Sparks Fly Upward

Fanfiction
Title:	Sparks Fly Upward
Author(s):	Vehemently
Date(s):	January 2001
Length:
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):	The X-Files
Relationship(s):
External Links:	here
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Sparks Fly Upward is an X-Files story by Vehemently.

The author wrote: "This story takes place in the summer of 1998, a vague while after The Red and The Black. Nothing after that episode is taken into account: not The End, not the Movie, not 2 years of canon. THIS IS IMPORTANT!"

Reactions and Reviews

One of my favorite fics of the last six months, this diverges from canon after The Red and the Black, and looks at the warped and fascinating relationship that develops between Mulder, Scully and Krycek when the former pair decide to stop chasing killer trees (and you criticize the Manbat? Feh, that was much worse) and apply themselves to the real task. Again, this gave the delicious sense that anything could happen, any time. The writing is cool, precise, evocative and emotionally honest without being histrionic. One to keep.

Be warned that this is one helluva wild ride. It's got all the action, plot, and darkness you'd expect from the author, but "Sparks" is the first story of Vee's that physically *hurts*. Dive in and you'll probably come up spitting blood, but by God, you just might like it down there anyway.

wendelah1 poked me to let me know she chose this especially for me based on a brief chitty-chat we had about Mulder falling in love with Scully while getting it on with Krycek....

I liked it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I thought the set up was a little less than plausible, but hey, I'm the forgiving sort. No more implausible than Arcadia, eh? I would have liked to have seen more conflict between Mulder and Krycek, though. It's not that I don't think that Mulder would go down that path; I think that Lea and Duchovny absolutely set up that frisson of sexual tension quite nicely on the show. I just don't know that Mulder could get past his resentment towards Krycek that easily, even if it was for the greater good (so to speak). Not to mention that I think a large part of Krycek's charm is that he's a chameleon of a psychopath - and I'm always a little meh on the idea of Krycek being anything less than on that knife-edge of insanity. Witty, yes. But having sex with Krycek should be a little frightening - and that should be its appeal. I fully admit that might just be me, though! So enough of that nit-pick.

I wasn't sure if Mulder was having sex with Krycek only for the case or because he was actually attracted to him. Or even a combination of both. When I am feeling better I will read again and see if that is made clearer for me. This might be due to my foggy head, so by all means, if I missed it, please direct me there.

If anything, I wish the story had been longer. Oftentimes I read fanfic and think to myself, cut cut cut! But I think this could have been expanded - either been made into a longer story or even, for that matter, just to have focused on the Mulder-Krycek-Scully dynamic and just dropped the backstory. But I really liked the way she handled the dynamic once it got up and running. The balance of Mulder spinning from lover to lover was really intriguing and I wanted to see more of it.

I loved the ending. And I wanted to read the next scene, dammit! :)

(Also, I wanted more smut. I hearby out myself as a smut lover. Go smut!)

Whenever I am having trouble with an otherwise pretty great story, I always go back to the show. So I watched The Red and the Black. The set-up for the whole story is there in the episode. All of the characters are too, except for Krycek's henchmen.

Mulder is pretty upset at the end of the episode. Actually, he is pretty pissed off during it, too. He and Scully are at odds. Skinner is telling him he's full of shit. He gets captured by the military and mind-wiped, again. Mulder doesn't know what he believes anymore. He wants to protect Scully. He wants to find out who made that chip in her neck and why they tried to kill her. He wants to get to the bottom of what he sees as a shadow government's conspiracy against the American people. Maybe there are aliens after all. He needs to know. So, I don't have any trouble believing he could go undercover. He is as ready to go to the dark side as he ever will be. IMHO, of course.

He and Krycek seem to be kind of circling each other at the beginning. Krycek thinks Mulder want to kill him, which is true. They are both wound up pretty tight, but I think the animosity gets channeled eventually into hot raunchy sex, which happens off-screen. This is okay with me, although it could have been a little more explicit.

The sexual tension she creates between the two men in, for example, the scene in the car where Mulder is taking off Krycek's shirt is way more erotic to me than 90% of the M/K slash that is out there. I think Krycek seems pretty dangerous. I like that his violent craziness is under-control in this story.

I think Mulder has sex with Krycek to gain his trust and then discovers that he likes it. I think he feels like he is cheating on Scully, which is why he goes to her bed afterward (sparks fly upward). The description of her growing realization of who he is fucking other than her and what she does with the information is wonderful and risky, but it works for me.

I think the thing I like best about the story is how interconnected they all become. Krycek is working with the Consortium and with his unspecified other interests. Mulder is feeding information to Scully behind his back, and fucking him behind hers. And she is in turn giving the information to both the FBI, when it serves her interests to do so, and to the MUFON women who have gone underground to become "radical environmentalists." And fucking Mulder behind Krycek's back. I have to admit I love the idea of the MUFON women shedding their roles as victims in order to blow up office buildings instead. Now there is a plot twist I wish the series had picked up on. I also feel bad that Skinner isn't getting any.

I must confess that I have much more trouble picturing Scully doing Krycek than any other possible pairing in the series (thank you to emily_shore for her very comprehensive list of the more extreme possibilities). I think that for Mulder the attraction to him was always there, right from the beginning. I am sure it was difficult, but to save Scully, to find the truth, what (or who) wouldn't Mulder do at this point, having cut all of his ties to the job that he loved, to the partner he still wants by his side. Mulder likes playing martyr and this time the role has some really great side benefits, doesn't it?

But once again, I am willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a hot sex scene, especially one that serves to bring the story to a mind-blowing conclusion.

There is no way that Vehemently could have written the scene where Mulder comes to Scully's bed only to find her there with Krycek. I am happy to have been allowed to imagine the resulting conflagration for myself. I need to go turn up the air conditioning. Hoo-boy.

