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cecilysass · 2 years

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The Kaleidoscope (4/4)

Read on AO3 | Angst, JealousMulder, MSR | Tagging @today-in-fic

take three.

Realization.

He’s distracted as he enters the garage, lost in the tangle of his thoughts as he walks to his car. When a black Camaro barrels down the ramp, much too fast, he isn’t even aware of it until it is almost too late.

When he does finally process the headlights coming directly at him, he reacts on pure instinct.

He springs forward exactly at the same time as the Camaro brakes. There is a demonic shriek of tires. It’s not a clean jump. The edge of the halting car knocks him, and he’s jettisoned violently forward.

There’s a painful impact. And the world goes dark.

***

“Can you hear me?”

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“I don’t see any blood. Is he hurt?”

A woman’s face, indistinct, looking down at him, her brow furrowed. “Young man? Can you hear me?”

He blinks, and his eyes slowly focus on details of the woman’s face. Middle-aged, black, glasses, a burgundy blazer, gold earrings.

“Yeah,” Mulder says blearily. “Yeah, I can hear you.”

“Are you all right?” Quentin stands behind the woman, looking down in anxious concern, and Mulder wonders stupidly if Mario is behind the security desk all by himself. A few other onlookers stand nearby, including a blonde woman Mulder recognizes as a receptionist from the sixth floor, and a short man he knows is a forensic accountant.

“Yeah.” Mulder sits up, gingerly. “I think I’m okay. I got clipped by a speeding car. Did you see it? It was going way too fast.”

“The Camaro.” The gold earrings woman shakes her head disapprovingly. “I saw it. I have to say, you’re fortunate to be alive.”

“I guess I am,” Mulder says weakly.

“You should go to the hospital and get checked out,” urges Quentin. “In case anything is busted in your head or something.”

“I’m sure lots is busted in my head,” Mulder says, starting to stand up. “But not from this.”

“Careful,” the gold earrings woman warns, grabbing his elbow. “Take it slow.”

“I really don’t think you should drive for a few minutes, Agent Mulder,” the blonde receptionist suggests, with a concerned frown. Mulder tries to recall her name. He and Scully have asked for her help a few times—Scully would definitely remember her name. “Sit down and make sure you’re okay first. A head injury can be dangerous.”

“That’s a good idea,” Quentin agrees. “Sit down.”

“I think I’m fine.” Mulder tries to look casually cheerful.

“Better safe than sorry,” the gold earrings woman says firmly. “Go sit for a few minutes. You have an office in the Hoover Building?”

“I have a desk,” Mulder says. “I can probably go upstairs and hang out a little while.”

The blonde receptionist, seemingly more familiar with his reputation than the others, looks unconvinced, crossing her arms in displeasure.

“And there’s someone who can help you if you don’t feel well?”

“My best friend is a doctor,” Mulder says evasively.

“You promise you won’t leave until you’re sure you’ve got your feet under you?” the gold earrings woman asks.

“Yeah,” Mulder smiles wanly.

Quentin claps Mulder on the back and shakes his head. “Man, you are having one bad day. First your heart breaks and then your head, right?”

Mulder gives Quentin a look and nods warily, glancing at the blonde receptionist, who knows Scully and therefore can’t be privy to any heartbreak talk.

“I’d say he’s having a very blessed day.” The gold earrings woman regards him seriously over the top of her glasses. “Someone up there wants him alive. You should ask yourself why, young man.”

***

Now that his unexpected near death encounter is over, Mulder’s mood reverts to gloomy fast. Scully is out on a date with some banker, and he is back in the bullpen by himself.

Her seat is empty, as are all the others. The entire bullpen, the whole floor, appears to have cleared out in record time. No eager worker bees putting in extra hours this Friday evening.

Sitting in the dark and deserted row of desks seems fitting, really.

Mulder slouches in his chair and sighs heavily. He probably doesn’t really need to stay here long. He feels fine. Just a few minutes, to satisfy the promises he made to his caretakers in the parking garage, and then he can go home.

He uses his legs to swing back and forth in his chair sulkily.

Maybe, in some great cosmic insult, every single agent but him is out with a significant other tonight. Perhaps even Agent Carnahan is out with somebody, some extra special human being who doesn’t mind a date making inappropriately-timed political jokes and coming at you with breath that always smells like scallions.

It is Friday night, after all. Date night. He tries to think of the last time he had a real date, one for which he put on some intentionally nice outfit, picked a restaurant, got a little nervous, and considered the etiquette of goodnight kisses. It must have been that pretty lawyer? That was at least five years ago, and he doesn’t even remember her name.

It’s embarrassing to admit it, but since that time, he has made lots of imitation dates on Friday nights.

At first he didn’t do it consciously. And then, after a while, he did. Usually his imitation dates have been something related to work, sort of, but sometimes, especially in more recent years, there’s not even that pretense. It’s just: Do you want to go get a beer? Want to grab takeout? Movie night? She almost never says no. On some rare occasions, she’s even been the one to suggest it.

Unless he’s the worst profiler in the world, she likes these evenings together. She rolls her eyes, sure, and she employs her sarcastic wit, but she’ll also smile, even laugh. He can usually figure out ways to get her to relax. She’ll toss out a flirtatious one-liner that will have him alert and sitting up straight. She’s affectionate. She’s occasionally rested her hand on his, just for a moment or two.

The kaleidoscope sitting on his desk catches his eye again, and he picks it up, shaking it to hear the beads inside roll around.

Well, so what. She enjoys an evening eating takeout with her partner. Her best friend. That’s obviously not enough for her.

He supposes he understands where she’s coming from. Viewed from a certain light, his imitation dates are sad. They are incomplete and unsatisfying. Not everyone wants perpetual Friday nights of half-assed ghost hunts and pizza from the box, plans designed to appear thrown together at the last minute, plans that feel intimate in some ways but lonely in others.

Plans that might lead to heads resting on shoulders. But never, ever to goodnight kisses, much less someone in your bed. He can see how you might want to move on to something more grown-up.

He feels a fresh little sting, realizing how much he’ll miss the imitation dates. How lonely he’s going to be, if from now on she’s going to be spending Fridays with someone else. They were enough for him. Sort of.

The ring of his cell phone breaks him out of his sad reverie. He raises his hips to fish it out of his pocket.

He presses it to his ear without thinking. “Mulder.”

“You’re a difficult man to reach, Fox.”

Of course it’s not Scully. Ridiculous to think it would be. “Diana.”

“I left you three messages today. Didn’t you get them?”

“Messages.” He considers that. “Oh. Right. With Scully.” He sees the stack of paper messages on his desk and picks them up. “I, uh, got them, but didn’t read them.”

“Is everything all right, Fox?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“I was calling to make sure we were still on for lunch next week. I really want to pick your brain about the Deloitte case. There are some inconsistencies between the witness reports and the evidence, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me out.”

Mulder is spreading the six phone messages out in a grid on the desk, with the kaleidoscope at the top of the grid. He eyes them with some surprise. “Hmm.“

“We could get together tomorrow instead, if that’s better for you?”

“Uh,” he says. “I don’t know. Hey—”

“Yes?”

“Why did you leave me three messages?”

A pause.

“I told you, I was trying to talk to you about our meeting.”

“Three messages, though?”

“Well, I have to admit, I’m eager to talk to you about this one. Spender is adequate for some purposes, but there’s no mind like yours for the X-files. Which reminds me, I was also going to ask—”

“I guess what I mean is,” he says slowly, adjusting the paper messages carefully, “why would you call three times on my phone in the bullpen? I didn’t get any calls from you on my cell.”

“You were in with Kersh,” Diana says patiently. “You wouldn’t have been answering your cell.”

“But if you knew I was in with Kersh,” he says, biting his bottom lip, “then why would you keep calling? Why not wait for me to get out of the meeting? You called three times in under an hour.”

There is another pause. “It gave me a chance to talk to Agent Scully,” she says.

“Talk to Scully about what? The case?”

“No. Just — about other things. You know.”

“I don’t.”

“Why are you asking? Are you worried we were talking about you?”

“Were you talking about me, Diana?”

She just laughs very lightly, and it’s like a faint alarm bell ringing.

He stares at the messages with dawning realization.

One time, years ago, when they were together, he and Diana went to an FBI training seminar, and a young agent suggestively slipped Mulder her number. Diana had turned unrecognizably mercenary in finding out who the woman was and then in making a point of humiliating her before they left.

At the time, young and smitten as he was, he’d found this possessive mean streak of Diana’s alluring.

He doesn’t find it alluring now.

“Diana,” he says. “Let me ask this a different way. Have you been intentionally giving Scully the impression that you and I are… closer than we are?”

He hears her faint breathing on the line. “I’m going to be completely upfront with you here, Fox, because I know you value the truth. That’s possible.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I wish we were closer than we are,” she says. “Maybe I miss the closeness we used to have.”

“And how do you see that involving Scully?”

A low laugh. “Oh, Fox. Even you can’t be that oblivious.”

“Apparently I am.” His voice is flat.

“I miss what we had, Fox,” she says softly.

