Long Gone Before Daylight
by ALC Punk!

But what she believes, and what her mind has experienced are two different things.

Dana doesn't believe in pointless sex, so she mentally labels it 'release sex'. 'Comfort sex', if she were talking to her sister on the phone (not that she spends long hours talking on the phone to Melissa about men, boys, sex, drugs or rock'n'roll. Although that might actually be normal).

Again, there is something different between belief and the rituals of the body.

When Fox Mulder is inside of her, face buried in her neck as he shifts and thrusts, her mind grays out. She knows, intellectually, that sex with her partner is a no-no. The Bureau would come down hard on their asses if they knew.

So it's little motels, out of the way places that no one would ever expect either of them to turn up in. Pay by the hour, and don't use the phone, and if you're lucky, the condoms on the floor won't be noticeable (but they never leave theirs behind).

Comfort sex, she convinces herself as his lips and fingers banish memories of languages she didn't want to understand, maggots crawling across her skin and death and blood (pouring from her mouth and it hurt, like her head was going to explode). Her mind blots out the cold and the heat, and all that's left is something that feels like pleasure.

He's almost always considerate, when they do this. Pretending to be some lover who doesn't know her, but wants to please her. She never screams when she comes, but she doesn't think she would, anyway.

Mulder's the one who's all intense passions and cries in the night (and she doesn't remember that he's cried in her arms more than once).

Sometimes, she wonders if the paper-thin walls of their room echo with the lust of every other person who's used the bed. But then she can't think anymore because he knows when she thinks, and it pushes her away.

Them, her, it, him, all become jumbled when he first thrusts into her, and she just stops.

She knows when it started, and even how -- more than he does, certainly.

Back when it was all so simple, and he'd looked at her all adorably confused. "I don't remember what happened, Scully." It was only later, when they'd been packing that he said, "I want to remember something good here."

No words, then, because she couldn't believe she was taking advantage of her partner's befuddled state (and he didn't protest, and she hadn't had sex in too long, and there were crappy dates and then there was his skin sliding across hers and nothing mattered anymore).

He's never hated her for it.

Sometimes, she wishes he would.

Everyone needs a little human connection. As a graduate of medical school, she knows this, has taken courses that discuss this. And yet they both have a lousy track record for companionship. He's too driven by his search for the Truth.

And she?

She is driven by something else. Maybe him, maybe a lack of understanding.

It's not something she ever tries to think about, until he's sated and draped across her, and she knows this is wrong (moonlight on sweat-slick skin and he is *hers* and Phoebe Green would *never* understand something like this).

They began with a kiss. A gesture of reassurance, affection.

And it wasn't enough. Too late, she realized her hands were sliding up his shirt and he groaned against her mouth. It should have been routine, sliding out of her clothes, feeling his hands cover her skin until she was begging without sound and his mouth descended onto her, making her writhe.

There was awkwardness and he missed certain things several times.

Now, she knows how to elicit this. There is little awkwardness, he's traveled her body more times than he's dug through the X-Files (or so she tells herself, so maybe she's just easy). He knows how to make her writhe and moan and shatter beneath him. Sometimes he takes it slowly, driving her slowly mad until her hands are in his hair, her nails scraping his scalp (he still sports the claw marks she gave him once). Other times, he's in no mood to be gentle, and she crashes against the wall right before he moves up and slams into her.

She likes it any way she can get it.

A part of her thinks she should find that sad.

But this is them, and this is easy. And it's not complicated or full of lies and emotions she isn't sure she can express.

Sometimes, she wonders if she should confess like a good little Catholic girl. Sit in the cubicle, and say, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned." She thinks her penance would be to give him up, though.

And she's not ready to do that.

She likes it best when it's not a need for contact that makes them meet. When it's just something to do, to relieve the tension. To bury themselves six feet underneath blankets and sheets, his arm lazily draped across her while her finger traces chemical formulae she half-remembers wrong on the back of his hand.

They never stay until morning, of course. Staying until morning costs more money and implies things she's not planning on ever facing. Commitment. Stability. Need.

Not that she isn't fully aware that she's lying to herself when she claims none of the above color her relationship with him. She's just not going to admit it.

Instead, she's going to do her job, attempt to go on dates. And be normal. Human. Someone who, occasionally, isn't stuck in a demented partnership with a man who believes that the moon is made of green cheese.

Even if it means carefully storing a small medicine bundle, sold to her partner by a dead little boy. A piece of the magic she doesn't believe in that might have saved her soul. She's not looking at that thought too closely, really. After all, unlike her partner, she's not insane.

-f-

And if I had one wish fulfilled tonight
I'd ask for the sun to never rise - The Cardigans 'No Sleep'

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© 2005 ALC Punk!