Touch & Scenes From a Mutual Seduction by DavidS

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Touch & Scenes From a Mutual Seduction by DavidS

From: [email protected] Date: 4 Apr 2002 03:20:54 -0000 Subject: Repost: “Touch” by David S, MSR by David S Source: direct

Reply To: [email protected]

TITLE: Touch
AUTHOR: David S
CATEGORY: S, A
KEYWORDS: MSR
RATING: R
SPOILERS: none

SUMMARY: On days like today, his touch is devastating.
ARCHIVE: I’d be delighted. Just let me know.
DISCLAIMER: Others created and own these characters. I improve them, for no personal financial gain. No infringement upon the profits of 1013, Fox, or anyone else is intended.
FEEDBACK: [email protected]
WEB SITE: http://www.geocities.com/mattersofbelief/
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This was originally posted last fall, and is being reposted along with its sequel, “Scenes From A Mutual Seduction.” Please note that the sequel has a more adult rating. Those not of age, please read some of my other work. Thank you. As always, thanks to Abra for being the kind and talented soul who offered to create a home for my work, and then did. Thanks to Pige for the spatula.

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Touch

She thinks he considers it endearing, protective. If she’s honest with herself, and she almost always is, most of the time she hardly notices it. Except for the occasional day. Such as this one. Today, the slight pressure of his fingertips on the small of her back threatens to sear into her skin, atomizing the tattoo she’d had placed there on a night of impulsiveness, to protect herself from his heat. It failed.

Today, she is acutely aware every moment his hand rests there, shepherding her from car to building, through menacingly dim hallways, away from vaguely threatful colleagues. The heat from his touch will burn into her soul if she lets it continue. It pools in her stomach, boiling, the steam traveling in all directions.

She rounds on him in annoyance.

“Mulder.” Her tone is pointed, but not yet sharp.

Instead of answering, he waits patiently, indulgently, his hand still aloft, waiting to claim her anew. She simply stares at him, her jaw clenched, lips drawn tight, fuming.

When she turns back, his hand is there again, and she feels it as it begins to happen, the wetness forming between her legs.

“No!” she thinks angrily, trying to will it away, knowing she cannot, knowing it is inevitable. On days like this. It might happen in the ladies’ bathroom on the floor above their basement office. It might happen in her car after she’s left work early, with minimal explanation, his concern trailing after her, like a faithful pet. Or, it might happen as they walk, his hand the trigger, her back the primer. God, she hopes not, not here, walking inches from him.

But, on days like today, his touch is devastating. Even a woman of her iron will and control surrenders utterly to its whim. She will submit, his fingertips ensure this. She knows it, feels it happening, the heat spreading into her belly. She is aware, now, of her legs as she walks.

She tries to walk more quickly, move away from the will of his heat. He doesn’t even need to lengthen his stride to keep pace, and her ire rises at the arrogance of his lanky grace.

His fingers have not moved from their accustomed rank. Why, then, does she now feel them on the sides of her breasts? Tickling, blood racing to color her chest in rosy hue, her nipples next to betray her will, tightening, becoming exquisitely sensitive. Even her anger eventually turns against her, the heat it leaves in her cheeks a reminder of the heat below.

She will come, no matter what she wants. On days like this.

She should fight it, she thinks, and she will, for a time. Maintaining control has long been a hallmark, paramount in her life. She despises that this is beyond her control. Especially irksome that Mulder is in control. Enraging. Except, the thought lingers, at the instant she finally gives in to it.

At the moment of capitulation exists a freedom she never experiences otherwise. She is unshackled from Dana, the responsible daughter, no longer on call as Doctor Scully, forensic pathologist of last resort. In that instant, Agent Scully’s brief to watch over Mulder’s shoulder, her own interpretation of that brief to watch out for his back, is null and void. There is no responsibility, no anger, no guilt. Only his touch, her body. And absolution.

She’s always held rein over her passion, kept it corralled, preferring, she thinks, a stable emotional life. But, that is not possible today. His fingers have lifted the reins from her grasp, lightly, with a haughty confidence and ease. He has loosened the rein, allowed her passion to buck and shake its mane, pawing impatiently in the dirt. No matter, she decides. She alone holds the latch to this corral and will keep this snorting beast within, the caprice of his will be damned.

En route back to the Bureau, they pass a gilt-glassed office block. In its jewel-like facets, she glimpses their reflection, again and again, her face tight, flushed. His stride is relaxed, his step light. He seems not to have a care in the world. “Prick,” she swears, sotto voce. In response to her quickened pace, he seems, if anything, to have slowed his stride. His palm is now flush on the small of her back, the heat intensifying geometrically, spreading out in vectors all over her body.

In the sepia panels, she sees still photos of the faintest hint of a smile teasing the ends of his full lips, creasing his smooth cheeks. Fury blazes through her, and a tremor shakes her lower abdomen, dampening her thighs. Her head snaps forward, her rage turning inward at her body’s own incremental surrender.

As they enter the elevator on the first floor of the Bureau, she is given a brief reprieve from the tyranny of his touch, as another agent joins them for the short ride to the basement. She feels Mulder’s absence from her back sharply, as a phantom pain, an amputation. The congestion, the pressure, in her lower belly increases, becomes insistent. His grants her the favor of his hand again for the few steps from the elevator to their office, and she sighs in relief, the sharpness easing.

In front of their door, he steps around her, reaching for his keys, his other hand trailing from the small of her back, across her side. She has to dip her head, so that he won’t see the blush that scorches across the bridge of her nose, and brands her cheeks.

As he leans in to unlock the door, she stares at him under her eyelashes, unsure whether she wants to haul off and hit him, or pull him to her, claw at him, fuck him senseless. She wonders whether she might do all of the above.

Pushing the door open, he turns to bid her entry. Seeing her face down turned, he proffers two fingers, those two fingers, placing them gently under her chin, lifting her face so that she sees in his eyes that which she didn’t even know she’d sought: permission.

With a rush, her release comes, flooding her cheeks with color, her eyes with a hazy light.

When she is finished, he withdraws his fingers from under her chin and she collapses against the jamb. She watches him, unable to move, as he strolls to his desk and, a soft smile visible on his lips, begins to flip through a file.

“Bastard! ” she spits. He looks up with his eyes only, peering over his glasses. But there is only wonder in her voice, and on her countenance, love.

-End-

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From: [email protected] Date: 4 Apr 2002 03:22:39 -0000 Subject: New: Scenes From a Mutual Seduction by David S, MSR, NC-17 (1 of 5) by David S Source: direct

Reply To: [email protected]

TITLE: Scenes From a Mutual Seduction
AUTHOR: David S
CATEGORY: S,R,A
KEYWORDS: MSR, UST, RST
RATING: NC-17 (eventually)
SPOILERS: Very slight for Chinga, Triangle.
SUMMARY: Attraction can happen in an instant. Seduction happens with exquisite slowness.
ARCHIVE: Delighted, just ask.
DISCLAIMER: Others made these characters. I, however, made this. From their borrowed use, I profiteth not.
FEEDBACK: [email protected]
WEB SITE: http://www.geocities.com/mattersofbelief
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This is a companion piece in to “Touch.” The five scenes that make up this piece will be posted individually over the next week or so. Thanks always to Abra, without whom my writing would be homeless.

