TITLE: DEEP PLAY, Part I: OUT OF BOUNDS
AUTHOR: JEYLAN
EMAIL: jeylan@earthlink.net
RATING: NC-17
CATEGORY: Mulder/other slash
SPOILERS: None in the story, but lots in the end notes.
TIMELINE: Any time after about 2nd Season. (If Scully can't get
           him by that time, she doesn't deserve him.)
ARCHIVE: *NO ARCHIVE* except by request. (Requests welcome.)

SUMMARY: What if...? A dangerous question, 'what if.' Like
all the other speculations in his life, this too threatened to
tip him off course.

WARNING: This one's slash. It contains graphic male/male sex.
If you're not comfortable with that you probably shouldn't be
reading. But suit yourself, of course.

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder belongs to himself. There's been a rumor
going around that he might belong to CC and 1013, but the
evidence is clearly against it. At any rate, Mulder doesn't
belong to me; I'm not profiting. Skyler and the story are mine.

CONTINUITY: In my story, "Just Say Yes," Mulder's closest Oxford
friends were gay men. Not so in this story. Neither are the
Mulder and Scully in this story compatible with any MSR reality,
fic or filmed. They are, however, consistent with canon as it
was played out right up to the point when canon stops at the end
of the final season, S7, when 1013 completely lost steering, spun
out, flipped over, and mutated into an unsalvageable wreckage of
below par fanfic. Their fic costs more than ours, that's all.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
   This story was originally intended as a stand-alone, and
therefore can be read without necessarily committing yourself to
read part II.
   I would like the many, many people who have written thanking
me for writing a strong Mulder to know that that Mulder is
present in this story, as deeply as I could write him. I hope
that my previous MSR readers will give this slash story a chance.
   And please bear with me: the Scully scene/references are
short, firmly grounded in canon (see detailed end notes), and
integral to the theme (not gratuitous). (Yes, ::gasp::, this
story has, like, an actual *theme.*)

THANKS to my wonderful beta readers, MWKidder, Anne, and Frank,
and to my tireless science advisor, Mark.

DEDICATION: This story is for Mulder, with love.

LENGTHY NOTES AT THE END, including remarks on Scully
characterization, and slash.

=================================================

DEEP PLAY

     "Deep play" is play in which the stakes are so high that,
      from a utilitarian standpoint, to play is irrational.
                                --paraphrased from Jeremy Bentham

     "Above all, play requires freedom. One chooses to play.
      Play's rules may be enforced, but play is not like life's
      other dramas. It happens outside ordinary life, and it
      requires freedom." --Diane Ackerman

=================================================

Part I: OUT OF BOUNDS

=================================================

"If they give you ruled paper,
 write the other way."
      Juan Ramon Jimenez

"You see it's the same thing about whether you decide to do a
 dance at the level at which the dance is being done and whether
 if you don't you're being immoral or irresponsible."
      City of San Francisco Oracle, Vol. 1, No. 5, January, 1967.
       

=================================================

 

Skinner stared at Mulder, and Mulder stared back. It was a
contest of wills so subtle that even the two men themselves
weren't sure what, if anything, was under dispute. Not a muscle
moved in either face, not a flicker in an eye. Skinner broke
first. His jaw clenched involuntarily and he forced it to ease.
He looked down. Up. Met Mulder's eyes again, Mulder's pale,
intensely focused eyes. Everything about Mulder begged to be
slapped down. Skinner's old instincts surged, and his palms
itched. He quelled it. Something in him protected Mulder, even
against himself. Something in him needed to make room for Mulder
or he himself wouldn't be able to breathe.

"OK," he said. The sound grated resentfully from his throat.
"You and I both know this -- *leave* --" he thumbed the corner of
Mulder's request form, which lay in front of him on the desk,
bland and uncommunicative as Mulder himself when he wanted to be
-- "has something to do with an investigation. I'm not going to
ask you again why you don't feel able to fill out the appropriate
paperwork, but I'm sure I don't need to remind you, agent, that
there are standards of ethical and professional conduct that go
along with that badge you carry."

Even as he said the words Skinner was ashamed of them, and
consequently they came out sounding much angrier than he had
intended. His jaw clenched tighter. Mulder blinked.

"Thank you, sir," Mulder said, dipping his head and changing his
posture just slightly in recognition that the interview was
ending.

"That will be all," Skinner confirmed, and Mulder stood on cue.

//He hates me, doesn't trust me,// the thought flickered half-
formed, sub-verbal at the edges of Skinner's mind. He pushed it
back into silence and didn't let it coalesce into words. He
might have had to think about it if it were words. He didn't
have time to think about shit like that. But his voice softened
-- "Let me know when you get back," he said, and Mulder started.

With one more flick of the clear hazel eyes and a fast, honest
smile, Mulder turned away again and walked out. Skinner slumped
over his desk.

Why did he always feel this way after interactions with Mulder?
Like some hollow, stuffed-shirt, dishonest bureaucrat, who...
This time the thought did make it to the outer surfaces of
Skinner's busy mind. He sighed deeply, shoved his glasses up,
and rubbed his eyes as if that would make it go away. Whenever
he was around Mulder he couldn't shake this suspicion that he
felt hollow and dishonest because he *was* hollow and dishonest.
It was one of the many sensations triggered by Mulder that made
him want to get his hands around the man's throat and squeeze.
But whatever self-preservation there was left in Skinner, not the
fight-training and bureaucratic savvy that got him safely through
his days, but the deeper self-preservation of soul, that wounded,
rusty, honesty of pain which lurked at the empty center and got
him, shaking, through his nights -- that part of him that was
still Walt, still a little lost, still hopeful -- that part
wouldn't allow him to crush Mulder down.

Skinner refused to think about it. He had work to do. He always
had work to do. Important work. That was what got him by, day
to day, keeping busy. He dreaded vacations, and he dreaded
twilight, and he dreaded being alone with himself, but
fortunately this job didn't leave much time for such
nonessentials. Plenty to think about, too much to think about,
that was the way Skinner liked it.

He shoved Mulder's approved leave request into the appropriate
pile, and reached for the next item at the top of his stack. He
wouldn't think about Mulder again until he had to. Even if...

Never mind. He'd just have to hope it was by daylight with
plenty of distractions, and not alone in the middle of a restless
night...

=================================================

Scully opened the vibrating office door and was hit by a wall of
noise which she refused to think of as music. Wincing, she moved
quickly to the boom box and shut it off. She knew on some level
that she was being petty, realized that she could have simply
turned it down a little, but she didn't care. It really pissed
her off to come into her own office, her supposed place of work,
and find her partner dancing around in front of the file cabinets
with one hand riffling through files in rhythm to the music and
the other shoving a sandwich into his face.

"Mm, Scully --"

Just as she always suspected, he used his filing hand to wipe
mayonnaise from his mouth, and then reached for the files again.
Her eyes followed the greasy hand, and she frowned. Mulder
swallowed.

"--hey, I'm taking a couple days off, you don't mind finishing up
the paperwork on that Blackwater case, do you?"

He looked her once over quickly and smiled, but the smile and the
flick of eyes didn't synchronize, they syncopated. Typical
Mulder trick, trying to sweet-talk her. Scully stood her ground.

"What is it this time, Mulder?" she demanded.

"Hmm?" Mulder mumbled around another bite of roast beef sandwich.
"B*a*wa*r?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full; first warning."

He swallowed again. "Remember Blackwater? Last week,
Blackwater? Ancestral ghosts? The half a southern belle you
said didn't count as a real ghost because she--"

"--I did not say that--"

"--wasn't all there?" Mulder shrugged, and took another bite of
sandwich. With his mouth full again he said, "Well, then you
must remember that cute little private security officer, what was
his name? I'm sure he remembers you, Scully, he--"

Scully turned her back on him and sighed deeply. She tensed her
shoulders and let them drop, rotated her neck and wondered
absently how long Mulder might go on having a conversation with
himself and the back of her head if left to his own devices.

"*Last time* you ditched me with paperwork," she interrupted in a
tone of long suffering, articulating all her words very clearly
in unconscious opposition to his sandwich mutterings, "it was for
miniature mer-people at the Aquarium. I just wanted to know what
it was *this* time."

"Scully? Miniature mer-people? Didn't you send away for those
when you were a kid? They're krill. They die before they get
big enough to see the little crowns and stuff. I went to the
National Gallery."

"The National Gallery," she repeated flatly. Since when was
Mulder interested in art?

"Yeah, the Orientalism Exhibit, you know, reclining odalisques in
diaphanous -- or no, wait, was that the day I went to the Tattoo
Museum? I was thinking of--"

"Mulder I *do not* want to know what you were thinking. Just
tell me what you're doing for the rest of this week."

And while he told her, Scully gathered up papers and let him
talk. She listened only lightly; it would all change anyway by
the next time she heard it. Impossible to get a straight answer
out of him when he was in a wayward mood like this. Scully
already had a headache and it wasn't even lunch time yet. "Mm-
hmm," she said, "mm-hm."

He'd stopped talking. Oops. Scully quickly tried to replay
short-term auditory memory. No luck. Was it *her* fault Mulder
talked so much, damn it? "Uh, yeah?" she bluffed weakly.

"You *really* want me to take my clothes off?" Mulder said.

//Shit. Busted.//

"'Cuz it's a little early in the day for that kind of thing,
but--"

"OK, Mulder, you caught me. I wasn't listening. Just get to the
point."

"No point, Scully. I'll be back on Monday, have fun while I'm
away."

He sounded hurt. Was he hurt? Scully started to glance in his
general direction, but then decided she didn't really want to
worry about it.

