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THE HOLLOW MAN (1/5) *** NC-17 ***
by Madeleine Partous
email: partous@total.net
WARNING: Some readers may find this story disturbing. While comments are
welcome pro and con, as always, please don't flame me for the contents.
Summary: Mulder faces his nemesis -- and it's not what he
expected.
Okay to archive.
Mild 4th-season spoilers.
Category: Angst, MSR
***** Rating: NC-17 for disturbing imagery, violence and
explicit sex. Not appropriate for younger readers. *****
************************************************************
DISCLAIMER: Fox & Chris Carter own the concepts and the
characters. The estate of T.S. Eliot owns the poem. Used
without permission and with no nefarious intent. The rest of
this foolishness is my own.
************************************************************
DEDICATION: For Pat
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Part I: As Wind in Dry Grass
Fox Mulder stirred and choked down a groan.
Christ. It was as dark as a tomb in here. Wherever that was.
What the hell had happened to him anyway?
The last thing Mulder remembered was that he'd dropped
Scully off at her place and watched her compact body sway
towards the front door of her building.
He'd watched her like this on countless nights and it still gave
him a quiet thrill, one that ran through him like low voltage to
his groin.
It was the one indulgence he allowed himself where she was
concerned. The only time he permitted his thoughts about her
to roam south.
In those few moments, he let himself envisage her under him,
over him, writhing, her breasts dewed with sweat, her hair
wild as she whipped her head from side to side.
Just a few seconds. It was all he could afford.
And every time she'd stop for a brief moment at her door and
look back with what he could swear was an ironic smile as she
fluttered a few fingers at him.
As if she knew.
As if she could read his mind.
God knows he wouldn't have put it past her.
But he always just smiled and waited until she'd unlocked the
door before he drove off, feeling like a teenager on a first date
that had always been a first date that would always be a first
date.
He wondered sometimes what went through her mind when she
kept the car and he was the one who looked back at her from
his door.
This time was a bad time because he was still thinking about
her when he unlocked his apartment door and he never did
that except when...
Mulder suspected it was time to spend an evening in a bar
again.
And that was the last thing he remembered before the world
greyed and blackened.
Now he was lying in the dark and he was grateful for the dark
because quite frankly he'd never had a worst headache in his
life.
It was unbelievable. Most darkness was never this complete.
He closed his eyes; it made no difference, no difference at all.
Except it made his head feel marginally better.
Mulder listened.
No sound. No sound at all.
Wait. Except -- something that sounded like a rustle in the
distance.
His eyes snapped open and he winced.
Very faint. But was it getting louder?
A wave of nausea washed through him. He suddenly realized
he was straining to hear, which only intensified the pounding
in his skull.
He felt bile rise and retched drily, moaning as he rolled over
on his side to clutch his knees.
Great. He'd gone fetal already and he'd only been conscious
for minutes.
Mulder smiled weakly.
What a hero he was. What a fucking he-man.
He opened his eyes again. There was nothing to see and he let
them close of their own volition.
But the noise was definitely getting louder.
Mulder sat up as gingerly as he could.
That did it.
Spasms tore through him as he leaned over desperately to let
nature take its course.
The harsh sound of vomiting echoed off walls he couldn't see;
combined with the smell, it only made him throw up harder.
Jesus. Sweet Jesus.
Finally he gasped, disgusted, breathless, and wiped his mouth
before rolling away as far as he could from the mess he'd
made.
He bumped into a wall, a cold, damp wall, and stayed there,
his face pressed against it.
It was cool and strangely soothing against his hot face. Now he
knew that something had to be seriously wrong with him because his
natural squeamishness would never allow him to do this
normally, but his lips parted against the coolness.
He tasted granite on his tongue.
Clean, moist slate, its ridges and bumps familiar to him,
although he wasn't sure why.
Cockroaches, Mulder, a part of his mind screamed. Spiders.
Bat guano.
For the time being, he didn't give a fuck.
He rubbed his lips against the wall and moaned.
Incredibly, it made him feel a lot better.
