the sad ballad of Mary Sue's blues
by Pares
"Mary Sues, of course, are those original female (sometimes male) characters written into fanfic whose resemblance to the author in question is surely more than co-incidence. You know them by the way Duncan and Methos fall at their feet and by the way that Jim and Blair hang on their every word. You know them by their selfless endeavours to get our boys together where they belong - in each other's arms. And of course there's the whole kill the bad guys/save the universe thing they've got going... but I digress."
-from Wombat's "Mary Sue Drinking Game"
The bar was nearly empty. Trying not to glance at his watch again, Mulder loosened his tie and tapped the gleaming teak to catch the server's attention. It didn't look like his informant was going to show.
"Another."
The smirking barkeep tilted her head and said, "You sure you'll be okay to drive?"
He made a small attempt at a smile and she shrugged.
"We ran out of lemon," she informed him.
"Lemon's overrated," he replied, as he took a sip of the unsweetened iced tea. He studied her for a moment before she padded down the bar to serve another whatever it was to the woman at the far end. Round face, almond eyes, curly eyelashes. Asian, mixed maybe, definitely cute. And she *had* been flirting, after all. He liked the plum shine to her hair, even the glint of the silver hoop in her eyebrow --
"I've never paired you with an Asian girl. Her name's Naja. Short for Natalie Jane. She was one of those Goth girls at Boston Latin; I based her on a friend of mine from middle school."
Startled, Mulder swung around to face the speaker.
"What?"
"She's a little young for you, don't you think?"
"I-- What-- I don't understand. Who are you?"
The woman form the end of the bar was now sitting beside him.
"You really don't know me, do you?" She sounded unsurprised, and vaguely bored.
"Should I?"
"And after all we've meant to one another " The woman snorted, and the plosive sounded less like humor than congestion.
She looked like someone who had very little to laugh about.
A pie faced woman with small smudgy eyes, dulled behind glasses thicker even than Frohike's, she swelled, wide and vast in his vision.
"You *should* know me. It's unfair, really, for me to expect it, but I want you to remember me anyway."
"Who are you?" His whisper was rusted with the terrible thought that he *should* know her.
"Hortense Wahlberg," she said, and offered him her hand.
He took it, and shook it firmly, but her hand was rough, and unpleasantly moist.
"That's not always my name. In fact, it's *never* my name," she explained. "I'm kind of an anti-archetype."
Squinting, Mulder tried to make some sense of her. Her skin looked ashy... there was something that suggested promise, a warmth to it, had she ever gotten sun, but as it was, she was pallid and yellowed as old paper. She couldn't have been more than forty.
Ms. Wahlberg had the strangely youthful face of the very overweight, but the dull hair and closed expression of someone who spent a large amount of time alone.
"Ms. Wahlberg--"
"I'm being self-indulgent," she intoned, and she patted her hand on the bar. Her knuckles were thick; her fingers were like sausages. "I'm not actually all that bad looking. Trust me, Mulder, I clean up real nice."
Naja appeared with another drink. Hortense smiled at her, showing off a mouthful of small, crowded teeth. Naja smiled at her dishrag as she swabbed the bar.
"Bartenders always love me. Pets and kids do, too."
"What is this about, ma'am?"
"Have you ever read the Tale of the Green Knight? The knight goes out in search of what it is women really want, and he finds an old crone who promises to tell him if he'll marry her?"
Mulder nodded.
"The answer. Do you remember the answer?"
He opened his mouth to speak, but she robbed him of it.
"Control," she said, and it was a word as thick and sweet as taffy in her mouth. "We want control. We want our lives to be orderly. We want to avoid tax audits and rabid dogs and runaway buses and lives of toil, empty of meaning. We want to live in perfect contentment, and we are sure that if everyone merely does our bidding, we can be *happy*."
"Look, Ms. Wahlberg, I'm sure you--"
She gave him a sour glance.
"Play along, here. You can do *that* much at least of your own free will. I thought you had a certain empathy for victims?"
"Victims...?"
The woman's second chin jiggled as she nodded. Her bra didn't fit well, and Mulder was distracted by the odd impression that Hortense Wahlberg had four breasts.
"We're usually poor," Hortense confided, as if she'd answered him. "Often, there's some kind of emotional trauma we're trying to shake off, and I would have to guess that most of us are fat." She gestured at the roll of belly that strained the faded pink T-shirt above where her too-tight jeans buttoned.
"Us?" Mulder wondered if he'd fallen asleep at the bar. His dreams were not unlike the conversation he was having with Ms. Wahlberg; although they usually involved someone he'd failed directly and then resolved themselves later with the not-unpleasant sensation of many groping hands caressing him as he was passed around the crowd at Carnegie Hall.
"That's not one of mine. You seldom dream coherently or pleasantly when I write you."
"Who are you? How did you know my name?"
"I'm not your contact, Mulder. And I'm Hortense Wahlberg, twenty-five or forty, fat, not very fair. I'm still in school, or I work at one, or I haven't worked in years, and I have three or more cats and a forest of overwatered ferns. I drink too much coffee. I may or may not smoke, I may or may not have a husband, and I often have a surprising number of outside interests. I'm also God. And only one of many."