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Scenes From a Mutual Seduction

Scene 1:

In a life full of random events, forming patterns only he seemed to see, a life full of paranoia and uncertainty, Mulder was as certain of this one fact as he had been of anything: she’d known of his attraction to her for years. Had to. He’d flat out admitted it to her at least three times in the past, although it was quite possible that she hadn’t taken him seriously. Once, over the phone, she’d thought he was joking. Another time, she’d assumed he’d been speaking under the influence of an I.V. drip full of drugs. And the other time, just prior to the I.V. drip, decades prior actually, he’d admitted it to her face but, well, it hadn’t really been her. Still. He’d assumed that she must know, must have been able to read it in his every gesture and word. He’d assumed her non-response to be the only answer he should need to his unvoiced question.

Scully wasn’t interested.

In a life full of uncertainties, misdirection and outright lies, Mulder had never been quite so wrong about something as he was about this. He’d underestimated her self-control and her capacity for denial.

Work kept them together constantly, weekends, nights, early mornings. It rarely made a difference. And yet, over a weekend on which they were beholden to no case, nor the need to recuperate from one, he was startled to receive her telephone call.

“Mulder, it’s me. Are you there?”

He’d have guessed that she’d rather lose a limb than to contact him when she didn’t have to. His capacity for denial through self-deprecation was as great as hers through self-control.

“Scully? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

The extended silence had undermined her credibility by the time she answered.

“I’m fine, Mulder. I just…look, it’s nothing. I’ll let you get back to…whatever it is that you were doing. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

His profiling skills were formidable except, he was the first to admit, where she was concerned. However, this was a request, a clear cry for help, or as much of one as his restrained partner was capable.

“Scully, something’s wrong. What is it? Just spit it out. I promise…”

Nothing that had ever been wrong with her, coma, cancer, infertility, had he yet been able to fix. So what help he might be promising now, not even Mulder knew.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mulder. Health-wise, I’m fine. I am. It’s just…”

Normally, he’d have interrupted her, prompted, pressed her, and she would have withdrawn, demurred. This was their custom, their way. That, in this instance, he broke with custom would cause him, much later, to reconsider his skepticism about the existence of God, his silence proof positive of Divine Providence.

“Mulder, I think I’m getting too attached to you.”

In shock, he nearly swallowed his tongue trying to choke out a response.

“What? Whaddya…I mean, er, say more about that, Scully?”

She’d scared the crap out of him with that, he realized.

“I mean,” he added with a nervous chuckle, “I’d have thought you couldn’t wait to be rid of me, if only for the weekend?”

And who could blame you, he appended silently, bitterly.

“I, well, this will sound silly, but I missed you. You weren’t here with me and, when I called earlier, you weren’t there, either.”

The basketball he’d been dribbling since his return from the gym caromed off his foot, bouncing against the bookshelf, knocking one of the videotapes from the “Frohike’s Inheritance” collection into a watery grave in the fishtank.

“You called earlier?” he stammered, searching frantically for the blinking light on the answering machine. Finding it just where it should be, he started anew, “I’m sorry, Scully, I was out…I mean, at the gym. I was…”

“No, Mulder. I’m sorry. For bothering you. For being so damned needy. I shouldn’t be laying this on you. I… just forget it, okay? I’ll be fine. It’s just… I…”

“Missed you too, Scully.”

After all this time, he marveled, this was all it took? When they were apart, they missed each other. Plain, simple. Mutual attraction. Simple. Clear. Between partners. Clear as mud.

He, being Mulder, couldn’t help but raise it on several occasions when they were together, but it felt uncomfortable, forced. Eventually, he’d let it drop.

Then, after haring off into the night without her on a lead to nowhere, he’d had to endure a surgical dissection of his common sense, via cell phone, administered by his supremely annoyed partner. In the midst of her very logical, well-reasoned rant, to which he’d had to assent to just about everything she’d said, she grew quiet.

“Scully?”

No response.

His panic nascent, he went on without her.

“Look, I know. You’re my partner and I should have discussed this with you. But it was late, and I knew that it was probably a dead end…”

He realized that she was still quiet. Worried now, he ventured more softly.

“Scully, are you still with me?”

Finally, it was as if he could feel the disturbance of the air as her jaw prepared to form words.

“Scully, I…”

“Do you want to embrace me, Mulder?”

Embrace me. So formal, so correct. Elegant. So Scully that it seared the breath from his lungs.

Embrace her. Was that what he wanted? He’d hugged her on numerous occasions, hadn’t he? He chastised himself for that thought. He was being an idiot. He knew full well what she meant. Embrace her passionately. Enfold her. Was that what she wanted? Her question of him left that open ended, left her own desires out of the equation. Also very like Scully.

Question.

At some point, he remembered that a question asked begged an answer. “Answer?” he’d nearly responded in disbelief. There was only one answer to her question. There had ever been only one.

“Yes.”

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Scene 2

He IM’d her while she was at a pathology colloquium in Ithaca. By itself, an instant message was neither too impulsive nor too intrusive an act. However, at this particular conclave, Scully was the keynote speaker, on the dais for the entire time. Moreover, Mulder had unwittingly chosen to “ping” at a moment when the spotlight was shining directly on his partner.

He told himself that he’d merely intended to wish her good luck. Furthermore, he reasoned, she’d left her messenger on; it was practically an engraved invitation. In truth, he’d pinged her simply because, without her, he was lonely.

Maybe he shouldn’t have done so, he repeated to himself, but she had left it on.

Hi

A long silence with no response. He’d been on the verge of regret when he hit send. Now, regret washed over him like a muddy flood, sticking in places, damp in others. “Hi.” The letters mocked him from behind their impenetrable message window.

I’m sorry, Scully. I just wanted to say good luck. I shouldn’t have bothered you today. I hope it’s going well.

He’d tapped out a further “I just…,” but then thought better of it, highlighted the text, hit “-M” instead, punched send.

Another excruciating wait. Mulder typed “I’ll see you when you get home. Call me if you want me to pick you up at the airport,” then erased it. He considered the instrument of his stupidity for a moment, and moved the cursor to turn off his messenger program.

Mulder?

He drew no breath for a full minute, then gulped one down before replying.

Yeah. Look, Scully, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disturbed you. I just…

Just what? Needed to be as much in the forefront of her awareness as she was in his? Be just as present for her as she to him? But, there was no “just” about it.

Scully, I

She preempted him.

Do you miss me?

Straight to the point, straight to the heart, if phrased awkwardly.

It wasn’t a simple yes or no question for Mulder, but one with many nuanced answers.

There was the dependable Old, Original Smartass flavor response: “Oh, yeah. When I’m not being second guessed every second of the day, it’s hard to stay sharp.”

Or, there was the full sugar, romantic flavor: “Only when I breathe.” Problem with that was that there was every possibility that Scully might mistake it for “Old, Original Smartass” flavor.

There was always Diet Romantic: “What do you think?” This had the benefit of being less fattening, but was also less filling.

There was the option, of course, that he never used with her: New, Emotional Honesty flavor. He gathered his wits and his balls, and went for this strange new taste.

Yes.

Now, Scully, he thought, you say “I’ve missed you, too,” and we can move on.

Tell me.

Mulder was stunned. Only Scully could throw such curve balls. And she didn’t throw like a girl.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to say,” he whined to the screen, grateful she couldnb’t hear how pathetic he sounded.

