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When I Think About You, I Touchstone Myself: Fic Recs for the Biogenesis/ Sixth Extinction/ Amor Fati trilogy

I thought it was time to do some fic fixes for these important episodes for a few reasons.

First, Amor Fati is an episode I can’t ever stay away from; I both love it and have big issues with it. I love the tribute to Last Temptation of Christ, a film I admire, but I also find the identification of Mulder as a Christ figure to be problematic, or at least to raise questions the show doesn’t really address. I love the touchstone speech and the boy on the beach sequence; I find a lot of the real-life dialogue (e.g. between CSM and Diana) to be clunky.

And honestly, I find it kind of irritating that Diana's death happened off screen, too. Deep Throat, Spender, X, CSM, Well-Manicured Man, Blevins — their deaths were all dramatized onscreen, so it seems weird that Diana’s was not, doesn’t it? Anticlimactic and odd. To me, it's the straw that broke the camel's back for the Diana arc, really raising the question of whether she was ever really written intending to be an important character to the mytharc plot at all ... or whether she just really was a cardboard cutout character there to generate jealousy.

But I digress. What I mean to to say is: I always want to talk more about Amor Fati.

Second, I particularly enjoy me some psychic Mulder fic, and there are some great examples below. How well does he read minds? Does he read Scully’s? Her every thought? How long does it last? Readers want to know.

Finally, if you believe season 7 was the season of secret sex, or even if you just hold to season 7 as the “sometime consummated” season, these 3 eps have to be a crucial turning point. Some people maintain that Mulder got the affirmation to move ahead with MSR when he heard Scully's thoughts. Possibly. Either way, though, by the end, through the events of Amor Fati, they both validate the other’s point of view in a way we don't really see before. Plus, you know, maybe you heard? They’re one another’s touchstones. So this is a crucial MSR trilogy, too.

So I have a (NO DOUBT INCOMPETE) selection of fic recs below. I’m mixing up the fic recs for all three episodes, but I try to note if a fic is really more about one ep than another.

Fic Recs:

Before the White Noise - Nimz12peekaboo Scully goes to see Mulder inside his padded cell in Biogenesis. This is sweet and canon-attentive, if not quite compliant.

A Less Certain World - Sarah Segretti This is really only post-Biogenesis and goes AU after that; it’s the author’s AU Sixth Extinction, I suppose. Mulder is much more affected by the trauma to his brain and body than in the show, and Scully is scared for him. Amazing fic.

Temporary Shelter - Gwendolyn Also a Biogenesis post-ep, this fic imagines that Scully springs psychic Mulder from the hospital and then takes him back with her to the Ivory Coast. They stay in a cabin (with only one bed!) that was once occupied by another couple affected by the artifact. This is rich in plot (and in MSR.)

Stunned - Vickie Moseley This is, by description, what happens in the commercial breaks in Biogenesis. And let's just say that it’s kind of a lot. This fic focuses on Scully coming to calm Mulder down at the hospital, on their trust between one another. There is a little Diana wrap up, too.

All the Places - Ambress A lovely, lovely take on Mulder’s ability to read minds. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Out of Our Minds - Sarah Segretti and haphazard method This is specifically post-Biogenesis, written before season 7 began. It focuses on the rather realistic idea that Scully would be freaked the fuck out by Mulder being able to read her mind—like, existentially freaked out. Both characters’ POV here; both characters have your sympathy; angsty and extremely true to character.

Disonance - suilven This piece is kind of a classic in my own little personal world. It just such a satisfying concept. It delightfully doesn’t take the canon implications of Mulder’s telepathy seriously, like, at all, which is why we love fanfic. Mulder, Scully, and Diana get stuck on an elevator just as Mulder’s starting to realize he can read minds. Delicious set-up.

the things they say in the dark - MonikaFileFan Missing scenes for Amor Fati, this piece helps us see the two moving closer and closer together while still having the invisible line between them. There is hurt/comfort here with Scully caring for Mulder, and a little light mind reading. So sweet and well done.

how to tell your lover you’ve seen all their secret gardens - 0666666 While Scully is taking care of Mulder after the events of Amor Fati, he tries to think of how to tell her he heard her thoughts. Very good.

Woven Deep by Maureen B. Ocks This is a really smart little Amor Fati post-ep with sharp dialogue / banter throughout. Mulder is in recovery, and they have a chance to talk about his experiences. It’s Mulder POV, but Scully is written very well here.

up and down the east coast by skuls When he’s still supposed to be recovering from Amor Fati events, Mulder asks Scully to go on a road trip to look for Sasquatch. She agrees. This one isn’t about psychic Mulder so much as the little guarded steps the two take towards acknowledging their feelings. Extremely sweet.

Synesthesia by haphazard method On a case shortly after the events of Amor Fati, Scully is still coming to terms with the role she plays in their partnership. An excellent conversation.

Petrichor by Aloysia Virgata. A lovely gem, a fandom classic. A one-chapter case file set directly after Amor Fati. Mulder and Scully’s relationship is offkilter and unsettled; Mulder is troubled by dreams with messages from a familiar ghost; the plot riffs on Anglo-Irish folklore. The spot-on banter and exquisite writing one expects from this author.

Eli Eli by Marguerite Mulder is recovering physically post-Amor Fati while Scully tries to cope with the crisis of faith her experiences in the Ivory Coast provoked in her. Skinner sends them to a beach house in Galveston to rest and heal.

Silence Waiting by JET Scully is struggling to cope with the implications of what she saw in Africa as Mulder heals and worries about her. This is intercut with the story of another telepath, Gretta, who grows up only reading the thoughts of one boy in her town, Frederick. This fic is lovely in every way and makes me weep.

The Boy on the Beach - me me (cecilysass) Yeah, I include my own fic. I just know it best, you know, lol? I include this one specifically for this theme because it was really written in part to engage with Amor Fati, specifically with the implications of Mulder’s Last Temptation of Christ-inspired dream sequence. But I'm the author, so you know, grain of salt.

Let me know what I missed!

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Your reminder that Mulder and Scully have been a couple for almost 20 years

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The X Files season 11 bts

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Rm9sbG93ZXJz | cut forehead kiss

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Best pining fanfics? Mulder pining, Scully pining, both of them, I love it all. Need some angsty "they couldn't possibly feel the way I feel" admiring-from-a-distance (possibly buildup to love confession) fics in my life.

<3

Oooooooooooooooh, that's interesting-- usually don't go for the pining myself, BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT that doesn't mean there are a ton I have stashed away. ;))) Brb!

Unironically most (if not all) of @cecilysass's work have pining with requited love, some examples: The Kaleidoscope (S6, Scully dating, both pining), How to Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers (mostly pining, including IVF and later "breakup" Thanksgiving), Pause (AU after Requiem-- pregnant Scully was "dead" for a year before being returned with amnesia after FTF. PINING.), The Boy on the Beach (AU time travel case after Amor Fati-- Mulder misinterpreted his experience, Scully feels deeply hurt and is given the opportunity to save Samantha from the "past." Both realizing mistakes and talking), and I'll throw in All the Dead Mulders (post Three Words Mulder goes to his family's grave to find closure and/or himself. Scully tracks him down in the end) and Not Orpheus, Not Eurydice (S5 Mulder and Scully feed pond ducks by a church and talk, beautiful) because there's some pining but more importantly, they're my favorite of her fics.

@nowwhateinstein's Now That You're Around Me-- Mulder and Scully's closer relationship is almost ruined by Diana's pestering at the FBI ball.)

Violetta_Valery's The bittersweetness of pie (Breakup Mulder wanders into town, having lost everything except his craving for sweet potato pie. There he sees Scully with a guy, misinterprets everything, and rushes in to save her honor. All ends well.)

SqueekaCuomo's It’s Not Really about Krampus (Scully has insomnia at her family's Christmas; and Mulder keeps calling. She realizes he misses her and that she loves him.)

