#Poang

[poangsecretsanta]

A Sleepy Sunday

Story based on this image and written for @thursdayinspace who asked someone to write a fic to go with it.

It’s the loss of her body that disturbs him more than the phone ringing and her talking in hushed tones. His arm automatically reaches out for her, Mulder’s eyes remaining closed, his body rolling over to her side of the bed. Scully looks over from her call and watches his body looking for hers, his lean back stretched out over the bed, his nose now buried in her pillow. The grin on her face grows and she has to ask her Mother to repeat what she’d just asked because the sight of a sleepy naked Mulder is arresting. She wonders if he has some sort of homing beacon powers, feeling herself drawn back to the bed, taking a seat next to him as she finishes her call. 

Perched on the edge of the bed she feels his fingers softly scratching against her bare leg, happy to have made contact with her body once more. Scully ends the call with her mother by saying a robotic goodbye, too enthralled by the feel of Mulder’s hair through her hands as she gently caresses him. 

Mulder doesn’t make out much of the conversation, his body relaxed the moment he felt her presence near his once more. Scully’s hands idly scratching through his hair is enough to lull him back to sleep, but he fights it to ask her about the early morning phone call. A mumbled “whommhmmda,” emerges from Mulder’s pillow and Scully moves her head closer to hear him better, the oversized shirt riding up higher and exposing her legs. 

“That was my Mom telling me she’s not going to Mass this morning.” 

Mulder makes an intrigued grunt in response, while his hand has managed to find its way to Scully’s thigh and has begun its exploration. 

With a hitch in her voice Scully continues to talk, “the roads are icy, so it looks like I’m on my own for Church today.”

Whether Scully had any real intention of going could not be ascertained but the hopeful plea in Mulder’s voice when he utters the question “stay,” is so endearing the thought of leaving him alone in bed seems blasphemous. 

Scully makes a show of umming and ahhing until Mulder’s hand reaches her cunt, and then she gasps “okay.”

With a quick turn Mulder rolls himself onto his back and deftly positions Scully so she’s straddling his head. The speed and dexterity in which he accomplishes this maneuver is impressive, but before Scully can accuse him of faking being sleepy his mouth is on her and she’s lost all use of her cognitive faculties. Using the bed frame to balance herself better, Scully grinds her pussy against Mulder’s face, the heat and the friction causing an amazing sensation. One of Mulder’s hands makes its way up the large T-shirt and finds a nipple to torture while he deftly nibbles at her clit. It doesn’t take long for Scully to be overpowered by the pull of her orgasmic release, bucking hard into Mulder’s face as she comes with a sharp cry to God. 

It’s a few minutes before she realizes she’s still sitting on Mulder’s face, her body slumped forward and Mulder happily kissing her inner thigh. Moving herself off him, she apologizes for smothering him, but Mulder’s contented grin tell her he was more than comfortable with the position. Mulder tugs on the end of Scully’s t-shirt, one of his old basketball shirts, and wipes her juices off his face. Wordlessly, he guides her body into his side- her face tucked towards his neck, her legs intertwined with his. Mulder hisses as her cold feet make contact with his calves, grabbing the blanket to cover them both up. Once settled he rests his chin on her head with a contented sigh, his arms wrap around her making a warm nest. Any thought either of them had about continuing their sexual activities is pushed aside in favor of napping in their snuggly position. The world melts away from them as they enjoy this momentary reprieve from the chaos of their every day lives. 

Later, he’ll enter her at a slow languid rate. Making love to her in the luxurious manner of two people who have all the time in the world and an intense desire to enjoy one another’s bodies. When Mulder thrusts into her hard enough to make her breath gasp and her body shudder, Scully will see the endless depths of devotion and love he feels for her. Her cries of ecstasy will reverberate into his soul and assure him more than her words ever could, that with him is where she wants to be. 

Later, they’ll talk about finally making it out of the apartment for brunch, but will settle for coffee and preserves on toast- because leaving their bubble on a quiet Sunday seems like too great of sacrifice. They’ll do laundry and the other mundane life tasks, enjoying each other’s company as they do their menial errands. Mulder will appreciate how comfortable he is in Scully’s presence, wondering how to broach the subject of getting out of the car and carving out a slice of normalcy together. 

But for now they’ll stay in bed, lulled to sleep in each other's arms. The coziest two people enjoying their well earned Sunday morning sleep in. 

[tikuo2007]

『POÄNG』

20240913

[doronjosama]

Poang baby. #kittensofinstagram #catsofinstagram #catscatscats #catstagram #kittens #bigelow #biggie #poang #ikea #tabbycat #littlebebs #cutiepies #rescuecats #adoptdontshop #mysons #mytreasures #kittybabies #darlingboys #catmomlife #dailykitten #latergram https://www.instagram.com/p/CmsIeUsLAbL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[katebeckets]

how to say “I love you” in x-files [17/?] ⤷ 4.01 — “Herrenvolk”

[fringephile]

It took me 20 hours to see this. 😂

[muldersfingers]

College best friends AU

I got carried away headcanoning on Discord about these two college best friends, coming home tipsy from a party. (2700 words)

---

His apartment is closer, so she stays with him. 

Candice’s birthday party had been fun, and they were both a little drunk. She had leaned against him the whole way back to his place, a pleasant buzz coursing through her as she clung to her best friend’s arm.

They were giggling about… she wasn’t really sure, as they pushed into his apartment and she immediately plonked herself down on the floor and tore the heels from her feet.

“Ouch,” she complained sadly as Mulder took off his unbuttoned shirt.

Mulder groaned as he dropped himself down to the floor, too, leaning against the wall. 

He looked so cute tonight. His checked shirt was one of her favourites, and when he wore it unbuttoned she liked to tease him about being able to see his nipples through his undershirt.

“Stop looking,” he’d tease back.

They both tended to get quite handsy with each other after a couple of drinks. Scully’s girlfriends never believed her when she told them nothing had ever happened between them. Not even a kiss?! they’d ask. She would shake her head.

That was her best friend. Mulder. She had never even thought of him that way.

-

Nobody believed Mulder when he said he and Scully were just friends. Well, they weren’t just friends. They were best friends. She was the best friend he could ever hope for. He never understood why someone so beautiful and cool would bother with him, but they had been close for over a year now. She took him how he was, in all his geeky idiocy, his unhinged ideas and his ‘overactive imagination’, so she called it.

She was staying with him because his apartment was closer. He loved having her at his place.

She was laying on the floor, on her front, soft and giggly from the shots she had been doing when he found her. Before he whisked her away from the party, away from the crowd and the noise and now… here they were. Alone, in the quiet.

“Let’s watch a movie, Mulder,” she said, and he knew what would happen. She would argue with him about movie choice, fighting to get her own pick, and she would fall asleep within ten minutes. Gentle snuffly snores as her head laid on his shoulder.

“Sure,” he said.

He could never say no to her.

-

She swung her legs under her on the couch and curled up against him as the movie started. She was tired, but she needed to unwind from the party, and she loved spending time alone with Mulder, just the two of them, quietly watching a movie together. Perfection.

There’s no way nothing has never happened between you.

Sara’s words echoed in her head. It was so silly. Scully knew, even if her other friends didn’t, that men and women could have a solid, genuine friendship without attraction coming into it.

She looked down. Mulder’s hand was spread on his thigh, and she shifted slightly, her bare knee bumping into his fingers. He looked down absently for a second, shifting slightly before returning his attention to the television.

She supposed… she supposed she wouldn’t mind if he kissed her. Friends kiss sometimes. Even make out, when drunk. It didn’t mean anything. She wouldn’t mind, either, if he wanted to place a warm, large, protective hand on her knee. That sounded quite nice.

Alcohol did silly things to her.

-

There she was, head on his shoulder, arms curled around his elbow, fast asleep.

Her bare knees were pressed against his thigh and he couldn’t let himself look. Not Scully. Pretty, vibrant, stubborn Dana, clever enough to be an intellectual sparring partner but loved trash movies. She was wonderful, really.

He could let himself fall asleep, too. Stay here, cuddled up with her. He could probably reach the blanket without jostling her, drape it over them both, cocoon them together from the world.

But… no. They would both ache like hell in the morning. He would put up with it as payment for staying here, like this, but he didn’t want that for Scully. He tried his best to hold her still as he slipped away before gently lowering her down on the couch, propping a cushion under her head.

