Ignorance is Hell - Chapter 03

by Mik

A light goes on in his eyes - green for go. "Walter?" he asks gently. "Are you in love with me?"

"I wouldn't say that," I say carefully. "I would say that, for the first time in our long and tumultuous association, I'm looking at you without the desire to wring your neck."

He laughs. He tips his head back, exposing a very inviting throat. Oh, to be a vampire right now. "Walter, are we out of our minds?"

I nod, unconcerned. "Does it matter? I mean, here, tonight? No one's going to know. It won't go any farther than this room. It won't go any farther than this minute." I watch him, waiting. It's all up to him now.

He surprises me with a flash of anger. "Do you really think I can stop this now?"

"I'm not asking you to. All I'm saying is -"

"Walter?" He's pulling up on his knees, leaning toward me.

"What?"

He's very close now. "You talk too much." He kisses me.

His kiss. I clutch his shoulders as if I am trying to recapture my senses. Almost desperately, I pull him upward, trying to get out of the water without breaking contact or breaking our necks. Somehow, miraculously, we manage to get out of the tub and tumble toward the bedroom. Our hands are rough, demanding of one another, as we both struggle for superiority in that battle of a kiss. I finally push him down on the bed, covering him with my body. I have never wanted anything, anyone as much as I want him, and I'm not even sure how to go about getting him.

I force my hand between our writhing bodies, find his cock, fully erect, and I squeeze it, making him moan in my mouth. "I want you," I tell him hotly.

He rocks his hips forward, against my hand, a non-verbal acquiesce. From here I am helpless. If he was a woman, I would know what to do now. All I can do is pull and stroke and squeeze the way I do when seeking my own pleasure. I feel him tense beneath me, his thighs trembling against my own. "I...I...oh, don't," he sighs. "Don't stop."

"I have no intention of stopping," I promise, moving my mouth from his to explore the sweat-sweetened curve of his jaw, his earlobe, his throat. Suddenly his body is rigid, his voice is nothing more than a low, agonized whimper, and he comes, filling my hand, filling the place between us, sealing us. Then he relaxes, complete.

I watch him. For a moment, he is utterly at peace, his eyes unfocused, his mouth slack, swollen from our kisses. His breath is shallow but regular. At last, he turns to me, and a slight smile curls up those lips that I have been crushing against my own. "I don't think it's ever been like that before," he says breathlessly.

"Come on, Mulder," I protest. He doesn't have to fake it for me.

"No." He struggles a little, and I roll away from him. "There's something very intense about losing control - having it taken away from you. I've never had a lover bigger than me, holding me down, being on top of me. It was … amazing." He sits up, with effort, touches his chest, and grimaces. "And messy." He leans toward me, brushes a whisper of a kiss across my mouth and slides off the bed.

A moment later, he's back with a washcloth and a towel. Gently he wipes semen from my chest and smiles when he sees that I'm hard and dripping. "We'll have to do something about that, won't we?" He touches me carefully, perhaps apprehensively. "That monster is probably going to kill me. I'm assuming that it's your intention to top me."

"What?" I ask, mystified.

He shrugs and smiles self-consciously. "Top, you know, be the doer instead of the do-ee."

Damn straight. "Where did you get an expression like that?"

The smile is back. "I am the porn king. Didn't you know that? I've got a bigger collection of porn videos than Larry Flynt. And among my vast collection is no small share of gay porn. Hey, I'm a trained investigator. I investigate." He wipes at his chest and stomach. "Anyway, I do know the cinematic do's and don'ts for gay sex. Someone is usually the dominant partner, the top." He pulls a frown. "The other one is usually a raging queen, but I think we can skip that part, don't you?"

"Absolutely," I agree. "Why did you assume I'd be the … top?" I sit up, move next to him.

"Because you're my - well, you were my boss. You've topped every other aspect of my life, why not my sex life?" He shrugs again, balling the towel up in his hands. "Besides, I just don't think it could have happened any other way. After all, you didn't wake up in my arms, did you?"

