After that night, where they sat on her couch, not really talking, where he made it loud and clear that he loves her, that he loves her, he had let himself fall asleep on her couch, with her warm body sitting next to him.
He woke up half past two a.m., under her blanket with his shoes off. He assumed she was asleep in her bed, so he left as quietly as possible, without checking on her. He did fold up the blanket, and left the souvenir he had picked out for her at Graceland on top of it.
He had almost, almost gotten her the keyring that looked like a huge wedding ring with a pink and absurdly big plastic diamond in the shape of a heart. It’s the tackiest thing he’s ever seen. He thought Scully would roll her eyes after seeing it; he even envisioned getting down on one knee just to get a laugh out of her. This is, of course, what he had planned without knowing what was taking place in Philly.
Around the gift shop, he could only think of her. Scully would look cute in that sweater. Scully would hate that tote bag. Scully would laugh at the fedora when he put it on her head. Scully would point and ask, what does TCB stand for?
Mulder considered the I Heart Elvis teddy bear. The Elvis Army bear. The Jailhouse Rock Bear. There’s the plush hound dog. There’s the suede shoes ornaments, guitar ornaments, and Graceland in a snow globe.
He just wanted to get her something that says, I was thinking of you.
Because he was.
Now, he hopes his little gift isn’t why she’s avoiding him.
She calls in sick the next day, and does not return his phone messages. It’s just strange, too strange.
Mulder gets out of the office at 5 and drives straight to her apartment. After three unanswered knocks, he takes out his key and lets himself in.
“Scully?” He hollers loudly. “Are you here?”
Nothing.
“Scully?”
He steps into her bedroom, and sees her asleep on the bed, not looking well.
“Scully!”
When did his vocabulary reduce to the size of one single word?
Scully’s forehead feels clammy. Her cheeks are flushed. She’s moaning a little when he touches her neck. Not a good moan.
“Scully, can you hear me?”
“Mulder?” She sounds confused, her eyes half-opened. “I called in sick.”
“Yes, you did.” He chuckles; she sounds like she’s 8. “What’s wrong?”
“Dizzy and tired. Wanna sleep.”
She closes her eyes and curls into a ball.
Mulder quickly devises a plan in his head. Bring down the fever. Make her comfortable. Get her food and medication. Call her mother if she doesn’t feel better? Let’s hope we won’t get to that.
What if her condition worsens?
Nope, not gonna happen. Not on my watch, he vows as he goes to fetch the thermometer. She’s done this for him enough times; he should know what to do.
What Mulder fails to realize is that, yes, though she’s done this for him a dozen times, he’s usually burning up or dizzy, and everything’s a blur.
He wipes her face and neck with a damp washcloth. He employs the Gunmen to bring him cranberry juice, orange juice, and canned soups. Byers sends a container of Italian wedding soup with Frohike, whom Mulder manages to keep out of Scully’s bedroom.
“You gotta call us if she doesn’t get better in another hour.” The older man instructs, and Mulder looks at him as if he is the one who created the bug she’s caught.
“I think I can handle this.”
“Well, Mulder, something nasty’s been going on in upstate New York. You should think about where you guys have been lately. I mean, you guys go through half of the United States in two weeks’ time...”
Mulder pushes his friend out of the door, not exactly ungraciously but certainly without patience, for manners are the last thing on his mind.
What if her tattoo is infected? What are the symptoms of ergot poisoning?
~X~
He turns Scully over on her tummy and lifts her pajama shirt, and the snake greets him. Her creamy skin and the ink are stunning to behold. Thank heavens that it does not look red. It shows no sign of swelling. There’s no discharge, lesions, nor angry streaks. Laying a soft finger around the snake, Mulder feels for hard, raised tissues.
He wonders if touching her tattoo would hurt her.
Gently, he flips her over again and lies down on the bed. Holding her in his arms, the only thing left to do is wait for the fever to break.
At 10 o’clock, Frohike calls. Mulder is happy to report that her fever is down. He leaves a phone message for a sick day tomorrow for the both of them as Scully nurses on her glass of cranberry juice.
“You really scared me.” He says, sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Mulder, I’m—”
“Save it.” He shakes his head. He doesn’t care for a sorry or a fine right now.
“How does soup sound, Scully? Italian wedding soup or vegetable and wild rice?”
“Hmmm.” She moves her hand on top of his thigh. “In a little bit?”
“How are you feeling now?” He asks again.
“Better.”
He smiles and smooths her hair away from her face. “I feel very proud today.”
She tilts her head to the right, waiting for him to explain.
“Never mind.” He grins. “C’mon, I’m hungry. What about a little soup, and maybe we can get Langly to bring over some real food. I bet Byers cooked. I have a feeling Byers cooked. And I’m sure—”
“Mulder.” Scully pats his thigh, again, to stop him from speaking. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
He nods, feeling like smiling again. “Of course.”
“And thank you for your little gift.” She smiles, her eyes dart away and return to meet his. “What does TCB stand for?”
“It’s, hum, taking care of business.”
Her head moves slightly like a nod.
“I just thought of you when I saw it at the gift shop.”
“An Elvis teddy bear in a jumpsuit?” Scully sounds amused. “Thank you.”
“That’s what he wore on the ‘Aloha shows.’”
She nods, but he doesn’t think she knows the significance of it. Doesn’t matter, he shrugs.
Scully is quiet for a few seconds, her thumb slowly smoothing out a crease on his jean.
“Taking care of business,” she murmurs.
“Yep. ‘Cause that’s what you do. That’s what we do.”