“Hm?” She stirred, tilting her head to look up at him as he grabbed the blanket.

“Shock horror, you fell asleep,” Mulder whispered with a stupid grin. “I’m going to bed. Sleep tight.”

He draped the blanket over her, crouching down to tuck her in. He avoided her eyes which were fixed on his face. She was sleepdrunk, hazy as she watched him.

“Night, Mulder. Love you.”

“Love you too, pal.”

He leaned in to place a kiss softly to her forehead. She tilted her face slightly, his lips dragging over her eyebrow. He hoped she didn’t hear how his breath hitched.

Mulder skated his fingertips over her cheek before forcing his legs to push him upright and march him off to the bedroom, where he threw himself down on his bed and covered his face with his hands, groaning.

-

Twenty.

She was now a woman in her twenties. It was a momentous day, she thought.

“You’re almost legally allowed to drink all the alcohol you’re gonna consume tonight!” Mulder teased as he filled another bowl with chips.

Scully snorted.

“Who’s coming tonight?” she asked.

“You want the whole guest list?” Mulder rolled his eyes. “Baby, I invited the people you told me to invite.”

“Oh my god,” Scully sighed loudly. “Stop calling me baby.”

Mulder twisted the top of the half-empty bag of chips and whacked her with it.

“I’ll stop calling you baby when you stop acting like a baby.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. Anyway. You’re twenty. Just a baby.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” she stated simply. “After the party, after everyone leaves, I’m killing you. But not before, because I could use your help.”

“You should’ve let me host this party for you. It’s your birthday.”

“I don’t mind. Anyway, you’re helping. That’s enough.” 

Mulder unsheathed a stack of red Solo cups and placed them next to the empty punch bowl.

“So, uh… I know I was in charge of the guest list.” He cleared his throat. “But… you got a date for tonight?”

Scully let out a laugh. Little did he know.

“You’re my date tonight, silly,” she said lightly, tickling his ribs as she passed him.

She rolled her eyes at herself. 

-

Mulder considered it his duty to make sure Scully had the best time possible.

His self-assigned jobs were to make sure the punch and chips were always full, and to make sure Scully was having a good time.

“Yes, Mulder,” she said with a giggle and roll of the eyes on his third check. She placed her palm on the side of his head and thumbed the shell of his ear. “A wonderful time, thank you.”

Scully looked ethereal, dancing with her friends and chatting away and giggling. It was by design and not choice that she always looked incredible, but she somehow always managed to look perfect, pick the perfect outfit. Mulder tried not to look at her feet. Not only did he hate himself for how sexy she looked in those stilettos, but he knew her feet would ache later and she would seek his assistance.

As the late night turned to early morning people began to filter out and it was after 3am when the last guest left. She had somehow ended up sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs as she watched Mulder bring through the half-empty punchbowl and the completely empty chip bowls. 

“Thank you, Mulder,” she said dreamily. “Tonight was so perfect.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

“Come here.”

She held her arms out, parting her legs as he moved closer. His breath hitched as he positioned himself between them, letting her pull him close into an embrace, her body sliding on the counter to press against his.

“You’re the best friend ever.”

Mulder closed his eyes, trying not to think about all the places they were pressed together. He was insanely attracted to her but sex for him had thus far been about nothing but carnal desire, and he just couldn’t think of her that way. It was a bastardisation of everything she was to do that.

But her thighs were nestled either side of him and it was killing him.

They stayed holding each other for several agonising seconds, neither of them pulling away. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh when he felt her lips press into his neck, his heart pounding in his chest. 

Slowly, she pulled away from him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and leaned in. She pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth.

Smiling, she pushed him away, announcing her need to pee, so he held her hand as she jumped down from the counter.

-

Sheepishly, she returned from the bathroom, finding Mulder tidying up in the living room.

She threw herself down on the couch, watching him with his trash bag as he stacked Solo cups and threw them away. He stacked, and stacked, and a cup squelched, overflowed. Scully giggled at him, which earned her a look.

“Mulder,” she said firmly. “Tidy up later. Come sit with me.”

Like a robot that only responded to voice commands, he unceremoniously dropped the trash bag and crossed to the couch. 

They sat in silence as they easily moved into each other, entwining and slotting together, his arm around her shoulder and her head on his, her legs swung up to drape on his lap. His other hand was on her shin, hot and engulfing. Slowly, he slid his hand down to her foot, digging his thumb into her arch.

-

Scully let out a surprised moan and Mulder immediately regretted his actions.

Neither of them spoke. He continued, despite himself, to massage her feet, as best he could with one hand, knowing those wonderful stilettos made her feel sore. He loved and hated doing this for her. The thought that he was making her feel better, feel good, was fantastic, but the noises that came out of her when he did it were nothing short of absolute torture.

It was worse tonight. He removed his arm from her shoulder so he could work on her with both hands, digging deep into her arches. He was such a weak man. Those unholy noises were going straight to his dick, and he should move, throw her off him, but it might upset her, and he could never do anything like that to her. Especially not on her birthday. But she had to feel his half-hard dick against her calf, surely.

She keened as he ran his whole hand over the top of her foot, thumbing pressure gently on her arch. She lifted her knee nearest to Mulder, dragging her calf mercilessly over his dick.

There was no way she missed the bulge against her skin, and there was no way she missed the way his breath caught in her throat. Her movement had to have been deliberate. Hadn’t it?

She slid her leg back to its original position. Mulder turned his head to look at her, and she was staring at him, soft and insistent. She tilted her chin up defiantly. He knew her so well, and she was asking for something. 

He kissed her, achingly chaste in contrast to what was happening in his lap, where she had resumed slowly dragging her leg back and forth.

She licked his lips and he easily parted them, so pliant to give into her every whim. He was overwhelmed. The years of friendship, of yearning, the pain of watching her go on dates with the wrong guys, kiss them at parties all came down to this moment and he clung to her, frightened she would slip away if he let go.

She was in his lap now, fully, straddling him with knees on the couch either side of his hips. He couldn’t believe this was happening. 

The thought occurred to him to wonder her motivations. Was she looking for a fling? Was she just drunk, making out with him for some kind of comfort? Would they wake up tomorrow morning and go back to being just best friends? He wouldn’t be able to deal with that.

“Mulder,” she whispered as she pulled off of his mouth. She sighed. “I don’t want to jeopardise our friendship.”

She was going to slide off his lap, halt the journey they were on. Too good to be true, as he suspected.

“But I’ve just wanted this for so long,” she continued. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

He had never loved anyone else. She was so precious to him. His guy friends would laugh at him, but he struggled with picturing Scully in sexual situations, even through dark lonely nights, because it felt as though he was defiling her wonderful, ethereal beauty. The perfect image of her in his head. The pedestal he had placed her upon.

But now, she had slipped off of his lap and was standing with her back to him.

“Unzip my dress?”

He was too weak to resist. Too adoring to question anything she said. He slowly unzipped her dress, drawing his eye to the milky white skin of her back. She was without a bra, but he had bashfully taken note of that earlier in the evening. The dress dropped to the floor, and she kept her back to him as she pushed down her tights and panties.

She turned around and she was perfect. She began to tug his white t-shirt from his jeans, bunching it up around his armpits until his stupid brain instructed him to lift his arms. She discarded his t-shirt and placed her hands on his chest.

“Mulder?” she asked. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” he replied immediately, a little too loudly. 

She looked up at him insistently and he realised she was waiting for him to take the lead. Shit. He kissed her again, ignoring the little voice in his head that said you’re defiling her, cheapening her as he unbuckled his belt, popped open the button, dragged down the zip. Her hands tugged his jeans down and he moaned as her breasts pressed into his chest.

It all clicked into place and although the voice inside his head was yelling now, it was drowned out by white noise as Mulder lifted her, her legs wrapping around him as he carried her off to the bedroom.

It was all over embarrassingly quickly, and he wanted to cry. Regardless, she dotted kisses all over his face. It was perfect, she cooed at him, reassured him. You were perfect.

-

An hour of pillow talk and staring into each other’s eyes, pondering the enormity of what they had just done, Mulder disappeared under the covers and found his way between Scully’s legs. She felt positively giddy as he used his mouth on her, perfect perfect perfect as he left her with absolutely no doubt how he felt about her. The guilt she had felt for daydreaming about this was melting away with every touch, every kiss, every lick, knowing that all along, he had been yearning for her just as much as she yearned for him. It was a heady concept.

