Mulder handed the bottle opener to Jim and glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen, feeling a smile tug at his lips at the lingering sound of Scully’s laughter. Maybe, he thought, she’d finally admit that these small town cases weren’t actually so bad.
“Thanks, man,” Jim offered, popping open two Corona’s and handing one to Mulder, who just nodded and sat down in an armchair facing the television as Jim sat down on the sofa. They sat in silence for a while watching ESPN and Mulder found himself still listening to the sound of laughter in the kitchen and thinking of the way Scully was dressed so casually…how she seemed so comfortable and almost…god he hated to think it for fear of jinxing them, but she seemed almost happy. “The Mets look pretty good this year.” Jim interrupted his thoughts and Mulder turned to him and shrugged.
“Yeah I don’t know, I’m a pretty die-hard Yankee fan, so I guess it’s kind of against my religion to compliment the Mets,” he joked and Jim laughed quietly.
“Oh yeah it is, sorry about that,” he offered and Mulder waved a hand in dismissal.
“No, it’s ok, I don’t really follow it like I used to,” he admitted, part of him acknowledging that he wished he could follow baseball like a normal guy. He wished, sometimes, that he could come home from work in time to stretch out on a sofa and watch a 7 o’clock game and just be…normal. He thought this was the first time he’d wanted to be normal like Scully wanted to be normal and he wondered if that was because she was in the other room looking so…just…
He sighed and took a gulp of his beer.
Well, he thought dryly, if Scully didn’t want to talk about their relationship while they were agents and in panic mode and injured, then… Ok so he was technically still injured, but what better time to talk than when she was dressed like a Kennedy on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, and he was sitting on a rose colored sofa drinking Corona and watching the game. How much more normal could you get, he wondered?
“Who’s your favorite Yankee?” Jim asked, his eyes on the television and his voice half-hearted and exhausted sounding. Mulder glanced over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps squeaking against tile and he caught sight of Scully ducking out of the kitchen. She glanced at him and raised her eyebrows as she made her way down the hall to the bathroom and he raised his eyebrows at her back in response.
“Matsui,” he answered distractedly, and Jim nodded, seeming equally distracted, his stare glazed over and the bottle of beer hanging practically unnoticed in front of his mouth. Mulder scratched nervously at his collar and stood up, ignoring the dull ache in his shoulder as he did so. “I’ll be, um…” he gestured toward the hallway, but found he couldn’t really offer any kind of solid destination and just waved in dismissal. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. Jim just nodded and sipped at his beer.
Mulder headed down the hallway, avoiding skillfully the curious eyes of Pam, who was watching him from the kitchen. He set his beer down on a table against the wall and lingered indecisively outside the bathroom door, his lips pursed in thought and his hands perched nervously against his hips. He listened to the sound of the water running and imagined Scully washing her hands in that doctorly-thorough kind of way that she had, and a smile pulled at the side of his mouth. It was still lingering there when the door opened and Scully stopped short in surprise.
“Mulder?” she questioned, glancing down the hall past him in concern, wondering what she’d missed while she was in the bathroom. He squinted at her and nodded and she pursed her lips at him as if to say What?, but she didn’t have a chance to get the words out because his hand was reaching out to grab her forearm and he had her turned around and back in the bathroom with the door closed before she’d even realized what was going on. “Mulder, what are you…” she began.
“Can we talk for just a…” He paused, fiddling with the door handle before realizing that there wasn’t any way to lock it. “There’s no lock on this door,” he mumbled, and Scully sighed.
“Yeah I know, I was trying to, earlier…but, um…”
“Ok well, screw it,” he muttered almost to himself, and once again Scully seemed on the verge of asking him to explain himself, but she didn't get a chance because he reached down and wrapped his arms around her, ignoring again the way that his shoulder stung because of it. He bent toward her and pressed his mouth against hers because it was all he could think about doing…it was all he’d wanted to do since that morning in his motel room, and all he’d wanted to do since she stepped out of her motel room that night looking so warm and so real. He inhaled the smell of her and swept his tongue against her lips gently and she sighed into him, reaching up and running a hand through his hair.
Turning them around, he backed her up solidly against the door and pushed his fingers against the cashmere fabric at her waist, his hands big and hot against her. God, he thought he would die from wanting her this way.
