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Finding Words by Flynn
From: [email protected] Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 11:36:48 -0600 Subject: Finding Words (NC-17, MSR) by Flynn Source: direct
Reply To: [email protected]
TITLE: Finding Words
AUTHOR: Flynn
CLASSIFICATION: RST, at least for M/S
E-MAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
All my work can be found at my Website: bravenewworlds.mimicsmusings.com
DATE: 12-9-00
DISTRIBUTION: Just lemme know where so I can visit.
SPOILER WARNING: passing references to Brand X, all things
RATING: NC-17
FEEDBACK: If you like it, all I ask is that you let me know.
SUMMARY: How many people make all the right sounds but leave out the feelings behind them?
DISCLAIMER: His characters, his money, my fun. He can always get me at my address, listed above.
To my sister, who happened to be born to another family in another state.
xXx
Finding Words by Flynn
xXx
It was Sunday. Her day.
No meetings. No commuting or last minute flights. No autopsies. The coffee wasn’t vile. There was no arguing over hypotheses and case solutions. In fact, work was little more than a vague notion out on the horizon.
She lay peacefully in bed until the sun was well up, then lounged in her robe and slippers and watched TV until it felt like it was time to be dressed. Then it was faded levis and an old sweater. It had been an old favorite in college, though the intervening years had not been necessarily kind to it. A few buttons had long ago been lost, and the hem was beginning to fray. She scowled as she studied her reflection in the mirror. Well, so be it. She didn’t have anywhere she had to be, did she? She didn’t have to get dressed at all.
Breakfast. Not the standard cold bagel and cream cheese, but real food. Eggs and toast with jam, and with it a leisurely second cup of coffee. She stirred it absently as she worked her way through the Sunday Times. Steam rose up around her face, touching her skin in a warm caress. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent.
There were other things she could and probably should be doing, she mused. There were always things that needed doing at the office. And Mom would never turn aside a chance to share her pew. It’d been too long since she’d seen her mother, and far too long since she’d spoken to Father McCue. But church? On a day like this? A fine rain was feathering her windows with diamonds of moisture. A cold spring shower, a pot of French-roast, the Times, and on her coffee table, the new JAMA.
No, church could not compare.
She wondered what her partner was doing. Hopefully, not much of anything; after all, it hadn’t been too many weeks ago that he had been in the hospital. Again. The thought of him produced a little flutter in her chest, and she found herself smiling. She wished he was there with her. Yeah, that would just about be perfect, wouldn’t it? Mulder stretched out on her couch, dozing or reading … or more probably pacing restlessly and yammering on about Big Foot or Elvis or whatever his current passion was. Working on her coffee as he waited for her to figure out what to wear so she could run out into the elements with him. How did he do it? How could he talk her into half the stuff he did? She was more than passingly intelligent. She didn’t believe in the bogeyman. She didn’t believe in magic. She certainly didn’t believe in fairy tales.
Except those that he could spin. Ghost-busting on Christmas Eve? A TV weatherman whose unrequited love could bring about climatic changes? No problem … just so long as she was there to back up her partner.
Stop it, she told herself firmly. Enjoy the moment. Coffee cup on the coaster; newspaper at the ready, phone within easy reach … just in case anyone should happen to call. Now sit down and enjoy the quiet.
She did sit back. She squirmed around until she was stretched out across the cushions, her back braced against the padded arm. Her left hand caressed the back of the couch, her finger tapping absently against the smooth material. Wet sunlight peered in over her shoulder.
Though her mind was occupied, her senses were wandering.
The slow, steady beat of her heart. The whisper of rain on the windows. The rustle of the newspaper.
The trilling of the phone.
How did he do it? Spooky, indeed. She smiled as she glanced at the wall clock. Sunday morning, just past ten … not hard guessing who it was.
A burst of static told her he was already on the move, and by the weakness of his signal, she judged he was either out of the state or had forgotten to charge the battery again. “Hey, Scully. Nice weather we’re having. What’re you doin’?”
Her heart fluttered again at the sound of his voice. It had been a month since her epiphany regarding her past in that drab hospital room a month since she’d stripped bare, both physically and emotionally, and slipped into bed with this man. Her partner. Too bad that month had offered no opportunities for a repeat performance. Quite the contrary – the intervening weeks had witnessed yet another dramatic turn; another brush with death. She’d never liked bugs much. Forensic entomology left her cold. Almost losing her partner, her best friend – her lover – to a chestful of larvae went a long way in sealing that mindset.
The careful, casual manner of his question actually made her smile. This was not a get-dressed-we-have-a-new-case phone call. His voice was level and soft, and untouched by the tension that usually accompanied calls about work. No, he was out and about, no doubt restless from the weather and a protracted illness and recovery – thank God, a full recovery – and probably sniffing around for a little company.
She smiled and closed her eyes for a moment. A night spent together, feelings acknowledged if never quite declared aloud … and still he felt he had to invent a reason to see her. “Mulder, where are you?”
She heard the soft, rhythmic slap of his wipers. “I’m on the 95. Had to get out of that apartment. I thought I’d go in to work for a while. Just wanted to see what you’re up to this morning.”
She dropped the newspaper in her lap. “You’re kidding me, right? Mulder, don’t go in now. It’s Sunday, and it’s your last day off! Tomorrow’s going to be here soon enough. Leave it be, okay? Do it as a personal favor to me?”
He gave a harried sigh, and when he spoke, his voice was dangerously close to a whine. “God, Scully, I’m bored out of my mind. The doctors won’t let me run yet. Nothing to do at home but watch TV, nothing open around here but churches and restaurants and diners … hey, have you eaten? You want some breakfast? I can be there in about twenty minutes.”
She caught herself smiling again. “Sorry, Mulder. Just finished.”
He didn’t even try to mask his disappointment. “Oh. Um. Well, you want to do lunch? I can go in for a couple hours, review some cases, then pick you up and …”
“Mulder, what is it with you and food today?”
She could almost hear his mouth open and close futilely. Wheels were turning, thoughts were racing. Deflect deflect deflect. “Um, nothing. Like I said, I’m just bored.”
Oh, it was too tempting; she couldn’t resist a little dig at his ego. “Yeah? Well, I’m not. In fact, I was just sitting down with another cup of Starbucks and a new medical journal. Enjoying the rain and the quiet. Oh, and the Times. And before you ask, I only have a pencil, so if I screw up the crossword, you’ll never be the wiser.”
He groaned softly and her grin broadened. “Pencil? Have I taught you nothing? Anyone with balls uses a pen. A pen, Scully. C’mon, have a little faith in your puzzle-solving talents. Prove your mettle.”
She snorted. “Well, seeing as I haven’t got any balls, literally or otherwise, I really don’t think I have to worry about proving anything.”
He saw the opening and, just as she’d hoped, he jumped at it. “By happy coincidence, this Mulder model comes fully equipped. I would be pleased and honored to lend myself toward the proper completion of your Times crossword.”
She pursed her lips and made soft kissing sounds as she pretended to consider his offer. “I don’t know, Mulder. I’m not really dressed for company.”
There was a soft snort. “Since when am I company?”
She toyed with a loose string dangling from the hem of her top. “I’m just lying around in jeans and a sweater. I’m not even wearing shoes. No makeup, not even a shower yet, and my hair’s a mess …”
“Which sweater?”
She looked down at herself. “The blue V-neck.”
His swallow was perceptible even over the screech and fade of the weak signal. “The one with the missing buttons?”
She tried for outraged disbelief, but succeeded only in producing a girlish laugh. “Mulder, I don’t believe you sometimes! May I ask how long you’ve been studying my sweaters?”
“Is it the one with the buttons missing? And the bottom that’s started to unravel?”
She grinned as she arched back over the arm of the couch. Oh, how she wished he was here to study and maybe pay a little attention to what was in that sweater. That wasn’t a bad thing, was it? Maybe it was time for her to push the envelope a little. See if he really was as cool as he pretended to be. “As if it’s any business of yours, Mulder, yes. And … rats, another button just fell between … oh, wait, lemme see if I can get it … Damn, this is one of my favorites. I lose too many more of these and there won’t be any keeping this thing on.”
Was it possible to actually hear someone sweat? She knew her partner. He was being too damned quiet – her remarks were definitely having an impact. “Mulder, are you there? Where are you?”
It took him a few seconds to find his voice. “I’m at, uh, Stonebrook. No, make that Foster.”
Foster. Not heading in to town at all, the little faker. In fact, he’d probably been heading for Georgetown all along, hoping she’d set aside whatever she was working on and take him in – his proverbial port in the storm.
It was tempting to continue this torture, but it just didn’t seem practical. It was Sunday. They weren’t working. They weren’t injured. When might such an opportunity present itself again? She affected a loud, put-upon sigh. “Well, you’re almost here anyway. Come on. I’ll put on a fresh pot.”
This time there was no hesitation. “I’ll be right there.”
He wasn’t kidding – it wasn’t very long before she heard the pound of footsteps on the old wooden stoop. There was a pause and soft rattle as he used the key she’d given him – how many years ago? – to open the foyer door. Another pause … an attempt to call for the elevator, perhaps … and then faint, erratic thumps as he took the stairs two at a time. She really had to talk to him about that. There was no reason to push himself so hard so fast; it would only set him back, render him unable to work … or to play.
Footsteps in the hall, and then hesitation. A slow, almost timid knock.
She didn’t stir from her nest on the couch. “Use your key,” she called. A little thrill made her shiver. Would he recognize the intimacy of such a request? That she was not only granting him access, but free access? Oh, surely he would. After all, he was the profiler. What would he think about the development? Would he say something, or just hold his silence and try to read her through hers?
What would he do?
