#kitsunegari

[bisexualfbiagents]

THE X FILES | Kitsunegari (5.08)

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Kitsunegari (5x08)

BEEEEEP

Her eyes burn while the heart monitor continues to flatline. 

She reaches down to hold her brother’s limp hand as he takes his last breath. Her heart constricts in time with her fingers squeezing his. Six months ago, she’d walked into this same hospital dressed as a nun and had simply urged him to wake up. Now, she has done the exact opposite.

“Goodbye, Bobby,” Linda whispers as a hot tear rolls down her cheek. 

She stands, unpinning the fake nurse’s ID, shakily jotting down an address to one of her vacant warehouse properties for him to find. With clenched fists, Linda Bowman walks away from her dead twin, revenge stoking the hot flame of rage burning in her chest. 

It’s time for this fox hunt to end. 

*** She knows exactly what to do while waiting in the shadows. It’s just like Bobby had said it would be between the FBI’s dynamic duo: an incredibly close yet opposing partnership, two complementary sides to a coin. The skeptic and the believer. Unfortunately for Fox Mulder, believing will be the death of him.

Linda flicks the safety off her gun and walks into the open. 

“Mulder?” Linda calls in Agent Scully’s voice. 

“Scully?” Agent Mulder starts running, but his Scully isn’t here yet.

Linda smirks. This man has essentially stolen the only family she has left. Has torn her heart apart with a single bullet and a life sentence cut short. 

Yes, Linda thinks, she will tear his heart to shreds. 

“Scully, what are you doing here?” he asks.

The words coming from her mouth are her own, yet in Agent Scully’s voice.

“…She’s making me do this. I can’t help myself.” His fear amuses her, so Linda keeps egging him on, putting on quite the show. “Mulder, make her stop!” she pleads as the little redhead.

“Linda Bowman!” Agent Mulder yells. “Show yourself!”

Linda Bowman, she almost scoffs, giving herself away. She became a Bowman out of necessity. Though her husband’s obsession with her long lost twin disgusted her, he had no idea she’d slithered her way into his life like a snake and pushed him to marry her. Marriage gave easy access to murder the man who put her brother away and presented the perfect opportunity to trap a Bureau Fox on the run. 

“Mulder…” Linda pretends to beg as vengeance spurs the gun to her faux temple.  

“NO!” Agent Mulder’s hollow scream resounds around the empty warehouse, sprinting towards the body he thinks is Agent Scully as Linda pulls the trigger. “NO!”

He falls to the floor, whimpering over the illusion of his pretty partner’s bloody head. 

An eye for an eye. A bullet for a bullet.

Heels clack along the concrete as Agent Scully, disguised as Linda herself, arrives. Right on time.

Agent Mulder angrily grabs the gun and aims it at fake Linda’s face. “I’m gonna kill you.”

They argue fruitlessly about him not forgiving himself if he kills her, his precious partner. Linda inwardly groans, wanting to shout, “Just shoot already!” 

“You killed her!” he cries pathetically to the real Dana Scully, and Fox Mulder’s devastation is nothing short of delightful. 

“Mulder…” 

“Shut up!”

“Modell warned you. Don't play her game,” Agent Scully cautions. Convincingly, too, and Linda panics. Instantly she knows her plan has gone to hell.

But Linda will finish what her brother started two years ago.

She stands, then is immediately knocked back down by an ear-piercing bang. Searing pain in her chest causes her illusions to drop. That little bitch shot her. 

Gasping, Linda watches the woman she wanted dead walk over and run a hand down a stunned Agent Mulder's arm. 

The last ounce of her fury flares at her failure. This isn’t over. 

“You think you can hold me?” she taunts. 

Linda’s vision blurs as she watches Agent Scully end the 911 call and gently run a hand down the bent back of her partner. Agent Mulder’s head hangs between his trembling legs, his hands clutching his knees. Even as her heart thumps within her ears, Linda can hear the soft sobs and sharp inhales of breath wracking his slender frame. 

“Mulder, breathe for me,” Agent Scully says, her head bowed down to his. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Her tone is soft and tender, and Linda nearly sighs through her pain at the comfort of it. 

