They've never been ones for salutations.
"Hello", "How are you?", "Good morning"- all were abandoned in the early stages of their partnership, replaced instead by a language translatable only by the two of them - the arch of an eyebrow, the nod of a head, or simply a glance and soft hum of recognition that the other is now near.
And in the evenings, a weary smile and the sudden absence of his fingertips against her hip in the parking garage are enough to send them on their way.
Because to them, "Hello" and "Goodbye" are more than simply words. They have weight, they have meaning. They signify arrivals and departures. Openings and closings. Beginnings and endings. And those things are powerful. Those things they've experienced too many times to count. And to invite them in seems unnecessary. Foolish even.
It's much easier to just always maintain some amount of togetherness, to never be fully apart, to never need greetings or farewells or any of the other emotions that go along with them.
They are like blood spiraling through a body. Platelets and plasma. Travelling, splitting, winding through labyrinthine veins and arteries. Some part of each of them is always with the other, clinging, maintaining a connection, even while travelling to the outermost extremities. Toes. Fingers. Oregon. Antarctica.
Yet always, always returning and reuniting, flowing back to the heart. To be nourished and oxygenated and renewed.
And once they've rejoined, salutations hardly seem necessary. For they were never really apart.
Sometimes the connection is stronger than others. They live on a continuum, at times spread as far apart as the fingertips of opposite hands, and at others, flowing side by side in parallel capillaries, barely a hair's width between them.
Where they fall on that spectrum at any given time ebbs and flows- depending on the tides, depending on the seasons, and depending on the ache that settles deep in their cores during the lonely nights.
….
It is strong lately. Seven years in, the ache is stronger than ever. It burns in their bellies, urging them, prodding them, begging them. Reminding them that being in the middle of that spectrum is no longer enough. Halfway just isn't cutting it anymore, and they both feel it.
He feels it, and she feels it. And they both feel it so desperately that something needs to give. Soon.
But it's scary. Though they are both well-versed in navigating the unknown, for some reason this unknown is the scariest of all, scarier than all the monsters and corruption they've faced. Scarier than aliens and flukemen and la chupacabra. Scarier even than cancer.
And neither of them wants to say the words to move past it. Saying "hello" to something new means saying "goodbye" to what has existed between them for years. And they don't know whether or not they're ready for that.
….
The ache is particularly strong this night. She's not sure why. Is it because her shoulder still tingles from the touch of his palm this afternoon? Or because her ears still ring from the velvet way he murmured her name this morning? Regardless of the reason, it is there, pressing down upon her, as tangible as the book lying across her lap.
She attempts to fill herself, to distract herself from the yearning. With music, food, wine, television. But none of it works. These things have no substance to them. They slide through the sieve of her body, gone as quickly as they've been poured upon her.
She is still empty. Hollow. The ache is still there, expanding, seeping out and into the room, filling the corners and the nooks and crannies of her apartment. Until she can ignore it no more. Until it demands her attention.
….
He sits at home as well. And though miles spread between them, he feels it just as acutely as she. A need, a lacking, a longing. An effervescence just below the surface of his skin that makes him itch, makes him fidget, makes him pace.
The sensation is not new, but its ferocity is- he can feel its teeth sink into his flesh and pierce him. He cannot escape it, no matter how many crumpled papers are shot into the wastebasket, no matter how many sunflower seeds are cracked.
….
It could easily be an evening like the dozens that have preceded it, two lonely souls yearning and craving the other, but eventually lying down alone. But yet, they both know it isn't. For it is the evening of their breaking point. The evening that the ache has finally overwhelmed them.
It is time to say "goodbye", but it is also time to say "hello".
….
She tries to read. Anything to distract her from the emptiness. But she can't focus, can't keep her eyes steady on the page. The words shimmer and swim in her concentration to outrun the feelings. She sets the book aside and drops her forehead into her hands, her eyes sliding shut in resignation.
Before she realizes it, the phone is in her hand, and she has dialed his number. She doesn't know why.
She has nothing to say.
She has everything to say.
She wants to say that she wants him, she needs him, she craves him. She wants to tell him that flowing through veins and arteries, only reuniting for moments in the heart is not enough. She wants to tell him that never saying "hello", never saying "goodbye", never allowing themselves to brave the unknown, isn't working.
She wants to tell him that she is ready for the beautiful mess of uncertainty.
She wants to tell him that he is what she finally wants.
She wants to say all of this, but when he answers, the immensity overtakes her and she says nothing; her throat tightens, and she can only breathe.
She inhales.
She exhales.
And breaths that hold the weight of the world travel through the line until they puff against his ear. And he knows.
He knows.
"Scully," his voice is barely a whisper, intimate and precious next to her cheek, "Scully, I'll be right there…"
And as the line goes dead, all she can do is close her eyes against the feelings. The excitement, the fear, the knowledge that her entire existence is about to change.
….
When he arrives, she is still sitting there, unmoving, as he opens the door.
He stands in the doorway, filling it in a way that is somehow almost too sensual for her to bear. His breaths come quick and sharp, and he looks at her as if he has travelled the desert, like he is dying of thirst and she is his drink.
His eyes are dark and heavy, and the way they grab hold of hers takes her breath away. She gasps at the intensity, her heart fluttering in her chest. Her breath comes in soft pants as she clenches the fabric of the couch into her fists.
They've not said a word, but there is no need. Everything that needs to be said has already been spoken, by the weight of his gaze and the wavering of her breath.
His body moves toward her, ever so slowly, and she thinks she cannot stand the tension much longer. This slow dance has lasted seven years too long as it is. The moment stretches. Like a rubber band. She is both aroused and afraid of what will happen when it snaps.
Is this what it feels like when blood flows free and easy, what it feels like when it heats up to boil?
Is this what it feels like to say "hello"?
She rises, trembling and alive, as he approaches the couch. The pounding of her heart echoes in her ears. "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye," she says inside her head, so ready for this new step it hurts.
"Mulder…," she whispers, but before the sound even glances the air, it is sucked into his throat as his mouth descends upon hers.
He crushes her to him, and suddenly, there is no "apart" at all. There is only "together together together", blood mixing and swirling and mating.
She reaches around his neck to steady herself, and with hands sliding through hair, they gorge themselves, sucking out the ache and filling it with one other instead. Their bodies press so tightly together that it hurts, but the hurt is so good, they press even further. They consume and they devour and they inhale, and it is more than divine, more than fulfilling.
He carries her to the bedroom, her arms and legs clung around his torso, the silken wings of her shoulder blades cupped in his roughened palms. And with tongues and lips and fingers, they frantically unearth the newness of each other's bodies- a smooth belly, a furred chest, a hardened nipple. Each new discovery is more unraveling than the last, and the crescendo builds until she is gripping at the hard globes of his ass and he is pounding inside her.
And it is an ending and a beginning, and it is everything between.
And once their gasping breaths have calmed, their slickened bodies have cooled, they cocoon themselves in one other's arms.
And they whisper, "Hello."