@agent-troi's pining and denial during her ongoing IVF Platonic Procreation is an example of how everyone could be telling you the truth and you could be denying it until you're blue in the face.

allthings2020's The Mood Ring almost makes Mulder and Scully confront their feelings.

@tofuttim's Agent Scully is Already in Love (post Milagro Mulder didn't know Scully loves him; and fears that loving him will ruin her. She understands.)

@slippinmickeys's The Concept of Dualism (Melissa makes Mulder and Scully crash in one place post Dod Kalm so she can care for them) and Three Sentence Prompts - Chapter 15 (AU The End where Scully is shot instead, Gibson reassuring her of Mulder's love as she fades away.)

@welsharcher's *chef's kiss* The Almost Kiss (Small Potatoes Mulder realizes Scully wanted more, backs away since he can't be "that" right now. Both pining) and No Place for Me (post The End Scully feels rejected, hears Mulder's heartbroken tears.)

@baronessblixen wrote some great Rain King-- I Saw You In My Dreams (Scully thinks Mulder was dreaming about Diana, realizes it's her name in Kansas), this one (Mulder and Scully talk out their tenseness by recollecting how he always supported her during the cancer arc), and this funny one (Mulder wakes, happy, then sneezes in Scully's hair-- not so much pining as enjoying?)-- and One Son pining-- this one (Mulder and Scully are both mad at each other and their "betrayals") and Never Cold With You By My Side (Fowley locks up Mulder and Scully in Fort Marlene overnight-- Scully so angry she pushes Mulder away until she's forced to ask for body heat.)

Lapsed_Scholar's Atonement counts, I believe (cancer arc Scully is hurt that Mulder dips without talking to her at all-- turns out, he was following Jewish customs to try to barter for her recovery or to atone for his mistakes that are being foisted, he thinks, on his partner.)

@amplifyme's Roghnaíonn Mé Tú counts, I think (S7 Scully is thunderstruck that Mulder had chosen her over Samantha in Endgame.)

Hope these are enough for now! XDDDD Sorry this took me a bit; but I hope you have a wonderful weekend reading~. :DDDDD

Edit: WAIT I'm kicking myself for forgetting @suitablyaggrieved's Fictober Day 10 (S2 Mulder wants Scully back; but Skinner's not budging) and Mulder hears the door (Mulder pining for Scully while she's abducted, Skinner trying to help.)

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The X Files 30th Anniversary Celebration Day 4. Favourite Dynamic: Mulder x Scully

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X-Files Collector's Edition: Requiem AUs (Poll Results 4th)-- No Pregnancy, Finding Out Before Requiem, and Bad Endings

FINALLY! The last section of my favorite fic niches (inspired by this poll) is here~. So, here they are: the Strange, the Different, and the Ugly. Hold onto your seats, this ride gets bumpy. (Part 2 will be out sometime soon, chock-full of AUs that stick more tightly to the episode events.)

Loose chronological order below~

No Pregnancy

@peacenik0's (Ao3) A Bathroom Proposal (Ao3)

Requiem Mulder proposes to Scully while they're brushing their teeth back home-- "When you know, you know."

taylenascamila/gillianslali's elope (Alt. Tumblr)

Requiem Mulder feels that times are changing; and convinces Scully to elope with him. He twists his new wedding ring while being abducted.

@leiascully's (Ao3) Variations on a Requiem

There is no abduction and no miracle pregnancy... at first. Mulder and Scully live separate but together, coexisting happily through reassignment and resignation. But their capacity for miracles-- though a decade or so late-- has not yet run dry.

mrkeller/Mary Ruth Keller's (FFN) Lux Perpetua

There is no miracle baby, but Mulder is returned a year later; and in that time, Scully had used video evidence to become AD, open an official FBI Files Group to look into UFOs, and more. Both are excited and enthusiastic for the future.

Alelou's (Xanadu) A Wedding, Sort Of

There is no abduction and no miracle pregnancy, but Mulder does convince Scully to accept his proposal and get married in a comedic, at-home wedding ceremony.

JET's (Alt. Tumblr. mulderscreek, The Other Side)

Snippet from Small Lives Awake

There is no abduction and no miracle baby; and Mulder is a little blue for Christmas. Scully helps him realize and process his family's death.

@amplifyme/wonderland/Lydia Bower's Promise

There is no abduction and no miracle baby, only Mulder and Scully comfortably together on a New Years Eve stakeout as yet another year begins to dawn.

@writingwell/RocketMan/Darkstryder's (Xanadu)

IMTP Virtual Season 08x04 - Good Night

There is no abduction and no miracle pregnancy; but there are more cases involving the mytharc, tests on schools, and a little girl almost being buried alive. Savior black angels, inoculations, and Marita with a gun all come to a head as Mulder's previous Amor Fati experience is dragged back into the Syndicate's spotlight.

agoodwoman's (WBM) Wake Up

Scully woke from a Millennium coma, having dreamt the entirety of canon post that experience. Mulder convinces her to write it down; and encourages her that they can make better decisions this time.

jeri's (mulderscreek) The Strongest Emotions

Scully hallucinates the entirety of S8 from the aftereffects of the Field Trip mushrooms. Mulder is highly amused at her rationalizations.

Finding Out before Requiem

Alanna's Positive

Scully wakes on a random weekend, swirling over her pregnancy symptoms and waiting for Mulder to come back from TLG outing. The two of them are incredibly hopeful but also incredibly scared, moving from the couch to the store and to her apartment in anxiously suspenseful silence.

Chiefchopstix's 7th Inning Stretch

Scully leads up to her pregnancy announcement by getting Mulder to talk about his baseball loyalties and his father.

@markwatneyandenesemble's (Ao3) What She Needed - Chapter 20 and What She Needed - Chapter 21

Scully realizes she's pregnant right before the tragic events of Sein und Zeit, stowing the news for a week until Mulder's closure has been sorted. (I have and will always adore these two chapters.)

@lotsoforangesoutside/@lotzzoforangezoutside‘s (Ao3) Divergence into Stonehenge (Ao3)

TLG made bank off of modeling Mulder and Scully for a new game; but Scully collapses before they can collect on the benefits. A happy ending-- resignation, writing, and three kids-- ensues.

Katherinexx1's Miracle

Scully reveals her pregnancy to Mulder with their hands shaped as hearts.

@foxanddanapetrie's (Ao3) Bedtime Stories

Scully surprises herself and Mulder with the results of a pregnancy test; then helps soothe Mulder's fears of repeating his dad's mistake.

@msrafterdark (Ao3)

MSR Ficmas (Tumblr)

Scully is late, Mulder is happy, and she is surprised he'd be happy.  

MSR Ficmas (Tumblr)

Mulder and Scully are married; but that doesn't stop his blind panic when she leaves for an appointment and calls him sniffling on the phone.

Ficlets (Tumblr Prompt) - Chapter 103 (Tumblr)

There is an abduction, but Mulder is returned earlier, doting on Scully during her vomity early pregnancy (couch nests, tea, and helping her take it easy.)

Scully Is Abducted

Namarie's (LJ, mulderscreek) All I Will Remember (mulderscreek)

Mulder and Scully were abducted right after his return from Oregon; and they wake in the woods without any memory of getting there. He is overjoyed at her news; and the two make their way to civilization, find out Krycek was behind their release, and save Scully from a fatal poisoning attempt.

