Back & Blessed

In his defense, he does feel guilty. It’s just not exactly the dominant emotion at present.

Scully has said very little since they left Upper Marlboro, where they had spent the better part of the morning tromping through three acres of an overgrown field on the basis of a lead that had ultimately fizzled out into nothing. 

Far too focused on the details of what had seemed, at first, to be a promising case, Mulder hadn’t considered that the setting itself might become a problem until after Scully went quiet beside him, and then, a few minutes later, was no longer beside him at all, but several paces behind, moving more slowly through the tall grass. 

At first he’d mistaken her silence for annoyance, which was a reasonable enough assumption – and probably not entirely inaccurate, judging by the way she’d rolled her eyes when he’d casually mentioned the possibility of crop circles – but some time later he turned in time to catch her stifling a rapid string of sneezes against the back of her wrist, emerging from the fit with a pink nose, watery eyes, and a faint, irritated frown as she pushed forward through the gently swaying grass as the breeze lifted a fine yellow haze into the air between them.

Pollen. Of course. 

For the first little while, it had been subtle enough he could almost pretend not to notice the way Scully kept rubbing and wrinkling her nose, the way she was blinking more than usual, the damp sniffles punctuating what few words she did say, the irritated little cough here and there. 

After six sneezes in a row – each of which sounded increasingly difficult for her to contain, and each of which sent a pulsating thrill straight to somewhere deeply inconvenient – Mulder had glanced behind him again, to where Scully had come to an abrupt stop. 

“Jeez,” he’d blurted out, checking his watch so his eyes had something to do besides zero in on her flushed cheeks and watery eyes, the irritated scrunch of her nose. “Bless you.” 

God, how he wanted to— 

“Damn,” Scully muttered, patting around in her pockets and frowning as she sniffled frantically, one hand hovering in front of her face. “Oh, damn.”

“You all right?” he had asked, watching as she rubbed her nose in a series of frustrated little circles before retrieving a tissue from her pocket.

“Fine,” she said curtly, turning away to blow her nose. “Sorry. Allergies.”

As if he didn’t know.

“Can't you take something?”

“I could,” Scully had answered sourly, “if I had brought something to take.”

Around the time it became clear there was no case for them to chase, Scully’s control was beginning to slip, the sneezes coming in fits and false starts, tucked between apologies that were soon replaced with frustrated little huffs as her tissue supply slowly dwindled, and her patience with him was fully depleted. 

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she had scowled, somewhere between the fourth and fifth times he’d asked if she was okay. “I’m itchy, not inept.”

By the time they got back to their car and were well on their way back to D.C., Mulder wasn’t sure which one of them was suffering more.

+ + +

Both times Mulder had suggested they stop along the way and find a drugstore, Scully had insisted they didn’t have time for any detours, and that it was far more important that make it back to D.C. in time for their meeting with Skinner. “Besides,” she’d said, voice muffled from behind a stack of takeout napkins she’d found in the car’s center console, “it’ll pass.”

Now, with the air conditioning on high and her face turned pointedly towards the passenger-side window, it has decidedly not passed. Scully is in the throes of allergic misery, and well past the point of being able to pretend as though she isn’t.

This is bad. This is very bad. 

“You really didn’t bring anything with you?” Mulder asks again, ignoring every single survival instinct he possesses that is currently advising silence.

Scully turns her head just enough to glare at him, her eyes red-rimmed and shining, her nose a furious shade of red, her cheeks blotchy and pink. She looks, he thinks, unreasonably adorable. 

She also looks like she’s going to sneeze again, imminently, and he hates the part of himself that so easily derives its own brand of twisted pleasure from her allergic misery. 

He’s going to hell.

“No, Mulder,” she replies, her voice dangerously calm, “I didn’t. You said ‘an anomaly at a rural property.’ You conveniently left out the whole ‘looking for crop circles’ part of the morning, so no. I certainly didn’t expehhh… exp—ehhh! —expect— to be…w-wandering…around in a …ahhh—!”

Mulder grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white, watching out of the corner of his eye as Scully’s lips part and quiver helplessly, her watery eyes narrowing towards the vague direction of the windshield and the open road beyond. Her arm slowly lifts, hovering just below the level of her chin for a beat before she tips forward yet again, burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

“hih’mptchhh! hh’MPktshhi!”

Mulder, who has turned back to the road for purposes of self-preservation, shifts in his seat and swallows hard. It had been easier when there was still a potential case to distract himself with. It had been easier out in the field when she was still able to stifle them. Now, he’s not sure whether she’s unable to or whether she’s given up trying, but both possibilities are liable to fuck him right up the more he thinks about it.

He has, in recent years, been forced to come to terms with this part of himself, sifting through layers of self-hatred to reason that of all the fetishes and paraphilias he’s analyzed, encountered, and even taught about, his is objectively the least problematic out there.

It isn’t something he’s ever indulged in, and certainly not something he’s ever confessed to in what few relationships had lasted long enough to warrant considering it. It had been easy enough to bury under work. Easier, sometimes, to forget it was there at all. Nothing else mattered, really.

And then along came Scully.

Scully, who quickly became someone who mattered.

Scully, with allergies in every season, who sneezes when she steps into bright sunshine, and can barely so much as look at a picture of a cat without sniffling.

Scully, who has on more than one occasion announced to him in breathless, apologetic warning that she’s going to sneeze – as if that were something she needed to apologize to him for.

Scully, who had reawakened something within him that Mulder was starting to believe had gone dormant.

Scully, who has no earthly idea of the effect she has on him. For a multitude of reasons, he’d like to keep it that way.

He respects her too much to let his private proclivities become one more thing for her to carry the weight of, so he has perfected the art of nonchalance. He blesses her politely. He looks elsewhere if he needs to. He changes the subject when it becomes necessary. He teases her when deflecting with humor is a powerful enough distraction, and keeps silent when it won’t.

“I wasn’t expecting,” Scully tries again, voice muffled against fabric, “to be wandering around in the grass at this particular time of the year, otherwise I would have…I would hahhh-mptSHHiew! ‘mpktSCHHhh!! …hiih’mpSsHhiEW!”

Mulder risks another glance to his right as Scully blinks her eyes open and emerges from her sleeve with a series of damp sniffles and hazy, distant expression. She keeps her arm in place, lowering it just enough to draw in a soft, fluttering breath, and he catches a glimpse of her glistening lips as they part again. His own breath catches with a surge of chest-tightening arousal, and he quickly turns back to the road. 

“After all these years, I would have thought you’d have learned to expect the unexpected by now,” he jokes, adjusting his now-sweating palms on the wheel. He makes a mental note to find out what brand of allergy pills he’s previously seen her surreptitiously pop out of a blister pack and swallow dry, so that he can start keeping them in his car.

Scully sneezes angrily in reply, swipes irritably at her nose with the last of the napkins, and ignores him for the rest of the drive.

This is, he'll admit, probably for the best.

+ + +

They make it back to D.C. with minutes to spare, stopping in the basement office only long enough to grab their reports. Scully briefly disappears into the ladies’ room and meets him in the elevator alcove. She appears to have rinsed her face, smoothed her hair, replenished her tissue supply, and rearranged herself into something close to normal — provided no one were to look too closely at her puffy eyes and red nose.

Unfortunately, Mulder is looking a little too closely at the latter. 

Scully seems to sense his gaze, peering up at him with those big, blue, wet eyes of hers, and he quickly looks away. 

“What is it, Mulder?” She brings her hand up to press lightly beneath her nose with an air of self-consciousness. “Do I have…?”

“Nothing,” he lies quickly. “No, you’re fine, I just…” He looks down, peeling up the corner of the file label with his thumbnail, then pushing it back down. “...I really am sorry about this morning, Scully. I wouldn’t have dragged you out there if I’d known your hayfever was—”

“—Hayfever is an erroneous term,” Scully corrects, carefully rubbing the corner of her eye with her knuckle. “I prefer to use accurate terminology.” 

