Better, If Served On The Table
In the almost four years Scully had been working with Fox Mulder, this was the few times that he had called her by her first name. She blinked involuntarily as she tried not to laugh. Laughing seemed out place in a hospital.
"I'm okay Mulder." She wanted badly to call him Fox or William or Bill, but she didn't know what he preferred. Even his mother called him Mulder. Earlier, Skinner and the Lone Gunmen had visited her and brought her flowers with notes that wished her speedy covalesence. Mulder's gift of the magazine Adult Video News was a pleasant, if not strange, joke.
"I thought you might want to keep your mind preoccupied," he told her taking the seat next to her bed. "There's an interesting article there about how porn stars are going mainstream."
"Good. I'll read that later," Scully smiled.
Mulder took her hand and sighed, "I'm sorry..."
"Don't," she quickly intervened. She was not going to watch him go to pieces again over what was happening to her. Staying with the X-Files and with him was her personal choice. She could've gone to the AD Skinner and resigned or asked for transfer back Quantico. Scully had to acknowledge that in a way she was beginning to become like Mulder, she was becoming a crusader.
"I just can't help but feel responsible," Mulder whispered.
"If you want to atone, then maybe you can help me back to my apartment when they release me?" she told him. It helped him that he could do something, she figured, other than chasing down clones and little green men for nothing.
"That's a deal," he smiled and kissed her on her forehead.
Her bag was light and he carried it easily, his other hand was clamped on Scully's arm, just in case she felt dizzy. Scully was a little peeved at how he was treating her, like a fragile creature that could fall down any minute. But she let him do it becaused it helped him.
She fished out the keys and unlocked her apartment, she let Mulder lead her in and flip the lights on. Her apartment seemed cleaner than she had left it. "Sit down Scully and put your feet up."
It seemed that he was back to calling her Scully again, though it was fine by her, even comforting, she couldn't help but feel sad that they were back to their old routine. "Did my mother come here and clean up?" she inquired.
"Actually, I did," he confessed. She looked at him like he was a stranger. "What?"
"Nothing, I just... I just didn't expect you'd..." Scully stammered.
"Don't worry Dana, I didn't go through your drawers or anything," Mulder joked. "Although I see you have a video collection yourself."
"I don't have a collection Mulder, merely a few copies. Besides they're all supposed to be your presents but I found out that you saw them already," she said in a not-so-surprised voice. "All of them."
"And how do you know this?"
"I asked around Mulder, it's not that hard." Scully suddenly burst out laughing at the unintended phallic pun. Mulder smiled seeing her laughing again, it was a relief for him. He went to the kitchen and fetched two bottles of beer that he had chilled for the occasion of her return.
"Bottoms up Scully," he said as he opened one and handed it to her. "To safe returns."
"To safe returns," she repeated and drank. Mulder sat beside her and put his feet up on the coffee table like her.
"So Skinner asked about the possibility of you taking some more time off," he said after taking his second sip. "I said that I was willing to work with a someone else for the time being, preferably someone who's open minded." He smiled at her and she could hear her heart beating faster.
"I'm not going to leave you or the X-Files," she assured him.
"Good, because I don't think I can do this anymore without you, Dana."
Scully put her beer on the table and moved towards him, she kissed him on the lips and he pulled back, hesitant. "Don't leave me now," she said and kissed him again, this time he stayed his ground and gently welcomed her in his arms. Their tongues met and they both flinched for a second but then relaxed as it became familiar. Scully tugged on Mulder's shirt and he tugged at hers. When they separated a madness seemed to glaze over both their eyes, she was laughing. "I'm sorry." she said to him, or maybe to herself.
Her apartment suddenly became still, as if the world had faded and all she could hear was her own heart beating. The steady, rising thumping was synchronimous with Mulder's, although it might have all been a perceptual trick and nothing more. Mulder began this time, kissing and overwhelming her with his body. She was on her back and he was on top of him, their hands groping at familiar and unfamiliar spaces of each other's body.
They moaned into each other's mouth like it was a communal experience, this surge of hormones and blood into limbs long thought were inaapropriate in their relationship.
"Fuck me Mulder." There she had said it. The thing she dreaded telling him all these years. "Fuck me."
He ripped her shirt open and cupped her breast in his warm and able hands. She arched up to him. Surprised, but not quite, with his roughness and gentleness. She wasn't fragile, she hated being thought fragile and Mulder knew that about her. He thumbed her hardening nipples and she almost screamed.
Oh God oh God Mulder...
