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Title: Road Rage Part one
Author: Goddess Michele
Date: August 2003-September 2004
Fandom: X-Files
Pairing: M/Sk
Spoilers: various and sundry from everywhere, mostly vague. Also helps if you've read the other two Vacation stories.
Rating: PG-13 to NC17 and everything in between...
Beta: I am my own worst beta!
Disclaimer: C.C., Fox and 1013 own them, I'm just borrowing them for fun, not profit, and I promise to return them only slightly bruised, but in that good 'thank you sir and may I have another?' way.
Feedback: Yes, please! starshine24mc@yahoo.com
Archive: put it wherever you like, including atxf and SM, just leave my name on it.
Author's Note: I know it's late in the game, but I still think I've got a winner on my hands! For my clan, who keep believing in me when I've forgotten how.
Summary: Welcome back to the Vacation universe. It's a kinder, gentler world now, but some things never change...
Chapter one: Hanging Johnny
"Hey."
"mmmphh?"
"Are you awake?"
"nuhff..."
"You drooled on me."
"nzmapruhbhowmm?"
"Well, actually, it's more my problem than yours."
"mmm...guh..."
"Luckily, my problem-solving skills are at their peak at this time of day."
"thasssnice, mmm...wha--?"
Fox Mulder jerked out of his almost-sleep as Walter Skinner draped himself over his body and planted a wet, sleep-sour kiss on his lips. A startled grunt was swallowed by Skinner's mouth, and Mulder just had time enough to wonder if his breath was as bad as his lover's was, and then what few early morning thought processes he did possess were shoved down his spinal cord to meet the big warm hands curving around his hips and stroking insistently.
With a groan that was three-quarters arousal and one quarter `I haven't had coffee yet', Mulder arched up under Skinner's weight and rolled, pushing himself over so that they were reversed, and he was on top of the older man. Bare skin pressed to bare skin as their bodies fit neatly together.
Mulder pulled his mouth off of Skinner's with a satisfied smack and grinned sleepily.
"You're awfully energetic this morning, old man."
Skinner continued his hands-on tour of south-Mulder, provoking a soft moan and another kiss.
"You have no idea..." he murmured, the words vibrating on the air between their mouths.
Mulder squirmed a bit and replied just as softly, "I don't know, I'm starting to get a pretty good idea."
"Oh yeah?" Skinner cupped Mulder's ass possessively and thrust his hips upwards.
"Shower," Mulder declared suddenly. Before Skinner could stop him, he was off of the bed and tripping gracelessly out the door, leaving the other man lying hard and breathless on the bed.
For Skinner, the decision on whether to follow or wait patiently on the bed was made in record time--he'd never been a patient man--and by the time Mulder was adjusting the water temperature, Skinner was just a step or two behind him.
The tub was almost built to accommodate two big men, as long as said big men didn't mind close quarters.
They didn't.
Neither man spoke as they lathered soap and worked it over each other's bodies, rubbing out sleep kinks in two very different sets of muscles. Bulky and corded, long and lean, all fell under their careful ministrations.
Skinner didn't protest when Mulder turned him around, just rested his hands on the slick tile wall and sighed appreciatively as Mulder's hands stroked down his back, and over his ass and legs. The sighs became something growlier as he felt a soapy finger probe him gently. His hard-on, which had subsided during the massage portion of the show, now quickly rejoined the party with renewed interest. He was almost disappointed when Mulder turned him back into the spray, hugging him tightly as the hot water sluiced over them and rinsed the soap from both their bodies.
And then it was a contest to see who could dry off the fastest and get his naked butt back into the bed. Mulder might have won had he not made a lube-n-rubber pit stop at the cabinet in the bathroom.
Instead, he was greeted by the sight of Skinner lying across the bed on his stomach with one leg pulled up to invitingly accentuate the firm muscles in legs and buttocks, and his head turned to the side and propped up on his folded arms.
A slow sexy grin creased lips already shiny and swollen from a shower full of shared kisses.
"Hey." The word purred out of him and Mulder thought he might just cum right there on the spot.
"Feeling energetic, Puppy?" The challenge was light, but Skinner's eyes were dark, and Mulder didn't waste any more time just looking.
It wasn't often that he felt the urge to top his lover, and even fewer were the times that Skinner actively sought the catcher's position on their little two-man baseball team.
This morning, however, their timing was perfect.
Mulder dropped supplies within easy reach as he knee-walked up the large bed to insinuate himself between his lover's legs. He braced Skinner's bent leg with his own, and Skinner obliged him with a slight raising of hips.
For long moments, Mulder just stared and smiled. There were so many factors at work here; trust, love, belief, a million other things, some as yet unnamed; and then Skinner looked back at him, smiled and shifted, and more physical factors made their way to the top of the list.
Stretching himself over Skinner's back, Mulder pressed a soft kiss to the older man's neck, nibbled at the same spot until he heard a groan, and then moved down further on his broad back, finding places to tease with his lips, or his tongue, or the soft nip of his teeth.
He took his time and took his pleasure, not leaving any part of his partner unattended. When he finally sat up on his haunches and reached for the condom, Skinner was writhing feverishly on the bed, slick with sweat, his hips rising and falling in time with his breathing, which was heavy and interspersed with soft muttered sounds of need.
Mulder soothed him with a warm hand on the base of his spine, sheathed himself, and then pushed Skinner's legs a little wider apart.
Slicking his fingers with lube, Mulder found all the places his mouth had relaxed, and stretched Skinner further. When Skinner was thrusting back eagerly and growling his name, he replaced fingers with cock, and eased himself into his eager lover's body.
"Aw, God..." Mulder leaned forward and rode the surge of Skinner's hips rising up to meet him, careful not to crush the other man, but intent on covering as much of him with his own body as possible. For an impossibly long moment he held himself still and let the tight heat of Skinner's body possess him utterly, renewing the sense of belonging, of completion, of rightness that this act brought to him every time.
A shift and a twisting of muscle, followed by a growled "are you waiting for a written invitation?" made Mulder grin, and he started to move. Slowly at first, pulling almost all the way out, then pushing back in with the same deliberate lack of speed. He gripped Skinner's hips possessively, and held him when he tried to thrust back.
"Mulder..." his name sounded like both a promise and a threat as it slipped from his lover's lips with a sigh and a groan.
"Skinner," he replied, moving a little faster now. Leaning forward, he let the quick breaths that were gusting out of him warm his lover's back, and when he reached under Skinner, he found the other man's hand already there, and they stroked together.
A string of breathy affirmatives issued from Skinner's mouth and his movements became more jerky, less fluid. Mulder released his cock and took to stroking his back and flanks, murmuring his name and matching his increasing rhythm. The slap of skin on skin was loud in the room, though barely audible to Mulder past the beating of his heart.
Skinner bucked almost hard enough to dislodge Mulder, and then with a shout and a sudden spasm, he was cumming, crying out his lover's name and thrashing in helpless ecstasy.
The added tightness drove Mulder to thrust harder into Skinner, his focus narrowing down to where their bodies joined. Aching for completion, Mulder forced himself into Skinner to the hilt again and again and--
Then his orgasm was boiling up out of him and he could do no more but cling to Skinner's back, biting at his neck and shuddering as wave after wave of pleasure coursed through his body.
They fell still.
Skinner savored the feeling of his lover draped over him like a warm quilt on the coldest winter night, and even as Mulder was relaxing and slipping out of him, he held himself still, losing himself in the sensations. Warm breath rippled the air above his neck and made him shiver, and a solid and still rapid heartbeat pulsed from Mulder's chest into his body, where his own heart matched it.
He shifted enough to turn his head, and Mulder slid forward a bit and they were nose to nose, wearing identical sweaty grins.
"Still feeling energetic, Puppy?" he asked in a voice grown hoarse from shouting out his lover's name.
"Oh, sure," the reply was punctuated with soft kisses. "Another shower, a little breakfast, and I'll be ready for the next inning."
Reluctantly, Skinner twisted under Mulder's weight and neatly deposited him onto the bed beside him.
