#he gives SCULLY what she needs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mulders-too-large-shirt · 5 months ago

Text

s3 episode 23 thoughts

the previous episode was SO good. but, it is true, i was distracted by the dog. it was SUCH!! a perfect episode. EXCEPT for that one thing. so i hope that today, i can face this episode with a clear head, free of judgement based on the fate of little dogs.

well, boy, i did face this episode with a clear mind, and wow. wowza. another AMAZING ep... and i will keep the angst from this episode in my heart forever and bottle it and take a nice long swig when i need my msr feels, which is basically always. wow. an exclamation point doesn't even feel APPROPRIATE, it just needs to hang in the air for a bit. (wiping tears away) wow....

let us go back to yesterday's notes, which shall commence below:

reading the episode description... so this one features murders linked to a device that alters television signals… huh. man, too many people i know don’t even have cable anymore. this simply would not work in the modern era. imagine if hulu or tubi or something made you kill people though lmao that would be silly to imagine.

we open with a guy digging a hole in the woods. always a promising start. seems he’s in an orchard of some sort? and the music is very very creepy.

okay, so just as you suspect, this dude is burying a dead guy. sometimes your gut instinct is correct and tropes are not meant to be subverted. but the dude who is burying him says “your killing days are OVER” so is this actually a justice arc??? hmm. it is not clear. man, it would be hard to dig a hole like that.

shovel murder man is at home washing the blood off. but then someone else approaches him and he kills THAT GUY TOO WITH THE SHOVEL?? huh? what is going on.

police at da guy’s house. everyone has the same face as the dude he just killed??? so they tase him. and then the faces go back to their REAL faces. now what is going on here!!!!!!!!!!

as the real faces return, the man realizes he killed someone named sarah!!! and he seems sooo upset by the fact that he killed sarah!!!! poor sarah :(

so does the tv make you see other people’s faces on the bodies of random people….? omg that’s insidious...

we now shift to a different scene, one where mulder is sitting in his car at 2 am. doing what???? waiting for some guy!!! he was waiting TWO HOURS for this guy!!! who is this guy...? it's giving blind date/drug deal.

the man who enters his car gives him a newspaper clipping about the murders we just saw. and mulder came here after getting AN ANONYMOUS EMAIL in the middle of the night??? this is crazy because literally so many people want him dead and this would have been a very easy way to accomplish that goal. wow. seriously, no self-preservation instincts on this guy.

mystery man says he has no obligation to explain what is going on, but if mulder walks away from it, more people will die. so no pressure!! xx

cutscene to a hospital, where mulder is watching our murderer through glass, while scully comes in saying that she is sorry she is late, but “the beltway was a parking lot”. beltway refers to interstate 495! thank you wikipedia i love your services!

murderer is named joseph. and he claims to have been killing the same guy over and over again, and that he wouldn’t die. which seems pretty awful.

OH! and the week before, in the same town, a babysitter attacked the kids she was watching because she thought they were WOLVES??? omg that is horrific??

they’re talking to the physician, dr. stroman, who says perhaps this was provoked by amphetamine abuse. then joseph starts SCREAMING. he sees a guy on the TV- miriskovic- sorry y’all idk my post-soviet history 💔 (update: i googled it, i don't even think that guy was real because all the results are links to wikis on this specific episode... reveals how little i truly know)

anyway, seeing that guy's face on the TV seems to have triggered the screaming situation. does he have trauma from the country he used to live in and seeing references to it makes these things happen…? that would be a wild episode. put me in the writer's room and let me cook.

scully quickly picks up on the fact that this case is Weird, and mulder admits it came from some random guy, which makes her suspicious. but they go to the crime scene, and, like always, he lifts the crime scene tape up over her head, and it’s very charming despite the lack of sensibility in going down this whole rabbit hole.

the minute they get in, they hear screaming and a gunshot! but it’s just some kids watching TV??? eating popcorn in a crime scene??? LMAO WHAT?

mulder kicks them out and scruffs one of the boy’s heads... ohhhh he needs to be a father so bad huh... like i have been saying this since s1 he just has a Need to tease and spoil children. well, we can unpack that another time. there's crime afoot.

so he watches the tv and it starts to go all static-y because a guy outside is fixing the wires. scully finds a TON of tapes and they’re just shelves and shelves of cable TV shows!!!

“there must be hundreds of videos here”, she says, to which he asks “anything good?” <- idk why this made me giggle. it sounded like he was gonna put one in and chill for a bit lmao

scully starts to wonder if seeing the cable news, like joseph had recorded, was what triggered his episode back at the hospital. ooooh! a theory!!!

cut to mulder watching a tape in the bed of his motel, making an absolute pile of sunflower seeds- this dude is gonna attract mice or something someday omfg- and also he has a cola which is peak american culture. LMAOOOO he has a HUGE pile of tapes on the floor i’m crying... my type A self could NOT deal with him!

he says he watched 36 hours of bernard shaw and bobbi batista and is now also ready to kill someone as scully welcomes him into her room, which also has cola but is much more nicely organized! she found something weird on the tapes from late april, each a night when he committed a murder

AND WHY DID MULDER GET ALL COZIED UP ON HER COUCH?????? hooooooly fuck i have never seen such a baby girl of a man

OMFG??? all the reports from the murder nights feature that miriskovic guy!!!

so did seeing violence make him violent? mulder says no, and that theory assumes that “americans are just empty vessels, ready to be filled with any idea or image that’s fed to them like a bunch of pavlov dogs, and go out and act on it” oh if only this man could see the news lately……… insert ben affleck smoking a cigarette image here to describe the things we see in our current age. mulder you would not believe.

he’s really bashing her theory, but she’s saying maybe he was high and seeing these things sent him on a spiral- makes sense to me

he is leaving to go get some sleep (after admitting he can’t explain what is going on!!! which always endears me) but scully says she is going to watch the rest of the tapes… a herculean task for our girl

middle of the night and it’s still tape time for scully, but she hears the phone ringing. she hears mulder having a conversation. and he says “no, she doesn’t” which is weird… that is suspicious… what doesn't she...

scully chews her ice which is so funny because me too sometimes. she has chewed all of her ice and must fetch more. and get a cola ofc!!! nothing more american than a cold soda iktr!

but she sees mulder in his car??? lighting up with cig man???? HUH??? and handing over a tape? omfg this is crazy. i assume she is hallucinating though, because no way….

cutscene to a lady named helene watching “the price is nice” (lmaooo) and washing some dishes. but the soap in the dishes starts to look funny- and everything is glitching around her!!! she sees a man outside in a hammock… kissing a woman!!! and oh, she is furious!! she gets her SHOTGUN?? this has escalated very fast. and we hear some shooting!!!

scully is still very visibly disturbed. mulder is reporting the murder, but she seems like a shell of herself. she checks the ash tray in the car, and there is no ash… she notices the car has been moved and he says he got a paper…. why do you ask…. “nothing. it’s nothing” OHHH THIS IS JUICY

so the crime scene has a very bloody hammock. and a dead man, who the wife claims he saw in the hammock with a blonde. but the only other creature at the scene was a dog!!!

OH!!! the hammock man wasn’t even helene's HUSBAND??? this really is LAYERED!! she killed the NEIGHBOR thinking it was her husband, who wasn’t even in town!!!!!! how do you mess this up so badly?

despite the fact that scully is clearly suspicious of mulder, she is sharing the umbrella with him in their usual fashion, and the sense of tension this produces is delicious

they go to investigate the crime scene and mulder finds some sort of bike and immediately climbs upon it while proclaiming that television does NOT cause violence (LMAOOO HE IS SO WEIRD i need him.)

they find a bunch more tapes and AGAIN the same guy is messing with the cables outside while they're investigating!!!! mulder is in chase mode!!!! but he cannot chase this dude in the van!!! no man, even a track star such as him, can outrun a van carrying secrets!

scully is trying to fast forward the TV and she looks out to see mulder climbing the pole…. average day for a man like him. he finds a weird cable scrambler in there. she wants to send it to the crime lab, but he says he’ll do the analysis, and she should go interview helene the murderer. OH... she is so suspicious, she just wants to go home…. scully :((( mulder is deeply confused as to why she is being so weird

so he takes the thingy to the lone gunmen, who say it looks like it’s used for blocking premium cable channels, which i didn’t even know was a thing, you learn so much with this show. but it doesn’t block anything!!! HOWEVER, if you compare a tv with the machine and one without it, the one with the machine is slightly different. hmm...

“you know how television works?” “yeah, you click it on, you have a picture” <- the man who said that line went to oxford btw

it seems that this cable blocker thingy is adding some sort of frequency, but they can’t tell what… hmm.

mulder on the road. scully calls and only asks “where are you” in this very flat and creepy tone and OH i’m scared!!!!

he tries to explain that there is some sort of signal being introduced to the tv- he even says she might be right about the tv inducing violence theory! but she isn’t answering… she hears a clicking, like they're being listened to, and she says he never went to the detective…. let’s wait and talk on a landline, he says.

despite being in his car many miles away, he can tell that there is something very wrong with scully. he says don’t go anywhere, he’ll be right there, and redials after she hangs up. it's very much echoing when she said something similar to him in his crazed gargoyle quest.

but she is so scared, she rips the phone out of the wall and takes it apart!!!! and then the lamp too, and the table. she is checking everything for any sort of bugs!

holy hell, we have never seen her like this before... but i’m actually gagged because she is usually relatively stoic and seeing her paranoid is so different, but it also feels very natural??? she is acting her ass off here as she rips up everything in this motel room. big shoutout to GA, i love your work.

and the static that set in helene's vision earlier is setting in hers now!!! she hears a car pull up and drops to the floor…. she hears a man say “she’s in here” and a pounding on the door.

OMFG someone tries to open the door and she FIRES 4 SHOTS RIGHT AWAY??? but it’s mulder!!!!

(author's note: i was thinking after i finished the episode, and we know that she is a good shot- remember how she hit just the right angle to knock mulder out but not kill him at the end of s2? so she is either SO out of it that she cannot even aim straight, or there is a tiny tiny tiny part of her that still thinks that mulder isn't worth killing. please mull over which option brings you greater angst)

he’s coming in with his gun and his hair is blowing in the wind and he can’t FIND HER!!!!! it was really very dramatic. hair blowing in the wind has this effect.

cutscene to scully’s mom’s house, and we see a picture of young scully on the table... AWW stop she’s so cuuuute and one of missy as well 😭😭😭

OH! it’s mulder on the phone calling mrs. scully in the middle of the night!!! NOOOO he has to tell her that he doesn’t know where she is :( NOOOO poor mrs. scully has gone through too much. he feels SO bad breaking this news, that he even apologizes for hanging up right away, something he never ever does. he must be in deeeep distress to do such a thing.

and why does he hang up?? because SKINNER IS HERE!!! he’s leading a manhunt for scully, and mulder is saying she shouldn’t be hunted like a convict… but skinner says dude SHE FIRED FOUR ROUNDS AT YOU AND SOME RANDOM GUY last night!!!!

despite this, mulder insists that he can get her to listen to him if they just keep her safe; she’s suffering from some sort of paranoid psychosis. skinner is being quite patient as he tries to explain that the video tapes made her do it. skinner says well... you better find her before these guys do.

GASP!!! he’s putting up the x on his window! and doing that thing where he bounces his basketball because he cannot relax!!! stop i'm emotional!!!!!

the lone gunmen call to say they found something on the tape…. and it induces electrical activity…. MIND CONTROL???

but why wasn’t he effected?

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! HE’S RED-GREEN COLORBLIND???? THIS IS AN INSANE LORE DROP TO GIVE NEARLY 4 SEASONS IN??????

wait, is this just for plot purposes, or is DD actually colorblind and they decided to roll with it? because now i’m gonna be looking at all the red-ish things we see on screen (like his tie he is grabbing to emphasize his point) and wonder, can he see that? how does this impact his tie selection process....

okay that really threw me off guard. man, i was getting to think we'd never get another lore reveal, which is a shame because i quite like formatting those facts in that way. good to know we could get more at anytime!

he gets a phone call from maryland state police. the lone gunmen ask if she’s okay and he says no, he has to go and ID the body. WHAT!!!! WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! he is trying to keep composed. holy fuck………..

(heavy breathing as i grab your shoulder and squeeze) hey man. hey. he was trying so hard to be strong.

so he pulls up to the morgue and stops before he gets out of the car, and holds his head above the wheel STOP I’LL CRY???? i’ll cry… what are they putting him through??? losing her again……..

(i mean i have SEEN gifs of scully in seasons past this one, so i know she's gonna pull through, but HE doesn't know that, and must be reliving the worst days of his life AGAIN, and aughhhhh!)

but the mystery guy from the start of the episode that give him the info on the muders pulls up and says get in right now!!!!!! mulder is furious, he says he’s busy. in a shocking display of insensitivity, mystery man says he does not give a fuck. mulder is yelling that this is all his fault. mystery man says “they” are destroying the evidence, and they’ll finish it by tomorrow if he keeps searching for her, but he kicks the door shut and ignores him.

(omg…. he loves her enough to break him out of his bloodhound mode… the dogged ahab-like quest for answers and revenge… i’m getting flashbacks to his conversation with missy in one breath…….. realizing he needs to put the ones he loves before his need for revenge sometimes..... wow)

so he walks into the morgue, and the dude in there says they found a body nude and shot in the forehead.

he closes his eyes to try and brace himself before taking a peek, to prepare to see her lifeless, probably reliving those many hours by her bedside when she was in the hospital, trying to imagine her shot in the forehead, the scully he knows and loves with her dry humor and her teasing smile and caffeine dependency, the her that is so full of life, lifeless…

but it isn’t her. PHEW!

despite this being good news that he has to share- she's not dead! her mother isn’t answering her phone…. so he goes to her house. and i'm thinking, oh my gosh, did she do something rash in her grief?

but mrs. scully answers the door and claims dana isn’t here. he bursts in and says he needs to see her right now. omg, he saw right through her lies.

(also, it always feels weird to refer to her as dana, but moving on)

NO!!!! she has him at gunpoint and says he’s here to kill him!!! poor guy looks so flabbergasted… and her mom is trying to get her to please put down the gun, and he’s trying to explain what is going on!!! he is so singularly locked into her….

“he’s lied to me from the beginning. he’s never trusted me” “scully, you are the only one i trust” AUGHHHHH (rips my clothes off of my body in biblical levels of grief)

“you’re one of the people who abducted me” AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (rips off not only my clothing but also my hair as i experience emotions that rival what job from the bible went through)

she’s CRYING, and saying he killed her sister while her mom gets between him and the gun… and she’s saying she knows she’s safe here, that’s why she came here, and to put the gun down. and she falls into her mother’s arms sobbing.

