Work Text:
In the car on the way back to the airport, Mulder starts to hum.
Agent Stonecypher turns around to stare at him, eyes wide. Scully will admit that this behavior seems suspicious, given what he was like on the way here: his total unwillingness to engage, his abrasiveness, the way he shouldered his way out of the car and into yet another misadventure without so much as a thanks for the ride.
But he just keeps on humming, a little upwards quirk to his lips, and after a second she recognizes the tune.
Joy to the world, all the boys and girls
Maybe she’ll kill him.
“C’mon, Scully," he teases, low enough that the agents in front can't hear him. "I know you know the words."
She is blushing furiously and she is furious. He asked her to sing, she'd never have done it otherwise; she hasn't sung in front of another human being since she was eleven and the music teacher told her to just mouth the words.
He leans over so his mouth is practically in her ear and this time he starts singing, voice still low: "If I were the king of the world, tell you what I'd do," he croons, and he’s right, she does know the words, and she knows what’s coming next.
"Stop," she says, and the warning in her voice should be enough, but he is, as always, incorrigible.
"I'd throw away the cars and the bars and the wars, and make sweet love to you.”
“Mulder,” she snaps.
He settles back into his seat, grinning at her.
Her mouth is dry and she half hates him. What is wrong with him, they are on a case - well, they were - and there are other people in the car, people who don't know him, people who might think—
Stonecypher turns around, her face all perky interest now, to drawl, "Everything all right back there?"
"Fine," Scully bites off.
"Peachy," echoes Mulder, the brightness in his voice a precise mirror of the other agent's. Jesus, she thinks. Tone it down. No one could possibly be as stupid as Mulder thinks everyone is. Everyone except her, anyway.
Evidently done tormenting her, he leans back, stretching his legs as far as he can. For as much time as they spend on the road, Mulder is never at ease in a car or a plane; he is six feet of pure energy and no enclosed space can contain him. If she'd known how much time she would spend playing twenty questions with him on long drives, she never would have taken this assignment.
He drums his fingers against his thighs and looks at her. "Hey, what were you working on at lunch?”
They’d stopped to eat in Tallahassee after Mulder got her from the motel. After a quick look around she’d decided she was better off eating at the airport, so she’d pulled out her laptop while the other agents ate mystery seafood. “The report.”
“Can I take a look at it?”
He must be bored. He never even glances at the paperwork she files dutifully after every case. "It's on my laptop," she says, and he doesn't respond so she adds, "In the trunk."
"Hmm." He considers this, then leans forward to tap Kinsley on the shoulder. "Hey. Hey, can you pull over?"
“We’re only an hour from the airport."
"Okay, but can you pull over?"
With a sigh Kinsley acquiesces, and Scully sees the glance he exchanges with his partner. You have no idea, she wants to tell them.
Mulder hops out of the car, rifles through the trunk for a minute, and returns to his seat triumphant with Scully’s laptop. The other agents don't even ask, just get back on the road and start driving.
His brow creases as he skims the document. "Is this what these are usually like?" he asks.
“You've read my reports before. I always ask you to look them over before I submit them." Not that he actually does it. He looks so concerned that she gives in and asks, "Is there a problem? I was going to finish it on the plane.”
Slowly he shakes his head, like he's trying to put his finger on it. "It's accurate, if that's what you're asking," he says. "But this - you've taken all of the wonder out of it, Scully! The things we've seen - yeah, the facts are here, but we saw something extraordinary."
“At least a dozen people are dead, Mulder, and we could have been."
"We don’t know that Glaser is dead,” Mulder insists.
She rolls her eyes. “What do you want me to write? ‘Agent Mulder believes that the bodies found in Apalachicola National Forest were killed by Mothmen who may have evolved from Spanish conquistadors’?”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“Mulder, that’s ridiculous. I have to turn these in!”
The smile he flashes at her is mostly sad. “You’re not still trying to debunk my work, are you, Agent Scully?”
She can see Kinsley and Stonecypher watching them in the rearview mirror. She would love to not be having this conversation here. Or at all.
