you're a disgrace to this family and its proud naval tradition!

[candle_beck]

this story, yeah. there was a sequel that was never good enough to get posted, which did shed some light on why mulder just didn't haul off and pop chavez. i wasn't so into the fisticuffs, when this was written. i am now, though.

Technological Breakthroughs
By Candle Beck

Eric Chavez had bought a new digital camera and decided that it was
the coolest thing in the world.

He brought it into the ballpark every day, showing off its
features, his face a proud beam that he owned something so awesome.

"See, look, you can see the pictures you've already
taken . . . you can take like four thousand pictures with this memory
chip, it's so much better than a regular camera," he enthused,
leaning over to hold it up for Mulder's inspection.

Mulder, getting ready for practice, rolled his eyes and
turned to hang up his shirt in his locker. "Yeah, Chavvy, I imagine
it would be better than a regular camera, considering what you paid
for it."

Chavez, slightly miffed, pulled the camera back, cradling it
protectively against his chest. "Wasn't that much," he protested,
almost petting the silver device.

Zito came over to sit on the stool next to Chavez. "Lemme
see," he said, holding out his hand.

Chavez was happy to find someone who would appreciate the
intensely excellent nature of his new toy, and handed it over,
saying, "Okay, but be careful, all right, Z? Like, don't kill it."

Zito turned the camera over in his hands, fiddling with the
button that pulled back the shutter and zoomed out the lens. "Hey,
cool!" he exclaimed. "It comes out of nowhere!"

Chavez grinned at him, shooting Mulder an I-told-you-so
look. He scooted closer to demonstrate some of the other
features. "Yeah, and you can make like little movies, too. It takes
up a lot of the memory chip, but it's so rad."

Chavez took the camera back and aimed it at Mulder, who was
buttoning up his jersey. "Smile, Marcus," Chavez said. "You're on
candid camera!"

Mulder reached out a hand, trying to cover the lens with his
palm, but Chavez pulled back. Mulder grinned widely and falsely, and
merrily shot the camera a middle finger. "I'm on idiot camera,
anyway. And don't call me Marcus, for the seventy-ninth time."

Chavez rolled his eyes and turned back to Zito. "He's no
fun. Mr. Barry Zito, thank you for coming to see us today on the
Chavez Show. What can you tell us about life as an Oakland A?"

Zito grinned and sat up straighter. "Well, first thing I'd
have to tell you is that I got the best teammates in the world. Some
of them are a little cranky, it's true," as he tilted his eyebrows
meaningfully in Mulder's direction, "but you know underneath they're
just big softies."

Mulder, hearing this assessment of his character,
snorted. "This from the man who can't sleep without his stuffed
bear."

"Hey!" Zito half-cried, before arguing, "I can sleep without
that bear. I just choose not to." He shifted Chavez a pleading
look, "Cut that part out, okay, Chavvy?"

Chavez nodded, his attention zeroed in to the small screen.
He said without looking up, "I probably won't keep this video anyway.
It's eating up like half my memory."

He stopped taping and Zito huddled close to peer at the
screen as he played it back, both of them snickering as a tiny
pixilated Mulder flipped them off, watching Zito give his opinion of
his teammates, the shaky view of the handheld camera switching over
as Mulder responded to the accusation that he was a big softie, then
Zito asked, "Does my hair really look like that? I mean, like, all
the time, it looks like that?"

He raised a hand to his head and tried to push his hair down,
but it was no use. Mulder smirked, "Yeah, Zito, it might be time to
invest in a comb or something."

Zito scowled, self-consciously patting his own head. He
stage-whispered to Chavez, "I think you should shoot a video of
Mulder changing and put it up on the internet."

Chavez grinned, darting his eyes up to Mulder, who had
clearly heard every word. "Yeah, but who'd be interested in that?"
he teased.

Mulder affirmed, "No one. Absolutely no one would be
interested in such a thing. So don't even think about it." He tried
to fix the two with a threatening glare, but the effect was kind of
ruined by the smile that itched at the corner of his mouth.

Hudson called from the other side of the locker room, "Hey,
if your little meeting of the audio-visual club is about over, you
guys maybe want to play some baseball?"

Chavez and Zito stood to begin changing, Chavez tucking the
camera safely away in the pocket of his coat, hanging up in his
locker, but the tickle of an idea had begun to sneak through his
mind, and he decided that it was time to do a little documenting of
the team. Without their knowledge, of course.