She smiles. “Soup sounds nice now.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Mulder jumps to his feet and hurries to the kitchen.
He heats up the soup in a saucepan and gathers her mustard yellow soup bowls on a wooden tray, laying out the spoons and napkins.
Taking care of business.
Humming as he watches the soup come to a boil, Mulder thinks about the very important business of his, awaiting his return.
day 1 | post never again | pre cancer arc | wc; 381 | ao3 | @today-in-fic
A new series I'm going to be writing all throughout June. Nothing special about this month in particular (aside from my birthday) just a little challenge to get back into writing. Posting this early to get it out of my system and see the reception. The rest will be posted from June 2nd onwards.
How It Was Before.
All day you had been dreadful to her; nit-picking and snapping at her for, what you came to realise, no reason. It wasn’t her fault the Bureau had denied another case to be investigated. In fact, she had tried to argue its legitimacy but they didn’t want to hear it and you hadn’t wanted to hear her apologies as you stormed out of the Cheif’s office.
Things were still tense between the two of you anyway. The Jerse…case? Situation? Occurrence? … The Philadelphia case still hung in the air. The cuts and bruises on her body had healed now but not your hurt feelings. She wasn’t being completely forthcoming about something as well and it was niggling at you. Whether a direct consequence to your fallout or something other, you weren’t sure, you just wished your partnership- and friendship- could go back to how it was.
You return from the little café down the road and venture over to her area.
“It was two sugars, right?” you ask.
Startled, she glances up at you and the coffee cup in your hand.
“That’s right,” she confirms, taking the cup from you.
So engrossed in her pile of reports she hadn’t notice you gone. She had fallen behind on reports lately, so uncharacteristically unlike her.
She takes a sip, a little sigh escaping her lips. Maybe she was expecting vending machine coffee from the cafeteria and not the good kind.
“I’ve been an ass to you lately and I wanted to apologise,” you admit.
Scully smiles, taking another sip. “Apology accepted,” she says.
You think about that thing she’s hiding.
“You can talk to me about anything. You know that right?”
You wait as she puts her cup down. Maybe she’ll use what you said as an opening to tell you what’s on her mind.
But, alas, she does not.
“I am sorry about what happened,” she says instead of.
You nod, unsure if she’s talking about their recent failed case upstairs or Jerse.
“I tried to fight it.”
Still unsure to which she is referring to, you accept it as either.
“I know. Enjoy your coffee, Scully.”
You return to your desk as she returns to her reports. You hope this is the start of getting back to how it was before.
Summary: Written for the Summer Fic Exchange. A post ‘Never Again’ fic. While undercover in Las Vegas for “Summer Getaway in Winter,” Mulder and Scully try to resolve whatever is between them.
A/N: Cross-posting on Tumblr. [Linke to AO3] | @xfilesfanficexchange Link.
Written for @serahsanguine. Prompt was "summer vacation, with loads and loads of UST, alcohol, jealousy on both parts finally resulting in RST" taken someplace between season 3-7. I hope I did this prompt well. I tried my best to stay true to the prompt, especially on summer vacation part. For Serah @SerahSanguine. I hope you enjoy. Thanks to @clover-covered-hills for a being a second set of eyes.
Songs referenced:
“I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire.” - The Inkspots
“Baby, It's Just You.” - Lynda Carter
“Love Me As Though There Were No Tomorrow” - Nat King Cole
The classic song, “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” by the Inkspots, crooned over the radio somewhere in their glitzy hotel room in Las Vegas. The door slammed open with Scully storming in wearing a black dress that hugged her body and Mulder trailing behind sputtering endless apologies. His sharply dressed-suit now sported a large red wine stain down his tie and white collared shirt. “Scully, how many times do I have to say sorry? I’m sorry, okay? What’s done is done. Water under the bridge.”
“You almost blew our cover,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be here pretending to be on summer vacation with you undercover as husband and wife. It was bad enough. Now you had to go and make a fool of yourself and ruin it. Organized Crime was daft to get us involved.”
“There’s nothing else we can do about it,” he signed, dabbing his ruined tie with a cocktail napkin. He shut the door more gently. “The orders came from Skinner. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
The Organized Crime unit desperately needed two agents to pose as a couple for a romantic vacation retreat for married couples titled “Summer Getaway in Winter” that was a front for the mob families in one of their latest money laundering schemes. Someone higher up had tapped Skinner for assistance and, in response, he assigned both Mulder and Scully to go undercover with organized crime and fly to Las Vegas to pose as a married couple and try to gain intelligence about the Di Finamore family’s latest scandal. However, after four days of posing as husband and wife, Mulder and Scully were at each other’s throats.
“This was supposed to be simple, Mulder. Just watch and observe. Then you had to go and ruin our chance by causing a scene! Trying to get closer by getting the autograph of a drag Cher performer is not the way!”
Scully kicked her heels off and lost three inches as she began to take the bobby pins out that had been holding up her hair. She could feel Mulder’s eyes penetrating into the back of her skull and shook out her hair in frustration. “Like me spilling my wine all over my shirt was part of this plan,” he replied.
She heard the acidity in his voice and she kept her steely gaze reflected on her reflection. She could still feel the tension between them. It had been days. Going on over a week. Maybe it was the nonexistent one night stand she had with Ed Jerse that still hung between them. He was still mad at something. Scully shrugged her shoulders. It felt good to have a man give her the attention that she deserved as a woman rather than the FBI agent. However, when she appeared back in the basement office covered with bruises and cuts, claiming her life was her own, that all disappeared. Ever since then, he treated her like an overprotective alpha male and she was sick of it.
