It wasn't the first time Fox Mulder had ever awakened to intense pain, but there was something particularly offensive about it this time, something personal. His head pounded and throbbed, as if he'd suffered spontaneous acute elephantiasis in the night and it was now five or six times its normal size. No matter what Walter told him about his ego, he knew this could not be the case.

It was too dark to take in much of his surroundings, and it hurt too much to open his eyes to even what little light there was, so he contented himself with determining what he could feel. He was lying on something soft, handcuffed to something hard, and whatever he was in, it was moving. Concentrate, you pathetic bastard. It was a truck, or a van. He was almost glad he didn't have his cell.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"My name is Fox Mulder, I'm with the FBI. Someone has been stalking me and now I've been kidnapped, but I don't know who caught me, where I am, or where I'm going. Can you come right away?"

Jesus Christ. If it took them two hours to respond to an attempted murder...

Mulder had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. A thin crack of light in the door indicated it had been at least twelve hours. By now Scully would know he was gone. By now she would have notified Walter. By now Walter was probably throwing large pieces of furniture and using words in polite company that he hesitated to use with the rude variety.

Finally it occurred to Mulder that he had not been blindfolded, which alarmed him. If his captor didn't care what he saw, it seemed to follow that he would not be coming home to tell anybody about it.

"Scully," he croaked, his throat parched.

And that was fucking brilliant. God alone knew how far he was from Scully now. Or what was in store for him. Against all reason, a smile flashed across his face. I bet Walter was pissed that I didn't come back. He'd noticed the expression on his lover's face when Mulder had been about to leave. Sexy, and desperate, and there's-more-of-that-where-that-came-from. He'd probably contented himself with watching Penguins: Antarctica's Little Clowns on the Learning Channel.

Abruptly, the van came to a stop. Mulder tensed against the handcuffs, pulling himself into a sitting position. His head spun. He felt nauseous. Damn near caved in my skull. But only nearly. Apparently, whatever else his abductor had planned for him, killing him on the spot had not been part of the agenda.

To his left, a door slid open, and Mulder was assailed by light. He cried out, trying to shield his eyes. Pain spiked through his head. A compact figure climbed into the van, sliding the door shut behind it.

"Sorry, Mulder," came a low feminine voice. "I could have waited, but I didn't want to leave you alone till nightfall."

"What a philanthropist."

She fumbled around in the dark and finally switched on a much dimmer light. He squinted at her. Short, light hair, pale skin, dark eyes, slightly elfin features. At last, recognition.

"Agent Desmond."

She smiled. "I'm surprised you remember me. I'm told I'm usually a curious gap in your memory."

"No man ever forgets the first girl who tries to bash his brains out with a brick."

"I'm glad your sense of humor is intact. Are you thirsty?"

"Yeah."

Desmond produced a bottle of water and held it to his lips. She batted her eyelashes at him. "Was I really your first?"

"I know it's hard to believe," he said when he'd finished drinking. "But most of the women in my circle prefer handguns."

"I don't want you dead, Mulder."

"What do you want?" She wants me to father her children. Wasn't that an episode of Quantum Leap?

"Rehabilitation," she said. "Yours." She touched a hand to his head. Mulder flinched. "I'm sorry. That's a hell of a lump."

"Is there a merit badge in it for you?"

"I've got Tylenol, if you want it."

"Thanks." She thumbed them into his mouth. Lingered on his lips. Mulder tried not to look away. She's not bad. But I still don't want to father her kids. "What day is it?"

"Monday. You've been out for about fourteen hours."

"Is Walter--"

"He's fine," she said mildly. "I didn't bother with him."

"Then why bother with me?"

"What the two of you do, it's sick. Don't you understand that?"

"Why is it sick, Irene?"

"It's unnatural. It's immoral."

"It's not unnatural at all. People are born gay or born straight. What's unnatural is denying that."

She smiled faintly. "This has nothing to with that whole gay thing."

What the fuck? "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, Mulder, this is an enlightened age."

He smirked. "Tell that to the Republicans."

Desmond rolled her eyes. "I don't have time to debate this with you right now. I think you'll agree I've been more than generous in explaining what the problem is not, well ahead of time."

"You're right. I don't know why you don't offer this as a holiday package."

"Are you hungry?"

"Not anymore."

