His voice is a razor blade, sharp and delicate between his teeth, full of purpose and edging against her fragility with careful preciseness. Her answer is formed in her brain before she even has time to think it properly, an automatic response that she knows is nothing more than programming. It hurts even her to say it; she knows it will hurt him even more. Still, she speaks, just as careful and armed with the same razor blade he offered her.
“I can do anything you want me to, Agent Mulder. I am your property, and therefore at your disposal.” It’s a phrase practically ripped from the CyberLife handbook, a routine program that prevents humans from feeling too uneasy with their androids. But that here is the issue. She wants him to feel at ease, she wants him to feel comfortable. She wants to be her. But she is not, no matter how hard she tries. So she doesn’t. She fails and doesn’t attempt to fix it. Instead, she follows through.
“Would you like to kiss me, Mulder?”
In the moment he is caught up in a web of deception, blind from all morals that he himself has put in place for his own life, and telling himself that none of this is real. No one has to know. Uncanny are the words that ground him spoken in the same voice as the woman who is his rock, though. And since she is not Scully, the words sting even more like salt in the wound. Maybe if the response hadn’t been so perfectly constructed and programmed into her he’d have kissed her.
“I can’t.” Mulder squeezes his eyes closed, fighting against his own body. Everything in him wants to touch her, his hands tingle and beg in contrast. He’s weak and if he doesn’t turn her down now he’ll give in. “I can’t.” Maybe saying it again will do the tick, he thinks. Or maybe he says it to convince himself. Mulder cannot ground himself, cannot even trust himself; that’s why he needs Scully. Reason, faith, and harmony- That’s why they’re perfect together.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. Not like this.” It pains him to say, but it also lets him live another day without feeling immense guilt.
stormborns
yousharknotpass
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
areudirty
