Amal Nahurriyeh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amalnahurriyeh) wrote2012-06-18 01:04 pm
amalnahurriyeh) wrote2012-06-18 01:04 pm
Entry tags:
FIC: Madeleine (XF, Mulder/Other)
Title: Madeleine
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh (amalnahurriyeh/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amalnahurriyeh)
Fandom: The X-Files
Pairing: Mulder/OMC; Mulder/Scully
Rating: R (nonexplicit sex)
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: (if any) Written for a prompt for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
queer_fest 2011, "Mulder's Oxford girlfriend showing up was a disaster. His Oxford boyfriend, less so." Posted for the queer_fest 2012 Free For All, and for xf_is_love. (I'm efficient and/or lazy.)
Title after Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past; a good explanation here, complete with baking discussion, and the full quote here. Gayest possible literary reference, y/mfy?
Thanks tonaraht, sangria_lila, cityesm and maybe_amanda for betas and cheerleading at various points, including some truly excellent Oxford-picking.
***
Thompson called him into his office just after lunch. Sebastian had been down the road buying a sandwich when the heavens had opened; he was embarrassed to be standing there with his socks damp and his hair falling over his forehead, but when the boss called, you answered. "Sir? You wanted to see me?"
Thompson put down his mug and beckoned him in. "I just finished reading your revisions for the World Bank project. Nicely done, Grange."
"Thank you, sir." He'd spent the last two weeks of his life cleaning up the mess Peter had made of it, but at least he was getting some of the credit.
"I'd like you to be our contact with them from now on," Thompson was saying. Sebastian nearly lost his hearing out of shock. "I know it's a jump up the ladder for you, but you've proven yourself capable. They've suggested a meeting a week on Thursday to present. I'll have someone from the travel office call you about the details."
He blinked for a moment, and then said, "Excellent, I'm looking forward to it."
"Washington's not bad," Thompson said, picking up another folder off his desk. "They book you into the Four Seasons. There's a good little French place nearby. Forget the name. Anyway, I'd better be getting back to this."
"Of course," Sebastian said, and stood. "Thank you, sir." He waited until he got back to his office to give himself a sad little fist pump.
It wasn't until he actually had made his plane reservations that it occurred to him to wonder if Fox was still in Washington.
***
Sebastian had met Fox in the October of his final year at Oxford, at one of those dreadful parties that Antoine was always hosting. Really, he didn't know why he went, except that it was the most reliable place in the whole of Oxford to find decent men. And there Fox had been, sitting in a corner, marginally engaged in conversation with that terrible bore John. Fox'd had his long fingers curled around a bottle of beer, and Sebastian fought the desire to cross the room and lick him. Instead, he nudged Antoine. "Who's the new one, then?"
"Oh, Fox?" Antoine made a little head gesture that seemed to connote approval. "He's in the psychology D Phil. American, but perfectly civilized. Just suffered a dramatic break-up with that atrocious Greene woman, you know the one? Anyway, rumour has it is he may be a little more...flexible than that might lead one to expect." This head gesture was clearly meant to be suggestive. "He's a little odd, though pleasant enough. And certainly easy on the eyes."
"Mmm," Sebastian said, thinking it unwise to agree too vociferously.
When he managed to make his way over to them, Fox gave him a sideways evaluative look, which he couldn't help but find promising. John, in his typical oblivious way, doesn't even notice it. "Seb! Fancy seeing you here. I was just telling Fox about the horror that was that interminable workshop with Mirrlees."
Good lord. How Fox's eyes hadn't glazed over yet was a miracle. "I'm shocked he's still sitting here. And where are you, Fox?"
"Psychology," he said, and Sebastian was shocked by the richness of his voice. "Not that my thesis is terribly interesting, either."
"I'm sure that's not true," he said, and smiled.
It only took ten minutes to chase away John, and another twenty until the space between them on the couch had shrunk to almost nothing. They'd had a spirited discussion of the psychology of financial crime for a while, when Sebastian, as casually as he could, let his hand brush over Fox's knee. Fox glanced down, and seemed to consider for a moment before he lifted his eyes back up. "You wanna get out of here?" he suggested, quietly.
Sebastian was a little surprised by the speed, but not averse to the suggestion. "Let me get my coat."
The entire walk across town to his rooms in Brazenose, as they chatted amicably about their irrational archetectural preferences, Seb tried to set some reasonable expectations for the evening in his own head. Dates women, has just broken up with his girlfriend, shows up to the most notorious gay pick up spot in the whole university for a little bit of comfort. Probably the sort who doesn't particularly mind who's sucking his dick, but might have hidden hang-ups.
Thirty seconds after closing the door to his room, with Fox pinning him up against the wall and using one hand to hold his face and the other to make short work of the buttons of his fly, he re-evaluated
When he woke alone in the morning, he mentally chided himself for being disappointed. Certainly, he thought it had been rather an impressive performance overall, but that didn't mean Fox would want to talk in the morning. Nevertheless, a wave of relief washed over him when the door opened, and Fox walked in, wearing only his half-buttoned jeans as a concession to the propriety of the others who shared the staircase, and slid back into bed.
It took a few hours for them to make it to getting dressed and seeking out breakfast. It was sometime during that breakfast, over strong coffee and overcooked eggs and a really riveting conversation about the state of modern poetry in a cafe full of hungover students, that Sebastian realized he had it bad. On the walk back to campus, he cleared his throat. "I don't know if you'd be interested, but I've got two tickets to the Proms on Thursday. A friend was going to go with me, but now can't make it. I don't suppose you like Schubert?"
There was the same evaluative look from the night before. "I suppose I like Schubert well enough."
