Out of Bounds 2 of 2
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He'd always said he would, someday, back when someday had seemed
indistinct and far removed. Because he had imagined the
possibility he recognized himself doing this, holding Skyler's
hand in the backseat of a cab with lustful intent, and yet
simultaneously he didn't know himself at all. Remembering
himself to himself, he felt connected to some overarching
continuity as if lifted up out of the habitual tracks of life
into a voluntary dreamscape, yet at the same time he was just a
little sorry to have one less someday ahead. And mostly, god,
mostly he was just turned on, because there was a hand in his
hand that was soon going to touch him -- touch him in ways he
could only guess -- and there was a warm, willing body beside him
which he would learn to know in intimate detail, experience with
all his senses, and he would see and be seen, and Skyler's hand
would -- god, Skyler's hand would unbutton his jeans, and--

Mulder bit his lip and turned his face resolutely to the window.

It wasn't until he found himself following Skyler up the stairs
in his apartment building that the hot fog cleared from Mulder's
mind and left him feeling exposed, shaken, irresolute. Skyler's
ass was at eye level, going up the stairs, and everything that
was *Skyler* about Skyler was hidden from him, replaced by this
purely physical view. He'd followed other asses up other stairs
on the way to other beds, and none of those asses had looked
anything like this one. Mulder swallowed thickly, trying not to
panic.

And then they were there, at the door. Skyler was turning the
key with shaking hands, glancing at him, his eyes were dark,
dilated. Eyes you could fall into--

And then the door was closing behind them--

With a now-or-never urgency Mulder launched himself against
Skyler, afraid he was fooling himself and afraid he wasn't, and
pinned Skyler to the wall, kissed him savagely, felt Skyler's
hands on his ass and Skyler's erection pressing against his -- oh
god! -- against his own erection-- Mulder growled helplessly,
and rubbed his hips into Skyler's hips.

This was right -- wrong -- right. This was ... very, very
intense. Whatever it was.

Skyler's hands had found their way under his shirt, hot and
demanding against his bare skin, and they had lurched off-balance
away from the steadying wall, Mulder was clutching Skyler's hard
muscled back, pressing himself to the unyielding linear angles of
Skyler's body, and it felt -- really weird.

The kiss broke. Something in Mulder wanted to stop this now.
Get away. But he could feel himself gasping like he'd just run a
race, he was hard as hell, and the blood was thrumming in his
ears -- so something must be right. Skyler was staring at him.

"Wow, I guess you're serious, OK--" he muttered, tugging Mulder
off-balance again, deeper into the dark apartment.

"I'm scared--" Mulder whispered, not meaning to say it out loud.

"Scared?" Skyler's eyes lit and he smiled, leveraging Mulder
ungently against the wall. "You're scared?" He got his hand on
the bulge in Mulder's jeans, and gripped it firmly with a sure
grip like Krycek's grip had been sure. But Skyler took his time,
massaging rhythmically and rough. "Tell me that again, Fox.
Tell me you want me to stop." His other hand found a nipple and
gave it a sharp pinch. Mulder drew a hiss of air through his
teeth. He shook his head, his eyes half-closed.

"Don't stop," he said gruffly, and Skyler laughed.

"C'mon."

And then they were stumbling into the bedroom. Skyler was smart
enough to strip Mulder of his clothes before he had another
chance to balk, and then, still half-dressed himself, he went
down on his knees on the floor to take Mulder into his mouth,
deep-throating him with an easy, casual voraciousness no woman in
Mulder's experience had ever mastered, feeling out Mulder's balls
and between his legs with one hand, and his ass with the other,
and Mulder's fingers were locked into Skyler's longish hair and
he just didn't care anymore about whether or not anything made
sense--

But it was happening too fast, too-- the sensations were coming
too strong-- And then the rising tide slipped back before he
could work up the will to protest. Unsatisfied, his cock was
throbbing. He stared at Skyler almost uncomprehendingly as
Skyler laughed, and tried to pull him the rest of the way to the
bed.

"Undress me," Skyler whispered.

Mulder's hands were trembling. He tried for the buttons, tried
to focus on what he was doing. He was viciously aroused, but the
process of uncovering the very masculine, muscular, lightly hairy
chest steadied him, slowed him down. He chewed his lip; tossed
the shirt away. Found himself looking down at a large erection
trapped under bikini briefs. A moist spot on the indigo blue.
He resisted the urge to compare sizes, and tried to concentrate
on the recognition that this hard-on was evidence of Skyler's
desire, evidence that Skyler wanted ... him. But it was too
mind-bending, and the thought kept shying away.

He looked back up at his friend's eyes, and found Skyler watching
him, found his eyes deep and dark and sexy and hot. So hot. And
that made it easy to roll forward, easy to lean in and kiss the
lips that belonged to those eyes. Easy to close his eyes and
lose himself in that mouth. More difficult to reconcile the
feeling of a man's straight, hard torso where his arm was
accustomed to falling into the soft curve above a woman's hip.
God, this was weird, too weird.

He rolled further, rolled on top of Skyler, feeling his way,
letting his naked erection rub and press against the hot cotton
of Skyler's briefs. And it felt pretty good, in fact it felt
better than good, but he realized with another flash of panic
that he had no clear idea what he should try to do next. There
was some analytical part of his brain making a complete nuisance
of itself by refusing to shut down, shut up, and thereby
preventing him from sliding into the dance of pure animal
physicality. Maybe it was a chemistry thing? He was flipping
back and forth wildly between crazy turned on arousal, and
clinical detachment of a kind he'd prefer to take off with his
clothes. At the same time as he was inside his own skin making
love, he was also watching himself from the outside. He could
have done without the watching part.

"Uh," he protested softly, "uh--" And Skyler rescued him, easy
as that.

"Would you, Fox, would you -- oh god--" Skyler murmured
incoherently, and his head tossed to the side. When Mulder
reared up to look at him, his eyes were closed and his cheeks
blushing darkly in the dim light that filtered in from the entry
hall. "Would you-- Would you-- Oh please--"

And suddenly Mulder felt in control again, and everything was all
right. "Would I what?" he whispered. "Tell me what you want."

Skyler's eyes opened. He looked flushed, vulnerable, and
completely desirable. He also looked like he might cry. A rush
of compassion and renewed desire surged through Mulder, and he
leaned down to nuzzle his lips to Skyler's lips. "Tell me what
you want me to do," he whispered again, breathing into Skyler's
mouth.

"Put your fingers in me?" Skyler whispered.

