DEEP PLAY, Part I:  OUT OF BOUNDS
by Jeylan

Part 7
See part 0 for header information.


"Oh."

There didn't seem to be much to say to that.  

He went over to the couch and sat down next to Skyler, leaning 
into his warm shoulder and flipping Fahrenheit 451 open at 
random.  "And this scares the shit out of you *why* exactly?"

His eyes slid over the opened page --

'What a shame,' she said, 'You're not in love with anyone.' 
   'Yes, I am!' 
   'It doesn't show.' 
   'I am, very much in love!' He tried to conjure up a face to 
    fit the words, but there was no face.  'I am!'
   'Oh, please don't look that way.'
   'It's that dandelion,' he said.  'You've used it all up on 
    yourself.  That's why it won't work for me.'

He reached for a nacho and then slouched a little closer to 
Skyler, eating with one hand and riffling a few pages forward 
with the other, reading fragments and pencil-marked passages that 
caught his eye:

'Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways.  Or I listen 
    at soda fountains, and do you know what?'
   'What?'
   'People don't talk about anything.'
   'Oh, they *must!*'
   'No, not anything.  They name a lot of cars or clothes or 
    swimming pools mostly and say how swell!  But they all say 
    the same things and nobody says anything different from 
    anyone else.  And most of the time in the cafes they have the 
    joke-boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the 
    musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and 
    down, but it's only color and all abstract.  And at the 
    museums, have you *ever* been?  *All* abstract.  That's all 
    there is now.  My uncle says it was different once.  A long 
    time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed 
    *people.*'

Skyler fished the book away from him and flipped to a dog-eared 
page.  He read out loud:

"'Peace, Montag.  Give the people contests they win by 
    remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of 
    state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year.  Cram 
    them full of noncombustible data, chock them so full of 
    "facts" they feel stuffed, but absolutely "brilliant" with 
    information.  Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get 
    a *sense* of motion without moving.  And they'll be happy, 
    because facts of that sort don't change.  Don't give them any 
    slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up 
    with.  That way lies melancholy.'"

Holding his place with his thumb, Skyler dropped the book to his 
lap.  "Notice how now we're in the 'Information Age' hardly 
anyone questions the *value* of information?" 

"People feel safe with facts," Mulder agreed, and their eyes met.  
They shared irony without need to elaborate; they both knew what 
they meant.  "'The sense of motion without moving,' that's the 
part I like," Mulder said.  "*When* was this book written?"  

"1953."

"OK, that's prescient." 

"You don't sound very convinced."

"Oh, well, I mean."  Mulder searched back deep in his memory to 
Miss Gaston's class, which was the last time he actually read 
Fahrenheit 451.  "Firemen whose job is to burn books?  That's 
ridiculous.  It's as silly as Soylent Green.  I mean, I *love* 
Soylent Green, and actually *there's* a movie that's scarier now 
than it was when it was made, but..."  A creepy feeling came over 
him, and his mind spun quickly.  He remembered being 14 and 
laughing at Soylent Green, but he'd just caught a re-run on the 
Sci-Fi Channel a few weeks ago and it had scared the bejesus out 
of him.  

"You think we don't deconstruct and mutilate the best wisdom of 
5000 years every *day?*" 

"Never mind," Mulder said, "I'm with you.  I think I just 
switched sides." 
 
"Pour kerosene on history and literature and philosophy and light 
a match?  Visit a university.  Go online.  Turn on TV.  'We The 
People' love nothing better than a good burning." 

"We like it when they hang them, too, and their tongues swell 
up." 

"Exactly.  The mob has always been mad for spectacle.  You can't 
take this book literally, that's what I love about it.  It's 
closer to poetry than prose.  If you try to read Bradbury at the 
literal, textual level, you miss the whole point.  Here--"  
Skyler flipped through pages searching for another passage, and 
then shoved the book back into Mulder's hands.  "Read to me?" 

Mulder started reading on the next dog-eared page, beside a time-
blurred red star.  Skyler snuggled closer, and Mulder relaxed 
into the contact, enjoying the damp sweetness of his hair, and 
the possessive warmth of his hand on Mulder's knee.

