finally motherfucker FINALLY
continued from back here.
Mulder’s not scared, because Mulder doesn’t get scared, but if he did, he would be.
He’s always known his way, where to go, how to get there, the shortcuts, the roads where he can go double the speed limit and the intersections he can fly through without stopping, he figured out a long time ago that the world is full of secret passages if you just know where to look for them.
And now, okay, now he doesn’t recognize anything, now he gets lost two blocks from his house, now nothing makes sense.
He’s got a black-and-white mind, because he has spent his life believing in solid things, clearly definable, box scores and statistics and the codes of the game, the acronyms and numbers spelling out grass and sunlight to him, and he doesn’t understand gray areas, he doesn’t understand that there are some things that can’t be understood.
The game should have been enough, it always has been enough, but not anymore.
And he thinks, ‘hey, no, please, no,’ but he doesn’t know what he’s trying to stop from happening.
And he tells himself he’s not going to feel like this forever, over and over, he tells himself this, he’s not always going to feel this lost, this hopeless, this confused, this abandoned.
He tells himself it’s not going to last forever.
And he’s right.
* * *
Back in Oakland, the summer is dying slowly.
Out at another bar, somewhere between Richmond and Berkeley, another place that’s hard to pinpoint on a map, out at another bar, Mulder is splintering, and not really caring about anything anymore.
His hands are shaking, but, okay, his hands always shake, these days, except when he can wrap them around a baseball, feel the scuffed red stitches under his fingertips, counting the one hundred and eight, which is the same number as beads in a rosary, which makes it a holy thing, maybe.
And Mulder doesn’t look at Zito anymore, because when he does, he can’t breathe, and Zito is always looking at him with an expression that reminds Mulder of some far-distant highway in the corner of his memory, stretching out endless over the desert, the road you’d take if you wanted to get lost, if you never wanted to come back again.
Zito is always looking at him like he has faith that Mulder will figure out this thing between them, Mulder will be able to make sense of it, and Mulder can’t stand that look in his eyes.
Mulder is chasing whiskey with vodka with tequila, but he doesn’t get drunk, hatefully clear, not missing anything that happens.
Chavez laughing like a machine gun, short sharp bursts as he loses his breath. Hudson calling his wife, one hand pressed over his ear to block out the noise, hollering into the cell phone, hollering, “I love you, babe, okay? I love you, I never wanna love anybody but you,” his face flushed and happy, not usually an emotional or overly affectionate drunk, but sweetly sincere when the urge does overtake him. Tejada splicing Spanish into his conversation without being aware of it, things like, “Okay, tomorrow, vamos a la playa, I think. You want to come conmigo?” Ellis kicking the Pac-Man arcade game, yelling at it for stealing his quarter. A smear of unfamiliar faces, strangers asking for his autograph, shaking his hand, pointing to the group of them from across the room, making Mulder feel like everyone is watching them, everyone can see everything.
He doesn’t look at Zito, because Zito is waiting for something from him, and Mulder knows he has nothing to give the other man, nothing that Zito will ever need, nothing that Mulder could ever live without.
Across the bar, Mulder catches the gaze of a dark-haired man, the slight bend of a formerly broken nose adding a kind of battered grace to his features, looking too young everywhere except his eyes, which are fierce and wise and desperate, and desperation is something Mulder feels right at home with.
When their eyes meet, the dark-haired man darts a quick shy grin, and for an instant he could be Zito’s brother, and Mulder is thinking, motherfucker.
Mulder looks away, because he can’t do that here, not now, not with his friends all around him, not in this bar where he has been recognized all night long, where the television in the corner is playing SportsCenter and the west coast scores and highlights are coming up just after the commercial break.
Mulder looks away, and tries not to hear the slow numbing whisper in his mind: why the fuck not, why the fuck not, why the fuck not.
He wraps his hand around the shot glass in front of him, his long fingers overlapping his thumb, and he feels the give of the glass, wonders how much pressure it would take to shatter it, spear shards into his palm.
