Towery City II
Jessica Harris
11/3/99


//Heat thawing chill and the unexpected press of a body against his 
own... a stubble-brushed kiss, a rustling slide down his torso, rapid 
breath against his navel and //

"Mr. Mulder!" 

Mulder snapped back to the present, abruptly aware this wasn't the first 
time his tutor had called his name.

"Are you sure you're quite alright?" asked the old man, both 
exasperation and concern in his voice. "You're dreadfully flushed, and I 
don't think you've heard a word I've been saying." 

Mulder flushed deeper, glad for once of the chilly weather. The sweater 
he was wearing helped to camouflage the real cause of his distraction. 

"Sorry, sir," he said, and, with a mental sigh, decided he might as well 
give up on higher education for the day. "But actually I'm not feeling 
very well," and his tutor rapidly shooed him from the room.

The cold outside and the brisk pace it spurred him to calmed Mulder's 
body, but not the agitation in his mind. Burrowing his chin into his 
collar, he hurried back to his rooms. It was midafternoon, but the sun 
was already low in the sky, pale shafts of light fading wanly into the 
shadows of old stone. His college was in sight now, and he tried to 
quell the rush of slightly queasy expectation that rose in his stomach. 
It had been more than a week. Maybe tonight ...

He had felt dazed and unfocussed after John left, had pottered aimlessly 
around his rooms for hours until sheer exhaustion drove him to bed. He 
had slept obliviously for a few hours, only to wake with a sudden 
panicked jolt at the thought of what had happened. The next few days 
were a blur, details lost beneath a haze of anxiety. He might never have 
imagined another man's hands on his body before, but now it seemed he 
could think of nothing else, and he was disturbed by the impact it 
seemed to have had on him. It had happened so easily, felt so *right*. 
He had always vaguely assumed that some day he'd marry, have children. 
Now he wondered anxiously what his future might look like.

As days went by, though, the anxiety began to lift a little and with it, 
magically, went some of his homesickness. He started to feel a certain 
fledgling sense of freedom in his rootlessness here, in the way he 
didn't quite belong. He had no place to lose here, no parents or peers 
or any of the things that usually told him who he could be, what he 
should want. His vaguely imagined future was distant still and for now 
he was free to be someone new and different. And if that someone wanted 
a certain tall blond man ...

For his libido seemed to have decided that was precisely what he wanted. 
The least reminder of John transformed his body into some strange new 
craft over which he had only the most imperfect control. His cock would 
swell helplessly, his hands shake and his feet wander heedlessly 
off-course at the merest sight of a head of fair hair across the quad, 
the sound of a certain accent.

Even the act of unlocking his own door had become impossibly erotic, 
accompanied now as it was by images of John standing so close on the 
landing; of what had followed when the door had shut behind them.

Home now, he climbed the last stairs to his door. Heat swept through him 
as he fished for his keys 

//hair slippery in his hands, the touch of a tongue to the tip of his 
cock//

and they fell to the floor from his suddenly nerveless hand. "Shit" he 
muttered, and laid his hot forehead against the cool wood of the 
doorframe, despairing of his own recalcitrant body. 

"Surely it can't be *that* difficult," said a sudden voice at his ear, 
and he opened his eyes to see John's long body stooping to pick the keys 
up from the floor.

All the things Mulder had rehearsed or imagined saying vanished from his 
mind. He had played this scene out in his imagination dozens of times in 
the past week, moving gradually from a polite but definite rejection to 
heated and elaborate fantasies that eventually foundered on the rocks of 
his own inexperience. He didn't know *what* to expect. Now, faced with 
the reality of the man in front of him, all he could do was stare, made 
shy again by the patrician angles of John's face, his carelessly perfect 
clothes. 

John pressed the keys into his hand and the pressure of his fingers 
promptly made Mulder drop them again. With a theatrical sigh the 
blue-eyed man bent after them once more, fitting key into lock himself 
this time. "These things are a challenge to you, aren't they?" he 
observed, as he steered Mulder towards the door before him. Mulder 
turned and backed into the room, watching John watch him. John raised 
his eyebrows at the bike that leaned, still crippled, against the wall, 
and tidily hung his jacket on the unused hooks by the door. Then he 
moved towards Mulder, who stood frozen by his desk.

