From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 19 Nov 2005 08:14:34 -0000 Subject: Differential Diagnosis (NC-17) by Obfusc8er Source: direct Reply To: aobfuscata@hotmail.com Title: Differential Diagnosis Author: Obfusc8er Feedback: aobfuscata@hotmail.com Rating: NC-17 Classification: MSR, PWP, smutfic (of a sort), and hopefully some H Distribution: Please ask first. Summary: Um...See Classification, above. Website address --Obfusc8ions--: http://members.tripod.com/xtreme_unction/id22.html Thanks to: Mary for the comments and to Cin for the fast, thorough, and highly entertaining beta experience. Dedication: This fic is dedicated to the Syzygy-like Birthday Twins, Mimic and Bellefleur. Notes: Written for M & B's Birthday Challenge at Fandomonium. Parameters: Let's see... Deadline: November 7 -- Uh, no. The Challenge: Mulder, Scully or both undercover in a situation where you'd never expect to find them. -- Not really, no. The Elements: 1. Short and sweet, just like us (word limit, 1000 or less) -- Oopsy. 2. The story must incorporate the line, "I realize the importance of this assignment, but I refuse to wear THAT." -- Does this count? *g* 3. Smut is optional but appreciated if appropriate. -- Aha! I got one! *dingdingdingding* Element #3 it is, then. * * * It had been a long, hard day in the morgue, and Scully's mind was spinning with rampant anatomical, physiological, and pathological trivia. Her brain was stuck in diagnostic mode, overanalyzing those around her in a medical context. This mental reflex allowed her to keep the world ordered, an excellent distancing method when she felt the urge to bitchslap each and every individual who got in her way, interrupted her work, or just plain looked at her wrong. She knew that fatigue, stress, and a mid-cycle surge of estrogen, as well as a small spike in adrenal androgen production, had combined to both heighten her senses and make her cranky as hell. After silently diagnosing the few denizens of the late shift-- the Decedant Affairs secretary with cigarette-related emphysema, the janitor with essential tremor, and one of the bullpen agents with secondary syphilitic palm rashes-- Scully lugged her briefcase to the basement in search of a quiet place in which to rein in her thoughts. She opened the door to the office, noting the warm, humid atmosphere. There was her partner, standing before one of the filing cabinets, his back turned. He was bent over an open drawer, rifling through the contents. The ovoid curves of his muscles were visible through the seat of his slacks, occasionally twitching as he shifted his balance. Scully found herself biting her lower lip as she gazed at the twin gluteal offerings before her. She shook her head, surprised by how easily her thoughts had succumbed to base instincts. Then she enjoyed one last look for posterity before shedding her suit jacket and settling into the chair at her small, temporary desk. "Damn." "Problem, Mulder?" she asked. She made a conscientious decision to keep her eyes on her work. Or to try, anyway. "I can't seem to find the Beckman file." "Shouldn't it be in the..." "A-B drawer? Yeah. But it's not, which is why I'm looking elsewhere," he replied with the slightest edge of sarcasm. Scully pressed further. "If memory serves, Dr. Beckman was involved in a rather unusual incidence of alleged vampirism." "Uh-huh," Mulder mumbled, sifting through the various drawers of his filing cabinets like a man possessed. The sleeves of his blue Oxford shirt were pushed up to his elbows, making it easier for him to reach into the deep folders. "He ran a side-business. Called it 'Native Therapy,' in actuality, nothing more than a scam to lure his more attractive female patients in front of his camera. Told them he was publishing the pictures in a scientific journal, when he in fact had no such intention." "Essentially, yes." "Dr. Beckman subsequently produced a quite successful underground soft porn magazine until one of his slightly less gullible models found out that the journal promises were all a scam, and she was found exsanguinated in a dark alley half a mile from his studio." Scully walked toward her distracted partner, close enough to clearly remind him of her presence. She inhaled his scent--cool, spicy aftershave and a tinge of musky sweat. "Do you have something to add to the case? A new lead?" "Not exactly," he droned. "Just making sure everything's in order for the audit next week. A few documents have been misplaced lately... Ah! Here it is." Mulder extracted a thick brown folder from the bottom drawer. He straightened and faced Scully, opening