#thanks for all the love

a ‘momentary’ follow-up … of sorts …

Our Moments:
Chapter 1: Five Words (post-Leonard Betts)
Chapter 2: Sidebar Nonsense (post-Memento Mori)
Chapter 3: Interim(floating somewhere around Unrequited)
Chapter 4: Max 2.0 (post-Tempus Fugit/Max)
Chapter 5: Shadowed Grey Eyes
Chapter 6: The Warmest Thing I Own
Chapter 7: Fancy Paper Napkins
Chapter 8: End of the Road (post-Redux/Redux 2)
Chapter 9: Post-Moments

@today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&&

First thing back was her sense of smell. It took nearly a week but suddenly, as she walked, unannounced but never unwelcome into his apartment, she stopped, the look of surprise on her face made him immediately laugh, then tilt his head, “you shouldn’t be that surprised to see me here. It’s my apartment.”

Ignoring his statement, she quick-stepped his way, burying her face first in his shirt, then, pulling him to her level, into his neck, sniffing like a bloodhound on the trail of some erstwhile criminal with a bag of treats. So taken aback by the invasion, he simply stood there, letting her take several deep inhales before finally reaching for her shoulders, “you keep breathing like that and you’ll pass out.”

Twisting her head, she gave him a quick kiss, then dropped back flat-footed, forcing him to once again look down at her while she looked up, “I haven’t been able to smell you since day 12 of ‘IT’ so I’m making up for lost time.”

She’d told him, finally, after he’d repeatedly offered her tempting foods to try to coax some weight back on her bony frame, that she hadn’t been able to smell anything, and therefore, taste anything, for awhile but she’d never stated the exact day until now and standing there, already changed into jeans and a t-shirt, an epiphany of sorts smacked him hard upside the head, “what? Day 12?” Ignorant idiocy settling in, “Shit. You sat through a steak, my famous garlic mushrooms, six tubs of ice cream, and all those M&Ms I kept feeding you and you couldn’t taste a thing? The amount of money I could have saved during those months I tempted you with anything I could find while, really, it all tasted like sawdust.” Feigning irritation but failing miserably as he scooted closer, kissing her forehead, “what a crock of shit.”

“I got …” being generous for his sake, “hints of flavor.”

“Fuck, woman, we’re having a steak and ice cream orgy tonight. I’m going shopping.”

She stopped his movements with hands on arms, “hey, let me go taste something and see if that came back as well before you waste all your money on cow foods.”

Following her to his kitchen, “both things really do involve cows. That’s rather unnerving, actually.”

With a grin, she found a cookie, then, tasting it, she shook her head, “I’d save the cow for another day.”

Mulder, wondering if his earlier suggestion of Mexican for dinner was still appropriate, he decided ‘no’, then, “well, how about we taking a smelling tour of DC and eat toast for dinner?”

He got a well-deserved backhand to his chest, “we are eating at Papadapoulous’ House of Salsa tonight because you’ve been talking about that place ad nauseum all week. Get your coat.” When he didn’t move, she nodded, giving him a smile, “we can do the smelling tour after, okay?”

“Deal.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

Taste came back ten days later. Just as Mulder came out of her bathroom, about to announce that no one should go in there for 35 to 45 minutes, Scully took a sip of his ice tea and spit it right back out, soaking her shirt and the floor in front of her. Mulder forgot his comment and flew over to her, socks sliding on the polished wood floor, “what happened?”

Feeling like a complete and utter moron, she first retrieved a towel to mop both herself and the floor, then looked at her partner, “I stole some of your ice tea and I could taste it and it scared me, if you can believe it. I wasn’t expecting anything and suddenly there was something and my first reaction,” beginning to laugh at the whole situation, “I spit it out. I didn’t even think to swallow it.”

Mulder shook his head, “are you sure we’re still talking about ice tea and not dirty things?”

He could almost hear her brain suddenly shift gears, brakes squeaking, mind two steps behind, “what?”

It was his turn to laugh, pulling her into a hug, soaking wet shirt and all, “I’ll give you two minutes to think about it, then I’ll explain if necessary.”

It took almost four seconds before, “I’ve never been a spitter, Mulder.”

That worked entirely too well for him and dismissing all but his hairy-moled, make-up caked fourth-grade teacher from his mind, he held her another minute then moved back, calmed down again, “you should go change your shirt.”

