in this house we obey the laws of thermal dynamics!

[candle_beck]

first attempt at second person narration. there was a sequel to this too, mainly that picked up three months later, with chavvy being as fucked up as a dude can get and mulder being the consummate asshole we all know and love, but i could never really get teh thing to sit still. anyway. i like this story. not as much as when i first finished it, but a good deal.

Wreck Your Life
By Candle Beck

Play.

Just play.

Dirt in your palm, rough, grating. Your glove clenched
between your knees as you swipe your hands together, coating them in
clean brown, the sweat countered by the dry. Crack your knuckles and
slide your glove back on, clap it open and shut a few times, tug down
your wristband. Pull your cap down low over your eyes. Squint.

Play.

Down, legs bent, loose, the balls of your feet, your glove
swinging, sweeping the ground, glove down, glove down, the first
thing they teach you. Cap brim low enough that the world is chopped
off below the first overhang of the stands, a flat wide perspective,
the plate and the first base line running off, the third base line
arrowing a few feet from you, the dugout in the right corner of your
eye, the mound in the left.

But you're not looking at the mound.

But you have to look at the mound.

You have to look at him.

No, no you don't, you can look at Hernandez, you can see the
signs, you can see what pitches are coming, you don't have to look at
him.

But you need to see if he hangs up his slider, if he misses
with his split-finger, you need to see if the ball is cutting up or
diving inside out of his hand, you need to see his arm in motion, you
need to see where he's got his foot on the rubber, what side he's dug
in on. You need to look at him.

Thank God he's a lefty, he's faced away from you, thank God
you're not a first baseman. You don't want to see his eyes, you're
pretty sure you wouldn't be able to take that.

Here, a fastball, high and tight, inches from the batter's
nose, he's always trying to scare someone off. He's scared you off.
Batter in the dirt, spun around, getting to his feet, glaring at
him. Peterson yelling from the dugout, doesn't like him throwing
away pitches on brush-backs.

He turns out of his motion, faces the dugout, scowling,
doesn't like Peterson interrupting. He's facing you, half facing
you, his profile, his hard perfect profile, the rounded shadow of his
cap brim sloping across his cheek. Look down at the ground, look at
the dirt, the even manicured edge of the grass. Don't look at him.
He's not looking at you.

He gets the ball back from Hernandez, snaps it out of the
air, he is quick, his movements sharp. Fast hands, you remember,
slamming you against the wall.

No.

Play.

Just play.

He is leaned in, his glove resting on his hip, his pitching
arm swinging free, he is letting the blood run down, just enough to
burr in his muscles. He shakes his fingers, bending them in and out,
he nods at the sign, straightens.

The batter, watch the batter. The bat off his shoulder,
angled forward to catch up with the fastball. If he makes contact,
it will be your side of the diamond, you and Miggy. Check on Miggy,
does he see this? Of course he sees this. Miggy's down in his
crouch, and you always get nervous watching him all the way down like
a catcher, afraid he won't get up in time, afraid he'll lose his
balance standing, have to fall back on his hand, the ball rocketing
past him as he struggles to get to his feet. But he's always up in
time, he is an MVP, though you have more Gold Gloves than him.

His motion, swift, the fierce cut of his arm, it is the
split-finger, falling off the table, snapping down, the batter can't
catch up, the ball was a strike ten feet from the plate but ended up
in the dirt, a beautiful pitch.

You should talk, you should chatter. They expect this of
you, a steady ramble of encouragement, c'mon babe right in there two
more let's go blow him away one down there you go. Can't say that
now, can't open your mouth, can't do a goddamned thing but play.

Wait on it, wait for him to get set and back into his wind-
up, wait for the flash of the pitch, the batter swinging again, he is
way ahead of it, the crack of contact, you are moving to your right
before the ball hits the bat, guarding the line, your feet drawing
you over without you thinking, and this, yes, this is what you want,
this is the game without thought, you don't want to think, you are
moving over, your toe brushing the top of the bag, your arm is out,
your shoulder turned, you are judging distance, the streak of the
ball, you don't know how you can see it, it is moving so fast, you
don't know how but you can, the third base coach jumping out of the
way, the ball is low and sinking, a line drive but foul of the line,
and you are there, the ball is slamming into your mitt, stinging
through the leather, a neat backhand catch, a couple of yards into
foul territory, you have it.

A buzz of applause from the stands and cheers at the catch,
your teammates in the dugout calling attaboy, attaboy, and you grin
at them, because you don't want to turn back, don't want to go back
to your position, don't want to toss the ball to him, because you
will have to look at him to do that.

Nothing for it. Turn back, step over the line, never on the
line, a superstition as rampant in the game as not talking to a
pitcher hurling a no-hitter, shying away.

Turn back. Raise your eyes. Oh. He is the only thing you
can see, his glove raised expectantly for your throw, his mouth hard
and tight, his eyes shaded, and he is the only thing you can see.
He's looking at you like you just cost him an unearned run, rather
than like you just got the second out of the inning.

He lifts his chin and the sunlight catches him full in the
face, this face you know so well, your housemate, your teammate, your
friend, the stark smooth lines, his perfect face, his eyes like the
shadows at dusk, his eyes that you have known laughing and furious
and devastated and ecstatic and black with desire and never crying,
because he does not cry.

Oh, you cannot breathe, you are falling, you have to throw
the ball, no, you can't, there's no way. Not here, not here, not on
the field, in front of twenty thousand people and your teammates and
your friends, please please please not here.

