TITLE: ...But Dreams Are Free - Chapter 07 - Not To Be Forgotten
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 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.
But when I become king...
Author's notes:
Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't finish this...but...
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 07 - Not To Be Forgotten
by Mik
He stayed the night. For a while I feared/dreaded/hoped Mulder would call sometime in the middle of the night, forgetting the time difference, to wish me a Happy-something-with-holly-and-mistletoe. He didn't. I'm not sure that Dustin was aware of my concern. If he was, he was too polite to mention it.
He was polite about a lot of things. He complimented me on the food, even if the dressing was a little too dry. He helped with the clearing up. He got up to serve the coffee when it finished the brewing cycle. He sat close but not too close. He listened raptly when I talked about my days in the Bureau. He answered questions about his life without evasion. He accepted that first kiss without dodging or laying down conditions. He came up to bed with me without asking for promises or making any of his own.
He kissed like a sommelier, with respect, appreciation and knowledge of the wine of love. His hands trembled on my shoulders as I held him down and devoured his lips. He flooded me with passion of a rare vintage, one I hadn't tasted in five years.
He had a beautiful body. Unscarred, smooth and evenly tanned. Just muscular enough to stir even the straightest man's appreciation of the male form. He was receptive, sensitive, responsive. He made me feel like the greatest lover in the world. It's a gift some people have. Mulder always made me feel that way, but it was more our connection than any innate skill he had. Dustin, on the other hand, knew all the right things to say, when to moan, when to sigh, when to groan, when to come, like a perfect script which he had rehearsed so many times as to make it appear artless and effortless. But I appreciated the effort. In bed with him, I was a twenty year old sex god and not a fifty five year old retired bureaucrat.
And as beautiful and sensual and amazing as he was, every inch of him, every breath of him, every sigh of him was held up to the measure of the man who slept there before him. He wasn't Mulder. Never could be. Never would be.
I think he knew it.
It wasn't discussed. Mulder wasn't discussed. He wasn't even alluded to. But even a young man knows when the lover he's with wishes he was with the man who isn't there.
Oh, he was gracious about it. He woke me with sleepy smiles and soft kisses. We had turkey and cranberry omelets in bed, and exchanged our gifts. He gave me an oversized, antiqued magnifying glass, and when I looked at it, puzzled, he hurried to explain it looked like Sherlock Holmes, and I had been...you know...a detective. It really was a clever, thoughtful gift. I gave him a leather script folder. He threw his arms around me, kissing me and averring he'd wanted one forever.
The kissing intensified, and then the gifts and the food and the cups of coffee steaming on the bedside table were forgotten for another hour.
He showered and dressed while I was doing breakfast dishes and wishing he would go home. And, as if giving me one final gift, he came downstairs looking rueful. "I hate to do this, but my folks are expecting me for Christmas dinner in about an hour."
"Of course. Family takes priority, always, but especially during holidays," I said, proud of how magnanimous I sounded.
His eyes were warm and affectionate. "Yeah." He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled in close to me. "I know. Thank you for everything."
I kissed him. "Thank you." I walked him to the door, patted his shoulder and waved goodbye, and as much as I'd enjoyed everything about his visit, I was secretly hoping I'd never see him again.
It snowed again that afternoon. It was picture postcard beautiful, lacing conifers and evergreens with a delicate white, and covering the mud like a conscious housewife with a broom and a rug. The lights of the Christmas tree reflected on the picture windows and bejeweled the snow, even as the daylight faded, and gave way to the night.
There's nothing more melancholy than the night of Christmas Day. All of the frenzy and fun and anxiety that build for that day of gifts and food and friends and family is over before it's fully appreciated, and suddenly, the holiday making is over, and there's nothing left but a bare floor around an over decorated tree, and the bones of a turkey in the refrigerator.
