Title: Bare Bones (2/?)
Category: MSR, Angst, Case-file (sort of)
Rating: NC17 for adult situations and general nastiness. 
Archive: Anywhere, just let me know so I can visit
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were I'd be wearing better shoes.
Spoilers: Its been ended for years – hasn't everyone seen them all?
Summary: She was still pretending that she hadn't spent the day
thinking about him – imagining she could feel his mouth and the brush
of his palms.
Author's Note: At end

Her day passed in a blur of mismatched, bleached white bones. She
worked with Dr Stevens at a steady, automaton pace, unable to fully
engage with the task. Dr Stevens sent her back to the motel before
5:30, telling her to get some rest. Scully didn't argue.

The rental car was waiting in for her in the car park, keys left at
the reception desk of the Medical Examiners office as promised. She
drove past the excavation site on her way to the motel and forced
herself not to scan for Mulder as the car flashed by. She was still
pretending that she hadn't spent the day thinking about him –
imagining she could feel his mouth and the brush of his palms. She was
still in denial about the sickness she had felt when she woke alone.

Scully avoided her own reflection when she undressed and stepped into
the shower. She knew only too well what she would see: sad blue eyes,
smudged with tired bruises and an unhappy mouth, set in a face as pale
as a winter moon. She hated her body with its familiar angles and
scars as she soaped up and let the water burn her. She wondered if
Mulder had seen her as she saw herself: a stark white canvas – not
white for purity – simply blank, unwritten, empty. Scully stepped from
the shower and was glad for the steam that hid the mirror.

An indefinite amount of time passed as Scully sat on the end of the
bed, contemplating the black empty feeling that hovered inside her
mind. Though she had no clue how long she had sat there, by the time
the door slammed in Mulder's room, her hair was dry and sunset was
curling the edges of the sky. Scully rose to stand in the void between
the two rooms.

The walls shook as Mulder slammed the door. He pounded his fists twice
more, hoping to splinter the wood and have his anger make a lasting
impact. Surprisingly, the laminated pulp withstood the abuse. He
looked up, anticipating that she would be there. Her presence added to
the anger that rolled in his stomach, although Mulder couldn't be sure
why. She was just someone to hurl his fury at.

"Dammit Scully!" He thumped the door again for emphasis and stared at
her, liking the way she flinched.

"He's in my fucking brain...No...I'm in his...Fucking...Fuck!"
The door cracked this time and his knuckles hurt. Scully approached
like he knew she would and put herself between him and the door as
though breaking up a fight. Mulder didn't think, just placed a
well-aimed punch against the wood. Scully felt his fist sail past her
ear to land with a splitting crack and when she moved her head,
strands of her hair caught in the shattered laminate.

If Scully was afraid, she didn't show it. Mulder wondered what she
would do if he hit her. He blinked, not wanting to think like that.

"I fucking HATE this! Ahh!" Mulder resorted to stamping his feet. He
considered smashing the lamp but it looked to be bolted down. Perhaps
he could smash the TV.

"I know, Mulder. You have to stop. Now." Her voice was so steady and
calm, it had to be fake. It was her FBI voice: the one she saved for
psychos and child molesters and murderers and kidnappers. It was the
voice that let Mulder know when he was boarding the last train to
Nutsville. He nodded and stepped back.

"No more profiling tonight, Mulder. You need to eat something." The
mothering voice was even more annoying. Mulder gave her a steady look,
using his height to stare down at her. She was so predictable, it made
his blood boil. So familiar and unchanging. Mulder brought a hand to
her neck, his fingers going to the back, feeling her windpipe under
his thumb. She swallowed and he felt the rise. His fingers would fit
so nicely all the way around. Mulder felt his other hand rise of its
own volition and he tried it for size, fingers resting on fingers
behind her head, thumbs resting lightly in the dip at the base of her
throat. He found himself mildly alarmed at the sensation but didn't
pull away.

