Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 4 of Eight Days a Week: Skinner in Hell
Collections:
Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
Stats:
Published:
2020-11-05
Words:
648
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
18
Hits:
1,565

Tuesday's Dead

Summary:

"The raspy scent of pine cleaner in the air grates in every breath and he wonders how many more he can take before he howls in animal misery"

Work Text:



Tuesday's Dead
by JiM

The raspy scent of pine cleaner in the air grates in every breath and he wonders how many more he can take before he howls in animal misery. The halls are lit with the same pitiless fluorescent as the conference rooms and offices where it all began. It is fitting, he thinks, as the doors swing open before him, that it should end this way; their few weeks together have made a noose of time, bright and harsh at beginning and end, with the gentle twilight in between.

The drawer slides open slowly and someone flips back the sheet and he stares and does not blink. Someone is talking, asking him something, and he wants to bat away at the irritation. Those are Mulder´s clothes; the suit that he bought solely because his father would have hated it. The shirt is his own; Mulder had never given it back after their first weekend. The material is cold and dirty between his fingers.

The face... the face is not Mulder´s. The melted features might once have been human, but they have none of the wild originality of Mulder´s face. The face is now one regular glob of seethed flesh and he knows that soon there will be nothing to stop the howling thing in his chest from tearing free. He touches his fingers to the side of the head, where the melting did not touch. The cold of Hell seeps into his hand and begins to run up his arm... then he does shout.

No, he roars. White-coated techs and dark-suited agents scurry before him as he begins his rampage. The thing on the table wears Mulder´s clothes but is not Mulder; the curve of the ear is wrong. The agent who made the preliminary identification is reduced to shreds and is universally condemned by his peers to making the call to Mulder´s partner and explaining his error.

Now Skinner knows the tyranny of hope and briefly regrets the peaceful despair he has left behind. It is the difference between struggling to hold on to the last thread over a chasm and the serenity of failure and the endless fall.

In three hours, he is striding through other corridors, harsh with their own scents of pine trees and death and lights which forgive no human frailties in this repository of human weakness. Scully is just leaving the room; her face burns with fierce joy and he feels himself begin to thaw in its warmth. He wants to thank her for her tact, for giving him these few moments to himself but can find no words, so he walks past her with a nod.

Mulder is like a dark smudge in the paleness of the room. His eyes are dark and large in a bruised face but they burn, too, and Skinner is across the room and gathering Mulder to him before either can speak. Mulder is warm and angular and too thin in his arms and no amount of pine cleaner can mask his forest scent. Skinner breathes it in and feels the howling thing subside in him. He begins to whisper softly as his hands move over Mulder´s hair and face; he knows what he is saying, even though he can´t hear the words himself. He doesn´t need to; he knows the foolish, soft murmurs are nothing more than the sounds of his passage back to Hell.

Mulder is clinging to him, slowly warming him again. He wants nothing more than to remain here, sitting half-on this bed in this pale, pine-scented room, his maddening lover safe in his arms for just these few moments. But it is not to be. Scully strides back in and the naked shock on her face tells him that the roller-coaster of life with Mulder has looped again.

There is nothing to be done; he gathers Mulder a little closer to him and starts to laugh.

 

end

Series this work belongs to: