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Part 4 of A Dog in the Manger
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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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2020-11-05
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Every Dog Will Have His Day

Summary:

Summary: An accident shakes everyone up and some truths fall out.

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Every Dog Will Have His Day
by JiM

"What the hell happened?" Skinner mumbled, blinking at the light that seemed to stab into his eyes. He tried to moved his right hand up to shield his eyes and found that it was immobilized. He jerked slightly to free it and had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out.

"Hey! Watch it! You've got a dislocated shoulder, Walt, just take it easy." Mulder bent over him, one restraining hand on his unwounded shoulder. Slowly Skinner recognized his surroundings; another pale beige hospital room, an IV in his left arm, his right arm strapped to his chest, thin medicinal-scented blankets pulled up to his waist and a hell of a headache.

"Welcome back," Mulder said, unfamiliar lines beside his mouth easing some.

"Who hit me?" Skinner groused.

Mulder smiled gently and said, "The Key Bridge abutment, I think. What's the last thing you remember?"

Skinner closed his eyes against the fluorescent lights and tried to think. He was comforted by the feel of Mulder's hand slipping over his. "I was over at the Pentagon for some damned meeting, then I met Ham for lunch. We were coming back when...?"

"When the Metro jumped the tracks and the car you were in rolled. You've got a dislocated shoulder and a pretty good whack on the head. Walt, was Sam with you?"

Skinner tried hard to think. He had a half-memory of he and Ham hanging onto the same pole in the over-crowded car, discussing the Wizards' chances against the Celtics that night. "Oh shit, I think so. Can you...?"

"I'm on it," Mulder said, already in motion. At the door, he stopped, turned suddenly, then came back, closing it behind him. He bent over and very gently kissed Skinner. "I'm glad you're OK. You scared the hell out of me."

"Paybacks are a bitch, Mulder," Skinner said, eyes closing as Mulder's hand stroked his cheek. The last thing he heard as he slipped back into sleep was Mulder saying, "I'll be back soon," and that was a very good thing.

It took Mulder only twenty minutes and one temper tantrum to find Sam Hamilton. Then he had to flash his badge just to be admitted to the ICU, six floors above Skinner. Hamilton was lying very still, his normally tanned skin looking very pale in the dim lights of the glassed-in room. There were tubes and wires and sensors and electrodes hooked to him, needles in his arm and the back of his hand. His face was bruised and his right eye bandaged shut, the edges of a sutured wound just visible where the gauze ended. It was muffled and quiet on the ward, with very few patients there, but Mulder still couldn't hear his friend's breathing. There was no respirator; Mulder hoped that was a good sign. He stood staring stupidly down, waiting for Hamilton to grin and tease him for being taken in. After a few minutes, Mulder pressed his hand on Hamilton's shoulder and went to go find a doctor to interrogate.

When Skinner woke again, Mulder was sitting beside his bed, reading a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan. "You know, I always had a secret suspicion that you read stuff like that," he said hoarsely.

"How else am I gonna learn how to 'Keep My Man Affair-Proof'?" Mulder asked, holding up the cheesy cover and pointing to the article in question. "Apparently, I'm supposed to encourage you to carry a trendy leather purse, like the European men do, in the hopes of making all the other girls think you're gay so they'll leave you alone." Mulder tossed the magazine aside and poured a cup of water, dropping in a straw and holding it for Skinner until he took a long draught.

"What happens if I refuse to carry the purse?" Skinner asked, pleased that his voice sounded more normal now. His shoulder throbbed in a rhythmic counterpoint to his head.

"I'm supposed to pout and claim that you don't love me," Mulder said cheerfully. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got hit by a train. When can I get out of here?"

"Possibly tomorrow, more likely the day after," a new voice said. A middle-aged man in doctors' scrubs wandered in, reading the chart in his hand. "I'm Dr. Brackett, Mr. Skinner. How do you feel?" After establishing that Skinner hurt like hell but could focus on the point of a pen and could see colors from both eyes, the doctor wandered out again, promising to send more painkillers. "A dislocated shoulder, a minor concussion, you'll be fine in a week," he threw over his shoulder. Two more nurses bustled in, checked his vital signs and drew more blood, fixed his blankets and fluffed his pillows, chirping cheerfully all the while. Finally, they were left alone again.

