From: rosecampionslash@yahoo.com
Date: 27 Nov 2003 07:24:05 -0800
Subject: [atxc-pi] NEW: Sleep Now -PG-13- (0/1)
Source: atxc

Title: Sleep Now 
Author: Rose Campion 
Feedback Email: rosecampionslash@yahoo.com 
Author's Website: 
Archive at Gossamer: Yes to Gossamer 
Status: NEW - Standalone 
Size: 12k 
Category: Romance, Angst 
Pairings: Mulder/Doggett 
Rating: PG-13 
Gossamer Category: Vignette ~ Romance, Angst ~ Slash 

Summary: He kept reaching out in the middle of the night for someone
who wasn't there. Written for the 14th Lyric Wheel- the poetry wheel.
Two men, a houseboat and a separate peace.
 
Part 1
Please see part 0 (template) for story information.

title: Sleep Now author: Rose Campion disclaimers: John and Fox don't
belong to me, but it's not my fault if they told me they wanted to
ride off into the sunset together. As always, no profit, etc. being
made from this. rating: PG-13 summary: another tribute to JiM, who was
once so kind as to let me use the Houseboat story idea. I hope this
use again isn't an imposition. Two men, a boat and a separate peace.
This story was written for the 14th Lyric Wheel- the poetry wheel.

***

Mulder turned, unable to sleep. Insomnia had never been his particular
bugaboo, not once upon a time ago it hadn't. Much water under that
bridge since then though.He shifted on the sofa, turning his back to
the television he'd just clicked off, finding the assorted late night
yammerings now a distraction, an irritation, whereas once he'd found
them a comfort. Once, they were his lullabies, his soma. No other
sound to distract him, other than the slight brush of the waves
against the hull of his houseboat, hardly noticeable now, so familiar
they were to him.

His bed was hardly more than five feet away, so small were the
confines of this life, this place, but even though it would have been
more comfortable than the narrow length of the sofa, he made no move
to close those five feet. He had one light burning, the table lamp
closest to his sofa, but even a mere forty watts was enough to softly
illuminate his quarters from end to end, wreathing them in more shadow
than light, true, but revealing the snug, well-built spaces, the
shelves and cabinets that lined the walls, his desk and computer, the
only door in the place, the one that led to his bathroom. His domain
was no more than forty feet long, not even as wide as a single-wide
trailer house. The boat itself had been purchased for a thick wad of
bills, changed hands in a bar one night, no bill of sale, nothing to
indicate that he, or anyone else, owned it. The slip at the marina was
rented from someone who rented it from someone who rented it from the
marina. His name was on no lease, no bills. It was all as close to
anonymous and traceless as you could get these days, while still
maintaining an existence more permanent than a series of cheap hotels,
rented by the week for handfuls of cash, which was how he'd been
living until he'd lucked upon a man who had a boat and needed a pile
of folding money.

Fox Mulder was on no one's map, no one's radar and that was the way
he'd wanted it. Not so much because of any danger, but just to be left
alone to lick wounds that were years in healing, that he was beginning
to suspect might never close over. Nothing but his books and his
television and the waves of the marina lapping at the sides of the
boat. No one to know or care where he'd gone to. He'd wanted it that
way, planned it.

And yet, long, almost endless nights like this made him wonder if what
the hole in the middle of his chest was needing before it could close
over was a heart returned to that resoundingly hollow place and the
sounds of someone softly snoring in the bed, turning as if reaching
for him in the night.

Sometimes he wondered if there was someone who had that same empty
spot. Someone who was reaching for him. Someone who might have shed a
few tears when he'd disappeared.

***

Doggett turned over in his sleep and reached for someone who wasn't
there. Strange how his body was still sure, after so many years of
night time solitude, that there would be that particular someone
waiting for him to snuggle into. He'd been habituated into this during
the years of his marriage, and though the impulse had mostly
hibernated since the divorce, it'd been woken by a few, short months
of company. Three years ago to the date, tomorrow, was the last time
Mulder had slept in his bed, feeding that impulse.

Tonight, he was in a strange bed, in a strange city. He was in a hotel
room in Santa Monica, in California, a place he'd never expected to
end up. He'd been in a lot of hotel rooms in his life, this one much
like any of them, with a view of only a parking lot, an seemingly
endless sea of vehicles. Even through the curtains, squares of light
from passing traffic danced across the room, yellow against the purple
darkness. The sheets seemed bent on tangling in his feet no matter how
he pulled at them and the pillow, as usual, was something akin to a
rock. The room smelled, not bad, but strange and unfamiliar, like
cleaning supplies and cigarette smoke and strange women's perfumes.