His fingers ran along the wall and he pressed his length
against it, caressing it.
Jesus, Mulder. Get a grip.
But his mind refused to think and he felt his thighs move
helplessly against it, the cool wetness of it, as his groin
grew tight.
He lay his cheek against the wall and forced his body to stop
moving.
You're a psychologist, dammit. Deal with this.
Deal with what? What the hell was it?
Mulder breathed and felt the heat of his breath against his
lips.
And gradually he realized what the sound which had been
getting progressively louder actually sounded like.
A summer breeze ruffling grass. A hot wind in dry grass.
His body was reacting to the dryness and seeking moisture where
it could.
Dryness which felt a lot like desiccation. Like death.
"Charming, Agent Mulder."
He yelped and sat up, his body thankfully allowing him to take
the action without forcing another bout of retching on him.
This was no time for self-indulgent vomiting.
He cringed and covered his eyes as light exploded around him.
Fuck.
His head pounded ruthlessly, sending shudders through his
body.
He couldn't see. He couldn't see at all. All there was was the
sharpness of the light.
The voice continued calmly.
"So you're lying here, Agent Mulder, inches away from a pool
of your own vomit, your pants bulging from humping a wall."
He could feel a hot flush creep up his neck to claim his face.
"Who..."
"Shut up." The voice was terse and Mulder didn't recognize it.
He heard a faint rustling sound, like ancient paper rubbed
between ageless fingers.
"What's become of you, Mulder. Hmm? What have you become?"
He said nothing. The embarrassment was almost more than he
could bear.
Embarrassed by whom? For what?
His jaw tightened defiantly despite the fingers of pain it sent
through his head.
"You were a man once, Mulder."
"I'm still a man..."
"I said shut up!"
Actual stars broke over his field of vision, such as it was, as a
boot or a shoe connected with his chin.
He rolled into a defensive position through instinct alone; his
head screamed with pain.
The metallic taste of his own blood filled his mouth and he felt
the ragged edges of his tongue where he'd bit down when the
blow came.
He retched again and spit, feeling drool and blood slide down
his chin.
"Lovely, Agent Mulder. You're a sight for sore eyes."
His tongue felt thick and unwieldy. "Who are you?"
A laugh.
Mulder still saw only blinding light. A figure hovered just
outside his vision, its darkness palpable.
"Your worst enemy, Mulder. Who else?"
He couldn't recognize the voice. Except...
There was something familiar about it.
"We are the hollow men, Mulder," the figure intoned ironically
from the shadows. "You've been searching for the ones who
pull the strings. Who pulls the strings of those who pull the
strings, Mulder?"
He leaned back on his elbows and squinted towards the
perimeter of the light as footsteps echoed around him.
His jaw ached and he ignored it. At least his stomach was
finally still.
"We are the stuffed men, Mulder," the other continued. "When
we whisper together, our dried voices are quiet and
meaningless as wind in dry grass."
He tensed. The words were familiar to him. "Or rat's feet over
broken glass..." he whispered.
"Exactly." Something in the voice radiated approval.
Mulder was horrified that a thing in him hungered for and
quickened to this approval.
Scully. He suddenly wished Scully was here with him, even if
it meant that she would share in his danger.
He could use her rationality right about now.
When Mulder spoke, it was Scully's voice he heard.
"You're spouting gibberish. What is it you want?"
The other laughed again.
"My, my, Mulder. Is that Agent Scully I hear?"
Christ. Who was this man who seemed to know him so well?
"Think about it, Mulder. I'll give you some time to think about
it. Your worst enemy. You're facing him at last."
The light winked out as if it had never been and he knew he
was alone.
CONTINUED IN PART 2
THE HOLLOW MAN (2/5) *** NC-17 ***
by Madeleine Partous
email: partous@total.net
WARNING: Some readers may find this story disturbing. While comments are
welcome pro and con, as always, please don't flame me for the contents.
***** Rating: NC-17 for disturbing imagery, violence and
explicit sex. Not appropriate for younger readers. *****
DISCLAIMER AND OTHER INFO IN PART 1
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Le me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Part II: Such Deliberate Disguises
Mulder slowly realized he must have dozed.
The acrid smell of vomit had disappeared; someone must have
cleaned it up while he was out. That or he'd slept long enough
for it to dry up innocuously.
Darkness filled his world. He stretched and shivered.
It was cold now.
His head still hurt but the pain had diminished considerably.
Still, there was something wrong with his jaw.
He struggled to remember.
A kick. Someone had kicked him in the chin.
His tongue felt otherworldly, thick, as though it had been
stuffed into his mouth like a gag.
He rolled it against the roof of his mouth tentatively and
winced.
Tender.
But the thing that was really wrong had to do with his jaw. It
hung badly somehow.
Dislocated. Maybe even broken?
He touched it gently.
Pain shot through his cheeks into his head.
Yep. There was definitely something wrong with it.
Scully.
Tears sprang to his eyes and he blinked them away angrily.
Scully was a doctor.
If Scully was here, she'd cradle his head or something.
Wouldn't she?
Murmur sweet words in his ear and tie up his jaw before
shooting the fucking son of a bitch.
Wouldn't she?
She'd kill the guy who'd done this to him.
Christ. He shook his head once before remembering vividly
that it wasn't a good idea.
What are you, Mulder? Man or Mouse?
Manormousemanormousemanor...
He was still a man.
A man who felt like a manor in death's dream kingdom.
Enough.
Where were the words coming from anyway?
What in God's name was wrong with him?
The rustling sound.
Jesus.
The rustling sound was still around him.
Dry. Dry and hungry somehow.
He felt himself curl up in a ball despite himself.
No.
Make it stop.
Scully?
A laugh from the shadows. A thin hollow laugh like snatches of
memory on the wind.
You're alone, Mulder.
No.
You've always been alone.
No...
What do you see?
Who...?
Shut up and listen. For once in your life, listen to me.
No.
What do you see?
He pressed his hands against his ears.
"I'm not listening."
Listen.
No.
You've been searching your whole life, Mulder. For what? For
me?
I don't know.
You know.
No.
Is it your sister you seek, Mulder?
Samantha...
Who is she? Do you even remember who she was?
Yesss...
No. How can you remember?
Samantha...
Just a name, Mulder. Just a name and an eight-year-old face.
You never really knew her.
Samantha...
You saw her, didn't you? She hadn't changed a bit. You and
Jeremiah Smith. Who was she, Mulder? Was that your sister?
No...
She couldn't speak. She didn't know your name.
She knew who I was.
How do you know?
I could tell. I could feel her.
You felt what you wanted to feel.
No.
You're chasing rainbows, Mulder.
Scully?
Leave her out of this. You've hurt her enough.
"Scully?"
Yes. You've taken everything she was.
No. No no no.
Face it, Mulder. You've ripped everything from her and left
her with nothing but the ghost of what you might have been.
Scully...
Who are you, Mulder?
I...
You say "I"? Have you earned that right?
I don't know.
Who are you?
I don't know.
Mulder fell back against the floor as his jaw opened helplessly
and he screamed.
His scream echoed against walls he couldn't see.
"I don't know!"
CONTINUED IN PART 3
THE HOLLOW MAN (3/5) *** NC-17 ***
by Madeleine Partous
email: partous@total.net
WARNING: Some readers may find this story disturbing. All comments
welcome pro and con, as always, but please don't flame me for the
contents.
***** Rating: NC-17 for disturbing imagery, violence and
explicit sex. Not appropriate for younger readers. *****
DISCLAIMER AND OTHER INFO IN PART 1
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Part III: Here the Stone Images are Raised
When he awoke this time he had no idea who he was.
The only thing he knew was that he was lying on his stomach
on a rack of some kind and his wrists and ankles were tight
and drawn.
He opened his eyes.
A vague memory of pain whispered through his mind. His jaw.
He rotated it slowly against the wood which spiked his nostrils
with its sap-swollen pine-fresh crispness.
