From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:03:35 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Feeling by Blue Samutra
Source: direct

Reply To: bluesamutra@gmail.com

 
Title: Feeling 
Author: bluesamutra@gmail.com 
Classification: VRA - Vignette/Romance/Angst 
Rating: NC-17 
Disclaimer: The X-Files is owned by Fox; no 
infringement of copyright is intended 
Feedback: Yes please...
Spoilers: Never Again, Momento Mori, The End, The 
Beginning 
Summary: Scully struggles to come to terms with her 
changing relationship with Mulder  
Notes: Companion piece to my other stories Dust & 
Yellow Light.  Would probably help to read those 
but I think this does stand alone too.  Dialogue 
from MM is taken from the wonderful X-Files 
Transcripts Archive (http://www.insidethex.co.uk).

*********************

The floor to ceiling light box casts the room in 
a fluorescent glow and Scully scrutinizes the 
stark tabloid sized films of her skull.  She can 
name every bone, learned by rote over ten years 
ago, but she can't quite believe she's standing 
here.  That after everything she and Mulder have 
been through, it's something as pedestrian as 
cancer that will kill her.  If she ever thought 
about it before, and it really wasn't something 
she thought about often, she imagined a bullet 
being the only thing that would fell her in her 
youth.  More often, she imagined she'd live 
until she was old, slipping away in her sleep at 
the age of eighty-two like her grandmother, who 
cruised the world on the QE2 for her last three 
years and retired to bed every evening, 
including the one she died, with a glass of 
sherry in one hand and a copy of To Kill a 
Mockingbird in the other. 

He'll be here soon, she thinks, wishing for a 
moment that she could freeze time and he would 
never arrive.  She'd left a message for him last 
night on the office answering machine, asking 
him to meet her at Holy Cross this morning, and 
when he'd returned her call a few minutes ago to 
say he was on his way, she'd gutlessly let it go 
to voicemail.  She hasn't spoken to him since 
Friday night, and honestly they didn't really do 
much talking then.  

A dull throb pulses behind her sinuses, a hint 
of things to come, and Scully presses her 
fingers against her forehead, shutting her eyes 
against the burn of tears.

She'd done the same thing on Friday night 
standing in Hegel Place's shabby elevator, when 
she clamped her eyes shut to ward off the tears 
that threatened to spill down her cheeks, and 
her thighs closed to prevent Mulder's semen from 
reaching her knees.  

That night had been fucked up, even for her.  
Them.  Whatever.

She'd stood there wondering how she was going to 
look him in the eye on Monday and been scared to 
catch sight of her own reflection in the scuffed 
steel lining of the car.  When she had, a wide-
eyed woman with tousled hair and a chalk-white 
face stared back at her.

Mulder had said he didn't know what was going on 
with her and though it would shock him to hear 
her agree with him, this time he had a point.  
She'd gone four years without sex and in the 
space of two weeks she'd been with as many men.  
She'd half-heartedly wondered if this was an 
example of the 'uncharacteristic behavior' the 
oncologist had warned her she might experience 
as her disease progressed, but deep down she 
knew it had been building for a while.

She'd pressed her back against the side of the 
car and the grab rail had dug painfully into her 
back, aggravating what she'd suspected was the 
beginning of a nasty bruise where Mulder's 
fingers had bit into her hip as he thrust her 
into his hardwood floor.

Her eyes had focused through the sheen of tears 
and she realized she hadn't pressed the button 
for the ground floor.  Her throat had 
constricted around a strangled laugh that 
sounded more like a sob and she stabbed the down 
button with a shaking hand.

Her hand shakes now as she pulls the x-ray from 
the light box and bracing herself for what's 
about to come.

"Scully?" 

She turns round at Mulder's hesitant voice from 
the doorway and he walks towards her with a 
bunch of flowers.  Their eyes meet briefly and 
she can see apprehension and apology mixed, and 
she knows the same emotions are mirrored in her 
own eyes.  

"I uh, stole these from some guy with a broken 
leg down the hall.  He uh, won't be able to 
catch me."  His is face sluggish with dread but 
he tries to smile as he holds out the flowers 
and she ducks her head, smiling too.  For a 
split second she can almost pretend none of this 
is really happening, but Mulder's voice turns 
serious, "How ya doing?"

"I guess that's the question," she says ruefully 
but at his nervous nod she reassures him, 
"Actually I feel fine."

Mulder pauses, nodding, while he digests this 
and she can see the question on his face, 
wondering if she *they* are fine too. Her head 
bobs in reassurance and she lets her eyes linger 
on his face. 

As frustrated as she was with him before 
Philadelphia.  As frustrated as she has been for 
a long time with his ditches, his ordering her 
around; with his obtuseness and his 
obsessiveness, whilst her own focus on life 
narrowed and narrowed until it was all about 
him, she knows he will be here for her now.  
There is no one other than Mulder, may never be 
anyone else, and in this moment, in this room, 
she is okay with that.

Mulder's eyes flick between her face and the 
light box, "What uh, what exactly are we looking 
at here?"

This part she can do, this part she trained for 
years for, and she slips comfortably and 
detachedly into the role as Dr. Scully.  "It's 
what's called nasopharyngeal mass. It's a small 
growth between the superior concha and the 
sphenoidal sinus."

"A growth?"

"A tumor."

Their eyes meet again and his face seems pale 
with fear.  She wants to say something that will 
comfort him, something to acknowledge what has 
happened between them and reaffirm their bond, 
but when she opens her mouth to speak all she 
can think of is, "You're the only one I've 
called."

"Is it operable?"  He asks with warm brown eyes 
which search hers for the truth.

