#Scully POV

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 TXF Fic Rec #44: "Genius" by Kipler

Today’s rec is a casefile that wonderfully captures the tone, vibe, and themes of a well-told MOTW episode around season 2-3, and it’s even better than what Chris Carter could write.

While it’s a gen fic without overt UST, the bond between M&S is subtly and beautifully portrayed. As the story unfolds, It elevates itself beyond a good casefile to become a moving character study of Mulder and how Scully sees and understands him.

This fic is atmospheric, sensitive, and intellectual, featuring tight and exquisite prose in that vintage Kipler style I love. There are so few fics like this. Truly a gem.

---

🥏 on AO3

author: @kiplerxf length: novella, 16,000+ words season: season 2 pairing(s): M/S friendship tags: casefile, good OCs, Scully-POV rating: G

tagging @today-in-fic

[the3williams]

still life

Sometimes at night she wonders if the two of them just blinked into existence fully formed like this, which is to say she wonders if they’ll never change. If they’re just here to play these parts. The streetlights whistle through the blinds like film noir and here she is in his bed, on his bed, next to him but not touching, with whiskey on her breath. Tomorrow or yesterday she’ll put on red lips and they’ll work another case they never solve.

Agent Scully is already in love, Agent Scully does nothing about it but still asks Agent Mulder to sleep beside her. Agent Scully keeps going and going and

“Did I die?”

“Scully.” He leans closer. “Never.”

[rotaryphoam]

i had absolutely zero motivation to draw today until i saw this reblog from @princeslimey. so, heres SBURB Files episode 3.

[mekammin]

now what i really love about bad blood (besides everything else about bad blood) is how EXPRESSIVE scully is when we see her in mulder-vision. maybe because they're so in tune, maybe because he's a phenomenal profiler, maybe because he loves her. he just sees through all of the guards she puts up so easily

like this is what he sees whenever shes not chewing him out

[aloysiavirgata]

Loved your Skinner POV. I am the ultimate sucker for a Margaret Scully POV. Do one? *doe eyes*

Cancer. How can it be cancer, how can Fox already have been at the hospital, how can they plot and whisper and conspire; how can Dana have cancer?

Margaret is so angry and so afraid. So, so angry.

Terrified.

She has the wild, insane thought that Dana is too beautiful to have cancer, as though Melissa hadn’t been too beautiful to be casually murdered.

Fox looming and lurking in hallways and corners and sunsets and pre-dawn stillness. Like a grim guardian angel, like the beautiful statue of Lucifer Bill once took her to see at Liège.

Margaret sees Fox kiss her daughter’s bright hair one night, kiss her daughter’s sad, smiling mouth.

She doesn’t know what she wants for them. She crosses herself and walks away.

***

She doesn’t understand the situation with Emily, not really. She listens to everything Dana says about induced hyperovulation and surrogates and she nodded, dutiful, because she can hear Dana’s throat so tight, trying not to cry.

Emily is very sick, Dana says. The courts have no precedence for this, Dana says. I want to help her, Mom.

If Emily is Dana’s, if she really is, then she’s Margaret’s granddaughter and Margaret, to her shame, doesn’t want her to be.

Fox stands in the corner of the room, staring out the window at nothing, his jaw hard as stone. He radiates a quiet steadiness and Margaret feels her strange, lovely daughter draw strength from it, like a solar panel on a bright day. Are there lunar panels? Mulder’s eyes are nothing like the sun.

He radiates a cold fury and Margaret almost has pity for the target of it.

“When I was abducted by Duane Barry,” Dana begins, her voice mostly steady. “Wherever he took me had some kind of program where-“

Fox slams his fist into the windowframe and Margaret jumps, gasps. “Fox!”

“Mulder…” Dana breathes, her eyes closed.

He stalks from the room like a panther. Like an assassin.

***

“I’m pregnant,” Dana says, a little blushing laugh. Her hand splays over her flat belly.

Margaret surges with such piercing love for this incomprehensible child she birthed. “Oh honey,” she breathes.

Dana drops her head to the side, cheek to shoulder. “I’m so tired already,” she confesses. “I don’t know how you had four with Daddy away.”

She reaches for her daughter’s slim fingers. “I wanted five. Eight, if we could have. Three miscarriages after Charlie and then….” she is appalled at herself. “Dana, I’m so-“

Dana squeezes her mother’s hand. “Miscarriages aren’t some kind of thought virus, Mom.”

Margaret squeezes her hand back. “I know, I know. It just feels like bad luck. And Fox, will he be….?”

