Chapter Text
They called her enigmatic, but that was the exact adjective that came into Sully’s mind when seeing Mulder that morning. His mind seemed lost in meadows and his posture slouched as if coveting a secret gift in his grasp. The air around him filled with a powerful cedar musk from the bodywash he reserved for after the gym. Freshly toned and showered, his skin steamed like asphalt in the sweltering summer underneath his tight tailored suit.
“I-uh, I’ll be leaving early today,” Mulder stammered in low tones, pulling a file from the cabinet across from where Scully was reviewing her lab results.
Scully lifted her head from her papers, intrigued by his curious demeanor. She decided to test the waters. “Hot date?”
Mulder cocked his head, and ever so slightly jutted out his plump bottom lip. A sudden urge and a vision crashed into Scully’s mind. In it, she closed the distance between them and that lip was between her teeth. She was sucking on it, long and slow, soliciting a low rumbling moan from his throat. Scully crossed her legs, her tongue darting between her lips. She had been allowing her mind to wander too often lately. His answer to her question tore the fantasy from her like a ship crashing into an iceberg. “Sort of.”
A hot blaze of fire streaked into her abdomen. Her stomach twisted in knots, not prepared for another Diana rollercoaster. She gave him a tight short lipped smile in response.
Mulder smirked and chuckled. The cabinet drawer clicked as he shoved it closed and held up his right hand as if waving it for the Queen of England. “I’ve got a deposit to make.”
Scully tried her best to hide from her face the wave of relief sweeping over her. “Are you doing this at the doctor’s office or the comfort of your apartment?”
“Doctor’s office,” Mulder said, reaching for a handful of seeds on his desk, tossing one in his mouth and crunching the shell between his teeth. “You’re more than welcome to come along if you’d like to lend a hand.”
“Nice try,” Scully retorted.
Mulder shrugged. “I thought so.”
Three hours later they were in Skinner’s office getting a lengthy debrief of the meeting Skinner had just come from with the director and the other assistants. Mulder peered at the clock then at Scully. The corners of his mouth cinched upward and his arm nonchalantly fell from his lap, brushing his fingers lightly against hers. The gesture warmed her chest and burned at her eyes. It was almost time. He gave so much of himself to her. In return, her heart vowed a commitment to him on a level deeper than descriptors. Gently, she hooked her fingers around his. Out of Skinner’s sight, Mulder squeezed them supportively.
Shortly after Skinner dismissed them Mulder headed out, and Scully headed to the basement to sort through the day’s seemingly endless emails. Her mind didn’t let her get far. It had receded into the recent past. Mulder. He had kissed her on New Year’s Eve, told her he loved her after almost drowning in the Bermuda Triangle, but then there was Diana.. in his life, in his dreams, in his apartment. If Diana was alive, would he still have agreed to the IVF? Were they being honest with each other? Or was there something more to the bond, the love and the trust Scully shared with him?
Scully glared at the time on the bottom right hand corner of her monitor. It hadn’t been that long since Mulder had left. Swiftly she closed her laptop, grabbed her coat, and headed out.
*****
So many times her knuckles had struck against the hard wood of the door with the number 42 in brass, but not with the tenacity it did today. Her heart beat hard in her chest and her blood ran cold. What was she doing? Why was she really there? For answers, but to what?
“Uh, just a minute,” she heard him call faintly from the other side. She shouldn’t have come. She turned to leave and the door opened. “Scully. Something happen?”
“No. No, I..” She laughed shyly. She didn’t know what to say or ask and now she was questioning herself as to why she was even there.
Mulder stepped to the side of the door. “Why don’t you.., come in.”
Scully wandered into the unusually dark room. The blinds had been drawn to block out the midday sun, and several candles were glowing on the coffee table, side table, and on top of the t.v., like he might be preparing for a seance. Instrumental jazz played low from his computer speakers.
“Have a seat,” Mulder invited, sitting down himself, leaning his elbows on his thighs. With fingers intertwined, his thumbs squeezed at his bottom lip.
Scully sat next to him, her eyes surveying the room again. “Mulder, what is all this?”
Mulder passed her a warm smile and chuckled. “I was thinking, I did it at the doctor’s office the first time and.. I don’t know.. thought maybe this time, if I made it special.. I don’t know what I was thinking..”
“So you tried your hand at romancing the bone?”
Mulder’s smile widened as his eyes flitted to hers. “Yeah, something like that.”