“No wet t-shirt comments?” Her sassy retort told him both that she knew what her swallowing comment had done to him and what the wet t-shirt mention would. She was evil. She knew it. He knew it. He loved it.

“Just go change. Tonight, we shop for steak.”

Loving him to pieces, she reached for his elbow, playing with the sharp bent end, “so, I know we just had Mexican a few days back but now that I can taste things, I desperately want salsa and a Margarita.”

“Large?”

“The biggest one they fucking sell, pardon my French.”

Their kiss was much longer this time, Scully’s fingers firmly twirled in his shirt by the time they were done, Mulder’s hands curled around her ass, “then can I make you mushrooms this weekend?”

“Pounds of them. Extra garlic and butter,” suddenly swallowing, “yeah, we need to go eat.”

“Lead the way.”

&&&&&&&&&&

His arrival at her house that Friday night with grocery bags was, oddly, the first time her body reacted to him. They’d been making out, to use the juvenile-y appropriate term, but nothing more, Scully still recovering, Mulder still nervous about 12000 things between and surrounding them both.

But seeing him standing there, in her door, goofy smile and slipping bottle of wine in hand, she felt something. It was a fast twinge but it was familiar but surprising and her widening eyes told him something but he wasn’t sure what and he didn’t ask.

Had he asked, he may have gotten an answer that would have necessitated bringing fourth-grade teacher back … but instead, he walked in, setting bags on counter before turning, “hungry?”

For the first time in months, she appreciated the underlying double-meaning he hadn’t intended, “yes. Very much so. How long do the mushrooms take to cook?”

“At least a few hours.” Pulling things from bags, “but I bought appetizers and,” holding up several National Enquirers, “reading material. Let’s see if we can find a case somewhere in the tropics. I could use a ‘vacation’.”

Only Mulder.

Mushrooms cleaned and slow-cooking, they nibbled their way through eight different kinds of cheeses, each one a symphony to Scully’s previously deadened tongue. She may have let slip a ‘hhhmmm’ that could have possibly been interpreted as a moan by one Fox Mulder but he didn’t comment and she kept doing it.

He was glad he wore the looser jeans tonight.

They chuckled and argued in tandem while thumbing through the papers Mulder brought: telling stories, tossing theories, debunking nonsense. Finishing the first bottle of wine slowly, Mulder offered a second but Scully shook her head, “save it for dinner.”

Agreeing, he moved to stir the crockpot, then returned, towel over his shoulder, licking his fingers from the buttery sample he’d eaten in the kitchen, “They’re getting there.”

Second twinge, this one longer, had her lower abdomen contracting in a tickling giggle kind of way. The shiver up her spine caused her to visibly vibrate for a moment but Mulder, luckily or unluckily, not noticing, sat back down, returning to the ‘Owl that carried off a family of four in their camper van’ story on page 26.

What the hell.

Then again, he was licking his fingers.

The third zing when she returned to this thought was not as strong as the second but made her smile nonetheless, which Mulder actually did notice, “what?”

She pinked-up instantly, having forgotten the heat of a blush across her skin, and hands to cheeks suddenly, “just … a little too much wine.”

He moved his hand to her pulled up knee, squeezing it, “we don’t have to open the second one. It’ll keep.”

“No. No. I, uh, I, … I’m fine. I … I’m fine.”

Gibbering idiot more like it but whatever.

&&&&&&&&&&

If sex were food, Scully decided, it would be that steak. Mulder went for broke, filet and strip, buttery smooth, medium rare, warm, pink, juicy, perfect blend of garlic and butter, rosemary and pepper. Between the taste; the sight of Mulder across the table; the smell of wine and smoke; the look of him, messy-haired and smiling, relaxed three feet from her; the feel of impending summer breezes through the window, she tipped into sensory overload, eyes shutting as she tried to bring herself back to some kind of alignment.

Then, eyes still closed, she heard his voice, “hey, you. Ya’llright?”

The tinging vibration hit her full-force, arm hair standing on end, neck flushing, nipples tightening, a thousand images of him and her, himandher, flashing through her mind, driving the feeling shooting from stomach to clit to soul in speed of light, circuitous fashion, “yeah. Yeah. Just enjoying.”

Her voice was all over the damn map with those four words and Mulder, knowing her better than he knew himself, tilted his head, finally understanding exactly what was happening, “I can see that.”

