Mick Jagger’s Cold Comfort By suspect affiliations “I’ve looked but I just can’t find.” Mulder, Scully, not mine. You know. Chronology: A throwback to the days of yore… S2. Scully abduction arc. - - - - - - anybody seen - - - - - - My face is blank but my mind is not. Each whorl of gray matter is vibrating at the same frequency, caught in the same low vowel groove, the screaming “uhhh” sound of an unending mental “Fuuuuuuuuuuck!” - - - - - - my baby - - - - - - Duane Barry knows where she is, I am certain of it, and I can know too. I need to know, more than I’ve ever needed anything. Ever. If I am patient, if I work slowly to earn his trust, I know that I will be successful. But I frustrate easily, so I choke him instead. - - - - - - she was more than beautiful closer to ethereal with a touch of down-to-earth flavor - - - - - - I wear her cross now. I wonder whose burden of sin it represents – my father’s? My own? Surely not Scully’s. Or maybe I’m that Barrabas guy, and Scully is the Christ figure. I got off easy because Deep Throat liked me, but of Scully, he’d washed his hands. I wonder if Pilate realized how much he fucked the guy up for letting an innocent go in his place. The shitty part of Scully being Jesus is that Christ dies a brutal and painful death. But I’d join a religion based on her teaching any day. - - - - - - if i just close my eyes i can reach out and touch her prize - - - - - - Shaving cream, blood, and lipstick. I push up her silky robe and its edge falls into the sink; she halts my chivalrous attempt to rescue it and so I run a damp hand through her hair while jamming my tongue in her mouth. Dexterous fingers unzip my pants and I can feel her long fingernails scrape lightly against my skin. I imagine those nails leave red marks, red like her nail polish, like her lipstick, like my blood. I’m hard and, conveniently enough, she’s wet and ready. I wonder if shaving will ever be the same again. All I want to do is sleep, I tell myself. If I have to do it with a vampire, then so be it. My growing acquaintance with the undead no longer jars me – especially the slender, leggy, brunette undead. I’ll be an object of their bloodsport any day. Kristen is hot and tight as I thrust into her, and I am suddenly struck by Scully’s cold visage, clammy and dead beneath me. I come in one powerful stroke and spend the rest of the night trying not to think about what that means. - - - - - - close my eyes it’s three in the afternoon then i realize that she’s really gone for good - - - - - - Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. I think Christianity is a load of bullshit but I do believe in Scully, so I hold her cross as I cry. It is smooth in my hands, and I wonder if she is; it tastes of metal and sweat, and I wonder if she does; its edges can draw blood, and I know that hers can too. Kristen? Kristen’s gone is nothing. Scully’s gone is everything. My gone is pretty considerable. - - - - - - she has gotten lost in the clouds - - - - - - Once my car is out of long-term parking I head down the Blue Ridge Parkway. I visit Skyland Mountain fairly often these days. I think it’s some weird penitential thing – it seems I’ve now added Scully’s Catholic guilt to my own more agnostic brand. It’s easier on Skyland Mountain. I can stare at the clouds and pretend I’m searching for Scully, or stumble around in the bushes and tell myself that I’m hunting down Alex Krycek. Effortless guilt amelioration – especially for when you’re denying how much object of said guilt truly means to you. I reach the summit and think I should cry for dramatic effect, but somehow can’t work up the necessary saline. Instead I run my fingers through my hair and ponder cutting it off. It always looks like shit these days anyway. - - - - - - when i thought i spotted her... did she just give me a wave? - - - - - - In a guilt-driven, masochistic effort to save my hair and thus preserve my GQ image, I’ve started running. Every day, two and three hours a day, I’m pounding pavement in our nation’s capital. One day I collapse outside Dumbarton Oaks and decide to wander around Georgetown before attempting further cardiovascular stress. I walk, panting, down M street, earning sidelong glances from college students and trendy urbanites alike. I’m just taking in the scenery, I tell them in my head, before realizing that regarding humanity as “scenery” doesn’t bode well for my mental health. Eh. Self-diagnosis is always discouraged. I contemplate entering a small bookstore, staring at the storefront, when something catches my eye behind the glass. A petite redhead is at the counter; she is slim, wearing a long black coat. From my angle her hair looks the right shade, the right cut. I run to the door, through the bookshelves, to the counter at the back of the store. A young man stands alone behind the polished wood. I whip out my badge, desperate, and demand to know if a small redheaded woman was just here. The clerk nods, and I quell my impulse to run after this mystery woman, deciding first to affirm her identity. I ask what she purchased. The generic G-town undergrad mumbles that it was a video, Superstars of the Superbowl. Knowing Scully’s non-enthusiasm for football, I turn wordlessly from the counter, dejected and alone. - - - - - - sometimes i just think that she was just in my imagination - - - - - - Another day, the same route, the same self-recriminations. As I run I notice a car parked with a “Mean People Suck!” bumper sticker. Returning along the same route, I notice people getting in the car. Unthinking, I grab the driver by the collar, shove him against the car, and growl that they have no idea how much mean people truly do suck. Upon my arrival at my apartment, I decide that I need to get out of my head; I need to stop thinking about Scully, about personal failure, about resignation and about killing Alex Krycek. I probably need therapy, but then, I’ve probably needed therapy for twenty years, so why break habits now? Scully would do something like clean her apartment, or at least throw out two months’ worth of newspapers, or maybe buy something nourishing that wasn’t pizza or beer. But I’m not Scully, I remind myself as I close the blinds and make room for Mr. Popov on the coffee table. So instead I think I’ll get sloshed, watch porn, and contemplate suicide – a gun in each hand, right? Hey, everyone’s a slave to routine. - - - - - - END - - - - - - Notes: All the thanks and credit for this story to Barkley and feldman. I lost my beta virginity to these two fine ladies and they made it a wonderful experience. Feldman even got me to write smut!