“No, it’s not okay,” he huffs. The rough grit of his words echo off the warehouse walls, keeping Linda from passing out as blood soaks her shirt. “I almost shot you, Scully, you… you could’ve-” 

“But you didn’t and I didn’t,” Agent Scully cups his cheek with the hand not rubbing small circles along his spine. Her touch rips his watery stare from the concrete floor beneath where Linda’s limp body lay, right where he’d thought a massive puddle of his partner’s blood had pooled. Their gazes lock. “Mulder, you wouldn’t hurt me. I trust you.”

His shuddering slows as his hand covers hers cradling his face. “Okay.” 

“Good,” Agent Scully glances back at Linda with disdain. “I’m going to monitor her until the ambulance arrives, all right?” 

“Go ahead, Scully.” Their hands slide slowly down his stubbled jaw as one while Linda can barely keep her eyes open. “I’m fine.”

“Sounds familiar,” she teases on an exhale.

Agent Mulder doesn’t smile. He stands up straight, his wild eyes raking over the petite woman from head to toe. “It’s not me I worry about.” 

“But I do,” Agent Scully says fiercely. 

Then, suddenly, warm fingers are pressed to Linda’s cold neck. She shivers.

Big blue eyes hover over Linda’s drooping ones. Cerulean blue. How ironic. It’s funny, Linda muses as the room starts to spin, what the mind focuses on as the body shuts down: this skeptic and believer see so much, but are blind to what’s right in front of them.

Sirens wail. The world darkens. And Linda’s mind shifts again, thinking of Bobby as her tear-filled eyes finally slip shut…

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Ao3!

@monikafilefan

[lifewithaview]

Gillian Anderson in The X Files (1993) Kitsunegari

S5E8

Robert Modell (see Pusher (1996) ) seems to have recovered from his gunshot wounds and is again using his power of suggestion to get his victims to see things that are not there. Scully and Assistant Director Skinner are particularly concerned as they assume Modell is out to take his revenge on Mulder. As the murder count rises however, Mulder however realizes that Modell may not not be the killer this time around and may have another purpose in mind.

*The series hired two Japanese translators to yield a proper translation of the title phrase, due to the fact that "fox hunting" is not readily rendered in Japanese.

[agent-troi]

Chapters: 13/13 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, Fox Mulder & Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Bounty Hunter (X-Files), Eddie Van Blundht, Linda Bowman, Esther "Invisigoth" Nairn, Diana Fowley, Walter Skinner, Alvin Kersh, Joanne Fletcher, Maurice (X-Files) Additional Tags: Fictober, Doppelganger, Impersonation, Friendship/Love, Episode: s02e14 Die Hand Die Verletzt, Episode: s02e16 Colony (X-Files), Episode: s02e17 End Game (X-Files), Minor Violence, Missing Scene, Canon Rewrite, Episode: s03e23 Wetwired, Paranoia, Mytharc (X-Files), Episode: s04e20 Small Potatoes, Cancer Arc (X-Files), Shapeshifting, Angst, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Episode: s05e08 Kitsunegari, Fox Mulder Angst, Trust, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, references to suicidal thoughts, Guilt, Episode: s05e11 Kill Switch, Virtual Reality, Episode: s05e18 The Pine Bluff Variant, Undercover, Episode: s06e03 Triangle, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Episode: s06e04-05 Dreamland, Bodyswap, Episode: s06e06 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, Illusions, Gift Giving, Episode: s06e20 Three of a Kind, IVF Arc (X-Files), Episode: s06e21 Field Trip (X-Files), Hallucinations, Episode: s07e02 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in Love Summary:

Over the years, Mulder and Scully develop a set of secret codes to determine whether one of them has been replaced by an imposter.

In case you missed it: Security Questions is now complete! Reposting the completed fic in honor of the last day of Fictober (and Happy Halloween! 👻👽🎃🛸)

@today-in-fic​, @fictober-event​ @xffictober2023​

[twogravesinsomecemetery]

After the events of Kitsunegari, Mulder and Scully try to work through their feelings and find happier associations with cerulean blue.

