By the time he'd handed over the tickets, received the gate location, shown the security people his badge so he could keep his gun, taken the stupid little shuttle bus that Dulles still used -- which was always too short for someone of his size and too crowded -- boarded by seat assignment, and taxied down the runway, he was past the point of turning back. Somewhere along the line during that time, sense could have visited him, but it was apparently refusing all contact. Walter Skinner realized, with sinking certainty, that he was truly on his way to LAX and no one could rescue him now; just so he could chase Mulder down and give the pouting little sonofabitch an ego massage.
And all of this within the space of about two hours, with no moments spared to actually think about what an asinine plan it was or figure out what compelled him to do it and beat the metaphorical crap out of that impulse. When he'd knocked on Mulder's door only to see Dana Scully's face peering out at him, he'd pegged it all for trouble. He still had Mulder's letter in his pocket when he entered the apartment as Scully showed him in, then sat down on the leather couch that made that weird squeaking sound every time a person moved.
He'd stood there dumbly while she steepled her fingers together and closed her eyes, resting her chin on the tips of her middle fingers. She looked tired and drawn, mostly just sad, and he was at sea again about what to do, as he always was with women when they were down and out. The entries for sympathy in the guy phrasebook were way too limited.
"He's gone," she eventually said, motioning for him to sit on the couch beside her.
"I got his resignation." Skinner ignored the offer to sit down and instead paced back and forth. "What the hell is he thinking?"
She shrugged listlessly. "I don't know. He seemed fine after we got back. We went up to his mother's to close out the house and go through her things. I thought maybe he'd found something that upset him... but that really wasn't it."
Skinner had just noticed the boxes scattered around the living room, contents half in and half out. Lives conveniently packed away in cardboard containers. Maybe Mulder had found something that had set him off.
"Do you realize this is about the third time he's resigned on me?" On me. Now that was a funny turn of phrase to use, Skinner thought.
"No, I hadn't known that." She finally managed to crack a smile at him. "Did you think it was a ploy for getting attention?"
"I'm starting to. He can't be serious about it."
"I think he is. At least, for now he is. He feels lost. He has nothing to search for, not anymore."
"He really believes he saw his sister out there?" Skinner was willing to believe a lot of oddball things -- as long as Mulder believed them, of course. But this was one he was having trouble getting behind. Ghosts seemed the most plausible of all the scary stories you heard growing up, but that didn't mean he believed in them. Well, not that kind of ghost, anyway. "And that she was telling him she was all right?"
"Yes, he does. And I can't say I completely disbelieve him. Not that I believe in the ghosts he says he saw, but that something happened to change him. Something drastically altered his behavior. It's just that I thought he seemed more at peace, at ease with himself. I was surprised it led to this, though."
Skinner realized he was standing there with his mouth open while she spoke. He walked over and stared at the fish in the tank. How many fish had Mulder gone through in the time he'd worked on the X-Files? Must be dozens. Every time he left on one of his harebrained cases, he'd have to have killed the fish. What would that be? Piscicide? Negligent piscicide.
"Okay, so, he's decided that he no longer has a quest to fulfill, and resigns, and runs away, leaving you and me in the lurch. Despite his issues and character flaws, this isn't really like him. Not to just leave like this."
"He has an old friend out in Hollywood now. Mulder contacted him when we were out there, and the friend was leaving town. He's a screenwriter and playwright, and is interested in some of Mulder's stories for potential," she snapped her fingers, "oh, what's the word? Treatments. So Mulder is staying there at his house until he gets back, then he said he will explore his options."
"I didn't think he really had friends. Well, outside of those clowns at that conspiracy magazine."
She gave him her best wrinkled-brow, pursed-lipped, wryly humorous look. She always looked at him that way when he called those guys clowns, so he always called them clowns in order to merit that look from her. The very fact that Mulder would leave her side just made Skinner want to open up a can of whup-ass on him all the more.
With the other resignations, Mulder had never gotten this far away. Usually Walter gave him just the right turn of phrase, just the right homily to turn him back. He'd never actually made it out of town before, and abruptly, with that realization, this became more serious.
"I'll get him back."
