From: the Basement archive <feedback@populli.net>
Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 17:40:56 GMT
Subject: NEW: Twenty-one Day Plan, The (00/18)
Source: atxc

Title: Twenty-one Day Plan, The
Author: Rose Campion
Feedback Email: rosecampion@earthlink.net
Author's Website:
Archive at Gossamer: Yes to Gossamer
Category: Romance, Relationship
Pairings: Mulder/Doggett Skinner/Scully (some)
Rating: NC-17
Gossamer Category: Story
Gossamer Sub-category: Romance
Gossamer Keywords: Slash
Summary: Life has settled down into a boring domesticity for Doggett
and Mulder. Doggett has a plan to spice up their sex life.
Complications ensue. They get far more excitement than they bargained
for.
 
Part 1
Please see part 0 (template) for warnings and summary.


The Twenty-one Day Plan

warning: May be intensely schmoopy. Also, a little bit of angst and
even a tiny  bit of DoggettTorture. Mostly unadulterated schmoop
though. archive: Just let me know where. spoilers: "The Truth" a
little, not much else rating: NC-17. It was originally intended to be
nothing but a total PWP smut fest but all this story kept happening.
Don't worry. There is plenty of hot monkey sex anyway. 
disclaimer: You know the drill...don't belong to me...don't make a
dime...yes, sir, thank you, may i have another.... apologies, thanks,
kudos, etc.:  Special  thanks to Bertina for her awesomely fast beta
job. Thanks to the lovely folks of the Fox and Hound list for their
encouragement and suggestions, especially Jo, Diandra and Bertina.
Apologies to those of you who may have already read this as it was
serialized day by day on the Fox and Hound mailing list.

Day One-

The real mystery of my relationship with Fox Mulder is not how it
happened in the first place, but how we managed to survive the 
shitstorm of the century, of all human existence even, and still end
up growing old together. I had thought for sure that it'd be the last
I'd ever see of him when he drove off into the desert with Scully.
Thought I'd lost him to Scully at the very least and to a whole other
world of pain most likely, after the revelations and that mockery
that called itself a trial and everything. But just like that
proverbial  bad penny, he came back. 

I still don't believe half of that alien BS and I lived through it. 
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I don't want to believe
it. Regardless, we fought. We found weaknesses. We won. And
eventually, life slipped back into something approaching normal or as
close to normal as any life with Fox Mulder could be.

Only he didn't go by Fox Mulder anymore. Fox William Mulder, despite 
everything, was still a wanted man with a murder conviction and an
impending sentence of death by lethal injection. Nobody was looking 
too hard for Fox Mulder; still, it wouldn't do for him to use
the name publicly. So I found myself living with one Martin 
David Fox. Marty. I hate the name Marty. I call him Martin in 
public and Fox when we're at home. 

Yeah, we share a home, have for years. We were turning into a  regular
pair of old farts. We share a house, actually my old house in Falls
Church. We pay bills together, by which I mean we actually pay them
together, sitting down together every Sunday afternoon and writing out
the checks and licking the envelopes. Our big weekly date, Fox calls
it, the smart ass. We cook dinner, by  which I mean, I cooked dinner
and assigned Fox various tasks like chopping carrots. Fox is an
indifferent cook and just as happy to heat up a can of soup
and call it dinner. We mow the lawn. We wash the cars. We do laundry
and run suits to the dry cleaners. We shop for groceries, by which I
mean once a week I  drag Fox to the store and pump him for input on
what to put in the cart so that  during the middle of the week I don't
have to listen to him bitch about how there's never anything decent to
eat in the house. I clean up piles of sunflower seed shells from
living room end tables and dump them on the desk in his office. He
bitches when I insist on watching NASCAR. Like I said, a regular 
pair of old farts. As close to married as the law lets us be.

Fox writes. You've probably seen some of his books, written under a
pseudonym of course, in the airport bookstore. You've almost certainly
seen the movie they made out of one of them. As for the TV show that
spawned off the movie, well, Fox disavowed any association with that,
besides cashing the checks, long  ago. You might have seen some of his
other books, written under a different pseudonym, if you wandered to a
section of the bookstore called "Speculation." There next to other
similarly unbelievable books, his books that tell the true, 
full story of the X-files sit. You've probably laughed at them,
disbelieved that the government could pull off such a successful,
dangerous coverup. If I didn't know better, I'd agree with you. I
mean, these are the same guys that gave us first Amtrak then the
doomed National Rail Corporation that replaced it. Regardless, the man
suffers from the worst case of logorrhea I've ever seen 
and just keeps churning the suckers out. And the public keeps buying
them and whining until the next one comes out.

His success took a lot of adjustment for me, a lot of early head 
butting because I was a dick about the fact that my lover could 
afford to buy and sell me ten times over. We got over it and
eventually I relaxed about the fact that I could just lie back and get
rich off Fox spinning the same kind of bullshit that made him the
mockery of the Bureau and got him thrown out of bars back when. 

I didn't have to work, but like all the good workaholics that made
up the Doggett family tree, I couldn't imagine retiring when there
was still some fight left in me. By that point, I couldn't go back
to law enforcement. I'd been on the wrong side of the badge for too
long. So I dusted off my graduate degrees, particularly my law
degree, and went out and got a job. 

You probably recognize the environmental organization I work for.
We're a household name, pretty much, and came to prominence with our
whistleblowing before the big Globalcomm ecotastrophe and our response
after it happened. I'm in house legal counsel. When I'm not busy
seeking injunctions against various corporations to stop building
factories in various wetlands or dumping toxic wastes in the desert, 
a lot of my professional responsibilities include bailing our
activists  out of jail after they've been arrested for capping some 
polluter's  pipes or the like. My co-workers specialize in direct
action protests.  I specialize in pulling their asses out of the fire.
More and more  difficult these days when some of the prosecutors are
finding ways to charge them under the old Homeland Security acts.
Thought those particular pieces of legislation were dead, toothless
and no threat to your civil liberties? 

Hold it. When did John Jay Doggett become a tree hugging hippie? 

I didn't. Rather, in my geezerdom, I found myself falling into a 
conservativeness so profound that I had far more in common with the
radical leftists at work than I did with any middle of the road,
what's good for business is good for the country, religious right 
moral majority Republican assholes.  I got pissed off about the big
corporations feeding at the public trough and using public monies
to clean up the messes they left behind. I still fought the bad guys,
just like I always had. It was a different set of them now, and I
used a different set of tactics. It's not so unconceivable I ended
up working with these people. You see, a huge part of the conspiracy
never was just the government, but also huge corporations. And 
wouldn't you know it, but that the preparations for an alien invasion
tend to spew huge amounts of lethal chemicals and do things like
poison water tables and kill off local wildlife. Seems logical. I
ran into my future co-workers when they were trying to put some
healthy pressure on a corporation called Roush Industrials. I was
looking to do the same thing for different reasons. You know, the
whole enemy of my enemy is my friend thing worked out pretty well in
this case. I plugged my first waste pipe that morning. Our new allies
helped with the fight, even thought they never knew the full truth
of what we were fighting. But when it was all over and they asked me 
if I wanted to work for them, the answer was logical. I don't plug 
pipes anymore, at least not in any official capacity. Of course, a 
man's hobbies are his own business, at least as long as he can avoid 
getting caught at them. 

The pay sucks, but surprisingly, not much worse than a civil servant's
pay. And they never even blinked about the fact that the other name 
on my family health insurance is "Martin" not Martina.

Like I said, things are pretty normal in the Fox/Doggett household. 
Complacent even. We're an old, comfortable married couple. We have a 
couple of cats even. And, God help us, a crockpot and one of those 
drawers in the kitchen that's filled with the kind of junk that isn't
remotely useful but that just seems to accumulate in any settled 
household. Pieces of string too short to use and the like.

All that's missing is the kind of warp-core, burning hot, mind-blowing
sex that was what brought us together in the first place. 

I'd heard some of my lesbian pals joke about the dreaded "lesbian
bed death" syndrome, but I'd never dreamed it would happen to me. Not
the lesbian part. The bed death.

Oh, once or twice a month, when I could drag Fox out of his study or
when I relaxed about getting the lawn mowed or came home from work
on a day where I wasn't out in Chesapeake or Portland, Oregon,
bailing out a co-worker, we had something like sex. We traded
perfunctory blowjobs maybe, or just jerked each other off. Actual
intercourse was limited to the brief vacations we could steal away
from my work and his. It seemed like far too much work most of the
time.

Take this morning. I'd woken a little early, with a mind to some
early morning lovin'. Unfortunately, I'd also woken alone. I'd gone to
bed  with Fox, but he must have woken in the night with a story idea
and  gone to work. He does that a lot. Still marginally hopeful, I
left our bed and went out into the hall. The door to his office was
shut. Worse yet, draped over the doorknob was one of his old ties. It
meant, do not, under any circumstances, even if the house is on fire,
disturb me. I sighed, took myself back to the bedroom and got ready to
go to the gym. 

At about one in the afternoon, I dragged myself away from a series of
futile phone calls with various prosecutors around the country and
brought out the lunch I'd packed that morning.  I could have
eaten out, but it was much more fun to torment my co-workers. Sure,
I have lots in common with these people, but I still get tired as
hell of some of their damn fool ideas. 

The new intern was in the break room already when I walked in. Luna,
I think she called herself. I think her real name was something bland
like Ashley or Taylor. She was twenty, had purple hair and was damn
impressed with herself that she was working to Save The Planet. She
was a Vegan. She blanched a little when I brought out my sandwich
and it became obvious what was between the slices of mushy white
bread and slathered with real mayonnaise. 

"Ohmigod!" she flustered when I took a bite. "Is that red meat?"

I finished chewing and swallowed, then I grinned and said, "Yeah.
Shot it myself. Want some?" 

I pushed the other half of the sandwich at her, knowing she wouldn't
take it. "Ohmigod! You're not kidding, are you?" she asked. "You shot
that, whatever it is you're eating. You killed it?"

Like I said. I work with a bunch of Bambi-lovers. I guess I'm one too,
in my own kind of way. Marinated overnight and on the grill is one
good way. I'm not foolish enough to eat beef these days, what with the
prevalence of mad cow. But  a hunting week in Pennsylvania in the fall
is usually all it takes to stock our  freezer full of nice,  corn-fed
venison. They're vermin up there, a menace to the farmers.

At that moment, a gaggle of women from public relations came in and
assessed the situation. Just about every office I've ever worked in
has a gaggle like this. They might have been wearing broomstick
pleated skirts and birkenstocks, rather than suits and heels, but 
they were much the same. They still spent lunch hour gossiping and
bitching about their husband and kids. 

"Be nice to the new kid, John," Jeanine said, looking at the 
terrorized intern, face nearly green to match her blue hair.
Jeanine knows all my tricks. I shrugged and took another bite of my
sandwich and got back to reading the second draft of Fox's latest
thousand page brick of crappola like I promised him I would. Sea 
monsters that plant sea monster babies in your throat so you die of
anaphylactic shock. Hallucinogens in the water. A sea side town in
terror during a hurricane. Who'd believe this crap? Amusing crap
sure, but definitely junkfood of the mind. "My lover stays away from
my bed to write this?" I thought to myself, still I couldn't help
smiling as I recognized snippets stolen right from the X-files. When I
looked up again, the intern seemed to have lost interest in her sprout
and raw food lunch and left. The women who came in later had taken up
the  other half of the table and were talking among themselves in
that certain kind of womentalk that meant they'd forgotten I was
there. Sometimes I was irritated by the fact that just because I'd set
up housekeeping with someone who had balls and a dick instead of
boobs that I was therefore somehow not quite a 'real' man in their
eyes. Therefore, not excluded from their womentalk. On the other hand,
it  always provided some interesting revelations on how the other half
of  humanity lived. If I'd heard half of what I hear now back when I
was married, I probably never would have gotten divorced.

"So, Lakeisha, you know Lakeisha over in accounting, was reading this
great new book. I guess they say that one point seven times per week
is average for married couples for. Well, you know. And she and her
husband were like way below average," this was Jeanine speaking.

"I'll bet she wasn't happy about that," chirped in another one of
the women then laughed.

"So you know, she said she was going to do something about it. She
found this great book. I guess the idea is that in order to 
reinforce any new habit, you have to do it constantly for twenty
one days. Then it just becomes second nature. The book is called
"The Twenty-One Day Plan." I guess it's all about how to get your
non-existent sex life back on track. The main idea is that you have
sex twenty one times in twenty one days. She never told me whether
she put the plan into action or not."

Another woman piped in, "You know, I thought she was looking happier
than she usually does. I'll bet somebody is getting some."

"No, I know for sure someone is getting some."

Then they all laughed.

I decided I just might have to stop at the bookstore on the way
home tonight. Not that I usually fall for that kind of self help
BS, but I was getting desperate. Just then, Laura, the temp currently
replacing my assistant, poked her head in the door of the break room.
"Hey, John, Jilly is on the phone. She's under arrest again."

Jilly is our chief muckracker, one time industrial chemist, current
pain in my ass. I sighed and said, "Where is it this time?"

"Not far at least. Delaware."

"Son of a bitch! Am I going crazy? Did I or did I not expressly 
tell her not to mess with Dow again?"

"You did. Does Jilly ever listen?"