"Look at you," he said. "Such wide frightened eyes." 

Long-fingered hands swept the hair back from his face, and Mulder 
realized that he hadn't blinked since John first spoke. 

"You needn't worry, I'm no ogre," 

The hands cupped the back of his head, thumbs swept his cheekbones, and 
Mulder, dizzy, wondered if he had drawn a breath either.

 "I do bite, but very selectively." 

Hands stroked the nape of his neck, ran down his back, brought him 
closer.

"Tell me to stop if that's what you want. You're shaking." 

And he was, trembling like a leaf at John's touch, acutely aware of the 
press of lean ribs against his own, the bulge at the other man's crotch 
as he pulled him in against his hips. Language seemed a long way away 
but- 

"D-don't stop..." 

- he managed to husk out, gasping raggedly as hands caressed his ass. 
John rubbed his cheek against Mulder's, murmured - 

"Steady. . .steady" 

- against the corner of his mouth, and Mulder opened his lips to the 
words eagerly, not distracted this time by amazement or disbelief, 
taking in the taste and feel of the other man. His skin where John had 
passed his hands over it was still tingling, and he was being kissed 
with such intense concentration that it left him breathless and he 
pulled away. 

John let him go. Mulder looked at him for a long moment, then took a 
deep breath and asked -

"Can we at least try to make it to the bedroom this time?" 

- and John laughed, a low delighted sound that made Mulder feel at once 
pleased and bashful.

There, in his tiny bedroom, with its single bed and narrow window, he 
undressed John for the first time, marvelling at the feel of him beneath 
his hands, at their sameness and their difference. John was taller but 
more finely built, his skin pink and white to Mulder's warmer tones, his 
whole body elegant somehow, right down to the shameless jut of his cock. 
Beneath the slenderness, though, he was surprisingly strong, his arms 
lean and wiry, the muscles in his thighs and buttocks powerful. 

"I ride," John said when he commented on it, "my family keeps horses," 
and for a moment Mulder felt the distance between them again, the 
reality of their different worlds. 

It didn't last for long, though, couldn't last, not with John's mouth on 
his nipples, not with the weight of his body rolled against him, not as 
they discovered this new territory they built between them, a place 
where both were foreign and both there by right.

John took his time, worked his way slowly down Mulder's body with his 
mouth, pausing now and then to take the younger man's cock in hand and 
stroke it gently a few times until Mulder sighed and moaned. Then he'd 
return to his explorations, licking slow circles around his nipples, 
tracing a trail down his stomach. Cool hands stroked Mulder's thighs and 

"please!" 

Mulder gasped out, arching up into warm breath and velvet wetness, 
John's mouth sliding on his cock in a way that made him bite his own lip 
to keep from screaming. 

John's lips withdrew for a moment and Mulder looked down to see him suck 
two fingers into his mouth. Then as wet heat returned to his cock, 
Mulder felt a finger push its way into him. It hurt, but beneath the 
pain was electricity, and he moved away from it and back into it and 
away and back again, until he was simply moving, fucking himself on 
John's fingers, body singing with new sensation.

He couldn't seem to catch his breath and the walls were beginning to 
spin around him, his vision paling at the edges as sweat dripped wet 
down his ribs. He grabbed at the sheets beneath him but it didn't stop 
the yaw and pitch of the room and in sudden panic he summoned what 
little voice he could and gasped 

"No - I can't!", not even knowing what it was he couldn't. 

John seemed to understand, though, released his cock, stilled the 
fingers inside him, and slid up his body, one arm wrapping tight around 
him, feeding Mulder small kisses as he murmured reassurances, whispering 

"Breathe, breathe, you're fine," 

in his ear as he began to stroke his fingers against the younger man's 
prostate again, gradually speeding his movements until Mulder's whole 
body was sliding against him, cock against belly, and Mulder heard 
himself giving the kind of loud and unashamed cries he had only ever 
heard through other people's walls. 

