Original author's note:

M/Sk. NC-17. No spoilers, just a short millennial look ahead that will doubtless be nulled and voided of all plausibility by the eps and movie to come. But hey, there are other universes. These are not my beautiful boys; this is not my beautiful life. A Cat Tale, written at top speed, a going-away gift for our friend, who I suspect was too shy to even say good bye. Safe journeys. For J.

There was nothing quite like hot java in the cold morning, the man thought, his eyes lighting up when he saw at last the brilliant neon coffee cup in the slice of bleak urban sky ahead of him. The cup was pink, the bottomless spill of nirvana a bright shade of blue. Cerulean blue, his mind murmured. He shook his head irritably, a wry smile pulling at his lips. The world had always seemed to him a map of endless correspondences, a living map in which connections sparked to life while everyone else saw only the interstices, the blank spaces where no roads went; saw merely a blur of dots rather than their pattern.

It could be a curse. Vision, an extra eye. Half consciously, he raised a hand to his face, touched fingers to his forehead where a thumb of ash might rest, or a monstrous eye. But he felt nothing. Relieved, he glanced around; the sidewalk was picking up the rhythms of morning, the traffic of commerce and everyday life. Not his life, any more. He moved to one side, out of the way of a young woman with a briefcase who was moving at a fast uncompromising clip. She had red hair. The man watched her as she passed, and as if feeling his gaze she glanced back over her shoulder as she turned the corner. When her eyes met his, he smiled by old reflex. Her face hardened further, her eyes chilled, and she cut her gaze away with knifelike precision and then disappeared from his view.

Unexpectedly, a knot pulled tight in the man's throat and heat burned in his cheeks. He glanced around, head ducked, to see if anyone had noticed the exchange, but no one was looking his way. Relieved, he turned hesitantly, eyes drawing into focus the plate glass window behind him, in which he could make out his own thin reflection, drained of color by the transparency of the glass. He frowned and ran a head through his hair, trying to comb its tangles. He tugged his jacket, which was huge and orange and decorated with various rips and stains that made it look a brutally battered life raft. He smoothed his shirt a bit more into his jeans and then surreptitiously sniffed himself. Not too bad, really. Okay, he was a bit rough, but not. . .not too bad.

Having reassured himself of this, the man gathered himself together and headed for the mecca of the cafe, his lean body sliding in a folded, unconscious manner along the inner edge of the sidewalk as if to take up as little space as possible. Outside the cafe he hesitated. He touched his pocket, felt the reassuring weight of change there. A few bills, too. He wistfully read the bright paper menu taped to the window, thought eggs, bacon. And then, with more of a mind to funds: muffins. Eggs would be better though. More nutrients. Well, he could hit a Hardee's later, perhaps. Cheaper there, but their coffee was inexplicably swill.

Taking a deep breath, straightening himself bravely, he entered the cafe, leaving the cruel chill of the street for the steaming redolent interior. Heat toasted him and began slowly to seep into his raw skin; within seconds, he could feel his muscles unkinking with dangerous lassitude. Dangerous because he could not surrender to his tiredness nor linger in this paradise for long. A quick scan of the girls behind the counter reassured him that none of them had seen him before. No threat there. He moved with more confidence toward the counter to order.

"Hey, you--okay, listen--"

The voice jerked into the man like a fish-hook. He tried not to wince, not to cringe down into the bulky protection of his jacket; holding himself carefully erect, he made a casual show of turning his head. The spotty young man, who had assistant manager written all over him, glowered with contempt.

"You were told to stay out. You have to go." Already, the boy's jaw was jutted adamantly, his voice settled to battle. He had the air of one who was used to dealing with street trash and did not shirk the necessity of confrontation and exclusion. He would refuse to hear any reason; he would cause his unwanted customer spectacle and embarrassment and feel only a satisfying sense of virtue in doing so.

The man wondered what would happen if he could somehow reach down into the pocket of the past and withdraw a shining badge to flash in the boy's arrogant face. The very thought made the man smile. "I'll bet you get as much of a thrill when you pop your zits," he said with serene rudeness to the boy.

