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Title: Twenty Feet (1/1)
Author: N. Kastle
Rating: R for mild (implied) sexual content
Summary: After an unprofessional evening, Mulder and
Scully have difficulty concentrating on their
work.
Spoilers: MSR, brief mentions of Pilot and Never Again. This
avoids mention of other US4 events, although it doesn't necessarily
need to come before them.
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully belong to Chris
Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox Television. As
if we hadn't noticed. :) I am not making any
profit from this story.
Classification: Story/Romance -- There's no X-File to be found,
except why M&S have taken so damn long to admit how
they feel.
Archive: Feel free to archive, as long as my name and
address remain attached. When possible, please
send me URLs of archived locations. Originally
posted August 20, 1997.
Thanks: To Dawson. I wrote this story just to see if
fanfic could be a good writing exercise. Without
his friendship (and editing), I never would have
had the audacity to post it.
Feedback: Send all comments to
<snk444@merle.acns.nwu.edu>. Criticism and
compliments are greatly appreciated.
***
Twenty Feet
by N. Kastle
Scully walked out of the office, a small smile creeping across her
face like the morning sunlight through a bedroom window. She strode
down the hall, her heels making staccato snaps against the linoleum.
The rhythm reminded her of the beat in the club the night before, and
she recalled the look on Mulder's face when he pulled her out of her
chair and onto the dance floor.
She half-closed her eyes and could almost feel his hands gripping her
waist again; her hips started to swing from side to side, matching the
pulse in her memory. She nearly sailed right past the bathroom door
before she realized she was dancing.
In the hallway.
Twenty feet from where Mulder was sitting at his desk.
Unless, of course, he was standing in the doorway, watching her. Her
heart jumped and she fought the instinct to look. Scully straightened
her shoulders, feeling the warmth of embarrassment spread from her
clavicle up to her cheeks. She resolutely pushed the door open and
rushed to place a damp paper towel against her blushing face, all the
while expecting to hear a low chuckle or sarcastic comment sneaking in
after her.
When she returned to the office, Mulder was still perched on the edge
of his chair, apparently engrossed in a case file. He didn't look up
when she leaned over and grabbed a book sitting next to his right
elbow. She was trying to slyly check the expression on his face and
accidentally bumped him. Still no reaction.
Sometimes it wasn't too flattering to be less distracting than a
description of an alien, especially since Mulder had seen about a
thousand of those in the last year alone. Of course, she thought, he's
probably also seen about a thousand women in those videos who were
more distracting than either his partner or aliens.
Not that Scully expected him to really notice her. She just wanted to
make sure he hadn't witnessed her one-woman tango to the ladies' room.
They had only danced the night before because her friend Lisa had
goaded Mulder into asking her, although Lisa hadn't needed to persuade
them to stay on the floor for the next hour. Free from the confines of
their 9 to 5 business suits and singular focus, the adrenaline and
movement were a welcome release.
It wasn't too different from normal, actually. They were used to
roles. Believing and skeptic. Impulsive and rational. Night and
day. They had found their new roles easily -- he as a bashfully
smiling boy, she as a tempting agressor. And having Mulder laugh with
delight at her easy confidence in dancing then had made his dismissive
silence now all the more annoying.
Scully shut the lid of her laptop computer abruptly and grabbed her
overcoat. She was not going to do this. It was pointless to sit here
if all she was thinking about was last night. She was halfway to the
hallway before Mulder even looked up.
"You going?" he asked. The tone of his voice was maddeningly even,
conveying only a little surprise at the interruption to his thought
pattern.
She nodded.
"Where are you running off to?" he asked. Got a date or something? he
thought, glad that he'd shut his mouth before it came out. The last
time he had asked her that, she had answered only with silence, and
returned with a tattoo and a newly-institutionalized murderer
ex-boyfriend.
She paused, one eyebrow unconsciously raised in a half-question.
Scully knew he wasn't ever going to ask her if she had a date again,
not after Philadelphia. She was still tempted to imply that, just to
get him back for being so aloof all day. But she didn't want to be
mean, not really. She just wanted him to stop avoiding the fact that
they'd had a very unprofessional evening last night.
Mulder watched Scully's eyes as she debated her response. He thought
he could grasp the fringe of the subject. She knew him well enough to
guess his sudden silence meant he had almost said something he didn't
want to. She seemed to be torn between admitting annoyance at him and
just walking out the door without a reply.
She could feel his eyes studying her, trying to understand the
emotions written on her face. She tossed back her hair and shot out,
"Going home." She didn't pause a second before she walked out.
Mulder sprang up before he thought, bumping his thigh on the low desk
and spilling over a cup of pens. In two strides, he was at the
hallway. He had caused a commotion, but Scully didn't look at him.
He leaned against the frame of the door, trying to cross his arms
casually in case she turned around. This view of Scully walking
confidently down the hallway was quickly becoming his favorite. Even
though that meant she was moving away from him, it was a rare treat to
see her a trifle unguarded.
Or a lot unguarded, he thought with a smile. Like this afternoon,
when she had practically skipped down to the restroom. No, he
amended, skipping was something that children did. One thing Scully
had definitely not looked then was childlike.
She stood with her back to him, waiting for the elevator. She was
utterly still now, appearing to feel his observation and wanting to
pose for the perfect mental photograph. Her small frame cut rounded,
contoured shadows against the white paint of the elevator doors. The
black pantsuit she wore heightened the distinction; her figure stood
in sharp relief against the wall. Mulder's hands stretched out, as if
he were standing next to a sculpture in a museum and needed to feel
the smooth curve of the marble beneath his own fingers.
