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Socked feet and PJs. Shredded wrapping paper abound and the smell of pine wafting in the air. Tinsel in places you didn’t know it could get to.
If someone asked Fox Mulder at any point in his life if he knew what a good Christmas was, he’d probably surprise them with his answer. He did know what a good Christmas was.
The Mulder family had celebrated properly before Samantha was taken. Snow on the ground, fireplace going, the scent of hot chocolate and cider and mulled red wine in the air. His sister with a View Master and him with a brand-new bike and basketball.
Maybe that, Mulder mused as he knocked back two fingers of Jameson, should have let him on to the fact that he’d been his mother’s favorite. Maybe even his father’s, until the truth let out. He huffed as he circled his finger for another – the bartender rolled
his eyes but complied – yeah; that should have been a pretty big fucking clue. Both to being the favorite and maybe to not needing another drink.
The years rolled on and the holidays got better, and then a lot, lot worse before finally, sometime around 1998, a cheeky redhead with a penchant for wanting to spend date night at the firing range decided to show up on his doorstep after a night spent almost murdering each other.
The bartender slid the recharged glass his way and this time Mulder sipped and let the whiskey singe his tongue. No cheeky redhead this Christmas. But he could still get a little Irish in him.
“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”
A voice that deep, that close, in years passed would have sent Mulder scrambling around and reaching for his gun.
Ambivalence abound, these days. Mulder simply turned his head. And was legitimately shocked. “Holy shit!”
“Fox Fucking Mulder!” the man grinned and slapped him on the back before hugging Mulder in that awkward way men do. “How the hell are ya, Milk?”
“Damon?” Mulder was used to blasts from the past. Hell. The past slapped him in the face every time he opened the door to his empty house with it’s news clippings and old magazines and that coat that was in the bottom of the closet that still sort of smelled like her and so, had been relegated as far away from him as he could get it.
That all being said. The last person Mulder expected to run into, on Christmas Eve in a piece of shit part of town in a run down Irish bar, was his old pick-up game buddy from back in the day. “Damon, man, what the hell brings your ass out here on a Christmas Eve… how ya been, man?”
Mulder had a history of faking normal. Tonight would not be the exception.
But Damon had been as close a thing as Mulder had to a good friend, outside of Scully, back in the slump of time between fertilizer, gun shots to the gut, and X-files. With everyone shitting on his work, his ex-wife trying to pull him back to her bed, and the love of his life deciding she didn’t give a shit if he loved her or not, basketball games at the gym, two blocks from the Hoover, had been the only thing keeping him sane.
“Ah man, I’m good, I’m good,” the man said, refusing to ask if the seat next to Mulder was free and making himself right at home. “Yeah, I just, uh… You remember Sasha?”
Mulder did, indeed, remember Sasha. Damon’s gorgeous girlfriend didn’t deign them with her presence during pickup games, but when they played in local tournaments back then, she showed up. About 5’9’’ and with legs that could knock you dead, Mulder, already by then lost-puppy-in-love with his partner, could appreciate a beautiful woman.
“Yeah man, you still with her?”
“Yeah um…” Damon paused as the bartender shuffled over. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Another roll of the eyes, and Mulder, if he had any ambition at all these days, would have sent his fist over the bar because hey, some people had issues on Christmas-fucking-eve and the bartender should at least be happy he was getting a tip.
Damon sighed into his glass a minute later and side-eyed Mulder. “Sasha, she uh, she passed last year man. Car accident. It was rough.”
“Jesus, dude,” Mulder looked at the bar in front of him. “I’m sorry.”
“I appreciate it man, thanks, I do, but uh…” Damon took another sip. “I’m good, you know? I’m doing good. Christmas just isn’t the same, is all, and this was a dive of ours back in the day.”
Mulder nodded. “Ah. Yeah, this is right down the street, right, from where you used to coach?”
“Still coach. Am now a counselor and vice principle, in fact.”
Mulder gave him a whistle. “You’re Mr. Do-It-All Big Time now, eh?”