Underneath the light conversation, Scully felt her inner turmoil bubbling. The silence that proceeded had stricken her with an unnamed fear. A frisson of anxiety skittered down her spine and suddenly she heard herself take the leap, like bungee jumping off a bridge without the tether. Straight into the abyss, she flung the words, sending them both down the darkened pathway that with unspoken promises they had told the other would never be traveled. “Would it be different if Diana was alive?” she asked, her voice bleak and flat and almost unrecognizable.
Mulder visibly cringed, almost staring right through her. “What are you asking, Scully?”
The fiery bite in his words caused her to look away and down at her fingers. Panic knotted in her chest and tightened around her throat, feeding her anxiety. In hushed tones she replied, “I know she was your friend, Mulder, but she was also more..”
“Scully, I’m sad that she’s gone, sad for her choices, but in the end, the love she had for me and for the work.. it would have always been about her. I saw her feelings and yours. I didn’t choose her, Scully. With Diana there was no us. Only her.”
An uneasiness hauntily whirled around them. One she had hoped had been extinguished to the grave. Now here it lingered. Shakily, she replied, “Couldn’t the same be said for what I’m asking of you?”
In his eyes, the abyss yawned, and within its depths love and light flooded up into his Caspian Seas. “You are my partner, Scully. You and I.. It’s very different. And I-I have some responsibility for what they did to you.”
The stiletto sliced through her and in preservation, her cool detachment returned. She took control over her emotions and pulled back within the lines of her comfort zone. “You have to let that go, Mulder. They were my choices,” she clipped.
“To follow me? And look where it’s gotten you.”
“To follow the work,” Scully corrected. Darkness and despair bloomed inside her chest, weighing down her heart and spiraling into her throat as it amplified. It was her deepest fears creeping from oblivion, a raw and painful emptiness threatening to break her open. “God, Mulder. If you’re doing this out of some guilt or obligation to me..”
“That’s what you believe?” As he said it his voice rose, clamoring around the room and echoing in her eardrums, then immediately calmed to almost a whisper. “Is that what you came here to ask me?”
Scully’s gaze fell away as she slowly shook her head. “No,” she breathed out almost unintelligibly. She had come for answers, but to questions she had yet dared to ask herself.
Mulder glanced at the clock then back at Scully. “I don’t mean this to sound harsh, but I’ve got to get down to business before it gets too late, we can discuss this later.”
The conversation wasn’t going at all the way she imagined or practiced in her head on the way over. She really hadn’t thought it through at all. Once again she felt herself pushing him away when it was the last thing she wanted to do. “I will always be grateful for what you’re doing for me, Mulder.”
Mulder sighed heavily. “I never had a family, even before, when I thought I did… but I had my sister.” When Scully lifted her chin to meet his gaze he leaned in and she felt their familiar bubble lock around them casting away the rest of the world. “I knowingly sacrificed my future relationships in search of the truth.. And now..” He leaned in closer as if their noses might touch, as if protecting her from the weight of his words. “If this does come to be... This will be your baby, Scully. And it will be my family.”
“Mulder.” His words and their intimacy struck deep melodic chords within her. The electricity between them sparked and ignited, heating the space between them.
Mulder continued. “What they took from you, they took from me. This is a chance to get some of that back.”
There was a pause as his utterances hung in the air, balancing on the tether of their bond. His physical proximity almost scorched her skin as their auras weaved and married, yet they did not pull away. He looked again at the clock on his desk. “I’ve got to go,” he said, but didn’t move.
Instead his gaze returned to hers, cultivating and blossoming, spreading like vines through her system, fueling her brazen words. “If only there was something that could encourage the process.”
Mulder looked almost puzzled, but hopeful. “But what?”
She heard the smile in his voice, his eyes both coy and provocative. “I’m sure we could think of something.” Her hand laid heavy on his knee. Her thumb trailing small circles on the inside of his thigh.
“It’s getting late.” Mulder widened his heated, but bashful grin. “You might want to move your hand.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Scully said abruptly, pulling away, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.
“No, that’s not what I meant.” His eyes shone down on her, his voice tinged with a tension she felt in her core.
Her eyes fell away and she saw him hardening underneath the fabric of his pants.
Felt the heat emanating.
Her heart beat faster.
Was this really why she had come?
This was a line they would not cross. This would be risking everything. The walls protecting her heart would no longer be impenetrable. The, the… her mind scrambled for reasons to run, but then his eyes softened, letting her off the hook. He shook his head and pulled her in flush against him, tucking his face softly into her neck.
Breathing out relief, her hands settled naturally around his abdomen. A comfortable silence cocooned them, the flicker of candlelight dimming. With Mulder she was completely comfortable in the dark, fencing the shadows and keeping the monsters at bay. Breathing in the musky cologne that was all him, she felt a sense of belonging and the calming peace that followed.
