Dance (X-Files story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Dance
Author(s):	Dith
Date(s):	March 1995
Length:	96K
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):	X-Files
Relationship(s):
External Links:	online here
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Dance is an X-Files story by Dith.

Summary

"Mulder is asked by some friends to check out the death of a friend who was supposed to have been possessed by a demon. Scully, having no other plans, decides to spend her weekend helping him."

Reactions and Reviews

“Dance” is unique. It’s not exactly a casefile, although there is a case, of a sort. It’s not exactly a romance, either, but it is about Mulder and Scully: their partnership, their friendship, and their unspoken mutual attraction. The setting, bohemian South Street in Philadelphia, plays a big role. The denizens of South Street, with its alternative street scene, gay bars, and dance clubs, all play their parts to perfection. This story is a vivid snapshot of a particular time and place.

It’s the beginning of season two. The X-Files are shut down. Scully is back doing autopsies and teaching, Mulder is stuck in his cubicle, listening to reel after reel of audio surveillance tape. Out of the blue, Mulder gets a call from an old friend, who wants him to come to South Street to investigate a murder, off the books.

Rattling the car keys again he looked away, then looked back. “Hey, do you want to come? Sleep on the floor? See a few bars? Live the bohemian life?”

“You’re going to Philly to check out the bars?”

“No, a demon. Wooooooo. Spooky, huh? Want to come?”

At 5:00 p.m. on Friday, he takes off to chase his demon. When Scully’s weekend plans fall through, she decides a trip to Philadelphia doesn’t sound half bad, even if she does have to sleep on the floor at a friend-of-a-friend’s place. Scully still thinks of herself as Dana. She still thinks she can have a life.

The writing is terrific: concise, yet evocative. I liked this story enough that I spent the better part of a day reformatting it so I could post it to Fugues Fiction Archive. If you prefer text files, you can read it at Dith’s Page at Gossamer.

Why isn’t “Dance” recced more? I’m just guessing, but perhaps genfic, with subtle ust, was more common and, dare I say it, more appreciated back in 1995 when this fic was posted to Gossamer.

You had me at the glass of water, early season 2, honestly. I really loved the M&S "voices" from this early on, I thought they were very authentic. From back when the thought of them having friends outside of the X-Files wasn't quite such a stretch, and when they were having semblances of lives.

I loved the setting, although I wonder if I would have found the detail quite as charming at the time it was written? As it is, it's like a time capsule (I really miss flannel, but not Melissa Etheridge).

I can see why this one slips through the classics radar, too--it's not angsty or particularly case-file-y (the case is ok here but clearly takes a backseat to the setting and character interactions), there's not really any romance (although I really liked Mulder's protectiveness re Scully's interaction with his friend Carey, and I am firmly noromo). It's well-written and very charming, but it's not the sort of story that tends to grab fandom's attention. Which is a shame.

I don't know what to say about this story. The writing is pretty solid, but it's - odd? AU? Oddly AU? (That's probably because of its age. Maybe. Sorta.) There was so much we didn't know about M&S then that we do now, and I am one of those people who has trouble un-knowing things. It seemed to take a long time to get no where in particular. And I kept thinking "Scully, you have a cell phone - use it."

This is a great story. It's well-conceived, well-written, with exactly the right amount of UST as focused and intensified by the hip bisexual character of Casey. (A Mary Sue? If so, one of the best.) It's a pleasant return to yesteryear, when bohemians roamed South Street and the only alien invaders were from Jersey. (I was there! I lived in a walk-up on Spruce! Never belonged to a coven though.)

Rereading convinced me that it's easy to underestimate this one. The despair that Mulder falls into is without reason--well, just a demon--but it prefigures the despair that future events will inflict. And Scully's rescue, in which the daylight of her sensible nature conquers his darkness, is the proof and seal of their pre-romantic partnership.

The ending, in which our pair drive separate cars back to their shared world, has a powerful effect on me. "...they lost one another, somebody driving too fast or somebody taking a different route. It didn't matter, they'd talk to each other tomorrow."

An accidental but brilliant summary of the future.

As for MaybeAmanda's quibble about the cell phone, she's certainly not the only one to notice that. It didn't bother me, but it's a good quibble.

