threeguesses: ([the x-files] i want to believe)
threeguesses ([personal profile] threeguesses) wrote2010-11-25 02:03 am
Entry tags:

FIC: And if I make my bed in Sheol [x-files, scully, mulder/scully]

Word Count: 2000+
Disclaimer:
Disclaimed!
Summary: 
Mulder becomes his own x-file.  (Scully and Mulder’s ghost and believing)

AN: 
Alternative title: Bruce Willis was dead the whole time!  That said, I swear to god neither Haley Joel Osment nor pottery wheel scenes make an appearance in this fic.  Also, this one’s kind of creepy, as it was originally intended for Halloween.  Just a forewarning.


And if I make my bed in Sheol

Mulder dies on a Tuesday.  His autopsy is conducted on a Wednesday and his funeral is on a Thursday.

He is standing in Scully’s kitchen come Monday morning.

Scully pretends she can’t see him.  She eats her cold cereal and drinks her milk (because osteoporosis strikes one out of four women and it’s best to start early, it’s best to start now) and resolutely refuses to go insane.

She can see the patterned kitchen tiles through his feet.

She leaves for work.



He is sitting on her doormat beside the newspaper when she comes back.  A headline peaks through his knee. 


Scully steps over him.  Throws her keys onto the table.

Wonders if this particular manifestation of grief is unique to her. 

She eats cold spaghetti standing over the sink.  He leans against the refrigerator and watches her.  She can see a magnet through his collarbone.  A picture of her nephew through his sternum. 

She goes to the bathroom.  

This is fine, she tells her reflection, this is normal.  This is the grieving process.  She rests her head on the sink, porcelain soothing her cheek.

I am a scientist, she whispers.  To the faucet.  To the soap dish.  I am not insane.

“You aren’t real,” she says to Mulder when she comes out.  He is standing in her hallway.  The crown moulding shows through his shoulder.

She crawls into bed and shuts out the light.  But even in the dark she can see him; he glows faintly, like a tired firefly.

She closes her eyes.



When she wakes up, he is still there, watching her from a chair.  “You don't exist,” she says, but goes into to the bathroom to change anyways.

He is still there when she eats breakfast.  And when she unloads the dishwasher.  And when she leaves for work.  And when she comes home.

A week later, and he is still there.  Scully has stopped telling him that he isn’t real.  Talking to one’s delusions is probably not the best route to mental wellness.

She is washing the lettuce when it happens.  He is perched on her kitchen counter with the granite pattern showing through his thighs.  His voice is quiet, like it’s in her head, and loud, like it’s in her ear.

You know, Scully, the least you could do is acknowledge my presence. 

He is wearing the suit he was buried in, collar unbuttoned.  Scully can see the y-incision she made during his autopsy.    

She drops the lettuce.

After all, I have managed to contact you from beyond the grave. 

Scully picks up the lettuce and puts it on the cutting board.  Walks to the bathroom.  Locks the door.

Sobs.



She wasn’t with him when it happened.  She wasn’t there to yell at the EMTs, or ride in the ambulance.  She didn’t perform CPR.  There were no hospital rooms or bedside vigils.  She didn’t hold his hand.

Afterwards, she had insisted on performing the autopsy.  He looked smaller in death.  (She had wanted to climb up onto the table, curl herself around him.  Just for a little.  Just for a bit.)

She still has the autopsy tape.  Now she sits on the edge of the bathtub and plays it over and over again.  Her automated voice bounces off the tile.  It does not waver.

Her y-incision was textbook perfect.

There was no foul play.



He is sitting on her bedspread when she comes out.  The paisley pattern shows through his knuckles.  The lamp shines through his head.

I didn’t mean to— Oh hell, Scully, I never meant to make you cry.

Scully goes to the closet.  Pulls on her bathrobe.

“You are not real,” she says.  “You are a figment of my imagination.”  She lies down and shuts off the lamp. 

Mulder’s smiles slashes across the darkness like a knife.

I knew you’d say that.



He tries to convince her.

