tell me are you a christian, child
wreck your life
for myr
Three months later and Mulder has decided that there are more important things in the world. Which is true, but still hardly fair.
You’re watching him pour orange juice and say all this with a straight face, like, “Listen, man, we need to get some sleep. You need to get some air. It’s not just a cry for help anymore.”
You nod along, tapping on the table with your thumb. Blinking darkly like you can drag him back in again and make him forget. He leans against the counter and you can’t get over the cock of his hip, the casual tilt of his shoulders and his fingers curled around the glass.
“I’m tired of watching my back,” Mulder says, looking the same as every morning in his pajama pants and tank top. You’re confused for a moment, thinking about federal agents and search warrants, the windows busted in and the SWAT team guys swinging through. But you know that outside of your kitchen here in the hills and the ballpark down by the highway, nobody really cares about this.
You’ve talked Mulder out of ending it probably a half a dozen times over the past three months. He goes through cycles and you ride them as you’d like to ride him, easy and accommodating. Mulder plays skittish and sullen and eventually you just push him up against the wall.
He seems to enjoy that.
Anyway, Mulder’s drinking orange juice and you’re already planning on licking that taste out of his mouth within the next few minutes. His pajama pants are blue-striped and loosely tied with a drawstring; they’ll drop like they were never even there.
So how’s your life?
You’ve been taking vital signs for half the season, expecting to have no pulse, nothing pushing at the insides of your wrists or in the long ditch of your throat. You’ve given up on everything, but your heart still beats, a kind of cruel joke like salt in your coffee. You wake up in the morning expecting something to have changed, like Mulder will be there or he will smile at you when you come into the kitchen rubbing your eyes and yawning, but he’s not like that.
And neither are you, really.
Pale fucking imitation of the man you once were, and you go through the motions, you play and you hit and you take your walks and you let Mulder fuck you pretty much every night like it’s something that can be beaten out of you, like turning it into sound and sweat will make it go away.
It takes you hours to catch your breath.
Mulder is trying to end it. But you know him better than he thinks you do. You’ve been paying attention.
When he falls silent, you ask, “Is that it?”
His eyes narrow slightly, his knuckles standing up as he tightens his grip. “I’m serious, man.”
You get to your feet. “I never said you weren’t.” You walk over to him, take the glass out of his hand and put your fist there instead, preserving the curve of his fingers.
You knew what you were getting into. You agreed to all of this.
Mulder is watching you suspiciously, tension strung through his body. You are obsessed with his body, so, okay.
“It’s not a cry for help, Mulder,” you tell him. “Nobody can hear me.”
You slide your free hand under his tank top, fingering the top of his pants. You wiggle your thumb into the loop of the drawstring, the backs of your fingers resting on the fabric indentations that the waistband left in his skin. Tight cutted skin and Mulder’s eyes are glazed over, just a little bit, like when he takes antihistamines for his allergies.
You’ve learned some things from him over the past three months, enough that you might pass for him in an unlit alley. You’re the rip-off version. You don’t think about things so much anymore. Thinking about it got too hard.
“So why don’t you just settle the fuck down,” you whisper, and angle up to kiss him. He lets you, his mouth moving carefully under yours, but his hand is on your arm and he holds you back from slipping your hand farther into his pajamas.
“You’re not listening,” Mulder says, his face close enough to yours that you can spot gray in his eyes, and you wonder if that’s age, if he’s fading even as you watch.
“You’re not saying anything I haven’t heard before,” you answer.
He sneers. You can smell the orange juice on his breath. “There’s other stuff that matters now.”
You lean against him, sighing. He’s as hard as the counter behind him, chips of tile in his hands. He takes your weight like it’s nothing.
Mulder has broken you up and the pieces are his now, so you can’t let him go. Self-preservation has never been your strong suit, but you can reason circularly, he’s got me and I’ve got him and so I’m whole. It’s like algebra. But you don’t really have him. You’re not even allowed to spend the night in the same bed as him, because it’s not good for him to have to see you first thing in the morning, dirty-haired and fucked-out and fingerprinted.
You just let him do whatever he needs to do, until he tries to leave. Then you use your mouth and your hands until he decides, well, one more day can’t hurt.
Of course, every day hurts.
“You always got really good reasons,” you say, resting your head on his shoulder. “Doesn’t change anything.”
He lets you use him as a wall, and it’s okay because his hands are closed on the lip of the counter and he’s not touching you. He just happens to be here, it’s all a fucking coincidence.
“Trying to do you a favor,” Mulder tells you hoarsely. You laugh.
“God save me from your favors, man.” You breathe him in, the neat contrast between the soft of the tank top and the warmth of his shoulder.
“If I want to walk away-” Mulder starts, but you cut him off.
“Walk away. I dare you. Call your father, call a hotel. Get the fuck out of my house and never look at me again. You think you can?”
You look up and Mulder’s staring at you in shock. You show your teeth, feeling decayed.
“It’s. It’s my house,” Mulder says eventually, and his chest sinks as he lets out a breath. He places his hands on your hips, tugging you closer against him. You smile and he licks his lips, weirdly nervous. It’s at least the seventh time you’ve talked him out of leaving.
You’ll do it a million times more. You’ll scream at him when he’s drunk and hold him down when he’s injured and on unremarkable mornings like today you’ll let him jackknife you over the kitchen table, his hand fisted in your shirt and pressed to the middle of your back. You’ll talk sweet to him and talk dirty and beg, you’ll get down on your knees. You’ll do what it takes, because there was a reason you said yes in the first place.
And someday, not too far off, some winter day in Arizona, he’ll pack your bags for you while you’re asleep and leave them on the front porch, lead you down the hall stumbling and only half-conscious. He’ll kiss you goodbye and close the door behind you, the muffled click of the lock, and you’ll stand there barefoot and confused, shredded by the sun, and it’ll be over then, just like that, without a fight.
You never deserved a fight, anyway.