They're on some wild goose chase in Louisiana, a boondoggle of a case about satanic cults Mulder had chosen almost at random from the stack on his desk. Who cared what it was, if it was real? He'd picked it as a J. Edgar Hoover sponsored trip to get the fuck out of dodge. And hopefully voodoo or Santeria or folk magic or whatever the hell this turned out being wouldn't involve aliens. At all. He'd rather trek through fifty swampy gator- infested cemeteries and pull his own eye-teeth without anesthetic as sacrificial offerings than deal with *the existence of extraterrestrials.*
He takes a deep pull of Jack Daniels, noticing the bottle's quite a bit emptier than it was the last time he'd checked. The hotel is just off the highway, and he's sitting in the fenced-in area surrounding a pool that's been closed and covered for the abbreviated southern winter. He'd forgotten the gulf coast was big into oil and oil refineries. He's numbing the urge to hop back on the first flight to D.C. He's trying not to think about how the shadows from the skeletal trees look like black worms when he watches them with his peripheral vision.
He takes a shaky drag off his cigarette and taps the ash into an empty beer bottle he's found languishing along the fence line. He thinks about how he'd prefer to kill himself with one tarry oil than another. He's freaking Scully the fuck out, he knows, but he can't seem to find the words to explain what's wrong. She sublimates her worry into staying up late into the night tap tap tapping out her findings on the *biotoxin* for the Senate sub-committee. Ha! Biotoxin. Well, he supposes it's biological and he can personally attest to its toxicity, so it's as fitting a name as any.
He's not sure why she bothers. It'll just be buried in the bureaucratic graveyard. The people who need to read it won't have access, and the people who have access won't read it because they already know what it'll say. He doesn't understand why Scully does pretty much anything she does these days. She's trying to play by the rules of system everyone knows is a farce, and he can't quite wrap his head around her logic. Maybe she still believes in justice. Instead of the warm glow that used to bring him, he just feels tired and immeasurably old.
"Is this seat taken," her voice comes out of the gloom, her face obscured by the shadows out of the reach of the dim sodium lights flickering above the parking lot. Time for Doctor Scully? Or Psychologist Scully? Who frankly needs to stick to her day job with dead people who's feelings can't be hurt. Or maybe the ever-elusive friend, Dana, will make an appearance? His apathy prevents him from caring.
"Be my guest," he over-enunciates, with a broad gesture across the table to the dirty patio furniture left outside to molder in the winter rains. The glow of his cigarette cuts an arc in the darkness that follows the movement of his arm. He slides the pack over to her. "Want one?"
"Thanks, yes," she says, sliding into view and setting on the very edge of the rickety chair opposite of where he's sitting. She taps out a smoke and leans over so he can light it with a quick flick of his cheap gas station lighter. Good. He hadn't wanted a lecture about his self-destructive habits. He knows they're self-destructive. That's the point.
She hunches back into her trench and smokes with him in companionable silence for a few minutes. "Out of curiosity," she asks, "are you ever going to tell me what exactly happened in Tunguska?" Mulder sighs. He knew her reticence on this subject was too good to be true. "Because I almost perjured myself to the United States Senate for you, and I'd kind of like to know what for. Not to mention you've come back acting like…"
"Like?" He'd really like to know what he's like, because right now, he doesn't know anything, least of all about himself. Especially about himself.
"Like you've seen something you wish you could forget." She reaches over and takes a hit off his bottle. She doesn't cough or choke at all. "What happened out there, Mulder?"
He barks out a laugh, harsh and guttural and not at all amused. "What didn't happen," he rasps hoarsely. He cups his cigarette in his hand to prevent the sudden cold breeze from extinguishing it. He pretends the sting in his eyes is from the breeze, too. How to explain? He still doesn't have the words a month later. "Sometimes," he starts off slowly, drawing out the syllables. "Sometimes even though the truth needs to be found, the world is a much worse place for it's discovery." He reaches over to pull the bottle from her grasp, brushing her fingers with his. Their hands are cold. He drinks deeply, vowing this'll be the last shot of the night. Maybe.
"Did you know," he says casually, swallowing against rising bile. He's drunk too much he thinks. "Did you know it's possible to survive being infected with the black oil?" He smiles in mean petty triumph at her sharp intake of breath. "Don't ask questions to which you don't want the answers, Agent Scully. That's what I found out in Tunguska."
She looks down at her hands for long moments before extinguishing her cigarette in the empty beer bottle. She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a bottle of pills, setting them next to the pack of cigarettes. "For sleep," she answers his unvoiced question.
"You're not worried I won't take them all at once?" His tone is light, but his question is entirely serious. She frowns.
"Are you going to?"
He thinks about this. "No, probably not tonight. Not anytime soon. There's still work to be done." That doesn't mean the temptation isn't there, he thinks.
"Well there you are then." She yawns. "I think I'm off," she says, standing and pushing her hands into her pockets. "Early start tomorrow, Agent Mulder. You coming?" He looks back to their rooms, yellow light blazing around the blackout curtains.
"In a few minutes," he says, gesturing with his half-smoked cigarette. "Thanks for these," he belatedly says, rattling the bottle and shoving it into his own pocket. Every time he closes his eyes, he can feel the oil under his skin, smell the death and despair of a prison camp at the end of the world. He hasn't slept in a month. Sometimes he wonders if he's still in Tunguska, and this is the dream. If these pills can make him stop thinking for just a few hours, he's willing to try.
"Okay," she responds, low and warm. "G'night Mulder." He waves her off, her heels clicking on the parking lot asphalt. Leaning back, he takes another deep draw from his cigarette and watches the cold, uncaring stars.