Title: Unleashing the Id
Author: f.f. lindy
Notes: For those of you who haven't take a psych class, or have forgotten, the id, ego and superego are the components of personality in Sigmund Freud's structural model. He hypothesized that the id was responsible for desires, the superego was the equivalent of the conscience, and the ego was the strongest force in most adults, the one that could control the other two and provide them with what they needed. I hope you enjoy this one; I sure had fun writing it. Let me know what you think! I live for feedback, and if you hate it I will know to leave my psych notes under my bed next time I write a fic.
"Muldey," a short thin man walked into the basement office. Mulder looked up and tried to keep the grimace from his face.
"Ed Scatch?"
"I suppose that would be me," he said through a thick British accent. The little man had moved to Mulder's desk and looked over his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm in the states for a conference. APA is holding quite a little event. I would have thought I would see you there."
"I don't really keep up with it anymore."
"You studied the mind for seven years, and you don't keep up with it?"
"It's not what I do, Ed. This is what I do," he gestured around the office.
Scully was watching the interaction, trying not to be offended by the fact that she had not so much as been acknowledged.
"So, what, you spend all day every day down in this filth. Oxford wouldn't recognize you."
Mulder sighed. "I hardly recognized you with that hairline." Scully tried not to smile. Mulder was going to get personal if this man was going to insult his lifestyle.
"And who is this little lady?" Ed asked, unphased.
"This is my partner, Dana Scully. Scully, this is Ed Scatch. We studied psychology together at Oxford."
"Nice to meet you," she lied.
"The pleasure is all mine."
"How long are you in town?" Mulder asked.
"All week."
His face dropped, but he caught himself before Ed saw.
"And the best part is that I have plenty of free time to catch up."
"Great," Mulder said as convincingly as he could muster.
Ed followed them around for the day, talking constantly in that tinny little voice of his, constantly with some commentary on what they were doing. Scully took it patiently for as long as she could, convinced that Mulder would lose it before she did. "You know I talked to a woman up in a real office on my way down," Ed mentioned. "She called you 'Spooky.' I kind of like it. You are kind of spooky these days. How did you go from the star of our abnormal psych class to this?"
Mulder didn't even respond. He kept his head down to the page.
That was when she snapped. "Who the hell are you? Could you try not being such an ass just for a minute? I don't care what you think. I don't care who you talked to. If you insist on staying in this office will you please just shut the hell up?"
It stopped Ed for less than a beat. "Muldey, could you control your uptight prude of a secretary?"
Scully was seething. It took every ounce of concentration she had not to be out of her chair with a gun pulled on this man.
Mulder on the other hand, was now looking up from his papers, wide eyed. He half expected to see his partner take down the tiny Englishman, and kind of hoped she would. "I don't even know where to begin to explain why you should have not said that."
"Surely you jest. This little thing couldn't do a thing to me, even if she tried, which she won't. In all my years I have never seen such an overactive superego." He turned to Scully. "For Christ sake, let the id come out and play every once in a while. You don't even want mine to. I joke in good fun."
Scully popped an eyebrow sky high, but controlled her rage. She looked back down at her work silently.
"I think you should go, Ed. I think you should leave right now," Mulder recommended, his eyes still on Scully.
"Good Lord you must be…"
"If you know what is good for you, you will get out and not come back. I think you are about two syllables away from having one hell of an id unleashed on you."
"This I would like to see."
"Out!" Mulder ordered.
Ed backed down for the first time and slinked out the door.
She didn't say a word for over two hours, and he couldn't focus on his work the room was so tense. "He's a jackass, Scully," Mulder finally offered. "He's always been a jackass."
"Do you think he's right? Do you think I am an uptight prude?"
"No, of course not Scully," Mulder said hesitantly.
"You think its true!" she accused. "You think I am a prude with an overactive superego."
"You're a strong woman, Scully. You don't emote like some people do. I mean, anyone else would have kicked Ed's ass for that. You are not a prude."
"But I am so controlled that I don't even know how to take a joke? I don't let 'my id out to play?'"
"I didn't say that, Scully."
"You've said enough."
She stood and stormed out of the office, leaving him with his head in his hands.
It was almost ten o'clock. Mulder was at home, watching a B-rate move on the Sci-Fi channel. He had almost forgotten about the day's events, and prayed she had too, when he heard a key in the lock. The door opened and she was standing in the entryway. She stepped in and closed the door behind her. His eyes didn't leave her as she shed her coat. "Turn that off," she ordered.