Hudson, having finished his phone call, is talking about some movie, but Mulder doesn’t know what one. The last movie Mulder saw was Office Space, over at Zito’s apartment, and that was six weeks ago. Maybe longer. He hasn’t really been keeping track.
Mulder stands, knocking into his chair and almost tipping it over before he catches it smoothly, his reflexes undulled by the night of drinking. He steps away from the table and tries not to notice Zito’s eyes following him as he crosses the bar, but he can feel Zito’s attention as clearly as a steady hand placed on his back.
It’s too loud in the short hallway where the payphones and restrooms are, the bar’s music pounding and echoing off the bulletin board fluttering with flyers and all the harshly ripped graffiti. It’s not even really music, just the slam of the drums, this huge heartbeat pulsing in the walls.
In the restroom, washing his hands, Mulder sees the door open in the mirror and watches the dark-haired man walk in.
The dark-haired man comes to the sink, letting his eyes meet Mulder’s in the scratched mirror, a slight tip of his head in acknowledgement, a ghost of Zito’s smile on his face. The dark-haired man makes a show of inspecting himself, smoothing down his hair, pulling out the wrinkles in his shirt, his gaze flickering back to Mulder’s over and over again, his eyes steady and predatory.
Mulder’s hands are wrapped around the lip of the sink, the muscles in his arms strung tight. He hears a hundred voices in his head, asking if he’s okay, asking why he isn’t okay, wondering what’s wrong, trying to help.
The dark-haired man reaches over casually, without a word, and hooks his fingers in Mulder’s belt, not pulling him closer, just holding his hand there like this is the most natural thing in the world, and his sharp eyes are daring Mulder to pull away.
Mulder breathes out, long and low, and whispers, “All right.”
The dark-haired man grins, Mulder’s heart buckling and stalling, and says, “Alley out back. Five minutes?” His voice is rougher than Mulder would have thought, deeper, something dark and brittle in his words.
Mulder nods, and he is thinking, ‘what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.’
It is risky and it is stupid and it isn’t anything he should do, he shouldn’t even be thinking about doing this, not here, not right out back, but he is so far beyond caring at this point, he is so far beyond.
The dark-haired man gives Mulder’s belt a little tug, and then slides his hand free, walking out without a single backwards glance, and Mulder doesn’t look at himself in the mirror again before he heads out, because he’s afraid of what he’ll see.
Back at the table, he pulls his light coat off the back of his chair and says, “Think I’m taking off.”
Chavez and Hatteberg look up at him blearily, but Zito’s eyes are clear and immediately shot with concern. “How come?” he asks, looking like he wants to stand, his hands hanging onto the edge of the table.
Mulder shrugs, tries not to look at Zito. “Just got real tired all of a sudden. I think the Stoli just hit me.”
Now Zito does stand, the other guys at the table looking at him in surprise. “Well, I’ll come . . . I’ll come wait with you while you get a cab.”
Mulder has to look away now, he can’t bear this, and he shakes his head. “No, it’s . . . it’s cool. I’ll . . . be okay,” and he knows that he would rather have Zito waiting with him for five minutes out on the curb than spend an entire sinister night with the dark-haired man, and he cannot believe he is pushing Zito away, he cannot believe he never asked Zito, he never asked him anything.
Zito is ready to protest, ready to insist, but Mulder says firmly, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?” The other guys nod and slur good-byes, and something sad and slow happens in Zito’s eyes, but he carefully sits down again, not taking his gaze off Mulder’s face, so Mulder leaves, as quick as he can.
Out the bar’s door, the muffled clutter of the city street, Mulder ducks down the side alley, snatching glances back and forth, no one seeming to notice him, the world going chill and shadowed and silent as he finds his way back, the alley nothing but broken asphalt and torn paper and twisted metal.
