to be doing this."
Zito pushed his hands into his armpits, hunching his shoulders and letting a resigned caustic smirk curdle his mouth. "Maybe I have a really good reason, you ever think of that?"
Billy's lip curled in sneering disbelief. "A really good reason to be peddling your ass behind the fucking Greyhound station?"
"Yeah, Billy."
"So fuckin' pray tell, kid."
"Oh sure thing, just as soon as you tell me what you do for a living," Zito fired back, feeling abruptly cornered, and he watched Billy's expression crunch into a scowl. They exchanged bad-tempered side-eyed glares, and traveled the brief rest of the way in silence.
The car pulled up in the exact same spot where they'd met, and Zito looked out the window at the melting graffiti on the side of the bus station, the all-gray world.
"Well, this was fun," Zito said without looking at Billy. "Maybe we'll do it again sometime, huh?"
Just the regular stuff, the old script, but Zito's throat hurt and he was tired of it, tired of the whole business all of a sudden, quick fucks in shitty motel rooms and blowjobs in cars he'd never be able to afford and hustling behind the fucking Greyhound bus station in the goddamn rain. It hit him all at once, much worse than the usual hateful background static. Zito curled his fingers weakly around the door handle but didn't open it. Legs probably wouldn't hold him just yet. And it looked miserable out there.
"Hey," Billy said, and put his hand on Zito's arm.
Hollywood had ruined him. Zito turned around with his heart thickly stuck in his throat, thinking maybe Billy would kiss him, touch his face and kiss him like Eric used to--it would feel exactly the same--and then take him away, drive off with Zito still in the car. And then his life would be recognizable once more, and he'd protect it this time; he wouldn't fuck it up again. No matter what.
But instead of that, Billy dropped his hand off Zito's arm once he'd turned, and pressed a crumpled mess of bills on him. "There, uh, for your tip."
One of the bills slipped free, tumbled weightlessly to the floor. Numb-fingered, Zito got all the money together and smoothed out. It counted out to thirty-three dollars in currency worn as soft and fragile as pocket lint. Overused was the word that came to mind. Zito folded the cash carefully and tucked it in his inside jacket pocket, his hand pressing briefly against his chest, where a deepening pain radiated out.
Busted radar, Zito thought in helpless distraction, but not quite that, more like some fractured piece of machinery left behind by an ancient alien race, something that hadn't worked properly for thousands of years, but no one knew how to fix it or turn it off. Deaf signaling drones grown over by jungle, shattered timepieces with just the second hands surviving, crashed spaceships in planet-sized deserts. All the worst kind of stuff.
"Thanks," Zito said quietly, covering.
Billy nodded, looking at Zito indecipherable and shadowed.
"You too," Beane said in the same secretive voice, wary but going with it. "Thanks, I mean."
"Yeah," Zito said, and then before he could think about it, he darted forward, kissed Billy hard on the mouth one time, for one second. It was good, it seemed like it could have been good.
Then Zito was pulling away, grinning recklessly, heartbroken. Billy had that stunned look on his face again, that dumb glazed look that Zito could watch all day long. Zito wanted to laugh but it was all jammed up inside him. He was going to have to get out of here.
"There you go, cross that one off the list too," Zito said to the space over Beane's shoulder, and reached behind for the door handle, stood up out of the car and into the rain.
"Bye, Billy," Zito called, not ducking to get a last look at him before slamming the car door shut, not wanting anything else that he'd have to remember.
Through the rolled-shut window and the hushing patter of the rain, Zito thought he heard Billy saying, bye ricky, but figured there was about a forty percent chance that that was all in his head. He didn't stand around watching until Billy's car vanished into the weather because it wasn't like that; that wasn't his movie.
Instead, he hurried inside the bus station before his shoes could get too water-logged. Feeling raw, his bones put in backwards, Zito stumbled past the transients and star-struck road kids sleeping curled around giant backpacks, heading for the men's room to clean his mouth out.
On the floor of the bathroom there was a teenaged junkie extravagantly passed out, arms flung to the sides as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of making snow angels. Skinny guy with short dirty blonde hair and hollow cheeks, trenches in his forearms, fine-featured face made severe by too much smack or crystal or who knew what. There was a scorched-brown patch on his thumb from a lighter's wheel, and a thin trail of dark-dried blood eking out of his nose.
Zito prodded the kid with his toe, knelt to feel under his boyishly smooth jaw for a pulse, which he found after a long while, staggery and dangerously inconstant. The kid's eyelids fluttered with whatever malevolent dreams accompanied drug overdoses, and something about the tense fighting shape of his mouth made Zito think of how he used to set things on fire when he was little and no one wanted him.
Standing back up, blood rush left Zito feeling strange, out of kilter. He thought about leaving but then he didn't. He went back out into the terminal, went to a ticket window and told the agent to call an ambulance, and then returned to the men's, wondering about his own motivations. The kid was still there, half-angel on filthy tile. Zito wet a paper towel at the sink and cleaned the blood off the kid's face, sat down beside his prone form and thought some more about how he should take off before the ambulance showed because they'd probably bring cops too, and it was like Mulder always said, run if you see them coming. Leaving was the smart thing to do, no question. It was kinda cold down there on the floor of the bus station bathroom, kinda quiet and lonely with only a nameless body for company.
