jowls | open post.

He laughs, and for the moment, it doesn't matter that his cock won't work. He presses a little kiss to her breastbone. "An expert in the field."

And they've paused here for a reason. If they're here together, he's going to linger on her breasts for as long as he can reasonably justify. Little kisses to the soft flesh, little nips, mouthing lightly at her nipple - and then less lightly, catching it between his lips, letting his teeth graze over it. He's rolling over the other nipple with his thumb, sensitive to her reactions: the feel of her under him, the sound of her breath.

She hums agreement, and threads her fingers through his hair. It's such a simple pleasure just to touch him; there's been this odd tension since she arrived, and in retrospect there's no question that it was just distance,, that he wasn't letting her get as close as she was accustomed to, like he didn't quite know where the boundaries should be. But the boundaries, for them, have never quite worked right.

It makes it doubly clear that this is as much for his pleasure as her own; she watches him until she can't anymore, tipping her head back with a sigh. Mulder is undeniably an expert; he has the advantage of experience, but really, she thinks his enthusiasm would be enough even without that.

And it doesn't take her long to forget entirely about any awkwardness; beneath his lips and fingers she's soon flushed and wanton, shifting against him, her fingers tracing abstract paths on his scalp, her breathing a little ragged. God, she didn't know she could get this hot and bothered just from this.

(But Mulder, of course, is never just anything.)

Once she's worked up, her hands in his hair, he draws back and lets his breath blow cool over her breast. This time, he doesn't say anything - but he flashes her a knowing smile. Whatever else is true, he's still got it in this one respect.

He keeps moving down her body, dropping the occasional kiss on her soft stomach, his eyes never leaving her face. Once he's in position, he presses another kiss to her mound, tempted and tempting all at once. "You told me once that you knew I'd be good at this because I eat so many sunflower seeds."

The rush of air gets a little gasp from her; she twists a little so she can look at him again. He looks pleased with himself, which she has to admit is well-deserved. She can't help a little shiver of anticipation, realizing his intentions.

"Oral fixation," she murmurs, a tease with no sting because, well. She'd be self-conscious in this moment with anyone else, but not with him. How can she be? She shifts her knees apart to give him a little more room, eager to find out what she's been missing.

"With you? Always." He's smug, but there's something almost joyful about it; there's a real pleasure to knowing what he can do to her. For her. Scully's a puzzle he'll never tire of solving, rewarded each time by the ways she responds. For years, he'd honed his technique, finding new and ever more satisfying ways to get her off. Having the opportunity to show her everything he's got is a surprising new horizon for him.

When he lowers his head to her pussy, he starts slow, wanting to drag things out as long as he can. Little flicks of his tongue, long swipes, the teasing stroke of his fingers - tasting her, listening for the hitch of her breath and those soft sounds she makes. She's already hot and bothered, just from her tits, and in a just world, he'd be fucking her the way she deserves. Until that's where they are, though, Mulder sets about getting her to come undone - leisurely, completely - beneath his mouth.

Even if she didn't stand to benefit from this-- immensely-- she'd be thrilled to see the way he's lit up. In the moment the heavy sorrow he carries seems a little lighter-- maybe not set down, but set aside.

As deliberate as he is, he doesn't give her enough time for her arousal to ebb-- she shifts into this new rhythm easily, with a soft huff of breath marking the first time his tongue touches her, little needy whines as his fingers fill her. Of course she wishes it could be different-- that they could have overcome whatever's keeping him in his head-- but there's no chance of him leaving her unsatisfied.

"God, Mulder," she murmurs, regretting a little that it's so dark-- she wants to watch him, knowing she'll find him just as enrapt as she is. And, oh, he really does know what he's doing. She tangles a hand in his hair, tugging lightly.

Maybe next time - if there is a next time. If he doesn't wake up to an empty bed tomorrow, or worse, wake up to the Scully who left him. Maybe they'll get there, one way or another. Until then, he's determined to make sure this is good enough that she doesn't feel like she's missed out. This might be all there is, after all.

He hums an answer against her clit, lips vibrating with it, and lifts his head just enough to meet her eyes in the darkness. It's satisfying just to be here, ultimately - feeling her hand in his hair, wondering whether he can make her yank harder. Little things might be different, the weight of a thigh over his shoulder too light, but what matters is the same. Scully is Scully, and the way she says his name is something he's going to think about for nights to come.

And then he gets back to work, so to speak, pulling out every little trick he can think of, everything he remembers her loving. She's not necessarily an easy lay, generally speaking, but Mulder's got the home team advantage.

