A Home On The Range
(Part
7)
(Written
from May 2007 to June 2007)
Camping. It was just going to be the three of us escaping up the mountain for an overnighter, something we’d only done a couple of times in the past and only once since we’d gotten Jack. Fox had done pretty well roughing it atop our scenic backyard peak; 24 hours with no computer or television or video capability was anathema to him and I was damned proud of him for hanging in there. I think he may have actually enjoyed himself a little that last time, truth be told…Jack made him feel more secure, much more protected out in the midst of our so-called wilderness.
My feelings were only mildly hurt at his revelation, seeing as how there was no way even on my best scowling day I could compete with a growling, snarling, drooling and (fast – let’s not forget lightning fast) sharp-toothed canine in excess of 100 pounds to scare off impending wildlife of any and all kinds. (Okay, I totally agreed with Mulder about feeling safer but there was no way in hell he needed to know that; I was a former AD of the FBI and had no fear of anything that might be lurking in the desert…what could possibly be worse than all the shit Fox had chased for all those years?) Coyotes fled at the slightest murmur of Jack’s growl, and even then they were always far enough off in the distance so as not to even begin to really threaten any of us.
Past coyotes and bobcats, we had (thankfully) yet to encounter anything that could possibly even consider intimidating our four-legged boy…and so it was with much cajoling (on my part) and much pouting (on Fox’s part) and much tail-wagging (yeah, Jack’s) that we decided to head on up “our hill” for a big night out under the stars. Now having 2 ATV’s to pack up, there was no need for a return trip to the ranch in order to carry everything; I couldn’t help but notice Fox’s longing backwards glance at the house as we headed towards the gate at the far end of our property around 3:00 PM that Friday, engines revving, Jack his customary 100 yards or so ahead of us, pawing at the doors for us to open them and free him to fly up the mountain.
“What is it?” I asked him a few minutes later once we’d parked and dismounted in order to open the gate, Jack practically hyperventilating with his whimpering and excitement to take off like a white streak.
“I don’t know,” he said, sparing yet another nervous glance back at the house, “something just feels…off,” he finished.
“Well, I don’t know babe…but I do know that we are going to have a kick-ass time in our new 5-man tent and our new king-size air mattress that will quite nicely accommodate our zipped-together sleeping bags atop it…and you atop me if I have anything to say about it.” I waggled my eyebrows at him and he smirked at me with a playful snort, smacking my shoulder as he assisted me in unlocking and swinging open the heavy metal with a loud creak, Jack ignoring our simultaneous shouts at him to wait for his daddies as he bolted up the hill and out of sight within seconds.
“There goes that unruly son of yours Mulder,” I admonished him as we mounted our rides and motored slowly through the opening, leaving them idling as we got off once more, swung the gate shut behind us together, then headed back to our respective bikes for the ride up.
After we were once more situated, he paused and grinned at me before replying, “You pull that shit every time he takes off…you only call him my son when he’s purposely ignoring us – which isn’t often as you well know lover,” he smiled at me, “he’s ours when he’s behaving perfectly – or doing something cute and puppyish.”
“Huh, go figure Fox…I can’t imagine what experience we both might have shared in our not-distant-yet-enough past with someone that just couldn’t follow any rules whatsoever…hmmm, who could that be?” I opened my eyes wide and managed to keep a straight face as I shrugged at him and held my hands up in question.
“Fuck you, Walter…I’m so going to kick your ass when we get up that mountain,” he said as he revved up his ATV engine, leaning forward to let me know it was now a race, no holds barred, no quarter given – first one up was truly going to be the first…one…up. My cock was already twitching inside my jeans, and I mentally berated it for being so willing and so slutty…GOD what this man still did to me!!!
“Excuse me? I could’ve sworn you just said you were going to lick my ass when we get up to the top…last one up is…well, last one UP…right Fox?” I sneered loudly as I revved up my own bike and purposely pealed out so that the dirt flew up and nearly into his still smiling face, barely hearing his, “It’s ON, Walter!” in reply. And ON it was.
Half an hour later I had managed to beat Fox up the mountain (surprise, surprise…of course I can only assume he let me win on purpose just because he was such a gracious loser and had some sort of up of his own in mind), and had already unpacked the tent and laid it out by the time he puttered up to a stop just outside the area I’d chosen for our camp. He had a gift for recognizing my boundaries that way (all of them, though very few still existed…but I digress).