Disclaimer: I never read slash fiction. Never. I'm too much of an MSR junkie to "waste time" on anything else. That said, I really liked this story. There's such a deftness to the author's writing...it's elegant and graceful, and you never get the sense that the story was an afterthought to certain scenes she wanted to force in there. Well...except maybe the last one...

I love the poker game for jellybeans. The tense poker game is such a cliche in all fiction that juxtaposing that with the candy and the lighthearted banter makes it less so. The Syndicate plays for such high stakes (you know, the end of the world), that a tabletop game for jellybeans is almost cute. Either that or sinister in its innocence.

Is Catherine named for a Catherine Wheel? The spinning fireworks kind. If so, then I'm a fan of the symbolism.

I'm not a big fan of the last scene, however. It might make sense in some standalone noir thriller, but as a piece of X-Files fanfic, it doesn't work for me. It's so un-Scully to act like that (the rest of the story's implausibility notwithstanding). I agree with wendelah1 that Mulder would go that road to find the truth, but Scully acting purely out of lust or revenge? That's not the Dr. Scully I love.

In this story, the Dr. Scully you love went into the flames on the bridge in "The Red and the Black." She is doing many things that many people would find unacceptable, even immoral, including aiding terrorists. Sex with her lover's lover seems minor to me by comparison. But then I am not a romantic about sex. I don't think Scully is either. But this last is just feelings that have nothing of substance for back-up.

I accept the scene as being barely plausible under the circumstances Vehemently has presented, and as a good ending for the fic, by completing the emotional and physical circuit. I like the structure. I am, as you recall from the Arizona Highways discussion, a nut about structure.

I think many people think Scully shouldn't even think about having sex unless it is with Mulder. I think that is unrealistic. To put her on a pedestal the way 1013 did, and turn her into into some kind of martyred Madonna is weird. And wrong. I am not saying that is what you are doing, by the way. I don't really know why you are objecting to her having sex with Krycek.

I object to it because he was an accessory in the murder of her sister. I think that would be the deal-breaker for her, not the sex itself.

Sex is fun. Krycek is cute and really hot. Mulder is having sex with him, so why shouldn't she?

They are all living so close to the edge here. One more step and the next thing you know you are waiting for Mulder in bed with Krycek. (This sentence makes me laugh. Is it getting hot in here or is it me?) [leaves to check thermostat]

While I completely agree that 1013 put her on a pedestal, that pedestal is still canon. She may not always act the way a real human being would act, but those are the parameters we're given for her character. I'm ok with going outside of characterization in fic, but not unless it's consistent. The last scene just clashed with my ideas about canon Scully, but this particular fic's Scully as well.

I disagree about Scully romanticizing sex. Not that we have a lot of evidence to go on here, but just as you have a gut feeling that she doesn't, I have a feeling that she does. We see her all clinical and detached out in the field, but whenever we see her with family or in otherwise personal relationships, she gives me a sense of romanticism. Come on, the lady takes candlelit bubble baths! (Then again, apparently so does Skinner.)

I think many people think Scully shouldn't even think about having sex unless it is with Mulder. I readily admit to this bias. But I also have a strong bias against Mulder having sex with anyone other than Scully, and yet that fact that he's sleeping with Krycek in this story bothers me much less. Perhaps it's because we're given a reason for Mulder doing it? Whether or not he learns to enjoy it, initially he's in that situation because he has to be, and feelings develop as a result. With Scully and Krycek, I don't feel that relationship was developed enough for me to really buy it. It seemed gratuitous.

I see no actual evidence in canon that Scully has had sex up to this point, ever. As far as I can tell, according to 1013, she could be a virgin. This is one of those agree to disagree moments I think. This noromo thinks "girls just wanna have fun." Scully and Krycek have been sleeping with each other via Mulder. He comes to her bed after he's been with Krycek. She can see him and probably smell him and taste him on Mulder. It is as intimate a relationship as I can possibly imagine them having. Whether she likes it or not, they are in bed together already. She is just completing the circle, binding him to her, the way he is already bound to Mulder. You like that explanation better than the gratuitious sex one?

*LOL* I've always seen Scully as a romantic about sex, but you are right enough that that is me projecting myself on her. And that's okay with me. ;) Whatever floats your boat.

"Milagro" may actually be the best vehicle for discussion on that. It would seem from that ep that she is turned on by the idea of sex with a stranger, but she also is discomforted by the thought. I think she contemplates it, but if push came to shove, wouldn't actually follow through. Or maybe she would. We'll never know. It's an interesting avenue to explore, though.

And regardless of that, I think you hit the nail on the head that the reason Scully/Krycek seems so out of place to me is his involvement in Melissa's death. I just can't see her putting that aside in order to fuck him. ;)

It's an ingenious little triangular setup, but not my cup of tea. The backstory was somewhat intriguing, but at some point it felt kind of abandoned in favor of the character exploration (which in MSR fics I blithely oblige, but in others not so much. *L* Yes, I am biased).

At the conclusion to “The Red and the Black,” Mulder is angry and depressed. (Actually, he is pretty pissed off during the episode, too.) He and Scully have been at odds. Skinner’s been telling him he’s full of shit. He was captured by the military and mind-wiped, again. Mulder doesn’t know what he believes anymore. He wants to protect Scully. He wants to find out who made that chip in her neck and why they tried to kill her. He wants to get to the bottom of what he sees as a shadow government’s conspiracy against the American people. Maybe there are aliens after all. He needs to know. He is as ready to go to the dark side as he ever will be. The set-up for “Sparks Fly Upward” is all right there in the episode. The full quotation is: “Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7. [There is a link to] her DW repost but it can also be read at Gossamer, the IOHO archive, and Skippertales.