************************************************* JUST SAY YES (8/10) jeylan@earthlink.net This story is rated R -- See part 1 for headers and warnings. *NO ARCHIVE* except by request. ************************************************* Inside the warm apartment, Scully shrugged out of her coat and kicked off her shoes. There was a slow song playing softly on the stereo. Laurie headed off towards the kitchen with the groceries. "You really must stay here tonight," he was saying. "We can have a good chat over brekkie, since this evening has got, well, a tiny bit out of hand, shall we say? And anyway, there's simply no reason you should be stuck in some dreadful hotel when we've got plenty of room for you. The couch makes out into a bed, or you can have the bedroom, if you'd prefer." Mulder gave Scully a taunting look, raising and lowering his brows. "We can have the bed," he mouthed, and followed after Laurie. Scully sagged back against the door, leaned heavily, and let herself slide down slow to the floor. Outside this door, behind her back, the cold night waited. The night where real things lurked. Where, if Mulder touched her, it was real. It counted. It was on the record. City night, filled with people and events and repercussions. Hard, and cold, and tangible. They could walk out now, get back on the 'T'. She tried to imagine that -- would they touch each other? Would they walk arm in arm? What would they say? They could ride the 'T' back to their hotel, holding hands. They could say goodnight, standing on the raised walkway, outside their two separate doors. Maybe Mulder would ask the question. Maybe (she cringed) maybe she would ask it. Maybe they would both be too cold and too afraid, by that time, to ask it at all. Maybe the question would remain unasked. Damn fucking awkward question, anyway, when you stopped to think about it. Much easier to avoid it, since they were both so good at avoiding things. They could just say goodnight, like nothing happened, and open the doors to their separate rooms. Cold rooms. Hard beds. An hour from now she could be lying awake, sleepless and alone, thinking of Mulder on the other side of the wall. One hour from now? Two? Next week? Next month? How many nights? How many years could this drag on? Elbows on her knees, Scully dropped her face down into her fists. Her thoughts and her whole life and all the mysterious meanings of things seemed to spin by in a vortex, with Mulder at the center. She wasn't in any condition to make a decision like this tonight, and she knew it. First rule of ... well ... whatever: Never make any important decisions while under the influence. The problem was, when she wasn't under the influence, her decisions always came out the same. So there was obviously something wrong somewhere. Nevertheless, she should wait until tomorrow, when she was thinking clearly, and then... Or, better yet, next week. She could think about all this much more sensibly next week. She could make an appointment with herself. 'Monday, 6 p.m., draw up a list of pros and cons, and decide whether to make love to Mulder.' She heard Mulder clear his throat, and her head shot up. God, he was gorgeous! It took her breath away to look at him. The long, elegant lines of his legs, the way his jeans molded across his thighs. The mound of his sex. He'd stopped moving, stopped talking. He was standing above her, with his hands on his hips, waiting. And she was staring, open mouthed, at his crotch. Scully gulped, swallowed, looked up slowly to his face, blinking through flyaway strands of hair. Her fists were still up like she was trying to protect herself, and her face felt hot. Mulder was looking at her with amusement and confusion in his eyes. "Scully?" he asked softly. Warily. She swallowed again. "Yeah?" "Do you want to go now, or, uh ... stay?" Her heart beat very fast, and her mind stopped. She wanted desperately to say the right thing, make the right choice, but she didn't know what that was. A new song was starting. "Dance?" she whispered, hopefully, and offered up her hands. Mulder hesitated only slightly before lifting her up. Scully slid her feet near his, and pulled against him, pivoting, letting him support her weight. She came to her feet standing directly against him, closer than he'd expected. She could feel his surprise -- surprise that she'd let him lift her, and pleasure as he responded to the way she was nuzzling close into his body, into his space, pressing her face against his chest, and into his armpit. Mulder's arms came around her, gently, carefully, and she slid her arms around his waist. Tentatively, they began to move with the music. She could hear the beating of his heart. Mulder, recovering a little, began to lead. He danced them slowly out away from the door, moving with an easy, graceful swing. Letting her drift in his arms, making her feel like there was no solid ground under her feet. In his arms, she could fly. Mulder was a wonderful dancer. She had always known this about him. Before she ever saw him dance, she had known. Why had she never danced with him before tonight? It was so easy to dance with Mulder. She could read his energy, his intentions. She had never felt so graceful before in her life. Never followed so well. It was a sensation like floating in a clear, warm current. When he moved, she moved, without needing to think. She felt weightless. No one else was dancing. Mulder was really moving them around the floor, swinging her easily in his arms. He wasn't moving fast or frantic, he was just flowing. He was testing the boundaries of the space they danced in, and letting her feel the effortless possibilities of motion -- tempting her to relax, to trust, and to let him lead. Was any of this grace her own, or was it all Mulder's? It felt like waking up inside someone else's dream. Mulder's dream? Did it matter? They'd already wasted so much time, dancing awkwardly around each other, month after month, pretending ... Scully's throat tightened up. Pretending ... It broke her heart. She only wanted to be here, like this, in his arms. Why had it taken so long to get here? Balancing herself against his balance, pivoting at his direction, her right hand clasped in his, Scully's left hand started to stray. Her left hand, of its own accord, started sliding down onto Mulder's ass. Mulder's right hand was huge and hot on her hip, and he seemed to enjoy moving her where he wanted her. Sighing, Scully slid her hand up, up his back, around his side, up his chest, and throat, and around to the back of his hot neck. Threading her fingers into his hair, she pulled his face down, to nuzzle her cheek against his. She couldn't remember ever feeling this way in her life