The other flushed deeply, his ears turning licorice red, and he'd just opened his mouth to deliver what would surely have been an indelibly lashing remark, when the manager's voice issued from the rear of the cafe, rolling ahead of his body as he entered from the adjoining bookstore. "Marvin--hey, I got it now."

The man in the jacket jerked again, this time with more agitation. He recognized the voice of the owner, the very person who'd first ejected him from the cafe during a crushingly well-attended poetry reading. The ejection had taken place in front of a hushed gawking crowd and had been made with humiliating bluntness. This had occurred in response to a slightly vocal debate the man had been holding with a few students at one of the rear tables. It had been a discussion, no more. Still, they no doubt thought he was crazy. He could still see the face of the young fratboy he'd been haranguing, capturing in one expression a strained mix of knowing sneer and naive shame. For the life of him the man could not, however, recall what fierce warnings he'd been delivering, what message he'd been trying to get across. The usual. Just the usual. Wasn't that enough?

The assistant manager moved aside. The man, resigned, began to move to leave, but as the boy moved--as he himself moved--he saw approaching a spectre out of some dream, or nightmare. For one moment he froze, his vision flickering, distorted by a synesthesia of detail. The crashing sensual rush of the cafe closed in on him, a blend of steamy heated air, freshly ground coffee beans, thumping jazz, into which blended a subdued babble of voices and the hoarse wheeze of the espresso machine. In this bright cacophonous backdrop the figure striding toward him appeared all the more stark and elemental, a force of darkness that ripped through the man's world ruthlessly and pricked the colorful bubble of the cafe so that in a single instant it vanished as if it had been the merest illusion of safety.

He was dressed in a blue suit and a heavy black winter coat that swept back from his body like the wings of a rising raven. His shirt front glowed whitely but the rest of him, a striding cloak of darkness, gathered the light of the world to itself and drowned it, broken only by gleamings of small detail, light that had been trapped in glass and flesh. Like a beacon in the night. Words of sardonic memory turned to ash as truth burned high in the man's body. But he could not rely on dreams of a savior who might well be the devil himself in disguise.

"Mulder--damn it, wait!"

Mulder turned. Ran. He banged out the cafe's front door and took off with mindless ferocity in the first direction his feet pointed. He ran, but it had been a long time since he'd needed to run. Terror and endorphins ran twin braids of hard liquor through him, straight to the gut. He flew. His feet slapped the hard pavement through worn, unsuitable shoes, but he didn't notice the jolting pain in his heels and shins yet. Alive. He was alive and would remain so. He would not let them take him again.

He cut through an alley, heedless, hardly seeing the heaped trash and curled bodies that ironically belonged to men he'd come to know. He might not see old Jack again, but he didn't see Jack now, only a newspaper-draped blur that slid from the corner of his eye and was left behind. The far street lay ahead, a ruler of sunlit raised to measure the buildings along which he ran. Just another thirty feet. Another twenty--ten--

A force like a freight train crashed into him, throwing him face down to the ground and covering him like a blanket of earth locking a coffin to its grave. But Mulder had only instinct left. He did not pause but fought instead, madly attempting to wrestle free of the grip enclosing him. He could still see the brightly sunned street, no more than a few near yards away. Cars passed, and a boy slouched by the alley's entrance, unseeing the drama unfolding within.

"Damn it, Mulder--give it up--"

Mulder kicked, swore, and tried, in his fully horizontal position, to leap for the far shore, like a swimmer bound and determined for land, fighting the undertow.

"Son of a bitch," Skinner said, as Mulder's back-kick connected with his kneecap. He bellowed and in one sudden surge of movement grabbed Mulder's arms, wrenched them behind his back, and cuffed his wrists.

The chilling, metallic snicks sounded like bullets easing into their beds, chambers filling with death, or the tumblers of a lock that once undone would free everything he'd kept safely jailed for the last three (four, five?) years. Boiling with bitter rage, Mulder began to cry: dry, rough snarls of sobs that were both passion and a calculated occupation to buy time while he figured out how the hell to get out from this temporary capture.

