Work Text:
Gone
by JiM
It's bad tonight, the uprushing need to simply get out and GO. Nowhere in particular, just to be GONE. From here, from my life, from who I am at this moment, from who I've been.... I'm not suicidal. No, this is a greed for life swelling up, not a hunger for oblivion. I want to be the dearly departed. Not dead, just departed.
And I want someone to miss me when I'm gone.
I've got a large nylon duffel half-packed before I even realize what I'm doing. When I check it, I find I've been pretty thorough -- jeans, heavy socks, flannel shirts, wool sweater, polartec jacket and nylon shell -- looks like I'm heading for the great outdoors. I wonder about that for a while as my hands keep packing. Light dayhiking boots, not the heavy trail boots, no rock-climbing shoes, some old sneakers.
I want to walk away, walk down a dirt road and into a forest and keep walking for days and weeks. I want to be the man I once thought I would be.
I used to get this way in high school. Then I'd borrow my dad's pickup truck and drive for miles and miles in the dark, way out into the desert and just sit and watch the stars slowly spin and pivot overhead and I'd just ache from the wanting inside of me, but I never knew what I wanted. I still don't.
When I got this way in 'Nam, I'd bum a joint or split a fifth with a buddy and we'd sit and watch the stars or the rain or just the sparks from each other's cigarettes and the power of that wanting came from the fact that I could never name it. After I got married, it happened less, or maybe I tamped it down better. I didn't think I could ever explain it to Sharon; now I know that she probably would have understood it better than I do.
I've zipped up the bag, so I guess I'm done packing. I look at my cellphone and my gun, then leave them in the desk drawer. Part of me wants to shake myself, drop the bag, go upstairs and go to bed. A smaller part wants me to make plans and lists and decide a destination. Those parts are swallowed up by the part of me that is grabbing my keys and locking the door behind me and is simply heading down to my car, no plans, no destination, no clue.
Driving is good. It seems to lessen the ache the way it always did when I mistook this for teen angst. The roads out of D.C. are still too crowded at this time of night to get the right balm of speed, but just being in motion helps. The onramp for the interstate is too crowded, so I turn abruptly off and take the road that runs along the trainyards. Miles of freight trains sit in the spring darkness, open doors spilling out the shadows of the places they have been.
There is less traffic here and I open the window and the air rushing in is scented with the sullen smell of the river moving too slowly toward a place it never intended to go. I step on the gas and turn on the radio, but have to turn it off again after scanning past every pre-programmed station. Tonight is not a night for order or planning. Tonight is about being gone.
So I am surprised when I suddenly pull the car in toward the curb and turn the engine off. But I have abandoned myself to this need for the first time in my life and, while I don't trust it, there is no question that I have to follow it. I get out and leave my bag in the car; whatever happens here, I still have to go.
Just like I have to be here, standing outside this apartment, raising my hand, knocking on the door, wondering what I'll say when it opens. But I'm already gone and the part of me that packed and drove says into his surprised face, "Mulder. I'm leaving."
He grins at that, although his eyes are uncertain as they search my face. "But, sir, you just got here."
I smile and my face feels stiff, the muscles unused. He raises one eyebrow and waves me in. It feels like I am moving faster now, though I am standing in the middle of his apartment. "I'm going," and I jerk my chin to show him that I intend to go away, Out There. "Do you want to come along?"
I am not sure which of us is more surprised at that. Always before, it has been the need to be alone, to go meet myself on some dark road, in the woods, in the desert, in the jungle, but always alone. Mulder is certainly the last man I would have consciously chosen for this journey. But this is not about being conscious, really. After all, look where my conscious decisions have gotten me. That's why I didn't stop myself tonight, why I am standing here now, waiting with my hands clenched to hear his reply.
He stares into my eyes for a long time, it seems. "Where?" he asks softly. I shake my head. I don't know. "For how long?" I shrug. After a while, he nods, a slow grin taking root in his eyes and growing down to meet his upcurved lips. "Five minutes," he says, and disappears into his bedroom.
He says nothing when he returns carrying his own duffel bag, a leather jacket tucked through the handles. He stops at his desk and types something into his computer, then shuts it down. He holds up his holstered weapon and his eyes question me, nodding in silent agreement when I shake my head, asking him to leave it behind.
Mulder follows me without the slightest hesitation in his step, closing the door to his apartment with a kind of quiet finality that hums through me. Then we are going, walking side by side down the hall, down the stairs, out into the urgent sweetness of the night. He drops his bag over the seat next to mine, buckles his belt and settles in.
"Let's go."
Later, in the days and weeks that follow, I feel that I will know why I came to him as I was slipping away tonight. But for now, all I can do is get us out on the road, grateful for his silent presence, knowing that I am with the one who would have missed me when I was gone.
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