Wayback Machine *JUL* Oct *NOV* Previous capture 28 Next capture *2003* 2004 *2005* *8 captures* 6 Oct 01 - 9 Nov 05 sparklines Close Help TITLE: The Last Crusade AUTHOR: Jess EMAIL ADDRESS: jessica@amazon.com DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em, don't own Indiana Jones either. Sue me and suffer the wrath of Jasper the Giant Lizard DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know. SPOILER WARNING: uh... the show? RATING: NC-17 CONTENT WARNING: Guess what? SEX! CLASSIFICATION: MSR SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully do a little digging... AUTHOR'S NOTE: First, many thanks to Darla for the suggested location and activities. It ain't Mutual 5, but it stuck in my head and I couldn't get it out! The Jeep is here. So are the jeans. And the sand. And the sweat. Whew, I need an ice tea of my own now! I said I had a "real" writing project and wouldn't post anything else for a while, but I couldn't just leave them there... alone... naked... in the desert... And it was so fun to picture the two of them, talking and talking and talking when the rest of us would just be doin' it. Email me. Apparently 1947 didn't warrent the extreme level of feedback that an nice smut-biscuit does... *sniff*, so now you owe me. You know you do. Aw, come on... please? Please? The Last Crusade I wouldn't really call it "waking up." I mean, how can reaching consciousness without being able to open your eyes be termed a waking state? All I know is that my head is pounding almost as if I had say? wandered into a bar last night alone and ended up with a bottle of Tequila and a large bar tab. God, could I really have been so stupid? You never know, and I mean this from experience, what can happen when you get really, stinkingly drunk. Now that I think about it, I can remember calling Mulder. Sort of. Like a dream you know you had but can't quite picture anymore, he hovers in my conscious mind, ghostly and stern as he leans over the table and picks up the bottle. "Scully," he says. "What the hell are you doing? Angling for another tattooed maniac?" And the last thing I remember is giggling madly. So here I am, merry-fucking-morning-sunshine, unable to open my eyes without actually prying them between my fingertips. Not that I'd do that. I may be tough, but I know when I'm beaten. Actually, my body is slowly coming into focus like a polaroid, rising from the murky depths of stupor. I'm aware of my bed, soft and cool around me. And the brightness of the world beyond my lids, a deep red wall of pain. Cupping my hands over my eyes, I open them slowly, allowing the soft gray of filtered daylight to creep in around my fingers and prepare my eyes for the shock. Oh, who ever thought reality could sting like this? And then, in one of those moments of startling clarity that sometimes happen after you've awakened from the thickness of sleep, I realize three things nearly simultaneously: Mulder is in my bed. I am naked. So is he. Just like that. As if someone had fired three shots from an automatic weapon into my head. I am immediately hyperventilating. And not from lust. Not that I haven't dreamed of waking up to find a very nude Mulder in my bed, but not on the one occasion when I've given myself an enormously effective alien memory sweep. He is sound asleep, snoring even. Jesus. I am overwhelmed. Ok, ok, I think. Be rational. It's Mulder, for God's sake. Would it really be so bad if you two had?? Yes. If I can't remember anything, it would. Boy, would it ever. Ok, there's an easy way to figure this out. Slowly, barely moving so I won't wake him, I reach under the covers and touch myself. And that's when I know. Whatever else happened, I have had sex. I'm absolutely sure. Not only am I sore and sticky, but there's this feeling of? use, that hasn't been there in a very long time. This is very, very bad. Devastatingly so. I slide out of bed and pad into the bathroom, grabbing a robe as I pass it. Locking the door carefully, I proceed to vomit everything I've ever eaten, or at least that's how it feels. This is grossly unfair, I think, leaning wearily on the toilet. After six years of wanting, needing, aching? I can only recall puking. Lovely. What the hell will I do if he wants to kiss me good morning? Kiss back? Will I tell him that to all extents and purposes, this will be our first kiss? Could I break his heart like that? Can I bear how this is breaking mine? And what if he doesn't want to kiss me this morning? That would be even worse, I think. I don't know how long I sit there, staring at the glistening porcelain, before I hear the soft sounds of Mulder