Chapter Text
There’s sweat on his upper lip and on the glass where his margarita is already ¾ gone. She has sweat trickling between her breasts and he’s pretending not to notice. Her margarita glass bears lipstick stains but is otherwise devoid of any content, unlike their conversation, which is quickly becoming a battle of wits.
“Remind me again why I agreed to come here with you?” Scully groans while she lifts the glass to her lips only to remember that its empty. It’s hotter than hell, and the salt and tequila are doing nothing to quench it. Neither is the sight of Mulder with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and top buttons undone.
Mulder cricks his neck. “Because this wasn’t an X-File and you’re feeling sorry for my sorry ass, so you’re being a good partner and joining me while I drown my sorrows in cheap tequila and my own sweat. Also, ever the practical one, you were aware that this bar is the only place that’s walking distance from our motel.” he retorts while finishing his drink and signalling the bartender for two more.
“Mulder,” she grumbles while surreptitiously blowing air down her shirt through a pursed upper lip, “you’re the one that picked the place. And you didn’t even ask me what I wanted. You just went ahead and got us margaritas.”
His eyes stray towards the swell of her chest, where tiny little goosebumps have formed from her breath. “The house wine won’t cut it this time, Scully. Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.” he grins, quoting Willy Wonka.
She quirks an eyebrow and sighs. “And somehow I ended up with the golden ticket.” As the bartender sets the drinks in front of them, Mulder clinks his glass against hers. “You have indeed, partner.”
Mulder stares as her tongue slides out of her mouth to slowly lick away part of the salt rimming her glass, and takes a sip.
“Do you know where the margaritas came from?” he asks knowingly. Scully tries to keep a straight face as she points a well-manicured fingernail at the bartender’s blender. Mulder in turn tries to not laugh and says “You know what I mean, smart-ass.” and licks the salt and sweat that are pooling over the hairpin curve of his upper lip.
“Mexico. Some man or another claiming to have named it after a woman named Margarita.” she guesses, while watching the muscle and sinew of his forearms as he squeezes his glass. “Margarita being the equivalent in spanish for Daisy.”
“Jesus, Scully. Don’t you get tired of knowing everything?” he shifts his long legs and she looks down at the floor. They’ve been sitting at the bar and they moved around in their stools until they were facing each other. Her legs are crossed, and now, somehow, she’s trapped between the spans of his legs. If she tries to shift she’ll have to graze his groin with her knee.
She blushes, embarrassed at the question and at his proximity. “I don’t, Mulder. I really don’t. There’s a myriad of things that I don’t know.” she utters and her mouth feels heavy with the admission, the alcohol and the overwhelming urge she has to kiss him and taste the salt in his mouth. Taste the salt of him anywhere.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head gently. “Hold that thought, partner. That’s a conversation that we’ll need to investigate empirically later, when we’re back in the motel room. Now, I just want to play a drinking game with you.”
“Oh?” she bites her lip.
“Did you ever play with daisies growing up?” He makes the question as a statement. With the same breathy monotone he once used to ask her whether she believed in the existence of extraterrestrials.
Her breath catches as she squeezes her thighs tighter together. She thinks back to hot summer days when she and Melissa would lay bare-legged and freckled on the grass, daisy petals fluttering around them after using the flowers to prophesy whether a boy loved them or not, loved them, or not, loved, not.
“I did.” she whispers simply.
Mulder picks up his drink and catches her eye, holding her gaze in place. There’s a glitter in them that is part alcohol, yes, but part something else. She’d seen it once in the hallway outside his apartment, before he’d leaned in and she’d blacked out and woken up at the end of the world, weak and freezing in his arms.
He takes a long hard drink from his margarita and says “She loves me” and waits.
Tremulously she drinks and says “She loves me not.”
Suddenly, she is not just sweating between her breasts. Her back feels soaked and her thighs are slick and slippery. She knows him well enough to know where he is going with this. The outcome depends on how much tequila the other is willing to put in their mouths. Like everything, it is down to their timing.
His next drink is smaller. “She loves me.”
She opens her throat and looks at the way his neck bobs when he swallows.
She swigs. “He loves me not” and through the haze of tequila does not notice what she’s just said, her change in pronoun, and finishes her drink.
His lips part slightly as he inhales. His eyelashes flutter as he blinks quickly, his breathing harsh. He finishes his margarita, sets down his glass and lowers his hand to place it firmly on her knee.
“He loves you.” he finishes.
Her eyes widen when she realises her previous mistake but before she gets the first syllable of Mul-der out, he’s kissing her mid-L, and her tongue, salty and ever ready, is poised to kiss back.