He gauged the distance between them. Five, maybe six paces. He could
probably reach her in a few seconds, before she even registered the
sound of his feet moving toward her. He wanted to put his hands on
the back of her hips and feel her body against his, like he had last
night when they'd danced.
He'd only asked her because Lisa had threatened to tell Scully how
Mulder watched her when she wasn't looking. Lisa swore that Mulder
had "that look" -- whatever that meant -- and that Scully deserved to
know how he felt. While Scully was in the bathroom, she had bullied
him shamelessly. Not that it had taken blackmail for him to keep
dancing with Scully, once they started. At that point, it probably
would have taken threat of bodily harm to get him to stop.
But only if it were *her* body being threatened. He could actually
think of some innovative tortures for her creamy skin -- tests to see
if her thighs would look as strikingly bright against his darker tones
as he'd imagined. Or to determine how it was that even over the rank
of cigarettes and beer, her hair had smelled so much like
strawberries.
Then he lost time.
Not like the nine minutes that disappeared on that Oregon road.
Scully was naked, on top of him, and the contrast of her pale legs
gripping his hips *was* as startling as he'd imagined. Even above the
smells of sweat and sex he could sense her sweetness.
And time simply stopped. He could feel ice-cold fingers walking on
his spine, leaving trails of goosebumps on his back. The elevator
dinged, echoing loudly off the concrete walls of the basement and
breaking his reverie. He froze at the noise, feeling very much as if
he'd been caught peeping in someone's window as they dressed.
Except he was standing in the hall.
Twenty feet from where Scully was waiting for the elevator. He
shifted a bit and crossed his legs, hoping it wouldn't be evident how
quickly he'd gotten hard. But the movement made his clothes scrape
against his skin, and he moaned softly under his breath.
She turned halfway, looking back toward the office for the first time.
Mulder was leaning against the door, his hands tucked into his
pockets, wearing that look again. Except this time, instead of just
the naked, needy look he always tried so hard to mask, his dark eyes
were tinged with something else. Embarrassment, she guessed, that she
had caught him staring.
She'd heard the clatter of falling pens and folders and vowed she
could keep her back to him as long as he could keep silent. But for a
second, she thought she'd felt him breathing in her ear. He couldn't
have crossed to her without her hearing. At least she didn't think
so. Of all the things she could easily dismiss as impossible -- like
a man being to move twenty feet and back again without making a sound
-- this was the first she had wanted so desperately to believe.
"Want to dance?" Mulder asked, trying to keep the leer out of his
voice.
Scully looked at him. He was leering, but at least he wasn't ignoring
her any more. "In the hallway," she said, not asking a question, not
even bothering to raise an eyebrow. She resigned herself to the fact
that he must have seen her earlier.
"Sure," he answered with a grin, as if it were her idea all along. "I
guess we could do that."
The elevator doors slid open with a scrape of metal on metal. Scully
turned back to face the car, her head slightly bowed. The doors
seemed to hover in their recessed position -- like one of Mulder's
alien crafts, she thought with a smile.
Mulder couldn't believe she would just leave after that remark. He
should have just told her that *he* wanted to dance, and they could
dance here or at his apartment or back at the club. Or anywhere she
wanted. They could dance in the damn elevator if that's what she
decided. He moved toward her, his lanky limbs finally coming in handy
for something other than running *away.*
Scully didn't know what to do. If she turned around again, she'd have
to figure out how dancing with Mulder fit into working with Mulder.
She just couldn't figure out what would happen after they finished
dancing, how they would get out of each others' arms and into their
jackets and out the door. If she just got on the elevator, she
wouldn't have to worry about him asking again. Mulder was impulsive,
but not stupid.
The doors glided shut again with a hoarse whir and a little gust that
ruffled her hair against her cheeks.
"Looks like you missed your ride," Mulder whispered softly. He stood
directly behind her, his lips just above her hair. She flinched at
his sudden proximity, and his body stiffened in response. She's still
afraid to touch me, he thought.
Scully felt him tense. She wondered for a moment if this was a vivid
hallucination, if she'd turn around and he'd still be standing in the
doorway. She leaned back to test her theory, and felt the warmth of
his torso through his thin shirt. His hand snaked around to rest on
her stomach and she knew he was real.
"Then you'll have to take me home, Mulder." She brought her hand up
to her waist and slipped her fingers between his. She moved her other
hand towards the elevator button, but he grabbed her wrist just before
she pushed it.
"We can take the stairs," Mulder said. He let her go and turned back
toward the office, crossing the twenty feet in six long paces. He
flipped off the lights, and with the sudden removal of their
flourescent hum, the hall was silent as well as dim. Scully sighed, a
little noise way back in her throat -- a sigh not of frustration or
resignation. Mulder could hear her clearly, and it sounded just like
pure exhalation, a release of doubt.
With his hand on the doorknob, his back to her, he stopped. What if
when he faced her again she was gone? She could have gotten on the
elevator after all, or taken the stairs by herself. Or she could have
never been there at all -- he'd certainly had more realistic dreams
about her before.
And then her cheek was pressed against his back, although he hadn't
heard her walk to him. He felt clothed again by her nearness, that
without the touch of her body he had walked naked to the office. He
pulled the door the rest of the way shut, and moved to take her hand.
He turned around. She smiled at him, a little creeping happiness
spreading from the corners of her eyes to her lips. Scully stood in
the frame of the stairwell, twenty feet away, propping the exit open
with her high-heeled shoe, waiting.
He was faster getting to her this time, even if he wasn't as silent.
*END*
*Please send feedback to snk444@merle.acns.nwu.edu*
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