#I think Mulder fell first and fell hard

[ibringyouasong89]

I know what the majority of the vote here believes - and I'm not saying they're wrong, AT ALL. Everyone believes what they want to and that's cool. Not arguing that...I just can't help but remember the look on both his face and in his eyes the moment he first laid those green-hazel, glasses-encased eyeballs on her...and to me, there was a "ZING." He totally zinged...to quote "Hotel Transylvania." It was like love at first sight, even if he didn't recognize it at the time. And given the psychology of Mulder and the crap he was put through both as an adult and as a child...I'd say he definitely fell harder, especially during the cancer arc. Scully fell, definitely, I would say at some point either during season 2 or 3. I'm pretty sure her mom made it a note to tell her about what Mulder was like while she was missing and that definitely led to a few heart-palpitations on her end...but I would say you can see how hard she fell for Mulder during season 8, when Mulder is abducted...and I'm sure there are other moments throughout the series that showcase where Scully's feelings are very palpable and triggering for the audience, in regards to romantic feelings for Mulder, and I would probably agree with the majority of them (jealously not included here - and trust me, I have my own opinions and feelings about MSR, Diana Fowley, and Season 6)...but yeah... That moment where he turns around in his chair, after hearing the click-clack of her heels on the floor come up behind him, and this look of utter awe and disbelief that shines, briefly, through his gaze (and he totally GAZED at her in that moment), just speaks to me so clearly of, at least, on an unconscious level, he knew what this woman was going to mean to him in the long run, even if it was unwanted at the time (still having issues with ex's and himself and who to trust) or unforeseen, given how everything about her was completely NOT his usual type. It was like, for lack of a better term, soul recognition (regardless of CC throwing 'The Field Where I Died' at us - FXCK YOU, CHRIS! SCULLY IS HIS ONLY SOULMATE, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE!) in that brief moment... Then again, I could just be reading too much in a five-second gaze...but given Mulder's tenacious ability to over-romanticize EVERYTHING in his life and EVERYTHING he theorizes about, I feel that he would agree with this assessment.

[actual-changeling]

thinking about scully and mulder having keys to each other's apartments and what that represents.

how he signed her living will as a witness instead of one of her family members. how her family did not even KNOW about the contents of it. how they're always the first to show up at the hospital. how scully called mulder and only mulder to tell him about her cancer.

how they call each other in the middle of the night and have phones on their bedside tables. how they will fly across the world because there's the tiniest chance the other might still be alive. how they will threaten, injure, kidnap, kill people who dare to separate them, who dare to hurt them.

how they love and love hard, and, fuck it, let everyone else go to hell as long as we come out the other side alive and together. how they reached rock bottom and climbed out of it side by side, fell down, and then did it again. however many times it takes. i would die for you, you would die for me, but we stay alive for each other.

thinking about shared front door keys and glasses, clothing and chairs and files, fear and joy and love. two keys with their names on it opening up the doors to a shared home, no matter how far apart they might be.

how they always come back to 'us' and 'we', and the world can burn as long as you hold my hand while it does.

will you keep holding my hand in the ashes too?

until death do us part and then for immortal eternity.

[luvfo00l]

Some of my favourite fox Mulder hcs

Pairings: Fox Mulder x F!FBI!reader

Warnings: these are SFW and NSFW, MDNI below the cut!

SFW

Fox’s love language is physical touch, anytime of the day, you could just be looking at a case at your desk, he would lean over from his desk to feel your hand.

Whenever you steal his glasses he blushes almost uncontrollably, he just thinks you’re so cute.

totally writes you love notes and letters, leaving them around your desk and when you two live together he leaves them around the apartment.

Mulder is a surprisingly protective lover, he’s the sort to put his arms around your waist if another man was ever looking at you, he’d kiss your neck too

You two on a case of some crazy X file and Mulder getting bored in the car and singing along to the radio.

Whenever you feel upset he doesn’t leave your side, like at all

Fox is a super romantic man, he could see you’re cold on a case in the middle of the night and give you his big trench coat that was significantly too big for you.

He absolutely adores when you do his makeup, there’s something about you practicing your makeup on him that he just really thinks your concentration is cute.

The first time Fox realised you had taken his heart was when you got sent to work with him on a case in the middle of nowhere Oregon when you were focused on reading, he just..fell for you.

NSFW

Fox Mulder is a switch. You cannot tell me otherwise.

He likes when you wear his glasses and ride him, it just makes him so hard.

He likes missionary and cowgirl.

He REALLY likes your ass in pencil skirts..

Mulder is a tits man, he just loves squishing them, putting his head on them and obviously putting his cock between them.

You two once had sex in a rental car on a case.

You wanna know why he always wears that long coat? To hide his damn boner when you bend over in a skirt or trousers.

Remember when I said physical touch is his love language, it has two meanings..

He LOVES when you leave hickeys on his neck, people in the FBI don’t really call him ‘spooky Mulder’ when they realise his ‘innocent’ little girlfriend gave him those hickeys.

He absolutely loves when you sit on his lap and when you grind on his lap he just loses it completely.

Sorry guys this is my first time ever writing for Mulder so I hope I did good :)

[thursdayinspace]

May I offer a different take from “she fell first, he fell harder” for Mulder and Scully? One where both fall hard and then run an obstacle course for years, one they partly set up themselves?

I think mutual attraction is there from the start; they’re interested in each other before they even meet (she seems to know pretty much everything about him and he has gone as far as reading her thesis – and likes it). They’re fascinated by each other. And then their first case does everything to put them into situations where they can test each other and set the direction for their partnership and the trust that’s already starting to grow between them. Really falling in love, beyond a crush, takes knowing each other to a certain degree, and I think due to the nature of their first days together, they go through the ‘getting to know you’ phase in record time. There are a few interesting scenes that really set the tone and bring them together in ways that could make or break them, and each time they choose to support and trust each other.

Their first meeting: discussing the case. He tries to pick apart her science as she tries to pick apart his paranormal explanations, and they seem to have a certain amount of fun with that. She obviously thinks his theories are nonsense, and he doesn’t expect her to approach the problem with an open mind, but they’re respectful with each other and seem fascinated by each other to a certain degree.

There is the mosquito bite scene. It makes sense for her to go to him and ask him to check out the bumps on her back. There really is no one else she could ask, and also she’s panicking, which is absolutely understandable, and she needs somebody to reassure her, to help her if it is what she fears it is. So yes, it’s not like she has any other options. It is the way their interaction goes from there that makes it relevant to their journey. There is the fact that he doesn’t objectify her for one second. He doesn’t laugh at her. He seems to expect her to be relieved when he tells her it’s all okay, but he doesn’t seem to have realized how afraid she had been. And when he does, when she falls into him, seeking comfort, he gives it freely. His smile fades. He is there for her. He opens up to her in return, tells her his story in great personal detail, talks about conspiracies, and she listens attentively and takes his feelings seriously even though it all sounds pretty incredible. Attraction meets trust – that night could have gone differently in a number of ways. She could have felt too embarrassed to ask him to check those bumps. They could have ended up in bed together after she dropped her robe in front of him. She could have questioned his conspiracy theories, rejecting his attempt to reach out. But they take each other entirely seriously. They grow a little closer.

