FIC: Narrative Thrust
Title: Narrative Thrust
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh
Summary: Scheherazade was just trying to get laid and keep her head. So's Mulder.
Pairing: MSR; Mulder/Krycek. (Safe for srsbzns shippers who are willing to play along, I promise.)
Rating: NC-17 like whoa. Sex and cheese fries and not a lot else.
Timeline/Spoilers: Framing story, S7; internal story, through Sleepless.
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
Written for xf_santa as a gift for inlaterdays , who a wise woman once called "the internet's most prominent M/K slasher." She denies it, but it's an honor to be nominated. Author's notes at the end.
__________
Scully pulls a fry out from beneath the mass of melted cheese. "I think we can safely conclude we've been stood up."
"Looks like it." Mulder wishes he understood why she pretends to avoid the cheese, but she's always been like this, and unfortunately no one arrived on his doorstep with a Scully-manual the day after he first peeled her underwear down her thighs, so it remains a mystery. He has been thinking about this intently, to prevent thinking about anything else. "He sounded legit on the phone."
"They all sound legit on the phone." She sucks the last of her soda through her straw, lips pursed, making that little sucking sound...
At least the cheese has nutritional value, he argues in his head. Fries are just strips of delicious fat and carbohydrates and he's certain she has something against them, or should have something against them, anyway. And ketchup. What's her problem with ketchup? It's practically a vegetable.
"Mulder."
His attention snaps back to her. She is looking at him across the table of the booth with faint amusement and he realizes he might have a problem here. "Yes, Scully?"
"What is up with you? There's something you're not telling me."
"No, nothing. Everything's fine." That was too fast. Yeah, he'd better change the subject. "Since this guy didn't pan out, I'm thinking we should take that case about the poltergeist activity in Detroit. There's enough evidence to make it worthwhile, and certainly we're seeing new things about the poltergeist phenomenon--"
"Mulder."
"That is, apparently, my name."
She smiles, but he's not sure he likes this particular smile, due to, again, the lack of manual. "Seeing as how it is--" she checks her watch-- "seven twenty-three, I believe we can safely agree we are off the clock."
"I suppose so."
"All right then." She pushes her palms down on the table, slides out of the booth. "I'm going to get us real drinks, and then you are going to tell me why you have been twitchy and distracted since we walked in here." She turns, and he can't help but stare at her ass as she walks away.
He takes a steadying breath. OK. This can't be too hard. Just play it cool, keep it together, and the correct answer is you've never been in this bar before in your life, certainly not with anyone else ever, and have I mentioned you look very nice in those pants.
She comes back over, two glasses of something clear with limes in it. He would have gotten a beer--but then again, having a beer would remind him of the last time he had a beer here, and There Be Monsters, so the lime-thing is just fine. Instead of returning to her side of the booth, she slides in next to him.
She puts one drink in front of him, takes his stirrer, stabs his lime, deftly transfers it to her glass. He loves her. "Look, Mulder, here's how this is going to go," she says. "We're going to skip the part where you say you're not distracted. We're going to skip the part where you say that you just have a headache, or you were thinking about the case, or the Knicks game, and by the way I've memorized their schedule so you can't pull that on me until the playoffs, or whatever lame little lie you were going to try out." He really loves her, and it's a vodka tonic, which is not so bad at all. "We're going to skip all of that, and get straight to the point where you tell me what the hell happened in this bar to make you utterly unable to pay attention to a word I've said since we got here."
He found an opening. "I was paying attention to what you said."
"I never fucked Ed Jerse." He coughs on his drink. "Oh, I'm sorry, were we not telling blatant untruths for fun?"
"Jesus, Scully." There really was no getting out of this, was there? He avoids eye contact and swallowed more vodka. He is some creative variant on dead.
She rests her hand on his, and her voice shifts. "I mean, if it's not a good story--"
"No--" he laughs. She'll pry it out of him with vodka or hold his hand through trauma; either way, you know. "No, it's not, per se, a bad story--" and he's just admitted there's a story but anyway it's clear he's not going to win tonight so he might as well go for it-- "But it's not, precisely, the sort of story you'd want to hear."
"Why not?"
Because you are the Yo-Yo fucking Ma of jealousy is the wrong, wrong answer and he manages not to say it, though he struggles for something better. He finally settles on "Because it's the kind of story that implies I did not come to your bed a blushing virgin." He works his drink, pleased, until she stops slapping the table and chortling with glee.
"Oh, Mulder." She actually has to wipe her eyes with a cocktail napkin. "I hate to break this to you, but I was aware of that fact."
"Yeah, well, there's aware, and there's having a geography."
"Is this really why you were so nervous?" She rests her hand on his thigh, slides closer to him. He thinks this is his favorite of her smiles, the oh-Mulder-I-actually-like-you smile, though it only wins out over the hooray-you're-not-dead because it's not proceeded by near death.
"Well, yeah." Of course it's why he was nervous. Is she stupid? This is only everything he's ever wanted, and he lives in terror of breaking it by doing something as stupid and conventional as being a bad boyfriend.
"Well," she says, running her hand up his thigh softly, "I think I need to hear this story."
"Really?" She is getting closer. He used to think once they broached the sex barrier they'd be on each other all the time, but seven years of so-close-but-so-far seem to have permanently rewired his kinks to include the extended tease.
"I think I want to know the story capable of reducing you to public idiocy." Her hand is getting higher, stroking gently.
"And what do I get for it?" he says, trying to keep his cool.
He loses it when her hand trails up the fly of his pants and back down again, gently tracing the line of his cock. "Holy fuck, Scully."
"I don't stop, is what you get." She smiles, and this is the oh-now-you're-going-to-get-it smile and he really likes this one.
"I'm not certain you've established the proper incentive structure," he tries, gamely, but it's clear. He's going to tell the story, and she's going to hear it, and if he ends up wearing the ice from her drink it is entirely her fault, she's the one who insisted.
"So. How old is this story?"
"Um. Old."
"I think I want a number." She strokes a little more insistently. He shifts nervously, looks around the bar to make sure no one's watching. It's pretty much empty in here...it was always pretty much empty in here...no one else at the bar, the clink of a beer glass against wood...
"Mulder."
He snaps back to her. "Yes?"
"I'm looking for answers." She sips her drink. "A year would be nice. And whether or not it's anyone I've ever heard of."
"Um." OK, she knows, she's not stupid, but that doesn't mean she wants details. He steels himself for the abrupt end of the game. "1994. And yes."
"A month?"
"July." He waits for it. No noise, no objection, no changing of the subject, just the frighteningly light pressure of her fingers sending radiating tingles through his body. He looks over at her as subtly as possible. "You want me to keep going."
"Oh, definitely." She stabs the lime again, brings it up to her lips, bites down. He is the luckiest fucking man on earth, he decides.
So he takes a deep breath, and starts telling her the story.
*****
Krycek had just looked so depressed after the review board meeting. No reprimand for the shooting; they'd bought the story about a gun, but it was clear that the kid has developed some sort of complex about having killed a man. And it was a Friday night, and he didn't have anywhere to be. So he offered. "You look like you could use a drink. Want to go grab a beer?"
"Sure." Krycek looked at him a little warily, as if he wasn't used to being invited along. He was sad, a little, all bad suits and boring ties and no fucking clue what was going on. Mulder could relate. They walked to the bar, just six or seven blocks from the Hoover Building. He had come here with Reggie a bunch of times, back in the day, back when he had a normal career and actual friends. The place was an hole, but the beer on tap was drinkable, there were always stools available, and the laughing groups and the solitary sulkers tended to be spread out enough not to disturb each other. It worked.
So they sat at the bar, drinking cheap but passable beer our of tall glasses. Krycek seemed too awkward to make any conversation, so Mulder told stories, ISU stories, VCU stories, even a few X-Files stories. He liked how Krycek laughed, almost as if it was despite his better instincts; he liked having someone to talk to. When he thought about it, he realized Scully was the only person left he liked at the Bureau. She was great, but it didn't seem healthy to get to put all your eggs in one basket. Sure, she was hot, but he'd learned something from the Diana fiasco, and, anyway, she didn't seem particularly interested, so best to move forward from here. And she was all the way down at Quantico now. It might be a good idea, strategically, to have some friends at the Hoover, some favors he could call in. Besides, if Scully stayed in forensics once the X-Files opened again (and he didn't delude himself that his sparkling personality was enough to bring her back, not against the call of nine-to-five and a shining career path that only went up), he'd need a new partner.
*****
"I would have come back," she says, ripping the lime away from her mouth, chewing on the pulp that's left. "Even if I hadn't been...you know." She drops the peel into her glass.
"Well, I know that now." Her hand hasn't stopped tickling up and down his cock, so lightly that he can barely feel it through the fabric of his pants, but just firmly enough to keep him interested. He's very, very interested.
She wipes off her limey fingers on her crumpled napkin (it's like patting your stomach and rubbing your head at the same time, he can't believe she can multitask like this), props up her elbow on the back of the booth, leans her head on it. "So I was hot back then, huh?"
"Definitely. I was a fan of the chipmunk cheeks."
She squeezes, just hard enough that it skirts the line between pleasure and pain. His hips struggle not to thrust against her. "Let us not forget who has the upper hand here, Mulder."
"Yes, ma'am. May I continue?"
She switches back to the gentle drag. "Yes, please."
*****
So he'd just finished a story, and Krycek was chuckling, and Mulder was laughing along just to be polite, when it happened. The Look. He remembered The Look, remembered catching someone's eye across a pub table and trying to will an entire paragraph of thought through the air with a single gesture. Krycek had a scorcher of one, full of a sharp intensity that seemed out of place with his naive front. Mulder held it, let it build. He wasn't opposed, certainly, was leaning towards in favor, now that he thought about it. Like he'd said, Scully was clearly not interested, and there was a lot to be said for mixing business and pleasure. Anyway, this was more than a little unexpected, but it had potential.
Krycek broke The Look slowly, slid his eyes back to his beer, tipped the glass back and drank, exposing his throat. Mulder leaned onto the bar, elbows down. The silence hung around for a minute. Krycek must be letting him take the lead. OK. His memory was pretty good. He remembered how the game was played. "You know, since I got out of the X-Files...I haven't really had anyone to work with. Gets a little lonely sometimes."
"I imagine it would." Krycek dragged his eyes up Mulder's body, hesitating for a long time at his neck, and then looking him in the eyes again. Very, very nice eyes Krycek has.
"So, if anything weird comes across my desk, or yours...anyway, I think we work together well."
"We'll see," Krycek said, still holding Mulder's gaze, then pulling away to drain his glass.
Mulder laughed. "What, you want me to show up on your doorstep with flowers and chocolate?"
"Not al all," Krycek said, and stood. He picked up his jacket from the barstool where he had laid it down, ran his eyes down Mulder's body again, and walked back to the men's room in the back corner.
Well, fuck. Mulder tried not to smile as he finished his beer. It had been a long time since he'd done this, really, since he was back in England. Since he'd come to DC, he'd decided to straighten out, temporarily at least; the whole town was too political, too ridden with people who knew his father, and the Bureau gossip pool was both active and influential. But the consequences here seemed minimal; Krycek wasn't the type to run his mouth, and anyway it would fall equally on him if he did, and there were only two other people in the bar, neither of whom he recognized. He pulled a ten out of his wallet, dropped it on the bar, stood and picked up his own jacket, and followed Krycek back to the men's room.
He pushed the door open, sauntered in as casually as possible. Krycek was drying his hands, and turned slowly towards him. Had he been blocking out exactly how pretty Krycek was until now? Maybe it was hard to see, under the awkwardness, but now, with the focus turned up all the way, he was breathtakingly beautiful, bad suit and all.
He had expected some sort of negotiation, a little more banter, something like that. He had not expected Krycek to pin him to the door, one hand on his neck, and kiss him quite this hard. But he found he liked it, the bare edge of violence in the way their tongues struggled against each other, the way Krycek's barely thrusting hips held him in place. He gave as good as he got, anyway, rolling his hips in counterpoint, fingers dug into Krycek's neck, the other hand holding his waist. He pulled away from his mouth to bite his ear, which got him a desperate little grunt. Then Krycek's hand was pulling at his belt buckle. Well, OK then. He hissed appreciatively as Krycek's hand wrapped around his cock, and pulled at his face to kiss him again.