Mulder tipped his iced tea with his elbow when he got to his feet. There was something pitiable and unnerving about Hortense Wahlberg.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered kindly.
"Who *are* you?"
"I am me, and you, and many. Not a spilt personality, but a compound identity. We are Mary Sue. Kind of like the Borg collective, only we tend to be less subtle and much more interested in sex."
There was a headache building behind his eyes; now it was only a tap, but soon it would bloom into an impatient banging on the pipes. He had to get out of here.
"I can make you stay. I'd rather not, but I can."
Shaking his head slightly, Mulder frowned.
"Look, lady, I don't need this. I'm sure that you have every reason to be upset, but I can't help you. I just want to go home and get some sleep."
"He married the crone."
"Who? Oh. Gawain? Or was it Gareth?"
She smiled at him, a real smile, her mouth strangely prim.
"I can't remember. That's probably why you can't."
"Please," Mulder entreated. "I'm tired."
"I know you are. That's what we like about you." She touched his shoulder gently. "I don't think people tell you this enough, Mulder. You're very beautiful. And I happen to like the nose."
Mulder couldn't decide if the lump in his throat was tears or a bubble of incredulous laughter.
The homeliest woman he could remember seeing outside of Home, PA and she was telling him *he* was beautiful.
Her smile was genuine, pleased, and it nearly made her pretty.
"You're beautiful when you suffer. You don't know how we appreciate that. When I cry I get blotchy, and my eyes swell. No one wants to come anywhere near me. But you... you sorrow. And it's very affecting. It doesn't hurt that most of us can't decide whether we like you best in those suits or out of them entirely." She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I think your own lack of love life appeals, too. Every one of us is a yenta of some sort."
Mulder's headache had already graduated to the polite but firm knock of a visiting Jehovah's Witness. Soon enough it would metamorphoses into--
Hortense Wahlberg's fingertip, complete with chewed cuticles and torn nail, tapped him lightly between the eyes.
And his headache disappeared.
"You know how I did it. I'm God, here. Goddess of the pure white page. I'll tell you something, I'll tell you a secret, Mulder, you've never really done *exactly* as I say. I've always liked that about you. All of you have a willful streak, and that can make the pen skid, or the train jump the tracks. You've talked yourself out of the best-laid plans, Mulder. I can't count the number of times you've balked at the bed scene, or refused to soften up when I wished you would."
Delusional. Jesus. The poor woman.
She smiled again.
"And the empathy. Self-pitying or not, Mulder, there's always room at your Inn. For the victims. You *do* know me, don't you?"
He shrugged.
"Not *you*. I've never spoken to you. I think I've dreamt of-- I think I've met some of the others. This is the most existentialist discussion I've had well, that I can remember. The others are..."
"Prettier than I am. Appealing in an undefinable way. Large eyed and engaging. Always thinner."
A wry smile curved his lips. He found himself feeling somehow *proud* of her. I'm proud of you, Mary Sue.
Nodding, her small eyes glinted behind the thick glass of her spectacles. She stood up and spread her arms, the biceps so soft they looked ready to drip from her bones and splatter the floor like batter slipping from a spoon.
"Kiss me, Mulder."
Closing his eyes, Mulder nodded. She'd been brave. He could do brave.
"Pity will do. Just this once."
I don't want it to be pity, he thought.
"It's nice that you think so. I appreciate it."
He stood up and stepped close to her. Her deodorant had faded, and the faint stale odor of her breath made him want to breathe through his mouth.
"Kiss the crone," she commanded. "Warts and all."
Warts!?
She actually chuckled, a rich, if wheezy sound.
"That one, at least, is a figure of speech. But you may want to close your eyes anyway. My skin's not very good. There's nothing lovely about blackheads."
I like that you're smart.
"And I like that you're charitable. Let's go."
Mulder felt his hands sink into the soft flesh of her shoulders, and he let go, lest he be stuck to her like the fool's goose. He bent his head, screwed his eyes shut, and pecked her narrow, chapped lips.
"Mulder?"
When he opened his eyes, Scully was peering at him in alarm.
"Are you all right? The bartender said you'd fainted; she found your phone and hit redial. Mulder?"
"I'm fine. Sorry. Fine. I'm really fine," he managed, but not before hugging his partner to him, cherishing the scent of her clean scalp, enjoying the neat way she fit against him.
She shrugged him away and gave him a look that was half glare, half concern.
"Mulder, what is going on?"
He cupped her face in his long hands, thumbs tracing the fine arch of her brow. Her skin was smooth and fine, nearly poreless. He let his hands fall away, only to stroke the unutterable softness of her lower lip with one forefinger. Rich pigment colored his fingertip, and he smiled at it.
"Scully. You're beautiful. I'm sure people don't say that enough."
She shook her head, and he squeezed her shoulder.
"I've had a weird night, Scully. Could you drive me home?"
Nodding warily, Scully helped him find his coat and followed him outside.
She unlocked the door for him, and he eased back against the carseat. Before she closed the door, Scully leaned in and rested one small, square hand on his shoulder.
"Mulder? Has anyone told *you* that? That you're beautiful?"
He gave her his warmest crooked grin.
"You just did."
END
"If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people." --Virginia Woolf
