Title: DEEP PLAY, Part I: OUT OF BOUNDS Author: Jeylan Feedback Email: jeylan@earthlink.net Author's Website: Category: Story, Romance, Relationship, Unclassified Pairings: Mulder/Other Rating: NC-17 Archive at Gossamer: DO NOT ARCHIVE Gossamer Category: Story Gossamer Sub-category: Romance Gossamer Keywords: Slash Summary: What if.? A dangerous question, 'what if.' Like all the other speculations in his life, this too threatened to tip him off course. SPOILERS: None in the story, but lots in the end notes. TIMELINE: Any time after about 2nd Season. (If Scully can't get him by that time, she doesn't deserve him.) ARCHIVE: *NO ARCHIVE* except by request. (Requests welcome.) SUMMARY: What if...? A dangerous question, 'what if.' Like all the other speculations in his life, this too threatened to tip him off course. WARNING: This one's slash. It contains graphic male/male sex. If you're not comfortable with that you probably shouldn't be reading. But suit yourself, of course. DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder belongs to himself. There's been a rumor going around that he might belong to CC and 1013, but the evidence is clearly against it. At any rate, Mulder doesn't belong to me; I'm not profiting. Skyler and the story are mine. CONTINUITY: In my story, "Just Say Yes," Mulder's closest Oxford friends were gay men. Not so in this story. Neither are the Mulder and Scully in this story compatible with any MSR reality, fic or filmed. They are, however, consistent with canon as it was played out right up to the point when canon stops at the end of the final season, S7, when 1013 completely lost steering, spun out, flipped over, and mutated into an unsalvageable wreckage of below par fanfic. Their fic costs more than ours, that's all. AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story was originally intended as a stand-alone, and therefore can be read without necessarily committing yourself to read part II. I would like the many, many people who have written thanking me for writing a strong Mulder to know that that Mulder is present in this story, as deeply as I could write him. I hope that my previous MSR readers will give this slash story a chance. And please bear with me: the Scully scene/references are short, firmly grounded in canon (see detailed end notes), and integral to the theme (not gratuitous). (Yes, ::gasp::, this story has, like, an actual *theme.*) THANKS to my wonderful beta readers, MWKidder, Anne, and Frank, and to my tireless science advisor, Mark. DEDICATION: This story is for Mulder, with love. LENGTHY NOTES AT THE END, including remarks on Scully characterization, and slash. ================================================= DEEP PLAY "Deep play" is play in which the stakes are so high that, from a utilitarian standpoint, to play is irrational. --paraphrased from Jeremy Bentham "Above all, play requires freedom. One chooses to play. Play's rules may be enforced, but play is not like life's other dramas. It happens outside ordinary life, and it requires freedom." --Diane Ackerman ================================================= Part I: OUT OF BOUNDS ================================================= "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." Juan Ramon Jimenez "You see it's the same thing about whether you decide to do a dance at the level at which the dance is being done and whether if you don't you're being immoral or irresponsible." City of San Francisco Oracle, Vol. 1, No. 5, January, 1967. ================================================= Skinner stared at Mulder, and Mulder stared back. It was a contest of wills so subtle that even the two men themselves weren't sure what, if anything, was under dispute. Not a muscle moved in either face, not a flicker in an eye. Skinner broke first. His jaw clenched involuntarily and he forced it to ease. He looked down. Up. Met Mulder's eyes again, Mulder's pale, intensely focused eyes. Everything about Mulder begged to be slapped down. Skinner's old instincts surged, and his palms itched. He quelled it. Something in him protected Mulder, even against himself. Something in him needed to make room for Mulder or he himself wouldn't be able to breathe. "OK," he said. The sound grated resentfully from his throat. "You and I both know this -- *leave* --" he thumbed the corner of Mulder's request form, which lay in front of him on the desk, bland and uncommunicative as Mulder himself when he wanted to be -- "has something to do with an investigation. I'm not going to ask you again why you don't feel able to fill out the appropriate paperwork, but I'm sure I don't need to remind you, agent, that there are standards of ethical and professional conduct that go along with that badge you carry." Even as he said the words Skinner was ashamed of them, and consequently they came out sounding much angrier than he had intended. His jaw clenched tighter. Mulder blinked. "Thank you, sir," Mulder said, dipping his head and changing his posture just slightly in recognition that the interview was ending. "That will be all," Skinner confirmed, and Mulder stood on cue. //He hates me, doesn't trust me,// the thought flickered half- formed, sub-verbal at the edges of Skinner's mind. He pushed it back into silence and didn't let it coalesce into words. He might have had to think about it if it were words. He didn't have time to think about shit like that. But his voice softened -- "Let me know when you get back," he said, and Mulder started. With one more flick of the clear hazel eyes and a fast, honest smile, Mulder turned away again and walked out. Skinner slumped over his desk. Why did he always feel this way after interactions with Mulder? Like some hollow, stuffed-shirt, dishonest bureaucrat, who... This time the thought did make it to the outer surfaces of Skinner's busy mind. He sighed deeply, shoved his glasses up, and rubbed his eyes as if that would make it go away. Whenever he was around Mulder he couldn't shake this suspicion that he felt