By probe
palmerdolph@yahoo.com
 

disclaimer: don't sue me. I'm just a human bean
category: challenge fic? msr?
spoilers: just the last episode of the series, maybe

~~~

les mundane for les miserable
By probe
 

Mulder sprays the windshield again, although the water runs clear -- it's about the money,  those two dollars in quarters that Scully gave him for the car wash.  He wants to make it count -- rinse the car for the full time he has water.

 Mulder's doing his damndest to be conscientious of their finances.  Of course, he only becomes conscious of them when Scully pulls out the little book where she keeps track of such things.

He is angry with himself -- he only needed a dollar fifty and not the whole two dollars -- damn if he wasn't such a spoiled brat in both his youth and his adulthood.

 Money meant nothing because he always had plenty, got in the habit of wearing expensive clothes and travel, eating out, the gym membership.  He never had to worry, never even think about it. Student years? It was a joke. When he went to Oxford there was a constant flow of silent checks from his father and his mother, each seemingly unaware that the other was sending any money at all -- neither one communicating anything to their son other than the money.  But there was always lots of money.

 The water becomes a trickle and Mulder realizes that the carwash is beeping; time's up.

Scully sits on the little brick wall by the trashcans with the book and all their receipts in her hands.

"Car's clean" he hollers over to her.  She has her hair pulled back into a ponytail and jeans on.  The day before, she' was carded when they ordered beer with their pizza.

Jesus, how much money had that been? Why had he suggested it? He was going to ruin them.

"What's wrong with you, Mulder?" She squints at him and slams the receipts inside the book, shoves the book in a faded camouflage backpack.

"How's it looking?" he returns the carwash wand in its holder and starts towards her but she springs from the wall to meet him half way.  "Lets go" her eyes squint and scan the street, All clear? and she passes him for the car. It‚s her turn to drive. The car seat squeals when she adjusts it forward.

"No Scully, the money. Are we low?"

"Were fine, Mulder.  Get in."

He sucks in on one cheek to keep the frustrated huff inside him and he gets in the car beside her.

"We have enough?"

"Of course."

She wipes a mess of water droplets from the seat with her hand. "This car leaks," she presses a finger to the roof and more drops fall into her eyes. "Damn!"

He reaches to her and wipes under her cheek with the pad of his thumb. Her skin is soft and he lets his hand trail over her lips and down her neck before he pulls away. "How can you stand this?" he whispers to her.

"Mulder... stop" she says and it is so tender...

He wonders when it happened -- this strange shift to where he could touch her like this so freely. The way she sometimes speaks to him; a way, that once, he could only imagine.  At night he crawls over the sheets that reek with bleach, and the bedspread wafting dust, to her body. He blots out the depressing shabbiness of the room, presses against her. Breathes her in and forgets the sour odors of cigarette and  liquor in the carpet and the air.  He touches her skin with his own, covers her small breasts with his mouth and grips her hair in his hands when he pushes inside her.  They pant into each other's mouths as they kiss, until one brakes away and gasps or shouts.

Scully starts the car and pulls slowly back into the street, "I'll be glad when we switch for a different car, maybe we should go without one for a while...that lead...SanFrancisco, right?"

"No we need to make a stop before San Francisco."

Scully looks over at him for a second...where? It passes between them as if she has said it aloud.

"Utah," he answers.  "Then San Francisco."  Hadn't he mentioned that before? Shit.  "We have enough for that?"

Scully navigates through the narrow side alleyways towards this week's motel home. "We're fine," she repeats.

But he rubs the side of his index finger to his bottom lip and catalogues all the things they do without: the luxury of their former lives.

Now, they use cheap shampoo, share a razor. Scully let her hair go back to the dark auburn of their earliest days together and he has a patch on the ass of his Levis. They eat from fruit stands, burrito stands, hotdog carts.

He lets his head drop back against the vinyl headrest when she stops the car and this time he lets the frustration out in a sigh and closes his eyes. "How can you stand this?" he asks her again.

"Mulder," her voice was the tender shade again and he opens his eyes to look into hers for the sheer pleasure of meeting their blue gaze.  All the years of her dropping her eyes from him and of keeping his own steadily on the job.  It is such a relief not to have to pretend anymore -- maybe it will take as long, nearly a decade before it won't make him want to weep when she reaches for him in the night or when she tells him she loves him.

But the money. He smacks the back of his head against the headrest again.

"Mulder, you're the only one having a problem with this."  She looks thoughtful for a moment.  "I miss the same things you do..." And then she is thoroughly the old Scully and she drops her eyes from his, „but I remember what we are working to do...to stop and the things I miss don't matter."

"No, they don't matter." he says and he ducks his head.  "You're right" he mutters again.

Scully gets out of the car first and digs for the room key in her backpack. He'd taken the key out when he ran back into the room for his seeds.  She must have forgotten.

He would walk up to her and put the key in the door and make some kind of crack about having what she needs or wants and she would laugh, instead of ignore him and he would kiss her, instead of straightening up or looking abashed.

Inside, he would tell her about the stop in Utah over their dinner of gas station nachos.  He would run his finger over the drip of cheese on her sweatshirt and she would grab his finger before he could lick it and put her mouth over it instead.  They would talk about trading or selling the car as they lie naked between the rough hotel sheets.

He realizes, it made their old lives seem...poor.

Scully drops the backpack. "Mulder?"

When he gets out of the passenger side he throws the key in the air and catches it on one finger, "Who's your hero, woman?"

Scully cocks her head a little and lets one side of her mouth curl up. "Oh you are. You are," she teases him.

And he unlocks the door.