Dana looks up, a flush high in her cheeks. “Why are you bringing Mulder up?”

Margaret rolls her eyes. ““I’m a Vatican I Catholic, Dana. Not an idiot.”

Her daughter has the grace to look away. “He wants me to marry him,” she murmurs.

Margaret loves Fox. She loves him the way people love barn cats and funny cock-eared dogs and every pied beauty. But all of a sudden it’s Fox at Thanksgiving, Fox properly at Christmas this time. Uncle Fox, wedding-anniversary Fox, Fox calling her…what? Mom? Surely not Mrs. Scully still.

Margaret knows her children have done the math on her oldest son’s birthday, that he was mighty hefty for a “preemie.” She knows her latest grandchild deserves to be born in wedlock, she knows every Catholic from Father McCue back to Saint Peter would be absolutely appalled with her.

“Be sure of what you want,” she says to the chestnut tree just past the living room window. To Saint Mary Magdalene, to all repentant sinners.

***

William, six. William clever and tall for his age and gingerbread-colored like his father, with his mother’s round lapis eyes. Fiona, four, happily squirting colored water into a large plastic bin of shaving cream. The twins - Silas and Clara- are nearly three and getting bathed in the sink by their father. Dana, a tenured professor, lolling on the couch. Dana pregnant with number five.

Dana yawns like a cat over some tedious medical journal. Dana ever rail-thin since her cancer. Dana still looking depleted of essential nutrients. Phosphorus? Zinc?

But Dana is still a doctor, so Margaret is silent.

“Are you all right?” Margaret asks her irritable daughter. She beams at Clara, absurdly chubby, with her Aunt Melissa’s coppery curls. Clara with her plump hands like little stars. Silas, rosy and dark-haired, howls in general indignation. Silas with his father’s fairy-forest eyes and impossible lashes. Silas who loves to pat his grandmother’s cheeks.

“Mother I’m FINE,” Dana sighs. “Sy, hush. It’s only warm water.”

Margaret watches her son-in-law for a time, watches his long hands and his furrowed brow as the twins laugh and splash and protest in the deep farmhouse sink. Her Bill could never have done what Fox does.

“Loretta Lynn said she stopped having babies when they started coming in pairs,” Fox observes, sluicing water over his anguished twins. Clara laments pitifully. Silas has a broken air about him, weary as his mother.

Dana laughs, sweet as communion wine. “Stop knocking me up, then,” she grins, hand over her enormous belly.

“Not until you marry me,” Fox replies, thumbing Silas’s fat cheek. Kissing his darkly curled head.

Fiona on the carpet, giggling as William makes farting sounds in his armpits. Fiona with the blackest hair and the bluest eyes and the most perfectly sprinkled freckles like her Uncle Charlie.

William like a wood-elf, so tall and bright.

Dana laughs again. “No priest would ever, would they, Mom?”

Margaret, exhausted and happy, sighs at the pair of them.

In the oven, turkey tetrazzini from the Thanksgiving leftovers. Potty-training sticker charts on the fridge. Will’s perfect math homework, Fee’s wobbly I LOV YU!! above a careful crayon drawing of her family.

Margaret could have never predicted this, could never have seen Fox in sweats and baking Texas Sheet Cake for the PTA. Fox staying home and juggling nap schedules so that Dana could tell anecdotes about maggots to her adoring students.

Fox has a blog, which is Quite The Thing nowadays. Fox is a bestselling author. He’s made the talk show circuit and the girls from bunko send her newspaper clippings.

Fox towels off his exhausted babies. He diapers them, dresses them in fleecy pajamas. They look at him with enormous, reproachful eyes. They pout.

Margaret holds her arms out, draws them in when they toddle over.

The babies nestle, nuzzle, make sweet baby sounds as the sink drains away. Their little mouths pop open, lashes curled on their flawless cheeks. She’s never expected Dana, of all of her children, to be living this life. Cold, prickly, distant Dana with her lunatic partner and her brain cancer and her dead little girl.

“There are infinite infinities,” William tells Fiona. “But some infinities are larger than others.”

[vampirewalterskinner]

It’s all about them, actually

[california-112]

Mulder's little giggle as he gets on the vibratey bed is KILLING me

[tbpickle]

Outsider's POV

If the viewers can see how these two act around each other, other characters on the show should too, right?! Are there any fics from their perspective?

