Blood of Abraham - Chapter Sixteen
by Mik
There is a lovely little land somewhere along the banks of that mythical river Denial, where one puts the unpalatable, unthinkable, unimaginable, unbelievable things one encounters in life. My particular timeshare there was basically empty. There's been very little that I, personally, could put in storage. Oh, maybe my feelings for a certain redhead. SpongeBob Squarepants. And the whole creepy gestalt of my gene pool. But the big item there was the image of Walter S. I'll Grind Your Bones To Make My Bread Skinner in a leather halter and wrist cuffs.
When one says one is shaken, you don't really think they actually shake, but I did. My hands could barely hold the flashlight. I'm not sure why it unnerved me so much. The Gunmen told me it was recorded somewhere. They told me and I dismissed it as impossible. Me, the guy whose credulity is stretched so thin it could pass for rice paper, and I couldn't believe my former boss was a leather bear. Because I didn't want him to be. Because that would make him too attractive to something inside me that I kept packed away in the warehouse with SpongeBob and my biological father.
But it was true. I said a few things to myself. Words. Single, emphatic words. Where Skinner had let loose a blue litany at the power cut, I simply listed an assortment of swear words. But I listed them with conviction.
"Mulder?"
Oh, shit. Busted. I started to fumble with the things in my hand. "I'm okay," I called again. "I'll be right down." I dropped back to my knees and started dragging the various bits and pieces of his ensemble together and shoving them into the box.
"Mulder."
He was standing at the door, his own flashlight beam playing over my face. I let the things in my hands fall guiltily. I thought about trying to explain about the shelf being too tall and the blankets toppling over, and the box landing on my head, but I let it go, and just sat there, waiting for his embarrassment, his wrath...who knows, maybe his arousal.
He came into the room and knelt beside me. "You have to be careful with leather," he said quietly, and began to put things away, gently smoothing and straightening. He must have felt my gaze trying to avoid his face. He didn't look at me either, but added, not quite wistfully, "This is from a long time ago."
Not that long ago, I thought frowning. Not if what the Gunmen said was true. "It's none of my business," I mumbled, and sort of crawled away to collect one last bag that had rolled to a dark corner.
"No," he agreed, "it's not. But you're here, you've seen it. I know you're curious. It's just not something even you can understand."
"Even me?" I repeated, rocking back on my haunches. "What does that mean?"
His lips twisted up in what I suppose he thought was a wry smile. "Not what you think. I meant, even though you're a psychologist."
"Not so you'd know it." I worked myself back to my feet and started to fold the blankets.
He closed the box. "You know what power does." He stood.
"Yes." I bent and picked up one of the flashlights. "It fails."
He laughed at me. "Exactly." He slid the box into place.
I put the light aside and resumed with the blankets. "I guess I don't understand."
"You do." He came to help me, taking one end. "Or you will, in time."
I shuddered. I couldn't help it. It sounded like a threat. Or...a promise.
He ignored it. "Don't obsess, Mulder. It's not that important." His fingers touched mine as we brought our ends of the blanket together. "It hasn't been important for a long time."
"How long?" I had to ask. The Gunmen made it sound as if the altercation had been within the last couple of years.
"Oh, I don't know..." he eased the blanket from my hands and set it aside, "eight or nine years, perhaps." He held out the other blanket. "I haven't even looked at those things in at least two years."
Something wasn't adding up. "Well, if you're out of that...fetish, why would you look at them at all? Why keep them?"
"Why do you keep a pack of cigarettes in your bureau drawer?" he challenged softly. "When was the last time you lit up? It's just comforting to get them out and hold them sometimes, isn't it?"
I might have blushed. I know my face got a little hot. "You're equating a leather fetish to smoking?" I tried to jeer. It didn't come out quite right.
"Oh, perhaps on a different scale, but yes. There's something compelling about it. Look." He put the blanket down and went to the cupboard again. I didn't turn around, I didn't want to see what he was doing, but a moment later he was reaching around me, holding something up to me. "Smell it. Breathe it in. Let it fill you. Do you see what I mean?"
I did. Instantly. His hand was resting lightly on my shoulder but I might as well have been bound in chains. I shifted away from the contact, uncomfortably. "Yes. Leather's a trigger scent."
His voice changed. The soft, companionable element was gone. He was crisp and businesslike again. "Just so." I heard him move to replace the cuff in the box. "Be careful coming down the stairs," he said a moment later, and was gone.
I sat down on the bed, the corners of the blanket still clenched in my hands. I'd failed him. I felt it. I didn't understand how I had … or perhaps I understood too well. If he thought that introducing me to the heady scent of bondage and control would entice me to accept his incredible offer, he'd grossly miscalculated. I was intrigued, but not the way he had expected or hoped.