“Well, you are awfully convincing about it,” she spat.
“How long is this going to go on, Scully?”
“What are you talking about?” She turned her head slightly as she took out her pearl earrings. “This farce or what this bullshit going on between us?”
“You’re still mad at me about Philadelphia?” he panned.
“And you’re still mad about me having a life outside of what we do?”
“That’s low, Scully, even coming from you.”
“Bullshit, Mulder! Instead of treating me like your pretend wife, you treat me like a whore.”
Mulder’s eyebrows shot up. “Woah! Woah! Now, wait just a second there, Scully. That is low and untrue.”
“Then why are still trying to punish me for a nonexistent one night stand. How many times do I have to tell you, Mulder? I didn’t sleep with Jerse! Get it through your thick head!”
“This isn’t about you and Jerse!” he snapped. “This is about us, Scully! How do you expect us to be husband and wife if we can’t even act like partners!”
Mulder was trying to undo his ruined tie in frustration, pulling and yanking at the silk. Scully came forward in frustration to help him as the radio band sang, “I’ve lost all ambition for worldly acclaim. I just want to be the one you love.”
“The song is rather ironic,” Mulder whispered. He stilled as Scully’s skilled fingers undid the knot and gently slide the tie from his collard.
The song continued hauntingly. “I don’t want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart.”
She refocused her gaze and met his eyes. “We need to come up with another game plan if we want to get the intel tonight.”
“Scully, Dino is gone for that night. You heard him his wife. They’ll be back tomorrow morning for breakfast, which I promise we’ll be there.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Scully rolled her eyes. “You only do things when it’s convenient for you, Mulder. Scully, I’m going on vacation, go to Philadelphia and chase down this lead. Scully, how could you sleep with a man that ended up being poisoned by hallucinogenic tattoo ink? Why on earth did you get a tattoo, Scully?” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Why do have to be so controlling, Mulder? I told you, this is my life too! We are supposed to be partners. Do you know what that means?”
“Scully…”
“Part-ner,” she stressed the syllables using her doctor’s voice. “Noun. Singular. Either a pair of people engaged in the same activity. Definition two: be the partner of.”
“I don’t need to recite to me the actual definition of what a ‘partner’ is, Scully. What do you want me to do? I’m trying.”
“Are you really? What has been bothering you most? Are you still mad about me and Jerse?”
“Are we really going down to this road, Scully? Now while we are undercover?”
“We have to have it sometime,” she said. She crossed her arms and stood up to her full five foot two height. Mulder looked away as he tried to finish undoing his tie. “The minibar is stocked full of booze if it makes it easier, Mulder.”
He glanced down at the fake wedding band on the left hand. He bit his lip before considering his words carefully. “Why now, Scully?”
“Well, let’s begin with the obvious,” she started.
She was already unzipping that gorgeous black dress that had been driving him crazy all night as she disappeared into the bathroom. The door closed. The bobby pins were coming out of her hair and he heard the pinging of them as she laid them down on the bathroom counter. Mulder was already growing uncomfortable he felt his blood rush downwards. He tried to rub it away. “Not now,” he hissed.
“Did you say something, Mulder?” Scully called.
“No,” he called. He tore off his tie and dress shirt, revealing a white t-shirt was stained with red wine under it. Scully emerged with her red hair flamed curling and wearing a white, fluffy robe. She stood in front of the bathroom with her hands on her hips. “Scully, are you trying to torture me?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Mulder. Are we doing this talk or not?”
Mulder shuddered to hear the boldness in her voice. “I might need something if we are,” he winced. “I’m almost afraid to say anything since you know how to get away with murder legally.”
“I’ll pour us a couple of drinks. This is on the Bureau's dime after all.”
“I suppose it is,” Mulder whispered in reply. This entire situation was already incredibly uncomfortable as far as he was concerned. His rational mind began already screamed that he should full brakes on this entire situation. “Scully, we really don’t have to do this.”
“I think we do,” she answered. “Ever since Jerse, you walk around with a giant chip on your shoulder. You couldn’t even finish your sentence the day I came in all bruised. I told you, Mulder. This is my life too. I won’t let the x-files or the work consume me.”
“So,” Mulder swallowed, using all of his, “how do we start this conversation?”
“I’d suggest talking.”
“It feels like we are incapable of that sometimes, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well, you’re the one with the fancy Oxford education, Agent Mulder. How would you suggest we begin?”
Scully set down two rocks glasses filled with ice and clear liquid. Mulder eyed it warily. “It’s vodka. A very, very good vodka,” she replied to his unspoken question. “The stuff you and I could not afford with our government paychecks.”
She sat down on elegant white leather couches that accompanied the California King bed in the other corner. She folded her legs under her so that her bare toes were the only things that stuck out from underneath her fluffy robe. Mulder crossed his legs uncomfortably in a vain attempt to hide the growing evidence of his distraction. “How about the way I treated you? Maybe we should just keep my mouth shut before I do something else embarrassing.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Anything I say to you gets me in trouble regardless.”
“Aw, Jesus Christ, Mulder. Quit playing the martyr card. I don’t have time for that shit.”
“Just like you did with Jerse.”
Scully’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I did not sleep with him! I merely spent the night. What the hell makes you think I did?”
“The police reports, Scully! You were wearing a man’s shirt!”
“Doesn’t mean I fucking slept with him, Mulder! You know me for Christ’s sake.”
“Then what do you call it?”
