by Mort

NC-17 for violent and adult themes.
Slash. Mulder/Caine, Scully/Duquesne, Mulder/Skinner
Summary: Sometimes that proverbial snowball manages to sail through hell and comes out the other side in one piece. 
Crossover fic: X-files/CSI:Miami, though if you don't know the other characters just treat 'em as OC's and the story works just fine. Given the time limit imposed by the Lyric Wheel, I didn't have time to invent a bunch of new, fully-fledged characters so I stole 'em. Well, I figured I was already stealing Mulder, Scully and Skinner so why not go the whole hog and risk getting sued by *two* networks for a change. 
Oh, and since I was feeling particularly rebellious, I also broke the lyric wheel rule of keeping the story 'short'. Nope. Broke's too small an adjective. I shattered it. I annihilated it. I…oh, well….I'm sure you get the picture….

~#~#~#~

The sun was still rubbing its eyes and yawning as Holly-Anne Lewenski wrenched the wheel of her ancient Ford and trundled noisily up the dusty road to the trailer park. It was still dark enough to conceal the peeled paint on her neighbors' homes and the pile of rusted junk outside of Sam Berwick's place was just a malevolent shadow rather than the eyesore that always made her wince. It was the only time of day when the park looked reasonably decent. The first orange shafts of sunlight played lightly over the roofs of the trailers, reflecting in sparkling glints whenever they met clean glass or unrusted steel. It was now, in the shadow time as she returned from her graveyard shift at the Blue Parrot, that she could half-close her eyes and pretend that her life wasn't a complete pile of shit.

She was almost cheerful as she hauled on the handbrake and brought the car to a shuddering halt in front of her trailer. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one she wanted to savor, and so when the radiator fan continued to spin for a worrying amount of time after she cut the engine she refused to even think about the cost implications of an overheating engine.

Ten days. Just ten more days of these damned double shifts and it would be Prom Night.

And her beautiful Evangeline was going to be queen of the prom.

Not that anyone in town knew that, of course. If they spared Eva any thoughts at all, they were uncharitable ones about trailer-trash. A pretty face and sinful body wasted on a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Fuckable and forgettable. 

As Holly-Anne herself had been.

But next Saturday night, all that would change. Holly-Anne had spent years dreaming of this moment, and months pulling all-nighters to finance it. Come Prom Night, Evangeline would enter that high-school with her exquisite face framed by a new haircut and her body sheathed in a designer dress so fine that even Abigail Hennessey would look underdressed.

And, finally, maybe Thomas Baxter Hennessey would see that he'd chosen to acknowledge the wrong daughter, had chosen to marry the wrong wife. 

"Eva?" she called out, her dreamy look of anticipation shadowed by a slight frown as she pushed open the door of the trailer and found it in complete darkness. "Eva, hon? Ya gotta go ta school."

"I'm sick, ma."

Holly-Anne's frown deepened as she stared through the gloomy interior to where her daughter was still huddled under a comforter. Usually, Eva greeted her with coffee 
and a smile.

She shuddered as an icy shaft of terror thudded into her breastbone. What if Eva was really sick? She *had* been looking pale these last couple of mornings. What if she had…had…. Holly-Anne barely dared think the word…what if it was…flu?

Her dreams of a triumphant Prom Night began to tumble like a house of cards and her worry turned to disappointment and then blazed into anger.

"Don't you 'I'm sick' me, Evangeline Lewenski," she said, striding to the window behind Eva's bed and savagely snapping up the shade.

In the few minutes she'd been inside, the sun had finally woken up enough that she was momentarily blinded as light streamed into the trailer. Eva whimpered loudly and huddled deeper under her duvet.

"None of ya nonsense, missy," Holly-Anne said, her voice sharp and strident. She grabbed the end of the comforter and yanked it back, her panicked strength far more than a match for Eva's struggle to stay cocooned in the darkness.

Time seemed to slow. Less than a second stretched into a near eternity as Holly-Anne stared down at her daughter's fine-boned face. She had long enough to appreciate the feverish intensity of the dark, almond-shaped eyes and to bite her lip at the almost alabaster paleness of Eva's skin. Time, even, to notice and frown at the deep bruise on the otherwise flawless neck that spoke of furtive fumblings in some rich-boy's car.

Then the lazy sun crept a little higher in the sky and a shaft of light struck directly 
across Eva's face. 

And she was screaming, or perhaps they both were screaming, as her daughter's whole body erupted into a fiery inferno.

~#~#~#~

"Poor baby girl. This isn't the way you should have ended your life."

 Alexx Woods shook her head sadly, and then peeled off her latex gloves as she stepped back from the 'body'. "There's nothing I can do here, Horatio. This is a job for the lab, not a coroner," she said, her voice velvet soft and molasses sweet.

Since it was the third morning running that she'd said those same words to him, Caine decided it was surprising that she was managing to speak in a civil manner at all.

He averted his gaze from the pathetic heap of ash that was supposedly the only remains of seventeen-year-old Ruby Rodriguez, and rubbed his eyes tiredly, knowing without bothering to find a mirror that he looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a bottle of scotch and lost. As his ex-wife had often taken pleasure in pointing out, red hair and red-rimmed eyes were not an attractive combination.

His musing was interrupted by another southern drawl, this one all sunshine and honey.

"Why don't you go home, H? Like Alexx said, there's nothing any of us can do until the lab gets back to us on a possible accelerant."

Calleigh, of course, looked as impeccable as always. Her long blonde hair was drawn back in a French plait so perfect that not even a strand was loose around her face and her make-up had been applied so skillfully that she barely appeared to be wearing any. Not bad, considering he'd pulled her out of bed at 5.20 in the morning,

For a moment, he hated her.

But, he reminded himself, it wasn't Calleigh's efficiency he was irritated by but his own impotence. The fact they were three days and three bodies into a case that defied any explanation. Which wasn't possible. Caine knew there was *always* an explanation.

"The dead don't lie, Calleigh."

"No," she agreed, with a wry smile and shrug. "But sometimes they do a damn fine job of obfuscation."

~#~#~#~

Walter Skinner took a deep breath, sighed, pushed his glasses back against the bridge of his nose, sighed again, took another deep breath and then counted to ten. 

Backwards. In Russian.

"I think if you…"

Skinner raised his right hand for silence.

"But really, Sir, if you…"

His hand swept down in an abrupt chopping gesture.

Silence.

Blessed silence.

He took another breath and enjoyed the moment. The all too brief moment.

"The thing is that you really need to look at this from a wider perspective, Sir. Relatively speaking the significance of the cost of one bureau car against the potentially disastrous consequences of allowing a creature like that to enter a suburban environment is infinitesimally small. If you look at it from that point of view, just the potential damage that was averted has to be worth the cost of a dozen cars and when you then consider the…"

"MULDER," he roared. "Shut up!"

Mulder gulped and his tirade ended not with a bang but with a familiar thrust of a pouting lip.

Skinner turned to the silent partner.

"Anything to add to this…" He gave a vague, contemptuous wave towards the report on his desk. "Agent Scully?"

"No, Sir," she replied, her voice surprisingly strong and steady. "While I agree that our actions could be seen as being a little…excessive…there was a real and present danger from the creature to the population of Hampton and, obviously, from the people of Hampton to any more visitors who might have inadvertently discovered the secret they were trying to cover up."

"The creature in question being a brown bear rather than a Bigfoot," Skinner pointed out snidely. 

"It was a very big and dangerous bear," Mulder interjected quickly.

"Certainly big enough to crush a Ford Toledo," Skinner snarled, sounding suspiciously similar to the creature in question.

"The bear had already killed," Scully pointed out, "and it charged our car without any concern for its own safety."

"No doubt it was too busy running away from the state troopers who were beating the woods in search of Mulder's *bigfoot* to give any thought to the danger in front of it," Skinner retorted. "The poor animal was probably out of its mind with fear."

"At that point the locals were coming up behind *us* to try and prevent the state police from finding their crops. We had the choice of running down the bear or running a gauntlet of interbred locals who made the Peacocks look like Mensa candidates," Mulder muttered rebelliously.

"You're grounded."

"What?" Mulder asked, his hazel eyes wide with shock.

"You heard me. No more bureau resources. No more cars. No more cell phones. You're not even putting a bus pass on your expenses. You stay in DC until further notice. No more hunts for Bigfoots, Werewolves, Vampires, Flukeworms or mutant ninja turtles. I'm keeping you on a tight leash until I'm satisfied you've learned some self-restraint, Mulder. These are American Tax Dollars you're wasting and this is where I'm drawing a line in the sand."

Mulder opened his mouth to reply, saw the steely look in Skinner's eyes and obviously thought better because he rose to his feet and exited with no more protest than an artful look of hurt from his soulful eyes, Dana Scully trailing in his wake like a long-suffering shadow.

Skinner waited for the door to close firmly behind them, removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes and then finally allowed himself to guffaw with laughter at the image of Mulder and Scully pinned in their car between a psychotic Grizzly and two-dozen interbred yokels armed with pitchforks.

Despite deliberately using the incident to ensure that Mulder scuttled off back to the basement with his tail between his legs, Skinner had found the report highly entertaining. He also, if he was being completely honest, could care less about the damage to the car. Wasn't that what insurance was for? Better a dead grizzly and a wrecked car than his two best Agents in a hospital or worse. Regardless of Mulder's endearingly insane assumption that the animal that had managed to open locked doors 
and attack several visitors to Hampton was a Bigfoot, of all things, he'd not only effectively and decisively stopped the creature's killing spree in its tracks but had also uncovered the reason that the bear had appeared to have prehensile digits.

Corruption was a dirty word in any vocabulary. The kind of corruption that made a whole town of people cover up their illegal side-line of cannabis crops by breaking open campervan doors and setting a half-crazed grizzly bear loose amongst the occupants was so sickening that perhaps it would have been better if it *had* been something bizarre like a Bigfoot that was to blame rather than something as disturbingly familiar as greed and murder.

So the true reason he'd come down so hard on his Agents was simply the fact that he was booked on a flight in less than three hours to take the first vacation he'd had in years. Relaxing at all was an alien concept. The idea of trying to relax while he knew that Mulder was still charging around the country with his usual reckless, almost suicidal, lack of self-control would be impossible.