"Okay, trained investigator, what do we do now? Because," I reach for him, drawing him close. "We've got to do something soon."

"Well, I do know that lubricant and condoms would not go amiss. However …" He stands up, moves to his bag, which I left laying across the upper part of the bed, and unzips. "I am also trained to be prepared for anything." Suddenly two things fall next to me on the bed; a tube of KY Jelly and a pack of Trojans.

I pick them up, fingering them. Clarity. I'm getting clarity now. I'm about to shove my dick up his ass. And I want to. "You know, I think I can take it from here." I look up at him, smiling thoughtfully. "I just realized that I have done this before, just not with a man."

He's frowning at me, mystified. "Then how did you -"

"I was married for seventeen years, remember? In the early years of our marriage, Sharon and I did our share of experimenting."

"Did you … did she like it?" he asks nervously.

I nod. "There were occasions when she actually preferred it. She said it was a whole new set of sensations."

"Huh." He sits down beside me, looking at my crotch. "I always figured it would hurt like a sonofabitch."

"I wouldn't hurt you, Mulder," I promise gravely. "The key is plenty of lubrication, and patience. We have both."

He thinks about it for a long time. It's clear that my size intimidates him. It is also clear that retreat is absolutely not an option for him. He looks up at me, kisses me softly and whispers, "I do trust you, you know."

I pull him into my arms, kissing him with a swirling mix of desire and gratitude. For a while, we do nothing but lay in each other's arms, becoming accustomed, comfortable with one another's nearness, size, shape, smell. He's an enigma, this wild animal I hold. He's brilliant but broken, witty and wise and childlike and yet old beyond his years. He's been wounded too many times to count, yet he stands within the wreckage of the world, and shakes his fist defiantly at the sky. And here he is, all six feet two inches of him, curled up against me, running his tongue across my chest, trusting me not to hurt him.

I won't hurt him. I'll face every ghost and gun in the Consortium's grasp to keep him safe. I can protect him. I want to. I will.

Breathless, he pulls away from me at last, rising up on an elbow to look down at me, barely suppressing a grin. "You know, in all the years I've known you, I never suspected you were so good at necking."

"Necking?" I repeat with a drawl. "A rather provincial term for what we're doing."

"Oh, I'm not talking about what we're about to do," he corrects. "I mean what we've been doing; kissing, petting. When I was a kid, we called it making out." He leans down, nips at one nipple and grins again. "You're great at making out."

"How much making out did you do as a kid?" I ask, reaching for him, easing him over until he's on his stomach, so I can caress his back, his legs, his ass.

He's stiffened a little, expecting the next step. I have a little surprise for him. We aren't rushing into this. "Ah, so we're doing the past lovers list now, are we? Doesn't that usually come later in the relationship?"

I frown. Relationship? Are we going to have a relationship? I promised myself that this would only last the weekend. "We're doing this on the American plan," I tell him, climbing up to straddle him, so that I can put my weight into his shoulders as I rub.

"Mmm, Walter, that's great," he sighs, cradling his head in his arms. "Okay. The lovers list. Hmm. It isn't very long. I hope you brought a book."

I lean forward and take great pleasure in biting the roundness of one shoulder. "I've got plenty of things to keep me busy. Go ahead."

"Let's see...my first girlfriend, if you could call her that, was one of the Townies when we went to Rhode Island for the summer. Her name was Patience Trevers, and she was a blond. No sex, just lots of making out. She dumped me toward the end of the summer for a guy who was going to Rutgers in the fall." He is quiet for a moment, and I wonder if he still suffers the sting of that rejection. "The next summer she was married, because she had to, if you know what I mean."

"Feel like you missed out?"

"Not at all. If I had been the one who got her pregnant, I'd be the one stuck listening to her struggle to put words together to make a sentence. Brains were not her strong suit."

"What was the attraction?"

"She didn't need brains."

"Ah." I move my hands down that long, graceful spine. "Next?"

