Me Two

by Mik

It didn't really register with me until this morning.  I should have figured it out; the roses on Kim's desk, the pink bagels in the 
cafeteria, the Hershey's kisses lined up on my desk yesterday after lunch.  I spent enough years in the field to recognize clues and draw conclusions from evidence. Yesterday was February fourteenth. Valentine's Day. 

He had said nothing about it.

I had done nothing about it. 

Sometime last year, in the earliest stages of our relationship, he had made one of his long and winding verbal journeys from point A to point zed, and somewhere along the line had touched on holidays. Valentine's Day, he told me with a note of contempt in his voice, was an aberration.  Lovers did not need the implied authorization of a specific day to express their love.  And those who did not have lovers were only further reminded of that fact by the gross commercialization of the day.  He felt it should be outlawed.  Then he went on to discuss baseball.  If I remember correctly, the tenuous 
connection between those two topics was that he felt artificial turf should also be outlawed. 

So there it was.  My permission not to have done anything for him for the occasion.

So ... why do I feel guilty?

I know exactly why.  During my marriage I was an object of envy among all of Sharon's friends.  I never missed an anniversary or birthday or Valentine's Day.  Each occasion was marked with flowers and some not so trifling trifle.  Of course, I was rarely home to make these gestures personally, but she had them, nevertheless.  And she still left me.  Why?  Because they were just gestures to her.  She wanted more.  Something deeper, something more meaningful.  At least, that's what she told me when she left. 

Last night, Mulder and I met for a late pizza.  I told him a meeting had run long, but in truth, the meeting broke up extraordinarily early, and I pounced on the chance of a few uninterrupted hours to finish some financial reports and performance reviews.  That should have been another clue. 

Mulder didn't complain.  He never does.  He is totally complacent in this relationship.  My comings and goings are marked only by a warm smile or a sleepy kiss.  I like that about this relationship.  My marriage was fraught with implied failures.  With Mulder, just showing up seems sufficient. 

Reaching for a pen in my desk drawer, my gaze fell upon that handful of red-foiled chocolates scattered in there.  I know they were from Mulder.  I saw the rest of the package in his kitchen last night.  He does things like that sometimes.  Impulsive, silly, meaningless.  I unwrapped a chocolate and let it rest on my tongue as I pulled another expense report in front of me.  Meaningless ... meaningful. What might Sharon have thought to wake one morning to find her pillow scattered with chocolates?  I can't help recalling her rare little smiles with melancholy. 

And what might Mulder think?  Does he expect such gestures?  Any gestures at all?  Should there be a place for gestures in our relationship?  I looked down at another chocolate, unwrapped and poised in my fingers.  Why the hell not?

*******************************************

There wasn't time to order flowers for delivery, and frankly, I 
wasn't certain what sort of flowers, if any, this most special agent of mine would prefer.  Most special agent ... of mine.  Am I feeling possessive of him?  We've neither stated nor implied commitments since that muggy day last August when I took him back to his apartment, we shared a beer, and then another and then, loose and restless and full of energy from a bust gone South, a little macho posturing on my side, and insolent teasing on his, which led as it does inevitably lead, to shoving, wrestling, headlocks, threats.  But this wrestling down of a rogue animal didn't end in restraints, per usual, but me on top of him, panting, and him looking up at me, panting.  And then, he smiled, the merest flicker of amusement, craned his neck, and planted a wet one on my open mouth. 

I think he was as surprised as I was when I released his hands to cup his face and kissed him back, deeply.  At the time he thought it was just one-upmanship on my part, but whether it was need to dominate, need to win or just need to get laid, we somehow ended up in his bed.  Never a word was spoken about it.  But I come back two or three times a week, and somehow end up in his bed. 

There's been no change in his behavior in the Bureau.  I wish I could say there was.  He's as wild and irreverent and uncontrollable and sulky as he ever was.  There is not one lascivious glance or knowing smile ever sent my way.  Not once has he behaved toward me with a possessive air.  He slouches in a chair, mumbles his responses, pounds on the desk when the conversations get heated enough, backs 
down again at a single word.  And yet ...

And yet, my eyes seek his whenever we're in a room together.  And yet, I search for him at every crime scene, lunchroom gathering or seminar.  And yet, on the nights I sleep alone, I wake finding myself reaching for him.  And yet, my heart swells with pride every single time he succeeds in proving us all wrong.  Yes, he's my very, very special agent. 

So, flowers were out of the question.  How does one present roses to another man, anyway?  Instead, I appeared at his door with a decorative tin of three-flavored popcorn and a truly horrible science fiction video, but one he loves to rent whenever he gets to choose. I had to juggle a little to knock.  There was a long wait before I heard his footsteps in the foyer.  He opened the door, looking rumpled and comfortable in mismatched sweats, blinked at me, and stammered a startled "S -- sir?"

"Have I come at a bad time, Agent?"  His response rattled me, and we both seemed to fall into our old roles. 

"No, Sir -- uh, Walter."  He backed up, opening the door.  "I guess I just didn't expect you two days in a row.  And with treats," he added as I thrust the tin and the video into his hands.  "Plan 9 From Outer Space!"  His eyes lit up.  "I have wanted this one forever."  He gave me a resounding kiss on the cheek.  "I love you, man."  And off he went, tearing at the plastic of the video package. 

I had to stand there for a moment, in awe.  How easily he said that. Of course he didn't mean it, but it went straight into my middle. Sharon said it frequently in the early days of our marriage, but she got tired of my curt nods and offhand, "Me, too".   I miss hearing someone say it.