Then the soft hair at the top of his head tickled her cheek. She had to fight the insatiable urge to rub her face against them. Instead, she ran her hand up his back and her fingers curled and threaded naturally around the short locks. He let out a sigh, his hot heavy breath blowing across her chest. Her nipples tightened, and she inhaled sharply just as his fingers flickered over the small of her back, tracing the hem. Her thighs flexed when the blaze of his fingertips touched hers. Between them his need grew and her body began to pound. She felt the energy shift, and heard their familiar pulse as the puzzle pieces of their souls snapped together. It was only Mulder, but that meant everything.
“Scully,” he nearly choked on her name, his voice breathy and dark.
His head lifted and his smoky eyes greeted her with a tentative, but scorching look. Like he was holding back, preparing for her rejection. It was a reminder of how much she could wound him and her chest contracted at the thought that she might ever hurt such a beautiful man. She couldn’t deny the wave of relief that hit her as he solidified his intentions with a chase kiss to her forehead. It was infuriating, yet oddly reassuring that he had the same reservations she did.
His forehead dropped to meet with hers. Simultaneously, their mouths opened to speak, preparing to bring themselves back to sanity, but words did not escape their breath. Their lips instead hovered in frozen silence, caught in each other’s gravitational pull. Their eyes locked and Scully’s fingers started slowly, sensually, massaging the back of his neck. Their lips drew ever closer, danced, and reached for the other. Their eyes closed and when their lips touched it was more of a caress than a kiss, pulling back like they’d been burned. They repeated their motions again, the tension between them building, the sensations coiling and spreading. She wanted to let him go or never let him go. Wanted to stop this madness, but the feelings were too strong, pulsating her insides, her brain muted and on instinct, she pulled his mouth to hers.
Mulder kissed like no one else she had ever experienced. It forced her outside of her mind, making her feel him in every part of her body. Their tongues were insistent, mating, entwining, their bodies rising to push hard against the other. What was intended as a restful expression of affection turned immediately dark, needier, hotter. This was so much more than they had prepared for. They craved each other. Her fingers tightened in his hair while his hand caressed her face. Her blood was running fast and thick through her body, her sex growing wetter as it throbbed for him.
Their tongues reveled in the warmth of the other’s mouths and their lips stayed fused while her hand shakily hovered over his zipper. Hungrily, she grasped at his belt, dragging the end of the belt loop and slowly undoing the buckle, tugging it free. The rise and fall of Scully’s chest increased just as his breathing accelerated. This would complicate things between them and she liked it when it was simple. Her need to know, coupled with desire pushed her forward. With trembling fingers she undid the button and slid down the fly.
Her entire body locked when she pressed her hand against the steaming hard flesh tucked inside his boxers. For years she wondered how this would feel and it was exactly like nothing she had dreamed up. She closed her eyes, her heart raced and the world around her disappeared the way it always did when they touched.
When she finally opened her eyes, his hazel ones filled with emotion and it gave her the courage to move past her doubts. What drove her more was that she didn’t want there to be a part of Mulder she didn’t know, that they didn’t share, that wasn’t open to her perusal if she wished. That someone else could possibly know more of him than her. That, and the need to touch him had just overcome every doubt in her head.
Unwilling to restrain herself, she lowered her eyes in curiosity. He was exposed, straining against his boxers. She looked back at Mulder. His stare was downright sinful. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his, pulled the waistband away from his body, and slid her hand inside. Mulder moaned into her mouth as she wrapped her hand around his erection. Shit, it felt big. Long and thick. Her fingers couldn’t meet if they tried. She pumped him with appreciation and awe, sliding up and over the spongy swollen arrowhead. Scully returned Mulder’s moan as pleasure grew out of the electricity she felt in her hand. The sharp pulse streaked into her heart. It felt so good to touch him, to feel the silky heat of his shaft.
Light and sensually, with her French-manicured nails, she grazed his balls, her tips trailing up the length of his cock. Mulder pulled back suddenly in an appreciative gasp. She stroked him again. His head craned back to expose his Adam’s apple, his mouth falling open.
Lifting his hips he lowered his boxers and his erection bobbed free. Her hand quickly snaked back around the perfect shape and she continued her motion, up and down, cork screwing near the top, loving the noises he made with each throb.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
“I haven’t been touched like this in so many years, and it-it’s you.”
“Mulder.”
“May I touch you?” he asked timidly.
