TITLE: Drugstore Jesus
AUTHOR: Rain Garcia Chua (formerly "Agent Rain")
RATING: T
KEYWORDS: MSR
SPOILERS: FTF movie, seasons 5 to 7, Dreamland I.
SUMMARY: In a world turned upside down, can their truth be turned around?
DISCLAIMER: They are never ours and never will be. The title and the summary's line comes from Plumb's song, "Drugstore Jesus."
CHAPTER ONE: Alone with the Downpour
I bought a ticket to the end of the rainbow,
Watched the stars crash in the sea,
If I could ask God just one question …
Why aren't you here with me?
Tonight?
- Someday We'll Know by the New Radicals
Before him, the cemented road seemed to stretch endlessly.
Fox Mulder wondered why in the world he had to go to the farthest rental agency in the country if he could've had procured a cheaper deal somewhere closer to his original destination. Now, he had to endure the stretch of miles with only occasional cars whizzing by the opposite lane. He cursed beneath his breath and felt the ache of his dry lips, which he licked afterwards to moisten.
He sighed loudly, as if it could erase the ringing static in his ears. He watched the ominous mat of a red-black starless sky, and the full moon that fought against the thick clouds. Outside, the wind banged against his windows; Mulder knew that rain was not far off. The dark silhouettes of trees which were aligned along the barren fields that surrounded the highway were swaying as the wind intensified, making Mulder cringe. It was not that he was afraid of the storm – no, he was more afraid of what it would remind him of. The memories they brought upon him weren't good. These particular memories had threatened to destroy him before, especially during moments like that evening – moments of loneliness.
And he had been alone for a year now.
Mulder allowed himself another profane word – not because of those memories, but because of his sudden need to empty his bladder. The bottom of his belly felt like a burning, boiling soup of clam chowder. He couldn't hold it until he reached a gas station.
He pressed the hazard lights and swerved the vehicle safety to a lighted corner of the highway. He almost jumped out of the car before dragging himself beneath a dark shade of a large tree. Mulder was about to open his zipper when the riotous sky caught his attention.
As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he had always found the incoming storm hauntingly beautiful.
The clouds above him were highlighted by angry streaks of lightning, followed by a bellowing thunder. These – the clouds, thunder, the barely visible moon – all moved in perfect symmetry. They were pushing, pulling against each other. Perfect friction.
It wasn't very long ago when a similar sky enthralled him the very same way …
"Mulder?"
His head snapped up towards his back, expecting to find her walking towards him.
However, all that came upon his vision was his rented car, the unusual stillness of the highway, and the promise of more anguish as he drove the remaining miles to his destination.
"You're going crazy," he told himself. He was hearing voices and living up to his fucking nickname.
"Mulder."
He moved his head to his right and found her buckled on the passenger side of a different – and more familiar – car. She looked at him, her watery blue eyes staring straight at him, and that snapped him out of his thoughts.
"What, Scully?" He grinned at her, knowing that the music station he switched to annoyed her to some extent.
"C'mon, Mulder, give that up," was all she said. She knew that he was only changing stations to annoy her. There wasn't a single day that she hadn't criticized his musical tastes and the song wafting through his car's speakers was not an exception.
He lifted his pointer finger and thumb in the air, froze for a moment, and snapped them in unison with the beat. "This is a very good song, Scully. You should pay attention to the words."
"Lyrics, Mulder; you call them lyrics." She rolled her eyes in that adorable manner that he had learned to love, before shaking her head to enclose her face with her soft auburn hair. He suddenly felt the urge to draw her closer so that he could sink his nose into her scent – something that he had instinctively done every morning. Scully continued, "I find My Way's immortal bridge more appealing than this, this, music. Your songs, these songs, are nothing but angst-filled brigades that are complicatedly written to find more ways to euphemize love. It's always about love with these kinds of songs," she sighed, "I think songs without a screaming banshee that may or may not talk about the same topic are not only more honest, but more ear-friendly, too." She gazed out the window and even without seeing, he could feel her eyes piercing the landscape and the darkening sky.
In response, he shook his head to her hypothetical dialogue. He was also perfectly used to the fact that only Scully could make things more complicated when they were not in the first place.
He cleared his throat. "I think this song only bothers you because we once made love with this playing in the background. Unintentionally, of course," he deadpanned and waited for his death penalty. He wished he could take those words back but it was too late. Scully had always stressed again and again that they wouldn't talk about the relationship when they were on the job. He – again and again – slipped every now and then.
Surprisingly, she turned to look back at him and shrugged. "Oh, don't start, Mulder, please," she whispered almost desperately.
