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Night-Treasures (1/1) by CazQ
( CazQ@tesco.net )
Title: Night-Treasures
Category: V, MSR.
Rating: Uh...PG?
Spoilers: Teeny-tiny, barely noticeable one for 'The End'.
Summary: Dreams, storms and late-night fridge-raids.
Archive: Sure, just ask first (like I'd really say no
<g>?).
Disclaimer: OK, repeat after me...they're not mine, never were or
will be.
Mulder, Scully and everyone/thing else connected with the X Files
belongs to
10-13, 20th Century Fox, and of course The Boss, Chris Carter and
all his
partners in crime. Hey, I'd let them have a lot more fun. No
copyright
infringement or insult intended. No money will be made out of
this and I
have none so suing me would do no one but the lawyers any good.
Feedback: Worshipped at CazQ@tesco.net
Author's notes: Welcome once again to mood-piece city, chillun
:).
This is what happens when it gets really humid here and *refuses*
to rain...I get all antsy and end up writing rain stories. But
hey...stick
with me, and, though I ain't promising...well, there might be
just a little
*spooning*... <g>
This one's dedicated to my very own Three Amigos, jerry, Kristy
and EPur,
for top-quality beta, friendship and generally helping me stay
sane <g>.
Also for Shari, whose yummy spooning-fic encouraged me to try my
hand at it :).
******
Night-Treasures (1/1) by CazQ
(CazQ@tesco.net)
"The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber."
Pablo Neruda, 'Sonnet 81'
******
It's half-past three in the morning and though it's hot as hell,
you're
drifting so deep in sleep you don't even stir when I slip out of
bed.
I pad out to the kitchen, enjoying the feel of the cool tiles
beneath my
bare feet, and wander around restlessly, poking about in your
fridge,
snatching a quick bite of the left-over fruit salad you must have
had
for breakfast yesterday morning. It tastes of the kiss I snatched
in the
dim basement hallway as you struggled to unlock the office door;
delicious, fleeting, stolen. You responded in kind for a moment,
before
pulling away, admonishing me "Not here." It was more
than worth it,
though.
Hmmm...a fat grape, popping open in my mouth in a spurt of sweet
juice...a chunk of pineapple, fibrous and slick on my tongue...a
cube
of mango, meltingly good.
I take a swig of orange juice straight from the carton, since
you're not up
to catch me doing it. It's sour, acidic, tart enough to make my
mouth plead
for something else to follow. Let's see...I poke my finger into a
tub of
plain yogurt, and pop in into my mouth...cool, sweet but slightly
tangy.
Perfect.
I put everything back where I found it, covering my tracks. It's
not that I
think you'd mind me raiding your refrigerator...it's simply that
these
occasional nights we spend together are still a new and rare
enough
occurrence that I feel a little like an intruder, as though I've
let myself
into the wrong apartment.
Last time I was here, my night time wanderings took me to the
bathroom,
where I ended up furtively sniffing several of the assorted
lotions and
concoctions on your shelves. I think I had the idea that, by
cataloguing
each one, I'd be able to identify the component elements of your
particular
scent, the one I have filed away under 'Scully' in my memory.
It's strange, the way people respond to particular fragrances.
The smell
of, say, baking bread, can be enough to make one man cry and
another
man smile, depending on what emotional tags they've attached to
it.
When I catch a faint trace of your own personal fragrance, on my
clothes,
in my car, around the office...I sometimes have to stop for a
moment,
wait for all the memories it brings to the surface to let me go.
I'm still
no nearer understanding what makes it up, though, despite my
bathroom explorations.
It's intriguing, in an odd way, to be loose in your home after
dark. I
wander round the kitchen, continuing my voyage of exploration. I
read the
notes you've left yourself on the refrigerator: cryptic little
reminders.
'Green suit'. 'Mom says tell Bill 24th'. 'Stephan haircut Fri'.
It's like
intercepting a coded radio broadcast, when the reception keeps
coming
and going. I run a hand over these fragments of your days and
move on.
I put the dry dishes away, as quietly as possible, trying to
avoid any
clatters of metal and china. I'm proud of the fact I know where
everything
should go. It seems to indicate some degree of acceptance, of
having
gained a little more access to your life.
I move into the living room, gliding between the furnishings in
the dark,
carefully following the mental map that tells me to step left or
get an
end-table in the knee...step right to avoid crashing into your
couch.
For a second I remember you earlier, rising from the couch, face
flushed,
lips slightly swollen with kisses, going to close the blinds. You
turned to
me, flashed me a quick, lightning-bright smile and told me
"Let's not give
the neighbours a floorshow, Mulder." Then you came back to
stand over
me, extended a hand and led me out...