“Glad you could make it,” I grinned at him and reveled in the shake of his head he afforded me as he got off his bike and stalked towards me purposefully. I dropped the corner of the tent I was still trying to unroll and held my hands out in front of me (mockingly attempting to push him back, mind you) as I took a few steps back, pleasantly rewarded when he reached me and wrapped his arms around my waist, reaching up and pulling my face to his for some much-needed tongue-tying. Literally.
“You shouldn’t be in such a fucking hurry to get away from me, Walter…there are things I need to do to you…” he trailed off with a breathy moan before I stole what little air he had left to spare with my mouth, my hands tearing at his clothes as he panted and groaned, hearing similar sounds emanating from my own chest as he treated me with the same courtesies…all of them.
“Want you so bad…God I LOVE it when you go all macho and have-to-drive-fast mode…Unnnhhhh,” he let it slip out so long and so erotically (against my neck with his breath and his tongue and ohhhhh) that I had no choice whatsoever but to pull his nearly naked form to mine, grinding our cocks against one another as we clutched each others’ ass cheeks out here in the middle of nowhere, atop our mountain, creating enough friction to not only power a small country but bring one another off with echoed shouts of ecstasy. Panting and grinning like the idiots we were between sloppy open-mouthed kisses, our teeth clicking together from the proximity, both our bodies still twitching from the recent release we’d just shared, it took several minutes for us to gather our bearings.
“Nice work, lover,” I praised him moments after I’d regained my breath (and my sanity), looking down and inspecting the so-called ‘free-range housing’ work I’d initially attempted, “you nearly came all over our new tent. You would so be sleeping in the wet spot,” I told him as I busted out in hysterics, Fox following right along as we wrapped our arms back around each other and held on for…well, until we had to separate – long enough to at least make dinner and finish putting our tent up.
Tent pitched, fire pit built and roaring thanks to our packing just enough wood from the ranch to heat our dinner (and breakfast the next morning of course), potatoes wrapped in foil and sizzling appropriately alongside the bone-in steaks I’d purchased mere days earlier in anticipation of this very occasion, I stretched out alongside Fox, our fingers entwined and folding chairs practically one we were sitting so close. He popped the top off yet another Lager, taking a deep swill before handing it off to me and proceeding to stand and howl at the nearly full moon. I chuckled as I took a healthy swig from the can – finishing it, I noted – before setting it to rest on the ground alongside my chair with the last three we’d shared thus far.
“Mulder,” I said with a slight slur, drunk as I was on both his company and the several Lagers (on both our empty stomachs) we’d managed to imbibe already tonight. He merely smiled up at the sky, clearly buzzed and more importantly, relaxed beyond the small modicum of such that he usually allowed himself.
“Mulder?” I asked, this time managing to sound as though I were actually awaiting a response as the fire sizzled from the fat drippings off our soon-to-be dinner, the potatoes smoking their nearly-ready signal.
“Yes, your heinous,” he replied after several moments, breaking into uncontrollable gales of what could only be called giggles shortly thereafter (note to self – more Lager for Mulder on camping trips – the gales escaping his lips gave me goosebumps as well as my own surge of joviality).
“Where’s Jack?” I asked, my slurring suddenly becoming a thing of the past, sobering by the second as I realized that our third party was MIA, standing from my chair as I realized that our…our son…was missing.
“Whuh…what? WHAT?” Mulder screeched, suddenly looking around desperately, standing up so fast his own chair flailed backwards with a thud into the dirt below.
“Jack? JACK? JAAAAACK,” Fox shouted, attempting to whistle – badly, since he’d never been able to do so before now anyway – maniacally circling our camp and screaming for our now-noticeably missing third party.
“JACK!” I screamed alongside Mulder, then whistled as loudly and as long as I could…but nothing...for long terrible minutes nothing…and then…
With both of us doing our best to call our errant beast to us we heard it – a telltale bark…followed by a great blur of white streaming into our camp, only stopping when both Mulder and I had been knocked directly to our butts by the canine in question. Jack’s great pink tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, eagerly sitting and awaiting at least a gallon of water that he drank sloppily (as we poured and watched), slumped against one another in relief, all thoughts of romance and dinner forgotten…dinner? DINNER…and the scent of blackened foil wafted its way to the two of us who’d hoped to eat it while still humanly edible.
