TITLE: Reality Check (1 of 1)
AUTHOR: Jess M.
EMAIL ADDRESS: snarkypup@mindspring.com
DISCLAIMER: If I owned them, I'd never have let Mr. Gibson anywhere near
them, so no, I don't own them.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: First Person Shooter
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNING: Oooo, spoilers, and some uh... spoilers. Sexual banter!
CLASSIFICATION: Post-Ep Vignette
SUMMARY: The difference between reality and fantasy, Mulder-style

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I HATED FPS, but will try to restrain from a lengthy
diatribe on why, since this is a public story forum. Suffice to say that it
pleases me to no end that after seven years of integrity, intelligence,
strength, character, loyalty, short-jokes, real bodies, and love, Fox
finally got what it wanted: Dana Scully's head on the body of soap opera
actress. In the immortal words of Virginia Slims Cigarettes: You've come a
long way, baby.

Blech.

Email me, I'm going to make them into a three-layer kevlar vest, which is
soooo necessary when you're fighting virtual bad guys, you know. Ooo, or
maybe I'll make myself a cod-piece, to cover my cod.


Reality Check

Mulder was having a little difficulty with his tie. Not tying it, which he
could practically do with his eyes closed (particularly as he often left
them half-tied in a heap in his sock drawer), but with choosing just the
right combination of color and zing to wake up his sleepy gray Armani. A
knock at the front door solved the issue for him: he would let Scully, with
her impeccable taste in ties, if not hairdressers, decide.

"Come on in," he shouted, "it's open."

"For heaven's sake, Mulder..." He heard her familiar voice and pondered its
stimulating effect. Better than a morning cuppa Joe, that was Scully. "Why
are you leaving your door open? What if I were Krycek?"

He smiled and popped his head out into the living room.

"Then I wouldn't eat this bagel," he assured her as he accepted it from her
outstretched hand. He took a large bite and left the remainder waiting on
top of his dresser. "Banana, Scully?"

"Mulder, I have to ride in the car with you. I'm not buying you onion
anything. Not this early."

Grinning, he motioned for her to step into the bedroom.

"I'm having trouble picking out a tie," he said, or at least that's what he
would have said if it weren't for the bagel. Scully made exaggerated chewing
noises at him and waited for him to repeat his sentence clearly.

"You're always having trouble picking out a tie, Mulder," she said coolly,
and wandered past the open dresser-drawer of silken nooses to open up his
closet.

"Scully!" he said, in horror, but was saved. Her attention was focused on
the rack of ties in front of her, not on the picture he had pinned to the
interior of the closet door.

"I like this one," she said at last, handing him a subtly-patterned blue and
gray number. He smiled as he accepted it. He could still see Maggie Scully
slipping him the neatly wrapped gift box during the whole Emily nightmare.
"I thought you could use a present, Fox," she'd said.

"You would," he told her.

"What? Too conservative? I think it's very Frank Lloyd Wright."

He nodded and let her lift his collar. For a moment, she held both ends
against his shirt and looked up at him from beneath her lashes. The
constriction he was feeling in his chest, he knew, had quite a bit to do
with her small hands creating a knot around his neck.

"There," she said, patting him gently and checking the short end to be sure
the length was perfect. He could see young Scully, Dana then, patting her
father in a similarly loving way.

"Thanks," he said, and winked at her.

When she turned to shut the closet door, he was caught. She gave an audible
gasp and by the time she faced him, the smile he had been so enjoying was
gone.

"Mulder," she said in her best about-to-kick-ass tone, "What the hell is
that?"

He examined the print-out of the Goddess with Scully's head and a porn 
queen's body and shrugged. "The Gunmen sent it to me. I thought it was 
funny."

"Oh you did," she said. "How enlightening."

"What?" he asked, a bit puzzled. It was funny, after all. He certainly 
wasn't taking it seriously. But then, it occurred to him, Scully might 
not know that.

"I certainly hope you realize that I don't look like that," was what she
said in response.

He gave her a look. "Of course I realize that."

"Because I would hate to think that you were losing your grip on the
difference between fantasy and reality, Mulder, since it has always been
tenuous at best."

He glared. "Of course I'm not."

"Not that that woman represented any form of reality."

Smirking, he crossed his arms and stared at her. "She looked real enough in
the police station."

Scully looked as if she might like to slap him. "Oh right," she said,
drawing out the final syllable. "Behind the latex and the spandex and the
hair extensions, she was all woman." Mulder snickered. "Look, those..." she
pointed to her doppleganger's silicon enhancements, "are fake. These..." and
with that she slipped her hands beneath her own breasts and nearly gave
Mulder a heart attack, "are the real deal. They age, they sag, and without a
Wonder Bra, it's unlikely you'd notice I had them at all. And this..." She
pointed to her own rear end, completing Mulder's slow slide into arousal,
"Is the ass of a thirty-six year-old woman, Mulder. I work the hell out of
it three or four days a week, and I've still got cellulite. I'm not some
plastic perfect doll, and if you think it's funny or flattering to me to be
portrayed as one, you are a serious moron. I'm insulted and hurt, frankly,
that this is a version of me you'd prefer to see."