"If one more person asks me how I feel...," Skinner grumbled, annoyed by the niggling suspicion that there was something he ought to be worrying about.

"You could arm-wrestle them," Mulder offered with wicked cheer, then his face sobered abruptly.

"What?" Skinner demanded. Then he remembered. "Hamilton? Did you find him?!"

Mulder nodded, eyes sliding off to look out the now darkened window, fingers pleating the white cotton blanket beneath his fingers. "Walt, Sam's upstairs. In ICU. He's got a hell of a head injury and he's still unconscious. He may lose his right eye and they're not sure if there's any brain damage. He had to be revived at the scene and they don't know how much oxygen deprivation he suffered."

"Shit. It was just supposed to be a two-martini lunch, you know?" Skinner whispered, staring at the far wall.

"I know," Mulder murmured, putting his hand on Skinner's shoulder. They sat like that until Scully came in.

It was Scully who asked, "How do we get in touch with Krycek and let him know what's happened?" She had just returned from her own visit to the ICU and her face was tight and grim.

Mulder and Skinner stared at one another. Skinner shook his head and immediately wished that he hadn't. "Ham never gave me Krycek's phone number or address. I wouldn't know where to begin looking."

Mulder pursed his lips. "I do. When Krycek was grabbed at Christmas-time, Sam told us that Krycek came home every night to him." He looked at his watch. "Seven o'clock. I'm going over to Sam's."

"Mulder, I could go," Scully offered, half-rising.

"No," he shrugged into his trenchcoat. "I think I'd better be the one to tell him." With a long look at Skinner, Mulder left.

"He hates hospitals," Scully said apologetically.

"I know. So do I," Skinner said grimly, knowing exactly why Mulder had fled.

Three hours later, Alex Krycek sat beside Samuel Hamilton's bed, having spoken no more than four words since being told of the accident. The first three had been, "Where is he?" The last word had been a clipped "No," when told by the night nurse that he would have to leave. Mulder, watching Krycek's pale face, had intervened at that point and explained to the nurse that Krycek was a Federal agent assigned to guard this patient. She peered doubtfully at Mulder's badge, then shot another hostile look at Krycek before telephoning someone and apparently being told to cooperate. She even went so far as to drag a hard plastic chair down the hall and thrust it ungraciously at Krycek.

Krycek said nothing else. He placed the chair beside the bed, sat down and stared at the opposite wall. He merely nodded when Mulder told him that he was leaving.

Mulder went back downstairs and looked in on Skinner. He was asleep again, lying on his back, a position Mulder knew he hated. A perverse rage woke in him that Skinner should not be allowed to sleep how he chose, no matter what his injury. He sat down beside Skinner's bed and stared at the opposite wall, jaw clenched. Half an hour later, his cell phone rang and he could not say what thoughts had been moving sluggishly around in the dark.

"Mulder? Go home," Scully said. He could hear a canned laugh track from her TV in the background.

"How do you know I'm not already home?" he spoke quietly to keep from waking Skinner.

"I know you," she said with a huff of exasperation. "Go home. Stop mooning. He's fine."

He opened his mouth to tease, but what came out was, "I could have lost him today."

Her voice softened. "I know. But you didn't."

"But...."

"What do you want, Mulder, some kind of guarantee? Accidents happen." Her voice was crisp, a verbal smack on the rear. After a long moment, he sighed and stood up.

"I hate Chaos Theory," he said conversationally, shrugging into his overcoat. "I'm tired of random events."

"I know," Scully said more gently as he leaned over and touched Skinner's bruised forehead in farewell, then left the room.

"I'd just like a little certainty in my life. I think it's time," he said, waiting for the elevator.

"Join the club, Mulder," Scully said fondly. "See you tomorrow morning?"

"Bright and early. Thanks, Scully."

"Any time," she said and he could hear her smile.

He was walking toward his car in the half-empty gloom of the parking garage when he saw the dark figure striding away from him. The coat was wool, not leather, and it was gray, not black, but Mulder would have recognized Alex Krycek in any set of shadows.

"Krycek!"