Desmond removed one of the cuffs and set a plastic bag before him. "It's nothing nutritious, but I hear you like it that way, anyway."

"Why did you bring me here?"

She ignored him, and took the time instead to spread out the offerings from the bag. A box of donut holes. Some packages of Ding-Dongs. A bottle of Yoo-Hoo. A package of pepperoni sticks.

"Why have you been stalking me?"

She set out another bottle of water and rechecked his handcuffs. He knew he should be fighting her, resisting her, something, but all he could do was sit passively by, thinking Hey, pepperoni sticks. I could use a little of the old hot beef injection right now.

"The van's equipped with a microphone," she said, rising to her feet and heading for the door. "If you need anything, just holler."

Mulder covered his eyes as she yanked open the door. "Desmond!"

"What?"

"Why Elvis?"

She grinned and slid the door shut, leaving him alone again. Terrific. At least she'd left the light on this time. One quick look around the van's interior and he was sorry she had.

The floor was upholstered with orange shag carpet, the walls painted black and decorated with moon stickers and music posters from about 1979. Mulder vaguely remembered a conversation he'd had with Eric, his lover at that time, about which of the Village People was the cutest. I'm so happy to have the opportunity to relive that.

Mulder sat on a red vinyl bean bag mattress covered with a tiger-striped flannel comforter. He was handcuffed to one of two ornate wrought-iron bars that must have been installed for that very purpose. Tiny square mirrors covered the ceiling, and a set of extremely ominous- looking speakers rested against either side of the back of the van. And you know it's set up with an eight-track.

"My name is Fox Mulder, I'm with the FBI," he muttered. "I've been kidnapped by my stalker, who's driving me to parts unknown in a cheesy love wagon to cure me of an illness to be named later. I can't describe the love wagon, no, but I'm willing to bet it has a picture of a horse on the side and a little heart-shaped window on the back."

As if on cue, the stereo fired up, and the dulcet tones of Tom Jones filled the van.

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone/It's not unusual to have fun with anyone/ but when I see you hanging about with anyone/It's not unusual to see me cry...

Mulder leaned against his bar and closed his eyes. "I want to die," he said.

He had no idea what Desmond had really given him. Whatever it was, it had robbed him of the ability to figure it out. He was in a strange place now, his clarity of thought a thing of the past, and for the first time since infancy, his mind began to drift. Awake or asleep, dream or hallucination, none of this was discernible or important to him. In some strange way, he was enjoying himself. Here was a release from self that he never found in regular life. Everything seemed good to him now. He was warm, he was comfortable, and Desmond had finally replaced that Tom Jones with some old Clapton.

He could get into this love wagon thing. If only Walter was there. Mulder knew his lover had never made it with anybody in a love wagon. That Mulder had was a fact he hoped Walter would never learn.

He knew he should be thinking of escape, he should be worrying about what would become of him, he should be

pissed off that he was going to miss Biker Women on A&E. All Mulder could think about, in a sudden burst of focus, was Walter. He was lost in lustful imagining. Walter's eyes in that perfect, silent moment of penetration, when Mulder looked up into his lover's face and knew his IQ had just dropped to the low tens. Walter's mouth, slack and swollen from Mulder's mouth or his cock. Walter's hands, rough and purposeful, playing him flawlessly. Mulder had nothing better to do, so he let his obsessive mind molest his lover.

...oh, and his voice, grown hoarse and untutored, his curious moaning that was both prayer and condemnation, both "How could you?" and "How could you not?" The feel of him sliding across Mulder's back, biting his neck, gripping his hips. Mulder had a suit, a double-breasted, deep blue suit, and whenever Walter saw him in it, if Mulder worked his eyes just so, the AD stumbled through conversation like Porky Pig.

Mulder sometimes thought about wearing that suit on days when he wanted his lover's signature on a particularly sticky 302, but Walter was on to him. Figuratively. Damn. And now, on top of everything else, he was stuck with a fierce erection.

Man, it just doesn't get any better than this.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, barely aware of his pain now that he had so many other things to dwell on. In one instant, the only thing worthy of note was that erection, which throbbed insistently and didn't so much as hint at fading. In the next, he felt he could smell the Twinkies Desmond had left him, hermetically sealed cellophane or no hermetically sealed cellophane.

She was a diligent captor. Mere seconds passed between each recording as one ended and another began. Jefferson Airplane had never before sounded so sublime.