It felt fine.
Light played against his closed eyelids. He knew it was
unbearable light, the same light he'd seen more than once.
Much more than once.
Samantha the light the floating the window the brightness the
nightgown the voices the shadows the light the light the
light...
The epileptic the light the van the cap the fear the ear the
bleeding the light the light the light...
Scully the light the table the bloating the tubes the pipes the
wires the light the light the light...
Puerto Rico the light the man the machines the terror the
ticking the static the light the light the light...
How many times had he seen this light?
He thought and it occurred to him he couldn't count the times.
His memories, it seemed, were intact. Who he was in light of
these memories was the real question.
He could remember his childhood, his sister, his parents, his
lonely years in high school. He remembered Oxford and Phoebe
and Scully and Skinner and the uneasy rotation of informants
with makeshift names.
He just couldn't remember himself in the midst of it all.
"So."
He tensed against the bindings that held him.
That voice.
He remembered that voice.
But whose voice was it?
"This is the dead land. Do you remember?"
He could feel knots in his shoulders, the tightening of
muscles in his butt.
Christ. He suddenly realized that he was naked.
Naked and spread in an X against wood at an angle his back to
who knew what with his ankles and wrists bound securely at
four corners.
The rough knots of the wood dug into his face.
Suddenly, searing pain lashed across his back, licking his
buttocks.
He gasped.
"I said, do you remember?"
He nodded frantically. The flesh of his back thudded dully.
Another lash.
He arched off the rack inadvertently.
"Yes!"
"What do you remember?" The voice was calm, almost clinical.
Scully...
It was a man's voice.
"I remember..."
Another lash.
Tears stung his eyelids as the pain snaked up towards his
neck.
The crack of the whip was the only sound in the air.
"You remember what?"
"Them..." He fought to control the panting.
"Yes, yes." The voice was annoyed, oddly fatigued.
Another lash. This time he cried out between clenched teeth.
"But what about you? Do you remember you?"
He bit his lip until he tasted the reassuring copper of his
blood.
"Me..." It was a gasp.
"Who are you?"
A lash.
His body jumped and he was horrified to feel himself harden
against the intricate texture of the wood.
"I don't know!"
It was a desperate cry.
"Fox Mulder. Repeat after me: I am Fox Mulder."
A lash.
He cried out. "Fox Mulder! I am Fox Mulder!"
The name meant nothing to him but he clung to it as his body
writhed against the wood.
Sweet Jesus. Whoever I am. Release me from the horror of what
I've become.
Another lash.
The pain the pain was welcome the pain was what he deserved
to hurt to hurt he had earned the hurt he must pay and pay
for what he'd done for what he'd been for what he'd
become....
And then stillness.
Stillness and a solid kind of silence.
He felt his body quiver against the rack.
"More..." As if from a distance, he heard his own voice moan
the word, his lips pressed against the pine.
Silence.
"You think you've earned this, don't you?"
He nodded almost imperceptibly as he followed the pulse of his
blood through his back.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Why?"
"I..."
"Why, Mulder?"
"Because..."
"Why?"
He felt his throat tighten to resist the agony that rose from his
belly, from his very core. The words seemed to explode
through his teeth.
"Because it's my fault."
"What is, Mulder? Why are you to blame?"
"I... I..."
The rest flowed without words.
Samantha I shoulda saved you I coulda saved you I...
Phoebe you should've loved me you could've loved me I...
Dad I couldn't love you I might've saved you I...
Mom I could've saved you I always loved you I...
Scully I'll always love you I couldn't save you I...
Stop. Stop. Stop.
He felt his face rub against the splinters in the wood.
"You think it's all your fault. Don't you."
He said nothing, but he could feel breath rattling in his
throat.
"Listen to me, Mulder. Here the stone images are raised, here
they receive the supplication of a dead man's hand. Do you
understand?"
"I..."
"Shhh. Listen." The voice was almost gentle. "You've raised
the images of what you think you've wrought. You've carved
them in stone. And now you worship them like a half-dead
thing."
