TITLE: Choices Cost - Chapter 06 - Take it or Leave

NAME: Mik

E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com

CATEGORY: SRA

RATING: NC-17. M/Sk. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if you don't like that type of thing – STOP NOW! Forewarned is forearmed. Proceed with caution. Of course if you have four arms you can throw caution to the wind.

SUMMARY: Choices made, costs deferred.

ARCHIVE: Anywhere as long as my name and addy stay attached.

FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist...

TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: This is an AU, very vague spoilers for multiple episodes, nothing current.

KEYWORDS: story slash angst Skinner Mulder NC-17

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use. I'd rather say that they really are mine, but I've been advised to deny everything.

Author's note: For Beta-Goddess, to whom I bequeath all my Peeps. And to Lambchop. That buzzing sound you hear isn't always Daddy's chain saw.

If you like this, there's more at https://www.squidge.org/3wstop

If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.

Choices Cost – Chapter 06 – Take it or Leave

by Mik

I saw him hobbling down the corridor and I stopped. No. I froze. My heart stilled, my brain ceased to generate electrical impulses, my blood chilled to ice in my veins. I hadn't seen him alone since I swallowed him whole in a rocking chair and morning dress, and I didn't know what to do or say, or if I even wanted to do or say anything.

Oh, we'd seen quite a lot of each other since then. In fact, I rode in the helicopter to the hospital. We didn't talk during the ride, however. The doc on duty had decided the trip would be easier on Skinner if he slept through it. One needle stick later, it was night-night, Wally. If anyone noticed traces of semen on his personal parts, they kept the find to themselves, and no one looked at me once, much less twice. So, instead of holding his hand, stroking his hair and comforting him the way it always happens in the movies, I was strapped in, glassy-eyed, staring out the window, and terrified that he might mumble something revealing, now that he was doped to the wire-rims.

I'd hung around the hospital a couple of days, hoping for a chance to at least ask him if it was good for him. I never got that chance. People I didn't know came out of the linoleum and hovered around him so that I only got glimpses of him, or brief audiences with him with a phalanx of family members around him. I finally gave up and went on home.

I didn't go around his place after he was brought home, but I sure spent a lot of time with my brand new cell in my hands, hoping for an invitation. It didn't come. Finally, I got up enough courage to dig his truck keys from the remnants of his camping rig (which, I confess, I swiped from the laundry room before I locked up Jay and June's lodge), and convinced Scully to drive me back up to the scene of the crime.

Scully didn't seem all that surprised that my vacation had been spent in some remote part of Outer Wildernessville. Nor did she find it particularly surprising that I was off outside of humanity's realm with my boss. She was only surprised to find our campsite basically unmolested after ten days of neglect. I explained we were so removed from all life-forms they had to ship in bears to wreck the place and they were apparently back ordered.

I felt achingly close to him, taking down the tent, packing up the equipment and loading his truck. Sliding behind the wheel of that monstrous thing, I had an irrational urge to hug that massive steering wheel, but Scully was sitting in her car, waiting for me to lead her back down the mountain, and I couldn't give in to my longing to be in intimate contact with something of his. I put the radio on his oldies station, cranked it up and imagined he was with me all the way home. I only just refrained from talking out loud to him.

It took me another two days to get the nerve to take the truck and camping equipment back to him. I didn't call, just showed up at the door, hoping for...I don't know what. What I do know is I didn't get it. A strange woman answered the door and invited me in. He was sitting in his living room, his casted leg elevated, a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He was appropriately cordial and grateful that I had made the trip to rescue his truck, but there didn't appear to be an undercurrent of warmth, longing, urgency or love. I don't know what I was expecting but it was a damn sight more than 'That was very considerate of you, Agent.'

Well, shitty as it felt, it answered a lot of questions for me. Gave me 'closure' as we psychologists are so fond of saying. My closure came in the form of a kick to the gut.

I'd done okay after that. I didn't see him and I kept myself busy, taking every shit assignment that would get me into another time zone. Six weeks passed in a blur, and now I hardly hurt at all.

