FIC: First/Second (MSR, NC-17, WARNINGS)
Title: First/Second
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh (amalnahurriyeh)
Summary: First times are usually a disaster.
Pairing: MSR
Rating: NC-17 (sex, mental trauma, angst)
Warnings: This is potentially the most triggery thing I've written; please do check out the warnings if you need to know this sort of thing, or PM me or comment if you need more details. ( skip) This is probably technically dubcon (dubious consent, for those not up on the hip kid lingo); invokes the experience of being triggered during sex, sex that is itself potentially triggery to readers, and then a frank discussion of what happened.
Timeline/Spoilers: Part 1, post-Pusher. Part 2, post-Detour.
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
A/N: Over a year ago, I mentioned that people could give me porn battle prompts and I'd try to fill them. idella suggested "the first time vs. the second time." I proceeded to draft that story, and then have the entire thing float around on my iPod without ever exiting it. Finally, I got off my ass and got it together. This is the result. Thanks to idella for serving as beta, as well.
1. The First Time
She drops his hand as they turn the corner. Exhaustion hovers around her shoulders like a shroud; something about the whiplash anxiety and adrenaline spikes of her past twelve hours have left her as if she's just struggled through a six-hour anatomy final on 20 hours of jetlag. Mulder next to her emits a gravitational pull. She has no idea how to do anything.
Standing at the driver's side door, her mind runs blank and echoey for a moment. "Mulder," she says, "I think we should stay in Richmond."
"What?" he says.
"Find a hotel. Get a few hours sleep before we head back to DC." She opens her car door and supports her weight on it. "We're both running on empty here, Mulder."
"Fine. Whatever you think." He gets into the car without looking at her.
The first hotel they pass is dirty-looking, but Scully is too tired to care about that right now. She parks at the office and fumbles for her purse. Mulder watches her from the car as she pays for one room. "Two beds," she says. It's not that she doesn't trust him, but she thinks they need some space tonight.
She turns off the engine and pulls out the keys in the spot outside their room, leans her head back against the headrest, and closes her eyes. "Shit," she says quietly. "I don't have clothes." The prospect of sleeping in her underwear is not appealing. She should have gotten two rooms.
"I have my overnight bag," Mulder says quietly. "You can sleep in something of mine."
"Thanks," she says. She pops the trunk, locks the car as he gets the dirty duffel bag out of the trunk, opens the room with the bent key. The room is a paeon to brown, but she cares very little. She drops her trench and suit jacket on the far bed. "Do you mind if I shower first?" She knows she should be trying to take care of him, but she's hoping he knows she is here and won't ask anything more of her.
"Fine," he says, and throws his bag on her bed.
She fishes through it, determines he has more than one pair of boxers, and takes one pair and a t-shirt. In the bathroom she strips off her clothes, washes her panties, hose, and bra and hangs them as unobtrusively as possible over the towel rack (she has no idea if Mulder's ever lived with a woman, but he can deal) and takes the hottest shower possible. She dries off with just one towel, slides into his clothes, and hangs the towel back up.
When she leaves the bathroom he is sitting in the armchair by the rickety table, staring blankly at the window with the translucent curtains still drawn. He has taken off his jacket, shirt, tie, and belt, and is sitting in his t-shirt and pants. "I don't think I used up all the hot water," she says. He startles at the sound of her voice and turns to stare at her. She hangs her suit and blouse in the closet. "You might want to wait a minute, though."
"Yeah," he says and does not move.
She doesn't know what else to do, so she goes over to him. Lightly, she runs her fingers through his hair. She wants to tell him about the sick horror she felt in the second she watched him turn the gun on himself. She wants to tell him that he had been brave and strong and a thousand other cliches. She wants to say the only way she'd be able to sleep was knowing he was in the same room, being able to hear him breathe. But all she says is, "You'll be better once you get some sleep," and pulls her hand from his hair.
"Yeah," he says again, and turns back to the window.
She pulls the comforter over her head when she lies down, but doesn't sleep, stays drowsily awake as she hears him stand, strip his clothes, and go into the bathroom. She falls asleep as she hears the hiss of the water.
And wakes up to hear a pair of shoes thump. She pulls back the comforter. Mulder is wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, and is pulling on his sneakers. "Mulder, what are you doing?" she asks blearily.
"I'm going running," he says.
"What? Mulder, no." He is being stupid, he's pushing himself, he needs to turn off.
"Yes," he says, and slides on the other shoe.
"Mulder, what you need--"
"What I need is for people to stop telling me what to do," he yells suddenly. The rage he's been hiding since the hospital snaps out of him and cuts across the room like a solar flare.
She blinks, and then gets angry. He won't let her take care of him, fuck him. "Fine, Mulder," she says. "Do whatever the hell you want." She lays back down and closes her eyes.
There is a sudden thump. She looks back at him. He has punched the wall and is cradling his hand. He catches her eyes. "I wanted to."
And he throws another punch, and he's going to break either his hand or the wall, and she can't let him go all rockstar on this shitty hotel room so she climbs out of bed and grabs him by the arms. There is a moment where she is absolutely certain he is going to punch her, and she is tensing all her muscles to hit back, but then he bends and kisses her, and all she can think is at least maybe I can get him to sleep this way. She wraps her fingers in his hair and kisses him back. His teeth click against hers; these are kisses without finesse, and his nose keeps pressing into her cheek. She isn't tracking well, so his hands lifting her are a shock, as is the impact of her head against the hollow door. She catches her legs around his waist as he bites her ear, and the sudden roll of her hips makes him clamp down and pull. She shudders, unsure if it hurts or not. "Bed, the bed," she says as he starts grinding his cock against her and biting her neck. He grunts and turns, still holding her up, and they fall together onto the bed.
It's when his hands pin her wrists to the mattress that she starts to panic. It's not that she's never been held down, but that was before, before she'd ever been bound and gagged for something other than her own pleasure. Suddenly this moves from Mulder kissing her, from her best friend playing the somewhat surprising part of feral sex god, to an attack, to someone else trying to take something from her. You're fine, it's Mulder, she tells herself, as he licks her collarbone where it hangs out of the loose neck of his shirt. You're fine, she thinks as he grabs at her mouth again to worry her tongue with his. He needs to feel in control of something, she thinks as he releases one of her wrists to slide a hand under the shirt and start pinching her nipple. She forces her now-free hand to rest on his shoulder, makes it slide down the collar of his shirt to rest on his back. His damp skin should be reassuring, but the panic stays, all jumbled with desire. She has moved, she realizes, from hoping this will be good to hoping it will be fast.
He pulls up and kneels astride her hips. His eyes are hooded and empty as he strips his shirt off. He reaches for the waistband of the boxers where it gaps across her hips. She know she has to at least look like she isn't having a nervous breakdown, so she pulls off her shirt. Naked beneath him, her heart pounds as he surveys her breasts, flattened by gravity across her chest, the plane of her stomach, the protisions of her illiac crests. He pulls his cock out and starts working it roughly. Another Dana, she knows, would take the moment to re-evaluate her stated indifference to visual erotica, would prop herself up on her elbows and talk dirty to him, would order him to fuck her mouth for a while. But tonight she thinks if all he does is jerk off over her body she'll be unable to keep from crying in front of him, unable to keep it under control. She pulls up her knees and rocks her hips up towards him. His eyes roll down her body to stare at her cunt, bared to him in the ugly yellow light. He leans back over her, curls a hand around one of her hips and thrusts slowly against her. The panic and arousal circuits fire in tandem again, and she gasps. He pulls back and thrusts into her this time, again slowly, and throws his head back, gritting his teeth. He is so beautiful this close.
It's too much for her to take any initiative, she's too busy swallowing her terror, but she tries to follow his rhythm. When his hand reaches to rotate her hip, she wraps her legs around his waist and presses her forehead to his shoulder. The warm sweat of his skin soothes her and she digs her nails into his back.
Just as she is getting used to the pressure of his cock splitting her open, just as the muscles in the small of her back are starting to relax, he whispers, "Scully," and her body shudders with the ferocity in it. "Scully, I almost." He doesn't stop thrusting, even as he drops his head to mutter into the comforter next to her ear. "Scully I could have--Scully. God, Scully--Scully I--I--"
She didn't want to cry, fuck, that was the last thing she wanted, but now she is, and there is nothing to be done about it. She clings to his shoulders and tries to get her shit together. Her body wants to respond to him, but her head is somewhere else, so she twists and shudders and cries instead. He gasps suddenly, moans as he comes, his body sagging over hers.
She is vibrating on a molecular level, jumping between states, pushing every emotion--the terror, the exhaustion, the anger (at him, for him), the sadly hollow ache that was probably love--back down as quickly as she could, taking deep steady breaths against his weight on her chest. She presses her hands into his back until she falls asleep, and wakes when he tumbles off her in the night. She finds her clothes, which are his, as she climbs out of bed. He is naked and vulnerable alone there, so she pulls the comforter off the other bed, throws it over him before climbing in and laying awake for longer than she would like.