She was almost disappointed with how quickly she came, not wanting it to be over but happy to see Mulder’s face again. Her beautiful, quirky best friend, the evidence of her orgasm smeared around his face. It was impossible to comprehend.

The look in her eyes told him that maybe – just maybe – he loved her as much as she loved him.

-

Their friends couldn’t believe it. They couldn’t believe they finally did it, and couldn’t believe it took them so long.

If it was so fucking obvious, Mulder thought, why the hell didn’t you tell us?

He actually dreamed about the way she looked when she came. The way she gasped when he cupped her breast. The way she said his name in any context.

She always said thank you after Mulder made her came, and it drove him insane. His gratitude is through the roof.

He was still expecting for the novelty to wear off. To stop trembling when she undressed him to stop getting just a little hard every time she kissed him.

He never did.

[sagan-starstuff]

XF Meta: Scully's Medical Training Timeline

At the request of @randomfoggytiger, I wanted to do my damnedest to make Scully's education and training timeline make even a little sense. I'm a physician (specifically a specialist in adult infectious diseases), and it's fairly clear to me that CC and Co probably didn't actually talk to any doctors about how medical training works. Love my girl - I'm a Scully Effect kid, I don't think I'd be a doctor at all if it weren't for the inspiration of Dana Scully. But her timeline is...iffy at best.

Disclaimer: My medical school and post-med school training occurred from 2009-2018, Scully's occurred in the 1980's-90's. From what I can tell, the durations of many residencies and fellowships don't seem to have changed much, but I can't say that for certainty for all programs at all institutions. I am also from the US, so I cannot speak to medical training in other countries.

Our girl was born in 1964, and so unless she skipped a grade (which some schools would do if students were classified as "gifted" or otherwise exceptional, she would have graduated from high school at age 18 in 1982 and went straight to college. Let's assume she didn't skip a grade, for the sake of argument.

You have to have a Bachelor's degree to apply to medical school. These degrees typically take 4 years, though if someone arrives at college with credits from dual-enrollment high school classes or AP exam credits OR if they take summer classes some people can complete them in 3 years. I don't know what the availability of dual enrollment or AP classes was like in the early 80's (and like CC, I'm too lazy to do the research to find out), so we can assume that Scully graduated from college in 1986.

Medical school is 4 years long - no shortening this at that point in time, and even now in almost all cases. So that puts medical school graduation in 1990 IF she's following a traditional timeline and went straight from college to medical school.

Now, if someone is going to go into practice they have to do a residency in at least one of a variety of specialties (Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, etc.) in order to be board certified and practice independently. There are very, very few job options in clinical medicine if you DON'T do a residency, so if you want to practice, you have to do it. Residencies can be anywhere from 3-5 years, depending on the specialty. You can also further subspecialize after a residency by doing one or more fellowships (typically 1-3 years depending on the fellowship) before sitting for your board certification exams and starting independent practice. For example - after medical school I did a 3-year residency in adult internal medicine, then a 2 year fellowship in adult infectious diseases to be eligible to sit for the boards and enter my specialty, so 5 years further training after medical school before I could get a job, get board certified, and practice.

Scully is a forensic pathologist. She would have had to do a 3 or 4 year pathology residency (both were options at the time) followed by a 1 year forensic pathology fellowship. You CANNOT perform autopsies right out of medical school, if you are going to be a forensic pathologist you HAVE to do this training. So, following a traditional timeline this puts her as having completed forensic pathology training in 1994 or 1995. Pilot starts March 7th, 1992, so this is loooooong after she's canonically already an FBI agent and teaching at the academy.

But our girl's a smart cookie, so let's take a little leeway with her timeline. Let's say she skipped a grade some time in K-12. This puts high school graduation in 1981. Let's say she ALSO graduates with a bunch of AP credit and does summer semesters and finishes her undergraduate degree in Physics in 3 years. This puts her as starting medical school in 1984, with graduation in 1988. She'd still need to do that pathology residency and forensic pathology fellowship - let's assume a 3 year residency, then 1 year fellowship, so she'd finish training in 1992.

Still doesn't fit.

Let's go totally off the rails here - we know Scully was recruited out of medical school to the FBI, so she didn't do a traditional residency at all - UNLESS the FBI has an internal forensic pathology residency. It would HAVE to be accelerated in some way - some programs combine residency and fellowship by giving less elective time and more focus to the fellowship content. It's not common but they exist. Let's say in theory the FBI has an accelerated forensic pathology residency that takes 3 years, in addition to the 20 weeks of the FBI academy training. This has her finishing residency AND FBI academy training some time in 1991.

This is the ONLY way she could have finished forensic pathology training AND the FBI academy with enough time to be a fully certified forensic pathologist and FBI agent with some time left to teach at the FBI academy before being assigned to the X-Files on March 7th, 1992.

I can suspend my disbelief enough to be on board with this. You'd have to be pretty damned special, which we know she is, to get recruited out of medical school by the FBI. Maybe they even developed the accelerated combined residency/fellowship just for her! She's Dana Katherine Motherf***ing Scully, people!

Now, IWTB is where things get REALLY unbelievable. (Disclaimer: I have not watched IWTB since seeing it in theaters in 2008. I'll get around to rewatching it someday soon. Probably with a bottle of wine. Not a glass. A bottle.)

Mulder and Scully go on the run in 2002. We don't know how long they were in the wind, but by 2008, she's been allowed to resume a career and is practicing at Our Lady of Sorrows. Clearly in pediatrics - but general pediatricians sure as hell don't do stem cell transplants, so she'd almost certainly have to be a pediatric oncologist. We aren't told what her specialty is specifically, but that's what she'd have to be to do a stem cell transplant.

(That scene in the OR isn't even what stem cell transplants LOOK LIKE but that's a rant for another day, back to my point.)

MEDICAL BOARDS DON'T JUST LET YOU CHANGE YOUR SPECIALTY FOR FUNSIES.

(Deep breaths. Serenity now. Ok, let's do this.)

Scully would have had to do an ENTIRELY NEW residency AND fellowship in order to practice as a pediatric oncologist. Pediatrics residency is 3 years long. Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship is 3 years long. In order for this to be even remotely possible, she would have had to START residency in 2002 to finish fellowship by 2008 and start her job at Our Lady of Sorrows.

And she's a former FBI agent harboring a known felon, on the run from government officials and alien hybrids who want her and Mulder dead.

There is absolutely no way even the smallest, most hard-up pediatric residency program is going to accept her with that hanging over her head. I'm not going to get into all the details of how rigorous and stressful the post-medical school residency application and match process is, but even if she didn't apply until she KNEW it was safe to come out from underground, she'd still have to explain a multi-year gap in her resume/CV to the program directors. Multi-year gaps in career and training without a reasonable explanation like a medical issue, time off to care for an ailing family member, time off for research, time away in a different, legitimate career are NOT looked on kindly when applying for residency positions. She would have a HELL of a time getting into a totally different residency.

It could happen - if anyone could do it, she could. But there's absolutely no way there's enough time for her to complete that training by 2008.

"But sagan-starstuff, it's CC, it's X-Files, we know there was no show bible and no one but the fans gave a shit about continuity or things making sense, there's no logic just vibes"

I KNOW, OK. I KNOW. And I love this insane, beautiful masterpiece anyway. I love exploring the possibilities of how and when it all could have happened with my fellow insane Philes who work so hard to glean meaning and order from this perfect mess of a show.

But couldn't CC have talked to one (1) doctor about what medical training is like at some point between 1993 and 2018? Just one?

Anyway. Yeah. That's my meta. Scully's training timeline makes no goddamned sense. Compels me, though.

@randomfoggytiger, this is for you. Honorable mention to @precedex-files who I ranted about this with in messages a while back.

[illaisland]

[illaisland]

^ also made by leaiscully 🏆 they are so✨talented✨

<3

Fic: POANG (M, MSR)

4400 words; rated M for a lot of real and imaginary sex; the solve high hits Scully right in the libido and a trip to IKEA doesn't help happy birthday, @laurencem (ao3)

There’s a novelty to working a case in a city. They’re usually in smaller towns, out on the edges of things where the fields blur into the woods and the monsters wear animal skins. Today’s monster is human, or something that resembles one. Scully doubts sometimes that it’s possible to be so brutal and retain humanity.