Through the dense fog of his mind, there was time to think about Irene Desmond, what she wanted from him, why. It was important that he set to work unraveling things now that she'd given him the map, but she must have known he'd try. And the how of that was problem enough. Yet, as soon as he got himself together enough to ask even the pertinent questions, he found himself thinking about the Charlie's Angels poster on the back door of the van. About a situation distressingly similar to his own in Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart.

And his own earlier observation that Walter would make a fairly intriguing Cenobite. One such thought of his lover, however appalling, and he was lost again, dreaming.

The van rolled to a stop about halfway through the Beatles' White Album. Now Mulder made no attempt to protect himself; he lay in an abandoned sprawl on the bean bag chair. Honey, just leave him where God flang him. Long moments passed in silence while he waited to see what his fate might be. Finally Desmond opened the door and got back into the van, leaving the door open behind her.

"You?" he said, his voice thick and slurring. "I was half-expecting Nancy Sinatra."

"I'm always disappointing you, Mulder," she said, shaking her head. "Maybe my associate will be less of a let-down."

"There are two of you?"

She raised a brow, but said nothing. After a moment, a man entered the van behind her. Tall, blonde, and bearing a disturbing resemblance to Greg Kinnear, he radiated malice to match Desmond's twisted good will. "This is Harry Flannagan," she said.

Mulder squinted at him. Apart from the Greg Kinnear connection, there was something else about the man that twigged him. He knew he should remember, if anybody could. A brief flash of his face before it disappeared... hang on a second...

"Denny's Does Dallas," Flannagan said. "I was the cinematographer."

"I guess that makes me the Key Grip," Mulder snarled.

"I voted for you as Best Boy," Desmond chirped.

The agent sighed. "Is there a point to all this, or are we just going to play Mr. Showbiz until I lapse into a coma?"

"We do have a few things to discuss with you, yes. Do you have to use the bathroom?"

"No."

"Are you comfortable?"

"As comfortable as I'm going to get, chained to a bar in the back of Kitsch On Wheels." Flannagan rolled his eyes, but Desmond seemed pleased. Mulder waited for her to say something like "I like a feisty man," but she only smiled, and sat beside him on the floor of the van.

"Let's get started," she said. "Harry?" He handed her a fat envelope. While Mulder watched, she thumbed through it intently, brow furrowed into what was clearly an uncharacteristic frown. "Ah! Here." She extracted an 8x10 color photograph and tossed it on the agent's lap.

When he risked a glance at it, his thoughts began to clear almost immediately. He'd expected something bad, something damning, certainly, but he'd expected it to be related somehow to the debacle in the men's room at Denny's. Apparently that incident had only set the precedent, not only for his relationship with the wily AD, but also for their tormentors.

Here was a far more recent shot, of an incident marked in memory as "7-12-97." Subtitled "Mulder and Skinner Up Against the Chain-link Fence Outside Shaker's Bar and Grill." Both men were clearly, luridly visible, right down to the crow's feet at the edges of Walter's eyes when they clenched shut as he came inside Mulder. Right down to the impressions of the chain-link on Mulder's chest, that had later become the most compelling bruises of his life.

"Uh... telephoto lens?" he asked weakly.

"You remember a black Nissan, 300ZX?"

"Yes."

"I wasn't the only one who saw you," Flannagan said darkly.

The three of them watched as Desmond tossed him picture after picture, all taken in the last six months, all depicting himself and the AD indulging in a "sensual and spiritual bond," all in venues so flagrant, so public, even Mulder was amazed the usual "Who the hell is that?" guy was nowhere to be seen in the frames. Between them, they were the Ralph Bakshi version of the Curious George books. Mulder and Skinner at the Zoo. Mulder and Skinner at the Half-Price Showing of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. Mulder and Skinner at the Fire Hall. Mulder and Skinner On The Bus.

"Just when I was flipping through the last batch, thinking 'Man oh man, are they nuts? All they've missed is a tawdry outing in the Hoover building lobby,' lo and behold," she said, slapping down another photograph, "here you are. What's next, Mulder? A live broadcast during the half-time show at the Super Bowl?"

"Walter's birthday is coming up..."

"Do you see what I'm getting at, here?"

