#yeah yeah the 13 hour victorious dissertation

[skyesu]

hey remember how they’re like confirmed siblings? triple murderer high school junior and gay cannibal mr beast? no?

[sigritandtheelves]

Prompt: Mulder and Scully have their first full blown make out session at her mom's while washing her car. I am begging you please.. if you want.. I adore you and your writing. I hope today is excellent for you.

Another Beautiful Saturday

2.4k wds | PG-13 | MSR, kinda plotless fluff, post-“The Unnatural”

A/N: Anon, thank you for this lovely prompt, and I hope this is kind of what you meant? I’ve been really sick over the last few days, and I was having trouble concentrating on my dissertation, but I was able to channel some energy into fic-writing. I make no promises to its quality (see: me being ill). I realize there are about a million good fics circulating right now because of the Easter challenge, so I’m sorry for the bad timing… but here is something from my brains to yours.

—

Of course there had been the baseball. That might have counted. There’d been a purposiveness in the placement of his hands, a deliberate excess in the duration of his touch, fingers flattened to the inside curve of her hip and then brushing against her own around the bat’s solid wood. His cheek, lips, voice, against her hair.

When the boy had gone home, he’d leaned his weight atop the down-turned bat like a restless teenager, its wider end pressed into home plate, and looked at her like they’d just won some victory: all stars in his eyes and that innocent quirk of his mouth.

“You’re pretty good at baseball, Scully.”

Sly, she had worried her lip and studied the dust atop her too-formal shoes, arms crossed. “Well,” she’d said. “I’ve maybe played before.” She raised her eyes and saw that he already knew, and then they were both grinning like fools.

“I’ll walk you to your car.” He’d put his arm around her shoulders as they trekked around the dugout. Evening and mild sweat and the sweet combination of his soaps was how he’d smelled, and she’d wanted to stop them right there, to turn into the circle his arms would make, and press her whole body to his, nose to his chest. There was love of the game, yes, but there was also just love.

When they reached the car, he let her go.

Keys clutched in her fingers, she eyed him again. “Thank you,” she’d said, and her voice was lower than she’d expected, rough from laughing maybe—an unfamiliar sound in her throat these days. “I liked my present.”

He’d smiled. There had been a brief hesitation, a small internal war, before he shook his head, as if to knock loose the courage. He leaned down and snagged her lips with his. She startled, and it made her open her mouth, and suddenly she could taste him: a full sweet flavor that ignited a small fire under her ribs. Before she could parse the taste, analyze its effects on her skin and her heart and her future, he’d pulled away. One more nervous smile, and he scratched the back of his head. “G’night, Scully,” he’d said, and then he turned and he was gone.

Now she had dragged him into further outdoor activities on this, the second weekend since that singular (and only) kiss. She supposed it was a date, but again under careful guise.

“Do you know anything about cars?” She’d asked him on Friday morning.

He’d shrugged. “A little. Why?”

She gnawed on the corner of her lips. “My mom has inherited a car from a cousin—some classic, she says. She doesn’t know what to do with it.”

“And she asked you for help?”

Scully nodded.

“You want me to come take a look?” He’d leaned back in his desk chair, letting his pen fall to the blotter. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his tie already loose, though it was barely ten.

It was her turn to offer a small shrug. “If you want to. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. She wants me to look it over, maybe clean it up a little. She wants to sell it, I think.”

He’d rocked in his seat, smiling. “Mom’s not into classic cars, huh?”

She shook her head.

“What time?”

“Pick me up around eleven? She said she’d make lunch.”

He’d nodded, a little smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, okay.”

And so she was now in uncustomarily casual clothes before him—cut-off jean shorts and a t-shirt—with her hands dipped into a sudsy bucket, hair pulled back off her neck, while he peeked under the hood (pretending he knew what he was looking at) of a 1966 Chevrolet Cheville, color: Lemonwood Yellow.

“How’s it look?” She asked.

“Ah,” he said, pulling at the oil dip-stick. “It looks good. I think.”

Scully swallowed her smile and stood from her crouched position over the bucket, bringing her sponge to the back window and scrubbing at the accumulated dust and grime.