There's what she'd argue with-- she hasn't missed out on anything; every moment she gets is something she wasn't meant to have at all. And so she's just fiercely glad to be with him. Would be, even if they'd just fallen asleep.

But this.... is better, of course. He meets her eyes and it nearly makes her shiver, the depth of his affection still overwhelming. She can't keep her head up for long-- he's too practiced at what he does, nudging her closer and then easing back to keep this from ending. She feels half-melted, deliciously powerless to do anything but feel and react, impossibly wet and whimpering softly in a way that might have embarrassed her a week ago, but the thought doesn't even cross her mind, now. (Maybe later; maybe insecurity will creep back after the afterglow fades. But she doesn't think so, somehow. The way Mulder looks at her-- even knowing she's broken his heart-- she's starting to suspect there isn't anything that would make him think less of her.)

Reflexively her hips shift under his hand, and as much as he tries to draw it out-- there's only so much she can take before she comes, crying out his name again and pulling his hair without meaning to, her thighs clenched around him.

She's exactly the Scully he remembers, and that means she's perfect - absolutely beautiful, attempting to hold out and then attempting to lose herself in the sensation, and then just riding it out with a little cry. He rides it out with her, and at least this much is true: Even if he's not participating in the ways he'd like to be, he's here with her. He's a part of this, unmistakably, and while it's happening, it's enough.

And after, when she's catching her breath, he wipes off his face and crawls back up beside her. Pulling her in close, he kisses the top of her head; if he knows her (and in the moment, he can truly believe nobody knows her better), she's going to want to curl up with her head on his shoulder.

Already she's a creature of habit, without even knowing it. He's back beside her before she's totally conscious of his movement, and it's the easiest thing in the world to fall into the warmth of his embrace, to rest against his shoulder and cling to him. He has been a rock in a storm, this whole time; but now they have a moment of calm together.

She sighs, like she's finally managed to shake loose some of her tension. He's warm and solid and of course she loves him; how could she not? What a marvel to be able to be obvious about it.

(And it makes it obvious, too, that the question she's been trying to avoid-- why did she leave-- still hangs in the air. It feels too essential to keep ignoring, but for the rest of tonight, at least, she's going to.)

For now, she's going to bask in this and let herself zone out a little to the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her palm.

"Glad I got you to come to bed," she murmurs eventually.

"Mm," he agrees, though he's been trying not to think too specifically about bed. At least it's her come he wiped off on her sheets, and not his. Once he's no longer focused on Scully, the rest of their lives comes back into focus, and what he can see still doesn't look great for him. Either he'll be explaining all this to her, shame-faced, or she'll be lost to time forever, and neither choice is a good one.

But even without the clarity of an orgasm, he can mostly set the thoughts aside. Mostly because Scully's still holding onto him, and his attention's narrowing in on her again. "When you go back to 1998, don't be disappointed if I'm not that good. I haven't learned everything you like yet."

Not that he's going to make a bad showing - at least, as far as he knows - but some part of him can't help but wonder if he's setting up an impossible standard for a man who has no idea it exists. And besides that, all he wants to do right now is tease her, and let her respond with whatever sleepy repartee she can come up with.

"Hmm," she murmurs, shifting to sprawl more fully against him. "When d'you think you have it figured out? I'll see if I can detour."

Her tone is amused, untroubled. This was unquestionably incredible, but she can't imagine Mulder would ever let her down. Practice is probably a factor but the connection between them has been there for what feels like forever, already. He touches her like he knows her, but that's because he wants to know every part of her. That isn't a recent development.

"You must have known," she murmurs eventually, thinking of her own time, "how I feel."

In the darkness, it's easier to talk about this sort of thing; she's not sure she could have said it face to face, only skin to skin. He must realize she loves him-- even in '98-- even though she can't say it.

"Sooner than you'd think," he answers, teasing, "but probably not as early as I'd think."

There's a question in what comes from her next, even as she speaks it as a fundamental truth - and so it is, Mulder thinks, in the afterglow. Whatever either of them knew or knows, it had been there long before they'd finally given into it.

That's part of the reason it's hard to remember just when things fully clicked between them. The early days had been full of the thrill of discovery, and then with longing and loss and reunion; every time he'd gotten her off, it had felt like victory. But it was underpinned by a level of trust that had lived between them for years before that point.

So he thinks about it, idly tracing the outline of one of her vertebra. Tries to remember what it had felt like to wonder, without replacing the old feeling with all the things he wonders about her now. "I...hoped. I knew you trusted me with your life, the same way I trusted you. My own feelings moved past friendship years ago, but I was sure a combination of dirty magazines and 1-900 numbers would be enough to keep me from saying anything."

