PRELUDE TO A STRAITJACKET

Title: Prelude to a Straitjacket (1/1)

Author: Plausible Deniability

Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com

Archive: Freely

Category: V or S or somewhere in-between

Rated: NC-17 (barely)

Spoilers: Biogenesis

Keywords: Mulder/Fowley

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the television program "The X Files" are the creations and property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting, and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: A missing scene or two from "Biogenesis," after Diana gets off the phone with Scully.

THANKS to my beta readers: to Bets, who lent me her keen sense of Fowley-hating, and to Becky, who very kindly didn't shoot me down. And thanks especially to Dasha, because this was her idea and I stole it.

----

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day...

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now and let me dream it truth;
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say: My love! why sufferest thou?
-- Matthew Arnold, "Longing"

****

His head ached. It seemed to him that he could hear everything: the distant honking of a car's horn several streets away, the hum of the air conditioner next door, Diana in the hallway whispering into the phone, the beating of his own heart. The sheets felt cool where they touched his skin. He wanted to be even cooler; he took off his shirt, and sank beneath the sheets like a man letting the still blue waters of a vast lake close over his head.

He lay there, listening to himself breathe. In, out; in, out. Children breathed faster than adults, didn't they? Perhaps the human body was like a wind-up toy, slowly winding itself down to a stop. Or perhaps it was just a result of the proportionally lessened metabolic demands of greater body mass. That was probably what Scully would say.

Diana came in. She was treading softly, but he could hear her as if she were shouting his name in the middle of a starry field. He closed his eyes and lay still, breathing evenly, hoping she would think he was asleep.

"Fox?" she whispered.

He didn't answer.

She stepped closer. He felt her lift the sheets; the mattress dipped on his right as she joined him in the bed.

He made a little noise, a vague unhappy sigh such as a sleeping man might make, and rolled over onto his left side, his back to her. I'm asleep, he thought, mentally telegraphing the suggestion to her. I'm asleep, Diana; go away.

She did not go away. Instead she, too, turned onto her side, spooning against him. He could feel her breasts, soft and apparently bare, pressing into his back, her hips tilted against his buttocks, her smooth slim legs drawn up behind his. Her skin was cool -- surprisingly, deliciously cool -- a thought he resisted determinedly. In, out, in, out, he breathed evenly; see, Diana, I'm asleep.

She draped her arm over his side. Her hand dangled in front of him, hovering a scant half-inch or so from his navel. If he arched his back just a little, he thought, he could press himself into her palm. Not that he had the slightest intention of doing any such a thing. His head hurt, and besides, he was long since done with Diana.

No, Diana was a piece of his past, a piece he had mourned only briefly before realizing how immensely relieved he was that she had gone. He had always had a habit of falling into relationships with smart, strong-willed women, and then finding to his dismay that they were so smart and so strong-willed that he couldn't easily extricate himself from their orbits. He had to wait until they tired of him, at which point he got to shoulder both the shame of weakness and the pain of rejection at the same time.

Diana drew a deep breath behind him, a heavy, thoughtful sigh, and he felt the swell of her breasts against his back. He'd say one thing for her; she was still a fine-looking woman. When he'd first met her she'd been the personification of all his youthful dreams: intelligent, a good listener who didn't laugh at any of the foolishly artless things he said, and the possessor of a body that made him want to die a glorious death smothered in her cleavage. The first few times they'd been in bed together, he'd been overwhelmed by his good fortune.

Well, they were in bed again, and her hand was hovering a fraction of an inch away from his overheated flesh.

This time, he wished she would just go away.

He awoke feverish, disoriented. The sun had gone down while he was sleeping, and the room was dark.

Where was he? This wasn't his couch. Wait -- he slept in a bed now, didn't he? A waterbed... No, that bed was gone... Or was that all a dream? He tried, but he could not actually remember ever having bought a waterbed.

He must be in Scully's apartment, in Scully's bed. "Scully," he whispered hoarsely into the darkness.

His voice was small and uncertain, but, sure enough, he heard a rustling beside him, and a soft hand came to rest on his forehead.

"'Don't feel so good," he complained.

"You're burning up."

It did not sound like Scully's voice. Then again, nothing sounded the way it was supposed to. He could hear the noises from the street outside as if they were being broadcast in his head, he could hear the whoosh of his own blood flowing in his veins, he could hear the discordant music of the heavens.