But there he was, making slow progress down the hallway, on his way to the Coke machine. If I had moved a moment sooner, I could have ducked into a supply room but I didn't, and he saw me.

I didn't expect the expression on his face. It was one of dismay. Had he hoped I'd somehow vanished during his recovery? I managed to swallow and I glanced away, shoved my hands in my pockets and wheeled in the other direction. If I'd harbored any hopes that we could make something out of that little spark on the mountainside, he'd dumped Coke all over them.

Downstairs, I slunk into the office, and settled at my desk, and glanced over a stack of mail dumped in the middle of other stacks of mail and files I'd ignored lately. Scully wasn't there, so it was a struggle to refrain from tipping the whole desk over and kicking something...hard. Instead, I picked up a letter opener and began to slit envelopes, and fantasized about slitting throats.

Not too deep into the pile, I came across a small card. A note from Jay and June and Samantha, wondering how Walter was, and I got the strangest feeling they weren't inquiring about his leg. I was tempted to fire off an email demanding 'How the hell should I know? The man can't bear to look at me', but before I could, Scully appeared, looking bemused and announced we were wanted upstairs.

"Why?" I snarled.

She reacted to my tone the way a cat would to sudden movement, pulling back but tracking keenly. "I wasn't given the precise reason, but I think the fact that our Director asked for us, should be reason enough."

"Because I said so … is that it, Mommy?"

She did a classic Scully pose, fists on hips, head cocked ever so slightly to one side. "What the hell is wrong with you, Mulder? You've been acting so..." She stopped and those little blue eyes glowed. "You're afraid to see him, aren't you?"

I gulped. "Afraid to see him?" I attempted to sneer. "Don't be -"

She nodded, convicted. "Because of what happened up there."

"Wh - what happened?" I echoed. Oh...shit...

"You broke his leg and you're afraid he's going to make you pay for it for the rest of your career. Is that why you've been meekly accepting all these scut assignments lately? Some sort of penance on your part?"

"That's just a little too Catholic for me, don't you think, Scully?" I sneered successfully that time and pushed myself away from my desk, relief pouring off me like sweat from a sumo wrestler. "Come on. Let's get the command appearance over and then I'll make you eat those words on communion wafers."

I want an Academy Award for my performance in his office that afternoon. I was cheerful, respectful, happy to see him back. Well, okay. I didn't slump in my chair, bite my nails and pout. He did give me a sort of once over look when I came in, but that might be because my tie was loose and my collar unbuttoned. I took quick measures to rectify that before I sat down.

Scully was her usual, professional self, asking after his progress without being too invasive, showing the right amount of approval/appreciation for his treatment and recovery. The conversation focused mainly on what we'd got up to in his absence. He noted several cases that we had been involved in that seemed to be a waste of our 'special skills'. However, as we had closed the cases without fatalities or great expense to the taxpayers, he wasn't going to complain.

The only time he addressed anything to me was to note I hadn't taken all the time off I had requested. He urged me to take the time. Soon. Get outta' Dodge, Mulder, this town ain't big enough for the two of us. I told him, in a perfectly affable manner, that I'd had far too much vacation for my own good. The meeting ended on that note.

"Could you have been a little more juvenile, Mulder?" Scully scolded as we reached the elevator.

"Well, sure, if I had tried," I answered. "What are you talking about? I was a model of maturity back there."

"'I think I've already had more vacation than I needed...Sir'," she said in an eerily and annoyingly accurate deadpan imitation, as she jabbed the elevator call button.

"Well, it's true," I argued, following her into the chamber. "I don't do well outside captivity. I...er...break things."

"You mean, like Skinner's leg?" she chuckled.

"Exactly," I agreed. And my heart.

The door to our floor opened, but Scully paused and looked back at me. "You know, in all the years I've known you, you'd think I'd understand every gear and wheel in that gizmo you call a brain. You still manage to surprise me sometimes." And she left, shaking her head as she went.