A little sigh, slightly amused. "What I knew depended on the day, how I was feeling about the cases we were working on, whether we'd argued recently...sometimes I was sure you were in the same boat, and sometimes I thought the idea had never crossed your mind."

That makes a fair amount of sense; she can't help the huff of laughter at his comment about the porn, drowsy and fond. It's the kind of thing that would constitute a hostile work environment if they weren't who they are.

"Right now..." Well, not now, but in the now she left behind. She curls her fingers around his arm, half possessive, half like she's trying to keep herself from floating away.

"With everything happening... I wanted to think you knew. Even if I didn't want to say it."

With her death looming closer every day, she means. As much as she doesn't want to leave him missing her, there's a part of her-- contrary as always-- that wants him to know what he's meant to her, in all the time they've had together.

"We expressed it the only way we could." She isn't there yet, not at the worst parts. The time when he'd visited - perpetually cheerful and making up irreverent puns on the Lord's Prayer - as much as he could, fearful all the while that one day he'd walk into the hospital to the worst possible news. He'd been half out of his mind at times, but he'd done his best always to seem affably convinced she was three steps away from perfect health. "I couldn't exactly get down on one knee and confess with your brother breathing down my neck, either."

There's no bitterness there, just amusement - for all Bill had despised them in those days, Mulder ended up getting the better of him in the long run, at least for a while. (The man's probably back in the Fox Mulder anti-fanclub, Mulder realizes suddenly, but that doesn't really bother him, either. Scully's opinion is the only one he cares about anymore.) And even at the time, he could understand just why Scully's brother felt the way he did; he just resented the hell out of it, found it insular and cowardly.

But she's not there yet. And the idea of telling her just how bad it'll get, how papery her hands will come to look resting on a hospital blanket, isn't going to give her any comfort. So instead, he adds softly, "I didn't need to know how you felt to love you, Scully. Knowing you were there, still in the world with me...that was enough."

It's hard to know whether he has something specific in mind, but it's a beautiful notion anyway. There are a hundred little moments she could point to-- hot coffees on stakeouts, dumb jokes, takeout orders, weary nights in forgettable diners-- and it's the best they could do. And somehow, marvelously, it was enough.

And maybe it's odd, being here-- in the house she'll move into when she leaves him, face to face with the sorrow she'll leave behind-- but all she can think of is, if she goes home and she really survives, there's so much ahead of her. Terrible motels and movies and leftovers and children and years of learning each other's bodies, and even if it all ends badly, it seems like it'll be worth it.

She props herself up a little to kiss his jaw before slumping back against his shoulder. It's all the answer she can muster.

Her gentleness in moments like this will never cease to amaze him. She's generous with him, even when he doesn't deserve it, and there's a sleepy grace to every gesture. Scully is Scully is Scully, no matter when or how she's lying in his arms, the tension gone from her. If he could only find a way for her - the right her, the one who belongs here - to stay.

"Get some sleep," he tells her, tilting his head down to kiss her head one last time. He might even manage the same, if he's lucky - feeling the rise and fall of her breath always helps lull him.

If she could, she'd give him more. Try to stay up long enough to see him off to sleep, or see if his body might choose to cooperate now that things are a little less urgent. But, God, she's tired. The emotional discoveries today left her wrung out and Mulder's attentions have tired her body to match.

So she doesn't argue; just hums sleepily and settles against him. Strictly speaking she's not usually a cuddler, but Mulder is an exception in most areas, and pinning him down might make him get some rest.

It won't take her long to drift off.

He's awake well after her breathing grows slow and even, but he doesn't mind. There's plenty to think about: the sense memories of Scully curled into his side, the eerie quiet of a house he doesn't belong in, the road ahead of them both. Ways they could get her home, what they'll have to do if they can't manage it. What they'll have to tell her mother, if this turns into the kind of long-term stay Scully's health can't afford.

Somewhere in the middle of trying to brainstorm ways to source a microchip for her neck, he does end up falling asleep, though, and though he wakes up once or twice, he can get back easily. He always has slept better in her presence; if she sticks around, there's a decent chance he'll be back to keeping (mostly) normal-people hours.

Until he gets over the novelty of her presence, anyway, and loses himself in conspiracy all over again. But that's a bridge he can't cross from here.

He wakes early the next morning, loath to disturb her and yet needing to get up. Carefully, he slides out from under her and pads off to the bathroom - where, on a whim, he decides that he may as well take a shower while he's in the neighborhood. Present-day Scully may be entitled to compensation, when all is said and done.