Mulder?

Yeah.

Please.

Oh.

It was as close to begging as he’d ever heard from his partner.

My.

You want me to tell you how I’ve missed you?

God.

Yes.

Pause.

Aren’t you in the middle of your conference?

A small pause from him brought a small whine of need from her in response. It was a sound he found that he liked.

Mulder!

I need to know, before I say anything more.

No pause at all before her reply:

Question and Answer. Boring.

But important, Scully.

Mulder!

Now, he paused.

And paused.

Mulder?

Another pause while their dynamic shifted subtly.

You want me to tell you, Scully?

Mulder! Yes

You need me to tell you

Pauses on both ends.

Don’t you, Scully?

Then, in her smallest voice:

yes

It rang, echoed in his ears.

Ask me again, Scully

??

Ask me again, and I’ll tell you

Tell me… Mulder, please

He told her, patiently, in detail. She listened, in need.

And he was immensely turned on.

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Scene 3

The thing of it was, you see, he knew. He knew the control she wielded over her emotions. He knew the mask she wore, day in and day out, impenetrable. Impervious to all things, save one. Him. And he knew this, as well, for what it was. Power.

After they’d admitted their attraction, if not their feelings, he’d begun to assess her reactions more acutely. He felt the searing heat from her eyes along his cheek before he noticed her sidelong glance over yet another flimsy lead he’d deigned to follow. When Skinner had chosen to ream him from stem to stern over a case, he watched the flush creep into her cheeks a moment before she leapt to his defense, her fury magnificent to behold.

From the early days of their partnership, he’d found his hand on the small of her back as they walked. He’d never done that before, not with anyone. In part, with Scully, it was to make certain that he maintained stride with her, not outpacing her more compact gait. But, over time, he’d come to acknowledge that it was also to make contact, to fuel the unspoken connection they seemed to have.

Scully had never complained about it, never mentioned it in any way. There’d come a day, the first case back from Icy Cape, that he remembered her waiting for him, waiting specifically for his hand to come to rest before moving on.

Mulder could barely acknowledge it to himself, let alone Scully, but there’d been dozens of times when this gesture had been utterly possessive on his part, his fingers boldly staking claim to proud, unvanquished lands. What neither of them could, or would see was that only with Scully’s unwitting acquiescence could this claim have taken the hold it had.

Truth be told, Mulder had given Scully more occasions by far to be possessive; Phoebes, Bambis, and a host of other “B’s” outnumbering the odd, toothy sheriff. Although Scully had often been protective of him, she’d rarely been outwardly territorial about Mulder. There’d been no need. The touch of his hand to her back had become a two way connection, as sure a sign of her claim to him, as of his to her.

The tattoo she’d gotten in Philadelphia had been etched right over his accustomed spot; Mulder had taken it as a visceral rejection. For months, the tattoo had acted as talisman, driving them quite literally apart. Then, exiting their car on a case in the desert Southwest, he reached for her back without thinking, acting to guide her from one air conditioned refuge to another. Scully wheeled on him in shock, the touch of his hand grown as unfamiliar now as that of a stranger. In the scalding glare they stood unspeaking, only their expressions, long frozen in anger and resentment, beginning to shift and melt.

Heat rising from the asphalt beneath disfigured the air between them. For an instant, each of them stared at Mulder’s hand as it hung limply where her back had been. She looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and hurt in her eyes, across her cheeks. In return, his downcast face bespoke embarrassment and chagrin.

They’d never spoken of their connection or of the gesture, accepting both simply as unremarkable aspects of a remarkable partnership. Under the withering sun, they struggled in silent negotiation to return to a semblance of normalcy. Scully searched his eyes, finding resignation, seeing it as well in the defeated fall of his hand.

The soft touch of her palm along his cheek brought his eyes back to hers. In a glance, he comprehended that it wasn’t distance she’d wanted, but understanding; it wasn’t the gesture, but the presumption of possession behind it that she’d railed against. As this knowledge dawned, apology swept his face. A faint smile softened her lips and she turned from him, waiting. At first, he stood motionless. She turned her eyes back to him, one brow quirked in amusement. With a small snort of laughter, he permitted his hand to retake its customary spot, life resuming more or less as it had been. Together, they moved forward through the scorched air.

Thereafter, Mulder began to take notice of the subtle range of his partner’s reactions to this touch. Anger could jolt enough adrenaline through her system that he had to work to keep pace with her, to maintain contact and, even so, she could still manage a final burst of speed sufficient to sever the connection as they entered the Hoover, or any other destination. After Emily’s death, her despondence had become apparent in the lack of any response at all to his touch. When things were all right with them, this point of contact was a guide, a way for each to communicate intention through the slightest shift in the pressure of contact between hand and back. When things were amiss, each felt adrift, vessels without rudder.

And then, of course, there were days like today.

Mulder couldn’t be bothered to place the exact date he’d noticed this particular reaction. Initially, at any rate, he’d misconstrued it as one of annoyance with him. One morning, she’d reacted to his touch as if it were an irritant, sand on silk. Her tolerance seemed to reach a limit, at which point she’d arched away from his hand as if it had burned her. After a time, however, she’d settled back against him, a pattern which would repeat itself throughout that day.

Mulder had attempted to oblige her, save her this apparent irritation, by consciously avoiding reaching for her. Yet, curiously, she continued to seek out his touch, as if alternately despising and desiring it. A pleasure/pain reaction perhaps, the psychologist in him surmised, a reflection of the ambivalence she’d long held about their partnership, their relationship. But, they’d admitted their attraction, hadn’t they? So, if she was pulling away, it had to be something else. Had to be.

In the early evening, on their way back to the Hoover, she’d stopped and turned as if to confront him, nostrils flaring as if angered, but with a gentler statement on her face. She looked up at him, then down at his hand, turned on her heel and left him standing agape. The pale pink light of the summer evening camouflaged how flushed her fair cheeks were.

He began to nurture a certain suspicion, drawn in equal part from observation and from projection of his own feelings, although Mulder spurriously discounted the latter. Recently, he’d begun to feel this small intimacy between them as an electrical impulse, current flowing at the completion of a circuit – Mulder to Scully and Scully back to Mulder.

When had it been, that first time? The day Skinner had come through with the tip on Krycek, was that it?

They’d been walking leisurely, without touching, toward the car parked in the lot at Quantico, when his phone chirped. Mulder stopped dead as the information was relayed. The import fast becoming apparent on his face, Scully had turned from him and began moving quickly to the car. He’d fallen in step beside her as the call was ending, too energized by it to remember to append the appropriately respectful “sir” to his sign-off, the flat of his hand coming to rest upon her back as he summarized Skinner’s information. The intensity of his voice sharpened as details were revealed, the palm of his hand lifting concurrently until only his fingertips were in contact with her, the focus of an astounding energy coursing between them, impelling them forward.

By the time they’d drawn up to the car, they’d added the tip to the pool of the already known, filtered the product through the formidable seine of their combined expertise, and had reached startlingly similar conclusions. Silently, a call to action roused and tensed them.

Mulder reaced out to open the door for her. The instant his free hand touched the curved sheet metal, providing a ground, the current between them arced over the space where his fingers met her sacrum, making them both jump as if shocked.

