X-FILES: Alchemy

[fajrdrako_fic]

Title: Alchemy
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: X-Files
Characters: Mulder/Skinner
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims; it all belongs to Chris Carter.


Alchemy

Walter Skinner stood in the rain, waiting. It was nearly midnight, and he wanted to go home. He was tired; he was irritated. He wished he had not picked up the phone when Mulder had called. He wished his pulse had not quickened when Mulder had said, in a crisp, quick voice, "It’s me, sir."

"Mulder," he said, hiding pleasure with gruffness. He always hid the pleasure. He could not prevent it, but he could prevent others from knowing of it. Mulder foremost.

"I have something to show you."

"For God’s sake, Mulder, do you know what time it is?"

"Of course I do," said Mulder. "Getting on to Athar, I think."

"It’s past eleven, Mulder." retorted Skinner, who had no idea what Athar was and wasn’t about to ask. "I was just leaving for home."

"You work too much," said Mulder testily. "No sane man should be in his office at this time of night."

"And where are you, Mulder? Is this casework you’re calling me about?"

There was a brief silence. "It’s in connection with an X-File," he said cautiously. "Listen, I can’t talk about it on the phone, and I think you should see this. Will you come, or not?"

"Where are you, Mulder?"

"At a phone booth. In the rain. The roof is leaking."

"Mulder, are you trying to get a drive home?"

"If I were, I’d call Scully. No, sir, I found something you might be interested in seeing for yourself."

"What?"

"If I tell you too much, you won’t come. You’ll tell me I’m drunk or dreaming and hang up."

"Mulder?"

"Sir?"

"Are you drunk? Or dreaming?"

There was a short silence. Skinner realized, quite suddenly, that Mulder’s voice had been a little slurred. Suddenly alarmed, he said, "Mulder?"

"I am not drunk," said Mulder sharply. "The subject, sir, is the science of multiplication and perpetual fire. What do you know of the land of Khem? Azoth? The Triune Power?"

Skinner sighed. When Mulder was being obscure, there was no handling him. "Where do you want me to meet you?"

Mulder gave an address. "I’ll met you on the corner," he said, and hung up.

Skinner sighed again. He rose from the chair and unrolled his shirtsleeves. He put on a jacket and trench coat, checked that all papers were neatly locked in a secure drawer, and turned out the light.

Mulder knew that curiosity was his weakness. What Mulder did not know was that Skinner had an even greater weakness, and that was Mulder himself.

* * *

So curiosity, and a weakness for Mulder, led him to a wet street corner at midnight in a district of shabby, anonymous buildings. Warehouses and abandoned office buildings, for the most part, with the occasional attempt at gentrification: a legible sign, a feeble street-light.

"Sir?" He had not heard Mulder’s footsteps, because of the sound of the rain. Mulder stood far enough away that he could not make out his features in the darkness because the rain was cascading over the lenses of his glasses, however he held his umbrella. But nothing could disguise Mulder’s form or his stance, the long limbs, the height, the shape of the head as the rain flattened his hair against his scalp. "This way."

He turned, and Skinner followed. Mulder was limping, but still moving quickly; through a hole cut into a fence - Skinner hardly dared to hope it had not been cut by Mulder, who was probably trespassing again. Through an unlocked door, on which the padlock had been cut. Up dark stairs, clumsily, feeling the peeling paint on the walls as he went because there was not enough light to see where to place a foot and it was necessary to move by touch.

Another door opened, one of wide double doors on a landing. "Welcome," said Mulder, "To the lab of Hermes Trismagistus."

Skinner stepped inside. The room was filled with odd smells, some pleasant, most not; as if garbage and sweet perfume were at war together. The strongest aroma was of woodsmoke. The motion and nature of the light made him suspect the room was lit by firelight or candles, but with the water on his glasses he could see only bright glitter in darkness. He pulled a tissue from his pocket - damp, but usable - and removed his glasses to rub them dry. Without his glasses, the lights made a friendly glow, like a bonfire by the beach or a fireplace in a ski lodge, blurred islands in the darkness.