@wexleresque/hllsteeth’s DeadAlive Switch (Tumblr)

Scully is abducted instead; and Mulder's grief compounds when she and their baby are returned, dead... and even more grief when he digs them both up a month later.

lost time (Tumblr)

Mulder and Scully are both caught in a bright light, losing all of their memories past their near-abduction experience in the Pilot. They pour their energy into reestablishing their lives, passively avoiding Scully's pregnancy, and comforting each other with their losses documented in the files.

stellar_dust's (Gossamer)

Threnody 01 - Divested (Ao3) and Threnody - Domani Non Viene (Ao3) and Threnody - Indelible (Ao3)

Scully is abducted instead; and Mulder must battle against his worsening brain cancer, the FBI's restrictions, and his initial dislike of Doggett as he runs against the clock to find her again. (Indelible is an addition to the two-parter: when he and Doggett investigate Skyland Mountain, he finds a frightened imprint of Scully's fears during her kidnapping by Duane Barry.)

EmScully's Not Alone - Chapter 1

Scully is abducted instead, returning to her Colonized planet in time to witness alien creatures tearing each other apart, give birth to her son, and be happily reunited with Mulder (who had relentlessly tracked her down.)

Brynna's Nothing at All

Scully is abducted instead, and returned dead. Mulder falls apart, by turns clutching at her hand and resisting her ghost's repeated attempts to prevent his suicide.

Bad Endings

XPhileChai's

Life is like a new case - you never know what you're gonna get.

Mulder and Scully are dating, but they find out about her pregnancy after a quick trip to the ER determines they'd had twins but lost one.

@fbismostunwanted1158/ElizabethJaneway1158's

What Could Have Been - Chapter 1

Mulder and Scully find out about her pregnancy as she miscarries in their motel in Bellefleur, Oregon.

@greekowl87’s (Ao3) 

Scully dreams of a better life where Mulder wasn't abducted, excitedly marking his son's progress as the two plan to buy their forever home in the suburbs. All dreams must end, however.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

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“Complete”

These two seldom get any moments of warmth and peace, I’m here to remedy that.

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Prompt: A moment of peace and contentment for Mulder and Scully.

Thank you, you're the best!

They go back to her apartment in the new year, zombie-bitten and bold. The cab ride back is breathless, their fingers twined and their mouths feeling lush and bored. They don’t kiss but they casually thumb-wrestle in the middle of the vinyl backseat while the driver declaims on the CIA.

“The world didn’t end,” he says again.

“It might have started,” she replies.

***

They kiss on her couch, his injuries forgotten. His blood has other places to be right now.

They’re sweet picnic blanket kisses, open-mouthed and tender and charmingly uncertain after gunshots and cancer and changes to living directives.

He nuzzles the salty sweetness of her neck, her left thigh between his. His tongues her collarbones again, thinks improbably of yogurt-covered pretzels.

“Y2K is off to a nice start,” she observes, in her raw silk voice.

Mulder draws her against his chest. He strokes the November sunset of her hair, nibbles at her tender ears. Scully is an endless tactile delight, a marvel of muscle and skin and bone and cartilage.

“What now?” she asks into his chest.

He kisses the place where her cheekbone meets her temple, studies her freckles like a start chart.

“Everything,” he murmurs, and she presses herself so tight against him that even water could not pass.

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What Desire Will Make Foolish People Do, 1/3

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

His best guess is that the guy is an ex-boyfriend. They aren’t too far from Stanford; she could have called ahead and set something up. He doesn’t think she’d pick a guy up at a bar—not that he’d judge her if she did. It just seems unlikely that she’d risk it after what happened last time. 

Maybe it’s that hippie guy she told him about. The one who had greasy dreadlocks and played guitar. Or maybe it’s one of her former classmates, some guy who’s a brain surgeon at Cedar Sinai or fixes kids’ cleft palates for free out of the goodness of his heart. Someone smart and accomplished. Someone worthy of her time. 

Scully laughs, high and girlish, and Mulder clenches his fists. His fingernails dig into the meat of his palms and it hurts. The physical pain helps distract from the mental anguish, so he digs them in deeper.

She’s been on the phone a lot since he told her about their travel plans a few days ago. At first he was worried that she was talking to her doctor, and his lingering fears about her cancer returning kept him awake all night devising new plans to save her life for good. But then he caught a wide, toothy smile on her mouth during one of those calls when she didn’t realize he was watching her, and his stomach dropped out. The good news is, she isn’t dying. The bad news is, her brush with death seems to have inspired her to live her life more fully—with someone else. 

Keep reading

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👽 Masterpost of X-Files Fic Rec Lists

Here is a master collection of all the themed X-Files fic rec lists that I’ve posted (so far!).  These and all my individual story recs can be found under my fic rec tag. Enjoy!

UPDATED: Newly added lists have ** asterisks

Post-episode and Movie Stories

** 3 all things Biogenesis Born Again Elegy ** Field Trip Fight the Future Fire Firewalker ** Folie a Deux Ghouli Grotesque How the Ghosts Stole Christmas I Want to Believe I Want to Believe island getaway Millennium My Struggle IV Paper Hearts Pilot Pine Bluff Variant Plus One Provenance Providence Rm9sbG93ZXJz Roadrunners Shadows (Liberty Bell fics) Small Potatoes Tithonus Triangle ** The Truth The Unnatural Trust No 1 (one lonely night fics) Wetwired

Season Stories

Season 7, part 1 Season 7, part 2 Season 7, part 3 Season 7, part 4 Season 7, part 5 Season 7, part 6 Season 7, part 7 Season 7, part 8 Season 7, part 9 ** Season 7, part 10 Season 7/8 fics involving Mulder’s brain disease thing Season 8 Season 8/9 fics where Mulder doesn’t leave Season 11

Holiday Stories

Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Hannukah, Part 1 Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Hannukah, Part 2 Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Hannukah, Part 3 Fics where Mulder and Scully exchange gifts Halloween, Part 1 Halloween, Part 2 Mulder’s birthday Scully’s birthday Thanksgiving, Part 1 Thanksgiving, Part 2 Thanksgiving, Part 3 Valentine’s Day

Other Themed Stories

** Amnesia fics Angst/smut combo fics AU fics Autumn fics Casefiles, Part 1 Casefiles, Part 2 ** Casefiles, Part 3 Casefiles with Mulder and Scully in an established relationship ** Crossovers Cute domestic MSR fics Fics exploring Scully’s faith Fics focused on Mulder and Scully kissing Fics where first names (Fox or Dana) are used Fics where Mulder and Scully exchange keys Fics where Mulder calls Scully “Dana Katherine” Fics where Mulder calls Scully “honey” Fics where Mulder cheats on Scully Fics where Mulder comforts Scully and calls her “honey” Fics where Mulder is at William’s birth Fics where Scully cheats on Ethan Fics with camping + smut ** Fics with Doggett and/or Reyes Fics with Mulder and Scully at a team building seminar Fics with Mulder and/or Scully in a kidnapping or hostage situation Fics with Mulder or Scully sleepwalking Fics with Mulder taking comfort in sucking on Scully’s boobs Fics with Scully breastfeeding Fics with Scully on her period Fics with Scully suffering from postpartum depression First time fics (posted before 2000) Funny fics Happy fics Historical AUs Jealousy fics Jealousy fics in the I Want to Believe era Kidfic and babyfic Kinky fics Long cancer arc fics Marriage proposals Mulder-as-profiler fics Mulder being jealous or territorial Mulder comforting Scully Mulder comforts Scully while flying Mulder/Scully arguments (leading to happiness) Mulder/Scully banter Mulder/Scully reunion after passed time ** My favorite fics New Orleans fics Novel-length stories, Part 1 Novel-length stories, Part 2 Novel-length stories, Part 3 Novel-length stories, Part 4 Novel-length stories, Part 5 One bed trope fics Party / FBI ball fics ** Post-colonization stories Scully bringing Mulder to a family gathering Scully giving birth Scully miscarriage stories Scully/Other fics Scully/Other, Mulder/Other, and MSR Scully/Skinner long fics Skinner/Maggie Scully fics ** Skinner is jealous of Mulder and Scully’s relationship Springtime fics Stories involving Ethan Undercover fics

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Do you still take ficlet prompts? If so would love something either post Orison or post Pusher. Thanks in case!