She’s possibly telling the truth, Mulder thinks. Or possibly she is primed to carry out some other agenda altogether, to place a strategic wedge between partners for reasons Scully has understood better than him all along.

“Do you remember what it was like… when we were close?” she adds, her voice colored with longing.

“Diana…” Mulder says thoughtfully, “do you honestly believe we were close? Do you think I really understood you? Or you me? I’m not sure I’d know. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a truly close romantic relationship.”

“Fox–”

“But I am very sure about one thing. If you continue to try to fuck around with Scully’s mind—if you do anything at all to interfere in my partnership—you and I won’t have any kind of relationship at all.”

“Oh, Fox–”

He hangs up.

He stares at the messages again, twisting the kaleidoscope absently as he does. They’re all written in Scully’s neat handwriting, recording Diana’s name and time of call, dutifully jotting down each message: “You apparently left your sweater in her car Tuesday evening.”

He imagines the artful way Diana probably described his sweater being left in her car: what details were left out, what details were included. What kind of story she made the forgotten sweater tell. How she might have wielded that in conversation with Scully.

And how well did it work? What effect did it have? He thinks about Scully’s reserved tone when she discussed the messages with him, a stiffness in her posture as of late, a hundred other times she seemed distant.

All at once he feels certain it worked very well.

He feels sick to his stomach. Clearly he’s been astoundingly, unforgivably stupid. He hasn’t seen evidence right in front of him.

He knocks the messages angrily off his desk into the wastebasket below.

Now the events of the entire afternoon are cast in a very different light.

The kaleidoscope turns in his fingers. The pieces continue to fall.

***

On the drive home, Mulder thinks through what he could realistically say to her, if he were going to say anything. If that were even a good idea. He plays out different scenarios in his mind, all increasingly horrifying.

Scully, just so you know, I’m not dating Diana. Do you think you might not want to date that guy now?

Scully, why do Diana’s mind games work on you? What has Diana seen that I haven’t? Is it possibly related to a subtext—can we agree there’s a subtext?

Please. You’re my person, my only person. Please don’t date that seemingly stable and attractive banker.

He can’t imagine any of this, or any variation, being received well.

Maybe he’s just too late. Possibly now she is irreversibly charmed and intrigued by this Ryan. Maybe Ryan’s much funnier than he seemed on first impression, funnier than Mulder. Maybe he’s fucking amazing in bed.

The sound of his phone irritates him. It keeps incessantly ringing and ringing, and he knows he’s not going to answer it. It’s going to be a long time before he can even contemplate talking to Diana again. He reaches into his pocket and switches it off. No more.

***

Once he’s home, he decides to go for a run. It seems more productive than sulking and stewing around his apartment. Or calling Frohike and having him do research on Ryan, which he also seriously considers doing.

Running’s good. Healthy.

His run is fast, hard, invigorating. It’s warm outside for the season, and his shirt sticks to him, but it feels satisfying to sweat it out.

Sometimes, when trying to think through a problem, running can provide him with crucial mental clarity. He can’t say that exactly happens today, but the jolt of physical activity calms him down anyway, shaves off the sharper edges of his anxiety.

He walks down the hallway to his apartment feeling pleasantly worn out. He decides to shower and order some food, try to keep his mind distracted from Scully and her date, and possibly aim for bed early.

Tomorrow he’ll figure out what to do. Tomorrow maybe things will seem more clear.

He unlocks his door, steps inside, and nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Where have you been?” Scully demands. She leaps up from his couch, racing to intercept him before he’s made it even three steps inside.

“Scully…?”

“You went for a run?” she gasps, looking down at his clothes. “Mulder, what were you thinking?” Her palms fly to his face, manipulating his head slightly from side to side.

“Scully…what’re you doing here?” he tries, as she rotates his jaw down and looks in his eyes. “What about your date?”

“Do you have a headache? Nausea or vomiting?” she asks sharply. Her eyes are boring into his, her hands running over his sweaty forehead, and he finally puts together that she is examining him.

“No,” he says helplessly. He’s intensely aware of how close she has pressed her determined body into his, how she is wearing some kind of fitted black date dress, how rumpled and smelly he must be.

“Double vision? Ringing in the ears?”

“No…”

“Any disorientation? Confusion?

“Wait, wait,” he says, swatting her hands away. “Stop. What is this? What are you doing?”

She steps back, regarding him in disbelief. “You were hit by a car. You were unconscious, Mulder. You have to be examined for a concussion. You can’t just get up and walk away, assuming you’re fine.”