But this kiss was shorter, because then Krycek was pushing him away and dropping onto his knees. Mulder would have laughed; in fact, he thought about it, but decided it might not play well. It wasn't supposed to be this easy, wasn't supposed to go from a polite beer to--holy shit--a truly remarkable blow job in under half an hour. Who the fuck was Krycek? Mulder fully admitted he had no idea what was going on, but, since he couldn't see a major international conspiracy anywhere nearby, decided just to go with the flow for a little while. He tilted his head back against the door and made appreciative noises. Subtle ones.
*****
Scully snorts. "Mulder, I hate to break it to you, but you're actually too loud for public sex."
"No one's ever complained."
She pinches his thigh. "Keep going, G-man."
*****
Krycek dug his fingers into Mulder's hips through the fabric of his pants and rolled his tongue around the head of his cock. The look on his face was all focus, eyes closed and cheeks working. He popped Mulder's cock out of his mouth, opened his eyes, and held Mulder's gaze while he slid his tongue along the underside, then swallowed it down again. Mulder choked and closed his eyes. He'd rather not come within a hundred and twenty seconds of having his cock in someone's mouth, thanks, but Krycek was trying to pull it out of him. He hadn't had someone seem this eager to fuck him since, what was it, third year, that guy in Jesus College, that terrible party that had ended well, at least. But it seemed rude to get caught in fantasy in the middle of a real life hook-up, so he opened his eyes again. Krycek was still looking at him, and he wasn't going to fucking give in and admit that it was too hot for him to handle, so he held the look. Krycek's hair had too much product in it (and he realized the pot-kettle problem inherent in that thought but he was just fine with it) but he managed to get a handful at the back, just barely, and give it a little pull as Krycek pulled up. That got a pleased little grunt, and an extra flick or two of tongue right around the head of his cock. Mulder gave in, closed his eyes, started just barely thrusting against Krycek's mouth. Let's see how far he wants to take this, he thought, and then thought very little when Krycek started using his teeth. They hung in that push-pull for a minute or so more, Mulder's hand in Krycek's hair, Krycek sucking like he was trying to debone Mulder via his cock. Then Mulder muttered something he hoped counted as a warning, arched his back, and came hard and desperate down Krycek's throat.
He took a minute to catch his breath, a minute Krycek used to tuck him back in, rezip his pants, rebuckle his belt, and stand slowly. When Mulder reopened his eyes, Krycek's eyes were haughtily pleased, but Mulder could see the desperation in how they had a hard time staying away from him mouth. Mulder reached out, pulled him close, kissed him hard. He thought about how to play this from here, and decided reciprocal blowjobs were the way to go. There was just something so impersonal about a handjob in a situation like this, it made the whole thing seem pro forma, and he wasn't precisely in the mood to be bent over the sink and fucked tonight, so it seemed like his best option. He pulled his hand down from Krycek's shoulder, ran it down his chest, stopping to pinch his nipple hard. Krycek hissed, and he smiled and kept his hand going down, until it rested on his belt buckle.
It was at that moment that his cell phone rang.
*****
"You did not."
"What?"
"You answered your phone?"
"It was ringing."
Scully nearly drops her drink in the process of putting it back down. "Seriously, Mulder, there is no legal or moral obligation to answer the phone when it rings. You had voicemail, you could have let it go."
Mulder shrugs. Her hand has stopped twitching due to her consternation, and he'd like it to start again, please.
"You know, I never thought I'd have to say this, but new rule for this relationship, Mulder. You are never, ever, ever to answer the phone in the middle of sex. Ever, ever again."
The words "But, Scully, what if you're the one calling?" are out of his mouth before he realizes that she is going to kill him slowly for them.
Her eyes narrow, and she leans in, pressing down on his cock again with her hand. "Mulder, so help me God, if you ever have sex with someone else ever again--" he is prepared for just about any dire threat here-- "I had better be in the room with a video camera and a paddle." Except that. He was not prepared for that. But he could arrange to be. Was Krycek evil or not at the moment? He'd have to check.
"No answering the phone. Got it."
"Finish your story."
"There's not much left to tell."
"Well, what's left."
*****
He hung up the phone. Krycek had moved away from him during the call, was washing his hands again at the sink. "Skinner. Apparently they've got some sort of urgent thing they need me to look at." His brain was still post-orgasmic mush, and he hadn't processed anything more than that from the call.
"Guess you'd better go in, then," Krycek said coolly, as if he hadn't just been on his knees. Fuck, on his knees.
"Yeah, I guess." This was awkward as fuck. He ran a hand over his hair, trying to think of the best way to get out of this with the proper combination of thank you/I'm not averse to a repeat/give me a call sometime/I have some fucking manners, I promise.
"Thanks for the beer, Mulder," Krycek said, with a twitchy little smile. That naive mask was back on, but Mulder could see there was something behind it now. On his knees.
"No problem." He opened the bathroom door to step out, finally found his line. "You're buying next time." He smiled, and hoped it was the smile that generally got people to take their clothes off. Krycek met his eyes and smirked. Mulder left the bathroom and headed back to the Hoover. No rest for the wicked, apparently.
*****
"The end."
She slides her hand up and down again, gently. "That's the story."
"That's the story of this bar." He sincerely hopes she doesn't want any more stories right this second. There's only so much teasing he can take.
"I like it. Very good story." She smiles slowly. He can sense the faint haze of intoxication around her, bizarre but definitely, definitely hot.
"So, what do I get for it?"
"Well, since you've been so good..." She leans over and runs her tongue around the cartilage of his ear, and then, ever so gently, bites his earlobe. "How do you want to finish this, Mulder?" she whispers, her hand still rocking, rocking, and he almost loses it.
He pulls away just enough to see her eyes. "I don't want to come with my pants still zipped. Apart from that, I'm basically open to anything."
"OK, then." He loves to watch her think, always, but he really, really loves it when she's thinking about fucking him. The slow smile is back. She leans over again, kisses him sweetly on the lips, and pulls her hand away from his cock. He keeps his hips from trying to follow her, and runs his hand down her cheek as they kiss. Then she pushes away, slides out of the booth, and runs her eyes from his eyes, to his lips, to his neck. "See you in a moment." And she walks back towards the bathrooms.