She went to his apartment so he couldn’t decline an invitation to hers. Scully brought Thai food and a six pack, wore stretchy pants and an oversized gray Henley she stole from Jack Willis.

Mulder sighs when he opens the door, rubs a hand over his face. “Scully, go home.”

She shoves past him to the living room. She deposits their dinner on the coffee table and makes herself comfortable on the couch.

“I was planning to wash my hair,” Mulder says, shutting the door. “I have to clean the fish tank.”

Scully peers at the aquarium. “It looks fine to me, sit down.”

He does but still looks annoyed. “I really just want to be alone right now. This was one for the books.”

She knows, she gets it, she’d be doing the same in his shoes. She’s imagined watching Mulder watching her die in that little room, if she hadn’t grabbed the fire alarm. What would Modell have done then? Made Mulder eat a bullet too? Forbid him if he’d wanted to? She shivers a little - both their lives saved by a chance glimpse in a mirror.

“Then pretend you’re alone,” she says, passing him a foil container of som tum. “We don’t have to talk.”

She doesn’t even want to talk, she finds. She just wants them together tonight.

Mulder looks thoughtful. He opens two beers and passes her one. Heaps papaya and noodles and a spring roll each onto two plates. Turns on the TV, which is partway into the opening credits of The Sandlot.

It’s on tape, Scully realizes. It’s a movie he’d started watching deliberately, a way to comfort himself.

They eat. They watch it and never say a word, but she’s curled against him when they finish it. She feels good too. Happy, even.

Scully takes his hand again, as she had in the hospital. She laces their fingers together, because they are alive. He presses her knuckles to his lips in the silent dark.

She touches his cheek with the pads of her fingers. She walks out the door, she drives herself home.

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Pause (2/11)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 2: Back in the Atmosphere

The drive to Alexandria is so second nature to her that she’s determined to watch out for changes, hints that might suggest how much time has passed. She scans her surroundings as she drives, her head darting left to right to see everything.

She notices a new, neon-bright exterior to a bar in Georgetown, as conspicuous as a tropical fish. On M Street there's a bike rental shop that she doesn't recognize. The bridge itself, the waters of the Potomac, the stone-lined George Washington Memorial parkway: these all look the same to her. Of course, it’s dark out, so she is limited by what she can see in the overlapping circles of streetlights.

A small billboard advertising a top 40 radio station catches her attention, but she can’t be sure whether that was there before. It’s amazing how much of one’s surroundings one doesn’t notice in everyday life, she thinks. However, the sign makes her realize she could give the radio a try.

Yes. She should turn on the car radio.

She fiddles with the console and tries a public radio station first, thinking there might be news of the day playing that could provide a date or other clues. That station seems to be running some kind of evening documentary program on the history of the Vietnam War memorial. Scully turns it up to listen more closely: “…and wanted to make something that allowed people to remember, but wanted to serve as a visual reminder that the dead did not come back.” It’s an account of events from years ago: not especially helpful now.

She hits scan, moving through the ripping static noises to other stations, listening for a moment to each one. Classic rock. Latin. A commercial for car insurance.

She remembers the call number of the top 40 station from the billboard, and she tunes into that, her eyes periodically darting back up to the road.

“…You’re listening to Washington’s hit music station, Z104.”

The deejay’s patter seems like it might reveal promising information. She turns it up, but the deejay quickly transitions into music. It’s some sentimental pop ballad with piano.

She sighs. It shouldn’t be so difficult to find out what the date is, should it?

Scully turns her attention to the song. It’s completely unfamiliar to her, but it’s not like it’s entirely unusual for her to fail to recognize pop music. On the other hand, she did have the impression that teen music was edgier than this. This song seems very soft. She remembers those teenagers in Oklahoma, that lightning case, the kind of angst-ridden, angry music they liked. Their music reminded her a little of the punk music she admired in high school.

The male singer of the ballad on the radio is very emotional. As she drives into Alexandria, she listens, with mild curiosity, to the lyrics. He seems to be posing questions to a woman returning from a long, otherworldly absence.

Tell me, he challenges her. Did you sail across the sun? Did Venus blow your mind? Did you see that heaven is overrated? Did you miss me when you were looking for yourself out there?

A chill again trickles through her, running down her limbs.

Did you fall from a shooting star?

No. She doesn’t like this song. Her heart has begun thumping again, so loudly she hears it in her head. She turns off the radio.

What she needs more than any half-ass clue hunting, more than this nerve-wracking guessing game, is to find her partner. He will tell her whatever she needs to know. She doesn’t need to deduce it from radio stations.

That sounds enough like common sense to calm her down.

Hegal Place and his apartment building don’t look any different to her, thank God. The interior still has that musty historical smell, with a dash of insecticide and Pine Sol. The numbers on the elevator buttons are still mostly worn off; the lighting in the halls is still tinged amber and curiously dim.

She moves quickly down his hallway, but hesitates at the spot where she remembers last speaking to him. When he was cupping her head with such tenderness. When he was leaning in with the most desperate, longing expression on his face. How long ago was that? she wonders? What happened next?

She examines the floor for evidence that she had landed there, unconscious, felled by a sting. But there is nothing to see there but dingy beige tile, worn and scuffed by too much foot traffic.

Scully swallows. She walks, determined, to #42 —and then stands there just staring at the closed door. Taking a fortifying breath. Steeling herself for the worst.

If it isn’t him, if he doesn’t live here any more, well, she’s going to be upset, but she’ll just go to the Hoover building next. It will be okay. She will be okay. She’ll figure it out. She can still find Mulder.

That’s all perfectly logical, and she’s aware of that. But she isn’t operating on pure logic here. Her heart just wants him to be here, in his pajamas, arms open, ready to order her some takeout. Please let him be here, she thinks, little tears springing in her eyes. Please let it be Mulder.

She knocks on the door. And waits, listening for any noise inside.

And then she tries again.

There is no response. She bites her lip, hoping she’ll still hear him any moment. What time it is shouldn’t matter. There’s no time of night that Mulder wouldn’t wake up hearing knocking on his door.

After a moment’s hesitation, she reaches into her pocket, fumbling a little, and she produces his key. All right. If it’s not his apartment, it won’t fit. And then she will know.

She notices the sound of her own shallow breathing as she pushes the key in.

It slides into the lock perfectly, same as it always has.

Scully presses her eyes closed and releases a long sigh. She turns the key, unlocks it, and pushes open his door.

The space inside is lit only by the mottled green glow of the fish tank, but she’s greeted by the unmistakable sight of Mulder’s familiar apartment. The couch. The patterned Navajo blanket. The art on the walls. She would know it anywhere. It’s as familiar as any place on earth to her.

Her knees almost buckle from relief. Whatever else happens, she is safe now, and at least has a place to sleep tonight. Not her own home, but nearly as close as she can imagine.

“Mulder?” she calls. “Hello?”

There's no answer, and the silence unnerves her. She flips on a switch, and the room is illuminated. She takes some tentative steps inside.

His place is very messy, even for Mulder. There are several meals’ worth of dirty dishes stacked on the coffee table, which isn’t typical for him. Papers and files are strewn over the desk, spilling haphazardly onto the floor. This paper chaos is more typical for him, although it seems especially out of hand.

She picks up a fast food wrapper off the floor and glances at some of the papers on his desk, which seem to be a mix of bills and old article clippings. Is he out of town? Or is he just out for the night, chasing down a source? She wonders why it’s gotten so messy.

The phone on his desk is peeking out from under a newspaper, but she's relieved to see it. Immediately she picks it up and dials his cell number. It goes straight to voicemail. She hangs it up and sighs heavily, standing still a moment. Taking in the information around her.

Where are you, Mulder?

She wanders into the kitchen. The clock over his stove top says 11:38, which answers one of her questions, although hardly the most important.

