In The Fields Of Boaz
Title: In The Fields of Boaz
Author: Crinolynne
Rating: G
Spoilers: Little Green Men
Disclaimers: Not mine, don't sue, I am a poor boy from a poor family, etc.
Notes: Thanks to Eloise and Amanda for support.
Summary: He's still not sure what she's doing here, her presence a Fortean event.
^^^^^
On the fringes of a Puerto Rican jungle, twelve crumpled dollars will buy you six empanadas made of indeterminate meat, two conch fritters, a jug of metallic-tasting water, and shelter in a shack furnished with mildewed hammocks. Spanglish and hand gestures will reveal that the lavatory consists of a hole in the teeming earth.
Mulder is hunched in a corner of the hut, knees drawn up beneath his chin, and dried blood crusted along his shoulder. Persistent blackflies hover nearby, and he shoos them with halfhearted resignation.
"We're lucky to be alive," Scully says for the fifth time, her Pollyanna bromides plucking at his nerves. "The body, Mulder...we're in enough trouble without hauling a cadaver around. This isn't Weekend at Bernie's." She pinches a wicked-looking centipede from her shoe and tosses it out the window.
"It was evidence," he replies, flaking off a scab with his thumbnail. Mulder realizes that he's being ridiculous, that he's pouting over a bloated corpse as though he is a child denied a favorite toy. Still, he'd come to think of it as his corpse. Scully of all people should be sympathetic to postmortem attachments.
"You have the tapes," she points out, testing her weight in a hammock.
He looks at her balefully, noting how improbable her redheaded pallor seems in these surroundings. She's abandoned the jacket and her bare arms are pink and sticky-looking from the heat. Perspiration makes her thin camisole cling. Her hair's tied back with a dry-rotted rubber band, and damp tendrils are clinging to her freckled cheeks and neck. He's still not sure what she's doing here, her presence a Fortean event.
"I wish we had some quinine," she remarks, scratching a welt on her wrist and licking beaded sweat from her upper lip. A lizard ambles up the wall behind her.
Mulder mops his forehead with a grimy hand, then coughs. He once read an article about an archaeologist who inhaled spores and died in froths of blood when fungi began to grown in the moist heat of her lungs. The air smells green and vegetative. Fecund. He can easily imagine an organic slurry sparking to life eons ago in such ripe conditions.
"If wishes were horses..." he murmurs, closing his eyes to relive his journey into storm, to squeeze an ounce of meaning from the terror-stricken face of Jorge. He has begun to wonder if color-blindness accounts for his inability to see the little green men that pop up so obligingly for others.
"Beggars wouldn't wish for horses, would they? They'd wish for money."
She's insufferable at times. "The point still stands. And you can sell a horse. Or eat one."
"The proverb says they'd ride. Mulder, why didn't you tell me you -"
"Are you sure you weren't followed?" he asks, opening his eyes.
"You didn't believe me last time I answered that question," Scully replies, annoyance pinching the edges of her exhausted voice.
He shrugs, but offers no apology. She doesn't understand how it is for him. Diana would never take this personally. Scully may not be a note-taking apple-polisher after all, but she doesn't fully appreciate the scope of things. Doesn't matter now though. She'll eventually get tired of luring him to abandoned parking lots and move on with her life.
"You shouldn't have followed me here," he tells her.
She smoothes her torn and bloody jeans. "Do you trust me?" she asks.
He looks away.
He does trust her, has trusted her since she wouldn't let them put a worm in his ear, but this thing they're in is something else entirely. Trusting her personal integrity doesn't mean he can trust her earnest and skeptical soul with his work.
Scully rises from the hammock, walks to him. She crouches down and he can smell her hair, her skin, the undeniable reality of her presence in this steaming back of beyond. A trickle of sweat runs down between her breasts. Scully touches his face and the simple humanity of it makes him hungry, makes him wish he hadn't set himself apart like a recondite ascetic. "Hey," she says. "Mulder."
He takes her hand from his jaw and rests it on her thigh. "You're not my partner anymore," he says, feeling it holds enough truth to pass for an answer.
"But I'm here. Why don't you -"
"You don't understand." It's how he always starts this conversation.
"I want to," she says, tucking errant hair behind her ears. She could have been a nun, he thinks, her frank Hibernian features inviting confidences. She could have been any number of things, but she'd come after him into the dark. He feels no responsibility for that.
"Do you?" he asks. "Do you really? Because this isn't about the career, Scully. It's about the work. The FBI is a tool for me, a resource. I put in my time, I dazzled enough to be the Golden Boy, and now I'm reaping those rewards."
Scully casts an ironic look around their current surroundings.
He grants her a rueful smile. "Generally speaking."
Scully turns in her crouched position, slumping next to him against the splintered wall. "I've made a choice," she says. "What you do, Mulder...it's why I gave up everything I knew to join the FBI. I don't think we're expecting to find the same thing, but there's obviously a reason that someone doesn't want us to find whatever 'it' is. And that's enough of a motivation. It's not about the career for me anymore either."
She doesn't mean it. He knows for certain that she doesn't, but the fact that she believes she means it touches him. "So you still don't believe in little green men," he says, bumping her in the ribs with his elbow.
"No," Scully says thoughtfully. "No, I don't." She laces her strong fingers through his. "But I don't believe in elves, either."