Mulder closed the door behind them. The room was silent except for the sound of Mulder’s quick, heavy breathing. Was he out of shape, that climbing those stairs winded him? Skinner had no such problem. He put on his glasses again, and looked around.

The light was indeed from a fire, but what he had taken for a fireplace was an old stone oven, its design precise and strange. It was surrounded by oddly shaped vessels of pottery or glass, the firelight reflected in its form. A sword leaned against it.

"The lair of Hermes the Thrice-Great," said Mulder. "Where all things are possible because all matter is unity that may be conquered by the will."

Mulder moved around the table, looking for something - a small box. He was wearing tight jeans, plastered to his body by moisture, and a grey T-shirt, with no jacket. The T-shirt was torn in two places. Hiking boots. A watch. He moved with fluidity, but his movements had an asymmetrical quality, as if he had been hurt, and trying to hide it.

A match flared. Mulder had lit it, and moved to walk around the rectangular table in the center of the room, and bent over it to light the five candles that were in a circle on its surface. No, Skinner saw, with a start, not a circle: each was at the point of a pentagram. Every schoolchild who has ever seen a movie would know what a pentagram indicates.

"Witchcraft?" he said. The growing light showed him more: pots and alembics and pestles with strange symbols painted or etched or carved on their surfaces. It was like something out of the middle ages.

Mulder rose, shaking out his match. "No, sir. Alchemy."

"Alchemy? You brought me here to see an alchemists’ -" Skinner floundered for a word - "den?"

"At least it’s dry," said Mulder. He was shivering. Skinner glanced at him and suddenly saw that his face was bruised, and the slurring of his words was not from drink but because the side of his mouth was battered and swollen. He said sharply, "Agent Mulder, what happened to you?"
Mulder ignored the question, sauntering over to the brick - no, stone - oven. He picked up a flask and unstoppered it, sniffed it, made a face, and put it down. "Aqua Fortis," he said. "I suspect if you have some of the lab men check out these pots, you’ll find some vile poisons. The Borgias would love it here."

"Whose lab is this? Why are you here?"

"I don’t know who owns it, or who works here. I am here because someone wanted me to find it, and dropped me a note to tell me about it. I am bruised because someone else tried to stop me. Trying to stop me isn’t a good idea. Do you know the processes of alchemy, Sir?"

"I don’t know a damn thing about alchemy. Here, dry yourself with this." He took off his trench coat and tossed it to Mulder, who caught it one-handed. The coat itself was as wet as Mulder was, but the lining was dry and Mulder used it to rub his hair.

"Do you know about assation? Ascension? Mortification? Cementation?"

"Sounds like what the gangsters do," said Skinner, noting that Mulder winced when wiping his face.

"Do you know about impregnation? Gradation? Humectation? Rubification?"

"No." Skinner shifted uneasily.

"Sounds dirty, doesn’t it? Banned in Boston. How about prolectation, purgation, copulation and separation?" Mulder was teasing now, his eyes catching the light. He looked like a vagrant schoolboy. He had dropped the trench coat on a wooden chair, which Skinner hoped was clean, and picked a vial from the table. The liquid inside was yellow and viscous as he held it up to the candle-light. "Lixiviation," he continued. "Ignition, dealbation, descension, decoction and -" he paused for effect, "dispoliaration. All processes in the alchemical art."

"Agent Mulder, why are we here?"

"Because I want to hear what you have to say about it."

"Couldn’t it wait till my office in the morning? With a proper report?"

"No!" Mulder hit his palm on the table, and a candle moved, flickering, then steadied itseld. "I need to hear what you have to say - now!"

"Why?" asked Skinner. "I don’t know a damn thing about alchemy. I don’t know why this Disneyland replica is here and I don’t know why you wanted me to see it. I suspect you are about to tell me, and why you have brought me here, and why you are not visiting a doctor or resting in your own bed."

"A doctor couldn’t fix what ails me," said Mulder. "Perhaps an alchemist could." It was hard to know whether his voice was amused or bitter, or both. "The men who beat me said you sent them."

"Did you believe them?"

"No. Not then."

"Why not?"

"Because I trust you." It was said with stark honesty.

