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kaylorrehabcenter · 3 years

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Gold Rush and Happiness are Sisters

Gather round everyone and witness the clown try to prove that Taylor Swift wrote songs about a married (now pregnant) woman in the year of our lord 2020.

Also this is a seven page doc in my google docs so like. Get a cup of tea and some popcorn.

Ok full disclosure this is…..mostly me clowning. Like seriously. Don’t take my words as the word of God, this is just my interpretation and how I listen to the songs. And as a (former? Idk man) Kaylor I’m going to want to make these songs about my ship. Acknowledge your biases kids.

Also like. I change my mind a lot, but for a while this theory that Gold Rush and Happiness are connected has been stuck in my head and I wanted to write it down and post it in case anyone else got something out of this.

If you read my last post on Gold Rush (here!) you’ll know I don’t think of it as a happy song. To elaborate further- I think it’s Taylor catching herself looking back on Karlie/that time in her life (Because I think Karlie is emblematic of the 1989 era for Taylor and is thus tied to the pain that came out of that, along with her ties to the masters heist) and reminding herself it wasn’t good and ended for a reason.

“Gleaming, twinkling/eyes like sinking ships on waters/so inviting, I almost jump in”

“But I don’t like a gold rush”

The sinking ship line makes me laugh. I like to think it’s Taylor saying she’s literally sunk our (dead) ship, but that’s mostly regressing to 2015 tumblr humur.

To the actual analysis, she almost jumps into these waters, maybe it’s literal (don’t text your ex kids, write a bop like closure instead) or maybe it’s more metaphorical. She almost allows herself to think the good times were the only times. Maybe there’s a desire to move back to nyc, capture the magic that she may have felt during the era.

“I don’t like that flying feels like falling till the bone crush”

But that’s the thing. It feels like flying at the time, but it isn’t a feeling that can last. These relationships built on temporary promises (we’re assuming here Taylor was a side thing for Karlie, not that serious and built not to last, even if there were genuine romantic feelings on both sides, which I think there were to some level) won’t last, and will hurt when they do end. At least, this one did.

“Everyone wonders what it would be like to love you”

Everybody wants who she’s singing about and is imagining what it would be like to be with them, they think it would be a fairytale. Hell, Taylor probably thought their relationship would be a fairytale against her better judgement. Karlie is a celebrity and a model no less, yes she has other things going for her (Koding and investments), her brand and her success in the fashion world depends to some degree people desiring and fantasizing about her.

“I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch”

The funny thing about that, Taylor’s the only one who knows the pain of that relationship, of being a side thing and never committed to. It’s draining. It's difficult. She isn’t allowing herself to jump into those waters.

“I see me padding across your wooden floor/with my Eagles t shirt hanging on the door”

I point out this line mostly because it feels like a Delicate call back (Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs). Am I reaching though? Probably. Also as someone with parents about the same age as Taylor’s (give or take ten years), I like the Eagles reference. Stream Hotel California for clear skin <3

“At dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit”

Taylor was the first person to call Karlie out on her “I’ve tried!!” bullshit, how cute. <3

Besides this line being very iconic, it also shows to me that Taylor’s been frustrated with Kar even when she was busy giving her heart eyes. She’s a frustrating person to be around even when you are “turning her life into folklore”.

“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?/With your hair falling into place like dominoes”

Damn that’s a gay couples lines you got there Tay. Wonder if you’re wondering what it must’ve been like for Kar to grow up in the model industry, and all of the pressure and exhilaration that entails. From a male’s perspective ofc.

I also take the dominoes line to be Taylor saying what must’ve it been like to have this easy idyllic childhood. Maybe Taylor is the first time Karlie’s been with a girl outside of a hookup and didn’t have to go through the pain of realizing she was into women until later in life. (Not that that’s not painful, it’s just different, and allows you to have a perfectly straight childhood/teenagerhood)

“And the coastal town we wandered 'round had nеver seen a love as pure as it/And thеn it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it could never be”

Maybe this relationship never existed in the way she thought at all. You know Carrie Fischer’s character in When Harry Met Sally and how until she meets the right guy, she spends the whole movie insisting that whatever married guy she’s seeing really loves her!! And he’s gonna leave his wife for her!! That’s what these two songs make me think about, waking up and realizing they were never going to leave their wife, you were projecting this whole story onto someone else, but that doesn’t mean there was no value in what happened.

“And the coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it/'Cause it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it will never be”

The coastal town seems an obvious Rhode Island reference, to get more specific it reminds me of when Josh and Karlie visited Taylor at her Rhode Island home in 2014 and Josh looks peeved as hell. 1, 2 Also if I remember correctly, enty has a blind where he says there was a huge fight between Josh and Taylor which ended in Taylor not wanting to be around him again. Just interesting to note. (And if anyone has the receipt, please send it my way!)

Taylor may have been projecting this fairytale narrative at the time of being able to make it work, of being friends with Josh even but it didn’t work and the fairytale is left to be folklore, never made real.

The outro is the same as the intro to the song, implying to me that while she’s telling herself it was bad, you weren’t happy, she’s still catching herself missing it and what she had with Karlie. She left a part of her back in New York see, and she can’t stop her mind from retracing old footsteps.

Now, onto how I think Happiness and how I think it connects. I’m about to audition for the national team in the reaching Olympics. Wish me luck. :)

A bit of a preamble though, I don’t take this song ~super~ literally. Depending on what day of the week it is I think it’s probably her divorcee rpg simulator or her closing the book on her ex situationship gf on her own terms ~in a straight way~. So not to discredit this whole ass post but. Take with a grain of salt.

“Honey, when I'm above the trees/I see this for what it is”

See that bold bit? That’s the main connective tissue between these songs. She’s finally woken up and now that she’s this far removed from the relationship she sees what it was. To add to the pain of it all, this is especially potent if you wonder if Karlie gaslit Tay into thinking this wasn’t a big deal, they were just fucking around when Karlie has literal Softest Love Song You Are In Love dedicated to her.

“But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given/Is just shit we're dividin' up”

This seems to me to be a masters heist reference. Karlie since Lover, is musically tied to this event in Taylor’s life, it’s what I think is keeping Tay from making a clean break from her so to speak.

“Showed you all of my hiding spots/I was dancing when the music stopped”

This seems to be a Rep era/dwoht reference. Yes, Taylor constantly references dancing, but the hiding spots (loved you in secret! you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis!) combined with the dancing when the music stopped (I'd kiss you as the lights went out! Swaying as the room burned down!) brings out the full kaylor clown in me.

“There'll be happiness after you/But there was happiness because of you/Both of these things can be true”

This is probably some of the most gut wrenching lyrics Taylor’s ever written. Damn, imagine having that written about you. Anyway, the point here is the thesis of this whole damn post. Gold Rush is Taylor catching herself daydreaming about the happy parts, and reminding herself about the bad to make her snap out of it. Happiness is her coming to terms that both parts of that relationship were true. Things aren’t that simple.

“Haunted by the look in my eyes/That would've loved you for a lifetime/Leave it all behind”

This feels very Cruel Summer doesn’t it? “I love you ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” These lines make this relationship read as two things to me. One, it was very one sided, and Taylor/the narrator, was obviously left behind at the end of it when she was heavily invested into making this work. And 2, it was doomed from the beginning. Again. Big cruel summer energy here.