The other man jerked to a halt and spun to face him. "Get out of my way, Mulder." His eyes were gleaming in the half-light and Mulder had the impression that he wasn't really seeing anything beyond his own dark thoughts.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Mulder stared at Krycek and spread his hands out peaceably. "Why aren't you upstairs? Did something happen to Sam?" A chill spread through him.

"Yeah, Mulder, 'something happened to Sam.' Someone put him in this hospital and I'm going to find out who and make him pay." The mad glitter in those wolf-like eyes made Mulder take a step back. Krycek was on a hair-trigger and hell-bent for revenge.

"Krycek, I told you already, it was an accident. There's no one to blame for this one."

Krycek snarled and pushed past him, now striding angrily in the opposite direction from the way he had first been heading, but he didn't even seem to notice. Mulder reached out and caught his sleeve. "Just calm down, dammit!"

It was the wrong thing to say. Mulder knew that, even before the fist slammed into his jaw. Bouncing off a parked car, he wondered why he was even bothering to try to stop Krycek. He slumped, gasping, over the hood of the car and felt the blood flowing from his nose, thick and hot. He saw it splashing on the metal beneath him and suddenly, it was all that he could see. There was a step behind him and he had turned and punched Krycek in the gut before he even knew that his body was in motion.

The fight was short and vicious and there was no clear-cut victor until Krycek stumbled and fell heavily to his hands and knees. "Come on, you son of a bitch! This is what you want, isn't it?! Someone to hurt as much as you do?! Well, here I am, Krycek!"

Krycek just shook his head, panting. He wouldn't look up and the slump of his shoulders drained away Mulder's anger. "It was an accident, Krycek. An honest-to-god, totally impossible to prevent, shit-happens accident. Trust me, I checked it. Walt was on that train, too."

At that, Krycek looked up. He stared into Mulder's eyes for a long moment, testing for truth and apparently finding it. A bruise was forming on his left cheekbone and his lower lip was split. Those glittering eyes closed for a moment, then he opened them again and nodded. Mulder leaned down and carefully offered one hand. Krycek stared at it, then took it and heaved himself upright. He wiped at his mouth and stared at the reddish smear on his fingers. "You have a hell of a left jab."

"Walt's been teaching me to box." Mulder pulled out a handkerchief and wiped at his own face, then grimaced at the resulting stain. They didn't look at one another. Mulder said, "Come on home with me. Things'll seem better in the morning."

"I doubt it," Krycek said flatly, then turned back toward the elevators. "I'm going back upstairs."

"Krycek," Mulder said, and the other man stopped, but did not turn around. "It really was an accident." Krycek nodded, then kept walking. Mulder waited until the elevator had closed before turning to go home alone.

"What the hell happened to you?!" was the loving greeting Mulder got when he arrived the next morning. Skinner pushed his half-eaten breakfast away and stared meaningfully until Mulder came over and sat on the edge of the bed. "I ran into a door," he offered. Skinner's inspection was quick, but thorough. He ran careful fingers down Mulder's broken nose, gently prodded his split lip and examined the knuckles of both hands before letting them go and fixing Mulder with a reproachful look.

"C'mon, Walt, even my mother didn't look at me like that when I got suspended for fighting."

"Your mother wasn't trying to teach you to throw a decent upper cut without breaking your knuckles." Skinner smiled a little, then his gaze turned serious. "What does the other guy look like?"

Mulder shook his head. "Like someone kicked his puppy."

"And his ass?" The gleam in Skinner's eye told Mulder that he knew exactly what had happened and with whom.

Mulder shook his head again. "At least I didn't break his nose." Mulder gingerly touched the wounded area in question. "He just needed to let off steam and be convinced that this really was an accident, no great conspiracy or assassination attempt."

Skinner shifted and winced. "I can understand his paranoia, though. How's Sam?"

"Still unconscious. The doctor says it's just a waiting game now."

Krycek had never been good at waiting games. In the dank past, he had fidgeted, shifted, sighed and gritted his teeth when his assignment was to "Watch and wait." But he had done it, because his employers had left him no choice. Now, somehow, it felt like he had even less choice. No one would order his death if he simply stood up and walked away from this. No one would blame him, or question his professionalism or his loyalties to The Cause. Maybe three or four people -- Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner.

Sam Hamilton.