“Goddammit,” I said gruffly, unwilling to give in to the relief I felt at seeing our fucking dog come bounding into camp, no longer caring about the steaks that were done past the way we might even think about eating them, or the potatoes that were now briquettes merely fuelling said blackened meat. “Those were fucking Aged New York Strips…”
Mulder knew how much this night meant to me. He knew that this was, technically speaking, our Anniversary night, and he perked right up and rose to the occasion as best he could. Aged New York Strips or not, Jack was going to eat pretty damn well tonight…although if Fox had anything to say about it, I wasn’t going to go hungry…on any level. He kicked the appropriate amount of dirt over the fire in order to leave it merely smoking, no flames visible or felt. He reached in with tongs past the burnt foil housing the remnants of the potatoes and pulled the blackened meat from the grate, shrugging at me with a drunken and only half-guilty smirk as he tossed the beyond overdone succulents to Jack.
“Look, I know our boy has been very bad…and I know that he’s going to be the only being capable of swallowing what was supposed to be our dinner, okay?” Fox said after several minutes had passed, the so-called meat appropriately disposed of by our son. Mulder ushered Jack into the tent at the same time that he zipped the huge door shut behind our ‘boy’. Forgetting about ‘our boy’ just as easily as ‘our boy’ had forgotten about the meal he’d just wolfed down, I wrapped my arms around Fox and pulled him to me. “But I want to give you something else to eat…something else to devour – me,” he finished as he claimed my mouth with his own, his tongue ravishing every inch of me that he could reach as his arms snaked around me and held me close…the only thing I was truly hungry for if I were brutally honest.
He pressed his body down into mine, my back sinking into our combined sleeping bags and sagging just comfortably enough into our air mattress; I instantly forgot about the $50 I’d just spent on steaks and veggies for this special evening and concentrated on nothing more than him and me, flesh on flesh, rolling around with reckless abandon on our very own mountain, our gluttonous ‘son’ passed out on his side at the entryway of our tent with his back to us, allowing us all the privacy we needed to heat up our appetites and quench them…simultaneously…the way we’d practiced so well over the past months, coming to fruition together. And again until there was nothing more than the snores of Fox and Jack echoing around the inside of our new tiny mountain escape…and I could swear the glint of a shooting star permeated my eyelids just before I drifted off at that very moment, my arms wrapped around my love as firmly as his were holding me, our giant dog/horse stretched over our feet, and I swear I slept with a smile affixed to my face – the slightest pangs of complaint from my stomach more than happily ignored this night.
It was well past sun-up the next morning when I came to, surprisingly enough alone inside our tent. I was usually the one prodding Fox up and at ‘em, but for whatever reason he beat me to the so-called punch. Shock after shock greeted me; the smell of a campfire had awakened me from a sound, satiated sleep and then the scent of coffee kicked in. “Fox?” I muttered aloud gruffly from within the confines of our now christened outside (all-too-nearly) and in newly-acquired shelter, wondering just what had tilted the world at such an axis that I might be experiencing these sensations. If I weren’t the one preparing the food – normally – it just wouldn’t be prepared.
No answer forthcoming, I made my (naked, mind you) way out of the tent, the now nearly mid-morning sun blinding in its intensity. “Fox,” I questioned once more, though much less vehemently once I took in the caffeine bubbling up into the percolator and the eggs firming up nicely in the pan resting on the grate over a healthy campfire. “Have I died and gone to heaven? Of course if I were in heaven, my lover would be right here alongside me and there would be no need for me to be wondering where he was,” I said casually as I watched him, from my peripheral vision, attempt to sneak up on me and pounce…only to be thwarted at the last second as I turned towards him and caught him bodily, pulling him against me and relishing in the fact that he was only wearing skimpy smiling alien boxers and nothing else.
He wrapped his arms around my neck as his lanky legs slinked around my waist, licking and biting at my neck as I mirrored his actions, managing to finally pull his face to mine so that I could devour his mouth properly with mine. Before I could even ask, Jack came bounding back into the campsite from wherever he’d been, panting and drooling appropriately – just as I was managing to do over his other father. As Jack jumped up on both of us, I released Fox with a hearty grunt and a laugh, watching as Mulder teased and taunted our son while our breakfast sizzled away behind them.
“Goddammit Fox, I already missed dinner last night because of our child…I need sustenance,” I shouted as he hollered, chased and was chased around the campsite by Jack. I took a deep sigh and shook my head as I relegated myself to the duty of chef – and daddy, of course…blessing my lover for the headway he’d managed to make on this meal at the very least. I loved him so much…both of them, truth be told; but always and forever my Mulder.