Or it’s a divorcee rpg simulator 3000. Now with extra glamour and opportunities to dramatically drink wine in dressing gowns.

I don’t have a lot to say about the second verse of the song that. Karlie has a nice smile, Gatsby reference, dig at whoever the next person to take Taylor’s place as a side fling (or a dig at Josh, or a baby reference since that’s what the Gatsby line refers to). The only other thing worthy of note for this post is the line following the Gatsby reference.

“No, I didn't mean that/Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury”

is the next line, where she regrets what she just said and admits to saying overly harsh things and overlooking the truth of the matter when she’s angry, which to me feels like a big Afterglow/Me! reference.

“There'll be happiness after me/But there was happiness because of me/Both of these things, I believe”

I think a lot of what Taylor’s doing emotionally in the chorus is legitimizing this relationship for herself. Yeah, Josh and Karlie will have a happy life in Florida with Ivanka and them, but Taylor also made Karlie happy too and she doesn’t want Karlie to forget it.

It reminds me of the way she talks about August, that she genuinely loves James/Karlie, and thinks they have something. But she’s just the pit stop on the commitment highway, and the depth of her feelings for the other person will never be acknowledged. It’s exhausting you know?

“In our history, across our great divide”

“Guilty, guilty reaching out across the sea/That you put between you and me”

Nothing to see here, just a nifty parallel. Karlie doesn’t want wrinkles in her new life see.

“There is a glorious sunrise/Dappled with the flickers of light/From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind/And there is happiness”

This bit (which has some of my favorite imagery in this whole dang album!!!) reminds me of the end of the Wildest Dreams mv where she runs out to the car with the lover following her after the big charade of pretending not to care as much as she does, while knowing you aren’t the one that got picked.

Interestingly, if you look at the shot of the four characters together near the end, the outfits parallel the ones worn by Kar, Tay, and Josh at the 2014 Met Gala. This was of course the one where Tay and Kar got ready together and Karlie proceeded to spend the night with Josh and where Tay just looks. Miserable. (see here!)

The line also parallels Wildest Dreams lyrically.

“Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress/Staring at the sunset, babe”

Which you know. Worth noting.

The last line (And there is happiness) seems to point to there being happiness in leaving the bad situation just as much as there was happiness in the situation. It’s Time to Go anyone?

“I can't make it go away by making you a villain/I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven”

A series of thoughts. One, I love the first line where Taylor acknowledges anger isn’t going to make it better. There’s only so much being angry in this situation will do, and it’s not like Taylor’s record is clean here either. (I mean I assume. We know she went psycho on the phone anyway)

Two. Seven years in heaven is both a play on a famous game/turn of phrase (Seven minutes in heaven) but one of the more bold references to Karlie in her whole damn discography. Do I think they’ve been together for seven years straight? Not really. But do I think Taylor saw an opportunity and jumped on it? Yep.

“And I pulled your body into mine/Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties”

No thoughts head empty this line is a sucker punch and I love it. If anyone needs me I’ll be watching her perform ikywt on the vsfs and crying to yail.

“All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness”

Oh look! Another Gatsby reference. Or Taylor calling Karlie out on profiting off of her association with Tay after they clearly did not end on good terms. (Folklore themed maternity shoot anyone?) I mean, whatever floats your boat.

A bit on the green light metaphor from Gatsby, because it’s worth noting even if I don’t have much more to say on it here.

“Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal.”

Yes I copied that from Spark Notes. No I am not sorry. I have an exam tomorrow and I’m writing about a dead ship on a dead social media website. Sometimes we do what we must do.

I love the ending of this song, I really really do, it feels like taking in a breath of air and finally feeling free of the weight you’re carrying. It feels like a final goodbye, like Tay’s getting closure on her own terms and I truly love that for her. Bb’s stepping out into the daylight. <3

There is happiness

In our history, across our great divide

There is a glorious sunrise

Dappled with the flickers of light

From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind

Oh, leave it all behind

Leave it all behind

And there is happiness

So, what was this whole seven page post for then?

Gold Rush and Happiness being connected has been a theory rattling around in my brain for forever and I’ve wanted to write it down for just as long. The tldr of it all is pretty simple, Gold Rush is about her reminiscing about the good parts of Kaylor, and pulling herself out of it, reminding herself it was bad and bad for her. Happiness is her legitimizing the relationship, and moving on while acknowledging there was bad and good in their story. It just took me seven goddamn pages to articulate that.

If you’ve reached the end of this. Damn. Thanks. Go get a snack or something, you deserve it after reading this.

#<3 #hope this entertains y'all like i said been wanting to write it down for a while #hope i explained my points well!!!#kaylor lyrics #kaylor analysis #gold rush analysis #happiness analysis #oh and let me know if the links work!

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scrunchyharry · 4 years

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RIP WIP: if you see this post, respond with a snippet of a fic you (sadly) won’t be completing.

So, this inspired me to go through my google drive and unearth this fic that I’ll most likely never finish. I haven’t touched it since March 2014, so, you know. I might as well have not written it myself.

meet this 1950s, Oxbridge, shy librarian worker meets bad boy AU that almost was. the title of this google doc was “kill your darlings - library sexcapades”, so you can see where my mind was. I was in library school, I’d just gone to see Kill Your Darlings in theatres, it was so predictable, really. reading through it earlier, I realize that I used many of the underlying ideas I had for this fic in fondre ton absence, which I first started only two months after I abandoned this one (and I only posted it in 2019, I know.)

I abandoned it because, if I remember correctly, it was only my second ever historical AU (the first one wasn’t in this fandom, it’s a glee fic, if you bully me enough I can provide a link) and I really, really struggled with it, not only with keeping it free of anachronisms, but also relevant to 1950s British culture rather than American culture, which I am more familiar with as a Canadian. I vividly remember panicking when I couldn’t figure out if Brits went bowling in the 1950s, or even now???? we had different problems in ye olde days before the pandemic, hm?

now, of course, I’ve come to love the pain of researching historical AUs, it’s literally the only thing I’ll write, but 6 years ago was a different story. also, I’m not in grad school anymore, so I have more free time. this helped a lot with fleshing out my fics, this whole “no longer being in university” thing (that I say while being 5 years out of university and now only posting a single fic per year).

anyway. enough from me. here’s the fic. it’s 6500 words long and stops abruptly.

Lying awake in his bed, Harry listened to the steady pitter-patter of the rain hitting the windowpane, the yellow streetlamp outside his dormitory room’s window casting distorted shadows on the floorboards as it filtered through the water running down the glass and the sheer curtains. On the other side of the room, Niall was fast asleep, his breathing regular and slightly wheezing from the cold he’d caught playing football out in the rain the day before. Every six or seven inhale, he’d snore loudly, rousing Harry from the half-sleep he had managed to slip into. Staring at the ceiling, Harry was trying to tell the shadows of the bare tree branches from the cracks in the off-white plaster. The room smelled dank like the rest of the building, the wood creaking and beads of water oozing from the walls from the rain that had been plaguing them for close to a week.

Harry turned on his side, wincing as his joints ached in the cold, humid air of the room, Niall’s congested nose asking for the window to be left ajar, which only let more humidity in. His bedsheets were moist and stuck to his skin in a way that made him feel queasy and promised to rob him of sleep for the entire night.