the file. His triumphant expression pulled into a slight frown. He thumbed through the documents, his brow furrowing with each turn of a page. Scully surreptitiously slipped her hand into the narrow space between the nearest cabinet and the table, retrieving a sheaf of glossy paper. She placed a finger in the crease of Mulder's file, bending it down. He looked up at her, leery. "Looking for this?" She held up one of the magazines in question, waving its salacious cover photo in front of him like a red flag. He froze for a moment, jaw muscles twitching. "Agent Scully, I didn't know you were into that sort of thing. I'm shocked." She chuckled, a nefarious edge in her laughter. "Nice try," she said, snapping the magazine away just as Mulder moved to take it. She backed away, reveling in teasing her partner. His arms snaked out, grabbing for one corner and missing. She took one more step, dodging Mulder's lunge, and suddenly, her vision exploded with light. Her head throbbed with pain. She couldn't see, couldn't feel anything but the lightning in her head. "Scully! Can you hear me?" Mulder's voice slipped through the ringing in her ears. "Say something." "Ouch." Scully reached back to inspect her head with her fingers, surprised to find it wasn't sticky with blood. In fact, it no longer hurt. Mulder's eyes were wide with concern. She was sitting on her ass on the concrete, her partner bent over her, but she couldn't remember the fall. "How long was I out?" "About two seconds," he replied softly, "just long enough to hit the floor." Mulder's arm extended. His hand covering hers and pulled it forward. The tingle of excitement shot down Scully's spine. She suddenly felt her senses heighten. She became aware of the bookish scent of Mulder's office, counted his heartbeats as the skin of his throat pulsated, felt the sinews of his inner thigh contract, brushing against her as he knelt in front of her. The warmth of his body, his proximity, made the beta-endorphins burn in her veins. "How are you feeling?" Scully struggled to pluck a coherent reply from the swirling thoughts in her mind. Her focus wandered from the wet, graceful curves of her partner's lips to the suggestive bulge of his larynx. "I'm a little...warm," was all she could manage. "No wonder. Your face is red. Do you think you can stand?" "Yeah." Scully held onto her partner's forearms for support. The volar muscles rippled sequentially beneath her fingertips: the flexor ulnaris, palmaris longus, flexor radialis, pronator teres, and a broad brachio-radialis. Scully had always found symmetry and order in the ancient Latin terms of medicine, but the words were intangible entities. In Mulder, they all came to life with functional, graceful, and artistic clarity. He lifted her to her feet, the action pulling the partners closer together. Scully watched his nares fluctuate, in and out with each breath. He looked down at her, head cocked to one side. "You must have bitten your lip," he said quietly, drawing the textured pad of one thumb across the commisure of her mouth. He held up the digit before her, its tip smeared with her blood. Scully realized she had been trying to control a strong and primal urge. The subject of all of her emotional, intellectual, and physical desires stood mere inches away, holding her, assaulting her olfactory glands with the pungent pheromones of masculinity. She wrapped her hand around his, bringing his thumb against the philtrum of her upper lip. She kissed his thenar curve, parting her lips slightly to allow her tongue to dart out and lick the glabrous skin, tasting the salty surface and the tang of her own blood. Mulder moved his fingers beneath her jaw, tilting her head back slightly and to one side. "You're still bleeding." He leaned down, covering the tiny wound with his own lips. She turned toward him, pressing her mouth to his as she moved her hands to his lower back. His eyes grew wide when she pulled his hips forward. She grazed his bottom lip with her teeth, feeling him shudder against her. Mulder gently pushed her back against the edge of the bookcase. Hundreds of tiny fibers bore the message of arousal throughout her body. Her parasympathetic neurons delivered their jarring buzz of action potentials, creating an acetylcholine high. She felt a growing pressure against her lower abdomen and knew that Mulder was also feeling the same effects. He released a deep moan which resonated down her throat and deep into her chest. She felt his heartbeat slowing against her breasts. Mulder's polychromic irises constricted as he fixated on her. Sandwiched between his long