"Candid camera," he whispered, grinning into his locker.

* * *

A few weeks later, Chavez was hunched over his computer,
pulling up the newly downloaded picture files from his super-cool
digital camera.

For the better part of a month, he'd snuck the camera around
with him, snapping shots of his friends whenever he could get away
with it, in the locker room, from the dugout, on the field, in the
parking lot, in bars, in their houses and apartments, wherever.
Sometimes he would get caught and have to swear profusely to erase
the picture. Other times he didn't even bother to be subtle, taking
out the camera and trying to get the picture before they had time to
pose or goof off, thus ruining the entire notion of spontaneity.

For a group of guys who spent so much time having their
pictures taken by the press, some of them were awful squeamish about
being caught unprepared by the flash. A lot of it was ego. With
Mulder, certainly. He hated not being in control of how he looked,
he hated for people to see him when he wasn't wearing his most
charming grin, when he wasn't looking every inch of the All-Star
pitcher that he was.

But Chavez had gotten him off guard. He had gotten them all
off guard.

Chavez laughed a bit as he scanned the pictures, zooming in
close, cropping. He was delighted with the results of his covert
little experiment, loving how his teammates looked all casual and
unprepared.

He was planning on making a big poster, a collage sort of
thing, to hang up in the clubhouse, but for now he was just checking
out the scenes he'd captured.

Here was Hudson sitting in the dugout, looking up at Mark
Ellis, who was involved in some extravagant story, his hands flashing
around, making him look like he was trying to bat flies away from his
head, his face over-animated, eyes bugging, mouth stretched, eyebrows
arched upwards. Hudson was listening with an amused look on his
face, perfectly caught between interest and ridicule, watching
Ellis's intricate retelling of the anecdote with easy good-humor.

Here were Ramon Hernandez and Miguel Tejada, in that bar in
Berkeley, talking swiftly in rapid-fire Spanish as Scott Hatteberg
watched them with an absolutely priceless look of confusion on his
face.

Here were Mulder and Zito, sitting on the grass of the field,
stretching and having a sunflower-seed spitting competition. This
shot was great, because it caught Zito in mid-spit, his mouth pursed,
his eyes almost crossed as he followed the path of the seed, which
hovered tiny and out of focus in the foreground. Mulder was leaning
back on one arm, watching him with a slight smile on his face, his
hand digging in the bag of seeds between them as he prepared for his
turn.

Here were the relief pitchers, all of them sitting in a line
on the bullpen bench, unevenly placed, some sitting alone and some
next to others, staring forward, their faces blank, like they were
watching paint drying.

Here was Hudson kissing his wife Kim on the cheek, surprising
her in the living room of their house, where a bunch of the team had
gone for dinner, Hudson's arm snaked around Kim's waist, her eyes
scrunched shut and her mouth open in a laugh, looking like a little
girl, thrilled with the sweet gesture.

Here was the whole Oakland Athletics infield, their arms
thrown around each other's shoulders, their legs kicked forward in a
catastrophic imitation of a chorus line, singing along to Madonna in
a bar, all of them about two beers past caring about looking stupid,
their faces flushed and happy, Hatteberg laughing hysterically, his
head pressed to Chavez's shoulder, almost falling over. Chavez had
gotten Zito to take that picture, telling him to try and get them in
the middle of something, don't let them compose the scene, just let
it happen, and Zito had done well, getting both the unsteady chain of
his crooning teammates and some of the bar's patrons, watching them
with half-grins and exasperated looks, one particular man wrapping
his arm around his mug of beer and eyeing the infielders
distrustfully, like they were about to stumble and fall over him,
spilling his precious alcohol.

Here was Terrance Long holding out his hand to Eric Byrnes,
who was lying on his stomach on the grass after a full-out dive to
catch a fly ball, looking up at his fellow outfielder with a grin on
his face, his hat knocked off and his blonde hair curling in front of
his eyes, his arm stretched out in front of him, the ball nestled
snugly in his glove, a smear of dirt across one cheek.

Here were Mulder and Zito, standing in the trainer's room
together, Zito's jersey unbuttoned and hanging open, revealing a
smooth strip of his chest, Mulder reaching for something over Zito's
shoulder, leaning close to the other man, Zito's head turned slightly
and his eyes cast down, not tilting away from Mulder's proximity,
standing straight and letting the other man angle their bodies
together.

