The First Time, Every Time: Eve
Rated X / 2567 words / Posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic
She feels like a world class idiot, partly due to being manipulated by a pair of homicidal eight year olds. But they managed to pull one over on everyone—including their own parents—so she can’t hold herself too much at fault there. What’s really bothering her is that she knew, or at least had her suspicions, that something was off with the girls, and she let her guard down anyway. She ignored her instincts, and it nearly got both her and Mulder killed.
She sinks down onto the bed in her motel room and rubs her hands roughly over her face, cringing at the memory of how stupid she was. How naive. How uncharacteristically girlish. Allowing herself the tiny thrill of playing house with Mulder while the Eves were under their watch backfired gloriously, and as intelligent as the children are she has to imagine that was their intent. They capitalized on the vulnerability they saw in their adult escorts, stopping just short of directly calling them Mom and Dad, and it had worked so well it almost landed her in the autopsy bay. If a couple of prepubescent psychopaths can see it, it must be fairly obvious that she has a teensy little crush on Mulder. Hell, he’s a behavioral profiler, so it must be obvious to him, too.
It’s not that she has any illusions that something might happen between them, and she honestly wouldn’t even want it to. They’re completely incompatible, and that’s to say nothing for the potential impact to her career were she to act on her urges. But he’s cute, and he only got cuter when he was playing the role of doting father, ushering his gaggle of girls into the truck stop for a bathroom break and a soda. Maybe she flirted a little, and maybe he flirted back, and those damn Eves saw right through them. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
She knows that it’s Mulder knocking on her door, and she briefly considers pretending that she’s not in. But it’s late—or early, depending how you look at it—and he has the keys to the rental, so where else would she be? She hauls herself up off the bed and reluctantly opens the door just wide enough for him to see her face.
“Soda?” he asks, holding up a can of Diet Rite from the vending machine. “Factory sealed for your safety,” he adds, wiggling the can temptingly.
She smirks, despite her best attempts to suppress it, and opens the door the rest of the way. Mulder walks in and sets the soda down in front of the TV, along with a second that he fishes out of the pocket of his suit jacket, and gives her an appraising look.
“Wild night, huh?” he says, popping the tab on one of the cans.
An hour ago she was sure she’d never drink soda again, but the crack and hiss of the can opening sets off a Pavlovian response, making her mouth water. Mulder hands it to her and she takes an experimental sip. Not too sweet.
“That’s one way of putting it,” she says.
She sits on the end of the bed and he plops down beside her, close enough that his thigh brushes up against hers before he scoots millimeters away. He has a particular end-of-day smell that’s becoming familiar to her: remnants of cologne and deodorant, and the damp salted musk of sunflower seed hulls that line the bottom of his jacket pocket. She has an overwhelming urge to lean into him, but she doesn’t.
“You okay?” he asks, and she looks up at him sharply, wondering what he sees that she hadn’t meant to show him.
“Yes,” she says, perhaps a little too emphatically. “I was just thinking about Cindy Reardon’s mother. I have no idea how we’re going to explain this to her.”
“You don’t think she knew?” he wonders aloud. “Maybe on some subconscious level?”
Scully shrugs and looks at the floor.
“That little girl was the embodiment of all her hopes and dreams,” she says sadly. “Even if she knew something was off, she probably explained it away. I know I did.”
She feels him looking at her, but she keeps her eyes on the faded paisley carpet under her feet.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she says, pulling in a deep breath, “that I knew something was off about the girls, but I attributed it to the recent trauma they’d been through. I allowed my preconceptions about what innocent-looking eight year old girls are capable of to override my instincts, with nearly disastrous results.”
He bumps his shoulder against hers and she looks up at him to find a deliciously boyish smile on his face.
“Don’t go stealing all the credit, Scully,” he says, leaning in. “I demand that my contributions to the truck stop disaster be accounted for.”
His breath smells sweet and his cheeks are becoming rough with stubble. She smiles, and his smile broadens in response. He really is very charming, and she doesn’t get the sense that it’s disingenuous.