"Oh, let's see, there was a girl - oh, yeah, my first sexual experience." He twists a little to look over his shoulder at me. "Right before I went to Oxford, I went to New York to stay with one of my mom's relatives. They lived in the Hamptons, but they had a place in Manhattan and we spent a long weekend there, doing the tourist things because I'd never been there. I got invited to a party at a neighbor's place, and ended up in bed with a girl there. She was blond too. I think I'm seeing a trend. But she was funny. She made me laugh. I think I got drunk on her laughter, because I know I wasn't drinking anything else. I was only seventeen."

I reach his waist. "Did you ever see her again?"

He shakes his head. "And I felt pretty shitty about that for a long time. Someone else pointed out that she was probably using me as much as I used her, so I let it go. Then in college there were, oh, I guess three or four girls before Phoebe got her claws into me. After that, I was pretty well wrecked, and I've stayed away from relationships, except for Diana."

"Diana." What happened there?

He's not inclined to answer, and continues glibly. "One night stands and phone sex are about all the intimacy I can handle, these days."

"Except for Agent Scully." I could bite my tongue off.

He nods into his arms. "Except for Scully. But it's a different kind of intimacy. I couldn't … even if I wanted to, and I'm not sure that I do. I mean, let's face it, she's gorgeous, she's brilliant, she can outrun, out reason and outshoot just about every man I've ever known, but she's my partner. When we're together, I tend to see her as just that, my partner - or maybe even a part of myself. It's only when we're apart that I think, damn, she's gorgeous." He's quiet for a moment. "Okay, your turn. Lovers list. Cough it up."

I shift down, sliding my hands at last, over two almost perfect, almost white globes of velvet over steel. "Two girlfriends in high school, can't remember either of their names." I squeeze gently, and he wiggles beneath me. "Had sex with both of them - not at the same time, you pervert," I say when I see the question forming on his lips. "There was a girl in Saigon, for a while. I thought I loved her. I was just homesick. Then let's see … oh, yeah, law school. A tall, cool black haired beauty with a Slavic accent. I loved the way she talked, I loved the way she fucked, I hated that she talked while we fucked. And then..."

"Sharon."

"Sharon."

"What's it like, Walter? Being so close to someone for so long?"

His voice is so wistful I almost want to cry for him. "It has its moments, Mulder," I tell him gently. "You'll see that, some day."

He's quiet for a long time. "No one after Sharon?"

I shrug. "A couple of dates, that's all."

"Phone sex or abstinence?" he asks with a chuckle.

"My imagination, Agent Mulder. I have a vivid imagination."

"Oh, yeah? What are you imagining right now?"

"Oh, this." I slide a hand between his cheeks, and press gently.

He jerks away and then relaxes. "Easy," he complains. "What happened to KY and patience?"

"Sorry." I reach for the lube. "Okay, spread your legs." I back off, allowing him to comply and then settle again between them. I spread the lube carefully and thoroughly. "This is going to be a little cool." I rub it around his anus gently, just tickling the opening. At first he is still, stiff, then he begins to relax, to wiggle, to make small murmurs of approval. I penetrate him carefully, first with one finger and then two, as I did with Sharon. What I do that I never did with Sharon, is fuck him slowly, seeking and finding his prostate, as she used to do for me. The first time my fingertips brush across the gland he nearly flies off the bed.

"What the hell did you do?" he demands.

"That was your prostate. What do you think?"

He looks at me a long moment. Then he grins, an expression I am completely unfamiliar with. "I think I'm going to die very young." He settles back down. "So hurry up and kill me."

I smile and continue to slide my fingers in and out of him. Soon he is writhing and moaning and rocking his hips back against my hand. "Please, Walter," he begs. "If you have an ounce of compassion in you …"

"I know what I'm doing," I shush him.

"What are you doing?"

"Stretching you. The first time Sharon and I did this, it hurt her, tore her up pretty bad. So, we started making sure she was stretched before I went in. I won't make that mistake with you."

"I'm starting not to care what you do to me, as long as you do it now." He was rocking back and forth, pressing back against my hand and then rubbing himself against the bedcovers.

