New: Atrocities Done by Brighid (1/2) SEQUEL
geoffrey2
part 1 of Atrocities Done to her news server, so I am posting it for her.
Please send your feedback to Brighid at earth...@goplay.com -- Geoffrey
Brighid
Title: Atrocities Done(1/2)
Author: Brighid
Spoilers: None, really.
Rating: R for language and graphic imagery
Category: SA
Keywords: Sequel to Tonight I Was and To The Bone
Summary: Life, such that it is, must go on. Mulder deals with his new
world, and the sins of the old one.
Warning: Violent, bloody, and someone gets staked.
Archive: Gossamer, yes; otherwise keep my name & let me know.
Constructive feedback greatly appreciated. Please. Please. Please.
Disclaimer: All things X-files belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox.
This is not for profit, but for love.
Author's note: This is becoming a series. Which means I need a series
name. I'm thinking "Hiding Backwards" from "the becoming" by Trent
Reznor. This has some of the Mulder-processing that I promised. The
title is from NIN's "Heresy". It worked for me.
Atrocities Done
"his perfect kingdom of killing, suffering and pain
demands devotion atrocities done in his name"
- Trent Reznor, "Heresy"
by Brighid
Sometimes, I almost manage to forget what he's become. I know, in my
head, that things have changed, he has changed; he's resigned from
the Bureau, for starters, at least until they get a night division.
He's started showing up at my apartment at odd hours. He still hasn't
gotten the hang of breathing without being reminded. But otherwise,
for the most part, he's still just Mulder -- painfully bright, oddly
charming and fucking annoying. He can talk for hours at a time about
things I never knew, most of which I'm not entirely sure I want to
know even now. He watches bad science fiction movies on my cable, and
does this whole Mystery Science Theater schtick. I'm torn between
gutting myself laughing, or putting him in a headlock and hauling him
out. He might just let me, if only for old times' sake.
Other times, I'm knocked on my ass by an almost overwhelming
awareness of his otherness. It just crawls over me, like ants, makes
me itch and squirm. He has these silences, dark and deep and
painfully gothic, that he lapses into, can't be pulled from. I'm not
even sure why he shows up on those nights; maybe he's afraid that if
he's alone, the silence will swallow him whole.
On those nights, I regret every single time I ever wished that Mulder
would just shut-up and be still. In all the years that I've known
him, his body and mind were constantly in motion; I sometimes thought
that he was a little blurred about the edges, like a hummingbird's
wings. Even lost in thought he fidgeted and touched and ate those
damned seeds and moved in his seat like a six-year old in need of a
bathroom. Now, I've finally seen his still, and it scares the hell
out of me. It's like he died in that motel room, and nobody bothered
to tell him.
Tonight is going to be one of those nights. I can feel it in my
bones. I heard him let himself in through the balcony door about an
hour ago; he's never told me how he manages that particular trick,
and I really don't want to ask. For the last hour I've tried to sleep
through him, reminding myself that I've got a real life, a real job
to go to in the morning, but instead, I just lie here and feel him,
silent and brooding in the living room. At last I give up, get up,
and go downstairs to him.
He's sitting on the couch, reading a paperback he left here last
week. At least, he's pretending to read. His eyes aren't scanning at
all, and he doesn't turn the page despite the minutes ticking by. I
shake my head, wander into the kitchen and pour myself a finger of
scotch, and wander back into the living room to find him exactly as
he was before. I sit down across from him, and sip at the scotch and
just try to be there for him.
He hasn't mentioned her, not even once. Until he does, I can't.
Despite the twisted intimacy that has sprung us between us, there are
places neither of us is ready to go to yet. A lot of places.
I think this darkness, this silence that's grown in him, is where he
keeps her.
*****
I can still feel her inside of me. She always will be inside me, in a
way. Whatever wrought this transformation passed through her on its
way into me. It's like a venereal disease; you only hurt the ones you
love.
I wonder if it hurt her when I rammed the stake through her heart.
When we rammed the stake through her heart.
He's watching me, his dark, stern eyes surprisingly gentle. I can
smell the scotch he's sipping at, I can smell the heat and musk of
his bed-warmed body and I find myself closing my eyes, swallowing
convulsively. Therein lies temptation; therein lies damnation. It's
why I had to kill Scully. It's why, eventually, Skinner will have to
kill me.
