PRELUDE: SURLY VOICE by Elizabeth Gerber Rating: R for language and sexual imagery Category: VRA Keywords: SLASH M/SK Spoilers: Demons, Gethsemene, Redux Summary: Skinner reflects on the end of his relationship with Fox Mulder. Chronologically before Voice of Reason. Also found with a bookcover image at my page: http://skinner.mulder.com/voices.html The other three "Voice" stories can be found there as well. Feedback: Yes, please, to elixia@mindspring.com Disclaimer: The characters depicted within belong to 1013, Fox and Chris Carter. The song I have quoted from nearly in its entirety is "Anything But Down" by Sheryl Crow. Thanks: To m. butterfly for encouragement and betaing. Note: I wrote this story about a month before, but I was uncertain about posting it. Thanks to m. butterfly for encouraging me. I tried to make this a good songfic. If I have failed, please forgive me my folly. WARNING!! This story contains romance between two men. Not too much physically in this one. Timeline: Soon after Redux II. ^^^^^^^^^ I light your cigarettes I bring you apples from the vine How quickly you forget I run the bath and pour the wine I bring you everything that floats into your mind ^^^ This has to end. I love him, but I hate this situation, and it's killing me. Perhaps even as fast as it's killing him. Of course, I found out he's not dead, but from the way he looks... I survived my own death in Vietnam. I survived my parents' deaths. My wife's. I always survive, but if I'm going to survive him I need to get out. I don't want to cut through this knot we've made, but perhaps I can untie it, gently, take my piece of string and walk away. In the last few months, I've taken so much from him. I've taken his silence, his silent accusations of betrayal. His distance and his pain. That crazy stuff up in Rhode Island, and he didn't even call me. His fucking death I took, and he has no idea what that did to me. Most days I'm not sure who he hates more: me or himself. It's a toss-up. God knows he throws enough witty barbs and cold looks my way, but I can only begin to imagine what he does to himself. In my darkest nightmares, I think I get a glimpse of what it's like inside Fox Mulder's head these days. So, it's not that I don't feel sorry for him, or that I don't love him. It's that he won't even let me in to help him, his pain is killing me. ^^^ But you don't bring me anything but down You don't bring me anything but down You don't bring me anything but down When you come 'round ^^^ Our relationship, if you want to call it that, started off beautifully. We'd been seeing each other, occasionally, as friends. A few beers, whatever. One night shortly after Sharon's death, I found myself in the arms of Fox Mulder, boy genius and spooky extraordinaire. He was no mean lover, and we warmed each other's beds most week-ends when he wasn't away on a case. We never spoke of future plans, forevers. We spoke with our thighs and eyes, an indistinct language of lust and affection. I greeted him at the door with my lips and arms; he returned the gesture. Now, we haven't slept together since before Rhode Island. We've had sex, mind you, but I don't find him in my bed in the morning, rumpled and sweet. He arrives at my door drunk or exhausted. I put him back together as best I can, scrambling with my fingers, and then he leaves. He leaves me standing in the middle of my living room with no comfort but a glass of scotch and his scent on my skin. I don't care to be that person--the one who waits, the one who doesn't get what he waits for. ^^^ You are a raging sea I pull myself out everyday I plea insanity Cause I can't leave but I can't stay You say, won't you come find me and yes is what I say ^^^ We have it down to a science. He knocks on my door and we stumble to the bedroom. Ties come off first and then shirts. Shoes, pants, shorts hit the floor. We kiss roughly, thoroughly, teeth clicking. Then we fall onto the bed, and I fuck him, bring him off with my hand. His eyes are closed, and I don't think he's even there. I'm his drug, his narcotic to escape his mess of a life. We both come, and then for one moment he is at rest in this world. I study his smooth back, his knotted shoulders, his thin neck. I try to memorize him, but too soon he's up. Shorts, pants, shoes, shirt, tie. I say we'll watch a game. We walk downstairs to the door and he leaves to go destroy himself a little more. ^^^ You don't bring me anything but down You don't bring me anything but down Everything is crashing to the ground Maybe I'm not your perfect kind Maybe I'm not what you had in mind Maybe we're just killing time ^^^ I felt, some nights, like his living, breathing security blanket. While he was still actuallly sleeping in my bed, he would roll over when we finished, spread himself out. Then, in the night, when whatever things haunts him came around, he'd roll back, wrap himself around me, hold me with all the strength of his fears. I tried to kid myself that I was the one, the only one who could make him feel safe. I've come to realize that's crap. I'm a breathing body who'll welcome him. I could be Scully. I could be that bastard Krycek. I could be someone kind he met at a bar, anyone with a firm ass and a soft heart. Maybe. God, maybe not. I want to believe. ^^^ You with your silky words And your eyes of green and blue You with your steel beliefs That don't match anything you do It was so much easier before you became you ^^^ And it would be so easy for me to let you make be believe. Your chip cured Scully--apparently. You're the miracle man. Your convictions are like a force of nature, in the sense that you sweep everything before you out of the way. In the sense, also, of destruction, decimation, ruination. Is the washed-out village the fault of the tidal wave, or was it simply in the wrong place? Your charming sleepy eyes and your skilled mouth call me like a siren. It's taking all of my strength to resist your call. Before you, I never knew what temptation was. Before you, I never wanted to throw everything away for the love of one man. ^^^ No more playing seek and hide No more long and wasted nights Can't you make it easy on yourself I know you wish you were strong You wish you were never wrong Well, I got some wishes of my own ^^^ I'm sorry, Mulder, I'm so sorry. Whatever I can do to help you in the Bureau, I'll do it gladly. I'll pull you out of the cauldron and hand you back to Scully. She's recovering now, so you'll have her. I pray you'll have her. I know you haven't meant to hurt me. I know; you didn't think of me when you staged your death. I know that entirely too well. I know that you wish your hot mindless kisses could wash it away, but that's not going to happen. Not this time. THE END Thanks for reading! Feedback is welcome at elixia@mindspring.com. I realize I've made Skinner a bitter, depressed creature in this story, but remember that I do have things perk up for the guy down the road.