Valrhona
A birthday vignette for sallie
By ga ([email protected])
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: season 9
Category: Scully/Reyes, MSR drenched, not threesome,
nonlinear
Disclaimer: not mine. And, the first sentence is NOT an
insult
Archive: just let me know
Summary: a futon and a touch

Dedication: for sallie, on her birthday

Mulder kissed like a girl, she realized as Monica's lips
touched hers. A faux pas, but she allowed herself the
momentary indulgence--both of them. Soft, incredibly soft,
full-lipped, and interesting. Other muscles yielded at the
minuscule weight of the sheen on her lower lip, left by the
tip of a tongue not her own.

After, Monica rested a thumb on that still-moistened lip, her
eyes stating the bounds of the gift already given, nothing
more. Dana crooked a small kiss onto the fingertip and looked
wordless acceptance.

Before, a futon and a touch, neither threatful nor too
proprietary; Monica had tended to her a few times before.
They'd couched it at first in terms like cerebrospinal rhythm
and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation to camouflage
that it was one person touching another.

A lifetime ago she'd stood before her then-new partner in her
underthings. Her son's lifetime ago, she'd.... After Mulder
left, this time, when she'd closed herself to everyone,
Monica had countered her "Agent Reyes" with "I've had my
hands between your legs; I think that puts us on a first-name
basis, Dana." The timing had been right; the "Maybe not" her
mind supplied brought forth an image of Mulder that wasn't
stained with sorrow and loss. She'd allowed the tiny smile to
show, and they'd been Dana and Monica since, mostly.

Mulder would stroke the hair from her face and tuck it behind
her ear, tracing its curve and drawing small circles beneath,
in the place where her jaw met her cheek. Monica liked
playing with Dana's hair--smoothing it, running her fingers
through it, twisting or braiding it to move it out of the way
so that she could work the tight shoulder muscles hidden
behind.

Monica never touched the scar on the back of Dana's neck.
That belonged to Mulder.

Different, they were different. No comparing--no reason to.

She wouldn't have believed that she could yield, these days,
that the muscles would succumb to Monica's fingers and turn
pliant, that the shoulders that seemed irretrievably lodged
by her ears in huddled wariness would slide wide, the bones
sinking heavy into cotton cushions beneath. Monica's warm,
denim-clad weight, straddling her ass, melded into her no
longer distinct, conforming intimate as a down comforter or a
lover. Her pelvis had borne Mulder's weight, heavier than
this. The part of her that believed with all the certainty of
need that she would again, would wear him conforming melding
intimate on her body--that same part of her bathed in the
warm languorous friction of Monica's hands against her skin.
Not a proxy. Never a replacement. It was different.

Monica's number was 5 on Dana's speed dial. Her fingers could
find it without looking, evenings when she forgot to pretend
not to want to hear a caring voice. Speed-dial numbers 1 and
2 were assigned to numbers not currently in service.

She'd eased her shirt up over still-heavy breasts as William
slept the slumber of the full-bellied. Monica was
unselfconscious, would hold forth matter-of-factly on her day
as she stripped naked and donned after-work clothes,
betraying neither perturbation nor arousal; but she'd
decorously grant Dana her modesty until safely prone. Her bra
remained on, for comfort both physical and psychological.

Monica had a tattoo of a fire-breathing dragon, very low on
her belly.

The ticklishness she felt sometimes along the sides of her
ribs dissipated along with the tension. Mulder could touch
her there, but she'd squirmed away from previous lovers, in
the years when there'd been previous lovers, or resorted to
vodka tonics as anesthesia. This night, half-finished mugs of
jasmine-scented tea cooled on the low table. Something else
let go, and she surprised herself softly with an inhale, free
and deep.

She felt Monica ease from her perch, maintaining contact as
long as possible. She rolled to her side at Monica's soft
coaxing, and snugged her hips into the back of the futon
couch, seeking to recreate the warm pressure just lost.
Monica settled in the burrow outlined by her body, her legs
Monica's backrest; one elbow alighted on her hip. Two hands
took one of hers and held it, tracing back and forth across
the palm for a while before settling in to knead it in
earnest. A last caress before the left hand was gently
relinquished and the right taken up--she left the hand where
it lay on Monica's knee, flexing her fingers slightly in
response to the ministrations to the other.

Her head lolled, and she blinked slowly, as though surfacing
from slumber. To Monica's low-voiced "How do you feel?" she
nodded, not yet prepared to speak while still submerged in
cotton and lethargy. Monica's arms came around her, to help
her to a sitting position, embraced. She felt Monica's
fingers weave into her hair, twirling it to one side.

Mulder had held her, given her the softest kisses imaginable,
softer than any man's, the first time they'd made love.

end