From: LookABloom Date: 13 Jan 1999 21:59:08 GMT Subject: NEW: Weather With You 1/1 RainFic :-) Title: Weather With You Author: Me Rating: PG Spoilers: Oh, everything, and yes, Rain King. Category: M/S something-or-other. Post Rain King fic. Summary: Well, duh. Forgive this, it's schmoopy and weird and probably will piss someone off. BUT I HAD TO DO IT. THUGS WERE HOLDING MY HAMSTER HOSTAGE. *writhetwitchdrool* Here we go. :-) When the rain comes, we run and hide our heads, we might as well be dead when the rain comes, when the rain comes... Cool View Motor Lodge Kroner, KS "Is it just me," said Mulder, pushing open the bathroom door. "Or is it obscenely warm tonight?" Scully lay stretched out on the bed, her pajama top unbuttoned partway and the bottoms tossed over a chair in the apparent aftermath of an earlier frantic, heat-induced shedding. She pulled the blanket discreetly over her bare legs when Mulder appeared, but a moment later kicked it off. She flexed her feet and wiggled her toes; Mulder grabbed one as he passed by and pinched it, causing her to squawk. "What does the thermostat say?" she asked, rubbing the molested digit against her ankle. Mulder paused at the small, gray box on the wall by the door and peered at it. He tapped it with his finger once, and the device fell to the floor. Scully sighed and leaned against the headboard. "If this heat keeps up," he said, throwing the door open. "The tires on our plane will melt and we'll never get out of Kansas." He looked at Scully. "Don't suppose your slippers are made of ruby sequins?" She cast him a withering glance. "If you only had a brain, we wouldn't be here to begin with." "Ah, come on Scully." Mulder meandered over to the bed and sat down. He reached for her toes again but she quickly drew them up and under her body. "If we hadn't come up here, we wouldn't have tapped that first domino and set off the events that led to the end of the drought that was destroying this town. We SAVED these people, Scully." "You mean, we played Cupid to a ditzy blonde and a wound-up, Vulcan basset hound." Scully punched her pillow for emphasis. "Bitter? Party of one?" "I am NOT bitter," she said, pointedly. "This case, Mulder - this wasn't even a CASE, it was a FARCE. It was a SITCOM. It was a skit on Saturday Night Live mocking the X-Files. My God, Mulder, you were playing Dear Abby to a lovesick weatherman while I was in a ladies room as Ann Landers!" She puffed with frustration, then let a sudden smile spread across her face. "I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of you giving anyone dating advice." Mulder shot her a murderous look. "I think this is where I make some sarcastic comment about pots and kettles." She laughed. "Sure. Go ahead. You're right. That's why this ca- this FIELD TRIP - was so ridiculous. I mean, come on, Mulder. Us? Telling these people how to go about their love lives? Did that not strike you as the least bit asinine?" Mulder suddenly shifted, as if he had an itch he couldn't scratch. "We were only doing it because we had to stop the rain." She nodded. "Right. Okay." She kicked off the covers. "God, it's so hot in here." She looked at Mulder, wide-eyed. "Do you suppose something is wrong with Holman?" "I don't know..." Mulder got up and went to the window. He pulled back the curtain, exposing the window. A thick film of condensation covered the glass. "The sky's reasonably clear, a few scattered clouds. But it's like..." He turned and looked at his partner. Her face was pinched. "It's like the air is sweating," she said. They made a face at each other. "Ew." Mulder laughed. "I guess prom night's going well for Holman." Scully made a gagging noise and unfolded her legs, swinging them over the side of the bed. She wriggled as sweat trickled down the backs of her knees. She picked up Darrel's client list from the nightstand and used it to fan herself. The heat was making her ill, her stomach churned slightly and her head was starting to throb. She pondered the idea of a cold shower. Mulder leaned against the window for a moment, staring off at the neighboring pastures. He allowed himself a chuckle at the memory of that wretched cow being sucked up into the sky with a plaintive moo. He turned toward his partner. "He-" Mulder stopped talking. Her hair lay flat and matted with perspiration against her head. The humidity made her face puffy and her makeup cake around the corners of her eyes. Her lipstick, nibbled at gradually over the course of a day, remained nothing but a thin, jagged line of pink around chapped lips. Her bare legs were white from lack of sun and speckled with faint, brown stubble. She had chipped purple toenail polish. It wasn't the worse he'd seen her. No, the worst he'd seen her was when he pulled her out of a frozen capsule of green liquid in the arctic. Or her brief flirtation with a navy blue suit and a red blouse back in the early '90s. It was a toss-up. This wasn't the worst he'd seen her, but it wasn't very attractive at all. The point was, he was seeing her this way, and she didn't care. When did we get so familiar? When did she get that comfortable around me? And when did I start to notice? He really did love her. It was