NEW Lying In Wait (1/1) by Rachel Howard. NC-17 Classification: VRH Rating: NC-17 Spoilers: None Keywords: MSR Summary: Author re-examines tired scenario at request of friend, resulting in hackneyed smutfest with no plot or redeeming value whatsoever. Now I KNOW y'all will read it. Enjoy. ************************** 11:21 PM If human beings could be reduced to smoldering heaps of ash by the force of will alone, this guy would be history. Mulder shuddered, imagining what his world would be like if Dana Scully suddenly became pyrokinetic. The pathetic half-wit behind the desk at the Longhorn Motel had made his first mistake when Scully turned and bent slightly to set her laptop down on the chair by the front desk. The man had eyeballed her as if she were a two-bit stripper working on a tip. Unfortunately for him, she caught him doing it. The turn-and-bend move had revealed a tantalizing glimpse of her smoothly muscled right leg, a better view than would usually be available due to the fact that Scully's modestly slit suit skirt was now quite immodestly torn to mid-thigh. Mulder's tired mind skittered coltishly away from the reason for the tear in the skirt that made up half of Scully's favorite black suit and focused on another uncomfortable fact instead: He was seriously lucky the man behind the desk was still gaping, slack-jawed, at Scully's legs, when she straightened up, because otherwise she might have noticed that her errant partner was staring, too. And he was equally slack-jawed. Luckily, she hadn't caught him. She'd nailed the clerk with one of her "you're a sorry excuse for a man" stares, and asked for two rooms. Which was when the clerk had made his second mistake. He had dragged his gaze from her legs to her face (with a quick stop at her breasts along the way) and laid some line on her about how it was hunting season and they only had one room left. Mulder was so busy watching Scully ramp all the way up from Righteous Indignation to Full-Blown Rage that he nearly missed the important piece of information at hand. One room. Twenty miles from West Nowhere, Texas. Another twenty miles from an actual town with, presumably, other motels. It was very late. And Scully was tired of driving, dirty, pissed off and most likely unwilling to... "Where's the next motel around here?" Shit. Oh, well. "Uh, well, there's one down the road apiece. Mebbe nine miles - near Delta. But I reckon they're full, too. See, it's..." "Hunting season." Scully's tone of voice indicated that she, too, had a gun and wasn't afraid to use it. "I know. Could you call them and ask them if they have any rooms available, please." It was an order, not a request, and the hapless desk clerk seemed to recognize that fact. He pulled out a phone book. Please, God, Mulder prayed silently. I'll never ask for anything again as long as I live. I realize that I haven't been exactly what you'd call observant, but... "...uh-huh...right, okay. Thanks." The clerk hung up and announced, "They're full up." With an incredible effort, Mulder pasted a sincere, sensitive-guy expression on his face and said, "Scully, what would you like to do? We could keep going, if you'd rather..." She said, stiffly, "We'll take the room." Still wearing the regretful, sensitive-guy look, Mulder scooped up the key the clerk was offering, and grabbed her laptop. He made sure Scully's back was safely turned before he let the insanely gleeful grin that was clamoring to be let loose cross his face, and then he hightailed it down to their room before she could change her mind. When the door to the room swung open, he was sure he'd just been given proof positive that a higher power did, in fact, exist. One bed. Just one. One creaky-looking pathetic folding chair and no floor space to speak of. Oh, this was too good. But he had to tread very carefully. "Fuck," Scully growled. She stalked into the room and dumped her laptop on top of the small dresser against the wall. With another enormous effort, Mulder withheld the dozen zippy innuendo-laden remarks that popped into his head and re-plastered Regretful Sensitive Guy Expression on his face. He peeked in the mirror. Yep. It looked pretty good, too. "Scully, you take the bed. I'll just - " He waved vaguely at the chair and the tiny floor space, hoping that... "Don't be ridiculous, Mulder. We can share." Mentally high-fiving himself, he watched as she caught a view of herself in the full-length mirror and gasped. He winced. The bathroom mirror at the roadside diner where they'd grabbed a late dinner must not have been big enough to show the actual devastation of her suit. Which brought him right back to what he'd been avoiding for the last three hours. "I owe you a new suit, don't I?" Scully turned and threw him a full-bore laser cannon glare. The one the stupid desk clerk had taken was nothing compared to this. "Mulder, do you know how many Chanel suits I had?" He quailed. "One. And I say `had' with good reason, Mulder. This is way, way beyond..." She trailed off, staring dismally at her reflection. The liberal smears of elk blood and dirt did little to disguise the real problem, which was the way one of her lapels had been ripped clear off the body of the jacket. Even if the skirt was fixable, which he doubted. "I