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October 13, 1998 was a drizzly Tuesday, and it was Fox Mulder’s 37th birthday. Her partner was in many ways an enigma of a man, and birthdays were always difficult. For one, she never knew what to get him–taking him out for a proper, not-takeout dinner seemed more and more like a date lately, but not taking him out seemed wrong too. And what material gift do you give a man who lives such a spartan, singularly focused life? Typically Scully was an astute gift giver, but with him, she struggled. She knew she was overthinking it, but not how to stop doing so.
So the evening prior to his birthday had been a godsend in many ways, but in others? Oh boy.
They had met with the Gunmen for pizza and beer at a little Sicilian place just off Florida Avenue, where they presented Mulder with their birthday gift to him. Frohike slapped the envelope on the table between them with a flourish, and when Mulder peeked inside, his entire face lit up.
“Two tickets to tomorrow night’s Caps game against the Red Wings. Glass seats, birthday boy,” Langly said. Mulder’s face fell into an open, somewhat baffled grin.
“Guys, these seats are…”
“Expensive? We know,” Byers said. “Don’t expect another birthday gift for a few years.” Scully didn’t know much about hockey aside from the fact that the Washington Capitals were the local NHL team, and they had apparently done fairly well the year prior, but she could tell from the expression on Mulder’s face that this was a very good gift. At approximately that moment she looked across the table and saw Frohike staring directly at her, arms crossed, looking like the cat that ate the canary. And then it sank in. Two tickets. They weren’t just sending Mulder to a hockey game; they were setting him up.
“So… you wanna come with?” Mulder asked after they parted ways with the Gunmen and started walking down Florida Ave back to his car. He held up the envelope and shook it lightly. “They did give me two tickets, and it’s a real experience, you should do it at least once.” He was trying his best to appear casual, but she noticed that he wouldn’t look her in the eyes when he asked, staring down at the sidewalk instead.
“Sure,” she answered with a sly smile, her breath coming out in small, visible puffs between them. Autumn had snuck up on them, all at once it seemed. His face brightened as a grin spread across it. “I don’t know anything about hockey though.”
“Oh, it’s not a complex game to follow, the hardest part is keeping your eye on the puck,” he explained, becoming animated upon hearing her answer. “Which, honestly, the point of glass seats isn’t to do that, it’s mostly to make a lot of noise. It’s fun, you’ll see.” Now she was the one staring down at the sidewalk, surprised by the butterflies that had begun thrashing around just south of her bellybutton. This wasn’t her first sporting adventure with Mulder; he’d been dragging her to games in cities across the country from the very beginning of their partnership. But this was the one that felt most like… well… a date.
Did she want to go on a date with Mulder? The answer in her gut, and further south, was immediate and obvious: yes. They’d been in this strange, in-between place in their relationship for a while now, and after her cancer remission, before Diana’s appearance in their lives, it seemed like they were careening inexorably towards that inevitability. But then Diana. And now it was unclear.
But tonight, as they walked towards the parking garage, listening to Mulder chatter on about last year’s Stanley Cup and someone named Ollie the Goalie, Diana felt very far away, and Mulder very, very close.
+++
Tuesday passed in fits and starts, being primarily a paperwork day for them, broken up by a budget meeting that dragged well into lunch. When she looked at the clock, it seemed to drag on, but every time she thought about the night ahead, she looked at the time and was startled to find another hour had flown by. Before she knew it, they were packing up.
“I’ll come get you in about an hour?” he said, and she nodded.
“What do I wear to a hockey game?” she asked as they stepped into the elevator. He chuckled.
“Jeans are fine, it’s a little chilly in the arena so bring a sweater.” She nodded and they parted ways in the parking garage.
He was at her door in an hour’s time, almost on the dot, and when she opened the door he had something folded under his arm. He stepped inside and unfurled it–it was a blue and white sweater with an eagle on the front.
“The Screamin’ Eagle!” he said joyfully. “I know you don’t do hockey, and we can’t have you being mistaken for a Red Wings fan. I know it’ll be big on you, but…” He suddenly looked a little self-conscious, his sentence trailing off, so she reached out for the sweater, pulling it over her head without hesitation. It fell so low it almost covered her butt, but it was soft with wear and smelled like him, which secretly pleased her to no end. She shook the sleeves back to reveal her hands and smiled up at him.
“Perfect fit,” he said.
They drove almost back to work, to the MCI Center just around the corner from the Hoover building which housed the Capitals arena. The building was overflowing with blue and white-clad fans, and Scully walked close to Mulder so as not to get lost in the mass of people. At one point he reached out for her hand instinctively, and she took it, releasing him only as they flashed their tickets to the attendant at the gate and passed through single-file.
“Hold on,” Mulder said, veering them towards a store exploding with bronze stars, eagles, and blue and white memorabilia. They emerged ten minutes later with the birthday boy sporting a giant blue foam finger and a baseball cap, and a t-shirt for Scully, which he had bought her even though it was his birthday.
“You can never have enough hats,” Mulder said, pointing his giant foam finger at her.
“Evidently,” she said, chuckling as she batted the finger aside. They made their way to their seats, which as promised, were right on the ice, near the corner of the rink, up against a large plexiglass barrier.
“They put these in after a fistfight between players and fans in 1979 after a Bruins-Rangers game,” he said, tapping the glass with his knuckles.
“You’re joking,” she said, eyeing the clear barrier. Mulder shook his head.
“Hockey is hardcore, Scully,” he said, sprawling back in his seat. “You’ll see.” They talked aimlessly about work and the finer points of the game as the arena filled up and players warmed up on the ice in front of them. Mulder leaned in close to Scully’s face to be heard over the raucous chatter around them, so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek, and it was almost dizzying. She was disappointed when the players left the ice and it became clear that the game was about to start, because it made Mulder straighten up in his seat.
It was, as promised, nothing like any sporting experience Scully had ever had up to that point. She had no idea what was happening ninety percent of the time, but found herself quickly swept up in the furious energy of the other spectators. They screamed, they pounded on the glass, they cheered when fists flew, and jumped up and down when the team scored–which was the only real action she could identify, aside from the fighting, since it was obvious when the puck flew into the net. She barely knew where the puck was half the time, but it didn’t matter.
“You’re having fun!” Mulder said with a wide grin, observing her flushed cheeks and tousled hair during the second intermission, when they briefly left their seats to get something to eat. She gave him a breathless nod.
“I am,” she said. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but you were right Mulder, this is fun.” She looked up at him as they stood in line, their focus no longer drawn to other things, and the look he gave her as he peered down into her face would have made her cheeks pink if they weren't already flushed from excitement. There was appreciation there, but more than that, profound affection. She could see it in his eyes, the tilt of his jaw, the stretch of his mouth as he smiled down at her. It warmed her chest and almost made her look away, but she resisted the urge to, holding his gaze instead.
“It's as much fun for me to watch you watching the game, as it is to watch the game itself,” he said as they moved forward, hands stuffed in his pockets, and it seemed that he'd said more than he really intended to, because he finally broke their gaze to look down at his shoes. She looked down at her own shoes with great interest as well, and anyone paying attention to them might wonder if they hadn’t both stepped into something strange. Taking a plunge, she looped her arm through his. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him smile in a self-satisfied sort of way.
They were soon back in their seats with hot dogs and nachos, which they wolfed down during the remainder of the brief intermission. Scully could only envision the nacho cheese disaster that would occur if they tried to eat while watching the last period of the game.
During the fifteen minutes in which they were getting their food and eating, the two men wearing Red Wings jerseys sitting beside Scully had also been partaking in food and drink, primarily drink, having doubled the already abundant collection of empty beer cans by their feet. They had been getting progressively louder and rowdier over the course of the game so far, which seemed to have reached a fever pitch now that the third period was beginning. Scully kept a wary eye on them, but once the action started her focus was drawn back to the ice.
It didn’t take long, however, for the men to bring the attention back to themselves.
“Hey Red,” the larger man with a goatee and baseball cap called out from his seat, belching before continuing. “Aren’t you warm enough to take that sweater off? It’s covering the best part of you.” Scully peered over at him with a disgusted scowl, like he was a new species of bug, and elected not to qualify the comment with a response. She hoped that he would lose interest based on her lack of attention. Unfortunately, all it did was draw his friend in.
“Hey baby, my buddy’s talking to you!” the other man said, his mullet sticking to the back of his sweaty neck. This caught Mulder’s attention, though he didn’t understand any of it over the roar of the crowd, and he looked over Scully’s head at the men, then down at her.