2. The Second Time
He had barely let her drive, but had no problem letting her handle his suitcase at the airport. And he must not have been able to figure out how to shower with the sling, because he still smelled like the Mothman's cave o'corpses. She leans her head back against the airplane seat. At least Stonecypher and what's-his-name were far away. If she had to be cheerful now, she would snap.
"Scully?"
She doesn't even bother looking at him. "What, Mulder?"
"The other night. The thing. With the cheese."
She contemplates pretending amnesia, but finds she is too pissed off to be properly embarrassed. "Yes?"
"Um. What was that?"
Oh, great. She sighs, exasperated. "Nothing, Mulder."
"I don't think it was." He sounds as embarrassed as she should be.
She fiddles with her plastic cup without making eye contact. "It was just...I just wanted to spend some time with you. Nothing complicated."
"Oh." He sounds a little disappointed. There is a pause. "See, I was just wondering if maybe I was a massive idiot."
She chances a look at him. There is something honest and compelling in his hangdog expression. "Mulder, when are you not a massive idiot?"
He laughs. "Point well taken." He was fidgeting with his hands too. "I'm just saying. If there were ever another time you wanted to...hang out. I'm pretty sure I could keep it under control. For a little while."
She leans against the plane's wall and closes her eyes again. "I'll hold you to that."
"Okay." She could feel him relax back into his seat. She smiles, and lets herself drift off.
...
It takes three weeks, but she gets her chance.
She lies on her stomach on a cheap motel bed, idly channel surfing. Bad guy caught, enough agreement between the two of them to make writing the report easy enough, no major trauma anywhere nearby. She pauses for a moment on the Sci-Fi channel. Opportunity. She picks up the hotel phone and listens to the phone ring through the walls, to him tripping over something as he goes for it.
"Yeah, Mulder."
"How's your massive idiocy feeling?"
There is a pause while he does mental addition. "I think I can keep it in check."
"Sci-Fi is running Them at eight."
"Them?"
"Giant radioactive ants take over the Southwest."
"Ants? You know how I feel about bugs."
"I'll let you hide under the covers if you get scared." She presses her hand over her mouth. Did she actually just say that? Holy shit.
"Is that a promise?"
"You're in charge of refreshments this time." She hangs up and flips over on her back. So. They're trying this. Okay.
He shows up at eight-fifteen with a six pack of Yuengling and three bags of Doritos. "You can't eat them all," he says.
"Like I'd want to," she says. He'd gotten her the blue ones. She loves the blue ones.
Soon, the heroes are tracking sugar trails through fake deserts. Her hands smell like Doritos and her mouth tastes like beer. She rests her head on her arms and closes her eyes. When she openes them, he is watching her, totally ignoring insect havoc on soundstages. "Mulder, are you watching me sleep?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
She smiles at him indulgently. "Just don't make a habit of it."
He blushes.
This is fantastic. "Oh, Mulder," she says, trying not to laugh. "Really."
"It's not, precisely, a habit."
"How much?" She loves to watch him squirm, and thinks this cannot possibly be a good sign for them actually having a relationship.
"Just a couple times." She starts laughing. "And there were always reasons. It's not like I'm just randomly stalking you."
"Reasons."
"You did just almost die," he says sulkily.
She feels briefly like she has been stabbed. "Mulder."
He turns back to the TV. "You want to split the last beer?"
"Sure," she says, around the lump in her throat.
She wants to stay awake, but his warmth in the bed and the soft buzz of the beer lulls her down again. She stirs to feel his fingers trace her face. The TV is off, and there is only the gentle hush of wind outside. She opens her eyes. He is leaning over her, watching her with a stillness and tenderness that is shocking in its own way. She smiles up at him, trying to look seductive, doubting she is successful.
He sighs, and it sounds like abandonment. "I should let you sleep."
For a moment she is terrified she has misread everything, that he has no interest in her as anything more than a piece of evidence, that she is another little girl for him to chase. Then his eyes stray to her lips and hover there, and she knows. She reaches up and hooks her hand around his neck. "Don't fuck it up in the home stretch, Mulder," she says, and pulls his mouth to hers.