"Misplaced trust will get you killed, one of these days," said Skinner lightly. He leaned against the doorframe, hiding the fact that his heart had begun to race. He wished Mulder wouldn’t say these things, wouldn’t admit them. Mulder, whose motto was Trust No One, trusted him: a great gift, but Mulder must never know it. Must never know that Skinner did not trust himself. Mulder must be saved from Skinner’s weaknesses, and his own.

Mulder said, in a low voice, "They told me you’d ordered them to prevent me from coming here. They beat me and told me you were in league with the man who smokes Morleys. They said you did his dirty work for him - disposals, they said. Something about cleaning up the honey. An efficient killing machine, they said."

Skinner flinched. Vietnam flickered guiltily in his conscience, and was repressed again. Had he been efficient? He supposed so. All in the service of - oh, God! - his country, and the needs of Mulder.

"Did you believe them?" he repeated, keeping his voice level.

"I believe you can kill if you want to. They didn’t manage to kill me, though. I got away. Got over one of the fences, lost them in the crowds at the bar a couple of blocks away. There was a brawl going on. I made it worse, and came back here."

"Why?"

"I’m nothing if not tenacious."

"We know that," said Skinner drily. His heart was still hammering, and watching Mulder move around the room wasn’t calming it. Mulder’s high energy was tangible. Skinner thought he could smell his tension.

"Do you know the purpose of alchemy?" Mulder turned to the oven and away from it. He picked up tongs, looked at them, and put them back on their black iron hook.

"Turning lead into gold, wasn’t it?"

"In crude terms, yes. But in alchemy everything represents the different levels of being, and can be taken on the material or the psychic plane. Gold is not filthy lucre, but wisdom; divine understanding; love." He paused at the word, and Skinner kept his face impassive. Mulder continued, "Thus the quality of the work is determined by the spiritual state of the alchemist. The alchemist must have magnesia in his body, magnetic power to gather astral elements. With this, he can discover the vital force."

"What’s that?" asked Skinner. "The heart’s desire?"

"If you have a heart," said Mulder. "Do you?"

"Tattooed on my ass," said Skinner sarcastically.

"Oh?" Mulder looked interested. "Can I see?"

There was a short silence, heaver than it ought to have been.

Mulder said, "The person who told me to come here was anonymous. He slipped a note under my office door with this address. The note contained some symbols that are not well known. The note said that I would find here something that I had been searching for for many years."

"Samantha?" asked Skinner, cruelly. He was still off balance from Mulder’s previous comment. And Mulder, damn him, was moving around ceaselessly, restlessly, with that awkward grace that made him so damn desirable and elusive at the same time. Sometimes his movements betrayed pain. Sometimes they showed impatience. Skinner thought they always showed a vibrant sensuality that horrified and frightened him, but he dared not show it.

"Or Truth, perhaps," said Mulder. "Instead, like the alchemists, I found gold."

Skinner straightened. He glanced around. Insofar as one could tell by candlelight and the glow of the oven, the place was shabby and grubby, put together by some demented New Age Fagin for crackpot games with foul-smelling poisons. Nothing of worth here, except tin and wood and rusty pots.

Mulder reached into the pocket of his tight jeans, and with a jerk, pulled out a small object. He held it for a moment in his fist, and then extended his arm, opening his fingers so Skinner could see it, holding his hand above the centre of the pentagram on the tabletop.
It was indeed gold. It was Skinner’s own ring, the one Sharon had engraved for him.

"How the hell did you get that?" he asked.

"It was on this table. Someone wanted me to find it."

"The alchemist?"

"Possibly. Whoever sent me the note."

"Why would he want that?"

"To frame you? To test me? To expose you?"

"Expose me? Just what, agent Mulder, do you think is exposed?"

"I know you worked with the Smoking Man in the past," said Mulder. "You had to, to survive. You didn’t even know what he was up to, but you knew you didn’t like the son of a bitch. When it came to a choice, you chose the other side. You chose truth. You chose to side with me."

"You know that," said Skinner.

"But I wonder just how long ago you last cooperated with the sun of a bitch."

Skinner said nothing.