Krycek shifted in his uncomfortable molded plastic chair and considered Hamilton's slack features. He knew that his own face was expressionless, not even his 'game face' on -- just nothing.

Hamilton wouldn't even blame him if he walked away. He knew that. In fact, he knew that Hamilton had been waiting for the day that Alex Krycek never showed up again. In some ways, that made the slow smile that bloomed on his face every evening that much more... Krycek didn't know what. All he knew was that he felt like a cross between Santa Claus and a crack dealer whenever he came home to Hamilton and saw that smile settle onto his tanned face, take root in his dark eyes. Not relief, exactly, but Hamilton was never complacent, never took Krycek's daily return for granted. And in the night, deep in the night, he told Krycek why.

It had begun not long after his rescue from Rico Montrecini's mansion several months ago. One night, Krycek had awakened to find himself securely bound, hand and foot, to Hamilton's bed.

After a moment's flash of panic, he stopped thrashing and started thinking. The cuffs around his wrist and ankles were leather lined with sheepskin, specially designed not to bruise tender flesh. He was now naked, despite having fallen into bed in his underwear. The room flickered with candlelight and he could smell the spicy scent of Hamilton's preferred massage oil heating somewhere nearby. He took a deep breath and willed himself to relax -- it was seduction, not abduction. He was certain of it when Hamilton came back into the room.

"You're awake? That's good, boy. You wouldn't want to sleep through this."

"Don't call me 'boy'," Krycek said hoarsely, a little surprised. He hadn't needed to remind Hamilton of that rule in weeks.

Hamilton smiled, a small, cool smile that sent a ripple of something that might have been fear down Krycek's spine. "Don't go thinking that you make the rules here tonight, boy. It's time we had us a little talk."

"About what, Daddy?" Krycek spat, feeling himself falling into Hamilton's game easily, despite that disquieting frisson that something was different tonight.

"About feelings," Hamilton had grinned evilly.

"What?!"

Hamilton settled onto the bed beside Krycek's naked hip; he was stripped to the waist and he had oiled himself. Krycek's attention was caught by the ripple of candlelight on muscle and he almost forgot the sense of jarring danger. This was more than a seduction, suddenly, and he struggled briefly and pointlessly. Hamilton had tied him down with scientific thoroughness, even lashing down his upper arm above the amputation.

"Unh, unh, unh," Hamilton had warned gently, then run a soothing hand up and down Krycek's chest. The warm stroke of oiled skin against his own settled Krycek back onto the bed. Hamiton's familiar touch had meandered over his chest and throat, stroking and caressing him until he had nearly forgotten his lover's odd words. He felt himself hardening and squirming, almost purring beneath Hamilton's warm hands.

"Feels good, doesn't it, Alex?" And Krycek, half-drugged with sensation, had only nodded.

"But you don't like to talk about feelings, do you, Alex?" Krycek had shifted restlessly on the bed but said nothing. He hoped to Christ this wasn't what it was shaping up to be, some weird psycho-sexual encounter group with Sam Hamilton asking him about his feelings while jacking him off.

"That's OK, boy," Hamilton said softly, "I understand." He stroked one hand down Krycek's left thigh, then slowly up his right thigh. "Not everyone can talk about their feelings. It's not 'manly.' Hell, most of us don't even know what we feel, half the time." He traced one finger slowly, achingly slowly, up Krycek's cock. At Krycek's gasp, his kindly smile broadened a little. "So I won't make you talk about your feelings," he said and gave Krycek's cock two or three firm strokes that had Krycek gasping with the promise of relief. "Instead," Hamilton said, moving to straddle his captive's chest and stare down into the hazy green eyes, "I'm going to tell you how I feel, boy."

His smile had widened at Krycek's anguished moan and his sudden bucking attempts to free himself. One hand reached back and took firm hold of Krycek's balls, his grasp just firm enough to freeze Krycek in place. "Stay still," he suggested, then released him and leaned down to run his teeth across the side of Krycek's throat. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?" he whispered into Krycek's ear.

The torture had begun.