And then we get to the scene in the rain. He explains his theory. She argues against it. He says “You think I’m crazy.” She doesn’t disagree, but then remembers details that actually fit with his theory. Which is not something he expected at all. And she does think he’s crazy, but it doesn’t matter to her. They stand there opposite each other, she’s laughing and he’s looking at her, laughing too, more quietly as if he can’t quite believe it. And I think that’s when he falls. Hard. With a soft landing. She’s so breathtakingly beautiful, standing there absolutely drenched, wet hair clinging to her face, laughing like nothing has ever been funnier – but also, she is actually standing there, working with him, contributing to his theories even though she doesn’t believe the things that he believes. She wants to understand the world, she wants to solve the case even if that means opening her mind to other possibilities, and she seems to like him with no ulterior motive. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s curious. His heart never stands a chance, he falls in love right then and there. And she does too. He’s ridiculous and cute and smart and he doesn’t apologize for his beliefs – and I think honestly and integrity is something Scully values highly. It was definite interest before, attraction, probably a bit of a crush, but this is when it happens; there is no going back now. If they’d ever dreamed up their perfect soulmate in their minds on a quiet lonely night, it would have been each other in that moment.

There is no separating them anymore after that. They have both made their choice. They also backpedal a bit – quite a bit sometimes – only to fall a little more in love at other times. It’s complicated. We all know the way they go from there. But I think that moment in the cemetery, they fall. Both of them. They fall in love and that’s it for them for the rest of their lives; it just takes them several more years to act on it. To admit it to themselves. But I do think they admit it to themselves in that one specific moment, and I think if the FBI had decided to separate them again after this case, he might have asked her out, or she might have asked him, and it wouldn’t have taken them fifty million more years. Some days they know, some days they ignore it, some days they fight and some days they can’t admit it but feel it so hard it almost breaks them.

So no, I don’t think one fell first and the other fell harder. I think they go at exactly the same pace. I don’t think Mulder is even capable of protecting his heart in any way and gives it away quickly as a rule, but that’s a post for another day. I think Scully is more complex in how she falls in love, but that is also a post for another day. This is just to say: I think it takes neither of them any time at all. (But after that though . . . yeah. Haha.)

[rahleeyah]

I didn't watch the txf revival when it came back - at the time I didn't have cable and was short on time and disinterested in fighting to get my hands on it and I possess an inborn distaste for revivals in general - but 🐝 was determined that if we were going to watch the show we were going to watch the whole show. I know a bit about the major plot points and was concerned about whether I'd actually enjoy it, but we started it yesterday and binged 4 episodes in a row (🐝 had a medical procedure on Friday and we aren't doing shit this weekend while she recovers). Usually I tap out of TV watching around 9 or 10 pm but I gladly stayed up well past midnight to keep watching. I was struck by how well they recaptured the tone of the original series. The humor, the whimsy, the heart. One of the standout hallmarks of the show in the original run was the elevated, poetry-prose of the dialogue - more especially the voice over monologues, but it certainly appears in the dialogue; my touchstone, my constant - no one talks like that!! But it works, bc it's a show completely unconcerned with carefully reconstructing reality as it is and instead focused on ideas, and that, too, is present here. Conceptually the revival has, within the first 4 episodes, made itself a natural continuation of what came before. It isn't trying to remake itself in the style of the times; it has, so far, remained true to the heart of what came before.

Even breaking up MSR, while I was at first pissed off about that choice, feels in harmony with the original run. They weren't ~together for 1-9; they obviously fucked - shout out to all things - but mulder was gone for most of two years afterwards! He was gone and then suddenly he and Scully have to learn to live together while he's hiding out. They are fraying in I want to believe; Mulder has always struggled to live with himself when he doesn't have a purpose, and he's hard for Scully to live with when his purpose blinds him to everything else. She tried to leave him in the movie!! They were already coming apart. And I think that makes sense; she has a job, a life, is trying to put the past behind her, and Mulder is hungry for the past and the meaning it gave him. They weren't united in a common goal, anymore. And their relationship has always been difficult; how often in 1.0 do they argue and snipe at each other, rub each other the wrong way? They're complicated people, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that they fell apart without common purpose.

And their breakup is part of what makes 2.0 so resonant with the first 9 seasons. The affection and the deep care is there, colored by the strain of two people who aren't in what we'd consider a traditional romantic relationship. They love each other, they want each other, but they're at odds with each other. That tension is compelling to watch.

So idk. I may change my tune as we get deeper into it but so far I'm really enjoying the revival.

[vampirewalterskinner]

Look the memes about Skinner reading Mulder and Scully’s philosophical reports and being confused/annoyed are funny and all BUT!!! I would like to argue that those are specifically what caused him to love them so much. I mean, think about it. Skinner didn’t see them aside from the occasional meeting and Mulder and Scully weren’t overwhelmingly friendly toward Skinner because they didn’t trust him. So why do we see Skinner adoring and trusting them from day one? It’s because he reads their reports. Their thoughts, raw and unfiltered, spread across the page. Skinner gets to see who they really are, and he fell for them so hard and so fast because of it. That’s why we see him doing anything and everything he can to help and protect them from the very first season. 💖

[slippinmickeys]

Three Part Harmony (21/24)

“Is anyone dead back there?” Mulder asked quietly, his blood a thrumming brew of adrenaline and cortisol.

“No,” Scully said, her voice equally low.

Rhonda remained silent, her eyes fixed ahead, and she gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled tension. The snow was coming down in thick sheets, curling into the windshield with magnetic purpose.

“Their cars aren’t going anywhere and I disabled their radios, but I think we probably have less than half an hour before there’s a statewide APB on all four of us and this vehicle,” Scully said from the back seat.

As Mulder let his breathing start to regulate, he was struggling to know how to feel. Relief and awe and wonder were battling it out, but anger was slowly overtaking his higher functions.

“I told you to stay away,” he said, unable to turn in the cramped little car enough to look at her. It would have been easier to unleash his fury if he could look her in the eye, but he did his level best anyway. “I told Skinner to keep you as far from me as possible! And now-“

“And now we’re in the same situation we were in before,” Scully fired back. “But you’re with us. I need you with us.”

Mulder could hear a slight wobble in her voice and he took a breath, trying to calm himself.

“It’s not the same situation, Scully,” he said, slightly more level headed, but still upset. “You’ve made a criminal out an innocent woman, and-”

“I made a criminal out of myself,” Rhonda finally spoke. “The second I offered you help and refuge. I’m a big girl, and I knew what I was getting myself into. Now if you don’t mind, I’d rather you not argue in my car while I’m playing the old Montana favorite Am I Still On The Road.”

Slightly chagrined, Mulder leaned back and looked ahead. It was nothing but a mass of whiteness. He could not tell either if they were driving on a road or in the middle of a field. There was nothing to see but snow.

“Good,” Rhonda said, eyes never leaving the windshield. “Now thank your wife and son for saving your sorry ass.”

Mulder didn’t correct her, but turned as best he could and reached into the back seat as far as his shackles would allow him. Scully reached forward and gripped his hand hard.

“How’s he doing?” Mulder asked.

Instead of looking at their son, Scully closed her eyes then smiled.

“He’s doing good,” she said. “He’s happy you’re back.”

“Dadadadada!” William shouted, and Mulder teared up, wishing he could pick the boy up and hold him close.

Rhonda and Scully merely chuckled.

“He’s got a few new tricks,” Rhonda said.

“Oh yeah?” said Mulder, reluctantly pulling his hand back from Scully’s to wipe at his eyes.

“Hi!” William squeaked.

Mulder felt the first smile he’d worn in days creep up his face. It fell when he turned to look out the front of the car.

“We’re going to need to get out of this storm,” he said.

“There’s a town in about ten miles. We can get gas, something to eat. Maybe the weather will let up.”

“I think the weather’s the only thing helping us right now.”

“This ensemble certainly isn’t,” Rhonda said, jerking her thumb at him.

“You don’t like my outfit?”

“It’s a touch provocative. Most men in these parts wear a little less jewelry.”