"Fuck," Skinner said angrily. He rose from Mulder's sprawled body and sat back on his heels to survey with brief, expressionless disgust the garbage-soaked alley in which he squatted. He rubbed a hand across his scalp as if to push an invisible demeanor of calm back into place. "You've led me a merry chase, Mulder." He grimaced and wiped a smear of--of something--from the heel of his hand onto a piece of tattered newspaper, then pulled his handkerchief from his pocket. He stood up while dabbing at the mess, which covered for an ugly looking scrape.

Putting the cloth away, he gazed down at his fugitive. Three years, almost closer to four. Three years of hunting, of dangling, iffy leads, of dead ends and long nights. And here he was, run to earth at last. Un-fucking-believable.

Simple relief kicked in then, stunningly hard, the wild pony kick of a waking generator. The blow landed somewhere below the ribcage, but the reverbing thrum of joy reached every long-darkened corner of Skinner's being. In a single moment, the switch of his soul was flipped on and the cold machine he'd been tenanting for years became a thing of life again.

Heat poured through him, and his heart skipped friskily around his chest a few times before settling back down to a more sedate and decorous rhythm. (A sneaky samba continued to itch and tickle in him, though, refusing to evaporate.) His tight face hurt. He wanted to weep as Mulder did, and shout stupid oaths, and hoot. Instead, Skinner reached down and gently eased Mulder to his feet. The shadows of the alley made a chill around them. He turned the other man, saw him close and live for the first time in. . .time. In his life at last Skinner understood the relativity of time, which could flip from eternity to instant in one moment. Eternity of waiting for this; instant in which it all collapsed and mattered to him no longer, not a whit. It wasn't a matter of forgiveness--money and time were as nothing before the burning necessities of living: all the days simply dropped away. Dues paid to earn this blazing dawn of renewal.

"Bastard," Mulder said, his voice a vicious seethe. He glared at Skinner. "Get your fucking hands off me." He kicked up with one knee with such suddenness that only a defensive twist saved Skinner's balls from a crippling blow.

Skinner felt like smacking him. "Cut it out," he said, voice sliding indecisively between cold anger and the gentlest of entreaties, both of which seemed equally valid in that moment.

Mulder jerked away and considered Skinner with his own cold wariness, studied him with the precision eye of a jeweler seeking flaws. His gaze cut from point to point on Skinner's body, then finally discovered the bloodied cuff of his left wrist. "Let me see your hand," he said tonelessly.

Skinner turned it palm up for the other man's inspection.

After a wordless, drawn out beat of time, Mulder sagged a little. His eyes, broken of their fierce beam, drifted aside. "They're here somewhere. They'll have followed you. You brought them right to me."

Skinner said nothing.

"They're probably listening right now. Directional mikes. Maybe a microwire on your coat. Heel of your shoe. Just like 'Get Smart'. Funny. It's all the same, a few big TVs looking at each other, that's all it is. Things speaking in codes, but they just hear the colors, the noise. White noise. It covers for them; it's what they count on now. But it's changing. The landscape's changed. Land of the free. It's just one big gulag. Coast to coast. No fences, why bother? Let the cattle wander." Change of tack, absent tone. "I read about those mutilations in Oregon. It's hard to keep up. I thought about emailing you, but." He shook his head, drifted.

"Mulder--"

"It'll all be over soon."

Skinner forced down his helpless rage, his rare anguish. "Mulder. Listen to me." He grabbed Mulder's jaw, slewed it around so that the other man faced him. Lucid eyes regarded him without noticeable interest. "No one's after you. You're going to be safe."

Mulder half smiled.

With freshly irked frustration at a man he hadn't seen in years but who had the ability to goad him with the smallest twitch, Skinner growled, "Listen to me. I've busted my ass and emptied my bank account looking for you. I--"

"Did all their work for them," Mulder said dryly.

