TITLE: … But Dreams Are Free – Chapter 01 – Play the Game Tonight
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/Sk
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: Four years after Choices Cost.
ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Nnnnnnnnnope.
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'd rather say that they really are mine, but I've been advised to deny everything. But when I become king...

Author's notes:

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.

... But Dreams Are Free – Chapter 01 – Play the Game Tonight

by Mik

I let the truck roll to a stop at the top of the steep drive, and pulled the hand brake. I couldn’t help smiling in smug satisfaction. We’d done it. It was ours. Five months ago, this was an empty shell collecting dust and the tracks of the brave or curious animals that found a way inside. Now it was a snug, inviting home, with bright buffalo plaid curtains in every window, and bright red flowers blooming in each of the freshly painted window boxes. The walkway had been recobbled, and the wraparound porch was freshly stained and sealed. There was even smoke wisping up into the fir scented air.

The door opened and a now familiar figure came out, a denim smock over her workshirt, scarf wrapped neatly around her brown to greying hair. She waved at me and paused to snatch up some bit of debris the workmen had left behind, before starting up the drive to me.

"It’s bigger than I thought, Walt," she told me when she reached the top of the drive. "In all the years I’ve spent looking across this puddle at it, I never dreamed it was so big." She pressed her cheek to mine and then took one of the bags of groceries from my arms. "Oh?" She glanced around. "Where’s Fox?"

"He stayed behind," I answered uncomfortably, reaching into the bed of the truck. "To finish up after the movers."

June gave me a look; a sly, comprehending look. "Well, come on. I brought over a coffeemaker, in case your movers didn’t get in tonight. Thought you’d like a cup of coffee first thing."

"You are a wizard, you know that, June." I pulled out another box of things for the kitchen. "And where’s that man of yours?"

"He’ll be along. He was waiting for Sam to get here, and they’ll come over together. Sam’s excited as we were to finally see inside the place."

I let her hold my arm as we went down the sharp slope of the drive. "How’s your foot?"

"Oh, it’s just fine. Silly thing, really. Had more trouble with the doctors than with the break itself. Jay thinks I should have just gone to Sam, all along."

"Yeah, well, he would," I chuckled. "Still, as I recall, she does understand a thing or two about where bones belong."

June laughed with me. "At least where they don’t belong." She pushed the door back for me. "There. Is it everything you dreamt of?"

I paused and took it in. I had bought the place unseen, except in my dreams, and had only toured it after the papers were signed. It had been in fairly good condition considering no one had used it in nearly a decade. There were some wiring problems to be resolved and the main plumbing line had to be cleared all the way to the septic tank. The roof and windows had been done as part of the purchase price, so all in all, it hadn’t been such a foolish decision.

A typical a frame lodge, it had one main room, with a huge stone fireplace in the middle, a large cooking and dining area at the back, and an almost vertical stairwell that went to the loft, which was divided into three separate spaces. The front of the house was turned back toward the hillside, where the road came down the ridge, and for years the prospect I’d been admiring was the side of the house facing out to the lake, but nearly every point in the lodge had a breathtaking view of trees or water. My condo modern furniture was going to look strange in such a rustic setting, but there would be room for all of it. "Every bit," I agreed.

"Let me get you some coffee." June was hobbling toward the rear of the room. "We brought over our old icebox for you to keep things until your refrigerator arrives." She produced a coffee mug from a box on the counter, and filled it.

"June, get off that foot," I scolded belatedly. "I know how to pour coffee." I brought my own burden to the kitchen, and pulled up a stool for her to sit down. "Ah, that smells good. Nothing like fresh coffee out in the woods." I held the cup she had poured out to her.

"Yes, you are out in the woods, aren’t you?" June looked over her shoulder at the windows behind her. Trees and shrubs encroached the building on three sides.

"No more than you," I countered, filling another cup for myself.

"Yes, but we’re only there a few weeks of the year. How will you manage out here all the time?"