By the end of Michaelmas, Sebastian was horrified to realize he was, finally, involved with a man he could bring home to his mother, though, of course, not in any kind of honest way. Fox wore his foreignness coolly, but was well-cultured, and had, over his time at Oxford so far, acclimated sufficiently that his accent almost seemed an affectation. He was enthusiastic about literature, but equally so about sports, and had what seemed a practically anthropologic fascination with cricket. And if he was, occasionally, given to fits of moodiness; or if his dissertation material on occult symbology and its uses in the minds of serial killers was distasteful, to say the least; or if he never mentioned or spoke to his family, but kept a single lone picture of what must be him and his sister tucked away in a drawer in his desk; well, then. People were complex.
At the same time, he found himself horrified by his sexual expectations from that first night. Because Fox liked it when he got out of bed the next morning with handprints on his wrists and arse; Fox wanted him to scratch his nails down his chest, to bite his nipples, to pull his hair, to come on his face; when Seb called him a dirty little slut, he pushed his hips up and begged for more. Sebastian found himself often spending the ten minutes post-orgasm flushed, panting, and trying to figure out what the fuck he'd just done, by which point Fox would either be asleep or out of bed heading for his typewriter.
By spring, they had a rhythm. Fox would hole up in the Bod or his college library all day, making inscrutable notes on these terrible yellow notepads he must have had imported from the States. Sebastian would rouse him from it somewhere around dinner time; they would eat together, perhaps with friends, perhaps alone, and end up back in one of their rooms, where they would read companionably, edit bits of each others' writing for clarity, and then fuck each other stupid. At weekends, they'd go to concerts, which Seb suspected was Fox indulging him, or to a football or cricket match, which was certainly Seb indulging Fox. Occasionally, they went to London, got a room in a pleasantly run-down hotel, and tried their hands at being proper queers, but by the end of the weekend Seb thought they were both itching to get back on the train to Oxford, to return to their lives of never touching in public and trying to break the college beds in private.
He was happy. And then the bank called him.
It was the perfect offer, actually, exactly why he'd come to Oxford, decided to get the damn M.Phil to begin with. The benefits were excellent, the salary top-notch, and it had growth potential. But then, there was Fox. He waited a day or so to tell him that they'd made the offer. "So what's the problem?" Fox had said, taking another enormous bite of his tikka.
Sebastian hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Well, you, actually." Fox watched him, and he stumbled on. "You've got at least another year of writing left."
Fox put his fork down. "You should take it," he said, quietly.
His heart beat heavy in his chest; such a cliche, but true. "I don't think I'd do well at anything long distance," he said, in just as hushed a voice.
"Me neither," Fox said. He reached across the table and laid his hand across Sebastian's. "You should take it."
Sebastian turned his palm up for the moment and brushed his fingers against Fox's, and nodded.
It lent a sort of piquancy to the next two months, knowing the clock was slowly ticking down. They stopped planning weekend activities, stayed in bed all Saturday, stumbled out at seven in the evening to find something to eat that wasn't crisps and dried apricots. Sebastian invited Fox to come down to London with him to flat-hunt, but Fox begged off, saying he had writing to do, and you couldn't fault him for that. His mother came up to visit him before he moved out, one last time, and he did introduce Fox to her. "This is that American friend I told you about," he said, and, watching her shake his hand, part of him wanted to cry.
He moved into his new flat with a perfect impression of Fox's teeth bruised on his left pectoral muscle. He vowed to himself he wouldn't write to him until the bruise faded.
***
The concierge had been able to identify the "French place" Thompson had referred to; it was a low-key little bistro, which made Sebastian feel much better. Too fancy would send the wrong message, though he wasn't precisely sure what message he was supposed to be sending. They'd made the plan by email; Fox was positively inexpressive in written form, and Sebastian regretted that he hadn't had a chance to talk to him on the phone, hadn't been able to tell by his voice whether or not he was the same. He sipped his scotch and tried not to watch the door too anxiously.
Dear lord, his hair, was actually his first coherent thought upon seeing Fox walk in, trenchcoat flapping around him. He'd always loved to run his fingers through Fox's hair, to push it off his forehead, and here it was missing, all spiky and awful. This, he realized, must be what a straight-acting Fox Mulder looked like. Well then. Pity.
But the smile on Fox's face as he walked over to him at the bar was the same, and the hand at his elbow was warm and friendly. "It's good to see you," Fox said, and his voice sounded honest about it.
"Good to see you as well," Sebastian said, and hoped the nervous feeling would fade. "I think they have our table ready, unless you want to get a drink first."
"No, let's eat. I can't remember if I had lunch today," Fox said.
"Ah, so nothing's changed, then."
"Basically."
Fox demolished his steak frites while asking intelligent questions about the deal Sebastian was in town to ink, which helped ease the awkwardness. "What about you?" he asked. "You're, what, a criminal profiler?"
Fox shrugged. "I was, for a while. I suppose I still am occasionally."
"Moved on to bigger and better?"
That got a derisive laugh. "I think so, though I don't think anybody agrees. No, I've got a...pet project. Odd cases, the ones nobody else wants."
He couldn't help but smile; trust Fox to find the strangest possible way to be a copper. "And of course by yourself."
A strange look passed over Fox's face at this. "At first, yeah. I've got a partner now, actually. She's...she's more useful than I would have expected." He shrugged. "She seems to be sticking around, at least."
Sebastian considered him. He knew next to nothing about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but he was pretty sure that an agent wouldn't get handed a "pet project" and a subordinate without a hell of a reputation. Fox had always downplayed his successes, though; he could never tell how much of it was a performance, and how much he actually believed. But the pretty man across from him seemed less content than he should be in this situation. He wondered if this happened to be one of the moody periods--or if, perhaps, those had gotten more constant. People break with time; he knew this.
After creme brulée and coffee, Fox made sure to hand him his business card with his office and mobile numbers on it. "In case they keep sending you back."
"Here's hoping," Sebastian said, and slipped it into his wallet, where it slowly grew fuzzy edges behind his company Amex.