They’d been called in on this one on the suspicion of witchcraft. There had been a series of killings: bundles of herbs left at the scene, dead bees scattered about, cedar smoke lingering in the corners of the rooms, corpses ritually disfigured. The perpetrator turned out to be more ecofascist than druid. No caltrops for him, and no nice trip to the woods for her and Mulder. This killer has been cultivating poison plants, including the kind of mushrooms that reduced a person’s liver to a liquid. He raved as they put him in the car, something about the city being a hive and its denizens mere drones. Scully tuned it out.

Case closed by noon and they’re back at the hotel. It’s not a particularly nice one: no restaurant, no pool, no premium channels. They’re close to the airport, far from most of the amenities. The closest landmark is an IKEA looming blue and yellow by the highway. Scully regrets making them drop off the rental car early, but Skinner’s been making noises about expenses again. Frugality and a high solve rate are the better part of valor. There’s a free shuttle to the airport, but their flight isn’t until tomorrow morning.

“Where do you go to eat around here?” Mulder asks the college-age kid at the desk.

The kid shrugs. “IKEA.”

“To eat?” Mulder sounds skeptical. It’s music to Scully’s ears. She settles her hip against the wall and watches him.

“I mean it’s not where I would take a date, but they’ve got food,” the kid says, glancing between them.

Mulder turns to Scully. He lifts an eyebrow.

“IKEA it is,” she says.

It’s a short walk, at least. Scully’s used to the touristy part of DC, which this is decisively not. She’s used to walking next to Mulder in a suit and heels instead of jeans and flats. It feels different. She never feels small, walking next to Mulder. He makes space for her, even when they’re out on their own time, like this. She wonders if that makes it look like their on a date, when they’re out of uniform.

She wonders, just a little, if they’re on a date.

The automatic door of the IKEA opens invitingly, a wide mouth to swallow them up. Mulder ushers her in, an ironic little twist to his lips that tells her he knows what she’s thinking. The maw of capitalism. An ecosystem where the consumer is the consumed. Clearcut forests shimmering with ancient insects.

Also, meatballs.

The end-of-case adrenaline is starting to hit her. All the emotion she locked down in the moment comes back, rerouted from fear to something more feral. She’s restless. She is, truth be told, a little horny. Some confluence of her cycle and the solve high has her wishing she’d stayed in the hotel room. The bathtub looked clean enough. She could have enjoyed herself. Instead she’s letting Mulder lead her through a labyrinth of simulated lives and enticingly arranged furniture. He stops to mosey into one of the staged spaces and beckons her over.

“Look at this, Scully.” He spreads his arms. He can almost touch both walls of the fake apartment. The grey t-shirt he’s wearing stretches in such an enticing way over his chest and shoulders. She gets a whiff of his deodorant and it makes her toes tingle. There’s something about the scent of artificial woods layered over just a hint of sweat that makes the feral part of her flex its claws. She’s always susceptible to the scent of Mulder, but this is something else. She could duck under his arm and sink her teeth into the bare skin of his bicep.

Some part of her is mortified to think of him in this way. Most days, that part gets the upper hand. Today, it’s been outvoted and overpowered. Want prowls back and forth in her belly. She steps closer.

“Can you imagine living here?” he asks. “Actually, you probably could. It’s about the size of a ship’s cabin.”

“Compact,” she says.

His eyes crinkle as he smiles at her. “Just like you.”

I’d compact you, she wants to say, even though it makes no sense. She wonders if her pupils are dilated as she gazes up at him. She wants to push him up against the wall, but there’s a cabinet in the way. He’d hit his head, and he’s had enough cranial trauma. She’s his doctor. She knows better.

He’s still smiling at her and for a moment, her wild desire recoils, rebuffed by doubt. How would he react if she lunged for him? Does he even think of her that way? There have been hints over the years, but Mulder’s mouth writes checks the rest of him isn’t willing to cash. In his mind, are they just on a nice little outing, two work colleagues grabbing dinner? Was he planning on going back to his hotel room to watch whatever film features a leggy brunette wearing the fewest clothes?

“Kidding,” he says, and she realizes she’s staring at him. “Scully. I’m kidding.”

“Right.” She takes a step back as he lets his arms fall to his sides.

“Are you all right?” He ducks his head. “You look a little flushed.”

“I’m fine,” she says automatically.

“I guess it’s been an exciting day.” He meanders out of the fake apartment onto the floor of the store. They seem to be in the seating section. Scully doesn’t need a sofa, and she doesn’t need to look at sofas and imagine on them herself cuddled into Mulder’s side. None of these options are as sexy as his leather couch anyway. Oh god, when did she start thinking his couch was sexy?

Mulder stops by a chair with a light wood frame. “POANG,” he reads off the tag. It’s got white cushions and a sort of modern look. “Oh hey, it’s a rocking chair.” He tips it with one finger and it obligingly rocks. “Maybe you need one of these for your living room.”

Scully is possessed by a vivid image of the chair as it might look in her living room. Mulder is sitting in it, jeans yanked open and shirt rucked up, and she’s straddling his lap and riding him until the runners squeak under them. The motion of the chair accentuates the motion of her hips and her tits swing until he captures them in his big warm hands and and and…

“Maybe,” she says. “But Mulder, we have an IKEA closer to home.”

He drops onto one of the sofas and stretches out. He’s obnoxiously long. His shirt rides up, revealing a wedge of golden skin. “You’d probably rather have something vintage anyway. You’ve got champagne tastes, Scully. You like your creature comforts.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” She crosses her arms.

“No.” His lip twitches in amusement. “Although I have to say, if I had your bed, I’d never get out of it.”

Please, she thinks, fervent as a prayer. “Is that why it took you so long to stop sleeping on the couch? Your inherent slothfulness?”

“What can I say.” He brushes his hand over his stomach, smoothing his shirt down. She bites her lip and looks away. “I’m a man of many vices.” His voice is low, almost a purr.

It’s exactly this kind of fucking behavior that feeds the poor confused wild thing inside her. Does he know that? She knows him better than anyone else in her life and she has never been able to decide if it’s real, not even the time they almost kissed. Her need for him gobbles up every scrap of plausibly deniable flirtation, simultaneously satiated and starving.

She looks away from him. The next section is more innocuous - lots of cute little baskets and boxes. “I thought you were hungry.” She can’t imagine a magazine holder stoking her libido.

“Right,” he says, rolling off the couch. “Date night.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s lunchtime.”

“Who knows how long it’ll take us to get to the restaurant?” He shades his eyes with his hand, as if he’s peering over some dim horizon. “This place is engineered for maximum distraction. Think of all the lives we could live between here and there, Scully.”

She manages to haul him through the living room storage without too many detours, although she does have a wistful moment over another one of the staged living spaces, imagining the two of them sharing an apartment. She shoves the thought away. They spend so much time together she should be sick of him. She should fantasize about freedom, or solitude, or meeting a handsome stranger in a tiki bar on a tropical beach. But even when she loathes Mulder, she longs for him. Even the way he examines a Billy bookshelf gives her a rush of fond familiarity at the way he devotes his whole attention to it.

“Should we get you a desk?” he teases as they enter the next section.

Only if you’ll fuck me on it, she doesn’t say. Instead, she rolls her eyes and marches toward the shortcut, knowing he’s drifting in her wake. They skip the kitchen section, which is good; she doesn’t have to imagine herself with her hands braced on a countertop as Mulder presses against her from behind, one hand palming her tits and three fingers of the other inside her. They proceed through dining. In her head, she’s definitely not bent over this table as he takes her from behind, or sitting on that one as he has her for dinner, his lips moving eagerly over her thighs.

There’s something wrong with her. The heat deep in her belly keeps building. It’s Mulder’s damn grace and the way he smells and the fit of his jeans and the way the t-shirt strains when his arm flexes. It’s been too goddamn long since she had sex - years, and that was the once, and years before that - and something has awoken inside her, stirred out of sleep by the moon or the tides or who knows what the fuck. She’d go out on a limb for ancient prophecy at this point. That’s how primal her desire feels. It’s wild inside her, barely contained. And it’s so fucking stupid to feel all of this in the middle of an IKEA - a sanitized, flatpack world of sexless confused caricatures and beds that look too flimsy to fuck in.