She looked at him as strangely as he deserved to be looked at. Neither of them would say it, of course. She had the good sense not to point out to him how peculiar such sentiments were in an assistant director, and he had the embarrassment of having just made an ass of himself in front of his best agent. He wasn't usually a blurter.
"I really hope this isn't just a way of getting attention. Not that I want him to be so miserable he's quitting his job, but if it's just... " Skinner trailed off, unsure what he meant.
"I frequently ascribe childish motives to him." She smiled ruefully. "But this time I know better. He was so lost after his mother died, in spite of everything. And although he seemed content about Samantha, I can only imagine what he feels like, losing what he thinks of as his purpose."
Scully was entirely more forgiving of people than Skinner could ever hope to be. Mostly he just wanted to pound people's faces into the pavement until they bled out their ears.
Walter went to the door, opened it, and looked back at her. "I will get him back. Even if it's just to tie up the loose ends and give me his two weeks' notice, I'll drag him back here in handcuffs if I have to."
No, wait, he might like that.
Agent Scully just rested her chin on her steepled fingers again, staring off into space. "It's all right. I can handle it."
He knew what she meant, but he wished he didn't.
So now here he was sitting in the flying sardine can, running after Mulder. He looked out the window, though he didn't know why he should when it was dark like this, and sipped at his drink.
Maybe it was the almost-kiss that made Mulder run away. Hell, it had made Skinner want to run away, so why shouldn't it be Mulder's motivation as well? When they'd all been in California and he and Mulder had shared that dingy motel room, Mulder still wrecked from the death of his mother, it had seemed like the natural order of things to comfort him. But just touching him on the shoulder like that, smoothing a hand over Mulder's arm, had provoked responses Skinner was pretty sure neither of them had expected. Mulder with that sad, broken-angel face looking up at him, and curling himself around Skinner. Moving his face nearer, closing his eyes, their lips almost touching...
Just plain weird. Hot, but weird. At least they'd had the sense to pull away before they actually kissed, although the damage was done: Skinner's breathing was ragged, Mulder's face was flushed, and they both were way more aroused than either wanted to admit they could tell about the other. Thank God for serial killers; they tended to refocus your attention a little.
There were plenty of times Skinner wished Mulder was a different kind of guy. His peculiar sexuality, how he seemed both very masculine and totally at home with his feminine side, was a little off-putting, especially to someone like Skinner who wanted to stay decidedly on the masculine side of the fence. He never seemed the least bit nonplussed by other people, whereas Skinner was pretty much always stumped by why people did the things they did. You'd almost expect some kind of benevolent superiority from that kind of a guy. But aye there's the rub with Mulder -- you never knew what the hell to expect from him, and he would never react the way you wanted him to or needed him to.
Instead of keeping his distance from Skinner after the almost-kiss, which would have been the ideal situation for both of them, Mulder just seemed to move closer, challenging both the physical and emotional distances between them. The ones that Skinner had deliberately put there, in fact. And Skinner found himself acting almost as strange, finding excuses to be around him or talk to him. If there wasn't something between them, it was at least a reasonable facsimile. And in some respects, a reasonable facsimile was far superior to anything real he'd had in what seemed like an age.
He took another sip of his whisky and laid his head against the window on the crappy little airplane pillow -- even in first class they still gave you crappy little airplane pillows -- then went to sleep. When he woke up they were preparing to land. Skinner stretched, yawned, and took in the early morning sky, the lights of L.A. glittering below him. He shouldn't have jumped on the first plane like that; now it was early morning before dawn, and what was he going to do? Drive around aimlessly, get a map to the stars' homes and amuse himself until it was a proper hour to visit? And what was the proper hour to beat the snot out of someone?
By the time he'd collected his rental car and gotten lost twice trying to find the freeway, it was starting to approach daylight. Skinner found a Denny's in his lost ramblings around the airport, where streets just seemed to start and end for no apparent purpose and you had to go left to go right, so he decided to have breakfast first. Beating your employee senseless would be easier with a full stomach, he reasoned.
The hills and winding roads all through the area were attractive, though, especially in this wonderful, bright sunlight. He liked driving up through them, the eucalyptus trees and scrub brush that dotted the landscape around all the homes of the famous a pleasant change of pace. It wasn't a hard place to find, and he got to drive past all the famous landmarks as he looked for the house Mulder was staying in. After awhile he found the address. No gate at least. Famous, but not famous enough.
