round 4 part 2 Amothea
The Tasty Burger diner parking lot was only half packed when Skinner finally made it to Cape Heaven. His chest hurt when he got out of the car, but the doctors assured him that he didn't have a punctured lung. A man and woman holding arms left the diner laughing, it was strange to see such normalcy when Alex lay on a hospital bed after almost dying, and Mulder, his Mulder... He didn't want to imagine what might have happened to the other man he loved. A gold bell hanging over the door announced his arrival in the dimly lit diner. No one looked up, or cared about him. He was just another old guy.
Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he walked up the first isle of booths, stopping at the last one, waiting for the Mulder to look up. Mulder was staring out the window into parking lot; Skinner could see both their reflections in the glass.
"I see you Walter." Mulder said suddenly and tiredly. This was Mulder at his most exhausted.
Without waiting for an invite to sit down, Skinner slid across the seat until he was sitting across from Mulder. He reached across the table to grip Mulder's hand, but his younger lover flinched at the sudden movement, snatching his hand away. "Fox?" He didn't know what else to say?
Mulder kept his hands on the table, fiddling with his empty coffee mug. Skinner could see a young woman in the glass reflection taking orders. "Look at me." He pleaded gently, focusing his attention back to the man in front of him.
Shaking his head slowly, Mulder turned his attention back to the window. "I can't."
Skinner had to strain to hear Mulder's whisper. "Why not?" Skinner forced himself to stay patient and not bundle Mulder off to the car. He wanted to get back to Alex, although the doctors wouldn't let him see the younger man until the next morning. Now that he could see Mulder alive and well, some of the stress left him, but he needed to find out what was wrong with him.
"Look at me." He ordered softly not wanting anyone to hear his conversation with Mulder.
Mulder continued to stare out the window, keeping his face averted. "Look at me." Skinner asked again. This time his voice sounded harsh to his own ears.
Slowly, anticlimactically, Mulder turned towards him; his eyes burning with unshed tears, glared at him. Skinner zeroed in on the bruise on Mulder's jaw. "Are you happy?" Mulder demanded smart enough to keep his voice down.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay, you kept looking out at the damn parking lot." Which was damned hard to see with everything reflecting back at them. Skinner repressed the urge to sigh; his ribs still hurt like hell, no matter what the doctors said Tylenol does not work.
"I can't talk here." Mulder was blinking his eyes furiously.
Getting up took more effort than sitting down, pain shot through this chest with the tinniest movements. "Come on, I'll pay the bill." Skinner could see that Mulder was wearing his clothes, a sweater one size too large and pants that were too long.
He paid for the coffee while Mulder waited outside. It was a pretty night, and if the men he loved weren't in such pain, he might have appreciated the beauty. "My car is over here." He said, automatically walking towards his car. He could hear Mulder following him. Their shoes crunched on the loose gravel parking lot.
"What happened to you?" Mulder asked sounding concerned. He hoped Mulder wouldn't rush over and start putting his hands on him. His body would probably collapse.
"Just get in the car. I'll explain on our way to the hospital."
They spent the first thirty minutes in utter silence, Skinner didn't want to listen to the radio, and Mulder still stared out the window. Gathering his courage, he spoke rapidly. "Mulder, Alex is in the hospital. Spender shot him and he almost died."
"What!" Mulder exclaimed, shocked out of his moodiness. "When did this happen?"
"About an hour before you called me. Don't worry, the doctors said he's strong and he'll pull through."
"So why were you walking so slowly?"
"Cracked ribs." Skinner muttered. He didn't like admitting that he could be injured just as easily as the next man could.
"Let me guess, you were also fighting Spender? He said he was going to go get Alex. I couldn't even warn him."
"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Skinner asked hoping that Mulder could tell him what was bothering him so much. If Spender touched one hair on Mulder's head...
"I can't, not right now. It's still too..." Mulder paused searching for the right word, "raw."
Nodding his head in understanding, he turned his attention back to the road. Mulder will tell him when the time was right, and driving at 11 p.m. at night wasn't the time.
****
Mulder sat next to the hospital bed, lightly holding Alex's limp hand, trying to ignore the smell of disinfectants saturating the air. This room didn't have a window, he could only guess at the time now.
