TITLE: Choices Cost - Chapter 08 - Lost or Found

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: Be careful what you wish for. It may be wonderful.

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: Lambchops and tiggers and bears, oh, mine.

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 08 – Lost or Found

by Mik

I lost my virginity on Skinner's living room carpet.

And now I'm wondering if I also lost my mind.

It wasn't that he was a bad lover. On the contrary. He was amazing, fantastic, incredible. He was patient. He was concerned. He kept waiting for me to adjust to the idea of having a missile launched up my anus, petting and soothing and asking me if I wanted to stop. And when the fiery red behind my eyes dissolved into fireworks and cannons and loud 'Oh, my Goooooooods' he made me feel as if I had done the most wonderful thing in the world for him. He was effusive and tender and … yes, even romantic. And maybe that's what was wrong.

Too romantic. Too sentimental. Trying to make it some kind of memorable event. And I began to see it as one. Somewhere along the way, it shifted from come-at-all-costs to is-this-really-the-way-you-want-it? Afterward, I remained where I was, staring down at the beige microfibres of his carpet, feeling just a bit like a newly deflowered former virgin wondering if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life.

I don't know if he knew what I was thinking because he'd been there once himself, or if he was just alarmed by my sudden and, even I must confess, uncharacteristic quiet. I felt him roll over to his side. I felt his eyes move over me. I felt him draw a deep, yet somehow tentative breath. "Are you all right?" he asked in a voice softer than his carpet.

I nodded quickly, not quite ready to look at him. I had a clinical understanding of my internal disquiet. In some ways, my manhood had been redefined by allowing another man to enter me, use me the way he would use a woman. Even though it was something I desperately wanted. Was I fundamentally changed? In his eyes? In mine? I don't know which frightened me more.

Finally, with effort, I began to unfold myself, rise to my feet. He scrambled up chivalrously to aid me and I brushed him away. I was acutely aware of my nakedness and completely blind to his. As I moved around, collecting my clothing, I became aware of something else, slick and warm and dripping slowly down my inner leg. His cum leaking out of my ass. Could I be more marked? More used?

I found my way to the bathroom and took the liberty of taking a shower. A long one. Hot and soapy, trying to wash away the sensation of being someone's...pussy.

I sank to the floor of the shower, letting the water rush over me. Letting fury rush over me. Not at him. He had done nothing but take what I begged him to take. I was angry at myself. That once again my impulses had taken me to a place where I would never go if I would just stop and think. How could I face him now?

I found out soon enough. The door pushed open and there he was, in the mist of my despair. Looking down at me gravely. He was quiet for a long time. Just looked at me. Then he nodded and drew a breath. "It never happened," he said, and turned away.

Well, shit, that's supposed to make me feel sooooo much better, isn't it? Right at that moment, with my ass on fire and my brains melting, he just turned my heart to ice.

I refused to limp, coming out of the bathroom, in my hastily gathered clothing and with my hair standing on end, even though I felt physically and emotionally wobbly. I avoided the kitchen, where I heard him moving around, and went back to the living room to find my shoes. I was stepping down into one without bothering with the niceties of socks when I realized he was standing at the dining room door. I know I blushed as I met his eyes and then jerked my gaze away.

"I made tea," he said quietly.

"Tea?" I said derisively. Bitter laughter burst out. "Could you be a little more gay?"

He didn't even flinch. "Would you prefer coffee?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for." I shoved my foot into my other shoe. "I should go now."

"No." In one movement he was blocking my path. "You should stay, now."

I stopped short, unable to bear making contact. "Skinner," I nearly begged. "Please. Let's just...let me go."

A baseball mitt of a hand came down on my shoulder. "I can't do that. Not now."

I pulled away from him, horrified. "Oh, let's not go making some big emotional event out of this." I swallowed, willing my voice not to crack. "We f-fucked. So what?"

It was a paranormal phenomenon. Without looking at him, without him taking one step toward me, I felt icy rage and then blazing wrath bubble up to me and envelop me more stultifying and painful than if he had body slammed me and held me face down in fire. "Fucked?" he rasped.

I swallowed again, forced my eyes upward, saw the feelings swirling in his and looked away. "All right. We made love." I didn't mean to sneer it. His hand jerked. I flinched. I'd wounded him and he wanted to hurt me back. "Look, why are you making this such a big deal? Aren't you the one who said it never happened?"