He pulled into the driveway and before he'd even killed the engine, there was Mulder, shirt unbuttoned and hanging loose, jeans down low on his hips. Looking hot.
Mulder stood on the front steps in his bare feet, hands in pockets, staring morosely at him. All Walter's swagger and anger evaporated in a kind of deflated, sorry way, the can of whup-ass emptying with a hiss. He found himself feeling really bad for Mulder, which made him feel really bad for himself. "Well, crap," he said as he got out of the car.
"Hi to you, too." Mulder raised an eyebrow at him.
"I had a big speech I was going to lay on you about duty and responsibility. Then I was going to smash your face in. But you look like a kicked puppy and it kind of steals my thunder."
"I practice at home in front of the mirror. Works like a charm every time." He motioned toward the door with a jerk of his head. Skinner followed him inside.
"Speaking of home," Mulder said, looking very tired and mildly annoyed. "What do you think you're doing here?"
"That's a great question," Skinner answered, dropping his bag on the couch. He looked around the room. "This is a nice place. I mean, really nice." It sounded like he was saying "so what are you doing here," and he momentarily felt chagrined. There was a spectacular view of the city spread below them, far down the hills. Out the back windows -- which were really walls, when you thought about it, because they spread floor to ceiling -- there was an enormous swimming pool glittering in the morning sun.
"Yeah, as runaway shelters go, it's pretty decent."
"Agent Scully said your friend's a screenwriter."
"He is indeed. In fact, he's off right now working on a movie with America's sweetheart." Mulder plopped down on the leather sofa and put his feet up on the curved glass coffee table.
"Oh, yeah. I think I saw her in the movie on the plane. The girl with the teeth."
Mulder eyed him with amusement. "That's Julia Roberts. She's not America's sweetheart, don't you know anything, Walter? Meg Ryan is the sweetheart."
Skinner held his palms out in a helpless gesture. "I didn't come all this way to talk about air-brained actresses, you know?"
"What did you come for, then?" he snapped, in a quicksilver change from amusement to hostility.
"To drag your sorry ass back to Washington." He sat down on the chair opposite Mulder, who seemed to be about twenty feet away, the room was so large. He looked around. "I didn't even realize you had friends, let alone friends so successful. How did you meet this person?"
"Way back at Oxford. We were FFOPs together back there. You get a bigger gold star out here if you're English."
"FFOPs?"
"Fellow Failures of Phoebe. Green, the woman I worked with on that fire case, from Scotland Yard. There were a lot of us."
"You were involved?" He hadn't known that before. Skinner thought he knew a lot about Mulder, but there always seemed to be a new toy surprise at the bottom of the box. "When?"
Laughing out loud, Mulder answered, "At Oxford. She chewed us up and spit us out, and that's how Mark and I bonded. Lots of beer, lots of singing sad songs very loudly, lots of hangovers."
"Huh." Skinner tapped his fingertips on his knee.
"Don't be all retroactively jealous." Mulder gave a smirky little smile.
There were probably some tactics he could employ here, Skinner figured, none of which would really work. Or at least, on normal people they would work, but not on Fox Mulder. So he sat there, glaring even more hostilely at Mulder.
"Want something to drink?"
"No."
Mulder blinked and looked out the window to the pool. "Anything to eat?"
"No."
Mulder sighed theatrically.
"What I *do* want is for you to get your stuff and come back to Washington, and stop with this pretentious charade."
"Who could resist such gracious charm?" Mulder fidgeted.
"At the very least, you owe me a two-weeks' notice. You owe Agent Scully a lot more."
He looked away sadly, refusing to meet Skinner's eyes. "I know. But I... I had to get things together. She'll understand." Did Mulder have not even the slightest understanding of his partner and how she felt?
"Understand what? That you left her hanging in her job? That her friend and co-worker ran out on her? She was *bereft*, Mulder. She cares deeply for you. Are you that clueless or that insensitive that it doesn't matter? I mean, how oblivious can one man get?"
"Is this a multiple-choice test?"