Then the vision wavers, disappears, and I'm left in darkness
again, weaving
round the furniture. That I have your home mapped out this well
is another
thing to take comfort from. I am, perhaps, not such a stranger
here as I
sometimes feel.
I go to the window and peer out through the slats of the blinds,
looking up
and down the quiet street. All is as it should be...the only
thing moving is
a cat that runs across the blacktop and disappears between the
buildings
opposite, a quick streak of white, silent and streamlined.
I finish making the rounds, having checked that your windows and
door are
locked up tight. I know you locked up after we finished dinner,
but it makes
me feel better to be sure. I like the comforting illusion that by
securing
the apartment, ensuring no one breaches these four walls, I can
keep you
safe.
I walk back past your fireplace, pausing to brush my fingers over
the
photographs on the mantlepiece. Your family...Bill, Melissa, the
ever-elusive Charlie, a brace of nephews, your Mom and Dad, all
of them
blessing your living room with their broad smiles. No pictures of
us, of
course. We just aren't a Kodak moment couple. Hell, the only
picture I had
of us together was a damn crime scene photo, snapped by some
busy-body in
SciCrime with a telephoto lens, and that ended up charred,
smoke-blackened.
Perhaps we both feel that pictures would be tempting fate, daring
the gods
to turn more memories into ashes.
Sidestepping your TV, brushing past a large potted plant your mom
gave you,
"to give the place a bit of life, dear"...God bless
her, but she doesn't
know just how much life there is contained within these walls.
A person's home is the face they present to the world: we feather
the nest
with what we treasure, what makes us feel secure, loved, warm.
After
darkness falls, though, that face changes subtly. This is what
fascinates
me, takes me on my little secret voyages of exploration. All the
shadows
fall in different places, the way a person's features can look
like those of
a stranger when cast in shadow, or when sleeping. I love studying
the
changed face of your home at night, in much the same way that I
love
watching your face when it's transformed by sleep.
That, of course, would be my new favourite thing to do. Poking
round
your apartment in the dead of night really comes a poor second to
watching you sleep.
So I flick the light off in the kitchen, and shuffle back down
the hallway
towards your bedroom. Damn, it's hot. August in D.C....the city's
been
sitting under an oppressive blanket of damp, sticky heat for
weeks now. It
thunders every day, regular as clockwork: once around lunchtime,
once
mid-afternoon, if it's especially humid, and once around six.
Walking
anywhere is out: once you leave the air-conditioned comfort of a
building,
moving through the air is like swimming fully-clothed. You've
been
a little on edge every day, your weather sense, an obsolete
sailor's
instinct, keeping you wound up until each storm breaks.
It might thunder yet before dawn, I think. Pausing beside a
window, I slide
it open and stick my head out. I start sweating instantly in the
still air.
Thunderheads, puffy and stacked up high, are massed on the
horizon, their
inner depths flashing with lightning. Yeah, this has to break
sometime
tonight. I pull my head back into what is, by comparison, the
blessed cool
of your apartment and shut the window.
I try to make as little noise as possible slipping back into the
room,
letting the door swish gently shut over the rug. You shift a
little this
time, turning onto your side and murmuring something in your
sleep. It might
be a name...then again, it might not. The second time I spent the
night
here, I woke up to find you curled up against my chest, muttering
about
macaroni and cheese. I haven't told you you talk in your
sleep...it's
another of my little night-treasures, the things I discover about
you
when you don't know I'm looking.
I settle in the chair in the corner of the room, leaning back and
stretching
my legs out, sprawling in an attempt to cool off a little by
having as
little contact between my bare skin and the chair as possible.
You turn
again, flinging one restless arm out as somewhere far off,
thunder
growls. I can smell it now, taste it on the air, the metallic
tang, like
fresh blood, of impending rain.
I wait, watching over you in the still of the night. We were
sleeping under
a sheet to ward off goose-bumps from the chill of your AC unit.
Damned
thing's been on the fritz all week though, and right now the air
inside is
as humid and still as that outside.
You've kicked the thin cotton down the bed, tangling it up around
your legs,
so that it drapes over your hips, skimming over the slight
roundedness of
your stomach as you lie on your side. The effect, in the dim
light filtering
in from the hallway, is to make you look like a perfectly carved
bas-relief.
I give thanks for a brief moment to whichever deity inspired me
to start
leaving that one light on when I stay the night. You think it's
on so I can
find my way to the bathroom in the dark. That's wholly
unnecessary by
now after all my night-time wanderings...not that you know that.