"She could have at least warned us. Has anyone talked to the press
yet?"

And so it began. Here I'd been thinking of calling it a day early 
and it was past eight by the time I was pulling into the
driveway. No time to stop at the bookstore afterall, but I did 
have time to stop at the drug store. I was desperate. As an 
example of how bad it'd gotten, we'd used the last condom 
something like three months ago and neither of us had bothered to
restock. Until now.

The house was quiet and dark. Dale and Sophie, the cats, hopped up
on the counter as I turned on the kitchen lights. I shooed them off
and discovered that Fox hadn't fed them. With lithe, furry bodies
weaving in and around my ankles, I poured kibble into their bowls
on the floor. Once they'd achieved their goal, I was, of course,
roundly ignored. I went upstairs in search of Fox. He might be
asleep or he might still be in front of the computer, with the light
of the screen his only illumination. The house bore no sign that he'd
been downstairs at all today. 

He was in our bed, sleeping off a big writing binge. I stood in the 
doorway for a minute, looking tenderly at his sleep-tousled hair and 
the way the sheets tangled around his ankles. He was curled up on one
side, left hand tucked under his pillow, right hand reaching out to 
the side of the bed that I slept in. He was serene, almost angelic in
his sleep. And damn gorgeous. Middle age spread had finally caught up
with him a bit, but I didn't care. He was still my Fox and that little
pot belly was kind of cute. I stood a long time, looking at him, 
remembering why exactly I'd fallen in love with him and why I was 
still here even though it had been months since I'd had satisfactory 
sex with him.

When I could stand these sappy wellings of love no longer, I bounced
onto the bed and started to wake him with kisses. He opened his eyes
blearily and after a minute of sleepily returning my kisses, tore his
mouth from mine and asked, "Timzzit?"

"Bout eight thirty. C'mon, get up. I'm taking you out for dinner."

That woke Fox up completely. In the darkened room, he blinked at me,
then said, "What's up? Did I completely miss something important?
Birthday? Anniversary? You've finally decided to dump me? Your 
mother's moving in?"

"None of the above. Just get up and get dressed."

Half an hour later, I was out of the monkey suit and noose and both
of us had pulled on jeans. My favorite red and white flannel shirt
for me, a black sweater for Fox. We settled into a booth in the first
family style restaurant we'd come to that was open. We rarely went
out. I liked cooking. I liked my normal life, make no mistake about
that. I liked domesticity. It had to be possible to have both that
and the kind of earth shattering sex that we'd had at both the
beginning and in the most dangerous, harrowing days of the battle
for the earth. I refused to believe I had to trade in soul-rending,
transformative lovemaking in order to get the stability that I 
craved. 

Fox slouched down in the booth and propped his feet up on the bench
I was sitting on, one on each side of my legs, feet touching my
thighs. "So, what's up?" he asked. "You never take me out unless
it's for a good reason."

"We gotta talk," I said hesitantly. You'd think I'd be just as 
facile with words as Fox. I was a lawyer, for God's sake. I could
argue a paranoid judge into accepting that dumping fifty gallon drums
of a corporation's toxic wastes back onto the lawn of one of their
corporate parks was just an extension of protected free speech and 
not domestic terrorism after all. Never-the-less, I could get nervous
talking to Fox. He could talk rings around me; lead me here or there 
at will with just his words. He was a master at baffling people with 
bullshit. That's part of the reason I always took him out when I had 
these important conversations with him. Not because I particularly 
relished having our most private moments where any waitress could hear
them, but because he tended to rein himself in a little in public. Our
booth was fairly removed from the handful of other diners in the 
place, but it was still public enough.

"So talk."

"I'm not happy," I said. I decided my best tactic was to make this
as straightforward as possible. Fox sat up, bolt upright in his seat,
his feet dropping to the floor. I felt cold as their warmth left
the sides of my thighs. I wanted to protest, but instead I continued,
"About sex mostly. I didn't throw my sexual identity out the window
and agree to being called faggot to my face all the time just to be 
your roommate. You can't tell me you're happy about the situation 
either. We haven't had sex since May third and before that, the last 
time was sometime in March."

"Well, no. I can't say that I am. But you're gone so often and
we're so busy. It just seems like we never have enough time for it."

"Seems like we have plenty of time to sit on our asses and watch 
television. Or to mow the lawn. Or make dinner. Or clean house. We 
should have plenty of time for sex."

"Then when would the lawn get mowed? Or the house cleaned? You're
always such a hardass about getting that done."

"Fox, I make a good living. And you've had two books on the best
seller list for three months now. I think maybe we can afford to
hire someone to mow the damn lawn. Look, I think maybe our problem
is we've gotten out of the habit. It's not part of the routine
anymore. After a while without, a person just kind of forgets what
they're missing out on. I've been thinking about it a lot recently."

"You sound like you have a plan." Fox fiddled with his water glass,
shifting it  from hand to hand. It slid across the laminate table top
smoothly in a small puddle of water. I've lived with him long enough
to know the fidgeting meant he  was nervous. Maybe afraid that I was
going to dump him. He still fretted about that occassionally. I just
ignored his fretting and loved him. 

"If we can get out of the habit of something, we can get into it
again. Just takes some effort on our part. I don't think it's a
physical problem for either of us," There, though I didn't have
the courage to mention the big I by name, it was out in the open. 
Impotence could very well be a problem with men of our age. Some of
the plumbing sometimes broke down over the years, simple fact of life.
"If it is, we'll deal with it. But it seems to me that when we
actually get around to having sex, everything functions just fine."

"No, no problems here," Mulder said. "So, what's your plan to get us
back on track?"

"Well, you know they say that it takes twenty-one days of repetition
to reinforce a positive habit."

"That's never been proven. That's just the equivalent of an old
wive's tale," Mulder said. Of course the psychologist would say that.
"No significant studies have proven that."

"Well, call it a metaphor then. Any regular repetition of an action 
builds a routine eventually and in this case, the positive 
reinforcement is built right into the exercise. Twenty-one days, 
twenty, thirty, forty. Whatever it takes."

(Continued in part 2)
 
Part 2
See part 0 for header information.


"So, let me get this straight. You're proposing we have sex twenty-
one days in a row? It'll never work. You're gone too frequently for
that, usually without warning. You have no idea how much I hate it
to be thinking about you all day, hardly able to wait for you to get
home, then you call me and tell me you're flying out to Scottsdale
or some godforsaken corner of the country like that."

"I'm usually none too thrilled about it myself, buddyboy. You could
always try and talk your pal Jilly into behaving a little more 
sensibly. Then I might not have to fly to Scottsdale or Boise on no 
notice." I decided to take the opportunity to put my feet up on the
booth just like he had, one on each side of his thighs. I slipped
my shoes off first though, so I could rub his legs with my feet.

Fox and Jilly got on like houses on fire. She was just like Fox was
back when he was younger and still on a quest to save the world. And 
I thought I more than understood what Walt must have felt like,
trying to keep Fox from killing himself without reining him in so much
he couldn't do his life's work. Poor Walt. He'd definitely earned
his retirement, that was for sure. Last I heard, he was in the south
pacific, getting a tan, and hopefully, laid a lot.

"Right. Sex more often. I think that might just about fit on my
agenda," Fox said, and gave me one of his grins. I could have just
melted right about there, grabbed his hand and pulled him out of
the booth and back home, except the damn waitress decided after 
ignoring us for the past fifteen minutes that now was the perfect
time to come take our order.

I chose eggs and bacon. Eggs were generally safe, since they'd gotten
the great salmonella epidemic under control and bacon, besides that
being fried to a crisp generally killed all the bacterial critters,
they hadn't found prions in pork yet. Fox ordered a burger and when
I gave him a look he said, "When I'm dying of mad cow, you can tell
me you said I told you so."

I raised an eyebrow at that, something I'd  managed to pick
up from Dana. Fox said, "You've been working with those 
environmentalists too long. You're starting to see everything in
terms of the poisons it could have picked up. What can I get? Tuna
melt? No, mercury and other heavy metals. Turkey burger? No, that 
wild strain of e coli is still a danger."

"Vegetables are generally a safe bet," I counseled, "Depending on
where they're grown. Eggs. Cheese is usually okay." 

I guess I could see Fox's point. I knew way too much about toxic
seepage into farmlands, compromised water supplies, and general 
hazards to health and safety posed by the various chemicals we humans
were releasing into the environment. Did you know that they've found
Prozac and other drugs in the water supply? 

The waitress was staring at us by now, crossly. "If you two, uh, 
gentlemen are done discussing the nonexistent safety of our food
supply, can I finish taking your order?" she asked petulantly. I
could definitely see that someone was going to be getting a bare
minimum tip tonight.

"I'll have the blueberry waffle," Fox decided. I ran a stockinged
foot along his thigh in anticipation of the waitress leaving us
alone.

"Hey, you know, I thought I recognized you. I saw you on the news 
earlier today. You're the spokesperson for..."

"Yes. But I'm at dinner now. Not work. We don't need anything else,
thanks."

Definitely a bare minimum tip for her tonight. Ironically, Fox,
despite being far more successful, could walk down the street more
or less anonymously. On the other hand, I was on the news a couple
of times a month. My coworkers liked having me in front of the cameras
for the same reason they like having me as their lawyer. I put on the
monkey suit and I reek respectability. It's easy to dismiss an
environmentalist when they're in long hair and Birkenstocks, but
when you put someone so obviously part of the status quo in front of
people, they start wondering maybe this whole thing might be serious.

Finally the waitress got the hint and left us alone. I moved my left
foot from the outside of Fox's thigh to the inside, rubbing slowly
and even more slowly moving up to the joining of his thighs. He
grinned at me again, and said, "So, we try and have sex everyday for
twenty-one days in a row?"

"I was thinking that with my travel schedule, that's not really 
possible. I figure we should aim for twenty-one times in twenty
one days. You know, double up some days to make up for when I'm not
here."

"Does phone sex count?" he asked. I slid my foot further up the 
inside of his thigh, just brushing his cock lightly with a toe for
just a minute. He was starting to get hard. I moved my foot down
again, planning to tease him for a long time.

Phone sex. It had been years since we had phone sex. Our phone calls
from my lonely hotel room at night had degenerated into perfunctory
wishes that I was back home and summaries of our respective days. I
missed the sultry sound of his voice as he was coaxing me into a
fantasy. The way his voice would get low and raspy as he was touching
himself, getting closer and closer to coming. The whole sordid
urgency of the way it had used to be, that we were so hot for each
other, so much in lust that we couldn't wait a single day for it. I
swallowed. I was getting hard just from the memory of it.

"I think maybe any kind of contact that involves both of us coming
should count. But I, uh," Fox had chosen this moment to slip his
foot up into my crotch and he teased me with the ball of his foot. I
found this somewhat distracting, to say the least. "What I mean to 
say is, I bought a box of condoms. I think maybe it might be a good
thing to see how many of them we can use before the twenty-one days
are up."

"Oh yeah?" Fox's eyes sparkled like I hadn't seen them sparkle in too
long. We used condoms just for intercourse. For everything else, we
were both clean, had  been monotonous, uh, monogamous for years. But
after a particularly bad UTI that Fox got once, we stuck with condoms
for anal sex. 

"Oh, yeah, buddy boy," I said. "I'm thinking tonight you got a 
pretty darn good chance at nailing me to the mattress."

It'd been months and I wanted that bad. I'd been thinking about it
for weeks. Craving it.

The waitress took her own sweet time getting our food to us. As she
dropped plates carelessly on the table in front of us, getting our
orders mixed up, she said, "I don't know what you two are bitching
about. May as well risk a burger. Nothing in this world is safe
anymore." Mentally, I reduced her tip again. 

"I wouldn't say that. I'd say it's a  safe bet that I'm getting
laid tonight," Fox said as he twisted his foot just so, in a very
distracting kind of way. The waitress gave Fox a look that let me
know in no uncertain terms that she thought it was a real waste that
it was my crotch he had his foot on, then she stalked off. Fox burst
into first brief laughter, then a wicked grin. Then the foot went
back to work again. I grabbed it to hold it still.

"Martin David Fox, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying
to get me to come in my pants like some kid."

His only answer was a continued grin.

We couldn't finish dinner fast enough for me.

Day Two:

I escaped the office in the late afternoon and got home before it
was dark even. Fox was nowhere in evidence except as a closed door
with a tie draped over the handle. I thought I took this in pretty
good humor. I mean, I only kicked the door once. Not that he'd hear
it anyway. You could light a bomb under his ass when he was like
this. Maybe it was a bad idea to start this twenty-one day plan thing
while he was on a writing bender. I could have waited a month or two
until  the first draft of the novel was finished. Second drafts just
never commanded the same amount of attention from him.

I went down and started dinner. Six o'clock, no sign of Fox. Seven
o'clock. No sign of Fox. I ate and made up a plate for him and stuck
that and the leftovers in the fridge. I cleaned the kitchen. Had a
poptart for dessert. One of the new ecto-green colored ones that Fox
insisted we had to try then failed to eat any of. I'm sort of a 
traditionalist. Cherry or brown sugar. If I closed my eyes it just
tasted vaguely of artificial berry flavor. Eight o'clock, and still no
sign of Fox. I settled myself in the living room in front of the 
television and thought merry little thoughts about strangling the man.
Nine thirty rolled around and I went upstairs and did something I 
never did. We're talking dangerous territory I was walking into here,
but hell, I was a Marine. Danger is our stock in trade, right?

