From: marasmus@my-deja.com

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 03:55:47 GMT

Subject: Cellphone (1/1)

AUTHOR: Marasmus

CLASSIFICATION: V, MSR, A

RATING: NC-17

DISTRIBUTION: Help yourself

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.

-----------------------------------------------------

CELLPHONE

-----------------------------------------------------

"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 error-spotting and

Velvet Elvises  Remaining errors are entirely my

fault. Thanks to Tuatha, Jas and Shari for kindness.

I have been marasmus_k@yahoo.com. All feedback will be

answered when I get back from testing the hypothesis

that you aint seen America until you've seen it

from a train...

Thank you and goodnight ;)

........................................................