Skinner didn't waste time. He pushed Mulder into the small bathroom adjoining his office and had his head over the bowl in what felt like two seconds. He could see Mulder gripping the sides of the bowl, his knuckles white with strain.
"Mulder, do you...is this...?" He stopped, frustrated, not even sure Mulder could hear him. "Should I get Scully?"
Mulder made some sharp sound in the back of his throat and then began puking. Skinner stood back, watching helplessly. He wanted to be anywhere else but there. Not until Mulder began to retch in earnest did he kneel down next to him and support his sagging weight. He smoothed back the sweat dampened hair at Mulder's temples, feeling absurd, like he was touching some grainfed child. But they only cried when flesh was split or demands went unmet, soft and spoilt but no permanent harm done. Not like this man, shivering blindly on the floor. He flinched at the thought of someone coming into his office now but the idea of trying to manhandle Mulder out of there was equally fantastic. Even assuming they managed to avoid comment, what the hell would he do with him?
He sank down all the way to the ground, manoeuvring Mulder awkwardly until he was draped more or less against him. Leaning around Mulder, he grabbed a washcloth that was hung up neatly on a metal hook above his head. The stink of sweat and puke was overcoming the clean notes of soap and shaving lotion that usually dominated the small bathroom. The thing to do was to be practical. Running the hot water tap, he soaked the cloth under it. He had enough boils and blisters of his own; he didn't need Mulder's array of ghouls as well. Apathetically he noted how his actions betrayed him as his free hand slid into Mulder's hair, his thumb tracing up and down the graceful arch of neck that led up into Mulder's skull. With the other hand, he pressed the warm cloth to Mulder's face, moving it every so often as he waited for him to surface.
How powerful it felt to hold the world at bay, even briefly. Yet another reason to stop this insane wetnurse routine. But he kept on, touching, making meaningless movements until Mulder suddenly whimpered, effectively stilling Skinner's hands. Such a piteous sound. So terrified. And yet the body under his hands lay there passively, not making a single movement. Christ. How often did he get this way? Had Scully-- He cut the thought off before it could be born. Speculating about Scully and Mulder in any form was strictly a late night sport, prompted by one too many drink. Hating himself for finding the next thought compelling, he went on to wonder what this kind of collapse would do to diminish Mulder's usefulness to the investigation. All in all, it was another Kodak moment they could both do without. He watched Mulder's eyes move ceaselessly behind tightly shut lids, bruised and pink. Such pain.
A thin whisper then, startling him into biting the inside of his mouth. "Why won't you hurt me?"
A pause and then insistently, with a hint of petulance, "You said you would."
Skinner leant his head back gently against the cold tiled wall behind him, the coppery tang of blood filling his mouth. He exhaled, feeling an unthinking anger gather in him, awful in its simplicity. His fingers traced a light, consoling path over the bluish skin at Mulder's wrist. You said you would.
He sat like that for nearly a quarter of an hour, letting Mulder drift in and out of consciousness, unsure of what else he could do. Just when he thought his cramped legs couldn't take his weight any longer, Mulder opened his eyes, wide and terrified. He tried to shift off Skinner and broke into a struggle when he found himself bound by his arms instead. Skinner let him go at once, narrowly missing an elbow in his eye. Mulder twisted around and looked blindly at him.
"Wha..?" He didn't finish the sentence, his voice nothing more than a harsh whisper.
"You had a panic attack, Agent Mulder," Skinner contended himself with saying, not certain that was true though it seemed as good a name as any for what had just happened. "Not impossible to understand, given the situation."
His unremarkable acceptance of the bizarre little scene seemed to be exactly what Mulder needed. He felt his trembling ease off just as suddenly as it had begun and realized he was rubbing his thumbs along the man's forearms where he was gripping him. A little shocked at himself, he removed his hands and pushed Mulder ungently off himself.
"Get up," he said, for the sake of saying something and stood up himself with a sigh of relief. After a moment's hesitation, Mulder found his own feet and followed suit.
He frowned at the wall facing them. "Did...did I say anything?"
Cowardice won the day. Skinner lied. "No, nothing."
Mulder jerked his head around for a suspicious beat of time and then shrugged morosely. Ducking his head under the washbasin tap, he splashed water on his face, neatly avoiding further conversation on the topic.
Skinner took the hint and went back into his office, saying over his shoulder, "There's another washcloth under the basin. And some unopened toothbrushes."
