TITLE:  Domesticity (1/1)
AUTHOR:  feldman
EMAIL:  feldman@voyager.net
SPOILERS:  Through Existence
SUMMARY:  This home invasion can't be fixed with a good cry and a trip to
the Pottery Barn.
NOTES:  God help me, I've written babyfic.  Improv elements at the end.   To
Bugs and JET, for the beta and the cheering up.
DISCLAIMER:  I don't own the characters, Chris Carter and Jhonen Vasquez do.


Domesticity



Mulder shifts and settles into a rhythm too engaging to ignore.  My pillow
hits the floor as I strain against him, sticky and hot like a popsicle
melting.  He's just a little faster than I am and it's driving me to the
edge.

I tell myself it's because he's a man.   More muscle mass, therefore a
higher oxygen requirement; hence Mulder breathes faster than I do, even in
sleep.  Simple metabolism, not purposeful sabotage.  Still I can't help but
fall into his rhythm, hyperventilating myself wide-awake.  I've tried
everything save for manual strangulation or sleeping on the couch.  The
former is more tempting than the latter, yet neither is conducive to the
harmonious family life we're trying to create.

Mulder burrows into my shoulder blade.  The moment he falls asleep he
latches on like a parasite, trying to work his way under my skin.  Despite
sniping at each other all evening, tonight is no different.  He'd tossed his
share of the blankets onto me earlier, and is now wrapped around me for
warmth, pinning me to the edge of the bed.

Will winds up for the first oration of the night, baby monitor lights
sparking red like those on a radar detector.

Mulder and I should have lived in sin for a while first.  I worm an arm free
and shove his hairy thigh off of my hip.

"Sskhhghh..."

With a rocking motion, I flop him off of my back and onto his own.  He lands
in the middle of the bed.  "Your night.  Remember?"

"Hmmf...m'kay."  He rolls from bed and pads into the hallway, a motion as
unconscious and practiced as the hand scratching his scrotum.

The skin of my back feels clammy as I stretch to retrieve my pillow.  My
home is falling apart around me.  Everything used to have its place and now
I can't even keep a pillow under my head.  A raw patch of stubble burn heats
my shoulder, so I turn over, kicking the duvet back into place as Will
snuffles to a ragged stop over the speaker.

"S'okay, son, it's warming up.  How's the eye, there?"  His voice is
affectionate and calm.

I can still hear the screeching of earlier this evening, though, high
panicky monotone and baby screams reverberating against tile walls.  "Ten
different kinds of shampoo, Scully, and none of that 'no more tears' crap?"

"Mulder, if you squirt it right in his eye it doesn't matter--"

"Jesus, Scully, you'll believe in God, but not Johnson & Johnson?"

"Well he's got one good eye left, care to convince me?"

Perhaps we need a new rule; no talking to each other when the baby's
screaming.

I shape my pillow with my fists.  I'm wasting a golden opportunity.  I have
five ounces of time in which to fall asleep before Mulder comes to bed and
resumes his breathing routine.  I pretend I'm on stakeout, the murmuring
from the baby monitor a police radio at low volume.  It's Mulder's watch.  I
let myself relax.

~*~

Some time later I wake up alone, baby monitor silent and unblinking.
Whispered conversation down the hall spikes dread into my temples.

Strangers in the house.

Eventually, I'll have to give up the reassurance of having my gun within
reach at the edge of sleep.  Then how will I protect him?

Either of them?

I come to my senses in the empty nursery.  The whispering is coming from the
living room, a mix of raspy Mulder voice and cartoons turned down low.
Happy animals on the crib mobile hang taxidermy still, witnessing me.

I feel sweaty and monstrous.  What the hell am I thinking?  Starting
tomorrow I lock up the gun.  If nothing else is in its place, at least this.
I exchange weapon for robe and follow Mulder's voice into the living room.

He sits on the couch, slouching with one hand on the remote, the other
cupping Will's round little belly like a cockpit harness.  He's murmuring in
the warm hypnogogic voice of so many insomniac phone-calls, a running
commentary on the exploits of the green alien boy on TV.  Will seems pleased
and dubious.

A baby bottle nonchalantly shares the end table with my French press
coffeepot, each half-full.

"Speaking of alien-hunters, looks like we woke up your mom."

I sit on the edge of the couch.  "Mulder, where did you find the
kaffeeklatsch pot?"

"Come again?"

"The coffeepot, Mulder."