body and the bookcase, she began to sweat, trapped with no space on tired feet and legs. He reached down and grasped the small zipper on the side of her skirt. She stopped him, shaking her head. He traced the outline of her figure instead, drawing both hands up her hips and her waist. His fingers bumped over the undulations of her ribs, coming to rest on either side of her breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples to erection through the fabric of her blouse and brassiere. Scully tried to ignore the painful complaints of her sore feet and lower legs, but they were only compounded by the intense waves of sensation emanating from Mulder's touch and the subsequent knee-shaking weakness. She winced, and Mulder took that as his cue to slow down. He disengaged his mouth from hers, moved his hands to her waist. "Is something wrong?" he asked, his voice husky. "My feet are killing me." "We can't have that," he said, backing away from the bookshelf and drawing her with him. He pulled his rolling desk chair toward her. "Relax, Scully. You deserve it." He then seated her with a quaint, gentlemanly sort of flair that she accepted only from him. He proceeded to knead the muscles of her shoulders and upper back, sending a pleasurable tingling from the serratus, levator scapulae, and rhomboids throughout her entire body. She let out a guttural sound of orgasmic indulgence when he moved his attentions her neck, rubbing his knuckles along either side of the nuchal line. "Oh my. That's wonderful," she uttered. Once the muscles in question had relaxed, the stimulus disappeared. Mulder walked around her, rotating the chair with him until she faced the desk. He piled up one small stack of files and reports, stowing it in one of the drawers. Then, he rolled her closer to him and surprised her by grasping one of her ankles. "I think it was Voltaire who said, 'The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease,'" he recited and slipped the shoe off of her foot. He commenced massaging her bared sole. "Mulder, you can be my cure any day." Scully groaned and let her head loll back as Mulder activated a thousand free nerve endings of her arches, playfully tickling her skin while soothing weary muscles. He had propped her feet on his thighs for convenience. He was completely focused on her. His eyes had a certain self- denying glaze about them. Scully decided to share the fun. "Thanks. That was just what I needed," she said, edging her free foot down between his legs. Carefully, she traced the upper edge of his pubic bone with her toes, the ball of her foot brushing against his crotch. Mulder froze as a thousand urgent signals redirected through his brain. He lowered his head slightly, gaze still fixed on her. One corner of his mouth curled into a predatory smirk. Her bulbourethral glands involuntarily spasmed in response, causing a focus of pressure low in her pudendum that made her want to milk her partner dry. Quickly, she extracted her extremities from his eager digits. It was her move. Scully took advantage of her partner's temporary, erogenously-induced tonic state to move into a more assertive position. She stood and nudged her legs between his knees. She laid a finger on the knot of his tie, lazily following the path of the silk toward its tip. "Why don't we make some more room here?" she suggested, stopping her finger at the waistband of his slacks. Mulder nodded once, leaning aside to set his lamp on the chair. He nudged a stack of archive references to the floor with a thud and a cloud of dust. Scully pushed him the rest of the way to a supine position. Mulder's long legs were slung over the short edge of the desk. She shoved her knees against his, moving his hips into a stack of MUFON data printouts and the latest Most Wanted list. She noted that the upward angle of his thighs and pelvis only served to increase the already-arching silhouette of his fly. Scully pressed down on his shoulders as she climbed atop and straddled him, positioning the warm, damp center of her panties over Mulder's prominent, jutting zipper seam. She could feel the tension rise in his quadriceps as he fought his parasympathetic system for bodily control. Her own autonomic response created a shunting of blood similar to his, engorging her sensitive pudendal flesh. She felt the subtle pressure of her Bartholin's glands as they swelled with lubricating fluid. The small, twin cylinders of her erectile tubercle filled to capacity, straining away from its suspensory ligament. She lowered herself flat against his chest, pressing down until her glans rubbed against its stiff