This whole thing, it's way beyond the consumption of blood. If that
were all it was, I'd knock off a blood bank every so often and be
done with it. There's so much more to being a vampire than the movies
lead you to believe. It's about life as much as it is about death.
That's what makes it so fucking deadly; I don't want his blood, I
want HIM. And he would break the leg off his coffee table and shove
it through me if he ever found out. I might even help him.
Not that I'm falling into some sort of Anne Rice homoeroticism
subtext discussion here; I'm not, not really. It's not sexual, or at
least, not wholly sexual. It's the hunger to connect, to know, to
consume him utterly. I've already fed tonight, fed enough to last me
a few days, but it was empty, shallow. It's like eating at a Mr.
Tubesteak cart and coming home to a 12 course meal you can only sit
and look at. I sit here, and I can feel him along every inch of my
skin, taste him when I inhale. It's the pull of his pulse, like a
tide I want to drown myself in.
The others, when I take them, it's like little flashes. Their lives
flare and sputter in me, but don't amount to anything. It's like a
cheap pick-up, an anonymous fuck in a toilet stall in a bar.
Satisfying on the surface, for the brief moment of connection, but
afterwards -- afterwards, you're more alone than you were before, and
messy as hell.
That's the real danger of being what I've become; the only real
satisfaction lies in destroying all you ever knew, because it's the
only way of keeping it a part of you. It's the only way of anchoring
yourself into this twilight world. That's why she lured me in, that's
why she took me. It was instinct, a frantic last grab at her
mortality, and it didn't work, not really.
It's also probably why I survived this transformation better than she
did; I've lived most of my life disconnected, in shadows and half-
truths. I don't have that many anchors to begin with. I've always
been, pardon the pun, alienated. Being cast adrift from the rest of
the human race wasn't as overwhelming for me, since I'd never really
belonged.
But Scully, she belonged. She was a part of the world, had fought
tooth and nail against abductions and cancer and me to stay
connected. She had a life full of family and dreams and prayers that
she hid under ice-blue eyes and scientific detachment. An entire
world that she surrendered to me on a warehouse roof. An entire world
I carry around inside me, that plays out behind my eyes during the
torpor of day, replacing the dreams that I lost the moment her mouth
breached the last barrier between us.
Her memories have become my penance, replacing the nightmares I had
finally grown accustomed to. They remind me that, one way or another,
I would have swallowed her whole anyway; she simply sped up the
process, brought it to its natural conclusion.
Right now, I'm moving through her memories, seeing them instead of
the page before me. Each one is separate, defined, like beads on a
rosary. I finger through them, meditate over them, with no hope for
absolution. All the while I feel his gaze upon me, hot and human and
far kinder than a monster like me deserves. I should leave him alone,
leave him out of this, but I've never been good at just walking away
when it was the right thing to do. I don't think I can start now.
At last I throw the book aside. "I've found him," I say at last,
looking up into the deeps of his eyes. "I've found the smoking
bastard's latest hole, and I'm wondering what to do about it." I push
through her memories, and find her remembrances of him; they still
resonate with rage and revulsion, and perhaps just a hint of fear. I
want to make him pay for them, in fear and loss and blood. I want to
become his nightmare, just as he became hers.
*****
A silence hangs between us, and I just don't know how to fill it.
It's like he wants me to tell him what he should do. "You want my
advice? My blessing?" I say at last. "It's a fine goddamned time to
start listening to me, Mulder." There is anger and rue and despair in
my voice, and more than a little amusement. "What do you want to do?"
His eyes shift in the darkness, gleam, and his lips pull back in a
snarl. "I want to paint the walls with him," he growls, and it knifes
through me, makes what hair I have left prickle on the back of my
neck. I used to have a lot more of it before Blevins passed Mulder
off onto me. I relax as the growl softens into a chuckle. "But that
would be counterproductive. I know what I have to do; I just want you
to come along."
"Bear witness," I offer with sudden understanding. He nods, and his
mouth relaxes, but his eyes do not lose their feral sheen. "And when
you're done? Am I supposed to chop off his head and stuff his mouth
with garlic, to keep him from joining the ranks of the unholy?