“Soup’s on,” I shouted once the eggs had firmed up and the coffee had reached readiness, filling Fox’s and my plates with perfectly halved portions of breakfast. I thought twice about the dog chow before I rolled my eyes – which no one was watching, of course – and scraped the pan leftovers atop Jack’s already heaping bowl. “And yours too Jack,” I finished as I wiped my hands on my bare thighs and plopped my bare ass down into one of the folding chairs we’d brought as I dug in. Fox came along seconds later, out of breath and looking at me quizzically as though I might have waited for him to delve into our morning feast…and then he snickered aloud as he picked up his own plate and plopped his own half-naked ass into the chair alongside mine, our elbows touching constantly as we jointly devoured breakfast, watching Jack do the same. We were content just to be – all three of us – and that was all I could have asked for at this moment or any other; I loved my man and I loved my dog and all was right in the universe.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
“Walt, let’s stay up here another night,” Fox said casually as he put out the breakfast fire and dumped the rest of the dishes into the Rubbermaid bin we’d brought for such things – easily packed and re-packed with any and all manner of necessities before, during and after camping trips. I froze where I stood, unsure if I’d heard him correctly – bent over naked as I was in the nearly 11AM desert mountain air, putting the last of the dirtied things in their place – the self-proclaimed king of ‘I-Can’t-Live-Without-Modern-ANYTHING’ managing to blow my mind for the second time this trip (the first time having been last night).
I straightened up and looked at him as seriously as I could given my current state, raising one eyebrow (not to mention a little of something else entirely) and putting my hands on my hips in my best attempt to mock sternness while totally nude and replied, “Are you fucking kidding me, Mulder?”
He bent over laughing, grabbing his belly as he guffawed loudly, the sounds echoing up here in the midst of our mountain sanctuary. “Nuhh…HA…nuh – HA! - no Walt, I’m not kidding. Yesterday was fun…and last night was…how should I put this,” he paused with a huge shit-eating grin plastered across his face, “aaa-fucking-mazing. I’d be a fool if I didn’t take full advantage of this mountain air on your libido…among other things,” he snickered suggestively and shrieked as I attempted to close the few feet between us and grab him bodily. He managed to just escape my questing palms-out hands, and I stopped and leaned down to put my hands on my knees as I broke out into hysterics of my own.
“Hey…while you’re bent over like that,” he said with a growl as he stalked slowly towards me from the other side of the now-extinguished campfire, and I could only bring myself back up to my full height and hold my hands out in front of me, shaking my head as I ducked back into our tent and held the still-unzipped doors closed against his mock impending onslaught.
“NO! Mulder come on, if we really are going to stay up here another night, you’re going to have to go home and get some more food. And wood,” I finished with what could only be called some sort of giggle.
“Awww, c’mon Walt, I’ve got all the wood we’re gonna’ need until tomorrow…honest,” he whined at me as I laughed aloud, grabbing his hips through the nylon and pushing his air-humping waist away from the tent’s entry zipper.
“GO! Go back down to the ranch…you can take the dirty dishes with you,” I yelled at him as he snickered aloud and grabbed the Rubbermaid bin on his way to his ATV, using a few ever-present bungee cords to secure the container to the back of his bike.
“Okay,” he paused for a minute, “but I’m not giving you any when I get back,” he shouted back over his shoulder as he revved up the bike with a mock-cowboy shout of, “YEEE-HAAWWWW,” and yelled for Jack to follow behind. I shook my head inside the tent, dropping down on my bare butt atop our shared and hopelessly mussed bed from last night, smiling as I leaned back and sniffed in the stale scent remnants of our lovemaking. I brought my folded arms behind my head, threading the fingers of both hands together at the base of what was left of my hair and closed my eyes in relaxed pleasure, nothing but pure joy infusing my entire being as I closed my eyes and pictured my lover’s face in my mind’s eye, riding his way back up the mountain towards me, our great white beast following closely behind (or ahead, as was Jack’s protocol)...and I drifted off with a huge grin pasted across my face.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Fox couldn’t have been gone more than 7 or 8 minutes when I first heard it; any longer than that and he most surely would have been out of earshot. I lay there on our shared bed in the tent, the flap hanging open and blowing in the barely-there breeze, catnapping as only a lazy Saturday afternoon will allow you when the sound reached me. It wasn’t any sound that I’d heard before; not from Mulder in all the years we’d known one another (despite the numerous horrors he’d undoubtedly encountered), and not in any way, shape or form since we’d adopted Jack. This sound was one of pure terror – terror and yes…pure pain – and it stole my breath away even as I jumped up and pulled on my jeans, a tee-shirt and my boots as I made my way out of the tent, panting and pulling my wire rims on as I hopped instinctively onto my ATV, revved it up and quite literally flew out of our campsite.