It'd be an hour before Mulder came back. Zito felt the hundred dollars folded up in his sock, pushed two fingers into his jeans to check on the bruises developing on his hip, the shape of Billy's hand that a week from now would be yellow and fading into his skin, and Zito wouldn't be able to attach a name or a face to the damage done to him, not with everything blurring the way it did.
For the life of him, Zito couldn't think of a single reason why he should give a shit about some random junkie, but when the kid started shaking, he wriggled out of his coat and covered him up with it, even though Zito was only wearing a T-shirt underneath, and today it was raining in Hollywood.
THE END
From the original:
Zito had found him blacked out on the floor of a bus station bathroom ten months ago. Harden had regained consciousness with Zito’s arms around him, just as they were trying to haul him into the ambulance. Harden broke free and ran, his heart near to collapse and the walls of his mind as thin as tissue paper.
Zito had put his coat on Harden when Harden was passed out, because Harden wouldn’t stop shaking. Harden found thirty-three dollars and a strip of condoms in the pockets, a dead lighter and a blank business card with an address handwritten on the back. Later, when Harden was high and in the mood to be redeemed, he’d showed up at the address hoping he’d be able to return the coat to the tall guy who’d saved him, the guy whose face he’d never got a good look at but dreamed about sometimes.
He found Mulder instead. Mulder fucked him and then offered him a job. Harden was confused enough to say yes, and then Zito was there and Zito was all that Harden couldn’t remember, and Zito had the same job, and then it was okay.
Endnotes: This is not the first story to feature The Empire Strikes Back prominently in the narration, which I can only excuse by saying that it's a movie I can run in its entirety in my head without having to pay much attention to it, hence helpful when attempting to maintain a writerly flow. Also, dude, Empire. Decisive metaphor for all eternal conflicts of humanity!
I mean, let's be real. Rentboy!Zito. Billy freakin' Beane. This is one of those things that existed tangibly in the world long before I ever got around to writing it down.
Zito/Beane, 7508 words, NC-17 by rating.
In chronological order:
prequel
this one
strays
sequel
Don't Even Have to Come Up with a Title!
By Candle Beck
Mulder picked Zito up in West Hollywood, and drove him across neighborhood lines to the Greyhound station. It was overcast in that sulky half-assed way of Southern California weather, grayish mist sky and all the cars creeping along like it was a monsoon.
"I made six hundred dollars at this spot in one day," Mulder told him.
"I will not be doing that," Zito informed him, eyes trained out the blurry windshield. Mulder snorted, that sound he made where normal people would have laughed.
"No, that's a fucking record, are you kidding." Quick sliding move through traffic, Mulder on two wheels skidding around the turn. "You're not even on the same level."
Zito nodded, not really bothered by the dismissal coating Mulder's voice. As if being a more successful whore than his pimp was such a great thing to aspire to. He picked at a loose flag of skin at the side of his thumb, set his teeth to it. He'd had the bat dream again last night, first time in weeks, but as a general rule he ignored that. Strip malls and wet palm trees out here, miserable people huddled in bus shelters, and Zito wasn't looking forward to today.
"Here," Mulder said, handing him a flat black comb. "Fix your hair, nobody wants a blowjob from a guy who looks like a junkie."
"I don't think that's true," Zito said, but he fixed his hair, pushing it flat with his palm and not thinking too much about Eric crowding him in the bathroom, happy jerking fingers destroying Zito's hair as soon as he took the comb away.
"Day laborers, see." Mulder pointed at a small clump of damp men in hoodies and baseball caps, hands pocketed as they watched for pick-up trucks full of gear to pull up at the curb. "Cops don't check this place for loiterers on accounta those guys, so it's a good turf on the other side."
"Yeah," Zito said, caring very little about the logistics of the thing. He scratched at his stomach, hungry, always at least kinda hungry these days.
Mulder pulled up around the back of the Greyhound station, pushed the car into park. He reached across to pop open the glove compartment and remove a strip of condoms that he tossed at Zito's chest. Zito folded the strip up accordian-style and tucked it in his coat pocket.
"All right, you know what you're doing?"
"Uh, yeah," Zito said, not looking at him. "Obviously."
"Don't be a smartass. I'll be back to pick you up in three hours, and you better have some fucking money for me."
Little smirk from Zito, darkly amused at how Mark was always trying to be so hardcore. Zito had never bought into it. Mulder couldn't back his shit up, switchblade in his pocket just a prop, nothing he'd ever actually use. He was no threat to Zito and not just because Zito didn't give a fuck anymore.
"Aye aye sir," Zito said, crisp salute with a bitter curl to his lip, and got out of the car. Tires squealed as Mulder roared away, always such a production with that guy.
