They've always seen each other more clearly in the ink of night.
Darkness becomes them. Not jewel tones, not earth tones, but raven's wing black, painted across their faces as they examine life's mysteries in the dead of night.
Words tumble much more liberally without visual distractions like pillowed lips and porcelain skin. Instead, there are just shadows, deep and inviting, drawing out secrets like an open diary.
In a candlelit hotel room, still new to each other, they first discovered the safety of the darkness. He bled his past until it spilled across the floor, until she was surrounded by his pain, yet still accepting of more. They embraced the opportunity the shadows provided them, the chance to speak without exposure, without the weight of each other's eyes on their faces.
And even when things aren't new anymore, they still thrive in the obscurity of the night. It's become the two of them against the world, but even that kinship doesn't make it any easier to talk about the important things, the things that well inside, bubbling beneath the surface.
But the darkness does.
It wipes away their defenses so that words flow more freely, ears hear more clearly. Even if only for a few moments before the dams are shut again.
The shadowy corner of a parking garage in the bowels beneath the city.
A cold damp rock marring the surface of Huevelmans Lake.
A forest floor beneath starred skies, nocturnal man-insects, and looming evergreens.
And countless other places, all drenched in the obsidian black of night, and all fertile ground for an intimacy they rarely share in the daylight. Where the hush of their voices and the chiaroscuro of their faces prompt confessions, revelations, and sometimes even a huskily-sung lullaby.
Somehow, though it goes against the very laws of nature, their relationship grows in the darkness; it thrives there. It is under the blanket of night that their roots burrow beneath the earth and solidify. It is through the haze that their eyes see each other most clearly.
And it is behind darkened curtains that their bodies are drawn together for the first time.
….
"What kind of hotel doesn't even have a desk?" he asks as he's already spilling photos beside her onto the room's polyester excuse for a comforter.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," she halts him before he goes any further, "Off the bed! I did two autopsies today, and I have no intention of letting you turn my bed into your office." She kicks at his arm with her stockinged toe as he lays one against her foot.
"But Scully," he whines, "Where else am I supposed put these?"
"May I remind you that you have an entire room of your own just a few doors away?" she tells him, with her head on the pillow and eyes closed against his charms. "Or a nice, broad expanse of carpet right beneath your feet?"
"But it's raining out, and I don't want to get wet…," he tries for the pity pass once more, but her arched brow answers him much more effectively than words. It's hard sometimes, not to enable him, when he looks at her with those soulful eyes and that little-boy pout.
"Fine, fine, fine," he grumbles with a put-upon huff, as he gathers them back away to place on the floor, but not before first swatting at her knee with the stack on his way.
"Hey!" she opens her eyes to his grin as he sits on the floor beside the bed, and tries hard to keep a smile from warming her face as well.
She sinks further into the bedding, once again closing her eyes, not because she's tired, but because it's comforting to banter, as much as she may pretend otherwise. It's so easy to fall into this with him, this back-and-forth, this schoolyard tease.
The rain sluices against the windows, and a contented silence descends upon the room, blemished only by his occasional remark and her occasional murmured reply. The minutes crawl from evening to night, and he's in the middle of expounding on a theory when the room is suddenly engulfed in darkness.
"Oh!" is her surprised response.
"Looks like someone forgot to pay the electric bill," is his glib one.
"It's just the storm, Mulder," he can hear the roll in her eyes as she makes her way to the window to draw back the curtains, peering into the night. "Looks like it's out along the whole road…"
She feels her way over to the bed and pulls off her blazer, lying back down. Their breaths are loud in the stillness, as they adapt to the hush of the room. Minutes pass, and somehow the lack of light turns the mood serious, heavy.
There's an energy here in the dark. There always is. A silent vibration as atoms and ions react and repel. Encircle and amalgamate. They both feel it, both prickle with it, as they listen to the rain pelt against the glass.
He sighs dramatically. "Well, there goes the game of strip poker I had planned for later. No fun without any light…," he jokes, but his attempt at humor dissolves quickly in the vacuum of the night. It's not too much of a stretch for either of them to remember another time when the rain fell outside just like this, encapsulating them in a darkened room with only candles and conversation to pass the hours.
A night she played her own version of strip poker, only without the cards and without the competition.
It's a night they rarely speak of in the light. Though they were forthcoming so many years ago, it was still a night of vulnerability, of exposure. The first night they saw each other clearly.
