Felix and Fox, backdated to Tuesday evening

[om_ghost]

Fox accidentally gets a strong impression off of one of Felix's second-hand scarves, Felix gets an adorable nickname, and the boys devise the beginnings of a caper.


Felix frowned into the mirror in the boys' hallway, his fingers tangled up in the boldly-colored scarf he was attempting to tie. The instruction sheet he'd printed off the internet sat on the occasional table beside the mirror. It had seemed so simple when he'd first studied it, but somewhere between his eyes and his hands, Felix was losing the battle with the brightly-patterned silk.

Breathing a sigh, he undid the messy half-knot he'd managed, and let the scarf hang around his neck as he scowled into the mirror. At least it coordinated nicely with the plum button-down shirt and chocolate brown vest he'd decided to experiment with. The scarf itself was loud with color and pattern in just the way Felix liked. He'd been so very excited to find it in the thrift store in Salem Center a few weeks previous, and now he just wanted to wear it all the time. If he could figure out how to tie a cravat knot.


Fox had been standing at the top of the stairs for nearly a minute, watching the red-headed boy fuss and fight with his scarf and keeping his position first out of curiosity, then amusement, then just enough guilt that he hoped Felix wouldn't spot him and realize he'd had an audience. Now that he'd given up, though, he felt he could safely cross the threshold without giving himself away and he did so, pausing as he got closer and saw the boy's expression in the mirror. "Hey, don't sweat it," he said as he idled at the hall entrance, "Most of the guys here probably can't conquer a tie. Let alone a..." He waved his hand in meaningless circles, coming up short on what to call the scarf...at least when it was tied the way that the other boy'd had in mind. "That."


Felix turned and blinked over at Fox, startled for just a moment. He didn't see very well out of his right eye, the blue one, and he'd had no idea he was being observed. It was Fox, though, who was way down at the bottom of Felix's unconscious mental threat list.

"Cravat," he supplied, just barely at enough volume to be heard. "Men wore them before neckties came in fashion. Like, ages ago, I mean." Sort of embarrassed, Felix toyed with the ends of the scarf. "Shinobi was telling me that they wear them at his club. I... kind of think it looks cool."


"Cravat," Fox agreed without missing a beat, as if he'd known the word all along and hadn't given up on finding it just a few seconds before. He leaned past Felix to exam the instructions laid out on the small table. It didn't seem that complicated, not if the boy knew how to fasten a tie, but who knew if he did. He straightened and smiled, his face lighting up with interest. "His 'club'? Let me guess, no plebes allowed." He held out his hand for the scarf. "Want me to try?"


Felix didn't want Fox to see him hesitate, so he smiled faintly instead. Fox was actually younger and a little smaller than Felix himself, so he didn't have to be nervous. And he really did want to see how it looked when the cravat was all tied properly.

"If you think you can," Felix offered slowly, trying not to let his shoulders tense as he moved his hands away from the scarf. "I don't really think Shinobi's going to take me," he clarified as Fox approached. "I just like how the clothes look."


"I prefer to operate under the assumption that I can do something until I prove myself wrong," Fox answered with a not-entirely-serious directness, reaching up for the scarf. He seemed on the verge of saying something else when he touched it, maybe about Shinobi or maybe about something else. He couldn't remember once the psychic imprints emanating from the cloth crashed down on his mind like a ton of bricks. It wasn't just leftover scraps of information or emotion this time, it was memories, the type that engulfed him so deeply that he lost touch with everything else. Including Fox Mulder.

In his mind's eye he saw a man's face, eagerness and anticipation making him look even younger than he was as Fox opened the present that had been the scarf. And he'd loved it, of course he'd loved it because it had come from Anthony, and he'd worn the damn thing for a week straight even thought it hadn't matched anything in his closet. The same face continued to surface in his thoughts, sometimes young like the first time and sometimes older, and each time it was accompanied by more memories threaded with intense emotions. Moving in together. That first trip to New York and that long ride in the car that had gone on and on without either of them minding the crummy stations on the radio or the busted air conditioner. Their wedding and having to tell him when he'd started to get sick--

A shudder ran through the boy's body and his face went slack, his fingers grasping thoughtlessly at the scarf and Felix's shirt as his knees threatened to buckle.


Felix gasped when Fox slumped into his space and the other boy's eyes went totally blank. Or... maybe not blank, the way he stared like he was seeing something else, like Felix did when the astral plane unveiled before his own eyes. It was no more than a second or two, but Felix realized that he wasn't really sure he remembered what Fox's power actually was.

He didn't really think about his own reaction. If he didn't help, they were both going to end up on the floor. In fact, they might anyway, because even though Felix tried awkwardly to grasp at Fox's upper arms and hold them both up, Felix wasn't exactly strong or particularly graceful. He stumbled back as well, his heart suddenly racing in rush of panic and confusion, stammering and wobbling on his feet as he tried to get the younger boy to come around. "Fox? Fox?! Don't... come on... wake up!"


