Lines by Jesemie's Evil Twin jesemie@hotmail.com Disclaimers: Not mine. Honest. Keywords: A, M/S UST Summary: A post-"Biogenesis" residue remains. Not set directly after the ep, but weeks/months later in some odd alt-universe (of course). Thanks to: Jill, for making me promise; Shari, for getting teary; and Liza, for the tremendous suggestions, shedding iguana laments, and general lovely snarkiness. Your help is indispensable, ladies. Thank you. Feedback: Please and thank you. jesemie@hotmail.com ~~~ Because even inside the diner's restrooms the light is harsh, squinting fluorescent from a half-warped ceiling fixture, casting a distinctly unnerving pallor over his features and almost x-raying his arms (he swears he can see his veins, spiked pale blue through his skin), he cannot shake the clammy sensation that this trip is not going to go well. The roads on which the Gunmen have sent him and Scully unofficially exploring for the weekend are not smooth-surfaced; he and Scully have hit dirt and gravel and weed-covered back roads of cracked blacktop, snaking roads lined with too many secret entrances, like closed but unsleeping eyes. He feels he is being watched now, more than usual, and the urge to steal away in their tourist-dented rental, to drape Scully's jacket around her shoulders and shake her hand and leave her with all the credit cards at a nice interstate rest stop, one with police officers leaning against their cars and sipping from sweating cans of diet cola while discussing last night's metal-shredding fifteen car pileup, to find a motel at the last dead end and sleep until he can no longer dream, is stronger than he can stomach. There are sticky lines of dinner, and lunch, along the rim of the toilet bowl to prove this. Soft knocking and her voice. "Mulder?" Scully asks from the hallway, where it is hollow and greasy and neon-lit by beer signs, "Are you okay in there?" The genuine concern in her tone makes him glance in the mirror, makes him stare hard into his own eyes, because he too would like a response to her question, and because he's not at all sure he knows the answer. ~~~ He sits in a corner, Scully opposite him, the interviewee, Meryl Kincaid, to Scully's right and his left. Two windows frame Scully's body, showing different views of the same littered yard. Meryl is discussing the difficulties with cross-referencing alien hybrids and the large number of local lobbyists for the tobacco industry, but she is certain her eventual findings will set corporate America in a spin. And she adores Langly, finds him hilarious. Mulder cannot recall ever seeing any of the Gunmen actually laugh. Meryl exhales swarms of bitter smoke between breathless tales of encrypted documents on Phillip Morris letterhead. Scully's nose twitches, but she doesn't cough. Mulder wants to cough. He really wants to kick out one of the windows but he's willing to wait for a moment that would be considered more appropriate. Say, just after he's wrenched the cigarette from Meryl's hand. Just after he has reached into Scully's skull and scraped out the last trace of cancer with his fingernails. Where, he wonders, did that grim image come from? A long time has passed since the cancer appeared. Remission has become Cure in his mind, gospel etched on microchip, despite the obvious textual contradictions. He has been willing to believe in that much at least, and his faith has been tested several times. Still, salvation has continued. When will this god die? Scully is watching him, her eyes shielding a kind of concern he will not allow himself to call pity. Then, something in her expression unwinds, softens, and her irises are darker than he remembers. Meryl is talking, taking drags, tapping one foot. A computer downloads network database diatribes behind her, making squirming, gurgling, drowning noises. Scully has tipped her head to the side, elongating the line of her neck, and her hair falls forward across her cheek, a streak of red he can never define. Colorblind, he pretends it is not in any way similar to blood or rust or the slow fire scorching the horizon tonight. Through one pane of glass, the sky is bruised with clouds. Through the other, the world seems like a line of sparks, each bursting with a crackle audible only to him. He flinches, and is surprised to see Scully startle as well. Their expressions meet, and they both look away. An ember remains though, and Mulder thinks of having once grabbed a hot skillet barehanded and of the kinds of burns that tingle curiously for so long you don't realize until too late the sensation is pain. ~~~ She has asked him to stay, a quiet thing making him blink. The motel parking lot is sectioned with children's chalk lines. He wonders which side he is expected to stand on. Scully scrapes her foot along the curb in front of their rooms. She does not appear convinced of his loyalty. "I'm not going anywhere, Scully," he says. "Good," she replies. "I wouldn't want to have to hunt you down like a dog for ditching me." Wry words, twisted by the curve of her mouth. "I'm not going anywhere," he repeats, for his own benefit. "Where would you go if you could?" she asks, almost smiling. He shakes his head. "It isn't possible to get there. No maps." He usually likes being vague with her, watching her translate the pauses between his phrases into the science of her own vocabulary, but he's suffering from a lack of precision this time. What he wants to say cannot be spoken. "Where do you want to go?" Scully asks again, insistent. "Inside," he says with forced cheer, substituting a grin for a certain pang of dread scrolling inside him. "Okay," she says slowly. "We'll go inside." She brushes her fingertips over her forehead, over the small strip between