“Which is?” Mulder prompts, playing dumb. It is, at its core, a self-serving question, in hopes that she’ll elaborate – preferably in extended detail – but he also knows that if anything might make her feel even the slightest bit better, giving an impromptu medical lecture ought to do it. 

“Seasonal allergic rhinitis—” Scully replies, pausing to stifle a quiet sneeze against her wrist. “…Sorry. Hay is grass that has been cut and dried, whereas it’s the proteins in grass pollen that contain the actual allergen. And there’s….”  She trails off, scrunching up her face, lashes fluttering with a brief little flicker of irritation, and then after a beat, lets out a sharp, frustrated breath and attempts to continue. “There’s…there’s no…”

The cycle repeats itself twice – the little scrunch, the quick blink, the tiny huff – and Mulder has to consciously try not to grin like a fool. It can be hard to tell sometimes, whether Scully is trying to stave off a sneeze or coax one out, but either way, he always enjoys the brief mystery of it. 

A potent mix of affection and arousal has started to create a warm, hazy feeling that flows pleasantly through his veins, and Mulder feels, all at once, a little woozy with the overwhelm of it all. He’d kiss her right now, if he could. He’d do a lot of things, if he could — several of them not appropriate to be thinking about in the hallways of a federal building. 

Mostly, however, he wants to kiss away the frustrated little crease between her brows. He wants to drive her home, walk her into her apartment, settle her onto her couch, and drape a cool, damp cloth over her eyes. He wants to press his lips against her forehead, tuck her hair behind her ear, and then kiss her again — right on the tip of her nose. 

“…there’s no fever involved,” Scully finishes, her soft, raspy voice interrupting his reverie. “Hence, hayfever is an erroneous term.”

“Well, whatever you want to call it,” Mulder replies, “I don’t ever recall it being this bad before.” I would know, he thinks, but knows better than to say.

“It wasn’t,” Scully says flatly, jabbing the elevator button again with her thumb. “It’s gotten worse over the last few years. She runs her tongue thoughtfully across her lower lip and frowns faintly. “I may need to find a better medication regimen.”

“You’re a woman of science, Scully,” he smiles, holding the elevator door open for her. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

+ + +

Scully frowns at her reflection in the mirrored elevator walls, and smoothes her hair down for the third time.

“You look fine,” he says gently. You look perfect, he thinks.

“Thanks,” she mutters, meeting his gaze in the reflection as he offers her a wry smile. She tucks her hair behind her ear and steps back from the wall to stand beside him with her head down, sniffling quietly. 

She still sounds vaguely miserable, but the worst of it seems to have passed. Her breathing has evened out, the bright allergic flush across her nose and cheeks has faded into a charming rosy blush, and the most recent sneezes that have escaped against the back of her wrist are soft, spaced out, ticklish-sounding little things again.

Mulder is just beginning to think that maybe they can make it through their meeting with their collective dignities more or less intact, when the elevator stops on the second floor and a half dozen or so people get on. The two of them shift toward the back of the car to make room, leaving Scully trapped next to a man whose overpowering cologne immediately seems to occupy more space than he does.

It’s strong enough, unpleasantly so, even to make Mulder’s eyes water — why some men insist on marinating in the damn stuff has always been beyond him — but as he watches her, it slowly dawns on him that this is more than Scully’s poor, oversensitized nose is currently capable of handling.

Sure enough, she steps back once, then again, retreating as far away from the man as the cramped space will allow, and tucks herself directly against Mulder’s side. Her arm grazes against his as she lifts one hand slowly to pinch her nose between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes fluttering shut, brows drawn tight with concentration.  

Seeing how badly she’s trying not to sneeze is hard enough, so to speak, but then Mulder hears the small, damp click catch in the back of her throat, and suddenly Scully is ducking behind his shoulder and stifling a sneeze so tightly that her forehead bumps against him, and Mulder sees actual stars. 

He’s taken actual beatings with less internal fanfare, but he sees actual stars in his field of vision like some starving cartoon fucking wolf that’s just run headfirst into a brick wall in pursuit of its prey. Heart pounding, palms sweating, he grips the folder in his hand and tightens his jaw, bracing himself, because Scully is nothing if not predictable, and she never—

“h’NXkt!”

— sneezes —

“NGXtshiee!”

—just once. 

The third sneeze bursts out as little more than an affronted squeak, but Scully immediately draws in a mortified little gasp and peels herself away from him.

“...M’sorry,” she whispers, barely audible.

Mulder says nothing. He can’t. If he opens his mouth right now, he’ll have no possible excuse or explanation for the type of sound that will come out of it, so he offers the only thing he can safely give both of them – he pretends not to have noticed. He can tell from her small, strangled apology and the particular shade of pink Scully’s ears have turned that she would much prefer for the moment to go unacknowledged. That, at least, is something he can do for her.

Breath already starting to hitch frantically again, Scully turns further away and stifles another sneeze behind the folder now held up like a shield over her flushed face. 

Mulder stares at the numbers above the door and tries to recall whether spontaneous human combustion is covered under his federal employee health benefits. 

+ + +

By the time they step off the elevator, any hope Mulder previously held that Scully’s allergic reaction might have been tapering off has been thoroughly, catastrophically disproven. The cologne is apparently the final straw in Scully’s attempts to regain composure, and she sneezes her way down the hallway toward Skinner’s office in miserable, stifled little fits – one hand pressing a crumpled ball of tissues tightly against her nose, the other clutching her folder to her chest. 

“hh’NGKT! …ihh’GKtsh! NXktsh! …Oh, my God,” she moans. “This is just absurd. Oh, I c-can’t…I can’t…can't—hihh’NGkt-SHhiew! My God, I — ngXTShh!”

“Scully,” Mulder murmurs weakly, “you might want to stop suffocating them like that.”

“I’m trying—” she gasps, “—to get a handle on this. I don’t—I don’t—d’hNGkTsh!–nGXt!–NXttShhHiu!”

“Bless you. I’m just saying, I think it’s been proven time and time again that you explicitly make things worse when you do that.” If history is any indication, Mulder knows the more she tries to hold them in, the worse the fit will get – and the longer it will go on. Not that he’d complain, usually. Quite the contrary. 

Scully gives him a sharp, annoyed look as he holds open the door to the reception area of Skinner’s office for her. She steps around him, somehow managing to hold the glare until it dissolves into the helpless prelude of a sneeze that doubles her over at the waist just as they step inside.

“—hh’EHhttTSCHiiew!” 

Mulder reaches out instinctively to place a steadying hand at her back, and then thinks better of it, pulling his hand away in an awkward fluttering motion. Touching her would probably not be in his best interest right now.

“Bless you!” Kimberly calls cheerfully from behind her desk. 

“Thank you,” Scully replies, straightening quickly. “Excuse me.” She blinks hard, presses one finger beneath her nose, and glances toward the box of tissues on the desk. “Do you mind if I…?”

Kimberly follows her gaze and smiles kindly. “Of course, take whatever you need.”

Scully takes one tissue, hesitates, then takes another, dabbing delicately at her nose with the first and tucking the second into the cuff of her blazer.

“A.D. Skinner will be with you both shortly,” Kimberly informs them. “Feel free to take a seat in the meantime.” 

Mulder manages to nod and smile politely back, though he fears what he offers might resemble something more like a strained grimace as he takes a seat next to Scully on the uncomfortable leather sofa. There’s a part of him he is not particularly proud of that wonders how difficult it would be to find out what the exact brand name of that cologne is.

Beside him, Scully bobs forward soundlessly into the tissue with another trio of sneezes, then releases an exhausted, shaky exhale that sounds precariously close to a whimper. Yet another part of himself he is not, in this particular moment or context, at all proud of, begins to respond accordingly. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. 

Maybe there’s still time to call in a bomb threat and cancel this meeting entirely.

