This is a companion piece to my earlier "Diet Coke", available on Gossamer. This story is dedicated to the ever-encouraging Red Valerian, who asked for a Skinner/Scully counterpart to the Mulder/Scully antics in "Diet Coke". I hope this fits the bill!
Though this story could be justly accused of being a "Plot, what plot?", I hope that you will not find it to be a "Characterization, what characterization?"
Title: Diet Pepsi
Author: Romana Clef
E-mail: romanac@hotmail.com
Spoilers: None
Category: S
Keywords: Skinner/Scully
Summary: Learn more about Scully's healthy and active fantasy life.
"Diet Coke, please."
"I'm sorry, we only have Pepsi."
"Oh, Diet Pepsi's fine."
"Would he like anything to drink?"
"No, just let him sleep."
The flight attendant poured Scully a measly plastic cupful of soda with ice, set it down on the tray with the obligatory peanuts, and moved her cart on up the narrow aisle.
Mulder had slumped the wrong way. Instead of leaning on the window, he was leaning toward her, taking up the entire armrest, his elbow spilling into her personal airspace. Even the stale, artificial airplane smells couldn't disguise the fact that his "sports scent" deodorant was starting to lose its battle with 36 hours worth of sweat.
None of this actually bothered Scully, and that was a fact that was truly irksome in its own right. That even as pissed off at him as she was now, she could still get a cheap thrill out of his physical nearness... well, it was just one more paradox of their complicated relationship. So was the great surge of irritated fondness she felt for the sprawling, sleeping doofus, as she looked over at him.
Thrill and fondness notwithstanding, she was still going to cheat on him. Imaginarily, of course. Since the only sex she ever had with Mulder was imaginary sex, she could go boff the pilot and copilot in the cockpit (cockpit? Good lord, in all her 34 years she had never realized the double entendre possibilities of that word until now) right this minute, and it would still only count as imaginary cheating. Not that that was her plan. No, the pilot was not that attractive, and she was not *that* horny. Not *quite*.
But there was a particular fantasy that had been demanding her attention for about 12 hours now, ever since she and Mulder had safely wrapped up their last fiasco of a case, and the object of this fantasy *was* here on the plane. He was sitting maybe eight rows back, uncomfortably crammed into a coach class seat in all his broad-chested, white-shirted, wire-rimmed, bald-headed glory.
Oh, my.
Scully took a swig of her watery soda and reached up to turn off the light over her seat. The lighting in the plane was just wrong, wrong, wrong, but she'd have to close her eyes and make the best of it.
See, this was supposed to be a dimly lit fantasy. Dimly lit like that crappy Youngstown police station, where Skinner had suddenly appeared, framed for a moment in the doorway like a movie hero, before he proceeded to chew out the Youngstown cops in a way that spoke volumes about his skill as a disciplinarian.
Dis-cip-lin-arian. She rolled the word out, syllable by syllable, mouthing it silently. "Agent Scully, I think you'll find me a very strict disciplinarian," said imaginary Skinner.Um. Yes. She was *quite* sure she'd find him to be exactly fthat.
And the way he -- real Skinner, that is -- had handled Mulder... (handled? *man*handled, perhaps? Oh, stop that.) Mulder had been on the verge of shrieking lunacy (again) -- "Conspiracy!", "Right to know!" blah blah blah -- and a few low words from Skinner had calmed him right down. And Scully thought she had seen a tiny smile on Skinner's face, and hadn't Mulder stepped in closer, kind of surprisingly close? And hadn't he looked up at the older, taller man in a funny, sort of breathless way, and...
and she was *not* going to go there. Well, not now anyway. Maybe later.
Because right now she was busy. She was busy sitting on a desk, a monstrous, ancient Steelcase desk in a seamy little office, and Skinner, who was standing behind her, had a *very* firm hold of her shoulders. She was wearing these funky 1940's style heels (they went with the office decor), and she knew this for a fact because one of her feet was up on the desk chair in front of her, and the other heel was balanced precariously on one of the drawer handles. In other words, anyone who walked in through the little side door by the filing cabinets would be able to see right up her skirt. And thus would quickly discover that Special Agent Scully was not wearing any panties.