"Well, the cable will be installed at the end of the week. If he doesn’t go mad and kill me before then, we should be fine." I squatted in front of the old fashioned icebox and retrieved a small carton of milk. "Besides, we’re going to be pretty busy trying to get this property cleared before the weather turns bad."

"Well, that should hold you for about three weeks." Her smile remained but lost some of its humor. "Seriously, Walt ... what are you going to do if a blizzard hits? They do, you know, and with very little warning out here. You could lose power, be cut off from everything."

"Well, we’ve got a generator, and a deep freeze coming. If we’re smart, we’ll learn to be prepared for anything." I frowned into my coffee, my back to June. She was right, though. We had some long empty hours ahead of us.

"Well, you’ve got your love to keep you warm," June murmured innocently.

"Yes." Some very long empty hours.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I really didn’t expect Mulder to show up that night. When he insisted on staying behind to supervise the movers, I knew he was just trying to avoid me, and the cabin for one more night. I even feared he might not come at all. Things had been so pallid, so distant and fragilely polite between us since the night of my retirement banquet that I had been holding my breath waiting for him to tell me he was leaving.

He never said that, of course. He was just quiet, aloof, distracted. We never fought. We only talked about the most banal surface matters, and always in careful, measured tones. He made excuses not to be around. He took on every possible errand to keep out of the house, and when there were no errands on hand, he visited Agent Scully. And while he made an effort to be affectionate, I could count on one finger the number of times we’d had sex since I retired. This was not how I had envisioned our life.

Yet, there he was, fumbling his way down the drive with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a box in his arms, just as the sun was disappearing over the far edge of the lake. Jay and June, and their veterinarian, Samantha, and I were settled around the hearth, eating the sandwiches Jay and Sam brought over, and discussing various options for keeping such a big room warm in winter, when I saw his flashlight swinging wildly around outside.

Sam, who could never stand to see any creature struggling, got up and went to the door to help him. She pulled the flashlight from his mouth, gave him a kiss and stood aside to let him come in. "We didn’t think you’d make it," she told him.

He kissed her back. "I had my doubts, as well." He dumped the box on the floor and sent his eyes up to the peaked ceiling and down again. "Hey," he said with false brightness. "It’s good to see you." He dropped the duffel and came across the room to hug June. "How’s that foot?" And then shake Jay’s hand. "How’s the novel coming?" Then he came to me awkwardly, and accepted a hug. "Well, you did it," he said. "It’s amazing."

"You’re here." It was all I could think to say.

"Barely. I got -- is that coffee? I got lost and had to backtrack about ten miles. Thank you." He took the mug from Jay. "This is the darkest place on the planet, you know. If you don’t have cat eyes, you miss road signs." He dragged his free hand through his hair. "And it’s windy out there."

"Windy?" Jay got up and went to the window. Even from where I sat, I could see small white caps on the water beyond us. "We’d better make a move. I don’t want to cross that lake in the dark and the wind."

"Maybe you shouldn’t try," Mulder said, coming up behind him. "Stay here." He looked over his shoulder at me. "Think we’ve got enough blankets to keep everyone warm?"

June must have seen something in my expression because she started making feeble protests, but Jay, Mulder, and eventually even I drowned her out.

"We’ve got stacks of blankets," I assured her. "And there are plenty of rooms upstairs, just no beds yet."

"We’ve got the air mattress," Mulder said, pointing to the box he’d left on the floor. "But I’m afraid there’s only the one. It’s a double. You and June take it. She’ll need it for her foot."

There were all kinds of arguments over that, everyone declining it and passing it on to someone else with some excuse or other, but it did end up going to Jay and June. That having been decided, Mulder was fed, and we sat around the fire for another two hours, making small talk. To be honest it was the most comfortable period of time I’d spent with him in months.

To say that the wind was howling outside would be to lean on a dog-eared cliche, but the truth was it did sound like howling, like a very large animal either in pain or enraged. Even Jay and June, who were accustomed to the worst sorts of weather back in Wisconsin, seemed unnerved by the ferocity of the sound. And though the area around the hearth was pleasantly warm, the sound made us all draw nearer to it, hunching into our jackets.

