DISCLAIMER: Just for the record--I wouldn't *want* to own these 
characters.  My budgie is as high-maintenance as I want to get.

Summary, Warnings, Etc.: Scully muses on her relationship with Mulder and 
Mulder's relationships with others.

Hetsmut warning!  Some description of m/f sexual relationship and 
concomitant acts.  Slash warning!  References to m/m sexual 
relationships but not acts.  Angst warning!  Scully in frozen bitch mode 
(can we all say "black suit and high heels"?)

Thanks to Te, our own beloved ListButchDaddyMama, for allowing me to post 
this here.

**********************

Used to Be
by Merri-Todd Webster
(30 November 1998)

**********************

I used to be in love with him.

It was a long time ago.  Before the first closing of the X-Files, before 
the abduction, before Krycek.  Before I lost everything.

I used to be in love with him.  I used to want him.  Wanted the casual 
yet careful touches on my back, my shoulder, my arm.  Wanted to see him 
smile, really smile.  Wanted to see him naked when he wasn't wounded, 
bleeding, needing doctoring.  Wanted the teasing double entendres to mean 
something.

I used to want him for a lover, my lover.  I used to ache for him, used 
to touch myself with greedy hands while thinking of him.  Imagining that 
my hair was his hair, my hands were his hands, my own voice talking dirty 
was his, urging me on.

Yes, I used to be in love with Mulder.  And for a while, I thought he was 
in love with me.

We were lovers and it was good, very good.  Sex has never been easy for 
me, and he got past the barriers, got me to relax.  The way he knew how 
to touch me was uncanny.  Spooky, though I never used the word.

We used to lie in bed for hours and he would eat me, use his mouth on me, 
not asking anything until he'd made me come three or four times.  He knew 
just when to back off, just hold me, and just when to dive in, use his 
tongue on me roughly.  When he was satisfied that I was satisfied, he'd 
roll me into the position he wanted and fuck me, hard, fast, it was over 
quick and I'd have one more blinding orgasm, usually when he did.  It was 
really good.

It all changed after my abduction.  He was afraid of me.  Afraid of 
hurting me, maybe, or afraid of losing me again.  I don't know.  And I was 
afraid of him, afraid his touch might make me remember something.  I 
never admitted it, but I had nightmares about what might have happened.  
Isn't every woman's nightmare to be treated as an object--to be touched, 
manipulated, handled, without love?  It would have been better to 
remember for certain than to have the missing memories, missing months.

Gradually we drew apart.  We were still friends, as well as partners, but 
eventually it became clear we weren't lovers any more.  I think we were 
still in love, for a while, or at least I was in love with him, and we still 
slept together for sometimes, he slept over at my place as he used to.  
We both slept better when we shared a bed.

Something happened, somewhere.  It was Krycek, I want to think.  He got to 
Mulder, somehow, in spite of everything, the murders, the betrayals.  In 
the first flush of our romance, Mulder told me he was bisexual, he'd been 
with men as well as women.  He'd laughed, shamefacedly, and said he had 
better luck with men in relationships.  I didn't think it mattered then.  
I thought our loving one another would make everything better.  I really 
believed that, briefly.  But now I want to blame Krycek for that last and 
bitterest loss, the loss of Mulder.  I can't let myself believe that it was 
just me, just the walls I erected, my cowardly need to protect myself.  
Oh, yes, I'm a coward.  I've got more armor than Joan of Arc.  Still, I'm 
no maiden.  I've been touched, fucked, I've loved, and now--

It's over.

I miss it.  Not so much Mulder as just the sex, to be honest.  My 
memories of that are clear and vivid, and sometimes I still masturbate 
while I think of him, remembering some incident that really happened.  
The time he took me in the shower and nearly threw out his back.  The way 
he used to talk to me when I was on top, telling me to fuck him, telling 
me how beautiful I was.  The long, shuddering orgasms I got from his 
insatiable mouth.

I look at him today and I can hardly remember that it's the same person, 
the same Mulder who loved me and teased me and make me laugh and made me 
come.  Something in him, too, has gotten harder and colder.  It's not 
just me.  And when he comes to work looking debauched, I'm not the 
reason.  And I know who is.

I think he was actually involved with Skinner for a while.  Insanity.  
But an insanity I understood.  I wish I could trust Skinner as much as 
Mulder does, but it just isn't in me.  At least he was happy, and that 
was easier on me.  And he did trust Skinner, and Skinner is, well, just a 
man, his boss, yes, but an ordinary person.

Not a killer.  Not an enemy.  Not a nightmare in human form.

I look at him, look at his swollen mouth, see his eyes slide away, and I 
know, I know he's been with Krycek.  I will never ask him--he'd only deny 
it--but what do I need to ask when I know?  I know that some--many--maybe 
even most of those anonymous tips we follow up come from Krycek.  I know 
who he's talking to when he won't carry on the conversation in front of me.

If there were another woman--yes, ironic, but I think of it that way--if 
there were another woman, I think I could still be happy for Mulder.  
It's not totally inconceivable that I could meet someone, after all.  
Have something approximating a normal life, even now.  Mulder would 
smile, even now, and say, "I'm happy for you, Scully," and mean it, and I 
could find it in myself, even now, to be happy for him, if his happiness 
were anything but what it is--Krycek.

Happiness.  Like it's anything like that.  No, love or sex or whatever he 
calls it, with Krycek, is just one more self-punishment delivered by Fox 
Mulder to Fox Mulder.  Once long ago I thought I could free him of that.  
Not so long ago I thought I could keep him from dragging me into it, 
dragging me under with him.  Once I thought death would set me free from 
Mulder's trap.  Now I know that nothing can separate us, no matter how 
much we hurt each other, no matter how little we have left to give.  I 
used to be happy about that.

I'm not any more.

********

end