“I mean the oil level is good. Engine looks pretty clean.” He wiped his fingers on a rag and dropped the hood. “Won’t know for sure until we start it up. Has your mom driven it?”

Soap bubbles dripped down to her elbow, and she rubbed at her forehead with the back of her wrist. She shook her head. “It’s a manual. My mom doesn’t drive stick.”

“Oh.” He scooted behind her to get to the bucket. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, too, like he had on that other Saturday, looking too relaxed. Too good. He was bronzing in the sun, but she felt suddenly hot. Scully swallowed, looked away. He brought his own sponge around to the front.

“We should take it for a drive, then.”

She thought of them driving around the block just to hear the sound of the engine, then flashed on some silly image of them parking at a secluded lookout, kissing in the back seat like teenagers in the old car. If only she’d worn her bobby socks. “Yeah,” she said, then cleared her throat. “After we clean it up.”

He smiled at her over the roof and she flushed again.

Their hands bumped in the suds bucket and they eyed each other like they both knew a secret. Mulder sprayed her bare legs with the hose and pretended it was an accident. She slapped his arm and he dropped the hose. Instead of picking it up again, he moved toward her with his hands up.

“I said I was sorry.” He continued moving toward her, so she backed up, sneakers on the driveway walking backward, until she bumped the still-soapy door. He followed until he was almost touching her, front to front.

“Are you really?” She asked.

He nodded, smiled, then shook his head no.

“I didn’t think so.”

“You know how to play baseball,” he said. “You know a North American P-51 Mustang on sight from only a blurry underwater photo of its fuselage.” His hands moved down, one to rest against his thigh and the other to find the curve of her waist, over her sweat-and-suds-damp shirt. He was hovering above her, mischief in his eyes, head cocked in playful teasing. “But you don’t know anything about cars? Not a single thing?”

She swallowed. “Well,” she said. “I mean, I know a little.”

Mulder nodded slowly, lowering his head just a bit. “A little?”

Her skin was on fire where his fingers pressed, even through her shirt. She wanted to grab his face and pull it down to hers, but that wasn’t how this game worked. “Just enough to get by,” she said. “Change the oil, change a tire, replace a battery.”

“Take apart and rebuild an engine?”

Her lips turned up. “Maybe once or twice.”

He made a low sound in his throat like a growl and then, finally, lowered his lips to hers. She was ready this time. It was broad daylight and her mother could very well be watching them through the window, but she didn’t care. She’d wanted the taste of him again so badly and now here he was, maybe better than before because she’d had time to mull over how much she wanted it. She opened her mouth and let his tongue greet hers. Oh, hello, it said. It’s been too long. She held back a whimper at the sheer goodness of how he felt, dragging his lips over hers, his tongue tasting of sweet tea and his turkey sandwich and himself most of all. She let her fingers go where they would: to his shoulders first, then one hand to his hair, so warm from the sun and just a bit damp with sweat. The material truth of his body, making itself known, drove a little moan from her lips at last. They were two humans of flesh and blood—skin that wanted touching, mouths that could do so much more than communicate their teasing wit. His other hand came to her neck, and she knew then that she would need to stop this kiss soon, lest they end up naked and writhing on her mother’s front lawn. She dove in with another swipe of her tongue, lifting onto her toes to press her hips to his encircling body (and god, holy Christ and any number of other blasphemes, was that the length of him against her abdomen?) before she forced herself to break the kiss.

He studied her with eyes like she’d never seen on him before. Gone was his teasing and cool exterior, but this was not the wounded boy of his solemn and lonely hours. This was his secret and inner self, vulnerable for how much he wanted, should he let himself want, rather than for his loss. And he wanted her—she could see that.

His left hand lifted to push her hair behind her ear, his other still clutching her waist. “That was… something.”

She smiled, still somewhat foggy and unbelieving. “Yeah.”

“Hmm, let me just check something. I need to… hang on—“ and he bent to kiss her again. His lips came down warm and heavy, swollen and wet from their previous kiss. Pressed against the car, Scully turned out her hip, lifted her knee to press it against his thigh, and raised herself up again to alleviate the craning of his neck. He pressed closer and she felt it again—the length of him at her belly. She whimpered.