No one remarked that Mulder had not seemed terribly interested in the place. Unlike our guests, who had all insisted upon making their way up that narrow and awkward staircase to view each of three partitioned areas of the loft and admire the view afforded by them, and then braved the chill to walk all the way around the porch, Mulder had been content to take a seat on the stone hearth, cup his hands around a mug of coffee and sit. Nothing about the place seemed to stimulate his curiosity or his admiration.

That is not to suggest that he was rude or sullen. He was perfectly amiable and contributed to the conversation in equal shares with everyone. He put on a great display of being happy to see me, sending me smiles at carefully timed intervals, referencing me in his anecdotes, even patting my knee and nudging me once or twice. Yet, for all the effort he put into making everything appear normal, I couldn’t feel any normalcy at all. Perhaps it was just that I was looking for it, but I could feel how forced and planned his behavior was. I was able to see that he was putting on this performance for my sake, so as not to embarrass me or start inquiries, but it was just a show, and I just knew the curtain would be rung down as soon as our guests departed. It made his efforts both endearing and heartbreaking.

It was Samantha, naturally, who brought up the subject of the dog. In the very early days of our transition to the lodge, I had thought a dog would be ideal in this large, open environment, a good companion and guardian, and I was surprised when Mulder declined. He hadn’t been as good natured about it with me as he was with Samantha. With me he refused out of hand, not wanting to clean up after or be responsible for a ‘big, smelly poop machine that would jump on us whenever the whim took him’. With Samantha he joked he had enough to do just looking after one big animal –he didn’t think he could cope with two.

But despite his easy smile and teasing reply, I saw something in his expression when Sam suggested it that I had never seen before: alarm. Was it possible that Mulder, who had chased every sort of life form into every sort of cave, crevice and cranny, was afraid of dogs? I could think of no mention of them in his tales of growing up, and he had shown complete antipathy toward Agent Scully’s late, lamented pet. Knowing that Samantha could be persistent about topics for which she felt strongly, I cut her off by agreeing he was going to have his hands full getting used to having me around twenty four seven and that we needed to table the discussion of pets for the time being.

He didn’t look my way, but I could see relief relax the muscles around his eyes and mouth.

Finally, it was dark enough and cold enough to begin the move upstairs. I had been dreaming about this moment for four years ... our first night together in our new home. While the temperature and lack of privacy seemed to suggest that sex wasn’t going to be a part of the night’s celebrations, I hoped to at least hold him close and savor the sensation of having fulfilled all my dreams at last.

Somehow Mulder managed to delay coming upstairs to the last possible moment. He unpacked the mattress and went to great lengths to show Jay how to use the attached pump, even though it was Jay who had urged us to get that precise model because of his satisfactory experience with it. He sent June and Samantha upstairs, insisting he could clean up the debris from our meal. He urged me, with almost unnatural playfulness to get upstairs and ‘warm up the floor’ for him. Even though I knew full well it was an act for our guests, I had one almost painful rush of hope.

But the place was cast into utter blackness and silence broken only by the wind terrorizing the treetops and flashes of moon so sharp and so brief they could be mistaken for lightning, long before Mulder finally climbed those stairs. When he got to the top and determined which segment of the loft was designated ours, he rushed for the makeshift bed with a great display of shivering and chattering teeth.

I had zipped our two sleeping bags together and put them on a pile of newspaper for insulation, but he behaved as if I was asking him to sleep on a block of ice. Not only did he not strip down to his usual boxers and tee, he pulled sweats on over his jeans, and extra thick socks on both his feet and hands. His knit ski cap was the final touch before he wormed his way in beside me, muttering invectives about any structure not equipped with central heat.

"It’s not that cold, Mulder," I chided, rolling onto my side to take him in my arms.

"You’re just used to it," he answered and turned his back on me.

I fell back and stared at the shadows, barely discernable, of thrashing treetops, cast against our ceiling.

Home, sweet home.

- END chapter 01 -