I've read a few gems, but would love more please! =)

On The Outside by starwaler42 Perfect Opposites by @sisterspooky1013 - Not the Same by MissAnnThropic - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2214812/1/Not-the-Same Through Basement Walls by @msrafterdark Ice Water by @cecilysass

[agent-troi]

i think i’m more inclined to stick up for mulder even when he doesn’t necessarily deserve it for the same reason scully is. he’s been emotionally abused by most of the people he’s cared about his whole life, living with a burden of responsibility and failure that he never should’ve been forced to bear, and he’s constantly ridiculed and dismissed as “spooky” when all he wants is to find his sister. i’m not saying his trauma is an excuse for treating scully badly sometimes, but the fact that he never really knew what a healthy relationship was supposed to be like is an explanation (as is his lack of emotional object permanence when it comes to the people who have hurt him). i think people overestimate how difficult it is sometimes to unlearn unhealthy habits (especially when they may not even have a clear understanding of what healthy even is), and i’m definitely not saying mulder shouldn’t try (the man desperately needs therapy lmao), just that i understand him i guess

[randomfoggytiger]

"I've Already Lost One Sister to This Quest You're On"

Part of the evolving Bill Scully POV series (on Ao3, or Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII.)

Based on @baronessblixen's prompt: "I wish you'd write a fic where Bill Jr. and Mulder at one point get a drink together (or play basketball) and talk about being an older brother (and maybe even losing a sister)."

Hope I did it justice~.

Post Closure, or thereabouts.

*****

It would be easy to miss anyone amidst the tidal wave of Saturday morning shoppers. Head down, leaning over a folder, Fox Mulder looked like every other slim, dark haired American male knocking back a burger and soda.

Bill, eagle-eyed and resentful, picked him out from across the foodcourt.

Mulder hadn't noticed his approach; and, not one to pass up an opportunity, Bill slapped a food tray on the table loud enough to startle. He was pleased when Mulder twisted upright with shock and a touch of outrage pinched in the corners of his mouth.

“Mr. Mulder.”

“Bill.” 

A few years ago, Dana's partner would have hunched down, defensively posturing against oncoming judgment. Now, he seemed roughened, gazing warily out from under distrustful forehead lines and disheveled, sharply cut hair. His sleeves were too large; and he pushed them further up his forearm, eyes bouncing back and forth between Bill's.

“Dana with you?”

“Yeah.” 

Of course she was. When wasn’t she. 

Tara had run into her in the deli aisle. From his wife’s tactful “two salads, two sandwiches, and two cups of dessert”, it didn’t take a math degree to deduce his sister was still traveling in pairs. Bill figured if he found one of them, he’d attract the other. 

Hence, the impromptu lunch meet. 

Mulder watched, without disguise, while he pulled the cart close and sat in the only available chair; then, shrugging, took another bite of the thickly wrapped, thickly layered burger Dana most certainly hadn't wasted money on.

“On a case?” 

 “Yes.”

“Staying long?”

“We have a flight out this afternoon.” 

Of course.

Ripping off a pop tart wrapper, Bill grunted. “Was she planning to stop by, or was that too out of your way?”

He watched Mulder’s jaw clench, unhinge. “Why don’t you ask her?” 

“I’d have to see her first.”

“You saw her at Christmas.”

“And then work came up.” He leveled a glare across the table, refused to back down when it was leveled back. 

“Not every Christmas, Bill.”

“Yeah. Just the big ones.” 

Mulder’s chair scraped backward, its raucous jerk spinning a few heads. Bill figured he had about five seconds before his chance to see Dana turned tail and stormed off. 

“Mr. Mulder.” As expected, the other man politely paused mid-sweep, hand poised around a hill of crumbs. “I’m not here to argue. I just want to see her.” 

To his credit, Dana’s partner digested his words, and sat-- albeit stiffly, with clear intent to ignore. 

In silence, they waited. 

And waited. 

“She said she’d be awhile,” Mulder repeated, working his way through a mound of fries.

“She usually doesn’t take this long.” Pivoting in his chair, Bill scanned the room. Even if she were close, her head wouldn’t clear the shoulders crowding together. 

“She does when it’ll be awhile.” 

“Mr. Mulder, I know her. Dana’s up and out the house in under an hour, back from an errand in under two. Always has been.” 

“When she has to be. Scully usually prefers to take her time.”

There was no mistaking the challenge in that ambiguous statement; but Bill swallowed his response and counted it for glory.

“Dana loved these as a kid,” he abruptly offered, pointing at the unfinished half of his pop tart. “She and I would fight over the brown sugar ones. When she was really little, Dana’d get mad and try to argue it wasn’t fair I got the bigger piece because I was older. So, Mom let her have one all to herself. That cured her. She was always so sensitive to junk food. Makes sense why she became a doctor.” 

