Z! A Scully Love Story
[1999]
Fandom: The X-Files
Title: Z! A Scully Love Story
PenName: Empress Vader
Character(s): Scully
Paring(s):
Rating: G
Summary: Scully reflects back on falling in love when she was fourteen.
Notes: spoilers for the episode “Never Again”
Warning(s):
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by the wonderfully talented Chris Carter.
I was almost killed, it keeps running through my mind. And almost killed because Mulder’s “do you have a date” Scully made it sound like it was the most impossible occurance on the planet Earth. So I showed him up by going out with Ed Jerse and almost got killed. Had I asked for Ed Jerse? Wanted someone like him the same way I wanted Z. Z, I haven’t thought about him in awhile.
He came into my life with that first puff. I stole the ciggarete two days ago, getting a thrill out of just having the thing. But like a siren, it called me to smoke it. Of course, like most, I gagged and coughed till I was blue in the face that first time, but it didn’t stop me. This was only a challege to master it without such effects. So I continued on the porch, in my pink pajamas, wearing a flanel robe and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers while the house slept. But my high outweighed my silly apparel. And that high was not a product of the nicotine, much like having stealing the cigarette, the thrill was in the forbidden, the mysterious, the unknown.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed little Scully,” a voice rattled in the shadows.
I quickly tried to put out the cigarette, nearly falling off my perch on the step before I recognized the voice as that of Z. I sighed in relief, but was still angry at him for ruining my experiment with ciggarettes.
“Shouldn’t you be at home Mr. Z,” I replied. Z had been derived from his last name Zalinsky. Often the only one in his class with a Z in his last name, a teacher of his had begun calling him Mr. Z. His friends caught on and soon everyone was calling him Z.
“I didn’t know you were so saucy little Scully,” Z shot back, winking at me.
Well that did it, the wink had me blushing and I was praying that the darkness around him would keep him from seeing.
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” I said shaking the ashes from my Pajamas and turning my bunny slippers toward the door.
I think I had retained a cool demeanor, but the truth be told, I was crazy about Z and he had winked at me. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t think, Z was my god. Unfortunatly, he was a seventeen year old high school student and I was still a fourteen year old girl, barely graduated from the ranks of junior high. However, as I snuck back to my room, my mind was filled with Z. His image was etched in my mind, that long black hair that his father constantly told him to cut, his slim form that bespoke grace with each step, those unknown mysterious eyes that had remained hidden behind those smoked glasses for as long as I could remmeber, and that leather jacket. It seemed tailored to fall just right on his body, to fit his personality, but he in fact had picked it up for five dollars at a garage sale. I only knew this because he and my sister Melissa had been going out at the time.
No more hell was raised in outr house than when those two were dating. Lucky for me, that was long over. My crush on Z was never shared with my sister, but she figured it out. She knew me better than I ever gave her credit for. My big brother Bill had no patience for Z, dating bhis sister or not. I think Bill was just mad that Z didn’t worship him the way he had when they were younger. Before Charles was born, Z had been his surrogate little brother. He was obviously jealouse when Z decided hanging out with his sister was more stimulating than hanging out with him.
Before going back to bed, I stole another ciggarette. If the first one brought Z to me, I couldn’t wait to smoke another. The next morning, I sat through breakfast with it in my pocket sure someone would see the outline of it or somehow catch something was off about me and find it. Z was our resident bad boy so before the falling out with his father, I imagin this is how Z felt. Like he was on the edge of trouble, pushing his limits just to see when they would snap, if they would snap.
After school, I found a quiet place and smoked my second cigarette. I didn’t gag or cough, but it was still the forbidden nature that excited me more than anything. And again, as if beakoned by the smoke, he appeared.
“You know these things can become very addicting little Scully,” he said with that seductive smile.
“Why do call me little Scully.”
“Because your Missy’s little sister.”
“Charles is the baby, not me.”
“Yes, I know,” Z said reaching out to pull the ciggarette from my mouth, his finger brushing my lips. I always pin point that as my first erotic momment, because just the feel of Z’s finger brushing my lip, sent shivers from the point of contact to the base of my spine and back again. He took a few puffs before he handed it back to me.
