From: Flywoman < berenbaum@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:15:40 +0000
Subject: NEW: Mute Persuasion 1/1 by Flywoman

Title: Mute Persuasion
Author: Flywoman
Rating: NC-17
Classification: M/S... sort of.
Spoilers: "The End" (minor)
Synopsis: A little springtime MSR interlude set just before "Patient X."
What's the catch, you ask?

Disclaimer: Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions own the rights to
the character of Dana Scully, body, mind, & soul.  I am merely a humble
penitent seeking illumination at the feet of the Blessed One for a short
while.  The title of this piece comes from the poem "Psyche" by Virginia
Moore, quoted below without permission. 

Feedback: Would delight me if sent to berenbaum@hotmail.com - my old email
addy won't be active for too much longer.

Archive: Gossamer yes, all others please ask me first.

Thanks: To Karen for the memories and to Jesemie's Evil Twin and Jess for
much-appreciated periodic encouragement.



Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1998
11:30 am


It was a breathtaking spring day in the heart of Washington, D.C., and FBI
Special Agent Dana Scully was uncharacteristically preoccupied with the
problem of love.

As a scientist, she had made a career out of gathering data,
organizing and reevaluating evidence in order to arrive at plausible
theories that could account for unexplained natural phenomena.
Observation and logic were her tools, honed sharp as the scalpels she used
to peel layers of secrets from the silent dead. But love wasn't rational,
wasn't the result of careful deliberation, the thoughtful weighing of
values and vices.  Love wasn't something that she could dissect and
analyze and classify.  It made no more sense than Mulder's flashes of
unsupported intuition, or his sudden shifts of belief from one polar
extreme to the next.  It was as unpredictable as any complex ordered
system, hopelessly dependent on seemingly insignificant initial conditions
and capable of descending on one with the delicacy of a hurricane.

She couldn't even pinpoint the exact moment that it had happened, the day
when a simple combination of restless hormones and intellectual charm had
somehow synergized to ensorcell her.  Oh, she had always been attracted to
him - that first day they had met, when she had penetrated his secluded
basement office to find him seated, bespectacled and sarcastic, she had
immediately noticed the innumerable earthy shades of his beautiful eyes,
his full, sensuous mouth.  And when she had appeared at his motel door at
midnight, shivering in only a robe and her underwear, she had been aware
of an unnerving arousal underlying her fear; in fact, she had been left
feeling perversely disappointed when he behaved like a perfect gentleman,
almost instantly damping his surprise and curiosity, expressing only
reassurance and concern. 

After their first case together, Dana had rapidly learned to bury those
feelings, more out of obstinacy than conviction.  She had begun to suspect
that their superiors, knowing of her year-long affair with Jack Willis at
Quantico, were counting on her history of covert disregard of Bureau
protocol in combination with Mulder's isolation and neediness.  Perhaps
they simply wanted her judgment swayed, her loyalties confused, that guilt
might forge a better tool for their purposes, and if so, they had probably
succeeded to some degree, at least early on.  But more likely they had
hoped to gain a stranglehold on him through her, a binding tie through
which he could be manipulated, exposed, and ultimately discredited and
broken.  And that was one satisfaction that Dana would never give them.
Her rational mind might have little control over her raw feelings, but it
could and would prevent her from ever acting on them. 

But that didn't mean it wasn't hard.  Even more so in the months since 
her remission, when Mulder had abruptly abandoned all beliefs in alien 
abduction and with them the force that had driven him ever onward in
pursuit of the truth.  Dana entered the office every morning wondering
where her duty to him lay, whether she ought to be relieved that he'd
rejected his previous extraordinary theories or outraged that serious
government crimes went uninvestigated while her partner sulked.
Apparently oblivious to her dilemma, he sniveled and sneered, bit the
hands of the MUFON folks who fed him information, and was generally
difficult to tolerate at close quarters for many reasons.

Some days, like this one, with the spring breeze bringing birdsong and
flower pollen even down into the dim depths of the basement corridors, it
was damned near impossible.  Halfway through the morning, Dana had found
herself gazing wistfully at the long lean curve of Mulder's petulant back
under his thin shirt for the umpteenth time and realized that she had to
get out, into the purifying sunshine, away from her partner. 

And so here she was striding purposefully towards the Mall, her unusually
peevish mood at odds with the warmth of late morning and the glee of the
crowds.  Spring had come early this year, 80 degree weather on the heels
of the last snow, bringing flocks of gaily clad tourists like homesick
migrating birds tired of the tropics.  In her severe navy pantsuit and
pumps, Dana felt like an alien in her own town.  She might as well have
had "AWOL FBI Agent" tattooed across her forehead.

