***

Mulder sighed deeply and squeezed the towel around his hand tighter. He stared stupidly at it for a moment, feeling his pulse beating painfully in his hand and in his heart. The towel was a pale green with a fruit pattern on it, mostly apples, with a smattering of pears and oranges. As he stared, he saw blood starting to soak through the makeshift bandage, blooming like red berries on the material. He sighed again and felt a little sick.

This was supposed to be the end. The end of his quest, the end of his long nightmare. He was here, with Skinner, after what was, he supposed, one of the longest and most subtle courtships in the history of gay dating. Walter Skinner, his ‘beacon in the night’, his discreet champion, the man who had come between him and disaster too many times to count, and had spent as much time restraining him as cheering him on. The man who had taken him into his heart, waited for him, and found him in the end.

Everything was supposed to be perfect.

Instead, it was…it was…

He finally dragged his eyes away from the towel, and wasn’t surprised to find Melvin Frohike staring fiercely at him. Moments later, two more men materialized to either side of the diminutive Gunman, and Mulder gave them a sour look.

“Oh, look, it’s Casper and company. I thought you guys were done with me once Scully and I…once we…” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so he just shrugged. If they were such great ghosts, maybe they could read his mind. 

“Of course we can,” said Byers.

“Yeah, but who needs that shit,” remarked Langly.

Frohike didn’t comment, just continued to glare at him.

“Okay, guys, what is it? Come on already. Impart your otherworldly wisdom, and then get the fuck outta here. Walter’s coming back any second now, and he already thinks I’ve gone round the bend. I start pulling a Haley Joel Osment on him, he’s gonna call the men in white.”

“Nah, for you, Mulder, it’d be men in black,” Langly snickered.

“Shut up, Langly,” said Byers.

Frohike moved forward, through the coffee table.

“Nice parlor trick,”

They all turned at the sound of Skinner’s voice from the kitchen.

“Mulder? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, dammit,” Mulder muttered, knowing Skinner couldn’t hear him.

“Liar,” said Byers.

“Bullshit,” agreed Langly.

“Listen to me, buddy,” Frohike finally spoke, and Mulder found himself unable to look away from the vision of his friend, frowning at him from the center of the table. “You had better start being honest with him. No more of this ‘fine’ crap. It’s all great to be able to read your mind, let me tell ya—way cheaper than renting porn—but only the dead can do it. And the big guy there—he’s not dead.”

He turned away, and then turned back. “And neither are you.”

Skinner strode into the room, and the Lone Gunmen vanished like evidence of an alien conspiracy. Without a word, the older man set a steaming mug down in front of Mulder, then moved off to the bathroom down the hall. 

In far less time, he was back, carrying gauze, tape, scissors and disinfectant. He sat down next to Mulder on the couch and when Mulder didn’t respond, he turned the man to face him.

“Let me see your hand,” he said.

“It’s nothing,” Mulder muttered.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Skinner growled back. With an agility his big hands shouldn’t have been capable of, Skinner peeled back the towel, and they both frowned at the two deep cuts revealed, one across the pad of his thumb, the other just where said thumb was attached to his hand. Neither one was life threatening, but both still oozed blood, and Mulder felt his stomach doing another slow roll.

He just had time to be thankful he hadn’t eaten anything more than he had, and then he gasped as Skinner wiped away the blood and poured some of the disinfectant over the cuts. He tried to jerk his hand away, but Skinner held him firmly. He shuddered as the amber liquid diluted the blood into thin watery streams that Skinner caught with the towel, and the stinging cleanser worked its way into the cuts.

“Shh…” Skinner didn’t look at him as he mouthed the words. “It’s okay. We’ve got it licked. Just hang on…”

Mulder thought Skinner might have been talking to someone else, but when he looked into his lover’s eyes, the man glanced up at him, and the depth of emotion Mulder read in those dark eyes, for him, made him swallow painfully, and he had to look away.

Minutes later, his thumb and most of his hand were encased in clean white gauze, and the pain was muted to nothing more than a dull throb. 

Skinner shoved the bandages and supplies aside, and handed Mulder the cup, which was no longer steaming, but still warm to the touch.

Mulder sniffed at it, sipped tentatively, and found it to be tea, warm, sweet and definitely laced with something.

“Cognac?” he inquired.

“Scotch,” Skinner corrected.

“Thanks.” Mulder sipped again, then sat back on the couch with a shuddery sigh, put his bandaged hand over his eyes and held the cup resting loosely on his thigh. A moment later he felt Skinner’s big strong hand on his other leg. He didn’t respond until Skinner stroked his fingers up and down his thigh, and then he sighed appreciatively.

“Do you remember me telling you about Saigon?” Skinner asked conversationally.

Mulder wondered where that had come from, but simply grunted an agreement, feeling suddenly too tired to argue, or even talk.

“You remind me of the men in that hospital.”

At that, Mulder raised his arm and gave Skinner a piercing look, wondering if he was being made fun of, or—

“What are you talking about?”

“Those guys, all of them. Young, brave, righteous…and when they came out of that jungle, they were messed up. Something happened to them there. Something that changed them. Something that ate them up from the inside out…”

Mulder continued to stare, and he realized that Skinner was on the verge of something like tears. He felt his own eyes watering in response, and bit down on his lower lip, fighting it.

“Many of those men ate their own guns, Fox.” With a visible shudder, Skinner pulled himself out of the painful memory and gave his lover a hard look. “I don’t want that to happen to you.” He squeezed his thigh, almost painfully, “But you’ve got to talk to me.”

For a long time after that, neither man spoke. Mulder sipped his tea and kept his silence, and Skinner stopped stroking his leg and opted instead to gradually pull him into his arms.

Mulder relished the warm bulk of Skinner’s chest at his back, finished his tea, wondered if he was going to cry, or scream, or what, and then said,

“Do you know what today is?”

When no reply was forthcoming, he continued. “It’s Good Friday.”

Skinner dropped a kiss onto his hair and slipped an arm further around him to rest on his stomach.

“And I think one martyr is all they allow today.”

With a groan, Mulder sat up and faced Skinner.

“Do you remember when you and Scully first came to see me in that—“ he licked his lips, shuddered, paused. The memories came flooding back. The names they’d called him, the beatings, that club…Skinner didn’t push. “When I was there, I—they—“

Skinner took his uninjured hand and Mulder squeezed it tight.

“There’s a lot I have to tell you.”

Mulder didn’t know what the future was going to hold, or even if they were going to have a future, but it had to start somewhere, and the look on Skinner’s face told him that this was his safest bet.

The end?