*******************************************

I took Jay's note home and tried to compose a response that was reassuring without telling him his assumptions about us were both right and wrong. The words refused to come to me. As skilled as I've become at writing 302s in a manner which will get them approved without actually lying about the circumstances, I couldn't find a way to say, 'Yes, I wanted him, he didn't want me.' I wanted to believe it was just my basic male pride that was wounded. How could anyone not want me? The only problem with that logic was that I could come up with lots of reasons against setting a course against my star. If I truly was the catch of the century, our little Starbuck would have had me hove to long before now. Oh, Lord, I'm waxing in metaphors …

So, there I sat, struggling over a scribbled note when my cell phone rang. At first, I thought I might ignore it. Then I thought it might be Scully so I picked up and mumbled the standard 'Mulder' into the phone.

"Agent Mulder."

And then my heart went to my shoes, and jumped back up to my throat, nudging my balls along the way. "Yesssssir."

"I wanted to thank you again for going to all that effort to bring my truck home after the …" he paused.

"Unfortunate incident, Sir?" I supplied helpfully.

"Accident," he amended. "But in going through my equipment I notice you left something of yours here. Do you think you could come over this evening and pick it up?"

I'll be damned if that brusque son of a bitch didn't just hang up then, without so much as waiting for a response from me. He didn't even tell me what I left behind. All that mattered to him was something of mine was taking up his precious space.

So, why was I walking out the door three minutes later? Because sad, sick little puppy that I am, I needed to see him again. Had to. It was mandatory. It was CPR for a coding cardiac condition. Mine. All the way down there I tried to envision some witty little repartee that I could begin that would make him believe he made a mistake by undoing the mistake he made out there. The trouble is...I'm not really that clever. Cynicism and a sneer do not witty make.

He yanked the door open almost before I finished knocking. For a moment, we just stood there, staring at each other. Then I tried to regain my senses and stammered a lame, "Are you going to let me in?"

He backed up and allowed me to cross the sill. "Care for a beer?" he offered on a false note.

I shook my head. "Just give me my stuff and I'll get out of your..." I stopped. Swallowed hard. Well, so much for witty repartee.

He slid his hand over that shining dome. "While I have you here, Agent, I wanted to discuss the...uh...incident..."

I gave him an innocent look. "Which incident, Sir?"

He opened his mouth, and then closed it, smiling knowingly. "You don't have to play let's pretend here, Agent. There's no one here but the two of us. And I'm willing to admit something happened. Why shouldn't you?"

I looked around the room, wondering what his game was. He'd made it clear he was unhappy we'd let things get out of hand. Why was he dredging it up now? "What is there to discuss, Sir? You feel we had a lapse in judgment, that's all. And I -"

"You don't feel it was a lapse in judgment?" he challenged.

"What I feel is immaterial," I retorted. "The important thing is, it happened and now we're going to forget about it."

"What you feel is hardly immaterial, Agent Mulder." He actually took a step into my personal space. But then, he's always liked to use his size as intimidation. And you know what … it works. I backed up a step. "What do you feel, Agent Mulder?"

Like I wish you'd stop calling me Agent Mulder, I thought frantically. Call me Mulder, call me Fox. Hell, call me darling, lambchop, my little monkey muffin, but stop calling me Agent Mulder. "I f - feel..." Oh, smooth. Stammer all over the place like an adolescent one word away from puberty. "I think..." I backed up another step. "Look, just tell me what I left here and I'll go, okay?"

He had been watching me intently, but my desperate question seemed to break the spell. "What?"

"You said I left something of mine here," I reminded him. "What was it?"

"Oh." He took another step nearer. "Me."

In the next moment, I was in his embrace, wrapped up in big bear arms, being kissed as if he could touch my soul with his tongue. It took me a full minute to understand what had just happened, and to make my spaghetti arms wind themselves around him.

The moment he felt me giving in to him, he had me pinned against a wall, sucking at various parts of my face, neck and throat, while those big paws of his tore at the buttons on my 501's and jerked them down past my knees. In another minute, he had scooped his hands up under my butt and lifted me just enough to plant me very firmly on the table in the hallway.

