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Enders Switch: Interlude
by Lynn Gregg
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Heat.
I became aware of this before anything else
registered: moist, enveloping heat, radiant, almost
suffocating. It took a moment before the clouds began to disperse
sufficiently from my sleep-drugged
mind that I could discern the source of that heat--a body stretched
alongside my own, rolled up in the
sheets and pressed hard against me, a long arm draped across me following
the curve of my own arm,
fingers wrapped loosely around my wrist. The hard bones of narrow
hips were pushed into the
accomodating curve of my buttocks; firm muscle provided a prop for
my back; and a head, a very
familiar head crowned with a mass of dark thick hair, had insinuated
itself into the crook between my
neck and shoulder. He was hot, as if fevered, glazed sticky with
sweat, redolent of the faint
musky-spicy aroma that was the distinctive flavor of his skin.
In that twilight place between sleep and wakefulness,
I found myself immobilized--confused,
afraid to move. Mulder was in my bed. Why he was in my
bed was a mystery. And there was
another mystery, even greater than the first:
Why didn't I mind that he was in my bed?
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Of the multiplicity of nicknames assigned to
me since I left Quantico and joined Mulder on the
X-Files, the one that I always found simultaneously the most amusing
and the most irritating was
"Saint Scully"--an epithet I earned presumably because I alone had
the mettle to put up with
"Spooky" and his psychoses on a daily basis. Saint Scully and
the Spook: my whole life
distilled down to a phrase that sounded like the name of an unbearably
cheesy sitcom and
generally employed by disaffected Bureau underdogs envious of our solve
rate, our reputation or--
particularly in the case of certain of the secretarial pool and a couple
of hyperhormoned young
male agents--our undeniable bond. The usual office politics;
Mulder and I laughed hysterically
over such things, making lists of the various terms of derision heard
applied to us around the
hallowed halls of the J Edgar Hoover building.
I am no saint--and Mulder notwithstanding,
I can't figure out how I could've gotten such a
reputation. I used to smoke my mom's cigarettes and sneak guys
into my dorm room. I had
a fake ID so I could go to clubs with Missy. I frequently got
in skirmishes on the playground;
I beat the snot out of Cheryl Ledbetter in fourth grade for making
fun of my freckles, and I
even got suspended once in ninth grade because I socked Mark Hooper
in the eye in the
middle of math class. (He had it coming to him, too, I might
add.) I defied my parents' wishes
by becoming an FBI field agent instead of going into private practice
or staying on at Quantico
as an instructor. I couldn't tell you how many speeding tickets
I've gotten--although I'd wager
Mulder's gotten more. I curse frequently and imaginatively.
I've even smoked pot a couple of
times...and unlike the President, I very definitely inhaled.
Saints do not shoot people. Saints do
not get drunk and get tattooed and go home with
strange men. Saints do not rough up suspects, or hold their bosses
at gunpoint, break every
rule of Bureau protocol and most of the major laws of the land.
But I have, and suspect I
will do so again. My continued survival seems predicated on it.
I am no saint; but sometimes I wonder if Mulder
realizes it. God knows I've done
everything I could in the past five years to convince him that I'm
indestructible. I never
wanted him to feel he had to protect me; even more so, I never wanted
to fall into the trap
of wanting him to feel that. Now I'm beginning to question my
judgment in that area.
Perhaps if I'd made him cognizant early on that I am indeed flesh and
blood, we might have
satisfactorily concluded this dance of ours long before now.
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Full consciousness slowly returned, bringing
with it remembrance of the events of the past
few days, including my present whereabouts and how I came to have a
sweaty, half-naked
Mulder wrapped around me.
Make that a sweaty, half-naked, and fully erect Mulder wrapped around me.
At least, I consoled myself, he's aware of
me as a woman while he's unconscious--unless
he was dreaming of miniskirted porno nurses. But at least it
was a start.
My violent reaction to seeing him with Diana
Fowley had brought home to me, with rather
more force than I would've liked, the realization that something had
to give. I'd been the
Queen of Denial for a long time, but somehow my barge was sinking and
my time of reckoning
was nigh. As much as I despise cliche, I had inadvertently found
myself in the middle of the
tiredest, oldest one in the book: How do you tell your best friend
that you've fallen in love
with him?
I was contemplating this asinine, embarassing
dilemma when Mulder suddenly shifted in
his sleep. Muttering something near my ear that sounded suspiciously
like my name, he
tightened his arm around me and nestled his erection even more firmly
into the crack of my
ass.
It was about this time that I began thinking
that *showing* him might be even more
effective than telling him.
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My God, has it really been over a year sinec
I've even been in the same room with an
erect penis?!
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I scootched my lower half back, wriggling just
a bit, increasing the contact. My initial
estimation placed him at around seven and three-quarters inches, though
I thought further
investigation would be required for certainty's sake. I pushed
back and up, back and down--
several times, experimentally--and was rewarded by the initiation of
definite thrusting motions
on his part, along with a groan that unmistakeably contained my name.