"No," she whispers and she feels like her spine 
has turned to ice.  

"But it's treatable."

And the ice starts to melt; she breathes in 
through her nose to steady herself and refuses 
to flinch. "The truth is that the type and 
placement of the tumor make it difficult, to the 
extreme."

"I refuse to believe that, I..."

Oh Mulder, she thinks, if only hope could heal 
the world.  And me.  She cuts him off, a ghost 
of a smile fleeting on her lips, "For all the 
times I have said that to you, I am as certain 
of this as you have ever been."

Mulder quirks his head in question and her voice 
drops a decibel as she confirms what he already 
knows but is afraid to believe, "I have cancer. 
It is a mass on the wall between my sinus and 
cerebrum. If it pushes into my brain 
statistically there is about zero chance of 
survival."

"I don't accept that. Th..there must be some 
people who have received treatment for this, 
we..can...."  Mulder, so sure of himself always, 
stammers in the face of her mortality.

Scully sighs, steeling herself for the road 
ahead and she pictures Betsy Higopian and the 
other Allentown women, their faces grey with 
death.  Her voice, when she answers, is stronger 
than she feels inside.  "Yes there are."

***

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, it's so fucking good."

Scully's eyes snap open as Mulder groans 
underneath her and his fingers bite into the 
flesh of her hips, dragging her against him.  
With each painfully slow thrust his cock smacks 
against her cervix and her uterus clenches in 
anticipation.  Sweat covers her skin in a fine 
sheen and the hiss of their ragged breathing and 
the wet sounds of their bodies moving together 
ratchets her own arousal up a notch.  "Yeah, it 
is," she breathes in agreement.

Mulder's eyes flick to hers and his gaze is so 
penetrating she has to look away, her head 
dropping forward to watch her hands slide over 
his chest, fingernails scratching at the sparse 
hair on his sternum.  When they are joined like 
this and he looks at her like that, it almost 
feels like he can see inside to her soul, and 
she's scared of what he might find there.

Letting go of one hip he slides a calloused hand 
along her leg, fingers dancing over the 
sensitive skin on her inner thigh as he reaches 
for her center.  His thumb hits home with 
unnerving accuracy and her breath catches in her 
throat as he rubs tight circles around her clit. 
Her flesh is swollen and slick and there is 
almost no friction but he presses against her 
firmly, rolling the hard nub around under his 
thumb.  

She can tell he's close by the tenseness of his 
muscles and she concentrates on the sensations 
traversing her body, focusing on her approaching 
orgasm.  Mulder launches himself forward, 
stomach muscles rippling under her hands, to 
suck her right nipple into his mouth.  He seems 
to know just the right amount of pressure to 
apply, before letting her hard nipple slip out 
of his mouth and laving the puckered flesh with 
the flat of his tongue. Sliding her hands into 
his hair, she cradles him against her breast.

Last year when they did this there was no other 
way to describe it than fucking.  She had known 
as he pulled her to the floor and sank his teeth 
into her neck that he wanted to wipe any trace 
of Ed Jerse from her mind, and even though 
fucking Fox Mulder was something she had 
promised herself she would not do, in that 
instant she wanted him to make her forget.  She 
wanted to forget about the stagnancy of her 
life, the unnerving disquiet and sense of 
confinement that had driven her from his 
basement office into another man's arms.  Was it 
spite that had made her accept the date with Ed?  
Maybe, but it was melancholy which led her to 
that dank bar to drink vodka tonics and confess 
her malaise to a stranger.  It was vindication 
which sparked in her mind when the needle buzzed 
painfully into the soft skin of her back.  And 
it was desperation for human contact that made 
her kiss Ed back even though her mind screamed 
'no'.

She just wanted to *feel*.  But as she lay on 
the floor next to Ed after five minutes of truly 
mediocre sex, she found that feel was the one 
thing she could not do.  Her heart, her stomach, 
her mind were numb; leaden in her body.  As Ed 
helped her to her feet and led her to his bed, 
pressing a shirt on her to sleep in, she saw it 
was obvious even to him.  She was dead inside.

He slept on the sofa. 

But two weeks later, on the same day she found 
out she was dying, Mulder made her feel more 
alive than she had in years and tonight she is 
strong and healthy, and a barrage of feeling 
courses through her body as Mulder scrapes his 
teeth over her nipple.

Her thighs burn and her pelvis bubbles with the 
delicious promise of climax as she thrusts 
against Mulder.  She pulls his lips to hers, 
sweeping her tongue into his alcohol soaked 
mouth and she is coming, her body contracting 
hard around him as he surges into her one last 
time and spills inside her, her name on his 
lips.

The first few moments as their pulses slow and 
their skin cools are the best.  Soon enough, as 
she hears Mulder's breathing slip into the 
steady cadence of the sleeping and his caressing 
hand falls still on her back, her conscience 
stirs.  The unforgiving voice of reason in her 
head condemns her for her weakness, for 
succumbing once again to her desire to feel.  
And for Mulder.  

She can no longer pretend to herself that there 
could be anyone else, but she can't say the same 
for him.  His loyalty to her had been profound 
and enduring, but his willingness to disregard 
her mistrust of Diana had shaken her to the 
core.  There is nothing she would not do for 
Mulder; on her deathbed, when the only gift she 
had left to give him was her reputation, she had 
willingly placed it in his hands.  This rift 
between them over Diana had reaffirmed what she 
already knew to be true: their partnership was 
of paramount importance to her.   Maintaining 
that took priority over everything else, and if 
she were to let herself fall in love with him, 
it would be all too easy to lose sight of 
herself.  And there was already so little of her 
left.