For a moment, they stared at each other warily, assessing damage, cause and, finding neither, entered the car and headed out. Mulder noted with interest the rise of his own pulse, the tingling in his extremities, the itch of the small hairs on his legs standing up, the heat of the air now crackling in his lungs. He noticed, too, the flush on her cheeks, the dispatch of her breath, the intense flame in her eyes. He continued to watch her out of the corner of his eye as he drove, watched the rise and fall of her chest gradually quiet, watched her fierce determination to avert her gaze from him weaken, the muscles in her neck relaxing. All of this he filed away for future reference.

No matter what he tried, no matter how hard he tried it, Mulder found he could not induce this effect. It occurred when it occurred, leaving them both shaken, in wonder, desiring more but loath to even acknowledge that it had happened in the first place.

It was an irony not lost on Mulder, considering the focal point involved, that whether or not this reaction would happen on any given day was out of his hands.

The thing of it was, you see as did Mulder, that Scully still believed he could exert some control over whether it happened or not. Moreover, she seemed to think that he derived nothing from this contact, aside from curiousity and amusement. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

If this was a contest, it would have been an advantage. If this was a contest, it was one he could ill afford for either of them to lose.

And then there are days like today. Days when he senses that she wills it to happen, this explosive reaction between them, even as she struggles against his illusory control over it. For Scully to relinquish control is an exceedingly rare event, one not achieved without cost. It is as if she is daring him to take it from her, almost begging for it to be wrested away, yet not without a fight.

He wages his own struggle to stay neutral, to appear barely aware of the effect he is having on her, as if it truly were nothing to him to cause it to happen. He is one lucky son of a bitch, he acknowledges, that his own body’s reactions aid him in appearing unmoved, at least for a time.

His breath catches in his throat when he sees her unable to maintain any but the lightest of contact between them, but unwilling or unable to do without, so his lungs do not appear to labor under the adrenal rush he receives from her blush.

His relief at being a beneficiary of this reaction yet again is interpreted by his partner as smugness. His lengthened stride is interpreted as arrogant ease in light of her growing discomfort, not as his way to ease the uncomfortable pressure of blood swelling his groin.

His apparent ease mirrors her discomfort, his smile her annoyance, his lanky grace mirrors her rigid control. Yet, it is a race toward collapse between her control and the maintainance of the charade of his indifference to it all.

It is something at least, if something little that he can give her, he realizes. The briefest of respites from her self-control. It is something he desires to give her, desires desperately.

Moments ago, arriving at their basement redoubt after an afternoon-long slow burn, he’d assumed that it woul come to a premature end, that her control would win out today.

Throughout the afternoon, he’d witnessed her discomfort, the pleasure/pain reaction intensifying, pressure increasing until he fully expected that she would explode, hit him, excoriate his arrogant hide, something.

Now, he presumed, that release would pass, the control would regain its footing.

He turned after opening the door, expecting her to push past him, startled that she didn’t, even more so to see her standing still, arms wound tightly around her, head bowed, her face colored lightly.

He reached out gently, apology ready in his touch, two fingers lifting her chin, raising her eyes to his. In the dusky light, her pale eyes shimmered not with anger, but with desire, control waiting to be released. With this realization, his eyes misted with relief and gratitude. This he can give her: permission to let go.

There were no words exchanged, there has never been any need of them. There was simply a long exhalation of breath on her part, a shorter one on his as he smiled gently, hurrying as nonchalantly as possible to his desk.

“Bastard!” she hissed. But, he accepted it for what it is, the mistaken impression that he does this on purpose, that he wields any control at all over this connection between them.

It is a mistaken impression that would be corrected if only he remained standing, which, defiantly, he does not. She would discover just how little control he has, how his body is no longer able to hide its reactions under loose folds of dark wool cloth.

She will discover it eventually. He wonders why this frightens him. And then it occurs to him that she feels vulnerable, laid bare by something as simple as a point of contact between them. Touch.

He is equally vulnerable, equally prey to this connection between them, to the effect of his own fingers upon her.

She will discover this. He can’t hide behind his desk forever. What happens then, even he can’t say. But he knows that it is inevitable, that neither of them could stop it if they tried.

He watches her as she moves, finally, from the doorway and into the office, a predatory gleam in her eyes. He prays to every god he can think of that they survive the conflagration to come.

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Scene 4

On Monday, they’d argued. Quarreled, really. He knew that neither of them would have deemed it an argument. An argument was a connected series of statements intended to forward and defend a given proposition. Intellectual sport, something they had both enjoyed frequently over the years.

A hobby to some, a profession to others, Mulder considered argument to be the lifeblood of their partnership. However, that which had managed to foul even the fetid air in their basement office offended the very dignity of the word “argument.”

Mulder quickly lost sight of the fulcral point of disagreement, a sure sign, he was to reflect later, of its utter unimportance. Whatever its root, the quarrel had dissolved rapidly into an uneasy truce: long stretches of fuming silence punctuated by brief bursts of sniping. After one particularly irritable exchange, Mulder could have sworn he’d detected the tang of cordite hanging in the air around them.

Burying themselves in the case at hand provided a refuge from direct conflict, if not from the toxic fallout of the cloud already hanging over them. It was an irony lost on neither one that they each seemed to be working more efficiently in this atmosphere, not having to defend their chosen theory at every turn. Scully followed the forensic evidence to a scientifically supportable, if not certain, conclusion, while Mulder followed leap upon reckless leap of intuition to an entirely different hypothesis, supported by a logic all its own, yet logic nonetheless.

Monday afternoon, Scully rose and shrugged a light coat onto her shoulders, informing the file cabinet she faced (as well as any other occupant of the office within earshot) that she was headed to the forensics lab at Quantico to check and double-check her findings. After that, her tone kept as neutral as she could manage, she intended to head straight home, alone, thank you, in order to prepare for the progress review scheduled with the A.D. for just after noon the following day.

Mulder waited, but the file cabinet ventured nothing at all to this news. Mulder himself was somewhat more responsive, but only just. He grunted his assent, appending more sharply than he intended that he, too, had some double-checking to do in preparation for that meeting.

They left the office twenty minutes apart, each annoyed by the obvious ploy of the other to escape without proffering the expected apology.

Neither got much accomplished that evening.

ᚘ

Across the polished mahogany of his desk, A.D. Skinner watched the inverted reflection of Mulder’s face deliver his evaluation of the case thus far. It was only appropriate to observe Mulder this way, he mused sourly. Never had the agent delivered such a wooden, dispassionate report. Doubly apropos, as the man across from him was only a reflection of the agent he prized. Agent Scully’s report had been no more involved.

If it had been any other pair, he might have put it down to apathy toward the given case. He knew better. These two were anything but apathetic. In truth, their passion for the work had more than once outstripped their judgment, placing them in jeopardy. The problem with these two was that they didn’t know when to stop, when to back off.

Absent now was the cross talk they normally engaged in without thought. In their normal approach to casework, one always finished the thoughts of the other even when at odds over the nature of the matter at hand. Skinner could not explain this ability, could barely fathom it, although it was faintly amusing to consider how appropriate it was that telepathy should apparently exist between partners on the so-called X-Files. However, he knew that, quite possibly, this inexplicable connection was the key, against staggering odds, to their continued survival, let alone to their eventual success.