“Agent Scully? Agent Mulder?” Skinner calls, leaning out of his office door and beckoning them in. 

Shit. Maybe not.

+ + +

“Take a seat,” Skinner says, settling into his chair and opening a folder on the desk in front of him. “I received a fax from the Franklin County Police Department yesterday afternoon, and needless to say, I have more questions for the two of you regarding the way this case was wrapped up. I thought we might start with—”

“—mptschiieEW!”

A muffled, high-pitched little sneeze Scully tries – and fails – to stifle against two fingers interrupts his sentence, but Skinner doesn’t appear to be fazed. “...Agent Scully’s report,” he continues, not looking up. “Bless you.”

“Excuse me,” Scully murmurs, giving her nose a brisk rub as she leans forward to hand over her report. Skinner takes it, flipping through pages with the kind of professional focus Mulder fears is increasingly out of the picture for himself. He risks a glance over at Scully, who is clearly trying to hold back another sneeze, and Mulder watches, feeling dazed, as she pulls out all the stops – tensing her shoulders, narrowing her eyes, furrowing her brows, scrunching up her nose – staving it off until she simply can’t anymore.

“Ex-excuse me,” she gasps, turning sharply away and raising one hand, “I-I’m—I’m sorry, I’m g—I’m ghh—! hh’NGkshh! Hih-hh-hihh…!? hh’nNGh-shiew! hihh…!….iihtSCHHhhiew! hihh—!? ‘mMpk’tschiEew!”

“Bless you,” Skinner repeats in a low voice, glancing up at her this time with one eyebrow raised. Scully carefully lowers her hand from where she’s cupped it over her nose and mouth, and exhales slowly and carefully.

“Th-thank you, sir.”

It is, in theory, a perfectly ordinary workplace exchange. A polite acknowledgement, a monosyllabic honorific offered to a superior officer during a supervisory meeting. Mulder has heard her say the word a thousand times before in a thousand different rooms, and really, that should be the end of it.

But Scully’s voice is  thickened by congestion and softened by embarrassment, and the “sir” comes out low and breathless and slightly husky – and Mulder’s mind unhelpfully supplies several contexts in which he would very much like to hear her say that word again. 

He is, apparently, a worse man than he has previously understood himself to be.

Carefully, slowly, and with as much casual coolness as he can possibly muster, Mulder lowers the file onto his lap, positioning it in such a way that it deliberately shields his growing situation.

“I see from your notes that you both met with the initial informant almost immediately upon arrival,” Skinner prompts. “Could you elaborate on the discrepancies you identified in Mr. Parker’s statements and how exactly you came to that conclusion?”

Scully clears her throat and nods, sitting up a little straighter, looking determined to proceed.

"Yes. Shortly after Agent Mulder and myself arrived at Mr. Parker’s residence," Scully continues, "we were able to ascertain that his version of events was inconsistent with those of…of his…his…hihhhh–his–nhhhih…!”

Mulder swallows hard and shifts in his chair, heart pounding with what feels like a lethal surge of anticipatory arousal. It’s strong enough that there's a blinding white shimmer around the edges of his vision he can’t quite blink away, his slacks suddenly uncomfortably, concerningly tight.

By now, he knows the pattern of Scully's breathing as well as his own. He knows her affronted little huffs and frightened gasps; her exhausted sighs and everything between. And this – the particular staccato of desperate, climbing hitches and rapid, urgent little gasps – this he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. She’s gearing up for a proper fit, and it might very well lead to his undoing.

"Hihh! –ihh–hh'hiihh—!?”

Hers too, from the looks of it.

“ —Ex-tSCHiiewh! …Excuse me,” Scully continues, rapidly blinking back tears of irritation. “It was inconsistent with three of his neighbors’ accounts, all of whom had reported…reported the lights over the treeline at the end of the street closer to nine-fifteen. Naturally, this raised several qu-que-hehh…quest'SChiiew! —h’etshhieu! ‘TSCHiew! – Excuse me…questions about Mr. Parker’s reliability as a witness."

Mulder’s pulse pounds in his throat, and somewhere demandingly lower. How the hell is he supposed to give a damn about Mr. Parker when Scully has just sneezed in the middle of excusing herself for sneezing in the middle of her sentence?

He keeps his expression neutral, acutely aware that the man sitting across from him is not only his direct supervisor, but highly capable of reading him like a goddamned book should he so choose. Mulder curls his fist to rest against his chin, and chews absently at his thumbnail, hoping it reads as casual interest at her version of events – and not like he’s openly, shamelessly gazing.

Fortunately for him, Skinner's attention is focused entirely on Scully. He glances up again, his expression more or less unreadable – quite possibly mild annoyance at the continued interruptions, quite possibly genuine concern – it's hard to tell with him sometimes, Mulder thinks.

"Agent Scully," Skinner says evenly, "do you need to take a moment?"

"No, sir," Scully immediately replies, making a valiant attempt to continue. "I assure you, I'm perfectly f–fi-fi’yihhh–hh–! ihh…! hihh'NGXsh! 'NGkxsh! –iihh'NGtsh! –ngkt-SCHiiew! …'tschiiew! …Hihh–! –iihhp'tSChhiiEW!! …excuse me. I’m p-perfectly fine."

Mulder repositions his folder lower and bites the inside of his cheek until it stings enough to make him wince.

The Flukeman, he thinks desperately, staring down at the report in his lap until the typewritten letters on the cover start to swim. Think of the Flukeman. Scolexes. Slime-covered sewer monsters.

It’s not working. Not even close. All he can focus on in his peripheral vision is the hazy expression that has not yet lifted from Scully's face and the series of audibly damp sniffles that suggest she is not, in fact, perfectly fine – nor anywhere near finished.

Mulder’s gaze drifts down and to the side, and he watches as she lowers her hand beneath the level of the desk and wipes it surreptitiously against the hem of her blazer.

Tooms. Bile. Newspaper dripping with fresh, oozing—

“—Huhh’EtSSCHiiuuew!”

Jesus. Christ. He definitely should have called in a bomb threat. 

Abandoning all efforts at subtlety, Mulder finally redirects his gaze to risk another look at Scully.

She looks mortified. The force of this sneeze has folded her forward, leaving her hunched over her lap. Her cheeks are flushed a deep, rosy pink, the same shade as her nose. God, her nose. It’s running now, not a lot, but enough that the steady rhythm of quiet sniffles isn't quite managing to do the trick. Scully sniffles wetly and brings one finger – then two – to curl lightly beneath her nose, assessing the situation. Her eyes widen slightly, then dart, briefly, longingly, toward the box of tissues sitting on the shelf behind Skinner's desk.

Her need for them is evidently not a detail lost on Skinner, who now looks clearly both entirely baffled and considerably alarmed. A few seconds pass before he turns to follow her gaze, retrieving the box and sliding it across the desk without saying a word. Scully takes one, folds it in half, and dabs at her nose, sniffling quietly before continuing.

“The n-neighbor,” she tries again, wriggling her nose, “the neihh—ihh–! Huhhpt’SCHiuuEWh!”

“Agent Scully,” Skinner says carefully, “if you’re feeling unwell—”

Scully straightens instantly, her cheeks flushing deeper as she continues to avoid Skinner's watchful gaze.

"—I’m fine, sir," she cuts in, firmly. "Please excuse me."

Mulder swallows hard. The sneezes are very clearly getting more and more impossible for her to contain. Scully might be the one currently falling apart, but this entire situation is unraveling him completely. The paper he's strategically positioned over his lap is currently the only thing keeping him from complete professional ruin.

The selfish part of him – the half currently throbbing with need – wants nothing more than to stay seated elbow-to-elbow with her and watch the whole fit play out in exquisite, beautiful detail so his eidetic memory can store it to replay later. The other half – the better half, he fears – is flooding with the deep, protective ache of knowing just how much this loss of control, in front of her direct superior no less, is currently costing Scully.

