Name: Please Teach Me Gently How to Breathe
Summary: Mulder has a bad cold, and Dr. Scully is there to make him feel better. But is a hot bowl of soup really all he needs?
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Rating: M
Spoilers: Up to about "D.P.O.," season 3
This is my first attempt at an X-Files fic. It's pure Sculder fluff 'cause that's the best. It's a pretty tried-and-true Sculder story line, but I can't get enough of it.
General spoilers up to about "D.P.O" in season 3 and is about where it is placed.
I'll try my best to be historically accurate as, although I was alive in the early 90's, I have very little memory of what years exactly which things came to be, or to be popular in the US.
Unbeta'd because I am a lame fic writer. I'll try my best to self-edit, but if you see mistakes, please tell me!
Loosely (very) based off of the song "Shelter" by The XX and even more loosely on the sentiment of the rest of the album as well. (Especially "Heart Skipped A Beat" and "Night Time")
Enjoy!
I find shelter in this way
Undercover hideaway
Can you hear when I say, "I have never felt this way"?
Maybe I had said something that was wrong
Can I make it better with the lights turned off?
Maybe I had said something that was wrong
Can I make it better with the lights turned off?
Could I be? Was I there?
It felt so crystal in the air
I still want to drown whenever you leave
Please teach me gently how to breathe
Dana Scully sat at the cluttered desk in the office hidden away in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building. The desk she sat in front was that of Special Agent Fox Mulder but he had yet to show up to work that day. So instead, Agent Scully took his seat and attempted to sort through his mess of files and paperwork piled precariously atop the desk. She tried not to think about why Mulder was so late to work. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she told herself to cut him some slack; it was only about 30 minutes later than he usually came in. But with everything that had happened to the both of them in the past, she naturally felt worried for his safety.
After another 30 minutes passed, she decided to start asking some questions. It was too unlike Mulder to be this late without explanation and her nerves were getting the better of her. Laying down the most recently abandoned X-file with a sigh, she got up, smoothed out her skirt, and walked out in search of Assistant Director Skinner's office.
After talking to his assistant, she learned that Mulder had not officially called in to explain his absence. She called Mulder's apartment from the secretary's phone, but there was no answer. Her heart sped up a beat at the possibility of danger and she stuck her head into Skinner's office to tell him she was going to try to track down Mulder. She promised she'd call in when she knew what was going on and the AD agreed, not wanting to deal with any more trouble.
Scully made her way back to the basement office and grabbed her coat and keys, careful not to bump anything onto the floor in her haste. The more time she spent not knowing if Mulder was okay, the more anxious she got.
As she drove to his apartment, images of the dark-haired agent unconscious in a pool of his own blood flashed through her mind and her foot applied more pressure to the gas pedal. She worried for Mulder; she always did. He was so good at getting himself into trouble. Everything that had happened to the two of them in the past few years was easily dragged to the front of her mind and remembered. This only added to her current apprehension to get to Mulder, hoping for all that was good in the world that he would be in his apartment.
Finally pulling up to his building, Scully all but ran out of her car to his apartment door. Knocking but getting no answer, she used her own key that he had given to her out of convenience and opened the door. Nothing in first sight looked touched or turned over; it looked as though it always did. But Mulder was nowhere in sight. She had hoped to find him curled up on the couch, forgetting to have set an alarm after staying up late watching a silly alien movie. With one glance around the small apartment, she knew that he wasn't there. Still holding on to the hope that he simply overslept, she made her way into his bedroom.
There, on top of the bed was a sleeping Mulder. She sighed deeply. But her worry wasn't completely over just yet. Stepping closer to the bed, Scully could see that his entire body was drenched in sweat and that the sheets that hadn't been pushed onto the floor were tangled around his sticky body. Sick, he looked so sick. Oh, Mulder, she thought to herself. Always running himself down by working too hard and sleeping too rarely.