Here was Ted Lilly getting pushed into the pool at the house
Mulder and Chavez shared with each other and anyone who needed a
place to crash for a couple of weeks or months, an utterly stunned
expression on his face, one arm thrown out to try and regain his
balance, already way past the point of no return, a perfect action
shot, just after the push but before the splash, Lilly tipping and
pinwheeling his arm, and in the background you could see the white
Christmas lights on their backyard fence, shining like fireflies, and
the blurry images of their friends laughing as they watched, dotted
around the perimeter of the pool, which glowed eerily blue, everyone
with a bottle of beer in their hand. The picture was such that you
couldn't really tell who had done the pushing, but Chavez knew that
it had been Mulder, who had a theory that any night could be made
better by throwing someone fully-clothed into a pool.

Here were Mulder and Zito and Hudson, slouching together on
the torn, overstuffed couch in Zito's place, laughing so hard their
faces were screwed up and their hands were draped willy-nilly over
each other, holding on, Hudson's hand gripping Zito's arm, Zito half-
falling over onto Mulder, whose hand was on Zito's head, his fingers
caught up in Zito's hair. Three of the best pitchers in the game,
and they were giddy and howling with laughter, looking all of sixteen
years old, like they had their whole lives ahead of them.

Here was Rick Peterson watching Chad Bradford warm up, his
arms crossed over his chest, studying the submariner's bizarre
motion, almost scowling, like he was irritated by the fact that he
couldn't really understand how Bradford made that sweeping underhand
loop work, like he had no idea what possible instruction he could
impart to the pitcher.

Here were Hatteberg and Ellis playing videogames, both of
their faces intent, their hands working furiously over the
controllers, gazing up at the screen, complicated flashes of light
caught on their expressions, their elbows bumping, their shoulders
tight as they shifted with the game, like they could move their
players by moving their bodies, surrounded by empty Coke cans and the
wrappers of miniature chocolate bars, the kind people gave out at
Halloween.

Here were Mulder and Zito sitting in the dugout, grinning at
each other, the second after a joke, their eyes lit up, their legs
sprawled out so that they crossed, a messy tangle of limbs, both of
them leaning back against the bench, Mulder with his hat on
backwards, Zito bare-headed with a towel slung around his neck, a
moment when the two looked alone in the world, beaming, their gazes
linked, like they couldn't think of anything they'd rather be looking
at besides each other.

Here was Byrnes, asleep on top of the covers of a hotel bed,
where he'd collapsed after staggering back from an exceptionally late
night out, clearly still learning how to hold his liquor like a big-
leaguer and keep up with his teammates, particularly Hudson, who
could drink a fleet of Russian sailors under the table and had
absolutely no compunction about starting drinking contests with his
less steel-livered friends. Byrnes had gotten his T-shirt off one
arm before passing out, but that was all, and the shirt was stretched
out of shape around his neck and other arm, a diagonal slash of his
chest and stomach showing, and the rookie was somehow asleep with his
head hanging off the end of the bed, his hair dripping down, his face
blushing red, his mouth cocked open like a toddler looking for a
pacifier, his arm flung out and propped up by the headboard, as if he
was raising his hand to answer a question.

Here was Jermaine Dye firing a Cracker Jack at the back of
Keith Foulke's head, down the aisle of the dugout, Dye leaning out to
get a good aim, Foulke oblivious as he walked away, having no idea
that a delicious caramel-covered missile was on a collision course
with his skull.

Here was Mulder, behind Zito, his hands on Zito's shoulders,
pushing him somewhere that Zito didn't want to go, Zito's hands up
with palms out, trying to resist, his face wide with protest, though
humor sparkled in his eyes. Mulder had a smile on his lips and his
eyes on the side of Zito's face, guiding him through a crush of
people, one of his hands curled under the collar of Zito's shirt so
that his fingers disappeared.

Here was Zito, in the side of the frame, watching Mulder.
Which was strange, because Mulder wasn't doing anything particularly
interesting, he was just standing at the bar waiting for their order,
his hip cocked out, leaning on his elbow, his eyes idly tracking
across the glittering row of bottles. Zito was sitting alone at
their table, one leg stretched out on an empty chair, just watching
Mulder, the straight line of his body, the easy way he stood there
like he owned the place, and Zito had a small smile playing on his
face, his hand up on the table, watching Mulder waiting for their
order.