***
The next time was six months later; they went for barbecue, because Fox said it was an important cultural experience, and Sebastian had a totally free evening, so might as well make an event out of it. If seeing Fox in his secret-agent suit had been odd, it was almost odder to see him like this, in a t-shirt and jeans, looking both older and exactly the same. He was moving his arm strangely, and eventually Sebastian pried out of him that he'd been shot. "What, by a criminal?" he asked, shocked.
"Not exactly," Fox had said, and not elaborated.
They'd listened to the mediocre live band. He'd never condescended to eat barbecue before--luckily most of his wining and dining of foreign bankers had been in London--but he supposed he saw the appeal. After two beers, he'd casually asked Fox what he was doing the next evening--he didn't fly out until Saturday afternoon, and it might have been nice to have company two nights in a row. He'd heard good things about the opera company. But Fox shook his head. "I have to get up to the Vineyard. The real estate agent is after me."
"Real estate? Are you buying a place?"
Fox shook his head and licked his fingers, which sent a strange, recollecting shiver down Sebastian's spine. "No, I'm selling my dad's place. He died a couple of months ago."
Sebastian didn't think he'd ever heard Fox mention his father before. "I'm so sorry. Was it sudden?"
"Yeah." He took another long sip of his beer. "I keep saying the real estate agent just to do whatever needs to happen, that I'll sign anything he sends me, but apparently I have to actually show up in person. Pain in the ass."
He decides to take the opening. "Your mother doesn't still want to live there?"
Fox stabbed at his beans a little more aggressively than necessary. "They're divorced. She doesn't even live on the Vineyard anymore. No, the house is mine, I guess." He waved his fork around. "Whatever. I just want it over with."
Sebastian took another sip of his beer, and wondered about the picture in the drawer, but decided against pressing his luck. There was a far off look in Fox's eyes, and he'd rather have him back here than figure out old obscure answers.
***
The bank kept sending him to Washington, and so the visits continued; they had drinks at terrible wine bars where Fox grilled him about the Cricket World Cup, they ate tapas and argued about British politics. Fox was less quick to smile these days, but there was the same joy to it when he did, and, if anything, his sense of wonder seemed amplified. Between visits, they exchanged the occasional email; when Seb found out he would be coming to Washington, he would call now. Sometimes the partner, a woman with a voice like honey, would answer the phone and pass it along to Fox; the one time Fox isn't in he didn't know quite what to call himself, so simply left his name. Fox emailed that evening to report that "Scully was impressed that I have callers with such appealing accents. I offered to set you up, but that I couldn't promise more than the opera."
On a rainy April night, he walked into the lobby of the Four Seasons to find Fox already at the lobby bar, head bowed over a small glass that he was turning around and around in his hand. Sebastian shook out his umbrella and walked over. Fox seemed lost in his thoughts, and jumped a little when Seb touched his arm. "So sorry for being late," he said. "My meeting ran over, and it was impossible to catch a cab."
"And it's raining," Fox said, evaluatively.
"Exactly," Seb said, and sighed. "Do you mind if I take a minute to get changed? Wet wool is not my idea of a good time. Come up to my room, we can figure out where to go."
"Let me settle up," Fox said, reaching for his wallet, but Sebastian waved his hand and insisted on putting it on his tab. In the elevator, Fox was strangely silent, and Sebastian wondered precisely how long he had been sitting at that bar.
Fox's silence hung heavy between them, and Sebastian found himself fighting against it by pattering on about today's awkward lunch with the bank's German representative as he guided him into the elevator and, finally, his hotel room. As he hung his coat up, Fox went to stand by the window, and Sebastian felt a pang of aching familiarity about his posture as he watched. Fox never talked about it then, probably still didn't; he must not have known how to beg off tonight. Sebastian went to him and rested a hand gently on his back. "Fox," he murmured, and he meant to finish with if you aren't up to dinner, but Fox's expression when he turned to him was hollow, and Sebastian felt the desperate need to fill it in. The muscles in Fox's arm were tense as he leaned in to kiss him, and he kept it light, left room for him to back out. There was a sad desperation in the way Fox returned the kiss, which Sebastian knew he'd felt before but had perhaps never identified, not even now. Fox tasted like tequila, and his tie unknotted easily; his skin was smooth and pliable, his muscles half-tensed for flight even as he sank into the moment. They made it to the bed without speaking, slid against each other over the nap of hotel sheets.
As he was laying there, his hand tangled in Fox's hair and his cock in Fox's mouth,he realized why he was doing this, why he'd slipped back into bed with Fox like there was a time portal in the room leading back to 1986. It wasn't that he was still in love with Fox. He was a living, breathing, madeleine, the perfect way to bring the vibrancy of his youth crashing back down on him. He had loved him these past years for the access to those memories, for making it possible to forget he's turned older, more bitter, less free. But here was Fox the crime-fighter and Seb the power banker, so beyond who they were a decade ago that it was laughable, it really should have been, but he couldn't stop wishing he could just turn back the clock. When he pinned Fox's hands to the bed, his eye caught the blossom of the bullet scar on his shoulder; when Fox whispered his name, it was as if he hadn't heard it in years.
He woke from his post-coital doze to see Fox dressing quietly by the light from the bathroom. He didn't look a thing like he did back in Oxford, really; it was a fantasy that they might still be those boys, a silly one at that. Fox noticed him awake and smiled. "Sorry. I have a morning flight tomorrow."
"No, it's fine," he said. "Where are you off to?"
"Boston," he said, sitting on the bed to put his socks on. "Not the most exciting place I've been."
"I suppose all that travel throws quite the wrench in your love life," Seb joked. Fox's face rippled slightly in a way that suggested that was nearer to the truth than he liked. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to poke a sore spot."
Fox just shook his head. "It's complicated."
Seb recognized the universal code for "hung up on somebody." "This complicated person. Are they worth it?"