There was a series of clicks, and then the door slowly swung open. She schooled her expression into a neutral mask. Hell, the effort it took not to turn and gaze hungrily at him, not to allow him to see in her eyes just how much she admired him, and not only for his intellect. Then again, such outward displays just weren’t her style, were they? He’d be expecting his calm, rational partner, not some quivering bundle of pent-up sexual energy. And even if he wasn’t – after so many years of presenting the world her cool mask of composure … well, it wasn’t an easy habit to break.
She raised a hand in greeting without looking up. He hesitated for just a second before stepping in and closing the door behind him. “Hey, Scully.” She tracked him intently with her peripheral vision. He glanced around as he shrugged out of his jacket, which bore dark blotches across the shoulders. Hmm, the light sprinkles must have given way to serious rainfall. Again he looked at her uncertainly, and this time she allowed herself a lingering glance. Oh, hell – he was wearing his glasses. Did he have any idea how much she loved seeing him in them? How did one ask one’s partner to please wear the charcoal Armani with the blood-red tie, that cologne she can’t name other than to say it’s the one that smells like musk and wood smoke, and oh by the way, can you slip the specs on while you’re at it because I have a thing for you in your wire-rims? Nope, couldn’t do that. She dropped her gaze to the paper in her lap. His own expression was carefully blank – she couldn’t tell if he’d noticed her stare. “Coffee ready?” he asked.
She waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen. “Help yourself.”
Another gesture. Another subtle invitation. Well, it was time for such intimacies, wasn’t it? A key, a coffee cup, the freedom to search her refrigerator for the half-and-half … wasn’t that what lovers did? She smiled behind her hand as she feigned interest in the crossword. They’d waited long enough for this. Almost too long. This last incident – if it did nothing else, it spelled out to her the fact that, all this time, they could have had more. Much more.
And not just sex. Although, she reminded herself as she admired the lines of his lean frame, there was definitely something to be said for that. That night, the sex had been slow and intense and delicious. Holding him in a four-limbed embrace, reveling in the feel of his skin, his warmth. The firmness of his body standing in marked contrast to her own deep softness …
She actually shivered. <Shit, Dana, chill out. He doesn’t need you running over and throwing yourself at him.> She smiled inwardly at the notion. <Actually, that’s something he might not mind at all. What would he do? Urgh! Be patient. It doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere too soon.>
She heard him moving around in the kitchen. Carefully she propped her glasses on the end of her nose and studied him over the frames. Typical weekend attire. Blue jeans. Battered runners. A dark T-shirt. He looked like he might have shaved, though at this distance she couldn’t be sure. His hair was delightfully tousled. Clearly he, too, had missed his morning shower. She felt a delicious warmth creep up her neck. Mmm, essence of Mulder. The thought of it was actually making her mouth water. More notably, it was also making other places feel … rather warm. She remembered a time when such thoughts would have embarrassed the hell out of her, but now she shrugged it away with an impatient grunt. Christian puritanism be damned. Was it such a bad thing if they enjoyed one another? She loved him. He was her friend. He was her partner.
She smiled behind her hand. And he was snooping. <Keep it up, buddy, and you’re going to stumble across… .>
“Hey, Scully! You got pop-tarts!” He whirled, a wide grin splitting his face. “My favorite kind, too. How’d you know?”
That the box had been sitting in her cupboard since the impulse hit her three weeks ago didn’t seem worth mentioning. He had to know they were for him – she hated those things. She regarded him placidly as she considered her response. “Well, let me think. A sugar-filled product with lavender icing and electric blue stripes. Gee, I don’t know. Call it a lucky guess.”
He already had the box open and was tearing into one of the packets. “God, this is so great. You want one? I normally don’t share these babies, but I can make an exception in your case.”
She smiled half-heartedly and held up a hand. “Pass. But thank you.”
He chuckled as he filled a coffee cup, then added enough sugar and cream to rival any high-priced latte. He balanced the pastries over the top of his cup and made his way to the living room, where he carefully bent over the back of the couch and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Scully. Mm, you smell good.”
She caught a hand around the back of his neck and leaned into the caress, for just that brief moment savoring everything about him. Damn, if he thought she smelled good …
She forced herself to release him and turned back to the puzzle. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you like them.” She shot the pastries an uneasy look. “I just don’t want to hear one more crack about my choice of frozen dessert products. I think this one makes us just about even.”
He laughed lightly as he rounded the couch and squatted beside her. “I reserve the right to disparage anything you eat, Scully, and I expect no less from you. I see you took my advice and found a pen. Twelve across is Anton. Anton Chekhov, the Russian novelist. He – “
“Mulder, shush.” She waved a hand impatiently at him, glad for the opportunity to distance herself if even a little. She could see now, he’d done at least a slap-dash job of shaving. Soap and Mulder. The thought made her shiver. Oh, how she wanted to bite that earlobe. Not hard – just enough to make him groan. Self-denial made her just as testy as temptation did, of course, and it always had. “Jeez, back off a little. Go sit down somewhere and eat those things. And don’t get crumbs everywhere.”
He broke off a large piece and stuffed it in his mouth. “Sic down i’ lihen,” he said, his words badly slurred. “Sic le’er word for moth.”
Her stony Don’t-mess-with-me glare was evidently lost on him. “I assume you mean lichen and moss. Thank you, I know. Dammit, you want to eat those or pick them out of your hair? Get away from me with them!”
He grinned as he pushed himself to his feet. “Yeah, okay. I can take a hint.”
She snorted softly. “No, but you are getting better at it,” she muttered.
He moved quietly around the room for a few minutes, studying photos, reading book titles. His attention finally settled on the medical journal on the coffee table beside her. The last bite disappeared into his mouth as he settled on the couch. She silently drew her legs up, making room. “Lemme know if you need any help,” he said, his tone quietly seductive. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then opened the magazine with a flick of his wrist.
It required considerable effort, but she managed to focus at least a portion of her attention on the task at hand. The puzzle wasn’t difficult so much as it was just damn complex. Gideon. Lucretia. Manifesto. It didn’t help that she was more than passingly aware of him. The tiny movements of his breathing, the flutter of his eyelids. Even from here she could smell him. Damn. Focus, Dana. Focus.
<Focus, hell. You’re focusing on the wrong damn thing. Look at him! Sitting there chewing that nail, sucking on his thumb … hell, now drawing that lip into his mouth … oh, the bastard. Remember what it was like to have that mouth all to yourself? And how surprised he’d been when you went to him and kissed him that first time?>
She remembered everything. She remembered the wet heat of his mouth under hers, his silken tongue greeting hers as if it were an old friend. She remembered the precise moment when she’d taken his weight for the first time. The feel of his belly pressing into hers, of their breath mingling. His hushed words. And his hands finally, finally touching her some place other than the small of her back. The bare skin of her neck. Her breasts. Her thighs.
She remembered making love to him there in that big bed of his. The stark emotion in his eyes, the lust and the love that found acceptance and ultimately release in her own body. How willingly she’d taken him in. How she’d clutched at him as she let slip her hold on the Here And Now and rode out one frenzied storm after another, first coaxed and cajoled and then demanded by his seemingly tireless body. Holding him in the cocoon of her warmth as he, too, succumbed to the sweet inevitable. She remembered touching him as he drifted toward sleep, unable to look at him for fear he’d see something unguarded in her eyes, yet unwilling to completely distance herself. She remembered the warmth of his flesh beneath her hand. Hair dampened with sweat, like brown silk between her fingers. His eyes closing, his respirations growing longer and slower and deeper, and she knew he was so profoundly asleep that he would never hear her leave.
She had left. It was a temptation, of course, to remain there, to sleep at his side and perhaps in his arms, and wake to his gentle touches. It was tempting … but it was also impossible.
At least, it was then. Reality had been beckoning to her, and with it responsibility for more than her own desires.
Only days later they were in North Carolina. A strange and gruesome series of deaths, and another fight in yet another hospital, a fight for a life that she now knew meant more to her than her faith and even her family. And she was losing. He was going to die, ravaged from the inside out just like those anonymous corpses she’d worked on, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was helpless.
And then something had happened. Science and luck conspired in her favor. The treatment was terrible, was almost as devastating as the condition it was intended to treat … but he pulled through. He would be all right.
And so, by extension, would she. This time.
But had she changed? Had they changed? Talking had never been their strong suit, so they didn’t try. Oh, they could play off each other over just about anything else. They could argue and defend the merits of a case or their own unique belief systems. They could disagree over the weather until the seasons changed. But the intimacies eluded them. They did not, they could not, express what they meant to each other.
At least, she couldn’t.
She worried her lip anxiously, the words on the page before her lost in a vague blur. Feelings acknowledged though not declared. Was it time to change that? Oh, he’d expressed himself pretty damn eloquently during that last frenzied climax, fairly raining her with God, I love yous. She knew he did; in fact, she’d known for quite some time. But it was easy to disregard the words, to put them down to the passion of the moment and not seek a deeper significance. It only made sense, after all. But was that fair to him? Was he merely blurting out something in a moment of supreme passion? Or was he, for just that sublime moment, capable of expressing something deeper, something that could not be expressed any other way?
If saying the words at all made the feeling more tangible, then saying them at that instant should not detract from the depth of those feelings … should it?
“You know, it works much better if you actually touch the pen to the paper every so often.” The rumble of his voice, soft and light, startled her, and her eyes focused on him with a snap. He was grinning. “It’s been a good five minutes. Come across a hard one? I’m here to help.”
She sighed and forced herself to relax, smiling a little as she stretched her legs out. She wondered if he had any idea of the thoughts he’d interrupted. “Not exactly difficult, no. It’s asking for a synonym. To prevaricate.” She pressed one of her bare feet into the side of his thigh and nudged gently. “Any suggestions?”
He pushed his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose, then dropped his right hand around her ankle. The touch was easy and familiar, the gentle squeeze verging on something more intimate. “Gimme some landmarks.”
She smiled impishly. “No. C’mon, brainstorm for me. You should be able to come up with some whammies.”
He shot her a look out the corner of his eye. “Well, let me think,” he said softly, lifting his feet and planting them on the coffee table before him. “Prevaricate: to lie. To fabricate. To deceive.”
She cleared her throat, cutting him off. “Mulder, I’m glad to see you relaxing, but I’m really not wild about what your shoes are going to do to that glass …”
He droned on, uninterrupted. “… to falsify … to adulterate …” Without breaking the slow tempo of his words, he lifted his feet, loosened the laces, and then slipped the shoes off. “To exagerate … to omit.” His socks joined the discarded runners, and with a soft grunt he shifted his weight, settling back in a pose that mirrored her own: back pressed to the padded arm rest, legs stretched out over the overstuffed cushions. Gently he edged his right leg between the backrest and her left hip. “To distort. To equivocate.” He gestured vaguely with the magazine as his right hand settled on her ankle again. “If you were to provide me with just a few clues, like a first or last and maybe a middle letter, I might actually have a chance here.”
She rolled her foot around under his loose grasp. Vaguely she wondered if this intimate contact had been his goal in the first place, why he’d even thought to grind those shoes all over her coffee table. She smiled as he nestled his foot securely under her thigh. Hell, she could really get used to this. Sharing the quiet on a rainy day, doing nothing more than enjoying the company – to say nothing of contemplating what the future might hold. Especially the immediate future.
She stared at him blankly and gave her head a shake when he chuckled. She’d missed something. A question about … something. “Letters? Oh, um …” She forced her eyes to focus on the words. “Well, sure. There’s a ‘y’ and it looks like there’s a ‘z’. I’m not saying where they are, or how many letters the word has -”
“Hyperbolize.” He smiled at her stunned expression, and the hand on her leg squeezed gently. “Scully, you of all people should know, all it takes is the right clue.” His thumb brushed the tender skin of her instep, almost but not quite enough to make her flinch away. “Lemme know if you get stuck on another one.”
She pursed her lips as she filled in the squares. “Fair enough,” she murmured, and thought, <two can definitely play at this game.> Her free hand settled gently on his foot as if of its own accord. Slowly she played her thumb up and around the sharp point of his anklebone, then back down to the high arch and the pad at the large ball. <Hmm, anatomy was never this appealing in college,> she mused as her fingertips moved and explored. She felt his slight jerk, heard his breath catch just a bit first on inhalation and then release. She repeated the move, this time more firmly, and was rewarded by his soft grunt. <Yeah, you like that, don’t you?>
She didn’t have to ask. His expression lost its playfulness with amazing speed and took on a marked blankness. A slight tic appeared under his left eye as she gave his ankle a careful squeeze. “You’re awfully quiet. What are you reading about?”
His free hand resumed its slow seduction of her own leg. “Actually, I don’t have the faintest idea.” He held up the journal. “Not a lot on psych disorders in this issue. Aphasia, nosocomial infections, various non-invasive therapies for long-term cardiac patients, whether it’s ethical to ask entire surgical teams to pray together before operating or if they should do it separately and by their respective faiths …” He sighed and shook his head. “Sorry, Scully, I just don’t see what you get out of this rag.”
She held his gaze, unwavering. “Well, I’ll grant it certainly isn’t as entertaining as, say, the Forum section of your favorite publication, but then this one is for grown-ups.”
His eyes narrowed minutely. “You read Forum? Scully, you live to surprise me, don’t you?”
Laughter threatened, but she willed it away. “Well, it must have its appeal, or you wouldn’t read it.” Oh, a definite gleam in his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I tried to peruse the issue in your bathroom when I was at your place last week.” Her lips twitched, but she refused to give in and smile. “I couldn’t get the pages apart. I think something must have … spilled … on them.”
Oh, hell. Message received; challenge accepted. Something flashed in those gray-green eyes, something equal parts irritation and excitement. He was dangerous in this mood. She smirked as she raised the newspaper again. It was an overt challenge in itself; a barrier, albeit a flimsy one. She heard the magazine hit the floor, and she bit her lips behind her paper shield. If she lost her composure now, she’d never get it back. He was on the move, she could feel it in the dip and roll of the cushions. A hand slipped up her leg, squeezing gently as it went. In a mock display of impatience, she slapped it away. It returned almost immediately. The couch creaked softly, and she knew he was close … A few seconds … just a few seconds …
The paper wall abruptly crumpled beneath his hand and she found herself nose to nose with him, braced on all fours and all but straddling her lap. “Agent Scully,” he whispered, “are you implying something about my tastes in reading materials?”
She held his gaze, her expression stoic. “Me? I would never do that.”
He was so close, his face was beginning to blur. “Then are you saying I have unusual bathroom habits?”
She had to bite her cheek to prevent a snort of laughter. “I don’t know anything about your conduct in the bathroom, Mulder.”
His gaze dropped, and she knew he was looking at her mouth. She could smell coffee on his breath and the faint aroma of shaving cream. Just the tiniest of movements and he’d be hers … she’d have hold of that lower lip and there was no way she’d let go …
Except that he moved first. She froze as that mouth brushed her cheek, hovered at the corner of her lips, then meandered along the line of her jaw toward her ear. The contact, or lack thereof, was maddening – it was all she could do to keep her hands in her lap, to accept what he was doing and not force the issue. “So what you’re saying then,” he murmured between torturous near-kisses, “is that I’ve been whacking off?”
She swallowed hard. He was in soft-focus; there was no way her eyes were going to cooperate, not as long as he was doing … that … to her. She shivered. “Uh … did I … did I say that?” she managed to ask. She dipped her head a little and groaned a soft protest when he drew back, denying her anything beyond the barest of contacts. “I didn’t say you had … I just meant something must have … gotten … on the pages …”
“Because you might have something there,” he murmured, nuzzling the curve of her ear and feathering kisses down her neck. Carefully he drew her glasses off and set them on the table beside them. “I can’t help it, Scully. First we were so damned busy with cases, and then those hideous beetles … it’s a good thing everyone at the hospital was so concerned with my lungs, because if they’d thought to look just a little lower …” He kissed her cheek again, and she shivered when the warmth of his breath moved to her mouth. “These past few weeks have been hell. Sitting on my ass for days on end … nothing to do but watch TV and reflect. I have to admit, since that night … since our first time …” Another nuzzle. “… certain solitary activities have definitely lost their charm.”
She stared at him, bleary-eyed. “Tell me about it.”
Oh, shit. The words were out before she could begin to audit the thought behind them. She felt herself blush furiously. Dammit, why did the whole idea have to be so embarrassing? Human beings were sexual creatures, after all, and she’d been alone a long damn time. And it wasn’t like she was confessing to overt perversions. Hadn’t he just admitted to doing the same thing? Yes, she’d tried numerous times to reproduce the feel of his hands and his mouth and his body on hers. Each time had been stirring, at least at the outset, but ultimately proved to be woefully unsatisfying. Shit, all that and Catholic guilt, too. How’d she get so lucky?
His smile was growing by the second. “You, Scully?” he murmured, advancing and withdrawing, almost but not quite kissing her. She shadowed him persistently, seeking his mouth as he moved. “I’m shocked. I thought that kind of thing was frowned upon by the – “
“Shut up, Mulder,” she muttered. Dammit, would he just sit still? “I suppose it’s okay for you, being a pagan and an infidel.”
He leaned close again, and his lashes licked at her temple as he breathed, “So does this mean I won’t get the seat next to you in Purgatory? Damn, I was counting on breaking a few precedents while I’m there.”
To hell with it – he wasn’t going to cooperate? Her hands abruptly rose and caught themselves around his face, and he gave a soft, surprised grunt as contact was made. Firm contact. For a moment his mouth was still against hers. Warm. Steady. Then a gentle side-to-side movement started, and his lips slowly opened. Another sound as his tongue made a tentative foray toward her – a groan, this one longer and much deeper. His. Her hands delved into his hair. Her legs twined around his, and she groaned as she caressed his calves with her bare feet. There were just too damn many layers of clothing between them. That was something they’d have to remedy … but that would mean breaking the clinch they were in, and that just wasn’t something she felt disposed to do at the moment.
Clothed or not, the immediacy of his reaction was no mystery. He collapsed slowly over her, moving his hips, nudging and caressing her with the rapidly-forming bulge in his crotch. The kiss broke off with an audible smack when she responded in kind. “I hope you won’t be offended by what I’m about to say, Agent Scully,” he whispered, “but you’re causing me considerable discomfort here. I can only think of one remedy, and it entails you and me getting naked and making each other scream.”
She smiled as she eyed his throat hungrily. “You’re kidding me, right?” A fevered kiss under his ear raised goosebumps on his neck and arms. “Get naked? That means I have to let go of you.” Another kiss, this one encompassing his smooth chin. “It’s been too long, Mulder, and I just got my hands on you. I don’t know if I can let go.”
He kissed her again, but ended it before she could gain serious purchase on him. “C’mon, it’ll be worth it.” She moaned her frustration when he lunged upward, bracing himself on an arm as he struggled, one-handed, with his shirt. She helped him, and the garment went sailing. His skin was delightfully warm, and she purred her appreciation as she stroked his smooth back. He shivered as he turned his attention to the remaining buttons on her sweater. “Help me here,” he whispered, “or kiss this thing good-bye.”
She groaned as they struggled with the tiny pearls. Unsteady fingers did not help. After a moment of awkward fumbling the sweater fell open around her, and he gave a soft gasp. “Jesus, Scully.” He ran a hand lovingly down the bare skin of her breastbone. His eyes met hers again, and his playful smile returned. “If I’d had any idea you weren’t wearing a bra, I wouldn’t have wasted a single damn minute on praying doctors – we’d just be playing doctor.”
She shivered under his careful touch. “Always did have you pegged as a breast man, Mulder.” His hand curled around her, and she gasped as a thumb caressed her hard nipple. “Oh, that feels good … Mulder, please don’t tell me you plan to stare at them all day. Please don’t tell me that.”
His eyes gleamed. “Did you have something else in mind, Agent Scully?”
She groaned as she plied her fingers through his hair, scratching gently at his scalp and pressing his head steadily downward. “Yeah, I do.”
Obediently he nuzzled her breast, and she smiled at his delighted groan. Then she was aware only of the sensations of his talented mouth, the gentle tug of his teeth and lips on her nipple, of his fingers kneading and rolling its twin in perfect unison. Of the twitch and ache deep inside that was building with every damn beat of her heart …
She remembered how he had looked that night in April; how he’d lain there beside her in all his swollen glory and silently borne her heated scrutiny. True, it was not the first time they had seen one another nude – that had been witnessed numerous times by then – but to see him like that, engorged and rigid … and what was more, to know it was on account of her … How she’d admired the low hips and nearly flat belly, and oh, God, what she’d felt when he began to touch and stroke himself, slow and unabashed, and the look on his face as he reached for her hand. His soft groan as she found just the right tempo. Then slowly rolling with him, floating and rolling and floating some more, until she found herself beneath him, her legs opening of their own accord, not just accepting him but beckoning … The sensation of that first penetration, the breadth of him stretching her to the point of pain. <Does it hurt … . am I hurting you,> he’d asked through clenched teeth and tight lips, with that sweet frown hovering over his brow, and her muted <No … yes … no> as she clung to him. How he’d gone so still, needing so badly to move and yet afraid to lest he hurt her even more, until her whispered encouragements persuaded him to take up the rhythm again, slowly invading and withdrawing until a deep-rooted pleasure replaced any memory of pain. The slick heat of his body, on her and in her, his mouth against hers, kissing and suckling, his groans and labored grunts mingling with her own sounds. The feel of his muscles tensing and quivering beneath her hands, his back and shoulders and his ass, all responding to her … . <hurry … . faster, Mulder, please God, harder … . >
And the blinding whiteness of her orgasm, choked sobs and the pressure of his mouth on her neck as he followed her lead and lost all semblance of control, flowing into her hot and wet and <God, Scully, I love you I love you I love you…>
Not enough. This gentle suckling, this foreplay, was definitely not enough. Almost roughly she pushed him away from her. He raised his head and looked at her, clearly confused. “Sc … what is it? I didn’t -”
She clapped a hand over his mouth. “No, you didn’t hurt me.” Her hand slipped down his torso as she spoke, and she plucked impatiently at his waist. Evidently comprehending, he rolled back onto one arm and fumbled with the buttons on his fly. She arched beneath him, unzipping her own jeans and then sliding them down and off, taking her modest underwear with them. His levis hit the chair across the room.
Contact. Naked body to naked body, skin and hair meeting in counterpoint so perfect that it robbed her of breath. God, the warmth of his body actually made her light-headed. Did he understand the urgency? She could see from his eyes, he did not. He wanted to take his time, wanted to savor each moment, each lingering taste. Still, he was willing to accept her pace, bless the man. She caught a hand around his neck and nuzzled his cheek. “We’ll go slow next time,” she whispered. “You just make me feel so … so …” She groaned softly. “I want to come with you inside me. Is that okay?”
He drew back a little and stared at her incredulously. Stunned that she had said the words, probably stunned that she felt she even needed to ask. Then his eyes fell to her lips, and he nodded. “Sure, Scully.”
She closed her eyes as he settled between her thighs. Her heart was racing out of control, beating so hard that her whole body was shaking.
He slid into her, slowly, carefully, like a bolt sliding home …
<… home. Welcome home, Mulder …>
… and then set a sensuous rhythm, driving into her hard and fast and then withdrawing slowly, so slowly she thought she would scream, and then a soft grunt as he sank into her again, bottoming out in her, so deep inside her that she could feel him in her heart. Her legs tangled and knotted with his.
<Faster, Mulder. Faster.>
He groaned, his stroke growing rapid and even deeper, and she knew he could sense it, he could feel the tension building in her, could probably see it in her expression. So long; it had been so long for both of them, endurance was not an issue. She moaned long and low in her throat as she let herself go. He rode the firestorm out, and she knew he was staring at her, staring and glorying in the feel of her body’s reaction to him.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped when the squall had passed. He groaned again as he kept up the rhythm, and she wondered if at that moment he was even capable of stopping. He was close, so close; she could feel it in his size, sense it in the intense push-and-pull of what he was doing to her. His lip curled as his eyes fell shut.
“Sc … can’t hold it …”
Her arms gripped his slim torso with renewed strength. “Don’t try. Let it go. Come for me, Mulder … let it happen…”
His eyes snapped open and he looked at her intently. “Inside … you …”
<Oh, God. Yes. Inside me. >
His hands closed into fists in her hair. Holding her. Binding her. The feeling was intoxicating. “Inside … you?” This time it came out as a question.
She nodded frantically, no longer able to speak. He was close, he was on the verge and he was dragging her with him. She felt the explosion of sweet, white-hot insanity, and her back arched as it turned her inside out and set her ablaze all over again. <Yes. Yes. Oh, God …>
Did she cry it aloud, or did he? He stiffened, panting, his stroke growing erratic. His face screwed up into an agonized grimace, and through the haze of her own climax, she felt the heat of his begin. He reared up over her, thrashing helplessly. “Now … Ugh, Jesus …”
Minds and bodies exploded outward and inward, chaos and order meeting and shattering in those few heated seconds, and through it all the sound of his voice as he cried her name, or tried to.
With a last coughing grunt he collapsed, and she was sure he would have rolled off and fallen to the floor if she’d given him the chance. He resisted her briefly. “Crushing you,” he panted. “Lemme go.”
She held onto him fiercely, pressing her face into his throat and inhaling the heady scent drifting up between them. “I want you to crush me.” She kissed his neck, then licked her lips and tasted salt. It, too, was intoxicating.
Resigned, panting, he slumped over her, his head caught awkwardly on a raised arm. They didn’t move for a long time. Her hand traced a path slowly up his back, then down to the dip at his waist as she listened to the soft wheeze of his breathing. She could feel his heart racing insanely. Two weeks ago he could barely walk up a flight of stairs without the pain in his chest stopping him. This had been a real test for him.
She felt a bitter twinge of guilt. Maybe she shouldn’t have allowed this today. Maybe it was still too soon. He needed more time to recuperate. Get back to work, get a few days under his belt and see how he felt wouldn’t that have been wiser? She nuzzled and then kissed his shoulder as she silently berated herself. “Are you all right?” she murmured. He grunted softly. “You sound terrible. I wish we hadn’t done this now.” She brushed a hand tenderly across his forehead. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”
He smiled drowsily. “Mmm.” His breathing hitched a little and he gave a few deep, racking coughs. “Ugh, ow.” He grunted as he shifted and moved, breaking their delicate connection, edging himself downward and nestling his cheek comfortably on her chest. “Mmm, I’m fine. Bit tired.” He nuzzled the pale curve of her breast. “Do me a favor and don’t tell my doctor we did this though, okay? She’s kind of a worrier. I don’t want her ragging on me like she does sometimes.”
Scully smiled as she stroked the soft, damp hair under her chin. “Don’t you suppose she just has your best interest at heart?”
He released a deep, quivering breath and tried without much success to quell another coughing spasm. “Mmm, she’s wonderful,” he replied breathlessly. “I love her. She just worries too much.”
She shifted uneasily beneath him. Feelings undeclared … Maybe it was time she put words to those feelings. Maybe it was past time. She bit her lip anxiously. “Mulder …”
He tilted his head and looked up at her expectantly. His glasses were askew, and she found it strange that he had even managed to keep them on during that last session. Gently she slid them off and placed them on the coffee table beside her own. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
She stroked his face again and let her fingers play for a moment around his mouth. “Mulder, listen … you know I’m better with facts than … well, than f-feelings, or expressing myself. I, uh … There’s something I want to tell you.” <Oh, God, Dana. How lame. And you’re frightening him. Look at his expression – he’s expecting the ax to drop. He thinks you’re going to end this thing between you.> She managed a shaky smiled and held onto him firmly when he started to pull away. “Breathe, Mulder. It isn’t bad, what I have to say.” He nodded, but his eyes retained a tense, pinched look, one that she desperately wanted to smooth away. She kissed his brow gently and then plowed on. “I just … I want … I realize you probably already know how I feel about … this … and you … and I’m sure you know why I haven’t said anything before this, because after all, you’re the intuitive one. I’ve wanted to say … things. Many times. But … um …” She licked her lips, then sighed deeply. Dammit, she was making it more difficult than it had to be, she knew she was. How did he make it look so effortless?
He eyed her thoughtfully as she struggled for words, then slowly shook his head. The frown eased into a gentle smile. “I do know,” he murmured, touching a finger to her chin. “And you’re wrong, Scully. You tell me all the time. You told me in April when you came to me in the middle of the night. You told me there in the hospital in Raleigh when I woke up and found you holding my hand. You tell me every time you want me to believe you’re just checking me for head trauma. I swear I even heard it when I walked in this morning.” He kissed her briefly, and then the gentle smile became a grin. “Using my very own key, no less. And you bought me pop-tarts and then put them someplace you knew I’d find them. That’s gotta be love.” At that, she couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t you know, Scully? All you have to do is look at me sometimes and I can hear it. Didn’t you know that?”