Krycek sat and stared at Hamilton's sleeping profile. The bulk of bandaging over the right eye interfered with the broad line of Hamilton's forehead, so Krycek slowly dropped forward, lowering his own head until the wound was obscured beyond the edge of Hamilton's silhouette. Krycek found that if he laid his head on the edge of Hamilton's bed, he could sit and watch Hamilton without being distracted by the bruising or bandaging. He often watched Hamilton sleep, awakening before the sun was up. This was almost like his morning ritual and he found a parched comfort in it. Realizing this, he heard himself make a choked noise and ruthlessly clamped down on it. He had recently learned, to his cost, that if he let that sort of thing get away from him, he would be lost. This time, Hamilton wasn't here to rescue him.

His fist clenched around the bedrail, bruised knuckles protesting and almost offering enough distraction. In the end, it wasn't enough. One dry, tight sob led to another and Alex Krycek felt all the newly-set pieces of his soul separating and fracturing again.

In that moment, Krycek hated Sam Hamilton.

It was the sound of his own voice sobbing that had broken him before. Hamilton had kept his body teetering on the sharp edge of orgasm for an hour, ignoring Krycek's pleas and threats, laughing at his frenzied thrashing and watching avidly as he gasped and writhed with pleasure. Worst of all, the sadistic bastard kept talking. Hamilton had kept whispering sweet, forbidden, insane things against Krycek's skin, next to his ear, into his mouth.

So sweet, boy, you're so sweet

All I want, all I ever want

Beautiful and so sexy

Need you here, all the time

Don't leave me

I love you, Alex

He had thrashed hardest at that, moaning as Hamilton's hand had finally tightened, finally stroked just the right way, finally given him the killing stroke that cut him free and let everything in him pour out. He kept gasping, trembling, bathed in sweat, waiting for the trembling to stop so that he could begin cursing Hamilton for ever doing this to him. But it didn't stop and it was Hamilton who first realized that Krycek was sobbing, that his face was wet with tears, not sweat. It was Hamilton who quickly slipped the straps free and then gathered Krycek's naked body against him, cradling him against his chest as he shuddered and wept. Hamilton had held him for hours, stroking him and soothing him, crooning nonsense, babbling remorse and love and need until Krycek had slipped into exhausted sleep.

They had never spoken of that night. There had been no need. Alex Krycek had been completely exposed then, all his defenses stripped away and Sam Hamilton knew it. It hardly seemed to matter to him that he, too, had been laid bare. They treated each other as gently as two burn patients, careful not to hold too tight or prod at barely healed points. But Hamilton, the bastard, wouldn't give up one thing; deep in the night, he lay beside Krycek and whispered all those same sweet, poisonously addictive words until Krycek no longer threatened or begged him to stop. He merely lay there and listened and castigated himself for believing and kissed Hamilton's hair and ear and knew he would never survive on his own now.

It was Mulder's hand on his shoulder that helped stop the debacle this time. Somehow, that made it worse.

Showing more tact than he had ever thought the man capable of, Mulder said nothing but urged Krycek up and out of the Intensive Care Unit. They made a stop at the men's room and Krycek washed his face in cold water, noting dispassionately that he looked like hell, with redrimmed eyes and spectacular bruising coming up well on his bristly jaw. His hair was greasy and lank and he had been wearing these same clothes for two days now. Mulder still said nothing, just jerked his head toward the door and led Krycek downstairs to the hospital cafeteria. It was nearly empty in the mid-morning, so there was no one to watch them as they ate, chewing silently and staring in opposite directions.

When they got back upstairs to the ICU, there was a flurry of activity in Hamilton's alcove. Krycek shouldered past every white-coated obstacle until he stood beside the bed. A bleary eye blinked and slowly focused on him, then white teeth flashed.

"You don't look so good, boy," Hamilton rasped.

"Let me get you a mirror, asshole," Krycek growled, resting his hand on Hamilton's forearm. He left it there as Mulder welcomed Hamilton back to the land of the conscious, then took his leave. The two men said nothing more; Krycek settled down beside the bed again and watched Hamilton drift into a true sleep, hand still clasped on the only part of Hamilton's arm that had no IV lines running into it. It was the nurse who later discovered the five bruises on her patient's forearm.

Skinner's face lit with an undisguised joy when Mulder told him the news. "He's too tough to kill," he said, "it'll take more than a train to take Sam Hamilton out of the game."