She pressed a soft hand to his forehead and all but jumped back at how warm it was. At the touch and the movement, Mulder started to rustle. He started to mumble in his sleep. All that Scully could make out was something about "Samantha" and "ghost." She frowned slightly and pushed away the sweaty hair that had fallen into his eyes.
Slightly less worried about the situation, Scully let herself relax a little. She took off her coat and draped it over the chair in his bedroom. With another small glance to the sleeping agent, she went into his bathroom and returned with a washcloth damp with cold water. Placing it gently onto his forehead, she sat with one leg under herself on the edge of his bed. Her soft hands pushed back his hair once more before attempting to straighten out the covers that were tangled around him.
As her hands ghosted over the planes of his body to fix the sheets, she let herself think about how often she wished she could touch him. When they sat together in their little office and he propped his legs up on to the desk, how she imagined being able to tangle her own legs with his. When she lay awake at night in a motel room on a case, and knowing he was on the other side of the wall and how she wished he would silently come into her room and climb into bed with her. When he had been drugged by the water in his apartment and she had let him sleep in her own bed, gently taking his clothes from his exhausted body and wishing that she could do it out of passion instead of necessity. And that he would return the favor to her.
It wasn't all physical lust, though. She longed to be able to talk with him, in the way that lovers do, late at night, or in the breaking light of an early morning. Sharing their deepest fears and dreams and thoughts. She longed to have him comfort her with his words in times of insecurity and vulnerability and have him trust her enough to have her return the favor.
But she couldn't think about these things. He was her partner, her friend, and that was all he ever would be. She could dream all she wanted, even though she knew she shouldn't, but nothing would ever change. She sometimes dreamt about telling him how she truly felt about him. And in her imagination, he would return the sentiment and he'd embrace her and all would be perfect. But that was all that it would ever be, imagination. Nothing more.
Still lost in her own thoughts, she neglected to notice that Mulder was beginning to stir. He was mumbling again, on that sweet edge of half-asleep and half-awake. Though likely made bitter by the fever-induced dreams he seemed to have had. This time she heard her own name. "Dana," he whispered, barely audible. She took this to mean he was acknowledging her presence, but the use of her first-name melted her heart a little. After a little while, he opened his eyes, truly awake. He jumped a little and she realized one of her hands was still on his leg. She blushed slightly but his sickened body was too slow to notice, even his small jump was delayed and barely noticeable.
"Scully," he sighed, his voice deep with sleep but scratchy as well. "You startled me."
She smiled kindly down at him. But hadn't he already realized she was there? When he said her name? "So did you, when you didn't show up to work this morning. No one knew where you were. People were worried, but here you are, sound asleep, without a care in the world. Just like you, Mulder."
He seemed to wake up a little more with that. He tried to sit up but winced and coughed weakly. "What? What time is it?"
"About ten."
"What?" His eyes went wide. "Shit. I must have slept straight through the alarm."
"And when we tried to call you."
"Ugh, really? I guess I was more tired than I thought."
"Mulder," Scully said, almost rolling her eyes. "You're sick. And fairly badly, by the looks of it. Do you want me to run out and get you something to take?"
He sighed. "No. I don't want any of that crap in my body."
She raised her eyebrows at him. "Medicine?"
"Poison," he said matter-of-factly, meeting her eyes dead-on.
She laughed, shaking her head at him. "Fine. But we have to get your fever down somehow. How about a bath? I don't think I trust your body to hold you up for a shower right now. You look a bit weak."
"I don't want to get up," he pouted, closing his eyes again and slumping back into the pillows.
"Well, too bad, G-man." She got up and started toward the bathroom adjacent to his bedroom, turning the tap on the bathtub. "I'll change your sheets while you soak. You are very sweaty."
He sighed, again, and sat up with a groan.
She came back into the room and pulled back the sheets for him. His t-shirt and sweatpants stuck to his sticky body and she tried not to look too closely, especially at his chest over which the thin blue shirt was pulled tightly. She wondered fleetingly if he would take it off here or wait until he was closed into the little bathroom.
