Rating: NC-17
Classification: Case file/MSR, WIP, Humor, Alternate Universe…people are actually happy here…well, some of them
Spoilers: Everything through the first third of Season 7, the story taking place in the universe set forth in Absolute Beginners I, Absolute Beginners II–Better With Practice, and Absolute Beginners III–Comes The Morning—available on Ephemeral, Whispers of X, Fran’s Fanfic Addiction, and The Grove. (It’ll help to read ’em, honest!)
Keywords: Be careful what you wish for. Character death…not who you think. Necromancy. Santeria. Marriage Proposal.
Summary: This story takes place late in the year 2000. In the early Spring of the same year, Mulder and Scully finally got off the dime (after a false start, angst, guilt and a nightmare or two) and did the dirty deed. After a weekend of ‘solidifying their relationship’, they are pulled off the X-Files, but managed to find at least one way to console each other. Fast forward about six months–and you’ll be right we begin, dear reader.
Disclaimers: You know, they’re not ours. They’re Chris Carter’s. Just using them for the fun, no money involved.
Archive: Yes, anywhere. Just keep it intact.
Feedback: Yes, please. You can contact me: alvaradomccain@earthlink.net
Chapter One By Diehard and Dryad
5:15 am, Wednesday, October 15th.
He’d almost finished dressing–charcoal gray suit, blue dress shirt, managed to find his shoes, and was slapping on his holster and service weapon when he heard Scully’s pleas from the living room to hurry up.
“‘Mom! Help me, or I’ll be late for school!” Mulder knew that would get her in the bedroom pronto.
“Mulder…What kind of Oedipal stalling tactic is this?” Scully’d marched in there only to find him grinning, and dangling a dark maroon tie in his hand.
“C’mon Scully, do me.”
“‘Do’ you?”
“The necktie Scully, help me with my tie, and we’ll get going. Unless you think we can skip meeting with Walter.” He made sure he threw in the obligatory leer. Anything to shore them up, make it seem less like they were on foreign ground. Maybe banter and innuendo would hold them until they could figure out how in the hell they were going to hold on to both personal lives and the X-Files.
“Give it here.” She strode purposefully to the target, grabbed the proffered tie and slipped it around his neck. She didn’t want to be amused, but he’d gotten around her brisk flurry of making ready and she let her guard down. Against her better judgment, her fingertips traveled the nape of his neck once the silk was set under his collar. He started to say something and she snapped right back to attention, all business, her hands moving away, finishing the task in front of her.
“Scully…I don’t know how to do this.”
“…Get dressed all by yourself?”
After she straightened out the knot, her hands rested on his shoulders and she looked up to find him watching her–serious, maybe even a little worried.
She was trying to parry his usual thrusts, but even she couldn’t keep up with this quicksilver change of mood. Trying to be ‘normal’ with a vengeance was wearing on her. She looked her usual self, with her black suit, heels, tailored, white blouse and perfectly applied make-up, but she felt miserably off-center. She wished it was all mapped out, she wished her game face was firmly in place, she wished she had the time to reassure him, reassure herself. But the way things were and what she wished for were two different things.
“No…I know…I’d like to tell you how we’re going to handle this, Mulder. But I can’t…we can’t figure it all out right now. We have to go, Skinner’s expecting us in a half hour.”
She started to move away, and he grabbed one of her hands, lacing his fingers through hers. “Wait. What about tonight, Scully? We’ll be in the field, and I assume we’ll have adjoining rooms…I don’t want to be alone in some hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, I’ve had a lifetime of that.”
“Mulder…” She was past worrying about regulations and damage to their reputations, appearances and professional respect. Their relationship had been grist for the mill for years. No one had seemed shocked that they were living together, it’d had been assumed they’d been lovers long before it’d become a reality. But for the last six months they’d been nothing more than two extra grunts in the bullpen, and now the stakes were higher. They had a chance to do work that mattered, and she’d be damned if they were going to make it easy for the powers-that-be to snatch it away again by obviously consorting while on assignment. Scullly felt a lump forming in her throat at the thought of him anywhere else but in her bed.
“I want what you want. But we’ve got to think this through, and we’ve got to be smart about how we handle ourselves in the field. We’ll have some time on the plane to talk.”
~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X
The thing was, most of the time they managed to sit together, usually alone, not only because they had a tendency to review casefiles, but also because people’s eyes tended to glaze over once Mulder turned on the charm. He said she had a lot of charm, too, but Scully didn’t believe it for a minute.
