--The Wabash, Far Away--(1/1)
Posted: 16. February 1998
by Punk Maneuverability

Distribution: Please do not forward or archive without author's
permission.

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, I've sinned. Gesundheit and all that. 
Mulder, Skinner and Scully belong to Saint Chris, the Church of
10-13 and Fox. No infringement intended. All the other critters in
here belong to me.

Rating: PG, a little slashy and a few bad words

Classification: S, A, R

Keywords: You'll drag them from me kicking and screaming. 

Spoilers: 100% Spoiler Free! 

Summary: Skinner's a long way from home and his thoughts begin
to drift.

Punk Notes: The second in my line of pseudo-fics...this is
pseudoslash. There is *nothing* graphic about this story. As for
the soundtrack -- blame Englebert Humperdinck's "Sweet Lady
Jane" and the state song of Indiana.

A year ago today I posted my first piece of X-Files fanfic. Now I'm
posting my 26th story, and I've made a lot of friends along the
way--thanks for making this so much fun.

I'm expanding to fit my container, and now I'm sitting inside of
Skinner's bald head. Tell me how the view is: punkm@teleport.com

**************************
The Wabash, Far Away
 by Punk Maneuverability
**************************

"Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash.
...On the banks of the Wabash, far away."

***

Because they weren't in Washington, Skinner allowed himself jeans
and a drink. Because the forefathers of his country weren't there to
stare down at him in marble doom, a few minutes later Skinner
helped himself to another.

Agent Chen's rec room was filled to overflowing with feds and local
cops. There were no monuments or memorials to frown or
disapprove, just the buzz of conversation and the pulse of music. 
The case that had taken too many lives and too many months to
solve was finally over. Skinner sat on one end of the couch,
watching a semi-drunken pool game.

"Corner ball in the side pocket!"

"That's the 14, you idiot."

"I know the 11 when I see it."

The 7 ball dropped neatly into the side pocket, followed by the cue
ball and Agent Masterson's empty beer bottle. "Fuck me. I'm
empty." Taking her pool cue with her, she scoped out the condition
of the wet bar's fridge. "Green olives!" she hollered.

In the corner, the two local ballistics experts were recklessly playing
foosball. They were heckling each other and not even bothering to
keep score. At the mention of the olives they abandoned their game
and wrestled the jar from Masterson, declaring it was time for a
martini. 

Masterson jabbed at them with her cue, getting blue chalk all over
their bowling shirts. At their insistence, she finally took the beer
they offered her and went back to her game, leaving the olives to
those who could appreciate them. 

The ballistics twins complained over the lack of proper martini
glasses and rummaged through the cupboards for a pitcher. The
twins weren't related but were still confused for each other. Their
bowling shirts identified them as Doug and Kurt -- not their real
names. 

On the other end of the couch sat Agent Mulder, who was soaking
up the atmosphere with all the enthusiasm of a rock dropped into a
pond. He sat classically sullen, strangling the neck of his half-empty
beer bottle. He was a sober lull in the surrounding tornado.

Because they weren't in Washington, Skinner was on his third beer
and only mildly concerned about how he was going to get back to
the hotel. "Where's Agent Scully?" he asked the other end of the
couch. 

Mulder slumped deeper into the furniture and turned to look at
Skinner. "Somewhere else. With our car," he said.

"Isn't she doing the last autopsy?" Skinner knew exactly where
Scully was. 

"Yeah. Didn't want me there--" Mulder tipped the beer bottle
toward his mouth, swallowing what sounded like the rest of the
sentence. He made no effort to repeat himself.

"Englebert Humperdick!" shouted one of Skinner's own, waving a
record over his head. The CD was halted, and the dragging scratch
of a needle across vinyl filled the room. Skinner wondered why
Chen wasn't around to protest the abuse of his horrible taste in
music.

[Nobody loves you like I do, sweet lady Jane]

If possible, Mulder was looking even more sullen. He had slipped
further into the couch, frowning like it hurt not to. Although
dressed in jeans and a tight v-necked sweater, he still slouched as if
weighted down with a tie and badge. One foot quietly kicked the
leg of the coffee table. 

Skinner couldn't count the number of times Mulder had sat on the
other side of his desk, looking rebellious and bored. He wondered
if Mulder kicked his desk when he couldn't see.

