To shoot me in the back.
But he did none of those things. And I only started breathing again once the
door closed behind me. And then I realized that I was cold through and through,
almost shivering, my back and neck damp, my heart pounding as if I'd just been
in a combat situation, been on the verge of dying. Maybe, I had been.
I went back to my car, parked half-way down the block, and slipped inside.
From here I would be able to see anyone entering or leaving his building. See
what, if anything, my visit had accomplished.
Besides making me crazy.
He had annoyed the crap out of me, made me almost...almost want to shoot him.
Certainly to hit him. But that was his thing, not mine, and so I'd done none of
those things. Just threatened him because he expected it, probably wouldn't
even listen if I didn't do it. If I didn't act as he expected me to act. As
his enemy. As his betrayer.
When I didn't want to be any of those things, anymore. Had never wanted to
be, if I was perfectly honest.
But when had I ever been perfectly honest?
His answer would be never.
My answer was in what I had given him tonight, besides information and
probably a bruise or two.
I had made it rough, made it fast. Made it "comradely" enough not to make it
too damn obvious. But Fox Mulder was a quick study, no matter what else he was.
Even if his conscious mind would skitter wide around it—trying to protect
him from the truth and what a laugh that was—the depths where he really
solved his cases would pick up on it. Would work at it, pick at it, worry and
worry until the strands parted and finally revealed the pattern that they had
kept hidden within.
Revealed what I felt. Stupidly and suicidally.
Oh yeah, he annoyed me. From day one, he had annoyed me.
And intrigued me and entranced me and made my job all the more difficult. He
made it damn fucking harder than hell, actually, almost downright impossible
when you came right down to it.
He made me hard.
In more ways than one.
It was a wonder he'd never noticed it, but there goes the workings of his
conscious mind again. He paid an incredible degree of attention to and
remembered with a near perfect clarity everything else that went on around him,
but let it have to do with him personally and it was like he was walking around
in a daze. Unable to see what was right under that unmistakable nose.
No wonder he had only his tapes and his phone for company.
No matter that he joked about sex all the time. With Scully. With me, when
I'd been his oh-so-brief partner. Hell, even tonight, with me pinning him down
to the floor, with his own gun shoved hard into his chest, he'd had the
wherewithal, the audacity, to make a snide remark at my expense.
If it hadn't hurt so much, it might have almost been funny. Almost.
He could joke, but that seemed to be as far as it went. I doubted he'd slept
with anybody—at least anybody real—in years. It was pretty clear that
he could have had Scully if he wanted her. If he ever found the guts to make
the first move. It had been there between them when I'd first observed them
together, turning to each other so naturally, their private little space locking
me out. Leaving me in the cold.
Siberia had had nothing on them.
While, I'd caught the looks back at the Bureau that he never seemed to see.
He was strange, sure. Odd, damn straight. But still women had wanted him,
maybe even because of his oddities.
And that lower lip, of course.
Pouty little son-of-a-bitch. Just calling for a damn good biting.
At least, I wanted to bite him.
Of course, I also wanted to knock him up against the nearest wall and keep
him pinned there as he squirmed and swore at me and tried like hell to get away
from me. From what I had for him. Watch those hazel eyes widen as he realized
just how much I had for him. How much I wanted him.
Beneath me. On top of me. On the bed, the couch, the floor, the goddamn
kitchen table. Fresh from a shower and smelling of soap or just come back in
from a run, sweat-damped hair and shirt and skin and all. In a pristine suit
with one of those horridly ridiculous ties. In jeans and some battered t-shirt.
In those faded grey sweats that I'd seen him in a couple of times. In that
little red Speedo that I wished I seen him in more than once.
It was insane. I was insane.
He hated me. Hated me as no other. He would try and punch me into next week
if I actually tried any such thing on him. And I would either have to fight
back and maybe really hurt him or let him hurt me. Once again.
And I was getting damn sick of that.
Even though it fit my current life to a T. It seemed like everything and
everybody wanted to beat me around these days. Sometimes, it felt like I was
losing myself bit by bit, day by day, and I don't mean just my arm. Though that
was a pretty damn blatant example. A pretty damn painful one, as well.
Sometimes, I almost...almost wished I hadn't noticed the flashing of that clock.
That I had let them blow me up. Things had been going downhill fast since then
and didn't look to be getting better anytime soon. Not as far as I could see.
I had thought I knew what starvation and desperation was back in Hong Kong,
but that had been just a party game compared to waking in that missile silo.
Compared to almost dying in that missile silo. I still don't know how long I
was actually in there. Anymore, than I know just how I got out.
Someone must have found me. Took me out of there. I don't have much of a
memory of it, of anything past the time I could no longer get up from the floor
no matter how I tried. Of falling into blackness more deep and cold than the
walls around me, the concrete beneath me. If I strain at it, I can sometimes
recall sounds, a faint touch. But with it comes a misery and a terror that I
simply can't stand, don't want to feel. Don't want to remember.
Fox Mulder makes me miserable, too. And, sometimes, he terrifies me. Or, to
be more precise, what I feel towards him terrifies me.
