#quaranitine

The first and last time they’d been quarantined, she’d been bed-bound most of the time. Extremely dehydrated and uncomfortable, she would have loved, back then, to have the ability to read through a boring stack of books. Anything besides the beeping of the monitors, the headache that wouldn’t go away, and the guilty look in Mulder’s eyes when she caught him glancing in her direction.

Right now, she'd give anything to be bed-ridden, to have an excuse to close her eyes and shut away the world, pretend her stomach wasn't doing somersaults when he inevitably crept close, peered over her shoulder, and whispered sly comments in her ear.

The guilt is there now, but more well-hidden. His rage has a target, but he directs some of it towards her, unintentionally she hopes. When he's not teasing or poking at her with increasingly paranoid theories, an awkward silence hangs between them like a curtain. She feels him watching her, though. The warmth of his closer-than-usual presence. It was their first field case since Duane Barry, and he feels responsible; he drew her close to death, once again.

She understands, but they don’t talk about it.

Instead, Mulder rants about the injustice of their discovery being burned by those who don’t care or understand, or who don’t care to understand. Punctuates his words with disparaging comments on the ads and articles in the magazine. Complains about the bland food that arrives punctually at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Lashes out at the technicians that come take their samples. The space is filled with his words about nothing, and an occasional rebuttal from herself, but she likes to listen to him. She usually finds the endless monotone a comfort, but at the moment his voice does things to her that she certainly shouldn’t be thinking about.

Scully sighs, for the thousandth time today it seems, and is suddenly just as frustrated as him.

“Mulder, we can’t do anything about the spore. It was dangerous, they had to contain it. That's all. Would you please, please, please stop ranting about it.”

Her words are harsher than she intended. Everything in this past week has been irritating, for some reason or another.

He twists around to stare at her, mouth agape. She’s been quiet, a lot more than usual. Patient and tolerant, as if controlling the time took all of her mental effort and she could spare none for their usual back-and-forth.

So he switches from speaking to staring, which is worse. He examines her face, eyes travelling from her eyes and downwards, her lips, she thinks. She folds her fingers into fists when he lowers his gaze, hiding her torn cuticles.

“Mulder?”

“What should we talk about then. The weather? Sports? Our fine accommodations?” His eyes flash at her.

“We’ve got three more weeks. You just need some patience.”

Mulder scoffs, turns to face her, his forearm pressing against her thigh.

“You seem to have that covered enough for the both of us.”

Scully lets out yet another sigh and moves her book to the table beside her. “Look, I’m finding this difficult as well, I just…”

“Don’t want to talk about it.” 

Their eyes lock. And there it is. 

Since Duane Barry, she’s done her usual thing - straightened her back, ploughed forward, focused on the work. She did her mandated counselling, replaced her broken windows with reinforced glass, took the stairs instead of the elevators, and started a new self-defense class at the gym. All very practical, very smart things to do. But she didn’t talk.

To the counsellor: she pretended she was fine. Needed to lie to get back to work so she could be.

To Mulder: she wouldn't let him see weakness, wouldn’t let him down, that she couldn’t be anything less than a partner who could back him up no matter the situation.

And he followed her lead, but she could see the yearning in his eyes, the unspoken words that he wanted to know what she was going through. Who was she to add to the mountain of guilt that he piled on his shoulders?

They look at each other for what feels like an eternity. The frustration he’s been lashing out at her with has been replaced with something else, something that makes her cheeks burn, her palms sweaty. Her chin set stubbornly forward, mouth in a line, she dares him to speak first.

Neither of them back down, and before she realized he’d moved, his lips are on hers.

She's too shocked to pull away, to stiffen and protest. She’d imagined this moment many times over, especially this past week, and she responds automatically, pressing her own lips against him, pulling him closer and threading her fingers through the hair at the base of his skull.

When he pulls away and she opens her eyes he's only a few inches away, his warm, sweet breath puffing against her mouth. The dim light from the cheap lamp behind her washes him in a soft glow, shadows hiding him from her.

“That’s… one way to deal with boredom.” Scully finds her voice, somehow, but it sounds like she’s dragged it over asphalt. She clears her throat, certain that, opposite his inscrutable expression she's completely revealed to him.

“Your turn to make jokes, Scully?”

“Is that what this is?” 

Mulder pulls back slightly, his arms bracing her torso. His hands fidget with the cotton of her shirtsleeves, thumbs brushing against her shoulders, but he's staring at her with laser focus.

“Never,” he says, waiting. 