Scully picked up the expensive vodka and downed in one smooth gulp. The fiery liquid burned in her veins and she winced. “I don’t know, Mulder. What would you call it? Being an overprotective ass? Some summer vacation this is turning out to bed.”
“It’s February,” he muttered in annoyance.
“Doesn’t matter. We’re in the desert. Las Vegas. This marriage retreat is ‘Summer Getaway.’ We’re on summer vacation,” she corrected bitterly. “Why the fuck does the exact choice of words matter, Mulder?”
“So what? Now you’re cursing like a sailor?”
“I’m mad!” Scully slammed the glass down. “I’m mad at you! Do you think that I am incapable of feeling emotions?”
“I don’t know? You are so fucking closed off to the world. How the fuck am I supposed to know what you are thinking?”
Mulder was furious at this point. The combination of being tired of Scully’s closed nature and endless nagging was quickly wearing him down. She frowned and her brow creased with anger. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“What do you want me to do, Scully? How am I supposed to treat you?”
Scully arched an eyebrow. “What are you afraid of, Mulder? Are you jealous?” Mulder recrossed his legs and grimaced. “Does it bother you that I am finally speaking my mind?” She leaned forward, grabbed the other glass, and emptied in one draught. “Or the fact that I am not acting like the usually Agent Scully that you know?”
Mulder could not help but glance down her robe before quickly looking away. He missed her satisfied smile. “What do you want, Scully?”
“I want you to acknowledge me as you used to, Mulder. As your equal.”
“I still do!”
“You haven’t in weeks,” she scoffed. “You’ve been treating me just like any man who has tried to take over my life.”
“Scully.”
She poured another hefty helping of vodka into the two glasses and glared at Mulder. “You know, you haven’t moved once since we sat down. Have a drink with me,” she challenged. “Show me.”
“Show you what?” He asked. “What on earth has gotten into you, Scully? You aren’t acting like yourself.”
She held out the glass and he took it reluctantly. “Maybe it’s the alcohol. What bothers you more, Mulder? The fact that beneath this,” she motioned to her robed body, “or is that fact that I can be more than Agent Scully?” She shook the vodka glass as the ice clinked against the sides, mocking Mulder. “Is it the thought of me with Jerse?”
“Scully, stop it. I think you’ve had enough to drink.”
“This is supposed to be summer vacation. We’re undercover. You know, Jerse took me to some rock bar. It reminded me of something from my teenage years. It was nice to pretend but it wasn’t me.”
“What’s you?”
Scully smiled enigmatically. “You’re looking at me like that again.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t know what to do with me.”
“I don’t.”
“Tell me, Mulder,” she answered. “What do you see?” She sipped the vodka and slipped onto the couch next to him. Her expert blue eyes caught the evidence of him being uncomfortable. “What do you want from me?”
Mulder could see this situation spiraling horribly out of control like an airplane falling to the Earth about to explode. But the look in her eyes pulled at his heart and he found the jealousy that sprung like a vocal no originally ebb underneath her healing gaze. “I was hoping this undercover assignment would be a chance for us to turn the page, start anew. You’ve been nothing but mad at me since we got here. I am tired of us fighting, Scully. I was jealous.” She raised an eyebrow and he corrected himself. “I am jealous. I wish we could really take a summer vacation and just get away from it all.”
“You just had a vacation,” she pointed out.
He shrugged. “It wasn’t really that exciting. I would have rather been with you.”
Scully rested her head on her hand and sipped the vodka. “I was really pissed at you.”
“I can imagine. I think you shot me the last time.”
“I still saved you.”
“That’s my favorite scar,” he whispered. He watched her eyes glaze over either from the alcohol or emotions. “I know that sounds a bit macabre but it is true.”
Silently, Scully set the glass aside and leaned closer to him. She glanced down at his lap. “That evidence suggests you are hardly jealous of Jerse,” she murmured.
He tried to pull away but her gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him. “I don’t know what you are trying to do, Scully, or what you want.”
“What do you want, Mulder? Did you wish it had been you?”
“Scully, I don’t think you are in your right frame of mind,” he stuttered trying to push away.
Scully got up in a fit of rage. “What do you want me to do, Mulder?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “At one moment, I thought we were just partners. The next, after Jerse, I thought you jealous, genuinely jealous. Maybe we could have something after you finally got it through your thick skull that this is my life. I choose who I want to be with. And I see that this…” She gestured wildly to her robe, the empty glasses, and vodka bottle, “was useless.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, standing up suddenly. The blood rushed to the groin again and he winced. “You have me acting like a fool, Scully. I don’t know what you want me to do. Do you want me to be angry? Do you want to pretend what we have is nothing?”
Scully crossed her arms and eyed the enlarged bulge on his suit pants. “What we have is not nothing,” she sighed. “I didn’t sleep from Jerse because of you. You are the one who stopped me. No matter how mad or angry I get with you, it means nothing at the end of the day.”
The radio switched to a new song came on by Lynda Carter, “Baby It’s Just You.” The upbeat jazz ensemble began as she began like a siren. “Like an earthquake starting to roll, I felt my world shake out of control. Like a new world war starting to brew. Baby, it’s just you.” Mulder held out his hand as the song continued. “Like a cyclone, wild and extreme, I got my mind blown, stalking a dream. Waking up without a clue, ‘cause baby, it’s just you.”
The longest moment paused between them but Scully grasped his open hand and allowed him to pull her close. Roles were forgotten. Work was nonexistent. It was just them. Mulder and Scully. She wrapped her other arm around his neck and pulled him down with gentle pressure. Their foreheads bumped awkwardly and Mulder smiled. Scully pressed against him. “This is for me, huh?”