“I am experiencing some disorientation and confusion, as a matter of fact,” he says. He shuts the door and steps past her, headed for his couch. “Like…how did you know I was hit by a car?”

“Natalie told me,” Scully says indignantly, following after him, her hands on her hips. “Natalie who works on the sixth floor, the receptionist?“

“Right, Natalie,” Mulder says. Scully does know her name. Of course.

“Ryan and I were having drinks at Oiseaux, and she came in — and when she recognized me, she told me she’d just seen you have an accident in the parking garage. That you’d been hit by a speeding car.”

Mulder sinks down on his couch and stares at her. “Why would she do that? Why would she interrupt your date to tell you that?“

Scully rolls her eyes. “Come on, Mulder, the whole building calls me Mrs. Spooky.” She sits down next to him. “Not to mention, I think she felt somewhat worried about you.” Her forehead furrows. “I was worried, too, once I heard what happened.”

She shakes her head, and then smacks his knee with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe you would come home and go running. The number of injuries you’ve had? You should know better.”

Mulder smiles a little, glancing over at her. He can’t help but feel a rush of pleasure at her concern, even though he knows that’s childish and self-absorbed.

“No disorientation at all? No memory problems?” she adds.

“No,” he says. “Not that I remember, anyway.”

She gives him a look and sighs. “Natalie said you were going to wait at your desk a few minutes before you drove home.” A sideways skeptical glance. “I knew that had to be a lie, because you’d never voluntarily go back up to the bullpen.”

“I did,” he protests. “I sat in the bullpen and waited. Then I seemed fine, so I drove home.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Scully.” Mulder laughs weakly. “You were on a date.”

“Then you should have gone to the hospital.”

“Come on, the car didn’t even hit me full on,” he scoffs.

“What a ridiculous thing to say, Mulder. If you were unconscious at all, a concussion is always a possibility.”

They’re sitting side by side, and Mulder realizes how strange the situation is. How physically close she is to him, in a beautiful dress, but how even making eye contact with her feels too intimate. How she’s supposed to be on a date, but she’s here bickering with her sweaty partner instead.

“Sometimes I make bad choices,” Mulder says haplessly.

“Certainly the understatement of the year.”

“Why’d you drive all the way over, Scully?” He turns his head to look at her. “You should have just called.”

“I tried to call, Mulder. Quite assiduously, actually. You weren’t answering your phone, which was also alarming.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Mulder says, remembering. “I turned it off. So you came here from…?”

“Oiseaux? Yes.”

“You just left Ryan?”

“Obviously I explained there was an emergency.”

“But it’s not an emergency.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t know that,” she says tensely, throwing her hands in the air. For the first time, he understands she has actually been on edge. “It felt like an emergency to me. I didn’t know where you were… or why you weren’t answering your phone.”

“I didn’t mean to worry you,” he says.

“You were in such a strange mood when Ryan and I left. I just…” She drifts off.

“You thought I jumped in front of a speeding Camaro, Scully?”

“No,” she says quickly. “And that’s not funny.”

He stares at her profile. He has a thousand questions for her and a thousand things to tell her.

“Were you having a good time?” he asks casually. “On your date?”

“Sure,” Scully says, shrugging.

“Did you order a fancy drink at Oiseaux? You’ve wanted to go there forever.”

“Just a glass of wine,” she says.

“Is Ryan a good conversationalist? Is he funny? Interesting?”

She turns to look at him. Her eyes run carefully over his face. “I suppose he is.”

“That’s good, right?” Mulder smiles at her. “I assume that’s what you want?”

She continues to study Mulder. “Those are desirable qualities, yes.”

“If you wanted to, you could probably call him and meet up with him again now,” Mulder says. “So you don’t ruin your night. You’re dressed up. You look nice.”

“It’s just my work outfit without the jacket,” she says. “But thank you.” She looks down at her dress, smoothing it with her hands, then back up at him. “I think I’d rather stay here and just make certain you’re all right.”

“Okay,” he says softly, feeling a little bubble of pleasure. “You’re always welcome, obviously.”

There is a pause. Mulder gestures towards the bathroom. “Am I allowed to go take a shower? Or is that too dangerous?”

“You may,” she says archly. “If I hear a thump on the floor, I’ll come in to rescue you.”

“Now that’s the kind of service I’ve come to expect from my house calls.”

“Maybe I should order food?”

“Yes,” he agrees eagerly, hopping up off the couch, his mood now buoyant.

As he starts to walk towards the shower, he has the impulse to unsettle the established pattern. Right now, while she is staying, while he has the chance.

He turns around again, hesitating only a second before he can change his mind.

