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Years from now, on an unremarkable night at the end of an unremarkable week, when they are both loose and languid and a little bit drunk on wine and life and each other, she’ll remember this as their first date.
And he will lift his wine-heavy head and look her straight in the eye and say, “Scully, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“Our first date,” she’ll say, dreamy. Because he makes her dreamy. Because remembering him, her, them young and naïve and not-yet-but-soon-to-be in love makes her dreamy. “After New Jersey. The Smithsonian. Remember?”
“I remember,” he’ll say, “but that wasn’t our first date.”
And so she will lift her wine-heavy head and blow away a lock of her wine-colored hair and say, “What do you mean, it wasn’t? I turned down another man for it. We spent hours there—”
“You loved the dinosaurs,” he’ll say. “The plesiosauruses.”
“—and then you bought me ice cream. We sat on a bench and I told you about my family. How isn’t that a date?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t a date,” he’ll say. “I said it wasn’t our first.”
And she’ll look at him the way she does when she’s intrigued but doesn’t want to be, all coy and sweet with her eyebrows and her little pink mouth just-so, and say, “Alright then, what was?”
“Oregon,” he’ll say, quickly, because he’s thought about this. He’s had years to think about this. “Bellefleur. You laughed with me in the rain and I knew I might love you one day.”
“Mulder,” she’ll say, just like she did then. Does now. Mulder. “That wasn’t a date. That was work. People were dead.”
“Ah, and yet you still ended up half-naked in my bed,” he’ll say, and he’ll stroke her where she’s full-naked, still tacky-wet against his thigh. “A better outcome than a lot of my other dates, actually.”
And then they’ll get a little off track, a little handsy and hazy. He’ll kiss her kiss her kiss her until she almost forgets the conversation, until she nearly abandons the past in favor of the present, hot and heavy against her belly. Almost. Nearly.
“That wasn’t our first date,” she’ll insist, dragging him down to lie next to her.
“Idaho then,” he’ll say, half-distracted by the way her breasts squeeze together when she rests on her side. “I took you stargazing.”
“You took me to a military base,” she’ll say, “to hunt UFOs.”
“We stood on a hill and looked at the sky. You were beautiful.”
“You got yourself kidnapped.”
“We ate burgers in a diner.”
“With teenage stoners. I had to save you with my gun to a man’s head.”
“And you were beautiful.” And he’ll trace the elegant curve of her nose and remember.
“That wasn’t our first date,” she’ll say, but she’ll be smiling, leaning into his touch, grazing the pads of his fingers with the tip of her tongue until he shudders and looks at her like that.
“Okay,” he’ll say, thinking thinking thinking. “After Tooms. The first time. Crime scene guys needed to go through your bathroom.”
“You took me to that diner.”
“I bought you pie and coffee.”
“I was shaking. We talked about mutants and bile. That wasn’t a date.”
“You shared your pie.”
“You stole my pie. It wasn’t a date.”
“So hard to please,” he’ll say, even though he’ll know that’s a lie, she’s easy to please, so easy. All it takes is his mouth just there and his hands just here and she’ll make that sound—yes, that one—and wiggle her perfect hips and he’ll want, God he’ll want, to forget they ever started talking. But he’s him and she’s her and neither of them are have been will ever be any good at letting things go. “I took you to the lake once. Found you pretty glass.”
“You’re stretching,” she’ll say, even though she’ll be the one stretching, slow like a hungry cat, rubbing herself on him, staking her claim. “You just wanted to see some unexplained phenomena.”
“You’re my unexplained phenomena,” he’ll say, nuzzling that sweet spot beneath her jaw. “You’re still here.”
“Sap.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
He’ll smile. He’ll do that a lot more, years from now, on unremarkable nights at the end of unremarkable weeks. He’ll smile and he’ll say, “I tried to take you on a real date. Atlantic City.”
“You wanted me to go monster hunting.”
“I wanted to charm you. You ditched me for a child.”
She’ll huff and roll her eyes and ruffle his hair a little. It will feel so fucking good he’ll wonder how he ever lived without it.
“You were a child,” she’ll say, and she’ll kiss his pout, so he’ll pout harder and she’ll do it again.
“Alright,” he’ll say. “Fine. You bought me breakfast.”
“I bailed you out of jail,” she’ll say. “Hardly a precursor to romance. Wasn’t a date.”
“You bought me breakfast and you smelled like peaches.”
“I had a real date that night,” she’ll remind him, “with a man who didn’t sleep in an alley.”
He’ll hum and pull her closer with his hands on her ass and think, just for a moment, how all of those years of touching her back trained him for this. “And who’d you leave that date early for?”
“Some crackpot.”
“He was brilliant.”
“He likes to think he was.”
“Ouch, Scully.” He’ll pout and she’ll kiss him again and she’ll taste like every good deed he’s ever done.
“And then we went to the museum,” she’ll say. “Dinosaurs. Ice cream. Nobody was dead.”
“The dinosaurs were.”
“We sat on that bench until the sun went down.”
“It was a good date,” he’ll concede, because he’ll remember her hair in the sunset, her warm thigh next to his, her sweet little tongue covered in chocolate flicking out between lips he’d only just started wanting.
“It was,” she’ll say, and she’ll thread her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. “It still is.”
And then she’ll kiss him kiss him kiss him until he forgets about every date they ever never might have had. He’ll forget about everything that isn’t hot and wet and slippery, isn’t dragging him down down down into oblivion for another round on that unremarkable night at the end of that unremarkable week in an unremarkable house that he paid for in years and years of graveyards and air bases and pie and coffee and monsters and her. Always her. Endless, endless devotion to her.
Right now, though, it is 1993 and Fox Mulder is not psychic. Right now, the only future he sees is hand-dipped and will cost him a buck fifty. And right now, with his pretty new partner who likes the plesiosauruses and turns down dates to be with him, it is enough.