Your arm up, numb, throwing the ball, you have done this a
million times before, you don't need to think about it, there's
nothing you know how to do better than throw a baseball, you have
been doing this your whole life, your first memory is when you were
three years old, tossing a foam ball to your dad, your dad smiling,
laughing, what would your dad think if he could see you now?

He catches your throw and glares at you for a moment longer,
and you want to tell him not to glare at you on the field, after you
have made a good play, gotten a tough out, you want to tell him
everyone will be able to see through him if he glares at you when he
should be grinning, but of course no one ever sees through him, you
are the transparent one, you are crystal, fragile and invisible.

Did he see through you? Is that what started this? Did he
see something in you that you did not see in yourself? Did your eyes
give you away when you looked him, your near-black eyes, did he see
you watching him in the locker room, did he see the terrible light in
your face when you were standing close, did he see all the things you
didn't know you were doing, all the things you didn't know you
wanted? Is that why he pinned you against the wall, fastening his
warm mouth to yours-

No.

Play.

Just play.

The sun is in your eyes, and you welcome it, it blinds you.
But, no, you can't be blind, there is one more out to get before you
can go back to hiding in the cool shade of the dugout, before you can
sit next to Zito and pull Ellis down on the other side of you so that
there will be nowhere for him to sit, not that he would want to sit
next to you anyway. You are thinking about whether to tease Ellis
for the mismatched socks he wore to the ballpark or to tease Zito for
the pink, perfumed letter that some fan sent to him in care of the
Coliseum, which one of the mail kids with a sense of humor decided to
present to Zito in the clubhouse, where everyone could see and
immediately start mocking him. You raise your hand up to shade your
eyes and you are thinking `one more out, one more.'

You are not thinking about him.

A shift is on for the left-handed batter, and you are feeling
out of place almost playing Miggy's position as the shortstop stands
behind second base. You were a shortstop for awhile in the minors,
but your arm was too good, the first baseman kept complaining about
how hard you threw. You don't know how to throw any other way than
hard. Like him.

You wanted to be a pitcher, way back when, because your best
friend in high school was a pitcher, and he got all the girls. You
told this to a mutual friend, a girl you had a sort-of crush on, that
you wanted to be a pitcher so you could get more girls, like Danny
did. The girl blinked at you and then laughed, and told you, "Danny
doesn't get more girls because he's a pitcher, Eric, he gets more
girls because he's better-looking than you are." That had made you
feel better, although you don't know why.

He works to a full count, battling back from two-and-oh.
Slider down and away, slider down and away, the batter not biting,
then a fastball just on the inside corner of the plate, called strike
one, then the change Zito has been teaching him, the batter's swing
way ahead and whiffing through the air, then a splitter, the batter
doesn't take a cut though you can tell he wants to, the bat jerking
off his shoulder, and a good thing, because the ball ends up in the
dust again, Hernandez on his knees to stop it, and he is one strike
away.

Scuff. Dust on your spikes, on your socks. Dirt on your
chest, smearing across the fine stitching of "Athletics" in scrolled
green and yellow letters, and you always forget about the dirt on
your hands when you scoop off your hat and run your hand through your
hair. Every game, your hair is stiff and spiky, streaked with brown,
matted by your cap. His hands in your hair, pulling your head
forward, his hands clenching in your hair, his strong hands with long
fingers, pitcher's calluses, his hands stroking down your neck, and
no, no. No.

He is set, he is moving. Your eyes flickering, him, the
batter, the bat, the batter's feet, tilted just towards you, his arm,
straight over the top, fastball, straight down the pipe, too fast to
see, it is a home run pitch if the batter could get around on it,
even if he could only get a sliver of wood on it, the ball will be in
the bleachers, carried by the force of the speed it was thrown with,
but the batter can do nothing with it, no one short of Barry Bonds
has a quick enough swing to catch up with a pitch like that, and
Barry Bonds does not play in your league, and there are another three
weeks before interleague play starts.

It's over, the outfielders jogging in, Hernandez tossing the
ball towards the mound, he is coming off the mound with his head
down, and you will not look at him, you will not.

You are not moving. You realize this and force yourself into
action, but because you are slow, you are falling in pace with him,
you are both at the mouth of the dugout at the same moment, the short
skinny flight of concrete stairs, and a week ago you would not have
thought twice about jostling your shoulder against his as you both
squeezed down into the dugout, you would not have thought twice about
having the length of his arm running muscle-for-muscle down the
length of yours, you would not have thought twice about his hand
maybe brushing your leg in the shuffle.

You stop dead, letting him go before you, and he takes the
first step down, then pauses, looking over his shoulder at you, no,
please don't, please.

He is looking at you, his eyes furious and dark, his mouth
twisted, and you think he will say something cruel, you think he will
cut you down and you will fall, you will not be able to stand it.
But then there is the duck of his throat swallowing and something
broken whisking across his face, and he turns, his head down, and he
is down in the clubhouse, he has disappeared, and you are still
standing at the mouth of the dugout until Miggy reaches out and grabs
your arm, pulling you down, saying, "Le necesitamos aqui," and it
takes you too long to translate that, and when you do, you know that
it's not true.

* * *

You didn't mean for it to happen.

This is what you believe, what you have to believe.

