Twelfth Night (3/4)
FANDOM: X-Files
SUMMARY: It was only a kiss.
RATING: PG-13 for this part.
SPOILERS: No big spoilers. The story takes place in Season 7, between Millennium and Rush.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me and no copyright infringement is intended on my part.
WORD COUNT: 19,947 for the whole story
DATE POSTED: June-July 2008
Ninth:
She pushes away the remains of her chicken Caesar salad.
"Scully, I don't get it. You asked Detective Bailey where to find the best burger in Madison and then you order a salad."
"I reserve the right to change my mind," she says, but she steals a handful of his fries.
The restaurant has one of the oddest names he's encountered on his travels, Dotty Dumpling's Dowry, but he'll admit that the Southwest Burger is one of the best he's ever had. How can you go wrong with cheddar, bacon, and barbeque sauce? The protein goes straight to his bloodstream. It's a welcome rush after a day that has included two planes, three airports, a thorough search of the Kappa Beta fraternity house--the site of the disappearances, countless interviews of frat boys and sorority girls, and no discernable clues.
Photos of the missing girls are spread out on the table. Blondes, all of them, looking so alike they could be related. Ashley Craig, age 21. Katie Dawkins, age 20. Amber West, age 21. Sarah Swenson, age 22. The pictures are obviously sorority composite photos. Each girl is wearing pearls and a demure black velvet drape over her shoulders. They are all sisters in the Gamma Alpha Rho sorority.
"Do you really think this could be an alien abduction?" Scully asks, stealing more fries. He swats her hand away. "Don't you think that they could have just taken off from the party?"
It had been a New Year's Eve party at the Kappa Beta house. There were about fifty guests, all invited, security at the front door. Just after midnight, a bright white light had flooded the house and then the power went out, the entire house going black. The four girls had been in the kitchen, drinking and talking with two Kappa Beta brothers. The young men had reported hearing one piercing scream after the lights went out, then nothing. In the confusion following the power outage, no one noticed the four young women missing for at least an hour. Alarm bells didn't truly go off until late the next day, when none of the four had returned home to the Gamma Alpha Rho sorority house.
Nothing was missing, besides the girls. Two had cars and they were still parked in their spots. All their belongings were still in their rooms, and there has been no credit card activity at all. No telltale clues in the fraternity house. No disgruntled ex-boyfriends and, barring polygraphs, the brothers of Kappa Beta seemed truly mystified and upset about the disappearances of their friends. The four young women had vanished into the proverbial thin air.
"From all accounts, they're good girls, responsible. The kind who call their mothers every day. They don't seem like they would have run off somewhere." He takes his last bite of hamburger.
"Perhaps they were abducted by garden-variety human beings."
"It's possible," he admits. "But it seems improbable that an abductor, or abductors, could take four of them at once without any commotion."
"There was a lot of commotion when the lights went out." She's eyeing his fries and he pulls the basket out of her reach.
Does she have any inkling how much it turns him on to merely discuss the facts of the case with her? Especially now that they've come so very, very close. And he loves her tremendously intelligent mind, so analytical, so ready to challenge him at every turn.
"Did Detective Bailey tell you what the power company said about the outage?"
"Nothing obvious from Madison Gas and Electric. The transformer didn't blow. The power didn't go out anywhere else on the block but the Kappa Beta house. They didn't even seem to blow a fuse. The power just went out."
He shakes his head. They have nothing.
They walk down the hushed hotel corridor to Scully's room. When they reach 423, Scully stops and turns to him, lips pursed.
"Good night, Mulder," she says. "I'll see you in the morning."
No, he thinks, not so fast. He's been tortured with paralyzing lust the entire day. Not twenty-four hours ago, she was practically naked in his bed, her hand wrapped around his cock. Today he spent hours sitting next to her on planes, being tormented by the tickle of her perfume, the brush of her arm against his. He had to follow her through the Kappa Beta house, listening to the cool, scientific babble flow from her lips as they searched for evidence. Hell no, the night's not ending outside her door.
"What's your current view on fraternization on duty?" he asks, moving two steps closer to her.
"Regulations are regulations," she says, fumbling for her key card.
"We've broken every other rule in the book. Why not this one?"
"Mulder, no. It's been a long day. Tomorrow should be even longer."
He loves to argue with her, loves the good agent/bad agent roles they play from time to time. He wants to be a very, very bad agent tonight.
"Please? There's a Starbucks just down the Square. I'll buy you coffee and a scone in the morning." He's grasping at something, anything that will grant him access to her room.
She lets out a tiny sigh of resignation. "Venti soy latte, no foam," she says. The door unlocks with a click. "That's not negotiable."
