hearkening way back like whoa
heal our losses (it's the second one)
for shannon and lira
Eric Chavez is staring at the yellow bird on his windowsill, and they’re running late. Mulder is yelling at him from the hallway as he darts between the bathroom and his bedroom, “Are you fucking ready, man?”
Chavez is dressed and sitting on the bed, his hair wet from the shower, his bags on the floor by the door, his hands twisted between his knees. The yellow bird has been there since he woke up, head the size of a shooter marble, shiny black ball-bearing eyes, and Chavez likes it, the way it’s just standing there moving its wings occasionally, staring back at him.
“Chavvy!” Mulder’s pounding on his door. “If we get fined again I’m taking it out of your ass.”
Chavez rolls his eyes, breathing shallowly. As if he’s got anything left to give.
Mulder tries the knob and Chavez exhales, stands up and puts on his jacket. The bird tilts its head curiously at him, and Chavez gives it a reassuring smile. He opens the door and Mulder is standing there with his bag already over his shoulder, looking surprised to see him.
“Well, let’s go,” Chavez says, and Mulder grins suddenly at him, shark-smile and he grabs Chavez by the back of his neck, pulling him in and kissing him hard on the forehead. Chavez pushes him off. “Let’s go.”
Zito is waiting for them in the Coliseum parking lot, leaning against his car and reading a comic book. The shuttle to the airport is out of sight around the corner, but Chavez can hear it trundling and coughing, can hear the guys laughing. Zito looks up and takes off his sunglasses.
“Nick of time, boys,” Zito tells them, his eyes alighting heavily on Chavez’s face. Chavez doesn’t enjoy this, the three of them sharing the same space with no one else around as witnesses. He doesn’t trust them, nor himself.
He makes a smile and shrugs. Mulder’s talking about Chavez sleeping through the alarm and Chavez is supposed to break off quick comebacks about Mulder not even having an alarm, but he’s feeling dull and mute today, thinking about the yellow bird.
Zito puts his hand on the small of Chavez’s back and leans down to whisper in his ear, “And how was your night, dude?” Zito’s voice is teasing-rough, his breath warm on Chavez’s face, and Mulder checks back over his shoulder to make sure they’re still following, his expression closing like a door as Zito runs his hand up Chavez’s back and playfully through his hair. Chavez sighs inwardly. He’ll pay for this the next time Mulder’s the one.
They go to the airport and Chavez is starting to hear voices. The flight is brief, just up the coast.
In the lobby of the hotel, they get their keycards and chase each other down the hall. They’ve got the whole floor, the pitchers on one end and the position players at the other, and somebody finds a maid’s cart and steals a bunch of foil-wrapped chocolates, and within an hour they’re everywhere, as big as quarters and melting on the carpets.
Zito pulls him aside and kisses him in the stairwell, Chavez’s arms twisted around so he can clutch the rail with both hands, his head cracking back against the wall. He gets paint in his mouth and Zito slides his extra keycard into Chavez’s back pocket. Chavez opens his eyes and sees a surveillance camera whirring above Zito’s shoulder. He smiles hugely with blood on his teeth, picturing the fame that awaits them.
But they won’t get caught. Chavez has gone through too much trouble for them to just be caught. It would never end so easy.
At dinner, Mulder gives him half a handjob in the bathroom (and not the important half, either), and puts his keycard in Chavez’s front pocket, and they’re so much alike it’s kind of painful. Mulder pulls away from him and goes to wash his mouth out with water from the sink, leers at Chavez standing there hard and panting, and then leaves. Mulder knows some stuff about cliffhangers.
Chavez waits and breathes until he can fix his jeans, then lays his hands carefully on the lip of the sink, the white of the porcelain drawn across his skin, and his heart is going so fast, so so fast. In the mirror, shadows warp and take form, swirling up behind him like ghosts. He can’t meet his own eyes.
He wishes he could go truly crazy, enough of this halfway bullshit. There are conversations to be had with the air, but he’s still held down, still holding on. He takes both of their keycards out of his pockets and lays them on the sterile metal shelf under the sink, lays his hands next to them and stays like that. After a while, he can’t remember which key is which.
Chavez goes back into the restaurant but everybody’s gone, the tab paid. He finds his team on the street, arguing about taxis and who’s going to the club, who’s going back to the hotel. It’s confusing and Mulder is holding court under a streetlight, Zito is lurking around in the edges of the light, sneering jibes at pretty much everything Mulder says.
Chavez watches the two of them and even when he’s being mean, Zito still looks like some kind of angel. Even in the dirty light, Mulder could stand up to anyone. Chavez sits down abruptly on the sidewalk, his head spinning. He presses the heels of his hands into his temples and his throat constricts, his chest jackrabbiting. This has been happening a lot.
He clenches his teeth and silently chants the names of the thirty major league cities, over and over again. He braces himself, because soon someone will see him and shout his name and hurry over, dude are you all right, dude what happened, and he’ll have to have a good explanation for this. He can’t just sit on the curb for no reason, not now.
But when Chavez can breathe again and has gotten Kansas City unstuck from his mind, he looks up and everybody’s gone, left nothing but blown moonlight on the window glass and newspapers in the gutter.
He goes back to the hotel and locks himself in his room, putting on the deadbolt and the chain and pushing the dresser in front of the door. He turns off his cell and takes the room phone off the hook. He lies down on the bed and wonders if birds can fly this high.
Mulder’s first, banging on the door like how this day begun, calling his name. That goes on for a little while, then Mulder goes away. A bit later, Zito tries, “hey, are you dead in there or what? Give you five seconds and then I’ma call the cops.” Zito sounds drunk, and Chavez has always liked drunk Zito, alcohol sweetens him.
But Chavez doesn’t answer the door. He expects that the others will try, and then it will be a mission and eventually they’ll tell the coaches, what the fuck for loyalty, after all, and the hotel manager will use his passkey, but the chain and the dresser should hold. They’ll need to use the fireman’s axe if they want to get to him.
He doesn’t know what’s so bad about wanting a fucking night off. It’s been a long season.
Nobody comes. Chavez can still hear them talking out in the hall, doors clapping shut, feet thumping past, but after a while they go away.
In the morning, Chavez feels Mulder and Zito watching him suspiciously, and he wishes, just once, that their eyes would overshoot him and hit each other. Then all his problems would be solved. He’s pretty sure he left both of their keycards in the bathroom.
Zito gets hold of him first at the ballpark, hooking his arm and dragging him off into some equipment room that smells like leather and neatsfoot oil.
“Where were you last night?” Zito asks with his hand gripping Chavez’s belt, and that’s all he has time to get out before Mulder comes in and everything stops.
It’s perfect, Mulder’s eyes racketing and Zito’s hold tightening until Chavez can feel the belt cutting gashes in his hips, and very quickly Mulder is shouting and then Zito is shouting too, their voices echoing and cracking, and Chavez really wouldn’t have figured that either of them would care that much about keeping him. Maybe it’s that thing about not wanting the toy until someone tries to take it away.
In the confusion, right before the place immolates, Chavez is able to slip between them and leave the room without either of them noticing. Their screaming echoes down the tunnel before the door snicks shut.
Chavez looks both ways, forgetting which direction he came from, and he runs his hand through his hair, tucks his shirt back in. Light is pouring in and his footsteps echo on the concrete, and he puts his hands in his pockets. He starts walking faster, as if he knows where he’s going.