Fuck. Me. he thinks. He finishes his drink as slowly as he can make himself. He wants to sprint after her, not to spend another second without his hands on her body, but, well, there are manners, or conventions, at least, involved in public sex, and disappearing to the bathroom in pairs is only acceptable for teenaged girls fixing their makeup. Which, well, he wasn't going to follow that thought anywhere in his current condition.
So he paces himself through the drink, takes what comfort he could in the cold of the ice, and finally stands and follows the path she blazed, or well, the path he blazed six years ago that he's now walking in entirely different circumstances. It isn't until he reaches the actual bathrooms that he realizes precisely how different the circumstances are. To wit: Fox Mulder has had plenty of sex in the bathrooms of seedy pubs. The problem is, he's never had it with a woman. Which bathroom is she in? Outside the doors, he tries desperately to reason out the logic of the problem. Going into the men's room for her would have been risky; it would have seemed decidedly odd for her to be in there if anyone else had gone in. So it would make sense that she would be in the women's room. But what if someone else were in there? He'd get fucking arrested the moment he went through the door, and she didn't have any way to let him know. Where was the lady, and where was the, well, not tiger, but not sex either?
Luckily, as he is having this little crisis, a woman opens the door of the men's room and leaves, and he sees Scully, pretending to fix her lipstick in the mirror. In the swinging of the door he catches her eye, and they stare at each other for that moment. As soon as the other woman is gone, he pushes in the door and steps in. She turns and leans back against the counter, cocks an eyebrow at him.
He doesn't even remember crossing the bathroom, just knows he needs to kiss her right then. She wraps her arms around his neck and jumps up to sit on the counter, bringing their heads into something approaching alignment. One hand in her hair, and he reaches down, undoes the button on her slacks, slides his hand in, and he can't quite fit it under her panties but the cotton is hot and damp beneath his hand. He curls his fingers against her and she begins to rock against him. He's still making up his mind about what comes next but he's damn sure it involves her pants being off, so he starts pulling at their waistband, trying to lift up her hips.
She pulls away from the kiss. "Mulder, stop. I'm not taking my pants off in a dirty bathroom."
"Why the fuck are you wearing pants?" he grunts as he tries to pull them down more.
She slaps his hand and pushes his body away from hers. "Gee, Mulder, I didn't get the memo that today was fuck-in-a-bathroom day. You've got to remember to cc me on those." She pushes him again, and he hits the bathroom door and oh shit, she's unzipping his fly without even bothering with his belt and her hand is on his cock, skin to skin now.
"You're so into the fucking paperwork, jesusfuckscully..." He leans down and kisses her as hard as he can. But then it's the best kind of deja vu, because she drops down on her knees and slides her mouth around his cock. Just one quick up-and-down, and then she moves on to the fancy stuff, the rhythm she's built up these past few weeks familiar enough that he can predict it but still new enough to be shockingly hot to watch. The startling jabs of pointed tongue against his slit, the pulses of the flat against that spot right beneath the head, the trailing of first lips, then tongue, then teeth along the throbbing veins. He watches her, sometimes her lips, the faint traces of lipstick that blurred around the edges as she worked him, sometimes her cheeks as they hollowed and pulled, but more her eyes, still and focused and speaking to him. This is it, he realizes; sure, the last time he was in this bar was still on his top ten list, still counted among the greatest hits, but he always knows what Scully's eyes are saying.
Also, she gives fucking fantastic head. He loves her eyes but he closes his now so he can just feel her, the slide of her tongue, the push of the back of her throat, her brief pause to lick his balls and then the return to his cock. He reaches down, takes her hand where it rests against his thigh, and squeezes it as he moans and arches his hips. She backs up right to the head of his cock, rolls her tongue around it. He groans and is a moment away from coming when she pulls away, wraps her hand around the base of his cock. "You wanna come in my mouth, Mulder?"
He makes a series of noises, none of which precisely constitute a yes or a no.
"That what you want? Or you want my hand, you want to come on my face, or I don't even have to let you here, I could make you wait, fuck, Mulder--"
He pries open his eyes and realizes she's slid her other hand hand down her pants where he'd unbuttoned them and is working herself desperately while she is half-collapsed against his thigh. Her eyes are closed and she's focused; this little dirty-talk interlude is for her, and if she needs him to beg to get off it's a small price to pay. "Please, Scully, let me come in your mouth, I need to, god, please--"
And she swallows him back down, works the base of his cock with her hand while she moves up and down on the tip. She's moaning around his cock as she gets herself off, and he watches her face as her whole body rocks. Then she pulls her hand onto his hip, slides as much of his cock into her mouth as she can, and her forehead tenses and she comes with an arch of her neck and a heavy suck. It's too much for him, and he stutters her name and comes down her throat as she bears her weight through that hand now resting again on his hipbone.
In the gasping moment afterward, she rests her cheek against his hip as well, and pants against him. He rolls his neck back and forth, trying to work up the will to move. "I think we're both too loud for public sex, Scully."
"Oh, yeah. Agreed." She smiles, and this is the little kitten smile, which he doesn't get to see too often, but he's always known exactly what it means. Happy Scully. Do not disturb.
He tangles his hand in her hair. "I should tell you dirty stories more often."
"Does this one have a sequel?" She flicks her eyes up to him.
"You want me to tell it on the drive home?"
"Not while you're driving." She rocks back on her heels, stands, buttons her pants, tucks him away and rezips his. "Though I'm mainly impressed he forgave you for the phone thing."
"What can I say? I'm pretty hot."
She turns and opens the bathroom door. "Come on, Mulder. We need dinner."
"OK," he says. As he walks past the men's room, he taps on the door likely with his knuckles. He likes this place. They should come back here sometime.
_________
Author's Notes:
Many thanks to idella for her fabulous beta services.
I should definitely point out that this owes something, perhaps a little too much, to both Shannon Kizzia's Arrogant Bastard and Narida Law's Worth Breaking. Let's just say that I study my predecessors way, way too well.
Also, this is meant to be a sequel of sorts to The Love of Evil. I don't know, Scully seems a little evil by this point, don't you think?
I think my favorite version of the Sharazad story is John Barth's in The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, but I was a sucker for Barth during an impressionable period in my literary development, so YMMV. (Wikipedia suggests he uses her in Chimera also. He probably does; he's pretty repetitive.)