"Patience, my lad." I reach over him for a condom. "Now, turn over."

He stills. "Wh - what?"

"You don't understand English? Turn over."

"Walter …" he wails.

I give his ass a little smack. "Turn over."

He rolls reluctantly, and reveals a massive erection of his own. Impulsively I lean over and run my tongue the length of it. He grabs my head. "Walter, if you do that again, I'll come all over that bald head of yours. Not," he adds thoughtfully, "that it wouldn't be the sexiest thing I've ever seen, but I've got more important plans for that, right now."

I smile at him, pleased at what I have wrought. I roll a condom over him, and then another over me, and begin to carefully lubricate myself. I grasp his hips and pull him to the edge of the bed, forcing his legs up, until his knees are almost to his chest. It's a good thing he's a runner, he's very limber. "All right." I meet his eyes, serious now. "If anything hurts or feels too weird, I want you to stop me, understood? We'll either back up or start over, but we won't go forward until you're ready. Answer me."

He nods. "Okay, okay, just do it. Please, Walter."

I look down at him. He's spread wide, flushed with desire, his cock twitching and pulsing against his belly, his balls tight against his groin, his anus open, inviting. Carefully, I guide the tip of my cock forward and press in. As I pass the ring of muscle that protects him, he jerks slightly, hissing. I shoot him a look, concerned. "Okay, Mulder?"

"Okay," he promises, breathily. "Just take it...slow."

I do. It's agonizingly slow, inch by centimeter, with him hitching and gasping and then relaxing and rocking forward. Finally, I'm all the way in, watching his face for any sign that he's changed his mind, or beginning to regret his decision. His face is a portrait of pain swirling into pleasure, his eyes closed, his head tipped back, his lips a tight line, his color high, his breathing irregular. His hands are digging into the bedclothes. He's making these little whines of impatience and need that are unmistakable.

He is so tight. I feel as if he could rip me right off by clenching down on me. Tight and hot. Now I understand. I remember being in on a bust. Mulder had profiled a pedophile who kidnapped, raped and murdered little boys. At the time, we were all so disgusted, we wanted to take turns killing the bastard, and we thought we were going to have to physically restrain Mulder, when he found him with his latest victim. The creep had been murmuring, all the way to the police station, 'my sweet little virgin'.

This situation is nothing like that. Mulder and I are consenting adults, and neither of us would even imagine causing harm to an innocent child, or even to each other. But as I slide in and out slowly of that exquisite ass, all I can hear myself saying, inside my head, is 'my sweet, little virgin'.

At one point, he opens his eyes, looks up at me, his expression one of open amazement and shuttered concern. "Well?" he prompts, hissing the word.

I pause and smile down at him, almost tenderly. "Sweet and tight," I grunt, as I thrust again.

He's closed his eyes again, his head tilted back, his fingers rolling up in the bedclothes. "Oh," he moans.

Once begun, it is so intense it cannot last, a few dozen strokes and he is arching his back, screaming, coming, writhing, clenching his muscles down so hard I think I'd better come before he pulls it off at the root, and I do.

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

He's laying on the floor, in nothing but gray silk boxers, eating the sunflower seeds I bought for him, reading. It's a different book, a hardback that I haven't been able to catch the title, but it has pictures. He reminds me of a child, there, his feet swinging lazily in the air, as he turns pages, humming to himself, reaching blindly for sunflower seeds. Occasionally he looks up at the television, a comic western is on, and then returns to his book.

I sit in the chair by the window, alternating between listening to the city sounds beneath us, and the television. But my eyes are on Mulder. I cannot believe that just an hour ago, I was pounding into him, bringing us both to the brink of the most incredible sex of our lives. After coming, I collapsed on him, barely able to drag in breath, and he wrapped his long, trembling arms around me and held me tight. I thought we were both going to cry. I want to do that again before we leave this place.

He feels me looking at him, and glances up, over his shoulder, smiling shyly. If a man could have a come-hither look, that's what he would look like.