She sleeps better than she has been, which stands to reason; there's been that tension she at first couldn't understand, and then couldn't fix, finally broken down in the quiet darkness of her future self's bed. Maybe she owes herself an apology for that, but she imagines at least in the future she'll understand her own stubborn refusal to be sorry for any of it.

Mulder is always a steadying presence, the one thing that fundamentally makes sense to her in a world that rarely does, and that apparently works on her unconscious mind as well. There was a time, early in their partnership, when she'd tried to resist that sense of safety in his embrace, insistent that she didn't need it, conscious of how it looked: her youth, her femininity, her stature making her a damsel in distress. But he's never respected her less while offering comfort. It's taken time to understand that accepting protection doesn't mean she needs it. She can stand on her own, but she doesn't have to do it alone.

He's gone when she rouses, but the rainfall sound of the shower answers her questions instantly. Disinclined to lounge, she decides to try her luck figuring out the coffee machine-- the entire kitchen seems like a science fiction parody but she's got determination and the innate knowledge of how Dana Scully organizers cabinets on her side, and by the time he gets out of the shower, the victorious scent should guide him to the kitchen, where she's dressed in rumpled pyjamas, examining a tetra-pak of almond milk.

He comes out of the bathroom with a fluffy towel wrapped around his waist, surveys his clothing, and decides he's more interested in the scent of coffee. Getting back into yesterday's outfit doesn't really appeal, at the moment; only in a house this spotless is he aware of just how much grime he's been living with. In.

And, though he knows he shouldn't be, he's getting comfortable with Scully's house. It's not his or theirs, purely hers - but it's a nice place, and there's a friendly face waiting in the kitchen. She's technically not dressed, either, even if she's more presentable to company, and there's a kind of sleepiness at the edges of her expression that makes him want to kiss her.

"Almond milk's supposed to be better for you," he offers instead, when he realizes what she's staring at. Did anyone drink almond milk, back in the 90s? Hippies who made it themselves, maybe. "I hear the industry's sucking California's aquifers dry, though."

Though she hears him moving, she doesn't turn until he speaks up, a small smile touching her lips as she does. After last night, she's got full license to look him over in the light of day; and really, the years look good on him.

Funny that they've ended up playing house here, and not in what was (will be?) home. Maybe it's just the lack of history in these walls-- there are no memories to trip him up, very little for her to try and interpret.

She shakes the container idly. With all the travel they do, she's usually got a small carton of Parmalat in the cupboard in case the milk goes off; maybe this is the same habit. It's certainly coming in handy now.

"I'll try to keep that in mind before I buy it." But for now it's too late, and she wants coffee, so she pours two mugs.

It makes no difference to him, except inasmuch as it was once something to tease her about; it especially makes no difference when he's planning on drinking his coffee black.

He comes over to pick up one of the mugs, leaning back against the counter as he takes a sip. There's a slight awkwardness to it - not to any particular gesture, but in the fact that he's back to keeping a little distance between them. However appreciative her gaze when he strides into the room, he doesn't let himself kiss her good morning.

(He wants to - truthfully, he wants to push her up against the counter and give her more than just a kiss in greeting. But it doesn't translate to more than idle desire right now.)

"How'd you sleep?" he asks, for the sake of making conversation, his gaze following her wherever she moves.

Don't think she doesn't notice the careful remove. She pours some of the almond milk into her own cup, then crosses to put the carton in the refrigerator-- and when she returns she takes a step closer into his space, half the distance he's left swallowed up. Pointless to be shy when he's the father of her children.

"Better," she says, simple but earnest, leaning against the counter and into his space. Take two, if he'd like to rethink his position on kissing her; if not, she'll get to it eventually, though she's oddly amused by the awkwardness. There's something bizarrely fitting about it; she's the one this is all new for, but it feels like it could be easy.

"You?" He seems like he actually did sleep, which is surely a victory for Scullys in every timeline and era.

He watches with some private amusement as she comes just a little bit closer to him - casually, deliberately. Just a little adjustment from partner-space to partner-space. Whatever else might be true, she doesn't appear to regret last night, and he's grateful for that.

"Yeah," he answers, and though he doesn't lean down to kiss her, he gives her an unabashed smile, wide and lazy in a way no one else ever sees. "You've always had good taste in mattresses."

Having company and a little pre-sleep entertainment doesn't hurt, either.

His traitor mind thinks, What if it stayed this way? What if they found a way to keep her alive and shrugged apologetically at her family and went on living like this? Together, happy, living a quiet life spent wrapped up in each other's arms - until you destroy it again, Fox.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject