Title: Seven Year Itch- part 2/3 Author: Rose Campion Feedback Email: rosecampion@earthlink.net Author's Website: Category: Romance, Crossover Queer As Folk Pairings: Mulder/Skinner Rating: R Archive at Gossamer: Yes Gossamer Category: Crossover Gossamer Sub-category: Romance Gossamer Keywords: Slash Summary: Mulder and Skinner have lived together in a small Indiana town for seven years when Mulder has to make a trip to the big city of Pittsburgh. Read part 1 first. This won't make sense if you don't. Seven Year Itch- part 2/3 by Rose Campion Part 1 Please see part 0 (template) for warnings and summary. Seven Year Itch- Part 2/3 warnings, archive permissions, spoilers, etc. see part 1. Read part 1. This won't make any sense if you don't. A short while later, they were back on the road, the ducklings back in their own private worlds, ignoring the two professors up front again. He looked now and then at them by the rear view mirror. Heads lolled, even Lyddie slept. Let her, he thought. She deserved the rest. But he'd forgotten this, the worst part of driving. The boredom that numbedhis mind as sure as the seat was numbing his bottom. He used to do this all the time, drive for hours, Scully riding shotgun like Lyddie was right now. Except Scully never slept. Scully. When had he realized how unhealthy their relationship had grown to be? There had been a time when if you cut Dana Scully, Fox Mulder bled. The boundaries between them had all but disappeared. Heading that thought off at the pass, Mulder fiddled with the radio again, searching for a station. Not much playing in the hinterlands of Ohio. He found a country music station and listened for a moment. A pleasant, not too twangy woman singer was on, and for a moment he enjoyed it, unapologetically, tapping his fingers in time to the swingy rhythm, wondering if he and Walter could two step to it. He wasn't sure. Walter was the better dancer, the one who liked going to that little club in Dayton. Mulder always just followed Walter's lead and tried not to fuck up. "Oh baby, just to feel this feeling" The woman sang. "It's been too long since somebody whispered, ooooh, shut up and kiss me! There's something about the silent type, attracting me to you. All business and none of the hype that no talker can live up too." Mulder was reminded sharply of Walter, an astringent wash of feeling over his heart rather than the usual warmth, pushing aside the pleasant day dreams of dancing in that club or even just on the gleaming hardwood of their dining room floor, the table pushed aside. He snapped off the radio altogether, no longer thinking of two, strong masculine bodies moving together as one, wondering just when had he gotten to be so unhappy with his life with Walter. It had been a long time since they'd pushed the table aside and brought the radio down from Mulder's study and just danced. A few minutes of silence were broken only by the lonely sound of tires on pavement. The fight, though it had been hours ago by this time, hung around him like tinsel to a tree thrown out on the pavement the week after christmas- useless, unwanted and clinging no matter one's best efforts. Before his gloom could deepen to irredeemable, his cell phone jingled. He wonder who it would be. Not Walter. Walter would never call while he knew that Mulder would be driving. He was still too sensible, to cautious for that. Mulder reached carefully into his pocket, never taking his eyes off the road. He slipped the cord of the headset up and tucked it behind his ear, then pressed the talk button by feel. His phone was an old model, circa 2003. New phones were little more than the headset and dangling mic. He'd no longer had any reason to upgrade to the newest slim little phone. It'd always been at Bureau expense before. "Hello?" "Mulder, it's me." said a once familiar voice. "What can I do for you, Dana?" Mulder responded. He said Dana pointedly, hoping she would get the hint. He'd told her point blank often enough. If he didn't have limits back then, he certainly had them now. He steered the subject into one of the few he judged appropriate between them. The son that Scully believed was his. Mulder didn't think so. The dates just didn't match up. But at one point he'd been a willing genetic donor, so he ponied up child support without complaint. It was the right thing to do and Walter concurred. "Did you need something for William?" "I just talked to Walter. He said you were on your way to Pittsburgh. I thought maybe I could run over and see you. You haven't been this close in years. It's more than past time that you met your son." "I don't think that's a good idea." Mulder said, tapping the steering wheel with two fingers again, but this time nervously. "This is a working weekend for me. I can't really spare the time to see you. Some time later Walter and I will visit you in Philly." That probably would never happen. There had been vague promises on both sides for years now to visit each other at `some time later'. They both knew that Mulder had no intention of visiting her again. If he thought William was his son, it would probably be different, but the pictures Mulder had seen led him to believe that William was no son of his. William seemed one hundred percent Scully, through and through, without a trace of Mulder. But they'd never know for sure, because there was no way they were going to allow genetic testing of the oddly talently boy. "Mulder," she began. "Fox. Please. Only one person is qualified to call me that these days." Ironic now how it had seemed an unwelcome intimacy, like people calling him Fox once had been. "He's at home in Indiana." "Fox. I'm sorry. I still just can't get used to the fact that you're no longer my Mulder. That you won't let me have even a small claim on you anymore." No Dana Scully, Mulder thought, you forfeited any such claim when you went to Philedelphia because it was the better thing for both you and me. To this day, Scully swore that she had planned all along to somehow bring Mulder with her, that she just had to clear the way a little before getting him transferred. She'd said that she didn't find out he'd left DC until she called to offer him a position and found his number was disconnected. He didn't say anything to her now. This was something they'd been through before, and at better times than this. Scully just didn't get it entirely. "I just can't believe that you still don't forgive me for going to Philedelphia when I told you right from the start that we'd figure out how to get you up there somehow. After all I've said and done to make it up to you." She was crying, he was sure of it, but refused to be manipulated. "Dana, this is not a good time for me to be having this conversation." He said calmly, detatched. It had taken many years for him to remain this distant when talking to her and he refused to give it up. "I'm driving. I need my attention for the road. Call me next week and tell me how William is doing. Goodbye, Dana." Ironically, he had forgiven her for leaving him like she had. Actually, though it hadn't seemed like it at the time, it had been in his best interest. She had been part of the piece that had been ripped out of his chest, a big portion of that empty hole. If he hadn't been at his absolute most desperate rock bottom, if she had still been there in DC, he probably would have blown off an interview for some miniscule college in the middle of nowhere. He'd have remained in DC at his ultimate cost. He was grateful to her for freeing him from her and he'd tried to give her that freedom from him in return. He slipped the earphone back into his pocket and concentrated on driving. Lyddie was awake again. She must have woken some time during the call from Scully. She reached over and squeezed his hand gently on top of the steering wheel. She knew the story, at least part of it. She didn't need to say anything. Mulder gave her a smile and she let her hand slip down. Then he concentrated on getting them to the conference. It was dark when they finally pulled into the hotel parking garage. Thankfully, the van was one of the strange hybrid ones, not quite a mini-van, not quite a full sized van, with one of the new hybrid combustion/powercell engines. But it fit easily in the short height clearance of the garage. He found a parking space and pulled into it. As they were retrieving their bags, echoes and distant sounds buffetted them. Mulder was spooked, just a little. He stood up a little straighter and looked all around scanning for the danger, then sheepishly realized it was just normal garage sounds and probably the garage was full of people like them, just getting in for the conference. It had been a long time since he'd been in a parking structure. Ten years maybe, nine. Since he'd left DC. That was the thing about the midwest, almost always plenty of parking. "I hate parking structures too." Lucy said softly. "They always creep me out and it's not just watching the original Highlander too many times. I think it's that the sound reaches one without the apparent source being visible. All the corners and the other cars provide excellent cover and the mind knows that. At the same time, one's sense of order and symmetry is thrown off balance. All these straight lines, but hardly a right angle to be seen. That and the fact that in our collective unconscious, it's where the archetypal serial killer lurks." Cassie smirked. Whatever came out of her mouth next was going to sting, Mulder knew. No love was lost between Cassie and Lucy, that was for sure. They had, as people said, `a history' and rumor said that they'd dated, briefly when they were first year students, but both were going out with guys currently. "You going up to our room, Spooky? Or what? Somehow I doubt that the latest son of sam copycat is waiting for us in the lot of the Pittsburgh Days Inn." Mulder burned with sympathy for Lucy. He wanted to shout, wanted to slap Cassie for calling Lucy that, but he didn't say anything just yet. It was his own issues that caused his reactions. The better part of discretion said to stay as far away from the interpersonal struggles of his ducklings as they would let him remain. In any case, Lucy didn't need him to defend her. As he looked, Lucy didn't crumple under the unkind name, but set her jaw, slung her grubby Guatemalan cloth duffle bag over her shoulder and pushed too long bangs out of her eyes. She said, "Okay, you're right. He's probably in the bushes in that park next door playing poker with the ghosts of John Wayne Gacy and Jeffery Dahmer." Cassie stalked off, round lost, but clearly planning the next salvo. Mulder made a point of walking next to Lucy on the short trip to the front desk of the hotel. She seemed to sense that he wanted to say something to her so she slowed down, letting the others get a distance ahead. "You know what my nickname was at the FBI academy?" He asked her when the others were sufficiently ahead not to hear. "Spooky. Swear to God you'll never tell anyone." She smiled a rare smile. She was a small, taut, serious one, Lucy was. In her pseudo-hippie outfit, drowning in a thick Peruvian sweater for a coat, Lucy seemed an unlikely candidate for the BSU, that was until you looked at her face