Scully swallowed again, her mouth suddenly dry. Her heart sped up as
his fingers laced together. His face wasn't menacing or threatening,
just curious. His head tipped to one side and she was sure he must
feel her pulse running feverishly fast under his hand. She fought with
the panic that rose, but the man before her wasn't one-hundred percent
Mulder. When profiling, Mulder walked a wire between his own mind and
some dangerous place she could never reach. He took himself to the
brink of sanity and reason and leaned over to grasp his answers.

Mulder felt her throat vibrate before he made out her words. 

"Mulder, he didn't strangle them."

"Oh." Mulder let her go and blinked twice. He held his hand palms up
and stared at them for a long moment. Lady Macbeth with blood on her
hands.

Mulder looked up at her then, taking in her jeans and shirt, open to
the fourth button. He reached out his right hand and Scully didn't
know whether to take it. His fingers traced along her collarbone,
barely touching but leaving a gossamer thread of sensation behind. The
hand retreated slightly, undecided. Scully shivered. The hand returned
and slid confidently upwards into the tumble of her air-dried hair.

Scully frowned looking up and wishing she could read what she saw
glittering in his eyes. Something cruel twisted a half-smile across
his face and his hand curled tight to her scalp, tugging her head back
and exposing her throat. Scully cried out in shock, then gasped at the
warmth of his mouth and the scrape of his teeth. His name rose on her
tongue a moment before he swallowed it into the depth of his kiss.

He kissed her hard, his hand still wrapped in her hair. His heart
thudded as profoundly as the battering of her fists against his ribs
and Mulder wasn't sure if he was excited or afraid. He just knew that
he couldn't stop, even as she tried to push him away. Scully gasped as
her mind was filled with images from the past – gargoyles and men
encased in clay and an evil that passed from man to man like a plague.
She thought of how different his eyes had been the night before, how
he had been liquid and she had been fire. But then she had woken alone
and now he was rock and sinew and she was backed against the sideboard
and unsure of whether to run.

Mulder wondered whether he was holding her too tight. He loosened his
grip on her hair and felt her jaw slacken in relief. He hoisted her up
to sit on the sideboard, spreading her things and standing between her
legs, his mouth still pressed to hers. She had gone lax against him,
no longer fighting and scratching. Mulder slid his tongue over her
teeth and into her mouth, hoping that she wouldn't bite it off like a
little wild-cat. The idea made him smile and he could almost taste his
own blood as his tongue taunted her, sliding back and forth.

Then his stomach churned with self-loathing that had crept up from
some suppressed part of his brain. He wanted her to kiss him back like
she had the night before, when he had been rock hard and so incredibly
turned on that could still feel her skin on his fingertips late into
the afternoon. Now his dick was a limp noodle and the only rigid thing
was Scully, ramrod straight as he pressed her into the sideboard. He
drew back slightly to look at her, still pinning her with his body.

"Prostitutes. Both Male and Female prostitutes."

"Mulder, please. Let me go." She sounded almost afraid and Mulder was
shocked to see tears in her eyes. Then his mind clouded over and he
was racing on, barely feeling her struggle against him. Unconsciously
he grabbed her wrists to still her.

"He knows that they only screw him for money not because they want to.
That's why he can't get it up..."

"Mulder, please!" Her sharp voice pulled him from his train of thought
and he snapped his head up to glare at her.

"Listen to me! Dammit! I'm trying to move this case on!" Mulder
slammed his palm flat against the wall above her head. He liked the
way that seemed to frighten her. She flinched away from him, almost
imperceptibly, stirring the anger in him once again. He growled.
"Fuck, Scully! Try to understand! I've got him," Mulder tapped the
side of his head hard enough to make a sound, "I've got him right
here! Now I just have to tie the basterd down. Okay?"
"Mulder you're scaring me." Mulder pounded the sideboard either side
of her thighs.
"Mulder stop! Do you have him? Or does he have you?" Her insinuation
made him furious. He sneered at her, reaching for the lamp and ripping
it free of its bolts. It hit the wall with a crash, the bulb
shattering and raining down. The rest clattered to the floor. He
watched the pieces settle. Scully froze where she was on top of the
unit, pressed to the wall. Mulder breathed deeply.