Mulder was still, posture slowly unwinding as he balled up the food trash and nodded once. 

“Charles stole a couple cookies from the jar one time and needed an accomplice to help finish them. He begged her; but she didn’t want to feel 'sugar sick' later, so refused. After he was punished, Melissa caught Dana crying about it in her room.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t know the answer after seven years with her, Mr. Mulder, you never will.” It was a cheap shot, Bill owned, but earned.

His opponent flinched but didn’t waver. “She felt she’d let him down.” 

“She always was a little Mother Teresa.”

Mulder tilted forward, elbows planted on top of his reading material. “Is that what you think she does? Make her choices based on the weak and wounded? Find a charity case and become its bleeding heart?”

“I think you underestimate her nature.” Plowing over Mulder's snort, he insisted, “You buy her unbeatable act because it allows you drag her across the country no matter how much pain's she's in. Dana would rather die than admit defeat. And I think you feed her inclination to go above and beyond so that it won't become a solo act, chasing your...."

It was too hard to keep anger alive while remembering darker times and soberer feelings.

"Little green aliens," Mulder finished. “If that’s what you believe, then you don’t know your sister, either.”

When he stood this time, both knew Fox Mulder wasn’t coming back. But he stayed a moment, contemplating, before reaching out to briefly touch Bill's shoulder. "But... you can, Bill. You can know her."

Without another word, he tossed his trash, gave a parting nod, and walked off, head disappearing above the crowd as he drifted further and further away. 

And Bill sat, and waited, and wondered.

******

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

Tagging @today-in-fic

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 TXF Fic Rec #28: "This House is Burning" by Tesla

Today’s fic is one of the best profiler!Mulder casefiles. It strikes a nice balance, offering just the right amount of everything: the case is engaging with genre-savvy details yet is neither convoluted nor cumbersome; the romance is front and center but not overindulgent. The prose is straightforward and streamlined. It flows with such ease and pulls you into the narrative effortlessly — it’s a page-turner before you know it.

A number of cliched romance tropes are played straight (e.g., the 'one bed' scenario, misunderstandings due to an inability to communicate), but the excellent writing pulls them off with great subtlety. I buy it all. I love the dialogue in the final scene that resolves the emotional arc, marking one of my favorite UST to RST moments. I often find sex scenes dull and skippable, but every single one here is hot, short and well-written. This is a comfort fic that I return to time and again, enjoying it with unchanging pleasure.

---

🥏 on X-Libris 🥏 on Gossamer (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

length: novella, 36,000+ words season: early seasons, probably season 3 pairing(s): M/S UST to RST tags: casefile, angst, smut, rift, one bed, undercover, Scully-POV, Mulder-POV rating: mature/R

[the3williams]

knowing

[link]

She knew she was well. But well and whole were not the same thing.

[monikafilefan]

Jingle Bells and Jealousy 2

Through the years, we all will be together

If the fates allow

Scully is trying incredibly hard to enjoy herself tonight, humming along to Sinatra, doing her best to refrain from scanning the masses in hopes of seeing Mulder’s distinguished profile amongst the crowd. He’d said he wasn’t coming and she unfortunately believes him. Forced merriment hides her disappointment well. Smiling politely behind her wine glass at coworkers she barely knows, going out of her way to wish A.D. Kersh and his wife a Merry Christmas. She prays her cheery disposition shines a positive light upon, not only herself, but her partner as well. Wherever the hell he is, she thinks, frustrated with herself as much as she is with him.

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

She tunes out the music to contemplate whether her unintentional evasiveness with Mulder regarding her “date” is the catalyst they need after his concussed “I love you” line in Bermuda she can’t stop thinking about, or just intentionally deceptive on her part. The flame of possessiveness that flared within his eyes when he’d assumed she was dating had sparked intrigue in her own. The fact that she was initially referring to him as her date to Skinner had flown right over her brilliant partner’s head. Throwing accusations her way should have just pissed her off, but it’s been his heated reaction in the aftermath that’s left her oddly reassured in his jealousy. She’d left the bullpen feeling wanted in ways she only fantasizes about alone in bed at night as her fingers slip between her thighs.

Her heart races at that thought.

Not since her rebellious run-in with Jerse has she seen her partner similarly flustered, and she’d be lying if she said it doesn’t thrill her. With Diana Fowley’s unwelcome presence continuously prodding at Scully’s penchant for jealousy, she’d selfishly allowed Mulder’s imaginative mind to run wild with the ridiculous idea that she has somehow found the will to date someone who isn’t him.