Then John's words faded to incomprehensibility in his ears and he was 
falling, plummeting, until with a final cry he came and John caught him 
as he tumbled back into his body, caught him and held him tight until 
Mulder's breathing slowed and he opened his eyes and said "Oh!"

John laughed again, that quietly pleased sound. Already Mulder was 
finding that laugh dangerously addictive. 

He stretched languourously against John's body and noticed that the 
other man was still hard. Half-hesitantly he ran his hand over John's 
chest, down his side, absorbing the faint declivity of waist, angle of 
hip, the muscled groove on the outside of his thigh. Growing bolder, he 
touched John's slick belly, slid fingers through his own semen and then, 
for the first time in his life, took hold of another man's cock. 

John let him feel its hardness and slight curve, its heat and pulse and 
weight in his hand, let him lightly trace the thick vein to its wet tip. 
Then suddenly he rolled on top of Mulder, grabbing his wrists and 
pinning them above his head. He freed one hand and to Mulder's surprise 
started to tickle him, until Mulder was convulsed with laughter. "I give 
up!" he finally cried, and John released him and rolled away. 

"So much for your hearty frontiersman stock," he sniffed, but there was 
laughter in his voice as well. "Now I'm afraid I really must go. I had 
no idea I'd be here this long, and I have a lecture to go to." He 
started to rise but Mulder pulled him back. He felt awkward but there 
was something he had to know. 

"That first time - why did you kiss me?" he asked.

"I wanted to," John yawned. 

"No," Mulder felt young and naive but he wasn't going to let this go. "I 
mean, how did you know that it would be - OK, you know, that I would 
respond?"

John looked at Mulder silently for so long that Mulder began to think 
that he wouldn't get an answer. Finally the older man ran his fingers 
through his own hair and said, a hint of frost in his clear tones, 
"Worried that you look like a poof? Well, don't be. You don't seem 
particularly nellie. But I've found that, given the chance, few men 
actually *object* to orgasm, regardless of who administers it."

Mulder flinched, and John looked at him more closely, then touched his 
cheek. "But no, I'm sorry, that wasn't really your question, was it? You 
want to know if it was you or me - if the sight of *you* dripping wet 
and covered in bicycle grease moved me to a state of uncontrollable 
passion, or if *I* regularly kiss strange boys." He paused. 

"Well, I wish I could say it was your charms that filled me with 
ungovernable lust. I'm afraid, though, that kissing strange boys is 
something I'm rather in the habit of doing." 

His tone was kind but distant and Mulder gaped at him, not knowing how 
to react. John watched him again for a moment, then stroked his shoulder 
and said in a softer voice "Not that I'm denying your considerable 
charms. If it makes you feel any better, I usually limit myself to 
*strange* boys. I don't often come back for further acquaintance." He 
looked away for a second, then rose from the bed.

Mulder sat up against the headboard, blankets bunched around him, and 
watched the older man move about his room. Hurt prowled the edges of his 
feelings, and he was afraid now to ask what came next, so he watched 
John's preparations in silence. Once fully dressed, John came and sat on 
the edge of the bed, not touching him. 

"Shall I come back again then?" he asked. Still slightly stung, Mulder 
felt a refusal form on the tip of his tongue, but at the last moment he 
stopped himself. *Did* he want John to come back, with all the 
complications that entailed? The Fox Mulder he was at home would have 
refused, but... he felt that small new sense of freedom stir in him 
again. If his body was a strange new craft, well, why not trust in the 
currents that carried it? Why not let it take him where it may, on 
whatever unimagined adventure this might turn out to be.

John, still watching him, ran his hand once more through his hair. It 
was a gesture Mulder was beginning to recognize, a way of ordering his 
thoughts. Before Mulder could speak he added "Because, if you'll let me, 
I'd like to." 

Mulder couldn't help the small grin that spread across his face. "Fine 
then," he said, "If you want to, this strange boy would be happy to see 
you."

*                            *                            *

Exam time. Ramparts of books flanked Mulder's small desk, great 
teetering stacks of texts and notebooks. Drifting heaps of paper and 
still more books spilled out into the rest of the room, leaving only 
precarious pathways from door to desk, desk to hot-plate and tiny 
bedroom. 

Even the chair held books, texts open to key passages and scribbled with 
notes. Mulder perched awkwardly on the edge of one of the wooden crates 
that served him as impromptu book-shelves. His brain felt like sawdust, 
his eyes were dry and gritty, and he was beginning to think his head 
might actually explode if he had to read one more word. When familiar 
foot-steps sounded on the stairs outside he shut his book with relief. 
Before John could knock he called out "It's open!" and a pair of blue 
eyes peered cautiously around the door.

"The state of this place boggles the mind," said John as he edged his 
way into the room. "I'm afraid some day I'll have to send the hounds in 
after you." 

He scooped the pile of books from the chair, sat down, and cautiously 
added the displaced books to the nearest heap. The top text slipped and 
he caught it in one hand, looked at the cover, then flipped it open.

Mulder watched him read. He knew no-one else who made reading into a 
spectator sport, but John was so instantly absorbed in whatever he 
picked up, his reactions written on his face so clearly, that Mulder 
sometimes thought he learned more about the books by watching John read 
than from any of the lectures he attended.

This book was clearly a disappointment. John's narrow upper lip curled 
and his pale eyebrows rose higher and higher on his forehead until they 
were half-obscured beneath his hair. Finally he snapped the book 
disdainfully shut and demanded 

"How can you read this nonsense? It's nothing but impenetrable humbug. I 
think you'd learn more about the human mind by studying history for a 
year, or even spending the summer reading novels. Not modern ones - 
they're infected by this same pernicious claptrap - but a couple of good 
thick three-volume nineteenth century novels."

"Snob!" said Mulder without rancour, and rescued his book from John's 
hand. Had he reviewed that one yet? He couldn't even remember. 

"Besides, you know that's not true. I mean, yeah, good novelists are 
good psychologists, but novels are too specific to their time, and their 
insights are only approximate, intuitive. And history can only tell you 
the finished story. Psychology is more of a science - with the right 
tools we can trace patterns and formulate rules, we can *predict* how 
someone will act, or what different kinds of environments will lead to."

John waved his hand dismissively. "People aren't a science, Mulder. 
They're an art. All your tools and systems are just reductive, and you 
can't hide that by coining some ridiculous hermetic code, 
incomprehensible to anyone but the bespectacled goddess of psychology's 
earnest and badly dressed acolytes." He tugged pointedly at Mulder's 
frayed sweatpants, drawing them dangerously low on his hips.

"They're *not* reductive. They're part of a method. And I'm *not* 
earnest. And as for badly dressed, this is what you get when you come 
calling during exam time. Anyway, how would you know? Around you I seem 
to spend most of my time *un*dressed."

John leaned forward and licked Mulder's exposed hip-bone, caught at the 
waistband of his pants with his teeth. "Granted. But at least with me 
you're *well* undressed, undressed with some style and flair," he 
argued, trying to pull Mulder into his lap. 

Mulder twisted out of his grasp, nearly losing his pants in the process. 
"Speaking of exams," he said "don't you have *work* to do, John?"

John slumped back in the chair, looking haughty. "Oh, *work*. I'd rather 
have sex with you. Did I ever tell you about my Great-uncle Simon's 
will?"

"I can only hope there's no connection between those last two sentences" 
said Mulder dryly.

"Psychology," John explained. "Everyone hated him, but he controlled the 
family purse-strings, so they couldn't let on. He knew, though, and knew 
exactly how everyone would react to his death. He left them all the most 
devastatingly appropriate bequests - his accountant's visor to his most 
money-hungry sister, his whole library but nothing else to my 
grandfather, who kept saying he needed money for books when everyone 
knew full well that he spent most of his school-years in the gambling 
parlours. And for that he didn't need to know -" he flipped open another 
text and read from it at random, "a 'pathological anal fixation' from a 
hole in the ground."