He moaned.
"You've let an imaginary past suck you dry, Mulder. Do you
understand?"
He rubbed his lips against a knot he felt in the wood.
"It's a dream, Mulder. All of it. You're paying an imaginary
debt. Samantha lived or died with or without you. Phoebe's life
collided with you. Your father died despite you. Your mother
survived without you. Scully is what she is, and if she loves
you, it's because of you. Do you understand?"
He felt himself trembling.
He remembered the clean, moist slate of the wall against his
lips.
And a whisper as darkness fell:
"Lips that would kiss, Mulder, form prayers to broken
stone..."
CONTINUED IN PART 4
THE HOLLOW MAN (4/5) *** NC-17 ***
by Madeleine Partous
email: partous@total.net
WARNING: Some readers may find this story disturbing. All
comments welcome pro and con, as usual, but please don't
flame me for the contents.
***** Rating: NC-17 for disturbing imagery, violence and
explicit sex. Not appropriate for younger readers. *****
DISCLAIMER AND OTHER INFO IN PART 1
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Part IV: The Hope of Empty Men
It slowly dawned on him that he'd been conscious for some
time.
This time he realized it because despite the darkness a faint
light whose source he couldn't see cast enough illumination to
cause a play of shadows on the wall.
The shadows shivered in a dance of black on black.
He lay on his side; judging by how cold he was, he was still
naked.
The leached light made his body glisten palely in the dark.
It alarmed him because in this light his body looked bloated
and bleached like a drowned man's.
But he was alive still. Wasn't he?
He was alive.
I...
I am...
And then without warning the light changed and the world
seemed to careen. He gasped and grasped the floor as it tilted
against him.
What...?
What could he still hold on to that was solid at last?
When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on a beach.
A cold northern beach, a grey river beach against a sliver of
silver that sparked in the sun.
The breeze off the water smelled like late summer, scented
sweet with cooling earth and dry yellow grass.
He rolled and looked at what he was: a naked body on a beach.
Goosebumps rode his thighs.
And then he saw her.
Phoebe.
She stood with the river as backdrop, naked and lean like the
last time he'd seen her in England.
Her hair was short like the last time he'd seen her, but her
eyes were filled with the passion he'd known.
"Fox..."
Mulder breathed through his mouth. Nothing hurt but the lust
he still felt for her.
But she'd hurt him.
She'd used him.
She'd played him like a piano to soothe the chords she couldn't
reach.
"No."
His voice was a whimper.
"Not you. Not now."
"Why not, Fox? Why not me? If not me, who?"
She stepped towards him gingerly in the sand, her hips
swaying, her dark nipples hard and sharp like an obsession.
He stared at the dark triangle where he'd lost himself all those
years ago.
"I..."
She laughed. "I, I, I... Who is this 'I' you keep talking about,
Fox?"
She was standing over him. He wondered why he couldn't
move.
He felt himself strain towards her.
Oh God. God, no.
His body was betraying him. His body was the worst enemy of
all.
She smiled and lowered herself inexorably over him, her eyes
locked with his.
"God..."
He groaned and arched against her as her palms fluttered
down to rest against his chest.
"Phoebe...."
Pleasure ran like quicksilver through his veins. His head
lolled back as he watched her ride him, her own head flailing,
guttural moans escaping her lips against the backdrop of the
pale blue sky.
She was granting him simple pleasure as she'd rarely done
when they'd been together.
Back then she'd demanded a price. The price, more often than
not, had been his dignity, his own sense of self.
When he'd acquiesced, she'd let him know this joy.
He looked up at her.
She was lost in her own world.
As lost as she'd always been.
Every once in a while back then, their worlds would collide.
When that happened, she'd given him what he'd needed.
Only then.
"No."
He pushed against her with his hands.
"No. Get off me."
He felt himself slip free of her as she fell back against the
sand.
"Fox..." She was breathing heavily and her tone was ominous.
"You don't scare me anymore."
"Fox."
"I don't need you anymore."
