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Not long past the college, a stranger called out to Mulder, “Hey! Are you a Mormon?” “What?” Mulder was almost non-plussed, then looked down at what he was
wearing, simple dark suit, plain dark tie, white dress shirt. Of course
he might get mistaken for one of their
“You know, latter day saints?” “No, I’m a Friend. A Quaker.” he called out as he sped past, headed
for home. He made good time and almost got home before the storm broke.
The clouds had been huge and threatening as they’d pulled into the campus
drive, so Mulder wasn’t surprised by the sudden clap of thunder and the
drenching of warm rain. He was out in it for only a minute or two before
he pulled up under the portecochere. He locked up the bike carefully out
of the rain, noting that the driveway
He heard the distinct sounds of live music spilling from the door, a piano, a guitar, more, raucous good-time music, making up for in good cheer what it sometimes lacked in skill. The screen door was closed, but the other was propped open to let the warm air spill into the house. Light poured from the door and windows like a welcoming beacon, but Mulder wondered how he could dare to approach that safety. This life, this marriage, this love, even this house that he hated some days, had been his net, and he had fucked it up for the sake of vanity and anger. Oh, God, he ached like nothing before. A familiar figure appeard at the screen door, opened it and closed it
behind him. Walter walked to the bottom of the steps. He was dressed in
work clothes, the old dress shirts and pants left over from that other
life of his, but used now for carpentry. They were stained, worn. The shirt
Walter was wearing, once blindingly white and starched was covered with
little dribbles of paint. So were the gray gabardine pants. Walter was
barefoot at the moment, an odd juxtoposition seen with his
“Mulder, what are you waiting for?” Walter asked, looking at his husband, his lover, clearly seeing the pain on Mulder’s face, the bewilderment, the longing. The look on Walter’s face was gentle concern and confusion. “Who’s here?” Mulder asked hoarsely. “Mickey. Kenny. Rob and Trisha. John and John. A few other people. The Beautiful Twins were here earlier but they’re gone now. I called in a few favors and resorted to some outright bribery to get some work done on the house this weekend. I couldn’t send them away hungry. They talked me into grilling rather than pizza. I thought you were going to be home much later. And you know Mickey. Once she gets out the guitar, it’s all over. Do you want me to send them home?” This wasn’t how he’d been planning to deal with this. The conversation
that he’d needed to have right now had been effectively derailed before
it had begun. But he couldn’t bear the thought of sending any of Walter’s,
his, their friends away, not when they were obviously having such a good
time. They were part of this life, the people who loved them. Apparently
enough to drop their weekend plans and engage in what no doubt had been
exacting physical labor under the stern
“No, don’t.” Mulder said decisive on at least that issue. “But you. I. We. Need to talk. Now.” “Come up to the porch at least. Out of the rain.” In a moment, they were both settled on the capacious veranda that wrapped
all the way around to the side of the house. It was deep and sheltered,
with a half wall at the bottom and a generous overhang that blocked out
all but the worst storms. Many a thunderstorm they’d sat out there, listening
and safe. Walter sat upright, cautious and waiting, on a wicker settee
that had seen better days and was losing a snake of wicker from around
one of its legs. Mulder found the nearby porch swing. The sudden warm spell
was unexpected so the furniture didn’t have its usual pads. The thin slats
of the wooden swing were hard underneath Mulder’s back. Under the porch,
it was
After waiting in silence for several minutes, waiting for Mulder to
begin, Walter finally lost patience and started, “Let me guess that your
outburst on Wednesday had nothing to do with a
“Oh, God. No. Nothing to do with anything. Just a symptom I suppose.” Mulder dug in the garment bag that he’d set down on the porch floorboards beside him. He produced a soft, thin sweater. He reached over to Walter and pressed it into his hands. “It’s yours now. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a sweater and I was a dick to yell at you about it.” Walter fondled the sweater for a moment and then set it aside next to
him on the settee. “No good. The only appeal it has is that you wear it.