The kitchen is also in unhygienic disarray, with a heap of unwashed dishes resting in the sink, as though he hasn’t been bothered with them in quite some time. The garbage can is overflowing, to-go containers piled precariously on top. She crumples up the fast food wrapper and sticks it in the side of the can as best she can.

The room doesn’t smell particularly good, and this turns her already-vulnerable stomach. What’s more, Scully doesn’t like what she sees here. Not any of this. It sets her on edge.

Mulder often comes across as disorganized and scattered, but he isn’t dirty. He can actually be oddly fastidious, sometimes even more than her about select topics. She has never seen dirty dishes piling up in his kitchen before.

“Mulder?” she calls out again, more loudly, her voice a little shrill. She doesn’t know why she’s calling his name when it’s clear he’s not here.

She decides to look in his refrigerator for evidence he’s been here recently, and she braces herself for seeing and smelling a landscape of rotting food. Holding her breath, she throws open the door of the fridge quickly.

Much to her relief, it’s inoffensive. There’s very little inside, in fact—except a glass pan of lasagna covered in plastic wrap with a single square cut out. She slides the pan out a little to look at it, and sees a note taped to the top of the plastic.

Her breath catches.

The note is on familiar stationary, yellow paper decorated with little sunshines and daisies. The note has two sentences written in precise cursive in blue pen: “Please eat at least half this time. I’ll check when I come back for the pan on Sunday. -M”

The word “half” is underlined three times. It’s unquestionably her mother’s handwriting.

Scully slides it back into the fridge and closes the door.

She thinks about the last time her mother and Mulder took care of one another. She thinks about how this might relate to her memory problems— what Mulder would call “lost time.”

Did you sail across the sun? Did Venus blow your mind?

No. She is not ready to face this possibility. Not again. She feels tears prickling the corners of her eyes.

No. Absolutely not.

She turns to the sink and looks around for Mulder’s dish soap and sponge.

With grim determination she begins to work on his pile of dirty dishes, holding her breath against the smell. The hot water scalds her hands, but strangely, she finds the sensation not unpleasant.

The soap and water makes her left hand sting a little, and she considers again the cut there. It’s deeper than she first realized. She chooses to ignore it.

Because that’s what she’s doing right now. She’s ignoring things. And doing dishes.

Once she finishes the dishes in the sink, she goes into the living room and scoops up the dirty dishes off of his coffee table, and takes them into the sink next. It gives her a reassuring sense of control. At least Mulder’s goddamn dish problem is in hand.

When she’s done with that, she has created so many clean dishes they don’t even fit in his drying rack, so she spreads out some dish towels on his countertop and lets them rest there to dry out, too. She’ll get his help to put them all up later. Hopefully.

Next she finds his garbage bags, and she empties his overflowing garbage, carrying it down the hall of his building to the garbage chute, holding it out away from her body so she can’t smell it.

She returns to his kitchen to wash her hands. As she stands surveying her good work, she realizes she is starving.

Well. She knows there’s at least one thing to eat, and she trusts her mom’s cooking.

She pulls out her mother’s lasagna from the fridge, uncovers it, and slices herself off a giant slab of lasagna, much bigger than the tiny piece Mulder had apparently previously cut for himself. She places it on a freshly clean plate and heats it, watching it in the microwave.

I’m sorry, Mom, she thinks. No doubt Mulder should be taking your sensible food advice and eating this, but your daughter needs food, too.

It comes out of the microwave appealingly gooey and bubbly. Her stomach rumbles, and she wonders again when she last ate.

She finds a clean fork and takes an eager bite, humming in immediate satisfaction as she stands there clutching the plate. Her mother’s lasagna. Ground sausage and ricotta, a smidge of basil and garlic, generous mozzarella. It tastes like childhood, nourishing and wholesome. Scully feels suddenly desperate with the need to see her mother. Soon, she promises herself. After she talks to Mulder.

She decides not to sit down to eat, feeling too antsy. Instead, she walks around curiously as she shovels hungry forkfuls from her plate to her mouth. She peers at the detritus around the apartment for any hint of what might be happening.

On his kitchen table she leans over to stare closely at a pair of glasses Mulder has left sitting precariously close to the edge, deciding they are the same pair he always wore. Next to his computer, she tries to read the content of a receipt sitting out prominently, but the type is smeared.

She notices the door to his bedroom is cracked open, which surprises her. Normally he uses his bedroom as some kind of disastrous storage facility, with boxes of files he doesn’t keep at the office for whatever reason. As well as, no doubt, an impressive treasure trove of his pornography.

Hands full of her plate and fork, she nudges the door with her toe. To her surprise, it falls open easily. She sticks her head inside — and then lowers the plate, her eyes widening.

His bedroom is a normal bedroom. Cluttered, yes. Unmade bed. Clothes on the floor. But a normal bedroom, with a queen-sized bed.

She takes a step inside the room, aware that she is definitely snooping now. It’s always struck her as profoundly strange and sad that Mulder didn’t have a dedicated place to sleep. Or, if she’s being honest, to have sex. She isn’t sure how she feels to know that something about his life has changed this much. It should make her glad for him, but it also makes her uneasy.

She’s afraid to look too closely at the reading material piled around on the dresser and bedside table, but even a quick perfunctory glance tells her it’s not porn. A more systematic sweep of the room and she doesn’t see any of his magazines, actually, and that surprises her, too.

His bed is tousled and looks like it hasn’t been made for days, weeks, maybe ever. His pillow is slightly indented, and Scully has a very powerful impulse to go press her face down upon it, to inhale his scent, so familiar from routinely working in his aura: in motel rooms, in cars, on sojourns in the woods. From when they hold each other close after they’ve almost lost each other. The thought immediately embarrasses her. She should walk right out of this room right now. It’s not her business to be in here.

But her eye is caught by something vivid green laying on his bed, near his pillow but slightly obscured by a fold in his comforter. She takes a few steps forward to see it more clearly, resisting the urge to go pick it up.

She can see it now. It’s a sweater, a very small green sweater. She can make out its basic silhouette quite clearly. Way too small to be Mulder’s. Too small to be most men’s, truthfully, and cut rather slim.

She stands there unmoving, gripping the plate of her mother’s lasagna tightly, mouth gaping a little in disbelief, trying to take in the sight of that unfamiliar woman’s sweater on her partner’s bed.

Maybe this is the reason for the bedroom. Maybe he has a girlfriend. Maybe that’s where he is right now, somewhere out with his girlfriend. Maybe at his girlfriend’s apartment.

It gives Scully a sickening, vertigo feeling, like she possibly could throw up the lasagna. Is nothing what she expects now? Can she depend on anything? Does she even know this person — Mulder with a girlfriend? Is he the same man, the man she trusts and needs right now?

Immediately she shakes her head at herself in disgust. She’s being ridiculous; she knows she is. Mulder with a girlfriend is probably the same partner to her as Mulder without a girlfriend. Why shouldn’t he be? There’s no reason to feel so devastated, so empty. Mulder isn’t her boyfriend. He never has been.

It’s just that so much of this is not what she remembers. What she most clearly remembers, in fact, is him trying to kiss her. But that was one little moment, one tiny blip in time, and she doesn’t even know what happened after that.

She rotates around the bedroom, her eyes scanning his work shirts strewn on the floor. Truthfully, besides the sweater, nothing in the state of this apartment especially suggests to her a happy Mulder with a girlfriend.

Actually, there’s nothing that seems clear here at all. Nothing that adds up to a straightforward picture. It’s all contradictory and disorienting. She releases a quiet sigh.

She’s only eaten about half, but the lasagna has lost its appeal. She looks down at the plate wrinkling her forehead, deciding to throw it out. This thought process is interrupted when his phone begins ringing.

She follows the sound of the ring back into his living room, considering for a moment whether to pick it up. Probably not the wisest idea, given everything she doesn’t understand here. Before she talks to anyone else, she wants to talk to Mulder.

