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Entry tags:
Theory and Practice by Nascent (R)
Fandom: THE X-FILES
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Length: novella
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: waybacked:Flywoman and Nascent X-Files Fiction; some is archived at Fugues in the Key of X
Why this must be read:
This is one of the rare stories set during the cancer arc that doesn't manipulate the reader by having the characters do or say things that are absurdly sentimental or simply implausible. This is a relationship study set into a casefile so artfully constructed that you can visualize each scene as it unfolds just as though you were watching the show. Since the writer is Nascent, there is also a certain amount of authorial commentary along the way.
April 19, 1997
Anticorps, Inc.
South San Francisco
12:33 a.m.
"...Baby go and you push me down
I know you like to watch me crawl..."
Dr. Charlie Jorgensen bounced in cadence with the song, carrying two plastic bottles filled with yellow broth from the centrifuge to the counter. He decanted the broth into the metal sink, revealing the mushy white mass of bacteria at the bottom, packed together against the plastic by the super-gravitational force of the centrifuge's powerful rotor.
He was the only one in the lab at that hour, so his loud music blared from the CD player, and he sang the words under his breath:
"...No air, headed my direction
I need help I need some protection
Can't seem to breathe without obstruction
I need air, I need to breathe.
"See me
Feel me
Watch me turn blue..."
Charlie had always been a night person. Not by any choice made by his body, but only so he could work alone, no fighting over equipment, no one to tell him to turn down his music.
"...Now I know I look good in blue
It's no excuse for what you do
So you come and suck my hair
You suffocate me and call it care..."
He added a measured amount of a clear detergent to the bacterial pellet and closed the bottles, shook them violently.
"...Wish me passion, I might feel,
Wish me dead, I'll be healed..."
But Charlie Jorgensen was not alone in the lab that night. Through the glass-paneled door, a man was watching. Waiting.
Oblivious, Charlie added another solution to the bottles and mixed them again.
"...No fair, can't resist seduction
No man, you follow this destruction
My air, feed it to you suction
I need air, I need air..."
The face in the doorway disappeared. A minute passed.
Suddenly, a high-pitched keening noise pierced through the music. The bottles forgotten, Charlie started to raise his hands to his ears, an expression of agony on his face.
His hands didn't make it.
Charlie's flesh began to boil obscenely. It was too late to scream--his vocal cords were likewise bubbling, as was every organ in his body. Mercifully, his nerves severed a moment later, and within a few seconds, all that was left of Charlie Jorgensen was a pinkish puddle on the ground, surrounding crumpled, sticky clothing.
The noise stopped; the music played on unaccompanied.
"...See me
Feel me
Watch me turn blue..."
---------------------------------------------------
Georgetown Hospital
Washington, D.C.
Dana Scully tried to find a more comfortable position--she hated sleeping on her back but the discomfort of the bandages at her armpit and groin made any other pose untenable. She couldn't sleep.
She had joined the FBI so she wouldn't have to spend so much time in hospitals. Obviously she'd made a career mistake somewhere along the way.
It didn't help that she was far too used to sleeping in a double bed. Maybe that's why you've stayed single all these years, Dana. No, that's not why. Besides, a single bed was better than the chair she'd slept in for two nights at the last hospital, just last week.
That time, Mulder'd gotten the bed.
He'd left her scant hours before; if she closed her eyes she could still feel his cool lips against her cheek. She was as resentful of that touch as she was thankful for it. He had never kissed her before all of...this...and though the affection was touching, it was also unnerving. She counted on Mulder where her family failed: to have faith in her to fight past this disease. True, he never spoke of it in any terms except those of possible treatments and cures. He never treated her like an invalid. But the kisses, combined with the increased frequency of light touches: his arm against hers, his hand on her shoulder or waist--they all outlined to her a crack in his faith. He was hedging his bets, and she resented it. It was her job to doubt, his to believe.
She was terrified he'd one day soon tell her he loved her.
Not that she didn't know it, but that wasn't the point. Saying it, thus ameliorating regret, would be the ultimate acknowledgement of her mortality. Her mother asked her at least twice a week when she would stop working; Scully had a feeling that would be the day.
But even with Mulder's faith and support, she had to admit to herself the day was coming soon. The cells they had withdrawn from her lymphatic system might this time reveal the invaders she dreaded daily.
And that was an invasion no faith could repel.
The light from the full moon outside caught the edge of her necklace, lying on the bedstand table beside her, and it glittered in her peripheral vision, distracting her. She frowned and stretched out a hand to move it out of the light, wishing hospitals provided more substantial curtains.