male homologue. "Scully..." "Shh. Don't say a word." She pressed the fingertips of one hand to his lips, holding them there for a second before following the curve of his chin and throat to the collar of his shirt. He reached for his tie, trying to hasten events, but she caught his arms and moved them down to his sides, petitioning with her hungry eyes and vulva for him to let her set the pace. Mulder complied as best he could, allowing all of the voluntary parts of his body to lie pliant. He gazed at her, curiosity and anticipation nudging his eyebrows upward. She loosened the top fold of his half Windsor, drawing the large tongue of the tie up, away from his face. Scully ran the tongue under the loop, making short work of the accessory. Next, she unbuttoned his shirt, squeezing her hand into the heated layers of fabric to untuck the front tips. She moved the edges of the Oxford apart so she could watch the slow, deliberate undulations of his chest. His rectus abdominis rippled in waves. Scully arched over her partner so she could wriggle free of her panties. She kicked them to the floor, her hips still draped by her skirt. Mulder swallowed hard. The corners of his mouth turned up in a lecherous grin. Scully straddled him again, sitting on his thighs while she opened his fly, the primitive, limbic portions of her brain focused on some of the decidedly non-intellectual gifts her partner possessed. She pinched his buttock, urging Mulder to lift his hips, which allowed her to push his clothing down and out of the way. She rested her hands on his knees, behind her, and let the moistened fold of her prepuce and the bundle of Meissner's corpuscles it sheltered glide up and down the length of his spongy urethral sheath. His clenched fists shook, and he closed his eyes, his breaths now coming in irregular gusts. Scully bent forward until the blunt end of his spongiosum was embedded in the divot of her umbilicus. She angled herself closer to his face. "Hold me," she whispered. She unfastened the bottom three buttons on her shirt, baring her soft abdomen to the pink mucosa of his tip. He slid his hands beneath her blouse. He braced his elbows against the desk and cradled her small ribcage with his palms, tickling her lactiferous follicles with his thumbs. She felt a jolt of electricity jump from his touch straight to her perineum. She moved herself forward, allowing him to support her upper body while she reached between them. She wrapped her fingers around the girth of his engorged cavernous bodies. His Cowper's glands expressed a single drop of proteinaceous fluid. Her thumb encircled the rim of his meatus, spreading the natural lubricant in a lazy spiral over the strumous member. His nervous system was set afire. His glutei and obliques forcefully contracted, nearly driving her into the air. Knowing that neither one of them could hold out much longer, She adjusted her skirt to cover both of them. She bent her knees, lowering herself until her foramen was hugging the warmth of his bulbous spongiosum. She clamped down with her ischiocavernosus and lifted her hips slightly, causing her fourchette to tug on the remnant notch of his frenulum preputii. Mulder's thrust reflex drove his warmth deep within her. He swept his hands around her hips, using the leverage to ensheath himself to the root. His naked coronal sulcus caressed her plicae with each lunge, distending her muscular wall. Her pelvic floor tightened again, invoking his programmed reaction. His involuntary ictus raised both of them off the surface of his writing pad and the latest copy of The Sasqwatch. She rode the wave of his slow, metrical undulations, swaying to unheard music. The friction of her folds against his dorsal nerve caused the influx of more blood, distending the vascular core of his tumidity to its limit. Scully writhed atop him, shaky voice rasping out, "God, you fill me." "You--give me--so much," he said, deep tones resonating between panted breaths. His eyes held a feral gleam that instantly made her vagina ripple and ache. She gasped, having hit her threshold and bringing her partner precipitously close to his. His entire body stiffened. He closed his eyes for a moment, but she caught a rare fleeting glimpse of his erotic euphoria. When he looked at her again, his control was back. He studied her gently with his eyes, with his hands, with his entire being. She felt at once intrigued and flattered by the scrutiny. Finally, he let go of her right hip, his dominant hand snaking to her pubic curls. "I want--to give you--this." He tickled the edge of her prepuce with his whorled pad until