Sitting carefully on his couch, setting her plate on the coffee table, she listens to the rings, letting his machine pick up. His message is exactly the same message she has heard a thousand times, which makes her want to weep.

After the beep, the caller’s message begins. “Hey, Mulder.”

It’s Byers. Scully straightens up, alert.

“We’re just calling to make sure you…got home okay. Because you, uh, seemed a little off. It’s about 12:45 now, so it seems like you should be there by now…but perhaps you made another stop. Or something. Well. Just call when you get this.”

There is a scuffling sound, and then Frohike’s voice: “We worry, my friend. Please let us know you’re home okay. No more scares.” Beep.

Scully stares at the machine, processing this new information.

No more scares.

Seemed a little off.

Should be there by now.

She leans her head back on the leather of his couch, drained. She wonders if she should call the Gunmen back and try to extract more information from them. They could at least answer her most basic questions. Had Mulder been at their place? Where might he have gone from there? Should she be looking for him? What “scares?” Oh, and what year is it? And as far as they know, has she been anywhere unusual as of late?

Her eyes fall closed, and she is suddenly so unbelievably tired.

I could easily fall asleep, she realizes in surprise. Which seems preposterous, given the circumstances, the countless unanswered questions. But it’s just all so overwhelming, so impossible to parse. Her body and mind seem to have given up on her.

For a moment she lets herself drift, her limbs going slack.

The sound of a key scraping in the door startles her awake.

[feejee-mermaid]

yet another installment of txf + text posts

[feejee-mermaid]

starting a series of paintings with this vibe. first installment

[feejee-mermaid]

Parallel, Chapter 6/6

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

She wakes with an arid gasp, shooting upright and scanning her surroundings in a panic. It’s dark, and she reaches blindly across the bed for Mulder to find that he isn’t there.

There’s no sunset, no window, no California king size bed. As seconds pass and her hammering heart slows enough for her thoughts to organize themselves, she realizes that she’s back in Georgetown. The bedside clock reads just past 3:00 am, and she scrambles for her watch to confirm the date. Fewer than five hours have passed since she got into bed.

She picks up the phone and begins to dial Mulder’s number, but hangs up before it has a chance to ring. She doesn’t just need to hear his voice, she needs to see him, to smell him, to know that he’s the right one. That he is hers.

She takes all of five minutes to change her clothes and brush her teeth, forgoing any attempt to look halfway decent. Not that it should matter what she looks like; he’s seen her at her objective worst. He’s seen her exhausted, and dirty, and on the brink of death, and he still looks at her with so much wonder, so much admiration it makes her uncomfortable, because she feels so undeserving of it. She walks out the door in jeans and an oversized sweater, her hair combed but her face bare, and her heart pinned to her sleeve.

Her mind is oddly blank as she drives to his apartment, ascends the elevator, and knocks on his door. She’s operating on instinct, allowing her emotions to lead for once instead of stuffing them down. Allowing the ache in her chest to seek resolution instead of ignoring it. He doesn’t answer and she knocks again, more urgently this time, afraid that she might lose her nerve.

He opens the door and squints at the lights in the hallway. He’s wearing flannel pajama pants but no shirt, and his hair is entirely flat on one side. His rumpled, boyish appearance is disarming and endearing all at once.

“Scully?” he asks groggily, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Did something happen?”

She steps forward and wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her nose into his chest so she can breathe him in deep. A feeling of calm washes over her and she sighs with relief. This is him. This is the right one. Her Mulder.

“You okay?” he asks, returning her hug. “Scully, it’s 3:00 am,” he adds with an edge of surprise.

“I’m okay,” she says, her voice muffled against his skin. “I just had a bizarre dream and I needed to know that you were here.”

“Here at my apartment?” he asks, pulling away a little. She nods, not quite ready to explain it. Not quite sure how. “You could’ve called me,” he points out, and for the first time since leaving her apartment she feels embarrassed and afraid of what he’ll think of her.

“I know,” she says, avoiding his eyes. “But the nature of this dream was—I don’t think I would have felt sure it was really you just from a phone call.”

She can feel his interest piquing, and she wishes she’d been more vague. Most people find discussion of other people’s dreams intolerably boring, but Mulder isn’t most people.

“Come sit down,” he says, gently steering her towards the living room. “I’ll put a pot of coffee on.”

“It’s 3:00 am, Mulder,” she objects, though she knows it’s useless.

He brings her a cup of coffee in what he must have gathered is her favorite mug among his collection. It’s tall and narrow, bearing the faded logo of a long-since closed diner they used to frequent in the days before she started sleeping with her weapon in her bedside drawer. It has just the right amount of cream and sugar, and she tries to remember when and how he perfected that. He never asked, just observed, like he’s observing her now. Watching her bring the mug to her lips and blow the steam away, take a sip and then lower it back to her lap. Three, four, five times he watches her do this, saying nothing. She feels the weight of his attention and for once she lets it sit, lets herself become acclimated to it instead of distracting it away.

“Was it a nightmare?” he says suddenly, and she lifts her eyes to find that his are on her, his elbow propped on the back of the couch and his head resting on his fist.

Her memory flashes on him wrapped around her in the shower, and then his hand gently kneading her breast, and she feels her cheeks warm.

“No,” she says. “Not a nightmare.”

“What was it, then? Not a nightmare, but strange enough to send you across town at 3:00 am? I’ll admit that I’m intrigued,” he says, setting his cup on the coffee table.

She looks down at her lap, running her thumb along the rim of her mug nervously. Her thumbnail is tattered, her manicure ruined, and she frowns as she examines the other hand to find it similarly defaced.

“I think—” she begins, preemptively embarrassed. “I think that maybe our conversation influenced it. In fact, I’m positive that it did.”

“Our conversation?” he asks, oblivious. Leave it to Mulder to have no recollection of an extensive discussion on alternate universes.

“Albert Homnell’s theories on alternate dimensions?” she reminds him, and in her periphery she sees him nod.

“That’s interesting dream fodder,” he says, taking a drink before returning his mug to the coffee table. “What’d your subconscious cook up?”

She steals a glance at him. He still has that unkempt, unguarded, fresh-from-sleep look about him. His cheeks are dark with stubble and his already hooded eyes are drooping. Knowing him, he likely only went to bed a couple hours ago.

“It’s not important, Mulder. I should go so we can both get some sleep,” she says, moving to stand. The weight of his hand on her forearm stills her.

“C’mon, Scully. You’re already here, and now you’ve got me curious,” he gently chides her, and she acquiesces with a sigh.

“It’s, uh…it’s a bit awkward,” she prefaces, setting her mug on the table beside his so she can wring her hands instead.

“If you were hoping that would dissuade my curiosity, you should know that it has the opposite effect,” he says with a smile in his voice, and despite herself she smiles as well.

“I dreamt that…we were together,” she says quickly, her eyes darting between his face and the wall behind the couch. His eyebrows lift, but he otherwise gives no reaction.

“Together?” he repeats.

“Married, actually,” she says, then sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. It feels like the hardest part is out of the way.

“Married?” Mulder repeats again, his eyebrows sailing higher.

“Mmm hmm,” Scully says with a clipped nod.

“Okay,” he says, studying her closely. She can only look at him for milliseconds before she has to look away. Each time he manages to catch her eye, her stomach does backflips at the memory of his mouth on hers and…everything else. “What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t think a dream about us being married would make you drive over here in the middle of the night to confirm my existence, so I’m wondering what else happened. There was more, right?”

He’s not being argumentative, and he does have a point.

“Well, it was sort of…it was like an entirely different world,” she attempts to explain. “We lived on the West Coast, and California was part of Canada, and my sister was there, and so was—”

“California was part of Canada?” he interrupts.

She stops and looks at his face. She was about to tell him about Sam, but that very well might just hurt him.