I knocked on the door to his study. No answer. I knocked harder then
called through the door, "Hey, Fox? Did you forget we have a date?"

No answer, so I tried the handle. I hadn't once opened the door on
him since we'd hammered out terms when he first moved in here, years
and years ago. Those were some days of fierce arguments. I always 
respected his space since then. I never walked in on him when he was 
working, just like he never called me at work. I was almost surprised
to find out it wasn't locked. I opened the door cautiously. He wasn't
typing, he was reading something on the screen, scrolling through
page after page. The pile of sunflower seed shells on his desk was 
enormous and in general, the room was littered with the detritus
of creation. Empty mugs and glasses on every flat surface, same
for plates of mostly ignored food. As he turned I could see that he
was wearing that pair of little round reading glasses that made him
look so young and cute. He wore nothing else. Fox never did when he
was in the midst of novel writing. His more factual stuff, he wrote
completely dressed. I could always tell what he was working on by 
how he was dressed when he left his office. You could tell it was
novel writing time just by the piles and piles of discarded clothes
all over the room. I left myself a mental reminder to nag at him 
about getting some of those down so I could wash them, both the
clothes and the dishes. Meanwhile, once I ticked that off my list,
I could put my mind on other things. Like his naked body. I could
still feel myself practically glowing from last night, despite my
irritation at being kept waiting all evening. Despite the fact that
we hadn't lasted long enough for him to fuck me like I was hoping. 

Surprisingly, he wasn't mad at me for disturbing him. "Hey," he
said. "I'm pretty much through here. I was about to join the world
again. Have a seat."

He gestured at a nearby arm chair. I pushed a printout of a novel
draft off it and sat down. But instead of letting him get back to
work, I reached out for his hand and pulled him to me. He sprawled
out of his chair and on top of me. I kissed him before he could
protest. Yeah, Fox is damn fine kisser. That's the one thing about
being with someone for the long haul. They know all your buttons and
just how to press them. Sure, sometimes that isn't such a good thing,
but these particular buttons he was pressing were connected directly
to my cock. 

Pretty soon, his hands were moving up and down my sides, on my
abdomen for a bit, then kneading the particular spot on my neck
and shoulders that always caused my dick to get stone hard. Like I
said, he knew which buttons to press. My kissing wasn't doing the
same for him, but I was not going to be dissuaded. I reached down
and started a gentle massage on his cock, just a tugging of the
loose skin and rubbing up and down. Soon enough, he was half hard
and getting harder. I moved my lips from his lips, down his chin, 
and along his jawline, only vaguely aware that Fox hadn't shaved 
today and I was probably getting whisker burn. I nibbled at his left 
earlobe. For some reason, it's got to be the left one. The right one 
does absolutely nothing for him. He gasped a little as I bit down
softly. Then he was suddenly completely hard. I was going straight 
for the kill, so to speak. The phone rang. I ignored it. If it was
important, they'd call back. I was not going to be sidetracked by 
some telemarketer. If it was work, they'd have called my cell phone.
Not that I would have answered that either.

I traveled southwards with my mouth again, lingering only a little
while at his nipples. His chest tasted salty, sweaty and of something
that can only be Fox. I did linger at his armpits, smelling them,
sniffing at them, drawing in big breaths of his scent. Kind of sour,
unbathed, but still arousing. Heavenly. I loved his smell. He was 
squirming as I wriggled down under him. 

"Tickles," he said, just barely able to concentrate.

I know, I thought, then changed tactics. A little effort and I was
able to flip our positions, so he was sliding off the easy chair and
I was on top, about to go down on him. As I was about to slip his
cock into my mouth he said, "Uh-uh. Bedroom. Condoms. Lube."

"Right here," I said, pulling them out of the pocket of the jeans
I'd changed into earlier. Like a good boy scout, I was prepared. I 
tore open the little foil packet and started rolling its contents down
on his dick. 

"Hey!" he mock protested. "Maybe I want to be the one getting fucked
tonight."

"Poor baby! Like you hate topping me so much," I said and kept rolling
on the condom, taking plenty of time, rubbing as I went. I took the 
head of it in my mouth, trying not to grimace at the taste of latex. 
And then Fox didn't say another word for a while. Every time I paused
to glance up at his eyes, they were heavy with lust and he was so
sex stupid that I knew he wasn't able to do anything but breathe and
maybe run his finger through my hair a little. Suddenly, he pushed me
off and I let him flip me over, face down onto the chair. 

"Why, Mister Doggett, I do believe you're wearing far too many
clothes," he said. I was inclined to agree. My erection was pressing
hard against the seam of my jeans and it'd been a difficult time
trying to find a position that was comfortable. He reached around
behind me and unbuttoned my jeans, then yanked down the zipper. They
were soon around my ankles and Fox was working on getting my shirt
off. Then I felt a tickling, warm wetness between my ass cheeks and
it was my turn to be fuck dumb. That's one of the things about being
with someone for a decade and a half. They know that all it takes
to turn you into a spineless puddle of goo is a good rimming. And
I was. Oh, yes. This was exactly what I'd been missing all this time.

Then he put a slick, lubed hand on my dick and started rubbing. I 
thought just maybe I'd gone to heaven. I nearly came the instant the 
first finger went into me. But he knew me all too well and squeezed
at just the right spot hard enough to make it impossible for me to
come. I was seriously torn between thinking him a bastard because that
was not comfortable in a big way and thanking him for drawing it out 
longer. I would have been disappointed to come so quickly.

"Sorry," he said. "But both of us are good for just one shot these
days and I want to make sure it counts."

But little while later, both of us ready, he eased his cock into
me, then cried out, "Shit!" and stiffened against me. The bastard
came just as soon as he'd entered me, leaving me hanging. Then he
slumped against my back and neck, muttering, "Sorry. Shit. I'm
sorry."

"Quit apologizing and get busy," I demanded.

With that he reached around and grabbed my cock in his hand. Just a
few minutes of hard rubbing and I didn't care anymore that he'd come
before me. Oh, no, I was a very happy camper indeed. But when both
of us were cuddled together afterwards, propped up against the chair,
he rested his head on my shoulder and said, softly, "I'm sorry. I 
think maybe this twenty-one day plan of yours is a great idea. I'm
obviously out of practice. Too used to only the sensations of Rosie
Palm and her five daughters. I'm sorry. For the way things have 
been between us."

"It'll get better," I promised. The way I figured, it'd taken us 
years to fall out of the practice of being lovers. Two nights was
obviously not enough to get us back to where we used to be. "Shower
then bedtime?"

Clean and naked, we slipped in between the sheets together. This
was probably my favorite part about being with Fox, both of us
curled on our sides together, him on the outside, me on the inside
of the spoon, his arm wrapped securely around my belly. Nothing in
this world could be entirely bad if I could go to sleep like this,
if not every night, then at least most nights. "Love you, Fox," I
told him, like I always did.

"Love you, John," he said as he pulled me a little closer. We shared
the same pillow and for the moment, all was right with the world.
First one, then two little furry bodies settled into the bed with
us. Sophie near Fox's head, Dale in the hollow created by my drawn
up knees. Once everyone was in place, I could sleep.  

Day Three

Fox met me at the door. He was dressed just in jeans, and still 
towelling off wet hair. I was a little late, no emergencies at work, 
just bad traffic. He wrapped the towel around my neck and pulled me 
close. Some beads of water still pearled on his chest and he smelled
good and clean. When he kissed me, his mouth tasted of mint
toothpaste and sunflower seeds. I had many happy thoughts about what
might happen tonight. Or even right now if I could just maneuver him 
upstairs.

"Busy writing day?" I asked when he set me free. I reluctantly
allowed him to pull out of my arms and start towelling dry again.

"No, got shit all done. Hey, I heard from Walt today."

"Really? I thought they didn't have phones on Bali or Fiji or 
wherever it is he's at."

"The Marquesas. And no, he called from Dulles. I guess the whole
South Seas thing got boring. I was on my way to go pick him up. He's
got some kind of consulting job lined up already. He wanted to know if
he could stay with us for a while until he got an apartment. I told 
him we'd be delighted."

"Oh, peachy," I said.

Fox never noticed that my face must have fallen right to my knees. 
He turned and ran back upstairs to finish getting dressed. Fox might
have been delighted. But this did not bode well for our plans to
revive our sex life. Not in the slightest. Walter S. Skinner as a
houseguest for an unknown quantity of time and the twenty-one day plan
had no place in each other's reality.

Don't get me wrong. I like Walt, always did. Respected the hell out
of him once. He was still a good friend and always would be. But 
having the man sleeping in our guest bedroom was always a guaranteed 
erection wilting experience for me. Part of it was the way that 
despite the fact he was only about ten years older than me, he 
reminded me so much of my father. Part of it was that you could tell,
that even now, that while he accepted, and on some level even 
approved of Fox's and my relationship, he never really understood
how it happened that his two favorite male agents had ended up, not
just in bed together, but, well, married. To each other. He would
have had an easier time with it if it was just the sex, I'm sure. A
man might suck another man's dick or fuck him senseless. That was
just sex and most men would fuck anything that moved, right? But
real men did not pick up the dry cleaning for each other or massage
each other's sore feet at the end of the day. And me and Fox were
so domestic you just about puke sometimes.

Not that he ever said a damn thing or did anything that made us
doubt his friendship. But every now and then I would catch him
looking at me with something that could only be called confusion in
his eyes. It just didn't make sense to him that I was the one who
scooped the cat litter for Fox's cats. Our cats. It was almost as if
he could understand this kind of behavior from Fox. Afterall, one
grew to expect just about anything from Fox. But me? I was supposed to
be just like Walt. Marines. Law degree. Slow and steady rise through
the echelons of the FBI until I'd risen to the top levels and then
finally took a generous retirement. Instead I'd ended up bailing tree
huggers out of jail and as a certified, in your face cocksucker who
didn't care that the world knew. Just like I was to my father, I was a
disappointment to Walt.

I stayed at home to cook dinner and remake the bed in the guest room.
Walt and Fox walked in about the time I was finishing up with the
salad. They were laughing at some old joke. Walt was disgustingly
healthy and tan looking. Retirement had agreed with him so well that
I had momentary thoughts about chucking the treehuggers and taking
off with Fox for somewhere tropical. But, I'd get bored far faster
than Walt had, probably. And the tree-huggers needed me. It was good
to do something useful, to feel like one of the good guys. 

Sometime over dinner he asked, jokingly, "So, have you saved the
rainforest yet, John?"

"No, but you probably missed the fact that ADM-Con Agra finally went 
under last year, partially due to court costs and plummeting stock 
prices what with all the bad publicity," I said. A small victory, 
really, but it was small victories that kept us going. 

"Weren't they..."

(Continued in part 3)
 
Part 3
See part 0 for header information.


"No, at least we could never prove they were in the conspiracy up to 
their eyeballs. That's just a strong hunch on Fox's part."

And so it went for hours, with too much talk about old times and the 
definite prospect of neither enough sleep nor any sex for yours truly.
Finally, Walt was stashed away in the guest bedroom and I was
spooning up next to Fox.

Then he was nuzzling my ear and snaking a hand up the t-shirt I'd
worn to bed. I pushed his hand right back out again.

Fox sounded hurt when he said, "Hey, what about our twenty-one day
plan?"

"I can't," I hissed quietly. "Not with him just on the other side 
of the wall." 

Fox knew of my inability to perform with Walt in the house. It'd 
come up as a topic for discussion before, the first time Walt
visited. We'd always just remained celibate before when Walt was
around, but then, Walt had never stayed more than a couple of nights
before.

"Downstairs on the sofa? Is that far enough away for you?"

"He might walk down, looking for something." I said. That would be
beyond embarrassing. Getting caught on the sofa like some teenager. By
Walt.

"I know. The hammock," Fox said. He sounded so sure of himself that
for a moment I went along with him, picturing the two of us in the
back yard, making out like teenagers in the rope hammock that Fox
insisted we had to have. Then I came to my senses.

"What? Right out in the back yard where the neighbors can see? I
know you're crazy, but that's just too much."

"It's one am. It's a new moon. If we turn the lights out, no one
is going to be able to see anything. You know you've always wanted
to."

And so Fox talked me an act that might conceivably get us convictions
for public indecency, should we get caught at it. Not just talked me
into it, but got me hard just with anticipation of the act. We 
tiptoed down the hallway, carrying a blanket and a couple of pillows,
shushing each other and laughing like kids. We necked a while on the
back deck before settling ourselves carefully into the hammock, 
blanket draped over us for a little privacy. His hands were into
my shorts immediately, teasing and stroking me. I couldn't help
moaning as he griped me tightly and started rubbing in earnest.
I was gagged quite effectively by Fox's mouth kissing me, plunging
his tongue into my mouth. Oh, yeah, had to be quiet. Didn't want
to wake the neighbors.