---

Two fics in one day ??? Whoops !! Here's some post-Kitsunegari angst with a happy ending (ish). Might write a part two at some point <3

[randomfoggytiger]

Season 5 Is a Pretty Dark Time for Mulder

S5 is a starkly melancholic season for poor Mulder.

He is incredibly isolated from all other emotional support except Scully (a tenuous connection because of her remission)-- even from his own mother.

Tena, a very close person in the background of his life, has vanished completely after his confrontation in Demons, cutting him out ruthlessly. She never identifies his body in Redux, never calls after his reappearance in Redux II, and never checks in at any point during the entire season (and doesn't check in until Amor Fati.) We know she has called previously: in Colony, she picks up the phone nonchalantly at Bill Mulder's place, and in Sein und Zeit she tries to get a hold of her son. S5 Mulder never reaches out to her, either, despite having done so numerously in the past: End Game, The Blessing Way, Paper Hearts, etc. This is the first time in their relationship that Tena has so callously disconnected from her son, mimicking the estranged relationship he'd had with Bill Mulder; and it explains his extreme reaction in Gethsemane. Mulder has a deep fear of being alone (fear stated in Aubrey and reiterated in Je Souhaite); and, without his mother there, the only person to stand between himself and his gun is Scully (as she had done before in Demons.) It also explains his devastation in Sein und Zeit: Tena had reentered his life, slightly, after Amor Fati; and he lost her again as well as that buffer other than Scully. He may not be suicidal; but Mulder cannot be alone.

Scully is Mulder's only source of strength, gladly taking on that challenge after she recovers from her remission.

But, while she had taken the time to reflect on her life and her choices once at death's door, she finds Mulder had not ("Yeah, once at the Ice Capades"): it was too painful to consider a life without her; and he would rather keep his mind narrow-mindedly focused on his goals, like usual, than have to take the blinders off and consider "life on this planet" so soon after almost losing his own sense of "normalcy."

Not only that, but he's burnt out-- for months he avoids aliens, the Conspiracy, all that tripe-- and that quickly turns to fear when Scully begins to automatically fill his shoes in his "absence" (which she does to a greater extent in S8.) Scully, meanwhile, tries to draw him out with a cheese surprise in Detour, or dish out jokes by a campfire; but he is so focused on his loss of faith (like he's hyper-focused on his losses in the past: S1 about Samantha, S2 about his job and her abduction and his clone sister, S3 about his father's death and Conspiracy involvement, S4 with his sister again and her cancer and his mother, etc.) that he cannot see the forest for the trees.

Not only all of the above, but Mulder also has to watch Scully's reclaimed life fall more and more apart: the very men who his father worked with stole her ova, hybridized her child, and treated her only little girl like a lab rat every day of her life (exactly like he suspects they've done to his sister, or still do.) He has to watch Scully decide to let her daughter die and close back up again so that she can grieve and heal. His family's ties have not only destroyed their own lives, but the life of the woman he loves as well.

And after all of that, Mulder can't stop Scully's chip (the very chip he lied, cheated, and stole for; and which she can never live without) from mind-controlling her to her near death at the hands of the very aliens he no longer believes in. The guilt from his distrust during Patient X and The Red and the Black twist him up even more; because he doesn't know anymore. That "knowing" had always been his navigator through the lies and half-truths of this long and convoluted journey. Scully cannot rely on him, he thinks, because he cannot rely on himself.

Every action he takes in S5 leads him to greater self-doubt, with Scully saving him over and over again:

keeping him warm in Detour, trying to comfort him in Post Modern Prometheus, making the executive decision to release Mulder from his obligation to the quest in Emily, trying to pull him from Linda Bowman's control in Kitsunegari, taking a vacation to recover mid-season in Chinga, dragging him from the Kill Switch trailer, covering for his drug-fueled actions in Bad Blood, trying to reignite his passions and beliefs in Patient X and The Red and the Black, trying to understand his precautions in All Souls, beginning to doubt him in The Pine Bluff Variant, and finally reaching an exhausted breaking point in Folie a Deux. When Diana Fowley shows up in The End, Scully has nothing left to offer, believing that Diana stepped in and effortlessly cleaned and stitched up the wound that had been festering all season: handing Mulder paranormal proof of everything, government and aliens included. 

