Title: Absorbed
Rating: PG-13
Category: MSR, UST
Spoilers: none
Archive: I post at Ephemeral, but feel free as long as you let me know where.
Feedback: I beg, I plead- please send feedback to xenoprobe@hotmail.com or https://www.angelfire.com/scifi/xenoprobe
Summary: Scully confronts her fears, Mulder uses poetry to seek her out. Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, make no profit, have no money- do not sue.

*~*~*~*

Absorbed
By xenoprobe

Ok, I was scared... but it was an irrational fear.

I was in the office, doing the regular grudge work of expense reports when I caught my partner staring. He was sitting, chewing on the rubber eraser of his number two pencil. He must have been out of sunflower seeds.

The look on his face was one I'd never seen before. He looked hungry, but not a hungry that a snack break would satisfy. His eyes were glossed and his hair, all spiky and mussed was like a dark halo with the light coming in from behind him. My dark angel.

Something about Mulder has always frightened me a little. It's the intensity. I've watched him direct it at others, to the search for Samantha, to the cause for avenging my abductors. Even some of our suspects have sampled the raw passion that Mulder possesses. There have been a few times when I've seen that kind of nakedness directed toward me and it scares me.

If I stop to think about it though, it's not Mulder's fire that burns, it's my inability to accept its heat. I can't remember when I actually fell in love with my partner, but it has been a long, long time that my feelings have been blistering just below the surface of my professional facade. So when those eyes bore into me from across the room- It was my fear of getting lost in them that scared me so.

I had to leave. I politely made up some excuse of a headache and left for home. I saw he was concerned, but I could not go on sitting there and feel him from everywhere in the room.

*~*~*~*

I tried, I really did. I went home like a good boy and did everything I could to distract myself from thinking of her. Well not everything I suppose. I was definitely thinking of Scully while I spent myself, yet again, on the couch in the dark.

But it was not that autoerotic act that made me so desperate to see her, no. I tried the TV. I tried going online. Neither of those options were enough to keep my mind off of Scully. Her hair was glowing today. Her eyes sparkled even while writing our report. Her slender fingers, her manicured nails, her nylon-covered legs looked like silk and her collarbone, God I wanted to walk over to her and plant a reverent kiss there on that delicate sculpted bone.

As I sat there contemplating these things, I began to see how admiring Scully was like reading poetry. I decided to crack out some books and read myself to sleep, perchance to dream of my partner. I watched the hours slip by as my obsession deepened with every stanza read. Every careful description was a testament to her beauty, every challenging remark was an affirmation of her wit. If anyone could have seen me, sitting on my bed with books strewn about, waxing poetic about the wiles of my redheaded partner, my image as a porn-hound would seriously come into question.

I lay back in the pillows, imagining that Scully would be readying for bed at that time as well. I rolled over and accidentally knocked an anthology to the floor. I reached off the side of the bed to snap up the book when I noticed something. Something perfect. I picked it up, reading it over and over, as I made my way to my car keys. I had to see her.

*~*~*~*

I stood at the foot of my bed, smoothing my hand over my folded satin pajamas. I opted for a T-shirt instead. Not just any shirt either- it was Mulder's Quantico shirt, which he'd loaned me while in some middle-of-nowhere town on some middle-of-nowhere case. It was clean from his overnight bag then and I had only worn it three times since I snagged it- I didn't want his scent to disappear. So I slipped it over my head and inhaled as the cotton cuddled me.

Somehow in the privacy of my own space, Mulder's intensity wasn't as scary. It was still overwhelming, but I suppose I wanted to be overwhelmed by it, just not in his presence- I've always found it difficult to reveal to him. I find it hard enough to be frank with myself about him. Mulder's not a half way sort of character- his passions are all consuming and his dedication is almost life sustaining in of itself.

I have had this private conversation in my head a million times, talking of Mulder; my inner struggle. If I just knew what he really felt, instead of picking up moments and glints of fire in his eyes, I might have taken the leap into love by now. Instead, I have guarded my love for him like a secret diary- part of me wishes he'd pry it open and read it; part of me can't let it out of my grasp.

I was still standing in front of the mirror when I heard the knock at my door. I grabbed a pair of scrubs I'd scoffed from the lab and slipped them on to answer him.

*~*~*~*

There are many versions of beauty. Some people think that it is the sun, or the twilight sky. Some can only find it in the pages of magazines and the dazzle of film and celebrity. And the truth is, beauty is in all of these things but no one, I'm sure, had ever seen Scully standing at her threshold in my T-shirt and hospital pants. This was beauty like I'd never known. There's something about the woman you love wearing your shirt that does wonderful things to the brain; all the fear I'd felt gnawing at me on my way here was dispelled in her casual stance and smile.

