Chapter Text
He watches the other man watch her. The way his eyes trace the curve of her jeans as she crosses the room to the fridge, gushing obscurities. The way he tips his head, just so and almost imperceptible, eyes flickering over the length of her. The way his face burns with warmth for her, branding itself painfully, obviously, across the room at large, scalding everyone but the object of its intensity. The way his voice softens when he talks to her; the way he looks at her whenever he makes a joke; the way she is the recipient of all his eyerolls meant for someone else. He finds that he is burning with rage, the unexpected depths of which scare him. That anyone should look at her that way; that anyone would have the audacity required for such heretical indecency was almost enough to shock him from his anger. So what if he was her boyfriend? Where was the respect for her? Where was the respect for him ?
Mulder shakes his head, sending the final where the hell does this guy get off echoing from his mind. This was a mistake. The thought hits him all at once, and he measures its legitimacy by the weight with which it does so: it knocks the air from his lungs; stands to reason it would be true. Historically, this approach has worked for him, both professionally and personally. He considers it to be almost entirely foolproof, excepting those rare occasions when he is shown in his true harlequin of colors. He clears his throat.
“Hey, uh, Scully? I’m gonna take off, okay?”
“Oh, are you sure?” She stops, mid-flow, to turn her attention to him. He is struck with the full force of her side-tipped head; the slight but impossible to overlook implication of bruises blooming across her ego; it almost staggers him, almost convinces him to sit, stay, heel.
“Yeah, i, uh - case stuff, you know?” he manages to bark out, stiff and scratchy.
“Okay, Mulder,” the hurt is gone, dismissed with ease by Scully, queen of compartmentalizing. The shutters of cold professionalism are drawn. Part of him is stung by how easy it is for her. Part of him is breathless with gratitude for her ability to slip into the skin of that aloof almost-stranger.
He tips his head to the other man. “seeyaround, Rob.”
“See ya later, Fox,” Rob gives him a polite smile that stops firmly beneath his eyes. Mulder returns it, teeth bared and toeing the line. A wave of nausea hits him when, sweeping batlike from the room with his coat over his arm, he hears Scully murmur something, pushes aside the dejection he thinks he detects in her voice. He hears Rob’s voice lower in response; hears Scully’s answering laugh, rich and sweet. He doesn’t hear Rob’s words; the words don’t matter. He hears the heaviness of the implications lacing his tone, and it makes him want to cry; it makes him want to vomit; makes him want to burst back into the room and break bones against the other man’s face until his vision blurs and he feels blood. He takes a deep breath in the elevator. Tells himself, it’s okay; this is a learning experience. Makes the note in his mind as if it’s the first time, which of course it is far from being: don’t hang with Scully outside of the x-files.
He steps out of the elevator feeling calmer. In his car, he is calm. He pulls out, calmly, into the street. He notes, with zen-like calm detachment, that the rain this morning has cleared the fog that had wreathed the trees on Scully’s street when he’d arrived. Now, the sun bounces from the rain-slick tarmac in painful shards of stained glass to scratch across his eyes. He reaches a hand into his glove box, composed despite the glittering irritation. He notes, calmly, that he has forgotten his sunglasses. He screeches jerkily to a halt at the next red light, one hand still buried and searching in the glove box. He pulls it out coolly as he waits at the stoplight, ignoring the honking from the car behind him in response to his unceremonious stop. He runs his hands through his hair, his mind a still sea, and rests them on the wheel. He exhales, deep and slow. He blinks. Clenches his fists. begins to beat at the wheel, teeth clenched so hard his jaw trembles and unbothered by the startled and staring eyes watching from the neighboring vehicles.
The light turns green. He accelerates, calmly. The drive back to his apartment is the longest of his life. His mind is eating itself as he drives; he fears, absently, that he might hit a passenger. That would only make his day worse: having to suffer jealousy of his victim’s position. The jealousy of the injured man he imagines; the jealousy of the fear in the eyes of the imagined man’s imagined wife at his side while they carry him away to hospital; the jealousy of her continued imaginary visits while the imaginary man languishes in Washington National. His mind paints himself in the hospital bed, gown and slippers and terrible wound; traitorously, it paints Scully kneeling at his bedside, gold band on her right hand binding her to him in all the ways she already is. A low growl escapes his lips as he parks and heads up to his apartment. When he struggles to slip his key in the lock, he barks out pure frustration, accompanying it with a frantic tattoo beat into the door. The wood splinters a little under his abuse, biting into his hand. He ignores it, rests his head on the door.
