From: fantazzma@aol.com (Fantazzma)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW:  Mercy  (1/1) NC17
Date: 21 Apr 1996 11:52:42 -0400


SPOILERS/WARNINGS: Yet another "Pusher" thing. Mulder/Scully non-platonic
thoughts and deeds contained herein (NC17). There are a few 'bad' words,
too. No violence unless you count the self-inflicted psychological kind.

SUMMARY: The first section is a peek into Mulder's head several hours
after he leaves the hospital. The last section is a peek into something
that should make us all feel like voyeurs. It's short, and it's not too
original, seeing as it follows behind several similar "Pusher" pieces, but
I had my reasons for wanting them to do what they do here immediately
following that episode.

RANDOM NOTES: This is my first attempt at anything other than philosophy
papers. Keep that in mind, but if you feel inclined to send me comments,
give it to me *straight*! I always got a big PLUS on my report cards under
the "accepts constructive criticism well" category. 

Members of Extreme Possibilities: What follows is a slightly revised
version of what you received.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: A huge thank you to S Anderson for bravely volunteering
to be the very first person to read this, for thoughtful and detailed
comments, and for much needed encouragement! Much thanks also goes to
Shana Lyons and to those EPers and members of a certain AOL chat group who
sent me such kind notes and told me to post this. 
 
DISCLAIMERS:
1)  All X Files characters and situations belong to (CC and 1013 and Fox).
2)  I am not (CC and 1013 and Fox).
3)  Therefore, all X Files characters and situations do not belong to me.

(Though it is not logically implied by the above proof, it may be assumed
that no infringement is intended.)

Also: Mulder's musings on the aesthetic benefits of shadows are meant as a
tiny nod to a character who bears him a startling resemblance, Jake, from
"Red Shoe Diaries" which belongs to Zalman King and Showtime. But you
certainly do *not* need to have seen RSD to read this. The nod is almost
imperceptible.

Also, also: I remember that a comment was posted to ATX about the
possibility of seeing a comparison between Mulder and Modell. I remember
because I had related thoughts. While *I* don't think the comparison
holds, I do think *Mulder* might give it more than a little credence, and
that plays into the mulderangst here. I wanted to acknowledge that poster,
whose name I don't recall... just in case someone might think I was
stealing their idea. 

Enough already. Here it is.
-------------------------------------

MERCY
by Fantazzma@aol.com


X Files Office
11:49 PM

Dim light from a single lamp fell on the cluttered desktop and spilled
over the edge onto Mulder's motionless form. He sat back with his feet
propped amidst stacks of books and folders, studying the long, sharp
shadows cast around the room by the piles on the desk. The office was so
much more appealing in the semi-darkness. Shadows had that effect - they
made things more attractive because they hid the flaws from view. But the
flaws were still there. Shift the wrong way and the light exposes the
ugliness. Shows you for what you really are. 

The frown on his face deepened, and the downward pull of those muscles
hurt far more than it should. He was aware of every cell in his body
tonight. Every movement seemed too extreme, every sensation too intense.
With each blink came the gritty complaint of eyes that begged to close for
the night. With each breath, he felt the fabric of his shirt chafing
against sensitized skin, heard the too-loud sound of his own respiration.
With each beat of his heart, blood gushed through his veins with brutal
force. He felt too real, too human. So real and human it hurt.

He had come entirely too close to death today. Twice. One time literally,
the second time something much worse. Because of a little man and his
delusions of grandeur. Little men might be pathetic creatures, but they
could be dangerous, too. At any moment, one little man could crawl out of
his dank nowhere and shatter the world.

Today it could have been too late.

That thought had been spiraling through his brain for hours. He wanted to
still the pictures reeling in his head, wished he could unravel the
twisted tangle of his guts and slow the thudding in his chest. He didn't
want to be here, doing this to himself. He wanted to be the same place he
always wanted to be - but never was. He was close to giving in tonight,
close to showing up on Scully's doorstep and pleading for just a few,
merciful hours together. This night of all nights, he needed that more
than he could have imagined possible. 