"If I had been able to pick up a fucking phone, I could have told you in ten words that it was all over. You must have read the papers. You couldn't have blanked out on nine months of Congressional hearings." Implicit in the words was a bewildered, plaintive demand: why? Why had he not returned?

" 'Reticulans on Trial'--I think I read that in the Boston Globe." Mulder's jeer was edged, laced with despair. It was allusion to what had never taken place. Aliens were still a thing of talk shows and rural legend, of myth and media and crackpot industry.

"If they're still. . .here," Skinner said, taking a breath, "It will be dealt with. Someone, somewhere, is keeping track."

"You think they can keep track from their cells?" Mulder's eyes had widened slightly, their luminous brilliance swimming with regret. "We should have let them do their jobs. I was so stupid. I had it all wrong. Better the enemy you know than the one that comes down from the void to snatch you up." His voice had dropped to a rasping whisper.

"No one's taking you," Skinner said with grim determination. Except me, he thought. He glanced down the alley, trying to recall where he'd parked his car.

"How are you going to stop them?" The sound that rattled in Mulder's throat was the brittle approximation of a laugh, but the question held a very real note of need, a plea in which hope was buried deep but not completely.

"This isn't the time or place--"

"Oh, it sure the hell is," Mulder said emphatically.

Skinner, seeking what distraction he could find, looked Mulder up and down wordlessly, taking in the grimy, weatherbeaten clothes, old scrapes on his hands that suggested other, unseen injuries. His searching study rose to consider Mulder's face. He looked like a rose blooming from compost.

"There are things I can't tell you. You are about as far as a man can be from even the most rudimentary security clearance, Mulder. I know you don't trust me--"

"What makes you think that?"

Floored, Skinner stumbled over his words to a speechless halt. It had been a question without a trace of sarcasm.

"What--what?" He could feel himself working up to full steam, and tamped down on the fuel of his passions. "You want to know what makes me think that? Christ, you haven't called or written in four years, you run from me when you see me, you--" He broke off. He knew Mulder's fears. But the hurt was raw and real, no matter what good reasons Mulder had had--or thought he'd had--for dropping out and eschewing all contact.

"I'm dangerous. I'm not a good man to know, Walter." Mulder's face softened now, but his eyes remained blazingly open. "Let me go. You can't keep me."

"The hell I can't," Skinner said, scowling.

"I'm not even me anymore. There is no Fox Mulder. He's dead."

Skinner, habit rising to flesh, touched the bridge of his nose as if to massage it, then instead pushed the heel of his hand between his brows with a more unusual gesture of exasperation. "Fine. Whoever you want to be, whatever name you want to use, use it. Just keep me apprised of the changes, all right? Now, come on." He tugged at Mulder's arm, but the other man was an unbudging tree, planted into the filthy grit of the alley's floor. His eyes asked a question.

"I've got a hotel room, clothes for you. You can get cleaned up. Eat." With a flash of unexpected anger, Skinner remembered the cafe manager's scathing assessment of his troublemaking ex-customer, thought of Mulder going hungry, turned away from food and drink and warmth. If he weren't so grateful for the lead that had carried him here, to this moment, he would have liked to. . .he wiped his mind clear of its tinge to violence. Mulder was looking tragic, slumped, and just plain tired.

"It's going to be all right," Skinner said, hoping the words, their truth, would be enough to reach through Mulder's fogging aura of despond.

"Sure. Fine. What--" Mulder's breath caught for a moment as if snagged on an unseen nail, or memories that had sharpened up unexpectedly. He finished shakily but with an odd, compelling defiance. "Whatever."

Skinner had taken Mulder's cuffs off in the car, after giving him a terse but eloquent synopsis of what he would do to Mulder if Mulder got a wild hair up his ass and thought about leaping. Mulder had shrugged and sagged into the car seat with sleepy indifference.

"Put on your seat belt," Skinner had said.