~#~#~#~

"The lab's been through the ashes with a fine toothcomb. There's no trace of any known accelerant."

Calleigh Duquesne shrugged and offered her fellow investigator Tim Speedle a wry smile. "Just like the others then," she pointed out gently.

If anything, Speedle's frown deepened. "It doesn't make sense. Five seemingly perfect cases of spontaneous combustion in five days."

"Spontaneous combustion is a myth," Calleigh replied. "There's always a perfectly natural explanation if you dig deeply enough."

"There's nothing natural about five girls, all members of the same homeroom, burning to death five days running and their bodies turning into piles of ashes. It's like an episode of Buffy. All I'm waiting for now is Caine to put out an APB on a blonde chick wielding a stake," he growled.

Calleigh snorted. "I said *natural* explanation, not *super-natural*."

"So we're not looking for Buffy?" he joked.

"The Vics are all teenage females and the bodies are burned beyond any forensic investigation. The perp is most probably male."

"That's Caine's take on this?" Speedle asked knowingly.

"You know how he is. He doesn't care whether there's any scientific evidence. His 'gut' is telling him its murder, so he thinks we're letting him down by our failure to find anything to support that. He needs us to figure out motive and method so he can find the perp."

Speedle swore and rubbed his face tiredly. "How the hell are we supposed to come up with anything if it isn't there to find?"

"There has to be something we're overlooking because he's right. This *can't* be a bizarre co-incidence. People don't just burst into flames for no reason. So we have to find the reason."

"Not easy without any evidence of an accelerant. What's Caine's basis for saying it's a male perp?"

"Two of the mothers mentioned seeing hickeys on their daughters necks. It's a connection."

"So, what we looking for? A *male* vampire?" Speedle scoffed.

Calleigh chuckled. "Statistically, the violent death of teenage girls is most likely to be linked with some form of sex crime. Horatio reckons we're looking for some kind of sexual predator, one who's found a seemingly flawless way to conceal the evidence of his assaults. He attacks them, kills them and then burns the bodies."

"Which would make sense if it wasn't for Evangeline Lewenski. She was alive and apparently unharmed when her mother first found her. It blows Caine's theory."

"Unless you discount the mother's statement as hysterics. The timing alone calls her testimony into question. The fastest documented case of supposed spontaneous combustion was Helen Conway. She took six minutes to burn from the legs upwards. Holly-Anne Lewenski said she saw Evangeline burn to ash in under thirty seconds."

"Now that's what really doesn't make sense," Speedle griped. "Name me one case where nothing was left except ash. Heat rises, Calleigh. It doesn't move sideways. If Evangeline was lying in bed, how the hell were all her extremities burned to ash? Where are the body parts in this picture?"

"Which just supports the idea that we're dealing with a very clever murderer," Calleigh retorted.

Speedle angrily tossed the lab results down on his desk. "There's nothing here. It's a dead end. Without knowing how the hell someone's doing this, we've got no way of figuring out *why* it's being done. The way things are going, tomorrow morning there's going to be another dead girl and we haven't a chance in hell of stopping it happening."

"I'm going to send the file to a friend of mine in DC. She's familiar with this kind of case."

"Shit, I didn't know there was such a thing as 'this kind of case'. Who is this woman? Some kind of paranormal kook?"

Calleigh sniffed dramatically and stared down her patrician nose at him until Speedle had the grace to blush.

"She's a pathologist, with extensive experience investigating the Vics of serial murderers."

"Oh," Speedle acknowledged sheepishly. Then a sly grin slid across his face. "Horatio okayed this did he?"

"Like you said, another girl's probably going to die tonight. We need to do *something"," Calleigh snapped back, before turning on her heel and striding out of the lab.

"I'll take that as a 'no' then," Speedle snickered, before dropping his eyes back to his laptop.

~#~#~#~


"Hubba, hubba," Mulder drawled, his mouth twisted to an uncanny imitation of Frohike's best leer.

Scully gave a disgusted sniff and contemplated throwing his iced tea onto his lap to cool his obvious interest. She settled, instead, for slamming it down with a baleful glare. "There's a reason that's called 'personal' email, Mulder."

Mulder gave her his best innocent grin. "You download your personal email on *my* computer, I figure it's fair game. Never heard of a delete key, Scully?"

"I left it there because I wanted you to read the file," she admitted reluctantly. "I didn't expect you to open the personal letter that went with it."

"Curiosity's my middle name."

"Your middle name's William, which is oddly appropriate given what you use to think with."

Mulder clasped his heart dramatically. "You wound me."

She just snorted.

"So who's the blonde?" Mulder asked. 

"What do you mean, who's the blonde? You just opened her email."

"I got two lines in, read the part about her sending you her holiday snaps and…"

"Don't tell me. You went straight for the Bikini."

"What bikini?" Mulder grinned.

"Huh?"

"Let's just say her hair color's more natural than yours, Scully."

"I don't believe it," Scully snapped, rushing around the desk and shoving him out of the way. "There's no way Calleigh would…"

"Cally. Nice name," Mulder drawled.

Scully quickly scanned her friend's personal photos, then turned and slapped Mulder's shoulder. "You're a low down lying dog, Mulder."

"Yeah, but I've never seen you move so fast, Scully. Something you want to share with me here?"

She frowned quelingly and he swiftly hid his smirk under an expression of contrition.

"So you *did* read the file?"

He lost control of his facial muscles, his mouth twisting back into a wide grin as they finally broached the true reason for his excitement. "An epidemic of spontaneous combustion. It's a definite X-file, Scully. I've already booked us flights to Miami Dade."

"I was only gone ten minutes."

"I'm a fast reader."

"Aren't we grounded?"

"Not if our help's been specifically requested."

She shook her head at his hopeful expression. "She only asked for my opinion. She didn't formally request FBI backup on the case."

"Look, Scully, the victims are dropping like flies. They're going to take any help they get offered."

"What about Skinner? Don't you think he'll have something to say about this?" she reminded him.

"Well, it just so happens that I accidentally took a look in Kim's diary and our illustrious AD has booked a week off for personal time. We'll be back in DC before he even knows we've gone."

"Accidentally, huh?"

Mulder grinned.

"What about our expenses?" Scully pointed out. "I can't afford a trip to Miami."

"I'll cover it, Scully. What's an inheritance for if not to take a beautiful woman to the sun and sand capital of the US for a dirty weekend?"

"Yeah, but the problem is that your definition of dirty involves a morgue rather than a motel."

Mulder shrugged and gave her his best pleading smile.

"I'm going to hate myself for this," Scully muttered. "What time's our flight?"

~#~#~#~

Skinner helped himself to another malt from Spencer's cabinet and wandered out onto the porch. The view from Hal Spencer's house was spectacular. Sun, sand and endless blue sea. He wondered, not for the first time, what his life would have been like if he'd taken up Hal's offer of a job instead of joining the FBI. He wouldn't have married Sharon, for sure, and although he had some genuinely fond memories of their life together, he had to be honest enough to admit that their relationship had been a mistake from the start.

Hal had made a good life for himself here in Miami. He ran a well-respected law firm and was successful enough to be able to do the pro-bono work that satisfied his soul as well as take the cases that paid the mortgage on a prime sea-front property.

Fortune had smiled on Spencer. So had fate. Despite the fact he was pushing fifty, Spencer still had all his hair, had a body that would have looked good on a man twenty years younger and, judging from the twink Skinner had seen creeping out of the house shortly after he'd arrived that morning, Spencer still could pull prime ass.

Skinner decided he'd been a fool to turn down Spencer's suggestion that they should spend the evening painting the town red together. Being on vacation, the first vacation he'd taken in more years than he cared to remember, was supposed to mean having fun. Not sitting here alone, feeling sorry for himself, mooning over the unobtainable and drinking himself into a melancholy funk.

He decided that when Spencer asked him the next night, his answer was going to be 'yes'.


~#~#~#~

"I took the liberty of canceling your booking," Calleigh explained, as she steered them past the rental booth an out to where her own car was parked. "Miami is hell to drive through if you don't know it, so I thought it would make more sense for me to pick you up at the airport." 

Mulder nodded, somewhat churlishly. He didn't like being treated like a tourist and he much preferred the freedom of having his own wheels. Still, he was too intrigued by Scully's peculiar bashfulness at Calleigh's unexpected presence at the airport to give more than a passing concern about their travel arrangements. It would be easy enough to hire a car from the hotel and at least the journey would give him a chance to observe the dynamics between the two women.

"Oh, and I'm sorry but I changed your hotel booking too," Calleigh continued, not sounding at all apologetic.

"You did?" Mulder asked, not sounding at all surprised.

"Well, I appreciate you're both here as a favor to me rather than on official business. So, I thought that Dana could stay with me rather than you having to pay for two rooms." 

Mulder's lips twitched. "Very thoughtful of you. Don't you think so, *Dana*?"

Seemingly fascinated by a run in her stockings, Scully muttered something incomprehensible in the direction of the floor.

"So," Mulder drawled. "You never did mention how you two know each other…"

When Scully refused to pick up the conversational gauntlet, Mulder's interest turned up several notches. He slipped seamlessly into profiler-mode, his keen eyes weighing every nuance of their behavior. On the surface, Calleigh exuded cool blonde confidence and Scully's uncharacteristic silence and inability to meet his eyes *could* have been the effects of jet lag. Yet, he got the distinct impression that Calleigh was overcompensating, projecting self-assurance to cover a degree of anxiety, and he had the feeling that Scully's avoidance of eye-contact with either of them was less to do with Calleigh's presence than his own. She seemed discomforted by the idea of renewing her acquaintance with Calleigh in front of *his* eyes and, while he couldn't actually believe what his gut instinct was telling him, it was hard to avoid the logical conclusion.

He waited until they were in the car and he had a captive audience before trying to draw them out again. "I said, you didn't say how you two know each other…"

"Los Angeles," Calleigh replied shortly.

"I see," Mulder replied, though he clearly didn't.

Scully sighed and closed her eyes for a second, as though gathering strength. Then she came out on the offensive.

"Remember that inter-agency conference two years ago on 'Criminalistics and Toxicology'?"