WHAAAAAAAAT. and he had to watch all that… oh my scully oh my goodness my poor scully…

timeskip a little bit. he shows up to the hospital where scully is with her mother, and mockingly puts his hands up in surrender, because he is so STUPID and he always has to make a joke, and i love him so terribly, so so so terribly, because he loves HER.

she's laying in the bed, and he shuts off the tv and asks how she’s feeling. she says she is ASHAMED- as if being a victim of mind control was a personal failing. scully, i want to yell, you have NO REASON to be ashamed, let me take all the shame from you and carry it elsewhere. she says it was like the world was turned upside down.

and he makes ANOTHER stupid joke about the world being out to get him, and now she knows how he feels-

before leaning in and explaining how joseph, the first murderer on this case, became convinced he was killing the bosnian war criminal who people called “the modern hitler”, which was especially important to him because both of his parents survived the holocaust. hence his line about the killing days being over!!!

and helene was scared her husband would cheat on her. so somehow the TV signal turned their worst fears into a living nightmare.

OHHHH HER WORST NIGHTMARE IS HIM BETRAYING HER. HIM BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR HER GOING MISSING AND LOSING HER AUTONOMY AND MEMORIES... wails into my shirt.

(this reminds me of that episode in s2- irresistible- when we learn her biggest fear is that humans are capable of terrible horrific things and grasping to trust despite that knowledge. we’re seeing that again right here. how uncertainty seeps in)

THEY CALL HIM THE CANCER MAN!!! wow very official canon recognition of the name (yeah it’s happened before but it happened again so that is cool) anyway she says she saw him giving cancer man the tapes and reporting.

he says that maybe cancer man was behind this, but then he whispers “why don’t you try and get some rest?” and there is something in me that melts so entirely as he leaves her to sleep.

(perhaps it is the fact that hurt/comfort and whump are my favorite tropes. because is there anything more intimate than letting someone see you at your most vulnerable, and them choosing to love you at it? is there any feeling more cutting than seeing your loved one suffer and knowing you’d stop the world for an instant of their relief? the terrible desperation of both parties, the wordless connection upon recovery, someone being the last thing you see before everything fades to black and then the first person you see when you return... yeah. it’s cathartic. but also it makes me want to yell and cry. pls give me all the hurt/comfort content)

so the doctor found high serotonin levels in her that maybe can be associated with mania, but now they’re back to normal. he asks if someone in her situation would be diagnosed with amphetamine abuse, and she says no. then he quickly calls the hospital where joseph is staying… what is he cooking in there…

he wants to talk to joseph's doctor, dr. stroman, who left behind only a number from the motel…. and he had JUST checked out…. so he’s going through his stuff. and asking about his calls. and he DOES find a cigarette in his room but a lot of people smoke so… try not to jump to conclusions juni… but the cigarettes mean one thing in this show!!! was this innocent-looking doctor behind such a cruel experiment?!

he calls and has the last number the doctor called get checked from the folks at the lab… so he goes to visit the place of residence and creepy music is playing. the dude from the cable company we saw before rolls up!!! he walks right inside the house, so mulder peeks inside. it seems the people in the house set up a trap of some sort, as they are talking about “him” showing up at 7.

he bursts in after hearing gunshots and both of the men in there are dead!!! shot in the head!!!!

who is there... but X???? X says he HAD to kill those men- he just hoped mulder would get them first. and oh, mulder is YELLING AT X!!! he is letting him HAVE IT!!! he says he is a coward, he was too scared to unveil the situation with the mind control TV murders himself….. he says X NEVER risks his own life, but he sure does make him risk mulder and scully’s.

OH! he is holding X at gunpoint. all X is saying is that he failed, and that mulder needs him. so he walks out, confident he won't pull the trigger. and he doesn't.

WHAT! i need to kind of just let that sit for a second. i need to figure out this X fellow, but i get the sense i never will…. he failed… because he chose to try and save scully…….

cutscene to skinner’s office, where mulder is giving him a report. and scully walks in and says that dr. stroman DIED IN 1978!!! when skinner asks about the killer, mulder jumps in and says he remains unknown… oh, skinner is def gonna pick up on that….

so now we see X in a random back alley. getting into a car…. WITH CANCER MAN?????? X REPORTS TO CANCER MAN??? he asks if he has completed his work, and X reports that he has cleaned out all the personnel, everything is removed, but mulder still has a device. and mulder’s source has been eliminated. but the source’s source remains unknown. oh, he’s def lying through his teeth.

OOOOOOH this episode was SO good.

oh man, my brain is racing in a bunch of different directions. scully breaking down and sobbing into her mother’s arms…. scully convinced that mulder is a traitor, that he did those terrible things to her…. mulder so scared that she was gone, bouncing his basketball, getting a call from the police department that he had to go identify her… choosing her, even in what he thought was death, over following the Truth… the sick and twisted relationship he has with X, and X with Cancer Man, and Cancer Man with the world… it’s making me think of how mulder broke into his house that one time, was going to kill him over what he did to scully, and cancer man had the nerve to say he liked mulder… OOOH my brain is just racing racing racing.

poor scully… how scared she was, how horrified afterward…

other things that are on my mind, in no particular order: the bond between scully and her mother; mulder being all babygirl on that couch; mulder hopping on that bicycle and picking up some random doll from the murder victim's house; how haunting scully's voice was when she asked him over the phone where he was; their cola drinking; mrs. scully trusting mulder no matter what; how he tried to cover the grief in his voice when he told the lone gunmen he had to go identify her body; how he kicked the door shut of the mystery man, damning the investigation to pay his respects; how his head hovered above the wheel of the car before he got out to do that; how X uses and uses him to no clear end, and what is HE doing reporting to cig man, and what was that random doctor doing conducted fucked up experiments on random people; and scully's miraculously bad aim; mulder's conviction he could talk sense into her (spoiler: he could not); her shame at being convinced he had been the one who abducted her; how terrifying that must have been; and his stupid jokes when he walked into her hospital room, with the sincerity he tries so hard to outrun and outfox breaking through in his whispered why don't you get some rest?

so needless to say, i see why this one is a fan-favorite. this is certainly one i will be revisiting in the future when i need something strong. i have a million things to think over that will stick with me Forever, and i am in no rush to move on from this. in fact, i took these notes yesterday, but in the process of editing them tonight, i have decided i am not ready for the season finale and will have to save it for tomorrow because i'm still feeling So Many Things. so stay tuned to see how that goes, because whew!

#man i did all the typing of the notes yesterday but editing them took another hour today because RAHHHHH there was so much here to unpack #and i am going to KEEP unpacking it for a while #someone please give that man a child it is becoming increasingly evident he loves being around kids #let's get him to talk about his feelings first and then he can have a baby okay? one thing at a time #OHHH WHAT is this X fellow UP TO?!?!? AUGHHH i need to know #scully. my poor poor poor sweet scully. you deserve no pain and yet such pain has been inflicted upon you.#and her poor mother :( she is just the sweetest :( the pictures of dana and missy on her bedside table...#she is so loved :( and she loves mulder too which is so important :(#WAHHHH <- more crying!!!#so good. but in case you were wondering this still didn't bring actual tears to my eyes.#i guess that is just for poor little doggies getting eaten by beasts...#juni's x files liveblog #3x23 #the x files #txf

36 notes · View notes

xf-cases-solved · 26 days ago

Text

thinking about how one of the most romantic and emotionally devastating things mulder has ever done was see an apollo 11 keychain, buy it, and then take scully out for what will presumably be her last ever birthday and give it to her, saying so casually that it was something that reminded him of her, as if the reason it reminded him of her wasn't the least casual reason in the world. as if he hadn't gifted her that keychain as a way of telling her that, "hey, jsyk, i have been searching for the Truth my entire life, and i used to think i worked better alone, but it wasn't until you came into my life that i realized that if i am ever going to expose all the lies and make the world better, i am going to need help. specifically your help. you aren't some person who i got saddled with who turned out to be a good sounding board; you are the reason i can still do this in the first place. you are the person i turn to when i'm lost. you are the person i trust. you have been my companion on this journey, and if this really is the end for us, i can't let you go without making sure you understand that i see every sacrifice you have ever made for me, and that those sacrifices were not in vain. that i needed you with me. that i need you still. that i will never stop needing you, whether you're here or not"

like, it's his entire ftf monologue contained in a keychain, and while i kind of desperately wish we could have heard him explain its significance with his own words, i do think it's kind of beautiful that she was able to put it together anyway. and the way he watches her as she explains it is so fucking reverent. so fucking in love. like you can just hear him thinking "what am i going to do without you?"

idk man, do you ever just cry?

#starting 2k25 with emotional violence it seems #sorry about it #otp: maybe if it rains sleeping bags #msr #txf #the x-files #diz spouts conspiracies

437 notes · View notes

thisisbeefjerky · 2 months ago

Text

FUCK MAN. This is spoilers for x files fight the future if you don’t wanna see that, but I’m right in the middle of it and I’m freaking out and I need to rant about this

Ok so don’t get me wrong, I knew about the almost kiss in Fight the Future. Hell I’ve seen the clip of the outtake, the actual kiss (give it up for the 2 hottest people on the planet deciding to gift us with that take), but Nobody prepared me for what happens in the actual scene

First of all the dialogue before it, where he’s chasing her down begging her not to leave because he can’t do this without her, and it’s desperate but it’s not dramatic, it’s just true. He can’t he doesn’t want to do this without her because they complete each other. Every time she’s gone he’s just untethered, and he admits this to her but he can’t tell her why, he can’t bring himself to tell her that he loves her

AND THEN It’s only when she initiates an intimate act of the hug that he feels safe enough to take the next step, because he’s terrified, I just know his heart is pounding leading up to that move, he is just lost in her and you can Tell, and it Hurts to watch because you can tell they’re feeling so strongly

And Scully just seems like she’s completely awash in emotion, I can’t credit enough dd and ga’s performances in this because Gosh the complexity of emotion in her face, there’s the doubt, there’s the grief at potentially losing him, and the guilt of it possibly being by her own hand, there’s the fear of staying behind and holding him back, there’s the fear of being too close and not being good for him.

I mean she has the Gall to suggest that she’s never done anything to help Mulder since they met, she seems to really believe it too or she wouldn’t have made the choice to resign in the first place, and it seems like the reason she starts crying at all is the idea, made explicit and impossible to dismiss, that he wants her and needs her, and when she has that confirmed she just melts into him, and like. ow.

But what kills me the most about this scene that’s different from the outtake clip is his reaction to her jerking away. Because she gasps in pain and surprise and swerves her face away from him, and he has no idea why, and all he can think is Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I’ve ruined everything.

I mean you can see it, his face just falls, his eyes close, his head tilts back and he’s visibly berating himself internally, he just whispers “I’m sorry.” With a voice more filled with sorrow than you’ve ever heard out of a man who’s almost been kissed and is holding the love of his life in his arms. He’s so scared to have ruined everything they’ve built.

And you can tell with that whispered apology that he’s thought about this. It’s not the first time by a long shot that he’s considered kissing her. In his mind he’s made a mistake, a slip up. He finally lets himself go enough to try, and she seems to reject him at the last moment, and all he can think is that it must be his fault. She must not want him that way. He apologizes before he even knows what’s going on because he’s ready to respect her wishes at the drop of a hat.

Then Scully turns to him, wanting to explain right away “it’s not you, I got hurt” and he responds perfectly adequately. With compassion, comforting her immediately with his words and his hands. But while he does this his mind is visibly completely detached. He’s gone from anticipatory terror to crushing fear and disappointment to relief and nervousness in the space of about four seconds, and he’s just standing there still trying to process what just happened, holding on to her physically for a source of stability.

And he doesn’t even get the chance to regain his footing, because before he knows it she’s losing consciousness and telling him in exact medical terms exactly what’s wrong because she’s a queen and a badass and a genius and I’m so sorry this is happening to you girl

And then of course she almost dies and he gets shot in the face so….. yeah

Basically! All this to say I’m completely normal about them and about this and nothing at all of note happens in these scenes

#I gotta finish this movie now #the x files #fight the future #the x files: fight the future #txf #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #mulder x scully #txf spoilers

198 notes · View notes

thursdayinspace · 20 days ago

Text

ficlet: quarantine

I needed fluff, so I wrote some. Perhaps a little messy, but definitely fluffy, post-Firewalker. They're in quarantine and Scully is bored. Mulder isn't.

She expected him to get restless and irritable before the end of their first day in quarantine. It’s been five days now, and although he’s been pacing a lot and at times talked for fifteen minutes straight about random cryptids she’d never heard about before, he does seem to be handling this a lot better than she is. Most of the time, he seems almost content.

She can’t say the same about herself. There’s simply nothing to do and she’s bored out of her mind. Standing still gives her too much time to think, and that’s the last thing she wants to be doing right now.

“Are you even listening to me?” he asks, and when she looks up at him from her seat on her uncomfortable chair and meets his eyes across the tiny table they use for their meals, the corners of his mouth are twitching with a barely held-back grin.

“No,” she admits. “Sorry. What were you saying? Something about… banjos?”

“Banshees,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.” She sighs.

“Come on.” He leans forward, arms folded on the table. “You can talk to me. There’s… actually not much else to do here.”

“Yeah.” She leans back with another sigh. “That’s exactly the problem.”

“You’re bored?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Well.” He shrugs. “Yeah. Of course I’m bored. We have nothing to do and nowhere to go and there’s absolutely nothing good on TV.”

“And we’re gonna be stuck here for several more weeks,” she points out, pushing herself up out of her chair to walk over to their single window. It’s completely dark outside. Time has lost all meaning. It could be late evening. It could be past midnight. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

“It’s not so bad,” he says, and she twirls around to him.

“Mulder, there is nothing to do here. Nothing.”

“So we’ll come up with something,” he suggests, getting up and making his way over to her. He stands so close she has to lean her head all the way back to look up at him. She’s in her socks and he’s so tall. And he’s smiling. Something aches deep in her gut.

“Like what?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” He bites his lip and seems to think about it.

He’s so beautiful it hurts her heart. Being stuck here is bad enough. Being stuck here with him is torture. Ever since she came back, he’s been so attentive, so careful with her. She can feel him looking at her when he thinks she won’t notice. And he’s always there. All the time. As if he’s afraid she’ll disappear again. And she doesn’t know what any of it means. She knows he wore her necklace when she was missing.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he says at last, and that makes her laugh out loud.

“We can’t,” she reminds him. “We literally can’t, Mulder.”