He was still staring at her and she seemed to find it unnerving.

"What?" she said at last.

"Are you finished with your catalog of your physical failures, Scully? Can I
say something here?"

"I never said they were failures, Mulder, I said they were real. And yes,
you may say something, if you must."

He nodded and took one step closer to her. "I am completely aware of the
difference between fantasy and reality, Scully."

"Right," she said, but she was watching him narrowly, as if she were
expecting him to make sense and didn't like it.

"Reality is that you are my partner. You are my best friend, someone I
respect and appreciate. You're strong and loyal and smart, and yes, Scully,
you're attractive. But precisely because of the reality of the situation, 
of who we are and what we're up against, I would never jeopardize our
relationship by straying over into fantasy."

"Which is all big-breasts and tight-asses, I take it," she said, but she was
softening.

"Please," he said dismissively. "I said I thought it was funny, Scully, and
I still do. But the reality is, a woman like that would have very little
self-esteem left after years of parading herself before men who view her
primarily as a mighty pretty inducement to jack off. Statistically, she was
probably sexually abused as a child, which accounts for her desire to garner
attention through her sexuality. Her life is not going to include any
meaningful career advancement or rewarding interpersonal relations, and if
she's extremely lucky, she might be able to avoid contracting a debilitating
or deadly disease from her chosen method of employment and the sort of men
it necessarily attracts. She will never know the respect you have won for
yourself in your profession, Scully. She has certainly never earned it by
following her partner into dangerous or deadly situations and saving his
sorry ass more times than he can count. That, Scully, is reality."

She sighed and raised the eyebrow. "So what's the fantasy, Mulder? Leather?
Thigh-high vinyl boots?"

When he gave a little eyebrow-waggle, she rolled her eyes.

"Well, I'll admit I'm prone to admiring a particular female physique,
Scully, when I'm looking for something prurient. Big breasts and more booty
than the clearance rack at Nine West are sexually stimulating. That's what 
I'm designed to react to, if we're talking purely physical reaction. Don't
tell me you've never looked at say, Mel Gibson's ass and gotten turned on."

"Well," she said slowly, "I may, on occasion, have rented certain tapes in
the Lethal Weapon series for more than their tightly written plots and
amusing characterizations."

"Try owned," he said. "I've peeked at your video collection, Scully, and I
know."

"You're a fine one to talk," she answered, a bit flustered. "I mean, you
look a lot more like Mel Gibson, Mulder, than I ever will like that... that
woman. You can't possibly imagine how it feels to be constantly held up
against something like that."

"Maybe you're right, Scully, but I don't think you've considered how
distressing it might be for a woman like Ms. ... Afterglow... to be held up
against someone as strong and beautiful and capable as you are. Imagine
living in a world where what you said, Scully, was seriously less important
than the size of your breasts."

"I've been in that world, Mulder," she said. "I've fought my way out of it."

"To your credit," he assured her. "She will never move beyond it, Scully,
because she can't. She doesn't have that sort of ammunition."

"Fine." Her own arms were crossed now, and she was looking up at him with
something just less than a glare. "You still haven't told me how your
reality, with its big-breasted hookers and those tapes you don't own,
Mulder, differs from fantasy."

Mulder examined her pinched little face and quelled a desire to kiss her
senseless. Ah, fantasy.

"Let's see, Scully, fantasy..." he paused and stepped over to the picture.
"In my fantasy, you and I come home together after a particularly long day
at the office, lock ourselves in the bedroom and only come out to tip the
pizza guy. In my fantasy, I can kiss you any time I like, even when we're on
a case and you're disagreeing with me, just because I feel like it. Fantasy,
Scully, would be being your lover, or maybe even something more than that,
for the rest of my life." He turned back to find her staring at him with
something that looked suspiciously like a combination of shock and
tenderness. "And having seen you naked, I can safely assure you that ever
since then, the only body that has been attached to your head in my dreams
is your own. So you see, Scully, I do know the difference between reality
and fantasy. I live with the glaring chasm between the two every fucking
day. I can only hope that someday, when the time is right, I really will be
unable to distinguish between them."

For a long moment, he thought she might be angry, or simply too shocked to
react. He had, after all, just thrown down the proverbial gauntlet, and he
wasn't wearing even one layer of kevlar.

Scully regarded him thoughtfully, then nodded. Crossing to where he was
waiting, she reached up and snagged the picture, ripping it off the
thumbtack and crumpling it for a perfect three-pointer into his bedroom
trash can.

"All right, Mulder," she said, and she sounded generous. His heart began to
pound with something that felt very much like adrenaline. "Let's see about
those ya-yas."


end 1 of 1, which you're all grateful for, I'm sure. Email me and tell me
all about it.