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh
Summary: Scheherazade was just trying to get laid and keep her head. So's Mulder.
Pairing: MSR; Mulder/Krycek. (Safe for srsbzns shippers who are willing to play along, I promise.)
Rating: NC-17 like whoa. Sex and cheese fries and not a lot else.
Timeline/Spoilers: Framing story, S7; internal story, through Sleepless.
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
Written for xf_santa as a gift for inlaterdays , who a wise woman once called "the internet's most prominent M/K slasher." She denies it, but it's an honor to be nominated. Author's notes at the end.
__________
Scully pulls a fry out from beneath the mass of melted cheese. "I think we can safely conclude we've been stood up."
"Looks like it." Mulder wishes he understood why she pretends to avoid the cheese, but she's always been like this, and unfortunately no one arrived on his doorstep with a Scully-manual the day after he first peeled her underwear down her thighs, so it remains a mystery. He has been thinking about this intently, to prevent thinking about anything else. "He sounded legit on the phone."
"They all sound legit on the phone." She sucks the last of her soda through her straw, lips pursed, making that little sucking sound...
At least the cheese has nutritional value, he argues in his head. Fries are just strips of delicious fat and carbohydrates and he's certain she has something against them, or should have something against them, anyway. And ketchup. What's her problem with ketchup? It's practically a vegetable.
"Mulder."
His attention snaps back to her. She is looking at him across the table of the booth with faint amusement and he realizes he might have a problem here. "Yes, Scully?"
"What is up with you? There's something you're not telling me."
"No, nothing. Everything's fine." That was too fast. Yeah, he'd better change the subject. "Since this guy didn't pan out, I'm thinking we should take that case about the poltergeist activity in Detroit. There's enough evidence to make it worthwhile, and certainly we're seeing new things about the poltergeist phenomenon--"
"Mulder."
"That is, apparently, my name."
She smiles, but he's not sure he likes this particular smile, due to, again, the lack of manual. "Seeing as how it is--" she checks her watch-- "seven twenty-three, I believe we can safely agree we are off the clock."
"I suppose so."
"All right then." She pushes her palms down on the table, slides out of the booth. "I'm going to get us real drinks, and then you are going to tell me why you have been twitchy and distracted since we walked in here." She turns, and he can't help but stare at her ass as she walks away.
He takes a steadying breath. OK. This can't be too hard. Just play it cool, keep it together, and the correct answer is you've never been in this bar before in your life, certainly not with anyone else ever, and have I mentioned you look very nice in those pants.
She comes back over, two glasses of something clear with limes in it. He would have gotten a beer--but then again, having a beer would remind him of the last time he had a beer here, and There Be Monsters, so the lime-thing is just fine. Instead of returning to her side of the booth, she slides in next to him.
She puts one drink in front of him, takes his stirrer, stabs his lime, deftly transfers it to her glass. He loves her. "Look, Mulder, here's how this is going to go," she says. "We're going to skip the part where you say you're not distracted. We're going to skip the part where you say that you just have a headache, or you were thinking about the case, or the Knicks game, and by the way I've memorized their schedule so you can't pull that on me until the playoffs, or whatever lame little lie you were going to try out." He really loves her, and it's a vodka tonic, which is not so bad at all. "We're going to skip all of that, and get straight to the point where you tell me what the hell happened in this bar to make you utterly unable to pay attention to a word I've said since we got here."
He found an opening. "I was paying attention to what you said."
"I never fucked Ed Jerse." He coughs on his drink. "Oh, I'm sorry, were we not telling blatant untruths for fun?"
"Jesus, Scully." There really was no getting out of this, was there? He avoids eye contact and swallowed more vodka. He is some creative variant on dead.
She rests her hand on his, and her voice shifts. "I mean, if it's not a good story--"
"No--" he laughs. She'll pry it out of him with vodka or hold his hand through trauma; either way, you know. "No, it's not, per se, a bad story--" and he's just admitted there's a story but anyway it's clear he's not going to win tonight so he might as well go for it-- "But it's not, precisely, the sort of story you'd want to hear."
"Why not?"
Because you are the Yo-Yo fucking Ma of jealousy is the wrong, wrong answer and he manages not to say it, though he struggles for something better. He finally settles on "Because it's the kind of story that implies I did not come to your bed a blushing virgin." He works his drink, pleased, until she stops slapping the table and chortling with glee.
"Oh, Mulder." She actually has to wipe her eyes with a cocktail napkin. "I hate to break this to you, but I was aware of that fact."
"Yeah, well, there's aware, and there's having a geography."
"Is this really why you were so nervous?" She rests her hand on his thigh, slides closer to him. He thinks this is his favorite of her smiles, the oh-Mulder-I-actually-like-you smile, though it only wins out over the hooray-you're-not-dead because it's not proceeded by near death.
"Well, yeah." Of course it's why he was nervous. Is she stupid? This is only everything he's ever wanted, and he lives in terror of breaking it by doing something as stupid and conventional as being a bad boyfriend.
"Well," she says, running her hand up his thigh softly, "I think I need to hear this story."
"Really?" She is getting closer. He used to think once they broached the sex barrier they'd be on each other all the time, but seven years of so-close-but-so-far seem to have permanently rewired his kinks to include the extended tease.
"I think I want to know the story capable of reducing you to public idiocy." Her hand is getting higher, stroking gently.
"And what do I get for it?" he says, trying to keep his cool.
He loses it when her hand trails up the fly of his pants and back down again, gently tracing the line of his cock. "Holy fuck, Scully."
"I don't stop, is what you get." She smiles, and this is the oh-now-you're-going-to-get-it smile and he really likes this one.
"I'm not certain you've established the proper incentive structure," he tries, gamely, but it's clear. He's going to tell the story, and she's going to hear it, and if he ends up wearing the ice from her drink it is entirely her fault, she's the one who insisted.
"So. How old is this story?"
"Um. Old."
"I think I want a number." She strokes a little more insistently. He shifts nervously, looks around the bar to make sure no one's watching. It's pretty much empty in here...it was always pretty much empty in here...no one else at the bar, the clink of a beer glass against wood...
"Mulder."
He snaps back to her. "Yes?"
"I'm looking for answers." She sips her drink. "A year would be nice. And whether or not it's anyone I've ever heard of."