Some minutes later, Mulder came back in and took his seat, a rangy purpose in his stride that did nothing to reassure Skinner that things would take a turn for the better.
Sure enough, the first thing Mulder said when he finally looked up at him, his eyes remarkably clear, was, "You might as well get started."
He took his glasses off and rubbed at the pinch marks on the bridge of his nose. Well, there it was. He was being treated to another demonstration of Mulder's winged intelligence. Happy fucking day. Of course all that surveillance had generated questions. Of course the questions would double up as insurance as well as information. Of course Mulder knew it. Skinner picked up a file that was sitting by itself on one side of his desk, noting Mulder's wince without seeming to do so.
"You're right. You sure you're up to it?"
Mulder nodded, his mouth a compressed slash of color in an otherwise pale face. He had that look back on his face, and if Skinner was honest with himself, it had never gone away. What he really wanted was for Mulder to become someone else's problem. At the same time, he could feel his headache begin to hammer away behind his eye again, at the very thought of that happening. So it couldn't really be what he wanted. Could it? Just a job, his mind insisted, trying to break the same bewildered deadlock all over again, defeated before it began.
He began to talk, aware that Mulder was watching him intently. "I didn't format these questions, Agent Mulder. I voiced my...disapproval of some of them, for the record. But I have to ask them. Do you understand me?"
Mulder nodded, his mouth closed on the kind of babble that seemed desperate to come out, as though Skinner by his very presence was acting as some kind of human circuit-breaker on Mulder's sense of survival. Questions? We don't need no stinking questions. I'll tell you everything you never wanted to know and you just pick out the bits you need and we'll be done. And, his mind went on to helpfully point out, if that meant that the two of them ended up avoiding a nightmare discussion of the ins and outs of how Mulder liked to take it, well that was all just one big fucking cherry on top, wasn't it? Serious lover. For fuck's sake. Which brought another question to mind.
"Yeah, I have a question." He didn't wait for Skinner's nod before asking, "Why do you have to be involved? It's hardly within your usual job description, is it?"
Skinner didn't pause to think himself over before replying. So at least, where he could, Skinner was still sticking to the truth. Which wasn't as big a surprise as it could have been but Mulder filed it away in the Interesting box anyway.
"Surveillance on you, ears to the ground, sources being pumped - take your pick, Mulder. Your name comes up in some unlikely places. Or maybe they're all too likely?" The speculative tone of Skinner's words softened the sting of the question. "Either way, it might not surprise you to know that two names have come up, the mention of which was enough to send the watchdogs into a frenzy. Get it?"
Mulder got it, had gotten it before Skinner finished speaking. "FBI, I get it. A child of five could get it," he said, irritation finding its way into his voice. He glared at Skinner. "Where's the profile? Who worked it up? Based on what? On what evidence was this hysteria inducing deduction reached?"
"Mulder, the mere suggestion of either of those men was enough. Live with it. It's out of my hands. The very fact that you're being brought in shows that nothing's been settled."
Mulder favored Skinner with a studied look of amazement and then went back to contemplating the desk.
Skinner rode the silence out for all of ten seconds before snarling at him. "Well? Is that the definitive Mulder 'yes sir' that I'm not hearing?"
"If I really thought you'd think that, it would spur me into all kinds of speech," Mulder offered, with a hard, pleasant smile that made his teeth ache. "Something's been settled, otherwise you wouldn't be bulldozing me into this mano a mano investigation, now would you? So why don't you tell me what it is that you're saving up to tell me, once I'm under control? Why not get it off your chest, huh?"
On anyone else, the minute, unguarded flinch would not have been noticeable. On the barren landscape of Skinner's face, it was like a gun shot. Mulder had a moment to marvel before Skinner said bluntly, "If the killer is either one of these men, it has to be kept under wraps. The Bureau advocates internal handling of the matter and complete public denial."
"Internal handling," Mulder repeated slowly and watched Skinner's expression draw back into itself. "Well, now. And who are these prime suspects?"
"Q&A first, Mulder. You know better than anyone, it's done that way for a reason."
Mulder sprawled back in his chair, warp-core insolence speeding him on. "And if I don't want to answer the questions before I know who they are? …Sir."
Skinner looked up at that somberly but to Mulder's annoyance, didn't seem like a man on the horns of a dilemma. "I'm making allowances, Mulder. But don't go forgetting who's in charge here."
