TITLE: CELLPHONE AUTHOR: Marasmus CLASSIFICATION: V, A, MSR. RATING: NC-17 SPOILERS: None DISCLAIMER: Not mine, never will be, property of 1013, endless gratitude to CC; DD and GA, and Vince, Darin and other writers for creating and breathing life into them. I am not worthy to drink your bathwater ;) ----------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: A conversation. A game. All is not what it seems. ----------------------------------------------------- "Hey, Mulder," she says, her voice rusty from underuse. Listening to her again is like breaking the surface of the water after a long dive, but he keeps his tone light. "Scully, long time, no hear." "I'm sorry. It was late when I got back and I was so damned tired." "S'okay, doesn't matter," he tells her. What time is it anyhow? Mid-morning judging by the angle of the light pouring in through the window. She coughs and it churns his stomach. It is quiet for an uncomfortably long time. He fidgets, wishing she would speak, fearing she won't. As ever, he is the first to crack. "Are you okay? Did anything happen? Do you want to tell..." "No," she interrupts croakily. "No, I'm... I'd prefer not to." There is another silence and he has to tamp down the anger. "Maybe we could talk about it later," she says finally. It's a small victory, petty really, but last week's argument about her continual use of the words "fine" and "okay" to mean "fuck you very much for asking" seems to have had some kind of effect. He wants the truth, not protection. He waves his hand to gesture that it is all right, forgetting that she can't see him. "Sure. Whenever you want." This time the pause isn't at all awkward. Her voice, still rough, sounds stronger. "So. Where are you, Mulder?" Ah. Back to business as usual. He slides one arm behind his head, lies back, stretching like a cat in the syrupy sunshine, and closes his eyes. "I am in heaven, Scully," he purrs. "Or a close approximation of it, anyway." "Which is where *exactly*" she asks dryly. "Let me describe it to you. It's a hotel room, but it's not like any room we're used to..." "Why? Is it clean?" He grins. "Yes, it's clean. No TV either. Dark oak beams in the ceiling. It's in the eaves of a big house, so one wall slants steeply. There are three small roof lights set high up and they flood the room with sunshine. Soft royal blue thick-pile carpet under my bare feet. "Grandfather clock against the gable end of the room -- listen, Scully.... can you hear it? Louder than a timebomb on the old Roadrunner cartoons. "The walls are rough-finished, old horsehair plaster; they've been whitewashed. It's hung with pictures of countryside scenes; real paintings by local artists; not perfect but that's good, at least they're not tacky mass-produced prints. No velvet Elvises." There is a muffled laugh. "A big room. Old... And do you know what is in the middle of this room, Scully?" He can picture her smile. "I think I can make a reasonable deduction." "A big, old bed. Headboard's oak, I think, with vine leaves carved across the top. Clean white sheets; inches of soft pillows; hard, wide, springy mattress. Actually I'm lying on it now. It's *very* large, Scully. Very pneumatic. You might even say... bouncy." "Mulder..." He could swear he hears her snicker softly. "I see there's nothing wrong with your powers of observation. So come on, where are you?" "The George Hotel." =Remember, Scully?= "The hills are rising behind me, black hills melting into steep green fields. It's summer and everything is so alive.. If I look out of the window I can see right across the valley or down into the narrow streets. I can see the river rippling between the trees; it catches the sun..." his voice trails off. "I've been waiting for you." Her breath catches slightly in her throat. She's recalling it in the same intense detail as he is. "I wondered when we'd end up back there again," she says, then her tone shifts to teasing: "You might have to wait a bit longer for me to get there though, it's a long way for me to travel." "Doesn't matter," he says nonchalantly. "I can go downstairs, get a drink and sit outside. People are all around, it's a good atmosphere. There's even a scratch soccer game going on in the field next door -- you can probably hear the shouting. But I think it's a bit hot for running around, so maybe I'm just gonna sit in the shade, watch the ducks on the river and sip my beer and wait." "In that case, I'll be right there," she says affectionately. "You're hopeless when you drink." "Agent Scully, that is an outrageous lie." Then he deliberately lowers his voice by an octave and smiles slyly. "So tell me, what are you wearing?" "And what does that have to do with anything, Mulder?" =That's it, play along.