"Um." OK, she knows, she's not stupid, but that doesn't mean she wants details. He steels himself for the abrupt end of the game. "1994. And yes."
"A month?"
"July." He waits for it. No noise, no objection, no changing of the subject, just the frighteningly light pressure of her fingers sending radiating tingles through his body. He looks over at her as subtly as possible. "You want me to keep going."
"Oh, definitely." She stabs the lime again, brings it up to her lips, bites down. He is the luckiest fucking man on earth, he decides.
So he takes a deep breath, and starts telling her the story.
*****
Krycek had just looked so depressed after the review board meeting. No reprimand for the shooting; they'd bought the story about a gun, but it was clear that the kid has developed some sort of complex about having killed a man. And it was a Friday night, and he didn't have anywhere to be. So he offered. "You look like you could use a drink. Want to go grab a beer?"
"Sure." Krycek looked at him a little warily, as if he wasn't used to being invited along. He was sad, a little, all bad suits and boring ties and no fucking clue what was going on. Mulder could relate. They walked to the bar, just six or seven blocks from the Hoover Building. He had come here with Reggie a bunch of times, back in the day, back when he had a normal career and actual friends. The place was an hole, but the beer on tap was drinkable, there were always stools available, and the laughing groups and the solitary sulkers tended to be spread out enough not to disturb each other. It worked.
So they sat at the bar, drinking cheap but passable beer our of tall glasses. Krycek seemed too awkward to make any conversation, so Mulder told stories, ISU stories, VCU stories, even a few X-Files stories. He liked how Krycek laughed, almost as if it was despite his better instincts; he liked having someone to talk to. When he thought about it, he realized Scully was the only person left he liked at the Bureau. She was great, but it didn't seem healthy to get to put all your eggs in one basket. Sure, she was hot, but he'd learned something from the Diana fiasco, and, anyway, she didn't seem particularly interested, so best to move forward from here. And she was all the way down at Quantico now. It might be a good idea, strategically, to have some friends at the Hoover, some favors he could call in. Besides, if Scully stayed in forensics once the X-Files opened again (and he didn't delude himself that his sparkling personality was enough to bring her back, not against the call of nine-to-five and a shining career path that only went up), he'd need a new partner.
*****
"I would have come back," she says, ripping the lime away from her mouth, chewing on the pulp that's left. "Even if I hadn't been...you know." She drops the peel into her glass.
"Well, I know that now." Her hand hasn't stopped tickling up and down his cock, so lightly that he can barely feel it through the fabric of his pants, but just firmly enough to keep him interested. He's very, very interested.
She wipes off her limey fingers on her crumpled napkin (it's like patting your stomach and rubbing your head at the same time, he can't believe she can multitask like this), props up her elbow on the back of the booth, leans her head on it. "So I was hot back then, huh?"
"Definitely. I was a fan of the chipmunk cheeks."
She squeezes, just hard enough that it skirts the line between pleasure and pain. His hips struggle not to thrust against her. "Let us not forget who has the upper hand here, Mulder."
"Yes, ma'am. May I continue?"
She switches back to the gentle drag. "Yes, please."
*****
So he'd just finished a story, and Krycek was chuckling, and Mulder was laughing along just to be polite, when it happened. The Look. He remembered The Look, remembered catching someone's eye across a pub table and trying to will an entire paragraph of thought through the air with a single gesture. Krycek had a scorcher of one, full of a sharp intensity that seemed out of place with his naive front. Mulder held it, let it build. He wasn't opposed, certainly, was leaning towards in favor, now that he thought about it. Like he'd said, Scully was clearly not interested, and there was a lot to be said for mixing business and pleasure. Anyway, this was more than a little unexpected, but it had potential.
Krycek broke The Look slowly, slid his eyes back to his beer, tipped the glass back and drank, exposing his throat. Mulder leaned onto the bar, elbows down. The silence hung around for a minute. Krycek must be letting him take the lead. OK. His memory was pretty good. He remembered how the game was played. "You know, since I got out of the X-Files...I haven't really had anyone to work with. Gets a little lonely sometimes."
"I imagine it would." Krycek dragged his eyes up Mulder's body, hesitating for a long time at his neck, and then looking him in the eyes again. Very, very nice eyes Krycek has.
"So, if anything weird comes across my desk, or yours...anyway, I think we work together well."
"We'll see," Krycek said, still holding Mulder's gaze, then pulling away to drain his glass.
Mulder laughed. "What, you want me to show up on your doorstep with flowers and chocolate?"
"Not al all," Krycek said, and stood. He picked up his jacket from the barstool where he had laid it down, ran his eyes down Mulder's body again, and walked back to the men's room in the back corner.
Well, fuck. Mulder tried not to smile as he finished his beer. It had been a long time since he'd done this, really, since he was back in England. Since he'd come to DC, he'd decided to straighten out, temporarily at least; the whole town was too political, too ridden with people who knew his father, and the Bureau gossip pool was both active and influential. But the consequences here seemed minimal; Krycek wasn't the type to run his mouth, and anyway it would fall equally on him if he did, and there were only two other people in the bar, neither of whom he recognized. He pulled a ten out of his wallet, dropped it on the bar, stood and picked up his own jacket, and followed Krycek back to the men's room.
He pushed the door open, sauntered in as casually as possible. Krycek was drying his hands, and turned slowly towards him. Had he been blocking out exactly how pretty Krycek was until now? Maybe it was hard to see, under the awkwardness, but now, with the focus turned up all the way, he was breathtakingly beautiful, bad suit and all.
He had expected some sort of negotiation, a little more banter, something like that. He had not expected Krycek to pin him to the door, one hand on his neck, and kiss him quite this hard. But he found he liked it, the bare edge of violence in the way their tongues struggled against each other, the way Krycek's barely thrusting hips held him in place. He gave as good as he got, anyway, rolling his hips in counterpoint, fingers dug into Krycek's neck, the other hand holding his waist. He pulled away from his mouth to bite his ear, which got him a desperate little grunt. Then Krycek's hand was pulling at his belt buckle. Well, OK then. He hissed appreciatively as Krycek's hand wrapped around his cock, and pulled at his face to kiss him again.
