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She’s the practical one, always has been. The one who tidies the messes, who offers a but realistically to each and every unrealistic situation. The one who tethers them both to solid ground, despite a certain someone’s penchant for floating away.
But oh. Oh, right now, she’s the one floating— the one gasping so long, farewell to every practical, realistic thing she’s ever known.
There are one hundred eighty heaving pounds atop her and tears in her eyes. Spent breaths at her temple, fingertips pressed to her scalp. There’s hard turning soft, and there’s slippery, there’s sticky, there’s slick, coating the insides of her thighs.
There’s Mulder.
My God, after seven years, there’s Mulder.
He slips from inside her, and out trickles more slick, more sticky, more him. It surprises her how much she likes it—Mulder seeping into the skin of her thighs.
In the past, in her boring, practical past, that trickle had been her cue— to disappear discreetly into the bathroom, to offer an excuse me for a moment while I… She doesn’t even consider it now.
He tries to roll away, but she clutches at his shoulders, gasps no a bit too desperately against his throat.
“Not yet,” she breathes, “Don’t...” Don’t let reality hit us just yet, she doesn’t say.
Blanketing himself back atop her, he murmurs her name, presses lips to her hairline, her brow bones, the soft, curved tips of her ears.
She remembers the first time he touched her, palm to palm in the basement, this curious, brilliant, rogue-ish sort of man. There’d been a pull—deep, deep inside—even then.
Tonight he’s touched her again—palm to palm, palm to cheek, palm to breast, palm to the furry, wet part of her that denied that pull the very hardest. And now… now that pull is begging: Stay.
Seven years worth of practical, 2555 days worth of we shouldn’t, 61,320 hours worth of repressing and denying and—
His stubble scrapes her cheek, his chest hair leaves sweaty, curlicued impressions against her breast. The sheet beneath her soaks them both in.
It will hit her—the practical—but for now, for these fleeting few moments he’s heavy against her, she’ll Stay.
He mouths languidly at her earlobe, kisses the makeup from the mole beneath her nose. Thirty minutes ago was frenzied, it was desperate, but this… this is... She draws him closer, traces her tongue along the ridged and bumpy roof of his mouth, tries to crawl her way inside—just for a while.
“I’ve wanted this,” he says between kisses, “almost since the beginning,” and she looks into his eyes, those same green eyes that sparkled with mischief behind corrective lenses that very first day. Her Me, too comes out as a hum, pressed open-mouthed to his pulse.
The air conditioner buzzes to life, and when the chill of it tries seeping between their bodies, she pulls him even closer. So much has been taken from her; she won’t let the heat of his skin be torn away, too. At least not yet.
Touching, caressing, mouths on mouths and lips on skin, hands everywhere—sigh, everywhere. The fast, frantic pace of earlier turns slow, it turns sensual. There are parts on his body that make him gasp when they’re touched, bits of skin that rouse a soft moan. He rolls heavy hips against her, again and again and again.
There are photos, of the two of them, tacked to the wall in the basement—unguarded moments caught by a crime scene photographer. As though they’re evidence, pieces of some unanswered puzzle. She wants a photo of this, of these dreamlike moments before reality sets in. Complete with yellow plastic evidence placard placed on the floor, inscripted simply: Stay.
His skin tastes like the seashore, and the hairs on his leg grow slick from the slow, dreamy way she rocks against his thigh. She’s imagined the during, many, many times, but has somehow never considered the after. The after, oh, she should’ve considered it.
He grunts softly, shifting, lips pressed to her jawline, fingers to the spot where crimson-colored ink lies beneath her skin. He rolls them both, tangles their legs even further, until it’s indiscernible where he ends, where she begins, until they’re simply a sailor’s knot of limbs and lips and warm, damp skin, entwined on pale blue sheets.
It scares her practical side—the way their outlines are blurred, the way he presses against her body so solidly, he’s surely beneath her skin—but her floating side revels in it, tether to the ground be damned.
“I can’t…,” he murmurs against her cheek, “…can’t stop touching you…,” and he kisses her again, hungrily, her face cradled between his palms.
Stop, he’s been told, too many times. Stop searching, stop insisting, stop pushing for answers that will never be found. “Don’t then,” she breathes, lips to his ear. “Don’t stop.”
There’d been no time for exploration earlier, no time for wet trails down her body, for the drag of his bottom lip as it slides across her skin. He closes his mouth over a nipple and she whimpers. “You’re so…” he mumbles, “Christ, Scully…so—” but then his tongue is flicking and her back is arching and he never finishes his thought. She’s sure it pales in comparison though—whatever he meant to say—to the things he’s doing with his mouth right now.
Her hips grow restless, rising and falling as he sucks at her breast, but he stills them, slides a palm over her belly and presses. Her fingers clench in his hair.
His hand slides further still, slips between her thighs to the spot where the two of them were joined just moments ago. She moans softly, her nerve endings still twitching from before. It’s absurd, how right this feels, how the curve of his hand molds against her body so precisely. She sighs, allowing her legs to fall open.