"Our boy likes hookers and gigolos. He's certainly of ambiguous sexual
orientation, not picky about race or age. I think its opportunity,
suggesting to me maybe a cross-dresser or a transsexual. Impotency is
driving him, embarrassment, shame..." Scully nodded as he trailed off,
the fear gone out of her. She sagged forward to lean over her knees,
her feet dangling. She put a hand to her mouth touching the skin where
his stubble rubbed.

"Don't use me for this, Mulder."
"What?"
"Don't use me like some crash-test-dummy you can toss around. I won't
stay here if you do it." Mulder felt his stomach burn with an acid
reflux that roared up into his mouth like fire. The memory of the past
thirty minutes sprang on him in furious Technicolor and he looked down
at his hand. Strands of red hair clung to his fingers.

"Shit. Fuck. I'm so sorry, Scully...I..."
"Don't Mulder."
"I just...last night...then this..."
"I know, Mulder. Respecting boundaries, compartmentalising, its never
been one of your talents." Her voice was sad, let down. Mulder knew
he'd messed up so badly. He'd pushed himself too hard with the
profile. He'd let his issues with Scully creep into his headspace
whilst he was profiling. He got things so screwed up that they'd
overlapped. Scully's head was bowed and he looked at the reflection of
the sunset in a ring on her red crown. He wanted to cry but the normal
physical reaction seemed too much for his stressed out body to manage.
Instead, his dick went hard as he watched his partner sit back in her
rumpled white shirt.

Then he couldn't help himself. Mulder rushed to her and pulled her to
him, burying his face against her shoulder, tasting salt and fine
gritty sand on his tongue as he whispered apologies and begged for
forgiveness against her skin. Long desperate minutes passed before he
felt the angle of her chin against the top of his head and slender
fingers brushed over his hair.

Scully felt her heart drop low in her chest when he raised wet eyes
and looked at her with expectations she wasn't ready to meet. She
could barely keep her eyebrows from sloping into a frown as he moved
to kiss her. He paused and Scully wanted to lean away. But her
traitorous body responded to the heat of his breath on her lips and
she closed the distance between them.

Mulder's head slipped lower as his hands moved her collar aside. He
kissed his way down the length of her throat, soothing where his
fingertips had earlier pressed, pausing in the dip where his thumbs
had rested. He heard her breath hitch and he traced a line upwards
with his kisses as the acid burned the back of his mouth again. He
moved to seek the sweet spot where her pulse fluttered beneath the
skin and he sucked the thin skin. Her head tipped back and she shook
out her hair as he sucked hard enough to leave a mark, feeling her
blood throb against his tongue. Her hand came up to rest against the
back of his head and Mulder felt her voice tremble up her throat in a
whisper. He couldn't hear what she was saying over the thudding of his
own heart, so he sucked on her throat and felt the words form.

"Not like this, Mulder, please no, not like this."

Mulder drew himself up to his full height and leaned over her. Scully
found herself level with his chest until he pushed her back to lie on
the countertop and pressed his mouth to hers, silencing her mantra.
She kissed him back, as though erasing the words would cure her of the
feeling that something was very wrong with what she was letting him do
to her. She pushed the unease aside, concentrating instead on the hand
that had finally discovered her breast.

A moan rose up in her as his free hand swept her hair up, her scalp
sensitive from his earlier brutality. She bit on his lip and blood was
sharp on her tongue, but Mulder didn't acknowledge the pain, if he
felt it at all. His palm burnt against her breast and she arched her
back to urge him on. He kissed her erotically, his tongue smoothing
over hers to match the thrusting of his hips against her crotch. She
breathed him in as she arched and scratched at him, smelling the
desert on him and seeing a table of bones piled high in her mind. She
bit his bottom lip again to taste the iron in his blood.

Mulder tore the buttons from her blouse in response. 

