ironically, 'glory days' is one of my least-favorite springsteen songs
heh. and this is what it was like when i used to write happy. i've gotten all bitter and cynical, it's true, but it sounds better to me. this story i'm not wild about. suffers from being overwritten, don't you know. lookit all the pretty words i use! lookit all the hyphenates and poetic metaphors! i dunno. i cribbed some of it from a little i-fucking-love-baseball thing that i'd written back in '02. and i was a mere child in '02.
Title: The Man Who Threw 95 Miles An Hour
Author: Candle Beck
Email: meansdynamite@yahoo.com
Category: MLB, Oakland A’s
Pairing: Zito/Mulder
Rating: PG-13 (cos ballplayers, they have filthy mouths)
Feedback: Aye, well appreciated.
Disclaimer: I definitely don’t own them. Which is sad for me. “Glory Days” is by Bruce Springsteen, who I also do not own. Man, I don’t own anyone cool.
Summary: Gotta love a man who can bring the hard heat.
The Man Who Threw 95 Miles An Hour
By Candle Beck
Mark Mulder threw 95 miles an hour.
In the end, that would have been enough, that would have been all Zito needed.
It wouldn’t have particularly mattered that Mulder was a truly good guy, a friend as well as a teammate, blessed with the same goofy practical-joke sense of humor as Zito, the same fiercely competitive nature that could turn dugout sunflower-seed-spitting matches into epic battles.
It wouldn’t have mattered that Mulder let Zito explain Zen philosophy to him at great and obscure lengths in bars in Kansas City and Baltimore, or that Mulder had said, “Sure, Zito, you can teach me how to surf, that doesn’t sound too much like a disaster waiting to happen,” after two weeks of Zito pestering him to go to the beach sometime, so that Mulder would understand all that Zito had found in the waves.
It wouldn’t have mattered that Mulder was tall, one of the few people Zito knew who was taller than himself, with broad shoulders and strong hands that curled around a baseball like they had been designed specifically for that purpose. It wouldn’t have mattered that Mulder was so good-looking, almost too perfectly handsome to be real, his eyes glinting dark green and gold and his wide grin sparking across his face.
None of that would have mattered, because when you came right down to it, Mulder threw 95 miles an hour, and that was all the reason Zito needed to crash-land in love with the man.
Christ, but he’d always been a sucker for a good fastball.
Zito wandered through the days of that drifting, overexposed summer, giddily infatuated, crazy in love. He didn’t dwell on the implications too much, didn’t bother worrying about what his teammates might think if they noticed the way his eyes tracked Mulder across rooms, the way Zito looked for any excuse to toss an arm around the other man’s shoulders, any excuse to grab Mulder in a rib-cracking hug, inventing moments of celebration, pulling spontaneous victory out of the clear blue sky. Zito remembered a few times in the minors, hearing stories about ‘homos’ and ‘fags’ who’d been caught staring a bit too long in the locker room, and gotten the hell beaten out of them on the dirty, unforgiving fractured asphalt of the parking lots and back alleys of America.
Zito didn’t care, though, there was no room in him for fear, no part of him that could conceive of anyone not seeing what he saw in Mulder, no way that he might be expected to not be enraptured by him. *Of course* he was in love with Mulder, how could he be anything else? It was as predictable as a fastball on a three-and-oh count, as unremarkable as a pitcher sacrifice bunting with a man on first and nobody out. It was natural, inevitable. Zito being in love with Mulder made perfect sense.
Mulder being in love with Zito, however, that came totally out of left field.
* * *
They were in Detroit early in June, a three game series against the Tigers, and they were beginning to settle into the season, beginning to play together easy and clean and effortless, falling into being a team again.
The Tigers didn’t present much of a challenge (did they ever?), and the game was over by the third, when Mark Ellis poled one to left field, a two run shot that made it six to nothing and put the game efficiently out of reach for the home team.
Zito was having a good day, though he didn’t pitch. Mulder took the hill, so Zito was able to enjoy himself watching the big left-hander hurling fireballs like it was going out of style.
Mulder’s motion was quick and masterful, a complete forward force of his body that started small and composed, not as much of a leg-kick as Zito, and then right when you weren’t expecting it, he exploded, that million-dollar left arm coming around by way of the Southern Hemisphere, a huge hooking arc, a blur, the ball invisible whipping out of his hand, just all of a sudden a white dart flashing into Hernandez’s glove, and the batters couldn’t see the pitch any better than the men on the bench, the fans in the stands, the guys squinting at the game on fuzzy, pirated cable a hundred miles away from Tiger Stadium.