During the long, sleepless hours of the night, he could, as much as
his rational self hated to admit it, feel Fox's loneliness pulling,
calling to him.  It had taken just one look, one brief glance after
years and he had pulled up roots, deserted everything he'd known to
follow that pull.

After the shitstorm of the century was all over and miraculously the
world all but unchanged, Doggett had gone back to his work and his
house, the one in Falls Church that had been the perfect shell for his
own loneliness once. But it had taken two years for him to admit to
himself that the shell was too empty. That he needed someone to be
there when he reached for them in the middle of the night and that it
couldn't be just anyone. That a particular someone had taken his heart
and gone into hiding with it.

The next year had been taken up by the search for Mulder. He'd
searched for the man once before, but if anything, this time it was
even more frustrating. No one seemed to care that he was gone, not
even Dana, her heart finally too broken by promises that had never
been made, much less kept.

There'd been no sign, no hint that Fox Mulder was even alive. None of
the vast resources of the Bureau brought up even a trace of him. No
activity in any of his bank accounts. His credit history just stopped,
like coming to the edge of a cliff, only a drop to the void of
financial non-existence.

Doggett's break had been purely accidental. He'd come to California on
a case and had spotted Mulder, walking into a marina that Doggett had
been staking out. Doggett wasn't proud, only a fool. He'd stalked
Mulder back to a houseboat, remained out of sight until Mulder had
boarded that boat, shut the door behind him.

A week and a half to wrap up his case, some drug thing that should
have been a peak in his career but had suddenly lost all significance.
He took a bit longer to tie up loose ends and Doggett had returned to
California, unable to stop himself. He'd been reaching out in the
night for someone who wasn't there for three years too many.

***

The morning brought blue skies and breeze off the water strong enough
to churn the water into little crested wavelets that broke against the
docks and boats. Gulls wheeled in the sky, riding the thermals, curves
of white against the pure blue. They cried plaintively, sounding
almost like screaming babies to Doggett sometimes. The air smelled
something like sea air, but also like diesel fuel.

Doggett was sitting his car, looking out over the docks, his target in
easy viewing distance. A weekday morning and the place almost seemed
deserted, no one boarding any of the sailboats, with their polished
mahogany hulls and brightly finished brass fittings, or any of the
vividly painted house barges. Mulder's barge was painted pine green, a
dark, almost baleful presence amidst the gypsies on the water.

Any minute now, he would get out of the car and explain himself to
Mulder. Four hours later, he still stared at the boats, unable to
move. Any time he imagined the words he'd say, how he would tell Fox
about still reaching for him in the middle of the night, the words
seemed like they would freeze in his throat.

Doggett was so intent on watching for Fox to emerge from the boat that
he startled to hear the door of his rental open. Mulder pulled the
door all the way open and sat in the passenger seat.

"So, how long have you been looking for me?" he asked.

***

To hear that low, rumbling voice say, "For years," somehow melted
something inside of Mulder that had been so cold and icy that he'd
hardly recognized it as himself anymore.

That voice was a little more hesitant than Mulder remembered it. The
map of forehead wrinkles a little more detailed, the topology more
pronounced. A few streaks of gray had finally started to invade the
dark brown hair. There was a certain hurt that seemed to settle in the
lines around those blue eyes that Mulder had never gotten over. This
was same man that Mulder had left, but more cautious, warier of the
world.

"How did you find me?" Mulder asked.

"Have I?" John asked. Again, hesitant, doubtful.

Something in Mulder wanted to reach out to him, to reassure him, but
there was too much water under that bridge to cross it easily. Mulder
held back for the moment. Mulder considered the question carefully
while John started talking again.

"It was just dumb luck, me seeing you. You got yourself about as
thoroughly lost as a person can get these days. I looked just about
everywhere and way you can look for someone and you didn't leave a
trace.

"You know your neighbor, the one that got busted about a month ago
with twenty pounds of china white in his boat? I was on that bust.
Caught sight of you while I was on stakeout."

