Spoilers: Small Potatoes.
Author's Note: I wasn't a
watcher of the X-Files for the longest.
"Small Potatoes" is one of the touchstones for my latching onto
the X-Files, and knowing deep down that
S&M were/are meant for each other.
Please accept this humble attempt in homage to one of my favorite episodes...
Disclaimer: The X-Files and its characters are exclusive property
of C. Carter, 1013 and FOX. No
infringement intended, ever.
Cumberland Reformatory
One Month Later
11:05 A.M.
After he signed us out, and the
admitting security guard wished him a, "Good day, sir," he coolly handed
me a mincing look sideways, as though bartering for time. Time neither of us has ever really had;
might not ever have.
"You know I don't have to
tell you this. You're *not* a
loser." I had never seen him
looking so down.
"But, I'm no Eddie Van
Blundht either..."
No, you're not, thank God,
overshadowed what I was going to say in the reformatory's reverberative hallway
shrouded in elongated shadows. Instead,
I offered, as the man mopping the floor, watched us tread upon his hard work,
"What's that supposed to mean, Mulder?"
"What's *what* supposed to
mean, Scully?"
I blinked in growing
despair. Could he really be this
evasive? This impassive? Although, I did sense something else in his
tone; his whole bearing. The idea that
the point had to be made pulled on my
sensibilities much as a young
child tugging on the hem of her mother's skirt. Made now, more so than
when I was first thrown into
this mismatched mix of half-truths, red
herrings and the bizarre these past
four years. I sensed a despair of its own genre within
him. With my usual degree of
determination,
not meant to intimidate, but
rather to supplicate, meliorate, I brushed his forearm lightly, then held
my hand in place on his sleeve,
bringing him and his somewhat irresolute gait to a halt.
"Your not being Eddie Van
Blundht..." My watchful eyes sued
for his explanation as to why he'd say
something so loaded. Why now, under these circumstances? But giving me an explanation was
incumbent upon his willingness
to offer up his shifting eyes to my steadily focused ones. In time,
he peered into my eyes. As we stood face to face, now outside the
huge, limey grey facility, it was
clear his 'windows' to his soul
were smudged by so much emotional soot; grimy traces of regret gunking
up the vitreous humor sticking
to the edges of peripheral vision. I
glimpsed listlessness, and something else I couldn't quite identify.
"It means I'm no Eddie Van
Blundht. Oh, and the 'h' is silent,
according to the man of a thousand faces.
The straight dope from his
authentic mouth."
A tepid smile tested itself on
my facial muscles and decided they'd support its negligible weight. He knew I appreciated the candor then. "Why are you saying that you're not, as
though you think you ought to be? Since when have you developed such low self
esteem, Mulder?"
Since when...since like forever,
Scully. If you really knew all the crap swirling around in
this head of
mine, you wouldn't ask such an
obvious question. "Am I, Scully?" If you really knew the real lame me, how long
would you have stuck around then, partner?
He's doing it again; I started
thinking, as he continued to scrutinize me with those wide-set, wide-eyed searching
eyes of his. It's the cerebral
basketball game he plays, using his true feelings as the ball. He fakes, he shoots, but in cases such as
these, seldom scores.
"Mulder, wait--"
"I don't want to have this
discussion here." He started down
the even stone steps. I don't want to
have this discussion anywhere; not with you, Scully.
"Where then?"
He abruptly stopped his escape,
wheeled, pinning me down with an expository look. "Okay, Scully, how
'bout at your place? Tonight...at..." He started off with the same abruptness, resuming
his descent, but then just as abruptly turned sharply again, giving the
identical look a second try. "What
time did you tell my dashing, devil-may-care alter ego to come over? We'll make it for then, then."
"I never invited him over. He invited himself." Eye rolling doesn't become Mulder, I thought
with a pang
of guilt tapping my shoulder. But, what did I have to feel guilty about? I'm still fairly new to this paranormal phenomena paradigm. I'd been roped in, big time. Oh, no, not again. He was off, and practically bolting. "Mulder!"
We walked, or rather, he plowed,
I scrabbled like that same young child who had grown tired worrying its mother's
dress, barely keeping up with a towering, long-legged adult, through the
under-parked parking
lot. I had parked the car with
its bumper leaning heavily against the outer chain link fence, which laid out
the facility's southern boundary. Off
in the distance, I noticed several reformee hopefuls playing basketball.
I got in on the driver's side,
after Mulder, who for some reason wasn't in a driving mood that day. I jammed the key into the ignition, but
before turning it, I took a deep breath, letting it out in a measurable,
yet inaudible sigh. "Mul--"
"Not now..."
"Not what now?"
He ran his hand through his wind
tousled hair a second time. No Eddie
Van Blundht...it felt as though I could hear him belaboring it again,
internally.
Got that right, Mulder strained
in thought...dee-straight! He fixated on the player who was all set to take his
shot. The six footer shot; he scored.
Mulder shrugged. Easy shot, he
assessed, guy wasn't even 2 feet out.
Then, he seemed to realize I'd asked a question, and was waiting for him
to address it, not later; now.
"Why I'm a loser."
My eyebrows flew up. I thought we'd settled that. "The verdict was unanimous; you're
not. I just told you so--"
"Why I'm not, and never
will be Eddie Van Blundht, then."
