The usual, really. Skinner, Doggett, beer, angst, sex. Takes place during DeadAlive and after Empedocles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Run to Ground I wake up with a feeling of dread that I can’t place for a moment. Morning sunlight is streaming through the window, stopping just short of the bed, but lighting the room just fine. Everything is still, and quiet and calm, but I’m strangely on edge. I turn on my side, towards Walt, and then I remember... I was a cop for eight years, and one of the things you learn in that line of work is that people can’t be trusted. Or more accurately, your impressions of people can’t always be trusted, how ever many years you’ve been on the job. There’s a sweet little old lady that would remind you so much of your grandma, only instead of spending her twilight years in gardening and embroidery she runs one of Brooklyn’s most profitable cathouses. She was a well-known dominatrix in her day, too. I’ve seen the pictures. Good legs. Serial killers can look like accountants, while the scariest-looking guy I’ve ever seen was another cop, worked in my precinct. Six-foot-five, and the shoulders of a quarterback, but fainted at the sight of his own blood. That was pretty funny when it happened, actually. It was only a flesh wound, bullet just took some of the skin off his arm, but you’d have thought he’d been bayoneted. Heavy work picking him up off the ground. Anyway, so you see enough shit and after a while you get jaded and think that not much can surprise you any more, and most of the time you’re right. Walt still managed it, though. His problem is that he fits so neatly into a specific type: white, male, Republican. Military service, special agent, assistant director of the FB-fucking-I. Nice little wife, two kids, mom, God, apple pie. No to the cigarettes, yes to the booze, maybe to the occasional joint to remind you of old times. Getting into middle age, eyes going, hair mostly gone, but at least the body’s in shape, and that’s what counts now that the most exercise you get from your job is yelling at your agents when they fuck up once in a while. A few more years wearing out the same groove until they promote you, retire you, or bury you. See, a type. OK, so I’m wrong about the kids. And the wife too, although she was around and it’s not my fault she’s dead now. I should have known better, I suppose, since now I think about it I pretty much fit into the mold myself. Haven’t gone quite as high, but then I’ve still got all my hair. Hah. So I haven’t got the kid, or the wife, and that’s not my fault either - well, most of it. After Luke’s death it just all fell apart. By then neither of us was holding on real tight to start with. But not for any of the reasons you might think, not those ones. Just the usual one where you come down to breakfast in the morning and realize that you might as well be eating alone. So, Walt and me and our little secrets. Who would have thought? You’re thinking - well, you should have guessed about him a whole lot earlier, seeing as you’ve got a hell of a lot else in common. But I think maybe the hardest person to read is someone who’s just like you. So I’m here, and he’s here. He’s still asleep, and the glasses are sitting off on a little side table. He’s on his back, and he’s snoring a little, not the heavy duty snoring that gets you a prod in the back but a light steady buzz, mouth slightly open. Everything’s white, boring, but uncomplicated - pillows, bottom sheet, and the top sheet covering us that’s lying just below the dark mat of his chest, cutting him in half. I’m up on one elbow and any moment now I’m gonna throw off the sheet and go take a shower with the heat turned up high the way I like it. But I’ll lie here a moment longer, not too long because some things you don’t need to think about too much or too often, but long enough to take a good long look at him and reflect a little before it goes away. I knew Walt a while before I got drafted into the X-files - not well, just by sight, by reputation. Occasionally something would cross over into Violent Crimes and we’d get pulled off cases for a short time to cover some situation or other that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to most of us. The only thing that made us pay any attention at all was Mr AD running around barking orders as if he really meant them. I’ve learned since that sometimes he had his doubts about Mulder’s sanity, but he never let on, and his conviction often carried the rest of us. He’s good at that, keeping his personal feelings out of his work life. Well, most of the time. It was the Marines thing that singled me out to him a little. I’m a solid agent, not flashy, but as reliable as a Bucar. But being in the Corps is something that stays with you for life, and on the rare occasions I was on his team he treated me with a decent amount of respect, remembered my name, that sort of thing. Never did me any good in terms of rank or pay, but you can’t have everything. I don’t know how much he had to do with getting me into the X-files, but I suspect it was more circumstance than planning. From what I hear the upper levels of the Bureau weren’t exactly pleased with him, and his recommendations and advisories were treated