No, there is one more thing more melancholy. That's the night of Christmas Day alone. The day, for all its
pleasant moments, had been incomplete, and now it was drawing
to a close, unfinished. Oh, I'd had the usual
familial contacts, a loud, overlong conversation with my sister in
When I'd finished cleaning up after two days of
feasts, and sorted the recycling, burned the wrapping paper, and run the
I didn't look the next day, either. I took down the lights around the eaves and stored them away carefully, unwilling to consider that this was the first year in so many that the lights hadn't been stuffed impatiently into a box. I packed up the ornaments, and carried the tree outside to break up for firewood, not even thinking about that ridiculous looking artificial tree he brought home our first holiday season together. It was the lone gesture he made to the whole Peace-on-Earth business. It was time to start some new traditions.
I was stacking the remains of the Christmas tree into a pile to season when I heard Dustin's Jeep climb the hill. Fortunately, I had time to school the disappointment from my face and had a welcoming smile for him when he hopped over the door and approached me with a big hug.
"How was your family?" I put an arm around his back and dropped the ax next to the tree. "Come on in and I'll put on some coffee."
"We had a good time. Of course my mother wanted to know where I spent the night. She doesn't get that I'm twenty two years old."
Twenty two? I gulped, feeling like a dirty old man for having groped and breached that body. "Mothers never do, trust me."
He laughed at that. "I came to share my best Christmas present with you," he announced, holding the door for me. "I got a call from my agent this morning. I have a part." He pulled the leather folder I'd given him from his jacket and shook it at me. "You brought me good luck."
I couldn't have been happier for him. I embraced him heartily. "That is great news. That calls for something more than a coffee. Feel like a glass of wine or something stronger?"
"Oh, no." His eyes dropped to the floor, looking a bit sheepish. "I'm driving back up tonight. But I wanted you to know first. And...and to thank you."
I was nonplused by the very idea. "Thank me? Whatever for? I should be thanking you."
"For taking me seriously." He lifted his gaze to mine. He didn't have that endearing, lopsided shrug I longed to see. "For giving me another chance even when you're still in love with him."
It was my turn to avoid his gaze. "I'm sorry, Dustin. You're a fine young man, and you deserve so much love. Love doesn't come easily to me. And I...but, I..." I couldn't go on.
I was surprised when he enveloped me in a bone threatening hug. "He's a bastard and a fool," he whispered fiercely. He released me and backed away. "He could be here, being loved by you. What's worth giving that up?"
And I saw it. I finally understood. Mulder couldn't live simply being defined by my love, and bringing him up to this place had taken away every other definition. Essentially, I had taken away his humanity and turned him into my luxury...a...mink teddy bear. Pretty, but useless. Carried around for my comfort and pleasure but useless when I put him aside to do something else. "Himself," I explained thoughtfully. "Regaining himself." I patted his shoulder. "You're a beautiful, talented, intelligent young man. Don't let anyone take that away from you at any price. Even love."
He wanted to argue that love was everything. I could see it in his eyes. I could also see that he thought himself a little bit in love with me and while I was flattered, I felt bad for him. And ashamed for myself for thinking he was too callow to mind if I used his body for a few days. "Thank you," he mumbled at last.
"Oh...I need your autograph." I went to the bookshelf and fumbled around 'til I found one of Mulder's thousands of legal paper pads, and willing myself not to see his familiar scrawl, tore a blank sheet away from near the bottom. I brought it back to Dustin, who had managed to get his emotions pulled off his face and packed away. "Now I can prove I knew you when."
He signed the paper with a smile and a flourish and handed it back to me. 'To the best Santa who ever filled my stocking. Love, Dustin.'
"You're a very naughty boy," I said, folding it carefully. "This will be worth a fortune on ebay in five years."
He was still smiling, even if his eyes were still sad. "I'm sure it will be." He leaned in and kissed my cheek. "Merry Christmas."
"Same to you. And...break a leg."
He tapped the script folder to his brow in a salute, and left me standing there, not realizing the gift he had given me that morning.
He'd given me back my life. It was a bit battered and worse for wear, but it was still whole and functional.
I put the autograph back in amongst Mulder's notes in the bookcase, and went back outside to finish chopping firewood.