From somewhere down the hall came a peal of laughter, the sound piercing through the still night air and drifting to Harry’s ears. The sound was almost comforting, breaking through the oppressing bubble of his insomnia to remind him that he was not stranded, or alone. There were other people alive, other people asleep in the rooms next and above and below his, and the sun would rise even if it was behind grey clouds, and not being able to sleep was not the end of the world, no matter how it felt as he lay in his bed, restless and exhausted.

He reached for his alarm clock, the bells quietly chiming as he moved it, and he frowned when he saw that it was half past three. He had to be up in four hours, hours which he knew he wouldn’t sleep. With a final sigh and a resentful glance at the sprawled shape of Niall, Harry rolled out of bed and grabbed his dressing gown, a plaid atrocity his sister had given him as a joke two Christmases past.

The hallway was quiet as he made his way down to the creaking staircase, holding on to the railings as he went down so his slippers didn’t skid on the polished wood. He nodded at the night guardian reading a library copy of A Christmas Carol, his feet up on the desk by the double, windowed entrance doors.

“I’ve still got two more days to read this, haven’t I?” the man asked, lowering the book to squint at Harry in the dimness of the hallway.

“Three, sir,” Harry replied, hands deep in the pockets of his robe and shoulders slumped forward as a shiver ran through him. He could smell the fireplace burning from the common room and yearned to reach it soon.

“Greg, give Harold a break, will you? He’s not working right now,” Zayn said, appearing out of the dark hallway and stopping by Harry’s side. “It’s already tedious enough to watch you read a Christmas novel in November, don’t make it worse on us by bothering poor Harry here about his job in the middle of the night.”

With a wink to Harry, Zayn dropped a pack of cigarettes on the guardian’s desk before walking past him again, back where he had come from, a quick nod inviting Harry along. He followed and closed thankful eyes as he crossed the common room’s threshold and was met by a wall of warm, dry air.

“Liam’s nicked logs from the hall across campus,” Zayn explained as he slouched in an armchair by the fire.

“Bless him,” Harry said, sitting opposite Zayn, close to the hearth. He extended his feet and let the flames warm them, feeling as if every crackle eased his weariness from the past few days.

September had been a neverending blur of mixers and social events to try and make friends as quickly as possible before it was too late and you were relegated to the ranks of social outcast. By the time October rolled by, Harry had managed to be late in all of his classes and had found himself locked in the library even when he did not have to work, his entire universe reduced to the dusty smell of books and ushed voices whispering about classnotes and midterms. On most nights he had to stay up well into the early hours, the grey light of dusk filtering through his foggy mind like through dirty glass as he tried to read three novels at once. Now that midterms were over, he had hoped he might be able to sleep while he counted down the days until finals, but he had managed to well and truly mess up his sleep rhythm.

“No offence, mate, but you look like shit,” Zayn commented after a while, startling Harry out of his most-welcomed doze.

Rubbing his eyes, Harry let out a small laugh. “Can’t sleep.”

“I know a guy--”

“No, thanks,” Harry cut him, not unkindly.

Zayn always knew a guy, who knew a guy, whose brother could get you whatever you needed. He himself took nothing, keeping a record as straight as his ridiculously white teeth; scholarship kid, they said. Harry knew better than that, because he was one himself and had never seen Zayn at any of the disastrous mixers the financial aid office tried to organize. Besides, scholarship students were expected to work on campus, which Zayn did not do. He always seemed to be drifting from place to place, black hair carefully styled so that a swirl appeared to carelessly fall on his forehead and jacket nonchalantly hanging off his shoulder like something out of a magazine, without a care in the world. Harry figured it was the sort of attitude you had to adopt when you had a name like Zayn Malik. Not that Harry gave a damn about any of that, but, to put it mildly, it was not because people were quick to point a finger at Germany for what they had let happen that they were willing to face their own ignorance. In short: people whispered, and all of this despite the thick Northern accent that surprised the wits out of Harry the first time he heard it come out of Zayn’s mouth.

“It’s not healthy, though, is it? You should go see a nurse or something about it, you can die from sleep deprivation.”

Blinking slowly, Harry stared at his oldest friend on campus silently for a moment. “I hope you never make it into medical school, you’re going to be a shit doctor. ‘You can die from sleep deprivation,’ you tell the insomniac at four in the morning.” With a long sigh, Harry shook his head. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

Zayn laughed. “Don’t worry, mate, I’ve heard worse. Have you met Louis?”

Harry rolled his eyes at Zayn. “Yes,” he replied despite knowing that this was a rhetorical question. “I know Louis.”

He shifted in his seat. Mentions of Louis had the pesky side-effect of making Harry’s stomach churn uncomfortably. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the curls as he yawned. He watched as Zayn light a cigarette and shook his head when offered one, instead pulling his legs up on the chair and curling up in it, arms wrapped around his knees.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m still up at this hour?” Zayn asked after discarding his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

Tearing his eyes from the fireplace, Harry blinked slowly at him. “Do you want to tell me?”

Flashing him a wicked grin, Zayn winked. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

Harry rolled his eyes again. “I should have seen this one coming.”

“But you didn’t and that’s why we love you, Harold.” Zayn stretched and got up, picking his jacket off the back of the armchair and shrugging it on. “With this, I’m off to bed.” With a pat to Harry’s head, he headed out of the room.

“Goodnight!” Harry called after him before turning back to the fire, resting his chin on his knees with a sigh.

Harry considered following after Zayn for a moment, but the thought of his cold room made him wince. Instead, he carefully placed more wood into the hearth and pulled the armchair closer. He wrapped his dressing gown tighter around himself and then closed his eyes, turning his face to the warmth with a smile as his thoughts drifted through his memories.

The first time he had seen Louis did not technically count as the first time he had met him. His first glimpse of him had been a fleeting one: a knock at the door of his room and the flash of a crooked grin before a sharp voice called Niall out and the door slammed shut. It had been a whirlwind of sights and sounds, there and gone in a matter of seconds, and promptly discarded as one of Niall’s many boisterous friends.

The first time he met Louis, on the other hand, had made a much stronger impression. Harry had been working the counter at the library, alternating between reading a novel he kept hidden under the desk and staring off into space, eyes on the specks of dust as they drifted through the sunbeams pouring in from the tall windows. It had started with a gust of autumn wind sweeping into the room as someone threw opened the heavy oaken doors, causing the occupants of the library to look around in disgruntled curiosity. Harry himself had found himself craning his neck to try and see who was the utter idiot who was entering a library like it was a barn.

Louis had come running at top speed, muddy wingtips squeaking and skidding on the linoleum and his opened jacket flying behind him. He braced himself on a table as he took a sharp turn to the left and headed towards the counter, vaulting it and crouching down before Harry could stop him. He had stared down at him silently, blinking slowly, until the boy had pulled him down by the front of his shirt so he would kneel next to him.

“You can’t stay here,” Harry had said lamely, feeling ashamed of the yelp he had let out as he looked at the red-faced, breathless boy still holding his shirt in his fist.

“Hi, I’m Louis,” the boy had said, letting go of his shirt to extend his hand for Harry to shake.

“You can’t stay here,” Harry had repeated, ignoring his hand. “And I’m Harry.”