Beds. So many beds. Acres of beds. And they do look flimsy, but she imagines fucking in them anyway. That one has a slatted headboard she could attach restraints too. That one has storage drawers for her collection of sex toys and Mulder’s collection of dirty magazines. She’d fuck him in a trundle bed at this point. Hell, she’d fuck him on the floor and let security drag them out and shove them into the cop car still coupled together, because there’s no way she’d let him go.

She somehow makes it through beds.

“You must be hungry,” he says at her shoulder. “Or else you took up competitive speedwalking.”

“That continental breakfast was a long time ago,” she says without looking back. She doesn’t need to look. She can sense him: his heat, his bulk. She could reach out for him and know exactly what she’d touch. That’s the problem with her fantasies. She knows him too intimately.

The wardrobe section doesn’t trouble her much, aside from a brief vision of dragging him into a small dark space and having her way with him. She doesn’t even flinch when they get to the children’s section, or at least not outwardly. Her eyes are on the prize and for once, it’s not Mulder’s ass. It’s the IKEA bistro at long last.

They dine. Mulder has meatballs. Scully has the salmon. The meatballs look suspiciously pale to her, but Mulder assures her they’re delicious. He holds out his fork for her, won’t take no for an answer. She relents and he feeds her a fragment of meatball dipped in the sharp sweetness of lingonberry jam. It’s better than she expected. She eats her salmon and wonders at her impulse toward the ascetic. Mulder is supposed to be the one who’s chosen a lonely, constrained life, but she’s the one denying herself mashed potatoes and a potential heaping helping of Mulder. If his flirting means anything, and that’s the if of her life at this point.

She sighs and puts her fork down on her plate. Mulder eats the last bite of her salmon, but only when it becomes clear she isn’t going to eat it. He smiles at her and her heart and her loins both throb. Fuck, she loves him so much.

They escape the IKEA without any further purchases. Fortunately, most of the rest of the store is small goods and packaged furniture, so the only thing to tempt her is the occasional surface that looks firm enough to support them both.

“Call me when you want dinner,” Mulder says when they get back to the hotel. She locks herself into her room and scans her notes on the case. She waits five minutes, fifteen, an hour. There’s no knock on her door. She starts to run a bath. Her whole body feels congested. She knows it’s not possible to die from metaphorical blue balls, unless it is and she’s about to be in the X-Files again. She wants him so much she feels like a teenager again. If they’d grown up together, he would have been her first kiss. She knows that. Four years would have made a difference until it didn’t. She would have waited for him to finally, finally see her.

She’s waiting for that now.

There’s a full length mirror near her door and she stands in front of it. There’s nothing wrong with her, surely. She’s not as buxom as some, not as curvy as others, but he’s dragged his eyes up and down her body a hundred thousand times. She’d know what that meant from anyone else. With Mulder, who knows? It could be sacred geometry. He could be comparing her to the women in the tapes he stashes under his tv. Maybe she’s just in his line of sight and he’s thinking about something else, sinusoidal curves or what inhabits the bleak depths of space, and it only looks like interest.

She squeezes her breasts, thumbs her nipples. Her own hands aren’t what she wants, but they’re familiar. She slides her palms over her body as the water thunders into the bathtub. If she closes her eyes as she tugs off her t-shirt and unbuttons her jeans, she can imagine it’s him. Fire follows her fingertips as she draws a topographical map of her body with his phantom hands. She’s down to her bra and panties when someone raps on the door.

“Just a minute,” she calls, and turns off the water. She peers through the peephole, wrapping a towel around herself. It’s Mulder. Of fucking course, it’s Mulder, interrupting her at exactly the moment she would want him to, so that he can tell her about fairy rings or the exciting properties of silicon instead of fucking her through the hotel bed.

She lets him in, rolling her eyes at herself.

“I went back to the IKEA,” he says. “In the vein of the heroes of old. I conquered the extremely domestic wilds of the main floor and I may have ordered you a POANG chair to be delivered. Also, I brought cake.” He puts two plastic boxes on her dresser. “But I didn’t know if you’d want chocolate or strawberry.”

“Why?”

“Why? We solved the case, Scully. I think a little celebration is in order. Or why the chair? I thought it would look good in your living room. I don’t have the space for one.” He looks her up and down all too briefly. What a gentleman. “Are you busy? I can come back later.”

“I’m not busy,” she says, just to see if he’ll accept it. For two people so passionately devoted to the truth, they lie to each other all the time. Maybe it’s plausible that she frequently sits around her room en déshabillé and he’s just missed it every time.

“Chocolate or strawberry?” He produces two forks. “Although I guess we can share.”

“Mulder, does it look like I want cake right now?”

He does the slow pan up and down her body this time. Heat rushes up her body, a sudden blaze that stokes the furnace in her belly to a roaring flame. She can feel the flush in her cheeks and down her chest.

“I admit, you don’t seemed dressed to dine,” he says at last.

She opens her hand, a gesture that invites him to follow his thoughts to their logical conclusion and leave.

“The cake was a ruse,” he says abruptly, ignoring her hint. “I wanted to check on you. You seemed a little off earlier.”

“Off?” She sits on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah, maybe frustrated or angry.” He drags the standard-issue chair over, sits with his knees almost brushing hers. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. It was a weird case.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” she says.

He stares at her. There’s a long, long moment, during which she thinks about kissing him. She can’t stop looking at his mouth. As if he senses her gaze, he licks his lips. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” she asks, still half-mesmerized.

He taps her knee with one finger. “You said you were fine. Okay. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.” He gets up.

“What?” she says, flummoxed by his sudden pivot. “Mulder, the cake.”

“You can have it,” he says. He tosses the forks on the dresser by the cake. “Eat it in good health. I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you going?” she asks.

He paces back and forth. “I don’t know. It kind of feels like you don’t want me here.”

She opens and closes her mouth. “First of all, I’m in a state of undress.”

“I don’t care about that, Scully.”

“You don’t care?” She stands up. “What if I care?”

He makes a dismissive gesture. “I’ve seen you undressed, you’ve seen me undressed, it doesn’t have to be weird.”

“It doesn’t.” Her voice is flat with disbelief. “It doesn’t have to be weird.”

He shrugs. “Not unless you want it to be weird.”

“Fine.” She’s fed the fuck up. It’s been a long, weird, fairly excruciating day. She drops the towel.

This time Mulder really looks at her. She can feel the way his eyes drag over her skin, stopping to caress each rounded nipple, dipping toward the elastic of her panties.

“Not weird at all,” he says, but his voice is hoarse. He shifts, which makes the bulge of his erection more noticeable. Fuck it, Scully thinks. You don’t get to the moon if you never fire the rockets. She feels drunk. Mulder’s full attention has always been 100 proof.

“I wanted to fuck you in the POANG chair,” she says conversationally.

“Yeah.” He shifts again. “I wanted that too. Maybe that’s why I bought you one.”

“The way it rocks,” she says, and shivers a little, which makes him shiver too.

“I wanted to play house in those little apartments,” he tells her. “You and me, falling asleep watching tv, but in the same place for once. You and me, sharing a bed.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“Is that why you seemed mad?”

She nods. “Also I was hungry.”

“Where else did you want to fuck me?” he asks, stepping closer. His eyes have gone dark green. His pupils are wide.

“Everywhere,” she tells him.

“Wanna start with this bed and see how far we get?” His hands settle on her hips, so lightly, as if he’s afraid she’ll pull away. Instead, she drags his head down, breathes against his lips for a moment, and then kisses him.

The universe implodes. That’s what it feels like, anyway. But even if it were the end of all things, she couldn’t stop herself. He smells like pine and musk and his neck tastes like salt and she’s kissing him everywhere, everywhere. He lifts her and she wraps her legs around his waist and he has one arm around her waist and one hand under her ass and his fingers are stroking the outside of her thigh and she thinks if he’s not inside her in the next minute, she’ll just die.

He laughs and she realizes she said that out loud.

“I think so too,” he says. But he’s still dressed, he’s still wearing all his goddamn clothes, and she tugs at his shirt until he takes the hint and drags it over his head. She lets go and works on the button of his jeans. His jeans and his boxers come off together when they shove at them, and then he’s less dressed than she is. He kicks off his shoes and the tangle of denim and silk and she undoes her bra because she trusts his competence, but also she doesn’t. Need has made them so, so foolish.

“I want to,” he says, and swallows the rest of his sentence, but he hooks his thumbs into her panties and she lies back and lifts her hips. He skims the fabric down her legs. There’s hunger in his eyes. She lets him look, dropping her knees wide. He swallows hard and crawls up the bed to lie next to her.

“I wanted this to last,” he tells her.

“Me too,” she says. “I thought it would be different.” The light in his eyes dims slightly. He starts to turn his face away and she presses her palm to his cheek and turns it back. “Mulder, no. I wouldn’t change anything about this.”

“You sure?”

For answer, she kisses him, throwing her leg over his hip. Maybe it’s not what she expected. But she’s had years of self-denial, and she’s finished with that. There will be opportunities later for endless foreplay (as if every interaction since their handshake in the basement hasn’t been foreplay) and romance and slow indulgence, but she doesn’t have the patience for that. She’s already reaching for him, already wrapping her hand around his hand around his cock so they work together to guide him in. It’s such a relief that she almost cries, even though she aches as she stretches to accommodate him. And then he’s moving in her and it’s the rhythm of the universe, the pulse of existence. They’re not being safe and she doesn’t fucking care. He’s inside her, he’s touching her, he’s kissing her, and she’s wrapped around him like she can fuse their bodies together.

Every texture of him is a revelation: the hot satiny skin of his cock, the sleekness of his belly, the light fur on his chest. She knows them all and yet. And yet. It’s so different now. She feels the slickness of his lips and the rough friction of his tongue in her mouth and on her skin. It’s everything. Finally, she’s filled up, satisfied, satiated, maybe for the first time in her life. She wants more, oh God, she wants more of him. She wants to live under his ribs like that conjoined twin. She wants her bones jumbled with his. She wants him to fill her every way he can think of. She wants to buy a whole new range of sex toys and treat him just right. But for now, this is enough.

“More,” she says, and he pushes her onto her back without sliding out of her. She spreads her legs wider. He pins her, lacing his fingers into hers and stretching their arms over her head. His hips jolt as he shoves into her, harder and deeper, and she arches up to meet him. Every cell of her body feels like it’s filled with sparks of pleasure; she could map her nerves for him if she still had the power of speech. But he understands her incoherent cries. He always understands her.

She’s whimpering under him, helpless in the throes of her pleasure. The tingling starts in her extremities and washes through her, a tide rising higher and higher. She can feel his muscles tensing. His stomach is trembling. He’s holding back, wanting her to come first. One day, she thinks, she’ll indulge him, urge him to think of himself, but not tonight. She squeezes around him, taunting him. He groans and looks at her. She smirks at him and he growls in his throat. Now it’s a challenge: he has to make her come first, not just wish for it. He doesn’t let go of her, but drags their joined hands down her body. He rubs their fingers against her clit, tight circles that have her gasping. And then she’s coming, her body bucking under his, and he makes her ride it out before he’ll let go.

“Please,” she says, and he thrusts into her shivering body and she wraps her legs around him and holds him so tight as he buries his face in her shoulder and yells. He tries to roll off her right away but she won’t let go. She wants his weight, all of it, and after a moment he surrenders and lets her take it.

“We’re definitely going to fuck in that chair,” she whispers in his ear after a while.

He laughs into the curve of her neck. “We’re definitely going to fuck a lot of places.”

She kisses his ear and he turns his face so that his lips meet hers. “Making up for lost time.”

He shakes his head slowly, eyes sparkling. “We haven’t lost anything,” he says. “We’ll make our own time.”

For some reason, her eyes prickle with tears. She kisses him again, threads her hands through his hair. She believes him. Maybe they have a future full of flatpack furniture and charming antiques and lazy mornings in bed. Maybe they can celebrate all their cases like this.

“Let them eat cake,” she says, and he laughs again and holds her close.

[unremarkablehouse]

Scully’s Hot Date

CH1 | Mature | S6 | WC 1639 | AO3

Summary: Mulder happens to run into Scully on her way to a blind date. Inspired by this photo of Gillian.

Tagging: @today-in-fic The FBI parking garage was desolate as Mulder slowly made his way to his car. Friday night before a public holiday, it seemed like everyone one had places they’d rather be. The squeak of tires and flash of light as a car pulled into a space was truly startling, more so the fact that he recognized that car within a fraction of a second from his periphery. It was her, Dana Scully, returning to work after 7pm on a Friday night. A large part of him hoped it was to see him, but as she parked her car near his, he knew logically it didn’t quite add up. Lounging on the trunk of his car, Mulder watched Scully get out of her car, her body stiffening momentarily before making her way towards his direction with a renewed confidence as she clocked the awe struck look on his face. Mulder didn’t mean to ogle but he had never seen her dressed quite like this before. Her hair pinned up displaying her neck, a dress that was soft and showed her curves, and her breasts. Good lord, her tits were out and Mulder’s brain had ceased to function. He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring at her, but Scully’s laugh and the click of her fingers brought him back to earth. She was now standing in front of him, an amused smirk on her face at his reaction. 

“Hi, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here tonight,” Scully said with an edge of awkwardness in her voice unconsciously licking her lips in that way that drove Mulder insane.

“You look very… non-FBI tonight,” Mulder replied, unsure of the exact right words to use to describe how incredible his Partner looked. 

“Thanks, I think. I have a date,” Scully bristled as she started to make her way to the parking lot stair case. 

Mulder caught up with her in a few easy strides. 

“Hold up, who is the guy? He doesn’t work here right?”

There was nothing remotely casual about the tone of Mulder’s voice, the jealous quality was begrudgingly sweet so Scully took pity on him and stopped to talk as they entered the stairwell. 

“It’s a blind date a friend set me up on, I haven’t met him before so I organized to meet in front of the Hoover building so we can get a drink nearby.”

“Do you need a chaperone,” Mulder asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, standing close to Scully, her back almost pressing against the concrete wall. 

“I think I’ll be ok,” Scully said with a laugh, placing her hand on his chest to push him back, but instead slowly rubbing large circles across his pecks. Her heart raced when her palm made contact with one of his erect nipples, but she didn’t remove her hand.

“You look really beautiful tonight Dana,” Mulder said his eyes staring so intensely into hers it was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. 

With an anguished sigh, Mulder dropped his head down, awkwardly resting it on Scully’s shoulder like a child needing comfort. Instinctively, her hand found its way into his hair, rubbing over the nape of his neck and back again. 

“What times your date,” he whispered, doing nothing to hide the melancholy from his voice. 

“Not for another half hour, I’m early.”

“Hmm,” Mulder said with a sad acknowledgement, nuzzling his nose into her neck in a way that made Scully catch her breath. Instinctively, she found herself kissing his temple and inhaling his smell. The warmth of their bodies and their proximity to one another was intoxicating. Mulder pressed both hands onto her hips to anchor her in place as he gently kissed a spot under her ear and whispered “I wish it was me.”

Mulder pushed away from her, ready to go back to his empty apartment, while Scully went on a date with a man who wasn’t him. Feeling a tug on his arm, Mulder turned as Scully grabbed onto his hand. 

“If you want it to be you, then ask me out Mulder,” her voice was breathy but challenging as she stared him down. 

Mulder’s puppy dog eyes seemed to penetrate her soul, filled with angst and a vulnerability which Scully was helpless to resist. 

“Dana Katherine Scully, will you go on a date with me?”

Scully made a show at umming and ahhing, while Mulder dramatically contorted his face in agony. 

“Okay,” Scully finally replied with a large grin, eliciting a delighted laugh from them both as Mulder excitedly bent down to kiss her. 

It was meant to be a quick celebratory peck in the heat of the moment, but Scully’s arms wrapped around Mulder’s neck and before they knew it he had lifted her up and pressed their bodies against the wall. Scully hungrily kissed Mulder, pulling his head closer to hers, unable to get enough. Mulder’s hands wondered ever so slightly up her thigh and back down to her perfect ass, unable to explore more territory as he held her up to his hip height. 