and the smouldering intelligence there. Perhaps she wouldn't nearly fracture there, under those stresses. "Sometimes, it's not so bad to be the spooky one, is it?" "That eyebrow piercing will have to come out if you're still set on applying to Quantico." he said. "I'll write your recommendation after you get your PhD. There's still a few people there who remember me in a good way." A few hours later and all the ducklings were settled in hotel rooms. Officially, David and Thomas were sharing a room, and the four girls were splitting two rooms between them. Unofficially, Mulder looked the other way and didn't want to know what the real sleeping arrangements were. He and Mama Duck each had their own room. Mulder put through a call to Walter, to let him know that they'd arrived. No answer, so Mulder left a brief message, closing the call with a `love you' that sounded perfunctory even to him. A short while later, Lyddie knocked on his door and he let her in. She looked around at the generic hotel room, one low chair by the window providing the only place to sit besides the bed. Hotels, at least, hadn't changed that much since he'd been out on the road, though the art in this one was blander than most, beige and peach abstract splashes on framed canvas. Lyddie was clearly thinking about the struggle it would be to regain her feet again once she sat down. She chose to lean against the wall. He settled down not far away at the edge of the bed. "Everyone settled in. I don't think we'll miss anything by skipping the opening social," She said. "Hey, you weren't out in DC at all, were you?" "No. Why?" "I'll stay here and play chaperone. You go out and have a good time. See some of the big city gay life for a change. The strip isn't that far from here." Made unexpectedly nervous at this suggestion, he gripped the edge of the mattress and clenched. "Fine, except I'm not gay." "Okay. Okay. I know. You're not gay." She suppressed an amusement at this, but only managed to banish the smirk from her lips. The eyes still glittered. "But as a man who's openly set up housekeeping with a six foot two inches tall former Marine you can see how people might think that." "I'll grant you that. But as a bisexual six foot tall ex-Special Agent with the FBI, you can see how my tastes would run to the masculine side of things. I'm a guy. If I still drank, I'd be a beer kind of guy. I don't see how much I have in common with," He paused, wondering how to say it without being offensive. He certainly couldn't tell her that though he immensely enjoyed being fucked by that ex-Marine, he wasn't at all `light in the loafers'. "All of that. Rainbow flags. Pink triangles. Okay. We've had this discussion before. I'm also a case study in internalized homophobia and I know it." "All the more reason for you to see the sights." She hadn't let him off the hook until he'd at least agreed to go and check out the bookstore, which she thought would still be open. So he found himself strolling down from the hotel to a bustling downtown area. Bright lights and the big city had never held much attraction to him and still didn't. The club in Dayton was tucked discretely into a strip mall, nothing to let you know until you were inside that it wasn't like any other nightclub. The district wasn't that big, several blocks long. Mulder walked it, ignoring the muffled thumping of dance music and light spilling from some of the buildings, ignoring rainbow flags posted proudly on gift shops and clothing stores. He glanced in the display of one of the clothing stores. And just when was it acceptable for a man to wear a vinyl and mesh crop top decorated with what looked like metal cock rings? He found the bookstore but a cute twenty something dyke in a tshirt that said `I can't even think straight' and even more facial piercings than any of his students was flipping the sign to closed as he reached for the door. He shrugged and turned away. The bookstore was at the far end of the district. He'd have to walk the gauntlet again to get back to the hotel. His stomach had grumbled and he remembered that he'd picked over his dinner in the hotel restaurant earlier, hardly eating it, mind on Scully and Walter and everything but his food. At that moment, he looked up from his florsheim shod feet for the first time in the while. Across the street was a place called Liberty Diner. Despite the rainbow flags in the window, Mulder approached it. It looked like the sort of place one could get a decent tuna melt and maybe a piece of pie. Better than a greasy spoon, but still with the cosy atmosphere. It was open, not quite crowded, but with most of the booths occupied by a pre club crowd from the looks of it, gay men, mostly, getting a bit of ballast before heading out to an evening of dancing and drinking. Mulder found an empty booth and slid into it, picking up one of the plastic coated menus and looking at it without really seeing it. He looked around him. Gay positive everything fairly bedecked the place, struggling for space with safe sex posters and events posters. The clintele of the place were nonchalantly, easily out. Men's arms draped over other men's shoulders as they sat side by side in booths. Hands were held. Cruising was in heavy evidence, though it was just staring, watching, nothing heavy. In his turtleneck sweater and black rain slicker with the silver reflective tape on the sleeves, Mulder felt very out of place, old, plain and ugly, among all the ready for the party crowd. Birds of paradise, they were. Hothouse flowers. Exotic, at least to his experience. A waitress, wide, motherly, with a ferious mop