That Cold, Dark Place Or, Ode to a Vacuum Cleaner by bellefleur Warning: Here be spoilers. Maybe. Email: bellefleur1013@yahoo.com Disclaimer: Chris, if this the revival!Mulder that you want, and the revival!Scully that put him there, then you can have them. Author's notes: The only "spoilers" here are from the Entertainment Weekly article (July 3, 2015). I don't think this is really the way it is going to go down in the show, but this pretty much sums up my mood for most of this last week or two, in light of the *other* spoilers we've had. The article says Mulder is in a dark, dark place. I've been right there with him. I hope that's not where I am on January 24. This is all in good fun. Come wallow in the darkness with us. ************ ************ Mulder knew he had an unnatural attachment to the vacuum cleaner. But it was all he had left of her. It had been a joke, really, in the beginning. Scully always complained that he never cleaned anything around the house, even though he was there alone all day. He made some smart-ass remark about needing a manly vacuum with a long hose. On his next birthday, she bought him a vacuum cleaner. They both laughed over it, but he took the hint, and he vacuumed, on occasion. Mostly when the sunflower seed husks began to stick to his bare feet, or when it was a prelude to a shave, a candlelit dinner, and hopefully more. Now, the vacuum sat cold and dark, like the rest of the house. Like her empty office. Like the bedroom that he hadn't stepped foot in since the day she left. It sat here in the living room, like a trophy from another life, collecting dust. He didn't use the vacuum anymore. He couldn't--the bag was full. And he couldn't bring himself to empty the bag. He couldn't throw away what remained of her in there, of their life together. In it were the dust bunnies from underneath their shared bed, the shards of a plate that had dropped to the floor unforgotten in their passionate tryst in the kitchen, the red-gold strands of her hair that scattered themselves about the house like fairy dust. And so he lay on the worn couch, in the dim, waning daylight, staring at the vacuum, and hoping that she would come home. ***** They say you're crazy if you talk to yourself, but what if you talk to your vacuum cleaner? Is it better if it's an upright? This was the depth of the philosophical questions that Mulder pondered these days. The vacuum had become his only companion, of sorts. It didn't quite have a face, unless you squinted at it sideways. But he did perch a hat on it, which gave it a little personality. He'd taken to calling it the Sucker, but sometimes he wasn't sure if that was his nickname for the vacuum or the vacuum's nickname for him. Sometimes he could hear it echoing back to him, when he spit out the name, in the darkness. Sucker. They had a lot in common, the two of them. Neither one of them worked anymore. Neither one of them left this room. Neither of them had much of a purpose. Yet they both sucked. Seemed like they were made for each other--soul mates. So Mulder talked to the Sucker. Offered it sunflower seeds. Tossed a Nerf ball at it, hoping for some action. But the Sucker remained stoic, silent, passive aggressive to the last. Mulder once theorized that the Sucker was really a type of black hole, consuming all the light in the room, in the house, in the universe, in his soul. It had sucked and sucked and sucked every ounce of goodness out of him until there was nothing left. No light. No hope. Nothing but the two of them, sitting alone in the dark. ***** "Did I ever tell you about the time I took a ride on a spaceship?" Mulder lay sprawled on the couch, bouncing a ball off the edge of the vacuum cleaner. As usual, the Sucker was giving him the silent treatment, but he'd grown accustomed to that. "Or, hey, how about the time I was six feet under? That was a real downer, so to speak." This was his favorite album--Mulder's greatest hits. The lowest of the lowlights in his life. "How 'bout the time Scully finally left me? Now, that was a day to remember." But, of course, it was a day he could never forget. How long ago had that been now? A week? A month? A year? He'd lost track. Time stood still, and he'd lost a lot more than nine minutes. Nine minutes. The memories came rushing back, like water rushing down from the sky. *We lost nine minutes!* No! He couldn't let himself remember. Not that. Not the happier times. Not the timber of her voice, or the tilt of her eyebrow, or the fire of her hair. Not the softness of her skin or the steel of her spirit. Not that. Anything but that. He tossed the ball away, somewhere into the dust and the shadows. Where was that bottle? His hand groped desperately around the floor until it found purchase on the cold, hard glass. He tipped the bottle to his lips and drained what little was left. He buried his face in his arm and let the tears come. From his outstretched, limp hand, the empty bottle fell to the floor. It rolled, rolled, rolled to a stop as it hit the foot of the vacuum. His quiet, constant, and only, companion. ***** "Sunflower seed?" Silence. "Is that a no?" The Sucker gave no reply. Mulder shrugged and popped the seed in his mouth. He wasn't really sure why he had a lifetime supply of these things. Sunflower seeds were about the only thing he ate anymore, since he was down to these and a few cans of Spam. And the MREs stashed away in the basement, tucked away for doomsday. But those were only for people who wanted to survive. A disembodied voice once told him that it was amazing, the persistence of life. The will to live. Why else would he be here? There was nothing to live for, and yet he kept going, day, after day, after day. He kept breathing. He kept waking up. And he kept hurting, with a pain that ran to his core. It was the only way he knew for sure he was still alive. Was he clinging to a hope? A hopeless hope? Is that what kept him going? It certainly had kept him going year after year, chasing after a little girl who lived on only in his imagination. But she was gone now, buried somewhere in his psyche. Another had once taken her place, but he knew she would never die. She would go on living. Without him. Another place, another life, another man. The pain--there it was again. Bone deep. So deep. It was his pulse, his life force. It was all he had left. Well, that, and the vacuum cleaner. ***** Sometimes he wondered why the lights still came on. He hadn't paid an electricity bill in who knows how long. He hadn't paid any bill. He hadn't picked up the mail, or answered the phone. There hadn't been a good reason. But the lights still came on, when he bothered to flip the switch. And