"Cut it out!" Skinner bellowed.
"Okay, okay. Jesus!"
"Does that mean you're coming back, then?" It was a fantasy, he knew. Mulder would never acquiesce so easily.
"No. I'm not doing this to be pretentious or as a charade. I really do think it's Miller time, Walter. The whistle blew at the factory and I'm taking my lunchbox and going home. There just isn't anything left for me to do now."
"What about all those people who never had anyone to believe in them before? Like that woman in prison? Who'd listen to her, Mulder? That's what you have to do now -- work for those people. Don't you think that's something?"
"Maybe it's best not to feed their delusions. Maybe all I'm doing by supporting them is making it worse for them." He smoothed his hands over the knees of his jeans repeatedly, a gesture of nervousness and insecurity Skinner couldn't ever remember him making.
Skinner got up and came over to the couch and sat next to Mulder. "I don't think you think that."
"No, but so what? In the long run, what does it matter?" Mulder gave a shaky little sigh.
Turning sideways, Skinner faced Mulder, trying to keep himself calm. He had a brief vision of backhanding his agent, not hard, but just enough to make his head pop. "You know, it's not like it's unnatural to feel bad and want to run away after a parent dies. Especially considering the extremely difficult life you had, and losing your dad so recently, your reactions to this are very normal. And getting closure on your sister's loss could only be painful and make you feel like a part of your life has ended. Your feelings are very normal, Mulder."
"Do you believe that I saw my sister? That I did find some closure with her, then?" Mulder looked at him with deep skepticism.
"I believe in you. So I believe that you experienced something meaningful, yes. You know me. I'm too much of cynic. But I always believe in you."
Time seemed to hang there like some heavy, damp thing, right between them, and Skinner could feel the moments ticking away, changing the world as they went.
"You really know how to sweet-talk a guy."
That was precisely the kind of thing that drove Skinner right up the walls. "I'm trying to-- "
But Mulder interrupted him, laughing in a puffing exhalation, struggling to get the words out. "Walter! I meant it seriously, I'm not being shitty." He laughed again and put his hand on Walter's arm. "I really mean it, you do know how to sweet-talk a guy. What you said when my mother died, and what you said just now. They're exactly the right things to say."
At least the limited sympathy entries in the guy phrasebook worked well on other guys.
"Oh. Okay." He was very aware of the heat from Mulder's palm, the curve of those fingers around his forearm. "Okay."
Those wonderful, pouty lips pursed, then smiled, then pursed again, and Skinner couldn't draw his gaze away from them.
"Look at you, all nervous. Never thought I'd see you afraid of anything." Mulder was still grinning obnoxiously.
He raised his eyes to Mulder's, feeling like he was moving through wax, slow and hot. Well, he could just do the deed and prove what a fearless macho guy he was, or run away and get docked the tough-guy points later. "I have a reputation to uphold." He leaned forward and kissed Mulder this time, really did it, feeling Mulder's mouth meld to his, tongues, breath, soft, wet flesh meltingswimmingswirling.
Sliding along the couch, Mulder pulled Skinner down and over him, his hands moving along Skinner's back and sides like he was foraging for something. The kisses got deeper and wetter, his cock harder, and he could feel Mulder's swelling beneath him, too.
Okay, so this was hotter than anything he'd ever figured on, but as hot scenarios went, it was pretty damn freaky. He preferred the average and expected -- straight porn, strippers and lap dances, the usual stuff. But this kissing and groin-grinding and panting breath was just scorching. Mulder began unbuckling his belt and then it was whoa, doggies! time. He sat up abruptly, pulling Mulder's hands off his belt.
"Well, shit."
Mulder rolled his eyes and made a disgusted face. "If that's a compliment, I suggest working on your people skills."
Running his hand over his head, Skinner said, "Sorry, I just -- this is not really a great idea, wouldn't you agree?"
In no way did coming to his senses lessen the hardness of his dick, and he could hear Mulder snickering at him over that, a snide, gleeful tone. Then Mulder ran his hand over Skinner's cock, handling it roughly through the wool trousers. "You flew all the way across the country to see me. Don't try to tell me that you weren't thinking of other things. The fact that we almost kissed recently, the fear of losing me--"
Skinner snorted derisively.