Scully bites her lip as guilt churns up waves of nausea in her gut.

“Merry Christmas, Agent Scully,” Agent Fields, whom she recognizes from the bullpen, interrupts her thoughts. The strong scent of bourbon on his breath makes her rock back on her heels. She supposes he’s been drinking from the punch bowl she’d spotted Tom Colton spiking earlier. “Where’s Spooky?”

“Merry Christmas,” she sighs wearily into her wine glass and walks away.

She’s leaving, she decides, as she squeezes her way through the throng of swaying bodies and twinkling decor. She doesn’t really want to be here without Mulder by her side anyway. She’s turned down three drunken dance offers already and Kersh could care less if she’s here to play nice in hopes of getting off desk duty. The more time she spends at this party, the more she wishes she was lounging on Mulder’s couch, sharing cartons of bad Chinese, and watching A Christmas Story.

“Oh!” she squeaks in surprise, bumping into the stalwart chest of the man moving toward her. Her wine spills over the rim of her glass as they nearly knock one another from their feet. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, no!” he laments, holding her close as she finds her footing. “Agent Scully, it’s me who’s sorry. I saw you coming, but I couldn’t move. It’s like a mosh pit in here,” he laughs.

She chuckles in return. “Well, it seems we both got caught in the crowd.”

Holiday music continues to play far too loudly for those who aren’t three sheets to the wind as the man she now realizes is Special Agent Derek Jenkins from the fingerprint lab leans close to hear. He’s a new hire in the lab. A sweet, handsome man who has flirted shamelessly with her three times in the last week… and still, she remains unequivocally uninterested.

“Agent Jenkins, hello.”

“Call me Derek, please.” He steers her towards an empty corner, cupping her dripping wine glass with his palm. “Let me help you.”

“Oh, that’s not necess-” Before Scully protests further, the agent spins around and snags a Santa-shaped napkin from one of the mini round tables sprinkled about the reception hall, thrusting it her way. “I appreciate it.”

He waves a finger by her head. “You have a splash of wine in your hair there. By your eye.” Flustered, Scully swipes the napkin through her hair. “Missed it. I’ll get it.”

He reaches up to pinch the stray strand soaked with wine between his fingertips and tucks it behind her ear.

“Thanks, Agent Jen- Derek.” Hiding her embarrassment, she takes a step back, her shoulder knocking a bundle of mistletoe to the floor that was taped on the wall. She sighs, “I’m not usually this uncoordinated.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Derek grins brightly and picks up the plastic flower, twirling it around his finger. If she’d met him sooner, say six years and one Fox Mulder ago, she could have easily been swept off her feet by his charm. “Where’s Agent Mulder? I mean, uh, not to be abrupt, but you’re not with someone, are you?”

The hopeful gleam in his brown eyes makes her blush. The earnest, puppy dog look of them mimics Mulder when he awaits her opinion on whether or not a case is an X-File.

“I…” Scully finds she has no idea how to answer that layered question without a hint of honesty, and Christmas seems like a terrible time to lie.

Is she with someone? Her mind rewinds to moments of commitment she’d made in the past: shaking her new partner’s hand, risking her life multiple times to keep him that way, then telling him she wouldn’t change a day.

“I suppose I am,” she finally says.

Scully expects her face to flush at the admission. Expects the entirety of the FBI to turn and point at Mrs. Spooky as they collect their bets. Instead, she’s oddly at peace with her confession to someone she hardly knows.

Derek nods in understanding, as if he’d already known the answer, giving her arms a gentle squeeze. “So for clarity’s sake, you’re not interested in pursuing a relationship with… let’s say, someone like me. Not when you’re already in one.”

Scully licks her lips, her breath catching.

She could deny the unyielding hold Mulder has held on her heart since March of ‘93. They’ve never even kissed, for God’s sake. But after years of living and breathing for only each other, she can’t. She won’t.

So she smiles instead, “I suppose not.”

“Your partner, then?” Derek mumbles to himself when instant awareness pulls his pout into a smirk.

Her silence is all the confirmation they need as she and Derek share a good-natured chuckle. This unexpected run-in has somehow left her more content in her feelings than she has in a while. Despite Scully’s unease of Diana’s position in Mulder’s past, personally and professionally, she can no longer repress the way her best friend completes her.

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock

Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time

Another song reverberates through the loudspeaker nearby. The upbeat tempo matches the buoyant shift in Scully’s mood. She barely registers that Derek’s arms are still bracketing hers, or the swift way he leans down to speak closer.