And, again, Mulder loses all of it. 

It makes sense why her buoyancy in FTF is so easily shattered: she's glad that Mulder is finally striking out, making his own path on the roof; she rewards his efforts with a tease and some amazing banter. But when her support ends up with both of them investigated by OPR and Mulder on the brink of losing his job (which is, what she perceives to be, the only think keeping him together) she slumps: she’s tried and tried and tried, and nothing has worked. She has failed him; and has taken him down not by malicious action, but by being herself. 

This leads perfectly into the rest of the movie (for another time.) 

The best part of this series? All of these complicated, morose happenings occur without pulling the entire season's mood down-- because Mulder and Scully are so in sync that, as dour as Mulder gets, Scully is able to pull his head above water. And, while this was a rougher time for Mulder than usual, Scully's support and strength kept him going and "fairly happy."

In Summary

Tena cuts her son out of her life for unexplored reasons (likely due to self-preservation: covering up the past by lying to herself, avoiding her guilt by pretending it never happened) after he confronts her.

Mulder feels incredibly alone, save for Scully-- and forgets to thank her or, at least, let her know (that's why FTF is so important.)

Scully supports Mulder all season, her confidence in his stability diminishing from The Red and the Black until Pine Bluff Variant, becoming obliterated in Folie a Deux, and restored by realizing that he'd been right and she'd been just as "insane" to ignore what was in front of her face. By The End, she has placed all these swirling doubts squarely on her own shoulders, eroding her own self-confidence by comparing her skills and abilities with Diana's seeming ease at swooping in and setting Mulder's world to rights.

And finally: Scully, really, REALLY needed that vacation in Chinga.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[bakedbakermom]

truly do not understand why mulder and scully didn't have some kind of code word setup for when one of them is acting SUPER WEIRD and the other suspects they may have been replaced with a shapeshifter, or hallucination brought on by a mountain-sized mushroom, or a mental projection from a crazed psychic bent on revenge. like honestly you guys. it happens so much.

[carefulfears]

the end of kitsunegari when skinner stops mulder to tell him that he did a good job, that no one else could’ve figured this out but him, “you prevailed. you won her game.” and mulder says, “then how come i feel like i lost?” …that’s really so much of it all. the cost of playing, even when you’re good at it. the cost of awareness, even when it saves lives.

[cutemothman]

one thing about me is that i have knack for telling when an episode of the x files was written by vince gilligan. if it's bizarre but in a good way, without even checking i'm like yup that's vince and im always right

[fromthethirdplanet]

This scene implies that, at some point, Modell told the other guy to undress.

[chavisory]

Okay, I know it's a whole thing on this show that we have to hear Mulder repeatedly explain physics to Scully, and Scully occasionally explain psychology to Mulder, but I just realized (courtesy of rewatching "Christmas Carol" in the middle of the night) that it's really odd that Scully's knowledge of Japanese would never come into play in "Pusher/Kitsunegari" given that she lived there as a child.

She would've been extremely young and probably doesn't retain much knowledge of Japanese, but almost certainly more than Mulder would just...happen to have.

Why isn't she recognizing "osu" as a Japanese word, or being the one to call in Japanese linguists?

[bisexualfbiagents]

Walter Skinner in Kitsunegari (5.08)

[deathsbestgirl]

quick question: do you think scully would have been susceptible to pusher guy (idk his name lmao)

[xfilesfanficexchange]

Think You Can Hold Me

Author: MulderHeWrote For: RealCreamCheese Mulder is disappointed in himself after pulling a gun on Scully and decides to break the partnership. Ao3 Link

#XF1in5Billion2023 12/33

[agent-troi]

so i just rewatched kitsunegari and made a connection i hasn’t realized before: scully said in the episode that modell “simply woke up” about six months ago, and then later she tells skinner that linda bowman only found out about modell’s existence six months ago.

it always bothered me that pusher ended with everyone being absolutely convinced that modell would never regain consciousness, and then when he miraculously does, there’s no explanation. but there is an explanation; it’s just very subtle, and i think that what happened was when linda came to visit him the first time, she used her abilities to “push” him to wake up, just like she later pushes him to die.

[california-112]

Return of the Pusher guy!