Stories 179-180: "The Fall of Our Summer" and "Poems" by Khyber

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

We're back into the angst, this week, with a couple of vignettes that fill in some of the blanks the previous fics have hinted at about Mulder and Scully's past assignations, and the days of their early relationship. First up is "The Fall of Our Summer", a post ep for Drive, which Kyber originally posted to xf_is_love in 2009. Second we have "Poems", a post ep for Wetwired, and the second to last instalment in the KvsS7 universe.


The Fall of Our Summer

Poems


Only one more KvsS7 fic to go. Hopefully you've been fascinated, intrigued, or otherwise drawn in by the story so far, and you'll tune in five (or so) days from now, to reach the end of the road with us.

Comments

The Fall of Our Summer 2/?

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

This is also one of those fics that I feel comes together brilliantly, all in a lurch, which is something I love, and something that Khyber does particularly well. The narrative seems almost meandering for the first two thirds of the fic, and then suddenly it's like (to follow Khyber's cosmological theme) the fuel that's keeping things stable runs out, and the entire fic (as seen through Scully) implodes into darkness and exhaustion that nothing can escape from.

When Mulder fucked her she came, every single time since
the first, and once upon a time she'd thought she was one of
those girls who just doesn't, not with someone else.

missy told her she just hadn't met the right guy yet

God, this line. It's like the dark antiparticle of what a line like this would usually be. (I'm really loving this theme, can you tell *smirk*) It's a horrible twist on the "Only Mulder can do it for her" shipperfic cliche, where only Mulder does do it for her, and it's killing her. Not that I mind that particular cliche, but I never would have even imagined that something so dark could be made of it, and in so few words.

all I know of Vicky Crump is the gaping bloody hole in her head

"Does it work?" he growled. She pulled him in closer, he liked to
feel that, feel her body pressed against him like they were really
lovers.

edematous with dead things, dead angels, blonde and burned, I have
no room left for Vicky or Patrick Crump or anything else

"I don't know anymore," she whispered over his shoulder.

When he came inside her, she wondered if a black-eyed demon born of
a corpse had a word that felt like "mommy."

SURPRISE! THE 'DRIVE' POST EP IS ALSO AN INCREDIBLY SNEAKY AND BRUTAL FTF POST EP! I must keysmash this, just for a tiny moment. sddkljsdsdlkefd! Oh for more fics like this.

TFOOS has one of my favorite last lines for a fic, and certainly one of the most horrifying.

I guess S is thinking about gestating a monster in a tank. It's a
horrifying line that reflects and magnifies the inner horror driving Scully.

I think it's about her having recently gestated an alien inside her own body, and having seen what happens to people who bring their alien 'babies' to term: they end up corpses. In fact, the aliens don't even need the body they gestate in to be alive in order to grow in it. Biologically this is natural, but to human sensibilities I think it seems horribly unnatural and like an ultimate degredation of humanity.

I also think this part of the fic is about...hmm...I suppose it's that Scully's psyche is utterly suffused with the horrors she's seen. As she says, she simply has no room left within her for any more pain or horror. There is no safe place for her, not even in her own mind or body - no 'sacred circle' she can fortify herself with or talisman of sane fact she can hold fast to (I'm considering this in relation with the future Scully of Weret Hekau). There is nothing untouched by trauma. Thus, she can't draw a seperation in her mind (or body) between herself and the alien that had begun to grow inside of her. She has been invaded in violent and unimaginable ways, and she's instinctually thinking about that. She's barren, and Mulder is coming inside of her, and she's wondering if an alien, which destroys the life it grows inside of, has a concept of what a mother is.

Re: The Fall of Our Summer 2/?

[wendelah1]

I also think this part of the fic is about...hmm...I suppose it's that Scully's psyche is utterly suffused with the horrors she's seen. As she says, she simply has no room left within her for any more pain or horror. There is no safe place for her, not even in her own mind or body - no 'sacred circle' she can fortify herself with or talisman of sane fact she can hold fast to (I'm considering this in relation with the future Scully of Weret Hekau). There is nothing untouched by trauma. Thus, she can't draw a seperation in her mind (or body) between herself and the alien that had begun to grow inside of her. She has been invaded in violent and unimaginable ways, and she's instinctually thinking about that. She's barren, and Mulder is coming inside of her, and she's wondering if an alien, which destroys the life it grows inside of, has a concept of what a mother is.

This is the best reading of this line that I can imagine. It blows me away, really, it does, but it makes the story even grimmer.