"You'd better spell it out for me. Between the blow to the head and whatever the fuck you gave me instead of Tylenol, I'm a little groggy."

"Should have given him salt-peter," Flannagan said.

Mulder and Desmond glared at him in unison.

"Mulder, your work is important. You know that. Skinner's work is important, too. And Scully's. What do you think is going to happen to you if you get caught?" She waved a hand. "Never mind that. You did get caught. What do you think is going to happen to you if the wrong people find out? What do you think is going to happen to the X-Files?"

Desmond lifted one of the photographs, taken during Walter's Oral Period, one of Mulder's personal favorites. Skinner Blows Mulder During a Showing of Speed Demons at the IMAX.

"Even if your Cancer Man never got wind of this-- and he will at this rate, believe me-- you'll be working in a shoe store by the end of the year if you keep this up, and maybe, maybe become a throwaway line on Politically Incorrect."

He stared at the pictures on his lap, speechless. Desmond was right, of course. He has always known there were risks. Hell, that had been part of the attraction. It hadn't been enough merely to be fucking Walter, oh no, he'd had to start doing it in public. Jeopardizing everything, everything, and it had seemed so romantic at the time. An affirmation. A purely selfish act, thinking not of the greater good, but of his own rampant erection, every time. And apart from the legal aspects, it was something anyone else could have pursued without shame.

"I knew you had a self-destructive streak, but this is the absolute limit. And it's not just your life you're playing with here. You know that."

His work hadn't suffered at all. If anything, his heightened understanding of The Ways Of Walter and his slightly improved relationship with the man had only enhanced his skills on the job. These days, he could add complimentary performance reviews and one or two commendations to his and Scully's peerless case clearance rate. Yet he knew, as he had always known, that this relationship was a risk. Their more recent behavior took the situation out of the realms of mere official reprimands and into the world of total disaster.

There's no way to explain away Mulder and Skinner On the Bus, he thought dismally. His work would lose whatever fragile legitimacy it had claimed, Scully would be shipped off to some remote forensic wasteland, and Walter...

It was suddenly conceivable to him that Walter would one day sport an ill-fitting polyester uniform with "MALL SECURITY" emblazoned across his breast.

"This has got to stop," Desmond said. "The wrong person is going to see you--"

"The wrong person already did."

"That's where you're wrong," she said, gently. "Think of this as an..."

"Intervention," Flannagan said grimly.

"Intervention," she agreed. "I have no reason to do anything with these photographs. Unless you give me a reason."

"What do you want?"

"Well, we're on common ground on that one, Mulder. I want the X- Files to remain open. I want them to succeed. And I want you to stay division head. That's not going to happen at this rate, and you know it. Don't you?"

"I don't know anything anymore."

Desmond reached out and gave his wrist a reassuring squeeze. "There's no reason this can't end happily," she said. "You can break it off with him. Things can go back to normal-- as normal as they ever get," she amended at his smirk.

"If that's what you think, you don't know either of us as well as you think you do."

"You have to try, Mulder. For your career. For his. For the X- Files. You have to try. This is insane, what you've been doing."

"We were discreet before," he bit out.

Desmond smiled sadly. "How long until you slip up again? Until Flannagan finds the two of you getting it on in the lobby of the Orpheum during the intermission of Aida?"

"We'd probably be in the balcony."

She stood, collecting the photographs as she did so. "End it, Mulder," she said. "Say your good-byes, and don't contact him again."

"Fuck you."

"We'll be watching."

"So will I."

"I hope so," Desmond said, sliding the van door open. Flannagan hopped out, and she followed him. "I really do. It'd be a refreshing change." She slammed the door shut behind her. The van didn't start again.
 
 

"An abandoned fruit truck, Mulder? That's quite a little political statement you've got going there."

"I've changed my mind. You'd better not get the cuffs off me. If you do, I'm going to shoot you."

Jackson White stood in the doorway of the truck, grinning broadly. "Whooee," he said, glancing around. "Somebody was thinking of you. What I wouldn't give for my little Kodak Instamatic right now--"

"Somebody beat you to it," Mulder said. "Look, just get the cuffs off, all right?"

White slammed the door shut behind him and crept over to where Mulder lay. "Nice little set-up," he said smoothly. "Are you sure you didn't orchestrate this whole scene?"

"Trust me, White, if my intent had been to lure you here, I'd be armed."

