#msr ficlet

[actual-changeling]

It's "ice queen" until they're waiting in front of Skinner's office and Mulder makes her laugh so hard she has to half-bury her face in his shoulder to keep it contained. Until she is breathlessly blushing and whispering something that makes him bend over in return. It's the first time any of the agents passing by have heard her laugh.

It's "ice queen" until Mulder brings her a hot coffee and her favourite kind of muffin for an early meeting, and her smile could melt glass. Until a room full of accountants watches them pass the paper cup back and forth without even looking, spilling not a single drop. Until she gives him an undecipherable look and Mulder comes back after their ten-minute break with yet another one to share. Until she leans in like she is going to kiss him before simply bumping her shoulder against his, her lips parted and her cheeks flushed.

It's "annoying" and "insufferable" until Mulder almost trips over his own feet while clinging to every single word spilling from her lips. Until he walks straight into Skinner because he was looking at her and only her. Until he listens to Scully and Scully only, until he silences people with a glare when they interrupt her during meetings, until he starts introducing her as Dr. Special Agent Scully, daring anyone to contradict him or drop an honorific.

It's "ice queen" until Mulder gets injured, and she refuses to leave his side even as they make their way through the crowded building. It's just a hair fracture, Scully, and she almost shoves someone into a doorway to make space for him. Your ankle is broken. Hair fracture. Broken.

It's "prudish" and "prissy" until people occasionally catch them in an empty corridor, watching as Mulder wipes away dark red smudges from the corners of her mouth while the same colour is smeared across his lips. Until there is enough visible adoration in the way their hands brush together that it makes any bystander blush.

It's "standoffish," "uptight," and "unapproachable" until they are no longer in the basement, and no matter how hard she might try, she cannot hide the person she is around Mulder. Until she drags her chair towards his desk more days than not, until they move in sync, sit down in sync, breathe in sync, and they both don't seem to be what everyone else always imagined.

Soft. Warm. Loving. In love.

Scully smiles at Mulder like he's her whole world, and he smiles back like she hung every single moon and star into the sky.

It's "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky" from their very first case right up until the day a ring is glinting on Mulder's finger and another one on a thin gold band around Scully's neck, resting above her heart.

[thursdayinspace]

So I rewatched "Our Town" last night and when I sat down at my laptop this morning to do something that was not writing, I ended up writing instead. These things happen. Just a silly fluffy-ish little thing because omg that ep is so gross and also Scully has to be getting sick of being abducted all the time. Mulder feels the same way.

She can’t sleep. It’s not every day you almost get beheaded—even after everything that she’s already been through this year, it seems there are still things that can shake her up pretty badly. She rolls over on the lumpy motel mattress and tries to get comfortable. For a glorious moment, she considers quitting. Handing Skinner her resignation and walking away, finding a nice job with regular hours where people won’t handcuff her to radiators, stick her in closets, contort their stretchy bodies through cracks in her bathroom window, or drive her around in the trunks of their cars before handing her over to aliens or the government or whatever theory Mulder’s going with right now. A job where she won’t spend the end of a work day strapped into a metal harness as a guy in a mask raises an ax above her head.

In her mind she pictures a simple life: a nice house with a yard, a dog greeting her as she opens the door and walks inside after a long day at the hospital…no, a private practice? A day of teaching? Whatever she’s been doing, she walks into a kitchen that smells like home-cooked dinner, leaning up to kiss her faceless husband who’s vaguely Mulder-shaped. “Honey, I’m home!” “Dinner’s almost ready! How was your day?” “Fine. Narrowly avoided decapitation. Nothing exciting.” Fuck. Not even fantasy-Scully can escape the absurdity of this life.

The knock on her door doesn’t even surprise her. She already knows who it is. He stopped waking her unless it’s something really important, so she groans and gets up, her bones aching, weeping inwardly as she makes her way to the door. So she can’t sleep; that doesn’t mean she wants to spend the night going over their case report or whatever that infuriatingly charming insomniac wants from her this time.

But when she opens the door, he doesn’t look as if he wants to go over case reports. He looks like shit. As much as that’s even possible for him. Another thing that’s simply unfair about her life, she thinks with a sigh. Even with bags under his eyes and pale as a sheet he still looks beautiful. “Mulder?” she says.

He doesn’t answer, just steps right into her and pulls her into a wordless hug, so tight she’s a little afraid he’ll crack her ribs. She hugs him back weakly and pats his back, not quite sure what else to do since she has no idea what the fuck he’s even doing. She expects him to pull back, but he just keeps holding on, and she’s genuinely having trouble breathing.

“Uh, Mulder?” she says again, a little louder.

“You’re okay,” he mumbles into her hair, and she wiggles in his arms, trying to loosen his grip.

“Not for much longer if you don’t let go.”

“Sorry.” He drops his arms and takes a step back, but keeps looking at her like he’s never seen her before. “Sorry, I just—”

“It’s fine,” she says. “Did you have a bad dream?”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah.” She grimaces. “Me neither. It’s been…a day.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, and she laughs. She’s too tired not to.

“Thanks to your timely rescue, my head is still firmly attached to my body.” It sounds a little bitter, and she’s surprised at herself before she feels another little piece of her frustration clicking into place. Ah, yes, she thinks. There’s that too. Rescued once again. She makes a mental note: fantasy-Scully in her little imaginary suburban nine-to-five utopia will never have to be rescued. She’s gonna be the one doing all the rescuing. Except nobody needs to be rescued in that perfect little world, because nothing bad ever happens to anyone.

“You don’t sound okay,” Mulder says, and she closes her eyes for a second. She’s not annoyed with him, she reminds herself. It’s not his fault that she became part of these townsfolks’ dinner plans, and it’s not his fault that she needed him to keep that from happening.

“I’m just a little tired.”

“I’ll let you sleep.” He sounds exhausted and when she looks at him, she sees leftover fear in his eyes. “No more interruptions, I promise.”

Her hand reaches out for his before she’s fully conscious of what she’s doing. It’s just that he’s here and she’s had enough of being Agent Scully for tonight, and he really looks so much like Doctor Scully’s faceless dinner-cooking husband in her nice little fantasy home. “Come on,” she says.

“What are you—”

“Bed,” she explains, hoping he won’t ask any more questions.

“Oh. Okay.”

She gets in on her side and is relieved when he lies down next to her without another word. She closes her eyes, but she can feel him stock-still as a statue next to her, she can feel the tension radiating off of him, and, hell, it sounds like he’s even trying to breathe without making a sound. So she grabs his arm and rolls onto her side, tugging him with her until he has his back against her chest, and she holds firmly onto his hand and snuggles back into him.

“Scully?” he asks, sounding a little confused.

“Relax, Mulder,” she tells him. “Sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“About sleeping?”

“You know what I mean.”

She laughs and squeezes his fingers. “No. Of course not. But honestly? I really don’t care right now.”

“Okay,” he says, and he gets it, she knew he’d get it. “Okay,” he repeats, and laces their fingers together. She feels him lift his head, feels his hot breath against the side of her face, and then a gentle kiss against the corner of her eye. “Good night, Scully.”

“Good night, Mulder.”

Behind her closed eyelids, fantasy Scully lies just like this with her faceless partner, who’s just as warm and smells just as good as real Scully’s friend-partner spooned up behind her. The only difference is that her own real Mulder is…well, real. No matter how perfect her beautiful little dream house with her beautiful perfect husband may be, she kind of prefers snuggling with someone who has a face and a name. And maybe she’d actually miss the mess.

Not all of it. Not the ax-swinging, homicidal maniacs or the lumpy motel mattresses. But a partner who knocks on her door in the middle of the night because he couldn’t sleep without making sure she was okay? Who sleeps wrapped around her with his breath ruffling the hair at the back of her neck, knowing this isn’t leading anywhere other than comfort and friendship? And…she kisses the backs of his fingers once she convinces herself he’s probably asleep…a vague hope that maybe this won’t always be all there is between them?

Yeah. She’ll take it.

[baronessblixen]

I wish you’d write a fic where mulder and scully are at a restaurant in Rome ! (Am I too late ?)

You were not too late, anon, it just took me a while to finish this! I loved it and I immediately knew it had to be a fluffy fic(let).

Tagging @today-in-fic

There are, he presumes, easier ways to catch Scully in a sundress than whisking her away to Italy on a random Tuesday. Not that he’s complaining; if he could, he’d sit here for hours – no, days – just watching her.

It’s not just the sundress; it’s the way the sun kisses her skin, reminding him of when his lips did the same. He knows how soft her skin is, how her freckles taste against his lips. The smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth is unavoidable. Not that Scully is paying attention to him. While she’s taking it all in, he’s mesmerized only by her. Rome might be beautiful, but it has nothing on Dana Scully. In a sundress, no less.

“Mulder,” she says, her eyes drifting over to him. “Are we really here for a case?”

Ah yes, that.

“We are,” he replies, pretending to look for the waiter. Now would be a good time for their food to arrive. Food that Scully ordered for them both in impeccable Italian. At least Mulder presumes she did. He sat there grinning like the love-sick fool he is when she started speaking to the waiter.

“You told me to bring comfortable clothing,” Scully says, her eyes scrutinizing him. “Is this restaurant being haunted by ghosts?” Oh, he loves this woman. He smiles, matching the amused glint he catches in her eyes.

“No,” he says, leaning forward, as if what he’s about to say was a secret, ”we’re here for the Gata Carogna.” Scully’s eyes widen in curiosity. When he pitched it to Skinner, their boss merely nodded, and Mulder is certain he just wanted them both out of his non-existent hair for a week.

Scully remains quiet, seems to be waiting for him to continue, so he does.

“It’s a cat-like creature,” he says, leaning closer and closer still. The city around them is bustling, but he only has eyes for her. He’s close enough that it would take less than a whisper to close the distance between them. “It has an appetite for children’s souls.” He blinks at her and waits for her to react.

“That’s a fun story,” Scully says in her no-nonsense voice. “There’s just one problem with it.”

“Which is?” Scully takes a sip from her water and Mulder swallows, feeling thirsty himself. Moments slip by as he watches her. Then she leans in, and he’s momentarily distracted by how wet her lips look.

“The Gata Carogna, Mulder, has its haunting grounds in Lombardy, not Rome.” He’s too stunned to reply to her, frozen in his place where their noses are still almost touching. What might people passing by think, seeing them? Would they think they’re a couple on a romantic getaway?

“Does that mean Skinner didn’t buy the story either?” He grins sheepishly at her. “Skinner sanctioned this?” Mulder nods. “This isn’t- oh my God, Mulder, I thought this was- I thought you were only using this as a ruse!”

“A ruse? For what?” he asks innocently. They’re on the same page after all. He can no longer hold his laugh in when he sees color shoot into her cheeks.

“It is,” he admits, finally. “I mean I did go to Skinner and he did sanction it. We’re here on, well, let’s call it an official vacation.”

“We’re not here to chase after ghosts, or soul-stealing cats?” He shakes his head no and smiles at her, knowing the sun isn’t to blame for the warmth running through this whole body. “We’re here to…” she trails off, her eyes searching his.

For this, he thinks. To take a breath. To leave behind the world, the monsters, and their pasts; everything that keeps chasing them.

“For whatever you want,” he says instead. He knows exactly what he wants. Knows that he wants to hold her hand and make happy memories for a change. Knows that he wants to kiss her when the sun sets. And he knows he wants to go to bed with her, snuggle up, and ward off any nightmare that might have followed them here.

Now it’s up to her.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” And then, just before the waiter arrives with their food, she leans over the table and presses a soft kiss to his mouth.

For once, he’s done everything just right.

[slippinmickeys]

Totality

Fiona made me write an eclipse fic.

Scully gently shut the door behind her, the crisp blue duffle with leather handles in her grip; the go-bag she always left in her car, just in case. It had been a just-in case, Mulder had to admit. They’d had to fly to Idaho with no time to pack, and had worked a grueling five days straight on a series of local murders with only enough time to catch maybe four hours of sleep a night and pop into a shabby JC Penneys once for more underwear. They were both overworked, overtired, and their suits–of which each of them only had two–were overworn; ripe with the scents of stale sweat and stale coffee and stale eau de morgue. 

Scully looked weary as she handed over the bag to where Mulder stood in front of their rental car’s open trunk. 

“How far away is the airport again?” she asked, squinting up at him as he deposited her bag next to his and slammed the trunk closed. 

“Only about an hour,” he answered, mentally girding himself for what he was about to tell her. “But, I uh,” he went on, “pushed back our flights to this evening.”

Her posture visibly slumped. “You…what?” 

Mulder bit his lip, hoping he hadn’t made a horrible miscalculation. He knew she wanted nothing more than to get home, slide into a hot bath and pull the covers over her head for three straight days. She’d certainly earned it. 

“Hop in the car,” he said, moving to the driver’s side door. “I have a surprise.”

He was exhausted himself, his nerves shot. He was running on caffeine and cortisol, his skeleton rattling with every step. But this…she would like this. He was sure of it. 

“Mulder,” she said wearily, a whine in her voice that he’d rarely had the opportunity to hear. But she said nothing more and reluctantly dropped into the passenger seat, leaning her head against the headrest and rolling it to look at him beseechingly after she’d clicked her seat belt on. 

Mulder turned the ignition and the sedan growled to life under them. 

“It’s a good surprise,” he assured her. 

She only sighed, and they bumped out of the hotel parking lot and onto town’s main drag, the sun shining on the shabby line of depressing suburbia. Ten minutes and five stop lights later, Mulder pulled into the mostly empty parking lot of a dying mall, the tires popping over stray gravel and broken glass. He cranked the wheel and the car swung over the cracked asphalt in front of a defunct Frederick & Nelson, turning in a reflex angle and stopping when the sun shone in full through the windshield. He killed the engine. 

Scully opened her mouth to say something, but he reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a couple scraps of cardboard, handing one over before she could voice a complaint. 

It took her a moment to register what he was handing her. 

“Eclipse glasses?” she said, sitting up a little in her seat. 

Mulder had found the black polymer lenses next to the cash register at a local coffee shop that morning, the bespectacled co-ed working it disinterestedly telling him he could have two pairs for a dollar. 

The upcoming eclipse had been in the news recently, but he’d mostly ignored it–back east it would only be partial at best, the path of totality only hitting the Pacific Northwest and parts of Canada. Four murders and a rough case later, he hadn’t given it another thought. Until that morning in the coffee shop. 