She gnawed her lip thoughtfully. “But I can’t say it, Mulder. You never have any trouble finding words. In Florida last year, and then after England …” She touched a finger to his lips, staving off his response. “Yeah, I know. You’re never at a loss for words. Or you were heavily medicated. Or it was blurted out in the throes of passion. I just don’t know why I can’t … lose myself in the moment like that. If saying the words makes the feelings more immediate, more real, then what does not saying them do?”
His kiss silenced her. “Stop it,” he murmured, shaking his head again. “Scully, sometimes they’re just words. How many people make all the right sounds but leave out the feeling? They find the words, but they forget about the emotions those words are supposed to convey. I got it all the time from Diana, and that guy Waterston did it to you …” He paused, and his tone softened a little. “Don’t … don’t try to force anything out. Some things … they just aren’t you. Your passion is quiet and intense, just like you are, and I never, ever want that to change. You’ve been telling me for years how you feel. Believe me, I’ve been listening.” She said nothing, merely held his gaze. The depth of his conviction was staggering. He truly did know, somehow. He sighed, and his eyes grew distant as his gaze shifted to one of the rain-spattered windows. “Words … they’re fine to a point, but I think maybe they should be left to those unfortunate souls in the world who have nothing better available to them.” The finger played up and down the line of her jaw, then dragged slowly over her lips as he looked at her again. “We don’t need them, Scully. Not when it’s just the two of us. Not for some things.” He kissed her again, slow and light and lingering. “Not for this.”
She said nothing. His words would bear closer examination. Later. For now she would take them for what they were: his unswerving acceptance of her, self-perceived warts and all. Without another word he dropped his head and nuzzled her breast with a contented sigh. She crossed her arms around him, enfolding him, drawing him close. Emotion swelled within her, silent and intense. One hand swept gently across his shoulder and then through his hair, brushing it back. The faint scar on his scalp caught her eye. Her eyes sagged shut as she kissed it. How close they’d come, time and again, to losing one another. They both had so many scars now, both physical and emotional. They had both inflicted so many. But they were stronger now. This bond – maybe it was better for all they had been through. She smiled as she kissed him again, his forehead and brow bone and then the impossibly soft skin of his eyelid. The words were in her heart. They didn’t have to be declared.
He smiled, and she felt him twitch as sleep reached out for him. His lips parted on a sigh, and he whispered, “Love you, too, Scully.”
Outside, a rising wind spattered rain on the windows. She heard it distantly over the soft rhythms of their breathing, of their heartbeats.
She found herself smiling.
Words?
Who needs them?
xXx
Title: Finding Words II – Speech Lessons
Author: Flynn
Class: V, MSR, mild MulderAngst
Date: July 27, 2003
E-Mail: [email protected]
Archive: Do with it as you like. Please keep author and headers attached, and let me know where to visit.
Website: bravenewworlds.mimicsmusings.com
Feedback: Warms the cockles of my heart.
Rating: PG-13 w/adult images
Spoilers: all things, Brand X
Summary: …. helping her say the words ….
Note: takes place immediately following events of Finding Words.
Hugs go out to Blackwood and Cratkinson for poking, prodding, pointing out redundancies, and patiently tolerating author’s moodiness.
xXx
Finding Words II:
Speech Lessons
by Flynn
xXx
Okay, this was different.
Actually, it was something straight out of a dream. He knew at once, though, that he was not asleep. Dreams, strictly speaking, were not warm like this. They didn’t mold themselves to the contours of his body, or press and scratch in all the right places.
They didn’t ruffle his hair with their slow, rhythmic breathing. A dream might occasionally involve a naked body, possibly even that of his partner; but never did even the most convincing ones leave him with this drained, deliciously aching feeling. And the smell that clung to him …. well, only one person on earth smelled like this.
Oh, this was real. This was good.
He opened his eyes and, without moving his head, looked around. A wall with framed pictures. A bookcase, neatly organized. A fireplace, dark and cold. Windows dotted with raindrops.
He smiled. Scully’s apartment. Or more accurately, her living room. He dropped his gaze to the pale expanse just beyond the end of his nose. Soft. Warm. Beneath his cheek, the gentle rhythm of rise and fall; and in his ear, the slow, steady beat of her heart.
He listened for a while, entranced. His eyes settled on a freckle on her shoulder, just below the fragile-looking clavicle. Or was it a mole? He couldn’t tell from this angle.
Slowly, oh so carefully, he raised his head from its very comfortable resting place on her breast. She didn’t move. Her breathing continued, unbroken. Cautiously he lifted himself higher and propped a hand under his head. A mole – he could see it more clearly now. And by straining his eyes, he could see the spray of tiny, nearly-invisible hairs feathering her skin. Her shoulder. Her cheek.
Her face was turned away, affording him a clear view of her profile. Bereft of make-up, her features were utterly smooth in repose. He studied her, rapt. Her lashes, her eyebrows ….
cinnamon in the soft, wet sunlight. The dark filigree of veins in her eyelids. The gentle convexity of her nose, and the mole beneath it, the one she always took such care to cover.
The mouth he saved until last because it had to be savored.
The full lips. That sweet little dip just above them, the one that smoothed away into nothingness when she smiled – which, he’d been pleased to note, was happening more frequently these days.
She’d certainly smiled a little while ago. Smiled, laughed, panted, pleaded ….
Oh, he knew exactly where he was heading when he set out that morning. Guilt had stymied him at first, of course. After all, it was her day off, too. Besides, she hadn’t just spent the past three-plus weeks sitting around like he had. Quite the contrary: during his long recuperation, it had been an endless succession of autopsies for her, what with Skinner generously loaning her out to the labs at Quantico. This, after she’d had to watch him there in that Raleigh hospital – watch his panic and pain and know there was precious little she could do about either of them. And as if slicing and dicing a plethora of stiffs hadn’t been enough, since his release from the hospital she’d also had to put up with his silent whinings – if it was possible for anyone to whine silently, Mulder would be the one to do it – and answer all his written queries about why he couldn’t just suck the salt off the seeds, and why he couldn’t have just a little coffee, and why she wouldn’t permit him to speak even though he knew full well his throat had been compromised by the larvae in his airways. And what about work; couldn’t she please at *least tell him about the cases piling up on his desk – or better yet, bring some home for him to peruse …..
Yeah, he’d hesitated before calling her …. for about a half a second. The boredom had just been too grinding. Only it wasn’t just the boredom. He could have occupied himself wandering around the Internet or watching one of the dozen or so movies she’d picked up for him in the past week. He could have sneaked in a short run despite the doctors’ prohibitions. Hell, he could even have ducked into any number of eating places and buried his sorrows in a pile of hotcakes and sausages.
The fact was, he was an addict in need of a fix. Well, *two* fixes, although he really was fighting the urge for a damned cigarette. No, his true weakness was not for a poisonous substance, but for his partner. He needed to see her. It had been four long weeks since they’d had any down time together.
He couldn’t stay away. Oh, there was the chance that she’d have stepped out, maybe for church with her mother, or to pick something up from the grocery store, or maybe just for a run.
And if that had been the case, he’d have parked in an obscure turn in her street and waited her out. Sitting in his car and staring at her building was better than anything he could do in his own apartment. It brought her closer.
But she hadn’t been away. In fact, now he was wondering if she hadn’t actually been expecting him to call.
He had been a little nervous at first. She may have picked up the phone on the second ring, but his partner wasn’t the easiest person in the world to read. Sitting there on her couch like Cleopatra on her Nile barge, the newspaper in pieces around her, those glasses perched on her nose …. he wondered at first if he’d maybe pushed a little too hard. He was in need of a fix, true, but maybe she needed her quiet time just a little bit more. Her expression certainly hadn’t helped his nerves much. Quiet, collected, just like it was when they were being debriefed on a case – or, as it happened so often, reamed by a superior. Certainly not serene, which he’d been lucky enough to see maybe a half-dozen times in all their years together; but gathered.
Composed.
Then he’d caught her staring. It wasn’t a leer or anything – that really wasn’t her style – but the intensity of her gaze told him a lot about what she was thinking. She was glad he was there. She’d probably been thinking about him herself. And she seemed to like the glasses. He hadn’t worn them for any ulterior purpose – in fact, he hadn’t intended to wear them at all, but an empty bottle of cleaning solution effectively gave his contacts the day off. She’d never said anything about the frames, and he wasn’t sure just how he knew. Something in her carefully blank expression, maybe.
Funny. Most people tended to regard the presence of eyeglasses as a subtle barrier. Sometimes not so subtle. God knows Skinner certainly used his as a veritable fortress to shield himself from ….
well, everything.
He and Scully weren’t most people. They had their defenses, from the world and from each other, but glasses weren’t among them. Anger, feigned indifference, sarcasm, hard-headed adherence to fact or mere opinion …. those were the walls they hid behind.
Not that those defenses had been too apparent earlier that morning.
He smiled, recalling her half-shouted response that was part friendly greeting, part veiled command.
Use your key. Those words granted him permission to enter her apartment and her life whenever the need or desire arose. Was she aware of it, he wondered. Did she have any idea just how much that simple phrase had given him? He suspected she did.
Help yourself. Well, that didn’t need much in the way of deconstructing, did it?
Neither did the pastries. Top shelf, right over the cooking spices, and well within his line of vision. He’d never seen so many preservatives in one product around here, ever. She never ate them. She liked those disgusting frozen tofutti things. She might sneak the occasional candy bar when she thought he wasn’t aware of it – no doubt all the while quoting to herself the subtle benefits derived from consuming chocolate – but God forbid if she should ever ingest pure, unadulterated junk food, with its bonanza of sugar, fats, and sundry chemicals, for no other reason than puerile self-indulgence.