Her rueful thoughts carried her as far as the waterfront.  Dana weaved
in and out of the cackling clots of tourists and unemployed locals to her
favorite hot food stand, which was run by gap-toothed Jimmy from a boat
tethered to the riverbank.  She ordered a softshell crab sandwich, plain,
and while that was being prepared walked over to the vending machines for
a Diet Coke.  Sipping slowly, grateful for its tooth-burning coldness in
the unseasonably warm weather, Dana wandered over to one of the larger
fresh fish stands and cast an experienced eye over the rows of glistening
catfish, the thick deep orange salmon steaks, the piles of craggy oysters.

Her order should be ready by now.  Dana crossed back to Jimmy's and dug in
her purse for the correct change, trading a crumpled wad of bills for a
styrofoam box containing batter-fried crabs wrapped in foil and two slices
of white bread.  She headed up the Channel towards the Jefferson Memorial,
walking quickly lest her lunch get cold.  It always amazed people how fast
she could move when she put her mind to it.  "For your height," they
always added or pointedly didn't add, or even worse, "For a woman," but
Dana knew that she walked fast for anyone, sometimes even leaving her tall
trackstar partner hard-pressed to keep up.  Today, though, she had trouble
making headway; the paths around the Tidal Basin were clogged with people,
presumbly due again to the exceptionally fine weather.  Dana vaguely
recalled hearing something about the ornamental cherry trees peaking early
this year.  

The rumors had not been exaggerated.  Dana rounded a corner of the path
and emerged with a full view of the lakeshore, surrounded by gently
swaying trees heavy with white and pink blossom.  Fallen petals had coated
the ground with a soft drift of pale snow, and the air smelled like
distilled spring, new leaf and nectar, and hummed with dutiful bees.  Even
the most boisterous of the tourists and the most jaded of the locals fell
mute in the presence of such evanescent beauty.  Unexpectedly moved, Dana
too spent a few precious moments wandering aimlessly under the blossoms,
not troubling to brush stray petals from her breeze-mussed hair, before
she finally shook the spell off and took herself to a sunwashed bench
facing the water.

The sandwich was delicious, just as she'd remembered it from years long
past when she and her sister and brothers would drag their parents out of
their Annapolis home for the first picnic of the year.  The crab crunched
satisfyingly between her teeth, running salty juices that soaked
the plain white bread and leaked over her chin.  Her Diet Coke, though by
now slightly warm, made a perfect sweet counterpoint to its distinctive
flavor.

Her lunch finished, Dana opened the book she had brought with her, *No
Ordinary Time* by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Her preoccupations prevented her
from concentrating on the Roosevelts' biography as fully as she would have
liked, but the account of FDR's affair with Lucy Mercer and Eleanor's hurt
but dignified reaction caught her attention.  Most striking was the
clipping cited of the poem "Psyche" by Virginia Moore that Eleanor kept in
memory of that devastating revelation from 1918 to her death in 1962: 

The soul that has believed
And is deceived
Thinks nothing for a while,
All thoughts are vile. 

And then because the sun
Is mute persuasion,
And hope in Spring and Fall
Most natural,
The soul grows calm and mild,
A little child,
Finding the pull of breath
Better than death...
The soul that had believed 
And was deceived
Ends by believing more
Than ever before.

Poetry was not her forte, but this piece resonated with her recent
experience with Mulder, whose number of beliefs had diminished so
dramatically even as his capacity for belief had increased.  She read it
over a couple of times, finding something oddly reassuring in its
promises.  Perhaps she needn't push so hard.  Perhaps all that he required
was time.

She really ought to start heading back to the office, but the sunlight was
so warm and soothing.  She would finish just one more chapter before
packing up the remains of her lunch and heading back to the long afternoon
of proximity and paperwork that awaited her. 

 
She opened the door to their office, wincing a little at the familiar
sight of the single nameplate that mocked her years of faithful service at
his side.  For some reason, the injustice of it rankled more strongly
today than usual.  His office.  His desk.  His work.  Despite her
valuable expertise in areas Mulder knew dangerously little about, despite
her countless contributions in support of their controversial case files,
she was still treated as his subordinate.  No doubt viewed by almost
everyone at the Bureau as little more than his Girl Friday.

He must have seen the expression on her face before she had time to smooth
it out into her normal mask of calm self-possession because he stood up
and came over to her at once.  "Hey," he offered a disarming little grin,
"playing hooky while I sweat over a hot desktop?"  He reached out and
touched her forearm, his mouth relaxed but his eyes darkened in poorly
concealed anxiety.  His touch burned.  She flinched slightly and he
faltered, let his hand drop to his side.