Fox's smile told him the answer before the word "Yeah" left his lips.
"And is there any hope?"
His face fell slowly as he finished tying his shoe laces. "I have to believe there is." He leaned across and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Thanks for dinner," he said, with a little quirk of his lips.
"You're an easy one to please," Seb said.
"I make an effort," Fox said.
When he was gone, Seb fought with sleep for half an hour before calling room service. He told himself it was time zones. It wasn't.
***
He wasn't surprised when the next two times he came to Washington, Fox didn't happen to be available. In hindsight, he was a bit ashamed of himself--falling into bed quite so quickly with an old flame was a sign of weakness, though when the flame in question looked like Fox no jury of homosexuals would ever convict him. But the emails he got back were friendly, and they even chatted on the phone once or twice. Really, this was how it should be; they should be friends, now, after all this time.
It was two years later, and he and Fox were sitting in a sports bar, of all things, because there was a crucial match on which Fox wanted desperately to watch. Between them was a large order of "buffalo fries," which were greasy and dripping with hot sauce and melted cheese. Seb drank his beer, tried his best to eat the sopping chips without getting hot sauce on himself, and listened half-attentively to Fox prattling on about the various strengths and weaknesses of the opposing teams. He'd be glad, many a time, when he had had to cope with bankers talking about sports that Fox had trained him so well to look like he was paying attention.
When Fox's mobile rang, he was amused to hear the way his voice shifts, the serious way he said "Mulder" into it. God, they were adults now, weren't they. But the phone call appeared to lose its seriousness a moment in. "I didn't think you'd be heading home this early. Trouble at the ranch, partner?" He nodded as if his caller could see him, licking hot sauce off his fingers and flitting his eyes back to the game. "No, I'm not, I'm out. Seb's in town. Yes, the banker." He glanced over at Seb and smiled. "We're at Parker's. If you floor it, there's a chance you might get here before we finish the fries." He hung up and apologized. "My partner. I hope it's all right."
"I'd love to meet her," Seb said, and considered how to get a fry out from under the mound of melted cheese. "Is there any chance I could get a fork?"
"Only if you want to get deported," Fox said. "Napkins. Right there. Live a little."
He'd made Fox laugh with the story of how he met his latest paramour while queueing for rush tickets to Billy Budd when Fox's eyes suddenly focused elsewhere. Seb looked over his shoulder and saw a small, red-haired woman push in through the crowd, her coat flapping around her and a crease between her eyebrows. She caught Fox's eye, and the forehead-crease softened a little. Rather than coming to them, she went directly to the bar, and ordered brusquely. The bartender handed her a highball glass of something-or-other; she took a long drink of it, and then ate the lime garnish as she came over towards their table.
When she got there, she pulled up a chair next to Fox and dropped into it heavily. "Rough night?" he asked.
She threw the lime peel on the table. "Jet-lagged toddlers, and my mother tried to set me up with a deacon. A deacon, Mulder."
"I think you shouldn't budge for anything short of the pope."
"I don't think I'm allowed to date Polish." She shrugged off her coat and held out her hand. "You must be Sebastian. Dana Scully."
"Lovely to have a face to go with the name," Seb said, shaking her hand.
"Likewise." She smiled pleasantly, and extracted a sauce-soaked chip from under the cheese expertly. "I don't know why you order these. Who's up?"
"Duke by fifteen, but there's a quarter left. I think we're going to beat the spread in Organized Crime, but our VCU picks aren't looking so good."
"I told you that you'd set up the model wrong," she said, going for another chip. "I'm never letting you do math again."
"Only you do math for brackets," he said, and nudged the plate closer to her.
Their conversation was pleasant enough--Dana was a music lover as well, and certainly the staffing dramatics at the LPO made for good small talk. But he found himself watching them as they analyzed the game, argued about whether or not to order more fries (they chose to order fried chicken wings instead--Seb begged off, because that dip looked atrocious). This must have been, he realized with a smaller pang that he had expected, have been what he and Fox looked like back in Oxford, caught up in their own little world and interacting with outsiders only when interrupted. When he saw how Fox looked at her, heard the way he murmured her surname like an embrace, he thought he should feel jealous. But he couldn't, not now; too much water gone under the bridge. The smile Fox gave her was beautiful, and he could simply see that for what it was.
When Dana got up to use the ladies' room, he took his opportunity to make inquiries. "So. Complicated?"
Fox had the decency to blush. "To say the least."
"Well, it certainly looks like your hopes were well-founded."
Fox toyed with his glass. "She was sick," he said, quietly, as if merely saying the words would conjure it back. "It was bad. We weren't sure--" He shrugged it off.
"I'm so sorry." He felt like a bastard, briefly.
Fox waved it away. "It's fine, now. Really."
"Well, good." He saw her heading back to the table. "I should head off, I think," he said, standing. "I have an early meeting tomorrow, and I think I'll need to get in another half-hour at the hotel gym after this evening's culinary explorations."
"You're missing the end of the game," Fox said, gesturing to the TV.
"Send me a note. Let me know if you won your bet," Seb said. He bent down, on impulse, and kissed Fox's cheek. "It was nice seeing you again."
Fox's smile was friendly, if a little bewildered. "You too. Give me some warning next time, I'll make better plans."
"Excellent." He turned to Dana, who was wearing a subtle look of embarrassment. He couldn't imagine she didn't know, but he left that conversation to Fox to handle. "Dana, I'm so glad to have made your acquaintance. I'll have to send you the new Chopin recording we were talking about. I doubt you'd be able to get it over here."
"You don't have to go to the trouble," she said, in a friendly, if awkward, sort of way, as she took his hand.
"No trouble at all," he said, and wrapped his scarf around his neck. "Take care, Fox."
"Good night," Fox said, as Dana slid into the seat next to him.
