She's wearing the navy dress—mmhmm, that one—the one that makes his eyes all dopey and his lips all slack. The one she pours herself into once every few years, mostly when the moon is just right. Thank God she kept it. She'd gone through a period there, a few weeks after she left, organizing her new and spacious closet, when anything with a memory had found its way to the donation bin. It's not often she gets like that, out with the old and in with the new or some other horribly uplifting cliché like that. But the navy dress—it survived.

Nor, for that matter, does he.

Oh yes, he's there, too. He's there, all fifty-six years of him, all six feet of sprawling, unconventional masculinity, invading her space like he's done for twenty-five years, save just a couple (the donation bin and all). But that's behind them now. It's behind them and growing fainter and fainter in the distance with each passing day. Even fainter on days like this, when they've fudged the reports just a smidge, pretending there are still details to tie up tomorrow morning, when really there are none. The only details needing tying are those that'll be done in the comfort of a king-sized bed, the kind that comes with mints on the pillow and a sexy FBI agent beneath the covers. Because remember, it's her birthday.

They're soft and sloppy from too much wine at dinner, and she can't remember feeling this way for such a long time. Years ago, that trip to Cancun, when they'd tangled themselves into a hammock and necked until dawn…

His hand is on the skin of her thigh and climbing, his lips are at the tendons of her neck and sliding, and the cabbie's grumbling to himself in his plush front seat for yet again managing to pick himself up a horny, gropey couple, the third fucking pair tonight. He turns up his radio, just for good measure.

Do they care about his grumbles? No. No, they do not. She's wearing the navy dress after all.

"Mulder, stop," she whispers nevertheless, feeling the need to at least pretend to be embarrassed, though she's really not embarrassed at all; in fact, she passed embarrassment about a third of the way through dinner, when he took her hand and let her have a sneak peek of her birthday present, right there beneath the crisp white linen tablecloth at Luigi's. At that point, embarrassment had flown right out the window, replaced instead by lust, hot and heavy enough that she'd needed to shift around in her seat in order to keep her dress clean.

He doesn't buy it, of course. Because of her traitorous hips, her rebellious neck—wayward body parts hell-bent on betraying her with their wanton-ness, lifting and arching to meet him. No, she's bluffing, and he knows it. She knows he knows it. And it turns her on even more.

They've been together a few times, since the donation bin, since things were bad but now they're good again, but not… It's always been spontaneous—on a pullout bed during a case, on his couch after an episode of NOVA has finished, on the kitchen counter that one crazy time his recipe for lasagna went terribly, terribly wrong but ended up perfectly, perfectly right.

But this is different. This is planned, it's expected. This is her birthday, and if Mulder is good at anything, he's good at this, at taking care of her on her birthday.

Christ.

His lips find her earlobe, suck the pretty diamond stud between them. Five birthdays ago, he'd gone and gotten romantic, hidden them in the silverware drawer for her to find. She doesn't care about expensive jewelry, she's always told him that, but you could've fooled him with the thank you she'd given him later that night. Their old oak headboard hasn't been the same since.

And now. Now, she tries not to moan, but God, his tongue fiddling with her earring, his heated breath against her lobe— she's been a slave to his mouth and things he can do with it for way too long. She wiggles away, protesting "Stoppp!", but it's gaspy and giggly and not in the least bit convincing.

"Know what I'm gonna do to you?" he murmurs against her jaw, descending right back down. She squirms. Closes her eyes. She has some ideas, yes, and every single one of them is delicious.

"Mmmm," she hums, spreading her legs slightly wider while still attempting to maintain the ridiculous façade of disinterest.

"I'm gonna fuck you…" he nibbles against her ear, "with my tongue…" slips said tongue along her hairline, "in the elevator on the way to your hotel room."

"Jesus," she gasps, turning her head until their mouths meet briefly, hers slackened ridiculously with desire. That particular idea had not crossed her mind, and hearing him say it is just about as sexy as him actually doing it. He knows what it does to her, when he talks like this, knows how it makes her flushed and hungry and reckless.

"And then…," he continues, hand wandering further north along her thigh, "Whaddya think I'll do then, Scully?" God. It's always been like this with him. Always passionate, always squirm-in-her-seat intense. His fingers climb dangerously closer to realizing that with the navy dress, underwear is not an option.

"Nghhh," she groans softly, "We shouldn't…" It's all part of the game. Pretending she doesn't want it. Pretending she's embarrassed, shy, nervous, but then waiting on the edge of her seat for more.

"We should," he argues, leaning further against her. Everything's an argument with him, and she secretly loves it.

"I don't think I can wait…," he whispers against her cheek, "…until the hotel though…," he tongues against her ear, "…to see how amazing you taste on your birthday, Scully…" She can't stop the soft moan that escapes her lips or the way her head lolls back on her neck. She feels dizzy honestly. He makes her forget her own name at times.

"We can't…," she breathes, half-heartedly trying to squirm away. But then, ugh, his tongue hits that spot—the soft, sensitive one, right there below her ear—and his fingers hit that other spot— on her thigh, where sweat mixes with skin mixes with slick, slick Scully—and she feels herself about to make some very unwise decisions. "Jesus, Mulder…" She shoves him softly away. "You're making me too wet…," she sucks in a breath, "…for rational decisions."