“We’re in the path of totality here,” he explained. “We’ll only get it for about a minute and ten seconds according to the local newspaper, but I thought you might like to see it.”

A look Mulder couldn’t read crossed over her face and he swallowed.

“The next full eclipse over North America won’t be until 2017,” he went on nervously. “I can probably change the tickets back if you-”

Scully reached out and put a warm hand on his arm, cutting him off. 

“I’d love to see it,” she said delicately. “Thank you.”

Despite the dark smudges under her eyes, the soft smile she gave him quieted any lingering apprehension about his decision, and he gave her a smile back. 

“I figured we could get on the hood, lean against the windshield,” he said.

“What time does it start?” she asked, popping her wrist out from her sleeve to look at her watch. 

“In about five minutes,” he grinned. 

Scully fingered the glasses and then opened her car door. Energized, Mulder did the same. 

“I ask you to avert your eyes,” he said drolly, putting a hand on the warm hood of the car before awkwardly lumbering his way on top of it, the metal plane thumping loudly under him as it dented to accommodate his weight and then popped back into place. 

Scully, opting to watch, looked on primly. 

Once he was settled, he held out a hand. 

“Milady,” he said, and she settled her warm palm onto his, grabbing on while she put a foot on top of the tire and dexterously swung herself up next to him. 

“Nimble,” he complimented her, reluctantly letting go of her hand. 

She shrugged and leaned back gingerly against the windshield, mindful of the smear of desiccated bugs across the face of it. 

“Here, wait,” Mulder said. He sat up quickly and peeled off his suit coat, rolling it into a ball to tuck behind her head, pillow-like. 

“Thanks,” she said quietly. 

“Don’t mention it.” 

Mulder could feel something ineffable pass between them. He coughed once awkwardly, and then pressed his eclipse glasses to his face, the sharp cardboard edge digging into the skin behind his ear. 

“How do I look?” he asked. 

“Like a dork,” Scully said, delicately donning her own, in, Mulder hoped, solidarity. 

She looked nothing like a dork, Mulder thought, eyeing the sharp lines of her face. She looked like a space girl, sleek and silver, an otherworldly beauty. 

He cleared his throat. “So do you.”

Scully’s face was tilted to the sky and he turned to follow her gaze. 

“It’s starting,” she said, her voice a little irreverent. 

Mulder looked at the sun, dark through polymer lenses of the protective eyewear. The moon was just beginning to edge itself in front of its celestial sister; incremental, pendulous. 

Lacking the pillow he’d given Scully, he raised his arms up and bent his elbows, resting his head back against cupped hands. Beside him, Scully breathed serenely.  He caught a whiff of his fusty clothing and hoped his jacket had fared better in the olfactory department than his shirt. 

They were silent for long minutes, watching the gradual procession of moon across sun. The day was bright but began to take on a verging luminosity, and Mulder raised his glasses up to take a look at the dark shadow of the car under them, which took on an off-putting sharpness against the dusty asphalt. 

“What do you think ancient peoples made of solar eclipses?” came Scully’s voice, a little dreamy. “What must they have thought?”

It was an invitation to oratory. A small gift. Mulder smiled. 

“Cultures throughout the world had wildly different theories,” he said, and Scully turned her head towards him, her eyes hidden behind the dark lenses. “Most of them, obviously, wildly incorrect.” Despite the fact that he couldn’t see her eyes, her look was encouraging. 

“The sun being devoured was popular,” he went on. “From the Norse mythology of Sköll,” at this she smiled. “To Asian cultures like in Java and Vietnam that variously had creatures or monsters swallowing the sun. It was commonly held in ancient China that a celestial dragon attacked and devoured it. Here in the Northwest, the Pomo people’s name for a solar eclipse is ‘Sun got bit by a bear.’”

The bear, Mulder mused, was widening its jaw. It was getting gradually darker, and he could feel the temperature start to dip. He put his glasses back on and looked back at the sun. 

“The Inca and Ancient Greek believed eclipses were a sign of a wrathful and unhappy god.”

Scully hummed. “The word ‘eclipse’ comes from the Greek word meaning ‘abandonment.’”

“Right,” Mulder said, “though I think I prefer mythologies of a more solicitous nature.”

Scully raised her glasses to give him a look. “Solicitous?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Mulder couldn’t help his grin. “In Australian oral traditions, the moon falls in love with the sun and chases her across the sky. If caught, the sun plunges the world into darkness. Medicine men recite magical chants to combat the evil omen. In German mythology, the sun and the moon are married. One rules the day while the other the night. When the moon is lonely, he’s drawn to his bride and they come together to create a solar eclipse.”

She looked at him frankly. “You know a weird amount about eclipses.”

“I like to impress you.”

“Is this why you were so late getting back to the hotel this morning? Research? My coffee was cold.”

