He's been out of bed for at least an hour now, possibly longer, making a nuisance of himself in Scully's apartment. It's not real snooping, as far as he's concerned - there's no digging for secrets in her medicine cabinet or opening up the drawers of her nightstand, after all, just staring at everything she owns with new fascination. Every book on the shelf, all the dishes in the kitchen, they take on a different shape now. The stories they tell about Scully mean something new to him.
(That, and the novelty of lying in bed with her, listening to her breath and admiring the smooth fall of her hair, has worn off for a few hours. It'll be back as soon as she falls asleep in his arms again, he's sure. But even a besotted Fox Mulder eventually needs to get up and move around, or he'll end up like the woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper.")
He's most taken with a set of tarot cards, deliciously incongruous with Scully's overall sense of skepticism, and brings them over to the couch to take a look at. They have a decidedly vintage flair - their teenage years are now fall into that category, according to a morning-show puff piece he caught at a motel a few weeks ago - and they look well-loved when he slides them out of their battered box. Mulder sets them down on Scully's coffee table and shuffles them idly, cutting them and then piling them up together. When he draws a card off the top, it's a man in a vaguely medieval outfit brandishing a stick like he's expecting a fight. The Seven of Rods is the caption beneath the artwork.
Tarot's one piece of the paranormal he's never had much time for, though; he knows the basics, enough that he can identify the major arcana pretty easily, but the minor arcana doesn't mean much of anything to him. He sets the card down, letting the Seven of Rods guy face off with the ceiling, and doesn't think to put the cards away before he gets up to figure out some coffee for them.
When Scully comes out of the bedroom, he's ready for her, walking back into the living room with a mug in hand. He hasn't bothered to put on anything besides his boxers, he's not expecting her to wear much more, and his breath still catches a moment when he sees her. Dana Scully in one of his shirts, the sleeves bunched up so she doesn't drown in them, is the kind of image he didn't quite believe would exist outside the more embarrassing corners of his imagination.
And yet here she is, a little rumpled and utterly beautiful. He holds the mug out to her. "Want some coffee?"
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(That, and the novelty of lying in bed with her, listening to her breath and admiring the smooth fall of her hair, has worn off for a few hours. It'll be back as soon as she falls asleep in his arms again, he's sure. But even a besotted Fox Mulder eventually needs to get up and move around, or he'll end up like the woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper.")
He's most taken with a set of tarot cards, deliciously incongruous with Scully's overall sense of skepticism, and brings them over to the couch to take a look at. They have a decidedly vintage flair - their teenage years are now fall into that category, according to a morning-show puff piece he caught at a motel a few weeks ago - and they look well-loved when he slides them out of their battered box. Mulder sets them down on Scully's coffee table and shuffles them idly, cutting them and then piling them up together. When he draws a card off the top, it's a man in a vaguely medieval outfit brandishing a stick like he's expecting a fight. The Seven of Rods is the caption beneath the artwork.
Tarot's one piece of the paranormal he's never had much time for, though; he knows the basics, enough that he can identify the major arcana pretty easily, but the minor arcana doesn't mean much of anything to him. He sets the card down, letting the Seven of Rods guy face off with the ceiling, and doesn't think to put the cards away before he gets up to figure out some coffee for them.
When Scully comes out of the bedroom, he's ready for her, walking back into the living room with a mug in hand. He hasn't bothered to put on anything besides his boxers, he's not expecting her to wear much more, and his breath still catches a moment when he sees her. Dana Scully in one of his shirts, the sleeves bunched up so she doesn't drown in them, is the kind of image he didn't quite believe would exist outside the more embarrassing corners of his imagination.
And yet here she is, a little rumpled and utterly beautiful. He holds the mug out to her. "Want some coffee?"