#msr au

[inactiveayla]

fox mulder’s phone // modern au

[observeroftheuniverse]

Started a new playthrough of Fallout 4 with my wife, and we made our player character Mulder.

We had and romanced Cait as a companion, and it made me really want to see an MSR AU with Mulder as Sole Survivor and Scully as Cait.

But I'll be damned if I write it.

[asifyoudidntknow]

All Time Favs

I began reading fanfic in my teens during the original run of the show. There were lonnng breaks from it, but coming back to the fandom in 2017 reignited my interest. I now keep a spreadsheet as well as a "to read" list. I already have almost 600 logged (not including 5 years), so I wanted to share my top favorites. Divided into my 4 favorite genres (AU, casefic, angst + romance, and smut + romance) and in no particular order...

*Alternate Universe*

I used to wonder why someone would choose to read AU. Then I read one of these and was completely blown away.

Katherine of Ireland by Jenna Tooms (gossamer)

Katherine, princess of Ireland is married to Walter, king of Angora. When Walter is killed during battle, Katherine is taken by the enemy, FitzJames. William is FitzJames right hand. When FitzJames orders her to be beaten (even after discovering her pregnancy) William devises a plan to save her, heal her and get her back to Ireland. Will William always be seen as the enemy or will Katherine come to see him for who he truly is?

By the dim and flaring lamps by @sunflowerseedsandscience (ao3)

Civil war AU’s are my jam and this was one of the first ones I read.  When Mulder discovers (disguised boy) Scully bathing in a waterfall by darkness and realizes what he is dealing with will remain etched in my brain forever.

In darkness by DKSculder (ao3)

What if Scully was married to Daniel?  What if Daniel was a serial killer?  What if Mulder was a VCU agent still?   This is an unfinished work, but the idea is unlike any other I’ve come across.

Blinded by the white light by DashaK (ao3)

Need I say more?  When Mulder and Scully find each other after colonization, will they remember each other and will they act on it?

The second side of light by @scapegrace74-blog (ao3)

Oregon Trail.  Mulder is leading scully and Melissa across the trail when Melissa dies.  They end up getting very close to one another on the journey.

Paracelsus by profuckslove (ao3)

Another amazing civil war AU.  When Mulder goes looking for his lost son and comes across a pregnant scully what will happen to them?

Hiareth by profuckslove (gossamer)

Wales 1215.  Scully escapes the king by marrying Mulder, the prince of wales.  Marriage leads to love and fighting off dangerous men.

Paracosm by @softnow (ao3)

This is an unfinished work.  College AU.  Mulder has a crush on the library girl, will she return his advances?

A companion unobtrusive by @slippinmickeys (ao3)

A college AU where scully is looking for a roommate and Mulder is looking for a room.  Melissa introduces them and the rest is history.

Qui Si by Trixie (gossamer)

After accepting an offer from a gypsy to go back to a life with Samantha in it, Mulder, a child psychologist, helps Scully, a PhD, get over her past.

You he did not fail by extraordinarily_ordinary (ao3)

Scully abruptly leaves TXF after surviving cancer and moves to LA to start anew.  She is dating when Mulder is assigned as a profiler to a case she is working and they have to deal with things left undealt with.

Five years and a lifetime by @monikafilefan (ao3)

Mulder is a Peds psychiatrist. Scully is a Peds neurologist. They meet at a conference and have a one night stand.  What happens when they come to work together 5 years later and Scully is a single mom?

Amish country by lolabeegood (gossamer)

Mulder and Scully go undercover in Amish country trying to catch a serial rapist while navigating very traditional values and roles.

You and me by lolabeegood (gossamer)

Mulder leaves his wealthy parents to serve under Scully’s father in the military.  In order for her to stay safe, fed, and clothed she needs to marry.

The mountain man by aka Jake (gossamer)

Scully is sent from nyc (where she was becoming a doctor) to Montana at her father’s wishes.  He wants her to marry a lieutenant under his command and not practice medicine, but she becomes intrigued with a local mountain man.

The countess/the earl by @slippinmickeys (ao3)

When scully is to be married to an old duke in order to save her family from financial ruin, a strange, alluring earl steps in to save her.

