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Mulder can’t take it anymore. Being in this perfect little house that’s anything but little– or perfect– with Scully. Seeing that ring glaring back at him, taunting him, every time he looks at her left hand. A constant reminder of the life he doesn’t have, can’t have, but desperately wants– a revelation that has recently taken hold in his mind and hasn’t let go.
He wants it all. The honeymoon videos. The wedding albums. The house. Not this one, though. Their own house, with their own dishes and welcome mat– not the ones the FBI picked out for them.
Their own bed.
He quietly climbs underneath the sheets next to her sleeping form before he has a chance to change his mind, the early morning light nothing but a whisper on the horizon. A promise in the sky. For a new day. For something more.
“Scully,” he pleads desperately, nuzzling her neck. “Let’s be Rob and Laura… just for one night.”
“Mulder,” she whimpers as he runs his tongue along the shell of her ear. Her hand crawls, finger by finger, along the nape of his neck– reading him, learning him, goosebump by raised goosebump, guiding her path as if it were Braille– and he shivers at her exploratory touch.
“I don’t want to be Rob and Laura. I just want to be us.”
He pulls back to search her eyes for any hint of reluctance, his heart galloping with reckless abandon in his chest as his mind reels from what she’d just said, and he wonders if she’s even aware of it, or if her words were uttered in the hazy aftermath of slumber, after being thrust so suddenly from its grip. It takes everything in him to steady his tremulous hand as he brushes a strand of fiery red hair away from her face, studying her as though he’s not entirely convinced she isn’t a figment of his imagination, that he’s not dreaming this moment into existence. The air in his lungs grows stale, and he finally remembers to breathe.
“Do you ever think about us? Like this?“
His words are spoken so softly, so hesitantly, he’s afraid they’ll burn and disintegrate to ash before they even reach her ears– as if they were inscribed on a piece of flash paper and set ablaze to be carried off by the wind.
Because he has. Thought of them like this. Arguing over who gets the shower first thing in the morning or who took out the trash last night…
Or how it would feel to wake up to the sensation of her small body pressed tightly against his before he even opens his eyes. Of being acquainted with the feel of soft skin against skin, of the steady rise and fall of her chest, only allowing his selfish eyes a glimpse of her laying next to him out of the need to reassure himself that he’s not actually dreaming.
He’s had six, long years to think about it. To imagine it. And he doesn’t want to imagine anymore.
“Yes,” she answers in kind, and he has to stop himself from eagerly swallowing the word in a kiss as soon as it leaves the perch of her perfect, plump lips.
Her admission, however, takes him aback. It shouldn’t. But it does. The beat of his heart falters, and he’d almost be afraid it had stopped altogether were it not for how incredibly alive he feels laying here with Scully so close he can feel the flutter of her shallow breaths against his skin. A sensation that sends a tingle through every nerve ending in his body.
This case has affected him in ways he could’ve scarcely predicted. The staunch lines of friendship– of professionalism– becoming more blurred with each passing day.
That’s what happens when you draw lines in the sand– they’re not impervious to wind or water. The shifting sands of their partnership have changed between them lately. He feels it in the ground beneath his feet. In every tidal breath he takes in. Deep in the pit of his stomach when she walks into a room, and he has to remind his heart to keep beating.
He feels it especially now, with this case. With her lying in his arms. Not as Laura Petrie. But as Dana Scully.
It’s all too surreal.
And just a little bit terrifying.
He’s stared down the barrel of a gun. Looked evil in the face without so much as a flinch. Played the game of Risk so many times, he’s surprised he’s made it out with his sense and wit still (mostly) intact and, if he were a betting man, he’d think his chances at living a long, healthy life were slim to none. His luck is bound to run out. Eventually.
But despite the knowledge of that fact, or perhaps because of it, what scares him more than anything is making it another six years on this earth without letting Scully know how much he loves her.
He’s told her, in so many words…
You’re my one in five billion.
You’ve kept me honest. Made me a whole person.
But he wants to show her. Needs to show her. With his lips and his hands and his body. The way a man shows a woman. The way a husband shows a wife.
“We’d be so fucking good together, Scully,” he groans in her ear, his husky voice still relaxed from sleep, and she makes a strangled mewling sound in the back of her throat that he’s never heard before but aches to hear again.
