#eight days of mulder

[randomfoggytiger]

Find Five Lines Tag

Thank you for the tag, @television-overload~!

Rules: find any lines in your WIP that fit each parameter given by the person who tagged you. Then change one of the parameters and tag five or more people. Can be lines from multiple WIPs. If you can't find a line that fits, feel free to change the prompt.

My lines: a line about family, a passionate line, a line expressing dread, a line that is screamed, a funny line

Your lines: a line about family, a passionate line, a line expressing relief, a line that screamed, a funny line

Family line: "You Up for Joining Us?"

“I should call Melissa,” Bill rasped, rubbing a hand across his eyes, wondering if his father would already have done so.

Passionate line: Eight Nights of Mulder, Day 1: Gold

Alarmed, her pupils widened as her brain scrambled; and the only thought her mind could conjure through the static was gold, gold, gold on sluggish repeat.

Dread line: Son of Egypt

And if closed, found, 2000, died, resurrected was a possibility, then there was an equal chance that born, adopted, given a new identity could be true as well.  

Screamed line: The Hospital Where You Slept

“Paramedics, now!” Mulder yelled, vaulting forward and pumping, pumping, pumping to keep her soul from leaving once more. 

Funny line: Chariots of Fire

Above the thundering chaos, Krycek could have sworn he heard an angel jamming "Chariots of Fire" on his harp.

Tagging: @baronessblixen, @welsharcher, @agent-troi, @suitablyaggrieved, @amplifyme, @cecilysass, @slippinmickeys, @aloysiavirgata, @invidiosa, @writingwell, @pennyserenade, @virtie333, @two-microscopes, @storybycorey, @numinousmysteries, @xxsksxxx, @skelavender, @neednottoneed, @settle-down-frohike, @frogsmulder, @ghostbustermelanieking, @o6666666, @sigritandtheelves, @unremarkablehouse, @leiascully, @bakedbakermom, @freckleslikestars, and anyone else who wants to participate~

[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.”

[xf-cases-solved]

i am aware that this is likely not a new take at all, and i'm not like, claiming it as mine, but i never had the chance to have this opinion (or hear other ppl have this opinion) on a public forum before, so i just want to take this opportunity to say to another person, possibly for the first time with the exception of mb my mother, who is no longer here to agree with me, that "existence" came out when i was 8 years old, i watched it live, and literally the day i watched it i remember thinking to myself "why did they have a boy named william? they should have had a girl named samantha. OF COURSE they should have had a girl named samantha," like it felt so obvious to me

and tho i couldn't rly articulate it this clearly at the time, my little muddy 8 year old thought process was that the entire story of the xfiles starts with samantha, right? mulder has his beliefs bc samantha was taken; he says so in the very first episode. the whole reason he even thinks aliens are real to begin with is bc of samantha. the person he spent his whole life searching for was samantha. he MET SCULLY bc of samantha. samantha is the thread that ties the whole story together, so then how beautiful--how narratively perfect--would it have been to tie THEIR story--their love story (bc xfiles is, at the end of the day, a love story, fight me) up with a bow, where the beginning starts with samantha getting lost, and then ends with samantha there in their arms, finally found, just in a different iteration. (instead of naming the baby after mulder's dad who he doesn't even like? or scully's dad. or scully's brother. or mulder's middle name, which is after his father ik, but still, why are there so many fucking williams??)

like, imagine it. rly sit there and take a moment to imagine how the end scene in "existence" would have gone if mulder had said, "what are you going to name her," and scully had said, "samantha"

not only does it get the "ding ding ding, you're the dad!" point across, but how fucking Touched would mulder have been to have the woman he loves--the PERSON he loves--more than anything on earth honor the sister who took up so much of his soul for so long? who always will take up part of his soul, just in a healthier way. it would be scully saying, "we know she's gone from this world now, but she's not gone from our hearts" emphasis on OUR hearts, bc mulder's pain is scully's pain; mulder's quests are scully's quests. she never met her sister-in-law (they're married, fight me), and will never have the chance, but by naming their child after her, she would be saying, "i love her anyway. i love her because you love her, and because anyone you love deserves my love as well, bc we are intertwined at our core. our fundamental values, our suffering, our joy, it is felt in us both concurrently, bc i am your person, and you are mine, and together we made a whole other person who is a literal representation of our combined selves, and we are going to call her SAMANTHA, bc that little girl you watched get stolen from you however many decades ago has been the pillar that has kept us going as a team for the last eight years"

or maybe it would have been even simpler than that. maybe she would just be saying, "your sister is IMPORTANT, mulder, even in death, and her memory isn't held only by you. it is unrelenting, and preserved forever in our child"

i wanted that scene. i wanted to feel the heaviness of mulder's grief mixed with his elation and gratitude and love. i appreciate william for who he was in the scheme of things, but that moment in the bedroom, with their baby between them, shouldn't have been lessened for me bc they chose a name that made me pause and go "his dad was named william? oh yeah! forgot about that guy, it's been a few YEARS since we saw much of him, and what we did see of him wasn't like... awesome. but sure, name your baby that ig, if you must"

that scene should have hit so much harder, and if that baby had been a samantha? it could have hit like nothing ever has, and for all the mishaps that show took after that (and there were MANY), i think the thing i will always have the most resentment for is the fact that i felt robbed of something that would have meant so much to me as a viewer who had followed their journey from the start (or, well, almost start. i was born the year it came out, so i didn't start watching until 1998, when my brain came online, but i'd seen the past stuff at least)

anyway! that's all to say, 8 year old me was salty as hell about that, and ykno what? she was RIGHT and should have been able to say it. but, again, 2001, 8 years old, not old enough to participate in fandom, so that thought has just festered and rotted away in my brain like a piece of old, putrid meat. but! finally i can give my 8 year old self some catharsis by letting her bitch and bitch and bitch to her heart's content about how "existence" should have been the series finale, and how that baby should have been a girl named samantha, and how i climbed onto that hill 23 years ago, and how i will die there with my heels dug down deep

ty, internet, for coming to my extremely overdue tedtalk. somewhere in the past there is a small child (who definitely shouldn't have been allowed to watch xfiles as young as she did, but what can you do?) finally has a weight off of her chest. it's just a tv show, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but also, it's a tv show that i grew up with in my formative and unfortunately very traumatic years, and it genuinely feels like a loved one who has always been there to comfort me, and so yeah, it doesn't "matter," but the truth is, it Matters so incredibly much

that's all

-diz

[thatfragilecapricorn30]

dad

msr, post-deadalive canon divergence | 1.6k words | ao3  tagging @today-in-fic

When Mulder woke from the dead, the first thing he saw was Scully’s face, and the relief he felt seeing her was immense. Mulder was not only happy that she was alive and well but that she was by his side during this confusing and traumatic time. Since the beginning of their partnership, Scully had always been a calming and grounding presence, and Mulder needed that now more than ever, as he was having trouble coming to terms with what had happened to him. He didn’t have much memory beyond his abduction, but the images that did flash through his brain were not pleasant. He could only imagine what kind of counseling he was going to need to process everything, but for now, having Scully nearby was enough to get him through the short-term.

The second thing he saw was Scully’s belly. Initially, he didn’t know if he was dreaming or woozy from the drugs, but the more alert Mulder became, the more he realized that she was actually pregnant. Based on her size, at least seven to eight months had passed. If not more, because Mulder had no idea when Scully conceived or even how. Was it natural and if so, who was the father? Was it him? Or did she meet someone else while he was gone? Did she try IVF again, this time with an anonymous sperm donor? The questions made his brain – and his heart – hurt.

Luckily, they had always been good at reading each other's body language, and Scully immediately addressed the issue when she saw his eyes rove uneasily over her belly.

“It’s yours,” she said, smiling through tears that suddenly welled in her eyes. “I was pregnant when we were in Oregon. That’s why I felt sick.”

“Oh,” was all he could say. So he was the father, but what did that mean? Was he supposed to be a parent after all this? Would Scully even want him involved? He wasn’t sure if he would have been a good father before the abduction but now, he was even more fucked up. His mind whirred with more unanswered questions, and he started to feel anxious.

Scully must have noticed his overwhelm, because she leaned in close to say, “I know it’s a lot. But you don’t have to worry about anything else aside from getting better, okay?”

He nodded, his heart rate slowing when Scully carded her fingers through his hair. They would figure it all out later.

Over the next few days, Mulder slowly felt his strength return. Scully stayed by his side almost the entire time, observing the doctors and nurses, reviewing his charts, and talking about what had happened during the eight months he was missing and then dead. She stuck to work topics: her new partner at the FBI and the cases they investigated. He couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable she was sitting in a plastic chair all day, but she never gave a hint of discomfort. Mulder did force her to leave at night so she could sleep in a real bed and so that he could have some time to think, which was mostly about Scully carrying his baby and what that would mean for his life. The more he considered it, the more he realized that he wanted to be a dad and be a part of the baby's life. It wasn't like he had never contemplated this issue before. When he had agreed to donate sperm for Scully's IVF, he was ready to take on the responsibility of a child. Even though that seemed like lifetimes ago, Mulder would never abandon Scully and their baby. He was even looking forward to having a purpose in life that wasn't searching for his sister or extraterrestrial life. But he also wanted to make sure Scully was on the same page.

On the third day of recovery, he finally got the nerve to ask her.

“Scully? Can we talk about the baby?”

Scully looked up from the medical journal she was reading and then put it aside so she could move her chair closer to Mulder’s bed.

She immediately starting talking, “Mulder, before you say anything, I just want you to know that I’m fully aware an eight-month pregnancy is a lot to wake up to, especially in your condition. So, I understand if you need time to think or consider. With everything that’s going on, there’s no pressure from me at all. I’m just so happy you’re here.”

She seemed like she was going to keep going, so Mulder interrupted, “I want to.”

Scully looked surprised. “You want to?”

“I want to be involved. If you'll have me,” he added.

Scully’s pursed lips turned into a real smile. If he could still manage to make her happy, then everything really was going to be alright.

“Okay, great,” she whispered, looking like she was going to cry again.

“Do you have a picture or a, a –“ he couldn’t remember the word but Scully filled it in for him.

“An ultrasound? Yes, I do.” She pulled a folded photo from her purse and handed it to him.

It was a black and white scan and while he secretly thought it looked like a blob, that was his child. He stared at it for a while, tracing the baby with one finger. The ultrasound was well-worn, like it had been in Scully’s purse for a while.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked.

“You can’t tell?” Scully asked mischievously.

“Scully, you’re the doctor. No offense but this really does look like a alien.”

“Well, then you’re just going to have to wait to find out,” she said with a laugh, plucking the ultrasound out of his hands to prove the point.

“Wait, can I keep that?” Mulder asked, sounding shy to himself.

Scully stopped folding the photo and smoothed it back out. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry." She handed it back to him. "You’ll have to come to the next appointment and hear the heartbeat.”

Mulder could think of nothing better.

After Mulder was released from the hospital, he became Scully’s worst nightmare. Well, she never said that or gave any indication that he was annoying her, but he must have been. Mulder spent most of his time at her apartment, reading every baby book he could get his hands on (luckily Scully had quite a few) and helping her with chores. In his defense, Scully was pregnant and shouldn’t be doing laundry or dishes or grocery shopping. She didn’t seem to mind having a shadow, which was strange because the old Scully would have kicked him out way more often so she could have some alone time. But pregnancy made Scully shockingly serene: she answered all of his questions, tolerated his fussing, and reminded him frequently how happy she was that he was back.

Mulder didn’t know what to make of it.

The only time he was really apart from her was when he went to counseling twice a week. He had to fudge some of the details of his disappearance and death to the counselor, but he felt like the therapy was helping.

Mulder went to one last ultrasound appointment and heard the baby’s heartbeat, which he thought was spectacular.

When Scully’s water broke, everything became real and the panic set in. He rushed around trying to make sure they had everything, wondering if they needed to call an ambulance. Scully stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Mulder, it’s fine. We have plenty of time to get to the hospital.”

She went to the closet to grab the hospital bag that she had clearly packed awhile ago. “You’re supposed to be the one calming me down,” she said, with a knowing look.

“Sorry,” Mulder apologized sheepishly. “You know that’s not my strong suit.”

Mulder drove them both to the hospital. He didn’t break any speeding laws or run any red lights, though it was tempting. Scully had a few contractions in the car, which was distressing, moreso to Mulder, and he wanted to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

He was there the whole time Scully labored and let her squeeze his hand during all of the contractions and pushing. He had forgotten how strong she was and wouldn't be surprised if he came out of his experience with sprained bones. Mulder had never witnessed a birth before and found the whole process incredible. His son or daughter was about to make their entrance into the world and he would be right there for it.