Sometimes, I imagine he had been there with me in that dark place. Though,
of course, that's impossible. Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if I
hadn't gone into that
bathroom. I don't remember much about that either. Just bits and pieces,
snatches of voices and faces. Mulder's. My old employer. The sensation of
heat. Of hunger. Of anger, though it was an anger not quite like any I'd ever
felt before. Almost impersonal. Cold instead of hot. Like a blade of ice
being drawn right through you, leaving a frozen trail in its wake.
I never never want to go through that again.
Though I let it happen to Mulder.
I let it happen.
Not that I had much choice at the time. It was either that or get us both
killed or caught in some asinine escape attempt. Which would have screwed over
any deal I might have been able to make. I would have ended up right there next
to him with that black shit being poured down my throat.
I couldn't...can't go through that again. I'd rather die. I'd rather let
Mulder die.
What a fucking lie.
A car drove past me and slowed down, pulled up to the curb and stopped. A
moment later, a familiar petite woman got out, her hair a more subdued shade
than normal under the distant glow of the streetlights. She scanned the street
and walked purposefully up to Mulder's building, opened the door with what was
obviously her own key. I had had to pick the locks, but there you go.
I doubted he'd ever get around to giving me my own toothbrush either.
A bullet to the head, maybe. To the guts, if he wanted to make it last. I
could have told him just where to put it for maximum pain.
Physical pain, anyway.
He already had me on the other kind.
Down for the count.
My arm twinged as I shifted, trying to catch a glimpse of his window. My
nonexistent arm. I've tried to let it know the way things are these days, but
it hasn't bothered listening to me yet. Reminds me a little of how he took my
special bit of news, tonight. With sarcasm, with dry laughter, with a disbelief
so painful it was clear just how fresh it was. How much it tore at him.
No doubt, he thought I had the monopoly on lies around here. But, at least,
I've never lied like that to myself.
Well, mostly.
Still, it would catch up to him eventually, like it had caught up to me. I
don't know yet if it's something from which I'm going to be able to land on my
feet. I always—most always—have before. I like survival, what can I
say? Life's kind of addictive, you know. Much like a pair of hazel eyes and a
certain lower lip.
Sometimes, I wonder if he's the silent type or a screamer. The file I was
given on him so long ago was remiss in that particular bit of information.
Though, it did list which phone sex babes he likes to call. Which video stores
he haunts. The one bar he goes to on rare occasions. He drinks beer mostly,
but sometimes he takes it with a whiskey chaser. Don't know what he gets drunk
about, though.
I somehow doubt it's me.
Unless, of course, he's fantasizing about slamming me around. Making me pay
for his daddy. For all the death and misfortune he's piled on my head.
I've gotten drunk once or twice about him. Not that I'd ever tell him that.
Okay, more than once or twice. I tied a good one on back in Russia once I'd
finally
gotten out of that pitiful excuse they have for a hospital. Haven't had a
hangover like that in years.
Not that it helped any. With either my arm or the man who caused me to lose
it.
Not that I blame him. Exactly.
Though, if guilt could get me what I want—what I need—then I'd say
feel free. Go for it. I'd grind my mutilation, my pain, into his face in order
to get a chance to grind myself into that fine bit of ass he has on him. Hell,
I'd do it just for a chance at a kiss. A real kiss.
A real sweet-hard forever kind of kiss. Just to taste him. Just the once.
Before the darkness tears me away again. Maybe, doesn't let me up this time.
Doesn't let me go.
He probably wouldn't blame himself, though. Just me. After all, he likes to
blame me for just about everything. Certainly, everything that's gone wrong in
his life.
Sometimes, I wonder if I shouldn't be doing the same.
Sometimes, I wonder if I could.
Asshole. Motherfucker. Oblivious little shit.
I'd shoot somebody if it would do any good. If it would get me anywhere with
him, anywhere at all.
Maybe, if I left my old boss on his doorstop some night, a nice smoking
little hole in his head, right between those fucking manipulative eyes of his,
he would find it within himself to be grateful. To actually invite me in,
rather than making me toast the locks yet again. And I could tell him just how
he could thank me for it. For doing the job he could never quite bring himself
to do, no matter how much he wanted to. Or, thought he did, anyway.
Yeah, right.
He'd probably just bring me up on murder charges over the bastard. Along
with those for his dad and Scully's sister. And anything else he could think of
to pin on me.
Not that I wouldn't let him pin me. Just not that way.
The door to the apartment building opened and they came out together. Mulder
leading the way like he always did, that little redhead of his in tow. They got
into Scully's car and Mulder took the wheel as usual, just like he'd done with
me anytime he thought he could get away with it.
I thought about following them as they drove off. I thought about going
home. Or finding a home to go to. Of heading down to Mulder's pathetic little
excuse for a local bar and having a few of those beers, some whiskey chasers of
my own. Of chasing after a bit of oblivion for once, instead of it seeking me
out.
But, in the end, I did nothing. Just sat there. Waiting and watching.
For him to come back. For the world to end. For something.
So, I'm crazy. So what.
He's crazy, too, and I still love him.
Ah, fuck.
Left Turn at Albuquerque
by Garnet
It was stupid. Suicidal even, maybe. But still I did it. I handed him his gun
back and walked out that door. Half-expecting him to call me back. To swear at
me.