so weird. He'd heard about it. Waking up one morning and falling in love - either for the first time or all over again - with the face you see every day. In his case it was waking up sometime during the day in a hospital bed with a belly full of seawater and Excedrin headache #1013, and realising that the condescending, annoyed and utterly handsome face peering at him was the one he loved. Then he realised he was looking at Frohike and he'd promised never to accept morphine for pain again. But he loved her. And he'd told her. He'd often wanted to tell her again. Looking at her now, it was all he could do to stay by the window, motionless and silent, and watch her sit on the bed and sweat. Scully fanned herself harder. She wanted a shower, more than anything, but the decision required a moral debate. She'd never dry, in this humidity. Any more moisture on her body and she would sprout moss. She would be clean, and probably feel better, but she couldn't use her hair dryer, and she didn't relish the novelty of looking like Buckwheat tomorrow morning. She looked at Mulder and found him staring at her, his eyes darting to the object d'art on the wall -- dogs playing pinochle -- once they caught her gaze. She swallowed. This is bad. A five o'clock shadow embroidered his jaw, and his hair sat on his head in jagged wet chunks. He had on a blue t-shirt that kept sticking to the underside of his pectorals where the sweat would gather, and huge dark stains adorned his underarms. She could feel the tangy odor he gave off touch her nose from across the room, slightly-off-putting but not enough to drive her out of the room in search of oxygen. He'd smelled worse coming out of the sewers, after a night in the woods, after Tooms pawed him with bile-covered hands. He had on boxer shorts, and Scully noted with slight dismay that he had those really furry ape-legs she hated on men. She also noted that he swung to the left. None of this was anything new. She'd seen it all before. When did they get so familiar? When did he get this comfortable around me? And when did I start to notice? She slid off the bed, or rather, peeled herself off of the covers, and went into the bathroom. Bedhead or no bedhead, she thought as she turned on the water. As the spigot vomited a brown, muddy liquid into the basin, a single expletive echoed off the stained bathroom tile. Mulder pushed open the partially-closed door to find her sitting on the side of the tub, staring at the muck. "The pipes are still affected from the flooding," she said, wearily. "The heat's probably not helping, either." He put a hand on her shoulder. "I can run to the 7-Eleven and get some bottled water." She nodded and he moved to leave. She caught his arm. "Mulder." He turned. "Yeah." "You don't feel like a hypocrite?" She looked up at him. "I mean, after telling Sheila and Holman to play by heart?" Mulder put the lid down on the toilet and perched on it, lightly. "It is a little contrived, isn't it? It's like Martha Stewart preaching that homemade meals are best, when she lives on Big Macs." Scully smirked a little. "Really, though." She sighed, with such unabashed sadness it stung Mulder somewhere inside, like a knife between the ribs. "I stood in that ladies' room and told Sheila that the best relationships begin out of friendship. That you just look up one day into that familiar face and you see something you never even thought about before." Mulder reached up and touched her lank hair. "Did you believe what you were saying?" "Of course I did," she said with a wan little smile. "It's happened to me before. And I..." She caught herself. "Nothing. I just felt a little stupid giving that woman advice." "What were you going to say, Scully?" Mulder asked. She glanced up and quickly dropped her gaze to the tile. She chewed the rest of her lipstick off, finding the metallic taste oddly comforting. Then she spoke. "I guess talking about it made me miss it," she said, finally. "You know, that weird little rush you get when you realise you love someone?" Mulder smiled, tightening the grip his hand still had on her shoulder. "Yeah, I know." She looked up then and Mulder almost slid off the edge of the toilet seat. The look in her eyes was wistfulness, hope and sadness, tumultous and cloudy like a hurricane. "You know, of course you know." She smiled again, but this time it was a shaky, uncertain smile. "I'm still waiting for it to happen. That day I look up and... that switch has been flipped." Mulder leaned forward and bumped his forehead against hers, gently. "Would you tell me when that happened?" Scully laughed. "Oh, you'd know, Mulder. You'd know." A drop of sweat trickled down Mulder's nose and onto Scully's. She leaned back and swatted at it, feigning disgust. "Can you go get the water now? I'm really thirsty." "As you wish," he said, rising to leave. He swept past her in a pungent breeze of perspiration and wet fabric. Scully inhaled, deeply, squeezing her eyes shut to force the scent into memory. Ten minutes later, thought it hadn't seemed possible, the heat had intensified. Scully, driven to extremes, had gone through Mulder's bags until she found what looked like an old t-shirt he wouldn't