He talks incessantly.  He offers up opinions about everything, from dinner to case files.  He stands backlit by the microwave and tries to seduce her into his way of thinking.

You broke the heel of your shoe clean off that one time in Texas.  And it was hollow, remember, with that weird Styrofoam filling inside and I said, Scully, if we ever needed to hide something this would be the perfect place, and you said, whatever you say Mr. Bond, and I called you Ms. Moneypenny for the rest of the day.  Remember?

The microwave beeps and Scully pulls out her instant dinner.  She doesn’t seem to have time to cook, anymore.  She’s always working (only she can’t quite remember the specific case).

You cry out for me in your sleep, Scully.  All the time.  Scully, please say something.

She settles in front of the TV with a tray.  She decides to eat the peas first.



It starts as a complete accident.  Scully is cutting carrots in the kitchen.  Mulder is somewhere in the living room, watching the game.  (She leaves the television on all the time now.  Even when she’s not watching it.  Even when no one’s watching it.)

When she slices herself with the knife, she yelps a bit.  Just a bit, just quietly, but he hears anyways.  There’s a lot of blood, and when Scully sees his look of horror she opens her mouth without thinking.

“It’s nothing, Mulder.  I just nicked myself.  It’ll stop in a second.”

She’s rummaging for band aids in the bathroom cabinet when she realizes.  She spins around and there he is, lounging against the doorframe. 

Does this mean you’re going to start talking to me?

Scully can see the doorjamb through his ankles.  “I-”, she starts.  He looks happy, ecstatic even.  (Scully, we lost nine minutes!) 

“You’re dead,” she spits finally, “I buried you.” 

And then she’s crying too hard to speak.  Crying and screaming that she hates him, she hates him. 

(Because he died, he left her, with the whispers and the rumours but no proof behind them, all her memories strictly professional, a working relationship, the long looks he gave her nothing but empty promises.  Left her, with a gravestone she doesn’t visit and a great love she never had.

Mulder looks on helplessly, standing half-in, half-out of the bathtub.

Eventually Scully slows.  Quiets.  His concerned face peers down at her, exactly the same as always, only now she can see bottles of shampoo through the curve of his jaw.

“Are you fucking haunting me?” she asks, finally.

Mulder grins, a tiny Mulder-grin.  Looks that way.  

Scully leans her head back against the tile and laughs.



“How did you know I could see you?”

You looked right at me, the first time.  God, Scully, you should have seen your face-

“How did you get here?”

Not sure, really.  Don’t remember much from, you know, immediately after.

“Is there a God?”

I-  I don’t know.

“Heaven?”

Well, evidence seems to suggest there is some sort of afterlife-

“Is Melissa there?”

I-

“Am I dead too?”

Oh Scully.



They talk until dawn the first night.  Mulder can’t seem to get enough of it, is starved for human interaction.  Scully curls into her pillows while he flits from the nightstand, to the dresser, to the closet, and back around to the foot of the bed.

I’m not sure I can actually leave, you see.  I can get around the apartment complex – and I swear your second-floor neighbour’s dog can see me, it barks like a mad thing whenever I get close – but whenever I try to follow you to the Bureau I just can’t.  Which is unfortunate, because if I should be haunting anything it really should be the basement-

“Mulder,” Scully says tiredly.  It is five-thirty in the morning.  “Come here.  Sit.”

He stops moving, looking sheepish. Sorry Scully.  I’ve just- I can’t exactly sit now.  It’s more of a hovering, you know?

“Try,” Scully orders, and pulls the covers up to her chin.  Mulder pauses by the window.  Dawn filters through the blinds behind him.  “Goodnight Mulder.”

Night Scully.

He stares and stares as if she were the aberration.



Eventually they fall into a routine.  Scully lugs casefile after casefile home with her, the pages scattered across the living room for Mulder to peruse while she’s at work.  At night they argue about goblins and swamp monsters, the possibility of Bigfoot, the genealogy of Nessie.  They argue about Mulder’s incorporeity, its potential relation to water vapour, to Plato’s perfect Forms.  Mulder draws his fingers back and forth through Scully’s palm until shivers pour down her spine. 

