Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Listening to other people’s conversations, she had been taught from very young, was impolite. Now it had become a hobby of hers, that she’d turned into a game. She had to learn to do it surreptitiously, within the career she was forced to leave behind - fleeing from her old life. In this, her new one, they spent a lot of time in roadside diners. Without the chat about whatever current case they were on, that would drown out any other voices, they would sit in comfortable silence. Loving silence. Reading, sipping coffee - their legs wrapped together possessively, under the table. Perhaps one of her feet in his lap.

Scully would listen in to the voices in those diners, behind her, out of sight, within earshot. Her game ended when either she or the speaker got up to leave. Then she would glance and see how well the person matched her conjured image of them. The noise of those voices quieted her mind. Helped keep the demon thoughts at bay, for a spell.

She liked what elderly women had to say the most; they would make anything sound important.

“It was half a chicken breast, very watery mash and a béarnaise that was over seasoned and burnt. It was ghastly.” 

Ghastly. Scully decided she liked that word and didn’t use it nearly enough. Not sure if she ever had. A new extension to the game; she thought perhaps she’d try and weave that into a sentence before the end of the day. 

“Time we got going, Love,” Mulder said, reaching over the empty plates to smooth her brow, adjusting a piece of her hair. It was a different colour, and longer, but the sentiment of the gesture remained the same as the first time he did it, so many years before.

They were on the move again.

It was her fault. 

…

Toddlers have a particular centre of gravity; moving down their torso the older and taller they get. She knew she hadn’t caught her jeans on something. She knew that the tug on the bulky seam of the denim was a small child, their oversized head teetering on their tiny neck, spilling them this way and that. So, when she looked down, she wasn’t surprised to see him or feel his pudgy little hand circle around her thigh. He craned to see her; a look of confusion or fear - incapable of embarrassment at such an age – across his angelic face. Scully smiled and told his embarrassed mother that he was sweet, and it was perfectly okay. 

It had happened before, though she hadn’t been alone; Mulder there to hold her, and pacify her. 

Scully left her basket and fled the store. Walked and wept. And then she called her mother from a phone booth a block from their rented apartment. Desperate. Needed to hear her voice. To speak about the one thing she couldn’t talk to Mulder about. Couldn’t discuss a decision she’d made alone, that affected them both so immeasurably. That was the source of so much anguish. 

It was her fault, but he said sorry. What was he apologising for? Silence would have been better than the sweet, surrendered way he regarded her. He hugged her and told her to pack her things. He didn’t get angry. He was quiet. Methodical. And stroked her face whenever she cried.

…

Bundled up in the car once more, the flat plane at the edge of her brow rested perfectly on the cold passenger side window, her unfocused gaze beyond the pavement. Mulder stood beside their beat-up second-hand car, pumping the gas. 

When they first hit the road, fifteen months earlier, she would rest her head that way. Watch the towns whizz by. Watch the distance grow, between an old world and a new. Four days in and adrenaline had turned to dust; eddied around her tired bones. Gritted behind her weighted lids. Four days on the run; on the drive; across the country; over the world. Driving in and out of night and day. 

Stationary, at a red light, in a town, in a desert, she saw a fish in the road. Dead and crushed. A large, whole fish. She caught sight of it before she detected the smell, even then only faintly; rotting. Tire marks obscured the species - she was otherwise skilled at naming aquatic life. She watched as another vehicle ran over it, leaving its forensic tread in its fleshy scales. Why was it there? On the road. In the desert. Not a crate of them, busted open, by the curb. One lone fish. The light turned green, and Mulder pressed the pedal, cupped his palm over her thigh. She turned her head and watched the fishy lump, on the hot concrete, until it left her vision. 

She thought about that fish, over the last year; the months. Would make up tales about how it got there. A welcome reprieve from the wanderings of her mind that eternally settled in the same unsettling place. Who was loving him? Her head was always full, ticking and tock-ing the fragments of her past. Her choices and regrets. Her grief and sorrow. 

Sometimes she felt like that fish. 

…

Mulder slid his lanky form into the driver’s seat beside her. Sweat fresh with the high summer scent of him filling her nostrils. He was her home. She had felt that way from the beginning if she was truthful; a connection that couldn’t be explained with words. Couldn’t recall when she hadn’t felt like they were tethered together. In some way. An elastic pull - that stretched time and place. Even death. She had sensed it fraying, these months on the run. Herself unravelling. A tug on the thread that was holding her together. She knew he sensed it too. She felt he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help her. Maybe a new place would be welcome. Before she came undone. 

Mulder leaned to her and pressed his hot lips against her air-conditioned neck, placed something in her hands as he sucked on her skin. She had a suspicion as to what it was; an addition to the group of objects she would put on whatever dresser was in whatever place they were heading to – always arranged in the same way.

A honking tore them apart. He keyed the ignition, pressed the gas, eyed the rearview mirror, and she checked on the gift in her hand. In it was a snow globe from the gas station convenience store, cum gift shop, cum diner where they just finished their lunch. It was kitschy—a beaver with a little straw hat on, sitting on a little sign, welcoming all to the tiny town they were passing through. It had started as a joke when they first hit the road. Like they were pretending they were on a well-earned holiday road trip. Then it became a tradition Scully clung to, and she wasn’t really sure why.

…

All of the places had a smell from a similar bouquet. Something transient, something stale, desperate. Evanescent - no one scent, apart from mildew and dust, lingered long enough. They were rooms for running away, running towards, a second chance, a turn of a page. They weren’t places anyone vacationed in. It was a way up and out. Or down and out. It was a new start or a last hurrah. Or just - a way. A room in which to idle. 

One room, plus a small bathroom, sometimes a kitchen - if not a kitchenette. Ugly carpet. Ugly cabinetry. Uncomfortable sofa. One room contained all they ever needed though, so long as they had each other. She had to admit that two rooms always gave her a feeling of normalcy. Of permanency. Even though they never were. 