Taking his left hand in both of
mine, I separated the pinkie and ring fingers from his middle and index, holding
onto the pairs firmly, with a definitive air of possessing what's mine. "Glad to hear it. Since when
is aspiring to be a recidivistic
sex offender, the criminality enhanced by his biologically-endowed, masquerading
abilities, a desirable thing? Maybe
you're right to a degree. Maybe what
other's perceive us to be sometimes shapes how we see ourselves, more or
less. But not always." He gave me a look, a true needler, which, I guess,
was supposed to convey in no uncertain terms that his being annoyed was a
foregone conclusion.
"Melancholy isn't attractive
on you, Mulder. Neither is that face
you're wearing." Summoning up the
best
good spirits I had, I gave him
another facial nudge. "Come on, since when have you allowed a criminal to
influence your good judgment to
such an extent?"
He looked away with a sigh. What does look good on me? Mulder pondered. He faced back, deciding that if she wanted to talk about it now,
now was as good a time as any.
"You were about to kiss him, Scully. You would have if I hadn't barged in when I did..."
I squeezed his hand which had
warmed up considerably while it rested in my hands which had warmed in response
to holding his. "I was about to
kiss *you*. For all I knew, *he* was
you. And, you, the you I saw, was someone
I'd never seen before. I liked what I
saw, Mulder. I saw someone I was
getting to know much better; someone I value.
Someone I very much wanted to kiss--no, wait, please. Let me finish...
"The you, whom I saw,
wasn't just my working associate; merely my partner. I saw instead, I was with a man I found myself wanting to share
more of myself with that night. Telling
you things about myself I never have before; you listening attentively. He was wearing your face, but I saw what your
personal side might be like, and I got hooked.
At least that's the way I felt when it was happening; the way I saw
it. You. I mean see it." I cracked another smile. "This isn't easy." Mulder nodded, having to agree. "You were different that night, in more
ways than the obvious. We both
were. You were reaching out. That's what I responded to. I wanted to reach back." Sighing, "It's good you charged in like
gangbusters when you did, or I might have given more of myself than just a
kiss."
Both of them lowered their heads
then, and Mulder shifted nervously, looking uncomfortable in the roomy seat, stricken
with a temporary loss for something clinching to say at this awkward moment;
this very unusual moment. Something that could just possibly make everything
she'd just said really true.
"I'm glad too..."
"Mulder?"
He tried to squeeze her hand
back, but the impulse never made it past the synapses. "Still here, Scully..."
And the words hung in the air,
akin to being a visible entity between them.
Seeing it was evident that that
was all I was going to get from him for the time being, maybe for the rest of our
being partnered together, I said, "Guess we'd better get going then. It's a fairly long drive back to--"
"Ya know..."
"What do I know?" I turned the key. Mulder stretched in and turned it back, killing the engine.
He cleared his throat, sensing
his vocal cords tight and untrustworthy, as though they were calling a
strike.
He cleared his throat again, and
this time it helped. Hesitantly though, "Van Blundht said I was a loser, 'by
choice.'"
"Yes, I know. I saw the smugness in his face when he said
it. But, Mulder, who are you going to
believe?
A face-form pilfering misfit, or
*me*?"
He gulped, but answered truthfully,
"You, always, Scully."
Sniffing with a bolstering
smile, I said, "That's more like it."
Mulder inched closer until his
thigh was touching hers, ever so imperceptivity. Even the slight contact drove a numbing wave of pleasant
sensation coursing through his leg.
When he'd recovered sufficiently enough, he ventured, "He also said
that I should, 'Live a little...treat myself.'
He sure would..."
"I heard that too. I caught every self-absorbed word." I
shifted into him with my face flirting audaciously with whimsy, and very much
to his surprise, I could see it, as clearly as seeing the sun in a cloudless
sky,
him. "So, are you ready to
live a little?" I cajoled, pressing my thigh a little firmer against
his. "What's stopping you?"
"Live a little how?"
"Oh, Mulder," I dangled,
scant inches from his left cheek. I
thought back to the conversation I'd had with the atypical, thoroughly engaging
phony Mulder, who had summarily tricked me; on my very own couch no less, into believing
that he was my Mulder. My Mulder, I languished
in that thought...the only man I wanted to give my lips to then; and right this
very moment. "Live a little now..."
As she brushed the corner of his
mouth with her lips, he whispered, "Is this a mercy kiss, Scully?"
Smirking, much like Van Blundht
had smirked, when he'd urged Mulder to take his advice, but doing so directly
into Mulder's slack-jawed mouth, I whispered in kind, "I don't do mercy
kisses. I don't do mercy anything..."
"Neither do I, Scully,"
Mulder breathed at the tail end of his saying so, moments before their lips enveloped
one another's.
And when their mutually sumptuous
offerings had run their courses, reluctantly, they broke away from each other
seeing in the other's eyes the wordless, irrefutable validity of those truthful
statements.
"Mercy,
Scully..." Woman! Where'd you learn to kiss like that,
Mulder's brain shouted.
"Mercy..."
"None, Mulder. Not ever." I kissed the tip of that beautiful nose, as an equally beautiful
smile graced his supple lips. His moist
tempters started me thinking how easily I could become a FWM recidivist with a
labial bent for their soft sakes.
Reflected in the glint in Mulder's eyes, I avowed, "What you've got
is far too good...to go to waste. Eddie
Van Blundht..." I arched my
eyebrow. "Did I say it right this
time?"
Mulder nodded, jostling her
thigh with his. This time he stayed
where he was, not moving a muscle to allow any intervening space between
them. "On the nose."
"Eddie Van Blundht, eat
your heart out!" I declared, and started the car.
It proved to be a very different
ride home from the one they'd had on their way there.
End
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