But this night more than any other in a while, he was crippled by the
doubts that had served as the strongest deterrent to giving in before now.

These doubts were familiar. They tended to creep up on him when he was
alone with his memories and his guilt and his regrets. By the third or
fourth reliving of his sister's abduction, he half-believed that his
obsession had less to do with justice than it did with his own redemption.
Sometimes he more than half-believed that he had chosen his path because
he needed to feel big, bigger than he had been the night they took her
from him. Sometimes he couldn't escape the chilling suspicion that he
needed to see himself as some kind of hero.

Fox Mulder: Seeker of Truth. 

He wanted to believe in his reasons. He wanted to believe he was willing
to risk everything for the right reasons. But putting the gun to his own
head was too easy. Not just today. Always. The memories revolving behind
his eyes testified to that.

...the sound of the clock tick-tick-ticking as he waited in the
very-dark-place, in his own apartment, waited and listened to the ticking,
his sweaty hand on the cold metal of his gun and it was cold, so cold, and
the ice stretched as far as he could see and could he die now? and snow
swirled all around and then sand whipped - burn it! - the stench of bodies
on fire and the stench of his terror and the certainty that his flesh
would burn under the desert or explode on a racing train, racing further
and further away from the last-minute rescue that really wouldn't come
this time, tick-tick, Scully, tick-tick...

He was torn between two related but conflicting fears - that Scully and he
could run out of time at any minute, and that it could be the result - not
of their work - but of his flaws. Because putting a gun to his head was
too easy. Even easier when he was acting on his own will than it had been
today. For the truth? He wasn't sure. He feared that the truth had nothing
to do with pulling the trigger on himself again and again and again. Maybe
he lived as he did simply because he needed to, needed the way it made him
feel. Like a big man with a righteous mission. Die a goddamn fucking
hero's death. And the shadows would keep his secrets, never tell that it
was his own fault, that he was willing to die as long as death came with a
heroic, redemptive bang, not a little man's whimper.

He wouldn't lie to himself about trying to change. He knew he couldn't,
whether his reasons were right or not. But he needed them to be right. 

For Scully.

FBI regulations against fraternization, the danger of upsetting the
balance of their partnership, the risk of their relationship being used
against them - these were not the real reasons he denied himself what he
wanted with Scully, what he had suspected for a long time she wanted, too.
Protocol had always been low on his list of priorities, and after the
difficulties they had recently overcome, Mulder felt relatively confident
that their friendship and working relationship could survive just about
anything. Use their feelings for each other against them? Their enemies
knew all too well how easy that was now. Even Modell had recognized their
greatest weakness. What had prevented him from fully surrendering to the
inevitable was the doubt about himself. If he was going to bear the burden
of the danger his quest posed to both of them, he had to be able to
believe it was truly the quest - and not just him - that was dangerous. He
had to believe in himself if he was to believe in the rightness of
accepting any more from Scully than she already gave.

So he was hiding here in his office, in the middle of the night, weighing
the consequences of acting against of those of waiting. Even though the
events of the day had sharpened the doubts, they had also made the
consequences of waiting appear the more formidable.

It was those consequences that had exploded through his mind with
unrelenting clarity as he looked up into Scully's face over the barrel of
a gun held in his own hands. He could still feel it, feel the bullet in
the chamber. One little man could shatter the world. Screams of protest
had echoed off the inside of his skull as the finger tightened against his
flagging will. His screams had come out as a whimper. Modell had made him
whimper. Modell had made him look up into her face and whimper her name as
he was about to blow her head off. 

In the catalogue of horrors his memory preserved, Samantha's abduction
would be rivaled only by that moment. It was ironic that one of the two
most horrifying moments of his life could also be the most liberating - if
he let it be.

All of his not-so-secret secrets had bled out for Scully to see today. All
of him had bled out: in the act of his almost willing participation in his
own execution, through his eyes as he watched her tear roll free, from his
mouth as he whimpered her name. And she had accepted the whole of it, the
whole of him. By the grace of some power he couldn't begin to fathom, she
accepted. He didn't understand why, and he knew he never would. She just
did. If he hadn't believed that before, he had believed at Pusher's
bedside.

