From: rah@twinparadox.org
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 03:24:53 -0000
Subject: xfc: NEW: Every Day A Revelation, by Rah
Source: xfc

Title: Every Day A Revelation
Author: Rah
Category: V, MSR, not-quite-smut
Summary: lurv, with a little soap and water
Rating: R (maybe NC-17, if you squint a little)
Spoilers: nothing to worry about. actually, this has little if anything 
to do with the recent storyline at all.
Feedback: lurrrrv it  - rah@twinparadox.org
Archive: right on, just let me know
Notes: at the end

~

It's been five weeks. A little less. It will be exactly five weeks on 
Tuesday. In his mind he has turned time backwards so that it 
seems more like seven years.

He can't imagine that they have not always been lovers.

~

Scully has, in the bathroom in her apartment, an old-fashioned 
cast iron bathtub. It is lined with smooth white porcelain on the 
inside, has four squat claw-feet on the bottom, and it could 
probably very comfortably seat three. 

Not that two isn't plenty. Whenever time permits, Scully takes a 
few hours to soak in her tub. Mulder knows this. This was one of 
the first private things he knew about her (although 'guessed' is 
really more like it). He happened to be in her bathroom the very 
first time he was ever in her apartment (all those years ago), and 
even though he had been busy saving her from a liver-eating 
mutant at the time, he had *noticed* her tub. Its size had struck 
him immediately.

He also took specific note - that first time in her home - of the 
scented candles and bath oils she kept on a little trolley next to 
her tub. These are gone now. Nowadays Scully prefers a simpler 
bath. No salts. No bubbles. Just steaming hot water, a natural 
sea-sponge, and him.

He likes the way things have progressed. 

It was difficult, after that first time in her apartment, not to 
fantasize about Scully and her bathtub. Not that he minded 
fantasizing about Scully and her bathtub - no no, that was quickly 
one of his favorites - but it had made for some awkward 
situations. Standing up after review meetings in Skinner's office, 
for instance, had been troublesome. Long car rides, again: 
troublesome. He had actually taken to buying his pants a little 
baggier. Pleat-front instead of flat. He had imagined how he 
would tell Scully that it was a style thing. But she had never 
asked. 

And of course things are different now. The fantasy of Scully and 
her tub has been replaced by the reality of Scully and her tub. 
Mulder prefers the reality. It's vaguely miraculous. It goes places 
his imagination couldn't have compassed. Even as he leans 
back against her body, he can't quite believe it. How could he 
have known she would be this soft? 

Every day, lately, is a revelation.

~

He didn't happen to notice it the first time he was in her 
bathroom, but there is, in fact, a shower just behind Scully's tub. 
It's a small shower, tucked into the wall, and unlike the tub, there 
isn't quite room for two people inside, so they have to stand 
close, pressed against one another to share the hot water. 
Neither of them seems to mind.

He is amazed how light she is in his arms; even with most of her 
weight riding on his hips and shoulders, even with the slow up 
and down they are building against the soapy tiles, she is like a 
feather, silken, floating, ethereal. She breathes next to his ear. 
He gathers her close. He presses into her, hoping their skins 
will mingle, that their bodies will fuse throughout. He would 
swallow her. He would merge with her entirely. 

In five weeks (almost) they have learned this part of each other, 
and - what is more important - they have found out that (for the 
most part) it was something they already knew. The learning 
curve, like the soft sweep of Scully's hip as it slides along his, 
has been shallow and marvelous. They know things they 
wouldn't have guessed. They guess things they couldn't have 
imagined. The only surprise is how easily it comes. How easy it 
is. 

Sometimes he thinks that they have always been right *here*. 

He holds her as they slide, slick with her nubbly oatmeal soap, 
captured together, moving, as always, as one. Her mouth is 
open on his neck. His forehead is pressed to the wet tiles above 
her shoulder. The heat of the shower billows around them, thick 
and fragrant. Their breaths - short, long, deep, rasped, gasp, 
moan - make music with the water that spatters off of them, 
tumbling down the xylophone drain. He says her name. He says 
her name. Even with his voice wants her. He calls to her. She 
echoes him with soft murmurs, little sighs. She answers his call 
with a kiss. 

He wants her. He couldn't have imagined this kind of want. It is 
constant. He wants her even when she's already there. He wants 
her even as he has her.