His voice was so quiet Mulder almost missed it, almost didn't
want to believe he'd heard right. His body went very still for a
moment. "All right," he agreed softly, and tipped off Skyler
onto one hip, reaching down between their bodies to ease the
elastic waist-band over the weeping head of Skyler's hard-on.
Skyler lifted his hips, and Mulder slid the briefs down, off, and
tossed them away. His heart beating so heavy that he wasn't sure
if this was a good thing or not, he crawled lower and laid his
hot cheek against the velvety, hot, hard pulse of Skyler's dick.
He didn't do much else for a minute, just kept his eyes closed,
breathed in the musky, familiar-yet-unfamiliar smells of male
arousal and male sweat, and let his fingers search out gently,
blindly, the shapes of Skyler's body, his erection, his balls.

Feeling the ragged distraction of his own arousal subside, Mulder
concentrated on touching Skyler like music, feeling the reasons,
the pulses and the echoes of every caress. He slid his
fingertips behind his balls, exploring their shape, and weight,
and the mysterious, private, sealed warmth of his perineum. He
could hear Skyler opening a drawer beside the bed, rummaging, and
then before his fingers quite found their way to Skyler's ass, a
cold, jagged-edged condom wrapper was being coaxed into his free
hand. Coming back to himself a little, he looked up in surprise.

"It's lubricated," Skyler said, and his breath caught.

Mulder nodded. Didn't say anything. He wondered idly if Skyler
thought he was afraid of getting his fingers dirty, but he bit
the package anyway, slid the condom out, and rolled it down over
one finger, considering it quizzically. His cheek was resting
now on Skyler's stomach, but as he massaged his slimy-sheathed
fingertip against the tight knot between Skyler's cheeks and
Skyler gasped, Mulder suddenly needed to *see.* He got one elbow
under him and worked his way down into a more comfortable
position where he could watch what he was doing with his hand,
and watch Skyler at the same time.

"Like that?" Mulder murmured, pleased by the way Skyler moaned
and then gasped as he forced his finger past the sphincter and up
inside. "Feel good?" Mulder had had anal sex before; some women
liked it for variety. He liked it OK himself; it was tight. So,
all right, maybe he'd never seen the need to put his fingers into
this part of a woman, but nevertheless he was starting to feel a
little more confident. This was penetration, and he understood
penetration. He knew what he was doing now, in a theoretical
sort of way. Mulder started to relax. Shoving his finger in as
far as it would go, he rubbed, and withdrew, watching for
Skyler's response. Then again. Skyler was watching him, dark-
eyed, ready. He pulled his finger out, and worked his middle
finger into the condom beside the first. Tried again. Skyler
bit his lip and moaned.

"Up," he gritted between his teeth, "there-- There--"

And Mulder didn't have to be told twice.

But then as he massaged Skyler's prostate -- what a clinical
description for such an intimate act! -- something shifted and
twisted in the energy between them, something unfamiliar,
stimulating, and very, very *right.* He felt Skyler begin to
give himself in the way that a woman gives herself in bed.
Skyler's head began to toss helplessly back and forth, his breath
came more ragged, he was steered by a touch, ecstatic,
incoherent, moaning and babbling nonsense, and Mulder just kept
doing what he was doing and watched in awe. Women responded this
way, when you made them come over and over again until they were
almost begging you to stop, but he'd never imagined a man could
be like this. He'd never experienced it himself, nothing
remotely resembling this open, naked, responsive vulnerability he
saw now in Skyler. It turned him on more than he knew how to
deal with, and in ways he didn't know how to deal with.

"Do you like that? Does that feel good?" he repeated over and
over again inanely, greedy for more, savoring every flicker of
unleashed passion that flowed across Skyler's face, and loving
it. He'd never known it could be like this for a man. Never
known. It took his breath away, and he kept on doing what he was
doing until Skyler was lost, mindless, gibbering for release,
moaning garbled fragments of half-obscene prayers and
imprecations to deities he didn't even believe in and when Mulder
said "what do you want?" Skyler couldn't answer at all. That was
exactly how he wanted him, and he kept him there, begging, at
that most helpless vortex of sensual fire until he couldn't stand
it anymore himself, and had to yield to the strong desire to lose
himself in Skyler, as Skyler himself was lost.

Letting out a shaky breath he didn't remember holding, Mulder
leaned down and licked the long, hot length of Skyler's cock,
swirling his tongue around the head and enjoying the way his body
arced helplessly beneath him, the frantic whimpers in his throat.
He took the head into his mouth, noting the mildness of the salty
flavor almost with disappointment, and then pushed his mouth down
further, taking Skyler in as far as he could until he gagged. It
was unfamiliar and yet at the same time it was only Human, only
what he was supposed to be doing right now if for no other reason
than just because he knew it was blowing the top right off
Skyler's skull.

Then he reached for the packet of condoms Skyler had forgotten
beside the pillow. Skyler was lost to the world, useless, wild.
Mulder smiled. Despite his own pressing need, he was in control.
He glanced around for lube as he bit open another condom wrapper
and slid the rubber onto himself one-handed. No lube in sight.
But he didn't expect that to be a problem.

Mulder groaned deep in his throat as he slid in home. Skyler
sucked air through his teeth and cried out, and then he was
sobbing -- "Fox, oh god, Fox, oh please look at me, please, oh--"

And he looked into Skyler's eyes as he pressed the rest of the
way in. And it shook him. Because the look in Skyler's eyes was
love, and what they were doing together wasn't just fucking, or
buddies screwing around, this was a love-making too, too long
overdue. This was years of shared memories, and knowing
together, and a depth of dreams in common. He wanted to cry, but
it felt too good.

And then he was overcome by the instinct to thrust and all
rational thought burned away in the haze of rising, spiraling
sensation. Mulder gritted his teeth and worked in silence, while
Skyler sobbed and writhed beneath him, impaled, crying his name
over and over again as he came.

Finally, after it was over, Mulder collapsed on top of Skyler and
lay there, panting, softening inside Skyler's body, stuck chest-
to-chest with cum, and liking it. With ragged breath he kissed
the fluttering pulse in Skyler's throat. "Why didn't we do that
years ago?" he sighed. "Don't answer that."

Skyler didn't. He just hugged him.

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Skyler was shaken by his good fortune, trembling with it.
Listening to the quiet hiss of the shower, he pulled on some
sweat pants and headed for the kitchen. He had the domestic
desire to feed Fox Mulder as if food might make him stay, even
though somewhere in Skyler's heart he knew it wouldn't work.
Probably wouldn't.

He'd had the first shower and lingered unnecessarily, hoping Fox
would join him. But then he'd shut the water off when he caught
himself remembering some overheard party advice from a guy who
claimed you should always make a big deal of showering if you
ever got yourself into a situation with a straight man. Combat
the subconscious prejudice they all had that gay sex wasn't
clean. What crap. And since when was he, Skyler, stupid enough
to get himself into a situation like this anyway? Doomed to
failure. He used to always be the guy who laughed when other men
mooned and moaned over guys they knew they could never have.

He'd always been smarter than that, before, and now everything
about this evening was so unwise -- for so many reasons. Very
ill-advised.

