18 MONTHS EARLIER

"…I'm the key figure in an ongoing government conspiracy…"

The bartender looked up past the patrons she was currently serving at the familiar voice and even more familiar words.  She saw that the man sitting slightly hunched over the bar was talking to her bus person, who must have inadvertently made the same mistake she'd made the first time she'd seen the man, and asked him what he did.

"…I'm an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers.  They call me Spooky…"

She couldn't help but grin as she dispensed beers to the men in line in front of her and took their money, and she made a few tips from the fellows who thought the smile was for them.  When the last man had taken away his alcoholic comfort in a bottle, she decided to rescue the busser, who was now trying unsuccessfully to wrench away the glass the man at the bar was holding.

"…You know, one is the loneliest number…" the bartender heard as she approached the other two men.

"I'll take care of this, Jason, why don't you check the washrooms, then see if you can scare up a few more ashtrays."

The busser abruptly let go of the glass, which was conveniently empty enough to leave just a medium sized stain as it tumbled out of Fox Mulder's hands and down his shirtfront.  The busser looked horrified at what he'd just done, but the bartender waved him away, and Mulder himself didn't seem to notice.

"Hey, Spooky," said the bartender as she discreetly shoved the empty glasses in front of Mulder into a bus pan beneath the bar, at the same time noticing with some alarm the greatly lowered level of the bottle of Jack Daniels in the liquor well next to it. She knew he'd been here when she arrived for her shift, but now she wondered just how long he'd been there.

"Hey," Mulder responded blearily.

"I heard you giving Jason you're usual song and dance routine.  You got nothing new for your adoring public this week?" She teased him with a smile that failed to register on him at all, although he seemed to be weighing her words carefully.  Of course, she thought, all that concentration might be just for staying upright, tonight.  For a moment she wondered who this infrequent if predictable customer was, and just what his real story might be.  He wasn't a bad looking fellow, dressed nicely, didn't smell like cheese.  She thought that maybe-

"I'm in love with my boss," he interrupted her train of thought.  Or more like derailed it. She'd heard his 'men-in-black-E.T.-phone-your-congressman-it's-all-about-me' spiel on more than one occasion, but she didn't think she'd heard this part of the speech.  She scrutinized his miserable face carefully.

"You ever drink Jack Daniels before?" she asked.

"At first I thought it was just physical, you know, the bees and the bees and the monkey babies, but I really think I'm in love."  At this he looked even more dejected.  Then he noticed for the first time the empty rocks glass in his lap.  He picked it up with the exaggerated care of the very intoxicated, set it heavily on the bar, righted it when it tipped over and pointed at it.

"Have you told her?" asked the bartender, ignoring his silent request for another drink.

This question seemed to stump him, and he stared at her in confusion and drunken dismay, as though the thought had never occurred to him.

"Well, then, I can see you have a lot on your mind tonight, Spooky, so why don't I call you a cab, and you can go home and decide what to do."

Mulder looked down at the empty glass, then looked up forlornly at her.  She pursed her lips in a no-nonsense frown that always seemed to work with him, and it worked again.  He sighed and reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

The bartender had time to call the cab and serve a few more customers at the other end of the bar before Mulder was able to extract the money to pay his tab.  He threw several bills on the bar, hoped it was enough, then slid gracelessly off the bar stool and more or less on to his feet.

"Need a hand?" The young busser was back, looking anxious to make up for spilling the last of Mulder's drinks on him, but Mulder waved him away, conveniently snagging his hand on the coat across the back of the bar stool, or he might have forgotten it completely. Not bothering to put it on, he staggered slightly, corrected himself and headed for the exit.

The cab was pulling up to the curb just as he got outside, and he gracelessly fell into the back seat.

"Where to?" the cabdriver mentally steeled himself as the redolent odor of fermented corn rolled off the man in the back seat, who looked like he was having trouble enough just sitting, let alone remembering where he lived.  But the man's voice was clear, if quiet, when he announced "Alexandria, please."  The cabbie smiled at the thought of a larger than usual fare.  He pulled the cab away from the curb abruptly, tossing Mulder over on his side, where he debated staying for a moment.  Then the words of the bartender came back to him:

'Have you told her?'

He sat up so quickly it made his head swim, and only then did he realize just how long he'd been at the bar, just how much he'd been drinking.  He thought some fresh air might help, but the window handle seemed to be just too far away, and so he opted for a deep breath, which helped not at all, and addressed the cab driver.

"No."

"No, what?"

"Take me to Crystal City…Crystal City."  As if some unseen weight had suddenly been lifted from him, Mulder flopped back on the seat and shut his eyes, while the cabdriver just rolled his, thinking he should have seen this coming.
 

"Hey, buddy, wake up."  The cabdriver gave Mulder a none-too-gentle shove, rousing him from the drunken semi-doze he'd fallen into just after giving the man the apartment name and number that he wanted.  Now he tried to shake off the dizziness, wondered what the hell he was doing, and if he shouldn't just tell the driver to take him home now, maybe sleep all the way there…

The cab driver didn't care about any of it. "I got calls waiting, man, so let's get a move on, whaddya say?"