His hand released my wrist and stroked blindly
along the length of my arm. He persisted
in rubbing against me, his breathing starting to change, and it occurred
to me that decisive
action must be taken on my part lest the battle be lost before I'd
even begun to fight. I'd
faced down government assassins, mutants beyond number, the darkest
depravities of the
human psyche and my own mortality; so why did it take every ounce of
courage I possessed
just to roll over and take the person closest to me in the world into
my arms?
I rolled, molding my body to the length of
his, running my hand over his band and down
to increase the pressure where it would do us both the most good.
He nudged me, his
whole pelvis plastered up against mine, his lips hot beneath my ear.
And then he went
tense and rigid in my arms.
"Scully?" he whispered. "Are you
awake?" His tone clearly indicated his desire for a
negative response.
Too late now, I thought, and jumped.
"No," I said, and drew his mouth down to mine.
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I was never quite sure how Mulder felt about me.
I knew he trusted me, implicitly, as I trusted
him. And I knew he loved me, of course;
I've known that for years, and was reasonably certain that he knew
that love was
reciprocated. What I could never be quite sure of was what form
that love took.
His taste in reading and viewing material had
provoked in me certain undignified
sensations of physical inadequacy--which I could only pray I'd never
betrayed in word or
deed. *That* was too humiliating a possibility to contemplate.
The real-life women I'd
seen him attracted to provided me nothing by way of assurance either,
as all of them
displayed certain qualities I very obviously lacked--height, for instance.
Sure he bantered
and flirted and teased with me a lot, and sure those kinds of "jokes"
are often covers for
deeper and more dangerous truths; but we'd never discussed it, and
he'd never made an
obvious move, and so I was left to wonder. There was always a
part of me that was
morbidly convinced that he viewed me as a sort of Samantha-surrogate;
that by moving
heaven and earth, time and again, to save me he could in some way atone
for his inability
to save her.
But then I kissed him, and after an initial
instants' shock he was kissing me back; and
that kiss made a believer of me.
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"I was asleep," he murmured, his words
tumbling over each other in a rush. "I was
asleep, I was dreaming about you. I always dream about you.
And then I was awake,
and you were with me, and I--oooh, *shit*, Scully, don't do that."
Reluctantly I moved my hand to higher ground. "Don't you want me--"
"I'm amazed that you even have to ask that question. I don't want *me* to--"
I silenced him with my fingers, running them
over his lips as I'd done a thousand times
in my own dreams. "You talk too much, Mulder."
"I just--I don't--Scully, I just want you to
be sure. We can't go back...I don't want--
ooooh, Jesus."
It was a watershed moment: I, Dana Scully,
had succeeded in reducing my scary-smart
Oxford-grad partner to preadolescent incoherence. I suppose the
things I was doing with
my tongue at that point had something to do with it, but I'd like to
believe it was just *me*.
I paused for a moment, tilting his face so that he had no choice but
to meet my eyes.
"Mulder. Do you want to make love with me or not?"
"There is nothing in this world or any other
that I want more." His voice, and his
expression, were so earnest I felt my heart twist. "I've been
in love with you for so long
I can't even remember a time when I wasn't. But *you* have to
be sure--Scully, I don't
want this to be just a--a one-shot deal."
"Neither do I." How to reassure this
sad, scarred man? I didn't even know where to
begin. "I *am* sure, Mulder; I just never knew about you.
I was afraid..."
"What we have...what we *are*, to each other...I was afraid, too. I still am."
"I think," said I, moving my hand southward
once more, "that we have an awful lot of
lost time to start making up for."
"Scully." His voice was intent, ragged.
"I need to *know*--I won't risk this for
anything less than...everything."
I knew this, of course; one of the reasons
I'd held my peace for so long was the very
real fear that if I once gave way, he would consume me utterly.
From this new perspective,
however, it seemed he was likely in just as much danger of being consumed
as I ever could
be.
Let it happen, then. It wouldn't be the first time we'd walked through fire together.
"Do you think *I'd* risk it for anything less?
I love you, Mulder. That's the one thing
I *am* sure of."
"Love me, Scully," he choked. "Love me."
I'd barely gotten a good start on doing just that when my damned cell phone rang.
"Ignore it!" Mulder wailed.
"I can't! It might be the Gunmen! It might be--important."
"Shit," he moaned, rolling onto his back
and throwing an arm over his eyes. I lunged
across him and snagged the offending instrument from the nightstand,
barking a less-than-
enthusiastic hello.
There was silence at the other end.
"Hello? Dammit, answer me!"
"Agent Scully?" came the hesitant, whispered response. I froze."
"Who *is* this?"
"Agent Scully. It's me--Gibson."
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