He is lost in her. His hands hold tighter. His hips push deeper. 
He presses his head to hers until their scalps grind together. It 
is coming fast now, hard now, no stopping now. This is when 
space expands and time contracts and the moment is both big 
and small at once. This is the sudden hush and rush of heat. 
This is when things stop and speed up.

This is how they come together.

~

He is realizing for the first time that sea-sponges are fantastic 
things. Claw-foot tubs that can hold two adults and fifty gallons of 
hot water without spilling over are also definitely fantastic, but 
this is not news. The thing about the sponge (which she bought 
just this morning, all shriveled and hard in a little onion bag) is 
that as soon as it's wet, it goes all soft and pliable. Kind of like 
Scully. She is soft and pliable right now, sitting behind him. 
She's also pretty wet. 

This makes him smile. A big, lazy, completely happy smile. 

The water comes right up to his chin, so that the only parts of 
him not submerged are his head and his knees. And one pruney 
toe, which is stuck against the sharp threads of the spout. He 
nestles back, rubbing his shoulders against her breasts. He 
rests his head in the damp curve of her neck. This he hadn't 
imagined. He closes his eyes.

Scully is bathing him with the sponge. She holds it under the 
water - just there yeah - and lets it soak for a few seconds before 
she brings it up, and the warm water trickles over him slow 
slowly slow. Her legs circle him. His hands are on her ankles, 
her feet against his thighs. He turns his head and swipes his 
cheek across her damp shoulder. He kisses the delicate white 
skin on the inside of her upper arm. He knows she is smiling as 
she squeezes water over his knee. She is his geisha. She 
knows just what to do. 

She murmurs about unimportant things, her voice low next to his 
ear. What are his plans for dinner? When does he want to be in 
to the office tomorrow? She has an appointment at Quantico in 
the afternoon. Will he stay over tonight?

He hums his only reply, an eyes-closed dreamy affirmation that 
has nothing to do with what she has asked and everything to do 
with how much he loves her. She leans forward again; he feels 
her cheek against his head, her wet arm sliding along his as 
she dips the sponge back underwater. She is laughing gently, a 
thick chuckle rising from somewhere around her heart. Her legs 
tighten around him and her empty hand opens against his 
stomach. 

He loves her hands. There isn't an inch of her he isn't in love 
with, but her hands he loves loves loves. They are small hands, 
but slender and pretty. They are soft. They move with a graceful 
deliberation that fascinates him when she doesn't know he is 
watching. They touch him with a sensuous deftness that 
surprises him every time. Like now. Her free hand is moving 
slowly (everything is slow and sweet, like honey dripping from 
the comb) spread flat against his abs, her palm smoothing 
downward, soft, her fingernails sifting through the short hairs on 
his stomach, the longer hairs just below. In her other hand 
there's the sponge, and she's dragging it along his thigh. He 
smiles and bites the inside of his lip and waits for her hands to 
meet in the middle.

Sometimes - when they are together, when they are speaking or 
silent, when their bodies are entwined or touch only peripherally, 
or when they are not touching at all - he wonders: when did the 
change occur? When did she stop being an optional part of his 
existence? When did having her there, being with her, being 
together cease to be a necessity, a desire... when did it become 
simply the natural, the obvious, the reality?

In this reality her hands are magic, stroking him gently, perfectly, 
bringing him up, and he is hard and soft, rigid and limp all at 
once at her touch. He turns his face the other way and puts his 
mouth against her neck. He skims his nose beneath her jaw, 
kisses a sigh as it wells in her throat. She leans her face down 
and presses her lips to his.

"The water's getting cold," she whispers. He hadn't noticed. He 
turns slightly in her arms and brings his hand up to touch her 
face, his fingers mingling with the damp ends of her hair as he 
kisses and kisses her. Long, soft kisses with lips already 
swollen, lips big and soft from all afternoon and all morning and 
all night before that. He loves her lips. He loves her.


end 

~

Notes: this came out of a one-hour lunchtime smut challenge 
among the Duckies more than a month ago; it's not really smut, 
and it doesn't really have a plot, but i guess i like it. hope you
did too.
 
thanks to all my webbed lovelies for asking me to finish, thanks 
to Beduini for the re-arrange, and as always, my thanks to Sagan 
for being the angel and the devil on my shoulder.

this little snippet and all its brothers and sisters can be found at 
www.twinparadox.org