"No."

"Of course you don't. You developed an overnight case of 24-hour flu just before we were supposed to attend."

"That's the nature of 24-hour flu," Mulder replied, with an unapologetic grin.

"Conveniently enough," Calleigh snorted.

"Honestly, I've worked with Mulder for seven years and the only times he's ever ill is if he's been hospitalised by a perp or if he's supposed to be going to a conference," Scully complained.

"I remember you telling me," Calleigh laughed.

"So, you met at this conference," Mulder prompted.

"The hotel was overbooked. Your room was vacant. Calleigh used it," Scully said, with a casual shrug.

"Oh…OH," Mulder replied, his eyes lighting up. "Wasn't that booking for an interconnecting suite with a shared bathroom?"

"How the hell can you have forgotten the conference, but remembered the hotel arrangements?" Scully demanded, her cheeks turning an interesting shade of pink.

Mulder just snorted.

"We're at your hotel," Calleigh interrupted, pulling into the parking lot.

Mulder's lower lip projected in a pout. "That's it?" he demanded. "No details? Nothing you feel a need to share with me, Scully?"

"Mulder, you've got a dirty mind. Get out of the car. I'll see you in the morning."

"Aren't you even going to have dinner with me? My treat. I'll pay the bill. You two provide the enter… I mean conversation."

"MULDER!"

Chuckling, Mulder opened the car door and climbed out. Calleigh followed him to open the trunk for his case.

"She said you were a jerk," she said, but her eyes were amused.

"I try."

He reached for his case and then she handed him a heavy holdall. He arched a brow at her and she nodded. "Everything you asked for. Details of the crime scenes, profiles of the victims, forensic reports if you can even call them that and details of all the classmates."

"And their families?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure what you're looking for but I ran all the families through the computer and downloaded every newspaper article that cross-referenced their names over the last thirty years. You've even got obituary notices."

"Perfect."

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I have a… well, call it a hunch. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I'll know it when I see it."

"Well, Scully assures me you're the expert at this kind of thing."

"When I'm not being a jerk?" Mulder asked, with a grin.

She punched his arm. "We'll pick you up tomorrow at 7."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he quipped.

She stared at him thoughtfully, and then smirked. "I doubt that leaves much to worry about."

"I wish," he muttered under his breath. He waited until their taillights disappeared into the distance, then tucked the holdall under his arm, picked up his case and walked into the hotel lobby.


~#~#~#~


They drove in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, and then Calleigh cleared her throat noisily. "I'm sorry."

"What?" 

"I said I'm sorry. I shouldn't have picked you up at the airport like that. I was so excited about seeing you that I didn't think," Calleigh explained, her tone subdued.

Scully turned enough in her seat to offer Calleigh a soft smile. "It's okay. It's my own fault. I knew I was going to have to deal with this. I just…well…"

"You still don't want Mulder to know about us," Calleigh finished, her own smile sad.

"It's not that," Scully replied firmly. She shrugged at Calleigh's look of disbelief. "Honestly, Calleigh. If I couldn't face him finding out, I wouldn't have brought him here. He's a trained psychologist. I *knew* he'd figure out the way I feel about you if he got the chance to observe us together. I'm not ashamed of us. I just…well, I just thought I'd have a little more time to figure out how I was going to tell him."

"Do you?" Calleigh asked. "Do you still feel the same way?"

"Of course I do. I thought I'd made that clear at Christmas."

"When you told Mulder you were spending the holidays at your mom's house," Calleigh pointed out gently.

Scully blushed. "I know what it looks like, Calleigh, but it's got nothing to do with the way I feel about you. I just don't think he'll cope very well with finding out about us."

"I think he's guessed."

"No. That's just Mulder being Mulder. If he really thought it, he wouldn't be making jokes about it."

"He's homophobic?" Calleigh asked.

Scully burst into a gale of giggles. "Sorry," she choked finally, as she took in Calleigh's hurt expression. "I was just thinking that Mulder's most probable reaction to finding out about us would be to ask if we ever considered threesomes."

"Huh?"

"I just meant he's really open minded about that kind of thing. The idea of a blonde and a redhead in bed together is probably the enactment of one of his fantasies. Come to think of it, he's probably got several videos in his collection on that very theme."

"So what's the problem? If he's that open-minded, why have you been hiding our relationship from him for two years?"

"Because I don't think he'll cope with the idea of me being in *any* long-term relationship. I don't mean he's interested in me himself. I mean…well, he's lost everyone he's ever cared about, in one way or another, and he's come to rely on the idea that *I'll* always be there for him. I think he'll see your existence as a threat. You've got to understand that Mulder never dates. He rarely goes out. He thinks it's perfectly okay to call me at 3am to discuss a case we're working on and, the truth is, it 
*is* okay. He needs me and I'm always there for him. I don't want him to think he can't call or that it's not okay because I have a life that's separate from his."

"Seems to me that what Fox Mulder needs is a relationship of his own," Calleigh suggested dryly. "Just because he doesn't have a life is no excuse for him to expect you to take a vow of celibacy, honey."

Scully sighed sadly, then made an effort to push Mulder to the back of her mind for that evening at least.

"It really *is* good to see you, Calleigh."

"Well, when I get you home I'm sure you'll think of a way to convince me."

Scully blushed a little, but a smile crept back onto her face and she reached down to where Calleigh's hand was hovering over the stick shift and gave the fingers a squeeze.

"Tell ya what," Calleigh said, a few minutes later, as she opened her front door.

"What?" Scully asked.

"How about we tape our reunion and let Mulder have a copy?"

She didn't wait for Scully's screech of outrage, she just gave a teasing smirk and raced into the house, running up the stairs towards the bedroom with the sound of Scully's laughing threats following close on her heels.

~#~#~#~


"We've got another one."

Speedle's voice sounded strained to the point of breaking. Caine knew the feeling. He blearily rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath before replying. He'd known the call was coming. Known it so strongly that he'd woken up several times in the night after dreaming that he'd received the call. It took him a few seconds to establish that this call was the genuine article, rather than just another nightmare, but although his bedside clock read 05.32 there was enough early sunlight streaming through his window to confirm that morning had broken and brought with it the death of a seventh victim.

"Same m.o.?" he managed to choke, through jaws so stiff that he knew he must have been grinding his teeth all night.

"Nothing but ash. Alexx was here, but she pissed off. Said I needed a dustpan and brush, not a coroner," Speedle complained.

"We're all under pressure on this one," Caine reminded him quietly. "Take the remains to the morgue and I'll join you there after I've spoken to the parents. Who's the Vic this time?"

"Amy Corrigan."

"Ted Corrigan's daughter?"

"That's the one."

"Damn. He's the one who issued a writ of Habeas Corpus against us yesterday. How the hell am I going to tell him his daughter's dead?"

"The other girls are pretty hysterical, Caine. I don't know how long we can keep the lid on this. The press are camped outside and all hell's breaking free inside the gym."

"Let the CDC people worry about keeping the cordon secure. Get back to the lab and get me some answers before any more girls die, Speedle. I don't want to be having this conversation with you again tomorrow."

Speedle hung up without replying and Caine stared guiltily at the phone. He knew that had sounded like he was somehow blaming his team for not working hard enough to solve the mystery and that wasn't true at all. The only person he blamed was himself. There was nothing worse than knowing a death sentence hung over the heads of a dozen schoolgirls and being completely helpless to stop it happening. 

He wasn't a superstitious man in any way, but he was sure as hell beginning to believe he was up against someone or something with almost supernatural abilities.

Hell, he'd even left a message the evening before on the answer phone of one of his old friends, an expert profiler with a reputation for dealing with the obscure and supernatural. It was a measure of how desperate he was feeling that he'd risked opening *that* particular can of worms again.

He was almost hoping that Fox wouldn't call him back.

~#~#~#~

Mulder and Scully stared in undisguised horror at the seven clear plastic containers.

"These are all the remains you've got?" Scully asked. "Every single one of the girls burned down to nothing more than ashes?"

"The weirdest part is that the clothes they were wearing were totally incinerated but, except for scorch marks, nothing in the vicinity of the bodies were affected," Calleigh said. She began tapping the containers. "These two were lying in bed when they burned, but their bedclothes didn't ignite. This victim, Hayleigh Stevens, was sitting at the breakfast table. Except for a carbonised shadow, her wooden chair was completely undamaged despite the fact that she must have burned at almost 2000 degrees for her remains to powder like that."

"Let me guess," Mulder said. "Hayleigh was fine until someone drew back the drapes in the kitchen."

"Yeah," Calleigh agreed. "She and the Lewenski girl were the only vics who burned in front of witnesses until today's victim who died in full view of a dozen girls and three cops."

"But until today, the only witnesses were the ones who unthinkingly exposed the girls to sunlight," Mulder concluded, with such a satisfied nod that Calleigh's eyes lit up.

"You've got a theory, Agent Mulder?"

Scully's eyes widened and she gave Mulder a plaintive, pleading look. "Don't even *think* of saying what I know you're thinking of saying," she hissed.

"Vampires," Mulder stated firmly.

Speedle, who'd been quietly leaning against a wall of the morgue, groaned dramatically. "We've already heard all the Buffy jokes, Agent Mulder."

"I'm not joking," Mulder retorted.

Scully's fingers dug painfully into Mulder's arm. "Don't you *dare* make Calleigh look like a fool for calling us in, Mulder," she whispered angrily.

Mulder peered closely at her fraught expression, his eyes widening slightly, and then his mouth twisted into an all too knowing grin as his mind made one of its frightening leaps. "So there *is* something you need to share with me, Scully," he whispered back, enjoying the heat that rose in her angry cheeks. He nodded slightly, and then turned to Speedle and Calleigh.

"You've found no traces of any accelerant and the evidence supports the idea that sunlight is the common triggering factor. So that leaves you with a workable hypothesis. Somehow the victims are being infected by something that changes their body chemistry enough to make them extremely 'allergic' to sunlight. There's no random factor to the deaths, so this isn't the outbreak of a naturally spreading virus. Somebody, somehow, is deliberately infecting the victims."

"And this somebody is a Vampire?" Speedle scoffed.

