But it's not just sight and the vagaries of our perception and processing that
spark that acknowledgment of rightness, that knowing within ourselves that the
person coming towards us, standing next to us or even calling to us is friend,
lover or family. Humans, for all that we think we are above the natural world
with our technology and sentience, are governed by those same rules, those same
laws that the animals we so look down upon from our lofty perch of overweening
arrogance and supposed superiority are. To truly be able to mark a friend or foe
we must use the senses that we have been provided with, to use the tools that
Nature has given us for this very purpose.
And sight is simply one of those tools.
It wasn't until I got him in my bed that I realised how narrow my world was, how
sterile and grey. I'd always been so caught up in my own mind, my own search,
that my mental needs had overtaken the physical needs. The search for the truth,
for answers, had been my religion, my Grail, and it was the only thing that I
had been faithful to for a very long time. But the reality is that it's no way
to live your life. It's no way for anyone to live their life, let alone me,
because it cuts you off from yourself, leaving you with this constantly nagging
sense that things could be better, that there must be something out there that
will make them better.
You're probably wondering where the hell I'm going with this. Rolling your eyes
and pulling that face of yours that plainly says, 'Mulder, will you please get
to the point, so I can get out of here?' Well, Scully, what I'm trying to tell
you is this—I'm living. For the first time in my life I don't have that
nagging sense that things could be better. I feel like things are finally
settling into place. I won't say that I feel whole, there are too many shattered
pieces I still have to fit back into the whole, but at least I feel like I have
a chance of actually getting them back together.
I know that you probably don't want to hear this but I need to tell you. It's
probably going to be way too much information for you but just bear with me,
okay? There's a point here that I'm trying to make, so don't skip through.
There'll be a pop quiz next time we talk and if you can't answer, I'll be
pissed.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Recognition.
Before all of this happened I was getting to the point that nothing mattered but
my search. The truth I'd been hunting for so long was the only lover I had and
it was an abusive bitch. I never really thought of myself as a masochist but
looking back on it now I realise that I was totally entrapped by my own guilt,
by my own failure, that I sought out the pain, the violence, the anger—the
goddamn, fucking truth—as a way to try and absolve myself of all the things
that I saw as being my fault. It's only now that I realise that while there will
always be actions and their consequences that I was, and am, responsible for,
there are also a number that I'm not. The pity is that the majority of those are
the ones that shaped my life, that shaped me into becoming the man that I am.
Like I was saying before, sight is only one of the tools we've been given. We've
four more senses that Nature provided us with to help guide our way, and it's
sad to say that we've really let a couple of those go in our evolutionary
journey to this point. And I, more than most, had let some of them go in me
pursuit of knowledge.
I know you always wondered why I had those tapes you always teased me about. I
bet you always thought that it was because I was a typical, well maybe not
typical, but at least a lonely man with a dirty mind, didn't you? I wish that
had been the truth. The innuendoes, the dirty jokes—just another outlet for my
perverse and perverted nature, right? Wrong. I was trying to make myself feel
something. I'd gotten so caught up in my own head that the only satisfaction I
could get was from the mental kick, not the physical one. And I always used to
get a hell of a shock when a woman managed to provoke a physical response. Is
probably why it always seemed like my brain had dribbled out my ears when it
happened.
I'm not saying that I couldn't get it up, I'm just saying that it was muted.
Hell, everything was muted because I was so focused on what was going on in my
head. Probably one of the reasons I managed to cope with the number of injuries
I've had over the years as well. Have you ever had someone touch a scar? Trace
the line of it and ask you what it feels like? You know how the feeling of it is
kind of ticklish but it's more from the pressure of it not the touch itself?
That's what the physical world used to feel like for me. I could work through
pain because it was almost peripheral, it was only every once in a while that
something would break through and then it would impact with more velocity than
normal.
Even sex was like that. When you can watch porn and not even jerk off because it
doesn't stir you in the slightest, it should be an indication that something is
wrong but I was so driven I never even noticed. I didn't notice a lot of things
until I finally ran into a wall that made me face it.
A wall called Alex Krycek.
And here is where we get into the stuff that I know you really don't want to
hear, but I want you to listen to me anyway. This is important and I need to use
it to illustrate my point.
I said before that until I got him in my bed I didn't realise what I was missing
out on. I know it sounds lame but there is a lot of truth in the lamest things.
I'm not talking about the sexual side of things here, well at least, I'm not
trying to. What I'm talking about is senses and recognition. Am I confusing you
yet?
I was never a sensuous person until Alex, he was the one that taught me that. I
never truly realised just exactly what I was missing out on being so caught up
in my own head. I can see now that it started almost from the first moment I met
him but it was never expressed in the way that it needed to be. Frankly, I
didn't know how to deal with in the way that it needed to be. Call it denial,
call it displacement, call it misplaced violence, I don't care. All I know is
that I started to come alive, I started to recognise him in a way that I only
recognise a small few in my life.
I recognised Alex like I recognised you, Sam and my parents. That recognition
that is an imprinting on the senses—all of them—sight, sound, touch, smell,
taste. The whole caboodle. Did you know that I could identify you by the smell
of your perfume? The sound of your footsteps? The touch of your hand?
I can do the same with Alex now.
It seems so strange, they seem such simple, silly things but they add up to the
picture in my head that makes Alex. I know him by the feel of the knobs of his
collarbones where they rest along the planes of his shoulders. I know him by the
taste of coffee sweetened with honey—it's a weird little habit of his—but
it's his. The smell of leather, musk and snow that surrounds him bound up in the
warmth of his body. And I know him by the way that he says my name.
I would know him by his taste if I were blind. His touch if I were deaf. His
scent if I were sleeping. I wonder sometimes if that is what our sixth sense is
- just a heightened awareness of all our senses when they are tuned into another
person. So that is how you know that when you look up they will be looking at
you, that it will be them on the other end of the phone.
Why am I telling you this? Where is all this going? I bet you're silently asking
this, Scully. The answer—you have to find the person that you recognise, Dana.
You have to find them and hold onto them because otherwise you're going to be
the one waking up with that nagging feeling that there's something that could be
better, that there's something missing. And that is something that I don't want
for you. You deserve so much better than having that as part of your life.
Don't let anyone tell you that you need to partition off parts of your life,
Scully. It's not true—take it from me, I know—you need all of them. All
the joy, all the pain, all the thoughts, all the feelings—don't hide from them
and don't deny them because all that will do is confine you to a sterile world
where you'll never find happiness.
Live your life, Scully. Love your life and the people in it, otherwise you will
never realise what a gift you've been given.
Mulder winced as he placed the tape into its case and dropped into the already
addressed envelope. The stitches in his shoulder pulled painfully with the
motion but he welcomed the pain, because it meant that he was still alive and,
more importantly, he was still feeling. His grimace turned into a smile at the
thought. How his life had changed in the past year. The biggest change being the
figure on the bed.
Alex.
His Alex.
"Jesus fucking Christ that hurts. Fucking butcher could've sewed me up better or
at least given me some better fucking drugs." The tide of irate swearing
blistered the air around the reclining figure and all Mulder could do was grin.
His complaining, bitching, moaning, contrary and also bullet-ventilated Alex.
They might be underground helping the Resistance broaden their foothold. Their
lives might be full of bullets, swearing, fighting and injuries. They might wage
pitched battles with each other over the right and wrong of things, the best
course of action, but they were doing it together.
Leaving the envelope on the table, Mulder made his way to the bed and cautiously
climbed in, earning himself a hard look and a muttered curse as his movement
jostled the other man's leg in the process. But after a few spasms of pain, some
aggrieved swearing, on both his and Alex's behalf, Mulder settled close enough
that he could feel the warmth that emanated from his lover's body. The scent of
musk with the barest tinge of leather and snow drifted up to him and he closed
his eyes and smiled.
Now this he recognised.
Recognition
by Sin
It's strange to think about the cues that we require to recognise the people in
our lives. Really think about them. The picture, the image, that we have of our
loved ones is simply a collage of separate pieces—of lines and curves, shadow
and light—that our brain processes, piece by piece, into a comprehensive
whole.