"I think you're a liar," he told Mulder easily, still accepting tiny kisses on his cheeks, nose, eyelids, ears. "But if you can actually get to the shower without falling over, I imagine I can probably find something nutritious in the kitchen." With a huge groan, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, found a pair of sweatpants on a chair by the door, and stopped in the doorway to smile back at Mulder.
"And I think the second inning is going to see a whole new lineup batting," he teased.
Mulder regarded him lazily without moving from the bed.
"I'm guessing we can take the walk this time, having already demonstrated the home run!"
Skinner laughed, then said, "Don't be long. Who knows what mischief I might get up to during the intermission."
And he walked out of the room, secure in the warmth of his lover's laughter.
Chapter two: Excursion Around the Bay
More notes: Ralph Klein is the premier of Alberta, and is currently bristling about how he is going to use a political tactic called the "notwithstanding clause" to continue to deny gay people the right to marry legally.
Summary: Naturally, we can't just have `em lying around all happy n stuff, now can we?
Skinner listened to the shower sounds; water running, Mulder butchering an old Elvis tune; and couldn't help grinning. He wasn't one for idle flights of fancy, but if his life was going to be this good, this constant, well then--
He found fry pans and the juicer and another smile, this one for the fat tortoise-shell cat that strolled into the room and wound itself around his ankles, purring expectantly.
"You hungry, Sundae?" he asked, stooping a moment to pet the cat, then turning back to the cupboards. "Well, if you ate the mice you catch instead of just hiding them in my shoes, I wouldn't have to mortgage the house to keep you in tender vittles, would I?"
Who are you talking to?" Mulder inquired as he entered the kitchen clad in Skinner's dark green terrycloth robe. He was using a small towel the same shade to rub the water from his hair
"Your cat." Skinner replied.
"My cat? How come when the box needs changing or the food needs buying, he's my cat, but when he's being all cute and kittenish, he's your cat?" As he spoke, Mulder investigated the breakfast Skinner was preparing, and then made his way to the coffee pot. As he filled a large mug with rich French roast, Skinner came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist, molding their bodies together neatly.
Nuzzling his hair and then nipping briefly at his earlobe, Skinner replied, "When you're all cute and kittenish, you're mine, too."
Mulder tried to turn and tried to frown, failed at both, and settled for leaning into the warm embrace and muttering, "Kittenish?"
Skinner laughed and released him.
"Puppyish?" he offered.
"You're getting senile in your old age, Walter," Mulder said, but the warm tone in his voice banished any sting from his words.
"This coming from the man who insisted on naming his cat `Hot Fudge Sundae, International Cat of Mystery.'" Skinner shot back. He gave the bacon frying on the stove a critical eye, and then turned to reach into the cupboard above Mulder's head for the cat food.
"Hey," Mulder pouted. "You said you liked the name."
"We must have had that conversation in bed." He turned around and called out "C'mon, Sundae, soup's on!"
Mulder smiled at Skinner's surly tone; it had definitely mellowed since he'd sat in the Assistant Director's chair, and he wondered what the agents at the Bureau would make of this kinder, gentler A.D.
He was nose deep in his coffee cup a second later when he heard the skittering sound of what could only be cat food sliding across the linoleum. Even as he was turning, Mulder's first thought was that Skinner had tripped over Sundae and the animal was about to become his cat permanently. "Hey, are you--?"
Skinner had dropped the box of cat food, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. He stared at Mulder a moment, muttered something like "burning?" and dropped like an anvil.
"Oh, shit!"
Mulder's coffee cup flew as he rushed to Skinner's side.
"Walter? Walter!"
Skinner's eyes were open but unseeing, and blood trickled sluggishly from his nose.
"Aw, fuck!" Mulder cried, jumping to his feet. He immediately slipped in a mess of still warm coffee and cat food, nearly landed on his ass, then caught himself and ran for the phone.
Mulder paced the small waiting room like a bear in an old fashioned cage, managing to appear both bored and manic at the same time. He alternated between prayers of thanks for the STARS Helicopter Program that Calgary had implemented, knowing the time saved by the air trip might be all the difference Skinner needed, and curses of retribution against the staff and doctors of the Foothills hospital. They had taken slick and effective control of the situation and shunted Mulder right out of the loop, leaving him to cool his heels in the waiting room.
His frustration had just hit the `I'm about to take hostages' stage of the game when the doctor who had met the helicopter walked in, looking perplexed.
"Mr. Mulder?"
"What happened?" Mulder demanded, stepping so close to the doctor that he could smell mint toothpaste and cheap aftershave on the man under the hospital anti-biotic smells.
The doctor held his clipboard up almost defensively. "Calm down, Mr. Mulder. I--"
"Is he okay?"
"Mr. Skinner is resting comfortably. He'll need to stay with us overnight, for observation, of course. Then we can talk about the next course of treatment."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Mulder curled his hands into fists, fighting the urge to shake the doctor. It grew to be more of a losing battle and he clenched tighter as the doctor answered a question with a question.
"Is there a member of the immediate family you can contact? A parent, or--"
"Oh, no!" Another tightening of his fingers and he could feel his nails digging into his palms. "No fucking way! We are not doing this!" He glared through the tears that were threatening, ignored the doctor's repeated request for him to calm down, and said in a voice thick with worry but perfectly clear: "Hear this: I am as immediate a family member as you are going to find. And if you are going to go all Ralph Klein on me at the expense of my lover's health, I'm going to find a nice big `notwithstanding' clause, and beat you to death with it!"
"It's a tumor," the doctor blurted suddenly.
"A what now?" At first Mulder thought he had misunderstood. When the doctor repeated himself, he felt his insides suddenly turn hot and loose and watery, and he wondered if he was going to piss his pants before he fainted, or after.
"A t-tumor?" Sour gas rose up from his stomach and he added vomiting to his list of options. His head felt swimmy and the doctor's hand felt hot and heavy on his shoulder. Words were coming from the man, but they sounded muffled and far away.
"Mr. Mulder? Perhaps you should take a seat."
`Take it where?' he thought stupidly, but his feet led him to a chair and then he was sitting and looking up at the doctor and feeling like a little boy.
"Has Mr. Skinner had a history of anything like this before? We can't get any information on him from our data banks, and--"
"No," Mulder interrupted, thinking of the hours the Gunmen had spent erasing their very existence from as many of these exact data banks.
"Well, without some more tests, there isn't much more we can determine at this time--"
"It's a brain tumor?" Mulder demanded.
"Yes, that's right. But--"
"Is it operable?" Mulder bit his lower lip, hard, and wondered if he really wanted an answer.
"Normally I would say yes. It's a small mass, and we've found it early enough--you said this was the first time anything like this had happened, is that right?"
"He was fine. He is fine. You said `normally'." Eyes wide and terrified, Mulder fought the urge to cry, the urge to run, and found his center-- the tempered steel that was at the core of who he was, the part of him that had always and would always demand the truth, no matter the cost.
"Our initial scans have come up with an interesting anomaly," replied the doctor. He reached into the sheaf of papers in his hand and pulled out what appeared to be an x-ray, presumably of Skinner's brain. He handed it to Mulder, who stared in horror at the very familiar hexagon shaped spots that were massed together somewhere in his lover's head.
"It's a bit blurry, due to their movement," the doctor told him, but Mulder needed no explanation. And he already knew what the doctor was going to say next, even before the words came.
"They appear to be carbon."
Chapter 3: Mari-Mac
Summary: I know nothing about the actual workings of hospitals, but I know all about the fear of losing someone in one... especially for Hal, whom I wish I'd gotten to know better.
"Hello?" As usual, Dana Scully gave herself a little silent congratulations for answering the phone like a human being and not an FBI agent.
"Scully, it's me."
Mulder's voice, sounding small and terrified, and she wondered briefly how many grand fuck-ups in her life had started this way, with these three words uttered by this particular man.
She knew it didn't matter.
"Mulder--what is it?"