Mulder had wired the money, paid up for three months. The key was under the doormat, up an outside flight of stairs; the apartment above a haberdashery store in ‘Smalltown Nowhere’, up North. Close to the border. Their last place had a small separate bedroom, this new dwelling, just one room, but it did have a bath. Scully was thrilled and would give up a separate bedroom for a bath any day. The room was big enough for a double bed, a small sofa and dining table. Adjacent to the front door was a tiny kitchen, to the right the door to the bathroom. 

They didn’t have many things to unpack, to set up. A few sets of clothes for comfort. Nothing fashionable about them. Enough to stretch between laundromat visits. Scully found herself making each place they had stayed, lived in, in some way the same. The few knick-knacks she had collected similarity arranged. Books on a shelf, or magazines—New Scientist, back issues of The Lone Gunmen, Medical Journals, piled neatly on a coffee table. Mulder’s familiar rug across the back of the sofa.

As Scully unpacked their few items, Mulder put away the bags of groceries from the gas station. When they had finished their respective duties, he called Scully over and told her he had something else for her. Then told her, “hold out your hands.”

She did, eying him, palms up, cupped together. He drew an item from behind his back, placed it—a coil of cotton rope—into her upturned hands. At first, there was confusion, creases in her brow. Very quickly, it dawned on her, why the rope, and she looked up at him with her impossibly large eyes, like a tempest sea. She leant into him, thumped her head to his chest. “Are you sure?” 

He momentarily wrapped her in an embrace, before he leaned back and picked up her chin, a Mulder grin across his beautiful face. He nodded, “I’m sure”, he said to her tenderly.

Taking a breath, she handed him back the rope. Then, eyeing him intently, through a serene look upon her face, she put her arms out in front of her, turned her palms in, pressing her wrists together. And waited.

Chapter Text

Scully had a recurring nightmare. Inside of her dream, she would wake from her sleep, travelling in the passenger seat of a car Mulder was driving. In the night, headlights cutting through the rain, he was looking dead ahead, driving on the wrong side of the road. Oncoming lights flashing in the distance. And she was yelling at him. Screaming for him to get back on course. He'd never respond and she was fastened to the seat. Seat belt strapping her down; arms, legs and all. Just before the advancing vehicle hit them, she would wake—the feeling of being bound still present. It was Mulder. Holding her in a spoon. Too tight to be considered comfortable. In the coldest part of the night, just before the dawn, like protection, over affection. Like all the Duane Barry’s were right outside, the Ritter’s with their itchy trigger fingers, the Donnie Pfaster’s with their bubble bath and secateurs. And like all the Mulder’s who’d justify leaving her again, with leaking breasts and a torn-up body from the baby he left too. Just outside, waiting for her.

She would lay there, not waking him to escape from his grip. Instead, letting two opposing feelings of being bound and feeling free, engulf and swallow her. Everything would quiet. A point of singularity as she wriggled silently, within his binds. 

…

All they had in the world, aside from each other was time. Time to talk. Scully was sure, if she added up every single word they had ever said to one another in their lives before, they would have passed that count in the first four months on the run. Conversations about what Mulder had been doing during the unbearable months of his absence. About invasions from unseen forces, about things they’d never allowed themselves to speak of before. About how terrible Mulder had been at hiding erections from her. They told of hearing one another masturbate beyond adjoining room doors. Of when they would steal glances at one another’s bodies; his arse; her nipples. Of fantasies. They would play them out. Because they could. Because they had each other. And time. She gave him a blow job under a desk in a cheap motel. They’d pretended they were back where it all began, in their little basement office, Skinner pounding on the door, rum coursing through their veins, laugher shaking in their souls. 

She told him of a want of hers that he politely said he could never do. Explained that he’d had to untie her too many times before. 

She brought it up, only once more, in the afterglow, on a sultry Sunday afternoon of beers and lovemaking. 

“You’re a psychologist, Mulder,” she’d reminded him. “I don’t want to be traumatised by you. That’s not what it is. People who have rape fantasies, don’t want to be raped,” she tried, by way of explanation. 

“I know that,” he’d affirmed.

“I’m going to drop the subject, except to say: I trust you. And that’s the point.”

They didn’t talk about that particular kink again. She did ask him if he would try spanking her. Since then, a sharp slap to her arse became a regular part of their love making. 

...

Holding her two hands in one of his, he placed the lightly frayed end of the rope between her palms. She held it there as she looked up at him, watching his face as he looped the ecru rope once around, and then again. Flashing his gaze at her, she expected, to gauge her reaction to the pressure. Loop, loop, loop around. He adjusted the spacing, so perfect lines bound her wrists together. He pushed the long loose end of the rope through, back into itself, to tie it off, tugging it tight. As gentle as a butterfly, he kissed the corner of her mouth. “Is that okay, Love? Not too tight?”

“Not too tight,” she affirmed, with a smile.

They had talked before, about sex and security. Safety. A conversation Mulder began. Thought it was necessary, he’d said if he was going to partake in spanking her.

“What if you want me to stop?” he’d asked.

“I’ll say: stop.”

“So, stop is your safe word?”

“Yes,” she told him simply.

“And, what if you just want me to stop what I’m doing, but not stop altogether?”

“I’ll say stop to stop what you’re doing and,” she thought quickly before adding, “end, to stop altogether.”

“Of course. And, if you want me to ease off, but keep going?”

“Um -- slow down ” she advised.

“Slow down,” he’d nodded, looking like affection might burst from his entire being. “God, I fucking love you.”

She grinned at his satisfaction with her. 

...