Mulder was standing on the mound, all the lines of the world funneling down with him as their center, his body strong and sure, looking unearthly, looking so utterly in his element, and he was magic, a thing of beauty, proof of God, it was like something Zito had been searching for his whole life.
“Looks all right out there, doesn’t he?” said Tim Hudson as Mulder sent Dmitri Young back to the bench after chasing a split-finger in the dirt, an absolutely filthy pitch that had the bottom drop out of it wickedly just as the Detroit All-Star began his swing.
Zito snorted. “Yeah, ‘all right’,” he replied with sarcasm lining his voice. “Dude, look at him! They can’t touch him, he could walk up and put the ball on a tee and they still wouldn’t be able to hit him!”
Smirking, Hudson replied, “Hey, suggest that to him when he gets back, I’m sure he’s looking for any excuse to make this more challenging.”
“Hell with challenging, tee-ball would be pretty much the only way to make this a fair fight,” Zito answered, never taking his eyes from Mulder’s form.
There was clear sunlight drenching the field, the sky strewn with ragged white tatters of clouds, and the hundreds of tiger statues that festooned the park cast strange rounded shadows on the concourses and smooth gray concrete, snarling from their fierce frozen faces with stone whiskers that wouldn’t last the season before being snapped off as souvenirs by Detroit fans who figured if they couldn’t have a winning record, they could at least take home a little piece of the stadium.
The new stadium at Detroit was beautiful, good straight sightlines, a wide scrolling outfield that made it a wonderful pitcher’s park, the diamond flung out like a paper fan, all brown and green and white, brand-new and still scrubbed clean. The city around it was tough and hard and dirty, but Tiger Stadium was, at the moment, perfect.
Zito had little interest in the aesthetics of architecture, however, not when Mulder was on the field.
‘Talk about beauty,’ he thought idly. ‘Talk about perfection.’ Mulder had gone oh-and-two and didn’t throw away the next pitch, winging high heat that clipped the corner of the plate, and the batter almost dislocated his shoulders trying to catch up with it, miles behind as the ball landed in the glove with a sharp thumping smack, a cough of dust rising from the old leather.
Inning over.
When Mulder got back to the dugout and found his seat between his two fellow pitchers, Zito was unable to keep a grin from dancing on his face. Tossing his arms up along the back of the bench, electrically aware of the line of Mulder’s shoulder pressing against him, Zito said, “So, dude, we’ve been talking about tee-ball.”
Mulder crooked an eyebrow. “You looking for a new team? I’ll check, man, but I don’t think tee-ball pays very well.”
Hudson laughed, and scooped off his hat to rub his palm across the shadowy stubble that he used as a substitute for hair. Zito had never understood the appeal of shaving one’s head. Enough men were miserably bald by nature, why would you ever want to intentionally pull a Kojak? Of course, Zito had heard his share of jokes about his chameleon hairstyles, the way his tousled mop was by turns blond, or blue, or spiky, or cut in cottony jagged sheafs that he could barely stuff under his cap at times. Mulder’s hair was neat and trim, with pieces of pale color like the sun glinting at the tips, and Zito knew from playfully scrubbing his hand on the other man’s head that Mulder’s hair was also softer than it had any right to be.
Zito cuffed Mulder on the shoulder, replying, “No, man, we were saying, we think you should give the Tigers a tee and then maybe they’ll have an outside chance at getting some wood on it.”
Mulder grinned. “Yes. That is an excellent idea. I am fully behind the tee-ball plan.”
“We figured you would be,” said Hudson, and the three settled back to watch Eric Chavez taking his cuts, quick hands and fast bat and a good eye, scratching together a strong at-bat before he lined one up the middle, the Detroit pitcher hot-stepping as the ball shot through his legs.
* * *
Later that night, they were at a bar, and Zito was feeling good.
His brilliant, wide-eyed good mood might have had something to do with the win that afternoon, a veritable rout that, though it had come against the worst team in baseball, had introduced the high sense of invincibility in the players, the leap of wild-night enthusiasm, the idea that they could beat anyone in all the world, they could play the game for years and decades and never again lose.