Skinner had, in recent years, moved from stubborn acceptance on through grudging admiration into something just short of awe for the fortitude and strength of character his agents had long shown. Unlike the A.D. himself, they’d never wavered in opposition to the chimera of evil that was the Consortium, had never consorted knowingly with the Devil. A convert to their “religion,” Skinner marveled at their seemingly inexhaustible zeal.

Evidently, however, something in this unshakable partnership was amiss.

This wasn’t simply a failure to communicate. It was a refusal.

It wasn’t that they could find no passion for the case. It was a matter of passion denied.

A minute elapsed before Skinner raised his attention from the desk. When he finally spoke, it was brief and, though quiet in tone, brooked no response.

“This,” he said, gesturing with the reports they’d each submitted, “is solid, conventional work, agents.” Skinner registered their looks of surprise.

After a moment, he turned in his seat and slipped the reports through a shredder sitting beside the desk. “Problem is, I refuse to settle for that from you.”

He stared hard at each of them. As he spoke, Skinner appeared to chew his words, grind them under his molars before spitting out only the essence of what had to be said. When they both began to squirm in their seats, Skinner knew he’d struck a nerve.

” I don’t know what it is that’s gotten into you, I don’t want to know. But, hear this.”

Normally, he’d have expected Scully to sit ramrod straight at that command. When, in this instance, Mulder joined her, worry began to grip the back of Skinner’s jaw.

“You both have more than enough arrayed against you without fighting each other.”

Although his words were obviously intended to encompass them both, Mulder felt the A.D.‘s gaze burning directly into his chest, without relief. Immediately, he became aware of the absence of a sense of Scully’s presence. Yes, a quick glance revealed, she was still in the seat next to him. It was his instinctive awareness of her that had fled. This realization chilled him.

“Whatever it is, agents, I expect it to be rooted out.”

If the Assistant Director expected a response from either of them, he gave no sign. At any rate, no response would be forthcoming. He looked down at an open agenda to one side of the desk, studying it intently. When he looked up, he seemed genuinely surprised to see them still in their seats.

“Dismissed.”

Through sheer force of will, the A.D. refrained from looking in the direction of the departing agents until after the door had clicked shut softly behind them. Skinner’s jaw clenched tightly, the flexing of muscles there the sole giveaway to any surveillance cameras of just how concerned he’d become.

As they left the outer office, stepping into the hallway, Scully glared at him. Mulder barely squelched the temptation to say, “Yeah? Well, you started it.”

ᚘ

By Thursday, Mulder was steeping in regret.

Since the meeting in Skinner’s office, he’d become acutely aware of how anger had blunted his sense of his partner and deprived him of the one person who would always tell him the truth, yet support him no matter what.

With every small, painful jab he took at Scully, with every chance he refused to wave the olive branch, Mulder began, quietly, helplessly, to self-destruct.

It had been a simple matter of pride. Now, he began to realize the price his stubbornness might exact. It could well be immeasurable. It could well be Scully.

The costs of pride began to accumulate in the smallest of details.

He’d lobbed innuendo at her since the beginning of their acquaintance, before they’d become friends, and long before either of them suspected any greater import might exist. Early on, innuendo had provided them an escape valve, a way for two people unaccustomed to doing so, to express emotions, caring, concern, that were not “by the book,” at least in such a new partnership. Scully even seemed to enjoy this banter, soon throwing it right back at him.

Once they’d begun to face their attraction, however, innuendo shed the cheap gloss it had once held, the full range of emotional color becoming visible to them. They’d been forced to become comfortable with the gift and receipt of compliments. Although he was still surprisingly awkward at doing so, Mulder enjoyed the freedom to tell Scully what he thought or felt, without editing for content.

This new freedom became the first casualty of their war.

He’d found himself stymied numerous times on Wednesday, stifling a remark about how nice it was simply to hear her voice over the phone from Quantico, stopping himself from indulging an impulse to purchase a trinket in a shop window simply because it was something she might like.

His frustration mounted. It was not made easier by the fact that he had only himself to blame.

Most of all, he missed her attention; the way her eyes stayed rapt on him during discussions, intent to communicate whatever her voice could not, the smile she couldn’t quite hide in response to one of his poor witticisms, the sound of her voice, soothing, reassuring that he was not alone in this fight, not alone in the world.

She entered the office briskly on Thursday, her demeanor as businesslike as her appearance. So familiar and, yet, something about her startled him. He wasn’t certain what it was, although it might have been something different with her hair. In all honesty, he only noticed changes in her hairstyle months after she’d made the alterations. He’d never been able to tell whether this annoyed or amused her. So, it could have been her hair, although he wasn’t going to risk saying so.

In the final analysis, the reason barely mattered. When the truth struck him, he knew that it wasn’t something about Scully that had changed, but something about him.

Scully was beautiful. Why hadn’t he understood this fully before? Radiantly beautiful. It was as if, for once, Mulder was seeing her with perfect clarity.

In the best of times, he’d have stumbled over telling her this. And these were, most decidedly, not the best of times.

But, oh, Christ, she was beautiful.

The belated realization of something so patently obvious hit him with devastating force. What a fucked-up moment to come to it. He’d maneuvered himself into a position where he couldn’t say this to her, even if he figured out a way to say it.

Hers wasn’t a monochrome beauty, something skin-deep. Scully’s radiance seemed to blossom from the very contradictions at the root of her being: strength and fragility, skepticism and loyalty, knowledge and belief, head and heart.

Close on the heels of this revelation, the next, more devastating, followed.

His beautiful, intelligent partner was devoted to him for Lord only knew what reason. And, in a moment of arrogant pig-headedness, he’d driven her away.

He was a fool. A fool for realizing it so late in the day. A fool for being unable to tell her this straight out. A goddamned fool for driving her away.

Pride alone kept him from blurting out his confession and heaping apology upon apology until she accepted it and forgave him.

God, he hated Mondays. They’d both had more bad Mondays than he could possibly count. He and Scully should just not do Mondays, avoid them, wipe them from their calendars. Mondays should be outlawed. At the very least, Mulder decided, it was time to put this past Monday far behind them, no matter what.

ᚘ

There were flowers at her worktable when Mulder arrived at the office on Friday.

They were not from him.

Scully appeared from the rear of the office in time to find him gaping at the sight of them.

“Flowers?”

Whenever he was upset, Mulder’s speech betrayed its mixed lineage: lowbrow/highbrow, broad/clipped, neighborhood New York/Brahmin Boston. It was a trait of which Mulder himself was unaware. Not so his partner.

“Yes, Mulder. Flowers. Is that so strange?”

Mulder couldn’t look away from the small bouquet, colors startling in the dimly lit space. His attention diverted, he missed the quirk of her lip and the slight cock of her eyebrow, sure give-aways that she was amused.

In point of fact, Scully knew, flowers were very unusual in their dingy little office. What was more, she reflected sadly, flowers had been unusual in her life. This tidbit, she’d decided instantly, was something Mulder did not need to know.

“Why the panic face, Mulder? It’s just a simple bunch of flowers.”

Though tasteful, the arrangement Mulder beheld with burgeoning horror could hardly be deemed simple. Jonquils and irises were arrayed about a number of tulips in varying pastel hues. In the center stood a lily of an almost pure white. Someone had gone to quite a bit of trouble to produce this bouquet for her, and that knowledge settled heavily in the pit of his stomach. Moreover, it easily put to shame the bunch he held in his hand, desperately trying to hide it from view, in the folds of his topcoat.