He holds his weight off her, but can't stop his mouth from pressing into hers, can't hide the desperation in the sweep of his tongue into her mouth. She presses her body up against his, and makes an encouraging noise when his hand leaves her face to sweep down her side.
He breaks the kiss gently and leans his forehead against hers. "It's not that I want to shoot myself in the foot," he says quietly. "It's just that you're tired, it's late, I don't want..." He pauses. "I don't want to disappoint."
She scratches at the hair at the nape of his neck. His eyes are huge this close, and watching her so closely. "You don't have anything to prove to me, Mulder."
"After the last time, yeah, I do."
She pulls him down for another kiss. It's becoming clear she's going to have to run this if she wants it to go somewhere, so she wraps a leg around his hip and pulls him down against her. The sudden weight of his thigh between her legs makes her arch up into him and moan. He seems affected too, judging by the way he grips her waist, pulls her closer. She revels in the feel of his body pressing her into the mattress.
He pulls away just barely, brushes his lips against her cheek. "Tell me how to make this good," he whispers. "Tell me how this goes."
She wants to forget the last time, forget that she ever held on to his sweaty back and breathed through a panic attack because he needed her. She wishes he knew when to forget something. She rolls away from him and takes a deep breath. "Mulder, last time...well, it wasn't under the best conditions. And, really...I've gotten better since then, I think. I think...we should be fine. You don't need to worry." There. She'd said it.
But when she looks at him after a moment of uncomfortable silence, his jaw is hanging open, just slightly. "Um," he says. "What?"
She stares back for a moment. "Mulder, what do you think went wrong last time?"
He looks away, as if...ashamed? "I was an asshole," he says. He seems to want to stop there, but she waits him out. "I didn't ask you--if you wanted to--" He shakes his head. "And it wasn't any good for you, and I didn't care. I was selfish and an asshole, and you never mentioned it again so I worked under the assumption it was the worst sex you'd ever had and also you hated me." He looks back at her face. "I wasn't even close, huh?"
She shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling to gather her thoughts. Trust him to write the history in a way that makes him out as poorly as possible. She licks her lips and tries to sound reasonable. "I never thought poorly of you, Mulder. Where you saw selfishness, I saw you asking for what you needed. And I was grateful for it, that you'd let me help you rather than punishing yourself more. I wasn't opposed to the idea, not at all. I hadn't been opposed for a while, truth be told. You don't have anything to feel guilty about."
"But there was something else."
Well. How to put this delicately, without looking more like a prim maiden aunt than she did on a regular basis. "It was the first time I'd had sex since my abduction. And since Donnie Pfaster." She feels him wince, but pushes forward, trying not to let herself lie to him. "I was fine, a little anxious, but then..." She doesn't want to blame him, and searches for a way to avoid explaining why she lost it.
"I grabbed your wrists." She looks over her shoulder at him. He's on his back too, hand over his mouth. "Shit," he says, and make a futile little gesture in the air.
"Yeah." She closes her eyes and hopes they haven't, collectively, just ruined everything by way of being honest.
His hand came to hold hers where it lay next to her body. "I'm sorry," he said.
"It was very little about you, Mulder." Except in the vague way that everything was about him eventually.
"I didn't think. I mean, in general, but I didn't realize. Why didn't you say something?"
"I couldn't," she says, and realizes that it isn't at all what she had meant to say, that it is, unfortunately, the truth.
He is watching her over his shoulder now, the gaze full of tenderness and guilt. She has come to recognize this as the look of a Mulder in love. "If we're going to do this, I want to get it right," he says.
"This is right," she says and squeezes his hand. He rolls over and buries his head in her neck. She sighs and rolls to press their bodies together. "I don't want the last time to stop us. I think we can do it, if we can just..."
"Avoid fucking it up?"
She laughs softly and pulls back far enough to see his face. The skin of his cheeks is warm and soft in her palms. "Look at it this way. We can always just go into denial for another few years if necessary."
His eyes get serious suddenly, but it is absolutely the good kind of serious. "I don't think so." And he leans in and kisses her.
Of course it's different--how could it not be, she thinks as he peels off her blazer, as she fumbles with his belt one-handed, as he licks his way down her stomach, as she breaks a nail on the cheap pressed-wood headboard. They are happy and whole and have mutually agreed upon--actually, she isn't sure what, but something.
But the skin of his back under her palms as she slides her fingertips up the protrusions of his vertebrae, that is familiar. And the burn of his teeth in her neck, yes, she remembers that. And the way he says her name--but that was always the same, wasn't it. He's been saying it that way for years.