Mulder stepped into her. A foot on the floor between her legs, holding her hip and her tethered hands, forcing her to step back with him, as he advanced. His soft abdomen, the sharp bones of his pelvis, his growing erection shoving her backwards until she thumped into the wall by the front door. Drawing her trussed hands above her head, he pinned her to a coat hook on the wall. Her muscles stretched, long and lean, arms bracketing her face, though her feet remained comfortably, flat on the floor.

There were many things, societal norms, Scully realised she had bought into. Makeup, heels, nylons, wearing a bra. She didn’t anymore. Wear a bra. Unless they were going to be seen in public and her nipples might show through. Exactly as they were in her singlet top she’d worn all day, her bra discarded in the car drive after lunch. In addition to her singlet top, she was wearing cut-off jean shorts that Mulder had cut while she stood on a table. Bare feet. Bare ears. Bare face. She still wore her chain. It bonded her to her mother, her sister, more than any deity it once had. 

Mulder was in her space, as was their want, stomach to stomach, a possessive look in his eye. Scully smirked at how much he was already getting off on it, despite his previous protestations. Standing over her, he traced the scoop neck of her singlet, back and forth, pulling on the fabric. Peeking down her top. His breath hot down the side of her face as she watched the amorous look in his eye. Trailing seductively down from the hollow between her clavicles, he pressed his finger to her skin. Reached the edge of her singlet again and continued dragging the fabric, tucking it under one of her breasts. Exposing her. 

They were full, round and perky – lifted by her pecs, stretched and pulled by her arms over her head. She sucked in a breath as he stood back to look at her. Admire her.

Something Scully discovered was that Mulder talked about her body. All the time. Would tell her constantly how beautiful she was. Would comment on her face, her lips, her eyes. About how, when she wore the cut off 501s she was currently wearing, he wanted to lick the jut of her hip bone every time he caught a glimpse of her midriff. 

“You’re a goddam vision, Scully. How did I get so fucking lucky?”

She smirked at him, pulled on the rope above her head. The bonds tighten and a few tiny hairs ripped out, the rope burning across her skin. It felt exquisite. She bit her lip as he leaned his face down close to her chest, opened his mouth and puffed hot air over her bare nipple, grinned as it puckered. He drew out his tongue, hovered in front of the peak of her breast, but did not lick her there, instead licked the shape of her, the swell of the side of her breast - continued up under her arm, generating a giggle. Scully watched him intently, noticed he was clutching his cock, probably the whole enchilada, roughly in his palm. 

She loved to see him do that. To see him touch himself. Do something he wouldn’t let anyone else see. It was that image of him, pleasuring himself, that she’d always imagine to get herself off. He was rough, pumping himself through his worn jeans as his lips gently ghosted over the flesh of her exposed breast. She felt that odd, lopsided sensation; one erect nipple and a relaxed and supple areola, still hidden within her singlet. 

She flicked her eyes open when she heard and felt him move away, hadn’t realised she had closed them. He’d stepped into the kitchen, over to the fridge before returning with a glint of mischief in his eye, an ice cube between his teeth. He was ready for this. Ready to play. He wrapped his large hands around her ribs, over her singlet and his mouth descended upon her. His hot lips held his mouth to her as he teased her nipple with his tongue and the addition of the ice. She puckered painfully beneath him. Deliciously painful. The kind that rolled over into pleasure and back. The ice disappeared quickly, and he suckled her wildly, gripping her hips, drew her into his mouth, before letting her breast slip out, and then back in; the memory of the ice still cool on his tongue. He pulled back, just the hardened, tight areola remained between his teeth and he bit. Gently rolled her between his teeth as he looked up at her through his lashes, she thought to gauge her reaction. As he watched her, he tore the singlet under her other breast, felt his way - his eyes closed as his mouth worked on her, and his hand. He cupped her, kneaded her, flicked and twisted with his fingers until both nipples resembled a matching pair once again. 

“Harder,” she told him. He found her eyes, and she felt compelled to add, “please”.

He grinned at her, nipple still between his teeth, and then bit and pinched in tandem, hard, then eased off. Harder and reprieve. 

“Better, Baby?” he breathed over her. 

“Mm,” she answered. 

Without conscious thought, her eyes had closed again. Opened when she felt him at the first button of her fly. Her attention on him, now kneeling before her, pressing the buttons, the hard back counterpart to the studs, onto her pussy as he went. She squirmed. Pushed herself into his touch. It wasn’t required, for removal of her shorts, to undo them all. But he did. Took a particularly long time unfastening the last one. The one that sat over her clit. She knew he understood the game. It was as much about the doing, as the ceremony of it. The moments, the attention. He scooped his fingers; running them around each side of her hips, inside the waistband, where they met at her lower back. He brought them back around, inching the waistband lower with each circumference until they fell to the floor. 

He knelt before her. Grasped her ankles, gently pinning her to the floor. She let him lift her feet one at a time, aiding her in stepping out of her shorts, which he push away. He began to run his large hands up both of her smooth legs. Looking up at her he asked, “Are you okay, hooked up there, Love?” 

Scully watched him, loose and free, trussed to a hook. Nodded. A truly contented smile.

She felt the tickle of his fingers drag up the outside of her legs, the dip in the muscle of her glutes. He oh so gently caressed her backside, cupping her and grabbing her cheeks in his palms.

"You have the most amazing arse, Scully. To think about how long I knew you, without knowing exactly what was under your pants suits. Criminal," he gushed with a smirk.

Arching her sacral curve, she pushed herself into his hands. "Hmm, criminal," she agreed.

He slid his hands around the front of her, traced the lacey edges of her underwear by her hips, down to the crotch. Knelt up to his full height and pulled the fabric up, delicately tucked it between her labia. Tugged it tight, wedging it against her clit. He bent lower, darted his tongue out to lick at her pussy. To suck her trimmed lips, one side at a time, into his mouth. He ran his tongue over her. Nibbling on her delicate flesh.