John Doggett walked into the room. He immediately noticed the frown and the creased brow of a worried woman, and moved closer to her.
"Who is it?" He mouthed the words rather than speaking them aloud, and although she was looking at him, she didn't reply; just continued holding the phone in a small hand growing white with tension and frowning at the sounds coming from it. And when he opened his mouth to repeat the question, she held up the other hand in a warning.
He immediately knew who was on the other end of the line.
Before any of the jealousies he had learned to live with could rear up and bite either one of them on the ass, he rearranged his features into something neutral with just a shade of understanding in eyes as blue as his lover's, and touched her lightly on the arm. And when she mimed writing something, he found a pen and paper for her, and then slipped out of the room without another word.
"Will you come?"
"Of course I will." Spoken with no hesitation at all, and Mulder almost sobbed with relief. He hadn't realized until just now how much he missed his former partner. Oh, it wasn't that they didn't talk--when Walter wasn't squawking about the phone bill he was bitching about the number of hours Mulder spent on the net, in chat. Not that he was a total nag about it. He had certainly billed his own number of hours with Dana Scully himself. But regardless of who was saving money the 1-800-collect way, the fact remained the same that he, Fox Mulder, adored his former partner and best friend, Dana Scully, and a part of him had felt incomplete being so far away from her.
And although the reason for her visit was nothing he even wanted to think about, he was grateful to know she was going to come.
"What about--" he paused before throwing a not unwelcome but definitely new wrench into their plans. "John?"
"He'll understand," she promised, and he believed her. "I'll need him to stay with William anyway."
"I'm sorry, Scully, I wish there was some other way--"
"Nonsense, Mulder. This is Skinner we're talking about. You don't think he means something to me too?"
"I know--" he felt a flush of shame rise in his cheeks, and wondered if she could hear it in his voice. "I--Dana, thank you."
"I'll call you back and let you know when I can be there," she said. "I'll see you soon."
She hung up, and Mulder knew without a doubt that things were going to be all right. They had to be.
Scully hung up the phone and was in the process of digging her credit card out of her wallet when John came back into the room. Blue eyes met for a moment, Scully's guilty azure, Doggett's curious platinum."Mulder?"
"Mulder."
"What did he want?"
Scully stiffened at his tone. She knew in her heart that John Doggett was not an insecure man. She knew that he loved her, and she knew that he had no doubts about her love for him.
But she also knew that he was always going to react this way to her relationship with Fox Mulder. And that she was always going to let him do it.
"It's Skinner," she said, picking up the phone again.
"Skinner?" New concern tinged his words. "Is he okay?"
He had to wait while she called the airport and booked the earliest flight to Calgary that she could get.
"Mulder says he's fine right now," she told him as she hung up the phone. "But..." She paused, and then surprised him by asking, "Do you remember Krycek?" The word tasted funny in her mouth.
"Hard to forget that little rat," John replied. "But what does he have to do with Skinner and Mulder? I mean, aside from the fact that he's dead, and Skinner's the one who did us that favor."
"Skinner did shoot him," Scully agreed. "And with good reason."
"He was threatening Mulder."
John had accepted the relationship between Mulder and Skinner so easily that sometimes Scully was still surprised by it, and sometimes she felt ashamed, as she remembered some of her own, less accepting reactions.
"There's far more to it." She suddenly clutched John's hand tightly and said, "I should put on some coffee. This is a long story, and I'm going to have to pack, too."
John agreed with a curt nod of his head, and then brushed Scully's hair back with his free hand. He opened his mouth, closed it abruptly, and then, prompted by another squeeze of her hand, he asked, "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No." She kissed the frown from his face and added, "Yes..."
"I can hear the "but" in there," he told her.
She smiled; John had grown as adept at reading her as Mulder, and it warmed her heart.
"I need you here. Working. There are thing--files, reports--"
As if on cue, they both startled at a small sound from the other room.
"And William, of course," Scully continued.
Another cry, this one more demanding.
"Best go see what his highness wants," John said. "But then we're going to talk. I know you and Mulder have this thing you do that doesn't seem to need words, but I'm just a simple beat cop at heart, and you know what I need."
They shared a kiss and said in unison, "Give a little, get a little."
They kissed again in the doorway to the kitchen, and then Scully went to find her son, and John made his way to the coffeemaker, searching for the filters, and hopefully some answers.
Mulder left the waiting room and made his way back up the hall to the nurse's station. He wasn't sure what room Skinner was in, but after another heated exchange with the doctor about who exactly constituted a `member of the family', and then a more informative conversation where he was told that Skinner would be released tomorrow barring any further complications, Mulder had immediately stormed off, emotions in a tailspin, to call the one person he knew would help him make sense of it all.
And just talking to Scully, just hearing himself telling her what was going on, and her complete acceptance of it, seemed to have lifted the weird veil of panic that had been draped over him, choking him, since Skinner had fallen to their kitchen floor a lifetime ago.
At least he knew that, with Scully coming, Skinner would have the best care possible. He wasn't one to trust easily--just thinking that made him smile grimly--and he had the added homophobia so invasive throughout the hospital to make him even more wary of the staff here. And then of course, there was the question that was nagging at him like a bad tooth at the back of his skull--how had this happened?
Taking a deep breath, Mulder approached the nurse standing duty at the desk, and told her, "I'm Fox Mulder. I'm supposed to get some information from you regarding Walter Skinner." His spine straightened involuntarily as he waited for a nasty response.
And never got it. While the nurse (Nurse Moore, Mulder read on her nametag) never thawed enough to offer a hug, or a smile for that matter, she did manage to explain to him that Skinner was to remain overnight, that he was in no immediate danger, no visitors would be allowed until morning, and that he should go home and come back before noon the next day with a set of clothes for the man, as he would be released then to await test results. She didn't seem at all surprised to be relating this information to someone so obviously not a blood relative, and Mulder wondered if the doctor had warned her about his own experience with him.
Despite what she had told him, Mulder still argued with Nurse Moore for a useless five minutes over a visit to Skinner's room. She wouldn't give an inch. The patented Mulder tears were as ineffective as the patent pending Mulder charm, and the last resort Mulder anger didn't help either. She had her orders, apparently, and nothing short of a live grenade shoved up her dress was going to budge her. The visual of that was enough to calm him somewhat, and he was able to accept that he was not going to be with Skinner until morning. He gave the nurse the number of his cell phone, told her not once or twice but three times to make sure to call him if there was any change at all, and then turned towards the bank of elevators that would dump him downstairs and out the door. Moving in the opposite direction of where he knew his lover was felt like pushing his way through taffy, and he felt like his muscles were actually creaking in protest.
As the elevator descended to the lobby, he decided he would find a motel close by and stay there, close by, instead of trying to make the two hour drive back home, then spending the night alone in their bed, then driving back for another two hours in the morning. Unless of course something happened, and then he'd have to--a motel room was the only answer.
He hoped that the only call he got for the rest of the day would be Scully.
Chapter 4--Ordinary Day
Summary: Sometimes love demands...and sometimes love answers. And at the end of the day, you've just got to say it's all right...
Mulder pushed open the door and couldn't hide his relieved smile.
Skinner was sitting up, looking large and awkward in a hospital gown, his bare legs hanging over the side of the bed. He was staring down at his hands, which were folded neatly in his lap.
His head came up when he heard the door open, and the grin he gave Mulder was equally relieved, with just a hint of apology around the corners of his lips.
"Hey," said Mulder.
"Puppy," Skinner replied.
Mulder crossed the room in a handful of quick long strides, hopped up onto the bed next to Skinner and let a hand rest on the other man's knee. This close, Skinner saw that Mulder's lower lip was trembling, and his eyes were shiny.
"Cry baby," he chided with a smile.
"Drama queen," Mulder shot back with a quick kiss to the cheek.
Skinner covered Mulder's hand with his own, larger one, and their fingers entwined like ivy and iron trellis.
"Sorry," he muttered, looking almost ashamed.
"You don't need to apologize to me, but I'm guessing the cat's going to be pissed off at you for at least a week." More shifting of fingers, more clutching.