Mulder frowned, his fingers beating an impatient tattoo against each other. Old ground, old ground. "You are, Sir but I think you're missing the..."
"I don't think you understand me."
Mulder clenched his teeth against the urge to take a knife to Skinner. Just to see the color of his blood. Weird was his province.
"I understood you. You're in charge. Are they giving out medals now?"
"Then that puts me in charge of you, Agent Mulder, am I right?"
Mulder shrugged, uncertain when this had become a bone of contention.
"Well?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Yes Sir, what?" Skinner asked goadingly.
Mulder felt his eyes opening wide, involuntarily, his vision leeching away from him. Son of a bitch. He heard himself twice as loud in his own head, heat stabbing through his cock as he mumbled, "That puts you in charge of me. Sir."
Skinner's gaze rested on him for a moment and he was astonished at its almost physical weight. Crazy, his mind insisted, even as he fought back some moving pressure in his throat that would not be kept down. He shifted slightly and Skinner's eyes tracked the movement.
As if he had been waiting for it, he nodded, saying almost companionably, "Then we know where we are. You'll answer the questions first."
"Go ahead," Mulder said, nursing a sullen expression that belied the relief buzzing under it at the shift in Skinner's focus.
Skinner didn't disappoint. "Why do you seek abusive encounters with other men?"
Mulder caught himself flexing his hands by his sides and stopped it immediately. He spoke evenly, past the snarl gathering in his throat. "You know what they say, one man's meat..."
He waited out the silence that came at him from the other side of the desk and after a time, Skinner asked, "Do you know of anyone who wants to do these things to you badly enough to kill you?"
"I didn't stop to exchange greeting cards, if that's what you mean."
"Near enough," Skinner said coolly. He looked down at the open file in his hands before speaking again. "Do you know of anyone in the Bureau or outside it who may have any sexual or romantic interest in you at all?"
"You already know." Mulder flicked at a non-existent piece of husk on one leg, the nervous tic deliberately sacrificed for Skinner to pick up and catalogue. Of course, Mulder would have to school himself not to repeat it. But he could do that.
"Cooperation means exactly that, Agent Mulder. It means you tell me what I want to know when I ask you to, even if I already know it. And it means you tell me the truth. Am I making myself clear?"
Mulder could nearly appreciate the irony of Skinner as dragon champion of truth. He was more of a shapeshifter than he liked to advertize. Not that anything about the man was advertized with any particularity, to begin with. He took the risk of glancing over and Skinner looked back, his face set in lines of dense, thoughtful abstraction. Inside that head, as Mulder well knew, there was a density of thought, to match. Again he felt that chill of arousal slink down his spine. Other, darker thoughts slid in and around it, and jolted him into speech.
"I can think of two names."
"Did either of them do anything?" Skinner asked vaguely, trying to feel his way into Mulder's shoes, knowing how entirely ungovernable an ambition it was.
Mulder looked at him. A wry, unhappy, infinitely shadowed look that answered more questions than Skinner was asking. "Just small talk. I don't think they knew about each other and I sure as hell wasn't going to tell them."
"Tell me what they said."
Mulder ran an abrupt hand over the back of his neck, drawing Skinner's eyes to the tremor of muscle there, the healthy tint of skin at his throat only serving to emphasize the pallor of his face. Whatever blade of experience he had cut his tongue on, it had left enough of itself for him to twist upon. Use or abuse, it was all the same to him. Skinner felt the muscle under his jaw coiling up. Goddamn it, he hadn't asked for this either.
All this time, he thought he'd had Mulder's measure and not a hint of any of this. Yet it had been happening. He wondered, not for the first time, what any of it was going to come to, if anything. They might end up with a pile of dead bodies and Mulder's methods of getting laid as common knowledge between them, like a wishbone in some monster's craw, forever feeding, forever choking. Unwillingly his mind vaulted to the first time he'd seen Mulder as he really was, playing and drawing on the memories, as if they had only been waiting for the right cue. The right cue, of course, seemed to fit behind too many of his thoughts.
He remembered Mulder fighting him for a cause that shaped his whole life and that Skinner, then newly belligerent himself, hadn't given a fuck about. Still Mulder had wrangled concessions for himself, losing very little in exchange. Skinner had sat back in his chair, outwardly untouched, impatient. Inside, his pulse was beating in sympathy with the defiance in Mulder's face. After that, he had gone ahead and done what no one had compelled him to do. He had begun to push his way into Mulder's shell, patiently taking every test, bearing each silence. And not until now did he understand that it had all been so safe. Compared to this, those lazy overtures had the flavor of something shameful. They were like the laying of fingers on a live wire just long enough to get the safe shock, feeling a bit of what it was like, and then pulling back to safety. This was something else.
