"Rainy Days and Mondays" by MJ

A gray, rainy Washington day, the kind that stands out in your memory when you see it on newscasts; everyone in overcoats, tan or black, over gray suits, no hats since JFK made them a fashion obsolescence in this town, black umbrellas unfurled under dirty gray drizzle.

The kind of Monday morning that you know will have an eight-thirty meeting that runs until lunch.

Fox Mulder hadn't eaten breakfast, and he was beginning to think that the ten-thirty coffee break would never happen. There was a pack of Ho-Ho's sitting on his desk. He could see them. He could taste them, smell them, feel the cream filling throughout his mouth. Drake's Devil Dogs would be good, too, he thought, imagining the chocolate coating melting against his tongue.

Anything for that break. Please, God. He was starving. He'd been starving since he'd come in with his coffee and seen Louise Mitchell finishing the last crumbs of her apple danish. That was the moment that lack of breakfast had suddenly sunk in.

Anyone who looked at Mulder would be equally sure that he hadn't eaten—possibly in days. His shirt seemed to be at least a size too large, hanging off of his shoulders; if he took off his jacket, he would probably be seen to be swimming in it. The jacket fit so much better than the shirt; perhaps the shirt had been bought at another weight? As if Fox Mulder had ever been anything other than lean since childhood.

How long could Samuels from Human Resources continue to drone? How could a discussion of government policy regarding bathroom facilities take this kind of intense focus? Only a bureaucrat could turn the topic into a half-day seminar. Only a masochist could maintain focus on the topic. He peered around the room, looking for the masochists. Mitchell, and Dave Hernandez, and—oh, no surprise, Paul Hersh. Tim Wyatt, on the other hand, was actively fighting to stay awake, as was Maura Collins. Most of the rest looked battered and bruised—whether from ninety minutes of Samuels' droning or from the vicissitudes of their individual weekends, Mulder wasn't sure.

Except about himself. And about Walter Skinner.

He was wearing one of Skinner's shirts this morning, his own shirt from Friday draped across a chair in Skinner's room, a pair of sweatpants borrowed from Skinner lying nearby. Not that the weekend had particularly required clothing, except when the pizza delivery guy had arrived on Saturday. He had shown up at Skinner's apartment to drop off a report, slightly under the influence of happy hour at Flannigan's; after his cheerful round of Dutch courage had wound up with his pinning Skinner to the couch and kissing him to within an inch of oxygen deprivation, the rest of the weekend's plans went out the window. The rest of the weekend, even the Saturday pizza, had been spent in bed.

Mulder looked across the conference table at Skinner. Skinner was staring back, poker-faced. No, maybe not quite poker-faced. And the poker face meant nothing. Now that he'd seen Walter Skinner's lips wrapped around his erection, now that he'd seen Skinner's eyes glazed over, unfocused, ready to come, now that he'd seen Skinner flushed, sweating, moaning his name, it was far too simple to paste an expression on Skinner's expressionless stare. Some men undressed women with their eyes; Mulder mentally rearranged Skinner's expression to match the hunger it had shown over the weekend.

The essence of magic is the imposition of one's will upon another being or object. Magic was happening in front of him. Mulder realized that Skinner was starting to slide into one of those faces he was painting for Skinner, the one Skinner had worn just before he'd begged Mulder to go down on him on Friday evening. He felt himself flush, afraid his own expression matched

Skinner's. If there was anything he wanted more than that coffee break junk, it was Skinner. Unfortunately, the chocolate-flavored junk was the only thing he'd be likely to be able to wrap his lips around this morning—or, more than likely, until Friday at the earliest. Some hungers are more conveniently satisfied than others. His desire for knowing that Skinner wanted him again was being satisfied right now. The appetite for food would be settled shortly. The hunger for Walter Skinner's body would have to wait.

The door opened—Skinner's assistant, Kim, with a message for Skinner. Skinner took the message and read it, breaking Mulder's spell. He handed the paper back to Kim after initialling it, and nodded. She looked across the table and stared pointedly at Mulder.

A reprieve from the meeting. A reprieve from the meeting that translated into "next flight to Iowa."

A reprieve that might, if he was lucky, not run into the weekend. And if he was unlucky?

Fox Mulder had gone hungry before in his life. Some hungers, alas, are more demanding than others.

He stared back across the table at a vaguely unnerved Walter Skinner and mouthed one word with his lips. Whatever it was, it looked like "Friday." Skinner nodded back, his own lips slightly slack. Hardly poker-faced now.

Hunger is what keeps us going. The history of the world is nothing more than the human drive to meet one need, one lust, or another.

The hunger for a case in Iowa was *not* a hunger that held any motivation for Fox Mulder today.

The rain drizzled gray in the conference room window as he left.