Nocturnal Discoveries

An uncompleted draft

Author: Ann K

Rating: NC-17, for consensual sexual activity (yes, it’s smut)

Summary: A late-night foray to the library leads to unexpected discoveries for both Mulder and Scully.

Feedback: Always welcomed, and acknowledged. annhkus@yahoo.com

Read more of my stories at http://www.oocities.org/annhkus

An uncompleted draft as of 3/24/05. I am not actively working on this story. Proceed knowing that it is unfinished!!

"Mulder, I'm tired. Can't this wait until the morning?"

The question was rhetorical, as she was essentially talking to herself. Mulder was already bounding up the broad steps into the university library. Scully sighed, looking up into the clear evening sky, pulling her overcoat tighter around her waist. It was late, and they had been working on this case all day. And now, she wanted nothing more than to collapse on her lumpy motel-issue mattress, pull the blanket over her and drift into oblivion. Mulder would forgive her if she took the car and left him to walk back to the motel, right?

She let the evil thought linger in the small puffs her breath was making in the frigid evening air, and then turned on her heel, marching up the steps after Mulder. Her fate was determined a long time ago, she concluded, when she first decided to throw her life in with Mulder's quest. Their quest, she corrected. Not getting any sleep was her rather twisted reward.

Mulder had already spoken to the rather exhausted looking undergraduate behind the information desk, and met her at the doorway, a map clutched in his hands. "The journal stacks are down the elevator on the first level, Scully. I really think this article might provide us with some sort of insight into our suspect." She watched him with a level gaze, and then blinked, signaling her surrender.

At least it was deserted in the library, most of the students either asleep or, if she remembered correctly from her long-ago undergraduate years, slumped over in one of the numerous bars near campus. She numbly followed Mulder into the elevator, glancing at her watch before the doors slid shut, leaving them in shadowed darkness. Two in the morning. Really, Mulder, she thought, shaking her head and glancing at her partner. We've got to do better than this.

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

He had to start doing better than this. He was a jerk. He really was, and he knew it. It was late, and the shadows under Scully's eyes betrayed her weariness. As the doors opened, and they stepped into the first level of the library, he promised himself to do something special for her. Whatever that was, he didn't know, but surely he could come up with something.

"Where to now, Mulder?" Said partner's voice interrupted him, her tone scratchy with sleep. He looked up, and was surprised at the rows and rows of catalogued journals in front of him. "Jesus," he managed, trying to remember how he dealt with the libraries when he was a student at Oxford. He didn't, he dimly remembered. With his eidetic memory, studying was always minimal, and almost never took place inside the library.

The lights flickered overhead, and he vaguely recalled reading a posting on the wall as they came down. Something about curtailing the electricity during off-hours.

He supposed two in the morning would qualify as an off-hour.

"Did they give you a call number for the journal?"

Scully's voice brought him back to their present dilemma, and he turned the map over in his hands, trying to decipher the cryptic writing of the student he encountered earlier. "JK," he said, turning the paper sideways, squinting in the near-darkness. "Maybe a one?" he offered helplessly.

Scully sighed, her Mulder, I know you are my partner, but sometimes you can be a pain-in-the-ass sigh, and walked off towards what he presumed were the J stacks. The article on fetishes was the only one he couldn't pull off the website from the psychology journal, and, of course, the one he thought might be the most helpful on profiling their suspect. But his enthusiasm was tempered by Scully's exhaustion.

She walked with a steady clip, despite the early morning hour and their twenty-four hour day. He could imagine Scully as a librarian. Her brain worked like that. Analytical, detail oriented, excessively organized. She also looked damn good in glasses, and he could easily picture her perched behind the reference desks, gazing disapprovingly at giggling undergrads.

Damn, he loved this woman.

Before he could figure out where that came from, Scully's voice drifted from a far-off row. "A little help here, Mulder?"

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

All she really wanted to do was to find Mulder's journal and go home. Or to the motel. Or wherever she could get any small amount of sleep. The J stacks were fairly easy to find, and she peered down the long aisle, looking for "Abnormal Psychology." The very top row. Of course.

Scully actually loved the library, truth be told. If the circumstances were different, and the hours weren't so late, she would be in heaven, surrounded by rows of bookcases to the ceiling, their coffers full of cool, gold-bound journals. Only it wasn't so cool in here, she realized belatedly. It was actually quite warm, considering the library had the heat on high. She pondered the dichotomy of turning down the lights to save electricity, while blasting the furnace, and chalked it up to another example of inept bureaucracy. She should be familiar with that little concept. They worked for what might be the most inept bureaucracy on the planet.

"A little help here, Mulder?" she called, reaching for the nearest step stool and balancing herself on top, stretching on her heels to reach the top row.

"Coming, Scully," she heard him answer, and then his heavy, distinctive footsteps. She imagined him, his earnest face, his trench coat hanging open, walking with purpose through the maze of books. Mulder always walked with purpose, always with a specific direction...

"Where are you?" he called. Oh, brother. She fingered the titles, squinting, trying to find the group from 1998. "Row J," she shouted back. C'mon, Mulder. You can decipher a maze of dark warehouses and abandoned basements. You can figure out a university library. She listened as his footsteps continued, gradually coming closer.