It was a good night after a good game, and you were laughing
a lot, the two of you, you were laughing at the bar with the guys,
you were making fun of him because you had overheard him on the phone
that afternoon, telling his mom that he had hit a home run in batting
practice, you were making fun of him because he's got a swing like a
rusty gate and couldn't hit a home run off a tee if the walls were
moved in two hundred feet. You were making fun of him, but in the
shorthand way of talking that the two of you have developed since you
started living together, the cut-off words, the code, and none of the
other guys could understand, they looked at the both of you like
you'd gone crazy, which maybe you had, and he was laughing so hard he
couldn't breathe, his face bright red, his hand clinging to the wood
edge of the table, and you somehow warned him against getting
splinters in his pitching hand in only about three words, and he put
his head down on the table and laughed even harder, and you laughed
even harder, gasping, hiccupping, and you tipped over, out of your
chair, your shoulder slamming against the floor, and you had not
fallen down laughing since you were thirteen years old, and Hudson
picked you up, his hands hooked under your arms, and Hudson told you
that you were too drunk, because Hudson was the responsible sort, and
a better husband than you ever were, and somehow you and him were
dragged out of there and put in a cab and sent home, your teammates
thinking you're both nuts, and maybe you were, maybe you were.

Back at your place, it was stark black in the hills and you
watched the late rerun of SportsCenter with him and kept drinking
even though you were already pretty drunk.

And he was warm next to you on the couch, something you
noticed in an abstract, blurry sort of way, you were buzzing and he
was warm next to you, his knee nudging yours, his arm tossed up along
the back of the couch, and it occurred to you, happy and drunk, how
much you liked living with him, how cool it was, how cool you both
were. Your self-esteem always got knocked up a couple of notches
when you were hammered.

You might have said something to him about this, about how
much you liked hanging out with him and watching SportsCenter at
three in the morning, you might have even said something about how
you didn't think you would have gotten through a lot of stuff without
him.

It wasn't a broken heart you suffered in the divorce, it was
a total absence of heart, it was this emptiness inside you, this
sneaking suspicion that you weren't a good man at all, that you were
cold and destructive and worthless and couldn't be trusted, because
all you ever did was ruin things. You knew that he had seen that in
you sometimes, the clawing panic and despair in your eyes, but he
never brought it up, he was just always there, letting you move in
when you were tired of being alone, staying up with you when you
couldn't sleep, keeping you distracted with poker and videogames, a
steady stream of conversation from him even when you were too
exhausted to answer, and he would look at you straightforward,
honest, arrogant in his certainty of you, as he was arrogant in
everything, and you knew he was incapable of pity, incapable of
compassion, which was exactly what you needed, because he wouldn't
waste his time with you if he didn't want to, he wouldn't hang out
with you out of some misguided sense of altruism, he only ever did
things for himself, so you knew that he must see something in you
that made you worth his presence, worth his attention, and you began
to believe that look on his face, you began to recover.

Possibly he answered your rambling, near-incoherent
confession of affection for him, possibly he didn't, you couldn't
remember.

It wasn't until after SportsCenter was over, and there was
one of those strange breaks, the television going black and silent, a
hole between the end of the show and the start of the next, the kind
of thing that always seemed to happen in the small hours of the
morning, a still moment of anticipation, during which you had always
imagined the guy responsible for switching the feed to the new show
asleep on the job, kicked back in a chair in a quiet TV station
somewhere out in America.

The silence fell heavy after the blare of ESPN's theme music,
and it hit you hard how motionless and empty the night was, how far
out your house was, tucked in the hills, everyone around you for
miles deeply asleep, until it felt like the entire world had been
hollowed out, and it was just you and him.

You got up to take some of the empties into the kitchen, and
when you turned to head back out, he was standing in the doorway, and
it was all shadows, the flicker of the television drafting idly
across the wall behind him, and you could make out his form in the
darkness, your eyes adjusting, his features coming into focus.

You tipped your head at him, wondering what he was doing just
standing there, and he looked down, his eyebrows pulling in, and he
stepped back, into the hallway.

You followed him, and the two of you stood there, facing each
other, and you thought distractedly, `Something's gonna happen.'

He wasn't looking at you, staring at his feet, and you
reached out and poked his shoulder, trying to snap him out of this
strange trance. He lifted his eyes and you grinned at him, and it
was three in the morning, and you and he were the last two people on
earth.

He swallowed and said with his voice rough, "You got . . .
your eyes . . ."

You lifted your hand and rubbed your eyes, thinking he meant
there was something wrong with them, but he shook his head and your
hand fell. He cleared his throat. "They're just . . . they're so
dark. I don't think I've ever seen anything so dark."

And you blinked. And you lost your breath.

And then he was reaching out, his hands on your shoulders,
and then he was pinning you against the wall, and you were scared,
you were ripped with panic all of a sudden, because he was stronger
than you, he was taller and his hands were bigger, and you could feel
his power, and he pinned you against the wall, slammed you against
the wall, the thin plaster shaking as your back collided with it, and
he pressed you down hard and then he was kissing you, he was searing
his mouth to yours, and his mouth did more to keep you in place than
his hands ever could, because you couldn't break away from him, you
couldn't pull away, you didn't want to, not ever, and his mouth was
hot and sure and when he parted your lips with his tongue you let
him, and he tasted like Coke and sunlight, and his hands were
shifting to cup your face, his thumbs sweeping along your cheekbones,
and you were thinking, `yes yes yes.'