He's seen her stare down monsters and murderers without so much as flinching, but it doesn't take an advanced degree in behavioral psychology to read the quiet mortification on her face as she attempts to gather herself in the face of an unrelenting storm.

Unfortunately for that selfish part, he'll always choose her. Always.

“Sir,” Mulder interjects, somehow managing to keep his voice miraculously steady considering the circumstances, “if Agent Scully wants to step out for some fresh air, I can take it from here. If, uh, if that’s all right with you.”

The solution he proposes is as much for her as it is for him. He's not sure how much longer he can last.

“That’s—” Scully immediately attempts to protest, her words snagging on the damp irritation in the back of her throat. She coughs, hastily covering her mouth with her palm, and for the first time all day Mulder can hear an audible wheeze as she simultaneously tries to catch her breath and continue her objection. “That’s really—that’s really not—”

“—With all due respect,” Skinner cuts in, “I think that would be wise. Agent Mulder can fill you in on any pertinent details later. Better yet, he can fill you in tomorrow. Go home, Agent Scully. Take the rest of the afternoon off.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Scully rasps, firing back, “I’m perfectly capable of con..of of…contihh…”

The determined, stubborn set of her face falters, overtaken by the rising tide of allergic misery – and God, she is fighting the next sneeze with everything she has. It is an extraordinary effort, and one Mulder can’t turn away from. Gnawing on the raw stump of his thumbnail, he flicks his gaze back and forth anxiously between the two of them. Any annoyance on Skinner’s face that may have been previously present has been replaced with stern compassion, and just the barest touch of lingering bewilderment.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Agent Scully.”

Against all odds, Scully manages to rally. Her expression clears, her shoulders lift in defiance, and she opens her mouth as if to protest, but what comes out instead is a raspy, irritated cough. She clamps a hand over her mouth as she gets to her feet, lowering her hand once she manages to catch her breath again.

“Sir,” she says in a small voice, “if you have any questions about my field report…”

“I know how to reach you,” Skinner finishes for her. “Take it easy, Agent Scully.”

Scully nods and sniffles, avoiding the gaze of both men as she slips out the door. Teeth still pressed against his fingernail, Mulder says nothing, and simply watches her go.

The office is suddenly far too quiet in her immediate absence, and he feels dizzy, all the blood having rushed from his brain straight to his—

“Is she all right?” Skinner asks, nodding his head towards the general direction of the door. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mulder nods, lowering his hand to smooth his tie in what he hopes is a casual gesture. To his own ears, his inflection doesn’t land the way it should, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Allergies.” 

Skinner raises an eyebrow.

“I gathered as much. What on earth has her in such a state?”

Mulder shrugs as innocently as he can manage. He has just enough remaining self-preserving instinct to know that admitting to Skinner that his partner’s current condition is more or less his fault is one matter – but mentioning the crop circle side of things is another.

Instead, he jokingly feigns searching around Skinner’s office. It’s a weak deflection, but it gives him an excuse to shift in his chair and adjust the file folder still lying – strategically and very necessarily – across his lap.

“You’re not, uh, hiding a cat in here or something?”

Skinner doesn’t crack a smile, but his expression softens somewhat. He shakes his head, sighs deeply, then leans forward, gesturing at Mulder’s lap with an expectant look.

Mulder freezes.

“...Sir?” he asks, confused and panicking. He is so, completely fucked.

“Your report, Agent Mulder? May I review it?”

“Uh…no?” 

Skinner’s brows lift in surprise, and Mulder blinks, scrambling. Heat uncharacteristically floods his face as he attempts to pull himself together, leaning forward and handing it over.

"Oh. Right. Yes. Of course."

Skinner frowns.

“Are you all right, Agent Mulder?”

“...Sir?”

“You seem rather distracted.”

Mulder chooses his next words carefully and tries not to choke on them. 

“Sometimes it gets pretty rough for her. Guess I’m just thinking about worst case scenarios.”

It’s a big fat lie. He’s thinking about Scully ducking into the privacy of the nearest washroom, sneezing openly and wholeheartedly – the way he knows she desperately needs to. He’s thinking about Scully blowing her nose, splashing cold water onto her face, and letting out a long, shaky sigh.

It’s a big fat lie, but Skinner seems to buy it.

“Try not to,” Skinner answers easily. “Agent Scully will be fine. She’s tougher than both of us combined. Now, if we could pick up where she left off, with the neighbors’ timeline discrepancies…”

With great effort, Mulder returns his attention to the meeting as Skinner resumes his questions. He nods at all the right places, answers when prompted, and keeps his voice even enough to pass for professional – but it’s not long before his thoughts drift gently and inevitably, back to Scully.

One way or another, they always do.

God help him, he’s already counting down the seconds until he’s alone.

In his defense, he does feel guilty. It’s just not exactly the dominant emotion at present.

Scully has said very little since they left Upper Marlboro, where they had spent the better part of the morning tromping through three acres of an overgrown field on the basis of a lead that had ultimately fizzled out into nothing. 

Far too focused on the details of what had seemed, at first, to be a promising case, Mulder hadn’t considered that the setting itself might become a problem until after Scully went quiet beside him, and then, a few minutes later, was no longer beside him at all, but several paces behind, moving more slowly through the tall grass. 

At first he’d mistaken her silence for annoyance, which was a reasonable enough assumption – and probably not entirely inaccurate, judging by the way she’d rolled her eyes when he’d casually mentioned the possibility of crop circles – but some time later he turned in time to catch her stifling a rapid string of sneezes against the back of her wrist, emerging from the fit with a pink nose, watery eyes, and a faint, irritated frown as she pushed forward through the gently swaying grass as the breeze lifted a fine yellow haze into the air between them.

Pollen. Of course. 

For the first little while, it had been subtle enough he could almost pretend not to notice the way Scully kept rubbing and wrinkling her nose, the way she was blinking more than usual, the damp sniffles punctuating what few words she did say, the irritated little cough here and there. 

After six sneezes in a row – each of which sounded increasingly difficult for her to contain, and each of which sent a pulsating thrill straight to somewhere deeply inconvenient – Mulder had glanced behind him again, to where Scully had come to an abrupt stop. 

“Jeez,” he’d blurted out, checking his watch so his eyes had something to do besides zero in on her flushed cheeks and watery eyes, the irritated scrunch of her nose. “Bless you.” 

God, how he wanted to— 

“Damn,” Scully muttered, patting around in her pockets and frowning as she sniffled frantically, one hand hovering in front of her face. “Oh, damn.”

“You all right?” he had asked, watching as she rubbed her nose in a series of frustrated little circles before retrieving a tissue from her pocket.

“Fine,” she said curtly, turning away to blow her nose. “Sorry. Allergies.”

As if he didn’t know.

“Can't you take something?”

“I could,” Scully had answered sourly, “if I had brought something to take.”

Around the time it became clear there was no case for them to chase, Scully’s control was beginning to slip, the sneezes coming in fits and false starts, tucked between apologies that were soon replaced with frustrated little huffs as her tissue supply slowly dwindled, and her patience with him was fully depleted. 

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she had scowled, somewhere between the fourth and fifth times he’d asked if she was okay. “I’m itchy, not inept.”

By the time they got back to their car and were well on their way back to D.C., Mulder wasn’t sure which one of them was suffering more.

+ + +

Both times Mulder had suggested they stop along the way and find a drugstore, Scully had insisted they didn’t have time for any detours, and that it was far more important that make it back to D.C. in time for their meeting with Skinner. “Besides,” she’d said, voice muffled from behind a stack of takeout napkins she’d found in the car’s center console, “it’ll pass.”

Now, with the air conditioning on high and her face turned pointedly towards the passenger-side window, it has decidedly not passed. Scully is in the throes of allergic misery, and well past the point of being able to pretend as though she isn’t.

This is bad. This is very bad. 

“You really didn’t bring anything with you?” Mulder asks again, ignoring every single survival instinct he possesses that is currently advising silence.