Staring at the box, he couldn’t help grinning like the proverbial idiot. Here it was, he’d wanted to crow: proof positive that she did think about him when they weren’t together, when they weren’t working on a case or licking their respective wounds after getting their asses kicked for once again overstepping their bounds or their budgets. It really hadn’t been a fluke, what happened after England. Not that he figured there was really much chance of that …. after all, she wouldn’t have slept with him – hell, she wouldn’t even have approached him if she’d had much in the way of doubts. But a lot of time has passed since then, and he didn’t want to take her for granted. Unlike any other woman he’d known and worked beside – or done anything else with, for that matter – she didn’t seem to feel the need to verbally autopsy her feelings, about him or anything else. In that void, oftentimes he could only go on her actions. Yeah, those pop-tarts told him a lot. The pop-tarts, and the words she’d tried so hard to utter a little while ago.
It didn’t surprise him that it bothered her, this inability to express herself to her own satisfaction. It did trouble him, though, that she saw it as a weakness. His partner did not like failing at anything. But she did love him. She loved him, and she trusted him. Enough to go to him that cool April night and slide into bed beside him. Enough to let him see her concern and affection for him as he lay there in that wretched hospital in Raleigh.
Enough to lay aside the bulk of her inhibitions and tell him just what it was she really needed. I want you inside me …. is that okay?
Was it okay? He shivered as he watched her sleep. After so long together; after seven years of careful distance and polite affection, was it okay, her feeling safe enough to ask him something so incredibly intimate?
Ask me again, Scully. Ask me anything. Whatever you need.
He’d awakened that spring night to find her standing at the foot of his bed. Awakened to the sound of satin and lamb’s wool shimmying down and up and off. A hand on his mouth silenced his sleepy, confused query. A slow, deep kiss, far different from that pathetic New Year’s gesture of his, the warm pressure of her mouth asking and offering as only Dana Scully could. A hand on his neck, his shoulder, his abdomen, revealed her true intent at that late hour.
She wasn’t there to say good night. What followed was a gift, plain and simple. He recalled each instant, as if the memories were an hour old and not a month. Hot, wet kisses. Hushed words and gentle touches. Smooth hands caressing his back, his shoulders, his ass; and his hands exploring her, touching where he’d always wanted but never dared. Throat. Breasts. The tender flesh of her belly. Her navel. He remembered kissing the curve of her back, where once a snake had chased its tail. Even in the darkness, he could see that the tattoo was gone. When, he had wondered. When did you have it removed, and where was I? He hoped it hadn’t been too painful. Certainly not as painful as the turmoil responsible for putting it there in the first place. More kisses. The feel of her mouth on him, suckling his flat nipple, gently biting his chin and stubbled throat. He didn’t ask, he didn’t care what had brought them to that moment, he merely accepted that it was real and good. He felt her hold her breath as he slowly pushed inward for the first time. Oh jeez, the liquid heat of her body was almost too much to bear. Am I hurting you? he’d asked, his lips brushing the crest of her brow. The thought of causing her pain, especially now, was almost unbearable. Her whispered No …. yes …. no …. had stopped him dead, and he would have willingly pulled out and ended it there if she’d indicated that was what she wanted. But no. Her arms tightened around him and then went soft again as the discomfort passed, profound stillness giving way to whispers and subtle movements as her hips moved this way or that, guiding and directing; the sounds of her breath catching and flowing and then catching again – What those sounds had done to him.
Movements and rhythms as old as time itself. Soft grunts, hers as well as his, as he struggled to contain his body’s reaction, as she sought to free hers. The ache in his back; his arms taking the brunt of his weight, beginning to burn and tremble. How he wished he could see her expression. Too close – even if they had left a light on, his cheek was pressed to her temple. Pressure in his head, in his balls, the sweet agony of battling his orgasm until he felt hers ripple and quake around him, her voice low and breathy as she moaned his name; and then his own barely restrained bellow as he finally, finally, finally gave in and bathed them both with his warm, fertile wetness.
His sweet reverie abruptly ended when she shifted a little beside him, and he winced at her gentle sigh. She’d be waking up soon. How long had they been there? He wondered if she would want time alone with her thoughts, like she had before. Maybe he should make an excuse and take off. Leave her to her peace and quiet, to her crossword and her pot of coffee. Solitude was important to them both, but especially to her. He wasn’t the easiest person to have around. By turns peevishly independent and compulsively needy, he was a test to her patience on a regular basis and he knew it. Maybe it would be best if he did leave.
After all, he’d had his fix. He couldn’t assume that she’d want to spend the whole day the way he did – limbs entwined, touching and exploring with hands and mouths, making each other smile and moan and gasp ….
Suddenly anxious, he carefully shifted his legs, untangling them from hers as he caught a hand on the arm of the couch and gently angled himself away from her. A rush of cool air filled the gap between them, and he gasped as tickling gooseflesh rose in protest on his arms and neck. He’d have to find her a blanket; couldn’t have her lying there naked and freezing ….
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He froze. Damn. Busted. What should he say? Go back to sleep? See you at the office? Don’t get up, I can let myself out?
He struggled with his thoughts. Well, he did have to pee.
Big-time. Would she think it a subterfuge, or take him at his word? Jesus, just say something! “Uh …. I just …. I was going ….”
Slowly her eyes opened and she turned to look at him. “Going where? I’m not finished with you yet.”
He felt a smile start as he hovered over her. She wasn’t exactly grinning, but there was a definite gleam in her eyes, one that he’d seen in the past for moments so fleeting that he could never be sure it’d been there at all. Not predatory so much as ….
proprietary. Hot damn. Insecurities abruptly vanished. Hey, he’d tried to give her space. Was it his fault if she didn’t take him up on it? She really did want him there. Now, if only the thought hadn’t left him tongue-tied. “Sorry, I sort of …. I mean, I have to, uh ….”
Her lips quirked. “Are you always so eloquent after sex?” Her arms slid back up around him, her fingers lacing behind his back.
Okay, message received: he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. He sighed softly as he let himself relax again. It was impossible not to give a little moan when she nuzzled into his throat like a kitten. “Mm, what time is it?” she murmured.
He shuddered when he felt her teeth on him, playing lightly up the length of his windpipe. “Uh, can’t say that I know right now.”
Jesus, was that really his voice? It sounded like it belonged to a stranger, maybe someone who’d recently gargled with battery acid. Did he really sound that bad to her? How could he not have noticed it before this? Time? He could barely concentrate on breathing with her doing that, and breathing was supposed to be something that just happened without a guy having to think about it. He couldn’t remember where the nearest clock was for the life of him. Besides, he couldn’t seem to get his eyes to open. “God, Scully, that feels good. What is that, some secret doctor thing?”
He felt her smile. “Yeah, I took a course on it in med school,”
she murmured, tipping her head back and granting him access to her own throat. He fought back the urge to guzzle the sweetness she was offering. Take it slow, buddy. Enjoy what’s happening right now – don’t just leap on to the next course of the Scully banquet. He groaned softly as he kissed the pulse point beneath her ear. Oh, he could really get used to this. Her hands stroking his face, and those soft little breasts that were pressed up into his chest, to say nothing of that magic place down below that was so warm and moist and pliant …. She’d laugh and say there was no such thing as magic, of course, but he knew otherwise. Yeah, it was probably a safe bet he could wake up like this every morning for the rest of his life and never, ever get tired of it. The hand that stroked through his hair did nothing to alter that conviction.
Neither did the sweet, gentle concern in her tone. “Sounds like you’re breathing easier. How’re you feeling?”
He leered at her playfully. “Can’t you tell? That isn’t my gun, you know.” Another nuzzle of her pale, perfect throat.
The hand in his hair tightened just enough to encourage a little head-lift. “Come on, I’m being serious here.”
He rocked back onto one elbow and scowled at her. “Thanks for asking. I’m fine.” He traced the outline of her mouth with a fingertip. “Scully, I’m fine. You gotta quit worrying so much about me.”
Her hands settled on his shoulders, and her voice was soft as she replied, “Sorry, Mulder. That isn’t going to happen.”
He groaned softly as he melted back into her embrace. Good …. this was so damn good …. he was kissing his partner and she was kissing him back. He was here and she was here and they weren’t going anywhere, either of them. Her tongue swept into and around his mouth like a soft, warm breeze, and for a second time he found he’d forgotten to breathe. Another kiss like that and he’d forget his name. Hell, another one like that and he wouldn’t care. She rounded it off with a delicate tug on his bottom lip, and when he could finally get his eyes open, he saw a definite twinkle in her eye.
“Something to smile about, Agent Scully?” he whispered.
Her eyes narrowed contemplatively. “Mmm, yeah.” It just seemed the thing to do, giving a little more lip service to that delicious mouth. Trouble was, his bladder was beginning to seriously demand some attention of its own. Dammit. Two big cups of coffee at home, another one here …. maybe that had been too much of a good thing. He groaned as he peeled himself away from her. “Bathroom,” he grunted. “Sorry. Now.” She released him, but not without a soft protest of her own. He reached for his glasses as he stood up. Oh shit – something was certainly interested in recent developments. Looked like the old boy was about ready to dance, and the band hadn’t even warmed up. Didn’t take long, did it? Who said there was no such thing as magic?
What else could it be, this power she could wield over him? He looked from his burgeoning erection to her face and back again.
“Okay, this might make things difficult. Any suggestions, Doc?”
She followed his gaze, a smile starting. “Yes. I suggest you use both hands. Or I could get an ice pack …..”
Just the thought made him wilt a little. He cupped his hands over his crotch. “Ooo, you’re a cruel woman, Dr. Scully.”