miss. She tore the sleeves and asked the front desk for a pair of scissors to chop at the collar. She shed her soaked pajama top and bra and donned the makeshift tanktop, ignoring the gaping holes at her armpits that slightly revealed her breasts. The tiny, tiny bit of relief brought by the ventilation was worth whatever teasing she would have to endure from her partner when he returned. She sat near the window, fanning herself with the Do Not Disturb sign, when Mulder crashed through the door, his arms loaded down with several large bottles of Naya. He deposited them on the bed, leaving the door ajar, and looked at his partner. "That's my shirt!" he said. "You killed it!" "You'll exuse me if I don't raise my arms," she said, standing and plucking a bottle from the bed. She cracked it open and took a long, slow drink. She set the bottle on the small table with a thud and grinned. She smacked her lips. "Ahh. Thanks, Mulder." "No problem," he said. "I'll put a couple in the bathroom, you can use them to cool off or wash your hair, and we can refill the toilet." He picked up several of the bottles and lugged them into the bathroom. Scully took another drink and watched him arrange them on the counter, labels facing out, for some odd reason. "Hey Mulder," Scully called. He leaned out of the bathroom door. "Yeah?" "I just thought of something. I thought that when Holman told Sheila how he felt, the weird weather would stop." Mulder frowned and came back into the room. He sat on the bed and tucked his chin in his hand. "You're right... Something must be wrong..." "Mulder." Scully eyed him. "You said that the weather is affected when Holman doesn't express himself..." "Right. And - oh shit." He laughed. "You're saying Holman isn't...letting go." Scully took another drink. "He's being a gentleman." "Ah." Mulder nodded. "Well, as chivalrous as that is, you'll excuse me for hoping he decides to look out for Number One tonight, because we're going to melt if he doesn't." He scrambled off the bed to the door and threw it open. He stepped outside, threw his head back and shouted to the heavens. "FOR GOD'S SAKE, HOLMAN, *COME* ALREADY!" He came back in to find Scully doubled over with laughter. "Mulder," she gasped. "Do you honestly -- hee hee -- think that... hey." She stopped laughing. He looked at her. "What?" Scully stared at him. He opened his mouth to make a smart remark, but slowly shut it, when the look on her face went from a puzzled awe to one of pure, radiant happiness. The smile spread across her face and reflected off of his. "Scully?" She nodded and slid out of her chair. She went up to Mulder and touched his face. "I really like you." "Yeah?" Mulder grinned and brought a palm to her cheek. "I love you, too." "Ah. That's nice." Mulder laughed aloud. "What was it?" "What was what?" "What flipped the switch?" She studied him. "I'm not sure. I don't really want to know. Do you?" "Yes. I want to do it again." She smiled. "Wait." She gripped his arms. "Right there. There it is. Don't move. Just stay like that for the next fifty years." Mulder swatted her and took her face in his hands. He put his lips to hers and found them salty and dry. They parted, licked their lips, and met again. "Did you feel that?" she whispered. "I thought I felt a... breeze." Mulder's reply was lost on the sudden gust of wind that rushed around him into the room. It swirled around, disturbing papers and clothing, rustling Scully's hair and sending a particularly friendly breeze snaking up Mulder's leg into his shorts. He scooted away from the door, allowing the gale to air out the stuffy, overheated room. Scully held up her arms and twirled, allowing the air to sweep around her, under her shirt, through her hair and into her lungs. The temperature sank quickly, and finally, Mulder closed the door. He cracked the window, and they listened to the wind die down to a gentle, lazy breathing that sounded vaguely like... snoring. Mulder smirked at Scully. "Chivalry isn't dead, but he appears to be exhausted." He held out his hands to her. Scully laughed and opened her arms. --------- A week later... --------- The man in #40 couldn't sleep. His wife found him at the open window in the living room. "What are you doing, love?" She placed a kiss on his neck, and he reached back to envelope her in a half-hug. "Just getting some air. It's pretty warm tonight." "The Weather Channel said it's La Nina." She kissed him again. "Come to bed." "I will. Give me a minute to catch a breeze." She nodded and went back to the bedroom. He leaned against the sill and breathed in. The air was thick with humidity, and the temperature seemed to be rising. Sweat pricked his receding brow and trickled down his neck. The sky had darkened with blue and gray clouds, and he wondered if there would be a thunderstorm tonight. He could feel the electricity in the air. Then, as quickly as it had tensed, the night relaxed. The clouds dissipated and a gentle, rolling breeze swept through the buildings, like a sigh. Like the gentle sounds coming from the apartment next door. He breathed deeply, then closed the window, leaving Arlington to breathe a gentle dawn unto itself. end Feedback is Indian Summer.