Title: Touching Velvet Author: prufrock's love Rating: A very warm PG-13. Seriously. Heat -is- possible without "alabaster, coral-tipped breasts." Summary: "It's not our first kiss, not even the second time my lips have touched hers, but this is different. This is getting to touch." Category: Vignette, MSR, post-ep for all things Distribution: link to: http://www.geocities.com/prufrocks_love/index.html Author's notes: For Erin the unobservant and a beta reader willing to take (and win) a sucker bet. Touching Velvet by prufrock's love **** "What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding it's breath." House of Mirth **** The most powerful memories we have are sensory memories - they bypass the higher brain and seem to draw directly from the soul. Scents, textures, a few notes of music; they pull me from rational thought and into another time and developmental stage of the male animal. Sometimes he's a child I miss; sometimes a boy I barely recognize, but his every experience is the man I have become. Scully's right; I am grateful for those choices if they led me to this moment. A hint of Chanel No. 5 is my mother hurrying everyone to get ready for Temple. The faintest trace of Chanel clinging to a woman's hair and skin means my family is as happy as most and my biggest worry is not being able to locate my dress shoes. Hurry up, Fox; the sun doesn't wait for you. Still doesn't, Mom. The darkness still licks its tongue into my light before I'm ready to surrender myself at dusk. Before I have time to put away my childish things, I have to pretend to be a man. Pink Floyd music is a few hazy years in my teens when I tried to self-medicate away a dysfunctional home and didn't have much success. I'm sitting in the woods behind the High School, desperately in need of a haircut, with an expertly rolled sample of Mexico's best glowing warm between my fingers as The Wall runs in an infinite loop. I don't know why I bother to hide from my mother; I could light up in the middle of the living room floor and she probably wouldn't even notice, I've been invisible for so long. Just another brick in the wall . . . Even two decades later, the crisp, airy smell of freshly washed and ironed sheets are Thursdays when the housekeeper came at Oxford; days when I was still immortal and ignorant of so many things I thought I already knew. The cool, snow-white top sheet is jerked down as I shuck off clothing with whichever undergrad I thought I was most in love with that particular week. Our young flesh is hasty, as though we might lose this shallow right if we waited another second and then we'd have to become friends before we could become lovers. I taste the wine from dinner on her lips and feel its affects on my body, my higher brain shutting down because I prefer not to think. A few minutes later, I need new sheets again, but I can usually manage not to think for about half an hour. Life, love, women, and wine - all were still such casual pleasures. Scully's skin is Samantha's ivory velvet dress, reserved for the most special of special occasions. We sit in the back while my father drives, both scrubbed squeaky clean and carefully combed. For once, we're not crossing the imaginary median of the bench seat that my mother created to keep the complaints of "Sam, stop touching me! Mom, she's touching me again." "Dad, Fox is taking up the whole seat with his big stinky feet!" down to a minimum. My sister was so proud of that dress - she hated the way it itched, but vanity always won out over comfort. It wasn't the soft, slinky velvet a woman would wear, but the thin, crisp fabric reserved for little girls. I always wanted to run my hand over her skirt spread carefully over the upholstery to avoid wrinkles, but Samantha and my mother lived in fear that I'd get fingerprints on the delicate material. A nine-year- old Samantha also preferred to avoid my "boy cooties," and she thought they were transmitted by casual contact. I'm on the passenger side - within easy slapping range of either parent if my fingers strayed across the boundary bisecting the seat, so I kept my hands to myself. Then, one day, that dress was hanging pressed and ready in Sam's closet waiting for a little girl that would never come home to wear it again. Scully's skin under my fingers is finally stealing a caress of that pale velvet, letting it envelope my senses and quicken my pulse. For the rest of my life, Scully, you've claimed a memory reserved for the darkest nights and evoked by my soul. One day, my body will start to fail me and my mind may not be so clear, but a casual brush against soft fabric will always trigger a memory of a little girl who embodied a lonely man's quest and the woman he fell in love with along the way in spite of himself. Choices, Scully? Us? I don't think it's a choice. One day the sages may write of us: even they could screw up fate for only so long. Maybe it is a choice, Scully. I chose to touch. **** I'm waiting for the slap; already flinching, even. I got my long limbs from my father and