TITLE: Dendrite - Chapter Five - Here Again

NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/Sk
RATING: NC-17. M/Sk. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. Not suitable for children, Baptists or Republicans.

SUMMARY: First time M/Sk. Do you need any more information? Well, I guess you do. I know what this story appears to be...but please, please bear with me. It's gonna' be okay. They promised.

ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Okay...hmmm...no specific spoilers for specific eps. Back in the good old days when Skinner was still their boss, nothing had been burnt and no one's best friends had died needlessly for the sake of ratings or to jump sharks.
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Mulder Skinner NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20^th Century Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use. I personally think Chris Carter, et al, should just give them to me, since they're not using them anymore, and anyway, I treat them much, much better, but there you are.

Author's notes: See Chapter One for assorted notes, credits and ramblings. They will be omitted henceforth to save virtual trees.

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.

Dendrite - Chapter Five - Here Again

by Mik

Okay, that was unexpected.

Not that anything that had happened to me recently could honestly be called predictable. But of all the things that had occurred, right up to the moment when I looked up and found myself watching my boss getting down to a pretty gritty nitty, getting thrown down a flight of stairs was probably the last thing I would have predicted.

Now, to be fair, he looked appropriately stricken and contrite about his actions, and had come down to pick me up almost within a moment of realizing what he'd done. But once I was on my feet and we were face to face in the foyer, he was back to business.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded as he reached into the cupboard beside me.

"Don't ask me," I shrugged, stepping back so he wouldn't have to go to outrageous lengths not to touch me while he was naked. "You brought me here."

His face got red again. "What do you mean I brought you here?" He pulled his top coat out with a yank that sent the wooden hanger flying down the hallway, and skittering across the floor. "Are you telling me I'm being haunted?"

"Oh, I don't know...I think 'haunted' is a bit extreme," I complained. "I'm just...I don't know," the confusion was back and I was swimming in it. "I'm-I'm with you. That's all I know." I waited until he was safely wrapped in water repelling wool. "Umm...I'm really dead?"

There was a flicker of compassion in his red hot face. "You're really dead." His voice roughened impatiently. "You should know. You were there. You were at the funeral. Look, I don't care who you are, how you got here, what you think you have to accomplish, but you have to go. You have to leave. You have to get out of here. I've been through enough. I do not need to lose my mind on top of everything else."

"I think you're exaggerating about losing your mind. I mean..." I poked at my shoulder. Look. See? I'm solid." I held up my arm. "Go ahead, touch me. I'm solid. I'm real."

He declined the offer by taking steps backward. "Fine. Take your solid self outside that solid door and" he pointed imperiously, "...haunt me no more."

I rolled my eyes. "I never took you for the melodramatic, but if you insist..." I reached for the brass lever and pushed down. My hand remained solidly around it, but even though I pushed, and my hand moved downward, the lever did not release, the door did not open. "I can't."

He was still pointing, but now it was the way he'd thrown me out of his office so many times, almost belovedly familiar. "Out!"

"Well, I'd like to but," I tried the lever again, "...it doesn't seem to be working."

"Fine," he decided, exasperated, "I'll go." Wrapping his coat tighter around himself he yanked open the door that had resisted me, and marched through. In the corridor, he whipped around and glared at me. "What are you doing? I thought you said you couldn't leave."

I stared at the tacky carpeting at his bare feet. "Evidently I can't leave...you." I looked at the door. And then at his face, which was even redder, if that were possible. "If you go I get to go with you."

"I don't believe this." He reached for the handle, jiggled it roughly and a new look of horror came over his face. "Damn it!"

"Locked out?" I observed.

"Yes, thanks to you. Well...put some of that spookiness to good use...go unlock the door."

I looked at the door and then at him. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't? You just-"

"I didn't go through the door, you did. I just came along for the ride. To my knowledge I can't walk through walls." Just to demonstrate, I took a step into the doorframe and we both heard the very solid thud. "Nope. Can't do it."

He glared at me. I'd never seen him totally robbed of sound before. I know I'd managed to twist logic around his tongue so he couldn't speak, but even then he always managed to express himself with sputters, grunts and growls. Now he stood, trembling with rage but silent. "Well?" I prompted. "Aren't you going to say something? Yell at me? Argue with me? Tell me I'm preposterous?"