bought it on sale - a mega-huge sale - five years ago. It was a classic." And suddenly he felt like shit. This was entirely, completely his fault. "Scully, I'm really, really sorry. You were right, and I shouldn't have even tried to go down there after I heard about the brucellosis outbreak." "Forget it," she said, tiredly. "I ought to know better than to follow you into every mass grave we run across -" "I hate to point this out, but you don't exactly smell fresh as a daisy yourself." She cocked an eyebrow at him and added coolly, "- Even if you do fall on your ass onto a bull elk's horns. A very dead, very smelly bull elk. Speaking of which, how =is= your ass?" "It hurts," he admitted. "But I'm still counting myself lucky. Better a slight puncture wound to the left cheek than..." He let his voice trail off significantly, hoping to get a smile out of her, and it worked. "All right. I get the first shower because I wasn't the one that listened to a bunch of confirmed lunatics claiming it was aliens in that grave, not decaying wildlife. Then you get cleaned up and I'll take a look at your, uh, injury." She reached for her bag and dug out a few things, then went into the bathroom without a backward look. His mind spinning with the implications - one room, one =bed=, he and Scully in the one bed, Scully `taking a look' at his ass!, he plopped heavily onto the edge of the mattress. And leapt right back up again with a curse. Fuck, it really did hurt when he sat down. Scully was going to be stuck driving again tomorrow while he sat uncomfortably with all his weight on his uninjured cheek. For over three hours. Fuck. Rubbing his ass gingerly, he wondered if she would want to put some of that antibiotic cream she always carried with her on it. "Shit," he mumbled, looking down at the front of his trousers. The obvious difficulty with the whole situation was beginning to become apparent. How the hell was be going to sleep next to Scully without embarrassing himself? 11:54 PM Scrubbing a long streak of mud and decaying elk remnants off her right calf, Dana reflected that she had about as much chance of getting to sleep that night as she did flying to the moon. Because she knew for a fact that Mulder slept in boxers and nothing else. And he was going to have to drop said boxers in order for her to examine what kind of damage he'd managed to do to his gorgeous butt when he tripped and fell on the dead elk. A six-point buck. Nice =rack=, the evil part of her mind whispered. "Nice ass, too," she mumbled into the cascading water. Oh, fuck. Why, when Mulder got hurt, did it always seem less like she was administering a necessary medical service and more like she was Playing Doctor? You show me yours. "Shut up, Dana," she mumbled. Rinsing the conditioner out of her hair, she returned to the problem at hand. At least a couple of times a week, she awakened drenched with sweat, lying face-down in bed with a tingling in her lower extremities brought on by grinding her pelvis into the mattress in her sleep. And it wasn't all that rare an occurrence. While having wet dreams about her partner while she was safely alone in bed was fine and dandy, should she have a similar episode while SHARING a bed with him, her life would no longer be worth living. So. She simply couldn't allow herself to fall asleep, that was all. Stepping out of the shower, she shivered, not only from the cold air hitting her wet skin, but from the prospect of a long night with nothing to do but watch Mulder sleep. In his boxers. Right next to her. Grinning wolfishly, she reflected that she'd had worse ideas. 12:09 AM The door popped open and Scully emerged from the bathroom. He realized that he was staring but she looked so delectable he couldn't stop himself. Her hair was towel-dried, rumpled and loose around her face. Her Washington Redskins nightshirt came to mid-thigh and it had a scooped neckline wide enough to reveal a tempting glimpse of her shoulder. She leaned over to get her little medical kit out of her bag and two things happened. First, the nightshirt shifted, showing him quite a bit more of her left shoulder, and second, it rode up enough in the back for him to get a look at the edge of her panties. Pale blue. Edged with lace. He bolted for the bathroom. "Mulder?" The lock on the door snapped shut and Dana thought she heard a muffled groan. She sighed and turned on the television. He heard it go on and added another thank-you prayer to the steady stream making their way up to heaven from him tonight. He was going to have to do something about this situation before he went out there again and let her put her little hands on his highly sensitive ass, or else she was going to have him up on charges. Because on top of the not-very-concealing nightshirt, she had... She had left her makeup and other stuff in the bathroom. Feverishly, Mulder wondered if other men had this particular obsession. He began stripping off his ruined dress shirt, peering into the nylon bag that lay open on the narrow counter. The skin-colored stuff was foundation. What the hell was "Clarifying Lotion?" He popped off the top and smelled it, but disappointingly enough, it smelled like alcohol. Her lipstick was apparently called Perfect Peach, and whatever