"I just thought it'd be quieter than the espresso machine."  His fingers
creep from the mute button to my hand.  "Are you okay, Scully?  I promise
I'll clean it out when I'm done."

"It's not that."  I shake my head.  Of course he doesn't know about the
kaffeeklatsch pot.  "I haven't seen it since Melissa was killed.  We used to
meet every week and have a good long talk over coffee."

"Sounds ritualistic."  His thumb traces the back of my hand, belying the
light remark.

"In a way, I guess it was."  I sink into the cushions.  "When I finished
school, she wanted to connect with me.  Get to know me better.  I was still
unpacking, I was busy with a new job.  I suggested we meet for coffee
sometime.  She showed up an hour later with that plunge pot wrapped up as a
housewarming gift.  Made me promise we'd meet for a kaffeeklatsch every
week."

His eyes kaleidoscope empathy and pain in reflected cartoon colors.
"Listen, I didn't know it had sentimental value.  I'll put it back."

"No, Mulder, it's been missing.  I just want to know where you found it."

"Top cabinet over the sink, pushed way back.  Scully...are you laughing or
crying?"

I wipe my cheek and let a chuckle loose.  "Mom always kept the tea and
coffee things over the sink, wherever we lived.  Everyone else could reach,
even Charlie, but I'd have to drag the kitchen stool over or climb onto the
sink.  Missy must have cleaned up the last time, and just put it away
without thinking."

"So you're laughing *and* crying."

"Essentially."  The green alien boy is at school, declaiming silently.  Will
whimpers and plucks at Mulder's thumb, restarting the belly rub that I'd
interrupted.  "He should be sleeping.  He'll do poorly in kindergarten if we
let him become nocturnal."

Mulder brushes Will's hair front to back, rubbing silky locks between his
fingers.  "He fusses every time I try to put him down, but he's not
interested in eating."

"Temperature?"

"Normal.  I think he just wants to spoon for a while."  Satisfied between
head and tummy rubbing, Will stares at the TV with an intense Orson
Wellesian expression.  "He seems to have forgiven me for the shampoo
incident."

"Long term memory doesn't develop until at least eighteen months.  I'm sure
that helps."

"So we've got a grace period of a sort."  Will kicks a leg out, farts, then
sighs.  Mulder laughs.  "Infancy is kind of like senility in reverse, isn't
it?"

"You're the psychologist."  Will's flexing his toes contently, so familiar
that I can't help but look down at Mulder's feet.

"Babies aren't my specialty.  Though, maybe when he starts on solid foods
he'll become a cereal murderer...get it?  Cereal?"  Big toes and little toes
wave like can-can dancers, joyous in miniature and life-size.

So easily, I'd slipped into treating the miraculous as mundane.
Technically, neither of the people sharing this couch with me should exist.
One was as dead as my sister, the other literally inconceivable.  Yet here
they are, trashing my house and filling my life with petty annoyances.

I'd forgotten what family is all about, apparently.

"Mulder."  I tear him away from the alien boy, now zipping his robot into a
dog costume and taking him for a walk.  "Does it ever strike you as weird,
with all the things we've done, to end up here on the couch like this?"

"What, with you sitting on the driver's side?"  He smiles and pulls me
closer.

I lean against his shoulder and look up at his sleepy stubbly face.  The
puncture wounds have healed completely, but a legacy of ingrown hairs traces
them out to knowing eyes.  He smells of baby powder, coffee and my bed.

"Yeah, sometimes it's weird.  But we're the King and Queen of Weird, Scully,
we can handle a little domesticity.  It'll give us something to talk about
with the straights."


~*~The End


Well, these were my Improv elements...I tweaked a few...

*Cyndi Jo:  Somebody watching and commenting on "Invader Zim"
*Triton:  Any character (I) choose tossing and turning all night, trying to
get to sleep, trying hard to get images of throttling someone else out of
their head.
*JET:  a beloved coffeepot
*Melymbrosia:  Someone managing to squirt shampoo straight into their left
eye.
*Pequod:  M or S throwing things out when they come across something of
sentimental value-(I) decide what it is and the story behind it.


Writing from Scully's POV is still a bit awkward for me, so I'd be
interested to know if I pulled it off--especially if I didn't, please let me
know what didn't work.

Hugs and thanks to my betas, Bugs and JET.  They helped me transform a
sketchy vignette into an actual story.  Any flubs remaining are, of course,
my own damn fault :P

--feldman