Mulder tried to focus on the fare amount displayed on the dash, closing one eye to do so.  This simply took away his depth perception without clearing the fuzziness from his vision at all, so he simply shrugged, pulled the remaining few bills from his wallet and threw them in the general direction of the front seat, hoping it was enough.

Without waiting long enough for the cabbie to count the money, Mulder pulled himself out of the cab, stumbled over the curb, tripped onto the sidewalk and fell sprawling onto the neatly tended lawn outside the modern glass and steel high rise apartments he had gotten the cab to take him to.  Grass had never felt so soft to him in his life, and he really thought he should just sleep where he lay.  Then with a sudden resolve, albeit not a sober one, and a great deal of effort, he hauled himself to his feet and shambled across the lawn to the front door.
 

Walter Skinner looked up from the sheaf of papers on his desk at the sound of a knock at his door.  Glancing briefly at his watch, he wondered who was paying him a visit at midnight, then decided there was only one way to find out.  Always a cautious man, he picked up his gun off the small table just to the right of the door before looking out the spyhole to see who had come calling at such an unreasonable hour.

He sighed at the familiar face wearing an unfamiliar grin, thinking 'I should have known', and opened the door to let Agent Mulder in. 

"Agent Mulder, do you know what time it is?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir, I do! It's-uh-" The grin faded into uncertainty as Mulder stepped carefully into the room, then stood, weaving slightly, in front of his boss. "It's-" He glanced around quickly, found not a clock in sight. "Oh, hell, sir, no-no I don't.  It must be late."

"It is.  Mulder have you been drinking?" Walter asked suspiciously, seeming to notice for the first time Mulder's disheveled state, including rumpled hair, even more rumpled shirt and pants, tie askew, jacket clutched in one hand, grass stains on his knees.

"I-I'm not so very drunk…sir."  Even as he protested, Mulder swayed forward, his center of gravity suddenly dancing just in front of his nose, and Walter put out a hand to steady him.  He realized he was still holding his gun, and he moved back to set it aside.

Walter's sudden movements, first holding him up, then pulling away, disoriented Mulder even more so than he was already, and the balance he had almost regained totally left him.  Arms pinwheeling madly, he fell forward, knowing that he was going to hit the floor, and that when he did, it was going to hurt.

All this went through his mind in a fraction of a second, but just as he had resigned himself to knocking himself unconscious on his boss's floor, said boss caught him up in two strong arms and steadied him easily, holding him tightly until he had his balance back under some semblance of control.  He opened his mouth to say 'thank you, sir', and to say 'I'm sorry I'm such a bother', and to say 'I realize this is a most inopportune time and I'll reschedule at your convenience', and what came out was a hiccup and an almost ashamed little giggle.

Walter was at a loss.  He'd never seen Fox Mulder drunk.  He'd seen him passionate to the point of irrationality on some things, but he'd never seen him out of control.  And, good god!  He'd NEVER seen Fox Mulder giggle!

He was suddenly aware that he was still holding Mulder in his arms, hands splayed out across his back, even though Mulder seemed to be standing just fine on his own.  Mulder didn't seem to mind.  With an absolute lack of clinical detachment, Walter also noticed that Mulder seemed to be holding him back, and not just to keep his balance.  At some point while Walter's arms had gone around Mulder's shoulders to steady him, Mulder's hands had snaked around his waist and were firmly pressed to his sides, so that the embrace was a loose one, with some room between them, but was still an embrace in the technical sense.

Immediately Walter wondered if he was the only one playing 'don't ask, don't tell' in the office, then remembered that Mulder was drunk.

Mulder hiccuped again, and felt something nasty rumble in his stomach.

"Sir."  The word came out slurry and indistinct.  "I-uh-that is-I came here to-to tell you…" He seemed to lose the rest of the sentence, and his brow furrowed, and he stepped back, putting one hand to his stomach. Walter let him go, appraising him with more caution than alarm.

"What is it, Agent Mulder."  He recognized not just his own tone of voice from a million office meetings, but Mulder's sudden defensive posture and almost pout from the same meetings, and he tried again in a gentler tone of voice.

"It must have been pretty important that it couldn't wait for a cold shower and a cup of coffee."

The next words out of Mulder's mouth made no sense at all, and Walter realized that his agent had temporarily lost control of the English language.  He was not unfamiliar with this condition.

"Do you want to try that again, Mulder.  I don't think I got it.  You were going to tell me…?" He let the question hang in the air, waiting for Mulder to finish it.  Mulder stared at him stupidly, one hand still held to his body, the other coming up to touch his brow.  He closed his eyes briefly, then re-opened them and his mouth at the same time.  Nothing came out for a moment, then, very slowly, he said,

"Sir…I-that is…the bartender…she rec-recommends-recommended…I…tell…oh…oh, sir-"

"Mulder?"

