TITLE: Sad Lovers and Giants 15/? - Burning Beaches
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: A blizzard. A power cut. Finding their way in darkness.
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: Sad Lovers and Giants, the two things hardest to conceal.
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Sad Lovers and Giants 15/? - Burning Beaches
by Mik
"Stay." I don't know why I asked. Fear of being alone with my new knowledge of myself, fear of being alone with memories, new and old, plain old-fashioned fear of being alone. I don't know. Maybe it was just a need to be near someone strong enough to hold up the truth, even at gunpoint.
I will give him full marks for not letting the panic stay on his face too long. It shifted with appreciable swiftness to a quizzical frown. "Stay?" he repeated. His lips folded inward while he hunted for a way out. "Are you sure that's such a wise choice, Mulder? After all, what you've been through -"
Embarrassed, I twisted away from him. "Fine." I don't know where I'd gotten the idea that he still cared. Or maybe this was the truth that was just too much. "It's okay. I won't keep you." I saw the remains of food on the table. I wouldn't accept any more of his charity. "How much do I owe you for the board and found?"
"Mulder," his hand fell on my arm. "I didn't -"
"I said it's okay." I wrenched out of his grasp. "Don't worry about it. Go on." When he didn't move, I shoved my hands into my pockets so he couldn't see them shaking and hunted miserably for something to look at, something to say. I'd never had less to say in my life. In fact, at that moment I craved a silence so complete it wouldn't even be broken by breath, or heartbeat. "Listen, my...uh...self esteem's already taken a beating today, so," I pulled one hand free to gesture toward the door, "...if you wouldn't mind -"
I stopped because, all at once, he was holding my face in one hand and the rest of me in the other. "Damn it, Mulder," he rasped, "you have nothing...you have no reason..." his eyes went over my face. "Oh..."he kissed me. Skinner kisses the same way he does everything else, brooking no resistance.
I didn't resist. I just sort of hung there, caught, as I was. But my mind was trying to tango with indecision. On the one hand, I wanted and needed this, him. But what I didn't want was his pity or his obligation. And this kiss tasted a bit like both. This kiss also tasted just a little bit desperate to me.
He let go of me when he felt I wasn't responding. "You're right." He dragged his hand across his lips. "You don't need this...or me." It was his turn to hunt for something to say, but he didn't have the same struggle I'd known. "I have treated you unfairly, Mulder, but please believe it was well meant, if misguided."
I nodded. The thing was, even though I believed him, it didn't lessen the sting and even though I needed a rock to cling to more than I needed my pride, I had to admit I didn't quite trust him not to do something else for my own good. I decided to lie to him. "When I asked you to stay, I didn't mean..."
"Oh." His face darkened. "Oh, no." So he decided to lie to me. "Of course not."
Okay, it wasn't a complete lie. "I guess I just didn't want to be alone." I was starting to feel even more miserable, if that was possible. I tried a weak smile. "It's been a bad day."
"I understand."
I looked away from him. No, he didn't understand. He probably never did. I felt dangerously close to a great deal of emotion and I was no longer inclined to share any of it with him. How could he understand, I didn't really understand what was wrong with me. I wanted to rage and scream at the injustices visited upon Carrie Dolan and her unfortunate predecessors, I wanted to flagellate myself for my failures, I wanted to hide from all of it, I wanted most of all to hide from myself.
I couldn't hide from me, though. I couldn't hide from that laundry list of faults that defined Fox William Mulder, not the least of which was the failure within myself to recognize what had happened to me and how it had jeopardized my relationships and career.
I turned around and found him still standing there, watching me as if he feared I was going to explode. Well, I just might. "It's okay," I promised. "Thanks for coming down."
"I don't want to go, Mulder."
Oh, stiletto to the left ventricle. "Well, what do you want, Skinner? And could you make up your mind?" I made a show of looking at my watch. "I'm late for my nervous breakdown."
"I want to stay a while, keep you company -"
"Babysit?"
"No." He hunted for words. "As your friend, if nothing more. But maybe as someone who cares for you ... very much." He lowered his eyes to his hands. "I know that I handled all this badly, Mulder, but I never stopped ... loving you." The word came out with effort. "I don't have any right to any expectations at this point, but I'd like to be here for you if you need me. I'd like to know you're going to be all right."