“I know,” Louis had replied, smirking. “So, I may or may not have dressed the statue outside the principal’s office in a dress. And I may or may not be currently running away from the school security.” He had paused to look up at Harry with big, pleading eyes. “My life depends on you, Harry. Please, hide me.”

“You--what? Why would you do that?”

Louis had squinted at him, an amused smile playing on his lips. “For fun?”

“Well, you can’t stay here, we--”

Louis had shut him up with a hand over his mouth. “Please, Harold. I’ll owe you one.”

“No, I mean, there’s--” Harry had mumbled against his hand, eyes darting to the top of the heads of the guardians he could see coming closer to the counter.

“Harry Styles, I am begging you, please let me hide here.”

Prying Louis’ hand away, Harry had rolled his eyes. “Shut up and listen to me, there are two guards coming over here right now, you need to run.” He wouldn’t be able to tell what took him, but had he found himself adding, in a quick whisper, “I’ll distract them. Go.”

Louis had grabbed Harry’s face to plant a loud, wet kiss on his cheek before repeating in a rush that he owed Harry his life and running back the way he had come.

A month had gone by since their meeting and Harry still winced with embarrassment when he thought back to it. He had looked like a proper fool in front of Louis, who, it turned out, was friends with all of his friends. He always turned up, no matter what they were doing or where they were going, teasing and joking and mocking, always constantly there in Harry’s peripheral vision. He was a third year, the rumour was that he had the lowest average in the history of the university (which made no sense, considering he still managed to pass his classes; besides, Harry had checked in old yearbooks during a quiet afternoon in the library and had found that a certain Lionel Hearst allegedly had the lowest average back in 1931--chances were that each year had their own Lionel Hearst, and the class of 1954 had elected Louis Tomlinson as theirs), and he was quite possibly the most annoying person Harry had ever met.

And there was another problem, a massive one that was threatening to destroy Harry’s sanity: he was gorgeous. Not your inoffensive “I can recognize that, objectively, Humphrey Bogart and James Dean are attractive males”, which Harry could very easily and comfortably live with. No, Louis was the kind of gorgeous that had poisoned Harry’s mind until it was all his twisted mind could conjure whenever he had what a psychology textbook he found in Liam’s room had called ‘nocturnal emissions’.

When combined, Louis’ irritating personality and Harry’s inability to get him out of his head were a dangerous mix. One that he never missed an opportunity to use, because on a misguided evening, Harry had made the mistake to go out with Niall and had tragically confessed, over his fourth pint, that he was having unbecoming thoughts about Louis. The news had obviously rapidly travelled all the way to Louis’ ears and now it seemed he had made it his mission to make sure Harry never lived his shameful infatuation down.

Not to mention that, well, he was a boy infatuated with another boy. The same psychology textbook had told him that what he was had a name, and that it was diagnosable, and thus curable, but Liam had walked back in before Harry could read exactly what they meant by ‘aversion therapy’. He hadn’t dared ask Liam, not while Louis was sprawled on his bed, smoking with slow drags and slower exhales, winking at Harry whenever their eyes met.

Louis had asked what Harry was reading and he had mumbled something about insomnia (which had been his first goal, mind you) and a wicked grin had appeared on Louis’ face.

“You were reading about paraphilias, weren’t you, you naughty boy? Which one was your favourite? I’m quite fond of homosexuality myself.”

Zayn had thrown a wrinkled jacket at Louis at that, saving Harry the embarrassment of having to reply by saying through a laugh: “The shit that comes out of your mouth is astounding.”

“It’s not shit! What’s it classified under, again? Payne, help me out.”

Reciting dully, as if he was used to the question - and Harry suspected he was - Liam had rolled his eyes. “Sexual deviations are under personality disorders of the sociopathic subtype.”

“Thanks, mate. I didn’t understand half the words in there, but I like the ring of ‘sociopathic’, don’t you? It makes it sound so dangerous, so ‘I will kill you in your sleep and then shag your corpse’.”

“Someone’s won the roommate lottery,” Niall had said, earning himself a slap upside the head from Liam.

This particular exchange, and more specifically the image of Louis talking about sexual deviations while lying on a bed like some sort of caricature of a French painting, was running through Harry’s sleep deprived mind as he hurried to his morning class under the cold drizzle that had replaced the rain. He had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, but had woken up when the fire was out and the room had turned frigid. Going back to his room, he had collapsed on his bed, only to hear his alarm clock ringing what felt like three minutes later. And now, as he hurried up to the fourth floor on the slippery stairs, he realized with a groan he had forgotten to do the assigned readings for the class.

He took his usual seat near the centre of the lecture hall, unpacking his notebook and fiddling with his pen to keep his mind busy and, more importantly, awake. A three hour lecture on Shakespeare was the last thing he needed at the moment, his eyes unable to focus on the board for more than a handful of seconds before they closed heavily, his entire body jerking back as he drifted to sleep and started to fall forward.

The door opened loudly and Harry didn’t have to look to know who had just entered. He always banged doors opened, making his entrance known as if his presence itself wasn’t enough to get him noticed.

“Harold!” Louis’ voice echoed around the half-empty hall, off the wood-panelled walls and the high, off-white ceiling. He was holding a notebook in his hand, the poor thing in tatters like most of what Louis owned. The usual swirl of hair was falling on his forehead, disheveled in a way that felt more genuine than Zayn’s calculated styling, with the sides ruffled and looking mostly unkempt.

Harry waved at him, shifting in his seat as he watched Louis climb the steps up to where he was sitting and make his way to the empty chair next to Harry. He rubbed his eye and braced himself for the tornado of Louis’ personality.

“Hi, Louis,” he said once Louis was settled. “How are you?”

“I’m brilliant. My day’s always off to such a good start when I get to see you first thing in the morning.” He patted Harry’s knee, a smirk on his lips. Harry swallowed around his dry throat. “You, on the other hand, look terrible.”

“Insomnia,” Harry replied with a shrug, stifling a yawn with his hand. “Nothing new.”

“Yeah, I see that, the bags under your eyes are terrifying.”

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but then forgot to close it as Louis reached up and stroked a thumb under Harry’s eye, lightly touching the paper thin skin. He could wax lyrical about how soft Louis’ skin turned out to be, or how unexpected the touch was, but neither of those things would be right. The fact of the matter was that being touched, stroked, petted or any other synonym describing fond, affectionate physical contact were common when Louis was concerned. That did not mean that Harry was used to it, and he found himself freezing under Louis’ careful finger, his words dying in his throat.

“It looks like you’ve got shiners,” Louis said, voice quiet and soft. “You have to take better care of yourself, Haz, or else someone will have to do it for you.”

Louis’ fingers were still lightly brushing his cheek, close to his ear, as his thumb moved back and forth, barely touching his skin, and Harry absolutely could not let out any sound resembling modern languages. Instead, he nodded, remembered to close his mouth, and cleared his throat to try and speak. All of his efforts were ruined when Louis patted his cheek and moved back, slipping lower in his seat and winking at Harry when their knees bumped.

Harry blinked to realize that the hall had filled while Louis was busy making him forget English. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his glasses and slipped them on, not missing the pleased noise Louis let out next to him. He glanced at him, frowning.

“Love the glasses, Harold.”

“Me too. They help me see.”