“For once, I don’t have to hide it.”
They smiled as the singer’s voice continued her siren song. “Help me, help me, rescue my heart. Save me, save me from falling apart. Take me, take me, baby I’m sure. You’ve got the power, you’ve got the cure.”
They swayed together as Scully wrapped her arm around his neck pulling him close. The tempo picked up and she smiled and chuckled. In perfect time, they continued their small little waltz. “I was hoping we could put things to rest,” Mulder continued. “I...I realize that this, whatever it is...we could move forward somehow. Or at least get rid of the bad blood between us that presides over Jerse.”
“I’m willing to move forward if you are,” she whispered.
The song continued and Mulder swayed with her. “Yes,” he promised.
Taking that as a hint, she inches forward, and gently kissed him. It was a simple innocent kiss but the flame swallowed them whole. They broke away briefly to ground themselves in the hotel room. Scully’s hand snaked downwards, her deft fingers unbuckling Mulder’s black leather belt, undoing the button, and zipping down the fly. He took a deep breath and gave a weak smile. “You have me at an unfair advantage here, Scully,” he whispered.
She squeezed him firmly. “I’m a doctor, Mulder. It’s my job to always have the edge.”
He smiled. “Well, Agent Scully, let’s investigate shall we?”
He kissed her again, delving his tongue into her mouth, tasting the drops of vodka from earlier. She moaned in appreciation and began to pull him backward with her to the large king size bed. “Turn out the lights except for the lamp,” she ordered softly.
Her blood was singing as she had fantasized about this moment before. Sometimes it was in their basement office or some motel on the road as they were wrapping up the case. Maybe it had been in a moment of passion or anger. But not like this. The idea of pretending to be someone else was alluring. She played with those cards while she had been of Jerse in Philadelphia but nothing had come of it. Their undercover roles as husband and wife weren’t right either. She twisted off the fake wedding band and placed it on the nightstand. Mulder turned out most of the lights except the lamp she had indicated.
The radio faded to Doris Day and he smiled. “The radio is playing all the right tunes, Scully. Why can’t we?”
“Leave it on.”
The music slowed time as if freezing the moment. Mulder kicked off his shoes and socks. Scully propped herself up on her arms to watch him. “Take off the wedding ring, Mulder.”
“What? How come?”
“Just do it.”
He slipped off the gold band and placed it by the white leather couches. “Now what?”
“Just come here.” He took of the stained white shirt and cast it aside. It was almost like a weight being lifted off of him. He was no longer chained to being Agent Mulder or whatever stupid alter ego the Bureau had dreamed up for their undercover case. He was himself again. They were themselves. “What?”
“Just thinking,” he murmured.
He walked forward, slowly, trying to look confident and in control but Scully burst out laughing. “Stop it, Mulder. You're not making this any easier.”
“First times are never easy,” he answered. He lay beside her on the bed. “I was trying to play it cool. They are awkward, uncomfortable, sometimes forgettable.”
“I’m certain this won’t be.” She propped her head up on her hand and gently traced the puckered wound near his shoulder. “Are you certain you want to do this?”
“Yes. You?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “No regrets, Scully. Whatever happens between us, it doesn't change a thing.”
“What happens if it does, Mulder,” she asked. Scully let her mind drift to malignant possibilities of what they had destroyed. “What happens…”
Mulder silenced her with a searing kiss that zapped away any lingering doubt that she had between them. She let released her arms and rolled onto her back pulling Mulder closer. “No ‘what happens’ or ‘what ifs’ tonight, Scully.” He kissed her again on her forehead, her temple, her lips. She unconsciously arched her back slightly. “I was jealous. I only imagined what Jerse did to you. I was filled with regret. Regrets that I wasn’t the one who could show you how you deserve to be treated.”
He leisurely ran his hand down her bare thigh. He arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Well, it’s you now,” she whispered.
“Do you want to pretend some more?” He kissed her softly. “Pretend that we are on summer vacation? Have another drink?”
“I don’t want to cloud my senses anymore,” she told him. “I’m already quite buzzed and feeling quite good. No. I want to do this just as us, Scully and Mulder.” She raked her fingers through his hair. “I want this to mean something.”
“It already does.” Mulder chuckled and pulled at the knot bounding her robe. She breathed sharply as the cool air hit her bare skin and Mulder’s warm fingertips traced her smooth abdomen. “You were holding out on me, Scully.”
“Hm. Maybe I had a feeling or maybe I finally knew what I wanted with my life,” she told him. “There are still some barriers between us.”
“I want to take my time first.”
In true Vegas fashion, the radio changed to Nat King Cole’s “Love As There Is No Tomorrow.” They smiled at one another as Mulder peeled the robe back like a forbidden fruit. God, how long he had dreamed and fantasized about this moment. Scully, before him as the amazing goddess who stood by him over the past four years as the chased monsters in the dark and became his staunchness defender standing over an autopsy table or by his side in front of Skinner’s desk. He, himself a feeble mortal, allowed to worship at her alter.
Mulder’s fingers traced her body, slowly working his way upwards. Nat King Cole continued in the background. Scully closed her eyes and let her simply enjoy the moment. He gently traced his fingers around her left areola before trailing his tongue and smothering it away with a kiss before moving onto the right. Scully continued to run his fingers through his hair and sigh with ecstasy.