“Sure we can.”

He takes her hand and places it in the crook of his elbow, eyes sparkling as he grins at her widely.

“What are you—” She shakes her head. “What are we doing?”

“I told you,” he says, “We’re going for a walk.” And then he’s leading her across the small room into the tiny hallway separating their bedrooms, where he starts walking them up and down the same few feet of space. She can’t help it, she dissolves into a fit of giggles after the third turn.

“Nice weather we’re having today, don’t you think?” he says, and she holds his arm with both hands and leans into his side, the sensation of laughter unfamiliar in her chest.

“You’re crazy.”

“So I’ve been told. Many times. By you, actually.”

“In the best way. I like it.”

“Oh,” he says, sounding pleased, and a little surprised. “I haven’t heard that before.”

She stops them in their tracks and steps in front of him. “You know I mean it like that every time, right?” she says. “If I ever—”

“I know, Scully,” he promises, and the smile in his voice convinces her that he’s telling the truth.

“Good. Okay.”

“Do you want to keep going?” he asks. “I’ve been told the view doesn’t change at all the further you go. Might be worth exploring.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The words slip out before she can stop them, and the happiness in her voice makes her blush. She didn’t mean to reveal that much.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I know the feeling.”

She lowers her eyes and doesn’t know what to say. It’s a new problem. They’ve always had an easy back and forth, even their arguments often comforting in a way she never properly understood. Suddenly, everything seems filled with too much meaning. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on her part. It’s just that she remembers the look in his eyes when he visited her in the hospital after she woke up.

“Hey, Scully?”

She nods, reluctantly lifting her head when he puts two fingers under her chin. “What is it?”

“I just want you to know…” He pauses for a second. “I just want you to know that I’d rather be in here, bored out of my mind with you, than healthy and having fun out there without you.”

“I, um.” She frantically searches for something to say, but he’s standing here, his fingers caressing her cheek now, and he is so warm and smells so good, and she simply can’t remember how language works for the moment.

“It’s okay,” he assures her. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

“No,” she says quickly. “No, I understand. I… guess I feel the same way.”

“Oh.” There’s something so hopeful in his expression, and she gives him the tiniest nod, hoping he’ll understand.

And he does, of course he does.

She can’t remember any kiss ever feeling like this. His lips just rest against hers, lingering, unmoving, and she feels it all the way down to her toes. Her hands come up to cup his elbows and he takes her face firmly between his large, soft hands, and by the time he pulls back, the world has rearranged itself around them.

“Was that okay?” he asks, and she puts one palm over his rapidly beating heart.

“I think I just thought of a few things we can do while we’re stuck here,” she says.

“Yeah?” He slides his arms around her waist and pulls her closer. “Like what?”

She rises up onto her toes to kiss him again, and finds that another three weeks of this doesn’t sound quite so bad anymore.

#txf #the x files #msr #mulder and scully #fic #ficlet #poangpals #fluff and nothing but fluff

110 notes · View notes

calimanc · 1 month ago

Text

POANG Pals Secret Santa 2024 Fic Recs

For my Secret Santa, @unremarkablehouse who loves lighthearted and comfort MSR set during the original run. I have combed through my secret Ao3 bookmarks to give you a fic rec list for the next year. 52 in total, one for each week. They don't all fit the brief exactly, there are touches of angst and UST and more than a few go beyond Requiem. But they are all wonderful stories that I hope very much that you will enjoy. With thanks to @lilydalexf , whose format for fic recs I have used as the gold standard.

For @unremarkablehouse , a fic about life in your namesake.

Title: Home, Home

Author: onpaperfirst @onpaperfirst

Summary: post-the truth, pre-iwtb, weirdo domesticity

where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day

Length: 4,699

Classification: MSR

Rating: Not Rated

Spoilers: post original run

Favorite line: He came back with a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, a red and green tree stand in a box, and some candy canes. There were eleven in the package and one in his mouth.

---------------------------------

Leading Conversations

An oldie but goodie that isn’t on Ao3. Does what it says on the tin!

Title: Chess

Author: Cecily_Sass @cecilysass

Summary: Friday night. Mulder and Scully play chess.

Length: 4,300 ish

Classification: UST, MSR

Rating: T

Spoilers:

Favorite line: "Scully," he said. "Are we lovers?"

---------------------------------

A conversation about hypotheticals evolves. Very lovely getting on the same page fic.

Title: A Perfect Storm

Author: ChaneenW

Summary: Inspired by their undercover assignment as a married couple, Mulder tries to find out what Scully wants in a husband.

Length: 3,000

Classification: MSR

Rating: T

Spoilers: Arcadia

Favorite line: “I did think of that, Scully, but she doesn’t seem to like my kindergarten antics much, either—hypothetically speaking, of course.”

---------------------------------

A great fic from Thursday that sees them talking their way towards each other.

Title: in conclusion

Author: thursdayinspace @thursdayinspace

Summary: “What were you thinking about?” she asks

He lets out a small laugh. “I was thinking about…you know. Human connections. What they are and how we define them. And why we need to put them into neat little categories that we specifically make up for them. Don’t you ever just wonder what makes relationships – any kinds of relationships – what they are?”

It's the middle of the night in a freezing cold motel room and they both haven't slept. The best time and place to figure out how relationships work -- theirs in particular.

Length: 3,370

Classification: MSR

Rating: T

Spoilers:

Favorite line: “You want to have an ontological discussion about romantic relationships at almost 1 a.m. in a freezing cold motel room after we both haven’t slept for a week?”

“Yes.”

"Any chance I can talk you out of it?"

"How long have we known each other?"

"I withdraw the question." She lets out a long breath.

---------------------------------

A much more recent conversation from Cecily, talking themselves into getting there.

Title: Negotiation

Author: cecily_sass @cecilysass

Summary: “You know, I hear they’re more than just partners,” Mulder offers in a conversational tone.

“Who?”

“Gillis and Perez,” Mulder says, cracking open a sunflower seed, gesturing out the front windshield. “That’s the water cooler gossip, anyway.”

Surprising conversation waiting in a car.

Length: 1,894

Classification: MSR

Rating: NR

Spoilers:

Favorite line: She lifts her head, and there are indeed tears pooling in the corners of her clear blue eyes. “Don’t you know me at all? Haven’t you been paying any attention?”

---------------------------------

Really lovely fic imagining that Scully’s reeling off of “magic” terms on the phone in Chinga was actually her quoting from a published article of Mulder’s.

Title: Upon the Yearly Renewal of JSTOR Accounts

Author: viridianvelvet

Summary: Mulder knows what it means to memorize someone's work. Post-Chinga.

Length: 1,184 words

Classification: MSR

Rating: G

Spoilers: post Chinga

Favorite line: If anyone deserves to hear the words aloud, it is Fox Mulder. Mulder, whose sharp edges ought to exist, but which have been burnished by the sheer, utter regard he has for all that is Good and Right in the world.

---------------------------------

Sweet fluffy fic, Scully gets hurt and Mulder gets hit by just how much he loves her.

Title: A Minor Inconvenience

Author: spooky_nerd @spooky-nerd

Summary: In which Scully gets hurt on the job and Mulder loses what's left of his sanity, probably.

Length: 2,045 words

Classification: MSR, hurt/comfort

Rating: G

Spoilers: none

Favorite line: "If this causes any temporary memory lapses, I apologize in advance," she says. Last month she'd forgotten his birthday and, unrelated, the fact that he did not like sausage on his pizza. That realization had come once she'd fully recovered, and she'd made it up to him by taking him to a viewing of 'The Thing' at a small art house theater and treating him to a 16-inch, sausage-free pizza afterwards.

---------------------------------

Post-ep First Times

A very sweet, soft post Pilot first time fic.

Title: Lost Together

Author: MarjorieWilliams

Summary: Scully and Mulder come together after Bellefleur, lost but not alone.

Length: 1,803

Classification: MSR

Rating: M

Spoilers: Pilot

Favorite line: She turned her hand in his, and their fingers laced together like pieces of a precision-made puzzle.

He stood, tugging her with him, and guided her to his bed.

---------------------------------

Hoo boy. Extremely hot Ice replacement for the inspection scene.

Title: what does it take (to get you off)

Author: coppersunlight @mulderno

Summary: Anyone else would likely regard her resulting gasp as nothing more than an expression of surprise, but this is Fox Mulder—star profiler, and prodigious interpreter of all things Scully.

“You liked that?” he asks quietly, dangerously—a skilled observation disguised in the tone of a question.

Inspired by the question, "How does Scully feel when he bends down like that to get directly in her face" during the supply closet scene in Ice, and by Scully's highly incriminating gasp in Never Again.

Length: 3,353

Classification: MSR, first time

Rating: E

Spoilers: Ice

Favorite line: He nibbles at the lobe of her ear. “You like this,” he repeats, his tone cocksure, definitive, fascinated.

---------------------------------

I’ve got this bookmarked as a great post The End first time with Gibson being a little chaos agent.

Title: Enders Switch

Author: gypsymuse

Summary: What do you do when everything you are lies in ashes at your feet? Post-ep for The End (5X20).

Length: 14,046

Classification: MSR, adventure

Rating: M

Spoilers: The End

Favorite line: He drove easily, left hand on the wheel, right hand fiddling with the radio, a soda bottle, my knee. Still rumpled from our abortive romp, his hair was spiky, his shirt wrinkled, in all resembling the unmade bed we left behind. Nothing and no one has ever looked better to me. My feeling for him was so enormous I wondered that I could contain it.

---------------------------------

Hot off the presses, an absolutely lovely post-ep first time for How the Ghosts Stole Christmas. Roz blesses us with fic as well as art!

Title: O Holy Night

Author: rosenkranz_isnt_dead @rosenkranz-isnt-dead

Summary: When Mulder decided to go ghost hunting, being insulted by said ghosts was not what he had in mind. But they were right, he had dragged her into a haunted house with him, and he had stolen her car keys. Instead of spreading holiday cheer, she nearly died because of him. Again.

Length: 3,075

Classification: MSR

Rating: M

Spoilers: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

Favorite line: Scully, he thinks, all coherent thoughts abandoning him except for her dear, familiar name. Scully.

---------------------------------

First time fic post Monday. Beautiful day by day build up until he finally kisses her and the dam breaks.

Title: The Next Week

Author: SlippinMickeys @slippinmickeys

Summary: She’s placid in his bed. Warm, willing. She has a sleepy smile on her face and the morning sunlight coming through the window catches on her carmine hair, practically burns his eyes.

Length: 2,962

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: post-Monday, pre-Arcadia

Favorite line: “I…” He starts, but how do you tell your partner of almost 7 years that that you’re insanely in love with them and have been since almost day one and would they mind terribly if you fucked their brains out because that’s all you want to do whenever they’re within a foot of you?

---------------------------------

Post Milagro first time fic, he takes care of her and she lets him.

Title: Hearts Entwined

Author: Donna

Summary: In response to a challenge

Length: 3,429

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: Milagro

Favorite line: "Shh. Just lean on me." He stepped into the shower wearing only his boxers and let the warm water envelop them. She rested her head on his chest and made no protest.

---------------------------------

She counts their kisses and it leads to their first time in this absolutely lovely post Millenium fic from Sagan_Starstuff.

Title: Counting

Author: sagan_starstuff @sagan-starstuff

Summary: What happens when Mulder and Scully leave the hospital after New Years 2000?

Length: 7,338

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: Millenium

Favorite line: Sometimes he's so obtuse she wants to shake him. “I love you. Don’t tell me I don’t need to say it - I get to decide that, and you , Mulder, deserve to hear it. You deserve love.”

---------------------------------

Beautiful first time all things, acknowledging the depth of want and feeling as well as the inherent complications in their relationship.

Title: Stay

Author: Samantha1013

Summary: Mulder and Scully's first time together, from Scully's POV. Takes place between the closing and opening scenes of all things.

Length: 2,573

Classification: MSR, first time

Rating: E

Spoilers: all things

Favorite line: “Is this going to work?” He asked halting, brow furrowing.

It took her a second to comprehend. She responded flatly “Yes Mulder, the vagina is one of the most malleable and fastest healing organs in the body, second only to the tongue and cornea.”

---------------------------------

First Time Somewhere in Time

When I first read Regular People, I didn’t know there was a sequel and I was distraught. There’s something very quiet and beautiful here, when they have the space to breathe.

Title: Regular People and Regular People Still

Author: Chimerical1975

Summary: Thwarted Christmas plans, impulsive decisions, and unexpected visitors make two extraordinary FBI agents into regular people.Set in December, 1998. For the purposes of this story, HTGSC didn't happen.

The sequel to the story started in Regular People. We're back in 1998 where Mulder and Scully are continuing their sojourn. This leads to issues and discoveries large and small, lots of sex, some laughter, some sadness, and a touch of urgency as they are fast running out of time to be regular people.

Length: 16,724 and 36,760

Classification: MSR

Rating: M

Spoilers:

Favorite line: "I did get to go home to my family for Christmas, Mulder," she whispered.

"Scully--" Mulder started, but then he just settled on a single word as he nodded. "Yes."

---------------------------------

Scully comes over after painting her mom’s study and Mulder tells her she’s beautiful. Diz knows what she’s doing.

Title: She Tastes Like Candlelight

Author: mizdiz @xf-cases-solved

Summary: Mulder isn’t sure when exactly he fell in love with Scully.

It’s possible that there wasn’t a specific moment at all. Maybe the transition from friendship was so smooth that one day he just woke up and realized he’d been looking at Scully the same way he looked at the night sky—like an intricately tangled mystery, full of beauty and questions and Truths, of which he may never know the extent of. Somewhere along the way, she had become his greatest X-File.l

Length: 8,596

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: post Millenium

Favorite line: Scully smiles slyly, leaning in even closer to Mulder now, and says, “so I’m hot now? I thought I was beautiful.”

“Please,” says Mulder, surprised by how low his voice registers. “You’re the smart one, you should know that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

---------------------------------

Mulder has to go to three therapy sessions and it ends up pushing him into truly communicating with Scully.

Title: Normal Conversations

Author: Soronia

Summary: It always bothered me that Mulder had a degree in psychology but only seemed to use it on other people. Also I know it was the 90s, but everybody in this show needed a minimum 400 years of therapy. And yes, there’s eventually sex.

Length: 10,785

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers:

Favorite line: Her face was always so transparent, and he watched it fill then with an emotion he couldn’t place at first. Not contempt, or hesitation. Her whole expression filled up with glory.

---------------------------------

Cute first time after they've been undercover and Scully is used to holding hands so she grabs his hand in a meeting which leads to hot first time sex later that night.