At that, the cuffs and ankle shackles all simultaneously released, falling from Mulder’s limbs in a slither of tinkling metal. He startled and braced his suddenly free hands against the dashboard.

Rhonda pulled her eyes from the road for a moment to look directly at him.

“Scully’s got a few new tricks, too,” she said, and refocused back on the road.

XxX

Rhonda pulled up directly in front of the unisex bathroom door at the gas station, which was blessedly around the side of the building, rather than through the store at the back. Scully had handed Mulder a bundle of clothes and a pair of boots and he’d slid out of the car and into the bathroom without anyone witnessing him doing so.

It was relatively clean, thankfully, heater blowing full force from the ceiling, with a single toilet in the corner, a sink, paper towel dispenser and Koala Kare unit in the wall.

He was redressed, holding onto the orange prison jumpsuit, trying to figure out where he should dispose of it when there was a sharp rap at the door. His heart rate spiked, but Scully’s voice came a moment later on another ratatat of knocking.

“Mulder, open up. Let us in.”

He unlocked the door and threw it open only for Scully to push immediately inside, holding William out in front of her like a sacrifice, the bloom of a brown stain blossoming halfway up his back.

“Oh shit,” Mulder said, drawing a look from Scully.

“You noticed,” she said and stared at him until he roused himself into action and pulled down the changing station shelf.

Scully laid down the small blanket she had slung over her arm and plopped William down on it unceremoniously.

“Can you get him undressed?” she asked, swinging a bag off her shoulder. She began digging through it, setting several things down on the table near William’s head; a pack of baby wipes, a clean diaper.

“Mulder,” she said, looking up at him.

“Right!”

Mulder leapt into action, unzipping the felted footy pajamas the baby was dressed in and peeling them off. What he found underneath was a crime scene. Smelled like one, too.

He swore.

William seemed delighted, clapping and babbling and making himself a generally wiggly nuisance while Mulder tried to get the soiled diaper off of him. Finally, one hand full of the utterly destroyed pajamas and the other holding the biohazard of a diaper, Mulder looked at Scully somewhat desperately.

“Can you take over?”

She nodded with a look he thought might have been a smirk and stepped in, wiping and cleaning their son with far more efficiency and composure.

Mulder took the opportunity to shove the prison jumpsuit into the trash can and placed the filthy footies and diaper directly on top, pulling the whole of the bag lining the can to take with them. He wouldn’t put it past Bryson to dumpster dive through excrement for a chance to get at William.

When he turned back to them after washing his hands, Scully was holding out his son to him, clean and fresh-smelling and smiling, and Mulder took him into his arms with such a rush of relief and longing that it felt like his heart might drop out of his chest.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When the little family was settled back into the car, Rhonda turned to them, feeling uneasy, but resolute.

“You’ve been doing this longer than I have,” she said. “Being on the run. What do we do?”

Mulder turned to look out the windshield. The snow had let up, and hadn’t accumulated as much as it might have without the wind. There were drifts that were a couple feet high, but bare spots on the ground, and the roads had mainly been blown clear.

“We need to stay off major highways,” he said. “Find somewhere to hunker down.”

Scully sighed. “That’s easier said than done with a baby in tow.”

“Yes,” Mulder admitted. “But Rhonda’s cabin is out and we’ll need to hide the car. Bryson’s seen it, and her. Couple of hotel rooms would be great, but I don’t think we can risk it. We need somewhere with plumbing. Heat. Supplies.” He turned to Rhonda. “I’m sorry this is happening to you. I’m sorry we ever set foot in your diner. That your lot has been thrown in with ours.”

“I’m not,” Rhonda said, finding herself truly meaning it. “You’ve given me a purpose. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m doing something that helps. That matters.” The resolve with which she said the words shored up her bones, made her sit up taller. For the first time in her life, she felt a fire burning in her belly.

“I’m with you,” she said. “And we’re in slightly better shape than you think.”

When Mulder looked at her curiously, Scully piped up from the back seat. “The trunk is full of everything we might need,” she said. When Mulder turned to look at her, Scully shrugged. “Didn’t want to get stuck again.”

Rhonda considered the other things Mulder had said, the wheels turning in her head. Finally, she looked at them both.

“We need a few extra gallons of gas, just in case,” she said. “But I know where we can go.”

XxX

The sign by the road was studded with snow, but you could still make out the name it boasted, ‘Camp Waawaate’ with the old picture of a canoe, ‘established 1938.’

“It’s a summer camp,” Rhonda explained as she pulled to a stop in front of the gate, looking at the sign fondly. “I went here as a kid. Worked here for a while, too.” Some of the best times of her life had been spent here, swimming in the mountain lake, singing songs in the cafeteria and by a campfire. It certainly looked different in the snow. “It’s miles and miles from anything resembling civilization and closed up tight for winter. You can’t see anything from the road. We should be safe here.”

She sighed, remembering the good times, and threw the car in park. She turned to look at Scully. “The gate’ll be locked. I could use your help.”

Scully avoided looking at Mulder and nodded, unbuckling her seatbelt. Mulder had to get out to let her out of the backseat of the hatchback, but wandered behind her curiously and watched as she walked up to the swinging gate, peered at it for a moment. The padlock seemed to unlatch of its own accord. Mulder looked at her as though she’d employed a Jedi Mind Trick to unlock it.

Scully shot Mulder a self-conscious look and then he offered to stay outside the car and lock the gate shut behind them. She swung back into the backseat next to her son as Rhonda popped the old car back into gear.

“Gonna be a bit of an awkward conversation explaining all that, huh?” she asked the younger woman.

“We’ve had awkward conversations before,” Scully said, looking out the window. “I’m just…”

Rhonda could read beyond the ellipses of her abandoned comment. The woman was so glad to have her lover back beside her that the words to describe her relief wouldn’t come. Rhonda smiled kindly at her as she pressed the accelerator to nudge the car through the gateway of the camp. It was humbling to be a part of a love story like theirs. They were not the first to love as deeply as they did, Rhonda knew, nor were they the most tragic, but something about their romance felt like a storybook, like an author was writing them with a pen and was as yet not sure how the story would end.

Rhonda could only hope it would be happy.

Mulder swung the gate shut behind them, re-securing the padlock, and jumped back in the car, rubbing his hands together to warm them up.

“This place going to have power?” he asked, blowing into cold fists. “Is it going to have heat?”

The drifts across the drive were bigger here than they had been on the road, and Rhonda had to build up some momentum to get through them.

“Power up here is unreliable,” she said, concentrating on driving the serpentine, tree-lined two-track. “They have generators.”

“And heat?” Mulder asked again.

“It’s a summer camp, but it’s in the mountains. Each of the cabins has a fireplace. As does the main lodge and cafeteria. Should keep us warm enough.”

Mulder nodded from beside her. Beggars and choosers and all that, thought Rhonda.

Through an aspen grove and into the scrubby cedar swamp by the lake they drove, until the driveway widened out as they hit the main campus. To their right was a small hut on the lake that Rhonda knew housed paddles and life jackets, canoes pulled up high along the shore, clumped together upside down like fallen soldiers after a battle. To the left was a rectangle of pavement with a basketball hoop on one side, the other stretching out into low wooden bleachers that surrounded an enormous fire pit.

Beyond the court, up the small rise of a hill, perched an enormous timber frame lodge that overlooked the lake, which sat gray and wind-dimpled, uninviting and cold.

“We can start at the lodge,” Rhonda said, pointing to the main building. “It has an enormous fireplace and a genny that runs the kitchen equipment.”

“Think we can get it going?”Mulder asked.

Rhonda knew there was an enormous oil drum by the maintenance building that was full of the gas that kept the generator running all summer, but she wasn’t certain how often they topped it off as autumn approached, and pointed to one of the gas cans at Mulder’s feet.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she said.

“Are there places to sleep in the lodge?” Scully asked.

“Just kitchens and the cafeteria, a couple of small administrative offices,” Rhonda said, shaking her head. She pulled up to the back of the large building and killed the engine.

“Beyond the lodge are the campers cabins,” she went on, explaining the camp’s layout. “Boys to the east and girls to the west. Genny powered bathrooms at the end of each. The cabins have fireplaces and are small and retain heat pretty well. Beds a-plenty. I can get the generator up and running at the lodge and one of the bathrooms. There’s an enormous firewood cache behind the building if you want to get started there.”

Mulder nodded at her.

“Pick a cabin, any cabin,” Rhonda said, unbuckling her seatbelt. “And if you’d like some privacy, you can put me in the next one down.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

The inside of the lodge was all exposed beams and wood accents, built at a time when the trees grew bigger. The main room was wide and expansive, with a high ceiling that ended in a peak and huge fireplace faced with raw granite, the masonry old but sturdy. The tables that filled the space in the summer had been pushed to the sides of the hall, and the chairs stacked neatly next to them. An old piano sat in the corner next to an empty plastic Lost & Found bin. On the walls were pictures of campers from decades worth of summers; swimming, canoeing, arms around each other at a fire, one or two gap-toothed archers holding up the rare bullseye. Scully could hear it the moment Rhonda got the big generator going. There were big bay windows that faced the lake letting in the gray light of the day, but Scully flicked on the lights anyway, flooding the dusty space with yellow light.

William had fallen asleep in his car seat, and Mulder set him gently down.

“I think she said the firewood is around back?” Mulder said, pointing at a side door near the fireplace.

Scully nodded and drifted over to the door.

The entire camp had been secured tightly for winter, but locks were no longer really a problem. All Scully had to do was connect with William–something she could now do even when he was asleep–picture the pins and tumblers inside the mechanism, and think them into place. It was a handy gift, though one that would produce some parenting challenges as William got older should the boy figure out how to do it himself. Should they manage to get out of this alive.

She opened the door, and Mulder followed her out into the cold.

Rhonda had been right; all along the side of the building were shoulder-high stacks of seasoned firewood three or four sections deep. More than enough to keep them warm for however long they needed to hide out here.

“What do you think?” Mulder said, coming up alongside her. She could feel the warmth emanating from his body, but had only really touched him in the car when he’d reached out for her. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself at him in relief, to wrap her arms around his solid middle and tuck her head under his chin. To have him tell her that it would all be all right, that she had done the right thing. But they had things to do, and needed to be getting along doing them.

“Get a fire going in the lodge and then pick out a couple of cabins?” he went on.

Scully thought of William sleeping in the big cold room behind them.

“Yes,” she said. “Bring in as much as you can and I’ll get a fire going.”

Figuring out how to open the flue to the enormous fireplace was the biggest challenge, but once she’d maneuvered it open, it wasn’t long before they had a roaring fire going.

Rhonda walked in just as Mulder was stacking the last of a half-cord of wood next to the hearth. She looked down fondly at William.

“I’ll stay with him and get the supplies brought in from the car,” she offered. “If you two want to figure out where we’ll all sleep?”

Scully nodded at her gratefully. Mulder came up behind her then and put a heavy hand on her shoulder, which sparked such a flood of feeling within her that William–still connected to her–shifted in his sleep. Scully watched as the older woman knelt down and tucked the edge of the blanket more firmly around the child. Rhonda then looked up and gave them a small smile.

“Take your time,” she said quietly, and Scully could have wept.

XxXxXxXxXxX

There was a way they looked at each other, a way they locked eyes, that was unlike anything Rhonda had witnessed before. It felt, at times, a little bit like a blessing to witness, and a little bit like a curse. She thought of the romance novels she liked to read so much, of the inevitable pull the main characters felt for each other, the way they would stop at nothing to be together. How odd to see the real thing.

Rhonda wondered what it was about them that invited such suffering, such bliss. What was it about them that made even God turn away?

Mulder took Scully’s hand as they walked out of the lodge, both sparing one last look at their son. Rhonda would give them time together, whatever peace she could for as long as they needed. There was a reverence between them that needed to be honored, a fire that was in want of rekindling.

Rhonda could still see the camp cabins in her mind's eye, unchanged since her childhood. She closed her eyes and looked down on them as if from above, saw Mulder and Scully, those poor tragic lovers. She wanted to heal them or at the very least give them an opportunity to heal themselves. Under the fleece of evergreens, they would step into the small cabin and embrace. Rhonda envied them their reconnection. Envied them their love. She wanted nothing more than to foster it, to take them up like plastic dolls, lift them out and press them tightly together with the palms of both her hands.

[muldermuse]

The Name Game: Fox Mulder X Reader

A lil fic about Fox and Reader struggling to name their new kitten. I imagine it’s a black cat if anyone was curious

(pls send suggestions for fics or Fox Mulder hcs hereeeeee)

“You cannot look in this adorable baby’s eyes and tell me that they don’t scream the name Luna”. Fox is sat cross legged on the carpet playing with your new black kitten who is currently unnamed.

You and Fox have lived together for a little over 4 months at this point, you’d both fallen into a natural routine which benefitted the two of you massively. You would take it in turns to cook, whoever was home first got to choose the movie you’d watch and you both cleaned as you went. Your friends and family had told you that moving in together was a pivotal point for any couple, they had emphasised it to the point that the night before the move you lay in bed worrying that this could ruin your relationship. Obviously, as soon as you saw Mulder the next morning in his moving attire, all worries flew out of your head and had never bothered you since. Living with him was easy and you never seemed to have disagreements.

Until you brought the kitten home.

You’d spent a small fortune buying the fanciest food and water bowls, cat beds and toys that you could find. You’d both done your research about which food would be better for a small kitten and the only food store that stocked it was around 30 minutes away from your home. Each room of your home was fully kitten proofed, you had comfy blankets in each room so they could decide where to sleep, the cat bed was placed in the living room along with the ginormous cat tree which engulfed the corner of the room. You’d both spent that long prepping for the kitten to arrive that it wasn’t until about 2 hours after you had her; you realised you hadn’t decided on a name.

“I just don’t see Luna”. You replied, enticing the kitten over to you with a small treat.

“You don’t see it because you don’t want to see it”. Fox was holding his hand near your kitten, you were terrified of startling her and you both were conscious of getting her used to the smell of both of you so she’d become more comfortable. His tone was hushed but the sass of the words was strong.

“I think it should be something more fun! Like, I don’t know, pyjamas or something”. Your nameless kitten had wandered off to explore before you could even finish your sentence.

“This kitten is going to be an adult cat one day. She can’t be an adult called Pyjamas,” Fox huffed as he stood up to follow the kitten “I just don’t think you’re taking this seriously”.

You scoffed as you stood up to walk after him, “There’s too many cats called Luna! It’s an epidemic! Three people in the office this morning said they had cats called Luna”

“It’s a popular name! How many cats do you know called Pyjamas? Exactly, zero. It’s a dumb name for an elegant cat”

“Fox, we just watched her pee on the kitchen floor, I don’t think she’s going to be that elegant”

***

It wasn’t a real argument- not really. You’d made dinner for each other which a few kisses thrown in as you idly chatted about your day. Both of you trying hard to move the conversation on from the kitten. You’d remark on small things she did that was funny or squeal when she did something cute but neither of you mentioned the name.