The dark-haired man is waiting there, back in the shadows, blending in with all the black, his hands pale as cobwebs. When Mulder gets close, he steps forward, and Mulder is able to see his eyes, clearer than in the bar, and they are the color of wet coal and stripped down, savage, brutal.
He is leaner than Mulder, but taut with strict muscle, beaten down, carved out of wood. Mulder can’t see much of Zito in this man’s face anymore, but he’s already made his choice.
They are face to face, and Mulder doesn’t think he’ll ask this man’s name, he doesn’t think he wants to know anything like that, doesn’t want to pretend that this is anything but what it is, this is what he’s been reduced to, a hard back alley with a man he doesn’t know, a man who doesn’t look much like Zito, after all, because Zito doesn’t have this harsh hunger in his eyes, something that looks more frayed and anarchic than desire.
The dark-haired man reaches forward with one hand, his other hand going to his back pocket, and Mulder begins to lean towards him, when suddenly the dark-haired man grips his collar and slams him backwards, the dark-haired man’s forearm choking across his throat, Mulder held down against the cracked brick wall, and there is a flash of silver, catching in the corner of his eye like lightning, and then the dark-haired man is holding a switchblade to the tender flesh under Mulder’s jaw, and the dark-haired man is not smiling now, his eyes gleeful but his face wrenched with mayhem, and the dark-haired man says in his scraping voice, “Your money, cocksucker.”
Mulder’s hands come up by instinct, all his power flooding through him, but before he can clench his hands around the dark-haired man’s arms and throw him off, the dark-haired man flattens the edge of the knife on Mulder’s throat, slashing a long skinny paper cut, and says in a terrible whisper, “Try it. Just fucking try it.”
Mulder swallows, his Adam’s apple nicked by the blade, and it is nothing worse than anything he has done to himself while shaving, but the dark-haired man is shuddering with violence, this fierce strength shivering through him, and Mulder is aware, with annihilating clarity, of how very close he is to being killed at this moment.
The dark-haired man tightens his arm against Mulder’s throat, Mulder choking, and demands, “Your fucking money!”
And Mulder hears his own voice, and he can’t believe it, his voice saying, “Fuck off, asshole.”
The dark-haired man’s eyes go wide, this little ring of white around the black, blood-shot and petrifying, and he snarls, “You think I won’t do it? You think you’re getting out of this, motherfucker? Give me your goddamned money or I’ll fucking kill you where you stand, you fucking faggot.”
And Mulder isn’t thinking about anything, his mind swept clear, a clean white field, he is feeling the bite of the blade, the burn of each breath, the scratch of the rough bricks under his shoulders, the stuttering force of the dark-haired man, and he is waiting for terror to sweep through him, he is waiting for fight-or-flight, he is waiting for self-preservation, but none of it comes, none of it.
Mulder is blank and he will be dead in a moment, he will be dead for no reason, his heart battering to a stop, oil-dark blood on the pavement, he will be dead in a moment, left alone in an alley, this broken place that it took him so long to get to, and Mulder is blank for a long still stretch of time, watching the dark-haired man’s face twist with rage, and then out of nowhere Mulder hears Zito in his head, saying, “Mulder, fuck, don’t go.”
And Mulder’s whole mind is a blast of light, and his body rushes with strength, and he braces, ready to fight his way back, ready to do anything, anything, but before he can move, there is something fast blurring in the corner of his eye, and then the dark-haired man is suddenly torn off him, the switchblade snatched away, and there is the rough thumping sound of bodies hitting the pavement, and then the most unbelievable thing, Zito’s voice, terrified and raw, “Don’t touch him, don’t you fucking touch him.”
Mulder, one hand to his throat, turns and there is Zito, on his knees on the asphalt, his hand fisted in the dark-haired man’s shirt, dragging him up and hitting him, the short fierce arc of his arm, the dull crack of his fist slamming into the man’s face, the knife skittering out of his hand, clattering across the stone, the dark-haired man’s face smeared with blood, his eyes half-open.
