Evensong - carleton97
There was nothing spectacular about this motel room, no part of it that stood out from its myriad siblings all across the country. After five years, all the sundry motel rooms tended to meld together into a generic form. This room, with its beige walls and matted carpets, uncomfortable chairs and wobbly table, lumpy bed with flat pillows and bedspread of indeterminate cleanliness could have been found anywhere from Wisconsin to Florida.
As it happens, they were again chasing the purportedly supernatural in Oregon. It was different now, though. Six years was a long time to be together. The bond of partnership and trust they had begun forming that first night was a single gossamer strand compared to the complex web of friendship and reliance which spanned them now. The simple, heady mixture of candles and a rain soaked night cocooning the room with an enforced intimacy was no longer enough for them to make themselves vulnerable. Six years later, vulnerability required a brush with death.
In this Oregon motel room, the faded curtains hung open, allowing the final rays of sunlight to claim dominion over the dubious setting. Dust motes swirled lazily above the suit jacket slung over the back of her chair. Strewn carelessly on the table, mixed with the reports and papers, were pictures both grotesque and tragic. There was nothing supernatural about the work of a madman who had taken over twenty lives during his reign of terror. A madman who had very nearly added one final life to his collection before having the good grace to die from his multiple wounds. A madman who had no idea the one death he desired would have ultimately brought two.
In this room, that tangled web of trust and pain and love between them was pulled across a silent abyss of cheap furniture and tawdry upholstery, taut with the stress of near death and the shock of unexpected revelation. Spoken in the heat of the moment, the declaration had stopped their argument cold. It hung in the air over the soiled carpet, supported by the filaments of their bond.
Before them, an invisible crossroads appeared, each path beckoning to them with the alluring beacon of serenity. They could continue down the path they had trod for six years, loving and supporting each other without taking that final, terrifying step towards complete intimacy. Or, they could forge a new path through the dark, unexplored territory of total unity. Insecurity and doubt clawed at both, demanding the status quo be maintained. In the space of a heartbeat, a million silent questions and apprehensions raced between them.
Gentle with support and encouragement, the waning sun touched her with its warm hand, setting fire to her hair and glistening off the unshed tears in her eyes. Across the bed, he stood in the bathroom doorway, a battered case file clutched in his hands, drawing strength from the safety of partial concealment in the shadows there.
Between them, the connecting door stood wide open.
They both knew it would eventually come to this. Their lives, their selves were so intertwined that the eventual joining of their bodies was the only natural, the only logical culmination of their joined souls. They both knew there would be a day when their all their barriers and walls and defenses would crumble simultaneously. A time when neither had the ability or the desire to be the weak one, the one to walk away.
There were fears of course.
She feared she wasn't enough. Enough to make him stay when the siren song of his inner demons called from so deep within his darkness that even she could no longer see to rescue him. Enough for herself to survive the call of her own darkness if he didn't.
He feared he wasn't enough. Enough to make her stay and continue with her unconditional acceptance of his broken soul when the inevitable wolf appeared outside the door. Enough for himself to keep the door barred against the wolf if she didn't.
She put a hand on the table and pushed unsteadily to her feet, stepping out from the protective halo of sunlight and abandoning her shield of polite professionalism.
He let the file fall to the floor and left the concealing shadows of the doorway, putting his trust, his heart in her hands.
Because, above all else, they feared losing each other to the hell of what might have been. If they hadn't been cautious. If they hadn't been stubborn. If they hadn't been afraid.
Between them, the undefined, diaphanous threads of their relationship began to coalesce and solidify into something substantial, something profound. Carefully, wary of harming their gestating creation, they made their way across the chasm her independence and his protectiveness had formed. With each decisive step, a thousand unseen pitfalls were avoided, a million unknown intrigues disrupted.
In the slanted pink light of sunset, they paused a millimeter before crossing the Rubicon of touch. For though they each had touched and loved in their private worships, never had it been mutual. Changeable green caressed constant blue, momentarily taking and giving reassurance before the demands of the flesh asserted themselves.
Awed by the future before them, they slowly resumed their forward course. She raised her hand to his chest as he tucked her hair behind her ear, both leaving their hands on the other to connect and caress. They stood with barely a breath between them, allowing the wonder of it to surround them. As the reality of what this night would bring began to permeate their very cells, there was a loosening of something neither had realized was bound.
She called it her love, always assumed to be in vain. She called it her desire, clamoring and unfulfilled. She called it her soul, a gift from a god she sometimes doubted.
He called it his love, never expected to be requited. He called it his desire, consuming and unsatisfied. He called it his soul, which had been hers since the dawn of time.
Finally breaking completely free from the bonds of fear and doubt which had kept them apart for an eternity, the two severed and jagged halves of them fused into one soul. It spun wildly for a moment, celebrating its reunion with itself and relishing its long sought freedom. Slowly it returned to its dual sources and, with infinite care and ultimate precision, penetrated to mend the breaks and fill the cracks wrought by the long years of separation.
If the freeing of their souls was a release of everything that had ever been bound, the return was the fulfillment of everything they had dared not dream. They closed their eyes for a brief moment, their bodies swaying together to close the final gap between them. Her one hand remained on his chest, taking the measure of his heart, while the other smoothed over his back to hold him to her. He slid the hand that had rested on her neck through her hair and brought its mate up to meet it. As the sun dipped to touch the far horizon with his fiery glory, they stood thus, finally knowing the rapture of completion.
FIN
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and all things X-Files are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 productions, and 20th Century Fox et al.
Created and maintained by carleton97.