Sebastian stepped out into the clear cold night, and looked up at the faint outlines of what would be stars if he weren't in the city. The cold air rushed around him, and he took a deep breath of it before turning his feet homeward.
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh (
amalnahurriyeh/amalnahurriyeh)Fandom: The X-Files
Pairing: Mulder/OMC; Mulder/Scully
Rating: R (nonexplicit sex)
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: (if any) Written for a prompt for
queer_fest 2011, "Mulder's Oxford girlfriend showing up was a disaster. His Oxford boyfriend, less so." Posted for the queer_fest 2012 Free For All, and for xf_is_love. (I'm efficient and/or lazy.)Title after Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past; a good explanation here, complete with baking discussion, and the full quote here. Gayest possible literary reference, y/mfy?
Thanks to
naraht, sangria_lila, cityesm and maybe_amanda for betas and cheerleading at various points, including some truly excellent Oxford-picking. ***
Thompson called him into his office just after lunch. Sebastian had been down the road buying a sandwich when the heavens had opened; he was embarrassed to be standing there with his socks damp and his hair falling over his forehead, but when the boss called, you answered. "Sir? You wanted to see me?"
Thompson put down his mug and beckoned him in. "I just finished reading your revisions for the World Bank project. Nicely done, Grange."
"Thank you, sir." He'd spent the last two weeks of his life cleaning up the mess Peter had made of it, but at least he was getting some of the credit.
"I'd like you to be our contact with them from now on," Thompson was saying. Sebastian nearly lost his hearing out of shock. "I know it's a jump up the ladder for you, but you've proven yourself capable. They've suggested a meeting a week on Thursday to present. I'll have someone from the travel office call you about the details."
He blinked for a moment, and then said, "Excellent, I'm looking forward to it."
"Washington's not bad," Thompson said, picking up another folder off his desk. "They book you into the Four Seasons. There's a good little French place nearby. Forget the name. Anyway, I'd better be getting back to this."
"Of course," Sebastian said, and stood. "Thank you, sir." He waited until he got back to his office to give himself a sad little fist pump.
It wasn't until he actually had made his plane reservations that it occurred to him to wonder if Fox was still in Washington.
***
Sebastian had met Fox in the October of his final year at Oxford, at one of those dreadful parties that Antoine was always hosting. Really, he didn't know why he went, except that it was the most reliable place in the whole of Oxford to find decent men. And there Fox had been, sitting in a corner, marginally engaged in conversation with that terrible bore John. Fox'd had his long fingers curled around a bottle of beer, and Sebastian fought the desire to cross the room and lick him. Instead, he nudged Antoine. "Who's the new one, then?"
"Oh, Fox?" Antoine made a little head gesture that seemed to connote approval. "He's in the psychology D Phil. American, but perfectly civilized. Just suffered a dramatic break-up with that atrocious Greene woman, you know the one? Anyway, rumour has it is he may be a little more...flexible than that might lead one to expect." This head gesture was clearly meant to be suggestive. "He's a little odd, though pleasant enough. And certainly easy on the eyes."
"Mmm," Sebastian said, thinking it unwise to agree too vociferously.
When he managed to make his way over to them, Fox gave him a sideways evaluative look, which he couldn't help but find promising. John, in his typical oblivious way, doesn't even notice it. "Seb! Fancy seeing you here. I was just telling Fox about the horror that was that interminable workshop with Mirrlees."
Good lord. How Fox's eyes hadn't glazed over yet was a miracle. "I'm shocked he's still sitting here. And where are you, Fox?"
"Psychology," he said, and Sebastian was shocked by the richness of his voice. "Not that my thesis is terribly interesting, either."
"I'm sure that's not true," he said, and smiled.
It only took ten minutes to chase away John, and another twenty until the space between them on the couch had shrunk to almost nothing. They'd had a spirited discussion of the psychology of financial crime for a while, when Sebastian, as casually as he could, let his hand brush over Fox's knee. Fox glanced down, and seemed to consider for a moment before he lifted his eyes back up. "You wanna get out of here?" he suggested, quietly.
Sebastian was a little surprised by the speed, but not averse to the suggestion. "Let me get my coat."
The entire walk across town to his rooms in Brazenose, as they chatted amicably about their irrational archetectural preferences, Seb tried to set some reasonable expectations for the evening in his own head. Dates women, has just broken up with his girlfriend, shows up to the most notorious gay pick up spot in the whole university for a little bit of comfort. Probably the sort who doesn't particularly mind who's sucking his dick, but might have hidden hang-ups.
Thirty seconds after closing the door to his room, with Fox pinning him up against the wall and using one hand to hold his face and the other to make short work of the buttons of his fly, he re-evaluated
When he woke alone in the morning, he mentally chided himself for being disappointed. Certainly, he thought it had been rather an impressive performance overall, but that didn't mean Fox would want to talk in the morning. Nevertheless, a wave of relief washed over him when the door opened, and Fox walked in, wearing only his half-buttoned jeans as a concession to the propriety of the others who shared the staircase, and slid back into bed.
It took a few hours for them to make it to getting dressed and seeking out breakfast. It was sometime during that breakfast, over strong coffee and overcooked eggs and a really riveting conversation about the state of modern poetry in a cafe full of hungover students, that Sebastian realized he had it bad. On the walk back to campus, he cleared his throat. "I don't know if you'd be interested, but I've got two tickets to the Proms on Thursday. A friend was going to go with me, but now can't make it. I don't suppose you like Schubert?"
There was the same evaluative look from the night before. "I suppose I like Schubert well enough."
By the end of Michaelmas, Sebastian was horrified to realize he was, finally, involved with a man he could bring home to his mother, though, of course, not in any kind of honest way. Fox wore his foreignness coolly, but was well-cultured, and had, over his time at Oxford so far, acclimated sufficiently that his accent almost seemed an affectation. He was enthusiastic about literature, but equally so about sports, and had what seemed a practically anthropologic fascination with cricket. And if he was, occasionally, given to fits of moodiness; or if his dissertation material on occult symbology and its uses in the minds of serial killers was distasteful, to say the least; or if he never mentioned or spoke to his family, but kept a single lone picture of what must be him and his sister tucked away in a drawer in his desk; well, then. People were complex.