Scully turns her head just enough to glare at him, her eyes red-rimmed and shining, her nose a furious shade of red, her cheeks blotchy and pink. She looks, he thinks, unreasonably adorable. 

She also looks like she’s going to sneeze again, imminently, and he hates the part of himself that so easily derives its own brand of twisted pleasure from her allergic misery. 

He’s going to hell.

“No, Mulder,” she replies, her voice dangerously calm, “I didn’t. You said ‘an anomaly at a rural property.’ You conveniently left out the whole ‘looking for crop circles’ part of the morning, so no. I certainly didn’t expehhh… exp—ehhh! —expect— to be…w-wandering…around in a …ahhh—!”

Mulder grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white, watching out of the corner of his eye as Scully’s lips part and quiver helplessly, her watery eyes narrowing towards the vague direction of the windshield and the open road beyond. Her arm slowly lifts, hovering just below the level of her chin for a beat before she tips forward yet again, burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

“hih’mptchhh! hh’MPktshhi!”

Mulder, who has turned back to the road for purposes of self-preservation, shifts in his seat and swallows hard. It had been easier when there was still a potential case to distract himself with. It had been easier out in the field when she was still able to stifle them. Now, he’s not sure whether she’s unable to or whether she’s given up trying, but both possibilities are liable to fuck him right up the more he thinks about it.

He has, in recent years, been forced to come to terms with this part of himself, sifting through layers of self-hatred to reason that of all the fetishes and paraphilias he’s analyzed, encountered, and even taught about, his is objectively the least problematic out there.

It isn’t something he’s ever indulged in, and certainly not something he’s ever confessed to in what few relationships had lasted long enough to warrant considering it. It had been easy enough to bury under work. Easier, sometimes, to forget it was there at all. Nothing else mattered, really.

And then along came Scully.

Scully, who quickly became someone who mattered.

Scully, with allergies in every season, who sneezes when she steps into bright sunshine, and can barely so much as look at a picture of a cat without sniffling.

Scully, who has on more than one occasion announced to him in breathless, apologetic warning that she’s going to sneeze – as if that were something she needed to apologize to him for.

Scully, who had reawakened something within him that Mulder was starting to believe had gone dormant.

Scully, who has no earthly idea of the effect she has on him. For a multitude of reasons, he’d like to keep it that way.

He respects her too much to let his private proclivities become one more thing for her to carry the weight of, so he has perfected the art of nonchalance. He blesses her politely. He looks elsewhere if he needs to. He changes the subject when it becomes necessary. He teases her when deflecting with humor is a powerful enough distraction, and keeps silent when it won’t.

“I wasn’t expecting,” Scully tries again, voice muffled against fabric, “to be wandering around in the grass at this particular time of the year, otherwise I would have…I would hahhh-mptSHHiew! ‘mpktSCHHhh!! …hiih’mpSsHhiEW!”

Mulder risks another glance to his right as Scully blinks her eyes open and emerges from her sleeve with a series of damp sniffles and hazy, distant expression. She keeps her arm in place, lowering it just enough to draw in a soft, fluttering breath, and he catches a glimpse of her glistening lips as they part again. His own breath catches with a surge of chest-tightening arousal, and he quickly turns back to the road. 

“After all these years, I would have thought you’d have learned to expect the unexpected by now,” he jokes, adjusting his now-sweating palms on the wheel. He makes a mental note to find out what brand of allergy pills he’s previously seen her surreptitiously pop out of a blister pack and swallow dry, so that he can start keeping them in his car.

Scully sneezes angrily in reply, swipes irritably at her nose with the last of the napkins, and ignores him for the rest of the drive.

This is, he'll admit, probably for the best.

+ + +

They make it back to D.C. with minutes to spare, stopping in the basement office only long enough to grab their reports. Scully briefly disappears into the ladies’ room and meets him in the elevator alcove. She appears to have rinsed her face, smoothed her hair, replenished her tissue supply, and rearranged herself into something close to normal — provided no one were to look too closely at her puffy eyes and red nose.

Unfortunately, Mulder is looking a little too closely at the latter. 

Scully seems to sense his gaze, peering up at him with those big, blue, wet eyes of hers, and he quickly looks away. 

“What is it, Mulder?” She brings her hand up to press lightly beneath her nose with an air of self-consciousness. “Do I have…?”

“Nothing,” he lies quickly. “No, you’re fine, I just…” He looks down, peeling up the corner of the file label with his thumbnail, then pushing it back down. “...I really am sorry about this morning, Scully. I wouldn’t have dragged you out there if I’d known your hayfever was—”

“—Hayfever is an erroneous term,” Scully corrects, carefully rubbing the corner of her eye with her knuckle. “I prefer to use accurate terminology.” 

“Which is?” Mulder prompts, playing dumb. It is, at its core, a self-serving question, in hopes that she’ll elaborate – preferably in extended detail – but he also knows that if anything might make her feel even the slightest bit better, giving an impromptu medical lecture ought to do it. 

“Seasonal allergic rhinitis—” Scully replies, pausing to stifle a quiet sneeze against her wrist. “…Sorry. Hay is grass that has been cut and dried, whereas it’s the proteins in grass pollen that contain the actual allergen. And there’s….”  She trails off, scrunching up her face, lashes fluttering with a brief little flicker of irritation, and then after a beat, lets out a sharp, frustrated breath and attempts to continue. “There’s…there’s no…”

The cycle repeats itself twice – the little scrunch, the quick blink, the tiny huff – and Mulder has to consciously try not to grin like a fool. It can be hard to tell sometimes, whether Scully is trying to stave off a sneeze or coax one out, but either way, he always enjoys the brief mystery of it. 

A potent mix of affection and arousal has started to create a warm, hazy feeling that flows pleasantly through his veins, and Mulder feels, all at once, a little woozy with the overwhelm of it all. He’d kiss her right now, if he could. He’d do a lot of things, if he could — several of them not appropriate to be thinking about in the hallways of a federal building. 

Mostly, however, he wants to kiss away the frustrated little crease between her brows. He wants to drive her home, walk her into her apartment, settle her onto her couch, and drape a cool, damp cloth over her eyes. He wants to press his lips against her forehead, tuck her hair behind her ear, and then kiss her again — right on the tip of her nose. 

“…there’s no fever involved,” Scully finishes, her soft, raspy voice interrupting his reverie. “Hence, hayfever is an erroneous term.”

“Well, whatever you want to call it,” Mulder replies, “I don’t ever recall it being this bad before.” I would know, he thinks, but knows better than to say.

“It wasn’t,” Scully says flatly, jabbing the elevator button again with her thumb. “It’s gotten worse over the last few years. She runs her tongue thoughtfully across her lower lip and frowns faintly. “I may need to find a better medication regimen.”

“You’re a woman of science, Scully,” he smiles, holding the elevator door open for her. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

+ + +

Scully frowns at her reflection in the mirrored elevator walls, and smoothes her hair down for the third time.

“You look fine,” he says gently. You look perfect, he thinks.

“Thanks,” she mutters, meeting his gaze in the reflection as he offers her a wry smile. She tucks her hair behind her ear and steps back from the wall to stand beside him with her head down, sniffling quietly. 

She still sounds vaguely miserable, but the worst of it seems to have passed. Her breathing has evened out, the bright allergic flush across her nose and cheeks has faded into a charming rosy blush, and the most recent sneezes that have escaped against the back of her wrist are soft, spaced out, ticklish-sounding little things again.

Mulder is just beginning to think that maybe they can make it through their meeting with their collective dignities more or less intact, when the elevator stops on the second floor and a half dozen or so people get on. The two of them shift toward the back of the car to make room, leaving Scully trapped next to a man whose overpowering cologne immediately seems to occupy more space than he does.

It’s strong enough, unpleasantly so, even to make Mulder’s eyes water — why some men insist on marinating in the damn stuff has always been beyond him — but as he watches her, it slowly dawns on him that this is more than Scully’s poor, oversensitized nose is currently capable of handling.