The Inn on the Park is a slightly nicer class of lodging than their usual threadbare motels. The Madison Police Department had found them a good federal rate. Scully's room is decorated in restful beiges and taupes. There's not a single water stain on the ceiling or a cigarette burn to found. It's sad how a Best Western can feel like the Plaza.
She takes off her coat and hangs it in the closet, motions for his coat. "I need a shower. I'm wearing the dirt of three airports."
"You know, conserving water is an important part of saving the environment," he offers.
She tosses him the remote. "No pay-per-view porn," she says, stalking off to the bathroom with her overnight bag.
It was worth a shot, anyway. He kicks off his shoes and sits on the edge of the king-size bed to watch CNN. George W. Bush is mumbling something about his presidential hopes. If he's elected, Mulder's moving to Canada and taking Scully with him. They can become Mounties.
Scully is in the bathroom a long time. What arcane mysteries do women get up to in there? He feels fidgety. He hasn't had sex with another person since the first Clinton administration. Is it possible to forget how to have sex? What if he can't get it up? What if he's become really, really bad in bed? What if he was never good in the first place? His mind is racing.
Stop, he tells himself. This is Scully and this is you. It'll be fine. He takes a deep breath.
Scully finally emerges from the bathroom, wearing a thin cotton bathrobe that's clinging to her damp body. Her hair is wet and slicked back, her face pink from the heat.
She stops in front of him, eyes downcast. She's as nervous as I am, he thinks. He finds that thought reassuring.
He pulls her to him, so that she tumbles across his lap. "Hi," he says.
"Hi, yourself." Her voice is husky.
"It's just me," he says. "Nothing to be afraid of."
"Who says I'm afraid?" She lifts her chin.
"I'm speaking more for my own benefit. I'm scared." He guides her hand to his chest so that she can feel his rapid heartbeat.
"It's just me," she says and smiles.
"I know. That's why I'm scared."
She kisses him with a toothpaste mouth, her tongue twining with his. So much for his worries that he wouldn't be able to get it up. It may never come down again. She moans as he presses his erection into her bottom.
He manages to pull the comforter and blanket off the majority of the bed and they fall back on the crisp sheets. He unknots the sash of Scully's bathrobe, letting the folds of cotton fall open. Her body, her perfect little body. Full breasts, flaring hips, and a lovely thatch of reddish-brown hair between her legs. He hardly knows where to begin, although kissing her again seems like a good place to start.
"You still have your suit on," she mutters. Why yes, she's totally naked and he's dressed, complete with his jacket and a gray and white striped tie. Scully deftly unknots the tie and flings it to the floor, starts unbuttoning his dress shirt.
He struggles out of his trousers and they join their friends on the carpet below. He's glad he made the effort to find a decent pair of boxers when he dressed in the morning, a subdued navy and green plaid. She hooks her fingers around the elastic and tugs them down.
"You're bad," he whispers.
"Above all else, I value parity." She chuckles.
He turns her onto her back so he can trail kisses from her neck to her navel. He wonders if she can possibly know how much he adores every inch of her, even the bullet scar on her belly, even the tattoo on her back that symbolizes the night she spent with another man. It's the whole package.
For long minutes he alternates kissing her on the mouth with licking and sucking her nipples. Her fingers weave in his hair. This has to be the best time he's had in decades, listening to her breathing quicken in response. He reaches between her legs and yes, she's soft and slick under his fingers.
"Mmm, yes," she exhales.
This is Scully's pussy, he thinks, startled for one second. It's real and I'm touching it and I'm not going to wake up alone in my bed. One finger, then two in her, gently exploring at first, then harder as she moves her hips to meet his thrusts.
What the hell, he's going to go for gold. He creeps down the bed until he's between her thighs, his breath stirring her curls. "Please," she gasps.
"My pleasure," he says. His tongue takes a long, sweeping taste of her and goosebumps form all over his body. He's wanted to do this for so long, to taste her, to feel her clit swelling under his tongue. This is better than Christmas, his birthday, and finding definitive proof of extraterrestrial life combined.
He can hear her panting as he licks her, as his fingers slide in and out. He wishes he could see her face right now. Are her eyes open or closed? Her fingers grasp his shoulders, guiding him, first slower, then faster.
And then she babbles, "Don't stop, don't stop, whateveryoudodon'tyoudarestopMulder..." She presses herself into his face, nearly smothering him, but that's fine. It would be a noble way to die, in service to Scully.
She gasps, muscles stiffening, and then goes limp.
Did she just come? He'd like to think so, but since he's never experienced this sort of glory with her before, he's not entirely sure. Isn't there some sort of universal code women could use to signify the fact? It would be so helpful.
She tugs at him so he clambers back up to her. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes look a bit unfocused. Gorgeous. She's still panting, her hair flaring out over the pillow.
"Where did you learn to do that?" she asks.
"Oxford. They had tutors for oral sex."