before. When the song ended, the stereo fell silent, but Mulder didn't release her. And she didn't step away. They stayed close together, swaying slightly to unheard music, caressing cheek against cheek. The room was filled with quiet, sexy sounds. Scully closed her eyes dreamily, and wondered idly where the sounds were coming from. Not from her, she hoped. And not from Mulder, unfortunately. But it was as if the room around them was pulsing with their thoughts, moaning and breathing heavy. Was that possible? "What do you want to do?" Mulder whispered roughly into her ear. Her eyes drifted open, focusing on a skewed vision beyond his shoulder of Bradley and Justin on the couch, dry humping, groping, glassy eyed. Kissing wildly. She closed her eyes again, and snuggled back against Mulder. But his body felt tense, now. He was waiting for something. A decision. From her. "Scully?" He wanted her to say it, wanted her to make up her mind. Jonathan was crouching by the stereo. "How 'bout Duke Ellington?" he asked, but no one answered. The first strains of "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" insinuated themselves into the room. Mulder wasn't holding her as close anymore. Scully sighed. She took a long, envious look at Bradley and Justin, and ran the options through her head one more time. To allow it to be real or not, that was the question. To admit, or to deny. This whole night so far had only been a sort of digression. The question was whether to bring these feelings out with them into the real world tomorrow, or walk away. Whether to let the truth rise to the surface now, or push it back down. She didn't feel ready for the cold, solid world outside. She sighed again. "Let's smoke," she said. Mulder didn't move. "OK." He seemed unsure, waiting for her to take the lead. She took him by the hand, and drew him back to the floor pillows. Pushing him down with her fingertips, she scanned the room for the pipe and the baggie. Mulder flopped where she put him, and watched her, wide-eyed. She located what she was looking for. Picking up the pipe and lighter off the floor, she flicked at the lighter absently. Then her eyes came back to lock with his. "You sure you want to do this, Mulder?" She couldn't really say what she wanted to say, so she just had to hope he knew she wasn't talking about the weed. His eyes were dark and scared and excited, looking up at her. "Huh?" he said. "'Cause I'm in a dangerous mood. Maybe if ... if ..." She cleared her throat. "Maybe you should run. While you can." Wordlessly, Mulder swallowed. And shook his head. "I'm not running," he said. "Sometimes I worry about you, you know that?" Scully muttered, and went to get the baggie off the coffee table. Tapping the ashes out of the bowl, she helped herself to a swig of someone's drink, and stole a long, hard look at Bradley's hand shoved firmly down the front of Justin's pants. Then she went back over to Mulder, and flopped down in the pillows beside him. Efficiently, she began to refill the pipe under the hot watchfulness of his doting, astonished eyes. She offered the pipe. "Are you planning to get me stoned again, Agent Scully?" he murmured as he set it to his lips. She just smiled. "Trying to corrupt me? Lead me astray? Seduce me from the paths of righteousness and good health?" Scully, who had been offering the lighter, took it away again. "For your information, Mr. Smartass, this is one of the *less* stupid things I've seen you do! The most recent medical journals I've read argue pretty persuasively that there is no significant health risk, even from long term use. In fact, there has never been any solid research to support any kind of medical danger, aside from respiratory irritation. From a strictly medical standpoint, it's no worse than coffee or tea!" "Oh, do tell, Dr. Scully!" Mulder was laughing at her with his eyes, and that know-it-all tone of his just egged her on. "All right! Marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. THC is a less powerful pharmacological agent than caffeine. You think I don't know this stuff, don't you, Mulder? No reputable study has ever been able to support any claim of brain damage. Even the risk for birth defects appears to be low. In fact, research shows a striking lack of clinically significant actions on lower brain function, and the negative physiological effects are minimal." "Well, then." Mulder had a devilish twinkle in his eye. "Not to mention the positive benefits to chemotherapy patients, and --" "But Scully, you forgot the most important part!" Mulder interrupted smoothly. He lifted the pipe as if giving a toast. "This is a *door*," he said. "Altered consciousness, consciously entered, is an enhanced state of perception." He set his big, warm hand over her hand which held the lighter, and pulled it against his stomach. In a soft, mumblingly hypnotic voice, he said, "It's a *better* way of using the mind than what we experience in the normal, waking state." "Oh, is that so?" Scully swallowed hard at the lump in her throat. She stared at his hand on hers, and then at his eyes, which were burning with happiness and on-ness, and there-ness. "Then shut up and smoke," she whispered. Mulder moaned. "Oh, god, I love it when you say things like that! Lead me astray any time you want, Scully!" Not quite meeting his eyes, she just laughed, and held the light for him. The jazz music was getting in around the edges of her mind, and she found that she liked it, found that she could get lost in it. As the weed hit, all the big science words lost their shining interest, and dissolved comfortably from her thoughts, leaving room for music. More music than she ever knew there was, before. The two of them laid back into the pillows side by side, passing the pipe between them, both absorbed in the jazz. The music was all full of patterns, intricate, winding patterns, spiraling sinuously deeper than she'd ever suspected, right down into the soul of everything. Scully knew what she wanted, but knowing didn't help. Now that she consciously intended to touch him, it seemed like such an enormous thing that she didn't know how to start. It was hard to even look at him, for fear he might be looking back. Or might not be. Musing, she set the pipe on the floor. She watched the smoke drift up, watched it coil and separate around Mulder's wrist as he reached to pick it up. The music was dancing the smoke into music coils, which was interesting. She watched the smoke-music for a while, and then accepted the pipe again, just for the joy of touching Mulder's fingers. Couldn't he feel it? The fine glow that threaded through things? The way the air between them was waiting for something to happen? ... end of part 8