“Oh my God,” he breathed, unable to keep his thoughts to himself, “You’re killing me,” he told her earnestly, his tongue brushing against the porcelain of her throat. She hummed in response and he couldn’t tell if it was a hum of indulgence or agreement, so he pulled away from her, because no matter how much he wanted to just tear her clothes right off of her, this was Scully and he was never sure what she was thinking. Enigmatic was an understatement. She looked up at him with damp-looking eyes and raised an eyebrow at his full bottom lip. He grinned down at her.
“This isn’t really talking, Mulder,” she informed him, and he nodded at her, humming like she had because mimicking her almost always drove her crazy and he knew it. She popped out a hip beneath his hands and tipped her head to the side and he tried to keep himself from laughing in satisfaction but was unsuccessful. She smacked his forearm as laughter poured out of his mouth and he leaned his forehead against the door above her head, catching his breath, or at least trying to, as she leaned her forehead against his chest. The laughter died down slowly and their breathing was the only thing audible in the room, and he felt like his body was heaving with it, buzzing with the energy of his attraction to her and he bent down again to press a kiss against her ear, her eyes sliding closed in something like defeat as she sighed out his name.
“You know I’m in love with you, right?” he asked quietly and she sucked in a heavy lungful of air, her fingers tightening around his arm. The quiet was like a blanket around them, and he closed his eyes to really feel the way her fingers were tripping along the skin of his arm...the way that she was tiny in front of him...the smell of her hair and the sound of her breath, until finally, gloriously, she spoke.
“Yeah,” she admitted, sounding like tears might be caught somewhere in her throat, which he related to because he thought maybe he wanted to cry from just the relief of saying he loved her out loud. “Yeah, I know,” she promised, reaching up to smooth her fingers against his cheek affectionately. He chuckled and reached underneath her, scooping her up underneath the seat of her jeans and swinging her around to set her on top of the sink counter. She wasn’t the type of woman to squeal in surprise, so instead she cleared her throat demurely, and the sound of it made him smile at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. He knocked over some bottles of hairspray and a blow dryer as he set her down and she grimaced at the noise it made, shushing him impatiently and glancing at the door behind him.
“I didn’t realize you owned such casual clothes, Scully, where did you have these hiding?” he asked her teasingly, beginning to unbutton her sweater with slow and deliberate fingers. A blush crept up her neck and she narrowed her eyes at him devilishly.
“Well if I had known that this would be your reaction I would have pulled this sweater out of the closet years ago,” she confessed, watching him intently as he pushed the sweater off of her shoulders.
“God help me, but you do look...uh," he cleared his throat and she smiled, "damn good in a cardigan,” he told her, the words sloppy and soft against the skin of her neck and he pulled her forward on the counter, sending more bottles toppling into the cavity of the sink, pressing himself against her hungrily and she chuckled deep and low, and it made him practically start to sweat in anticipation.
“I’m not wearing a cardigan anymore, Mulder,” she corrected him, reaching down to tug at the bottom of his t-shirt, and he met her dark, hooded stare with one of his own, licking at his bottom lip and squinting at her in assessment. He watched her blush creep up from her neck to her cheeks and felt victorious.
“And thank God for that,” he whispered before he braced himself with a hand against the mirror so that he could more completely press his lips against hers and feel the softness of her skin, his free hand lingering like a promise against the small of her back.
***
Pam froze from handing Jim a stack of plates at the sound of clattering bottles in the bathroom, and he looked up at her with wide eyes and a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin on his face. She pressed a finger against her lips and shushed him, trying desperately to keep herself from making any noise either and he silently put the plates down on her dining room table.
“Are they,” he began in a whisper, “doing what I think they’re doing?” Pam covered her mouth to hide her laughter and bent forward in childish embarrassment to lean her head against Jim’s shoulder. He rubbed her back and chuckled affectionately, rolling his eyes. “You’re such a dork,” he told her, his voice gentle and calm. She pulled back and looked him in the eye playfully.
“What is it with that bathroom today? It must be doused in pheromones or something.” She watched as he grinned down at her and felt so comfortable with his arms around her that she thought she'd never want to move from this spot. She chuckled up at him and handed him the potholder she’d been holding. “Relax, Halpert,” she instructed, “and go get the chicken out of the oven.”