She laughs and he kisses her in reward for the laughter.
"Did you...?" he asks.
"Did I? Oh God, yes, I did." Her hand starts trailing its way down his chest, lower and lower.
"This is fun," she says. "Why haven't we been doing this all along?" Her fingers begin working their secret doctor magic on him, stroking and squeezing in a way he'd never begin to replicate if he tried. And he thought he knew all the tricks in that particular book.
"Because...because we're chickens?" Not the most erudite answer, but his brain seems to have packed off on vacation to Jamaica as she continues her devilish ministrations.
He wants to tell her to stop, or at least slow down, because he's so, so close it's making his teeth hurt. But his speech function has fled with his brain and the only thing he can manage to do is to kiss her.
Scully tips her head back and laughs, a full-bodied chortle from deep in her throat. That's it, thoughts of baseball and putrefying bodies can do nothing at this point because...
...fucking hell, he's coming, coming so hard, and oh no, it's much too soon...
What kind of pitiful man comes just because the love of his life laughs in bed?
Apparently his kind, because he did come, all over his stomach. This was not part of his plans. Not at all. He shuts his eyes and stifles a horrified moan.
She laughs again.
"That's not helping," he mutters. Is there a rewind button he can press?
"I was laughing with you, not at you," she says and kisses his forehead.
"I'm sorry." He's afraid to open his eyes and see her face. "It's been a long time."
"Mulder, shut up. You think we'd get it perfectly, right off the bat? Have you been reading romance novels or something?"
"I wanted to be your Fabio," he says and she snickers.
He opens his eyes to see her hop off the bed and walk to the bathroom. She returns with something wadded in her hand and offers it to him. It's a damp washcloth.
He sponges away the humiliating evidence. Scully turns off the bedside lamp and pulls the covers up over them. She settles on her side, her forehead touching his.
She touches his cheek. "That was the most fun I've had in years. Maybe ever."
"But we--"
"We'll get to it eventually," she interrupts. "It might take another seven years, but we will."
That's an appalling scenario to contemplate. "The night is still young, Scully."
"It's past midnight," she says, her voice slowing. "I'm not eighteen and neither are you."
He breathes in the scent of her skin and hair. "You're supposed to be at your sexual peak right now."
"Oh, I am. Believe me. But now I want to sleep." She pecks him on the lips and rolls over, her back curving into his chest.
The weight of exhaustion begins to press onto his body. He's always wanted to sleep with Scully, not just for the sex, but to feel her relaxed and pliant in his arms. To have her trust him with her slumber.
Her breathing slows as he strokes her damp hair. Eventually his eyes close, too.
Tenth:
He knows he's in a hotel or motel room before he even opens his eyes. He smells strange laundry detergent on the sheets and that particular dusty drape scent. But there's a new smell, too, one he can't quite place. Sweet and soapy, a slight whiff of sweat. The scent of sex.
The scent of sex? His eyes open and blink in the faint light leaking in through the closed drapes. He sees a spill of red hair on the pillow next to his, a hint of a bare white shoulder. Scully. In bed with him.
It all comes back to him, the pleasure and the humiliation. The bittersweet taste of her on his tongue, her melting kisses, her fingers sliding along the length of him, his coming much too soon, uselessly spattering all over himself. He grimaces at the thought.
It's just past seven in the morning. He climbs out of bed as quietly as he can and pads to the bathroom to pee and swish out his mouth with a dab of Scully's toothpaste. In the bathroom he stares at himself in the mirror, all wild hair and baggy eyes, vowing to do better next time.
Back in the room, he sees that Scully has rolled onto her back. The covers have slipped off her body, baring her breasts. He stands at the foot of the bed, wondering if he should dress and return to his unused room or get back in bed with her. The bed wins. The other option never stood a chance.
She stirs at his weight shifting the mattress and her eyes flutter open. She turns her head towards him and her eyes widen at the sight of him. Without makeup, the mole above her upper lip standing out in sharp relief, she looks so young, so fresh and untouched by everything that's happened to her since she met him.
"I wondered if I dreamt all that," she says.
"It wasn't a dream," he says, kissing the tip of her nose.
She stretches, arching her back like a cat. That's a sight he could never tire of. "What time is it?"
He glances at the clock radio. "7:12."
"We should get up. Didn't we tell Detective Bailey we'd meet him first thing in the morning?"
"He can wait..." Surely Detective Bailey would understand that Mulder hasn't been properly laid in almost five years and now he has a gorgeous naked woman in bed and a raging hard-on. Any man would understand that.
He swoops in to kiss her and she turns her head away, making a face. "Morning breath, Mulder."
"I like your morning breath."
She rolls out of his clutches and totters off to the bathroom. When she returns she's smiling, but her smile seems artificial. She pulls her robe off the floor and slips it on, sits at the edge of the bed.