“But are you impressed?”

“I wasn’t impressed by the coffee…”

Mulder gave her a long look, the odd light turning her hair a hazy copper wool.

“I like the German one best,” she finally said, plunking her glasses back on and leaning back to gaze at the sky. 

“Me too,” Mulder said. 

More long minutes of silence between them with the occasional car whooshing past on the roadway. Mall security drove by them slowly and Mulder gave the rent-a-cop a small salute. It was impossible to see Scully with the glasses on, so he kept taking them off. 

“You’re going to permanently burn your macula,” Scully said from beside him, not taking her eyes off the welkin of the heavens above them. 

He ran his eyes over the brushstroke of freckles on her nose. She was goddess-like; as luminous as a star. If he was the moon, he’d chase her through the sky, too. 

“You lose enough photoreceptors you won’t pass your next firearms recertification.”

He was tempted to tell her that in all the years he’d known her, her shine hadn’t damaged anything but his poor, lonely heart, but pulled his glasses back down and looked to the sun. It was nearly covered.

He sighed and felt her hand reach for his. His heart beat hard once against his sternum. 

“You can take them off during the totality,” she said, squeezing. “And should. It’s supposed to be incredible.”

“You ever seen it?” He asked her quietly. She was still holding onto his hand. 

“I missed the one in ‘79.”

“Me too,” he said. 

Around them, the air had taken on a distinct chill and the light shining down had grown metallic. Next to the car, in the long shadows of the trees along the edge of the mall driveway appeared little crescents. The colors on the mall’s signage dimmed and brightened. Mulder sat up and pulled his glasses off and blinked, shaking his head. The world felt odd, he couldn’t properly adjust his vision. It felt decidedly like the moment after someone takes your picture with a bright flash.

Scully still held his hand and squeezed it. 

“It’s called the Purkinje effect,” she said calmly, pulling off her own glasses with her other hand, and looking around with a wondrous smile. “As we near totality and the light dims, our eyes transition from photopic vision–which uses the retina’s cone cells to deliver full colors and fine detail–toward scotopic night vision, which relies on rod cells to detect objects in low light. When the light’s intensity dims in an eclipse, colors with longer wavelengths like red will look darker as the cones become less active. But rods are sensitive to shorter blue-green wavelengths, and those colors will appear to shine. It’s not just you. It’s the rod and cone cells in your eyes trying to make sense of the sudden dimness.”

Scully put her glasses back on and looked up at the eclipse. Mulder felt a surge of something so like love that his eyes burned. 

Scully pulled in a sudden inhale of breath. 

“The totality,” she said, pulling off her glasses and gazing up. “It’s starting.”

Mulder raised his eyes to the heavens. The world was dusk-like, the stars in the top of the dome of the heavens were winking on. In the bushes nearby, crickets began to chirp. 

The eclipse itself was like nothing he’d seen before outside of a big budget movie. The moon was utter blackness, but along the upper edge of the eclipsed sun was a hot pink half-ring that erupted into a single bring spot along the edge of the moon’s shadow like the diamond in a giant engagement ring formed by the rest of the sun’s atmosphere.

And then the flaming plasma of corona as the moon reached complete totality. Second contact. It was a living thing. Streams of white light danced around the ring of the black moon. Scully gasped in pleasure and Mulder couldn’t help but exclaim: “Wow!”

He pulled his eyes from the eclipse itself and looked around. Along the entire horizon, all 360 degrees of it, was in full, brilliant sunset. Everything else was the darkness of post golden-hour. He turned toward his partner and locked eyes with her. Her smile was brilliant, and she held his gaze for only a moment before canting her face back to the eclipse itself. 

“This is incredible,” she said breathlessly. 

He had found, as the years of their partnership wound on, that their job turned them into ecstatics, subject to mystical experiences. This was perhaps the most transcendent of them all. He would remember the moment forever. 

 “It is,” he agreed. 

A sharp flash, and Scully squeezed his hand. 

“Third contact,” she said. “Put your glasses back on.”

He did as she asked, and they leaned back and watched in silence as the moon continued its journey, as the sky relit and the nighttime animals calmed, as the world came back to itself. 

Eventually, Scully sat up. The light was still odd, seeming to come almost from inside her, and she lowered her glasses and leaned in to him. For a heady, divine moment, Mulder thought she was about to kiss him, but instead she pressed her cool lips to his cheek, her hair falling down to brush along the skin of his jaw. 

“Thank you, Mulder,” she said, and then straightened, the cool air rushing to fill the space she’d just been. 

“You’re welcome, Scully,” he said, his voice a little rough. He lowered his glasses slowly and watched her slide off the hood of the car, watched her stretch and smile to herself; a Mona Lisa grin gently stretching the planes of a face with the same faultless symmetry of the celestial bodies sliding across the sky.