'Pusher'. Mulder would grant him that. Robert Modell would forever have
the distinction of being the one who pushed them too far, pushed them into
what could have been a final confession. The confession alone might not
have been enough to bring Mulder to this point, but Modell had deflated
their last line of defense as well. Before today, they could tell
themselves that if it all came crashing down, it would hurt less if they
hadn't acted. Mulder knew that it couldn't possibly hurt more than it had
today, and he was certain she knew it, too. All the unspoken, mutual
admissions hung between them now, eating away at his resistance, urging
him to accept the uncertainty of whatever his shadows might conceal -
pushing him to show himself just a little mercy.

He was tired and he hurt and he wanted to collapse - into her arms, at her
feet, it didn't matter. He didn't know if he could accept giving in as
anything other than weakness, but he had no choice but to accept Dana's
acceptance. Maybe that was all they needed. He willed himself to believe
it was enough. Too late could be any minute, and every throbbing cell in
his body told him that he could no longer risk that moment coming too
soon.


Scully's Apartment
1:27 AM

Scully was revising minute details in the field report she had been
writing and rewriting for hours when the quiet knock came, barely audible
over the sound of tapping keys. The dog looked up from his place by the
dying fire and dropped indifferently back to sleep, as if he was as
unsurprised by Mulder's arrival as Scully was. She had known he would come
tonight, even if it took him most of the night to realize it himself.
Which it obviously had, she thought as she looked at the clock blinking in
the corner of the computer screen. She could have gone to him and spared
him these long hours of struggling with his demons, as she knew he had
been doing. But that was exactly why she hadn't. He needed to find his own
way through the doubts generated by his bottomless guilt. That was the
only way he could be sure. She wanted him sure. 

Breathing deeply in a vain attempt to slow her pulse, she opened the door
and gestured for him to enter. Mulder remained at the threshold, looking
at his partner intently, taking in the exhaustion evident in her face and
posture. She returned his stare, noting without comfort that he looked
worse than she did.

"It's late," he finally ventured, not really apologizing but needing
something to say.

One eyebrow raised in question. "That's alright," she said, willing to
make it easier for him. 

She opened the door wider and moved away to give him the final invitation
he apparently needed. After a long moment, he stepped into the apartment
and gave his coat and suit jacket into Scully's extended hand. As she
moved into the room to lay his clothes over the back of the couch, she
heard the door lock behind her. He was sure.

Scully paused to smooth invisible creases in the cloth beneath her fingers
and then pivoted to face Mulder. He had moved to stand so close that she
could barely turn without bumping into him. Now that the decision was
made, the longing to touch her was overwhelming. It added to the physical
pain that had been present all night, but the realization that he didn't
have to hold back was slow in coming. He settled for the closeness and
kept his hands in his pockets. 

"We should talk..."

He let his voice trail off, knowing it was a ridiculous statement. What
could they possibly say with words that had not already been said without
them today? He cringed inwardly at his own cowardice as Scully found the
courage to be honest for the both of them.

"It's late. We can talk tomorrow."

Resisting the urge to close his eyes against the rush of relief and
arousal, Mulder simply nodded and allowed himself to be led to her
bedroom. 

Strips of light from a street lamp made their way through the blinds into
the darkened room. They stood by the bed, waiting for their vision to
adjust, wanting the awkwardness to dissolve. Mulder was compelled to move
first by the need to see her face. Hesitantly, he pushed her hair back and
bent toward her. She lifted her eyes to his, nervous but unashamed to show
him what she knew he needed to see. The desire plainly visible there
robbed him of breath and thought. 

Without conscious decision, he felt himself descending to her mouth, but
her hands pushing slightly against his chest stopped him. She ignored his
questioning look as she moved shaking fingers to the knot at his throat.
He immediately understood her intentions, and that understanding rocked
him with another wave of arousal so powerful he wanted to cry. He kept
rigidly still, watching her face as she pulled the tie from his neck,
worked the buttons loose, dropped his shirt to the floor. Her open glance
had traveled over his body, but she had barely brushed him with her touch.