"Maybe not the happiest of comparisons," mused Mulder aloud as he let 
John draw him close again. "And that was family, he'd know them. With a 
good enough understanding of psychology you should be able to construct 
a picture of someone you've never met, just from looking at their 
patterns of behaviour."
 
"You're sexy when you're earnest," said John indistinctly into his 
navel.

"And *you* shouldn't talk about fixation!" Mulder replied, and gave up 
the battle for his sweatpants.

*                            *                            *

They talked like this a lot, discussing what they were studying, their 
opinions of the world. John was unpredictable: arrogant and elitist 
about some things, startlingly radical about others, with a certain 
weakness for underdog causes that Mulder hadn't expected of someone with 
his background. Whatever his opinions, though, they were never trite and 
he argued them with passion. 

With passion, and with the annoying habit of calling on an inexhaustible 
supply of stories about his distant ancestors to back them up. One 
crabby afternoon Mulder had accused him of making the stories up. John, 
still sprawled naked on the bed, had assumed an expression of wounded 
shock.

"Never!" he had exclaimed. "They're gospel truth, every one of them. 
Cross my heart!" His finger had traced a languid cross over his left 
nipple. 

"That's not where your heart is," Mulder had snapped, but John's finger 
was continuing its movement, circling the nipple now, sliding down his 
chest, and Mulder had forgotten to be irritated as he watched its 
progress, his mouth suddenly dry. This was how their arguments usually 
ended, debate lost to desire.

They talked about ideas a lot, but in other ways their affair was 
strangely insular. Mulder had never even seen John's rooms. He had asked 
once, but the other man had said soberly "It wouldn't be wise. I share 
with my cousin."

It seemed a poor excuse. They hadn't put a name to their relationship, 
and Mulder, at least, had told no one, but it seemed that everyone at 
the college knew. And while they didn't go out much, John was 
unconcernedly affectionate when they did, throwing an arm across 
Mulder's shoulders, or letting a hand rest on the back of his neck. It 
rendered Mulder both proud and intensely nervous, this behaviour in 
public, and he couldn't help but find John's skittishness over his 
cousin odd. 

But then he hadn't met the cousin. In fact, while he knew any number of 
random facts about great-great grandfathers and distant aunts, he knew 
almost nothing about John's immediate family. John ducked or diverted 
direct questions, and the few things he did let fall were couched in 
such dramatic terms that Mulder didn't know what to believe.

"I'm the wastrel youngest son," John had once remarked. "It's my brother 
Freddie who fills the family coffers." 

"And your other brothers?" Mulder had asked.

John had gone very still. "What makes you think I have other brothers?"

"You said young*est*, not young*er*," explained Mulder. "And you 
specified - "my brother *Freddie*, as opposed to your brother 
*Archibald* or Benedict or whoever. I just assumed."

"You psychologists are worse than lawyers," John had grumbled, then 
changed the subject. 

Mulder didn't feel he could press too hard. After all, he hadn't 
mentioned Samantha, or his remote father, or his mother's distant 
sedated drift through his life. It never seemed like the right time, and 
it all sounded too bizarre. He had to admit as well that it was nice to 
pretend, however briefly, that everything had been different, that he 
had a loving apple-cheeked all-American family at home.

But John's silence on the subject did pique his curiousity. He had 
ventured a few cautious questions to class-mates, only to be answered 
with polite murmurings that graciously imparted as little information as 
possible. He didn't know how to read this, if it was class loyalty or 
something to do with John specifically. He was still unsure of what here 
was cultural difference and what personal idiosyncracy.

Nor was it the only thing he was unsure of, or the only signals he 
didn't know how to read. 