Not the least of his worries was the question of Krycek. What
the hell was that traitorous weasel doing skulking around after
them, anyway? And which of them was he following? His whole
body had flashed cold with adrenal dread when he'd first spotted
Krycek in the bar, but the thing he couldn't figure was whether
Fox had gone after him to the men's room on purpose or not. That
was what kept coming back into his head. They must have had some
words, at least, or why had Fox taken so long? He'd come back
hot and wild, yet said nothing. How much did he know? He somehow
doubted this was a conversation they'd be having any time soon.

Skyler didn't know what he was doing. He opened and closed the
refrigerator and cupboard doors distractedly, piling things at
random onto the counter and trying to get a grip on himself; he
didn't even notice when the shower-drone stopped only a couple of
minutes after it started.

"You planning to feed me?"

Fox's voice nearby in the kitchen doorway startled him badly. He
drew in a fast breath, turned his head, and felt every bit of
composure crumble from his face. Fox was leaning casually in the
doorframe, all elbows and canted hips and knees. He was
unselfconsciously nude, damp, running a towel over his wet hair
so that it stuck up. His eyes were bright. He seemed to see
everything about Skyler, and he smiled.

"Uh," Skyler said, "uh, are you hungry?"

Fox shrugged, dropped the towel to his hips, wrapped it, and
moved closer. Much closer. "What've'ya got?" he murmured in
Skyler's ear, so that Skyler's skin went all over tingly, and his
breath came fast.

"Whatever you want," he said, or tried to say. His throat was
tight. He cleared it.

Fox smiled. "Nachos?" he guessed, and his eyebrows went up in a
question. He was looking at the mess of stuff Skyler had in
front of him on the counter. Doritos, cheese, avocado, canned
beans, salad greens, bread, milk, an overripe mango -- Skyler
wasn't sure himself. Nachos was as good a guess as any. He
shrugged.

"A glass of water would be nice," Fox said. "Sex always makes me
thirsty."

Skyler's heart beat faster. "You're easy," he said lightly,
almost wishing it were true.

Fox laughed, leaned, and kissed his nipple. "I'm going to put
some clothes on," he said.

"Don't bother on my account."

Fox laughed again. It was good to hear him laugh.

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

Mulder was consciously playing it cool, conscious of trying to
act natural, the way he would with a woman, but at the same time
he was also aware that it really wasn't taking much effort. This
felt good. Everything felt good. He felt better than he could
remember feeling in a long time -- except for this tight almost-
pain in his chest and his throat, which felt a little scary and
more than a little like the first symptoms of falling in love.

Locating his jeans on the bedroom floor, he fished his underwear
out of them and sniffed. Nope. Underwear did not pass the sniff
test. Dropping them again in the middle of the floor, he began
to pull on his jeans.

He felt full to overflowing with the sensation of standing there
in the kitchen doorway, looking at Skyler. Long, lean, graceful,
athletic Skyler. High school jock, university freak, Head, Beat,
brilliant, sensual, poetic, half-mad Skyler. Skyler who happened
to desire him. Happened to turn him on. He paused in buttoning
his jeans, sighed, closed his eyes. Skyler. *Shit.* Inside his
eyes he could see the look on Skyler's face when he turned his
head and saw him there, toweling his hair. The softness, and
deep emotion, and depth of eyes, the way his face became
unguarded and his soul showed. It was the look of love. Mulder
knew it. He hadn't seen it often in his life, not often enough,
but he knew it when he saw it; it made him go all hot and cold
and silly inside, and that in turn made him melancholy, because
he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it. Not the way his life
was, the way Skyler's life was.

He breathed in deep and slow the smell of sex, and went back into
the living room wearing only his jeans. Skyler had set two
glasses of ice-water on the coffee table. He picked one up, and
wandered over towards the bookshelf.

The apartment was beyond Spartan, mostly empty. This was clearly
not a primary residence, or if it was then Skyler had changed
more than he thought possible. There was a crystal ball on the
top of the bookcase, an incense burner, and some sort of raffia-
fringed rattle; an organic-looking stone bowl; a collar of beads
and bright feathers; a yawning Bodhisattva. Not much else. He
touched the little Buddha-like figure with his fingertips, and
turned his attention to the books one shelf down.

Leisure reading, apparently. Mostly science fiction novels,
brightly colored contemporary paperbacks. But there was one
short chunk of older covers, more handled. Classics. Hesse, of
course. Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Rosshalde, Narcissus and
Goldmund, The Glass Bead Game, Journey to the East. Then a clump
of Phil Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Man Who
Japed, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Time out of Joint.
Some Spinrad. //Yes,// Mulder thought. //Of course.// After
that came utopias and dystopias: Brave New World, 1984,
Fahrenheit 451, Island, Venus + X, Ecotopia... Then: One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Zen and
the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance...

Skyler was coming in with what smelled like nachos. "Which anti-
utopia scares you the most?" Mulder asked.

"Fahrenheit 451, of course. You?"

"Seriously? Fahrenheit 451?" Mulder, who had never given any
real thought to any other choice than Brave New World or 1984,
blinked.

"Sure, why?"

"Aren't you scared of all the clones? The clones scare the shit
out of me. Soma? Hypnopaedia?" Mulder's voice slipped into an
acid paraphrase: "'I'm so glad I'm a Beta; Alphas work too hard
and Gammas are stupid'." He dangled a question mark afterwards
in the air.

Skyler twisted his lips into something slightly resembling a
smile, and shook his head. "I work with that shit every day,
remember," he said, and Mulder felt a chill. "Programmed
consciousness is what's creepy about the clones, right? But
we'll never have systematic social standardization through
cloning *or* brain-washing, for the simple reason that no power
group is organized enough to pull it off. Brave New World is
monolithic, and whatever our demons are now, at the turn of
*this* century, monolithic governments are not high on *my* list
of worries."

Mulder nodded. "OK, how about Big Brother?" Despite himself, he
glanced around the clean, bare apartment as if a casual once-over
might identify the hidden listening devices or cameras that were
almost certainly secreted there, somewhere. There were fewer
hiding places here than in his own apartment; surely Skyler did a
regular sweep?

Skyler just shook his head, slowly. "Yesterday's news," he said.
"We live with it. We fight it. I mean, we both fight it,
right?"

Mulder nodded.

"But, again, the single huge flaw in 1984 is that monolithic
power-structure thing. Tell me a story about totalitarianism,
and you can't *really* scare me. You can only make me nervous.
It's Fahrenheit 451 that scares the shit out of me. Come have
some nachos."

Mulder selected the slim, stained, yellowed paperback off the
shelf, and flipped it open. 'West Tisbury School' was stamped
inside the front cover, with a lined sign-out sheet glued in.
"Skyler, I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked. You stole this book
from Miss Gaston's 8th grade Language Arts!"