with a certain lack of respect. So it was probably nothing to do with him at all, but I think as long as someone was looking for Mulder, and that someone was halfway competent, he would have been satisfied. I did the best I could, not out of any personal concern for Mulder, but because it was my job. Mulder. The very thought of him right now stirs up too much shit to mention. I’m still looking at Walter, and my heart rate is speeding up, and it’s the wrong time, and now, right *now* the last thing I want to do is think about Mulder, so I won’t. I’ll go take that shower instead. In a way, I’m here now because of helping find his dead body in the first place, so I guess that’s something I owe him. After the funeral, Walt took a couple of weeks’ leave, not too surprisingly - it had been a pretty hectic few months, and he deserved the break. Scully took a week as well, to mourn, and that I could understand. No one knew for sure the father of the child that was rounding out her belly, but Mulder was an obvious candidate. Apart from any of that, he had been her partner for seven years, and you don’t cover each other’s asses for that amount of time without getting a little attached. But she came back after that - a little paler, a little drawn in the face, but all apparently well with her and the baby, and she seemed to be doing fine. On the second day she was back news came in of the body of a reported abductee found in the Barataria Preserve, near New Orleans, dead, with some familiar sounding markings in various places on the body. I heard her collect the details from someone on the other end of the line, firing questions at them relentlessly until she formed a picture of the situation. Then she put the phone down gently and announced that she was heading out there. I argued with her for a while, but she had a medical degree and I didn’t, and that was indisputable, no matter how much I praised the thoroughness of autopsy reports in Louisiana. She had to see for herself, see if it would shed any light on the way Mulder might have died, and so then I gave in and said I would go with her. This was also unacceptable, but for a far stranger reason. She told me to do her a favor and go check on AD Skinner while she was gone. That threw me. Besides being well past the age of consent, he was most probably in a bar somewhere up the coast and would not take well to being stalked on his holiday. She shook her head at that and told me that she knew exactly where he was, and while the alcohol content was pretty accurate, it wasn’t much further than a short drive south-west. There were plenty of questions, of course, but she was pretty good at doing the evasion thing herself, and in the end I didn’t end up knowing a lot more than I started with. She gave me a ring with some keys on it, and a phone number, although apparently Skinner hadn’t been taking calls from anyone, hence the keys. Me, I was starting to wonder whether Mulder’s weirdness was catching. As soon as she left the office I looked at the keys and the piece of paper in my hand and realized I’d been had. Something was up, and I don’t much like being the punchline of a bad joke. So I left it a day to stew, but when on Wednesday she reported back to say she was still sitting around waiting for the county examiner to let go of the body and went on to grill me about Skinner, I figured she was actually serious. So I humored her, and went. Now I’m in the shower, the water cascading off my chest, turning the skin red in its wake. Soap and rinse, soap and rinse. I think it’s a damn good thing for everyone concerned that I’m not a shower singer. The glass cubicle is filling with steam, misting the walls so that the room beyond disappears. Soon I’m lost in the sound of the splash of the water on the tiles, my personal preferred meditation, none of those bizarre floor contortions and chanting for me. Lost in a fog of white, I can let my mind wander a little, but not too far. The mysterious AD Skinner didn’t bother answering his main door buzzer either, it seemed, but a guy on his way out let me in, so I didn’t have to resort to trying key number one. I’d swapped the Bureau suit for jeans and jacket, but the guy didn’t even bother with a second glance on his way out. Very trusting. It’s a good neighborhood, but people should still know better than to let a complete stranger into their building without a second thought. On an AD’s wage Skinner could easily have afforded one of the upmarket condos with 24-hour security, but I can understand why he didn’t. Those guys are always way too nosy for their own good. I check the slip of paper and knock at the door, almost pound, actually, the heavy-handed ‘official business’ rap coming out automatically before I remember this is supposed to be more of a private visit. It’s probably ingrained response that brings Skinner to the door after all. How about that. See Scully, didn’t even need the keys, another fugitive run to ground. Only he’s got the chain link on, like I was selling something, and he doesn’t look too happy to see me. Can’t think why. “Is Scully OK?” is the only thing he says to me, through the gap. “I meant to call her.” His voice is tight, controlled. Although he’s not giving off dizzying fumes, and