Registering Mulder's gaze, he understood that he had been following his own thoughts for too long. He raised an eyebrow, a signal for him to begin talking, taking a certain unworthy pleasure in the way the color rose in his cheekbones. Reluctantly, Mulder began to speak, his voice so low that Skinner had to lean forward slightly to catch his words.
"Kroeger, Richard Kroeger - he's one of them. He got me alone one night when I'd stayed back to do some work."
Skinner listened without much surprise. He'd heard rumors about cases that had been miraculously made out and lovers that never complained despite being seen with bruises and black eyes. But as far as he remembered, the lovers had always been female. Perfect, a repressed serial killer. That's all they needed.
"What did he do? What did he say?"
"Is he one of the two names or isn't he?" Mulder countered.
Skinner sighed irritably. "He is."
Mulder shot him a mutinous look before saying clearly, precisely, "He said that he knew what I liked and that he could give it to me. That he had been watching me."
"Is that it?" Skinner asked, more brusquely than he had intended, the conversation unnerving him.
"He bites when he kisses," Mulder replied, his answer suspiciously prompt.
"You didn't report it to anyone?"
"I had no complaint to make."
An eerily detached admission, only that mouth drawn tighter yet. Skinner started again, from another point. "You didn't find Kroeger threatening?"
Mulder shrugged. "Just unwelcome."
"What about when you heard about the bodies? Why didn't you report him then? You're not stupid."
"Oh yeah, I was going to come to you and explain how I like to get it, from strangers." Mulder snorted lightly in disbelief. "And what would you have done?"
Skinner shook his head angrily. "Don't turn it on me. What did you think I would do? As far as I know, you didn't come to see me. You thought I'd turn you in."
"Yes."
If Mulder felt any differently now, he made no attempt to reassure Skinner of the fact. Skinner made an effort to control his temper.
"Well, now you'll never know." He spoke dispassionately but his voice lowered an octave, even though he resisted it for a moment. He couldn't help it. Mulder was like a rabid dog, with its back to the wall. Ready for some reckless action. Well, no takers here.
"I just..." Mulder faltered and then stared at Skinner, his eyes uncertain and full of light. He looked very young.
When it was clear that Mulder wasn't going to finish the thought, Skinner asked the other necessary question. "Who's the other guy?"
Mulder picked his words with care. "Steve Bagnio. He's partners with Jane Higgins, you know her. She's very good. He was nothing like Kroeger. Charming, intelligent. Also made it clear what he was into."
"You obviously didn't find Bagnio unattractive." A bald statement of fact from Skinner.
"No, I didn't." Mulder replied in kind, steadily meeting Skinner's eyes, wondering what patterns were being identified and tagged behind that calm exterior.
"You think he could be our UNSUB? Or Kroeger?"
He remembered Bagnio's quiet tenor, his relaxed demeanour. He thought of Kroeger, biting a kiss into his mouth and then finding Mulder's crotch, hard and eager. He thought of himself, childishly responsive to those third-rate tactics, so desperate for touch. He thought of Skinner, a failed marriage and a job that was going to bite the balls off him one day, when he would least expect it.
"Anyone could be a killer, given the right impetus. I could more easily tell you how each of them likes to take a dump, without having looked at any of the files that were used to do the work up. And are you or are you not going to tell me who was responsible for it?"
Obviously thrown off track despite himself, Skinner asked, ghoulishly fascinated, "You could really tell me how they take a shit?" Mulder opened his mouth at once and Skinner forestalled him hastily. "Spare me, Mulder. I believe you. The profile was worked up by Joe Fielding. I understand he's very good. And that you've worked with him." Skinner grinned suddenly."He remembers you, alright."
Mulder grinned back. He had liked Fielding. "I remember him from the Atlanta killings. He's very good. Not as good as me but he's very good."
Skinner shot him an unimpressed look. "Well, you can go home and get your things together. I'll come by and get you around 5:00 pm. I'll debrief you on the way. Don't worry about prescriptions and the like. Make a list and get it to me before you leave for the day and it'll be fixed up for you."