the water still ran, when he bothered to walk to the kitchen and turn on the faucet. Automatic billing, probably. The bills would keep sucking, sucking, sucking his account dry until it was as used up and desiccated as the ancient pizza crust on the coffee table. He didn't know if he still had internet, since he hadn't been online in forever. The vacuum would still work, if he plugged it in. But he didn't. He couldn't. He didn't want to clean up and move on. He was a pig in a sty, and he wanted to wallow. He was stuck in the mud. The television probably still worked, but the screen was papered over in notes and articles and useless nonsense that once had seemed so important to him. Now it was too meaningless for him to put the effort into removing it. Another exhibit in the museum of Fox Mulder's Pitiful Life. He should sell tickets. It might help pay the bills. He wished he had darts to throw. He pulled back his arm in imaginary aim. The first one he would toss at the poster. That stupid poster. I Want to Believe. But believe in what? *Believe in what, Mulder? If this is the truth that you've been looking for, then what is left to believe in?* "Ha!" He surprised himself with his bitter outburst--it was the first time he'd heard a human voice in days. "What is left, indeed?" he rasped. The second dart would be aimed straight for the file cabinet. But he didn't have a dart, so he threw a sunflower seed instead. It arced and dropped far short of its goal. The X- Files. Those precious, precious files. He was still trying to reconstruct them. He'd spent years trying to reconstruct what had been taken from him, burned to the ground, trampled and mocked. He was still trying to rebuild the past. Before. Before it was all gone. The third dart--he picked up a seed. The third dart was aimed for the Sucker. But no, not that. Not the one friend he had left in the world. The one who always stood by him. Who never left his side. This was a commitment, strong and sure. "Till death us do part." ***** Fire. It had been on his mind a lot lately. He wasn't sure why. Fire and ashes. Maybe because his life had gone up in flames. He used to be deathly afraid of fire. Maybe he still was. He couldn't be sure. It had been a long time since that had been tested. Fire could be purifying, or destructive. It could be tamed, or wildly out of control. It was power, pure, raw power. It could warm, and enlighten, and consume. Her hair was that color. The color of fire. He tried not to remember, but this memory was etched into his soul. He had reached out and touched the flame, and he had been burned. The power had gone out last night. At first, he thought it was permanent. The money finally ran out, and the bills would no longer be paid. But then it flickered on, and off, and then it came on and stayed. A storm had been raging, he vaguely remembered. He'd barely noticed. There was an emergency kit, somewhere, with candles and matches, and other necessities. Bandages, probably. Bottled water. Maybe a radio, or some batteries. A survival kit. He could use one of those, he guessed, when the lights finally went out for good. It might be in the kitchen, or in the bathroom. No--it was upstairs. It was definitely upstairs, in the bedroom. That was that, then. Upstairs it would stay. What is up does not have to come down. He'd defied many other laws; he could defy gravity as well. Fire and ashes. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. The dust was everywhere. He didn't sweep it, didn't wipe it, didn't vacuum it. It collected on every surface, including him. That's what the gray was, he figured. Little by little it had worked its way through his hair until he was more gray than black and white. Sapped of his color. He could use the hose, he suddenly thought. The hose on the vacuum. It could suck the gray away, the dust and the ashes, until he was fresh and new again. But no. It was full. There was no room left for him. Sucker. ***** He'd finally found the matches. In the dark, no less. Apparently the power outage wasn't due to the storm. Or maybe it was. Either way, the lights had gone out. The house had gone cold. He could've seen his breath, if anything could be seen. In the dim daylight squeezing past the heavy, dusty curtains, he could see shadows and outlines. Some he didn't recognize, but there was one he would know anywhere. The Sucker. The matches had been in the kitchen, in a drawer by the stove. He remained true to his vow--he hadn't gone upstairs. There wasn't much left up there anyway. Maybe some of his clothes. Dusty, moth-eaten. Musty, mildewy. Old. Definitely gray. Sitting now on the couch, he struck a match. It flared to life, bringing sudden color to the gray. Holding it up before his face, he watched the blaze, mesmerized. The flame blackened as it went, charring all in its wake. The heat singed his fingers, and he quickly blew out the flame. He hadn't thought about it first, just reacted--it was instinct. He didn't fear the flame, he realized. He didn't fear the pain, but he recoiled from it. It was only natural. But he feared being burned. He feared being consumed, blackened, leaving nothing behind but ashes. But fire could also purify. It could clear the way for a new beginning. It could clean up the dross and the filth in a way nothing else could. He stood and took a look around his murky surroundings. The poster could stay. And the files. The videos. The articles. The husks and the broken pencils. But a commitment was a commitment, and some bonds were too strong ever to be broken. "You're sticking with me, kid." With one hand on the vacuum cleaner, Mulder headed for the front door. He paused in the doorway only long enough to take one glance back. And then he lit a match. ***** Epilogue Mulder couldn't understand why the woman at the Delta counter was looking at him so strangely. He chose to ignore it. "Two tickets to Phoenix, please." Her eyes flicked next to him, then back to his face. "What are the names on the tickets?" "Fox Mulder, and--" he paused to look over at his flying companion--"The Sucker." Yes, he and his vacuum cleaner were closer than most, but after everything they had been through together--you just don't walk away from that kind of partnership. ************ ************ Notes: Well, this fic has officially gone down in flames. And that, folks, is what you get when you mix a little bit of depression with a little bit of wine and a whole lot of sleep deprivation. Enter the muse, and it's a toxic, caustic combination. Now, can we finally get some happy, shippy spoilers? Please? Like, they live happily ever after? (Mulder and Scully, I mean, not Mulder and the vacuum cleaner.)