his speech is perfectly fine, there is a trace of beer that wafts through along with his words. “Fine,” I say, “Abductee found in Louisiana. Dead. Autopsy. Didn’t want me along.” I’m sounding like a telegram, but talking to someone’s right eye doesn’t exactly encourage long speeches. “She practically ordered me to drop in on you, so I’m here. She’s fine, you’re fine, so I’ll just go and leave you to your time off.” I turned away, already anticipating the drive home, a beer, whatever was playing on TV tonight, but the chain rattled a little and the door closed and opened again, all the way this time. And Skinner’s standing in the doorway, looking tired and more rumpled-looking than I’d ever seen him. A long way from a street bum, but not real close to starched shirt and tie either. Looking a little relieved, and awfully human. He invites me in, if I’m not doing anything, and I accept, because I’m not. This is where I start getting a little edgy with myself because he’s not the kind of guy to leap at uninvited company, and although I’ve been given an easy out, I don’t take it. It would have been the smart thing to do, given the circumstances, but I go in anyway. Part of it is simple curiosity. Seeing people’s territory tells you a lot more about them than they’d be comfortable with, if they realized. Skinner’s place isn’t any great revelation. It’s pretty sparsely furnished, none of the little decorative knickknacks that seem to pop up as if by magic in the presence of a woman. It’s not at its best right now, but it’s not exactly a mess either - a little rumpled, just like its owner. A couple of beer bottles are on the low table and parts of newspapers and other reading material are scattered around the couches, a stray page or two on the floor. A single plate with a few crumbs on it on a side table, and the TV is on, tuned to the basketball. The Knicks aren’t playing, but my eye goes to the scoreboard anyway. 23-18. It’s early. Skinner’s got a few more bottles of Sam Adams lined up against the side of the single couch, where the dent indicates he’s been sitting, and he hands me one. He’s got a little puzzled crease between the eyes, as if he hadn’t thought I’d accept either, and now he doesn’t really know what to do. Since he’s clearly not in a mood for social chit-chat, I settle in to the long couch and talk about the game, and he seems to happy to pick up the open bottle on the table and go right back to where he’d been when I interrupted him. It was a surreal evening, the kind of time where the borders of reality warp and run a little inside your mind. The game was solid, and so was the beer, but we were somehow out of place, even as we watched and talked and drank. Just two pals shooting the breeze, only he was more my boss, kind of, and neither of us quite knew what was going on. Once, Skinner said something very strange, when I was mock-arguing the merits of basketball against his beloved football, something along the lines of, “Not this again,” and then shut up for a good long while. I didn’t really notice too much at the time, probably due to the mellowing effect of the beer, but it came back to me much later. At that time I was following my own agenda, watching the game, sure, but also taking the opportunity to study the off-duty Skinner, as well. I can’t deny that I was a little curious about him too. All right, I was attracted to him, always was, and that’s why I got myself so deep into this in the first place. You happy now? Jesus, there are so many good reasons to avoid this happy self-awareness shit. It wasn’t some kind of crazed lust anyway, nothing so humiliating. More respect, and understanding, and a little sympathy mixed in. Physically, he’s in damn good shape for his age, and yet he doesn’t act like he knows it. That’s even more attractive. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the man usually has more ‘do not cross’ police lines surrounding him than a major homicide scene, and Bureau gossip has always linked him with various women - his wife, that hooker business that ggot all hushed up, maybe even Scully. But it’s a free country, and I can look all I like, so I do. He’s wearing light grey sweatpants with a white T-shirt, and the soft fabric somehow manages to blunt all the hard edges of his body. Barefoot. He’s looking relaxed now, less drawn, and more animated than his stony-faced work persona, and it looks good on him. Once in a while I even get a flash of a smile, very white teeth, and then it’s gone and he’s solemn again, intent on the screen. And I’m talking, and he’s talking, and neither of us are really saying a thing, until suddenly the siren goes and the game’s over, 71-68. It must have been a damn good game, but hard as I try I can hardly remember a thing about it now. The scores stick in my head for some reason, but I’ve even forgotten the teams. I’m sure one of them was in yellow, maybe. Or blue. The end of the game seemed to bring him back from wherever he’d been with a hollow thud. I could almost see him physically collecting himself as his face reassembled itself into more familiar lines and he squared his shoulders. He stretched a little, and started collecting beer bottles, not looking at me. “Thanks for staying, John. It was a