Title: Record Scratch

Author: Skinfull

Summary: After spending a month undercover posing as a married couple on a farm in Iowa, Scully is struggling to get back into the non married view of her relationship with Mulder.

Length: 12,156

Classification: MSR, first time

Rating: E

Spoilers:

Favorite line: I do the only thing a self respecting modern day woman who is desperately in love with her best friend would do. I ignore it completely.

---------------------------------

I love this writer, she delivers on very hot smut with lots of lovely happy feelings. This was the first of hers I read, I hope you like it as much as I do.

Title: I’m on Fire

Author: Spark_a_Flame1013

Summary: A casual night out turns into everything.

Length: 5,754

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers:

Favorite line: “Agent Scully?”

They both turned and there stood an agent from white collar crimes. Agent Jones? Johnson? Jordan? Mulder couldn’t remember but figured it would be in the police report after he broke the guy’s jaw for probably destroying the moment. All the man said, though, was “Don’t forget your bag.” He nodded to the table where Scully's purse and suit jacket still sat. She went to get them, leaving Mulder and Agent J-something alone.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Agent J said, mildly, “You lucky fucking bastard.”

---------------------------------

Emily But Not Tragic

One of the author’s tags is “speedrunning two whole seasons of mulder character development as one does” so there you have it.

Title: the driver’s side door and other affairs of the heart

Author: cabbagesandqueens @benoitblanc

Summary: There is no casket full of sand, and Mulder gets out of the car.

Length: 2,970

Classification: MSR

Rating: G

Spoilers: Emily

Favorite line: The X-Files, his X-Files, have always been about lost little girls and the people they leave behind.

---------------------------------

Oh so sweet scenes of Emily in their lives. Read when you need to fill your heart with some joy.

Title: close to knowing

Author: o666666 @o6666666

Summary: Vignettes about Mulder and Emily, and Mulder and Scully, in (mostly) nonchronological order.

Length: 8,831

Classification: MSR

Rating: T

Spoilers: Emily AU, Kitsunegari

Favorite line: As they return to the car, Scully watches a toddler girl across the street trip on the pavement. The baby cries, and her father picks her up.

“Mulder, pick me up,” Emily asks, having followed Scully’s gaze. “Pick me up, please?”

---------------------------------

William, At Home

This was from Fictober this year. Four separate stories, all of them lovely. She hooked me with the first one. For when you need warm fuzzies.

Title: “That was good work.”

Author: Sammie1million @youreneverjustanythingtomescully

Summary: Fictober 2024

Length: 3,352

Classification: MSR

Rating: G

Spoilers: William Scully, post series kid

Favorite line: Mulder handed her the plastic submarine. "Want to help me find Nessie?" he teased, and Scully couldn't resist the playful invitation. She dipped the yellow sub into the water, watching it dive and resurface with a grin. William's eyes followed it intently, his laughter echoing off the tiles.

---------------------------------

I cannot express to you just how beautiful I find this fic. This is their family, the way it might have been.

Title: like real people do

Author: chasingfictions @chasingfictions

Summary: in which mulder is a stay at home dad, and scully is getting used to the idea that they’re allowed to be this in love.

“You know, you could run out and get diaper cream too, Mulder.”

“Ah, no can-do, Scully. We’re deep in blanket fort construction over here. And the boss is real uncompromising on the schedule. If I don’t get us to story time under a fuzzy blanket soon, my head’s on the chopping block.”

Length: 4,347

Classification: MSR

Rating: T

Spoilers: Season 9 AU where they keep William

Favorite line: But then she remembers that they are in their bed, in their home, that their son has woken up in the other room, but they can hear through the baby monitor isn’t crying yet, is only gurgling, cooing softly, she remembers that he is touching her, holding her, that he was gone and he was dead and now he is alive and warm in her bed, that he will never leave her bed again, she won’t let him. She remembers, from the way he is kissing her now, warm and hungry and loving her, his mouth on her neck, her clavicle, her shoulders, her mouth, that this is theirs. That he is hers.

---------------------------------

On the Run

I’ve got it bookmarked as “an absolute stunner.” Just a beautiful look at a period of their time on the run.

Title: A Cabin In The Woods

Author: leiascully @leiascully

Summary: Mulder and Scully, on the run, stay for a while in a cabin in the mountains in Montana. A series of interlacing vignettes.

Length: 13,768

Classification: MSR, domestic fluff

Rating: T

Spoilers: post original series, on the run

Favorite line: When they wake and dress and stretch to the extent the tent allows, frowsy with sleep and disheveled and staticky, she looks at him and feels a pang of pure, unadulterated happiness, the joy that cuts like a knife. After everything, she can still be happy, if mostly in moments like sudden beams of light on a cloudy day, Jacob’s ladders set against a backdrop of storms.

---------------------------------

Wonderful old school series where they get William back and are able to rebuild a life together as a family while fighting the future. A real comfort read for me.

Title: Ghosts series

Author: Anjou

Summary: An early December 2002 tale, originally supposed to be a drabble, totally spun out of control. A post-series 'what if' where Mulder was irrevocably altered, replicants were the new reality, and the clock was ticking down to 2012.

Length: 33,710 words over three works in the series

Classification: MSR, character death (not our main family, but there are ghosts)

Rating: G, T, M

Spoilers: Post original run

Favorite line: Mulder could feel the love pouring out of him in waves and knew he was barraging William with too much emotion, but couldn't seem to pull it back; he had never consciously acknowledged how much he wanted this, to be a family with Scully and their child. Now that he was actually confronted with what he had long hoped for, he was overcome.

"Oh," William said. He giggled, as if Mulder had tickled him. "Hi," he said to Mulder.

---------------------------------

Reunion sex that matches the wallsex gifs

Title: shaking all over

Author: kittenscully

Summary: Below her chin, the expanse of his skin is warm in the growing light. He is bedding down in her, his leg shifting to cover hers, and she knows that he could sleep, now, for awhile. But there is so much of him, heavy and beautiful and unmarked, and it’s been so long, and she doesn’t want to let him drift away.

Length: 2,222

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: post The Truth

Favorite line: Tugging his head to the side, Scully latches onto his neck, thick tendons and the beat of his pulse. He groans, surprised. Before, he’d never liked pain, hissing even at the drag of her nails down his back. But they have both changed, and as she nips at him, his cock twitches against her leg.

---------------------------------

Original Run (and Beyond)

Charming pair of stories from the POV of Mulder’s neighbours who get extremely invested in the relationship between “agent Smolder” and “Sally” over the years. It’s a lot of fun.

Title: Kevin & Devin series

Author: admiralty and DanaScullyMakesMeFeelAutopsyTurvy @admiralty-xfd, @scullymakesmefeelautopsyturvy

Summary: *There was something going on between these two, or else there was something not going on, when there clearly ought to be.*

There’s never a dull moment when your neighbor is Special Agent Fox Mulder.

Length: 48,789 words over two works

Classification: MSR, humour, original characters

Rating: T, G

Spoilers: Follows along with the original run

Favorite line: Devin leaned his ear against the wall in a brazen absence of shame.

Kevin took another surreptitious glance behind him. “Devin,” he said. “That is such an invasion of-”

“I can hear them.” Devin interrupted.

Kevin’s ear was against the wall almost before Devin had finished his sentence.

---------------------------------

This is such a gem of a fic, wtfmulder has tagged it as “crack but kind of not” and as goofy as it sounds (they are literally looking for a big bird) it is beautiful and dreamlike and everything good. The sunglasses are a thing throughout and I just love it.

Title: big bird

Author: wtfmulder @wtfmulder

Summary: Our duo are on a journey to see a huge fucking bird. Drabble series.

Length: 11,468

Classification: early MSR, UST, casefile

Rating: G

Spoilers: season 2, post abduction arc

Favorite line: The sun touches Scully’s hair and the effect is magnificent. But it also touches her eyeballs, because Mulder is still wearing the sunglasses.

---------------------------------

This is just so much fun. I had the best time reading this fic. It’s season 1 so it’s not MSR as such but there is vulnerability and care.

Title: vulpes mulder

Author: eggschiptune @eggschiptune

Summary: Mulder and Scully set out to attend a conference in Oregon: simple, easy, and a chance to get away for a weekend on the FBI'S dime. Mulder has other ideas-and Scully winds up with those complicated feelings about her father resurfacing, a woman who swears she was transformed by God into a German Shepard, and a little red fox following her around with its nose in a bag of sunflower seeds.

Length: 32,630

Classification: casefile

Rating: G

Spoilers: season 1, post Beyond the Sea

Favorite line: “I don’t think I need to tell you this, but you’re a little shit. What were you thinking?”

Significantly less gentle than she could have been, Scully set the fox on Mulder’s desk. He scratched his head idly with a black foot.

“You bit the assistant director.”

The fox rolled his eyes and made a very small biting motion with his front teeth.

“What do you want me to say? You nipped the assistant director? Like that’s better?”

---------------------------------

This isn’t straightforward MSR, it’s a post-ep for Paper Hearts that sees Scully reflecting but for me it’s there between the lines. Just like the show. It might sting a bit but it’s beautiful and worth it.

Title: Paper Thin

Author: saintscully @therealsaintscully

Summary: She doesn’t know which scares her more: that he’ll never find the answer, or that he might.

Length: 5,167

Classification: character study, loneliness

Rating: G

Spoilers: Post Paper Hearts

Favorite line: Gone for reasons as natural as they are cruel—another casualty of a world that shows no mercy to little girls and offers no answers to those who love them.

---------------------------------

Short but packs a punch. They’re thick as thieves, up to shenanigans.

Title: hall of mirrors

Author: seek_its_opposite @seek-its-opposite

Summary: “Come on, Scully. Who doesn’t want to be Tom Sawyer at his own funeral?” (early season 4)

Length: 956

Classification: UST, Fluff

Rating: G

Spoilers: set in early season 4

Favorite line: Scully puts her finger to her lips and continues, “His ego is so visible I can almost watch it grow.”

Mulder feigns being shot through the heart.

---------------------------------

Don’t be put off by Diana! Anika makes sure everything is as it should be. I absolutely adore the detail about not wanting Mulder to be cold after their experience in Antarctica.

Title: Making Progress

Author: Baroness_Blixen @baronessblixen

Summary: Takes place during "Arcadia": Scully gets up one night to give Mulder a blanket and she catches Mulder talking to Fowley.

Length: 1,080

Classification: Fluff with a whiff of angst

Rating: G

Spoilers: Arcadia

Favorite line: He took a pillow with him, but he forgot the blanket. Whether he did it deliberately, or simply didn’t think of it, she doesn’t question. No matter how irritated she may be with him, she doesn’t want him to be cold. Even now, so many months later, she sleeps with more than one blanket herself. The fear of cold now ingrained in her bones. She doesn’t know how Mulder feels about it; one of the million things they haven’t talked about after Antarctica. She doubts they ever will. But she knows she can’t let him shiver and freeze down there on the couch, no matter what.

---------------------------------

Absolute married behaviour here. And a love confession. And a thwarted first kiss.

Title: Laughing Gas

Author: thatfragilecapricorn @thatfragilecapricorn30

Summary: Mulder gets dental surgery.

Length: 1,306

Classification: Humor, fluff

Rating: G

Spoilers: none

Favorite line: Mulder appeared deep in thought and then exclaimed, “The most beautiful president America has ever elected!”

---------------------------------

Really lovely. Five ways Triangle could have ended. The last one takes us back through FTF and sends them through Australia which gives them time to deal with the hallway.

Title: The Congruence of Triangles

Author: LibbyT @libbytxf

Summary: The final scene of Triangle, told five ways.

"It is at this moment, the moment of having felt the truth and the succor of her belief in him, that he realizes he is in love with her. He has felt every constituent part of this feeling before, the friendship, the attraction, the excitement, the certainty, the desperation, the almost irresistible urge to kiss her, but never all at once. It coalesces in a sharp and sudden realization, the obviousness of which is almost insulting to him, in a certain light. How has he never managed to articulate it to himself in this way? How has he resisted this so long?"

Length: 5,373

Classification: MSR

Rating: G

Spoilers: Triangle, FTF

Favorite line: A new nurse is on duty. “Are you family?” she asks.

“I’m his partner”, says Scully, nodding, wilfully participating in a campaign of misinformation. She does not feel the lie in it.

---------------------------------

Mulder gets trapped with Scully and Diana and realises he’s able to read their minds.

Title: Dissonance

Author: suilven @suilven19

Summary: Canon divergence during Biogenesis. Mulder and Scully find themselves in an elevator with none other than Diana Fowley just as Mulder's burgeoning abilities begin to manifest.

Length: 4,471

Classification: UST, jealousy

Rating: T

Spoilers: Biogenesis

Favorite line: It was simply the whispered thought of his name, but he was very sure she’d never said it aloud quite like that before. The warmth radiating from her as she squeezed his fingers back made his heart stutter in his chest. Sure, he’d been a little loopy from the drugs they’d given him when he’d stupidly blurted out that he loved her, but damn if he didn’t feel the same way in that moment as Scully appeared to be feeling right now.

---------------------------------

I love this one. Mulder gets drugged and there’s an axe and he feeds her a banana.

Title: instinct

Author: light_loves_the_dark @queeenpersephone

Summary: “Move,” Mulder orders, his voice low and gravelly, wrapping a large hand around Scully's bicep and pulling her aside.

She struggles against him, mentally reviewing the profile, desperate to think of a way to stop this. The other victims hadn’t been violent for violence’s sake. Reduced to their basic instincts, they had fallen back to protect what they had considered theirs.

She needs to get Mulder out. And as much as she hates appearing weak, she knows exactly how to do it. She knows exactly what Mulder considers his.

aka the one where mulder is drugged and reduced to his basic instincts, and no one needs three guesses to figure out who those instincts get directed towards

Length: 15,401

Classification: MSR

Rating: T

Spoilers:

Favorite line: She exhales, trying to give him a shaky smile, when he steps into her body and presses his mouth against her temple. Her hands reflexively clutch at his shirt. He breathes in, wet and close and primitive; he’s not kissing her skin, but the open mouthed press of his lips is almost more intimate. He inhales once more, slow and deliberate and long, his free hand coming up to cup the back of her neck. His hand is large enough to cover her skin from her first thoracic vertebrae to her hairline, and she shudders at the sensation. It feels primal. Possessive.

---------------------------------

Wonderful look at what it might have been like when Mulder could read minds.

Title: The Restless Heart, The Promised Land

Author: incidental @incidental-ao3

Summary: Someone on twitter wondered what Mulder would've heard in Scully's head during The Sixth Extinction when he was still able to read minds. This is my take on that. Could be canon compliant, since we have no canon answer to a lot of the timeline of their romantic relationship. Inspired by twitter and The Killers.