*Case*

There is nothing quite like a casefic. It's classic x-files and I am here for it. Writers in this fandom are so talented with their abilities to create a fic that rivals/trumps actual episodes.

Perchitor by @aloysiavirgata (ao3)

A little girl goes missing in the mountains with the superstition of Jenny Greenteeth to blame.  Mulder and Scully investigate while navigating a new physical relationship.

Omens by @lepus-arcticus (ao3)

I read this one as a WIP and was anxiously checking for an update every night.  There were several lines in this fic that made me gasp.  Cancer arc angst. Give me it alllll.

XII by fragilevixen (ao3)

A killer that romanticizes every victim.  His next target?  Guess who.  *coughSCULLYcough*

Hearts desire by malibusunset (ao3)

While in a small town scully runs into an old BF and starts wondering why she doesn’t prioritize her dating.  She decides to go for it.  The author makes me like Scully’s old flame.  That says something.  When the MSR convo finally does come, I thought I’d die from the slow burn.

Resurgam by opheila_interrupted (ao3)

One of the most xfiles like cases I have ever read.  Remains unsolved at the end and has our agents investigating ghosts near Mulder’s hometown while dealing with their own (Emily & Teena).

Universal invariants/laws of motion by @syntax6

Scully is engaged to Ethan throughout the first season while her and Mulder’s relationship is deepening and then consummated right before she is abducted.  How do two guys in love handle Scully’s abduction and what happens when she is returned?  

All the way home/head over heels by @syntax6

Mulder is pulled into a past unsolved VCU case of a killer with a shoe fetish while navigating a new physical relationship with scully.  When scully is targeted, Mulder has to gamble with his personal feelings while working to find the killer.

Queens gambit by Suzanne Schramm (gossamer)

Under Kersh, Mulder and Scully are assigned to a VCU case Mulder worked in Utah in 89’.  The killer was put to death and then revenge began.  Local mines and children involved.

*angst + romance*

This is my crux. Angst in any way, shape, or form. Add in some slow burn/ust and finally the rst *chefs kiss* particularly fond of Ethan fics and cancer arc.

Contact high by penumbra (gossamer)

Still feeling the residual effects of the spores post field trip, our agents try out Mulder’s new waterbed.

Early on by @sunflowerseedsandscience (ao3)

10 vignettes set during season 1.  Our baby agents are becoming close, but Ethan is still around.  How does scully navigate her relationship with Ethan while working with Mulder?

Center Mass by @kateyes224 (ao3)

Another Ethan fic set in season 1.  Mulder and Scully make an effort to get to know one another… in more ways than one.  And when Mulder gets aroused at Scully’s marksmanship it’s all over for me. 

One blue line by sarie_fairy (ao3)

IVF arc.  Scully is defeated by a negative pregnancy test.  When Mulder tries to comfort her, she suggests having sex.  I just remember wondering if I was reading or actually doing the act myself considering how detailed it was.

Salt by anjou (gossamer)

I remember reading this and being like WTF is happening to only have it all make sense at the end leaving me speechless.

Triptych by @iconicscullyoutfits (ao3)

My favorite FTF, post bee, how the f*ck did they get out of anarctica fic.

Snowbound by malibusunset (gossamer)

After missing their flight and being snowed in their rental on the side of the road, discussions lead to their relationship.  Once they’re recused they are put up in an inn with 1 room.  Dun, dun, dunnnn.

The ache by @storybycorey (ao3)

1999 Mulder has a visit with 2015 Mulder to urge him to get help with his depression and not lose scully.

Love bites by living_underground (ao3)

A review of vampirism cases throughout the years.  Hickeys from Ed.  Love bites from Mulder.

Goshen by bonetree (ao3)

Mulder and Scully are in a car accident where their car can’t be seen.  Major injuries lead to near death experiences and visions of Emily.

All that our senses can perceive by wonderland (ao3)

Mulder’s POV looking over Scully’s transformation from girl to woman and how all of his senses perceive her.

Caught in the Act I by parrotfish (gossamer)

Although the whole series is amazing, the first part is my favorite.  I love when scully lays into the review panel about being sexist.