horny demon had taken possession of his senses led him to pull off the cap and smell that, too. Faintly waxy and - yes, it was a little fruity. He put it back, nearly blinded by a sudden vision of what it would be like to bend his mouth to hers and smell, taste that lipstick. ...and struggled to unzip his pants, easing the zipper carefully over his erection. Pulling off his boxers, he took one last look into her kit. Oh, God. "Peppermint Foot Lotion." Rubbing it on her feet...! He turned the water on, noticing the washcloth that Scully had wrung out and neatly hung over the rack. He grabbed it, ignoring the clean, dry one that rested next to the remaining bath towels, and stepped in under the warm spray. And discovered that she had been too tired, or too =something= to remember to take her shampoo and soap and conditioner with her when she got out of the shower. He flicked the shampoo bottle open, put it under his nose and inhaled deeply. Yes, there was really only one way to handle this situation. She used liquid soap, in an unlabeled clear plastic bottle; pearly white but it smelled like vanilla and some flower mixed together, and he recognized the scent immediately. He grabbed the bottle, squirted a reasonable amount into his palm and worked up a nice lather before he reached for his erect penis. Shutting his eyes, he let his imagination take over. She was in the small shower stall with him, right here, and it was her firm little hand that was wrapped around his dick. Mmm, yeah, that would do. With his eyes closed, he could see her clearly, his sense-memory helpfully filling in the way the smell of the soap mingled with her own natural scent, her hair and her skin. Now she was smiling up at him teasingly, turning him around so that she could press her wet, naked body against his back while her hands worked busily at his erection. His thumb flicked under the head of his penis on the top of every stroke, pressing into the delicate skin. Her breasts and belly pushed into his back and he tried to keep his small sounds from getting louder, because this was just too good. He turned around and enjoyed her look of surprise as he kissed her roughly - tasting her peach lipstick, which had somehow stayed on in the shower - and turned her around so she was facing the water. Then his dream-Scully bent over, giving him the same teasing look over her shoulder, and he sank into her wetness and heat, taking her from behind, savoring her groan of pleasure. He came, the water instantly washing his semen down the drain, and, he hoped, covering the yelp he couldn't stifle. Shaking his head, he looked down at himself. Yes, folks, it's a new land speed record for Spooky. Picking up the washcloth that had so recently touched Scully's wet naked body, he started scrubbing off the day's grime, wondering if could get away with casually asking her what kind of soap she used. 12:25 AM Dana sat with her back against the headboard, a pillow tucked into the small of her back, trying very hard to concentrate on the late-night rerun of `Spenser: For Hire" she'd settled on. She was not going to think about Mulder, naked in the bathroom, water pouring over his lean body. She was not. What the hell was taking him so long? Mulder took twice as long in the shower as she did, and she had a lot more hair to wash. But his hair was awfully nice, thick and silky. She sighed heavily and wondered if she had time to make herself come, just once, before he got out of the bathroom. Probably not a good idea - he might be able to tell. Worse, he might catch her at it. Why the hell hadn't she taken care of that while she was in the shower? Was Mulder..? Oh, Dana, don't even think about it. Spenser and Hawk tore down a city street in a sportscar, chasing some bad guy. The water had stopped in the next room and Mulder was probably toweling himself off right now. She was NOT going to think about it. Stabbing the channel button with her thumb, she surfed the four channels the motel got clearly - nothing, nothing, Spenser, oh wait - Pay Per View was showing "Hot Malibu Girls." Lovely. The bathroom door opened and Mulder emerged, wearing nothing but a towel and a slightly apprehensive look. Reviewing her recent thoughts, she couldn't blame him in the least. She hoped her expression was neutral - she was giving it everything she had. "Why don't you let me take a look at your - ah, injury, Mulder." He nodded, swallowing, and she scooted to sit at the edge of the bed. He walked over to her, and she noticed that he was still damp, his hair mussed sweetly, tumbling over his forehead. As he got closer she could see a drop of water clinging stubbornly to his navel. She reached for the medical kit that went on every case with them. Without meeting his eyes, she said, "Turn around, please, and move the towel." She tried to sound offhand and relaxed, but to her ears she sounded hungry, eager. But Mulder didn't say anything. He simply turned his back to her and eased the towel off his hips. Oh, God. Would you look at that. Easy, Dana. "When was your last tetanus shot?" Just perfect. Gorgeous, small, tight muscles... "Uh, when I ran into the barbed wire fence in Litchfield. The Buckner case, remember?" "I'm just going to put some antibiotic cream on