[Nobody feels the way I do, may I explain? I'll jump a train--]

Bloomfield, who didn't even know what the inside of Skinner's
office looked like, started singing along, "I'll steal an aeroplane!"

Skinner knew why they did this. After months of pretending the
deaths didn't hurt, after having to go home to husbands and wives
who couldn't understand -- it was the way they forgave themselves. 
It was the only way to stay sane.

Skinner knew why they did this; he just wasn't sure why he was
there with them. "Slumming it?" Chen had greeted him at the door. 
Skinner only knew that he had followed Mulder there, and he had
known Scully wouldn't be coming with him.

Masterson joined Bloomfield in his singing as she leaned over the
pool table. Her shirt rode up. "Tonight, I watched the people
standing still. Tonight, it's almost like I want them there." 

The twins spent ten loud minutes trying to decide what kind of gin
to use, finally trading Chen twenty dollars for his unopened bottle of
Beefeater. While they were otherwise occupied, Masterson got into
the olives.

Mulder started checking his watch every few minutes, and his beer
made more frequent trips to his mouth, as if it was the only thing
keeping him there and when he had filled his obligation by drinking
it he could go.

Upstairs a door opened and closed and two sets of footsteps could
be heard. Mulder paused, listening. He rested the mouth of the
bottle against his bottom lip as he waited. The brown bottle gently
dented the pink skin, and Skinner finished off his own beer,
recklessly thirsty. Satisfied the footsteps didn't belong to his
partner, Mulder went back to his beer. Skinner noticed his own was
empty.

Bloomfield and Masterson started in on an inadvertent medley,
totally ignoring the record still playing in the background. Mulder
got up to stare out the sliding glass door that led to the patio. He
tapped his beer against his leg absently, perhaps unaware anyone
cared enough to watch him.

Skinner regretted having drunk so much, and he definitely shouldn't
be having another beer, but it was in his hands before he could find
the guilty party. He shifted positions so he could see Mulder better.

Masterson hit the cue ball too hard, and it hopped off the table,
hitting the dense carpet with a thud and rolling over to Mulder. It
came to a stop against his foot. Masterson followed it.

Mulder bent down to retrieve the ball before Agent Masterson
could accidentally grab his ass on her way down to get it herself. 
He spun the white ball around in his long fingers, weighing it.

All the parts of Skinner that still knew who he was were insisting he
leave before something unfortunate happened. His beer suggested
otherwise. He remained on the couch, paying more attention to
Mulder than he should.

Masterson leaned into Mulder, wrapping her hand around his. 
Mulder smiled and gently nudged the end of her cue away from his
eye. "That's a big stick," he complimented her, handing over the
cue ball. 

Skinner wondered if there wasn't something slightly Freudian about
her carrying around that stick everywhere she went. But then, there
were only three cues, and she probably just didn't want anyone else
to take it. 

Agent Bloomfield and Detective St. John, who were in possession
of the other two cues, realized Masterson might be a while and
resumed play without the cue ball.

Masterson's drunken charm glanced off Mulder like he'd been
inoculated. Masterson was not so lucky. She grinned at him,
stupidly smitten.

"I think it's your turn," he said to her, nodding toward the pool
table. "Bloomfield's sinking your stripes." Skinner had to smile at
Mulder's tactics. Whatever was going on at that pool table hadn't
been regulation for close to two hours.

From the look on her face, Masterson was debating the advantages
of billiards over Mulder. Proving she wasn't as drunk as everyone
thought, she left Mulder's side and returned to the table, muscling
St. John out of the way and placing the cue ball back on the felt
somewhat haphazardly. She sunk two balls. From behind his
ballistic martini, St. John looked impressed. Masterson was
probably a terror shot stone-sober.

Mulder watched her, no doubt appreciating the way she looked in
her khaki pants and white t-shirt. Or maybe he was appreciating her
work on the case instead. Carol Masterson knew bombs like no one
else in the FBI. She could put together a pipe bomb faster than
most people could make a sandwich.

There was no way Skinner could pretend to understand Mulder's
mind. He realized he shouldn't even be trying. Mulder turned back
to the glass and the Indiana night behind it. 

