TITLE:Scenes in Dark Rooms AUTHOR:Maddie LeClerc EMAIL ADDRESS:maddieleclerc@yahoo.com RATING: NC-17 CLASSIFICATION: VA KEYWORDS: Sk/D, sexual situations, consensual m/m sex WEBSITE: http://readmaddie.freeservers.com SPOILER WARNING: S8 through DeadAlive DISCLAIMER: Pileggi and Patrick created the chemistry, 1013 the characters. The story is mine. SUMMARY: Skinner tries to explain. Author's note: There is a moment in DeadAlive where Skinner is in Mulder's room, sees Doggett in the hallway, and throws him a scorching look. This story takes place within that heartbeat. Thanks to the Beta Band for hand-holding and metaphor-kicking. Scenes in Dark Rooms by Maddie LeClerc April 2001 What the hell was I thinking? I stare at you for a second, John, out there in the hospital hallway as you watch me at Mulder's bedside. Krycek must have passed you as he left, yet you stand there as if nothing's wrong. But everything's wrong, and I know now that you don't understand why. I wonder what made me think -- I wonder why I let you -- No, I don't wonder at all. I know. I know perfectly well what I was thinking. * * * * You were in a bad spot at the time. I helped put you there. Scully was having complications and I couldn't tell you, and neither she nor I was sure enough of you yet to admit you to the inner circle. But when I read your report on the Tipet case, I thought I could give you a chance. I should have gone home that night. Instead, I drove to your house. Just a couple of ex-Marines sitting around talking over a beer or two. Talking about odd cases from the past. Working up to odd cases in the present. Alluding to the odd things that might have happened to us in 'Nam, or Lebanon. The barracks. Jesus. Under the rubble for 12 hours, you said. Waiting for a second bomb. I didn't tell you the whole story about how I died in the jungle, not with the level of detail I told Mulder. There were things you weren't telling me, either, that much was clear. The fact that you had secrets intrigued me. I understood secrets; I felt the latent thrum of the nanocytes in my blood every day. I wanted to find out yours. You reached out to put a beer bottle on the coffee table, and your watch glinted in the dim light, the sinews of your arm standing out in relief. You pushed the bunched sleeve of your dark jersey back over your elbow. I hadn't seen you in civilian clothes before, I thought. A small secret revealed. Something familiar rippled through my gut, through my groin, but I couldn't -- no, I wouldn't place it. It was impossible that I could feel that way about you, about any man. "I dreamt I was going to kill Agent Scully, sir," you mumbled to the floor. You were clearly distressed by this, disturbed that you could consider doing something so dishonorable. You looked at me, your eyes bluer than even hers, and that feeling that I didn't want to name boiled over. You looked at me, and I felt something click, and I knew that unbelievable as it was, the same thing was happening to you. * * * * Mulder and Scully, they were a binary star, and I the unstable planet that rotated in their orbit. When Mulder vanished, the entire system flew apart. The light I'd used to find my way winked out. I couldn't burden Scully with this. She had her own grief to handle, the baby to think of. And I was still convinced that she blamed me for losing Mulder. My pain was nothing compared to hers. I wanted it back, the sense that I belonged to something unusual and special, that precarious balance we kept even in the face of suspicion and betrayal and death. When I went to your house, I hoped I could find it again. * * * * Naked on your living room floor, I balanced on knees and elbows, my forehead pressing into your Oriental rug. I opened my eyes but the pattern was a blur, too close to see. You were a blur as well -- my glasses were across the room. But I could feel. Your hand, flat against the base of my spine. Your knees, between mine, nudging them apart for better purchase. Your cock, hard and slick against my ass, the coolness of whatever lubricant you'd found a shock against hot skin. The muscles around my anus twitched as you pressed against me. All I could hear was the sound of ragged breathing, yours or mine, I didn't care. My mind was in turmoil, my heart pounding to the point of pain. Unbelievable that I would want this, but do it, do it now. And God, it burned, it burned to have you inside me. I felt stretched beyond all limits, fuller than I ever thought I could feel, and it burned. And as you moved, your hands on my hips, I bucked back against you, praying for the final firestorm. This was what I'd really wanted, to submit, to be taken, to be consumed. Burn me clean, John. Make me a new man. * * * * Scully never knew, as far as I could tell. She was lost herself, and frightened, although she never would have admitted it. You know how she is. She never even understood how much she loved Mulder until we almost lost him to that brain disease -- not the one in those medical records you showed her, the real one. You should