Scully closed her eyes. To have her hands removed from the equation was a welcomed sensation. She couldn’t touch him, didn’t have to think, just feel. Feel the cotton, twisted into a hard knot at her clit, pressing her achingly. Mulder’s tongue lapping and sucking on her deliciously as she moaned in pleasure.  

He stood, slowly - his face in front of hers, his fingers still teasing her pussy. He kissed her softly, gentle kisses. Just lips on lips. His hands wandered to her hips and he grabbed the fabric, twisted her underwear at the waist and tugged sharply, pulsed it up, burning it across her clit. Hard. Slicing her seam, and she whimpered. Her lips parted further and he hushed into her mouth, “you like that? Hmm. Baby, does that feel good?” She bit her lip, nodded. Desire soaked her. Her breath shallowed, her heart beat faster. 

He left her ‘hanging’ there and stepped away, running a fingertip across her cheek. She watched as he moved around the small room, setting up a number of candles and lighting them. Then he shut off the overhead lights, left lamps on, the light in the kitchen above the stove. He returned to her and their eyes focused intently on one another, not blinking, flicking between pupils. He had something in his hand, she could tell. She kept her eyes locked on his face. To the person behind the eyes. To the single-minded, passionate, beautiful man gifting her this fantasy, even though he feared it. 

He was looking down, still her gaze trained on him. On his face—bottom lip wedged between his teeth in concentration. She felt a blunt, cold, hard, edge of an object trail across her skin, parallel to her clavicle, sliced in from her shoulder. Before she could see, she heard a snip. Scissors fighting against double folded cotton and stitching. And the strap or her singlet was severed. Her mouth opened, no words. Then, another cut. The other side. The straps hung limply over her stomach, a tube a fabric encasing her middle. Her mouth open - previously to protest - opened in arousal, in lust at his bravado. Her tongue traced her top lip. He snipped once more - a quick nick at the fabric between her breasts. He grabbed each side, tearing it down the middle. Ripping the fabric from her body in such a frenzy, her breasts reverberated in his wake. 

She gasped and he swallowed the sound. Smashed his face to hers kissing her, their mouths agape, tongues twisting and lapping as he reached up above her, and unhooked her hands.

Chapter Text

The trauma of losing Mulder was never fully realised by Scully until his resurrection. Didn't truly comprehend what she had lost until it had come back to her. Trauma; the driving force when she ordered him away. She had begged him to go. Had buried him once and could not do it again. Could not bear to play any part in which the world did not have his heart beating in it, even if that meant it wasn’t beating alongside hers. In the months that followed, as a single mother, that he did leave toyed over and over in her mind. Somewhere deep in the recesses of her psyche, she knew it was a test. He had obeyed her; he had left her. She was never sure if he had passed or failed, all she knew was that they had both lost. So much.

In this new life, that he was by her in every moment, that she could put her hand out and touch him, always, pinned her to the Earth. She was sometimes afraid it was the only thing holding her down. 

There was an instant reprieve from the ache in Scully’s biceps, her triceps, as Mulder looped her restrained wrists around the back of his neck, drawing them both together. Still. Momentarily, their bodies united, a pair of toothy grins. Breath close.

“This is fun,” he admitted.

She cocked her head, arched a brow and gave him a loving, I-told-you-so, expression. He kissed her sweetly and backed her over to the bed. Bent forward and let her arms slip over his head as she sat down on the edge. Circling around to the opposite side, their gaze locked. A spark of something new, unknown punctuated the room. Scully - willing and pliable. She knew Mulder understood she was handing him her trust. Completely. And she was thrilled that she didn’t know what he would do with it. 

Stretching his long arms across the bed, he grabbed her around her tiny waist, dragged her into the centre. Her body naturally collapsed into the fetal position, curled up on her side. He slid himself onto the bed beside her, pulled a pillow down, under her head. He mirrored her position, facing into her, touching her face.

“You okay, Love?” he questioned, stroking her brow.

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded.

“I’m going to tie you up — like this,” he explained, nodding to her current position as he found the loose end of the rope. He didn’t lose her from his vision, and she knew he understood she wanted it. She felt like she needed it.

Moving, Mulder knelt up beside her on the bed, kissed her temple and smoothed her hair, continued his hands down her back, rubbing circles there. Scully smiled encouragingly at him, nodded and bit her lip. Tried to bite back the tears threatening to spill, lest they were misconstrued. She was overcome with love for him. For what he was doing for her. All for her. He nodded in reply as he tucked her prayed palms between her knees. The long cord, trailing from her tied hands, he drew between her calves, wound the rope around her ankles. Around, pull. Around, pull. A tug tighter, his eyes found hers, intently measuring her reaction, she understood. The friction, the pull, the pain. The pleasure. Around again; brilliant neat rows. Her eyes had drifted closed, a furrow to her brow, belied by the twitch up at the corners of her mouth, the slow, relaxed rise and fall of her chest.

She began to sink into the bed. 

He hulked over her, dragged the end of the rope under her curled up form. Drew it under the curve of her waist, back up and across her shins, encircling her. Tethering her in a tucked fetal position. Binding her folded legs to her torso. Again, and a firm pull. Again, tighten. Her knees drawing tighter to her chest, pushing her breasts together, up, like a cinched corset. Four times around. He fastened the end of the rope to its counterpart at her wrists.

“Okay?” he questioned.

She kept her eyes closed. Breath heavy and slow, but she managed a noise, a nod. Okay. More than okay. Each binding had begun to shake loose the trappings of her mind, filling her with calm contentment. 

A dip on the bed alerted her. She opened her eyes, Mulder had laid beside her again, facing her, searching her eyes. She smiled, pouted her lips together in a kiss. 