Unlike him, she had no illusions about her ability to deal with people in a pleasant manner when they were in her way. And the man wedged in the seat between them was definitely in the way. She was stuck in the window seat, and their companion’s droning wasn’t helping the fact they weren’t going to be able to talk about much of anything, and frankly, the predatory look he was giving her partner was just icing on the cake.
“So, I just told Ms. Thing to mind her own business, y’know?”
Scully ripped open her tiny snack bag of ‘Krunchy Kreme Krackers’, which sounded like something Queequeg should have eaten, and wondered if she could casually give Tim ‘but you can call me anything you want, sugah’ McMinn a fatal brain aneurysm by murderous thoughts alone.
“Oh, you should come to Provincetown, it’s on the very tippy=toe of Cape Cod, y’know, in Massachusetts? You’d be the hit of the summer, and I mean that in a good way, y’know?”
Don’t say it, Mulder.
“I’ve been to P-town, Mr. McMinn.”
Ignore this idiot, Scully silently pleaded. She chewed absently on a kracker before turning the foil packet over to read the ingredients. Strangely, cardboard and matzo meal were not included.
“Ooh! Maybe I’ve seen you around, y’know, at the Glory Hole, or maybe The Dungeon?”
“I think your gaydar’s a little off, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, what a pity.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw McMinn grab Mulder’s left hand and turn it over.
“But there’s no ring, and I can’t believe such a handsome boy would be on his lonesome…”
Mulder retrieved his hand, but said nothing.
“So, not married – girlfriend?”
“Partner.”
“Ah, never married, then.”
There was a short silence.
“Once…but she was able to commute her sentence. My partner won’t be so lucky…”
Scully blinked. What the hell did he mean by that? And why was he telling this to a complete stranger? She knew he’d been married. It’d been a late night confession about two months ago. In what was now a rare recurrence of his insomnia, she’d found him sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. She’d knelt at his side, her voice a soothing whisper, asking him what was wrong. Two words: Rebecca Tate.
She’d pressed him, and he told her about a marriage that he thought would normalize his otherwise screwed-up life and please everyone else involved. He was still in BSU then, but the nightmares had started, and he’d started using time on the job to gather data on alien abductions. He’d been sleeping with Rebecca for about six months–she was on the DOJ fast track, a smart prosecutor and she liked the idea that he was a profiling wunderkind with a well-connected family.
Apparently much more than she actually liked him. Four months into the whole thing, she left, mailed him the rings and left him a note mentioning a psychiatrist he might want to see.
As shocked as she was, all Scully could ask was, ‘Why, Mulder? Why settle for something like that?’
‘Because I didn’t know I’d meet you.’
After hearing that, she took him by the hand and brought him back to bed and erased that woman’s name with her hands and her mouth on his naked skin.
Fast forward to the present—here she was with Mulder, Tim McMinn and his question, and what now seemed like a surreal conversation. Married. She never really thought about him being married, even after that. Mulder. Someone’s husband. It just didn’t fit. Dana Scully. Someone’s wife. As she tried to clear her head, it was unsettling to realize she didn’t think of herself in that way any more. At least not in any familiar sense of the word.
McMinn nodded sagely and leaned into his handsome companion. “Careful, dear. Once a woman gets her claws into you, professional or private life, it’s all over. Doesn’t matter if they’re dykes or not, they’re all the same. No offense, sweetie,” he turned and reached over, patting Scully’s arm. She grimaced and pulled away. Was that obscure remark about her not being lucky enough to commute her sentence some kind of hint, some typically whacked out, indirect, Mulder statement of intention? God. Mulder proposing. Marriage. Traditional, or modern? Jewish or Justice of the Peace? Think of something else, Dana, like the case they weren’t discussing. Or better yet, shrink the universe to the ridiculously small, the inane, the manageable. Who was going to win the Pennant next year? Why Mulder found it impossible to put his socks in the laundry basket. He could get them on top of it, around it, but never in it. And why were most men seemingly incapable of such a small thing?
Propping her blanket up, she leaned against the shaded window, closed her eyes and tried to get a little more rest.
~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X
“Bring me a beer!” Vinnie yelled, scratching his balls with one hand. What the fuck had she given him? His luck, she gave him the clap from whoever she’d been screwing. A guy spends a few months behind bars and his old lady thinks she can hook up with someone else behind his back? Sure, Ashleen had a great ass and legs that wouldn’t quit, but increasingly, he was thinking about dumping her in favor of that little girl who worked behind the counter at Benny’s, the one with the big tits. She always served him extra fries.
“Ashleen!” He felt for the remote among the couch cushions, tired of Dr. Phil and all of that Oprah crap. Same for Sally and Montel and Ricki. Had to watch that shit every damned day when he was in the slammer because those were Hank’s favorite shows, and what Hank wanted, everyone wanted.