[atths--twice]

A friend posted this picture on Twitter and I couldn’t resist writing a little something. ❤️

They had to fly out to a San Diego for a conference.

“A thought,” Mulder said after William had been put to bed.

“What’s that?” Scully asked.

“What if we stretched the conference into a mini vacation? Your mom could fly out with William?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a smile.

Mulder’s conference ended sooner than hers, and he hurried back to the hotel to change and collect Maggie and William to go to the beach.

Scully had no thoughts of changing, only of seeing her boy enjoying the Pacific Ocean as she had done as a child when she met up with them.

Maggie took picture after picture of them, laughing as William squealed in delight and splashed in the waves, stood with his toes squishing into the wet sand, and toddled after the seagulls, all of them laughing when they took flight and he froze in surprise.

The last picture taken was of the back of them at the shore as Mulder held William in one arm and Scully’s hand with his other hand. Her blazer had long since been discarded and her pants were rolled up. The waves hit their feet and they smiled as they looked at one another.

[sentientsky]

The roads are slick with rain—a car crash waiting to happen. Scully’s nails dig into the steering wheel, and the landscape flies past a little faster. The streetlights kick silver shrapnel-bits of light into her eyes. The sinew of her shoulder blade twitches, and she can feel it: Mulder’s hands in her hair, on her arm, on the slope of her back. His hands pressed into hers, keeping her anchored to the Earth with a pulse she knew better than her own. 

Then, Mulder, letting go, turning away, his body a filament of stars against a guttering sky. A phantom limb. A lighthouse gone dark. 

She remembers the bite of his words, the way invisible jaws closed around her throat and pressed down. She remembers the way he looked right past her, how his gaze sliced clean through her skull— a woman turning translucent under the stale light of an office devoid of touch. 

And just like that, she had become a disappearing trick, an inconvenience better tucked away for when it could be made useful. For the next time he needed an autopsy performed or a shoulder to cry on. For the next time he tugged the leash. She tightens her grip on the wheel. White-hot fury thrashes in her gut.

They’re a car crash waiting to happen.

[azure-firecracker]

Unbroken

An excerpt from Chapter 4 of Raise Your Voices that I’m particularly fond of. Some context may be missing but not enough to affect the crux of the story.

This takes place somewhere between Irresistible and Colony.

Summary: A night staying with a host family while working undercover opens some of Mulder’s old wounds.

Rating: Gen

Word Count: 1,653

TW/CW: Flashbacks

Tagging @today-in-fic

“Where are you from, again?” Mulder asked Dmitri on the car ride back to Derek and Sandra’s house. The couple seemed pleasant enough, but neither were the intrusive type, which meant that it was up to Mulder to keep the conversation going.

Dmitri rolled his eyes. “I have said before. I am from Belarus.”

“What brings you here?”

Dmitri scowled at him. “I am trying to study music. Is harder to do in Belarus.”

Mulder wanted to ask more questions, but could tell they wouldn’t be well received, so he allowed the car to lapse back into silence for the rest of the drive.

“Don’t mind Dmitri,” Sandra murmured to him as they unpacked the car, about half an hour later. “He gets those same questions a lot, as you might imagine. It can be a bit frustrating.” That’s fair.

“I promise I meant no offense. I’m just a curious type.” Though maybe Mitchell the maple farmer wasn’t. Careful.

“When Dmitri first got here, we were, too,” chimed in Derek as he walked out to help. “We wanted to know everything about his past. But the more time we spent with him, the more we realized just how alienating our questions were. To him, it must have felt more like an interrogation than anything else.”

The voices hit Mulder so suddenly that he almost dropped the bag of groceries he was holding.

What happened, Fox?

Why didn’t you call us?

Why didn’t you help her?

Where is she?

It was nothing he hadn’t flashed back to a thousand times before, but somehow it got to him every time. You’re undercover. Stay here.

He nodded as Derek opened the door and they walked into the kitchen. “That makes complete sense.” God, the feeling of being interrogated with the same questions over and over again. He knew it all too well.

You know why you’ve been admitted, right?

We’re just going to ask you some simple questions.

No, you can’t leave yet. You aren’t better.

Why aren’t you better?

Dammit, Mulder, stay here.

“Are you alright?” asked Sandra, breaking through the haze. He forced himself to nod.

“So, how do you know Dmitri? Are you related?”

Derek shook his head. “Dmitri placed an ad in the paper when he got here seeing if anyone would rent out a room. Our kids were long gone, and things were getting a little quiet in our old age,” he and Sandra both chuckled, “so we said yes.”

“So you’re his landlords?” Awfully protective for landlords.

Derek and Sandra exchanged a glance. “It started out that way,” said Sandra, “but Dmitri really became part of this house.”

Derek smiled. “He seemed quite lonely when he got here. Understandable, of course, but it was hard for us to see, so…”

Sandra interrupted, “We made sure to let him know that he belonged here.”

Derek nodded. “He’s family now.”

