TITLE: ...But Dreams Are Free - Chapter 03 - Old Cold Coffee on the Dashboard
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 03 - Old Cold Coffee on the Dashboard

by Mik

When I woke, several hours later, he was still beside me, still in the position he had where he had fallen after our sex. The rain had stopped at some point and the moon had come out to fill our windows with a brilliant, silver illumination which allowed me, climbing back into the bed after relieving my bladder, to hold the blankets back just a moment longer, and admire what I saw.

He was on his back, his long legs splayed, his white tee shirt falling low enough to nearly conceal his genitals, his hands lying against his chest, looking faintly like birds in flight against the whiteness of his shirt. Yet, for all the beauty of his body, his face was a blank, without animation, without even the peace of repose. If it wasn't for his breath occasionally stirring a wisp of hair against the pillow, he might have looked dead.

I shivered and slid in beside him. I didn't know how to bring him back. When I first entered him earlier that night and heard a hitch in his breath, felt a slight but unexpected resistance from his body, I was both surprised and dismayed. It had been a long time since he had responded to my sex with pain or reluctance. Then again, it had been a long time since we had been that intimate. It was possible time had undone what years of familiarity had done.

Stilling against him, I had given him a moment to adjust to the intrusion, and then another moment to decide if he wanted to continue. He had reached back unerringly, and squeezed my wrist before starting to move on me. After that I lost all concern for his emotional state, and focused entirely on his body, and mine, and how perfectly they fit together for this purpose.

There were nights when our lovemaking was a slow, gentle dance, where I held him against me, still but for the rhythmic dancing of our hips, but this night was almost desperate and violent. I pinned him down and pounded him, and he begged for - no, commanded more. Mulder had never been completely passive in bed but he'd never been particularly aggressive, either. This coupling was nothing like lovemaking. It wasn't even like sex. It was as if he wanted me to punish him as much as I wanted to have him punished.

And when it was over it was as if we'd never touched, as if we had never been together. We were strangers in the same bed, lying quiet and ashamed of what had just taken place.

When did he stop loving me? The question, which for weeks had been merely a gnat in my brain, was now a hawk, swooping into my thoughts, screeching and predatory. There was no defined moment when the switch went off. It was a gradual disinterest, like a growing immunity caused by long term exposure. I didn't merely mislay his affections one day, they ran out, like water that slipped through my fingers and I had no way to retrieve it.

When do I let him go? That was an easier question to answer, because the choice was not mine. Mulder was already gone. It was now simply a matter of him disappearing from my field of vision, removing himself from our bed.

Fury, despair, loss fomented inside me. I felt resentment starting to hammer in my chest, just as confusion hammered in my head. I wanted to wake him, shake him, demand an explanation, demand he stay. Yet, I didn't. I couldn't. I knew how he'd respond. Those patient, placating words, that faintly but falsely surprised frown. How could I think such a thing, he'd ask. When did I become some paranoid? He'd look wounded that I could doubt him. He'd give me a kiss that tasted patronizing and disinterested. No, I would not ask. I'd wait. I'd allow us both our dignity.

I must have slept. I woke, startled, because it seemed only seconds before I was fighting back the alien sensation of tears, but time had passed because he was physically out of the bed and I didn't feel him go. I sat up, looked around the room, and slid from the bed, dragging a blanket around me as I went.

Stepping over the threshold of our bedroom I saw the blue light of the computer coming from the door at the end of the walkway, and I went toward it.

He was shivering, wearing only the tee shirt I'd left on him and hastily gathered boxers, as he perched on the chair before the computer. One arm wrapped around his chest, his eyes were taking in the information on the screen as if it were a crime scene, his fingers caught between his teeth, as he gnawed nervously.

"Mulder, what are you doing out of bed?" I said as I came up behind him. "You're going to freeze to death." I pulled the blanket away and let it fall over his shoulders.

He started, guiltily, and his hands went to the keyboard to banish the email from the screen.

But I'd seen enough. A job offer. In England.

Mulder dipped his head slightly, showing great concern for the way he knotted the blanket at his chest, but I knew he was looking up at me, waiting for my reaction. Because I knew it, I kept the shock, the pain, the anger from my face, pretending I saw nothing. Because he knew me, he knew I'd seen everything.