Skinner was about to discover this for himself. His hands had shifted; one hand twined through her hair at the back of her head, pulling her head back a little further to rest on his chest. The other started at her knee and travelled up slowly, peeling the skirt back along her pale thigh, until he encountered tiny curls and hot wetness. His palm covered her whole sex and he pressed up between her wide-spread legs. "Agent Scully," he said in tones of mock disapproval. "I'm sure that the Bureau pays its employees well enough that they can afford underwear."
She gasped immodestly and shivered. The warmth of his hand, and the firm pressure... She twisted her head, rubbing the side of her face against the gently scratchy Oxford cloth of his shirt.
Oh, banter -- she was falling behind on the banter. "No, no they don't sir. I was hoping to get a raise, actually."
He removed his hand, and before she could moan at the loss of the warmth, he shifted his grip to her hip and pulled her back to the edge of the desk. Back to where he stood. She could feel his cock, iron-hard and enormous, pressed against her back. "I wouldn't be surprised if you got a raise out of me yet," he murmured.
Back on the plane, Scully let one hand rest innocuously around the cold, damp plastic cup, while moving the other surreptitiously to her lap. No good -- that was still going to be obvious... A blanket. She needed a blanket. Careful not to disturb the sleeping Mulder, she managed to get her blanket up off the floor and arrange it discreetly.
Now, where was she... Oh. Yes. Iron-hard and enormous. Yes.
She arched her back against him, she couldn't help it. His hand returned under her skirt, a gentle, thorough exploration. And when a few fingers dipped in, going deep, a little roughly, she had to writhe. But he braced his arm against her, as if to hold her motionless. The hand buried in her didn't move again. Instead, his other hand roamed across her body, lightly. A fingertip circled each nipple in turn, creating tiny rustlings as the silk of her blouse rasped against the stretch lace bra. She looked down, watching his caresses with fascination. His hand seemed... dangerous. Even though it was perfectly manicured, it looked savage. Too wide, too strong, too dark against the ivory silk. She was so mesmerized by its tracings that she was taken by surprise when the hand moved swiftly up to her chin and tilted her head far, far back.
Skinner loomed over her, his face upside-down to hers, and kissed her. A light, light kiss, just a whisper of lips and the barest touch of tongue.
"Scully, stay there." His fingers slipped out of her, with a parting caress that travelled slowly up to her clitoris and brushed against it for a moment. He stepped away from her. Cold without the furnace of his body behind her, she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. He walked slowly around the desk; he drew out the armless wooden chair that had so recently been supporting her foot, and he sat down.
They stared at each other. She drank in his dark eyes, the angles of his face, his lips that were more generous than she had ever supposed before. She was taken aback by the emotion in his face. She hadn't planned for imaginary Skinner to have emotions, or even facial expressions -- just a gruff voice and a body capable of violent passions. But there he was. And when he moved his hands, a sort of half-formed gesture reaching toward her, she flew to him. Her legs went to either side of him and when she sat down her skirt was gracelessly hiked up, but neither of them cared. His arms crushed her, and she kissed him fiercely.
He was ready the second her lips parted. His tongue thrust roughly in, as roughly as his fingers had entered her other lips. Their shared desperation put them perfectly in sync. Her useless skirt was entirely up around her waist now; he had pushed it there as his hands swept up along her thighs to her ass, where he held her tightly to pull her even closer to him. She had to hope he had a dry-cleaner who didn't ask impertinent questions, because as her mouth clung to his, she was grinding her naked, wet sex against him, seeking the perfect point of contact with the cock constrained by the wool trousers.
Scully paused, emerged from this compelling inner world, and took a drink from the cup that now seemed frozen to her hand. This was getting more intense then she expected. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The tension of desire was settling in like pain -- an ache in her lower back, in her thighs, in the pit of her stomach, and deep, deep inside. She thought of cutting it short, just getting up and pacing, walking the tension out of her muscles. But that was crazy -- was her life so narrow and monastic now that she would now turn away even fantasy? She didn't deserve that punishment, and it worried her a bit that she even considered it for a moment...
...but no matter, because she was still on his lap. They had broken off their kiss, and she ran her thumbs over the smooth skin of his face, feeling the nascent bite of stubble if she rubbed the right way. She stood up. Her sweaty, wrinkled skirt crept back down, but only for a moment before she stripped it off. She started unbuttoning her blouse, and thought that he might jump in and help, but she looked up to find him sitting very still. He was leaning forward a little, his muscled forearms resting on his long thighs, and he was devouring her with his eyes.
