Death of a Dream (or, the Residual Malignant Effects of the Airing of One Son on the Fanfic Writing Community) By Ashlea Ensro and Anna Otto morleyphile@yahoo.com and annaotto1@aol.com Category: SH Rating: NC-17 (severe author torture warning) Spoilers: lots, but mostly for One Son Archive: if you wish, but let us know... Feedback: hey, trust us, after this one, we need it! Summary: and you thought that you had a problem with One Son! Meet the most unfortunate of us all. Disclaimer: well, the poor unfortunate belongs to us, all the quotes are not real, all the coincidences with the real world are coincidental, and all characters you recognize belong to CC, 1013, and FOX. Death of a Dream "Son of a bitch," a woman whispered with venom in her voice. "How can he..." She tried to get her breathing under control. Her thin fingers shredded the piece of perused paper, the words of love and trust now torn, the romance that could have been stronger than time itself, now a cruel mockery of all her hopes. Her weighted steps measured the distance between her TV and the computer monitor. Perhaps she could find some words of encouragement from the prisoners such as herself. Her face pale in the glow of the screen, she frantically scanned the newsgroups for the first sign of action. -- DanaLuvsFox@aol.com Subject: Son of a bitch! How can he? :-( -- RabidShipper@hotmail.com Subject: Re: Son of a bitch! >How can he? :-( I don't know about you, but I'm about to pack in MY shipper credentials...::sigh:: -- She winced, closing the window. This did not bode well. All week she had heard the spoilers - a steamy shower scene, a mysterious kiss - it was just the opening she had been waiting for. She had been positive that the episode would give her just the window she needed for her very first NC-17 MSR. But as the final gunshot erupted and the theme music sounded, she made a horrible, terrible realization. The next person to post an NC-17 MSR after that episode was going to get flamed to ashes. With a feeling of resignation, she clicked on the random post on the newsgroup. -- WeaseLover@yahoo.com Subject: Dark Times My sorrow is too great. I will kill myself if I don't see some sign of life, love, and romance happening for the underappreciated object of my affection. Someone, help me. -- Thoughtfully, she chewed on her pencil. The memorial for Spender was growing, the crowds were falling for the weasel left and right, and she had to admit that death had to be the best thing that happened to him in ages. //Scully's eyes filled with tears as she threw herself on the cold body lying on the basement floor. She refused to believe this - denied the knowledge that the man she secretly admired, the skeptic after her own heart, was gone. "I didn't even have a chance to tell you how I felt," the desolation of her shrill cries hurt the ears of innocent bystanders. "Agent Scully," someone's voice interrupted her rudely. "He is still alive. But we need to get him to a hospital." Quickly, she rolled off Jeffrey Spender's body. "Please, save him. Please," she begged the paramedics. "I will be praying."// A face illuminated by the computer monitor suddenly turned an unhealthy blue shade. Scully/Spender combination was... too mind numbing for comprehension. Sighing, she turned back to the monitor. Scully needed someone a little more...dangerous. Wild. Someone who would sweep her off her feet. Someone dark, mysterious, someone with a sexual charisma to rival Mulder's. She knew just the person. //Scully trained her gun on the elusive rodent, taking in his slim but muscular build, oh-so-visible beneath the white T-shirt and open black leather jacket. "Don't you move," she shouted, "Stop right there." Alex Krycek flashed her a brilliantly charming smile. "You're making a big mistake." He edged closer to her, the shadows of the dark alleyway playing over sharp, haunted features. "I didn't kill your sister, Dana. I didn't kill Mulder's father either...I was trying to stop them...I've been on your side all along." A flush rose to her face. He had called her Dana. Mulder *never* called her Dana. He was so sweet, so considerate, even though he was a triple-crossing former Russian spy. "Oh Alex," she cried, "Take me now!" "Um...sure..." He moved in. "Um...Dana...could you just...uh...try to stand a little taller?" "Sure." She wasn't sure why...but she *was* short, and maybe he was just having difficulty stooping down to reach her mouth. "Oh, and can you just stick out your lower lip a little, so you look more like Mu-"// The writer shook her head. This wasn't working. Even in her imagination, Krycek wasn't straight. She would have to dream up something else. After a minute of thoughtful silence, she came up with a smashingly original idea. //The