he could backhand a preteen in the far corner of the back seat while doing fifty-five miles an hour without even interrupting his discussion with my mother or having the ash fall off the end of his cigarette. I thought I'd had my fix - caressed the forbidden fabric of skin once and then contented myself to my empty bed, but the rebuke didn't come as I lay there. Even the self-loathing Mulder that lives on my shoulder urged a trip back to the couch. I flipped the pillow and myself until I'd twirled into a cotton cocoon, still feeling that soft roughness under my fingertips and itching to touch it again. Hungered to touch the forbidden without being ordered to stop. My excuse is that I'm going to get a drink of water. That's plausible; I could be thirsty. Doubt it. I'll be quiet so I don't wake her, because I don't want to wake her. Scully isn't ready to wake yet. Only I'm awake at this time of night. I make it to my bedroom door before hunger for the remotely hot replaces my plausible thirst. She shifts, the blanket slips down, and my excuse now is that I'm covering her so she won't be cold. Scully's reserved, maybe, but - to a very fortunate few - far, far from cold. There is the warm scent of a sleeping woman inches from me; no, she's not cold, but you have to have permission to touch. Wouldn't have it any other way. Her hands always feel like a child's under mine, but they're perfectly capable of saving or taking my life. It's that veneer of silk over steel that's intoxicating. That invites deeper exploration and makes my mouth water. See, I knew I was thirsty. Or something. The fine hair on her arms is transparent and yielding, so different from mine. I touch both shoulders at once, marveling at my own boldness. They're warm from the wool throw blanket while my hands are cool, but she doesn't pull away. The true velvet is her neck, her pulse oblivious to the number of times Death has smiled on this fragile woman. Her heart beats strong, though - proficient at facing horror again and again, finding some sanctuary, licking her wounds alone, and standing beside me once more to face the darkness as though she isn't afraid. I'm afraid, Scully. The darkness comes so easily; it hides deceptively as light, luring me away. Whispering dim promises of truth and answers when even the greediest of men shouldn't ask for more than this: pale velvet caressing every neuron, magnetizing my hands and my mind to her so I couldn't turn away if I chose to. Don't choose to. Won't ever choose to. I cup her face with both my hands and she opens her eyes lazily. She smiles, those only half-open eyes increasing the current I can feel flowing through my body, drawing us together. So many people go through life with eyes half open; but Scully and I see so much. Pain, death, deceit - if anyone deserves to see Paradise occasionally, it's this woman. I'm not allowed to touch - I'll get dirty fingerprints on this precious fabric and they'll never come off. Pale velvet isn't for boys; I'm too clumsy and careless and I'll just ruin it. Denim and cotton are for boys; durable and washable and functional. If I must touch, choose cheap nylon panties or already torn silk nightgowns so no one cares when I thoughtlessly destroy the woman wearing them. It's taken more than two decades to challenge whether or not there's blood on my hands. Well, Dad, the blood finally washed away because it was never there in the first place. A very useful illusion for you that I only saw because you told me to, but my hands aren't dirty. I'm not even angry that you laid the weight of the world on a child's shoulders. Once the weight lifted, I'm left with the strength I learned through those years, and, thankfully, a better understanding of how one woman's small frame can bear as much as mine, even do a better job. I think I developed the brute strength while Scully has learned the balance necessary to steady the load. Scully is way too strong for me to ever destroy. And our fingerprints are already all over each other, making us who we are. To pull away now is to deny who we've become: two people who aren't necessary to each other, but are damn good at sharing secrets, near death experiences, and rental cars. Never shared clean sheets though, but that would just be building another bridge between us, tearing down instead of creating a brick wall. I think I've run out of excuses after all these years, one brick at a time moving from wall to bridge. Her face prefers my right hand, the softness of her cheek surrendering to my palm. It reminds me of a contented cat nuzzling - in my self-centered world, I derive so much pleasure from the caress that I usually forget the cat is there because she likes it. My lips part and I feel them getting dry as I breathe faster than normal. The cat's eyes open and she watches me, waiting. There's a lazy blink as she licks something sweet from her lips. I need to know what the tip of her tongue tastes before it's gone. I pull her face to mine and discover the sweetness, but it seems to be intrinsic. It's