Harry did not particularly consider himself a religious man. He went to church when it mattered and tried not to do unto others what he would not want done unto him, but for the most part, he never really had God at the back of his mind whenever he did something. And yet, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered what he had done to anger God. His eyes widened and he felt a blush blooming on his cheeks, his skin burning with the shame and embarrassment of his reply. They help me see, way to state the obvious, Styles. Louis was obviously flirting and the only thing he could come up with was bloody “they help me see.”

Louis let out a bark of laughter, pushing his knee against Harry’s. “Good for you, mate. You wouldn’t want to strain those pretty eyes of yours.”

The professor walking in and setting up his papers behind the lectern saved Harry from having to answer. Harry kept his eyes trained on the front of the class for the first hour of the lecture, pointedly ignoring Louis’ constant shifting and squirming around in his seat. Liam often asked if he had ants in his pants, which usually prompted Louis to let out a vulgar joke about what he did have in his pants. It was better if Harry ignored him, then. He was already struggling to keep up with the deadpan droning of their professor, he didn’t need to think about the way Louis’ thigh brushed against his every time he moved.

The lightbulb closest to the door kept flickering, the rhythm varying from every other second to one every two or three minutes, and Harry found himself captivated by it. The ventilation buzzed in the background, a low metallic rumble pushing moist air into the suffocating hall. A strand of hair had escaped from his comb-over, falling into his eyes and curling from the humidity. He blew on it, watching it rise and fall and repeating the motion over and over again, until Louis elbowed him.

Harry turned to him, bracing himself for a witty remark that would turn him into a blubbering mess, but instead he was met with Louis’ profile, face set and serious as he had his hand raised in the air. Squinting, Harry turned to their professor in time to see him calling on Louis, who lifted his eyebrows, once, before an amused smile curled up his lips.

“Sir, there is something that has been bothering me since I read through the assigned pages last night. See, I can’t quite figure out what Shakespeare meant when he had Aufidius say: ‘Let me twine mine arms about that body, where against my grained ash an hundred times hath broke and scarr’d the moon with splinters,’ and then later when he adds: ‘but that I see thee here, thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart than when I first my wedded mistress saw bestride my threshold.’”

Louis glanced up from the copy of Coriolanus opened in front of him, several lines underlined in blue ink, to give Harry a wink before looking back down and continuing.

“And when he writes: ‘thou hast beat me out twelve several times, and I have nightly since dreamt of encounters ‘twixt thyself and me; we have been down together in my sleep, unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat, and waked half dead with nothing,’ what I don’t understand, sir, is that it sounds to me like Aufidius is courting Marcius, doesn’t it? All this talk of,” Louis glanced down again, “nightly dreams of what sounds to me like some sort of wrestling? All of this leads me to think that there is a certain passion to Marcius and Aufidius’ relationship that you haven’t talked about, yet.”

Louis sat back in his seat, the line of his shoulders disagreeing with the look of candid innocence he had schooled his face into. The entire hall seemed to be waiting with baited breath for their professor’s response, the poor man looking terrified and offended and minuscule in his bulky tweed jacket. His lip quivered, making his grey, toothbrush moustache dance, and he narrowed his eyes at Louis.

“Ignoring Mr Tomlinson’s depraved mind, let’s have a short break. Class will resume in ten minutes.”

Chatter rose around them and Louis shook his head, a look of annoyed resignation on his face.

“I knew he’d do that. I bloody knew it. They’re always too stuck up to address the blatant homoeroticism of the material they assign us.”

Homoeroticism. The word rang in Harry’s ears, filling up his skull and flushing out everything else, leaving him with images of--with images of things he’d rather not put a name on. Of Louis’ lips as they curled into his trademark smirk, of Louis’ spread thighs as he lay on one of their beds, reading out loud from whichever book he had found on the bedside table, of Louis’ eyes and the way they had to always seek Harry’s, but also of older memories. Memories of swimming in a lake with his older cousin as a child and watching the drops of water running down his chest and shimmer in the sun. Locker room memories, a seemingly endless number of them, all strung one after the other in his mind like a neverending series of discomfort and shame as he caught glimpses of changing bodies. Memories of feeling wrong and twisted, an abomination that would bring shame to his family if he said anything.

There was a word for all this, a simple word which Louis uttered like it didn’t carry the weight of the world with it. A word which didn’t sound as ominous as the others did. That word wouldn’t be in Liam’s textbook. That word evoked ideas of art in Harry’s mind, not of therapy.

“Harold? Are you all right? I’ve lost you, here, haven’t I? Wake up, Styles, you’re not in your bed. I understand that it can be confusing for you right now because we all know you see me in your dreams, but--”

“That word you used,” Harry said, cutting him. He cleared his throat and decided it was better to ignore how accurate Louis’ teasing was.

“Which one? You’ll notice I speak quite a lot, so you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Lowering his voice, Harry leaned in. “Homoeroticism.”

“What about it?”

“It was the first time I heard it. I didn’t know it existed.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about.” Louis patted his thigh with a pout. “But don’t worry, I can teach you. I owe you one, remember?”

Harry let out a strangled noise and looked away so he would not have to see Louis’ smirk.

Harry spent the rest of the lecture in a haze, his mind preoccupied with what he tried so hard to ignore during the first half: Louis’ elbow brushing against his on the armrest, their knees bumping when he moved, the sound of his breathing, regular and deep, the way he tapped his pen against his notebook, the muscles in his forearm shifting as he took notes. By the time his torture was over, he realized with horror that he had not listened to a single word of the entire second half of the lecture and he bit his lip.

“And they say I’m the worst student this school has ever seen,” Louis commented after seeing the blank page that Harry failed to hide.

“I couldn’t concentrate,” Harry explained as he packed his bag hastily and followed Louis to leave the lecture hall.

“You can borrow my notes, don’t worry.” Once out of the hall, Louis turned to walk backwards, eyes on Harry. “Why, though? Why was Harold Styles, scholarship student, not paying attention in class? Thinking about boys, maybe?”

Without thinking about it, Harry lurched forward to put his hand over Louis’ mouth. “Shut up,” he hissed.

Unfazed, Louis lowered Harry’s hand with his, his expression softening. “So, you were? This is an interesting turn of events.” Looking up at Harry, he frowned. “Oh, you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.” At the sight of Louis raising his eyebrow in disbelief, Harry licked his lips. “I’m terrified.” He glanced around, feeling like all eyes were on the pair of them as they stood in the middle of the hallway and blocked the traffic.

Louis nodded and took Harry’s elbow, dragging him along and out of the building. Outside, pale rays of sunlight were peeking through the clouds and the air felt light for the first time in days. Harry tried to avoid the puddles covering the cobblestones while Louis kept pulling him along, mindful of keeping his socks dry even as an outrageously flirtatious man he barely knew was taking him somewhere unknown.

“Do you have work today?” Louis asked over his shoulder as they crossed the campus towards their dormitory.

“No. Where are we going?”

“My dorm.”

Harry stopped abruptly, causing Louis to stumble forward before he caught himself and turned. “Why?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to molest you.” Letting go of Harry’s arm, he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I just thought you’d prefer to talk about your innermost secrets in private. Assuming you want to talk about it?”

Harry looked down at Louis for a moment, unsure of what to do next. Louis held his gaze, eyes wide and earnest, almost begging for Harry’s trust. Gnawing at his lip, Harry breathed in sharply and nodded, making the jump, stepping off the edge of the metaphorical cliff and choosing to trust Louis.