They play chess sprawled across the bed, Scully moving Mulder’s pieces for him.  They test Mulder’s influence on household appliances (he can flicker light bulbs but the microwave is beyond him), leading to the conclusion that he is a form of energy.  “Of course, that’s not to say this isn’t all still some delusion I’m having,” Scully says tartly after Mulder goes on a particularly long rant about quantum mechanics.

Mulder falls in love with a haunting case from Memphis, talks and talks and talks about it until Scully agrees to investigate.  Once there, she feels silly and out of place without him, a poor man’s Clarice Starling. 

They agree its best she doesn’t go away again.



“Dana, have you been away on a case recently?”  Scully’s mother frowns as she sits down at the kitchen table.

“No,” Scully says distractedly.  Mulder is making faces at her from beside the breadbasket and she is trying to chastise him with her eyes.

“Dana,” Mrs. Scully’s voice is sharp, “all the plants are dead and you have next to nothing in the fridge.”

“Oh yes,” Scully says vaguely.  Now Mulder is flickering the hallway light.  “I’ve been busy.  I’ll have to go shopping tomorrow.”

Her mother touches her arm.  Her hand is very warm.  “Are you alright, Dana?  You’re so much in your own head lately.  I know that grief can do that.  When your father—”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Scully says firmly, clasping her hand.  “I’m getting through.”

Mrs. Scully visits for another hour, chatting about Charlie’s latest exploits, showing off new pictures of Matthew (look Dana, he’s gotten so big).  Scully tries to pay attention, she does, but then Mulder begins to interject with his own comments and it becomes hard to keep track of what she should be responding to.  It’s a relief when her mother finally gathers up her coat and purse.

“Take care of yourself, Dana,” she says seriously, cupping Scully’s cheek. 

Mulder flits over as the door closes.  It’s funny to think that you should still technically be in mourning, isn’t it?

“Yeah,” she agrees. 

Mulder grins.  Here I thought you were going to lecture me about being a possible manifestation of your grief.

“Oh,” Scully says, throwing the lock, “no.”

Mulder stops to peer at her very closely.

You aren’t sad, are you Scully?

She turns to face him, surprised.  “No.  Why would I be?”

Mulder blinks.  He is quiet for a long time.  And then, slowly: No reason, I guess.



As the weeks pass, Scully goes in to the office less and less.  It just makes more sense to stay here, where she can have Mulder’s input.  Besides, he gets lonely without her.  (It’s just so boring, Scully.  Maybe if you had fish or something.  Hey, do you ever wonder why I ended up haunting your place and not mine?  It would have been fun to do sight gags with the leather couch.  Yours is too serious to walk back and forth through.)

So she goes in Mondays to collect her work for the week, then leaves at noon.  No one so much as glances at her askance, although one day Skinner lays a heavy hand on her shoulder.  She develops a routine, going out every Tuesday to collect groceries, and Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays for a run, but other than that she sticks close to the apartment. 

Eventually she buys a treadmill.



It takes her a while to work up the courage.  But when he first died she cursed herself and cursed herself, and the memory of that grief is just enough to make her do it, now that she can:

“I love you, Mulder.  I have for years.”

Mulder stops perusing the x-file she’s laid open for him, an indescribable expression on his face.  At first Scully thinks she’s made a huge mistake, somehow read him wrong all these years, and then—

I love you too.

Later, over dinner (Scully eats while Mulder sits across from her), he says:

Maybe you should go out.  You know, like to a movie or something.

Scully stares at him.  “What would be the point?”

There is a moment where she thinks he might look stricken, but the pattern of the refrigerator magnets behind his face keeps her from reading his expression properly.  When he next speaks, his voice is chipper enough.

Yeah, there wouldn’t really be one.

[identity profile] stjudesshipper.livejournal.com 2010-11-25 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Holy cow, this is amazing. I don't even know what to call half the emotions this evokes, but wow. Thanks for posting!

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-25 06:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm glad it managed to be successfully unsettling. :)

[identity profile] nehmet.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
That was a deceptively innocent-seeming story that was actually quite bleak and unsettling. Excellent work, in other words. ;D

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
Haha, thank you! Such was my purpose.