One last left-field notion. I think Dance does with skill and delicacy what Just Say Yes failed to do.

What I like about this story was, partly, that I had never ever heard of either it or the author which made it really unknown territory. And Season Two too! It occurred to me that now there is substantial discussion about who can and who can't write believable early season fiction whereas this story is written without consciousness of the angst of later series, and hence our hang-ups of what early season fiction should feel like. Which gives it a tone that is familiar from earlier fiction (yes, when Scully WAS Dana) and which can jar sometimes. I thought the beginning was a little awkward and it is likely that if it hadn't been recommended here I would not have continued: the jovial Mulder, the over-bright 'Dana' gave me a shuddering twinge of not-so-good fics of the "Oh Fox!" and "Dana!" variety, especially with her wandering around Philadelphia (that tiny village) hoping to bump into Mulder and saying "I'm stuffed" a lot.

But this story doesn't....it gets better and better. It is a vignette, a snapshot of their relationship at a particular point in time all the sweeter for its innocence of later events. Do they learn anything in the course of it? Something about each other maybe and a harbinger of the dependency on each other that will grow over time. The interaction of Mulder and Carey is well drawn - it's believable and reminds me of the sensual Mulder of those first 2 seasons, the one who was not just Scully orientated. I also liked the interaction between Scully and Carey, although it made me a little nervous so I'm not surprised that Mulder was! Carey comes across as a bit of a spider to Scully's fly (she would not have got away with it by Season 4) and is not just two-dimensional. I agree about the phone thing though. They would have used it then, they are FBI agents! In any case, Scully accuses Mulder of not having phoned her but as she was in hot pursuit of him and not sitting at home doing her laundry, how did she know that he didn't? Some moments made me tingle and I take my cap off to any story that does that. And any more good early season fiction? I LOVE it!

Dance was a lovely story, the supporting characters were charming, but with a bit of an edge that provided a good foil for Mulder and Scully characterisation to work off. It had just the right amount of tentative friendship with a healthy and appropriately measured dose of Mulder protectiveness and intuition and Scully naivity and strength.

Wow, maybe_amanda, I agreed with every word you said in that first post. I only wish I could be so concise. Dance definitely felt AU-ish to me, and like you said, it wasn't about whether it adhered to canon, per se, but about how Mulder and Scully were characterized.

Scully in particular seemed so solidly and consistently OOC to me that it was almost - but not quite - like she was being written deliberately OOC. It's not even that I disliked this Scully, but I rarely recognized her as Scully - not even as the Sof S2. She was so...malleable. She was easy going. She seemed to have a very "go with the flow" attitude: sure, why not hop in the car and head to Philly to look for Mulder (even though she'd forgotten the specific address he said he could be found at, even though it would mean trailing after him, even though it would mean appearing as though she wanted very much to be in his company)? Sure, why not get her cards drawn? Why not browse the market with a woman she's just met? Why not let that woman touch her unnecessarily on several occasions, since it's all in good fun? Why not eat until she's "stuffed" and then talk about how "stuffed" she is (seriously, has Scully ever eaten until she's stuffed? She seems the very picture of moderation)?

This wasn't Dana Scully, but it could've been Melissa Scully.

Also, I found Carey to be a really off putting character. She seemed like a sloppy predator who didn't even have the sense to know she was being predatory. I found her behavior downright inappropriate. It got to the point where I began to wonder if the 'demon' had some kind of affiliation with her because her behavior was that coercive.

And Dance really could've used a beta.

All of this has been very negative, but I didn't entirely dislike this fic. Like tiger_bay I probably wouldn't have finished it if it hadn't been a book_club read, but it did have some fun aspects. Any fic written during that early period of S2 is bound to have an element of intrigue and novelty to it, and watching Mulder and Scully play dress-up is always fun, even if it does basically threaten to push Dance into crackfic territory. Frankly, I kind of wish this fic had just aimed to be crackfic - that added strangeness might've made it more fun. I do like that scully saves Mulder essentially by being herself. I think at such a time of upheaval in the series, writing a fic in which Mulder experiences personally how valuable his and Scully's partnership is could've been really good. At least Dance was in the ball park in that regard.