He pushed his lips forward, and extruded one word, hard as steel. "No."

I laughed at him. "Death certainly didn't shut me up, I can't believe it managed to-"

"Shut up!" he hissed, looking over his shoulder, and then over mine. "Will you shut up? I won't be having this discussion here." He patted his pockets for keys, but it was in vain. "I can't be standing here in the corridor talking to a...to a dead person, to a...a ghost." He started to march toward the elevators. "So...go away."

I can't say I felt some psychic tug forcing me to turn and follow along, but I didn't feel I could stay where I was when he moved away. "Oh, don't worry over that," I tried to assure him. "People think you're talking to someone, a real person."

He arched a brow at me. "A real...dead person."

I shook my head, and caught his sleeve as he reached for the call button. "It's not like you think. You'd be amazed how many of us are just...here." And no, I don't know how I knew it, but I did. I could practically see them all, staring at me, silently willing me to make my case to him. "You know when you're walking down the street and you sort of catch a glimpse of someone from the corner of your eye? They don't really register with your consciousness, they're just," I searched for a word, "...there? They are there but only to the person they're talking to, or the person they're waiting for or the person they're with. Does that make any sense?"

"They're just there? Oh, yes. Worlds of sense."

"They take any old physical presence so that you don't think the person they're with is crazy. But they're just there for that person. And I guess..." I paused, finally comprehending it myself, "I'm just here for you.”

He finally shook me off. "Why me?"

I looked into his face intently. I wanted that answer as much as he did. "I thought you could tell me. I don't know. I mean, I don't know much about this. I haven't gotten the handbook yet, but I have a sort of instinctive idea that maybe you have some unresolved conflict with me -"

"- I have plenty of unresolved conflict with you -"

"-or maybe there's something you wanted to say to me or -"

"-yes, go away -" he stepped into the elevator.

"-and never said or...I don't know," I laughed helplessly, "maybe you could help me get my wings. All I know is I'm with you. I opened my eyes and here I am. I'm with you." I followed quickly, before the doors hissed shut. "For a while I was really with you and that freaked me out because I thought I was myself but I was...I was you. I was in you. I was...but, anyway," I spread my hands, "here I am. Get used to it."

He shot me a look; anxious and doubtful and a little bit frightened. "You mean...you're here...forever?"

"Now that's an interesting question. I don't know. Maybe I need you to do something to free me from my earthly bonds or something." I looked up at the numbers above the door, indicating our descent. "I honestly don't know. Give me a break, Skinner, this is kind of new to me as well."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"Yes, it does. Not as much as it bothers you, evidently, but the not knowing is uncomfortable. On the other hand," the doors opened and he bolted out. "On the other hand, it is kind of cool. Kind of exciting. I mean, if I have to be dead, I'm glad I'm getting an opportunity to check out the other side, so to speak."

"So to speak," he repeated, tugging at the belt of his top coat. "Now, stay here, will you?" He pointed to the tiled floor of the lobby. "I have to go humiliate myself by asking for a copy of my key, while wearing nothing but an overcoat. I don't need any more help from you."

"Okay, okay!" I put my hands up in surrender. And then followed him to the property manager's office.

In case anyone was wondering, he blushes all the way over his skull. The top of his head looked like a red beacon while he sheepishly explained that someone had punked him while he was trying to get ready for a shower, so that was how he came to be locked out of his unit with his unit dangling in the breeze. Well, he didn't mention that part. I felt I should for the sake of accurate reporting.

The property manager, a very dapper, white haired fellow, managed to leer and look earnestly sympathetic at the same time. "And your lady friend doesn't have a key?" he asked helpfully.

"My lady..." Skinner jerked sharply in my direction. I smiled accommodatingly. "I thought I told you to..." he choked off the hissed complaint and looked back at the property manager. "No. She's...she's the reason I'm locked out."

"Ah, I see." He got up and opened a cabinet. "You know, Miss, this isn't a nice way to start a relationship. You'll win him much faster if you don't play tricks on him. Here we are." He produced a big brass key and some paperwork. "You'll need to sign for this, of course."

Skinner was still glaring at me. "Of course."