Meanwhile, my hands had found their way into his shorts and tugged
them down just barely enough so that they were out of the way. His
dick was hard, weeping with pre-cum. Part of it was feeling like a
naughty kid again, worrying that I might get caught at any second,
part of it was how eager Fox was, but either way, I was rock hard.
So was Fox. The night air of mid June was cool on the parts of my 
bare skin that were exposed as the blanket we'd covered ourselves
with got slowly kicked out of the way. The metal frame of the 
hammock was bouncing. Should someone look over the fence, even in 
the dark, there would be no doubt in their mind whatsoever as to
what we were doing. 

The deck light came on. We froze. I think Fox must have murmured,
"Shit!" very softly. I waited in agony for the back door to creak open
and someone, namely Walt, to step out onto the deck. It didn't happen
though. Another second that felt like an eternity later, the light
flicked off, plunging us into darkness again.

Then Fox was laughing like a maniac against the side of my neck.
It tickled and suddenly, I was laughing too. Then somewhere in
the laughter, we remembered that we'd been making love and still
laughing, we started touching again. It was slower this time. I
had to catch up to Fox again, because in those few seconds of the
light being on, my erection had flagged a little. Suddenly, 
instead of naughty and frantic, the lovemaking was sweet and 
tender. He touched me gently and his kisses were no longer just
to stopper my moans. I touched him back just as tenderly, but
oddly, I was still laughing as he hit just the right rhythm and
then I was gasping, mostly silently, and I came. He pressed his
mouth to the side of my neck and clamped on to suppress the
sound of his own coming.

I snuggled against him; let my eyes close a little while. I
gave one last little chuckle for some reason as I buried my
nose in his hair and wrapped my arms around his chest. I was
perfectly content for just this moment in time. Fox must have
felt the same because he didn't say anything at all either.
We didn't even bother to pull our minimal clothing together.

The next thing I remember was a snort from Walt. It was early
morning, the sky was solid gray and the tree branches were
tossing in a breeze that was going at a pretty good clip. The
air smelled wet, like it was fixing to rain. Fox was snoring
in my ear. I nudged him off me and attempted to nonchalantly
pull up my shorts, which were still in disarray.

"I figured you two probably wanted to come in before the
rain starts, rather than being woken by it," Walt said. He
was all but smirking, the bastard. He held up the mug he
had in his hand. "Coffee's ready when you are."

Then thankfully, he turned back to the house, allowing me 
to wake up Fox and assemble what was left of my dignity.
As we pulled ourselves together and I rubbed at the pressure
marks left by the ropes of the hammock on my bare ass, I 
asked Fox, "Just how long did you tell Walt he could stay?"

"As long as he wanted. I figure he won't be here longer than
a week, maybe two or three."

"Three weeks! What were you thinking?!" I wasn't quite
enraged, but definitely I was indignant. As usual, Fox
took my anger with aplomb. He hauled himself out of the
hammock first, then pulled up his shorts. His only answer
was a graceful shrug. I followed him out of the hammock,
silently cursing the bastard not just for inviting a house
guess without consulting me, but for moving so easily after
an awkward night in the hammock. I felt like I was moving 
like an old man. My back hurt and my arm was asleep where Fox
had been using it as a pillow. We couldn't stay out in the
yard and argue though. As I glared at Fox, big, fat drops 
of water started to hit, then it poured. We raced for the
shelter of the house together.

"This argument is not over!" I promised just as we reached
the door.

Day Four:

At the office today, everyone did a double take as they looked
at me. Only Jilly had the courage to grin at me wickedly and
say, "That's a beaut, John."

I'd taken the time to ice it down a little, because it hurt,
darn it, but the hickey that Fox had left on my neck was still
quite visible. Up near my ear, there was no way that my shirt
collar could have covered it. I tried to take it as compliment
that he'd bitten down so hard. Thankfully, I didn't have any
court dates today. If I did, I probably would have had to kill Fox. 

I didn't blush under Jilly's scrutiny, I don't think. But she
laughed at me anyway and said, "It's a beautiful thing, it
truly is. It does my heart good to see how much you love Martin."

"And how do you know this is Martin?" I challenged. "I could 
have gone out and gotten me a young and pretty new boyfriend.
Or girlfriend."

"Because I know you. I've seen you work. When you plan a covert
operation, you leave no trace, no sign that you've been there,
other than an achieved objective. If you were having an affair,
there's no way in hell you would have let your boytoy leave a
hickey for Martin to discover. Besides, you'd never do that to
Martin. I know you. You're as guileless as a big old hound dog.
And you love Martin. You always get this little grin on your face
when you talk about him. Look, you're doing it now."

I tried to look serious and failed. As I smiled I wondered why
I didn't go out searching for action elsewhere when my sex life
with Fox had gone on hiatus. I would have been hardly any effort
at all to find some fresh new dick with no strings attached and
hardly much more effort to find a woman. But I'd never wanted
that. It was Fox I loved and wanted. When I'd felt deprived, it 
wasn't just for sex, but specifically and only for sex with Fox.

"Anyway, I came here because I've got this idea for an action."

Of course. Jilly never paid purely social visits. "So, what's your
plan? How much will it cost us? And what laws will you be 
flouting this time?"

"Well, considering how many laws our mark is flouting day in 
and day out, I think a little destruction of property is the only
fitting response. But I don't plan to get caught. No courts, no
press, just a quick in, destroy some pipes that aren't on any
of the plans, and out again. You wanna join in?"

"Delaware?" I asked. Jilly nodded. "I thought something was up
when all they could pin on you was trespassing. You were reconning
the area."

She nodded again. "Not Dow. That new petroleum company I was telling
you about. Their spanky new refinery that's supposed to be the model
of modern, non-polluting manufacturing. I've got the drop on them.
In order to control the fires I'll cause, they'll have to own up
to those pipes."

"I'll think about it, Jilly. Martin hates it when I go on these
late night hunting expeditions."

"Don't think too long. I've got to assemble a team. I'm thinking
sometime next week."

"I'll let you know day after tomorrow or sooner." I thought 
strongly about just telling her yes, without consulting Fox.
Afterall, hadn't someone just invited a guest into our house, my
house if you wanted to get really bitchy about it, for three 
weeks or longer without consulting me. I was owed a little back.
I didn't though. Escalating arguments like that was just a really
stupid way to draw them out longer than was necessary. Really stupid
when I had the twenty-one day plan in mind. Hard to get good nookie
when you're fighting. And going on a mission which very well might
get me thrown in jail or even killed just was not on the same scale
as a houseguest, no matter how irritated I was.

"Give me some hard figures," I told her before she left my office.
"Something that will convince me this is worthwhile. You know
what the stakes are if I get caught and arrested."

They were pretty high. I could get disbarred at the very least and 
while I wouldn't suffer other than being bored by having to take 
an early retirement, the tree-huggers would be missing out on a lot. 

I made it home pretty early. I suspected that if I wanted to catch
Fox alone, with Walt hopefully gone off apartment hunting or 
something, I'd better get home early. Fox was in the kitchen, sink
full of suds and dishes, making good time getting them clean. He'd
obviously cleared his studio. In the background, I could hear the
washing machine going too. Fox was talking, out loud and animatedly,
seemingly to no one. 

I say seemingly. Fox talks to dead people. 

I don't mean he talks to them in his imagination like you talk to 
yourself. I mean he stands there and has out loud conversations with 
them. They're right there, at least for him. I've never seen
anything. I always say dead people, not ghosts. To my best knowledge,
they aren't what you normally call ghosts. They don't haunt anywhere.
They don't talk to anyone but Fox. They don't have unfinished
business here on this earth. They just talk with Fox, so he says,
because they love him and miss him. They help him when he needs it. 

I know. A big part of me doesn't believe it either. I still wouldn't
believe it except for the fact that he doesn't just talk with them.
He can touch them. They sometimes give him things. Actual physical
objects. Notes with names, addresses on them. Once, one of those
little USB drives, the kind that is smaller than your palm. It had
information on it that turned out to be crucial to the struggle.
I saw it just appear in his hands one day. 

So, Fox talks to dead people. I'd always thought that it would stop 
when the struggle was won. Nope, they still talk to him, though they 
haven't given him any USB drives lately. 

Today he appeared to be talking about his latest novel with one of
them. "So, do you think it's too banal for the guy to just bash 
him over the head, tie him up and search the studio for the missing
batch of negatives?" he was asking an empty patch of linoleum about
five feet away from him.

He laughed at whatever the reply had been. I smiled at him. True,
he was acting like a crazy man, but I was used to that, and he was
positively beautiful right at this moment. A patch of sunlight, 
the earlier rain had cleared away by noon, illuminated him as he
stood at the sink. The silver that had invaded his brown hair over
the years seemed almost to sparkle in the light. He was still 
dressed in novel writing clothes, which is to say, nothing. 
Obviously he'd either forgotten about Walt, or didn't plan for Walt
to be back for a while. He looked up at me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," I said. I wrapped myself around him and kissed him. Then I 
indicated the empty patch of lino with a nod of my head. "Who's
here?"

"Monica."

I breathed in sharply. It still always kind of hurt to know that
she was gone to me forever. I spent a good part of the time from 
when Fox first left me to go on the run to when he came back to me,
thinking I was in love with Monica. Probably nothing ever would have
come of it, because I'd never forgotten Fox. Still, I had my regrets.
Had a long time since then to work through my regrets, but I still
had them. She died in the struggle, like a lot of other good people.
Why couldn't Fox have been talking to Alex Krycek or something? I 
buried my face in his neck for a moment then pulled myself away from 
Fox. 

"Tell her I love her," I said. This was a routine. I always told him
to tell her that whenever he was talking with her. 

"I don't need to tell her," Fox said, gently. He knew. We'd talked
about this time and again. He didn't grudge me my love for Monica
any more than I grudged him the thing he had for Alex. "She knows
and she can hear you. She says to give you this."

Then he kissed me gently on the cheek. If I closed my eyes, I could
almost imagine it was her. I imagined I smelled that perfume that
she always used to wear, spicy and deep. It didn't really ever get
easier, did it? Maybe if I could talk to her like Fox did. I bolted.
"Hey, I had to bring some work home with me," I lied. I made for
the doorway, intending to head on to my own office, then remembered
that Walt was using it as a guest room at the moment.

Fox understood. He didn't try and follow me. I knew that if I set
up in the living room, at least spread some papers on the coffee
table, at least pretend to work, he wouldn't bug me. Before you 
pass judgement on me and call me an old fool for mourning so long
a woman that I never even made love to, I think it would be fair
to say that rolled up in my emotions about her were all the rest
of what I felt about the struggle, the things we'd had to do, the
danger we'd faced. What can I say? Fox wrote novel after novel to
dredge through his emotions. I just got moody and sad anytime 
Monica's name was mentioned, like now. I was curled up in a 
corner of the old leather sofa, a file held before me that I 
decidedly wasn't reading. 

Fox wisely gave me about an hour of time by myself. Enough to fully
immerse myself in my feelings, without feeling like they'd over
whelm me. Then he popped into the living room, not yet dressed,
and he said, "I think maybe an hour is long enough, don't you? 
It's not like you don't work hard enough for those people on 
every other night. I bribed Scully to invite Walt over for dinner
with her and the kids. I figure we have another two, three hours 
before he's back. I made a snack."

Then Fox set the plate that I finally noticed he was carrying down
on top of the coffee table, pushing my papers away carefully. I
let him loosen my tie then feed me sliced apples and small wedges
of cheddar cheese. He pushed the fruit into my mouth and then his
fingers afterwards, making me suck on them a while before withdrawing
them. He didn't let me feed him, but instead, insisted that I let
him pamper me. 

"You don't have to..." I protested, realizing what he was doing,
trying to draw me out of my funk by main force.

"Yes, I do, John. How often do you come home to a closed office
door? Then you cook dinner by yourself and then try and tempt me
out of my office to eat it. You deserve a little TLC."

After that, I didn't protest anymore. I just tried to lie back 
and enjoy it. Not easy for me. But the cheddar was sharp and
delicious and the apples perfectly crisp, sweet and juicy. When
I was done with them, Fox licked my face clean, causing me to
both smile and think wicked thoughts. Then he was kissing me
with obvious intent. 

"Mister Doggett," he asked when he finally released me. "Would 
you do me the honor of accompanying me upstairs?"

"Anything you say, Fox," I responded. I'd thought at first maybe
he'd try and take me on the couch, but I was kind of glad he didn't.
We're getting a little old for the kind of athletics that had
happened last night in the hammock. My neck was still kind of
stiff. The bed was much easier on me.

He led me upstairs by the hand. He hadn't just cleaned out his
office today. He'd taken the time to make the bed and dust and
clean the bedroom. I liked that, like he was thinking about us
having a nice, clean, distraction free place to make love. I liked
the thought of him planning this encounter. It was sweet. He'd
even picked up my suits from the dry cleaner. The bags were hanging
from the closet door.

As he kissed me, he carefully slid my jacket off my shoulders, 
then went to hang it off the back of a chair. Each piece of
clothing he took off me followed this pattern. A thorough and 
delicious kiss, then once he'd divested me of a particular piece of
clothes, he took the time to dispose of it neatly. Finally, I was
naked and already half hard. 

"I want you to make love to me," he said, wrapping me in his arms 
and turning me to the bed. We melted onto the bed, kissing and
caressing each other. I noticed that the lube and condoms were
already sitting out in the open, right on top of the plaid comforter.
Yes, he'd definitely planned this. 

