Title: Lost in Your Madness

Author: Pereybere

Rating: PG-13 – for some bad language.

Summary: . "I'm lost in your madness, Mulder. I've been consumed by the insanity that shrouds you like a goddamn curse. I'm part of it. Mad by proxy – and the worst part, the bit that makes it all so goddamn difficult – is that I'm not sure I want to escape it. Which makes me, if possible, even crazier than you."

Spoilers: Folie a Deux

Category: MSR

Author's Note: Shazza777 and I decided our prompt this week would be an episode prompt. I gave her The Unnatural and she gave me Folie a Deux. Personally I think she got the better deal, but let's roll with it and see what we can come up with. We submit every Sunday with occasional bonus submissions when the muse strikes! Check out her stories on her profile.

"Scully?"

She had a killer headache – the type that had insinuated itself deep into her eyeballs. Fox Mulder, and his recent confinement to an insane asylum, was to blame. When he called her name, after forty-five minutes of silence, he did so in a way that assured Scully her headache was not going to disappear any time soon.

"Mulder." She didn't look up. He was like Medusa; if she met his gaze the magic he possessed would turn her into stone – which that this point was perhaps preferable to the raging, throbbing ache in her skull.

"Let's do something." He'd been throwing pencils at the ceiling again - for the last fifteen minutes, right into the ceiling tiles. His boredom caused mischief, which was how they ended up in trouble. Or how he ended up strapped to a bed in a sanatorium. She was not in the mood to indulge his whimsy.

"No. We've a report to finish – which might get done quicker if you were to participate." She did look at him then – archly, from behind the lenses of her reading glasses. It was a rookie move – he always looked his absolute best when he was like this; sleeves rolled up, tie pulled askew, reclining back against his chair like a errant schoolboy. His inherent mischief radiated from his every pore, a corruptible force to be reckoned with. She dropped her gaze the millisecond she realised how easily he might sway her.

"You seem pissed," he remarked, his chair squeaking as he lowered his feet from the desk and straightened up.

"I have a headache, Mulder." She reached into her purse for a bottle of aspirin. "Which has been caused, in no small part, by your insane escapades this week." Popping two pills into her mouth, she washed them down with the cold dregs of coffee from her mug. "So either you can finish your statement for Skinner or you can go off and do whatever dangerous or foolish thing that's taken your fancy."

He looked sombre. "Scully, what's going on?"

"Nothing's going on, Mulder. We've got work to finish and I'm tired of being the one to do the things you're bored by." She clicked her pen, a decisive snapping sound that perfectly punctuated her words.

"We both know that's a lie," said Mulder, loosening his tie a little more. "You're the perfectionist, Scully – if I do the paperwork you come along behind me, correcting my grammar and shit." She glanced up again, meeting his gaze for a fraction of a second. Fox Mulder, Oxford educated, did not need his grammar corrected. "You reorganise my reports, attach paperclips to fucking everything and you've used two – maybe three – blocks of Post-It notes this year by leaving me reminders on every X-File we've investigated in the last twelve months. Do you really want my help?"

Scully studied his face, the rugged masculinity of the man she shared most of her week with. His eyes were fiercely intelligent, the cogs in his brain whirring at a thousand RPM, processing his thoughts like a well-oiled machine, capable of incredible computations. He was brilliant – but Scully knew that when it came to her, she was like the enigma code to Mulder; he could never quite work her out.

"Mulder, one day I'm going to lose you."

"What?" He looked stricken, stocked by the unexpected trajectory of their argument.

"One day you're going to do something so epically stupid, so fucking insane that you'll either end up dead or permanently committed. You do realise the FBI is making you undergo a psych evaluation because of what happened in Illinois?" She dropped her pen, pressing her fingertips to her temples. Fox Mulder's presence in her life was a headache. "And if I'm entirely honest I'm not certain you'll pass a psychological evaluation because even I'm starting to question your sanity."

He didn't look hurt. Infuriatingly, he was smiling – as though he took some kind of pride in his tentative sanity. "Scully... I'm touched." He laid his hand flat against his chest. "You're worried about me? Old Spooky Mulder. That's sweet." His glibness fired something in her belly, an ember of what her mother always used to call Scully-Rage, a stereotypical redheaded Irish fury that she'd inherited from her father, and perhaps Grandma Scully before him.

"Fuck you, Mulder." She got to her feet, reaching for her purse on the floor. "Finish the damn report yourself, write whatever you want, and I'll not be proof-reading your madness."

"Come on... Scully... what the hell is going on?" His good humour was lost, his expression entirely serious as he stood too, reaching the door just as she extended her fingers for the handle. She was beginning to feel as though she'd overreacted, which only proved to annoy her further. It seemed so trivial, that of all the incredibly stupid things Mulder had done, this was the thing that had broke her resolve. "Scully?"

"Mulder... just let me go home."