There was no immediate response except for more dead weight against Felix as he twisted and reeled and attempted to keep them both upright. Finally the scarf slid free of Fox's hands and he was grasping nothing but the taller boy's shirt. The invasive flashes of memory stopped as abruptly as they'd started and getting free of them was like coming up for air after being dragged out by the tide. He jolted back from the other boy, wobbled, and caught his angular body in an awkward pose against the wall, looking aware again but dazed and pale. That...had been a bad one. Well, maybe 'bad' was the wrong word, but he didn't have a better one just now.

"Jeeze," he croaked, "Let me guess. Family heirloom?"


Felix was about half a second from a full-on panic attack with Fox so close and clinging on to him like that, but he didn't let go until Fox did. Then he pulled back a step, and pressed his hands together, trying to conceal the trembling in his fingers and the shortness of his breathing from such an unexpectedly close encounter. Fox hadn't meant any harm, even Felix could see that. The younger boy was even more freaked out than Felix himself.

Swallowing hard, Felix shook his head, then shrugged. "I don't... I got it at a thrift store a couple months ago," he explained breathlessly. "What just happened?"


Fox dropped to sit at the base of the wall, preferring to wait for that feeling to pass with his body supported and his knees taken out of the equation. He pushed back his short hair and looked up at Felix, only belatedly realizing that the boy looked like he'd seen a ghost instead of just a psychometric having a fit. He started to wonder why, but for once let it go and answered him instead. "You know what psychometry is?" he prompted, "Object reading?"


If he hadn't known before, Felix had a pretty good idea now. Because Fox had done it, and it seemed like a better idea than wavering on his own feet, Felix sank down into a crouch, and draped his arms around his knees. The scarf fluttered and rested on his folded arms as if asserting its presence in the conversation. Felix was still a little pale, but curious. "Is that your thing?" he ventured. "Your power?"


Watching the scarf with a bit more attention than was probably warranted, Fox gave a small, bobbing nod and smiled wearily. "Yeah. Neat trick for parties, right?" The expression fell under its own weight and he continued without it. "Everything's got psychic imprints left on it. But most of them are...faded or nondescript or less emotionally charged than that. Something I can read without falling into it."


"You fell into this one," Felix extrapolated easily, his brows knitting together in slow understanding. His fingers flicked at the edges of the scarf, and he peered down at it. It didn't seem any different, and regular objects didn't usually leave astral impressions, so Felix couldn't tell anything special about it. "Is it okay to ask what you saw? Is it scary? It looked a little scary."


"Without a parachute," Fox agreed, recalling the memories that he'd encountered within the scarf. Less intense from this side, but still overwhelming; life experience that went well beyond his fourteen years and recollections that even he felt a bit uncomfortable for having invaded. "Scary's not the right word," he admitted and pressed his back against the wall, "I know how to cope with scary. That's just...a lot. Some guy's whole life tangled up in a little piece of cloth."


Felix sat back, even though they were on the hallway floor, and folded his legs comfortably. He slid the scarf off from around his neck, and draped it in his hands, studying it curiously. "You mean the person who owned it before me?" asked Felix, thoughtful. "You never know if something's really vintage at the secondhand store. Is it okay... can you tell me what you saw?"


"Not much to tell," Fox responded with a shrug. He didn't really want to go into it, but given that he'd had the psychic equivalent of a seizure all over Felix, he figured he owed the older boy something. "Whoever he was, he got it from his boyfriend back when he was young. It meant a lot then, but then he kept it for years." He remembered the way the face he'd seen had gone from a young to old, blonde to gray and thinning. He dropped his head back against the wall and glanced up. It was stupid; he'd never actually seen the guy before but 'remembering' him still hurt a little as he tried to shake off the last remnants of the borrowed memories. "Up until he died, I guess. Keep anything for that long and it's bound to build up a history."


It sounded like an interesting story, especially once Felix heard that his scarf had belonged to a gay man. Like him. Of course, he'd known other gay men, but this one sounded normal, and nice, even though he was unfortunately dead. Whoever he was, he had someone who meant a lot to him.

Felix looked down at the scarf, and stopped twisting it. Instead, he began to fold it carefully into neat little rectangles. "At least it isn't haunted," he said softly. "I wonder... if it was so important, why did it end up at the Goodwill?"


Fox shrugged, still attempting to distance himself from the memories in his head and approach the question as objectively as he could. "Could be that it didn't mean as much to the other guy as it did to him. Could be that he's dead too," he observed speculatively, then added almost as an afterthought, "Could've been an accident." Something about that struck him precisely where he hadn't wanted it to. His parents had talked about getting rid of some of Samantha's belongings once. He'd flown off the handle because things like that could happen so easily. And because he still wanted to bring her back. Not that that'd be a choice for Anthony.


"Could've," Felix agreed softly, the quiet between the two boys seeming to hint heavily that neither of them thought the scarf had ended up in a secondhand shop on purpose. If Felix had been able to keep anything of Joline's after she was gone, he knew without a doubt he would never have let it go, no matter how many years or how much crap happened to him. How could he keep it, knowing that, somewhere, a man who missed his boyfriend might be wondering what happened to it?

"Do you think..." he ventured, hesitantly, "... is there any way we could figure out who it belonged to? Did you... see enough?"