“You don’t look ‘nice,’ Scully,” he says carefully, seriously. “You look… beautiful. You always look beautiful.”

She has just stood up from the couch, and she freezes, staring back, her expression actually stunned. “Thank you,” she says, her voice barely audible.

He nods, spins around, and heads towards the bathroom.

***

As he’s toweling off out of the shower, he hears his home phone ringing. He considers shouting for Scully to pick it up, but decides it’s probably better to let the machine get it. The only person he’d really want to talk to is here. Not on her date: here. Which feels like the second turn of incredibly good fortune he’s had this evening. He smiles to himself.

In the other room he hears the drone of the machine and the murmur of someone talking on the message as he puts on boxers and jeans.

When he steps into his bathroom to put on deodorant, he realizes the caller’s voice is female. And recognizable.

He grabs a tee shirt and walks out into the living room, where he can hear the tail end of the message playing clearly.

“…again, so sorry, Fox. I’m sure you’re going to need a day or two, but at least I hope you’ll be willing to consult with me about the X-files. I hope I speak to you soon.”

Scully is standing over the machine with her back to him. He wonders if she’s upset.

“Hey,” he says, pulling the gray tee over his wet hair. “It was Diana, huh?”

Scully turns around quickly, hugging herself tightly. She looks startled, and perhaps a little guilty.

“Yes,” she says. “She left you a message.”

“So I gathered. What’d she say?”

“It’s long,” Scully says awkwardly. “Maybe you just should listen.”

“Would you mind summarizing?”

She blinks. “All right.”

Her gaze goes up to the ceiling, as if playing it back mentally.

“She’s sorry,” she recites, her voice unsteady. “She says that she shouldn’t have tried to interfere in…your partnership. That she knows how important it is to you. She did it because of her feelings for you. She hopes you can forgive her. She still wants your input on the X-files.”

“Hmm,” Mulder says with a nod. He eyes her. “None of that seems very surprising. Did you order food?”

“I did,” she says. “So you two had a…falling out?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says. “I guess that’s what I’d call it. I’m not sure if you can have a falling out if you weren’t… fallen in. Let’s just say I think you were probably right about her not really being my friend.”

Scully’s forehead creases and she nods, slowly.

“I’m going to need to think about how to handle her going forward,” he continues. “Because we do need access to the X-files.”

“What does she mean about ‘interfering with your partnership?’”

Mulder bites his bottom lip. “It seems she tried to mislead you about the nature of my relationship with her. She thought it would upset you and put distance between us.”

Scully’s eyebrows lift sky high. “Oh.”

“Out of curiosity,” he says, trying to sound offhand, “did it work?”

She hesitates, pressing her lips together, seeming to make a decision. “Yes.”

“I thought it might have,” he says. “I’m sorry. I should have guessed what was happening earlier.” He pauses, looking her over carefully. “Why did it upset you, Scully?”

She recrosses her arms protectively and stares back at him. “I suppose it made me feel like there were things you weren’t telling me. Things you were sharing with her instead.”

Mulder opts to be direct. “You were jealous?”

“Jealous? We’re not a couple, Mulder,” she scoffs, turning to sit on the couch.

“That didn’t exactly answer the question.”

“You should rest. You’ve pushed it enough tonight.”

“I was jealous, you know,” he says.

Now her eyes shoot back up to his, on high alert.

“You know that, right? You must have known why I was in such a strange mood tonight.”

“Mulder,” she says uncomfortably.

“Come on. You had to notice. I was hating that guy, Scully.” He moves to sit down next to her, scooting as close into her orbit as he dares.

“It did seem like you were… but I just…” She shakes her head, and she looks truly frustrated. “I don’t understand why.”

“Because—” He can hardly get the words out. “Because he’s this stranger who shows up and kisses you, and takes you out on Friday night. Probably … does other things. And I know, I know, we’re not a couple.”

“No, we’re not.“

“And I know, he’s probably a good choice. A good guy. You wouldn’t date him if he weren’t.” Mulder’s knee is nearly touching hers. “Still, I’ll admit that I think of you as … I think of you as mine.”

He reaches out, taking her small hand from her lap and placing it palm to palm on top of his. With his fingertip, he begins to trace an idle, winding pattern over the back of her hand.

She inhales softly, her eyes watching him.

“But you’re not mine,” he says, letting his fingertip come to a stop, ending the pattern. “Not actually. I know that, too.”

He waits for her to say something. He can only hear her breathing.

“Mulder?” she says at last in a small voice.

“Yeah?”

“I have some questions about what you just said.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

There’s another unbearable pause. Mulder clears his throat. “Are you going to ask them, Scully?”