A stab of panic pierces her chest. She needs to know. Needs answers before she jumps off this cliff. Or was it too late already?

“Do you think I’ll talk if you kiss me?” 

Mulder smiles, shakes his head. “I think if you won’t talk I might as well kiss you anyway.”

As she licks her lips, Mulder’s eyes stray downwards, his hands moving up to cup her face, tangle in her hair. He leans down and kisses her again, and she takes a leap.

All of the uncertainty she'd felt vanished at the touch of his lips against hers: the embarrassment at his rejection during the Tooms case, the hurt at his indifference when the X-Files were shut down.

Thank God.

He’s above her, but hesitant. She invades his mouth with her tongue while he feathers the lightest of touches through her hair and safely along her arms. 

Wrapping a leg around his waist and pulling him closer, she revels in the taste of him, the feel of his soft lips sliding against hers. An unmistakable bulge presses against her hip. When she grinds into him, Mulder moans into her mouth. His hands slide down her side and tease the skin at the hem of her shirt.

When he pulls away again and rests his forehead on hers, they're both breathing heavily, chests touching with each inhalation. He's wedged atop her, half off of the small couch that barely fits her small frame.

"Mulder, let's move somewhere more comfortable." Scully meets his gaze with steely determination; she wants this, and she knows he does too. She's not about to wait any longer.

"Your place or mine?" Mulder waggles his eyebrows, but his eyes search hers questioningly, carefully. You sure?

Scully nods at his unspoken question, pushing him away so she can move out from underneath him. Pausing before standing up, she grasps the collar of his shirt, pulls him towards her and nips at his plush lower lip.

"Mine," she says.

Mulder's eyes widen and the corner of his mouth twitches with the hint of a smile. When she stands and holds her hand out, he takes it and follows her.

In her bedroom, Scully whips her shirt over her head and eyes Mulder over her shoulder while she undoes the zipper on her pants. He’s standing there with a dazed expression, like he hadn’t just initiated all of this a few minutes earlier. Coming back to himself, he removes everything but his boxers and joins her on the bed.

She trails a hand along his bicep, the strong muscles of his forearm, mouthing their names under her breath. Her gaze sweeps over the defined musculature of his chest and abdomen. 

“You’re beautiful,” she murmurs, hiding behind a sweep of her hair as a moment of self-consciousness washes over her. She feels out-of-place; a plain fern among the rose bushes. 

Looking back at him she sees nothing but reverence in his gaze. He brushes his thumb over her cheek. “You’re perfect, Scully.”

She huffs in disbelief, but there’s truth in his eyes.

When they kiss once more, Scully maneuvers on top. His hands are everywhere, but still gentle and hesitant. She leans into his touch for more, but his hands ghost away, trembling and unsure. 

“I won’t break, Mulder.”

He blinks slowly, once, twice. Traces his finger along the curve of her nose, her swollen lips.

“I’m afraid I’m going to wake up.”

Scully bites her lip and smiles widely. Laughter bubbles up, overflows, and he’s caught up in it too. His hesitance turns to giddiness as they laugh together.

“What kind of fantasies are you having?” she says. “Thin mattress, sparse furnishings, nurses and technicians on the other side of the wall just waiting for us to sprout something so they can whisk us away.”

“In my dreams, they’re in the room,” Mulder deadpans.

Scully shakes her head and arches an eyebrow at him. She sits up, straddling his waist, and deftly unclasps her bra and shrugs out of it.

Peering at him beneath her lashes, Mulder’s cocky smile fades. His eyes are dilated, hungry. His hands twitch but he still waits.

“You can touch me.”

His eyes connect to hers and he nods.

At her encouragement, his touch matches the intensity of his gaze. Over her ribcage, along her breasts, flicking her nipples with his thumbs. Scully leans downwards and kisses him sloppily. She can’t process anything except the sensation of his hands, the warmth and smell of his skin next to hers.

“More,” she demands, arching into his touch.

He leans upward, kissing her breasts, tonguing her nipples. One of his hands slides downwards, to the apex of her thighs. His fingers brush over her through the thin cotton of her panties and she gasps and grabs his shoulders.

When he pushes the garment aside, slicks his fingers along her folds, teases her clit, she sees stars and bats him away before she loses herself too quickly. The thought that this is him, that this is them, sends her spiralling upwards far faster than she's ever experienced, and it alternately thrills and terrifies her.

“For me?” he whispers into her skin. 

“Take your shorts off," she says. Her voice is breathy and soft, her hands tugging impatiently at the hem of his boxers. 