It might have had something to do with the three boilermakers Zito had knocked back, or the fact that Mulder had been there beside him all night, their elbows bumping on the bar, their feet kicking together in the metal forest of the bar stool legs, sidling looks at each other, shifting grins, trading glances back and forth like baseball cards.
Yeah, it might’ve had something to do with that.
Whatever it was, Zito was in a good mood.
“You see what happened in the Angels game?” Mulder asked, nodding towards the bar television, the screen of which was filmed with a foggy patina of dust, making SportsCenter look vaguely out of focus.
Zito squinted, seeing Stuart Scott talking without sound, a picture of Brett Favre floating behind his shoulder, the day’s ball scores tiny and indecipherable scrolling along the bottom of the screen.
“I saw David Eckstein get hit in the head by Bartolo Colon,” Zito replied. “Seriously, what is it with that guy? He’s got like a target painted on his batting helmet.”
Mulder smirked. “Taking one for the team, I guess. Getting on base. Not that you would know anything about that.”
“Not like you’re one to talk!” Zito shot back, grinning. “Dude, you oughta be praising God everyday that you don’t pitch in the National League, you don’t have to face retribution. I hit someone, I maybe bruise their shoulder or something, you hit someone, you break a rib.”
Mulder took a pull on his beer and swiped an arm across his mouth. “Don’t be jealous, Zito, it’s unbecoming,” he teased.
“Who’s jealous? Who needs a triple-digit fastball when you’ve got a . . . curveball. That breaks seventy. On a good day. Hmm,” Zito trailed off, thinking of the Little League World Series wonder-kid pitcher who threw seventy-six miles an hour.
Laughing, Mulder clapped a hand on Zito’s shoulder. “Aw, look who’s getting maudlin. Come on, let’s get you back to the hotel before you start singing ‘Glory Days.’”
“They’ll pass you by, man. In the blink of a young girl’s eye,” Zito intoned seriously, before he caught Mulder’s eyes with his own, and they both crooned, disastrously out of tune, “Glory daaaaays!”
Zito draped an arm around Mulder’s neck, and laughed until he thought he would pass out, his forehead pressed into his friend’s shoulder, feeling the solid heat and trembling life of his body.
* * *
When they got back to the hotel, they found half their team out on the scuffed lawn that framed the building. Lit by the shifting soft yellow pools of the parking lot lights, their teammates were playing a loose, makeshift game, the players switching positions and arguing over who got to pitch or bat next, the number of infielders and outfielders inconstant, roaming across a field that seemed to be constructed from bases made of knapsacks and spare gloves, foul poles established by dirty orange traffic cones with patches of reflective silver, and if Zito was seeing right, it looked like home plate was a hubcap.
The voices of their friends echoed, bounding and leaping high and young across the asphalt of the parking lot. There was a continuous stream of chatter and heckling, and joyous hooting laughter at showboat somersaulting catches in the outfield, flying headfirst slides, baserunners caught in dancing rundowns, Billy Koch trying to hit, Scott Hatteberg trying to throw a curveball.
Mulder and Zito took in their teammates, all of them in their street clothes, half of them wearing their A’s caps backwards in deference to the shadows, grimed with dust and grass stains, laughing and joking, looking for all the world like boys in a sandlot somewhere, looking like they should be playing with a tennis ball taped up black with electrician’s tape and waiting for their parents to call them home through the deep violet night.
Mulder half-turned, blinding Zito with a stunning grin and saying, “Well, what do you say, my man? I’m thinking it’s your ups, ‘cause I have always wanted to strike you out.”
Zito shoved him, skidding him off-balance over the curb. “Turnabout’s fair play, bud. I’ve seen you take your little girlie swings in b.p., breaking balls just eat you up.” He smiled cockily. “And I’m told I got a pretty good curve.”
They jogged over, greeted by backslaps and yells from the field.
“Zito! Hey, Barry man, come play third, it’s my turn to bat,” called Chavez. The rest of the team made the expected catcalls at the prospect of the pitcher playing an actual position, and Terrence Long, filling in at first base while Hatteberg wandered around aimlessly in short left-center, protested, “Chavez! I called dibs after Piatt!”
Chavez, already taking some cuts over the hubcap, mocked ignorance, “What’s that, T? You want me to hit a homer? Okay, man, I’m on it.” As Long grumbled, Zito took his place at third, pounding his glove, trying not to look too out of place.