Behind him, untidy stacks of files leaned drunkenly against each other, in
imminent danger of overbalancing and cascading to the floor.  Half-filled
boxes stood in unsteady chest-high towers, their contents scrawled on
Scotch-taped notes that clung precariously to their battered sides.
Telekinesis, 1990.  Misdiagnosed Multiple Personality Disorder, 1989.  And
behind his messy desk, the new file cabinets he had ordered just a few
weeks ago, to make room for a badly needed revised system of organization
for his work.  The office was not generally a model of orderliness, but
right now it looked as if a very local hurricane had breezed through
recently.

Mulder turned slightly to follow her irritated gaze and assumed the
familiar hangdog expression that never failed to exacerbate her annoyance.
"Um, this is only temporary.  By next week... next month at the latest..."
He trailed off meekly and bit his lip, that lovely lower lip she knew so
well.

She said nothing.  That often proved to be the most effective response in
these situations.  Given the opportunity, he would dig his own hole, and
then she would almost effortlessly bury him in it.

Sure enough, he slipped past her to lock the door, then wrapped his long
arms around her waist from behind.  "Listen," he murmured in her ear, "I
know that the past few months haven't been easy for you...  It's hard
when someone's beliefs change so much because of experiences you haven't
shared."  She stiffened warningly, but he only tightened his embrace.
"Please don't leave me alone with this.  I need you.  You know that you're
the only one I trust now."

She suddenly found it very difficult to swallow around the bitter lump in
her throat.  But she hadn't been selected for weakness or inconstancy.
She was in this for the long haul.  So when Mulder's lips grazed her ear,
she allowed herself to shiver and gasp a little, and when he proceeded
skillfully down her the side of her neck, she lifted her right arm to
cradle the back of his head.  His hands meandered from her waistband down
over her flat stomach, caressing her lightly through her beige skirt, and
stopped purposefully over her mons pubis, teasing her through the barriers
of fabric and curls.

She moaned softly and arched against him for a moment, then used her other
hand to hike the obstructing garment up over her thighs.  He obligingly
pressed closer, invitingly hard against her lower back, and slid his
slender fingers under the edge of her panties to circle her softly.  She
hissed, swaying aginst him, momentarily dizzied by the flare of pleasure
that spread out from her center.  Then she caught her breath and tried to
rub herself against his fingers, groaning with frustration as he taunted
her by flicking her arrhythmically with the tips. 

At last she couldn't stand it any longer.  Twisting around in his arms,
she pushed him backward against the table she used for a makeshift desk.
Unlike Mulder's area, it was clean and nearly empty, with only a couple of
meticulously arranged folders at the far end.  Her partner grunted a
little in surprise but didn't protest as she grappled urgently with his
belt buckle.  After a few frantic seconds, she found his hands down over
hers, stripping away all impediments with the ease of long practice, as
his mouth found hers and sucked all autonomous thought from her
blood-starved brain.  He smelled of new grass and tasted like spring rain,
and she drank him voraciously to ease the ache of her desiccated heart.

Now she felt the smooth skin of his cock pressing itself urgently against
her hand, already slick, and she wrapped her fingers around it and stroked
him a couple of times so that he lurched against her and almost broke the
skin of her lip.  "Please," he buzzed raggedly against her teeth,
"please," and he fumbled for her under the skirt.  She let go of him
with one hand to yank her panties down over her thigh-highs and stepped
out of them, kicking them under the table.  Her heels followed.  He let go
of her long enough to pull down his trousers and boxer shorts and scoot
back onto the chilly wood surface, his cock swollen and nearly purple.
She followed him as swiftly as she could, straddled him and impaled
herself with a gasp.

Her universe shrank down to a pinpoint focus, this room, this man, this
fragile bridge of flesh between them.  She dug her fingernails into the
hard muscles under his shoulderblades and rode him as hard as she could,
rising and falling over him, blocking his low cries with her tongue.
His arms crushed her painfully against his chest, but she only reveled in
the sharp ache of her nipples and sank her teeth silently into his lower
lip in exchange.  He had no leverage; he was totally dependent on her,
completely at her mercy.  He was hers, now and forever.  

She drew back from him for a moment, her head reeling with excitement and
oxygen deprivation, and he drew in a shuddering breath to groan, "Promise
you won't leave me..."  She stared into his half-closed eyes, pupils so
dilated that the gold and green had been swallowed without a trace, but
did not reply except to raise herself a little higher, bring herself down
on him a little harder.  And then without warning she crested, and
clenched her teeth to keep from screaming as sensation exploded in a
series of irresistable waves.  Her spasms carried Mulder to the brink as
well, and he let out one sound that began as a shriek and ended in a
groan as he spent.  Then the moment passed, and the orgasm dwindled into
an exquisite tingling along the insides of her thighs down to the
tips of her toes and left them both drenched with sweat, exhausted, 
intertwined weakly on the unforgiving surface of the table. 

