FIC: Chasing Ghosts (PG, MSR UST)
Title: Chasing Ghosts
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh (amalnahurriyeh)
Summary: "Seems as if we're circling/for very different reasons/but one day the Eagle has to land."
Pairing: MSR
Rating: PG
Warnings: Not a one.
Timeline/Spoilers: Early S5
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
A/N: Written for xf_santa, as a gift for colebaltblue. Hope you enjoy!
This is (I'm vaguely embarrassed to say) songfic, inspired by Wednesday, by Tori Amos, from the album Scarlet's Walk. You can download the song here, read the lyrics here, or see it performed on YouTube here.
The Landmark Motor Inn is a real place, where I have had the pleasure of staying several times. The first time I stayed there, I turned to my wife and said, "Oh my God. Mulder and Scully totally stayed here." I've been waiting for a chance to insert it into a fic for a while. Seriously, Mulder would love this place. It's got this creepy sculpture of someone reading up about the Saratoga races by the office. And lawn jockeys on the roof.
Champ lives in Lake Champlain. Or does he?
So we go from year to year
with secrets we've been keeping
Though you say you're not a Templar man
Seems as if we're circling
for very different reasons
But one day the Eagle has to land
***
There are a sum total of five restaurants in South Glens Falls, according to the helpful padded binder provided by the Landmark Motor Inn. Only one of which is still open at ten-thirty on a Wednesday night. Scully contemplates, as she cracks her neck back and forth, whether or not she is too old, too smart, or too tired to eat potato skins. That's a total misnomer, she thinks; it's not just the skins, but most of the potato, and then about a thousand calories of cheese and bacon and three lone shreds of scallions on top, mocking the idea of vegetables as a reasonable component of a dish.
She knows this, because last night, she was not too old, too smart, or too tired to eat potato skins. Perhaps the question is whether she is capable of doing it two days in a row.
The knock on her door is entirely expected. "It's open," she yells.
"I know," Mulder says, as he kicks it shut behind him and a large gust of chilly air. "The handy little indicator was green. You know, if my door in college had had one of those, it would have saved me a lot of hassle." He drops a bag on the desk in front of her. "I got you a hot dog."
"A hot dog?"
"The gas station next door has them. And a Dunkin Donuts. I figured you'd rather not deal with Fitzgerald's a second night in the row."
She hands him one of the hot dogs and his two packets of ketchup; she belongs firmly in the mustard camp, and he has learned that trying to convince her to agree with him about condiments is actually less successful than trying to convince her to agree with him about the paranormal. "Mulder, I need you to promise me something," she says, as she squeezes the mustard packet onto her dog.
He sits down in the armchair in the corner. "What's that?"
"I need you to promise me we're not here to go hunting for Champ."
"Scully!" he says around a mouthful of hotdog. "You read the book."
"I was just glad it wasn't a football video." He'd brought it to her hospital bed, during those few days when she was being run through the MRI every three hours to try to figure out where, precisely, the massive tumor in her sinus cavity had gone: In Search of Lake Monsters, a battered copy from a second-hand bookstore. He said he'd stumbled across it while browsing and thought she'd be interested; she ignored the fact that she'd seen it in his apartment twice before, both times casually hidden, as if he were waiting for a chance to give it to her. He had even read to her, that day, as she'd drifted half-asleep, her body exhausted from a battle that had ended without any announcement. She'd put it on her bedside table when she'd gotten home, and read it in fits and starts on nights when she couldn't sleep, not out of fear, or anxiety, but the simple desire to keep moving. She was becoming more like him, and had been postponing a decision on whether or not that was a good thing.
"Mulder, as much as it pains me to have to say this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has no jurisdiction over cryptids."
"Of course not. I'd never dream of proposing such a thing."
"Or drafting a series of 302s on the subject?" She wipes mustard off her cheek with a fingernail and walks over to the shelf by the bathroom to find a box of tissues.
"It was one 302." He is licking ketchup off his fingers. There are times when she finds herself watching his hands for too long, lately, especially. There are times when she wants to know if he's going to notice.
She sits down on the edge of the bed, and puts the bag from the gas station and the tissues on the table. His knees nearly brush hers in the small space between the window and the bed where the table and chairs sit. "Are we actually here to investigate mysterious ghosts in historical societies? Really, Mulder?"
He shrugs and pulls two jelly donuts and a Three Musketeers out of the bag. "The break-ins are real. All of them focused on places recently put on the National Register of Historic Places, all of them involving religious items from different historical periods, all of them within a hundred-mile stretch along the New York/Vermont border. Seems like a pattern to me."
"But a pattern for what, Mulder?" She takes the donut he holds out to her. Their fingers touch briefly, and she wonders why she never gets to hold his hand unless someone's dying.
"That's the question." He gets powdered sugar on his pants, and fumbles for a tissue to brush it off.