He stood, lifted his eyes, his lips parted as if to speak, saw my eyes in the blue light of the computer screen, and said nothing. He drew the blanket tighter around his shoulders, and shivered, not entirely for effect. "Cold," he said plaintively.

"Come back to bed," I answered, holding out an arm, hoping he'd accept my embrace.

He didn't. He didn't exactly draw away but he didn't move closer, either. "Yeah," he said. "Good idea."

England. Dear God, Mulder, could you possibly move any farther away from me? Why not just go to Tibet? Or the moon? Wordlessly, I fell in step beside him as he shuffled back toward the bed. I wanted to grab him, pin him down, restrain him, demand answers, forbid him to go, rage at him. I did none of those things. I helped him spread the blanket back over the bed and slid in beside him, taking care not to let my arms or legs brush his without invitation. Touching him was no longer a liberty I could presume.

He seemed to take the same care with me. He shifted, he sighed, he turned at one moment, and I thought he was going to speak, but he sighed again, and didn't move again.

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Morning came, eventually. I don't think either of us actually slept, just lying there, side by side, waiting for a reason to get up. When the sunlight reached an acceptable level across the wooden floor, Mulder sighed and pushed bedclothes aside, swinging out to his side of the bed. He didn't look back at me as he tugged on the nearest clothing he could reach. "I'll get the coffee started," he announced, hurrying away from the bed, and down the stairs.

I took my time getting out of bed. After all, what was there waiting for me? Certainly not the life I'd dreamed of all these years. There was no companionable silence, no intimacy of shared tasks to be enjoyed, no future to be pleasantly planned. I wasted time in the bathroom and dressed, making an effort not to look as if I'd made an effort with my appearance. But there was a huge reality facing me in the mirror behind the bedroom door. Why shouldn't he want to go? What could this place give him? What did I have to offer him? He was still young, vital, handsome. And me? Oh, I was fit enough for a man my age. But there was no denying I was a man of my age. Balding, practically blind without my glasses, hearing beginning to fade, tolerance for things out of place, music too loud, human foibles of assorted sizes fading even faster. I'd become my grandfather.

I came downstairs reluctantly. He was hunched before the hearth, starting a fire. He gave me a glance and a nod over his shoulder toward the kitchen. "Coffee's going." He rubbed his hands together. "Is it possible it's gotten colder since it stopped raining?"

"It's very possible." I went to the cupboard and pulled down a couple of sturdy, stoneware mugs and set them beside the coffee maker. "It warms up to rain."

He tucked his hands under his arms. "I can't believe I'm wishing it would rain more."

I turned my head slightly. "Doesn't it rain a lot in England?" There, now the door is open, the camel is in the tent.

He blushed. It was a heat that radiated over his face and across the room. "Look, uh..."

I decided I didn't want to pet the camel at that moment, after all. "No, it's all right." I turned away from him and filled the cups. "You can tell me when you're ready."

"It's just an enquiry," he said defensively, coming to the table between us. "They may not think I'm qualified. I might not like the scope of the work."

"Teaching forensics? How could you not enjoy that?" I got the jar of powdered cream from the cupboard. "You're very good at it." I picked up the dish of sugar packets. "And infinitely qualified."

"Thanks." He didn't take it as a compliment, because he knew it really wasn't offered as one. "You'd like England," he suggested tentatively, reaching for his cup. "It does rain there. And there are lakes. Rivers. Big rivers. Put the Potomac to shame."

Just for a moment it was tempting, but I moved beyond it, like the window of a bakery. "I would never fit in there. I'd be like the bull in the china shop. I'm..." I put a hand against my chest, "too American. I know it's hardly fashionable these days, but I'm proud of being American. I don't want to be anything else."

The flush returned to his face, and he stared hard at the table. His voice came out hard, as well. "Are you suggesting that I'm not proud of who I am?"

"I'm not suggesting anything like that," I answered, placating him. "But the truth is, for all the things you've seen and experienced, I wouldn't blame you for hating this country."

He swallowed and looked away sharply. "It's just an enquiry," he repeated and pulled away from the table. It was clear he wanted to be anywhere but near me, unfortunately there weren't many choices. He finally went out onto the porch, and paced away, behind the house, out of my sight.