The doctor delivered the baby – a boy, which Mulder could now recognize – and immediately handed him to Scully to hold. Their son screamed and cried and Mulder was impressed how something so tiny could make so much noise. After a few minutes, a nurse whisked the baby away to be cleaned up and weighed.

“What do you think?” Scully asked, smiling up at him. She looked tired but so beautiful.

“It was amazing. You were amazing,” Mulder exclaimed.

The nurse brought the baby back, now swaddled in a blanket and wearing a little newborn cap. She handed him to Scully.

“Do you want to hold him, Dad?” Scully held the baby out to him, so trusting that he could handle this new role. Mulder didn’t know when the last time he held a baby was. Maybe it was when Samantha was born. But Scully – his little skeptic – believed in him. Believed he could be a good dad. Believed that they could be a family. He gently took their son into his arms and cradled him against his chest. The love he felt for this new person was overwhelming. The love he felt for Scully was overwhelming. He was so lucky to get another chance at life, and at a family. Before he knew it, there were tears running down his cheek.

“Oh, Mulder,” Scully sighed. She reached for him, so Mulder sat next to her on the bed and they admired the miracle that was their son.

[oohnotvery]

Hand To Your Heart: Chapter 8

Read on AO3 here.

tw/cw for pregnancy content in author’s note:

Thank you so much for that warm “welcome back.” I don’t feel like I deserved your generosity or kindness since I completely bailed on this story for so long.

If anyone is interested in a personal update, I’m over halfway to meeting my new baby and unfortunately have had some complications (including a minor surgery last week, thus the delay in posting Chapter 8), but the little guy is healthy and gigantic. We have a name, which is exciting, and my daughter has started carrying a baby doll around and calling it her “baby brother.” So that’s truly precious! We’ll see how she really feels come February.

Okay, but also in personal news—and perhaps this is too personal for Tumblr, but I can’t help myself—I had to withdraw my daughter from her daycare two weeks ago because I caught her teacher HITTING HER across the face. I reported the daycare and the teacher to the appropriate authorities, but oh my god, what if I hadn’t seen it happen?? That was a devastating day and sometimes I still close my eyes and that moment just replays in my mind’s eye over and over and over again. I’ll be sitting in traffic and jolt back to seeing someone hit my little girl and my blood BOILS. Trust no one, indeed.

As to the fic, just a reminder, this story isn’t Mulder/Diana, and it also isn’t Scully/Other! Have no fear.

Mike Stephens seems highly motivated to make the most of their arrangement, because just two hours later, at 4 p.m., he struts into the bull pen as cocky as a rooster.

At first, she doesn’t notice him, only registering a shift in the atmosphere when she sees Mulder’s head lift and his shoulders tense. Following his gaze, she looks up, her cheeks flushing the moment she catches sight of Mike.

Abruptly, she rises to her feet, determined to head this off before it escalates. Part of her wants to shove her new sexual arrangement in Mulder’s face; a much larger part of her demands she conduct her intimate business in private. She catches Mike’s arm before he can cozy up to her desk, steering him towards a nearby conference room where they can be more discreet. But he stops her gently, a wide smile on his face.

“Just wanted to see if you were around tonight,” he says quietly, his face tipped towards hers. “Or am I being too forward?”

She swallows past her embarrassment. Any ordinary person might not catch their muted conversation, but in her peripheral vision, she notices Mulder’s tense posture and the way his head angles towards them. He’s definitely listening.

Remembering herself, Scully flashes Mike a reassuring smile while her brain tries to process her response.

At first, she hesitates. Seeing him tonight would be . . . expeditious. She hasn’t even had a moment to reflect on her impulsive choice to get involved with Mike. Is rushing into something with him tonight a mistake?

And then she remembers Mulder’s plans. He’s going to dinner with Diana tonight—dinner, drinks, and most likely sex. Scully attempts to overlook the reality that she’s centering her choices around Mulder’s plans, and it grates on her more than she’d like to admit. But it’s always been this way between them. From the moment she and Mulder met, she’s anchored her life to his. In a sense, she’s always been destined to revolve around him.

She meets Mike’s gaze and gives a short nod. “Come by at eight?” she offers, keeping her voice low.

His smile widens as he reaches around her to grab a sticky note and pen from her desk. He pushes them towards her.

“Your address?”

Behind them, Mulder turns slightly in his chair and Scully’s face burns brighter. Why is she doing this to herself? He’s a smart guy. He’s going to know she’s just doing it because he’s sleeping with Diana. He knows she isn’t actually interested in Mike—she even admitted it to him many moons ago.

“Dana?” Mike prompts, interrupting her thoughts.

She bites her lip, then scribbles down her information.

She and Mike exchange a few more pleasantries before he retreats towards the elevators. She takes a second to collect herself, combing her fingers through her hair and smoothing down her skirt. She still has about an hour left of work before she’ll allow herself to leave to get ready for tonight. She just needs a moment to calm down and refocus—

Mulder is watching her, his body now fully turned to face her. She catches his gaze and tries not to react at what she sees in his eyes. His gaze is coolly neutral, the face of a profiler, giving little away. But she knows him well, and she thinks she sees something else in there. Hurt, maybe, or confusion. She can’t quite place the emotions. But she does know one thing: he’s onto her.

Pursing her lips, she breaks his gaze and primly takes a seat. Time to get to work.

**

At home, Scully showers and shaves, ignoring the way the razor bobbles in her trembling hands. It takes her thirty minutes to pick out an appropriate outfit. Staring into her underwear drawer is like staring into a timelapse of her short-lived relationship with Mulder. She can’t wear the black lingerie set with Mike tonight—she was wearing those the first time Mulder ever went down on her. She can’t wear the blue set either, because the panties have a tiny rip in the side from where he yanked them off roughly in excitement. In the end, she discover she only owns two pieces of undergarments that Mulder hasn’t touched, and while both pieces are the opposite of sexy, she simply can’t bring herself to wear anything that reminds her of him tonight.

She settles on a black cardigan and black pants, dabs her lips with a thin layer of lipstick, and touches up her eye makeup. She pops open a bottle of wine and drinks half a glass by herself, wondering if Mike will care that her breath smells like alcohol. She highly doubts it. This is just casual sex, nothing more.  

Mike knocks five minutes before eight and Scully’s fists curl into tight, anxious balls as she walks to the door and lets him in. He makes a few standard comments about how nice her apartment is, how it took him a few minutes to find a parking spot, how she lives far from the Hoover Building. She nods and responds with the usual pleasantries, her higher mind taking over even as her internal alarm system begins to register a blind panic.

What the fuck is she doing?

She jumps when he settles his hands at her waist.

“You alright?” he asks, his eyebrows creasing.

She swallows thickly and nods, unable to speak. His hands are too heavy against her hips and he’s standing at the wrong angle. Mulder is so much taller, she realizes idly as Mike tugs her flush to his body. God, and Mulder is stronger too, she realizes as her hands rise automatically to his biceps. He smiles down at her and this time, she robustly fights the urge to compare his lips to Mulder’s. But she can’t help but notice that Mike’s aren’t as full, and his teeth aren’t as straight.

It's obvious before his mouth even touches hers that she’s not going to enjoy this. For Christ’s sake, she chides herself, am I ever going to want another man now that I’ve had Mulder? What have I done to myself?

Her panic escalates as Mike’s tongue darts out to part her lips. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that she might get emotional kissing another man. From this point on, she realizes with a sinking heart, Mulder will no longer be the last person I’ve kissed. The thought makes her so queasy that she starts to pull away, but Mike presses into her more firmly. With shock, she realizes he’s already hard.

Don’t do it, don’t do it, she reprimands herself. Don’t make the comparison—

He’s not as big as Mulder either.

“Fuck,” she whispers angrily, pulling away.

Mike opens his eyes and stares at her with concern. “Everything okay?”

She glances up at him, but her mind is somewhere else completely. Mulder is at dinner with Diana, she thinks. He’s wining and dining Diana Fowley and then he’s going to fuck her. He’s going to fuck that woman tonight and he’s not going to be thinking of me. Who cares if Mulder isn’t the last person I've kissed? I haven’t been the last woman he’s kissed in weeks.

Is she really doing this to make herself feel better? Because if so, it’s only making her feel much, much worse. She blinks, trying to clear her thoughts.

“Just needed a minute,” she says nervously, hoping her hesitation comes across as coquettish shyness.

She excuses herself to pour them each a glass of wine, and only after she’s downed hers does she let Mike kiss her again. He moves them to the couch and she idly notes that he’s unbuttoning her cardigan, then her pants. She keeps kissing him for the sake of appearances, but she is nearly apathetic in her arousal. Mike’s fingers drift down to her panties and she wills herself to get wet for him, but she’s too distracted.

“Too much wine,” she says unconvincingly when he glances up at her in question. “I’ve—I’ve had a long day.”

Mike withdraws his hand and settles back against the couch, eyeing her carefully. “Should we postpone?”

“Hmm?” she asks aloofly, as if she hasn’t been completely disinterested in him since the minute he arrived.

He smiles gently. “I get the feeling you’re not quite ready for this tonight.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that—”

“Dana,” he says kindly, leaning forward, “tonight’s been nice. You’re a beautiful woman and I want to spend more time with you.” He reaches out and brushes her cheek. She tries not to flinch. “But there’s no reason to rush this. Why don’t we rain check?”

She nods dumbly, unable to reconcile the tumult of emotions raging inside her: relief that she doesn’t have to fake it with Mike anymore, and humiliation that she couldn’t go through with her plan. Mulder surely isn’t having trouble getting it up for Diana tonight.

In the end, she and Mike leave it open, tentatively agreeing to catch up again on Sunday. But when the weekend passes and she hasn’t heard from him, she starts to worry that perhaps she’s ruined her chances.

On Monday, Scully enters the bull pen with a brave face. She knows she’ll see Mulder and she suspects that Diana will make an appearance at his desk. How many times will she have to endure watching their relationship blossom in front of her?

But Mulder doesn’t show. By lunchtime, Scully assumes that he and Diana are off together working their case, which is why she’s surprised when the woman in question struts down the hallway and plants herself in front of her desk.

“Agent Scully,” Diana greets her.

“Agent Fowley.”

Diana props a hand against her desk and Scully steels herself for yet another emotionally difficult conversation.

“Have you seen Fox?” Diana asks.

Scully blinks. “Not this morning.”

Diana purses her lips. “And over the weekend?”

Scully shakes her head slowly. “No, I haven’t seen him since Friday.”

“And you haven’t heard from him?”

Scully narrows her eyes. “Is something wrong, Agent Fowley?”

Diana clears her throat, straightening up. Scully can tell she’s trying to act casual, but when Diana speaks, there’s concern in her voice.

“He was supposed to meet me Friday night and he . . . didn’t,” the other woman says. “He hasn’t answered any of my calls or emails either. I tried going by his apartment over the weekend, but he didn’t answer his door if he was there.”

Scully considers this. “Was his car in the parking lot?”

Diana shakes her head. “The building has been mandating street parking lately. I drove around the block and didn’t see his vehicle, but there’s a chance I could have missed it.”

Scully nods thoughtfully, resisting the wave of irritation she feels at not knowing this new development in Mulder’s apartment situation. “And he gave you no indication that he’d be out of pocket all weekend?”

Diana rolls her eyes. “You know how he is. Fox is rarely predictable.”

This may be the first time she’s ever agreed with Diana Fowley on anything, and she finds herself nodding.

“I guess I’ll give him a call,” Scully finally says, chewing her lip. “See if I can get in touch with him.”

Diana nods stoically, but the concern in her eyes is evident. Although it’s not unheard of for Mulder to go missing for days at a time, Scully feels herself growing uneasy at Diana’s reaction. The other agent expected to see him this weekend, that much is clear. After Diana departs, Scully picks up her phone and dials Mulder’s number, immediately getting his voicemail. She shoots him an email, but after an hour with no reply, she starts growing restless.

The day passes and Mulder never shows. Scully tries calling him three more times with no luck. When Mike gives her a ring, she sends him straight to voicemail. When she listens to his message, she learns he wants to come by tonight. Scully swallows hard at the thought. She really needs to force herself to try again with him. One more try, that’s all she needs.

But as she stares at Mulder’s empty chair, she knows exactly how she’s going to spend the rest of her evening. As a courtesy, she shoots Mike an email excusing her absence tonight and suggesting they try later in the week. When five o’clock hits, she jumps in her car and steers it towards Alexandria.

She’s going to find Mulder.

[cecilysass]

Hello! You once told me that I could always ask you for fic recs so here I am! I’ve only seen up to S2E17 so idk if you have anything that doesn’t deal too heavily after that. Minor spoilers/references are okay, just nothing major. I’m also not a smut person generally. If you can’t think of anything that fits those criteria, feel free to ignore this! I hope you have a lovely day:)

Okay, I am SO EXCITED about this question, but also nervous, because I don’t want to accidentally include something that will spoil you. I am going to throw a few recs out, and maybe others will think of more?