Kinda cold out here, and Zito zipped up his coat, crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against a dry section of wall. There was nobody else around, smashed Big Gulp cups bleeding on the asphalt, pale cigarette butts scattered everywhere like scars.
Zito waited for awhile, watching the cars go by, on offer. His shoulder blades went numb where they pressed against the bus station. He was trying not to land on any specific thought, letting it all come and go without leaving an impression. A long mermaid-green car came around the corner and for a second Zito's heart stopped because his dad's car was the exact same color.
Wasn't him, of course, never was. Wasn't even a Cadillac. Zito looked at the ground, hands pinned behind him, damp weight misting into his hair.
Some more time passed.
Another car turned the corner, silvery expensive-looking sedan that Zito didn't look at twice because this wasn't Pretty Woman or some shit, and guys who drove cars like that didn't need to pay for it, but then the sedan came to an idling stop right in front of him.
Zito straightened up. The driver's window came down and revealed a man with dark falling-apart hair, wearing sunglasses like this was every other day in the southland, as if there were actual sun. Elbow out the window, long searching look, and Zito gave him half a grin, an invitation.
"Come over here," the guy said, impatience like a base level in his voice.
Zito levered himself off the wall, lowering his eyes and slinking, footsteps gritty against the ground. Buzzing sound built up in his mind, the first defense, forcible detachment. He wanted this part to be hazy, impossible to remember.
The guy in the car hesitated, and then pulled off his shades and said, "Do you recognize me?"
Squinting look, distantly registering the guy's sharp even features, dark eyebrows like punctuation, pretty good-looking all things considered, even though Zito had mostly stopped noticing shit like that (good-looking or not had ceased to be a factor a long time ago). Zito didn't recognize him at all.
"Sorry, man," Zito said. "But, uh, don't feel bad. I don't watch much TV, if you're on a show or something."
The guy blinked at him, and then barked out a strange simulacrum of a laugh, shaking his head.
"Perfect. Get in the car, huh?"
Zito took a step forward, sliding his hand along the cold slick roof of the car, fingertips weightless. He smiled his best crooked smile, cocked his hip ever so slightly.
"You gonna make it worth my while, baby?"
"Oh my god." The guy covered his face with his hand, huffing through another weird wrenched-out laugh. "Get in the goddamn car, kid."
Zito hurried around to the passenger's side, beautiful warm leather seat bundling up around him. He touched the smooth coffee-colored wood of the car interior, and shot the guy a roughly pleased grin. Moving up in the world and everything, thinking sardonically that maybe it was gonna be like Pretty Woman after all.
"You got a name?" the guy asked, and Zito had whatever you want it to be all cued up and ready to go, but he bit it back at the last second, seeing how the guy was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and staring resolutely at the road and radiating something a little too close to violent panic for Zito's taste.
"Ricky," Zito said, because it was a name he reacted to as thoughtlessly as he reacted to his own. "You?"
The guy was silent for a moment, and then like a sigh, "Billy."
That was probably a lie. Like eighty percent of the stuff tricks told him was bullshit, but Zito nodded right along. "Billy and Ricky, we sound like we should be on 'Leave It to Beaver' or some shit."
Billy snorted, cut him a brief glance before his eyes flicked back to the road. They went a few long blocks, humming awkwardness between them.
"Where're we going?" Zito asked eventually.
A jerk like a half-formed shrug, and Billy said, "I don't--where do you usually go?"
Zito studied him, watching the anxious knead of Billy's hand on the steering wheel, the hard shape of his mouth like anger.
"You've never done this before, huh?"
There was no immediate answer, and Zito nodded to himself, a bit of warmth twisting in his stomach, though his hands were still chilled and felt blue. Billy glared at the dulled scene, seedy bars and gun stores leeched of color, deserted gas stations.
"That's okay," Zito said, bending his fingers back to pop the knuckles. "I'll walk you through it."
"Oh, thanks," Billy said, rich with sarcasm and scowling fiercely. "Where the fuck are we going?"
A smile itched at Zito's mouth. "I know a place."
He directed Billy to the Hacienda Motel, shotgun blasts scarring the wall of the manager's office long since plastered over. Billy went in to get a room and Zito swiftly searched his glove compartment (William Lamar Beane, which meant nothing to Zito other than that he'd been telling the truth about his name, which shouldn't have meant anything) and the backseat of the car, where there was a battered gym-type bag full of baseball gear and one kicked-to-shit Dodgers cap, one brand new with the brim not even broken yet. Nothing interesting.
The room was the same as every other crummy by-the-hour place in this town, wallpaper peeling at the corners and scorch marks on the rug like there'd been a minor barrage of asteroids or something. Billy paced around, taking a flask out of his jacket and swallowing a mouthful big enough to make Zito wince just watching.
"Share and share alike, what do you say?" Zito asked anyway, and Billy handed the flask over. Whiskey, and good stuff too, slippery clean fire down Zito's throat, little gasp. His skin took up tingling.