As he made his way out of the bed, she went back into the bathroom and turned off the tap as the tub filled. She grabbed a fresh towel from the shelf and placed it on a small stool near the tub.
She pretended not to watch as he walked across the room, stripping himself of his sweat-drenched t-shirt and gathering fresh pajamas. Her eyes flickered back down to the tub as he turned toward her, though she realized she had delayed a little too much. She hoped he hadn't noticed how much she enjoyed having her little wish granted. She stood up and walked back out, starting to strip the bed off its sheets.
"Scully?" he said softly, stopped in the door to the bathroom, doorknob in his hand.
"Hmm?" she called back, snapping her head up and meeting his eyes, careful not to get caught blatantly checking him out again.
"Thank you," he answered with a small smile before turning into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
She smiled back at the closed door, blushing softly and the intimate way in which he said it. Something so simple as a few words of gratitude shouldn't make her feel the way it did.
The thin walls of his apartment made it easy to hear the sound of his sweatpants hitting the floor. She busied herself with the sheets until she heard him call out again.
"Scully!" he all but yelped.
Worried he had slipped, she rushed to the door, but hesitated at the initial want to open it, knowing he would be stripped bare.
"Are you alright, Mulder?" she asked, worry seeping into her voice.
"Why is the water so cold?" he shot back, incredulous. "Don't you know how to run a bath, woman?"
She laughed and called back through the door. "It has to be cold, Mulder. You need to get your internal temperature back down to normal. You're too hot."
Mulder sighed and slowly lowered himself into the freezing water, cursing softly. He had heard the double meaning in her last words and wondered briefly if she meant them. He wondered if she ever thought of him the way he thought of her. As he slowly adjusted to the water's temperature, he laid his head back against the cool porcelain and imagined she was there with him. He imagined watching her stand outside the tub, slowly removing her clothes, watching those soft little hands move over her skin. He imagined her climbing into the water with him and settling herself between his legs, leaning back up against his chest. He imagined the feeling of her bare skin against his and being able to run his hands down her arms and over her sides and touching every inch of that alabaster skin of hers.
He dreamt of whispering in to her ear while they soaked together. Of whispering words of love, of how much she meant to him, of how important she was to him, of how impossibly beautiful she was.
He opened his eyes again, reprimanding himself for how he had let his mind run on. Good thing he was submerged in cold water, he thought. The chilly temperature lessened the hardness trying to build up between his legs. He sighed and closed his eyes once more, struggling to list baseball scores and case facts, knowing thinking about his red-headed partner in that way was out of the picture, but he still couldn't completely close the book in which that picture laid.
Back in the bedroom, said partner had stripped the bed of the old sheets and made it back up with fresh, clean ones. Easily finding the washing machine from spending so much time at his apartment, Scully loaded the sheets in but found that the laundry soap container had run empty. She looked around the nearby area unsuccessfully. Mulder wasn't always very good at keeping everything stocked. A light smile and a sigh escaped her lips are her partner's expense.
She knocked on the door of the bathroom. "Mulder? Do you have some extra laundry soap stored anywhere? I can't find any."
"Uh, I'm not sure. There might be some in here, but I can't promise anything. I'll get out and look for you –"
"No, don't bother. You'll only slip and fall and then we'll all be in a world of hurt. I'll come get it. How decent are you?
"Not at all, Scully. I'm not sure how I feel about this, you barging into my bathroom and taking advantage of me while I'm so sickly."
She rolled her eyes. "I am a doctor, Mulder. And I've seen you naked before."
"What? When?" he teased slightly back.
"When I shot you. I changed your clothes for you when I brought you to New Mexico."
"Well, damn, Scully. You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
"Not when it comes to you, Mulder."
"Well, I suppose there's no reason for you not to come in then, is there?"
Scully took a breath. She was used to this playful banter with her partner, but now she would be in the same small room with him naked and exposed and forced to avert her eyes. She opened the door and walked in, closing it behind her.
"Where?" she asked, trying not to make it obvious how much strain she was in, looking straight ahead.