brunette woman moved with a grace of panther, suddenly cornering Dana Scully in the dark alley behind her house. The heavenly perfume clouded her senses, and her entire body was weakening, unable to resist its mysterious power. "Diana," she was suddenly unable to speak as full lips closed over hers, dark eyes locking with the blue ones in the heat of undiluted passion. "Oh, Dana, my angel of light," Fowley rasped. "Let me show you just what you mean to me. Let me show you how beautiful you are." "But," Scully was confused. "Aren't you in love with Mulder?" "Mulder is an insensitive jerk," Diana's eyes flashed dangerously. "He doesn't appreciate you, and he never will. And as much as we all want him to, he will never buy you flowers, chocolate, and seduce you into being his love slave." She suddenly pulled out a bottle of champagne, filling two glasses. "Wait," Scully squeaked. "Mulder is not..." Things were happening just a bit too quickly. She sniffed the bubbling liquid. "This is not champagne!" she cried. All these years with Mulder taught her a little something. "You are a witch!"// The writer stopped, now somewhat confused herself. Though it was a stretch, she could imagine Scully was in denial where her sexuality was concerned. But she just had to get over defending Mulder. Besides, Diana Fowley could turn her into a frog, or at the very least, tie her up and pour black wax over her. Who knew what that witch was capable of? This introduction to slash needed to be handled carefully. It was a good thing that there were so many other strong, independent female characters for the writer to choose from. Well, one, anyway... //Scully ran down the hallway of the quarantine facility, searching desperately for a sign of human life, any sign at all. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of movement, a slight woman with blond hair turning around the corner. "Wait!" she cried, "I'm not going to hurt you!" The woman turned to her with red-rimmed eyes. "Agent Scully?" "*Marita*?" The blond woman swallowed. "I thought...I thought they left me alone here...oh Agent Scully if they find us here together, they'll... they'll kill us..." Scully grabbed her and pulled her into a darkened room at the end of the corridor. "Then we can't let them find us," she gasped in a husky voice as she moved in for a kiss. Marita flung her arms around Scully, clinging to the other woman in desperation. Her lips were as soft as velvet, her kisses intoxicating, unlike anything Scully had ever felt before. She felt something warm and wet against her cheek - was Marita *crying*? She'd never made anyone cry before. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Marita's face in ecstasy, overwhelmed by the passion of the moment... ...and instead saw something black and viscous dripping from the former Special Representative to the Secretary General's facial orifices...// The writer recoiled in horror. Damn these mytharc twists - it was impossible to write a simple romance anymore. Well, if Chris Carter's precious aliens insisted on crawling into her stories, she could take the hint. //"There has been a disturbing development," the smoke uncurled lazily from the thin lips of C.G.B. Spender. His companion frowned. Change was never a good thing when it came to the Project. He liked the reports of steady progress, and would have preferred not to be informed of any problems. "What is it now?" he asked wearily. "Marita, under the control of the black oil, had used her considerable charms to seduce several lab technicians, infecting them in the process. She then proceeded to infect Agent Scully." The old well-fed man sighed in frustration. "Does it mean we have to orchestrate another kidnapping? We would have to ship bees from Tunisia!" The Smoking Man paused, troubled. "Don't we have some of our own?" The voice with cultured British accent sounded faintly disgusted. "Don't you remember that we were under orders to burn the facilities in Texas? And if you weren't so concerned with the fate of Teena Mulder two years ago, you would have noticed that we had to shut down our operations in Canada." "But..." the Smoking Man was speechless. Shaking his head and rubbing his eyes in horrified disbelief, he stared at the chairs in front of him. The men he used to work with, every single one of them, were burnt to a freshly done barbecue crisp. "I love the smell of victory in the morning," someone tapped him on the shoulder, and C.G.B. Spender turned around, frightened, imagining it was a ghost of one of his comrades coming back to life. "I know your name, I know your game, and now I know where you spend most of your time."