hollow and dishonest because he *was* hollow and dishonest. It was one of the many sensations triggered by Mulder that made him want to get his hands around the man's throat and squeeze. But whatever self-preservation there was left in Skinner, not the fight-training and bureaucratic savvy that got him safely through his days, but the deeper self-preservation of soul, that wounded, rusty, honesty of pain which lurked at the empty center and got him, shaking, through his nights -- that part of him that was still Walt, still a little lost, still hopeful -- that part wouldn't allow him to crush Mulder down. Skinner refused to think about it. He had work to do. He always had work to do. Important work. That was what got him by, day to day, keeping busy. He dreaded vacations, and he dreaded twilight, and he dreaded being alone with himself, but fortunately this job didn't leave much time for such nonessentials. Plenty to think about, too much to think about, that was the way Skinner liked it. He shoved Mulder's approved leave request into the appropriate pile, and reached for the next item at the top of his stack. He wouldn't think about Mulder again until he had to. Even if... Never mind. He'd just have to hope it was by daylight with plenty of distractions, and not alone in the middle of a restless night... ================================================= Scully opened the vibrating office door and was hit by a wall of noise which she refused to think of as music. Wincing, she moved quickly to the boom box and shut it off. She knew on some level that she was being petty, realized that she could have simply turned it down a little, but she didn't care. It really pissed her off to come into her own office, her supposed place of work, and find her partner dancing around in front of the file cabinets with one hand riffling through files in rhythm to the music and the other shoving a sandwich into his face. "Mm, Scully --" Just as she always suspected, he used his filing hand to wipe mayonnaise from his mouth, and then reached for the files again. Her eyes followed the greasy hand, and she frowned. Mulder swallowed. "--hey, I'm taking a couple days off, you don't mind finishing up the paperwork on that Blackwater case, do you?" He looked her once over quickly and smiled, but the smile and the flick of eyes didn't synchronize, they syncopated. Typical Mulder trick, trying to sweet-talk her. Scully stood her ground. "What is it this time, Mulder?" she demanded. "Hmm?" Mulder mumbled around another bite of roast beef sandwich. "B*a*wa*r?" "Don't talk with your mouth full; first warning." He swallowed again. "Remember Blackwater? Last week, Blackwater? Ancestral ghosts? The half a southern belle you said didn't count as a real ghost because she--" "--I did not say that--" "--wasn't all there?" Mulder shrugged, and took another bite of sandwich. With his mouth full again he said, "Well, then you must remember that cute little private security officer, what was his name? I'm sure he remembers you, Scully, he--" Scully turned her back on him and sighed deeply. She tensed her shoulders and let them drop, rotated her neck and wondered absently how long Mulder might go on having a conversation with himself and the back of her head if left to his own devices. "*Last time* you ditched me with paperwork," she interrupted in a tone of long suffering, articulating all her words very clearly in unconscious opposition to his sandwich mutterings, "it was for miniature mer-people at the Aquarium. I just wanted to know what it was *this* time." "Scully? Miniature mer-people? Didn't you send away for those when you were a kid? They're krill. They die before they get big enough to see the little crowns and stuff. I went to the National Gallery." "The National Gallery," she repeated flatly. Since when was Mulder interested in art? "Yeah, the Orientalism Exhibit, you know, reclining odalisques in diaphanous -- or no, wait, was that the day I went to the Tattoo Museum? I was thinking of--" "Mulder I *do not* want to know what you were thinking. Just tell me what you're doing for the rest of this week." And while he told her, Scully gathered up papers and let him talk. She listened only lightly; it would all change anyway by the next time she heard it. Impossible to get a straight answer out of him when he was in a wayward mood like this. Scully already had a headache and it wasn't even lunch time yet. "Mm- hmm," she said, "mm-hm." He'd stopped talking. Oops. Scully quickly tried to replay short-term auditory memory. No luck. Was it *her* fault Mulder talked so much, damn it? "Uh, yeah?" she bluffed weakly. "You *really* want me to take my clothes off?" Mulder said. //Shit. Busted.// "'Cuz it's a little early in the day for that kind of thing, but--" "OK, Mulder, you caught me. I wasn't listening. Just get to the point." "No point, Scully. I'll be back on Monday, have fun while I'm away." He sounded hurt. Was he hurt? Scully started to glance in his general direction, but then decided she didn't really want to worry about it. "OK, fine, have a good trip," she said. Was he going on a trip? She was pretty sure she'd heard the words 'airline ticket'... "I'll just get out of your way then, and get this stuff started." She finished shoving Blackwater files, notes, and disks haphazardly into her briefcase, with the intention of sorting everything out later. Right now all she could focus on was a need to get out of this cluttered, claustrophobic, dark little office, which was too filled with Mulder. Sometimes... Sometimes Scully felt like she couldn't breathe at all when Mulder was around, like she was going to scream if he said one blessed word more-- Making a break for the door, she didn't see the way he looked at the back of her head as she went. All Scully could think about was getting up to her desk, her real desk, the only place where she could get any actual work done, and yes it was a pity it couldn't be in the same space with Mulder, which everyone