“And which contributions were those?” she asks cheekily.
“Well, for starters, slapping that soda out of your hand,” he says ruefully. “Not my smoothest move.”
“Fair enough, though in any future circumstances where you see me actively drinking poison, you have my blessing to slap it out of my hand,” she counters.
“Actually,” he says, sitting up, “I think my real mistake was saying I wanted to open your door for you. Way too unbelievable; even eight year olds know that chivalry is dead.”
She studies the side of his face while he takes a long drink of his soda, trying to decide if he’s being facetious.
“You’re actually quite chivalrous, Mulder,” she says, careful with her tone so that he doesn’t think she’s teasing him. “You open doors for me all the time. The only odd thing about it was announcing your intention to do so across a parking lot.”
He gives her a long sideways glance that sets off a nervous flutter in her belly, though she couldn’t say why.
“Does that bother you?” he asks, genuine concern in his voice. “Is it too patriarchal?”
“No,” she says immediately, and she can instantly see relief in his face. “Maybe it would if I felt like you didn’t respect me, or saw me as inferior, but you’ve never made me feel that way.”
She watches him fight off a prideful little smile before he lifts his soda can and hides it behind a drink. When he lowers the can back to his lap, his mouth is arranged into a neatly neutral expression.
“Can I confess something?” he asks, his eyes flitting between her face and the wall behind her.
Her stomach does a backflip and her mouth goes dry. She takes a drink of her soda before answering
“Sure.”
“When we were with the Eves, I kept thinking about Samantha,” he says, pausing to gauge her reaction. She’s surprised, though she shouldn’t be; the Eves are eight, the same age Samantha was when she was taken. She smiles at him sadly, and he lowers his head. “It probably contributed to me not picking up on some red flags,” he continues. “I think I was having a little too much fun with it.”
She can’t allow him to wallow in his shame alone, as much as it terrifies her to consider admitting to her own flights of fancy regarding Mulder, herself, and a couple of kids. She slides one hand over his back and gives him a reassuring pat.
“It was kind of fun,” she admits. “Until it wasn’t, anyway. And you were really good with them, Mulder.”
When he lifts his head to look at her, his face is much closer to hers than she was prepared for, and she resists the urge to move away. His eyes lock on hers and her heart picks up a little, anticipating something.
“You really think so?” he asks, his eyes narrowing in self-doubt.
Scully swallows and nods.
“Yeah,” she says, but her voice comes out in a barely audible rasp.
Two beats pass. Three. It starts to become awkward. It feels like they’re waiting for something, but neither of them appears to know what. By the fourth beat it’s unbearable and she looks away, withdrawing her hand from his back.
“I should let you go,” she says, her entire body humming.
“You kicking me out?” he asks playfully. “You have a boy coming over?”
She looks at him sharply.
“What? No,” she says insistently, finding herself extremely bothered by the idea that he’d think that.
Mulder laughs and shakes his head as he stands, tossing his empty soda can into the wastebasket and then holding his hand out to her. Slowly, cautiously, she slips her hand into his. For a second he doesn’t do anything, but then his fingers close around hers and he pulls her up in one sharp tug, and she lets out a surprised squeal just before the front of her body crashes into his. She wraps her other arm around his waist to avoid losing her balance, the half-empty soda can still in her hand, and then looks up at his face.
He’s smirking devilishly, his hooded eyes full of mischief, and she suddenly feels like prey that’s fallen into his trap. The rational part of her mind is warning her to put a stop to this immediately, but she’s too hypnotized by the hungry way he’s looking at her to move. They’re pressed together from chest to pelvis, though their height difference means that his belt buckle is digging into her belly button, his groin bracketed by her hip bones.
“I was just offering to take your can,” he says, a little bit sheepishly, and Scully feels the hot rush of embarrassment flood through her veins. Too ensnared to quickly get away, she drops her forehead against his chest to hide her face.
“Oh,” she says, her eyes screwed shut tight and her mouth grimacing. “Sorry.”
