Fascination By RocketMan Disclaimer: Chris Carter owns the characters of Mulder and Scully. No infringement is intended. Rating: PG13 - may be slightly disturbing. VS, UST-Angst Summary: Scully does a bit of introspection when she gets a cut. Author's Notes: I have recently been exposed to someone who mutilates herself. This is therefore coming out in my writing. Expect more dealing with this. Turn away if the idea sickens you right now. But nothing is graphic. =========== Fascination =========== I am hurting? Huh? My finger hurts, right on the side -- Oh. That's why. I'm bleeding. Tiny round drops of something that most people call lifeblood. Crimson and flowing down my finger, mixing with the white-peach of my skin to create an art form. It feels warm and thick sliding down, brightly marring the sick pale of my hand. I stare at it, then squeeze my fingertip, causing more of this scarlet substance to pool up and tumble out. It's dark, rich, healthy seeming. I know better than that. If I could see close enough, if I could have microscopic eyesight, I would find abnormal, dark cells, growing and feeding off the oxygen my every breath supplies it with. I would find cancer. All that death in something so life giving. Why am I so fascinated with this cut? It's just a small abrasion, the natural course of events taking over, the red blood cells rushing to the broken area and repairing the damage, clotting and drying up the leak. My blood, dripping off the side of my finger, landing in silence on the desk, staining a report I have to turn in. It's the same blood that runs from my nose when the tumor triggers it, the same blood that tells me that my cancer is moving, growing, mutating. It's the same. Yet it's not. This is darker, more ominous, less right. Because now I know I'm dying. And this blood is quickening my death. This blood is my enemy. I take up the scissors again, that wounding instrument, and slowly slice another layer of skin from the other finger. Bloodletting. Doctors used to believe that a disease was caused by bad blood, and that you had to drain out the bad blood to let the good blood assume dominance and heal the person. They would use leeches. I guess scissors work good enough for me. Another bright spot of this bad blood appears, running hot down my finger, faster, escaping before it the cells can trap it, clot it. I squeeze my finger tightly, making the tip white and pasty, and the cut a river of blood. "Dana!" My head snaps up, seeing a looming presence that reminds me all too much of my father. Mulder takes my fingers in his hands, ripping the scissors from my bloody grasp. "What the hell are you doing?" he screams, fear in his eyes. I stare at him. I have a right to be doing this if I want to. It's my body. My body revolting against me. I can revolt against it. "Why are you cutting yourself, Scully? Why are you doing this?" The fear in his voice is choking, and makes me sad for him. It almost sounds like he has done the same to himself and knows the pain and the hopelessness, and is hurt that I might feel that. "I - I just wanted to see ... see if I could ..." "No! No. Scully don't do this, please ..." I shake my head. "It was an accident. The left finger ... I was cutting out those --" "Please, Dana, please. Don't do this. Bleeding isn't going to get rid of the cancer ..." I draw away, trembling a little. How does he know exactly what I am thinking sometimes? How does he know that I was imagining that? "Dana?" he whispers, putting a hand to my face. I nod silently. But my blood is so ... so hypocritical. Looking all pure and healthy and red, but being in actuality a dark messenger of my death. It tells me of my death in the cancer coursing through it. It reminds me of my death in the silent nosebleeds, corrupting my image, hurting Mulder. "Dana ..." He is anguished, frightful. "I know." I say softly, not looking at him. He hugs me hard, so that my body is crushed and my breath taken. Then he takes my hands and kisses them, right on the cut, stinging the one I inflicted on myself. It will be raw for awhile, it may even scar since I stripped the skin right off. His mouth comes away red, bloodstained. I quake a bit, thinking of vampires ... of satanic rituals and death. But most of all, what I just did to myself, thinking crazy things about leeches and bloodletting. I'm a doctor ... He sees this look of horror on my face and hugs me, gentler this time, and says, "Let's clean up your fingers, Scully." No more Dana. Danger's past. "Mulder ... I'm going to go home." I say and look away from him, suddenly ashamed. "No ... Dana, let me help you. Please?" Dana again. Does he think I'll hurt myself again? Well, maybe it'd be a good idea to keep him around. I just might. "I'm going home. You can come with me." He doesn't even hesitate, but takes the less hurt of my two hands and leads me to the door. As we go to leave, he turns and pulls me to him, so that my body is flush against his. I sigh and melt into him, needing some strength. He kisses the top of my head, then holds my face and kisses my forehead. Just as that night in Allentown, I wish ferverently he would go on down. Kiss my lips. I sigh as he pulls away and draws me to the door. This is life now. Wishing for a kiss and bleeding to death, whether that's on my fingertip, or in my heart. I must have bad blood.