They spent a lot of time in bed, he and John. John was sweet and ardent 
and joyously affectionate, seemed happy to roll about for hours, hands 
and mouth on Mulder's body, growing more and more flushed and sweaty and 
glassy-eyed, but the moment that Mulder touched him too long, the minute 
that his breathing grew too ragged or his hips arched with too much 
need, he would stop Mulder and pull away. He didn't leave, at least not 
right away, but he would distract the younger man with something like 
that first strange bout of tickling, or redirect his own attentions to 
Mulder's body, reducing him to such exhausted satiety that he could do 
nothing but fall asleep, John's cock still hard against his ass or 
belly. 

"That can't be good for you!" Mulder had said to him. John had answered 
with something flip about keeping a stiff upper lip, but the hand that 
stopped Mulder's again and again was deadly serious.

Mulder didn't know how else to raise the question without venturing into 
territory he didn't want to explore too deeply. So his questions 
remained unspoken and he held tight to his original image of what this 
meant to him: his body a new vessel; a trip into adventure; a chance to 
be someone he could never be at home. 

For if this was only an adventure none of the little things mattered. It 
didn't matter that John wouldn't bring him home, or talk about his 
family, or introduce him to his friends. If it was all a simple 
experiment then it couldn't hurt to have his touch rejected time and 
time again, to have John inevitably roll away and climb from the bed and 
never once stay the night. 

*                               *                        *

And now John removed the study notes from Mulder's hand and, with a 
nudge of his head against Mulder's belly, imperiously commanded "Bed!"

Forgetting the state of the room, Mulder stepped backwards, dislodging 
an avalanche of papers and books that tumbled painfully onto his bare 
feet.

"Ow!" he yelped, and hopped away, setting another stack wobbling 
ominously. John's mouth twitched with restrained laughter, but he deftly 
caught Mulder's arm, steadying him, then grabbed the teetering heap of 
papers so only the top layer joined the general chaos on the floor. 

Mulder let himself lean into John's steadying presence shamelessly, 
enjoying the feel of him, even the laughter that now openly vibrated his 
frame. Then he felt John's focus shift, and followed his gaze to the 
papers on the floor. 

The avalanche had included some of his personal papers. There on the 
floor lay his picture of himself and Samantha, her arm trustingly around 
his waist, as well as a few yellowed newspaper clippings from the time. 
"Bizarre Disappearance" read one, and "Local girl still missing" the 
other. Mulder felt his stomach clench nervously. 

"That's you?" asked John. Mulder nodded.

"And - your sister? She looks like you."

Another nod. John watched Mulder, an odd look on his face. 

"And she - "

"Disappeared," said Mulder flatly. "When I was twelve. She was eight. I 
was there that night, I was supposed to be watching her. I can't 
remember what happened and she was never found."

Without moving an inch, John seemed to retreat to a great distance. Then 
he nodded, a strange slow considering nod that bent his head heavily and 
kept it bowed for long seconds. Then he pulled Mulder's face to him and 
kissed his forehead, an oddly chaste and ceremonial kiss, given what his 
hands then began to do to his body.

That night John stayed. Mulder felt him settle closer next to him, 
instead of beginning his usual retreat, and wondered bemusedly what was 
going on. John hadn't asked anything further about Samantha, but their 
love-making that evening had been different; more intent, more serious, 
and conducted in uncharacteristic silence. 

John shifted, and Mulder felt the now-familiar pressure against his 
stomach. If John was really staying, he thought, maybe some other rules 
were ripe for breaking too...

His head was nestled against John's shoulder and he licked his neck, 
tasting salt sweat and feeling a still-rapid pulse against his lips. He 
slid a hand between them and stroked John's smooth chest, strumming a 
thumb against his nipple. John sighed, and let Mulder nudge a knee 
between his thighs. 

He followed his hand with his mouth, nub of flesh hard between his 
teeth, gradually allowing his straying hand to wander its way down 
John's stomach, a little hesitantly now, awaiting refusal. 

The blond man's breathing was growing harsher now, deeper, and Mulder 
trailed finger-tips along his hip-bone, breathing heavily himself and 
finding it suddenly difficult to swallow. Then there was curling hair 
beneath his fingers and John was trembling, calling an answering tremor 
from Mulder's reaching hand, and then oh christ that warm blunt satin 
weight in his palm and still no protest, still no hand stopping his own. 
 