He sits up and touches her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
She shakes her head. "Nothing. I'm fine. We should get dressed and go."
"Don't even try that business with me. I've heard it too many times from you."
Scully flops onto her back. "It just hit me, really hit me, what we're doing."
"Is that a bad thing?" The breath catches in his throat.
She shakes her head, copper against the white sheets. "It's just a little overwhelming. We've been together for so long, but not like this." Scully closes her eyes.
"Scully," he says. "Open your eyes. Look at me."
Blue eyes open and fix on his face.
"You need to know something."
"What's that?" she says.
He takes a deep breath. "It's scary to move to this level. I told you that last night. We've danced around this for years, the both of us afraid that if we did this we could ruin what we've built, our partnership. Am I right?"
She nods.
He touches the wavy tangle of her hair. "But we're here and this is where we're supposed to be. I don't need to say this, because it's obvious, but..."
She smiles, as if she knows what's coming. "But what?"
His heart is racing. "I'm in love with you."
There. He said it and it wasn't that difficult.
She smiles, tears welling in her eyes. "Oh, Mulder," she sighs.
This wasn't exactly the response he was hoping for. "Oh, Mulder?"
"You didn't let me finish. Sometimes you talk too much," she says.
"True enough."
A single tear is suspended on her cheek. "Surely you know I feel the same."
He kisses away the tear, salt on his lips.
"Scully, can you say it?" He needs to hear the words in full. If he could, he'd make her sign an affidavit to that effect, frame it and hang it on the wall of his bedroom.
She laughs and sits up, touches his face with her cool palm. "Mulder, I love you. If I've ever given you reason to believe otherwise, I'm sorry."
Something blooms deep inside his chest. She loves him.
They kiss. It's a pact, a promise. They love each other. Why did it seem so complicated before?
The plangent ring of her cell phone punctures the bubble.
"Don't answer it," he says, wanting to spend more time exploring the complexities of her lower lip.
"I have to," she answers.
Deja vu, and it's not the good kind.
She reaches for her phone. "Scully," she says crisply.
The call is short, Scully responding to her caller with yeses and nos. She closes her phone and sets it down on the mattress. "That was Detective Bailey. They found the girls early this morning."
"Alive or dead?" Those young, untouched faces.
"They're dead," she says softly. "He wants to meet us at the ME's office. I'm going to assist with the post-mortems."
"Shit," he says.
"Tell me about it. You'd better get dressed and get me that coffee."
They roll their bags through Dulles Airport. It's almost midnight. Snow in Chicago delayed their connecting flight more than three hours, which they spent holed up at a fake brewpub, nursing beers and bad nachos.
The cause of death for all four girls was blunt force trauma caused by a car accident. Police had found the students off Highway 39, near Westfield, Wisconsin. Amber West, the driver, had lost control of the car and rolled it into a ravine. Heavy snow on New Year's Day had concealed the accident.
"Amber's blood alcohol was twice the legal limit. The other girls had been drunk, too," Scully had said, emerging from the autopsies in blood-stained scrubs.
"I don't get it," Mulder said. "Where did they get the car? Bailey had said that all their cars were accounted for."
"The car was registered to Ashley Craig's cousin, who had lent it to her for the vacation. She'd been in Costa Rica with her family, so the police hadn't contacted her and she hadn't heard the news. She just got back last night."
"So, nothing paranormal about it." He was almost disappointed.
Scully shook her head. "I theorize that the power went out at the party, so the girls took off and decided to go for a joyride."
"Nothing unusual in the autopsies?"
"Nothing but the fact that four young women died long before they should have." She sighed. "It's time to go home."
The line at the cab stand is long and full of disgruntled passengers fresh off delayed flights. Scully yawns.
"Are you tired?" he asks.
"Like I could sleep for a week."
"You should take tomorrow off," he says.
"I might just do that. So should you."
He steps closer to her. "Have you thought about where you'd like to spend the night tonight?" he says softly, so as not to be overheard by anyone else.
"In my bed," she says, with another yawn.
"Care for some company?" He longs to touch her but they're in public.
"Mulder, I need a bath. And sleep. Alone." The furrow between her brows appears.
He tries to not look disappointed. Or to take it personally.
They reach the head of the line. The dispatcher asks, "Where to?"
"Georgetown," Scully answers.
"Alexandria," Mulder says in resignation.
"Alexandra, number 127 to the left," the dispatcher says. "Georgetown, 224, the last cab on your right."
Scully stops in front of him, looking small in her long winter coat. "Come here," she says.
He leans down to her.
"I love you," she whispers in his ear. "And I'll see you tomorrow night at eight. My place. We have unfinished business."
He squeezes her arm and starts off to his taxi. He might just be whistling again.