She sat with her hands against the sand, her face tight with
contempt.
"Oh. Oh, you don't need me anymore. Who do you have now,
Agent Mulder? Who helps you make it through the night?"
He felt anger seethe behind his eyes.
"You trashed my nights. You made me sleepless. That's the
extent of your legacy and I live with it to this day."
"You wanted to be punished."
He stopped and stared at her. Her hair glistened in the soft
sunlight; her breasts trembled against her chest.
He saw the anger drawn tight along her face; he saw her
disappointment, her insatiable need for... what?
He nodded. "Maybe I did. Back then, maybe I did."
He looked at her as she looked at him.
"Not now, Phoebe."
"So what do you want?" Her voice was soft.
He shook his head. "I don't know."
She looked down and pointed.
"You want me, Fox. That says you do. You can't escape it."
He knew his erection was still reaching towards her.
"That only says there's something I want. That doesn't mean
it's you."
Her mouth twisted. "You haven't changed. You still want
punishment. And that's the one thing I can give you."
"You're wrong."
As he said it, he knew it was true.
Incredibly, he felt his chest swell with something that felt like
like freedom.
"I've been punished enough."
It was true.
And as the words left his lips, the woman he'd called Phoebe
winked out.
Once again, again and again, he was alone.
THE HOLLOW MAN (5/5) *** NC-17 ***
NOTE: You may recognize the last line of T.S Eliot's poem from
"Pusher." DD used it in the episode to great effect when he
described Modell's motivations in that he reversed it ironically
to suit his purpose. (Well, either he did or the writer, but
either way, it worked. And after all, DD *is* an English
major.)
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Part 5: Not With a Whimper But a Bang
Mulder was alone.
He was starting to get used to it.
The beach had faded away at some point and he found that he
was lying in his apartment on his couch, his well-worn lint-
spotted leather couch.
Dust motes dotted the air as they danced around his muted
halogen lights.
He was naked still.
Naked. Still naked.
Why?
He spent most of his days and nights with his clothes on.
Why nude? Why now?
"Because it's high time you were naked, Mulder."
He inhaled sharply and turned.
Scully.
She stood in the archway, her pink-tipped breasts nodding at
him.
Didn't anyone wear clothes anymore?
He lay and stared at the fullness of her breasts as they shaded
the soft mildness of her belly and the ruddy v of the juncture
of her thighs.
God. From a distance, she looked 10 feet tall.
He breathed in the perfection of her scale.
Her legs were perfect in relation to her perfect middle in
relation to her perfect chest in relation to the face he knew,
the face he knew so well, framed as it was by iron-red hair
which hung in a cascade along her face.
She was naked, naked as a dream come true.
He was dry. So dry.
His lips parted and he felt his tongue jut out, thirsty for her,
thirsty for the folds between her thighs, thirsty for the liquid
he could already taste, the moisture he knew would quench his
thirst at last.
He was as parched as the dead land, the cactus land.
"Scully..."
He lay on his side on his couch and longed for her, his arms
reaching out.
She looked at him.
There was nothing but tenderness on her face, nothing but a
fathomless understanding.
She whispered.
"What is it you want, Mulder?"
He breathed, his eyes almost closing.
"You."
He reached for her.
"Why?" Her voice came to him like a whisper in the wind.
"You are the only one I trust."
He'd said it before.
This time he knew it was true.
He watched her approach slowly between the slit of his lids.
The shadow and the light mated against the ivory of her skin.
In her, the two were reconciled at last.
He lay helpless as she bent over him gently, without demand,
without expectation, until her lips brushed his.
Her full ripe lips.
His eyes closed as he clasped them between his.
He sucked on them softly, his tongue probing gently, and her
mouth opened willingly against his.
Then his arms were around her. He pulled her down to him,
his eyes still closed. He felt the warmth of her, the wetness of
her, against him.
"Mulder," she whispered against him. "Is this what you want?"
"Yesssss..." And he rolled her beneath him as his erect
sex pushed up against her, and he gasped as she opened to
him without prerequisite.