She feels sometimes like they'll never stop this--never stop acting as if this dance in motel rooms is all that they want, never stop reaching out to touch and then settling for brushing past, never stop pretending he's not in love with her and she's not in love with him and neither of them would ever think otherwise. They'll just keep chasing ghosts forever, never coming in for a landing.
This is on the list of things she can't decide if she approves of or not.
There's a sudden tapping at the door, and she startles. She begins to stand to go answer it, but Mulder puts his hand out to stop her. "Let me."
She rolls her eyes and pushes his hand down. "Mulder, I don't need you to defend me from people knocking on the door. Put the knight-in-shining-armor routine away for later, please." She stands and crosses to the door.
"Rusty at best," he says, but she can feel him just slightly tensed, his hand maybe a little closer to his gun than it was a minute ago, on the off chance that whoever's knocking is a threat.
She opens the door. "No one," she says, staring out into the parking lot. "Must have been the wind." The maple trees in the little pocket of grass between the parking lot and the back road are starting to drop their leaves; it's past the foliage season this far north, and winter is bearing down. She can see her breath as she stands in the doorway, ghosting out around her mouth and curling up into the night.
"Maybe it's the historical society phantom," Mulder says. "Getting worried about our investigation."
She sighs. The tips of her fingers are getting cold, but she likes the fresh air, so she keeps standing in the doorway. "There is no phantom, Mulder. At worst, this is a case of a thief with a particularly narrow focus. Perhaps someone who works in antiquities: an auctioneer, or an archivist, maybe. I'm certain if we examine the financial records for the historical societies, we'll find a name in common--someone with a connection to all of them."
"But what about the society's director? She was pretty clear about having seen something in the room where the Bibles had been kept."
"Mulder, she's blind." She closes the door and fiddles with the handle to make sure it won't rattle anymore.
"Just because she's getting on in years doesn't mean she's losing her faculties, Scully," Mulder says, vaguely chidingly.
"I'm not saying that, Mulder. I'm saying she's blind. Legally. A particularly bad case of scarlet fever when she was five." She sits back across from him, takes the second half of the Three Musketeers out of the wrapper where he'd left it on the table. "She seems very sharp. Just not particularly able to see ghosts."
He stays quiet for a moment then, and she's almost able to believe there is a ghost sitting in the room with them, then; some sort of presence outside them both, pushing them together, pulling them apart, back and forth and back and forth. She can't quite isolate it, can't quite figure out which direction they should be going, whether if she leans forward he'll lean back, whether any of it is worth it.
She watches their reflection in the window behind him; the back of his head, the slant of his hand supporting it, her ghostly face suspended in the air beside them. They are their own ghosts, she thinks. She'll be in line for coffee on her way into work in the morning, and hear his voice in her ears, feel the faint echo of his fingers at her back, even when she knows he can't possibly be there. She lays in bed at night and waits for his calls, never sure which will be the nights he finds a reason to need to hear her voice, wonder if she'll ever find a reason good enough to make the call herself.
When she looks back at him, the real him, he is watching her. For just a moment, she holds the look, and it seems as if they've found it, that way to move from potential to kinetic energy, a way to make the transformation--and then it's gone again, as he tilts his head away from her, glances over her shoulder. "It's late. I should let you get to sleep," he says quietly.
"Thanks for the hot dog," she says.
"Anytime." He stands and fumbles with the trash for a moment, drops it in the can by her door. She stands behind him, trying to catch the edge of his body heat before he leaves. He turns, one hand on the door, and smiles at her. "You know, if we're still here on Saturday, we could take the Lake Champlain ferry. Just, you know. In our downtime. See if there's anything to see."
Of course he wants to go lake-monster hunting. "One condition, Mulder," she says, as sternly as she can.
"What's that?"
"The James Fenimore Cooper tour. It runs on Sundays. They had a brochure in the historical society office."
"What is it with you and terribly boring nineteenth century novels, Scully?" he says, shaking his head.
"What is it with you and plesiosaurs?"
He laughs. "Are we set up for Rutland tomorrow?"
"Yeah. We should leave early, though. Apparently the bridge is out, whatever that means. The woman I called suggested an alternate route."
"I'll knock when I'm back from my run." He reaches out and pushes a lock of hair back from her face, gently. She's not expecting it when he leans down and brushes the slightest of kisses against her temple, though she's not surprised when he avoids her eyes for a moment afterward. He clears his throat and opens the door. "Anyway. Good night, Scully."
"Good night, Mulder," she says, and pushes the door shut behind him. She clicks the deadbolt, strings the chain, and watches his back as he walks past the window, hands in his pockets. She listens until she hears the slam of his door next to hers, the click of his lock. She closes her eyes momentarily, takes a deep breath, and then goes to close the curtains on the window, to make herself leave the ghosts alone for the night.