her eyebrows. The gesture is quick and light, seemingly unnoticed by her, reflexive, but he wishes to duplicate the movement of her fingers with his own, to erase the inky lines he sees plainly, stark crimson on her stark white skin. He is being watched; he's certain of it. There are eyes waiting for this contact, this proof. He must not permit himself the failure of weakness. He will not touch her unless he has to, unless he knows he will not leave a scar. The few folded maps he has memorized in his life do not tell him where to walk, but they admonish him to step carefully here, where the roads are clearly unmarked. ~~~ Scully has wrapped her arms around his waist and is pulling him backwards, against her slight, soft frame, when he realizes he isn't asleep, had never gone to sleep. "It's okay, you're okay, it's okay," she is saying quietly, spreading her palms flat to his stomach. When he opens his eyes, they are both sitting on the floor, his hands clutching at her legs. He twists around a bit to see her. She looks worried, exhausted, her eyes like wet imprints. He feels heavy, as though his weight is crushing Scully to the wall behind her, splintering her, pinning her. He doesn't remember - or, wait, maybe he does. No. There is the memory of memory, a watercolor layer of recollection. Yelling, and traffic noises, horns blaring. Phone lines sag with a garland of filthy birds. Molted feathers drift, and swarm, and blot the sun. Girls are dancing on a sidewalk, their bare feet tanned and callused, toes stained grass-green, and they link arms for a series of chorus-line kicks and giggles. The radio is thrown off in the driveway, bleeding musical waves. A man ties his bootlaces, one foot propped on a jagged piece of rock just below the peak of the mountain. The air is thin, bitter. Dials in a booth are being spun, coordinates adjusted, reset. Added electricity swarms to a centralized vibration, and the oil splits from the water, multiplies like bacteria. Scully is strapped to a table, her skin peeled back to reveal recesses of disease, bone snapped, limbs torn at terrible angles. Mulder grabs Scully's hands, not acknowledging her gasp of surprise. He pulls away from her and lunges forward, on his feet before she can stop him. She follows him, darting to wrap her strong hands around his wrist. "It isn't real, Mulder," she says, digging in her nails. "You're here, with me. Let it go." "I can't stop it," he whispers. "Something's triggered it, I can't stop it." He knows they might see all of this, everything. They will not let him die. They will make him watch. He can't. He can't. Scully is wire and heat, phosphorescence coiled and sprung, and she will not release his wrist. She is a line tying him, and he remembers all the dreams of falling, of waking before hitting ground and believing he would die if he didn't awaken. He gently turns Scully around, her back to his chest. He brushes her pajama top up, grazing her tattoo. She is already marked here, and they won't be able to see the brands his touch leaves. They will not be able to prove he has touched her. He breathes into her hair and watches his stinging fingers trace the lines on this part of her body, where she is hotter than memory, than flame. ~~~ Crisp keyboard clicks punctuate the cell-phone chat. Frohike's typing and asking about Meryl Kincaid. "Was she a babe or what, Mulder?" "Yeah, Mulder, tell," Langly says on the speaker. "We have sources who say she's prettier than the average paranoid chick." "And she'd certainly have a lot of competition there, wouldn't she?" Mulder mumbles, watching Scully stalk the lobby of the car rental agency. The conversation continues; the Gunmen are understandably disappointed that Meryl turned out to be just another-- Just another what? Believer? He's not interested in Meryl or her beliefs. "Listen, I gotta go. We're driving back today." "Driving?" Frohicke responds. "What happened to your plane tickets?" Mulder doesn't answer for a minute. At the counter, Scully signals him by waving her keys. "Change of plans. I'll talk to you when we get back." By the time Mulder reaches the car, Scully has usurped the driver's seat. She hasn't said five words to him all day. They're driving home by unstated agreement. A plane would be pushing their luck. Mulder takes the passenger side without comment. The roads singe his vision, and he lets the white noise of wheels and wind drone him to sleep. He feels Scully smooth the hair behind his left ear, but he does not stir. When the car's motion stills, it must surprise him unconsciously, because he flips from sleep the instant after Scully turns off the car. He sits up straighter, investigating the stiffness of his spine, and looks out the windshield. He almost laughs. The sign two feet from the front bumper of the car states, in orange spray paint on plywood, No Trespassing, No Outlet. Mulder glances over at Scully, who glances over at him, and both of them smile. For just a second, they smile. End of the line. ~~~ He's never encountered a sidewalk in the woods. It is a sidewalk of crumbled concrete, cone-shaped anthills, and tall thistle slinking its way around the bank of a creek. A collapsing house squats on the other side, its walls leaning away from and toward each other, like playful classmates in a picture snapped before the teacher called for order. The clapboard is pine green; the floor was once amber tongue-and-groove. A weather-polished wooden bridge, shining in skewering sunlight, links the sidewalk to the house's step stones. "Where are we, Scully?" Mulder thinks they have hiked nine miles. He has sacrificed an expensive suit jacket and a hideous silk tie to the forest. Scully is missing her shoes and pantyhose. Her toes are