He sank down within her, slid down inside her, feeling her
welcome him in.
One thrust.
She murmured soft words against his cheek as he claimed her.
"Everything that I am, Mulder..."
"I am..." he breathed.
Another thrust.
"Everything that I need..."
"I am."
Another thrust.
"Everything that I seek..."
"I am."
And then for a time he simply pounded against her, her sweat
mingling with his. She was small, so small beneath him, but so
tight and so humid. He was afraid he might break her, so he
held himself up and gazed at her face as she rocked
underneath him, her hands on his shoulders, her legs
wrapped around him, her eyes half closed, her lips parted
in pleasure.
She spoke.
"You are what you need."
He pushed up against her.
"Yessss."
"You are what you seek."
"Yes."
"You are."
"Oh, God. Yes."
And then he came.
His climax ripped through him and he felt her shudder with
him, her legs tight around him, her face open with the filling.
He came and came and came.
The spasms seemed endless as he ground down against her.
Her mouth was wide open and he lost himself in it.
It ended at last and he lay down against her, his tongue
against hers.
He could feel her arms around his neck.
"Scully..."
She sighed.
"Who are you?"
"Fox Mulder. I am Fox Mulder."
As he said it, he knew it was true.
Her lips were wet against his cheek.
"Yes," was all she said.
He slept.
A bright pinpoint of light shone over Mulder as he opened his
eyes.
He'd seen the light before.
His eyes roamed for a moment.
Sterile white walls. A button near his cheek. A sharp, acrid
antiseptic smell against his nostrils.
Hospital.
It was a setting he knew well.
This time, though, he didn't know why he was here.
He knew she would be there.
Scully.
He looked left and there she was.
Smiling at him.
Her hand was on his arm.
"Hi." He barely recognized his voice.
"Hi."
"I..." He licked dry lips and closed his eyes.
"Yes?" Her voice was a whisper.
"I... had the strength of your beliefs."
He didn't quite know what made him say that, but he opened his eyes in
time to see her smile.
She reached out and brushed fingers across his face.
This time it was his question. "What happened?"
All he could see was the blue of her eyes.
"You had a blood clot on the brain."
"A...?"
It certainly helped explain the headache.
The rest was a bit of a blur.
Her hand tightened around his arm.
"Probably a result of an old injury. That's what happens when
you let yourself get pushed around."
He could read the worry he'd etched in her face.
"You collapsed in your apartment. You didn't even have time
to shut your door. Fortunately, a neighbour found you and
called 911."
"Wow. Did William Shatner come?" He was being half-hearted,
but she smiled anyway.
"No. But it was touch and go there for awhile."
He gazed at her.
"Just as well. His dramatic delivery would've probably done me
in."
What had he put her through, yet again?
Scully looked away. "You went into respiratory arrest during the surgery.
That was the scariest part."
He kept looking at her.
"And then what?"
She cleared her throat. "They had to dislocate your jaw to
stick a tube down your throat. You're a stubborn bastard,
Mulder. Your teeth were clenched shut."
He didn't know what to think, except that all of it rang a faint
bell.
"Was I in a coma, Scully?"
She refused to look at him.
"Scully?"
"Yes."
Just like you were. He didn't say it out loud.
Like you were that time when I waited for you and everyone
said you were never coming back.
"Yes."
He stared at her.
"Yes what?"
She met his gaze evenly.
"Like the time you waited for me and everyone said I was never
coming back."
His breath caught in his throat.
"You heard me."
She kept looking at him. Then she shrugged.
"If not me, then who?"
Suddenly he remembered her body under his.
Suddenly he remembered all of it.
His eyes closed.
Jesus.
He felt her hand against his face. This time, it rested there.
"To each his near-death experience, Mulder."
"You know."
His eyes opened.
Scully smiled.
"How do you feel?"
He laughed abruptly. The sound was strange to his ears.
"Great. I feel great, Scully."
She leaned a little closer and touched his lips with a fingertip.
"Oddly enough, so do I, Mulder. So do I."
END
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