“Yes,” she replied in her own meek voice, comforted by his gentleness.
She closed her eyes and felt his long languid fingers run down the front of her shirt, undoing her buttons, teasing between her breasts, then over her stomach. His lips gentle against hers, then they were moving down her body, before finding her breasts and untucking them from their perch inside her bra. He put a nipple into his mouth and the pleasure forced her eyelids to squeeze closer together. Mulder stopped. “Watch me,” he rumbled. “You need to see, see that I’m right here. That I’m not going anywhere.”
Her chest tightened. She forced her eyes open and locked with his. With a tenderness he kept reserved, his lips lowered over her cherry blossom tip, trailing goosebumps in their wake. The voice in her head that forced her to shut down whenever Mulder got too close fell silent.
Scully quickened her pace around his cock, missing his lips when they separated from her skin as he began to pant. He held her as she continued, sweat beading from his forehead. His unique smell, like a huge surge from a deep mysterious freshwater ocean, made her want to drown in its knowledge dressed in nothing but the moon’s luminescent glow. What spell had he cast upon her that her science had yet to disprove?
It might have been the fatigue in her arms, or perhaps the absurdity of the situation, but the cold ghost of depression’s elongated tendrils grasped at her. Forced out of the situation she viewed as a third person the absurdity of it all. Two lost people, stripped of life’s normalcy, leaping at possibilities always inches from reach. It was too much. She should leave. They were prolonging an inevitability, settling on touches short of true intimacy.
Without lifting his head, Mulder spoke, his voice low and thick. “What’s wrong, Scully?”
“I’m not sure.”
She felt his large hand cover her small one and cease its movement. “If you want to stop..”
“No,” she said, quickly. Truthfully, she didn’t know what she wanted.
Mulder sighed. “I’m sorry it’s taking so long. It’s probably nerves. Although, the last time I was able to complete this task using this kind of stimulation from a woman, I was probably fifteen and it was more because of my age than her abilities.”
Scully wasn’t about to be out-done by anyone, even raging adolescent hormones. “It may be better if you show me what you like.”
Delicately, he coaxed her hand into long gentle strokes. The warmth and strength of his touch was a comfort and a turn on. He slowed to a stop again. “Would you be willing to try something a little different? Something that might help?”
“Maybe.” She could hear the distance in her voice. Knowing Mulder, there was no telling what he might suggest.
Mulder paused, then said, “You can try talking dirty to me.”
Scully’s eyes rolled. Of course it would come to this. Whatever. At this point she wanted it done and him on his way so she could forget this situation ever happened. It was not the romantic teenage dream her younger self had of bringing her child into existence. She fought down the self deprecating depression creeping back in. What would turn him on? Then she had an idea. She kept her voice low and sultry and made an attempt. “Mulder, Did you know the B-52H Stratofortress is a long-range, heavy bomber that is capable of flying at high subsonic speeds at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet? It can perform strategic air interdiction, offensive counter-air and maritime operation, and ocean surveillance for anti-ship and mine-laying operations. In two hours a B-52 can monitor 140,000 square miles of ocean surface.”
“Oddly enough, that’s not bad,” he said, continuing to stroke himself with his hand over hers. “I’ve always found your intellect irresistible.”
Ugh. She knew it was awful, but she wasn’t about to pretend to be one of his 900 numbers. She slowed her tempo and thought about his fantasies. “I believe there’s a base hidden 111 miles inland in Antarctica and it is so big that there is space for UFO spaceships, as well as the aliens that are living there.” Scully got in closer to the shell of his ear and gave him a few hard pumps. “I believe it might possibly be an alien city. I might just have caught a glimpse of it when we were there.”
Mulder moaned loudly, then growled, “What excites you, Scully?”
She didn’t have to think about that for too long. “Your spirit, your body, your relentlessness to go after the truth. To go after anything you believe in- you excite me Mulder.”
“Scully,” he moaned softly, “I can’t believe how hard that just got me. You, excited by me.” He had whispered it against her skin and every hair on her body stood at attention.
She felt cocooned by their heat and it thrust her into the moment. Her voice dropped an octave lower and she gently squeezed him. “Mmm. I love feeling you this hard.”
“It’s from you.. for you,” he replied.
Scully stared down at his hand on hers, pumping his erection. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have something that big and that hard so deep inside her. Deeper than any man before. Mulder’s complete focused attention on her. Her insides throbbed. “God, you’re beautiful,” she heard herself say aloud.
“Yeah?”
“And thick.”
“I would fit perfectly inside you,” he rasped.