this. That was about six months ago, so that's good. You don't need another one." Dana had the uncomfortable feeling she was babbling, but her face was burning and she felt that if she kept talking she might be able to get through this. But when her fingers made contact with his skin, he shuddered slightly, and an answering quiver of awareness went through her own body. "Am I hurting you?" "No." He sounded like someone was cutting off his air supply. Just for a moment, she let herself wonder how this was affecting Mulder - or was it? She let her thumb just barely brush the curve of his buttock as she reached around him for a bandage, and she felt it again - a quiver that ran all the way through his body, up her fingers and into her bones. Stop it, Dana. She slapped the bandage on hastily, trying not to feel the silky, solid heat of him under her palm, trying not to think about it, and then - "I'm done, Mulder." He looked over his shoulder and his eyes met hers. And there it was again, that frisson of heat, awareness rippling through them both simultaneously - - but she wasn't even =touching= him now. And then he was refastening the towel safely around his waist, moving away, and she wiped the rest of the cream off her fingers with a tissue, looking down at her hands. He was saying something to her, but she had missed it. "I'm sorry, what?" "I said I'll be back in a second." 12:38 AM Mulder stared down at the obvious bulge under the towel. Another land speed record. He leaned over the sink and splashed cold water onto his face. "God, Scully, what you do to me," he whispered. 12:41 AM He came out of the bathroom wearing boxers and, disappointingly enough, a t-shirt. Dana sternly reminded herself that she had no right to be disappointed, and managed a weak smile for Mulder, who looked as nervous as a Republican candidate about to shake hands with a gay-rights activist. He climbed into bed next to her and settled down on his side. "Is that it? Spenser?" "Sorry. No HBO. If you want to surf, help yourself." She handed him the remote and watched as he clicked through the channels. He made a disgusted sound and ended up where she'd started. "Spenser it is. Or do you not want to watch TV?" Giving him a sideways glance, she replied, "No, it's fine." They sat in silence for a few minutes, during which Dana felt the heat from Mulder's body penetrate the sheets and blankets. He had left a considerate distance between them. If she weren't so... ...so... The word is =horny=, Dana, she thought, berating herself. How long has it been since you've been in a bed with a man? Well. If she weren't totally, completely aware of Mulder's proximity in a completely inappropriate way, this would be very pleasant. But his warmth next to her, the sound his legs made sliding under the sheets as he shifted, the clean, warm smell... "Mulder?" "Yeah?" "Did you use my soap?" The look he gave her was simultaneously sheepish and horrified. "Uh, yeah. Uh...sorry. It was there, and I just..." "No, it's okay, it just...it's kind of feminine." She smiled widely. "You smell like a girl, Mulder." He was turning red. Whoops - somehow she'd really embarrassed him. "Really, it's okay - I was just teasing you. I don't' care if you use my soap." "No, I should have asked, anyway. I'm sorry." "Mulder, forget about it." She sighed. Great. He looked completely humiliated, and truth be told, it was kind of a turn- on, smelling her soap on him. Was there anything about her partner that =wasn't= a turn on? The conversation was at a standstill, and the silence was beginning to get a little awkward. "Actually, I =am= kind of tired. Do you think we -" He hit the off button on the remote before she could finish the sentence. "Sure. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you up." "You weren't," she said. "Are you sure you're going to be able to get to sleep without the TV on?" He looked over at her thoughtfully. "To tell the truth, I'm not sure. I haven't tried in a long time." He paused and asked, thoughtfully, "What do you think about when you're trying to get to sleep?" Dana looked at him sharply, but couldn't see a smart remark lurking behind the question. She considered the question for a minute. Well, there was one obvious answer, but she couldn't share =that= with him. I think about you, Mulder. I wish you were with me. And now that you are, I don't know what to say to you. "It depends," she said, finally, coming up with a half-truth. "On what the day was like, partly. I think about what happened during the day, and what's coming up tomorrow. I think about things that I wish would happen, or things I wish hadn't happened." He looked blank. "What do you think about?" He shifted slightly and stared at the blank set. "I don't know. I guess I keep the TV on to keep myself from thinking. To try to distract myself." There wasn't any self-pity in his voice, but his answer struck Dana as rather sad. And she had nothing to say to that, either. "Well, if you can't get to sleep, just turn the TV on low, okay? If it wakes me up, I'm sure I'll go back to sleep pretty soon, so don't worry about that. Okay?" "Okay." Mulder turned to look at her again, and there was such a complex mix of emotion in his eyes - affection and regret and gratitude, for