From: Jaime Lyn <Leiaj21@hotmail.com> Date: 26 Feb 2003 23:28:24 -0800 Subject: New: How To Do Like This: (Repost) Source: atxc Title: How to Do Like This Author: Jaime Lyn Email: Leiaj21@hotmail.com OR UCFGuardgirl@aol.com Spoilers: Post 'Requiem,' pre 'This Is Not Happening.' Rated: PG. For some language. And angst. Beware the angst. Archive: Sure, why not? If you want it, just let me know. Disclaimer: Poor Scully and Mulder. I don't own em', but I've got the Barbies. Author's Note: Trying to get back into this thing we call fic, and doing some experimentation with narrative at the same time. This was originally a non-XF piece, (that I started work on a few months ago) but after I got halfway through, I realized it might work well as a Post-Requiem piece, Scully POV. So that is what I did. I rarely write angst, and never in this particular POV-tense, so it was a little scary, but there you go. I thought I might challenge myself. It's good for the soul. And so is feedback. So if you like, let me know. <g> Sybs - you get the next one, when I'm a little less lazy. Thank you for everything you do for me. :-) ----------------- How To Do Like This By Jaime Lyn ------------------- Take a shower without water; his soap is sunken, pale, waiting in the porcelain claw, unused since the spring, hidden behind an overturned shampoo bottle. You don't need cleansing, but you like the cold tile in here, the solitude, the powdery scent of this room without a window, the way you lock it all up when you're alone in the shower. You touch the wall, draw your hands down; in some crumbling part of your cerebrum, you're positive this tile still smells of his soap. All powdery and clothes-line fresh, like you'd hung him out to dry. Close your eyes, your mind a fog, a vanquished memory: his hands on your shoulders, down your back, between your legs, toes nudging your ankles apart, his lips at your ear, whispering, "Spread em, Agent Scully." He made his worst jokes when you were naked. He said you wouldn't run from his jokes naked, not with your hair spiked in a devilish Mohawk, one leg half-shaved, soap in trails down your nude back. He'd confuse you by misdirection. He'd say, "Do zombies rule, Scully?" His hands on your breasts, massaging -- cleansing, just being thorough, only paying attention to detail, he said -- although he had an affinity for bizarre types of bullshit. "What, Mulder?" Ribbons of color dancing in the sluggish parts of your brain. "Do Zombies rule?" he'd repeat. "Huh?" "Of corpse they do." He'd laugh. "Get it? Corpse?" Your hand at your forehead, mimicking a headache. You'd think, what a beautiful, brilliant fool, he is. "I'm laughing inside, really." His mouth on your neck. "No, you're not." You'd turn, and face him, and splay a hand through his dripping hair. "No, I'm not." And then your lips against his, the hiss of water rushing, clinging, skipping between you. You'd whisper into his mouth, "But stop me if you've heard this one." Breathless. "Stop me if you've heard this one." * * * Replay the same old words in your head: he is gone, he is gone, he is gone. Tell your boss, "We will find him." Tell your new partner, "We will find him." Tell the authorities: "We will find him." Straighten your suit, lift your chin, do your work, nod seriously, put one foot in front of the other, just like this: nothing bothers you. Secretly, you're terrified, shaking inside yourself. His nameplate you hid in the desk. You couldn't look at it. Looking at it was like looking at him, and you're terrified to look upon him now, terrified that he's dead, or that he's still alive, that he's screaming for you; he's being maimed and tortured and he's screaming: "Scully, where the hell are you and why haven't you found me?" You're terrified because you are a coward. You just are. A coward. A COWARD. Think you're going crazy. Tell yourself: "We will find him." Take the nameplate home; it's the only part of him you can keep to yourself, to imagine he is still alive. No matter what. No matter what. No matter -- Don't cry. Don't ever cry. * * * Make a list of ways to die painfully: toaster-oven in the bathtub, accidental fall onto a rusty back-hoe, gun to the stomach, studded belt as a noose, forks in the eyes, barbeque-grill torch to your most expensive suit. It passes time. It wastes ink. You make a lot of these lists, and justify to yourself that suicide is simply a repressed form of frustration, of self-expression. Sometimes you laugh about this for no reason. You'd never kill yourself, but holy shit do you need the release. * * * Open the blinds. Close the blinds. Open the blinds again. A vacuous, dark sky opens up with thunder: rain whipping at the window, tappity-tap, taunting like beads of water off his shoulders, dripping down his arms, soap mimicking his shape against the glass shower door. How long since you saw him last? No, don't even think it. Read over the list again: Toaster oven in the bathtub. Good grief. What the hell is wrong with you, imagining yourself