Because I have to tell you, Mulder, the Bureau still hadn't issued
any Van Helsing kits as of the last briefing I went to ."
Mulder stands, paces over to the sliding door. "He's been a member of
the unholy for a very long time, sir." He smiles at me, a terrible
mix of predator and penitent. "But just to be safe, I suggest you
stop by Home Depot on your way back from work. They've usually got
fence-pickets in good supply." He opens the door, and the cold night
air washes over us both. Only I feel it. "Better buy in bulk; if this
works, then I suspect we're going to be starting a large-scale urban
renewal project." He slips out into the false darkness of the city
night, and carefully closes the door behind him.
I sit here, long after he leaves, finishing my scotch; I am
completely unable to get warm again.
*****
He's waiting for me; I can smell him, the tang of fear and
anticipation and something I haven't yet learned to define marking
his sweat. I also smell wood, and Jesus, garlic? I hope that's just
leftover from his dinner; I'd hate to disillusion the poor bastard
any more. The only time garlic has actually repulsed me in the last
few weeks has been when it was a compound in some meal's body odour.
And that revulsion was fleeting at best, not enough to put me off my
food.
I decide to surprise him, and come through the front door. He's
facing the balcony, a large tote bag sitting beside him on the couch;
he's a silhouette in black denim and leather, dressed for business.
I'm impressed when he doesn't jerk or start, just swivels around
slowly. He unzips the bag, pulls out a slender, three-foot picket. "I
am now a Home Depot Valued Customer," he says drily, brandishing the
picket. "Next time you want me to play Renfield, you supply the
damned credit card."
"Did you get them blessed by a priest?" I ask, mock serious, unable
to resist baiting him. He just lifts his eyebrows at me, the way he
always did when he suspected my latest report was full of shit.
"Mulder, while I doubt it would be fatal, I suspect shoving one of
these up your ass would still hurt like hell, so can the comedy.
What's on the agenda for tonight?" He puts the makeshift stake back
in the bag, and leans into the sofa, waiting for me.
His trust blows me away. Before, I'd always suspected his motives,
his allegiance, especially his loyalty. I'd taken what he offered me
because it suited my own ends, but I never trusted him for it. But
now … now I can smell if he lies, hear it in the layers of his voice,
feel it in the rhythm of his heartbeat. And there's nothing there but
him. He's a little scared, a little strung-out, a little pissed off
by it all, but it's just him. No strings attached. It fragments me
and rebuilds me in the instant, and I can only stare at him, open-
mouthed.
His eyebrows go up again, and his stern face furrows into a frown.
"Earth to planet Mulder," he intones, a touch of annoyance creeping
into his voice.
I shake myself, burrow my hands into the pockets of my dark trench
coat. "We go to his place, and I get the truth from him." I can feel
it shiver over me, feel my teeth sharpen underneath my lips. "A drop
at a time, if need be." I smile at Skinner, and I can smell his
reaction to it wash over me. The wanting rises up, snarls and claws
against the human veneer that holds it in place. Suddenly, Skinner
coming along doesn't seem like such a good idea. I open my mouth to
say just that, only to be silenced by a scowl from him.
"Don't even think about it," he growls, and this time it's me who
shivers. "You even think about ditching me, and I swear to God I'll
shove a plank so far up you, you'll burp toothpicks for a week!"
I can't help it; I begin to laugh helplessly. "Christ, sir! If that's
the line you use in bars, no wonder you're always home alone when I
stop by!"
He begins to laugh, too, albeit a little ruefully. "Just tell me
where the hell we're headed, Mulder. And we're taking your car. I
refuse to have my vehicle on scene for whatever you've got planned."
He stands, lobs the tote to me, then stoops and picks up a second
knapsack. I smell garlic, plastic and more wood. "Always be
prepared," he shrugs when he sees me glancing at it.
"That a Marine thing?" I ask, mouth twitching as I heft the tote over
my shoulder.
"It's a working-with-Mulder thing," he says, his own mouth twitching.
"Now let's get going, before I think better of this and pretend the
last few weeks have been nothing more than a stress-induced
hallucination."
He doesn't ask again about where we are going. He will find out soon
enough.
*****