[identity profile] amalnahurriyeh.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 04:30 am (UTC)(link)
*makes small wibbling noise*

I really like this, not just because it means I have an excuse not to finish the ghost!Mulder draft sitting on my hard drive. (Oh, threeguesses just posted one! I shouldn't write it now. Too soon. Yes, uh huh, that's exactly why.) Scully's reaction to his death is so pitch perfect, and the slide downhill from there is so subtle and swift that it seems natural. Her ever reaction in this is just spot-on, from the ignoring to the rage to the overwhelming grief to the slipping out of time.

There's something...horrific about this. I find myself angry with Mulder at the end of it, because of what he's doing to Scully--by which I mean, pulling her out of her life entirely. And what's awful about it is that it isn't grief, it can't be grief, because it's denial of a particularly epic sort. Mulder's deadness (even if he's hanging around haunting up the joint) needs to be dealt with, and he's not letting her do it, and he keeps realizing it's a problem but he doesn't care enough to step back and let it happen. It's just...it's wrong. He should know it's wrong. Even if Scully's too broken to call him out on it. I just want to shake him, after about the halfway point.

The font thing works, btw.

I feel some kinda way about the sketchiness of the empiric elements of this, but I think that's a problem of my mileage varying. Anyway, this is very lovely. Thank you for it.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much! However, I now desperately want to see this ghost!Mulder fic of yours.

Yeah, I was slightly horrified with myself as I wrote it. I mean, I love Mulder and Scully, and I love their codependency, and this fic took that and made it creepy. Aw well, it was for Halloween. I'll write something shamelessly happy next.

I'm glad the font thing worked - I was uncertain about how to convey his speech. I almost went the route of Discworld's Death.

[identity profile] 51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
I agree with amalnahurriyeh -- bleak! And dark. But I like bleak and dark!

Mulder is being selfish, but... what else can he do? He appears to be in Scully's apartment limbo. I find myself wanting to know what happens when Scully dies, now. Which is also bleak, but I hope it doesn't happen anytime soon. I think.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
It's good you like bleak and dark! I think this is the most disturbing fic I've ever written lol.

Yeah, I don't know, maybe it would be better if Scully died. And they could haunt the appartment together happily (or as happy as ghosts can be)...

[identity profile] mack-the-spoon.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, this is awesomely distressing. I think I love it.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! :)

[identity profile] namarie24.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
Gah!

This is really... whoa. Excellent. And yeah, distressing.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
Merci! Whoa is high praise for a fic like this.
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[identity profile] memories-child.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 09:27 am (UTC)(link)
Wow. I really like this. The first line alone intrigued me, but reading it all the way through... Wow. It's bleak and dark, but them too (the comment about Plato's 'Forms' for example). And I also kinda found myself if Scully would die too (kill herself was the thing I was thinking) and what would happen then. Or if she got hit by a car and disappeared, leaving Mulder haunting her apartment alone.

Heh, bit of a tangent there. I loved it anyway.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I'm glad you caught the bit about Plato's forms - that was one of my favourite to add. I debated having Scully kill herself, but then that would mean she was aware of the half-life she was living. I wanted her in creepy denial haha.

[identity profile] infinitlight.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, that's...wow!

[identity profile] lolabeegood.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 11:59 am (UTC)(link)
Loved it

[identity profile] badforthefish.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
This is without a doubt the best story I've read in a long time. Whenever I read something that resonates just the "right" way, I call it "Tuning Fork Perfection" moments, and I found many of them here:

He leans against the refrigerator and watches her. She can see a magnet through his collarbone. A picture of her nephew through his sternum.

I love the way you've kept your phrases short and simple, straight to the point, without fuss. This is an efficient example of it. This very lean writing rhythm matches the atmosphere and it gives a kind of uneasy creepiness to the whole story, like bare bones.

I am a scientist, she whispers. To the faucet. To the soap dish. I am not insane.

Again a very vivid image. I love those "Little Things That Counts," little details that anchor the story down.