"Oh, God, Fox," I gasped as he started grinding his erection 
against mine. We spent an hour, I don't know, maybe longer, touching
each other's bodies. All I know is the daylight in the window
started to fade to sunset and we were still at it. He kissed nearly
every square inch of my skin, I swear it. Not that he didn't know
where everyone one of sensitive spots was already, but he wanted
to draw this out, make it last. He ignored my erection until it was
torturous, until he was finally rolling a condom down onto to me. 

I hadn't been ignoring him, not in the least, and by the time he did
this, he was ready to go. I'd spent a lot of time teasing gently,
opening him as gradually as possible. I think maybe it'd been months,
almost a year, since I'd done this to him. Too long. I vowed to take
him more often, not demand to be the bottom all the time. I tried to
roll him over onto his back, but he resisted. "Uh-uh, just lie back
and enjoy yourself," he said. Then he climbed on top of me and eased
himself onto my aching cock. 

If I believed in the same God as my parents did, right then I might
have been saying things like, "Oh, Lord Jesus, that's good." 

And it was. Good enough to make a preacher kick a hole in a stained
glass  window. He was tight around me, a delicious pressure. We'd
slathered on an impossibly lot of lube, so everything was slick and
moved easily, and he hadn't forgotten how to make the process easy on
himself, how to relax at the moment of penetration, how to breathe,
how to know when he  was ready to start moving. We made love looking
each other in the eye. I loved this. I could see when his eyes
softened with tenderness, when his arousal was at it peak, when I
could increase my pace without setting him off too soon. Then finally,
he could hold it no longer and he moaned loudly and threw his head
back in blissful abandonment. I  followed him mere moments later. He
kissed me, hard like before, but it seemed to be a thank you. Then he
rolled off of me. He hopped out of bed right after and the bed felt
too large immediately. 

(Continued in part 4)
 
Part 4
See part 0 for header information.


Soon, though, he had returned with a warm damp washcloth. He cleaned
us both off and disposed of the condom. Then he crawled back into bed
with me and as always, he held me in a spoon, chin on my shoulder,
arms around my belly. I was so relaxed that I was sorely tempted to
fall asleep. 

"Do you ever have any regrets?" he asked. "That you're not with a
woman, you know."

Every now and then, Fox got like this. Got all worried that I wasn't
satisfied with what I had, that I would want a woman instead of him. 
In particular, it happened when Monica made one of her appearances to
Fox and I found out about it. 

I had regrets that I never told her how I felt when she was alive,I 
thought. I regret that I never made love to her. When I know just
how sweet love making can be. I regret that it's taken Fox and his
strange abilities to talk to the dead to get me to admit all of this.
Fox knew all of this. We'd talked about it again and again. That's 
another one of the pleasures of a long running relationship, the 
ability to rehash the same arguement or discussion again and again.
It didn't matter now. Fox already knew exactly what I was thinking.

"No, not a regret in the world," I told him, intertwining my fingers
with his. I pulled his hand to my lips and kissed it, slowly, one
knuckle at a time. "I love you. Why would I need anything else?"
 

Day Five

Ah, Saturday. Best day of the week. I know I'd talked about us
getting a lawn service, but a big, rebellious part of me didn't want
to and actually liked taking care of the grass. Of course, it was a
little less pleasureable since the tree-huggers had talked me into
turning in the gas powered mower for an electric one. But despite
that, I loved turning the yard into tidy, neatly clipped swaths of
perfect velvet greenness. 

Fox had gotten out of helping me by the simple expedient of waking
up before I did and slipping into his office and shutting the door.
Of course, the tie was on the door handle. I didn't grudge him
though. When he's at work, he works hard. 

Finished up with various tasks inside and outside the house, I headed
upstairs to change into grubbier clothes yet for a few happy hours
underneath the hood of the truck. Okay, so maybe I'd given in a
little to the tree-huggers and it wasn't quite as big a truck as the
ones I used to drive. And it had one of the new fuel-cell hybrid
engines. Not  as powerful, but got a respectable forty miles to the
gallon. And it being a different technology, that gave me even more
chances to tinker.

As I was digging in a drawer for something that was already oil 
stained, the phone rang. I didn't reach it quite it time. Walt got
it. He listened for a moment then handed it to me wordlessly.

"Hello?" I said, innocently enough. I hadn't a clue yet as to the
disaster that was about to happen. Or rather, had happened and was
just about to start affecting me.

"Where is he?" Scully demanded. "Put him on the phone now."

"Fox is writing. You know I can't disturb him. What's up, Dana?"

"You and that man will come down here and get the boy this instant
or I swear to God I will shoot him first then come after the two of
you!"

She sounded a little...overwrought to say the least. I didn't have
to ask to know who the boy was. William had grown up to be a 
thoughtful, studious boy, quiet and odd sometimes, but a good boy.
On the other hand, Scully and Fox had had a second son. One miracle
baby is bad enough, but they'd had two. And Charlie John Scully, as
he was known, was hell on wheels. I'd have said nothing was wrong
with the boy that a few trips out to the woodshed with a switch, like
my old man used on me on occasion, wouldn't solve. Except I'd seen
the exact same kind of child rearing Scully used on Charlie produce 
a boy like his brother Billy. My own mother had once said, "That boy 
has the very devil in him."  Sometimes I think she might be right.
After all, this is the child that, at age nine, took apart a 
two thousand-dollar plasma flat screen television to see what was 
inside. 

Scully and I had our differences, dating back in time to the point
where Fox came back to me, or depending on who you ask, I stole
him away from her. Still, I did my best to always remain civil with
her. It would have done no good at all to alienate the mother of my
lover's children, no matter how much I was accused of home wrecking.
Never mind that Fox left her long before he came back to me.
Actually, she'd started hinting so broadly that it was time for him to
leave  that he didn't really have a choice in the matter.

"Okay, calm down, Dana. I hope Charlie can't hear you talking that
way about him."

"He can't. He's in a holding cell and besides, the nice NSA agent
standing next to me just agreed with me that it would be justifiable
homocide in any jurisdiction."

NSA? Holding cell? What the hell? I knew the boy was a little too
clever for his own good with a computer but I'd have thought he
knew better to go hacking into sensitive computers. Guess not. I
liked the kid. He reminded me a lot of Fox. So, of course I did.
Regardless, I had a few lingering, not so friendly thoughts about
opening a big old can of whoop-ass on the boy. 

"Calm down, Dana. Where are you? What are they saying he did? Do
you know if they're going to try and charge him as an adult?" I 
was already running scenarios through my head, trying to dredge 
up any cases I could think of where they'd charge a minor with
violations of the Homeland Security acts. Shit. Double shit. 
What did I ever do to deserve this?

I did my best to listen calmly while Scully filled me in on the
details. They were in a federal building in Richmond. It sounded
like maybe they were willing to cut some kind of deal. If I'd ever
had any doubts that Fox was Charlie's father, they would have been
resolved right then. The boy was a chip off the old block. He
hadn't broken into any computers. Oh, no, it was better than that.
I reassured Scully that we would be down there as soon as we 
could haul ass to Richmond. Then I hung up and prepared to bring
out my inner wicked stepfather. But first, Fox had to be rousted
from his cave.

There was no answer to my knock. I rapped harder a second time.
Walt looked on as I picked up the phone. I dialed the number to
Fox's cell. Sometimes he answered it while he was writing. If he
wasn't in too deep. It rang four, five times then finally it 
picked up. "'lo?" Fox answered, sounding spacey. I'd broken his
concentration.

"Hey, buddyboy, did you know our son is being held prelimary to
being charged with three separate federal offenses?"

The phone was dropped abruptly. A second later, the door was flung
open and Fox appeared in the door. When he realized Walt was in
the hall, looking on, Fox darted back into the office and came out
again, wearing shorts and pulling on a t-shirt. Then he confronted
me. "What? John? You're kidding, right?"

"Do I sound like I'm joking? Trust Charlie never to do things by
half measures. Other kids get picked up for a little shoplifting,
maybe curfew breaking." I crossed my arms and leaned against the
bedroom doorway. Oddly, this was all very funny to me, in a God 
and the Universe hate you so you may as well laugh before you 
start crying kind of way. "Your son, should we believe the federal
agents who have him in custody, committed grand theft auto, drove 
the car across the state line from Maryland to Virginia, then 
proceeded to try and break into a secure department of defense 
building. I guess this is kind of a grand old tradition in your 
family, but as I recall, you usually didn't get caught."

"Fuck. Shit. Damn." Fox muttered under his breath. He was not 
particularly surprised. "Maybe I shouldn't have taught him how
to pick locks."

"You did what?!" 

So much for any half considered plans of kicking Walt out of the 
house and settling down for a nice afternoon of car races on the 
tv and necking on the couch.

So much for any plans of any sex for the next three years at a
minimum. Scully had made it quite clear that assuming he wouldn't
be spending the rest of his life at a federal penitentiary, she
couldn't handle Charlie and his little schemes any longer and
he would be coming to live with us. The boy obviously needed
his father, she'd said. Fox would be thrilled, I was sure. I 
would have been thrilled, had it happened under better circumstances.
For now though, I was going to leave it to Scully to break this 
little bit of news.

"Do you want me to come with?" Walt asked, concern obvious on
his face. Like I said, Walt's a good friend and would do 
anything for us. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Any chance you're still pals with the attorney general?" I asked.

"Not the current one. But I know some people in the DOJ still.
Maybe a good word here or there will help. I'm not sure anyone
will buy the youthful spirits, boys will be boys thing here, but
it might be worth a try."

Oddly enough, they did, though I'd bet the farm that part of it was
that the DOD didn't want it widely known that a fourteen, nearly
fifteen year old could breach one of their supposedly secure 
installations. You know, if we all weren't so damn pissed at 
the boy, we'd probably be so proud of him that we couldn't speak.
Charlie was Fox through and through, with every bit of that wild,
intuitive intelligence and the same damn confidence that the world
was just a big puzzle that would eventually crack under his 
manipulation and reveal the truth. He looked a little like Scully.
Her sons had proven to me that she was a natural redhead after all,
though anyone would forgive me for thinking that she had a little
assistance from the bottle in that department. But no, her sons
were redheads as well. Billy's hair was just touched with the red,
more sort of an auburn. But Charlie was a carrot top. But other than 
that, looking at him was like looking at a young version of Fox. 
That same nose, those lips, that lean, lanky body. Charlie, at 
fourteen, was already taller than Scully and would probably be as tall
or taller than Fox. 

Eighteen hours later, the whole thing already hushed up between the
shame of the DOD and whatever good words Walt had spread around, we
were home again. By we, I mean, Fox, Charlie, Walt, Scully and 
myself. Charlie was unrepentant and sullen. Walt was stoic but 
obviously bursting with reprimands he didn't think it was his place
to deliver. Fox was silently furious, ruminating on what he was
going to say. I was already fearing that blowup when it happened. 
Scully had worn her hysteria out hours ago and lapsed into a
wrought silence. I was the only one talking, though I thought I was
doing a pretty good job at keeping the worst of it on a leash.

"What the hell were you thinking?" I asked yet again. I'd yet
to get an answer that was anything more than a few words mumbled
and mashed together, much less acceptable. I wasn't any more
hopeful of an answer this time, but you had to give me points
for consistancy. Of course I was the big time disciplinarian, when
the kids were at our house. Would you expect consistancy from 
Fox? Brilliance, sure. Outrageous displays of love for his kids
all the time. He didn't spoil them, at least not in the usual 
ways. I saw him once drop five hundred bucks on supplies for a
science fair project. But he made Charlie do every bit of the work
himself and made the kid revise the summary paper five times. 
Money didn't exactly flow freely, but all they had to do was
haul him into the bookstore and mention something like books for
school and Fox would buy the place out. Me, I got to play the 
wicked stepfather. You know. Is your homework done? That's enough
televison. I don't care if every other kid's parents let them
do it, you're not going and that's final. That kind of stuff. 

Sometimes I wondered, between Fox, myself and Walt popping in
and out of all our lives through the years if the kid's problem
wasn't a lack of a significant father figure in his life, but
too damn many father figures, two of them severely authoritarian.
And Fox with his weird kind of mode of dealing with authority. 
He could always be swayed by a well-presented, logically proven
argument, so long as it was presented well, with no errors in
either logic nor in initial premises. Take for example an essay
that Fox once had Charlie write- "Why I should be allowed to 
drive the car even though Virginia state law will not permit me
to do so legally until I am 18."  Of course, Fox rejected the
proposal, but I swear he actually seriously considered it for a
while before finding a flaw in one of the premises. He was 
raising a pair of lawyers is what he was doing. And I should 
know.

Charlie finally mumbled a response to my question. "What was that?"
I asked. I could sort of hear what he'd said, but I wanted him to
repeat it aloud.

"I said, what's your problem? I'm off the hook," he said somewhat
more clearly.

"Oh, no, buddy. Your Uncle Walt may have pulled some strings so
that you didn't get charged in the first place, but you are so
not off the hook I don't even know where to start," I said.
"For starters, you're under house arrest until you can prove that
you can walk out the door without doing such a damn fool thing
like that crap you just pulled. We'll talk tomorrow about how
you're going to earn back the money to pay off the damage you did
to that poor woman's car. Now, go to your room before I really
get angry. And if you ever break and enter a Federal building 
again, I don't care what your father and mother think about corporal
punishment, your ass will be so sore you'll never be able to sit 
down again."