He lingers there, slipping and sliding through her folds, trailing the slickness back through her curls and onto her abdomen. “It’s us, Scully,” he whispers, awestruck, holding up his fingers, sucking them into his mouth.
It leaves her breathless, the way he does that, the way he groans, and when he puts those same fingers to her lips, she allows him inside, tastes seven years’ worth of longing against her tongue.
He kisses her, desperately, fingers forgotten and his body deliciously heavy at her side. “Mulder,” she says softly—not a question, not an answer, just Mulder—then nips gently at his lips, threads her fingers through the unruly scruff of his hair.
He rearranges them, spoons her against his chest. “Here,” he whispers at her ear, as if she’d be anywhere else, as if he’s not the only big spoon she could want on this disheveled silverware drawer of a bed.
She remembers—other nights, other men. Other afters, when she’d have already been dressed and beneath the sheets again. His stubble scrapes the bared curve of her shoulder and she shudders.
His hand slips back between her thighs again, and this time she’s ready, canting her hips forward to meet him. “Show me,” he whispers, pulling her hand down, too, tangling their fingers together to search out her clit.
“Jesus, Mulder—” He makes her want to do things she’s never done, and it throws her off-balance, it makes her weak. Fox Mulder is her Achilles’ heel, and he knows it.
She takes his hand. “Like this,” she murmurs, then presses.
Round and round they circle, her middle finger atop his, while her heartrate quickens, while his cock grows steadily hard again against her rear. It’s mesmerizing, touching him while he touches her, pleasure looping through and around and between.
He learns her rhythm quickly, so her fingers stray, caressing the back of his busy hand, exploring his forearm—the hairs there, the play of muscles beneath his skin. This man, of the sunflower seeds and the unanswered questions, of the undying devotion and the inquisitive mind—he steals her breath away.
“Now…,” she murmurs, guiding him lower, “here…” She presses his forefinger and middle finger inside, guides his hand into slow, deep strokes while rocking her hips against him. “Yes,” she hisses, her neck arching back.
He breathes her name, presses kisses along her jawline, his hips pulsing against her rear in time with his fingers. “Yes,” she sighs again, when his other hand wraps around from beneath to land at her breast.
He explores, plucking at her nipple, skimming lazy knuckles over the peak until she’s whimpering. His teeth scrape gently down her throat, and when she arches against him, he moans his encouragement. He’s hard again behind her. He’s getting off on playing with her, she realizes, and the idea of that is intoxicating.
She grinds back against him, his length along her rear making her dizzy. His answer is to thrust his fingers even more deeply inside her, to pinch her nipple until a breathless oh God spills from her lips.
“So beautiful,” he whispers, nuzzling her neck, “Christ, Scully.”
The pressure builds. Mulder wrapped around her brain for the last several years is one thing, but wrapped around her body as well—behind, inside, beneath—it’s almost overwhelming. The knuckle of his thumb grinds against her clit with each new thrust of his fingers, and she sucks her lower lip between her teeth.
Stretching, she reaches back to kiss him. His tongue meets hers just as his fingers find the perfect pitch and pace, and she clutches at his wrist to keep him there. “There,” she gasps desperately, “God Mulder, there.” And there he stays, all probing, thrusting fingers, all wet and soppy mouth, all Mulder Mulder everywhere.
She whimpers, head lolling on her neck, eyes squeezed shut.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, “That’s it.” He grinds against her rear, grinds against her clit, grinds against every stupid lie she’s ever told herself about not wanting this from him.
She wants this. She wants it desperately. The sounds coming from her throat are a testament to that; they’re new, they’re unexpected, they’re anything but practical. His tongue follows her hairline and she chokes back a cry, her body undulating in his arms.
“Fuck,” she whines softly, “Jesus fuck, Mulder, it’s so good.”
He shushes her, lips to her ear, kisses away her quick and panting breaths.
“Shhh, it’s just me,” he croons, and that’s what does it—that it’s Mulder, it’s just Mulder, it’s her Mulder, there at her back, the same place he’s been for seven long years.
She comes, his name a breathless sob as she tips back her head, his lips soft and wet at her pulse. “There we go,” he whispers. His hand is cool as it soothes her flushed cheeks, gentle as he strokes through her hair. She floats. And she floats and she floats and she floats.
For years, she’s considered herself his tether to the ground. Maybe she’s been wrong all along.
She angles back her hips, reaches behind to pull him even closer. In seconds, he’s slipped back inside, filling her so completely, it brings tears to her eyes. Again. Barely an hour’s passed, but already she’s forgotten.
He loses himself quickly, an arm around her shoulders, the other across her hips, her name a slow, breathtaking growl at her shoulder. A police siren wails in the distance.
Stay, she’d told herself earlier, stay.
She doesn’t go into the bathroom to wipe off her thighs. She doesn’t go to the drawer to pull out fresh pajamas. She doesn’t worry about the sheets or the duvet or the way they stick to her skin. She doesn’t do any of those things.
She turns in his arms and she strokes his cheek. She reties that sailor’s knot. And she stays.