"OK, fine, have a good trip," she said. Was he going on a trip?
She was pretty sure she'd heard the words 'airline ticket'...
"I'll just get out of your way then, and get this stuff started."
She finished shoving Blackwater files, notes, and disks
haphazardly into her briefcase, with the intention of sorting
everything out later. Right now all she could focus on was a
need to get out of this cluttered, claustrophobic, dark little
office, which was too filled with Mulder.

Sometimes... Sometimes Scully felt like she couldn't breathe at
all when Mulder was around, like she was going to scream if he
said one blessed word more--

Making a break for the door, she didn't see the way he looked at
the back of her head as she went. All Scully could think about
was getting up to her desk, her real desk, the only place where
she could get any actual work done, and yes it was a pity it
couldn't be in the same space with Mulder, which everyone
acknowledged would have been more convenient, but it just
couldn't. Her bullpen cubicle was her life-line. She'd fought
hard to keep it through more than one personnel shake-up
upstairs. If they wanted her to continue to work with Mulder
they had to at least give her that much -- a desk of her own, a
phone extension -- in exchange for years of her life spent
ducking into "her" office in the basement to pick up files, and
ducking out again whenever she actually needed to concentrate.
Life with Mulder.

She sighed as the door closed behind her, and his music cranked
back up. She felt bitchy when she caught herself thinking
thoughts like this, and Scully didn't like to think of herself as
bitchy. Making a conscious attempt to be charitable, she
reminded herself that Mulder wasn't being a jerk on purpose. He
was just obsessive, that's all. But he was a good partner, with
many fine qualities, and a fine mind ... when he bothered to use
it. No, that wasn't fair either. But, damn it, she defended him
to Skinner, she backed him up, bailed him out, and kept his feet
on the ground for him, more or less. Mulder would be hopelessly
lost without her, and they both knew it. Scully considered that
she was entitled to a few uncharitable thoughts from time to
time, given the circumstances.

If she felt a twinge of guilt, she didn't let herself think about
it much. Scully was good at not thinking about things. In her
line of work, she had to be. It was a matter of self-
preservation; keeping grounded. She just couldn't afford to let
herself be drawn in to all Mulder's games.

Holding her head high and her spine stiff, she marched on up the
back stairs.

=================================================

Mulder rolled his head towards the airplane window, letting the
seat take the compelling weight of his body and falling back
comfortably into the heaviness of acceleration. He was watching
for the ground to drop away.

His favorite moment of flying was this moment when the plane lost
contact with the ground, this tipping, slightly unsteady lurch,
and up! Now! Totally improbable, completely unrealistic. For
millions of years of Human history they would have said you were
insane if you'd tried to describe this. He enjoyed all the
transitions through turbulence, the way the plane dropped and
dipped and shuddered as it found its wings. Mulder loved to fly.
He loved the groundlessness of it and even in a weird way the
helplessness of it, the enforced time-out.

Sometimes he dreamed of flying, and sometimes when it occurred to
him in dreamflights, surreal nights, he flew planeless up, high,
high, direct, up, through, unhesitating up to that place where
the air went too thin to breathe and on higher still, where the
air was only a vapor of luminous blue and his mind filled with
light until he would almost begin to pass out from trying to
breathe light instead of oxygen -- and then at last he'd relax,
give up, and let himself just free-fall plummeting down purely
for the roller-coaster thrill of falling. Mulder knew he would
always pull out of the fall before he hit bottom. He trusted
himself that far at least, in dreams.

He watched idly as towns, farms, and soft mountains drifted
pleasantly by far below, and made a game of imagining himself a
boy on that farm, looking up, or a shop-keeper in that little
town... He wondered where the library was, and saw himself
walking there on a Sunday afternoon, carrying his book down by
the river there... Or, no, that town was already dropping away
behind. The next one, then...

And simultaneously in the basement of his mind Mulder was
riffling through files, fingering the dog-eared corners of
familiar ideas. He had the godlike sense that here above the
clouds he could think about anything he wanted. He could pick
and choose; play with possibilities. No one could interrupt or
interfere.

Watching a gargantuan sleeping cloud warrior drift by, laid out
archaic and rigid with a little prim smile like Scully's smile
and a stiff formal top-knot on top of her head, he was free to
ask himself the honest, soul-searching questions he most loved to
ask about the unseen sides of things, and the up-sides of clouds.
The things you couldn't always see from the ground when you were
in the thick of it, standing too close. Anonymous sources,
reliable sources, first-hand accounts, hearsay, Blackwater, Area
51, Skinner, ghosts, Oxford, old friends, the ghosts of old
friends, old betrayals, the Consortium, the possibility of bugged
phone lines, the myriad unresolved implications, insinuations,
inferences, and innuendos of life ... Scully ... the capacities,
resistances, and hollow voids that made up his day-to-day
existence, and the context of himself, himself as context, this
freakish solipsistic suspicion he sometimes entertained that the
reality he moved through might be more influenced by his own mind
than he would like to think. The Scully-warrior's face was
melting now, mutating, caving in, leering a brief Death's head
grin before taking on the abstract shape of a basketful of
puppies. White, fluffy, cotton-ball puppies. No, not puppies,
apples ... apples with bites eaten out, rotting apples...

The purpose of his trip he resolutely pushed to the side. For
now. It kept trying to edge in like a whisper, but, knowing
those thoughts were waiting for him, he was content to let them
take their time in coming. Right now he had an intoxicating
over-abundance of other things to think about.

Planes were as good as long lonely nights for thinking. Better,
maybe.

=================================================

SAN FRANCISCO
TWILIGHT

   
Pot smoke, tobacco smoke, incense, spilled booze, pissed and
stoned and dizzy and free ... blue light, lava light, lipstick
kisses on the bathroom mirror ... pulse of music, pulse of blood,
pulse of remembering how wide the ocean is, and how impossible to
explain London in Massachusetts ... playing with the infinite
possibilities of life, and fumbling kisses on the couch scarcely
caring with whom.

Summer.

Yeah, he remembered Skyler.

Candles, crystals, serious midnight talks of ghosts and hypnosis
and reincarnation, nose to nose, staring into one single big
brown eye, too drunk to care...

He remembered Skyler.

He remembered going back to Oxford when the summer was over,
laughing with his friends, and telling them what they wanted to
hear. "Yeah, yeah, thank god I'm back, I was dying of boredom
back there." He remembered them asking about girls, and he
remembered laughing.

Not that anything really happened, between him and Skyler. No.
That wasn't it ... exactly.

Not that he would have minded.

Well...

He would have minded.

Now, all these years later, walking alone down this San Francisco
street it was hard not to remember how he'd felt that last night
of summer, 1982, when Skyler Cliese kissed him. He remembered it
felt ... scary. Heart-racing, stomach churning, turning-on,
fight-or-flight scary. He remembered laughing, and kissing back,
and the jolt like a chemical fire that went through his whole
body -- the acrid self-smell of male sweat -- knowing in his
back-brain that the chemistry was off -- and something in his
cells crying "no! taboo! out-of-bounds! oh-wow-oh-shit-oh-my-
god!"

He remembered how summer had been ending, and how he'd been too
hung up on the idea of having to get on a plane. Having to fly.
Too stressed. His mother, as usual, busy picking fights in
advance before she lost her chance, trying to get a whole
academic year's worth of fights packed into a few short, sultry
weeks, while his father looked the other way disapprovingly from
a distance. He remembered not feeling like a good son.

No girlfriend. Feeling like a failure with girls. The guy
nobody wanted. A new term starting, and all that on his mind,
and the nagging stress of not having packed yet -- and everything
all together combining into one sick lump of queasy, irrational
certainty that if he took one wrong step, one step off the path,
his whole precarious life might tip unbalanced. As if it
mattered. Feeling like he was always walking a tightrope of
approval. Too afraid that if he just let things happen there
might not be any going back, as if some essential something
inside himself might break. Kissing Skyler had threatened his
still untested masculinity, his still fragile sense of himself.

Now, shuffling through San Francisco twilight, Mulder remembered
all those feelings like a book he read once. He remembered the
panic, the uncertainty about sex, but didn't feel it anymore. He
knew who he was now. He knew what he liked. He remembered
feeling giddy like flying, wild like wind, loose and scared and
infinitely free, precarious, like dancing at the edge of a dream-
cliff. Like jumping blind. That was then. Now he'd already
landed ... eyes wide open ... in the basement, with Scully. And
that was all right. Fine. Not so bad, in its own way. Not what
he might've hoped for in his life, but better than he should
probably have expected.

Hands shoved in pockets, he ducked into the dim, narrow bar, and
found a seat in a booth off to the side. He was early. He
ordered a beer, and jockeyed it between thumbs and forefingers,
centering it, sliding it, letting it ride on the thin film of
sweat and spillage. Not picking it up.

Cautiously, he looked around. Dim bar. Not dark enough to be
intentional, but half-lit like they just hadn't bothered to turn
on the lights. Couple of guys over in one corner. A handsome
woman up at the bar, glancing his way. One booth crowded with a
mixed group of college kids. Quiet, rainy, early evening feel of
nothing happening yet.

He raised his glass.

Then he saw Skyler, and suddenly couldn't stop a goofy smile from
stretching across his face.

How many times had he imagined seeing Skyler again? And yet he'd
never imagined it like this: Skyler calling in with an X-file, a
secret copy of an eyes-only document, smuggled out of Area 51.
Yeah, trust Skyler to come up with something like this ... and to
drag him into it. Trust Skyler to track him down. They always
had been on the same wavelength.

As he watched the way his old friend's eyes darkened, dilated,
the way Skyler's head lifted a little higher, his chest puffed
out, and his step bounced, Mulder just went on slouching over his
beer, grinning inanely. How could he ever have wondered if he
would still recognize this man? So many years later, and Skyler
Cliese had hardly changed at all. He was a little more chiseled,
more rugged, no longer the slim, slightly pretty boy he had been,
but more eye-catching now that he had a man's face and a man's
heavier, more confident stride.

"Hey Fox," he said softly, and he meant 'hello.' "Move over."

Mulder scooted sideways to make room for Skyler to slide into the
booth beside him.

"Don't like having my back to the door, these days," Skyler said,
and laughed. "Just one of those things, you know?"

Mulder laughed too. "Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, I know."

He felt Skyler's hand on his knee, and for one instant the doubt
flashed through his head that this meeting was a set-up -- that
Skyler had searched him out and convinced him to fly cross-
country to San Francisco on false pretenses, all for the sake of
feeling him up. He tensed.

Skyler smiled a lascivious smile, and leaned to whisper
intimately in his ear, "Take the damn disk, will you? I want to
get this over with." He was making it look like sweet nothings,
Mulder realized dimly.

"Oh, uh, yeah." His hand fumbled for Skyler's under the table.
He brushed over hot skin, and then found the cold plastic case.
Taking it, he slipped it in his pocket. "Mission accomplished,"
he whispered into Skyler's ear. "Thanks."

"De nada." Skyler leaned back a little, and looked him over.
"Jesus, Fox, you look -- great. I'd barely've recognized you."

"Thanks," Mulder said dryly.

"You know what I mean." He slid his arm behind Mulder and ran
his fingers through his hair. "All your beautiful hair," he
murmured sadly. "Shit, man."

Mulder shrugged, signaling the waitress to bring Skyler a beer
and trying not to think about Skyler's fingers toying through his
hair. It felt kind of ... nice.

Inadvertently he glanced around, but no one was watching. No one
cared. They were in San Francisco.

"I'm making you uncomfortable, aren't I?"

"Huh? Me? No! Why would --? Uh, well, yeah."

Skyler laughed. "Can't knock a guy for trying," he said, and
then his smile faded. He dropped his voice and leaned in close
again. "But I should warn you that I'm being tailed. Have been
for several days now. Don't look, but one of them is outside the
window hanging around like he's waiting for a bus, and the other
is that dude over there at the bar who came in right after me.
Now, laugh."

Obediently, Mulder laughed as if his friend had just said
something funny. He let his eyes flick towards the bar, where a
guy in a starched white shirt, dress slacks, and black shiny FBI
shoes was trying too hard to look casual. Mulder winced. Shades
of himself in his work clothes. He congratulated himself on
having been smart enough to dress down for a change.

"Feds?"

"Who the hell knows?" Skyler nuzzled the words into his ear. "I
figure they want a tour of my private life, they can have it, you
know? So we've been going out every night, me and the guys.
These two are Lenny and Squiggy. They're fun. They get really
creeped out in gay bars, so that's where we're going."

"We are?" Mulder gulped.

Skyler leaned back, raised his eyebrows, and grinned. "Sure!
You wanna? We could do that!" He toyed with Mulder's hair some
more, and stroked his fingers distractingly over the back of his
neck.

"No, I mean, I thought you said--"

"Stop stammering, hun. You're supposed to be my date."

"I am?"

"Of course. Haven't you been listening? These guys wanna pin
something on me, but I don't think they're sure what to pin. And
if they can't tell one trick from another... Well... That's not
exactly my problem, now is it?" He smiled a dangerous smile,
leaned in slowly, and brushed his lips against the tender skin
behind Mulder's ear. Mulder shivered.

"Sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable," Skyler whispered. "You
don't have to do anything, you know. Just sit there and try to
look like you like it. Or slap me back, and I'll go away, and
these two closet-cases will never be the wiser."

Mulder didn't move, didn't answer.

"You want me to leave?" Skyler whispered.

Mulder's heart was beating very fast. "No."

"Mmmm. Good. Can I kiss you?"

Soft question, soft voice, intense eyes. He always had felt
himself in danger of falling into Skyler's eyes. Skyler was the
first person who'd ever succeeded in hypnotizing him ... well,
almost hypnotizing him. Maybe because he'd almost wanted him to.
God, the stupid things they used to play around with. Kids with
fire.

Mulder took a deep breath, and moistened his lips. "Uh..." He
cleared his throat. He was sure he must be blushing.

Skyler smiled a wolfish smile, and his eyes sparkled. "God,
you're fun," he breathed.

"Listen, I, uh--" Mulder cleared his throat, and swallowed some
beer. He wanted to back away; wanted to move closer. This game
didn't feel like a game for some reason.

Skyler rested his arm on the back of the booth, draped casually
close to Mulder's neck in a way that projected intimacy without
actually crowding his space too much. "Look, I'm just being
practical, here," he murmured, leaning to whisper into Mulder's
ear. "We kiss a little, grope a little, we can get out of here
faster, and they'll just think we're on our way to, uh --" His
eyes strayed down Mulder's throat, down --

"Yeah, yeah, I get the idea," Mulder cut in quickly.

Skyler laughed. And then he nibbled at his earlobe, and Mulder's
whole body flushed.

He closed his eyes very tight. Exhilarating sensations,
immediate and unforgettable as falling off a bike, splicing years
out of his life and rendering him young and giddy and foolish in
an instant. How long since...? It felt... It felt... "Mmmm,"
he heard the soft sound resonate deep in his own throat and it
startled him, but he didn't try to hold it in. Skyler's hand was
kneading his shoulder, caressing the side of his neck, and energy
and warmth flowed into him making him know, admit, realize if
only for a moment just how essential a thing was touch. Human
touch. The touch of a hand, a mouth. Things he remembered
taking for granted ... a long time ago.

"OK," Mulder whispered, surprising himself. But, really, why
not? What harm in a kiss? Not like he was scared, or anything.
Anyway, it was just in play. Not real.

"Hmmm?" Skyler had already forgotten the question. "OK what?"
His voice slid heavy, deep, and warm into Mulder's ear. Half
lost.

Feeling excitement racing in his throat, Mulder nearly smiled.
"You can kiss me," he mumbled, lowering his eyes and nudging a
little closer, willfully shutting down some rational, critical
part of his brain.

"You mean it?" His friend was all at once very still, barely
breathing. "I can?" A breathlessness in his voice.

Mulder nodded, looking up despite himself, meeting Skyler's eager
eyes. Hot eyes. How come no one ever looked at him anymore with
eyes like this? He wanted someone to look at him like this.

Skyler leaned in slowly, very slowly, very deliberately, tipped
his head, and moved in close. He brushed his lips over Mulder's
lips.

Mulder's heart was racing. This was exactly what he had feared,
(hoped?), imagined too vividly. This was the fantasy he had held
at bay, inwardly ridiculed, and promised himself would certainly
never happen. Couldn't happen, in fact, because he'd thought of
it already, and things you imagine in too much detail never come
true -- that is a known fact. So how could this be happening?
And how come his heart was pounding as if he had not feared but
hoped -- as if he'd desired it?

"You gonna kiss me, or what?" Skyler murmured teasingly against
his lips. He wasn't making this easy; he was forcing it to be
real. Even while outwardly he played it up, and his body
language projected romance and intimacy, he still left Mulder
with a choice. A *real* choice. Because the show was only for
show, but a kiss, if they kissed, would be real. Everything
Mulder knew and remembered and sensed of Skyler gelled in that
moment, and he felt hot. He felt something like arousal, and
suddenly he *did* want it, and he let himself lean into Skyler's
lips.

There was the old, familiar nausea gripping in his stomach, and
his hands had gone clammy. He was simultaneously turned on, and
turned off, hyper-aware that people might be watching. A weird
cell-deep resistance was keening in his ears, throbbing through
his blood, a sort of gut-level "no" -- and yet at the same time
he felt a sort of singing, soaring, joyful lunacy. Defiant. It
tasted a little like stealing nectar from the gods, this
disobedient pleasure, this rebellious, headstrong assertion of
*will* over chemistry--

And Skyler's lips... Soft. Suggestive. Tempting. On impulse,
instinct, Mulder pressed deeper and opened his mouth. A mouth is
a mouth.

He felt Skyler gasp, and was surprised at how good it felt, how
hot it got. Surprised at the intensity with which their tongues
met, danced, embraced. Dimly he noticed the nearby clink when
the waitress set Skyler's beer on the table. A moment later,
they separated. Mulder got his hand off Skyler's thigh, and
Skyler let go of Mulder's head. Skyler's eyes seemed darker now,
and deeper. "Something you wanna tell me, Fox?" he inquired
pleasantly, picking up his glass.

"Uh..." Mulder chuckled. "Not really. No." He dropped his eyes
again, and drank.

The silence grew awkward.

"That is--"

"No, it isn't," Mulder cut him off quickly. "It's not." He
shook his head. "Uh-uh."

"You're not--?"

He shook his head again.

Skyler shrugged. "Well, I didn't really think you were. Maybe I
*hoped,* sometimes, I'll admit it, but..."

Nervously, they both laughed. Skyler's lips had a lovely curl to
them, Mulder noticed, a strength, and a certainty, and just a
hint of something sensual. He caught himself staring, and forced
himself to look away. But Skyler was looking at his mouth, too.

They each turned away, and then glancingly their eyes met.

Then away again.

God, it was just like flirting.

The shiny-shoed Fed at the bar turned his head quickly, avoiding
Mulder's unexpected glance.

