Chapter Text
Floorboards creaked beneath Mulder’s feet. The wood threatened to crumble. It felt like the abandoned house could collapse any minute. Funny enough, it was the least of their problems.
There was something in the shadows.
A woman with white, sickly skin lurked in the darkness, slithering away before their flashlights could touch her.
“Did you see that?” Scully whispered from behind him.
Somehow, hearing the fear in her voice was more terrifying than the entity stalking them. Shame settled into his stomach. With their murder investigation wrapped, he’d lured her into the rickety Victorian house on the outskirts of Los Angeles under the pretense of a “quick look around.” Mulder had heard the stories, and she’d heard them, too, but only because he’d spent the day yammering about the spirit of a woman who preferred the shadows instead of light.
They still had one more day of paperwork. One more night in a motel that didn’t deserve two stars, never mind three. They should be there now, watching late-night TV with a frustrating wall between them. Instead, they were here, eyes and flashlight beams jumping from shadow to shadow.
His heart slammed with excitement and fear. The prospect of uncovering something supernatural tantalized him enough to push forward. The only reason he stopped was the slap of Scully’s hand on his forearm.
“Listen,” she whispered.
Footsteps clicked and creaked in distant rooms. Laughter floated down the hallway. Teenagers had claimed the old Victorian as their next party destination. Just like that, the dread evaporated, and so did he and Scully. They exited before the kids could make them feel any stupider than they already did.
Mulder wondered if Scully had seen what he had. If the ghostly figure had sent a chill down her spine, too. A glance at her fidgety hands made him suspect it had. Yet, stubbornness plunged them into silence. The soft hum of the car radio did the only talking. Neither one wanted to argue, and that’s what it would become.
He’d thought they’d disappear into separate motel rooms without another word, but Scully paused at the doorway to say, “Don’t take me back to that house, Mulder.”
The muted TV cast shadows across his room. The darkness made him uneasy, but guilt kept him awake. Scully’s statement haunted him more fiercely than any ghost could. Once again, he’d chased monsters at the expense of her safety, her time, and her actual desires. After six years, you’d think he wouldn’t keep making the same mistake.
Ghosts might not be real, but his feelings for his partner were. He loved Scully. Yet, he kept dragging her into the darkness. Maybe part of him feared what their life would look like if he didn’t. Perhaps if she wasn’t constantly staring evil in the face, she’d finally have the time to question why she keeps wasting her life on him.
A knock at the adjoining door yanked him from his spiral. The door squeaked open, and Scully appeared. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
Her voice was so unlike how he’d ever heard it—soft, timid, uncertain. He wondered how long it took her to work up the courage to knock. Scully didn’t often show vulnerability these days, but he did. He dripped with it. Stank of it. And the very worst part of him wanted to suck vulnerability from her, too.
“Of course,” he responded, eyeing the tattered armchair in the corner. “Take the bed.”
“It’s okay,” she insisted, the mattress springs groaning with her arrival. “I want you to stay.”
Watching Scully crawl across his bed previously only existed in his tightly kept fantasies. His hopeful cock prayed she’d climb his body next. The glow of the TV didn’t reveal enough. He craved to see more of her face. To know if her cheeks burned with a blush. To decipher if she’d jumped into his bed only because she feared the dark and what lurked within it.
She slipped beneath the sheets much closer than he’d expected. “Is this okay?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm.” His nose was already lost in her sweet-smelling hair. Slowly, his arm moved around her waist. “Is this?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and that’s how it began.
Scully stayed in his motel room the next night. Then, the night after that. Even when they returned to Washington, it continued. Movie nights on his couch lingered long after twilight. Takeout after work extended into the evening. They’d stare at each other between case talk, files spread across the coffee table, wondering who would get the courage to say it first.
It’s getting pretty late.
It was usually him to respond, “Maybe you should stay.” With cheeks tinted ballet slipper pink, she murmured excuses about taking the couch. They both knew it was a lie. That later, she’d slip beneath his sheets in silence before tugging his arm across her middle like it belonged there.
Curves normally locked beneath power suits tempted him like sirens. He suspected her skin was as soft as her silk pajamas, but he only dared to touch her waist. Anything more was Scully’s choice. Really, it always had been.
He’d expected more stubborn silence, but the darkness made it easier to trade secret truths. Words, both pretty and dangerous, slipped between their lips.
“I like this,” she’d utter, and he’d tug her closer, whispering how beautiful she was as she fell asleep in his arms.
They were playing roles, pretending what it would be like to be something more. Something beyond Agents Scully and Mulder. And for one moment, he thought they succeeded when Scully titled her head, allowing the fairy-soft kisses reserved for her temple to continue down her jaw and onto her neck.
But it evaporated in the morning. Rolling over revealed nothing but lingering warmth. His bed. Her bed. It didn’t matter. With the darkness gone, so was Scully. He knew he’d find her at the office with a professional smile plastered on her face—and he did.
“Good morning, Agent Mulder.”
“Good morning,” he replied, knowing he’d smell his soap on her if he got close enough. That the markings of his lingering kisses hide just beneath her turtleneck. It both frustrated and excited him, so he reached for a pencil instead of her. What was another secret in a pile of many?
“We have to follow up with the detectives back in Los Angeles,” she said, extending a pair of plane tickets. “We fly out this afternoon.”