Something was wrong – way wrong. Beyond wrong if that scream still echoing in my head had anything to do with it…and some sick feeling in the pit of my guts told me it did. “Mulder,” I whispered as I kicked the bike into gear with my still-unlaced boots and made my way down the trail towards the ranch…the same path my lover had taken mere minutes earlier. I shouldn’t have nodded off…I shouldn’t have let him go alone…I should have offered to go and get supplies myself; Fox never wanted to stay up here more than half a day or so…I should have known something bad would happen. He told me before we even left home that something felt off…oh God Fox, please be okay, pleasebeokaypleasebeokaypleasebeokay – this became my mantra as I headed down the trail, half-expecting to just find him tossed from his bike, needing a hand so that I could just ‘tsk’ him strongly and assist him back onto the ATV. If only it had been that easy…if only.
I sped down the trail, oblivious to the usual Cholla and Prickly Pear cacti that partially blocked the way, plowing through it as though it were any other kind of desert brush; the spines lodging firmly in the tops of my boots and denim-clad shins did little more than provide a sense of urgency for me to get closer to Fox, that screaming sound having stopped moments ago, worrying me that much more. “Fox…FOX!” I screamed over the churning of my ATV’s motor, frantic to reach my lover as quickly as I could, “FOohhhkkkss---,” my shout trailing off. I stopped in mid-rant as I saw the still-spinning tires of his four-wheeler, resting harmlessly and seemingly undamaged on its right side, momentarily obscuring a scene much more serious and horrific than I might ever have imagined.
His scream had died off not because of some grave four-wheeling injury…but because the jaws of a great beige-colored cat held his very head prisoner. The huge feline held the back of my lover’s entire brilliant noggin in its mouth, sharp teeth all too obviously perforating the hair and scalp of my precious Fox, chin tucked to his chest as best as he could to shield his face, obscured completely by the profiled maw of the wild desert beast. Two great khaki paws pinned my love to the ground all-too-firmly, and I watched helplessly as Mulder went less-than-willingly from flailing fighter to all-too-soon exhausted prey…and that’s precisely when I officially lost it. I screamed without making any words at all, my sole purpose merely to make that cat release my love…and still the cat held, and held even as I made my way towards them before falling to my knees directly in front of the hideous scene – simultaneously driving too many cactus spines to count that much further into my shins through my jeans. I didn’t care…the scarlet escaping my love’s body and staining the face of the cat enraged me past the point of feeling anything at all…save for saving the other half of my soul.
Apparently I was not the only family member to lose my mind upon finding Fox in his current state; I was still bodily vibrating and howling, shaking and trying to pull Fox towards me by the legs as Jack barreled his way onto the scene and with much snarling and frothing of the lips, he managed to get a hold on the back of the cat’s neck. The cougar instantly released Mulder’s now-mangled head, allowing me to fall bodily back onto my ass, pulling my heavily bleeding lover towards me. I carefully turned Fox to his side and into my lap as I watched Jack. It was like a dream, like some sort of National Geographic special or other…and that white snarling, growling, drooling boy that we called our son grabbed hold of that fucking cat’s scruff and refused to let go, even as said feline led Jack away from the scene, nothing but the echo of howling and mewling and the dregs of mixed dog and cat saliva resting atop the hard, dry desert ground.
“Mulder,” I barely managed to murmur, sans spit, into his upturned ear as blood streamed down the side of his face from his mangled scalp. It was then that I noticed the tiniest bit of bone white of his skull peeking out from beneath the bloody hair, and it took everything in my already panicked state to not vomit heartily all over my precious bundle. I ripped the shirt right off his body in one swift movement and wrapped it tightly around his still-gushing scalp wound, grimacing as I once more noted the stark white of his exposed skull, managing to swallow it all back down behind clenched teeth as I tightened the makeshift bandage and cradled him even closer to me. I tore my shirt off and wrapped it tightly around his back, trying to staunch the flow of blood from that region of his body; it was all I could do for the gory claw holes in his flesh at the moment, having used his shirt to try and keep his head in one piece. He merely shook in my arms, shock obviously setting in and forcing me into unconscious action. Despite what I’d just glanced and without further delay I held him tightly to me and carefully mounted my still-running ATV, Fox in my arms like a mother would cradle a newborn child.