When he drew away, you were both gasping, and you saw the
shocked look cross his face, the stunned dismay at what he'd done,
and he was already apologizing, he was begging your forgiveness when
you grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down to
yours again, and his arms were looping around your waist and lifting
you, and your bodies were pressed together, this shudder of heat,
this shaking impossible thing happening in the hallway of your house,
and you were half-dragged, half-carried to his bedroom, crashing into
the doorway because neither of you were watching where you were
going, and you toppled to the floor in this mess of arms and legs and
then you were laughing again, you were laughing and you couldn't
breathe and he was all around you, he was everywhere, his brilliant
hands dashing across your body, and you tilted your head back on the
carpet and laughed and laughed and laughed.

And you didn't mean for it to happen.

Neither did he, of course, there was no way that he expected
the night to end with the two of you on the floor of his room,
learning all the tastes of each other's body and leaving marks that
you would get teased about in the locker room the next day.

He kept half-mumbling your name, his mouth on your neck and
your chest and your stomach, saying, "Chavez, fuck, fuck. God.
Chavez, Christ," and you loved feeling the fall of his breath saying
your name on your skin, and then he caught your eyes and maybe he
blushed, too dark to tell, and said, "Um, I mean . . . Eric?" And
that was possibly funnier than anything that had happened so far, his
assumption that you would want him to call you by your first name if
you were going to be doing this, crossing this line, though you had a
feeling he had had to think for a moment to remember just what your
first name was, in the midst of everything, and you almost choked,
shaking your head, grinning at him. "Dude, please don't call me
that," you told him, and he grinned back at you and leaned up to sink
into your mouth again, and he never called you Eric again.

It was strange and it was good and you'd never had sex with
anyone taller than you before, but you found you kind of liked that,
his long legs, the span of his fingers, the breadth of his shoulders,
the way it felt like he could wrap his arms around you three or four
times if he wanted to. You liked the taste of him and the fact that
you knew him so well, and this just seemed like the last thing you
needed to learn about him, so it wasn't so bad, it wasn't wrong, it
was just the next step.

And when he was asleep, the porch light crept through the
window, the shades pulled open because he liked to be woken up by the
sun in the morning, said it was the most natural way, when he was
asleep he was lying in a patch of warm soft light, and he looked
poured out of gold.

You were feeling pretty good about the whole thing until you
woke up in the morning to find him staring at you with a mix of
horror and disgust, and you didn't need him to say anything, you
already knew what he was going to say, and that shattering in your
chest, that was probably the heart that he'd help grow back, and you
wanted to curl up on yourself, your chin pressed to your knees, your
hands smothering over your ears, you wanted to squeeze yourself into
nothing, you wanted to disappear, but instead you just sat up slowly,
and watched his expression go even more stricken as the sheet fell
down to your waist, and you knew he could see the bruises from his
mouth on your skin, your neck and chest, the stubble burn on your
stomach, and he said, his voice flat and hard, "Get the fuck out of
my room."

And you went.

And that was it.

* * *

Can't talk about it, how can you talk about it? Of course
not with him, because he isn't talking to you or looking at you or
letting himself be in the same room as you, but you can't talk about
it with anyone else either.

You feel the words in your mouth sometimes, when you're out
with Hatteberg or Ellis or Zito or Hudson, when you are drunk because
you have to get drunk to be able to sleep, and you feel the words,
thick with the taste of alcohol, the words that have doomed you, you
almost say them, almost, "So last week I slept with-" but then you
know you cannot say his name, you cannot even think his name, it's
bad enough to see his name on the back of his jersey, blazoned on,
shouting at you, mocking you.

If you could say his name, if you could tell someone, the
next part of your confession would be, "And now I don't think I'm
going to be okay, not ever again." Which is true, but you've given
up on the truth.

You think Zito might understand. Or at least, he won't laugh
at you, because Zito is a space-cadet and sweetly at home inside his
own head, and he cares about his friends with wide eyes and hands
that will hold you up should you fall down. But you can't tell him,
because Zito adores his fellow pitcher like the big brother he never
had, halfway hero worship, and you don't want to ruin that for him.

You can't talk about it, and you swear that you will not
think about it, either, and this is harder to do.

All you want to do is play. You just want to feel the solid
weight of the ball in your hand, the scratch of dirt under your
spikes, you want to feel the sun and smell the grass, you want to
dive after liners and track the arc of a pop-up through the air,
moving beneath it, stretching into the stands to haul in a foul, the
line of the fence pressing into your stomach, you want to take cuts
and crack the bat against the ball with all the power in your body,
you want to run down the line, the wide turn so you can dig hard for
second, you want to run with the wind in your hair, your helmet
knocked off, you want to run with the rising dust in your eyes, you
want to feel the pound of your feet and the pound of your heart, you
want to run.

You want to run.

You cannot avoid him entirely, of course, you live with him
and play on the same team as him, it is an impossible thing. He
doesn't sleep at home anymore, you don't know if he's got a hotel
room somewhere or if he's picking up strangers in bars, anyone who
can provide him with a bed for the night, a bed that is not his bed,
and not your bed.

No, you don't want him in your bed, you don't.

But he stays away from your house, as much as possible, swinging by
once every couple of days for fresh clothes, slamming in through the
front door, startling you as you sit on the couch or sleepwalk around
the kitchen, he slams in and is down the hall without the slightest
acknowledgement, into his room or down to the alcove where the washer
and dryer are, stuffing shirts and jeans into his bag, and then gone
again, the door crashing shut behind him, he comes and goes so fast
sometimes you think you've imagined him.