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh (amalnahurriyeh)
Summary: First times are usually a disaster.
Pairing: MSR
Rating: NC-17 (sex, mental trauma, angst)
Warnings: This is potentially the most triggery thing I've written; please do check out the warnings if you need to know this sort of thing, or PM me or comment if you need more details. ( skip) This is probably technically dubcon (dubious consent, for those not up on the hip kid lingo); invokes the experience of being triggered during sex, sex that is itself potentially triggery to readers, and then a frank discussion of what happened.
Timeline/Spoilers: Part 1, post-Pusher. Part 2, post-Detour.
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
A/N: Over a year ago, I mentioned that people could give me porn battle prompts and I'd try to fill them. idella suggested "the first time vs. the second time." I proceeded to draft that story, and then have the entire thing float around on my iPod without ever exiting it. Finally, I got off my ass and got it together. This is the result. Thanks to idella for serving as beta, as well.
1. The First Time
She drops his hand as they turn the corner. Exhaustion hovers around her shoulders like a shroud; something about the whiplash anxiety and adrenaline spikes of her past twelve hours have left her as if she's just struggled through a six-hour anatomy final on 20 hours of jetlag. Mulder next to her emits a gravitational pull. She has no idea how to do anything.
Standing at the driver's side door, her mind runs blank and echoey for a moment. "Mulder," she says, "I think we should stay in Richmond."
"What?" he says.
"Find a hotel. Get a few hours sleep before we head back to DC." She opens her car door and supports her weight on it. "We're both running on empty here, Mulder."
"Fine. Whatever you think." He gets into the car without looking at her.
The first hotel they pass is dirty-looking, but Scully is too tired to care about that right now. She parks at the office and fumbles for her purse. Mulder watches her from the car as she pays for one room. "Two beds," she says. It's not that she doesn't trust him, but she thinks they need some space tonight.
She turns off the engine and pulls out the keys in the spot outside their room, leans her head back against the headrest, and closes her eyes. "Shit," she says quietly. "I don't have clothes." The prospect of sleeping in her underwear is not appealing. She should have gotten two rooms.
"I have my overnight bag," Mulder says quietly. "You can sleep in something of mine."
"Thanks," she says. She pops the trunk, locks the car as he gets the dirty duffel bag out of the trunk, opens the room with the bent key. The room is a paeon to brown, but she cares very little. She drops her trench and suit jacket on the far bed. "Do you mind if I shower first?" She knows she should be trying to take care of him, but she's hoping he knows she is here and won't ask anything more of her.
"Fine," he says, and throws his bag on her bed.
She fishes through it, determines he has more than one pair of boxers, and takes one pair and a t-shirt. In the bathroom she strips off her clothes, washes her panties, hose, and bra and hangs them as unobtrusively as possible over the towel rack (she has no idea if Mulder's ever lived with a woman, but he can deal) and takes the hottest shower possible. She dries off with just one towel, slides into his clothes, and hangs the towel back up.
When she leaves the bathroom he is sitting in the armchair by the rickety table, staring blankly at the window with the translucent curtains still drawn. He has taken off his jacket, shirt, tie, and belt, and is sitting in his t-shirt and pants. "I don't think I used up all the hot water," she says. He startles at the sound of her voice and turns to stare at her. She hangs her suit and blouse in the closet. "You might want to wait a minute, though."
"Yeah," he says and does not move.
She doesn't know what else to do, so she goes over to him. Lightly, she runs her fingers through his hair. She wants to tell him about the sick horror she felt in the second she watched him turn the gun on himself. She wants to tell him that he had been brave and strong and a thousand other cliches. She wants to say the only way she'd be able to sleep was knowing he was in the same room, being able to hear him breathe. But all she says is, "You'll be better once you get some sleep," and pulls her hand from his hair.
"Yeah," he says again, and turns back to the window.
She pulls the comforter over her head when she lies down, but doesn't sleep, stays drowsily awake as she hears him stand, strip his clothes, and go into the bathroom. She falls asleep as she hears the hiss of the water.
And wakes up to hear a pair of shoes thump. She pulls back the comforter. Mulder is wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, and is pulling on his sneakers. "Mulder, what are you doing?" she asks blearily.
"I'm going running," he says.
"What? Mulder, no." He is being stupid, he's pushing himself, he needs to turn off.
"Yes," he says, and slides on the other shoe.
