Silk
Silk
She knew it was him, not bothering to knock as he slipped through the adjoining door in their hotel rooms. She lay on the bed, already in her pyjamas, the room lit only by the side lamp, which seemed to make her skin glow. He didn’t bother to explain his presence in her hotel room, or apologise for the late hour. He stumbled to her bed praying she wouldn’t turn him away as he peeled the sheets back and climbed into her bed. She was already shutting off her laptop and pushing papers to the floor as he snuggled deeper into the covers.
It wasn’t the first time he’d come to her like this. Usually it was while they were on a case, for him to make such a move in DC was unusual, but here in the only hotel in a small unnamed town in Idaho, it wasn’t a surprise at all. Her laptop safely on the floor she slid under the covers and pulled him close. He didn’t resist, resting his head against her silk clad chest, as one of her hands tangled in his hair, the other rubbing his back. She wanted to wrap her body completely around the form of her partner, but her little frame didn’t allow it.
Moments later she felt his body begin to shake, she didn’t need to see his eyes to know they were tear filled and crying, they’d been in this very place too many times before. She pulled him as close to her as possible, wanting to offer any comfort she could. She knew that eventually he would fall asleep, tears still staining his cheeks, that he would cling to her silk pyjamas all night, though she wouldn’t sleep a wink.
He slept better with her at his side, the nightmares didn’t come. Sometimes he’d sneak into her hotel room late at night having awoken in a cold sweat moments before, some nights he would enter her room with dinner and remain until the next morning, some nights like tonight he would enter her room not having slept, but fearing sleep. In any event she would hold him until heavy lids shut, and a series of slow steady snores filtered through her room, even then she wouldn’t let go.
He didn’t go there seeking sex, merely friendship and love. Though he would never pull such a move on any of the gunmen, the nights spent in bed with Scully were between friends not lovers. As he awoke in the morning she would plant a kiss on his forehead, sometimes on his lips. He wasn’t blind, he knew she was beautiful and thanked god, the world, heaven, anyone who would listen that she was his friend, he didn’t dare hope for more. Didn’t dare hope that one day she might pull him close in a lover’s embrace, that her lips might travel other places, her hands stray from his back. He didn’t dare hope for anymore than he already had, someone to hold him when the darkness threatened to envelop him whole. Someone he could consider a friend. He clung to her silk pyjamas willing the tears to stop falling, knowing that despite everything he was the luckiest man on earth, because Dana Scully would always be there for him.