Universal Invariants by syntax6 This is so, so good. It’s a classic. A novel-length casefile, plus an AU riff on season 1 and 2 through the abduction arc, so I think you are entirely good with spoilers. The big change from canon is that Scully is still with her boyfriend, Ethan. (If you don't know Ethan, he is a character that was originally in the Pilot but cut from the actual show.) There are... other changes from canon, but you’ll see. There's some smut, but it’s not the focus. And there's a sequel to this, too, which you will definitely eventually want to read, but you're going to have to finish season 5 first.

the progression (and regression) of first names by skuls Scully works through some early identity issues in relation to Mulder. This author (skuls) is always delightful, always recommended.

Center Mass by kateyes224 This fic provides a painful, in character explanation for what might have happened between them after the Pilot that could have resulted in so much subsequent slow burn. Hot and angsty, but not really smutty.

Early On by sunflowerseedsandscience This is also an AU season 1 with Ethan, but this one is more focused on Scully slowly feeling her attention stray from Ethan as her relationship with Mulder develops. It's a series with ten (short) parts. It's very engaging. There are some smutty parts.

Eight Things That Could Have Happened In Oregon by Stephen Greenwood No spoilers here, only things that didn't happen but might sound like spoilers. This is wistful, a little sad, beautiful, odd. The First Year by mldrgrl Their first New Year's Eve, not long after the Pilot. I love the hesitant vibe here.

Still Feeling My Father Ascend - cecily_sass This is my own fic, so I am being kind of a self promoter recommending it to you. But it’s a Beyond the Sea post ep, and I know my own work pretty well lol, so I know there’s no later spoilers, or only really minor things that won’t be meaningful until later. It was written for a prompt for an early season fic exchange.

And I'm not going to recommend it exactly, but I do want to mention that one of the first works of XF fanfic was actually written in 1993 and published online in 1994, so during season one. It's called The Sound of Windchimes by Sarah Stegall. It's got some serious CW (noncon) and some pretty wild content (I've read it), but if you're brave or curious and interested in fan history, you can check it out. Here's the fanlore page, which includes links.

***

Obviously I can come up with SO MANY MORE fics as you get further along. So just let me know. I would say most XF fic is probably written about seasons 5 / 6 / 7 for whatever reason, so once you're in that range, everyone can give you tons. Anyone have any other favorite early season fic they can recommend? It's sometimes tricky because sometimes early MSR has later details embedded in it...

[stinkybrowndogs]

Watching through all the live action dog movies bc I’m bored and have nothing better to do. Thoughts so far;

- homeward bound hits different when you have an old dog 😭

- the plot of Beethoven is the American Government is paying a small town veterinarian to test experimental weaponry on dogs. The veterinarian has to test exploding bullets on large dog breeds, which he attempts to acquire by faking a biting incident and demanding the dog be euthanized (but actually he is going to explode him with bullets)

- also agent mulder is there

- while The Greyfriar’s Bobby was kind of boring, the skye terrier is extremely cute.

-the biscuit eater is, again, kind of boring but for a movie made in the 60s it’s kind of sweet. Extra points for being about a Brown Dog

- eight below got me. They were not messing around and has the highest Dog Body Count so far. The fight with the leopard seal was sure something. I liked the dead orca set piece

Tomorrow I watch Beverly Hills chihuahua. The day after, who knows….. maybe air bud

[baronessblixen]

The Best Christmas Yet

Prompts: Eight Nights of Mulder, day 7: latkes / potatoes X-Mas Files Challenge: best Christmas ever

Summary: Post "HTGSC": Mulder is reluctant to join Scully at her mother's for Christmas for many reasons - until he realizes that everyone is happy he's there. (fluff, wc: 1,320)

Tagging @today-in-fic @eightnightsofmulder

If he's honest - and he can be in the safety of the dawning morning and its protecting darkness - he has to admit that he doesn't want to wake Scully. She's the cutest thing he's ever seen. Another thing he couldn't admit in the light of day.

Her hand is tucked under her cheek and she looks as if she was listening attentively before she fell asleep. Her feet are tucked into his side and he never thought he'd appreciate being kicked awake. With Scully, everything is different.

He couldn't have asked for more than this. Luring her to a haunted house, disguising his desire to spend time with her over the holidays behind a romantic ghost story, was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

When they got out of there and she drove off, he didn't blame her one bit. He blamed himself, though. Then she showed up here at his apartment. The book she got him is a nice touch. Having her here sleeping on his couch, however, is the real gift.

As much as he relishes the sight, he knows he can't let her sleep. She's due at her family soon, and he's not going to get in the way of that.

"Scully," he whispers, gently tracing his finger against her cheek. Her skin is rosy and feels warm against his own. Butterflies take flight in his stomach as he watches her nose scrunch before she blinks her eyes open.

"Did I fall asleep?" she mumbles. "What time is it?"

"Early something. I didn't want you to miss Christmas with your family." She groans and stretches, her sweater riding up and revealing milky white skin. He's trying not to stare and knows he's failing.

"I need to get going." She uses Mulder's shoulder to heave herself up from the couch, leaving him in a cloud of her scent. She smells like vanilla and cinnamon, intoxicating him.

"Are you- have you thought about it?" Before she fell asleep, she asked him to accompany her to her mother's. Like every year. And like every year he said he'd think about it, knowing well he's going to decline. That was before he woke up to a sleepy, adorable Scully on his couch, whose face is so disarming that he's no longer sure what he should do.

"It would make my mom happy," she says. "It would make me even happier," she adds quietly. He can't say no. Not when she looks like she does. Or when she looks at him like this.

"How about," he begins and he sees her face fall. "I drive you to your mother's and then when you and her still want me there-"

"Mulder," she cuts him off, exasperation in her voice that he decides to ignore.

"Then I might stay an hour or two. What do you say?"

She observes him for a long, languid moment before she says, "let's go."

The roads are empty and they get to her mother's easily. And way too quickly for Mulder to have made up his mind. He parks the car and Scully throws him a smile, sweetly asking him to help her with the gifts. There's no way he can deny her.

They make their way to Mrs. Scully's house, their arms full with gifts. He's carrying a few more so that she can ring the doorbell. He hears a happy "Fox!" and mumbles a hello as he's ushered inside.

"Put the gifts over there." Maggie Scully pushes him into what he presumes is the living room. Once he's put down the boxes, he finds himself looking at a brightly smiling Mrs. Scully. Mulder has never seen her this delighted.

"I'm so happy you've finally decided to join us for Christmas, Fox." She engulfs him in a hug so tight that he's afraid he won't be able to catch another breath. A typical Scully hug. But usually, he receives them from her daughter and after he's almost died. He prefers it like this.

"I told you," Scully says smugly once her mother lets go of him.

"I had a feeling," she says, taking his hand into hers and pulling him toward the kitchen where various pans and pots are filled with pleasantly smelling delicacies. His stomach grumbles. Neither he nor Scully have eaten in a while.

"Dana said you're half Jewish," Mrs. Scully explains. "And I asked around, wanting to make something that would show you how much we appreciate you, Fox." With every word she says, the noose around his heart tightens. "I made latkes. Now, this is the first time I made them, but I had my neighbor try one and he said if you don't show up, he'll eat every single one of them. Do you like latkes, Fox? Oh, I hope you do." The knot in his throat prevents him from speaking, so he just throws his arms around Mrs. Scully, hoping she understands what this means to him.

"He loves everything that's made from potatoes," Scully says to her mother, and both women smile at him. A feeling of warmth spreads in his stomach. It feels very much like love.

"First things first," Mrs. Scully says, clapping her hands. "We have several little children - and a few adults - who want to open their presents. Come on you two."

In the next few hours, Mulder experiences a Christmas like he never has before. People he's never met treat him like he's part of the family. When Bill Jr. shows up, he grumbles exactly three times and then his expression softens. He pats Mulder on the back, lets him hold baby Matthew, and if he's heard right, gives him his blessing. For what, Mulder can only guess.

Scully remains by his side like a shadow. She falls asleep on him once while they're waiting for dinner. When she wakes up, and he moves a strand of hair off her forehead, her smile is like the first breaths of spring after an ice-cold winter. It takes his breath away.

She brushes his cheek with a finger, wiping away an invisible piece of lint, and her touch lingers. He still feels it when he stuffs himself with latkes, unable to stop himself. He thanks Mrs. Scully profusely in between bites, making her grin from ear to ear.

"Leave some for the rest of us," someone says to the amusement of everyone. He holds his breath while Bill Jr. tries one and only lets go of it once he announces that he likes it. There's laughter and joy, happiness and love. To Mulder, it feels surreal, like a dream. He barely dares to blink, afraid that if he does, he'll wake up in his cold, dark apartment, all alone.

"You look like a deer caught in the headlights." Scully is leaning against him and has her face tipped up. She's smaller than either of them is used to without her heels.

"Not to be pathetic," Mulder says, "but this might be the best Christmas I've ever had."

"Does that mean I won't have to talk you into this next year?" When she laughs, he feels it vibrate through his own body. Her eyes are sparkling and he's sure it's from the mulled wine they've had. He feels the effect of the alcohol, too, and can't stop glancing at her berry-red lips that are so deliciously inviting.

"You're going to get sick of me."

"Hmm, not gonna happen." She wobbles and he puts his hands on her waist to steady her. "I like having you here."

"I like being here."

"Then it's settled," she says, sighing. She turns in his arms, looking up at him. Should he dare? Should he try and make this night perfect?

"I wish there were mistletoe here," he whispers.

"Just pretend there is." Their mouths meet in the middle and Mulder thinks he hears music and cheering while he kisses her, his tongue tangling with hers.

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight: You Send Me

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

Note: when I started writing this story, I knew that Scully was going to have a memory of Mulder that would come to her in a dream, tipping her off to the fact that there was someone important she knew before her accident but couldn’t remember. I needed to be able to “see” this dream/memory, so it’s the first thing I wrote. I figure I may as well post it, so here is that memory you’ve seen glimpses of in full.

Scully plunges her hands back under the hot, soapy water and sighs. Her belly is full of good food and good wine, her heart full of hope and the promise of something exciting and new. She runs a scrub brush around the perimeter of a pan and then lifts it out to rinse it with fresh water before setting it on the drying rack beside the sink.

She smiles to herself at the adolescent buzz in her bones, the expectant tightening in her stomach. She’d forgotten how it feels in the beginning: sickly sweet and terrifying, the best kind of fear. From that first tentative kiss it’s only gotten better with each passing day, and she’s found herself almost embarrassed by the way her belly tumbles when he catches her eye across his desk and holds it for just a beat longer than necessary.

Even the invitation for this evening, dinner at his apartment, felt loaded and thrilling. They’ve kissed dozens of times, made out until her chin burned from his stubble, and, most recently, his hand found its way under her shirt. Not since she was sixteen and still a virgin has a boy feeling her up over her bra been so incredibly arousing that she touched herself later just thinking about it. But it’s not a boy, it’s a man. Mulder. Her Mulder. Her partner, now something more.

He’s in the living room fighting with the CD player. The selection of decidedly romantic albums he’d pre-loaded into the eight-disc changer had been abruptly interrupted by the Beastie Boys during their meal, making him blush and her laugh, and he is now presumably ensuring that they don’t suffer any such interruption during whatever he has planned for the rest of the evening.

She feels a rush of heat to her pelvis at the thought.

She’s ready. More than ready, beyond ready. She’s wanted him for so long, she can’t quite decide if this feels more like an ending or a beginning. Perhaps that’s not his intention for the night at all—he seems to be set on taking things slow. But seven years is slow enough, in her mind, and if he doesn’t make the move to activities beyond necking like teenagers, she will.

She hears the CD player click and whir, and the slow wail of soul music floats into the kitchen.

Darling you send me. I know you send me. Darling you send me, honest you do.

She sways her hips gently to the music, running her hands over the bottom of the sink to find forks and knives. She doesn’t hear Mulder enter the kitchen, but suddenly he is standing right behind her, his hands resting on her hips. Her heart leaps, and she forces herself to lean into him rather than stiffen and pull away. Seven years of habits die hard. He moves with her, threading his arms around her waist. His body feels warm and firm against her back, solid as a rock. He is her rock, her safe place, her one reliable thing in a world that’s always changing before her very eyes.

Mulder removes his arms from her waist and wraps his hands around her forearms, sliding them down and under the water until his fingers are interlaced with hers. She lets go of the butter knife she’d been scrubbing and he lifts their joined hands out of the water, crossing both their arms around the front of her body as he walks them two steps back into the middle of the kitchen. Dishwater runs down her elbows, but it somehow feels romantic rather than obnoxious.