good game, wasn’t it?” “I think so, sir,” I said, truthfully, and stood up, draining the rest of my bottle. The sir came out before I could stop it. The tone of his voice had made it a dismissal. He realised how he had sounded, and managed to look a bit embarrassed about it. “It was good of you to stop by.” Softer. “Yeah, well, I suppose I’ll be going now. Glad to see you’re...” what? Spending your vacation time at home and drinking a lot? Acting a little strangely? Able to look good in sweatpants? “...fine.” “Make sure you mention it to Scully.” “Will do.” Although I realize at that moment that I still have no idea what’s going on between Scully and Skinner. For all I know they’ve been spending their off time shacked up together, doing God-knows-what. But even as I think that I know that’s not the case, because then he would have damn well called her. No, she was worried about him because... they’re friends, and recently they’ve both been through some tough times, and then finding Mulder’s body like that must have been a shock. But he was in ‘Nam, so he’s seen plenty of dead bodies. But I guess none of them was Mulder. Mulder. Dammit, why does everything in some way always have to lead back to Mulder? “Fuck it,” I say out loud, and actually slam the flat of my hand against the wet, white tile. So much for the happy thoughts. It’s a totally pointless action, and painful into the bargain but it works for me right now, so I do it again. Then I feel stupid and turn off the water. I dry off and wrap the towel around my waist in time-honored fashion. When I come out Walt’s awake and sitting up a little and his glasses are back on. I don’t think he heard me, but he doesn’t smile when he sees me, which I take as a bad sign. Fuck it. I rummage around a bit for some clothes, but neither of us says a word. I felt that I should say something in the heavy silence that followed my assurance. “I’m sure it’s been very hard on you and Agent Scully. Finding Mulder like that. But at least he’s at peace now.” The platitude sits badly in my mouth, but in some situations that’s all that’s left to you. I’m sorry for your loss, everything’s going to be all right, see you tomorrow. I love you. One for every occasion. Only my soothing, empty words seem to have the opposite effect, and he stops collecting beer bottles, sits back down and looks at me steadily. “Is he?” “What?” Again I feel as if I’m missing something. “Mulder. At peace.” Oh. That. I don’t know, I suppose he is. Being dead and all. The mention of Mulder’s name seems to have triggered something in Skinner. His eyes fill with some strong emotion a second before he drops his gaze. I feel like I’ve been handed a live explosive ticking down to zero and a pair of rubber-handled shears. “Walter.” I think it’s the only time I’ve used his first name and it’s a big presumption, but this situation is sliding way into the personal. “You did everything you could. We all did.” Jesus. More platitudes. “He’d still be alive if I had kept close to him in the first place.” He’s holding his head in his hands. I’m embarrassed as hell. “That’s bullshit. He’s a grown man, not some little kid who can’t cross the road without holding onto someone’s hand. For God’s sake, Walter, I’m sure Mulder was a great guy, but he was a loose cannon and everyone knows it. Something was going to get him sooner or later whether you were there or not. I’m going to go now and let you think about it.” I turn away, slowly, and take a couple of steps towards the door. Almost out of there. Green wire, yellow wire, blue wire. Cut. “God. I miss him.” Fuck. Smoke fills the air and revelations rain down on me one after the other like falling brickwork. Scully. Mulder. Skinner. Two out of three, but the wrong two. The chain of evidence is complete; the report is filed. I know exactly what I’m going to do now. I’m going to walk over to the door, turn the knob and pretend I didn’t hear that last bit. Then I’m going to go home, have a nice long shower and keep right on pretending. That is clearly the logical thing to do, and everything will be back in order by Monday morning without any further intervention on my part. So I walk over to Skinner and put my hand on his shoulder awkwardly, and pat him a little, like he’s a pet or something. The muscles bunch and tense under my hand and he’s doing his best to get himself back under some kind of control, his breathing slowing gradually back to normal. I don’t think he was actually crying, but then I don’t really want to know. His head is still down, but his left hand crosses over and lays itself over mine, and I’m trapped. Then he lets go and I’m free again. He doesn’t want to look at me and I don’t blame him. There are moments in your life where you have to do something big that you know once done, can’t be undone. Your take aim and your finger tightens a little on the trigger, your wrists locked steady the way they taught you; or the wind gusts into your face as you look out of the plane into nothingness and touch the handle of your ripcord just one more time. Time seems to slow down while you work up the nerve to fire, or to jump. Go, one part of you is screaming; Stop, says the rest of you, and you stand there frozen until one of them wins. On the other hand, if you move quickly and decisively enough at the very beginning, sometimes you can circumvent the whole thought process, but then you have to live with the consequences. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s OK, Walter. I get it, and it’s OK,” I said, and right on cue the voices start up, but it’s too damn late, because it’s done. Now he does turn his face up, in confusion, and his eyes are bright, but there are no telltale streaks on his face. He looks at me as though he’s never seen me before in his life, and in a way, that’s true, so I keep my gaze as steady and direct as I can. Watching as his mind takes hold of things and examines them, one by one. Then he pulls me down to him and he kisses me with such desperate intensity that I forget to breathe for a moment. He needs this; needs it to remember he’s alive, to lose himself for a short time in something else. Someone else. I don’t have any illusions about what’s happening here, but I want it all the same. Soon I’m straddling him, kneeling and I push my tongue into his mouth and his lips part under mine, accepting it, wanting it, letting me take control. His mouth is hot and sweet and he moans a little as I penetrate it again and again. All the while my cock is rubbing against his through the layers of cloth, and it’s already aching, but I manage to keep my hands off it and on Skinner. I move down to kneel between his legs and push my hands under the soft fabric of his T-shirt. He takes off his glasses and throws them carelessly onto the other sofa before removing the T-shirt in a single fluid motion. It hits the floor softly, but I’m already running my hands through the dark curls on his chest, lapping and biting at his throat as he tilts his head back submissively. More of those soft, breathy sounds that I can hardly believe he’s capable of making. I think that usually he’d be stronger, more aggressive in his responses, but this is far from a normal situation for him. For my part, having him like this under my hands is more arousing than I could have imagined. I want to fuck him with a savagery so strong that it scares me. Breathe, John, breathe. A few deep breaths and my head is a little clearer. I pay a little attention to his nipples, but not too much, because my hands are already busy pulling at the elastic waist of the grey flannel, making him stand again so I can draw it down to his knees and off before pushing him back onto the couch. He’s fully erect, the tip glistening with clear liquid, and his breathing is already fast and erratic. I take him into my mouth in a single swift glide and he stiffens and gasps. So I wrap my hand around the base and press firmly for a few seconds until his breathing becomes a little more regular, and then begin using my tongue in swift, firm strokes. One hand fumbles a little with the buttons of my own jeans, making a little more space down below. The blood in my cock is pulsing in time with my heartbeat, and I wonder whether I could come without even touching myself. I don’t think that’s happened since I was a teenager. I stop thinking about my dick for a moment, no easy task, and concentrate on Skinner. Men have been few and far between for me, and it’s been forever since I blew anyone. I’m a little rusty, but some things stay with you. Like many things, it’s a procedural matter - go by the book, and things will usually work themselves out in the end. You have the right to remain silent... For the first few seconds the only sounds I can hear are Skinner’s shallow breaths and the pounding of blood in my own ears. His cock is full and heavy in my mouth, and I experiment for a little while flicking my tongue around the shaft, and up against that delicate point up under the head. If you choose to waive that right anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law... “Christ,” he says, and I take that as a sign to settle in to serious business. Lick, suck, swallow, repeat. He has one hand on my shoulder, the other twisted in my hair and as I continue my efforts one or the other of them tightens occasionally, usually accompanied by more blasphemy. I lean towards bad language myself, but there are some things you can’t know for sure till you’re there. You have the right to speak to an attorney... He’s doing his best not to, but now his hips are beginning to buck off the couch as he pants, and his hands are digging into me harder than I’d like. Almost there. I can feel the pulse in my own cock, but I don’t think it’s going to happen, not right now anyway. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will appointed to you at no cost... My jaw is aching a little, but the low sounds he’s making in his throat tell me everything I need to know. A breath, and then I go down as far on him as I’m able to, feeling the skin throb and pulse under my tongue. And he shouts, and gasps, and his hips jerk violently so I put my hands there to keep him from choking me. Come floods my mouth, and I swallow some but lose the rest, resulting in a quick swipe with my shirttails that probably isn’t very graceful. Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you? His head has fallen back against the couch and his eyes are closed. Not asleep obviously; but that half-daze which means... well, that I did a better job than expected. Which I think is about as much satisfaction as I’m going to get right now, but it doesn’t bother me. I stand up and tuck my damp shirt back into my jeans and do them up, with a little difficulty. Thank god for my jacket, which should cover me on the way out, but I know I’ll have to take the situation in hand, so to speak, before I go to bed tonight. And the shower’s waiting, and a little comfort sex is the last thing I expected to be doing this evening, and good-byes are always a bit awkward but if I leave it any longer and he has to open his eyes and say something, and I have to say something the level of awkwardness could escalate into something truly profound. So I kiss him quickly, and walk out of his apartment, and out into the night. Over the phone the next day I told Scully that I thought he was doing fine, considering. She sounded pleased to hear it. It turned out the wounds on the body had been patterned much the same as Mulder’s, but the corpse had been too badly weathered for her to tell exactly what might have killed it, so she was flying back that afternoon. I told her to take her time, as nothing much was happening at the office. Just another one for the case file. Skinner came back to work the Monday after, and for a while we did a bit of pretending it hadn’t happened, which was fine until it started getting awkward every time he gave me an order or I gave him a report, or when we got tossed into the field with Scully. And he’s in a tougher position than I am because I could turn tail and file a sexual harassment claim should he so much as raise the subject in or out of the office. So I went by another evening, just to straighten things out. Only because no one had gotten around to asking for those keys back. And a little explaining got done, but mostly what got done was Skinner, with his legs drawn up all the way to his chest, and me ramming my dick into him as fast and deep as it would go, and a sheen of sweat on us both. A lot of cursing and blaspheming going on that night, and it was fine. The next day at work, things were better, and since it had worked so well, it kind of became a habit. I ended up giving him a spare set of keys, since he’d never asked for his back. “John. They’re over there. On the dresser.” Walt cocks his head a little and I stop tossing things around pointlessly and grab at my wallet and keyring with no gratitude whatsoever. I’m fully dressed now, having thrown on my clothes in a mild frenzy. He’s been watching me from the bed, with that concerned look on his face that for some reason pisses the hell out of me. Clearly, he wants to know what’s possessed me, and I should just come right out and say it, but we’re masters of avoidance. Don’t ask, don’t tell. That would be real funny given the situation if it wasn’t true. It’s not like we didn’t talk at all. It’s not as if we’re deaf-mutes, or anything. We talked about basketball, and boxing, and the Corps, and the merits of beer. I talked about tracking down human scum for a living, and he talked about the first case he worked coming into DEA, when his colleagues planted a few tiny plastic bags of sugar in his desk, just for laughs. Casework, of course, although we usually left that for the office. Not to mention all the incidentals - Dinner ready? Move over. Where’d you put the remote? ‘Night, Walt. Plenty of words there. But the other, complicated stuff we just let slide. Why mess with something that works? We’d fuck, and then we’d clean up a bit, and it felt good to have the human warmth of another body beside you at night. There were other things we could do besides, like work out, or eat in, or go for a walk in a park somewhere. Sometimes I’d look at him, and want to say something, but I always bit the words back, because it was both dangerous and unnecessary, and he probably thought the same. Why barge through a minefield when you can tiptoe around it? We each took what the other offered, with no complaints, and it was enough. For just under three months, it was enough. Mulder was a key item on the list of things we never talked about, except in passing. The basketball thing, for instance, and the bizarre taskforces. Walter never brought the subject up, if he could help it, and to tell the truth, I didn’t really want to know about what they had going together. He was dead and gone, and life, as they say, goes on. I admit that in the end I underestimated Mulder, though. I should have known the bastard would come back. And I’m fast asleep, alone and in my own bed for a change, when the phone goes off in my ear and Walt’s ordering me to get my ass over to the Bureau and he’ll pick me up from there. He’s talking faster than my brain can cope with at 1am and he’s talking about abductees, and a drowned corpse coming to life and I don’t really wake up properly until we’re in the car and he says we’re going to dig up Mulder’s body and I shake my head and replay the words just to make sure I heard right. I think he’s gone insane and I tell him so, tell him to leave it be, but he’s got that stubborn set look on his face and all I can do is back him up as best I can, insane or not. And of course he was right, and I spend the best part of a day