Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 10:55:34 -0500 Subject: While We Burned, by MulderPhile; M/S, A, NC-17, RAPE STORY ----- Title: While We Burned Author: MulderPhile (c/o MulderPhile@hotmail.com) Genre: M/S, A Violence: 4 Rating: NC-17...don't let the kiddies NEAR this one Summary: While the X-files burned... Spoilers: The End, but *NOT* XF:FTF Archive: Yes, yes, YES... write and let me know! Disclaimer: What happens if I leave this out for once? ----- Scully's voice filters through, seeps in behind my closed eyes as I lie on the couch, playing dead. I don't want to hear her, but cannot shut out the words. "Yes, yes, I'm here with Agent Mulder now." Here with me. She speaks these words and I shudder silently. The leather of the couch is a cool embrace, colder than Scully's words, for she has never been further FROM me. But here she is, playing the dutiful partner. Sitting in on the deathwatch for the X-files, but she is an observer, not a participant. I was so close, but never saw it! The plan to trap scary Agent Mulder in a web of his own ludicrous theories. They've tried it before, waving the evidence like a carrot before my eyes, then snatching it away. Always before, I've been able to see it coming. Like Scully herself. They definitely waved her before my eyes: a partner, at last. A doctor, a scientist. Almost biblical in her perfect complementarity to my own skills. And a woman, because they had been watching for a while and they saw what I needed more than anything else in the world. I saw her coming from way over the horizon, though I had no idea who'd sent her. I never had any illusions about what she was there for. And I knew I mustn't give in. To her science or to her womanhood. The first time they tried, I was a fish caught on a hook: choose the woman, or choose the X-files? They were certain I'd choose the woman, that I would follow Diana to the ends of the earth. Instead, I castrated myself. Willingly, the way boy sopranos, castratos, they were called, sometimes willingly would destroy their emergent manhood before it could ruin their art. Cut myself off from Diana and the comfort that lay in her warm places: the fuzz beneath her waterfall of dark brown hair, the restless fragrance that hung above the crux where neck met shoulder, the langourous twitching at the small of her back. I let her leave. Castration. And they knew that I could never love another woman like her, so they brought me Scully. They saw, somehow, that the glowing embers of her hair disguised an iciness at her core that was as hard as Diana had been soft. How I hated her, on those early assignments! Smug and confident. As smug, as distant, she sounds again now. Her words like a slap in the face. "Mulder, whatever you may believe, this time, they may have won." And all of a sudden, I don't care who's won, because I know I've lost. "Mulder, whatever you may believe..." Even while talks are going on to reassign us, even before it's final, she's pulling away. She's dropped the facade; we are no longer a team. She says it gently, almost tenderly, as if she's breaking bad news. She's not breaking bad news. She's killing me. Letting me know that I chose wrong again. Because this time, I chose Scully. Set in motion the events I knew could bring about the closing down of the X-files, based on the truths that she has uncovered. Seeing her and Diana in the same room, I knew what the decision had to be, and I made it. Diana, when we were in love, would have agreed with me to the ends of the earth. Diana was warm and comfortable. But Scully. Scully, I thought, was my future. A woman who could change me, help me grow. What seems at first to be a cruel and harsh light can be a guiding beacon across a stormy sea. And I allowed myself to be guided by her. "Mulder, whatever you may believe..." Trying not to cry "Judas!" at the betrayal heralded by her words, I turn to the couch, eyes closed. I can't look at her. Because up until the moment she said them, I was sure she believed at least something of what I did. That she had perhaps even seen through my own eyes, believed a little of what I believed, or wanted to. And now I know the truth. I know I have lost again. My hands ball up into fists as my jaw tenses to hold back the words I am unable to say. I am speechless, castrated again, and suddenly furious. "Mulder?" I am sitting bolt upright on the couch at her words, staring at her in disbelief. As I strike her, she screams, "Mulder, no!" I grab her weapon, toss it down and behind me, under the couch, before she has a chance to react. But she isn't reacting, just staring at me as if *I've* betrayed HER, somehow. I push her back by the shoulder, jabbing at her furiously, back and back towards the opposite wall. "When do I get to be the sore loser, SCULLY?" That name, those syllables that have meant so much to me. Jab. She staggers backwards. Surprised, I suppose, that she is not immune or immortal after all. "And more importantly, SCULLY," the name gives me power over her, keeps her under my powerful spell. Jab. "Since the bad guys always seem to be winning, when do I get to be one of the bad guys?" Jab. "When, SCULLY?" "Mulder, stop it!" she cries out, losing her balance and stumbling, almost falling but recovering quickly. I twist my leg around hers and knock her back, down, to the floor. Her head falls to the floor with a soft thud on the threadbare rug, and