What can I say? I yell because I care.

He sighed and retreated with great injured dignity to the room that 
we kept here for him and his brother. I wondered if maybe I should
have been doing even more wicked stepfathering over the years. But
we only got the boys for part of the summer and some of the holidays.
We used to have them over every other weekend, until they decided 
they had cooler things to do than hang out with old farts like us.
I watched him climb up the stairs, kicking each tread as he went. 
Only Fox's son would have to be threatened not to break into Federal
buildings.

It was two in the morning by now and suddenly the house seemed 
very crowded. The adults were all sitting around the living room
just staring at each other. We didn't know what to say to each
other at this point. We'd been talking until we were blue in the face
all day. I finally chimed in, "I think it's bedtime. Dana,
why don't you take our bed, and me and Fox will sleep on the pullout
in his office." 

And so we found ourselves on the sofa bed in Fox's office. At least
the room had just been cleaned and I could go to sleep without feeling
squirrelly about needing to clean it up. But as I tossed and turned,
trying to get comfortable on a paper thin mattress laid over a couple
of steel bars, I cursed the chivalrous instinct which had forced me to
give up our bed to the lady. I decided that comfortable just wasn't
going to happen so I decided to reach for a different kind of comfort.
We could be quiet, I decided. I needed something, who cared if Walt or
the boy or anyone was here. I needed this.

Damn him. Fox must have fallen asleep the instant his head hit the 
rock hard pillows we kept as extras for this sofabed. I even shook him
a little but he didn't stir. So Goddamn much for the twenty-one day
plan. I vowed not to give up on it though. We'd just have to be a
little more creative finding times and places now. I comforted myself
as I fell to sleep with all the thoughts of chores I'd be assigning
the boy, so to earn back the money we'd paid off the woman with. The
one good thing to come out of this. Looked like we wouldn't
have to hire a landscaping service or a maid after all.

Day Six

I was nudged awake slowly, by a nuzzling at my ear and by a poking of
my ass that could be done by only one thing. I smiled even as I slowly
woke up, forgetting at first which bed I was in and the events of
yesterday. Eventually though, that reality penetrated into my sleepy,
horny mind.

"Charlie..." I started.

"Still sleeping," Fox promised me.

"Shouldn't we wake him up and get started on chores or something?"

"Let him sleep for a while," Fox said, then licked my ear and started
pulling down the shorts I'd slept in. His hands were so talented that
I didn't realize what he was doing until he had them down around my
thighs. "It's only nine-thirty."

"Dana?" I still protested, though it was increasingly difficult to
think clearly, what with Fox doing that impression of an octopus man
that he does so well.

"Last I saw, she was drinking coffee with Walt in the back yard. I 
doubt they're going to bother us or even come upstairs."

I relaxed and allowed myself to be fully disrobed and thoroughly 
kissed. "You have no clue how hot you look when you're half asleep
but still begging to be fucked like this," Fox murmured. He was 
definitely the aggressor here. I was responding, oh, yes. Mr. Happy
was getting very happy, but I was also finding it hard to stay awake.
I wasn't as young as I used to be and late nights like last night
really got to me. Still, my cock twitched when Fox rubbed me
possessively and said in a low, sexy growl, "Don't worry. This
ass is mine."

Between tiredness and the way Fox was working on me, one hand 
cradling my balls, the other stroking leisurely up and down my cock,
the best response I could give was, "Ummmmm."  That was good enough
for Fox. He took it to mean he should escalate the situation. I didn't
protest when his hand left my balls. I heard the distinctive snap of
the lube cap and wasn't surprised a moment later when I was invaded
with a finger, then two. Oh, no, not surprised, nor  disappointed.
Pretty soon, I was on my back, legs around his waist.  Not up on
his shoulders like we used to, just not that flexible anymore. But I
didn't care for the moment about anything but the fact that the man I
loved was balls deep inside me. I didn't have to do much of anything
but lie back and let him make love to me. He was rapacious and left me
in no doubt whatsoever that he wanted me badly. In return, I found
myself to be more acquiescent than I ever was normally. I wanted to be
ravished, to be taken. I was his. Only his. He could do whatever he
wanted with me and all I would have been able to do was
murmur, "mmmmm." 

We were sweating and he was pounding at me. I thought for a minute we
might break the sofa bed. It creaked alarmingly and started swaying 
with Fox's rhythm. He propped himself on one hand and used the other 
to match his rhythm with rubbing my cock. Only a little of that and 
my whole body was tensing, contracting, and I was coming and he was
following me. Then we collapsed back into a pool of sweat. 

He rested his body weight on me for a while. It was a good weight, 
solid, reassuring, and we kissed a while longer and I held him close
to me, never wanting to let him go. "I love you," he told me softly.
I was touched, because he was a lot less profligate with that word
than I was, almost never saying it unless I said it first.

Then he said, "Thank you."

"For what? Seems like the thanks should be all yours."

"For loving our son so much. For keeping your temper when he deserves
to have his block knocked off. For not even grumbling a bit about
him coming to live here. I know I would in your position."

"I didn't really see it as an option." 

I truly didn't. I loved that boy as if he were my own. If I thought
about it, I was just glad he didn't get himself hurt, doing what he
did.

He hugged me tighter for a minute and I didn't care that I was sticky
and that as we snuggled we were smearing my cum around on my belly. 

"You know," he said after a bit, "As the years go by, I'm starting to
feel more and more sympathy for my parents and what they put up with
from me. Well, should we go join the rest of the world?"

So we pulled ourselves apart, bit by sticky bit. We left the sofa bed
open a while to air out. We'd made it pretty darn damp, what with one
thing and another. Conscious of young teenagers in the house as well
as other houseguests, we pulled on our shorts and t-shirts on. I 
grimaced at the thought of getting cum all over my clothes, but what
were you gonna do? 

We hit the shower together immediately. We took our own sweet time,
soaping each other's backs, kissing. Soaping each other's intimate
parts. If we were younger men, we'd probably have gone at it again,
but as it was, nothing happened. That's fine. The lovemaking we'd
just done was more than enough to keep me happy.

(Continued in part 5)

Part 5
See part 0 for header information.


Dressed in fresh jeans and t-shirts, we headed down stairs. Walt and
Scully were in the kitchen. Scully sitting on a stool, Walt leaning
against a counter. They were close and talking softly to each other. 
"Coffee's ready," Walt said as we approached.

I poured a cup for myself. Fox didn't want any. After a minute, I 
heard the clomping, stomping sounds of disgruntled teenager coming
down the stairs. He hadn't showered and that carrot red hair was
sticking out all over the place at odd angles. "I heard you two.
That's just disgusting," he accused. "Can't you at least keep it
down? There are some things I just don't want to think about."

I was about to get angry or something. Until I realized he wasn't
talking to either Fox or me, but was pointing at Scully. And looking
accusingly at Walt. I almost laughed when Walt's ears flushed red
with embarrassment. Lucky for me, I've had lots of practice keeping
a straight face and I didn't react to what he said. I guess Walt 
and Scully are officially on again. Both Fox and Scully were red
in the face too, but out of anger. Walt beat a hasty retreat to the
living room or something, forgetting his half full coffee mug.

I decided to act before either one of them blew their top. I could
speak with something approaching calm reasonableness. "In this house,
young man, you'll speak to your mother with respect. Period. In case
you've forgotten, you're in trouble with a capitol T."

He opened his mouth like he was going to sass off, but he got a look,
not at my face, but Fox's and decided it wasn't worth it. He
definitely was starting to re-evaluate his position. Fox's face was
dark with  fury. You could forget sometimes how bad Fox's temper could
be. It was slow to rouse, but could achieve some truly stunning
things.

"I'm taking you home to pack," Scully said to her son. "We'll be back 
some time this afternoon. We can discuss how he's going to get to
school and things like that then."

"He's not going back to that school," Fox pronounced. Charlie went to
this exclusive academy in the city itself, supposedly for gifted
kids, with a special emphasis on science. It would have been no
problem for me to drive him there every morning on my way to the
office. "If he's  got time to think up crap like this, he's obviously
bored there."

"We'll discuss this later...Fox," Scully said. Sometimes, when she's
really angry, she finds it hard not to call him Mulder. I guess I 
probably have more day in day out practice at thinking of him as 
Fox and Martin than she does. Probably not that important. Every one
present knew of his old identity. Even Charlie knew the one time
identity of Fox Mulder. Maybe that had inspired this particularly 
brilliant plan of his, thinking he wanted to be just like dear old
dad.

"Who pays for it, Dana? And who's house is he going to be living at?"

"He's still my son."

"Our son," I said, stepping between the two of them. "She's right. 
We'll discuss it later."

The complex dance of relationship between the three of us had never 
been easy at the best of times. The four of us, I supposed, if Walt
was back. Now we were teetering on the edge of acrimony. There'd 
be a lot of harsh words between Fox and Scully before this was 
settled. 

"Shut up, John," Scully said. "Quite frankly, this has nothing to
do with you. This is between me and my son's father."

Twist the knife a little more, why don't you, Scully? Forget about
harsh words between her and Fox. Any more of this and there'd be
gunfire exchanged between her and me. This was all the same usual
crap we argued about; only it was a bit more fraught considering
the circumstances. Ah, yes, one of the joys of a long-term 
relationship with someone is carrying around their baggage. Including
ex-wives who can be a real bitch sometimes.

"This is every bit as much his business as it is mine," Fox piped
in. 

"Shut up all of you!" Charlie decided it was time to pipe up. "Stop
talking about me like I'm not even here."

Of course, Scully and Fox didn't even look up. They were going at it
without paying attention to anyone else. I didn't bother to listen.
By this point, it had degenerated into standard Fox and Scully 
argument number 107. And neither of them had anything particularly
new or interesting to add.

"Charlie," I said. "Come out back with me, I want to talk to you."

He made a face but followed me out to the deck. "Sit," I told him
then pointed at a chair. The day was lovely, I decided. Just perfect.
Warm but not stifling hot, with a little breeze. The sky a flawless
blue. And here I was having to spend it with my lover and his ex-wife
arguing to raise the dead and my stepson scowling at me like I just
peed on his cinnamon toast. 

"We yell because we care, you know," I said, as I took the chair
opposite him. "All of us are worried like hell. You're damn lucky
to be alive, doing what you did. Those MPs that found you are 
probably up in front of their CO this morning because they didn't
follow orders. They're supposed to shoot on sight, ask questions
later. I guess they must have seen you're just a kid, but you're
lucky. Do you understand that? They should have shot you. Not would
have. Should have."

He mumbled something that vaguely like yes. I know he didn't really
understand. No teenager truly comprehends that death could be lurking
just around the corner, for real and for forever. I remembered how
it was, thinking I was immortal. That didn't really change until a
building in Beirut was suddenly falling down around my ears one day
and I woke up in a hospital, one of the ones lucky to be alive.

"So do you mind telling me just what exactly made you pull this
stunt? I for one would really appreciate a straight answer. I'm 
sure we all would. I know it's not just some lark. I know you better
than that. Everything thing you do has a reason behind it."

"Clones," he mumbled.

"What?"

"Clones. I was looking around this computer and I found some files
that said that the pentagon is doing clone research in Virginia using
alien technology. I knew I couldn't break into the DOD computers so I
needed to check it out myself. I've broken into mom's journals. I 
know how she thinks I might have been made."

Goddamn! I thought we were over all of that. The aliens. The clones. 
All of that shit. Can't a man live a normal life? Can't a man's
children hope to have a life free of it, after all that we did? All
that we gave? 

"I can assure you that however you were conceived, you are not a
clone. Trust me. There's nobody out there more unique than you. Look,
I'm not going to say anything about the hacking. Though I will make it
clear that I find you at it, you'll suddenly find that the house
doesn't  have a land line. But you ever find anything you think is
interesting on that front, you come your father and me. We still know
people, have connections on the inside, who can check out
things like that and act appropriately. Get it? You don't put your
butt on the line, you come to us."

I hoped he was listening. And that he wouldn't go digging anymore. 
We'd brought down the aliens who'd infiltrated the government, but 
there were certainly more than enough bloody-minded evil humans
around who were willing to kill to keep their secrets. Oh, no, we had
enough evil all on our lonesome without having to import it from a
galaxy  far away. And that evil wouldn't care that Charlie was just a
kid with a burning need to know things. I decided I was going to have
to talk to those connections of ours. Not that this supposedly clone
project would still be down in Virginia by now, if it were there in
the first place. It was worth checking out though. 

The screen door opened. Scully stepped out onto the deck. She
pointedly ignored me and pointed at the kid. "Come on. We're going.
And you will  apologize to Walter first."

"I will not."

"You will," Scully said, in that particular tone of voice that said
that she'd made up her mind and God help someone who got in her way.
She snapped her fingers. "Inside. In the living room. Do it. Now."

A hundred and forty pounds of disgruntled teenager, who was, I now
noticed, already taller than her, shambled to his feet with a
disgusted look on his face, but he headed inside the house. For all of
his troublemaking and sassing,  in the end, Charlie was a good kid.
Really. He mostly did what he was told. Probably no more difficult
than an average teenager, only his troublemaking was  just on a bigger
scale than every other kids. And his thirst for answers would
not be satisfied by the easy answers, like his brother Billy had been.
Billy knew that his conception and birth had been somewhat unusual,
but he was satisfied to leave it at that and get back to his books. 