His voice is quiet, like it’s in her head, and loud, like it’s in her ear.

Clever way of converying the strangeness of his voice. And I concur, the font change works.

He is wearing the suit he was buried in, collar unbuttoned. Scully can see the y-incision she made during his autopsy...Her y-incision was textbook perfect.

This whole section just broke my heart.


“Are you fucking haunting me?” she asks, finally.

That is CLASSIC. It so cracked me up. Perfect.

At night they argue about goblins and swamp monsters, the possibility of Bigfoot, the genealogy of Nessie. They argue about Mulder’s incorporeity, its potential relation to water vapour, to Plato’s perfect Forms.


That is So *them*. Aw.


a poor man’s Clarice Starling.

You had me at "Clarice". ;-)

***

This story is going straight in my favourite fic folder, right next to "Gardening in Tropical Climates."

The only thing I'm mildly disapointed about is that I had plans to name one of my stories "Setting Out Towards Sheol." (after the Dead Sea scrolls proverb)but you've beaten me to it. Pah, never mind. :)

Thank you for reminding me the reason why I love fanfiction so much. I needed that.





Edited 2010-11-26 17:07 (UTC)

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 07:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh my goodness, thank you! I am pleased to have twanged (twung? oh dear) the Tuning Fork of Perfection, as it were. :)

And I am so glad that the font changed worked decently; I was hemming and hawing on that.

Thank you so much for the lovely review.

[identity profile] indigo-inferno.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 05:00 pm (UTC)(link)
This was amazing. I am at a loss at what else to say, I think I need to let it sink in for a while. ♥

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-26 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! &hearts

[identity profile] elliestories.livejournal.com 2010-11-27 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
This was bleakly, terribly amazing.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-27 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank so much! :)
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[identity profile] amyhit.livejournal.com 2010-11-27 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
very rarely a fic comes along that makes a certain overwhelming impression on me. namely, that once finished, the only thing i can think for some time is that i want the writer to take it all back.

this sounds horrible, but is actually intended as the deepest of compliments. writing horror is difficult - really difficult. it can end up silly, it can end up pointlessly grotesque, it can end up just plain tragic, or it can very easily end up numbing. keeping your reader from either disengaging from horror, or sinking into dispair, is extremely tough work (at least it is if i'm your reader). this fic certainly does the job. it's absolutely horrifying, and it just keeps drawing me in and in, to the very last line, which is perfect and almost nauseatingly disturbing.

yeah, um...i'd like to say more but right now it's not going to happen. i could spend days feeling this fic creep around my brain like a spider in my hair. for the record, i'm totally calling this Halloween fic, even if it didn't get posted until late November. i've never read any Halloween fic that was genuinely creepy, and I'd like to have something to put in that catagory.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-27 08:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh wow, thank you. I've never written anything remotely like horror before, and I'm - well, happy seems the wrong word - pleased? that it worked. I continue to be slightly horrified with myself for writing it.

It is absolutely Halloween fic. I just couldn't bring myself to wait until next Halloween to post.

Thanks again for the review.

[identity profile] elis-xf.livejournal.com 2010-11-27 10:29 am (UTC)(link)
Excellent fic!

It reminded me of something I read a while ago, a book titled 'Her fearful Symmetry', some elements of the story are similar.

But well done, you have kept them in character throughout.

*** "Are you fucking haunting me?” ***

That made my day!

:)

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-27 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, Her Fearful Symmetry! I love that book! Glad the fic evokes it somewhat.

Thank you! :)

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[identity profile] elis-xf.livejournal.com - 2010-11-27 21:56 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] enj412.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
This is disturbing, yet somehow immensely beautiful, too. I was touched by it, though at the same time, repelled (mostly because of how selfish Mulder was being). I can tell this is going to be one of the rare stories that stay with me awhile- and that is a good thing. Great work.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm glad it struck a cord.

[identity profile] 1breath.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 07:03 am (UTC)(link)
This is at one point sweet and another it is wrong. But it works perfectly with the tenor of their relationship, Mulder heedless at times to the needs of Scully to live, and Scully allowing it. And it all works perfectly in the context of grief and depression. Very clever.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I was going for an amped-up version of their normal dynamic, happy it worked.