I stared at him. "What do you think? Do you have any idea how selfish that is? You want me to be 'all right'," I made those horrible little quotes in the air angrily, "so you can close the file and move on, no untidy loose ends. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Skinner, but I'm not 'all right'. I don't think..." my voice caught and I looked away, ashamed. "Damn it."
His voice was too fucking gentle. "I didn't realize you were so angry at me."
"Why shouldn't I be angry?" I demanded, when I got my voice back under control. "You used me, and -"
"Used you?" he repeated, with a wry smile. "Isn't that just a little bit maidenly? I didn't -"
"Oh, thank you." I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. "Look. Just go. This...this isn't a good idea." I lowered my hands. "Go before one of us gets violent."
"I'll go in a minute," he agreed, "but you have to understand something -"
"I understand plenty," I snapped. Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut, let him make his speech, ease his conscience and get the fuck out?
He cocked his head at me. "Mulder, you're the professional here. Is it really that effective to slap someone when they're hysterical?"
"I am not hysterical," I assured him. "I've got at least thirty or forty seconds to go before I reach hysterical."
"Really?" He eyed me. "Prove it to me. Calm down and listen to what I'm saying."
I drew a deep breath and released it heavily. "Skinner, I've had ... a real shit of a day. In point of fact, it completes my collector's edition shit of a week. It's not reasonable to expect me to calm down. The only way I could manage calm right now is if I was dead. Now, please," I made a great sweeping gesture with both hands, "get out of my face, get out of my room, get out of my life!"
"You asked me to stay, Mulder," he reminded me without an ounce of reproach.
"Yeah, I know." I sagged against the wall and shook my head. "I really don't know why. Please accept my apologies as a lovely parting gift. Now, go."
The bastard wouldn't move. "I can't leave you like this."
I looked up, made myself meet his eyes, even though mine were already filling with tears. "Sure you can. You've done it before."
That must have hurt him. He stepped back emotionally with the blow. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Mulder," he repeated flatly. "I never meant to hurt you."
"Yeah, well ... you keep telling me what you never meant to do and it lines up pretty neatly with what you actually did." I had this rock in my throat and it was making breathing and speaking almost impossible. "Let's assume you also didn't mean to humiliate me, because that's what you're doing now. Just go."
He wanted to go, I could see it in his face, but he hesitated. "What will you do now?"
I turned enough so that my back was against the wall. I smiled bitterly. "Well, if I was any other person, I'd be allowed a melodramatic outburst like 'kill myself', but since I have a background in mental health, I know even an offhand remark could be considered a statement of intent to harm, and would qualify as a reason for you to put me on a hold. So, I'll just say ..." I spread my hands out before me, in a gesture of emptiness, "I don't know."
That didn't exactly satisfy him. "Mulder, I'm worried for you." He took a step toward me.
I flinched, but I had nowhere to go. "Nothing to worry about, Skinner. I'm just tired and shaken. Like you said; food, shower and a nap and I'll be fine." I slid along the wall because he was still moving. "Look, I'll make a contract with you, if you'll just go!"
"Mulder, I can't leave you like this, you're talking craziness."
"Craziness?" I laughed and the laugh got caught on that rock and came out jagged and torn. "I'll tell you what craziness is, Assistant Director Skinner. Craziness is waking up one morning to find out that there are things about you that you didn't know. Craziness is having a moment of clarity so powerful that the thing you knew as yourself is torn down, and all that's left is rubble and smoke. Craziness is having to learn and accept that there's a horrible dark place in your life, a huge black hole that's been sucking everything out of you and you didn't even know it was there. Craziness is ... it's finding out that your own ... father ..." My throat closed up and nothing else could come out.
I don't know why my knees chose that moment to buckle, but they did. He was there before my ass hit the ground. He lifted me, talking ... nonsense for all I know, but talking. His voice was deep and confident, and that's all I needed. I just followed his voice. My hands went tight around his arms, and his stayed steady under mine. He guided me backward to the bed, turned me and made me sit.
I was shaking. "I don't know what's the matter with me," I protested as he knelt to pull off my shoes. "I don't know..."
"I do." He pushed me back on the bed and got my slacks off. "You haven't eaten or slept for a week. Your metabolism is shutting down on you. You've had a very traumatizing experience today, coupled with receiving some very terrible news. The combined effect is making you sick. You're not rational."