Mulder ran a thumb across the crown of John's cock and John rolled flat 
on his back. Mulder followed, cupped the socket of his palm over the wet 
tip of the other man's shaft, John's gasp running through his nerves 
like fire. 

Palm slick, he began to stroke in earnest now, light and testing strokes 
at first then harder, faster. John's body rose and fell beneath his 
hands in a complex shift and pull, arms reaching out towards the edges 
of the bed, head arched back, toes curling as his whole torso arched 
with terrible focussed urgency up towards Mulder's fist, as if he were 
being pulled apart and drawn together all at once. His laboured 
breathing gained voice now, edged with near-moan on the exhale, and 
sweat beaded on his body as he moved faster and more raggedly. Mulder 
heard his own voice fragment in his throat. He hadn't realized how 
intense he would find this, drawing this response from John the way John 
so expertly did from Mulder's own body. 

He tightened his grip a little, changed his speed, and John cried out, 
bucking sharply. He was gorgeous like this, all pink and gold and thin 
blue traceries of vein, pink and gold and blue like some debauched 
baroque angel, a cherub grown up lean and smooth and impossibly sexy. He 
let out another wordless cry and Mulder felt his own balls tighten just 
at the sound of it.

But now, even as his cock pulsed and thickened in Mulder' s grip, John 
reached up and grabbed his wrist, stilling his hand. 

"No!" shouted Mulder, hurt and disappointed and incredulous. "Jesus 
Christ, John, why won't you let me *do* this?"

A moment of silence and then John panted "I'm sorry - it's not you - I 
just - I can't - oh *fuck*!" and with one hand he pulled Mulder's head 
towards him for a kiss while the other guided Mulder's hand back to 
motion on his still hard cock.

Some last thing seemed to have given way in him and a rising cry of "ah, 
ah, ah," spilled from his mouth as his body arched, tensed and tensed 
further, writhed and writhed higher beneath Mulders' touch until he went 
rigid. Then with a strange torn shout he came, pulse after pulse of 
milky fluid shooting over Mulder's fist, over both their chests and 
bellies, until his body sagged bonelessly and he lay still.

Lay so still for so long that Mulder began to grow anxious and shook 
him. "John?" he said "John? Are you all right?"

Slowly John opened his eyes. They had gone the most intense blue Mulder 
had ever seen them and the expression in them made him flinch back 
involuntarily. All their patrician assurance was gone and they held fear 
and longing and desperation and a kind of blitzed dreaming distance that 
Mulder shied away from as if it were open flame. "It's like dying," said 
John in a roughened voice "it's gorgeous and final and every time I'm 
more afraid I won't come back."

Mulder could think of absolutely no response. This was the kind of thing 
he was supposed to be learning to deal with, to analyse and understand. 
Suddenly, though, his months of careful study seemed a thin and shaky 
surface over the depths of misery and damage he saw in John's eyes, all 
tidy systems of diagnosis and treatment leaving no room for what he felt 
at the sight of this, such unguessed-at twisted pain in the eyes of this 
man who he loved. 

And the thought wound so easily through his mind that it was a moment 
before he realized what he had just admitted to himself. This was more 
than an adventure or simple diversion. Somehow this infuriating, sweet, 
arrogant and mysterious man had found a place in his heart. 

Trying to still a flutter of panic in his gut, he stroked John's chest. 
His skin was chill to the touch and Mulder, not wanting to leave him, 
fished for a T-shirt beside the bed and carefully wiped them both clean 
of sweat and semen. Then he pulled John's body against him.

The blond head settled on his chest. "I want to hear your heart beat," 
said John and Mulder held him even tighter. He was in way over his head 
here, swept along a course he had no idea how to navigate, but at least 
he could provide this, a heart-beat and pair of arms. "Can you tell me 
about it?" he asked gently and John shook his head. 

Just before they both dropped off to sleep, though, he murmured quietly 
against Mulder's face "You were right. I did have another brother."

end part II