Her gaze can’t quite settle between her arm and his face. “You had this … epiphany about your possessive feelings because I’m dating Ryan?”

His finger traces an N and O on her forearm. “It’s not new.” He meets her eyes. “It’s hardly an epiphany.”

She nods, her face completely unreadable to him. At least she isn’t pulling her arm away.

“This ‘being yours’ thing,” she says, her voice soft, “what do you see that involving, exactly?”

“What do I see it involving?”

“Yes,” she says. His tracing finger has slowed. Ever-so-slightly, she nudges her hand towards him. He obediently resumes drawing changing patterns over her arm lightly again. He notices now that all the tiny hairs on her arm have sprung up.

“I don’t know, Scully,” he says. The sensation of her skin beneath his fingertip is absorbing part of his attention, and he is scrambling to catch up with what it might mean that she just prompted him to touch her like this. “I don’t know if I see it involving anything—so much as being a feeling.”

“Oh,” she says faintly. “That’s exactly what I was wondering.”

He draws a featherlight question mark on her arm.

“If I were actually yours,” she says, “it couldn’t just be a feeling. It would have to involve … something real.”

He looks up at her, a question in his eyes. In response, she removes her hand from his. He worries, until he realizes from her expression she has something else in mind.

She bends her legs up, and her feet slip out of her heels, sending them clattering to the floor. She then scoots towards the end of the couch, reclining against the arm rest. She deposits her small stockinged feet into his lap.

Her eyes look to him cautiously. Expectantly.

It only takes him a second to understand and react, placing his fingertip on the top of her foot, beginning to draw the little patterns over her ankle and calf.

Her black stockings are silky and smooth, and he lets a few more fingers join in the tracing, until really it’s just the end of his hand trailing in soothing circles.

“Do you—do you have other questions?” he asks conversationally, as though this is not happening, as though he is not touching her leg like this, as though he were not already having an increasingly obvious physical reaction in his lap just inches from her feet.

“Yes,” she sighs deeply, her head rolling a little. The apparent effect his touch is having on her sends another wave of desire through him. “Do you think you feel possessive of me because I’m your partner? Because you want control of my time?”

He shakes his head. “No. Well. Yes.”

“Unclear answer.” Her voice is low. He is slowly outlining the S-curve of her calf with his fingertips, taking his time, like he is an artist.

“I’m possessive because you’re my partner, yeah. But it’s more than that.” He swallows, his attention on the lines of her leg, the slippery feel of the stocking gliding under his hand. “I’m possessive because I’m scared.”

“Do you feel … scared right now, Mulder?”

He slides forward slightly, and his hand edges up to the inside of her knee, and he circles gently around her knee cap with the tips of his fingers.

“I’m feeling nervous, maybe,” he whispers. “Not scared.”

Her face blooms into a tentative smile at that, so Mulder assumes that was the right answer. The path of his hand swoops up past her knee, dipping under the hem of her skirt. Her legs part with no hesitation.

Mulder slows, looking up at her face, still trying to comprehend what is happening. Her eyes meet his, and it’s like they are both waiting for the other to call their bluff.

Well. It won’t be him.

He slips his hand up the silky slope of her thigh, and she drops further back against the arm of his couch and exhales raggedly, watching him intently.

His fingers reach the prickly lace tops of her stockings, which are apparently thigh highs. He’s momentarily a little dazzled by how much of an erotic fantasy this has become. It’s almost overwhelming, circuits on overload, like being a teenager touching a girl for the first time.

His other hand now dives under her skirt, too, to run along the rough lace edge of the stockings on her other leg. Scully gives him the barest hint of a smile, and Mulder, now longing to see, dares to hitch up the skirt of her dress a little. There’s a flash of bright white thigh providing contrast atop the black stockings. It’s all far more sexy attire than he really imagined Scully had going on under her work clothes.

That idea makes him halt abruptly. He withdraws his hands, stiffening.

Scully, looking questioningly at him, sits up a little.

“Did you wear these stockings for your date? For Ryan?” he says. He’s horrified at how vulnerable he sounds, how hurt, how angry.

She stares at him in surprise, unmoving for a moment.

“Oh,” she says, “you weren’t lying about that jealous thing.”

She sits up and begins to affectionately rake her fingers through his hair, soothing him.

“Mulder,” she says. “I didn’t think it was ever going to happen with you. It’s the reason it seemed like a good idea to say yes to someone like Ryan.”

Her hand runs down the line of his jaw, and he turns into her touch, his expression unhappy. “Okay.”

“He seemed like a good choice, like you said. Like maybe someone I could potentially be happy with.”

