MJ

You're going to kill me.

I don't know why you should want to, but you will.

And it's going to be for what I did to save your ass.

I remember how this whole thing started. Hell, there I was, fresh out of Quantico, still wet behind the ears. Your name still whispered around the place in tones of awe—Good Lord, how could anybody profile like that? "Spooky" Mulder, boy wonder of the FBI. Over at the Academy, we weren't hearing the scuttlebutt about your X-File insanity, just the handed-down tales of your profiling glory. That business when you were at Oxford. Impressed? Damn, we all would nearly have creamed in our jeans to be able to get you to Tell Us How…and speaking of creaming, I hadn't even seen you in that swimsuit yet.

Fresh out of Quantico, and fresh out of Your Duty To Your Country 101 as taught by my bosses. My job as an FBI agent was simple—be the best agent possible, and protect your country by messing up a few of Spooky's assignments. I couldn't figure out why they didn't just kill you; that's their usual style when they think the truth will threaten what they perceive to be the public interest. Though, if they'd asked me to do that, I'd have had a problem anyhow—remember, straight out of the Academy and still in awe. Not ready to murder the class's object of hero worship. They didn't ask that of me, though, although it was pretty clear that a few of them wanted to. But their fearless leader, the one with the smokes, made it pretty clear that although the truth was not to be revealed, not a hair of Bill Mulder's son's head was allowed to be ruffled. I didn't know what the old man had about you; actually, I still don't know what it is exactly—but it was pretty clear that he had a thing of some kind for you. I couldn't figure out why; but then, I hadn't met you yet. I didn't know you then.

I know you now. God, do I know you. I know how you look when you've come back from running, with the sweat running off of you. How you look when you've found a lead—focused, intent, brow furrowed, chewing on your lip. How you looked the first time you kissed me. And how you look in bed, the only time you really let yourself go, eyes half closed, lips half open, totally disoriented, breathing in spurts, when you're nearly ready to come.

Oh, do I know you. What you look like first thing in the morning, hair rumpled, eyes unfocused, grinning like a Cheshire cat, when we've made love half the night. What you look like in the middle of the night when the dreams come—courtesy of your own father, the guy with the smokes says, though you don't know that, and I can't tell you. How you smell when you get out of the shower. How you feel—hard, wiry muscle, under skin some women would kill for, and long-fingered hands that have a life of their own. Especially with me, especially in bed. Those hands, Mulder. You know, they pay people to model hands? For glove ads, and hand cream ads, and that sort of thing? You'd be the greatest hand model ever. Of course, I'd rather you keep your hands to myself, but that won't be for much longer. Not after you decide to kill me.

I know you, Mulder. Better than you know yourself. How your lips taste, half sweet, half salt, after you've been working through those damned sunflower seeds. It's a habit, you tell me, you picked up when you quit smoking. I'd rather have you eat me instead, fella. You'd get about as much salt, and we'd both have more fun…besides, being a reformed smoker should give you an urge to suck on something—crap, I shouldn't think about the way you do that right now, I've got too much to do to think about one of those patented blowjobs of yours, and these pants would have to be dry cleaned…Yeah, Mulder, I know how you taste, the salt and tang of your sweat, when you've just come in from running, or when we're making love. Yeah, I know how you taste…when we're in bed, and I slide down and take you in my mouth, and start working on you, and you squirm, and you moan, and you arch your back and I feel your legs go stiff, when I work you into coming in my mouth…God do I know how you taste.

How'd I wind up in this fix, anyway? It was all so simple. Watch Mulder. Report back. Steal a file here, replace a document there. Claim I didn't see something I saw, claim I saw something I didn't see. Nothing complicated, nothing to offend what little moral conscience I've got—and hell, it's all for the good of my country anyway; my bosses tell me so, and if you knew who they were and what they do, you'd know they're right. Get you to trust me. Well, I sure did that, didn't I? You trusted me all right, more than I thought. You had reason to; I was becoming thrilled by the chance to help you. Like the time I thought I was saving your life when I shot the sleepless wonder at the train station; I mean I saw that gun he was aiming at you. I couldn't let him kill you. Okay, the smoker wanted him dead anyhow…but I saw that gun, saw it pointed at you…saw, in my mind, you dead on the pavement. I couldn't take the chance of losing you. I wanted you to trust me, to feel able to trust me. I wasn't expecting you to fall for me like the proverbial ton of bricks—and I sure as hell didn't count on getting weak-kneed over you either, but it was happening. I sure don't think my bosses expected it, or they wouldn't've sent me out after you. I figure they thought you'd fall for Scully and give everything over to her, and then they'd get it from her.

Too bad for them that she wasn't really in on things; too bad for them, too, that they'd made a slight miscalculation about just what "your type" was. I guess they still hadn't figured it out when they sent me out, because they don't seem like the types who'd be too happy about this sort of thing going on—not that bunch of uptight old farts sitting in front of a row of flags. Having a cute little redhead with more brains than a roomful of rocket scientists wind up in bed with you is one thing; that's American. I didn't plan on seducing you to gain your trust; hell, you seduced me, but a couple of faggots fucking each other's brains out before busting hardcore violent criminals? You can't tell these guys that that's what J. Edgar and Clyde used to do; I mean, what's more American than a couple of G-men modelling themselves on the FBI's greatest leader? But I don't think the smoker would buy it for a minute.