// The author closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As if of its own volition, her hand wrote the concluding sentence unsteadily. //Mulder grinned at his nemesis. "Now that these old men are out of the picture, what stops us from repainting it?"// The small woman shuddered in hard, wracking sobs. She did not want to go there. She refused to go there. But now that the Consortium was gone, what else was left for her to do but rebuild it from scratch? It wasn't working at all. She just couldn't keep up with all of these twists and turns in the mythology. Who was she kidding? She couldn't write a Consortium story. There *was* no Consortium. She had a sudden flash of realization. Without the Consortium, there was no one left with the power and knowledge to ward off the impending alien invasion. She drew in a quick gasp. That only meant one thing... //It was cold. Horribly cold. Plumes of smoke rose from the shattered shells of buildings. Charred bodies lay scattered in pools of black oil. The survivors, eyes red and sunken, clung together for warmth in the post-apocalyptic night. Scully gazed out at the devastation. Everyone was gone - Skinner, the Lone Gunmen, her family...Mulder. She was the last one standing. Granted, she had never really liked Bill, and she and Mulder hadn't gotten along that well by the end, but she was still upset about 90% of the population being wiped out in the alien invasion. If it weren't for that Fellig guy, she would have been dead too. She shivered at the prospect of living an eternity in this barren wasteland. "I'm sorry, Mulder," she whispered, her voice echoing over the ashes, "I'm sorry I never believed you." Suddenly, a bright flash of light pierced the smoking sky, and she looked up, shielding her eyes as the ship descended. A ladder descended from the shimmering UFO (whch was not really a UFO, seeing as it wasn't exactly unidentified). From a small doorway came the alien, silhouetted against a background of light. Scully stared. It didn't look much like the faceless aliens she had seen that night on the bridge, and it didn't look like the ones that had run past her in the mine in West Virginia. It was smallish, furry, and it had very big eyes. It was actually kind of cute. It looked like a Furb-.// The writer hissed a stream of curses under her breath. This was it. She just wasn't cut out to be an angst writer. Summoning her last ounces of strength, she stared at her shuttered keyboard. She could go back to happier times, when the future still looked bright, when Mulder and Scully danced to music of Cher, when rainbows streamed colorfully across the blue sky. She could ignore all the disenchantment and darkness, and write what her heart longed to write: a happy, sappy romantic comedy with two characters she loved. //Scully knocked on Mulder's door impatiently, her face glowing. "Come in!" he replied happily. She stepped inside, carrying wine and cheese. "Mulder, it is time we talked about..." "The invisible mutant with glowing red eyes?"// The writer stopped, rubbing her hands together. One of her eyes was twitching nervously. "Let's try this again," she whispered, determined. //"Scully," Mulder's eyes were wide-open, his breath coming in short gasps. "I need you to show me..." "What is it, Mulder?" The music swelled in the background. The camera focused on Scully's beautiful red lips. "When will you finally tell me..." his voice was growing deeper, mesmerizing in its quality. "Mulder, just tell me what it is you need!" Scully replied impatiently. "I would do anything for you!" "Could you prove that the virus you were infected with contained DNA of an unknown origin?"// The writer screamed, pounding the monitor with her fists in frustration. She was a fool to believe that this would ever be easy. She could take this no longer. It was time to bite the bullet. Older, wiser writers had already taken their leave of the X-Files fanfic community...she could follow in their footsteps...she could do it. She stared at the Fight The Future poster above her computer, at the Mulder and Scully Barbies on her dresser, at the package of Morley cigarettes by the old fashioned typewriter. She wiped away a stray tear on the corner of her sleeve. "Resist or serve," she whispered. Turning at last towards her computer, she opened a new e-mail. There were still characters out there who would never disappoint her, who would never entangle themselves in government conspiracies, who would never get infected by the alien virus. Fran Fine and Maxwell Sheffield would turn the world around. She started to type those words that would make her a great fanfic writer, those words that would change her life. alt.tv.the-nanny.creative And then she sat back and waited. The End Authors' Notes: thank you to Rachel for beta-reading, and to X-Files fanfic community for inspiration!