By the time Scully raised her bottom to allow him to tug away her
jeans and white panties, Mulder was impossibly, painfully hard. He
drew her closer to the edge of the counter, dropping his belt and
letting his trousers fall to his knees. They clung there with his
shorts, but he was already pulling her onto his aching cock and he
didn't care how silly he looked. Scully didn't make a sound as he
straightened up and pushed further into her. Mulder gritted his teeth
and drew back, finding a rhythm, his buttocks clenching and his thigh
muscles going solid. He lifted her thighs and she locked them around
his back, barely clinging to the sideboard. He thrust hard and fast,
desperate to ease the heat that burned from where his body met hers
and radiated outwards to tighten in his chest and lock his jaw. Every
muscle in his body was rigid with anticipation. He looked at Scully as
he fucked her, lips pressed together and drawn inwards and eyelashes
lowered. A flush spreading, giving away the heat that rose in her like
a tide. He watched her fly apart as the waves crashed over her,
sending vibrations through her body and making her pant and whimper.
She shuddered and clung to him, the tremors subsiding as he pounded
into her.

Mulder didn't think he could stop if she begged him to. The coil that
had wound tight as a watch spring around every cell of his being drew
the tension in his muscles to a fever-pitch. He thrust into her over
and over, feeling her hips grind against him and his fingers bit into
her hips. Finally, he collapsed against her, defeated. Mulder leant on
her and Scully felt the tremors set in as he began sob.

"HE'S done this to me Scully. I wanted you so much, but I've fucked it
all up so badly." The tears began to fall, sliding down her chest as
she smoothed his hair and hushed him.

Eventually, she coaxed him away from her enough to hop down from the
counter. She bent and untied his shoes, helping him to slip out of his
trousers. The tie fell away and her fingernails clicked over his shirt
buttons. She kissed him gently and guided him to the bed. Mulder lay
back.

"Its not too late, Mulder." Scully slipped out of her ruined shirt and
added her bra to the pile. Mulder watched with wide eyes as she
climbed onto the bed and straddled his hips. She guided herself gently
down and set up a slow rhythm. Mulder's hips bucked eagerly under her,
but she held him down, rocking at her own languid pace and leaning
down to kiss him lazily, teasingly. Her breasts brushed his chest and
he sighed, giving in and watching his tiny partner transformed as she
undulated above him. The open curtains let the sunset in and she was
bathed in the last red rays as night fell. Mulder drowned in her heat
and her liquid kisses and she burned him, purging his demons with
white fire.

Scully was purple velvet in the twilight by the time the tension wound
inside him once more. She was sighing his name, her new mantra, and
Mulder didn't mind one bit. He pulled on her wrists and she melted
down, soft and pliable. He cupped her breasts and thrust into her.
Scully circled her hips, gasping at the contact of each revolution,
until Mulder rolled them both.

He took his turn to set the pace, grinding against her with each
thrust to elicit a series of moans from his partner that thrilled
along his spine and wound the watch-spring tighter. He closed his eyes
in anticipation, the sight of her spread beneath him too much to bear.
Yet the darkness without her was worse and he opened them and saw her
bright hair turned black in the darkness, spread like water around her
head. His name was on her lips once more.

At last the coil snapped and he shuddered, relief rushing over him
like a deep sigh. Scully watched his eyes close and her name slid out
from clenched teeth. The hot rush brought tears to her eyes as Mulder
went lax and curled onto the bed beside her.

"Thank God...Oh Fuck...Thank God..." Mulder's voice was strained and
he was panting. He rolled over and tugged her arm until she moved
closer. Scully was sweaty and sticky and longed for the shower, but
Mulder wrapped himself possessively around her, binding her to him.
Within moments, his breathing was deep and even, ruffling the hair
above her ear. Scully shook her head, his chin against her shoulder
and his hand on her breast. She closed her eyes and slept.

Scully woke with the sunrise, shivering and alone.

To Be Continued...

Authors Note: Again, I would soooo appreciate feedback on this one.
Thanks to everyone who fed the feedback monster about part one. Poking
makes me work harder!!hehe. Kimogen5@hotmail.com