He grinned wider, and then turned the volume up. He sang together with the loud cymbals and the singer's scratchy vocals. He was slightly off-key, but he didn't care: "And I don't want the world to see me … 'coz I don't think that they'd understand … when everything's made to be broken …" He looked at her now, making sure that she was gazing into his hazel eyes. "I just want you to know who I am." Mulder reached over and took one of her cold hands into his. He placed her hand on his abdomen, rubbed his knuckles over her palm, and lifted it up to bring it to his lips. She almost jumped at the contact, but smiled slightly.
"Watch the wheel, lover boy."
He wanted to make another smartass remark about wanting to watch her instead, but he ignored the stubborn streak within him and did as she told him. He didn't, however, let go of her hand. Mulder tucked her cold fingers under his windbreaker and as he concentrated on the road, he unintentionally brought her hand down near his lap. This made Scully uncomfortable, since she flushed crimson and pulled her hand back to rest on her knee.
She was onto him before he could feign innocence: "Mulder, we have work to do," she warned him softly.
She was right, as always: they were on their way to interview an alleged witness to a high-profile murder case in rural California. With a twist, though: the witness is an alleged alien-human hybrid too, according to the Lone Gunmen. Sure, they were working, all right, but for Mulder, it didn't mean that they couldn't display their affections towards each other. There was no one else in the car, anyway. And it was his car.
"You should be the one to give it up, Scully," he argued, grabbing her hand quickly before she could hide it from his reach. He settled it near his heart. She glanced at him and he could feel her trying to read his expression. After a while, she settled against him and relaxed. She moved closer to his side and rested her head on his shoulder. To his happy surprise, he felt her lips brush underneath the lobe of his ear before she yawned uneasily. It made his heart drop.
He had told himself many times before to stop bothering her with his own diatribe of an unabridged Story of Us that he had the tendency to dwell towards to when they were alone together. Mulder was aware that making this relationship work had not been the easiest challenge of his life. They both had to work at it, just as they continue to work on the X- Files, and he needed to stop trying to pinpoint bits and pieces of her care for him because the work she allotted for their relationship alone sufficed for her feelings.
She yawned again, as a tear dropped from her eyelid. He resisted the urge to trace the salty tear's path with his tongue. Gently, Mulder rubbed his elbow on her stomach.
"You were up late last night, Agent Scully?" he joked. He pressed the hand he held to her thigh. She chuckled.
"Are you accusing me of … extracurricular activities, Mulder?"
"Maybe."
"Hmm … the only time we were apart last night was when I had to grab some water from the kitchen because the make-out session you wanted to enjoy was draining me of my body fluids," Scully said, yawning again. "That, or you can theorize that I have the ability of astral projection and that I can be with you last night but not really be with you at all."
"You're turning me on right now, so bad," he said in a low gruff, "that's the kind of dirty talk I like."
Before he knew it, Scully grabbed his ear lobe with her teeth and darted out her tongue to taste the sensitive insides of his ear. Mulder bit back a moan, cursing himself for starting this silly game anyway, while trying hard to psychoanalyze himself to control the throb in the middle of his lap. And that part always had the quickest lightning reaction when Scully was concerned.
He yielded this time. "Let's not go there, please, Scully." He hated the way that his voice came out in a small frustrated squeak. Sometimes, he thought she was right after all – that they shouldn't mix business with pleasure. God, one more bite from her and he would have to park his car in the nearest vacant lot and make love to her in the backseat, or front seat, wherever his lust took him.
Seeing the control in Mulder's face, Scully pulled back. She reached for the radio and turned the volume up. There was no real reason for her to still feel new in their relationship. They had waited so long to be together, almost six years, for them to sort everything out and not be concerned about holding each other freely – without thinking if the world was going to end or not if they did so. The small kiss that started it seemed so long ago, and it was, but it was their consensus for them to hide their relationship from their superiors. They had many nights where they sat cross-legged from each other, like a powwow, and they would separate with an imaginary line what was professional and personal. Despite that, trouble would still find them in the most unexpected ways.
Mulder removed his hand gently from Scully's thight to turn the windshield wipers on. By then, the rain had coated his car and the road in front of them to almost zero visibility. Mulder was now driving with care and without words, they broke contact for safety.
Scully moved back to her seat and then opened the dashboard to get the map of California the Gunmen had lent them before they left DC. Frohike had encircled the exact town with a red marker. She scanned the tattered map and squinted her eyes to get a better view of the small captions Frohike had scribbled on it.
"According to this, we are no more than a mile away from Saint Catherine. We'll be there at around …" she made a quick glance at her wristwatch, "4 PM."
"Less than a few minutes to go?"
"Yeah," she answered back, further scanning the map. "I'm still not comfortable trusting your friends and their wayward opinions on this case, Mulder."