"Not fucking around, are ya." Zito gave the flask back, swiped the side of his hand across his watering eyes. He blinked at Billy, waiting for his bleary lines to solidify, and showed an appropriately charming grin. "All right, man, it's your dime. What do you wanna do first?"
Billy stared at him for a long moment. Zito stared back, thumbs hooked in his pockets, waiting.
"Well," Billy said slowly. "What's on the table?"
Zito shrugged. "Most things. I mean, nothing stupid, we play safe and you can't tie me up or shit like that."
"Yeah, no worries." Billy rolled his eyes but Zito kinda figured that was just so he could look away. "And what're--I don't know about prices or anything, but I'm not looking to get fuckin' fleeced either."
Another quick shrug, a shallow grin. His dad's face flitted through his mind, and in defense Zito started replaying The Empire Strikes Back, Hoth all white and clean and far away, Eric next to him in a sleeping bag on the living room floor, singing along with the theme music.
"Full hour goes for a hundred dollars. You in a hurry or something, I'll suck you off for thirty bucks, quick fuck for fifty. But you already paid for the room, right?"
Vague disbelief rose on Billy's face, and he rubbed his palm on the leg of his pants. He wouldn't look Zito in the face, scraping glances at his body instead, his long legs in torn jeans. Zito preferred it like that anyway.
"Why don't you just-" Billy started to say, and then stopped. Complicated mix of fear and aggression on his face, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. "Come over here."
Zito half-smiled, thinking of Luke Skywalker getting smacked across the face by the Abominable Snowman, and walked slowly to him, stripping off his coat and letting it drop close to the bed. Billy's eyes widened but he didn't move, didn't flinch. Lines of steel ran under his muscles, showed up in the set of his face, the hard bridge of his shoulders.
Came too close, all the way up into Billy's space and then Zito was breathing on his cheek, angling their hips towards each other--not touching. It was important to build the suspense.
"What now?" Zito asked in a whisper, lifting his hand to rest his fingertips lightly on Billy's belt.
Billy sucked in a fast breath but still didn't move, eyes flashing and breath starting to lose its rhythm. He put his hand on Zito, touched his chest briefly and then landed solidly on his shoulder, the bare side of his neck, and Billy was thrumming, already taking it so seriously.
"Get on your knees," Billy told him hoarsely, and that was exactly what Zito would have bet his money on, if he had any money.
He went down with all possible grace considering the circumstances. The motel room carpet was gritty and uneven but far from the worst Zito'd had to deal with. Hands right to work on Billy's belt and fly, standard eager-seeming smile shot upwards, and behind Zito's eyes, Han Solo was wrestling his best friend into a steaming white-gutted Bantu carcass, and Eric Chavez was crunching unpopped kernels between his back teeth, mouth and fingers shiny with fake butter and TV light.
Billy got fully hard against Zito's tongue, slid a careless hand into his hair and tugged just to the edge of painful. Zito hummed unconcernedly, and sucked him down, deep and expert right from the start, because that was what the man had paid for. Billy made a choked awe-struck sound, and Zito glanced up to find him staring raptly down, mouth hanging open and eyes black with lust.
Zito pulled off his cock, wicked twist of tongue and his hand working slick and tight, keeping Billy right there. Billy gasped audibly, then bit his lip so hard Zito felt a faint twinge in sympathy. The hand in Zito's hair clutched, jerked like he didn't know where he wanted Zito to go next.
"This working for you, baby?" Zito asked, pitched way low and specific, well-used mouth curling.
"Jesus, don't talk," Billy said, and dragged Zito back in.
Zito went down on him slow, letting his eyelids flutter shut. Back on Hoth, a snowspeeder zipped across the frozen dawn landscape, come to rescue the heroes, and Eric was talking about that flight back to Echo Base with Luke and Han all gross and smelling like wampa guts and everybody probably hurled all over the place, and Zito was laughing really hard, his eyes scrunched shut.
Zito couldn't breathe. He took all of Beane, took him down until his nose was flush to Billy's stomach and there were tears burning in his eyes. Billy moaned and cursed, hips thrusting forward recklessly. Zito was so used to this by now, his head bobbing and his fingers pressing perfectly at the base of Billy's cock, the tight shift of his balls against Zito's palm. Fingers wrenching in his hair was Zito's only hint of warning, and then Billy was coming down his throat, hard shuddering.
Zito pulled off just in time to get the last stripe hotly across his cheek, and Billy sounded drunk, almost broken, "Oh god," and then his legs gave out and he sat down abruptly on the bed.
Sitting back on his heels, Zito swiped the back of his hand across his cheek and affixed a lazy grin. He rubbed the heel of his hand at his dick through his jeans, half-hard already because Pavlov had been right: do something long enough and it would start to stick.
"Jesus Christ," Billy said, still all stricken and amazed. His face was flushed and his eyes kept dipping down to Zito's working hand, and Zito smirked, seeing right through him.
"You're not just new at paying for it, huh?" Zito said, daring because Billy wasn't dangerous; Zito had a really good sense for the dangerous ones.
