Title: Meaning of the Term (1/1)
Author: Sister Zooey
Rating: R
Category: There isn't one for this story. Hold a gun
to my head
and I'll say MSR
Distribution Statement: Anywhere, babies. Just let me
know
Feedback: SisterZooey@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Millenium. However, I want you to consider
this in the
light of Mulder's statement in Chimera: "Not in the
widely
understood meaning of that term."
Summary: The truth comes out.
Author's Notes: Hope you dig it. There's always been
something
slightly homoerotic (in my eyes) about Mulder and
Scully's
relationship. An amazing feat considering that they
are of
opposite genders. This is my attempt to examine that.
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Certainly not getting paid
for this.
But CC and 1013 are.
Meaning of the Term (1/1)
significant other: a spouse or cohabiting lover.
(Webster's
Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English
Language,
def. 2)
Middle of Fucking Nowhere Motor Lodge
6:55 a.m.
Almost.
There.
The funny thing about an orgasm is that "there"
is actually
gone, so far gone that one can't feel their fingers
(on their sweet,
lovely overworked right hand who is responsible for
ten seconds
of sweaty glee), their toes, all of the traditional
things one is not
supposed to feel when they are coming. More fabulous
is that this
utterly visceral thing allows you to stop,
paradoxically, feeling
your body. I gasp and my head slams against the
pillow, my body
arching like a bow. I wish my brain would shut the
hell up. It is
usually the last thing to go on me. Sometimes, it
hangs around for
the main event and ruins it. This had better not be
one of those
nights. I don't want to have to do this again. I just
want to come
my brains out once, take a nice, hot shower, and to go
sleep.
I feel (or, rather, I don't feel, apropos of my
first paragraph) the
bottom drop out and there go my toes. I remember the
story of
Socrates drinking the hemlock. He tells those around
him that he
can feel the cold creeping up his body. When it gets
to his heart,
he says, he will be dead. I can't feel my knees. I'm
dying my own
little death here.
I feel like a pulsar. I swear I can hear my body
throbbing. My
head rolls to one side and his name is on my lips.
It's a hoarse
whisper, since the walls are so thin, but I have been
known to cry
it out rather enthusiastically at home. I hope my
neighbors think
I'm getting laid.
When my eyes come back online, he is standing in
the doorway
with some damn file folder in his hand. His mouth is
partially
open, and he can't seem to feel his feet. I hurry to
pull the scratchy
quilt over my body. What's the bloody point? He's seen
it all a
few times over, hasn't he?
"The door was unlocked," he stammers by way of an
explanation. I don't say anything. I am holding very
still,
concentrating on the throbbing as it makes its way out
of my body
via my toes. "The door was -" he begins. I hold up a
hand, which
glistens in the dim light. He is staring at it. I
imagine I could
hypnotize him with it. "I'm sorry." I shrug. I know
The
Connecting Room Rule: if the door is unlocked, give a
tap and
come in. If the door is locked, go away, unless
someone is trying
to kill you, then shoot off the lock if at all
possible. If all else fails,
scream.
Considering the Rule, I say, "It's not your
fault, Mulder."
"I'm still sorry." He is backing toward the door.
"It wasn't
really that important." I am shaking my head,
dismissing his guilt.
"Good night, Scully." And he is gone, quickly, closing
the doors
behind him.
I let the quilt drop and lope over to the
bathroom, secure in the
fact that he is doing the same and will return, having
showered, in
about a half hour. He'll want to talk about this.
XXXXXX
7:15 a.m.
It was a long damn night. A long, damn, trapped
with Mulder
in a motor pool car for eight hours kinda night. It's
fun to sit and
idly chat, occasionally peering through binoculars,
taking turns
napping in the backseat. I don't mind stakeouts with
Mulder. I
know exactly where he is, I know he is safe where he
is, and that
he cannot go anywhere without me noticing. We usually
play
little games reserved for road trips, like I Spy and
Twenty
Questions. We played Truth or Dare once, always
picking Truth.
That ended with not being able to make eye contact for
the last
three hours of the shift. We haven't played it since.
I press my cheek against the cool glass of the
shower door and
wonder if this is it. I have always wondered what the
day that the
Truth came out would be like. I had no idea that it
would be at 7
a.m. in some dingy hotel in Missouri. He's going to
wring it out of
me, I think, and I am going to require that he gives
as good as he
gets. It occurs to me that I might be getting laid
this morning. I
laugh and grope for the shampoo bottle. I imagine
sitting on the
window seat in Melissa's and my bedroom, explaining
all this to
my 16 year old self: "His name's Fox and since you're
sixteen now
that makes him nineteen. He's paranoid, moody,
self-righteous,
funny, and would merrily break every bone in the body
of
someone who harmed you with his bare hands, starting
with the
least important and working up, making sure they were
alive for
the whole ordeal. You won't get laid for seven years,
wanting him
but not wanting to admit it, knowing that he wants you
too. You'll
both silently agree to ignore the blindingly,
embarrassingly
obvious until he catches you jilling off one morning
after being
trapped in too small a space for too long with him and
the truth
comes out." I often have these little conversations
with the
sixteen-year-old me who lives in my head. She thinks
my life is
hilarious most of the time. The rest of the time she
is looking for
ways out of having to live the proceeding twenty
years.
I spend an extra five minutes brushing my teeth
and
meticulously removing all drops of water from my skin.
I even
dry in between my toes. I can feel him sitting on my
bed, waiting
for me to run out of excuses and come out of the
bathroom. I pull
on my wonderfully ratty bathrobe and open the door.