I watched him go. It never occurred to me it would offend him to suggest his loyalties might be compromised by his treatment at the hands of this government. It was certainly understandable. I'd always felt Mulder's allegiance didn't lie under any particular flag except the banner of veritas. His hunt for Truth required no passport, no birthright. I thought about going out and explaining this to him, but I had no assurances that this misunderstanding might turn into a full scale battle with his heightened sensitivity and my growing verbal gracelessness. I decided to let it lie and hope it passed.

I settled at the table and stared out toward the lake, almost hating the pure Crayola blueness of it. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. That was becoming a refrain for me, and I was humming it again and again in my head.

Mulder's mobile, left on a chair near the hearth, chirped. My first thought was to ignore it. My second was to take it out to him. My third thought was to wonder how it ended up in that chair and who Mulder might have attempted to call before I came down. Finally it occurred to me I might just answer the thing. I scooped it up and flipped it open. According to the caller ID, it was Agent Scully. Who else? "Skinner," I announced glumly.

"Oh...uh...hello...Sir." It was obvious she neither expected nor desired to speak to me.

I tried to act as if I knew neither of those things. "Agent Scully...Dana...good morning," I said with a note of heartiness that must have rung false all the way to Washington D.C. "It's been a while since we've spoken. How are you?"

"I'm well, Sir, thank you." I could hear her scrambling for words. "I was just...I...Mulder called. I was returning his call."

Well, that answered my questions. "He's outside," I told her. "I'll get him."

"Not if he's busy," she protested.

"No, he's not busy," I assured her. Unless pouting constitutes busyness. "Just a moment." I went to the door and pulled it open, looking up and down the porch. "Mulder? Phone."

He came around the corner from the back of the lodge, almost on a trot. I held out the phone without a word and he took it, with a nod, and headed right back the direction from which he'd come. Like a dog with a fresh bone, I thought.

I could have eavesdropped on the conversation easily enough. In fact, I could have gone upstairs to the window in our bedroom, where the eaves peaked and formed almost a parabolic cone, and I could have heard every whisper on that porch, including, possibly, Agent Scully's. But I did not. Oh, it wasn't any great moral stand on my part. It was no respect for his privacy. It was my own cowardice. I didn't want to hear. I didn't want to know. I returned to the table and stared out at the lake again.

Mulder came inside after a while. His face looked marginally less pinched. He dropped his phone on the table and went for another cup of coffee. "Scully's going to come up next week," he announced behind me, "...if that's all right with you."

"Of course it's all right with me." I twisted around to look at him. He was standing at the sink, his back to me, his shoulders very stiff, abnormally straight. "Mulder, this is your home, you know. You have as much right to invite people to it as I do." God, could I have sounded any more condescending?

He was still for a moment. Then he shrugged, that amazing one shoulder shrug he does that seems so minimal and yet says more than a thousand words could express. "Yes, well...you suggested that she should come up. Now she will."

I didn't quite know what he expected of me. I kept staring at his stiff shoulders. "Well," I managed, at last, "that's good news. I look forward to seeing her again."

His head dipped forward, his shoulders sagged. "It's just an enquiry," he repeated.

Something in his voice, in his posture, hurt me. "I know. Is it something you'd really enjoy doing?"

He nodded slightly. Suddenly he reminded me of a little boy who desperately wanted something his parents had denied him, and his heart was broken.

It broke mine. "Then you should investigate it."

He turned then. I almost expected tears. There should have been tears to go with that expression, but his eyes were clear. "I do love you, you know."

It had been so long since he'd said that. I'd almost forgotten the piercing sensation those words sent to my heart. "And I love you," I answered quietly. "Very much."

He nodded again. Propelling himself away from the sink, he stumbled toward me. He slid his arms around my neck, rested his cheek against the top of my head. "I do love you," he repeated, and his words were so soft that they became lethal. "I guess the problem is I just don't love you enough."

Fatal. Murderous words. I struggled for breath. "I suppose you think I don't love you enough."

"No," he answered, lifting his head. "I know you do. You love me more than anyone else in the world. And I think you love me enough to do whatever I want...and end up hating me for it." His hands slid away from me. "And I love you too much for that." He pulled away from me and went back to the door.

"Will you ever come back?" I asked, using every physical and emotional muscle in my being to keep my voice from breaking.

"It's just an enquiry," he repeated. He looked out to the lake. "I don't know." He went outside. And the door slid shut silently behind him.

- END chapter 03 -