Letting go of one of her hands, he twirls her around to face him, then pulls her body flush to his. His free hand finds her waist, and hers his shoulder, and they begin a slow dance. She glances up at him, feeling both charmed and foolish, and sees him smiling down at her with that familiar impish one-sided quirk on his mouth. Her heart swells and she looks away, resting her cheek on his chest. She closes her eyes and breathes him in: the orange-vanilla musk of his deodorant, the warmth of his skin through his T-shirt. His heart pounds urgently against her ear and she smiles, relieved to know that he is also at least a little bit nervous.

He presses his lips to the crown of her head and then holds them there, singing along to the music as his voice vibrates in his chest and his breath tickles her scalp.

At first I thought it was infatuation, but ooooo it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home.

A flash flood of every emotion shocks through her veins, heightening her senses. Fear, excitement, arousal, love. Of course she loves him, and she hopes he knows even though she’s never been brave enough to tell him. She hopes he can feel it, as intuitive as he is.

He drops her hand, touching her chin with his still-damp index finger until she looks up at him. His pupils are bottomless pits, his mouth slightly parted. This way he’s been looking at her, not bothering to hide his wanting, is as potent as a drug. She rises up, using posture and tiptoes to bring her mouth close enough to kiss. And he does, again and again. Sucking at her lower lip, cupping her bottom eagerly in his palms, arching his pelvis into her so she can feel him stiffening.

They walk clumsily to his bedroom, kissing all the way. She tugs at the hem of his shirt until he removes it, then touches the button on his jeans. He hums, deep and throaty, and she suddenly becomes aware of how wet she is. She can’t wait for him to discover her, to see just how much she wants this. She pulls off her own shirt, unclasps her bra, and his mouth is wrapped around her nipple by the time her bare back hits his bedsheets.

He takes off her pants, looking up at her as he tugs them off her hips, and she can feel her own heartbeat between her legs. His thorough inspection of her panties with his eyes, and then his hands, and then his lips, is agonizing and perfect. He’s so deliberate, so thorough, as he is with all things. She can’t bring herself to rush him, as much as she wants to, but when he drags her panties down her legs, bunching up the damp fabric in his hand and licking his lips as his eyes rake over her vulva, she sits up and reaches for him.

“I want you,” she confesses shyly, feeling his abdominal muscles twitch against her fingers as she pops the button on his jeans.

There is a flash of regret on his face, but it’s short lived—there will be time for that later. She pushes her hand under his boxers and squeezes him firmly, enamored with the way his entire body slackens in response.

He stands at the foot of the bed, she sitting on the edge with her open legs bracketing his, and pushes his jeans and boxers down to his knees. She leers at him, openly gawks as she runs her comparatively tiny hand over the thick length of him, and then looks up with a coy smile. He laughs nervously, running his fingers through her hair and cradling the base of her skull in his palm.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says reverently, and now it is she who laughs.

“Right this second?” she asks, flashing her eyes to his stiff cock hovering inches below her chin.

“Always,” he says with a sigh. “Though I will admit that I’m partial to this view, yes.”

She blinks languidly, considering taking him in her mouth, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair.

“Lie down,” she directs him instead, and he does.

She drapes her body over his, their bare skin hot and electric as she wriggles up until his shaft is nestled in the valley of her thighs. She rocks her hips gently forward and back as he cranes his neck up to kiss her, humming and sighing. She’s so wet, and they’re so ready, he finds his way inside her without the use of their hands. She pauses to acclimate to the sweet, stinging stretch of him, taking minutes to kiss between each added inch until she sits fully impaled in his lap.

Mulder sits up, cradling her face in his hands and kissing her firmly, urgently, as her hips begin to flex.

“Fuck, Scully. I love you,” he groans, and she feels herself rise up to meet him.

“Mulder,” she whimpers against his mouth, a plea and a proclamation and a confession all at once.

She kisses him back, just as urgently, just as firmly. Her lips feel swollen and bruised, and her fingers dig into his neck as her hips snap, grinding her clit against him on each thrust. It’s frenzied, but still somehow feels so romantic she could cry. Because he loves her, and she wants this so, so much, and she never thought it was possible for them.

“I’m gonna come,” she whispers, and he places one of his hands on the bed for stability as she unravels around him, their open mouths held against one another.

He gasps and arches up into her, and she can feel him, hot and forceful. They continue to rock against one another until the height of intensity has passed, and then Mulder slowly reclines back onto the bed, taking her with him.

She rests her cheek on his sweat damp chest, her heart rate slowing steadily. She notices the music again, the same song that must be playing on repeat.

You thrill me. I know you, you, you thrill me. You thrill me, honest you do. At first I thought it was infatuation, but oooo it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home.

She lifts her head, propping her chin on his sternum, and finds him looking at her. He smiles at her and she smiles back, then crawls up his body until he slips out of her. She kisses him once, twice, three times, then tucks her face into the crook of his neck.

“I love you too,” she says softly, her heart hammering again.

She feels his smile widen by the way his cheek presses into her nose. His hands rub wide circles on her back, and a wash of contentment overcomes her.

You send me. I know you send me. You send me, honest you do.

Tagging @today-in-fic

[phillippadgettwrites]

The First Time, Every Time: Eve

Rated X / 2567 words / Posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

She feels like a world class idiot, partly due to being manipulated by a pair of homicidal eight year olds. But they managed to pull one over on everyone—including their own parents—so she can’t hold herself too much at fault there. What’s really bothering her is that she knew, or at least had her suspicions, that something was off with the girls, and she let her guard down anyway. She ignored her instincts, and it nearly got both her and Mulder killed. 

She sinks down onto the bed in her motel room and rubs her hands roughly over her face, cringing at the memory of how stupid she was. How naive. How uncharacteristically girlish. Allowing herself the tiny thrill of playing house with Mulder while the Eves were under their watch backfired gloriously, and as intelligent as the children are she has to imagine that was their intent. They capitalized on the vulnerability they saw in their adult escorts, stopping just short of directly calling them Mom and Dad, and it had worked so well it almost landed her in the autopsy bay. If a couple of prepubescent psychopaths can see it, it must be fairly obvious that she has a teensy little crush on Mulder. Hell, he’s a behavioral profiler, so it must be obvious to him, too. 

It’s not that she has any illusions that something might happen between them, and she honestly wouldn’t even want it to. They’re completely incompatible, and that’s to say nothing for the potential impact to her career were she to act on her urges. But he’s cute, and he only got cuter when he was playing the role of doting father, ushering his gaggle of girls into the truck stop for a bathroom break and a soda. Maybe she flirted a little, and maybe he flirted back, and those damn Eves saw right through them. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. 

She knows that it’s Mulder knocking on her door, and she briefly considers pretending that she’s not in. But it’s late—or early, depending how you look at it—and he has the keys to the rental, so where else would she be? She hauls herself up off the bed and reluctantly opens the door just wide enough for him to see her face. 

“Soda?” he asks, holding up a can of Diet Rite from the vending machine. “Factory sealed for your safety,” he adds, wiggling the can temptingly. 

She smirks, despite her best attempts to suppress it, and opens the door the rest of the way. Mulder walks in and sets the soda down in front of the TV, along with a second that he fishes out of the pocket of his suit jacket, and gives her an appraising look. 

“Wild night, huh?” he says, popping the tab on one of the cans.

An hour ago she was sure she’d never drink soda again, but the crack and hiss of the can opening sets off a Pavlovian response, making her mouth water. Mulder hands it to her and she takes an experimental sip. Not too sweet. 

“That’s one way of putting it,” she says. 

She sits on the end of the bed and he plops down beside her, close enough that his thigh brushes up against hers before he scoots millimeters away. He has a particular end-of-day smell that’s becoming familiar to her: remnants of cologne and deodorant, and the damp salted musk of sunflower seed hulls that line the bottom of his jacket pocket. She has an overwhelming urge to lean into him, but she doesn’t. 

“You okay?” he asks, and she looks up at him sharply, wondering what he sees that she hadn’t meant to show him.

“Yes,” she says, perhaps a little too emphatically. “I was just thinking about Cindy Reardon’s mother. I have no idea how we’re going to explain this to her.”

“You don’t think she knew?” he wonders aloud. “Maybe on some subconscious level?”

Scully shrugs and looks at the floor. 

“That little girl was the embodiment of all her hopes and dreams,” she says sadly. “Even if she knew something was off, she probably explained it away. I know I did.”

She feels him looking at her, but she keeps her eyes on the faded paisley carpet under her feet. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she says, pulling in a deep breath, “that I knew something was off about the girls, but I attributed it to the recent trauma they’d been through. I allowed my preconceptions about what innocent-looking eight year old girls are capable of to override my instincts, with nearly disastrous results.”

He bumps his shoulder against hers and she looks up at him to find a deliciously boyish smile on his face. 

“Don’t go stealing all the credit, Scully,” he says, leaning in. “I demand that my contributions to the truck stop disaster be accounted for.”

His breath smells sweet and his cheeks are becoming rough with stubble. She smiles, and his smile broadens in response. He really is very charming, and she doesn’t get the sense that it’s disingenuous. 

“And which contributions were those?” she asks cheekily. 

“Well, for starters, slapping that soda out of your hand,” he says ruefully. “Not my smoothest move.”

“Fair enough, though in any future circumstances where you see me actively drinking poison, you have my blessing to slap it out of my hand,” she counters. 

“Actually,” he says, sitting up, “I think my real mistake was saying I wanted to open your door for you. Way too unbelievable; even eight year olds know that chivalry is dead.”

She studies the side of his face while he takes a long drink of his soda, trying to decide if he’s being facetious. 

“You’re actually quite chivalrous, Mulder,” she says, careful with her tone so that he doesn’t think she’s teasing him. “You open doors for me all the time. The only odd thing about it was announcing your intention to do so across a parking lot.”

He gives her a long sideways glance that sets off a nervous flutter in her belly, though she couldn’t say why. 

“Does that bother you?” he asks, genuine concern in his voice. “Is it too patriarchal?”

“No,” she says immediately, and she can instantly see relief in his face. “Maybe it would if I felt like you didn’t respect me, or saw me as inferior, but you’ve never made me feel that way.”

She watches him fight off a prideful little smile before he lifts his soda can and hides it behind a drink. When he lowers the can back to his lap, his mouth is arranged into a neatly neutral expression. 

“Can I confess something?” he asks, his eyes flitting between her face and the wall behind her.

Her stomach does a backflip and her mouth goes dry. She takes a drink of her soda before answering

“Sure.”

“When we were with the Eves, I kept thinking about Samantha,” he says, pausing to gauge her reaction. She’s surprised, though she shouldn’t be; the Eves are eight, the same age Samantha was when she was taken. She smiles at him sadly, and he lowers his head. “It probably contributed to me not picking up on some red flags,” he continues. “I think I was having a little too much fun with it.”

She can’t allow him to wallow in his shame alone, as much as it terrifies her to consider admitting to her own flights of fancy regarding Mulder, herself, and a couple of kids. She slides one hand over his back and gives him a reassuring pat. 

“It was kind of fun,” she admits. “Until it wasn’t, anyway. And you were really good with them, Mulder.”

When he lifts his head to look at her, his face is much closer to hers than she was prepared for, and she resists the urge to move away. His eyes lock on hers and her heart picks up a little, anticipating something. 

“You really think so?” he asks, his eyes narrowing in self-doubt. 

Scully swallows and nods. 

“Yeah,” she says, but her voice comes out in a barely audible rasp. 

Two beats pass. Three. It starts to become awkward. It feels like they’re waiting for something, but neither of them appears to know what. By the fourth beat it’s unbearable and she looks away, withdrawing her hand from his back. 

“I should let you go,” she says, her entire body humming. 

“You kicking me out?” he asks playfully. “You have a boy coming over?”

She looks at him sharply. 

“What? No,” she says insistently, finding herself extremely bothered by the idea that he’d think that. 

Mulder laughs and shakes his head as he stands, tossing his empty soda can into the wastebasket and then holding his hand out to her. Slowly, cautiously, she slips her hand into his. For a second he doesn’t do anything, but then his fingers close around hers and he pulls her up in one sharp tug, and she lets out a surprised squeal just before the front of her body crashes into his. She wraps her other arm around his waist to avoid losing her balance, the half-empty soda can still in her hand, and then looks up at his face. 

He’s smirking devilishly, his hooded eyes full of mischief, and she suddenly feels like prey that’s fallen into his trap. The rational part of her mind is warning her to put a stop to this immediately, but she’s too hypnotized by the hungry way he’s looking at her to move. They’re pressed together from chest to pelvis, though their height difference means that his belt buckle is digging into her belly button, his groin bracketed by her hip bones. 