"You wanted this." He was pointing at the floor and I realized we were standing right on the spot where we had been locked in blinding passion only a short while before. His voice was soft suddenly, and slightly pained. "I thought you wanted this."

"I thought I did too," I admitted.

He was quiet for a moment, studying the floor, while I fidgeted beside him. His shoulders rose and fell in a short, impatient breath. "And now you regret it?" he concluded.

"No," I said quickly. "Well...I don't know," I amended. "I didn't expect...I'm not sure I can explain."

He looked up again. "You don't have to. Didn't I tell you last night that choices cost?"

I nodded. "Yes." The cost for being curious was this sudden, bewildering shift in the perception of who I was.

"And now you think the cost was too high?"

This was a trap. I could see it spread open, set in front of me, a great steel maw guaranteed to remove a limb. Saying yes was guaranteed to remove him from my life completely. Saying no was guaranteed to remove my already truncated sense of well being. I compromised. I climbed the fence. "I don't know."

"Liar." The sharpness in his voice pricked me like a needle. "If you didn't think so, even if you weren't sure, you're too damned curious to just walk away. You know." He glared at me. "You think you made a mistake and now I'm going to pay the price."

"P-price?" Damn it, Mulder, quit stammering.

"You're leaving me." He turned on his heel and marched up the stairs, slamming doors.

I stood there for a moment. Lost. Utterly. In the middle of the forest in the middle of the night I had a better idea of who I was and where I was than at that moment in his living room. I looked longingly toward the front door. I twisted around and looked up the stairs. With a sigh that was just a moment away from a wail, I limped toward the kitchen.

There was a teapot on the counter. Two blue cups sat neatly in two blue saucers. I wanted to sneer at that too. But there was something comforting about the precision of it, the way he prepared things, the way he looked ahead. He'd counted the cost before he even glanced my way. He knew what he wanted. Shit. He wanted me.

I sank down in one of the kitchen chairs and...damn it...I cried.

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

I was pouring the last drops into my cup, my eyes burning, my head pounding, the tea bitter on my tongue, when I heard him come down the stairs and move toward the kitchen. It was late in the day and the sunlight slanted in low from the windows, making all his bright copper accouterment glitter blindingly. So much so that he blinked as he came through the door, and didn't see me sitting in the corner.

He looked haggard, from my view. I had him in profile. He had pulled on crisp khaki dockers and a brilliantly white sleeveless tee and looked as if he was ready to wrestle the world, but his face looked as if he had been wrestling his feelings, and lost.

Taking an inventory, he must have sensed things were out of place. The pot and one cup were missing from the place where he had so carefully laid them out. The other cup and both saucers still sat on the counter. His gaze swept left, and caught me as I lifted the errant cup to my mouth. For a moment, I thought he was angry. Then for a moment, I thought he was glad. Then his expression shuttered.

I put the cup down, licking tea from my lips. "I want to live with you, Walter."

Nothing.

I could feel my embarrassment burn up through my face like a wooden match. Just at the moment when I wanted to tearfully retract the statement, he moved toward me. I braced myself. His big paws slid around my face and held me against his hip.

"You sure this time?" he rumbled above me.

I nodded against him.

"You'll probably lose your job," he said.

"I know." Hell, my job had been a joke for years. But this...this wasn't a joke. It was real.

I felt his fingers comb through my hair. "What will you do?"

I shrugged and an unpremeditated giggle slipped out. "Become your rent boy."

He cupped my face in his hands and turned to look down at me. "Have we gotten around to stating our feelings, Mulder?"

Panic. He didn't want this. I'd presumed –

"I happen to love you. Have loved you for years."

The stupid tears started again. "I …" I couldn't say anything. The words were choked off in my throat.

He actually smiled at me. "I know."

I pulled free and brushed the tears away. "I'm sorry, Walter. It just took some time -"

"I know that." He bent just enough to let his lips slide softly over my brow. "It's part of the process. Especially for someone like you, someone who needs to analyze everything." He ruffled my hair. "You'll feel better after you've made love to me. Put us on an even footing again."