“Hit it to third, Eric!” Mulder called from the sidelines. “Zito can’t catch a cold!”
“You wanna come out here and say that, punk?” Zito yelled back, the old well-worn instinct of trash talk coming back to him like he was thirteen years old again on the high school’s ball field in the full-bright light of the southern California summertime, playing pepper and whacking fungoes with his friends and any kid who walked by and wanted to join in.
Chavez skied one off Ted Lilly, the ball rising, a perfect parabola, a whirring sphere of white punching a hole in the velvet fabric of the night.
Mulder came in to pitch to Terrence Long, who finally got his chance to bat, and Mark Ellis rattled off from behind the plate, where he was playing catcher, “Right in here, babe, right here. Right down the pipe, bring the heat, come on, blow him away, here we go, here we go, bring it, bring it!”
Zito basked in the opportunity to watch Mulder pitch again, noticing that even in this casual scrimmage against his own team, Mulder didn’t let up for a second, putting his focus into each pitch like it was the seventh game of the World Series. Despite the glinting curve of a smile that played on his face, Mulder was still locked in, his overwhelming desire to win any contest, no matter how insignificant, buzzing from him.
Though he knew that some of their teammates wished Mulder would lighten up, already, especially during celebrity golf matches and poker games with M&Ms used for chips, Zito had always loved that intensity about the other man, that force of will that burned out of him, surrounding him like an aura. Mulder’s unwavering confidence in himself, his everyday demand that he *would* be good enough, he *would* prevail, was something that Zito had come to count on, something that made Mulder a constant in a shuddering, uncertain world.
Long bounced a high chopper to Zito, and at the last second, Zito surprised himself by snagging it bare-handed, and then, making a dramatic, entirely unnecessary spin before he threw to first.
The team erupted into exaggerated cheers and the thudding applause of hands banging on gloves. “Whoa, hot shot! Careful, Chavvy, he’s after your job!” Hatteberg hollered. Zito cut a deep, sweeping bow, swinging his arm to dust his glove along the ground, and when he came up, the first thing he saw was Mulder, clapping and laughing, all kinds of happiness streaming from him, his eyes sparkling.
Long came over, swatting Zito over the head with his cap. “I was robbed!” he bemoaned. “You think it’s so easy, you get up there, ace.”
This idea was met with great enthusiasm by the rest of the team, and Zito moved to take his place
Facing Mulder in this new and unexpected position, Zito was slightly disconcerted, suddenly finding himself the focal point of Mulder’s game-on glower, all at once feeling like a victim, the enemy, rather than cheering on Mulder’s dominance from the side.
“He’s got nothing, Mulder!” Long goaded, still clearly upset about being ‘robbed’. “He’s a hack, his swing is like a rusty gate!”
Mulder sneaked a grin at that, and Zito was unable to keep himself from angling one back at him.
Mulder went into his wind-up, and Zito tried to remember everything he had ever learned about picking up what kind of pitch would come from what kind of arm angle, but he was distracted by the fleet art of Mulder’s arm slicing on that great smooth curve, like he was tracing the circumference of the earth, tracking the movement of the sun across the sky.
The pitch was in Ellis’s glove before Zito could blink.
“What’s a’matter, Zito, scared to take a swing? Come on, the ball don’t bite!” Chavez taunted.
Snagging the ball back from Ellis, Mulder tossed over his shoulder, “Yeah it does, Chavvy, it bites like a snake.” He narrowed his eyes at Zito, a slight smile quirking his mouth. “Don’t dig in too much there, Zito. I know we’re friends and all, but this yard is a bit quiet just now, I think maybe we need some chin music.”
The team made the appropriate oohs at the threat, and Zito cocked the bat on his shoulder. “Try it, meat. I’ll send it back to you twice as fast.”
And the team, dutifully, made the appropriate oohs at that threat as well, Miguel Tejada calling out something that sounded mocking in Spanish. Zito made a note to ask Ramon Hernandez what the shortstop had said, and extract whatever vengeance Miggy might deserve, then settled in against Mulder.