But this kiss was shorter, because then Krycek was pushing him away and dropping onto his knees. Mulder would have laughed; in fact, he thought about it, but decided it might not play well. It wasn't supposed to be this easy, wasn't supposed to go from a polite beer to--holy shit--a truly remarkable blow job in under half an hour. Who the fuck was Krycek? Mulder fully admitted he had no idea what was going on, but, since he couldn't see a major international conspiracy anywhere nearby, decided just to go with the flow for a little while. He tilted his head back against the door and made appreciative noises. Subtle ones.
*****
Scully snorts. "Mulder, I hate to break it to you, but you're actually too loud for public sex."
"No one's ever complained."
She pinches his thigh. "Keep going, G-man."
*****
Krycek dug his fingers into Mulder's hips through the fabric of his pants and rolled his tongue around the head of his cock. The look on his face was all focus, eyes closed and cheeks working. He popped Mulder's cock out of his mouth, opened his eyes, and held Mulder's gaze while he slid his tongue along the underside, then swallowed it down again. Mulder choked and closed his eyes. He'd rather not come within a hundred and twenty seconds of having his cock in someone's mouth, thanks, but Krycek was trying to pull it out of him. He hadn't had someone seem this eager to fuck him since, what was it, third year, that guy in Jesus College, that terrible party that had ended well, at least. But it seemed rude to get caught in fantasy in the middle of a real life hook-up, so he opened his eyes again. Krycek was still looking at him, and he wasn't going to fucking give in and admit that it was too hot for him to handle, so he held the look. Krycek's hair had too much product in it (and he realized the pot-kettle problem inherent in that thought but he was just fine with it) but he managed to get a handful at the back, just barely, and give it a little pull as Krycek pulled up. That got a pleased little grunt, and an extra flick or two of tongue right around the head of his cock. Mulder gave in, closed his eyes, started just barely thrusting against Krycek's mouth. Let's see how far he wants to take this, he thought, and then thought very little when Krycek started using his teeth. They hung in that push-pull for a minute or so more, Mulder's hand in Krycek's hair, Krycek sucking like he was trying to debone Mulder via his cock. Then Mulder muttered something he hoped counted as a warning, arched his back, and came hard and desperate down Krycek's throat.
He took a minute to catch his breath, a minute Krycek used to tuck him back in, rezip his pants, rebuckle his belt, and stand slowly. When Mulder reopened his eyes, Krycek's eyes were haughtily pleased, but Mulder could see the desperation in how they had a hard time staying away from him mouth. Mulder reached out, pulled him close, kissed him hard. He thought about how to play this from here, and decided reciprocal blowjobs were the way to go. There was just something so impersonal about a handjob in a situation like this, it made the whole thing seem pro forma, and he wasn't precisely in the mood to be bent over the sink and fucked tonight, so it seemed like his best option. He pulled his hand down from Krycek's shoulder, ran it down his chest, stopping to pinch his nipple hard. Krycek hissed, and he smiled and kept his hand going down, until it rested on his belt buckle.
It was at that moment that his cell phone rang.
*****
"You did not."
"What?"
"You answered your phone?"
"It was ringing."
Scully nearly drops her drink in the process of putting it back down. "Seriously, Mulder, there is no legal or moral obligation to answer the phone when it rings. You had voicemail, you could have let it go."
Mulder shrugs. Her hand has stopped twitching due to her consternation, and he'd like it to start again, please.
"You know, I never thought I'd have to say this, but new rule for this relationship, Mulder. You are never, ever, ever to answer the phone in the middle of sex. Ever, ever again."
The words "But, Scully, what if you're the one calling?" are out of his mouth before he realizes that she is going to kill him slowly for them.
Her eyes narrow, and she leans in, pressing down on his cock again with her hand. "Mulder, so help me God, if you ever have sex with someone else ever again--" he is prepared for just about any dire threat here-- "I had better be in the room with a video camera and a paddle." Except that. He was not prepared for that. But he could arrange to be. Was Krycek evil or not at the moment? He'd have to check.
"No answering the phone. Got it."
"Finish your story."
"There's not much left to tell."
"Well, what's left."
*****
He hung up the phone. Krycek had moved away from him during the call, was washing his hands again at the sink. "Skinner. Apparently they've got some sort of urgent thing they need me to look at." His brain was still post-orgasmic mush, and he hadn't processed anything more than that from the call.
"Guess you'd better go in, then," Krycek said coolly, as if he hadn't just been on his knees. Fuck, on his knees.
"Yeah, I guess." This was awkward as fuck. He ran a hand over his hair, trying to think of the best way to get out of this with the proper combination of thank you/I'm not averse to a repeat/give me a call sometime/I have some fucking manners, I promise.
"Thanks for the beer, Mulder," Krycek said, with a twitchy little smile. That naive mask was back on, but Mulder could see there was something behind it now. On his knees.
"No problem." He opened the bathroom door to step out, finally found his line. "You're buying next time." He smiled, and hoped it was the smile that generally got people to take their clothes off. Krycek met his eyes and smirked. Mulder left the bathroom and headed back to the Hoover. No rest for the wicked, apparently.
*****
"The end."
She slides her hand up and down again, gently. "That's the story."
"That's the story of this bar." He sincerely hopes she doesn't want any more stories right this second. There's only so much teasing he can take.
"I like it. Very good story." She smiles slowly. He can sense the faint haze of intoxication around her, bizarre but definitely, definitely hot.
"So, what do I get for it?"
"Well, since you've been so good..." She leans over and runs her tongue around the cartilage of his ear, and then, ever so gently, bites his earlobe. "How do you want to finish this, Mulder?" she whispers, her hand still rocking, rocking, and he almost loses it.
He pulls away just enough to see her eyes. "I don't want to come with my pants still zipped. Apart from that, I'm basically open to anything."
"OK, then." He loves to watch her think, always, but he really, really loves it when she's thinking about fucking him. The slow smile is back. She leans over again, kisses him sweetly on the lips, and pulls her hand away from his cock. He keeps his hips from trying to follow her, and runs his hand down her cheek as they kiss. Then she pushes away, slides out of the booth, and runs her eyes from his eyes, to his lips, to his neck. "See you in a moment." And she walks back towards the bathrooms.
