Home-->Mom, Don't Go Here
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It's All Been Done
“If I put my fingers here
Mulder saw Walter walk into the lounge. Their eyes met for just a second, and Walter’s face lit up with a smile, warming Mulder’s heart. Mulder smiled in return, then turned to the man he had noticed standing next to him. “He’s here to see me,” he confessed unexpectedly, but not unhappily. There was no one there. Mulder shrugged and decided to order drinks for Walter and himself. He walked over to the mahogany bar and waited for a bartender to notice him. No one came. Mulder glanced down at the row of bottles behind the counter. They were thick with dust and mildew and, as he watched, a small brown spider crawled across the top of a vodka bottle. He whirled with a gasp and the girl standing in line behind him disappeared just as he clutched at her. Mulder whipped his head around frantically and caught sight of Walter, still walking towards him, still smiling, almost cherubically, and he found this frightened him even more. A shiver raced through his body and he glanced down, discovering an evil ground fog had swallowed his feet and was perversely extending tendrils of non-substance up his legs. With a strangled half-shout, half-sob, he lurched forward, nearly tripping, then breaking into a shambling run. Men and women alike vanished like smoke before him, leaving him alone but for Walter. He reached the end of the now infinitely barren room and extended his arms out in a warding-off gesture that became a drawing-near gesture as he came closer to his lover. Walter reached out as well, and Mulder fairly lept into the embrace- -and smashed into a huge mirror, reflecting a hideously distorted image of himself, scared, helpless and alone. He felt a thousand bee stings of broken glass driving into his body as he crashed to the floor. Blood oozed and he smeared it over the crushed mirror, wiping away the same horrible image of himself over and over as he tried to rise to his feet; tried and failed. Walter was gone. Mulder sat up abruptly in bed with a cry, his face and torso bathed in sweat. Uncontrollable spasms wracked his body as he tried to catch his breath. He covered his face with his hands, trying to cage the fear in him that raged and writhed like a wild animal. He tried to slow the pounding of his heart, and take deeper breaths, and will away the images that haunted him. He broke. Tears sprang from his eyes and he shook with the force of his runaway emotions, sobbing loudly, the sounds emerging from him like the keening of a death-wail, without comfort, without solace, without hope. Two strong arms wrapped themselves around him and gathered him close to a warm hard chest. “Shh…It’s okay,” said Walter, in a voice that suggested liquid velvet in deep snow. “Make it go away.” Mulder heard the cringing tone in his voice, hated it, but was unable to control it. “It’s all right, Mulder…You’re going to be all right…Shhh…” Mulder let his head rest on the other man’s breast, feeling a strong steady heartbeat there and wishing fervently that he could crawl inside it. Walter kept his grip tight, his legs wrapping around Mulder’s while his hands softly stroked arms and back, trying to undo knots of tension that had been tied a thousand years before. He murmured wordless soothing things, trying to will away the pain with his heart and mind, as well as his body. Mulder trembled involuntarily, wanting to be soothed, unable to be. Silent tears of anguish rolled down his cheeks. He could feel Walter’s breath rustle his hair and cross his brow, faint but insistent, like the approach of dawn’s first light. Tentatively, he placed one hand on Walter’s arm, half-expecting him to vanish, and wholly surprised when he did not. Walter took up a slow rocking motion and Mulder let his eyes slip shut, the forceful crying finally tapering off to intermittent sniffles and hitching in his chest. “I’m scared,” Mulder’s voice was the softest trace of a lost murmur, and he spoke more to himself than to Walter. “I’m here,” Walter replied, reinforcing his words with a strong squeeze and a kiss on the forehead. The comfort Walter offered eluded Mulder for many hours, but Walter never let him go, never gave into sleep himself. He held him tight and kissed and stroked him, and at long last, Mulder felt sleep coming to claim him. Mulder’s last conscious thought before succumbing was please let him be here when I wake up. He thought he heard Walter whisper “I will be.”
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