Quaking quieting somewhat, she shifted in her chair, hoping to relieve some of the pressure she was feeling, pressing down on the cushion like she was seventeen and at the movie theater with her boyfriend, begging silently for him to touch her and simultaneously thinking about touching herself when she got home. Not able to look him in the eye, however, she cut another piece of her steak, praying she wouldn’t choke.

Shifting himself as well, watching her hips search for a good spot against the chair, he kept any comment to himself. He hadn’t pushed anything these last weeks, knowing she was recovering, finding herself again, situating ‘us’ and ‘we’ into a previously accepted solitary status quo of ‘I’ and ‘me’.

But, fuck, he had been tempted and tonight, seeing her like this, pushed his resolve to the breaking point. If she made one more sound in her throat, he truly believed he’d explode under the table, a quiet yet uncontrollable manifestation of four years and infinite wishes. “More wine?”

“Yes, please.”

She fought herself the rest of the meal, making stilted, dinner time conversation that they both saw through, both breathed through, both suffered through.

Dish cleanup and pajama changing quieted her down, her mind focused on other things for a little while but once they’d sat down on the couch, lights off, movie in, ice cream waiting in the freezer for later, she became acutely aware of his proximity to her. He’d offered her half the afghan, shifted the coffee table a little closer for her feet to rest on if she wanted, kissed the top of her head just as the opening credits began. She, in turn, had to keep reminding herself how to breathe evenly.

Sensory overload was kicking in again, the smell of him, his radiating heat, his voice as he contributed oft-placed comments on police procedurals happening on the TV. Her hand found its way to his thigh, fingers playing with the inside seam of his cut-off sweats. His own landed on her flannel pants, roughly same distance between allowable knee and forbidden juncture.

Her voice surprised her, “Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your stance on third base?”

Slowly, he found the remote and paused before swinging his gaze in her direction, “Yankees or something else?”

Her inhale shuddered, “not the Yankees.”

His hand immediately slid from allowable to not-so-forbidden now, caught between viced thighs, “this third base?”

Confession tumbled from her lips, “I haven’t done anything or felt anything, really, in months and suddenly you walked in today with grocery bags and that stupid grin of yours and you smell fantastic and something kicked in and,” wiggling out of necessity to attempt to … whatever …, “I don’t recall the last time I was this …”

Mulder finished her sentence with a grin, “horny?”

“Yes!”

Somehow, he lifted her bodily onto his lap, his chest to her back, hand sliding effortlessly down the front of her pajamas, finding the sweet spot before she had time to so much as offer the feeble word of ‘bed’.

Then she didn’t care.

At all.

Focusing mainly on his fingers, warm, quick, unexperienced but willing to learn. Instead of following, she led, whispering once to move a little to the left, whispering again to go harder, arching her back as she came in under a minute, body shuddering, twitching, before settling back down.

Over her shoulder, his husky voice sounded in her ear, “can I be next?”

It took all of nine seconds to stand up, drop her clothes to the floor, order him to lift up, pull his pants off, then climb on, already wet, already slick, already taking him inside with a slip and a slide.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Her giggles made him smile, her rosy cheeks made him happy, her warm skin within lips reach made him dizzy but above all else, her panting breath against his neck made him ecstatic, knowing she was alive and well and would be for the foreseeable future. When she finally calmed down, knees digging into the couch springs, skin glued to skin, she pulled herself back, sweat running down Mulder’s chest where they had been pressed together moments earlier, “I had planned for that to be a little … less …” waving her hands around in wordless definition, “that.”

“Was perfect to me.”

Kissing him lightly, then resting forehead to his, “one day, this will all be organized and we’ll make it to the bedroom.”

Hands back on her bare ass, “highly doubt that but it’s nice to have a plan.”

Sitting back, she reached out to him, lightly running her fingers along his hairline, feather-touch making his eyes shut, “I think we should do that again later.”

About to ask why not now, he had an epiphany of sorts and looking at her, square and jokingly judging, “you want ice cream, don’t you?”

This time, her nose scrunched up when she smiled, nodding with enthusiasm, “kind of. But I promise, you’ll always beat out ice cream after today … mostly.”

Pulling her down for a kiss, he then squeezed her thighs to nudge her off him, “come on, woman. Let’s go clean up so we can have dessert.”

“I love you, Mulder.”

“You just love my Rocky Road.”

“That, too.”

omg i woke up this morning without any wifi so for the past twelve hours i’ve been deprived of the outside world