End of Part 3.
SUMMARY: It was only a kiss.
RATING: PG-13 for this part.
SPOILERS: No big spoilers. The story takes place in Season 7, between Millennium and Rush.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me and no copyright infringement is intended on my part.
WORD COUNT: 19,947 for the whole story
DATE POSTED: June-July 2008
Ninth:
She pushes away the remains of her chicken Caesar salad.
"Scully, I don't get it. You asked Detective Bailey where to find the best burger in Madison and then you order a salad."
"I reserve the right to change my mind," she says, but she steals a handful of his fries.
The restaurant has one of the oddest names he's encountered on his travels, Dotty Dumpling's Dowry, but he'll admit that the Southwest Burger is one of the best he's ever had. How can you go wrong with cheddar, bacon, and barbeque sauce? The protein goes straight to his bloodstream. It's a welcome rush after a day that has included two planes, three airports, a thorough search of the Kappa Beta fraternity house--the site of the disappearances, countless interviews of frat boys and sorority girls, and no discernable clues.
Photos of the missing girls are spread out on the table. Blondes, all of them, looking so alike they could be related. Ashley Craig, age 21. Katie Dawkins, age 20. Amber West, age 21. Sarah Swenson, age 22. The pictures are obviously sorority composite photos. Each girl is wearing pearls and a demure black velvet drape over her shoulders. They are all sisters in the Gamma Alpha Rho sorority.
"Do you really think this could be an alien abduction?" Scully asks, stealing more fries. He swats her hand away. "Don't you think that they could have just taken off from the party?"
It had been a New Year's Eve party at the Kappa Beta house. There were about fifty guests, all invited, security at the front door. Just after midnight, a bright white light had flooded the house and then the power went out, the entire house going black. The four girls had been in the kitchen, drinking and talking with two Kappa Beta brothers. The young men had reported hearing one piercing scream after the lights went out, then nothing. In the confusion following the power outage, no one noticed the four young women missing for at least an hour. Alarm bells didn't truly go off until late the next day, when none of the four had returned home to the Gamma Alpha Rho sorority house.
Nothing was missing, besides the girls. Two had cars and they were still parked in their spots. All their belongings were still in their rooms, and there has been no credit card activity at all. No telltale clues in the fraternity house. No disgruntled ex-boyfriends and, barring polygraphs, the brothers of Kappa Beta seemed truly mystified and upset about the disappearances of their friends. The four young women had vanished into the proverbial thin air.
"From all accounts, they're good girls, responsible. The kind who call their mothers every day. They don't seem like they would have run off somewhere." He takes his last bite of hamburger.
"Perhaps they were abducted by garden-variety human beings."
"It's possible," he admits. "But it seems improbable that an abductor, or abductors, could take four of them at once without any commotion."
"There was a lot of commotion when the lights went out." She's eyeing his fries and he pulls the basket out of her reach.
Does she have any inkling how much it turns him on to merely discuss the facts of the case with her? Especially now that they've come so very, very close. And he loves her tremendously intelligent mind, so analytical, so ready to challenge him at every turn.
"Did Detective Bailey tell you what the power company said about the outage?"
"Nothing obvious from Madison Gas and Electric. The transformer didn't blow. The power didn't go out anywhere else on the block but the Kappa Beta house. They didn't even seem to blow a fuse. The power just went out."
He shakes his head. They have nothing.
They walk down the hushed hotel corridor to Scully's room. When they reach 423, Scully stops and turns to him, lips pursed.
"Good night, Mulder," she says. "I'll see you in the morning."
No, he thinks, not so fast. He's been tortured with paralyzing lust the entire day. Not twenty-four hours ago, she was practically naked in his bed, her hand wrapped around his cock. Today he spent hours sitting next to her on planes, being tormented by the tickle of her perfume, the brush of her arm against his. He had to follow her through the Kappa Beta house, listening to the cool, scientific babble flow from her lips as they searched for evidence. Hell no, the night's not ending outside her door.
"What's your current view on fraternization on duty?" he asks, moving two steps closer to her.
"Regulations are regulations," she says, fumbling for her key card.
"We've broken every other rule in the book. Why not this one?"
"Mulder, no. It's been a long day. Tomorrow should be even longer."
He loves to argue with her, loves the good agent/bad agent roles they play from time to time. He wants to be a very, very bad agent tonight.
"Please? There's a Starbucks just down the Square. I'll buy you coffee and a scone in the morning." He's grasping at something, anything that will grant him access to her room.
She lets out a tiny sigh of resignation. "Venti soy latte, no foam," she says. The door unlocks with a click. "That's not negotiable."