His old friend laughed a little, “Keeps me active.”
Mulder was already a little fuzzy. He was six Jamies in and back when he and Damon had been shooting hoops, six whiskies would have landed him on his ass.
But this wasn’t back in the day and now six whiskies to a heavy lifter didn’t mean a damn thing. It only meant enough to slow his thinking. Just enough that he could realize he was being his usual asshole-kind of self, and had glossed right over the fact that his old friend had just recently lost his wife.
“Man…” Mulder knocked back a small sip, slowing to Damon’s pace. “I don’t uh… I don’t know how you do it. Coming back to this bar, on Christmas no less… it’s gotta uh…” Shut up, you asshole, Mulder’s mind jabbed him, “It’s gotta be fucking hard, you know. Memories and all…” he trailed.
Mulder’s internal dialogue kicked in. ‘You fucking prick dude comes in here for a drink and to remember his wife and you fucking call him out on it and his problems aren’t yours you selfish fucking asshole-‘
Damon burst out in a familiar, baritone laugh and slapped Mulder on the back. “Fuckin’ Fox, you never minced words did you, brother? Yeah man,” another small sip, “Yeah, it’s rough but it’s good here, you know? I can hear her laugh. Gives me a little bit of peace.”
The men sipped and Mulder contemplated.
And then Mulder got black-out fuckin’ drunk.
His cellphone startled him awake.
Mulder sniffed and tried to blink himself to awareness, swinging up on the sofa and scratching his hungover head.
“Yo, Milk. The Uber guy says you’re a real piece of work, and you owe me a 150 for the cleaning fee. The fuck dude, that’s how you repay a 20-year friendship huh? I’ll give you a chance to shirk paying me back, but you’ve gotta come through on your
promise from yesterday. 21, make-it-take-it. 3 pm, Towers Park.”
Mulder groaned and tossed his head back on the couch. He was rumpled and hungover and life just kind of sucked and it was Christmas Day.
His phone vibrated again.
“Hey… Merry Christmas. I hope you’re okay.”
Great. She was sitting around somewhere worried about him like always. ‘You useless piece of shit,’ his mind supplied. ‘Thanks, brain,’ Mulder thought back.
Somewhere along the line, he’d continued right on failing himself and then started failing her. The year had given him a little of his peace back. A little more focus with his job. But Scully still lived an hour away and the house still smelled like cardboard and twenty-day old pizza.
His home office was still stuffed front to back with boxes of shit he’d probably never read.
And he was hungover as hell. He definitely didn’t need to get schooled on a basketball court in the middle of Arlington, ten minutes’ walk from her apartment, on Christmas Day, at 56 years old.
But, at the heart of him, Fox Mulder was a man of honor. And, in a bleary hit of memory he remembered tossing his cookies all over some poor Indian man’s Chrysler interior. While on an Uber ride on his old basketball buddy’s tab. A basketball buddy who was spending the first Christmas Day in over twenty years without his wife.
Fuck it.
Mulder picked up the phone. “See you at Towers.”
His next text took him a little longer. Hungover, Mulder was usually in that vulnerable, begging sort of mood that made him sick the next day and irritated the hell out of her, because it was begging without action. The ‘I’ll get better, but I refuse to try and take care of myself,’ kind of begging.
Mulder sighed and ran his hand over his face, the smell of last night’s Jamieson threatening to make him puke. “Hey… I’m good. Ran into Damon last night, actually. Headed out to a pick-up game. Merry Christmas.”
She didn’t text back. And for the first time in a very, very long time, Mulder was okay with that.
Two weeks and three pick-up games later, and Mulder was getting his ass handed to him again. It was early January and he was completely soaked in sweat, Damon less significantly so.
His friend in-bounded to him and Mulder checked it back, panting. God. He was too old for this shit – getting his ass handed to him by the smaller black man in the middle of winter in the middle of fucking Arlington, Virginia.