He searches for her hand in the dark. Her left hand. The one now creeping its way down the back of his shirt. The one adorned with that obnoxious FBI-issued ring he watched Scully slide down her own finger on the airplane ride over here with little fanfare, mind engrossed in the latest issue of Skymall Magazine. A ring that he would’ve never picked out himself. Because apparently this is something he’s thought about before…. the type of engagement ring she’d prefer.
He brings her hand between them, tracing his lips along the cool metal wrapped around her finger, and she gasps.
“So. Fucking. Good,” he assigns a word, followed by a kiss, to each of her knuckles. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” she says quietly, then hesitates.
“But we can’t. We shouldn’t.”
Her smooth, soft words rush through his ears like a surge of water upon the shore, whetting his insatiable thirst for her, before disappearing as quick as they came, leaving nothing but coarse sand in their wake.
His heart sinks to his stomach. Hope swallowed by a current of doubt and fear, and swept out to sea.
“Can’t and shouldn’t are two, wildly different concepts. Which one is it, Scully?”
“Both.”
He can feel her retreating back to herself, back into the cool, calm waters of reason and rationality, like a tidaling wave. His mind scrambles to find a way to make her stay with him, not just physically, but emotionally, until he remembers that, like a wave, Dana Scully cannot be tamed.
They are so close– so close– to finally acknowledging this thing between them, that he can’t bear the thought of yet another moment passing them by. His mind reels with the rhythmic pull and tug of emotions between them.
“Scully, please,” he begs– he begs– and he doesn’t care how desperate the words sound as they leave his lips.
“We both just woke up. We’re not thinking clearly,” she reasons, her sluggish voice adding truth to her words, and he wants to cry.
“No, no, no– I, I’ve never thought more clearly,” he says, trying to keep his tone even despite the turbulence of emotions swirling within him. “Especially these last few days. Being here with you has made me realize so many things, Scully. It’s opened my eyes.”
“But it’s not real, Mulder. No matter how much we might want it to be.”
He shakes his head in defiance.
“It’s real. How we feel about one another is real,” he pauses, and his heartbeat roars through his ears. “This… is real,” he breathes before taking the plunge, closing the gap between them, and softly pressing his lips to hers.
His head swims with the realization of what he just did, what he’s now doing, and he sinks further and further against her lips. She melts into his touch, and he’s not entirely sure he’ll ever be able to stop kissing her, to surface for air, yet somehow that doesn’t bother him. Somehow he’s completely content to just drown in her.
She gasps and moans into his mouth, and he swallows each sound, the sensations tickling as they make their way down to his groin, along with all the blood in his brain, and he reluctantly pulls away before he passes the point of no return.
His eyes find hers through the darkness– unfocused, half-lidded, and even blacker than the night that consumes and surrounds them in this bedroom that’s not-quite-hers and not-quite-his.
“Mulder,” she whispers, and he shivers. He’s never heard his name spoken with such awe, with such longing, with such desire, and his heart lodges itself in his throat, before he gulps it back down to where it’s supposed to be.
God, he’s so in love with this woman.
“Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me what we have isn’t real. Tell me this feels wrong, and I’ll leave right now. I won’t question it.“
His words give her the power to destroy him, as if she didn’t already possess it, and he waits for her response. And waits. And waits.
Her silence slices through him, death by a thousand cuts, as he watches the minuscule amount of hope he had left in his body seep out of each wound second by second. Suddenly, he hates himself for ever being so bold, so presumptuous. He can practically see the cogwheels in her brain spinning with the effort it takes to overanalyze her current situation and come up with a solution that fits nicely and neatly into their lives– like how every house and their occupants on this god-awful street fit so nicely and neatly into this neighborhood.
But they’re not like everyone else. They never have been. They’re the basketball hoop in the driveway, sticking out like a sore thumb, and he’s a fool for thinking that they could ever have a chance at normalcy. That he could ever promise her white picket fences and forever.
All he can do is breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Until her silence becomes unbearable and his last breath comes out in a whoosh as he makes an attempt to leave.
"Mulder,” she says in a tone that’s half panicked, half apathetic, reaching out to wrap her fingers around his arm, gesturing him not to go.
“Look, you don’t have to explain yourself. I overstepped a line, and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“Mulder, wait, please. Stay.”
“Scully, I– I can’t do this anymore. Pretend to be in-love with you as though it requires great effort on my part. It doesn’t. Not by a long shot. In fact, it’s the easiest gig I’ve had in a while, convincing complete strangers that I love you. And the scariest part of all– what actually scares the shit out of me more than anything– is how much it doesn’t even feel like pretend.”