The things she carries by @edierone (ao3)

One of my favorite cancer arc fics.  When Mulder confronts Scully 3 years later on the porch I literally stopped breathing.

Red valerian series by dashakay (ao3)

Scully looks to skinner for comfort during a grueling case, starting a 6 month affair.  Will scully ever love him or will the buried truth prevail?

Sex and Loathing by malibusunset (ao3)

Scully takes a drunk Mulder home after Roche.  He makes a move and they have terrible sex.  After 2 years of poking at each other they face things head on after Mulder almost dies in PBV.

Snakebitten by @onpaperfirst (ao3)

Set throughout season 5.  My favorite season. Say no more.

Five years and one night by Shalimar (gossamer)

When Scully transfers to LA and Mulder finds more babies like Emily, can they work together again to get to the bottom of this conspiracy?

The letter by Shalimar (gossamer)

Post TFWID, scully goes searching for more clues to her and Mulder’s past lives when she comes across a letter in a local Apison museum she sent to Mulder.

*smut + romance*

It's hard to have just smut when it comes to MSR, am I right? these two idiots are so in love that my smut category must also be romantic.

Undercover swing by 2momsmakearight (ao3)

What if Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple interested in swinging?  Can they both keep their jealously in check?  

Be kind, rewind by OnlyTheInevitable (ao3)

To help catch a suspect, skinner requests our agents watch porn together.  While watching, conversation leads to critiques about the performance and comments about personal preferences.

Girl 77 by mojo

A stripper is found dead with Mulder’s card on her.  She looks exactly like Scully.  Scully notices and confronts Mulder about it.

Dropped call series by @phillippadgettwrites (ao3)

Phone sex, but make it “not them”

December 31, 1984 by @phillippadgettwrites (ao3)

When Mulder saves an unimpressed scully from some jerk on NYE, they end up at her apartment having a one night stand.

Damsels by @sisterspooky1013 (ao3)

Scully is sent undercover as a stripper to find a missing woman.  Mulder is kept in the dark regarding her case, but pieces together where she is and what she’s doing and sets out to find her.

The Shirt by Audrey Roget (gossamer)

Skinner reconciles with Sharon leading to a vow renewal celebration. Skinner asks mulder and Scully to stand with him as his best agents. After slow dancing together, mulder bolts out of the celebration before scully catches the bridal bouquet and he crosses a line. When they end up in an accident while driving in a storm, things come to a head in an Elvis inspired motel suite out in the middle of nowhere PA.

[louistonehill]

"university of maryland, 1982. fox mulder is in love with the library girl."

Obsessed with the energy in Paracosm on AO3 by @softnow

[aloysiavirgata]

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

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

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

Terrified.

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mulder…” Dana breathes, her eyes closed.

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[the-redhead-in-a-dress]

Honestly, part of me wishes Emily had been Melissa's daughter and because Emily wasn't then the product of government medical experimentation she isn't sick, and with the irrefutable evidence that Emily is family, Bill and Maggie support Scully's desire to adopt Emily, to bring her home. Bill secretly hopes this will make Scully leave the fbi, which fair. But what he doesn't count on, was the whole ordeal bringing Scully and Mulder closer together. Mulder practically declares his eternal commitment to Scully in her brother's living room in his bid to support her bring Emily home, even if they have to get married to do so...

...and eventually, Scully gets to bring Emily, completely healthy, on a plane to DC, with Mulder telling stories to the little girl to distract her from turbulence and pressure changes. And nobody knows why Melissa gave the girl up and why she never told any of them about her, but in this life, Emily grows up loved by the Scully family, she has a grandma, an uncle and aunt and baby cousins, and a mom and a dad too. And Scully, Scully gets salvation, and a connection to her sister she never got to say sorry and goodbye to.

[brenayla]

midnight gold - AO3

“They’re fine, I guess,” Julie says. “Kinda weird.”