He'd guided his prize through the hotel lobby with a certain satisfaction. The dizzingly tall glassed arcade through which they walked was centered with a fountain, tucked with discreet sofas, and dotted with towering palms. Nice and anonymous, but still Skinner could feel the eyes on them, on Mulder, who surely gave the impression of one long walking bruise, a man tossed and shredded by the storm of his life. The younger man wasn't exactly fragrant, either, though it was hard for Skinner to gauge just how far the aroma carried. Skinner could not have cared less about the possibility of social infraction; he was, in fact, rather itching for someone to question Mulder's presence; ready to pick a fight and show off his patronage.

Mulder glanced up at the honeycomb of glass that was letting in the cool wash of a winter morning sun. "Been a while since I came here," he said blandly as they entered an elevator.

"I'm sure."

Mulder gave him a look, then said goadingly, "Actually, it wasn't that long. I was here a few months ago, I think."

Skinner glanced sidelong, then returned his gaze to the front of the elevator. From the corner of his eye he could see the other couple riding up with them, a glossy and well-dressed corporate pair, man and woman, in nearly identical suits of chic funeral black. The woman's blonde hair swung forward with a smooth alar arc as she allowed herself a flickering peek at Mulder. The man stared resolutely at the flashing floor lights.

"I had this trick--conference guy. Environmental engineer. Food processing industry. I think he worked for Del Monte." Mulder smiled at the business couple. "He was giving a lecture on 'closed-loop treatment systems for olive processing waters'. He wanted me to give him a blow job while he talked to his wife and kids on the phone."

Skinner's cheeks began to burn. He could see the business couple shift in place slightly, individually but with subtly cooperative movements, signaling an unspoken agreement: say nothing. The woman, however, seemed amused.

Mulder looked brightly at Skinner. "I asked him if he'd ever met an alien and he said, 'Other than my wife?'" Mulder grinned.

Skinner's muscles rolled restlessly under the taut surface of his face and neck. Then he thought, What the fuck.

"He gave me a bottle of olives," Mulder mused, turning his head to stare coolly out the glass wall of the elevator, down into the well of sunlit palms. "They crush the olives between Norwegian granite." He had the flat, toneless quality of a man recounting a dream.

There was a silence. Finally, blessedly, the elevator arrived at Skinner's floor and they debarked.

"Just like old times, hey, Walter? Aren't you glad you ran me down?"

The bitterness under the bright surface of Mulder's voice did not escape Skinner's notice. With one abrupt gesture he stopped, pushed Mulder against a wall and stepped up into his body. Mulder's chin lifted and his eyes pulled their widening trick as if he were bracing for a blow and wanted to clearly see where it was coming from. "I'm glad I found you," Skinner said. Eyes bone dry. Words dropped into a depthless well of tears.

Mulder's breath was ragged, his face a searchlight.

Skinner leaned in, kissed him. Once, and then again. He tasted clean, as if he'd taken excellent care of his teeth, perhaps to avoid the risk of evil dentists and medical notice in general. The third kiss was deeper; he fell into it, what his mouth had longed for. Only this, this one single thing, torn from him, and he'd searched for it with the unceasing dedication of a madman. And it was--it was--of course, of course he had.

Mulder gasped into him with a tiny broken sound. Skinner pulled his mouth away slowly, feeling drugged, lax with the wine of utter happiness. He unlocked their bodies, pulled Mulder forward again. The other man's face was closed protectively into itself, but his body swayed into Skinner's as if magnetized on a deep and nuclear level.

They reached the room at last and it made a haven for them. Skinner tossed his key-card, slid out of his jacket. Mulder looked around, eyeing the single suitcase on the closer bed and the large overnight bag on the floor next to it.

"I've got this down to a science," Skinner said obliquely. He moved to the overnight bag, hoisted it onto the bed and opened it. He continued talking, not looking directly at Mulder but pulling out various items as he spoke and tossing them on the bed cover. "Been to a lot of cities." Soap. Shaving cream. Razor. "Had a while to work on this. My Mulder rescue kit." Hairbrush. Shampoo. Briefs. "Trying to figure out what you might need, when I--" He broke off without giving notice, turned with something in his hand.

Mulder looked at it. Sunflower seeds. Looked at Skinner's face, which struggled for expressionlessness.