"'You're a hopeless romantic,' said Faber.  'It would be funny 
    if it were not serious.  It's not books you need, it's some 
    of the things that were once in books.  The same things 
    *could* be in the "parlour families" today.  The same 
    infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the 
    radios and televisors, but are not.  No, no, it's not books 
    at all you're looking for!  Take it where you can find it, in 
    old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old 
    friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself.  
    Books are only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot 
    of things we were afraid we might forget.  There is nothing 
    magical in them, at all.  The magic is only in what books 
    say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together 
    into one garment for us...'"

He could feel Skyler listening, completely listening.  His eyes 
were closed but his hand had gone roaming on its own.  His 
fingernails scratched lightly, sensually, along the inside seam 
on Mulder's thigh, and from the seriousness of Skyler's face, he 
was pretty sure Skyler didn't realize he was doing it.  As he 
read he stole glances at his eyelashes resting innocently on his 
cheeks and the tiny freckles in the pale skin under his eyes, the 
strong, angular contours of his chest and abdomen.  Mulder was 
and was not surprised to feel himself responding, half-turning on 
again.  

"'...The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of 
    life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the 
    more "literary" you are.  That's *my* definition, anyway.  
    *Telling detail.*  *Fresh* detail.  The good writers touch 
    life often.  The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her.  
    The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

"'So now do you see why books are hated and feared?  They show 
    the pores in the face of life.  The comfortable people want 
    only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless.  We 
    are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on 
    flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam.  
    Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the 
    chemistry of the earth.  Yet somehow we think we can grow, 
    feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the 
    cycle back to reality...'" 

Skyler's hand had found its way higher, closer to his crotch.  
Mulder stopped reading and let his head rest against Skyler's 
head, just breathing, closing his eyes, and letting himself feel.

"Oh, don't stop," Skyler protested, after a long moment of 
comfortable silence.  "I love to be read to.  I love your voice."

"Then stop distracting me."

"Do you really want me to stop?" he asked, kissing and then 
sucking on his throat.

"No."

"Good.  Because if you're not going to read, then I think it's 
definitely time for some candlelight."

"Candles?"  Mulder's face was a little warm again.  "Are you 
planning to seduce me?"

"Slowly.  I'm planning to seduce you slowly."

Mulder swallowed.  "OK."

His eyes followed Skyler as he moved around the room, 
appreciating the gold of his bare skin, and the clean ripple of 
muscles in his torso and back.  "Will this conscious machine of 
yours have a soul?" he asked.

Skyler was shuffling through the pages of a book of CD's, and 
didn't look up.  "There are two schools of thought on that--" he 
said, selecting out a disk and popping it into a portable boom 
box that sat on a small table next to the bookcase.

"So what do *you* think?  Is it possible?  Machine free will?"

"No." 
 
Mulder raised his eyebrows.  "Then why are you working on it?"

"Why not?  I might be wrong."

Big Band music wound its way into the room, warm, old-fashioned 
and romantic.  Mulder smiled.  Skyler lit incense and candles, 
and moved to turn out the overhead light.  The room was 
transformed.

"And what scares you about Fahrenheit 451 is that there is no 
centralized evil power," Mulder said.  "It's a headless monster."

"Wouldn't it be nice if there were clear-cut teams?" Skyler 
replied.  "Like Us and Them?  Good guys and bad guys?  That'd be 
nice.  Even if you were only one man and bound to lose, you could 
still fight that...  You could *fight.*"  He made his way slowly 
back to the couch as he spoke, and stood between Mulder's knees.  
"But not in Fahrenheit 451.  And I know you're trying to change 
the subject, by the way.  It's not going to work."

Mulder swallowed again, and let his head fall back.  He felt 
exposed with his shirt off, one hand still holding the old, dry 
paperback book and the other resting along the back of the couch.  
Looking up into Skyler's intense eyes, he knew what was going to 
happen.  The awareness was potent between them.  He bumped his 
knee against Skyler's calf, and other than that sat very still.   