This hadn't occurred to Fox and he blinked, glanced at Felix, and then looked purposefully forward again as he tried to convince himself that he couldn't. That he had more important things to do than hunt down the potentially dead or callous or careless loved ones of a man he'd never met. But he thought of Samantha and felt guilt drop in his stomach like a stone. Nobody deserved that sort of regret. "Maybe," he said at last, "But you might have to let me go another round with the scarf. There's a lot there. I probably missed some when it got the drop on me like that."


Felix seemed to perk up a little when Fox seemed at least somewhat amenable to the suggestion, but he also noted the other boy's pause for thought. "Maybe not right now," he suggested, his tone lilting up in a question. "Looked like it took a lot out of you."


"Not right now," Fox agreed. The memories were fading, but a dull ache was settling in and he had no desire to push his luck. He dug one hand into the pocket of his jacket, came up with a pair of latex gloves, and pulled them on before holding out one hand expectantly. As if he were requesting something far more noxious than an old silk scarf. "I'll try again tonight. Unless you're still determined to wear it."


Felix's hesitation before handing over the scarf was brief, but honestly out of concern for Fox. Seeing the other boy freeze up and... go away like he had, that had been startling and disturbing. Felix didn't want to unwittingly cause that to happen again. With great care, he placed the folded-up scarf into Fox's hand, making sure that he had hold of it before releasing it again.

Crookedly, he smiled a little bit. "It's okay. I kind of don't feel like it's mine any more."


Noting the care with which Felix handled the scarf (and mistaking it for something more sentimental than it was), Fox slipped the folded cloth carefully into his shirt's front pocket. He didn't so much as tense this time. The gloves had done their job. "Everything's got a history, Fix," he pointed out and shrugged, "Wait until we find this guy, or don't, before you give it up."


Felix had never had a nickname before -- at least, not a nice one, and definitely not a cute one like that. It made him want to laugh, when he hadn't felt much like laughing in a few weeks. That would have endeared Fox to him even if Felix hadn't already had an inkling that the other boy struggled with his power about as much as Felix struggled with his own.

"Everybody turns up on the Internet," he noted, with a small wrinkle of his nose. That was a subject he had some experience with.


"Somehow I don't think old, gay, and missing a scarf is going to get us very precise Google hits," Fox said with a lopsided smile, noticing that subtle tick and tucking it away in the back of his mind as something potentially meaningful. No reason to ask a question he doubted the other boy would answer, though. Instead, he thought back to those flashes of memory, pursed his lips in thought, and then added, "His name was Anthony. But that's not enough to start digging with." He patted his front pocket. "Maybe after Round Two."


"Anthony," Felix repeated quietly. Knowing the man's name changed things, somehow, and made him real. With a nod, he resolved himself to finding the scarf's original giver -- even though he knew it was going to be a grown-up man, and Felix might even have to talk to him. It was important, even though he couldn't say why.

"You probably want to go and rest, huh?"


Fox waved one gloved hand absently at the suggestion. His head still hurt and he still looked drained, but he didn't seem willing to give in or to admit it. "No rest for the wicked," he said and shrugged, "Right?" After a moment, though, he did begin to stand. "But I probably should get back. I've got research waiting and it isn't going to do itself." Research for Felix and for himself. The scarf was probably at the top of the pile now, but there were four or five potential abductions that had popped up in his searches that he wanted to dig further into. It could end up being a long night.


"You don't seem wicked to me," Felix noted, as he started to unfold himself and clamber up to his feet, all knees and elbows and awkwardness. Though he'd heard the phrase, he knew it was just one of those things people said. If it were true, Felix himself would never get any sleep.

"We can... maybe talk after class tomorrow? Maybe one of the computer kids could help us out," he added, though his words drifted off into shyness again.


"No rest for the obsessive, then," Fox corrected accommodatingly, taking only a moment to consider Felix's request. More time would be better, but a day was doable and keeping the anxious older boy waiting unnecessarily seemed a bit mean. He nodded. "Tomorrow. If I've got enough to go on, we can ask Tessa for some insight." If the girl didn't think his other pursuits were a complete waste of time, he doubted she'd turn her nose up at this.


Felix did his best not to balk at the mention of Tessa. He hadn't talked to her since she'd found out something horrific about him, but the truth was, there was no one better to ask for computer help. Well, he'd figure out how to handle that later. He stepped back, glancing toward his room. "Don't let it, y'know, give you a headache or anything," Felix amended, somewhat belatedly expressing concern for the other boy.


An uncharacteristically soft smile touched Fox's face, but he drew it into something more akin to a smirk before Felix looked back at him. It wasn't every day that somebody worried about him. "I won't," he promised noncommittally, then shrugged, "Or I won't tell you about it. Either way. My room work okay for the rendezvous?"


Turning back to Fox, Felix nodded, and let himself smile a little. "Sure. Meet you there." His smile strengthened, with a hint of energy that teased at the edges of his lips, turned a simple expression into something beautiful. "I'm kind of excited," he confessed, then lifted a pale hand in a half-awkward wave. "See you then."