Theory and Practice
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Length: novella
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: waybacked:Flywoman and Nascent X-Files Fiction; some is archived at Fugues in the Key of X
Why this must be read:
This is one of the rare stories set during the cancer arc that doesn't manipulate the reader by having the characters do or say things that are absurdly sentimental or simply implausible. This is a relationship study set into a casefile so artfully constructed that you can visualize each scene as it unfolds just as though you were watching the show. Since the writer is Nascent, there is also a certain amount of authorial commentary along the way.
April 19, 1997
Anticorps, Inc.
South San Francisco
12:33 a.m.
"...Baby go and you push me down
I know you like to watch me crawl..."
Dr. Charlie Jorgensen bounced in cadence with the song, carrying two plastic bottles filled with yellow broth from the centrifuge to the counter. He decanted the broth into the metal sink, revealing the mushy white mass of bacteria at the bottom, packed together against the plastic by the super-gravitational force of the centrifuge's powerful rotor.
He was the only one in the lab at that hour, so his loud music blared from the CD player, and he sang the words under his breath:
"...No air, headed my direction
I need help I need some protection
Can't seem to breathe without obstruction
I need air, I need to breathe.
"See me
Feel me
Watch me turn blue..."
Charlie had always been a night person. Not by any choice made by his body, but only so he could work alone, no fighting over equipment, no one to tell him to turn down his music.
"...Now I know I look good in blue
It's no excuse for what you do
So you come and suck my hair
You suffocate me and call it care..."
He added a measured amount of a clear detergent to the bacterial pellet and closed the bottles, shook them violently.
"...Wish me passion, I might feel,
Wish me dead, I'll be healed..."
But Charlie Jorgensen was not alone in the lab that night. Through the glass-paneled door, a man was watching. Waiting.
Oblivious, Charlie added another solution to the bottles and mixed them again.
"...No fair, can't resist seduction
No man, you follow this destruction
My air, feed it to you suction
I need air, I need air..."
The face in the doorway disappeared. A minute passed.
Suddenly, a high-pitched keening noise pierced through the music. The bottles forgotten, Charlie started to raise his hands to his ears, an expression of agony on his face.
His hands didn't make it.
Charlie's flesh began to boil obscenely. It was too late to scream--his vocal cords were likewise bubbling, as was every organ in his body. Mercifully, his nerves severed a moment later, and within a few seconds, all that was left of Charlie Jorgensen was a pinkish puddle on the ground, surrounding crumpled, sticky clothing.
The noise stopped; the music played on unaccompanied.
"...See me
Feel me
Watch me turn blue..."
---------------------------------------------------
Georgetown Hospital
Washington, D.C.
Dana Scully tried to find a more comfortable position--she hated sleeping on her back but the discomfort of the bandages at her armpit and groin made any other pose untenable. She couldn't sleep.
She had joined the FBI so she wouldn't have to spend so much time in hospitals. Obviously she'd made a career mistake somewhere along the way.
It didn't help that she was far too used to sleeping in a double bed. Maybe that's why you've stayed single all these years, Dana. No, that's not why. Besides, a single bed was better than the chair she'd slept in for two nights at the last hospital, just last week.
That time, Mulder'd gotten the bed.
He'd left her scant hours before; if she closed her eyes she could still feel his cool lips against her cheek. She was as resentful of that touch as she was thankful for it. He had never kissed her before all of...this...and though the affection was touching, it was also unnerving. She counted on Mulder where her family failed: to have faith in her to fight past this disease. True, he never spoke of it in any terms except those of possible treatments and cures. He never treated her like an invalid. But the kisses, combined with the increased frequency of light touches: his arm against hers, his hand on her shoulder or waist--they all outlined to her a crack in his faith. He was hedging his bets, and she resented it. It was her job to doubt, his to believe.
She was terrified he'd one day soon tell her he loved her.
Not that she didn't know it, but that wasn't the point. Saying it, thus ameliorating regret, would be the ultimate acknowledgement of her mortality. Her mother asked her at least twice a week when she would stop working; Scully had a feeling that would be the day.
But even with Mulder's faith and support, she had to admit to herself the day was coming soon. The cells they had withdrawn from her lymphatic system might this time reveal the invaders she dreaded daily.
And that was an invasion no faith could repel.
The light from the full moon outside caught the edge of her necklace, lying on the bedstand table beside her, and it glittered in her peripheral vision, distracting her. She frowned and stretched out a hand to move it out of the light, wishing hospitals provided more substantial curtains.
Theory and Practice
no subject
no subject
This would have made an awesome two-part episode. They would have had to re-write to make it into a movie as there were no buildings blowing up or even a small car bomb.