Here were Mulder and Zito, standing in a hallway of Mulder
and Chavez's house, Zito leaning against the wall, Mulder standing
facing him, almost toe-to-toe, the wary shadows circling both of
them, a triangle of light from the kitchen cutting across their
knees, Zito looking slightly up at Mulder, both of them in profile,
just studying each other quietly in the darkness, one of the still
singular moments of a party winding its way down, two men standing in
a hallway together, doing nothing but look at each other, like there
was nothing they'd rather be doing.

Chavez, after looking over all the pictures he'd taken, sat
back, his forehead lined, a bit perturbed.

Without realizing it, snapping the photos randomly and with
no design, he had caught Mulder and Zito in a number of instances
that stood out among all the other images. Mulder and Zito just
always seemed to be doing something interesting and photo-worthy, but
it wasn't until now that Chavez recognized that most of those moments
were *just* Mulder and Zito, and that even the mundane, like standing
in a hallway, or sitting in a dugout, was somehow made fascinating by
his two teammates.

He quickly clicked open a new file and arranged all the
pictures he had of Mulder and Zito, wanting to see them outside the
context of the rest of the team.

Leaning forward, propping his elbows on the desk and his chin
in his hands, Chavez studied the string of photos, trying to figure
out what was so weird about those two together.

It was something in the eyes, wasn't it? The way they looked
at each other, the way they could isolate themselves in a crowd of
people, just by catching each other's gazes, the way they could read
each other, the way they could come to decisions without saying a
word, the way they always seemed hyper-aware of each other, Zito
shifting unthinkingly to let Mulder slip by him, Mulder turning
unerringly to find Zito in a corner of the bar, like they always knew
where the other was.

And more than that, the way they were casually, comfortably
physical with each other, having no problem standing too close, or
slouching with their shoulders pressing together, letting their legs
tangle, never jerking away awkward and embarrassed when their hands
bumped on the tabletop, never particularly caring if one of them
nodded off on a plane and awoke with his face buried in the other's
arm, snuffling against his shirt.

Now that he was thinking about it, Chavez could remember a bunch of
other times when the contact between Mulder and Zito hadn't even been
accidental. When they went out and got smashed, it was Mulder and
Zito who were always the ones stumbling back with their arms slung
around each other's shoulders, holding each other up even if they
weren't really drunk enough to fall down, Mulder and Zito trailing
the rest of the group, walking slow, their hands clenched in collars
and wrapped around necks, talking low with their heads almost pressed
together. Sometimes when they were kicking it at Chavez and Mulder's
place, watching a game or a movie or something, Mulder would have his
arm up along the back of the couch, Zito almost but not quite nestled
against him, and occasionally Zito would tip his head back against
Mulder's arm, neither of them seeming to notice anything strange
about it. When they were messing around in the pool, splashing and
dive-bombing each other, it would often dissolve into a thrashing
wrestling match, sputtering and laughing as they tried to dunk the
other, never minding the sling of a wet arm around an equally wet
chest, never possessed with the unimpeachable demands of personal
space that so many of their friends swore by.

Chavez suddenly recalled a certain morning, a month or two before,
when Zito had crashed out on their couch, his car keys confiscated
from him the night before by Hudson after Zito had called Nomar
Garciaparra, `Nemo Parciagarba,' thereby proving himself far too
drunk to drive.

Chavez and Mulder had been moving carefully around their kitchen in
the wicked sharpness of the mid-morning, their hangovers making them
cautious and slow, wincing at the clap of a cabinet door closing and
squinting against the freakishly bright light of the refrigerator,
pouring bowls of cereal and glasses of orange juice, eating cold sour
green apples.

Mulder had gone out to wake Zito, and Chavez had watched through the
doorway, bleary-eyed and sleepy, as Mulder knelt down silently beside
the man, who was tossed out on the couch like a broken toy, one arm
bent over his head and the other on his stomach, one leg hanging over
the edge, his socked foot on the floor. Mulder had lifted his hand
and gently traced his fingers down Zito's cheek, running his thumb
along the line of his jaw. Zito had blinked awake and smiled as he
saw Mulder, who hadn't removed his hand from Zito's face. Zito's
lips moved slightly, whispering something that Chavez could only
imagine was `hey,' in that rough, barely-heard voice of the newly
awoken. Mulder smiled back at him, and gently carded his fingers
through Zito's hair before standing and offering the man his hand,
saying just loud enough for Chavez to hear, "You always look like a
kid when you're asleep."