On impulse, he’d picked up a motley collection of pale yellow Alstromeria at a convenience store, on the way in to work. It had seemed a decent idea at the time, a subtle way to break the tension between them without having to go too far into the morass of emotional detail that had informed the week past. Hell, it seemed to work in the movies, anyway.

The plastic sheath around the flowers crinkled loudly as he worried it in his hand, weighing whether to try to discard them discreetly or to go ahead with his original plan and present them to Scully, attempting to defuse any awkwardness, as always, with a self deprecating remark or, in this case, maybe two.

“Mulder?”

A heartbeat before he turned from the stunning arrangement to face her, another before he wound up to speak.

“Sit down, Scully. We need to straighten some things out.”

His voice had recovered a peremptory air. It calmed him to hear it. Scully, however, stiffened noticeably at his tone.

“There’s nothing to straighten out, Mulder. We had a disagreement. Partners disagree. They get it out in the open and then move on. Well, damnit, we’ve been stewing for five days because of this. Let’s just put it behind us and move on!”

“People move on after talking things through, Scully. We haven’t talked this through! Far from it. You can’t avoid talking about this any longer.”

After a precarious second, Scully managed to refuse that bait, responding in a well-measured tone. “Mulder, I know you. You don’t want to talk about these things, not really.” She paused, as if considering how much she should say. When she spoke, her tone was somewhat less than measured. “What you want is to tell me the way things have been and, then, to set out for me how they’re going to be resolved.”

He moved to interrupt, but was shut down with a glance, her eyes brilliant with anger. Mulder greeted her anger with relief. He’d not intended to provoke her, but this was certainly preferable to the false peace under which they’d been coexisting.

“Okay, Scully. Let’s talk.”

Try as he might, Mulder couldn’t help but sound a trifle condescending. He only made things worse by pulling out a chair for her, patting it in indication that she should sit and, ever so graciously, offering her the lead.

“You first.”

Before she could decide just how vehemently to refuse the proffered seat, her phone trilled and she crossed the room to retrieve it.

“Scully.”

Her business mien dissolved instantly, a smile bringing color to her cheeks. Although she turned from him for the sake of privacy, the office wasn’t so large as to preclude him from hearing her end of the conversation, especially when he was listening with purpose and intent.

“Oh, they’re beautiful. Thank you. How did you know?”

Although it would have taken a crack anthropologist to surmise it, based on Mulder’s bland expression, he’d flown instantly into a towering rage at whomever was on the other end of the line, for having the temerity to move in on Scully, to usurp that most tenuous claim he felt he had on her. His hand flexed around the stems, long forgotten, in his hand, bending and finally snapping them in two.

“Yes, I’ll see you Sunday. Hmmm? Tonight?” She turned, briefly, looking at him with what might have been regret, Mulder couldn’t have been sure. “Sure, I can do tonight. Not a problem.” Turning away from him again, she dipped her head, smiling as she listened. “Oh, yes. That sounds lovely. Yes. See you then.”

There should have been an echo of the explosion, smoke, the tinkle of shattering glass, something other than the ugly stillness that descended and engulfed him.

Her phone call had lasted only a few moments and yet, to Mulder, everything in the office seemed altered by it. His fears had become real. He had indeed driven her away. Worse, he’d driven her into the arms of someone else.

With this, his rage seemed pointless, impotent, and was swamped in swift order by remorse.

Scully turned back to him, unchanged, seemingly prepared to pick up the “talk” just where they’d left off. Mulder sank down into the chair he’d pulled out for her, his posture a defeated slump.

“I’ve really fucked things up, haven’t I?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mulder. Fucked up what, how?”

If he’d still been enraged, he might have accused her of being patronizing. At least now he understood that she was actually being anything but.

“Us. That is, if there still is an ‘us.’”

He paused to let her confirm this, only to have his hope dashed. He hurried on rather than wait a moment longer only to have it actually disproved.

“Scully, I hate to admit this, but I don’t even remember what the hell we were fighting about.”

He shrugged in frustration. The gesture brought to her attention the spray of flowers in his hand, the stems at right angles to the red freckled blooms. She fought to stay focused on what he was saying, trusting that she’d process the significance of the flowers after.

“All week, we’ve barely… I’ve barely made the effort to be civil. And for what? Damnit all! I don’t even remember.”

She could have filled in the blanks for him, told him that it had actually been a long running issue for her, equality in the partnership, in their relationship, that this fight had, in reality, been about that very thing, just in one of its many guises. She knew that, for them, the road to equality wasn’t a straight one, nor easy. In order to put themselves on that road, in whatever form their partnership might take, they had to speak openly, honestly about how they felt about each other. Neither had ever done that well, although it seemed Mulder was about to make a start. She was determined to let him.

“Do I take you for granted?”

A sharp bark of a laugh was all the answer he was going to get, and he knew it.

“Apparently, there’s quite a bit about you that I’ve taken for granted… that I haven’t made an effort to really see.”

Mulder let his head droop, looking straight down between his knees to the floor.

“I can’t tell you how… how sorry I am to have let this happen. I’ve just begun to realize that, by doing so, I’ve been depriving myself of…of the full measure of you.”

Mulder felt his verbal facility desert him, a very rare occasion. In response, he shot out of the chair and began to pace, thinking out loud as he went.

“What I mean to say is that, I know I’ve made a habit of making decisions for the X-Files team on my own. I mean, I, I know that and what I’m telling,” he paused only to turn his volume down, “what I’m asking you for, is…” What? Indulgence, patience? Surely, Scully had long ago run out of those two commodities.

“Scully, I value you, being in my life, your input on cases… No! Damnit, it’s more than that, more than just your input. I don’t think as clearly without you around. This entire week, I’ve felt that way, as if you weren’t here, even though I damn well know that you were. I got squat done on that case. I’m lucky Skinner doesn’t fully despise me or I’d be transferred in a heartbeat, pushing paper around in Podunk. It’s just that, after Monday, after our fight, I couldn’t get it together. I, I don’t know if this makes sense, but that scares the shit out of me. I’ve always been able…”

Her response was so quiet that only the characteristic sibilance in her speech alerted him to it.

“Yes. Yes, that makes perfect sense, Mulder.”

“This fight on my own for so long. It was my reason for being. Your arrival didn’t change the fact that it was my fight, not at first, anyway. And, I know, I know… by now, you’ve lost as much as I have in this search, maybe even more, I’m not really sure. But, somewhere along the way, I realized that not only did I not want to do this alone anymore, I couldn’t do it alone, even if I tried. And that scares me, scares the shit out of me.”

His pacing had taken the form of the numeral eight, or the symbol for infinity. At the rate Mulder was going, Scully feared that it was more likely to be the latter. Suddenly, he stopped, looked upward, took one long stride toward the chair and, using its seat as a springboard, leapt and just missed snatching one of the pencils from its resting place among the ceiling tiles.

“I think, well, it’s my theory anyway,” he began, looping around for the second pass at the ceiling, “that the reason I…” Only the polished tip of Mulder’s shoe managed to land flat on the chair with this pass, both the chair and its cargo toppling in different directions, neither of them upward.

Scully winced as Mulder stumbled and sprawled across his desk, scattering books, slides and ephemera in all directions.