Sure enough, she steps back once, then again, retreating as far away from the man as the cramped space will allow, and tucks herself directly against Mulder’s side. Her arm grazes against his as she lifts one hand slowly to pinch her nose between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes fluttering shut, brows drawn tight with concentration.  

Seeing how badly she’s trying not to sneeze is hard enough, so to speak, but then Mulder hears the small, damp click catch in the back of her throat, and suddenly Scully is ducking behind his shoulder and stifling a sneeze so tightly that her forehead bumps against him, and Mulder sees actual stars. 

He’s taken actual beatings with less internal fanfare, but he sees actual stars in his field of vision like some starving cartoon fucking wolf that’s just run headfirst into a brick wall in pursuit of its prey. Heart pounding, palms sweating, he grips the folder in his hand and tightens his jaw, bracing himself, because Scully is nothing if not predictable, and she never—

“h’NXkt!”

— sneezes —

“NGXtshiee!”

—just once. 

The third sneeze bursts out as little more than an affronted squeak, but Scully immediately draws in a mortified little gasp and peels herself away from him.

“...M’sorry,” she whispers, barely audible.

Mulder says nothing. He can’t. If he opens his mouth right now, he’ll have no possible excuse or explanation for the type of sound that will come out of it, so he offers the only thing he can safely give both of them – he pretends not to have noticed. He can tell from her small, strangled apology and the particular shade of pink Scully’s ears have turned that she would much prefer for the moment to go unacknowledged. That, at least, is something he can do for her.

Breath already starting to hitch frantically again, Scully turns further away and stifles another sneeze behind the folder now held up like a shield over her flushed face. 

Mulder stares at the numbers above the door and tries to recall whether spontaneous human combustion is covered under his federal employee health benefits. 

+ + +

By the time they step off the elevator, any hope Mulder previously held that Scully’s allergic reaction might have been tapering off has been thoroughly, catastrophically disproven. The cologne is apparently the final straw in Scully’s attempts to regain composure, and she sneezes her way down the hallway toward Skinner’s office in miserable, stifled little fits – one hand pressing a crumpled ball of tissues tightly against her nose, the other clutching her folder to her chest. 

“hh’NGKT! …ihh’GKtsh! NXktsh! …Oh, my God,” she moans. “This is just absurd. Oh, I c-can’t…I can’t…can't—hihh’NGkt-SHhiew! My God, I — ngXTShh!”

“Scully,” Mulder murmurs weakly, “you might want to stop suffocating them like that.”

“I’m trying—” she gasps, “—to get a handle on this. I don’t—I don’t—d’hNGkTsh!–nGXt!–NXttShhHiu!”

“Bless you. I’m just saying, I think it’s been proven time and time again that you explicitly make things worse when you do that.” If history is any indication, Mulder knows the more she tries to hold them in, the worse the fit will get – and the longer it will go on. Not that he’d complain, usually. Quite the contrary. 

Scully gives him a sharp, annoyed look as he holds open the door to the reception area of Skinner’s office for her. She steps around him, somehow managing to hold the glare until it dissolves into the helpless prelude of a sneeze that doubles her over at the waist just as they step inside.

“—hh’EHhttTSCHiiew!” 

Mulder reaches out instinctively to place a steadying hand at her back, and then thinks better of it, pulling his hand away in an awkward fluttering motion. Touching her would probably not be in his best interest right now.

“Bless you!” Kimberly calls cheerfully from behind her desk. 

“Thank you,” Scully replies, straightening quickly. “Excuse me.” She blinks hard, presses one finger beneath her nose, and glances toward the box of tissues on the desk. “Do you mind if I…?”

Kimberly follows her gaze and smiles kindly. “Of course, take whatever you need.”

Scully takes one tissue, hesitates, then takes another, dabbing delicately at her nose with the first and tucking the second into the cuff of her blazer.

“A.D. Skinner will be with you both shortly,” Kimberly informs them. “Feel free to take a seat in the meantime.” 

Mulder manages to nod and smile politely back, though he fears what he offers might resemble something more like a strained grimace as he takes a seat next to Scully on the uncomfortable leather sofa. There’s a part of him he is not particularly proud of that wonders how difficult it would be to find out what the exact brand name of that cologne is.

Beside him, Scully bobs forward soundlessly into the tissue with another trio of sneezes, then releases an exhausted, shaky exhale that sounds precariously close to a whimper. Yet another part of himself he is not, in this particular moment or context, at all proud of, begins to respond accordingly. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. 

Maybe there’s still time to call in a bomb threat and cancel this meeting entirely.

“Agent Scully? Agent Mulder?” Skinner calls, leaning out of his office door and beckoning them in. 

Shit. Maybe not.

+ + +

“Take a seat,” Skinner says, settling into his chair and opening a folder on the desk in front of him. “I received a fax from the Franklin County Police Department yesterday afternoon, and needless to say, I have more questions for the two of you regarding the way this case was wrapped up. I thought we might start with—”

“—mptschiieEW!”

A muffled, high-pitched little sneeze Scully tries – and fails – to stifle against two fingers interrupts his sentence, but Skinner doesn’t appear to be fazed. “...Agent Scully’s report,” he continues, not looking up. “Bless you.”

“Excuse me,” Scully murmurs, giving her nose a brisk rub as she leans forward to hand over her report. Skinner takes it, flipping through pages with the kind of professional focus Mulder fears is increasingly out of the picture for himself. He risks a glance over at Scully, who is clearly trying to hold back another sneeze, and Mulder watches, feeling dazed, as she pulls out all the stops – tensing her shoulders, narrowing her eyes, furrowing her brows, scrunching up her nose – staving it off until she simply can’t anymore.

“Ex-excuse me,” she gasps, turning sharply away and raising one hand, “I-I’m—I’m sorry, I’m g—I’m ghh—! hh’NGkshh! Hih-hh-hihh…!? hh’nNGh-shiew! hihh…!….iihtSCHHhhiew! hihh—!? ‘mMpk’tschiEew!”

“Bless you,” Skinner repeats in a low voice, glancing up at her this time with one eyebrow raised. Scully carefully lowers her hand from where she’s cupped it over her nose and mouth, and exhales slowly and carefully.

“Th-thank you, sir.”

It is, in theory, a perfectly ordinary workplace exchange. A polite acknowledgement, a monosyllabic honorific offered to a superior officer during a supervisory meeting. Mulder has heard her say the word a thousand times before in a thousand different rooms, and really, that should be the end of it.

But Scully’s voice is  thickened by congestion and softened by embarrassment, and the “sir” comes out low and breathless and slightly husky – and Mulder’s mind unhelpfully supplies several contexts in which he would very much like to hear her say that word again. 

He is, apparently, a worse man than he has previously understood himself to be.

Carefully, slowly, and with as much casual coolness as he can possibly muster, Mulder lowers the file onto his lap, positioning it in such a way that it deliberately shields his growing situation.

“I see from your notes that you both met with the initial informant almost immediately upon arrival,” Skinner prompts. “Could you elaborate on the discrepancies you identified in Mr. Parker’s statements and how exactly you came to that conclusion?”

Scully clears her throat and nods, sitting up a little straighter, looking determined to proceed.

"Yes. Shortly after Agent Mulder and myself arrived at Mr. Parker’s residence," Scully continues, "we were able to ascertain that his version of events was inconsistent with those of…of his…his…hihhhh–his–nhhhih…!”

Mulder swallows hard and shifts in his chair, heart pounding with what feels like a lethal surge of anticipatory arousal. It’s strong enough that there's a blinding white shimmer around the edges of his vision he can’t quite blink away, his slacks suddenly uncomfortably, concerningly tight.

By now, he knows the pattern of Scully's breathing as well as his own. He knows her affronted little huffs and frightened gasps; her exhausted sighs and everything between. And this – the particular staccato of desperate, climbing hitches and rapid, urgent little gasps – this he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. She’s gearing up for a proper fit, and it might very well lead to his undoing.