"Mulder, what you need--"
"What I need is for people to stop telling me what to do," he yells suddenly. The rage he's been hiding since the hospital snaps out of him and cuts across the room like a solar flare.
She blinks, and then gets angry. He won't let her take care of him, fuck him. "Fine, Mulder," she says. "Do whatever the hell you want." She lays back down and closes her eyes.
There is a sudden thump. She looks back at him. He has punched the wall and is cradling his hand. He catches her eyes. "I wanted to."
And he throws another punch, and he's going to break either his hand or the wall, and she can't let him go all rockstar on this shitty hotel room so she climbs out of bed and grabs him by the arms. There is a moment where she is absolutely certain he is going to punch her, and she is tensing all her muscles to hit back, but then he bends and kisses her, and all she can think is at least maybe I can get him to sleep this way. She wraps her fingers in his hair and kisses him back. His teeth click against hers; these are kisses without finesse, and his nose keeps pressing into her cheek. She isn't tracking well, so his hands lifting her are a shock, as is the impact of her head against the hollow door. She catches her legs around his waist as he bites her ear, and the sudden roll of her hips makes him clamp down and pull. She shudders, unsure if it hurts or not. "Bed, the bed," she says as he starts grinding his cock against her and biting her neck. He grunts and turns, still holding her up, and they fall together onto the bed.
It's when his hands pin her wrists to the mattress that she starts to panic. It's not that she's never been held down, but that was before, before she'd ever been bound and gagged for something other than her own pleasure. Suddenly this moves from Mulder kissing her, from her best friend playing the somewhat surprising part of feral sex god, to an attack, to someone else trying to take something from her. You're fine, it's Mulder, she tells herself, as he licks her collarbone where it hangs out of the loose neck of his shirt. You're fine, she thinks as he grabs at her mouth again to worry her tongue with his. He needs to feel in control of something, she thinks as he releases one of her wrists to slide a hand under the shirt and start pinching her nipple. She forces her now-free hand to rest on his shoulder, makes it slide down the collar of his shirt to rest on his back. His damp skin should be reassuring, but the panic stays, all jumbled with desire. She has moved, she realizes, from hoping this will be good to hoping it will be fast.
He pulls up and kneels astride her hips. His eyes are hooded and empty as he strips his shirt off. He reaches for the waistband of the boxers where it gaps across her hips. She know she has to at least look like she isn't having a nervous breakdown, so she pulls off her shirt. Naked beneath him, her heart pounds as he surveys her breasts, flattened by gravity across her chest, the plane of her stomach, the protisions of her illiac crests. He pulls his cock out and starts working it roughly. Another Dana, she knows, would take the moment to re-evaluate her stated indifference to visual erotica, would prop herself up on her elbows and talk dirty to him, would order him to fuck her mouth for a while. But tonight she thinks if all he does is jerk off over her body she'll be unable to keep from crying in front of him, unable to keep it under control. She pulls up her knees and rocks her hips up towards him. His eyes roll down her body to stare at her cunt, bared to him in the ugly yellow light. He leans back over her, curls a hand around one of her hips and thrusts slowly against her. The panic and arousal circuits fire in tandem again, and she gasps. He pulls back and thrusts into her this time, again slowly, and throws his head back, gritting his teeth. He is so beautiful this close.
It's too much for her to take any initiative, she's too busy swallowing her terror, but she tries to follow his rhythm. When his hand reaches to rotate her hip, she wraps her legs around his waist and presses her forehead to his shoulder. The warm sweat of his skin soothes her and she digs her nails into his back.
Just as she is getting used to the pressure of his cock splitting her open, just as the muscles in the small of her back are starting to relax, he whispers, "Scully," and her body shudders with the ferocity in it. "Scully, I almost." He doesn't stop thrusting, even as he drops his head to mutter into the comforter next to her ear. "Scully I could have--Scully. God, Scully--Scully I--I--"
She didn't want to cry, fuck, that was the last thing she wanted, but now she is, and there is nothing to be done about it. She clings to his shoulders and tries to get her shit together. Her body wants to respond to him, but her head is somewhere else, so she twists and shudders and cries instead. He gasps suddenly, moans as he comes, his body sagging over hers.
She is vibrating on a molecular level, jumping between states, pushing every emotion--the terror, the exhaustion, the anger (at him, for him), the sadly hollow ache that was probably love--back down as quickly as she could, taking deep steady breaths against his weight on her chest. She presses her hands into his back until she falls asleep, and wakes when he tumbles off her in the night. She finds her clothes, which are his, as she climbs out of bed. He is naked and vulnerable alone there, so she pulls the comforter off the other bed, throws it over him before climbing in and laying awake for longer than she would like.
