Thanks to everyone who read this :)
The following is my take on the room sharing thing in The Rain King. Pure friendship for now.
Enjoy!
II. You've Got a Friend in Me (Mid The Rain King)
Wordcount: 2980 words
Due to particularly bizarre causes, they had to share a room that night.
It was fine for both of them, and there was no other solution anyway, unless one of them decided to sleep in the car. Understandably, neither of them volunteered and neither of them felt it was right to ask the other.
Mulder emerged from the bathroom followed by a cloud of steam, dressed up in a white t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, holding in his hands his dirty laundry and toiletries.
"Are you done, Mulder?" Scully asked, a bit annoyed. She was sitting at the small desk, waiting for him to be done with his lifelong shower, so that she too could get ready for bed.
"Yep, it's all yours," he replied.
"You'd better hope you didn't use up all the hot water," she said, eyeing the steam still lingering in front of the bathroom door. She got up to collect her pyjamas and other stuff from her bag, but before she could head towards the bathroom, she witnessed a weird scene: Mulder had taken a pillow from the bed and dropped it on the floor.
"What… what are you doing?" she asked, frankly puzzled.
"I'm making my bed," he answered, sitting down on the floor.
She had to stop him. Having him sleep on the couch was fine, but there was no couch, and no cot too, not even an armchair, and the floor idea was simply ridiculous. The carpet was dirty, with some stains here and there of who knows what foul-smelling substance, as well as a considerable amount of dust. She couldn't even imagine how many mites or germs could be living in there. She decided they could definitely share the bed.
"Come on, you're not going to sleep on the floor," she announced, "there's a queen size bed, there's enough room for both of us."
She wasn't actually sure it was a queen size bed, could have also been full size, but that was still better than him catching leptospirosis or something like that.
He raised an eyebrow in doubt. "Really? Are you sure? I don't want to…"
"Yes, come on," she interrupted him, "we're two adults, we know each other, we can share a bed for one night."
"What about the Bureau rules?"
She bit her lower lip before answering. "Well, I'm not going to write this in my report, are you?"
He shook his head with a smile and thanked her.
She closed the bathroom door behind her, the last image of the room being her partner slipping under the covers in their bed.
Their bed.
She leaned against the door and brushed a hand over her face, while the implications of this started to sink down on her. They were going to share a bed. She was going to spend the night sleeping just a few inches away from the man she was in love with.
Yes, she was in love with Mulder. When it started exactly, she couldn't say, she just knew that by now she had learned to accept it and be honest with herself. He should never know, though. She would never act on it.
First, there were rules she had to respect. If they were ever to enter a romantic relationship and someone had to find out, they might end up being separated and not allowed to work together anymore. And that, of course, would appear on her resume. So no, she had very little intention of putting her career and professional reputation in jeopardy.
Second, she knew very well that every action had consequences, and she was afraid of losing him, of losing their friendship, their partnership. It was the most precious thing she had, and she cherished it too much to risk ruining it with sex and romance. Those two factors changed every relationship, she knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it, and she wasn't sure she was ready to lose her friend. What if they tried and it didn't work out? That could happen. Just because two people are friends, doesn't mean they would automatically make good lovers.
The third motivation, and truest one, was something she kept hidden deep inside her heart, not willing to admit it to anyone, including herself. She feared the intimacy, the exposure that was consequence of every romantic relationship. Right now, with Mulder being her friend, she could keep him at arm's length, she could push him away and shut him out if she felt she wanted to, but if they were to take the next step, she would lose that right, she would need to accept that there was another person in her life, that she wasn't alone anymore, that she didn't have full control over every single thing. She would need to open her heart completely. And this, to Scully, in that moment of her life, was a scary thought.
No, things were good as they were now. She was fine with it. She just had to survive the night.
Once she was ready for bed several minutes later, she left the bathroom, and found Mulder sitting on the bed, his back against the pillow and his legs splayed out in front of him under the covers, randomly watching some TV. As he saw her approaching and taking her place next to him in the bed, he grabbed the remote and switched the TV off.
"You can keep watching if you want to, it doesn't bother me," she said, as she lay down on her side facing away from him.
"It's okay, I'll try to get some sleep, there was nothing interesting anyway."
"Okay… uhm, good night then."
"Good night Scully."