Weird as in: she gets a feeling like brain freeze if she looks at them for too long. Weird like: when they lean in to speak to each other, they make the conference room go still and November cold. She would need something far stronger than coffee before she’d admit it, but there have been moments where Julie could not tell them apart.

or: soulmates as cryptids

[xf-cases-solved]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that's all

-diz

[ayphyx]

Monster scully my beloved

[slippinmickeys]

Got a sort-of prompt on Twitter, and went with it:

“Daddy, what is war like?”

Mulder looks at his son across the Formica table. There are action figures standing at the ready amongst the silverware, salt and pepper shaker stand-ins for Bad Guys. It is just the two of them, Emily and Scully off shopping for back-to-school clothes.

“War is loud,” he says to his son. “And scary.”

The waitress comes by with their order, chipper and smiling, clanking down a short stack of pancakes in front of William, and an order of sausage Mulder will insist he eat for the protein. A Denver omelet for the gent and a refill of hot coffee, so thin and weak that Mulder is pretty sure it’s on its second trip through the filter—barely worth the $1.50 he’ll pay for it.

Mulder reaches forward to cut the pancakes for the first grader, reminds his son to lay the paper napkin over his lap. The boy pours far too much syrup onto the plate in front of him and it spreads over the side and onto the tabletop, leaving a quarter-sized circle of brown liquid goop that his father eyes warily. They will both be sticky by the time they return to their car.

“Did you kill people?”

Mulder is taken aback by the question and the forward way his son asks it.

“William?”

“Mommy says you shot people.”

Mulder breathes out, a little relieved. He takes a bite of his breakfast, chews.

“‘Shooting’ is another way of saying I take pictures,” he explains. “I never hurt anyone. I…I documented what happened during the war.”

“What’s ‘documented’ mean?”

His son takes a huge bite of pancake, and the raw, animal part of Mulder’s brain waits to see if the child will choke.

“It means I photographed things that happened. So that people remember how bad it was.”

William considers his answer thoughtfully. His hair is the same color as Scully’s but more wiry and thick. It grows out of the crown of his head like a copper helmet. It takes everything Mulder has not to constantly run his fingers through it.

“Will we go to war?” William asks matter-of-factly.

“No,” Mulder answers quickly. “No, bud, that won’t happen here.”

The green pepper in his food is crunchy and cut a little too big. He fishes a piece out from the pocket of his lower jaw with his tongue.

“Can you take a bite of sausage, please?” he instructs.

William makes a face, but complies.

“Emily says she wasn’t your first baby. That it died. Because of what happened in the war in Africa,” the boy says with his mouth full.

The bite of the omelet gets stuck in Mulder’s throat.

“Was it my brother or my sister?” William presses, blithely unaware of the emotional impropriety of his question.

Mulder is too stunned to speak for a moment. He had honestly never before considered the child he and Scully conceived in Africa as a sibling to his children, though of course it was.

“I don’t…we never…we don’t know.”

William has no idea the earthquake he has caused in his father, the tectonic plates that have shifted under the hardened crust of Mulder’s memory, of his heart.

“I think it was a boy like me,” William says innocently. He takes a drink of orange juice which leaves a watery mustache above his lip. The boy sets the plastic cup down on the table with conviction. “And I think war is bad.”

Mulder can only nod his agreement.

“If I finish my sausage, can we get ice cream later?” The child has already moved on though his words have left rippling eddies of feeling sloshing through his father’s pneuma, his declaration like a rock thrown into a pond.

Mulder’s eyes wander over the table, land on the kids menu which is smeared with the blue wax of a cheaply made crayon; a connect-the-dots dinosaur, an abandoned game of tic-tac-toe.

He finally finds his voice. “Yeah, we can get ice cream.”

William brightens, happily stuffs an entire link of sausage into his mouth.

The waitress swings by to check on them, tops off Mulder’s coffee without asking. Her apron has faded to the same eggshell white of the walls of 1055. There is a smear of berry jam on it that looks to Mulder, for a very long moment, like blood.

[atths--twice]

Saw this on Twitter and had to write a little something. ❤️

Their car began to overheat at mile marker 203, barely making it to the service station.

He sighed as he took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves while she called for another rental car.

“They said about thirty minutes,” she told him, hanging up as she joined him.

“Great,” he said with another sigh. “It’s blazing out, no wonder the car overheated.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, fanning herself and looking around. “Least we made it here and we’re not stuck on the side of the road.”

