Warning: Fluff. Do not read if allergic to large quantities of fuzzy thoughts. Also: UST. I may not be a shipper, but apparently my Muse is. I begin to think I'm losing control in this relationship...
No spoilers. Probably set around season 4-5, as to allow for maximum cuteness.
No plot either. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Disclaimer: So... Mulder and Scully. I'm not supposed to tell people this, but they actually live under my bed. I sneak them up breadcrumbs when they get hungry.
It had been a bad case. From start to finish, the whole three days had been an endless line of delayed flights, uppity locals, hostile witnesses, and uncooperative police, all with very little to show in the way of actual evidence.
Mulder was silent, and Scully had to resist the urge to turn and look at him. Instead, she remained slouched against the car window, staring at the rain.
That was the other thing; it had rained. The entire time.
It was really pouring now, sheets of water determined to drown their car from the top down. It was like driving through a really wide waterfall that went on and on for hours.
"Sunflower seed?"
Scully looked up, and pulled herself to an upright position. She smiled at her partner, who had one hand on the wheel and the other held out to her with a palmful of seeds.
She was about to refuse, but reached out on an impulse and took them from his hand. He grinned at her and dove back into the bag for more. "Who woulda thought it?" He marveled cheerfully at the soaking night. "An ocean in Nevada, of all things!"
Scully put a seed on her tongue and worked it slowly around her mouth. Mulder tossed back another handful and grinned aimlessly at the night. Scully swallowed her seed.
"You're cheerful," she noted to her partner, considering the seeds remaining in her hand. "For someone with a deadbeat case on the road in the pouring rain during the early hours of the morning." She listed her complaints mildly, absently, like Mulder's absent smile. She regarded the seeds with mild disinterest. There was nothing better to look at.
Mulder didn't even bother shrugging, didn't bother replying. He just grinned wider and a little less absently at the downpour.
"I've never seen a storm this wet in all my born days!" He told her, effecting a southern accent that made Scully raise her eyebrows. This, for some reason, appeared to be just the reaction he was looking for, and he fell silent with a satisfied smirk.
She leaned back against the window. Her eyes flicked to her partner's face, to the thrumming darkness outside the window, to the glowing numbers on the dashboard proclaiming the time to be 1:06 am, and back to the seeds in her hand. She put another in her mouth.
"Let's hope we don't break down," she commented dryly.
"Aw, Scully! Now you've gone and jinxed it." He frowned impressively at the steering wheel to threaten it out of any ideas. "Or," he began, considering, "don't you believe in jinxing?"
"Hmm? You mean, like, 'knock on wood'? There's no wood in the car, Mulder." She gave him a sarcastic smile, which he returned enthusiastically.
"Thanks for your insight, Scully."
"Glad to be of help."
She meant the words in jest, but he looked over at her with a sudden, tender expression. "You always are." He met her eyes briefly, but turned away before she could speak.
They were quiet then. The rain drummed against the silence with vigor, working tirelessly to keep the quiet at bay. It was peaceful, Scully reflected. The consistent drone drowned out all other noise with its steady roar, never ceasing, never changing, as they drove through the consistent darkness at a speed that never changed. In their world, she reflected, moments of such utter consistency, such predictability, were hard to come by.
The car swerved. She jerked upright, feeling the car slow to a roll at the edge of the road, and then stop.
"Mulder?" She looked over at him, concerned. He was staring at the rain.
"We're out on the fringes, Scully. The two of us."
Scully resisted the urge to make a joke about their distance from civilization.
"It's just us, but we keep going like it's more than us. Like someone out there cares."
"Mulder, are we stopped for a reason?" She asked carefully, weighing the contemplative mood that seemed to have settled over him.
He grinned. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't that. But he grinned at her, and threw open his door.
"Mulder!" She opened hers and struggled out into the storm. The rain lashed around them, no longer the comforting beat it had been from inside the car. Outside, it was angry, determined to destroy the little beings that so foolishly believed themselves capable of weathering the wind and rain.
He was standing in front of the car with his face turned towards the sky and his eyes closed against the drops. As she got closer, she realized he was laughing.
She grabbed his arm, as much to steady herself as to get his attention. He grinned maniacally down at her. "Haven't you ever done something spontaneous, Scully?"
"Yes, Mulder. Practically every week since I met you." They were nearly yelling to be heard above the gale.
He caught her hands and pulled her close, and leaned his face to her ear. "Dance with me," the words were whispered – as whispered as was possible in the noise of the storm.
She stared at him as he pulled away. "Are you crazy? Mulder, do you see the rain? We're both going to be soaked for hours as it is, at least until we get to something like civilization-"
He put a finger on her lips, silencing her protests. "We're being spontaneous, Scully. Dance with me." He put one arm around her waist and laced the fingers of his other hand through one of hers. Somehow, incredibly, Scully found herself waltzing slowly around the street as water squelched in her shoes and ran rivulets down her body. She was freezing, except where her body touched Mulder's. He emitted a comforting heat that made her move closer, too close to see his expression as he rested his chin on top of her head.
No one drove by, but if they had they would have been thoroughly bewildered by the slow-dancing couple, smiling absently at the rain, not looking at each other as they spun their silent circles.
It wasn't the most spontaneous thing they'd ever done. But Mulder buried his face in his partner's wet hair, and decided it was quite nice all the same.
You've no idea how happy this made me to write. I couldn't stop grinning, which is probably why that's all our intrepid agents seem to be doing here...
Speaking of intrepid, step up to adventure and be an intrepid reviewer! ;D
...Don't look at me like that. I just spent two hours giggling over Mulder and Scully. I'm understandably giddy.