"The case I’ve been working on," said Mulder, "involves the poisoning of a twenty-three people, seven of them women, nine men, four boys and three girls. The link, if there is a link, is that in a two-year period to date they have died through mysterious means with no known motive for the killing. There are, as I said, a lot of poisonous substances used in alchemy."

"In this room?"

"Some are lethal." Mulder picked up a vial. "Calomel." He put it down and picked up another, then pointed to others in turn. "Corrosive sublimate. Butter of tin. Mosaic gold. Venetian white. Sugar of lead."

"You recognize these substances?" asked Skinner, incredulous. He knew Mulder was remarkable, but he was not a chemist; that was more in Scully’s line. And this assemblage of evil smells was the chemistry of dementia. It was delusionary, the work of a madman.

Mulder shrugged. "Galena. Glass of antimony. Zaffre. Horn silver, purple of Cassius. That’s an alkiline mix of gold and stannic chlorides, if I remember correctly. I’m not making this up, the alchemic name is on the bottles - see?" He held up a bottle and Skinner could see, vaguely, that there was unclear print on a worn, browned label. "In Greek, mostly, or alchemical symbols. A few are labelled in Latin. Chalk, there; and luna cornea - the ivory of the moon. And this -" he held up another bottle, "is something more pleasant altogether. Rosewater. And here, oil of lemon. You could put it in the bathtub and soak."

"Have you a link between this place and the murders?" asked Skinner.

"Only by inference. Every substance used in the poisoning is here. Maybe the forensic chemists can find proof. I haven’t told you everything yet."

"Go on," said Skinner. He was not sure now how much Mulder trusted him. Mulder’s T-shirt drying in the light and heat of the oven so that the wet bits were dark patches, and his jeans, still no doubt damp, clung tightly.

"There are twelve steps before you get to the universal medicine," said Mulder. "See, a twelve-step program is nothing new. There’s calcination, congelation, fixation.... Do you know what fixation is?"

"No," said Skinner, his mouth dry.

"It’s what I feel for you."

"Mulder?"

"Then there’s dissolution - am I dissolute? - and digestion, distillation, sublimation - oh, yes, I can sublimate - and then there’s separation, but separation should come after union, shouldn’t it? The alchemists liked anthropomorphic imagery, especially if it was sexual - the marriage of substances, the production of the Divine Hermaphrodite, human regeneration.... Though I’ve yet to find a text where the elements are fucking, copulation was one of the processes."

"Keep to the point."

"Which one? My feelings? Or the twelve steps? There’s incineration, fermentation, multiplication, and projection. Am I projecting? Perhaps I’m just crazy. Do you think I’m crazy?"

"No," said Skinner flatly. "I think you’re trying to rattle me."

"Can you be shocked? Have I rattled you? Will I be fired in ignominy, or just fired with lust? Fire is one of the classical elements, along with water, air and earth. You are earth, I am air, we are both fire."

"You’re getting further from the point."

"Which point? About why I was beaten up and you were framed? Or maybe, about why you set me up? Or why I don’t believe you set me up... Jesus!" He ran his hand through his wet hair, which was already spiky.

Skinner reached forward and grasped his wrist. "There’s something you aren’t telling me."
"Many things. What do you want to know? Tartar, cinnabar or vermillion. Orpiment - that’s a poison, it has arsenic in it. All substances here -"

"Mulder."

"Along with vinegar, water, distilled water, pure alocohol -"

"Mulder." Skinner pulled him closer. Unresisting, Mulder followed the pull.
"Sir?"

"Why did you want me to come here?" Skinner released his arm.

"There are things I've told you in reports, things I think you've never believed. I wanted to show you -"

"Lunar ivory? I don't think so. Why, Mulder?"

"They made me angry. Covering lies with lies."

"Which lie? Do you believe I’d hurt you?"

Mulder dropped his eyes. "I don’t know."

"Did you want me here to prove to yourself I wouldn’t attack you?"

Mulder shrugged. "If I’m the only one who knows you are in league with Cancer Man, if I’m the only link between you and multiple murders, you might as well kill me now. I’m unarmed - they stole my gun. Otherwise I'd've shot one of them."