Where were his pants? Clear over there, tangled with his boxers. He scooped them up and shook them out, praying as he stepped into them that he didn’t have pimples on his ass because he could feel her eyes on him, devouring him across the living room. He turned back as he tugged them on over his hips. Yep, she was watching him. Ogling him.
Damn, it felt good.
It took a few minutes to take care of things in the bathroom.
His bladder may well have been maxed out, but his dick wasn’t much interested in anything so mundane as evacuation. That last kiss did not help matters. After what felt like an hour, his tensed muscles finally relaxed enough to let gravity work its own magic on him, and he bit his lip to stifle an appreciative groan. Oh, yeah …. sometimes it’s the little victories ….
He looked around the neat room as he buttoned his fly. He’d been in there before from time to time, of course, but never had he really taken the time to appreciate the details. A stall shower and a bathtub – a big one at that. On a shelf within easy reach stood a line of bottles, each a different shape and each containing a different colored fluid. A thin layer of dust coated them all.
Clearly she hadn’t used the tub much lately; or if she did, she hadn’t taken the time for a good soak. Curious, he picked up one of the bottles, loosened the cap, and took a cautious sniff. Mmm, not bad. Sort of almondy. He returned it and tried another one.
Some sort of musky vanilla. A third. Creamy peaches. He smiled as he carefully returned them. He wondered which was her favorite, and why she didn’t use them more often.
He looked at the tub again. An idea stirred. Hmm. He found her in the kitchen, washing their cups in the sink. She’d donned her underwear beneath the sweater, but hadn’t bothered with her jeans. He eyed her bare legs appreciatively as he approached. Pale and smooth. Nice muscles in the calves, but Jesus, bare-footed like she was made her damn short. No wonder she always wore those killer heels.
She looked up at his quiet footfall, a smile starting. “There you are. Hungry?”
He folded his arms, eyeing the sweater as he lounged comfortably beside her. She’d re-buttoned the old thing, of course, but it still gapped jauntily. “For you? Always.”
A pink flush touched her cheeks, and she dipped her chin to hide her smile. “That’s not quite what I meant.” Her hands fussed with the sponge under the tap, squeezing and rinsing and then squeezing it again. “It’s almost noon. You don’t have to rush right out, do you? I mean, do you have time for lunch? You seemed so intent on food earlier ….”
He smiled at her discomfiture. Guess she really doesn’t want me to go. The realization caused a delicious flip and flutter in his belly. No files to read, no case to discuss or theories to punch full of holes …. nothing but each other. This was all but uncharted territory for them. Slowly he swept a lock of hair away from her right eye, then let his hand fall. “You know me, Scully. I’m always hungry. What’d you have in mind?”
She turned and glanced around the kitchen contemplatively.
“There’s some lasagna in the freezer.”
He allowed his expression to darken. “Vegetarian or that soy stuff?” he asked, his lip curling.
“Vegetarian. Don’t worry, I know how you feel about tofu. I made it last weekend after the Nimzici postmortem.”
He held her gaze, deadpan. “I hope you remembered to wash your hands first.” An eyebrow twitched up at that, and he snorted softly as he reached past her and turned off the water. “Yeah, it was nice of Skinner to consign you to the morgue while I was down for the count. Remind me to send him a thank-you card.
Must be some kind of payback for all the medical paperwork we’ve generated for him this year.”
She eyed him as she dried her hands, a smile lifting one corner of her mouth. “You’d rather he sent me out into the field alone?
Or better yet, assign someone to work with me until you were back on your feet? That didn’t end too well the last time they tried that, if memory serves.”
If memory serves. Boy, did it ever. Mulder shook his head firmly, his jaw set. “Skinner ever tries to pull a Kirsch on us and …. well, forget insubordination – I’ll be up on attempted murder.”
Her fingers laced with his. “I don’t find that comment especially comforting.” She tipped her head playfully to one side.
“C’mon. We’re talking about food here. Lasagna. Big chunks of garlic, buttered bread, the works.” He sighed, smiling. She really did have a knack for getting to him. He turned her hand so he could kiss her palm, which was warm and damp. Her fingertips caressed his mouth, the touch light and tentative, and an answering rush of heat arced deliciously through his body.
“Mmm, sounds good. Then after we eat, maybe we can get back to that slow touch-and-feel thing.” He kissed her fingertips.
“Slow, this time. A promise is a promise.”
That earned him a smile. Ooo, more than that, even – a real, honest to God grin. “Going to hold me to it, Mulder?” she quipped, gently pulling her hand free. She turned away, but not before copping a feel through his jeans. He stood up a little straighter and made a grab for her wrist. She evaded him, but the smile didn’t go anywhere. “Mmm, I certainly hope you do.”
Why was meaningful speech suddenly so difficult? His mind feebly groped for a suitable comeback. Distantly he figured that blood was the problem. It was heading south in a hurry, and it was taking a good portion of his intellect with it. He blinked twice, and caught her smirk as she tugged on the refrigerator door. “Hold you to it ….” he replied. “Hold it to you ….. one is as good as the other. What would be even better, though, involves more of a, uh …. an insertion sorta thing ….”
She grinned so wide that dimples actually appeared. “Really.”
She glanced at the clock over her stove. “The lasagna’s going in the oven to warm, and then I’m taking a shower. Lunch’ll be in half an hour. Can you stay out of trouble for that long?”
He thought suddenly of all those bottles in her bathroom, lined up like little soldiers on their little shelf, and smiled. Sometimes things just turned out right, without any effort on his part.
“Actually, Scully …. I have something else in mind.” He raised her hand to his mouth and pressed another kiss to the warmth of her palm. Her eyes, cobalt blue and aglow with mirth, held his without effort. “You might want to turn the oven down a little. I think this is going to take some time.”
xXx
They didn’t light candles. Watery afternoon sunlight spilled in through the half-drawn shades, rendering any other light redundant and unwelcome. She led the way and then turned to him, and he saw a tinge of pink suffusing her cheeks. “I, uh …. ” Her voice trailed off uncertainly, and she darted a glance at the tub. He found himself frowning. Was she still plagued by images of what might have happened that terrible night last winter? God, he hoped not.
After a pause of a heartbeat – or one that encompassed a dozen – she looked up at him again. “I haven’t done this in two decades,” she said, her tone so soft he could barely hear. He held her gaze as he bent lower, straining to catch the words. She must have seen the confusion in his eyes, because she gestured to the tub with a turn of her head. “This. Bathing with someone. I haven’t don’t that since I was a kid. Missy used to help me wash my hair.”
He followed her glance, a smile starting. “Well, you’re years ahead of me,” he replied, reaching out and taking her hand. “I’ve been doing my own hair since I was …..” He let the sentence trail off. It wouldn’t do to delve into his childhood, especially now.
There be dragons. He kissed her to cover his lapse. “Since I turned thirty, at least.”
He saw another flash of uncertainty in her eyes. “Would you rather use the shower? I don’t mind. I mean, I usually take showers myself anyway …. that way we won’t have to, um ….. I mean, you’re tall enough, you might not find the tub all that comfortable ….”
He gave her hand a squeeze. She fell silent as she looked up at him. He nodded to the shelf of plastic bottles. “I can’t decide which I like the best. Which is your favorite?”
Her shoulders rose and fell as she sighed, and he saw some of the tension leave her expression. Good. This was supposed to be fun. She slipped past him, brushing her hands along his bare sides, and picked up one of the bottles. She uncapped it and held it up to him. “This one.”
His eyes held hers as he bent closer and gently inhaled. God, he knew that fragrance. He could pick it out in a crowd – hell, he could find her in a packed stadium, blindfolded. He loved that smell. Sweet, but not too. A little musk. A little pine. A little of a whole lot of things – he never had excelled at the smaller details in a woman’s life. Never really had the chance. Never really wanted to, before now.
She ran water until it was warm, then stopped the drain and sat back on the edge of the tub. He watched as she carefully tipped some of the lotion into the stream. Bubbles immediately boiled into a froth, and the tangy aroma began to waft around them in the rising steam. He closed his eyes and inhaled again, deeply this time. He opened his eyes to find her regarding him curiously. “What is it?” she asked.
He slowly blinked, then gave his head a shake. She kicked her underwear aside as she stood up. Without a word, he raised a hand and stroked her bare breastbone. A smattering of gooseflesh rose in his wake, and she couldn’t repress a shiver. Slowly his hand trailed down to the tender flesh between her breasts almost but not quite covered by the old, worn sweater. He resisted the impulse to kiss her, because to start and not finish would be impossible. This wasn’t just another opportunity to make love.
That would come later. He wanted to touch her. He wanted her to touch him. Not a touch of arousal, but of familiarity.
He stopped her when she started to shrug the sweater off.
“No, let me.” Her hands fell away. Carefully he grasped the hem and gently lifted it straight up and tossed it aside. For a long moment he didn’t move, just let his eyes have their fill. She bore his scrutiny for as long as she could – ten seconds, maybe – and then she tipped her head back and gave a low chuckle. “Mulder, if you don’t touch me soon, I’m going to go crazy.”
His gaze met hers again. Without a word he grasped her hands and pressed them into his chest. Her fingers stroked him gently.
He caressed her wrists, her forearms, biceps and triceps, and allowed his fingers to linger at the inner curves of her elbows. The flesh was thin and tender, and she shivered as he dragged his thumbnails oh, so lightly over the creases there. Her breasts tightened and became pebbled, and it was all he could do not to drop to his knees before her and drag them, one after the other, into his eager mouth. She wanted him to do that. He could see it in her eyes, but he steeled himself against the temptation. Not yet.
Not yet.
When he’d acquainted himself with the soft smoothness of her arms, he made his way down her torso, pausing to brush his fingertips over her shoulders. Scapulae. Sternum. Ribcage. Her own hands were not still, but were traveling the breadth of his own chest, skimming and exploring the ridge of his collarbones, the planes of his abdomen. The line of dark hair that ran down his belly and disappeared into the depths of his jeans.
