The word slammed down in Skinner's mind like the clang of prison bars, but his thoughts persisted anyway, easing around the tense, commanding consonants like smoke or snakes.

He didn't know when he had started considering one of his agents in an illicit and unacceptable manner. He couldn't pinpoint the moment when these feelings had started, or the event which instigated them, or the day on which they first came to his attention, Skinner only knew that when he saw that black- lunged bastard angling himself into Mulder's personal space, his first thought was to leap over the desk and tear the cancer-ridden heart from the man's chest with a thrust of his fist.

Skinner sighed, pressing his fingers up under the wire rims of his glasses into the corners of his eyes. That wasn't the unacceptable part.

The protectiveness he felt for Agent Mulder (for exhausted, pale, chagrined and beaten-down Mulder) was a response appropriate to the threat that the smoking man presented, a threat so great that even Skinner didn't think he fully understood its scope. It wasn't the protectiveness that concerned Skinner, but what lay behind it, beneath it, the desire to save Mulder, not only from those who would threaten him, but for something . . . for someone.

For himself.

Mulder had shown up after bolting on what was admittedly a jerk off wire tapping assignment, after doing God-knows-what in the fucking Mexican jungle, and instead of running him through the wringer, all Skinner had wanted to do was open his arms and pull his agent's faint cheek against his throat.

Skinner had run the wringer anyway, because if he couldn't keep Mulder close to him in one way he would do it in another, shamelessly misusing the authority granted him by the U.S. government to achieve a purpose he was sure would be condemned by those who had given it to him. He did it regardless.

He did it, and then reassigned Mulder to the wiretap, knowing that the agent resented cooling his heels on a lame bank fraud case, knowing that before returning to his post Mulder would stop in the basement and rub salt in his wounds.

Mulder would sit down there, at his old desk, looking around at the debris of a former life, and rail against the injustice of it all.

And when Skinner pushed open the door to the basement office, there he was, elbows on his desk, fingers sprawled in his hair. Mulder seemed more delicate somehow, frail without the brute force of his personality. Skinner stepped into the office, moving quietly to the edge of the desk, unsure of what to say, knowing he had no right to be there.

Mulder turned his face upward, meeting Skinner's gaze with silent despair. Skinner crossed his arms over his chest.

"Go home, Mulder," he said. "Get some rest. You can return to your assignment in the morning."

Mulder bowed his head again, holding it in his hands, breathing slowly. Skinner watched, wishing he could say something, do something. Mulder should just go home, sleep, forget for awhile whatever it was that he had seen in the jungle. There would be time later for him to run off half-baked on some flimsy evidence. Right now, Skinner wanted to keep his agent close.

A hand closed on his wrist.

Mulder's hand, slender, slightly damp, strong, his left hand against Skinner's right wrist, wrapped tightly, tugging gently.

Skinner allowed his hand to be pulled, not resisting, not relenting, until it was placed on the back of Mulder's neck, held there by a startlingly solid grip. He felt the soft bristling of Mulder's hair, the slim muscled column of his neck, the warm circle of his fingers still gripping as if Mulder were afraid that letting go would cause Skinner to jerk away, burned. Skinner tightened his mouth in a grim smile and moved his hand, stroked Mulder's neck, attempting to reassure him, although against what he could not say.

Almost imperceptibly, Mulder inclined toward him, coming to rest finally when his cheek lay against Skinner's thigh. Skinner dropped his other hand to his agent's shoulder, caressing his throat with one thumb. Mulder's face was uncomfortably close to places Skinner never thought it would be: anyone who walked in at this instant would think that Mulder was doing more than solving cases to get ahead, but . . .

Mulder sighed, his eyes closed.

Skinner touched the side of the agent's face, ran the back of his fingers over the smooth temple, the faint pattern of stubble. He longed to do more, to touch that mouth, but removed his hand before he could, pushing his glasses up on his nose. Then he leaned down, squeezing gently on the back of his agent's neck.

"Get some rest, Mulder," he murmured. He stood up and left, walking quickly, not looking back.

He would find out later that Mulder had disobeyed him once again, had gone back immediately to his stakeout and to his partner, who could doubtless console him better than any assistant director.

Skinner returned to his office, to his unrequited, unacceptable thoughts, and to his fresh lone memory.

*****end*****