rising. I know he will come to the bathroom and try the door. With a sense of panicked resignation, I open it and wait. He is standing in the bedroom, wearing boxers and his t-shirt and looking like a man who has a hell of a hangover. He stares at me with bleary eyes and attempts a smile. "Hey," he says weakly. "Hey," I reply. We have never, even at the worst moments in the whole Diana Fowley debacle, looked at each other so sheepishly. He is loopy and sweet this morning, even to my aching eyes, sweaty and spiky all in the same body. "I don't remember a thing," he says finally. "Do you?" I shake my head. "Not a damn thing." We are silent again, unsure how to proceed. "Did we?" he trails off. "I mean, I think we did, but you would know better than me, I guess? I mean? shit." Never have I seen the great erudite Mulder so completely at a loss for words. Is it shame, or fear, or horror? I cross my arms. "I'm pretty sure we did." He sinks down the wall like he's been hit, landing softly on the carpet. I know what he's feeling, or at least I think I do until he runs his hand through his hair and begins laughing. "What?" I ask, deeply offended. "Oh God," he says. "Scully, this is just so fucking typical of us, you know?" I'm still offended. I smile through gritted teeth and wait. "So?" he says at last, looking me in the eye for the first time. "What the hell do we do now?" Ah, and isn't that the sixty-four thousand dollar question? I shrug, slightly. "What do you want to do?" Typical answer, if he wants us to stick to code. He is quiet, too quiet. I'm not sure I want the truth with a capital T, especially since I don't know for sure what he really wants. Did we want to make love, or was it just me wanting love and Mulder with his animal instincts? I mean, I trust Mulder, don't get me wrong. I don't think he'd screw up our entire partnership for one night of lust on his part. But then, add alcohol to that equation and all my previous knowledge goes right out the window. What I really want to know is: does he regret this? And he isn't answering. So we sit, insanely apart despite what has happened, and we wait. "Look," I say slowly, since he seems unable to respond, "we've got that case to work on, right? Those archaeologists you wanted to talk to?" He nods, wary and nervous as a cornered animal. We are sometimes too connected. "So? when we get back? we'll talk about it." Giving me one of those half-grin, half-wince things he does so well, Mulder sighs. "That sounds fine, but I think we should avoid talking about it over a bottle of high-potency tequila, ok?" xxxxxxxxxxxx Mulder and I are sitting in our latest Bureau rental car (for once a Jeep, appropriate and exciting in its simplicity), "discussing" evolution. Why? Because we are also sitting in the middle of the high plains desert in Montana, watching two renowned paleontologists pack up what remains of what could be the greatest archaeological find of this century. And by "what remains", I mean literally what hasn't disappeared from the site. This is the first real conversation we have had since we awakened, and it is pleasant to almost lapse back into our normal routine. I have been ignoring my brain's insinuation of images from a last night I can't actually remember all day long. The distraction alone would make this argument worth it. The doors to the car are off against the evening heat, letting a small breeze ruffle around us like a river flowing over stones. "But Scully, assuming that what Dr. Becker says is true, we're talking a complete re-thinking of the development of humankind. Are you saying that isn't worth stealing?" I sigh. I am glad that I threw convention to the wind and wore jeans. Loose jeans. And sandals. There's a reason they're called that, you know. Because, unlike the hundred dollar Gucci pumps I have worn on desert excursions in the past, they can't fill with sand and rub your feet like tiny brilo pads all day long. But I digress. "If what he says is true, then I have no doubt it would be worth taking, but how on earth am I supposed to process what this man says he's found?" Mulder is quiet for a moment, sucking on his cheek in lieu of sunflower seeds. I wonder if he has been as tortured as I have been today by the fact that we have, as usual, avoided all discussion of the subject? "Is that what's bothering you? Processing the evidence?" He has turned in his seat and is now staring at me, openly, with a look I have never quite seen realized before. Why do I have a feeling we are no longer talking about old bones? I suppose I have now answered my first question. He has been thinking about it, but how? This