Length: 5,100

Classification: MSR love confession (unintentional)

Rating: T

Spoilers: The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati

Favorite line: I love you so much, she thought, and he smiled again, truly amazed. He didn’t think he was hallucinating this. God, I’m so glad you’re alive.

---------------------------------

An explanation for Mulder’s terrible season 7 haircut.

Title: Unscrupulous

Author: Narida Law (sarea)

Summary: Mulder's haircut is, quite simply, the result of one woman's possessive nature.

Length: 2,424

Classification: MSR UST

Rating: T

Spoilers:

Favorite line: She didn't need to walk anything off. She just had to keep those women at the requisition desk from ogling what was hers.

---------------------------------

The prompt from fragile vixen includes the words voyeurism is encouraged... I love it when they can't help themselves.

Title: Blind Spot

Author: alienqueequeg @alienqueequeg

Summary: After a long day working on a pointless assignment, Mulder and Scully start to get frisky in the records room of the FBI Headquarters.

Length: 3,580

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers:

Favorite line: Mulder bends his neck down, pressing his lips to her neck. A quick study to all her favorite spots, he executes his move with the precision of a predator going in for the kill. She clenches her thighs and mentally curses him.

---------------------------------

Very sweet destined-to-be-together fic following the path laid out by the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s song Mastermind.

Title: Mastermind

Author: Katy_KT_Katie and tofuttiM @katy-kt-katie and @tofuttim

Summary: What if we told you none of it was accidental? That once Dana Scully met Fox Mulder she knew she had to force them into a partnership, a friendship and a relationship. Fic looking at their relationship from first meeting through the Revival. Canon Adjacent.

Length: 19,836

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: runs over the course of the whole show

Favorite line: She reflected on how much she had changed while working with Mulder. Her mind was more open but so was her heart. She’d never loved anyone as fiercely and completely as she loved him. He was her perfect opposite and the pull of them towards each other made them both better, made them both whole people. Even if their relationship never progressed, she didn’t care, she needed to be with him, needed him by her side always.

---------------------------------

Does what it says on the tin. Extremely lovely look at mornings they share over the years.

Title: days sweetest moments are at dawn

Author: catharsisxf @catharsisxf

Summary: A glimpse at various mornings they spent together from Arcadia onward.

Length: 8,304

Classification: MSR

Rating: Not rated but some chapters are explicit

Spoilers: Arcadia on

Favorite line: She notices Dana hovering with a nervous energy, her hands fidgeting like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. As she puts away the last of the leftovers Maggie turns to her with a smile then freezes. Glancing towards the living room she spots a black leather jacket tossed on the back of the sofa. Looking a little more closely she spies a man’s shoe under the coffee table and a silk blouse hanging off the armchair.

---------------------------------

This happens to be a beautifully written look at them together discovering more about one another, enjoying the closeness that they've found as they've entered into a romantic relationship. Chapter 2 also happens to be "extremely hot monkey sex" as Mulder puts it. I love how Darwin writes them.

Title: Close through the Dark

Author: Darwin_xf @darwin-xf

Summary: A long time ago in a galaxy much like our own but with no smartphones, Mulder and Scully explore the vicissitudes of family, the metaphysics of sex, the intersection of desire and power, the motives of Skinner, the confines and conventions of gender, the inadequacy of language, a deep dark secret or two, and—most importantly—each other. Basically, nothing happens.

Length: 9,193

Classification: MSR, E

Rating: E

Spoilers:

Favorite line: “Maybe we should close the windows,” she said.

“It doesn’t bother me. For once I’m about to curl up with my favorite warm body and someone else is acting like a lunatic and going home alone.”

---------------------------------

Really beautiful and gentle story of their love for each other with a bit of a gut punch at the end. But it's OK! Num said: Just know in this universe Mulder does make it back and William isn't put up for adoption. It's just a bump in the road

Title: Handfesta

Author: numinous_mysteries @numinousmysteries

Summary: He wants to marry her in a primeval fashion that transcends man and law and God.

Length: 5,056

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: Season 7

Favorite line: “Oh, Mulder,” she sighs. “A pagan ceremony preceded by a mysterious seven-hour road trip with a 5 a.m. wakeup call is the only way I would ever expect to marry you. Truly, if you got down on one knee with a diamond ring after a candlelit dinner I’d probably immediately order a CT scan to check you for a cerebral hemorrhage.”

---------------------------------

I am obsessed with this fic. Every time I read it I am staggered by the prose. Absolute stunner. Beautiful love story from Scully's perspective over the course of season 7 with sharp edges. Rings so true and is heartachingly good.

Title: ālea iacta est

Author: brenayla @brenayla

Summary: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, and for Scully so loved Mulder that she’s cracked his ribs to restart his heart and dug bloodied fingers into his mangled thigh to slow the gush of his femoral artery.

If her unfettered belief in Mulder was enough to give him eternal life, the sun would burn out first.

Length: 11,628

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: Season 7

Favorite line: They are all my favourite line so here's one of them: Sometimes when he looks at her, Scully is struck with the staggering realization that that greedy, sweet thing she feels for him? God, he feels it right back.

---------------------------------

Something Different

Something truly magical here. The world as they know it ends and they find a little girl who is something more. Don’t want to spoil too much, they do absolutely go through it but it still has that sense of magic to it and ultimately feels hopeful.

Title: the sprite universe

Author: audries @audriesfic

Summary: On the last and final day, God created little girls. On the last and final day, from Scully’s true rib on her right side, God created daughters without mothers and mothers without sons and so on and so forth. Amen Amen Hallelejuah.

prompt from @enigmaticdr on tumblr: AU post-2012, dystopian, a hardened Mulder and Scully find an abandoned child at the side of the road.

Length: 5,114 over two works

Classification: Post series AU

Rating: G

Spoilers:

Favorite line: “She’s just a child,” Scully is saying, almost too quiet, and he has no idea why she’s saying it at all, except for the careful way the woman had stepped away, her eyes on the Sprite and not the gun. Like there was only one thing she was scared of and Scully wasn’t it. “She’s just a little girl.”

The woman grins, dazed and toothless, as she backs into the crop of trees off the side of the lot, away from them. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” she sniffs, wipes her wrist across her mouth, leaving a hard line instead of a smile in its wake. “But you have no idea what she is.”

---------------------------------

Heavy Hitters From OG Writers

This fic is a stone cold classic. I spent decades away from the fandom and this fic and Lydia Bower stuck with me as the ultimate in xf fanfic.

Title: Dance Without Sleeping

Author: wonderland/Lydia Bower @amplifyme

Summary: Scully learns to live with her cancer and take back control of her life. Meanwhile, Mulder works on fulfilling a wish list.

Length: 30,621

Classification: MSR, cancer arc

Rating: M

Spoilers:

Favorite line: He peers down at me, his eyes dark and sleepy. He sighs, a deep, shuddery sigh and pulls me tighter against him. "If you had any idea what you mean to me," his voice drops to a gravely whisper, “you wouldn't have to ask."

---------------------------------

There’s nothing I can say about this fic that will be sufficient. It’s Penumbra writing as The_Mythopoeic. It is poetic and epic and bracing and absolutely gorgeous.

Title: Heuvelmans' On the Track

Author: The_Mythopoeic/Penumbra @mashnotesofthemythopoeic

Summary: In which Scully becomes a Consortium doctor, and Mulder moves heaven and earth.

Length: 81,392

Classification: MSR

Rating: M

Spoilers:

Favorite line: It’s Penumbra so all of it, but this really stuck with me: Keagle, who had said nothing until now, turned and studied Scully openly. She lifted her chin slightly, and their equally blunt gazes exchanged a grudging recognition.

Keagle nodded. 'She would have got out,' he said.

---------------------------------

This is a post Never Again fic that sees them working a very compelling case with a great original character. There is conflict and MSR and it’s just fantastic.

Title: The Common Fate of All Things Rare

Author: Aloysia_Virgata and Scarlet

Summary: Ever wonder what happened between the silence of Never Again and the flowers from Memento Mori? Ever wonder if Scully's night with Ed Jerse affected her relationship with Mulder in any way? Ever wonder what pushed Scully to go to the hospital and find out about her cancer in the first place? Ever wonder how her illness might have affected her work or if she ever thought about Leonard Betts' words?

Well, we did...

Length: 46,702

Classification: Casefile, MSR, cancer arc, angst

Rating: M

Spoilers: Never Again

Favorite line: "Now, listen to me very carefully. You two clearly have some personal problems that are interfering with your focus on this case. So here's what you're going to do: you're going to drive to your hotel and fight or fuck or snort an eight ball of blow - whatever you do to get functional - and then we're going to find this guy. You come back here with a game face or you go home. Do you understand me?"

---------------------------------

JET is such a unique, gifted writer. Her voice is entirely her own. An all time great. Small Lives Awaken is a banger but this one– a case after Amor Fati where they meet star crossed lovers, one of whom can read the other’s mind– is a thing of beauty too.

Title: Silence Waiting

Author: Jesemie’s Evil Twin (JET)

Summary: "I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand

shadowless like Silence, listening to silence..."

Thomas Hood

Or, The First Nine Days.

Length: 18,600ish

Classification: MSR, Oddness

Rating: E

Spoilers: Through Amor Fati

Favorite line: He said some things a few days ago, but they were just words in that cloaked, measured way he always seems to be speaking to her in his hallway -- if he can hold her in his arms for thirty seconds at a time, once every two or three years, if he can say 'saved' and 'touchstone' and 'whole person,' eventually, decades from now, he might also finally string together enough of those words to fully explain what she means to him.

---------------------------------

Listen. I don’t like to pick favourites because we are so incredibly lucky to have some of the best writers in the world writing xf fanfic, but this one by Revely might just be it for me. Definitely top 5 of all time. Mulder is returned in Oregon after a year. This is their drive back across the country. It is utterly beautiful.

Title: The Unfinished Universe

Author: Revely

Summary:

Length: Around 17,700

Classification: MSR

Rating: Not rated

Spoilers: This is an alternate post abduction Mulder universe

Favorite line: She writes, "I do not want to be buried without you. Who will hold my hand?"

---------------------------------

Another all time favourite of mine. This is a great casefile but what I really love about it is how realistic the balance of their romantic and working relationships feels here. It’s satisfyingly mature and very recognisably them.

Title: Seeds of Synchronicity

Author: mountainphile

Summary: Six years after the events of "Aubrey," Scully and Mulder revisit the Missouri town to confront old demons and lay new ones to rest.

Length: ~92,350 words (as per @lilydalexf here)

Classification: MSR, casefile

Rating: E

Spoilers: Aubrey, Emily set in season 7

Favorite line: "This is different. New game, new rules..." Sighing, she knows her words sound cliched and inane in the warm heady space they inhabit on the bed.

"No, no games." His eyes so close, commanding her gaze, he the only one alive who knows her best. "Just reality. The truth."

"Which is...?"

"That we love one other, no matter what."

---------------------------------

Happy holidays @unremarkablehouse!

#txf fanfic #fic recs #fic rec list #poangpresents2024 #poangpals #unremarkablehouse

104 notes · View notes

silhouetteofacedar · 13 days ago

Text

Halves

One of many little moments on a long journey.

AO3

The views along Washington State’s Cascade Loop are breathtaking, according to the brochures from the stand in the lobby of their motel in Chelan. Just past the pseudo-Bavarian enclave that is Leavenworth, Highway 2 hugs the curves of the Wenatchee River through Tumwater Canyon. The scenic byway is tucked between the churning waters and dramatic, towering crags of quartz crested with pines. It’s early spring, and the mountains slowly shake off their winter coats to reveal fresh leaves on the aspens and the first blooms of trillium creeping along the ground.

Dana Scully sees none of this.

It’s an unfortunate aspect of their work as federal agents; thousands of miles traversed across the continental United States, untold hours spent in anonymous rental vehicles with mysterious odors and pilling upholstery. She knew when she joined the Bureau three years ago that the travel involved would be less than glamorous, but there’s something particularly demoralizing about viewing America the Beautiful solely through a windshield splattered with insect carcasses.

Scully always falls asleep on long car rides; lulled into slumber by the hum of the engine, the murmur of tires on asphalt, the fact that Mulder sometimes stops talking long enough for her to drop off. She wonders if it’s because his jaw gets tired; in the relatively short time they’ve worked together she’s never known him to run out of things to say.

Her sleep thins on the edges as Mulder wakes her with a soft brush of his knuckle on the tip of her nose. She hears him say they’re still a few hours away from the Seattle field office, but he’s hungry and his long grasshopper legs need a stretch.

Scully hums in assent, eyelids still heavy as she rearranges herself into a more upright position in the passenger seat. They’ve arrived at one of those proverbial wide spots in the road that bears a “Welcome To” sign, as though that gives it a sense of place when it boasts little more than a gas pump and a convenience store.

Apparently, this place is called Cole’s Corner, and a hand-painted banner next to a particularly stubborn melting snow berm says there are world-famous milkshakes up ahead.

Mulder pulls into the gravel parking lot outside what looks like a small house with pink and teal trim. A neon sign advertising banana pancakes hangs in the window.

Scully is hungry and groggy from her nap in the car, her hips and legs stiff from sitting too long.

She gathers her coat around her and slips out of the sedan, the scent of wet pine and moss filling her nose. Droplets of mist bead the shoulders of her coat, clinging to the wool. She can feel her hair creeping into fuzzy curls at the nape of her neck, coaxed into a frizz by the damp Pacific Northwest air. It’s been about a year since they were first in this part of the country together, tearing through waist-high ferns in the dark cedar groves of Bellefleur, hands outstretched. That first case together felt like a rebirth, wherein she shed her old self like her red bathrobe in candlelight in front of her strange new partner. The rich scent of damp earth and rotting logs filled her lungs as she was baptized by the cold Oregon rain, forever changed.

Heavy droplets begin to fall, and she pulls her collar tighter as they ascend the steps to the diner’s front door.

The restaurant is small but warm, every inch of the walls covered in 1950s pop culture memorabilia. A jukebox plays Buddy Holly in the corner; an Elvis-shaped clock swings its pendulum legs in time. Something greasy and heavenly is sizzling in the kitchen, the aroma pulling her in. Scully smiles softly; leave it to Mulder to stumble upon the kitschiest restaurant in the entire state of Washington.