One of the names on the sign-out list caught his eye. "Shit,
Davy Turulja," he said. "Whatever happened to Davy Turulja?"
His memory supplied a vivid recollection of December 7th, 1979,
cutting school and taking the ferry and then the bus into Boston,
standing in line all day outside the old Colonial Theater
freezing to death with Skyler and Davy, waiting for the premier
of 'Star Trek, The Motion Picture.' They'd been near the front
of the line. Davy had gotten ahold of some top-secret advance
photographs of the new Vulcan costumes, made himself a slap-dash
version of Spock's black robes, and spirit gummed on some latex
ear-tips -- good enough to attract the interest of the television
crews who were there to shoot the 'Trekkies' for their evening
'Human interest' spot. Mulder remembered spending a lot of his
day hunching his shoulders, turning his back, and making a big
show of blowing into this hands in an attempt not to end up on
the evening news, where his father might notice and find out he'd
ditched school.

"Davy was working at Disneyland, last I heard," Skyler said.
"Bear Country, I think it was."

"Oh."

There didn't seem to be much to say to that.

He went over to the couch and sat down next to Skyler, leaning
into his warm shoulder and flipping Fahrenheit 451 open at
random. "And this scares the shit out of you *why* exactly?"

His eyes slid over the opened page --

   'What a shame,' she said, 'You're not in love with anyone.'
   'Yes, I am!'
   'It doesn't show.'
   'I am, very much in love!' He tried to conjure up a face to
    fit the words, but there was no face. 'I am!'
   'Oh, please don't look that way.'
   'It's that dandelion,' he said. 'You've used it all up on
    yourself. That's why it won't work for me.'

He reached for a nacho and then slouched a little closer to
Skyler, eating with one hand and riffling a few pages forward
with the other, reading fragments and pencil-marked passages that
caught his eye:

   'Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen
    at soda fountains, and do you know what?'
   'What?'
   'People don't talk about anything.'
   'Oh, they *must!*'
   'No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or
    swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say
    the same things and nobody says anything different from
    anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the
    joke-boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the
    musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and
    down, but it's only color and all abstract. And at the
    museums, have you *ever* been? *All* abstract. That's all
    there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long
    time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed
    *people.*'

Skyler fished the book away from him and flipped to a dog-eared
page. He read out loud:

   "'Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by
    remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of
    state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram
    them full of noncombustible data, chock them so full of
    "facts" they feel stuffed, but absolutely "brilliant" with
    information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get
    a *sense* of motion without moving. And they'll be happy,
    because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any
    slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up
    with. That way lies melancholy.'"

Holding his place with his thumb, Skyler dropped the book to his
lap. "Notice how now we're in the 'Information Age' hardly
anyone questions the *value* of information?"

"People feel safe with facts," Mulder agreed, and their eyes met.
They shared irony without need to elaborate; they both knew what
they meant. "'The sense of motion without moving,' that's the
part I like," Mulder said. "*When* was this book written?"

"1953."

"OK, that's prescient."

"You don't sound very convinced."

"Oh, well, I mean." Mulder searched back deep in his memory to
Miss Gaston's class, which was the last time he actually read
Fahrenheit 451. "Firemen whose job is to burn books? That's
ridiculous. It's as silly as Soylent Green. I mean, I *love*
Soylent Green, and actually *there's* a movie that's scarier now
than it was when it was made, but..." A creepy feeling came over
him, and his mind spun quickly. He remembered being 14 and
laughing at Soylent Green, but he'd just caught a re-run on the
Sci-Fi Channel a few weeks ago and it had scared the bejesus out
of him.

"You think we don't deconstruct and mutilate the best wisdom of
5000 years every *day?*"

"Never mind," Mulder said, "I'm with you. I think I just
switched sides."
 
"Pour kerosene on history and literature and philosophy and light
a match? Visit a university. Go online. Turn on TV. 'We The
People' love nothing better than a good burning."

"We like it when they hang them, too, and their tongues swell
up."

"Exactly. The mob has always been mad for spectacle. You can't
take this book literally, that's what I love about it. It's
closer to poetry than prose. If you try to read Bradbury at the
literal, textual level, you miss the whole point. Here--"
Skyler flipped through pages searching for another passage, and
then shoved the book back into Mulder's hands. "Read to me?"

Mulder started reading on the next dog-eared page, beside a time-
blurred red star. Skyler snuggled closer, and Mulder relaxed
into the contact, enjoying the damp sweetness of his hair, and
the possessive warmth of his hand on Mulder's knee.

   "'You're a hopeless romantic,' said Faber. 'It would be funny
    if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some
    of the things that were once in books. The same things
    *could* be in the "parlour families" today. The same
    infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the
    radios and televisors, but are not. No, no, it's not books
    at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in
    old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old
    friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself.
    Books are only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot
    of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing
    magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books
    say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together
    into one garment for us...'"

He could feel Skyler listening, completely listening. His eyes
were closed but his hand had gone roaming on its own. His
fingernails scratched lightly, sensually, along the inside seam
on Mulder's thigh, and from the seriousness of Skyler's face, he
was pretty sure Skyler didn't realize he was doing it. As he
read he stole glances at his eyelashes resting innocently on his
cheeks and the tiny freckles in the pale skin under his eyes, the
strong, angular contours of his chest and abdomen. Mulder was
and was not surprised to feel himself responding, half-turning on
again.

   "'...The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of
    life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the
    more "literary" you are. That's *my* definition, anyway.
    *Telling detail.* *Fresh* detail. The good writers touch
    life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her.
    The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

   "'So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show
    the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want
    only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We
    are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on
    flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam.
    Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the
    chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow,
    feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the
    cycle back to reality...'"

Skyler's hand had found its way higher, closer to his crotch.
Mulder stopped reading and let his head rest against Skyler's
head, just breathing, closing his eyes, and letting himself feel.

"Oh, don't stop," Skyler protested, after a long moment of
comfortable silence. "I love to be read to. I love your voice."

"Then stop distracting me."

"Do you really want me to stop?" he asked, kissing and then
sucking on his throat.

"No."

"Good. Because if you're not going to read, then I think it's
definitely time for some candlelight."

"Candles?" Mulder's face was a little warm again. "Are you
planning to seduce me?"

"Slowly. I'm planning to seduce you slowly."

Mulder swallowed. "OK."

His eyes followed Skyler as he moved around the room,
appreciating the gold of his bare skin, and the clean ripple of
muscles in his torso and back. "Will this conscious machine of
yours have a soul?" he asked.

Skyler was shuffling through the pages of a book of CD's, and
didn't look up. "There are two schools of thought on that--" he
said, selecting out a disk and popping it into a portable boom
box that sat on a small table next to the bookcase.

"So what do *you* think? Is it possible? Machine free will?"

"No."
 
Mulder raised his eyebrows. "Then why are you working on it?"

"Why not? I might be wrong."