2. The Second Time
He had barely let her drive, but had no problem letting her handle his suitcase at the airport. And he must not have been able to figure out how to shower with the sling, because he still smelled like the Mothman's cave o'corpses. She leans her head back against the airplane seat. At least Stonecypher and what's-his-name were far away. If she had to be cheerful now, she would snap.
"Scully?"
She doesn't even bother looking at him. "What, Mulder?"
"The other night. The thing. With the cheese."
She contemplates pretending amnesia, but finds she is too pissed off to be properly embarrassed. "Yes?"
"Um. What was that?"
Oh, great. She sighs, exasperated. "Nothing, Mulder."
"I don't think it was." He sounds as embarrassed as she should be.
She fiddles with her plastic cup without making eye contact. "It was just...I just wanted to spend some time with you. Nothing complicated."
"Oh." He sounds a little disappointed. There is a pause. "See, I was just wondering if maybe I was a massive idiot."
She chances a look at him. There is something honest and compelling in his hangdog expression. "Mulder, when are you not a massive idiot?"
He laughs. "Point well taken." He was fidgeting with his hands too. "I'm just saying. If there were ever another time you wanted to...hang out. I'm pretty sure I could keep it under control. For a little while."
She leans against the plane's wall and closes her eyes again. "I'll hold you to that."
"Okay." She could feel him relax back into his seat. She smiles, and lets herself drift off.
...
It takes three weeks, but she gets her chance.
She lies on her stomach on a cheap motel bed, idly channel surfing. Bad guy caught, enough agreement between the two of them to make writing the report easy enough, no major trauma anywhere nearby. She pauses for a moment on the Sci-Fi channel. Opportunity. She picks up the hotel phone and listens to the phone ring through the walls, to him tripping over something as he goes for it.
"Yeah, Mulder."
"How's your massive idiocy feeling?"
There is a pause while he does mental addition. "I think I can keep it in check."
"Sci-Fi is running Them at eight."
"Them?"
"Giant radioactive ants take over the Southwest."
"Ants? You know how I feel about bugs."
"I'll let you hide under the covers if you get scared." She presses her hand over her mouth. Did she actually just say that? Holy shit.
"Is that a promise?"
"You're in charge of refreshments this time." She hangs up and flips over on her back. So. They're trying this. Okay.
He shows up at eight-fifteen with a six pack of Yuengling and three bags of Doritos. "You can't eat them all," he says.
"Like I'd want to," she says. He'd gotten her the blue ones. She loves the blue ones.
Soon, the heroes are tracking sugar trails through fake deserts. Her hands smell like Doritos and her mouth tastes like beer. She rests her head on her arms and closes her eyes. When she openes them, he is watching her, totally ignoring insect havoc on soundstages. "Mulder, are you watching me sleep?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
She smiles at him indulgently. "Just don't make a habit of it."
He blushes.
This is fantastic. "Oh, Mulder," she says, trying not to laugh. "Really."
"It's not, precisely, a habit."
"How much?" She loves to watch him squirm, and thinks this cannot possibly be a good sign for them actually having a relationship.
"Just a couple times." She starts laughing. "And there were always reasons. It's not like I'm just randomly stalking you."
"Reasons."
"You did just almost die," he says sulkily.
She feels briefly like she has been stabbed. "Mulder."
He turns back to the TV. "You want to split the last beer?"
"Sure," she says, around the lump in her throat.
She wants to stay awake, but his warmth in the bed and the soft buzz of the beer lulls her down again. She stirs to feel his fingers trace her face. The TV is off, and there is only the gentle hush of wind outside. She opens her eyes. He is leaning over her, watching her with a stillness and tenderness that is shocking in its own way. She smiles up at him, trying to look seductive, doubting she is successful.
He sighs, and it sounds like abandonment. "I should let you sleep."
For a moment she is terrified she has misread everything, that he has no interest in her as anything more than a piece of evidence, that she is another little girl for him to chase. Then his eyes stray to her lips and hover there, and she knows. She reaches up and hooks her hand around his neck. "Don't fuck it up in the home stretch, Mulder," she says, and pulls his mouth to hers.
He holds his weight off her, but can't stop his mouth from pressing into hers, can't hide the desperation in the sweep of his tongue into her mouth. She presses her body up against his, and makes an encouraging noise when his hand leaves her face to sweep down her side.