Scully's fingers tightened on Mulder's arm. He chewed his lower lip, then dipped his eyes slightly in acquiescence to her silent plea.

"This person is possibly enacting the *fantasy* that they're a vampire."

The sneer slipped off Speedle's face as he considered Mulder's words. "It kind of makes sense," he agreed thoughtfully. "Hayleigh and Evangeline both had bite marks on their necks and their mothers said they were unnaturally pale. Perhaps the perp is bleeding them and using the puncture wounds on their necks to introduce an extreme form of Porphyria."

"Porphyria isn't an infection. It's a deficiency of an enzyme used in the production of heme, the red pigment in blood. The missing enzyme inhibits the body's ability to process light-sensitive chemicals called porphyrins. It causes a body to burn, blister and scar. It doesn't make the victim incinerate," Scully pointed out.

"Not normally," Mulder agreed. "But what if we're talking about a truly extreme version of Porphyria. One that is so severe that it causes the body to spontaneously combust."

Scully shook her head. "Even if such a condition existed, it wouldn't be infectious."

"Possibly not," Mulder agreed. "But what if the person who has this affliction controls their own reaction to sunlight by extracting the enzyme they're missing from the body of their victim? In that case, wouldn't the victim then be the one who burns while the killer is temporarily protected by the enzyme they've ingested?"

"This is crazy. There's no such thing as a disease that makes people into cannibals," Speedle protested.

"I don't know," Scully replied thoughtfully. "We've come across similar situations before. We once had a case where a man used to kill people so he could ingest their cancerous cells. There is an infinite diversity of diseases, Mr Speedle. It's a long shot, but it's somewhere to start."

"Think of it this way," Mulder suggested. "All myths and legends have some basis in reality. What if the legend of Vampirism stems from a real, but extremely rare, form of Porphyria? What if a *vampire* is actually a person suffering from this disease and the only way they can stay alive is if they extract the enzyme they're missing from another person?"

Speedle frowned. "Is it just me, or have we just stepped back into the Twilight Zone here?"

Calleigh sighed and spread her hands wide. "The bottom line is that Mulder's theory about a rare form of Porphyria is the only hypothesis that makes any sense and the pattern of deaths supports the idea that the girls are being deliberately infected. Until we catch the perp, we'll have no way of knowing whether he's sticking needles into the girls' necks or fangs." She grinned easily. "So if Agent Mulder wants to call the perp a vampire, let him. What's important here is that we find this guy before he strikes again." 

"The victims were all from the same homeroom, weren't they?" Scully asked.

Speedle nodded.

"So presumably the rest of the class are in some form of protective custody."

"They have been since yesterday. Not that it prevented this morning's victim," Calleigh replied. "The High School gym has been turned into a quarantine dormitory, with full police guard and a team of doctors from the CDC. Nobody, even family, is being allowed in or out."

"And yet another girl died?" Mulder asked.

"Yes," Calleigh agreed, her face twisting with frustration. 

"Then that confirms what I already suspected. You've got to get them out of there. You need to split the girls up," Mulder insisted urgently.

"We can't. The presence of the people from the Centre for Disease Control has caused a panic in the local community and the press are camped on the school's doorstep. Fortunately, we're bringing the bodies out in Tupperware rather than bodybags, so no-one knows what's really going on yet."

"You don't understand. You *have* to isolate the girls from each other," Mulder insisted.

"We know that keeping them together makes them an easier target," Calleigh replied, "but it also makes them easier to protect. We've got a team down there right now installing motion detectors, cctv, infrared lights and alarms on all windows and doors. There's no way in hell anyone's going to get inside that place after today."

"The killer's already inside," Mulder said, with conviction.

"What?" Scully demanded.

"It's the only thing that makes sense, Scully. One of the girls is the killer"

"Doesn't that blow your theory of it being a vampire?" Speedle drawled. "Hate to tell you this, bud, but there's one hell of a lot of windows in that gym."

"If she's extracting the enzyme from her victims, it presumably protects her from the sun's effects but, unless she's completely insane, the fact she took the risk of feeding again last night suggests that the stolen enzyme only works for 24 hours. If we assume she's living a normal life, rather than hiding from daylight, she must have been killing people for years. Miami's full of transients and illegal immigrants. Her method of killing doesn't leave any evidence, so if she hadn't attacked her classmates, no one would have ever guessed her secret. She's trapped in a catch-22 now. If she doesn't continue to kill, she'll be the one who turns into a human torch but by killing to stay alive she's prolonging her captivity."

"That's insane," Speedle said, his mouth curling with disgust.

Mulder shrugged. "Tell you what. Just ignore me. Two more weeks and she'll have run out of victims anyway. Then she'll be the one who goes up in flames and it'll all be over. Think of it as a slow-play real-life enactment of 'Carrie'."

Speedle's fists bunched. Scully and Calleigh exchanged a worried look and both moved to intercept their respective partners.

Then a low, angry growl from the doorway made all four of them jump in guilty surprise.

"Would someone like to explain to me what Spooky Mulder is doing in my morgue?"

The color drained out of Calleigh's face. Speedle's frown twisted into a smirk. Heat rose in Scully's cheeks. Mulder went white as a ghost, swayed on his feet, and his eyes went as wide as saucers. He cleared his throat noisily, tried to speak, gave up, wet his mouth frantically with his tongue and finally managed a weak squeak.

"Hi, Horatio."

Calleigh, Speedle and Scully all blinked with surprise as they saw Caine's face crack into a wide, amused smile.

"Hello, Fox."

"Fox?" Scully said, arching an eyebrow.

To her astonishment, Mulder blushed. "Horatio and I …um…we um…well, we um…I mean, that is we…um…."

Scully shook her head in confused disbelief as Mulder stammered, blushed, tripped over his words and looked like he wanted a hole to open in the floor and swallow him up.

"We worked a couple of cases together a few years back," Caine interrupted swiftly.

Mulder's face flooded with relief and he looked at Caine with something akin to hero worship.

"Nice save," Calleigh stage whispered to Scully, with a suggestive wink.

Scully frowned and she automatically shook her head. Then her eyes widened slowly with dawning comprehension as she weighed Calleigh's intimation against Mulder's performance of shell-shocked embarrassment. 

"I don't get to call him Fox," she admitted, reluctantly.

They exchanged identical looks of raised eyebrows and speculative smiles.

"What the hell is this crap you're spouting about vampires?" Caine demanded, although his twinkling eyes belied his gruff tone.

Mulder defensively folded his arms across his chest. "I didn't say she was a vampire," he complained. "Her actions *are* vampiric though. She's got some kind of rare blood disorder and she's staying alive by feeding on her classmates. She isn't killing them, exactly. The fact they die is a side effect of her own attempt to stay alive. Though I'd say the pattern of recent deaths suggests she's deliberately choosing her victims with full knowledge of the consequences of her actions. She doesn't care that they're going to die. She has no remorse. When she drains them of the enzyme she needs, she effectively removes their own protection from the sun and that's what kills them."

"And undoubtedly, she caught the disease originally from little green men when they abducted her in their UFO," Caine drawled.

"You don't have to be an asshole, Horatio. And they're little *gray* men," Mulder muttered sulkily.

"Horatio obviously knows you well, *Fox*," Scully sniggered uncharitably.

Mulder studied the floor and pouted.

"Well enough to know there's got to be some scientific basis for this insane theory bouncing around *somewhere* inside that crazy head," Caine sniffed. "Speedle, call the county jail and get them to isolate a wing of cells. Then get the CDC to move the girls."

"You're not telling me you believe this nutcase," Speedle demanded.

"I deal in facts. Fact one; those girls are dying and I don't know why. Fact two; they can be protected more easily in jail than they can in the High School so I've nothing to lose by doing this. Fact three; Mulder might be a 'nutcase' but he's also the most successful profiler the FBI ever had so if he says one of the girls is the perp, I believe him. The fact he's calling her a vampire is just one of the little idiosyncrasies you have to accept if you want to work with his kind of genius."

"Thanks, I think," Mulder said quietly, raising his face enough to give Caine a tremulous smile.

Caine shrugged. "No problem, Fox, because if one of those girls isn't screaming blue murder tomorrow morning for a set of drapes for her cell it's going to be *you* who explains to the parents why I put a dozen eighteen year olds in the county lock-up."

Mulder nodded his acceptance and Caine finally smiled again.

"So what do you say we go grab a bite to eat and you explain your theory of why she started killing her classmates in the first place."

Mulder's shoulders slumped in relief and his face relaxed into a genuine smile.

"Sure, Horatio."

Calleigh watched in disbelief as her dour boss wrapped a companionable arm around Mulder's shoulders. 

"It's all to do with Prom Night," Mulder explained earnestly, as Caine guided him towards the door. "If you look at the photos of the Vics, the first three were the prettiest girls in the class. I think it started off as jealousy…"

As Mulder's voice faded into the distance, Scully turned to Calleigh with a look of shock on her face.

"I don't believe it," she said, shaking her head slowly.

"Didn't you know he batted for the other team?" Calleigh asked.

"I had no idea," Scully confessed. "I mean he doesn't date but he has the biggest video porn collection in the Western Hemisphere. You can't walk into his apartment without tripping over copies of 'Debbie does Dallas'."

"Sounds like he's very good at deflection," Calleigh suggested mildly. "When a guy feels the need to make that kind of visual declaration that he's straight, it's a good bet that he's hiding something."

"I guess," Scully agreed thoughtfully. "And to think I was always worried he'd make a load of leering comments about always wanting to see a blonde and a redhead together."

"Looks like he's got his own redhead tonight," Calleigh chuckled.

"Did you know…um…Horatio was um…"

"Put it this way, his wife didn't divorce him over another *woman*."

"Oh."

"So, since Mulder thinks he's got this case wrapped up, how do you fancy dinner? I know a place that does the most incredible seafood."

Scully blushed slightly. "You remembered."

Calleigh reached out her hand and gently stroked Scully's cheek. "Honey, I remember *everything* about you."


~#~#~#~

"He thought it was what?" Spencer demanded incredulously.

"A bigfoot," Skinner repeated.

"And he got the whole town to believe him? How fucking interbred were they?"