Mulder, I know that you didn’t mean most of
Mulder didn’t have to ask to know that Walter meant panic attacks, though possibly full out flashbacks. Mulder had never had the worst of full blown post-traumatic stress symptoms, he’d always managed to keep it together enough to cope, but he had, at the beginning and ironically, once Walter was settled in safely, more than a couple flashbacks, to the things that had happened to him while he was abducted, to other unpleasant things. It’d been years since he’d had an actual flashback though. “A few panic attacks. Mild. I could reason my way through them. Played a lot of freecell in my room at night. You?” “I kept busy. I had friends around. So, no out and out attacks. Just crushing generalized anxiety. I nearly called Dr Peterson and asked her to renew my Xanax prescription. God, what a pair we make. You think I’d be over this by now.” “Walter, the kinds of things we went through, it’s a miracle we’re both
still standing. That was the kind of pain from which most people don’t
recover. We’ve both spent time dead, for God’s sake. Just for that, I don’t
know about you, but personally, I’m reserving my right to have panic attacks
“Those pills are a class two controlled substance.” Walter said firmly. Of course. You could take the man out of the law, but despite everything they’d been through, you couldn’t take the law out of the man. No matter that the DEA had far bigger things on their minds than two old guys sharing a Xanax prescription. “But I wish you had called. That would have made me feel better.” “I couldn’t…Walter, I screwed up really bad when I was gone. I did something truly, astoundingly stupid. Walter, I get scared sometimes, you know, about how much you mean to me. The fact that I don’t seem to know who I am without you around. My whole life disappeared beneath me in a cataclysmic earthquake of the soul, so to speak. And when I went to rebuild, there you were. I get terrified that you’re so close to me and I wonder what if its not healthy, like Scully and I were at the end. I get scared about what would happen if someday, you aren’t there. I get scared about growing old, because it means you’re growing old too. I don’t deserve you. I’m a vain, spineless bastard. Walter, I let some guy pick me up. A cute young thing. We didn’t do anything besides exchange a few gropes before I came to my senses and went back to the hotel. Alone. But there you have it. God, I won’t lie. It felt good knowing that some cute young thing who wasn’t a hero-worshipping student wanted to jump my bones. I’m a bastard. Total bastard. If you want to kick me out, I can go sleep on the couch in my office.” Mulder waited in wrenching anxiety for Walter to respond. The other
man almost always chose his words carefully, taking his time to put together
his thoughts so that he expressed exactly what he meant. Walter was looking
at an invisible point about halfway between them, brow creased, jaw set.
Not the famous ‘I’m keeping my temper in check’ jaw set, but definitely
serious. Long minutes passed in silence. Mulder knew that the conversation
would pick up again in a while, that
“I’d be lying if I said that didn’t hurt.” Walter spoke finally, solemnly. He took off his wirerims, like he did sometimes when he was saying something important. He folded them carefully and set them on the wicker table beside the hurricane lantern. “But you’re not going to sleep on a couch ever again if I have anything to say about it. Especially not over this. Why did you stop? Not go through with it?” “He wanted me to take my ring off. I realized that nothing in the world would make me do that. Came to my senses and realized I didn’t want him fucking me. That he was a predatory little creep. That I only ever want you to touch me. You don’t know what kind of hell I’ve put myself in. Worrying that I’ve completely screwed us up, when I thought I’d worked my way through the whole self-destructive thing.” “Mulder, nothing in the world could make me give you up. Not even if you’d slept with him and four of his buddies. You didn’t break any promises to me. You’ve never sworn fidelity to me. I guess I was always too afraid to ask it of you. I guess I thought that you’d run if I tried to hold you down too much. That’s why I gave you the ring the way I did. I thought if we said the words, if we made it too real, that you’d wake up and this dream of ours would be over. And it can’t be over, because I need you here beside me. What you did, it’s over and done and you came back to me. And we won’t talk about it anymore. Unless you need to.” Mulder turned this over in his mind. It contained more forgiveness than he’d expected, without completely letting him off the hook. A thought occurred to him, drifting to the forefront of his mind, when it had been swimming around there for a while. He went with it, hoping it would lead somewhere useful. “Walter, do you remember the first time one of said that we loved the other. Despite this memory of mine, I can’t.” “Like it was yesterday.” Walter said. Mulder kept quiet, asking him to tell the story by his silence. “It was December 23, 2004. You read a poem to me. Do you remember. Mary Oliver. Your students were reading her for Humanities.” Mulder remembered the poem. He spoke it now: “You do not have to be good.