"Big talk from a guy handcuffed to the inside of a converted fruit truck."

Someone else will find me. Someone else will find me, or I'll die here. One or the other has got to be better than this.

"Just leave, all right? Somebody else will find me eventually."

"Probably in about three hours," White said cheerfully.

"You don't know where you are, do you?"

"I know exactly where I am," he said. "What I can't figure out is why there aren't any little red guys with pitchforks standing around."

"The Hoover building, buddy," White laughed. "They left you outside the Hoover building in a fucking fruit truck!"

"Now that you've hammered that one to death--"

"I'll get you out of those cuffs, Mulder. On one condition."

"What?"

"Have dinner with me."

He smirked. "I'm supposed to stave off nasty rumors about my sexual orientation by going out on a date with you?" He made a show of looking White over. "That might do the trick, actually--"

"Fuck you, Mulder."

He sighed. Yes, from bad to worse. Out of the frying pan and into a fucking volcano. "I can't do it."

White crouched beside him, uncomfortable inches away from Mulder's mouth. "You got something going with Skinner, don't you?"

Not anymore, apparently... "Are you going to uncuff me, or not?"

"Fine." He fumbled with the key, almost certainly deliberately, until Mulder was free. "You'll succumb to my charms eventually."

Is that before, or after the lobotomy? "Whatever. Thanks for coming," he said grudgingly. "How did you know

I was here?"

"I was taking a moonlight drive through DC after my nightly visit to the bath house-- all right, all right. Somebody called me."

"Male or female?"

"Guy." He smirked. "He said his fruit truck broke down outside the Hoover building, the reefer cut out, and he was afraid his fruit would spoil."

Mulder shook his head. "He's not exactly Oscar Wilde, I can tell you that. What made you come down, then?"

"The way he said 'fruit,'" White said, grimacing.

The agent nodded. "Figures."

"You know who did it?"

Mulder considered. Desmond hadn't said anything about keeping quiet, but he was pretty sure that was a given. "No," he said.

"God damn it. Did they say why?"

"They didn't say anything, really. Just wanted to put a scare into me. It's happened before."

White looked back at the fruit truck, then at Mulder. "You should have been an accountant, man."

"You may be right."

"You should have that head looked at."

You should have your head examined, Agent Mulder.

"No, it's all right. I think if I was bucking for an aneurysm I'd have had it by now. I just want to go home."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Will you accept a ride, at least?"

"What's in it for you?"

He shook his head. "Just get in the fucking car, Mulder."

The agent did a double-take when he entered his apartment. It was cleaner than he'd seen it since the day he'd moved in, some six years before. Everything in it was sparkling, and eerily still. His fish-- strike that, the Substitute

Fish-- swam merrily in his aquarium-- what he assumed to be his aquarium... Goddamn it... A quick check of the apartment confirmed his deepest fears.

The top of his refrigerator had been dusted. Someone had cleared out the spider nests behind it. The "1000 Flushes" container that had been a fixture of his toilet tank since 1992 had been removed, the algae-created ring around its place carefully scrubbed away. Crab salad that had been a questionable meal at best six months ago was gone. His dead plants had been replaced, his sheets had been laundered, and someone, someone had had the nerve to alphabetize his record collection. Either an obsessive-compulsive murdered somebody in here over the last couple of days, or Walter is at home nursing a repetitive stress injury from his feather-dusting acts of evil.

Mulder slumped on his sofa and picked up his cell phone, which was, for once, fully charged.

"Skinner."

"Just tell me you were only wearing a diaphanous apron when you did this, and I may recover yet." A long silence met this declaration. "Walter?"

"You're at home?"

"I don't know anymore. It just doesn't have that lived-in look--"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Walter--" he winced at the sound of Walter's receiver hitting the cradle. "Goddamn it." He rose shakily and began to strip. It was stupid, it was shallow, but whatever happened tonight, he wasn't going to let it happen while he sported two days' stubble and sweaty, reeking clothing. He faced the executioner with a smiling face and the help of Ralph Lauren.

The man who had once proclaimed himself the king of the five-minute primp was still toweling his hair dry when his lover began hammering insistently on the door.

"Keep your shirt on," he grumbled, crossing to the door, towel still hanging around his neck. He threw the door open with uncharacteristic verve. The two men stayed in place, regarding one another for long moments. Walter looked tired, but very much himself: imposing, sexy, pissed off. Wonderful. I can't do it. Oh fuck, I can't do it.

