By Michele (starshine24mc@yahoo.com)
Rating: NC17
Fandom: X-Files
Pairing: M/Sk
Date: February 22, 2002
Beta: none
Spoilers: various and sundry, nothing of note, really...
Boring but necessary disclaimer: C.C., Fox and 1013 own them, I’m just borrowing them for fun, not profit, and I promise to return them only slightly bruised
Archive: put it wherever you like, just leave my name on it
Feedback: Yes, PLEASE!
Summary:Ah, men...can't live with 'em...end of sentence! This one's for the nelly screamy things--happy anniversary, Thomas and Barkley!

***

Skinner looked across the table at his lover, and frowned.

Mulder didn’t look like a man who had been released from the hospital over two weeks ago. He looked like a man ready to be admitted.

Skinner had taken some personal leave time while Mulder had been in the hospital, and had offered to take more, once it was decided that he could be released, but his lover had been adamant that Skinner return to work. He didn’t want to be a bother, he had said. He didn’t need Skinner hovering over him, he’d said. He was fine, he’d said.

‘Fine’, thought Skinner, ‘Is that what we’re calling this?’

After weeks of medication, oral, intravenous and otherwise, Mulder had finally kicked the bug that had led to him having to stay so long in the hospital. The damage to his penis had been extensive, but it was the infection that had turned a week’s worth of healing into nearly a month before they could celebrate the day that Mulder was able to take a turn in the bathroom himself, without a machine or a nurse to do the job for him.

It wasn’t long after that that Mulder had begun clamoring even more loudly for release, claiming that if he could shake it himself, he could do it at home just as easy as in a hospital room. Skinner had been ecstatic at the prospect, and even Mulder looked like he might  manage a smile.

His first night home, however, was far from celebratory. Skinner had done everything he could to make Mulder comfortable. Maybe he had been a little suffocating, but dammit, he’d come so close to losing him, and he just wanted everything to be perfect.

The new definition of perfect included Mulder doing little more than picking at supper, although Skinner had made sure to order his favorite Italian take out, curling up unresponsive on the couch afterward, even when Skinner conferred on him that greatest of honours, control of the television remote, and waving away the suggestion of bed, telling Skinner he’d be up later.

Wishing he could do otherwise, but respecting Mulder’s need for space, Skinner had gone up to bed, and waited for his lover to join him. And waited.

He woke hours later, as Mulder slipped into the bed beside him. Immediately he’d reached out for the man, but gotten a firm hand pushing him away, and a choked voice saying “please, Walter, not tonight.”

‘He’s fine,’ Skinner told himself again.

It had been like this for two weeks now. Mulder was eating little, sleeping less. He spent most of his time on the couch, seldom dressing beyond sweats and t-shirts, and Skinner often came home from work to find Mulder asleep, curled up in a ball under a blanket.  He learned after the first abrupt awakening, when Mulder had screamed at his touch and cried in confused terror upon waking, to just let the man sleep. He usually came around while Skinner was trying to create something, anything, in the kitchen that would peak Mulder’s appetite. So far, he hadn’t found the right combination of foods, but he had to keep trying—any other overt shows of concern were gently, and sometimes not so gently, rebuffed by his lover.

They hadn’t made love since the night before Mulder had been taken.

Skinner thought he understood. He did his best not to take it personally. He knew that Mulder was still healing, physically and emotionally, and that he should be solicitious of his lover’s needs. And it would have been fine, if it had just been sex. But Mulder was drawing away from him on every level. Whereas before all this their relationship had been very physically intimate, now it was nearly non-existent. Before, petting, kissing, simple physical contact had nearly been a constant between the two of them, at least at home. Now Mulder went to great pains to avoid even the simplest of caresses.

If it had been just plain rejection, he might have been able to deal with it. But it was the look in Mulder’s eyes every time he ducked away from Skinner’s hand, every time he turned away from a kiss. It was the look of an animal trapped in a snare—terrified and hurting and angry and confused, a combination that made Skinner’s heart ache, especially since he wasn’t even sure if Mulder knew it was there.

‘It’s just going to take time,’ he told himself. And again: ‘He’s going to be fine.’

*…fine.

*You always say that, Walter. Do you know what fine really means?

*What are you talking about, Mulder?

*Fine. The word fine. When someone says they’re fine, do you know what they’re really saying?

*No, I don’t.

*I learned this at Oxford, Walter, my first year there. I was a little freaked at being there, you know, whole other country, didn’t know a soul, all that sort of thing. I met someone…older…

*Oh?

*Hey, none of that Scully-brow shit, Walter. Suffice to say, this person was just someone who came along at the right time.

*I want a name.

*You would! Let’s just call him The Professor.

*I think I’m seeing a trend here, hon.

*Hey, we can do a psyche evaluation on my desire for authority figures later. Right now, we’re talking about you.

*I thought we were talking about Oxford.

*Do you want to hear this, or what?

*Oh, I’m all ears

*I’m not touching that one. Anyway, this—friend—took me to task one time because I would always say I was fine, even when I wasn’t. And he said, that fine was really an acronym. And what it really meant was Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.

*Flattering

*Don’t you see, though, Walter, he was right. I do that. And you do it too. Use fine when we want to lie to ourselves…to others.