"I'll apologize to him when we get home." Skinner promised. "You talked to the doctor?"
The sudden shift in topic caused Mulder to look up from their clasped hands to his lover's face. Skinner didn't have his glasses on, and Mulder was struck again by how young and vulnerable the man looked without them.
"I did," he replied lightly. "I told him the baby wasn't mine, but I'd do right by you just the same."
The laugh he forced out of Skinner held a trace of a sob behind it, and he had to take a moment to swallow the lump in his own throat at the sound.
Skinner tried to compose himself in that moment too, and then, his voice thick, he said, "Ah, Puppy, what are we going to do?"
"Well, I don't know about `we', but you are going to come home with me and then do nothing more strenuous than change channels on the television."
He saw Skinner getting ready to protest, and he pressed the fingers of the hand not currently held in a death grip over the other man's lips.
"The less stress the better. So says Dr. Homophobe, and so say I."
"You got that too, huh?"
"Oh, yeah. In spades." Another combination grin-kiss-squeeze. "Scully's coming."
"Oh, no. Mulder, you shouldn't have--"
"Walter," Mulder's voice held a no-nonsense tone. "Scully was there the first time, when--and I--I think she's our best bet." Both of them ignored the telltale skip in his voice, and he continued. "In the meantime, I've got us a car, and despite how adorable this look is for you--" He leered comically at Skinner's hospital gown. "I've got something a little less revealing for you to wear outta here." In a lower voice he said, "it might not be Armani, but it beats letting the nurses around here get a look at your junk. That's just for me."
Again he caused Skinner to laugh, and the older man watched his lover with something like awe as Mulder rallied in the face of adversity, again, and he thought for just a moment that there might not be anything in the world that could keep Mulder down for long. Like one of those clown punching bags from his childhood, Mulder just kept coming up for more. And no matter how hard the blows, there was nothing that he couldn't handle.
"What?" Mulder asked, giving him a quizzical frown.
"Just thinking. Why?"
"Because you were looking at me funny."
"Funny ha-ha? Or funny weird?"
"Funny like you were Tom Hanks and I was a volleyball."
Skinner pulled Mulder into his arms with a smile by way of reply, and the younger man came willingly--almost too eagerly, and nuzzled the side of his neck.
They stayed that way until a nurse came in with Skinner's release papers.
Skinner spent most of the trip home asleep, occasionally rising out of his doze to mutter something incomprehensible. Mulder would pat him and answer questions that he couldn't understand, and after a time they were home.
"Hey, big guy," he whispered, giving Skinner a nudge. When he got no response, he tried louder, "Honey, we're home."
Skinner mumbled something that might have been "and I've had a hard day." Or could have just as easily been "I'm glad to be gay," and then he opened his eyes and squinted into the afternoon sun.
"I'm hot," he complained, fumbling with the seat belt.
Mulder undid it for him. "Modest, too." He stepped out of the car and saw that Skinner was doing the same unaided, and he felt a surge of pride for the other man that didn't fade even when he had to steady him on the porch steps.
Skinner let himself be guided to the couch, trying to remember when he'd ever felt this tired.
"'Nam," he told Mulder, "and when you were lost."
Mulder wasn't sure what Skinner was talking about, but he made some soft noise of agreement and pulled the throw off the back of the couch to drape over the other man, then bent down and untied his shoes.
Skinner was asleep before his shoes hit the floor, and stayed that way through various Mulder pats, some quick Mulderhousework (which mostly consisted of stacking everything neatly, then tossing it into the closet), and surfaced only briefly at the sound of the television being turned on.
Mulder flopped gracefully to the floor in front of the couch, setting a cold beer down on the coffee table with more care than he had set his own ass down, and found the remote control.
When Skinner's hand settled on him, he didn't speak, just continued to surf channels, but he was far more aware of the warm weight on his shoulder than of anything currently broadcasting on the hundred or so channels they had courtesy of the satellite dish he'd insisted on having installed.
Another hand, the other shoulder, and then lips pressed close to his ear.
"Let's go to bed." More growl than words, but perfectly understandable, and Mulder dropped the remote control and forgot about his beer. He tried to remember everything the doctor had told him about what was happening in his lover, and what he should and shouldn't be doing, but Skinner nuzzling and licking at his ear was making it almost impossible to think at all. A few more minutes of shiver inducing kisses and then Skinner was nibbling on his neck, and he jumped to his feet, shaking and half hard.
Skinner didn't give him a chance to recover. He stood almost as quickly himself, pulled Mulder into his arms and captured his mouth in a deep almost brutal kiss. He pushed his tongue between Mulder's lips and tasted him fully, aggressively.
Mulder wrapped strong arms around Skinner and opened himself to the older man's probing, licking and biting back with equal fervor, letting his tongue trace slick patterns over Skinner's cheeks and chin, then opening his mouth again to more intense kisses. There was such strength and passion in Skinner's every movement, from the delicate swipes of his tongue across Mulder's palate to the almost painful stroke and squeeze movements of his big hands over Mulder's lean long body. But beneath the love and lust that he fairly radiated like an aura, Mulder could sense something else. Something almost desperate, and frightened.
He recognized his own feelings, like looking in a mirror.
Instead of calling Skinner on the mix of emotions, Mulder opted to go with it instead, feeding his own needs off of his lover's desire.
Skinner's strength never failed to surprise Mulder, despite his numerous encounters with it; never failed to excite him as well. He backpedaled and stumbled, and Skinner pushed forward and his hands were everywhere, holding him upright, tugging at this clothes.
And then they were in the bedroom and he was falling back onto the bed, gulping air and looking up at Skinner through half closed eyes. His mouth felt swollen and sore and his erection was throbbing insistently against the buttons of his jeans. He struggled to sit up and Skinner pressed him back down to the mattress with one big hand on his chest. And then his lover was straddling his legs, rubbing their groins together, creating explosive friction, and he moaned out something that was trying to be the other man's name.
Mulder was shirtless before he knew it, and just had time to watch his shirt sail off the side of the bed, and then sharp teeth were nipping at his chest, making him groan and jerk and he saw that Skinner had lost his shirt somewhere along the way as well. Moments later, his nipples were hard and his mouth was being devoured again. He twisted his body and turned his head, his breath puffing out of him in harsh gasps between kisses.
"Please, oh, please..." More, or no more, Mulder didn't know what he was begging for, and it didn't seem to matter. Skinner cut the words off with his mouth, and then Mulder could taste them being directed back at him, and he wasn't sure what Skinner was pleading for either.
Hands moved over his body with rough abandon and he felt himself surging forward, falling back, his muscles seeming to follow Skinner's touch and instinctively ask for more. A breathless keening noise came from him as those hands seem to be everywhere at once, first rough, then soft, demanding, then retreating, and then finally, finally, finding his cock through his opened jeans and stroking him firmly, nearly bringing him right off the bed.
Skinner slipped away from his lover and stripped off the rest of his clothes, fairly panting as he did it, his heartbeat a roar in his ears that drowned out the sounds Mulder was making. Fully naked, he thrust himself back onto the other man, wrapping one hand into his hair and reclaiming his mouth for more desperate kisses. Their bodies, now slick with sweat, rocked and bucked against one another, and he felt Mulder's hands on his buttocks, kneading almost compulsively as their motion shoved them across the bed.
Never letting loose of Mulder, he reached out one arm, slapping his hand across the bed stand until he found what he was looking for. Clutching at the supplies greedily, he bit at Mulder's lower lip, provoking a small cry, then reared up so he was sitting astride the other man's hips.
He took no time at all to sheath himself, barely wetting the latex with lubricant, every cell in his body on fire; dimly, he realized that Mulder was shifting beneath him, watching him through lust-glazed eyes and struggling to move his legs, whimpering every time their cocks brushed against one another.