When he'd slammed the sliding doors back on their tracks, I turned to
Scully and said the same thing I always said to her after they had
Fox and Scully argument number 107. "I love him like he's my own,
Dana. You know that."

This time, she surprised me. Her usual answer ranged from a snort to
a stare to just stalking away. This time though, she sighed heavily
and sank back into one of the chairs. She ran her fingers through her
red hair and said, "I know."

I was flabbergasted. 

"I wouldn't be sending him here if I didn't know," she continued. "I
just get possessive sometimes. You have Fox. What do I have left but
his children?"

I could tell her a lot of things to that. Like it was her choice to
make him go. Or that she still pretty much had him, because I was
always being ditched like a bad date whenever she needed him and I put
up with it and would continue  to put up with it because she was the
mother of his children. Or that she had Walt anytime she didn't drive
him away and that Walt would have done anything in the world for her
and her kids if she let him. I didn't say those things. I
just squeezed her shoulder gently and said, "Charlie will be alright.
We'll get  him straightened out."

"If he doesn't kill himself first," she said ruefully.

Too true. Too true. Though I thought that kid would be the death of
me long before then.

Day Seven-

I dropped Charlie off at his school. I waited until I saw him
disappear into the front doors and get drawn into the crowd of other
kids. I  suppose nothing could stop him should he chose to sneak out
of class,  but at least I was going to make sure he got to school. 

Then, off to my own work. Jilly was waiting outside my office when I 
got there. Of course. I groaned. I'd totally forgotten that I was
supposed to give her an answer about her little plan. You can see how
that might have slipped my mind, with the weekend I had.

She wasn't exactly pissed, but you could tell she was irritated with
me. Not exactly the wisest thing in the world to piss off Jilly. She
was a formidable woman, Jilly. About as tall as me and weighing almost
as much, but not an ounce  of it to spare. And an ex-Marine as well.
She joined up in 2001, at age 18, during the whole September 11th
thing. I don't know what happened to her exactly during her time in
the service, because she won't talk about it. I can respect that. I
know she was in country, in Afghanistan for a while, then again 
in Iraq. 

I do know that whatever happened, after she was discharged, she  went
and sat in a tree for three years. It was a big redwood somewhere  in
California, where's she's from. After three years, I guess the tree 
told her to go to school and become a chemist. I know. But that's her
story and she's sticking to  it. And who am I to judge? Afterall, my
lover talks to dead people. So, the tree told her to become a chemist
and she did. She worked in the industry just long enough to get some
experience, then she came to work for us. 

"I'm sorry, Jilly, I'm not going to be able to go on your hunting
trip," I told  her right off the bat. 

"Did you even look at what I sent you? These people need to be
brought down."

"I didn't have a chance to look. I'm sorry, Jilly, but Charlie is
suddenly living with us. I can't do it." I tried to get around her, to
get to my office and to work. I had a lot to get done before I had to
pick Charlie up again.

"What? He's fourteen, right? Does he really need the both of you to 
babysit?" She was blocking my way. I put up with a lot from Jilly,
stuff I wouldn't put up with from an ordinary co-worker. Partly
because she was so good at what she did. Partly because I was cutting
her a lot of slack, considering what must have happened to her in
country. I don't know what exactly happened, but I do know that what
happened in Iraq made my time in Lebanon seem like a day in the
country. It was bad, just the parts that made it onto the news. I'd
hate to have actually been there.

"Let's just say he's a chip off the old block and he went and got
himself in a lot of trouble this weekend." Jilly didn't know the full
story, but she knew a little bit about Fox before he'd retired from
alien fighting to become a writer. 

"So? This is apples and Agent Orange. What's it got to do with this?"

"You've never had kids, have you, Jilly?" I asked her. 

"No. What's that got to do with anything?"

"If you had kids, you'd understand. I'm sorry, Jilly. I just can't do
it. I really wish I could." 

Yeah. I did. As long as I kept going on these hunting trips, so to
speak, I could convince myself that I still had a hand in, that maybe
I wasn't such an old man after all. That I still had it. That yours
truly still had it in him to  be a bad ass. I'd be lying if I said I
didn't like the adrenaline of it. These little side trips with Jilly
were always fun. But, if I were caught, the stakes  were just too
high. I'm not talking about the professional thing. Nor am I even 
talking about possible danger to my life and limb. I'm saying I had to
set a good example for the boy. Can you imagine if I got caught doing
more or less the exact same thing that we'd been ragging on him about?
 I'd never live it down. 

"Okay, whatever you say, ya stiff assed, Republican bastard," she said
it with a big smile though. It was a familiar tease. She was letting
me know, in her special Jilly kind of way, that all was forgiven.

"Well, I'm glad you understand, you tree-huggin' pinko hippie commie,"
 I said back, the expected comeback. Thing was, in her own way, Jilly
was no more a tree-hugger than I was, by which I mean she didn't
romanticize it at all, not like our little intern Luna. This woman had
sat in a tree for three years after  all. She had commitment, vision,
integrity. She put her ass on the line, always  understanding that I
might not be able to pull her ass out of the fire one day
and she might end up in prison for life for domestic terrorism. Not
starry eyed, not a bit. And she knew her stuff, chemistry wise. She
did her own analysis and her official position here was running our
lab. I guess she must have taken the tree seriously.

"Hey," I said as she turned to go. "You ever hear from Jim Simpson
these days?"

"Now and then," she answered. "You need something?"

Jim Simpson was one of the aliases of a man we'd left inside the
DOD after the struggle. 

"Yeah, ask him to give me a call when he gets a chance."

I still had work to do when the afternoon rolled around and I had to
go retrieve Charlie from school. After a moment of contemplation, I
decided to head for home anyway. I couldn't bear the thought of 
trying to keep him busy and out of the way until I was done at work.
Worse came to worse, I could head back in to the city after dinner.

Back at home, I was surprised to see Fox, in the kitchen, tackling
the dishes we hadn't finished last night. "Homework," I told the boy,
pointing at the kitchen table.

"Did it in class," he said, with a growl. He dumped his backpack,
heavy as it was with books and the usual impedimentia of a high
schooler by the front door. I picked it up and threw it at him like
a drill sergeant would throw a raw recruit's pack at him. He just 
barely caught it, though I hadn't really thrown that hard. 

"I did it!" snapped little mister surly. "Do you want to see?!"

"If you're done with that, I can think of some extra assignments for
you to do," Fox added. "Like an essay on the history of the 
Homeland Security Acts of 2007."

"And you know the rules. All your crap up in the bedroom. I see
that pack by the door again and I'm throwin' it out." I thought
it was a reasonable rule and it had been in force since he and his
brother were little kids. Their bedroom could be as messy as they
liked and I wouldn't say a damn thing. But anything left out in the
rest of the house was forfeit. "And the money for replacing the books
comes right out of your pocket."

It might have been a bit extreme of me, true, but with such obvious
and consistent consequences, they learned quickly and it kept the 
rest of the house in pretty good shape. I hate a messy house and it
just about killed me to see the state of their room. But it was a 
fair trade off.

He sighed with such martyrdom that you'd think we were killing him
or something. "Okay," he said as he sat down at the table. "I'll
just read ahead for Lit class."

With Charlie plowing his way through Great Expectations and me 
rummaging through the fridge for something to fix for dinner and Fox
humming at the sink,  it got to be nice and cosy and domestic. For a
while at least. I was almost enjoying myself as I put some venison to
thaw for tomorrow in the fridge and pulled out vegetables and the
venison chunks I'd started thawing last night. 

Fox snuggled up behind me as I started peeling carrots. He rested
his head on my shoulder and whispered some poetry into my ear. 

"The sea has its pearls
The heaven its stars, --
But my heart, my heart.
My heart has its love."

I was enjoying it. I really was. Until I heard a big raspberry, then
a "Gross!" from the vicinity of the kitchen table. Fourteen year old
boys don't seem to be particularly big on romance, do they?

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Fox said, then again set about
seducing me in an age old manner- with fancy words. Walt Whitman this
time. Not quite innocent, to be sure, but hardly objectionable even
in front of the boy. 

"With laugh and many a kiss, 
(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse,
humiliation,) O soul, thou pleasest me, I thee.

"Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
But with the mystery of God, we dare not dally.

"O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
Sailing these seas or on the hills or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters
flowing, Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breath, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
I and my soul to range in range of thee."

He kissed me chastely, relatively, on my ear, then went back to
washing the dishes. Charlie sighed. Did a sigh count as a comment?
Brat. Ah, who much cared? Despite everything, this was just about as
perfect as a day could get. Fox talking poetry to me, family around
me, the house in good order. Dinner being created. This was what I
lived for and as Fox started with another poem, I started plans to
seduce him in bed tonight, after Charlie was asleep.

"I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center.  I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

"I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only.  I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary."

(Continued in part 6)

Part 6
See part 0 for header information.


It must have been something about the way he said it, or maybe it
was just the onions I was chopping, but there was a little dampness
around my eyes at that last stanza. As I wiped my face off with a
kitchen towel, I thought for some reason about having to give up 
Jilly's expedition. I thought about adrenaline rushes and feeling
the passion of them. And I realized, yet again, none of that meant 
a piss in the wind compared to what I had here with Fox. That
maybe passion wasn't always sweaty, athletic sex every day, though
mind you, I wasn't complaining thus far. But that maybe the passion
with him that I thought I'd lost wasn't so far away after all. That
even when weeks on end went by when he didn't make love to me, that
regardless, he was, indeed, like the air I breathed. That unnoticed,
at times. But that necessary.

I set the dish towel aside and crossed the kitchen. I pulled Fox
into my arms in a big dramatic display, comments from the peanut
gallery be damned. Then I kissed him, fully and deeply, and
felt my heart rise. I had all the passion I needed, right here.

"What was that for?" Fox asked, somewhat breathlessly when I released
him.

"The man quotes poetry at me and he doesn't expect a response."

"Oh, yeah," Fox said, kind of sheepishly, then he kissed me again.

When we surfaced, I noticed that we'd driven Charlie from the room.
At least he'd taken his pack and books with him.

"Fourteen year olds just don't appreciate poetry I guess," Fox said.

"Guess not." 

Day Eight

"Do you gotta to hold hands?" whined the voice ahead of us.

"Yes, we have to hold hands," Fox told Charlie.

"It's embarrassing, Dad," my lover's oh-so-sweet progeny said.

"What? That your dads are big homos?"

"No! That you're all goopy. Like you're in love or something."

We were in the grocery store. Charlie was our none too enthusiastic 
beast of burden at the moment, assigned to pushing the cart. He 
kicked the back of the cart while he waited for us to make our 
decisions and "accidentally" bumped other shoppers just hard enough
to be annoying and make us glare at him. It probably would have been 
easier to do it myself. No, I know for a fact that it would have 
been easier, but it was the principle of the thing. In fact, the 
easiest thing of all would have been to go by myself without either
Fox or Charlie. Ain't family togetherness grand?

We stopped in front of the meat case and contemplated the selection
of Styrofoam and plastic wrapped flesh. Somehow it didn't seem quite
right seeing meat that way when you've shot and killed your own,
butchered it yourself, but sometimes Fox got tired of nothing but
venison. I tried to cut him off before he got too good a look at the
steaks. He knew my game though, and said, "You're  paranoid."

"Look who's talking. And anyway, I'm not paranoid. I'm in possession
of  all the facts."

But when I looked at him he was looking at me with sad, puppy dog
eyes.  "Okay,  fine," I said, grabbing a couple of good filets. If you
were going to eat something that had chance of being fatal, it might
as well be really good. "But  when that crap starts eating holes in
your brain, I'm gonna say I told you so."

"How about if it just gives me e coli?" he asked.

Meanwhile, Charlie had wandered off to a nearby aisle and come back 
bearing a bottle of virulently purple ketchup. "No. Absolutely not," I
told him. What is it with kids and food that is more artificial dye
and color than actual food?

"But..."

"No buts, put it back."

He did so grudgingly and continued pushing the cart along as if he
were  one of those coal-mine boys and the cart was fully loaded with
coal.  After a while, Fox and I were debating which kind of cheese to
get. The  boy whined again. God, how did Scully put up with him? 

"You're weird. Both of you. Why can't I have a normal family?"

"Normal people worry me," I said. Once I would have said I was a
pretty  normal kind of guy. Then Fox Mulder happened to me. Nothing
like a  little Fox to turn one's life upside down and cause you to
reevaluate  everything you believe to be true.

"Well, first of all, to have a normal family, you have to have normal 
family members. Which I hate to inform you, kid, but you don't," Fox 
added. "Take your mom. Her idea of a really great day at work is
getting to slice open cadavers. Take me. I spent my youth chasing
little green aliens. Your idea of a  youthful caper makes me wake up
in the middle of the night with sweaty palms. Your brother can move
things without touching them. John's best friend at work
says she talks to trees and he believes her. Not a jot of normal in
this family."

"Gray," I said.

"What?" Charlie and Fox asked at the same time.

"Gray. The little aliens were gray, not green. If you don't remember 
that, maybe you already have mad cow, Martin."