Her insides flexed as she moaned his name, like she could actually feel him dragging against her walls. Her grip around him pulsed with her own sensations. Mulder groaned in return and said, husky and needy, “Faster.”
“What would you do to me?” Scully asked, her mind’s eye lost inside the fantasy.
“Worship you,” Mulder returned quickly. “Excite you, give you as much pleasure as your body can take. Run my fingers inside you as I kiss your stomach, lick your neck, nip at your breasts. When you start to come, I’ll pull out my fingers and slide into you so I can feel you pulse around me. Only then would I really begin to move and use myself to bring you to a place greater than you’ve ever been.”
Scully slowed her hand, feeling her heart wanting to believe their dream. To save herself, she thought more clinically. She released her grip to reach and open the packets on his coffee table, cleaning her hands, using another to wipe the head with surgical precision.
“Uh,” Mulder cried out and shivered. “God, it’s sensitive. That’s cold and I was so close.”
Scully stroked him with a lighter touch. Trickling the pads of her fingers up and down his length as she cleaned him. “You want to come, Mulder?”
“I want to come for you, Scully,” he said softly. “I want you to drain me of every ounce.”
She kept her touches light, her other hand joining in, caressing and tugging at his scrotum, reaching just behind it with light circles. Mulder’s hips jerked forward and he moaned louder. “That feels so good, Scully, please, please, faster.”
Scully continued her feather touch and could visibly see him throb. “Do you like it when I tease you?” Her voice was rough, betraying her desires. She felt him come alive in her hand.
“Yes,” he whimpered, his mouth slack, eyes dark, full of lust and need and seven years of pent up tension. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard.”
She had what she never thought she craved, his undivided attention. The reason her feathers ruffled anytime anyone drew close. She wanted it and she couldn’t admit it, but now that she was basking in it she couldn’t drink enough.
She kissed him roughly, firming her grip and increasing her speed to a fever pace. Then she moaned softly against his lips, “Come for me, Mulder.”
“Scully, yes, for you.” Mulder reached for the cup and they locked eyes.
Scully’s hand moved like a piston as Mulder held the cup, watching her motions, moaning, breathlessly, “oh, Scully.” “Faster,” “yes, Scully,” "squeeze a little harder" “Oh, keep going,” “oh yeah,” “Scully,” he half gulped, half moaned, in a panicked voice. “I-I’m going to come.”
With his thumb he pushed the head down and positioned it into the cup, using his hips to pump through her grasp. “Oh, shit, Scully, it’s a lot, God, Scully, it’s so much.”
She couldn’t look away as she watched, as the pleasure she gave him washed over his face, as he pulsated and throbbed, filling the cup with elongated streams. Scully’s insides were contracting with such force as she watched him, fantasizing about wrapping her lips around him, and feeling the warm, swollen, hard flesh pumping into her mouth as deep as her throat would allow, working it until she could feel his release on her tongue, taste his salty musk. Then, the vision of him, grinding inside her with those gentle, caring eyes.
“Cap it,” Mulder said.
“What?” Scully replied, slightly stunned, jarred from her fantasy.
“The lid, for the cup.”
“Oh,” Scully said, bringing her mind into the present, taking the cup from him and screwing on the cap, an impressive amount inside.
After fixing himself, he took it from her hands and reality colored his cheeks. She felt the heat on her own. They were fully clothed yet naked to the other. He broke their gaze and glanced at the digital clock on his desk. “If I leave now, I won’t have to rush, even if I hit traffic.”
“Go.”
He smiled and nodded. He placed the specimen in the cooler and stopped and stared at her as he grabbed his coat. “This is it.”
“Yeah,” she said with her stomach tight. She mumbled out with an almost teary eye, “Last chance.”
His hand slipped around the brass of the doorknob, but didn’t turn it. “We okay?” he asked, his eyes on the door. “I mean, what happened.”
“We’ll be fine, Mulder,” she assured him.
He tightened his grip and nodded. “Good. I’ll give you a call when I get back.”
Scully stared at the door long after she heard the click of the deadlatch. Then she blew out the candles, watching the smoky dance rising above each wick. With every exhale she made a wish as if the candles were on a birthday cake, until she was encased in darkness. Birthday cake. Scully fixed the pillows on the couch and folded the throw, heading towards Mulder’s bathroom to wash up. Daylight burned through the blinds into the dusty haze of his bedroom. Surprised at the brightness, she sheltered her eyes until they had time to adjust. Scully took a long deep inhale. The day was still young. Flicking on the bathroom light, she decided that next she would head downtown. Suddenly she had a craving for something sweet.