“Did he say something to you?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Ignore it,” she said under her breath, turning back to the ice.
“Oh, so you’ll talk to limp-dick over there, but not to us,” the first man spat angrily, hoisting himself up to his feet.
“Hey, limp-dick is a federal agent,” Scully retorted angrily, unwilling to hear names hurled in Mulder’s direction, and she narrowed her eyes at the man even though she had to crane her neck back quite a bit to do so, “and so am I, so lay off.”
“What about lipstick?” Mulder half-shouted the question, uncertain he was hearing the argument correctly and very confused about what was happening–but based on their body language, he was certain some kind of argument was being had. Apparently the man with the goatee took that as a personal insult, because he charged towards them, shoving Scully to the side and bouncing her off the plexiglass barrier as he began swinging on Mulder. If Mulder was shocked by the sudden assault, it was far overwhelmed by his anger at seeing the man put his hands on Scully. He swung hard, nailing the man in the jaw and sending him careening down into the seats almost immediately. He hissed and shook his hand in pain, with the unfortunate effect being that he didn’t see the mullet coming at all.
Fortunately, Scully did, and though she was still on the ground she was able to stretch out a leg and trip him as he charged drunkenly forward. He fell, catching Mulder around the legs as he hit the ground and dragging him down with him like a domino. He hit the ground flat on his back, his head thunking loudly against the floor. Scully scrabbled to her feet and landed on the mullet’s back with both knees, jamming his face into the ground.
“Mulder! Are you okay?” she asked from her position, and though his face was screwed up in pain, he managed to nod an affirmative. Scully, though small, maintained her position of advantage until security came charging down the stairs to the front row, at which point several witnesses explained what happened and the two trouble-makers were dragged off. Once security arrived–just as the Capitals lost 3-2 to the Red Wings–Scully pulled Mulder up into one of the empty seats and felt around the back of his head.
“You’ve got a big knot back here,” she said after examining his scalp and doing some basic tests of neurological function. “Did you see stars, or black out?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve had worse, honestly, I’ll be fine.” She pressed her lips together, giving him a worried look.
“Is there any chance I can convince you to go to the hospital for a head CT?” she asked.
“It was a slow fall, Scully, it’s okay,” he said with a slight smile. “Besides, the big foam finger sort of padded my landing.” She cast him a doubtful look, and he gave her an expert pouty face in response. “I really don’t want to go to the hospital on my birthday.” She sighed.
“Okay,” she said. “But you’re coming home with me so I can keep an eye on you.” He didn’t argue as she helped him slowly to his feet, and they walked carefully up the steps towards the exit, Scully still holding his hand tightly in hers. They didn’t talk much until they’d navigated the flood of people and pulled out of the parking garage, pointed towards Georgetown.
“You told me hockey fans were crazy, but I wasn’t expecting any fights on our side of the plexiglass,” she said with a humorless chuckle.
“Yeah, about that,” he said, picking his head up from where it leaned against the glass, “what exactly happened? I couldn’t hear what was going on over all the noise.” Scully sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Drunk and Drunker started making inappropriate comments, then got angry when I didn’t respond. You know, typical boozehound behavior.”
“And how did lipstick come up?” he asked, and she let out an almost bark-like laugh.
“Not lipstick,” she corrected, “limp-dick.”
“Limp-dick?” he asked with raised eyebrows. She smirked.
“Yes, I believe his exact words were, oh, so you’ll talk to limp-dick but not to us. ”
“So I’m limp-dick?” he asked, grinning. She shrugged.
“That’s between you and God,” she said, and now Mulder was the one rolling his eyes.
“She’s funny, folks,” he said to the air. She appraised him from the driver’s seat for a moment before continuing.
“I can’t believe you knocked him out,” she said. “You’re not usually such a…”
“What?” She shrugged.
“I don’t know, a brawler?”
“A brawler ?” he asked with a laugh. She smiled sheepishly as she pulled into her parking space.
“I don’t know!” she said with a laugh. “I’ve just never seen you get into a fist fight before, at least not off the clock. It surprised me, is all.” They stepped out of the car and he shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugging his shoulders.
“It was instinct,” he said, walking beside her up the steps and into the building, chased inside by a biting autumn breeze. “I just… didn’t like the way he put his hands on you. I reacted, I couldn’t help it.” She looked up and saw that his cheeks had pinked, giving him the warm, roseate shade of a peach. “Are you upset?”