You both sat on the sofa after dinner with a blanket over you both as an episode of Golden Girls played on in the background. Your kitten had been crying to be near you both so you gingerly picked her up and placed her on your lap. She curled up and fell asleep on you as you pet her, seeing Fox smile out of the corner of your eye.

“What about Simba?” Fox started.

“Unoriginal, what about Angel?”

“Seems a bit immature, as I said, she’s going to be a mature lady one day. What about Shadow?”

“Too many letters”

“It’s two syallbles”

You’d both reached a stale mate. You felt like whatever you both suggested, the other would find an issue with it. You carried on petting your nameless child and watching Golden Girls.

“It’s just,” you felt Fox place his hand on yours as he began to speak. “It’s such a big decision! She’s ours and I want her to have the perfect name. Something that we both love and that when we look at her; we can 100% see it.” He continued rubbing your hand, “She i-“

Before he could finish what he was saying, your kitten shot up and ran over to the window to look at a sound neither of you seemed to have heard. Her quick movements had scared you, you felt your heart rate increase from the fright and Fox brought your hand to his chest to show you that his heart was pounding as well. You both burst out laughing at how this tiny little cat had scared you both.

“How about Boo? You know…like a fright?”

Fox brought his hands to your face and pressed a kiss against your lips. “I love it”.

[carefulfears]

i know we’re all gonna be really surprised at my “favorite character” answer for txf30 and i’m proud to have contributed a truly obscene amount of mulder apologia this year, but when i was going through tweets yesterday, i found this one

(this got vulnerable and i turned reblogs back on for now but y'all please be conscious xxx)

that's from my first week watching the show, and it's the first thing that i really connected to. it's hard to move through the world having seen the worst of it. i think you reach this point after trauma where like...you've already had to process so much of it and kind of piece a life back together, in a way, and you're just left with the damage done to your worldview. the way you see yourself, the way you see other people. and that's permanent and hard in a way that's really isolating.

and mulder knows how difficult it is, because he tries not to do it. he tries to find better. he's smart and he's aware and he was "the best" and "scary" at catching serial killers, getting in the minds of "monsters"; he knows so intimately and so completely what people are capable of. luther lee boggs "kills because he likes it," mulder is "the only one who truly understands what he is."

he just wants more, he wants more for people. he wants to believe that the world is good, that people are good, that there's some other explanation. he thinks people deserve more, and that they do want to take care of each other, all to the contrary.

when i watched sein und zeit/closure, i remember seeing this post:

the whole arc of the show was always supposed to be that Mulder would overcome his obsession with conspiracy and face the humanness of his grief, accept it, and still find hope in what was left. It was never about grand espionage, it was about living with inescapable trauma, being stuck in the worst night of your life, keeping others stuck in there with you.

and i literally just fell out crying and sobbed all night. because it is hard, but you have to make something out of the cards you were dealt. and after seven seasons of relentless hope and wishful thinking, mulder was always going to have to come to terms with grief, with loss, with trauma. it couldn't go on forever. and that's what closure, as an episode, is all about: there is no closure, but there's support, there's grace.

there are a lot of things i really love about mulder, he is a sci-fi hero whose only personality traits are crying and believing women. he wears goofy ties and talks about aliens in public. he's the best. and there are a lot of things i love about this show, a lot of convoluted reasons that i'm grateful to have watched it. but it's when i think about that night 6 months ago, literally weeping on a bathroom floor, that i feel the most moved, and connected to the things that i avoid. in a way, a lot of us create methods and worlds to escape our realities. it may not be alien abduction, but it may be professionalism, or humor, or caretaking, or academia. a lot of us are stuck in our worst nights, and have curated an image outside of it. but what struck me about mulder in the beginning, and how he grew from it by the end, is that for as much as the series was structured around his coping methods, he was always meant to lose them. and "maybe there's hope," still.

[mayalaen]

9 Peeps you'd like to get to know better

i was tagged by @eeveestoneson almost a month ago ugh i'm behind. Thank you!!

1. Three Ships: Destiel, McShep, Spander

2. First Ever Ship: I was doing this in my head when I was pretty young so I'm gonna say The Hardy Boys but it was mainly for discipline. First fandom ship is either Jack/Daniel from SG1 or Mulder/Krycek from X-Files. My memory isn't the best and when I discovered online fandom I fell in hard, scooping up everything I could get my grubby little hands on.

3. Last Song: Obvious Heart by Finger Eleven

6. Currently Watching: Fargo, Away, Stranger Things (rewatch),

4. Last Film: Rebel Moon

5. Currently Reading: @jezapoof 's unpublished fic and nothing else because I'm trying to catch up on WIPs and tending to the Discord servers.

7. Currently Consuming: Bean and cheese burritos. Easy to make and enough protein to get me through most of the day.

8. Currently Craving: Onions. I finally got over my salt craving (thanks covid), but I think the onion craving might be my liver asking for help so thanks again covid.

The numbering is wonky 😂

No pressure to join in, but I'm gonna tag the lat few people in my activity: @jvalentyne @pimentogirl @myladysmaid134 @hullosweetpea @ryugarika @looptheloup @jezapoof

[fullmetalscullyy]

I read some of your fics and let me just say that I LOVED them!!!! Riza and Roy's relationship was just beautifully written!!! Can I ask if you have any specific headcanons or aus you want to ramble about?

AAAAAA THANK YOU 🥰🩷💖💗

i will preface this with saying it's been about 5 years since i actually watched fma lmao so my concept of royai in general and canon may be (definitely is) skewed purely by my own self indulgence, delusions, and poor memory (for real, i read a fanfic once where they said grumman's first name was walter and i took that on board and for about 8 years thought that was his canon name 💀 i'm easily influenced hahaha) but who cares i'm thriving anyway so i'm happy 😌

ok so. headcanons

most of these change with my mood or what fic i'm writing to fit in with the story i'm writing. i love having flexibility and things to play around with lol

roy calls riza "my love"

tenderness ✅ affection ✅ adoration ✅

this man dragged himself back from the brink of death/unconsciousness under central just so he could go to riza (and alphonse but shhh just riza)

roy fell first

riza fell slowly

he fell HARD and when riza realised she was like "oh shit 😳"

feelings developed tentatively when they were young (roy was both scared of but impressed by quiet, feral little riza). he was patient tho and eventually, riza fell too

idk when they each realised. i like to play about with that idea like toys in the sandbox lol so it chops and changes depending on my mood

they're both v professional obvs and hide their feelings well but sometimes roy gets a wee bit too into the role he ""plays"" while speaking to elizabeth and hears about it later. but he just shrugs and doesn't care bc how can he be sorry when he gets to pretend he's in love, or close to it at least, w elizabeth - not that there's any actual pretending hehehehehe

they end up becoming a dog family. all the pups. because it's what riza wants

realistically, would they have kids together?? hmmm ask again later but in my mind where there's 0 consequence and things are hand wavey yes 😌 need girl dad roy and mama hawk in my life

there is definitely a way they could play marriage between them and having a family strategically and politically and i've read some fab fics and thoughts where they do but i'm not clever enough to think anything up hahaha but i feel like they absolutely would in the canon world. it would suit them and their goals well if they did

obvs the kid would be loved and doted on don't get me wrong it would just be convenient that it worked out politically for them too

i'm sure i have more rattling about in my brain somewhere but i was up at half 4 this morning for a road trip and this is all i got for now hahaha

in terms of aus, i don't have anything cooking atm. i would love to delve into another one but i've done so many at this point i feel i've exhausted my wee list but!! also accomplished and written everything i've wanted to write for royai 🥰

however. i will say. for years i've been dreaming of a royai/x files au. royai as mulder and scully??? roy the believer and riza the skeptic??? stunning. i would LOVE to write that but i just. do not have it in me anymore unfortunately. that being said, i will never say never!! it might eventually come back around to me. but we'll see :)

thank you for the ask!!!!! and the kindness 🥰🩷

[moorishflower]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I got tagged by @dsudis! :D Thank you darling! And anyone who sees this and feels the desire to join, please do <3

Blank questions for your convenience! My answers are below the readmore.

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

3. what fandoms do you write for?

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

5. do you respond to comments?

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. do you get hate on fics?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

16. what are your writing strengths?

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

19. first fandom you wrote for?

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

1. how many works do you have on ao3? Currently 218! 2. what’s your total ao3 word count? 1,977,729 3. what fandoms do you write for? Currently, I mainly write for The Sandman, though I periodically have been branching out and writing for whatever catches my fancy (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Baldur's Gate 3, and now The Magnus Archives) 4. what are your top five fics by kudos? That would be aulon raid, Ecdysis, That I Should Wedded-Be, Curse of the Green Hag, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. 5. do you respond to comments? I try to on occasion! I usually only get a few in before I start running out of spoons, though. I want each response to be meaningful, but I start running out of different ways to thank people, and so I just...run out of steam. 6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? We're going all the way back to my SPN days here. The Last Song is a Dean/Cas fic set in the universe of S5E4 "The End," and is about the moment that Castiel fell and lost his wings. 7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Almost any other fic I've written. Maybe Hallmark-Adjacent? 8. do you get hate on fics? Almost none, thankfully! I've been very lucky. 9. do you write smut? if so, what kind? Ahahah...yeah. Pretty much any kind. There are kinks I haven't written, like watersports, sounding, more extreme BDSM, but that's not because I'm against them, specifically. If I have an idea, I'll generally write it! 10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I very rarely write crossovers. I think I might've only written three, actually? The most out-there one was probably the BBC Sherlock/Homestuck crossover. 11. have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of. 12. have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, several times! They're lovely, I love seeing translated works. <3 13. have you ever co-written a fic before? I have, though only the once. 14. what’s your all-time favorite ship? Am I super basic if I say that it's a tie between Mulder/Scully and Spock/Kirk? It's hard for me to top the classics. 15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I would really love to finish The Whole of Love Contained, but at this point my writing has changed enough that I would have to rewrite the entire thing, I think. 16. what are your writing strengths? Gosh I don't know I'm bad at this one. Um. Descriptions? 17. what are your writing weaknesses? Pacing, and action scenes, definitely. 18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? What, like, running it through a translator or...? I've done that before, though I usually try to find a beta who speaks the language to go over it. I tend to do it sparingly, though. 19. first fandom you wrote for? Gosh, it might've been Harry Potter. The first fandom that I wrote SERIOUSLY for was Supernatural. 20. favorite fic you’ve ever written? It is, to this day, and might always be, Maybe sprout wings.

[transexualpirate]

serious post ew look away but i need to vent for a second

it's infuriating how fast i can go from feeling amazing to feeling like actual garbage. just this week i was happy that things are looking up for me and mulder and my little petsitting business was taking off and i was doing good at college only for things to go bad again because it always feels like im not allowed to enjoy feeling happy for too long

i know i sound super dramatic right now but i can't help it thats my natural reaction to things. im dramatic. its who i am.

my roommate is moving out possibly this week and im glad because we haven't been getting along well recently but also the bills are piling up and i was already on the edge of it as it was but i could still maintain things. but i just learned that my landlord wants to raise rent 10% unexpectedly and i know it isn't a lot and i can probably still pay it but it's still scary. it'll be my first time living 100% on my own and i have a cat to care for (thank goodness because if i had to live actually alone i dnt know what id do lol but with a cat relying on me i know im safe) and it's just. i dont know. it kind of feels like a lot. i dont know if im ready for this if ill do well if ill be okay and i hate that so much. everything is so expensive and im looking for a job but it's so so hard to find one i can do while still having time to spare for college and im scared that my grades will drop because this semester has been really hard and I'm really insecure about my own intellectual abilities. and keeping an entire apartment clean by myself. can i even do that. i struggle with keeping my room liveable sometimes what if i fuck up and the house gets super dirty and it's embarrassing and i can never bring anyone over in fear of them finding out what a fucking mess i am. not that my friends come over a lot obviously. i dont know if my friends like me very much. one of them drifted away from me after i fucked up twice once by sleeping with one of her friends and making things super awkward because he fell for me but i dont like him that way and twice because my roommate and i aren't that good right now and my roommate is also a close friend of hers. and i have other friends but i always feel like i cant keep long lasting meaningful friendships if we see each other often because i fucking suck. i think im just a little bit of a mess right now and it's. exhausting. im scared. im scared and money is running thin and i can always ask my parents for more but im scared of doing that too because my mom always makes it seem like i own her something when she gives me money. which i guess i do so it makes sense. but im tired of owning things to people and i was trying to go by without depending on her so much but i guess im not ready for that. im almost 19 and i feel 13 when things started crashing around me for the first time and it's a little more than a month to my birthday which is often a shit time because of bad things that happened there and i dont know dude i dont fucking know i think im just overwhelmed i wish i could go to therapy again but i don't have the money or the time really. at least i have mulder. ill always have my cat. i love him so much. at least i have him. i have to hope things will get better. i have to hope and work for things to get better and i know this because i worked before and it worked. but god im tired and i just wish i could go to sleep and not wake up to bad news for once. i wish i could go to sleep. fucking hell

[scully-xo]

Beautiful Collision

aka they finally talk about what happened in Mulder’s hallway over peppermint tea

My fic for the @xfilesfanficexchange Secret Santa! 

Read on AO3 - Rated T - 2183 words - @today-in-fic 

Prompt: What does the rest of the night look like after “How The Ghosts Stole Christmas” by @arrowgirll13

“You got somewhere to be, Scully,” he whispered. “Mmm, here. I gotta be here, Mulder.”

***

What a change. Only about an hour ago, he’d been sitting in front of his TV, Maurice’s words sinking further into his mind. Taking root. Making him believe them, as much as he denied it in the house. He was just as stubborn as Scully, refusing to see what was in front of him—he was alone. On Christmas.

But then she’d shown up.

Not just the one person who put up with him. She was Scully. She was everything. The only one that mattered. The one person he wanted to be with on the holidays. And after last year, well, he was hoping she wanted to avoid family. But everything bad that happened in her life was his fault, wasn’t it? Why would she choose him?

But she was here.

Their empty mugs of peppermint tea sat on their new coasters on the coffee table in front of them, funny messages scrawled on their surfaces. A joke gift, but from her it meant everything. The way she blushed when he ripped open the package and laughed would sink in his mind forever. He was trying not to think too hard about the one she’d chosen for her mug: ‘Naughty is such a strong word, how about we go with Nice-ish’. He’d had plenty of dangerous thoughts about naughty Scully, especially since he’d almost kissed her. Who was he kidding? Since their first goddamned case.

His gift to her was his usual schtick. Something cheesy that reminded him of her, a sparkly ornament she could hang on the tree, though it didn’t fit in with all of the other decorations. She misinterpreted its meaning, because he didn’t tell her. But that was part of the gift. He wanted to know what it meant to her. That was the important part. It was selfish, but that’s who he was, wasn’t he?

The gurgling of the fishtank and ticking of the clock on the wall filled the comfortable silence as she dozed next to him. He thought she’d have left already, with dawn and presents and her family waiting for her. This time together, as short as it had been, would make the rest of his Christmas bearable, at least.

He still couldn’t believe she came over. And stayed.

She was facing him now, eyes closed and face soft in sleep. Her head had rolled over in sleep from where it had rested on the back of the couch, wisps of her hair barely touching his shoulder. Selfishness reared its ugly head. He could let her sleep. He could keep her here. He wanted to—but he wouldn’t.

Touching the tip of her nose with the side of his thumb, she let out a little yawn-moan and stretched next to him. He couldn’t help the smile that drifted on his face, and tried not to think about hearing her sleep-sounds in another context. Too late. Blood rushed to his groin and his eyes fell, catching the patch of skin between her button holes of her shirt and across her stomach as she raised her arms.

“You got somewhere to be, Scully,” he whispered.

“Mmm, here. I gotta be here, Mulder.” The words were rough and slurry and with her eyes nearly closed he wondered if she was still half-asleep. Still, it made his heart constrict, thinking that at least to him, this is where she belonged.

“Want me to drive you?” he asked. “You look like you could sleep for a week.”

“Mmm, thanks for that. But no.” She yawned again, and shook her head, blinking away the remnants of sleep. She didn’t get up, though, and he’s a weak man. He didn’t remind her of where she was supposed to be again.

“All of that… it happened, didn’t it?” she asked, as she chewed on her lower lip. “I felt the gunshot. The blood on my skin. But then it was gone, and…”

“It happened, but it didn’t.”

He can tell she doesn’t like the feeling of their night being a Schrödinger's kind of experience. She likes neat lines, things she can explain and file away. Things she can put in a box.

“Well, you’re real. And I’m real. We’re here. That’s something,” he conceded.

“Yeah.” She paused. “Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“A few months ago. In your hallway. Before… before I got stung. I remember things, but I’m not sure if they happened or if it was a strange dream…”

“It happened, Scully,” he said, voice low and gravelly. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. His mouth went dry just thinking about how close they’d gotten. And now… were they actually going to talk about it?

He heard her wet her lips and the sound of her throat as she swallowed. He could picture what she looked like in his mind but he didn’t look. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the television, the blurry apparitions of their own faces barely visible in the dark screen. He remembered what he’d been watching before she came over. The smile on Ebeneezer’s face. The words he’d just said flashing through his mind. I don’t deserve to be so happy.

“Did you mean it?” Her voice was so soft and quiet, like he’d imagined the words. And there was something else. The fear that oozed from her pores in the haunted house tonight had returned, though there was a subtle quality to it now. A vulnerability.

He turned to her then, watching her profile, her eyes glued to the same blank TV. “Of course I meant it, Scully.”

She took a shaky breath. “I thought, maybe… if it was real, that you only said it to make me stay.” Her voice was so small, and he really saw her then. How everything that night had been seemed to her. She peered at him out of the corner of her eye. “So we could continue your work.”

“Our work, Scully.”

Her eyes filled with familiar skepticism, though tinged with something else now. Sorrow? Regret?

Mulder laid his arm across the back of the couch, facing her fully. “There is no work without you, Scully. Of course I wanted you to stay. Of course I need you for all of that.”

She nodded. She looked so damned small right now. It always took him aback when he was confronted with that fact. He always forgot because she loomed so large in his mind.

“Is that why you were going to kiss me?” she asked.

He sighed, closing his eyes at her words. At the memory he tried so hard to remember and yet at the same time to put it out of his mind. It tormented him—thinking that he’d come so close to something he could never have. He was such a fucking idiot. All this time he’d thought, perhaps, she wanted to forget that moment between them happened. That she was scared away, and moved back to the comfortable place of poking holes in every damned theory he came up with. It had been infuriating, after all they’d seen, that she’d backslid into the woman who pretended that the fantastical things they saw together never happened.

He never even considered she wasn’t sure any of it had happened. That she didn’t know his reasons for it. He was crazy about her. Not just as a partner or a friend. As the only person in his damned life. His other half. She was��� she was Scully.

“I didn’t want you to leave. I—”

“I wasn’t going to leave, Mulder.” She touched him then, laying a small hand on his knee. That tiny bit of contact, innocuous and light, sent a lightning bolt through his leg, straight up his spine. He wouldn’t be surprised if his hair was standing on end. Scully as his very own Van de Graff generator.

“Uhh, what?” he asked.

“I was leaving the bureau, not you.”

I am such an idiot. He wanted to smack his forehead, but that would mean moving his hand from behind her, or from its place a few inches from her own. There was no way he was moving away from her right now. So, he closed his eyes and cursed at himself silently instead.

When he opened them again, things had shifted. Gone was the vulnerable, small woman who’d made a rare appearance only a few seconds ago. She was back to herself. The Scully he knew, but somehow more.

And she was looking at his lips with curiosity in her eyes. Hunger, maybe. He hoped it was hunger.

He swallowed.

“Is that the only reason you wanted to kiss me, Mulder? You wanted me to stay so we could work together?”

It sounded shitty. Egotistical and narcissistic, just like Maurice had told him. But it wasn’t just about the work. Of course it wasn’t. He’d dreamed of those lips: of pressing his own into their plushness, learning how she felt, how she tasted. It haunted his dreams. After the bee interrupted things, and she’d gone back to her old self, he thought it was a sign. That it wasn’t meant to be. He was destined for loneliness. For unhappiness.

He couldn’t lie to her, though. “It wasn’t the only reason.”

She tilted her head, her eyes sliding up to meet his. Definitely hunger. He swallowed again, and his hand shifted next to hers, his thumb grazing the side of her pinkie. He was suddenly very aware of how close their hands were to his lap. To his crotch. These damned jeans were growing tighter by the second.

Shifting slightly to adjust himself, he leaned in a bit closer. “I’ve wanted to kiss that pretty mouth for a long, long time, Scully.”

Her pupils blew open, and her mouth dropped. He smelled peppermint on her breath. Not for long though. He crossed the rest of the distance and finally let his mouth land on hers, and he tasted it instead.

She stiffened for just a moment, then reacted: meeting him with matched fervor, as he always knew she would. Her hands wound around his neck, scratching through his hair and sending little shocks trembling over his skin, straight to his groin. Their tongues met, their teeth and noses clashing together until they found a rhythm. Like they always did, right from their very first meeting.

As he tasted her—memorizing the ridges of her mouth, the sharpness of her teeth, the sounds she made—he couldn’t help comparing this kiss to the images of binary stars he’d seen in a recent report from NASA. They’d crashed together by some yet unknowable force, making something bigger and more wondrous than what they’d had separately. And while this magnificent collision had now taken physical form, he knew it originated years ago, back when she’d first walked into his office. Wearing her prim suit, wide eyes and a smile, she took every strange thing they encountered in stride even though he knew it shook her to her core. And he knew—knew—he couldn't have done it without her. He’d be stuck in that basement, chasing leads that led nowhere.

He fisted her hair, maybe a bit too tightly, but she moaned into his mouth when he did it. She was above him, now, sitting in his lap, grinding herself onto the growing stiffness in his jeans.

Was exhaustion another kind of intoxication? He didn’t want her to regret this once she had her head on straight. With every ounce of willpower, he leaned back, pulling their mouths apart.

She made a cute little whine in protest, and his cock jumped.

“Jesus, Scully.”

“Taking the Lord’s name in vain on his birthday?” Her mouth tilted upwards. He stared at those gorgeous swollen lips, even more plush and kissable after he’d sucked on them for who the fuck knows how long. Too long. Never long enough.

“You need to go to your family’s.” He rubbed her back. It was something he’d done before, dozens of times. But every touch felt different now. Electric. Monumental. A prelude.

“Come with me,” she said, peppering kisses over his face.