Zito had grinned, the full-bright grin of arising into a beautiful
day, and took Mulder's hand, letting himself be pulled up, tottering
dizzily for a moment on his feet, clutching Mulder's arm, Mulder's
hand going to Zito's side to steady him, and then Zito had blushed
and ducked his head down, smiling shyly, and they had both headed for
the kitchen, Zito rummaging for a cereal with marshmallows in it,
Mulder rolling his eyes at Chavez and taking a sharp bite of a fresh
apple.

Chavez, through the haze of his state of mind at the time, remembered
thinking that it was kind of strange, the way Mulder had woken Zito
up, trailing his hand down Zito's face, rather than just giving him a
hardy shake on the shoulder, but he had chalked it up to Mulder being
uncharacteristically considerate, trying not to flare the headache
that Zito was sure to have woken up to. He hadn't thought much of
that moment at the time, too involved in his own headache and the
mysterious scratch on the back of his arm, which had been inflicted
at some unremembered part of the previous night.

Now, though, thinking back on it, Chavez heard the soft affection of
Mulder saying, "You always look like a kid when you're asleep," like
he had had ample time to observe the other man unconscious, and the
fact that Zito when had opened his eyes to see Mulder, he had
instinctively smiled.

Chavez's eyes widened, a ridiculous possibility slipping into his
mind, staring unseeing at the swarm of pictures on his computer
monitor. "Oh, no way," he breathed out. His eyes focused, on the
picture of Mulder and Zito standing in the hallway, the heat of their
gazes on each other, a half a foot separating their bodies, how it
looked like one of them was about to lean in, pull the other one
closer, but they couldn't get any closer, not unless they . . .
Chavez made a little choked sound in his throat. "No *way*."

He sat back, shell-shocked, and then dived for the mouse, closing the
file, like he could erase this insanity as easily as erasing the
picture folder from his harddrive.

But it was too late, and now all Chavez could think about was Mulder
and Zito, his mind scrolling with two years of memories, the wild
spiral of his imagination taking him over.

Mulder and Zito?

*Mulder* and *Zito*?

It was nuts, it was absurd. How many times had Mulder brought back
girls to their place, how many times had he winked at pretty young
things in bars and been covertly slipped a scrap of paper with a
phone number scrawled on it? How many times had Chavez thought about
approaching some woman with keen blue eyes or a star tattooed on the
inside of her wrist, only to see Mulder stepping up ahead of him, and
sighing, knowing that the game was already half-won, because few were
the ladies who could resist the quick smile and smooth charm of
Mulder when he was on?

But even as he tried to talk himself out of the very idea of anything
more than friendship between the two, Chavez reluctantly realized
that, actually, for the past few months, Mulder *hadn't* been
bringing girls back, he had been accepting numbers in bars but never
calling, shocking to notice now, but for all Chavez could see, Mulder
hadn't been scoring, and yet he didn't seem any different. Or, at
least, not different in the frustrated sense of the word. Mulder
*had* seemed different recently, though, hadn't he? Almost . . .
inexplicably joyful. Serene, a word that had never before been used
to describe Mark Mulder.

Chavez put his hand to his head and rubbed hard at his forehead, his
eyes scrunched shut. "This is crazy," he whispered to himself. "And
you, my friend, are the craziest crazy that's ever crazed."

The idea was there now, and it wouldn't leave, and Chavez knew
himself well enough to know that this sort of thing that would eat
away at him, curiosity like a disease, he wouldn't be able to rest
until he knew the truth. His mom used to say that Eric's favorite
hobby was `killing the cat,' by digging after information he was
better off not knowing, and Chavez had been forced to agree with
her.

Sighing, Chavez stood, casting a baleful glare down at the camera,
muttering, "Stupid insinuating piece of junk," before he headed down
the hallway (the same hallway from the picture, he realized, his mind
flashing the photo as he walked through the space where Mulder and
Zito had once stood), sticking his head into the empty living room,
then into the kitchen, finding Mulder in the latter, making a
sandwich.