"What?" Distracted tone, and Billy curled a hand around his spent cock, looking down at it with an expression of poleaxed betrayal.
Knee-walking, Zito closed the space, slipping easily between Beane's sprawled legs. Zito wrapped a hand around Billy's calf, delivered an open-mouthed kiss low on his thigh, fine-woven fabric tasting like dry silk, no barrier at all.
"How many guys have you fucked around with in your life, Billy?" Zito asked, sweet-voiced.
Billy's hand found its way into Zito's hair again, and Zito hummed, angling so that Billy would jerk him back. Very dark look on Billy's face, spurring a heated reaction in Zito that he was surprised to recognize as genuine, unfeigned.
"Am I paying you to talk," Billy said hoarsely, missing out on the question part.
Deliberately, Zito pulled open his jeans fly and pushed a hand into his shorts, got a nice tight grip around himself and then a shiver, a blur of arousal that started in the bottom of his stomach and stretched outwards.
"Pretty good way to figure out what you like, I guess. If you can afford it." Zito layered his voice with an appropriate degree of breathlessness, watching Billy's reactions. "Wanna see how suckin' dick feels, mine'd be more'n happy to break you in."
"Shut up," Billy said. He grabbed at Zito's shirt, tugging. "Here, get this off."
Zito yanked his shirt up, and before he even got his head clear, a warm hand scraped over his collarbone and down his chest, fingers spreading out wide. There was a ridge of calluses on Billy's palm, soft dizzying sandpaper feel to it.
"I'm gonna fuck you," Billy promised him. Zito nodded, kinda lightheaded now.
"Yeah, you should definitely do that."
Pushing up with his hands braced on Beane's tense legs, Zito licked at his jaw, bearing him down onto the bed. Beane's fingers closed like vises on Zito's hips, and he craned his head back and away when Zito tried to kiss him on the mouth.
"Don't be like that," Zito murmured, stroking his fingers under Beane's shirt. "Kissing's not what makes this gay."
"Shut up, what did I tell you," and Billy rolled them suddenly, clean swing of weight and at once Zito was the one on his back, his shoulders in Billy's hands. "I order you to quit talking. For the duration."
Zito laughed, weird uncomfortable feeling jammed in his ribs because he was almost enjoying this. "Oh, we're doing orders, now? Sir yes sir."
"God, how do you not get the shit kicked out of you on a regular basis," Billy muttered, rising to his knees to strip his shirt off.
Zito ran his hands up Billy's bare sides, warm solid muscle and a few scattered bruises that looked about the size of fists.
"You're the one looks beat up, man," Zito said, pressing his fingers on a bruise and noticing with increasing urgency that Billy didn't even wince, hiss of breath through his teeth but that seemed to be a happy sound more than anything else. Zito was starting to get pretty fucking into the whole scene.
"That's not--those aren't from fighting."
"Oh yeah? What do you do, train bears or something?"
Billy shook his head and grabbed Zito's hands from where he was idly feeling him up, trying to get something started for the next act. Zito allowed Billy to pin his wrists over his head, arms falling slack. Billy looked down at him, narrow-eyed and attempting to reestablish some kind of control.
"Who the hell trains bears? You're not supposed to be talking, also."
"Yeah, how's that working out for you?" and just to be a punk Zito arched his body into Beane's, thrilling rush of skin on skin, rasp of the hair on Beane's chest and their hips locking together for a glorious moment.
"Good," Billy gasped, all shock and awe, and then shoved Zito back against the bed with frantic strength. "C'mon, quit, quit fuckin' around."
Standard grin for such a moment, and Zito tugged one hand free from Billy's grip (he wasn't even trying, it was all for show), reached over the side of the bed to get at his jacket on the floor, the strip of condoms Mulder was always so helpful in providing. Getting to the little tube of slick in his jeans pocket was more challenging, seeing as how Billy was sitting on top of him, but ultimately rewarding.
Billy wasn't saying anything, just watching with his mouth tight and starting to look desperate. Zito shot him another grin, that charming surface grin that most kids who'd survived the foster care system could affect without effort, and got his legs under him, rolled them over. A minute's work to rid them both of their shoes and pants and shorts, and then Zito straddled Billy's bare thighs, felt how Billy's stomach was trembling, his chest hitching with every other breath.
"You're doing pretty good for your first time. So far, I mean," Zito commented, and started jerking Billy off very slowly.
"Oh god, wh-what is wrong with you," Billy said, straining. His hand scratched on Zito's thigh, eyes flashing white as he visibly tried not to writhe. "Worst rentboy in the world."
Zito surprised himself with an unthinking laugh. "Yeah, say that in about five minutes and maybe I'll believe you."
He took Billy's hand on his leg and got their fingers all tangled together around Billy's cock, and then Zito pulled free. Slow smile down at Billy as he got himself ready, and Billy was panting like he'd run ten miles to get here, the long muscle in his forearm flexing as he tightened his grip around the base of his cock. Zito chased the jerky spiraling feel, shifting on his knees and closing his eyes, biting his lip.
