The Rarest Man: Test of Endurance (1/1) by Sergeeva

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CATEGORY: V,R (Mulder/Skinner friendship/UST)

RATING: R (just hints, really)

SPOILERS: None

DISCLAIMER: These dear people don't, unfortunately, belong to me.

The characters of Walter Skinner and Fox Mulder are the property of

CC, MP, DD, 1013 Productions and Fox Television. No infringement is

intended. Stan Dorrell is my creation and may not be used elsewhere

without my consent.

SUMMARY: Mulder gets up early and learns more about his feelings and

about his boss.

THANKS: To Hal, for constant encouragement, endless patience, good

humour, intelligent comments and inspirational beta-reading - you're

irreplaceable!

And to Marianne, for giving my stories their first home.

THE SERIES SO FAR:

The Walk (Rarest Man: Prologue)

Rarest Man: Test of Endurance

Rarest Man: Wet Dream

Rarest Man: Resolution

Rarest Man: Famine & Feast

Rarest Man: Duty Before Pleasure

The stories are chronological (with a gap still to be filled between

F&F and DBP), but are fairly self-contained too, so can be read

separately. They can be found on Marianne's web-site at:

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/elystan/99/sergeeva.html

and shortly on my own new web-site (Sergeeva's Skinnerfics) at:

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/7155/index.html

EMAIL ME: Caring feedback is *always* appreciated (and answered!) at:

[email protected] or [email protected]

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"He is simply the rarest man i' th' world"

Shakespeare - Coriolanus 4,v,161

The Rarest Man: Test of Endurance

by Sergeeva ([email protected])

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At 5.14 in the morning the Hoover building is pretty much deserted

apart from security and the skeleton night-duty staff, but I know one

person who's already signed in for the day. There were three cars on

the top level of the parking garage where I left my Taurus and I

recognized Skinner's dark grey sedan at once.

I know where he'll be, too - in the gym complex, working out. In fine

weather he runs before work and works out after, on wet, dark mornings

such as this, he usually hits the gym first thing and plays squash or

swims in the evening. I've made it my business to find all this out,

but I've never before done what I'm about to do: seek him out so I can

watch him exercise.

Of course, I'm justifying it to myself by listing all the sound,

work-related reasons I need to get in touch with him *now*: the new

development in the Hammond Hills case that seems to tie in with the

disappearances in Wisconsin, the time-factor because of Adamson's

latest threat and my flight to Green Bay at 8.00... Oh, I can make a

great case for why I have to see my boss here and now, but the real

reason is that I'm obsessed with the man, I'm addicted to the sight

and sound of him, and like a junkie, I need my fix before I get on

that plane and have nothing but my torrid dreams to warm me for

however long I'm stuck in the frozen north.

I don't know exactly when my obsession reached the point where I dream

about him every night, where I can contemplate doing what I'm about to

do. I've spent several blissful hours over the past weeks trailing him

around the corridors of the JEH watching him do that part of his job

that isn't written down, the informal conversations with his people

that keep him aware of so much more than written reports ever could. I

used to think he was remote, cold, even uninvolved, that I'd never

really get to know him. I still recall my amazement the first time he

came down to the basement just to talk.

I was suspicious, unwelcoming, probably insolent, but he just fixed me

with that calm gaze - the one you can't look away from - and I found

myself talking about the last awful case, what I did on weekends, a

diner I knew that did outstanding chili, a book on reincarnation I'd

just finished... It was extraordinary, even as a psychologist I was

impressed. And it worked - I felt better afterwards.

Since then, I've watched him with a new eye, with a growing respect

and admiration, and lately, with something much more than admiration.

The first time I realized which way my mind was heading was in a case

conference, of all places, when I watched him stretch across the table

to pass Scully a file and something about the line of his lean body

brought the previous night's dream flooding back to me with such

blush-making intensity that I had to drop my notebook and duck down to

retrieve it, giving myself time to compose my face if not my feelings.

I'd dreamt of flying with him, clinging to his broad back as he

carried us up through clouds into sunlight, my naked body pressed to

his, my arms wrapped around his muscled chest, feeling tireless, full

of hope, exhilarated.

The dreams have gotten more and more frequent and I cherish them

shamelessly - so many nights exploring Walter Skinner, so many days

telling myself it can *never* happen, even while I torture myself by

thinking about what I ache to do...

Which brings me to this moment: walking through the silent corridors

of the Hoover building, trying to convince myself I'm only here for

the sake of the case.