Mulder settled in more comfortably, turning a little towards
Skyler and feeling his knee bump Skyler's knee. He let it rest
there. Warm. He put his elbow up on the back of the bench seat,
and took a deeper breath. Relaxed. Smiled.

"What if--?" Skyler started--

At the same time as Mulder said, "Would you--?"

They both laughed.

"You first."

Mulder twiddled his beer glass. "I was just wondering if you
were, uh, hungry?"

"Dinner?" Skyler smiled. "You know, if we went someplace really
nice, these goons'd have to wait outside. I think they're on a
budget."

They smiled.

=================================================

Walking.

Drizzle rain. Girls in skimpy tops with pierced belly buttons,
holding hands, laughing. Snarled Hippie-hair guy playing flute
under shelter of an overhang for a bored cat. San Francisco
early evening, and something about San Francisco, something about
the smell of the streets and the chill, damp eucalyptus air that
was very much not Washington. Not the sharp bite of Washington,
not the cutting cold, just a cool insinuation against hot skin.
Or was it something in Mulder that felt different? Something
inside himself not at home here ... or a little windy here ... or
as if this air might hear a secret and not echo it back.

As if...

They glanced at each other sideways. Took the BART to the
Castro; let Lenny and Squiggy follow along. Talked of adolescent
summers, and adolescent dreams.

And laughed.

=================================================

The restaurant Skyler led him into was dim, intimate. Firelit
and candlelit, with handsome waiters ... not that Mulder was
noticing. He was much too caught up in listening to Skyler's
account of his checkered career.

Mulder sipped Scotch on the rocks and tried to make sense of it
all. Harvard, grad work in biochemistry, MIT, research with
hallucinogens, casual asides to months, perhaps years, off the
career track and out in the field, Beat interludes -- the real
thing -- spiritual quest, Mexico, Central and South America, and
the whole conversation punctuated by discordant hints to some
affiliation with an organized, nameless group, and references to
labs, studies, government grants. God, he must sound like this
himself -- mad, rushing, paradoxical, confused -- and in his
enthusiasm he, too, probably neglected chronology, and forgot to
connect the dots enough to show other people the way all the
seemingly-contradictory pieces fit together. Mulder listened to
Skyler, and heard himself. And yet not himself. He was
enthralled.

Skyler talked robotics all through the antipasto, eagerly
outlining the key problems of artificial intelligence -- how to
design a sufficiently complex machine so that it might become
self-aware.

"I'm convinced that the trick of self-representation is what
underlies consciousness," Skyler was saying. "To be truly
conscious, you have to be aware of being conscious.
Consciousness is an inherently self-referential process."

Mulder could buy that argument, and was familiar with several
different variations on the theory, but nevertheless he held on
for a while to his preconceptions about clumsy, insectoid robots
programmed through data entry keyboards. He didn't actually
begin to make the leap until Skyler started to talk more
explicitly about things like environment interface, and organism-
environment systems theory. That was when the skin at the back
of Mulder's neck started prickling.

"Spaciotemporal patterns of electrical activity and the slavish
duplication of neuronal networks will not in isolation achieve
the desired result -- even if it were theoretically possible to
replicate at that level of complexity, which I personally
question. This isn't just about programming patterns of
amplitude and oscillatory EEG's, and in fact we are working with
considerations that go *way* beyond the limbic system. Self-
referential processes between areas of the brain -- hippocampus,
neocortex -- that's only the jumping off point, Fox -- map
everything down to the last fold and the last neuron, and you
still won't have it. The consciousness, the *mind* will still
elude you--"

"Of course," Mulder agreed, "the old phrenological models are
outdated. If the experience of consciousness is fundamentally
supra-cognitive -- not hard-wired -- then it would not be
isolable to any measurable, identifiable mechanical system.

"Exactly!"

"It seems more likely to me," Mulder said, "that we experience
consciousness as a result of the interaction between--"

"Yes, yes! *Between!* Between mind and itself, between mind and
body, and between mind and environment. 'Between' is the
operative concept. One brain in complete isolation cannot be
conscious, any more than it's possible to breathe in a vacuum.
One hand can't clap. If we want this thing we're building to
have a *mind* and be self-aware, we have to somehow get it out of
the vacuum, out of the lab, into the world--"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down." Mulder's sense of unease was
escalating. "In plain English, you're working on *what* now?"
  
Skyler hesitated, grinned and shrugged. The fast flow of eager
words had skidded to a stop. "I'm making a man," he said almost
apologetically. And wiggled his brows. He was blushing.

"Uh-huh. OK. Will he have blond hair and a tan?"

"Well, actually I think that's still being arguing in committee."

Mulder's eyebrows rose further, and he reached for his glass.
Empty. He shook his head slightly, quickly, and flagged a
passing waiter. "Carafe of house red?" He turned back towards
Skyler. "This is big, huh? Significant allocation of
resources?"

"Substantial."

"Why?"

Skyler shrugged. It was a long, slow, elegant shrug. "That's
the 64 thousand dollar question, Fox," he said. His eyes looking
into Mulder's eyes were very steady.

Mulder nodded, now hotly curious about the disk in his pocket.
"Classified," he murmured, and Skyler inclined his head in
affirmation. "Exactly how Human will this thing look?" Mulder
asked.

"Thing? Maybe it'll be a person, Fox. You never know. We're
not done with it yet, but this is gonna make Kismet and Cog look
like the dark ages." He sighed, and ran his fingers through his
shaggy hair. "Not very Human, probably. I don't think we're
that good yet. My personal suspicion is that it's going to look
like a mannequin, or a giant, self-mobile marionette." There was
something disquieting in his eyes when he said it, as if Skyler
himself didn't like the idea much. "But I'm not in that
department."

"Uh-huh. So what department are you in?"

Skyler chuckled and looked embarrassed. His eyes shifted away,
and then back to Mulder's eyes again. "Spiritual advisor. I'm
the damn thing's Sunday school teacher, if you can believe it.
Or its shaman."

"OK, now I'm scared."

"Hey, enough about me. I want to hear what's up with you."

Mulder blinked, and while the waiter cleared away their cocktail
glasses and antipasto plates, set fresh wine glasses on the table
and filled them with wine, he just stared with his mouth open.
"What's up with me?" he echoed. Skyler was watching him
expectantly. Mulder threw back his head and laughed. "Just
work, nothing interesting. Cheers." He lifted his glass, and
waited, clinking the rim against Skyler's.

Skyler smiled a lopsided smile, and all at once Mulder felt more
at ease than he could remember feeling with anyone in years.
Happy. Almost happy. He grinned at Skyler, half-aware of
letting his eyes linger over his friend's face, admiring the
elegant angles and planes of it, the tousled hair, the relaxed
tilt of Skyler's shoulders and the way his shirt was unbuttoned
at the throat to expose the strength and vulnerability of his
neck. His Adam's apple moved. He was watching Mulder look at
him, and his eyes got deeper.

Mulder smiled, shook his head again quickly as if to clear it,
and began to talk about the X-files.

It was a rare luxury to talk like this with an old friend. No
fear of ridicule. Skyler listened to everything, all of it,
laughed in the right places, and didn't ask the predictable
questions. Several times he blinked. Several times he said,
"Are you serious?" but he hung on every word, and with a growing
sense of urgency and enthusiasm Mulder found that he couldn't
wait to tell Skyler one more story, and another, just to see what
Skyler's reaction would be. He didn't know in advance what
Skyler would say, he actually had to wait and listen to find out,
and not being sure turned Mulder on in ways he wasn't quite
prepared for. It had been a long time since he'd had a really
good talk with someone whose responses could surprise him.

Dinner conversation fluctuated wildly, from cybernetics to shape-
shifting, alien abduction to shamanic initiation to government
cover-ups, hallucinations, drug trips, directed dreaming,
artificial intelligence, hypnotism as access and hypnotism as
misdirection, self-referential systems and self-fulfilling
expectations. The power of the mind to reinforce or to undermine
the illusion of status quo. And through it all, underlying every
shift in topic, the delicious push and tug of intimate
interaction with another mind.

And the more they talked, the more Mulder found his eyes locking
deeply with his friend's eyes, the more he almost forgot to eat
and the wine that filled and refilled his glass slid welcome and
easy down his throat.

The dinner plates had been cleared away, they were nearing the
bottom of their second carafe of wine, and Mulder's face felt
hot. Yes, hot. He put a hand to his cheek and then forgot it
there, forgot to say anything for a moment, and just grinned,
goofily. The conversation had hit a lull. "You know, I think I
missed you," he blurted.

Skyler studied him curiously, slid his gaze up and down Mulder's
skin, over his face, his torso. Back to his eyes. A wan smile
fleeted into sadness, and he sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Me too.
Tell me the truth, Fox, are you happy? Or is the FBI just one
more obsession for you, one more place for Fox Mulder to lose
himself?"

"Lose myself?" Mulder leaned back, startled. "Come on, Skyler,
what are you talking about, *lose myself?*"

"Cut the crap. This is me, remember? I know how your mind
works. I know you've been looking for ways to lose yourself in
some grand overwhelming something-or-other ever since we were
kids. You like life to be bigger than you. It's OK, really.
OK? I understand about you and your obsessions. I've got my
own." Skyler looked down into his wine glass. "I've got my
own," he repeated softly.

"Happy?" Mulder said. "Hell, I -- I try not to think about it.
Are *you* happy?"

"Why wouldn't I be," Skyler answered in a toneless, flat voice.
"Exciting work, decent pay, the opportunity to travel. Enough
time off that I get to remember what it feels like to be a
civilian every now and then." He glanced around the room.
"What's not to be happy about?"

Mulder studied him, chewing on his lip. "You're lonely," he
said.