She stares at him in a moment of utter disbelief that he said what he just said, and he’s sure her expression mirrors his own because he can’t believe it either.
“What about me?” she breathes, looking away, her words rattling around in his head as he tries to keep up. Her hand slides from his arm, landing with a thump on the mattress, and she sighs defeatedly. “What about how this is affecting me? I– I can’t help but think of you with Diana. And it kills me.”
He doesn’t say anything. Can’t say anything. The mention of that name– her name– has him paralyzed.
“Did you want this kind of life with her, too? Did you want to marry her?”
If only she knew how loaded that last question was.
Her eyes begin to shine but not in the way he wishes they would. He feels his chest tighten as a tear breaks loose and she quickly wipes away any evidence of its existence as though he might not have noticed. He noticed.
He blindly reaches for her hand in the dark, and she doesn’t pull away. He can feel the dampness on her skin.
“The way I feel about Diana, felt about Diana– now or in the past– pales in comparison to how I feel about you, Scully. I was young. I fell in love with her because I thought she was what I needed in my life to make me a greater man. I saw a strength, a power, in her that I envied. It wasn’t until I met you I realized strength doesn’t make a man great. It makes him weak. What makes a man great is love. Unrelenting, unbiased, unequivocal love. You’ve made me feel like I can do anything. It’s the kind of love that makes me strive each and every day to be great. Not for me. Not for any personal gain, but for you. To be worthy of the love and support and devotion you give to me so completely and without question. It’s something that I’ve never felt before in my life and something I’ll never feel again and, shit, Scully… I sure as hell don’t know what I did to deserve it. But I’ll spend the rest of forever– in whatever way that looks to you– proving that it isn’t in vain.” He finally risks looking at her, clearing his throat and letting the weight of his confession sink in. “If you’ll, uh, permit me.”
She just stares at him, eyes welling up with tears of which he’s uncertain the cause. Anger, sadness, fear? Happiness? Relief?
He doesn’t have time to contemplate the matter any further because before he realizes it, she’s across the bed in one fluid movement, clinging to him desperately as her lips clumsily find his in the dark. They both pause at the contact, and she breathes roughly through her nose, the air tickling his cheek as a whimper escapes her throat, her lips holding his hostage. He’s frozen in stasis, afraid to move for fear of breaking this spell he’s suddenly been cast under.
It’s not until he feels the cool air against the damp skin on his lips that he’s noticed she’s pulled away, and he searches her face through heavy eyelids.
“I– is that, was that, okay?” she breathes, chest heaving wildly against his as though she’s just run a marathon, and the sound goes straight to his groin.
“Yeah, Scully, I’d, uh, say that was more than okay,” he smirks. “It was just a little…”
“What?” she whispers impatiently against his mouth as she sways closer to him on her knees, his hand steadying itself on her hip in an effort to keep from toppling into her.
“A little too brief,” he responds, before seeking her out, and pressing his lips against hers softly, reveling in how amazing it feels to finally be allowed to do this.
Their kisses turn sloppy. Hungry. Frenetic. Years and years of pent up sexual tension finally manifesting itself in the form of lips upon lips, tongues against tongues. She sucks the flesh of his bottom lip into her mouth, teasing it, and his cock swells with envy. He’s been hard since he crawled into bed with her. Now, though, it’s almost painful. She arches her back, presses the soft curve of her belly against his hardness and he practically yelps. He can feel her smirk against his lips.
“Scully, wait,” he pulls back, as her fingers curl around the waistband of his sweats. “I, um, it’s been a while. And, God, it’s you, and I can’t make any promises this is going to last anywhere near the amount of time I want it to, and–”
“Shhhh,” she rasps against his ear. “That’s kind of the point. Please, Mulder.”
If there’s one thing he’s learning, and quick, it’s that he’ll never be able to deny her another thing on this entire planet as long as she begs like that, with that tone, and that look in her eyes, and he’s somehow okay with that. More than okay. He’d give her the moon right now if he could wrangle it from the sky.
His hands cover hers as they slide his pants down, down, over his aching member, until it bounces freely, bobbing between them– an offering– which she gladly accepts. Those tiny, dextrous, hands of hers gripping him and slowly stroking him with precision.
“Christ– ungh, Scully,” he grunts as his knees wobble under him, threatening to give way.
“Here, lie down,” she instructs, releasing him from her grip. He quickly does as he’s told, and he feels the bed move with him, until suddenly she’s on top of him, straddling him with her lean, strong legs. His hands automatically bracket her hips as she lowers herself atop him, her damp heat seeping through the silk of her pajamas, onto his sensitive flesh, and driving him wild. They both moan in unison as she grinds herself against him. Once. Twice.
“Ugnh, fuck,” he tries to speak, all eloquence leaving his voice as it strains with the evidence of his arousal, his fingers fumbling with the hem of her pants. “This seems a little unfair, don’t you think?”
“So, do something about it, Mulder,” she dares breathily, a dangerous glint in her eyes as her hips continue to undulate against him. He doesn’t need to be told twice.
Lighting fast, he flips them so she’s laying against her back, and she gasps as he roughly works her pants and lace panties down her legs with one hand, propping himself up with the other.
He can smell her now. She smells how he knows she would taste– sharp and tangy with an aftertaste of sweetness that his mouth waters just thinking about. He lowers his lips to her belly, just above the soft thatch of curls that tickle his chin, and runs a tongue along her hip bone. He can’t help himself. The sharp intake of breath he hears from her lets him know he’s on the right path. His tongue continues its journey over, then down, and down, teasing, testing, until he feels her legs open wider, her breaths quicken. God, she’s so incredibly sexy.
“Is this okay?” he asks, though he already knows the answer.
“Mm, yes,” she breathes, and within moments his mouth finds her, hot and soaking wet for him.
“Oh, God Mulder,” she moans, her voice deeper, huskier, than he’s ever heard it, and his cock twitches in response.
He licks her slowly, savoring the way she tastes and feels against his mouth. He’s thought about this, fantasized about it, so many times that he can scarcely believe it’s finally happening. That his mouth is actually between Scully’s legs. That he can feel her getting wetter for him as explores her folds, her clit swelling against his lips as he takes it in his mouth, circling it around and around like one of his sunflower seeds with his tongue. Her little strangled gasps and moans telling him where to go next. What to do.
He can tell she’s close by the way she tenses against him, the way she gasps for air, her muscles quivering against his mouth, but before he can devote his full attention to finally making her come, she tugs at his hair and shoulders frantically.
“Mu– Mulder,” she pants. “Please.”
He pauses to look up at her, his lips reaching out to places kisses along the sweat-slicked flesh of her thighs. “What do you want, Scully? Tell me what you want.”
“You,” she whimpers and he’s there in an instant, crawling up her body as he wriggles himself free of his t-shirt before helping her out of hers.
When he slides into her, finally, it feels like coming home. She’s tight and hot and wet around him and he’s never felt anything more right in his life. It’s as if she were made just for him. Everything about making love to Dana Scully is perfect. The hitch in her breath each time he drives in and bottoms out. The way her tongue peaks out from between the pillow of her lips as she watches his pink, swollen cock disappear inside her. The way her eyes roll into the back of her head when her middle finger finds her clit and circles it. Or the way she curses under her breath when he replaces her finger with his, mimicking her rhythm until he feels her walls flutter and quake around him.
She comes with his name against her lips. The one he reserves just for her. His real name. Not Fox. And it’s the sweetest sound his ears have ever heard.
He comes with a sob, words impossible to manage under the emotional weight of the moment, as he spills into her, giving her everything he has.
She clings to him and he holds her tightly as their breathing slows, their heartbeats returning to baseline. He doesn’t ever want to let her go.
“I do love you, you know,” he murmurs against her ear, unsure if she’s drifted off to sleep, but risking the confession all the same. “I meant it, the night at the hospital. Every word.”
His heart pounds in his chest as he waits for a response he may never receive. Regardless, he feels lighter somehow. Freer.
“I love you, too,” she finally responds, quietly, just as he’s drifting off, and he grins like an idiot against her shoulder.
“Rob,” she adds, a smirk in her voice, and he tugs her to him possessively, nipping at her earlobe, and earning him a playful chuckle. “Oh, that’s very funny, Scully.”
“Get some sleep, Mulder,” she yawns, snuggling against him. “You have breakfast to make me in the morning.”
“Anything for you, dear,” he smiles, and they sleep as the sun begins to peak through the blinds. A new day.