As he finished reciting the poem, Mulder couldn’t help noticing the raw emotion in Walter’s face. “Yes, I remember reading that poem to you. You often had me read you things that we read in Humanities. You still do. I love that poem. At the time, it felt like a lifeline. And I needed to send it out to you.” “And it was. You read the poem to me. And then you said, and I quote, ‘I’ve got to go. I have to get to a christmas party. Love you Walter.’ You said it as if you’d said it hundreds of times before and that was how I knew it was true. Best damn Christmas present I ever got.” Mulder recognized what they were doing. They’d done it before after arguments. Reaffirming their love by telling the stories of the past, rebuilding what had been broken in the wake of their rupture. Reattaching each of the hundreds, thousands of tiny threads that connected them. “Those weren’t exactly halcyon days. But at least something good came of them. God. You know, I miss brick city sometimes. Sitting in that tiny room, waiting for you to call was the highlight of my day. Or when you first moved in and we couldn’t turn left or right without tripping over each other.” “Believe it or not, I sometimes miss brick city too. It was a shock to the system, living with practically nothing like you were. I remember when I first came to visit. You didn’t even have curtains or any dishes besides a few bowls you’d stolen from the dining hall.” Back when he’d first moved to the college, Mulder had just gotten a meal plan from the college and ate in the dining hall with the students. It had seemed simplest. He’d had things far more important to deal with than figuring out how to get the basic necessity of food into him. Once Walter had shown up, things had changed immediately. Mulder had been taken to the nearest Target and had his cart filled with all the basic housekeeping necessities he’d neglected. “I should have known from the beginning it was serious. I remember picking out a toaster and china on our first date.” “You seemed agreeable to it. I knew the instant I got out of my rental car in brick city that I’d be staying with you forever.” “So did I.” “We were meant to be. It’s that simple.” Walter crossed over to the
porch swing and sat down next to Mulder, then wrapped his arm around the
slighter man. Mulder returned the gesture and they leaned into each other,
shoulders pressed into each other, tops of their heads touching, graying
and bald. They kept silent a long time, but the silence was no longer empty
and waiting. It was filled with what had been spoken before, the love that
still resonated in the air around them.
“Walter. If you need to keep not saying the words, that’s fine. But I think I need to say them. In front of witnesses. With a party after preferably.” “We could do it now. We’ve got witnesses. A party is already going.” Walter was suddenly eager, like a kid at a birthday party. He almost leaped up from the porch swing, but Mulder held him down. “Uh-uh, big guy. Or, if we do, you’re going to be the one to explain to your big brothers and sisters why they missed their baby brother’s wedding.” Skinners, Mulder had learned long ago, came in six packs. Three brothers, all bigger than Walter and two sisters who weren’t as big physically, but made up for it with their bustle and bossiness. There had been some fuss, early on, when they’d learned that their baby brother had taken to shacking up with a former, male subordinate, but eventually, they all rallied round and welcomed Mulder to the family, just another baby brother to them. He even counted it as a victory the year they’d all come for Thanksgiving and Betsy, the oldest Skinner sibling, had smacked Mulder’s fingers with a spoon for snitching stuffing before dinner. Just like he’d seen her smack Walter a few minutes earlier. “Well, we don’t want to make a fuss. Considering it’s been seven years we’ve been living together.” “We’ll figure something out. Think Mickey and company would play for the party?” “As if we could stop her.” As if on cue, the music picked up again, something rollicking that probably really needed an electric guitar. Definitely music one could dance to though. “We’ll make plans later. Let’s go in. We can push back the table in the dining room and if we’re really nice, maybe they’ll play something we can two-step to.” “Been a long time since we did that.” Mulder was swelling with unexpected, undeserved happiness. “You weren’t dancing already?” “No. It’s just not the same without you for a partner. You’re a good dancer, better than anyone else around.” Mulder wanted to feel strong limbs next to him, guiding him gently into the next step, next turn and flourish. When you danced, if it was good, you didn’t hang onto your partner or drape yourself all over him. You stood straight and tall on your own, but you still depended on him, just as he depended on you. You moved together and if it was good, it was better than anything else going. “I’m going to change then I’ll come down. Got drenched on the way home. Thought I could beat the storm and I didn’t. Hold on, I have something for you. Souvenier from Pittsburgh.” Mulder dug into his garment bag again and pulled out the one purchase he’d made in Pittsburgh. He’d gone back to the bookstore again, in daylight. Not stopping at the Liberty Diner. He handed the bag to Walter who fumbled getting the slick rectangle of cloth out of it. In the dim candlelight, the bright colors were muted almost to irrecognizability but its identity was obvious. Walter held the rainbow flag up wonderingly. “I figured it’s not going to shock the neighbors. They obviously know what’s going on here. But if you don’t want it outside, we could put it the study or something. Or if don’t want it in the house, I guess I’ll take it to the office.” “No. I’m just trying to figure out the best place to mount a second flagpole bracket. Why? I thought you didn’t want to identify…” “I’m still bisexual, not gay, but it also seems pretty obvious I’ve cast my lot in with you. Since I’ll be here with you forever, why not?” Yes, forever. And someday soon, they’d say the words even if they weren’t the kind of guys to make a fuss, but it would be real, not that it hadn’t been real. But even more real. Meanwhile, their friends were inside, no doubt wondering what was keeping Walter so long. “C’mon, let’s join the party.” Walter said, getting up. He grabbed Mulder’s
garment bag and headed for the door. “They’ve got quite a jubilee going
on in there.”
oOo
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