From: khyber@citizensofgravity.com   
      
   TITLE: Collapsar   
   AUTHOR: Khyber   
   E-MAIL: khyber@citizensofgravity.com   
   DISTRIBUTION: Ephemeral and Gossamer OK, others please ask.   
   RATING: PG-13 (language, mature subject matter)   
   CATEGORIES: VA   
   KEYWORDS: Mulder / Scully UST, implied Mulder/Scully sex   
   SPOILERS:  Show over, no one cares.   
   SUMMARY: Post-ep for "Millenium." "If there is anything more   
   between us, it doesn't happen because it's New Year's Eve."   
      
   Disclaimer: If I owned them, I'd settle with Fox and make the damn   
   movie before DD gets an afro to go with that '70s 'stache.   
      
   Author's Notes: Thanks to mimic117 for an early read and CathrynXF   
   for the exacting technical edit.   
      
   * * *   
      
   Holiday Inn   
   Hagerstown, Maryland   
   January 1, 2000 1:48 AM   
      
   "You don't get to do this, Mulder. There will be no sweeping-off-of..."   
      
   Damn it. How do you say that?   
      
   "You are not allowed to sweep me off my feet."   
      
   And these feet will stay right where they are, traitors.   
      
   "Not now. Not after everything. Not after the ditchings. The ignorings."   
      
   That's clumsy.   
      
   "Just because you suddenly find a moment, you don't get to change   
   the rules."   
      
   What rules, he says... That's not going to work.   
      
   She can't sleep, hell, she can't sit down, still stomping the small   
   hotel room in her blue jeans and sock feet.  First she had been   
   mad at herself, mad for ruining what could have been a perfectly   
   good moment. You could have kept looking into his eyes. Kept   
   smiling, because you know you were Dana, and said the same thing,   
   "No, it didn't." You wouldn't even have had to change the words.   
   It would have been fine right there, everything else going the same   
   way, except maybe he'd have put his arm around your back instead of   
   your shoulder. You'd have come back to this little room with a warm   
   feeling and a tingle.   
      
   But you didn't, and now it's broken.   
      
   No, it's not, it's his fault, what the hell is he thinking pulling   
   cheesy after-the-office-party crap like that on me, after all this   
   time? It's not fucking fair, it's almost, it's disrespectful,   
   somehow, that you think that will work. I've cleaned blood off   
   you, I've cleaned puke off you, I've fucking shot you, I've   
   fucked you and not just once, you think you can just pull out the   
   Times Square ball and suddenly my knees will go weak? Are you just   
   saving me for a spare moment, after all this time? No! Damn you! I   
   am not going to apologise for not playing along when that's all you   
   think I am worth. I'd be less pissed at you if you had just pulled   
   out a ring.   
      
   Okay, don't say that last part. In fact, don't say anything, Dana,   
   you never have and you never will. In fact, if anyone is keeping   
   score, Dr. Scully, you're up about four to two, even  if tonight   
   counts, on failed, embarrassing, painfully pedestrian attempted   
   seductions. The wine and cheese incident? The time after who   
   remembers which horror when you managed to say "don't go," but   
   couldn't bring yourself to say anything else, and not so much as an   
   overcoat was removed?   
      
   That's it. I'm perfectly capable of embarrassing myself, Mulder,   
   and if I am your goddamned touchstone I expect better from   
   you... that is an unbelievably weak line of imagined argument, and   
   he's opening the door. How did I...   
      
   Oh, God...   
      
   "Hey, Scully."   
      
   She stands gaping, as if she had no idea how she'd come to be   
   knocking on the door four down from her own. Her face is flushed,   
   her eyes wide.   
      
   "Mulder! Mulder, I... what are you doing up, you should be..."   
      
   "Then what are you doing here?" he laughs quietly. "No, those   
   Tylenol-3s keep me up anyway. I'm glad you came, look, c'mon in..."   
      
   He moves to the side, but she doesn't enter. She's looking up at   
   him, because he's not wearing a shirt, and that's something she'd   
   prefer not to pay any attention to. In fact, she'd helped him   
   take it off an hour ago-- on account of his shoulder, of course. At   
   an almost automated level, she's pleased to notice that   
   he's still wearing the sling.   
      
   "Okay, or don't..." He takes a deep breath, looking down at his   
   feet. "I'll just say it, I'm sorry, that was a stupid, cheesy,   
   office-party kind of move."   
      
   She's taken one step forward, but not far enough in that he can   
   close the door behind her. He's still hemm-hawing, kicking at   
   imaginary dust with one sweatsocked foot as he continues.   
      
   "Sometimes we think too much, and I figured, what the hell,   
   it'd be nice to sort of go with the moment. And... I shouldn't   
   have done that."   
      
   "No," she says. She thinks it might be a trick, trying this   
   aw-shucks boy stuff like she wouldn't remember where he likes   
   to put his hands. Three fast steps forward, pushing the door shut   
   behind her. "You do not get to do this, Mulder. You are not allowed   
   to decide how this is going to happen. Not like everything else."   
      
   "What do you mean?"   
      
   "This has never been an equal partnership, Mulder. The where, the   
   what, the when, it's always been up to you. " He almost staggers   
   backwards, looking confused.   
      
   "Scully, I... I mean, if you want to take a bigger role directing   
   what we're working on, I think that would be great..."   
      
   "Another time, Mulder." She needed that, him to be either stupid   
   or coy, otherwise her fragile and sparking wave of anger would just   
   dash itself up and dissipate.   
      
   "Okay, I'm lost now." That wave is rolling now, cresting, as he stands   
   there looking dumb and playing innocent and asking for it. She   
   stays far enough back from him that she doesn't have to look up.   
      
   "If there is anything between us... more between us, it doesn't   
   happen because it's New Year's Eve." Her voice stumbles over   
   itself slightly, faster than she would normally speak. "It doesn't   
   happen when we're nearly dead. It doesn't happen when you think   
   'gee, I should kiss Scully'. It doesn't happen when there's nothing   
   else more interesting going on."   
      
   * * *   
      
   I've got him. I've got him positively squirming. This is his   
   nightmare scenario, because I know that he can't say no to me, not   
   when it matters. He can argue. He can cut me out. He can try to go   
   behind my back. He can question me after the fact. He can   
   rationalise anything, as long as it doesn't involve saying 'no' to   
   my face. He can't do it because he loves me, I love him, but he's   
   *in* love with me and he *believes* in love, the same way he   
   believes in alien space ships and ancient Navajo bibles and   
   zombies.   
      
   "So how does it happen?"   
      
   He calls the bluff, if it's a bluff, in fine style.   
      
   Subconsciously, I think, he knows the voice. Low, quiet, a hint of   
   challenge. Daring me to match it, go one better. He's profiled me,   
   whether he knows it or not, and that voice has worked a couple of   
   times before, on darker days. Bad things in me want that voice,   
   things that have all the wrong connections to my thighs, my   
   breasts, and the parts of me that hum and whimper with wanting and   
   don't know their medicine from their poison.   
      
   I step in close. He said once, in another close moment, that under   
   the shampoo and the soap that the scent of my hair made him   
   think of heat, of fire. I want him to smell that, I want him to   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)