`Oh, God, I love you,' the words seemed to echo in his brain, but he had no idea if he'd spoken them aloud or not. He only knew that he was moving and Mulder was moving and then the other man was reaching for him and he was pushing forward and there was resistance at first, and a hiss of pain that could have come from either one of them. And still he pushed on, and then there was tightness and heat and he felt vital and alive and--
Mulder bit his lip and tasted blood at Skinner's initial entry. He found muscles to shift and open and then Skinner was moving again, pressing forward and he felt something give inside himself, something that sparked and opened wide and sent a renewed throbbing through his cock, something that wasn't pain and wasn't pleasure but might have been a little of both. And when Skinner's hands descended on him again, stroking and pulling even as he stroked and pushed inside him, he called out his lover's name, feeling every part of himself becoming one with that initial spark, multiplying it into embers and into flames and he was boiling over with life, with lust, with an inferno of love until he could only rock himself on his lover, crying his name over and over beseechingly.
When Mulder tipped over the edge and his muscles clamped ferociously down on Skinner's cock, the older man groaned and bucked wildly, held deep within his lover's body; there was no urge to escape, only the need to go further, to lock himself into Mulder's very core, where nothing else could exist but this moment, this man, these feelings. His orgasm poured out of him uncontrollably and he found himself falling into willing arms, held tight between locked thighs. Air sobbed out of him in great gusts, and his body shuddered with every breath.
Mulder felt Skinner's tears wetting his chest and he held him tighter, arms locked around the other man's shoulders, the tremors from Skinner's body transferring into his own. But he kept his grip firm, and whispered his name, and dropped soft kisses on his head without complaint. He winced once, when Skinner's cock slipped from his body, but didn't begrudge his lover the pain for a moment. Instead, he simply rocked him, kissed him, loved him with all his heart, and swore to himself that he was going to find a way to make it all right.
Chapter 5--Jack Hinks
Summary: Moose and Squirrel reunited, and the game's afoot!
The cell phone on the bedside table chirped eagerly, announcing its need to communicate with annoying good humor.
From beneath a pile of quilts an arm thrust angrily towards the phone, hand extended, fingers questing blindly across the tabletop. When the fingers encountered the phone, they snatched it up greedily, and the arm retracted back into the depths of its blanket cave.
"Mmmrph."
"Mulder, it's me." Scully's voice was tinny and laced with static and barely audible, and it made Mulder scrabble out from under the covers like his ass was on fire.
"Scully, where are you?" he asked excitedly, and then, seeing the movement of blankets out of the corner of his eye, he lowered his voice and continued, "What time is it? Are you in Calgary already?" He peered owlishly at the alarm clock on the nightstand.
"It's early and I'm not," replied Scully. "In fact, I was able to get an earlier flight, and a decent rental car--without having to show my ID or gun, I might add--and I'm in--uh--Banff." She barely stifled a giggle as she wrapped her mouth around the strange-sounding word.
"Banff?" His outdoor voice again, and more movement from the bed, along with a noise that sounded suspiciously like a hibernating bear around the first week of spring. Mulder brought his voice back down to a whisper as he pulled on loose gray sweatpants, holding the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder. "How can you be in Banff already, Scully?" With a quick glance back at the bed, where it appeared that no bear would be coming out of its den just yet, Mulder padded bare-foot out to the kitchen, still talking. "Didn't you just leave Washington five minutes ago?" A pause, then suspicious and smiling at the same time: "Are you missing time?" In the kitchen he found juice and a glass and a very surly cat, and he poured, drank and patted, all in the right order, while Scully explained to him how the Lone Gunmen had come to her aid. Not only had they managed to somehow retrieve all the information from the hospital back when Skinner had first been stricken with the nanotechnology that was currently threatening his life, but they had also gotten Scully a suddenly vacant first class seat on an earlier flight and at one third of the price. Frohike claimed that they'd also programmed her favorite film as the in-flight movie, but Scully was pretty sure he was exaggerating.
Still, their hard work was evidenced by the fact that she was now at the Banff Springs Hotel in a five star room with a new and improved three Gunmen price tag, glad to have a place to base herself and her work out of. She was grateful to the three men who had started out as Mulder's friends and now become three of her closest as well, although no small part of her was still fairly sizzling with worry for Mulder and Skinner.
Mulder was laughing out loud by the time Scully finished telling him her travel adventures.
"They never did anything like that for me, " he told her. "Guess I'm not hot enough."
"Mulder, shut up!" Scully exclaimed, her indignant tone washing away in a laugh of her own, and for a moment it was just like old times between them. But then Scully felt an ache in her badly scarred wrist, and Mulder caught a glimpse of Skinner moving through the hallway.
Mulder said, "Why don't you kick back and put your feet up, Scully. I'll bring Walter into town in--" he paused, checked his wrist, remembered that his watch had broken the week before, and continued; "what time is it?"
She told him and he gave her a time some two hours later.
The bear that had been hibernating in their bed came into the kitchen just as Mulder was setting the phone down. In a display that was half Redskins offensive and half Fred and Ginger, Mulder turned and Skinner blocked and the younger man found himself in the bear's eager clutches.
"Did I wake you?" Mulder asked.
"I missed you," Skinner said, wrapping his arms tighter around Mulder and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
"You were asleep," Mulder countered. "you couldn't have missed me."
Not willing to allow Mulder to be the voice of reason for even a second, Skinner instead kissed him again, this time on the lips, ignored the open-mouthed invitation Mulder gave him to escalate the encounter, and released him.
"Was that---" He paused a moment, looking perplexed. The moment turned into two, then doubled again, and Skinner looked less perplexed, and more pained.
"Scully," Mulder confirmed, horrified.
"Scully," Skinner agreed, but his voice was suddenly shaky. He put a hand to his forehead, and then the two of them stared hard at one another, almost daring each other to comment on what had just happened.
"She's in Banff," Mulder finally said. He ignored Skinner's look of gratitude and started fussing with the coffeemaker.
Skinner sat down at the kitchen table muttering, "Scully...Scully...Dana Scully..." The cat jumped into his lap, and he petted him absently, his gaze fixed somewhere in the center of the table, while Mulder gave the coffee filters an equally bleak look.
"Mulder?" Neither man could look at the other.
"It's going to be okay," Mulder stated flatly. He attacked his coffee-making project with renewed vigor, and the cat jumped off of Skinner. When the switch on the machine was turned on and the slow drip of brown caffeinated water had begun, the lap that had been holding a ten-pound cat was filled with one hundred and seventy pounds of former special agent.
Petting resumed, and both men were quiet for a while, listening to the coffee maker hiss and gurgle contentedly.
Mulder cupped Skinner's face briefly and the look he gave the older man was as stern as it was loving.
"It is going to be okay, Walter," he said firmly.
"You're right," Skinner agreed. "You--we've faced worse than this."
Mulder shimmied off of his lap and went to fetch coffee, saying, "Worse than this is going to be Scully if we're late today." He handed the Tasmanian Devil coffee cup to Skinner and kept the Marvin the Martian one for himself. He sipped a little, burned his mouth, and then laughed when his lover did the same.
"I'm going to grab a shower. While I definitely enjoy a little `eau de Walt", I don't think I can say the same for Scully. And I can't stand the look on her face when she thinks we've been acting out X-Rated movies."
"I don't know," said Skinner, looking almost thoughtful, "I am kind of fond of that blush she gets when her mind pulls up an extra-graphic visual."
They shared another laugh and Mulder took his coffee with him as he left the room.
"Who is it?" came Scully's query after Mulder knocked on the hotel room door."Steven Spielberg," he replied. Skinner gave him a confused frown, but he found himself fully vindicated when the door flew open and Scully greeted them with a huge smile.
She backed up to allow the two men to enter the room. Skinner immediately slipped his boots off, mindful of the expensive carpet beneath their feet.
Mulder was too busy being hugged by Scully to worry about what his shoes were doing to the rug. He indulged her need to crush him for an extra minute while he relished their physical proximity a little himself, and only gently disengaged from her when he felt tears matching hers threatening to fall from his own eyes. He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead and offered a goofy grin.
"Hey, lady, how ya doin'?"