= "I might not see you easily if it's crowded out here. It's purely a means of identification." She sighs like a teacher whose favorite pupil has just been a little too cheeky. "You don't think you might spot my hair first?" "Not if you had it pinned up, you know in one of those... things at the back of your head." "A chignon?" "Yeah, one of those. I like it like that." "You'd still see me. My hair'd still be bright red, Mulder." He sits up and thumps the bed in exasperation. A plume of dust rises like a mushroom cloud and whirls in the sunlight, making him sneeze. "Jesus, Scully, would you just indulge me for a *second*?" There's a sound, like an audible smirk. A soft "gotcha" laugh. He wishes he could see her face. "Okay, okay," she says. "It's a hot day, right?" "Very. Gonna be one of the hottest of the year, they say." "Just as well I put on the green satin dress, then," she states with emphasis. He lies down again and and clicks through his library of images of her... 'Green satin dress'. She said it like it was supposed to mean something... Then he has it. A year ago, a sultry July Saturday in Washington, the mercury near exploding out of the thermometer. He had called her with a sudden brainwave about some case or other. She had complained it was her day off and there was no way in hell she was going in to the office. He jokingly said they should meet at the Brickskeller because it had the world's largest selection of beer. She suggested some ridiculously pricy restaurant to piss him off. They compromised on a meal at a cafe-bar -- his treat. His heartbeat had accelerated painfully as she walked in. They hadn't been together then and he was so used to her looking precise and geometric in business suits that he had forgotten she could look like this, all soft curves in a sleeveless, figure-hugging, satin dress. "Oh yeah," he breathes softly as he remembers. = Her, bending to pick a dropped teaspoon and exposing a sliver of black bra strap against the paleness of her shoulder. The view from behind as she strolls to the powder room...= "I saw you checking out my ass in that bar," she says, interrupting his private picture show at just that point. How the hell does she keep doing that? "Not just your ass, Scully," he says with a leer. There's a soft chuckle and she resumes, business-like. "So, I'm wearing the green dress..." "With or without a bra?" "Mulder..." She exhales loudly, but he knows she's only playing. "Just trying to get the picture. Wouldn't want to miss you in a crowd because I didn't have the details. God is in the details." "I don't think this is the time to be invoking the Almighty. Plenty of opportunity for that later." "Just answer the question, Scully." "I'll let you find out for yourself later on," she says in a low tone that has the heat rising from him in waves. "Now do you want the rest of that description or not?" "Yes please," he replies meekly. "So I guess I'm going to put my hair up in a chignon..." "Because I like it?" "Because it's a hot day, Mulder," she says in mock admonishment. "Perhaps I'll bring a pair of Ray Bans. Bare legs. And I have on these black strappy sandals. They've got a two inch heel and..." Like he cares about her shoes when he can think about bare legs. He grins, knowing better than to interrupt when she's having an Imelda Marcos moment. He tunes back in abruptly as she adds: "...anyway I'm going to take them off..." He does a quick scan of the conversation so far and realises with a pang of disappointment that she's still talking about the shoes. "You are?" "I'm going to walk across the playing fields to meet you. I think it would be good to feel grass under my feet." He can't resist it. "Lots of dogs in this town, Scully, and not many places to exercise 'em. Watch your step." "Thank you so much for that delightful image." Her soft laughter turns to coughing. "Anyway, when I've walked across the fields... *carefully*... what do we do next?" "Well, it will be getting late by then, so we could sit outside in the shade of a big parasol with a cool drink and watch the world and its ducks go by..." "Or? There was definitely an "or" hidden in that sentence." "Or we could just head upstairs... " "I'll take that last option please. Lead on MacMulder." He grins. Sometimes they think alike after all. "We'll creep up the stairs, me first," he says, picturing himself leading her up the winding staircase into the room in the roof. "... And all the time, you can't keep your hands off my ass..." "In your dreams," she snorts. "Well *obviously* Scully. And I'll push open the door and you'll say..." "'Why Mulder, what a big, *bouncy* bed you have'?" He shakes his head. Playfulness is not what he needs today. "You'll say nothing at all, because you'll realise that we've found the perfect room. It's quiet because it's at the top of the house. And warm, because the afternoon sun is pouring in, in strips through the roof lights..." "You've been thinking about this for a while haven't you," she says softly. "Ssshh, Scully, don't talk when I'm trying to kiss you," he whispers. The silence weighs heavy as he imagines her pressing close to him, her hands cupping his face and then sliding down his body with that sure, gentle touch. His hand wanders down, slips under the waistband of his boxers. "So," she says hesitantly. "What are *you* wearing?" He opens his eyes, lifts his head off the pillow and looks down. =Gray T-shirt, gray shorts, none too clean. The gray of ground-in dirt on the soles of his feet= "Jeans. No belt, no tie -- it's too warm. I'm wearing that black shirt