Big Band music wound its way into the room, warm, old-fashioned
and romantic. Mulder smiled. Skyler lit incense and candles,
and moved to turn out the overhead light. The room was
transformed.

"And what scares you about Fahrenheit 451 is that there is no
centralized evil power," Mulder said. "It's a headless monster."

"Wouldn't it be nice if there were clear-cut teams?" Skyler
replied. "Like Us and Them? Good guys and bad guys? That'd be
nice. Even if you were only one man and bound to lose, you could
still fight that... You could *fight.*" He made his way slowly
back to the couch as he spoke, and stood between Mulder's knees.
"But not in Fahrenheit 451. And I know you're trying to change
the subject, by the way. It's not going to work."

Mulder swallowed again, and let his head fall back. He felt
exposed with his shirt off, one hand still holding the old, dry
paperback book and the other resting along the back of the couch.
Looking up into Skyler's intense eyes, he knew what was going to
happen. The awareness was potent between them. He bumped his
knee against Skyler's calf, and other than that sat very still.

Skyler slid his eyes over Mulder slowly, deliberately, lustfully,
and Mulder laid back and let him. He felt the attention almost
as a caress on his skin, his throat, his hips where his jeans
hung low and were starting to feel tight. He let Skyler look.
And he looked at Skyler, too, looked at him as a lover, as an
object of desire. He looked, and imagined the hands touching
him, the arms around him, looked and saw in his imagination the
hardening erection that was beginning to press against Skyler's
sweats. He took time to appreciate the angular suggestiveness of
lateral obliques sliding down under the elastic waist-band,
outlining the flat, reverse plane of the abdomen. And he let
himself realize that nothing at all was stopping him from
reaching out right now, pulling Skyler into his arms, stripping
him naked. Playing with him. Mulder closed his eyes. And he
felt Skyler's hand brush lightly over his collar-bone, down his
chest...

And then Skyler was climbing into his lap, straddling him,
kissing his eyelids. Mulder groaned. Finding himself with a
lapful of warm, willing, *man,* he put his hands on Skyler's back
and let his fingertips tell him all they could of hard muscles,
power, and solid strength. Skyler's erection bobbed and rested
against his stomach. In the dim light the music coiled around
them with the scent of incense, and Mulder felt lifted out of his
own life into another place, completely removed, completely safe.
And very awake and alive.

Dipping his head he sucked and licked at Skyler's skin, his
throat, and, nipping lightly, he wrapped his arms around the
slim, hard waist. He was starting to entertain hazy images of
oral sex at the edges of his mind when Skyler leaned back away
and got up, pulling Mulder up after him.

"You wanted to slow dance," he whispered in Mulder's ear. And
then he sucked on the ear, and put his tongue in, and Mulder's
knees went weak. He hung on to Skyler, reeling and slightly
tipsy in his arms, just riding on the waves and waves of
sensation.

And then somehow they were dancing. For a while it was formless,
modern dancing, just moving together lightly, randomly, with no
one in particular leading or following, and then Skyler lifted
Mulder's left hand up, and Mulder found himself taking the lead.
It was like Skyler's weight and mass, which he had previously
felt moving against his own, went away. It was as if Skyler
became a dream of Skyler, floating where Mulder moved him. His
hand on the small of Skyler's back guided him effortlessly, and
everything below Skyler's waist seemed to disappear.
 
Mulder chuckled out loud. "You're a good dancer," he murmured,
enjoying the feel of moving for both of them, moving with the
music, taking them in easy, sensual turns around the floor. It
felt good. Very sexy. They danced three songs that way, and
Mulder was starting to be so distracted by the feel of Skyler's
body, close and yet not close enough, that he was having serious
thoughts of waltzing them into the bedroom when Skyler suddenly
resisted him, and stopped.

"My turn to lead," he said, and took Mulder's right hand in his
left.

Mulder was nonplussed. It felt all wrong to have this hand up,
and the other down. It felt like trying to write with the wrong
hand, or tie his shoelaces upside down. "Uh," he protested,
"uh."

Skyler chuckled. "Don't worry. Just follow. You don't have to
worry about anything."

Mulder made a game effort, but found it much easier said than
done. His feet wanted to lead. His head heard the music and
wanted to steer. He kept anticipating Skyler's movements --
anticipating slightly wrong -- and then tripping them both up
over his own big feet.

"This is hard," he muttered.

"You're thinking too much. *Feel* what I'm doing. Relax. *I'm*
the one moving, and you're just along for the ride, OK? If you
stop fighting me, I'll put you where I want you."

Mulder made more of an effort to relax. Skyler's hand on his
waist fairly shoved him around, and he didn't really like it --
and then -- for no reason -- as easy, suddenly, as breathing in
-- it was ... easy. He knew how to do this after all. He knew
what it felt like to feel through someone else's skin, sense
through other muscles. He did that with his intuition every day.
Without being completely conscious of it he found the switch
inside his own mind that wanted to be in control of leading, or,
failing that, at least in control of following, and he shut it
off. And then he just ... followed. And something weird
happened in his head. He felt like he was flying, floating,
dancing on moonbeams. He had no volition of his own but existed
only as an extension of Skyler -- and Skyler was graceful,
gorgeous, completely desirable, his body warm and supple and very
much alive in Mulder's arms. Skyler was someone to whom he
didn't mind relinquishing control.

Skyler was also a better dancer than he was.

"You've gone to classes," he grumbled, and Skyler laughed.

"Of course. Haven't you?"

"Not since my mother made me."

"Shut up and dance."

And they danced. They danced through wisps of Rain Goddess
smoke, and shifts of old melody. They danced, and Mulder lost
himself, was lifted out of himself, and fell giddy in love. They
danced.

And when the CD finally ended, they stood swaying together,
kissing.

"You wanna make out on the couch for a while, or go to bed?"
Skyler breathed into his mouth.

Mulder was so gone the question almost didn't make sense.

"Bed?" he guessed, rubbing his palms over Skyler's ass, gripping.

"Are you ready for that?" Skyler whispered into his wet ear.
"Because I'm still leading. I'm going to make love to *you* this
time, you know."

Mulder swallowed thickly, closed his eyes, and nodded. He knew.
He had known. He just hadn't known how to ask.

"'Cause we can fool around some more first if you're not sure
yet..."

"No, I -- I --"

"I wouldn't want to push you into anything..."

Goddamn it, he was being teased. "Skyler, I, *please*--"

Skyler chuckled. "Gods, you are so beautiful, do you know that?
You are the most gorgeous, radiant soul I've ever known."

Mulder's eyes fluttered closed, and he felt a very quiet moan in
his throat. And it was good.

"No second thoughts?"

"*Please,* Skyler. You want me to beg? I'm begging. *Please.*"
And it felt good. It felt good to say it out loud, admit how
much he wanted it. He dropped his voice to barely a whisper,
"Make love to me?"

