TITLE: Tiger and Dragon AUTHOR: bugs EMAIL ADDRESS: bugs1231@my-deja.com URL: http://underthewing.com/bugs DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: I'll do Gossamer. For any other archiving requests, please drop me a note so I know where to find the story. SPOILER WARNING: 'all things', 'Per Manum', and only if you know it's one; 'Empedocles'. RATING: Mild NC-17 for some light smuttin' and some dirty words. CLASSIFICATION: H, A, MSR KEYWORDS: Humor, Angst, M/S Romance, Mulder POV SUMMARY: Scully asks Mulder to come over and help rearrange her furniture. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Ambress and Branwell helped me slap this story around until it behaved. AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm finally coming across with that fluffy little thing I'd promised a few readers. ************************ April, 2000 Lunchtime "Admit it, it's his big dick. That's why you put up with his crap." That catches my attention. And Scully's. Her hands, in the act of unwrapping her sprout and cucumber on nine grain, freeze momentarily. Behind us, on their own bench, a group of women laugh. We're all enjoying the unseasonably warm spring day with a picnic lunch. A voice, smooth and thick as a milk shake, admits, "That plays a part." There's a chorus of 'uh huh's'. Milk Shake defends herself. "But he's real sweet when he wants to be." Another woman says with authority, "That's right. When he wants to be. Just like he'd get a job if he wanted to. With all his free time, has he fixed that leaky roof yet?" I balance my Coke cup on one thigh, my turkey with avocado on another. My bag of sour cream Sun Chips are between Scully and me, just in case she wants one. Scully seems to be thinking. She hasn't spoken since we sat down on our bench. Instead, she takes small, precise bites from her sandwich, chewing each one thoroughly before swallowing. "A pinched nerve has been bothering him." Milk Shake again. Snorts all around. Authority says, "Well, I'll tell you girls this--" I put my soda down next to the chips and turn ever so slightly to see--Scully catches me with a shift of her eyes. Her jaws stop chewing. The closest blue iris pins me, and I give a weak smile. Authority lays it down like this: "I've had men who were good in bed." Uh huh. "I've had men who were rich." Uh huh. "I've had good looking men." Uh huh. "Now all I want is a man with a strong back who can do chores." The women howl with laughter. Scully opens her mouth and I expect her to join in. Instead, she inserts a pilfered Sun Chip. A new voice, nasal: "Shit! We're late! Come on, girls. Time to wrap it up." After a flapping of paper bags, thunk, thunk, thunk of containers into the nearby garbage can, a chorus of clacking heels hurries away. I pull off my soda's lid, and begin to gulp it down. She's right. Time is running out. Scully pats the corners of her mouth with a napkin. She's finished. "Mulder?" "Yes?" "Are you free this weekend?" I open my mouth to say, that's a stupid question, but instead, "Sure," comes out. "Could you come over? I need some help moving furniture." I've stuffed the rest of my sandwich into my mouth. Muffled, I repeat, "Sure." ************ Saturday 10 AM She takes a while answering the door, then rushes away without more than, "Good morning--" She catches a wobbling vase tipping off her sofa table. "Started without me, Scully?" "Help me, Mulder." She's pushing the couch now, or at least, is leaned against it, trying to push it. You can lift me, and carry me away from a burning trailer, but can't budge that little couch, eh, Scully? "Where do you want it?" Consulting a hand-drawn plan of her apartment, she squints without her glasses. "Isn't that a little anal, even for you, Scully?" She should be annoyed, but she's turning the paper to try another angle. Distracted, all she can manage is, "Huh?" "When you want to rearrange your furniture, you just do it. You don't make a plan. You sweat and grunt, and when you're exhausted, you give up." I peer over her shoulder, and truly gasp aloud. "Scully!" There's a magic square drawn over her floor plan. "What?" She's bluffing on her nonchalance. "You? Feng shui?" "I read a book on it. It was interesting. And I needed to rearrange my furniture." "But do you believe in the principles?" She crosses her arms, glaring