She cursed her small statue, for not the first time in her life. What she wouldn’t give for a few more inches added to her frame. At least she wouldn’t have to continually crane her head upwards when trying to speak to her partner. Frustrated, she peeled off her coat, desperate for a breath of cool air, just as she saw Mulder's shadowy figure round the corner.

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

She startled him as he rounded the bookcase. He didn't expect Scully to have grown by another foot. That was his first thought. His second thought was that Scully had beautiful legs. He had noticed before, of course. He wasn't that oblivious. But, as she was pulling off her coat, her skirt riding closer to her waist, standing on her toes on a stool, he was granted a full view of his partner's normally hidden assets.

He wasn't ogling. Or staring. Really he wasn't. He certainly never stared at Scully, at least not when she knew about it. But he must have been looking a little longer than he realized, because the next thing he knew, Scully was watching him with her damned raised eyebrow, a bemused expression on her face. "Ok down there, Mulder?" Oh, yeah, he thought. He was doing just fine. Quite well, actually.

Maybe it was the late hour, the complete isolation, the way they seemed to be lost amid the stacks of books, the almost sultry lighting. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't slept in almost thirty hours. Maybe it was that last cup of coffee before they left the police station, or the way Scully's hair blew gently in the blast of the heater in the car as they drove to the library.

Maybe he was just thinking about the “something special” he wanted to do for Scully, and treating her like the attractive and engaging woman she was popped inadvertently into his mind.

Whatever it was, Mulder was surprised to notice he was hot, and not just from the overactive heater, and more than a little aroused. He wasn’t so oblivious that he had never noticed what a beautiful woman his partner was. It was just that she never seemed physically accessible. At least not until now.

Scully cleared her throat, breaking his near-trance. "I can't quite reach this journal," she admitted, her eyes flickering uncertainly over his face. She knew. Scully always knew what he was feeling. He only nodded, dumbly, and then, before he could second-guess his actions, stepped up on the small stool, his leg sliding in between Scully's. "Let me give you a hand," he growled huskily.

Damn, was his last rational thought.

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

Well.

Well.

Mulder never failed to surprise her. Ever. This entire case had been typical Mulder. Dragging her out of her apartment to catch an early morning flight, bounding around the police station with his infinitely annoying energy, insisting they come to the library tonight before going back to the motel. None of that was particularly surprising. It was all endearing, albeit annoying.

But this. This was rather surprising.

He stood directly behind her, his leg tucked between hers, his arm dangling over her shoulder for balance. She watched carefully as he reached up to the top shelf, fingering the titles of the journals before stopping on the right one. Everything was in slow motion. “Is this it?” he said, and his voice sounded like the times he called her in the middle of the night, just wanting to say hello.

But there was something else in his voice, an unfamiliar tone, but one she recognized immediately. Damn if it wasn’t sexual. That, combined with the fact that Mulder was very aroused, and standing directly against her back, made a shiver slide down her neck, and left her suddenly very aware of the oppressive heat in the library.

“That’s it,” she managed, feeling perversely proud that her voice was level and in control. Her pride vanished as Mulder put the book down on the bottom shelf, and then reached up, letting his hands trail over her waist, stopping to rest on her hips. “Do you need a hand?” he whispered into her ear, and she bit back a groan.

What the hell was he up to?

“Mulder?” she asked uncertainly, a little nervous. Hell, their relationship was built in part on innuendo and sexual tension, but it had never gone this far. Never. Not that she would have minded, but there just wasn’t the time. There was too much at stake, so they both grew accustomed to living with a thriving sexual tension beneath the surface of their professional relationship. It had intensified of late, but she tried not to notice. She wondered what had changed in the few moments since they got into the elevator, but, as Mulder leaned closer to her ear, pressing himself against her, balancing them both with his arm leaned against the bookcase, she answered her own question.

Everything.

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

“I think this might be what I was looking for,” he said, and he swore he heard her bite back a moan. He pressed himself closer against her, and then brought his hand up to Scully’s hair. Her face was turned away from him, but her body was sending out every signal that what he was doing was okay, and more than welcomed.

He wasn’t so sure what he was doing, but he knew he didn’t want to stop and figure it out now.

“Tell me the truth, Scully,” he whispered in her ear, just as he twisted the loose strands of red around his fingertips. “Do you want me to stop?” His voice was even, impressively so, but every nerve in his body was on edge, waiting for her response. Please don’t say no, Scully, he chanted. Please trust me. Let’s see what might happen here.

It was quiet on the floor, the only sounds being the periodic thumps from the aging heater and Scully’s harsh breaths. Or was that him? He wasn’t sure. “It depends, Mulder,” she finally answered him, turning her head a fraction of a degree until her lips pressed against his neck. “Are you going to stand there and talk, or are we going to get frisky in the library?”

Hot damn.

If Scully wasn’t already up on a pedestal, both literally and figuratively, his love and respect for her just went up a few notches. And it was already incredibly high. But she trusted him, and wanted him, and for whatever reason, was willing to see what might happen in the middle of this damn library.

She let her lips linger against his skin.