A rough, wordless sound rose up in Skyler's throat, and he
clutched Mulder tight in a stormy hug. Then he let go, and
backed away. "Come on, you," he said, holding out his hands and
walking backwards so that Mulder had no choice but to follow him.

Mulder followed. They collected lit candles as they went, and
Skyler's smile seemed to curl and flicker before him.

In the dark bedroom, Skyler set his own candle down first and
then lifted the little wavering light from Mulder's hands,
placing it carefully next to the other beside the bed. Then he
took him in his arms, kissed him, scooped him backwards off-
balance so that for a moment Mulder found himself suspended in a
movie-kiss, and then as one they yielded and fell together back
onto the bed. Skyler landed on top, in a tangle of limbs,
rubbing against him sensually, kissing him all over, caressing
his skin. He stripped Mulder of his jeans, laved him with his
tongue, and muttered his appreciation between mouthfuls so that
Mulder began to be dizzy with it. He wasn't accustomed to being
called 'beautiful,' and couldn't remember if he'd ever in his
whole life actually heard the words 'god you have a gorgeous
cock' spoken out loud by a real person. But it was the other
things Skyler said -- '*I want you, Fox, god I want you so much*'
-- as his mouth sought and found the most intimate secrets of
Mulder's body -- '*I've always wanted you*' -- it was the other
things -- '*it's you I miss in the middle of the night*' -- that
made his control start to slip, and his coordination begin to
subtly disconnect.

Skyler had scrambled up on top of him, nude, hot, heavy on top of
him, sucking his throat and rubbing groin to groin, and Mulder
was dimly aware that one of Skyler's hands was scrabbling noisily
in the nightstand.

"What, what--" he murmured.

"Lube," Skyler breathed roughly. "I'm gonna fuck you, make love
to you, have you done this before?"

Mulder's throat tightened, and a heat came up in his chest, his
body, his balls. He was on fire just hearing the words. "No,"
he forced out tightly, and his head bucked away, baring his
throat even more to Skyler's marauding tongue and teeth and the
suction of his mouth.

"Are you scared?"

He tossed his head the other way, denying it. He wasn't scared,
though it did cross his mind, only very, very dimly, that maybe
he should have been a little -- apprehensive -- but right now he
was too hot to care. Much too turned on.

When he felt Skyler's deliberate hand begin to massage his ass,
slipping in purposefully between the cheeks, Mulder gasped, and
when Skyler found the place he was searching for his body
abruptly left off its restless squirming, and went still, like a
fly in a spider's web, stunned. He shifted his legs a little
farther apart, kept his eyes closed, and panted through his
mouth. His own hands were relaxed now, making loose fists
resting lightly on Skyler's shoulders. Concentrating on the
sensation of Skyler's fingers, he waited for whatever would
happen next.

Skyler moved awkwardly sideways, fumbled, and Mulder let his arms
fall back, fists resting submissively on either side of his head,
waiting helplessly while Skyler got the cap off the lube, and
settled in place again.

"This is gonna feel so *good,* I'm gonna make you feel so *good,*
you're gonna *love* this, now, just relax, relax, it'll be so
much better if you relax, oh god, Fox, you're so beautiful to me,
you turn me on so much, I wanna make you feel so *good,* so
*good,* just *relax,* *relax,* baby, *relax.*"

He knew what Skyler was doing, let himself ride with it, mellowed
into the crooning hypnotic suggestion of his voice, and felt his
muscles respond. Then it happened.

Penetration.

Mulder pulled in a fast breath. Skyler kept up with his
ceaseless, melodic reassurances, words like a caress. And the
finger probing gently inside him felt weird, but not bad. He
concentrated on Skyler's voice. "You're amazing, you know that?
You're so wonderful, so beautiful, you're gonna feel so good,
that's right, Fox, you're doing everything right, oh god, Fox,
god, do you have any idea how much I -- I--" Skyler's voice
broke-- "--how beautiful you are to me, I want you so much, oh
Fox! Good, good, just stay relaxed, just like that, that's
right, like that..."

And there was a moment that didn't feel so good, but he didn't
let himself think about it, he just listened to Skyler's voice.
And then a sensation that was -- new. Rationally he knew it must
be --

A deep, strange moan broke free from his throat, and he heard
Skyler chuckle breathlessly. And then Skyler's mouth was on his
ear, and there was too much electricity racing through his body
to be very sure what was going on, or what was happening to him.

Mulder's arms came around Skyler again, pulling him closer, and
he moaned, and his head tossed to the other side.

And it was starting to feel OK. It felt kind of ... good. But
his body was still mostly frozen, as if afraid to move, afraid to
respond, waiting for something.

"Do you remember the first time we kissed? I thought about it
for weeks, I planned, and hoped, and laid awake nights worrying
what you were going to think, and then when you let me kiss you I
felt -- I felt -- like hot gold -- magic -- like nothing bad
could ever happen again. Oh, god, Fox, I've wanted you for so
long, wanted you like this for so long."

And he wasn't really Fox anymore, that was the sad thing, so much
water under the bridge -- for both of them -- very sad, because
he would have liked to be Fox for Skyler, but Skyler didn't seem
to mind. Mulder could feel his body's resistance acquiescing,
finally, could feel the sensual capacity for motion beginning to
return, maybe, as he listened to his friend unbare his heart.

And it was feeling better, really a lot better, until the
pressure started to build and--

He made a garbled sound, miserable, and felt himself beginning to
resist, trying to get away.

"Ssh, ssh, easy," Skyler said.

"I have to--"

"No, you don't. You're fine. Everything's fine."

"I--" Mulder was feeling panicky, and a sweat broke out.

"It always feels like that. It's not what you think. Just trust
me, all right? Just relax, ssh, baby, relax. Go with it just
one more minute, all right? And then if you still want me to
stop, I'll stop."

Mulder bit his lip, clenched his eyes closed tight, and nodded.

And then in one more minute the wish to make Skyler stop was the
very furthest thing from Mulder's consciousness.

Pulsing, every cell of his body *on,* throbbing with sensation,
blood laced with candlelight, surgingly *alive,* life force
flowing through him/them/flame/stars/window breeze in a
flickering room filled with whimpers, moans, threaded with
remembered music in his head, hot, pulsing, pulsing -- Mulder was
lost.

Out of his head. Ecstatic.

No longer Mulder, no longer Fox, only in love. Only riding on
this wave of something like orgasm, better than orgasm, something
he never imagined, and it just went on, and on, and Skyler's
voice with it, gasping now, laughing, whispering endearments and
love and filthy joyous tributes to all the gods of sex and the
minor deities of cocks, and gorgeous men, and feeling tremblingly
alive. He couldn't have stopped it if he tried, he was helpless,
loving it, and it was Skyler with him, Skyler doing it to him,
Skyler staring half-lidded into his eyes as he shuddered, writhed
and cried out, and that made it best of all.