I looked up sharply. "You mean...you'd let me..." A new curiosity burgeoning within, a new heat of desire, a new thing to long for and fear and rush headlong toward.

He seemed surprised by my surprise. "Let you? I want you. Need you." Suddenly he was pulling me to my feet and gathering me close to him. "Don't you understand, Mulder? You've been a part of my fantasies for years. I've thought about us in every way possible, in every place possible. Not just sex, but life. That cabin I showed you? I've imagined us retired there, living a quiet life, a life full of books, and lovemaking and a few good friends and spectacular sunsets and peace of mind."

I was lost in his words, his imagery. Imagine a life not peopled by aliens, freaks, criminals and skeptics, imagine a life not driven by memories and quests. Just … a life.

He was talking to me again and I struggled to focus on his words. "Did I hurt you?" he repeated.

"Hurt me?" I blinked up at him, dumbly. "Oh." I know I was blushing. "No."

"Good." He kissed me, deeply. "Because I have great hopes of doing that again, and soon."

I kissed back. Then I wrapped my arms around him, tight, like a little boy unwilling to let go of Daddy. "Can I stay the night?"

He unwrapped my arms the way he might unwrap a gift. "Try and get out the door," he said in a low, deadly voice. Then grinned.

That...that grin. I'd face all the jeers and jokes and Board inquiries in the world just to get my daily requirement of that grin. And at that moment, when the music should have risen into a glissando of flutes, high strings and joy, my stomach rumbled.

He laughed at me. "It's comforting to know that you are in no danger of turning mushy on me, Mulder. Pizza?" He stopped just as he reached for the phone. "Mulder?"

"Pizza's fine."

He shook his head slightly. "I'm not going to call my rent boy Mulder."

"I was kidding about being a rent boy."

"Good." He dialed. "I'm going to call you Fox. Deal."

"Bossy."

"Damn straight." He ordered pizza without asking me what I'd like, but mind reader that he is, he ordered perfectly. Hanging up the phone, he reached for me, caught me under the arms and whirled me around the kitchen in a bad imitation of Fred and Ginger. "Well, you're not going to make a living as a dancer," he chuckled, letting me go.

"Who are you and what have you done with that sour assed bastard I called my boss?" I demanded.

"It's an X-File, Fox." He reached for the coffee decanter and rinsed it. "You're just not used to seeing me happy."

I moved a little closer, feeling something constrict inside me. "Are you happy?"

He put the carafe down and turned to look at me, leaning back against the counter. "I'm happier than I've been in a lifetime, Fox."

"But there are so many bastards out there who are going to make our life hell -"

"I know that." He seemed blissfully unconcerned.

"They're not just going to let us ride off into the sunset, you know."

"I know that."

"Damn it, Skinner -"

He cut me off with a kiss. "It isn't going to be perfect, Fox. We're going to have some problems. Some struggles with the world out there. Some struggles with our world in here. We're human beings. We are not guaranteed a … you will pardon the expression...fairy tale. We live. Ups and downs. Good times and bad. And in the end we tot it all up and decide if it was worth it. I think that having you in my life is worth whatever is waiting for us out there." He flicked a hand toward the windows. "I told you that last night. And I'll keep telling you 'til you believe it." He kissed me again. "This is what I want, Fox. You'd better be certain it's what you want. Count the cost, then tell me what you want."

I looked out the window. Out there was a world where men didn't love men. Where men who did were treated with scorn, ridicule, prejudice and violence. In here was a man who made me feel safe and wanted and...and...cherished. I looked back at him. "You sure I'm worth it?"

His only answer was a smile. A quiet, steadfast, wise, tender smile.

"I pay a price no matter what I want. If I play it safe, I live alone, I live a lie. I live without you." I sighed almost sadly. "Everything in life costs, doesn't it?"

"Not everything, Fox." He moved back to the coffeemaker and poured the water from the carafe. "Dreams are free." He turned slowly. "Which do you want? Life … or dreams?"

"I think...I think, with you, I get both."

He shook his head. "No more dreams, Fox. From this moment on, we both start living." He pushed the button that started the coffee making process. "Deal."

If anyone in his nice, white collar, uptight suburban neighborhood had looked through the kitchen window at that moment, they would have seen two men dancing...badly, but dancing.

And living.

- END -