is dangerous ground we tread upon. "I can handle the facts, Mulder," I say primly. "What bothers me is the lack of previous evidence that should have existed in order for this singular event to have taken place." He nods, still chewing his lip and smiling to himself. This is what Mulder lives for. "So you're wondering if it's an isolated anomaly? A mutation, so to speak, brought on by a combination of circumstance and the exertion of outside forces? Or is it that this thing we have found may in fact be a logical link in a clear chain of events, the extension of the branch of a tree we were already climbing but didn't realize we were on?" "Yes, exactly. Is there a clear chain of events that lead to this... event? And if so, is it a reasonably normal straightforward progression of evidence that presents itself for examination, or have leaps of imagination on the part of the discoverer or discoverers colored their analysis of the end results?" Mulder seems to think this over. Did we both want this all along, or were we driven to it by drink? Perhaps either answer is too ugly to look closely at, like the Victorians discovering that their ancestors might not be the great biblical forefathers, but were in fact large, hairy apes. "You're the skeptic, Scully. How real would the evidence have to be?" I take his hand and gently squeeze. A familiar gesture that we have now tinged with something greater. My heart is beating rapidly, like a small animal. "I think a further exploration of the evidence at hand will reveal its validity, Mulder. Though I'm not so sure about that skeleton." He smiles and squeezes back. "Ok, let's take a look at the evidence, shall we?" I nod. Here we go. "When the initial contact was made? there was a reluctance on your part to believe the situation you found yourself in, right? How did you validate it?" "Well," I tell him. "I had been educated as a scientist? and much of the work I was being asked to do seemed to defy science. But I was intrigued by this new partnership of science and intuition. I had been struggling with the boredom of a world that could be easily referenced and catalogued for so long, that to find myself presented with a constant stream of bizarre situations was exhilarating. Far from crushing me beneath the weight of the unproven, it liberated me, forced me to find new avenues for my science. I felt? reborn. And I began to sense that this combination held more than the answers to the questions posed to it? I realized it might be the solution to my own questions, to things I couldn't bring myself to ask. So I began to experiment, to see where the results would lead me." "Where did they lead you, Scully?" He is focused, watching me as I were actually about to reveal the secrets of the universe. "They led me right back to where I'd started. Without the definitive proof I wanted so badly, I couldn't validate my conclusions. I couldn't be sure what I had found legitimately existed, or if I was contaminating the samples with my own hopes and desires. I was stalled. At least, I thought I was?" I say shyly. "What about you? Did you find the science frustrating?" "On the contrary," Mulder says, leaning back, but not relinquishing my hand. Is it desire or comfort that causes him to clutch me? "I too was liberated. I had expected to be assigned to someone whose purpose was to hold me back, not someone who desired the same answers I did. I came to understand that I was on two separate, but equally important quests. One, I wanted to find the truths of our century, of our lifetime. The other? I was looking for a more personal truth." "So?" I say, choosing my words with care, "when in the search for the answers did you first feel that your search might lead to this place, to this singular event? When did you start to see the first bones peeking out of the sand?" Mulder smiles at the analogy and tightens his grip. This is it, I tell myself. All roads lead to this answer. "I believe I first saw it during the Tooms case, or maybe on the Icy Cape. But I think there's a difference, if you don't mind me saying so, between the moment of initial discovery and the time when you realize that you may have the find of your life." We are both silent, somewhat equally stunned by this revelation, I think. "The find of your life?" I ask, needing repetition. Like those telemarketing studies showing people need to hear something three times in order to remember it. "Yes," he says softly. "As I said, I became aware of the potential of this find during the early stages of research. It kept revealing new twists and turns in its anatomy, things I would never have