Title: Afternoon Delight Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Afternoon Delight is sung by the Starland Vocal Band. Warning:::::MSR::::SAP ~~~~~ Afternoon Delight ~~~~~ "Gonna find my baby Gonna hold her tight Gonna grab some afternoon delight My motto's always been when it's right it's right Why wait until the middle of the cold dark night When everything's a little clearer in the light of day And you know the night's going be here anyway?" ~~~~~ Mulder ~~~~~ I glance to her, watch the sunlight streaming in behind her like the flash of a UFO coming to take her away, then shake my head and blink slowly. She makes a noise with her mouth. "Mulder. How much sleep did you get?" I sigh. I lie. "About six hours." She nods, accepts my lie and says nothing more. She really can't say much more. She has no stake in my personal life anymore. I lean back, pulling a file folder and my computer keyboard with me, typing in furiously as I balance it on my knees. My report is filled with spelling errors when I let my brain get faster than my fingers, but I don't bother to check it over. I simply save it and shut down the computer. I stand and catch the last of the light as it fades, wondering why I always have to wait for the sun to set before I feel any kind of courage whatsoever. What is it about the rising darkness that gives me some perverse strength? Scully looks over at me and shakes her head. "I'm not finished," she says and nods for me to go on. But the sun is down now, and my own self reasserts into that male pride and ego again. That male pride that's still bruised and broken and withering most times. "I'll wait." I say and sit down on the edge of her desk. She glances up at me, stares hard as if she can cowl me into retreating, like I usually do, like I would have done had I not finished so late. "Mulder, go on, already. You're annoying when you watch me." I smile, the curve of my lips teasing her. "Yes, but I like to watch you." She rolls her eyes, slips out of her chair and stands to face me. "Fine. I'll finish it tomorrow." I shake a bit because of this new freedom I have over her, or rather this dominance that's suddenly appeared. The night is my territory. And she also doesn't have a car. Hers broke. She's catching rides from me every morning and afternoon. I haven't had so much control over her since we were married, and that brings out the worst in her now. So I guess I'm feeling a little superior because of it, a little more daring and testing. She scowls and picks up her stuff and breezes out. ~~~~~ Since I picked her up this morning, she hasn't said a single word. Neither have I. It's not my time yet. It's morning, bright, blinding, not my place yet. I want to have her touch me like she used to do when she rode with me. That small hand squeezing mine when she got in, the soft kiss on the cheek as she waited for me to start the car. She doesn't do that anymore. Because she doesn't think she has that claim over me anymore. She doesn't realize this, but she does. We may be separated, but she personally owns every little piece of me, and if she wants to completely destroy my control and kiss my cheek, then I'm all for it. Being forced to share a car has only made us more nervous, more touchy about things, more ready to snap at each other. Her hand sneaks to the radio and I bat it away. I hate listening to classical when you're in the middle of a large, noisy, obnoxious traffic jam on the interstate of all places. And I hate listening to classical because it reminds me of the time we made love to the radio, matching tempo to one of Bach's pieces that sent us dizzying into spirals of frenzied ecstasy. She plays classical all the time. Right now it's techno and dance mix and something else that sounds a bit like steel guitars mixed with recorders. Odd, but it sends fury and heat out at everything and saps me of my rage. Saps me of my tension, my urgent need to reach over and grab her mouth and never let go. Scully tells it gives her a headache. She says it louder. I glance over. "I'm sure you'd rather have a headache than my tongue down your throat if we listened to classical." She stares at me for a second, confusion expressed in every line of her face. "What did you say?" she askes, leaning forward. If she had really heard me, she wouldn't be leaning forward, not leaning forward and turning down the volume too. I can't wait this one out. I can't simply shove everything away and ignore her anymore. The traffic is stopped at the junction of an entrance ramp and a new construction site where there just happened to be a major accident too. It's now or never. Now. Or Never. I don't want never. I lean forward, pull in so close to her I can't even see her features anymore. She's breathing lightly, quickly, her mouth parted. I touch my tongue to her lips first, a sort of white flag sent to the bigger, better army in hopes of peace. She hitches her breath and I can feel it whistling past the heat of my tongue and evaporating the moisture from her lips. But she's not pulling away. I close in, press my mouth against hers hot and fast - worried she's going to back off at any second and also worried that we're going to end the kiss and have to drive twenty more minutes to work