From: khyber@citizensofgravity.com   
      
   TITLE: one equals one equals zero   
   AUTHOR: Khyber   
   E-MAIL: khyber@citizensofgravity.com   
   DISTRIBUTION: Ephemeral, Gossamer, please ask for anywhere else.   
   RATING: NC17 for extremely graphic f/f/m sex, heavy-handed   
   metaphor, and '80s goth references.   
   CATEGORIES: VA   
   KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully/Other sex, Scully/Other slash   
   SPOILERS:  Er, "Fire," and the orgy scene in "Detour II." What, you   
   haven't seen that one?    
   SUMMARY: Scully finds it harder than it used to be.   
      
   Author's notes: If you are reading this on atxc or Ephemeral in   
   October 2005, it is being reposted purely for purposes of   
   Gossamerization. Originally posted way back in 2000. Has had   
   *minor* edits since then. This was written in the darkest days of   
   Season Six, when all them angels and devils that was in my head   
   stopped disagreein' and started agreein'.   
      
   FEEDBACK: "This is implausible and gratuitous porn because..."   
   feedback gratefully accepted at khyber@citizensofgravity.com. "u   
   suk, I thot u wer a shipper, scully isnt a dyke" feedback can be   
   sent to mozzer@brickiewithaquiff.com.   
      
   Thanks to Terma99 for editing--"You're in the club!!!"   
      
   ***   
      
   one equals one equals zero   
      
   ***   
       
   I saw the picture almost three years ago, in one of our good   
   times. I was slightly dizzy just from sitting on his couch next to   
   him, dizzier still from finding him in one of those moments that   
   the magazines say are rare.   
      
   Mulder had long hair the night the flash went off, past his chin.    
   He was even thinner, younger but hard-looking and with cynical   
   eyes.  He looks more boyish now, in a way.  It was outdoors   
   somewhere across the sea, jerky streetlights too close to each   
   other in the background.  The pale, round blonde on the right had   
   red photo-eyes and a silly, pleasant face that didn't match her   
   outrageous Egyptian eye makeup.  Mulder was wearing a black   
   turtleneck and a battered-looking trench coat.    
      
   On his left was, I knew immediately, Phoebe.  She had long hair   
   then, a gorgeous sweeping black fall of it well past her shoulders.   
    Pale skin, not peachy like mine, smooth like sinning cream.  Her   
   eyes were dark, rimmed with a slightly less extravagant, more   
   serious version of the blonde's makeup.  Her lips might have been   
   black.   
      
   I remember pictures of myself at twenty-two, plump with glasses and   
   a slightly strained smile.  They look like rock stars.  Mulder   
   looks debauched, poetic, and verging on beautiful.  I imagined   
   Phoebe leaning across to nip him on his ear, pull him off into the   
   bushes or a convenient graveyard.   
      
   I envy him those formative things that he has forgotten, and which   
   I always denied myself.   
      
   He laughed, and said it was a phase.  I think I chuckled. I had a   
   couple of phases once, none of which lasted more than three days.    
   I usually got a beating after, from Ahab before I was fully trained   
   to do it myself.   
      
   Mulder's gone now, I'm not sure where.  He's been gone for two   
   days.  Frohike doesn't know where.  Skinner might, but I'm not   
   asking him, not unless I have to.  Noon tomorrow is the   
   self-imposed deadline. For what?  When I really start worrying?    
   When I start carrying my gun everywhere?  I don't know.   
      
   He had booked off yesterday afternon, he didn't say where he was   
   going.  I thought nothing specific of it, just was conscious of his   
   absence.  This morning I tried to 'do something', going through the   
   mail and the messages and Mulder's inbox.  I thought about making   
   slides, if I could find something to make them for.  It doesn't   
   work, the papers and pictures just don't make any sense when I look   
   at them by myself.   
      
   I look around the inside of his dark apartment.  I came here   
   because it worked before, with the New Spartans and the broken   
   finger.  I haven't taken my coat off yet, though I've been here   
   almost an hour.   
      
   The fish were pleased to see me, however.  We watched each other   
   for some time.   
      
   Feeling small and hunched-over and grabby, I slide open the desk   
   drawer, pulling out the heavy white-bound album.  They would have   
   been in a shoebox in his bedroom, but he's got all the new   
   furniture in there now and I remember seeing the album this summer.   
      
   The pictures are organised only in the order he put them in.    
   Somehow I know it will be at the back.  He has one of just me that   
   he insisted on taking in Arcadia.  He mumbled something about all   
   the pictures he has being of both of us, and he doesn't like   
   pictures of himself.  I'm dressed as the Minivan Woman in a gray   
   button sweater, but I am smiling.  I don't remember the exact   
   moment, why I smiled.  The picture is crooked in the album, as if   
   it has been taken out and replaced.   
      
   The other one is a few album pages before.  It's perfectly   
   straight.  I see motion in it, Mulder with his rhythmic walk, the   
   blonde bubbling and giggling and leaning on his shoulder, Phoebe   
   feeling the thrill of her long limbs and the knowledge that she   
   will spend the rest of this night with her lover.   
      
   I drive home at two AM.  It didn't work this time.   
      
   ***   
      
   Can't sleep, I tell myself.  Have to get to sleep, that's all.  I   
   try the detached approach, trying to force myself over the edge   
   with my little vibrator and be done with it.  It doesn't work.  I   
   just need to sleep, that's all, it's understandable.  I try it the   
   way I know it would work in the real world, stepping through the   
   door of his apartment with the right look on my face, saying   
   something about the hallway, sunlight flooding through his living   
   room window as I ride him.   
      
   I only feel tense.   
      
   I used to have such wonderful girl-fantasies.  I honestly imagined   
   fields of daisies, a bed of rose petals.  I've never made love   
   outdoors, not even in a car, but I could imagine it with him then.    
      
   For a year, I could make myself come by imagining every detail of   
   placing my thighs around his hips and taking him inside me, to work   
   some woman's magic I imagined I possessed.   
      
   I don't need to explain to myself why I'm in the student flat in   
   Oxford, where they have black candles and a poster that says "Bela   
   Lugosi's Dead." It's not important.  Nor is what I'm wearing.    
   After all, I'm just trying to get to sleep.  I roll over on my   
   belly, on top of my right hand, so I have something to work my hips   
   against.   
      
   Phoebe has Mulder's cock in her elegant mouth.  She is curled up on   
   him, her body draped over his abdomen as he lays on his back.  Her   
   hand is stroking his balls, pale fingers and silver rings bright   
   against the dark wrinkly skin and hair.  She has left all her   
   jewellery on, the ornate necklace, the bracelets, the rings.  I sit   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)