A small smile appeared on Louis’ lips, more subdued than what Harry was used to see, and it warmed up the bottom of his stomach in a way that was not unpleasant.

“Very well. Let us be on our way, then.”

A sense of dread descended upon Harry as they neared Louis’ room. His nerves were setting in, sparking up, exploding in bright flashes of what felt a lot like terror at the prospect of the conversation he was about to have and of its ramifications. Thinking it was one thing, admitting that he was thinking it was another, but voicing it was in the realm of impossibilities. The door shut behind them with a quiet click and then they were alone, shielded. Louis sat backwards on his desk chair and motioned for Harry to sit on his bed before he folded his arms and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Harry, tell me. How long have you known?” His voice was quiet and soft, so unlike Louis’ usual loud squawks that it eased Harry’s nervousness, if only partially.

Harry found that he could not look at Louis’ face and he let his gaze drift to the wall behind him, hung with pennants in the colours of Liam’s favourite teams. He brought a hand up to scrape his teeth against the knuckle of a finger, a nervous habit he’d been trying to get rid off for years. He could feel Louis’ steady gaze on him and he swallowed thickly, breathing out.

“I don’t know.” He forced his eyes back on Louis, briefly, to see him frowning. “How long have you known?”

“That I’m gay?” Harry winced at the word and it made Louis smirk. “Summer 1943, there was this bloke billeted at a neighbour’s house. He’d pop by to play with my sisters and I some times and I’d seen him almost every day for months, but that one particular day, he helped my mother with gardening and took off his shirt because of the heat. It changed my life.” He chuckled and scratched his cheek. “I was twelve. I spent the entire day in my bedroom, watching him from the window, absolutely confused about what was happening. I thought I was ill.”

“What’d you do?”

Louis shrugged. “I masturbated, obviously. That was a first. What a day.”

Heat spread on Harry’s face, bright red spots blooming on his cheeks at the words, and he muttered a scandalized ‘oh, my god’ that made Louis laugh.

“Have you never?” Louis asked, giving Harry a curious smile. “Have you really never touched yourself?”

Putting a hand over his eyes, Harry groaned. “Of course, I have, but I don’t talk about it with everyone,” he blurted out, ashamed.

“Why not? You have to stop listening to your minister, kid. It’s perfectly normal, everyone does it.”

Harry shook his head and wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers. He could not remember having ever been as uncomfortable as he was in that instant. His nerves were raw and he felt too hot and too cold at the same time, safe and cloistered at once in the cramped dorm room. Looking at Louis, he found him observing him with a steady expression. Harry appreciated that he was not pushing for answers despite his obvious curiosity. He didn’t feel pressured to answer, but the possibility was there, hanging in the still, humid air between them. It was his choice to seize it and, with a shaky sigh, he did.

“I’ve always had, hum, suspicions that I wasn’t normal. I can’t--” he waved his hands around, “--put words on it, or tell you about specific incidents, but I’ve been having doubts since grammar school.”

“You’re normal.” There was an unexpected fire behind Louis’ words that made Harry frown.

“You can’t be serious. You heard Liam the other day, we’re sociopaths.”

Louis rolled his eyes, digging in his pockets for a cigarette. He placed it between his lips and cracked a match to light it, eyes on Harry through the rising smoke. “Do you feel like a sociopath?”

Harry shrugged. “Not particularly.”

Blowing smoke, Louis raised his eyebrows. “There you go. You’re not. Simple as that. Admitting a bloke needs to have his hands tied above his hands to be able to come, would you say he’s a sociopath?” When Harry shook his head, Louis continued. “But that’s still a paraphilia, ergo he’s mental. We’re not perverts, we just love differently. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

Harry licked his lips and nodded, transfixed by Louis’ verve. “And they say you’re the worst student of your year.”

Louis laughed, sharp and clear, smoke coming out of his nostrils. “I’ve had a bad freshman year and the reputation, sadly, stuck with me. Of course, I’m not a scholarship kid, so I don’t compare.” He winked a Harry.

“How do you know so many things about me? We’ve rarely spoken.”

Louis laughed again, but the sound was softer, more intimate, in an odd way. “Well...” He rubbed the back of his neck, discarding the butt of his cigarette in a dirty ashtray on his bedside table. “I asked around. You helped me a lot when you befriended Zayn.”

Harry shifted on the bed to rest his back against the wall, kicking his shoes off quickly to pull his knees up against his chest. “Why?”

Louis’ eyes widened, almost comically, before he shrugged. “Curiosity. You looked interesting.”

#caro writes fic #larry #larry fic #my fics #rip wip meme

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atths--twice · 4 years

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Mulder has been left alone, watching Scully walk out, and not look back.

Chapter Three

Echoes of Goodbye

September 2014

Mulder fell to his knees as he heard Scully’s car start and then back up. He could do nothing, say nothing, as he remained frozen on the porch. He began to cry, sobs shaking his body as he heard her car getting further away. He could not believe this was happening.

Her words were still ringing in his ears, her words of sadness, not anger. She had not shouted at him when she left, but she may as well have, because her quiet sadness hurt worse than any shout ever had. He could see her face, her tears, feel her kiss on his lips, and he felt numb and broken, sobbing anew.

It was not until his legs began to hurt that he chanced moving. As he raised his head, he saw the sun was almost set. It was early afternoon when he followed her out there. Or was it morning? He put his face in his hands as he realized he was not even sure of the time of day she left. He lost track of time, and not the nine minutes they had lost so long ago. No, this was his own doing, and what apparently pushed her to the breaking point.

He got up off his knees, his muscles crying out as he did. His feet were asleep and he welcomed the pain of it, the tingling jolts of it feeling the way his heart felt, firing out electricity as it shorted out.

He stood on the porch, his head down and his body empty. If he moved, he knew only part of him would go back in the house. Like the old cartoons when the character would die or get scared and their body stayed behind, but their soul tore away from their body. Only, in his case, it would be his heart that stayed behind, while the rest of him moved forward.

He wobbled, his feet uncertain, but he knew he had to move to do something. Chase her down? No, he knew without question that was not the answer. How could he follow her and change her mind, when he could not even do it before she left? Call her? And say what, he asked himself, “I’m sorry for being such a fuck up?” She already knew he was a sorry shit because she said as much, just quietly and sadly. Jesus Christ ...

He closed his eyes and forced his feet to move, to go back into the house and figure out what the hell happened. As he stepped back, his eyes flew open. It felt as though his heart was being pulled out, and brought to the spot where his world had stopped. It was as if he could see it, hovering for a second, before it made a new home under the floorboards of the porch. His own personal version of The Tell-Tale Heart. It would wait there, beating and driving him mad, and only he would know.

He moved more forcefully into the house, wanting to escape the image of his heart lying in wait. He closed the door and stood in the suffocating silence of the house. Somewhere he heard a clock ticking and it made his ears ring. How could time still be passing when the world should have stopped? He looked over at his office and his stomach dropped.

He walked to the doorway and looked around, seeing it through Scully’s eyes. The papers stacked high, books, photos, dishes and cups all haphazard and in some cases smelly and collecting mold, something he knew she hated.

“It smells in here, Mulder,” she said on many occasions. “How can you sit in here with the stench of old coffee cups permeating the air?”