She took her hand away. "Don't go," he begged, reaching up and catching hold of her wrist, sounding lost and helpless.

"I won't," she promised.

He clung to her hand. He wanted the noise to stop. He wanted to feel normal again, for things to make sense again. There was something very wrong with him.

"You're going to be fine," Scully said gently in her not-Scully voice.

He was so glad she was here. He wanted to tell her how glad he was, how grateful he felt to be safe in her bed, but if he spoke he knew his head would hurt too badly.

"You're going to be fine," she repeated, and he felt gentle lips brush his cheek.

There was something odd about this, he thought disjointedly, something odd about Scully kissing him, her lips lingering on his skin. Or was there? God knew he had had fantasies enough about just this very thing. Now he was not really sure where imagination ended and memory began.

"Just relax," she said, her fingers threading in his hair. She kissed his brow, then his eyelids, and then her mouth settled on his. He closed his eyes and set a hand against her back.

She was naked. He felt a ripple of shock. And, despite his fever and his confusion, a ripple of something else: lust shook him, swift and undeniable, a physical tremor as he grew hard.

"Scully," he whispered under his breath. He felt her hand at his waist, untying the drawstring of his pajama bottom.

Scully...he was bewildered. Was this the way things were between them, then? Why couldn't he remember?

But perhaps he did remember. Her smell seemed familiar, and her kiss. He had been with her before, he realized, only the details eluded him.

Her hand closed around his cock, tightening, stroking him. She set her mouth to his again, mercifully dulling the sound of his own moan.

She straddled his lap, leaning forward with her hands on the pillow on either side of his head, and lowered herself slowly onto him. She was softer, hotter, smoother, and tighter than he thought he could stand.

"Oh, God," he breathed. He tried to ignore the pounding in his temples. This was all too much -- the sensation, the sound, and, in the back of it all, the disquieting notion that he could not remember how he'd gotten here or why sex with Scully should have this strangely familiar feeling.

She was moving, lifting herself slowly up and then sliding firmly back down the rigid length of him. The blood in his veins was thunderous. He felt engulfed by her, confused, consumed. He wished it were not so dark, so that he could see her. More than anything, he wanted to see Scully's face.

He reached out to touch her, to run his hands over her breasts, but she seized his wrists in the dark and held them off.

"Slow down," he begged.

"You're sick," she whispered, grinding down on him. "Don't worry about me this time. Just relax."

He groaned. "I don't -- "

"Shhh," she ordered. "Let me make you feel better."

Her whisper knifed through his brain like the hiss of a blowtorch. Scully, he thought, this isn't the way I want it, I won't feel better, slow down, oh Scully something's wrong with me...

Amazing how the body had a will of its own, quite independent of the mind. She was moving faster now, pounding up and down on him with short quick strokes. His breathing quickened.

"Yes," she urged. "That's it."

His head resounded with the murmur and shriek of a thousand cosmic alarms. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. What was it?

She moved faster, determinedly, squeezing him with muscles much stronger than the grip of his own hand. He gasped with every downstroke. He tried to will the sensation away, slow it down, draw it out, but it was no use. He could feel the heat welling up in his balls, knew that very soon he would explode into her.

"Don't fight it," she said.

He closed his eyes. With a shudder and a stifled cry, he shot hotly into her enveloping warmth.

He let his head sink back into the pillow, his breathing beginning to slow. She lifted herself off him. "Scully," he whispered, though he did not think she heard him.

She settled herself beside him. "Relax," she said in a voice of infinite gentleness, "you're going to be fine."

"I know," he whispered, although he was afraid he did not believe her.

He lay in the darkness, limp with fever and with the enervating effect of spent passion. Thank God Scully was here to take care of him, he thought. Sick, he was so sick, he wanted the noise in his head to stop...

"Though it might help things," she was saying, "if you told me what happened to you in Tunguska."

"What?" he whispered.

"In Tunguska. It might help me know what to do for you if you'd tell me exactly what happened."

He felt confused. Hadn't he told Scully about Tunguska already?

"Fox," she said with an edge of impatience, "are you going to tell me or aren't you?"

He turned his head toward her in the darkness, laboring to remember. "Scully," he said, "since when did you start calling me 'Fox'?"

He could sense her eyes in the darkness, swiveling to gaze at him with glittering calm. Understanding began to dawn.

...An hour later, and he was locked in a little room, struggling against the unforgiving bonds of a straitjacket.

END