Skinner chuckled at the look on his friend's face. Spencer's experiences in 'nam had left him with a world-weary cynicism and it was rare to see him show an expression of genuine surprise. "Well, to tell the truth, they *were* like something out of 'The Hills Have Eyes'," he admitted, "but they actually only pretended to believe him so they could deflect attention from the fact that they were growing enough cocaine to supply the entire east coast."

"I see."

"Not that he hasn't managed to get a few genuine panics started on his own," Skinner chuckled. "Mulder has a knack of making people believe the most outrageous things. He's so damned sincere and he has these big puppy eyes. You kind of find yourself wanting to agree with him just to see him wag his tail."

"Uh, huh," Spencer replied, with a knowing smirk. "Got a tail worth wagging, has he?"

"An ass you could bounce a nickel on," Skinner admitted.

"Uh, oh. Are you allowed to have wet dreams over one of your agents, Walt?"

"As long as I only enact 'em in the shower."

Spencer snorted. 

"So, how do you know he's not going to get that pretty ass burned while you're here in Miami, soaking up the sun, sweat and Twinkie talent?"

"I grounded him. Cut the purse strings on his expense account. Reckon by the time I get back to DC he'll be chafing at the bit so much he might actually agree to follow orders this time. I'm sick of his wild stunts, Hal. One of these days it won't just be a car that gets crushed on one of his monster hunts."

"You really do care about him, don't you?" Spencer asked, sobered by the soft look in Skinner's eyes.

"He's a good kid," Skinner replied, then shook his head. "Strike that. He's a good *man*. Too good, maybe. I'd call him an idealistic fool, only there's no way anyone could call Mulder a fool. Sure he believes in aliens and monsters and all the weird shit they write in the National Enquirer, but there's no escaping the fact he's a genius. Maybe you can't be that damned smart without being a few cents short of a dollar." Skinner chuckled ruefully. "His mind's even more intriguing than his looks and, believe me, he's one hell of a looker."

"Sounds like you've got it bad, Walt. Um…" Spencer looked uncharacteristically bashful. "Tell me it's none of my business, but I always wondered what finally tipped you over. So…um…is monster boy what finally pushed you over the edge with Sharon?"

"I guess," Skinner admitted. "Nothing like seeing what you want, to show you how much you don't want what you've got. It's better to have nothing than accept second-best."

"That sucks, Walt, but in a good way."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, at least you're free and single again. We can hit the strip and land us some ass. Getting laid'll take ten years off you, bud."

"Yeah," Skinner agreed, but his expression remained dubious.

Spencer sighed and rolled his eyes. "You gonna tell monster boy you've got the hots for him?"

Skinner shook his head firmly. "He's my subordinate. He doesn't like me. He rarely trusts me and I'm pretty sure the only person he's interested in is a 5'2" red head named Dana."

"Straight boy?"

"As a die."

"Fuck."

"Yeah," Skinner sighed.

"Well, Walt. I always said you knew how to pick'em."

"Asshole."

"So we gonna go cruise, or what?"

"Lead on, McDuff," Skinner snorted. He checked himself out in Spencer's hall mirror, adjusted his muscle tee, decided he looked good and strode out on Spencer's heels in search of a tall, hazel-eyed stranger to temporarily soothe the aching hole in his heart.

~#~#~#~


"So, what haven't you told me?" Caine demanded, as they waited for the waiter to serve them.

"What do mean?" Mulder asked innocently.

"I know you, Fox. You'd already decided it was one of the girls before you walked in this morning, hadn't you? None of that discussion this morning was about clarifying your thoughts, it was about trying to manipulate the rest of the team into accepting your conclusions."

"Guilty as charged, although I wasn't *sure* until I heard about this morning's victim."

"So what makes you so damned sure you know what's going on?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Obviously my first thought was vampires, as in the real blood-sucking, undead variety, but there was something too damned juvenile about the choice of victims. Killing one girl after another in such an obvious pattern is screaming out for attention. If you have such a flawless way of being able to kill someone without leaving any evidence, why would you choose victims in a fashion that obviously shouts out that they're being murdered?"

"I agree."

"So I discounted *real* vampires. They're smarter than that."

"I refuse to rise to that obvious bait," Caine snorted.

"So, okay, you don't want to hear about my night of undead passion with a vampiress?" Mulder asked.

Caine growled, Mulder smirked and a polite cough made them both turn to the waiter who was hovering over their table, looking at Mulder as though he was sure he'd been smoking something illegal.

"Two specials," Caine barked, and waited until the waiter had scurried off before turning back to Mulder with a weary smile. "This is my favorite restaurant, Fox. Try not to embarrass me too much, huh?"

"So no footsie under the table? No sliding under the tablecloth like I did that night in Chicago Joe's?" Mulder replied, licking his lower lip provocatively.

"Hell, Fox. You trying to get yourself ravished here and now?"

"Sounds good to me," Mulder replied dolefully. "It's been so long since I've been fucked, I swear I'm growing cobwebs in my ass."

Caine struggled against the urge to jump to his feet, change their order 'to go' and drag Mulder back to his apartment. He took several deep breaths to steady his heartbeat, willed his cock to stop trying to batter its way out of his pants, and forced himself to put his libido aside.

"Fox…I, well, I'm not looking for a relationship right now. If I was, then hell, I'd jump at the offer but…well, let's be honest, we broke up because you couldn't deal with the fact I was married. You wanted some kind of commitment from me and I wasn't ready to take that step. You were right about my marriage. It *was* a sham and something I'm happier out of. But I'm not ready to settle down again yet."

"I didn't say I wanted a relationship. I said I wanted a fuck," Mulder pointed out reasonably.

Caine shuffled in his seat to ease his body's reaction to Mulder's words.

"Nice try, Fox. But I know you. You're looking for Mr Right, rather than Mr Right Now. You might *think* you just want a fuck, but I'm the one who's going to have to face you in the morning when you wake up feeling used. I care about you far too much to face that."

"Newsflash, Horatio. I moved on. My dreams of happy-ever-after no longer involve your presence in my life. I am, as they say in the vernacular, in love."

Caine blinked stupidly. Before he could attempt a reply, Mulder continued. "Unfortunately, the down side of my current situation is that the guy I have fallen head over heels for would kick my ass seven ways through Sunday if he even suspected the way I feel about him. Believe me, if he called me a cocksucker he would *not* be suggesting I dropped to my knees and worshipped his assets."

"Straight guy, huh?"

"As a die."

"Fuck."

"I thought you'd never ask."

Caine told the last vestiges of his self-control to take a long dive off a short cliff.

"Are you sure about this, Fox?"

Mulder jumped to his feet and threw a pile of bills on the table to pay for the food that still hadn't arrived.

"I'm sure I have every intention of getting laid tonight," he said, loudly enough that the other restaurant patrons turned to stare. "So the only question left is whether you're going to stop dicking around and agree to fuck my ass for old time's sake or do I have to go cruising?"

As he grabbed Mulder by the arm and dragged him out of the door, it did occur to Caine that he was going to have to find another 'favorite' restaurant but it didn't seem terribly significant in the greater scheme of things.

~#~#~#~

"Oh, God, yes. Just like that," Calleigh moaned, spreading her knees wider and arching her back off the bed as Dana's teeth nipped and teased at the swollen flesh of her labia. She could feel her juices flowing inside her, trickling out of her cunt in a steady stream around Dana's fingers.

Dana snuggled her nose deeper into Calleigh's pale curls, her tongue flashing out to lap at the glistening pearls of moisture that were beading around her knuckles.

"You taste so sweet, Calleigh. Sweet like honey." She pushed her tongue inside of Calleigh's hole, using her fingers to keep the flesh open as she licked and probed inside. 

Calleigh writhed beneath her, pale flesh quivering and trembling as Dana's tongue ignited her to wave after wave of pleasure until she finally came with a gasping cry.

"You know," Dana said, licking her lips with satisfaction as she crawled up the bed and back into Calleigh's waiting arms, "I never *did* like the taste of cock. Men are so damned…"

"Salty?" Calleigh suggested, with a giggle.

"Yeah," Dana agreed. "At first I thought my problems with sex stemmed from my Catholic upbringing. All that guilt made me feel so uptight that I couldn't relax so being penetrated hurt. I couldn't work out what all the fuss was about. Then I tried oral sex and felt so…well, I felt demeaned. Like I was agreeing to take a man's penis into my mouth just because I owed him something for not having an orgasm when he fucked me. Then I figured out that it wasn't *my* fault if I didn't get off on the sex, it 
was *his*. It wasn't my fault his idea of foreplay was a couple of quick kisses and two minutes with his finger."

Calleigh giggled. "Been there, done that."

"And my final conclusion was that the reason I didn't like giving head was the fact that I just didn't like the damned taste," Dana concluded.

"Your friend Fox does," Calleigh laughed.

Dana reared up in surprise. "That's a bit of an assumption, isn't it? "

"Nope. It's a sure bet because Horatio's a roaring top, Dana. I've met a couple of the guys he's had flings with and I'll lay odds on who was doing the fucking and who was doing the sucking."

"I can't picture that at all," Dana admitted.

"Maybe we should ask *him* to make a video," Calleigh suggested, with a wide grin.

Dana blushed.

"No, I mean I can't see Mulder doing that. At least not with Horatio."

"So you can picture him doing it with someone else?" Calleigh teased.

"No," Scully protested, and then blushed a little deeper. "Actually, yes. Now I think about it, there *is* a guy I could see Mulder with in that way. Problem is, I think the only thing *that* guy would like to do with Mulder's ass involves a paddle."

"Kinky," Calleigh laughed.

Scully chuckled. "No, seriously. Have you ever had one of those sudden blinding realisations that two people are perfect for each other but the sad thing is you know there's a snowball's chance in hell they'll ever see it for themselves?"

"Yeah," Calleigh agreed. "But, who knows? Stranger things could happen. For instance, I could call in the FBI to help me in the search for a serial killer and they could turn up and insist the killer's a vampire."

~#~#~#~

Mulder seemed uncharacteristically nervous as he hurriedly stripped off his suit and dropped it on the bedroom floor, so Caine paused his own undressing to whistle appreciatively.

"Dammit, Fox. It's been nine years and if anything you're in even better shape now than I remember."