“It’s an acquired scent I suppose, Doc,” he said, her expression disgusted, as he cracked open a sunflower seed. She rolled her eyes before she left, closing the door with a pointed look.

Looking at the room now through the eyes of a profiler, he knew this room would be a virtual treasure trove of information. Seeing it differently, he saw the madness, saw the way it must have pushed her away, but he also knew the things he had found. The contacts he had made could not all be wrong, some of them had to be right. She just did not understand what he was doing. How he was trying to save them both.

His gaze landed on his bottle of medication, had he taken it today? Is that why this happened, because he missed a dose of medicine, maybe two, and he was back to appearing depressed and manic to her? As much as he wanted to blame it on that, he knew he could not. This was his fault.

He felt anger bubbling up inside him, at himself, at her, at the fact that she would just leave him like she did. He kicked at a pile of papers and sent them flying. Then he threw them out of the chair and the room was snowing papers. He swept the desk off and his computer crashed to the floor, along with the plates and cups stacked beside it. Glass shattered and the computer screen broke. He did not care, but continued tearing apart the office, papers being pulled from the wall. Is this what she wanted? All his work destroyed? Fine, he would do it, he would show her.

His brain seemed to finally realize what his body was doing and put a halt to the actions. He panted, out of breath from the physical activity he was no longer used to doing. He looked at his ruined office, at the devastation he had caused, and he broke down. He stumbled into the wall and slid down it, his legs out in front of him. He leaned his head back as he cried out his frustration.

How could she do this to him? To them ? He knew things were not perfect, but to just fucking give up? Her? She did not do that, so why did she start now?

Because, you fucking loser, you pushed her to it, his brain seemed to say as it rolled its eyes. He cried harder, knowing it was true, he had pushed her away. So many times she had tried to get through to him and he stubbornly refused to hear her.

For a while, things had been good. When all charges against him were dropped, he felt like he had a new lease on life. No longer stuck at home, cooped up in his office, he felt free, and happier than he had in awhile.

They bought a second car and he would go for drives, meet up with Scully for lunch or coffee and sometimes even meet up with Skinner, or just head out to old haunts. The wind from the rolled down car windows never felt so good.

The trip they took, away from the darkness , was amazing and exactly the warmth and sunshine they needed. Scully was so beautiful on that trip, not that it differed than how she was normally, but she had a happy glow about her. The amount of her skin he saw every day did not hurt either.

“Did you simply pack different bathing suits, and not much else?” he asked on their third day there, when she came out of the bathroom in a black one piece, with cut-outs close to her hips. It had one wide strap and the other shoulder was bare.

She reached for her cover up, but he grabbed her before she could. His fingers traced her skin through the cut-outs, and she breathed heavily. Her suit soon joined his on the floor, delaying their day at the beach.

They made love under the stars, in the ocean, and on the porch of their private deck. Lying with her, the warm wind teasing their sweaty bodies, he felt complete and happy. He told her so and she sighed, pulling closer to him, just before she fell asleep. Her soft, warm body pressed against his, pulled him under not long after.

The trip ended and they came home. For a while they still could get each other going with a look or a do you remember story. While the sex was amazing, as it always had been with them, the afterglow was almost better. They would talk and laugh about whatever and her soft gorgeous body would be wrapped around his, making him feel safe and loved. God, he loved her so much.

They took weekend trips to the vineyard sometimes and they walked around his old hangouts. He showed her where he and Samantha used to play pick up baseball games, some of the places no longer empty lots, but buildings or apartment complexes. They walked along the seaside, her hand in his, bundled up from the wind blowing across the water.

“Watch this, Scully,” he said, picking up a rock and skipping it across the water. Three hops and he looked at her with his eyebrows raised.

She smiled as he did it a few more times, before she bent and picked up a smooth, black stone. She raised her eyebrow at him, and threw hers, watching as it skipped further than any of his had. Smirking, they both knew she bested him, as she usually did.

When she was working, he would attempt home repairs. He actually did some work in their bathroom, well he supervised anyway. He had changed the medicine chest, and he made plans for a clawfoot tub to be put in for her. When it was done, his glee could hardly be contained. Her happiness and then the thank you sex was worth all the stress to finish it before she came home.

They had dinners at Mrs. Scully’s house and she came to theirs. He always enjoyed her company, as she laughed at all his dumb jokes. Both Scully women in one place was always fun. They shared stories and laughed about the past. Not knowing everyone they discussed, he simply listened and laughed at their antics.

During those dinners, he learned that Mrs. Scully was very competitive and loved to play games. Cards, board games, trivia, she loved them all. She did not always join in, but when she did, she took it very seriously.

A Scully head-to-head match was what he loved to watch most. The two women did not back down, never going easy on the other, and when the points were tallied, the winner strutted around like a proud peacock.

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Mrs. Scully would say, as she danced around with her hands above her head, before reaching for a high five from him, with Scully sulking in the background. He laughed every time he got to see that display from Mrs. Scully. Her celebratory dance was different every time and he loved to see what she would do.

Everything was going well, but as the predetermined date began to approach, he spent more time in his office, more time away from Scully. He was on the computer, searching for any and all information he could find. Days would go by and he would be unaware that they had. He would forget to eat and then grab whatever was closest and easiest to eat. Sometimes a box of Pop-Tarts, sometimes a meal Mrs. Scully had sent home with them.

He began to lose weight and become sallow, his hair unkempt and his beard growing back. He knew nothing of Scully’s comings and going, and one day she called him out on it. He did not understand her anger, trying to explain what he was doing, what he was preparing them for. He needed to know what to do, to expect on that day, to save them both. She walked away, shaking her head, her anger still obvious. He shut the office door and promptly forgotten she had ever been there.

The date came and he was ready, as ready as he could be. There was no planned place to convene, no place safe from the impending invasion. They stayed home, together, never apart from the other. The whole day he waited, sure it would come, the idea that it would not happen was unfathomable. He could feel Scully watching him, feel her worry for him, and it made him angry.

He pushed the screen door open, walked down the steps, and stood in the middle of the yard, his head raised to the sky.

“Mulder! Come back inside! It’s freezing out there!” she called out to him, but he did not listen, convinced he would see something if he stood and waited long enough.

A jacket was placed upon his shoulders and he put his arms inside it. She helped him zip it up and then grasped his hand. Hers was warm and his was freezing cold. How long was he standing there? She squeezed his hand and looked up with him, until he heard a beeping from his wrist. Midnight. The day had come and gone.

“Mulder,” she breathed, squeezing his hand, smiling with relief. He stared back, worry and confusion on his face. He dropped her hand and turned away from her, heading toward the house, the questions running through his mind.

What happened? Or more importantly, what did not happen? She called to him again, and he turned to look at her. Standing there in the dark, a light layer of snow on the ground, she looked so small, so alone. She said something but he did not hear her, too many thoughts pushing around in his head. He saw her posture though, saw her shoulders fall and her head drop. When she lifted her head, she had tears in her eyes, already seeming to know the path of the road ahead.

He returned to his old ways, burying himself in information. Looking, always looking. She came in his office one day, pleading with him to join her for dinner. He looked at her, confused how it could be dinner time already when he had just eaten breakfast. He glanced out the window and saw it was night, and then discovered it was also already two weeks into January. Almost a month had passed and he had no idea.