expected to find there. I was never prepared for the depths buried there, for the endlessly unplumbable reality of it. Each time I thought? yes, I know this thing? I can define it in relation to things that have come before it, I was thrown loose." "Mulder?" I begin, and I would swear I can feel the movement of the world beneath us, the spinning of everything on its axis. He rushes on. "But I know now, I have recently come to realize, that I may have stumbled across an entirely new form of life." I laugh, giddy with his admission. He did love me, he did want it? whatever happened between us was as real as the bedrock beneath the changing sands. I am holding onto him now, as surely as a mountaineer grips a rope. He will anchor me here, prevent me from flying into space. "Scully," he says, "I sure hope you've made a recent discovery or two of your own. You are, after all, the one who has always needed that proof." For a moment that stings, until I realize he is right. I have not, for instance, told him I loved him, no matter how drugged I have been. Not because I didn't love him, but because I couldn't believe myself loved without the concrete knowledge of it. "I will tell you what I have more recently realized, all right?" He nods, his face silhouetted against the pink and lavender of the evening sky. He is more beautiful than any sunset. "Can you imagine, Mulder, what it was like to be someone who believed that all things they ever encountered could be reduced to a simple explanation of the movements of molecules? that in a world that held no mysteries, nothing unexplainable, there could be something so essential and yet so unquantifiable, mercurial and unpredictable? I was afraid of it, Mulder; not of what it could do to me, but of what it had already done. Being around it had changed me, altered my essential elements until it would be impossible for me to exist alone. It is only recently that I have come to realize that what is essential is also live-giving and necessary. And you know how obsessed I am with everything being necessary? I am as in need of that element now as I am of water." He stares at me in the near-darkness. Outside the last of the archaeologist's equipment is being placed into a truck, locking away the remaining evidence of their discovery. We have just opened ours, brushed off the dusty remains like a curious modern onlooker opening the Victorian scientist's drawer. What lies inside, so patently obvious a miracle to someone whose eyes are open to the possibilities of life, is suddenly, blindingly new to us. The lead archaeologist knocks politely on the windshield, ignoring the open sides of the car. "You folks ready to head back to town?" he asks. "Sure," Mulder says. "We were just discussing?" "?The nature of evolution," I finish for him. "I think," the archaeologist sighs, "this is more likely to involve a little chaos theory." "Believe me," Mulder replies, "that's a theory Scully and I are more than familiar with. The miracle of sudden realization." The archaeologist nods, not following entirely and thinking we don't understand. Above us, the stars are making their presence felt, sprinkled across the sky as thick as snow on this hot night. I lean back to watch them, trying to feel their movement. "Maybe we'll just sit out here and stargaze for a little bit," I hear myself say. "Search for the inevitable answers to life's mysteries in the night sky." We are all looking up now, pondering the crystal shuddering of the clean air. "All right," the archaeologist says. "I understand the appeal. We'll meet you at headquarters tomorrow morning, ok?" And then they are gone, a brief wheeling of dust in the moonlight and Mulder and I are alone again. As we have always been, I realize, with the shimmering stars. For a few minutes we watch the skies, reminding me of a dozen other nights I have stared up at the night at Mulder's side. Tonight, nothing appears before us but the natural burning of stellar gases. "Do you know what's been driving me crazy all day, Scully?" he whispers suddenly. I am almost afraid to know. "I have been wondering? where I first kissed you." "Mulder?" But again, he is moving too quickly to silence him. "I keep thinking? was it actually in the bar? Did you lean across in one drunken moment and I dared to catch your mouth there? Or did we make it out to the street, only to find ourselves staggering into each other and seduced by the sudden proximity? Or was it in the cab on the way home, my hand on your knee as you slowly lean into me? Or at the door to your apartment, like the sweet good night kiss at the end of a date? Or maybe