of red hair that he suspected was a wig approached him. Her shirt was covered with buttons. PFLAG. Safe sex. Rainbows. I'm proud of my gay son. Pink triangles. Straight but not narrow. That shirt was leopard skin. She seemed genial and welcoming even before she spoke. Mulder rather suspected she was carrying dozens of condoms and would hand them out freely without the slightest provocation. "You look like you're new in town, sweetie. And a bit lost. I'm Debbie." Her voice was brash, but so kind. He found himself liking her despite himself. He smiled at her, remembering how once upon a time ago, it had been as if his face had lost the memory of how to smile. Not now though. The skill of smiling was one of the things Walter had given back to him. "Fox Mulder." "What a wonderful name. So fitting." she gushed. "Well, if you need help finding your way around, well, the whole neighborhood troops through here sometime or another." "I'm from Indiana, a college professor. I'm in town for the students in criminal justice convention." "Oh, a college professor! I should introduce you to my son Mikey. He's so broken hearted since..." "I'm married, Debbie. I came here for pie." Mulder said, easily. He held out his left hand so that the gold band caught the light. She flustered for a moment, obviously rearranging her conclusions. "I'm sorry." she said after a moment, more subdued, suddenly just another waitress in a diner to him. "I suppose I shouldn't jump to conclusions just because you came in here. She must be a wonderful woman, since you seem to miss her so much." "Debbie, his name's Walter." Mulder said. "An ex-Marine and a carpenter who has against all logic and reason decided that he loves me." Mulder didn't add that Walter also used to be one of the highest law enforcement officials in the country. It just didn't seem to fit in that well with his picture of who Walter was anymore. A.D. Skinner had passed away in much the same way that Special Agent Fox Mulder had. For the best probably. Walter was a better man than AD Skinner had been, not penned in by compromise and circumstance, no longer forced to make decisions he hated by vicissitudes he could never control. Smiling as she realized that she'd jumped to the wrong conclusion again, Debbie said, "What can I get for you, sweetie? I don't recommend any of our pies. Have the lemon bar instead." For a moment, Mulder was heartsick for Walter's cooking. "I don't suppose you have meatloaf, do you?" "Of course. Right up." Debbie glanced behind her at the sound of the opening door. Mulder looked over her shoulder to see four men enter the diner together. One who would have been good looking except for everything about him said nancy screaming queen, especially the fake fur jacket shed as they came in covering up a mesh, close cut thing that could only be called a shirt out of convenience. A meek accountant type wearing a blue button down, who looked like the only one Mulder might find something in common with. A happy-go-lucky type in an X-men tshirt and jeans, laughing at some joke shared before they walked in. And then the obvious alpha of the pack. Devastatingly handsome and he knew it, his clothes all designer. Mulder recognized the look. He'd been accused of being a clothes horse in his day, though no, his suits had never been Armani like rumored. This specimen though, decidedly, was Hugo Boss through and through, black leather jacket, black pants, sleek and gorgeous. His hair fell in an agreeable tumble over his forehead. He managed to look masculine and predatory while still being, no, not quite feminine at all either,but not manly in the way Walter was. Oh! Mulder got it suddenly. This was alpha male, queer style. Decidely, unabashedly, shamelessly gay. A man whose gaze would roam over other men, unapologetically, looking for the next conquest. Top of the heap by reasons of attractiveness and force of personality and little else. This was something Mulder had never seen before, much less understood. Now, he saw, he wanted to see more. All Debbie said was, "Here comes trouble." Under her breath though. Then she added, "I'll go put your order in, sweetie." She left. The alpha caught Mulder's eye, acknowleging the stare that Mulder couldn't help continuing. The alpha broke away from his pack. Mulder swallowed, suddenly realizing the man's destination. He was paralysed. Entranced as the other man slipped into Mulder's booth without invitation. Mulder had never before been the object of the serious hunt like this. Walter by his side had always fended off everything but the clumsiest of pick up attempts at the club in Dayton. The other man moved easily, gracefully, with loose bones that already suggested a post coital languor. Mulder's heart sped up and his breathing grew perceptibly more rapid. He was hungry suddenly, but not for the promised meatloaf. This was unfamiliar, the thought that anyone besides Walter could want him in the way that the other man's suggestion of a smile promised. Even newer, the thought that he would want a man besides Walter in this way. In a way that grabbed his balls and made his whole abdomen jump. And Fox Mulder was not without his vanity. It was almost shatteringly flattering, the thought that the much younger, much more gorgeous man would consider him worth contemplating conquering. Almost enough to make Mulder forget for the moment about wrinkles and graying hair and the fact that he was approaching fifty. "New in town?" the other man said. The question implied was more along the lines of `welcome to my territory. You want to see it? My way, of course.' (Continued in part 2)