"Don't try to mind-fuck me, Walter. You'll never win. I can see into you like a window, and I know why people do the things they do. And you're afraid of losing me."
Skinner dove down and kissed him again, and he could feel Mulder laughing low in his throat, a bubble of the sound between them. "So what if I am?" Skinner asked defensively. "What good does admitting that do if you won't come back with me?"
"Fuck me and we'll talk about that later."
First he opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. He had no idea what to say. Putting it like that turned this into something else entirely, something that, in spite of playing tongue-hockey and the pretty damn obvious results of that they were wearing on their crotches, he hadn't really thought about at all. He pulled his head back.
"Um. I... do you... " He wasn't normally the speechless type but Skinner had no idea how to broach the subject; for once, though, Mulder chose the nonsarcastic path.
"Hey, don't ask me. I may be perverse in a lot of ways, but that's not one of my normal perversions." He smoothed his hand over Skinner's back, grabbed one of his ass cheeks and squeezed hard. "But you know, I figure we can just do whatever. Whatever would work really well for me right now." Mulder's trembling fingers undid the buttons on Skinner's shirt, pushing it open. He ran his hands up along Skinner's collarbone, his neck, and pulled Skinner back down for a kiss.
Unexpectedly, right in the middle of the kiss, Mulder jumped up from the couch and went into the kitchen. He came back with a sheepish look on his face and something that looked... yes, it definitely was a bottle of cooking oil. Skinner's heart sank into his stomach. Now this was realer than real. Holy crap.
"Just -- just take it easy, big fella." Mulder slid down into the same position, pulling Skinner back where he was, but this time peeled off Skinner's shirt and then began working on his pants. "We're not going anywhere fast."
Which was a laughable sentiment coming from Mulder, whose voice was as shaky as his hands were.
"You sound like you're trying to do an instructional videotape here, but you're doing a damn bad job." He pulled Mulder's shirt off, the heat of his skin against Walter's own just thrilling and strange and beyond anything imaginable. Walter would be content to just keep doing this until he exploded in some mindless orgasm, but then, there were other things he could do here on this enormous couch and with Mulder's really wonderful body underneath him. Now Mulder was taking off Walter's pants, and then trying to slide his own jeans off.
Without warning, he found himself flesh to flesh with Mulder, shuddering with the friction of their cocks touching, the caress of a thigh against his ass. Holy, holy crap. Skinner could feel his stomach muscles clench, his neck tighten, as Mulder nearly rammed his tongue down his throat while at the same time he rubbed his dick against him in short, sharp thrusts. Digging his fingers into Mulder's back, Skinner tried to hold Mulder down a little tighter, or he'd come fast, like some high-school kid in the backseat of a car.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mulder's left arm flailing around, until his hand lit on the oil bottle. The sound of that opening scared Walter. He waited trepidatiously, only Mulder didn't do anything. It took him a moment, but he got the hint, and held his hand out as Mulder poured some of the oil over his fingers. Then Mulder rolled sideways, and pulled Skinner's hand around to his backside. Well, okay, he was dim about all this, but not that dim. Maybe it hadn't been at the top of Skinner's list of things to do today, but he could be flexible. He could accommodate.
But slowly. A little stroking, then a little exploring. Eventually an entire finger inside, and Mulder shoved back against him, which was really the hottest thing he'd done so far out of all the really searing things in the past few weeks. Something about his eagerness, his decisive ability to say, "yeah baby, this is what I want," was kind of erotic. No, strike that, really erotic. So Walter threw caution to the wind and pushed another finger in, and this time Mulder nearly erupted next to him, fucking his fingers, thrusting his hips against him, his cock, all that skin against all that skin. It was just too much. Mulder's hand wrapped around Walter's dick and within nanoseconds, he came, hard, watching Mulder smile that warped, sexy smile all the while he thrust backward and forward, backward and forward on Walter's fingers.
The polite thing, of course, would be to wrap his hand around Mulder's dick and finish the job. It wasn't like you could say that it would be unnerving, really, when you already had your fingers in someone's ass. He could go the extra mile and maybe give him a blow job, although it was a terrifying notion. But just as he wrapped his hand around Mulder's cock, Mulder bucked hard, held still, bucked hard again, and then Skinner was watching him come, his face rapturously alight, his breath coming in shallow gulps.