Scully lay wrapped, bound in a ball on her side, her leashed shins up against his abdomen. The rope was tight, as she twisted and moved against it, testing her restraints. She found his eyes and looked into them. Told him there that it was what she had wanted. Thanked him with her expression. He smiled at her, rubbed his hand affectionately up and down her arm. Then stretched down over her, reached for her lower back and gathered the waistband of her underwear, unencumbered by the rope, slipped them over her backside. Shucked them roughly down as far they would go; her legs constrained, thighs pressed to her abdomen. 

Scully had another seemingly opposite combination of sensations; her arse bare, pussy exposed, the rest of her body safe and bound. Mulder ran his fingers between her cheeks, ghosting over her arsehole. Continuing, he wiggled the tips of his fingers between her folds, her labia sandwiched between the tops of her thighs. Dipped into her slick.

“Mmm, Baby,” was all he said, then put his wet fingers in his mouth as Scully watched him, heard him moan as he sucked them, seductively. She felt herself plump and gush below. Once he'd licked them clean, he caressed her, ran his hand over her body. Her silky smooth skin interrupted by the tight cotton plaiting of the rope; Scully’s flesh swelling around her bindings. His fingers found their way back down, gently teased back and forth over her lips, further coated in her desire. He pressed his forehead to hers, let his eyes sink closed as he sunk a finger into her. A second. Two, in deep, and she let out a sigh as he began to pulse them in and out.

She remembered the first time he put his fingers inside of her. Laying tangled in his sheets. He tucked them in and held them there. Looked into her eyes for an age, brushed her hair, over and over with his other hand, seemingly trying to form words. He didn’t move them at first, and Scully liked them there. She thought of all the times she’d touched herself, thinking of those fingers delivering sunflower seeds into his pretty mouth. 

He would do that. Put his fingers inside. During foreplay, in the car, in the cinema, slip them in. In some ways, she felt it wasn’t about titillation, but intimacy. That he could. That she would let him.

Scully opened her eyes, felt Mulder’s hot breath on her cheek. He leaned in, and she parted her lips, and he kissed her, deeply, sucked her tongue in his mouth in a fever, fingers pumping faster.  

He broke their kiss, stayed close to her mouth. “God, I love your scent,” his thumb found her clit, wedged in between her thighs, and she wriggled against her bindings. “Mmm,” he purred, “your beautiful cunt.” 

Mulder had never said that before, and she liked it. It felt primal, and despite her harness, she felt wild, unfettered.  Electricity low in her belly fired up furiously, and she clutched around his digit, pulling him in. 

“--fuck, I used to think I could smell you at the end of a workday,” he continued, low into her ear. He circled and flicked her, thrust his fingers harder and she jerked in futility against her shackles, “-- I would go home and jerk off to the memory of your scent,” he growled.

“Oh God, Baby,” she managed. The idea of Mulder doing that, smelling her want in the air, and then masturbating, was tantalising. “That feels -- oh god --,” strangled from her throat, as she writhed. Obstructed by the tug, the tight cotton dragged across her skin, spurred on by his fingers, his thumb, his lips on hers.

“Come, Baby,” he coaxed, “oh, Baby, come for me.” 

And she did. No choice but to scold the twisted trappings into her flesh; her body straining to contort. Trying to move through the euphoria of her rapture, body suppressed by her harness. She screamed, and he caught her, cupped the back of her head and kissed her. Swallowed the sounds of her unbinding. His fingers inside, teasing, riding with her and she jolted and quivered and flew.

Mulder rolled away from her, off the bed. Leaned over and kissed her lips, her brow. Aftershocks coursed through her body, settling deliciously fuzzy in her bones, her mind.

Laying cocooned in the embrace he had so lovingly tethered around her, she was boneless and still. 

She heard the shower run.

Chapter Text

Scully wanted absolution. But she also needed the pain of not forgiving herself. She would never forgive herself because the agony would not compare to one drop of what he must know one day, that she gave him away. She didn't deserve peace. 

She thought maybe, when she first saw Mulder again, that he could give it to her; Give her forgiveness. Gift her the words that would stop the ghosts in her head. Chase them away and settle peace there instead. He did give her words, You had no choice.  

It wasn't enough. 

Was she cursed? Destined to be inside a drawing - an optical illusion that she was moving somewhere; instead, being trapped inside her never-ending thoughts; a nightmare. She sometimes felt like they were two dirty, low down people who made each other come up against grimy bathroom stalls. Who still allowed themselves the physical pleasure of one another, despite their contrary mental anguish.

Scully concentrated on the rope, not the steady flow of thoughts she usually tried to either avoid or dive into masochistically with exact precision. Pick apart every possible detail until the thoughts would spill out and hammer in her head, drift through her blood and settle in her guts; render her almost incapable of getting out of bed. 

She moved within her shackles, calculated how she might undo them, should she want to. Twisted her limbs to tear the tiny hairs from her flesh. Tugged at them, try to tighten their grip, burn her skin and indent little striations into her flesh; wrists and ankles. She wanted the marks to last for hours after, the bruises to last for days. A pathological, 'returning to the scene of the crime,' in which she could escape. She wanted to be able to lose her mind in them again, trace the bluey-purple ropey bloodstained evidence; days olds, crushed from broken capillaries. Days of possible peace from the wordless, impotent noise in her head.

Scully understood the semi-conscious state, the compartmentalising of life one must live in when one is in grief or post-trauma. To be a "functioning" person; merely meant from an outside perspective. Scully was high functioning, after her sister's murder, after Mulder's death, with the added devastation of carrying on his life inside of her. Every known excitement, every cliche that came with pregnancy; torturous - a highlight of his absence and the joylessness with which she was to enter the most joyful phase of life.

After...

She gave him away. How did Mulder not hate her?

The shower shut off and he walked into the room, naked and soaking wet, and gorgeous.