I got assigned as your partner, and I'll never forget that look you gave me the day we met. I must've been as wet behind the ears as you told Scully I was, because not only didn't I know actual field investigation technique yet, but I also guess I didn't know as much about sex as I figured. I thought I was getting the Mulder once-over and was praying that I wouldn't fit into your profile for "rat". You told me about my needing help with the wardrobe—a man who wears ties like yours with Armani suits shouldn't talk—and I had no idea that you were apparently giving what I had under the suit a lot more scrutiny than the suit and tie. Most of the cruising I'd experienced had been a lot more blatant, and certainly from much less attractive men. People think I've been around the block several times over. I hate to disappoint them, but I've been so focused on survival, and on doing a good job of whatever it is that I actually do, that I've had a lot less experience than they think. A lot of women, yeah, but only a few guys, and not very seriously. It was easy, cheap sex when I was in school, and I made some good money the times I did it. The johns who'd wanted me had been pretty up-front about it. The guys my age had been awkward enough about it that you couldn't miss the point If I'd ever been cruised politely by anyone considering a serious encounter, I'd managed to be green enough to miss it. I missed it this time, for certain.

We joked around a lot about sex, especially in the car, but I never took the joking, or what I thought was humorous flirting, seriously; at least I didn't at first. I figured—who didn't?-that you had to be nailing Scully. If I were her partner, I'd've been trying to nail her, I can tell you. I mean, look at that pathetic jerk Pendrell. The lab rat thinks he's got a chance? He can get at the end of the line. I mean, is there a breathing male agent—besides you, Mulder—who doesn't want a crack at the Ice Queen? That was my bosses' other miscalculation with Scully. Not only is she way, way not your type, but I don't think anybody's her type.

Maybe she's just lusting after the unattainable—namely, you—and that's why they're all getting nowhere with her. She'd rather wash the dog than go on a date, at least if the date's name isn't Mulder. Funny, I feel pretty much the same way myself these days. But at first I kept missing the point of your attention to me.

Then, on that stakeout, when we were both sitting in the car ruining our stomachs with late-night 7-11 chili dogs and overcooked coffee, I got the message, the one I'd missed when we met, the one I missed when you'd joke around with me in the car. Loud and clear, Mulder. You'd balanced your coffee cup between the seats so you had to reach over to get it, and every time you reached, you would brush your hand against my thigh. I barely noticed at first; I thought it was purely accidental. But it kept happening, with more and more pressure. No accident by now, and the heat from your hand was more intense than the warmth from the coffee cup. Finally you reached over and you didn't go for the cup at all; you just kept your hand on my leg. That body heat of yours was still there, and so was a definite tingling that went straight up to my crotch. I couldn't believe how hard I'd become from that simple act of your claiming my thigh.

I mean, I was surprised, but I didn't move. I just turned my head, and you were still looking forward, so I was staring at that mole on your cheek. You must have noticed, because you turned your head towards me—very slightly, and very slowly—and arched the one eyebrow I could see questioningly at me. I must have been feeling pretty reckless—I wasn't thinking about the stakeout at all now, and I certainly wasn't thinking about what the smoker would want—because all I did was put my hand on top of yours, the one still on my thigh, and nod. I don't think I was thinking; all I knew was that this incredible man was telling me he wanted me, and it wasn't one of my fumbling teenage partners, and it wasn't a money deal. He was telling me he wanted me, for myself, even if it was just for that moment. I'd never had that from a man before. Women, yes, though I'd usually been the one to make the invitation, but never a man. Never before pure desire—not awkwardness, not embarrassment, not a business transaction, but the direct expression of wanting and needing another man as an end in itself. We had a nice piece of explaining to do the next day about why the stakeout had failed to pan out, but neither of us cared about the chewing-out.

»»»

It's been a fun ride while it's lasted. I'm lying here in bed, looking at you, watching you sleep; you rarely if ever have nightmares when you fall asleep after sex. I'm glad I've been able to do that much for you, if nothing else. There's something you haven't told me; I think you know what that is, and if I'm right, from the way you look at me sometimes, I'm pretty sure you're feeling it. I feel it, too. Please, please, don't tell me, though. Because it'll hurt too much later, when you'll hate me. They've been putting pressure on me because things haven't been going through the way they'd like—I wonder why that is?—and they want me to come up with a solution. So far the smoker's the only one that's been able to keep them away from you. Until now. I'm giving them a Judas deal that I know the smoker will appreciate, and I think they'll all buy it. Which buys you time, and your extremely attractive neck. See, I know how you work when you and Scully are together. As partners in work, if not in life, the two of you together are so much more than the sum of your parts. That's why the X-Files case-solving rate was so high. And if I can get that across to the rest of them—you're lucky that the smoker's really on your side, though you'd never believe it unless he told you the whole story, and he'll never do that—they'll be willing to get Scully out of the way and leave you…just like they took Samantha, and left you. If only I could make you realize why they did that, and how lucky you are, but even I don't know the whole story and they'd kill me if I told what little I know.

So I'm selling them Scully. I can't give them you. You mean too much to me now, and I can't bear the thought of anything happening to you. But I know you, Mulder, and I know you'll find out what happened to her. So I know that you'll hate me for saving you, because you'll think the only purpose of it was to hurt her. And then the ride will be over, because you won't fucking appreciate that I've risked my neck and Scully's to save my lover's life.

No. You're going to kill me.