He can't help but be sucked back. There are too many similarities. The electricity going down, the way he's sitting, the way she's laying. He can't help but be drawn back into that feeling of newness, the slight suspicion, but also the exciting thrill of intrigue. Who was this woman, this little elf with eyes of sparkling blue mischief, but also the most elegant curve of neck he'd ever seen? He couldn't help but be fascinated in spite of himself.
When she'd come to him and trusted him enough to disrobe, it had knocked him back. Though he aspired to be a professional, how could he not react? To her skin, her scent, the cello-ed shape of her body as it played the most achingly beautiful music he'd ever heard?
He'd barely glanced his fingertips across her back then, too afraid that if he allowed himself, he'd want more.
But he thinks about it. Frequently. What could have happened that night.
And he's sure she must think about it, too.
"It feels familiar, doesn't it?" he ponders, but his musing is met with silence.
He's not surprised.
But, as always, the shadows make him brave. They make him daring. He's always loves engaging with her in the dark. The timbre of her sugared voice, hushed and low and sweet, does things to him, gives him a courage he doesn't find easily.
"Do you ever think about it, Scully?" he asks quietly, thoughtfully.
"Stop, Mulder," she responds quickly, aware of the path they are suddenly walking.
"Really, Scully," he pleads, not caring that he has pulled them onto a tightrope, balancing precariously in the dark, hovering above the unknown. "I know you're ashamed by it, but have you ever wondered? Wondered what would have happened if we'd…"
"Stop, Mulder!" more forceful this time, afraid to let him hear how this is affecting her. Has she ever thought about it? My God, she thinks about it every day. Yearns for it every day. Runs away from it every day.
"Do you think it would have lasted, Scully?" he is almost wistful. "If we'd fucked that night, do you think we'd still be here today?"
Her breath catches at his use of the word "fuck," its connotation purely physical, purely base. But she knows that's what it would have been then. Physical, sexual, animal.
Then.
But that was before.
Before they'd bled for each other. Before they'd ached for each other. Before they'd hated each other. Before they'd loved each other.
Fucking was all they could have done then.
Now though…
She doesn't want to engage, doesn't want to step through this door, but…
"No," she whispers, "I don't think so, Mulder. I don't think we'd still be here today. I don't think we could have lasted this long. We were so young then, so naïve…" She remembers how green she'd been, so confident and self-assured, but so, so naïve. So unaware of what this man would do for her, how he'd change her. How he'd burrow beneath her skin and linger there for seven years. And how she wouldn't regret a single second of it.
"God, Scully," his voice is graveled, rough, as he leans his head against the side of the bed, a mirror seven years old, "You don't know what that night meant to me, how much that night changed me… You laid there and you listened to me, you accepted me…"
Her heart hurts for the man he'd been then, the man he is today, so desperate for acceptance. She reaches across the bed to slide her fingers through his hair, grateful for the opportunity to touch him when her eyes are blinded by the dark.
"And you trusted me, Scully," his voice turns huskier, quieter, "God, the way you bared yourself to me…"
"Mulder, don't…," she pull her fingers away, embarrassed, afraid of how exposed she's feeling, even immersed in the tar-black of the room. How does he do this to her? How does he draw her in, tunnel behind her defenses and get to the very heart of things so quickly?
"Don't be ashamed… you were beautiful… God…, you were breathtaking…," the sound of his voice brings a flush to her cheeks which she's grateful he cannot see.
"Mulder…," she murmurs, unsure of where this is going, unsure if she's ready for this. Suddenly she is off-balance, spinning in a Tilt-A-Whirl, but afraid to let it stop.
"I wanted you so badly in that second, Scully," the dark spurs him on, makes him bold, "but I knew it was a bad idea, knew we couldn't…"
She can't help but gasp at his words. Oh God oh God oh God… What the hell is happening here? She's being absorbed by a black hole, where revelations and confessions are being sucked deep into the abyss between them. "Back up, back up," she tells herself. But despite her own advice, she pushes even further, asking, "Is that what you really wanted, Mulder?"
His pause weighs heavily, and with each second that passes, her heartrate quickens, until he responds in a hoarse voice, "Yeah. At the time, yeah."
Her eyes close, even in the darkness, as she consumes this knowledge, this confirmation. Her heart is pulsing within her chest, throbbing against her lungs, as she realizes that she wants to know. She /needs/ to know…
"And what about now?" she barely whispers. She's terrified to hear his answer.
"Now, Scully?" His head rocks back against the bed, brushing her hand still close by. "Now..., I'd just give anything if I could touch you, if I could touch your skin like that again..."
