Title: "One of these dark and moonless nights..." Author: JiM Pairing: M/Sk Feedback: jimpage363@aol.com Website: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/JiM.html (Thanks Mona!) Summary: Another conversation in the dark for our heroes. Note: This is what happens after JiM stays up until 2 am listening to Kelly Joe Phelps Delta blues guitar playing, "Katy" and the line that became the title keeps swirling in the head... and then I said, "I'll just write that down as a title...I'll just write the first paragraph....I'll just write page four..." *sigh* * * * "One of these dark and moonless nights..." by JiM I am lying on my office couch in the dark again, just staring at the bars of light on the wall and wondering why the hell I'm still alive. Any way you look at the odds, as a gambler, as mathematician, as anyone with an ounce of common sense, there is no good reason for me to still be here. But here I am, chronically fucked up and so dirty that nothing will ever wash me clean. I can disappear in the darkness now, from all the things I have done and thought and become. Despair is just one more ugly thing I have to get used to. There is suddenly someone else in the darkness, blocking out my consideration of the bars of light that shine in from the street. "Hey." "Mulder, what are you doing here?" "Haven't we played this scene before?" "And, as I recall, it wound up with me dying, so let's try something different this time." "Like that was *my* fault?" His voice is quieter than I have heard it in the past few months. Microphones and feedback had harshened its smooth tones. "Are you really here?" I am not even sure if I speak my question aloud. But it is not as insane as it sounds. I have had many conversations with Mulder, lying on this couch and watching the shadows move up my walls. He has never been here for any of them. "I'm here," he says quietly. "Why?" "Not here." "The office isn't bugged any more, Mulder. No videos, no audio, nothing. Say whatever you want, it's just me and the roaches." "Not here," he says firmly. "Get up." Like a half-trained dog I snarl, but I am sitting up. "What do you want from me?" "You still haven't figured it out, have you?" He is shaking his head, the reflected streetlights making his face a strobing harlequin's mask. "Get up." "You could try 'please' or 'sir'. Some common courtesy," I explain, shoving my feet back into my shoes. "We're pretty far past common courtesy, Skinner." He is right and something in me twists at that. How would it have been between us, if the first words we had exchanged had been meaningless pleasantries just designed to make a connection with another human being? Instead, all our words had been useful stock phrases that covered a multitude of sins and intentions. "Can we pretend?" I say suddenly and wince at the brittle sound of my own words, cracking in the dimness. I wonder if they will leave ashy streaks on the crisp white shirt he is wearing. A slight shift and I can see a slice of pale grin. "Sure, Walt. Would you like to come home with me?" The darkness shifts suddenly, rattles and shivers, waiting for me to answer. "OK, that's different." "You probably won't even end up dead this time." Unbelievably, his voice is low and coaxing. He actually wants this. How unexpected. I stand up and grope around for my suit jacket, slung across the end of the sofa. "That is one of the strangest things you've ever said to me." This time, I can hear the grin even though I cannot see it. "I have a lot more strange things to say to you, Walt. Come home with me and I'll tell you all of them." "Do you ever shut up?" "I don't talk with my mouth full," he says, so pleasantly that I am half-way into my jacket before I catch on. "Mulder, if this is a sting operation, just shoot me now and save us all a whole lot of bother. Hell, I'll make it easy on you. I'll shoot myself." A hand comes out of the dark and grips my left wrist. "Anyone ever tell you you've got self-esteem issues?" "Anyone ever tell you that making passes at your boss suggests that you've got self-destructive impulses?" He tugs on my captive wrist and I follow him blindly. "You know, maybe we shouldn't talk at all. These conversations seem to run off-course pretty quickly." "You had a plan for how this one would go?" He leads me through the darkened outer office. There are lights on in the corridor and we head for the brightness. "I was hoping for more honest enthusiasm, frankly." I give a laugh and Mulder stops. All right, in retrospect, the sound is more of a choking stutter. His fingers still cuff my wrist and he draws us closer together. He shakes my arm gently and I know what he asking. "Honesty? You came to *me* for honesty?" Despair is an ugly thing, but a wise man knows his companions. "No wonder they thought you were crazy." In the light that spills from the corridor, I see Mulder's mouth move into a very slight smile. "Not crazy. Just lowered expectations." Mulder hit me once before and it knocked the glasses from my face, leaving me half-blind with pain and fuzzy vision. This is worse. He is serious. Trust Mulder to find the last unbruised place I had. "Scraping the bottom, are you, Mulder?" My voice is deep and raw even to my own ears. His hand leaves my wrist cold and then both hands are on my shoulders, shoving me back against the wall. My head bounces once on the plasterboard. "Is this where you get all teary and confess your deep unworthiness and all your sins? Because we can skip that part; I was at the hearings, I remember every word of your testimony." "Fuck you, Mulder." "Hey, the conversation's back on track." I can't help myself anymore, maybe I never could. I start to laugh. Rusty, choking noises that twist his lips, too. "You're gonna win this one, too, aren't you, Mulder?" He nods and I can suddenly see his eyes in the dimness. They are deeper and darker than anything else I have looked into tonight. His hand slides back down my arm to take my hand. Another tug and he is leading me again and we head toward the lighted corridor. * * * Feedback cheerfully appreciated at: jimpage363@aol.com