Asshole.
Days of Our Lives, All My Children, some talk show on PBS. Wheel of Fortune. Basic cable sucked. ESPN and all the other sports channels only came with the Standard Package, and neither of them had the cash for that right now. Once Ashleen got some regular clients they’d be in Fat City once again. They’d have to lay low for awhile, of course, until the news stories died down, but he figured it wouldn’t take long before some other poor saps took all of their interest.
Ashleen slowly stepped out of the kitchen, a little knife in one hand, two sweating brown bottles in the other, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She was pretty loaded, so she kept her mouth shut, not wanting to slur her words. He hated that, even bitch-slapped her the last time her tongue got tied in the middle of some mangled rant.
“‘Bout fucking time,” he muttered, reaching for more beer. “Didn’t I tell you to stop wearing that apron? Flowers on some cock-sucking apron do not make you Suzie-fucking-homemaker. Christ, you look like something out of Roseanne.”
Vinnie took a good swig, nearly spat it out again. He looked at the lable. “Tuborg? Horse-piss would taste better! This shit cos’ what, four bucks a case?”
She said nothing, moving behind the couch. He glanced over his shoulder to see where she stood, having learned the dangers of not knowing where everyone in a room was at all times in jail. He was a really woozy, at the tail end of his first drunk of the day. “I wanna a sandwich. Run down to Benny’s and get me something to go, a sub, yeah, an Eye-talian sub. Lots of onion, hot pickles, extra provolone, extra muenster, and plenty of real mayo. Tell’em to go easy on the green pepper and tomato. And chips, don’t forget the chips. While you’re at it, gimme decent beer, Heineken or MGD or something, I can’t drink any more of this crap.” They’d killed a case between them, drinking since they’d stumbled out of bed a couple of hours ago. This was normal for them, they’d get their drink on, then they could stand each other until they one of them felt like fucking. Who was he kidding? He was so loaded he couldn’t get it up even if she sucked him like a vacuum cleaner.
Hearing a floorboard creak, he turned his attention back to Pat and Vanna. He shook his head. Why couldn’t he get a woman like that, a smart blonde who turned letters on a game show for a living? “It’s E, you idiot!” he shouted at the contestant. If he were ever on Wheel of Fortune, he sure as hell wouldn’t be buying any fuckin’ E’s. Drunk on his ass, even he remembered it was the most popular vowel in the English language, and he’d barely finished his junior year at Roosevelt High.
There was a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, and then the floor came up and smacked him in the face. Stunned, he blinked slowly, wondering why he was no longer on the couch. On tv the audience clapped wildly as Pat Sajak said, “Spin the wheel!”
“‘sleen, heb me,” he slurred, watching her form divide and then triple. “Shi. . .”
She came closer, wiping the bottom edge of her bottle on the apron before chugging back half the contents. Pulling the coffee table in front of him, she sat down and took a few puffs on her cigarette.
“Heb m’up, ‘slee,” Vinnie rolled onto his back and touched his head, gazed at the dark smear on his palm. “I’b hur! Beed’n!”
Ignoring his plea for help, Ashleen drank the rest of her beer. Then she held down his leg with her foot and snubbed out her cigarette behind his knee.
He screamed and kicked out, hitting her square in the chest. She flew back against the edge of the couch with an ominous snap. Sobbing from the burning pain, he pushed himself onto his side and slowly sat up. Sour saliva immediately filled his mouth, and he vomited up beer and half-digested peanuts. Got to get up, got to get to the kitchen.
Ignoring his soon-to-be-ex lover, Vinnie managed to get to his feet. Walking was incredibly difficult with the room swaying like a ship in a gale, 20/20 vision coming and going with logic he didn’t understand, but he made it to the doorway before he was forced to balance against the jamb. Where the fuck were the plastic bags?
And then he was staring at filthy yellowed linoleum, unable to breathe for the hot liquid clogging his throat. Something nudged his hip, flipped him over onto his back forcefully. His focus returned and he saw Ashleen straddling him, a large spray of new red flowerbuds arcing across her apron. Her upper body was oddly canted to one side, as if a chest-wide fault-line had slipped under too much pressure. Her mouth was slack, he couldn’t see it, but there was spittle and blood trailing from her mouth.
He shivered as her figure began to fade. “‘Slee, wha’s doin’? I’b col.”
Her hand twitched, light glinting off the knife.
Just before sight faded entirely, he heard a voice say, “You’re both such goddamned cliches.”