SLEEP WITH THE FISHES by Halrloprillalar prillalar@yahoo.com DISTRIBUTION: Archive freely. Email forwarding OK. RATING: R for adult themes. SPOILERS: Sein und Zeit. (Season 7) SUMMARY: Mulder/Scully. Mid-SuZ scene. There's a first time for everything. DISCLAIMER: The X-Files are owned by Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox. MORE FIC: http://prillalar.tripod.com/fic/fic.html THANKS TO: Laura for great editing. And my Lady Eris, who got me into this. February 2000 xxxxxxxxxx "What doesn't kill me kills those around me." She watches the fish. The tank glows, the brightest light in the room. She comforts him, holding him, rocking just a little, and over his shoulder, she watches the fish. His body is warm. He's crying against her and a tear beads on her skin, just above her collarbone. He seems somehow more alive in his grief than she has ever been in her happiness, in her anger. Rubbing his back, she doesn't think about how she just paid her last respects to Mulder's mother with a scalpel and a Stryker saw, doesn't wonder if he'll ask the same for himself in the end. She counts the fish. It's hard to be sure of the total because they won't stop moving. How often are they flushed, replaced? More like a plant than a pet, really. Time passes and her back begins to hurt. It's getting late. Mulder's not crying anymore. She doesn't want him to talk so she pulls him to his feet. "Bed," she says and leads him down the hall. As she walks, she knows what's going to happen and she thinks of stopping, of sending him the rest of the way alone. She thinks of calling Frohike ("land line only, Agent Scully") to come and join the vigil. Or just to take her place in the apartment. But lately she's been waking from unremembered dreams with the vague feeling that resistance for resistance's sake has ceased to be a virtue. So now she's in the bedroom with Mulder. Maneuvering him to the bed, she positions him, then lets go so he sits, head in hands. She stands for one, two final beats, and then sinks down beside him. "Scully," he says and she puts her hand on his shoulder. He turns his head and looks at her. They both move at once and the kiss is tooth-jarring. They've been jarred by so much already that it doesn't seem to matter. They kiss and touch and there's a moment when they both pull back and stare, but neither speaks and so they carry on. When Mulder's shirt is off, she uses both hands to trace a Y-incision on his chest, the path that she would follow with the knife if he were dead and on her table. The lights are on, her eyes are closed. She takes him apart by touch. He smells of abducted children and long flights and bad news. She feels the grief under his passion, the relief at being still alive. She hasn't mourned her dead this way before but she does now: the ones she's lost, the ones she's killed. She takes out her pain upon his body and he fumbles in the drawer for a prophylactic. The lights are on, she's staring at the ceiling, Rorschach water blotches that refuse to coalesce into meaning. The condom breaks. Long past its best-before date, likely. Should have used two, like the latex gloves she stripped and threw away, with his mother's blood still on them. Never mind, she tells him, never mind. They'll do without. It's impossible that this could hurt them. Impossible that this could kill them. She's staring at the inside of her eyelids now, looking at nothing, looking for nothing. And she mourns her own abducted children. It's his fault, she knows, his fault. She scrapes her anger down his back and bites his shoulder when he comes. He rolls away and when she's caught her breath, she tucks him in, hoping this has been sufficient soporific. For hot milk, there would first have to be milk. His eyes are closed, his forehead smooth. She drops a kiss there before she leaves the bed. Taking her clothes, she turns out the light and shuts the door behind her. She showers, taking care to keep her hair dry. Water sprays out of the showerhead at crazy angles and drips on the floor. She doesn't think about what she's just done. The water is hot but she turns it hotter and lets it stream down her back. Dressing right out of the shower always makes her feel clammy, but she does it anyhow. She wants tea but she knows there isn't any. She goes back to the living room. The fish tank is dark. The light must be on a timer. She turns on a lamp and tries to make out the fish, still swimming, more slowly now, or maybe that's just her imagination. Fish swim while they sleep and they don't close their eyes. What would that be like? Do they dream? She remembers dissecting a fish in biology class long ago, tries to recall what kind of fish it was, tries to picture the internal organs. The leather couch is chilly but there's an afghan and she pulls it over herself. She watches the fish. In the morning, she will call her mother. F I N I S Feedback of any sort and the name of your first pet fish to prillalar@yahoo.com