“Fox, your game’s gone to shit, son,” Damon muscled past him for an easy lay-up.
“You know I hate it when you call me that.” Mulder checked it back to him. Make-it-take-it was really fucking up his life right about now.
Damon dribbled between his legs and shouldered Mulder again for another easy basket.
Mulder’s temper sparked. “And what the fuck, man? I thought we agreed we weren’t gonna play that kinda shit. I’m too god damn old to try and fuck around out here.”
Damon cracked a laugh. “Fox, we’re both too god damn old. There’s no room for love in basketball, bruh, stop being a pussy.” Damon took the in-bound this time to the edge of the key and popped an easy jumper. “You’ve gotten soft as shit, Milk, who the
fuck are you these days, anyway?”
Mulder hunched at the waist, dripping sweat with his hands on his knees, soaking through the gray wife-beater he’d stripped down to. That was a good fucking question.
Fox Mulder took Dana Scully to the Caribbean in 2008. And he didn’t talk to her about a thing that mattered. About their son. About the fact that he was clawing through records to find him. About the fact that those records, and every paper-trail they led him down, were slowly burying him. About the fact that he was sick with himself.
Sick for letting his son go. Sick for leaving her to let her make that decision. Sick with not being angry enough with her. Sick with being too angry with her. Sick with sitting on that damn couch the day she walked out and not even giving enough of a shit to go after her.
Sick. He was fucking sick. And he needed some help. Who the hell was he?
“I don’t fuckin’ know who I am anymore, man.”
The ball bounced around a few times as Damon tossed it down and walked over to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “I do, bruh. You’re Fox Fuckin’ Mulder!”
Mulder huffed and dropped down to his ass, embarrassed. Jesus. He couldn’t even hold it together playing basketball these days. “I don’t think I’m the Fox Mulder you remember, man.”
“You’re the only white boy to ever whip my ass on the basketball court.” Damon had gone down to one knee. “Now get your ass in shape and get back to giving me some decent competition, or I’m asking for that Uber fee back.”
Mulder cracked a laugh and buried his face in his hands. This fucking life. He swore to god, sometimes.
“For real, Fox. I’ve seen this shit before. I’ve been there. You’re ten blocks from her place, man. Don’t let this shit go until it’s too late.”
Mulder sobered instantly then, and stood up. Grabbed the ball.
The last games, Damon had dominated him, winning by at least eight in every single one. Right now, the score was 15-3, but Mulder was officially pissed off.
“We don’t talk about Scully, you understand?”
Damon held his hands up as he paced backwards to half court.
“15-3. Make-it-take-it, Milk. Calm down, son.” Mulder chucked the ball harder than he’d ever chucked a basketball in his life. The ball went straight through Damon’s hands and thunked him right over his diaphragm.
No reaction. The man recovered easily and pressed quickly up into the paint on the court. Went in for the lay-up. And was hand-jammed straight into his face. Mulder rebounded effortlessly and backcourted, then sunk a jumper.
Damon smiled. “See, Fox Mulder’s still in there, somewhere. Your ball, Milk.”
Mulder still lost that day, 21-16.
But a little fire had been stirred.
Mulder began to take back a little bit of charge in his life. A day at a time. He and Scully chopped through cases, and Mulder asked Skinner if he could get him in for a day with one of the critical incident stress management therapists.
“That’s uh… you’re a little out of their league at this point, Mulder.” Skinner never had been one to mince words, but he handed the younger man a card, one day, over a drink at a nearby bar. “I um… This is the guy I went to. After…” he shook his head back and forth rolling his eyes. After all ‘that shit.’
Mulder understood. After all the Vietnam shit.
At the end of happy hour, Skinner picked up the tab and clapped Mulder on the shoulder. “It takes a man to decide he needs help, Mulder. And she deserves that. You deserve it.”
Therapy can help. And it did. Mulder hit the files, hit the research, and even more importantly, he hit the gym. Because sometimes, a man just needs to work the fuck out. And he stopped hitting the bottle. At least… most of the time.