Skinner took out his gun. Instead of unlocking the safety, he handed it to Mulder. "In case I might be tempted," he said. He did not say what other temptations were running through his head and his veins.

Mulder licked his lips, and put the gun down on the table. "Have you been here before?"

"Of course not."

"How did your ring get here? Inscription and all."

"They must have stolen it. They would hardly erase the inscription."

"Maybe your friend took it when he dropped by for a smoke."

"And maybe I’ve been secretly screwing Scully," said Skinner. He said it off the top of his head, because he was angry. He was angry, because his body was reacting to the proximity of Fox Mulder, and because in this keyed-up, vulnerable state, Mulder seemed, emotionally and physically, more desirable than ever.

He had judged Mulder’s temper to the microsecond. Mulder took a swing at him, which would have been bad news, had it connected. But Skinner caught his fist before it could touch him or the wall behind him, and twisted it, so that Mulder was forced to fall into his arms, his arm behind his back, his breath heavy. He struggled and tried to kick Skinner’s foot with his boot, but Skinner pinned the leg with his and said into Mulder’s ear, "Feel better yet?"
"Bastard," said Mulder. He was shaking.

Skinner touched his lips down the back of Mulder’s ear. He whispered, "What did you mean by fixation?"

"Nothing," said Mulder, too quickly.

"Think about it, agent Mulder. What do you really want? What are you really looking for? Is it something you can find here? What did you want me to learn? Do you really want to leave this place with nothing changed between us?"

Mulder was not struggling. His back was against Skinner’s chest, his arm and Skinner’s hand between them. Skinner’s right leg was between his, holding his legs apart, Skinner’s pelvis hard against the curve of his ass. He must have been aware of the way Skinner was breathing, and the way his heart was pounding, and of the hardening erection against his back.
Skinner let go of his arm and released his leg. Let him go, let him go.... But Mulder did not spring away. Instead he dropped his head backwards, so his cheek was against Skinner’s cheek. His eyes were closed, the lashes dark shadows against his cheeks.

"What do you want, agent Mulder?" asked Skinner softly.

"Every action on the material plane is engendered by thought," said Mulder. "Will moves the universe - that is the first principle of alchemy. To wish is to create."

"Words, Mulder. Stop hiding behind words."

"I wish," said Mulder, "that you wanted me."

"I do," said Skinner.

That was when Mulder moved away, quickly, leaving Skinner with empty arms and sudden bereavement.

"Is this a game?" said Mulder. "Skinner man-of-honor sexually harrassing an agent? I don’t think so."

"I’m at your mercy," said Skinner sharply. "God dammit, Mulder, what do you want of me? Have I said too much?"

"Not enough," said Mulder. He was breathing quickly, glaring at Skinner. Skinner could see the peaks of his nipples through the cloth of the T-shirt, the shadow of his skin over the pecs where it was torn. "I want to know what you aren’t telling me. I want to know what you think."

"You already know more about me than any living person," said Skinner. "You know about my nightmares of the avatar, about my marriage, about Vietnam..."

"I know," said Mulder. "You took drugs, and you weren’t a choir boy. Neither am I. And in the leagues of the grown-up boys and girls, you can afford a little honesty with me - if you think I’m worth the price."

"What price?" said Skinner.

But Mulder’s face had changed. He stepped forward and pressed his lips to Skinner’s lips, kissing him with a gentle pressure that stole Skinner’s breath and his heart. He groaned and wrapped his arms around Mulder, and this time Mulder did not fight him, or pull away.
He could taste the blood on Mulder’s lip, and the soreness where it was swollen. The kiss must have hurt Mulder, but he did not pull away. Instead he lengthened it and deepened it and ran his hands over Skinner’s back, under his jacket, over the breadth of his shoulders and down the hollow of his back to touch and fondle his ass through the cloth of his pants. Skinner groaned lightly, involuntarily, and Mulder arched against him.

"C’mon," said Mulder, and pulled on his arm, pulling him past the table and its candles, to the space in front of the oven. The light and heat played over the lines of Mulder’s body. Skinner thought he had never seen anything more beautiful, or anyone more desirable - for all that
Mulder was a scruffy figure with damp hair.