He stumbled to the dining room table and apologized to her for losing track of time. Telling her he had found some people discussing what had happened and their theories about what went wrong. He spoke through most of the dinner and then walked back into his office, not realizing that she had not said a word.

Another month passed and he made an effort to plan a dinner for Scully’s birthday. They did not really celebrate things like that, but he wanted to show her he could. He meant to, he really did, bought her a gift and everything, but the reservations slipped his mind. They arrived at the restaurant and he realized his mistake. She sighed and then looked at him with such sadness, he felt like a huge failure.

They had found an all night diner instead and it was better than the stuffy restaurant would have been. They talked, not about the darkness he insisted on jumping into, but anything and nothing. She smiled, her hand reaching for his across the table. They ate messy cheeseburgers and shared the best chocolate milkshake he ever tasted. She made him pull over on the way home. So close to the house, but unable to wait, she climbed into his lap and got enough clothing out of the way to sink down onto him. She felt so good and it occurred to him that he could not remember their last time together.

After they arrived home, her gave her the gifts he picked out for her, a book about sprites and a child’s doctor’s kit. Rolling her eyes at the book, she reached for the doctor’s kit.

“I think you might need a checkup, Mulder,” she said, setting it on the couch, and reaching for the buttons on his shirt. “I noticed your heart was beating fast earlier and I’m concerned.”

“You’re the doctor,” he said, letting her slip the shirt off his shoulders, before she moved her hands to his belt buckle.

Her eyes never left his as she told him the things she would need to check out. She gave him a thorough examination, commenting again on the fast pace of his heart as she ran her fingernails across his stomach. He grabbed her and pulled her to the floor, the doctor’s kit spilling, before he made her heart race.

That night, the office did not have a visitor.

But, it could not stay that way and he went through times where he seemed to drift from day to day, season to season. Before he knew it, it was December again and he had no new information, nothing concrete anyway. He and Scully were not the same. He saw her, but it seemed days would go by and they would not speak, or she was gone at odd hours for work.

When she approached him to eat with her or watch a movie, he would plan to do it, but then forget and when he finally did remember, hours had passed. He would find her asleep in bed and he would hate himself for who they were becoming- strangers living in the same house. He missed her but he had to find the answers he needed.

He fell asleep on the couch one night, exhausted after staring at the computer screen all night. He woke up to her crying and pleading with him to talk to her. She climbed in his lap and clung to him, saying she loved him and that this was hurting them. Her tears and her cries broke his heart and he cried with her, telling her he was sorry and he missed her, as he started kissing her neck.

It had been so long since she was that close and he was almost embarrassed at how quickly he became hard. They had not been intimate in a while, her refusing him while he had “that fucking beard.” That day though, she welcomed his touch and his love.

Quick was one way to describe it, but it was still wonderful. They held onto one another after and as they did, he made a decision to shave off his beard. It would not fix everything, but it would be something he could do for her. He left her on the couch, heading to shower and shave. He was surprised at the paleness of his skin, the sickly look to his face under all that hair.

She cried at the sight of him as he stood in the kitchen letting her tell him with her kisses and fingers how much she appreciated the small gesture and how much she missed him. He knew how she felt, he missed her touch and her love, so much. Only when he was shown it, did he seem to know how much it meant to be with her that way.

He kept his eyes closed and his head bowed as he was presenting himself to her, silently apologizing for being an asshole, and trying to show her he was trying. He knew they were in a bad place. He could feel it, and see it, but he did not know how to change it. He did not know how to crawl out of the darkness when he needed the answers so badly. The date coming and going, no real answers after so long, it was like a weight upon his soul.

That day had been wonderful, but things began to unravel afterward. He had good and bad days, but that was how things had always been for him. So when she asked him to try taking medication for depression, he was stunned.

“I’m worried about you, Mulder,” she said, reaching for his hand. “These highs and lows you’re experiencing, it’s not good. Not for you or me. Please, Mulder.”

“I’m fine, Scully. I’m not depressed. Maybe you need the medication,” he said, knowing it was childish, but annoyed with her for suggesting it.

When she brought him home the medication, he refused it, staring her down defiantly. She stood her ground, and he finally relented, grabbing the bottle as he walked in the office and slammed the door.

He fumed but knew how hard it must have been for her to reach that point. He opened the door and grabbed her before she left the room, apologizing again for being such an asshole to her and promising he would take the medication.

It took a few tries to get his dosage correct, but when they did, he felt like he came out of a fog he had no idea he was stuck in. He felt better than he had in a while and she appeared to breathe a sigh of relief. He was more involved again, making her laugh, back to sleeping and other activities in their bed.

Then one day, an email sent him down the rabbit hole. That one email led to searches, articles, examining photos, listening to recordings, and then message boards and chat rooms. He spent days in his office trying to piece together the puzzle he had before him. He was onto something, he knew it.

But, those discoveries and excitement meant something else suffered. Until she came into his office and his annoyance at her kneeling on the papers he had carefully organized had led to them screaming at one another, he did not know things had gotten so bad. He slammed the office door, angry at her complete disregard for the work he had put into his research.

He looked again for the website where he had found the information on the paper she ripped up. It took a bit, but he found it and sent it to the printer. He forgot about their fight until he heard the office door open.

Her words at first angered him, and he let her know, pushing her buttons to get her to fight with him. She did not take the bait, and instead remained calm, and at the same time, so incredibly sad.

She was leaving. She was suffocating, drowning, suffering, and all because of him. Her analogy of the oxygen masks broke through and made its way into his brain. Years of seeing those flight safety instructions, he could imagine them in that situation. Him stubbornly refusing her help while he looked at a shiny object, as she was slowly dying because she would want to help him first, broke his heart. He was not worth dying for. Not his sorry ass.

He slammed his head back against the wall, causing the things hanging on it to shake. He did it again, hoping something would fall on him, hurting him physically, the way he felt the pain emotionally. Nothing fell and he pushed himself to his feet. He looked again at the office and he shook his head. What a fucking fuck up he truly was.

She left. Wait, he thought.

He ran up the stairs and into their room. His breath left him as he bent over at the waist inside their closet. Her clothes were gone, completely cleaned out. He shook his head and moved to the dresser and found her drawers empty. He stumbled forward, his body hitting the dresser, not shutting the drawer as his eyes landed on the spot where her favorite picture of them sat. It was gone, along with her clothes, and the woman who wore them. He sank once again to his knees, as he realized the enormity of what happened.

He thought of the sadness in her eyes as she looked at him. He dropped his head, thinking of the feel of her body pressed against his as she held him. She felt so small and thin. Had she always felt that thin, or had she lost weight? God, he had no idea when he last held her in his arms. Could she have lost weight because of him and the undue worry and stress he put upon her, or was she trying to do so? He did not know, had not noticed, and it was like a knife to the gut knowing she was right; he stopped seeing her.

She left him. She loved him, but she left him. No, she left him because she loved him. She made sure he knew that before she walked out the door. Made sure he knew she still loved him.

With a strangled cry he suddenly fell forward, his face against the cold hard wood of the floor, as he realized that he had not told her he loved her. She had made sure he knew and he had said nothing. He lay on the floor, his world crumbling, and wept out his love for her, hoping somehow she could hear him.

#The X Files #XF Fanfic #Pain and sorrow #Heartbreak #Angst #Sadness #Have to go through the bad to get to the good.

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