Seconds later, their underwear lies twisted in some corner of the small room, and they're finally together, nothing between them except ragged breaths and unspoken words.

The inevitable glimpses of his bulge during the time they worked together didn’t prepare her for his size. He’s much larger than any partner she’s had so far and her heart speeds up thinking about him inside of her. Biting her lip to stifle a nervous giggle, she peers at him out of the corner of her eyes. 

“For me?” she repeats, smiling coyly.

“All yours, Scully.”

“How generous.” 

She pats him on the chest, and reaches for him, sliding her hand around his girth. Watching his face, eyes squeezed shut and lips twisted, he mutters something unintelligible, reaches for her blindly.

“Scully…” he moans. Opening his eyes, he almost seems shocked to see her there. 

“I’m here, Mulder. I’m real. This isn’t a dream.”

He shakes his head, smiles and pulls her to him, his mouth devouring hers hungrily. She feels like she's finally the hot focus of his obsessiveness, his mouth sliding across her skin, down to her collarbones, over her breasts. Hands on her hips, he draws circles with his thumbs, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her buttocks.

She grinds against him, scratching her short nails through the hair on his chest, over his nipples, finding the places that make him squirm and gasp. Before Mulder thinks again of stopping, of hesitating, of claiming that this is all a dream, she adjusts herself over him and sinks downwards, taking him inside of her.

When she's finally surrounding him completely, she feels full, pain-adjacent, but oh, it’s wonderful. Her heart races, thrumming wildly as she struggles to regain control. Their eyes connect, and she sees the same wonder there that she feels. So she exhales, lets go. 

“Dana, this…” he starts, capturing one of her hands and kissing her palm. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. Still not sure with what, not sure but taking a chance that this could be something more than raw physical desire.

Her fumbling hands grasp at his shoulders as she starts to move above him, his hands at her hips. Sighs and moans punctuate their lovemaking, so soft and quiet, holding onto each other as if it could shatter with a word or a breath. Their sweat-slicked bodies come together, their eyes lock, reassuring each other of the reality of this moment.

She can't stop running her hands over his shoulders, through his soft hair. Digging her nails into his chest as she rocks above him in an increasingly erratic rhythm.

His deft hands roam her body, no longer hesitant. Learning what she likes, noticing her response to his touch, filing it away in his labyrinthine mind. It feels good to be the subject of his powerful intellect, his intense devotion. She's electric under his touch, wanton and unashamed.

Soon she's at the edge, and a flick of his fingers at her clit has her tumbling over. He catches her, holds her tightly as she comes back to herself. Whispering her name, soothing her inflamed skin with his touch and voice. 

Her first thought, damning her: she loves him, fiercely. No matter what the future holds, what this means to him, she'll hold onto that thought. It would have to be enough.

He's above her, then, shadowing her body with his own, caressing the slope of her shoulder. His lips trace a hot trail from her jaw to her neck, and he brushes his thumb along her cheek, peppering her with increasingly feverish kisses.

Her hands wander along his back, counting the vertebrae. The soft curtain of her fading orgasm lifts slightly, and she reaches lower, lower, stroking his erection and shifting herself so he's at her entrance. 

This time, with him in control, he's careful, watching her. Her eyes squeeze shut at the feeling of him within her, the emotions welling up despite herself, feeling whole. When he looks at her, she can pretend he feels the same. As long as she says nothing, as long as they just touch.

So close to her first climax, Scully finds herself climbing again when he begins to thrust within her. Softer this time, less desperately. She waits for him, and as his rhythm falters and he shouts her name into the silence of this temporary home, she follows him into the oblivion of pleasure.

Afterwards, she's curled up against his side, mouth puffing into the dip between his shoulder and pectoral. Her hands play with the soft hairs on his chest, her toes glide along his calf. 

"Three more weeks, huh?" Mulder kisses the top of her head, runs his hand along the arm draped across his chest. "I don't know if I can manage."

Scully leans up on an elbow and quirks an eyebrow at him. Unable to keep a straight face, Mulder grins foolishly, taps a finger along the bridge of her nose. 

"I haven't seen you smile like that for a while," Scully says, watching him carefully, a pane of imperfect glass separating her from him. The words don't come easy, and she's not sure she wants them to.

"Not much to smile about lately." Mulder takes her hands and kisses her knuckles. "Dana, I—"

Her hands flexes, covers his mouth. She shakes her head. Mulder simply nods and she settles back onto him, clutching him tightly.