He did it quickly and turned back to her, confused, only to see her peel the shirt off over her head. She was still moving towards him as she unclasped her bra and let it fall off. He sat up on couch, terrified by this out of character action, and she stopped just inches away from where he sat, unzipped her skirt, and a moment later stood completely naked before him. "What are you doing?" he managed to force out.
"Unleashing the id," she explained as she straddled him and ground herself into him.
"Scull--" he began, but she cut him off with a firm kiss, her fingers setting to work on his shirt.
When she slid off of him he was naked and panting. He cursed nature for giving her the energy to collect her things and go when just moments ago her eyes were rolled back in her head, while he felt glued to the couch in exhaustion.
"Scully, don't," he begged.
"It's what you wanted, isn't it Mulder? A little less control, a little more impulse. Deal with it," she said harshly as she slammed the door behind her. She made it all the way down the hall before the tears poured from her eyes.
The next morning Mulder was already at work when she arrived, just like he always was. She walked in and sat down, obviously with no intent to speak with him. "Skinner wants to see us," he said, when he realized she wouldn't be the first to break the silence. "We're meeting him at nine."
"Fine."
An hour later he started to put on his coat to walk to Skinners office. She wordlessly followed suit and beat him to the door. He hesitantly put his hand on her lower back to guide her into the elevator, and was surprised when she didn't stare him down. Kimberly showed them into Skinners office quietly, and they both shook his hand. "There's a case I need you two to investigate," he said, "Occult murders in California. They can't seem to find who is behind it, because there hasn't been any known cult activity in the area in decades. I thought it would be best sent your way."
Neither partner said a word.
"Alright what the hell is going on?" Skinner snapped.
Again there was no response, both expecting the other to speak.
"This is the longest I have ever seen you two not voice an opinion. Agent Scully, what is the problem?"
"Nothing sir," she lied.
"I'm not sending agents out into the field in anything but perfect condition. You two need to get this sorted out before you leave for this case or I'm ordering psych evals on you both before you are investigating anything. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir." Scully said.
Mulder nodded and swallowed hard. The both stood and walked silently out the door. He was weighing his words carefully as they rode the elevator back down to the basement, and by the time the door to their office was closed behind them he had gathered the nerve to speak. "You didn't have to prove anything to me," he said.
"No, Mulder, I didn't." She said coldly. "I had to prove something to me."
He let his head drop.
"I had to prove to myself that I could still satisfy those urges. That's what the id wants isn't it Mulder, sex? Sex and aggression? You seem to be the Freudian expert."
"Scully, there is nothing wrong with being in control of those impulses. Society is dependant on the so-called "superego" in everyone. If we all did what our bodies wanted we wouldn't get much done. You can't let Ed get to you. He's just an ass. He doesn't understand that you shouldn't say everything you think, all the time."
"It's not that he said it, Mulder, it's that it's true. I've spent the last 10 years trying to be in control of my feelings so that no boss could ever call me a moody, over-emotional female, and I didn't even notice that I have taken it to the other extreme. I needed to feel again. I needed to act on an impulse, and do what my body told me rather than what my mom would have wanted for a change."
He was slow to respond. "So do you feel better?"
"No," she said softly. "I feel like shit." She sat down in her chair and looked at the floor.
He sat on the edge of his desk before her. "You don't need to feel guilty about this, Scully. I know that your Catholic mother gave you one hell of a guilt complex, but you aren't going to feel better until you let that go."
"Mulder look at what I did to us. I wanted so badly to prove that I could do something regardless of my better judgment that I let myself ruin the only decent relationship I had in my life."
"You didn't ruin a thing, Scully. We'll get past this. With all that we have been through there is not doubt it my mind we can last this. We'll go back into Skinner's office, learn to act like nothing happened, and just move on."
"But something did happen, Mulder," she said, her tone no longer so meek. "I've kept that part of me dormant so long, but now its awake, and its hungry."
He tried to force the corners of his mouth not to turn upward but he couldn't. A tiny snicker slipped through his lips despite his best efforts. "We could work through that too." He tried to keep a straight face but saying it pushed him over the edge, his mouth worked its way into a full-fledged smile.
"This isn't a joke, Mulder."
"I wasn't joking," he said, as somberly as he could.
"So you are seriously suggesting that we…"
"You can unleash you id on me whenever you want baby," he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
She'd been through years of this sexual innuendo; all the years had trained her for this. Without beat she answered back with, "I don't think you know what you're in for."