“What?” she said, whipping her head back around. “No, Mulder, not at all. I actually… I thought it was sweet.” Now she was glowing pink too, much more obviously on her fair skin tone, and they stepped into the elevator in silence. As they rode up to the third floor, she reached her hand out and placed it on Mulder’s elbow, giving it a soft squeeze even as she stared resolutely at the scuffed floor.
Back in her apartment, she sat Mulder down at the kitchen table and fished out her first aid kit, turning her attention to his right hand, which was swollen and bruising. The skin over two of his knuckles had split, and dried blood crusted around the wounds. She wet a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide and wiped at it gently.
“Some birthday, huh?” she said, and Mulder furrowed his brows a little.
“Are you kidding? I had a great birthday.” She gave him an incredulous look.
“Seriously?” she asked. He nodded, grinning.
“Yeah, seriously,” he said. “I had an easy day at work, then I got to take you to a hockey game and watch you kick that sentient mullet’s ass. Plus a free birthday hotdog. And now we get to have a sleepover. So yeah, all in all I’d say it was one of my better birthdays.” Scully smiled despite herself and shook her head as she pulled closed the cuts on his knuckles with butterfly bandages.
“Let me get you some ice for that, it’ll help with the swelling,” she said. She came back with an ice pack and handed it to him, then reached around to the back of his head, feeling for the goose egg and prodding it a little bit, parting his thick hair so she could examine the skin in better light.
“Well, Mulder, for what it’s worth, I had a great time tonight too,” she said. “You getting your ass kicked notwithstanding.”
“Hey,” he said, turning to look at her indignantly. “I did not get my ass kicked! I got my ass knocked over–before that, I was the one doing the kicking.” She shook her head and ruffled his hair, leaning down and kissing him gently on the forehead. He closed his eyes and hummed placidly, letting out a soft sigh.
“So you like hockey, huh?” he said. She nodded.
“When the fighting was on the other side of the glass? Yeah, I did,” she said, letting her hand fall from his hair to his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw gently with the back of her index finger. She saw the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up, and though it could be a purely physiological response, it gave her confidence. “Although in the interest of full disclosure, I think that was less the hockey and more the company.” She didn’t look him in the eyes as she said it, but her growing smile betrayed her. He raised his eyebrows.
“Is that so?” he said, reaching up and taking hold of her hand, daring to plant a kiss against her palm. She felt her ears go red, and she took a steadying breath as she allowed herself to look him in the eyes. They were dilated, and fixed on her, his supple lips parted slightly as his eyes traced her features slowly, carefully.
“It is,” she said, brushing her thumb dangerously across his bottom lip. “Now, for your last birthday activity, would you like to get in bed and watch a movie? I want to keep an eye on you tonight, make sure you don’t have any signs of head trauma.” It was a thin pretext, she knew, for Mulder would know that if she had any real concerns about head trauma she would have forced him to the hospital instead of taking him to her apartment, but he decided to play along.
“Whatever you say, doc,” he said, hopping up from the kitchen chair and working to keep his face straight.
He stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers and crawled into bed, making himself comfortable on the passenger’s side–knowing Scully always slept on the right side of the bed–while she changed into her pajamas in the bathroom. She let him choose the movie, which was a given– Planet 9 from Outer Space –and soon they were tucked into the blankets in the dark, bathed in the cool grey light from the television screen, their eyes growing heavy.
She looked over and saw him watching not the movie, but her, his head propped up on his elbow.
“You’re staring,” she said, unable to stop herself from smiling even though she felt a little exposed right now, in her pajamas, in bed, with Mulder. He looked down at the bedspread.
“Sorry,” he said, biting his lower lip.
“What’s going on in there?” she asked. He pursed his lips for a moment, clearly weighing something in his mind before responding.
“Just thinking about…” But before he could finish, his phone rang. It was in the pocket of his pants, which were hung over a reading chair in the corner of Scully’s room. He looked at her in confusion, like she was responsible for the ringing phone. She shrugged, and he rolled out of bed, retrieving the phone and flipping it open.