"Scully."

"Mulder." She nodded, our voices almost formal as I entered the low light of her living room. "Is there something wrong?"

"No. I mean... no- nothing's wrong."

"You don't sound so sure." Her smile was discreet but it warmed me to the bone.

"I wanted to show you something, I think."

"You think," she repeated. She gestured toward the couch and we both took a seat, facing on another from each end. She took a moment longer to get comfortable, pulling the afghan over her tiny feet. I don't think I ever knew that her toenails were painted a deep, serious red. I want to know these things of her. "What have you got there?" Her voice held an innocence that seemed impossible after so many years of disillusionment.

"A book. A book of poetry." I did not extend it to her. "Why did you leave so early today? You seemed...uncomfortable." I watched her face grow serious despite the smile that still lurked at her lips. "If I did something Scully, just tell me- I've lost count of all the boneheaded things I do..."

"No, you didn't do anything Mulder. Well not directly I guess. I had a headache and you seemed so intent on staring at me while I was working. It was distracting and I just thought it'd be better if I came home. That's all."

"Does it bother you that I stare sometimes Scully?" Where was this honesty coming from? "There are times when I just can't help it you know." I tried to lighten the moment with a sly grin.

"I don't think 'bother' is the right word Mulder." She relaxed her legs and her feet pressed up against my thigh.

*~*~*~*

That nagging feeling of fear was surfacing again. I've always been terrible under Mulder's scrutiny; his expert profiler-mind and keen understanding of me have made it near impossible to hide from him. The look in his eyes was turning again, churning up something stormy and deep.

"What would you call it then?" His voice startled me, I hadn't noticed I'd been silent for so long. The sheer frankness in our discussion was an unusual twist on our normal banter and avoidance. "If you're not bothered by it- what then?"

"I just felt today like you were... I don't know, it just felt like I was on display sort of. Like you were focusing on me." I had never been that direct with him, with myself before.

"That's true Scully, Focusing is a good way to put it."

"What were you thinking?"

Mulder shifted slightly, turning in toward me and placing a warm, large hand on my shin.

"Beauty." Just one simple word and yet the shiver ran through me like freight train. He must have noticed the expression on my face- panic. "I was observing your beauty Scully."

I wanted to toss out a witty comment, something deflecting, something off the cuff but my skin was on fire under his lens.

"My beauty." I muttered lamely.

"Yes." He shifted again, his hand smoothing up to my knee as he settled into the couch. "I've wanted to tell you that for a long time Scully, you are beautiful." He breathed out his words with relief. "I've wanted to tell you so much." His head drooped and he was silent, averting his gaze to the stripes of my couch.

"Mulder?" He didn't move so I slipped my hand under his chin and brought his eyes to mine. "You can tell me anything, you know that."

"Are you sure Scully? Really sure?" He was almost frowning. "Its sometimes harder to be straight with you than it is to be straight with a total stranger." I tried on my best serious/ puzzled look; I knew precisely what he was talking about.

"Please Mulder... just talk to me."

"This says it better Scully. This says it all." He held the book open and placed it in my lap. "Read it- the one by Keats."

/You have absorbed me
I have a sensation at the present moment
As though I was dissolving.
I'm yours./

I saw two giant tears hit the flimsy page before I even realized I was crying.

*~*~*~*

Oh let them be tears of joy.

Her moist eyes had never been brighter than in that low light. She closed the book, placed it on her couch console and scooted up to me on the couch. Her proximity was like an electric blanket- I was warm and buzzing.

Her hands both reached to caress my face, her delicate fingers played over my skin and every nerve in me was awake and alive. She was close.

"So close. Scully..."

"I too am absorbed." I felt those words in little puffs of sweet breath on my lips, just moments before her mouth found mine. I half expected a chaste kiss, a sample. It was abundantly clear that this was not fleeting- our kiss was a declaration, *the* declaration.

I could not stop. Didn't want to. Her mouth was open and her tongue sought mine, fighting for equality. Her lips were so soft- like nothing I'd ever known. All the words of prose, the eloquent poetry I'd consumed before finding that perfect quote, were dancing in my mind, taking up new meaning in the wake of our hungry kisses.

She broke away resting a palm over my beating heart.

*~*~*~*

"I'm not afraid."

"Well that's good." He smiled.

I had said it more for me than for him but still he understood what it was that I'd freed. Mulder leaned forward, begging another kiss. I drew him to me and felt the weight of him cover me, pressing me to the couch. It was enough just to kiss. I was dizzy and light and lost in this release of fear. He mumbled words, disjointed poems of sound against my lips and I unraveled for him; dissolving one into the other.

FIN

*~*~*~*