He switched off the light and lay down on his side, mirroring her position. He rarely slept on his side, he usually preferred to sleep on his back, but he didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable by taking up too much space. Not that it looked like she was comfortable now. He'd peeked at her quickly before darkness fell on them, and he noticed she was practically lying on the edge of the bed, just a couple of inches more at her left and she would have fallen off. She clearly wanted as much room as possible between them, and he could do this for her, it was her bed anyway. Plus, it was probably a good thing for him too, having her as far away as possible, it would reduce the risks that could potentially arise in this situation.
He sighed and tried to stop his mind from going there. She was his partner, his friend, he shouldn't be thinking of her like that, especially when she was sleeping in his same bed. But he did love her, and want her, all the time. He also knew he was never going to try and cross the invisible line between their friendship and something else, too afraid to make a huge mistake, and ruin the only good thing he had in his life. He had decided that their partnership was going to be fine eventually, and he meant to stick to that plan.
He tried to focus on tornados and cows, instead of her.
She bit her lip hearing his sigh, a clear sign that he was still awake. She was hoping one of them would fall asleep quickly enough to spare her from this torture, but it was becoming apparent that luck didn't have her back tonight.
She felt terribly uncomfortable, much more that what she'd previously imagined. She was aware of each and every breath she was taking, she was afraid of disturbing him with her movements and at the same time, she was afraid she was going to do something embarrassing in her sleep. What if she talked, or farted? Or worse, what if her brain decided it was the perfect night to have an erotic dream, maybe about Mulder himself? What if she ended up moving too much while asleep, and ended up snuggling with him? Her heart started to race with anxiety at these possibilities.
It wasn't even the good kind of awkwardness, the one you get when you sleep next to someone you would like to do much more with, it was just pure discomfort, as if she was sharing the bed with a stranger. She thought it was normal, though. She'd been sleeping alone for years, she couldn't even remember the last time she slept with someone else in her bed. She shifted a little and closed her eyes, trying to think of something nice that could lull her to sleep. Possibly not him.
He felt a movement on the sheets coming from her side, and he immediately knew she was still awake, just like him. For him it was pretty normal, he was never in good terms with Morpheus, but he knew she usually succumbed to sleep fairly easily. He wondered what was wrong, and if there was something he could do.
"Hey Scully," he whispered in the darkness, "are you awake?"
She opened her eyes, surprised to hear his voice. "Yes, why? Is something wrong?"
He shook his head, although he knew she couldn't see him. "I was just wondering, did you used to have slumber parties as a kid?"
For a second, she wondered if she'd fallen asleep and this was just a very weird dream. "I remember a couple of them, back in junior high, but I was never into that kind of stuff. Why?"
He completely ignored her question. "Why didn't you like it? I loved them, I had so much fun every time."
"Mulder, why are you keeping me awake to talk about slumber parties?" she repeated with a hint of irritation.
"Nothing, I just thought…" he trailed off. He just thought it would be nice to distract her from the situation, and briefly engage her in a conversation that might have put her more at ease. "Never mind. Good night Scully."
She found his behaviour incredibly odd, but decided to just ignore it. Who knows what was going on in that mind of his.
She knew perfectly well what was going on in hers, though. She rolled on her back, one arm tucked beneath her head and one on her stomach, as some memories of her early teenage years flashed through her mind.
She remembered her very first slumber party. She was in 6th grade, at Hannah Norton's house. Scully didn't even want to go, but her mother had insisted, saying it wasn't nice to reject an invitation to a birthday party without a good reason. That night, her fingernails and toenails ended up being painted with a bright pink nail polish. It was the first and last time she had that colour on her. She hated it, that just wasn't her style, she was never into this girls stuff. Plus, the following day her brothers made fun of her and kept calling her "Barbie" even after she convinced her mother to remove all of it.
She didn't realise she'd said all of this out loud, until she heard a chuckle coming from Mulder's mouth. He was lying on his side, one hand under the pillow, facing her, his head and shoulder barely lit by the moonlight that peeked through the window. She couldn't help cracking a smile too.
"It's not funny," she said, but actually it was, a little, "I still hate colourful nail polish, I hardly wear it."
"Yeah, I've noticed that. You only wear the transparent one, or those nude shades."
There was a moment of silence, in which she let herself appreciate the fact that he noticed the little details about her, even the smallest, most insignificant ones, like her nails.
"What about you? You said you loved slumber parties," she prompted him after a few seconds, her gaze shifting from the ceiling to him and back.