Mulder rested his face against Skinner's neck. "Holy orgasmic frenzy, Batman."
Skinner gently withdrew his fingers, slid his other hand over Mulder's hip, and pulled away a little, as much as there was room for on the couch. He sensed Mulder tense up, and then Mulder said in an icy little voice, "Oh, here we go."
All Skinner could do for a while was just stay quiet, grinding his teeth together and attempting not to hyperventilate. Then he said, "No, no. Just... let me have my little freakout, okay? Then I'll be fine."
Slowly, Mulder relaxed a little under his hands. "All right, we'll have a little group freakout. You're not the owner of all the mixed-up emotions here."
Skinner just patted his shoulder; he couldn't even muster the bravado to say, "of course not." How, precisely, do you have a normal, decent conversation after finger-fucking your subordinate on the couch of some guy's house in Hollywood who you don't even know and having one of the more pleasurable and incomprehensible orgasms of your adult sex life? The guy phrasebook was noticeably vague on this. Of course, there was probably a certain paucity of information on this subject in general, but nevertheless, it made him cranky to do without here.
So he slid away, leaving Mulder fuming on the couch, and poked around until he found the bathroom. Palatial, just like the rest of the house. He could see the lure of living out here, definitely. At least, as long as you were successful. Open up a business as a consultant, trade on his FBI and law-enforcement background. Skinner knew someone out here, too, so why not? People would cream themselves listening to his stories, thinking of the screenplay possibilities, the verisimilitude he could provide for their projects. Well, clearly Mulder had already figured that out.
He stared at himself in the mirror, realizing how ridiculous he looked in just his socks and his unbuttoned shirt. What if he fixed himself up and went out, to a bar or a store or something? Would people look at him and know? Would the fact that he'd just fucked another man be written all over him? If he wound up in West Hollywood, would guys cruise him in the cereal aisle or sidle up to him in some dark bar corner and ask him to be their daddy?
He felt like it had to be writ large across his face, was sure there was something different in his eyes to give it all away. Walter was certain *he* could see it, so why not everyone else? It wasn't like you just went back to being the same guy as before. You were utterly and completely changed. He had never liked change. Maybe that's why he'd always had so much trouble with Mulder -- if anyone ever represented change, it was him. Possibly Walter had been unconsciously rebelling all this time against what his mind and heart knew Mulder represented.
He splashed water on his face, cleaned himself up. When he went back to the main room he saw Mulder asleep on the couch, mouth open, lying there blissfully naked. Oh, right, he was *so* mixed up. It made Skinner bark out a laugh, but that didn't wake Mulder, so he grabbed his overnight bag and found the room Mulder was staying in, then put on his spare clothes. After poking around some more he found the entertainment room, which was like some kind of mini-theatre. Home theatre, that's what they called them. He could just go up, grab some food -- he hoped there was some food, with Mulder that could be doubtful -- come back down here and kill time watching sports on a big-screen TV.
There wasn't much food in the refrigerator, but what was there wasn't too bad. He made himself some sandwiches, grabbed a few beers, and went back downstairs. If anything could help him keep his mind off the events of the past few hours, it would be competitive roller-skating or the Canadian curling championships. After a few hours, when he hadn't heard anything from Mulder and the sky was starting to shade in sundown colors, Skinner went back upstairs. He saw no sign of Mulder. Even after a quick recon around the living room, he didn't see Mulder until he looked out the window.
He was sitting at the edge of the pool on the steps that angled down into it, his feet in the water on one of the lower steps. The pool glittered beneath Mulder, illuminating his face from below with its gentle, moving lines of reflecting light. Skinner sat down behind Mulder on the top step, legs on either side of him. Mulder didn't move or say anything, and eventually Skinner reached into his jeans pocket and fished out some change, pulled a penny out and held it in front of Mulder's eyes. He took the penny, chuckling softly, and rested his elbows on Skinner's knees as he leaned back against his stomach.
"I was thinking we should go out," Mulder said, looking down into the shimmering water, "and order expensive drinks that we'll idly push around on the table and never drink, staring glumly at the faux wood table. Maybe dinner too. So where did you go?"