He was bewildered by the sudden change in tack. "Sir, don't you have to confer with...them or something?"
"Mulder, I've already cleared you."
Mulder swallowed back bile. Breathing and swallowing; he was becoming an old hand at these complex tasks. A real source of pride.
"What the hell was all this then? You like seeing me empty my stomach for fun?"
A sigh from the other side of the desk went a long way towards silencing him. " Agent Mulder, I'm not going to make a habit of explaining myself to you. You can bet on that. The point of going through with their questions is that I have to be satisfied you can do this. They shouldn't have given in to me in the first place. But I figured they would and I figured it would save us some time."
"Ah." He nodded a few times in a vigorous show of understanding, knowing he looked like a kid waiting for school to be out.
"5:00pm." Skinner said sternly, before dismissing him.
He nodded again and got the hell out of Skinner's office, earning himself a baleful look from Kim on his way out. By the time the day ended and he was back in his car again, he'd managed to get on Scully's bad side too. His mouth had run five steps ahead of the both of them, all day, in a display of jittery, shocked effervescence that he had been powerless to bring a halt to. Driving back towards his place, he had trouble suppressing snickers. He assumed it was shock but didn't really care. Updates from Loonytown reveal that Mulder and Skinner are going to play at pretend lovers. Skinner has seen running count of tapes showcasing Mulder's vibrantly satisfying sex life. All dirty laundry aired.
He found himself smiling at his reflection in the side mirror. It wasn't an entirely sane look but it didn't stop him from chuckling out loud. Despite orders, looked at himself again. Those would be laugh lines. He got in his door and looked around his apartment with something close to dismay. Home sweet home. His own version of it anyway. He liked it here, Mulder decided in a mild fit of panic and then thought that only Skinner could drive him to such alarming conclusions. That led to another bout of snickers, which turned into a full scale fit of gasping laughter, at the end of which his hands, very disobligingly, began to shake.
After a while, that too, stopped. It didn't take him all that long to pack and change into jeans and a sweater. Ran a comb through his hair, brushed his teeth, congratulated himself on his excellent presence of mind in subsequently packing the toothbrush into his bags and then sat miserably on the couch. Concentrate. No, wait. Relax, be relaxed. By the time Skinner arrived at 5:30 pm, he was draped all over the couch, half-asleep and trying to open his eyes in the face of Skinner's stone-faced appraisal. His first words gave Mulder every cause to be suspicious.
"Packing up your apartment take something out of you, Agent Mulder?"
Mulder nodded curtly, his eyes narrowed in suspicion at the bland inquiry. Yeah, ha-ha, very funny. Where the fuck were you?
"I detoured by the office once more and got all the files together."
Now he mind reads.
"Strictly speaking, I'm not allowed to grab them but I figure I'm entitled to a little leeway."
Yeah, I bet you get it too. Bemused, Mulder gathered up his bags and docilely followed Skinner down to a larger-than-life Range Rover and allowed his bags to be hurled like so much trash into a distinctly dusty and unaired trunk. He got in the front seat and thought sourly that it would be just like Skinner to get the nearest thing to a panzer he could find. Where were they going, to the motherfucking Bat Cave?
"You look a little unhappy, Agent Mulder. Having second thoughts?"
"No, I'm just tired," Mulder snapped back. "Can I just live over here or do you want an update when it's time to take my next breath, Sir?"
"Walter is fine."
Mulder choked and glared at Skinner who seemed intent on the road. Then a thought hit him, breathtakingly terrifying in its novelty.
He tumbled hastily into speech. "Okay but... but S-Walter, I don't want...I'd prefer it.... I don't like being called Fox."
Christ, can you sound a little more assertive and a little less like Orphan Annie? He turned his head just in time to catch the light snap through Skinner's eyes. He's laughing at me, the bastard. Only he didn't really feel bad. Felt good, in fact.
Skinner replied, laconic and dry, "You have nothing to worry about Mulder. I'm more than satisfied with having dropped the 'Agent' part. But if there is a particular nickname, something from younger days...I'd be happy to oblige."
Mulder struggled desperately for a moment but couldn't stop a small snicker escaping his tightly clamped mouth. Skinner glanced over at him, sun playing over his skull, a dip in his usually straight, firm mouth. Fucker, Mulder thought mildly. Opened his own mouth, and then shut it with a snap. It was better to leave something in reserve.
END OF PART 2