"I'm good," she replied instantly. "Really good."
She turned to the other man in the room with the same loving smile on her face.
"Dana." Warmth rumbled through the word like a big cat's purr, and Skinner received a hug only a bit more reserved than the one Scully had given Mulder.
"Oh, it's good to see you, sir."
"Sir?" Skinner arched an eyebrow.
"Old habits die hard, s--Walter," she replied with a blush.
"It takes twenty-one days to break a habit," Mulder informed them needlessly.
"Well," Skinner replied, "I wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight without that particular piece of information."
Mulder pouted and Scully laughed at him.
A minute later, though, doctor Scully was all business, asking Skinner to sit on the bed while she found her kit and began pulling out her regalia, including stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.
Meanwhile, Mulder found the files that the Gunmen had sent with Scully, and he idly started flipping through papers--familiar terms and names seemed to almost leap off the page at him: "SR819...Senator Matheson...New Technologies...diplomatic immunity..."
He could hear Scully's voice, low and soothing, occasionally rising in volume just enough for him to pick up an actual word or two: "...vision...burning...ringing...memory..."
Soft, growly replies from Skinner. He couldn't distinguish the words, but the tone of his lover's voice made him think of that moment in the kitchen this morning, and a small shudder worked through him. He shot a glance over at the two people he valued most in the world, and watched as Skinner removed his glasses and Scully shone a light in his eyes. Then he went back to his reading.
The Gunmen had been far more thorough than he would have expected. In addition to the thick wad of SR819 information, there were more medical charts, reports all typed by Kim Cook and signed with Walter's precise hand. Mulder saw Scully's name once or twice in the pages, and his own much more often, but mostly dismissed the bulk of the material as irrelevant. Skinner's report on Crime Projections for the third quarter of nineteen ninety four was not likely to be of much good to them now.
"Sometimes they come back."
He didn't realize he'd even spoken until he heard Scully call his name.
"Mulder?"
He saw both her and Skinner giving him curious looks.
"Just thinking out loud," he said, trying not to notice the hopeful look on Scully's face; the concerned look on Skinner's. He went back to his reading, moving over to a small chair and table in the corner as he did so, and spreading out the files there.
He was absorbed in grainy photos of Alex Krycek when Skinner stood up and he turned as he caught the movement from the corner of his eye. Scully was packing up her kit, and Mulder gave Skinner a smile as he sat down in the other chair at the table.
Scully approached them and they both looked at her expectantly. Mulder didn't like the way she was frowning, but didn't comment.
"I'll need to see the information at the hospital in Calgary to be sure of anything, but I can tell you some of the things we can probably expect."
The men didn't comment and she continued, her tone dry, though her eyes were telling Mulder more about her emotional state than she probably even realized.
"What happened this morning--losing vocabulary like that--is common and may happen again." She focused on Skinner. "Or you may use the wrong word. Like thinking `It's a car and saying `boat' instead. The common term for it is `aphasia'"
Skinner's throat worked for a moment, but he didn't reply.
"A mass in the parietal or temporal lobe like you describe will cause these word finding difficulties or speech arrest or seizures. Although most commonly associated with the occipital lobe, you may also experience phantom sounds and smells. Burning is a common one, bells ringing as well. Visual problems can also occur from pressure in this area. Until I see the MRI and CT scans, to determine the exact nature of the tumor, I can't say if any or all of these symptoms will occur."
Then she turned to Mulder. "He may say things that he won't remember saying; things he doesn't mean." She included them both in her gaze again. "But as I say, until I see the charts at the hospital, I can't completely set any expectations on symptoms, complications, procedures, or any sort of timetable."
"Well, then, I guess our first stop is the hospital."
"If we're going into the city, is there anything else we can do there?" asked Scully. "It seems to me that this is some sort of deliberate act. There's been no changes until now--it seems unlikely that this is just a coincidence."
Mulder stood and offered Scully his chair. "There's information here about the device that Krycek was using to control these things," he said. "Some sort of handheld computer--like a palm pilot." He moved closer to Skinner. "Walter, I never saw Krycek with anything like that. When you--when he was killed, did you recover anything like that at the scene?"
Skinner shook his head, the sound of Krycek's voice suddenly loud in his mind: "push of a button, Walter..."
"Then it's possible that the device is controlling this latest attack, and that someone who knew what Krycek was doing has gotten a hold of it," said Scully.
"The question is who, though? Who has the means to do it, and who has the motivation?" Mulder paused and glanced at Skinner. "And even if some chain smoking ghost of malice past has come back to make our lives miserable, that doesn't even begin to answer the question of why."
Skinner started to say something, and Mulder silenced him with a fierce look.
"Why you, Walter? Why not me?"
None of them had an answer for that, and after letting the question hang in the air for a moment, Skinner said, "Let's go get the information you need, Dana. We can take our next step from the hospital just as easy as from here."
Chapter 6: When I'm Up
Summary: Solving crime is hard--let's go dancing!
Scully watched Skinner lead Mulder out to the dance floor, sipped demurely at her mineral water, and wished John Doggett was there with her.
The three of them were at Boystown, Calgary's most popular gay bar, ostensibly investigating the cause of Skinner's illness. Neither he nor Mulder spent much time here in the city, but when they did come in, it was usually for an evening of supper and dancing. It had been Scully's suggestion, once they were finished at the hospital, to follow their usual m.o. and see if that led to any clues about what was happening to Skinner.
Scully found herself frowning as she remembered the trip to the hospital earlier that day. Frustrated didn't even begin to cover how she felt. From the moment they had entered the building, `uncooperative' had been the name of the game, and although she had been warned by both Mulder and Skinner on the trip into the city that the hospital, not to mention most of the province, was in a controlled homophobic grip, she was still surprised at the resistance she received for even the simplest of requests.
She brought her bottle of water to her lips again and then tipped the bottle in a secret toast to her guardian angels. Well, guardian `geeks' was probably more accurate. But regardless of whether any of them had had a date for their high school prom, the fact remained that at the first `I'm not sure if I should be releasing Mr. Skinner's information to you, Miss-uh--Doctor Scully--", Mulder had been on his phone, calling up the Gunmen's number from memory. And while the hospital's doctor and Skinner's doctor battled it out quietly in a small office on the fourth floor, Mulder worked his own kind of magic with his friends. By the time the battle lines had been drawn, and the local man had all but admitted his dismay at having to work with and treat gay men in general, a release form was already faxing into his office. The FBI seal on it was enough for the doctor, and even if he had looked closer at the document, he wouldn't have known that it wasn't really the deputy director's signature on it. Scully knew that handwriting, and she supposed that it was a good thing that Langly spent most of his time using a keyboard and not a pen.
With no other obstacles but the doctor's resentment between her and Skinner's information, Scully immediately scheduled a new round of tests to take place the next day. She commandeered one of the examination rooms to give Skinner a basic physical exam, but that was more for Mulder's peace of mind, as well as her own. She knew she wouldn't be able to plot a clear course of action until fresh test results were in. Skinner had been given an MRI when he'd been admitted two days before, but she wanted another one, and a CT scan as well, and she made sure that the X-Ray department would be available for use if necessary. Knowing full well just how quick and deadly the nanocytes in Skinner's bloodstream could be, she wanted to be able to access information about their movement in his body with no restrictions, be they personal, or scheduling.
Unable to do more, and finding no reason to re-admit Skinner at this time, Scully suggested they find a coffee shop and start trying to find not the cause of Skinner's illness, but the cause of the cause. The nanocytes had been lying dormant in him for over two years now, and since their first appearance had been orchestrated by an outside agent, ("that rat bastard and his fucked-up Gameboy" was how Mulder put it), it was a good bet that Skinner was being subjected to this latest attack in the same way.
Skinner himself couldn't imagine who could know about the nanocytes, or how to manipulate them, while in contrast, Mulder was suddenly suspicious of everyone in the city, the province, and even the country. Playing middleman and suggesting that the person or people responsible had to at least have a nodding acquaintance with them, Scully found it easy enough to persuade the two men to look at their own actions over the last few months to try and find clues there.