"Hihh! –ihh–hh'hiihh—!?”

Hers too, from the looks of it.

“ —Ex-tSCHiiewh! …Excuse me,” Scully continues, rapidly blinking back tears of irritation. “It was inconsistent with three of his neighbors’ accounts, all of whom had reported…reported the lights over the treeline at the end of the street closer to nine-fifteen. Naturally, this raised several qu-que-hehh…quest'SChiiew! —h’etshhieu! ‘TSCHiew! – Excuse me…questions about Mr. Parker’s reliability as a witness."

Mulder’s pulse pounds in his throat, and somewhere demandingly lower. How the hell is he supposed to give a damn about Mr. Parker when Scully has just sneezed in the middle of excusing herself for sneezing in the middle of her sentence?

He keeps his expression neutral, acutely aware that the man sitting across from him is not only his direct supervisor, but highly capable of reading him like a goddamned book should he so choose. Mulder curls his fist to rest against his chin, and chews absently at his thumbnail, hoping it reads as casual interest at her version of events – and not like he’s openly, shamelessly gazing.

Fortunately for him, Skinner's attention is focused entirely on Scully. He glances up again, his expression more or less unreadable – quite possibly mild annoyance at the continued interruptions, quite possibly genuine concern – it's hard to tell with him sometimes, Mulder thinks.

"Agent Scully," Skinner says evenly, "do you need to take a moment?"

"No, sir," Scully immediately replies, making a valiant attempt to continue. "I assure you, I'm perfectly f–fi-fi’yihhh–hh–! ihh…! hihh'NGXsh! 'NGkxsh! –iihh'NGtsh! –ngkt-SCHiiew! …'tschiiew! …Hihh–! –iihhp'tSChhiiEW!! …excuse me. I’m p-perfectly fine."

Mulder repositions his folder lower and bites the inside of his cheek until it stings enough to make him wince.

The Flukeman, he thinks desperately, staring down at the report in his lap until the typewritten letters on the cover start to swim. Think of the Flukeman. Scolexes. Slime-covered sewer monsters.

It’s not working. Not even close. All he can focus on in his peripheral vision is the hazy expression that has not yet lifted from Scully's face and the series of audibly damp sniffles that suggest she is not, in fact, perfectly fine – nor anywhere near finished.

Mulder’s gaze drifts down and to the side, and he watches as she lowers her hand beneath the level of the desk and wipes it surreptitiously against the hem of her blazer.

Tooms. Bile. Newspaper dripping with fresh, oozing—

“—Huhh’EtSSCHiiuuew!”

Jesus. Christ. He definitely should have called in a bomb threat. 

Abandoning all efforts at subtlety, Mulder finally redirects his gaze to risk another look at Scully.

She looks mortified. The force of this sneeze has folded her forward, leaving her hunched over her lap. Her cheeks are flushed a deep, rosy pink, the same shade as her nose. God, her nose. It’s running now, not a lot, but enough that the steady rhythm of quiet sniffles isn't quite managing to do the trick. Scully sniffles wetly and brings one finger – then two – to curl lightly beneath her nose, assessing the situation. Her eyes widen slightly, then dart, briefly, longingly, toward the box of tissues sitting on the shelf behind Skinner's desk.

Her need for them is evidently not a detail lost on Skinner, who now looks clearly both entirely baffled and considerably alarmed. A few seconds pass before he turns to follow her gaze, retrieving the box and sliding it across the desk without saying a word. Scully takes one, folds it in half, and dabs at her nose, sniffling quietly before continuing.

“The n-neighbor,” she tries again, wriggling her nose, “the neihh—ihh–! Huhhpt’SCHiuuEWh!”

“Agent Scully,” Skinner says carefully, “if you’re feeling unwell—”

Scully straightens instantly, her cheeks flushing deeper as she continues to avoid Skinner's watchful gaze.

"—I’m fine, sir," she cuts in, firmly. "Please excuse me."

Mulder swallows hard. The sneezes are very clearly getting more and more impossible for her to contain. Scully might be the one currently falling apart, but this entire situation is unraveling him completely. The paper he's strategically positioned over his lap is currently the only thing keeping him from complete professional ruin.

The selfish part of him – the half currently throbbing with need – wants nothing more than to stay seated elbow-to-elbow with her and watch the whole fit play out in exquisite, beautiful detail so his eidetic memory can store it to replay later. The other half – the better half, he fears – is flooding with the deep, protective ache of knowing just how much this loss of control, in front of her direct superior no less, is currently costing Scully.

He's seen her stare down monsters and murderers without so much as flinching, but it doesn't take an advanced degree in behavioral psychology to read the quiet mortification on her face as she attempts to gather herself in the face of an unrelenting storm.

Unfortunately for that selfish part, he'll always choose her. Always.

“Sir,” Mulder interjects, somehow managing to keep his voice miraculously steady considering the circumstances, “if Agent Scully wants to step out for some fresh air, I can take it from here. If, uh, if that’s all right with you.”

The solution he proposes is as much for her as it is for him. He's not sure how much longer he can last.

“That’s—” Scully immediately attempts to protest, her words snagging on the damp irritation in the back of her throat. She coughs, hastily covering her mouth with her palm, and for the first time all day Mulder can hear an audible wheeze as she simultaneously tries to catch her breath and continue her objection. “That’s really—that’s really not—”

“—With all due respect,” Skinner cuts in, “I think that would be wise. Agent Mulder can fill you in on any pertinent details later. Better yet, he can fill you in tomorrow. Go home, Agent Scully. Take the rest of the afternoon off.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Scully rasps, firing back, “I’m perfectly capable of con..of of…contihh…”

The determined, stubborn set of her face falters, overtaken by the rising tide of allergic misery – and God, she is fighting the next sneeze with everything she has. It is an extraordinary effort, and one Mulder can’t turn away from. Gnawing on the raw stump of his thumbnail, he flicks his gaze back and forth anxiously between the two of them. Any annoyance on Skinner’s face that may have been previously present has been replaced with stern compassion, and just the barest touch of lingering bewilderment.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Agent Scully.”

Against all odds, Scully manages to rally. Her expression clears, her shoulders lift in defiance, and she opens her mouth as if to protest, but what comes out instead is a raspy, irritated cough. She clamps a hand over her mouth as she gets to her feet, lowering her hand once she manages to catch her breath again.

“Sir,” she says in a small voice, “if you have any questions about my field report…”

“I know how to reach you,” Skinner finishes for her. “Take it easy, Agent Scully.”

Scully nods and sniffles, avoiding the gaze of both men as she slips out the door. Teeth still pressed against his fingernail, Mulder says nothing, and simply watches her go.

The office is suddenly far too quiet in her immediate absence, and he feels dizzy, all the blood having rushed from his brain straight to his—

“Is she all right?” Skinner asks, nodding his head towards the general direction of the door. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mulder nods, lowering his hand to smooth his tie in what he hopes is a casual gesture. To his own ears, his inflection doesn’t land the way it should, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Allergies.” 

Skinner raises an eyebrow.

“I gathered as much. What on earth has her in such a state?”

Mulder shrugs as innocently as he can manage. He has just enough remaining self-preserving instinct to know that admitting to Skinner that his partner’s current condition is more or less his fault is one matter – but mentioning the crop circle side of things is another.

Instead, he jokingly feigns searching around Skinner’s office. It’s a weak deflection, but it gives him an excuse to shift in his chair and adjust the file folder still lying – strategically and very necessarily – across his lap.

“You’re not, uh, hiding a cat in here or something?”

Skinner doesn’t crack a smile, but his expression softens somewhat. He shakes his head, sighs deeply, then leans forward, gesturing at Mulder’s lap with an expectant look.

Mulder freezes.

“...Sir?” he asks, confused and panicking. He is so, completely fucked.