I see headlines flashing through my mind, "Fed Goes Berserk, Murders Partner." And I don't care. At least I'm no hypocrite, burying my mess like so much cat shit. Here it is, out in the open. If they find us dead tomorrow, they'll know THIS was no conspiracy. This was just a nice guy who was pushed too far, betrayed once too often. This is a story anybody can relate to. Scully is curled into a ball like an insect protecting its soft underbelly. She's curled up and I kick and kick at her shoulders, the small of her back. Kidney damage, I know she's probably thinking. Spleen. Liver. She'd probably insist on doing her own autopsy if there was any way to arrange it. She always did like to be in control. "Mulder..." Her voice is faint now, muffled by the rug. "SCULLY," I say as I tower over her, "whatever you may believe, you never knew anything about me. This is the real me. Like it?" I turn away from her in disgust as she whimpers. "You think I've always been a pathetic workaholic, picking up everybody else's garbage because they're to embarrassed to admit that it even EXISTS?" I think I hear her moan, and I turn around to see if she's still alive. She's struggling to get up now, and I step on her fingers until she crumples again to the floor. "I'm a man, SCULLY, or I used to be. That's what Diana knows about me, that you sense but won't admit." She's lying there, staring up at me, mute now. Mute in a way that I've never seen. Even when she's been gagged, tied up, beaten, even drugged, her eyes have always been alive, and this time her eyes are silent. Their ceaseless flashing argument has ended. So I know she sees me, as I move towards her, though her eyes do not say so. "SCULLY." I know she sees me pulling off my jeans, and her silent eyes do not even widen as I approach her, pin her shoulder down to the ground with one hand and take her mouth with mine. She doesn't look away, but she doesn't look at me either. "You've taken everything from me, SCULLY. The last scraps of what I thought I had." I tore off the button of her pants and jerked at the fly until it gave. I barely heard the rip as I dragged them down to her knees. She doesn't watch as I pull the underpants down, horrible black functional things. They have some shape, they might even be sexy on the Ice Maiden Scully, but like this, with her sprawled on the floor like Raggedy Anne, they're just another impediment. I'm not in this for sex. I want to fuck with her like she's fucked with me and my life. The only way she wasn't expecting it. I pin her shoulders down as I enter, watching her eyes, daring her to answer back, knowing she will not fight. "Like it, SCULLY?" I grit my teeth and pound myself into her now. There is no tenderness. The times I stroked the downy wisps in front of her ear are miles away, light years away. Her hair is glowing, red hot, and I am surprised by the warmth of her body as I fuck and fuck her. Her face is surprisingly unmarred. I bite the edge of her lip to make her cry out, but I don't draw blood. I force my tongue deep into her mouth almost to the point where she gags. Almost, and then out again. Scully's legs are open. She is splayed lifelessly beneath me like a rubber sex toy. I draw up the silky fabric of her shirt like curtains and slap her hard, flat stomach. Push the shirt up further and squeeze her tits until she does moan again and tries to wriggle away. But I have her pinned down still. Her wriggling only impales her further onto my cock. I'm not going to come, or maybe I might let myself. I just want to fuck her until she realizes what I have done to her, how degraded she has become, there on the floor. And then I will look at her in the pitying, condescending way she looked at me when she saw what has happened to my life. The X-files are gone for me. I made that decision already. I left the X-files, enticed at last by a trap I saw but could not see: a vision of glowing red hair, a promise of warmth. Warmth which I will have now, at any cost. I stoke and stoke the fire. I reach around and pull up the slippery beige shirt in the back this time, looking for that warm spot all women have at the base of their spine. I grab her there and pull her towards me. Pull myself into her again and again. Fucking Scully. Am I melting the Ice Maiden? The only thing of which I am sure is that the X-files cannot survive the heat of that hair, those embers. The friction of our bodies, their heat. I pound and pound, setting afire those filing cabinets, drawers and drawers full of lies, and maybe a few truths which no longer matter. And much later, when the phone rings, I am not surprised by the news. I dutifully view the remains with respect but with closure. She follows a few paces behind to survey the charred evidence of our single act of destruction. Flashing lights through mist light up Scully as she touches me. Touches me, but does not hold me, because everything is different now. I can still smell myself on her. If I look closely, I can see the place where her pants are ripped and pinned together, I can see the bruises, though if you didn't know where to look, you wouldn't see them. Her left cheek, slightly darkened. It would look like a shadow unless you caught her in the light. And her hair, no longer ablaze. The fire is out, quenched, and the X-files lie dripping, charred, in ruins. ----- Questions, comments, literary criticism? MulderPhile@hotmail.com -----