You wish you've imagined him.

He doesn't talk to you and he doesn't look at you and people have
started to notice, your teammates, they give you strange looks, they
ask you if you're doing all right, they are unsettled by the fact
that you are not laughing with him in the dugout, not ragging on him
in the locker room, not leaving the stadium with him, not inviting
the guys over to your house to hang out, they ask you if you're doing
all right and you lie, you have gotten so good at lying.

You want to grab him, you want to wrap your hands around his arms and
throw him into a wall, you want to scream at him, you want to force
him out of this stupid crush of denial, this steadfast refusal to
acknowledge what has happened and what is still happening, you want
to hit him until your fists are bloody, you want to make him look at
you and listen to you, you want to break open all your fury and all
your devastation, you want your throat to be raw and hoarse with
everything that is clawing to get out, you want to scream and rage,
you want to scream at him, scream, "You motherfucker, you son of a
bitch, you started it, you touched me, you held me down, your voice
cracked when you said my name and you smiled against my mouth, you
motherfucker, you've fucking wrecked me, I'm fucking nothing now, and
I can't take this, and you're going to fucking *look at me*!"

You want to say all these things to him, but more than that you want
him to pin you to a wall again, you want to feel his hands on you
again, and this is the worst of it, this is rock bottom, because you
hate what's happened, and all you want is for it to happen again.

And you tell yourself, `I'm going to play. That's all I can do now,
that's all there is.' You're going to lose yourself in baseball,
where you don't have to think, where your body takes over, where you
are swift and clean and good, you are going to do nothing but play
the game, this incredible game, which is all you've ever wanted to
do, which encompasses all the things you've ever prayed for, even
though you don't really know how to pray.

You live for the three hours every day when you are on the field, you
are frantic away from the ballpark, you are dreaming of straight
white lines and curving green and smooth brown and overbearing blue
above you, your rainbow has been reduced to these bare colors, this
is all you want to see, but eventually the game ends and you are left
alone, half-blind and hollow.

Every day, you try to beat him out of yourself on the field, you try
to scour away the memories of his hands and his mouth and his body,
and it never works, because he is there, he is in the dugout and in
the clubhouse and in the locker room, and you cannot escape it, you
cannot escape anything.

It's a different thing, feeling yourself torn apart by a guy. Maybe,
it's possible, there's a chance that in some way-far-down part of
your mind you have always known that you like the way men look and
the way they laugh, you like hard muscle and deep voices, you are
warm with the touch of a wide-palmed hand on your back. Somewhere
you have always known this, but you have always been able to tuck it
away, it has never reared up and grabbed you by the throat and thrown
you down. You do not exist in a world in which your occasional
desire to find out if the skin of a man tastes any different would be
easy or accepted, so it is not something that you have ever bothered
to come to terms with, and that doesn't make it anything special,
because you have never really come to terms with anything.

But this is different than admitting to yourself that you wanted him,
you probably wanted him long before he pinned you against the wall,
it is not just the admittance of all that you have kept hidden, it is
different because men are stronger and more powerful, and the damage
he has done to you is worse than anything a woman has ever been able
to inflict, worse than your ex-wife, worse than any extremes of pain
that you might have imagined were possible.

You try and convince yourself that it's only because he was the
first, the first guy you let touch you and kiss you and hold you
down, the first guy you held down, and that is the only reason it
feels like this. You try and convince yourself that if you went to
one of the bars on Castro (though of course you could never go to a
place like that, because people recognize you on the street and gay
men like baseball too, stereotypes aside, there will be some guys in
every neon-strobed flashdance that you imagine a gay bar to be, there
will be some guys there who will ask you for your autograph and tell
you that you look good in your uniform, so you can never go to a
place like that, not with your well-known face and your lean dark
body on Fox Sports Net every night), if you went to one of those
places, if you found another man, you would be able to replace his
form with someone else's, that all this is happening because he broke
open a place inside of you that you don't want to close up again.
It's not him, it's just the crippling release of fifteen years of
denial, and you would feel the same had it been anyone else.

But then you think about finding another guy, maybe not in a bar,
somewhere else, you think about finding a safe place where this tense
demanding heat within you might find a home, and you shake off the
idea, because you love your job, you love your game, and no man is
beautiful enough to make you risk that.

And even as you think this, you know that it is not true, because you
would risk it for him, and this is the most terrible part of it, the
sick choking knowledge that if he came to you again, you would risk
everything, anything, and you cannot, no matter how hard you try,
lose the awareness of all that you would give up to once again have
him with you in the night.

You don't miss him. You don't. You don't miss his grin or his broad
laugh, you don't miss seeing him first thing in the morning and last
thing at night, you don't miss his sure presence in your life, you
don't miss the way you assumed he would always just be there,
breathing in the room next to yours, trading you the sports section
for the comics in the morning, you don't miss his warmth beside you,
you don't miss his friendship, though he is the best friend you've
ever had, you don't miss his voice or his hand on the back of your
neck, you don't miss catching his eyes on the field and seeing him
wink at you, you don't miss coming in to the mound when he is
struggling, you and Hernandez settling him down, because you're the
only one who can make him laugh after he's let in two runs and still
hasn't gotten the first out, you don't miss staying up late with him
and watching the reruns of bad sitcoms before the infomercials start,
you don't miss seeing the light on under his door when you come home
and feeling safe.