His eyes widened.
"Sex and aggression," she said stressing the second half of the statement.
"I'll bring the handcuffs," he offered.
It occurred to her for the first time that this was more than just the sexual banter she had become accustomed to. It was a possibility.
Mentally he marked himself a point on the scoreboard. She seemed to be blushing. But he had to hand it to her, he'd been forced to kick the innuendo up a notch, almost to the point it couldn't be considered innuendo. Guilt tugged at him so he pushed himself up off the desk. "Come on, let's get to work on this case. We've got our share of files to sort."
She thanked god that he allowed her to stop there. She didn't know if she would have made it otherwise.
By the end of the day they had their flight and motel booked, ready for the next morning and their next case. Kimberly called down to the office at three o'clock and let them know that Skinner wanted to talk to them. They headed up to his office, more comfortable than they had been before, and sailed through the conversation with Skinner that would okay them to leave for the case.
"Well," Scully sighed when they were back on the elevator, "I think I'm ready to call it a day."
"You want to get some dinner?"
"We're going to be eating out all week on this case, and I have a chicken in the fridge that will spoil if I don't use it before we go. I think I'm just going to cook. But you're welcome to come over and join me."
He smiled. "Only if I can bring something."
"You pick up a nice chardonnay on your way over and we'll call it fair."
After dinner they were seated on the couch, a file open on the coffee table in front of them. "How is it that we always end up doing the same thing?" Scully asked. "I mean, how many times have we sat here and read case files when we could have been…" she trailed off.
"Could have been what?" he asked, "Unleashing the id?"
She shook her head. "We're never getting past that are we?"
"I thought you didn't want to."
She looked over at him, trying to read his eyes. "I just know that it is going to take a long time to forget the way it feels to…"
"And if it happened again," he said, licking his own bottom lip, "it would just make it harder to forget."
She leaned over and pressed her lips into his. He was ready this time, and answered back with a deep kiss.
When she woke there was a faint light streaming in the window. She looked to the clock at her bedside and realized it was just past five am. "Fuck," she sighed realizing what she had done.
Mulder heard her utterance and carefully unwrapped the hand that had been settled on her breast as they slept.
"We have a plane to catch in three hours and I haven't even packed."
He rolled out of her bed carefully, searching for the boxers that he had managed to lose somewhere between the couch and her bed. As he pulled them on he said, "I haven't either. I'll be back at 7 to pick you up."
She waited for him to leave the room before getting out from under her covers, and dashing to the shower. After a very brief shower and a meager attempt to blow dry her hair she went to the kitchen to find that he had started a pot of coffee for her on the way out the door. As she poured a cup she smiled to herself and walked back into her bedroom. Frantically she threw a few things into a suitcase, enough to get her through the week, then set to work cleaning up from the night before. The clothes she had changed into after work were collected from their trail leading into the bedroom. She stripped her sheets and put on fresh ones, then piled on her dirty laundry into a bag and shoved it into the corner of her closet, where she could do it when she got back. She cleaned up the kitchen, started the dishwasher, and put the leftovers in a plastic container to bring to Mulder. She knew they would just spoil sitting in the fridge, and he always got hungry on the plane.
Just as she finished, and had a minute to do her make up and check on her hair, there was a knock at the door. A glace at her watch told her who it was, and she was out the door quickly with her luggage.
He tried not to feel guilty when he saw how frazzled she was when the door swung open. She looked like she had been working since the moment he left, and looking around the apartment, he had to assume it was the truth. There were no visible traces of the night before.
An hour later their seatbelts were buckled and tray tables were up for takeoff. He heard her breathing speed up, just as it always did while the plane was accelerating down the runway, and he offered a hand and she took it, squeezing it with her own. Once they were in the air and had begun to level off at a cruising altitude Mulder looked down at their intertwined hands.
"I know you feel guilty," she said, as if reading his mind. "Don't, that's just your superego talking. And that's not what this is about."
"I don't think it's just about the id, either, Scully," he said tenderly. "I think it is time to let the ego do his job."
"And what exactly is that?" she asked, her freshman psychology class failing her.
"Make this work. The ego makes sure the desires of the id are met in such a way that the superego isn't upset."
"How is that going to happen?"
"Like this," he said, giving her hand a light squeeze. "Two adults, in a relationship, nothing to feel guilty about."
"You obviously don't know my mom, Mulder. There is plenty to feel guilty about."
"Well," he smiled, "it's a start."