"I am?" Mulder asked, a surprised look on his face.

"You used to be as skinny as a greyhound. Now you're just sleek and lithe like a racehorse."

"What's with all the animal metaphors?" Mulder demanded suspiciously.

"Well, it could be your name," Caine suggested, grinning at the spark of annoyance in Mulder's eyes, "but I think it's more down to the fact that I want you to drop your boxers and bend over that bed so I can show you just how animalistic I'm feeling at this moment."

"And they said romance was dead," Mulder griped, but as he whipped off his boxers it was abundantly clear he was more than interested in Caine's suggestion.

Caine frowned a little as he tried to work out what was going on in Mulder's head, what he wanted and needed from this encounter. Mulder was older now and the kind of relationship they'd once shared didn't seem appropriate for a one-night-stand for old time's sake. And yet, there was a neediness in the shadowed, hazel eyes. A need that Caine dared to interpret as a desire, perhaps, to let go of reality by escaping temporarily into the past.

"That's a pretty cock you've got, boy," Caine purred.

Mulder started at the word 'boy', his eyes flashing with alarm.

Caine just waited, allowing Mulder to think it through, allowing him to decide what he wanted from this encounter. Then, Mulder gave a small, almost imperceptible nod and visibly began to relax.

"I'm going to fuck you, boy," Caine said. He kept his tone soft, allowing the words themselves to do the magic. "I'm going to fuck you so hard and so long you'll think I've drilled you a new asshole."

Mulder's whole body shuddered, his skin twitching with a strange mix of terror, anticipation and lust.

Caine took hold of his cock and stroked it to hardness in front of Mulder's eyes, enjoying the way the hazel eyes widened and dilated as Caine's cock engorged to its full length and width.

"Like what you see, boy?" he whispered. "You want this meat inside you? You want to remember how it feels to be impaled on this? Then you'd better get down on your knees and worship it, boy. Take it down your throat and convince it that it wants to go in your hot little ass too."

Mulder whimpered slightly, sinking automatically to his knees as he let go of his final inhibitions and told himself he was safe with Caine. He could trust him. He could relax with him. Be real with him. Caine would let him fly and then Caine would bring him safely home again.

Caine watched nine years of worry slowly ebb off Mulder's face. The lines and tightness that time had etched into Mulder's skin seemed to melt as Caine's voice evoked a time when he'd still been trusting enough to let his defences down in front of another man.

And, as Mulder's soft, generous lips, opened to accept his cock, as his flesh remembered the touch of that talented tongue, Caine momentarily wondered why the hell he'd made such a point about not wanting to get into a relationship with Fox again.

He gave Mulder a couple of minutes to acclimatise himself to his width. He had a feeling that Mulder's 'cobweb' comment had been a little too close to the mark for comfort and, although he was determined that Mulder would feel the effects of his presence in both his throat and ass for a few days, he wasn't going to risk either hurting or frightening his lover by being too hasty. So he waited until he felt Mulder relax enough to catch a rhythm, and his cock was sliding easily in and out of Mulder's mouth, before pressing his hips forward enough and demanding more.

"Let me in, boy. Take all of me."

Mulder gagged as Caine sank deeper inside his throat and, instead of relaxing, he choked, panicked and pulled his mouth away. 

"You okay, Fox?" 

Mulder nodded miserably. "Sorry," he muttered.

"It's okay. It's like riding a bike. Just relax and it'll come back to you."

"Help me," Mulder whispered.

Caine nodded, ignoring the protest of his now-neglected cock, as he considered how best to get Mulder into the right frame of mind. Maybe he should get the first fuck over and done with.

"Fox. I want you to go into the bathroom and clean yourself for me. You'll find what you need under the sink."

Mulder nodded his agreement and pulled himself to his feet. He gave Caine a slightly apprehensive look, then silently turned, walked into the bathroom and pointedly closed the door.

Caine nodded to himself as Mulder closed the door. Back when they were in a full-time relationship, he would have thought nothing of watching as Mulder gave himself an enema. Often he did it deliberately, knowing that the humiliation helped Mulder find that place inside himself that revelled in being fully dominated. But the closing of the bathroom door made it clear that Mulder was only play-acting his subservience 
this time, so Caine would respect whatever limits Mulder wanted to draw.

He waited patiently until Mulder emerged.

"You okay?"

Mulder smiled a little shakily, his face pale. "It's been a while since I did that," he admitted. "But I'm fine."

"Okay. You want to carry on?"

Mulder nodded firmly.

Caine reached into his bedside drawer and retrieved a tube of astro-glide, which he tossed in Mulder's direction.

"Pick your right foot up and put it on the bed." 

Mulder turned a delicious shade of pink but did as he was told. 

"Good, but move it so you're stretched a little wider. Turn a little. Make sure I can see everything. That's it. Now slowly open yourself up for me. Take your time. Give me a show. Remember just how big this baby is," Caine continued, hefting his substantial cock in his hands for emphasis.

By this time, Mulder's face was almost scarlet with embarrassment but his eyes were so dilated they looked almost black and he was panting heavily as he eased a finger cautiously into his anus.

"Nice and slowly, boy. Move it in and out. Fuck yourself for me, boy. Show me just how much you want my cock inside you."

Mulder bit his lower lip in an attempt to stifle the groan that rose in his throat at Caine's cool command, and he slid his greased finger easily in and out of his ass.

"Okay, time for another finger, Fox."

Mulder grunted slightly as his ass protested then gave way to the extra pressure. He probed inside himself, moaning as his longer middle finger found and stroked the sensitive nub of his prostate.

"Oh, that's good," Caine agreed, proud of his own self-control as he watched Mulder throw back his head with pleasure and begin to fuck himself in earnest. It was clear that Mulder had forgotten any sense of embarrassment; abandoning himself fully to the pleasure he was bringing to himself.

"Three fingers, boy."

Mulder whimpered, distressed at being forced to break his rhythm and remove his hand for more lube but far too lost in the scenario to even consider refusing the order. He had to take a deep breath and strain a little to force the three fingers inside himself and, although he could feel the extra width, he could no longer achieve the same depth.

"Please," he gasped, as he obeyed Caine's instructions to fuck himself faster and harder but failed to re-ignite the leasure inside his ass. "Please. I need…I need…"

His eyes flashed a little and his cheeks flushed once more as he clearly struggled about saying what he knew Caine wanted to hear. Caine seriously considered letting it go, giving in to Mulder's humiliation the same way as he'd accepted the closed bathroom door, but his gut told him that Mulder wanted to be pushed past this obstacle rather than let around it.

"What do you need, boy?" he demanded.

Mulder closed his eyes and his face screwed up in distress but, with a shudder of defeat, he gave in.

"I need you to please fuck my ass with your cock, Sir."

"And why do you need my cock in your ass, boy?" Caine continued.

"Because…because…" Mulder's voice broke and Caine opened his mouth to say it was okay, it didn't matter, but before he could speak Mulder's eyes opened, dark and bright, and he stared directly at Caine with unmistakeable hunger as his last barrier collapsed. "Because I'm a slut for your cock, Sir."

Well, there was no mistaking that, Caine decided. Mulder was ready to play for real now.

"Foot down, hands on the bed and brace yourself, slut," Caine snapped, and Mulder complied with alacrity.

Caine stared with admiration at the long, sleek lines of Mulder's back and thighs and had to force himself not to give in to his urge to pepper a line of kisses up each knob of Mulder's spine. He remembered that Mulder was never in the mood for that kind of intimacy until the fantasy time was over. All Mulder wanted, here and now, was a fast, furious fuck, the more brutal the better. He wouldn't be ready for kisses and hugs and even, if Caine was lucky, a desire to stay the whole night cuddled in Caine's arms, until he had been well and truly drilled.

Caine had never had a problem with Mulder's preference to play the slutty, pushy bottom in their relationship. Mulder's enthusiasm for rough fucking *had* slightly ruined Caine for more sensitive partners and had, sure as hell, ended his marriage. It was hard to go back to making love to a woman with care and gentleness after you'd had a partner who was big and strong and tough enough to take all you could dish out and still demand more.

"God, I missed you, Fox," he admitted, as he took hold of Mulder's hips, angled his cock-head at Mulder's prepared hole and thrust inside until his balls slapped Mulder's ass.

"God, I've missed *this*," Mulder replied, with a chuckle that soon turned to deep groans of satisfaction as Caine's cock tried to find a different way into his throat.

~#~#~#~


"Hey, Fox. You awake?"

"No," Mulder grunted, burying his head deeper into the pillow.

"You sure?" Caine asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and drawing the covers back enough to trace Mulder's ass with his fingers.

Mulder shivered and opened his legs slightly in obvious invitation but made no effort to raise his head off the pillow.

"Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, Fox, but you broke it and anyway, we don't have time for this. Come on, get up," Caine laughed.

Mulder just grunted something unintelligible.

"So, I take it you *don't* wanna go meet a vampire?" Caine drawled.

Mulder turned over so quickly that he almost knocked Caine off the bed. He winced loudly as his ass hit the mattress but even that wasn't enough to wipe the grin off his face. "I was right?"

"Possibly," Caine agreed cautiously. "One of the girls broke about ten minutes before dawn and started screaming and hollering that the sunlight would kill her if they didn't black out the window in her cell."

"Abigail Hennessey?"

"How the hell did you know that?"

"I didn't. I guessed based on the profiles Calleigh gave me."

"Uh huh," Caine said doubtfully.

"Did she admit killing the others?"

"I'm going down there to interview her now. That's why I suggest you get your ass out of bed."

Mulder didn't need to be told twice. He dove out from under the covers and grabbed the somewhat crumpled suit he'd discarded on the floor the night before.

"Fox."

"Yeah?"

"Take a shower."

Mulder sniffed himself, then the room in general, and blushed. "Good idea," he muttered, and raced off to the bathroom.

~#~#~#~

They were at the jail within the hour but, since Mulder wanted to talk to the other girls before the interview and Caine needed to arrange an interview room without any external windows, it was almost eleven before Caine, Calleigh and Mulder finally met Abigail Hennessey.

Dark-haired and a little too thin, Abigail was a reasonably pretty girl but she had the kind of bone-structure that gave her features a hardness that belied her age. Her attitude, however, was pure teenage rebellion.

