TITLE: Trivial Things
AUTHOR: winter baby
FANDOM: The X-Files
RATING: R
CHARACTERS: Mulder/Diana
SPOILERS: none
SUMMARY: There's nothing wrong that wasn't wrong before.
WEBSITE: http://www.livejournal.com/users/winter_baby
FEEDBACK: winter_baby@popullus.net
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Why'd she leave him? Hell if I know. You won't find the answers here. This is just a very belated birthday fic for Deslea. The summary comes from "No Name No. 5" by Elliott Smith.
+ Trivial Things +
There's nothing wrong
That wasn't wrong before
-Elliott Smith [ No Name No. 5 ]
Trivial things bother her more than usual. Empty toothpaste tubes. Sold-out movies. Flat soda.
Her new apartment is unfamiliar and cold, with a couch that casts strange shadows in the dark. She bumps into the coffee table too often. It's not in the right place.
Fox leaves messages on her answering machine. They start off worried, then gradually evolve into angry. He wants to know where the fuck she is, what the fuck she thinks she's doing, moving out without even fucking telling him.
She couldn't answer him even if she wanted to. She unplugs her phone and tries not to get worked up over her chipped nail polish.
Trivial things like that get to her. She pulls out polish remover from her medicine cabinet and begins to rub away the dark brown lacquer from her fingernails. The smell makes her head spin and she dumps the whole bottle into the sink out of frustration.
She's angry that Fox isn't here but she's the one that did the leaving, and no matter how much she yells at the toaster for burning her breakfast, nothing's going to change that.
His phone calls grow fewer and farther between. The messages he leaves are more out of exasperation than anything resembling passion. He says things like "I'm trying to understand" and "I'm sorry if I was never there" and her favorite: "I'll never forget you."
There's a note of finality in his voice.
She's heard that tone before. The first time he kissed her, he whispered her name in exactly the same way. She didn't know what it meant but she suspected that it had something to do with the way that he was memorizing her face with his fingers. She realizes now that she was his ending.
She just never thought that he would be hers.
Her favorite earrings are missing a stone and in retaliation she drops them out the window of her fourth-story apartment. Some might view that as an overreaction but to her it's just another Thursday morning.
She remembers Fox wrapping his arms around her bare waist in bed and whispering things like "I understand" and "I'm here" and her favorite: "I'll never forget you." The earrings brushed up against his lips as he said those things and she tries not to regret throwing them out the window.
Her image in the mirror is foreign and desperate. There's a woman with tired eyes staring back at her and she hates what she sees. She left Fox because he had a way of making her cry with nothing more than a smile. The woman in the mirror tells stories like that with her taut mouth and hollow cheeks. She smashes her fist into the glass and shards of mirror slide into her skin.
Trivial things irritate her lately. A loose thread in her blouse. Static on the TV. Blood running down her arm.
Fox doesn't leave messages anymore. He tells her in his last one that he'll never stop loving her and she wants to believe him, but the fact that she hasn't heard from him in a month says otherwise. He's forgetting her and she's becoming bitter.
There's a hairline crack in her coffee mug. A thing as inconsequential as that shouldn't make her cry but sometimes she can't help it. Fox isn't with her anymore and she feels as if she's suffocating. She hates that he'll move on and that she won't because she can't forget him. After all this time, his smell is still in her hair no matter how much she washes it. The words that he whispered into her ear still linger and his hands running over her body still burn.
She left because she had to, although now she can't remember any of the reasons. All she wants is his mouth on hers again but he's a thousand worlds removed. The only tie she had left to him was his phone calls and she's lost that too. The mug shatters when she accidentally drops it on the kitchen floor and she catches a sob in her throat. She cradles her bandaged hand as she falls to the ground, swallowing tears and gasping for breath.
Trivial things bother her more than usual. Crumbs on the counter. Spilt coffee. A broken heart.
She reaches for the dustpan and begins to sweep up ceramic shards. Her hands have new wounds and she ignores the blood.
Her answering machine wastes away from disuse.
She forgets to breathe.
[ end ]
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