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh (amalnahurriyeh)
Summary: "Seems as if we're circling/for very different reasons/but one day the Eagle has to land."
Pairing: MSR
Rating: PG
Warnings: Not a one.
Timeline/Spoilers: Early S5
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
A/N: Written for xf_santa, as a gift for colebaltblue. Hope you enjoy!
This is (I'm vaguely embarrassed to say) songfic, inspired by Wednesday, by Tori Amos, from the album Scarlet's Walk. You can download the song here, read the lyrics here, or see it performed on YouTube here.
The Landmark Motor Inn is a real place, where I have had the pleasure of staying several times. The first time I stayed there, I turned to my wife and said, "Oh my God. Mulder and Scully totally stayed here." I've been waiting for a chance to insert it into a fic for a while. Seriously, Mulder would love this place. It's got this creepy sculpture of someone reading up about the Saratoga races by the office. And lawn jockeys on the roof.
Champ lives in Lake Champlain. Or does he?
So we go from year to year
with secrets we've been keeping
Though you say you're not a Templar man
Seems as if we're circling
for very different reasons
But one day the Eagle has to land
***
There are a sum total of five restaurants in South Glens Falls, according to the helpful padded binder provided by the Landmark Motor Inn. Only one of which is still open at ten-thirty on a Wednesday night. Scully contemplates, as she cracks her neck back and forth, whether or not she is too old, too smart, or too tired to eat potato skins. That's a total misnomer, she thinks; it's not just the skins, but most of the potato, and then about a thousand calories of cheese and bacon and three lone shreds of scallions on top, mocking the idea of vegetables as a reasonable component of a dish.
She knows this, because last night, she was not too old, too smart, or too tired to eat potato skins. Perhaps the question is whether she is capable of doing it two days in a row.
The knock on her door is entirely expected. "It's open," she yells.
"I know," Mulder says, as he kicks it shut behind him and a large gust of chilly air. "The handy little indicator was green. You know, if my door in college had had one of those, it would have saved me a lot of hassle." He drops a bag on the desk in front of her. "I got you a hot dog."
"A hot dog?"
"The gas station next door has them. And a Dunkin Donuts. I figured you'd rather not deal with Fitzgerald's a second night in the row."
She hands him one of the hot dogs and his two packets of ketchup; she belongs firmly in the mustard camp, and he has learned that trying to convince her to agree with him about condiments is actually less successful than trying to convince her to agree with him about the paranormal. "Mulder, I need you to promise me something," she says, as she squeezes the mustard packet onto her dog.
He sits down in the armchair in the corner. "What's that?"
"I need you to promise me we're not here to go hunting for Champ."
"Scully!" he says around a mouthful of hotdog. "You read the book."
"I was just glad it wasn't a football video." He'd brought it to her hospital bed, during those few days when she was being run through the MRI every three hours to try to figure out where, precisely, the massive tumor in her sinus cavity had gone: In Search of Lake Monsters, a battered copy from a second-hand bookstore. He said he'd stumbled across it while browsing and thought she'd be interested; she ignored the fact that she'd seen it in his apartment twice before, both times casually hidden, as if he were waiting for a chance to give it to her. He had even read to her, that day, as she'd drifted half-asleep, her body exhausted from a battle that had ended without any announcement. She'd put it on her bedside table when she'd gotten home, and read it in fits and starts on nights when she couldn't sleep, not out of fear, or anxiety, but the simple desire to keep moving. She was becoming more like him, and had been postponing a decision on whether or not that was a good thing.
"Mulder, as much as it pains me to have to say this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has no jurisdiction over cryptids."
"Of course not. I'd never dream of proposing such a thing."
"Or drafting a series of 302s on the subject?" She wipes mustard off her cheek with a fingernail and walks over to the shelf by the bathroom to find a box of tissues.
"It was one 302." He is licking ketchup off his fingers. There are times when she finds herself watching his hands for too long, lately, especially. There are times when she wants to know if he's going to notice.
She sits down on the edge of the bed, and puts the bag from the gas station and the tissues on the table. His knees nearly brush hers in the small space between the window and the bed where the table and chairs sit. "Are we actually here to investigate mysterious ghosts in historical societies? Really, Mulder?"
He shrugs and pulls two jelly donuts and a Three Musketeers out of the bag. "The break-ins are real. All of them focused on places recently put on the National Register of Historic Places, all of them involving religious items from different historical periods, all of them within a hundred-mile stretch along the New York/Vermont border. Seems like a pattern to me."
"But a pattern for what, Mulder?" She takes the donut he holds out to her. Their fingers touch briefly, and she wonders why she never gets to hold his hand unless someone's dying.
"That's the question." He gets powdered sugar on his pants, and fumbles for a tissue to brush it off.