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The power didn't return this time and the condo cooled down quickly. Skinner stoked the fire and brought the thermoses in. I brought Bram downstairs and settled his basket close to the hearth. Skinner pulled cushions off the sofa and chair and arranged blankets. "If we've lost heat for the night, we're going to have to get cozy," he announced grimly, with the air of a man who had just decided cyanide was our best option.
I pretended not to hear. Skinner had one of those hand cranked emergency radios like you just knew he would, and I gave all my attention to it. Somehow I managed to find a station that was broadcasting the last few minutes of his basketball game, which took the onus off me to carry on any kind of conversation. He draped a blanket around his shoulders, and hunched over the speaker to get every word. I took another blanket and sat, cross-legged, and let my eyes wander around the semi dark room, trying to avoid looking at him.
The obvious choice for my attention was Bram, but I didn't want to look at him, either. Why didn't my breast flood with paternal pride when I looked at him? He was my son. All the evidence said so. I should love him. I should feel possessive and protective of him. He just scared me. I didn't know how he came to exist, and I didn't know how he came to my house, and I didn't know how I could take care of him. Shouldn't I feel something for him? Shouldn't it just...happen? The fact that there was a void where my affection should be seemed to be more evidence that I was destined to be as bad a father as either of mine.
I felt sorry for him. He seemed like a decent kid. Everyone else thought he was the best thing ever. But I knew the pain of not being wanted, I knew the heartache of making heroes out of men who weren't capable or willing to be heroes for me. Bram deserved more than a sperm donor. He deserved a daddy. A man who'd give him pony rides, and teach him to swing a bat, to shave. A man who'd take him behind the woodshed when it was due, and hug him and tell him he was proud of him when it was due. Bram deserved someone who would appreciate all his achievements and would encourage him in his failures. Surely this God I'd made a deal with would see someone else would be better for him.
"How's he doing?"
I looked back at Skinner. Now there was a daddy. A real, bona fide man. A man who could love and care and protect unconditionally. "He's...fine. Still sleeping. You've got the magic touch with him."
"I just relax with him, Mulder. That's all." He turned the radio off. "Babies can feel stress and anxiety. You vibrate with anxiety every time you pick him up. He can't relax and sleep like that."
Another failure. I frowned into the basket. I felt as if I'd been scolded by my dad. "He makes me nervous," I admitted lamely.
"He's a baby."
"Exactly." I unfolded my legs and stood. "I need to hit the head before everything freezes over." Not bothering with a light, I fumbled my way to the bathroom, eased the door shut just so I wouldn't slam it, and let my head fall back against the door. The strain between us was getting unbearable and it was largely my doing. The problem was, the only way I knew of undoing it was to agree to his fantastic scheme and that would be my undoing.
With a sigh, I unzipped and watched the steam rise from the ghostly white of the porcelain bowl. I could analyze this situation to death, and still only come to one conclusion; I wanted Skinner to be my dad. I liked his strength, his organization, his confidence, his compassion. I liked the way he took every catastrophe in stride. I liked his unselfconscious way of doing whatever needed to be done. I wanted him to bounce me in his arms, and sing to me and tell me everything was going to be all right. But I didn't want his sex. No, that scared me. I couldn't give up control in bed, and that is where he would demand ultimate surrender.
I shook, zipped, and almost yelping with pain, rinsed my hands in the icy water from the tap. No matter how many times I argued with myself, the answer was still going to remain the same. No.
Skinner had rearranged the cushions and was pouring out mugs of coffee when I emerged. Bram's basket was wriggling a little, but without the usual sounds of ear splitting dismay. "I think he's waking up," Skinner announced, holding out a cup with a smile as cold as the water in the john.
I took the cup and sat, not certain what to say, only knowing something should be said. As I opened my mouth, he spoke up again. "Did I misunderstand or is Agent Scully not well?"
I looked up. "Did I say that?"
"I'm not sure what you said. I know she didn't sound well when she telephoned this morning. And it seems to me you told her to 'feel better' when you spoke to her this afternoon." He cupped his hands around his own mug. "Is she not well?"
"I'm not sure. I think she said something about flu symptoms." I was watching the basket, waiting for the first screech.
"Oh, that's too bad."
"Yeah." I took a drink. "She was really looking forward to antiquing with her mother. What is antiquing, exactly?"
"Shopping for antiques," he explained matter of factly. "It usually involves going into small towns and attending estate sales, and going through second hand shops."
"And this would be considered fun?" I asked doubtfully. Scully baffled me sometimes.
"Think of it as..." Skinner paused, frowning. But then he smiled. "A treasure hunt."
"Have you ever gone antiquing?" I really didn't care. I just wanted to keep the conversation going, but in a direction far, far away from where my thoughts were hiding.
"I have, in the past. My wife enjoyed it." He nodded over his shoulder. "That sideboard, there. That's the one I'm refinishing. We bought that together in Pennsylvania several years ago."
"You're very at home with having a home, aren't you?" I didn't mean for it to come out like that, so pensive.