"Hm," Skinner responded. "I was watching dumb sports on TV. Competition cow-tipping or something like that. So where should we go to ignore our elaborate and high-priced food and beverages?"
"I'm a Battlebots man, myself." He sighed. "Oh, all kinds of wonderful places here, where you can see the cognoscenti making deals and the stars looking like stars. Maybe we'll see the girl with the teeth."
Skinner snorted. "Okay, you name it."
But Mulder didn't name it, and didn't say anything else, either, for a long time.
"I'm not going back with you. This doesn't change that."
"I'm glad to see you gave it your due consideration."
Mulder knocked his head back against Skinner's chest lightly. "Actually, I have. See, I don't want to go back there and pretend this didn't happen. And you'll expect that. Even if it was just to give you two weeks' notice, you would demand business as usual. And you know what? I don't want that. I don't want to go back there and live a life that doesn't allow for this to happen. To not be around you, with you. I'm already living a life that doesn't allow for much of what I want to happen, I'm not adding that to the mix."
"What, do you think I'm going to move out here and we get a place in West Hollywood?"
"We could do that. Just think -- we could become consultants to film projects. We'd get invitations to the Oscars and everything."
Skinner just snorted and patted Mulder's head. "Whatever you say." He wasn't going to tell Mulder he'd just been fancifully considering the same thing a few hours ago.
"Oh, like I'd believe you'd fall for that. Give me more credit."
"What does that mean?"
Mulder splashed his feet in the water, making the lines of light waver and dance below them. Clearly he had no idea what he was saying, how tempting it was to stay here and never leave, to be warm all the time, to live a life free of the conspiracies and tortures and miseries that surrounded them daily at the Bureau.
"It means I know better than to believe you'd do anything to continue this. This is just a one-off for you. I know what passes for love in Walter Skinner land, and this ain't it."
"You think you do. But you're wrong. You think you know so much about me, and can see inside me. You don't know a damn thing. Or understand a damn thing about what drove me out here and why I don't want to leave until you agree to come back. Sometimes I think you just look right through me."
"How can you even say that?"
"Because if you didn't, you'd have seen a very long time ago how I feel. Before the hotel room. Before everything. Like I said, how oblivious can one man be?"
"That's right, blame it on the victim," Mulder said, but he was trying to stifle a laugh. Skinner looked down at him and realized he was beaming. It made him look especially goofy, which the upside-down view only emphasized. "Not oblivious, Walter. Hopelessly hopeful. There's a difference."
Despite his best efforts, Walter's heart started beating faster, his lungs felt compressed and it was harder to breathe, which had nothing to do with Mulder's weight against him. Hopelessly hopeful. Mulder had been thinking about this, about him, even before. So now all the cards were on the table. Maybe it wasn't love, but it was a reasonable facsimile, and that was more than he could have expected.
"I'm asking for just one thing. One step forward. Beyond that, I don't know. But if you come back, that's the one step you have to take." His fingers stiffened, digging into Mulder's shoulders.
Mulder dragged his left foot through the water for a while, thinking. Then he said, "I won't come back with you. But I'll come back after you. Just give me a few days."
Skinner sighed with exaggeration and irritation, taking his hands from Mulder's shoulders and standing. Up above them now the stars were visible, and between two palm trees in the purplish light of evening he could see Jupiter and Mars hanging like pendants between the crowns. Most of the time he didn't think about things like that, didn't pay attention to the wonders of life, but when Mulder was around, he noticed these sublime details. Maybe that's what made it worth all the crap Mulder put you through the rest of the time.
"All right, then. If that's my only choice," Skinner answered sadly. Mulder knew he'd be waiting for him, and Skinner knew Mulder knew it. He held out his hand toward Mulder, hoping the gesture would say everything he wanted it to say. Skinner would go back and wait. In the meantime, he was here, and there were a few things left that they could do before he caught another plane home. "I won't be going anywhere."
And when he finally got home, he'd wonder just that little bit if Mulder would really come back after him, and he would sit and wait, hopelessly hopeful.
End
1/7/02
For Olivia, for keeping that XF spark alight.