The Inn on the Park is a slightly nicer class of lodging than their usual threadbare motels. The Madison Police Department had found them a good federal rate. Scully's room is decorated in restful beiges and taupes. There's not a single water stain on the ceiling or a cigarette burn to found. It's sad how a Best Western can feel like the Plaza.
She takes off her coat and hangs it in the closet, motions for his coat. "I need a shower. I'm wearing the dirt of three airports."
"You know, conserving water is an important part of saving the environment," he offers.
She tosses him the remote. "No pay-per-view porn," she says, stalking off to the bathroom with her overnight bag.
It was worth a shot, anyway. He kicks off his shoes and sits on the edge of the king-size bed to watch CNN. George W. Bush is mumbling something about his presidential hopes. If he's elected, Mulder's moving to Canada and taking Scully with him. They can become Mounties.
Scully is in the bathroom a long time. What arcane mysteries do women get up to in there? He feels fidgety. He hasn't had sex with another person since the first Clinton administration. Is it possible to forget how to have sex? What if he can't get it up? What if he's become really, really bad in bed? What if he was never good in the first place? His mind is racing.
Stop, he tells himself. This is Scully and this is you. It'll be fine. He takes a deep breath.
Scully finally emerges from the bathroom, wearing a thin cotton bathrobe that's clinging to her damp body. Her hair is wet and slicked back, her face pink from the heat.
She stops in front of him, eyes downcast. She's as nervous as I am, he thinks. He finds that thought reassuring.
He pulls her to him, so that she tumbles across his lap. "Hi," he says.
"Hi, yourself." Her voice is husky.
"It's just me," he says. "Nothing to be afraid of."
"Who says I'm afraid?" She lifts her chin.
"I'm speaking more for my own benefit. I'm scared." He guides her hand to his chest so that she can feel his rapid heartbeat.
"It's just me," she says and smiles.
"I know. That's why I'm scared."
She kisses him with a toothpaste mouth, her tongue twining with his. So much for his worries that he wouldn't be able to get it up. It may never come down again. She moans as he presses his erection into her bottom.
He manages to pull the comforter and blanket off the majority of the bed and they fall back on the crisp sheets. He unknots the sash of Scully's bathrobe, letting the folds of cotton fall open. Her body, her perfect little body. Full breasts, flaring hips, and a lovely thatch of reddish-brown hair between her legs. He hardly knows where to begin, although kissing her again seems like a good place to start.
"You still have your suit on," she mutters. Why yes, she's totally naked and he's dressed, complete with his jacket and a gray and white striped tie. Scully deftly unknots the tie and flings it to the floor, starts unbuttoning his dress shirt.
He struggles out of his trousers and they join their friends on the carpet below. He's glad he made the effort to find a decent pair of boxers when he dressed in the morning, a subdued navy and green plaid. She hooks her fingers around the elastic and tugs them down.
"You're bad," he whispers.
"Above all else, I value parity." She chuckles.
He turns her onto her back so he can trail kisses from her neck to her navel. He wonders if she can possibly know how much he adores every inch of her, even the bullet scar on her belly, even the tattoo on her back that symbolizes the night she spent with another man. It's the whole package.
For long minutes he alternates kissing her on the mouth with licking and sucking her nipples. Her fingers weave in his hair. This has to be the best time he's had in decades, listening to her breathing quicken in response. He reaches between her legs and yes, she's soft and slick under his fingers.
"Mmm, yes," she exhales.
This is Scully's pussy, he thinks, startled for one second. It's real and I'm touching it and I'm not going to wake up alone in my bed. One finger, then two in her, gently exploring at first, then harder as she moves her hips to meet his thrusts.
What the hell, he's going to go for gold. He creeps down the bed until he's between her thighs, his breath stirring her curls. "Please," she gasps.
"My pleasure," he says. His tongue takes a long, sweeping taste of her and goosebumps form all over his body. He's wanted to do this for so long, to taste her, to feel her clit swelling under his tongue. This is better than Christmas, his birthday, and finding definitive proof of extraterrestrial life combined.
He can hear her panting as he licks her, as his fingers slide in and out. He wishes he could see her face right now. Are her eyes open or closed? Her fingers grasp his shoulders, guiding him, first slower, then faster.
And then she babbles, "Don't stop, don't stop, whateveryoudodon'tyoudarestopMulder..." She presses herself into his face, nearly smothering him, but that's fine. It would be a noble way to die, in service to Scully.
She gasps, muscles stiffening, and then goes limp.
Did she just come? He'd like to think so, but since he's never experienced this sort of glory with her before, he's not entirely sure. Isn't there some sort of universal code women could use to signify the fact? It would be so helpful.
She tugs at him so he clambers back up to her. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes look a bit unfocused. Gorgeous. She's still panting, her hair flaring out over the pillow.
"Where did you learn to do that?" she asks.
"Oxford. They had tutors for oral sex."
