Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by
--Carl Sandburg

[Crossposted from jeviltwin]

There were moments when what he saw in her eyes made him careful: joy enmeshed with the quiet old hope-scared longing not yet scattered completely. He'd had no idea that sweetness could be so erotic.

It was while he was in this frame of mind -- brain, and other parts, already in bed beside his napping partner -- that the bathroom-dwelling spider chose to run across his foot, prompting what he would later describe as a loud "Sploot!" to emerge from his mouth, along with a toothbrush and half a cup of foamy spit.

"What are you doing?" asked a sleepy Scully from the bedroom.

Well, at least she was awake.

lizlet

He was on his feet instantly when she opened the door and stepped inside. Scully threw the lock and turned to face him, wishing there were some way to ground her own tilting panic, to force calm into the room.

There is a way, her mind whispered, and her hatred for this new knowledge made her take a step back.

Mulder stilled. She shook her head at him but didn't move closer. The space was so small that the couch took up most of the air anyway.

"What did they say?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and willed herself to look at him. "You can accompany me under one condition."

"Which is?"

"I have to blind you."

"Like in a Greek tragedy?" He mimicked a stabbing motion and tried to smile.

"They won't let you go if you'll be able to bring...useful information out with you. I have to take your sight," she sighed. "To be returned as soon as we're off the case."

He sat down on the edge of the roughed-up couch. "You can do that?" It was the first time his voice had carried a trace of belief in it, and she was aware again of how little sense the last week had probably made to him.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I think I can."

He swallowed and reached for her wrist. "Okay, let's go then." She wasn't the only one who could impose a mood on general surroundings. His jaw was set determined.

"There are serious risks," she started.

"What else is new? Come on, whammy me." He was yanking at her fingers, impatient like a kid in a toy store.

"I don't think you're thinking this through. You won't be able to see, Mulder." She felt the need to restate the obvious while she wondered if she could displace him, throw him into another realm or maybe just his apartment, with a temporary guard at the door to make sure he didn't follow her or get into more trouble than usual while she was away.

"You'll be able to see, right? You can walk me through things. I'll have all my other faculties?"

"Such as they are, yes." But that was a tactical error. Levity would merely encourage him.

He pulled her down beside him. "Then I'll be fine."

"Mul--"

"You're not going without me, Scully," he said, suddenly intense. "I'm not-- This isn't chauvinism."

"I didn't think it was. But you will be at a much greater risk than you are now, and I've already put you at too high a risk--"

"You need someone on your side," he practically yelled. He glanced away and studied her hand caught in his. "And I need to go with you. I need to help you stay safe."

His eyes were bright and I'm going to deaden them, she thought, fear rising in a hot streak up her neck.

"Okay," she said.

She laid her right hand on the back of his head, her left hand on the side of his face. "Close your eyes," she said.

Ridiculous it should be this easy. Ridiculous anyone would trust her not to harm...

Her hands were warm, and she felt the current gather the instant he closed his eyes. His sight was a long, intricate chain, knitted red and gold as a setting sun in her mind; she thought snapping it would be quick like cutting a ribbon.

But then it was happening, not with an insignificant slice through something delicate at all. No: it was as if a strong limb was being rended away from an enormous tree in a wild storm. The splitting seemed to last a horrible age until the limb was simply no longer there.

Scully made a sickened sound when the wind died away. Mulder opened his eyes and blinked once.

Still the color of moss, she thought, now with frost.

She hoped she wasn't shaking. She brushed her thumb under his left eye and caught the tear before it had a chance to fall. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm right here."

[Cross-posted from jeviltwin]

"Isaac?" she whispered. The name seemed less strange now. With his face pressed into her hair and his hands stroking long, warm stripes down her bare shoulder blades, he was so quiet, so otherwise still. She was bound to this version of him in a way she hadn't been before.

He might never come back, she thought, and she, not he, would be the one lost, and here was comfort even as fear shot through her like ice.

He didn't answer her, and she pulled away a little to reach up and touch his face. Her fingers found wetness.

He chose not to comment on it. Instead, he said, "There's one thing you've told me about...me that I just can't accept, Scully."

"What's that?" she asked. She propped herself up a bit, to see him, what she recognized, what she didn't, the soft desire and grief mingled now in the eyes of this new person she could not abandon either.

He pushed a strand of hair back from her cheek. "I don't believe for a second that it took me six or seven years to fall in love with you."

"I never," she started, and stopped to swallow a hitch in her chest, a burning in her throat. "I never said you were in love with me."

"I know. But I was. I had to have been." He wiped away a tear beneath her eyelashes. "And I am."

This was their truth stated plainly, then, finally. This was seeing something familiar -- fierce, protective -- flare in his eyes, this was his gentle mouth on hers again. This was being found.

-- Scene dropped out of nowhere, 11-5-04

A couple of recent exercises. You've probably seen these on my non-fic LJ, so feel free to move along...