you think I look so hot in..." "Could you love yourself more?" she asks, amused. "I try but it's impossible," he shoots back lazily. "The top two buttons are undone, care to finish the job?" "I may do. I may slip my hand inside your shirt and ease them open. Then again..." "What?" "I may choose to concentrate on your pants first. Button fly?" He makes a strangled noise of assent. "Then I shall kneel on that thick, blue carpet and pop everyone of those buttons until I can slide the denim right off you." For a second he can feel the rasp of the heavy cloth on his scarred thigh, her palms flat against his burning skin as they push away the fabric. He imagines those same careful hands slipping beneath the waistband of his boxers, stretching it out to move the soft cotton past his erection. The sunlight pouring in overhead is overheating his oversensitive skin. Her touch is cool, like balm, and impossibly arousing at the same time... He halts the thought. Not yet. "Scully, I think it's a bit hot in here. You'd probably be sweltering in that dress." "I'd be a little warm," she says. "But frankly I think I'd be more worried about whether that kiss was ever going to lead anywhere." "It will Scully. But for now I think I'll run my hands across your back, and pull down the zip on that dress so slowly, like I'm unwrapping..." "Gonna have to stop you there, Mulder," she says firmly and he groans. "Now what?" "That dress doesn't have a zip, as you would know if you hadn't spent all your time staring at my ass." "Does it matter?" he splutters. "As you said earlier, God is in the details." He lets her teasing slide with a smile. "Okay, so I'm pulling the dress up over your head slowly... ah... moment of truth, Scully, bra or not?" She makes a soft, happy humming sound that sends his blood and his senses swirling south. "Not, I think." "A woman after my own heart," he whispers. "Now I'm going to move in close to you, really close, and we're going to lie on the bed, so I can look up into your eyes. I'm going to reach a hand behind your head and loosen your hair until it falls forward towards me like a tsunami..." Memories wash over him, pictures so vivid that they stop up his throat. It's that spring day six months ago. They'd gone to the town for a break, just a day or two's respite from the madness. He wanted to show her why the place had lived so long in his head. =Standing on the limestone, arms hugging herself against the bite of frost in the air, windblown hair rippling and catching the pale sunshine, like waves= They had walked up the steeply winding streets, past where the little houses and tarmac roads petered out into rough gravel tracks, past where manicured fields turned into rough scrubland. As they climbed the steep path by the roaring falls, breezes whipped up the spray until the air shimmered with shortlived rainbows. When they reached the top of the crag, he watched her eyes widen with wonder at the undulating green spread of the valley below and felt an absurd sense of pride at having found somewhere like this. "I'd like to come back here in summer," she had said. =Your wish is my command = Finding the room had been pure luck. The hotel owner was grateful to let it -- not many people wanted it because of its sloping walls and the long awkward climb up the winding staircase. Dusk was approaching when they unlocked the door. He pulled his T-shirt off, flinging it away, slid out of the heavy jeans and his boxers, leaving them puddled on the floor, and tumbled onto the bed. He shut his eyes and revelled in the feeling of cool cotton sheets against his itchy back and warm sunshine on his overstrained leg muscles. But when she didn't join him, he hitched himself up on one elbow. "Scully?" She had pulled her clothes off and was folding them over a chair. She had looked at him sideways, watching his reaction as she slipped a hand flat against the skin of her hip and eased her panties off. "I'm hot, I'm sweaty, I ache and I'm going to get a bath," she said solemnly. "You might like to consider it yourself." "Now?" He had sounded like a whiny child. "But you'll be in there for hours." "I hope so," she smirked, walking slowly towards him, eyes watching for his reaction. Naked.Teasing. "Oh? I don't think so." As she walked past the end of the bed he had reached out an arm and snared her by the waist, dragging her down onto the mattress with a satisfying thump. She struggled in his arms, trying to push him away and calling him a pig, but she was laughing. Then he pulled her close, rolling them both until she was looking down on him. =That arrowhead of a grin as she sits up and settles astride him, knowing that her sudden heat on his abdominal muscles is making him harder= He had reached upwards to cradle her face in his hands and claim a kiss. Her lips tasted of the lime soda she had drunk on their way back to the hotel. He could almost feel the fizz of it against his tongue as it ran along the sharp ridges of her teeth. Then his hands began to roam downwards, caressing her breasts and tracing the gentle curve of her stomach. Where he had touched her, his mouth followed, suckling, leaving a breadcrumb