Against his better instincts, as he tries again, angling the key right first time and letting himself in without incident, he examines his feelings. Beneath the boiling anger simmers a soup of betrayal he knows he has no right to, stewing alongside resentment for her being the first to break the imagined pact. He slumps into his couch, flipping on the tv and staring without seeing the screen. It isn’t her fault , he tries to reason with himself, how was she to know you were holding out on her? But Mulder is tenacious. He is not an easy man to placate, even by his own standards. How could she not know? She isn’t blind, and she isn’t stupid. She’s smart, she’s so so smart… he lets the thought escape, unwilling to follow it further into the tangled roots it burrows into. He plays back all his interactions since they met. He sees her in his room, flushed and desperate, candlelight playing across her back dimples and making him shiver. He sees her, a thin sheen of sweat dappling the nape of her neck as she exposes it to him and, despite himself, the blood rushes out of his head. He sees her, face set and eyes blazing; he sees her soft and stroking, eyes prickling with tears and little, perfectly-manicured fingers on his; he sees her wanting to believe and he sees the little wife and he sees Agent Scully and Doctor Scully and he sees her unsure and shy and jealous.
His hand falls to his cock before he is cognizant of his decision. He strokes at himself half-heartedly, her face swimming in his mind, comfortingly disapproving. All that, and for what? For her to fuck someone else? For her to fuck Rob ? Divorced PTA dad Rob who could give her, what? Everything she ever wanted? He’d put it off too long, he realizes. He should have accepted her invitation months ago; seeing them together has finally made it real. He has crossed the Rubicon. This side is sorely lacking in redheads who hate his guts and have the tightest body he’s ever seen. Without wanting to, unable to fight the pull of the thought as it intrudes, he wonders what it looks like. How he does it. How he makes her feel. When Rob fucks her, is it like it is in his imagination? He is pulling roughly at his cock now, the rage returning, jaw tense and grip tight. his vision grows hazy at the edges and his blood burns under his skin. He whines, dark and angry. He sees Rob, sandy hair mussed as he slips inside her. Rob, cheeks flushed and teeth gritted, grunting.
And Scully; Scully beneath him, back arched and face buried in the pillows. She turns her head to look at him, eye rolling like a whale breaching and just as miraculous. Her cheeks are flushed the prettiest pink he’s ever seen; he is sentimental; he is in love. Her hair is a mess of flame rippling across the linens and burying itself in his heart. Her hands claw at the sheets, so tightly that the action sends an aurora of white to seam her knuckles. Scully, soft to the touch as doeskin, and Rob, rough and bruising, pulling at her hair, thrusting like a man crazed. Rob, a thumb pushing searchingly into her asshole without hesitation, cock ironhard and driving, and Scully, dripping and thighs slick, driven mad by the pressure, her wildness reaching new heights with every tiny movement he makes. Mulder imagines the sounds she would make; the animal growls, the guttural yelps, the high and breathy moans the girls make on film; and it’s too much too fast and his brain bursts with it, and he is left shaking and groaning, alone with the sound of the shopping channel and the stickiness of his hands swiftly drying.
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Mulder sweeps from the room, overlarge coat sweeping after him like a shadow. Rob suppresses a shudder. The guy’s a creep; he’s a vampire; a freak with a ghoulish hold over dana; downright spooky. The guy spent the entire damn time he was here staring after her like that and Rob can barely bring himself to be angry at the audacity because the sick thing is he didn’t even know he was doing it. And the even sicker thing is she didn’t know he was doing it! Am I being played here? He shakes the thought from his head. Scully isn't like that.
“I'm sorry,” Scully says, her tone appeasing, and Rob wonders uncharitably how often she has to use it with Mulder, how much of it she learned from being always at his side, “I thought he might be able to stay. He’s always dashing around, it’s not you. He’s always so busy with work. I just thought it might be good if…well, it doesn't matter.” Rob pushes down his silent relief that Mulder had left so quickly, shelving his misgivings for a later conversation. He forces a smile, his words a little strained but well-intentioned, “it’s alright dana. It’s nice to spend some time together, just you and I, no kids, no Mulder.”
She nods absently, missing the joke of it all, eyes flickering across him to land on her phone. She shifts in her seat, seeming to wilt a little.
“Hey,” Rob lowers his voice, infuses it with the desire he never has to force, “speaking of alone time, how ‘bout we make the most of this big, empty apartment?” He leans closer to her, one hand on her knee. Scully laughs in response, a sweet sound but less enthusiastic than he’d like. Her eyes wander across the room to her silent phone again, and again he reads disappointment in her features. Struggling to maintain his shaky hold on his patience, he wills himself to remain compassionate. “Hey, it’s okay, seriously,” he smiles at her, trying for tenderness and unwilling to let jealousy take the reins from him, “I’m not upset.” She nods again, a little less absently this time, and hope sparks in his chest. “Whaddaya say, want to try a little distraction?” He draws his hand up her thigh, and she shudders, but catches it before he wins too much ground.
“I’m sorry, Rob, I just,” she hesitates, appearing to choose her words carefully, “I just, I can’t. Not right now.”
Jealousy flickers beneath his hope, shouldering it aside. “Hey, it’s not as bad as all that, right? I know you’re disappointed, but there’ll be other chances. He’ll come around.”
Scully gives a non-committal hum of assent, and he tries not to notice the way she is shifting to get a better view of the phone.