Mulder looked over his shoulder as Chavez came in hesitantly. "'Sup,
dude?" Mulder greeted him.

Chavez skirted close to the cabinets, pulling open the refrigerator
and staring into it blankly for a moment before he closed it again.
He went over to stand by the counter, where Mulder was slicing a
tomato. "Um, nothing," he replied, feeling stupid. "What're you
making?"

Mulder angled him a sidelong look, the edge of his mouth smirking
upwards. "Well, let's see, bread, tomato, turkey, lettuce, cheese.
Looks an awful lot like a sandwich to me."

Chavez half-laughed at his own lame question and then looked down at
his hands, drumming them on the counter. "Can we, like, can we
talk?" he asked.

Mulder popped a corner of tomato in his mouth and raised his
eyebrows. "Are we having a moment?" he asked with a grin. "We gonna
bond or something?"

Chavez rolled his eyes. "No, but only because we're not twelve-year
old girls. Or at least, I'm not."

Mulder began assembling his sandwich, tearing open the cheese package
with his teeth. He spit out the little piece of plastic he'd ripped
off and said, "Okay, so, what do you want to talk about?"

Chavez cleared his throat, trying to figure out the best way to
phrase this, the way that wouldn't result in Mulder beating the shit
out of him. "Um, I was just . . . is there anything going on between
you and Zito?"

The second the question left his mouth, Chavez winced, regretting it
fiercely. `They're just dumb *pictures*, they don't mean anything!'
his mind berated him, and he swallowed hard.

Mulder's hands slowed, and he kept his eyes down as he asked, his
voice carefully neutral, "What do you mean?"

Chavez took in Mulder's suddenly stilled hands, the intentionally
blank expression on his face, and thought that that was a strange
reaction for someone who had nothing to hide. If Mulder had nothing
to hide.

Feeling a little more confident, Chavez still stumbled over his
words, because this continued to be a crazy, crazy thing to be
inquiring about. "You know, are you guys, like . . . you know."

Mulder turned to face him, his eyes hard, his mouth pulled
taut. "No, I don't know, Chavez. Why don't you enlighten me?"

Chavez realized that Mulder was still holding the knife he'd been
using, and that was really not the kind of thing that he wanted to
have in Mulder's hand at this particular moment. `As if he's really
gonna go all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on you in your own kitchen,' his
mind scoffed, but it couldn't stem the uneasiness from rolling in his
stomach.

Chavez ran a hand threw his hair and blew out a breath, replying
while he stared down at the counter, "I just . . . I wouldn't freak
or anything, if there . . . if there was something between you guys.
I mean, I'd like to think you could trust me with something like
that. You know, whatever it is, I don't know."

Chavez snuck a glance up at the other man, saw Mulder placing the
knife down (thank God), and clenching his fists (maybe not thank God
so much), and the restrained anger pulsing in the muscle in his
jaw. "What the hell do you think you're implying?" Mulder growled
low.

Chavez was ready to cut his losses on this one, ready to scamper back
to his room and throw that damn camera out the window, but he knew
he'd gone too far, Mulder wasn't going to let this go now.

Sighing, Chavez spread his hands out on the counter and asked, not
looking at Mulder, "Are you sleeping with him?"

He felt more than saw Mulder's shock and the burst of outrage that
ripped through the other man. He turned in self-defense, wanting to
be facing Mulder if he was going to attack. Mulder was standing
there, staring at him like he'd never seen him before, his eyes
flashing furiously.

"What the fuck did you just say to me?" Mulder grated out.

Chavez held up his hands, trying to ward off the other man. "Look,
man, it's not . . . I'm not saying anything, I just . . . I see
something, I don't know, maybe it's nothing, but . . . between you
guys, it's just, it's like, it seems like you might be maybe sleeping
with him. Possibly. I don't know. Please don't kill me."

Mulder made a harsh sound, and then he was reaching out, grabbing
hold of Chavez's shirt and dragging him close, pulling him almost off
his feet, his hands fisted, his arms shaking. Chavez's hands flew up
to Mulder's wrists, trying to get free, but Mulder was solid and
immovable, his eyes flaring with rage.

Panicked, sensing the beating that was so clearly in his future,
Chavez cried, "I'm one of your best friends, Mulder! You don't have
to hide anything from me, I'm not gonna do anything to screw you
over, I swear, and you really don't have to hit me, okay? I'm one of
your best friends, don't do this, man."