I push through the heavy glass doors leading into the gym. It's

relatively unfamiliar territory for me - I usually head straight for

the pool, avoiding the grunts and gasps of the jocks pounding away on

the gleaming Nautilus and Nordic Track machines. The corridor is dimly

lit by recessed spots in the ceiling. All but one of the glass-walled

workout rooms is in darkness. I should have known that Skinner would

eschew the high-tech approach to fitness in favor of a more

traditional, self-disciplined regime. He's in the 'mat room', a large

space equipped only with benches around the perimeter, rubber mats on

the floor and a few non-mechanical pieces of apparatus: a pommel

horse, climbing ropes, a chinning bar and a pair of rings hanging from

the ceiling. The rings are gently swinging and I curse my bad timing,

visualizing how Skinner would look suspended there, shoulder and arm

muscles knotted as he holds himself in a perfect cross...

What he's doing now, though, is enough to make my heart race. He's

lying on one of the floor mats, wearing grey sweat pants and an old,

faded red USMC tank top and doing lateral crunches. Hands clasped

behind his neck, he curls smoothly up, touching elbow to opposite knee

on each rep. His knees are bent, his feet flat on the mat as he raises

his powerful upper body using only the muscles of his torso. The

t-back of his top reveals the flexing shoulder-muscles and the line of

his spine stretching on every slow, deliberate lift.

I decide I'll wait until he finishes the crunches then catch his

attention and say what I came to say, but he shows no sign of stopping

- fifty, sixty reps while I've been watching, and the hypnotic rhythm

of his movements is mesmerizing... He makes hardly any sound, just the

hiss of his controlled breathing on each curl.

Finally he comes to the end of whatever punishing number of reps he's

set himself to do and I bend to take off my shoes before crossing the

smooth wood floor to speak to him. But he rolls over onto his stomach

and starts doing push-ups. His form is perfect as far as I can judge:

body ramrod straight, balanced on his toes and fingertips, dipping to

touch his nose to the mat each time. Sweat is dripping off his face,

pooling between his shoulder blades and in a dark patch in the small of

his back where the sweats cling to his buttocks, but still his

breathing is measured. On and on he goes, while I bite my lip to keep

from groaning aloud and rest my head on the cool glass of the door as

the waves of desire sweep through me.

I endure this display of Marine fortitude, my imagination feeding me

images of that taut, gleaming body stretched above me, that amazing

stamina sustaining push-ups of quite another kind... Suddenly he

powers up from his prone position on the mat into a shoulder-stand.

Braced on his bent arms he is poised in perfect immobility. He looks

as if he could stay like that for hours but I feel no impatience for

this to end. I walk further along the glass-walled corridor until I

can see his face. His eyes are closed and he is breathing deeply, in

through his nose and out through his parted lips, his chest rising and

falling in a slow meditative cadence. I try to slow my own racing

heart as I study him and it is amazingly calming to watch such

sustained stillness, but the effect on other parts of my anatomy is

less soothing as I contemplate the man who is the sole object of my

desire.

He drops out of the shoulder-stand with a graceful stretch of one long

leg down to the mat, the rest of his body following smoothly after as

he stands upright again. He moves off to a bench along the side wall

and slings a towel around his neck while he drinks from a water

bottle. Something draws his gaze to the doorway.

"Agent Mulder. I assume you need to speak with me?"

"Sir, I didn't want to interrupt, but there's been a

development in the Hammond Hills case and I'm booked

on a flight to Green Bay at 8.00..."

"Well, you talk and I'll carry on punishing the flab."

Flab!! What flab??? I watch him toweling off his face and neck as I

try not to skid in my socks on the polished floor. He doesn't seem to

think it at all odd for me to be pestering him in the gym and at this

hour. If anything, he actually seems amused to see me - could that be

a twinkle in the keen, dark eyes? Taking rather too long a stride to

reach the safety of the mat, I feel my feet slide from under me and

then his hand is firm under my flailing elbow and I end up, dignity

more or less intact, on one knee in front of him. His lips twitch but

he doesn't laugh, bless him, merely offering me the water bottle and

saying:

"Since you're down there, you can brace my ankles."

He sits down beside me on the mat, flinging the towel from around his

neck in the direction of the bench. I'm not sure what he means me to

do until he starts sit-ups and I hastily shift to clasp his ankles,

holding his bare feet down on the mat, the soles against the brace of

my knees. He hardly needs the help, I can feel barely any shift of his

feet in my grasp as he curves cleanly up and down, the muscles in his

stomach and thighs bunching visibly under the damp clingy cotton.

