Story 14: "Blood and Breath" by RivkaT

[wendelah1]

This week's choice is mine. I decided to look through the spoiler category in Gossamer for Gethsemane. I felt there had to be another, more satisfying take on the episode. Look what I found! "Blood and Breath" is by one of my favorite writers, rivkat . I love the way she sees Scully and this is a very Scully-centric piece. Like "Primal Sympathy," it was posted in 1997 during the hiatus, but it is a very different approach to the cliff-hanger at the end of Gethsemane.

Here is what the author had to say about the work:
Classification: XAR
Rating: R for violence and sexual situations
Summary: Post-Gethsemane, and major changes are afoot. If there's a genre you don't like (and I think you know what I mean), stay away.

There are spoilers in the comment thread.

Let us know what you think; let the author know what you think; and please, let us know your suggestions for next time. I promise we will get back to the queue in a couple of weeks.
"Blood and Breath"

Comments

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

He moved towards her--he was going to try to carry her out. She had never quite realized how heroic he was, and it made her sad... She had a gun in each hand, and she fired until the darkness took her.

Here we get both Skinner and Scully getting to appear noble and heroic. At the same time. It doesn't happen often enough. They are both such strong people and it's good to see that strength depicted positively, not to have it diminished. So now Mulder is alive, and Scully has had her heroic death. Or has she...?

Now we discover that Scully has been cured by means of highly addictive royal jelly. The reader blinks and ponders. Well, it's better than genetically engineered fetal material anyway, isn't it? Suspending disbelief for the moment--this is the X-Files, after all--we read onwards, and watch as Scully's captors break her.

It was a perfect existence, in a way. He had the Truth, more every day. He had the power to bring justice, at least so far as the District Attorneys and the Dream Teams on the other side would let him. He had respect, and closure, and flowers for Samantha's grave. Sometimes he felt guilty that it didn't seem entirely hollow, but the quest had constituted him for years before he'd met Scully and the drive for truth was so much a part of his structure that he could not but enjoy his vindication.

Now we know things are bad. Perfection and happiness in a Rivka T story? Say it ain't so! Something extra bad has got to happen now. Something bad and good and twisted all over. Like maybe the return of Scully?

One night they sent her Mulder.

It wasn't Mulder, that much was obvious as soon as she looked at him. The posture was all wrong. The hair was too neat. He didn't smell like anything. And, most of all, there were the eyes. Mulder's eyes had been a thousand colors; they'd been credulous and lustful and teasing and horrified, shocked and outraged and suffering. But they'd never been shallow. She could see her reflection in the thing's eyes, and it terrified her.

Now, this is fascinating. It reminds me of "All the Mulders." It could have been explored more fully in a longer story, but this is probably enough.

Few writers would have had the guts to let Scully kill Olaf. Rivka builds him up as an actual person, makes him sympathetic to the reader, and then bam. Knife in the back of the neck. And then we have Scully doing a little bit of impromptu surgery. God, she's tough.

"You all want this to be a happy ending! Don't you understand, I'm not even human any more? I'm a junkie and a whore, I sold myself to keep living. I don't even want *you* knowing I'm alive, and you all don't have any idea who I used to be."

Take that, readers! You are just like the Lone Gunmen, aren't you? Happy endings are for the weak, and Dana Scully may be many things, but weak she is not...

And then we have the reunion of Scully and Mulder. A Mulder who has been in politics for a while, and thus is a little more ready to understand the necessity of moral compromises. And then, yeah, we have the healing sex. It must be a contractual requirement. Still, it isn't quite perfection.

"Not dead yet," she whispered as he cried out her name.

[continued]

[wendelah1]

And then, yeah, we have the healing sex. It must be a contractual requirement.

You are so funny. Of course it is.

Few writers would have had the guts to let Scully kill Olaf. Rivka builds him up as an actual person, makes him sympathetic to the reader, and then bam. Knife in the back of the neck.

Absolutely. This is so true. I can only think of one other moment like this offhand in fan fiction, but I'm not going to tell you what it is, in case we ever get around to reading it. It is rare, and carries even more of an impact for that reason. But why is it rare? We know Scully can be ruthless in pursuit of her goals. She shot Mulder, for heaven's sake. She is tough. I love her. I need an icon of Scully with a gun. Edited: to change the icon.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

But why is it rare? We know Scully can be ruthless in pursuit of her goals. She shot Mulder, for heaven's sake.

Good question. My instinctive feeling is that we see Scully using her gun more than Mulder does (in the show). She's a better shot than he is, and she doesn't drop it either. Yet this sort of characterization of her isn't all that frequent. Might it be that some writers have trouble identifying with this aspect of her character? These are, after all, traits that aren't usually rewarded in women.

[wendelah1]

Well, yes. This is another one of those questions that writers would probably answer similarly to readers, "if I wanted to see Scully shoot her gun, I would just watch the show." So, they focus on writing stories about things that are interesting to them. Like feelings and character development. Sigh. But not to me. Sigh. I think I am starting to see why het fic got a bad name. I just don't see why having two male characters behave like a stereotypical romantic heterosexual couple is any better. It is just as boring to me, either way. Maybe in the slash story equivalent, there would be more shooting first, then the boring sex part.

At least, the sex in this story wasn't too boring. I thought it was an interesting choice to have the sex with Skinner take place in Scully's home, in her bed, whereas the final sex scene, the "healing sex" takes place in the back seat of a car. I can kind of hear the writer's brain thinking "Take that, people! You are not getting any damn perfect sex scenes out of me." The worst sex of my life had to be car sex. That kind of undercuts the whole promoting heteronormativity aspect, too, a little bit, doesn't it? I didn't expect Scully to make Mulder pull over for sex in the parking lot of the Giant supermarket. He didn't either. Oh, and there wasn't any foreplay. She was just ready for him. I kind of cackled when I read that line. "She felt as if she'd been ready for him for a thousand years." We even get Mulder cursing when he closes the car door on his legs. Mulder is really too tall to be having sex in the back seat of what I sure hope is a full-sized sedan. Now, I guess I should talk about the Scully/Skinner sex. I think that will have to wait for later.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

So, they focus on writing stories about things that are interesting to them. Like feelings and character development. Sigh. But not to me. Sigh.

In my idealistic moments I like to think that the two aren't incompatible. I mean, the valuable part of this story is not just Scully shooting a gun, but that the way she does so tells us something important about her character and feelings at the time she does it. So I live in hope.

Maybe in the slash story equivalent, there would be more shooting first, then the boring sex part.

From the slash I've read, I think you'd get to the boring sex pretty quickly. Really I think this is an issue to do with the gender of the writers (female) rather than with the gender of the characters.

That kind of undercuts the whole promoting heteronormativity aspect, too, a little bit, doesn't it?

It definitely makes Scully the initiator in this sexual encounter. Which is why this is unusually satisfying healing sex. The healing is not something that's being done to Scully by Mulder, or Skinner, or some other man (or woman). Scully is healing herself by having sex with Mulder. Very satisfying, when you think about it.

Good analysis! You definitely highlighted that issue for me.