Her legs wrapped around him, pulling Mulder closer and grinding her hips against him hard. And with that, the flood gates were open. All the years of restraint and denial crumbled as they finally admitted the physical need between them. Decency and self awareness had long left the building as Scully’s hand reached for Mulder’s rock hard cock. Stroking it over his pants she moaned and ached to feel him inside her. Mulder enthusiastically nuzzled and kissed at her breasts while Scully attempted to undo his fly. In a surreal out of body experience Scully realized she was about to fuck Mulder for the first time in an FBI stairwell, minutes before she was meant to be going on a date with another man. However, she could not bring herself to care about the impropriety of the situation, conversely it actually made her ridiculously aroused at how primal and insane the whole situation was. Any concern or hesitation she might have had on the subject vanished completely when Mulder found her left nipple and bit down on it in a way that lead to a gasp and a flood of arousal. Moving their heads back up to kiss once more, Mulder’s hand managed to free his cock and slide it against Scully’s wet cunt as he deftly moved her panties to the side.

Mulder stroked himself against Scully’s slit, bumping the head of his cock over her clit as she moaned in approval. Scully squeezed her thighs hard against Mulder’s waist, impatient for more of him. “Mulder, now,” she panted in desperation.

The relative size of his cock and the angle of their bodies, forced him to enter her at an excruciatingly slow rate. Scully felt the stretch as it struggled to accommodate his girth, and her mouth watered at the thought of riding him until she was spent and sore. With a grunt and a thrust Mulder was completely sheathed inside her and Scully felt her pussy flutter and tingle at just the feel of him inside her.

Without much leverage, Mulder rolled his hips in circles, adding a pulsating motion to fuck her without ever leaving Scully’s body. The movement felt delicious, and the feel of Mulder’s stubble against her neck as he moaned “Oh, God Scully” was enough to tip her over the edge. Scully’s back awkwardly arched against the wall, her moan and cries of ecstasy leaving no doubt as to what she was experiencing. 

Mulder was in awe as he felt her convulse around his cock, moisture gathering between them, and the unmistakable quivers driving him wild. 

Mulder wasn’t anywhere near ready to cum himself, but he felt a sense of satiation by proxy as he continued to rock into her body, gently bringing her back from the edge. 

The loud trill of a cell phone brought them both back to reality and Mulder quickly removed himself from Scully and straightened up, their hearts pounding at prospect of getting caught. The ring continued and Scully realized it was coming from her purse, the neurons once again firing in her brain, battling adrenaline and her post orgasmic haze. 

Answering the phone with a professional, “Dana Scully,” her voice did not betray any of the lewd activities that had just taken place, and Mulder marveled at her ability to compartmentalize so quickly.

“Hi Derek, I can’t really hear you I’m in the parking structure. I’ll see you outside in 10.” 

As Scully hung up the phone and was greeted by Mulder’s heart sick face. 

“You’re still going to go out with him?”

“Well I can’t cancel this late, it would be rude.”

Mulder gave a snort of derision as he straightened his pants and licking his lips to remove some of Scully’s lipstick that had made its way onto his lips. He was pouting, and while Scully would normally find it infuriating, he looked adorable all ruffled with feint traces of lipstick still on him. 

“Mulder, would you like to join with us? We’re just getting drinks around the corner.”

“Really?” Mulder asked, excited as a kid on Christmas. 

“Of course, let me just straighten up in the bathroom first and we can go.” 

They quickly walked down  the stairwell to the lobby exit, but Mulder pulled Scully back before she could open the door. 

Looking up at him with a questioning stare, Mulder bashfully smiled at her. 

“I need a hug before we face the outside world,” Mulder admitted with a vulnerability that melted Scully. 

Without hesitation Scully tightly wrapped her arms around Mulder, her body melding perfectly into his.

With a quick kiss to her head Mulder broke the hug, “come on, let’s make ourselves look presentable, we have a date.”

[enoughslices]

Mulder, the truth is out there, but so are lies.

Dana Scully, S1E17 E.B.E.

[numinousmysteries]

more a headcanon that got out of a hand than a fic. tw: 2020. that whole thing. [on Ao3] @today-in-fic

For years they feared a mass contagion of extraterrestrial origin spread by swarms of bees. Instead, the virus that grounds the world to a halt is an earthbound molecule transmitted invisibly through laughter, kisses, shared spaces, and spoken word.

A pall falls over the house. Banished from campus, William half-heartedly watches lectures on Zoom. Mulder starts the tiger show but turns it off in disgust before the first episode ends. 

Scully is the only moving part, chugging along in sharp contrast to their inertia. She’s long existed in the liminal state between the sick and the well, the living and the dying, but the sheer volume of devastation brought by this virus is wearing her down. Out of desperation, the hospital administration pulls her off her normal caseload and assigns her to the overcrowded ER. 

On a purely scientific level, the work—the once in a lifetime opportunity to chart a course of treatment for a novel virus in real-time—is thrilling. There are no textbooks, decision trees, or best practices; only instinct, trial and error. But this isn't just cells in a microscope—it's a protein expanding and exploding in human bodies. Bodies with children, parents, spouses, loved ones. Bodies that can no longer fit in the hospital morgue and need to be carried out to refrigerated trucks lining the streets outside. She's never felt like more of a failure.

She doesn’t want to talk about the work. She comes home still masked and then locks herself in the guest room in an attempt to protect them from whatever she’s been exposed to during the day. 

“Hey, Will,” Mulder whispers conspiratorially one April afternoon. “Did I ever show you how to pick a lock?”

But their son has all of her practicality and simply shakes his head in resignation. They compromise with a private salute to their personal healthcare hero, clanging pairs of All-Clad pans out the kitchen window to herald her arrival home. Even through her N95, they can tell it makes her smile. 

*****

William watches lectures and does his problem sets, but his heart isn't in it. Staring at the screen all day isn't as engaging as exploring physics in-person with his professors and classmates.

Mulder's got them in the habit of running laps around the property for exercise—or, as Scully says, to prevent bed sores and blood clots in their otherwise sedentary lives—and sometimes they'll do what William calls "prison workouts", push-up, planks, and bodyweight squats until their quads ache. They'll toss a ball in the yard or play one-on-one basketball on the rusted net in the driveway. 

Mulder knows their son is miserable, marooned in this house with his parents, so he's trying his best to keep the kid entertained. Secretly, he enjoys this little stolen time with his son. The kid should be out there, learning about the world and his place in it, but this could also be their last chance to spend every day together like this, and he knows better than to take it for granted. He just wishes Scully could be with them and not on the other side of a locked door.

They FaceTime with her and can hear her in-person voice preceding its echo on the phone by a few milliseconds. Will calls it mom from the future and mom from the past. They both wish she could be here in their present.

"Can we please come in?" Mulder begs quietly to the closed door one night, tracing the grooves of the wood with his fingertips. "We can all wear masks. I just need to see you." His voice cracks with need and desperation.

"I don't know," she says. "I'd never forgive myself if I got either of you sick."

"But you feel fine, right?"

"For now, sure," she concedes. "But I could be incubating the virus. Asymptomatic transmission is real and happening all over the world."

"What if we're outside, appropriately distanced, and wearing masks?"

He can hear her thinking, then sighing, from the other side of the door. "Fine. You two go outside first and sit on one end of the lawn. Then I'll come out in a few minutes and sit several feet away."

"Great!" He leaps to his feet to gather three lawn chairs and tell William the plan.

Muller and William set hers up closer to the house then measure out about six feet further out in the yard before placing two chairs for themselves.

They take their seats, put on their masks, and wait for her to emerge.

His heart breaks a little when he sees her. He watches her go to work and come home every day through the window but he hasn't noticed how thin she looks or gotten close enough to see the dark hollows under her eyes. He knows it's been rough for her. She’s tougher than most but this situation is unbearable. He's tempted to close those six feet between them and take her into his arms, coronavirus be damned.

"Move further back," she says, waving her hand off in the distance when she sees them.

He notices William is about to protest but he brings his hand to the kid's forearm and shakes his head. She's the boss in this situation. They're lucky enough to get to see her, what's a few more feet?

*****

The days drag on. Experts talk about flattening the curve. The curve does not flatten. Experts advise not buying masks, to save them for the healthcare workers who need them most. Experts say to wear cloth masks. Experts say cloth masks are not effective. The president advises drinking bleach. Bodies keep piling up. Scully keeps showing up for work and secluding herself at home. 

"Listen, why don't you quit or take some time off?" he asks her through the door. “We can afford it.” 

"I took an oath," she says solemnly and the conversation ends. He knows better than to fight against her sense of duty. He knows better than to argue she should put her own health first. The only cards he has to play would be himself or William, but she keeps isolating herself to keep them safe.