Knowing he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of picking up anything from Mulder’s motion (because ten year veteran sluggers couldn’t pick up Mulder, how the hell was an American League pitcher only a season or two out of the minors supposed to do it?), Zito waited until he was sure that the ball wasn’t aimed at his Adam’s apple, then swung blindly at the next pitch, his eyes screwed shut, and was more surprised than anybody on the field to feel the clock of the ball against his bat, blinking as he watched the ball rocket through the gaping hole where a second baseman was missing.
Zito stood there, shell-shocked, his jaw hanging open as the ball skittered through the rough grass, kicking up little explosions of dust, and then Mark Ellis shoved him in the general direction of first base, “Run, man! You just hit Mulder’s fastball!”
Zito sprinted down to first, and as he stood on the old catcher’s mitt that was representing the base, the whole team cheered like he’d just hit a pinch-hit home run to win the pennant. Zito beamed like a kid, getting pounded triumphantly on the back and head by three different teammates, and it took him a moment to catch Mulder with his eyes, and he was stunned to find that the other pitcher, the most competitive man on the planet, was cheering too, as loud and wonderful as any of them, and when he met Zito’s eyes, Mulder grinned magnificently and applauded so hard Zito was afraid he was gonna slam right through the mesh of his glove.
There was a full moon drifting above their heads, like a polished ivory coin, and there was poetry on the field, in the swift clean movements, the staggering unbroken wood-horsehide sound of the ball on the bat, the ricocheting paths of the raucous, old-school jokes, there was baseball like second nature in them, maybe even first nature, baseball like a smooth green meadow in their hearts.
Zito was there in the untouchable night, with his teammates, his friends, with Mulder, all of their hands stained green and smelling like soft overgrown grass and tree sap and the leather of their gloves, years scuffed and broken in, instinct around their fingers, and they were young and sweet and well-made in the quiet dark.
* * *
After the rest of the team had turned in, Mulder and Zito remained on the lawn, playing catch.
Something about the calm perfection of the night, the silver pinpricks of the stars salted on the sooty curve of the sky, the full moon, made them unwilling to end the moment, stretching it out as the constellations blinked wonderingly over their heads.
“Truth now, Mulder, you took something off it when you pitched to me tonight, huh?” Zito asked, lazily tossing the ball to his teammate.
Mulder snerked. “Well, I might have been kind of distracted by your ridiculous batting stance, maybe my velocity fell off a bit. Also, I did pitch eight innings a few hours ago, and you did hit it where a second baseman would have been, if we were playing for real. So don’t, you know, let it go to your head or anything.”
Zito widened his eyes in mock insult. “You degrade my batting stance? That is *not* cool, dude. You’re so on my list.”
“What list?” Mulder responded with a scoff.
“My . . . list. Of people . . . who suck. Like you. Whatever, it’s a real list!” Zito insisted.
They fell into a companionable silence, listening to the uncomplicated rhythm of the rushing whip of their arms as they threw and the steady slap of the catches.
“So this was good tonight. You know. The guys, messing around,” Zito said into the quiet. “Seems like . . . like we’d be out there anyway, you know? Like if we weren’t ballplayers, if we worked at a . . . a smelting shop or something, we’d still come out and play ball together.”
Mulder held the ball for a moment, shooting Zito a quizzical look. “Why’d you use a smelting shop as an example?”
Zito shrugged, “I dunno, seemed like the kinda place where a bunch of the guys would play baseball together. Come on, you can see Huddy working a welding iron, right? It’d be far out.”
Mulder laughed. “Oh, it would be very far out. Ya hippie.”
“Don’t call me a hippie, you square.”
They grinned at each other for a moment, both terribly endeared to the other, then Mulder said, “You’re right, though. The guys tonight, the game . . . that was great.”
“Yeah,” Zito agreed, happy and content to toss the ball back and forth with Mulder until the sun came up.
Suddenly Mulder pointed way up over Zito’s head, his face brightening, “Hey, look! Zito, c’mere, look at this!”
Zito trotted over, standing next to Mulder and following the straight signpost of his arm. He didn’t see anything especially interesting, and asked, “What, dude?”
Mulder wrapped an arm around the other man’s shoulder and pulled their heads together, aligning the lines of their sight. “Look, see-that star? Right over that tree?”
Finally seeing what Mulder was talking about, Zito let out a low whistle, whispering, “Wow.”
The star above the tree was glowing a bright, electric blue, like a pilot light on a stove, like the center of a match flame. Alone in a patch of smooth, flawless sky, the blue star was an image of such motionless, surreal perfection that Zito felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him.