The pickup games continued and he stopped getting his ass beat as bad, but still hadn’t won a single one.
165 on the bench. Fuck that felt heavy. And fuck those consortium bastards, who’d started this at the very beginning. Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em for hurting his mother, tearing apart his family. Fucking… 185 on the bench… Fuck his dad… both of ‘em. Fuck his mom for not protecting him.
He benched out every single one of those times his father cracked a belt on his ass. Every single time his mother slapped the shit out of him.
Fuck ‘em.
225. Once, twice, three and five times. And you know what?
Fuck her, too. He loved her but god dammit he needed her to be there for their son.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He almost needed help, that last rep. Gasped as he made it up.
Went straight to his cell phone. “Damon, let’s grab a game.”
-----
Damon barreled into him, sending Mulder to his ass and heading straight for the rim.
“You mother fucker!” Mulder’d had it. “I told you I don’t want to fucking play like that!”
Damon shook his head, the sweat flying. “And I told you, you’re a fucking pussy.”
Mulder was up off the blacktop and straight into his friend. And about ten pounds heavier than the last time he’d really gotten up in Damon’s face. “You have no fucking clue, Damon! Shit’s always been so fucking easy for you-“
And for the first time in their long history of basketball, girls in short skirts, and egregious fouls, Mulder saw Damon get well and truly pissed.
“You think it’s fucking easy, Fox?” The man had pushed him back and was in his face. “With my easy fucking job and my easy fucking life. You don’t know shit! There’s nothing about it that’s easy. You want to know easy?”
Mulder went to shove him off and Damon shoved him right back.
“Easy is the woman you love living only two miles away, still alive, you selfish fuck, and not dead! You’ve still got your job. You’ve still got your life. And you’re busy just taking a piss on it.”
Mulder backed off, breathless, gut-struck.
Damon grabbed the basketball. Dribbled it twice. Passed it so hard Mulder almost couldn’t make the catch. “19-19. Fuckin’ make it, take it.”
Mulder took one breath. Two. Stood up a little straighter, and dribbled. Inbounded.
His friend made the same move he’d been making for the past four months. Head fake, shift, between the legs, up the key, straight into Mulder’s body.
Mulder planted and knocked him on his fucking ass.
Rebounded and sunk the jumper.
“20-19… and. I’m sorry. But I’m about to juke the shit out of you.”
Damon wiped the sweat off his face with a tendon-ripped forearm. “You’re such a prick, Milk. Make-it-take-it.”
Mulder drove and his friend had him boxed. Four months ago, he would have taken the jumper and probably bricked it. Today, he pressed straight through and this time, not only did he land Damon on his ass, but the poor man bounced two more feet away after he hit the blacktop.
Mulder had always been a physical player but shit, he didn’t want to hurt anyone. “Fuck, man, I’m sorry.” He walked back to lend a hand, but his buddy was busy cracking up, gasping laughing there on the asphalt. “What?”
“You dirty, hip-checking, foul-making mother fucker. I knew you were in there.” Damon finally accepted his hand and stood up.
Mulder knew, at 56, his old buddy would be feeling it tomorrow. None-the-less, he bit back a shit-eating grin. Mulder had worked a lot, and worked out a lot, and he was a lot better, but he still wanted that little bit of self-assurance. “Yeah? Who?”
Damon wasn’t going to give in to Mulder’s little ploy for ego-stroking. “Shut the hell up and go get your girl, man. It’s only ten fuckin’ blocks.”
Mulder slapped his friend’s hand, low five.
As he walked away, headed in the direction of Scully’s apartment, sweaty t-shirt, matted hair, black asphalt on his face, and all, he heard Damon call out, “Yo, Milk? Who are you?”
He tossed over his shoulder, “You know who I am!”
“Nah, man. Who are you?”
Mulder grinned. “I’m Fox Fucking Mulder, you fuckin’ punk!”
And he was, and his old friend’s laugh chased him down the block.