shuttling back and forth from the JEH and the naval hospital, and more shit goes down that I still haven’t quite got a handle on, but the upshot is that in a very short time Mulder’s alive and well, and back to breaking into government installations. Right now a part of me wishes he were still in the ground, cosy and snug and out of the way. Since he got out of hospital I’ve been taken hostage, shot at, and been spattered with another man’s blood, but that’s not the worst of it. Worse is taking shit from Mulder for the guy’s death, and Walter standing there helpless in the middle of it all, trying to make excuses for him. Watching the certainty in Walter’s eyes turning to doubt every time Mulder is involved, and Scully gone suddenly wary as well. Having to prove my loyalties all over again. And all along in the back of my mind there’s also the certainty that with Mulder home it’s only a matter of time before he comes back looking for what he’s missed, and I’m just keeping his place warm till Walt summons up the nerve to let me know. I always knew he’d have the balls to do it properly. It wouldn’t be that just I’d come home one day and find a small cardboard box on my kitchen table with a few bits and pieces in it and those of Walt’s gone missing. Walt’s not the type. He’s gonna tell me to my face, and when he does I’m going to be calm and dignified about it, just the way I’m being right now. “It’s Saturday, John. I don’t think you need the tie.” Dammit. I unloop it and stuff it in my pocket. Apart from the times I’m fucking him, he’s so calm, so reasonable that occasionally I want to do or say something outrageous just to get a rise out of him. Maybe it’s time, after all. “I’m leaving now. I’m sure you’ve got other plans for the weekend. Alexandria, maybe,” I spit out. Yesterday, which I now recall was indeed a Friday, Walt took the afternoon off to go visit Mulder at his home, the first real chance he’d had to speak with him alone since he got out of hospital. I came up to Crystal City straight from the office, expecting, or maybe hoping he’d come home early afterwards, but it wasn’t till after midnight that his key turned in the lock. He looked tired, and a bit surprised to see me, and not in the mood for talking or fucking, which I took to be a bad sign. This morning I woke up and knew it wasn’t going to be pretty and if I’d really wanted to avoid it I could have slipped out while he was still asleep, but part of me knew that that wasn’t going to be a long-term option, so I took the shower and waited for him to wake up. And sure enough, now he’s awake and all I want to do is get out. Fuck. So I’m about to make my exit, as dramatic as any queen that ever swished his way offstage at Club Chaos, when he finally gets up and grabs me and pushes my fully dressed ass back onto the bed. He sleeps naked and the complete view is pretty spectacular. I’m trained to notice these things. “That’s enough,” he says, once he’s sure he’s got my complete attention. “Obviously, you know I finally got to spend some time with Mulder yesterday. Talking to him.” I take a breath deep enough to contain the full force of my sarcasm, but he cuts me off. “I owe him that much, at least.” And at last he does tell me a little about him and Mulder, and it wasn’t the grand romance I’d been expecting, but something a little troubled, and more turbulent. Mulder’s driven nature didn’t always leave room for anything or anyone else in his life, and Walter bore the brunt of his moodiness, his unscheduled disappearances, the sudden bouts of paranoia against everyone bar Scully. And then he was gone and Walt left with a whole load of guilt, brought back up all over again by the discovery of Mulder’s body in the cave. Too late then to know how it might have ended - would have ended, but he would have never been sure. Not until Mulder’s sudden return to the living made that clear to him. Then he sits down next to me on the bed and slowly, carefully, he begins telling me a few things, things I’ve only heard once or twice before in my life, and always worth listening to. So I say a few things of my own to him in return, and he turns his head away as if he can’t bear to hear it, and for a short while it all degenerates into something worthy of a daytime drama series. Then the moment passes and it becomes too absurd for words and I start laughing and he flashes me that incredible smile of his and I know everything’s going to be OK. And after all my efforts I end up having to strip down again before he’ll even let me out of the room. And so I’m here, looking at the ceiling again, listening to the whine of the water pipes in the next room, and the dread has gone, and I think I might even be happy, but I’m not going to dwell on it. I think about Mulder, regaining his life, but losing Walter and his job all in the space of days, and I feel for him, but not too badly because he’s got Scully to think of, and the unborn baby which I’m laying odds of ten to one is his, after all. And even though he’s technically off the X-files now, I’m sure he’ll find plenty of windmills to tilt at on his own time. And when it happens, we’ll probably be right here, Walt and me, backing him up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Feedback