"You want a beer?" I offer. "Coffee?" My soul?

He shakes his head. "Pizza would be nice."

"I don't know any place around here that delivers Mulder specials," I say regretfully.

"Well, do you want to go out?" His feet are waving back and forth.

"Actually, I have some stuff in the fridge," I tell him, and start to get up.

"You mean those bags?" He scrambles up and moves, albeit gingerly, to the bar. He kneels and pulls the door open. "Apples, bananas, cheese, roast beef, pate - wow, Walter, this is a feast. Crackers, cookies, more cheese, salmon mousse. Walter, how long are we staying?" He starts piling things on the bar. "What's your pleasure, Sir?" he asks.

"You."

He blushes again. I like making him do that. "You've already had me. What's for dinner?"

"I don't care. As long as you're for dessert," I answer.

"Walter, you're in danger of going from romantic to sappy," he warns, but with a smile.

"Live with it," I tell him. I am blissful at this moment. I can smell the sea from the harbor just outside my window. I can see him; long, lean, beautiful, mine. What more can I want? For this to last just a little longer than tomorrow. I sigh sadly.

"Hey, what's the frown for?" he demands, bringing me a paper plate with a little bit of everything.

"I wasn't frowning," I lie.

"Trust me, Walter, I've spent years studying you. I know when you're frowning," he says seriously. "Smiling is hard to identify, but I know frowns." He puts the plate in my hand and drops to his haunches to be at eye level. "What is it? Regret?"

"No." I reach out to ruffle his hair. "Absolutely not."

He shudders slightly. "Walter, you've got to watch the English Patient." He stands. "Bon appetit."

I spread pate on a cracker. "What is it with you and the English Patient?" I demand. "Are there UFOs in it? E.B.E.s?"

"Sir, I'm touched. You read my reports." He is slicing an apple. "No, it's a romantic movie, a chick flick, I guess. Scully made me watch it when it came out on video. Would you believe it, this thing had her in tears." He waves his knife around. "Our Scully, Queen of Autopsy Bay Eighteen, weeping over some dumb movie. I was looking under the sofa for her pod at that point."

"So, why do you keep mentioning it?"

He comes back to my chair, and drops on the floor cross-legged at my feet. "Well," he says around a slice of apple. "There was a scene where the heroine, or one of them, I think there were two …" He pauses for a minute, chewing. "I slept through part of it," he confesses. "Don't tell Scully. I don't think she realized it."

"Huh. I've seen you sleep with your eyes open during Departmental meetings. I'm sure she has too."

"I don't sleep," he says indignantly. "I … drift."

"Okay. When you weren't drifting, what happened in the movie?"

"Oh." He takes another bite. "One of them gets stuck in a sandstorm in the middle of the desert with the guy that turns out to be the English Patient. She asks him if they're going to survive, and he says yes, and then a minute later, he adds, 'Absolutely'. She looks at him and says something like, 'I believed you when you said yes'. You've said absolutely, just like that, twice."

"I don't get it," I tell him.

He shrugs. "Maybe it's a chick thing. But it struck me at the time."

"Mulder, tell me you don't refer to women as chicks around Agent Scully."

"I'm still breathing, aren't I?" he asks with a grin.

I glance at the clock over the television. "It's only eight o'clock. What do you want to do with the rest of the evening? Do you want to go wander around the harbor or something?"

He looks at the door to the bedroom, and then to the jacuzzi. "Actually, I'd like to read for a while," he confesses. "Like we were, earlier."

"Okay. Let's finish eating first." I frown down at his plate. He's got two slices of cheese and half his apple. "Is that all you're eating?"

He shrugs. "I'm not exactly a gourmet, Walter. Sorry. Pate and stuff like that are wasted on me. I'm from New England, remember? We're pretty much meat and potatoes."

"What about fish?"

He makes a face. "I raise fish, I don't eat them." He sighs. "I got real tired of fish when I was a kid. I've sort of made a religion out of avoiding anything fishier than tuna."

