a rose bi any other name

Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Additional Tags: Post-Episode: s05e07 Emily (X-Files), Post-Cancer Arc (X-Files), Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Confessions, not really a case fic but there’s a case in there, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Season/Series 05, Snowed In, Not Canon Compliant Summary:

Written for the MSR Bingo Challenge, in response to the prompts: “an interrupted moment”, “an argument about hidden feelings”, [free], “stuck in the middle of nowhere”, and “the aftermath of a traumatic case”.

The look in his eyes, when she’d looked up at him and reached for his hand, had been far away, almost haunted, and it hadn’t gone away. Something about this case was bothering him, and–and this was the unusual part, when it came to Mulder–he didn’t want Scully to know what it was.

Short drabble based on a challenge for Mulder to find Scully kissing an unauthordox place on his body hot.

Scully tells him it’s called the antecubital fossa, but he still thinks of it as his elbow crook. It’s the place that hospitals have stabbed him to draw blood and poked at while inserting their cannulas. It’s an innocuous part of his body that he can completely forget about until her soft lips brushes over it.

It started so early on in their partnership; he’d been complaining about an inexperienced phlebotomist taking too many tries to get blood for his physical. Rolling his sleeve up to show her his battle scars and bruises the gentle touch of Scully’s lips on that sensitive area set his whole body on fire as she laughed and made a joke about ‘kissing him better.’

That was decades ago, but now, lying in bed her lips manage to find that exact spot in the crook of his elbow as she lays in his arms. Scully's sweet kiss triggers a Pavlovian response within Mulder, and although he delights when her lips touch any part of his body, this spot always takes his breath away.