Zito is not a fighter, has never been, he does not know how to use his hands to hurt another person, but right now, right now, he is wild and insane, and what he lacks in finesse, he makes up for in pure fear, pure fury, fighting like his life depends on it.
Then, his hand still clenched in the dark-haired man’s shirt, Zito suddenly snaps his head around, looking for Mulder, and when he sees him, staring back at him in shock, Zito’s raised fist falters, and he whispers Mulder’s name, too low to be heard, his eyes huge, and he lets the dark-haired man go, letting him slump back on the ground, and Zito cannot take his eyes off Mulder, but then, Mulder cannot take his eyes off Zito.
The dark-haired man scrambles, tearing his hands bloody on the asphalt, and he stumbles to his feet, taking off down the alley, into the darkness.
They are motionless for an eternity, just staring at each other, and Mulder thinks desperately that somehow this moment is more dangerous than any that came before it.
He moves forward slowly, drifting, hazy and unsure, and he stops in front of Zito, Zito still down on his knees before him, and Zito’s eyes are halogen-bright as he whispers, his voice hitching, “I came to find you.”
Something crashes down inside Mulder, and he is reaching out, grabbing Zito’s hand, hauling him up into a crushing embrace, wrapping his arms around Zito as tight as they will go, feeling Zito’s ribs beneath his palms, burying his face in Zito’s shoulder, and Zito is holding onto him, and they are both shaking, they are both shaking so hard.
For awhile Mulder is blind, his eyes hidden, his breath drawn through Zito’s body, and the only thing he knows is that this is Zito, in his arms, like Zito is the only true thing in the world, Zito gasping against his neck, Zito’s hair brushing his face, Zito’s long fingers curving around his sides.
It is everything he has ever felt, all at once, terror and shock and joy and despair, and it is something he has never felt before, something fresh and new, like everything has fallen apart, everything has broken down to this impossible moment, and now they will have to start over at the beginning and re-invent the world.
And Mulder is thinking, ‘thank god, thank god.’
At some point Zito tightens his hands on Mulder’s body and asks, his voice shivering with relief and anger, “What the fuck were you doing with him? Why’d you come back here with some random fucking psychopath?”
Mulder shakes his head, the movement rolling against Zito’s body, and mumbles, “Didn’t know he was a psychopath. Thought he was . . . he just . . . he reminded me of you.”
Because now maybe Mulder owes Zito everything, maybe Zito will be responsible for him forever, so at least he should tell Zito the truth. At this moment, Mulder doesn’t think he remembers how to lie, because right now the truth is all he knows.
Zito pulls his head up, meeting Mulder’s gaze, and Zito’s face is amazed, and finally Mulder has told him, finally there can be no more pretending that this is anything other than what it is.
Zito stares at him for a long moment, and then says hoarsely, “Crazy guy with a knife reminded you of me? Thanks a lot, dude.”
And Mulder laughs, it is such an incredible thing for Zito to say, and he laughs, muffled with Zito’s shirt in his mouth, and he laughs until fierce tears burn in his eyes, damp fingerprints on the skin of Zito’s neck.
Zito slides his hands up, feeling the flicker of Mulder’s body as the laughter tapers off, and when Mulder has fallen quiet and trembling again, Zito flattens his hands on Mulder’s back and whispers roughly, “Don’t ever do that again. Scared me so bad. You want me, you come get me, okay. Don’t ever do that again, man, please.”
Mulder chokes back something that might be a sob and nods, his cheek pressed against Zito’s neck, the thin slide of their skin across each other, and he won’t do it again, not ever again, because he doesn’t want to be that man again, he doesn’t want to be anyone who scares Zito, not ever again.
They are shaking in each other’s arms for a long time, the shudders spurring them together, their hearts doing battle through their fragile cages of bone, as the adrenaline sinks away, as Mulder relearns how to breathe, how to be still.