around the room as though her furniture is a group of suspects. "Can't hurt." "Becoming more open to extreme possibilities, Scully?" She checks the plan again. "Not necessarily. But I've had this couch everywhere in the room, and have never been happy with it. I might as well try a system. Here, help me move it out of the Disaster square and over here into Prosperity." When we're finished, I point out, "But now your back will be to the door. A no-no, feng shui wise." "True." I open the book and consult her plan. "Maybe we should leave the living room for a second. You've got trouble in your kitchen and dining room. Your table's in the Death Square, and your appliances are in Five Ghosts. Your cooking can use all the help it can get." Mildly, she says, "Fuck you, Mulder," then, "Oh, yes. I bought a new table. We'll need to put it together." She slaps the cardboard box and my heart sinks. This will require following written directions. Women expect this sort of thing from men, and the truth is, I buy furniture only if it's already assembled. "My rectangular table had too many shars. I got a round one." "Scully, this is bothering me." "What?" She's wrenching the box open. "My screwdriver and pliers are in the first drawer." "What brought this on? Really?" The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret it. Sure, I acted mature when she told me about loving some other guy. I was everything a grown-up man should be-- supportive, understanding, calm-- stifling the whimpering puppy of my unrequited love, left forgotten in the rain. Maybe I don't need to know the answer to my question. If she wants to play Dana and Fox, stepping into the pages of an Ikea catalogue, I'll go along. "Never mind, Scully. Let me find the tools." "I'm just doing some spring cleaning, Mulder." "Okay, sure." I hold the screwdriver in what I hope is the correct manner. "Part A? Slot B?" A small smile eases onto her lips. "Let me find the right parts." She bends over, quickly and methodically separating the pieces out according to the diagram. The end result resembles a reassembled skeleton. "You have--" "Yes, Mulder?" "Nothin--you got any chips, Scully?" She jerks her head towards the cupboards. "I guess I should feed you." All I find are some Taro chips. Taro. Sometimes she shows her Girl in strange ways. "Thanks, Scully. I think I'll wait for lunch." I hold the pedestal upside down so she can attach the feet. My smart mouth keeps flapping. "Okay, I got it. It's all the rage among our age group. Settling down, not going out so much, nesting." "I never go out, Mulder." She tightens a lug down so hard my balls retract into my abdomen. I open my mouth to reply, then hold off. "Turn it over." "Okay. Just tell me what you want, Scully. I'm at your bidding." She snorts a laugh. The table is finished. I haul the old one out into the hall. When I come back inside, Scully has opened the armoire drawers and is pulling out their contents. "We better empty this if we're going to move it." "We're going to move it?" "Put these things on the coffee table and couch for now." She hands me some scrapbooks. I risk a peek in the top one. Scully, in a blue bikini. I'd better stop there. "What's your sign, Scully?" "I'm using feng shui for some minor help in furniture placement, Mulder, not joining the Age of Aquarius." "In Chinese astrology, your sign will determine some of our choices." "All right, all right. Look it up." Grateful, I drop on the sofa and pick up her book. After consulting the charts, I tell her, "Wood." "How exotic." "No, now, let me check...Wood relates to growth--" I flip back, and check my sign. Metal. Wood destroys metal. Better not mention that. Find a new chapter. Relationships. Ying and yang: these are the two opposites of the universe; one cannot live without the other. Male and female --outside and inside -- heaven and earth -- tiger and dragon. "Mulder, take these things." I jump up and gallop over. She's holding up a ratty old baby doll, a scarf, and a paperweight. I take them from her, and in my haste, they slip through my fingers. "Mulder!" The paperweight bounces off my foot, and I hear a crack of the doll's head as I start hopping around, cussing. "Mulder, are you okay?" "Your doll." Its head lies in two parts. "Your doll, Scully." "Your foot, Mulder." I slump beside the