Mulder is lying on my bed, staring at the
ceiling. He's wearing
navy blue boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. He looks
like the older
brother of a Calvin Klein model. I stand at the mirror
over the
dresser and brush my wet hair. I put moisturizer on my
face. I say
nothing. In the mirror, I can see him watching me. My
pajamas are
draped over the chair next to the dresser. I continue
to keep an eye
on him as I drop my robe and reach for my PJs. I dress
as if he is
not there. The sun has just come up and I am getting
ready for
bed. The world, all of it, is standing on its head
this morning.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and we stare at
one another
for a moment. He speaks first. "I've said your name
before too." I
nod. "The first time it happened it scared the hell
out of me." I
raise an eyebrow. "I really liked you, respected you.
I didn't want
to use you like that. After a while I stopped fighting
it."
"When?"
"When your cancer went into remission. I was
honest with
myself about why I was so happy that you didn't die.
She's your
best friend, I kept telling myself, even though it was
so much
more than that. I thought about asking you to marry
me, about
quitting the FBI, and getting us away from anything
that could
take you away from me."
"I would have said yes."
He smiles. "I'm glad to hear that." He pauses for
a moment.
"Would you still say yes?"
"I don't know. I can't picture us married. Are
you proposing?"
"No, I'm not. I was just curious." He laughs
softly. "Can you
imagine us married, Scully?"
I also laugh. "Nope."
"Trying to pretend that we're normal, living in
the suburbs,
going to PTA meetings? The Gunmen would park their Bus
in
front of the house when they came for a visit and the
entire
neighborhood association would show up on our front
porch. I'd
accidentally scare away every guy on the block who
wanted to
talk lawn maintenance with me and you'd get yourself
blackballed from the secret sorority of soccer moms by
doing an
emergency tracheotomy at the Fourth of July picnic.
When we
went swimming in the neighbors' new pool, their
seven-year-old
would want to know where I got the scar on my
shoulder. When I
explain that I'd been shot, he'd ask, as
seven-year-olds are nosy, if
a bad guy shot me. You and I would glance at one
another and
voila, no invitation to the New Year's Eve party." We
both laugh
and sigh, falling into silence. I stretch out on the
bed next to him
and we don't say anything for a few minutes. Abruptly,
he rolls
over so he is hovering over me, propped up on one
elbow. "I do
have a proposal, Scully." His voice is soft.
My mouth goes dry. My lips stick together as I
say, "What?"
"Promise me you won't marry anyone else. If you
want to get
married one day, marry me. Consider it an open
invitation."
"That's kind of possessive, isn't it Mulder?"
"You already own me, Scully. We're halfway
there."
"Mulder." I begin to protest but his hand on my
cheek
somehow silences me.
"Just say you will."
"I promise." He smiles and settles back down next
to me.
"You're my best friend, Mulder." I feel him nod. "I'm
never going
to marry you, you know."
"I don't mind. As long as you stay with me."
"What about sex?"
"I have no idea." He sighs. "Can I tell you
something really
personal, Scully?"
"Sure. Of course."
"When I was in college, I had a crush on one of
my friends." I
don't say anything, waiting for him to demonstrate the
relevancy
of this. "He was a psych major also." He? I roll my
head to look at
Mulder. He smiles sheepishly at me from the other
pillow. "He
was pretty openly gay. Everyone knew. I had just
broken up with
Phoebe and I wasn't doing so well emotionally. I don't
know. I
just found myself attracted to this guy. I flirted
pretty shamelessly
with him. He kissed me a few times, but I just
remember thinking,
this isn't right at all. I mean, aside from the fact
that I'm not gay,
kissing him just wasn't proper within the boundaries
of our
relationship. Yet I wanted to."
"Did anything happen?"
"No. He knew better, I think, than to fool around
with messed
up little straight boys. I have had lots of crushes on
lots of people
since then." Mulder elbows me lightly. "I've got a
crush on you,
Scully." I blush and grin. " But the crush I have on
you feels
exactly like the crush I had on that boy." I roll over
on my side,
waiting for an explanation. "There are certain things
I want," the
way he says `want' makes me turn an even deeper
crimson, "but
they don't seem to fit in the boundaries of our
relationship." He
has rolled on to his side also.
"Like sex."
"Especially sex." He smiles a little. "Sex with
you would be a
whole different ball game, Scully."
"It would be strange," I concede. He nods. "I
frequently forget
to think of you in terms of gender, Mulder. You're
Mulder. At the
same time, I forget the same things about myself. I'm
Scully. It's
like we fit together like that, but not as male and
female."
"But we do fit together."
"I feel more right with you than anyone else,
Mulder."
Rather than answer me he slides his head across
the pillows
and kisses me. This is no New Year's kiss. I put my
arms around
him and pull us closer together. We roll until he is
half on top of
me. He traces the back of my top teeth with his
tongue. I touch his
face with shaky hands and do my damnedest to kiss him
back. It
is awkward and clumsy, like we are trying to reach
past the
kissing to access something else in each other. We
pull away from
one other, our mouths wet with each other's saliva. He
is the
single most erotic thing I have ever seen, hands down.
"I'm in love with you," I murmur.
His face lights up. "I'm so glad to hear you say
that." He gives
me a light, brief kiss. "I love you, too. This is
fun."
"Yeah it is."
"It's a big secret, isn't it? No one can know." I
nod. "Maybe
that's what makes it feel like this." He looks over
his shoulder.
"Sun's all the way up." The light sneaks under the
curtains,
making oblong rectangles on the floor. "Are you
tired?"
"Yeah. Are you?"
"Yeah. Wanna go to sleep, Scully?"
"I'd really like to." I hesitate for a moment
before I say, "stay
here with me."
"Gladly."
We turn down the covers and climb under them
together,
avoiding each other's eyes as we settle in. There is
about a foot
between us once we finally stop wiggling around. I
bridge the gap
and entangle my fingers with his.
XXXFINXXX
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