Mulder dropped to his knees and held his arms out for Skinner to join him. Skinner knelt beside him, savoring the kiss. He touched Mulder tentatively at first, his cheek, his throat, his collarbone; running his hand down over the protruding nipple, which made Mulder jerk and arch against him. He liked that reaction, and tried it again.

Mulder groaned, and reached for Skinner’s groin.

The sensations were of a different order altogether. "Take off your jacket," said Mulder, against his lips, and Skinner took off his jacket. Mulder’s left hand remained lightly on Skinner’s cock, caressing through two layers of cloth, while with his right hand Mulder pulled the trench coat from the chair and spread it on the floor. Then he let go of Skinner completely, and lay down on the trench coat, his arms above his head, smiling smugly.
Skinner followed him onto the floor. Their lips touched again, tasting, then exploring. Skinner’s hands roamed. Mulder’s followed, more bold and just as eager. Still kissing Skinner’s lips, he loosened and removed Skinner’s tie, and tossed it behind him. He kissed Skinner’s neck and shoulders as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and unfastened his belt and played, teasingly, with the zipper of Skinner’s pants.

"The price," said Mulder, "is higher than you think."

"Oh?" said Skinner. Leaning on his arms over Mulder, he looked down into the long-lashed, lambent eyes below him.

"Will you pay it?"

"You haven’t said what it is."

Mulder kissed him lightly, and pulled down the zipper of Skinner’s fly. The sudden freedom, and the rush of fire-warm air, made him catch his breath. Then it was Mulder’s fingers which touched his cock, and the urgency redoubled. With his free hand, Mulder unzipped his jeans and began to squirm out of them, pulling his shorts with them. Skinner looked down to see Mulder’s cock rising deliciously from its bed, and he moved down to kiss it, tongue it, suck it. Mulder squirmed, caught in his jeans, gasping. "Stop," he said.

Skinner raised his head. "Stop?"

"Get me out of these..." He was fighting with the jeans. Smiling, Skinner sat to untie Mulder’s boots and pull them off, and then, in tandem with Mulder’s scrambling hands, to pull of the plastered jeans. And the socks, and shorts. He reached to pull off the T-shirt, but it tore further, and in his impatience he left it, gaping over his chest, as he grabbed Skinner’s head in his hands and kissed his mouth hard. "There’s a condom in my pocket," he said. "I want you to fuck me. That’s the price."

"I take it you’ve done this before," said Skinner, reaching for the jeans. His brain was a tangle of random sensations, among which thoughts were elusive.

"Never," said Mulder. He squirmed again, and rubbed his cock against the side of Skinner’s hip. Skinner gave it a pat, having found the foil-wrapped condoms in the pocket, wondering just how prepared Mulder kept himself. "You?"

"Told you. I wasn’t a choir boy," growled Skinner. His fingers were awkward on the package and Mulder grabbed it from him, equally awkward and even more impatient.

"Want you in me," he said. "So then you’ll never, never get away."

"What?" said Skinner. But Mulder’s hands were soothing the condom over his cock and it felt so good that he couldn’t speak or think, and hardly noticed that Mulder hadn’t answered. Mulder put a condom on himself, and said, "Cementation, colliquation, combustion...."

"I’m combusting," said Skinner, trying to catch his breath as Mulder rubbed his shaft, up and down, mischievous fingers playing with him, increasingly firm.

"Composition," said Mulder, breathless himself but keeping his voice clear, "is the joining together of two different... substances...." He bent his knees, spreading his legs.
Skinner bent down to kiss him again - his mouth, then his swollen cock, then his balls. And lower, kissing his anus. Mulder whispered, "Yes."

Skinner sat up. "Have I found the key to shutting you up?"

Mulder laughed breathlessly, taken off guard. "You’ll just have to experiment to find out. Where are you going?"

"I’ll only be a moment." Skinner rose, and went to the table. He picked up a jar, and read the label, and frowned. The print, in hand-lettered Greek, was useless to him. But he remembered which container Mulder had indicated when he mentioned lemon oil. He unstoppered it, and sniffed. Lemon, yes. He dripped a bit on his fingers. Smooth and clean-smelling, this was safe, and no foul poison. He took the bottle with him and came back. Mulder was watching him with a faint smile, one hand idly fondling his own erection.