A flash, sense memory. This position was an old favorite. The cheap slippery fabric of the motel comforter, and in Zito's head he was in the backyard tent with Eric's spaceship sleeping bag crushed under his knees, lovely black-haired bare-chested boy staring up and breathing raggedly through his mouth as Zito found a place for him inside.
Zito couldn't allow that image to linger, couldn't deal with it right now. Zito stashed Eric's face away and looked down at Billy. Billy was a better-than-average thing to look at, anyway.
Zito got them started off slow, sinking down with his thighs taut, but he coulda guessed that wasn't going to last. Billy wrapped his hands around Zito's hips, stunning reminder of the strange callus patterns on his palms and fingertips, and Zito became pliant and obliging, letting Beane guide him back and forth and up and down, grinding inside so good and rough and deep. Zito went swiftly to pieces, forgetting the where and why and who and losing himself to the rhythm, the feeding sense of it, encompassing warmth everywhere and all around.
Billy made a choked profane sound, curling a hand around Zito's dick and once, twice, three slick strokes was all it took. Crushing pleasure slammed through and Zito shouted out loud, came messily all over Billy's stomach.
"Fuck," Billy said, sounding wobbly and reverent, and thrust crazily into Zito a few more times before finishing with a sharp cry.
Immediate succession to all-out collapse, Billy limp on the bed and Zito limp on top of him. Zito's cheek was against Billy's chest for a moment, sweaty and twitching, spine arched at a weird canted angle, and then Billy shoved him over and Zito rolled onto his back on the bed, his body separating from the other man entirely.
They lay side by side for awhile, catching their breath.
The ceiling was a dingy off-white color, and as Zito's heartbeat faded out of his ears he could hear the rain clattering against the window, actual rain instead of just the promise of it, at long last. No control over his mind's drift, nothing coming into focus, floating out there with the stranded satellites and distant moons, and Zito appreciated the brief moment of peace for what it was.
Eventually Billy made a groaning sound like a jammed door coming unstuck, and got up, snatching his boxers off the floor before hobbling into the bathroom.
Zito, not much for ceremony, wiped clean with the corner of the bedspread and then shoved the whole thing off the bed. The blanket underneath was burnt orange and had a couple frayed holes where cigarette burns had been cut out. He lay back still naked, folding his arms under his head, long sigh as the rush diminished to faraway surf.
Billy came out, scowled at Zito before picking up Zito's shorts and tossing them at him. "Where do you think you are, a porn shoot?"
Smirking, Zito slid his shorts on and answered, "Just trying to make sure you get your money's worth, man."
Beane rolled his eyes and made no reply, fumbling with his pants and belt and having trouble, still kinda shaky around the hands. There was a skittery look on his face that made Zito suspect belated panic was rising like floodwaters in Billy's mind.
Blackly amused, Zito leaned back on his elbows and asked, "So how'd that compare to fucking a girl?"
"It was fine," Billy said, his face flushing dull red as he yanked his pants up. Zito smiled a mean little smile.
"Only fine? And here I was hoping I'd converted you to our team."
That caused Billy to flinch hugely for some reason, hands falling away from the hanging ends of his belt, the buckle jumping against his leg. He searched Zito with a fast digging look, and then curled his mouth in a sneer.
"Not quite, kid."
"Well, give it a day or two." Toothy hard-edged grin, and Zito continued, "You shoulda tried this out twenty years ago, man, I can't believe it took you so long."
Billy's face twisted, a mix of outrage and regular rage and a feinting doubtful thing similar to bone-deep terror, and he said harshly, "Don't talk about shit that you don't know about."
Zito snorted a laugh, unthreatened. "What, you think you're the first one that's ever paid to fuck a guy while still in the closet?"
"Jesus," and Billy's hands made a frustrated grasping shape, "I seriously don't know how you've survived this long with that fucking mouth on you."
That was an easy one, and Zito showed a lazy purposeful smile, licking his lips. "It's 'cause I also use it for things other than talking."
"Yeah," Billy said, diverted for a moment, eyes stuck to Zito's mouth before he dragged his focus back into a stony glare. "You still don't know shit. Maybe I got a really good reason for not fucking guys, you ever think of that?"
"Like what?"
Billy didn't answer at first, a muscle in his jaw working. Zito gave him more than enough time, and then made a told-you-so kinda noise. Billy's glare sharpened a few degrees further.
"Just because I'm not gonna tell you about it doesn't mean it's not a good reason," Billy said.
"Yeah sure." Zito didn't bother to put much sincerity into it, still smirking like hell. "You army boys take that 'don't ask don't tell' stuff pretty serious, don't you?"
He was just fishing, taking a blind shot at it, but the way Beane's eyes snapped back to him made Zito think he'd hit kinda close to home. Zito hummed approvingly, sweeping a glance over Beane's lean torso, the heavy muscles in his shoulders, imagining what he'd look like wearing dogtags.
"I'm not. In the army," Billy said, broken up in such an obvious way it was like he wanted Zito to know that he was lying.