in humiliating silence. But I can't hold back. It's now or never and I want her now. She moans along my lips, her moan ending in a tight, trying to be contained whimper that literally makes me weak. Her arms catch me and I pull her closer to me, push her breasts against my shirt so I can feel all of her, everywhere. Her body curls up on the seat and she shrinks into me. I have never felt anything so small, so needy as her right then. And then a horn honks at us and I look to the road again and everyone has moved up and the exit is clear. I gun the engine and yank the steering wheel to the left because it got crooked when I pulled her into me. She's retreated again. I fly off the ramp, swerve to avoid oncoming cars, cause I really don't care at this point, and then screech into the only gas station near here. She is shivering. "We can't do this Mulder." I want to shout at her that we did it once before, but we all know how that ended up. "I want this Scully. You do too." She shakes her head. "We thought that when we got married, remember? And when we separated, we realized it wasn't anything but being overworked and together for so long that-" "No. You decided that based on half crazy ideas that I put in your head because I was too scared to let myself love you. I do though and I can't just wait around for this to happen to us again." "Mulder. . ." She looks up at me slowly. "You lost your chance." I freeze and tear my eyes from hers, blinking rapidly and staring out at the too bright sun. I shouldn't have grabbed her. But she's still officially married to me. Being Catholic she's got this hang-up about divorce. And I didn't want to divorce her at all. I just. . .got scared she'd be taken from me again. Stupid. Moronic. A pitiful excuse for simply not having the guts to love Dana Scully, not having the guts to let myself actually *be loved* by Dana Scully. For not having the guts to make myself worthy of her love. I had lost my chance. "Please," I hear myself say. She is silent. "Please, Scully. Another try at this?" I don't look at her because then I'd start to cry, and if I cried, then I was pitiful and not worthy to be called her husband. No worthy to sit in this car with her and have her still even here since I grabbed her like that. I had no right personally, even though by law I had all the right I wanted. She takes my hand softly, traces patterns there with the lines, then sighs softly. "Let's go to work Mulder." I start up the car. I sigh. I lie to myself. >That's Scully's way of saying maybe.< ~~~~~ ~~~~~ "Thinking of you's working up my appetite Looking forward to a little afternoon delight Rubbing sticks and stones together makes the sparks ignite And the thought of loving you's getting me so excited. Sky Rockets in flight. Afternoon delight Ah. . .Afternoon Delight." ~~~~~ Scully ~~~~~ I can't think at all. No when every single memory cell in my brain is replaying what happened in the car this morning. The half formed words I caught coming from his mouth when I attempted to turn the radio station still echo chilly through me. Tongue. . .your throat. And the thing is, it was those half words that made me respond to him when he tentatively placed his lips to mine. If he saw the myriad of images going through my mind right now, he'd throw me to the floor and never let me up until we forced home by the janitors. I've needed his touch for so long. And today, I had it. I had it and I brushed it off. I can't believe I did that. When we got married it was like this hunger that I couldn't ever turn off. When we had the huge fight and spoke painful truths to each other about reality and love, it seemed that hunger had been cauterized by his violence. I didn't think I'd ever want him to touch me again, not after the things he said to me, not after the way I'd hurt him. Too late, a part of me screams. I want him, I *want* him, hell I've always pathetically loved him, even as pitiful and uneffectual as it was, I've needed that touch on me. I tell myself that this touch, that the return of the native as it were, is the only thing that's making me react like this. I sigh. I am lying to myself again. That's one of the things he said to me. >Why do you always lie to yourself?< And I had told him that I must have lied to myself about him, thinking he was everything I needed. I had hurt him for hurting me. But none of it had ever been a lie. I feel it break within me. I feel the wave of held back tension come washing through me like a tsunami destroying a village and it's so clear, so simple again. I love him. Even as awful as he made me feel sometimes, he still made me feel wonderful. I glance up to the clock, see it's only two in the afternoon. I think for a moment about waiting. No. No, this can't wait any longer. He started it for us, I'll finish it. Or maybe what I'm doing is putting the air back into our sails and letting us rediscover the world. "Mulder?" He glances up. His thoughts are not on finishing cases. Mine aren't either. "Let's go home." There's a moment of utter silence as he regards me. I have no panic, no fear. I know what he will say. He stands slowly. "Okay. Home." ~~~~~ "Sky rockets in flight Afternoon Delight. . Ah. . ah. . Afternoon Delight. ~~~~~ end adios RM