2 hour study, oil on canvas pad, 9x12".

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His bare chest is soft and firm beneath her cheek as she contemplatively runs her fingertip up and down his breastbone. It's nearing midnight, she'll probably regret that they let sex run this late when she has to heed her alarm in less than six hours and drag herself out of this wonderful cocoon. Right now though, when she's sated and warm and feeling so unbearably content, she can't bring herself to care. Everything feels too good. Her thoughts are fuzzy and unguarded when they're like this.

"I wish you'd been my first," she confesses to his sternum, slotting her fingers into the faint grooves of his ribs. His chest vibrates with a quiet chuckle.

"I dunno Scully, seven years was worth the wait but do you really want to extend that to thirty-six?"

"No, I mean," she stirs, nestling closer into his side, "When I'd had sex for the first time, I wish it somehow could have been with you. And it was fine back when it happened, I don't regret it, but it would have been nice to be with someone so in tune with what I want, someone who pays attention to my needs. Before you I'd never been with a man who's made me feel so unrestrained but so incredibly safe. Sex has never felt like an expectation, it's just been so...effortless."

He's silent, reflective for several moments, and for a heartbeat she wonders if she's revealed too much, a hesitation born of habit rather than application of the current circumstances. He nuzzles his nose into her hair, inhaling deeply.

"I'm touched that's your depiction of me," his voice is surprisingly gravely when he does speak, "Frankly I'm flattered that your perspective of our sex life has been so...transformative."

"It has been. It is," she hears the playfulness in his voice but reads the honesty beneath, and her own reply is deathly sincere. For two people who had been so chronically constipated in verbal communication in the past, physical intimacy has seemed to peel back all reluctance now.

"Hopefully it doesn't need to be stated that the same is true for me, Scully."

"I'm glad. Who knows," she props herself up to gaze down at him, stroking that perfectly sized patch of hair on his chest, "Perhaps in another life virgin Dana Scully is having her mind absolutely blown by a very capable and irresistible Fox Mulder right as we speak." He looks back up at her, clearly delighted. She adores him in all states but like this especially: all rumpled and mussed in her bed and improbably, impossibly hers.

"Did—did my intelligent and skeptical partner just suggest the possibility of alternate universes in bed, no less? Scully, three rounds in one night, a man can only take so much."

- You had a dream. A nightmare. And you had it because of the emotions that this case is stirring up in you, but … it was nothing but a dream. - My last dream came true.

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This is the third time she’s had him in her mouth and she’s rapidly discovering how much she loves it. Loves his scent, the velvet of his skin, the male heat of him surrounding her as he twitches and gasps. She laves her tongue up the hefty length of him, tracing the plump veins and elegant curves. She grazes her nails in little nondescript patterns over his tensed thighs, leaving light red lines in her wake.

His own fingers are suddenly sunk into her shower-damp waves and she internally braces herself, almost instinctively. She expects him to start guiding or to push her head down before she’s ready. Too often in the past a boyfriend or partner had attempted to direct without finesse, had tried to navigate her like a tool for their own pleasure without much regard for her comfort or control.

So she’s surprised when instead of moving her downward, Mulder lifts her up and off him. It takes everything within her not to pout. She’s dissatisfied at the sight of his now straining, neglected erection—dark pink and shiny and so, so beautifully hard. His eyes are glassy when he pulls back to regard her, his pupils blown out. The hand on the back of her head scratches pleasantly at her scalp. She wants his salt back on her tongue immediately but he intercepts and draws her in for a kiss. She sighs into the caress; “Gotta stop,” he pants into her open, swollen mouth, “S’too good. Gotta stop, Scully.”

She feels the hot flush of gratification and pride brimming through her at his open praise, at the way he’s clearly trying to collect himself. Of course it’s different with Mulder. Of course it is. He takes a few quick breaths and when that doesn’t appear to be enough, quickly grips himself at the base of his impressive length with a huff of mild panic. She smirks, her confidence restored and pecks at his slackened lips.

“If you think that’s good,” she purrs against the slightly humid skin of his furrowed forehead, “I have clearly not been doing this often enough.”

She tactfully maneuvers his hand away with her own, replacing his clutch of control with her clasp of surrender, and his helpless groan causes goosebumps to emerge over her entire body. She’s been quickly realizing how much she loves every arising aspect of this new facet in their relationship. Tonight she delights in his moans as she slips him back into her mouth, the way he seems nearly overwhelmed by what she’s doing to him. He’s close to begging her now, whimpering little ‘…please’s and ‘oh, it’s so good…’s. She cradles the tight smoothness of his balls in her hand and gently squeezes, just as she flicks the tip of her tongue right at the little opening of his head. He shudders and sucks in a sharp breath, bowling over as if in pain but the warm, steady spurts of his come down her throat signify the very opposite. His hand is back in her hair again, not moving, just grasped in the thick strands for another point of connection as he falls apart. She hopes she’s giving him even a fraction of the rapture he gives her, often multiple times a night.

As he catches his breath they lay together, her head propped on his chest as she strokes the silky trail of hair down his belly. She drags a gentle knuckle across the length of his softening cock just to make him twitch. He hums and she feels the pull for him in her womb when his hand curls possessively around her hip.

Because if not I might have had an epiphany.

Here are some examples of this motif if you're not already familiar. I've also heard that they first kiss 37 minutes into S5, and that Jonathan's ring that Hopper uses to propose to Joyce appears at 37 minutes 37 seconds into the 37th episode.

All the theories about it are really cute but... uh... I think it might be a reference to the Milgram experiments? Like the experiment where participants were instructed to administer electric shocks to someone else every time they got an answer wrong. They couldn't see the other person and they just heard them in pain every time they did it. It was about whether or not participants would inflict pain if they were told to by an authority figure. They helped assert authority by wearing lab coats. The participants would be lead to think the pain they had inflicted has caused the other person to go unconscious or dead because they'd eventually fall silent. It was really an actor's voice so no one was actually being shocked but the participant thought they were.

It's just... doesn't that sound a bit like the ending to S3? Hopper (an authority figure in uniform) nods to Joyce to tells her to administer the shock to himself.

Alexei (a man in a lab coat) was the one to originally tell Joyce and Hopper how they need to close the gate by turning off the key. Joyce switches it off, thinking she's administering an 'electric shock' and killing Hopper. She doesn't see him actually get killed because she closes her eyes and it turns out he's really alive but captured by Russians.

It even loosely happens because someone was tested on something and got it wrong (Planck's constant).

I was just casually listening to Peter Gabriel's album So which has the song We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37) on it about the experiments. I haven't ever really thought about this song very long before. According to Wikipedia this is why the number 37 was chosen.

It's a little bit of a confusing explanation but I also think it being in the title of a song about the obedient participants in Milgram's experiment is enough of a connection that the writer's might have chosen the number for Joyce and Hopper.

All we want is to be treated like human beings, not to be experimented on like guinea pigs or patronized like bunny rabbits.

All we want is to be treated like human beings, not to be experimented on like guinea pigs or patronized like bunny rabbits.