not our first kiss, not even the second time my lips have touched hers, but this is different. This is getting to touch. She opens her mouth a little more so I can investigate further and I realize how much the cat enjoys the petting; that this isn't all about me. She told me it wasn't; I should listen to her. I pet - hands appreciating every bare inch of skin I can find before they finally become tangled in her hair and decide to rest, trembling slightly from the strong magnetic pull. She shivers, and I wrap the forgotten blanket around her shoulders like a cloak and then use it to pull her back to me, although I know she's not cold. Far, far from cold. A head rests on my shoulder, warm breath teasing against the fine hairs on my neck. Her breath is slightly faster as well, and for once, I don't feel any guilt. I've caused her heart to race so many times, usually with fear or anger. I've even put my mouth on hers and willed life back into her limp body, screaming and cursing at her not to leave me. Silly man - how could this woman ever leave you? Aliens could dissect my every cell and still not tease out the part of the man shaped by Scully's quiet strength and rare, gentle smiles. I kneel on the floor in front of her, pausing, my hands on her back pulling her as close to me as possible as we both wake. I woke years ago, it just took me a while to work up the nerve to open my eyes and give myself away. I'm yours, Scully. Do what you want with me. Her fingers run through my messy hair, then stroke my scruffy face as she rests her forehead against mine. I'd forgotten I hadn't shaved recently; my five o'clock shadow must be shredding her skin. "Sorry," I whisper to her. "For what?" she asks, moving to kiss the tender place on the side of my neck with tiny electric sparks. For what? Pick something, Scully. "Sam had this velvet dress that reminded me of your skin - no, your skin reminded me of the dress, and I always wanted to touch it, but I wasn't supposed to . .. ." Oh, for Christ's sake! Get to the point, man, before you bore her back to sleep or she orders a CT scan to check for brain damage. "Love you, Scully." I bury my face in her hair, knowing she won't say it back. She doesn't have to - I don't question it. "Just wanted to touch." The scratchy blanket slips off her shoulders and her fingers trail around my waist, under my t-shirt. I don't need the flesh, Scully. Later - all I need tonight is to know it's all right to touch. "Each year, after the last day of school, my mother would cut both my brothers' hair; buzz it almost all off. It was a ritual: getting summer haircuts, and I remember watching Bill get shorn on the back porch when I must have been about four years old." She gathers up the bottom of my shirt and I raise my arms so she can pull it off slowly - no hurry, we're already old friends. The clean sheets won't vanish. "I loved the way their heads felt, just like velvet, but I never got to get my hair cut that short." She feels my sides move as I chuckle at that mental image: little Dana Scully with a buzz cut. "Yeah, I know." Soft, strong fingers run across my chest and up and down the hair on my stomach. If her touch were lighter, it would tickle, but the sound of palms running over rough hair all but purrs. If she had any doubts about me loving her for more than her mind, she doesn't now and I get the sense I'm not the only one that woke up hungry tonight. "Anyway, they both hated those haircuts and complained whenever I tried to rub their heads, so Mom made a rule - no touching anyone's hair." "So now you're living out some sort of childhood fantasy?" I ask, as her mouth finds a nipple and I try not to moan. "Well, Bill is losing his hair and Charlie is never around . . . Hey, it beats your velvet dress story." "Sure does." I lean down to kiss her again, and I feel her kissing me back, pulling my hips between her knees. Accepting. Wanting. "Sorry I'm not fuzzier," I manage as we break to breathe. "When I said you could do what you wanted with me, I didn't know it would involve nuggies." I earn a smile. "When did you say I could do whatever I wanted with you?" "Maybe I just thought it." I feel her palms on the front of my thighs, hesitating, just like my hands waiting at her waist to journey upward. I'd love so say something poetic about true love conquering all or fractured souls finding their split-apart, but I'm about to lose rational thought. "You don't happen to have a velvet bra on under there, do you?" She covers my hands, helping me grasp the hem of her top, giving permission. "I think there's a satin bow in front, Mulder. See what that does for you," she says as I gently pull the material over her head. As her face emerges, excited eyes sparkle at me and her hair falls over her face, begging not to be smoothed back until morning. "Like I give a damn about a damn bow." Eloquence is fading fast. Eyes close again and mouths and flesh meet, opening, offering, and a paradigm shifts as fabric hits to floor. It's finally all right to touch. **** End