"Right - what have you got for me?"

I start to explain the new findings that seem to tie my case to the

one in Wisconsin. I'm amazed that I can still speak, let alone make

sense as I try to marshal my arguments for why I need to go to

Wisconsin, when all I can think about is the warmth and smoothness of

his skin against my palms, about whether my suit pants are loose

enough to hide the bulge which is swelling there...

His tank top is soaked through now, plastered against his chest,

molded to every sculpted muscle. He flops back onto the mat to

consider what I've told him, his head resting on his clasped hands,

the hair under his arms curling damply against the paler skin, a

little pool of moisture in the hollow at the base of his throat. I

have a sudden vision of myself, peeling off the soaked cotton and

licking the sweat off his chest, tasting the salt on his nipples,

sliding the sweats down off his lean hips and bending to... I realize

with a start that my hands are still holding his ankles, though he

hasn't said anything. I move them guiltily onto my lap, hoping I can

disguise my burgeoning erection.

He props himself up on one elbow, unhooking his glasses with the other

hand. He wipes them against his thigh and puts them back on, frowning

through the smeared glass.

"Just made it worse," he says, resignedly.

"OK, I think you've got enough to take up to Green Bay.

I'll give Stan Dorrell up there a call and let him know you're

coming. We went to the Academy together. He's a sound,

no-nonsense field officer. Don't know what he'll make of

your theories on demonic possession, though."

He looks at me with that almost-twinkle again,

"You'd better get going if you want to make that flight -

I'll see to the paperwork."

No arguments, no admonitions to behave myself, no "Why didn't you file

the 302 for this first?" All those endorphins must have a mellowing

effect.

I clamber awkwardly to my feet and slither over to where I left my

shoes in the doorway. By the time I straighten from tying my laces,

he's sitting straight-backed in the lotus position, his wrists resting

lightly on the soles of his feet where they are tucked up on his

thighs. His face is serene.

I cast him one last hungry look and head off for the airport, visions

of Walter Skinner in the shower making me glad that the early-morning

traffic is still light on the Washington streets.

------------------------------------------------

Now I'm sitting in yet another seedy motel room, at the conclusion of

yet another bizarre case and reflecting on the many oddities of the

last four days.

The demonic possession turned out to be nothing of the kind, of

course, just some very potent home-brew, a lot of mumbo-jumbo and the

over-active imaginations of a bunch of bored teens. The oddest thing

was that so many apparently intelligent young women could fall for the

dubious charms of a drunken, verbose man like the Reverend Josiah

Glebe. Another oddity was that although my idea of a link between my

DC case and the events in Green Bay proved to be a non-starter, one of

SAC Stan Dorrell's agents turned up something on the Internet that

could prove helpful in making the paper samples we collected in DC

usable as evidence. It was a neat bit of research that showed the

caliber of Dorrell's team up here.

Which brings me to the oddest oddity of all. I can't imagine what

Skinner said to Stan Dorrell about me, but from the moment of my

arrival I felt they were actually pleased to have me here. They

listened to my way-out theories, teased me a bit, but asked

intelligent questions and pulled out all the stops to work the

background angles I suggested - hence the Internet discovery. It was

so good to have people actually take me seriously for a change.

I know it was down to Skinner because as the debriefing session broke

up, Dorrell came to shake my hand and said:

"That was a fine piece of logical deduction, Agent Mulder.

And some leaps of intuition *I* couldn't have pulled off in

a decade! Walt's lucky to have you at HQ, but then he made

it clear that he's very aware of that, and that *we* were

lucky to have you working with us."

Not so long ago I'd have put some paranoid twist on that and suspected

Skinner of a hidden agenda. Now, I realize that maybe I have another

ally, and that gives me a more positive sense about the future than

I've had in a long time.

Skinner as an ally? Perhaps I need to process this some more, explore

how it really makes me feel... Hell, no - I know how it makes me feel,

I've processed it and I'm already two steps ahead...

Skinner as an ally, Skinner as a friend, Skinner as... something more?

I'm getting light-headed thinking of the gleam in those dark eyes when

I left him in the gym.

Walter Skinner, Iron Man. Defender of the Ridiculed, Rescuer of

Wounded Egos, inspiration for a thousand erotic fantasies, my hero...

I'm already planning how to engineer our next encounter outside of the

office. I think all that yogic meditation, or whatever it was, is

beyond me, but I wonder if the guy ever shoots hoops?

Hmmm... maybe a little one-on-one when I get back to DC... ?

THE END

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