Loveseat by Aloysia Virgata Email: aloysia.virgata@yahoo.com Rating: R Spoilers: This/Season 11 Summary: Nobody ever did couch sex like us, Scully. Notes: Written for the prompt: "All I want on this cold winter day is the perfect post-ep for "This" written by one Aloysia Virgata. Make it happen, babe." Without another word, Scully turns the phone off. Then she gets up and returns it to the oven. "You have insurance on this, right? So we could just broil it and get you a non- possessed one?" She eyes the oven with interest. "I have a lot of apps on there, and all my pictures. Nothing exciting of course, no thanks to you." He offers her an exaggerated pout. She returns to the couch, picking past debris. "The day you ask me to send nudes is the day I leave your spooky ass forever, Mulder." He considers this. "What if I send them?" She glares, searching for the remote in the rubble. Around them lie drifts of paper, splinters of blasted railings and a chunk of gun-shot cabinet door. The television, mercifully, has been spared and Scully puts on Blue Planet because she finds David Attenborough soothing. "Would you do it?" he asks her, over the sound of mating harp seals. "Send nudes?" He waggles his eyebrows. "No. Well, yes, but would you sign a contract like that? Upload yourself to a simulation?" Scully wrinkles her nose. "I mean, who knows if it was even real, but no. I don't want a timeshare in purgatory." He leans forward, surprised. "You don't think it was real? How do you explain what we saw in those transmissions?" She shrugs, watching a pod of orcas. "I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm just saying there's a lot of convincing technology out there that can manipulate existing footage. What's that new Adobe thing? VoCo? It's not a leap. But even so, I don't..." Scully trails off, unsure of how to express herself. She doesn't want an afterlife without Ahab in it, without her mother and sister and daughter. "Takes the comfort out of the next world for you," Mulder suggests. She is struck anew by his ability to read her. "Something like that, yeah." They watch in silence for a bit, until Mulder says "Esther Nairn." "What?" "Esther Nairn," he repeats. "Hacker chick. You remember that case?" Scully frowns, thinking. "Uma Thurman knockoff?" "No need to be petty," Mulder chides. "Just asking." Scully rolls her eyes. "Please. The four of you were puffing your chests like that elephant seal." She nods towards the television, where two of the giant mammals are beating one another bloody. She chuckles to herself, imagining Mulder and Frohike head to head. Mulder, unable to fully deny this, crosses his arms. "Well excuse me, but you weren't putting out back then." "You've always had questionable taste in women. Honestly, Mulder." He sits upright at this, scoffing. "I'm sorry, what? You, of all people, are going to try and give me crap about my romantic history?" Scully, wary, concedes the point. "Fair. But Esther, Mulder. You think there's a connection to this?" Mulder puts a pillow on his thighs. Then he reaches over, pulls her down so that her head is on his lap. He runs his fingers through her hair. "It's not impossible. Who knows what happened to that technology after Gilman disappeared." Onscreen, baby penguins stagger drunkenly across the ice. All the way to Antarctica, and they never saw any penguins. Scully, horizontal, switches to an episode about coral reefs. "I'm tired," she says, cuddling closer against him. She draws her knees into a fetal position. "Hmmm?" "I'm tired. I'm old and I'm tired and I just can't process this any more tonight. My knees hurt, I'm still half deaf from blast percussion, and I think I'm one giant bruise under my clothes." "I'll check," he says, tugging at her shirt. Scully wriggles to accommodate. "How bad?" Mulder smoothes his hand along her narrow back. "You have no padding," he observes, tracing her spine. She's got patches of black and blue, some disappearing into her waistband. "Middle age has been good to my metabolism, at least. What on earth are we going to do about this mess?" Scully sighs, scanning the disaster again. "Still have Chesapeake Crime Cleaners on speed dial. We'll bill it to Skinner. You want me to check the rest of you? Tend your wounds?" She laughs. "You're probably not in any better shape, sport." "I'll strip too," he says cheerfully. "We'll play doctor." Scully groans. "That joke wore out about twenty years ago, Mulder." "Shhh," he admonishes, unhooking her bra. "I'm hilarious." Mulder leans forward to kiss her bruised body. He simultaneously unbuttons her fly "Very slick," Scully says. "I'm counting on it." "Ew," she says, but tugs her pants and underwear down, kicking them off. Chilly, she pulls the old afghan over herself. It is scratchy on her bare skin, Mulder's jeans stiff against her breasts. Mulder stiff against her breasts. "Your hip's pretty banged up," he murmurs, stroking it under the blanket with his fingertips. "But you look good otherwise." "Thanks," she says, throaty. "Really good," he adds, nudging her onto her back. He brushes her hair from her face. "Am I interrupting you, Sleeping Beauty?" "More like The Princess and The Pea," Scully says, cupping his erection beneath her pillow. "You still aim to kill, I see." Mulder takes his shirt off, groans at his sore muscles. There is a sizeable bruise on his left bicep, some abrasions on his torso. Scully laughs. "God, listen to us. We're as creaky as the house." "Structurally sound," Mulder assures her, unbuckling his belt. He pulls it off, deliberately swipes at her face with it. "So do you want to go upstairs?" "No," she says. "We live on the couch now." Mulder chuckles. "I can work with that." He pulls her upright, mindful of her tender back. Scully's arms go around his neck when she straddles him. He keeps the blanket draped around her, around them, as he works his jeans and boxers down. "You've still got it," she laughs. "Nobody ever did couch sex like us, Scully." She grins, kisses him, her breasts pressed against the broad warmth of his chest. "Nobody," she breathes. Her thighs are sore and trembly. She feels the head of his penis against her, shifts so he can enter. Sighs from them both. "Cheap motel sex," he says, hands light at her waist. "Never office," she remarks, touching his face, her words syncopated by the rhythm they found years ago. "I'm arguably crazy, Scully, but not suicidal." They laugh, breathless. No words now, just Scully's fingers laced behind his neck, Mulder's mouth trailing hot kisses down the long tendons of her throat. The afghan slides to the floor. Friction from the upholstery against her knees, the backs of his legs. But everywhere else is slick, sweat-soaked, licked and kissed, and Mulder's head falls back against the couch. His hands drop to her hips, and one moves between them. Friction at her clitoris now. His orgasm is a shuddering distraction and Scully groans in protest when his thumb stills. "Sorry, princess," he gasps, thrusting up into the lush heat of her body. His spine feels like quicksilver and it takes him a moment to reorient. The slim saddle of Scully's pelvis is tight against his hand, face tucked into the curve of his neck. He murmurs encouragement and nonsense into her ear, applying steady pressure all the while. She cries out twice, her nails raking down his back, and then she clings to him, damp and panting. She licks the sweat from his jaw. Mulder massages her shoulders while she makes small liquid noises in the back of her throat. Holding her with one arm, he dips them both forward to retrieve the blanket. He stretches out on the couch, Scully nestled against him, and covers them both. She burrows in appreciatively, gives his chin an experimental nip. "No," he says, tapping her nose. "Bad." "Wanna go upstairs?" she mumbles. He wraps his arms around her, kisses the crown of her shining head. "We live here now," he replies.