Fuck. Me. he thinks. He finishes his drink as slowly as he can make himself. He wants to sprint after her, not to spend another second without his hands on her body, but, well, there are manners, or conventions, at least, involved in public sex, and disappearing to the bathroom in pairs is only acceptable for teenaged girls fixing their makeup. Which, well, he wasn't going to follow that thought anywhere in his current condition.
So he paces himself through the drink, takes what comfort he could in the cold of the ice, and finally stands and follows the path she blazed, or well, the path he blazed six years ago that he's now walking in entirely different circumstances. It isn't until he reaches the actual bathrooms that he realizes precisely how different the circumstances are. To wit: Fox Mulder has had plenty of sex in the bathrooms of seedy pubs. The problem is, he's never had it with a woman. Which bathroom is she in? Outside the doors, he tries desperately to reason out the logic of the problem. Going into the men's room for her would have been risky; it would have seemed decidedly odd for her to be in there if anyone else had gone in. So it would make sense that she would be in the women's room. But what if someone else were in there? He'd get fucking arrested the moment he went through the door, and she didn't have any way to let him know. Where was the lady, and where was the, well, not tiger, but not sex either?
Luckily, as he is having this little crisis, a woman opens the door of the men's room and leaves, and he sees Scully, pretending to fix her lipstick in the mirror. In the swinging of the door he catches her eye, and they stare at each other for that moment. As soon as the other woman is gone, he pushes in the door and steps in. She turns and leans back against the counter, cocks an eyebrow at him.
He doesn't even remember crossing the bathroom, just knows he needs to kiss her right then. She wraps her arms around his neck and jumps up to sit on the counter, bringing their heads into something approaching alignment. One hand in her hair, and he reaches down, undoes the button on her slacks, slides his hand in, and he can't quite fit it under her panties but the cotton is hot and damp beneath his hand. He curls his fingers against her and she begins to rock against him. He's still making up his mind about what comes next but he's damn sure it involves her pants being off, so he starts pulling at their waistband, trying to lift up her hips.
She pulls away from the kiss. "Mulder, stop. I'm not taking my pants off in a dirty bathroom."
"Why the fuck are you wearing pants?" he grunts as he tries to pull them down more.
She slaps his hand and pushes his body away from hers. "Gee, Mulder, I didn't get the memo that today was fuck-in-a-bathroom day. You've got to remember to cc me on those." She pushes him again, and he hits the bathroom door and oh shit, she's unzipping his fly without even bothering with his belt and her hand is on his cock, skin to skin now.
"You're so into the fucking paperwork, jesusfuckscully..." He leans down and kisses her as hard as he can. But then it's the best kind of deja vu, because she drops down on her knees and slides her mouth around his cock. Just one quick up-and-down, and then she moves on to the fancy stuff, the rhythm she's built up these past few weeks familiar enough that he can predict it but still new enough to be shockingly hot to watch. The startling jabs of pointed tongue against his slit, the pulses of the flat against that spot right beneath the head, the trailing of first lips, then tongue, then teeth along the throbbing veins. He watches her, sometimes her lips, the faint traces of lipstick that blurred around the edges as she worked him, sometimes her cheeks as they hollowed and pulled, but more her eyes, still and focused and speaking to him. This is it, he realizes; sure, the last time he was in this bar was still on his top ten list, still counted among the greatest hits, but he always knows what Scully's eyes are saying.
Also, she gives fucking fantastic head. He loves her eyes but he closes his now so he can just feel her, the slide of her tongue, the push of the back of her throat, her brief pause to lick his balls and then the return to his cock. He reaches down, takes her hand where it rests against his thigh, and squeezes it as he moans and arches his hips. She backs up right to the head of his cock, rolls her tongue around it. He groans and is a moment away from coming when she pulls away, wraps her hand around the base of his cock. "You wanna come in my mouth, Mulder?"
He makes a series of noises, none of which precisely constitute a yes or a no.
"That what you want? Or you want my hand, you want to come on my face, or I don't even have to let you here, I could make you wait, fuck, Mulder--"
He pries open his eyes and realizes she's slid her other hand hand down her pants where he'd unbuttoned them and is working herself desperately while she is half-collapsed against his thigh. Her eyes are closed and she's focused; this little dirty-talk interlude is for her, and if she needs him to beg to get off it's a small price to pay. "Please, Scully, let me come in your mouth, I need to, god, please--"
And she swallows him back down, works the base of his cock with her hand while she moves up and down on the tip. She's moaning around his cock as she gets herself off, and he watches her face as her whole body rocks. Then she pulls her hand onto his hip, slides as much of his cock into her mouth as she can, and her forehead tenses and she comes with an arch of her neck and a heavy suck. It's too much for him, and he stutters her name and comes down her throat as she bears her weight through that hand now resting again on his hipbone.
In the gasping moment afterward, she rests her cheek against his hip as well, and pants against him. He rolls his neck back and forth, trying to work up the will to move. "I think we're both too loud for public sex, Scully."
"Oh, yeah. Agreed." She smiles, and this is the little kitten smile, which he doesn't get to see too often, but he's always known exactly what it means. Happy Scully. Do not disturb.
He tangles his hand in her hair. "I should tell you dirty stories more often."
"Does this one have a sequel?" She flicks her eyes up to him.
"You want me to tell it on the drive home?"
"Not while you're driving." She rocks back on her heels, stands, buttons her pants, tucks him away and rezips his. "Though I'm mainly impressed he forgave you for the phone thing."
"What can I say? I'm pretty hot."
She turns and opens the bathroom door. "Come on, Mulder. We need dinner."
"OK," he says. As he walks past the men's room, he taps on the door likely with his knuckles. He likes this place. They should come back here sometime.
_________
Author's Notes:
Many thanks to idella for her fabulous beta services.
I should definitely point out that this owes something, perhaps a little too much, to both Shannon Kizzia's Arrogant Bastard and Narida Law's Worth Breaking. Let's just say that I study my predecessors way, way too well.
Also, this is meant to be a sequel of sorts to The Love of Evil. I don't know, Scully seems a little evil by this point, don't you think?
I think my favorite version of the Sharazad story is John Barth's in The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, but I was a sucker for Barth during an impressionable period in my literary development, so YMMV. (Wikipedia suggests he uses her in Chimera also. He probably does; he's pretty repetitive.)