Even in the safety of this world, she was a bit shy at that, but when her hair slipped forward, hiding her face, she made herself tuck it back behind her ear, so that he could see her and see the blush spreading across her face. Her blouse slipped to the floor, and a little awkwardly she unhooked her bra and let that fall too.
He stood up then. His arms lightly encircled her. He bent down to kiss her with tiny kisses, and their bodies touched in a thousand tiny brushes as they shifted. And that faint touch, the little movement of her breasts across his chest, was what finally wrested a groan out of him. His arms tightened again for a moment, but then he released her. He took a step back, and now he actually seemed to be at a loss as to how to proceed.
Scully wasn't. She reached up to unknot his tie, and that seemed to unlock some puzzle for him. He grabbed her for more deep and frantic kisses as together they wrestled the rest of his clothes off him.
They ended up back at the desk. Skinner sat just on the edge, and held her to him. Her back was to him again, only now instead of fabric she felt the soft prickle of hair and the silk of skin. She felt fragile in his giant embrace, but he too was somehow more fragile than she had expected. She ran her fingers over one of the arms that held her: there was muscle, certainly, solid and well-defined. But there were also veins, and tendons, and the knobs of bone at his wrist... He was as human, and as perfectly imperfect, as any man. She rested in his arms, fierce passions put aside for only a moment, to savor the warmth of nakedness.
"Scully." He whispered it in her ear, lips brushing against her ear, and her arousal was so heightened by now that that touch and that sound felt like the most shockingly intimate violation.
Shudders went through her. "Scully, I want to be sure that this is what you want. That this is freely given." As he spoke one >hand lightly traced a path from her belly-button to the curls between her legs. Down and back, down and back. "I question my judgment in giving rein to this passion, but not my wisdom in feeling it."
At the end his voice was so hoarse with feeling that a little sound escaped her. She turned in his arms, held his face, and kissed him. They kissed wet, devouring kisses, made clumsy by strung-out desire. He broke off the kisses for more hoarse whispers: "I know there has always been a distance between us. I didn't choose it. I don't know how to bridge it. But that's why I have to know, I have to know that you believe that I could never betray you with this, that I could never --"
"-- I know." She kissed him almost chastely. "I believe that you are a good and honorable man, and I trust you." Kiss. "I would want you even if I didn't," kiss, "but I do."
Even before he moved, she knew it. It was now. She was beyond ready as he swept her up in his arms and turned them around, leaving her reclining on the desk. She was so ready than she could feel him inside her before he even entered, or so she imagined, but then when Skinner's cock *did* find her entrance --
oh god -- oh! --
Scully practically bit down on her tongue, suddenly positive that she had made some sort of noise out loud. Out of the corner of her eyes studied Mulder, and then the young couple across the aisle. No one showed any untoward interest in her, but she knew that she was too paranoid now to finish anything here, and god she had to finish...
She shimmied out from under the tray table and headed unsteadily up the aisle. "Occupied," read the lighted sign over the bathroom. Get out. Get out. I don't care who you are or what you're doing in there, trust me, I need this more than you do. A new paranoia -- had the extravagant wetness between her legs managed to soak all the way through her skirt? Could each row of bored and idle passengers see the spreading stain of her arousal as she marched past?
Oh thank god. An elderly woman exited the bathroom and Scully practically shoved her out of the doorway. Sorry. She slammed the lock home, and found herself almost panting...
...panting desperately against Skinner's neck, into his ear. She was being stretched further, filled more tightly, than she ever thought possible, and he was being so careful, almost apologetic... She bit savagely at his lip and at the side of his mouth. He gave up all caution, he slammed full-length into her, oh fuck *yes*, oh -- his weight crushed her, she was pinned beneath him, and his cock, it was --
Ohhh! Oh. Ahh.
Ahh.
Well then. She put the toilet lid down, and had a seat, to catch a breath and pull herself together.
Next decision -- whether to suffer the torments of soaking wet undies for the remainder of the flight, or toss them out here, and let some maintenance guy at National wonder just what had been going on up there... She opted to surprise maintenance.
As she emerged to head back to her seat, Skinner looked up. Their eyes met over the rows of seat backs. She was easily able to manage a calm and cheerful smile, and he nodded back in return.
She slid back under her tray table, drained the rest of the Diet Pepsi, and wondered idly whether she and her boss could now claim membership in the Mile High Club...