"Hi Baby," he said so tenderly, rolling her towards the dip his moisture covered body made in the bed. Her skin was burning. She wanted to lick every last drop from his flesh. To have him, consume him. Climb inside of him and never have to have another thought again.

"I want to taste you, Mulder," she told him, a yearning so intense, a desire so strong -- but she couldn’t reach for him. She needed to have him. 

"I just came, Love," he explained. "I wanted to keep this game going without, you know, blowing it," he grinned.

"I don't care," she pleaded, "I want you in my mouth."

Scully noticed his cock twitch, a twinkle in his eye. 

He smiled at her as he moved to the end of the bed, clasped her ankles and dragged her to the centre. He crawled beside her and lay down; his head on a pillow, cock adjacent to her face. 

He held his dick, already semi-hard, to her open, welcoming mouth, like an offering. She licked at the head, ran her tongue along his seam, and sucked him inside. Circling around the tip, she closed her eyes. The only two things on Earth - her mouth and his cock. She sighed a sigh a thousand years old. Sucked him in. Lapped at him. Drew him down her throat as he pulsed into her. Felt him soft to hard, her effects bring him to life. He swelled and turned to steel.  

Night after night, naked in one another's embrace, in the afterglow, he would fold his arm around her, and press his lips to the tiny scar at the nape of her neck. She would settle her backside into the cradle of his pelvis. The feeling of his soft, spent penis, warm and large, and crushed between them was somehow so affirming—evidence of their love, beyond their undeniable sexual attraction. Beyond their physical selves.

Scully tasted the familiar tang of his pleasure, a few drops, and he withdrew. 

"Jesus Scully, you could give lessons," he chuckled. She grinned and craned her neck, looked at him. He brushed the back of his knuckles along her cheek as he knelt beside her on the bed. Rolled her onto her back and began pulling at the fraying ends of the rope. Looking at her as he spoke, as his fingers began to unbind her, he said, "I'm going to tie you up again, Baby. This time on your stomach, legs spread." She could hear her heart beating in her ears. "Then, I'm going to fuck you from behind and slap that sweet arse of yours until its red raw." 

It was a statement. He was understanding her need for his control, she knew. Safe there, and with the knowledge, she could tell him to stop anytime.

He undid the knots completely, dragged her sodden underwear from her hot, sticking body. Then he piled up two pillows and lay her face down on the bed. The pillows under her hips, arse in the air. He bound an ankle and a wrist together, cuffed them to the top of her thigh, the rope three times around. First, on the right side, the rope strung under her hips and then the same mirrored on the left. He secured her tight, her shoulders rolled back slightly, her calves flush with the back of her thighs, feet winged out from her hips.

Her head was on another pillow, face to the side. Within her constraints, she had the freedom to hold her ankles, press her heels into her backside. Or she could let go and stay bound that way, pull against her bindings. 

Mulder positioned himself behind her, roughly pushed her legs apart. He began to kiss up the backs of her thighs. Gently sucking on the soft flesh. Licking over her long lean stretched muscles. Teasing his fingertips up the crease of her. Swirling over her hot skin. Touching her everywhere but where she wanted his fingers to go. Then she felt his wet, slippery tongue lapping at her folds. He licked her, from her clit to her crack. Up and back, more pressure each time, cleaning her of her arousal. Scully moaned and wiggled in pleasure, pulling at her constraints. 

"I could eat you out all day, every day, my Love," he growled into her pussy.

She grinned, throbbed below, clutched at nothing within her empty walls.

He drew himself up, clasped his elegant hands under her hips and lifted her, so her knees took the weight, so her arse was in the air, so she was exposed and open for him. He tickled the soles of her feet, bound close to her arse, and she jerked, pulled against the rope with nowhere to go.

Mulder laughed lovingly and rubbed the head on his cock up and down her seam. He accompanied that with gentle pats to her backside. She wriggled back, spreading herself further for him. 

He paused, traced the juncture between the taut flesh of her wrist and the hard, slim-forgiving plait of the ropes. "Does this hurt, Baby?" he asked, in tender juxtaposition of the burn and dig of the thick cotton. 

"Only in the best way,” she answered.

He slapped her sharply, in response to her reply. 

She squealed and bumped herself further back to him.

"Good girl," he cooed.

Scully would never allow anyone call her girl, it felt infantilising. Mulder had never called her a that before, but she fucking loved it. Felt herself melt into the bed, meld into her constraint, the only thing keeping her together - an exoskeleton of cotton bindings to hold her form. She wanted to please him, to be a good girl for him. To be his best fucking girl.

"There's my good girl," he said again, this time with a fistful of her arse to emphasise his words.

"I'm going to start light, okay? Build up."

He rubbed her gently, circling, scratching electricity with his fingernails into her flesh. He began by patting her again, allowing his fingers to touch her exposed folds. Patting from one cheek to the over, across her bared centre and back. Fingers ghosting over her slippery cunt. Tickling his fingers into her seam.

"I want you to count Love, okay? Up to twenty. And on twenty, I want you to come."

Scully let out a shudder, a whimper. She wasn't used to liking being told what to do. But there was something so freeing about it. 

"Just so you know, I won't come. This is just about you."

"Mh-hmm," she nodded. That too. Just about her. Fuck! He was so good at it. It was everything she could have hoped for. More.

Holding his hand over her right cheek he slapped, short and sharp - not very hard.

"One," she said, steadily.

He drew back from her flesh, a hands distance, and slapped it down, again—the sharp sound interrupting the silence of the room. 

"Two," she said. Her voice, quivering.

And again. 

"Three."

On four, he thrust himself into her, harshly, pumped his hips against her arse cheeks. Punctuated a deep push with a stinging palm.