“I suppose I already knew that, but thank you for being honest with me. And with yourself too, it seems,” Derek says knowingly in her ear before pressing the mistletoe into her hand. “Merry Christmas, Agent Scully.”

At that moment, someone in the crowd loses their balance and bumps into Scully from behind, jolting her forward. Derek’s lips accidently graze the corner of her mouth, and remarkably, they both ignore the mishap as if it never happened. Being bounced around like holiday pin balls seems like a regular occurrence tonight.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Scully replies and turns around just in time to see a flash of familiar green eyes narrowing in on hers.

What a bright time, it's the right time

To rock the night away

“Mulder?” Scully blinks and he’s gone, vanishing within the horde of ugly Christmas sweaters.

Scully’s heart hammers harder with every step she takes toward the opposite side of the room.

Mix and a-mingle in the jingling feet

That's the jingle bell

“Mulder!” she hollers, stretching on tip-toe to see where he’s gone. But it’s worthless. The music is too damn loud and the people too damn tall to make a difference.

That's the jingle bell

As she weaves her way through the maze of tinsel and blow-up reindeer decor, she spots Skinner wiping frosting from his candy cane tie at the dessert table. No wonder she’d never seen Mulder all the way back here. She’s trembling, rubbing her arms with worry by the time she reaches the A.D.. Panic at the realization of what Mulder must have seen and misinterpreted practically radiates through the fuzz of her green sweater.

That's the jingle bell

“Agent Scully, glad to see you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Sir, have you seen Mulder?” she blurts.

Skinner frowns down at an ink-stained paper plate he’s holding with black horns drawn atop Santa’s head. “He left already?”

Her eyes slip shut.

That's the jingle bell rooock

***

Scully shivers as she walks down the snow-dusted sidewalk. Her heels clack purposefully along the pavement, her heart beating in time with her vapored puffs of breath. She’s winded by the time she spots Mulder’s car idling at the curbside. The buttery light from the streetlamp above slices through the thick snowflakes pouring from the sky and illuminating his downcasted profile.

Scully knocks on the window.

Mulder startles, turning his forlorn stare onto hers peering in from the passenger side. He mouths her name in confusion and leans across the car to push open the door for her.

“Hey,” he says, surprised, as she climbs in and shuts the door. “Scully, you’re freezing. Where’s your coat?”

She shrugs and flexes her cold fingers in front of the blast of heat coming through the vents. “Inside where I left it.”

He’s silent for a moment. They both are, as a somber tone falls around them like the snow outside. Mulder frowns and reaches over to gently cradle her icy hands between his. They’re big and warm, and God, she practically melts the moment his plush lips drag across her fingertips.

“You came,” she whispers.

Her voice catches the moment she notices through the dimness how impressively handsome he is tonight. His black tux is taut in all the right places, hugging his strong shoulders and toned thighs perfectly.

He rubs the hot huffs of his breath into her knuckles as his honey-green eyes silently study her. “Where you go, I go, right?”

Her stomach twists tourniquet tight.

This guilt and aggravation is making her nauseous. After Antarctica, Scully knows exactly how true his statement is. She also knows she has every right to date whoever she wants and kiss whomever she pleases. But that’s not what she’s been doing, and as much as she has considered that option previously out of self-preservation, she’s never actually done either of those things for a reason. Even during the darkest days of their partnership, she has never yearned for anyone but him.

Scully laces her fingers through his. “I know.”

“Scully…”

“Shh.” She cuts him off with a bold nuzzle of her chin against their tangled hands, her free one reaching up to straighten his crooked bowtie. “You’re so handsome.”

He chuckles darkly. “Seems as though the Christmas casual memo never made it to my inbox.”

“You wouldn’t have read it anyway,” she teases.

“Ah, you know me well.”

They both smirk, their faces only inches apart, their thumbs gliding easily across one another’s. It seems two glasses of wine have softened her edges and weakened her resolve to keep her hands to herself. Wind whistling as it blows over the hood of the car breaks their locked gaze. The snow is falling faster now, layering the Taurus’s windshield in a pillowy white blanket.

Mulder squeezes her hand.

“I’m sorry, Scully.” His voice breaks. She closes her eyes and squeezes right back. “I’m sorry about a lot of things. But about what I said earlier, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to point fingers — pencils, actually,” he chuffs.

“Mulder.” Her tone conveys how much she finds his apology unnecessary in light of her own envious reactions in recent months. “I know that, too.”