Eventually, after a thousand unknowable seconds flick by like cigarettes in the night, Zito lifts his head, tilts just slightly away to look at Mulder, his half-shrouded gaze suddenly stricken with fear again, Mulder’s arms tightening instinctively around him, and Zito stutters, “Your . . . your neck, Mulder. You’re bleeding, you’re hurt.”
Mulder breathes out, and tells him, “I’m okay,” because he is, for the first time in so long.
Zito shakes his head, his hair falling soft across his forehead, and he slips one hand around Mulder’s body, never losing contact as he trips his fingers up Mulder’s chest, fumbling in his shirt, climbing over the buttons, his fingers feathering on the hollows at the base of Mulder’s throat, clumsy over the solid lines of Mulder’s collarbone, delicately touching the thread of blood, pinpricks of red on his fingertips, and Zito stares at his hand, his eyes broken.
Then Zito looks up, half his face in shadow, a slash of light cutting across his mouth, and Zito searches for something in Mulder’s face, his hand closing gently in Mulder’s shirt, and Zito must find what he’s looking for, because he swallows and ducks his head down, nosing his way carefully, and draws his tongue lightly across the skinny shallow cut on Mulder’s throat.
Mulder gasps, his eyes pulling shut, his hands clenching hard enough on Zito to leave bruises. There is a brief sting, and then nothing but this deep warmth, this long slow heat, flaring through his whole body, Zito’s hand drifting up to the back of his neck to hold him still, Zito so careful with him, like he’s something precarious, something precious, Zito’s mouth moving tenderly, soothing away all the pain Mulder has ever known.
Zito softly kisses the dent where Mulder’s pulse is racing, then kisses the calm spot just under Mulder’s jaw, then kisses the corner of Mulder’s mouth, and there is a airless moment that lasts forever, before Zito kisses Mulder, at last, finally, at the end of everything, Zito’s hand opening on the back of Mulder’s neck, his palm flat, his fingers spread out.
Everything shudders to a stop, and then Mulder is kissing Zito, breathing into him, moving slow, Zito tasting sweet and endless, Mulder’s hand rising to Zito’s face, slipping through his hair, and it is dark and light, at the same time, it is the past and the future, it is right now, it is like getting lost, like never wanting to be found.
They shift carefully against each other, trying this out, finding the right angle, fitting together, like they have been practicing for this their whole lives, like this is where they were always supposed to be.
When they pull away, Mulder can still taste Zito, knows precisely the texture and flavor of Zito’s mouth, and he can feel Zito’s tight exhalations falling on his lips, brief and hot on his flushed skin.
They stare at each other in shock for a moment, like the stunned light of the full moon has exploded behind their eyes, and then Zito says, his voice rasping, “Come on. We’re going home.”
And he takes Mulder’s hand and pulls him out of there, and there is nothing in the world that has prepared Mulder for this moment, nothing ever could.
* * *
They do not speak the whole way back to Zito’s place, Zito’s hand holding onto his wrist in the cab, and this is the only way they are touching, just Zito’s fingertips resting on the smooth tendons.
Mulder watches the city flood by, chaotic and running together, the colors melting one into another, until everything has become one long streak of light, and this is what has become of Mulder’s heart, too, it has passed light speed, it is moving too fast to be seen, it is arcing through the stars.
Somewhere he’s never been before, somewhere he recognizes in an instant.
In the elevator up to Zito’s apartment, they stand two feet apart and don’t look at each other, but when Mulder sneaks a glance over at Zito, he can see that the other man’s hands are still shaking, so Mulder reaches out and touches the hollow of Zito’s wrist, just barely with the tips of his fingers, because this is the kind of touch that Zito used to heal him, and maybe it works both ways.
Mulder hears Zito breathe out a quiet sigh, sees Zito’s eyes pull shut, and Mulder thinks that maybe he’s not the only one who’s been going crazy.