broken toy. "I'm sorry, Scully. I'm a klutz. You should've asked someone else to help with this." She picks up the doll, then the back of its head. "She was already broken. See?" She points to a hairline crack across the face. "I'll just glue it back together." "Was it valuable?" "I showed you the original damage, Mulder. Her value was next to nothing." "I don't mean money." I rub my foot, making it hurt more. "Was it special?" She shrugs. "She's my Grandmother's old doll--" "Aw, Scully--" "She wouldn't be valuable even if she were pristine. She's valuable to me because she's here, in my possession. I made that crack on the face. I've already cried over her damage." I press on my big toe until my eyes water. After I recover, I pull the TV and stereo out, and we shuffle the armoire into the Good Luck Center next to the hall entrance. I've barely caught my breath when she says, "Let's do the bathroom. I need your help hanging a mirror." I follow her to the hall. A full-length mirror leans against the wall. "Getting some positive ch'i going, Scully?" "Yes, but I don't know if I can handle seeing myself in so many mirrors." I've been checking my teeth in the reflection. "What?" "I haven't spent a lot of time staring in mirrors, Mulder. It takes some getting used to, that's all." She holds up a hook. "We'll put it on the outside of the door. I need as much ch'i as possible in this bathroom. I just have to remember to keep the door closed." "Feng shui must have been started by a woman. All that emphasis on keeping the toilet cover down." She marks the door for the screws. "Yeah, well, your good luck must be going down your toilet." "True." The mirror in place, and the door closed, we move onto the bedroom. "Should we move the bed? I can see the door from it, but I'm not facing the doorway." Scully in bed. All I need is a fortune cookie. "We could. Then you'd be under the window, which would increase your ch'i." "But it would be cold as hell in the winter. There's no insulation on that window. I suppose we could caulk it." "Do you have some caulk?" "No. It would mean another trip to the hardware store." I retrieve the book from the living room, snagging us a couple of beers as well. "Okay, maybe we should simplify things. Let's do a magic square on the room." "Good idea." She's standing by the bed, her gaze going back and forth between its present position and the window. She's still thinking about a move, and my lower back spasms. "Do you have a compass?" "No...maybe in my camping supplies, down in basement storage." "Let's forget the compass method. Let's do a square with the Aspirations of the Pa-Kua." "Excuse me?" "The doorway is on the corner of the Knowledge square. So if you don't want all your knowledge to drain away, keep the door closed." "Mulder--" I'm warming up. "If we move your bed, it'll be in the Fame position." "I did want to leave my mark on the world." She's close, peering over my shoulder at the diagram. "Should I move my desk in here, by the door, to the Career square, so we get a better solve rate?" I reflect. Is it worth the labor? She wanders off, shifting a picture of us to the dresser corner. Now it's in the Marriage square. "Your bed is in the Family square using this method. Unless you've got a sick family member who needs to convalesce, I guess we should move it." "Uh, huh." She's rummaging through a drawer. We're running out of steam. At this point, I'm doing a lot more reading than moving. I drop into the armchair that's in the Wealth corner. I'm sure Scully won't mind if her wealth ch'i gets trapped behind it. She has never shown any materialist tendencies. "Fame doesn't have to mean becoming a movie star. If you want to increase your standing at work, for instance." "We could always use more of that. Does this require moving furniture?" "Nope." I read, "This area is stimulated in the usual manner, by increasing the amount of light and the hanging of crystals." "Oh, a great way to display all of Melissa's old birthday presents that I've kept tucked away." She untucks them from a box in her closet while I slurp on my beer. Finding a six-pointed glass star, she holds it up for me to see. I nod with some enthusiasm. "I need a string, though." She hurries out, leaving the ornament on the edge of her bed. I admire the way light plays on its surfaces while I finish off the bottle. She trots back into the bedroom. "All I could find was this leftover Christmas ribbon." Crawling up on the bed, she balances, then rises onto her toes, carefully, like a flamingo. Her target is an old plant hook on the ceiling towards the window. "Scully, do you want me to do that?" "No, I'm fine." Perhaps she's afraid I'll break it. I stay in the chair, flipping to the Children square that she's now in. 