He assumes it'll be more of that general sense of closeness, the thing that's always there but now is there just a little more. He assumes wrong. If anything, it feels like Scully's invented some kind of topical sedative, one that works one hell of a lot faster than anything else he's tried. If he doesn't wake up groggy tomorrow, it'll be a miracle cure.

"That," he tells her, his mouth quirking up on one side, "seems like cheating."

Not that he minds. Getting up - to the sound of creaking wood, which doesn't say anything charitable about his knees in this transformation - he tosses the takeout bags in the kitchen trashcan and hits the lights.

In the darkness, as he stretches out beside Scully, Mulder finds himself wondering if this is a situation where touching's necessary or not. He's already a little closer to tired than he usually is at this hour, and even if she claims to be all in on this plan, putting an arm around her still sounds like a fast-track to an HR-mandated class on sexual harassment. It's hard to ignore his own perceptions of Scully, and all the ways the woman he worked with would never have suggested this in D.C.

Eventually, after his usual shifting around, he lands on crooking one arm up and letting it rest next to her back. Close, kind of touching, but not too much. Just enough that he might benefit from some of Scully's ability to sleep nearly on command.

And if he ends up with an arm wrapped around her anyway, his face buried in her hair, that's the fault of some unconscious, dreaming Mulder.