Then it was time to pick out pop-tarts. Charlie held up the ecto-green
ones hopefully. The ones we still had a partial box of at home because
I had to close my eyes to eat them. "No. Besides, we have some at
home if you have to try them."

"We had some at home. They're gone," Charlie informed me. 

And so it went.

Eventually we got out of there, though by the time we'd hit the
checkout lane, I was seriously thinking about leaving both of them
home next time. Finally we'd wrangled everything home and got it  put
away and it was the kid's bedtime. Or at least the time where he had
to go to his room, shut the door and  pretend to be asleep. We didn't
fuss if he spent a while reading. Tonight he was probably going to do
just that. 

At the store, Fox had allowed him to pick out one of the books from 
the small selection they had, the usual brick of paper mass-market
crap.  The same category that Fox wrote. In fact, his books were right
next to the one that Charlie picked on the rack. As the boy went
upstairs, without protest for once,  his nose already buried in the
first pages of the horror thriller, I had a realization.

Especially when I saw the grin that Fox had, leaning against the wall,
watching his progeny ascend the stairs without making even a syllable
of protest that it was too early and couldn't he stay up just a
little longer.

"Okay, maybe it wasn't so wasteful to get him the book," I admitted. 
"Maybe it was kind of a good idea."

"Mister Shopping Cart Tyrant admits that I might have made a wise
buying decision on my own. I'll have to write this one down in my day
timer. We'll celebrate its anniversary for years to come."

"Watch your lip, young man," I said teasingly. Then something about 
his smirk,  well, inspired me. What can I say? I walked up to him and 
manhandled him until  he was faced to the wall and I had both his
wrists  in one of my hands. Mostly though he was pinned in place with
my body  weight. His left cheek was pressed to the wall, leaving me
free access   to the right side of his face. Fox didn't 
fight me at all. No, he  always liked it on the rare occasions I
decided to take charge of things. In fact,  I snaked my free hand
around to the front of his jeans, to test the waters so to speak. Oh,
yes. He was enjoying this. I nibbled on his ear and rubbed him through
his jeans.

"Upstairs. Bathroom. Now," I told him. "And don't say a thing until I
tell you that you can."

We practically raced each other there, though I took a detour to the 
bedroom for supplies. I shut the door behind us and locked it. Fox 
turned on the shower, to cover the noise we were going to make at
least  some. Then I turned to him again, grabbing him by the wrists.
This time  I pinned him with his back  against the wall and his hands
over his head. He squirmed as I ground my hard on against his. 

"I'm going to fuck you," I growled at him. "I'm going to fuck you so 
hard you can't see straight."

I thrust my hips into his again for emphasis and I could see that Fox
had already half closed his eyes and was licking that gorgeous lower 
lip of his. He was breathing heavy too. "Open your eyes," I commanded
him. I moved my head so he would have a good view of the mirror. "Look
at yourself. Look at how beautiful you are when you're hot for me. I 
want you to watch as I fuck you."

Someone, oh, yeah, probably the kid, fumbled with the door for a
moment  and we both held our breath. Then I heard footsteps away and
then down  the stairs. I kissed Fox, long and deep, demanding entrance
to his  mouth with my tongue, and grinding hips as we kissed. He was
moaning  around my mouth and I might have been doing a little of the
same. Then  I slid down and got onto my knees. 

I undid the button of his jeans and slid the zipper down. I pulled the
 jeans and his underwear, red boxer briefs, down in one motion. I 
grabbed his hands again as they tried to tangle themselves in my hair.
 "Look at yourself," I commanded. I went down on him, took him in as
deep as I could in just one motion. He whimpered. I worked on him,
getting harder and harder at the thought  of how much pleasure I was
giving him. 

Pretty soon, he started thrusting into my mouth and I could tell that 
much more of this treatment and he'd come. Definitely it was too soon 
for that. I had other plans for him. I pulled my mouth off of him and
he whimpered again, tried blindly to thrust back into my welcoming
warmth and wetness. 

"Uh-uh," I told him. "Try that again and I'm stopping."

Then I stood up. I had to use his hands as leverage to haul myself up.
Hey, I think I'm in pretty good shape for a guy as old as I am, but my
knees aren't what they used to be. I pushed Fox until he was leaning
up against the sink, with a good view of the mirror. His cock would be
trapped between his stomach and the sink, good for friction. I spread
his legs a little for easier access then started preparing him to
take me, all the while whispering at him, in a low growl, telling him
how  sexy he was, how I was going to fuck him, that he damn well
better  watch and so on. God, it was unbelievably exciting to watch
him listen  to me, to see his arousal grow, even though I would have
said he was  about as aroused as he possibly could get already. 

Finally, I plunged into him, his hips gripped firmly in my hands, both
 of us watching as I did exactly what I said I was going to do to him.
 I started out gentle, but before long, I was battering into him and
he was thrusting back at me. Eventually he closed his eyes but by that
point, I was beyond caring and in  any case, he started coming and I
was just about in heaven. His muscles clamped  down around me and as
always, it was amazing, that pressure on my cock. It dragged my own
orgasm out of me and I slammed his hips against me one last time 
and then I was  shooting into him. 

We both slumped against the sink, breathing heavily. I withdrew 
carefully and pulled the used condom off. "So, what'd ya think of
that?" I asked.

"I think I like it when you're a tyrant sometimes," he said, with a 
weary smile. "I was a good boy, do I get a reward?"

"You had your reward," I said with a grin. Then I slapped his
delicious  ass lightly. "Get in the shower, why don't ya?"

I cleaned his come off the vanity and disposed of the condom, wrapping
it carefully so it wouldn't be obvious in the trash. Didn't want to 
gross out the resident surly teenager, did I? Then I followed Fox
into the  shower. Soon we were clean, dried and ready for bed. 

Just as I was about to slip under the covers, the doorbell rang. Fox 
was already almost asleep, but his eyes popped open at the sound. 
"You expecting anyone?" I asked, mostly rhetorically. He would have 
told me if he was expecting a late night visitor. He shook his head 
and started to sit up. "No, you go to bed. I'll take care of it."

I grabbed my robe and headed down the stairs. I stopped at the hall  
closet before answering the door. We'd had a gun safe built into the 
closet wall. I punched the combination in rapidly as the doorbell rang
again and grabbed my Smith and Wesson and its clip. I pushed the clip
into place then slid the safety off as I felt the now unfamiliar
weight  of the gun in my right hand. How long had it been since I'd
even done  target practice? I'd have to get down to the range sometime
soon. 

Handle in my left hand, gun in my right, I opened the door cautiously.
I lowered my weapon immediately as soon as I saw who it was. "Shit! 
Walt, you shoulda called first," I said as I put the safety back in 
place. He didn't look too surprised to have been met at the door with
a firearm. But then, he knew all too well just how many people with a
grudge against either me or Fox might be out there still. 

He shook his head sadly. "I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking
clearly," he explained. I opened the door all the way for him and he
stepped inside. I shut the door then put the gun away safely.

"I thought you were staying with Dana?" He just shook his head in 
answer. Guess not. The affair was off again, at least for a while. 
Women! Can't they ever make up their minds? "You wanna talk about
it?"

"Nah. What's to say?" He shrugged in a way that let me see that he was
regretting ever coming back from the South Pacific. I could sort of
put  the picture together now, seeing that Scully must have lured him
back,  not with promises, but with hints that maybe she was ready to
have him  around again. I wanted to tell him to haul his ass back to
the  Marquesas, find himself a nice, happy woman without all the
baggage to  share his life with and forget about Scully. No doubt if I
did, it  wouldn't penetrate that thick, bald skull of his. 

"You know, sometimes I really envy what you and Fox have," he said. 
"I wonder if it wouldn't be easier if I were gay. At least then I'd 
have a good chance at understanding the person I fell in love with. 
Women! Can't live with 'em. End of sentence."

"Maybe you just haven't met the right guy yet," I told him, but 
lightly, with a little tease in my voice, so he would know I wasn't 
serious.

"No, I've met the guys who should have been the right guys and my dick
 utterly  fails to get hard for 'em." He hefted his bag again and then
 looked me in the eyes. Seemed like for a minute he was going to say
something sappy and maybe even maudlin but the moment passed. "It's a
mystery to me," he finally said.

"Well, heterosexuality happens in the best of families, Walt, but we 
love you just the way you are," I cracked. "Welcome home. You know
where the guest room is and you know where we keep the key to the
liquor cabinet. See you in the morning."

Then I went upstairs, to where the man I loved slept. He'd fallen 
soundly asleep already. I tucked myself in next to him. All was right
in my little world. That was, until I heard the distinctive turbo 
vacuum cleaner in reverse sound of a cat hacking up a serious
hairball.  Okay, maybe all wasn't right, but all was more or less good
enough. I  hoped that the cat had chosen an out of the way location.
Nothing worse  than stepping in cold, wet hairball first thing in the
morning, but I  was also falling asleep too fast to go find it and
clean it up. 

Day Nine

"Fuck!" 

That was the first thing I heard this morning. Fox, yelling loudly.
It was followed by, "Goddamn cats!"

Guess the cat didn't chose such an out of the way location after all.
I sighed and looked at the window. Still dark out. I checked the alarm
clock. Only about  half an hour before I normally got up. I decided to
get up anyway. Good thing too, because a moment later, the phone rang.
I reached for it, but it stopped before I got there. I heard Fox
talking in the hallway. 

"Sure, I'll get him for you, Jilly," Fox said. "Hey, how's the saving
the world gig going for you these days?"

He laughed at whatever she said, then opened the bedroom door. I
dreaded taking  the phone from him. God knows what it would be when
Jilly called me this early.  It usually wasn't something that added to
my peace of mind. I took it anyway.

"Morning, John," she said. She sounded cheerful enough, but then you 
never really knew with Jilly. 

"What can I do for you?" I asked, sitting up in bed, preparing myself
for whatever outlandish task she had in mind, or for the fact that
she might be calling from jail somewhere.

"Skip the gym this morning and bring your running clothes to work," 
she said. "You have a lunch time running date."

"Oh, yeah? Since when?" This was far from the oddest thing she'd ever
asked of me, but I was still wondering what it was all about.

"A mutual friend of ours. Only time he can arrange to see you. The
usual place."

Oh. Of course. I'd asked her to contact "Jim Simpson" for me. Stood
to reason that he might think that his phone, or our phone, might be 
tapped. Jogging on the mall was pretty innocuous and ubiquitous. We'd
blend right in with all the other joggers. I wasn't particularly fond
of jogging, but I wanted the meeting. "When?" I asked.

"Noon-thirty," she said. "See ya in a couple of hours."

"Yeah, sure. Thanks, Jilly."

So began the morning rush. You know, I think the physicists would be 
interested in finding out that the forces that draw teenage boys to 
their beds are greater than any gravitational pull of a black hole.
Eventually though, and it took both me and Fox to do it, we got the
boy out of bed, dressed and putting some breakfast down his face.
Walt had never made it to the bed. We found him on the living room
sofa, a finger of scotch still in the tumbler on the end table and 
glasses still on his face. Poor guy. Fox looked questioningly at him 
and I said, "Dana needs some space or something."

Fox shrugged and found a blanket to drape over the big lug. Then it
was time for us to head out the door. Charlie was still dragging so
much I was almost tempted to shove a mug of coffee at the boy. His
fault though. I'd caught a glimpse of how much he'd read before
falling asleep. The big brick of a book was about halfway done,
propped open on the floor next to his bed. 

Charlie got out of the truck, almost forgetting his back pack. I
honked at him and he sleepily turned to me. I held it up and he came
back to get it. "Hey, kid, have a good day, 'kay?"

"Thanks, otherdad," he said. That was his name for me, going back to 
when he was a small sprout. Fox was his dad, he'd always explained to
his friends. I was his other dad. He said it something like
'utherdad', fast and kind of slurred.

"You're welcome. I'll be by at three-thirty like usual," I said.

He saluted, then plodded bonelessly up the walk to the front doors of
the big, brick building. I watched as he waved to friends, joined up
with a couple of them, suddenly looking a lot more animated than he
had. Fox was still grumbling  about pulling him out of the school but
the more I saw him with his school friends, the less I was inclined to
agree with Fox. 

Work was pretty boring and typical. At noon, I changed into the
shorts and t-shirt I'd brought with me and headed out at a slow,
sustainable pace, heading for the Smithsonian castle. That's where I
usually met "Jim." As I jogged in the sweltering heat, the sun
punishingly bright, I wondered at the wisdom of letting Jilly talk me
into this kind of  meeting. Okay, I lied earlier about being not
particularly fond of  jogging. Honestly, in this kind of weather, I
hate it, no two ways about it. 

As I passed the castle, a familiar face joined me. "Good to see you,
John," he said. "Jim Simpson" was whip lean, had the perfect runner's
body and looked impossibly good in the spandex he always wore. His
fade was shorn closer than he usually wore it and his skin was a
little  darker than the last time I saw him. He must have been getting
some sun. And he'd remembered to bring sunglasses, which I hadn't. 

"Looking good, Jim," I said. He kept pace with me, though I know he
usually ran a lot faster. 

"So, I hear that Martin's son is a chip off the old block," he said
casually.

"That get around already?"

(Continued in part 7)