"Slowpoke," said Mulder. "I thought we had some business under way here."

"Don’t want to hurt you," said Skinner. He poured some of the oil in his hand.
"I wouldn’t care."

Skinner glanced at him. "I wasn’t giving you a choice." He spread Mulder’s ass with his fingers, pushing his legs out of the way. Mulder obligingly lifted his knees close to his body, waiting expectantly, catching his breath as Skinner’s fingers soothed the oil over the expectant skin of his asshole. Skinner moved his fingers back and forth, and Mulder threw his head back.

"Is this acceptable, agent Mulder?"

"I’m dying," said Mulder.

"Not yet." Skinner sucked again at his cock, keeping his fingers moving in a gentle, circular pattern. Moving his lips to the tip, he murmured, "What comes after composition?"

"Conjunction," said Mulder. "Not contrition, I hope."

Skinner inserted his fingertips. Leaning forward, he kissed Mulder’s exposed nipple, then sucked, then nipped. Mulder was whimpering lightly.

"Anything more?" asked Skinner.

"Copulation!"

Skinner removed his fingers, and impaled him.

Mulder cried out, freezing into rigidity. Skinner pushed into him firmly, waiting for the shock to subside and the pleasure take over. Mulder had lost his erection and had shut his eyes, hiding the thoughts that were so often both mysterious and open to Skinner. Skinner began to thrust slowly and carefully, and Mulder, under him, was crying out in frenzy.
He wanted it to last forever, but it was too good. There was no one like Mulder. He felt ejaculation building up as Mulder thrust back against him, and he heard Mulder say, "Make me yours, sir. Yours!"

Skinner climaxed. Mulder’s voice encouraged him and Mulder’s hands touched him, face and chest and abdomen, and he thought it was happening forever: an eternity of pleasure with Mulder’s flesh his only anchor to reality.

It ended. Breath and sense came back to him slowly. Mulder, under him, was trembling with desire, and he reached down to Mulder’s cock, which was hard and hot, and caressed it.

"You can’t leave me now," said Mulder.

"Don’t worry," said Skinner. "I’ll take care of you." He rubbed his thumb over the hard tip of Mulder’s cock, then licked it, again and again, and took it into his mouth, sucking hard. Mulder came almost immediately, caught up in it, his whole body thrusting up from the ground.
After a while he lay quiet again, softening, panting, and Skinner lifted his head. Mulder reached out a finger and touched the side of his cock, where semen had dripped. He wiped it with a finger, and, smiling, licked his finger. "Universal seed," he said.

"More alchemy? Don’t you ever stop?"

"I thought the alchemy between us was pretty good."

"It was," agreed Skinner, gravely.

"I think you almost smiled."

"Impossible," said Skinner.

"You wanted to."

"Never."

"I love you."

There was a long silence. Skinner turned, and gathered Mulder in his arms, and held him, his face buried in his neck. "Sir?" said Mulder. "Are you all right?"

"I am all right," said Skinner. "So far from smiling, I am trying not to weep."

Mulder kissed his head, holding him tight. "It’s all right, then, sir. We are together now."
Skinner moved slightly away, readjusting himself inside his shorts. "To get this relationship off on the right foot," he said, "Agent Mulder, I will need my ring back."

"Of course. There might be fingerprints on it - besides ours."

"And I prefer more regular hours, and places more congenial than the floor in front of an alchemist’s stove."

"Athenor."

"What?"

"It isn’t as stove, sir, it’s an athenor."

"It looks like a stove. It smells like a stove. I call it a goddam stove. Agent Mulder? I was talking about the floor."

"I’ll see what I can do."

"And you must keep a supply of condoms with you at all times, for the sake of convenience."

"Yes, sir."

"When you write your official report on this alchemical site, you may leave out personal details."

"Yes, sir."

"Are you humouring me?"

"Just thinking of the Philosopher’s Stone," said Mulder. "Alchemical processes, you know? Excitement. Contentment."

"Contentment," agreed Skinner.

- End -

September 4 1998
5,440 words