“I was just offering to take your can,” he says, a little bit sheepishly, and Scully feels the hot rush of embarrassment flood through her veins. Too ensnared to quickly get away, she drops her forehead against his chest to hide her face. 

“Oh,” she says, her eyes screwed shut tight and her mouth grimacing. “Sorry.”

She feels the vibration of Mulder’s chuckle in her skull, and then his hand running from between her shoulder blades to the small of her back. She shivers involuntarily, and he pulls her increments closer. 

“Don’t be,” he says, the pitch of his voice deeper than moments before. 

He doesn’t let go, and neither does she. Their joined hands are still pinned between the front of her shoulder and his rib cage, her soda-carrying arm wrapped around his waist. His hand on her back shifts down a little, and she only realizes that her body has at some point drawn an invisible line that Mulder’s casual touches never cross when he crosses it. She feels her skin tingle just above the crack of her ass, and she slowly lifts her head off his chest. 

His expression is somewhat vacant, his eyes zeroed in on her mouth. She lifts her chin and closes her eyes, allowing herself to believe that she won’t be responsible for what happens next. When she feels the heat of his mouth against hers, she begins to melt and simply doesn’t stop. 

Her body softens and leans into his, her neck bending languidly to the side as his lips warm her skin. She keeps her eyes carefully closed, suspending her own reality and receiving whatever reality this is. The one where a man who she trusts implicitly, who respects her, who looks damn good in a suit and tie, is tugging her blouse out of the waist of her slacks and running his rough fingertips up her bare back. The one where he asks for her consent half a dozen times, and she gives it over and over. The one where he strikes the perfect balance of dominance and deference, where he picks her up like she’s made of air and lays her down on the bed, then turns the lights off without her having to ask. 

It’s not that she has any illusions that it’s more than sex, and she honestly wouldn’t even want it to be. They’re completely incompatible, and that’s to say nothing for the potential impact to her career were she to become entangled in some kind of romantic relationship with her partner. But he’s cute, and he eats pussy like a god, and when she finally gets her hands on his dick she’s unable to stop herself from moaning in anticipation. 

They don’t have a condom, but she’s still on birth control after her breakup with Ethan, and she trusts him to pull out. She also trusts him when he tells her he hasn’t been with anyone in years, that he’s been tested. She trusts him with her body, her life. She trusts him more than she’s ever trusted any man she’s allowed inside her. 

He stretches her wide and she gasps from the pain, her fingernails digging into his shoulder. He stops, waiting until he feels her relax, and then rocks his hips slowly as she adjusts to him. She can’t comprehend how instinctively he touches her, how well he seems to know her body after such a brief introduction. He teases her to the edge and back more times than she can count until she finally shatters into a fit of gasps and wails, every cell in her body taking part in her orgasm. He pulls out of her sharply, the thick head of his cock brushing against the sensitive nerve endings around her opening and setting her off again as she feels the wet heat of his cum streaking across her belly. He slumps down beside her and they catch their breath in the murky dark, still too hopped up on dopamine to consider the impact of what they’ve just done. 

Eventually, Mulder feels his way into the bathroom for a towel, but instead of handing it to her he presses it between her legs, gently swiping up and then mopping his semen off her belly. It’s so tender, it catches her off guard, and she suddenly worries whether this means something to him that she’s not ready for. 

“Mulder—” she starts, but he lays a heavy hand on her naked hip to quiet her. 

“It’s okay,” he says, not sounding nearly as concerned as she does. “Wild night.”

Scully heaves a relieved sigh, nodding in the dark. 

“Yes. Wild night,” she agrees. 

He waits until she’s dressed to turn on the bedside lamp, and they both squint as their eyes adjust. He’s still shirtless, his pants on but unbuttoned, and she’s surprised to feel her clit throb at the sight of him. He smiles at her fondly, plucking her soda can off the floor and tossing it into the trash can with his. 

“See you tomorrow?” he asks, pulling on his undershirt. 

“Yep,” she says. 

It’s a little bit awkward, but not as much as she would have thought. 

She sits on the bed as she watches him leave, precluding an attempt at a goodnight kiss, and he pauses halfway through the door, looking back at her expectantly. 

“What?” she asks, a flush of worry making her belly tighten. Maybe this was a mistake. 

“You were really good with them too. The Eves, I mean,” he says, a nervous smile on his mouth. “You’re a natural.”

“Thank you, Mulder,” she says, feeling her cheeks warm. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he says, and then he is gone. 

[eightnightsofmulder]

Celebrating the Eight Nights of Mulder

In the spirit of celebrating Mulder’s (canonically loose ties to his) Jewish heritage, @welsharcher, @agent-troi, and @randomfoggytiger have teamed up to create an event running concurrently with this year’s Hanukkah: The Eight Nights of Mulder! 

The prompts were created from themes we believe honor the spirit of Jewish culture while also incorporating the importance of Mulder’s quest in life. 

The event begins December 7th and runs through to December 15th.

If you would like to participate, please tag this account, one of our main accounts, or include the hashtags #eightdaysofmulder, #8daysofmulder, or 8DoM (because you know Mulder would enjoy that one!) 

We’d love if you joined us -- no matter if you choose to write fic, draw fanart, or create with any other artistic expression! 

[randomfoggytiger]

Eight Nights of Mulder: Day 6, Dreidel

Perhaps a Part II to "Something Approaching a Normal Life".

*****

“Yes, Mom, yes, I will-- what? You… what? Yes, yes I-- yes, Mom, I got it. Yes, I’ll tell him. Mom, Mulder’s here I have to go--” 

Mulder wandered in, sun-tanned and healthy and wonderfully free of an earful of Maggie Scully itinerary. “How’s your mom doing?”

“Planning a surprise for you.” 

His eyebrows flew up-- for me? she interpreted-- and he shook his head, incredulous and disbelieving. 

“For me?” Bingo. 

“She said she wants to celebrate us getting the files back.”

“But that was months ago.”

“I know-- and apparently, she’s been planning this for months. Though what she’s planned is beyond me.” Scully sighed, decided against pinching her nose, crossed her arms instead. “The party’s at five next week.” 

She looked up and had to bite down a grin: Mulder was flummoxed-- there was no other word for it. His mouth flapped once, twice; his eyes widened; and his eyebrows still migrated north. Finally, he lifted a hesitant hand to scrunch then smooth down the back of his hair. 

“I… tell her thanks. From me.” 

*****

Scully, for all her impeccable punctuality, arrived late: snow and traffic she excused to herself, ignoring her nervous breaths and shaky hands. Mulder’s car was already pulled up on the curb-- and Bill’s, she acknowledged with (what she was horrified to realize was) a shudder. Now thoroughly riled up at her cowardice, she slammed the door and crunched across the white lawn with as much dignity as her expensive boots would allow. 

Of all people, her partner answered the door. 

“Happy Hanukkah!” he crowed, grin positively Grinchy while watching Scully’s world grind to a halt. 

“Oh, there you are, honey-- welcome home!” Maggie swept under Mulder’s arm with a benevolent hug, an upbeat, infectious party sprite undeterred by her daughter's ramrod posture. “Happy Hanukkah!” 

“Mom, I didn’t know you celebrated.…” Scully began, eyes darting between both of them as they shooed her through the hall to the coat rack. 

“Don’t be silly, Dana, you know we’re Catholic.” 

Mulder clucked his tongue rebukingly. 

“Then what’s this about?” Whirling around, hat suddenly gone and coat pulled half off, Scully clutched at Maggie’s arm-- or Mulder’s-- and held on, demanding answers. 

“We’re celebrating Hanukkah, Scully. You almost didn’t make it in time for the light show.” 

And Mulder-- this incomprehensible, insensible version of him, anyway-- gave her a good-hearted nudge towards the living room. 

“I… you’re Jewish?” Though Scully tried not to let it, the fact that Mulder had told her mother about this part of himself before her… stung. “If I had known--”

“Oh, I’m not. Or I might be. Hard to say.” Mulder vague-speak: an outright challenge.  And he had the cheek to look endearingly smug about it.  

She, as always, rose to the bait. 

“Mulder.” 

To her surprise, it was Maggie who coughed up an answer: “Dana, leave the poor man alone. I had a dream about him a few months back.” 

Another grinding halt: immediately pivoting, she locked eyes with her mother, aghast. “Mo--” 

“I know you don’t believe in them, but it was real and it happened. Since then, I’ve been planning out this event for the both of you-- and I won’t hear any arguments.” And she scuttled off to the beeping oven before Scully could get a word in edgewise.  

Mulder was having much too fun snacking on fried foods and peeking between her and the decorative menorah resting on a nearby side table. It would almost be amusing if it weren’t so tragic. 

“Mulder, I’m sorry. Mom meant well--”

“Scully, it’s okay-- I’m having a great time. Your mom’s been teaching me all the customs and proper words; and I, I even met a few of your relatives who knew more about Hanukkah than I did.” He chuckled, really pleased. 

Wonder of wonders. 

“Mulder, are you really Jewish?”

She watched him tilt his head mid-chew, watched his jaw grind back and forth between ideas. “I don’t really know, Scully. I think my mother was. Culturally, if not religiously. I have a few memories of her mother, fewer of her father; but… but, yeah, they served these potato pancakes--” he waved one of his snacks for emphasis “--when we dropped in for morning cartoons. Sam and I were always more interested in reruns than talking with ‘the old people’.” 

In the stretch of silence that followed, lengthened, she watched regret bloom behind his eyes. “And maybe that was wrong of us. If I’d known…” we’d lose touch filled the gap, unspoken, “then I think I would have wanted to know more about them. We stopped going right… before. I guess we got so used to being Mulders we forgot how to be Kuipers.”  

Scully nodded, grabbed a potato. Decided to join Mulder in whatever this was for him.  

*****

It wouldn’t pass for the laxest definition of Hanukkah-- all eight nights crammed into one, Maggie and Mulder repeating phrases and rituals back to each other, a nameless relative handing out dreidels and no one caring in the least they were for children's games-- but the celebration was, in its own way, a success. Though the crowd was small (not a lot of stricter family members wanted to attend) and the food a little hit or miss, everyone was determined to have a good time; and that determination carried the night.  

Maggie sent her guests home with leftovers and a little party bag of chocolate coins--  “Gelt!” she repeated, over and over, while Mulder licked tasty smears from his eager fingers-- but whisked the cleaned menorah and dreidels away to her holiday storage, before anyone had even left (cleanliness and promptness still wound tight into her military wife gears.) 

The tromp back through the snow was peaceful. Scully took advantage of the moment to slow their walk, gaze fixed on the white winter moon. They paused in front of her car, his enthusiasm and her absorption meeting somewhere in the middle.   

“Well, Mulder? Do you feel celebrated?”   

He nodded, tossed another gelt into his cavernous mouth, smacked twice, loudly, then cleared his throat. “I’ve been to two of your mom’s parties now, Scully, and I think they get better and better.” 

“That’s only because Bill wasn’t there,” she teased, watching him shift his left boot in the snowdrift. He’d made a little angel, unawares.  

“Yes, he was.”

What? “What? No, he couldn’t have been.” 

“Scully, his car’s just over there.” 

In a flash, she remembered-- yes, Bill’s car was there, had been there before she’d even arrived. “But… but I didn’t even notice him.” 

Mulder snorted. “That’s because your mother kept him hopped up on fried food. He was happy as a clam and didn’t want to come over and bother me.”

“Mulder, of course he wanted to bother you. He probably didn’t think it would look good to bully the Jewish boy on his special day.” 

Her partner shrugged; and the silence pushed her more upright to study him closely. 

“Sometimes I… I can’t help but wonder if I’m misremembering things, Scully. Mom never spoke Yiddish, or practiced cultural holidays, or mentioned Temple; but it didn’t… she doesn’t seem to be avoiding her roots out of shame. And maybe she doesn’t tie herself to being Jewish. Or maybe… what if I made it up in my head, only recalled bits and pieces of my childhood rationalizations and blew them up into a separate identity out of another sense of having been wronged? I’m a Mulder, but….”

But in light of his mother’s denial and rebuke and slap, being a Mulder was shaky ground at present; and escape with a new or reclaimed sense of identity would seem a beautiful salvation to a man scrabbling for any purchase from sheer desperation. 

Scully never weighed in on his family matters-- he hadn’t wanted her too-- but the pieces only fit one way, logically. Rationally nothing else made sense. But as easily as she dismissed the more insidious insinuations of old Spender’s relationship with the Mulders, she also sympathized with her partner’s continual doubts on the subject. Confused by yet another topic Tena complicated by her silence, Mulder was left to drift, clinging to her support and her unflinching, scientific reasoning for reassurance. 