"I did, yes. I had this friend, Joe, I can't remember if it was 6th or 7th grade… 7th I think, but anyway, he had this huge house and liked camping in his own back yard and he often invited me and other boys to camp with him. It was fun."
One of the reasons why he loved those camping nights so much was that sometimes Joe's older brother, a sophomore student, hung along too, and brought nice porn magazines for everyone to check out. That was Mulder's first introduction to naked ladies, at a time where he only masturbated by drawing tits on stick figures. He omitted this particular aspect while talking to Scully.
She was smiling at his story, finding herself happy that he felt like sharing these little bits of his past with her. She couldn't help thinking what a cheerful, happy boy he must have been before Samantha was abducted, but didn't mention this. She didn't want to spoil this sort of conversation with sad memories. Although they were friends and partners and saw each other basically every day, they very rarely talked about themselves, like this. She decided to cherish this unusual moment, in this dark motel room, and keep the conversation going.
She asked him what Fox was like in school, and gladly listened to his portrayal of his younger self, a solitary boy with a love/hate relationship with stars, who had a hard time socialising with peers and played basketball randomly after school. Then it was her turn to describe teenager Dana to him, a brilliant young mind torn between a yearning for rebellion and old Catholic values. She also wore braces until 10th grade, she added, and he laughed.
And as their souls and minds got closer, and met each other in this ephemeral intimacy that sharing memories created, their bodies too followed, involuntarily shifting more and more towards the middle of the bed, the discomfort gradually fading away with each word. They wondered why they never talked like this more often.
"It looks like we did have a sort of slumber party," she said. They were both lying on their backs now, so close to each other that their shoulders touched.
"Really? I don't know about the parties you went to, Scully, but as far as my experience goes, you have to talk about the opposite sex for it to be a real slumber party," he pointed out with a smirk, glancing at her without turning his head.
She wasn't sure she felt like talking to him about that specific topic. Not that there was much to say.
He sensed her hesitation. "Or, you know, we could play 'spin the bottle'," he added teasingly, and as an answer, she shot him a 'not even in your dreams' look.
"Right, what do you want to know?" she said eventually. They were just friends having a chat. Friends talked about this stuff, it was normal. Maybe it could be fun.
She couldn't physically see his lips curl into a smile, but she knew it was happening.
"Well, was Dana popular with boys?"
"Uhm, Dana wasn't that pretty back then, you know, and she was also a little too focused on school to really get into the dating game," she stated, one hand raising to play with her own hair, "then in senior year I met Marcus, and I thought he was the one, you know, teenager stuff. And that's about how popular Dana was with boys."
"So this Marcus guy was the first one you did the naked pretzel with?"
She was surprised that his private, straightforward question didn't offend her in the slightest. This was really turning out to be fun.
She realised that if she focused hard enough, she could recall the last time she slept with a man, but she couldn't say the same about the last time she spent some quality time with her best friend.
"Yes," she replied eventually.
"Since this is a slumber party, I'm now supposed to ask how it went, right?"
She smirked in the darkness. "He had no idea what he was doing, and I didn't either."
He chuckled.
"Well, what about Fox?" she curiously asked.
"Fox remained celibate until university," he replied, "I made out with a couple of girls in school, but never went past first base with any of them."
"So when did you, you know, finally get to the naked pretzel, as you call it?" she inquired, and he giggled at her attempt at borrowing his expression.
"Her name was Jane Davey, first year in Oxford. She liked my American accent," he replied proudly.
"And?"
"And what?"
"How was it?"
He bit his lower lip, thinking back at his first sexual experience. "Well, I… by then I had a pretty vast experience with porn magazines to back me up, so yeah… I had no idea what I was doing," he admitted.
They laughed softly, together. Her laughter was so beautiful, yet sounded so sadly unfamiliar to his ears.
They told each other a couple more stories from college before she started yawning, and they decided to call it a night. Neither of them moved, they remained like that, on their backs, with their shoulders touching, her head slightly turned towards him.
Her last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was that maybe there was a chance that a romantic relationship wouldn't mine the beautiful friendship they had. No matter what, he'd always be her best friend. And maybe, just maybe, completely opening her heart to him wouldn't be so bad after all.
He remained awake a little longer, as usual. Eventually he closed his eyes and he sneaked his arms under the covers, his right hand meeting her left one. He kept replaying the whole conversation in his head with a smile on his lips, his pinkie finger distractedly stroking hers, lightly enough so that she wouldn't wake up. Soon he fell asleep too.