“Being honest, all I want is for you to be happy. No matter who you’re with. But I thought after what happened my hallway it would’ve… Well, I was caught off guard by the thought of you dating,” he mutters with a shrug. “That’s my problem, though. Not yours, Scully.”

“I think I know what you saw in there that upset you, Mulder, but I can assure you it’s not what you’ve assumed.” Her tongue sweeps across her lip. “There was no date. There was no kiss.”

“You- there wasn’t?”

She looks him square in the eyes, because there is no one else.

“No, Mulder. I ran into Agent Jenkins — literally, and we talked. And I have to confess that I realized when you questioned me in the bullpen, I liked that you were territorial of me. It made me feel… vindicated.”

“Because of Diana.” It’s not a question but a statement born of recognition.

Scully nods, her face flushing. “But I only ever wanted to spend tonight with you.”

“Maybe Skinner was right. I do need to pull my head outta my ass,” he mumbles. Her brow arches at that. “I just thought I saw you and Jenkins…”

“But you didn’t.”

“Not really my business, though.” His curious eyes search hers. “Is it?”

She leans forward to rest her cheek against the edge of his headrest. He senses her tactile need and palms her jaw with the hand not clutched within her own. She turns into him as she contemplates her response, cascading her mouth across his thumb. It feels so good, but it’s not only his touch that has her pulse fluttering like a hummingbird, it’s all of him. It’s always been him.

“What if I want it to be?”

“That depends… is that you or the wine talking?”

She scoffs, “ Mulder -”

“How do you feel about me, Scully?” His pout twitches as he stares at her. Into her, with such unfiltered affection Scully’s heart can barely endure it all. “Because I know exactly how I feel about you. You’re my favorite person. My best friend, my one and five billion. And, I love you.”

Tears sting her eyes and her stomach swoops to her knees. She’s warm, flushed, as if her partner is the sun and he has finally shone his rays upon her upturned face.

“God, Mulder.”

“ Head injury aside, I meant what I said in Bermuda.” His forehead touches hers. “I fell in love with you, Scully.”

“W-when?” Her chest is suddenly so tight she can barely breathe. “When did you…”

“Uh, I don’t… I’m not really sure. I just know I did.”

She nods against him, because nodding is all she can do as her heart races and eyes blur. Because she’d wanted to believe his endearing words in Bermuda badly, but she was too afraid to risk it all on her misguided hope. Because as intense and frustrating as their inseparability is sometimes, their connection defies the laws of nature: the sky is blue, the sun is bright, and Scully endlessly loves Mulder.

“Scully?”

“I-” Her lashes flutter away tears. God, she’s dizzy, knowing what she’s about to do next. “I think I’ve always been in love with you, Mulder.”

He inhales sharply, maybe a little surprised by her candor. But then his hand is cradling the back of her arched neck and pulling her into a tight hug, his other arm wrapping around to caress the small of her back. “Scully.”

“You’re the only one, Mulder,” she whispers fiercely as she hugs him back, her cold nose pressed into the warmth of his neck. “You’re my one and five billion, too.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that outside of my dreams,” he whispers into her hair and rocks her back and forth along the seats, quivering in her grip as they cling to each other.

Scully presses a lingering kiss to the humming pulse point in his neck. She can feel his rushing adrenaline thundering under her lips. She smiles, her own heart racing, a little lightheaded after uttering secrets of her heart aloud. But relief of her confession rises like bubbles beneath her skin because she has said it to Mulder: the man she trusts and loves more than anyone.

Mulder pulls back and looks at her. She knows her eyes are wide and wet, her cheeks pink as she tips her chin upward, aching for him to kiss her. “I have mistletoe,” he says wryly.

Scully laughs and reaches into her pocket, pulling out the one she’d knocked from the Bureau’s wall. “Me too.”

He grins, nodding to his own red and green flower shoved in the car’s ashtray. “You think we need them?”

The husk in his voice vibrating against her jaw pulls a deep moan from her mouth. “Mulder, please. ”

He moans back while peppering soft, tender kisses across her jawline, up her cheek, and to the corner of her parted lips. She clutches his tux in her fists and gives it an impatient tug as his mouth finally melds with hers. Their kissing is gentle, insistent, and the way their tongues glide against one another sends tingles straight down her spine.

“Come with me tomorrow,” she mumbles in his mouth. Her eagerness may surprise him, but she wholeheartedly means it. She can’t and won’t hide the thinly veiled tone of desperation. She is desperate for him, after all. “Come to my mother’s.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas, Scully.”