The whole thing was a little too saccharine for Mulder’s taste, however lovely it might be. “He’s family now.” As if it were that easy to just have a family. As if it were that easy even to keep the family you were born with, to not let them down. As if it were that easy to deserve love.

The room started to spin.

How could you just let them take her?

What do you mean the doctors haven’t fixed you yet?

We’re splitting up. There’s nothing keeping us together anymore.

Your mother’s already lost one child. Make sure you don’t break her heart again.

Stop calling me. I don’t have time for this.

They say they’ve found her.

They’re always wrong.

Why didn’t you do more?

This is your fault. It’s all your fault.

Mulder barely managed to force out an apology mixed with an excuse about not feeling well before he was stumbling up the stairs, his body overtaken by sensations from the past, old words mixing with his thoughts, his memories, and his guilt.

This family had extended their deepest love to a complete stranger. It was so easy, so simple, yet Mulder had still failed to deserve the same sentiments from those who were supposed to provide them to him without question. Even now, he was still trying to make up for everything he’d ruined. Most days, it was all he wished for. But even if he did find Samantha, he knew it would never be enough. Love wasn’t feasible for him, not in the way it was for Dmitri or anyone in the Green Mountain Singers or the rest of the world. It was a fact that Mulder was used to carrying with him, but sometimes it shattered him nonetheless.

Sitting in a stranger’s house, curled up against the bedroom door, Mulder was a lonely child all over again, wishing and waiting for his parents to arrive and tell him everything was going to be alright, burdened with the knowledge that they never would. He felt as he had in the child psychiatric ward: ruined and alone and afraid. He needed to come back to the present. He needed to feel safe, to feel cared for, to feel alright.

It was against protocol, but he picked up the phone and dialed the one person who made him feel like he wasn’t broken.

“Hello?”

“Scully, it’s me.”

“Mulder,” she whispered over the phone, “we’re not supposed to call each other. You know that.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, trying (and failing) to keep his voice from breaking. “I just…” I needed to hear your voice. You’re the one person who can keep me grounded.

“Mulder,” her voice was much gentler now, “what’s wrong?”

How do I even begin to explain this? “Can you just…can you stay on the phone for a while? Can we talk about nothing?” Bring me back. You’re the only one who ever could.

“Sure, Mulder,” she quipped. “Tonight I spent three hours singing Eastern European folk songs and making potato and cheese casserole.”

“There’s a combination of words I never thought I’d hear from you.”

“You know, Mulder, these people are definitely…strange,” she observed, “but there’s a certain charm to them. Their unconditional support for one another is rather admirable.” He had to stop himself from letting out a bitter laugh. Support is never unconditional. Not really. He gripped the phone tighter, wishing Scully was really there for him to hold onto. Support is never unconditional. But sometimes I can believe that hers is, even just for a second. She was unique to him, in that way and in so many others.

“I get what you mean,” he replied. “The couple I’m staying with basically adopted this kid Dmitri, just because they wanted to, and…” He stopped, not wanting to burden her with his pain while she was already miserable on this assignment. It was too late. He could almost hear her put two and two together over the phone. Though the human mind was his area of expertise, his mind fell within hers. She knew what set him off, and he often caught her trying to protect him from those triggers when she thought he wouldn’t notice. She was naïve in that particular regard. Care was such a rarity in his life that he never failed to perceive it when it graced him.

“Adoption is a wonderful thing,” she said. “Some parents are very compassionate. Some less so. Studies show that the levels of compassion have very little to do with the child.” He knew why she was sharing those particular statistics. It didn’t help, but the fact that she was trying spoke volumes.

“Have your statistics accounted for outliers?”

“Not from Martha’s Vineyard.” Her directness caught him off guard, but of course she’d figured him out. She was too clever not to.

“Scully, I…”

“Mulder, I haven’t met your family, but whatever they made you believe, it isn’t true.” They didn’t make me believe it. It’s the Truth.

“My family did the best they could, Scully. It’s not their fault they didn’t have the mental capacity to raise a kid after what happened. I mean, who would?”

A pause. “It’s just…it’s not productive to blame yourself, Mulder. You were too young.” You don’t blame me. You’re the only one who doesn’t blame me. Why?

“It’s alright,” he replied. It isn’t, not really, but it’s better now that you’re here. Everything’s easier with you here. “I’ve accepted that. It’s just…” he sighed, “sometimes places like this get to me.” They make me wish I had a home to go back to. A real home. A home that feels like autumn sweaters and hot apple cider and warm hugs. A home that isn’t broken. This was the one thing about him that Scully would never understand. She had a home, and always would.

“Well,” she answered after a moment, “it’s no community choir. But you’ve got me, and I’m not going anywhere.” Her words held extra weight after all she’d been through lately.