Skyler slid his eyes over Mulder slowly, deliberately, lustfully, 
and Mulder laid back and let him.  He felt the attention almost 
as a caress on his skin, his throat, his hips where his jeans 
hung low and were starting to feel tight.  He let Skyler look.  
And he looked at Skyler, too, looked at him as a lover, as an 
object of desire.  He looked, and imagined the hands touching 
him, the arms around him, looked and saw in his imagination the 
hardening erection that was beginning to press against Skyler's 
sweats.  He took time to appreciate the angular suggestiveness of 
lateral obliques sliding down under the elastic waist-band, 
outlining the flat, reverse plane of the abdomen.  And he let 
himself realize that nothing at all was stopping him from 
reaching out right now, pulling Skyler into his arms, stripping 
him naked.  Playing with him.  Mulder closed his eyes.  And he 
felt Skyler's hand brush lightly over his collar-bone, down his 
chest...

And then Skyler was climbing into his lap, straddling him, 
kissing his eyelids.  Mulder groaned.  Finding himself with a 
lapful of warm, willing, *man,* he put his hands on Skyler's back 
and let his fingertips tell him all they could of hard muscles, 
power, and solid strength.  Skyler's erection bobbed and rested 
against his stomach.  In the dim light the music coiled around 
them with the scent of incense, and Mulder felt lifted out of his 
own life into another place, completely removed, completely safe.  
And very awake and alive.

Dipping his head he sucked and licked at Skyler's skin, his 
throat, and, nipping lightly, he wrapped his arms around the 
slim, hard waist.  He was starting to entertain hazy images of 
oral sex at the edges of his mind when Skyler leaned back away 
and got up, pulling Mulder up after him.  

"You wanted to slow dance," he whispered in Mulder's ear.  And 
then he sucked on the ear, and put his tongue in, and Mulder's 
knees went weak.  He hung on to Skyler, reeling and slightly 
tipsy in his arms, just riding on the waves and waves of 
sensation. 

And then somehow they were dancing.  For a while it was formless, 
modern dancing, just moving together lightly, randomly, with no 
one in particular leading or following, and then Skyler lifted 
Mulder's left hand up, and Mulder found himself taking the lead.  
It was like Skyler's weight and mass, which he had previously 
felt moving against his own, went away.  It was as if Skyler 
became a dream of Skyler, floating where Mulder moved him.  His 
hand on the small of Skyler's back guided him effortlessly, and 
everything below Skyler's waist seemed to disappear. 
 
Mulder chuckled out loud.  "You're a good dancer," he murmured, 
enjoying the feel of moving for both of them, moving with the 
music, taking them in easy, sensual turns around the floor.  It 
felt good.  Very sexy.  They danced three songs that way, and 
Mulder was starting to be so distracted by the feel of Skyler's 
body, close and yet not close enough, that he was having serious 
thoughts of waltzing them into the bedroom when Skyler suddenly 
resisted him, and stopped.  

"My turn to lead," he said, and took Mulder's right hand in his 
left.  

Mulder was nonplussed.  It felt all wrong to have this hand up, 
and the other down.  It felt like trying to write with the wrong 
hand, or tie his shoelaces upside down.  "Uh," he protested, 
"uh."

Skyler chuckled.  "Don't worry.  Just follow.  You don't have to 
worry about anything."

Mulder made a game effort, but found it much easier said than 
done.  His feet wanted to lead.  His head heard the music and 
wanted to steer.  He kept anticipating Skyler's movements  --
anticipating slightly wrong -- and then tripping them both up 
over his own big feet.  

"This is hard," he muttered.

"You're thinking too much.  *Feel* what I'm doing.  Relax.  *I'm* 
the one moving, and you're just along for the ride, OK?  If you 
stop fighting me, I'll put you where I want you."