“So, How long have you been smoking?”
“Counting today? This is my second one,” I admitted reluctantly.
“Why do you do it?”
“I don’t know, just because I want to.”
“Are you sure there’s no reason?” Z asked as he removed the smoked glassed I thought unremovable.
My first view of his true eyes had me frizled. They were green, beautiful emerald green eyes like his mother, rest in peace. I could have melted the moment, the masterpeice that was my god had been completed. I prayed I wasn’t looking as stunned as I felt.
“Little Scully, it’s your choice, now that you’ve tempted yourself, you can either step forward or back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you planning for this to lead you back or forward.”
“Neither, just experimenting.”
“And what else would you like to experiment with little Scully,” he replied, almost hissing the S in my name. A sudden warmth flushed my over me, little Scully was easily becoming my favorite term of endearment. It wasn’t as if he was making fun of my age or my height, just creativly finding a way to identify me. But I knew I was just a little sister type to him, if he identified me in relation to my sister. Though my actual big brother would have killed me for stealing a ciggarete, let alone smoking it.
“Are you up for an adventure little Scully?” he asked presenting his hand. I put out my ciggarette and took it before my brain fully processed the action. Amazingly, his hand was soft, really soft and warm. For some reason, I expected the hands of this forbidden man to be corse and hard. But it was as warm and soft as a newborn.
We walked in silence to an abandoned house that had been deamned haunted by us all. No one went there on purpose, kids rode their bikes a little faster when they went by it. I myself had crashed into another bike rushing past. The broken bike still sat in the garage. But Melissa, who’s secrets I held like treasures, had went in with Z and lost her virginity. She said that Z had brought her hear, challeged her to face her fear, and then taken her in a moment of pure passion. Melissa didn’t have much joy in her voice on the subject of Z anymore, except when recalling that moment.
“Did Missy tell you about this place?”
“I already know all the ghost stories.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”
“Well I figure she wouldn’t have told her brothers or her father. And your mother doesn’t seem like the type to discuss those type of things. So I figure she told her tough little sister.”
“Tough.”
“Sometimes Missy feels left out, you and the boys. You’re the little apple of your father ‘s eye. You wanted to learn to sail, to do whatever the boys did. She’s jealous of that bond between you and him. You even have your own little nicknames.”
“She’s not jealous,” I said really doubting anything he said. I was the one who was jealous, my sister was free I was jailed by my own need to be accepted by my father and my brothers. What did Z think I was rebeling?
“Dana,” a voice yelled in the distance. I didn’t recognize the shrill, sharp, almost disciplinary like tone as belonging to Melissa right away. And when I did I was quite surprise, only dad, Bill, and mom had ever exbited this tone before.
“Dana, what are you doing?” she asked ripping my hand from Z’s.
“Nothing,” I replied as innocently as possible.
“Nothing? Here, with him?”
“You’re not mom”
“Well, I’m sure mom or DAD wouldn’t approve of him, or this,” Melissa said pulling the ciggarette from my pocket.
Despite becoming a Melissa I didn’t know, I was glad it was her dragging me home and not dad. It turned out she had smelled the smoke on me when I snuck back in bed that night. She didn’t say anything else about Z on the way home or that evening. So I thought the issue had been dropped. But that night when Melissa and I were alone in the room, he came up again.
“I know the look, I had it,” she said softly.
“What look?”
“Your flirting with danger and it’s a high. And with each high, you just want to go further, because you need to top the last just to feel the same. Dana, he’s intracing, I know, but. . .”
“But what?”
“Your not ready for him.”
She was just jealous. Stay away from Z? He came to me and I liked it. Telling me to stay away now was like letting me lick a lolly pop then telling me never to eat sweets again. I couldn’t do it.
I was restless that night, tossing and turning. Kicking off my covers, pulling them on. Staring at the clock, thinking hours had passed only to discover it was minutes. As soon as I was sure Melissa was asleep I jumped out of bed and put on jeans and a t-shirt. And I rarely wore wore jeans. Completing the quick outfit with sneakers, I stole a couple ciggarettes and left the house. I swiped my brother’s bike and headed right for the haunted house. I have yet to figure out what motivated me to any of these actions. I knew if my brother found out I had taken his bike, he would kill me. That only uped the stakes of my gamble with danger.