There wasn't much. Supplies were bought in Banff twice a month, once if it looked like the driving would be treacherous. They went into the city once every couple of weeks, again, depending on the highway conditions. There were a handful of restaurants they frequented, and just one club. Boystown had a little something for everyone. Dance floor and loud music, pool tables and dart boards, and a lounge on the lower level where two of the most talented bartenders in the city poured some of the finest cocktails, from scotch to Guinness, with a host of shooters in between. Both Mulder and Skinner enjoyed their infrequent visits to the place, and had even made a few friends since their very first trip there.
Although Skinner claimed he wasn't hungry and Mulder was impatient to act on their discussion, Scully insisted they find something more substantial than coffee and biscotti before taking the next step. Neither man was capable of overriding her on her decision, and she found herself eating salad in a small restaurant just blocks away from the club, interspersing bites of lettuce, tomato and blue cheese dressing with pointed glances at Skinner and outright glares at Mulder, forcing them to put food into their own bodies.
When she was finished, she could see Mulder getting ready to pull out the heavy guns; his face started getting what she always thought of as his patented puppy-dog look. She didn't even know if he was aware he was doing it, although she suspected he'd long ago learned that he could get results from actions as simple as widening his eyes just a little, letting a tiny smile turn up just one corner of his full mouth, making the hopeful grin tremble a bit, and then just giving his head a fraction of an incline, a movement that would have been a full bow in another, courtlier time.
Apparently Skinner had been on the receiving end of this routine once or twice himself; before Scully could reply, he caught Mulder's attention by placing one hand lightly on the back of his neck. Instantly, Mulder's focus was on his lover.
"Did you want anything else? Are you still hungry?"
"I wasn't hungry to begin with. Let's just go." Although his tone was decisive, he turned to Scully for confirmation. She nodded and reached for her purse, but he waved her off with the hand not currently attached to Mulder.
"I've got it." Same tone of voice, but he wasn't looking for her permission.
Scully didn't see any point in arguing.
Skinner paid the bill, Mulder insisted on driving, and a few minutes later they were hanging up jackets in the coat check of Boystown. The club was busy already, and Mulder stuck close to Skinner's side as they entered the main bar. As Scully watched, he reached out and took Skinner's hand, got a squeeze back, and they remained joined that way until they reached the bar.
Scully stuck with mineral water, Mulder asked for the same, and Skinner reluctantly changed his order to water as well, after being glared down by Scully when he ordered a scotch.
They found a table near the dance floor, and although the music was quite high in volume, they were still able to hear one another if they talked just a little louder than normal. Mulder scanned the crowd on the dance floor, the staff and the other patrons with a critical eye, looking for familiar faces, and maybe not so familiar ones as well, while Skinner told Scully about the club itself, about their visits here, and some of the people they knew. It was a pretty short list, and Skinner seemed sure that no one here could be trying to harm them.
The music changed subtly as the DJ mixed out of a remix of some television theme song and mixed into a classic Cher song that had also been remixed. Mulder turned and smiled at Scully, and she grinned back, remembering a comic book monster with a big heart and a soft voice. Immediately, that memory was replaced in Scully's mind with a vision of Mulder smiling shyly and holding his hand out to her. She was only mildly surprised when he did extend an invitation to dance...to Skinner.
For just a moment, Skinner looked embarrassed, but when he glanced at Scully and saw her beaming at the two of them, the uncomfortable moment ended, and he caught Mulder's hand in his own and allowed himself to be led out onto the floor.
Scully knew she was staring, but she couldn't help herself, and she refused to feel bad about it. The two men moving easily together on the dance floor were her best friends, and watching them dancing moved her in a way that she couldn't explain. She felt gratitude of sorts, that Mulder had found someone to make him feel all the good things she thought he deserved, and equally pleased that Skinner, truly one of the stoniest men she had ever met, was able to relax and show his feelings for his lover in such a relaxed way. Blending into these warm feelings was a faint melancholy. She didn't feel jealous of either man, not in the traditional way. Instead she felt faintly envious that they were together here and now, and her own partner was hundreds of miles away. She shook off the lonely feeling and smiled a little, thinking about what John would make of this place. The smile got wider as an obvious drag queen sashayed past her with an exaggerated swish of padded hips, and she could almost `see' the look on her lover's face. Then she returned her attention to Mulder and Skinner.
They were no Solid Gold dancers, but both of them kept the beat easily, and their close proximity to one another not only advertised their relationship in a way that even a blind man could see, but also invoked a heightened sense of intimacy that was almost but not quite sexual. Skinner had one foot planted firmly on the floor between Mulder's legs, and on the downbeats, he would lean forward just enough that their bodies would brush together. Then he would stand up straight again, and rock gently to the beat. His movements suited his large body perfectly.
Mulder was more dynamic in his dancing, more about arms and legs, but he, too kept his feet firmly planted, never missing the opportunity to lean in when Skinner did and make physical contact with his lover. He moved his arms gracefully enough, and found ways to keep the beat of the music and occasionally stroke a hand over Skinner's shoulder, or waist, or hip in a possessive way.
When Cher began to give way to Pink, both men glanced over at Scully, and by some unspoken agreement, made their way back to the table hand in hand.
"Sorry," Skinner said, taking a drink of water, "that wasn't exactly conducive to our investigation, was it?"
"I was doing reconnaissance work on the dance floor," Mulder protested.
"I think you were doing reconnaissance work on me," Skinner replied. Mulder couldn't honestly disagree, so he avoided an answer altogether by taking a large drink from his water bottle, brushing his bangs off of his forehead, where they were curling damply, and then asking Scully if she wanted to take a turn.
"Join me for a little more surveillance?" he asked.
"You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet, Mulder," she replied.
"I'm all charm," he agreed. Ignoring Skinner's laugh, he took Scully's bottle from her, set it on the table, and put her hand in his.
"Come on, lady, let's dance."
Scully didn't miss the look Mulder gave Skinner--a brief glance, but obviously meant to both assure Skinner of his intentions, and reassure himself that said actions would have no repercussions for at least the next few minutes.
"Don't let him try to lead, Dana," was Skinner's reply.
Scully and Mulder moved away on a wave of shared laughter.
Skinner watched the two of them step out onto the dance floor. He saw Mulder lean down close and say something in Scully's ear, and she turned to smile back at him. He returned the smile and waved at her, and then the crowd on the dance floor swallowed them up. He scanned the floor for a minute more, thought he might have caught a glimpse of the top of Mulder's head, and then decided he wanted a drink.
Not seeing any waiters in sight, he left the table and headed for the stand up bar. Three gropes, a flirtatious wink and five dollars later he was ambling contentedly back towards the table, a short neat scotch in hand. A tentative sip and a smile creased his lips as he discovered that the scotch in the bar's Glenfiddich bottle was in fact Glenfiddich, and not some cleverly disguised house brand.
He thought Scully might have something to say about him having alcohol at this time, but he also thought that he might have something to say right back to her about it. The thought made him smile again.
The music barely changed, blending seamlessly from one high-energy hit to the next, but apparently the new song didn't work for Mulder as much as the first one had, and Skinner could see him and Scully turn and walk towards him.
A tall woman in platform boots and a dress made up mostly of wire and sequins approached Mulder as Skinner watched and threw her arms around him.
The look on Scully's face was priceless.
Skinner couldn't stop smiling as he watched his lover making awkward introductions, and he was still grinning as Scully joined him at a new table, this one a bit further back from the dance floor.
"Roxy?" Scully gave him a skeptical look that made him laugh.
"He's a great guy," he assured her. "Very sweet, in fact."
"He told me his vagina was an outie." Scully managed to look shocked and dismayed for less than a minute, and then they were both laughing.
Skinner took a moment to wonder about the hidden side of Dana Scully. Mulder had told him stories, vague tales of tattoos and office romances, but since those stories often accompanied reports of aliens, man-eating amoebas and jaguar-spirits that hung entrails in trees, Skinner hadn't exactly given them a lot of credibility. Now, watching Dana still laughing about a drag queen's comment, he wondered...