Five, and she didn't know how she would get to twenty. Heat radiated from her tingling skin. It felt exquisite. His big hand engulfing her muscle after each stroke. Curving around her, absorbing some of the reverberations. Caressing her increasingly marred flesh.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Between each count, Mulder pumped himself in and out of her, quite gently. Traced his fingertips over the hot welts appearing on her flesh. The head of his cock rubbing back and forth along her g-spot. Before the tally began again. He coupled each hiding with a ferocious drive of his pelvis, ramming his cock deep inside of her; a spank to her cheek, his hips slapping into her arse.

At thirteen, she felt him falter. But she was more aroused than she had ever been. It was larger than that. She was on another plane. Her mind and body separate entities, but somehow more connected than she'd ever felt.

"Harder, Mulder," she instructed, and she heard him suck in a breath. She craved it, wanted it. Needed him to keep going. To climb her to the limits of her pleasure and pain. She felt it through her whole body. Her entire being. A pinpoint of light. His beautiful hand, his cock, that she somehow felt was her possession, uniting them. Focusing her. The rest of her surrounded by a warm, comforting nothing.

She felt his hand hold the cable around her left wrist and ankle. Steadying himself maybe, before another stinging slap. Harder as requested. She flexed her hips, raise herself higher, parted her legs wider.

Scully had bouts of panic after Mulder had left. She would hold her splayed hand across her racing, frenzied heart. Feeling for her chest to balloon. Imagining his rising too. A singularity of thought - breath in and out. No cloud of even trying to picture him, his place, his surroundings, his state of mind. The idea in her head that he was breathing, somewhere upon the same Earth, was the only thing powering the blood through her broken heart. 

"Sixteen," she struggled out. 

More, more, more.

"Harder, Mulder. Please."

And he did. Hit her. Pounded her. Her face crushed to the pillow, gasping in a breath, concentrating on getting to twenty. The tears gathering for the love and the pain. Love and pain. Love and pain.

He let go of her rope, pinched her clit.

"Mwhm, nineteen," and she began to come, uncontrollably clutching him. 

Twenty and she disappeared. A distant howling in her ears. 

Her body was on the bed. Tied down, held by big hands, pegged by an iron cock, hot and sticky and blooming welts. Convulsing and tugging against her trappings. Herself above, free and euphoric.

She hovered there for an age. Left her corporeal self tethered below. A distant smattering of kisses and praise, and then the thundering sound of water filling a tub. 

She gently floated back down to join together once again.

Chapter Text

Her body was on the bed. Limp and warm on the bed. She was a fish on the road. She was far from home. Her mind was quiet and her body ached. The rope pulled. It burned and pinched, deliciously.

If you wanted something, Scully believed, you had to go and get it yourself. If you made a decision, you had to live with it. Own it. It was why she thought she always had to struggle, had to have something to fight against, to succeed. It was how she was wired. A scrappy younger sister, a bookish nerd, small with flaming hair - only growing into her features, once she was self-assured enough not to need them to get by.

Struggle against misogyny, her height, her father, her lovers, the menaces.

Her choices.

But the struggle wasn’t about succeeding, she realised. The struggle was just to exist.

No thoughts, but for the ones attached to her bondage. Her feet were cold, she thought: because the blood supply was strangled. Thick cotton rope hurts the most over her ankles, she thought: because it was flesh on bone. Her bindings nipped and grasped tighter, she thought: on an inhale. Her cunt trembled, she thought: because he had lovingly but savagely occupied it. She liked the word cunt, she thought: because of the way Mulder had growled it in her ear. 

She thought she heard the water shut off. 

She thought someone was on the bed.

Mulder, in boxers with a tender expression, sat by her bound form. Began to unravel her. Flicked at the knots and unwound the loops. Dragged the rope from under her tender belly. Bindings released—her legs stretched, feet smacked onto the mattress. Her arms flopped by her sides. 

Her bones lay slack inside, and her mind focused on her surface.

Mouth to her skin. The soft inside of his lips on her blazing cheek. Kisses. Then slippery frozen, glass-smooth ice, bumping over the subtle raised welts battered into her flesh. Cold to combat the angry white blood cells that had rushed the source of the invasion. Water slid down the valley of her arse, trickled coolly between her legs, calming her swollen centre. Eyes hidden, and the heavenly white noise remained. 

He told her she was so good. Such a good girl. That he loved her. He kissed her all over and patted her hair, and asked her if she was okay. If this hurt, or that. 

His hand was in hers, and she sat up on the edge of the bed. He clasped both palms and drew her to her feet. His lips were at her temple, and he kissed her, then whispered, “Can you walk?” 

She took a couple of steps ahead of him and then looked back.

“You okay?” he checked.

“I’m perfect,” she smiled.

There was some trepidation remaining in his expression. She turned to him, raised on her tippy toes, grasped his shoulders and kissed his lips. Said into his ear, “ You were perfect. Thank you.”

Walking into the bathroom, Mulder trailing, Scully stepped into the tub. Too hot to be good for her, just the way she liked it. She sank into the water, settled inside her body.

He put the lid down on the toilet seat, sat opposite. Looked around the small bathroom. “At least this one’s not pink,” he laughed.

She smiled at him. 

“How you feeling, Love?” 

“I’m --” she let out a long breath, “I feel good. Really -- really good,” she tapered off. She did. Feel good. She was content. She felt raw and exposed. Safe. And content.

“So, was it what you expected?” he ventured.

She regarded him. Needed to tell him what it meant to her. That it was more than she imagined; than she could ever have hoped for. But first, “What was it like for you?”

“I, I -- it wasn’t what I thought. I felt,” he knelt by the bath, moved a wet tendril from her forehead. Continued, “I felt so connected to you, Scully.”

She nodded fiercely in agreement, and he moved into her fast, kissed her mouth, cupped the back of her head. Lapped at her tongue. Stream rose around them, coating their hot faces in tiny beads of moisture, their lips slipping, undulating, savouring.

