From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 30 Oct 2005 20:31:54 -0000 Subject: Enivrez-vous by Audrey Roget Source: direct Reply To: audrey_roget@yahoo.com Enivrez-vous by Audrey Roget Spoilers: Hollywood A.D. post-ep Rating: Mature audiences Summary: Mulder, Scully, a bottle of Champagne and a house in the Glen. Feedback: audrey_roget@yahoo.com Archive: Ephemeral and Gossamer auto-archives; please contact the author for other archive requests. Author's Notes: For the full text of the poem that inspired the title, see. http://www.translatum.gr/forum/ index.php/topic,1064.0.html Thanks to Forte, Diana Battis and mountainphile for eagle- eyed and ego-boosting beta. For Angel ### "Time to get drunk! Don't be martyred slaves of Time, Get drunk! Stay drunk! On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!" - Charles Baudelaire He takes another gulp of sparkling wine. He's drunk. No, it's not the bubbles. Booze has never made him feel like this. He's off-his-ass baked just looking at her. Drunk on the glow of her skin. Drunk on the warm animal scent of her hair, the sweet grassiness behind her ear, where he tucks his nose, rooting around, making her giggle her own tipsy little giggle. "You know, they say Jim Morrison's ghost wanders these hills," he murmurs into the pink curve of her ear, seducing her the only way he knows how. "Next canyon over, Mulder." Scully tilts her head just east, rubbing her cheek against his prickly-soft hair. "Laurel Canyon, not the Glen." "Jim and Zappa's ghosts...stoned and looking for Joni Mitchell." That giggle again. ### Her hand was warm in his as they strolled out of the fake cemetery. "So Mulder, nothing takes the taste of humiliation out of one's mouth like fine wine and an expensive meal. Where to?" They reached the curb and began trying to identify "their" limo among a fleet of identical cars. Mulder pulled a key ring with a magnetic card attached out of his pocket and waved it before Scully's face. "Apparently Skinner isn't the only one feeling generous tonight." The tip of Scully's tongue appeared between her teeth a moment before her lips formed the question. "Where will that get us?" A sly grin. "Federman's house in Beverly Glen." "And where will Wayne be?" "Said something about having to catch a flight to New York tonight for his next project." "Oh?" "Yeah. He just couldn't keep 'Steve and Tom' waiting another day," Mulder air-quoted, "and said we should make ourselves at home." "I see," Scully replied with an ill-suppressed smirk. With the precise timing of a special effects producer, their driver eased the town car alongside and hopped out to hold the rear door. "So, whaddya say?" Mulder asked, ushering her into the waiting cavern on wheels. "Take the old AmEx for a spin at Spago and then check out the lair of the Federman?" From the back seat, she considered the keys dangling from his fingers for a moment, then eyed the man before her with intent. "We can eat later." ### The drive is one smooth silent glide in a smoked-glass bubble. Like at Disneyland, but with piercings and prostitutes and million-dollar homes along the way instead of ghosts or pirates or octopi. The car pulls up to a white plaster wall edged in glossy green ivy and strung with dusty fairy lights. Mulder trips a little over the curb on his way out of the limo, steadies himself on the doorjamb and reaches back for Scully's hand. "Watch your step exiting the ride." She does, then leans back into the cabin to snag the bottle. Scully waves at the driver and slams the door hard. Mulder swipes the key card and enters the code into a little pad next to a wood gate worthy of one of the California missions. At the buzz, he swings it to and she creeps into the courtyard under his outstretched arm. Ambient green waves flicker against the inside wall, lighting their way across smooth paving stones. Mist plumes up from the swimming pool, seeming to absorb the sounds of their clicking shoes. They head in the other direction, stepping onto a narrow bridge spanning the koi pond that lies between them and the front door. Scully pauses at the crest of the arch to knock back another hit of champagne, and a few drops escape the corners of her mouth. She draws her lower lip beneath her tongue to sop up the stray wine, then rubs it against the top one, sheening them both. Turning back just in time to observe this little move, Mulder freezes a moment, then trips over an uneven slat - or possibly, probably, his own shiny wingtip - on his way back to his suddenly insouciant partner. Scully leans her elbows back on the railing, bottle dangling between two fingers. The bridge's delicate frame squeaks as Mulder plants one hand on either side of her. His mouth pauses a fraction of second before finding hers and pressing against it soundlessly. The near-empty bottle clunks to the rickety