At the same time, he found himself horrified by his sexual expectations from that first night. Because Fox liked it when he got out of bed the next morning with handprints on his wrists and arse; Fox wanted him to scratch his nails down his chest, to bite his nipples, to pull his hair, to come on his face; when Seb called him a dirty little slut, he pushed his hips up and begged for more. Sebastian found himself often spending the ten minutes post-orgasm flushed, panting, and trying to figure out what the fuck he'd just done, by which point Fox would either be asleep or out of bed heading for his typewriter.
By spring, they had a rhythm. Fox would hole up in the Bod or his college library all day, making inscrutable notes on these terrible yellow notepads he must have had imported from the States. Sebastian would rouse him from it somewhere around dinner time; they would eat together, perhaps with friends, perhaps alone, and end up back in one of their rooms, where they would read companionably, edit bits of each others' writing for clarity, and then fuck each other stupid. At weekends, they'd go to concerts, which Seb suspected was Fox indulging him, or to a football or cricket match, which was certainly Seb indulging Fox. Occasionally, they went to London, got a room in a pleasantly run-down hotel, and tried their hands at being proper queers, but by the end of the weekend Seb thought they were both itching to get back on the train to Oxford, to return to their lives of never touching in public and trying to break the college beds in private.
He was happy. And then the bank called him.
It was the perfect offer, actually, exactly why he'd come to Oxford, decided to get the damn M.Phil to begin with. The benefits were excellent, the salary top-notch, and it had growth potential. But then, there was Fox. He waited a day or so to tell him that they'd made the offer. "So what's the problem?" Fox had said, taking another enormous bite of his tikka.
Sebastian hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Well, you, actually." Fox watched him, and he stumbled on. "You've got at least another year of writing left."
Fox put his fork down. "You should take it," he said, quietly.
His heart beat heavy in his chest; such a cliche, but true. "I don't think I'd do well at anything long distance," he said, in just as hushed a voice.
"Me neither," Fox said. He reached across the table and laid his hand across Sebastian's. "You should take it."
Sebastian turned his palm up for the moment and brushed his fingers against Fox's, and nodded.
It lent a sort of piquancy to the next two months, knowing the clock was slowly ticking down. They stopped planning weekend activities, stayed in bed all Saturday, stumbled out at seven in the evening to find something to eat that wasn't crisps and dried apricots. Sebastian invited Fox to come down to London with him to flat-hunt, but Fox begged off, saying he had writing to do, and you couldn't fault him for that. His mother came up to visit him before he moved out, one last time, and he did introduce Fox to her. "This is that American friend I told you about," he said, and, watching her shake his hand, part of him wanted to cry.
He moved into his new flat with a perfect impression of Fox's teeth bruised on his left pectoral muscle. He vowed to himself he wouldn't write to him until the bruise faded.
***
The concierge had been able to identify the "French place" Thompson had referred to; it was a low-key little bistro, which made Sebastian feel much better. Too fancy would send the wrong message, though he wasn't precisely sure what message he was supposed to be sending. They'd made the plan by email; Fox was positively inexpressive in written form, and Sebastian regretted that he hadn't had a chance to talk to him on the phone, hadn't been able to tell by his voice whether or not he was the same. He sipped his scotch and tried not to watch the door too anxiously.
Dear lord, his hair, was actually his first coherent thought upon seeing Fox walk in, trenchcoat flapping around him. He'd always loved to run his fingers through Fox's hair, to push it off his forehead, and here it was missing, all spiky and awful. This, he realized, must be what a straight-acting Fox Mulder looked like. Well then. Pity.
But the smile on Fox's face as he walked over to him at the bar was the same, and the hand at his elbow was warm and friendly. "It's good to see you," Fox said, and his voice sounded honest about it.
"Good to see you as well," Sebastian said, and hoped the nervous feeling would fade. "I think they have our table ready, unless you want to get a drink first."
"No, let's eat. I can't remember if I had lunch today," Fox said.
"Ah, so nothing's changed, then."
"Basically."
Fox demolished his steak frites while asking intelligent questions about the deal Sebastian was in town to ink, which helped ease the awkwardness. "What about you?" he asked. "You're, what, a criminal profiler?"
Fox shrugged. "I was, for a while. I suppose I still am occasionally."
"Moved on to bigger and better?"
That got a derisive laugh. "I think so, though I don't think anybody agrees. No, I've got a...pet project. Odd cases, the ones nobody else wants."
He couldn't help but smile; trust Fox to find the strangest possible way to be a copper. "And of course by yourself."
A strange look passed over Fox's face at this. "At first, yeah. I've got a partner now, actually. She's...she's more useful than I would have expected." He shrugged. "She seems to be sticking around, at least."
Sebastian considered him. He knew next to nothing about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but he was pretty sure that an agent wouldn't get handed a "pet project" and a subordinate without a hell of a reputation. Fox had always downplayed his successes, though; he could never tell how much of it was a performance, and how much he actually believed. But the pretty man across from him seemed less content than he should be in this situation. He wondered if this happened to be one of the moody periods--or if, perhaps, those had gotten more constant. People break with time; he knew this.
After creme brulée and coffee, Fox made sure to hand him his business card with his office and mobile numbers on it. "In case they keep sending you back."
"Here's hoping," Sebastian said, and slipped it into his wallet, where it slowly grew fuzzy edges behind his company Amex.