And my family’s open arms and toddled-out traditions. 

“Mulder, at some point a part of us will be lost to time. No one can trace their lineage without it cracking apart under the faults and frailties of common humanity; but more importantly, the common element in all of us is what binds us beyond who we are and what we have chosen to define ourselves by. In one generation, identity can change completely, be it biological or environmental factors. Human wars upend lives and redefine boundaries; and, when a few more wrongs are made right, those lines dividing people collapse, leaving whoever is left to face each other with more in common than not.” 

He was nodding along, mulling over her words. Time to narrow the scope by throwing in a personal illustration.

“Although my family prides itself on its Irish roots, only the very old ones can speak Gaelic; and I’ve learned more about Irish myths and traditions from working with you than I have from an Aunt Olive or a second cousin Seymour. I and my brothers and Melissa were raised Catholic, but only Bill and I chose to remain in the faith. Charlie’s children will turn into different men than Bill’s son, and all three will continue that cycle as they grow up and move out and start families of their own.  

“In short, Mulder,” she said, winding back the spool of her thoughts with a self-deprecating grin, “you’re you. And if that means you enjoy celebrating Hanukkah in the Scully family style, then….” 

She slowed and stopped, puzzled, as he nudged a chocolate from his coin stash at her. “What?” 

“A gelt for your thoughts. I figured you more than earned it.” The expression in his eyes-- starstruck humility and gentle persistence-- undercut Mulder’s flippancy; and brooked no argument. I owe you everything and you owe me nothing, they reminded. It’s the least I can do, they insisted.  

If eating a piece of candy was what Mulder needed from her, then Scully was determined to do it and do it right. She ripped the foil off, popped it in her mouth, and chewed and swished vigorously until every last bite was gone. I do it all for you, Mulder, she thought, this proof and my words and even who I have become. 

Scully watched his eyes twinkle, thankful, before he turned, parting ways after a promise to compare leftovers on Monday.  

*****

She was back in the car, back on the road, almost to her apartment, this time clutching the gelt wrapper like a talisman, swishing her thumb back and forth across the crinkles during the long red lights.  

Scully made a mental note to thank her mother. Whatever tonight was, Mulder had needed it.

*****

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

(Tagging @today-in-fic~)

[aloysiavirgata]

Fisher King prompt: dark crescendoing to light. Daniel Waterson and his baggage come back into her now-married life; maybe by way of the autopsy table. A dark case comes across Mulder’s desk. You pick. A happy surprise at the end to bring them both out of it?

Thanks, lady.

It is the dead nurse that catches his attention. Two days back from his honeymoon, attaboys and filthy jokes and cigars and a stack of manila folders on his dust-rimed desk.

Pendrell whistles when he sees Mulder, makes a predictable playing-doctor joke. He leers as though it obscures the soulful puppy wetness of his face. As though he hasn’t noticed Dana at crime scenes before, the autumn bonfire of her hair. Her tourmaline eyes.

Mulder thumbs the band on his left ring finger, spins it a little in the cool morning light. Flips them all off with good-natured grouchiness as he makes his way to the elevator. He thinks it might be fun to be an old man, to listen to the slap of his bedroom slippers on the grocery store linoleum.

The air in his office smells like cardboard boxes, like ghosts of lo mein and forgotten pizza. Copier toner. Pencil shavings.

His wife says, “Honestly, Mulder,” and makes chicken sandwiches from dinner leftovers, makes him salads with salmon and almonds and avocados and says he needs to gain eight pounds. He’s taken to her demands like a stray cat adjusting to life indoors. He’s growing glossy and sleek, full of essential amino acids.

Full of life.

***

There is no congestion in any of the organs. No petechiae in her eyes, no blood clots in the fragile slices of brain. Lips, mouth, esophagus free of corrosion, not an aneurysm the size of a poppy seed. The bruises and claw marks on her gray throat are her own doing. There are over a dozen witnesses.

Her nails are clotted with her own crumpled skin.

Dana pokes her finger into the aorta, sniffs the dead, butcher-shop air of Ludovica’s mouth. She prods at the lungs and hunts for lesions and surfactant. The nurse’s stomach contains a half-digested bagel and tuna salad. The muscular walls are in the very pink of health. She has lungs like freshly chewed bubblegum.

Dana huffs a strand of hair off her lip. She does not want to call him.

***

“What killed her?” Mulder asks, around a mouthful leftover quiche. God it’s good. She caramelized the onions, used two semesters of organic chemistry on the pastry and can declaim on the Maillard Reaction in a voice fit for Showtime.

“I’m working on it,” his wife says, brisk. “Thus far it seems to be nothing, which is a bit of a problem, medically speaking.”

“How embarrassing,” Mulder says, hunting around for another chunk of broccoli. “To die of nothing. You talk to this Waterston chappie yet?

Silence.

“Dr. Scully?”

A sigh.

Mulder’s brow furrows. “Dana Katherine, what gives?”

She sighs again. “You remember that med school professor I told you about? Funny story…”

***

He gazes at her the way tourists gawp at the Mona Lisa; not with a particular appreciation, just a bit awed that they can check it off their bucket lists.

Twice, for Daniel. A certain chumminess. A hint of inside jokes and favorite restaurants and that-lovely-inn-we-stayed-at. Of possessiveness. Territoriality.

Mulder shakes his head, just a twitch. Just enough to clear Daniel’s smug carnal knowledge of his wife away. Mulder’s fucked people’s daughters as well. People’s wives. There was one at Oxford, Honora, her husband a full professor and he -

Mulder doesn’t say this. He doesn’t say anything as Daniel stares at his Rossetti wife, undoubtedly thinks about the determined twitch of her twenty-one year old ponytail and her scuffed Keds and her slipshod Navy brat graces and her body like Artemis bathing by moonlight.

But Daniel’s alone and Mulder isn’t.

Dana isn’t alone either because, against all reason and karma, she’s married him, married Fox Mulder, like it was an absolutely sane thing to do, and her family simply went along with it.

“Tell me what you saw,” says Mulder, with the gentle absolution of a priest. “No judgement here,” he lies. She was hardly more than a girl, she was an innocent, she trusted you, you fucking asshole, you predator, you-

Daniel looks at Dana. Looks down at his surgeon’s hands. No ring on any of his fingers.

Daniel closes his eyes and looks at nothing.

“We began a midline sternotomy, absolutely routine, Suddenly Ludovica - Nurse Giordano - grabbed her throat and said she couldn’t breathe. She…she screamed Diavola! Said there was sulfur, said it was mustard gas, but none of the rest of us smelled a damn thing. But she was thrashing on the floor of the OR and our patient was-“

He looks around then, catches Dana’s eye, shyness in his expression. Shyness in his fatherly face. Dana had looked up at it for approval, no doubt. In what she probably thought was passion. Maybe even love.

Dana nods encouragingly and Mulder feels it then, the weight of years. He understands in that moment that time really is the fourth dimension; that it has a hot, heavy plasticity into which you can sink. He understands the realness of an event horizon, that they are all being pulled towards the unfinished thing between Daniel and his wife, Ludovica Giordano’s corpse included.

His wife was a physics major, his wife rewrote Einstein with the ebullient narcissism of the young.

He understands that his wife and Daniel speak the same primal, arcane language of science. He is a lowly psychologist, the major you pick when you can’t get into dental school but still want to Help Others.

Kepler’s Third Law tells us that intensity equals the inverse of the square of the distance from the source.

And he’s brought Daniel back into her orbit.

***

“I can’t believe you fucked him,” Mulder gasps into her tender seashell ear. An inch from her extraordinary brain.

“I was a child,” she hisses back. “Essentially. Don’t stop, Christ, don’t - I was a child, I-“

She was, she was, she was Eos newly born, she was radiant and young, she was Persephone to Daniel’s Hades, she was fresh milk at Ostara, and a sunrise over the Atlantic.

“Did you love him?”

Her thighs so taut and pale and quivering. Her wedding dress, her misty veil. Her palimpsest skin, on which he can rewrite himself.

“I thought I did but but it wasn’t this, it was never this, it was never you, I-“

Mulder comes in her, groaning, feels the tiniest sting of shame at how good it is to reclaim her from this other man.

***

“Dana,” Daniel says, heavy-tongued for Mulder’s consecrated, Catholic wife. He is hard; he shifts in the uncomfortable chair.

Mulder knows and Dana knows and the air is thick with this knowledge but strangely not unpleasant. The air is July just before a thunderstorm. The air is dense and verging. Primal, fecund, cataclysmic.

Hot.

Green.

Alive.

The air tastes like a 9-volt battery. He wants to put a baby into his wife.

“You were there,” Mulder says, his buckskin hands woven and laced. “What did you see?”

Daniel looks at Dana, Daniel is here for Dana, because he believes she is cold and lonely and alone in the way of the outer planets. He still thinks only he can warm her.

(He doesn’t know, Daniel, not really, that there is a solid core beneath the icy mist.)

She’s too distant and abstruse and Daniel doesn’t know.

***

Daniel smirks at Mulder, this old man who felt briefly alive in the hot juncture of his wife’s thighs; smirks as though he’s done anything real at all. They view the human heart so differently, he and Daniel.

Dana - Dr. Scully - rests her palms against her sharp tweed knee. She only wants to know what stops any human heart from beating. What shuts the brain down, from prefrontal cortex in a cascade to the lowly lizard stem.

“What did you see, Daniel?” She is poised and tensed. She is waiting. She is untouchable.

Mulder - Fox - is disarmed by the chill of her haughty face. Her Plutonian eyes are so very, very cold . So very, very far.

Ice could never be so warm.

***

“‘Maggie,” he breathes, into her amber light. Into her aura, in her husband’s office, after Mulder went out for their lunch order.

“No,” Dana says. “I don’t care. Tell me about the nurse.”

Daniel huffs. “I don’t know, it was nothing, Dana, Maggie said-“

“I don’t care,” Dana says, crisp. “I don’t care about your daughter. You certainly didn’t, when you brought me to your bed.

Daniel is appalled. “Dana, you were-“

“I know what I was,” she replies. “I knew what I was doing and I don’t regret it, not really. But I didn’t understand what you were, not then. And you should regret me, Daniel.”

He looks at her, his brows drawn.

He looks away, back through the years. Dana, all sharpened Ticonderogas and her mouth an unplucked apricot. Skin like fresh-churned butter.

“She was…she was gasping,” he says to the wall of of clippings. To the Flatwoods Monster and wendigos and little lost girls and stills from the Zapruder Footage. “She was clawing at her throat, she…diavola.”

Diavola.

Daniel looks at the ceiling. “She clawed her throat to ribbons,” he says. “She said our patient was full of demons, she said…” He shakes his head and looks at Dana again.

Dana knows. Dana has seen. Has read and wondered and wondered, considered the Gerasene demoniac in the synoptic gospels. Tooms at her belly on the chilly tile of her bathroom…

It will do no good. Whatever her husband says, the truth is not always a panacea. The patient has lived and Ludovica has died and all anyone wants is official paper with Dana’s name at the bottom.

A reckoning, now. A choice.

“Anaphylaxis?” Dana murmurs, in the perfume and cashmere of a different rich man’s wife. She puts a little throatiness in her voice now, like she did after Dr. Waterston spoke to her in private about Starling’s Law. She can give him this. She can give Ludovica’s family this.

Diavola.

Mulder is right, Mulder is almost always right. But Mulder is right in his own time and Ludovica’s family needs her home.

Daniel catches the lifeline she throws, grateful.

Humbled.

Daniel, when his gaze returns, is a bit smaller in her eyes. “Yes,” he says. “It must have been.”

***

They’re eating dinner at the Peruvian chicken place on the corner because Dana is hollow and Mulder has moderately weaponized his own culinary incompetence.

“Ansel died today,” she says, poking at her rice.

Mulder nearly chokes on a mouthful of black beans. “What?!”

“Died. Massive coronary at his desk. Dead within seconds.”

Mulder gapes. Ansel Jordan, Chief Medical Examiner in DC; the alpha and omega of the unexpectedly dead in the District. “He ran marathons.”

Dana nods into the middle distance. “He ran marathons. He had a treadmill in his office. He was 57 and he was my boss and I split his chest apart with a Stryker before his body had even cooled this morning. My god, I forgot what warm tissue feels like.”

She looks up with her wide, delphinium eyes. “They asked me, Mulder.”

They asked? He is appalled. “They asked you to autopsy him? That’s really fu-“

She shakes her head. “No, nobody asked me that. No one would ever. I volunteered, it was the right thing to do, for my colleagues. For Ansel. We were hardly close but I had tremendous respect for the man.”

Ansel was a runner. He ate well and drank in moderation. He cared for his body like a classic car; starting to slow down but with lots of miles left.