The Humperdinck album had been spinning fruitlessly for the past
half hour, the tone arm back in its rest. Chen appeared with more
beer and a platter full of vegetables and dip. He stopped the record
player and turned the radio on. DJ Zen's midnight dance party
started pulsing through the room and through Skinner's head. 

Mulder slid open the glass door and slipped outside. Skinner found
himself staring at his silhouette. The moonlight traced the outline of
his shoulders like a knife. 

Too many beers. Skinner needed to get back to DC where
Lincoln's stern visage and solemn hands could talk him out of this. 
But he was in Indiana, and the rhythm of Deepsky had invaded his
bones. He couldn't help but watch Fox Mulder.

Skinner got up from the couch. The room wobbled, and he blamed
it on DJ Zen. The sliding glass door opened smoothly. Mulder
twisted around with an expectant look but turned bland again when
he saw it was only Skinner. 

How privileged Scully must be to see her partner animated. The
rest of them just got Mulder's face without the life behind it. 
Sharon used to say the same thing about Skinner. Except she
claimed she never got any of the life, either.

It was warm outside for a March night, and Chen's house was far
enough away from the city that the stars coated the sky
unchallenged. Mulder probably knew the names of all of them. It's
the kind of man he was. The moon was so thin it could have been
used to harvest wheat, and it pained Skinner that he couldn't recall
the name of such a moon.

"Agent Mulder, I was thinking about heading back to the hotel if
you want a ride." It seemed like he hadn't said anything for hours,
his tongue felt thick and slow. 

Mulder looked at him, smiling faintly as if knowing what he was
going to say wasn't likely to make him very popular. "I'm sorry, sir,
but you're in no shape to drive. What is that? Your fifth beer?"

Skinner took his word for it, all the while slightly panicked that
Mulder must have somehow been watching him through five beers. 
"And something pink with a chunk of pineapple in it," he felt
obliged to add.

"Must have been out of the room for that one, sir."

Skinner shrugged, the movement easy in his turtleneck. "Connie
gave it to me. It looked harmless enough."

Mulder's eyes actually widened, and his lips parted slightly. "Then
you're certainly in no shape to be driving. I watched her make that. 
The pineapple was actually my idea -- made it look more innocent." 
He gave Skinner the once-over in a way that would have made him
blush if he were sober. "And you're still standing." He sounded
impressed. "Scully and I can give you a lift back if you like. She
should be here any moment."

Skinner had a sudden vision of Mulder buckling him into the
backseat like a child, while Mulder and Scully rode up front, talking
about grown-up things. The image actually made him sick to his
stomach, or that might have been the work of the esteemed pink
drink.

"We'll see," Skinner said, meaning he'd make a run for it the
moment he saw Agent Scully step into the rec room. Mulder
nodded, making Skinner suspect he knew exactly what had been
said.

"So what was in that pink thing?" Skinner ventured, unwilling to let
go of this unnaturally talkative Mulder. Mulder twirled his still
half-full beer bottle, making the liquid slosh. Skinner's insides
roiled.

"With all due respect, sir, you don't want to know. Just be thankful
Masterson didn't end up with it."

The last time Mulder had shown any respect was beyond his
recollection. It took Skinner way too long to realize he had said
that out loud.

Mulder had the I-told-you-so look of a parent who had let his child
stay up past their bedtime only to have them fall asleep on the
couch. "Shall I assume that was the pink thing talking?" he asked.

Skinner felt suddenly ashamed -- drunk in front of the people who
were supposed to respect him, even fear him a little. He never
would have done this back in Washington. "No," he snapped, "that
was all me." He expected Mulder to assume the proper look of
subservience now that he had been put in his place. One more sign
his judgment was compromised.

Mulder only grinned at him. "I was wondering where you'd went,"
was all he'd say.

Skinner suddenly wanted his desk back, his nameplate, even those
sculpted faces that peered down from every edifice and facade. 
There he was in control, but here, standing next to Mulder instead
of sitting untouchable behind his desk...here he was in trouble. He
noticed anew that he and Mulder were almost the same height.

Skinner began to pray for Scully to come and take Mulder away so
that Skinner wouldn't have to look at him anymore. This was
dangerous. This wasn't right.