Stepping away, Scully slipped her sweater over her head and moved to undo
the clasp behind her back, but Mulder came forward and opened the clasp
himself. His fingers curled under the straps at her shoulders and slid the
silky material lightly over the skin of her arms as he pulled the bra off.
His gaze drifted from her wide eyes to her lips, over her throat, her
collarbone, her breasts, the plane of her stomach. 

The intensity of his wanting burned in his eyes, burning right through
her, but they continued to remove the rest of their clothing, slowly,
reverently revealing themselves until they stood naked, exposed to each
other. Their breathing was already labored as Scully pulled down the quilt
and lay back. Mulder gently lowered himself on top of her, entwining their
legs, shifting so that they were touching everywhere.

Dana's lids fell shut with the overload of sensation, and Mulder could not
look away from her face. He was gripped by something bordering on awe at
the sight of her beneath him. Hovering above her, he traced her features
with his fingertips. She was so impossibly beautiful. He would never
understand what he had done to deserve this.

Scully finally willed her eyes open to see if his expression matched the
tenderness of his touch, knowing it would. He touched her with a
tenderness she couldn't have imagined translated from emotion to physical
reality, and something inside her melted at what she felt radiating from
his fingertips. 

Their fear of the first kiss was not diminished at all by the intimacy of
their position, and their lips met softly, tentatively, hardly meeting at
all. The combined effect was fiercely erotic. Mulder's hips instinctively
surged forward as Scully pulled his head down to harden the kiss. Their
mouths opened to each other at the same instant, and the shock of their
tongues touching released everything they had spent years trying to
contain.

Possessive hands moved to explore, to clutch the other closer. Their lips
and tongues moved urgently together until Mulder tore away. He trailed his
mouth over her jaw, down her neck, finding a sensitive spot where it
curved into her shoulder. Her gasp and the arching of her back intensified
the already painful ache in his groin, and he hurried to close his mouth
over her nipple as his hand slid over her abdomen to tangle in the wet
curls. At her breast, he alternated between light biting and hard sucking
while his fingers moved in and out between the folds. Desperate to have
him inside her, Scully tugged as his hair and whimpered his name, pleading
with him. That sound shattered Mulder's heart in his chest, pulling him
toward the edge with her. 

He raised his head, and she motioned toward the bedside table. He
retrieved the condom, rolled it into place and returned to her embrace
quickly. Trembling, he settled himself between her legs, dying inside as
they wrapped around him and pulled him closer. He entered her with one
groaning thrust. Their pace was frantic, needy. Mulder was aware only of
her voice at his ear, her tightness, her nails in his flesh, the taste of
her sweat on his lips. He was too lost in the feeling of their bodies
joined to notice the tears streaming down his cheeks. They fell for Scully
alone to acknowledge, and she ground her hips into his, wanting him
deeper, wishing she could bring him all the way inside her skin to merge
with her completely.

Mulder tried to slow his strokes, but the protesting moans from Scully
drove away all thoughts of control. His thrusts became faster, pounding,
and he slipped a hand between them, catching her swollen clitoris. The
sudden contractions pulsing around him, the sound of Dana crying out, and
he was collapsing into her, drowning inside of her, finally reaching the
place he had sought for decades.

Scully's mind gradually swam back to consciousness and the panting weight
of Mulder. She buried her face into his neck and felt him respond by
nuzzling further into her hair. They remained locked together, silently
absorbing this new reality, until Mulder reluctantly rolled them onto
their sides. He brushed his lips over her mouth, her cheekbones, her eyes,
finally leaning in to rest his damp forehead against hers. Only when he
felt her breath coming even against his face and the slow patterns her
fingers had been tracing on his back cease did he allow himself to pull
her in tighter so he could cling to her in sleep.




END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fantazzma@aol.com