Scully didn’t know why she had let herself go for so long without feeling this...this moment. Everything that encompassed it. He was gentle in his explorations, revenant even. He tore away the remains of the rob as she took of the remains of his lower clothing. Time stood still as they explored each other. Mulder worked his way down, his lips and tongue leaving a path like breadcrumbs to the ultimate treasure. Scully sighed with pleasure as her entire body shivered.
The reaction did not go unnoticed by Mulder. He continued to run his hands up and down her body reverently, trying to memorize every aspect of her and this moment. Scully closed her eyes. Jerse didn’t even come close. Ethan was just to proper and his nagging pressure to marry him properly was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Jack continued to treat her as his subordinate, never fully able to disengage with the role of instructor. While their relationship had its sweet moments but mostly was one-sided. They mutually ended it after three months. Then Daniel. She fell for him because of what he represented. She ended it because he wanted to tuck her away on a shelf like a replica of a bygone era as his wife.
But Mulder…
She gasped as he struck gold. It had been so long since she allowed herself to be a woman and simply be present in the moment. This recent strike of rebellion was not born out of resentment towards Mulder (although he did act like an ass). But it was a sudden desire to change things between them. A few weeks ago, Scully had experienced a horrific nose bleed. She tried to put it out of her mind but then there was a second nose bleed. At a regular check-up, she mentioned it off handly to her doctor who suggested seeing a specialist for high blood pressure. After all, Scully was in a very dangerous profession. But because of Philidelphia and this stupid undercover assignment, she had yet to find the time.
But in the back of her mind, despite the doctor’s assurances and her own medical training, she had the growing feeling of something bad happening. With that growing feeling slowly starting to gnaw at her insecurities, she decided to take a chance tonight and confront Mulder and see what would happen. She was not complaining at all.
She left his nose nudge that sensitive area away, that marvelous sunflower shucking tongue of his play her like a violin. The warmth was slow at first, like a distant memory, growing at the base of her spine and pelvis. But it was growing slowly, like a smoldering wildfire. He pinched, licked, and teased. It soon became all too much for her and she screamed his name in satisfaction. Mulder lifted his head with a shit eating grin on his face.
“I bet Jerse couldn’t make you scream like that,” he told her.
Scully was on her back, panting heavily. Mulder’s large hands were tracing her legs, her body, everywhere. She chuckled and pulled him upwards so they could be even. “No one has,” she whispered.
She felt like her entire body melted. Had it really been so long since she allowed herself to feel this good? He was gentle in his ministrations, kissing her tenderly. She could taste herself on his lips and it made her weak in her knees. They crawled beneath the 800 Egyptian thread count cotton sheets and he propped his head upon his arm to drink her in. “Scully, you okay?” His fingers traced her profile. She nodded and turned onto her side to press herself against him. She felt the length of him against her stomach. This moment was going to her head. She couldn’t think or reason. Mulder smiled. “Just be in the moment, Scully.”
“Be in the moment. I was by taking a risk like this.”
“I think it is ending up rather well, don’t you?” She was silent. “Scully? Did I say something wrong?”
“Is this just a meaningless one night stand?”
“No!” He promised. He kissed her again and Scully knew she had been lying to herself for a while. “No, I promise. I don’t know how to put into words what I feel. We’ve never actually, uh, been good at that.”
“Actions speak louder than words,” she murmured.
“They do.”
Both burst out laughing after a serious moment of silence as Scully rolled on top of him. “Enough chatter,” she whispered. “I’m tired of waiting.”
She was beyond ready. Mulder’s admission that this meant more than a one night stand sealed the deal. She slid down his engorged member and they both moaned at the sensation. Nothing had ever felt so good. Maybe it was whatever had been between them vanishing or four years of pent up stress disappearing or just finally consuming the next evolutionary step in their relationship.
They moved in synchrony, just like they did together in their work. Mulder watched, entranced, as she moved above him like a graceful spirit. He was convinced that this was too good to be true. After all this time. Scully place both of her hands on his shoulders, the pad of her thumb caressing the puckered bullet scar. He grimaced at the pure pleasure of being in her surprised by her own inner strength. “Mulder,” she whimpered.
She rested her forehead against his. A thin sheen of sweat covered his back. “I love you,” he confessed, unable to stop himself.
“I know, Mulder. Me too.”
Their frequency increased, either out of desperation or eagerness to feel every aspect of one another. “I’m close, Scully. I...I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
She nodded wordlessly, panting. “Let go, Mulder. Let go.”
“What about you?”
“It’s okay,” she hushed.
She took his hand with hers and guided below him into the familiar circular rhythm that had gotten her through many lonely nights. Mulder’s eyebrows raised in surprise ad his hazel eyes focused with the intensity that she shuddered. The orgasmic pleasure both felt was overwhelming. It was Mulder first that broke as he cried out into her shoulder. Scully held him close as she rode out the last of his orgasm to help her own. With curled toes and stars behind her eyes, she felt the wave crash over the cliff with both of them on it.
“That…” Mulder laughed. “That was something.”
He wiped away a strand of her wild hair and she smiled. Drunk off their post-coitus lovemaking, laughed like she hadn’t in ages. Mulder held her tightly, his own laughter dancing off the Vegas suite. Then she felt it. The light trickle above her lip. She touched her finger to her nose and saw red blood. “Not again,” she muttered, rushing to the bathroom.
Scully nearly tripped over the sheets dashing to the bathroom with Mulder hot on her heels. She grabbed a wad of toilet paper and pinched her nostrils in an effort to stem the flow. “Scully?” Mulder asked. She could detect the worry in his voice. “Are you okay?”
She jumped feeling his warm hand trace down the length of her spine, momentarily forgetting the current state of their undress. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. It’ll stop in a few minutes.”