drowning, going up in sparks like a firecracker? What were you thinking? What is wrong with your head? Crumple the list into a ball and toss it. * * * Imagine miming out a rain dance in the center of the living room; perhaps there's something similar to those old Anasazi rain dances in some rainforest edition of Mulder's old Kama Sutra volumes. Some pretzel-twisted sex dance for Simians? A courting ritual for Big Foot? Maybe you should look this up. Mulder would find it funny. * * * You've begun to bite the skin around your fingernails. Your thumbs are puckered, red, raw; your hands are evidence of failure. You're punishing yourself quietly, and not entirely sure what pattern of deranged, compulsive behavior nail biting falls into. Perhaps you should look up behavioral disorders in the DSM? Sit on the couch. No good. Move to the kitchen table. Not here, either. Go to the counter, the floor at the base of the coffee table, the desk where he used to prop his feet up and pound out 'All Along the Watchtower' while he waited for the mainframe to boot up. Used to drive you crazy, him and that fucking song. All the time with that fucking song. You hear his voice in your head, constantly: "What happened when the SAC fell into the copy machine, Scully?" "You know, Mulder, you still smell like popcorn from that hideous Hollywood premiere --" "I've hidden your clothes, Sister Spooky. You can't run from me now. You might as well indulge my brilliance." "I can't get to the soap. Move your arms up -- do like this --" "He was beside himself, Scully. Get it? Beside himself?" * * * Stare at the computer, and blink, and watch the minutes change over, blank as a pale-pink post-it. Eight-fifty-five. Eight-fifty-six. Eight-fifty-seven. Five people have just died somewhere in the world, and seven others have disappeared. You are now absolutely certain that birth is an indulgent act, and life an ineffectual effort at best, and death, then, the ultimate release from personal failure. The passage of scientific theory in front of you says, "Lack of appetite, lack of sleep, lack of desire to do what previously brought fulfillment. In some extreme cases - " Throw Mulder's DSM at the wall, aggravated. What do they know of post-traumatic stress, anyway? Of love? Of faith? You can still feel these things, and you do; You're healthy. You're fine. You're sad, but you're pregnant; it happens. You'll fall, or trip, or stumble, but you'll get up. You always have. It's not a big deal. Say out loud, "Mulder, I need your help." * * * Wonder: what happened to you? What happened to him? Imagine him in a car, your name a pounding sensation repeating in his head. He's on his way up to Skyland Mountain to make the rescue, his tie askew, his under-eye skin sagging with un-sleep, his car swerving across two lanes of traffic; it's narcissistic of you to believe he'll stop at nothing to get to you, but you know the truth is he will. Because in the end, his beliefs saved you. The strength of his beliefs saved you. And here you are, and what have you done for him? What? More wonders: Is he in pain? Does he wish? Does he sleep, did he ever? What about when you went missing? Did he dream? Did he drive? Did he stare at his hands, and imagine cutting them off -- as you have -- failures that his hands must have been, to not properly serve him when he needed them to? Did he repress? Did he think like this? Did he do like this every night, this wishing and praying and pleading and silent screaming, over and over? * * * Envision yourself in the car to Skyland Mountain. It's good to be in the car, beside him for once in this fantasy, urging him to pull over; you're never leaving him, not ever, not ever, not -- Get suddenly sick. Trip over your own feet, your own two fucking feet, on your way in to the bathroom, and land on the floor. This is it; you must be dying. Morning sickness is going to kill you. You can't even move now. How can you get up and search for him when you can't even move? Realize you won't make it to the bathroom after all, and grasp the rim of the trash bin, coughing from the pit of your stomach. You see colors, and then stars, and then your old list, a crumpled ball on top of the pile. Squeeze your eyes shut, thinking you'll forget the list and the pounding rain and the morning sickness and the terrible headaches, and you'll focus instead on Skyland Mountain and Mulder. Poor, harried, despairing Mulder and the restless skin beneath his beautiful eyes. Determined, self-destructive Mulder and the road, the truth, a hundred tomorrows dark ahead of him. Selfish, fucking egomaniacal Mulder, and his precious quest, a priority above all else; what was he thinking, driving without sleep? Disappearing without a trace? Always something completely out there with him. Always some goddamned motherfucking thing. Gasp at your own insensitivity. Gag a few times. Bang your palm on the bin. Apologize, even though he can't hear. Or can he? Is he listening? Is he a part of the air now, the starlight? Your