Skyler didn't respond, didn't have to. It hadn't been a
question. He remembered this about Skyler, this ever-present
ache of loneliness that they both shared, and had once or twice
confessed to each other in the smallest hours of short, hot,
surprisingly un-lonely nights.
 
Mulder nodded. Some kind of quiet acceptance and recognition
passed between their eyes.

"Am I lonely? I don't usually remember, if I am. It's just
times like this, talking with you--"

"I know what you mean--"

A devious sparkle came back into Skyler's eye. "There are some
muscles you just can't flex alone," he said.

"Uu-huu! Flexing muscles, now, are we?" Mulder smirked. "When
did we get to flexing muscles, and which muscles are we flexing,
if you don't mind my asking?"

"OK, forget the muscle flexing. And let's not talk any more
shop, either. Enough about the government. Who gives a fuck
about the fucking government, anyway? I want to hear about
*you.*"

"Me?" Mulder shrugged. "There's nothing to tell." Then a
wrinkle of worry tightened between his eyes. "Do I *sound* like
I give a fuck about the fucking government?"

Skyler chuckled. "Ah ... no. Not really, no."

"Good, because..."

"Really, I mean it," Skyler said. "Tell me who you're in love
with, or who you're fucking, or how you feel when you're alone.
Tell me anything, your dreams, anything. Not just your work or
your obsessions or your brilliant, fascinating ideas, I really--"
He reached out across the table and slid his hand over Mulder's
wrist, caressing and gripping. "Tell me about *you.* I want to
hear about *you.*"

Mulder stared at Skyler's hand on his hand. It was hot,
callused, and the thumb slid up and down the soft inside of his
wrist. A strong, sensual hand, asking something he didn't know
if he was brave enough to answer. He swallowed, and fought the
urge to break away -- run. Hide. How was it that the mood
between them had shifted so suddenly, so far? He made himself
sit very, very still. How long since anyone asked him a question
like this? How long since anyone *knew* him well enough to ask?
Or cared enough?

"Me?" He smiled a lopsided smile. "Cracked, crazed, half-mad,
fools rush in. You know. Same old same old." He tried to make
it sound like a joke, but it wasn't a joke. It was his whole
fucking life always off-center and threatening to rush out of
control. Stray off-course. He resisted Skyler's eyes. Since he
wasn't planning to make even more of a fool of himself by finding
an excuse to leave the table (or by hiding under it), he hid by
breaking the continuity of focus ... just on the off-chance that
he might otherwise start to slip and maybe fall, into eyes that
might hypnotize him...

But Skyler let the silence grow so long that finally Mulder
couldn't stand it anymore, and had to look up. He felt off-
balance -- tipping forward -- like he might be blushing --

"Same old same old?" Skyler's eyes disbelieved him. "Look at
these people." He indicated the other diners with his head
without quite breaking eye contact. "Do they look like they're
rushing in anywhere?"

A nervous laugh choked off in Mulder's throat. Stopped. No
laughter; not a laughing matter. Depth of eyes, and falling into
eyes, and wondering what the fuck Skyler was getting at.

He glanced around the room, and shrugged.

"Fox, don't you get it? These guys used to be like us. Twenty
years ago, if we'd all been at the same party, no one could have
told us apart. No one could have predicted. All these guys
dreamed big and expected great things from life too. They just
forgot."

Skyler's thumb was still caressing Mulder's wrist, and it felt
kind of good. Mostly weird, but kind of good. Mulder pretended
not to notice, and took some time to size up their fellow diners.
White-collar, on their way to middle age. Lots of gay guys
looking tough in designer muscles bought and paid for at the gym,
and designer denim and leather bought and paid for at trendy
shops. Work boots and cowboy boots worn for show, not for use.

"Well, uh..." he said, hesitating and hoping for inspiration.
None came. He took back his hand, trying to act casual about it.
"You never know," he murmured, looking back at his plate.

"But I *do* know. The only place most of these guys *rush in* is
to the Castro on Friday nights. And to work, and home from work,
and to take the cat to the vet, and make sure the dry-cleaning is
picked up on time. At the top of their list of worries is
getting laid, running neck and neck with the problem of how to be
more beautiful, more desirable, build up their pecs and not get
wrinkles. Money's a close third. For most of them it's been
years since anything really new happened, and the stuff you and I
put our hearts and souls into -- doesn't even register. Not
anymore."

"You're being too harsh," Mulder said.

Skyler shrugged. "Am I?" The hand that had been trying to hold
Mulder's hand cradled a wineglass instead. "I have occasionally
been known to sleep with these men, remember? I know what
they're like." The tone of bitterness winding through his words
had worn itself down into simple resignation. "The saddest thing
is that these guys here are way more interesting than middle
America. If you're looking for community, this is where it's at,
man, this is as good as it gets." He lifted his glass in a
silent, ironic toast to the room.

Then he looked back at Mulder. "Well, *almost* as good..."

With part of his attention Mulder registered the compliment, and
wondered dimly how serious Skyler was this time. When did
teasing slip over into flirting, slip over into...

But the greater part of his awareness was not really on Skyler at
all. He looked out across the room, and felt his perception
slip. Saw people the way he sometimes saw them -- not as faces
but as possibilities, lives to dip into, inner worlds to imagine
-- all of them coming together into a wonderfully messed up
harmony and discord. No two perceptions of the scene would ever
agree, he knew that, any more than two eye-witness accounts were
ever the same at an accident, and yet somehow all these diverse
minds had come together tonight, managed to consent a little,
compromise, and settle on this one single outward appearance,
this atmosphere, this indescribable something that might be
suggested in a photograph but never wholly captured. The
something that was part of what made him know he wasn't in
Washington. The atmosphere, the environment of the room,
influenced the consciousnesses in a feedback loop which in turn
shaped and created the atmosphere. Skyler was right, it was
self-referential; it had to do with betweenness.

"Consciousness comes from the Latin 'con', 'together' and
'scire', 'to know'," Mulder said quietly. "Consciousness is the
condition of knowing together."

And at the same time Skyler added something that sounded like,
"Present company excepted, of course, which is to say not
counting glorious madmen, brilliant fools, and acts of god."

"What?" they both said at once, and both laughed.

"Go ahead." -- "No, you."

"I was just pondering the concept that there are muscles you
can't flex alone," Mulder said, and his eyes were smiling, even
if his lips were not.

Skyler looked a little pink, a little on, almost flustered. But
the next words out of his mouth betrayed him. "What about your
partner?"

"Scully?" Mulder asked blankly. "What about her?" Scully seemed
especially dim, theoretical, and far away right now. His eyes
were lingering on Skyler's face, fascinated despite himself, and
it occurred to him in a vague, indirect sort of way that Skyler
was attractive.

"No sparks?"

"Sparks? Huh? Scully? Uh..." His eyes had come to rest on
Skyler's lips. It had been nice to kiss Skyler. Was nice to
kiss Skyler. Might be nice to kiss Skyler again. He could
picture Skyler closing his eyes, yielding to a kiss, yielding to
*him,* to *his* kiss, his hands -- and before that image could
take on too much life of its own, Mulder tore his eyes away.
//Scully,// he thought resolutely, and cleared his throat.
"Scully," he said.

//Scully believes there is a rule for everything, and I don't.
And that's a problem.// "Scully is ... great, you know. She's
pretty. I mean, I guess she's pretty."

"*Pretty?*" Skyler was looking at him funny.

Mulder shrugged. //She's predictable.// "I trust her."

"So here's this pretty, presumably intelligent, trustworthy woman
-- is she loyal too, by the way? -- and she's got *you* for a
partner--"

Mulder snorted.

"--And you face danger side by side. And...?"

"And?"

"No one's ever made a move?"

"I never said *that,* exactly." Mulder winced as the memory hit
him, visceral and unforgiving, of an ill-omened night in an
anonymous hotel room, himself tripping over his own words trying
to apologize for something, he couldn't remember what. It was
always something. But this time whatever it was he'd said had to
his horror caused Scully's disciplined, premeditated veneer to
crack open just as he'd always known it would one day, and all
her good intentions split at the seams so that the formless,
wordless turmoil inside spilled out and he'd been faced with
Scully the way he never wanted to see her again -- Scully
derailing herself, discomposing the careful prose of her life,
ravishing, fiery, transformed and therefore not herself at all,
climbing into his lap and wrapping herself around him, offering
to forgive him with a kiss. He'd turned her down more rudely
than he meant, just because he needed so desperately to be sure
she got it. And she'd gotten it. It never happened again.

The memory of her the way she was that night was something Mulder
guarded tightly to his heart, and would never speak aloud. He
sometimes wondered if Scully herself remembered it, but was
pretty confident she didn't. Scully repressed a lot, and this
was exactly the kind of thing she couldn't afford to let herself
remember and still keep being Scully.

"I never said there were no moves made," he equivocated
carefully. "What makes you think she'd have me?"

"Does she have eyes and a mind?"
  
Listlessly Mulder shrugged. "We're a good team," he said.
"Scully's great. I love Scully." He didn't want to talk about
her anymore. His gaze came to rest on a muscular guy in T-shirt
and jeans at a nearby table who was tipped back in his chair with
his legs splayed, laughing and watching his date with greedy, hot
eyes. His date was a young, graceful prima donna of a boy, eyes
flashing, head tossing, and it seemed to Mulder just barely
possible that the boy really might have said something witty
enough to warrant the enthusiastic way the older man was
laughing.