"Uh... long time no see?"

"We'll talk later," Walter said, shoving Mulder back inside the apartment, kicking the door shut behind them.

The towel was the first casualty, landing on the floor with a wet thwack. He continued to push Mulder, into the apartment, down the hallway, into the bedroom, shedding his clothing as he went with whatever hand was free.

"That's going to wrinkle," Mulder gasped. "And I don't know what you did with my iron--" Walter gripped Mulder's head in both hands and pulled him close for a brutal kiss, his tongue thrusting deep into Mulder's throat. The agent moaned into his lover's mouth, thinking This is the last time, don't make it the last time, not like this...

His carefully buttoned shirt was torn apart and discarded, his pants yanked open and shoved down his hips. Walter took hold of his cock with both hands, and Mulder thrust into them in spite of himself. It was a strange place to be, for the agent, alternately begging Walter to continue and begging him to stop, never speaking a word.

When both men were naked, Walter shoved Mulder against the wall, biting his neck as he thrust his fingers into Mulder's ass, preparing him with as little ceremony and as little finesse as he'd done everything else. "Walter, don't," he moaned, bucking against the AD's eager hands. Christ, this is fucked up. His cock leaked copiously, and Walter had left off stroking it what seemed like hours before. Mulder took it in one hand, jacking himself carefully. Walter captured his wrist and held it to Mulder's side.

"Don't even think about it."

"Too late."

Walter kicked his legs apart and thrust deep inside, sucking in air like he'd never done it before, choking on it, savoring it. Mulder screamed. This is it. The Farewell Fuck.

Walter stroked his cock roughly, almost absently, his rhythm as he pounded the agent only slightly more cohesive. Mulder met him thrust for thrust, writhing against him, moaning, begging. His legs weakened with each new round, until Walter grew impatient with him and dragged him over to the bed. Impossibly, he fucked Mulder harder when they hit the mattress, grinding the agent's cock into what only moments before had been pristine bedding.

"Walter," Mulder sobbed. "Harder."

"You're a sick bastard, Mulder."

"Please."

The AD sank his teeth into Mulder's shoulder and did as bidden, as best he could, until both men were covered in sweat, bodies slapping together almost comically. Mulder came first, with an accusing sigh. Walter's own climax culminated in a bruising grip on the agent's hips and what was intended to be an expletive, but not one Mulder recognized.

"Jesus."

Now was the time to talk, Mulder knew. He was supposed to tell Walter where he'd been, who had taken him there, what they'd wanted. The AD managed to get the both of them beneath the blankets, and wrapped himself around Mulder when he was done. Too many sleepless nights, too much expended energy, and basic male biology were against them, however. Now, when Mulder was supposed to spill his guts to his lover, he fell asleep. And Walter, as in most things up to that point, was right behind him.
 
 

"So until you can somehow prove to me that you're the reincarnation of e.e. cummings, I'm going to have to insist that you start giving the proper attention to spelling and punctuation when you're typing your reports. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," Mulder said.

"Agent Scully, may I ask when you stopped reading Agent Mulder's reports before you sign them?"

Mulder looked at her. Go for it, Scully. Tell him it was right after the thing with the killer garden tools.

"I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again."

"I should hope not, Scully. It's not good for my heart."

The agents looked at one another. Was Skinner... cheerful?

"You're dismissed," Walter said. "Agent Mulder, if you could stay behind a moment, I have a few things I'd like to discuss with you privately."

Mulder looked away from the AD and met Scully's eyes. Though her expression betrayed no emotion, her eyes gleamed with something eerily like the leer Mulder himself would have been sporting, had their positions been reversed.

I know exactly what sort of private things he wants to discuss, those eyes said. He wants to use your ass to buff his conference table, they went on. He wants to smear your chest with red paint and make nipple prints on the wall.

Mulder swallowed. Three days had passed since he'd been found in the fruit truck, and he and Walter had still not gotten around to their "talk," nor had he mentioned what Desmond had said. If Walter did have designs on him this afternoon, things were going to end badly.

Three days. Three days spent peering in every dark corner, scanning every shrub, searching his apartment for bugs and cameras after work. It was already beginning to wear on him.