By the time I recovered myself and made it down the hall to his living room, he was sprawled back on his futon, eyes fixed on the opening credits of the video, a handful of popcorn in his mouth.  He moved over slightly to make room for me, but that was the only concession that he made to my presence. 

I shrugged out of my coat, flipped it over the back of a chair and started to sit.  But I stalled halfway down, as I stared at something on his desk by the window.  "Who sent you those?"

His eyes left the screen long enough to note the arrangement of red roses, and then came back to the movie.  "Scully.  She sends them every year."  He reached for more popcorn.  "She doesn't like the idea of me not having a Valentine." 

Jealousy.  Yes.  I was feeling a flare of jealousy.  "And did you send her something?"

He shrugged.  He was grinning at some vapid performance.  "I send her flowers, but I never sign my name."   He lowered his eyes to his sweatshirt and brushed at popcorn.  "I think she guesses, though." 

"I thought you didn't believe in Valentine's Day," I charged.  "I 
thought you said it should be outlawed."

"I still do," he agreed.  "But until it is ..."  He shrugged again. 

I wish I had sent flowers. 

He saw the disappointment in my face.  "Oh, hey, Walter, I didn't expect anything from you.  And hell, look what you brought me!"  He gestured toward the television. 

I shook my head.  "It's not very romantic, is it?"

"Romantic?  Were you trying for romantic?"  He seemed surprised.

"Well, Valentine's Day is traditionally a romantic holiday," I 
answered stiffly.  "Do you love her?"

He looked at the roses again.  "Sure."  His face darkened 
slightly.  "Oh, not in the Shakespearean definition, I suppose. 
Mine's more ..." he snickered, "... Cervantes than Shakespeare."  He made a thrusting gesture with one hand.  "You know me, always tilting at windmills, always loving from afar."  He fell quiet, and his eyes went back to the movie. 

"You'd prefer Shakespeare?" I persisted, feeling strangely let down. 

"Look, Walter, I take what I can get."  He turned toward me and patted my knee.  "We're comfortable.  We don't need definitions and rules and expectations."  He levered himself up.  "Want a beer?"

"No."  I caught his hand impulsively.  "I want a definition.  What's going on here?  Are we lovers or fuck buddies?"

The discomfort was evident on his face.  He pulled his hand free. "I think the two are the same, aren't they?"  He turned toward the kitchen. 

No, I realized with distaste.  They are not.  I got up and followed him.  "Should I have sent you flowers?"

He stopped, his hand on the refrigerator door handle.  "Well, it depends.  What would you be trying to accomplish with them?  I mean, gestures are all very nice, but if they're just gestures, they're pretty meaningless, aren't they?"  He yanked the door open.  "I'd hate that you'd send roses just because of some arbitrary convention."

Meaningless ... meaningful.  "I don't understand."

He pulled out two beer bottles.  "Well, you have to want to send them."

"I wouldn't send flowers unless I wanted to," I protested, taking the bottle he offered me.

He waggled a finger at me.  "Ah, yes, but why would you want to?  To convey some deep personal feeling, or to comply with societal expectations?"

Oh.  I see.  "Well, to convey feeling, of course."

He smirked and twisted his bottle cap away.   "What feeling?  That feeling of `What the fuck, it's Valentine's Day and everyone and their dog is sending and/or receiving flowers, so I'd better do it as well?'"  He moved past me back into the living room.  "No, thanks. I'd rather do without."

I turned in the doorway to look at him.  "So, words mean more than actions to you?"

"Not at all."  He took a gulp and set the bottle down.  "But once in a while, you need the words to understand what the actions are all about." 

I watched him for a moment.  He was immersed in the video.  There was not one part of him that seemed to express any need or desire or expectation to continue the conversation.  Yet I could feel it in him.  "Well, you know how I feel, Mulder," I said lamely.

He nodded, not looking at me.  "I do.  You're not the kind of guy to send flowers or quote sonnets.  I can live without both.  You do try.  I mean ... If Plan 9 From Outer Space doesn't scream `I love you' what does?"

I stiffened a little.  He had just suggested there was something I was incapable of doing.  I could be as romantic as any man.  "Are you saying I can't be romantic?"

He sighed, reached for the remote and turned the television 
off.  "I'm saying you are not romantic in the traditional sense. 
It's okay.  I know you, and how you are.  You're a man's man. Supermacho, guy with a capital G.  You don't do hearts and flowers. It's okay.  That's the way you're made."

"Do you?  Do you do hearts and flowers?"

"I can," he said and for the first time there was a flicker of 
smugness in his voice.  "I can do sneaking chocolates on your desk, and making CDs of your favorite songs."  He flicked a hand to a jewel case on the table.  "I've been known to break out in sonnets when so inspired and I've ... yes, I will own this, I have even murmured that dreaded three word phrase that turns most men into toads.  And lived to tell the tale."

But you've never said it to me, I thought.  Except just now, when I gave you that video.  I didn't realize it but my fingers were at my cheek where he had kissed me. 

He stood up and came near me.  "It's not so hard, really, Walter. You've loved things before, things that were `safe' for guys to love.  Try something easy, like ... football.  Come on, say it with me:  I love football.  Come on.  You can do it.  It's practically painless.  I ... love ..."

"I love you, Fox Mulder," I blurted and grabbed him.  I sucked him into a backbreaking embrace and kissed him with such possessive fervor as I hadn't known since the very earliest days of my courtship of Sharon. 

I let him go and he staggered back.  I swear he was blushing.  "Oh ... um ..."   He looked up at me helplessly.  "Me, too."

- END -