From: Chaelysq@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 15:38:37 EDT Subject: "Did You Ever Know You Were My Hero?" by Amanda Finch Source: xff Title: Did You Ever Know You Were My Hero? Author: Amanda Finch Email: Left_Cheek_Sneak@pullmyfinger.com (Actually, Chaelysq@aol.com ) Rating: R; M/K. If m/m slash bothers you, then... keep reading! No slash here, no way! Category: Somewhere between the meat group and the vegetable group. Spoilers: Only for the eighth season... Disclaimers: They're mine! All delusionally MINE! Ha! DON'T TOUCH THEM! (Actually, Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and 20th Century Fox blah blah blah...) Summary: What can you say about a 25-year-old squirrel who died? (Actually, I'm not even gonna...) Archive: If you're sick enough to archive it, sure. Set between "Ascension" and "One Breath"... ~*~*~ Mulder was distraught. His partner had been taken to the complicated sky by aliens, or perhaps only killed. Only killed? asked his mental voice, enraged. How can you act so rational about something like that? His other mental voices chimed in. Soon, it was like a Gregorian chant. It was like having to climb that Skyland Mountain thing again, only with the cables tensing a little closer to this left testicle than he typically found pleasing. He was sitting in his apartment alone, downing his last beer. Why in the hell didn't he feel drunk? He held the label of the bottle closer to his face. Non-alcoholic O'Douls. Oh. For dessert, maybe he could spoon the frozen Bacardi out of the can. Two naked women on the porn video started smearing one another with salsa and avocado dip. He couldn't see the green of the avocado dip without thinking of those bastard aliens and their Syndicate dildos full of alien semen that would get to probe his pretty partner before he did, dammit. Even "Tex Mex Sex", his favorite porn, had to be sucked into the ruination of his life? There was irony in there somewhere, but he didn't feel inspired, wily or manly enough to go in search of it. His soul was a molecular biologist trying to catch amoebas with a butterfly net. As the two naked women dipped nachos into intimate areas, the doorbell rang. Had he ordered his usual whore? Sometimes he did that when the shock was too much, when the day pulled his arms behind him, twisted, and called him "girlie." But no, he hadn't. Answer the door! cried the enraged voices. Remind me to dose you with something psychotropic, he threatened them. You're the one who replied back to our demand, they said snarkily. His sigh was like the air being let out of a Tupperware container. The voices had a point. He put down his two-gallon bucket of fudge ripple on the couch and walked forlornly to the door, as if he was being pushed and pulled, pummeled and kneaded, breaded and fried all at once. He opened the door. Special Agent Alex Krycek grinned winsomely. "Hi there." "Oh." Mulder said sadly. "It's you." "I thought you might need a friend." Mulder looked over his shoulder, almost hopefully. "You brought me a whore?" Alex's grin disappeared like a subpoenaed CIA document. "I really don't know you well enough to rudely assume I would understand or empathize with your taste in whores. By friend, Mulder, I meant me." "Alright then." Mulder stepped aside, a Fred Astaire with broken knees. "I have fudge ripple and lesbian-food porno." Krycek nodded. "I have a lust-engorged love rocket in my pants and a horrifying lack of concern for your mental well-being." Mulder looked up, eyes shining. "You know that shit about me not having a bed isn't true, right?" The voices sang Barry White that night, and the moon was a bright ball of lunar joy in that complicated sky. THE END.