She feels sometimes like they'll never stop this--never stop acting as if this dance in motel rooms is all that they want, never stop reaching out to touch and then settling for brushing past, never stop pretending he's not in love with her and she's not in love with him and neither of them would ever think otherwise. They'll just keep chasing ghosts forever, never coming in for a landing.
This is on the list of things she can't decide if she approves of or not.
There's a sudden tapping at the door, and she startles. She begins to stand to go answer it, but Mulder puts his hand out to stop her. "Let me."
She rolls her eyes and pushes his hand down. "Mulder, I don't need you to defend me from people knocking on the door. Put the knight-in-shining-armor routine away for later, please." She stands and crosses to the door.
"Rusty at best," he says, but she can feel him just slightly tensed, his hand maybe a little closer to his gun than it was a minute ago, on the off chance that whoever's knocking is a threat.
She opens the door. "No one," she says, staring out into the parking lot. "Must have been the wind." The maple trees in the little pocket of grass between the parking lot and the back road are starting to drop their leaves; it's past the foliage season this far north, and winter is bearing down. She can see her breath as she stands in the doorway, ghosting out around her mouth and curling up into the night.
"Maybe it's the historical society phantom," Mulder says. "Getting worried about our investigation."
She sighs. The tips of her fingers are getting cold, but she likes the fresh air, so she keeps standing in the doorway. "There is no phantom, Mulder. At worst, this is a case of a thief with a particularly narrow focus. Perhaps someone who works in antiquities: an auctioneer, or an archivist, maybe. I'm certain if we examine the financial records for the historical societies, we'll find a name in common--someone with a connection to all of them."
"But what about the society's director? She was pretty clear about having seen something in the room where the Bibles had been kept."
"Mulder, she's blind." She closes the door and fiddles with the handle to make sure it won't rattle anymore.
"Just because she's getting on in years doesn't mean she's losing her faculties, Scully," Mulder says, vaguely chidingly.
"I'm not saying that, Mulder. I'm saying she's blind. Legally. A particularly bad case of scarlet fever when she was five." She sits back across from him, takes the second half of the Three Musketeers out of the wrapper where he'd left it on the table. "She seems very sharp. Just not particularly able to see ghosts."
He stays quiet for a moment then, and she's almost able to believe there is a ghost sitting in the room with them, then; some sort of presence outside them both, pushing them together, pulling them apart, back and forth and back and forth. She can't quite isolate it, can't quite figure out which direction they should be going, whether if she leans forward he'll lean back, whether any of it is worth it.
She watches their reflection in the window behind him; the back of his head, the slant of his hand supporting it, her ghostly face suspended in the air beside them. They are their own ghosts, she thinks. She'll be in line for coffee on her way into work in the morning, and hear his voice in her ears, feel the faint echo of his fingers at her back, even when she knows he can't possibly be there. She lays in bed at night and waits for his calls, never sure which will be the nights he finds a reason to need to hear her voice, wonder if she'll ever find a reason good enough to make the call herself.
When she looks back at him, the real him, he is watching her. For just a moment, she holds the look, and it seems as if they've found it, that way to move from potential to kinetic energy, a way to make the transformation--and then it's gone again, as he tilts his head away from her, glances over her shoulder. "It's late. I should let you get to sleep," he says quietly.
"Thanks for the hot dog," she says.
"Anytime." He stands and fumbles with the trash for a moment, drops it in the can by her door. She stands behind him, trying to catch the edge of his body heat before he leaves. He turns, one hand on the door, and smiles at her. "You know, if we're still here on Saturday, we could take the Lake Champlain ferry. Just, you know. In our downtime. See if there's anything to see."
Of course he wants to go lake-monster hunting. "One condition, Mulder," she says, as sternly as she can.
"What's that?"
"The James Fenimore Cooper tour. It runs on Sundays. They had a brochure in the historical society office."
"What is it with you and terribly boring nineteenth century novels, Scully?" he says, shaking his head.
"What is it with you and plesiosaurs?"
He laughs. "Are we set up for Rutland tomorrow?"
"Yeah. We should leave early, though. Apparently the bridge is out, whatever that means. The woman I called suggested an alternate route."
"I'll knock when I'm back from my run." He reaches out and pushes a lock of hair back from her face, gently. She's not expecting it when he leans down and brushes the slightest of kisses against her temple, though she's not surprised when he avoids her eyes for a moment afterward. He clears his throat and opens the door. "Anyway. Good night, Scully."
"Good night, Mulder," she says, and pushes the door shut behind him. She clicks the deadbolt, strings the chain, and watches his back as he walks past the window, hands in his pockets. She listens until she hears the slam of his door next to hers, the click of his lock. She closes her eyes momentarily, takes a deep breath, and then goes to close the curtains on the window, to make herself leave the ghosts alone for the night.