some reason - that she had to fight the urge to ruffle his hair. Then he leaned over and snapped off the light on his side of the bed. After a second's hesitation, she did the same. But Mulder went to sleep in just a few minutes. Dana knew from listening to his breathing, from the way his body shifted. When she turned her light off, he arranged his long limbs neatly, carefully keeping to his side of the mattress, settling into a spot where he was unlikely to accidentally brush up against her if she turned over. She smiled in the darkness. Typical Mulder - he could be completely aggravating, but in any situation where she might be legitimately uncomfortable, he was the soul of consideration. She settled in on her back, only turning onto her side, toward him, after she heard his breathing slow and lengthen. As he slipped into sleep, he began to sprawl out, rolling onto his stomach, his right arm creeping across the bed, coming to rest much closer to her. Dana smiled and edged a little closer to him. He was really asleep. She waited for a long time, until she was =sure=. Then she reached out and ran her fingers through the lock of hair that usually fell over his forehead. It was still damp. He didn't stir. She got as close to him as she dared, then let her head fall back against the pillow. Now she was close enough that she could actually feel his breath stirring the fine hairs at her temples. She was getting sleepy. Fifteen minutes later, Dana was asleep. 6:40 AM Mulder's consciousness always asserted itself slowly in the morning. Bits of reality trickled into his dreams until he was fully awake. Usually, the noise from the television, which stayed on all night to accompany his dreams, cut through first. Then the slick feel of the leather under his head, if he was on his couch at home, or the detergent-and-cotton smell of the sheets in a motel room. This morning, however, was decidedly different. The smell was confusing. There was the cotton, and the cheap bleach detergent smell. But there was no TV. Scully. He was in bed with Scully. And the reason why his back was warm..? He came all the way awake with a sudden jolt, as the generalized feeling of warmth and sensual pleasure resolved itself into his partner's body, snuggled up behind his own. He was lying on his stomach and somehow she had molded herself to him from knee to shoulder. She lay on her side, her arm resting casually over his back; her breasts and belly were pressing intimately into his side. And she was sound asleep. And of course, he was fully erect. Mulder laid perfectly still, considering his options. As divine as this felt, there was really only one thing to do. Carefully, with infinitesimal movements, Mulder began sliding out from under his partner's arm. Her nightshirt had ridden up to her waist during the night, and he could feel the silky skin of her thigh and belly slide against his as he eased himself away from her. He froze when she sighed and shifted against him, but it turned out to be a stroke of luck - she rolled over onto her back, and he was free to slip out of bed. 6:48 AM Dana woke up when she heard the shower go on. Rubbing her eyes, she wondered when Mulder had become so compulsive about bathing. He just took a shower last night, she thought. Then she sat up. What am I doing on his side of the bed? Frowning, she considered the question for a minute before giving up and flopping back down for a few more minutes' worth of dozing. 7:45 AM "Want me to drive again?" Mulder nodded and grimaced slightly. Dana tried hard not to smile while he eased himself into the passenger seat of their rental car. "How's it feeling?" "A little sore," he admitted. "Thanks for driving." She put the car into gear. They drove in silence for a while. "Hey, look, Scully. Roadkill." "Yes?" "Maybe I should go root around under it, see what I find." Suprisingly, she actually grinned. "You thought =that= was funny? Wow, you're really going soft on me." Scully's eyes narrowed somewhat. Daylight (and not being in bed with Mulder) had done a lot to restore her equilibrium. She had herself under control again. Ready to play, Mulder? "I was trying to decide what brand to get you for Christmas." He knew he was walking into a trap, but he went for it anyway. "What brand of what?" "Cologne. Because if you're going to insist on using soap that makes you smell like a girl, we're going to have to do something to cover it up when we're in places like this. Or else the good old boys in West Texas are gonna want to kick yer ay-uss." She managed a tolerable imitation of the desk clerk's accent, and he barked out a surprised laugh. "Scully, I wouldn't have thought you had it in you." She looked pleased, but didn't say anything. He waited a minute, but she appeared to be done. "So is that it?" Without taking her eyes from the road, she lifted an eyebrow. "Is what it?" He felt slightly foolish. "Uh, nothing. Next time I'll bring my own soap, I swear." "You mean the next time we sleep together? That would probably be for the best, Mulder. Somehow, I just don't see you as the cologne type." He gaped. The corners of her mouth were twitching. Finally, he sank back into the seat. "Wow," he mumbled. With a supreme effort, she refrained from smiling. END.