The back track of his imagination ran wild, without his volition,
and he found himself toying with an image of the couple in bed.
For one vertiginous moment he ached to know what it must be like
to be that man, laughing, or that boy, making him laugh. He was
hungry to know it. To know what they each expected, and where
they met, what it would feel like to kiss those mouths, kiss
*with* those mouths, and how it would be to have the kind of life
where the first priority was getting laid...

How would it be, for example, if this were for real right now
with Skyler? What would it feel like to look across the table at
another man and think of sex, wonder all the odd, forbidden,
intimate imaginings one always wondered, on a first date--

His curiosity was simultaneously caught, and repelled. He *knew*
Skyler, knew him well and deeply. Knew him by instinct, as only
a man can know another man. It felt weird to even begin to try
to imagine thinking of Skyler in a sexual way -- visualizing him
naked, hard, turned on, fantasizing what he would smell like,
taste like, what sounds he might make and whether --

Grabbing for his wine, Mulder drank. Overactive imagination or
no overactive imagination, he really had to stop thinking this
shit now. It was an old familiar companion, this impulse to look
through other eyes and feel through other skin, this urgent
temptation to let himself imagine himself someone else, just for
a moment, just for a night... But he really had to stop
imagining what it would feel like if ... if this were a real
date. If he were really attracted to Skyler. It wasn't, of
course, and he wasn't. Was he?

He glanced back at the couple at the next table. If he were one
of them, everything would be so much easier... "Looks pretty
good to me," he muttered.

This mood could get him in trouble, if he let it. Yep, could
definitely get him in trouble.

"Easy for you to say," Skyler said dryly, and sipped his wine.

And then Mulder swung his focus, and looked at Skyler. Really
looked at him. "I should be so lucky," he said, "to have nothing
but sex on the brain." He felt his voice slip deep and noticed
the quiet suggestions sliding in between uninflected words. He
let it happen.

Skyler looked startled, and then he smiled. "Not getting enough?
Why don't you let me help you with that?"

Mulder just laughed.

"I'd need your cooperation, of course."

"Yeah, yeah," Mulder said, still laughing. "In your dreams."
This was familiar banter. Mulder felt his muscles relax a little
more, even as his awareness sharpened.

//What if...?// A dangerous question, 'what if.' Like all the
other speculations in his life, this too threatened to tip him
off course. What if he bumped his foot against Skyler's foot
right now? What if he held this eye contact just a little
longer? What if they openly held hands across the table, and
gazed into each other's eyes? What then?

It seemed too silly to contemplate, and he knew he should push
the frivolous thoughts away. But he couldn't, really, because he
was too intensely aware that in this place at this time his was
the minority opinion, and no one else here would find anything at
all odd about what he was thinking.

So what if he did let himself be someone else, or some other part
of himself, just for one night? Let himself stray, slip, detour
see through other eyes, what then? How far could he go? What
would he feel?

"My dreams, or yours?" Skyler asked.

Mulder's heart beat faster. He chuckled again, nervously. It
felt like Skyler'd read his mind.

He didn't have to be gay to notice that his friend was a handsome
man. He was vital and dynamic, flexible in his thinking, with a
keen intelligence, ability to go with the flow, practiced social
skills, a fascinating, convoluted, shadowy career, a dry,
sophisticated sense of humor, and good taste in clothes. He had
the gift of looking at everyone he met as if they were the person
at the center of the universe. If Skyler were a woman... Wow,
if he were a woman, he would be worth risking everything, the
kind of woman Mulder barely dared to fantasize about. And if
that woman, that imaginary Skyler-woman were sitting across the
table from him now, looking at him like this-- No doubt at all
how he'd be feeling. No doubt what he'd be planning, hoping,
with his heart in his throat...
 
Despite his best intentions, he let his awareness drift a little
on the wine and expand out to include not just himself, not just
his responsibility for his end of the conversation, his words,
his expressions, and what he was doing with his hands, but widen
to embrace a consciousness of Skyler, too. It wasn't an
intellectual process, was in fact mostly subconscious; he just
"felt" Skyler. Felt where the tension was in him, and which
muscles were relaxed. Paid attention to the minutest flickers of
shifting stress around his eyes, and in the irises of his eyes,
and whether he was happy or not, and if he was maybe a little
turned on for real instead of only playing.

"So all these men," Mulder said, feeling giddy with drink,
"These slightly hypothetical men you sleep with sometimes...?
What do you want from them that they're not giving?"

A slight smile in Skyler's eyes, tired, honest, aware -- barely a
flicker of a smile -- and with it a silent acknowledgment:
//Touche, the right question.//

"Passion," Skyler answered very quietly, looking steadily into
Mulder's eyes. "It's always passion. I don't mean passion for
sex; that's easy. I mean passion for *life.* That's what I want
from men. And I don't find it often."

Mulder breathed in deep, involuntary. He nodded, just barely,
just once. Looked down. Looked up. Met Skyler's eyes again.
"I know exactly what you mean," he said quietly.

Skyler broke the eye contact first, looking around the room and
tipping two fingers in the air to signal the waiter. He watched
as Skyler handed over a credit card, watched the way the waiter
smiled at him, and the comfortable way their eyes loitered
together. It wasn't how he was used to seeing men look at each
other. Skyler's body was long, lithe, a runner's body, more
filled out than he had been at 19 but still athletic and trim.
Was that what the waiter saw? Was that all he saw?

"You should let me pay it," he said, several beats too late.
Skyler just looked at him curiously, and didn't bother to answer.

And the shocking little temptations were starting to whisper in
the back of his mind. He could feel them. Had felt them before,
in fact, but always shoved them away before...

The waiter, doting, hurried back with the receipt for Skyler to
sign, but Skyler disappointed him by glancing only at Mulder when
he signed it.

"Thank you for wining and dining me," Mulder said, because he
couldn't resist.

Skyler smiled a wryly. "Any time, babe."

=================================================

Skyler wanted to laugh out loud just for joy, or compose all the
emotion off his face before Fox could turn and see it there. He
felt wired, pumped, an eager energy running under his skin daring
him to do something crazy -- grab Fox and kiss him, here in the
street-- Or reach for his hand, except he didn't want to spook
him.

He was afraid Fox would stop flirting, and afraid he wouldn't
stop. Afraid that one of them would take it too far, or not far
enough. He dreaded the idea of returning alone to his empty
apartment with its bare walls, one more place which passed for
home and yet was not home, just as no place and everyplace was
home. He'd handed over the disk, done what he set out to do, and
he should really call a stop to this, walk away, but somehow he
couldn't. It felt too good to be with Fox again, and like a
junkie Skyler couldn't talk himself out of it even though he knew
he'd pay later -- and pay a higher price, the more fun he had
tonight.

He couldn't live this way, god he couldn't live this way. But
Fox caught his eye, smiling that endearing smile of his, and
Skyler knew he couldn't *not* live this way. Too many nights he
had fallen asleep wishing for the tones of this voice, nights
spent cradled in other men's arms, maybe, or his own arms, but
thinking of Fox. The puppy-love that wouldn't die. The one
other soul that drew him in so hard and so deep he never wanted
to come up for air ever again, the only man he couldn't make
himself forget -- and he had to be straight.

He was too old for this, should know better, had known better
yesterday and last week and all the hours in between spent
obsessing over this meeting, exhorting himself to keep his head,
keep his heart.

"So, uh, what do you wanna do now?" he found himself saying,
stupidly.

"Suggest something."

Jittery excitement bunched and clogged in Skyler's chest, in his
throat. He glanced sideways at Fox's calm, unreadable face,
wondering if he'd heard right.

"Well, uh, I don't know if you'd like my suggestions," he said.
He was trying for smart-ass but sounded to his own ears mostly
just nervous, and he realized he was staring. Hoping for a clue.

"What would you normally do now," Fox said, glancing quickly into
his eyes and then away again, "if this were--" he shrugged--
"--you know--? If we were--"

"Uh," Skyler said, "uh--" And there was trouble ahead, coming
their way. Lonnie and Liza. "Crap," he muttered.

"Uuuh! Skyler, darling!" Liza's voice shrilled from half a block
away. "Lonnie, it's Skyler! Where have you been hiding
yourself, you bad girl, we've missed you! Haven't we, Lonnie?"

Lonnie and Skyler's eyes met, sharing the fast understanding of
old friends. Lonnie was wearing what he called his "male drag"
tonight, and when Lonnie was in men's clothes -- which was most
of the time, these days -- he didn't make any attempt to compete
with Liza. He just slipped back peacably into the shadows, a
long, tall, soft-spoken black man, with gentle eyes.

Liza, on the other hand, was, as ever, Liza. And she did it
well. Sighing, Skyler resigned himself to the inevitable. Goons
behind, drag queens ahead, and Fox Mulder skittish, flirting and
wholly desirable at his side. He squeezed his eyes tight shut
just for a second, drew a deep breath, and put on a smile for
Liza.

Mulder was just trying to take it all in. Lonnie was a long,
tall, soft looking black man, with an easy, warm smile. Liza was
small and curvy, balanced precariously on top of high stiletto
heels. Great legs. Eye-catching legs. She had a jiggle in her
walk, a sensual sway and swing that must have gone out of fashion
when Mulder was still a kid, or maybe before he was born. Her
eyes were enormous. There was something -- off -- about her,
though... It took a few seconds to register--

Liza had draped herself around Skyler's neck, kicking one heel up
in the air to kiss Skyler's cheeks, and then wiping away the
lipstick marks with her thumbs. Largish thumbs, for a woman,
with long, green-painted nails.

Then she turned to him. She batted false eye-lashes, and smiled
a coy, innocent smile. "Enchanted," she said, and presented her
hand to be kissed.