"There's always Krycek," Mulder suggested, leaning against the wall and watching as Skinner shifted and yanked irritably at the stupid patterned hospital johnnie they had forced him into. At Skinner's questioning look, Mulder said, "I think Sam may have met his match, Walt. Krycek was damned scared and now he's angry at being that scared."

Skinner's face was now alert and focused. "Do you think he's in danger?"

"Sam?" Mulder mused, staring into space. "Well, he's decided to fall in love with a trained assassin who has fewer morals than he does and who equates caring with weakness. Sam has now exposed that weakness and Krycek is seriously pissed. I think it's safe to say that Sam is in a world of trouble, Walt." Mulder smiled gently. "But Krycek will never lift a hand against him. Don't worry about that. Worry about whether he ever lets the man out of the house again, instead."

Skinner ran his unbandaged hand over his head and sighed. "I miss Todd," he said, remembering Sam's dead lover, who had been a calm, cheerful attorney who rarely had crises of any sort and never emotional.

"So does Sam," Mulder said, then grinned, "but he seems to be having a hell of a lot of fun, anyway."

Skinner had to smile back, then he realized something. "Why are you lurking over there?"

Mulder straightened abruptly and shoved his hands in his pockets. The most damning evidence was the way he wouldn't look at Skinner. "Um... A.D. Cassidy and a few of the others from the office mentioned they would be dropping by to visit you this morning. I didn't want them to walk in and get the wrong...."

Skinner's jaw tightened. "The right idea, you mean?" Mulder shrugged, a tight, unhappy look on his face.

"Come here," Skinner commanded; Mulder shook his head and held out until Skinner said softly, "Please."

Mulder gave in and threw himself into the chair pulled up beside the bed on Skinner's undamaged left side. Skinner took a firm hold of Mulder's hand and squeezed it when Mulder would have pulled away. "Look Fox, don't you think they know by now? Use your head. Who was the first person the hospital called?"

"Me," Mulder said with a raised eyebrow. Then what should have been blindingly obvious hit him. "You have me listed as your emergency contact?!"

"Well, who better, at this point?" Skinner asked in an annoyingly reasonable tone.

"But...."

"Someone at work is bound to have noticed that we have the same telephone numbers and addresses, don't you think?"

Mulder began swearing viciously and creatively. "I told you this would happen!"

"And I told you I didn't care," Skinner said firmly.

Mulder stared at him hopelessly, then dropped his head to the bed and he sat there shaking it. "You're insane, you know." Skinner put his hand on Mulder's neck and massaged the tight muscles he found there. Mulder mumbled, even as he arched his neck, "They're going to can both of us. I hope you like life on unemployment."

"Fox, everything will be fine, I promise."

Mulder gave a muffled snort. "You must have some new definition for the word 'fine' that I haven't heard yet. What the hell did they put in your IV?"

"Trust me."

"I do; I always have," Mulder whispered. Skinner's hand stopped rubbing for a moment, then he stroked his fingers once over the nape of Mulder's neck.

There was a shocked cough from the doorway and Mulder gave a groan. "It's started, hasn't it?"

"Yup." But Mulder could hear the suppressed amusement in Skinner's voice, so like Hamilton's when he was whipping up some deviltry. Without lifting his bruised head, he asked, "Which of them is it?"

"All three of them. Kersh, Cassidy, and Jorgensen," Skinner said quietly, then raised his voice to normal conversational levels. "Well, you might as well come in. We have things to discuss." Then Skinner patted Mulder's head, a clear signal to sit up, which Mulder did, fixing him with a stare that he hoped would communicate exactly how much trouble Skinner would be in when Mulder next saw him alone. There was a wholly unrepentant gleam in Skinner's eye that suggested that he knew. Mulder bid him a sedate good-bye, pointedly ignoring the rest of his superiors, and contriving to tread on Kersh's feet on the way out of the now-crowded little room.

Mulder brought Skinner home the next day and god, it was good to be there. Mulder smiled and brought him cups of tea, turned on ESPN, fed him Motrin at reasonable intervals and puttered in the kitchen fixing Skinner's favorite meals. Skinner spent a nervous eight hours waiting for the other shoe to drop and finally cracked around 8 p.m., when Mulder actually bustled through and brought him a cup of hot chocolate. With marshmallows.