She pulled away, feeling suddenly unclean.  He only watched forlornly, his
cock shriveling, his pants still down around his ankles, as she slipped
her panties back on and smoothed the telltale wrinkles from her skirt.
Dammit, she'd run one of her stockings.  She slid back into her
high-heeled pumps regardless, picked up her purse, and left for the
restroom to freshen up.

On her way she passed a familiar figure lurking in the shadows of the
stairwell, lit from below for an instant by the flare of flame.  "Good
work, Agent," the smoking man rasped in a tone so menacingly cordial that
she nearly stumbled, abruptly unsure of her longstanding obligations.  He
chuckled softly as she recovered herself and blew a cloud of the
foul-smelling stuff into her face.  "There's true nobility in belonging to
the world's two oldest professions."

She lunged towards him on impulse, intending she knew not what, but he
vanished as easily as the carcinogenic stream of his cigarette dispersed
into the dank air.  At a loss, and shaky besides, she continued to the
ladies' restroom, entered, bent over the sink to splash some water on her
face, and looked up.  

The face in the mirror was that of an older woman, still handsome, but
lined with care and compromise.  The lipstick had been eaten off her thin
lips, and the mascara smudged under her bitter black coffee eyes.  Her
dark hair straggled limply over her narrow shoulders.  She gazed at her
own reflection for a few seconds, trying to remember who she had been when
this whole business began, and wondering bleakly who she had become.


Dana bolted upright, her mouth dry and her clammy hands tightened
convulsively on her book.  A cool shadow had fallen across the park bench,
startling her into wakefulness.  As she blinked to clear her
sleep-inflamed eyes, a familiar voice inquired, "Scully?  You okay?  You
look like you've seen a ghost."  The unmistakable silhouette of her
partner blocked out the painfully bright sky as Dana floundered for a
moment, trying to reorient herself in this time, this place.

"I'm fine, Mulder," she replied automatically, feeling anything but as she
struggled to damp the residual arousal, confusion, and acute embarrassment
at her partner's timely appearance.  She forced herself to loosen her 
grip on the book and close it, hoping desperately that Mulder wouldn't
press the issue.  She hardly needed a psychologist to tell her what her
dream had signified, even if she wasn't sure why she had imagined
herself with the face of a stranger.  Whatever the reason, her fantasy was
absolutely the last thing that she wanted to discuss with him, now or
ever.

He sat down next to her, leaned in, and touched her blazing cheek with
a gentle forefinger.  "I think you've been out here too long.  Looks like
you're sunburned."  Undeterred by her slight flinch, he peered more
closely into her face, running the finger lightly along her jawline.  Dana
could feel his warm breath caress her swollen lips as his forest eyes
beckoned her troubled thoughts towards solace and surrender.  His
honeyed skin glowed gold in the early afternoon sunlight, and the blossomed
breeze had swept his glossy brown hair appealingly across his forehead.
His lips, moistly parted a little in concern, had never looked so
inviting.

With a supreme exertion of will, Dana pulled away from his tender touch
and dragged herself to her feet.  It seemed to take forever.  From a long
way off she heard her own voice say stiffly, "I'm sorry, I must have dozed
off. We'd better get back to the office.  Skinner wanted those expense
reports by four."

Mulder squinted up at her rigid frame in her damp suit, looking a little
puzzled, a little disappointed, and (was she imagining it?) a little
relieved.  "Okay, Scully," he mumbled, and rose smoothly to his full
height.  His voice took on a more familiar mocking edge as he turned to
start back towards the Hoover building: "You know, I'm sure that we could
get a little cot for the office so that you won't have to come all the way
down here next time.  We wouldn't even need a full-sized one."

Scully barely heard the words, although she recognized the sound of moods
broken and opportunities lost.  Her life with Mulder had taught her early
on that doing the right thing didn't always make her feel triumphant.
Sometimes it seemed that situations allowed for no happy aftermaths, only
various intensities of bad tastes in one's mouth.  This was especially
true in the complicated dance of challenge and loyalty that she was forced
to execute with Mulder nearly every day of their professional lives. And
the price for faltering now was just too damned high.  

So why did she feel as though she had just made an irreparable mistake?
Had the dream made her victor or victim on the sun-bathed bench that day?
 
Her short-lived tranquility replaced by the gnawing acid of new regret,
Dana Scully followed her partner silently back to their underground 
office.


An end.

Flywoman would love to hear your reactions to this tale at
berenbaum@hotmail.com