“Yes,” she confirms, but doesn’t elaborate. The more she tells him, the more he’ll want to know, and talking about it makes it feel real again. All of it. She shifts in her seat. “It was very vivid, and a bit disconcerting. So when I finally woke up back at my apartment, I just felt the need to be sure that I am me and you are you, if you will.”

“Was your dream version of me not your dream version of me?” he asks playfully, though she detects a hint of nervousness underneath.

She thinks about the other Mulder for a moment. Tanned, just slightly less serious, unburdened by a lifetime of tragedy. It feels like a betrayal to even entertain the idea that he might be a “better” version of the Mulder sitting right in front of her.

“He was great,” she says sincerely, “but he wasn’t you.”

Something like surprise flashes across his face, and then his eyes narrow just slightly.

“Married, huh?” he asks, and something about the tenor of his voice betrays what he’s thinking. Scully swallows nervously. “How sure are you that it was just a dream?”

Scully balks.

“What else would it be?”

Mulder shrugs, but the look on his face tells her that he’s prepared to defend his theory and she doesn’t quite feel up for that, not after what she’s just been through. And if it was real, what would that mean? For her and the version of herself who is married to Malibu Mulder.

She looks at her lap again, unsure where to go from here. She’d had such clarity back at her apartment, when she could still feel his kiss tingling on her lips. Now, it really does feel like just a dream, fading away into her memories with each passing moment. She notices her thumbnails again and runs the pads of her index fingers over their jagged edges as she tries to recall what happened to them.

So what do you say? Are we finally gonna hit that ghost tour on the way back?

She looks up at him and is momentarily surprised not to see a tanned, shaggy-haired man on the couch beside her.

“I don’t think it matters, Mulder,” she says, and he cocks his head at her. “Regardless of what it was, I think…I think it was an answer of sorts.”

“An answer to what?”

He no longer looks sleepy. His eyes are alert and focused, jumping around her face as he waits for her to speak. There’s so much expectation there, so much interest, and the stakes feel so impossibly high.

“Why did you kiss me on New Year’s Eve?” she blurts out, which is partly deflection but still very much on topic.

Mulder gapes at her, completely caught off guard, and sits up straighter.

“Where did that come from?” he asks uncomfortably, reaching for his mug only to find it empty. “I guess it seemed like the thing to do at the moment. Did it bother you?”

The fact that he seems genuinely concerned that she might be upset about it is almost funny, if not for the fact that they have been stuck in this confusing limbo for what is starting to feel like an eternity.

“No, Mulder, it didn’t bother me,” she says with a slight laugh and a shake of her head.

“Okay. Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

There’s a heavy pause and someone slams a door in the hallway. He answered her question, but at the same time he didn’t answer it at all. He didn’t say what she needed him to say, which was that he kissed her because he wanted to. If he would just give her that, she might feel brave enough to take them the rest of the way.

In her effort to look anywhere but his face, her eyes fall to the scar on his shoulder. She scoots closer and reaches out to touch it, and Mulder follows her hand with his eyes as she brushes the pad of her middle finger across the smooth pink flesh. Without thinking, she leans forward and presses her lips to it, laying her hand on his chest for stability. Beneath her palm, his heart is hammering so hard she has to resist the urge to count out his pulse rate.

I love you, she mouths against his skin.

When she lifts her head to look at him, there’s an incredibly pained expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, her hand still resting on his chest, fingers splayed.

“In your dream—” he begins, then clears his throat. “Were we happy?”

“Together?” she asks, and he nods. “Yes,” she says with a soft smile, remembering how easy it felt to just let him love her.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he asks, and now it is she who nods.

It feels as though they could fall down this rabbit hole forever, continuously ignoring the fact that they never seem to arrive anywhere.

“I wonder why you haven’t kissed me again,” she says quietly, and immediately her blood runs cold. Despite a hundred different death-defying situations she’s found herself in, this feels like the most terrifying yet.

“I wonder if you’d want me to,” he says back, and again his heart is thumping against her palm, giving him away. For some reason knowing that he is also afraid makes her feel brave.

“I would, Mulder.”

He sighs, and the warmth of his coffee breath against her cheeks is so familiar she barely hesitates at all before arching up to kiss him. He initially receives her kiss with surprise, but before she can pull away his hands are on her jaw and he’s kissing her back in earnest.

With her eyes closed, muscle memory takes over. It’s not that she’s pretending he’s Malibu Mulder, but that when she was kissing Malibu Mulder she was pretending he was her Mulder. And so kissing him, sliding her tongue across his, letting him pull her closer, all feel like things they’ve done before.

But where Malibu Mulder had the practiced, comfortable demeanor of a man kissing his wife, her Mulder has the nervous, adrenaline-fueled energy of a man kissing his partner for the very first time beyond a peck in a hospital waiting room. And his nervous energy combined with her own un-sated desires from just hours prior put them on a fast track from kissing, to making out, to him pulling her into his lap and grinding his erection against the seam of her jeans.

“Is this okay?” he mumbles against her mouth as his hands slip under her sweater.

“Uh-huh,” she assures him, moving her hips in tight circles when she finds just the right press of his erection against her clit.

Both his hands find her breasts, gently kneading and brushing his thumbs across her nipples. She’s fairly certain that if they keep this up she’s going to have an orgasm fully clothed in his lap. She’s fairly certain that she intends to do just that.

“Mulder,” she whispers, high and needy, and he groans.

Does he know? She wants him to know. Somehow, she thinks it won’t feel as good if he doesn’t. She brings her lips to his ear, circling her hips while he continues to gently pinch her nipples in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

“Wait, stop stop stop,” he says suddenly, pulling his hands out from under her sweater and stilling her hips. Her orgasm slips away, and the stark reality of what they are doing quickly settles in. She immediately feels ashamed and moves to get off him, but again he grabs her by the hips to stop her. “No, don’t go,” he begs. “I just…I need a minute.”

“We can stop if you want to stop,” she says, not looking at his face.

“Scully,” he says sternly, then waits until she looks at him. “I do not want to stop. Do you want to stop?” She shakes her head. “Great, then we’re on the same page. I just—this is a little embarrassing but I just didn’t want to make a mess, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh,” she says with a nervous laugh. The idea that he may have also been on the brink of an orgasm sets off a fresh wave of arousal.

“I don’t want to stop,” he says again, “but I do want to be sure that this isn’t…I don’t know, too fast? Too much too soon? I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret later.”

Scully lets out a blustering sigh.

“You’re probably right,” she says.

“So what should we do?” he asks, brushing her hair behind her ear.

“I think I should go?” she says, uncharacteristically lifting the end of her statement into a pseudo-question.

“Yeah,” Mulder agrees reluctantly.

She awkwardly removes herself from his lap, quickly averting her eyes when she sees that he is still very much erect. She walks to his front door on unsteady legs and he trails a few steps behind her. When her hand is on the knob, she turns around and looks up at him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, of course,” he answers.

Seconds tick by. Her hand is still resting on the door knob behind her back, but she doesn’t turn it.

“Goodnight, then,” she says, still unmoving.

“Goodnight.”

She turns the knob and the latch pops open, allowing a sliver of light in from the hallway. Still, she just looks at Mulder. He stares back at her, his bare chest rising and falling at a labored clip. He takes one step forward and she reflexively lifts her chin, her mouth falling partly open.

“Would it be okay if I kissed you goodnight?” he asks, and she’s already nodding emphatically before the final word leaves his mouth.

The first kiss is chaste. The second is lingering. On the third, she swipes her tongue across his bottom lip and he hums. The fourth, his hands are on her waist and the door slams closed when he presses her against it with his body. The height difference is awkward, but they are beyond motivated to compensate for it, and he alternately stoops a bit and lifts her off the ground while her calves ache from standing on her tiptoes. His stubble scrapes her chin and his eager teeth pinch her lip painfully, but she’s never been so happy to be so uncomfortable.