^^^^^
The End
Author: Crinolynne
Rating: G
Spoilers: Little Green Men
Disclaimers: Not mine, don't sue, I am a poor boy from a poor family, etc.
Notes: Thanks to Eloise and Amanda for support.
Summary: He's still not sure what she's doing here, her presence a Fortean event.
^^^^^
On the fringes of a Puerto Rican jungle, twelve crumpled dollars will buy you six empanadas made of indeterminate meat, two conch fritters, a jug of metallic-tasting water, and shelter in a shack furnished with mildewed hammocks. Spanglish and hand gestures will reveal that the lavatory consists of a hole in the teeming earth.
Mulder is hunched in a corner of the hut, knees drawn up beneath his chin, and dried blood crusted along his shoulder. Persistent blackflies hover nearby, and he shoos them with halfhearted resignation.
"We're lucky to be alive," Scully says for the fifth time, her Pollyanna bromides plucking at his nerves. "The body, Mulder...we're in enough trouble without hauling a cadaver around. This isn't Weekend at Bernie's." She pinches a wicked-looking centipede from her shoe and tosses it out the window.
"It was evidence," he replies, flaking off a scab with his thumbnail. Mulder realizes that he's being ridiculous, that he's pouting over a bloated corpse as though he is a child denied a favorite toy. Still, he'd come to think of it as his corpse. Scully of all people should be sympathetic to postmortem attachments.
"You have the tapes," she points out, testing her weight in a hammock.
He looks at her balefully, noting how improbable her redheaded pallor seems in these surroundings. She's abandoned the jacket and her bare arms are pink and sticky-looking from the heat. Perspiration makes her thin camisole cling. Her hair's tied back with a dry-rotted rubber band, and damp tendrils are clinging to her freckled cheeks and neck. He's still not sure what she's doing here, her presence a Fortean event.
"I wish we had some quinine," she remarks, scratching a welt on her wrist and licking beaded sweat from her upper lip. A lizard ambles up the wall behind her.
Mulder mops his forehead with a grimy hand, then coughs. He once read an article about an archaeologist who inhaled spores and died in froths of blood when fungi began to grown in the moist heat of her lungs. The air smells green and vegetative. Fecund. He can easily imagine an organic slurry sparking to life eons ago in such ripe conditions.
"If wishes were horses..." he murmurs, closing his eyes to relive his journey into storm, to squeeze an ounce of meaning from the terror-stricken face of Jorge. He has begun to wonder if color-blindness accounts for his inability to see the little green men that pop up so obligingly for others.
"Beggars wouldn't wish for horses, would they? They'd wish for money."
She's insufferable at times. "The point still stands. And you can sell a horse. Or eat one."
"The proverb says they'd ride. Mulder, why didn't you tell me you -"
"Are you sure you weren't followed?" he asks, opening his eyes.
"You didn't believe me last time I answered that question," Scully replies, annoyance pinching the edges of her exhausted voice.
He shrugs, but offers no apology. She doesn't understand how it is for him. Diana would never take this personally. Scully may not be a note-taking apple-polisher after all, but she doesn't fully appreciate the scope of things. Doesn't matter now though. She'll eventually get tired of luring him to abandoned parking lots and move on with her life.
"You shouldn't have followed me here," he tells her.
She smoothes her torn and bloody jeans. "Do you trust me?" she asks.
He looks away.
He does trust her, has trusted her since she wouldn't let them put a worm in his ear, but this thing they're in is something else entirely. Trusting her personal integrity doesn't mean he can trust her earnest and skeptical soul with his work.
Scully rises from the hammock, walks to him. She crouches down and he can smell her hair, her skin, the undeniable reality of her presence in this steaming back of beyond. A trickle of sweat runs down between her breasts. Scully touches his face and the simple humanity of it makes him hungry, makes him wish he hadn't set himself apart like a recondite ascetic. "Hey," she says. "Mulder."
He takes her hand from his jaw and rests it on her thigh. "You're not my partner anymore," he says, feeling it holds enough truth to pass for an answer.
"But I'm here. Why don't you -"
"You don't understand." It's how he always starts this conversation.
"I want to," she says, tucking errant hair behind her ears. She could have been a nun, he thinks, her frank Hibernian features inviting confidences. She could have been any number of things, but she'd come after him into the dark. He feels no responsibility for that.
"Do you?" he asks. "Do you really? Because this isn't about the career, Scully. It's about the work. The FBI is a tool for me, a resource. I put in my time, I dazzled enough to be the Golden Boy, and now I'm reaping those rewards."
Scully casts an ironic look around their current surroundings.
He grants her a rueful smile. "Generally speaking."
Scully turns in her crouched position, slumping next to him against the splintered wall. "I've made a choice," she says. "What you do, Mulder...it's why I gave up everything I knew to join the FBI. I don't think we're expecting to find the same thing, but there's obviously a reason that someone doesn't want us to find whatever 'it' is. And that's enough of a motivation. It's not about the career for me anymore either."
She doesn't mean it. He knows for certain that she doesn't, but the fact that she believes she means it touches him. "So you still don't believe in little green men," he says, bumping her in the ribs with his elbow.
"No," Scully says thoughtfully. "No, I don't." She laces her strong fingers through his. "But I don't believe in elves, either."
^^^^^
The End