Every night you go out and drink hard, fast, with determination, and
you go to bed with your head waltzing, stumbling, because you are
weak and you want to sleep, and you can only sleep if you pass out,
and you are worthless, and you know it, you are terrified and
unanchored, and sometimes you wake up crying.

And this is nothing you ever thought would happen to you.

You're fucking up, you're fucking up so bad, and you know it. You're
dealing with this in the worst way possible, stuck in it, drowning,
shattering. You're not getting anything right, and if this is rock
bottom, then why are you still falling?

* * *

Of course, eventually you snap. Eventually you can't take it
anymore, and you collapse.

It is one night out at a bar, most of the team there, and he
has been dragged along, called out by the others because he's been
avoiding hanging out with the guys for so long. You know that it is
not the team he is avoiding, it is you, but that's not really
something you can explain to your friends.

The fact that he's there makes you drink all the more,
switching from beer to Scotch an hour in, ignoring the half-laughed
warnings about mixing beer and liquor, and you try not to look at
him, across the table, his eyes everywhere but on you, he is smiling
and joking with the others, and you feel so far away, you feel miles
away, cut out of this warm little world of laughter and hands slapped
on backs.

You are cold and your hands are shaking, and you want to bite
down on your knuckles to keep from moaning, and you knock back three
fingers of whiskey in one shot, and gasp, your eyes watering, making
everything blur. You clatter the glass back down on the table,
clumsy, and it falls onto its side. You very carefully right it, and
then there is a hand on your arm.

It is Hudson, and you drag your head up with effort,
blinking, your eyelids pulled halfway down and everything dark.

"I think you're good for tonight, man," Hudson says quietly,
and you want to cry, because sometimes you are reminded of what good
friends you have, how happy you used to be. Hudson is looking out
for you, they are all looking out for you, worried about you, wanting
you back the way you were, all of them except for him, because he
doesn't care, he wants you to kill yourself almost as much as you
want to kill yourself, and you used to be happy. You used to be so
happy.

"M'alright," you mumble, pulling your arm away, ducking your
eyes down so you won't have to look at Hudson or any of them, so you
won't have to look at him. You stand, unsteady, scraping your chair
back against the wood floor, and say to no one in particular, "Be
right back," and no one looks up, and you feel invisible.

The walk across the bar is treacherous and swimming,
hysterical laughing faces, swarms of color, the feeling of tipping
over, wanting to hold your hands out in front of you in case you fall.

You get to the bathroom and brace your hands on the mirror,
staring at yourself, unrecognizable, the charcoal stubble on your
cheeks and jaw, the heavy bruises under your eyes, the paper-white
cast of your face, your black hair making you look even paler, and
your eyes are haunted, lost, beaten, and you hear him in your head,
saying, "I don't think I've ever seen anything so dark," and
something breaks inside you, and you choke down a sob, your throat
burning, and you rest your forehead on the glass, trying to breathe
deep, and it's so wrong, it's all so wrong.

When you cannot stand to be alone with yourself anymore, you
stumble out of the small room, tripping over the low wood step of the
door, falling into the hallway, falling into someone, a solid form,
your head banging against a flat chest, your hands on a hard stomach.

Then you are being shoved away, back against the door, and
you look up and it's him, no please, but it is.

You try to stutter out "Sorry," but your voice is gone, and
you can't imagine the look on your face, you can't imagine the
despair in your hollowed-out eyes, but he glares at you and
says, "Get a fucking grip, man," his voice cold, and you almost
laugh, it is so ridiculous that he of all people, who made this
disaster of you, who so fully annihilated you, should tell you to get
a fucking grip.

You want to snap at him, something hard and fierce, you want
to tell him that this is his fault, this is all his fault, you want
to hit him with all the strength you have, but his eyes are dark and
his skin is smooth, and more than you want to hurt him, you want to
kiss him, and more than you want to hit him, you want to lick the
sweat out of his collarbone, and you crumple, back against the wall,
your hands up over your face, and you hear him blow out an irritated
breath and brush past you to get into the bathroom, the door swinging
shut with a rush of air, and you slide down the wall, your knees up
against your chest, your palms against your eyes, but you cannot stay
there for long, because he will come back out, and you don't want him
to see you like this.

You claw to your feet and somehow make it back to the table,
and despite the concern etched along Hudson's brow, and the uneasy
confusion on Zito's face, you drink more, and you don't notice when
he's come back, things fracturing around you, sounds and images
coming in splintered fragments, and you laugh too loudly, then are
silent for long periods of time, staring down at your hands, and you
are vaguely aware of being put in a cab, someone telling you
softly, "Get some sleep, Eric," which is strange because no one on
the team calls you Eric, no one calls you that anymore, except for
the one time that he did and you told him not to.

You don't remember the ride home, but upon staggering up your
driveway, you think dumbly that you left your glove on the back
porch, you will need to bring it inside, because it might rain, who
can say, it could rain.

It is stunningly dark down the path that runs along the side
of your house, and your hands held out in front of you for balance
are smeared with the black shapes of leaves, and you can see the
unearthly blue glow of the swimming pool before you turn the corner,
this pulsing aura, so bright you squint against it.

You are so drunk and you are so tired, and you have your
glove in your hand, and things are being up-ended, and you cannot
figure out how to open the back door, you cannot get it to slide,
your hands are fumbling and stupid, and you are almost weeping with
frustration, and everything is disintegrating around you, and you are
so tired, and when you fall down onto the cement, you do not feel
your body hit the ground, and you are left like a dead man on the
back patio, bathed in the blue light, your face scraped by the stone,
and it is black, and you cannot feel anything, which is a good
change, and that is the last thing you think before the dark crashes
down around you and you are gone.