"Fox, come on he'll be fine. Alex is a survivor. You on the other look like your going to fall over and sleep on the floor." Walter's calm voice soothed some of his frazzled nerves.
"I don't want to leave him here alone. What if he wakes up earlier than expected? I need to make sure he's okay." How could he tell Walter that something might have gone wrong when Alex astro- projected himself to their cape side house, and saved him? Guilt and worry did not make relaxing easy. He still felt chilled even with Walter's coat surrounding him; he could still feel the cold concrete floor. Shivering he pulled the coat tighter around his body, using only one hand. Letting go of Alex's hand was unthinkable.
Firm hands settled on his shoulders and rubbed them. "Come on, Fox. We'll go home, let you have a shower, and then you can take a two hour nap. I'll have you back before ten am." Walter cajoling tone almost had him convinced, but then a low moan emerged from Alex's slightly parted lips.
"He's waking up!" Mulder's weariness vanished and he sat straighter in the hard plastic chair the young nurse provided, earlier that evening. Skinner quickly left the room, to find a nurse, or so Mulder hoped.
It was hard seeing Alex so pale and lifeless, his chest barely moving, with tape everywhere. Alex was going to eat a cow when they had to take off the bandages on his chest. He was so tired, he wanted to go home with his lovers and sleep through the next year. Dealing his father molesting and almost raping him was something he just couldn't deal with right now. At the diner, he thought he had control over his emotions but seeing Skinner, through the glass window, striding down the isle towards him brought tears to his eyes. It was all he could do to not break down. All it would have taken was one word.
Walter was wonderful like that, very observant. Those few minutes of silence at the diner helped. Now he just felt exhausted and worried, he now knew how Alex must have felt after Spender raped him.
A doctor arrived moments before Walter; she checked all the equipment, Alex's eyes, then checked some stuff off of a chart. "He's starting to come around, I'll say in an hour or two he might be coherent. Just don't try to push him to talk. He needs rest. The police said they will take his statement sometime this afternoon." With that, she was gone, as quickly as she came.
Once the room was empty again, Walter found a chair and pulled it up next to his, every movement of his slow and precise. Except for the blip of the heart monitor, the room was rather silent. "Spender was going to rape me." He said, not taking his eyes off the slow drip of Alex's IV fluid bag. "But before he left, he force me to climax and then came in my face. Did you know Spender was my father? He also admitted to raping Jeff when he was a teenager and later on as well." Some of the weight on his chest lifted saying the words. He wondered what they meant to him. What would Walter think?
When Walter didn't say anything, Mulder turned his head to the side to see what was going on. Walter was clenching and unclenching his fists, his jaw muscle was twitching too. "Walter, it's okay." Mulder said trying to defuse the fury he saw in his lover's body language.
"No it's not okay Mulder. That evil monster has violated both you and Alex and I can't kill him again. A year of therapy might not even help."
"Therapy!" Mulder shouted, aghast at the thought of telling a stranger about his personal life.
"Well not right now." Walter said, starting to relax a little.
"Don't I have a say in this?" Alex asked in a weak whisper, his voice rough scratchy sounding.
Mulder and Walter both turned their attention to the green eye man on the bed. "Alex! You're all right!" Mulder couldn't stop smiling.
"If you say so. I feel like shit." Alex said blinking his eyes and doing a slow scan of the room.
"Relax, Alex, the doctors said you should rest for another eight hours before trying to move." Walter ordered.
A sign of Alex truly being exhausted he closed his eyes and fell back asleep.
"Walter, I can't leave now. What if he wakes up again?" Mulder complained shifting in his seat, again looking exhausted.
"Alex is going to be fine. I'll ask Scully to sit with him if it'll make you feel any better. I'm sure she'll do it for you."
After gazing at Alex, pale on the hospital bed, Mulder nodded his head in agreement. "Can you please call Scully? When she's here, we can go, I just don't want to leave him unprotected...you know?" Mulder hated how vulnerable and needy his voice sounded, to him anyway.
Luckily, Walter seemed to understand. "That's fine, you know I'll do anything for you or Alex..."
Nodding his head, Mulder continued to watch Alex.
to be continued...