Title: CHOKE HOLD (1/1) Author: aka "Jake" Rating: Strong R (Adult Themes, Implied Violence, Language) Classification: Post Ep Spoilers: "Oubliette" Summary: "Not everything I do, say, think, and feel goes back to my sister. You, of all people, should realize that sometimes motivations for behavior can be more complex and mysterious than tracing them back to one single childhood experience." -- Fox Mulder to Dana Scully in "Oubliette" Disclaimer: Do these characters really belong to Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions? If so, no copyright infringement intended. Fun, yes. Profit, no. Author's Notes: Here there be fear, anger and Mulder's baser side. Fair warning -- "Choke Hold" isn't for everyone. CHOKE HOLD By aka "Jake" 2630 HEGAL PLACE, APARTMENT 42 ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA NOVEMBER 21, 1995 7:12 P.M. "Thank you for getting here so quickly, Agent Scully." Skinner greets me at Mulder's door. His expression is grim -- more so than usual. He steps to one side, allowing me to enter. "Where is he?" "Living room." Skinner corrals me with one arm and steers me down the short hall as if I didn't know my way around Mulder's apartment. The living room is lit by the aquarium and Mulder's desk lamp, which is angled to highlight an "X" taped to the window. The fish tank hums. Bubbles break on the water's surface while the goldfish swim in unconcerned circles. Mulder dozes on the couch. He wears sweats, a T-shirt; his feet are bare. A wide purple-black bruise rings his neck. I glance at Skinner. "Did you call anyone, sir? The police? Paramedics?" "No. He was adamant. We argued for twenty minutes about calling you." Why would Mulder want to keep me in the dark? I go to him. "Mulder?" His eyelids flutter, but they don't open. I press two fingers to his neck to check his pulse. His heartbeat is steady and his skin doesn't feel feverish. Bruises shadow his throat in a uniform pattern consistent with strangulation by ligature. A small amount of blood has caked around each of his nostrils. Petechiae dot his cheeks and neck. I gently palpate his larynx, then open and examine one of his eyes with my penlight. The pupil reacts, closing to a mere pinprick beneath my bright, narrow beam. The sclera shows signs of subconjunctival hemorrhage. He groans and finally wakens. "Scully?" Edema muffles his voice. "Are you having difficulty breathing?" "No." The word wheezes from his throat and sets him coughing. "Mulder, you need medical treatment, a soft-tissue x-ray--" "No," he says more firmly. "If you don't get proper care, you could suffer respiratory complications--" He shuts me out by closing his eyes and rolling onto his side, turning his back to me. I look to Skinner for help, but he simply shrugs. "He's been strangled," I announce. Skinner nods. I try to hide the fact that my hands are shaking. What the hell happened here tonight? I glance at the "X" taped to the window. Skinner follows my gaze. "What is that?" he asks. "I don't know," I lie. I go to the desk and turn off the lamp. A too-bright streetlight shines in from outside, painting the room silver and casting a distorted x-shaped shadow onto the desktop and floor. Mulder's informant. Was he here earlier? Did he try to kill Mulder? I scan the street. The curb is lined with parked cars, any one of which could contain a would-be assassin. "Sir, did Mulder call you?" "No. I received an anonymous phone message saying Agent Mulder was hurt and the situation was urgent." "Anonymous?" "I ran a trace. The call came from here." Why would Mulder's informant try to kill him and then call Skinner for help? "Where did you find him?" I ask, turning away from the window. Skinner leads me to the bathroom. The lights over the mirror blink to life when he flicks the wall switch. "Here, on the floor. He was unconscious, naked, barely breathing." I search the room for clues. There is no blood, no sign of a struggle. Everything appears normal. "Sir, how did you get into the apartment?" "The door was unlocked." Unlocked? I look harder for an explanation. The shower tiles are wet. Mulder's clothes are piled haphazardly on the floor. I recognize the blue shirt and gray pants he wore earlier today. His wristwatch rests on the edge of the sink. A damp towel hangs over the doorknob. He must have undressed, taken a shower. Then what? His informant arrived, strangled him, and called Skinner? That makes no sense. Mulder's leather belt dangles from the towel bar above the toilet tank. The assailant's weapon? "Where's Mulder's gun?" I ask. "Bedroom." "Has it been fired?" "No." I open the medicine cabinet. Razor, shaving cream, deodorant -- nothing unexpected. "We returned from Seattle late this morning," I say aloud, trying to talk out a sequence of events. "The Amy Jacobs case." "The kidnapped girl?" "Yes." We'd managed to rescue Amy before Carl Wade hurt her, but we weren't able to save Lucy Householder. Mulder believed Lucy's death was the result of some sort of empathic transference between her and the girl. Somehow Mulder was part of that connection, too. I look again at the belt above the toilet. The toilet seat is down. "Was the lid closed like this when you found him?" "I haven't touched anything. I got Mulder dressed and onto the couch, that's all." Mulder was upset about Lucy's death. He'd let himself get too close to the case. How depressed was he? Is it possible this wasn't an attempted murder at all? What if...? If Mulder sat on the toilet, his neck would be almost level with the belt. Jesus, had he tried to hang himself? I reach for the dangling belt and give it a sharp tug, testing the strength of the towel bar. The bar is solid brass, screwed firmly into wall. When I release the belt, it swings back and forth, knocking the buckle loudly against the wooden wainscot. "Did he tell you anything, sir? Anything at all?" "Nothing." An impatient sigh huffs from Skinner's nose. "I'm going to go. Maybe you can get him to talk." I'm not convinced Mulder will confide in me. We hadn't seen eye to eye about Lucy Householder. Convinced she was the suspect, not the victim, I argued with Mulder every step of the way. I'm afraid he took our difference of opinion personally. I follow Skinner to the apartment's front door. "Let me know what you find out," he says, before exiting into the hall. I close the door behind him, and stand for a minute with my forehead pressed to the doorframe. What was it Mulder had said about Lucy before we left Seattle? **I think she died for more than Amy. I think finally, it was the only way she could escape. The only way she could forget what happened seventeen years ago.** Was Mulder hoping to escape his past, too? I return to the living room and find Mulder still facing the wall. "Mulder?" "Go home, Scully," he mumbles into the crook of his arm. "I'm not going." I drag the desk chair over to the couch and sit. "Tell me what happened." "It's not what you think." "What do I think?" He rolls onto his back and stares at me through bloodshot eyes. Is he angry? Frustrated? Afraid? I can't read him. His focus slides to the ceiling. "You think I need to be rescued." "That's my job, isn't it? To watch your back?" He shakes his head and struggles to swallow, triggering another bout of coughing. "Mulder, was your informant here? Did he try to kill you?" A humorless laugh chuffs from his swollen throat. "He saved my ass, Scully. Although I gotta say, right now I wish he hadn't." My eyes fill with tears. He can't mean what he's saying. "Mulder, you left your door unlocked. If you'd really wanted to--" "No, I locked the door. Believe me, I locked the door." "Then how did he get in?" Another harsh laugh, and a shrug. "I put that X on the window before you and I flew to Seattle. Then I guess I forgot about it." The arrival of the informant was a well-timed coincidence? A generous stroke of fate? "Please, go home, Scully. This is...personal." "Personal?" I reach out to touch his hand but he withdraws from me. "Mulder, you're my partner, for God's sake. You tried to kill yourself and you think it doesn't concern me?" He blinks at me in surprise. "Kill myself? I didn't--" His jaws shut so quickly I hear his teeth clack together. What the hell? If not suicide, then what? "I could use a drink of water," he says, changing the subject. He coughs twice to prove his point. I rise and get him the water. "You don't have ice," I say when I return from the kitchen. I pass him the glass. He sits up and drinks every last drop. When he's finished, he hands the empty glass back to me. I set it beside a stack of triple-X videotapes on the coffee table. That's when Clyde Bruckman's prognostication pops into my head: **"You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified one than autoerotic asphyxiation."** Bruckman's vision of Mulder's death-- God damn it! That's what happened here. Mulder was trying to get his ya-yas out by using a ligature to produce hypoxia. I thought Bruckman had been joking at the time, yanking Mulder's chain. I had no idea Mulder actually practiced... He crosses his arms and glares at me. Somehow he knows I've guessed. More empathic transference? "Mulder, why?" "Why what?" he challenges. He wants to make me say the words. "Was it worth it? Did you get off?" "Drop the sanctimonious tone, Scully. Are you telling me you've never masturbated before?" "I never put a noose around my neck! You could have died." "The goal was to get lightheaded, not suffocate. It's a rush, Scully. You can't know what it feels like unless you've tried it." He has no idea the danger he put himself in -- and for what? One brief moment of sexual gratification? "It takes less than fifteen seconds to lose consciousness when you block oxygen flow to the brain, Mulder. Using a ligature to induce euphoric asphyxia is foolhardy. I know of no way whatsoever that suffocation or strangulation can be done so that the recipient isn't intrinsically at risk. Choking can lead to vagal-outflow-induced cardiac arrest." "It also intensifies orgasm." "Well, that's an even trade, isn't it?" "Don't lecture me, Scully!" He stands and points, keeping me at arm's length. My heart pounds, but I try to keep my temper. "Mulder, masochistic behavior--" "Stop it! Stop it!" Without warning he kicks the coffee table, upsetting it onto its side. Books and videotapes thunder to the floor. His empty water glass shatters on the hardwood. "Don't try to analyze me. Don't trace this back to my childhood, to my sister's disappearance. Don't assume I'm depressed or guilt-ridden or feel a need to be punished. I don't hate myself, Scully. I don't hate my life. I have no desire to die. I do this..." He's losing his voice and running out of steam. Dropping back onto the couch, he takes a breath and begins more calmly, "I *did* this because I read about it and wanted to try it. It's not a pattern. It's not