William itches to go beyond the property on his runs. The dirt road that leads away from the house is typically empty so Mulder doesn't mind if he does a few miles out and back.

"I’ll cross the street if someone is on the same side as me," William says. That's enough for Mulder.

"Should we make sourdough?" William asks one afternoon, briefly looking up from his phone.

Mulder doesn't know where this sudden culinary interest comes from but he's excited to do anything that gets William away from his screens. Especially something they can do together.

They consult with Scully who, of course, knows about starters and mothers, live cultures and pre-fermentation. From the other side of the door, they take notes.

"We'll cut your slices real thin and slide under the door," Mulder says.

The grocery store in town is doing curbside pick up so they order their ingredients online and then drive up to receive their bounty.

They mix the starter together first, watching as the liquid thickens and bubbles in a mason jar. It reminds Mulder of their old kitchen science experiments from William's childhood. Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes. Mentos in soda, although Scully didn't like the cleanup after that one. Just like he was as a kid, William is methodical and delighted by chemical reactions. 

The starter has to rest in the fridge for several hours so they take a break to research recipes. No one has ever made bread in this house, he thinks. Scully's a good cook, but she prioritizes nutrition and efficiency. She's not about to spend hours in the kitchen plodding through the steps of an elaborate recipe. Mulder is even less so. His culinary prowess has expanded from his bachelor days, when boiling water was an occasion, but he still sticks to the basics, evolving as William's tastes grew and matured.

Why had they never done this before?

"It smells good!" Scully shouts from her quarantine.

"At least we all still have our sense of smell," William jokes.

At night, Mulder and Scully sit with their backs to the door and try to inhale the familiar scent of each other. He hasn't touched or held her in weeks. It's the longest they've gone without physical contact since he was dead and buried. And the longest they've gone without sex since the first couple of months after the trauma of William's birth. He'd do anything just to hold her hand, rest his palm on the small of her back, bury his head in her hair. He knows this is harder for her, but it isn't easy for him either.

After William retreats to his room for the night, he knocks softly on her door. "Are you up?" he asks.

He hears her get out of bed and step over to the door.

"I'm up," she says, softly.

"What are you wearing?"

She gives him a hollow pity laugh. "I miss you."

"I'm right here.

"You know what I mean."

"Oh, I know," he says. He knows in the deepest reaches of his being. "I miss you so much."

"Let's go somewhere when this is all over."

"Mmhmm," he agrees. "You and me on a beach. I'd say Will, too, but I'm pretty sure he's sick of us—or at least me."

"How's he doing?"

"He's holding up alright," Mulder says. "It's tough for him but I think he's putting on a brave face for my sake."

"He's a good kid."

"The best."

They're quiet for a minute. He strains to hear her breathing on the other side of the door and imagines her sitting there.

"Are you sure I can't come in?" he asks. "We can wear masks. Sit on opposite sides of the room."

"Mulder, no."

"I really want to see you."

*****

By May, it's warm enough for them to spend most of the evening outside, sitting or walking (at a safe distance) together for hours. Will retreats to his room to do homework or, they suspect, chat online with his friends, but Mulder and Scully like to stay out until after the sun sets, talking or just enjoying each other's company in the silence.

"You haven't gotten sick yet," he says, one night, initiating his latest plea to get her to open the door between them. "And I read case numbers are going down. Don't you think we can relax a little?"

"Trust me, I want to," she says with a sigh. "I miss both of you."

"You have no idea how much I miss you," he says, seriously.

"I think I have some idea," she says, the corner of her lips arching into a smile. 

"Do they know if this thing is sexually transmitted?" he asks. "We can wear masks. That could be kind of hot."

"If we're close enough to do that, I think we're close enough to infect each other," she responds quickly, making him realize she's also thought about it and that makes him smile in turn. 

They're quiet for a while, walking and feeling the air cool down as night settles over them. These chaste days feel like the early years of their partnership. He isn't sure what's worse—never having touched her or not being able to know once he knows how sweet it can be to be. Actually, he's sure the latter is worse. Now he knows what she feels like underneath him, what her skin tastes like, the sound of her little moans. They've had phone sex, quietly, from different ends of the house, after she let him leave her little pink silicone vibrator outside the door one night.

"I wish it were you," she sighed over the phone the first night.

"It can be," he said. "Just let me in."

"You know I can't."

Back on their walk, his dick pulses just thinking about the way she sounded on the phone that night. Husky, breathy, like a storm building and breaking overhead. The first time they were together, the force of her orgasm blew him away. He knew she wasn't putting on a show for him by how embarrassed she seemed afterward. He kissed her gently on her neck, her breasts, her collarbone as she came down, her breathing slowed, and let her know he'd never seen anything sexier in his entire life. Scully screamed when she came. She twisted her tiny features up in a gasp that seemed to straddle the line of pain and pleasure. Her whole body came along for the ride, spasming and pulsing, and he knew he'd spend the rest of his life trying to see that again and again. Fortunately, there were lots more times after that. As William got older, they'd learned to be quieter, which only made it more thrilling when he left for college and she realized she could come with abandon again. Of course, COVID brought him back, and sent her into the guest room, so they hadn't had a chance to be loud in months.

"Call me later," she says. It's a demand, not a request.

"You know I will," he replies. "I'm torn. I want to stay out here and be with you, but I also can't wait to go to bed and talk to you."

"Well, I was hoping we'd do more than talk."

"You know what I mean."

"Oh, I know," she says. "I'm also looking forward to that."

Crickets fill the silence of the balmy spring evening. It's nice, just being with her like this. At this point, he'll take whatever he can get.

"I spoke to Frohike today," he tells her.

"Please don't tell me he's bought into these ridiculous conspiracies about the virus," she rolls her eyes over her mask.

"He has some interesting ideas," Mulder smiles. "But you know he's mostly harmless."

*****

She's among the first at the hospital to get her first vaccine dose that winter. William and Mulder celebrate from their side of the door with whiskey shots of their own.

"I still need the second dose in a couple of weeks, and then it takes two weeks after that to be effective," she says.

"But we're on the right track," Mulder calls out.

"The end is in sight!" William shouts.

“To our hero,” Mulder toasts, clinking his shot glass against the door. He never thought he’d be so intimately familiar with the texture of their guest room door. 

"Where should we go on our vacation?" Mulder asks. “You know, when this is all really over.” 

"I'm going back to school," William says.

"Good!" Scully calls from her side of the door. They both know how much he's missed his friends and his classes. In a few weeks they’ll pack him up with masks and home tests and warnings to avoid superspreader events. It’ll be a mostly virtual semester, but still good for him to get out of the house.

"I guess that leaves me and you, woman," Mulder says to the door. "Where am I whisking you away to?"

"Somewhere warm," she says longingly. "On the ocean."

"That can be arranged," he says. He's dreaming of long afternoons in the sun—well, as much actual sun as Scully will allow—holding on to her as they wade out into the ocean. Full days where they don't leave their hotel room bed. They've earned it. She certainly has.

[tikuo2007]

『年末年始ベーシスト』

20230101

[doronjosama]

Baby Bigelow on the Pöang. #kittensofinstagram #catsofinstagram #catscatscats #catstagram #kittens #bigelow #biggie #poang #july2022 #tabbycat #littlebebs #cutiepies #rescuecats #adoptdontshop #mysons #mytreasures #kittybabies #darlingboys #catmomlife #dailykitten #latergram https://www.instagram.com/p/CoOps3RMvPp/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[katebeckets]

okay plan for the next few hours. gonna get boba and dinner, clean my apartment, listen to some music, listen to the bones podcast, continue this ask game from last night (feel free to join), dance, gif, and start s6.

[thatfragilecapricorn30]

Fic Friday (53)

Title: The Christmas Ruse

Author: Brynstein (@frogsmulder)

Word Count: 3.4k

AO3 Description: In order to avoid being set up with one of her mum's friends' sons, Scully uses Mulder's help to create a fake relationship. But Mulder doesn't know.

My thoughts: A fake dating fic where one party is unaware is so funny. Especially on Christmas Eve! Scully would definitely try to pull something like this but of course Mulder would figure it out. I love the ending of this fic so much too. It's a cute Christmas fic to get in you in the hoilday spirit!

Enjoy! Tagging @today-in-fic