boards under their feet, before rolling noisily several feet and splashing into the murky water below. Mulder and Scully separate on a laugh, but not for long. Her hands, one warm from her coat pocket, the other cool from the champagne bottle, come up to stroke each corner of his jaw, to draw him down on her again. The kiss is a lingering one, building heat slowly until the edge of her coat collar makes her neck itch. Mulder opens her throat to the cool evening air, blessing the ivory column with tiny lauds. "Mmm..." Her head tilts this way and that as she drags her hands down his torso. At his waist, they wander beneath his jacket and around, coming to a warming rest on his backside. He is dropping kisses along her hairline when she tugs him tight against her. A heated gasp escapes his lips and he pauses for a sudden, fierce battle with his composure. Scully tucks her head beneath his chin, cheshire in her smile and the way she nudges up against his throat. The still green water on the other side of the yard beckons to her like a lost, amoeba-shaped city. "Did I ever tell you...," she whispers into his collar, "...how many times I saw 'The Blue Lagoon'?" "N-no." "It was the forbidden cinematic fruit of my formative years." She reaches up to pull the loosened knot of his tie completely free, sliding it down his chest and tucking it into her coat pocket. He is feeling fine and fuzzy, but her eyes when she fixes them on his are clear, and the look in them unambiguous. Something within him finds focus as well, and his vague desire coalesces, hardens into need, into gotta-have. Their clothes dissolve into a trail from the little bridge to the edge of the pool. This way, Scully muses, they'll be able to find their way back. Steadying herself with a hand to his forearm, she bends to splash her toe in the pool. Like bathwater. She grins up at him, invites him with an arched brow, then turns and dives with stretched arms and pointed toes. Scully surfaces, surprised to find him still lingering on the deck. Pleased to recognize a pattern emerging, she sees now that she is the more reckless of the two when it comes to the risks posed by their new togetherness. She went to him that first night. And the second. And here she is, pointing the way forward again. Treading water in the deep end, Scully's body is backlit like that of a screen goddess, rays of undulant light waving out from over her head, behind her shoulders and between her legs. "Well?" she challenges. "Just enjoying the view," he says hoarsely. Scully could say the same. Standing there nude at the edge of the pool, he resembles nothing so much as one of Hearst's San Simeon marble statues. Mulder is warm, breathing, tender flesh, however, and she devours his graceful form with famished eyes. After another moment's mutual admiration, he cannonballs into the pool, sending a wake of water over the lip and flooding the polished concrete deck. From beneath, he tugs at her feet and she lets out a delighted yip before going under. They come up kissing. On tiptoes, Mulder dances them into the shallow end, twirling, twirling, twirling. With strong thighs, Scully hugs his hips as her sex slides against his thick cock, trapped between their bodies. She breaks their kiss, hanging loosely back to let her hair spiral in the water. Mulder palms the cheeks of her ass, holding her tight against him, and she splashes her torso back into the water, luxuriating in the stretch of skin over her muscles and bones, the tightening of her nipples, the sheer weightlessness of the night. "Oh, God, I'm dizzy, Mulder. Aren't you?" "Perpetually," he chuffs, and gradually stills their roundabout motion. His heart is pounding, and not from swinging his partner. With a little grunt and a tug on Mulder's forearms, Scully draws herself back to vertical, looping her arms about Mulder's neck. In the murky light, her eyes glow the same color as the water all around them. One hand reaches up to play with his hair, sculpting it to spike this way and that. "Mulder," she questions gently, "When you stormed out of the screening...it wasn't because the Scully character in the movie said she was in love with Skinner, was it?" "No," he denies immediately, chagrined less at his behavior than her ability to read him. "That was just the proverbial straw." "Good." She smiles a slightly unbelieving smile, an indulgent smile, and leans in to nuzzle his camel nose. "Because, I mean...it was just a movie. And a really *bad* movie at that." He nods, a lump surprising the back of his throat, which he banishes with a deep kiss. "Anyway," she continues a minute later, "it was all in the casting. Who would choose Shandling over Richard Gere?" "Good point," he notes, his interest drifting from the conversation. His lips find hers again, and the tip of his tongue sneaks out to meet hers. The gliding wet warmth of her mouth would make his hair - among other things - stand on end, if it - they - weren't already. "Besides," she adds with unnerving lucidity, "You said it yourself, Mulder - Tea Leoni would never go for someone like you." Off her smug smile, Mulder bounces all the indignancy he can muster at the moment. "Oh yeah? Why is that?" Scully bites her grinning lower lip, then states the obvious. "She's a glamorous movie star, Mulder. She must lead quite the jet-set existence. She'd never have the patience to wait around seven years for anyone." Mulder's answering smile is slow and liquid. "And even if she did...*I've* got a bigger gun than AD Skinner, and I'm not afraid to use it." Mulder sets her on the bottom step next to the handrail, so that they are eye-to-eye. He licks his lips and glances down to where the water laps at Scully's belly. "Did I ever tell *you*, Scully, that I was the Indian Guides champion in long distance under-water swimming?" Her eyes widen and the expected witty rejoinder is a no- show. Grinning, he submerges, her hips between his hands. That mouth made for kissing fulfills its design function to indoor- outdoor, underwater perfection. "Mmuh-" It could be "Mulder" or "my God" or "motherfucker." The sounds are distorted, but he feels them reverberate along her skin and through the water. She is vibrating all over. Scully shivers, diamond droplets glint off her collarbone in the cool air. Her nipples become painfully taut, begging for Mulder's palms to soothe them. He uses his mouth instead. Rising slowly up out of the water, he first trails his nose over her belly, then cups her shoulder blades as he tongues each aureola in turn. Once. And again. She molds her hands to the sleek crown of his head, arching her back in a luxurious wave of lust. When did it happen, Scully wonders, that she gave into the idea that if she didn't get him inside her this goddamn second, the universe would collapse? Will she always feel this way the moment before they join? Jesus, she hopes so. His knees begin to shake slightly as he turns her in his arms, curving their bodies forward in parallel question marks. His hands guide hers to the handrail, and she grips the cold brass. Mulder backs down a step, his cock sliding along her creased flesh. Scully's breath stops suddenly and her ribs explode out again under his trailing fingers. A wave of heat rises through him, a feeling built of equal measures ferocity and tenderness. His fingers creep between her thighs, gently widening her stance. Funny how they say a man "takes" a woman, when it's precisely the other way around. He cradles her skull in the crook of one arm, chasing her lips, her jaw, her neck with kisses as it rolls restlessly side to side. Her carotid artery thrums against his forearm as her chest rises and falls in rhythm with the undulations of their lower bodies. Mulder's right arm is draped across her belly, his large, attentive hand molding her mons. One long finger rides her clit as he swings her pelvis to and fro, driving into her with long, aching strokes. On nights like this, he feels he can never get enough of her, and he knows there can never be enough nights like this. His normally unabashed orgasmic outburst is muffled by planting his open mouth against her shoulder blade, the flats of his teeth pressing into her flesh. Scully's neck arches back as her own cries, following a heartbeat behind his, issue into the damp all around them. ### Dripping wet, they escape the thickening ground fog, scurrying, still naked, into the dark hush of the house. Cool teak floors lined with thick rugs pave their path to the nearest bathroom, where they dig up plush towels and a hair dryer. They wick the dampness off of each other's skin, and Mulder gets a little frisky with the blow dryer. Dry and robed in borrowed terry, they explore the sprawling single story. Their neglected bellies send them on a seek and consume mission, and the sortie lands them in a well- stocked kitchen. They sip guava nectar and spring water in between bites of goat cheese with almonds. Mulder stabs three Kalamata olives onto the ends of his fingers and is nearly comatose by the time Scully finishes nibbling them away. They decide against tucking into one of the house's four beds, favoring instead the pillow-piled sofa overlooking a gauzy, twinkling panorama of the San Fernando Valley. They doze on and off, waking one another for a moment now and again to extend a cramped elbow or burrow a nose into the crook of a warm neck. When dawn creeps over the mountains, Mulder discovers that last night's inebriation has yet to wear off. Scully's lids flicker open to meet the reeling caress of his gaze. He's drunk on the way the love in her eyes dissolves his night of humiliation into champagne bubbles, into lapping water and stardust, into pink, rising light.