"And anchovies," I remind him.

He waves that away. "Oh, they aren't fish. They're mutants. They just have the fish fooled." He puts another piece of apple in his mouth. "I could probably live on sunflower seeds and take-out if Scully would let me." He stops again, and sighs. "I miss her."

I reach out, cup his jaw, squeeze gently. "I know." Is that what brought him here? Loneliness? If that was the only thing, I want him to go, now. "Don't you talk to her anymore?"

He shakes his head slowly. "She's always inviting me over for dinner, and then we make this awkward small talk. Neither one of us wants to bring up anything we used to talk about, it all comes back to the X-Files, and she must think I'll break if she even says a word with an X in it. She's very sensitive. Oversensitive. She still tends to mother me and I'm not in a frame of mind to be mothered, anymore."

Do you prefer to be fathered? I wonder. "Have you tried to explain this to her?"

His face is an exquisite portrait of pain. "No. We're sort of … drifting, right now. I know it will work out, it will just take time. We're too close, too connected to lose each other, we just have to figure out how we fit into each other's lives these days." He reaches for the last piece of apple. "Don't worry about us. We'll fix it, somehow."

I make a mental vow to make contact with Agent Scully, and get her point of view. "What about Agent Fowley?"

"Diana?" He looks up. "Oh, I went to see her when she got out of the hospital. We talked. I made it pretty clear I didn't want her back in my life. It's too dangerous for both of us. She wants things to be the way they were, and I want things to be different. We'd end up killing each other, or putting each other into situations where someone else could kill us. That's the way it was when we were in VCU together." He flicks another look at me. "Why the concern, Walter? Scoping out the competition?"

That's the second time he's implied that he thinks this is the beginning of a long-term relationship. I've got to talk to him, explain to him that it just can't be. I will. Right after I explain it to myself.

I come out of the bedroom a few minutes later, to find him already in the tub. The tub is so deep that I can only see him from the chin up, and he is holding the book high, his nose practically inside the binding. I finally see the title. Time-Life Hauntings. I almost laugh. "You'll go blind, reading like that. Where are your glasses?"

He nods toward a table by the television. "They get steamed up in here," he explains, sitting forward to make room for me, behind him.

I slide in behind him, wait for him to adjust and then pull him back against me. "Comfortable?"

"Mmm." He turns a page.

"Interesting book?"

"Mmm."

He's lost. I open Oath of Fealty and try to let myself get lost too. But my mind won't cooperate. My eyes fix on the page, the words, and my mind hears Mulder talking about the competition, the relationship. He's smart, he knows we can't take this any farther than this weekend. He said he's had a lot of one-night stands. That's all this is, right?

"Walter?"

I jerk at the sound of his voice. "What?"

"What's really wrong?"

"What do -"

"Come on, Walter." He pulls forward, shifting around to look at me. "I've had plenty of intimate exposure to your moods of displeasure. You're not happy. Tell me the truth. If this was a mistake, say so, now, and I'm outta' here. If I've done something -"

I put a hand out, covering his mouth. "You didn't do anything, Mulder. Neither did I. This was a good thing, it was an amazing thing. I'm just looking ahead."

"Yeah." He closes the book over his finger and looks at me. "It's going to be hard back in the real world. I mean, this is nice." He waves his other hand to encompass the room. "But we can't live in here."

"No." I sigh, and start to pull out of the tub. I can't sit here, so close to him, and not let my imagination try to spin a scenario where we could keep this up back in D.C.

"Where're you going?" he asks, as I step out of the tub.

"I need a beer," I lie. "I'm hot. Do you want one?"

He starts to shake his head and then he nods, almost reluctantly. "I think I'm going to need one." He tosses the book away from the tub, and stands, too. The expression on his face is that of a little boy being told his puppy must be put down. He knows, I realize. He really understands. We don't need to discuss it.

I put out a hand. "Why don't we just make it an early night?" I suggest.

He takes my hand. "Fine with me."