The human body is strange and unpredictable.

“Are you okay?” How do you cut open a man you know? He cannot believe she didn’t call this morning but also of course she didn’t call this morning. She is an eternal riddle, a beautiful enigma.

“I’m surprisingly fine,” she says. “I mean, it’s horrible and pointless and tragic. But the process of an autopsy…it soothed me. I knew what to do and there was a…a checklist.”

He smiles, soft. “You’re always a doctor first.”

Dana shrugs, fluid and dismissive. “I guess.”

He realizes then, awed. Adoring. “They want you to… to step in, to be Chief. Dana, that’s incredible, that’s a huge honor. I’m sorry it’s come at the cost of Ansel, but Christ. It’s tremendous.”

He will never achieve this in his own career and is delighted that she can.

Dana nods slowly, a blush creeping up her fine, pale cheeks. She spears a plantain and examines it on the end of her fork. “It’s obviously not a formal offer yet, my god, he’s only just been released to the family, but yes. It’s tremendous.” She bites into the plantain.

He thinks back to that feeling of wanting a baby, wanting her to have it, and knows that the new Chief Medical Examiner of DC will have other pressures, other concerns.

She’s expressed interest in babies in a vague sort of way, but doesn’t want them like he does. Dana grew up with hand-me-downs and home haircuts and spaghetti the last week of every month. She knows that babies grow into scraped-kneed children who need lunch money and trombones and French tutors and football uniforms.

He’s rich enough for it all, for night nurses and nannies, but he knows her body is not a rental property. He wants a baby, he does, but he also doesn’t care if it means this for her. He doesn’t care if her star can rise.

“I love you,” he says, raising his plastic cup of horchata. “And I’m so goddamn sorry about Ansel.”

She lifts hers back, his wife, her old-master face and her slapdash smile. “Thank you,” she says, still pained. “And slaínte.”

“L’chaim,” he replies. To life.

[oohnotvery]

NEW FIC - WIP! Hand To Your Heart (Chapter 1)

Hi all,

This is my take on the classic trope of “Mulder and Scully decide to be friends-with-benefits. Surely they can keep their emotions to themselves, right? Oh, and add in a little Fowley angst.”

This isn’t totally canon-compliant because I genuinely don’t understand the mytharc and don’t care to get better acquainted with it.

As usual, this is a WIP and will have a happy ending (MSR). My last fic proved to me that I shouldn’t promise any true regularity in updating, but I do try to update about 2-3 times a week.

Enjoy, and as always, thank you for reading and commenting! Find me on AO3 (oohnotvery)!

-E.

tagging @today-in-fic

Scully

They haven’t tried this position before, but Scully is glad it’s what Mulder wants tonight. Here on his bed, with her ass in the air and her eyes pinned to the pattern of his duvet, it is a welcome relief not seeing his face as he approaches orgasm.

When they initiated this little arrangement five weeks ago, she didn’t put much—if any—thought into which sex positions they might try. At the time, all she really cared about was getting him naked regularly, having the chance to touch his body without hesitation, and being able to engage in her most recurrent fantasy—sex with Mulder—without a hint of shame.

Of the fifteen times they’ve had sex, they’ve tried a lot of things together: missionary, cowgirl, standing, spooning, going down on the other, and one time, he even convinced her to sit on his face. Although she blushed from head to toe at that last one, she has a feeling that for the rest of her life, it will stand out in her memory as the most thigh-trembling, toe-tingling, spine-curling orgasm of her life.

So tonight, when he tossed her face down on the bed, she was a little surprised. They’ve never tried doggy style before. Although in past relationships she’s enjoyed the feeling of being taken from behind, she hasn’t been too interested in trying a position with Mulder that feels so . . . detached.

Her surprise quickly gave way, however, to a deep surge of relief. Tonight, he’s not pulling her into his lap or positioning them like he normally does—foreheads touching, gazes locking as they come in near synchronicity. No. That would be far too intimate tonight.

Maybe he’s feeling it too, she thinks as he pauses to shove her legs even wider apart. Her clit is nearly touching the mattress now and she resists the urge to grind down into his bed. She doesn’t want him to see her so needy. Not tonight, not when the tension between them has escalated to a fever pitch. Not when they can barely look each other in the eyes.

It was a mistake to come here, she thinks as he starts slamming into her. She is too vulnerable, too emotional, stripped bare after a week of confusion, jealousy, and disloyalty.

But the little chicken-scratch note he slapped on her desk today was too tempting to ignore.  

Tonight, my place. Be there at eight.

All of their prior dalliances have begun either with flimsy pretense or mutual understanding: she’s stopping by for a drink, he’s coming over to share notes, they decide to leave work early, he books them conjoining motel rooms. Never has one summoned the other, not like this. Part of her really, really likes it, likes the way his demand makes her stomach swoop. The commanding tone of his request feels primal, possessive. It says you’re mine, and I will fuck you tonight whether you want me to or not.

Surrendering to her baser desires has been so, so easy lately, so when she saw his note, it was natural to consider allowing it one more time. They’ve been opposite soldiers on the battlefield all week. Maybe crossing enemy lines could yield reparations, understanding, an alliance.

No. She should have resisted. She should have remembered all the ways this week has ruined them. Wasn’t it just a few days ago that she met Diana Fowley? That she spied Mulder tenderly holding hands with this mysterious new agent? That she visited the Gunmen, only to learn the true nature of this woman from Mulder’s past? That she left their lair feeling humiliated, betrayed, and replaced? That she swore to herself she’d never sleep with Mulder again?

And she knows why Mulder demanded her company tonight. Although there hasn’t been an obvious pattern to their past hook-ups, she knows he’s using her. It’s part of why they agreed to this arrangement, right? Stress relief, a trusted partner with whom to engage in mutually beneficial safe sex. Completely emotion-free. Strictly platonic. And God knows Mulder has been through the ringer this week. Their office, burned. The X-Files, incinerated. Diana, shot and hospitalized. It makes sense that he’s using her body to drown out his worries, but it makes less sense that she’s just letting him. But . . . but he’s Mulder, and even if he’s been difficult and moody and elusive all week, he smells good and looks good, and she knows the way his tongue feels on her clit, and she knows the way he grins when she tells him she’s coming—

She gasps, returning violently to the present moment as Mulder pulls out all the way and slams his hips back into her. She grits her teeth as pleasure-mixed-with-pain ripples treacherously through her body. She buries her face in the duvet and tries to remind herself that Mulder has visited Diana in the hospital every day this week. In fact, she knows he was there today, because when he answered the door tonight, he still had a visitor’s badge taped to his t-shirt. As soon as she saw the ugly thing, she almost turned around and walked out. She can’t fuck someone who’s interested in someone else, right?

But he had grabbed her by the neck and hauled her into him, and because he’s a beautiful kisser, because his erection was so damn rigid against her jeans, because his breath tasted slightly of alcohol, she caved. He’s using her for sex? She could certainly do the same.

But tonight has been noticeably different than all their past visits. Over the last few weeks, she’s grown to expect Mulder to talk while he’s fucking her. Sometimes sweet, sometimes dirty, sometimes with a flick of his tongue in her ear, sometimes with his lips suctioned around her clit.

But he’s eerily silent tonight. Normally at this point, with sweat breaking out over their bodies and her clit screaming for attention, he’s beginning to move his mouth to her ear, starting to whisper things like good girl, come for me, you feel so fucking good, oh, I’m gonna come, Scully, your body is so sexy.

And yet, he hasn’t even touched her tonight. Usually, there’s long stretches of foreplay before he actually starts to fuck her. Most days, she’s already come once from his fingers or his mouth before he even begins to suggest penetrative sex. But tonight, he went from zero to sixty in a matter of minutes, and with his lack of attention and her growing indignation, her body’s arousal is dipping, dipping, dipping. She’s simply not wet enough for this.

He slams back into her and this time she cries out in real pain. That was too rough, she should say, and any other day, she would raise her head and tell him. And if he were truly in tune with her like normally, he’d notice her discomfort. He’d see the way her muscles are tensing, the way she’s leaning her hips away from him, the way her whimpers are growing more and more distressed.

But instead he just adjusts his grip, grabs her shoulder, and brings his other hand up to her breasts, plucking at her nipples. At first, the change is welcome—he’s touching me!—but then his fingers pinch hard. Too hard. She bites her lip until she tastes blood, but she’s tough, and she refuses to admit that it hurts. Not tonight.

He pounds out a half dozen more strokes then folds over her, his chest slick against her back, his mouth brushing up against her ear. Oh. Okay. Maybe he is going to talk her through her orgasm.

“Close?” he asks on a grunt, and she doesn’t think he’s ever had to ask her that question. Usually by this point, she’s already telling him—both physically and verbally—that she’s nearing her orgasm.

The answer is no, no, she’s not close at all. She’s not going to come tonight, not with Diana Fowley and betrayal and a burned office and a distant partner on the brain.

“Scully?” he prods aggravatedly when she doesn’t answer. He’s gone still inside her and it’s a welcome relief. She’s never been this unresponsive to him, has never had a problem with her arousal around him. Hell, she’s been wet for five years. Tonight, though, he’s just not doing it for her.

But she can’t talk about it. There’s no conversation they could have that would improve the state of their relationship right now. She’s not going to admit to her insecurities around Diana Fowley, and he doesn’t even know the Gunmen revealed their secret dating history. It would be embarrassing—mortifying, really—to admit to such knowledge, to such feelings. So instead, she closes her eyes and nods.

“Yeah.”

He hesitates briefly before lifting off her back and sliding his hands back down to her hips. She bites the inside of her cheek as he pounds into her, five, six, seven, eight times, and then he’s coming. When he slips out and pushes her away onto her side, the breath sputters out of her in gasping relief. Her cunt is aching, and not in a good way. The only fluid down there is Mulder’s semen leaking out of her, and even that stings and itches against her sensitive walls. She squirms uncomfortably for a minute, wondering what he expects from her next. Normally, he tugs her into his chest and holds her for a long time, sometimes so long that she forgets to make an excuse about needing to go home. On more than one occasion, in fact, she’s woken up the next morning to his wandering hands under the sheets and a fresh cup of coffee on the nightstand.

She steals a glance behind her and to her consternation, his eyes are closed, his mouth half-open, his breathing deep and even. The bastard is already, impossibly asleep. Angry, outraged tears collect on her lashes as she realizes she’s been dismissed. There will be no sleepover tonight, no cuddling, no coffee in the morning. Indignantly, she swipes at her wet cheeks. She will not waste tears on this humiliation.  

Moving silently, she collects her things and heads to the bathroom to clean up. A quick glance at her watch tells her it’s not even nine o’clock yet. Jesus Christ, she hasn’t even been here an hour. Somehow, though, it’s been more than enough time for something sick and twisted to curl up in her gut, for a painful ache to weigh down her heart.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Sleeping with Mulder was never supposed to feel demeaning or humiliating. When they came up with this little arrangement, she imagined a lot of things, a whole host of possibilities: great sex, a more intimate bond, a relief to the tension that’s been building and building and building all these years. Of course—because she’s not an idiot—she also considered some the less pleasant outcomes: that the sex would be mediocre, that they wouldn’t “click” in this particular way, that he’d want to call it off after just one try.

But for all the ugly scenarios she did cook up, she never once allowed herself to face the truly terrifying possibilities. She never once imagined herself sneaking out of his apartment after a quick, unsatisfying fuck. She never once envisioned herself crying on the drive home as the twin pillars of shame and resentment took hold in her chest. She never once thought that she would be left broken and hurting after just five weeks of sharing his bed. She never once considered that she would leave his apartment feeling worse about herself than she did upon arrival.

And of course, naïve as she’s been, she never believed there could ever be another woman involved.  

In her car, she slams her fist on the steering wheel. God, why hadn’t she thought of these things? Why hadn’t she considered the possibility that things would go terribly, terribly wrong?

Because you’re in love, a small voice whispers.

She grinds her teeth and grips the wheel tighter, refusing to acknowledge the thought playing at the back of her mind. She will never let herself bring that particular idea to the light. It is dangerous, unwieldy. Being in love with Mulder isn’t an option. The foundation of their sexual arrangement is that the raging tension and chemistry between them is purely sexual. There are no emotions, save for the natural affection and fondness that comes with being partners for five years.

And although she’s always been good at shoving down her emotions, right now, they’re climbing higher and higher in her throat. If she opens her mouth, they just might spill out. Things like love, desire, devotion, passion. Things that are much heavier than friendship. Things that will break them.

Regret surges all around her, and she knows she has made a grave error in judgment. For her own sake, it is clear she needs to end this with him. The persistent flood tears tonight are proof alone that she has gotten too invested, too emotional. The gut-wrenching idea of Diana Fowley lurking in the background is evidence that Mulder never intended for this arrangement to mean anything.