“Hmm,’” he hummed, as he also looked around. “Look at that.” He pointed to a dirt field with bases laid out to create a small baseball diamond. “Come on.”

“But the car…”

“Thirty minutes you said,” he told her, grinning as he started to walk toward the field. “We got time.”

She nodded, taking his offered hand to step over the path of half tires that had been set up as a barrier between the parking lot and the loose gravel walkway. He squeezed it as he let go and they continued to the field.

“Man,” he said, shaking his head as he looked at the dirty and stained up bases. “This takes me back.”

“You play a lot as a kid?” she asked, looking around with a small smile.

“Not really on a team as my folks couldn’t afford it, but neighborhood pick up games? Hell yeah.”

He spied a ball in the grass at the edge of the dirt lot and he smiled. Picking it up, he stared at it and then smelled it, his eyes closing. God, it smelled like summer and bologna sandwiches, warm sunshine and the tired feeling you got from riding your bike from morning till night.

It smelled like childhood.

“You ever play baseball as a kid?” he asked, smelling it again.

“Yeah,” she said with a small nod. “I was a pretty fast runner.”

“Smell that,” he said, holding the ball out to her. “What does it make you think of?”

She took a small sniff and hummed.

“Running through sprinklers. Eating sticky, melting popsicles. Riding my bike through the neighborhood and stopping by people’s houses without calling ahead.”

“Exactly. Like childhood,” he said with a grin and she nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Wanna have a catch?” he asked, popping the ball off of his forearm and catching it in his hands.

She stared at him and then looked down at her attire. He anticipated hearing a no and was taken by surprise when she nodded as she began to unbutton her blazer.

“Let’s see what you got,” she said, dropping her blazer outside the diamond without a care that it would get dirty. He grinned and stepped toward the pitcher's mound, rolling the ball around in his hand.

She stood at home plate, awaiting his throw. When he let it go, she caught it easily, tossing it right back to him. She smiled and he smiled back, throwing the ball once again.

By the time the replacement rental car pulled into the station, they were both hot and sweaty, but smiling from ear to ear. He tossed the ball up one more time as she collected her blazer.

“Thanks,” he whispered, setting it onto the middle of home plate and walking over to join her.

Their luggage and other personal items transferred to the new car, they got in and turned the air conditioning up to high.

Leaving the rental agent behind to figure out what to do with the broken car, they waved and made their way to the driveway of the parking lot.

They both glanced at the empty lot just as a group of kids rode up on their bikes. All of them dropped their bikes, shouting and laughing as they took out baseball bats and more balls from backpacks or even pockets. Two teams were quickly formed and they began a game, the ball making contact with the bat with a loud crack! and then cheering.

“Nothing replaces that feeling,” he said softly, turning on his blinker to turn left and leave the dirt lot in the rearview mirror.

She covered his hand with hers briefly and he smiled as he nodded.

Well, almost nothing, he thought, glancing at this new partner of his, wondering when it would be a good time to tell her he was falling head over heels for her.

“Let’s find a place to eat,” she said, turning the vent to blow the cool air more directly onto her. “I’m starving.”

“Me too,” he agreed, smiling with a nod, the memory of her happy laughter, as he ran the bases with his hands over his head in mock celebration, echoing in his head. “How about burgers and shakes?”

“Yes!” she agreed. “Something chocolate and deliciously cold.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, stepping on the gas as her laughter rang out once again.

[numinousmysteries]

Mulder/Scully/William texts

Inspired by this post: (I wanted to do a photoshop thing where I make these look like actual texts on an iphone but I don't know how to use photoshop. if you do, please feel free to steal this idea and run with it.)

Scully:

Scully: Back soon! Did you do your homework?

William: umm..where are you? and is that blood on dad’s hoodie?

Scully: Yes, but not his, so don’t worry!

William: if anything i’m more worried now

Mulder: It was 👽👽👽

Scully: No, it wasn’t aliens. Did you do your homework?

***

Mulder:

Mulder: Look what mom is eating for dinner!

William: wtf is that?

Mulder: I know what that means. Watch your language!