He breaks the kiss gently and leans his forehead against hers. "It's not that I want to shoot myself in the foot," he says quietly. "It's just that you're tired, it's late, I don't want..." He pauses. "I don't want to disappoint."
She scratches at the hair at the nape of his neck. His eyes are huge this close, and watching her so closely. "You don't have anything to prove to me, Mulder."
"After the last time, yeah, I do."
She pulls him down for another kiss. It's becoming clear she's going to have to run this if she wants it to go somewhere, so she wraps a leg around his hip and pulls him down against her. The sudden weight of his thigh between her legs makes her arch up into him and moan. He seems affected too, judging by the way he grips her waist, pulls her closer. She revels in the feel of his body pressing her into the mattress.
He pulls away just barely, brushes his lips against her cheek. "Tell me how to make this good," he whispers. "Tell me how this goes."
She wants to forget the last time, forget that she ever held on to his sweaty back and breathed through a panic attack because he needed her. She wishes he knew when to forget something. She rolls away from him and takes a deep breath. "Mulder, last time...well, it wasn't under the best conditions. And, really...I've gotten better since then, I think. I think...we should be fine. You don't need to worry." There. She'd said it.
But when she looks at him after a moment of uncomfortable silence, his jaw is hanging open, just slightly. "Um," he says. "What?"
She stares back for a moment. "Mulder, what do you think went wrong last time?"
He looks away, as if...ashamed? "I was an asshole," he says. He seems to want to stop there, but she waits him out. "I didn't ask you--if you wanted to--" He shakes his head. "And it wasn't any good for you, and I didn't care. I was selfish and an asshole, and you never mentioned it again so I worked under the assumption it was the worst sex you'd ever had and also you hated me." He looks back at her face. "I wasn't even close, huh?"
She shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling to gather her thoughts. Trust him to write the history in a way that makes him out as poorly as possible. She licks her lips and tries to sound reasonable. "I never thought poorly of you, Mulder. Where you saw selfishness, I saw you asking for what you needed. And I was grateful for it, that you'd let me help you rather than punishing yourself more. I wasn't opposed to the idea, not at all. I hadn't been opposed for a while, truth be told. You don't have anything to feel guilty about."
"But there was something else."
Well. How to put this delicately, without looking more like a prim maiden aunt than she did on a regular basis. "It was the first time I'd had sex since my abduction. And since Donnie Pfaster." She feels him wince, but pushes forward, trying not to let herself lie to him. "I was fine, a little anxious, but then..." She doesn't want to blame him, and searches for a way to avoid explaining why she lost it.
"I grabbed your wrists." She looks over her shoulder at him. He's on his back too, hand over his mouth. "Shit," he says, and make a futile little gesture in the air.
"Yeah." She closes her eyes and hopes they haven't, collectively, just ruined everything by way of being honest.
His hand came to hold hers where it lay next to her body. "I'm sorry," he said.
"It was very little about you, Mulder." Except in the vague way that everything was about him eventually.
"I didn't think. I mean, in general, but I didn't realize. Why didn't you say something?"
"I couldn't," she says, and realizes that it isn't at all what she had meant to say, that it is, unfortunately, the truth.
He is watching her over his shoulder now, the gaze full of tenderness and guilt. She has come to recognize this as the look of a Mulder in love. "If we're going to do this, I want to get it right," he says.
"This is right," she says and squeezes his hand. He rolls over and buries his head in her neck. She sighs and rolls to press their bodies together. "I don't want the last time to stop us. I think we can do it, if we can just..."
"Avoid fucking it up?"
She laughs softly and pulls back far enough to see his face. The skin of his cheeks is warm and soft in her palms. "Look at it this way. We can always just go into denial for another few years if necessary."
His eyes get serious suddenly, but it is absolutely the good kind of serious. "I don't think so." And he leans in and kisses her.
Of course it's different--how could it not be, she thinks as he peels off her blazer, as she fumbles with his belt one-handed, as he licks his way down her stomach, as she breaks a nail on the cheap pressed-wood headboard. They are happy and whole and have mutually agreed upon--actually, she isn't sure what, but something.
But the skin of his back under her palms as she slides her fingertips up the protrusions of his vertebrae, that is familiar. And the burn of his teeth in her neck, yes, she remembers that. And the way he says her name--but that was always the same, wasn't it. He's been saying it that way for years.