They settle into a small corner booth with sticky grey vinyl seats. They create an odd picture at the table in the midst of hikers in denim and windbreakers; two figures of dramatically different heights draped in layers of dark fabric, heads inclined towards each other with an intimacy that can’t be easily explained. They’ve composed this images together countless times in greasy spoons across the country, travel-weary and disoriented by differing time zones. Sometimes they talk; occasionally they argue. Often they get mistaken for a couple, which irks Scully primarily because she mistakes them for one too. It’s unconscious; Mulder’s warm, firm hand on the small of her back sends messages to her weary brain that her body frequently assigns to the Boyfriend category.

Mulder has that effect on her often. He bursts through barriers, occupying space that had previously only been inhabited by intimate partners. He crams himself into her psyche, poking through neatly filed expectations and burrowing into her soul, creating his own uniquely shaped spot in her being.

She tries not to think about it; tries not to notice his full lower lip, the charming mole on his right cheek, the way he leans in too close when he talks to her. How he curves over her, his warm voice in her ear. At the office, she feels alert and well-armed against her physical reactions, can easily take her thoughts captive before they get away from her. But when she’s drowsy, far from home, hungry, those base feelings rise faster than she can tamp them back down. He makes her feel small in the best ways and she’s in danger of losing herself in the cover of his wingspan.

She needs caffeine.

All the waitresses at this establishment have the same name tag; hot pink with the name “Flo” etched into the plastic. A cheery, bespectacled young Flo with blond braids takes their orders, pours cups of too-strong coffee. Scully chooses a BLT, light on the mayo. Mulder orders a grilled cheese sandwich with ham and tomatoes and a cup of chicken and rice soup.

Scully gazes out the fogging window, slowly warming and wakening in the cozy bustle of the diner. Johnny Cash sings of a ring of fire. Plates clatter in the kitchen, a spoon clinks in a chipped coffee mug. Raindrops fall.

Silence feels more friendly these days, a comfortable pause filling what little space remains between her and Mulder. Words have become only one of the many ways in which they communicate. Their hands carry on their own conversation as the waitress brings their plates; understanding and collaboration in the simple passing of a napkin or nudging the salt across the table.

Mulder picks up a half of his sandwich, toasted a golden brown and cut neatly at a diagonal. “You want a bite?” he asks, holding it out across the speckled formica tabletop, and Scully realizes that it’s the first thing he’s said aloud directly to her since they got out of the car. She hesitates, then leans forward and takes a small, crisp bite out of the corner. Their knees brush momentarily, and she sits back in the booth and considers the flavors of butter and melted cheddar on her tongue.

“Good, huh?” Mulder asks, taking a bite himself. “My dad made them this way, but not on a griddle. Open-faced in the broiler so the tomatoes could get browned.”

Scully nods, stirring her coffee and blowing on it gently. “I haven’t had a grilled cheese in years,” she muses. “It’s the perfect rainy day food.”

“We can trade halves, if you want,” he suggests.

A small smile creeps across Scully’s mouth. Her Mulder has a delightful boyish streak that she pretends not to find appealing. “Race you to the playground afterward?” she jokes. Regardless, she picks up a half of her BLT and places it on his plate, taking the remaining half of his grilled cheese.

He flashes her a brief, dazzling smile before taking another bite of his sandwich. Scully feels her cheeks warming slightly and turns her attention to her lunch. A full Mulder smile, with bright eyes and teeth, is almost too much for her to bear. A dart of sunlight spearing through a sky blanketed with soft gray clouds.

Maybe someday she’ll tell him how he makes her feel, how sometimes her heart tumbles in her chest at the sight of him. How his most annoying moments are simultaneously the most endearing, how she’s beginning to love him just a little in spite of herself.

Maybe he already knows.

But for now they’ll just trade portions of their lunches, pass the ketchup, pool the crumpled bills in their wallets when the check comes. Travel in silence as they drive over Steven’s Pass, the view ahead blotted by low-hanging clouds.

#not me rising from my grave after three years with no preamble #molzfic #xfiles #txf fic #msr

69 notes · View notes

limnsaber · 3 months ago

Text

Watching real tv is you scrape and claw for character backstory that they made cohesive on accident. Dana Scully!!!

She has this amazing internal drive and is an amazingly strong person, but also thinks that she has a desperate need to prove herself. She keeps her walls up, even when she doesn’t want to. She’s the third child in a family of six with a homemaker mother and a doting, perpetually absent father. She thinks she has daddy issues, and she does, but she never gives herself enough credit. “I want to be praised” girl it’s human to want to be recognized. She struggles with the feeling of cycles, of staying in place, of never really changing. She has this complex that I like to call the “Starbuck complex” (named for her childhood nickname, given to her by her navy captain dad, referring to the first mate in Moby Dick (she called him Ahab the captain from Moby Dick)) where she LOVES to play second fiddle and step up to the batting plate. Mulder forges ahead and she follows him, and she charts their course as they go. He drives, and she has the map in the passenger seat. She LOVES that— when it doesn’t grate at her to not be seen. If Mulder saw her, it would be okay. And he does see her, for who she is, but not always what she needs in their interpersonal relationship. They’ve got issues!!

One of Scully’s earliest memories is that of her hiding a rabbit kit in a metal lunch box after her older overbearing brother Bill says that he’d kill it. Of course, she leaves it in the lunch box, and comes back to find it dead. There’s this innate part of Scully here — the kindness, the protector. I think this is the instance that incited her desire to become a doctor. And there’s this other part of Scully, even while small, who keeps her walls up to protect herself and what she holds dear. She didn’t tell her family about the FBI until she was sure she was doing it. And they disapproved, and she had to go on knowing they did. She never explained her and Mulder’s relationship to her family, who always seem astounded when they display their characteristic normal levels of Mulder-Scully devotion. She keeps her cancer to herself, and learns that it’s okay to reach out to people, but she keeps her walls up because she’s afraid. She’s afraid to believe.

Like the previous example, Scully’s first encounter with morality and the question of who she wanted to be was when she caught and killed a snake in the backyard with her bb gun when she was six. She was playing with her brothers, and was caught up in it, but regretted it immediately after. It spurs her to realize the effects of her actions and consider who she wants to be (and also there’s Catholic guilt in here and Scully’s desire to protect and heal, which is very good). It’s a foundational experience for her.

Thirty years on, she’ll have a snake in the ouroboros tattooed on her lower back. “Everyone gets the tattoo they deserve.”

Dana Scully, physicist, doctor, agent, spends her life searching for the answers of the universe. She comes full circle to find the truth. She wants a normal life, but she doesn’t want your normal life. When considering the paths not taken, had she had a normal life, she says “what I would have missed.” She heads for adventure because she wants to. Reason and faith in harmony. And no matter her self doubt, she knows what she’s about. Reason, faith, justice, truth, love, the greater good, and the pursuit of knowledge in the face of the unknown.

#I wrote this w context for my beloved friends and then just decided I should post it #I’m not editing this bc I wrote it in one sitting <3 #dana scully #dana katherine scully #the x files #x files #txf #lim posts #lim on txf

147 notes · View notes

randomfoggytiger · 4 months ago

Text

"My Touchstone": the Turning Point

Dedicated to the anon who asked:

I would love to hear your thoughts on how the “touchstone” conversation changed Mulder and Scully’s relationship. Was it this scene that propelled them into a romantic relationship?

To answer that question, I have to back up a bit to Fight the Future. Actually, let's back up even further-- to the cancer arc-- so we can get a clearer picture of the relationship between these two Avoidants (post here.)

FORWARD AND BACKWARD

Mulder realizes the extent of his feelings for Scully in Memento Mori.

I posit Scully's already known her feelings since at least early Season 2; but her temperament leads her to suppress, rather than express, emotional wants or needs. Never Again (posts here and here) was the result of both Season 3's on-and-off jealousy; and Mulder's avoidance of a normal life (Home, post here) and search for his tragic soulmate (The Field Where I Died.) Because of this, Scully tries to pinpoint and grapple with her "endless line", realizing-- too late-- that she wanted recognition (and more) from Mulder (as spelled out in the script, here.) Mulder realizes this, too, and lets the matter drop.

For Scully, it's advantageous to keep everything unsaid, largely because Mulder isn't ready... for anything, really (as discussed in the Home post linked above, and demonstrated by this clip.) Everything he's been drawn to or attracted by has an ephemeral, fleeting resemblance to some other normalcy he craves (post here)-- but has never, ever lasted. Except Scully.

So: Mulder is confronted by and accepts the depth of his feelings, Scully escapes cancer by the skin of her teeth, and we arrive at Detour... where he runs from the motel, chasing after his monster case.

Some read this moment as Mulder realizing and dodging Scully's intentions, others that he was completely blind to her intentions. I file it as the latter; but we also have ample evidence of Mulder noticing Scully's actions briefly before losing focus in favor of another tantalizing mystery (ex. the beginning of The Unnatural.) He misses the forest for the trees in his personal life-- or rather, he doesn't see the value in fixating on it beyond a few superficial check-ins here and there (we'll get to that.) Scully's always by his side, they have the work, he wants answers, why change? It's the same question he asks her in other contexts (ex. "Why now? Why Boggs?" in Beyond the Sea.)

Season 5 continues. It's a rough year for Mulder (post here.) And for Scully: The End is another episode on a pile of episodes where she feels she's "failed" Mulder, leading to her dispirited goodbye in FTF.

Thus, we arrive at Fight the Future: the moment that forces Mulder to make a confession or lose Scully. To him, her importance was never in question; but the hard part is admitting how broken he feels without her. He was afraid to do more in their partnership because... what would happen if things changed? His fear is rooted in the "What if?", and holds him back from a course of action. Scully's fear is rooted in "Did I choose right?", and manifests after she decides on a course of action (A Christmas Carol's doubts after joining the FBI, Never Again after four years in, all things after the Season of Secret Sex, etc.)

Despite the good that came from his hallway, Mulder's greatest fear is realized when Scully nearly dies after he confesses he needs her. This kicks him into retreat mode (post here)-- "go be a doctor", he tells her. It's Scully who says, "I can't", and clings to his hand, who refuses to give up. That is important, because it's another example of how reliant on Scully Mulder is, to the detriment of his own growth, at times.

Mulder takes her words to mean that Scully is unflinchingly by his side-- which is true. What isn't is his next assumption: that they're on the same page.

They're not, really.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SEASON 6

In The Beginning, Scully hasn't felt the need to change-- she's a scientist, she needs proof-- but she hasn't confronted and overcome her unnecessary doubts, either. Mulder, meanwhile, demonstrates he hasn't changed, either-- and, more importantly, how far removed he still is from a functioning relationship... as Scully suspected. Hurt that she didn't back him up before their superiors-- which resulted in them losing the files-- he hides behind frustration and anger. Scully feels rejected, and lo and behold! Diana appears; and wins back some ground with Mulder while Scully loses Gibson Praise. By the end of the episode, Mulder doesn't want to cosign to Scully's theory because her science, he thinks, betrayed them before. And lo and behold! It kind of did. But it didn't this time, when it's too late.

Where does that place them early Season 6? As an enclosed unit, with Mulder pillaging the basement-- without consulting Diana-- and sneaking off on his own or taking Scully with him on his misadventures. For all that could be wrong between them, a lot is still right; and both put in the effort to include and watch out for the each other.

Then Two Fathers and One Son (posts here, here, and here) shakes them apart: Mulder doesn't want to believe yet another ally is using and manipulating him; but gives in and goes to investigate Diana when Scully threatens to walk if he doesn't listen to her. He's speared in the Achilles Heel, however-- fatalism in the face of the inevitable-- and almost gives up completely before Scully yells him back from the brink. This happens again in Amor Fati; but he finally learns his lesson there. Scully is visibly angry with him at the end of the episode... and then we have the next few episodes as if nothing happened.

Agua Mala completely resolves their festering from One Son (yes, it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it resolution; and, yes, I need to sit down and write that out sometime) and propels them into their old-- dare I say, lighthearted-- routine and banter (i.e. Monday, Arcadia, etc.)

An important side note: To accurately place where Mulder and Scully were romantically during this period, we have to figure out if there was lingering tension post One Son. The facts simply don't support that narrative. We see in Arcadia that Scully was enjoying herself at first-- only brushing Mulder off initially when he used her as part of his schmaltzy facade (during their arrival)-- until her partner began poking at her, too (posts here), to maintain distance between them (post here.) We see in Alpha (posts here) that their banter was fun and lighthearted until she found out Mulder kept information relevant to that case from her; and that that information was yet another woman he wanted her to trust without question because he did. (Regardless, she still looked out for his best interests and sympathized with him after Karin's death.) We are shown in Milagro (posts here) that her tops are dropping lower and lower in an unconscious desire to grab Mulder's attention; but more importantly, that Mulder still hasn't considered her in all the ways Dana Katherine Scully exists. Yet, tension only arises when Scully feels overlooked, not displaced-- a creeping of her old assumptions and Mulder's missed signals in Never Again 2.0, not a minimization of her value ala One Son. We see in The Unnatural that she's survived Padgett and is setting subtlety aside for the first time in their relationship; so no tension there at all.

In short, we see Scully moving on and wanting Mulder to move on with her, too... and Mulder either not getting the hint outright (the beginning of Arcadia and Milagro), or getting distracted by the next shiny case instead, despite her efforts (Alpha, The Unnatural.)

The Unnatural: stage one of Mulder's mature development (and you can thank David Duchovny for each of these stages, by the way.) I.e. Detour with unmistakably romantic overtures, in case Mulder missed them the first time (which seems to be a pattern for Scully: near death, survival, resolution, and overtures.) Mulder would have to be thick to miss her obvious flirting, but he still loses himself in another x-file and runs off to badger Arthur Dales about it-- meaning, at this point, Scully has his attention, but not his full attention. Scully takes this as a matter of course-- because that's how Mulder's been from Season 1 (i.e. The Jersey Devil's "Unlike you, Mulder, I would like to have a life"/"I have a life.") However, Mulder finally learns "the mystery of the heart"; and decides to test this out with Scully on the baseball field. It's a small, small, small step because he's not used to this "normal", this appreciation for small, perhaps insignificant things. More to the point, he's probably afraid to do more-- was afraid she wouldn't even show up, per his expression; and will be afraid to follow-up, per his actions in Amor Fati and Millennium. But he did it; and Scully knew what Mulder was meaning to demonstrate ("Shut up, Mulder, I'm playing baseball.), as Duchovny intended.

So, where does that take us? The IVF arc, of course (post here.) It's a failure, splat (or not a part of some fans' canon); and that keeps us moving rapidly along to the next beat in their relationship.