currently pollen-yellow, courtesy of a patch of mustard weed. She yanks on his elbow and points beyond the house. "Up there," she says. "'Up there' what?" he asks, amused at her somewhat child-like lack of explanation. "We lived up there, at the top of the hill." Mulder notices that the edge of sky is higher than it had been when they left the car. It seems very steep. His lungs hurt, in a good way. "Scully, where are we?" She studies him, as though it had not occurred to her that he didn't know what state they were in, much less what county, what forest. "Pinwhistle. Indiana." "We're in Pinwhistle, Indiana? You lived someplace called Pinwhistle, Indiana?" "For a few weeks. It was really more of a between-homes kind of home. I was nine." "Who lived here?" he says, gesturing to the old house. She keeps walking. When he pays attention, he sees she paints a trail, a streak stained in the forest. She skips over the bridge, leaving a line of shapely footprints in enchanted dust. "Elves. Gnomes. An old witch woman. Three stray cats; one missing a tail, and one missing an eye, and one whose ears were chewed off at the tips. And two rabbits, named Rosie and Tillman." Scully has gotten ahead of him and is circling the house to climb the hill. He races to catch up, dodging an art-deco fortress of rotting logs. "Rosie? Tillman? Elves? You believed in elves?" She grins over her shoulder, a mischief-hungry grin he likes instantly; it is blade-sharp and utterly protective. "I had two older siblings who could be persuasive and scary. I believed a lot of things a little bit." "I'm not sure I believe you," Mulder says, stretching for her arm when she pauses to sneeze. They are almost to the top, but he does not want her to reach it first. "Why not?" She's still grinning; he can hear it. "Who ever heard of only two rabbits, Scully?" She laughs now, and he thinks, with wonder, that he is probably the only person who can hear her. He hopes he is. He wants this as his, fiercely. They may be able to see him, but here, in this forest, he has a feeling they cannot see her. She is not theirs anywhere, not really, but especially here. They cannot have her here. Scully rarely gives away fragments of herself, but when she does today, those pieces belongs to the hill, and the magical house, and him. ~~~ The motel room would be like all other motel rooms, too uniform in its cheap mediocrity, were it not for the spit-wiped brass plate on the door, hung below the peephole. "The Management of Ollie's Motel wishes you a pleasant, safe visit in Dead End, Indiana." Scully has taken a bath, so her toes are no longer yellow. Mulder silently regrets this as he clears dinner wrappers and napkins, ketchup packets, salt, and crumbs off a three-legged coffee table. "See you in the morning," Scully says, opening the door to go to her own room. "Think you'll be able to sleep?" She hesitates, and Mulder considers saying no. "Sure. I'm okay. Goodnight." The voices are mute and the eyes are tired; he can feel the strain, the struggle, to fight against rest, like being caught in fishing line. He thinks he can push them down with a small effort. He pushes, but the mattress is lumpy. He pushes. There is unforeseen resistance. He sits up, feet down. The carpet scratches. The walls tremble. Outside, it's all dying, leaking, crashing. The noise swoops so suddenly he does not have time to scream. It doesn't matter; they scream for him. By the time he's across the hall and has drug Scully from her bed, her pillow is soaked red and her pulse flutters like eyelashes before going explosively still, before he remembers to scream. ~~~ The wet washcloth is rough, the temperature of tears, and he lets her wipe his face and hands. He's shaking, and he thinks he ought to do something about that. The bathtub is porcelain ice against his back. They are sprawled on the floor again, on mint colored mini-tiles flecked with brown. Scully helps him stand. Though the noise has vanished, and the feeling of being stalked is strangely absent, he cannot accept that her bed is not hiding a slick of blood. She leads him to the chair by the dresser but he will not sit in it. She sighs. When she sits, he kneels between her legs before she can close them, their faces level, and he feels her start to protest. She stops at his expression. She brushes back his hair, and he is fairly certain under other circumstances she'd be checking his pupils with a penlight. "What happened?" she asks in her throaty, sad voice. Mulder shakes his head. "Don't know." "Mulder," Scully begins. "It's over, Scully. For now." "How do you know?" Incredulous, scared. Her pulse is potent. He can feel it thrum in her veins. He hadn't known until he said it. He doesn't know why it's true. It is. They aren't watching. They wait, but their eyes are closed. Scully's palms are mapped with lines he has not yet memorized. He needs to do that, he thinks, leaning into her touch. It is a very important thing to learn. "You want anything? Some water?" "Everything I can't have." He is matter-of-fact and logical. At another time, she might be proud of him. She must not be listening. "You didn't eat much earlier. Maybe you'd want an apple, a snack. There's one in the car." "No," he assures, not touching her. He needs to go back to his own room now. She probably wants to go to sleep, is just being nice out of duty. "Anything?" she asks again more quietly, still stroking his hair, and he realizes how close their bodies really are, how few inches hover between them. His eyes do not escape hers. He very carefully cups her jaw in his hand and traces her soft, dream-warm mouth with his thumb. He does not leave a mark. Oh, he thinks, oh. Yes, he thinks, there is something I want. Yes. ~~~ An End.