“Hold on baby…I’ll get help,” I assured him as he shook and seized in my grasp, barely maintaining my own facilities as I raced back down the rest of the path at completely unsafe speeds towards our house, steering with my right hand as I clutched Fox to me for dear life with my left. I didn’t dare glance down at the bloody, broken wreck laid across my lap; it was enough that I could feel the heat from his very life force seeping into the thighs of my jeans and dribbling down my bare chest (despite both our shirts as makeshift bandages) as the seconds ticked by and I found myself screaming, “Fox you stay with me Goddammit…you staystaystaywithme…staystaystay…stay with me Mulder,” over and over until I finally made it to our back porch.
I looked down at him for the first time since I’d scooped him up in my arms on the hill when I reached the gate; his face was ghostly white, undoubtedly from the blood loss he’d suffered – despite my haste in getting us back to the ranch. I laid him gingerly down on the ground and limped to the gate doors; I was in shock myself, the needles stuck into my shins nothing compared to the pure and steadily rising panic I felt about my lover’s condition. Throwing the door open, I gently pulled Fox back into my arms and remounted the bike, speeding across the acres to our back patio. I dismounted the bike and carried him up the steps to the back porch deck, screaming aloud in agony and frustration that I’d neglected to grab my house keys as I kicked in the back door. The screen and inside door shuddered and splintered from one boot-clad kick, and I carried my love into the house, gently laying him down on the sofa before I wheeled around and grabbed the wireless.
Out of breath and having already sweated out my meager water intake what now felt like days ago, I awaited a response, praying over and over again in some twisted mantra that I wouldn’t get the same inept bitch that had been unable to trace the call when I’d had my snakebite. After three rings, “9-1-1, what is your emergency, Mr. Skinner?” I exhaled with what could only be called some sort of miracle reserve of air that I never knew I possessed, and croaked as loud as I could, “Ambulance…cougar attack…help…” and I let the phone drop to the tile just before I made my way back to Fox, dropping to my knees alongside the couch and frantically checking his wounds. I jumped back up long enough to run and throw the front door wide open, then bee-lined back to my lover. The tee shirt I’d wrapped around his head was soaked in blood, seeping onto the sofa cushions and forcing a telltale lump into my throat that grew as the stain did.
More worrisome than the head wound, Mulder’s breathing was coming in short, gasping pants. I pulled my shirt up a bit from his back and immediately figured out what had happened; that goddamn cat had managed to pierce one of his lungs with its claws; I swear I could hear his lung deflating even as he lay here before me, bleeding out in our fucking living room.
“Fox…oh baby, c’mon sweetheart, you gotta’ breathe for me Mulder, c’mon…the ambulance is on its way this time I swear,” I assured him as I attempted to put pressure on the chest wound. All that did was force him to elicit a single, bubbly-sounding groan and then he relaxed…too much…no more visible chest movement.
“FUCK,” I screamed as I leaned bodily over him, pinching his nose with my left forefinger and thumb and tilting his damaged head back from the chin with my right, placing my lips over his; not in our usual passionate kiss but out of sheer life-giving necessity, forcing my own air into him as best I could, practically hyperventilating despite what little emotional control I had left at the moment.
Whoosh…whoosh…whoosh…I breathed into him over and over again, rhythmically and regularly every few seconds up until I heard the paramedics making their way in unknown minutes later. “Here, in here goddammit,” I shouted hoarsely despite knowing they could see us as soon as they entered the house, getting weakly to my feet and standing back so they could get him hooked up as well as possible for transport.
“Mr. Skinner, you did a great job here…he’s hanging in there nicely, his vitals are good and even,” the lead paramedic told me. I did little more than nod in his direction, eyes bugged practically out of my head as I watched them strap Fox to the gurney, “Sir, you’re going to need to ride along with us,” the partner told me, “you have quite a few cacti stuck in your shins…the docs can get those out for you,” he finished as I stared at him, glassy-eyed, and managed to nod again as he ushered me ahead of him, following Fox into the ambulance. I stared out the transport doors into our unending backyard, wondering just what had happened to our third party; I closed my eyes as tears leaked out against my wishes and the paramedics shut the doors. The blaring siren was barely enough to keep me conscious as we sped towards the hospital; I nearly passed out from exhaustion, shock and what was surely dehydration…but with Fox’s shaking yet still-warm hand in mine, it was all I needed to relax the tiniest bit…for now.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
That Evening…
I must have fallen asleep at some point…I woke abruptly when whatever shift nurse had been assigned to me tugged the slightest bit on the IV attached to my arm, my eyes opening and sharp intake of breath enough to make her jump slightly and utter with a nervous laugh, “Mr. Skinner, welcome back! How are you feeling?” She smiled down at me with what I was certain were the best of intentions, yet I could afford her only a single harshly whispered word in reply, “Fox?”