Mulder's head tossed, his fists clenched and unclenched, and the
humid air was thick with the whimpers and moans that spilled from
his own throat. This wasn't what he ever thought sex was, but he
*loved* it. He couldn't get enough, except -- it wasn't stopping
-- it just kept going on -- and he was beginning to feel
desperate, lost, like he might never touch back to earth -- and
then Skyler was kissing him, eating the moans and whimpers out of
his mouth, sharing his breath, and whispering so that the
question vibrated on his own lips, "Ready?"

Mulder was ready.

And, incredibly, it got better. Heavier, deeper, more helpless.
Skyler pressed into him slowly, pinning him with his eyes.
"Hello," he murmured, smiling, when he was in.

"Hello," Mulder whispered back. And he smiled too. Smiled and
then cried out, screamed. "Oh, god, yes."

It was like everything he ever wanted and nothing he ever
suspected, and it was irresistible, relentless, overwhelming,
sweaty, and gorgeously, soulfully, satisfyingly intense. His
knees were folded up against his sholders and he was out of
control completely, and somehow this was getting through to some
part of his heart, some part of his psyche, some part of his
soul, that almost never got touched at all because everyone was
too afraid, but Mulder needed it, needed this, desperately, this
contact, and he sobbed, clutched Skyler, sucked his skin,
consumed the sweat off his throat, gnawed at the stubbled
roughness of his jaw, cried into his mouth.

And nothing made a lot of sense, but that was absolutely fine.
Because that's the way life is -- the way life *really* is.

When it was over, he could barely move. Every muscle in his body
was totally relaxed, drained of tension he hadn't been aware of
holding. And all Mulder wanted to do was snuggle and fall
asleep.

"God, Skyler, that was-- You're-- God, Skyler!"

"I'm god?"

"You're god," he agreed. "That was -- god." Mulder sighed, long
and deep, and nuzzled closer, kissing Skyler's mouth, deeply,
languorously. He'd never felt so sated in his life. "*Thank
you,*" he whispered, and cuddled deeper. And he loved the way
Skyler held him, and mumured 'baby,' and didn't let go.
 

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

They didn't, as so often happens, roll away from each other in
their sleep, but slept nestled together in each others arms,
slept like a secret conspiracy of bodies, of souls, either one
drawing the other back close if they started to stray anywhere in
the long, peaceful dream of the night.

Mulder woke up early in the cold light with Skyler in his arms,
feeling very, very happy.

And weird.

Happy and weird.

And knowing in his gut that it wasn't going to work.

God help him he loved this man, but it wasn't going to work. He
squinted at the fragment of grey sky through the crack of the
curtains, and knew it, knew -- deep down -- that it just didn't
make sense.

But damn it was fun while it lasted.

Gently, carefully, he eased himself away, breaking free of
Skyler's loose, trusting, dreaming embrace. Quietly he gathered
up his clothes, dressed in the living room without washing, and
found a pen and notepad beside the phone.

"Dear Skyler--" he wrote, and then sat thinking for a long time.
He folded that one, put it in his pocket, and tried again:
"Skyler--"

He jotted it down quickly before he could change his mind, tucked
the note so that it stuck up prominently from the top pages of
_Fahrenheit 451_ and stood that up on end on top of a teetering
stack of cushions on the couch. There. That should catch
Skyler's eye.

Mulder made sure of his gun, slapped his pocket to check for the
disk, and then let himself out and closed the door softly behind
him.

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

Outside in the eucalyptus, damp-sweet early-grey air Mulder felt
too wired, walked too fast, jogged a little, and walked again,
enjoying the slap of cold, drizzle-filled San Francisco morning
against the persistent heat in his cheeks. And it was good.
Funny how in prospect and now in retrospect the idea of making it
with another man seemed so ... *daring* ... But while it was
happening it had just been...

He stopped at a corner for no reason. With his hands on his
hips, he breathed in deep and raised his face to the imminent
sky. And closed his eyes.

It had just been *Skyler.* And it had been intimate, soul-
bendingly intimate, and vulnerable, and...

Mulder opened his eyes. A girl in sweats had come up beside him,
jogging in place and pretending to wait for the light even though
there was no traffic. She was sliding glances. Mulder smiled at
her, and she sprinted quickly away. He felt flushed, sure that
he reeked of sex. He watched her cute little ass jogging away
from him and thought, //baby, I could do things for you that ...
put you right out of your head ... I could make you wild, play
with you ... I could ...//

Without waiting for the light, Mulder cut crosswise down the
empty side street, feeling mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

At the end of the next block he came unawares onto a row of
bright gingerbread Victorians -- very San Francisco. A waifish
kitten mewed at him from an open window, defending or inviting,
and he was hit with a smell like fresh baked bagels.

All at once he wondered if the jogging girl knew what ecstasy
was.

'Ecstasy' - 'out of place.'

Sniffing down the source of the good smell to a little shop on
the corner, open early, Mulder fumbled for his cell.

It took almost four rings before he heard Skyler's sleepy voice.
"Hey, you," Mulder found himself grinning like an idiot,
"whaddaya want on your bagel?" ... "Yeah, yeah, just forget the
note. Toss it. I had a momentary attack of reason, but I'm OK
now. Lox? Cream cheese? Any preferences or shall I just bring
some of everything?" ... "A man after my own heart," Mulder
laughed. "Listen, I've got three days before I gotta get back to
D.C. Think you can put up with me that long?"

He beamed at the girl behind the counter, starting to point
things out while he was still on the phone, and aware that he was
flirting outrageously.

When he retraced his steps back to Skyler's apartment it was with
an armful of warm bagels and a light heart--

And *still* feeling mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

=================================================
...end of Deep Play, part I

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

VERY LONG END NOTES:

QUOTES:
The Oracle quote at the top is *probably* Dick Alpert (The Oracle
being The Oracle, I couldn't quite figure out where that article
started and ended). The Juan Ramon Jimenez quote is borrowed
from Bradbury, from the chapter heading for Part One of F451.

