From: akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
      
   TITLE:  No Promises   
   AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan   
   EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
   DISTRIBUTION:  Wherever.  Just let me know.   
      
   RATING:  PG-13 for not very explicit suggestiveness   
   CATEGORIES:  VR   
   KEYWORDS:  UST, Mulder/Scully romance, touch of angst   
   SPOILERS:  None   
      
   SUMMARY:  As soon as his lips touched hers, he knew it had been a   
   mistake. He had kissed Scully out of hunger, out of fear, out of love,   
   but he couldn't do it as a joke, and she knew it the second he did.   
      
   Disclaimer:  Everybody in this belongs to somebody else.   
      
   *********************   
      
   Scully slumped on the couch. She was beyond tired. She was well on her   
   way to brain dead. She noted with interest that there wasn't a single   
   thought in her head. She wanted to sleep, preferably for a very long   
   time, but her body was still keyed up enough that she knew it would be   
   a while. TV, she thought numbly. This is exactly what TV was invented   
   for. She clicked on the set, tossed the remote onto the coffee table,   
   and stretched out on the couch. History Channel. Perfect.   
      
   Mulder wandered in, and she was startled to realize that she had   
   almost forgotten he was there. Of course, he'd been gone quite a long   
   time. "Fall in?" she mumbled, cocking an eyebrow at him.   
      
   He rubbed at his stubbly jaw. "No, but I think I may have nodded off   
   at some point."   
      
   The mental image made her giggle, which made his eyebrows shoot up,   
   and she swallowed it quickly, looking up at him without lifting her   
   head from the pillow of her arm. His eyes were dull, his skin a little   
   pale, his shoulders slumped. "You look like I feel."   
      
   "I feel worse than I look. Scoot." He made a half-hearted waving   
   motion with his hand, and she obligingly pulled her legs up. He   
   flopped down into the space she had made for him and leaned his head   
   back against the cushions, his eyes sliding closed. It was no good.   
   His body was ready to drop, but his mind was still jangling. He sighed   
   and lifted his head feebly to look at the TV. It took a minute to   
   register what he was seeing. There seemed to be a lot of half-dressed   
   people with strange hairstyles and great tans. It dawned on him   
   finally that it was part of the History Channel's ongoing attempt to   
   recreate every aspect of ancient Egyptian life on film. Surely they   
   were almost done by now?   
      
   Scully felt the warm length of his thigh against her shins, and her   
   feet fit perfectly around the curve his ass. Nice, she thought. She   
   fought the impulse to wiggle her toes, just to see what he would do.   
   Not much, if the utter exhaustion on his face was anything to go by.   
   His arm came down to rest on her legs, his hand curling over her knee.   
   That was nice, too. He was warm and familiar, and she was too tired to   
   be anything but comfortable with his touch.   
      
   For a long time they sat that way, not talking, not moving, just   
   converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. When her body had just about   
   drifted into the same state of somnolence as her mind, she felt him   
   shifting her legs and then stretching out behind her and laying his   
   head on the curve of her hip. One arm slid up to rest along her back,   
   one draped over her legs, and he curled his long legs up practically   
   to his chest to fit himself onto the couch. She could feel him from   
   her shoulders to her toes, which were incidentally nestled pretty darn   
   close to his groin, and she shivered a little at the contact. "Mulder?"   
      
   He didn't open his eyes or move a single muscle. "Hmm?"   
      
   "What are you doing?"   
      
   "Snuggling." She could practically see the thought occur to him,   
   although he still didn't look at her, and he couldn't really get any   
   more boneless and immobile. "Is that okay?"   
      
   Scully reached down, combed her fingers gently through his soft, short   
   hair, letting them brush over his forehead. No, she thought to   
   herself, it absolutely shouldn't be okay. But she knew that wasn't   
   what was going to come out of her mouth, not when he was so warm and   
   cozy and sleepy against her back. "Yeah," she said quietly. "It's okay."   
      
   He made a small, contented sound and nuzzled against her like a child.   
   "I'm so tired, Scully."   
      
   "I know," she murmured, still stroking his hair gently.   
      
   "I think I'm getting too old for this." He tightened his grip on her,   
   shifted to make himself a little more comfortable, and managed to fit   
   the curves of his body perfectly against hers. His mind registered the   
   fact that he was nestled against his partner and that if he were alive   
   right then he'd probably have some explaining to do to the feet that   
   were about an inch from his penis. But, things as they were, he   
   instead felt a subtle tingle of contentment throughout his body, and   
   he thanked his lucky stars that he was tired enough to just enjoy this   
   without creating another Incident they would never talk about. Her   
   fingers were still in his hair, absently tracing slow, soft circles on   
   his scalp, and he snuggled his cheek a little deeper into the curve of   
   her body. "Hey, Scully?"   
      
   "Hmm?" She was slipping over the edge into sleep, lulled by the lazy   
   satisfaction of his presence.   
      
   "What kind of detergent do you use? It smells really nice."   
      
   She opened her eyes again and looked down at the top of his head, as   
   if she could tell from that angle if he was kidding. "It's unscented."   
      
   "Really?" She felt his breath through the fabric and onto her skin as   
   he tested her answer. "Must be you that smells so nice, then."   
      
   She smiled, let her hand slip down from his head to the back of his   
   neck, to rest in the curve where his neck met his shoulder. He let out   
   a soft sigh, and then they both drifted into sleep.   
      
   Scully woke up some time later and was, for a moment, deeply   
   disoriented. She was on her couch. She wasn't alone. The TV was   
   flickering with Egyptians. She closed her eyes again and thought for a   
   moment until it came back to her. The ache in her spine helped remind   
   her. Her body felt like somebody had been kicking it with steel-toed   
   boots. She was sore just about everywhere she could focus on. Her   
   brain felt a little less mushy than it had, but that wasn't of any   
   practical value right then. And, if she wasn't mistaken, the warm,   
   solid body cradled against hers was Mulder. She shifted enough to look   
   at him but not disturb him and realized she could have banged pots in   
   his ears without him noticing. He was out. Total dead weight on her   
   hip and over her legs. She kind of needed to go to the bathroom, but   
   there was no way she could extricate herself without waking him, and   
   she knew he needed the rest.   
      
   With a small sigh, she settled back down and just looked at him. It   
   was a strange angle, a sort of horizontal profile, but she knew that   
   face like the back of her hand. She studied it when he talked, when he   
   was thinking and oblivious to everything else, when he fell asleep in   
   cars or airplanes, most of her mind on the task at hand but a small   
   portion of it allowed to wander over his features and memorize the way   
   they looked right then. She wondered if he had any idea how beautiful   
   he was to her. She knew he thought the same about her. She had caught   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)