“Mr. Skinner? I’m going to call your doctor and let her know you’re awake…she’s been quite concerned about you since you passed out earlier this afternoon. You’re going to be just fine; they got all the cactus spines out of your shins and you shouldn’t have any permanent marking at all. Is there anything I can get you, sir?” She prattled on with that dopey smile and if I’d had the inclination at the moment all I could see myself doing was sitting up and grabbing her by the throat and demanding to see my lover; since I couldn’t bring myself to ruin her day like that, I managed to simply shake my head and turn away from her. She obviously had NO clue whatsoever about Fox and I would be better served waiting for her to call my doctor.
It took a good 45 minutes for my doctor to appear – as expected – and when she entered my room, I sat up straight and looked her directly in the eye. She afforded me a half-smile and held her hand out to me, “Hello Mr. Skinner, my name is Dr. Wolfe and-” that was all the further she got before I interjected.
“Fox Mulder is my lover and he was admitted along with me, with serious injuries due to a cougar attack. I would very much appreciate an update on his condition and I fully and totally expect to be transferred to his room. If that is going to be an issue due to any homophobic tendencies you or any other staff of this hospital may share, I will be more than happy to pay our bill in cash as it stands at this moment and be transferred to…” she cut me off in mid-rant; I felt more comfortable almost instantly, and moreso once she finished speaking moments later.
“Whoa Whoa WHOA, Mr. Skinner! Glad to see you’re feeling better,” she began as she pulled up a wheeled stool alongside my bed and sat on it, checking my chart with that half-smile growing just a bit at my impatience. “Your Mr. Mulder made it through surgery quite swimmingly – thanks mostly to your buddy-breathing and immediate direct-pressure attention. I see that you’re ex-FBI…is that where you learned your medical skills?” She asked me, and I found myself flushing despite my best attempts to not do so.
“His ex-partner was a doctor,” I said quietly, “she’d seen him in all sorts of disarray…I just figured that when his breathing started sounding bubbly I should…I should…” my voice trailed off with an emotional edge that I wasn’t prepared for, and she patted my shoulder as she stood and pushed the stool back across the linoleum with the back of her heel. She picked up the chart from the foot of my bed and glanced over it before she spoke once more.
“It’s okay, Mr. Skinner, honest. He’s going to be okay; it did take roughly 237 stitches to put your man back together again,” she said seriously as she looked at me over the top of my chart, “he’s up in Intensive Care purely because we’re concerned about infection. All cats are notorious for their filthy mouths and claws and since we have no knowledge of the oversized feline that got to your Mr. Mulder, we have no choice but to pump him full of all manner of antibiotics in order to stave off whatever might want to settle inside him, especially due to his punctured lung, though that injury was, quite luckily, very minor. I do want to stress, however, that you did the very best thing imaginable with CPR and wrapping him up as you did. I’m sure that…” I cut her off there; I didn’t need her coddling words of false hope. I wanted to know how Mulder was. Period.
“Dr. Wolfe, I appreciate your candor regarding my so-called efforts where my partner is concerned, and I am thrilled that you managed to pull all the cactus needles out of my shins in the meantime…however, Fox Mulder is the other half of me and if you could see fit to wheel my ass up to wherever he is currently residing at the moment I would be most agreeable and enthusiastic. I can only be so polite about the issue at hand this once, after which time I will become the most disagreeable patient you’ve ever encountered,” I finished with a shit-eating grin which she took in stride and met with the first REAL smile of her own I believe anyone in the hospital might have seen in the past…well…ever.
“Very well, Mr. Skinner,” she began, “I’ll have an orderly
dispatched immediately to wheel you up to your partner’s room. We’ll make the
room’s additional bed available for you as long as you require. Glad to see
you’re feeling better,” she finished with a slight wink at me. “I’m sure Mr.