“You saw that creature,” he insists, his voice softer now. He must’ve tracked her worried gaze.
“And I still think there’s a scientific explanation. As you know from my report.”
Mulder bites his lip, his gaze cloudy. And then he starts to type.
She briefly considers putting a stop to it, but it’s the first time in ages that he’s taken an interest in the paperwork. Besides, she always enjoys his reports - his writing is lyrical, even playful, in a way that is wholly unsuited to official case reports, but that charms her nonetheless. In a different world, he’d have made a good writer. Not that she can imagine her Mulder sitting still long enough to write a novel.
After a while he closes the laptop, looking satisfied. He places it on the seat between them, letting his hand rest on top of the cover. She can’t decide if he’s trying to keep the laptop from falling to the floor or trying to stop her from reading the newly edited report.
When they finally get to Jacksonville they part ways with Kinsley and Stonecypher, who are flying back to Minneapolis. As the other agents walk away, Mulder sighs. “I’m going to miss them.”
She just shakes her head, all out of admonitions for him today.
“Scully,” he says later, once they’re seated at the gate. He’s bouncing his knee, she’s eating a turkey sandwich. It came with a bag of potato chips that Mulder managed to steal, and then inhale, in approximately fifteen seconds. She’ll never figure out how he stays so lean.
“Yes?”
He nudges her foot with his. “I like your voice.”
It takes her a second to realize that he is still talking about her singing. “You have to stop bringing that up.”
“I’m serious! It’s you.” His voice is light, teasing. “I like everything about you.”
She blushes - again, it’s been one of those days; she doesn’t want to attribute it to the fact that he spent last night in her arms, but it’s hard not to - and says, exasperated, “No, you don’t.”
Now it’s his turn to look skeptical, but she knows it’s true. She can think of plenty of things about her that Mulder doesn’t like. “Mulder, I make you just as crazy as you make me.”
His grin turns lascivious. “I make you crazy?”
Yes. Incorrigible. That’s the word.
On the plane he falls asleep immediately. Even going on thirty-six hours awake, Scully’s not going to be able to sleep on a plane without help. She’s got a couple of zolpidem in her carry-on, but it’s a short flight and she would regret it as soon as they landed.
As soon as the fasten seatbelt light is off, Scully retrieves her laptop from the overheard compartment. The report is still up on the screen. She scrolls through Mulder’s decidedly more fanciful depiction of recent events, and her eyes catch on one line in particular:
We stand on the fault line between what is real and not real, between what is possible and what is not. The ground is constantly shifting beneath us; we are only waiting for it to rupture.
Scully turns to look at him. When he’s awake, she doesn’t get to watch him. Oh, she knows he watches her - constantly, with an intensity that would disturb her if she didn’t know him so well - but just like he gets away with his come-ons and innuendoes, he gets away with those lingering gazes. She’s not willing to find out if the reverse is true.
Just last night she’d been stuck with him in the middle of the woods, worried about Glaser and Fazekas, about Mulder’s injury, about dying somewhere so remote that no one would ever find their bodies. Mulder had stayed up with her for most of the night. At some point, his voice hazy with sleep, he’d recounted the plot of Weekend at Bernie’s with an absurd level of detail. An hour after that he had told her how pretty her eyes were. “It’s pitch dark, Mulder,” she’d said, but he shook his head and said low, “I know what they look like.”
It had actually been a pretty good night.
Mulder’s hair is falling in his eyes now and his legs are splayed out so that his thigh is brushing hers. His face is turned toward her.
She hums softly, under her breath, “If I were the king of the world.”
Beside her, Mulder smiles. She wonders how long he’s been awake, and surprisingly, she doesn’t care. “Chorus,” he mumbles.
When the pilot announces that they’re about to land, Scully puts the laptop away and returns to her seat, gripping the armrests. She always hates this part.
Mulder’s hand creeps over to rest on top of hers. At his touch, her shoulders relax. She twines her fingers with his and a little sigh escapes him. His eyes still closed, his hand warm and dry. She would know his hands anywhere, in any darkness.
We are standing on a fault line, she thinks, and the ground is shifting beneath us.