Mulder sighed, feeling his protests melt away with every graze of her mouth on his skin. “I don’t want to intrude—” he said meekly.

“My mom invited you.” She pulled back, a guilty look on her face. “I didn't know you didn’t have plans. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll be okay, Scully. Just me and Scrooge. He’s like a kindred spirit.”

She looked at him for a few long seconds, her fingers doing something delightful along the muscles of his shoulders and neck. Then she nodded, her mouth set in a line. “You’re coming.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her.

She giggled, then pressed her mouth against his in a soft kiss. He liked this, too. He wanted to discover every kind of kiss, every touch. Every sound and sigh. What he could do to make them.

As she stood and pulled him up with her, he thought, perhaps, he’d get what he wanted this year. Or maybe he already had.

End.

[demon-fetal-harvest]

ASKS TIME!! 2, 3, 13, 14, (15?), 39, and 44! :DDDD

Ohhhhh thank you very much for the ask @randomfoggytiger! I had fun answering these

2. David Duchovny or Fox Mulder

This is a little hard to choose from. I love David, he is a very talented man and he essentially gave life to some ofy favoritecharacters, but this time I have to choose Mulder, just because he is my baby girl an I love him.

3. Gillian Anderson or Dana Scully

When it comes to Gillian I have to give her credit when it's due. She is an excellent actress, and I have loved her work for a very long time. She also basically carried the whole show after David left but again, I have to choose Scully. Tbh she has been short off an inspiration to me, she is partly the reason why I decided to go into the career path im currently in, which is realated to criminal justice, you could say I was also a victim to the scully effect lol.

13. Favorite Season(s)? Why?

I'm between season 5 and season 7 for this one.

Season 5 has some of my favorite episodes. Including bad blood, detour, kill switch and although I normally don't like the mythology episodes, the ones in season 5 are not that bad and kinda like them for all the angst and overall drama (also some shippy moments).

With season 7 is less about the quality and more about vibe. Idk how to explain it, for me it fells lighter than the others if only by the shift M and S relationship at the very beginning of the season. Although I don't think the way the decided to finish Samantha's story was the best, at least Mulder got his closure. This season felt at the time like they were preparing us to say goodbye and if they decided to end the show there and get rid of requiem I would have been happy with that.

14. Favorite episode(s)? why?

I mentioned before some of my favorite episodes in the previous answer, but for the shake of choosing one, I'm going to go with the safe choice and say Bad Blood. That episode is just so fun to watch and so meta and also was one of the first episode i ever watched. It was a nice change from the normal motw format, and the changing point of view was extremely entertaining. I personally like how it showed the perception one had over the other (although I think they were exaggerating to get on each other's nerves) and idk, re-watching that episode just makes me happy

15. Favorite MSR moments?

There are tons of MSR moments to choose from but I think that my favorite one has to be the hand holding at the end of field trip. There's no words exchanged, they are not even looking at each other directly, but they almost die and still, their first instinct is to try to reach out to the other, to know they are there and alive and well. It's such a small thing compared to the "my one in five billion" speech or the baseball scene in the unnatural but for me it's the best one.

39. When do you think Mulder and Scully started dating?

I believe the earliest something could have happened is after closure for sure. Amor fati opened season 7 with one of the greatest love confessions I've ever seen without even saying I love you, and the millennium kiss is further proof of how much they want each other. But I don't think they went any further than that until latter in the season. Yes, they where flirting a lot more but they weren't quite ready. Many think that All things was when they finally got thogether but for me was less about that and more about Mulder being the right choice for Scully and her finally accepting him wholeheartedly. I believe they got together somewhere after closure in the middle of season 7 but they were not completely sure what they were (specifically Scully) until after All things.

44. When did you first start watching the x files?

I started watching somewhere around 2011-2012 I think, there was a re-run marathon with the best of the x files on the fox Chanel and I remember the first episode I ever watched being Duane Barry, i was hooked from the beginning.

The funny thing is, that the first x files thing I ever saw was I want to believe, way before I started watching the show. I didn't even know it was based on a show. I didn't connect the dots until much later, Mainly because I originally watched the show with the latinoamerican Spanish dub so the title threw me off a little bit (the Spanish version is something like "The Secret Archives X", also the guys who worked on the dubs and subs where shippers and it shows).

[twogravesinsomecemetery]

Lol I'm going to take you up on venting about MSIV because if that didn't leave me feeling like I fell right off a cliff?? The show just... ended. The closure was definitely in the church conversations, but the dock scene just felt so abrupt and now the show feels unfinished.

I get that they stopped the pandemic by killing CSM but it seems like a wasted storyline too? And what was the point of finding William when he was supposed to be the cure for Mulder - I didn't think he was the start of the virus. Just that CSM wanted to take him with him. So did the virus happen like O'Malley was saying or is he going to be more of a conspiracy nut? Do we just get to ignore MSIII now?

Speaking of, I'm one of those people who staunchly believe that Mulder is William's father. CSM might've messed around with science and genomes and DNA but otherwise, no.

And what about Skinner??????? Scully wants to go check on him for all of 2 seconds and then he's forgotten about entirely. And sure Mulder and Scully had stuff going on, but???

Overall I really did enjoy seasons 10 and 11? I thought most of the episodes were a good continuation of the show, and just updated to what current TV looks like instead of the 90s. And it had some of my favourite episodes. I just have such a hard time keeping up with the myth-arc but I had that issue in the first 9 seasons anyway. The main thing was that Mulder and Scully were there for each other and solving cases.

(Also, it took me so many rewatches to really love The Angels Take Manhattan. I hated it at first, but I now find it to be a good wrap up for Amy and Rory - they ended up together and she chose him fully and completely in the end. And The Doctor being so focused on his own pain that he ignores River's is out of character except that Amy basically died and that I get, things are messy when there's grief, and River holds hers back for The Doctor like the badass she is.)

Either way, now I have to revisit my favourite episodes (MOTW for sure) starting back with season 1. Thanks again for the positivity! I'm glad I watched the revival.

Hey :) Sorry I took a couple days to get back to this, it was a bit hectic with the txf 30th anniversary week 😂

I’m glad you came back here to vent !!! As a certified revival enjoyer, I know exactly how you feel and totally get what you mean. The closure in Nothing Lasts Forever is immaculate but then MSIV just kinda feels like it… stops? I don’t think they ever intended to make it feel unfinished, and personally my interpretation has always been that we just don’t need to see anything else. Obviously, things happened after that moment on the dock, e.g. they probably went back to find Skinner (who may or may not be dead, rip???) and dealt with the consequences of that revelation, but it’s… nothing that we’re not expecting to happen. It’s nothing that we need to witness. We know that Mulder and Scully are going to be free of the syndicate and raise their second child and live happily ever after etc. etc. because it’s literally their only option, and the only way it could ever conclude.

And as far as the virus goes, most people pretty much ignore everything that happens in the My Struggle episodes because of the conspiracy theories and the CSM insanity so you can pretty much pick and choose what stuff you want to keep as canon and overlook everything else. I know that doesn’t sound ideal, but it helps make it more enjoyable. I mean, how many people take Mulder’s brain disease in season 8 to be canon? Like… literally nobody. 😂 Also pretty much everyone considers Mulder to be William’s father, even though it might make it canonically more angsty and/or interesting if Scully believes otherwise at the end. 

Honestly, I really love the revival for how new it is. I think it would’ve been a mistake on their part to try and recreate the 90s, even if some of the AI stuff in s11 is a bit on the nose. As long as Mulder and Scully are there solving cases and we get some sweet MSR moments then I’m here for it. And I'm always happy to spread some revival positivity!! <3