"OK. That's it." Skinner muted the TV, then sat up and tried not to jostle his still-tender shoulder. "What's with the June Cleaver act?"

Mulder stopped in the doorway and turned around, all trace of faux good humor gone from his face. "I figured it made a nice counterpoint to your 'Father Knows Best' act yesterday."

"You're mixing up your sitcoms."

"What the hell gives you the right to make the decisions about our future?!"

Skinner winced as Mulder's shout echoed and reverberated in his bruised skull. He had to give Mulder points for going right to the heart of the matter. "Look, Fox...," he began.

"Oh no. Don't take that reasonable tone with me. We're going to shout and throw things about this, Walter. What the hell were you thinking!" Mulder was uncomfortably close to the mantel, which held several heavy and breakable objects and he looked more than capable of lobbing a few of them to illustrate his point. "They fired you, didn't they?"

"No."

Skinner had the fun of watching Mulder's next angry words pile up in his throat. Finally, "Huh?" emerged.

"They didn't fire me. I resigned, effective one week after the end of my disability leave."

Mulder sounded a little strangled. "You resigned?"

"In exchange for a complete lack of media attention and a very nice severance package, I resigned."

"And me?"

Skinner shrugged, then wished he hadn't. "Your career is as secure as it ever was." Which caused Mulder to smile a little; they both knew what that was worth. "Don't look so tragic, Fox. We both knew that I was never going to rise any higher after all the shit that's gone down. And we knew the risks we were taking when we moved in together. They were bound to find out sooner or later."

"But...." Mulder's brow was knit and his lower lip pushed forward; Skinner would have cut his arm off before telling the man how adorable he looked, but there it was. Christ, it was embarassing to be this besotted still.

"Sam and I were meeting that day to talk about some ideas we had for retirement." Skinner held a hand out, silently inviting Mulder to come and sit beside him. Slowly, Mulder did, that troubled look still darkening his face even as he settled gently onto the other end of the couch. "Sam wants to open a kind of private agency, one part security firm, one part detective bureau...."

"One part anarchist's picnic," Mulder finished, shaking his head. Skinner was silent, watching Mulder's face become focused and remote as his mind worked over the problem, searching out alternate solutions, testing probable outcomes. He could see the instant that Mulder accepted the proposal and all that was implied but had not yet been said. "The severance package the Agency gives me will provide a pretty good chunk of start-up capital," Skinner added.

"You're a manipulative bastard," Mulder said reflectively. But he slid over when Skinner held out his undamaged arm.

"I wasn't trying to be, Fox. But when it hit me that we were out of the closet anyway, I figured that I might as well go for broke. Cassidy and the others showing up right then was just a...."

"Serendipity?" Mulder suggested with a sigh. Skinner nodded and started to smile when Mulder finally let his head rest on Skinner's left shoulder. They sat in silence for a while, then Mulder said reflectively,

"I think we'll need to work out a payscale for independent contractors; the Gunmen don't come cheap and we really don't want them on the payroll."

"We?" Skinner asked softly.

"You don't think I'm going to hang around to work for Kersh again, do you? Besides, someone's got to ride herd on you and Sam and I know Alex isn't going to be any help there."

"You're going to be the voice of reason?" Skinner tugged on a lock of dark hair and smiled at the idea.

"You want to go into business with a former Army Black Ops guy and an ex-assassin. In this crowd, Walt, I am the cautious one."

"That's what scares me, Fox." But it wasn't fear warming his gut and snuggling against his side. It was his future and Skinner thought he liked how it was shaping up.

Home was strange, but good after the never-ending attentions of the nursing staff at the hospital. Every two hours, they had wanted some vital sign, some sample of blood, something to keep him from sleeping. It had brought back some memories and nightmares that Hamilton had thought particularly well-buried and he had not slept at all in the three days since he had come out of his coma. Krycek had brought him home, scowling at Skinner's suggestion that Hamilton come and stay with them for a few days.

Hamilton found Krycek's sullen care irritating, as if he were shrugging into a new harness and waiting for it to wear properly enough to become familiar. With one eye still bandaged, Hamilton was a bit unsteady on his feet, but otherwise fit enough, in his own opinion, despite the occasional dizzy spells. Yet Krycek hovered, always in the same room, watching him, unsmiling and often unspeaking. He made quick forays out to get prescriptions filled and groceries, but otherwise was a constant and largely silent companion. At night, he held Hamilton, running meditative fingers through his hair, still saying nothing.