Though I could only admit it to myself, being alone in the dark scared me. I had only been facing that fear recently. But tonight, I was daring fear to make me run. I needed to go in that house, to know what my rational mind already knew, there were no ghost.
In the light of day, beside Z, our resident haunted house had looked like nothing. But in even at a distance, the darkness that sorounded it was spooky, haunting, erie, all those things that make haunted houses crown their names. All it was missing was some hundred year old owner that children would crown a witch. Many proclaimed creepy sounds had come from the home, especially around Halloween.
“Boo,” a voice said, giving me a jolt. Z laughed as he skateboarded around me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard his approach.
“Z, you nearly made me fall off my brother’s bike”
“Did I?”
“How did you know I would be here?”
“How did you know I would?”
“So little Scully, are you going on or are you afraid of ghost?”
“I’m not afraid of ghost, I don’t believe in them.”
“Can I tell you a story little Scully?”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s the same story your sister told you, except from my lips.”
As he said the word lips, my eyes were glued to his.
“Tell me the story,” I finally said. He presented me with his soft hand again. I took it and stepped away from my brother’s bike. Knowing it would proably hit the ground and wind up scratched. Their was this energy transferred between us through that contact. All I knew and cared about was this moment with him.
“Your sister and I talked about it all the time, going inside the “haunted” house. First we just kind of walked past it slowly, always during the day. We’d talk about how much we feared it when we were little kids and pretend we didn’t still fear it.”
He walked me toward the steps of the house. My legs turned to jelly with each step, both because of the thrill of being with him, my own immature irrational fear of the place, and from the idea of doing something forbidden. I was with Z, an older guy, the troublemaker my father didn’t want near his girls. We stopped at the steps and sat down.
“Then we statarted sitting on these steps, talking about all the “evil” stories we heard about this house and how rediculose some of them were, laughing at it. We always had one eye one the door, expecting something to rush at us or chase us away.”
Melissa had never told me about these baby steps, she had made it seem like they just challenged the house one day. Burst in, taken the bull by the horns, and errupted into passion.
“Are you ready little Scully?”
“For what?” I said shocked at this up front invitation.
“To go inside? That’s what you came here for.”
I gulped.
“Sink or swim little Scully.”
“Swim,” I yelled and ran into the house before I lost my nerve. But once I was inside, I asked myself what in the hell I was doing. I was tapped on the shoulder and yelled before rationalizing that Z must have came in behind me. He pulled out a flashlight.
“There’s nothing in here Dana. You know that, but because of the way it’s dressed you afraid.” Z flashed the light around the house. “See, kitchen, living room, a few bedrooms upstairs. Nothing that isn’t in any house.”
He took my hand and walked me into the living room, where the firniture time forgot lay drapped in white sheets. He flashed the light on a family potrait over the fireplace.
“Some family lived here years ago. Just like yours or mine. Kids once laughed and played in that back yard. A mom cooked in that abandoned kitchen. Perhaps the parents danced in this living room. Right about now, the mom and dad were probably curled up in bed, making love or just cuddling with each other. The kids were tucked safely in their beds, dreaming of magic faries.” He felt me relax in his hand as he told the tale.
“You definatly not Melissa, she took hours to get comfortable. Maybe she never quite got comfortable. I was here on a mission, to find out if there were monsters in places like this. But it’s all dressing, just like my family, my dad. Melissa wanted out. But I wasn’t finsihed exploring, so to calm her down, I kissed her. She was like ‘no, not here’. I said, ‘let go of the fear. It’s just an old house and nobody’s home.’ She wasn’t convinced, so I decided to tell her a real monster story, making her swear never to tell another soul. See, what I found out is monsters don’t live here, but somewhere else. The place I always thought they did.”
Z handed the flashlight to me. He took off the jacket and I heard the heavy leather hit the floor. Then he began to lift his shirt and my face flushed all over again. He turned his back to me as the shirt went over his head and on his back were bruises and lashes.