acknowledged would have been more convenient, but it just couldn't. Her bullpen cubicle was her life-line. She'd fought hard to keep it through more than one personnel shake-up upstairs. If they wanted her to continue to work with Mulder they had to at least give her that much -- a desk of her own, a phone extension -- in exchange for years of her life spent ducking into "her" office in the basement to pick up files, and ducking out again whenever she actually needed to concentrate. Life with Mulder. She sighed as the door closed behind her, and his music cranked back up. She felt bitchy when she caught herself thinking thoughts like this, and Scully didn't like to think of herself as bitchy. Making a conscious attempt to be charitable, she reminded herself that Mulder wasn't being a jerk on purpose. He was just obsessive, that's all. But he was a good partner, with many fine qualities, and a fine mind ... when he bothered to use it. No, that wasn't fair either. But, damn it, she defended him to Skinner, she backed him up, bailed him out, and kept his feet on the ground for him, more or less. Mulder would be hopelessly lost without her, and they both knew it. Scully considered that she was entitled to a few uncharitable thoughts from time to time, given the circumstances. If she felt a twinge of guilt, she didn't let herself think about it much. Scully was good at not thinking about things. In her line of work, she had to be. It was a matter of self- preservation; keeping grounded. She just couldn't afford to let herself be drawn in to all Mulder's games. Holding her head high and her spine stiff, she marched on up the back stairs. ================================================= Mulder rolled his head towards the airplane window, letting the seat take the compelling weight of his body and falling back comfortably into the heaviness of acceleration. He was watching for the ground to drop away. His favorite moment of flying was this moment when the plane lost contact with the ground, this tipping, slightly unsteady lurch, and up! Now! Totally improbable, completely unrealistic. For millions of years of Human history they would have said you were insane if you'd tried to describe this. He enjoyed all the transitions through turbulence, the way the plane dropped and dipped and shuddered as it found its wings. Mulder loved to fly. He loved the groundlessness of it and even in a weird way the helplessness of it, the enforced time-out. Sometimes he dreamed of flying, and sometimes when it occurred to him in dreamflights, surreal nights, he flew planeless up, high, high, direct, up, through, unhesitating up to that place where the air went too thin to breathe and on higher still, where the air was only a vapor of luminous blue and his mind filled with light until he would almost begin to pass out from trying to breathe light instead of oxygen -- and then at last he'd relax, give up, and let himself just free-fall plummeting down purely for the roller-coaster thrill of falling. Mulder knew he would always pull out of the fall before he hit bottom. He trusted himself that far at least, in dreams. He watched idly as towns, farms, and soft mountains drifted pleasantly by far below, and made a game of imagining himself a boy on that farm, looking up, or a shop-keeper in that little town... He wondered where the library was, and saw himself walking there on a Sunday afternoon, carrying his book down by the river there... Or, no, that town was already dropping away behind. The next one, then... And simultaneously in the basement of his mind Mulder was riffling through files, fingering the dog-eared corners of familiar ideas. He had the godlike sense that here above the clouds he could think about anything he wanted. He could pick and choose; play with possibilities. No one could interrupt or interfere. Watching a gargantuan sleeping cloud warrior drift by, laid out archaic and rigid with a little prim smile like Scully's smile and a stiff formal top-knot on top of her head, he was free to ask himself the honest, soul-searching questions he most loved to ask about the unseen sides of things, and the up-sides of clouds. The things you couldn't always see from the ground when you were in the thick of it, standing too close. Anonymous sources, reliable sources, first-hand accounts, hearsay, Blackwater, Area 51, Skinner, ghosts, Oxford, old friends, the ghosts of old friends, old betrayals, the Consortium, the possibility of bugged phone lines, the myriad unresolved implications, insinuations, inferences, and innuendos of life ... Scully ... the capacities, resistances, and hollow voids that made up his day-to-day existence, and the context of himself, himself as context, this freakish solipsistic suspicion he sometimes entertained that the reality he moved through might be more influenced by his own mind than he would like to think. The Scully-warrior's face was melting now, mutating, caving in, leering a brief Death's head grin before taking on the abstract shape of a basketful of puppies. White, fluffy, cotton-ball puppies. No, not puppies, apples ... apples with bites eaten out, rotting apples... The purpose of his trip he resolutely pushed to the side. For now. It kept trying to edge in like a whisper, but, knowing those thoughts were waiting for him, he was content to let them take their time in coming. Right now he had an intoxicating over-abundance of other things to think about. Planes were as good as long lonely nights for thinking. Better, maybe. ================================================= SAN FRANCISCO TWILIGHT Pot smoke, tobacco smoke, incense, spilled booze, pissed and stoned and dizzy and free ... blue light, lava light, lipstick kisses on the bathroom mirror ... pulse of music, pulse of blood, pulse of remembering how wide the ocean is, and how impossible to explain London in Massachusetts ... playing with the infinite possibilities of life, and fumbling kisses on the couch scarcely caring with whom. (Continued in part 2)