Little Creatures
Written By Frostbite Panda

It's liberating when you realize you can still surprise yourself.

Like now, as I stand shiftless and nervous outside a dark-stained door and a brass '42'. I couldn't keep my already flighty heart from leaping into my mouth when I heard the jumble of feet and the scraping of locks.

"Scully…" I could hear the soft murmur of his television and could just imagine the pools of magazine articles and old newspapers fanned before his now empty place on the couch. His searching for an excuse to spend time on my sofa, spilling his quixotic theories into the sweet-scented air as we silently reveled in each other's strange, dysfunctional company.

The opened door and his long body standing framed in the threshold brought memories of impassioned assurances of my importance in his life and something about a touchstone. I felt that same, wild energy that had risen in me in my dark bedroom. The cold space beside me in the sheets sneering at me like a high school bully as I clutched my pillow. I suddenly felt indignant. Angry. How dare he do this to me? How dare he capture every last shred of myself… even the scrap that I had tried to clutch so tightly to my chest as my own for so very long, and leave me nothing to show for it except for a goofy nick name and ridiculous crusades in the dark? How could I be so dizzyingly, hopelessly enmeshed in a man's existence when he hardly even touched me? How could I crave the simplicity of his voice like the soft words of a holy man when we had both seen each other naked, but had never slept in the same bed?

But it died, dry and brittle at my feet as I reconciled the fact that we were equal contributors to our foolishness. That we were stronger together that we ever could be apart.

Survival of the fittest.

And we were all just little creatures, were we not?

His eyes were suddenly black and glittering in the dim light of the corridor and I realized, with a great and terrible breath, that he knew exactly why I was here.

"Can I come in?" I said, angry at how quiet my voice was.

He nodded, his eyes lightening and I suddenly didn't feel so small anymore, even as I ducked under his arm and into his dark apartment.

I took a few steps of finality into the living room, toeing my shoes off in a gesture of a long-term stay. He seemed unfazed and followed me in, turning the TV off so all there was were the yellow bands of the street lights casting through the blinds to guide our way.

It was a telling gesture.

We were only feet apart, my calves brushing the leather of the couch, but I couldn't recall a time where we were farther away, only connected by a thread of mutual want and differing approaches.

I was suddenly acutely aware of the smear of my make up and the raw scent of rain in my hair. I was primitive and exact. Simmering and fiery as I calculated and misread and I curled my toes in the soft bristles of his rug. I tried to banish the thought of this being the tilt in my universe and gathered the courage to look at him.

I got the impression that he had been gazing at me this entire time as he stood in front of the lighted window, hands gathered protectively in his pockets. I suddenly wished for an 'X' of masking tape on the cold pane so I could have an excuse as to why I sped on the highway and now stood, dripping water unannounced on his floor. I didn't want to tell him that I had stood in the rain to feel alive.

He was sizing me up no doubt. I think we both knew that when this moment would come, it would be me to start it. The gentleman in Mulder would feel too much guilt if he made a first move, although he had tried before. The profiler in him also knew that he usually called the shots at work and I often countered that with cancer, and rescue missions.

"Mulder…" I said, nervous despite it all. The rational Dr. Scully who had come up with all the reasons why we should do this and why this was the right moment had been left on the dark asphalt outside and I didn't know how to explain myself. I didn't know if I should.

He nodded. "You must be freezing," It was a statement. An observation.

I felt a primal hunger cloud my vision; the only thing filling my eyes was the dark line of his angled bones and sinuwed muscle. He was as taught as a bowstring and I could feel his breath from across the room.

I felt my jaw set, as if challenging him, and began undoing the buttons of my sensible blouse, thrown on in sleepless haste as I stomped from my hollow life and into something dark and exotic. Dangerous but made familiar with the knowledge that Mulder would be waiting.

The gauntlet had been thrown… not as I had planned, but there it was and Mulder saw it as clearly as if I had actually thrown a glove to the floor. I inwardly wondered how I thought I would actually have full control over the situation. When it came to Mulder, my rationale normally proved insignificant.

He was in front of me in less than a breath and his closeness burned me like hot smoke. I felt constricted. Shrunken.

He laid a careful hand on my collarbone and suddenly his mouth was at my temple. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the elegant knuckles over the curve of my bone. The tawny of his skin stark and vibrant against my pallor.

His sheets were still wet, but my skin was dewy with sweat as opposed to the wild rivulets of rainfall and cloud. My back was hot with his heated warmth crooked over me like a comma. I suddenly felt like a shaman… only half human. The other half wild and fearless. Divine and forever alive.

I felt young and redeemed.

But most of all, I was happy. For the first time in a long time I could breathe and feel and touch and need him without feeling insufficient… weak and vulnerable in his eyes and to anyone else who wasn't watching.

We had told each other the truths we had both so long desired to hear. I found that the words tumbled from my lips and from his own as easily as we had been saying them every day.

And in a way, we had.

I breathed in the heady scent of sex and aftershave, sweat and ozone, remembering the blurred details of our lovemaking. Hungry and desperate. The initiation had been slow, sensual and one of the most erotic moments of my life. He had covered almost every inch of my rain-pearled skin with his curious lips in a slow-burning dance… careful and reverent.

It was when that same, hot mouth came down on my own that a strange sense of urgency… an undeniable need to be connected as quickly as possible pushed us along in hasty kisses, torn clothing and to a shambled mass of curve and bronzed angles on an unmade bed.

We were ill prepared for the enormity of it and were affected by years of self-imposed celibacy, but I forgave and he made up for it with our second attempt… steaming and explosive.

And now the diminished gold of the sun stilted through the blinds of his bedroom and I suddenly felt both fearful and exhilarated at the prospect of the first day of our new life. Wildly different, but inherently the same. I couldn't wait to hear his voice, gruff with sleep and soft with newfound content.

Before I could turn and wake him with a kiss, I felt his arms tighten around me and the curve of his lips turning up in a smile against my hair. "Glad you could make it, Scully," He whispered and I smiled.

Take that, you cigarette smoking bastard.

Author's Notes: I'm not really sure how much I like this. I wrote it in one sitting while very sleep-deprived, but I hope you all enjoy.