He had been paranoid before, but at least then it had only been a precaution. Three days of Walter trying to corner him at every possible opportunity, and there was no way Mulder could squirm out of this one.

"I'll wait for you downstairs," Scully said evenly.

Mulder tried to nail her with a desperate glance. Their famous telepathy failed him, now that he finally needed it. When the door had shut behind her, Mulder turned to face AD Skinner. "If this is about the vandalism in the bathroom--" he nervously began.

He smirked. "Skinner sucks cock?"

Mulder frowned. "Where was that?"

"Level four. Next to the labs."

"Not very inventive."

Walter's eyes narrowed. "What did you think I was talking about?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Mm-hm. You know, Agent Mulder, I have a wiretap position in Topeka that's perfect for someone of your unique blend of interests and qualifications."

"I'm not a stoolie, sir," he said virtuously.

"I can see why you might be willing to take such a post. Particularly when your alternatives are so limited."

"I won't be threatened."

"Yes, you will. Repeatedly, if you keep this up." Walter rose from his seat and stalked over to where Mulder still sat. "I can find you a nice spot in our Alaska offices," he said. "Wading through forty year-old files, looking for information on old bank robberies. Purse snatchings. Insurance fraud. Or--"

"Skinner does it doggy," Mulder squeaked.

"Excuse me?"

"In the elevator that leads to the parking garage," he gasped. "Inside the phone cabinet."

"Do I want to know how you discovered it?"

"What, you aren't going to accuse me outright?"

Walter sighed. "Mulder, no matter what anyone says about you, I have no doubt that if you had elected to malign me in such a fashion, you would find a way to make a reference to Keats or TS Eliot when you did it."

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains..."

"Whatever. The point is--" He scowled.

"You forgot, didn't you?"

"You did this on purpose."

"You're not going to pin it on me, copper." He rose from his chair and executed a luxurious stretch, flush with victory. Another day free of the reaming he's been itching to administer. He's just going to have to abuse his green grocer again tonight.

When he'd flexed back to his normal height, the first thing he noticed was Walter removing his tie. Mulder made a show of looking at his watch. "Hey, Walter, it's only four o'clock. Casual Day doesn't start until midnight."

"You've been avoiding me, Mulder."

"I have not," he said. "I--"

The AD stripped off his jacket. "Lock the door," he said.

Mulder's jaw dropped. Oh, no. Not now, Walter... Why did you have to get kinky on me now? "No."

He paused, his shirt half open. "I beg your pardon?"

"Not yet, but you sure as hell should. Do I look like a boy toy to you?" Walter grinned, and Mulder looked down at himself. He was wearing The Blue Suit. The Blue fucking Suit, and he hadn't even thought about it, putting it on. His shirt was stark white linen, his tie a blue and yellow polka-dotted monstrosity that Walter had once used to blindfold him (but not before remarking that any normal person would have been blinded merely by the sight of it.)

"Okay, so I look like a boy toy. That doesn't give you the right to order me around in the office, demanding sexual favors in exchange for clemency in the workplace--"

"Agent Mulder."

"What?"

"I only asked you to lock the door."

"Are you saying I've misread this situation?"

"Not at all. I'm saying you always have a choice. That's the beauty of an equal partnership."

"Equal partnership my ass," he retorted. "What happens if I say no?"

"I--"

"You don't know, do you? Do you know why that is?"

"You've never said no to me," he said, smugly. "I've always considered it one of your better qualities."

"You would. And now even Scully thinks it's a foregone conclusion that I'll just bend over and take it, and you don't even have to ask nicely."

"That's ridiculous."

"Really?" He flipped open his cell phone, stalling in earnest now. "I'll bet you my car she's not waiting downstairs."

Walter smirked. "What's in it for me?"

"Fuck you, Walter." He dialed their office. The phone rang, and rang... He slammed the phone shut and looked at his lover with raised eyebrows.

"Maybe she's in the bathroom," the AD said weakly.

"Mm-hm. Maybe she's in the cafeteria with Elvis." He tried her cell phone next.

"Scully."

"Agent Scully, this is Agent Mulder."

"Are you with the president or something?"

"No. Could you tell me where you are right now?"

A silence was his only response for a moment. Then: "You've already tried the office, haven't you?"

"Scully, for all you know, I'm in the office. Where the hell are you?"