"Under the sink, cabinet to the left."
Mulder watched Scully and she bent down low to open the cabinet and peer inside. Not only was the view of her ass completely delectable as the suit pants stretched tight, he realized that the mirror came down far enough that he could see down the front of her shirt in the reflection. A soft moan escaped his throat against his will and he coughed to cover it up, a benefit of being sick. At the noise, Scully looked up at him in the mirror and their eyes met. He knew he had been caught, but he couldn't look away. She blushed but didn't break contact until something fell out of the open cabinet in front of her and opened, hitting the floor and breaking open, liquid escaping and splashing back up onto her shirt.
"Damn," Scully cursed loudly, standing up and pulling her shirt out in front of her.
"What happened?" Mulder asked, voice scratchy, slowly starting to rise out of the tub.
"I got bleach on my shirt."
Without hesitation, Mulder's mind jumped to the thought of her pulling her olive green top up and off to rinse it in the sink. And that while she waited for the sink to fill with water, she'd stand there, bare except for a lacy bra. Mulder assumed it'd be lace. She seemed like that kind of woman. And he really liked lace.
He subconsciously shook himself of that image and stepped out of the tub, grabbing the towel she had laid out and wrapping it around himself. He walked up behind her and inspected the damage. There was already a white spot forming as the chemical stripped the color from her shirt. A wave of dizziness washed over him due to how quickly he'd stood up and he leaned forward to rest his head on her shoulder with a groan to calm it. He felt her head snap up, looking at him in the mirror. He felt and heard her laugh softly.
"Mulder," she said quietly. "Go lay down on the couch. I'll clean this up and change. The bleach fumes in addition to your head cold may make you pass out. Go get dressed."
Without an argument, the dark-haired man walked out of the bathroom. After closing the door behind him, he realized he had forgotten the pajamas he had already gotten out. He opened the door again and found that he couldn't move any further than that spot.
Scully was pulling her shirt over her head and didn't seem to the notice the noise of the door. As her shirt lifted higher, Mulder's eyes followed the skin being exposed. First the smooth expanse of her flat stomach and leading up to her breasts, held in a thin and almost transparent bra, black and lace. He swallowed sharply, grabbed his pajamas, and closed the door behind him as silently and quickly as possible.
Sitting on his bed, he tried to calm himself. He'd seen Scully exposed before, just as she had seen him. It happened in their line of work, as often as they got injured. He had only been teasing her earlier when he claimed to not realize she had seen him naked before. But there was something about this that was so much more exhilarating. When she was injured and the ER cut off her clothes, he was focused on her injuries, focused on making her better. But watching her in the bathroom, there was nothing else to focus on except for her. Nothing except for her beautiful, smooth skin and soft curve of her breasts.
Mulder sighed deeply, hoping to make his heartbeat return to normal again and make the hardness growing underneath the towel disappear. But the sighing only turned into a coughing fit. He groaned when it was over, knowing that even if she felt the same way he did, nothing would happen tonight. He was too sick, and even if he felt up to doing anything, and he barely did, she wouldn't want to get sick from him either.
He slowly got dressed, another simple pair of a t-shirt and sweatpants, and curled up on the couch, the TV softly speaking in front of him. He pulled a blanket down on top of him and closed his eyes.
Scully sat on the edge of the bathtub, letting the porcelain cool her burning skin. After Mulder left the bathroom, she had moved to take her shirt off. Half way off, she had heard the door open again and knew Mulder would see her. But she pretended not to notice and kept going, even slowing down her movements. Why had she done it? She knew he was watching. She knew he thought she didn't realize he was there. What was she trying to do? Seduce him? She had seen the way he had been looking at her in the mirror before the bleach spilled on her. She was toying with him, teasing him. She wondered how it had affected him. There had been times in the past when she had noticed him looking at her. Once in their office, she had bent over his desk to reach for a file and unknowingly let her shirt fall down. She had quickly moved back to her desk, hiding her embarrassment. After a moment she risked a glance at Mulder. He had put a stack of files in his lap, pretending to read one he pulled from the top but Scully could tell he was not really. His eyes were glazed over and far away. She had only blushed more deepyly but went back to her work.