“Hmm,” he says. This isn’t what he wants to hear. Still, here she is, right? She’s here with him. He plants tiny kisses over her fingers.

“But there’s a bit of a boredom problem, I admit.”

He turns his head to look at her. “Oh?”

“A little, yeah. It’s hard to talk to him about my life in any way that makes sense. If you know what I mean.”

“I do.” He nods, leaning sideways over her. “I think I do.”

“I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”

“Aw, Scully. I wish I could say I was sorry to hear that.” Mulder’s smile is sincere, but his eyes are running greedily over the pale swath of skin above the neckline of her dress. He lowers his head into her personal space, ghosting his lips along the column of her neck experimentally.

“No offense to Ryan,” she continues. Mulder begins to meticulously graze up her jugular vein, lightly and carefully with his lips. She pauses for a half second. “He seems very nice, and we have a few things in common but… he’s not really someone to wear special undergarments for.”

“No?” Mulder lifts his mouth from her neck, looking up with interest. “Who is, then?”

“Not to disappoint you, but these stockings are actually just my regular warm weather office wear,” she says, dropping her head back as though offering him her neck. “I feel like you’re looking for a different answer.”

“Tell me a different answer,” Mulder begs, now applying his tongue across her collarbone.

“The main issue with Ryan,” she says in a low voice, threading her fingers through his hair, “is that I have this partner, and for whatever reason, he seems to be my…”

“Person. I’m your person.” Mulder murmurs directly into her damp skin.

“I was going to say ‘recurring preoccupation.’” Scully strokes his hair.

She lifts his head off of her clavicles and twists his face toward hers.

“Preoccupation,” he repeats, his mouth hovering inches from hers as he studies her lips. They’re pink, the color of cherry blossoms, curved, slightly parted. He’s reminded of Ryan placing his unearned peck on them with that stranger mouth.

He feels a powerful surge of possessiveness, something he doesn’t think he’s ever felt towards a woman quite like this. Reaching under her slightly bent knees, he drags her further down the couch so that he can better reach her. He leans in swiftly and pins her mouth with his, and she makes a tiny whimper of surprise.

If she questioned it, he couldn’t rationally justify this feeling to her, but every cell in his body tells him she belongs here, exclusively, to him. When she makes another soft sound, he finds himself lost and falling further in. Her lily smell. Her impossibly soft lips. His hips flex involuntarily.

She feels his reaction and pauses, framing his face with her hands. Her eyes are very bright, the pupils black and gleaming. Dragging her hands down the sides of his face again, letting her palms stutter over his stubble, she mouths softly whispered words. “I was jealous, too.”

He smiles, because he knows this, of course.

“I couldn’t stand the idea,” she leans in to whisper in his ear.

“Why’s that?”

She pushes her lips slowly back on his. Their kisses turn over again and again, like the flecks in the kaleidoscope.

With each press of his mouth, Scully reclines slowly back, her hands around his neck pulling him down with her. He nestles into the space between her body and the back of the couch, and he slides his hand back up her dress to the top of the stockings, running his hands along the jagged lacy tops, then higher to stroke that petal soft skin of her inner thigh. His fingers play back and forth there. He’s taken with that small tactile pleasure: how soft, how perfectly soft.

In reaction, her legs wriggle delightfully against him. She hitches her own skirt up to her waist to give him better access, her legs falling open a bit more, and he breaks their kiss and glances down to see, reaching up further to find the edge of her panties.

His eyes fly back up to hers, checking in to see if this next step is okay. Scully—flushed, out of breath, her lips wet from his kisses— locks her eyes on his again, and she nods.

He reaches down and pushes the panties aside. His finger makes its way to slip inward, brushing across her wet core, and Scully reacts instantly, her body going taut, her breath sucking in.

“That’s it,” he whispers. Her breathing speeds up as his finger circles her, then moves into her folds. Mulder realizes he’s so laser focused on her, her every movement, that his breathing is trying to sync with hers, too.

His finger, and then another, test out what she likes best. He watches as her eyes flutter shut, her head tilts back, and messy strands of red hair loop across her face. A gasp escapes her mouth, and he leans over to press his mouth back to hers, tender now. He nips carefully there as she pants little breaths on his lips, his fingers beginning a rhythm she seems to respond to.

“It’s just you,” she breathes, opening her eyes to look at him. “No one else.”

“Just us,” he agrees. He thinks she’s the most fucking beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.

She comes quietly, her mouth open in a silent cry, her hands clawing at Mulder’s back. He sighs and mouths kisses down her neck. His body collapses a little over hers, and he presses his cheek into her chest, letting her rest, listening to the thump of her heart.