There was something reassuring, comforting in the take-charge tone of his voice. Everything was going to be okay. A.D. Skinner had arrived, like the cavalry, to rescue me and put everything to rights. This was the man I could trust. I heard the rip of the velcro tabs on my vest. "No," I agreed, lying limp as he pulled my shirt over my head without bothering with the buttons. "Not rational." I lifted my head and looked down. "But I am naked."
"Yes." He grabbed my arm and pulled it up across his shoulder. "It helps when you're taking a shower."
"Skinner ..."
"Shut up," he instructed. "No more talking, no more thinking." He dragged me toward the bathroom. "That's an order."
"But -"
"No buts." He flung the shower curtains back. "There are only two things that matter right now. That you saved a little girl's life, and that I love you. Everything else is details."
I let go of him and leaned back against the door, trying to get things back in order in my head. "You love me?" Please tell me that's true. If that's true then everything else will be true. "Even though -"
"Even though." He was adjusting the temperature of the spray.
How could it be true? "But you left -"
His voice stayed matter of fact. "Because I loved you. I thought I was hurting you." He backed up. "Come on, can you get in on your own?" He held out his hands. "I loved you too much to keep on hurting you."
I ignored his hands. "Full circle," I muttered, stepping over the edge of the tub. "This conversation has gone full circle."
"Yes, and now it stops." He sounded very final. "I want you to stay in here as long as you can stand it, then you're going to sleep." He put soap in my hand. "Understood?"
I nodded. "And you?"
He put towels within reach. "What about me?"
"What are you going to do?"
He didn't even have to think about it. "Whatever it takes."
I made a face. "Well, it's a little vague..."
"Mulder?"
"Hmm?"
He yanked the shower curtain closed on me. "Shut up."
I backed up against the wet fiberglass of the stall and let the water run over me like my emotions. Shut up. Great idea. I wish I could get my brain to shut up. I was feeling anxious at every level. My stomach cramped, my chest clenched, my head throbbed, my limbs felt heavy and weak. My mind whirled images around like a Kinetoscope. Events of the last few days passed me in jerky motion, rushing toward me and then stopping so that I was suddenly subjected to the frame by frame experience of Skinner's wrath, his face getting incrementally darker, spittle flying in a slow arc from his lips; of a naked and terrified girl emerging from a ventilation shaft, her dirty matted locks of hair lifting and falling like the wings of an ungainly bird; the bullet sailing almost lazily toward that chest, the blood spreading like a flower in full bloom, drops of blood floating outward like a free form lava lamp.
No, that's not right. I turned the water off. I didn't see Scully shoot that son of a bitch. I couldn't have seen that. I pushed the curtain back to grope for a towel. And she shot him in the head, not the chest. I saw my face, peering around the shower curtain, reflected in the mirror. And I saw ...
"Oh, God!"
I don't remember sitting down, but I was on the floor, arms wrapped around my knees when Skinner burst in. I looked up at him helplessly. "I killed him," I whispered.
"No, Mulder." Skinner dropped to his knees beside me, grabbing another towel and wrapping it around my shoulders. "You had nothing to do with it."
"You're not listening. I -"
"Agent Scully didn't shoot that bastard just because you told her," he stated emphatically, rubbing me hard with the towel. "He showed a weapon. He represented a threat to her and her fellow officers. She warned him to drop the knife."
"You're not listening," I repeated, clutching at his shirt. "I killed him."
"No, you didn't. You weren't even in the room."
"I saw...I saw the bullet...and his chest ... and the blood ... I killed him." My entire body was turning to ice. My teeth were starting to chatter. "I wanted him dead. I made it happen. I killed him."
"Mulder, listen to me." He grabbed my shoulders and shook hard. "You might have wanted him dead, but you did not kill him. If anything, he killed himself by refusing to drop his weapon and surrender to Agent Scully."
"Scully wasn't there," I told him, mystified. "She didn't shoot him. I did."
Skinner's face was strange. He put his hand on my brow. "Mulder, you've been through a lot recently," he said carefully. "You aren't remembering things clearly. Agent Scully killed the perpetrator. Not you."
"No. Not him." I was choking again, trying to get the words out, trying to confess. "My father. I killed my father."
End 15