Meanwhile, Mulder was removing Roxy's hands from his ass for the third time in as many minutes and silently cursing Dana Scully for abandoning him.
"Does Shoulders know about the redhead, honey?" Roxy asked, her arch tone suggesting that if Mulder was in fact stepping out on Walter "Shoulders" Skinner, then not only was she going to be the first to let him know, but she would also make sure to be around for any possible consoling that might need to take place.
"She's just a friend, Roxy," Mulder protested. A soft smile graced his face for a moment. "My best friend, in fact."
"Faghag?"
"Doctor."
"Ah."
The hands were back on his ass, and he glanced over at Skinner and Scully, hoping one of them would choose that moment to learn teleportation and appear between him and the grope. Both were smiling at him, but seemed disinclined to move.
"Did Shoulders' buddy ever hook up with you guys last week?"
"What?"
"That guy that was looking for the big guy--"
Mulder forgot all about Roxy's hands as he turned his attention from Skinner and Scully to the drag queen in front of him. The look in his eyes was bright and intense.
"Who are you talking about?" he demanded.
He and Skinner were not completely friendless here. People knew them. But it was in a vague, more acquaintance than friend way that suited them both fine. They had a reputation in the club for being social drinkers, mediocre dancers, and obviously devoted lovers. They knew other people's names, and had a reputation for remembering faces, even after just one introduction, but somehow their own names and history were less up front. Most of their acquaintances had a better idea of what they drank than of what their lives were like.
Mulder, always the more gregarious of the two, did know people who would call him "Mulder", but the list of people that Skinner knew well enough to offer his name to was even shorter. A handful of men called him "Walter"; many more knew him as "Scotch", his drink, or "Shoulders" courtesy of an anonymous admirer. And once, after a night of endless shooters and dancing, a drag queen had introduced him to someone as "Jean-Luc Sohard".
Skinner had threatened Mulder with a month of sleeping on the couch if that name ever passed his lips.
All these thoughts and more ran through Mulder's mind in a handful of heartbeats and he felt something like an itch inside his skull while he waited for Roxy's reply. It was a feeling he hadn't had in a long, long time; the itch that told him that the case was open, the game was afoot; it was his profiler itch, and as much as he had hated it, still did sometimes, he loved it, too, and he leaned forward, eager to hear what Roxy had to say.
"You know, that guy last week--the butch one," Roxy replied, giving him a conspiratorial wink, which was not as clever as she thought and mostly looked like she was losing one of her false eyelashes. "He kinda looked like `Shoulders' there--not as hot mind you, but still--"
"This guy," Mulder interjected, "Our, uh, friend--he was asking for Walter?"
Roxy saw the intense look on Mulder's face and drew back a little.
"Well, you know, he was just probably cruising or something. Thought you or your man were hot stuff, or whatever."
Mulder shook his head, the itch growing stronger. He wanted to peel back his skull and scratch. Instead, he eased it with probing questions.
"Did he ask for Walter by name?"
Roxy could feel the rhinestones decorating the sleeves of her dress digging into her arms where Mulder was clutching at her.
"I don't remember," she informed him, suddenly sounding nervous. "God, that was a week ago--I'm lucky if I can remember what dress I was wearing five minutes ago." With a shrug of shoulders, and a shift of hips, she managed to throw Mulder's hands off of her. "What's the big deal, anyway?"
Mulder resisted the urge to snap, but barely. He glanced around the room, suspicious of everyone. He saw Scully and Skinner talking and smiling, and he watched Scully laugh at something his lover said.
Mentally steeling himself, Mulder offered Roxy his best `nope, nuthin' wrong here' smile, touched her briefly on the shoulder and said, "Let me buy you a drink."
Roxy's mistrustful glare melted into a grin. "Now that's what I was waiting to hear! Vodka, cranberry, two limes, I'm going to change."
Mulder took another deep breath as Roxy turned and charged towards the curtained dressing room behind the dance floor, and he had to give her a silent salute for the way she could maneuver in platform heels.
Moment over, he caught the attention of a passing waiter, ordered Roxy's drink and an iced tea for himself, and then finally made his way back to where Skinner and Scully were sitting. He fell gracefully into the chair next to Skinner and groped for the older man's hand without looking at him, addressing Scully instead.
"I think we've got something," he said. He felt Skinner squeeze his hand tightly.
"Thanks, lady!"Mulder caught the slim young man by his upper arm and held him in place, even as he was trying to just grab the drink and go. He not so subtly manhandled him down onto the chair next to him, between him and Scully.
"Hey, Red, long time no see!" he said to Scully, and then took a demure sip from the straw in his glass.
"Mitch," Mulder supplied in response to Scully's confused frown. "Formerly the fabulous Roxy Diva."
Scully saw it then; the hint of makeup around the eyes, traces of lipstick on the full mouth, and the hand holding the drink, undeniably a man's hand, but sporting long artificial nails painted the same shade of gold as Roxy's dress.
"Uh, hello, still fabulous, thank you very much!" Mitch snapped.
"Hi, Mitch," Skinner said, "Good show tonight."
Mitch visibly preened. Mulder thought that if he were a peacock, his tail would be fanned out completely, and he had to smother a smile with a sip of his drink.
"Thanks, big guy," Mitch replied.
"Mulder tells us someone was talking to you last week about us--about me," Skinner continued, his voice loud enough to be heard over the regular bar din, but low and friendly at the same time. He smiled at Mitch and gave his shoulders just the tiniest stretch at the same time. That was enough for Mitch.
"Well, he asked for you," he told Skinner, "Described you--" he paused and gave Skinner a frank and smoldering glance, "perfectly." Then, almost as an afterthought, he took another sip of his cocktail and added, "He didn't seem to be one of ours, though, y'know?"
Mulder's expression turned greedy at this bit of news, but Scully spoke first.
"One of yours?" she asked.
"You know," replied Mitch, "Playing for our team? One of the family? A friend of Dorothy's?"
Scully was still drawing a blank.
"A big nelly screamy thing?"
"Oh." Scully found herself blushing and looking from man to man at the table.
For a variety of reasons, some religious, some sociological, she knew that she'd never thought of Skinner or Mulder that way. Oh, she wasn't blind, or a fool. They were lovers. But they were also her best friends, and she never thought of them as anything but that. Now, after the actions of the hospital staff today, followed by this evening's drag/dance/club adventures, she realized that she had been practicing her own form of homophobia. Just as quickly as the revelation came, she was working to overcome it, offering Mitch a warm smile and asking, "How could you tell?"
"You can always tell," Mitch confided in her. "Gay-dar, I guess they call it, although I think it's just a case of good fashion vs. bad fashion." A shrug, a last sip of his drink. "The guy who was scoping you out--he was--" Another shrug. "He looked regular army to me."
"Army?" Mulder yelped.
"You know--crew cut, but not a good one, no product, no colour. Khakis, but obviously not GAP. I dunno, he just wasn't--" A third shrug was followed by a pointed stare at his now empty glass.
"He wasn't fabulous," Scully suggested.
"Exactly!" Mitch exclaimed. Then, to Mulder: "I think the lady deserves a drink." A well-rehearsed pause, and then: "and get one for Red here, too."
Mulder didn't want to play waiter anymore. They had a lead now, albeit a slim one, but still...there were clues to track down now, more people to question, hints of the truth. Every part of him that was made up of his training, his talents, and his experiences was telling him to move, begging him to act, insisting that he solve this.
He felt Skinner's warm grip on his hand again, and those strong fingers entwining with his own grounded him completely.
"I'll get us one more round, and then we'll go, okay?" he said.
"I never say no to another round," replied Mitch.
Biting back any and all catty comments, Mulder rose from his chair and headed for the bar. Immediately, Mitch moved closer to Skinner, and Mulder heard him say, "So, are you two really mutually exclusive, or what?"
end part one/three
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Goddess Michele
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