“I know.” Her hand dips beneath the jacket of his tux to splay her hand over his racing heart. “Christmas won’t mean anything without you, Mulder.”

His chin trembles. “Where you go, I go.”

Scully nearly sobs in relief. She dips her chin to hide her swollen-lipped smirk within the lapel of his tux.

“What're you thinking?” She feels the heat of his breath tickling her skin, his rumbling voice seeping deep into her bones.

Scully thinks that their partnership is not a mundane pairing. That it’s an intricately weaved relationship, a mass of fine-tuned threads tying them together. But she knows she cannot imagine a life without him in it.

“I think…” she lingers with her words, staring at their discarded mistletoe meant for only each other. “I think you should kiss me again, Mulder.”

“Again and again,” he promises before his mouth passionately possesses hers, their bodies tangling like twine.

“More,” she husks, and Mulder’s long leg bumps the radio’s dial, blasting “Jingle Bell Rock” through the speakers.

“And to think I thought I hated this song,” he quips with a nip to her bottom lip, kissing her again and again, just like he’d promised, until the fog on the windows is as thick as the love between them.

That’s the jingle bell rooock

[shitouttabuck]

wip wednesday

tagged by @rewritetheending @onward--upward and @alyxmastershipper 💓💓💓

i haven’t reeeeally started writing anything other than planning this out broadly because it’s very plot heavy but got a little lost thinkin about the intimacy of shaving the other day so this is from x files au in some shitty shared motel room while they’re cryptid hunting or chasing aliens idk we’ll figure it out

When he emerges, hair towelled dry and in clean clothes, Eddie frowns at him. “What?” he asks. “Promise I didn’t finish all the hot water.” “No, you just look—” Eddie gestures at Buck’s face, “—scruffier than usual.” “Oh,” Buck says, running a hand over his day-four stubble. “I forgot my razor.” “Oh,” Eddie’s face clears, “just use mine.” Buck swallows. “Um. Okay. Thanks.” Eddie nods at him and goes back to squinting at his phone, so Buck about-faces and re-enters the bathroom. It’s not a big deal, he tells himself as he foams up his face. It’s like—like sharing a hairbrush. Intimate, sure, not something you’d tend to do with people you don’t know well, but it’s not a big deal.  He wets the razor and brings it to his throat, heart hammering there so violently it feels like his Adam’s apple is trying to get out. If his hand doesn’t stop trembling he’s going to nick himself, and God, he is being absolutely fucking ridiculous. Deep breath. The razor glides over the thin skin of his throat, muscle memory even as he stares at himself in the mirror. Doesn’t think about Eddie doing this every morning, using this very razor. Blade edge kissing his jaw the same way it kisses Eddie’s. Doesn’t think about Eddie doing this for him, hand holding his chin as he shaves Buck carefully, grip firm when he turns Buck’s face this way and that. Doesn’t think about Eddie kissing where the blade kissed him first.  Doesn’t think about any of that when he rinses the razor clean and slots it back into the travel mug, where Buck’s toothbrush rests against Eddie’s with such easy familiarity it’s about to spark a whole new crisis. 

tagging @try-set-me-on-fire @jeeyuns @housewifebuck @anxieteandbiscuits @forthewolves @zahlibeth @athenagranted @buckactuallys @transboybuckley @icecreampotluck @diazblunt if you have anything to share today or later!

[softnow]

take this w a grain of salt since it’s from my personal limited perspective but the way modern fandoms seem to be navigating more and more towards character x reader fic boggles my mind. there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but it’s just so different from how i’m used to interacting (and seeing others interact) with media. like i’ve never even enjoyed oc fics that much except on very rare occasions…i can’t imagine reading something where i’m the oc lmao

[triplehmunson]

𝙋𝙊𝙑: You work in the FBI and by orders of your boss in command you had to team up with three of your coworkers, to carry out an investigation against a very powerful mobster. The problem is that you don't get along very well with your colleagues who are Mulder , Scully and Pena when you inform them that they have to do this job together, they all get upset because mainly Scully doesn't trust you because a couple of weeks ago you "promoted" very quickly and you're already in the major leagues and she thinks that just for your "beauty" fools men, after about two weeks and after a lot of work and investigation you shut Scully's mouth up because thanks to your contributions to the job, they managed to catch the gangster and you and your other three colleagues congratulated them and You were promoted.... In the end, you and Scully smoothed things out and started a friendship.... and possibly you find love in Javier since they got too close and forged a great friendship and mutual affection. (You are Lizzie 💕)