trail of kisses. Her skin was salty-sweet, soft and warm. Finally his fingers dipped through hot, damp curls; just as she reached behind her to take his penis in her hand. They both started at the touch, the synchronicity of the urge. Desire transformed to amusement and then desire again, lightning swift. They kissed long and deep, a kiss punctuated by little gasps at the other's touch. Then, thigh muscles shaking and achy, she lowered herself onto him. There was a shared exhalation as he rose and buried himself within her. Then, slowly at first, they began to move, finding the familiar delicious rhythm. Something about being with her, within her, crosswired all his senses. The small, wordless sounds she made almost registered as caresses; her touches increased every sensation until it seemed as if the colours and shapes of his surroundings were also pulsing and alive. Then the world shrank and there was room only for him to concentrate on her and she on him, closer and closer. He was snared by the look in her eyes as he tried to slow the onrush of his orgasm; she didn't want him to hold back. He let it overtake him, let it arch his back and push away all thought for a long moment. But he couldn't -- wouldn't -- be alone in this. He smiled a little as he pressed a hand to where they were still joined. He watched intently, stroking, lightly pinching and pressuring, until he heard her cry and felt her shudder around him, redoubling his own pleasure. =black eclipsing the blue of her irises= They fell back together; she was draped across his chest and he adored the boneless, warm pressure of her as she brushed her hand lazily through his hair. He closed his eyes, drifting slowly into sleepy awareness of the rest of the world. He could hear the faint rush of blood in his ears, her heightened breathing; car engines and drifting fragments of conversation from the street below. Some time later, he wasn't sure how long, there was a shift like the rocking of a boat as she peeled away from his chest. He sat up, disappointed, the lack of contact leaving his skin cold. Then suddenly, she moved behind him, arms tightening around his waist, breasts pressing against his sweat-sheened back. "Thank you for today," she said quietly. "Oh so you love me now?" "You're nuts and you smell, but I suppose so," she whispered. A gentle kiss on his bare shoulder. "Let's get a shower." = Skin flushed and painted red-gold by the sinking sun, leaning her head against the door jamb of the bathroom, holding out a hand to him... = "Mulder?" =holding out a hand...= He should welcome the sound of her voice, it's usually the rope that pulls him out of deep nightmares. But now it's too hoarse and it's dragging him out of this precious dream. "Mulder? Don't go silent on me," she says quietly. "I need to see you, Scully. You don't sound well..." A sharp sound of exasperation cuts him off. "It's only what you had last week. Go on." He sighs, shifts his position on the bed and closes his eyes, trying so hard to see it... = the room at the top of the house, where the sun pours in from the rooflights and you can see right down the valley. Hidden away and nothing to think about but each other. Pure. Peaceful. Salt and heat, laughter and desire, and time stretching endlessly away = ...then opens them again. The cool whitewashed walls dissolve into rough, grey concrete. The soft blue carpet melts away to be replaced by grubby, cold tiles. The ticking of the clock mutates into the endless dripping of the tap in the corner. It suddenly seems as though the bright strips of daylight slicing in through the bars on the window are of a different, colder kind. There is a squeaking of bedsprings from the cell next door as she moves. "No, don't stop talking," she whispers. "I'd rather be there." But it is too late, the vision has gone and he can't recapture it, no matter how he tries to frame the words. "Get up, Scully," he says roughly, hauling himself up onto the cot until its battered springs are creaking and giving under his feet. "I just want to see you're all right." "Not now." He puts his hands against the rough brick partition wall and steadies himself as he peers through the air vent into her cell. "Please." "I'm not at my best. Maybe later." He tries to keep the anger out of his voice. "Whereas I look like Richard Gere at the end of an Officer and a Gentleman? Scully, don't pull this shit on me again." "I told you, no," she says flatly. End of argument. He has always let her believe that if she were lying on her cot, next to the wall that divides them, the angle makes it impossible for him to look down on her through the steel grille of the air vent near the ceiling. He wants her to feel she still has some small shred of privacy and has never violated that trust. Almost never. He flattens against the wall, puts his toes on the very edge of the bar at the end of the bed and cranes his neck, cold wire cutting into his cheek. He can't see her face. She is lying curled on her side, her back to the wall dividing them, one arm stretched out above her head, the other, palm down, by her side. She is staring out at the blank grey concrete of the far wall, the slop bucket and the discolored enamel sink with its perpetually dribbling tap. The wire mesh cuts his view into little squares, so he can assess the damage piece by piece, as if it were on a military map: The grubby grey shorts and T-shirt hanging way too baggy across her thighs and torso. Thin bruised arms. Bare legs striped with weals. He sinks, his knees giving out until he is sitting cross-legged on the bed, his head in his hands. =Happy now? Was that the picture you wanted?