It takes Zito awhile to get the key to turn, having trouble, probably because Mulder is standing close behind him, Mulder’s chest just brushing Zito’s shoulder, and Zito keeps darting glances his way, and Mulder wants to drop his head, wants to hide his face in Zito’s neck, wants to wrap his arms around the other man, but if he does that, they will never get inside.
Once they are in the apartment, Zito looks at him for a long moment in the flat shadows of the hallway, Zito’s hand still on the doorknob, and then Zito drops his keys on the floor, the high glittering ring of the metal hitting the wood, and Zito grabs him and kisses him fast, holding Mulder’s head in his hands, wild and hard and filthy, drawing Mulder’s tongue into his mouth, leaving Mulder gasping, but before he can drag Zito to him and do something unspeakable to him on the carpet of the hallway, Zito pulls away, quick as he came, looking surprised at his own behavior for a second before he fists a hand in Mulder’s shirt and pulls him down the hallway.
In Zito’s bedroom, Mulder is suddenly nervous, but Zito takes his time, his eyes calm and bright. It is momentary and struggling with shadows, and Zito unbuttons Mulder’s shirt slowly, his fingertips tracing intricate patterns, writing code.
Zito smooths his palm down Mulder’s bare chest, making Mulder shiver. There are bruises on Zito’s knuckles, out of place on his kind hands, and Mulder carefully touches Zito’s hand on his chest, like he can rub away the darkness. Zito breathes deep, pulling himself under control and says, his voice low, “You should have told me. You should have asked.”
Mulder nods, the muscles in his stomach flickering under Zito’s hand as it moves, his breath fast and short. “I know. I just . . . I didn’t know how.”
Zito shakes his head, stripping Mulder’s shirt off his arms, trailing his hands over Mulder’s shoulders, back down his chest. “All you ever had to do was ask.”
Mulder almost died tonight, but he thinks he might be more scared at this moment than he was with a switchblade at his throat. Zito leans in and kisses Mulder’s collarbone, the ridge of the old fracture, his hands tracking the paths of Mulder’s body, over the baseball scars, the fighting scars, the scars he has no explanation for, Zito learning the landmarks, discovering the best way.
Mulder hooks his arm around Zito’s waist, Zito lowering his cheek to Mulder’s bare shoulder, his breath just beginning to pull raggedly, Zito’s fingers lined up on one of Mulder’s ribs, and Mulder says, his voice cracking, “I didn’t . . . I wanted to, but it’s . . . I tear people down. I ruin everything I touch. I didn’t want to do that to you, I never want to do that to you.”
Zito is warm against him, this almost-embrace, his shirt chafing on Mulder’s skin. He doesn’t smile but Mulder can see it anyway, because whenever he looks at Zito, he can see the other man smiling.
Zito’s mouth is on Mulder’s shoulder, and Mulder can feel his lips moving as Zito tells him quietly, “All the things that have happened, anything that’s ever happened, whatever bad you’ve done, it doesn’t matter. Because it was all leading up to this.”
His whole life.
Mulder is thinking of all the way the hell back whens, the memories, the stories he tells people and the ones he doesn’t tell anyone, Mulder is thinking of being young, of growing up, he is thinking about how he got to this unimaginable moment, and he knows that this is the way it had to be, the only way it could have been, because you have to live before you can figure out what there is that’s worth being alive for.
Mulder is thinking of everything that runs beneath, under the surface, and maybe it makes sense now, maybe he finally understands.
He tugs up Zito’s T-shirt, Zito lifting his arms to let Mulder slip it over his head, mussing up his hair, and Mulder is briefly uncertain, baffled by this sudden license to see and touch and taste, but when he hesitantly brushes his lips against Zito’s neck, Zito sighs and tightens his arms around Mulder’s shoulders, making Mulder brave.
Mulder’s fingertips are resting on Zito’s chest, the perfect beat of his heart, and Mulder whispers, “You’re who I was meant to find.”
And this is something he knows for sure.
THE END