She laughs and he kisses her in reward for the laughter.
"Did you...?" he asks.
"Did I? Oh God, yes, I did." Her hand starts trailing its way down his chest, lower and lower.
"This is fun," she says. "Why haven't we been doing this all along?" Her fingers begin working their secret doctor magic on him, stroking and squeezing in a way he'd never begin to replicate if he tried. And he thought he knew all the tricks in that particular book.
"Because...because we're chickens?" Not the most erudite answer, but his brain seems to have packed off on vacation to Jamaica as she continues her devilish ministrations.
He wants to tell her to stop, or at least slow down, because he's so, so close it's making his teeth hurt. But his speech function has fled with his brain and the only thing he can manage to do is to kiss her.
Scully tips her head back and laughs, a full-bodied chortle from deep in her throat. That's it, thoughts of baseball and putrefying bodies can do nothing at this point because...
...fucking hell, he's coming, coming so hard, and oh no, it's much too soon...
What kind of pitiful man comes just because the love of his life laughs in bed?
Apparently his kind, because he did come, all over his stomach. This was not part of his plans. Not at all. He shuts his eyes and stifles a horrified moan.
She laughs again.
"That's not helping," he mutters. Is there a rewind button he can press?
"I was laughing with you, not at you," she says and kisses his forehead.
"I'm sorry." He's afraid to open his eyes and see her face. "It's been a long time."
"Mulder, shut up. You think we'd get it perfectly, right off the bat? Have you been reading romance novels or something?"
"I wanted to be your Fabio," he says and she snickers.
He opens his eyes to see her hop off the bed and walk to the bathroom. She returns with something wadded in her hand and offers it to him. It's a damp washcloth.
He sponges away the humiliating evidence. Scully turns off the bedside lamp and pulls the covers up over them. She settles on her side, her forehead touching his.
She touches his cheek. "That was the most fun I've had in years. Maybe ever."
"But we--"
"We'll get to it eventually," she interrupts. "It might take another seven years, but we will."
That's an appalling scenario to contemplate. "The night is still young, Scully."
"It's past midnight," she says, her voice slowing. "I'm not eighteen and neither are you."
He breathes in the scent of her skin and hair. "You're supposed to be at your sexual peak right now."
"Oh, I am. Believe me. But now I want to sleep." She pecks him on the lips and rolls over, her back curving into his chest.
The weight of exhaustion begins to press onto his body. He's always wanted to sleep with Scully, not just for the sex, but to feel her relaxed and pliant in his arms. To have her trust him with her slumber.
Her breathing slows as he strokes her damp hair. Eventually his eyes close, too.
Tenth:
He knows he's in a hotel or motel room before he even opens his eyes. He smells strange laundry detergent on the sheets and that particular dusty drape scent. But there's a new smell, too, one he can't quite place. Sweet and soapy, a slight whiff of sweat. The scent of sex.
The scent of sex? His eyes open and blink in the faint light leaking in through the closed drapes. He sees a spill of red hair on the pillow next to his, a hint of a bare white shoulder. Scully. In bed with him.
It all comes back to him, the pleasure and the humiliation. The bittersweet taste of her on his tongue, her melting kisses, her fingers sliding along the length of him, his coming much too soon, uselessly spattering all over himself. He grimaces at the thought.
It's just past seven in the morning. He climbs out of bed as quietly as he can and pads to the bathroom to pee and swish out his mouth with a dab of Scully's toothpaste. In the bathroom he stares at himself in the mirror, all wild hair and baggy eyes, vowing to do better next time.
Back in the room, he sees that Scully has rolled onto her back. The covers have slipped off her body, baring her breasts. He stands at the foot of the bed, wondering if he should dress and return to his unused room or get back in bed with her. The bed wins. The other option never stood a chance.
She stirs at his weight shifting the mattress and her eyes flutter open. She turns her head towards him and her eyes widen at the sight of him. Without makeup, the mole above her upper lip standing out in sharp relief, she looks so young, so fresh and untouched by everything that's happened to her since she met him.
"I wondered if I dreamt all that," she says.
"It wasn't a dream," he says, kissing the tip of her nose.
She stretches, arching her back like a cat. That's a sight he could never tire of. "What time is it?"
He glances at the clock radio. "7:12."
"We should get up. Didn't we tell Detective Bailey we'd meet him first thing in the morning?"
"He can wait..." Surely Detective Bailey would understand that Mulder hasn't been properly laid in almost five years and now he has a gorgeous naked woman in bed and a raging hard-on. Any man would understand that.
He swoops in to kiss her and she turns her head away, making a face. "Morning breath, Mulder."
"I like your morning breath."
She rolls out of his clutches and totters off to the bathroom. When she returns she's smiling, but her smile seems artificial. She pulls her robe off the floor and slips it on, sits at the edge of the bed.