But this time she had done it on purpose. She could have just as easily pulled her top back down and waited for him to leave again. But she hadn't. She wondered if maybe he'd bring it up and she'd have an opportunity to tell him how she really felt about him.
After draining the tub and cleaning up the bleach that had hit the floor, she grabbed the refill laundry soap and went into his bedroom to change.
She came back out again wearing a soft t-shirt of his; a simple gray one that was her favorite on him. And a pair of his boxer-briefs. Wearing a t-shirt and suit pants seemed strange and uncomfortable so she had pulled them out and slipped her legs through the soft material.
Scully found Mulder curled up like a child on the couch, apparently asleep. He looked much better already; her bath had done the trick. His face looked worry free and peaceful and he looked much younger. She longed to curl up with him and run her fingers through his still-wet hair. She groaned inwardly at the escaped thought and searched frantically for something to distract her. She then remembered that she had promised AD Skinner a call when she found Mulder.
Mulder opened his eyes at the sound of Scully talking softly. He looked up to see she was on the phone. Hearing her side of the conversation, he put together that it was the office and she was telling someone, probably Skinner, that she knew where Mulder was and that he was safe but sick and that she was going to stay with him a while to make sure he would be alright because she was worried he was sicker than a simple cold. He smiled at that. He knew he wasn't that sick and she had lied to Skinner so that she would be staying with him longer instead of running back to work. Thinking about this, he then realized what she was wearing. His growing problem that he had almost stifled stirred again at the sight of her in his own clothes, his boxers especially. Her shaped legs were exposed to the middle of her thigh and the curves of her breasts and hips were only somewhat softened by the shirt, loose on her body. His body betrayed him and he started to cough again, pushing himself up to sit on the couch.
"Oh, Mulder, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," Scully said, hanging up the phone.
"You didn't," he said as soon as the coughing ended. "I wasn't asleep. Just resting my eyes." He pulled the blanket up higher around himself and cleared his throat. "I heard you talking to Skinner." He smiled. "I hope you aren't expecting me to entertain you so much that you lied to Skinner about how sick I really am to stay here. Or do you really just hate going in to work that much?"
Scully matched his smile. "Works holds little interest for me without you there."
"Miss hearing about my theories, do you?"
"Always."
The conversation came to a lull. He wondered if she'd mention how she had caught him looking down her shirt in the mirror. Or before that when he knew she had been looking at him while he took his own shirt off. He wondered if she'd offer to make him soup and curl up with him on the couch and rub his back like his mom used to do when he was sick as a child. He wondered if he could use his sickness as a buffer to be able to tell Scully how he really felt about her and it wouldn't have to be awkward when she turned down being intimate with him, for fear of catching his cold. He wondered how long he would go on wondering. He looked at her more closely. She was leaning against the countertop, one hip jutted out to the side, looking back at him. He was going to make something happen.
"Hey, Scully?" he asked, his sick throat betraying his confidence and cracking when he said her name.
"Yeah."
"Will you come sit with me? I'm cold and this blanket isn't quite doing the trick."
He watched her bite her lip in hesitation. He wanted to tell her not to, that it was his job to do that.
"Do you want me to get another blanket? Or a better one-"
"No, I want you to sit with me." He flashed her a smile that would tell her he was slightly teasing, just being silly. He had seen that hesitation and worried for a second that she wasn't interested in him in that way. But he pushed it out of his mind.
She smiled back and he internally sighed in relief. "Sure, Mulder."
And she got her wish. When she sat down next to him, he moved to put his head in her lap, stretching his long legs out down the rest of the couch. She heard him sigh softly and he got comfortable there. She stiffened slightly at first but soon got comfortable as well. Her hands fell down, one on the arm of the couch and the other into his hair, running her fingers through it softly. She had done it without hesitation and without thinking and shocked herself with the boldness of the action. But she let herself fall into it anyway. She switched hands and let the one previously in his hair move to his chest, as if to hold him there, safe in her arms.