His mouth slid against her skin and the torment was driving her mad. He made slow deliberate bites along her neck and then sucks on the small valley between her breast. Scully let out a sound so unnatural and was surprised with herself.
Mulder didn't notice it at all, he continued exploring her with his mouth. His tongue danced around the hardened peak of breast while he slowly undid her pants. She helped him pull her pants off, her undergarments, a rather ungalamorous type, went along with it, saving them a step.
Scully pulled him up and kissed him again, more intense than ever. She wanted to kiss his body as well, to worship it the way he was worshipping hers. She tried to roll him on his back but he stopped her. "Wait," he said smiling a sheepish grin. "Let me do my ritual first."
A smile crossed Scully's face and she nodded. He slid down her and stopped when his mouth reached her navel. He let his tongue wet the grooves of her bellybutton before continuing down, smelling the untrimmed growth of her pubic hair. Scully shivered as his hands spread her legs apart and kissed her inner thighs. He stayed there kissing and sucking until she begged him to do go further.
Mulder's ritual was a delicate and intricate dance. His tongue and fingers probed and mapped her insides with such slow and deliberate strokes, like long draws of breath on a stick of cigarette. Scully buckled and moaned and rode through orgasms she never imagined having. Orgasms that were just theoretically possible to her not long ago.
Drenched in sweat so many other things, she whimpered as Mulder returned to kiss her once more and hold her. A sudden feeling of contentment and weariness washed through, she felt her eyelids drooping. "Goodnight Dana," Mulder whispered caressing her face, she fell asleep then.
She woke up to find that she was in bed, and not in her couch, her pjs on. Mulder was nowhere in sight and she remembered that she had fallen asleep after he did whatever magic he did to her.
Dana Scully flushed and supressed a giggle remembering how she was screaming the night before, how Mulder made her say all those things. Then she realized that she had fallen asleep before she was able to reciprocate, even thank Mulder. "Shit!"
Breakfast was on her table waiting, she ate quickly, with thoughts of how horrible she had been to Mulder. She scanned the house for a note from Mulder but found none. Scully left her dishes on the sink and hurried to the shower thinking of ways to apologize.
When she got out of the shower, wet hair sticking to the sides of her face and the back of her neck, she heard movements in her living room. Her instincts quickly drove her to reach for the small revolver she hid on her medicine cabinet. She took it off safety and cocked the hammer.
"Scully?" Mulder's voice rang like a sudden wake-up call. She breathed easily and quickly returned the gun where she had taken it, cursing herself for being paranoid.
"I'm right here," she called out, fighting off the urge to add the word 'honey'. Footsteps approached and her partner emerged on the doorway, wearing the same grey shirt and jeans he had on last night. He smiled at her but didn't come close.
"How're you feeling Scully?" he asked.
"Much better," she answered unable to meet his eyes. A long minute passed before anyone of them spoke up. "Mulder... About... About last night..."
"Don't worry about it," he grinned. "You were exhausted."
"I... I was exhausted," she agreed. Their faces met, both with big sly smiles. Scully flushed suddenly realizing that her bathrobe was slightly ajar, but she kept it that way. "So what now? What do we do?"
Mulder suddenly feeling self-concious began to wander around the bathroom. "I called AD Skinner, he says that you're to take your time resting."
"I meant with us," Scully clarified, a little annoyed but amused by the cuteness and avoidance.
"I know," her partner winked. "Quite frankly Scully," he paused and it called Scully yo full attention, "I don't see us going to dinner after going over a crime scene. Or holding hands after you perform an autopsy. Or making out while we're on a stake out."
Scully felt betrayed her own hopes and illusions. How could she have ever hoped that a man who can't even call her by her first name would want her. "Me too," she found the strength to lie to him.
Mulder frowned. "What I'm trying to say is, I think that we should keep this between ourselves and not bring this to work."
"I agree." Dana suddenly found that she could breath freely. "Bringing this," she made a gesture by pointing between him and herself rapidly, "bringing our, um, relationship to work is..."
"Bad," Mulder finished off her sentence with a smile.
"Yes, bad."
"You know that breakfast on the table, that was supposed to be served in bed," Fox William Mulder of the FBI said, scratching his chin and raising his eyebrows as he approached her.
"Was it? Then maybe something else should be served in bed," Dana Katherine Scully, FBI Special Agent, teased. She opened her robe and let him look at her.
"Actually," he smiled having a brilliant idea that very moment. "I'd prefer it served on the table."