he found her clitoris already engorged. He massaged her, squeezing the short shaft between two fingers while rubbing firmly on the crus beneath her labia. She dragged in a shaky breath. The air was thick with the scent of her arousal. And suddenly she was ravenous. She didn't want more. She wanted all. She clutched the edges of the desk and nudged her feet and ankles beneath her partner's knees. Her lean arms flexed as he withdrew slightly, slamming him back onto the desk and into her. Already, the rhythmic twitches of her thighs had begun accelerating. She raised herself to the edge of his flared rim, careful not to separate entirely, and impaled herself again. The desk shook with the impact. Mulder groaned and bucked beneath her, managing to continue ministrations to her erectile body. Scully grasped at his chest, her body now rocking over their merge point, tangling her fingers in the wiry hair and leaving linear, angry red scratch marks on his skin. His nipples stood as she skimmed them with her nails. She wanted to stay there forever, note every expression, every taut sinew and inch of skin. She could have kept the moment for eternity, but like all others, it would pass. She sensed that his rise was nearing its zenith, so she leaned as far back as she could, reaching behind to hold onto the corners of the desk near his knees. Her flexibility was rewarded with a more acute angle of contact. His thrusts now shoved against her anterior wall, causing an electrical storm in the dense cluster of highly sensitive Grafenberg nerves. The lower half of her body jerked in the flutters of an orgasm. She distantly registered the stretch of her vagina as it peristalted around its visitor. The higher functions of her brain were repressed, but she fought to retain one piece of information, even as she lost herself in sensory overload. The pace, strength, and urgency of Mulder's strokes increased. She angled her hips forward and rested her hands on his thighs. He placed his hands in their customary curve at the small of her back. He splayed his fingers and pulled her forward, then thrusted straight into her. She rocked forward, then back to maximize the pivot motion and tactile stimulation. His rhythm started to break, signaling that he was nearing his orgasmic plateau. She moved her hand to the bottom of the curve of her ass. Her left hand grasped his scrotum, lightly rolling the retracted testicles together, while her right hand followed the line of his raphe to his perineum. He was straining with each motion now, grunting with effort. She pushed two fingers deep into the soft plane of tissue between the base of his scrotum and his anus, directly stimulating his prostate and putting pressure on the adnexa. He started to moan, but the breath caught in his throat. His eyes rolled back, lids fluttering, as the coital intensity overwhelmed him. He drove himself into her again, hitting the lining of her ectocervix with the apex of his glans. Contractions of his seminal vesicles, vas deferens, and urethra propelled a warm effluxation of semen into her birth canal. He poured himself into her two, three, and four times before shuddering to a halt. Finally, he fell back on the desk, completely spent. Scully lay forward, resting her head on his shoulder. She felt him grow flaccid inside her, but she stayed still, holding him. She closed her eyes and basked, contemplating a resurrection of her long-ago smoking habit. "Scully," Mulder said, interrupting her reflections. "Hm?" "Wake up." "Huh?" "C'mon. Wake up." Scully was puzzled, but when she attempted to open her eyes, she found she could not. She tried a more vocal approach. "Muh-derrrr." Her voice was too thick. Her tongue felt heavy and useless. She was starting to get frightened, not understanding what had happened. Differential diagnoses flew through her head: stroke, seizure, aneurysm... She soon discovered that she couldn't move, as Mulder shifted restlessly beneath her. Everything was distant, shadowy. Her body seemed detached, as if she was experiencing the sensations second- hand. "Scully, can you answer me?" Before she could attempt a reply, there was a knock at the door. And then another. "Agent Mulder!" Her partner fell silent. The pounding on the door continued. "Agent Mulder, are you having a problem in there?" A pause. The doorknob rattled. "Let me in!" Mulder shifted, rolling Scully onto her back in a dizzying whirl of motion. Then the warmth of his body was gone. She heard him walk to the door. Heard it unlatch. She was horrified, caught in a compromising situation, unable to see or move or even