"That feels nice," her partner said softly, almost purring like a cat, the effects of his cold making him sleepy once more.
"Your hair's soft," she said back. "What do you use, baby oil?" She laughed, teasing him.
"I only use the "no tears" formula," he answered, making her laugh again.
"You know you're not really cold, right? That your body's only playing with your mental temperature gauge. You still have a slight fever, I can feel it."
"I know."
They sat in silence for a while, Scully still playing with his hair. She knew he wasn't yet asleep by the rhythm of his breath. The TV was playing a documentary on "The War of the Worlds," and how the radio adaptation of the book had scared so many people who thought it was a real news broadcast. It reminded her of their work, being that so often someone thought it was aliens and it only really people doing stupid things.
Mulder broke the silence a while later.
"Scully?" he asked quietly.
"Hmm?"
"Right before you woke me up earlier, I was dreaming, a nightmare really." He seemed hesitant to talk about it, like the memory of it still scared him slightly.
"About your sister?"
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"I heard you say her name in your sleep. You were mumbling. All I could make out was her name and the word 'ghost.'"
He was silent for a moment, like he was thinking carefully about what to say next. "I found her. But she was dead. They had killed her as a child. And she wasn't the only one. All of the other children that they had killed were there, as ghosts. They were all saying it was my fault, that it was my fault she was dead, that they were all dead. I couldn't find her quickly enough and they killed her, they killed all of them."
"Mulder…"
"But then you came, Scully. You took me away from the ghosts of all the murdered children and you took me somewhere safe. I don't know where it was, but I felt safe. Safe because you were there."
She heard his breath hitch. Just as she was about to tell him that it had only been a dream, that nothing was his fault, he spoke again.
"I trust you, Scully, with my life. I know you're always looking out for me and I appreciate it but there's something I need to tell you." He sat up, meeting her eyes. He took a breath. "I love you, Scully. I've been in love with you almost since the moment you walked into my office. And I don't care how you feel about me, I just needed you to know."
"Mulder, you're sick, you have a fever, you're not thinking clearly, you-"
"No. Dana, I wanted to tell you this for the past few years. I just thought – I saw the way you looked at me when I changed – I thought you might feel the same way."
"Mulder," Scully spluttered, not knowing what to say. She wanted to tell him that she felt exactly the same way, that she loved him just as much. But the words wouldn't form. "Mulder, I –…"
She watched him get off the couch, leaving the blanket behind. "It's okay, Scully. I understand." He walked off toward his bedroom, grabbing a box of tissues on the way. She heard the door shut and Mulder blowing his nose, coughing a little, and the creak of the bed as he settled into it.
Dana Scully sat on her partner's couch, alone. She sat there replaying the last few words in her mind. Mulder loved her, was in love with her. It was all she had thought about for the past year, hearing him say those words to her. So why wasn't she leaping into his arms and proclaiming her own love for the dark-haired agent? Something was holding her back. The something that kept her strong through the cruel vicious murders they sometimes faced. That something that pushed away all emotions toward others until she could be locked away in her own little box. From which she could watch everyone around her but could never get too close. Part of the reason this box had formed around her was the keep herself away from Mulder, away from the temptation of having a relationship with her coworker, away from being rejected by him.
But now that was no longer a problem. No longer would there be a risk of being rejected. He had just put his heart on his sleeves and spilled his soul to her. The ball was in her court and she was ready to make a move.
She got up off the couch and followed the path her partner had just made to the bedroom.
Mulder curled into himself underneath the covers on his bed. He felt cold again without her next to him but her scent still lingered on his skin. It comforted him only slightly. She had turned him down. She wasn't interested in him, of course not. Why would she be? He was a man obsessed with a strange line of work and she had been sent to his office to debunk his findings. Not fall in love with him. Not even help him.