So, she needs to end it.

And yet . . .

And yet, she can’t. Not without alerting him to the fact that she has significant feelings, feelings that he’s crushed to a pulp in just a few weeks.

In the parking lot of her building, she closes her eyes and rests her forehead on the wheel. She shoves past pesky emotions to dig deeper into clarity. So, she can’t end things, but she also can’t sleep with him again. Doing so would break her.

There’s a way to do this, though, a way that doesn’t involve letting onto her feelings or her pain. All she must do is let it fade into the background. Release Mulder to the world, to Diana Fowley, if he wants that woman. Politely refuse his invitations to hang out. Decline to initiate sex on her own. Eventually, someone else—likely a tall brunette with long legs and huge tits—will ensnare him, will entice him, will take him away from her.

Soon, Scully tells herself as she exits the car, he’ll stop coming to her for sex. Soon, they’ll slot back into their old, platonic partnership. Soon, she’ll stop thinking that she loves him.

And soon, she promises herself through gritted teeth, she will forget all the ways he made her feel like he might love her, too.

[slippinmickeys]

Twenty questions for fanfic writers

I was tagged by @agent-troi and @randomfoggytiger Thanks for the tag, guys!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

53

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

712,000 exactly, which is sort of creepy?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The X-Files mainly, though a million years ago I wrote two fics for JAG, and technically, I have a His Dark Materials fic (but it's an XF crossover)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae

Prompt Drabble Collection

The Annapolis Grant

Three Part Harmony

A Companion Unobtrusive

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! Comments are the only payment fanfic writers get, and it's an incredibly valuable and underrated currency. Fanfiction as a community is one of the most generous you'll find, and I'm incredibly proud to be a part of this particular one.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh man, probably La Comtesse de Saint-Germain.

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

In this day and age I feel like we deal with enough shit, so I try to end most of my fics happily. I think A Gem-Like Flame probably has the most uplifting happy ending, but then, I'm a sports nerd.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't yet.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Um, probably pretty vanilla het MSR. No shame.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've only written one, but it turned out really well, I thought. It's an X-Files/His Dark Materials novella-length crossover that takes place in Lyra's world, pre-Lyra, called Out of the Little Grove.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Anyone who steals my fic is going to catch these hands.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a couple of years ago someone asked if they could translate one of my fics to Russian. It's out there somewhere.

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

I jumped in and helped @monikafilefan get Five Years and a Lifetime over the line for a fic exchange a couple of years ago. A fun, collaborative experience, that was like 85% Monika. It's a great fic, check it out if you haven't!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Mulder & Scully are my OTP. Always and forever.

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

I'd love to finish Madam Scully's Spiritual Services, Inc., it's an AU where Scully works for her sister's Psychic Boutique while prepping for med school. Scully ends up being actually psychic and she helps newly minted FBI agent Fox Mulder solve a series of murders. I have it almost completely plotted (except for the nitty-gritty hard stuff), but I don't think I'll ever get it done, sadly. It's just too big a story to tackle with where I am in my life. Though I never say never.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm decent at dialogue, have a pretty firm grasp on plotting, and, I hope characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My character work is probably my weak spot, which is why I have so much fun writing fanfic--the character work is already done, I just get to play around a world where everybody already knows the characters.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

When I do it, I hope like hell that I'm doing it right. I think it's necessary for some stories and you just hope you're properly respecting a language you don't speak.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The X-Files, in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and ninety eight.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It's a toss up between Proof of Life, an AU where CNN conflict reporter Dana Scully is kidnapped and imprisoned with fellow kidnap victim and photojournalist Fox Mulder, and they, you know, fall in love. And North of Zero, a post-col novel where Mulder and Scully get William back and have to save the world. The one I totally pantsed (made up as I went along), and it came together like alchemy. I love that story. If you don't like AU, you'd like Proof of Life. If you don't like post-colonization stories, you'd like North of Zero. I don't always like everything I've written after I'm done writing it (a writer's life), but I'm incredibly proud of both of those fics.

Tagging @monikafilefan because she's already tagged, and anyone else who wants to do this!

[numinousmysteries]

All the Seeds

@eightnightsofmulder

@today-in-fic

Eight Nights of Mulder Day Six: Dreidel [on Ao3]

December 1998

He almost kissed me in his hallway. He lets her call him Fox. He loves me. He loves me not.  He came all the way to Antarctica to save my life. He ditched me with Gibson Praise to drive off with her in Phoenix.  He loves me. He loves me not.  He said he loved me when he was high on painkillers. He probably told her that countless times while sober. He loves me. He loves me not. 

Being off the X-Files is bad for us. Running background checks on fertilizer purchases uses up  too small a fraction of my brain power and frees up too much of my energy to think about other things…like what the fuck is going on in my partner’s head. He’s moody and more impatient than normal. His behavior borders on flirtatious at times but if I play along, he recoils.

When we worked on the X-Files together, Mulder and I were in sync. We rarely shared an opinion, but we had our routine well-established: Theory, countertheory, hunches, wild goose chases, and typically ending up just as clueless as when we started. It was a well-choreographed dance. We could do all the steps with our eyes closed.

Now, we’re stomping all over each other’s toes. Our rhythm is off. Sometimes it seems like we’re having two different conversations at the same time.

I don’t want to say it’s all Diana Fowley’s fault, but she sure as fuck isn’t helping. She tends to always have an excuse to call him down to the basement with a question about a case. She inevitably makes her way up to the bullpen around lunchtime to see if he wants to get something to eat. Mulder usually asks if I’d like to join, but I know it’s an empty invitation. 

I’m not proud of it, but I do have a jealous streak. It isn’t even always romantic, either. I remember competing with my siblings for my father’s attention, and burning with anger if he seemed more impressed with one of them at any given moment. It was the same in school, from the time I was a child all the way through Quantico. I had such a desire to please my teachers and needed to be the favorite in every class. 

Needless to say, being the subject of Mulder’s undivided attention—with the exception of the weekly cryptid or the occasional busty entomologist—for nearly six years felt good. Having to share him with Diana Fowley does not. 

I know they have history. And I know she’s attractive. But it’s not even that. It’s the effect she has on him. The way he’ll believe anything she says without a scrap of evidence. The way she makes me feel like a nagging shrew. The way she gets to call him Fox. 

He’s coming back from lunch now, striding across the bullpen towards me, and, is he…whistling? I sincerely hope all he had to eat was a sandwich. 

“Hey, Scully,” he says, smiling. “It’s unseasonably warm out. What do you say we get out of here for a bit?”

“You’ve been gone for nearly an hour. Weren’t you at lunch with Agent Fowley?” I ask.

“Nah,” he says. “She got an urgent phone call before we made it out of the building, so I just went back to my apartment to pick up this book on cryptozoology that’s been on my mind.”

I notice he’s empty-handed. “But you didn’t find it?”

Mulder shakes his head. “I think it might still be in our old office. But I found something else.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small wooden top.

“A dreidel?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “This was mine when I was a kid. Ended up in the back of my bookcase somehow. Come on, I’ll teach you how to play. ‘Tis the season, after all, and I promise it’ll be more fun than running another background check. Although that isn’t saying much.” 

I could use a break. This work is mind-numbingly dull and playing hooky for an afternoon with Mulder sounds much more intriguing. I return his smile and shrug on my coat. 

As I’m following him through the bullpen, he calls out to me, a little too loudly, “I hope we’re not stuck on this stakeout the rest of the day, but knowing our perp I wouldn’t bet on making it back before sunset.” 

“That’s too bad, Agent Mulder,” I reply, matching his volume and trying not to grin. “I was hoping to get ahead on all this paperwork.” 

The elevator down to the lobby is crowded but he gives me a conspiratorial wink and I feel myself blushing. I’m pressed up close to him and can smell his musk and aftershave. We both can’t help but laugh once the lobby’s revolving door propels us onto the sidewalk. He’s right. It’s warm out for December and in the sun I barely need my coat. 

We wander until we’re a safe distance from getting spotted and find ourselves a bench near the reflecting pool. Thanks to the temperate weather, the Mall is busy and we can easily blend in with the crowd of tourists and office workers.

“Ever played dreidel before, Scully?” he asks.

“I can’t say I have.” 

“It’s easy.” He holds the top out to me in his palm.

“This is nun,” he explains, pointing to the side of the dreidel embossed with a character that looks like a backward letter C. “If your spin lands on nun, you do nothing, which is easy to remember. But nun looks deceptively similar to gimel”—he turns the top to a side with a nearly identical symbol, but this one has a little leg sticking out of the bottom, “and if you land on gimel, you get the whole pot.”

“What’s in our pot, Mulder?” I ask. 

“Sam and I used to play with gelt but since we don’t have any, we can use these instead,” he says, pulling a bag of sunflower seeds out of his jacket pocket. 

“If you land on shin,” he says, showing me a character that looks like a W, “you have to add a coin, or a seed in our case, to the pot. That leaves hey”—now he shows me the final side of the dreidel— “and that means you take half the pot.”

“I think I got it,” I say.

He starts divvying up a pile of seeds between the two of us. He brings one to his mouth, cracks open the shell with his teeth, and eats it. I’ve seen him do the same motion hundreds of times and it always makes me wonder what else his nimble mouth is capable of. I’m sure Diana has intimate knowledge of that. 

“For good luck,” he says. 

“Sure, Fox,” I say teasingly. 

He cringes.

“Sorry,” I say, my eyes drifting to my pile of sunflower seeds. “That’s what Diana calls you.” 

“Yes, and I hate it,” he says. “I’ve asked her not to, but it’s not a battle worth fighting. I think she does it just to irritate me.” 

“I know you two were,” I pause. “Together.”

Why am I prying? He knows that I know. I know he’ll never say anything outwardly negative about her as much as I wish that he would. And I don’t want him to think that I’m fishing. But I can’t resist. 

“A long time ago,” he says quietly.  

“It must be nice to have her back, though” I say. “An old friend.”

He shrugs and plucks one seed from each of our piles to start the pot. 

“You go first,” he says, handing me the dreidel. 

I give it a flick with my fingers but my spin is too enthusiastic and the dreidel ends up falling off the bench.

“Easy there, tiger,” Mulder says with a laugh, leaning over to pick it up off the ground. 

I try again more gently, and land on hey. “Nice, Scully,” he says, as I take one seed back from the pot. 

We go back and forth like this for a while, our respective sunflower seed piles growing and shrinking. 

“I never did this with Diana,” he says absentmindedly as he adds to the pot after landing on shin. 

“You don’t need to tell me that, Mulder,” I say softly, once again avoiding his eyes. 

“It’s true,” he says, bringing his fingertips to my chin, encouraging me to look up and face him. “I’m not going to lie to you. We were very close for a while and, at the time, I would’ve said she was the love of my life—”

I flinch and hope he doesn’t notice. 

“—but that was before I met you.” 

“Oh, please, Mulder,” I say, leaning back and away from him. “You were in a relationship with her. You lived together. You were…intimate. I’m just your partner.”

“I hope you don’t believe that, Scully,” he says sternly, and I realize he’s serious. “I thought I loved Diana because she was the first person to accept me for who I am, but it didn’t take long to realize that she didn’t really see me. She saw a version of me that she felt she could mold into someone she’d want to be with. When I didn’t want to go along with that, she picked up and left. But you see me, Scully. You really see me for who I am and you haven’t run away yet.”

He reaches across our sunflower seed piles to hold my hand. His touch is gentle yet firm, as if to reassure me. My lips are trembling and I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I’m scared to speak, not knowing what sounds will come out. 

“And I see you,” he continues. “You’re so fucking loyal and honest and you fight for what you believe in. You’re principled and kind and even though you challenge me every day, there’s no one else I’d rather argue with. You give my life meaning.”

He squeezes my hand tighter. I try to hold back my tears but it’s no use. I blink and they’re streaming warm down my face. My heart and my mind are racing. Passersby are milling all around us but we’re frozen like statues. 

“Mulder,” I gasp. “I don’t know what to say.” 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says, smiling as he passes me the dreidel. “Just spin.”

Catching my breath, I give the dreidel one last spin on the bench. 

“Gimel!” he shouts excitedly. “You get all the seeds, Scully. And all of me. Don’t forget that.” 

“Too bad I don’t like sunflower seeds,” I say, smiling at him shyly. 

“Well, I can take those off your hands,” he says, sweeping all three piles of seeds back towards him. “But you are stuck with me, unfortunately.”

We lock eyes. “I can live with that,” I say. 

He returns the seeds to the plastic bag and tucks it back into his jacket pocket. As we walk back to the Hoover building, he drapes his arm around me. For the first time in months, we’re back in sync. 

I think he just might love me.