“Mulder? You okay?” She fought down a chuckle at Mulder’s embarrassment, as he righted himself and then the chair. “Look, I know this is difficult to talk about, Mulder, but I do appreciate the effort, and would appreciate you staying alive long enough to get through it.”

Mulder, taking that last bit as a challenge, whirled, planted and jumped again, knocking one of the pencils loose from its ceiling aerie and catching it as he landed, more or less gracefully, with a soft thud and a grunt.

“Mulder!”

Scully remained unappeased by the gift of the pencil he’d retrieved. In order to forestall any further risky acrobatics, she pulled the chair over and sat down in it.

“You were saying something about a theory, Air Mulder?”

Scully expected a quip in return, but was surprised when his expression sobered, and he continued in earnest.

“It boils down to this. Scully, the truth is that I can’t do this,” he waved his arms to encompass the office and all things paranormal, “without you. I can’t. But, it’s more complex than that.”

He paused, looking like someone who is about to bungee-jump off of a bridge, not trusting that the connection between the two of them would survive either the leap or the rebound. She bridged the gap between them, reaching out to touch his arm. He looked down at her hand and smiled, gently shaking his head.

“Leap of faith, Scully. Leap of faith.”

He noted her confusion, and then, before he could lose his nerve, jumped.

“I’m afraid. Afraid that, after I admit just how dependent I am on you, how much I truly need you… You’re not just a convenient pair of hands to do alien autopsies…” Mulder stopped and swore under his breath, “Fuck. This just isn’t going right.”

Her hand tightened its grip on his arm.

“Scully, if they ever try to take you from me again, I will fight to my last breath to get you back. That, I think I could endure. But, if I ever lost you through something I’d said or done, I really don’t know whether I could go on or not. Certainly not in the X Files, or in the Bureau. The truth is that I’m not willing to risk losing you because I know that, if I did, I’d lose my true reason for being.”

He took a deep, slow breath and looked into the high summer of her blue eyes, still unsure of the constancy they promised.

“I’ve tried to tell you. Jesus, I’ve tried. Dozens of times, I’ve started to tell you how much you mean… how important you are to me. But, I’ve been a coward. I’ve accepted that it’s better to have you merely as my partner, than to spill the beans and risk losing you completely.”

“Why now, Mulder? Why put yourself, your heart, on the line?”

“Because, Scully. I’ve already gone and done it. What I said on Monday, how I’ve acted since? I’ve put us at risk.” He nodded at the vase of flowers to her left, finishing quietly “When I walked in and saw them, I realized that it was now or never.”

Scully glanced over at the vase full of the season of rebirth, thoughtful. She looked back at Mulder, and then pointed to the wounded bunch of Alstromeria on the floor.

“Are those for me?”

Mulder nodded, looking down at them, stammering lamely about how he’d had the best of intentions to make them a peace offering and apology all rolled into one. But once he’d been beaten to the punch, they seemed woefully inadequate to the task.

Scully stood and bent gracefully at the knee to retrieve them.

“They’re beautiful, Mulder,” she said, closing the distance between them. “Apology accepted.”

Placing her free hand softly aside his face, she guided his lips to hers, kissing him softly, without reservation, her mouth open, warm, in the touch of their lips a bonding of souls.

She pulled away as softly as she’d touched him, reassuring him that this was indeed what she wanted, in fact what was meant to be.

“I’d better go put these in water,” she said, a shyness overtaking her in the aftermath. At the door, she turned to see him as unsteady as a newborn colt in their changed world. The sight buoyed her with the knowledge that they were equally at the mercy of feelings they could neither control nor change.

“Oh, Mulder?” Her eyes were alight with the smile that would come only after she’d left the room. “Those flowers are from my mother.”

The shocked expression on his face filled her with a giddy delight. She gave as good as he did. It was a lesson he ought to learn sooner rather than later.

“We’re having dinner tonight. You’re welcome to join us, I’m sure.”

At this parting shot, Mulder found himself grinning broadly. Theirs had always been quite a wild ride. Why should it be any different now?

ᚘ ᚘ ᚘ

Scene 5

They’ve been lovers for weeks now, he realizes, and yet they’ve only kissed. Admitting their mutual attraction has changed them irrevocably, although not in any way that they’d feared. In fact, their partnership has been vastly enriched by this experience.

What a stale word, he thinks, for such a living, breathing thing. Partnership. Yet, even with his avid mind, a more appropriate term remains elusive. Spiritual, she deems it. Deep, even soulful, he’ll admit, if pressed to call it anything at all.

This is so new to him, thinking out loud about their connection; it’s new to them both. A partnership, though, is what they’ve always had. All that’s been done is to acknowledge a connection that spans their working and personal realms, a connection without which neither one could survive a moment longer.

Each in their way, they’d feared change, feared the risk that it would sever what they’d already forged. He will not tell her this, nor she him, but, in retrospect, each thinks the risk too large to have taken, although the actual payoff has been wonderful.

Yet, weeks pass and they haven’t taken the logical next step. He is on the verge of deciding for them both that this should change as well.

ᚘ

In her apartment, there is a window that faces west. West-south-west to be precise, which she almost always is. In the direction of the setting sun. In the direction of his apartment. There have been many days, when just staring out that window has revitalized her, revivified an atrophying heart. Whether that’s been from the life affirming warmth of the sun, or from the subtle reminder of his presence in the world, she has never attempted to figure out.

She stands in front of that window now, her face falsely aglow with the orange of the scudding clouds, arms folded tightly in front of her.

It has been a hellish week. A brutal case involving the kidnapping of young mothers-to-be. Mulder’s profile has saved the lives of two women and both of their babies, but many others have perished.

Usually, Mulder is the one who bears the brunt of profiling assignments, both physically and emotionally. The weight of this one, however, has fallen brutally upon Scully, taking nearly everything from her. He is worried about her, saying little, giving her no opportunity to rebuff him with an “I’m fine.” He simply refuses to leave her side.

On this spring evening, the sun looks warmer than the heat it gives off and, although it seems to set more gently than in winter, is quietly leaving her living room to the gathering gloom. His apartment is off in the distance ahead, but he is right behind her, unwilling to leave until she is once again herself, to his satisfaction.

Just before the sun is lost over the horizon, Scully glances back over her shoulder, seeking him. The dying rays catch a tear in its descent down her cheek, and, through it, fragment into small shards too fragile to be seen any longer. Mulder moves from the shadows, placing a large, comforting hand on her shoulder. In response, she unclasps her arms, placing a slim, elegant hand on top of his.

He closes the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her, clasping his hands underneath her breasts, enveloping her, calming them both. Scully rests her head back against his chest and, finally, the tears come in wracking gasps.

Mulder kisses her hair, her neck, shoulder. Eventually, her sobs quiet, and a smile, as tentative as the first crocus in late winter and just as brave, appears on her lips. He rests his cheek against her hair, his breath warm on her skin as, together, they watch the glow from the departing sun wane and darkness settle in, warm and protective, somehow no longer as threatening.

Scully glances sidelong at him, her eyes shining. After a moment, she turns again to the window and leans her head back against his shoulder, her slender throat bared to him. It is an invitation, one he accepts without hesitation or regrets.

His lips claim her ear, gently at first, and then not. His generous mouth tugs insistently on her earlobe, drawing from her a long, sweet sigh. Scully pulls his arms tightly around her, locking them over her chest. His tongue explores her ear boldly, rimming out and tumbling down her neck. He feels her stomach expand on a sudden intake of breath, feels her smile bloom against his cheek.