Mulder's fingers held his beer bottle lazily, curved around its brown
glass. Skinner backed up a step. Mulder turned and looked at him
directly, like he knew, like Skinner's thoughts were no more secret
than Anne Frank's diary. His heart rushed. Bad luck. Bad idea
falling for him.

Skinner's body felt gigantic as he tried to force it through the
doorway. Back in the rec room he avoided the couch and leaned
against the wall by the pool table. Masterson was tapping her cue
on the floor in time to the music and eyeing the 8 ball like it was
going to explode.

The footsteps that Mulder had been listening for finally sounded in
the hall, and Scully stepped into the debauchery of the rec room. 
Skinner wished for the power to blend against the wall like a
chameleon capable of imitating wood paneling. Lucky for him, she
must have been tired because she didn't even notice him. She was
dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a sea-green scrub top.

"Dana Katherine!" the twins shouted, converging on her with offers
of martinis. She only smiled politely and held up her bottle of
lemonade Snapple. They ignored her and chattered on about the
sublime qualities of a ballistic martini.

Indiana had gotten along well with Scully, and with Mulder too,
though he seemed less affected by it than his partner. When they
first arrived, Scully had smiled and joked, making instant friends in
the twins, and surprising her partner with her levity. Being away
from Washington had changed her too.

"There's coverage on channel 6," she whispered to them. It was the
way all these gatherings ended. The quickest way to sober up and
remember how you got to be wearing someone else's pink angora
sweater or drinking straight grenadine out of a champagne glass.

It was now up to the twins to decide when the party started to end,
when they should turn on the TV, when they should let the world
invade their privacy again -- a gigantic and pushy younger sister. 
They nodded at Scully. Next to Mulder, they were the most sober
of all the rec room crowd.

Scully excused herself and headed toward the patio doors, having
instantly determined Mulder's location through some unknown
means. It had been such a long time since Skinner had worked with
a partner that he couldn't remember if such a sense was natural or if
it was something unique to Mulder and Scully's partnership.

Scully passed by the pool table. Masterson had been studying the
lay of the table for so long, Bloomfield and St. John had both left to
go to the bathroom, both taking their cues with them. They had
returned to find her still hunched over at eye-level, regarding the 8
ball with a seriousness borne out of choosing pool over Mulder and
still finding the prospects bleak.

Hearing a set of steady footsteps, a rare commodity at this point,
Masterson straightened. She embraced Scully and whispered
something in her ear so scandalous that Scully blushed. Skinner
would have killed important people to hear what Masterson just
said. Scully shook her head. Masterson pointed toward the patio
with her cue, nodding. Scully shook her head again. Masterson
gave up and returned her attention to the pool table.

Scully continued outside to get her partner. Skinner stood with his
ear against the wall. It was cool compared to the pounding in his
head and the beat of the German techno currently on the radio. 

[Eins, zwei, Polizei!] 

Skinner watched Masterson suck on a wedge of pineapple she'd
found in the kitchen.

Mulder and Scully came back inside. He was laughing. She was
smiling. Skinner called himself a fool all over again. Mulder put his
beer down and headed in the direction of Masterson. Now Scully
laughed as she grabbed him by the belt loops and pulled him toward
the door with her.

Mulder put an arm around her shoulders companionably and
reached for a drink of her lemonade. Before they left, Mulder
turned around and sought out Skinner. Their eyes met, and Skinner
felt Mulder had all the blackmail material he needed right there. 
Mulder looked away and squeezed through the narrow doorway,
still holding on to his partner.

"Dana Katherine!" mourned the ballistics twins. Scully waved at
them over her shoulder without turning around.

Watching them go, Skinner collapsed back onto the sofa. After
finally sinking the 8 ball, Masterson sat next to him. She was so
close he could smell the pineapple on her breath. It was called a
crescent moon, Skinner remembered suddenly.

The ballistics twins turned on the TV. Chen silenced the radio. 
Bloomfield and St. John finally put down their pool cues. 
Masterson leaned against Skinner a little.

The picture tube warmed up slowly. At first there was only sound,
then finally an image. "After an investigation spanning three
months, police finally have a suspect in custody for the Wabash
bombings. Officials say...."

*****

Thanks - Lock the door on your way out
Punk M
**************************************
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