"Hungry?"

"Starving," Mulder said. His voice felt as if it were winching its words up across a rusty spool. He swallowed. Indecisively he considered the seeds, but could not bring himself to reach out. "Wonder what they've got for breakfast here."

Skinner turned with obvious relief to the bedside table and dug out a menu.

"Order me two of everything," Mulder muttered, as he scooped the bathing gear up off the bed. He paused at the bathroom door, glanced impishly back. "I'm not joking," he said, grinning and then slipping out of sight.

Skinner sat on the bed's edge and stared at the menu. It took him a minute to realize he was smiling.

"God." Mulder surveyed the blitz of the table through stunned, heavy-lidded eyes. His body had draped itself bonelessly over the chair; one hand moved toward a coffee cup, then picked up a stray crust of toast instead. He chewed, swallowed, yawned. "Where's that plate of bacon?"

Skinner blinked and contemplated several silver lids. He lifted the cover of an unlit chafing dish and disclosed a heap of scrambled eggs.

"Never mind," Mulder said, wincing. He looked with contentment around the demolition of his feast and then turned his sleepy gaze to Skinner. "I don't suppose I could get a, um, nap?"

Their eyes held for a long, stretching moment. Skinner's own hooded gaze was as sated as Mulder's, but for different reasons. He almost needed no more than this, he thought. Just to look at him. Head damp and tousled, body swathed in thick terry, neck stemming from the robe and tipping his face into a graceful series of turns and nods. It was impossible that he should, even now, look so elegant. An alley cat welcomed in from the cold.

"Sleep would be good," Skinner said, his lips at ease with their smile.

They slept for hours, spooning between the sheets, Mulder blithely naked, having rejected any sleepwear ("Good to be naked--been a while since I've seen more than a few pieces stripped at any given time"); Skinner down to briefs, his body a surrender to forgotten peace. He woke sometime in mid-afternoon, found himself still wrapped around Mulder, one arm clasping his waist, one leg braided between Mulder's thighs. He felt replete, a man who'd earned his way back to grace; and he was rock hard, jutting into Mulder's ass, already pearling and ready to shoot. That ass--sweet, sweet--felt like a bounty of lush melonflesh welded around his throbbing shaft. His dick ached with its load; his briefs had dampened where cockhead kissed cloth.

Oh god, he thought, trying not to breathe. He was literally hanging on the precipice of climax, nearly spilling over. One move, one breath too deep, and he would lose it. And as if reading his desire Mulder shifted then and made a small chirruping sound into the muffler of his pillow. Skinner gasped, thrust, came. His mind tilted and spilled even as his cock did; his mouth opened soundlessly and he filled his mouth with Mulder's clean hair and choked back a wild musical of joy.

"I felt that," Mulder said, sounding smug.

Skinner grabbed for his lover's cock, his greedy hand found it rigid. He locked his grasp there, heard Mulder draw in air with a happy hiss, and then the other man had tumbled around and was nudging close.

"I want to see you," Mulder breathed. He lay with his head on the pillow and looked into Skinner's face as their hands laced together and drew him with strong, rhythmic strokes toward pleasure. His face wore a look of surprise that had not yet ebbed; even when he climaxed, he seemed amazed. It apparently had been needed to take the first edge off; when he'd come once, Mulder was suddenly seized with fresh passion. He struck without warning and set to reacquainting himself with his territory. Skinner lay passive in a cradle of simple acceptance, rocked by desires that were finally being fed.

Mulder moved around the length of his body, blind fingers to braille, blind lips to features long withheld from his touch. "You've lost weight," Mulder said, stroking his belly, his hips.

"Hardly."

"It's like you're made with a thousand rubber bands."

Skinner laughed up at the ceiling.

"Tight. Stretttttched." Mulder purred, nuzzled. "You could be the Soloflex poster boy."

"Nautilus."

"When's the last time you gave this a work out," Mulder asked casually, stroking Skinner's erection.