“Your report, Agent Mulder? May I review it?”

“Uh…no?” 

Skinner’s brows lift in surprise, and Mulder blinks, scrambling. Heat uncharacteristically floods his face as he attempts to pull himself together, leaning forward and handing it over.

"Oh. Right. Yes. Of course."

Skinner frowns.

“Are you all right, Agent Mulder?”

“...Sir?”

“You seem rather distracted.”

Mulder chooses his next words carefully and tries not to choke on them. 

“Sometimes it gets pretty rough for her. Guess I’m just thinking about worst case scenarios.”

It’s a big fat lie. He’s thinking about Scully ducking into the privacy of the nearest washroom, sneezing openly and wholeheartedly – the way he knows she desperately needs to. He’s thinking about Scully blowing her nose, splashing cold water onto her face, and letting out a long, shaky sigh.

It’s a big fat lie, but Skinner seems to buy it.

“Try not to,” Skinner answers easily. “Agent Scully will be fine. She’s tougher than both of us combined. Now, if we could pick up where she left off, with the neighbors’ timeline discrepancies…”

With great effort, Mulder returns his attention to the meeting as Skinner resumes his questions. He nods at all the right places, answers when prompted, and keeps his voice even enough to pass for professional – but it’s not long before his thoughts drift gently and inevitably, back to Scully.

One way or another, they always do.

God help him, he’s already counting down the seconds until he’s alone.

In theory, S/antos should have begun to recognize the pattern in her immune response that as soon as the adrenaline of fast paced shifts, skipped meals, and little sleep finally wore off during a few days of real rest, her body had the tendency to fail her.

Really, she thought as she laid in her bed the morning of her second day off in a row, she should have seen this coming. The cold going around the ER had forced many of her coworkers on the day shift to slow their rapid fire pace of work that they were normally so comfortable existing in. It was only a matter of time before she was also taken down by this cold from hell.

Unfortunately, she had convinced herself that she might have escaped it as she left her last shift with her four days off as a beacon glowing ahead of her. The fact that she was wrong only made her grumpier. Her throat started with a telling roughness the previous morning, and by the evening of her first day of rest, she was a sniffling, sneezing mess.

Now, she groaned as she rolled over and checked the time.

6:14am. Perfect.

She sniffled and adjusted her pillow behind her to sit up slightly, hoping to find a way to be able to breathe more easily out of her nose. Her head felt like a cinder block and she coughed lightly at the tickle buzzing deep in her sinuses.

She wondered absently if Huckleberry had come home from his farm widow’s house last night. She hadn’t heard him come in, but he could be very quiet when he wanted to be. She smirked lightly at a memory of her stumbling, bleary eyed, into their shared kitchen for a glass of water in the middle of the night and turning the light on only to find him sitting in the dark, eating crackers straight out of the box, scaring the shit out of her. He apologized like hell and she didn’t let him live it down for weeks.

An odd sense of melancholy settled in her chest as she listened to the quiet of the house around her. He probably spent the night with Amy again. Santos hadn’t seen him since he left the shift they worked together the last day before she was taken out by this cold.

“-hhiih -hiHH’ngxt-chiew…uhgh,” she stifled a sneeze that left her head pounding. She sniffled as the tickled reared again, unrelieved by her restrained release. “-hihh…-hIH -itscHIW- haaTCSIIEW -hiiihCHIEW! *snrfff*.” She groaned again and closed her eyes. Maybe she could sleep a bit more. Despite her fit of sneezes, she still felt a tickle lingering under her congestion. She grabbed a tissue off of her nightstand and blew to try and relieve it.

Closing her eyes once more, she wrapped her duvet closer around herself as a chill swept down her body. She wished she had grabbed some cold meds from the break room in the ER. She didn’t think there were any around…maybe in the back of the kitchen cabinet if she could just find the energy to get herself up to look.

If Huckleberry caught this he’d probably die. She thought to herself. But a part of her hoped he did catch it, and maybe he would come home from Amy’s to get some sleep in his own bed.

“Oh jeez, you don’t look so good…” he would probably say when he saw her. “Did you get that cold too??”

“Damn Dr. Whitaker how did you deduce that one??” She would snap back and roll her eyes.

And then they would probably sit together on the couch watching trash reality tv together, order soup and make fun of the dumb contestants and their silly little scripted problems all afternoon.

“haTSHEW! itchIEW! -hihhH -hiH” she waited for the last sneeze to come with her head tipped back, mouth open and pink nostrils flaring slightly. She took a shaky inhale and hitched and hitched, “hiiHhh…hihHH…HITCHIEW!” Finally.

Maybe she should text Huckleberry and check to see if he did catch this too. But no…she would let him be. If he did catch it Amy would probably love to coo over him for a few days.

And I’ll just stay here, sick as a dog, by myself. She thought bitterly. She was used to it. Despite the last few months of unlikely friendship with Whitaker, she was used to relying on herself. But she couldn’t help but feel a sense of longing to have his annoying ass around when she felt so terrible, even just to go get her some cold meds from the drugstore.

Another shiver wracked her. She definitely had a fever.

Despite herself, she let out a little whimper as she sniffled and another tickle wound its way through her nose. “hATChiew! -hiiHH-chIEW! -hiHH! itcHU!” she sighed and snuggled deeper into the bed.

Slowly, sleep blissfully started to take her.

**** She woke again later with a pounding head.

9:47am. Although she was still wrapped in her blankets and hoodie, her teeth chattered and rounds of shivers felt like they were running through her bones. Okay, really time to go find some meds now. Pulling a soft throw blanket from the end of her bed and wrapping it around her shoulders, she dragged herself into a seated position.

Her nose twitched in protest and she breathed a shaky inhale “hiiHdshIEW! -schIEW! hih…hitchIEw..uhhh.”

Santos sniffled and got to her feet, wobbling slightly on her way out of her room and through the small apartment to the kitchen.

Dialed in on the cabinet she suspected had some cold meds lurking in the back, and wanting to get herself back to bed as quickly as possible, she jumped when she heard a voice from behind her.

”Uhh hey, you good?” She whirled around, and regretted it instantly as a wave of dizziness clouded the corners of her vision and she wobbled slightly.

Whitaker jumped forward and gently steadied her by her arms. “Woahhh there. I see…not so good” he took in her appearance in with a grim look and a wince. “Bad cold eh?”

“N’do gendius, I’mb feeling fandtastic” she replied, but her rasp and heavy congestion took away some of the bite of her words. She coughed lightly into her fist, sniffled, and moved away from her roommate to go back to searching for meds.

“Looking for these?” Huckleberry asked and she looked back to see him holding a new pack of cold and flu meds out to her.

She nodded and took them from him, actually looking at his face and noticing slightly more darkness bagging under his usually tired eyes, and a redness to the edges of his nose.

“Ahh so Am’by didn’dt wan’dt you sticking around to spread the plague?” She asked him as wryly as her current state could allow.

“Ah no, I just thought I’d get out of their hair in case I passed it along…I don’t think it’s hit me as hard as you though” he sniffed lightly and looked at her with an edge of concern around his eyes. “Have you taken your temperature?”

Santos rolled her eyes again and cringed as she swallowed down a dose of cold medicine. Was she really missing him earlier? Of course he would come home and immediately start mother-henning her.

“Im’b a Doctor, Huckleberry, I don’dt need you t-hiihh-“ she was cut off as her nostrils flared. “hiihH- hiT’ngxt! Ngtxh! hitNGXT-CHIEW!” The sneezes sounded painful and she and Huckleberry both winced.

“Hey…okay, why don’t you go sit on the couch and I’ll order some soup for us?” Whitaker took out his phone and gazed over at her expectantly.

Santos grumbled but didn’t argue as she made her way over to the couch and curled up with her blanket.

“Chicken noodle or hot and sour?” Huckleberry called from the kitchen.

Santos felt a smile tug on her lips and though she still felt like crap, her heart felt a little lighter.