I was too far gone to protest or encourage him. I might have bitten his lower lip about the time I felt his hand curl around me and start a nice easy pumping motion, but if I did, he didn't seem to care. It was with great effort that he tore his mouth from mine and went down on his knees between my parted bare legs, to draw me into his mouth.

One inch into that hot mouth and I was moaning, writhing, banging my head back against the wall. But he wasn't content with that reaction. Precisely at the moment when I was about to confess to every sin in Christendom, he wormed one finger between my cheeks, probed around, found center and drove it home.

I came off that table, shouting epithets and epiphanies, locking my knees around his head and thrusting for all I was worth. "Ohhh, shit, fuck, damn!" I moaned, letting go. My whole being rushed up and spilled out of me, into his mouth, where he was swallowing greedily, and lapping up any wayward drops. This boy, I thought, in my downward spiraling consciousness, has sucked a cock before. And I slumped all the way off the table, and down into his arms.

When I finally opened my eyes, he was smiling down at me. No, make that a grin. "Well?" he asked.

"Oh, very well," I agreed, breathlessly.

He pulled me up against him, rocking my body slightly. "How do you feel about this, Mulder?"

"I feel very optimistic, Lambchop," I answered drowsily.

He pulled back and looked down at me. "Lambchop?"

I smiled, blissful. "Monkey muffin?"

He shook his head, but I could tell there was a giggle in there just waiting to get out. "I don't think so."

"Oh, very well." I nestled down against him, completely devoid of any spark of animation. "Thank you, Lambchop, Sir. That was..." I sighed like a teenage girl. "...wonderful."

"Mulder." I felt him shift his arms, encouraging me upward. "Do you think you can negotiate the stairs by yourself or are you still too fuck drunk to climb them?"

I opened my eyes and tsked him softly. "What a potty mouth, Lambchop, Sir."

"Yeah, I noticed the delicate prose you were uttering a few minutes ago." He pushed me out of his lap and stood. Then he did something that only a genuine Daddy/Lumberjack/Lambchop could do. He bent, collected me under the arms and pulled me up and over his shoulder, my head and arms draped down his back to admire his ass (an attribute I had grown remarkably fond of in recent months), and my own derriere, bared and resting … um … cheek to cheek with him.

"Um, where are we going, Lambchop, Sir?" I asked when I was through admiring the way the muscles in his butt moved as he mounted the stairs.

"It's bedtime for good little agents."

"Um...Mr. Lambchop, Sir, my bed's that-a-way," I pointed, even though I was pointing behind him and he probably couldn't see.

He smacked my bared cheeks hard. "Call me Lambchop again and I'll show you what I've always wanted to do to this ass."

Well, that sent a shiver through me. I didn't think he was making a pass at me. I think he was threatening to spank me. "But...my bed is -"

I was dumped, unceremoniously, onto his bed. "This is your bed, until further notice." He knelt, untied my shoes, tugged my jeans all the way off, and tucked me almost tenderly into bed. Then he leaned up and kissed my brow. "Good night, Mulder."

I laid there for a moment, letting the last of the exquisite delirium leave me before I sat up. "Um...Skinner...Walter...I can't really spend the night here."

He returned from what turned out to be the bathroom. "You can. You will." He was stripping out of his own slacks.

I watched him for a moment, awed by the precise way he did things, from taking off his slacks, to directing his department, to choosing a homosexual affair with a subordinate. "We can't really do this, Sir," I murmured.

He looked back at me. "Why?"

"Well, because...fraternization...and...Hoover's dresses and...and..." I stopped and looked at him helplessly. "This isn't exactly the smartest choice you could have made, Sir."

"Oh, no doubt," he agreed. He came back to the bed and pushed me back into the pillows. "There is a cost for every choice we make in this life, Mulder. But I'm still choosing this. Do you know why?" He caught my chin and tilted upward, so that I had to meet his eyes. "Because I love you. Have for years. And I choose you over all the things they'll take away from me for loving you." He let his hand fall away. "I suppose the real question is what do you choose?"

I looked up at him, remembering what he said when I asked him what I had left behind. "You," I said firmly. "I choose you."

- END chapter 06 -