xf_book_club | Story 218: "An Influence of Stars" by JET

I didn't think it had been that long since I last posted here, but I see LiveJournal has changed the posting format. Again. Well, I guess we'll see how it goes. It looks like I have to insert my own paragraph breaks now. Lovely. Or maybe I can't make them at all?

This story was suggested by estella_c. It has a holiday component; however, merry it's not. But it's jetfic so it's well-written, original, poignant, etc.

Summary: "When stars are in the quiet sky, the most I pine for thee," —Edward Buward Lytton. Or Mulder and Scully at bedtime. Overall, it's less smutty than it sounds. (Sorry)

Category: Oddness, M/S. Post-ep For a Good Portion of Season Seven in Fewer Than 13 Pages With Less Than a Point Than Usual.

Spoilers: Yes, through "All Things."

The author is still on LiveJournal so you can pm her feedback. I believe her email is current. The link is to her old site, waybacked, but this story is also available at Gossamer under Jesemie's Evil Twin.

Let us know what you think and please keep the suggestions coming.

Read "An Influence of Stars" (way-backed) | "An Influence of Stars" (Goss, scroll to story) | "An Influence of Stars" (LJ)

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Well, I suggested this, so I have to say something. But it's hard to explain my fascination with this story because it's a type of story I don't usually favor: floaty, dreamy (yes), really a cluster of vignettes rather than a plotted tale. But the imagery has seduced me. A lifelong SF buff, I'm fond of stars. They're sort of my personal insignia (so personal no one knows about it; I once mentioned it to my sister and she said, okay, she was going to adopt the carob cluster as hers; private joke; too private?)

Moving on, An Influence of Stars is a wonderful cluster of vignettes, iridescent like a cluster of soap bubbles, linked just so delicately by the stars on the ceiling and the threatening stars in the sky that make The X-Files, after all, a piece of science fiction as well as a cop show and a romance. The references to various episodes, the time-hopping, is carefully done, and I absolutely love the opening, in which you are in mortal terror that Mulder has somehow been imprisoned in a fake domestic existence that forbids him Scully--remembering then that of course, in dreams, he was. I loved the description of the cathedral windows and later the Christmas allusion and, well, both Christmas and Hanukkah being light festivals the story gives me a holiday glow that shopping can't touch. It's all very personal, I guess.

JET is, of course, a very good writer, but I couldn't stay with her fiction permanently. It's not dramatic or physical enough for me, and I start to experience the sort of impatience that so many feel with Penumbra's Parabiosis. But that's okay. Other fic is for the future. AIOS is for this twinkling time of year.

A lifelong SF buff, I'm fond of stars. They're sort of my personal insignia (so personal no one knows about it; I once mentioned it to my sister and she said, okay, she was going to adopt the carob cluster as hers; private joke; too private?)

I did not know that but now I do.

Moving on, An Influence of Stars is a wonderful cluster of vignettes, iridescent like a cluster of soap bubbles, linked just so delicately by the stars on the ceiling and the threatening stars in the sky that make The X-Files, after all, a piece of science fiction as well as a cop show and a romance. The references to various episodes, the time-hopping, is carefully done, and I absolutely love the opening, in which you are in mortal terror that Mulder has somehow been imprisoned in a fake domestic existence that forbids him Scully--remembering then that of course, in dreams, he was.

I love the opening, too, probably because Diana is in it. As the story moves on, I get distracted by worrying whether Scully would let anyone put stars on her ceiling and then once I've let that go, reluctantly, at trying to figure out how her little nephews could possibly have gotten them up there in the first place: "He does. The ceiling is patterned with star-stickers radiating pale green..." Huh?

But the story gets better by the ending. I actually love the sex in this story. It's not lacking in physicality at all. I rarely relate to the sex in fanfiction: It's too phallocentric for my taste, whether slash or het, and mostly too formulaic: kissing, breasts, oral sex, Scully comes, insert tab B into slot A, she comes again, then so does he. It's so conventional and so boring.

But the sex in this story is completely focused on her: her pleasure, her needs and desires. His are barely mentioned despite being told from Mulder's POV. I find this highly erotic.

He smoothly slides his fingers back inside her, the sight of his hand
between her legs more erotic than anything he's ever seen. She's wet
and soft and tight, gorgeous dark auburn curls parted to show the dark
pink slick flesh. He spreads her, and she grinds into his palm. He can
feel the hard knot of her clitoris against the heel of his hand. He
wants to make her come like this first, wants to see the flush spread up
her radiant flesh, her head tipped back, throat exposed like a
sacrifice.

She's so close, and she knows what he's doing. She braces her hands on
his stomach to balance herself, then lets her arms hang at her sides.
She watches him, permission and desire in her eyes.

He feels her muscles tighten, her breathing catch. So close--

He grabs one of her hands and kneads it, paints a star on her palm over
and over with his thumb. Her hand flexes open and trembles, and he
doesn't release it when she comes, contracting around his fingers. She
collapses a little, kisses him and tastes darker, more addictive.

I doubt that there is a man alive who would have the presence of mind to trace the shape of a star on his lover's palm even once at this juncture, let alone over and over, but by this point I hardly care. She keeps this reader right in the moment along with the lovers. I've usually hit the back button long ago.

Thank you for the rec. I'm surprised it got so few comments.

Story 218: "An Influence of Stars" by JET

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