Field Trip. Oh, boy, Field Trip: the episode that prepares both agents for the foundational upheaval of the Biogenesis-Amor Fati arc. Scully can't solely rely on her pat scientific rationalizations; and Mulder doesn't trust her blind loyalty and belief. And both are undeniably coded as a couple throughout their "trip." The main takeaway from this experience is that they doubt themselves more than they doubt each other; and their doubts in each other pale in comparison to their unshakable trust.

MY TOUCHSTONE

That leads us neatly to Biogenesis-Amor Fati... which we shall mostly skip for brevity's sake, as this arc accomplishes very little (despite its exorbitant screen time.)

Diana shows up, but has to admit Mulder has been asking for Scully "since last night." The barb doesn't land for Scully (while the implication highly amuses Skinner, post here); and after their resolution in Season 6-- Milagro and The Unnatural and the IVF arc and, most recently, Field Trip-- she remains unshaken in her conviction of Mulder's loyalty. Scully flies to Africa, touches the baby-restorer ship, and accomplishes... very little before flying back and finding out Tena has turned her son over to CSM.

Mulder, meanwhile, is stuck in dreamland. @cecilysass wrote an incredible post on the topic here; and @jaspertedd and @deathsbestgirl's theories-- that Mulder's dreams are influenced by those around him (post here)-- are interesting and pertinent additions. If true, that speaks to a deeper hole in Mulder's psyche he's yet to repair: doubting himself so much so that the influence of others takes precedence over his conscience. We've seen that before many times (one of which is Diana's manipulation in One Son, another of which was CSM's temptation in Redux II); but in each case, it was Scully-- a stronger moral barometer-- that kept him back or influenced his courage in the right direction. Mulder doesn't need to borrow her conscience, just her strength to act on his own.

"You were my constant, my touchstone"/"And you are mine" speaks volumes about where these characters are.

Mulder needed to accurately see that a life, a world where he was handed all his answers and given atonement for all his trespasses was empty and shallow without Scully. He needed, further, to shake off that side of himself that would rather wallow than fight, that put Scully in a position, over and over again, to save his life (Demons) or to talk him back from the edge (The Ghosts That Stole Christmas, though a mirage, was based in a truth.) For Mulder, Amor Fati is the crest of a long, arduous hill that took him decades to climb; and now tips him down, at last, towards maturity, self-actualization, and closure.

Scully needed to come to a different, frightening realization: that the cornerstones of her beliefs might be built on lies, too. She needed to open her mind to possibilities that challenged or even betrayed her beliefs-- to overcome the fear inside that was still inflicting self-doubt. For Scully, Amor Fati was the beginning of the end of her security in "the facts"-- but one that gave her the opportunity to step away from "the tried and true" in order to find herself: her intuition, and her happiness.

"You were my constant, my touchstone"/"And you are mine" is the verbalization of their mutual revelations.

THE END FOR MULDER, THE BEGINNING FOR SCULLY

Amor Fati, for Mulder, was a Part 2 to Redux II and a do-over for One Son: he was confronted by his conscience and learned, once again, to stand by it. But not alone, not yet. For Scully, it was the beginning of her journey, one that culminates in all things (post here.) Her relationship struggles aren't rooted in an upfront fear about moving forward in a relationship-- only what comes after, a pattern in all her relationships and major life decisions (post here.)

Yet, Mulder doesn't make a move in his hallway-- doesn't even try-- after his touchstone speech. Why?

Because Scully was overwhelmed and conflicted and needed space to work through her (Diana-adjacent) guilt-- the same feelings he'd battled with throughout Season 4 and 5: failing and failing and failing. With a little space and a little time for him to recover and a little case thrown in to get her back on track (Hungry), their equilibrium is reestablished.

And that leads us to Millennium and the Season of Secret Sex.

It's Mulder who initiated his confession in Fight the Future, it's Mulder who invited her to play ball under the stars, and it's Mulder who affirmed she was his touchstone; so, it's Mulder who initiates their first kiss. Scully continues to hold herself in a waiting position-- standing at attention, Starbuck-style, until her captain makes the first move (something that all things shifts, as well)-- but all bets are off when he does. Mulder's first step initiates all her ensuing ones: jealously knocking into him in and playing with his tie in Rush, teasing about all being "right with the world" when they (hypothetically) return home in The Goldberg Variation, and each and every fond ribbing she tosses his way. There's a resolution between the two that isn't shaken until En Ami's trickery (which... was a topic all its own, post here) and all things's doubts.

Then we arrive at Closure. This episode is the resolution to Mulder's character arc-- not only because he found his sister and, effectively, laid her to rest, but because he learned to trust to her happy ending without needing Scully to believe him. For the first time, he exercises a "conscience", if you will, separately from Scully-- she is his touchstone, still, but not his whole being. A monumental change from Redux II and Folie a Deux and Fight the Future: then, it was "I knew you'd tell me if I was making a mistake" and "no one else" on earth believes him and "I don't want to do this alone. I don't even know if I can." Now, she remains his touchstone, his realignment; but he can stand on his own two feet without curling into whatever shape will earn him love from others.

all things is to Scully what Closure was to Mulder. Her touchstone claimed her as his in Amor Fati; and Scully thought this meant Mulder promised to always be there when she navigated strange waters... and then he ditches her for crop circles in England. Mulder doesn't understand why she's making a big deal of weekend work now instead of every weekend before; and the two separate in not bad but not great spirits (ala Never Again.) Feeling adrift, Scully runs into Daniel Waterston, and we know what happens from there. In short, all things forces Scully to have distance from Mulder's influence-- as Amor Fati had forced him from her-- in order to choose, with a clear conscience, if this path, this touchstone, is the right one for her. all things finally sets her free from her inhibitions: she guides Mulder back to their apartment and lets him ramble on and on without feeling displaced or devalued by his split focus.

Scully wouldn't be driven to this crossroads and its resolution had not Mulder calmed her self-reproach and claimed her as his "touchstone", allowing her to come back to and lean on that truth in her darkest hours. As we know, she's always relied on Mulder's strength-- Irresistible, Memento Mori, Elegy, etc.-- but had yet to rely on her own. all things, finally, guides her into her own strength and abilities.

COULD A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEM HAVE WORKED BEFORE?

Realistically, anything can work with enough dedication and elbow grease (from both parties.) But, actually factually, the reciprocity needed for an intimate relationship wouldn't have been equal until after Mulder's return from "another life, another world." While they loved each other, Mulder's mercurial ways would wear on Scully's security, and Scully's sudden doubts and distance would dig Mulder's insecurities deeper in.

Mulder, the FBI profiler, was more strongly aware of this than Scully; while Scully, the scientific medical doctor, was more alertly aware of Mulder's constant retreat and instability than her own conflicting, distancing, brewing emotions. He had to learn to stand on his own two feet: a man who railed against the sky and stood up to his superiors and welcomed an existence as a pariah; and who would crumble the instant love was offered then revoked. She had to learn to trust her own instincts: a woman who rigidly tried to rein in her insecurities through facts and detached logical thinking; and who would implode with doubt the instant someone she respected or trusted questioned her decisions or intuition.

Could it or would it have worked? Yes, I think so. But Mulder and Scully were, I believe, happiest to begin a relationship when they did, on their own terms. They needed to be each other's touchstone first, not his "one-in-five-billion" or her "strength."

Partners, in all things.

CONCLUSION

"My touchstone" was the awakening for both: of how far Mulder had come, and much farther Scully had to go. Moreover, it solidified the nature of their relationship: unshakeable reliance and dependable trust, even if the whole world was (is) falling apart.

In short, Anon? Yes.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

128 notes · View notes

spirits-n-giggles · 4 months ago

Text

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice HOT take:

Where are all my monster fuckers at?!?!?!

Who knew Betlegeuse had a heart? I mean yeah he tried to contract Lydia to marry him AGAIN, but the only deal they had was to save her daughter. He didn't have to bring Delia back for a goodbye, he didn't have to make Rory tell the truth, and.... HE was the one to have her sign the contract, but still broke the contract rules to help her out? Hmmmm....

Sure we can assume he's just connonically stupid and didn't bother to read the fine print - he didn't exactly have the most smarts when he was alive so take with that what you will. (EDIT: But I absolutely would argue that Betelgeuse has been burned at least once before when not reading the fine print on a marriage contract and I can see him rigorously knowing every single word in the one he made for Lydia since he's clearly had a thing for her for some time.)

Oh yeah, he's definitely the same sleazy, horny, rotted nasty ass as before, but now he's Lydia's sleazy, horny, rotted nasty ass, and I'm here for it!! 🖤💚 If you ask me, this movie was the start of their actual terribly beautiful relationship (give or take the musical and the TV show lol they can all fit together if we really wanted them to. It's called having an imagination.)

Plus, I love me a good old-fashioned contractual marriage plot. I might have seen one too many k-dramas but those are always the most fun and cononically, I see Lydia and Betlegeuse as more of a partnership marriage anyway where she uses her power to solve whodunit mysteries in the living world or some shit, and she works with BJ to get shit done - like the cartoon 90s show. I see it as a Scully and Mulder situation where - Lydia does actually love BJ (and even be into him), but she will never admit it.... until later. Now I just need a good slow burn.

Honestly, cononically she's most likely gonna die and they're gonna get together in the afterlife and no one can tell me otherwise!

There are definitely antis for this couple isn't there? Aaahhh~~ yes, I can smell their cheeto-covered fingers and day-old red bull breath as we speak. 🤌 (EDIT: I'm fine if you don't ship them, just please don't be a dick to me about my ship. :D)

#beetlejuice #beetlebabes #beetlejuice beetlejuice #lydia #delia #astrid #tim burton #post #opinion #movie #wynona ryder would approve of this message #why are all of my ships problematic? lmao

130 notes · View notes

actual-changeling · 8 months ago

Text

Y'know Scully needed to be pregnant during season 8 or she would have offed herself the second Mulder was dead and buried. Just leave the grave open, Skinner, she'll jump right after him and call it a day—same thing with their roles reversed.

There's only so much she can take, and finding Mulder dead in that field without a pregnancy giving her a reason to keep living would have been too much by a mile. She would have suffocated on the emptiness he left behind.

Even in canon, Skinner and her mom must have had one hell of a time taking care of her after the funeral 'cause i don't think Scully was particularly eager to go through her daily routines except to avoid not perishing on the spot.

While they were still searching for him, she was visibly numb to the world and lost the spark that had survived all the way through their numerous kidnappings, the cancer arc, Emily, Antarctica, weird brain diseases and stranded alien spaceships, and failed IVF.

No Mulder, no faith, no life. For them, it really is that simple.

And the thing is that we get used to seeing her like that! We know something is wrong, we know what is wrong—what is missing—but it only really hits you how much of a walking corpse she was once Mulder is breathing again.

Before his return, she wears exclusively dark, muted colours and high-collared shirts; a lot of the time, she's completely drowning in her black coat. Her cross necklace is invisible and hidden away, she solves cases and does her job, sure, yet there's no actual joy or excitement, no scientific wonder.

Without mulder, the x files are reduced to simply that: files. There's nothing to fight for without him.

This is the only Scully Doggett (and Reyes) get to know, their understanding of her and Mulder's relationship is based on rumours and stories, and what little they can extricate from Scully herself.

Then they find him, they bury him, they bring him back to life, and the SECOND she feels and sees him breathing, his heart beating, that spark roars back to life. There's more determination and liveliness in her eyes during this one conversation with Doggett than when some fucking cult whackos shove a worm up her spine and try to make her their worm god carrier.

But no matter what Mulder's chances are, the choice not to open up that grave was wrong.

You could have dropped her in front of his grave with nothing but her bare hands and a mission, and she would have dug him up and wished him back to the world of the living all by herself.

They're irrevocably bound together, they need each other not just to survive but to LIVE period, and god help anyone who comes between them.

#alex watches x files #txf #the x files #x files #dana scully #fox mulder #scully x mulder #mulder x scully #msr #txf meta #msr meta #i think about What If She Hadn't Been Pregnant ten times a day #someone save me from this hell of my own making #there's a fic hidden away in this #one that is incredibly angsty and heavy but has a happy ending #one no one except myself and like one other person would want to read lol

161 notes · View notes

cecilysass · 27 days ago

Text

Beacon (6/6)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic and my poangpal @libbytxf

Chapter 6

Back in his room, she pulls out her medical bag and makes him endure an entire exam, which he tolerates without any comment because she still seems so jumpy.

He doesn’t even make any jokes about playing doctor. He just watches her closely. Her fingers are slightly trembling as she slips her stethoscope under his shirt to listen for his heart.

When she’s finished, she drops down to sit on the bed next to him, looking dazed.

“You’re fine,” she says like she’s sincerely surprised. “Your eyes are a little bloodshot from the coughing, but I think you’re going to be fine.”

“Thanks, Doc,” he says in a dry husk, smiling self-consciously.

She begins to busy herself artlessly stuffing her stethoscope and penlight back in her bag. “You should probably get some rest,” she says distractedly. “We can—you know—discuss the rest of the case in the morning.”

“The rest of the case?” he says.

“Right,” she says. She closes up the bag and stands. “I’ll wash your sweatshirt and sweatpants and return them later, of course. Do you need anything else before I go?”

“Scully,” he rasps.

“Glass of water maybe?”

“Come on,” he says, and catches her hand in his. “You just can’t leave me here thinking about what you said all night.”

With a tiny reluctant sigh she sits back down. He keeps a firm hold on her hand.

“It’s true?” he asks her, trying to meet her eyes. “You weren’t lying for the ghost?”

“Lying for the ghost?” She performs a miniature eye roll, as though that suggestion were beneath her dignity. “Mulder.”

“To save me,” he insists. “You could’ve been. Or… exaggerating.”

“Of course not,” she protests. Her voice softens. “I didn’t lie at all.”

There’s a pause as he lets that sink in. He allows his thumb to lightly run over her knuckles: once, twice.

“Just so you know, I’d, uh, never have brought any of this up on my own,” Mulder flounders in his scratchy voice. “I’d never have presumed that … I mean, I understand about work. Professionalism. Keeping things separate. Feelings don’t necessarily have to be acted on.”

“Right.” Scully’s chin moves up and down. She lets the moment hang there before adding quietly, “I wouldn’t have brought it up on my own either.”

His heart sinks. It’s more than he could hope for, he reminds himself, even knowing his feelings are shared. He could be pretty happy with that much. That and being alive, despite a very close call.

Scully turns to look at him like she’s expecting him to say something else, but he can’t think of what else would add to the conversation. Maybe this is where he should start lying: oh good, Scully, I was hoping you’d agree we should just act like this never happened.