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

It's early morning. The room is just light enough that I can admire the wallpaper, the paintings that are just nice enough not to be lumped in with standard hotel art, the way the curtains are fluttering lightly in an onshore breeze. Beside me, Mulder is asleep. His cheek is pressed against my shoulder, his open palm is resting on my chest, one leg is raised enough that his knee is on my thigh. We came back to bed, read for awhile and then made love again. It was just as intense but slightly more bittersweet. Afterward, Mulder turned away from me, curled up, and … drifted quickly away.

But now he's back at my side, coming back to me somewhere in the dark, with a faint whine and a startled little tremor. I reached for him, soothed him, and he escaped whatever demons had pursued him and relaxed against me, not to move again. I turn my head to look at him. He is amazing in sleep, so beautiful yet so strong. I want to pull him on top of me, kiss him, caress him, make him come one more time, just to see that expression of absolute amazement and release that comes over his face. But I don't. I know in a few short hours, I'm going to kiss him goodbye and walk out. If I could think of any other solution, I would take it, but I can't. I've been awake off and on all night, trying to come up with one.

Those hazel eyes open and catch me studying him. He smiles at me, that same bittersweet smile he gave me last night, as we kissed goodnight. "Morning," he says in a sleep raspy voice. He rolls onto his back, stretches, his hands over his head. "Sleep well?"

"Like the dead," I lie, amazed to be hungering for that lean form rippling with muscle. "You wore me out."

He sits up. "Mmm, I thought it was the other way around," he observes, inching to the edge of the bed. "I don't think I've ever come three times in one night."

"It's not part of my normal experience, either," I tell him, gathering up pillows to support my back as I sit up. "How about breakfast in bed?" I offer.

"Room service?" he asks. "Is that wise?" Ah, there's my Mulder, the paranoid.

"Why not?" I point to the menus on the bureau. "See if there's something that will appease that New England stomach of yours."

He moves slowly, as if in pain, collects the menu and brings it back to the bed.

I catch his hand, the anxiety now in my voice. "Are you okay? We didn't … I didn't hurt you, did I?"

He shakes his head. "Oh, no. Just used muscles that don't ordinarily get so much of a workout. I'll run after breakfast and I'll be fine."

I bring his fingers to my lips. I am not content to merely kiss them. I want to devour him, all of him, carry him around in my body. I merely kiss them and release them. "So, what do you want?"

"Mmm, waffles?" he suggests. "Waffles, with bacon and eggs." He pushes the menu to me. "And strawberries." He climbs off the bed and starts for the bathroom, already moving more naturally. "And whipped cream," he calls as he steps in and shuts the door. He opens the door again, peers around at me and says, "And coffee." He shuts the door. He does not reappear.

I reach for the phone and place my order. The room service clerk sounds a little surprised that after two days on my own, I'm suddenly ordering for two, but then she chuckles knowingly and promises that it will be up in twenty to thirty minutes. I could swear she was adding, under her breath, 'congratulations'.

He comes out a little while later, freshly showered, in a clean pair of boxers, and gropes around looking for socks and jeans. His hair is standing up in all directions. He looks more than ever like a wild animal. I wonder if Scully has ever seen him like this. She's seen him every other way, from his best to his worst. He feels me looking at him, and he turns to me, smiling that shy smile again. "What? Do I have my shorts on backwards or something?"

"No. It's your hair. It's..." I gesture faintly. ">>>wild."

"Jealous?" he teases.

I shake my head. "There are advantages to baldness," I tell him.

"Yeah, you don't waste a lot of money on shampoo," he retorts, and steps into his jeans.

"That's one of them," I agree. His back is lean, and gracefully curved, a beautiful wedge of muscle and silk. I've explored that back thoroughly, and there isn't a single flaw -unless you count the nickel sized pucker on his left shoulder, where Scully's bullet tore through him. "Some women - a lot of women find it pretty sexy."

"I imagine so," he says, completely serious. He tugs a tee shirt on. "I think I hear someone knocking at the door. Do you want me to answer it, or should I jump in the closet or something?"

