TITLE: Touch
AUTHOR: David Stoddard-Hunt
CATEGORY: S, A
KEYWORDS: MSR
RATING:   R
SPOILERS: none
SUMMARY: On days like today, his touch is devastating.
ARCHIVE: If you want to, I'd be delighted. Just let me know.
DISCLAIMER: Others created and own these characters. I
improve them, for no personal financial gain. No infringement
upon the profits of 1013, Fox, or anyone else is intended.
FEEDBACK: stoddardhunt@earthlink.net
AUTHOR'S NOTES: As always, thanks to Abra for being the kind
and talented soul who offered to create a home for my work.
Thanks to Char and to Tess simply for being, but also for
betaing. Thanks to the V101 gang for their comments and
spatulas. This is in response to the IWTB list's "100 Lines of
Punishment" regimen, but in no way constitutes an admission of
guilt.

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

She thinks he considers it endearing, protective. If she's honest
with herself, and she almost always is, most of the time she
hardly notices it. Except for the occasional day, like today. Today,
the slight pressure of his fingertips on the small of her back
threatens to sear into her skin, atomizing the tattoo she'd had
placed there on a night of impulsiveness, to protect herself from
his heat. It failed.

Today, she is acutely aware every moment his hand rests there,
shepherding her from car to building, through menacingly dim
hallways, away from vaguely threatful colleagues. The heat from
his touch will burn into her soul if she lets it continue. It pools in
her stomach, boiling, the steam travelling in all directions.

She rounds on him in annoyance.

"Mulder." Her tone is pointed, but not yet sharp.

Instead of answering, he waits patiently, indulgently, his hand
still aloft, waiting to claim her anew. She simply stares at him,
her jaw clenched, lips drawn tight, fuming.

When she turns back, his hand is there again, and she feels it
as it begins to happen, the wetness forming between her legs.

"No!" she thinks angrily, trying to will it away, knowing she
cannot, knowing it is inevitable. On days like this. It might happen
in the ladies' bathroom on the floor above their basement office.
It might happen in her car after she's left work early, with minimal
explanation, his concern trailing after her, like a faithful pet. Or, it
might happen as they walk, his hand the trigger, her back the
primer. God, she hopes not, not here, walking inches from him.

But, on days like today, his touch is devastating. Even a woman
of her iron will and control surrenders utterly to its whim. She will
submit, his fingertips ensure this. She knows it, feels it
happening, the heat spreading into her belly. She is aware, now,
of her legs as she walks.

She tries to walk more quickly, move away from the will of his
heat. He doesn't even need to lengthen his stride to keep pace,
and her ire rises at the arrogance of his lanky grace.

His fingers have not moved from their accustomed rank. Why,
then, does she now feel them on the sides of her breasts?
Tickling, blood racing to color her chest in rosy hue, her nipples
next to betray her will, tightening, becoming exquisitely sensitive.
Even her anger eventually turns against her, the heat it leaves in
her cheeks a reminder of the heat below.

She will come, no matter what she wants. On days like this.

She should fight it, she thinks, and she will, for a time.
Maintaining control has long been a hallmark, paramount in her
life. She despises that this is beyond her control. Especially
irksome that Mulder is in control. Enraging. Except, the thought
lingers, at the instant she finally gives in to it.

At the moment of capitulation exists a freedom she never
experiences otherwise. She is unshackled from Dana, the
responsible daughter, no longer on call as Doctor Scully,
forensic pathologist of last resort. In that instant, Agent Scully's
brief to watch over Mulder's shoulder, her own interpretation of
that brief to watch out for his back, is null and void. There is no
responsibility, no anger, no guilt. Only his touch, her body. And
absolution.

She's always held rein over her passion, kept it corralled,
preferring, she thinks, a stable emotional life. But, that is not
possible today. His fingers have lifted the reins from her grasp,
lightly, with a haughty confidence and ease. He has loosened
the rein, allowed her passion to buck and shake its mane,
pawing impatiently in the dirt. No matter, she decides. She alone
holds the latch to this corral and will keep this snorting beast
within, the caprice of his will be damned.

En route back to the Bureau, they pass a gilt-glassed office
block. In its jewel-like facets, she glimpses their reflection, again
and again, her face tight, flushed. His stride is relaxed, his step
light. He seems not to have a care in the world. "Prick," she
swears, sotto voce. In response to her quickened pace, he
seems, if anything, to have slowed his stride. His palm is now
flush on the small of her back, the heat intensifying
geometrically, spreading out in vectors all over her body.

In the sepia panels, she sees still photos of the faintest hint of a
smile teasing the ends of his full lips, creasing his smooth
cheeks. Fury blazes through her, and a tremor shakes her lower
abdomen, dampening her thighs. Her head snaps forward, her
rage turning inward at her body's own incremental surrender.

As they enter the elevator on the first floor of the Bureau, she is
given a brief reprieve from the tyranny of his touch, as another
agent joins them for the short ride to the basement. She feels
Mulder's absence from her back sharply, as a phantom pain, an
amputation. The congestion, the pressure, in her lower belly
increases, becomes insistent. His grants her the favor of his
hand again for the few steps from the elevator to their office, and
she sighs in relief, the sharpness easing.

In front of their door, he steps around her, reaching for his keys,
his other hand trailing from the small of her back, across her
side. She has to dip her head, so that he won't see the blush that
scorches across the bridge of her nose, and brands her cheeks.

As he leans in to unlock the door, she stares at him under her
eyelashes, unsure whether she wants to haul off and hit him, or
pull him to her, claw at him, fuck him senseless. She wonders
whether she might do all of the above.

Pushing the door open, he turns to bid her entry. Seeing her face
down turned, he proffers two fingers, those two fingers, placing
them gently under her chin, lifting her face so that she sees in
his eyes that which she didn't even know she'd sought:
permission.

With a rush, her release comes, flooding her cheeks with color,
her eyes with a hazy light.

When she is finished, he withdraws his fingers from under her
chin and she collapses against the jamb. She watches him,
unable to move, as he strolls to his desk and, a soft smile visible
on his lips, begins to flip through a file.

"Bastard! " she spits. He looks up with his eyes only, peering
over his glasses. But there is only wonder in her voice, and on
her countenance, love.

-End-