"I haven't been with any men since you." Skinner's voice was husky with admission; just the reminder of all his lust-fraught nights made him ache; the cold showers, the empty jack-off sessions with numbing videos, the more gut-tearing indulgences when he broke down and opened the suitcases of Mulder's abandoned clothes and buried his face in some article that he convinced himself still carried his scent. He'd masturbated so often with a particular pair of silken briefs that he'd rubbed the thin material to threads; it had always brought him off hard, with the cleansing force of rage. Recognition of his own obsession, deliberate reavowals--how the hell could he say any of that, though. The breadth of his hunger--the need that had spread, creeping, to infiltrate almost every last aspect of his life--would he ever be able to put that into words for Mulder?

"Women, though," Mulder said, resting his chin on Skinner's chest.

"A few. Just. . .a few. Casual."

"Not too casual, I hope." Mulder smiled a little.

"No. Not too."

"I've missed your dick," Mulder said. His lips were twisted, his eyes dancing as naughtily as a child's.

"Good." Skinner cupped his head. "Suck it." His voice was harsh, rawly demanding. He'd earned this, all right. Oh yes. He arched as Mulder's mouth closed gently over him. "Suck it--Christ, yes--" He began to buck. He wouldn't last long, not even the second time around. His balls felt like a heap of fruit ripened to the point of bursting with their seed; his cock was locked onto a recurring spasm, its vein beating like something live and trapped beneath the skin. "Mulder." Oh god. The name filled his mouth. "Mulder. Oh god--don't stop--"

Mulder's mouth sank onto him. Skinner shoved in roughly, seized Mulder's head in both hands, drove himself wildly. "Harder--hard--" Like that, his mind whispered. Yes. At another time his own roughness might have galled him, but he'd waited too long. He intended to take every liberty allowed, to fuck himself back into Mulder's ass until the other man was marked with fresh, indelible brands that would help him remember just where his place was. His place.

Skinner climaxed, pouring into Mulder's mouth and throat around the other man's groans, which were impossible to decipher and could have been entreaty or arousal.

Mulder lay his damp cheek in the heart of Skinner's chest, and Skinner slowly recovered, carding the other's hair, trying to find his breath.

"It's weird, you calling me 'Mulder'. I haven't even heard that word in. . .years."

"What do they call you," Skinner murmured, eyelashes brushing his cheeks as he drifted in the wake of pleasure.

"Mm. . .Raven, Hawk, Robin. Snake, Rabbit. Cat. Joe."

"Rabbit?" Skinner said with mild incredulity, but what he thought was: Snake?! Joe?!

"Trickster has many names," Mulder said sleepily.

"Cat," Skinner repeated, mind scrolling back to a time long past, the beginning. Incredible to think how close to the end it had been also.

Mulder's cheek gently scoured his chest as he moved, stretched. "Love daddy."

Skinner spanked his ass gently, then let his hand remain there, kneading. He could feel Mulder's cock pressed flush against his leg, freshly sticky and very warm, the concentrated evidence of his presence. Reality. "You haven't. . ." He paused, cleared his throat. "You haven't asked many questions. I thought you'd be more curious about everything that's happened."

"I've trained myself away from curiosity. One internet inquiry and they could have locked a trace on me in a hummingbird's heartbeat."

"Mmm." Pause. "I still have the house."

Mulder's head lifted, his eyes burned green but clear. "No kidding." Not quite a question.

"Your things are there."

Mulder's lips parted. He blinked several times as if trying to adjust to a new slant of light. "Oh."

"Your bank account's still on hold and accruing interest; your furniture's in storage."

"Somehow I don't think that's due to the official work of the federal government."

"Just one small part of it. Unofficially." Skinner's face glowed with the reflection of fanatical light, a light he'd carried with him down through the years. It would never quite fade, likely. He could not let this go again. If he had to cage the robin, raven, hawk, he would do so without a second's regret. Clip its wings, feather its nest--but he wasn't loosing it to fly again. "I'm taking you home," he informed Mulder, unequivocally.

"Okay," Mulder said, and smiled as he went to sleep.

End.