He gripped the steering wheel with both of his hands, peering into the wipers and out through the rain that threatened his vision. Thankfully, not a lot of cars were using this shortcut that the Gunmen had instructed them with.
"They are our friends, Scully. You should stop referring to them as only my friends."
She ignored this. "Alien-human hybrid? Now where did that come from? As far as I'm concerned, the case – particularly Cassandra Spender's case – was closed a year ago –"
"Nothing closes definitely on the X- Files."
"So you say." She pointed at a left curve. "There, turn there."
He did as she said, before countering her previous insinuations. "Jeremy Cromwell could be our ticket to the truth, Scully. We lost Gibson Praise last year and I won't let this kind of opportunity pass us up again." Mulder tried to catch her eyes for a second, but stopped when he had to direct his full attention to the road. "I need you trust me on this."
Scully blinked. She was trying to gauge how important this case was for both of them, and particularly, for him. She surrendered, and he knew so, when she cleared her throat. "I do trust you, Mulder. I'm just not comfortable with what Byers told us."
He squinted his eyes at the rain. "What part?"
"That this Jeremy Cromwell apparently received the same vaccination I received in Antartica," she said, edgy.
"We haven't explained what had happened to you back then – yet - Scully. And if it takes this young man to put the puzzle pieces together, I'll take the risk."
Scully had nothing else to say. She also didn't have the strength to talk him out of it anymore. She settled back into her chair and looked out the rainy window. Mulder wondered if something he said had bothered her – or worse, if she was thinking that her opinion wasn't enough for him to consider.
He touched her shoulder and squeezed it. Scully brushed her cheek against his fingers.
"I'm only doing this for you," he softly murmured. He lifted a finger up to caress her smooth cheek.
"I know, Mulder. Thank you."
As the car slowed down and the road evened out, Mulder leaned over to brush his lips delicately against hers. When he concentrated on the road once again, she took one of his hands and cradled it on her lap.
"Maybe if we could determine what the government is hiding from us, from everyone, we could give justice to those who need it: justice for your abduction and cancer, your sister, Emily …"
"Samantha and your parents," Scully added. She pulled his hand from her lap, dragged it across her tight abdomen, up across her breast (and he felt the lacy bra she was wearing underneath), and onto her heart. She let it stay there for a while, allowing him to feel her heartbeat as he drove.
He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and saw the house that the Gunmen had described to them. He parked the car safely near a sidewalk and then turned the engine off. He cautiously looked around and saw no one around. With this, he took Scully by the back of her neck and pressed his lips fiercely against hers. Her mouth willingly opened and he dove in, allowing himself to be intoxicated by her particular taste. He pulled apart, but couldn't help descending his teeth on her lower lip. Scully licked his lip in response and then they both let go of each other.
"Stop, Mulder. You don't want my lip swollen before the interview. Or during," she laughed, reaching up to brush lipstick from the corners of his mouth. "Get the umbrellas and let's go in there."
Mulder ignored her and kissed her passionately for one last time. He trailed kisses down the base of her neck and whispered against her skin how much he loved her. Scully pushed him away as gingerly as she could, and to soften their separation, he heard her whisper, "I love you, too," under her breath.
Before he could do anything else, she grabbed her make-up kit from the dashboard. Through the rearview mirror, Mulder wiped at the remaining traces of lipstick on his mouth. After they were sure that they looked decent enough, Mulder grabbed the long black umbrellas from behind them and exited the car first. He opened one umbrella, went to her side and opened the door for her. He also opened her umbrella and handed it to her.
Scully took it and gazed up at him.
"What are you doing?" she inquired, her voice heavy. Mulder's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Scully?" he breathed out, unsure of what's happening.
"I said, what are you doing, Mister?"
Mulder inhaled deeply and found a local policeman scanning him with a high-powered flashlight. The officer came closer to him, and Mulder finally had enough senses to excuse himself.
"I'm sorry, I was just … answering a call." He motioned to his pants. The policeman chuckled.
"I thought you were in some kind of trouble. Pardon me, sir." The man saluted him and left to give him some privacy. Mulder waited for the officer to get into his patrol car and leave him in peace, before he emptied his bladder. Afterwards, he went back into his car and drove off again.
By the time he was driving a steady sixty, the rain came down and everything around him seemed to disappear. Mulder swallowed hard and turned the wipers on, pushing away the thoughts that wanted to seize his head.
END OF CHAPTER ONE.
A/N: This is another fanfic I wrote years ago, which I found archived online on a web program that can resurrect dead links back to life. I'm happy that this is still available because I enjoyed writing this story and I have fondness for its plot. Again, I have rewritten and extensively edited some parts. But this fic is already completed and it will run for six chapters. I hope you're in for the angsty ride!