She got herself moving with the old trick of suppressing her knowledge of cause and effect-- her mind was completely wrapped up in the goal of the door, unlocking the door, opening the door, but she refused to think about what would come through the newly-opened door. If she thought about facing Mulder with her face flushed red and her hair standing up, smelling of sweat and dream-induced arousal--
She ignored it. She walked.
The shakes hit her halfway across the floor, limbs trembling uncontrollably, feet placed unsteadily in a random forward path; lo, behold the revenge of a sleep-deprived body for a bare twenty or thirty minutes of sleep after pacing the floor for hours and hours. She fumbled the lock open with ravaged hands and tugged at the doorknob.
The door wouldn't open.
Relief hit like a tsunami, and she sagged against the door in its wake. Oh thank God, she didn't have to look at him. She didn't have to let him see her like this. Her mindless litany of thanksgiving was the closest to real prayer that she'd come in weeks: thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God. She lay her forearm against the blood-warm wood and pressed her forehead to it.
The knob turned by itself beneath her palm in a stealthy caress, whispering with soft metallic friction as the latch slid all the way open. There was a long pause, and then the knob turned back; somehow she knew, even after the movement ceased, that Mulder's hand was still on the knob on the opposite side. "Scully, are you all right?" he asked in a low voice.
"The door's stuck," she admitted, torn between absurd pride and equally absurd guilt. The condition of the door was most likely due to the fact that some mental giant had carefully painted both the door and the frame with semi-gloss paint that had, under these conditions of high humidity, miraculously transformed into carpenter's glue. Any efforts of her own, Herculean as they seemed inside her own head, were in fact unimportant and unworthy of the self-congratulatory cartwheels she wanted to turn.
"Did you unlock it?" Mulder asked, sounding skeptical.
"Of course." Her voice came out high-pitched and bitchy instead of the ringing authoritative tone she'd meant to access. Damn. She flushed with anger or humiliation -- at this point, it was impossible to distinguish between them.
"Hang on." A meaty thunk jarred the door under Scully's hand, unmistakably Mulder ramming against it with his shoulder. He tried again. The door was unimpressed with the macho man routine and remained epoxied in place.
She stepped in before he battered himself senseless against the stubborn wood. "Mulder, don't. If it's jammed this badly, you'll just damage the door frame." Silence from the other side, tacit agreement. "Just... just talk to me through the door."
The jammed door is a clear symbol for their relationship being stuck. Doors are also a Freudian symbol for the female genitals (yawn). She's not ready for him to know how much she wants him. Is the language getting a little over the top? Maybe, but you can't dial it back too much without losing some of the urgency.
After her Tochok-enhanced erotic dream is interrupted, Scully awakens to the light (woot! more symbolism!), has a Mulderlike flash of insight, and saves Mulder's ass by shooting the Tochok. Not surprisingly, Mulder now finds the connecting door opens easily enough. And then we get the great ending scene. I adore the ending.
As mentioned by amyhit, Mulder and Scully seem surprisingly like themselves, given what they both (with Scully bearing the brunt of it) have to go through by the end. I attribute this to the excellent dialogue, which sounded so much like them that it could have been lifted from the show. I could give examples but really, pick a page.
Despite the extended Scully torture( which reminds me of a line from A Bitter Taste on the Tongue by Jane Mortimer: "Your honor, he abused me with extended foreplay."), "Gutless" was written with obvious care and love for the series and all of the characters, even Guido. Especially Guido. Poor Guido. From the lurid scenes of violence at the beginning to the tender moments between Mulder and Scully at the end, "Gutless" is truly one of the most memorable stories I've read in this fandom.
Unifying Theory Part 2
She got herself moving with the old trick of suppressing her knowledge of cause and effect-- her mind was completely wrapped up in the goal of the door, unlocking the door, opening the door, but she refused to think about what would come through the newly-opened door. If she thought about facing Mulder with her face flushed red and her hair standing up, smelling of sweat and dream-induced arousal--
She ignored it. She walked.
The shakes hit her halfway across the floor, limbs trembling uncontrollably, feet placed unsteadily in a random forward path; lo, behold the revenge of a sleep-deprived body for a bare twenty or thirty minutes of sleep after pacing the floor for hours and hours. She fumbled the lock open with ravaged hands and tugged at the doorknob.
The door wouldn't open.
Relief hit like a tsunami, and she sagged against the door in its wake. Oh thank God, she didn't have to look at him. She didn't have to let him see her like this. Her mindless litany of thanksgiving was the closest to real prayer that she'd come in weeks: thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God. She lay her forearm against the blood-warm wood and pressed her forehead to it.
The knob turned by itself beneath her palm in a stealthy caress, whispering with soft metallic friction as the latch slid all the way open. There was a long pause, and then the knob turned back; somehow she knew, even after the movement ceased, that Mulder's hand was still on the knob on the opposite side. "Scully, are you all right?" he asked in a low voice.
"The door's stuck," she admitted, torn between absurd pride and equally absurd guilt. The condition of the door was most likely due to the fact that some mental giant had carefully painted both the door and the frame with semi-gloss paint that had, under these conditions of high humidity, miraculously transformed into carpenter's glue. Any efforts of her own, Herculean as they seemed inside her own head, were in fact unimportant and unworthy of the self-congratulatory cartwheels she wanted to turn.
"Did you unlock it?" Mulder asked, sounding skeptical.
"Of course." Her voice came out high-pitched and bitchy instead of the ringing authoritative tone she'd meant to access. Damn. She flushed with anger or humiliation -- at this point, it was impossible to distinguish between them.
"Hang on." A meaty thunk jarred the door under Scully's hand, unmistakably Mulder ramming against it with his shoulder. He tried again. The door was unimpressed with the macho man routine and remained epoxied in place.
She stepped in before he battered himself senseless against the stubborn wood. "Mulder, don't. If it's jammed this badly, you'll just damage the door frame." Silence from the other side, tacit agreement. "Just... just talk to me through the door."
The jammed door is a clear symbol for their relationship being stuck. Doors are also a Freudian symbol for the female genitals (yawn). She's not ready for him to know how much she wants him. Is the language getting a little over the top? Maybe, but you can't dial it back too much without losing some of the urgency.
After her Tochok-enhanced erotic dream is interrupted, Scully awakens to the light (woot! more symbolism!), has a Mulderlike flash of insight, and saves Mulder's ass by shooting the Tochok. Not surprisingly, Mulder now finds the connecting door opens easily enough. And then we get the great ending scene. I adore the ending.
As mentioned by
Despite the extended Scully torture( which reminds me of a line from A Bitter Taste on the Tongue by Jane Mortimer: "Your honor, he abused me with extended foreplay."), "Gutless" was written with obvious care and love for the series and all of the characters, even Guido. Especially Guido. Poor Guido. From the lurid scenes of violence at the beginning to the tender moments between Mulder and Scully at the end, "Gutless" is truly one of the most memorable stories I've read in this fandom.