once we were inside, and I pressed you up against the door and plunged into you, already touching you like a lover? Or on your couch? necking in front of the blaring television like teenagers? Or in your bedroom, on your bed, pretending it was just going to be a quick kiss before we go to sleep?" "It was on the couch," I say, suddenly certain. "I don't know how I know that." "On the couch then?" he says. We are sitting apart, but the air between us is filled with our coming connection. "So, Scully, if you can remember that, maybe you can answer one other question that's been consuming me since I woke up in your bed." "Yes?" "Where else did I kiss you?" And then the bedrock shifts and I am in his arms, lips pressed and prying and tasting him, as lucious and sweet as caramel. And he is familiar, but at the same time, unbearably exciting in his newness. Mulder's lips are swollen and soft as I pull away, and I can feel the swell in my own, like the sensation after a shot at the dentist. He is looking at me, gloriously ruffled and gasping. "I thought," I tell him, "that maybe you would regret it." "God no," he says. "For a scientist, you sure stink at gathering evidence." That makes me laugh, as it was meant to, and also makes me pull him forcefully into the back seat of the Jeep, which it might also have been meant to do. The vinyl seat is still warm to the touch as I lay back on it. It's a very small seat, but we are nothing if not creative. Mulder hovers above me, half on the seat, half on the floor, completely enraptured. "It's like dj vu all over again," he murmurs. Trust Mulder to make a baseball reference in the middle of our second first night of passion. And then he lowers himself to his knees, just about even with my face. He kisses me again, nibbling at my neck and pulling desperately at my earlobes as if they were lozenges. I slide a bit lower in the seat, pulling his hips to me and grabbing his ass. "Hands before hips," I tell him. "Mmm," he mutters. "Hands between hips." And then they are. Mulder is grinding the palm of his hand into my body through my jeans. The friction, combined with the sheer horny teenage sexiness of it all, makes me moan right into his ear. I suppose I can't blame him for then actually ripping my t-shirt up over my head. The night is cool against my bare skin until Mulder's large hands begin stroking my breasts through my bra. At this point, I've had it. I don't know what we did last night, but if it felt this good, it's entirely possible that we suffered some form of brain damage and that's why we can't remember anything. I slide my hands down under his jeans and feel the soft skin at the base of his spine. Experimentally, I slide one finger along the cleft of his ass and he sighs deeply. "Scully," he whispers, "you have great breasts." And then I giggle. "I hope this is evidence of a continuing obsession, Mulder and not a recent discover?" But he cuts me off by lifting my bra and running the very tip of his tongue over one nipple. "Never mind," I whisper. "I don't care. Just do that again." So he does, sucking and nibbling and plucking and then sucking some more until my nipples are so hard and sensitive it actually hurts to feel the breeze across them. And he's still grinding his hand into me through my jeans. I need to touch him, to feel him. Pulling at the bottom of his t-shirt, I soon have a half-naked Mulder in my arms, slippery with his sweat-slicked skin. He works my bra off and for a moment we rest there together, chest to chest, enjoying the feel of it. "I can't believe I'm about to do you in the back of a Jeep," he whispers and at the words "do you" my heart drops right into my crotch and takes up permanent residence there. "Isn't that the ultimate male fantasy?" He smiles, forehead against mine. "No Scully, just being with you is my ultimate fantasy. It's not like real estate, all location, location, location." "Then where we are shouldn't mystify you. It seems inevitable, somehow. Unexplainable and therefore real." He sighs, pushes his tongue tip into my ear and then whispers: "We talk too much." I agree heartily and show him this by reaching between us to unbutton his jeans. Of course, this being us, it is not so simple. I fumble for a moment before Mulder sits back and starts to unbutton them himself. I wish I had a camera, because watching what happens in the next thirty seconds would have been the ultimate Kodak moment. His hair is mussed, his eyes are half-closed and his chest is slicked with our combined sweat. He is wild and weirdly manly, making me pant with need as he slowly pops first one button then the next on