Mulder made more of an effort to relax.  Skyler's hand on his 
waist fairly shoved him around, and he didn't really like it -- 
and then -- for no reason -- as easy, suddenly, as breathing in 
-- it was ... easy.  He knew how to do this after all.  He knew 
what it felt like to feel through someone else's skin, sense 
through other muscles.  He did that with his intuition every day.  
Without being completely conscious of it he found the switch 
inside his own mind that wanted to be in control of leading, or, 
failing that, at least in control of following, and he shut it 
off.  And then he just ... followed.  And something weird 
happened in his head.  He felt like he was flying, floating, 
dancing on moonbeams.  He had no volition of his own but existed 
only as an extension of Skyler -- and Skyler was graceful, 
gorgeous, completely desirable, his body warm and supple and very 
much alive in Mulder's arms.  Skyler was someone to whom he 
didn't mind relinquishing control.

Skyler was also a better dancer than he was.  

"You've gone to classes," he grumbled, and Skyler laughed.  

"Of course.  Haven't you?"

"Not since my mother made me."

"Shut up and dance." 

And they danced.  They danced through wisps of Rain Goddess 
smoke, and shifts of old melody.  They danced, and Mulder lost 
himself, was lifted out of himself, and fell giddy in love.  They 
danced.

And when the CD finally ended, they stood swaying together, 
kissing.  

"You wanna make out on the couch for a while, or go to bed?" 
Skyler breathed into his mouth.

Mulder was so gone the question almost didn't make sense.  

"Bed?" he guessed, rubbing his palms over Skyler's ass, gripping.

"Are you ready for that?" Skyler whispered into his wet ear. 
"Because I'm still leading.  I'm going to make love to *you* this 
time, you know."  

Mulder swallowed thickly, closed his eyes, and nodded.  He knew.  
He had known.  He just hadn't known how to ask.

"'Cause we can fool around some more first if you're not sure 
yet..."

"No, I -- I --"

"I wouldn't want to push you into anything..."

Goddamn it, he was being teased.  "Skyler, I, *please*--"

Skyler chuckled.  "Gods, you are so beautiful, do you know that?  
You are the most gorgeous, radiant soul I've ever known."

Mulder's eyes fluttered closed, and he felt a very quiet moan in 
his throat.  And it was good.

"No second thoughts?"

"*Please,* Skyler.  You want me to beg?  I'm begging.  *Please.*"  
And it felt good.  It felt good to say it out loud, admit how 
much he wanted it.  He dropped his voice to barely a whisper, 
"Make love to me?"

A rough, wordless sound rose up in Skyler's throat, and he 
clutched Mulder tight in a stormy hug.  Then he let go, and 
backed away.  "Come on, you," he said, holding out his hands and 
walking backwards so that Mulder had no choice but to follow him.  

Mulder followed.  They collected lit candles as they went, and 
Skyler's smile seemed to curl and flicker before him.

In the dark bedroom, Skyler set his own candle down first and 
then lifted the little wavering light from Mulder's hands, 
placing it carefully next to the other beside the bed.  Then he 
took him in his arms, kissed him, scooped him backwards off-
balance so that for a moment Mulder found himself suspended in a 
movie-kiss, and then as one they yielded and fell together back 
onto the bed.  Skyler landed on top, in a tangle of limbs, 
rubbing against him sensually, kissing him all over, caressing 
his skin.  He stripped Mulder of his jeans, laved him with his 
tongue, and muttered his appreciation between mouthfuls so that 
Mulder began to be dizzy with it.  He wasn't accustomed to being 
called 'beautiful,' and couldn't remember if he'd ever in his 
whole life actually heard the words 'god you have a gorgeous 
cock' spoken out loud by a real person.  But it was the other 
things Skyler said -- '*I want you, Fox, god I want you so much*' 
-- as his mouth sought and found the most intimate secrets of 
Mulder's body -- '*I've always wanted you*' -- it was the other 
things -- '*it's you I miss in the middle of the night*' -- that 
made his control start to slip, and his coordination begin to 
subtly disconnect.    

Skyler had scrambled up on top of him, nude, hot, heavy on top of 
him, sucking his throat and rubbing groin to groin, and Mulder 
was dimly aware that one of Skyler's hands was scrabbling noisily 
in the nightstand.

"What, what--" he murmured.

(Continued in part 8)