[identity profile] milchstrasse.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 08:34 am (UTC)(link)
I came here from [livejournal.com profile] xfiles.
I cried.
Thank you so much for writing this.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for reviewing.

[identity profile] scrubschick.livejournal.com 2010-11-28 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. This is delightful... in a disturbed, delusional psychosis kinda way. ;)

I fully expected Scully to neglect herself to death and do a Ghost and Mrs. Muir at the end. I'm glad you surprised me, but you left open the possibility. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry at the treadmill.

Brava! Encore!

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2010-11-30 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
Haha, I'm pleased it was surprising. :) Delightfully disturbed was exactly what I was going for.

[identity profile] eccentricrabbit.livejournal.com 2010-12-27 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
Amazing. That just had my heart racing! You are an amazing writer.

[identity profile] ktds.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Heartbreaking yet amazing. Thank you for writing this.

Thoughts from a lurker

(Anonymous) 2011-01-16 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
This beautiful piece reminded me so much of these lines from a song by Dark Dark Dark, I wanted to post them...

"We've been living so long in the same place
You will go underground
Have no fear my darling friend
My memory of you is sound
Your ghost can stop and knock on my door
I surely would open it up
Your ghost could stop and stay for a round
I would truly be living it up"

[identity profile] amalnahurriyeh.livejournal.com 2011-03-14 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey! I just wanted to let you know that I just rec'd this at the crack_van, so you may get a few more folks traipsing through over the next couple of days! It's amazing story, I'm superglad it's going to get more readers. *g*

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2011-03-14 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
*big grin* Thank you so much for the lovely rec. I'm ridiculously flattered/doing a little chair dance. &hearts

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[identity profile] kittenmommy.livejournal.com - 2011-03-14 23:41 (UTC) - Expand

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[identity profile] kittenmommy.livejournal.com - 2011-03-15 03:17 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] mildlyconfused.livejournal.com 2011-03-14 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm devastated then I'm giggly then I'm devastated then I'm giggly then I'm terryfied! Thank you for giving me my final shove into Lake Bipolar. About time, too.

The characterisation was so ridiculously spot-on I cannot even begin to find properly complementing metaphors. You get ALL the gold stars.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2011-03-15 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
*twirls* Thank you! I am so glad the characterization held through all the weird ghost-angst.
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[identity profile] flywoman.livejournal.com 2011-03-15 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
Yup, got this from the crack van. It's my very favoritest kind of MSR - unconsummated, in-character, and deeply creepy. And Scully's gradual distintegration is very well done.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2011-03-15 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! Creepy MSR is my favourite flavour.
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2011-03-15 10:08 am (UTC)(link)
Here via Amal and the crack van! This is lovely! It slams back and forth between matter-of-fact and creepy. And Mulder never does manage to establish himself as beyond-a-doubt *real* -- he's established that he's Mulder, but not that he has an existence outside Scully's head, because blinking lights? So not proof.

That's what brings the creep factor for me. Not "Mulder is dead, Scully is still attached at the hip to him", but "Scully is attached at the hip to a Mulder who may or may not be a figment of her imagination".

Dear Mulder, don't you know the first thing about haunting? First proof: something only you would know. Second proof: something that you would know, but she doesn't, that she can verify in real life.

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2011-03-16 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
:) Thank you! I'm glad the ambiguity of Mulder's existence came through - I wanted Scully's sanity to be a little bit doubtful. Like, either they have a codependent relationship that causes Scully to lose touch with reality, or Scully already HAS lost touch with reality, and is just succumbing to that further. And yes, Mulder clearly didn't watch Ghost; his haunting techniques need some work. :p

[identity profile] bobthemole.livejournal.com 2011-03-15 07:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow! This takes me back to the glory days of the fandom. Great atmosphere!

[identity profile] threeguesses.livejournal.com 2011-03-16 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
\o/ That is a high compliment. Thank you!

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