I know that the sole reason for that light's existence is to let
me
watch you like this, your skin painted by washes of soft light,
interspersed with deep, cool shadows.
Your skin glistens with a thin sheen of sweat. I have to tamp
down the urge
to run my tongue over it, to taste the salt pooled in that little
hollow at
the base of your throat, to let my lips wander up the curve of
your neck.
Your hair's damp and mussed, its natural curl reasserting itself
in the
humid air. Tomorrow you'll curse under your breath as you try to
straighten it out while you blow-dry it: I've been permitted to
witness
that little ritual once or twice before.
From my ring-side seat, I can just about make out the rapid
flitting of
your eyes back and forth under your eyelids as you drift in
dreams. I feel
light-headed, as though your dreams are scenting the air,
creeping out
from your body to twine in delicate, smoky tendrils around me.
We don't talk about our dreams much -- mine are rarely the
material of
pleasant daytime conversations, and yours are your private
kingdom,
your secret garden. I don't ask and you don't tell. If I asked,
though,
would you speak to me of crescent moons, of dark rivers and
whispering
forests, of the flutter of a hundred angel wings brushing against
your
hands? Sitting here while they flow from your skin and over me, I
can't
doubt that your dreams are less than magical. I feel dizzy.
Perhaps it's just the heat.
You let out a gentle sigh and turn in the bed again, one arm
ending
up stretched across the empty space I occupied a little while
ago. Now the
planes of your back are exposed to me, the creamy sweep of your
skin,
sprinkled with the little freckles you hate and I adore. I trace
the curve
of your spine with my eyes, down towards the gentle flare of your
hips, as
earlier tonight I traced that line with my tongue...a moment of
stillness in
the beautiful chaos of our lovemaking.
Did I say watching you sleep was my new favourite thing to do? I
lied.
Snooping around your house in the middle of the night ranks
third, watching
you sleep takes the silver, but making love to you...that's pure
gold.
Thunder detonates above us suddenly, sounding like the sky
cracking in two
just above our heads. The eerie, cold flare of lightning
illuminates the
whole room for a split second, creating odd shadows, etching the
scene onto
my reflexively closed eyelids.
As I open my eyes again, the rain begins to fall, a sudden
cascade of
water, falling in rivers down the windowpane, and you are raised
up on one
elbow, gazing at me from under sleep-heavy lids.
"Mulder? Wha'...?"
"Just sitting, thinking..." I say, giving you one of
the wide, boyish grins
I know you secretly love, so that you'll know nothing is wrong.
"Mmm. S'raining?" Your voice is warmed and slowed by
sleep, your words
slurred together as you struggle to keep your eyes open.
"Uh-huh. It's cooler already...you feel it?"
"Mmmph. S'nice. C'me back to bed..."
You sink back against the pillows as I crawl back into bed beside
you,
letting your eyelids slip shut as I curl up around you, fitting
myself
carefully to the length of your body. In the rain-cooled air,
skin on skin
is
once again a comfortabIe proposition, thank God. I plant a
feather-light
kiss on the salty skin at the nape of your neck, settling my head
so that
my nose is buried in your hair. My right hand comes to rest on
the dip of
your waist, fingers splaying over the pale curve of skin, and
your left
comes up to rest over it, fingers tangling with mine. Perfect.
"Scully?"
"Mmm?"
"What were you dreaming about?"
I can't see the tiny smile spread across your mouth, but I know
it's there:
I can hear it in your voice. "You."
I hold my breath for a long second, wondering if you realise just
what
you've admitted. Probably not: you're more than half-way back to
sleep
already, all your guards down.
"Yeah?"
"Mmm-hmm. You'n me...rain...nice. G'back t'sleep."
"'Night, Scully," I whisper, even though in the space
of a heartbeat your
breathing has fallen back into the regular rhythms of sleep.
I hold on to you, listening to the rain as it begins to fall more
softly,
chuckling and whispering to itself in watery voices in the
storm-gutters.
It must be warm rain, blood-warm...we could run outside like
this, wearing
just a bed-sheet, and feel no chill from it. It makes your room,
your home,
your street, a secret world, and I feel suddenly sure that in
your dream
kingdom, it only ever rains like this, kind rain, quiet, falling
like
benedictions from the heavens.
I want to go there with you someday, Scully. I pull you closer
still,
holding on, as if your dreams might seep out of you and sink into
me, pass
through my skin and creep into my heart while I sleep. I can only
hope...
******
"The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all."
Pablo Neruda, 'Sonnet 81'
******
FINIS
C'mon, help me through summer exam hell: CazQ@tesco.net :)