When he straightens up she feels the brush of his groin against her belly. The throbbing between her legs is nearly unbearable, and she knows she is past the point of self-control. If Mulder doesn’t stop this, she won’t either. She slips her fingers under the waist of his cotton pajama pants and he heaves a shuddering breath.

“What are you doing?” he asks tightly.

“Tell me to stop,” she whispers around desperate kisses.

“Fuck, I don’t want to,” he groans.

Her hand slides lower until she feels the tickle of his pubic hair against the tips of her fingers. He’s breathing so hard he’s pulling the air right from her mouth as they attempt to keep kissing, making her feel light-headed. His hands move from her hips to her ass cheeks, the grip of his fingers desperate and feral, and she is completely incapable of rational thought. She wraps her hand around his shaft, smooth and thick and warm, and his knees warble before he steadies himself with one hand against the door.

“Jesus fucking christ,” he hisses.

“I don’t want to go,” she whimpers, giving him one firm stroke.

His hands are back on her ass, kneading and pulling her pelvis against him, which makes her bump up against her own hand. He starts tugging at the waist of her jeans, fumbling with the button, then the zipper, and before she really registers what’s happening he’s wedging his hand under the stiff denim with his palm pressed against her belly. There’s no room for him to move, but she feels the brush of his fingers across her clit and an involuntary moan bubbles up from the back of her throat. Mulder’s forehead drops against the door with a loud thunk.

They stay frozen like that for a few seconds, with her hand wrapped around his cock and his fingers resting over her slick lips.

“I want you,” he breathes into her ear. The heat of his breath makes her quiver under his fingers and he groans.

“Then take me to bed,” she says, feeling bold beyond what she thought herself capable of.

He doesn’t need any time to contemplate her proposition. He withdraws his hand and she withdraws hers, and he scoops her up and carries her to his bedroom with a level of urgency befitting the situation. The room is dark save for what leaks in from the living room or around the blinds, and he sets her carefully on the floor before divesting her of her sweater. She pushes his pajama pants off his hips but they get caught on his erection, which makes her laugh. The shine of his smile in the dim room sets her at ease, and they slow down a bit. As much as they both want this, there’s no need to rush.

He lays her down on the bed and peels her jeans from her legs, leaving her panties on while he kisses the insides of her thighs. She knows that the second he touches her she’s going to come, and she’s as excited as she is nervous. He kisses as far as the seam of her leg, pulling in a deep breath through his nose that makes her self-conscious. Then he kisses her right over her panties, and a jolt of pleasure shoots through her pelvis.

“Oh my god,” she whispers.

“Is this okay?” he asks, brushing his nose back and forth across her clit.

She feels herself unraveling. She’s too far gone to stop it.

“Oh my god,” she says again.

Her hips arch up off the bed and he presses his face between her legs as an orgasm tears through her, powerful and overwhelming. She cries out, completely unable to contain it, and she feels the wet heat of his mouth directly on her pussy as she comes and comes and comes. When the height of it has passed, she looks down and sees her panties pulled to the side, and Mulder’s face buried between her thighs, eyes closed in concentration. As she slowly comes down, she feels surprised and a little embarrassed.

Mulder crawls up to the bed beside her and kisses her neck while she catches her breath.

“That was…unexpected,” she finally says, feeling her cheeks warm.

“Was it okay?” he asks nervously.

“Yes, very much so,” she reassures him. “Just not the standard order of operations, I suppose.”

Mulder chuckles a little.

“Well, you know I’m never one to do things by the book,” he says lightly, tucking his face into the crook of her neck.

“That quality about you typically annoys me, but I find myself willing to make an exception,” she quips.

He starts dropping little kisses to the side of her neck, and despite her recent release she clenches her thighs together, ready for more. She rolls to her side and finds his lips, and they just lie there and kiss for a while, completely nude save for her panties. Her hand wanders down the firm planes of his back, over his hip, and finally back to his cock, which is stiff to the point of leaking. His breathing shudders and his muscles tense as she strokes him languidly.

“I think it’s only fair that you don’t judge me for my unimpressive stamina at this point,” he says, drawing the end of the sentence out with a low moan.

“I would never,” she says, greedy to see and feel him lose control in the same way he’s seen her.

Releasing him, she wriggles out of her panties and kicks them away, then gently pushes on his shoulder. Rolling him to his back, she slowly climbs on top of him. She still feels nervous, even after what they’ve already done. She settles over his lap, sitting directly atop his shaft such that it brushes across her clit when she shifts her hips forward and back. Immediately she knows that she’ll come again if she keeps it up, and it feels embarrassing for reasons she couldn’t possibly explain. It’s like her body is telling all her secrets to his, revealing just how much she’s wanted this and for how long.

His body answers by gripping her hips to hold her steady and grinding against her. She’s folded in half, her forehead resting against his, and her mouth hanging open in overwhelm.

“Oh my god,” she breathes into his face, and he has clearly already intuited what that means for her.

“Come on,” he says softly, rutting up into her.

She lifts her hips and reaches down between them, taking hold of him and guiding him inside her. There’s a stretch, a sting, and then overwhelming pleasure. She loses herself again, sitting up and planting her hands on his chest for stability as she rides him roughly.

“Oh fuuuuuuuck,” he hisses.

His shoulders lift off the mattress, his hands still planted on her hips. She’s right there, right there on the edge, and when he starts throbbing inside her she is gone, gone, gone.

Later, she’ll blush when she thinks about how loud she was, how brazen. How greedily she continued to fuck him until he was too soft to continue. How he flipped her to her back and slipped two fingers inside her, making her come again. But in the moment, all she knows is that she has never felt so good in her life, so safe. He touches her like he’s done it a hundred times, like he knows just what she needs. And when she finally becomes over sensitive and pushes his hand away, he throws a blanket over them both and wraps his arms around her. It’s nearly 6:00 am and the hazy yellow light of sunrise signals the arrival of morning.

“We have work in a few hours,” she says sleepily, resting her head on his chest.

“I think today is a good day to play hooky,” he tells her, giving her a squeeze.

They are quiet for a few minutes, and she starts to doze off.

“I’m glad you came over,” he says quietly.

“Me too,” she agrees, tilting her head up in invitation of a kiss.

She drifts in a sea of dopamine and oxytocin for some time, slipping into sleep until Mulder sighs or shifts and reminds her that she is not sleeping alone for the first time in years.

“Can I ask you a question?” he says, pulling her back again.

“Hm?”

“The dream me, or alternate me…was he an improvement over the model in this universe?”

She props herself up on an elbow and looks at him in the hazy morning light. He looks uncertain. Vulnerable.

“Not any more than the alternate version of me was,” she says, meeting his eye. “I think we’re products of our experiences in many ways, but at the core we’re still the same people. You would still be you and I would still be me even if our lives had taken different paths, but maybe those paths were meant to cross. I don’t wish you were different, Mulder, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The corner of his mouth quirks.

“I was actually referring to the sex,” he admits sheepishly.

Scully’s mouth falls open in surprise, and then she drops her forehead against his chest to hide her face in embarrassment.

“I wouldn’t know,” she tells him, resettling herself.

“Really?” he asks in disbelief. “Not even a kiss?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Wow. It took me nearly seven years to do what that man did in a day. What’s his secret?” he asks, jostling her playfully.

“We were married, Mulder,” she says with an edge of irritation. “Can I please go to sleep now?”

“Okay, okay. Sweet dreams, Scully.”

She snorts a laugh.

“Goodnight, Mulder.”

She falls asleep surprisingly fast and is quickly pulled into the limitless world of dreams. These dreams are of the ambiguous, hazy nature she’s used to. They are non-linear and full of missing context, but when she wakes she’ll recall the twinkle of Christmas lights and Mulder’s hand on her rounded belly, and the loud bark of her father’s laugh.

Tagging @today-in-fic