AN: This Is old. Two spaces after the period old. Gossamer old. EPHEMERAL old. 1999. But I'm tying to get all of my drabbles archived in one place. My first xfic, just a writing exercise to see if I could pen something as purple as the voice overs and journal entries Carter used to write for Scully. No dialogue or plot, just Scully trying to DTR.
All the ficcers wrote a disclaimer back then. So here goes: I'm not Chris Carter and nobody's paying me JACK SQUAT (insert Chris Farley meme here). TXF belongs to Carter, 1013, Fox, blah, blah, blah.
Spark
It silently holds vigil in my every moment with him and makes stealthy appearances in my dreams. It breathes, has life, pulses with a cognizance of time and the necessity of being sustained through fleeting moments of touch, the caress of a voice, an examination by the eyes. Passing years have not given this need to me, only distilled it. Once a burgeoning instinct to protect those in need of a hiding place, now a drive intimately bound to my daily living. This necessity is as closely tied to self-perpetuation as filling of hunger or sating of thirst. His peace of mind is closely knit to my own, and as illusive as the truth we are seeking. His nightmares are my disquiet. I feel their shuddering as nearly as if they disturbed my own slumber, as his gasp for air marks their retreat in a darkened room removed miles from my own. They steal his comfort, carrying it away to a place from which no good thing is ever recovered.
Ceaseless worry staked its claim early, when his troubles should have been few and laughter a way of living. I recall so many people who might have deserved his trust, family and friends who should have loved him, that failed instead. Be it by their weakness or even their deceit, he has been let down at every turn by people close to him who should have done more, held on so much tighter, given him in equal measure the devotion I have always seen him give to Samantha. I think each time that saying it is enough, convinced in my mind that he should be able to take me at my word. I am not leaving. I still struggle to reconcile the dispossession of a phantom 'normal' life, and I know he can see it. I make no effort to hide it from him, partly since it is important to be honest, and also because he would know anyway. Why bolster his guilt by showing him I need to hide something that is plain to both of us? I can only say that some preconceived notions die a hard death. So remaining with him is a choice I have made for my life, and for his. I keep hoping he will understand that the remittance for every faith granted isn't fated to be disappointment. I want to be the one who proves that to him. I don't know how to give him assurance, but my need to be his solace is persistent. He will not be alone as long as I am able to be his resting place.
He is at times easily two men, or rather a man and a child. Always a part of him is forever bound to the poorly-tended hurts of a devastated twelve-year old boy, while living the life of a world weary man sparsely better equipped to deal with pain. His search for the intangible is both his joy and his damage as in childlike exuberance his dreams are born, and in a process as unrelenting as nature, rent in pieces. Like aftershocks are a pale reminder of the event, each destroyed prospect only reminds him more of a greater loss.
But this is where he touches me so deeply that I can not deny it. He keeps going. I think maybe it is partly this resilient, youthful wonder that draws me to him, urges me to make it a part of myself. Someone told me when I was a child that I was an old soul. I failed to understand it then, but I see plainly now the understanding that is always at least slightly touched by sarcasm, the jaded expectation, a heart that stays mostly bound up and away from others. It is stable, utilitarian, self-preservationist, but sorely lacking in imagination and fire. So I gain from him this hope for possibilities. I draw it off of him a little at a time, using part of it for myself, tucking some securely away. If the darkness can take his soul by the handful, then so can I. I can keep it safely sheltered in the part of me that is never touched by anyone but him. So if his last remnant of hope is taken, then I can replace it, like stoking a fire.
At first my loyalties to him were borne on the shoulders of a title. 'Partner.' Baby-sit. Share space. Tolerate the other's presence, if not their ideas. Ride in the same car and fight over who drives. Write updates for the powers that be. This might easily have become my reality upon assignment to the Justice Department's answer to 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not'. Except for the fact that our paths to the truth kept meeting up at the same destination, the combination of intuition and empiricism in turn hammering the unformed material of our union into a precise instrument. Sometimes too precise. Our search illuminated men and agendas loath to be plainly known. For this success we absorbed personal defeats so potent as to destroy an individual.
But we two are stubborn at best. Imbued with affection born of shared experience and colored the visceral crimson of our losses, the working relationship took on deeper implications. Work in tandem. Back each other up. Keep each other out of trouble. If you're lucky, maybe in time have someone to lean on, even if you cannot always see eye to eye. This thing between us is still every bit an exercise in patience. But it has value. It provides the opportunity to seek a redress for unspeakable wrongs. And it gives me something to put my back up against. It gives me him.
I continually second guess myself on one point. I should say it? Tell him that I love him, though I suspect he knows. Each time circumstances afford me the opportunity to give this gift, I clench. Not that I view myself as a great prize to be had, or him an unworthy recipient. I surely repay any frustration he lends me with a dose of my own ingrained rigidity. And the fact is loving him is as easy as being angry with him. I puzzled over this before realizing that if I did not care for him, I could have dismissed his ideas, his methods and him, out of hand. My conceit alone would have seen to that. But no one lights the flames of my ire quite like my partner.
For the present, I take my instruction from him. I hope that absent the words, he can still see my heart, that my every act will affirm my fidelity. This is no time to quit trying, both for our world and for us. I believe that by remaining faithful to the one, I am investing in the future of the other. I just think there will surely be a better time for us, to wait a little longer will not diminish the vitality of our bond. So very much is at stake. People say "I love you" every day with little understanding of the implication. I know myself, the way I am made. I measure love in units of eternity, so where he is concerned, I can wait.