Skinner stepped out onto the porch, took a deep breath, and immediately grimaced, sure that he was feeling actual ice crystals enter his lungs. He’d never for a moment regretted his decision to move to rural Alberta, but he had to admit, he wasn’t altogether thrilled with the negative double-digits the thermometer hit in winter. 

He made his way across the porch, his scuffed hiking boots kicking up light snow as he walked, and he reminded himself that he would have to sweep it away and salt the path leading to the steps before the end of the day. 

He smiled at the sight of his lover’s back as Fox Mulder leaned against the porch railing, and it seemed as though the watery late-afternoon sunlight valiantly fighting it’s way through the sky suddenly felt a little warmer.

Seeing Mulder’s head cock slightly to one side, Skinner knew he wasn’t going to startle the younger man, and he confidently stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him, hugging him tightly and resting his chin on one parka-clad shoulder. He felt more than heard Mulder’s sigh, but recognized it as one of contentment. 

“What are we looking for, puppy?” he asked quietly, his lips close enough to Mulder’s ear that the other man shivered, and not from cold.

“Oh, you know,” Mulder replied in the same soft tone, “the truth…acorns…”

This comment earned him a peck on the cheek.

“Santa Claus…” Mulder added. Skinner snorted laughter.

“It shouldn’t surprise me that you believe in Santa Claus, should it?”

Instead of the smart-ass reply he was expecting, he heard another sigh, this one sounding less content, and more forlorn.

“Hey,” Skinner turned Mulder to face him. The younger man came around willingly, but wouldn’t meet his lover’s eyes once they were face-to-face. “What’s this now?” Skinner asked. He got a shrug in reply, and that silent action told him this was a little more than regular Christmas blues, which even he was subject to.

He gave Mulder a sharp hug, and the other man fell into it almost greedily. Skinner noted the tension in his lover’s back and arms, even as said arms were wrapping around his waist. For one moment, Mulder let himself be held silently, and Skinner thought he could almost feel a wave of misery ripple over him. But a second or two later, Mulder straightened up, and turned to regard the cold silent woods again.

Skinner knew that Mulder wanted to brood. He had spent enough time with his lover to recognize the signs. He knew that Mulder wanted to be left alone. That he wanted to find some reason to feel guilty, or hurt, or miserable, and then wallow in it.

He also knew that Fox Mulder didn’t always want what he thought he did.

He hugged Mulder from behind again, and nipped at a cold earlobe. 

“Puppy, it’s freezing out here. Come on inside. I’ll make some hot chocolate.”

Mulder spoke without looking back. “With marshmallows?”

“Of course.” Skinner reached down and squeezed a hand reassuringly, and Mulder allowed himself to be turned and led back into the cabin.

The scent of pine was strong, but not overwhelming, although for some reason it made Mulder feel like he was about ten years old. The tree that Skinner had brought in from the woods (Mulder had protested that there must be laws against just chopping down a tree like that, but Skinner had told him those laws didn’t count at Christmas) was large and full and imposing. The decorations were new and shiny and beautiful, the gold and glass balls creating small prisms of light when combined with the white mini-lights that had been carefully strung through the branches (a task which Mulder found he had no patience for, and so it had fallen to Skinner, who took to it like a fat kid to chocolate).

A fire was burning hot and bright in the fireplace, and when a pine knot burst in the flames with a pop, and sparks shot up the flu, Mulder jumped.

Skinner didn’t comment. Just took his lover’s coat as Mulder shrugged it off, then slipped out of his own and suggested, “Hey, isn’t Rudolph on in a few minutes?” (In an intimate moment, Mulder had shyly confessed that the puppet animation, cheesy as it was, was a personal favorite…and he thought the elf who wanted to be a dentist was cute).

“Meh,” Mulder replied, uncharacteristically gruff. “It’s just a big gay metaphor anyway.”

Skinner raised an eyebrow; Mulder looked guilty. Skinner hung their coats on pegs he’d put up in the hall last autumn; Mulder flopped down on the couch.

“Find something you do want to watch, Fox, and I’ll get the hot chocolate. How many marshmallows do you want?”

A shadow of a grin crossed Mulder’s face. “Forty-two,” he replied with no hesitation. Skinner thought that if they couldn’t find anything to distract them this afternoon, he could always put in the sit coms he’d taped during the week. The Christmas episodes held far more charm than most of the regular episodes, Mulder seemed to enjoy them, and they’d already watched a couple of them more than once—quoting from them always brought that particular smile to Mulder’s face.

In the kitchen, Skinner turned up the heat under the kettle on the stove, then rummaged through the cupboards for mugs, chocolate mix, marshmallows. He glanced over at the sink, gave the huge carcass lying there a frown, then moved over to it and gave it an experimental poke.