have seen her then, rumpled and dirty, hair in a ragged ponytail, striding through the halls of the Hoover Building, demanding answers, searching for a cure for him. I'd given up on him, didn't believe she could pull it off. She made me believe. She was magnificent then, and I loved her. When we were discussing the Squamash case, when you lowered your voice rather than shout to the entire firearms analysis sector that she'd signed off on falsified reports, I knew that you were losing the battle to her, too, that you understood that you were working with someone special. But you couldn't cut her in on that case, either, not even when you'd solved it. Hell of a way to solve it. As I watched you try to make sense of what had happened to you, desperate and bewildered at your computer, even though I invoked Mulder's name in praise of your work, all I could think was: I want you. Neither of us would ever have Scully. Neither of us could ever be Mulder. I thought, instead, that we could help each other find a new way. I still thought that, as I pressed you back into your couch, each hair on your chest bringing my skin alive, the Bureau coffee still bitter on your tongue. When you broke away and groaned my name, when I felt your cock pulse in my hand as you came, as I came, I believed it. * * * * Montana, and I realized it was time I began acting like your supervisor again. Cult activity. Voluntary. I thought you'd gotten into his head. You certainly hadn't gotten into hers. As I stood out on that unseasonably warm plateau, listening to you and Agent Reyes spout that unbelievable nonsense, I felt the balance tip back to Scully. Crazy, I shouted at you later in my room. Insensitive. Stupid. Dimly I remember your face freezing as I advanced on you. You took a step back, bumping into my bed, but held your ground. I grabbed your arm. This was dangerous territory. Deliberately ignoring evidence you don't want to hear! And as I said it, I understood. I was still furious, but I finally understood. You'd never been working Mulder's kidnapping at all. You'd been reliving your son's case. Trying to reinvestigate it instead of the one you'd been assigned to. I should have you taken off this case, I said more softly. It's too close to the bone. You shook me off and looked at me defiantly. Agent Scully's still on the case. You're not Agent Scully, I said. I hadn't meant to hurt you, but I did. I watched your mouth go small and tight. The stab of guilt was swift and strong, but what I'd said was true. Walter, you said. Sir. I can handle this. Please. And you placed your hands on my hips. The entire text of the FBI sexual harassment policy flashed before my eyes even as I felt myself grow hard. Please, you said. Scully, I thought, as your fingers undid my belt, I'm sorry. * * * * Later that night, she and I looked at the stars and talked about Mulder. I held her in my arms and felt the soft changes in her body that he never would. I wanted to take this lost, weeping woman back to her room to comfort her. I could still feel the warm drag of your lips along my cock. I wanted Mulder back for all of our sakes. I wanted him to be dead, for all of our sakes. Scully cried in my arms, and I thought of you, asleep in my bed. I didn't know what I was thinking any more. * * * * The problem was that your intentions were good but your instincts were not. Doesn't say much about mine, I guess, because I followed yours. It's why I never felt that balance I wanted. You were one of the most trustworthy men I'd ever met, but I couldn't trust you. I trusted them. No matter what weird direction Mulder's mind was taking or what incredible line of diplobabble Scully fed me, I knew I could trust them. When I followed them, I did the right thing. It was the right thing to go to him as she ran for help. It was the right thing to dig him up, no matter how you tried to convince me otherwise. It's the right thing to let him die. * * * * You should have gotten off the X-Files while you had the chance. It killed me to sign that letter, but we were skating close to something dangerous. Kersh had an idea, I think, or Laura and Kimberly had figured it out, assistants comparing notes. Three months of losing ourselves, of mouths and hands and cocks everywhere -- it had to show after a while. You should have taken that transfer, and then I could still have you. I would still be standing here at the bedside of the man who provided me a moral compass, who shed a light on my soul that I was afraid to use to see what was inside. But I wouldn't have to wonder what you were thinking out there, John. I hope your emotional compass is spinning as crazily as mine. I can't tell. I have the feeling you have no idea of the magnitude of what is happening here. Scully does. Mulder would. We belong together, Mulder and Scully and I. We still do, damaged and pregnant and dead. My universe is in balance again, despite how it looks. How can I fit you into their world? How can I fit them into ours? What the hell am I thinking? -30- feedback to maddieleclerc@yahoo.com