speak. The floating sensation intensified as she heard Skinner and Mulder's footsteps approach. Someone was moving her again, propping her up on a firm, uneven surface. A flood of pain washed through her head, shutting out all other signals. She was lost, without any reference points except her growing fear. Her partner's voice pierced through the fog, but the pain stayed this time. "Oh, shit...Scully, can you hear me?" Of course, Mulder. I'm not deaf, she thought, but the words did not come out. "Agent Scully," Skinner's baritone followed, "give us some sort of sign. Squeeze my hand." But she couldn't tell which hand he held, so she tried to ball both of them into fists. "She's responding," Skinner said. She opened her eyes. Her sight was still blurry, but she recognized Mulder looking at her, upside-down. Then there was Skinner, and then the ceiling. She lay there trying to regain control of her voice and wondering what Skinner thought of the situation. She'd be lucky to still have a job tomorrow. "Muh-der, put 'ur pants back on." Her command was met with complete silence. "Sir, thizizn't what it looks like. Ssswear." "Uh, Scully, what the fu-" "It's okay, Agent Mulder. She doesn't know what she's saying. She's got a hell of a goose-egg on her head." So, it had all been a hallucination due to post-concussion syndrome? Scully could not believe it. She slipped right past disappointment and resentment and straight into denial. It hadn't seemed the stuff of dreams. It was the stuff of the everyday, of two regular people working together in extraordinary circumstances, of two people merging together in extraordinary sex. Why couldn't it have been real? she wondered. Was the scenario so unlikely that it could occur only in fantasy? Finally, her vision pulled into focus. "Wha-what happened?" "You ran into the 'M-N' drawer. And then you took a nap on the floor," Mulder explained, his brow furrowed with concern. "How long?" she inquired. "Oh, ten or twelve." Scully shook her head, almost certain that she'd heard him say "inches." "Do you want us to call an ambulance?" Skinner asked. "Um, no, thanks. I think I'll be okay." Scully sat up to prove her point. The pain resolved to a throbbing focus on her scalp. It was then that she realized her head had been lying in Mulder's lap. The thought was almost too much to process. "I just need--some water. Cold water." "If you're sure..." Skinner stated, not looking terribly convinced. He and Mulder nonetheless provided support as she stood. "I'm fine. Thank you, Sir. It's just a bruise." "All right. Just let me know if you decide to take the rest of the day off, or whatever you need to do." "I will, thanks." Skinner looked back and forth between her and Mulder, perplexion written all over his face, before leaving. He closed the door behind him. Scully took a few steps toward the desk, the scene of the crime, and suddenly felt very woozy. Her knees buckled. But this time, it had nothing to do with the concussion. Mulder caught her, pulling her against his body to keep her from falling. "Scully," he said softly, easing her down to sit on the edge of the desk, facing the back wall with its host of newspaper clippings and the bold blue-green-and-black poster. "Take it slow." She looked at him, studying every detail. Her partner was so caring, so perfect, so close. And she was incredibly turned-on. "I think I'll go get that cold water now." "Need me to help you?" Yes, she thought, straightening. Do I ever. But she shook her head no, unable to meet his eyes. She redirected her gaze to the poster behind him. Read its message. "So do I," she whispered. "What?" "Just daydreaming, Mulder." She smiled. "Be right back." She went out into the narrow corridor and followed it to the women's room. She splashed some cool water on her face, took a few deep breaths, looked long and hard into the mirror, and headed back to the office. There was her partner, working quietly. He looked up, checking to be sure she was okay, before returning his attention to the pile of paperwork. She began sifting through her own backlog, moving mindlessly like an automaton. Silence ensued until Mulder cleared his throat. "Scully?" "Yes?" "You kept saying my name over and over. And then you screamed." She wasn't quite sure what to say, so she didn't. "Must have been one extraordinary nightmare," he said, offering her an easy out with a half-suppressed smirk. "Oh, it was extraordinary." And she let the silence return, allowing him to toy with the possible implications of her words without offering another clue. Someday, someday, she said to herself. She believed.