***
The next time was six months later; they went for barbecue, because Fox said it was an important cultural experience, and Sebastian had a totally free evening, so might as well make an event out of it. If seeing Fox in his secret-agent suit had been odd, it was almost odder to see him like this, in a t-shirt and jeans, looking both older and exactly the same. He was moving his arm strangely, and eventually Sebastian pried out of him that he'd been shot. "What, by a criminal?" he asked, shocked.
"Not exactly," Fox had said, and not elaborated.
They'd listened to the mediocre live band. He'd never condescended to eat barbecue before--luckily most of his wining and dining of foreign bankers had been in London--but he supposed he saw the appeal. After two beers, he'd casually asked Fox what he was doing the next evening--he didn't fly out until Saturday afternoon, and it might have been nice to have company two nights in a row. He'd heard good things about the opera company. But Fox shook his head. "I have to get up to the Vineyard. The real estate agent is after me."
"Real estate? Are you buying a place?"
Fox shook his head and licked his fingers, which sent a strange, recollecting shiver down Sebastian's spine. "No, I'm selling my dad's place. He died a couple of months ago."
Sebastian didn't think he'd ever heard Fox mention his father before. "I'm so sorry. Was it sudden?"
"Yeah." He took another long sip of his beer. "I keep saying the real estate agent just to do whatever needs to happen, that I'll sign anything he sends me, but apparently I have to actually show up in person. Pain in the ass."
He decides to take the opening. "Your mother doesn't still want to live there?"
Fox stabbed at his beans a little more aggressively than necessary. "They're divorced. She doesn't even live on the Vineyard anymore. No, the house is mine, I guess." He waved his fork around. "Whatever. I just want it over with."
Sebastian took another sip of his beer, and wondered about the picture in the drawer, but decided against pressing his luck. There was a far off look in Fox's eyes, and he'd rather have him back here than figure out old obscure answers.
***
The bank kept sending him to Washington, and so the visits continued; they had drinks at terrible wine bars where Fox grilled him about the Cricket World Cup, they ate tapas and argued about British politics. Fox was less quick to smile these days, but there was the same joy to it when he did, and, if anything, his sense of wonder seemed amplified. Between visits, they exchanged the occasional email; when Seb found out he would be coming to Washington, he would call now. Sometimes the partner, a woman with a voice like honey, would answer the phone and pass it along to Fox; the one time Fox isn't in he didn't know quite what to call himself, so simply left his name. Fox emailed that evening to report that "Scully was impressed that I have callers with such appealing accents. I offered to set you up, but that I couldn't promise more than the opera."
On a rainy April night, he walked into the lobby of the Four Seasons to find Fox already at the lobby bar, head bowed over a small glass that he was turning around and around in his hand. Sebastian shook out his umbrella and walked over. Fox seemed lost in his thoughts, and jumped a little when Seb touched his arm. "So sorry for being late," he said. "My meeting ran over, and it was impossible to catch a cab."
"And it's raining," Fox said, evaluatively.
"Exactly," Seb said, and sighed. "Do you mind if I take a minute to get changed? Wet wool is not my idea of a good time. Come up to my room, we can figure out where to go."
"Let me settle up," Fox said, reaching for his wallet, but Sebastian waved his hand and insisted on putting it on his tab. In the elevator, Fox was strangely silent, and Sebastian wondered precisely how long he had been sitting at that bar.
Fox's silence hung heavy between them, and Sebastian found himself fighting against it by pattering on about today's awkward lunch with the bank's German representative as he guided him into the elevator and, finally, his hotel room. As he hung his coat up, Fox went to stand by the window, and Sebastian felt a pang of aching familiarity about his posture as he watched. Fox never talked about it then, probably still didn't; he must not have known how to beg off tonight. Sebastian went to him and rested a hand gently on his back. "Fox," he murmured, and he meant to finish with if you aren't up to dinner, but Fox's expression when he turned to him was hollow, and Sebastian felt the desperate need to fill it in. The muscles in Fox's arm were tense as he leaned in to kiss him, and he kept it light, left room for him to back out. There was a sad desperation in the way Fox returned the kiss, which Sebastian knew he'd felt before but had perhaps never identified, not even now. Fox tasted like tequila, and his tie unknotted easily; his skin was smooth and pliable, his muscles half-tensed for flight even as he sank into the moment. They made it to the bed without speaking, slid against each other over the nap of hotel sheets.
As he was laying there, his hand tangled in Fox's hair and his cock in Fox's mouth,he realized why he was doing this, why he'd slipped back into bed with Fox like there was a time portal in the room leading back to 1986. It wasn't that he was still in love with Fox. He was a living, breathing, madeleine, the perfect way to bring the vibrancy of his youth crashing back down on him. He had loved him these past years for the access to those memories, for making it possible to forget he's turned older, more bitter, less free. But here was Fox the crime-fighter and Seb the power banker, so beyond who they were a decade ago that it was laughable, it really should have been, but he couldn't stop wishing he could just turn back the clock. When he pinned Fox's hands to the bed, his eye caught the blossom of the bullet scar on his shoulder; when Fox whispered his name, it was as if he hadn't heard it in years.
He woke from his post-coital doze to see Fox dressing quietly by the light from the bathroom. He didn't look a thing like he did back in Oxford, really; it was a fantasy that they might still be those boys, a silly one at that. Fox noticed him awake and smiled. "Sorry. I have a morning flight tomorrow."
"No, it's fine," he said. "Where are you off to?"
"Boston," he said, sitting on the bed to put his socks on. "Not the most exciting place I've been."
"I suppose all that travel throws quite the wrench in your love life," Seb joked. Fox's face rippled slightly in a way that suggested that was nearer to the truth than he liked. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to poke a sore spot."
Fox just shook his head. "It's complicated."
Seb recognized the universal code for "hung up on somebody." "This complicated person. Are they worth it?"
Fox's smile told him the answer before the word "Yeah" left his lips.
"And is there any hope?"