a life-long practice. It hasn't escalated from one type of paraphilia to another. I just wanted to have one hellacious orgasm and that was all there was to it." He leans his head back into the cushions, exposing the black and purple ligature mark on his neck. "It only happened this one time. I swear," he whispers to the ceiling. "I told you, Scully, not everything I do, say, think, and feel goes back to Samantha." Shaken, I lower myself to the chair. Have I shortchanged my partner a second time, reducing his motives to a single childhood experience despite his warnings in Seattle? "Scully, wasn't I right about Lucy Householder?" he asks, sounding exhausted. As a scientist, as an investigator, I know I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I shouldn't close my eyes to broader possibilities. We sit quietly for a moment, listening to the monotonous hum of the fish tank. "You scared me, Mulder," I finally say. "I know. I'm sorry." He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I scared myself, too." He lets his hands drop into his lap. "Please, promise you won't try this again." "Scully..." He frowns, shakes his head. "I realize what almost happened here tonight. If my informant hadn't found me and called Skinner..." He sighs. "I have no intention of proving Bruckman right." He lies down again, stretching boneless from one end of the couch to the other. "Speaking of Skinner, what do you plan to tell him?" I shrug. "You fell in the shower?" This brings a tired smile. "Think he's gonna believe that?" "Maybe if I throw in a few medical terms and cite recent statistics about the incidence of accidents in the home." "What about the anonymous phone call?" "Concerned neighbor." "I hate to say this, Scully, but I think you just ran out of credibility." He tosses my own words back at me before closing his eyes. "Go home." "I'm going to stay a while longer." Complications from neck trauma can appear an hour or more after strangulation. Rupture of the windpipe, fracture of the larynx, damage to the blood vessels in the neck, stroke, seizure, cardiac arrest. I'm not leaving until I know he's okay. "You rest, Mulder." He's quiet for several minutes, and just when I think he must have fallen asleep he surprises me with a question, spoken so softly I need to lean forward to hear him. "Do I disgust you, Scully?" His words suck the breath out of me and I feel as if I'm the one suffocating. I'm at a loss to understand why he would put his life at risk this way, but at the same time, I believe perversion is a subjective term. "I'm not judging you, Mulder." He nods and curls onto his side, this time facing me. His eyes close and his breathing slows until a quiet snore sifts from his swollen throat. I stand, pull the chair back to the desk, and power up his computer. Logging onto the Internet, I initiate a search for "autoerotic asphyxiation syndrome." I find numerous accounts describing fatalities caused by autoerotic behaviors, including laundry lists of objective criteria and ideologies. I skim the text, searching for an explanation to the motivation behind the practice. Mulder's actions may not be attributable to Samantha's abduction, but something triggered his need. I want to assure myself his near-fatal experiment was indeed a one-time trial, born out of curiosity rather than something more serious and permanent. After reading through pages of factoids and misconceptions, I'm somewhat relieved to find the following: //Those who engage in autoerotic behavior are doing so for pleasure. They have no expectation or intention of death. The most common psychological process underlying autoerotic asphyxia is the desire to enhance sexual gratification through the experience of hypoxia. Giddiness, lightheadedness, and exhilaration are believed to augment the masturbatory sensation.// Maybe his reasons are just what he says: one hellacious orgasm. I can't help but wonder, however, if any human behavior is as simple as that. I guess it doesn't really matter. What matters is whether or not he'll try it again. //Autoerotic asphyxiation syndrome is a behavior that can be controlled if the desire is strong enough. However, A.A.S. practitioners must want to stop and most do not.// Watching Mulder sleep, I pray this isn't the case. THE END Author's notes: When I first began this story, I expected it to take a humorous turn, but the more I researched A.A.S., the less funny the subject became. Although the literature states that the majority of A.A.S. practitioners are simply seeking erotic pleasure, the truth is that many are motivated by more serious psychological processes. The syndrome is complex and even the experts don't agree on the causes. The one thing they do agree on, however, is the inherent danger of the practice. Fatalities are not rare. Mulder is an inquisitive character. He's also a risk-taker. As a psychologist, it's likely he would be familiar with autoerotic practices. In addition, he exhibits a personal interest in visual and aural pornography. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that he might experiment with one or more forms of autoeroticism (of which A.A.S. is only one). Given his psychological profile, it's also not too hard to imagine him addicted to asphyxiphilia and eventually dying from it, as predicted by Clyde Bruckman. I wasn't willing to go that route here, but it's something to consider sometime when you're in a very dark mood.