by Pares

I lived in a basement apartment the summer before I left for England. Three other guys and pizza boxes and cruddy toilets and stockpiles of twice worn socks.

I guess the dank chill agreed with me, because this office has felt like home for years.

Sure the light's bad, and the air can get a little stale--

The light *was* bad. The air *was* stale.

Jesus, I miss it already.

My whole head throbbed like a rotten tooth while I watched it burn.

Fire. He set a fucking *fire*. Fucker. I know he lit it with one of those goddamned coffin nails. One day, old man. One day.

I don't remember Scully pulling me away... but I'm sure she did.

I couldn't feel her arms around me, couldn't hear her. I felt... disconnected. Like my skull was a hollow, morbid balloon bobbing above my body while my work-- and Scully's-- shivered into black ash.

Later, Skinner called the apartment and I came back around. Mostly because
there was an alarm going off somewhere... like one of those idiotic Mall chimes that feebly pings for security when someone's gaily stuffing skirts into their underwear.

Diana, I found, was easy to put aside.

She was hurt, maybe dying, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

She'd always made her own decisions. She'd been "wasting her time" in my bed,
I think the phrase was. She was impatient with my notable absence of ambition-- I "lacked scope".

Gibson-- I had room in my head for a kidnapped 8 year old, even if he and
others like him mean the beginning of the end of the human race as I now know it.

Strangely, it was Skinner who I kept coming back to.

The record in my head kept skipping, replaying the scenes of the day. How I'd
found him in my office, and was embarrassingly glad to see him there.

Until I remembered myself and unchained my old watchdog, suspicion.

The basement. My basement. I'm territorial about that one place-- or I was--
like no other. I still haven't admitted to myself the real reason I kept neglecting to requisition a desk for Scully...

But I'd gotten used to her, accepted her.

Okay, I admit it, the office felt empty when she was absent. It was like the lights were dimmer when she wasn't there.

Skinner, on the other hand... I'm not sure I can explain this. Even to myself.

Lightning. After it flashes, there's a pause before it thunders.

I suppose you could say it's delayed reaction, and a wise one, but it's the time after he leaves that I want to... when I....

Sometimes the sun feels so far away. I spend so much time trying to read shadows, the shadows of shadows...

The sun is 93,000,000 miles away from me, you, from all of us, and sometimes I
can feel every inch of that distance. If the sun went out tomorrow, we'd have just eight minutes of brilliance before being plunged into an unending night.

That's how I feel about him, sometimes. It's like he leaves a wake of light in the room-- in me-- and in those eight minutes I can contemplate my own darkness. And wonder.

What's your collar size, Skinner? Do you dress left or right? I hear from Kim that you've been talking to Special Agent Jefferson; is it true you two have a lunch date next Thursday? Who is Marita *really* working for? Are you my protector? How much do you know?

Sometimes I don't care. There are days I'd kneel anyway, suck you, gladly.

I'd suck you, Walter. And I hate that about you, about myself, because it's the only thing I have left to resent you for. Because I don't want to want you until I know what you are.

I've been burned before, so to speak.

Three times now.

I want to trust you.

I want to know you are who I want you to be.

I've done things for you I'm not sure I'd do again. Filling off the gun's serial number. Going under with those fucking savages in Pine Bluff.

What were you doing in my basement?

I'll suck you, Walter. Throw myself to the wolf in you, if that's what you are under all those wool suits... Because it's too late now, anyway.

I lied to Scully because you told me it was a good idea.

And you were in my office, my files in your hands. Nervous. Pacing.

I'll do anything you want me to.

If you'll tell me everything you know.

END