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE: I don't speak Russian. All Krycek's Russian
is drawn from a "Foreign Dirty Words" website. Transliteration/
translation is as I found it on the site. I had to make some
guesses about usage and context. With apologies for any errors,
here's what I *think* (hope) Krycek is saying:

   Ebat'-kopat' - an exclamation, like "oh shit"
   Opesdol - "dumbass," "motherfucker" (stresses mental sickness)
   E'b tvoju mat' - "fuck you", literally "I fucked your mother"
   Pososi moyu konfetku - "suck my candy"

TO NEW READERS: If you're specifically into slash, my MSR story,
"Just Say Yes," is slash-friendly. If, however, part of what
attracts you to slash is that, like me, you've had it up to your
eyeballs with MSR Scully and MSR sensibilities, you might give my
MSR a try just for the hell of it. It's all set very early in
the series, back when there still seemed to be hope for Scully.
In the past I've usually settled for Scully the way she *should*
be, but I've always tried to write Mulder the way he *is.*

FOR THE RECORD:
In my final post of MSR I said I'd never yield to the temptation
to write another fic, so I guess I've got some explaining to do.
Here it is in a nutshell: I made a huge mistake in taking the
Scullyist-dominated sub-genre of MSR to be representative of fic
in general. For whatever reasons, mainstream MSR appears to be
synonymous with Scullyism, and Scullyists are in de facto control
of its dream-territory. Even "bothists," therefore, cannot avoid
being steeped in Scullyist dogma, which begins from the premise
that in order to elevate Scully one must first belittle Mulder.
But, believe it or not, there is fic after MSR. My actual (non-
negotiable) resignation was from MSR, Scully, and Scullyists.
Also, there seems to be a general misconception that I felt
somehow pressured or harassed by Scullyists while I was writing
MSR, whereas the fact is that as a writer of fic I have
absolutely no complaints. *None.* My objections -- my very
strong objections -- to the Scullyist perspective were/are as a
*reader* of fic, as a strong woman in my own right, and as a
thinking member of this community. Never as a writer.

SCULLY REFERENCES FOR MSR READERS:
  Because fic inhabits dream-territory, because characterizations
are at the heart of that dream, and because the Scully in this
story is very, very different from any Scully I have previously
written, I feel that I owe my existing readership an explanation.
Fiction always has something of magic about it -- enchantment --
necromancy. Fiction touches directly on the emotions, and in
that sense is "below the belt." My hope is that by revealing the
reasons behind the (thematically important) choices I made in
writing this Scully, perhaps some readers will be more empowered
to agree, disagree, or agree *to* disagree -- and thereby perhaps
might trust me enough to follow along into the story itself.
   SPECIFIC SOURCES for Scully characterization include allusions
to "all things," "Arcadia," "Jersey Devil," and "Small Potatoes."
   FOR EVIDENCE OF SCULLY'S TEMPERAMENT I relied most heavily on
"all things." GA wrote it, so this is as canon as it gets. In
"all things" we see Scully not listening to Mulder, not valuing
or crediting his investigations, and feeling that she herself is
"drifting with eyes closed" while the moments of her life rush
past; we see her profoundly dissatisfied with the direction and
momentum of her life (i.e. life on Mulder's X-files), and just in
general needing to slow things down. However on the couch, when
Mulder is actively listening and trying to understand and connect
with *her* and her experiences, while he muses on destiny and the
infinite, open-ended choices, paths and possibilities of life,
Scully -- talking in terms of "only one choice" and all the other
possible choices being "wrong" -- *closes her eyes* and goes to
sleep. (This says a lot, a lot, a lot about Scully.)
   ADDITIONAL SUPPORTING EVIDENCE:
   In "Never Again," we see Scully switching between extremes,
from tightly controlled to rashly rebellious. We learn that she
views Mulder as a controlling authority figure, and resents him
for it, but we also know that Scully has a track record of sexual
liaisons with authority figures. We see her using sex as a way
of 'getting even' with life and making herself feel powerful
(which could well explain the authority figures), and we learn
that she sees herself trapped in a vicious circle. (Unlike
Mulder, who, according to Scully, goes in "an endless line, two
steps forward and three steps back." It is also worth noting
that, in sharp contrast to Mulder's broad spectrum of quirky
friends, shadowy informants, ex-girlfriends, online friends, work
connections, flirtations, sultry phone messages, and basketball
buddies, virtually the *ONLY* time we see Scully having a 'life'
after season 1 is with Ed Jerse.)
   In "Bad Blood" there is one key point on which Mulder's
perception and Scully's perception coincide: they both agree that
Scully is disdainful of Mulder and his ideas. The difference is
that Scully doesn't try to look beyond Mulder's joking bravado,
whereas Mulder in is watching Scully very closely, hanging on her
every word, hoping for her acceptance and approval.
   In "The End" we learn from Gibson Praise that Scully doesn't
care what other people think "except for her, that other one"
(i.e. Diana Fowley). Gibson is clearly over-generalizing,
however. Aside from the (lower ranking) technicians who put
Gibson in the machine when Scully took him for the neurological
scan to map his brain functions, Gibson has only been in a
position to observe Scully interacting with two people -- Diana,
and Mulder. The one conclusion we can safely draw is that Scully
(as supported by the evidence of "Bad Blood") doesn't care what
*Mulder* thinks.
   In "Elegy" Scully is so deeply in denial about her own role as
witness to the paranormal -- she wants so much not to believe --
that she withholds crucial case information from Mulder. This
particular example is noteworthy because it is one of the very
few times in the whole series when Mulder calls her on her crap.
Put on the spot, Scully's first defense is to blame Mulder by
suggesting that he is somehow trying to manipulate her into
"saying you're right," and "pretending to believe it." (One of
many examples of Scully as martyr, perceiving herself as a long-
suffering victim who is overwhelmed by Mulder's worldview and
obsessions.) This scene also provides evidence of Mulder's
awareness of the kind of game Scully plays. He points out that
if she is not honest with him, if she hides the truth from him,
then she is working against him and against herself. That was
season 4.
   Five and a half years later, in "The Truth," when it comes to
going north or going south, Scully's knee-jerk instinct is still
to trust *Kersh* (another authority figure) over Mulder.
   CONCLUSION: Scully doesn't actually *like* Mulder very much.
She may not want anyone else to have him, but nevertheless she is
ambivalent and often resentful of Mulder's role in her life. No
wonder Scullyist writers don't respect Mulder -- Scully herself
doesn't respect him. Because I *do* respect and value Mulder, I
strongly believe that Mulder deserves better than Scully.
   And that, folks, is absolutely my final word on Scully.

SOME REMARKS ON SLASH:
   I've lately been overjoyed to discover what a wealth of really
good writing exists on the slash side of the fence. There's even
some slash with smart, strong, believable Mulder -- which comes
as welcome air after a year of drowning in the type of distorted
Mulder characterizations most favored by MSR.
   This story was originally intended to be a one-off, just a
little PWP that had been tenaciously hanging on to a back corner
of my imagination since last fall. Then somehow it got out of
hand. Its roots go deep into my earliest experiences of fanfic,
back all the way to the days of Star Trek print 'zines with their
fresh-inky smell of dangerous questions, back, in fact, to the
days of Kirk/Spock -- slash before it got called "slash." Right
from the beginning slash fiction was impertinent, sexy, perverse,
and at the same time idealistic ... even, in its own quiet way,
revolutionary. At its best slash is a lot more than just getting
"two hot guys together"; it's about questioning the origins, the
poetics and metaphysics of Love, and re-envisioning sex as Love's
most soulfully deliberate physical expression, rather than merely
the predictable product of hard-wiring and chemical programming.
I couldn't resist taking that trip with Mulder, just once...
   Or maybe twice...