DISTRIBUTION: X-Files Discipline sites, okay. Anywhere else probably okay, but please ask.
RATING: NC17
SPOILERS: None
KEYWORDS: Discipline, Slash, Skinner/Mulder
SUMMARY: Mulder's been having trouble sleeping.
DISCLAIMER: Skinner, Scully and Mulder belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox.
FEEDBACK: Welcome. Send it to geoffrey2@cox.net

Insomnia
By Geoffrey
November 5, 1999

Tonight, just like the past three nights in a row, Mulder's tossing and turning wakes me up at 3:30 in the morning. I pry my eyes open and when I finally focus, I see him sitting, naked, on the side of the bed.

"What are you doing?"

"Gonna go watch tv, try to sleep on the couch. I'm sorry I woke you."

"Wait." I haul myself up to a sitting position, and put my hand on his shoulder. "That didn't work last night. It's not going to work tonight."

"I've got to try something," he says tiredly, shaking his head. Then suddenly he looks back over his shoulder and grins at me. "You could suck me off."

I laugh. "I did that three hours ago. Besides, that didn't work last night either." I pull him back down to the mattress and cover him, then lie beside him for a few moments stroking his hip.

"I know how to get you to sleep," I say, swatting his quilt covered bottom once. "Fifteen minutes from now I'll have you out like a light."

He lifts his head and looks at me. "No."

"It's better than another night on the couch watching tv. This insomnia's already beginning to affect your work."

He shakes his head. "No."

"It's not safe, and you know it. I can take care of it for you."

"No."

"Fifteen minutes to solve a four day old problem isn't worth it?"

"No."

"Mulder..."

Mulder drops his forehead down to rest on his arm, and sighs. "All right." He turns his head away from me. "Just do it."

I roll back and extend an arm to open the drawer of the nightstand behind me, feeling around inside for the paddle. In the end I have to roll all the way over and search with both hands, but finally I find it and turn back to Mulder. He's lying silent, unmoving, not looking at me. I tug the covers away from him, leaving him bare, and scoot down to lie on my side, pulling him back to spoon against me.

He's breathing a little hard, so I slide one hand up and down over his hip, and then in front of him to caress his belly, and soothe him. Once he calms a bit, I begin maneuvering him into position.

"Help me out here. Come on." He lifts and turns, and I push and pull, and eventually I have him where I want him, face down over my arm at his waist, with his head and hands on his pillow and his ass spread wide and tilted up in the air. Without preface, I pick up the paddle lying behind me on the bed and, raising my arm high and aiming low, bring it down hard on the underside of his right cheek. Mulder yelps and I immediately draw back and smack his left side with the same force, and he cries out again, and again, as I thwack each buttock in turn, always hitting the same two spots just above his thighs.

I smack him hard, quickly, over and over, and each time the paddle lands there's a loud clapping sound that anyone listening would think must hurt like hell, if they could hear it over Mulder's howls. I keep a rapid, even pace, a bit faster than one stroke per second, and it's hard to do because I'm bringing my hand down from as high as I can reach, with as much force as I think he can possibly bear. Each time I bring the paddle down to meet his ass it propels him forward, and I have to use my arm underneath him to hold him steady. Yet he doesn't struggle; he's been spanked by me often enough to know better.

I plan on ten minutes, and for the first couple of them, Mulder's squawking expresses nothing more than shock at being beaten this hard, this fast. His growling is low-pitched, and once or twice he lets out a loud roar, and all of this is interspersed with verbalizations that are almost complete sentences:

"What the fuck--!"

"Oh, god fucking damn it all to--!"

"Hurts hurts hurts oh Jesus--!"

"Stop it you mother--!"

I need to get him past this. Harder and faster are not really options, so I have to let time do the work. My arm is beginning to ache, but I know it's nothing compared to what I'm inflicting on him so I ignore it. I can't see his bottom -- there's not enough light -- but I know it must be dark red by now and will be purple with bruises before we're finished. At length he runs out of angry words and the tears come, and the sounds he makes are higher-pitched but still loud. Mostly it's just wordless shrieking and, every once in a while, only one real word.

"Stop, stop--!"

But I don't. Smack after smack in rapid succession, I paddle him continuously and ignore his screaming and pleading. I've kept up my steady assault on his backside for six minutes or more, when Mulder begins to run out of breath and quiet down. He's genuinely sobbing now, soaking his pillow with snot and sweat and tears and gasping for air.

"Please," he chokes out. "I haven't done anything."

My sweet Mulder. "This isn't punishment," I tell him. "This is meditation."

He's panting, and every time he exhales I can just barely make out what he's saying now. "No... no... no... no...."

I ignore him. I'll be done when ten minutes are up, and not before. But all of a sudden it becomes too much for him, and he pushes off with his knees and attempts to scramble away from me, making me lose my rhythm. I haul him back down to me and grip my arm more tightly around his middle, cradling him against my torso, and in the process his legs spread wider and his ass stretches taut, exposing the tender crevice for me to spank. I resume my assault, flailing at him with more energy than before, and at greater speed, maybe two strokes per second now, aiming only at one vulnerable spot down at the center of his widespread bottom, and putting all my strength into the effort -- and Mulder finally, finally, reaches the place I've been trying to take him, and begins to mumble what I think of as his 'spanking words'.

"Don't hurt me, don't hurt me," he whispers over and over, clutching at his pillow, not even knowing he's speaking aloud.

They are music to my ears, the words that let me know these feelings are being released from the depths of his heart. His lips form the consonants independent of his breathing, hardly voiced, and though I can barely make them out, I know what he's saying. I've heard it before. I don't stop spanking him but he's hardly aware of my actions, hardly aware of the individual strokes of the paddle landing on his body. He is lost in the pain.

It is the catharsis that will let him sleep.

At last his whispering dissolves into a new mantra -- "Love me, love me," just before the ten minutes are up. I finish out the last seconds of my work, knowing that I have done what I set out to do, spanking Mulder's insomnia away. When I stop, I curl myself around his sweaty body for just a little while, and hold him, and answer his request.

"I love you," I say to him. "I will always love you. Always."

He is cooling down quickly and begins to shiver, so I draw the sheet and quilt back over him to make him warm. I retrieve tissues from my nightstand, pressing them into his fingers with instructions.

"Blow."

He does, and while his head is raised I reach underneath and turn his pillow over so he'll have a dry place to lay his head. I also keep water, so I hand him the glass.

"Drink."

He swallows it all, and I set the glass aside and settle myself behind him under the covers, letting one arm curve over his head and the other curl around his waist, pressing him to me with a hand against his heart.

"Sleep," I say, and my promised fifteen minutes are behind us now, and he does.

- end -

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