"What took you so long to get back?" Mulder couldn't help asking, like
you couldn't help probing a fresh wound, to gauge the depth and extent
of the hurt.  That bust was over a month ago. Doggett must have had a
lot of hard thinking he'd had to do before he was willing to contact
Mulder. And Mulder somehow couldn't help but feel a twinge of...loss,
of something, that Doggett hadn't dropped what he'd been doing and
talked to him right then, that instant.

"I thought about it a while," John said, thoughtfully. "I figured
maybe a man who loses himself as much as you did doesn't want to be
found. I figured maybe the only thing to do was lose myself too. It
takes a while, you know, to lose yourself. Sell a house. Quit a job.
Hide the money. Drop out of sight."

"You found me," Mulder said, the words coming unbidden from his mouth.
"You'd better come in."

***

Doggett shut the car up and followed Mulder up to the dock and across
the gangplank to the houseboat. The deck of the boat was about level
with the dock and the plank was just a broad piece of plyboard that
bent slightly under his weight.

The house part of the boat was just a blocky structure on top of the
broad, flat barge, like a small cabin, sided with painted cedar.
Mulder opened a door set with a stained glass panel and motioned
Doggett inside.

The inside of the almost claustrophobically small cabin was naturally
finished cedar, panelled where it wasn't shelf after shelf of books.
One of the narrow walls was taken up with something like a kitchen, a
small stove, a half sized refrigerator, a single bowl sink. The nearby
table was covered with computer equipment, papers. It was a contained,
peaceful, quiet place, fit for a man who'd determined that he would
live a life apart from all he'd once known and loved.

Bright sunlight streamed in from the east. Despite his wait, it was
still morning. It seemed impossible that it should be still morning.
Night should have come and come again, so long Doggett had sat in that
car, trying to decided what it was he would say at this moment.

"Do you want to know why I went into hiding?" Mulder asked.

"You've got your reasons and I don't need to know them. Only thing I
really need to know is if you want me to be lost with you," Doggett
said. "If not, I guess I'll get myself lost someplace else."

Mulder grinned, broadly, making him seem younger, his worn face not so
writ with care. "I've been waiting for you for years," he said. "Don't
you dare go."

"I won't," Doggett said, fervently promising it. "I'll stay for as
long as you'll have me. For all my years."

***

Later that night, wakeful for reasons he didn't understand, but didn't
question, Mulder sat on his sofa, staring out the small window to the
bay. The moon was full and the water mostly still. The moon reflected
a nearly straight path on the water, like a causeway to heaven, a
golden paved, living, moving highway. The leather couch was cold under
his bare skin, his body pleasantly sore in a way he was just starting
to remember, an easy price to pay for the ecstasy received earlier
that night. The boat smelled unfamiliar yet familiar with the scent of
musk, of sex. All was quiet except for John's soft breathing, even and
deep, and the sudden, unexpected cry of a sea bird, one of the gulls
restless.

John stirred in the bed, capturing Mulder's attention. John had been
sleeping on his back, but he turned over onto his stomach and reached
out as if feeling for someone. John felt the empty bed for a moment.

Mulder left his perch on his sofa and crawled back onto the platform
bed. He curled up on his side next to John and that strong, heavy arm
was first draped across him, then pulled him close, so that Mulder was
fitted into John's muscled body, feeling its warmth, the sheer
rightness of its solidity. John shifted again and Mulder followed, the
pair of them moving as one.  John turned over again onto his back,
spreading his arm, allowing Mulder to nestle into the crook of John's
armpit. John's chest was a firm pillow, the masculine scent of him
sheer pleasure to sniff in.

"You know," Mulder said softly and solemnly, the tone one took when
talking of deep truths in the quiet hours of the night. "I don't think
I ever really was alone. It was as if the potential of you was always
there, waiting for me. No matter how far away from you I was, you were
always there."

"Shhh," John said, pulling Mulder closer, burrowing his nose into
Mulder's hair. "Sleep now."

***

Poem provided by the very kind Pollyanna. I have to admit that I had a
hard time getting my brain around this poem and coming up with an
idea. Until I went on vacation in Amsterdam and stayed in a houseboat
on one of the canals. Then I knew it had to be a houseboat story.

All You Who Sleep Tonight

by Vikram Seth ( 1950 - )

All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left
or right And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone The whole world shares your tears, Some for
two nights or one, And some for all their years.



### The End ###