'If you want to have children, this area is activated by increasing the amount of light and hanging a crystal attached to a red ribbon.' My eyes blur and shimmer and I open my mouth to tell her, but I can't. I just can't. She has the red cord looped over the hook and the ornament swings, catching the sunlight, casually scattering rainbows across the room. She turns back, probably to draw my attention to this, and loses her balance. I'm there to catch her, but her weight drives me to the mattress. I should let her free, but I remain, awkwardly draped on the bed, torso twisted, arms wrapped around her warm body. She doesn't struggle. She should tell me to let her go. Or hold me back. She does neither. Her breath, deep and regular, tickles my cheek. It feels like hours have passed, and I wonder if she's fallen asleep. "I'm sorry, Mulder." She makes it sounds so painful. I laugh. "You aren't heavy, Scully." "I don't mean that," she whispers. I'm paralyzed. Something tells me to jump up and run from the room but I don't want to belie my cool exterior. "I was selfish, Mulder." She makes this sound like a crime. "I was blinded by self. Perhaps I'd denied myself, my needs, for so long--" She cuts herself off. "No, No, Dana. No excuses--" "Scully--" "You said this hasn't, but I'm so afraid I've damaged us. I can be so single-minded. I thought the risk was worth it--" I've finally caught on and start babbling to stop her. "You should have picked another guy. Maybe someone young--younger. Think about it. Sperm slows down with age. And all the times I stuck my fingers where I shouldn't have, might have had some effect." "You put your fingers in goo, not your testicles." Her breath catches. "I'm the one with the missing ova, Mulder. If it was anyone's fault--" "This isn't our fault. Just bad luck." Sometimes, a non-believer's excuses can sound pretty weak. She gives me a bye. "If we're truly still friends, Mulder, I think we've been pretty lucky. I was so afraid we'd lost something--" "I didn't lose anything I couldn't spare--" Her chuckle warms me. Thank god. She can still laugh. "You. You are the one who's lost so much--" "Mulder, I wouldn't change anything." She's right. Nothing has changed. But everything has changed. Ying and yang. Her damp tee shirt comes off easily, followed by her bra. Our earlier exertions have left her pale skin marked where the straps and underwires wore at her skin. I soothe those bright rashes with my tongue. Her fingers wind into my hair, guiding my paths. This is easy. Much easier than I ever imagined, and I'm frightened by the simplicity of it all. There's a seduction, a rush beyond the physical response - the fabulous, fucking sensation of her palming my balls - to an emotional reaction, how shooting heroin must feel. Her eyes mirror those thoughts back to me. They hold the glassy stare of an addict who will do anything to keep this feeling going, and I have to cry for both of us. We are lost. "Mulder, I'm sorry. What's wrong?" I rush out a reassurance. "You haven't done anything. You've done everything. Keep doing everything." Her head dips, she pushes up my shirt, her mouth touches above my belly button, and I'm gone. Boneless, I pour out of my clothes and melt into the comforter. I manage to lift my arms. Time is measured in her breathing. It quickens as I ease down her shorts. Lengthens to match the long strokes of my palms down her back, her thighs, and up over her stomach and breasts. She rolls my inert body and crawls on top. Crystal light fragments play in her hair and across her shoulders. I try to capture them. "Mulder--" "Uh?" is the best I can do. "Nothin'," she whispers as she slides up my thighs, leaving a trail of alert body hairs. I hiss and my spine arches, but she presses me down to the mattress and my cock against my belly. "Oh. Uh. Oh." I must form warning words. She understands, and rides up, then