“Hello?” he answered, and whoever it was, he wasn’t thrilled to hear from them, based on the expression he was making, like that of someone who just smelled something vaguely unpleasant, like brussels sprouts. “Oh, hi… yeah, thanks. Uh-huh… it was good, really good actually. I took Scully to a hockey game…” She looked away from him, focusing on the TV as though she hadn’t seen the movie with him four times already, trying not to look like she was listening intently to his half of the conversation.
“What am I doing now?” he repeated back to the mystery caller, rubbing the back of his hair with his free hand. She was certain, now, that the caller was Diana. She’d suspected as much, since it clearly wasn’t Skinner wishing him a happy birthday, and the only other people who would have, sent him on that sort-of hockey date tonight in the first place. And now she was offering him a different kind of birthday present. Scully pinched the corners of her eyes, preparing herself to hear the words I’m on my way .
“I’m busy, actually,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. She looked up at him, surprised. “No, I can’t… yes, I am with Scully, why?” A long pause, in which his face became stormier. “That’s really none of your business, Diana, and it hasn’t been for a long time. I’m going to go now, good night.” Without wasting another moment, he flipped the phone shut and tossed it back onto the chair with his pants, turning to crawl back into bed with Scully.
“Agent Fowley?” she asked in a would-be casual voice. He groaned and nodded. “What did she want?”
“Sex, probably,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “At least in the past when she called at this hour, that’s usually what she was gaming for. She wasn’t too happy to hear I was with you at twelve-thirty in the morning, that’s for sure.”
“Oh,” Scully said, keeping her tone as carefully neutral as possible. He shrugged, looking over at her with an open smile.
“She’ll survive,” he said, reaching over and taking Scully’s hand in his as he turned his attention back to the movie. She fought hard to keep the shit-eating grin off her face that threatened to blow her calm, collected exterior, rubbing her thumb across the top of his hand affectionately.
“So you’re really not interested?” she asked in an even, but small voice, not daring to look over at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his head tilt to the side, like a dog.
“Scully, did you think there was even a chance I would be interested in Diana?” he asked, and he tugged her hand a little, demanding her attention. She turned to him, and in the dark it was hard to read the subtleties of her expression.
“Well…” she began. “It seemed like maybe there was something there.” He chuffed a laugh, which was not the reaction she was expecting.
“Scully, I have no interest in Diana,” he said, trying to keep his tone level, but the humor in his voice was there. Like it was a patently ridiculous suggestion. “She’s not my focus anymore. Whatever residual feelings she has for me, are just that, hers, not mine.” He heard her take in a sharp breath at the word ‘anymore.’ It was a hopeful word. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back, darting her tongue out over her bottom lip briefly.
“That’s good to know,” she said, eyes trained resolutely on the TV. She could feel his gaze still on her, and wondered what he was thinking.
“Hey, Scully?” he said, drawing her eyes back towards him.
“Hmm?” She raised her eyebrows slightly, and he took a deep breath before responding.
“Thanks for coming with me today,” he said, almost shyly, like he wasn’t sure he wanted her to hear him. “There’s… really nobody I’d rather be with. Today, or any day.”
And suddenly she knew, this was the moment. All evening it seemed like they were moving towards it, the right time for a kiss; that at some point it would become evident, the perfect moment, and now it had. It couldn’t have been more obvious. They looked each other in the eyes, and she felt it in her chest, like a balloon expanding, realizing it was now or, quite possibly, never. Because if she couldn’t screw up the courage to kiss him now, when would she? In another six years’ time?
She leaned forward and he mirrored her, both of their chins tilting slightly, and just like that, their lips touched. His soft, pouty lips were even better than she imagined, and when they kissed it felt like electricity passing through her. The kiss was gentle, almost chaste, though her teeth grazed his bottom lip as they withdrew in a manner that made him groan, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile as they pulled back a bit to look each other properly in the eye.
“Happy birthday,” she said, and Jesus, the way her voice dripped, syrupy, like honey, was enough to make his dick strain against his boxers. He grinned, as did she, and they both leaned forward to kiss again, her hand reaching forward and resting on his chest, where she felt his heart hammering under her touch. When they came up for air, he raised his eyebrows.
“So, is that strictly a birthday thing, or can we keep doing that?” he asked, and she chuckled.
“I’m going to have to insist that we do,” she said, and he pumped his fist.
“Chalk one up for ol’ limp-dick,” he said, and she burst out laughing, only stopping when his lips met hers again, and then again, and eventually, when the movie had long-since ended… nobody noticed.