She looked at their reflections in the mirror. Mulder stood behind Scully, wrapping his arms around her waist, and resting his chin perfectly atop her red hair. Holding the tissue to her nose, she tilted her head back and rested it against his chest. She could vaguely hear his heartbeat and had a strange sense of deja vu. After ten minutes, she managed to stop the bleeding and Mulder hugged her tightly. “Ready for bed?”
“Yeah,” she answered him.
She threw away the bloodied toilet paper and eyed it one last time before letting Mulder bring them back to bed. He held the blanket open for her as she climbed in first and then him. Scully let herself be wrapped up in his embrace, forgetting about the bloody noses and the fact they were supposed to undercover.
“You know, Scully,” he whispered, “we should consider summer vacation more often.”
“It’s February,” she yawned. “In the desert.”
“Don’t ruin this fantasy, Scully,” he whispered. “This the beginning of something wonderful. I promise.”
“Promise me that nothing will change between us,” she breathed.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re still equaled.”
“In every aspect. Do you want me to get you a desk?”
“No. Not right now.” A small smile played on Scully’s lips. They watched the Vegas lights dance outside their room window. “This is perfect right now.”
Or the second coming of Ed Jerse. Post IWTB. Pre-Revival.
You can blame @dangerscully @defnotmeyo @startwreck @sunflowerseedsandscience and the rest of the rewatch reprobates for this. It’s definitely mature, tw: for rough sex and extreme angst. No beta and my apologies. In advance.
Scully hadn’t noticed him at first. She’d been too busy holding it together, painting on a neutral mask that identified her neither as the terrified newcomer or someone who truly needed to be in this dingy hall. She’d avoided eye contact, made crap coffee at a table whose uprightness was only slightly more precarious than her own, and found a seat without incident. She could do this, she reasoned, keeping her shoulders square like this whole scenario wasn’t a last, desperate resort. The therapist that the hospital had forced her to see after the incident had insisted she try group therapy. The words had been kind, logical even. “Your insistence upon isolating and internalising your unhappiness is hindering any sort of progress”, but Scully knows that her personal brand of tragedy goes far beyond what any other person, let alone group of people, could understand.
After all, that’s why Mulder won’t -
No.
She doesn’t want to think about him now. She needs FBI distance to survive this hour of shared human misery. Her fingers crimp the cup and the coffee inside swells up and subsides along with the averted crisis, taking with it the noise in the room as introductions begin.
Dana. She says quietly. These people don’t need Scully. That’s all she says as she scans the circle of faces impassively and selects an area of mottled wall to drown out the sympathy she can’t stand to see. She plans to offer no more. She plans to sit, to count out her hour, in breaths and heartbeats and then go back to the darkness of their home where at least she can hide from it all.
But there’s movement on the edge of her vision. A pale crescent of anonymous face leaning in, again and again, until not looking becomes harder than just a glance and for the first time in her life Scully sees a ghost.
Under the fluorescent striplights his face is flat and wraithlike and his eyes are hollow. Maybe this was always how he looked in the light, but Scully had only known him in shadow, in the flickering sin of a neon sign, in the stark white lines street light cast on tangled sheets. By firelight.
“I’m Ed. Jerse,” he says. To the whole group but really just to her and his voice is a nightmare that burns through three years of numbness to coil in her belly.
He keeps talking. Sharing, Scully vaguely assumes as words reach her in unanchored bursts. “Prison,” and fingers of fear creep through the bars of her ribcage, ruffling the calm, cold detente she’s built to survive. “Regret,” and there’s a depth to the hard black of his stare that makes her lean in, just in time for, “forgiveness”. Doesn’t he know that there’s no such thing, she wonders, watching his fingers twist in his lap, scars rippling, remembering how they had felt on her body, under her clothes.
“I just wish,” Jerse says, sincerity balled up between his teeth and delivered on a sad smile, “that I could find a way to tell her, the last woman I hurt, how sorry I am. How badly I wanted her to be able to save me. How much it meant that she tried, even though she barely knew me.”
Scully bites back a laugh, teeth sharp on her lip to the point of pain, she’d never wanted to save Ed. Not really. Every moment with him had been about trying to save herself. Or destroy herself to start over. Whichever it was, by the time she’d realised the danger, preservation had been her only priority, appealing to the ego over the ergot and praying it would be enough. It hadn’t been, and as the death glow of the furnace washes through her memory bringing with it the fatty smell of cooking skin, she tastes blood and comes back to the present.
The group is gathering its things. Except Ed, who is sat staring at her, eyes fixed the the bloody seduction of her bottom lip, hands finally still.
She shouldn’t go over, but she does, standing just an inch too close, towering over him as he had once in his hallway.
He looks up, half cloaked now in her shadow and much more like the man she once knew. She feels almost like the girl she once was. Before the cancer. Before love was a word she spoke out loud. Before she really knew what broken was. She wonders if this counts as group therapy. Stepping closer she relishes the empowering recklessness of a bad decision made for selfish reason/
‘Dana-’ Jerse begins and she silences him with a flash of blue.
“You want my forgiveness?” she asks, the words molasses thick and treacle bitter on her tongue and he nods, despair and desire battling in his gaze. “Okay” she says, and leaves the hall, knowing he will follow.
She drives her own car, the steady glare of his headlights intense as a lover’s stare, unblinking in their devotion to whatever she is willing to give. He is her terrified, tantalised shadow at the motel check-in, a sharp inhale when the devil in her requests the suite with the fireplace and turns to watch his cheeks burn with shame.
