It was fall in Detroit, and there was a plane waiting at Wayne County Airport to take them home, but the pilot was in no hurry, dragged down as the rest of them and the threat of a snowstorm in the air, so they crammed together in the hallways and suites of the hotel and threw their own celebration party. Zito crammed a sandwich baggie twisted up around a stash of weed in the batboy's hands--the one that looked like a more sinister Danny Haren, only cut off at the knees--and told him to steal a couple cases of champagne from the home clubhouse. More of it would probably end up in their mouths than the Tigers', anyway.

Mark Ellis split a bottle with Crosby and they were both fucked up in record time, the cat-piss taste of champagne and the flat white disks of vicodin fizzing together, fusing into something heavy-lidded and sweet. Ellis kept forgetting about his brace, knocking bottles off the table, laughing wildly as the alcohol splashed and fizzed into the carpet. Crosby was locked into conversation with Scutaro, eyes troubled and hand tense on Marco's shoulder, saying, "Seriously, man... seriously..." over and over, but unable to formulate what he was serious about.

Chavez was numbed through with cortisone and demerol and other things that came in needles, pain-free for the first time in weeks and nursing a single bottle of Bud Light. Zito dropped like a stone onto the couch beside him and pushed a scattering of tangerine-colored pills into his palm, but Chavez only smiled and shook his head, rolling them to his fingertips and feeding them back to Zito one by one, the pitcher catching his fingers on the last one and and licking a warm stripe over his thumb. He was already buzzing high in his chest from the previous fistful, a rising counterpoint to Chavez's sleepy comfort.

"This is so fucked up," Zito said against Chavez's wrist, long callused fingers tracing his hairline, Chavez's palm a shelf for his head. Chavez nodded and felt out the checkmark scar near Zito's temple, an unlucky collision with the snarled end of a broken bat. Funny how the fucked up times and the good times looked so much alike these days. The way the burn of a long season turned into pulled muscles and torn tendons overnight, no clear distinction until his legs gave out just outside the shower one morning and he fell crashing back into mortality, strength shivering out of him and blood between his teeth.

"I know," Chavez said, cupping the side of Zito's neck to hold him close, the ragged pulse doubling and skipping under his thumb. Zito's eyes were quick and swallowed up by dark, a frantic rush toward euphoria bubbling under his skin. "But it's gonna get less fucked up real soon. This is as fucked up as it's ever gonna be, I promise."

And really, he shouldn't have been making promises he couldn't keep on a night like this, not when Zito was likely to take it the wrong way, deep breaths threatening to break apart his chest and something wild and peaceful unlocked behind his eyes. Not when the room already reeked of liquor and possibility, and this was the last time they'd all be in the same uniform, the last time they'd all be together in a hotel in Detroit drinking away another year of loss. But Eric Chavez was shot through with painkillers like a radioactive dye, lighting up all the places in his head filled with bad intentions, and Zito was falling back into him like an old habit, weightless and bright, trying to see how long he could stretch a day.

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