down onto me. That was easy too. A little too easy for my pride but now she doesn't do anything more. She goes slack, her head nestling under my chin. "Mulder." I lift the heavy weight of my arms skyward, trying to catch the lightflakes again, hoping for their power. Giving up, I drop my hands to her shoulders, roll us, and follow the call to thrust. She raises her palms, giving praise, then settles them on my ass. No finesse. No classy moves. No sexy twists. No secret techniques. No lasting power. No orgasm for her. I shove my face into the pillow. "Fuck." "Mulder." This time there's no vague wandering. It's a command. I must obey. I toss onto my back. She's on her side, draped out as long as she can go. Her hair is tangled, and she tries to smooth it before dropping her hand to her hip. "Mulder, if I'd wanted an orgasm, I wouldn't have had sex with you." "Uh?" "Sorry. That came out wrong. I mean, this wasn't about having an orgasm. I didn't expect one. That wasn't what I was looking for. There's too much emotional convolutions between us-- too much nervousness." "I wasn't nervous." Which is very odd for me in bed, but I don't add that. I push her over on her back. "Here, Scully. Give me a chance--" I try to pry a hand in between her legs. She giggles, an almost frightening occurrence, or perhaps I'm just a little emotionally raw, and grabs my wrist. Staring at my shoulder blade very seriously, she says, "You're going to think I'm an idiot." I'm suddenly worried. My frazzled nerves can't take any more jarring. "Not at all, Scully, what is it?" She can't even confront my shoulder, and has to bury her face in the hollow of my neck. She doesn't say anything, and then, just when I think she isn't going to, finally whispers, "I had an orgasm, but it was a mental coming." "Oh?" For some reason, she lightly punches my arm before continuing. "My body just couldn't keep up. There was a wave --but of realizations and emotions. I could see I not only loved you, but was in love with you." There's a raw edge to her voice when she adds, "Painfully so. Like some schoolgirl. You don't need that right now. We don't need that right now. I need to remain in control--" "No, Scully. Don't. It's very--" What is the right word? Cool seems to shallow, but it truly contains my entire thought spectrum at the moment. "Very nice." Not great, Mulder, but good enough for government work. "Oh! And I love you too." Her nose is cold on my skin. "I know, Mulder." "Oh, yeah, right. But I'll get another chance at the real thing?" Now her cheek is hot on my shoulder. "I..." I will my own death, but it doesn't happen. Damn. "I hope so." I kiss her right down to her tonsils. The relief knocks me on my ass, and my loose body turns to sand, drifting into the mattress. Through half-closed lids, I watch her get up, pull on my smelly shirt, and start puttering around the room. My last memory is of her arranging candles on her bureau by the mirror, and as she crosses the room to fetch a fat pillar, she reaches up, and tips the crystal with a fingertip. Again, the light prism confetti dances across the bed, and I sleep. ***The End*** *********************** FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTES: This started out as a post- 'all things' right after the episode. I wanted to write a little smut biscuit, but everyone took the good scenarios. Then I got the feng shui idea. Bought a book: 'Feng Shui for Apartment Living' by Richard Webster. Don't blame him for any inaccuracies. I put as much research effort into this story as a sub-par MOTW is given. I saw the crystal/red ribbon note, and thought that would make a wonderful 'How?' for Scully's pregnancy. But then I got them in bed, and had no idea what to do next. So I sat on it a year, until 'Per Manum' gave me the final piece the story needed. I found the whole idea that Scully would ask a man she knows is in love with her to jack off for her, a tad...thoughtless! Our Scully! So, god help me, I wrote a 'fix-it' fic. *cringe* But it was fun to write something soft and sweet, or at least, as soft and sweet as I can do. Feedback, if you so desire: bugs1231@my-deja.com -- bugsfic's hole is at http://underthewing.com/bugs and more ficiness is at http://underthewing.com/rookery Wondering what the hell bugs is up to these days? http://underthewing.com