Any other day in their five year partnership, he would have stepped aside. In fact he had on many other occasion, but today he held firm, blocking the doorway. "No."

"Mulder..." her tone was cool with warning, whilst her face burned with embarrassment. She didn't like losing her composure, especially not in front of Mulder – because she'd built her professional reputation upon being calm and measured. The swell of rage burning her chest like bile might easily erupt at any moment, and she worried the fallout would be detrimental to their working relationship.

"No. Not until you tell me what's going on, Scully."

"I have told you: you're foolish and reckless and your stupidity is going to get you killed. I'm tired of facilitating it." She might have been his 'one in five billion', but what she understood from that statement was that she was the only person in the entire world willing to enable his madness. Madness that she had somehow become entwined in. Folie a deux was right.

"That's bullshit. Try again." All six foot of him blocked the door, his broad shoulders acting as an immovable barricade that her diminutive five-foot-two frame would never bulldoze through. Worryingly, there was fire in Mulder's eyes too. They stood facing each other, two volatile elements that might combust spectacularly at any moment.

"Alright," Scully said calmly, placing her purse on top of a stack of hardback books. "I'm lost in your madness, Mulder. I've been consumed by the insanity that shrouds you like a curse. I'm part of it. Mad by proxy – and the worst part, the bit that makes it all so goddamn difficult – is that I'm not sure I want to escape it. Which makes me, if possible, even crazier than you."

It ought to have been painfully obvious, even to Mulder, that she her craziness was not for the paranormal, not for the unexplained cases they chased every day of their lives – but for him. She was crazy for him. He'd become such a frighteningly integral part of her life, and if she wanted him – which God almighty, she did – then she'd have to accept the inevitability of being wholly and utterly consumed by his lunacy.

"Mulder, just let me go home..." she said quietly, dejected.

"No." He stepped towards her – so close she smelled the ocean-clean scent of the detergent he used on his shirts. "Scully..." the softness of his tone caused tears to prickle the back of her eyes, not helping with her headache whatsoever. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry, Mulder. That's not what this is about."

"I'm not sorry for being insane, Scully..." he stood before her, forcing her to look up, craning her neck to look at him. She'd never seen his eyes so tempestuous, a maelstrom of shifting colour, like a twisting kaleidoscope. "I'm sorry because I'm five seconds away from obliterating our entire working relationship."

"What do you-"

He kissed her then, and five years worth of wondering had not accurately prepared her for what occurred in her body. The touch of his lips against hers sent a great whooshing rush of endorphins coursing through her body with so much force she could practically feel the chemicals rippling through her veins. It was possible that Fox Mulder's kiss was the most incredible thing she'd ever experienced in all the thirty-four years of her life. She wanted to remember every second, from the taste of coffee and sunflower seeds on his tongue, to the prickle of his stubble against her chin, to the way his arms felt around her waist, pressing her against the solid wall of his body. When his tongue swept teasingly across her top lip, Scully's throat elicited a sound that was foreign to her – a very un-Scully like groan of pleasure.

It took every adult part of her brain not to murmur 'wow' as they parted. He held onto her for long moments after, their bodies aligned. "I am sorry for bringing you into my mad world, Scully. I've always said you deserved better than this shitty gig."

She felt guilty now, for allowing all her feelings to bubble so far out of control that she'd verbally vomited all her concerns. "Mulder... you know I don't feel that way about this job. I don't want another job."

"Still," he tucked her hair behind her ear, caressing her face for a moment. "You deserve so much more." He smiled, a melancholy kind of smile that caused her heart to crack. "I expected you to be more pissed off about my unsolicited kiss."

How had he failed to notice that she'd imagined that moment, in various scenarios, for years? "I'm not pissed," she confirmed, unsure of what else to say. "But if you think kissing me gets you out of finishing that report for Skinner, you've another thing coming."

He grinned. "I'll make you a deal, Scully. Let's do something together now... something fun, away from the office, not related to work... and you have my word that I'll finish all the paperwork on the Gary Lambert case."

She considered it. "All right, Mulder. You have a deal."

As he reached for his jacket, grinning happily at the thought of escaping their subterranean basement office, it occurred to Scully that, miraculously, her headache was gone.

End.

A/N Quick little one shot. I have to admit, this prompt had me thinking for a good week on what to write about. Some episodes are just packed full of shipper moments which makes it easy to imagine scenarios with MSR (Hello! Triangle, Arcadia, Millennium!) but this one required a little digging to find an in-character situation where MSR could develop. I actually loved it because the romance wasn't obvious. And I do believe it's really plausible that Scully's fears for Mulder's sanity could cause friction in their office. =) Thanks for taking the time to read. Please throw some comments and kudos if you liked it – and don't forget to check out Shazza777's story for The Unnatural prompt! You're getting a juicy NC-17 from her this week!

Also, we've written Christmas themed stories this week which will be posted as well!