The turkey didn’t move. This was a good thing. It did give some under his finger, though, and he thought it just might be thawed in time to go into the oven some time tomorrow morning. This was also a good thing. He hoped there was enough food. Somewhere in his life development, he had adopted his mother’s attitude; So long as he could provide plenty to eat and drink, everything would somehow be all right.  Of course, his mother hadn’t ever lived with Fox Mulder, a man who would turn up his nose at a five course meal, then turn around and eat pre-sweetened cereal right out of the box, wash it down with orange juice, right from the carton, naturally, and then complain that he was gaining too much weight. He’d eat chips and cheezies and popcorn without thought, as long as it was put in front of him, but a dinner with all the food groups represented seemed to be too much work, or take too much time, or something, and Skinner found himself working extra hard to find things that would entice his lover to eat. But even when it was something that appealed to Mulder, he ate quickly, sparingly, and with little enthusiasm. There was no talking during the meal, and more often than not, Mulder would find an excuse to get up from the table early.

Skinner knew there was some past unresolved issue there, but had been unable to breach the defenses Mulder had thrown around that particular neurosis, and so he simply offered the man a vitamin or two whenever he himself took one (Mulder never turned them down, and once had gone off on a tangent about the future, when whole meals would be processed in pills, sounding like a bad episode of Outer Limits), kept an eye on the man’s weight (they might not have owned a scale, but Skinner knew how Mulder should feel, both under him and on top of him, and he could tell if there’d been weight loss), and tried to show Mulder all the love he felt for him.

Most of the time it was enough.

The kettle whistled for attention, and Skinner poured steaming water into two cups heaped with chocolate powder. In Mulder’s cup, the marshmallows he’d stuffed into it began to melt and blend with the chocolate. 

As he stirred the two cups of sweet chocolatey goodness, he supposed that he’d have to try and draw out whatever Mulder had on his mind. He also supposed that it was going to suck like Electrolux doing it (and definitely not in a good way), and that they might even have a bit of a fight. He knew Mulder’s defense mechanisms nearly as well as his own, and knew that Mulder knew them even better. And nothing was worse than feeling bad, unless it was feeling bad and knowing why, and then feeling even worse for that knowledge. So he steeled himself for a difficult time ahead, topped their drinks with a sprinkle of chocolate shavings (In a fit of Marthaness, Mulder had insisted they needed to keep a jar next to the cream and sugar decanters on the counter), and tossed a bright red and green candy cane into Mulder’s just because.

Mulder was leaning into the overstuffed coziness of the couch, alternating interested looks at the television with baleful glances at the Christmas tree. His feet were up on the coffee table, and he was clutching one of the matching throw cushions with a toddler-at naptime-ferocity. Skinner knew better than to comment. He simply held out a mug, and after Mulder took it from him, sat himself down beside his lover, and brought his own legs up so that their feet, clad in identical thick wool work socks, just brushed one another. A quick glance from Mulder held a sparkle in his eyes, but his lips stayed stubbornly pouted, even when Skinner tried a little footsie.

With a sigh, Skinner abandoned Mulder’s feet for his cup of hot chocolate, and, while blowing on the steaming liquid, he asked, “What’s on?” Deep in his heart, he wasn’t asking about television.

“Nothing.” Mulder was giving him more than just tv listings. “Just the same old holiday crap.”

“Crap? I thought you liked Christmas specials. ‘Intrinsic to the entire holiday experience’ you said.” Skinner gave him a level stare, not unkind, but with enough intent that Mulder recognized that there was more going on here than just a conversation about Frosty, Rudolph and the Peanuts gang. So he did what any good psychologist would do. He ducked it like a soldier in a field full of snipers.

“Why did we decide that everyone would come here tomorrow?” he asked, and they both tried to ignore the whine in his voice. 

“You know it’s easier for the guys to travel than us,” Skinner explained, patiently speaking the words he’d heard from his lover weeks ago, when he’d been in a less gloomy frame of mind. “And John and Dana and William are less likely to cause questions at the border than us.”

“Boystown is open. We could send ‘em all there for supper.” Mulder was still looking down into his hot chocolate. He took a large sip, burned his mouth, and turned to Skinner wearing a chocolate and marshmallow moustache. Skinner knew he was goofing to get out of talking, but he couldn’t help but smile anyway. Leaning forward, he licked the sweetness from his lover’s mouth, leaving a small grin in its place.

“You taste good,” he told Mulder. The other man turned channels on the television. He found the Christmas puppet show he liked so much, and pretended boredom as he dropped the remote onto the table. 

“Why am I such a misfit?” sang Hermie the Elf, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer joined him.

“We’re not sending our friends to eat Christmas dinner at a gay bar with drag queens,” Skinner said sternly. He paused only a moment to let them both briefly enjoy that little visual, and then he pinned Mulder with an even more intense gaze, and said quietly, “Christmas is hard, isn’t it?”

Mulder gave his cup of cocoa a miserable look, then set the cup aside and sat up and offered Skinner a completely sunny and false smile. “Hey, it’s no big deal. It’s just Christmas.”

“You still miss her, don’t you?” Skinner pressed.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mulder replied stiffly.

“You know what I mean, puppy. Samantha took your Christmas with you when she disappeared, and you’ve never really gotten it back.” Skinner cringed at the sudden flash of hurt in Mulder’s eyes, but didn’t look away, so he got to see shutters of cool anger suddenly slam down over Mulder’s expression as the younger man stood and muttered, “Forget it.”

“Fox—“

Mulder stood up, marched briskly from the room, and a moment later, Skinner heard the bedroom door slam shut.

End part 1

part two can be found here