“Oh my God,” I said reaching out to inspect the scar, careful not to hurt him as I touched it. “Do they still hurt?”
“No,” Z sighed. “He can’t hurt me anymore. Even if he hits me, I finally understand he’s the monster.” Z smiled at me. “You looked so concerned. Are you thinking of being a doctor?”
“No,” I laughed, at the time the thought was rediculose.
“You should be. Your hands are gentle.”
I blushed at the comment.
“Did your father do this?” I asked.
“Yes, he did it. I was never good enough for him.” Z sighed and sat on the old couch. “I wanted to be a man little Scully. I knew if I felt like a man, I could take it. And I thought somehow sleeping with a girl would make me a man. I mean, isn’t that what guys always boast about. I took advantage of your sister. She felt sorry for me and she was vunerable. There are real monsters and there are haunted houses. So why your testing your limits, never forget that you’re still vunrable and little monsters they don’t live in haunted houses, their packaging isn’t that obvious.”
“Are you a monster or a haunted house.”
“Haunted house. I’m doing my best to look cracked, but I’m really harmless. Hoping my window dressing will be enough to convince people othewise.”
I stared into the eyes of my god and finally saw him as a human, a boy on the brink of manhood. An injured puppies who had problems just like anybody else. Unlike myself, maybe even Melissa, he wasn’t looking for a thrill. He was looking for an escape. And what he was escaping was a mountain was a molehill compared to my small problems. Then I saw the survivor. I reached out and hugged him, I felt he needed it more than anything else. He returned my affection, with his strong arms and I drowned in this simple intimacy. Had he ever hugged Melissa like this? I wouldn’t ask, it wasn’t I appropriate.
“Why did you tell me?” I whispered in his ear.
“I saw where you were going, I just wanted you to realize that there are worse problems then the ones your running from, so have fun, but step carefully.”
We broke our embrace. Z had saved me from being used from some guy using my fliritation with danger against me, the way he had Melissa. He saved me from myself. His revelation made me respect my father even more for being able to lay down the law, without laying a fist or anything else upon us. Sure we made our mistakes, but he never resorted to that.
Our eyes never left each other. I wanted to kiss him, just because I wanted him to be that first kiss. So I leaned in to kiss him and he pushed me away.
“Your doing this out of pity.”
“No I’m not, I’m doing this because I finally see you, the person. You’re a survivor Z.”
I leaned in again, hoping he’d let me kiss him. But gave me pause by placing a finger to my lips.
“Little Scully, Let them come to you. Never show them you weak for them or they already have you.”
I smiled and he came to me, touching my lips ever so gently with his. I let him lead, though I wanted to take control. But I could only hold out for so long, the new sensation was driving me wild. So I attempted to match his kiss. Needless to say, Z taught me things about making out that night that would ruin me for many a boy. But making out is all we did. Z wouldn’t allow it to go any futher.
We smoked the ciggarettes I stole before I went home that night. And when I finally did go home, I had been completely transformed. I had started my journey to womanhood. I had awaken my sexuality.
And learned a leason about the true monsters of the world. I always thought the people who did things like Z’s dad had done, lived in slums or grew up in crime families. I never looked at Z’s father the same. I never looked at the world the same. I never looked at myself the same.
I hung out with Z for the next two days and then he disappeared. When I found out he was gone, I was grief stricken. Only Melissa made the connection to Z. I think the incident brought us closer.
I saw Z again when I was attending Medical School. He had a wife and a little girl named Katherine. I didn’t even know he knew my first name, let alone my middle name, yet he named his little girl after me. He said he wanted her to have my spirit. At the time he was a conselor for battered wives and abused children.
I think Z is more like Mulder than he ever was like Ed Jerse. Sure they were all injured puppies trying to act like big bad wolves. But like Z, just when I thought I knew Mulder he showed me some new trick. Just when I thought I knew the extent of his pain, I found out it ran deeper. And I like the fact he calls me Scully, it somehow feels connected to that sexual peak in my life. And Mulder has a way of saying Scully that is quite seductive. Z said let them come to you, but it was Ed who came to me in a moment of frustration. Yet, at the end of the day I’m still waiting for Mulder.