Oh, but she had. She had helped him in so many ways.
He laid there, wondering if he should worry about how to act around her at work after this. But it was her turn to say something, to do something. He had only spoken the truth.
He heard his bedroom door open but he didn't open his eyes and look up. Scully was probably just going to tell him that she was going to leave, that she'd see him at work. What he didn't expect was the feeling of the other side of the bed sinking down and a warm body pressed up against his back. He didn't expect to feel a hand on his back and breath on his ear whispering, "I love you too."
Mulder flipped around to look at Scully. Her face was soft, her eyes speaking what she had just told him. He saw love in her eyes, in her face. And then she said it again.
"I love you, Mulder. I feel the same way. I've been in love with you for so long now and I haven't said anything, I couldn't say anything. I never thought you'd want anything to do with me, the woman you saw every day. The woman who criticizes everything you think and doesn't believe all of your theories about the world. Not the usual beautiful brunette bombshell you seem to gravitate too.
All he could do was stare at her. This couldn't be happening. Did she really mean what she had said? Had she really said it? His eyes searched her face for a hint of a joke. A mean joke, but he would deserve it. For all the unabashed flirting he did to her, for all the crude comments he made. But he couldn't see anything. All he could see was the love in her eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes.
"Oh, Scully," he simply said, leaning in close and wrapping his arms around her, nestling his chin atop her head, feeling her breath on his neck as she wrapped her arms around him too. "You are so incredibly beautiful. And I need you to keep me grounded and honest. I love how you do that. You're all I've wanted for so long. I love you so much, please believe me."
"I do, Mulder, I do," she whispered in response, sighing contentedly.
Mulder smiled. "I want to kiss you so badly right now."
"Then kiss me," Scully responded, without hesitation.
"I'll get you sick."
"I don't care." She pulled back to look at him.
"I'll get you sick, Scully. And then I'll be the one running you a bath so cold it'll freeze your little ass off and making your bed and playing with your hair on the couch."
She smiled. "That sounds wonderful. Get me sick, Mulder. Kiss me."
After simply looking at her face for a minute, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. Then to the tip of her nose. Then to both her cheeks. He flipped her over in his arms and pulled her back close so that their bodies met. He pressed his lips to the back of her neck, pulling her ear lobe into his mouth and sucking on it softly. After a minute he stopped and pressed his lips to her neck again, even more softly this time.
"I can't, Scully. Even if I couldn't get you sick, I just don't think I have the energy for anything. I'm sorry."
He felt her laugh softly against him. "It's alright, Mulder." She took hold of the arm that was wrapped around her waist, threading his fingers with his. "It's alright. I'm perfectly happy just like this. We can wait."
They laid there in silence for a while, Scully listening as Mulder's breathing slow down, a sign that he was falling asleep. There was something she had yet to tell him though.
"Mulder," she said, hoping she'd catch him conscious.
"Hmm?" She could feel the noise reverberate off her neck.
"In the bathroom, after you left. I heard you come back in. I knew you were there when I took my shirt off."
He moaned and she felt the hot exhale of breath on the back of her neck. "Dammit, Scully. You're evil."
She laughed. "I also may have been using the other mirror to look at you in the tub before I caught you using one to look down my shirt."
She felt him smile against her skin. "We're both guilty of heinous crimes."
He tightened his arms around her and she tightened her hold on his hand. She had never felt so happy in her entire life. She was perfectly content and knew that she would sleep amazingly well, despite that it was almost completely the middle of the day.
Just before she fell into the deep, she heard a murmur behind her.
"I love you, Dana," it said, so softly she almost didn't hear it.
"I love you, Fox," she said just as softly back before falling asleep feeling warm and safe and loved.
AN: hope you enjoyed it! next chapter should be up soon. It's already 1/3 written.
and just to prove my previous note, I originally wanted the TV to be playing the movie "The War of the Worlds," but upon further research, I realized it came out in 2005! not quite the right time frame. adapted though!
R&R!