"Let's be clear. You're eighteen years old and you have been offered and have refused counsel." Caine said. He didn't want a clever lawyer to trip the case up on a technicality.

"Sure," Abigail said, with a cocky smile. "Ya can't prove a thing. There's no evidence."

"We'll be taping the interview," Caine pointed out, "and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

"So?" she said, with a shrug. "If ya try and trick me, make me say something I shouldn't, I'll just cry my eyes out to the judge and tell him you threatened to put me in the sunlight if I didn't say what you wanted me to." Her face crumbled into an expression of abject terror. "I was so scared," she cried, huge tears forming in her eyes. "They scared me. They were crazy. Said I was a vampire. I just said anything they wanted."

Her tears ceased abruptly and she grinned wolfishly at her appalled audience. "See?" she crowed.

"Are you?" Mulder demanded.

"Huh?"

"Are you a Vampire?"

Caine cringed in his seat. Calleigh stifled a grin. Abigail's eyes widened into an honest expression of startlement and then she laughed with delight. "Looks like I won't need much help convincing the judge," she sniggered. "You *are* crazy."

Mulder just smiled and continued to stare at her silently until her expression of amusement twisted into a sulking pout.

"What are you looking at?" she demanded.

Mulder shrugged. "I'm not sure," he admitted quietly. "I *thought* you were a vampire. Something *special*. But you say I'm wrong. So I guess I'm just looking at a spoilt, ugly little girl who found a novel way to burn her friends to death, like they were no more than pieces of wood, just because she hated the fact they were prettier than her."

"I'M NOT UGLY," she screamed, rising to her feet and clawing her right hand towards his face. Mulder gave silent thanks to his bureau self-defence training as he instinctively flinched backwards a fraction of a second before her nails pierced his skin.

"SIT DOWN," Caine barked and, looking a little shocked at her own loss of control, Abigail sank back into her chair.

"There's different kinds of ugly, Abigail," Mulder pointed out. "But the question is why you felt threatened enough to kill your classmates if it *wasn't* that you thought they were prettier than you."

Abigail grinned slyly.

"Maybe it was an accident. Maybe my allergy's infectious and I didn't realize. It's not a crime to accidentally spread an infectious disease."

"Why don't you tell us the truth? Like you said, no-one's going to believe your statement anyway so why don't you take the opportunity to tell us how clever you were?"

"You're trying to trick me."

Mulder shrugged lightly. "I understand that you'd be ashamed to admit the fact you killed your friends just because you were jealous."

"I had nothing to be jealous of," Abigail spat. "I'm a Hennessey. My dad's richer than all of theirs put together. And I was voted Prom Queen. So there!"

Mulder nodded. "Okay. So you didn't care that Evangeline Lewenski was planning on upstaging you at the Prom?"

"Who told you that?"

"Girls talk, Abigail. Seems they were all looking forward to seeing her show you up. The problem with being the richest, most 'popular' girl is that everyone secretly resented you, didn't they? You found out that Evangeline wasn't only going to the Prom in a new, designer dress but that all of your so-called friends knew about it and had chosen not to warn you. They *wanted* to see you shown up. So you killed Evangeline to get rid of the competition. You'd have gotten away with it if you'd stopped there. But you couldn't, could you? Once you started, the rage just started to burn you up. It hurt, so you burned them so that they hurt too."

"It wasn't fair," Abigail spat, her dark eyes narrowing into furious slits. "I was voted Prom Queen. There was no way in hell I was going to let that uppity trailer-trash bitch upstage me just 'cos her mother screwed enough guys to buy her a damned designer dress. Can you even imagine how many times that scrawny whore had to open up her legs to get *that* kind of money?"

"So you killed Evangeline just to stop her going to the Prom?" Caine asked. He kept his tone unemotional but couldn't prevent a flicker of distaste crossing his expression.

"To stop her going in *that* dress," she corrected angrily. "She had no right."

She saw his frown and sneered, tossing her hair carelessly in a gesture of dismissal and turning her attention towards Calleigh instead.

"*You* understand," she said, nodding with approval at Calleigh's impeccable grooming and tasteful clothes. Then her eyes raked up and down Mulder's suit and she nodded again, "and you, maybe."

Mulder put down the file he'd been flicking through, a surprisingly thick dossier on Abigail's family, and regarded the teenager thoughtfully.

"So it just was a matter of social pride," Mulder replied.

"Family pride," she corrected. 

"Family's very important to you, isn't it, Abigail?"

She curled her lip into a sneer. "My family's something to be proud of. I can trace my ancestry back to the Mayflower. Which is more than you can say."

"Oh?" Mulder asked mildly.

She tapped her nose pointedly and smirked.

"So, I guess Evangeline was an embarrassment to you. To your whole family," Mulder suggested.

"I wasn't going to take the chance of anyone realising she was…" She bit her words off suddenly and an angry blush stained her cheeks.

"She was what?" Caine demanded.

"Nothing," Abigail growled, crossing her arms in front of her chest defiantly.

"Evangeline Lewenski was her sister," Mulder said. His tone so confident that no one realised he was making a wild stab in the dark, a leap of intuition based on nothing more than gut instinct and some facial similarities between the murdered girl and her killer.

Caine startled in his seat, turning to look at Mulder with quiet amazement.

"She wasn't my sister," Annabelle denied angrily. "She was a bastard. She was nothing more than a drunken fling and a broken condom. She was *nothing* to me and nothing to my father!"

"So you were your father's favorite daughter?"

"I'm his only daughter."

"You certainly are now," Caine interrupted dryly.

"Is that why you hated her? Because she was illegitimate?" Mulder asked, "or was it because she didn't inherit your family's peculiar genetic 'problem'?"

Abigail's eyes widened in horror and she shook her head frantically. "I don't know what you're talking about." She turned to Caine. "I'm not saying any more. I want a lawyer."

"Sure," Caine agreed easily. "Your family lawyer is waiting in the visitor's room. We can go and meet him now if you like." He stood up and gestured towards the door. "After you."

Abigail stared in terror at the doorway, her eyes inexorably drawn to the bright sunlight that was trying to creep through the gap under the door. She began to pant heavily, like a trapped animal. "I can't go out there," she whispered.

"If you won't go meet your lawyer, we'll have to put it on record that you refused counsel a second time," Calleigh pointed out cheerfully.

"Fuck you," Abigail snarled, but she sank back into her seat defeated.

"So, we were talking about your family's aversion to sunlight," Mulder prompted.

"I have an allergy. That's all."

"A genetically inherited allergy," Mulder replied, tapping the file on the desk. "According to the old newspaper reports in this file, a number of your relatives and ancestors died in mysterious fires or disappeared without trace. It's strange that your family managed to become so rich and influential considering the fact that all of you share this genetic 'problem'."

"My family doesn't have a genetic 'problem'. We have a genetic *superiority*. The Hennessey name has held power and respect in this city for over two hundred years. My father could buy and sell all of you a dozen times over without even blinking."

"That's probably another genetic trait he inherited," Mulder pointed out, with a wry smile. "Your family's money was born in the slave trade, wasn't it? Is that where this 'curse' came from? African slaves? Or were they just a convenient way for your ancestors to hide the fact they were vampires?"

Caine grabbed Mulder by the arm and dragged him over to the corner of the cell. "What the hell are you doing, Fox? She's not a damned vampire. I agree she's a fucking monster, but she's a human monster."

"I agree," Mulder said.

"Huh?"

"There's nothing supernatural about the Hennesseys. They're not even evil in the strictest definition of the word. But they *are* monsters. It's not the first time I've come across a case like this. I had a case once where a guy was deliberately dating obese women so he could ingest their fatty tissue because his body was incapable of producing it himself. He was a monster, but he wasn't supernatural and he wasn't evil. He was just a genetically mutated predator who hunted and killed what he saw as his natural and rightful prey. Just like the Hennesseys do.

"You heard her, Horatio. She described her family as genetically 'superior'. That's not a line she came up with by herself. She's been brought up to see her need to kill as a side effect of being super-human rather than as a weakness. *They're* the ones who see themselves as vampires, Horatio. It's what they tell each other so they can wrap their sadistic, selfish murdering lives in some kind of romantic mantle. They're the worst kind of monsters. They're parasites who are smart enough to hide their nature and lucky enough that their method of murder leaves no trace.

"Until little Abigail here was stupid and vicious enough to use her need to feed as an excuse to wipe out the competition at her High School Prom."

Caine shook his head in disbelief. "You're saying that Thomas Hennessey is killing people too? It's not possible. How the hell would they cover up that many victims?"

"He doesn't have to kill," Mulder replied. "He's so rich he lives virtually as a recluse. If he does attend functions he always goes out after dark. Read the file, Horatio. *All* the Hennesseys were reputed to rarely stray off their own property. There's a file full of newspaper articles on the family and the only daylight photos are of events that couldn't be avoided, like weddings and funerals. I'll lay odds if you went to their house you'd find that every window and door is covered with heavy drapes. They keep their exposure to sunlight at a minimum, which means they need fewer victims."

"But Abigail goes to High School like a normal girl."

"Yeah. Which must have been hell on the transient population of Miami for the last four years. I bet if you checked missing persons you'd find a steep curve of reported cases. Then if you jump back twenty years, you'll see the same pattern during the teenage years of her father.

"What you've got here, Horatio, is a family of predators who've been feeding on the local population for centuries right under everyone's noses and they've been so damned careful and smart that no-one's ever even suspected they existed until now."

"So why did she do it?" Caine demanded. "If what you're suggesting is true, why the hell would she be stupid enough to shit in her own back yard like this? She practically asked to be caught."

"Why don't you ask her," Mulder suggested, turning back towards Abigail who had been listening intensely to their conversation. "Why didn't you stay in the dark, Abigail? Why didn't you hide in the shadows like the rest of your family?"

"You know everything else, so you should know why," she muttered petulantly.

He nodded sadly. "Yeah, I think I do. Better to burn out than fade away, huh?"

"Who wants to live for ever?" She quoted back, with a feral grin. 

"I don't understand," Caine admitted grumpily.