They disentangled, and Mulder picked up Scully’s newly unpacked loofah, emptied a little body wash onto it, and began to rub circles into her back. She leaned on the side of the tub. Rested her cheek on the crook of her elbow and reached her other arm out of the hot bath into the cool air for a reprieve. Absentmindedly traced the grout between the tiles on the floor. 

“Mulder?” she asked, softly, not looking at him.

“Hmm?”

In a tiny voice, she completed her lunchtime game. “Do you think I’m ghastly?”

“What?” A puzzled expression across his face.

“That I could--” she stopped, began to pick at a loose tile. “-- that I gave -- him --” Her voice disappeared.

Mulder was quiet. Had ceased his gentle washing up and down her spine. Afraid and relieved that she had finally permitted him to tell her? Tell her he blamed her as she did herself? Maybe that was what she needed for peace. To stop the noise. For him to finally say it out loud.

He sat down slowly in front of her. Crossed his legs on the floor. Picked up her chin, collecting her attention. They looked at one another for a time. Neither talking. Neither looking away. 

Until he finally spoke. “Scully, I don’t think I ever told you this, but when I was in hiding, I would lay awake at night and put my hand over my chest.” He splayed his palm over his bare skin. “I would --” she could see him thinking, choosing his words carefully, she assumed. He took a deep, steadying breath. “I would think of -- a woman,” he flashed her a look, and the corners of his mouth flicked up. He became serious again. “I would feel my heart beating beneath my hand,and imagine it was her heart.” Mulder was focused somewhere. Scully could not tear her gaze from him, waiting for him to give her the answer. 

“Thinking about her was the only thing that kept me going—thinking about how dedicated and hard-working she was. About how she sacrificed any kind of a normal life for her job. With me. Which she was brilliant at.” He grinned again. “How—” he swallowed, then collected her in his gaze. “How over and over again she faced -- adversity. Evil. How again and again; after every time she was taken, violated--” Mulder straightened up and reached for Scully’s hands, held them warm and slippery within his. “How, after losing so much, she always fought her way back. She lost so much Scully, and she could have given up.”

A familiar sour prickle of emotion invaded her nasal cavity. The swell of moisture teetering at her lash line, already being drawn away to join the steam on her skin. 

“She could have given up. She could have hardened. Most people would have. But not her.” Mulder shook his head. “Not her.”

Scully’s tears were falling down her face, her bottom lip quivering, she continued to stare at him intensely. It was not what she expected him to say.

“And then, when I made my way back to her, I discovered that out of nothing but pure love -- like the Judgement of Solomon, she had sacrificed her heart to save our son.” She heard Mulder sniff sharply. “Exactly as she had done to keep me safe.” 

Mulder clasped his hands around her wrists, squeezed her tight. Her bruised flesh panged under his grip, but she did not move. “I wish --” he was fighting to get words out, “I wish you could see her how I do.”

A sob escaped Scully from deep within the recesses of her tired soul. 

Mulder climbed into her bath and held her. And they wept. 

…

She had filled a tub with her tears, and her skin was loose with moisture - and she let him collect her from the water. Let him wrap her in a towel. And lay her on the cool sheets.

He shrouded her. Settled between her knees, her thighs. Pressed himself to her heat and adjusted that hair again, just so. Stroked across her brow as his eyes searched her face. 

She opened for him, and he slid inside. She was wet all over again. Humid and tight, and he pushed until their bones met. He pressed up into her, pressed down onto her, his tongue inside, invading, exploring. He drew back and began to propel, slow and methodical. She languidly met his thrusts. Curved her pelvis up to meet him in a rhythm. He rounded his back and gently lapped at her breasts, suckled her. Spent an age worshipping her, infiltrating her. She felt boneless and content under him. Bound to him still. She clutched him within her, purposefully, just the way he liked it. Holding him tight in her walls as she welcomed him, releasing as he pulled out. 

She wove her arms around his waist, ran her nails up and down his back. Legs circled, heels on his arse - drawing him in. She began to grip and clasp, creating erratic friction along his cock. He moaned. Tilted his head away from her and his eyes sank closed. His hips sped up, and she matched his cadence. 

She could feel herself moving to the brink. Knew Mulder could feel her too. He met her lips, and they rode together over the edge. 

Rousing herself from semi-conscious afterglow, Scully felt the weight of his forearm heavy across her ribs. His body stretched beside her. On her back, eyes on the paint chipped ceiling, her thoughts turned to what Mulder had said in the bath - 

She thought of that woman, burying Mulder. She thought of her in the days after she had begged him to leave. She thought of her -- handing over her heart in a bundle of blue blankets. Of her in her achingly quiet apartment, after, allotting herself only so many tears so she could carry on. 

Scully’s heart ached for her, and fierce protectiveness and admiration engulfed her. She wanted to sit by her on that lonely sofa, to tell her to hold on, to be strong. She wanted to thank her for being so brave when all she had been doing was criticising her. Punishing her. Herself.

Scully caught her breath, drew her arms around herself, and whispered, “thank you.”

And it stopped. 

Mulder stirred, lifted his head, smiled and ran the tip of his nose up and down the length of hers. Kissed her cheek.

“I’m going to look in the drawers for some menus.” Another kiss, and he was off the bed. “Think about what you might want for dinner, Love,” he said over his shoulder as he walked naked into their new tiny kitchen. “Plus,” he added cheekily, “I checked the TV guide. Caddyshack.” He grinned that megawatt grin.

Scully laughed, and her heart swelled. As she watched him rummage through the kitchen, something dawned on her...

Stop - to stop what you’re doing.

She wasn’t shackled to him...

End - to stop altogether.

She was not a fish on the road.

They were breathing the same air. Her heart was beating under his palm.

… and she was free.

~THE END~