TITLE: A Deplorable Situation
AUTHOR: Joan Schuck
FEEDBACK: waterlilyfishy@msn.com ~This is my first foray into XF fanfic, so please be kind with feedback!
ARCHIVE: Yes, but please let me know first!
HOME: http://waterlilyfishy.tripod.com/
SPOILER WARNING: None
RATING: G
CLASSIFICATION: S
KEYWORDS: M/S UST
SUMMARY: You know that feeling, when you repeat a word too often, it begins to lose its meaning?
DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended. Characters are property of Chris Carter, et al.
Author's notes: This ficlet was borne from the creative juices that flow only during the scarce, ungodly hours of early morning. It began months ago, on some anonymous day, as a faceless conversation between two voices in the dark (perhaps the ones in my head), and as I was sifting through my file folder for spring cleaning, a Muse decided to grace me with her presence, after a period of long absence. Conversation evolved into dialogue, and it felt almost natural to give these lines to Mulder and Scully, as a send-off.

A Deplorable Situation
by Joan Schuck

She sat in the blackness of the forlorn storage room. She would have been sitting in complete darkness, had it not been for the slit of the closed door that allowed a filament of light. Her eyes gravitated towards the streak, as her mind registered that the light had gotten significantly dimmer from the last time she noticed. This meant two things. One--that twilight, followed closely by night, would fall soon. And two--that they had been in that storage room for a very long time. The only problem was that the enormously heavy door was locked. From the outside.

She shifted cautiously on the crate, or what she thought was a crate, she had been sitting on to prevent that tingling, numbing sensation from spreading down her backside. Not high above the silence, she heard him move, his clothes rustling as restlessly as her mind. He cleared his throat like he has not spoken for years, when it has only been a matter of hours. "Scully?" He asked tentatively, she thought he believed her to have fallen asleep.

"Yeah?"

"You don't find this even a *little* bit funny?" He asked, as if finding humor in this deplorable situation were the natural thing to do.

"No, I don't," she replied with a dismissive, yet neutral tone. The quiet was actually growing on her. In fact, she somewhat enjoyed it. Still he persisted.

"Not even a little?" She knew what he was doing. She knew him far too well. It is a well-known fact, at least to her, that when a situation descends to a level below deplorable that Mulder would be there to crack a joke to lighten the catastrophe. It was either some sort of defense mechanism or he simply derives a warped sense of pleasure out of it. In any case, she's not about to let him win.

"Well... I'm certainly not rolling over the floor laughing, am I?" Still he persisted.

"Seriously, I mean if you think about it, it's *kind* of funny." There was a lull in his attempt to converse. Another rustle. Then she felt it.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Don't look at you like what?"

"That look you were giving me just then."

"What look? There's no look." She looked at him dubiously and although she knows he can't see her skepticism, he was ready with a defense. It was like an innate reaction. "And even if there was--and I'm not say that there was--how can you tell there was a look? We're sitting in complete darkness."

"Because I know you," she said matter-of-factly. "This is just the type of situation that would warrant a look from you."

"I don't know what look you're talking about."

"Oh, there was a look. I've seen that look before."

"I was not giving you a look."

"You were too giving me a look."

"I swear I was not giving you a look."

"Okay," she said exhaustedly. "Would you *please* stop saying the word 'look?'"

"You started it. You said, 'Don't look at me like that' and that sparked an entire thirty or so seconds of verbal banter--of which I would like back by the way--all containing the word 'look,' which brings us to this point."

"All right. I get it... But if you say 'look' one more time, I will be forced to shoot you." Good one.

"You can't do that." She gave him an invisible look as if to ask, why not? "We lost our guns, remember? That's why this whole thing was funny in the first place." In the darkness, she smiled. He won after all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The End...