* * *

Someone is shaking you, saying your name, and your cheek
hurts, and your ribs hurt, and you surface slowly, climbing upwards,
hating the return to consciousness though you're not sure why, you
just know you don't want to think, the dark is good and you don't
want to think, and you don't want to wake up.

But you do, and your eyes blink open, staring at a blue-
jeaned knee and a shoe, and a long sprawling expanse of white
cement.

You turn your head, ever so slightly, every part of you
aching, sore from the unforgiving stone, and you make a sound like a
moan, and you look up, and it is him.

It is him and he is crouching beside you, his arm out, his
hand on your shoulder, and he has not touched you in two weeks, his
palm warm through your shirt, and the sky is sharply obsidian above
him, vast and unholy, but his face is not angry, his eyes shadowed
and sad.

"What . . . what happened?" he asks, and you think that he
should know that, he was there, he was the one who started it,
pinning you against the wall, searing his mouth to yours, stealing
away your taste and making you want nothing but to feel his hands on
you again, but then you realize he is talking about you passing out
on the patio, crumpled at the foot of the door, dead on the ground.

"I fell," you say, your voice scraping, and you wince at the
sting of talking.

He swallows and looks away, and you don't want him to see you
like this, you don't want him to see you this beaten, this fallen,
but it hurts too much to move.

When he speaks, his eyes are still turned away. "I
didn't . . . I didn't know this is how bad it was. For you. I
didn't know that I hurt you this bad."

You get a hand flat on the cement and push up, groaning as
you lever off the ground. Your head spins as you pull yourself into
a sitting position, and you drag your legs up, bending your knees
against your chest, and you take your head in your hands. "I don't
know why seeing me passed out on the ground should be so fucking
revelatory for you," you say harshly, wanting to cut him down,
wanting this jagged pain of yours to be shared by you both, so that
at least you will share something.

His jaw tightens, something that might be a grimace or a wave
of anger, and he looks back at you, his face rough, and you realize
that he looks tired, too, he looks exhausted.

"Look, I didn't mean to . . . that night, it wasn't . . . I
didn't mean for this to happen," he says, his voice struggling to
remain steady, something shuddering in between his words.

You test the bruise on your face with your fingers, wincing,
and say dully, "Yeah, well, I never really expected to have my heart
broken by you, either."

His eyes flare, and he asks with soft despair, "Is that what
I did to you?"

You press your fist against your mouth and say,
muffled, "That's one of the many things you've done to me, yeah."

You are not looking at him, you do not want to look at him,
so you do not see his hand, stretching out, and you jerk away when he
touches your hair, snapping your gaze up in shock, and his hand
hovers there uncertain for a moment, then he reaches forward and
rests his knuckles gently against your cheekbone.

You are frozen, you can only stare, and he carefully turns
his hand, tumbles his fingers over your face, and you close your
eyes, because you cannot take this, this is worse than anything he
has done so far, this is so far beyond anything that you can bear.

His thumb traces along your jaw, and he whispers your name,
and your eyes come open against your will, and you find him looking
at you with something that is sorrow and regret and confusion and
anger, somehow all at once, and you cannot breathe, and his voice is
ragged as he says, "I don't . . . I can't really figure out what's
going on. Not since we . . . I mean, I don't . . . I've never
thought of you like that. I swear, I never have."

His eyes are demanding that you believe him, his hand
slipping off your face, clenching into a fist against his knee, and
you somehow speak past the motionless fear and exhilaration in your
chest. "It's a little late to be protesting your heterosexuality,
man."

His face hardens, and you think he will probably hit you, and
you wait for it almost eagerly, but instead he visibly forces calm
into himself and says tightly, "Yeah. That's not the point, though."

You want his hand back on your face, you want him closer to
you, it is miles that separate the two of you, out here on the
stone. "What is the point?" you whisper, trying not to let your
voice crack.

He rubs his hand across his face and sighs, looking away from
you. "The point is . . . I used to know what I wanted, and then you
let me kiss you, you didn't push me away, and then you left when I
told you to, which was what I wanted, but I've been so angry that you
did, and now I don't understand anything, I don't know what the fuck
is going on."

You wrap your arms around your legs and hug yourself tight,
because it has gotten cold. There are falling stars flicking across
the sky, and you wonder what you should wish for.

He pulls your eyes back, he will always be able to do
that. "Listen, I know we can't have a, um, relationship or
whatever. Not just because of the game or getting caught, but
because I can't . . . I can't do that with you. I don't want to do
that with you."

You hate his honesty, especially when you know that lying is
second-nature to him. You wish he would lie to you now, he has lied
to you so many other times, why not now?

It's hard for him, you know, to speak like this, to get past
the rage and the confusion, he does not trade in words, he is all
motion, he is quick swift vanishing, his language is profanity and
insults and laughter, he does not speak his mind, he probably doesn't
even know his own mind, which maybe makes this easier, because you
don't know what's going on either.

He drags the words out. "But I . . . I want you, for now, at
least. And it's probably not fair to you, I guess, because
it's . . . more than that for you. I know. But I'm not sure I care,
because right now I want you. Like I've never wanted anybody in my
life, I want you. If you think . . . if you think you could let
me . . . just let me . . ."