his fly. And he's not wearing underwear. I don't know why this nearly undoes me, but there you go. Seeing the slow revelation of his pubic hair, and then his long, stiff erection? I can't stand it. I slide down to the floor of the Jeep, a boneless creature, tugging him into my mouth and stroking him, licking him like some crazed porn queen. And then I have a flashback. It pierces through the haze of my lust and I see myself bending over slowly, letting Mulder slide into me from behind, his face a twisted grin of drink and sex and love. I feel the closeness of my orgasm just from the image, but then, I've always been a visual girl. Not that Mulder needs to know that, yet. I lean back and look up. He is enraptured, but wary, now that I have stopped. Resting one heavy hand on my shoulder, he whispers "what?" "I remember," I tell him. "I remember you, fucking me from behind. It was amazing." His cock twitches and touches my mouth, a reaction to the mental image. "Wish I could remember that," he says. "Maybe I can remind you," I reply and slip slowly up his body until we are eye to eye, my legs twisted under the seat. His face is an interesting mixture of hope, lust and shock. Slowly, mimicking his earlier movements, I unbutton and unzip my jeans. He looks like a kid presented with a wall of cupcakes, unable to move with his desire. Sliding the jeans and panties from my hips, I sit back on the warm vinyl to push them all the way off. I am now completely naked. Somehow, knowing Mulder has seen this before relaxes me, even if he doesn't remember. "Oh Scully," he murmurs, "I never imagined how beautiful you would be, even though I thought I knew." Is it possible to blush from head to toe? At any rate, I have had enough staring. Mulder slides one hand up my thigh and runs it, his finger-tips as transitory as the breeze, over the hairs between by legs. I sigh and press against him, anxious for contact. This is so different from the grinding touch of a few moments ago and I am aching. He pushes me open and runs his fingers through my wetness until he finds my clit. Not touching me directly, he puts the gentle barrier of my own outer skin between his fingers and my nerves, and begins to make firm little circles there. I am immediately on fire, feeling the stinging tinge of climax begin in my belly and work it's way up. It doesn't take long and I am moaning his name as I come. Of course it takes a moment to actually turn around, but I can do it. I'm the strong one, after all. On shaking knees, I lean over the back of the Jeep, spread my legs and wait. Mulder's hands find my hips and he whispers: "I think I want to see you instead." As if I could resist. He slides down next to me and I straddle him, drawing him slowly inside me. He is familiar there, and I have another flashback of him on top of me, sinking slowly in, his mouth open to kiss me. How many positions did we go through last night, I wonder, in our drunken stupor? I know alcohol is supposed to make sex more difficult, but obviously we are the exception to the rule. Six years of stamina holding us up. Tonight I ride him, pushing up and down and watching his gasping, groaning response. I have never seen anything so sexy as Mulder's wet lower lip being drawn slowly into his mouth with pleasure. It doesn't take long, as you might expect under the circumstances, and suddenly he is coming, thrusting into me with his arms braced against the seat behind us. "Open your eyes," I whisper to him. "Open your eyes and look at us under the stars." He does, slowly and I see the truth of ourselves revealed there. "Where am I?" he says softly, grinning. "Did we just??" And then I hit him, gently. As I remember the feeling from the night before, the moment he came for the first time inside me, whispering "I love you" over and over in my ear. I lean over and take his earlobe in my mouth before saying "I love you too, Mulder" to the man beneath me now. He seems puzzled for just a moment then I see the slow spread of the memory across his face. I don't know if we are sharing the same moment, or another that I have yet to recall, but I realize that in the end it doesn't matter. Mulder nuzzles my neck as his body begins to slip from me. I clench around him, and for the moment, he is still mine. He raises his face and looks me in the eye. "I think we've evolved, Scully, into something wonderful." "Another of your damn mutants," I reply from the space between his neck and shoulder. And he laughs in the bright open night. End part 2 of 2. Email me and get warm, sticky cyber-smooches! Mulder's sittin' right here and he claims they're "to die for."