“Water,” she breathed, turning away and breaking the spell. A jerk of her wrists and the taps were closed. She looked at him again, and he saw a sweet, hot fire in her eyes. “Careful getting in,” she whispered, grasping him by the waist and expertly flicking the buttons open down his fly. The jersey boxers were beginning to strain against the bulge rising in his crotch. A smile tugged at her lips, and he knew without asking that, left to her own devices, it was not her tub that she wanted him to slide into.
“Get in,” she directed in the same soft tone. He obediently shimmied his pants down and off, tossing them in the corner with her sweater. Turning, he saw her eyes were on him. No hiding it now: he was aroused. Not yet rigid, but heavy and just beginning to lift. Well, of course he was aroused; she was as nude as he was, and nothing got the attention of a heterosexual male like a nude female. But he could wait. He wasn’t an adolescent. No more racing in the showers. The true victory now was not in being the first, but the last.
He folded his glasses and laid them on the sink, then turned away and stepped into the tub. The water was deliciously hot. He swallowed a yelp as he carefully sat down – damn, that was really warm – and then relaxed against the angled back, arms resting comfortably on the sides of the tub, and looked up at her. She was watching him appraisingly, and from the look in her eyes and the smile just touching the corners of her mouth, he figured she liked what she saw. Her gaze lingered over his crotch, and he felt his own smile grow. His penis bobbed against his abdomen, to all appearances erect. She’d know that wasn’t entirely the case, but it didn’t stop her from admiring it. That she could be so comfortable, with herself and with him, pleased him.
“Come here,” he beckoned. She immediately complied, but he stopped her when she would have straddled him. “Wait, not like that …. turn around.” She hesitated, pouting a little; then with a resigned sigh, she stepped over the side and settled between his legs. He guided her with his hands on her hips. “Yeah, like that.”
She grunted softly as she situated her legs around his. “It’s crowded. Are you all right? I’m not hurting you, am I?”
That made him smile all over. “Get back here, Scully.” Gently he grasped her shoulders and nestled her comfortably against him.
His arms crossed around her and held her fast. The pressure of her back against his erection was enticing, and for a moment he allowed his mind to dwell on how good it would feel if she could just ….
No, he reminded himself, that wasn’t what this was about. Be patient.
She sighed deeply – he felt his arms rise and fall along with her chest. “Mmm, this is nice.”
He allowed his lips to trail along her temple, down to her brow bone and then back up to her hairline. Sweat was beginning to pearl on her skin, and when he licked his lips, he tasted salt.
“Yeah,” he breathed against her skin. Surrounded by the hot, heavy aroma of Scully …… it couldn’t get better than this.
He kissed her temple again. Water lapped around them and between them, and in the half-darkness he saw the pale-on-pale line of the laparotomy scar that marred her belly. There was a corresponding one on her back, now hidden against his own middle. He swallowed the sudden rush of bitter anger. Let it go.
It wouldn’t have happened if you’d been there, true, but the fact is, you weren’t there. What’s done is done. We’re here now.
He groaned softly. Just another scar. Something else that had been taken away from her. He spread his hand wide over her abdomen, the span of his fingers almost enough to cover her belly. What was left there beneath his hand, he wondered. Why had her ova been taken? He’d like to think the bastards heading the Project had wanted the very best genetic material they could get their leprous hands on. That didn’t ease the grief, though. She had been medically raped. She had been denied a son. A daughter.
That was what galled him so badly. If the decision had been hers if she had decided that motherhood was something she had no interest in …. But no. They had taken the decision away from her.
They had taken it away from him. There was no one else he would ever want to have a child with.
Slowly his hand closed into a fist and pressed gently into her belly, just below her navel. Empty. She was empty, and so was he. No one would follow them. They would each end their respective lines with their deaths. Not fair. Not fair.
He swallowed hard to dispel the hard lump suddenly forming in his throat. “What do you think she’d have looked like?” he whispered.
It was dangerous, that kind of question. For a moment she didn’t respond, and he wondered if perhaps she’d drifted off in the wet heat of his embrace. Scully could fall asleep just about anywhere. Then her head jerked slightly to the side, and though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she was frowning. “Who?”
He didn’t reply, just pressed his hand a little more firmly into her belly. Over her empty uterus. A barren womb. Not fair. Her head turned again, and he could imagine the look in her eyes as she stared into the distance.
Her chest rose and fell gently on a sigh, and her hands crossed with his over her abdomen. “Not the hair,” she murmured.
His smile would not be denied. She knew. She knew exactly what he’d meant. What was more, she was willing to play the game. What if? But to have a child with her that did not have the pale skin and fiery red hair of the ancient Celts …. the thought was heretical. At least it was in the Church of Scully, where he would willingly worship every day for the rest of his life. He kissed her temple again. “Not the hair? You’re kidding me, right?”
Her answer was firm despite the velvety softness of her voice.
“Not the hair, Mulder. I wouldn’t want another kid to be teased and ridiculed for something they had no control over.”
He smiled into her hair. “You mean, like this nose?”
She glanced at him again, and he heard the soft sound that always accompanied her smiles. “It’s a nose. So what that it’s a little ….. generous. I happen to like it.”
He nuzzled her again. “And I like the hair.”
They were silent for a long time. Then she moved a little in his arms, shifting a little in the close confines of the tub. “Okay, so you want red hair and I want the nose. Freckles too, I suppose, on that nose.”
“Of course.”
She feigned a dispirited sigh. “Fine, if she has to have the hair and the freckles, the poor kid gets your eyes. I’m not arguing this point.”
He chuckled. “Suits me. I have a kid that looks too much like you, she’s not leaving the house until she’s drawing Social Security.”
She chuckled a little at that. “You’d let her go, Mulder. You’d do it because it’d be the right thing to do. I know you.” She turned her head and nuzzled her face into his throat. “Besides, the music’d drive you crazy. You’ve heard some of the crap they listen to these days.”
He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and kissed her. “Just think about all the stuff we’ll have to teach her.
How to walk, how to dress.”
“How to do math.”
He snorted softly. “That’s your department. Besides, you’re kind of jumping the gun, aren’t you? I’m thinking walking and talking, you’re skipping straight ahead to homework. Jeez, not everyone’s the over-achiever you are, you know.”
She giggled. “I am not an over-achiever.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. You only rewrote Einstein.”
She pretended to sniff haughtily. “Fine, we’ll back up a little.
Walking. Baby steps. We’re both good at that.” She kissed him gently. “Holding her steady for her first steps. Dressing her in runners and tiny little scrubs.”
“In your dreams, Dr. Scully.” Gentle kiss. “Teaching her the difference between a Freudian and a Jungian.” Kiss. “A phobia and an archetype.”
A delicate Scully snort. “Just so she can express herself. I don’t want any kid growing up having the same hang-ups I have.
And keep her away from Freud, will you please? All that Oedipal and Electra shit …..”
He smiled against her cheek. “Scully, please! That’s not the kind of language we want her to pick up.”
She chuckled again as she let her head fall back against his shoulder. Slowly he raised his arm from the warm water and held it out before them. After a moment she followed suit, and their fingers merged into a single form. “Hand,” he whispered, praying that she would follow along, that by playing his game, she might banish at least this one self-perceived character flaw once and for all.
“Hand,” she repeated, little more than a breath.
His finger stroked her knee tenderly. “Leg.”
The smile sound. “Leg.”
A touch to her nose. “Scully.”
A giggle as she repeated, “Scully.”
He pressed her hand to his cheek. “Mulder.”
A soft sigh. “Mulder.”
He touched his lips to her lashes. “Eye.
Her breath caught in her throat. “Eye.”
He opened his hand on her chest, just below her left collarbone. “Love.”
She hesitated. When she spoke, it was so soft that he could barely hear her. “Love.”
He touched a finger to the rounded point of her chin, and his voice all but failed him on the last syllable. “You.”
A sound similar to a smile sound and yet different, and then the sound of a choked swallow. She pressed her face into his throat again, and he felt the quiver that passed through her.
Would she say it? Could she?
She remained silent, and he felt a bitter twinge of disappointment. Not in her, but for her. He held her just a little closer, willing her to feel in his heartbeat the depth of his emotions. She was strong. She was tenacious. He knew there was nothing she couldn’t do.
Well, almost nothing.
Give it time, he chastened himself. Some day it would happen.
Some day.
In the silence broken by the soft lap of water and the gentle rhythm of their heartbeats, he heard the whisper of rain. Glancing at the window, he saw drops once again feathering the glass.
She clasped his hand and held it between her breasts, sighing as she followed his gaze. He could just imagine her, eyes at half-mast, face utterly relaxed. She was smart, sexy, and beautiful.
And she loved him. So what that she couldn’t say it? He was a lucky man. No words, whether spoken or not, would change that.
“I love you, Mulder.”
Carried on a breath, the words were so soft that he thought he might have imagined them. She pressed her face more firmly into the side of his throat. “I do. I love you.”
Warmth bloomed in his chest, and his arms tightened ever-so slightly around her. Emotion tugged at his heart and robbed him of voice. His mouth opened and then closed futily. His eyes closed, and he sighed contentedly as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. I know you do, Scully. I know.
Later there would be more. He would hold her there in her big, soft bed; he’d watch her expression change as he moved over her and in her, feel her run hot and liquid around him as she took flight and dragged him with her. He’d say the words even as he made good on them. He’d see the love in her eyes, would taste it in her kisses. If he was very lucky, she would say the words again, too.
But for now they didn’t speak, merely sat with tangled limbs and watched the rain fall silently beyond the window. For now, they needed no words.
end
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