Mulder’s head was lightly resting against his own, and Zito felt him shift to say quietly into his ear, “You ever seen anything so beautiful? I mean, like, ever in all your life?”
Something happened in Zito’s chest, a small click, a piece falling into place, and he turned slowly to face Mulder, so close that their noses brushed vaguely together. Mulder blinked, and moved back, but only an inch or two, still close enough for Zito to see the flashing bits of gold in his eyes, see the gentle feather wisp of his eyelashes falling and then drifting up again.
Zito was struck, and thrown open, and he was unable to keep from leaning forward and pressing his lips to Mulder’s, brief and sweet. His arm looped around Mulder’s back, his hand curving over the hard bone of the man’s hip, and for that still, clear moment, he could taste Mulder like the beautiful night on his lips.
Then he pulled back, and stared wide-eyed at Mulder, half-expecting that million-dollar left arm to come swinging at his jaw, the arm that could throw 95 miles an hour throwing a punch that would knock him senseless.
But Mulder just crept a smile onto his face, then grinned, then laughed, tossing his face up to the sky, and Zito felt the laughter rolling out of him, and he flung his arms around Mulder’s body and hugged him as hard as he could.
Exhausted and happy, Zito rested his head in the crook of Mulder’s neck and shoulder, breathing him in, and he sighed, saying breathlessly, “Aw, hell, man, I love you, I swear to God, I’m crazy about you.”
Saying it out loud made him feel airless and light and clean, it made him feel like a kid again, innocent and simply redeemed, effortlessly good the way he had been when he was small.
He lifted his head to look at Mulder, found the other man smiling, moving a hand up to cup the back of Zito’s neck, and Mulder said, “All right, just to clarify, just to, you know, make sure, when you say ‘I love you,’ you don’t mean like, ‘you’re a pal, and I’ve had a few, and the moon’s full, and that blue star is crazy beautiful, so I love you,’ right? I mean, you mean, like, *in* love.”
Zito nodded, feeling delirious and excited. “Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. In love with you, that’s basically the story.”
And Mulder broke open a smile as pure and marvelous as a shaft of sunlight, and he tugged Zito close, replying, “Awesome.”
Zito was all warm and shivering, and he asked, his voice low and rough with emotion, “Awesome?”
Mulder swept a thumb over Zito’s eyebrow, smoothing along the gentle ridge, his fingers slipping through the uneven fringe of Zito’s hair, and said, “Yeah, Zito, awesome. Mainly because I’m so fucking in love with you I can’t breathe right most of the time. So, yeah. Awesome. Spectacular. In-fucking-credible.”
That had been the last thing Zito had ever expected, and his jaw dropped, hanging open like a cartoon character’s. He blinked, and tried to come up with something to say, something casual and clever, but he was nothing but stuttering and dumb, his mind wiped blank, all the words he knew vanished in the shock of Mulder being in love with him.
Seeing his stunned wordlessness, Mulder laughed gently and pulled Zito all the way in, kissing Zito with everything within him, breathing his whole being into Zito’s lungs, until they shared the same air and had fused one heart from their two
When they drew apart again, Mulder tilted his forehead against Zito’s and said, with the future in his voice, “Listen, you’re not allowed to join a tee-ball team, okay?”
Zito closed his eyes, unable to believe this was happening, unable to believe that this dream of his had come true, and replied, “No?” a smile flickering on his lips.
Mulder shook his head, rolling their foreheads together. “No. ‘Cause then I’d have to go with you, and I don’t like little kids.”
That was possibly the most amazing thing that had been said yet during this miraculous night, and Zito let a ripple of laughter ring from him. “Okay. No tee-ball.”
Mulder leaned in, wrapping Zito up with his body, his hands flush on the other man’s back, his face buried in Zito’s hair, and he murmured, “Good. Good.”
Zito held on to him, smoothing his hands down Mulder’s form, testing the planes of the man’s muscles with the palms of his hands, and whispered, “You can’t call me ‘hippie’ anymore, either.”
Zito felt Mulder smiling against the side of his neck, the hook of his mouth on Zito’s skin, and Mulder said with a laugh threading in his voice, “Why not? You’re my hippie now.”
And Zito decided that he could probably live with that.
THE END