Hamilton had fallen asleep on the couch to which Krycek had banished him most of the two days since they had come home from the hospital. When he awoke, Krycek was once again sitting across the room, not even watching the muted television. Hamilton could feel the dark-ringed eyes fixed on him and it irked him. Almost as much as the feel of the soft blanket Krycek had thrown over him while he slept. Shit -- he was being nursed, watched and fed, tucked in like a little kid. He tried to get a hold on his temper, figuring that he was being a little unreasonable, but that tenuous hold slipped the instant that Krycek silently brought him a mug of tea. Herbal tea.

"I am not drinking this shit," Hamilton announced, hoping to spark something that would banish this careful stranger and bring back his snarling, difficult, lively lover. The dark something lurking in Krycek's eyes looked far too much like fear for Hamilton's comfort.

Krycek merely shrugged and put it down next to his own mug, clearly intending to drink it himself without argument.

"I'm gonna get myself a scotch," Hamilton announced, beginning the head-spinning process of getting off the couch. Krycek nodded and pretended to read his book. Hamilton, who had a polished sense of the absurd, noticed that it was his own dog-eared copy of War and Peace. "Suit yourself," Krycek muttered. "Just give me a shout when you fall over," he added nastily.

"I'm just fine," Hamilton growled, rocking a little on his feet before walking over to the bar.

"Sure you are," Krycek agreed sourly. "You want me to read you the part about 'no alcohol' from your discharge forms again?" But he didn't get up to interfere, just sat there and watched, damn him.

Hamilton, who was finding it a little difficult to judge the distance from the lip of the bottle to the glass with only one eye, merely growled. He capped the bottle, then realized he had absolutely no taste for the drink he had poured. In fact, the scent was nauseating him. It suddenly seemed like a good idea to sit down again and he turned back toward the couch, leaving the half-full glass behind him.

Somewhere along the way, things got remote and black. He found himself down on one knee, Krycek's arms around him, holding him up as he took deep breaths.

"You are such a pain in the ass, Hamilton!" Krycek snarled in his ear. "Stubborn, stupid, pig-headed...," his voice trailed off as he heaved Hamilton to his feet and carefully guided him back to the couch, lowering him gently to the cushions.

Embarrassment got the better of him; his body had never betrayed him like this and he hated it, hated that Krycek was the one to see him this weak. "Well, if this is too much fucking trouble for you, boy, why don't you head on home and I'll take it from here?!"

For a long frozen moment, they glared at one another. Hamilton became aware that Krycek was now kneeling beside him, still gripping Hamilton's forearm. His fingers tightened and dug in, slowly, inexorably, undeniably, nails biting into tender flesh. Krycek's voice, when he finally spoke, was harder than iron but somehow with a dangerous brittleness lurking somewhere just beneath the words.

"Because this is it, you son of a bitch."

Hamilton blinked at him, only vaguely noticing that a few drops of blood were now slipping down the skin of his forearm, beginning to drip onto the leather. Krycek's eyes held him captive, even as that toneless voice began again, breath hot against his face. "I gave up my apartment two months ago. You're stuck with me until you're back on your feet. After that...."

It seemed like he could smell the scent of his own blood, twining with Krycek's wild, forest-scented aroma. It cleared his head in a way nothing else could have. He grabbed Krycek's chin in his hand and forced him to look straight into his eyes. "If you leave me, I'll hunt you down and kill you," Hamilton said gently, then stroked the hair back from Krycek's eyes.

That nameless something died in Krycek's gaze then, that small, furtive frightened something was suddenly gone. What was left was the Alex Krycek he had first met, bold, brash, impossible. But Krycek only nodded and said, "You're bleeding on the couch." He let go of Hamilton's bloody arm and slowly got to his feet. He looked at his stained fingers, then down into Hamilton's face and smiled a very small, very real smile. Then he went to get a towel.

Hamilton sat on the couch and casually wiped at the blood on his arm, then smiled as he waited for Krycek to return. Home was strange, but home was also very, very good.

 

end

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