"Don't worry about me," Zito said, sitting back up with his trustworthy smile firmly applied. "I'm not the blackmailing type, generally. And who the fuck could I even threaten to tell, it's not like the Pentagon would take my call."
There was a bizarre pause like a skip in the CD, and then Billy huffed out something that was pretty close to a laugh, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "Whatever," he mumbled, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
Zito's shoulders straightened, his gaze zeroing in, pinpoint focus. Battered brown leather wallet and it was over-stuffed, credit cards and more cash than anyone who didn't also carry a gun should have on him. Bright ache of want in Zito, his head suddenly crowded with grocery stores and diners and new shoes because his were wearing through.
"Hundred dollars, right?" Billy asked impersonally.
"Plus tip." Billy gave him a look, and Zito responded with his best smile, scooting forward to hook his fingers in Billy's belt and tug him closer. "I think I earned it, yeah?"
"You're lucky I didn't kick you out of the car after two minutes of your shit," Billy said, but he wasn't moving away from Zito and his voice had an interesting bendy quality to it, hands frozen on his wallet.
Zito hummed and ran his fingertips across Billy's stomach, up to one particular bruise on his chest, darkest color, diluted blue ink. From this close, Zito could make out a faint impression of baseball stitches hooking shallowly across the heart of the bruise.
"I'm only trying to help you out, Billy," Zito told him solemnly, looking up. "Seeing as how it's your first time and all."
Billy scoffed, color rising fast to his face, and he stepped away from Zito, snapping five twenties out of his wallet. Zito took the money and disappeared it inside his sock, ignoring the instantaneous and devastating flash of his dad's (Eric's dad's) face, which accompanied most of Zito's transactions of this sort. He lifted his eyebrows at Billy. "Plus tip?"
"Just get dressed," Billy said, back to orders again, like maybe he was a drill sergeant or something. Zito exhaled, dissatisfied but obliged to hide it, and stood up on rubbery legs.
It was still raining when they left the room. Zito felt sore and itchy, disarranged under his clothes, and Billy wasn't really looking at him anymore. Zito sheltered in the vending alcove while Billy returned the room key, staring at the Kit-Kats and his own tenuous reflection in the glass.
In the car, Billy asked, "How long have you been doing this?"
Zito looked over at him, knee bent against the dash. "Couple of years."
Billy nodded, staring fixedly through the steady thwap of the wipers. Zito rubbed his thumb on the leather seat, thinking that it would probably be months before he had another chance at such luxury.
"You could--I mean. There are other jobs."
Zito squinted, studied Beane for a second. His jaw was tight, his hands locked around the steering wheel, like he didn't want to be saying it but couldn't stop.
"Not for me," Zito said easily enough, casual little shrug thrown in for good measure. He could feel the nice part of this day receding behind him as tangibly as the motel in the rearview mirror. He felt like he was being taken back to Hoth.
"You're not stupid," Billy said, catching Zito completely off-guard. "You're irritating as fuck, but you're not stupid. You don't have to be doing this."
Zito pushed his hands into his armpits, hunching his shoulders and letting a resigned caustic smirk curdle his mouth. "Maybe I have a really good reason, you ever think of that?"
Billy's lip curled in sneering disbelief. "A really good reason to be peddling your ass behind the fucking Greyhound station?"
"Yeah, Billy."
"So fuckin' pray tell, kid."
"Oh sure thing, just as soon as you tell me what you do for a living," Zito fired back, feeling abruptly cornered, and he watched Billy's expression crunch into a scowl. They exchanged bad-tempered side-eyed glares, and traveled the brief rest of the way in silence.
The car pulled up in the exact same spot where they'd met, and Zito looked out the window at the melting graffiti on the side of the bus station, the all-gray world.
"Well, this was fun," Zito said without looking at Billy. "Maybe we'll do it again sometime, huh?"
Just the regular stuff, the old script, but Zito's throat hurt and he was tired of it, tired of the whole business all of a sudden, quick fucks in shitty motel rooms and blowjobs in cars he'd never be able to afford and hustling behind the fucking Greyhound bus station in the goddamn rain. It hit him all at once, much worse than the usual hateful background static. Zito curled his fingers weakly around the door handle but didn't open it. Legs probably wouldn't hold him just yet. And it looked miserable out there.
"Hey," Billy said, and put his hand on Zito's arm.
Hollywood had ruined him. Zito turned around with his heart thickly stuck in his throat, thinking maybe Billy would kiss him, touch his face and kiss him like Eric used to--it would feel exactly the same--and then take him away, drive off with Zito still in the car. And then his life would be recognizable once more, and he'd protect it this time; he wouldn't fuck it up again. No matter what.
But instead of that, Billy dropped his hand off Zito's arm once he'd turned, and pressed a crumpled mess of bills on him. "There, uh, for your tip."
One of the bills slipped free, tumbled weightlessly to the floor. Numb-fingered, Zito got all the money together and smoothed out. It counted out to thirty-three dollars in currency worn as soft and fragile as pocket lint. Overused was the word that came to mind. Zito folded the cash carefully and tucked it in his inside jacket pocket, his hand pressing briefly against his chest, where a deepening pain radiated out.