Mulder will be quite glad to hear that you’re close,” she said quietly as she
exited my room. I’m not entirely certain she caught my weakly whispered, “Thank
you” before she made her way up the hallway and out of what she figured was
earshot for a so-called “old” guy like me. Just as I’m certain she didn’t
assume I’d heard her own quietly muttered confession, “Connie, I am so going
to love you that much harder when I get home tonight,” and I couldn’t have
smiled wider having heard her confession. Bless you, Dr. Wolfe…and Connie.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
It was another hour or so before I was wheeled up to Fox’s room; of course I didn’t require their goddamned wheelchair, but it was that or be denied access to Mulder and everyone knew by the time I’d groused heartily on the subject that that wasn’t an option. I was trying to behave myself, honestly I was…it’s just that the idea of my other half being so out of commission drove me insane with unbridled worry and inflamed my need to be nearby.
“Fox,” I whispered aloud as I was pushed into the room; he was wrapped like a mummy, nothing but his face showing. His head was surrounded by gauze and bandaging so that just his eyes, nose and mouth showed; ditto for his chest, nothing above his belly button uncovered by swaddling. Tears welled up in my eyes as the duty nurse got me settled in my new bed-cum-watchtower, carefully tucking the sheets in atop my own lightly bandaged shins and feet. There was no pain for me; as far as my mind was concerned my sole care was the currently all-too-fragile looking man next to me who had mere hours earlier loved me within an inch of my own life…and now…and now.
I let the orderly finish getting me set up, including attaching a new IV bag of fluids, and then we were left alone; my poor mauled Fox and myself injured and in separate beds when all we’d aimed for all weekend was to be together…inseparable…one. As soon as the nurse left, I sat up in bed and swung my legs over the side, my bare feet already closer to my intended target than the rest of me – but only momentarily. Leaning back so I could clutch the IV stand and swing it around the bed, I got to my feet once I was in no danger of becoming entangled in anything. The wheelchair was still by my bed and I sat in it and toed my way over to Fox’s bedside, IV stand along with me until I was able to grasp his too cool and limp left hand between both of mine, bringing his knuckles up so I could press my lips to them as though he were the finest treasure – and indeed he was. I closed my eyes and relished the feel of his work-roughened skin against my mouth, feeling less than manly as more tears made their way out of the corners of my clenched-shut orbs.
‘Knock it off, Walt…he’s going to be fine,’ I told myself over and over until I actually believed it and swallowed down what felt like an apple lodged in my throat. I placed his hand back down along his side, still holding it gently in my own left hand as I reached towards his pale left cheek with my right hand quivering just a bit, overcome with emotion as I was at being able to be this close to him after our hellish day. Just as I was ready to brush my knuckles gently across his cheekbone, he sputtered a bit and took a deeper breath – the anesthetic was wearing off and he was coming to. The monitors beeped a bit faster as his eyes fluttered…the back of my hand found his smooth face and he leaned into my touch ever so slightly, forcing a half-smile to my face. ‘That’s it baby, find your way back to me…you always come back to me, you always have and this is no exception…breathe my love,’ I whispered that last aloud and watched as his eyes continued to flutter, the monitors alarming the sentiment I felt as he came back to consciousness little by little.
Finally his eyes stayed open and I watched as the pupils focused first on the ceiling, and then his mummy-wrapped head turned towards me and I smiled at him as big as I could manage, waiting to see what would happen next. I felt his fingers twitch inside mine and I instantly firmed up my grip a bit, wrapping my own digits around his. His mouth opened and closed a bit, looking more like a fish out of water than my never-at-a-loss-for-words lover, and I heard a clicking sound emanate from between his open lips as he attempted to work up enough spit to do something – anything but lie here still and death-like. Seconds later, I was rewarded with his first sound since the trauma on our mountain; I saw his throat work, that beloved Adam’s Apple bouncing up and down as he tried to speak, and then he did it…I was waiting to hear my name uttered from that beloved mouth and I was certain it would be the first thing on his mind. I closed my eyes in pure bliss and it was like an earthquake coming from inside his whole body, he was trying so hard to make that one sound. And as the nurses came in, alerted to his wakefulness from the multitude of machinery hooked up to him, I ignored them and listened closely for my reward – my love’s first words upon waking from near-death would most certainly be mine...and then I heard it; muffled and hoarse, but clear.
“j…juhhaaacckkkkk…”
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
ALRIGHT, dammit. This WAS supposed to be the last chapter…but I sat down and started writing and now it appears that there WILL be a Chapter 8. And yes, it WILL be the final chapter, muse be damned. LMAO…what’s an author to do????!!!! Thanks for reading, if you still are. Feedback welcomed to duranjaxter@comcast.net
Thanks for surfing here! :0)