He did not say a word until we were back in the elevator and he had jabbed the button to his floor. "What the hell was that?"

"'That'?" I echoed.

"That...that performance in the Property Manager's office."

"Ah. Well, I...tried to stay in the lobby. But when you moved...so did I."

"No, I meant that 'young lady' routine. What kind of game were you playing?"

"Oh, that. Well, I told you, people see you with someone, just not me. He wanted to see you with a girl, so that's what he saw. Or maybe..." I grinned again, "maybe you wanted to be seen with a girl."

"I don't need your help for that, thank you," he snarled.

"I'll keep that in mind." I leaned against the keypad. The brushed steel should have been cool, but it wasn't. It wasn't hot, either. It wasn't anything. Just something solid that kept me from moving away from Skinner. I lifted a hand and let it slide lightly over the wall. The roughness of the paint I'd experienced in the corridor was gone. It was just a barrier between my fingers and the elevator shaft. Frowning, I sucked my lower lip in, and impulsively bit down, hard. Nothing.

His hand slapped me, roughly, but though I felt the power of his blow, I did not feel its sting. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nothing." I touched the place where he had hit me. "Am...am I really dead? I don't...I know this sounds strange but...I don't remember dying."

"I do." There was pain in his expression. "I do. You're really dead."

The elevator bumped to a stop. "Well, I don't understand it."

"You don't understand it?" The doors opened and he stepped out, clenching the borrowed key in his fist. "What is there to understand?" He glanced up and down the hallway and his voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "You opened a door and a building blew up. What did you expect? What I don't understand is why me? Why not Agent Scully? Why not your mother?" He forced the key into the lock of his door and shoved savagely. "Why not one of those odd Gunpeople friends of yours?”

"I don't know," I admitted, following him even though he tried shutting the door in my face. "Maybe because you were the last person I saw, the last person I was with. Maybe because you held my hand when I was dying. I remember that, you know. I remember feeling your touch....maybe you got the last spark of my energy," I suggested.

He was putting space between us, at least he was trying. I kept following along as if he were pulling a toy on a string. "I can't explain it. It's just...you know how you wake up in the morning and you have a conviction before you ever open your eyes that the sun has risen and it will be Tuesday and things will just happen and you can count on them happening?"

"Yeah." He stopped at the bar and pulled a glass down. "So?"

"So, that's how I feel. I have this conviction and I'm going to be with you for a while. So...get used to it."

"Just like that." He turned, glass in hand and recoiled when he found me close to him.

That hurt. That it hurt surprised me. I reached out, trying to be reassuring, but he was avoiding me, it was not overt, it was not obvious, but I still knew he was trying to evade my hand. "Don't be afraid to touch me...you did it once before, you saw I don't burn, I'm not made of acid, or fire and brimstone...I pretty much feel the way I did before...that day. That day." I frowned. "How long has it been? That's something I'm having trouble with. Time flow. We could have gone to the funeral an hour ago or a week ago. I don't know."

He emptied the glass in a gulp. "You've been dead five days," he rasped.

"Five days." I couldn't find my voice for a moment. "Wow." I looked at my hands, still between us and seemingly unconnected to either of us. "And I'm really dead?”

He put the glass down. "Mulder, this isn't like you."

"Being dead?" I smirked. "Yeah, well, that would be a good thing, I should think."

He was accepting it. He didn't like it, but there was something...a different set of muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. "No, I mean it's not like you not to be able to grasp a situation, a set of circumstances." He risked a look in my direction. "You were usually pretty good at grasping things whether they were real or not."

"Oh, I grant you this is a mindfuck...er, Sir. "I didn't feel the heat of embarrassment in my face, but it must have been there. "Maybe it's because I didn't experience it?" I shrugged. "I don't know. Could I have a drink?"

"Ghosts drink?" he blurted.

I held up a hand. "First of all, we haven't established that I am a ghost, and second of all, I don't know what ghosts do in general, but I would like a drink. I need one. I just went to my funeral."

He poured me one, wordlessly and held it out.

I accepted it. "Hair of the dog," I murmured and tipped the glass back. Without admitting it, both of us were watching the carpet to see if the Scotch ended up a stain on the carpet where I was standing.

End 05