Dustin was at the bottom of the drive and we exchanged a final wave before he disappeared behind the trees that lined the road.
I can't say it felt good to go about the business of the life I'd dreamt long years passed, but it was right. I stopped living every minute for the moment he'd come back. I let go of a future that was never going to exist and came back to the precious present, determined to appreciate the now. I started doing the little things I'd planned for the house, instead of waiting for Mulder to come back and give his approval and his assistance. I stopped cooking meals for two, and ignoring them, while staring at that empty chair. I started spending evenings before the fire with my books, no longer missing the sound of his music, no longer listening for his restless pacing or frustrated sighs. I took the extra pillows off the bed, and stretched out, no longer leaving space for a man who had left me behind.
Dustin sent me cheery emails detailing his new production. It appeared he was taking the role of what they used to call the juvenile lead, which only added to my sense of lechery. He was having a good time, and all the boys of the chorus were chasing him, but his taste was for more 'mature men' as he put it. He seemed to be having the time of his life, and for some odd reason insisted on giving me some of the credit.
I didn't answer too
often, because I didn't want to encourage him. It was a sign of my own vanity
that I believed he might still harbor hopes of a relationship with me, but I decided
that, as he was all the way in
Dana emailed now and again as well, and she often mentioned that I never called, and never seemed to be available when she called. She never, however, mentioned Mulder.
My box of books, so carefully and lovingly packed up over the years, was now less than half full. I joined a video by mail club to break the monotony. I read seed catalogues and planned a garden for the spring. I watched cooking shows and tried out recipes as my stores allowed.
Yes, this was the life of which I had dreamt so long.
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Toward the end of the January, we had a series of heavy storms. Even if I'd managed to shovel all the way down the drive, the snowplows couldn't get through to clear the road. I was effectively snowed in. I lost power a few times. I spent many nights on the sofa in front of the fire, wound up in every blanket I could find, and still spent more time shivering than sleeping. I had to melt snow on the stove to make myself a cup of coffee more than once when the plumbing froze up. There were times when the idea of a hot shower was almost a pornographic pipe dream.
Still, it was everything I had imagined and wanted.
That's what I kept telling myself.
On the first of February, I got a call from Sam. Someone had dumped a litter of mongrel pups...they looked as if they were a large breed mix. Was I still off the idea of having a dog? For a moment, I didn't know what she was talking about. Then the conversation of that first night came back to me. I'd wanted a dog, I'd been all for it. It had been Mulder's reluctance that forced us to table the idea. I accepted, eagerly, and told her I'd be down to pick one out as soon as the roads were clear.
I didn't even think about the consequences when I went down to get the dog. Even if Dana could guilt Mulder into returning, having a dog would be a great excuse for him not to stay. I wasn't getting a dog to replace Mulder, or keep him away, or any other reason that involved him however remotely. I'd always envisioned life at the lodge with a dog, and now that vision would be complete.
I named him
He seemed to take to me straightaway, and I had no trouble getting him to follow me out to the truck. Once inside, he seemed content to lie down on the seat next to me and drool. Sam sent me off with a collar, inoculation certificates, a box of dog chews and lots of advice.
He didn't like the snow. When we arrived home, he couldn't be bribed out of the truck for dog chews or money. I ended up carrying him up to the deck. He christened the place by lifting his leg on a post and then looking up at me with large, sleepy brown eyes and a quizzical brow, as if asking, 'What?' At that moment, he was the image of Mulder.
We had a few crises in housebreaking. Because he disliked getting his paws dirty or cold, getting him to go outside was a contest of wills, and when I used my superior intellect and brute force to get him outside, he'd merely stand in the snow, shivering, with an expression that seemed to say, 'I'd like to see you do it, buddy.' After which, he'd run inside, and find a dark corner to do what he wanted to do.
But, slowly, we came to an understanding. If he'd do that one little thing for me, he'd have a devoted ear scratcher for life.
- END chapter 07 -