= It isn't as if he looks much better. "I know where we could go tomorrow, Mulder," says a soft, strong voice from the other side of the wall. Ah. Back to business as usual. "Really?" he says, swallowing hard to get rid of the crack in his voice. "Where shall we go tomorrow?" "A beautiful place. Point Loma, near San Diego. Used to go there when I was a kid. It would be one of those cool, clear days, you know, when the sea and the sky are competing to see which one is the bluest." He feels the sickening whirl in his head slow. "What can we do there?" he asks, trying to play along. "We could take a picnic, walk to the lighthouse, maybe. There are views right down to Mexico; out to the Coronado islands... we could stay in a little hotel near one of the beaches down the coast. If we're lucky we might even catch a glimpse of the gray whales on their migration to the breeding grounds off Baja California." "Whales, Scully?" he asks, a laugh bubbling through, and immediately regrets it in the silence that follows. Perhaps she thinks he is mocking her; she is still less comfortable about sharing these flights of fantasy than Fox Mulder, great spinner of improbable yarns, has ever been. "Okay, if you want to, I guess I can do that," he says. "No boats though." "Watching you vomit like something out of The Exorcist is not on my 'things to do before I die' list." "Amazingly, it doesn't figure on mine either," he mutters, "but maybe I don't get sick on imaginary boats." "Hah. With your luck, you'd get sick on imaginary boats," she grumbles. "Anyway that's tomorrow. It's your turn now. Come on Scheherazade, I'm getting bored here." In theory, they could go anywhere -- but they didn't. When they first began the game, he had been annoyed by her insistence on setting rules -- It had to be somewhere that either of them had seen in person, she said. But later he had to admit that the constraints had worked. It was better when you had personal experience you could use to describe every sight, sensation, smell, sound, taste... For the first few months they visited all the far-flung places they knew, somewhere different every day. They walked Christchurch meadows and kissed in the shadow of St Mary's spire; ate hot aloco bought from Abidjan street vendors, the palm oil slicking their hands; watched the brown waters of the Thames wind sluggishly past from the shelter of The Prospect of Whitby; dived in the blueness of Apra Harbor, scattering silver blizzards of fish that flitted past the wreck of the Tokai Maru... But as time wears on, they find themselves talking only about places they have both seen, coming closer to home more often, to comforting rooms they can create in greater detail, that they can make seem more real. Some days, only imagining the places they know best -- their apartments, the basement office -- works at all. Maybe one day, nowhere will. "Mulder?" she whispers, sensing him slipping further away and determined to pull him back. "Come on now, talk to me..." But he has heard a jangling of keys and he doesn't feel much like playing any more. This is way too soon; they're breaking the routine. A sudden helpless fury descends as he realises he doesn't even know which door they're going to open. A lock clanks and grinds. A draft of cold air billows into his dank, gray room. The guards might be the same ones that came to get him last time, they might not. He can't tell. "Stand," one intones, snapping restraints on his wrists. He hears scrambling from the other side of the wall; thumping and the squeak of the bed. He guesses it is Scully standing up on the narrow cot, trying to peer through the vent. Ragged fingernails poke through the wire mesh as she hauls herself up to look. "Mulder!" she calls, panic edging her voice, "what's going on?" "S'okay, Scully," he shouts as he is pulled into the corridor. "I'll call when I get back." He hears her faint murmur. And they continue the superstitious habit developed years ago over a thousand phone conversations. Neither will say goodbye. ----------------------------------------------------- "I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams..." ----------------------------------------------------- (FWIW: Christchurch meadows, Oxford; Prospect of Whitby, Wapping; Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire; Tokai Maru, Guam; George Hotel, invented but very reminiscent of area around Kinder Scout in the Dark Peak) Thanks to Meredith for kindness, error-spotting and Velvet Elvises Remaining errors are entirely my fault. Thanks to Tuatha also and Jas for use of the letter 'W' I have been marasmus_k@yahoo.com. Thank you for reading, and goodnight ;)