That does it, for a moment anyway, and she watches him through half-lidded eyes as he groans and shifts in his seat, adjusting his dress pants around one of the loveliest bulges she's ever seen. They're panting, the both of them, and she remembers those glorious few months way back when, before his abduction and before William and before everything fell apart. Those months when late-night stakeouts began by the books and, after much cajoling on his part, ended with his mouth between her thighs in the backseat of a Ford Taurus.

She catches his eye. She misses those days.

He's rumpled to the point of gorgeousness over there, looking at her as though he wants to eat her whole. He licks his lips, and the vibrations slide through her like a tuning fork, reaching peak frequency precisely at her clit.

Birthday girls get what they want, she tells herself. And right now, what she wants is a gift box full of Mulder, wrapped up pretty with a bright red bow, tongue and batteries already included. All the man requested was a taste of her in the backseat of a taxicab on her birthday. That really isn't too much to ask.

Glancing toward the still-grumbling cabbie, she sends him a silent apology for what he may be about to witness. Then looks back to Mulder.

He's still there, watching, panting, making her wet. She runs the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. It makes him crazy, she knows this. She used to do it on purpose. She used to do it and revel in the way it flustered him, the way he'd sweat. "I like it though…," she whispers, pulling her lip between her teeth, reaching across the seat and tugging him back over. "…how wet you make me." She takes his hand and slips it inside the slit of her dress, re-spreads her legs and lets him feel. "See?" she asks.

"Christ, Scully," he grinds through his teeth, curling his entire hand to cup her, letting that beautiful middle finger of his slip inside just a bit. Her hips twitch as she sighs. She's still not used to this yet, the feel of him against her after so long away, the ache of his fingers stroking through the swollen wet heat of her body this way. She stretches her neck, lets their lips slide together.

"And now…," she whispers, gently tugging his hand back out, "Now taste." She draws his hand between their lips so he can taste, and when he sucks in his fingers with a groan, she can't help herself— she tastes, too. The two of them lick his hand clean, and then move to lips, their tongues sloppy and hungry and drunken— it's obscene really, fucking each other's mouths this way in the back of a cab.

His hand drops down, slithers its way into the V of her dress, caresses her bare breast while she arches to meet him. He thumbs across her nipple until she whimpers. "Yeah…," he breathes, pinching the flesh softly, rolling it between his fingers. She squirms deliciously against him. "In a few minutes, I'm gonna suck your nipples 'til you can't see straight, Scully." She moans, squeezing her thighs together, wondering just how much more she can take before throwing propriety to the wind and climbing right into his lap with her dress around her waist.

"What else?" she murmurs against his lips. The cabbie turns up the radio again with a grunt. Sports talk, not exactly an aphrodisiac, but who needs an aphrodisiac when Mulder's at second base and the evidence of third is still slick between her thighs? "What else, Mulder?" she asks again, skimming her hand down his abdomen and into his lap, grinding it against his pitcher's mound, delighting in the way it makes him shudder.

"Mmmm," he hums, his hand sliding out from her dress and threading through the hair at the base of her skull. "What else do you want? You want me to fuck you? You need a good fuck on your birthday, Scully?" She's tingling all over, pulsing in places that've only recently begun pulsing again. He clenches his hand into a fist when she doesn't answer, tugging at her hair until her neck is arched and exposed before him. A long, low moan scrapes up her throat. Christ, she thinks she could come just from this, from his dirty mouth in this dirty backseat of a cab. And he knows it.

"Yesss," she hisses.

"Doesn't even matter," he bites against her throat, pressing his mouth hot and wet to her skin. "Whether you want me to or not. 'Cuz I'm gonna do it anyway." She groans. He releases her hair and she makes right for his lips, tries to bite them, tries to suck on them and make him just as crazy as he's making her. Her hips are grinding, her hands fretting desperately over his body, wanting to hold on, wanting to let go, wanting, wanting, wanting. He makes her so hot, she could die.

"I'm gonna make you come… so… hard…," he whispers right into her ear.

At that, he presses the heel of his palm directly against her clit through her dress—that damnable, amazing navy dress—grinds it until she sees stars, until she can't… she can't…

"That'll be $38.50," the cabbie barks with a satisfied grin. She can't see the grin; she's still too busy seeing those stars, too busy trembling and aching and cursing—she was so damn close. The guy is lucky Mulder's already handing him the cash and rushing her out the door, because as sympathetic as she was just minutes ago, she now holds a grudge the size of Montana for his piss-poor, most definitely on-purpose, timing.

"I hope you gave him a shitty tip," she slurs as he hurries them toward the hotel. Her legs are weak and her dress is ruined, but her smile is sex-drunk and thirsty.

"His tip was getting to see you looking like this," he growls, pulling her toward the elevator. His hands wander her body lewdly while they wait, and she presses her ass back against him just to hear his groan.

The elevator dings to a halt and opens its doors, and as they hurry their way inside, her dress is already feeding itself into his hungry, greedy fingers. He's on his knees and she's spreading her legs before the doors even close.

The elevator sits stuck between floors four and five for quite a long time that night. Guests become worried. Maintenance is called. Why on earth would the elevator stop working at 11 PM on February 23rd?

She comes sloppily against his mouth, cursing and sobbing and sagging against the wall, just as the car starts moving again.

Thank God she kept the navy dress.

Thank God she kept Fox Mulder.

Because it's her birthday, you know, and Mulder always takes care of her on her birthday.