In the room she makes him watch her build the fire, silence stretching ever thinner between them as the newspaper dissolves the day’s news into ash, along with the last of her sanity, and the flames lick seductively across the pale tiles of the hearth.
“Touch me”, Scully says finally, when the charge becomes unbearable. “Make me forget”, and Jerse knows enough about pain and regret not to ask what it is she is trying to bury.
Instead he crosses to her and runs his hand, thumb first, from her cheekbone to the nape of her neck. A tenderness she hadn’t banked on scares her out of her planned passivity; she needed to be touched, to be wanted, but not like this and not by him.
“No”. And her grip on his wrist is cruel, firmer even than his was in that dingy bar, South Nowhere, Philadelphia, all those years ago. She forces his hand into a fist, trapping her hair inside and then tugs his arm down, jerking her own head back to reveal the delicate column of her throat and the wild, wanton drumming of her pulse.
“Do it like before”.
She grinds herself against him, echoing the way he’d pushed her past recklessness and into his wreckage.
“Fuck me.”
And he does.
The cheap frames on the mantle fall and shatter as he drives her against the wall, lifting her to his hips and setting his teeth to the unsullied snow of her skin. He marks his way across it, teeth and breath melting and biting away all the months of loneliness, all the cold of rejection as she scores her need into the skin under his shirt.
She wants him to bleed. She wants him to burn. She wants him inside her with the prickling anxiety of a tattoo needle, scratching away the last vestiges of something pure and replacing it with lurid, living colours.
And he gives it to her. Bent forward over his knees, skirt round her ass and panties barely to one side as he drags her back to him over and over, slickening and slamming as her heels dig into the wall for some sort of stability. She’s ragdoll powerless in his grip, cock driving and thoughts crumpled with his boxers as their rhythm animates the serpent writhing on her back, temptation turned destruction as it devours itself eternally. It’s not pleasure exactly, it’s more like fire, lighting up the dark spaces inside them, warming at first but soon blazing, sparking shards of agony breaking off and rushing to the nape of her neck, to the knotted scar of Ed’s hand bruising her her hip, to the aching broken place where her heart used to beat.
It’s not enough, she can still think, still feel and she needs to be consumed. She needs him to need her, to sacrifice himself at the altar of her forgiveness, martyr himself to her cause and she throws herself away, arching her back as he looms over her like the animal he became in Philly and begs him for more. She knows there is more. She can smell it on his skin, like alcohol and rye and death.
Scully screams when he drives into her this way. He’s bigger than Mulder, and fucking her like Mulder never would, one hand gripping her throat and the other between her legs, forcing a blistering friction that borders on pain and when Jerse roars out his climax she doesn’t even have the breath left to wonder if maybe he’s going to kill her. All she can see is the ugly maroon carpet, blurring into darkness as her climax carves out what’s left of Dana Scully and leaves her empty.
Ed is gone by the time she works her way back to consciousness, though evidence of his participation is still sticky on her thighs. Scully knows she should feel bad, how many times in her life has her need to make things right led her to the darkest places, but she’s too hollow for regret.
Ed needed forgiveness and she needed to feel something beside the crippling sadness that was Mulder, unresponsive in his office for days at a time. She needed to experience life outside the walls of the hospital where her colleagues handle her with kid gloves, afraid theirs might be the next nose she breaks over a gallows humour joke meant to lighten another hopeless diagnosis. She needed to be something beyond the disappointment she saw every Sunday she showed up to her mother’s alone. She needed to be something to someone beyond their saviour or their sacrifice. She needed to be human and she needed to hurt and be hurt in a way that had a beginning and an end, to break the circle. Ed owed her at least that. He’d been there at the beginning and he’d given her an end.
She stays in the motel, lets her phone die and wonders if by some miracle Mulder will remember he’s meant to search when she goes missing. He doesn’t.
After three days she returns, wheels weary on the long track to their unremarkable desolation of a home.
He’s in the kitchen when she kicks off her shoes, marooned between the sink and the island like he was in the middle of doing something and forgot how to carry on. She wonders how long he’s been there.
“Mulder”. She offers him an opening, tearing just a millimeter into the dam behind which she’s learned to keep her feelings, begging him to hear the hurt and the heartbreak ad to notice that something is terribly, horribly wrong.
But he doesn’t, absently looking at her without seeing and asking where she’s been in a way that makes it clear he has no idea how long she’s been gone.
The darkness inside her yawns and inches a little closer to the surface, almost ready to swallow her, but she will not follow him into this endless night
Instead, Scully seals her feelings back up and grits her teeth, clinging the the spark of anger that is the only thing she still feels beside the numbness of hurt, and stalks over to him, ruffling his space in warning before drawing her hand back to slap him. Hard.
Mulder only blinks and steps back, red blooming under the indoor pale of his skin in a pale imitation of the passion she once used to be able to arouse.
“Scully.” He names her clinically, with no inflection. As if she is a known specimen and there is no mystery, no Mulder left at all.
“I went back to Philadelphia." Scully taunts, playing her last card, calling in a shared horror and holding her hair aside to show him the evidence of Jerse’s mouth on her skin, writing her betrayal in smoke signals in her eyes and praying for a response, for a reaction… for a miracle. He has to remember.
When Mulder doesn’t move, she closes her eyes and prays, though she knows she has little right to another divine intervention. God knows how many they’ve wasted.
The darkness behind her eyelids thickens with finality when she hears footsteps, headed away, and then the study door snicks closed.
It’s over.
The door is still closed two days later when she takes her things and leaves him.