"You know how my dad lives? How my whole damn family has always lived? We're already in jail. We live our whole damned lives imprisoned in our house. Know what was gonna happen to me after the Prom? I'd have gone home and that would have been it. No more sunlight. Trapped in the house from dawn til' dusk. You think my daddy was gonna let me put him at risk? No, sir. He couldn't afford to have the authorities sniffing around, so he let me go to school, but my life was over. I was 
going to go home and by this time next year no-one would even remember me."

A slow, satisfied smile spread across her face.

"No-one's ever going to forget me now!"

~#~#~#~

"If this came out, Abigail and her father would be lynched. They'd burn that house down to the ground. Hell, they'd probably burn *them*," Caine growled, and if the prospect of such rough justice bothered him it was only that in this case, for once, it seemed that his own hands were tied.

"All she wanted to do was burn her name into history. She didn't want to spend her life in the dark and die forgotten," Mulder replied.

"She's already forgotten. She just doesn't know it yet. You realise she's never going to go to court. There's no way the DA's going to prosecute on this statement. So she'll spend the rest of her life locked up in a dark cell in an institution for the criminally insane. Unless, of course, someone accidentally puts her in a room with a window."

"I know."

"So she killed those girls for nothing. The CDC will pack up and go home, the press will put the whole thing down to some kind of short-lived epidemic and life will go on with none of the victim's parents ever knowing how or why their daughters died. And everyone will forget that Abigail Hennessey ever existed."

"I won't," Mulder replied. "She's an X-file. And I never forget any of them."

"You know the truly frightening thing, Fox? The fact that I now have to face the possibility that the rest of your X-files might be based on some kind of truth too."

"Nah, you'll do what everyone else does. You'll put it behind you. Forget about it and get on with your life."

"And how do *you* get on with your life, Fox?"

"By getting on a plane and getting my ass back to DC before my boss finds out I skipped town," Mulder laughed. "But first, you never did get around to feeding me last night so how about that dinner you owe me?"

"I'll go one better and take you back to my place again," Caine offered.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Mulder said. "Last night was great, Horatio, but I think we should leave it at that."

"Too sore?" Caine asked, his expression concerned.

"Heart-sore," Mulder admitted ruefully. "All I can think about is that I'm going back to DC and *he's* there and, as ridiculous as it sounds even to me, I feel kind of like I betrayed him last night."

"Him being this guy who doesn't even know you exist."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. It sounds pretty ridiculous," Caine agreed, then smiled sympathetically at Mulder's pout. "That's love for you, Fox. It's not supposed to make sense. So, how about we grab something to eat and go clubbing instead? Let me see that ass of yours wriggle *without* my cock inside it."

Mulder's eyes lit up. "It's been years since I went dancing," he admitted.

"So, we go dancing," Caine agreed. 

~#~#~#~


"Um, Walt," Spencer said, tapping Skinner on the back urgently.

"Hmmm…" Skinner replied. He didn't turn around. He was too busy sucking the neck of the barely-legal twink whose leather-clad legs were wrapped limpet-like around his waist.

"How old's that picture of monster boy in your wallet?"

"Would you stop calling him that?" Skinner grunted, before latching his teeth on his companion's earlobe and chewing lustily.

"WALT!" Spencer demanded, slapping Skinner's shoulder hard enough that the twink yelped as Skinner accidentally bit down too hard.

"What?" Skinner growled.

"That picture 'bout five years old?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Yup. Thought as much," Spencer purred.

"Why?" Skinner demanded again, getting exasperated now.

"Because your *straight* monster boy is about ten foot thataway with some red-haired guy trying to extract his tonsils with his tongue."

"WHAT?" Skinner roared, dropping the twink heavily on his ass and spinning around in the direction Spencer was pointing.

Sure enough, Agent Fox Mulder, the *grounded* Agent Fox Mulder, was swaying on the dance floor not three meters away with a redhead who most certainly wasn't Dana Scully.

~#~#~#~

"Um, Fox…" Caine shouted over the pounding music.

"Yeah?" Mulder yelled back, though his eyes stayed closed as his hips writhed to the rhythm.

"I thought you said you'd become a born-again virgin until last night. So why the hell is someone looking at me like I'm going to be found washed up on a beach tomorrow?"

"What?" Mulder asked, his eyes snapping open.

"Well, don't look now, but there's one big, mean looking bear of a man headed in our direction and I want to know if I should start running."

"Huh?" Mulder replied, turning his head over his shoulder to look.

His face swivelled back towards Caine's, his eyes as wide and panicked as a deer caught in headlights. His mouth opened and closed wordlessly, but Caine was pretty damned sure the phrase he was trying to say was 'Oh, shit."

Skinner's big, meaty hand closed on Mulder's shoulder, spinning him around until they were face-to-face.

"Mulder," Skinner growled, with a glower in Caine's direction.

"Skinner," Mulder gasped.

"Given your undoubted excuse of temporary amnesia, I'm glad to see you at least remember me."

"This isn't what it looks like," Mulder assured him hurriedly.

"It isn't?" Skinner demanded, stone-faced.

"Uh, huh," Mulder said, shaking his head negatively.

"So I'm not seeing what it looks like I'm seeing?"

"Uh, huh."

"So I'm not standing in the most notorious gay bar in Miami, watching an Agent I specifically ordered not to leave DC engaging in a lewd act with another man?"

"Dancing isn't a lewd act," Caine protested, wondering what a homophobic asshole was doing in a gay bar in the first place. Especially one who was wearing over-tight jeans and a muscle-tee just to be sure everyone noticed he was built like a brick shithouse.

Skinner turned on him with a feral grin. "It is if your tongue's so far down his throat its practically coming out of his ass."

Oops, Caine thought, quickly re-interpreting the situation. Surely it couldn't be…no…Mulder had said the guy he was in love with was straight…but why the hell else would a guy who could calmly face down vampires be looking like a naughty schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar if this wasn't the guy?

"Is this *him*?" he mouthed.

Mulder just continued his impersonation of a goldfish.

/It's him/ Caine concluded, with a combination of personal regret and genuine pleasure that Fox seemed to have been *very* mistaken about this guy's interpretation of the term 'cocksucker'.

"Woah, big guy," Caine said, spreading his hands and stepping back a little from Skinner's aggressive snarl. "Fox and I go way back. We're just...um…renewing acquaintances for old times sake, you know? I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes. Fox didn't tell me he's taken now."

"Huh?" Mulder squeaked.

Caine just winked at him.

Skinner decided, with some satisfaction, that he'd finally found a way to make Mulder speechless.

"So you aren't here *together*," Skinner demanded, his eyes promising Caine possibly lethal consequences unless he replied in the negative.

"No. Absolutely not. He's all yours."

Skinner turned an appraising eye on Mulder, frowned thoughtfully, decided he liked the sound of that and gave a wolfish grin.

"Yes. He's mine," he agreed.

His left hand grabbed the still unresponsive Mulder around the neck in a firm, but not ungentle, grip and steered him off the dance floor towards the exit door in the hope of finding somewhere to talk away from the invasive music and interested spectators.

~#~#~#~

Mulder decided he was either dreaming, in which case he was grateful this wasn't one of those particularly humiliating dreams wherein he was not only being dragged through a crowded room but was unaccountably naked at the time, or an alien bounty-hunter had picked a particularly insidious, if somewhat unbelievable, disguise in order to abduct him.

Either way, he couldn't think of a way to (a) wake up or (b) escape without drawing his weapon and causing a major panic in the club. Getting crushed to death by a panicking mob seemed a less than ideal escape strategy.

And then there was the completely unbelievable possibility that this really was AD Walter Skinner who had laid claim to him on the dance floor of a gay bar with the succinct but incredibly telling statement of "He's mine."

In which case, the only weapon that Mulder wanted unholstered was the undoubtedly considerable asset that lurked under Skinner's pants.

His eyes crossed a little at that thought, so he wasn't aware that Skinner had come to abrupt halt until the hand around his neck turned into an abrupt choke hold.

Mulder squawked and came to a full stop, stars flashing in front of his eyes as Skinner's fingers restricted his airflow, and that was the moment that his cock snapped fully to attention and decided for sure that this was true love rather than simply lust.

"Did I just see what I think I just saw?" Skinner demanded, blinking his eyes furiously.

Still deliciously light-headed, Mulder followed the direction of Skinner's gaze.

"Depends," he drawled. "If what you think you just saw is Scully getting low down and dirty with a blonde babe in that booth then, yeah, you saw it."

"Is *anyone* straight in the Bureau?" Skinner muttered, his lips twitching into what looked suspiciously like a smile.

Mulder decided he didn't give a damn if this *was* an alien bounty hunter. If he was going to go, he damn well wanted to go while staring at that smile.

"Don't ask, don't tell, Sir," Mulder smirked, enjoying the way the honorific tripped so naturally off his tongue. Oh yes, he decided. This was definitely Mr Right *and* judging from the bulge in Skinner's tight pants it was also Mr Right Now. 

He hooked his arm through Skinner's. "What do you say we blow this joint?"

"Can think of better things to blow," Skinner muttered, to Mulder's delight.

"I thought cheesy puns were my speciality," he sniggered, and pulled his man out of the bar and into their future.

The End

Chinese Burn

She burns friends like a piece of wood
And she's jealous of me because she never could
Hold herself up without a spine
And she'll look me up when she's doing fine
Because the rage it burns like Chinese torture
She's just someone's favorite daughter
Spoilt and ugly as she willingly slaughters
Friends and enemies they're all the same
They'll burn her name And crush her fame
She'll break a promise as a matter of course
Because she thinks it's fun to have no remorse
She gets what she wants and then walks away
And she doesn't give a f*ck what you might say
Because it cuts her up like Irish mortar
Mother's pride is what we taught her
Soiled and petty as we happily taunt her
Friend or enemy we're all to blame
{She'll burn us bad She'll flaunt her flame She'll make us remember, make us remember her name}
If she sits still like she knows she could
She could win this game and be the queen for good
Save herself up for the cream of the crop
Then she'll look us up when she's ready to stop
Because the rage it burns like Chinese torture
She's just someone's favorite daughter
Spoilt and ugly as she willingly slaughters
Friends and enemies are all that came
To burn her name
Crush her flame
We're all to blame