Mulder was still for a moment, before he breathed out a massive
exhalation, and Chavez half-expected him to just start pounding, but
then something calmed in Mulder's eyes, and he released Chavez,
pushing him away.

Mulder braced his arms on the counter, his head down, steadying
himself. He spoke staring at the floor, "Why do you think that?
What . . . what made you think that?"

Chavez, still not trusting Mulder not to come back at him with fists
flying, answered cautiously, "Just . . . these pictures. That I've
been taking with my new camera, you know? Seems like, in some of
them, seems like maybe you and Zito are . . . more. Than friends.
That you and him are something more."

Mulder shoved off the counter and turned his back on Chavez, raising
his hands to his hips, breathing slowly. He didn't face Chavez, but
he asked with steel running along his voice, "What if I said it was
true?"

Mulder turned then, and pinned Chavez with an intense gaze. "Not
that it's any of your fucking business, not that I owe you any kind
of explanation, but what if I said, yeah, that's how it is. Me and
Zito, yeah, we're something more than friends. What then?"

Chavez's mouth dropped open, and he was speechless for a moment,
before he saw the warning glint in Mulder's eyes, the tight message
that Mulder hadn't admitted anything, Chavez wasn't to take this as a
confession, not yet.

Chavez blinked, then said bravely, with total certainty, tipping his
head up defiantly, "I'd say that's awesome. I'd say
congratulations. I'd wonder what Zito was thinking, getting himself
involved with a jackass like you, when he could clearly do so much
better. I'd ask what you did in your past life to get so lucky."

Chavez watched the other man's reaction intently, his body spurring
with adrenaline, and Mulder sighed, leaning back against the counter,
crossing his arms over his chest. "Yeah, that's pretty much what
I've been asking myself, too," he replied, and it took Chavez a
moment to fully understand what the other man was saying.

"Oh. Oh, man," Chavez said, a huge grin spreading on his face. "You
serious? For reals, this is how it is?"

Mulder tipped him a slight smile, a brief shrugging nod of
acknowledgement, and Chavez laughed. "Dude! That's . . . that's
crazy! I mean, it's great, but also crazy!"

Mulder held up a hand, fighting back his own grin. "All right, calm
down, don't go nuts. It's not such a big deal."

Chavez looked at him in disbelief, "Are you kidding? This is a huge
deal, man, this is monumental! You and Zito, I just . . . I never
woulda thought."

Mulder rolled his eyes. "Clearly you did think, you came in all
fired up with these questions. But listen, Chavez," his voice
growing serious. "You can't tell anybody, okay? I mean, nobody
knows. Except, well, Zito, you know he can't take two steps without
calling to tell his family about it, but nobody else knows. Not the
team, nobody."

Chavez nodded, his mind racing with the implications of this. "Of
course, man, I won't say a word. It's just . . . it's crazy."

"So you've mentioned," Mulder replied dryly.

Chavez leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter, his face
bright with curiosity. "So, I mean, like, it's good? You like him
and everything? It's not just a casual thing?"

Mulder smiled then, a real smile, his eyes softening, and said
quietly, "Yeah, it's good. It's the best."

Chavez studied the other man, then stepped up and clapped him on the
arm. "That's so cool, man. I'm, you know, I'm totally thrilled for
you."

Mulder tossed him a sardonic look, saying, "And that explains why
you're jumping around like a hyperactive little crack-monkey. You
wanna settle down before you blow an aneurysm or something?"

Chavez grinned, not taking the jibe too seriously. He turned to the
fridge, pulling out two Cokes, snapping both open and handing one to
Mulder. He lifted his own can and said, "To the craziest thing I've
ever heard. To Marcus, who's one intimidating fuck, but should know
who his friends are. To Zito, who's obviously suffered a blow to the
head. To . . . hell, to love and baseball, the two greatest things
in the world."

He smiled at the sappiness of his toast, and Mulder rolled his eyes
extravagantly, but clicked their cans together and took a long pull,
his eyes shining and content as he looked at Chavez. "You do realize
I'm gonna have to steal your camera, now, right? And throw it in the
bay?"

Chavez nodded, saying with only a hint of sarcasm, "Please do.
Thing's more trouble than it's worth."

Mulder grinned, and they stood there, drinking Coke in the flood of
the summer light.

THE END