He permits his hand to slide over the curve of her lower belly. Scully turns slightly in his arms and, raising her face toward his, gives up the pain and sorrow of the week past, seeking only rest and hope for the days and weeks to come.

Mulder’s hands ease from their protective embrace and glide over her flanks, down the sides of her thighs, gathering up the dark wool of her skirt, bunching it up as they rise again, exposing the backs of her legs and, swathed in a small film of silk, her bottom.

The growing murmur of her arousal demands that he press close to her. Almost without thought, as if this were second nature between them, she leans back into him, the stirring of his body evident, expected, idling in the cleft of her legs.

The final glimmers of the passing day barely color the sky as he slips his fingers into the waistband of her panties and pulls down. Kneeling behind her, he slips them gently down to her ankles, lifting one foot at a time for her, leaving the panties carelessly by her feet. He presses light kisses on her calves, tastes the backs of her knees.

Her scent darkens as he rises, the jasmine of her lotioned skin giving way to something headier, more primal, urgent upon his senses. His kisses trail over the newly bared curve of her hip, raising goose bumps as he goes. His kisses end at the small of her back, upon the slightest of downy hair there, his progress halted by the waistband of her skirt.

By the time he is standing again, all traces of daylight have fled. Although it is dark, in deference to her modesty, he leaves her skirt on. He presses his now distended slacks up against her, his hand caressing the softness of her belly, underneath the skirt.

Her arm floats up and behind her head, fingers falling gently as snowflakes onto his hair. Her other hand rests upon his forearm, guiding him into the first wisps of her curls. His lips find her earlobe once more, sucking, tugging. Scully’s head lolls to one side, permitting him free rein over her pale throat. His kisses tease her skin, soft bites enflame it.

Mulder’s fingers take the direction her hand has given and slide into the abundant curls on her mons, feeling the already heated flesh below. His long fingertips glide low, over the swelling curve of her labia, cupping them, parting them slightly, the earliest semblance of her passion revealed to his touch like the dew before dawn.

He is well aware that his breath has quickened dramatically, but it isn’t until she grasps his forearm with a surprising strength that he realizes she is as aroused as he. Still, he waits for her to give him permission to continue on. Her grip on his forearm eases and, after a moment, he feels the faintest insistence from her fingertips urging him lower.

One slender finger slips down, barely brushing her curls, pressing slowly back up, finding her already open, awaiting him. At first touch, her heat startles him, traveling up his arm and making him gasp, breath releasing on a slow sigh as he sinks into her body.

Slowly, sweetly, he begins to move within her, in, out, with a languorous drawl. She leans back against him heavily, a tremor passing through her and escaping as a barely voiced “oh.”

Mulder removes a hand, reluctantly, from the gap in her blouse left by the several buttons he’s managed to undo, leaving her softly flushed skin exposed to the cool air. He fumbles awkwardly with his belt, trying to unhook the clasp as quickly and with as little fuss as he can manage with one hand. It doesn’t make it easier that Scully’s left hand is also fumbling with it, trying to assist. Finally, by accident more than design, his belt comes undone, fly is unzipped, and pants fall into an inglorious heap at his feet.

Scully brushes the back of her hand awkwardly over the front of him. He is rampant with need for her.

Mulder wants to give her this, wants her to implode with desire and explode in her glory. But, his cock is dripping, hard, impatient. His boxers get pulled and then shoved down, his erection bobbing as it is freed. His right knee pushes her legs akimbo, and he slides two fingers deep inside her, taking up an ages-old rhythm. A third finger enters her, and their rhythm quickens.

He is considering asking for permission to move on, when her hand flutters over his, gesturing more than pulling, letting him know that she too wants more from him than his fingers. Scully moans his name. Permission granted.

He parts her folds gently with his hand, his cock poised between her legs, seeking entrance. He moves more directly behind her, and she leans forward slightly, propping her hands on the sill before her. He lifts her hips a fraction and enters her in one long, slow stroke.

Simply, quietly, with little fanfare, he is buried in the warmth of her body, joined with her as never before. The momentousness of the occasion will be marked many a time, later. Right now, a moment’s rest is all the restraint either one of them can spare. He pulls back and thrusts hard, meeting her as she presses back against him, the slap of his belly against her legs unduly amplified in the quiet dark of the room. His fingers continue to caress her folds, her clit.

The intensity of being inside her becomes nearly overwhelming as the realization sears across his brain that this is actually happening, he is actually making love to Scully. He grits his teeth, grinding down on them hard. Fuck! He wants this to be about her, for her, now.

Two fingers rest on either side of her clit. He feels the petals of her folds thickening with arousal, her belly arching outward.

He cannot hold back any longer, whispering a ragged “I’m sorry,” as he begins to pound into her.

Scully shakes her head, panting, “no, no, it’s okay… okay…” but the roaring of his own breathing drowns out her encouragement.

Her exquisite heat has melted away all his gentleness. He must have her now, fuck her, take her.

As she bucks against him, a small whimper escapes her. His own strokes are growing shorter, stronger. He needs her pleasure before he will surrender to his own. He will demand it, if need be.

His fingers close around her clit, drawing back and forth on its length. Other fingers find her breast once more, slipping under the lace at the edge of her bra, finding her nipple easily, circling, caressing it.

He feels her body quickening around him, squeezing and releasing in no particular rhythm. A bead of sweat drips over his brow and down the side of his nose, evidence of the effort he is expending not to come. His body heedless of his mental effort, his cock continues to swell inside of her.

“I want you,” he whispers, “need you,” desperate now to spur her on. “Mine, want, need you to be mine.” His voice has lost its burnished amber quality, scraped and scoured by his libido into a harsh rasp.

“Am. I am,” she gasps in response. “Only yours.”

His fingers are no longer gentle on her clit, but firm, insistent, coaxing her to arch into them.

He feels himself burgeoning, the pressure within him rising. Scully thrusts herself back against him, roughly, recklessly, her own pleasure incipient.

“Scully!” Mulder’s voice is sharp, pleading, matching the rising pitch of her moans. Soon, he knows, very soon for both of them. The harsh cant of his breath against her cheek spurs her on more than words could. Her head is flung back, abutting his shoulder.

In a final flash of inspiration, Mulder lifts Scully up by her hips, such that, without his aid, she’d be standing on tiptoe. In this position, she feels him very deeply. Scully begins to convulse around him, pulling him ever closer to the edge.

Her name is the only word on his lips, half shout, half prayer. Close. Christ, he is close.

They rock against each other this way until she gasps, pleading.

“Oh! Stop for a second, Mulder. Still, still.”

He holds her, desperate to move, and yet, acting on instinct alone, he stills. His fingers press hard on either side of her swollen clit, his cock throbbing involuntarily within her depths. He cranes his neck to watch her face as she blooms, beginning to melt from the inside out, expanding, burning outward, hotter and hotter, a star going nova around him.

She collapses forward against his arms, resting her head on the sill, a final shudder rippling through her body.

He pulls her back toward him, his grasp on her hips ferocious.

He’s close, so very close, the distance of a single word only from her, to achieve his release. A single word from Scully and he is hers, irrevocably.

She lifts her head and looks back at him, tears unable to mask her sole unfulfilled desire.

“Please…”

-End-

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