William: why does it have a face?

Scully: Kind of cute, right?

William: sure. whatever.

***

Scully:

Scully: The muffins aren’t that good here. 

William: looks like dad is enjoying his

Mulder: It’s mom’s. She spit it out in my hand. But it’s not bad.

William: you guys are gross.

Mulder: 😘

***

Scully:

Scully: Is that your math teacher?

William: ???

Scully: Guy in glasses on the right. Thought we recognized him.

Mulder: We took a selfie so it wouldn’t be obvious.

William: who let you guys into the FBI?

Scully: Is it him?

William: i literally see no one else in this photo besides your giant heads

Mulder: Doesn’t mom look pretty?

William: 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Scully: Did you do your homework?

[saturnbeary]

mulder and scully, ponified :)

base from Lavender-Bases on DA

they’re here, they’re queer, and they’re investigating the streets of ponyville as we speak.

[ladychandraofthemoone]

Some old narrow gauge Nia doodles I’ve done over the past month, Nia’s livery was inspired by 🌺mrterrier673🌺 on Twitter

Saw some edits of Nia with glasses and I fell in love we need more engines with accessories

Some pannier shaped siblings, they met pre-msr days (they didn’t come in the same time)but were very happy to reunite with one another in the msr then in the Skarloey Railway 😊☺️

Their sibling friendship/relationship is like alastor and Rosie or Mary and jack, Nia didn’t care about Stanley’s “jinx” and defended him whenever he got bullied, she’s one of the very few folks who can make Stanley genuinely happy and do things like singing much to his colleagues surprise (also livery inspiration for one another♥️❤️🧡💜💛🖤)

[deep-sea-gigantinism]

x-files and chuck crossover fic when⁉️

[aloysiavirgata]

ASK ME ANYTHING, SHE SAYS

Olay, DO MORE FISHER KING 💁🏼‍♀️

He marries her on the Vineyard in October. She didn’t want to be a June bride. She didn’t want to sweat and have her hair frizz and her fine vellum skin be lumpy with mosquito bites. She wanted to be cool and auburn and lovely, and it’s why he married her at all.

***

He gazed at her like a siren on a rock, like she was the last thing he’d see before it went pitch-black. She wore silk the color of Labor Day whitecaps and her veil was summer-storm mist. He loved her the way we love fire; primal and aching and fiercely hominid. He burned for her because it is a pleasure to burn.

***

He could not have cared less about the wedding but hoped she would. She hadn’t, though she’d looked at the obnoxious ring with a certain grudging respect. “It’s carbon arranged in the most boring way possible,” she observed, letting all (nearly) three carats catch the light. “”And it’s gorgeous. I love it.”

Her sapphire eyes, her garnet hair. And he’d given her a diamond, so clear and bland.

She didn’t love it, not really, and he knew it. Knew she loved it because his mother thought Catholics were simpletons and, more importantly, staff. His mother was Jewish by blood and WASP by raising. His mother preferred natural fibers. His mother excelled at tennis.

It was a family piece. It was The Done Thing, even on her plebeian Catholic finger, slim and pale and lovely as a moonbeam. His mother flinched but never balked. She was properly brought up, and her son had made a decision. She was a lady and so was Dana’s mother, in her sweetly aspiring way.

Their mothers wept and he beamed down at her like a demigod; like the Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With The Sun.

***

He worshipped her properly later, before the applewood fire. He tossed his lot in with hers and he felt like some duke’s second son, unbound by obligation.

“Fox,” she moaned, and he loved that too. They were virgins again that night. They brushed one another like purple fruits, ripe to bursting on the vine.

***

He was appalled by how he wanted to put a baby in her, by how “wife” changed everything he thought he understood about himself.

The ring, clear as the waters of the Euphrates by day, was opalescent and clouded beneath the moon.

“Christ,” he moaned into the hot vanilla silk of her throat. “Christ, fuck, Dana…”

The tulle of her rucked-up gown left scratches on her thighs, like the tongue of a cat, and neither of them ever noticed.

***

She was a doctor again in the morning, and he was a Special Agent, and the sun was pale as straw in the weakening light.