*Okay, new rule. Nobody’s fine in this house. Everybody’s good.

*I like that rule!

*Why don’t you get over here and show me how good you can really be…

*Sounds good to me!

Skinner pulled himself away from the fantasy of Mulder’s warm smile, and faced the reality that was Mulder’s current expression.

Mulder might have been facing a firing squad instead of a simple meal of brown rice and vegetables. He was glaring down at his plate, when something in the silence must have alerted him to Skinner’s gaze, and he looked over at the older man, looked guilty, looked away. Then, with a small straightening of his shoulders, he turned back to his plate. He stabbed a green pepper almost viciously with his fork, raised it to his mouth, and appeared to require an almost Herculean effort to take in the food, chew for far too long, and swallow painfully.  Then a wan smile for Skinner, who had to turn away from the display, feeling tears threatening.

He shoved his chair back, stood and was at his lover’s side in a handful of heartbeats.

“Are you tired, hon? Did you want to go lie down for a while?” he offered.

Then he watched, fascinated, as a shifting light show of emotions played across Mulder’s face. Relief, and something akin to gratitude first, making his eyes shine briefly, and the tight lines around his mouth softened as he licked his lips almost unconsciously. Only a fraction of a second later, he was biting the same lower lip and something hot and hateful made his eyes narrow. Again, the look was there and gone so fast that Skinner barely had time to register it, and then Mulder was rearranging his features into something thin-lipped and resentful.

“I’m fine, Walter,” he replied with more vehemence than the situation warranted. Skinner didn’t answer, just read the emotional weather in his lover’s face, and decided that he needed to push a little, for both of them.

“Are you finished?” He gestured at Mulder’s nearly full plate. “Was it okay? I mean, you’re the one who said it takes a special kind of stupid to fuck up a stir fry, but—“

He almost got a smile for that, although it barely turned up the corner of Mulder’s mouth

“You don’t have to baby me, Walter,” he replied.

“I don’t have to do anything,” Skinner shot back. “You’re the one who said we don’t have to do anything, we just want to—“

“I can’t believe you listen to any of that crap,” Mulder growled.

“Who are you angry at, Mulder?” Skinner gave him a controlled look.

In response, Mulder’s shoulders slumped, and he bowed his head, studying his plate miserably.

Skinner put one large hand on the back of Mulder’s neck.

“It’s going to be okay, Fox,” he whispered, squeezing tense muscle, and feeling Mulder’s breath hitch in his throat. “Some how we’re going to make it right.”

“The hell!” Mulder suddenly exploded up from his chair, knocking the older man’s hand away from himself and in the process accidentally hitting the table with such force that his plate tumbled off of the edge and fell to the floor with a crash.

“Mulder!” Skinner reached out for his distraught lover.

Mulder shoved him. It wasn’t a particularly hard push, but it made him backpedal a step,  and his foot landed squarely in the middle of Mulder’s uneaten supper. His leg shot out from under him and he went down, clipping his chin on the table edge as he did so, and groaning as he landed on his ass so hard his teeth clicked together.

He could hear whistling sobs coming from Mulder as the man ran from the room.  A moment later he heard the bedroom door slam.

“Shit!” He swore under his breath, winced as he stood, but didn’t hesitate to leave the mess in the kitchen as he went in pursuit of his lover.

He approached the closed door with a combined determination and fear.  He knew that he had opened up something that had been festering in Mulder for weeks now. A demon that Mulder had been harboring inside himself, one that was shadowing his eyes, emaciating his body, and tormenting his mind. And now that it was loose, he felt responsible for it. It might be Mulder’s demon, but to Skinner’s mind, that made it his as well, and he had to get Mulder to accept his help, accept him. Or it would destroy them both.

He knocked on the door. He could hear Fox sobbing.

“Go away! Leave me alone!” This in a voice so thick with tears and self-loathing that Skinner felt his own eyes watering in response.

“Please, Fox, let me in!”

“No!” More crying sounds and Skinner’s heart was breaking, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the door. He had to be given permission.

“Fox—“

“I said go away! Just fuck off, Walter!”

“I won’t!” But he was backing away just the same. He stood back and looked at the door for a long time, listening to those horrible noises on the other side.  Abruptly he came to a decision, and sat down in the hall, facing the door. “I am right here, Fox.”

No response.

“And I’m not going anywhere.” He could picture his lover on the other side of the door, and he suddenly grinned—it wasn’t a happy expression. It was the face of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. “No,” he said quietly, “I’m not going anywhere…"

***

Damn him! Damn his stubborness and damn his compassion and damn every other thing that I just can’t think about right now! Does he think I want this? Does he think I planned for it to be this way? Can’t he see that I can’t be what he wants me to be? That I’m just one more burden for those fucking wonderful shoulders? Doesn’t he know that I’ve tried. That I want things back the way they were…I want it so much! But I can’t! I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried, and look at me! I’m a mess—as usual! Fucking useless Mulder! Fine Mulder, if you like—waste of breath Mulder, if you ask me! He doesn’t deserve this shit! I don’t deserve him! I’ve got to go—if he won’t throw me out like he should, then I have to be the one to do it---but God, I don’t want to…he’s everything to me! And I’m nothing to him…not anymore…I’m not going to make him do this anymore…