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She showed up well after 3am, exhausted and feet aching, having determined cause of death as accidental. Using the key to unlock the door, the first thing she noticed was the light on over the kitchen sink, which she moved to switch off before heading up to the bedroom. She had half-expected Mulder to be awake and on the couch but he wasn’t so she moved to the stairs, stopping on the first step when she noticed an empty bag of M&Ms against the wall. Wondering if she’d now find him in some kind of sugar coma, she spied a second empty on the third step, followed by another on the fifth and so on until she made it to the top.
He would be diabetic before his fortieth birthday if he wasn’t careful.
Once upstairs, she unobservantly used the bathroom before actually looking around the bedroom, eyes skimming past the lump of Mulder on the bed to the bowls lined up along the windowsill. Moving closer, she found them full of M&Ms, color sorted and separated, each with a piece of paper folded before them.
Red was blank.
Orange stated, “because orange you glad we’re partners.”
Yellow declared, “because we yellow at each other all the time but still like each other.”
Green scrawled, “because everybody’s green with envy that I get to work with you.”
Blue told her, “because I’m blue without you.”
Purple professed, “because you are perfect to me (it was close enough to the word purple that I went with it but I had to use Skittles because those bastards have yet to make a purple M&M and it pisses me off but I digress).”
Brown mentioned, “because I put you through a lot of crap and you stay.”
By then she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry so instead she changed into her pajamas, took two of each candy and crawled up next to Mulder. Nudging him, she kissed his nose, then, in a low voice, “Mulder. Wake up. I’m home.”
He’d been drifting in and out since just after midnight and groggily rolled over, looking up at her face, reaching to brush some hair behind her ear, “hi.”
Tilting her head, she gave him a smile that lit up the room, the bright moon radiant on her face, “you gave me a rainbow.”
His sleepy smile made her heart flop, “I thought you might need something nice to come home to.”
“I have you but the candy was a very pleasant addition to that.”
He stared at her for longer than anyone less than completely in love would, then, spying the pile in her hand, “you know, they say they ‘melt in your mouth, not in your hand’ but I don’t think we should test the theory.”
Popping a blue one between his lips, “don’t choke. I don’t want to do the Heimlich.”
“Taking care of me yet again.” Chewing, “want to tell me what happened?”
“Nope. Not tonight. Tonight is sugar rushes and sappy notes.”
“Sappy? Really? I thought they were kind of ingenious.”
“I believe the phrase is ‘po-tay-toh’ ‘po-tah-toh’.” It was quiet after that, until Scully, now laying on her side facing him, hand between them on the pillow, two red candies left on her palm, “you didn’t leave a note for these ones.”
“I didn’t think they needed one.”
She held one up to his mouth and he took it, sucking it in between his lips, taking the tip of her finger in with it. Moving the candy against his cheek, he ran his tongue over the rough pad of her finger, the smooth nail, the ragged cuticle, before letting her go.
Mulder then took the last red chocolate and ran it the perimeter of her mouth, past the dip, around the corners, along the plump bottom edge before nudging it against her lips, asking them to open so he could place it inside. Meanwhile, her now damp finger mirrored his actions with the M&M, tracing his mouth, learning well-studied curves and lines.
As soon as she swallowed, he began moving forward, only to bump lips with hers on the way to him. Nothing like the desperate contact he’d expected, the longer he held his mouth to hers, the slower he wanted to go. Memorizing the feel of something he’d been staring at for years, the taste he imagined would be honey and firelight instead being chocolate and grape chapstick. Her hand on his cheek, her thumb pressed lightly to the side of his nose felt like a slice of a blissful heaven while her tongue, now probing his, sent his heart pounding with a juxtapositioned relaxation that made him nearly laugh, choosing to smile against her instead.
And then her lips curved into a matching smile, pulling away to take a breath, then returning for more.
There was no Mulder like a half-awake Mulder, soft and rounded, sweet and sultry, amatory and malleable yet strong and stunning. She had so many words to describe him in her head, so many words she applied to him late at night, when she lay there, awake and wondering, wishing and shunning, banishing thoughts unprofessional in nature and unavailable in reality.
She had never wanted something in life more than this yet, as she felt Mulder slowing, she calmed, realizing rushing would take away from them, would reduce them to a tangle of confusion, both in limb and understanding. Finally moving back enough to see his eyes, hooded delights that they were, she bowed her lips in a swollen gesture of confession, “I kissed you.”
“And I kissed you.”
“Are we going to do it again sometime?”
“There aren’t enough cranes, chains and brains in this world to figure out a way to keep me from you.”
Winking at him, “I’m going to kiss you goodnight in a minute but then I’m probably going to kiss you every few seconds for the rest of time so I just wanted to let you know that those M&Ms are the best gift you’ve ever given me.”
“So far.”
Going back in for more kisses, hands now shimmying under his shirt, exploring his well-defined back muscles, piano-key ribs, sharp angled shoulder blades, smooth neck curve, that made his eyes shut, sending a shiver from toes to nose and she laughed when she felt the tremor, “what’s the red stand for again?”
“Right now I’m going with unmitigated yet controlled lust but normally, I’m pretty sure it’d stand for love or some other romantical type gesture.”
“Romantical?”
He was getting too worked up to sleep at this point and forced himself to stay her movements along his back with a hand on her elbow, “if this keeps up, we’re going to have to figure out how to have sex with you being a girl and me having a gigantic, awkward cast while we are without condoms and with too many raging hormones dictating things.”
“We could probably work it out.”
Mulder groaned into her forehead, “you’re killing me yet again.”
“Yet again?”
“All the damn time, Scully. All … the damn … time.”
Knowing he was right but hating it for the moment, “roll over.” He did as told without question, then, he felt her hand move to his belly, arm light over his side as her chest crushed close to his back, “I red M&M you, Mulder, to Jupiter and back.”
His shoulders shook with laughter, “I red M&M you, Scully, to infinity and beyond.”