Busted radar, Zito thought in helpless distraction, but not quite that, more like some fractured piece of machinery left behind by an ancient alien race, something that hadn't worked properly for thousands of years, but no one knew how to fix it or turn it off. Deaf signaling drones grown over by jungle, shattered timepieces with just the second hands surviving, crashed spaceships in planet-sized deserts. All the worst kind of stuff.
"Thanks," Zito said quietly, covering.
Billy nodded, looking at Zito indecipherable and shadowed.
"You too," Beane said in the same secretive voice, wary but going with it. "Thanks, I mean."
"Yeah," Zito said, and then before he could think about it, he darted forward, kissed Billy hard on the mouth one time, for one second. It was good, it seemed like it could have been good.
Then Zito was pulling away, grinning recklessly, heartbroken. Billy had that stunned look on his face again, that dumb glazed look that Zito could watch all day long. Zito wanted to laugh but it was all jammed up inside him. He was going to have to get out of here.
"There you go, cross that one off the list too," Zito said to the space over Beane's shoulder, and reached behind for the door handle, stood up out of the car and into the rain.
"Bye, Billy," Zito called, not ducking to get a last look at him before slamming the car door shut, not wanting anything else that he'd have to remember.
Through the rolled-shut window and the hushing patter of the rain, Zito thought he heard Billy saying, bye ricky, but figured there was about a forty percent chance that that was all in his head. He didn't stand around watching until Billy's car vanished into the weather because it wasn't like that; that wasn't his movie.
Instead, he hurried inside the bus station before his shoes could get too water-logged. Feeling raw, his bones put in backwards, Zito stumbled past the transients and star-struck road kids sleeping curled around giant backpacks, heading for the men's room to clean his mouth out.
On the floor of the bathroom there was a teenaged junkie extravagantly passed out, arms flung to the sides as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of making snow angels. Skinny guy with short dirty blonde hair and hollow cheeks, trenches in his forearms, fine-featured face made severe by too much smack or crystal or who knew what. There was a scorched-brown patch on his thumb from a lighter's wheel, and a thin trail of dark-dried blood eking out of his nose.
Zito prodded the kid with his toe, knelt to feel under his boyishly smooth jaw for a pulse, which he found after a long while, staggery and dangerously inconstant. The kid's eyelids fluttered with whatever malevolent dreams accompanied drug overdoses, and something about the tense fighting shape of his mouth made Zito think of how he used to set things on fire when he was little and no one wanted him.
Standing back up, blood rush left Zito feeling strange, out of kilter. He thought about leaving but then he didn't. He went back out into the terminal, went to a ticket window and told the agent to call an ambulance, and then returned to the men's, wondering about his own motivations. The kid was still there, half-angel on filthy tile. Zito wet a paper towel at the sink and cleaned the blood off the kid's face, sat down beside his prone form and thought some more about how he should take off before the ambulance showed because they'd probably bring cops too, and it was like Mulder always said, run if you see them coming. Leaving was the smart thing to do, no question. It was kinda cold down there on the floor of the bus station bathroom, kinda quiet and lonely with only a nameless body for company.
It'd be an hour before Mulder came back. Zito felt the hundred dollars folded up in his sock, pushed two fingers into his jeans to check on the bruises developing on his hip, the shape of Billy's hand that a week from now would be yellow and fading into his skin, and Zito wouldn't be able to attach a name or a face to the damage done to him, not with everything blurring the way it did.
For the life of him, Zito couldn't think of a single reason why he should give a shit about some random junkie, but when the kid started shaking, he wriggled out of his coat and covered him up with it, even though Zito was only wearing a T-shirt underneath, and today it was raining in Hollywood.
THE END
From the original:
Zito had found him blacked out on the floor of a bus station bathroom ten months ago. Harden had regained consciousness with Zito’s arms around him, just as they were trying to haul him into the ambulance. Harden broke free and ran, his heart near to collapse and the walls of his mind as thin as tissue paper.
Zito had put his coat on Harden when Harden was passed out, because Harden wouldn’t stop shaking. Harden found thirty-three dollars and a strip of condoms in the pockets, a dead lighter and a blank business card with an address handwritten on the back. Later, when Harden was high and in the mood to be redeemed, he’d showed up at the address hoping he’d be able to return the coat to the tall guy who’d saved him, the guy whose face he’d never got a good look at but dreamed about sometimes.
He found Mulder instead. Mulder fucked him and then offered him a job. Harden was confused enough to say yes, and then Zito was there and Zito was all that Harden couldn’t remember, and Zito had the same job, and then it was okay.
Endnotes: This is not the first story to feature The Empire Strikes Back prominently in the narration, which I can only excuse by saying that it's a movie I can run in its entirety in my head without having to pay much attention to it, hence helpful when attempting to maintain a writerly flow. Also, dude, Empire. Decisive metaphor for all eternal conflicts of humanity!