She feels the vibration of Mulder’s chuckle in her skull, and then his hand running from between her shoulder blades to the small of her back. She shivers involuntarily, and he pulls her increments closer.
“Don’t be,” he says, the pitch of his voice deeper than moments before.
He doesn’t let go, and neither does she. Their joined hands are still pinned between the front of her shoulder and his rib cage, her soda-carrying arm wrapped around his waist. His hand on her back shifts down a little, and she only realizes that her body has at some point drawn an invisible line that Mulder’s casual touches never cross when he crosses it. She feels her skin tingle just above the crack of her ass, and she slowly lifts her head off his chest.
His expression is somewhat vacant, his eyes zeroed in on her mouth. She lifts her chin and closes her eyes, allowing herself to believe that she won’t be responsible for what happens next. When she feels the heat of his mouth against hers, she begins to melt and simply doesn’t stop.
Her body softens and leans into his, her neck bending languidly to the side as his lips warm her skin. She keeps her eyes carefully closed, suspending her own reality and receiving whatever reality this is. The one where a man who she trusts implicitly, who respects her, who looks damn good in a suit and tie, is tugging her blouse out of the waist of her slacks and running his rough fingertips up her bare back. The one where he asks for her consent half a dozen times, and she gives it over and over. The one where he strikes the perfect balance of dominance and deference, where he picks her up like she’s made of air and lays her down on the bed, then turns the lights off without her having to ask.
It’s not that she has any illusions that it’s more than sex, and she honestly wouldn’t even want it to be. They’re completely incompatible, and that’s to say nothing for the potential impact to her career were she to become entangled in some kind of romantic relationship with her partner. But he’s cute, and he eats pussy like a god, and when she finally gets her hands on his dick she’s unable to stop herself from moaning in anticipation.
They don’t have a condom, but she’s still on birth control after her breakup with Ethan, and she trusts him to pull out. She also trusts him when he tells her he hasn’t been with anyone in years, that he’s been tested. She trusts him with her body, her life. She trusts him more than she’s ever trusted any man she’s allowed inside her.
He stretches her wide and she gasps from the pain, her fingernails digging into his shoulder. He stops, waiting until he feels her relax, and then rocks his hips slowly as she adjusts to him. She can’t comprehend how instinctively he touches her, how well he seems to know her body after such a brief introduction. He teases her to the edge and back more times than she can count until she finally shatters into a fit of gasps and wails, every cell in her body taking part in her orgasm. He pulls out of her sharply, the thick head of his cock brushing against the sensitive nerve endings around her opening and setting her off again as she feels the wet heat of his cum streaking across her belly. He slumps down beside her and they catch their breath in the murky dark, still too hopped up on dopamine to consider the impact of what they’ve just done.
Eventually, Mulder feels his way into the bathroom for a towel, but instead of handing it to her he presses it between her legs, gently swiping up and then mopping his semen off her belly. It’s so tender, it catches her off guard, and she suddenly worries whether this means something to him that she’s not ready for.
“Mulder—” she starts, but he lays a heavy hand on her naked hip to quiet her.
“It’s okay,” he says, not sounding nearly as concerned as she does. “Wild night.”
Scully heaves a relieved sigh, nodding in the dark.
“Yes. Wild night,” she agrees.
He waits until she’s dressed to turn on the bedside lamp, and they both squint as their eyes adjust. He’s still shirtless, his pants on but unbuttoned, and she’s surprised to feel her clit throb at the sight of him. He smiles at her fondly, plucking her soda can off the floor and tossing it into the trash can with his.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks, pulling on his undershirt.
“Yep,” she says.
It’s a little bit awkward, but not as much as she would have thought.
She sits on the bed as she watches him leave, precluding an attempt at a goodnight kiss, and he pauses halfway through the door, looking back at her expectantly.
“What?” she asks, a flush of worry making her belly tighten. Maybe this was a mistake.
“You were really good with them too. The Eves, I mean,” he says, a nervous smile on his mouth. “You’re a natural.”
“Thank you, Mulder,” she says, feeling her cheeks warm. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he says, and then he is gone.