"I am." He was unapologetic. "There's no law that states a man can't keep a home for himself." He stretched past me to reach for the basket of food. "You should try it, Mulder. Especially now that you have a family."
I shot another look at the basket of family. "I'm not the sideboard refinishing type."
Skinner unwrapped a sandwich. "Is that your definition of a home, Mulder?" He held out half to me.
I took it. "No, but it is yours."
"No, my definition is a place where a man can live, not merely exist. A place to defend, to take pride and comfort in, a place to have family, interests, rest." He took a bite and pointed the remaining sandwich at me. "You don't have those things."
"That you know of," I countered, stung.
"Do you?"
I picked at the ruffle of lettuce at the edge of the sandwich and didn't answer.
"Do you?" he prompted.
I sighed. "Not as such. But...it will be different, now. As you said, I have family." And the family chose that moment to scream. I looked at Skinner with what I have to believe looked like panic from his vantage point. "Great. Now what?"
Skinner reached for my sandwich. "He's crying for a reason. See what it is."
I peered into the basket. His face was scrunched up in that pie dough punched in the middle look it gets, and the sounds were starting to make dogs howl on the next block. "Hey, there's no reason for that, now, is there?" I stuck a tentative hand into his lower region and discovered he did have a reason. "Sopping wet. Even the pillow's wet." I scooped him up and held him gingerly, away from my chest.
A moment later, Skinner was there with a towel for me to put him on, and I started work on transferring him from wet things. Once the offending moisture was removed, he stopped screaming and started kicking and bouncing. "Will you hold still?" I snarled, trying to shove a huge wad of cotton batting and plastic under his butt. "This isn't a game, you know."
"Sure it is," Skinner said, holding out a tube of rash ointment. "It's the first game they learn. That will gradually shift to peek a boo, then hide and go seek and then king of the mountain. It's about maintaining control."
I shot him a look, wondering if he was trying to convey a deeper meaning, but his attention was focused on the wet glob that was once a diaper, folding and taping it into an acceptable bundle to rot on a landfill somewhere for several thousand years. "Fascinating," I said through clenched teeth.
"I'm surprised you didn't know all this, Mulder. You are a psychologist," he reminded me.
"Yes, but I got my degree in Behavioral Sciences," I grunted, squeezing him into another onesie, "not Pediatrics." I sat back, mission accomplished. "Now what?"
"Why not try holding him? Showing him a little affection," Skinner said, rising from the nest of cushions. "It won't hurt, I promise. I'll see about warming up some formula."
"Says you," I muttered and lifted the kid. "Well, Unca' Walt says I should try showing affection. How does that go?" The sad thing was I really didn't know what to do. I thought of all the things I'd seen Scully and the Gunmen and even Skinner do for him. I rubbed his head tentatively and was surprised when he turned his face against my palm. "Oh, you like that?" I pulled him a little closer, trying awkwardly to cradle him against me and just keep touching his face. He did have very soft skin. He made very soft little sounds. "Hey, you and me, we're family," I whispered back. "We really ought to try getting along. Whaddya say?"
He answered by kicking my chest. And I swear he laughed.
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It got colder as the evening progressed. I will confess to a little manly shivering. We fed Bram and bundled him into several layers of clothes, and took turns getting up to walk him around the room 'til it was too cold to leave the hearth. Finally, Skinner sighed heavily, as if he was about to make a speech he did not want to give, and got up to pull the big chair up to the fireplace. "I know it's going to make you uncomfortable, Mulder, but I think we need to think about sharing body heat tonight." He didn't wait for me to agree or argue. He just started piling pillows against the chair.
I didn't want to argue. At that point I might have considered sleeping with a California Grizzly just to stay warm, although I suspect my chances of survival would have been greater with the bear.
Draping a blanket around his shoulders, he settled on the cushions, with his back against the chair, and spread his legs, indicating I should take the same position against him. While I settled down, and held Bram to my chest, he reached around us and arranged the rest of the blankets over us. "That should get us through the night," he allowed, and settled back, his hands resting on his thighs.
I tried to relax. I wanted to. I was cold and tired and starting to ache from the tension of the day. And Skinner was right about Bram. He must have felt it oozing out of me, because he squirmed and whined against me. But this was the very last situation I could take comfort in. He was being a daddy, keeping us warm and fed, tucking us in, taking care of us. If I lowered my guard now...
His hands moved, settling on my shoulders. "About two years ago," he began quietly, "I made a date with some guy online. I was willing to go out for some anonymous experience, just to feed my needs again. I got out the leathers, polished them up and went to a bar in Baltimore. But, when I got there," he sighed again, with the same note of dread and regret, "I found I could no longer appreciate the fetish, as you called it, no longer get the unique relief I sought. So I left, and have never gone back."
I let my head drop back to his shoulder, and I sighed, deeply, wearily. "I'm sorry," I said. I was. For so many things.
End Chapter Sixteen