He sits up and touches her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
She shakes her head. "Nothing. I'm fine. We should get dressed and go."
"Don't even try that business with me. I've heard it too many times from you."
Scully flops onto her back. "It just hit me, really hit me, what we're doing."
"Is that a bad thing?" The breath catches in his throat.
She shakes her head, copper against the white sheets. "It's just a little overwhelming. We've been together for so long, but not like this." Scully closes her eyes.
"Scully," he says. "Open your eyes. Look at me."
Blue eyes open and fix on his face.
"You need to know something."
"What's that?" she says.
He takes a deep breath. "It's scary to move to this level. I told you that last night. We've danced around this for years, the both of us afraid that if we did this we could ruin what we've built, our partnership. Am I right?"
She nods.
He touches the wavy tangle of her hair. "But we're here and this is where we're supposed to be. I don't need to say this, because it's obvious, but..."
She smiles, as if she knows what's coming. "But what?"
His heart is racing. "I'm in love with you."
There. He said it and it wasn't that difficult.
She smiles, tears welling in her eyes. "Oh, Mulder," she sighs.
This wasn't exactly the response he was hoping for. "Oh, Mulder?"
"You didn't let me finish. Sometimes you talk too much," she says.
"True enough."
A single tear is suspended on her cheek. "Surely you know I feel the same."
He kisses away the tear, salt on his lips.
"Scully, can you say it?" He needs to hear the words in full. If he could, he'd make her sign an affidavit to that effect, frame it and hang it on the wall of his bedroom.
She laughs and sits up, touches his face with her cool palm. "Mulder, I love you. If I've ever given you reason to believe otherwise, I'm sorry."
Something blooms deep inside his chest. She loves him.
They kiss. It's a pact, a promise. They love each other. Why did it seem so complicated before?
The plangent ring of her cell phone punctures the bubble.
"Don't answer it," he says, wanting to spend more time exploring the complexities of her lower lip.
"I have to," she answers.
Deja vu, and it's not the good kind.
She reaches for her phone. "Scully," she says crisply.
The call is short, Scully responding to her caller with yeses and nos. She closes her phone and sets it down on the mattress. "That was Detective Bailey. They found the girls early this morning."
"Alive or dead?" Those young, untouched faces.
"They're dead," she says softly. "He wants to meet us at the ME's office. I'm going to assist with the post-mortems."
"Shit," he says.
"Tell me about it. You'd better get dressed and get me that coffee."
They roll their bags through Dulles Airport. It's almost midnight. Snow in Chicago delayed their connecting flight more than three hours, which they spent holed up at a fake brewpub, nursing beers and bad nachos.
The cause of death for all four girls was blunt force trauma caused by a car accident. Police had found the students off Highway 39, near Westfield, Wisconsin. Amber West, the driver, had lost control of the car and rolled it into a ravine. Heavy snow on New Year's Day had concealed the accident.
"Amber's blood alcohol was twice the legal limit. The other girls had been drunk, too," Scully had said, emerging from the autopsies in blood-stained scrubs.
"I don't get it," Mulder said. "Where did they get the car? Bailey had said that all their cars were accounted for."
"The car was registered to Ashley Craig's cousin, who had lent it to her for the vacation. She'd been in Costa Rica with her family, so the police hadn't contacted her and she hadn't heard the news. She just got back last night."
"So, nothing paranormal about it." He was almost disappointed.
Scully shook her head. "I theorize that the power went out at the party, so the girls took off and decided to go for a joyride."
"Nothing unusual in the autopsies?"
"Nothing but the fact that four young women died long before they should have." She sighed. "It's time to go home."
The line at the cab stand is long and full of disgruntled passengers fresh off delayed flights. Scully yawns.
"Are you tired?" he asks.
"Like I could sleep for a week."
"You should take tomorrow off," he says.
"I might just do that. So should you."
He steps closer to her. "Have you thought about where you'd like to spend the night tonight?" he says softly, so as not to be overheard by anyone else.
"In my bed," she says, with another yawn.
"Care for some company?" He longs to touch her but they're in public.
"Mulder, I need a bath. And sleep. Alone." The furrow between her brows appears.
He tries to not look disappointed. Or to take it personally.
They reach the head of the line. The dispatcher asks, "Where to?"
"Georgetown," Scully answers.
"Alexandria," Mulder says in resignation.
"Alexandra, number 127 to the left," the dispatcher says. "Georgetown, 224, the last cab on your right."
Scully stops in front of him, looking small in her long winter coat. "Come here," she says.
He leans down to her.
"I love you," she whispers in his ear. "And I'll see you tomorrow night at eight. My place. We have unfinished business."
He squeezes her arm and starts off to his taxi. He might just be whistling again.
End of Part 3.