Special Agent Fox 'Spooky' Mulder, Oxford educated psychologist, top criminal profiler, head of his division, writer of serial-killer-catching monographs, righter of wrongs (actual and perceived) and defender of 'the truth', promptly tipped his head and vomited down the front of his shirt.

"Oh, hell!"  Without thinking, Walter scooped the other man up in his arms and hustled him into the bathroom, glad that Mulder was as light as he was while at the same time cursing the man's height and the current gangly state of his limbs.  He dumped Mulder unceremoniously onto the tile floor, then lifted his head so that his face was over the toilet.  He stepped back to get a cloth from beside the sink, and Mulder's head promptly hit the toilet seat with a muffled thud and he retched again.

Walter ran cold water over a washcloth, then knelt beside the violently ill younger man. With uncharacteristic gentleness, Walter held Mulder's head, brushed back sweat soaked hair and pressed the cool cloth to the back of his neck. Soothing words came to his lips unbidden, but he felt no shame in them.

There being nothing in his stomach but a few sunflower seeds and a great quantity of Jack Daniels, Mulder was soon reduced to dry heaves and sniffles.  His focus seemed to be narrowed to the taste of reused alcohol and the smell of same, but as he began to feel some control coming back, he became aware of his boss; aware of the man's strong presence behind him, aware of his hands doing things to his hair, his face, his neck-things that felt oh so right and so terribly frightening at the same time.

At long last, Mulder found the strength in his arms to push himself away from the toilet with a curse and a mutter, and Walter helped him sit up, still holding him.  He made sure Mulder was not going to fall over and crack open his skull or anything, then stood, ordered "Don't move," and left the room.

'As if I could' thought Mulder.

Walter returned in short order, carrying a pair of sweats and a black tee shirt.  Mulder just looked at him, eyes slightly unfocused.

Without preamble, Walter reached for Mulder's tie, pulled it over his head without untying it, and threw it on the floor.  The shirt came open with a yank as he decided to forego unbuttoning the soiled garment and he found that Mulder was moving a little now, helping him get the shirt off his arms. He gently tugged the drunken man to his feet, tossed the cloth in the sink, and reached for his belt.

Mulder's hands closed over his, and they regarded each other solemnly, dark eyes behind wirerim glasses warm, non threatening, non judgmental, hazel eyes half-lidded with fatigue and worry and drunkenness.

Mulder abruptly pulled his hands away.

Walter finished undressing him quickly and efficiently, helped him step shivering into a hot shower, gave him time to wash up while he set aside the salvageable garments and pitched the others, then pulled him out of the tub and dried him briskly with a large thick bath sheet.  Mulder kept his eyes closed, and Walter focused on the task at hand, willing himself not to notice things like long muscular legs, firm abdominal and pectoral muscles, or graceful curves of neck and shoulders; it almost worked.

He guided Mulder into the sweats, helped him pull the t-shirt over his head, and steadied him at the sink while he brushed his teeth with Walter's spare toothbrush.

Mulder was pleased to have the excess alcohol out of his stomach, and less than pleased with the amount still coursing through his blood.  He still felt dizzy, though less nautious, and he knew it would be a long night.  When he had drank like this in the past, he usually managed to get a hold of Scully, convince her of food poisoning (she still wouldn't eat calamari, thanks to him), and get her to cover for him while he spent most of the night and next day alternating between sickness and unconsciousness, with no one the wiser.

But instead, he had perhaps done the stupidest thing ever in a long and spectacular career of stupid things, and he had no idea how to explain himself, didn't even know where to begin.  He realized Walter was leading him up a flight of stairs, and he allowed himself to be led, grateful that his boss wasn't talking.

He balked at the doorway of the bedroom, but a look from Walter got him moving again, and in short order he was being slipped between cool sheets with a plump feather pillow under his head. 

Walter left the room, then returned with a glass of water.  He sat down next to Mulder on the bed and helped him raise his head, holding the glass to his lips.  The cold water tasted exquisite, and Mulder tried to gulp greedily, but Walter pulled it away.

"Slowly, Mulder, you have to take it slow and easy."

"That's what I have been doing-hasn't worked."

Walter frowned at the apparent non sequitur, then offered Mulder another sip of water, then set the glass on the nightstand.

"Get some sleep, Mulder."

"I-sir-I-"

"I know.  Just let it go for now."  Walter stood up, waffled indecisively for the briefest of moments, and then brushed his fingers across Mulder's brow, smoothing back damp hair.  Again the two men's eyes met, and locked, and volumes were spoken wordlessly between them.  Walter backed away, then turned towards the door.

At the doorway he was frozen by Mulder's voice, sounding small and tired, but sure nevertheless.

"Walter.  I love you."

Walter didn't turn around, didn't reply, but couldn't keep a broad smile from creasing his face as he descended the stairs, thinking he would have to call Agent Scully to arrange for Mulder's absence tomorrow (he hoped she wouldn't ask), then call his assistant, Kimberly, and have her reschedule his appointments (he knew she wouldn't ask).  He and Mulder had a lot to talk about.

At the bottom of the stairs, he glanced back up, still smiling, and whispered, "I love you, too."