Mulder bent obediently over the hand, because it seemed to be
expected. "Divine Decadence?" he asked, with his lips close to
the soft, pale knuckles.

"A fan! Oh, Skyler, the boy's a fan! Where did you find him,
he's delicious!"

Mulder glanced to Skyler for support and didn't try to explain
that he wasn't a fan, and had, in fact, only seen the movie once,
but it was after all an Academy Award winning film, so of course
he'd seen it. Mostly he just stared at Liza. She had an Adam's
apple and real cleavage. He'd noticed the cleavage, and now it
wasn't as if he could just stop noticing, just like that. He
felt paralyzed, helpless to look away. She was beautiful, and
alluring, and somehow cloying all at the same time. Her eyes
were too dilated. Stoned on something. Higher than a kite.

"We've been wondering where you were keeping yourself, Skyler,
darling. I told Lonnie last week, didn't I Lonnie, that bad boy,
I said, Skyler's found himself a new toy-boy and he's not
sharing."

"He's not my--" Skyler tried to say.

Liza attached herself to Mulder's waist, snuggling in close to
his body under his arm. She smelled of talcum and must, and some
spicy perfume that had tired and gone sweet. "Now we want to
hear all the dirt, love," she said to Skyler. "Where have you
*been?* We've been feeling neglected, haven't we, Lonnie?"

Skyler sighed. "I'm sorry, Liza, I've been really busy--"

"Well, I can *see* that!" She gave Mulder's waist a quick
squeeze.

"Liza, no, he's just a *friend.* He's not--"

"He's not?" She fluttered long lashes up at Mulder,
appraisingly. And then she turned, squeezed his thigh between
her thighs, and wiggled. He could feel her genitals, pressing
against his leg. A man's genitals. She brushed her long green
nails over his lips. "Oh, Skyler, honey, what a waste! I can
think of some scrumptious uses for this lovely pout." She was
worming her way closer, suggestively, intent on his mouth.

Mulder disentangled himself gently but firmly. "Sorry, uh,
excuse me," he said.

Behind Liza, Lonnie smiled. "Don't mind Liza," he said. "Honey,
we're gonna be late." He reached for Liza, and Mulder, not
letting himself think about what he was doing, reached for
Skyler. He caught Skyler's hand in his hand, and threaded their
fingers together. Skyler gave him a fast, stunned look.

He couldn't have explained why he did it, except that on some
semi-conscious level he knew that if someone was going to touch
him tonight he wanted it to be Skyler. He couldn't shake the
snaky, crawling feeling in his gut created by the awareness of
Liza's very male genitalia pressing against him through her mini-
skirt. He wasn't sure if this feeling was arousal or not. He
held tight to Skyler's hand.

Lonnie smiled and nodded, said, "Nice to meet you," and steered
Liza away down the street, but Mulder didn't let go.

"She had breasts," he hissed.

"Hormone shots." Skyler shrugged. He didn't let go of Mulder's
hand, either.

Mulder nodded.

"Lonnie teaches writing and comparative lit at SF State.
Brilliant man. We've been friends for years. Liza..." he
sighed. "Liza is just Liza. She wasn't always..." Skyler
sighed again, chuckled, and shook his head. "Well, no, I guess
maybe she was."

They strolled. No one said anything for a while. Skyler's thumb
caressed the soft skin between Mulder's thumb and first finger,
and Mulder moved his hand experimentally in Skyler's hand. He
stroked tentatively with his thumb, trying to decide how he felt
about it. And it felt all right.

What was he thinking? The starch little Scully voice (which had
lately supplanted the mom voice in the back of his mind) wanted
to know. Mulder felt a flush of relief that the real Scully
wasn't here to see this, followed almost instantly by guilt,
which faded into simple sadness. Sad for Scully, because even
though *he* could take a break from her sometimes, *Scully* could
never get away from Scully. Scully, who, offered the chance to
be anyone she wanted in the world for a day would still be
Scully. How depressing.

Mulder looked at Skyler from the corner of his eye, and felt his
heart beat faster. They were passing a stretch of brick wall.
He thought of pulling Skyler to the wall, kissing him -- but he
wasn't quite brave enough. He felt like a kid on his first heavy
date, not sure if he should worry more about getting lucky, or
about not getting lucky. Up ahead, dance music drifted into the
street.

Definitely a gay bar, men were hanging around outside, smoking,
talking together, leaning up against the wall. The music sounded
danceable, and it was dark inside. "Come on," Mulder said, and
pulled Skyler in, past the bouncer and into the darkness inside.

Inside it was crowded and loud. They joined the jostling crush
around the bar. There was nowhere to sit. He didn't look at
Skyler, didn't have to look at him to feel the surprise and
nervous tension in his body, his hand. He caught sight of the
bartender, a handsome kid working fast and hard, and then Mulder
realized with a lurching double-take that it was a woman. A
handsome, sexy, long, strong, short-haired woman with a frank,
confident smile. Arousal flashed straight to his groin, and he
was suddenly very turned on. He held on tighter to Skyler's
hand. The bartender was lesbian, he knew, but that awareness,
too, was in its own way exciting. Mulder just held Skyler's
hand, not wanting to let go until the very last moment when he'd
have to let go so he could pay for their drinks.

And once he did let go, he couldn't quite work up his nerve to
reach out again. He smiled at the bartender and handed Skyler a
J&B on the rocks. Wordlessly, they worked their way over to a
far corner where the music wasn't quite so loud, and found a
place to stand against a wide rail where they could set their
drinks.

"What are you doing?" Skyler shouted at his ear.

"Hell if I know," Mulder shouted back.

To talk they were going to have to get very close.

Mulder took a strong swallow of Scotch, feeling it burn his
throat and wishing for courage. He looked at Skyler. "Is this a
bar you come to often?" he shouted.

"Is that a line?" Skyler shouted back, and happened to brush his
lips against Mulder's ear.

Mulder laughed. "Sorry. I just wondered, you know, where you
go. Your life." He shook his head helplessly, and looked out
across the dance-floor. At the near edge of the floor a guy in a
leather vest and chaps was pulling another man toward him, by --
oh, he was pulling him by a chain threaded between pierced
nipples. The man smiled an ugly smile, pointed to his feet, and
his partner went down willingly onto his knees to lick the man's
shiny, heavy, shit-kicker boots. Mulder swallowed, frowned, and
looked back at Skyler.

Skyler was watching him. He edged in closer, nuzzling into
Mulder's space without quite touching. "It's not all like that,"
he shouted. "In case you're wondering."

Mulder nodded. "Are you, uh, are you into...?"

Skyler shook his head. "Too conservative." And when Mulder's
brows went up he added, "I like my sex ecstatic, not formulaic."

Mulder felt a wordless welling up of something inside him that
made him want to kiss Skyler, pull him off-balance, close, dance
with him. Instead he just stared, and what was happening between
their eyes was the only reality in the room.

"Formula is always inextricably bound to the physical," Skyler
continued, his face tipping nearer. "It welds the soul to the
body. Whereas ecstasy is--"

Mulder started bobbing his head up and down very fast, grinning
and almost laughing out loud. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he agreed.
"That--" he gestured haphazardly at the dance floor, sloshing a
few unnoticed drops of his drink-- "That's only lizard brain
level--"

"Exactly! Hardwired--"

"--purely somatic, mimicking the sensation of depth-experience by
undercutting the self-referential higher processes of
consciousness--"

"--turning off, not tuning in--" Skyler was grinning too,
breathless, eyes flashing--

All at once they were both laughing for no reason, getting as
close as they could, standing much nearer together than they
needed to stand, but not quite touching. Not yet. The energy
between them sizzled, practically striking sparks. It was like
breathing air when he didn't know he'd been smothered, waking up
when he didn't know he'd been asleep. It went right to his head,
catalyzing the sensation that had been building inside him all
evening, this wild, bizarre, all but unprecedented thrill of
shared perception -- of knowing together -- this intoxicating,
unlooked-for liberty to play around with language, ideas,
philosophies, speculate freely about intangibles and truths
without fear of being forced repeatedly back to ground on the
short tether of evidence, proof and the cumbrous impossibility of
exhaustive explanation of everything, which was the hellish sense
he often had that this and the next forever might be consumed in
talking circles around koans that utterly resisted the confines
of language. It was like flying, when he'd half forgotten he
could.

Mulder felt tinglingly alive.

Unnoticed by either of them, they were being watched. Not just
by Lenny and Squiggy, who lounged awkwardly near the wall, but
also by another man, a dark, pretty, dangerous looking man, with
hot eyes and roses of anger in his cheeks.
 
Alex Krycek looked venom at the back of Mulder's head, and swore
under his breath in Russian. *Ebat'-kopat'*! What was that
*opesdol* doing following him, anyway? Krycek flipped quickly
through his mental file of current offenses, and came up clean.
Nothing Mulder should possibly know about, or care if he did
know. But the mother-fucker was insane. Maybe this was some
past-due vendetta left over from who-knew-when, or maybe Mulder
had taken it into his head to peg something on Krycek that Krycek
wasn't even responsible for; it wouldn't be the first time. The
thought didn't cross Krycek's mind that Mulder might have somehow
happened to blunder into this particular gay bar thousands of
miles distant from D.C. just purely by coincidence. Mulder
wasn't even gay, worse luck. This had to be about him. There
was no other explanation. Krycek swore again, and ducked back
further into a dark corner, with the wall at his back. His brain
was racing madly.

He watched Mulder carefully for several minutes, circling around
slowly to get a better view of the side of his face. Weird that
neither Mulder nor his friend seemed to be looking around the
room very much. //Getting sloppy on the job, are we sweetie?//
Krycek thought acidly, catching a glimpse of Mulder's drink.