They’re there for only a few seconds when there’s a knock at the door.

Mulder’s head lifts off of Scully in alarm, meeting her eyes. There’s no way Diana would come over, is there? Or it’s not Ryan coming to look for his date? He doesn’t see panic reflected back in her expression; Scully’s eyes are all sea blue calm.

“The food,” she reminds him in a rough voice, her lips curling into a tiny smile. “Dinner.”

“Right,” he nods, returning her smile, standing. “I guess I’ll get that.” He gives her what he hopes is a playful look. “Because, uh, frankly, you seem a little disheveled, Scully.”

She leans back on the couch and smiles more completely, struggling to adjust her panties and skirt, looking unperturbed. This is apparently one delightful way to mellow out Scully on Friday night, he can’t help but note.

“All right,” she says, “but maybe carry a blanket or something in front of you, Mulder.”

She gestures to the sizable bulge in his jeans, arching an eyebrow. He grabs the Navajo blanket.

***

Much later, when it is no longer Friday night but some time in the wee hours on Saturday, he’s awake in his bed thinking about happenstance.

It’s just like him to ponder this kind of topic after he’s had sex for the first time in years, he thinks. He should be more like Scully and bliss out into some impressive post-coital sleep.

He turns his head to burrow his face in her hair, closing his eyes. Her head feels like it is creating an indentation on his bare chest, a pleasant warm weight. He can’t see her face, but he can hear her snoring lightly.

It’s all very good. The best outcome he could imagine.

If he had lingered in the lobby a moment longer, though, made further contact with the Camaro, he could easily be experiencing … nothing. Absence. End. It all seems so unacceptably arbitrary.

In truth it wasn’t really the Camaro that first set the evening branching into possibility.

It was Ryan. The date. The kiss. The wiggle of instability that could have pushed him in any direction. So many ways he could have fucked it up. What guarantees it ever lines up to one’s advantage?

“Go to sleep,” Scully’s voice breathes creakily from his chest. “Stop tensing muscles.”

“Sorry,” he says, quickly kissing the top of her head in penitence. “I will.”

He can tell she hasn’t gone back to sleep though. Her head shifts slightly.

“Having regrets?” she whispers offhand, like that’s a nothing question.

“Yep,” he says, leaning in towards her in an intimate whisper. “I’m really going to miss unrequited love and unsatisfied celibacy. How could I give that all up so easily? I take it all back.”

“Not unrequited,” she mumbles. “Never unrequited.”

He draws his arms around her more tightly, skimming his hands up her bare back, and she makes a humming noise.

“It just seems so unacceptable, Scully,” he says, as she readjusts her face and cracks open her eyes. “What leads us to one outcome over another is so frivolous, so whimsical. The half second step or stumble that makes the difference between death by Camaro or pouting in your apartment alone or lying in bed with a beautiful woman. It seems like there should be more meaning to it.”

“Who says there isn’t?”

“That’s what the woman with gold earrings who helped me in the parking garage thought,” Mulder says, yawning. “She saw some purpose.”

“You don’t like that idea?”

“I guess it depends on what we mean by purpose. God? Fate? I don’t know, Scully,” he says. “It scares me that my small choices have the power to change my future so dramatically. But it scares me to think there’s someone else calling the shots, too.”

“I’m calling the shots,” Scully murmurs sleepily. “That should scare you.”

He moves in and kisses her. “That delights me, actually.”

“It’s possible that something could have happened tonight that would have led to me not being here right now,” Scully says, blinking. “But I think in the end, we’d have ended up here somehow.”

“You think the elements were all there, it was just a matter of how and when.”

“More or less.”

“Like the turn of the kaleidoscope. The pattern varies, the chips are all the same.”

A muffled laugh. “Jesus, we’re going to have to get you a new toy, Mulder.”

His lips find the whorl of her ear. “I may be sufficiently entertained for the time being.”

#x files fanfic #xfiles fanfic #the x files #my fic #the kaleidoscope #jealous mulder

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twentythreemillionstories · 6 months

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Friday 29th December 2023, Wuhan, 6.44pm.

#160,910 — A poor young man secretly marries the daughter of a wealthy banker. A spoilt and stubborn English woman comes to a small town with her husband. She inherited his fortune.

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bopinion · 10 months

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2023 / 34 (Indecisive edition)

Aperçu of the Week:

"It is and always will be the most revolutionary act to say aloud what is."

(Rosa Luxemburg, influential representative of the European labor movement and anti-militarism at the beginning of the last century, who was murdered for her ideals).