I push the bedclothes back. "I'll get it, I have to sign for it. Stay out of the closet." I hear him chuckle as I shrug on my robe and go out to the living room. It's a relief to hear him laugh.

I bring the trays into the bedroom, one at a time. He's in the middle of the bed, cross-legged, dragging his hair down with his fingers. "Smells good," he says and reaches for one of the trays. "This must be yours," he says of my egg white omelet. He sets it aside. I bring the other tray and he reaches for it greedily. "Come to papa," he says, and lifts the lid. "Ahh, that smells like a good waffle. I haven't had waffles since my Aunt Carolyn died." He scoots backwards until he is leaning against the headboard. "I think I was fourteen."

"Well, I hope it lives up to Aunt Carolyn's standards," I say, dropping my robe to slip in beside him.

We eat in silence. I had ordered a couple of newspapers, and we share them. Mulder has no interest in sports or business, but he reads the weather reports, the local news and the comics, avidly. "TB is on the rise in the Southwest," he observes between bites. "That was supposed to be eradicated in the seventies, like smallpox. There was an outbreak of smallpox on the East coast two years ago."

I can see his mind working. He's thinking collusion or espionage or any of a hundred things that only he can think when staring at seemingly innocuous information. Then I see him literally pull the brakes. His face is almost shattered by the sudden, negative G force. "Hmm," he says and sips coffee. "Isn't that interesting. I wonder what Ann Landers has to say today."

"I guess it's hard to stop thinking in those terms," I venture.

"What? Conspiracies?" he asks, with a twist in his voice. "Oh, no, I'm going through a twelve step program. I'm coming along fine." He takes the last bite of his waffle. "Aunt Carolyn would be proud." He pushes the tray away. "I'm going for a run. Do you mind?"

I shake my head. "Be careful."

He drops a kiss impulsively, to the top of my head. "Yes, Daddy." He darts out.

I hear him leave the living room, and I get up to take a shower, to wash away the feel, the flavor of him.

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

I'm packing when he comes back, sweating, breathless, glowing. He skids to a stop in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom. "Oh, are we leaving already?" he asks, following me into the bathroom to collect things. "It's only Saturday."

"I know," I say heavily. "I've got a conference on Monday that I'm not prepared for. "But the room is paid for through Monday. I want you to stay, relax, enjoy yourself."

"I'd enjoy myself more if you had brought the stuff down, and could work on it here."

"So would I." I'm scowling into my dopp kit. "But it didn't occur to me. I had other things on my mind at the time."

"Was I one of them?" he asks playfully, and tags after me as I bring things back to the bed.

"Oh, yes." I pause, flick him a glance, and say very deliberately. "Absolutely."

"Walter, you're scaring me," he says, but he's struggling not to smile. Then he sees that I'm not smiling. "Well, let me take a shower and I'll give you a lift to the airport."

"I've already called a cab," I tell him, dropping things into my bag. "I don't think it would be a good idea for us to be seen together in such a public place." I zip the bag closed.

He swallows tightly. "Okay. Well, when's your flight?"

I look at my watch. "Two hours."

"Oh, then we have time for a little farewell party, don't we?" He leans into me, brushing his tongue against my lips.

I grab him, almost painfully, and pull him close. I want to suffocate in the perfume of his sweat and skin. I want to live the rest of my life with that scent imprinted on me. I kiss him roughly. It means goodbye. It has to. "Agent Mulder," I say, releasing him, "you know this cannot come back to D.C. with us." I reach for my bag. I can see the realization knocking him down inside. His green eyes go stormy gray.

He doesn't say anything. He follows me to the front door. "Well," he says quietly, not looking at me, "thanks for straightening everything out. I guess I'll sleep nights, now. How about you?"

No, I think sadly. I'll probably never get another good night's sleep. I open my mouth to say something, but there isn't a single damn thing I can say that doesn't sound either trite or cruel or a horrible mixture of both. I jerk my gaze away, and pull the door shut behind me.

- END chapter 03 -
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