"In the frozen foods aisle at FoodVille," she said.

"Thank-you and good night," he snarled, clapping his phone shut again. When he turned back to Walter, he found the AD slipping out of his pants. "You take those pants off and I'm setting them on fire," he said. "My best friend thinks I'm a sleazy tramp."

"She thinks I'm a sexual predator," Walter said.

"Well, you're the one who wants to commit the love that dare not speak its name right in your office in the Hoover building. I just wanted to go home and warm up some Pop Tarts."

"So you have something to eat while you watch your taped episodes of old PTL broadcasts? Give me a break, Mulder. If this had been your idea, you'd be all over me like weirdos at a Star Trek convention."

Since Walter knew as well as Mulder did where the agent was headed on his next holiday, both men were silent for a moment. "Put your pants on," Mulder said at last. "This can't continue."

"No kidding. The mood is shot."

"I don't mean this," he said. "I mean this. All we're about is sex. Sex and bickering."

"All my parents had was the bickering," Walter said. "And they lasted thirty-two years."

Mulder snatched the photo of the Skinner parents that sat quietly on his lover's desk. "Walter, your mother looks like she received a weekly caning as part of her marital duties."

"Give me that."

"Your father looks like the kind of man who would start experimenting with household cleansers if he ran out of gin before payday. And you--"

"Mulder--"

"You look like you spent a lot of time in the tool shed. How much bickering are we talking about, here?"

"Certain select episodes of Cops. Are you going to give me that, or not?"

He handed the photo back. "Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"

"What do you want from me? Dancing? Flowers? Matching engraved pride rings?"

"Why do we have to be about sex, is all I'm saying. Why can't we-- I don't know-- date?" He flushed as soon as he said it, the comprehensive stupidity of it striking him before it even left his mouth. He could picture it already. Walter grabbing his ass, Mulder giving him the eye over their potato skins. The two of them arguing at the video store. There was no way they could conduct a platonic relationship at this point, and it was sheer insanity to even suggest it while each was still wearing the other's dental impressions on various body parts.

"Just how bad is that head injury, Mulder?"

Mulder swung around to face him. In that instant, staring at Walter's face, he made up his mind. If he told his lover everything, there was no way Walter would just back off and let things die quietly. He'd found his backbone again in the last year or so, and he still liked to show it off. Walter would rail against everyone who needed railing against. Walter would say things like "not at the expense of our happiness," things that generally made Mulder misty or nauseous, depending on the situation.

It was too late , he realized. He was still uncomfortable staying seated for any length of time, and likely would be for days yet, and it was too late to just let it go.

"It's got to stop," he said quietly.

"What?"

"I can't do this anymore."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"This," he said, indicating the two of them. "Us. It's got to stop. Now. Today."

"Mulder, what happened while you were gone?"

"Nothing. Christ, are you so far gone you can't see a situation for what it is? Are you going to ask me if I experienced some bad touching next?"

"Did you?"

"No! Fuck. Look, this is-- this is out of hand, all right? I need some space. I need to get my bearings again."

"How much space?" Walter said dangerously.

"How should I know? Space."

"Do you want to play the field, Mulder?"

"All I'm saying is maybe you should."

He snorted. "Don't try and put this on me. This is coming out of nowhere."

"Oh, the hell it is. This has been building up ever since that night at Denny's. We were stupid to start anything, and it's stupid to continue. It's meaningless. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you shouldn't take so many risks for something that means nothing to you."

"This means nothing to you?"

Mulder shook his head. "It's regular sex," he said. "It can't be anything else." This shit is coming to me as I go along, he mused. How can it be that easy?

"By necessity."

"By necessity," he agreed. "But that doesn't change how I feel."

"It doesn't change how I feel, either. Mulder," Walter said. "Mulder." He tried to embrace the agent, but Mulder shook him off. "This is-- it's more than sex."

"How much of that is genuine, Walter? How much is just 'you and me against the world'?"

"It's not like that for me. You know it isn't."

"I have to go," he said.

"Mulder. Please." Mulder froze. He knew how much it had cost his lover to stoop even that low for him. Mulder himself would likely not have taken that step.

He looked back. For an instant, he let everything he felt seep into his features. Just an instant, before he schooled his expression into one of vague distaste. "I'm sorry, Walter," he said, shutting the door quietly as he left.