“Mulder,” she said, pulling back again. “We’re out in the street. It’s daytime.”

“Sorry,” he said, still holding her like he wasn’t really sorry, and god she hoped he wasn’t. “I just… couldn’t help it.”

“Hmm. Any more of that and I’m afraid we’d end up… well, putting on a show for my mother and all her neighbors. One I’m not sure she’d appreciate.”

“Ooh, Scully, an exhibitionist?”

“Not usually, but… that was something.”

“It was.” He leaned his forehead against hers, and she was unable to stop herself from leaning up for one more kiss—just a quick press of her lips to his.

The sound of the front door swinging open startled them apart, just in time, before Maggie stepped out onto the porch with more iced tea. Mulder had quickly spun them around to swap their positions so Scully faced the house. He tugged at the hem of his jeans, the bottom of his tee, trying to be subtle about the predicament she could now confirm.

“It’s looking great,” Maggie said, all smiles. She came down the porch steps and handed them each a glass. “It’s gotten so warm—Dana, you look flushed. I thought you two must be thirsty.”

“Thanks, mom.” She swallowed a gulp, cold and sweet, and thought, It could be love.

—

After they’d washed the car down, wiped the dust from inside and vacuumed its floors, they slipped into its front seats and slid the hot metal of their buckles into place with two almost-simultaneous clicks. Mulder, in the driver’s seat, still playing this game of manly adventurer and master of mechanical things, started the engine. It came to life easily and he gave her a smile. “Sounds good.”

She nodded.

His hand found her knee and squeezed until he needed it to move the gear shift. And then they were rolling out of Margaret Scully’s driveway onto the mismatched streets of Baltimore. Scully fiddled with the ancient radio’s knobs—it still worked. Classic rock seemed appropriate—some station around 100 and they were under Jim Morrison’s spell (come on baby light my fire). Windows down, the warm late-April breeze brought the to some other time: gritty cracked pavement and the rust-belt housing blocks of downtown, under the rumble of this engine, seemed newly alive, like the promise of steel-town money and industrial investment still bolstered this place thirty years later.

“Should we drive up to the Bel-Loc?” He asked. “Get ourselves a malted?”

She smiled at him. “I just need to be home before the streetlights come on.”

At a long stretch with no traffic lights, his palm landed warm on her knee again. His face was something more serious, all of a sudden. “I could take you out if you want. We could go to dinner.”

Her heart thudded at the thought—an actual date, rather than this game of happenstance Saturdays and accidental kisses. But she looked at her state of dress and made a face. “Look at me. I’m all sweaty in these junky clothes.”

“I’ve been looking,” he said, though his eyes were on the road. It meant more than innuendo. It meant that he saw her. Really saw her, now, even if he hadn’t (had refused to look) for most of this past year. She dropped her fingers over his, just for a brief second, before pulling them away again. This was it. Now was the time to be brave, Dana.

“We could order in,” she said. “After you drop me at my place, I mean. You could stay to eat.”

She had just invited him back to her apartment, and it was not to read over a case file. She held her breath, kept her eyes out the passenger side window.

“I’d like that,” Mulder said.

Ahead, a traffic light turned yellow, and he moved his hand away from her leg to downshift.

Maggie thanked them endlessly, smiled subtly at the way they accidentally-on-purpose kept brushing against one another, and promised to invite them both back soon for dinner. “It was so good to see you under happy circumstances, Fox.”

“You too, Mrs. Scully.”

And then it was late afternoon and they were driving back to Georgetown under the heavy anticipation of evening.

When they were about fifteen minutes from her apartment, he broke the thick, uncustomary silence between them. “Hey Scully,” he said, eyes still on the road.

“Yeah?”

“Unless you tell me not to, I’m going to kiss you as soon as we get inside.”

The slow arousal that had followed them since their kissing flared inside her white hot. She swallowed. “Okay,” she said.

“I’m not going to stop this time.”

“Okay,” she said again. “I don’t want you to stop.”

He glanced at her then, a combination of mischief and open need. “Good,” he said, and they were quiet until they got to her block and into her place where they didn’t stop, not once, until they were exhausted and sweatier than ever and hungry for takeout, which they ate in the dark of that beautiful Saturday night.