And then Mulder laughed, and, incredibly, he saw the color come
up in Mulder's cheeks and the other man's eyes flashed -- almost
as if-- No, it wasn't possible. Both men looked flushed, on,
but they weren't actually touching or anything. Maybe they were
talking about girls? No. The other guy actually looked
familiar, now that Krycek spared him a glance. Probably a
regular. He had no idea what the fuck Mulder thought he was
doing, and that alone was enough to give Krycek the jitters, but,
unlikely as it seemed, it really didn't look like Mulder had
spotted him yet. Abandoning his drink, Krycek began to make his
way casually towards the back exit.

And then he glanced over his shoulder, and his suspicions were
confirmed. Mulder was following him. For some reason he had a
weird little smile on his face, and he was doing a good job of
looking innocent and preoccupied, but he was following Krycek
nevertheless. Krycek slipped quickly into the restroom hallway,
and waited.

When Mulder stepped through the door he was ready. He slammed
him hard, pivoted, and launched them both against the door marked
"WIMMIN," which popped open. Clutching each other they fell
through, and Mulder came up fighting.

Krycek was instantly on fire, blood burning in his veins, unable
to see anything but Mulder -- Mulder, flushed, wild-eyed, ready,
coming at him, sexy as hell -- shit! -- how was he ever going win
a fight with this guy if he couldn't keep his mind on business?
Making a last, half-hearted effort, too little too late, he let
Mulder slam him up against the wall and tried not to think about
liking it. Mulder had forgotten about the prosthesis, and was
twisting it the wrong way as if it were a real arm.

"Hey! Hey! It doesn't turn that way!" he panted, and Mulder
relaxed his grip on that arm and settled his forearm against
Krycek's throat instead. Krycek's one good wrist was pinned to
the wall above his head, and Mulder's feet were between his feet
to guard against a knee to the groin. Mulder was hot against
him, physically hot, but seemingly not in a blood rage. In fact,
he appeared to be mostly baffled, as if he really hadn't been
expecting this. Krycek's instincts told him that real danger was
not imminent, and he relaxed marginally. Might as well enjoy it.
The less he fought back now, the better chance he'd have of
taking Mulder by surprise later on. Working to catch his breath,
he smiled.

Mulder just stared at him like he was out of his mind.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Krycek?" he gasped.

"Trying to get laid, do you mind? What are *you* doing here?"

To his surprise, Mulder flinched as if the lame remark had hit
home. Shit, was the man blushing? What the fuck was going on?
Amused and confused, Krycek pushed his luck. "I saw that sweet
little piece of ass you were with back there; is he your
boyfriend, Mulder?"

"Shut up!" Mulder growled. And, weirdly, his blush deepened. "I
want to know why you're following me, Krycek."

"*Me* following *you?*" Krycek was actually starting to enjoy
this. "Gee, Mulder, I'm sorry, but when what I need is a *man*
to fuck me till I can't breathe and my eyes roll back, the first
name to come to mind usually isn't 'Fox Mulder.' Should it be?"

"Goddamn it, stop playing games! Don't try to tell me it's a
coincidence that you just happened to decide -- for no reason --
to attack me in the ladies room of -- of--"

Krycek laughed so hard he almost cried. "Oh come on, *play* with
me, Mulder! It'll be fun, I promise!" He moved suggestively
against Mulder's grip, and was gratified to feel Mulder leaning
in closer, instinctively using his body to pin his opponent more
firmly to the wall. He didn't seem to know what to do about
Krycek's laughing, though.

"You son of a bitch!" Mulder yelled, and he could feel the heat
of his breath on his face.

"*E'b tvoju mat',*" Krycek answered mildly. "Never figured you
for a whisky drinker, Mulder. And don't tell me you're going to
miss out on yet another golden opportunity to lecture me about my
moral dipstick."

"I'm not interested in your dipstick, you asshole, just tell me
what the fuck--"

"How 'bout a Russian lesson, then? *Pososi moyu konfetku.*" He
crooned the words like a caress. "You know what that means?"

"I don't give a shit what it means, I want you to tell me--"

"Means 'suck my candy.' Sounds better in Russian for some
reason, doesn't it? You wanna suck my candy, Mulder, huh? Would
you like that?" Krycek was starting to get very turned on,
watching the unfamiliar vulnerabilities and arousal that warred
with each other across Mulder's face. He'd never seen this man
in quite this condition before -- not in the flesh, at any rate.

"Just tell me why you're here," Mulder said flatly, after a long
minute.

Krycek took his time answering, letting himself enjoy the close
proximity, the sweaty strength of Mulder's presence. How ironic
that Mulder, who hated his guts, was probably the only guy in the
world who would not only believe the truth if it bit him, but
might actually be willing to help Krycek do something about it
... if only they could find a way to trust each other. "How'd we
get on opposite sides, huh?" Krycek whispered. "Don't answer
that. You want to search me for concealed weapons? I'd let you,
you know."

Mulder gritted his teeth and pressed in even closer, hot, rough,
just the way Krycek liked it. "Cut the crap," he said.

//No fast comeback? You're slipping, Mulder,// Krycek thought.
But the truth was he didn't feel much like making wisecracks
himself. "Christ," he said very quietly, "why didn't you tell me
you pitched for both teams. We've been missing out." And god
help him, when he said it he meant it. He was looking at
Mulder's mouth and he could feel Mulder's bewilderment, but
suddenly he didn't care. Mulder's grip had eased a little, and
Krycek moved without warning, without any thought of freeing
himself. He pressed his mouth into Mulder's mouth and took him
in a kiss by surprise, molding himself against Mulder's body,
pressing his hips into Mulder's hips--

Incredibly, unbelievably, Mulder's mouth came open, and then he
heard him groan -- and then several things happened at once. The
door opened; a towering queen breezed in cooing in a resonant
baritone, "Oh, excuse me boys, don't mind me;" and Mulder let go
of him, stopped kissing him, and cold-cocked him -- not very
hard, considering. Krycek caught his breath, coughed out a
breathless barking laugh, and made a grab for Mulder's nuts.

//Hard! He's hard!//

"I won't forget this, Mulder!" he snarled, copping a good fast
squeeze. And then he made his break for the door while the queen
was still saying, "Ooh-la-la! Rough trade, boys? *So* sorry to
interrupt. Just pretend I'm not even here. Little ol' me won't
be in the way at all, I just need to take a very fast whiz and
fix my face and--"

Krycek was already out the back way, out into the ally and the
cold air, gasping. The taste of Mulder's mouth was in his mouth.
He ran, but with the uncomfortable feeling that he was not being
followed. Fuck, now he *really* needed to get laid. The city
seemed darker and brighter and more sharply beautiful than he
remembered, or maybe it was his life that had an extra edge to it
now, because no matter who he went home with tonight or how hot
it got Krycek was absolutely certain that nothing and nobody
could never be half so good as those few stolen moments pinned up
against a women's room wall by Fox Mulder.

Mulder let the door slam behind Krycek, and didn't try to go
after him. One hand checked instinctively for his gun, and the
other patted at the unauthorized disk, still safe in his pocket.

What the hell was Krycek doing grabbing him like that? Mulder
splashed cold water on his face while he waited for the queen to
get out of the toilet stall, and for his traitorous dick to be
soft enough to pee with. Adrenaline and humiliation were pumping
through his blood, and he shut his eyes very tight and
concentrated on just breathing long, deep, regular breaths.

Exiting the women's room, he brushed past Squiggy in the hallway
with barely a glance, went back out into the pulsing waves of
sound, and found Skyler. Skyler looked good to him, so he didn't
really let himself look. His control was too shaky. He just
glanced, smiled tightly, and turned his face away. Grabbed for
his drink.

"You wanna dance?" Skyler shouted.

Mulder considered with disinterest the frantic undulations of the
dancers. "No," he said, just shaping the word with his mouth and
not bothering to put sound to it. He still couldn't look at
Skyler. His blood was racing. He shook his head.

Skyler nodded once and edged back a little, giving him space.
But Mulder didn't want space. What he wanted, what in fact he
*needed* -- desperately -- was contact, yet he had no clear idea
what the next step was going to feel like. The few, random
sensory images available to him -- lips, tongue, beard stubble,
hard chest, male sweat -- formed only half-asked questions in his
mind, to which theoretical knowledge offered no answers. An
eidetic memory and wealth of library information was as useless
to him now as it had been when he was 14 and anticipating his
first time with a girl.

Theory only takes you where you already know how to go. Formula
may map the road, the quantifiable, observable, replicable,
heart-rate/respiratory-rate/pupil-dilation/rhythm/position/insert
-tab-"A"-into-slot-"B" *physicality* of sex, but sex itself, the
internal experience and self-referential feedback loop
intertwined double-*soul-ness* of sex, eludes analysis. What is
most deeply true is also most deeply resistant to measurement and
programming.

Some things you can only know by knowing, and Mulder didn't know
-- not yet. God, it was as miserable and awkward as being a
virgin all over again. So, swallowing against the painful lump
in his throat, he just threw himself into the void -- reached a
shaky hand for Skyler, grabbed him awkwardly by the nape of his
neck and pulled him close. "I wanna dance slow," he stammered
into his friend's ear, and then sucked the earlobe into his
mouth.

Skyler gasped, tensed. His arms slipped around Mulder's waist,
and one hand slid down over his ass. "Public or private?"

Mulder didn't answer. Just kissed him, deep and hard, and meant
it. His head was spinning.

"We'll take a taxi," Skyler shouted, grasping his arm and
dragging him towards the door.

Continued in Part 1b