own brain is frightening you. Whisper, "It's not true. We will find him." * * * Hear his voice again, a reckoning: "I won't do this, Scully. Not without your okay." His mouth at the crown of your head, lips pressing: an askance. "So, how to do this right?" You swallow and realize the swallow would have been a sob, in another life. You realize he has to go, he has to look for his ship in the sky; it has to be done. This is his fate, his dark road, and you love him for being this person, and you hate him for being this person, and you hate yourself because you used to be able to cry. And so you say, quietly, just like this: "Promise me you'll be careful." He murmurs, "I'll be careful." "Promise me you'll come back." He murmurs, "I'll come back." "Promise me you won't forget I'm still here. And if you do something foolish, so help me Mulder, I'll kill you myself." A chuckle into your hair. The chuckle masks something else. Pain? Maybe. Is he sobbing? Possible. He mumbles, "You know, Scully, you really suck at 'I love you.'" Something tugs at you, but you ignore it. Mumble back, "I don't see you doing any better." * * * More lists you never write down: Want to kill Skinner for losing him. Want to kill Krycek for being at the right place at the wrong time. Want to kill him for leaving you. Want to kill yourself for thinking hurtful thoughts, and for not going along with him in the first place, and for thinking I love you, and for admitting I Love you, and for letting him go, because clearly, it's your fault, it's all your fault, and he needs you to think in straight lines now, to be stronger than you are, and Jesus, can't you see that? * * * Grind your teeth: breathe in, breathe out: another dizzy spell: Christ, that's the fifth. Get back in your own head, and dream. Open the door and get in the car with Mulder; he's on his way to Skyland Mountain, he's just going to drive and drive if you don't stop him and tell him it's okay to stop. Whisper: "Mulder? Mulder, it's me." His hands around your neck, shoulders trembling with relief. This is all that matters now. You and he in the car. You and he holding one another, the twisted road a series of spider veins behind you -- both of you with eyes closed against the dark, just like this. Grasp his hand, tell him it's all right. You were never gone, never gone at all; you can go home now, you can be free. "Oh God," he says. "Oh God, oh God." He touches your cheek with damp fingers. "Are you real, Scully?" Ask him, "Are you?" * * * Your stomach contracts, and you heave from somewhere outside your own body. You are not here; you were never here. Nothing is real: repeat this to yourself as often as necessary. Nothing is real. Steady your legs, so you can get up off this God damned floor already. Enough of the defeat, of the self-pity: clean up this mess. Dump your shirt in a pile on the mat in the closet. You're exhausted; it's been a long day, a long month, a long year. Take a shower. Hear his voice again, echoing off tile walls and contained by the fogged, glass shower door: "No, seriously. This one's good. I got it off a popsicle stick at lunch. Why don't sharks eat clowns, Scully?" "Sharks do eat clowns, Mulder. Or at least, on occasion they do. According to X-File number 456-G88-7, a clear case of -- " "If you ruin the punch-line of one more joke, I swear to God, I will blind you with the soap." Gasp for air, and sob into the spray of water, realizing for the first time how truly cavernous the shower is. * * * Open your window a crack. Wonder where the rain has disappeared to. Call your mother just before bed, and wipe your face roughly with a tissue; never let em' see you cry, is what you always say (Not that there's anyone here to see you, now.) Turn off the light, one hand over your stomach, and lay back, listening to your own breathing. Mumble to yourself, "Two mummies walk into a bar, the first mummy with a dog under one arm..." Fall asleep before the punchline. Imagine life is like Skyland Mountain, the long hike to the top, the jagged cliff, the rocky soil, the deep forest black and saturated with gnarled trees, complicated roots; you're all confused by your own logic now, but this is fine. There's Mulder at the top. He's asking you about the view, about the meteor shower. What's this? There's a meteor shower tonight? Yes, wait -- you can see it now. A streak of light jutting across the sky. But you're not really looking at the sky. You can still hear your own breathing. Say, "How beautiful," and mean it. Remember: you're dreaming now. Let yourself cry and think, it's okay. You're only dreaming. Only dreaming. Only now. This is all. ------ End. Like I said, a weird one. Something to get me back into the fic thing, I suppose, because I've been unable to write ANYTHING for awhile. Months, even. But writing really does a body good, so I'm going to try harder. As Scully says in 'Memento Mori', "I have things to finish, to prove - to family, to myself - but for my own reasons." Thanks for reading.