His words hover, refusing to disappear, refusing to back down. She breathes them in, feeling them slide down her throat to rest in her belly. And though she knows there are so many reasons not to, she accepts the dare the darkness is offering.
He hears the paper rustle of the sheets, feels her shifting. He turns, and through the haze of shadows, can see that she's rolled over to her belly. He can't help the whoosh of breath from his mouth when she murmurs, "Touch me, Mulder…"
God. Fuck. God.
She is offering him a gift. Wrapped in silk and wool and kept just out of his reach for seven agonizing years. He pulls his hands down his face. He knows he is weak, knows he cannot resist, not when he can smell her dewed skin, hear her quickened breaths, feel her smoldering heat.
He kneels beside the bed and rests his forehead against the edge, trying to gather his courage. Her breaths exhale sharp and quick, caught in the crook of her elbow where her head has tucked against it. The expanse between her ache and his touch seems an eternity.
Slowly, he slips his hand across the comforter until he can feel silk smoothed over the heated dip of her waist, and his eyes clench shut at the possibilities.
A muffled sound escapes her throat, a hum, a sigh.
He allows himself more. He cups his hand over her hip, pressing his palm into the arc, his muscles memorizing the shape, the tilt, the curve of her body. He slides it further, following the hills and valleys of her back, snail-like and sensual.
Jesus, she thinks, and can't keep her body from shifting, from arching into his caress, craving as much contact as possible, even through the silk of her shirt.
"More," she whispers.
"Oh God," he breathes.
He uses both hands to gently pull at the fabric, shifting it and bunching it and sliding it up her ribs. The spots where his fingers glance her flesh burn, sizzle.
In the darkness, he can't see her skin, can't fathom its glow, its radiance, but he can feel its heat, rising in waves as his hands float above her. And he can barely stop himself from covering her body with his own, to quench the flames. To sacrifice himself over her inferno.
The first touch of his finger is a whisper, so barely-there she thinks she must have imagined it, but when it's joined by the rest of his hand, in a butterfly's wing caress, she can't stop the quiver in her spine or the whimper from her lips.
He finds her lower back, right there next to her hip, where he touched her so long ago, and he skates his fingertips across her skin. She's trembling as he whispers, "Right here, right here…" And he remembers her skin, soft as rose-petals then. But God, it's even softer today.
There are so many things that have happened between then and now. Then, they barely knew each other. But now. Now, they live through each other, breathe through each other, exist through each other.
Things may not have lasted had they done this seven years ago, but things are different today. Their roots have been planted, they've intertwined, they've enmeshed beneath the earth, and they've grown stronger because of it.
He rises from his knees, reaching across her body until his lips hover above the spot, his moist breaths huffing against her until she stops breathing, tensing her muscles in anticipation. Oh God. He gently brushes them over her skin, just once, before sealing them against her body. Her deep moan vibrates beneath his lips.
"Is this what you wanted to do then?" she asks breathlessly, shifting against him.
"Mmm-hmm," he murmurs against her skin, quietly kissing across the small of her back while he grasps her restless hips with his hands.
"And…and…what about now?" she stutters, almost too caught up in the velvet of his touch to speak. His lips are stimulating nerve endings she's sure she's never felt before, and the sparks are spiraling, spiraling through her body, igniting deep and liquid within her core.
"Now…," he ceases his movements, "Now, Scully…, I want to do this," and he rolls her roughly to her back and crawls up her body, feeling his way with his hands until he's found her mouth. And before she has a chance to respond beyond a harsh gasp, he's covered her ripe, cherried lips, and he's devouring her the way he wished he could have done that night, in the dark, after spilling his soul to her.
But he's so grateful he waited, so grateful he held himself back.
Because if he'd done it then, he couldn't be doing it now. And now… now is everything.
His soul has been spilled again and again since that long-ago night. He's been broken open more times than he can count. But none of that matters, none of it matters at all.
Because his mouth is on her lips and her hands are at his neck and they're swallowing each other's sighs, and the darkness is embracing it all. And they never could have imagined how beautiful it could be, how divine it could be to hold each other, to touch each other. How their bodies could absorb the night as they come together, absorb the shadows. How all their secrets, all their confessions, suspended there in the void, could churn in the air, caressing them, fondling them, igniting them. Until they burst against each other in a brilliant supernova.
And as they lay in each other's arms in the aftermath, they open their eyes to the blackened room. But they've never seen each other more clearly, things have never been as exquisitely in focus as they are right now. For even in the charred embers, the vacuum of the night, they have found each other.
In spite of the darkness.