His face fell slowly as he finished tying his shoe laces. "I have to believe there is." He leaned across and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Thanks for dinner," he said, with a little quirk of his lips.
"You're an easy one to please," Seb said.
"I make an effort," Fox said.
When he was gone, Seb fought with sleep for half an hour before calling room service. He told himself it was time zones. It wasn't.
***
He wasn't surprised when the next two times he came to Washington, Fox didn't happen to be available. In hindsight, he was a bit ashamed of himself--falling into bed quite so quickly with an old flame was a sign of weakness, though when the flame in question looked like Fox no jury of homosexuals would ever convict him. But the emails he got back were friendly, and they even chatted on the phone once or twice. Really, this was how it should be; they should be friends, now, after all this time.
It was two years later, and he and Fox were sitting in a sports bar, of all things, because there was a crucial match on which Fox wanted desperately to watch. Between them was a large order of "buffalo fries," which were greasy and dripping with hot sauce and melted cheese. Seb drank his beer, tried his best to eat the sopping chips without getting hot sauce on himself, and listened half-attentively to Fox prattling on about the various strengths and weaknesses of the opposing teams. He'd be glad, many a time, when he had had to cope with bankers talking about sports that Fox had trained him so well to look like he was paying attention.
When Fox's mobile rang, he was amused to hear the way his voice shifts, the serious way he said "Mulder" into it. God, they were adults now, weren't they. But the phone call appeared to lose its seriousness a moment in. "I didn't think you'd be heading home this early. Trouble at the ranch, partner?" He nodded as if his caller could see him, licking hot sauce off his fingers and flitting his eyes back to the game. "No, I'm not, I'm out. Seb's in town. Yes, the banker." He glanced over at Seb and smiled. "We're at Parker's. If you floor it, there's a chance you might get here before we finish the fries." He hung up and apologized. "My partner. I hope it's all right."
"I'd love to meet her," Seb said, and considered how to get a fry out from under the mound of melted cheese. "Is there any chance I could get a fork?"
"Only if you want to get deported," Fox said. "Napkins. Right there. Live a little."
He'd made Fox laugh with the story of how he met his latest paramour while queueing for rush tickets to Billy Budd when Fox's eyes suddenly focused elsewhere. Seb looked over his shoulder and saw a small, red-haired woman push in through the crowd, her coat flapping around her and a crease between her eyebrows. She caught Fox's eye, and the forehead-crease softened a little. Rather than coming to them, she went directly to the bar, and ordered brusquely. The bartender handed her a highball glass of something-or-other; she took a long drink of it, and then ate the lime garnish as she came over towards their table.
When she got there, she pulled up a chair next to Fox and dropped into it heavily. "Rough night?" he asked.
She threw the lime peel on the table. "Jet-lagged toddlers, and my mother tried to set me up with a deacon. A deacon, Mulder."
"I think you shouldn't budge for anything short of the pope."
"I don't think I'm allowed to date Polish." She shrugged off her coat and held out her hand. "You must be Sebastian. Dana Scully."
"Lovely to have a face to go with the name," Seb said, shaking her hand.
"Likewise." She smiled pleasantly, and extracted a sauce-soaked chip from under the cheese expertly. "I don't know why you order these. Who's up?"
"Duke by fifteen, but there's a quarter left. I think we're going to beat the spread in Organized Crime, but our VCU picks aren't looking so good."
"I told you that you'd set up the model wrong," she said, going for another chip. "I'm never letting you do math again."
"Only you do math for brackets," he said, and nudged the plate closer to her.
Their conversation was pleasant enough--Dana was a music lover as well, and certainly the staffing dramatics at the LPO made for good small talk. But he found himself watching them as they analyzed the game, argued about whether or not to order more fries (they chose to order fried chicken wings instead--Seb begged off, because that dip looked atrocious). This must have been, he realized with a smaller pang that he had expected, have been what he and Fox looked like back in Oxford, caught up in their own little world and interacting with outsiders only when interrupted. When he saw how Fox looked at her, heard the way he murmured her surname like an embrace, he thought he should feel jealous. But he couldn't, not now; too much water gone under the bridge. The smile Fox gave her was beautiful, and he could simply see that for what it was.
When Dana got up to use the ladies' room, he took his opportunity to make inquiries. "So. Complicated?"
Fox had the decency to blush. "To say the least."
"Well, it certainly looks like your hopes were well-founded."
Fox toyed with his glass. "She was sick," he said, quietly, as if merely saying the words would conjure it back. "It was bad. We weren't sure--" He shrugged it off.
"I'm so sorry." He felt like a bastard, briefly.
Fox waved it away. "It's fine, now. Really."
"Well, good." He saw her heading back to the table. "I should head off, I think," he said, standing. "I have an early meeting tomorrow, and I think I'll need to get in another half-hour at the hotel gym after this evening's culinary explorations."
"You're missing the end of the game," Fox said, gesturing to the TV.
"Send me a note. Let me know if you won your bet," Seb said. He bent down, on impulse, and kissed Fox's cheek. "It was nice seeing you again."
Fox's smile was friendly, if a little bewildered. "You too. Give me some warning next time, I'll make better plans."
"Excellent." He turned to Dana, who was wearing a subtle look of embarrassment. He couldn't imagine she didn't know, but he left that conversation to Fox to handle. "Dana, I'm so glad to have made your acquaintance. I'll have to send you the new Chopin recording we were talking about. I doubt you'd be able to get it over here."
"You don't have to go to the trouble," she said, in a friendly, if awkward, sort of way, as she took his hand.
"No trouble at all," he said, and wrapped his scarf around his neck. "Take care, Fox."
"Good night," Fox said, as Dana slid into the seat next to him.
Sebastian stepped out into the clear cold night, and looked up at the faint outlines of what would be stars if he weren't in the city. The cold air rushed around him, and he took a deep breath of it before turning his feet homeward.