They’re sitting close, their joined hands resting on his leg. Her expression shifts from expectant to a little pained, and her entire body lists toward his. He doesn’t realize she’s about to kiss him until it’s happening, until she’s already pulling away, looking at him with enormous eyes.

That felt like a question, he realizes. You better come up with the right answer.

Before he can stop to second guess, he slips his hand around her neck and pulls the back of her head towards him, managing to crush her lips to his. He kisses her with a force that startles him. Her lips are soft and part quickly for him. She tastes very faintly of cherry.

Mulder knows he should keep this sweet and slow, the way she deserves—but his body prefers swift and intense. Destabilized again by want, he thinks fleetingly. He reminds himself to hold back. His body tenses like a bowstring.

She pulls her mouth away and presses her forehead to his, letting her thumbs drag jagged lines down his jaw. “Does your chest hurt?” she whispers, frowning.

“No, no.” He shakes his head jerkily, giving her a sheepish smile. “I’m just, uh, awfully worked up.”

“Is that a problem?” she asks, cocking her head.

“Only because I don’t want to be an asshole.”

With a tiny knowing smile she leans in to kiss him. This time she is more overtly passionate, gripping him tighter, her mouth teasing his expertly. She scoots herself closer and closer until she is effectively sitting in his lap.

The sudden proximity of her squirming body causes him to squeeze his eyes closed. He makes a creaky, unflattering groaning sound and burrows his face into her neck in embarrassment.

“Ohhh Scully,” he murmurs, muffled, “what happens next here?”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and when she does, her voice is careful. “I was assuming I might…” She pauses. “Is it okay with you if I stay?”

Her apparent nervousness makes him bury a smile into the warm, soft crook of her neck. “I think that would be okay with me, yes.”

She puts both of her hands on his cheeks, abruptly pulling his face directly to hers. Her expression is serious, her eyes wide and solemn. She whispers very close, her breath on his lips: “You scared me today, Mulder.”

“I’m … sorry.”

“I know,” she says. “But…” She rakes her fingers through his hair, and he feels waves of warmth breaking all over his body. “You can’t leave me like that. Alone. I don’t even like it when you’re late and you don’t call. If you were… I couldn’t—” Her voice breaks a little.

She’s not as articulate as usual, but he understands her nonetheless—the urgency of what she is trying to say.

He knows she’s thinking of her sister. He knows what it is to be sitting in the dark, waiting forever for the person you lost. He knows there’s a reason why Hero followed Leander into the arms of the cruel black sea.

Leaning into her gently caressing fingers, he realizes he doesn’t know exactly what to say to her.

Her touches make his skin prickle, quicken his breathing, send blood coursing, revive all of his body. All reminders he doesn’t have to respond in words. There are other ways to tell her they’re both still here.

***

The persistent knock on the door wakes Scully. Bang bang bang. It’s not going away, she can tell.

She lifts herself from the pillow and away from Mulder’s possessive arm to squint at the clock. It’s seven a.m., much too early to be disturbed after their eventful night.

She looks around at her immediate surroundings. She has one leg wedged under the quilt in between Mulder’s, and as she more fully sits up in the bed, pushing off the cover, he makes a complaining grunt. When she manages to stand up, he grabs the quilt eagerly and flops over in bed, curling himself up into a ball under the cover.

Well. After all of that respiratory distress—and various other activities last night—he could probably use extra rest.

Bang bang bang.

Scully sighs and looks down at her attire. At some point in the middle of the night, she’d reached for Mulder’s giant sweatshirt and slipped it back on; her practical side deciding it was too cold for a whole night of sleeping nude, post coital spooning or no. But she’s still naked from the waist down. She looks around for the sweatpants and finds them on the floor, slipping them on quickly.

Whoever is banging on the door tries another time.

“Hold on,” she calls, smoothing her hair back furiously. She reaches the door, jerking it open, trying to focus her sleep-addled mind.

“Agent Scully,” Duncan says, surprised. “I—”

Scully remembers too late that this one was Mulder’s room. Duncan’s eyes are probably adjusting to the dark room behind her: the curled-up body in the bed, the scattered clothes.

“Good morning, Duncan,” Scully says with a sigh, bearing this revelation of her private business stoically. “May I help you?”

“I just wanted to tell you and Agent Mulder that I realized something rather … crucial to the case,” Duncan says, making a Herculean effort to tactfully avert his eyes from the background scene.

“Oh?” she says. She glances back at Mulder, who has not moved from where he’s huddled under the covers. “If you give me a moment, I’ll join you downstairs in the kitchen. You can fill me in.”

***

“Something you said yesterday made me think of it,” Duncan explains eagerly, filling her coffee cup. “You told Banoy and me that lighting the brass lanterns was supposed to be lucky.”

“I did,” she agrees, accepting the cup gratefully.

“I assumed that’s because the lanterns were like Hero’s beacon light,” Duncan continues, “or at least that there was a rough association. Light shining in the darkness and all that.”

She holds the cup to her lips, taking a sip, nodding. Duncan is placing a manila folder filled with photos on the kitchen table.

“So let me show you this.” He triumphantly lays an image in front of her. “The exterior of the Inn last spring.”

“Before the renovation,” Scully says, picking the photo up and examining it. It looks different, the shape of the entrance to the house, although she recognizes the walkway and the door. It definitely appeared more generally rundown: peeling paint, dilapidated ornamentation, a slight sag.

“You see the porch? The top? Its shape?” Duncan nods towards the photo.

In the photo the decorative trim on the top of the porch seems to have square corners with a jagged decorative pattern running underneath. It looks like sections of the decorative pattern had fallen off, like missing teeth of a jack o’lantern.

“Look,” Duncan says, pointing at the pattern. “They’re flames. See the little spikes?”

Scully studies the photo more closely and sees that he is right. The little jagged parts are tongues of fire. The top of the porch seems meant to resemble a lantern.

“The porch was designed to look like a lantern light,” she realizes aloud. “Like a giant beacon.”

“I never noticed it before,” Duncan says, pink with excitement. He pulls out another photo to show her another angle. “Probably because it’d fallen apart so much over the years. And I think the little decorative flourishes added on by the Victorians disguised it somewhat. But the porch was obviously originally designed to look like Hero’s beacon light.”

“And like the brass lamps inside the house,” Scully says, fascinated.

“Exactly,” Duncan says.

Scully takes in every detail of the photo, trying to put the pieces together.

“So when you tore that part of the porch down for the renovations…”

“Hero’s beacon light was gone,” Duncan says. “And that prompted some kind of reaction from her. She goes from a colorful New England legend to … I don’t know, a scene from a horror movie. But of course we had no idea demolishing the porch would invoke a ghostly serial killer.”

Scully shakes her head, looking out the window at the tranquil snow-blanketed town below. She wonders if the old family, the descendants of the Younge family, might have known something about this all along.

“So what do you plan to do now?” she asks Duncan.

“Well, it won’t make Banoy very happy,” Duncan says, “but clearly we need to turn our porch roof back into a beacon light. Even if our renovations take a few more weeks. I mean… a murderous ghost is bad for business.”

“I… I guess you’re right,” Scully says, her shoulders lifting and falling. “It’s as logical as anything, I suppose.”

“Anyway, Banoy and I can come up with a better faux beacon design than what was there before,” Duncan says.

“Something less last century,” Scully deadpans. She pinches the bridge of her nose in consternation. “It’s just hard to accept that you have to consult with a ghost about your architectural choices.”

Duncan gives her a sly look. “Am I to assume you’re a believer in ghosts now, Agent Scully?”

“With … many caveats.”

“A lot can change overnight,” he says significantly.

She places both hands around her coffee cup, her cheeks pink. “Yes.” She swirls her coffee slightly. “That’s true.”

“Maybe you and Agent Mulder should go back to Washington for now. I’m sure you’d like to be home for the holidays,” Duncan suggests. “We can check in with you again after a month when our renovation is finished. We can let you know if anything significant has changed.”

She nods, biting her lip. “I will pass that suggestion along.”

“Maybe next month you two could come back up for the weekend,” Duncan says. “Make a trip of it.” He folds his hands and regards her with amusement. “Only to see if anything has changed, of course.”

The corners of Scully’s mouth curl up involuntarily.

***

From the car window Scully watches as Mulder hurries down the neatly shoveled sidewalk from the entrance to the archives building. He throws open the car door and anxiously jumps into the driver’s seat next to her.

“I’m freezing,” Mulder whines, slamming the door shut behind him and rubbing his hands together.

“Why aren’t you wearing gloves? A scarf?” Scully asks unsympathetically. “Why aren’t you dressed for the winter?”

“It was just a fast errand,” he says, making a mock sad face. “Running in and out. I didn’t want to bother with all that.”

“Well, did Mrs. Davenport appreciate the soup?” Scully prompts him. “What did she say?”

“You know, I actually think she did,” he says, a look of satisfaction spreading over his face as he glances back at the archive building. “I told her that Banoy made the soup just for her, and that he wanted me to invite her to visit the Inn and talk to him and Duncan about the ghost. She seemed flattered. And excited to share what she knew.”

“That sounds even better than you hoped for,” she says. “Look at you, bringing the local populace together.”

“She did ask if I’d be coming to the Inn for the history lesson, too,” Mulder admits. “She seemed a little disappointed when I said I wouldn’t be.”

“Yeah, I bet she was,” Scully comments dryly.

“I might have led her to believe Duncan and Banoy wanted her advice in designing the new porch,” Mulder adds, shrugging.

“That is definitely not what they said,” Scully says. “You made that up.”

“The important thing is to get them talking,” Mulder says dismissively. “They’ll be able to better understand how to work safely with their house ghost if Mrs. Davenport and the old family share what they know.” He fishes his keys out. “All the rest is details.”

“Okay then—mission accomplished,” Scully says. She has the impulse to ruffle his hair in congratulatory affection, but it’s so far out of their typical vocabulary of gestures towards one another. She squeezes her own hands in her lap. “It sounds like we’re ready to get on the road, right?”

“Right.” Mulder throws her an enigmatic look as he turns the engine on. “Back in plenty of time for Christmas, just like I said.”

She decides to attempt a bolder comment. “You’re in a good mood this morning, Mulder.”

He flashes her a mischievous look and then peers in the rear view mirror to back the car onto the street.

“I sure am,” he says, grinning.

“Any reason?”

“Hot date for Christmas, remember?”

She faces straight forward, but allows her subdued expression to burst into a wide smile, too. “Of course. I forgot.”

He begins to steer through the little town, which seems even quieter this morning than the evening they drove in. Behind the steepled church, Scully notices a sleepy graveyard blanketed in drifts of snow. She wonders if that is where Sophonia Younge was buried.

“You know, Scully, I was thinking,” Mulder says conversationally. “If you’re now accepting ghosts as part of your worldview, I can put a few more cases on the docket for the new year.”

She eyes him warily, but he continues.

“Just off the top of my head, I can think of a famous case of a haunted hotel in Savannah, Georgia. A similar situation to this one, except the apparition of Anna Powers doesn’t murder people. Just kind of rearranges hotel guests’ clothes and that kind of thing.”

“Rearranges clothes.”

“Yes, most ghosts are actually benevolent entities,” Mulder says cheerfully. “Miss Younge being a notable exception.” He turns the steering wheel as they head off on the country highway. “There’s also the ghost of Peg Entwhistle in California, a 1930s actress who ended her life at the Hollywood sign and haunts it to this very day. She just makes appearances—typical Hollywood. You like L.A., right?”

“You understand our job is to investigate when crimes have been committed,” Scully says. “We’re not actually freelance ghost hunters.”

“If you’re up for some international travel, there’s a ghost I remember from my Oxford days. A Puritan girl named Prudence who was abandoned by her lover, sighted repeatedly on Magpie Lane,” Mulder says. “Don’t you want to try to meet her?”

“A ghost you remember from your Oxford days,” Scully repeats flatly. “Magpie … Lane.”

“It’s a real place,” insists Mulder, smirking. “I didn’t make it up.”

“How many ghosts are wronged women, Mulder?”

“I don’t have the exact numbers, but we can certainly investigate that question, Scully,” he says. “It does seem like a lot. I mean—you can guess why, though.”

“Why?”

“Women are more likely to die without justice,” he says. “So their souls linger behind to try to right the wrongs.”

She leans back in her seat and watches the austere winter trees fly by the window, contemplating what he’s said.

“Not always,” she replies pensively. “Their souls don’t always linger.”

He doesn’t say anything to that right away, and she can practically hear the gears of his mind whirring in the seat next to her. It feels strange, discussing her innermost thoughts so openly with Mulder, but she doesn’t hate it either.

“No,” he says finally. “I guess not always, Scully. Sometimes they leave someone living behind …someone else who has to try to right the wrongs.”

“Yes.” The word feels weighted.

“Do you… wish it were otherwise? That your sister were still here as an apparition?”

“Of course I wish I could see Missy again,” Scully replies to the window. “But to see her haunting my apartment, seeking justice eternally? To see her continuing to exist as a kind of … empty spot, a missing space where my sister used to be?”

“No,” guesses Mulder. “You don’t want that.”

“No,” Scully agrees. “The dead should be free to go on.”

“The living, too,” Mulder says. “Right?”

She looks over at him. His eyes are on the road, but he glances to make brief eye contact with her.

“Yes,” she agrees soberly. “The living, too.”

The car turns into a stretch of thicker overhead trees, and the light in the car becomes sudden blue-gray and dim, patchy with the shadows of limbs reaching over their heads.

Kind of ghostly, she thinks.

She thinks about what sort of things she wishes she were free to do as a living, breathing person. Things she hasn’t done enough. Things her sister would have urged her to do more.

There’s at least one obvious answer.

“Mulder,” she says, as the car winds deeper into the dark and frozen forest, “what day is your hot Christmas date?”

He gives her a look. “You know I don’t really have one, right?”

She leans down to adjust the heat in the car. “You could, though,” she says casually.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh.” His eyes shoot back over to her. “In that case … it’s tonight.” He looks over at her again, checking her expression. “Or tomorrow. Or, you know, the next day.”

“In other words, your schedule is flexible.”

“For that particular social obligation?” He lowers his voice. “Yes.”

“Then soon,” she says softly. “Very soon.”

The road follows alongside a small river, clear and cold, crashing over rocks. She watches it as she reaches for Mulder’s right hand, wrapping her fingers tightly around his. He makes a humming sound.

The river moves too fast to freeze; it never stops its chaotic rush and flow. It pushes on through the darkest corners of the forest.

#poangpresents2024 #x files fanfic #xfiles fanfic #the x files #xf fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #beacon #season 3 #XF season 3

67 notes · View notes