And then he is leaning forward, his hand finding your face
again, and your eyes are open as his drift close, and his mouth is on
yours again, uncertain, awkward, the balance all wrong, he is out of
his center of gravity, tilting towards you on his knees, and he is
kissing you, vague, fumbling, and you kiss him back, because how can
you not?

When he pulls back, there is a small sigh falling from him,
falling onto your lips, you can taste his breath in your mouth, and
you blink at him, and he stares back at you, like he has never seen
you before, like you are something he never expected.

"I don't want to hurt you again, but I can't promise you that
I won't. I can't . . . I can't promise you anything," he says in a
jagged little whisper. "Is that . . . is this something you can do?"

Do you trust him? Can you trust him? Does it matter?

And you want to say that you are not here for him to be
unsure of, you are not here for him to work out his problems and
neuroses on, you are not his solution. You want to be stronger than
this, you want to tell him that it's not good enough, he's not good
enough. It's the truth, but you don't believe it.

Because you will take anything, you will accept whatever he
has to give, no matter how far it falls short of what you deserve, no
matter how much it hurts. You will take the pieces of him if you
cannot have the whole, because this is all he is capable of, and he
is still the only thing you want.

He will leave you with nothing. He will wreck your life, and
you will let him.

You nod, shaky, your chin bumping your folded-up knees. His
eyes go slow, go bright, go blinding. He will light you on fire if
you do not look away, but you cannot look away.

He grins, his old grin, the grin that means he's just won
something, he's taken something from someone who didn't want to let
go, and there is too much light behind your eyes, there is too much
color and hope and fear, and a sob tears out of your throat, and you
can't believe it, you have lost to him, you have lost, but is this
victory? Is this defeat?

And he is reaching out and pulling you to him, you are falling
against him and his arms are around you and you are crying now, you
are crying so hard, harder than you've ever cried before, your face
against his shoulder, you are holding onto him and his arms are
strong around you, his hand smoothing down over your hair, and you
are holding on, and he is whispering roughly, "It's okay. You're
okay, you're good. You're good, babe, it's okay. It's okay."

Over and over, he is telling you that you are good and that
it's okay, his breath against your ear, you are kneeling there
together with your arms around each other, and everything is coming
together, and you are holding onto him, as tight as you can, you are
feeling the warmth of his chest and the strength of the muscles in
his back, and you are scared and you don't think you believe him, you
don't think he's telling the truth, but you will take what you can
get.

At some point when there is nothing left inside you, you
raise your head and you kiss him, catching him off guard, but in a
moment he is there, he is pressing back and kissing you like he will
die if he stops, he is pulling all the air out of you, but you don't
think you need air anymore, you don't think you need anything but him
anymore.

And you are terrified and you are happy and you want to think
that he is yours now, he is sure and he is perfect and he is yours,
but this is a lie.

Right now, you think. Right now. He is here, his arms, his
body, his mouth, his breath harsh on your skin, his light flooding
through you. Right now he is here, and this will be enough, because
this has to be enough.

Maybe this is how it would be anyway, how it always is.
Maybe nobody can ever promise anybody anything that matters, not
their hearts or the future, maybe it's not something we should ask of
other people, maybe it's not something they can give us. Maybe you
aren't surrendering yourself completely to him; maybe it just feels
that way.

Eventually, your knees are shooting with pain from kneeling
on the cement, and though you don't really want to move, you tug a
few inches of space away and say, "Maybe we should go inside."

He nods, his eyes black, heavy-lidded, watching your
mouth. "Probably," he murmurs before catching you in another kiss,
his hand up under your shirt, spread wide on the shifting planes of
your back.

You laugh, wondering if all you will ever be able to do is
laugh and cry, if there will ever be any middle ground for you, and
say, "Seriously, I kind of need my knees, kind of important that I
not be crippled."

He grins and stands, pulling you up, and you still cannot
quite believe this is happening. You keep waiting for the spell to
break, you keep waiting to wake up in your empty house with a
twisting, wretched hangover, you keep waiting to return to
consciousness in the world where he hates you and you hate him and
you hate yourself, but as each second scrolls out, you think more and
more that it won't happen, and he is sliding open the door that gave
you so much trouble before, he is drawing you through the shadows of
the house, and you are grinning, your face will split if you keep
grinning this much, even though you are terrified, you are so fucking
scared, and he keeps looking back over his shoulder as if to
reconfirm your presence, and every time he sees you, his eyes are
brighter and more astonished, and you have never felt like this
before, you have never been close to feeling like this.

It is panic but it is joy, too, it is misery and failure and
everything you have ever wished for, his hand caught up in yours, and
the house is dark, as dark as a thing can get, and someday maybe he
will not want you anymore, someday he will hurt you because that is
the only way he can reach you, and you think about loving something
so much you have to betray it, and you think there's no such thing as
promises, no such thing as a happy ending, and you think, right now.
Right now.

He pulls you into your room, where the shades have been drawn
for two weeks, making the place nothing but smothered in total
darkness, and you fall onto the bed, and he is crawling after you,
sliding on top of you, and you cannot see anything, you can feel his
hands and his mouth, but you cannot see anything, so you ask into the
pure black, "Mulder?"

And he replies, distracted by your shirt and the buckle on
his belt, "Yeah?" kissing your throat and trailing his hand down the
line of your chest.

And you smile, your heart breaking all over again, wrapping
your arms around his shoulders, and you say, "Nothing. Just wanted
to make sure that was you."

THE END