He thought of days spent in dark basements crouched over files, of long road trips and meaningless back-and-forth chatter, of running into the dark together, of him being pushed to his limit in her name, standing over a hospital bed or wrapping his arms around her at the base of a darkened stairwell. He thought of her going to the ends of the Earth for his sake in Idaho, Washington, Puerto Rico, California, and everywhere in between. He thought of running after the Truth and her running after him, no matter how many times he showed her that he didn’t deserve it.

Maybe he had a home after all.

“I know.” And how lucky I am.

Another pause.

“It’s getting late. We should get some sleep. Especially you. You have band rehearsal in the morning.”

“Don’t remind me,” she groaned. “And Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“You can call me again if you need to.”

He smiled. “Same to you.”

“Goodnight, Mulder.”

“Goodnight, Scully.”

[thanx-files]

“Language”

A ficlet by thanx-files

This is my first ever fic! (Ever? Ever!) Loosely inspired by a real thing that I managed to fuck up at work. Please enjoy.

558 words | hurt/comfort (but only in the loosest definition of either of those words) | shortly after Død Kalm, before Anasazi | msr | CW: blood, swearing

“What happened to you? I thought you were going to the break room.”

Scully watched Mulder digging through his desk drawer, presumably for a bandage. His left index finger was dripping blood down his palm.

“I was,” he said, not looking up from his shuffle. There was no way he would find a bandage before covering 50 years’ worth of X-files in blood. “I did. I was attacked.”

Scully knew they had enemies. She also knew that there were more of them than Mulder was letting on. But had they gotten so bold as to confront Mulder in broad daylight? And at work? Her job did not allow for panic, so she kept a cool head as she glanced at the door — but her heart might have picked up its pace.

“By whom?” she asked.

“The water cooler.”

The tension in her shoulders dissipated. “What?”

“I went to change the reservoir and the plastic thingy got stuck…” he used his hip to close the last drawer on his desk, finally giving up his search.

“Sit down, Mulder.”

He flopped down into his desk chair, hand held over his head. Blood was running down toward his elbow.

It took Scully less than a minute to locate the first-aid kit in the cabinet. She popped the plastic box open and removed a sanitizing wipe and an adhesive bandage.

She crossed the room to where Mulder slouched in his chair. She was just taller than him like this, as she reached for his bloodied hand. She didn’t ask him to finish his story. She was an investigator, she could infer: something on the cooler had been jammed or unseated, and he got his finger caught in the process of fixing it. She could see a cut, small but deep, in the pad of his finger.

She tore open the packet for the sanitizing wipe, then pressed it to the cut.

“Mother of fuck. Shit!”

It had taken Scully some time to get used to Mulder’s swearing. At first, she wondered if he had forgotten she was there, or maybe, that she was raised Catholic.

Now, though, she found herself fighting a smile at his outburst. It hadn’t been two weeks since she’d seen him nearly dead from dehydration. He’d been shot, encased in a prehistoric cocoon, nearly frozen to death, and more — just in the last two years. Every time he woke up in a recovery room, he smiled and cracked a joke. But a cut on his finger? Unimaginable pain.

She’d hate to see Mulder with a head cold.

“Don’t be such a baby,” she said, sticking the bandage on his hand.

He immediately pulled the injured extremity down toward his face and shook it in the air — inadvertently throwing a drop of blood onto her new blouse, but whatever. He then inspected the bandage as if he didn’t trust her work. She’d seen her eight-year-old nephew do the same.

“You might want to go wash up,” Scully said.

That seemed to snap Mulder back to reality. He glanced up at her and smiled. “You’re not going to kiss it better?” he asked.

“Fuck off,” she said.

He grinned — what a child — and jumped up from his chair, now taller than her again, as usual.

“Watch your language,” he said, and left the office once more.

[agent-troi]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Additional Tags: Ficlet, POV Fox Mulder, Fox Mulder Angst, Break Up, Post-Movie: The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008), Pre-X-Files Revival Summary:

Tailights were supposed to be red, he knew, but he couldn’t see them. Just like he couldn’t see the reddish-gold of her hair on the pillow next to him, even when it had really been there and not just in his mind’s eye.

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 TXF Fic Rec #22: "C’mon, Mulder" by Defnotmeyo

What an outstanding little post-ep for an outstanding episode, “Pusher”.

Today’s fic captures the emotional states of our duo right after their traumatic Russian roulette perfectly, without indulging in sentimentality. It reveals who Mulder and Scully are, and what they are, with unmatched precision. The overwhelming angst running heavy and thick below the surface is restraint in the episode (which makes it great), and so is it in this story (likewise makes it great). But here we sneak a peek below the surface and get walloped with feels.

Beautiful and brilliant, this 600-word fic is a treasure.

---

🥏 on AO3

length: ficlet, 600+ words season: season 3, 3x17 Pusher pairing(s): M/S UST tags: episode-related, angst rating: G

[freckleslikestars]

unfurl

"It was the right time. The right place. Peace had fallen." All Things ficlet

302 words, read here on AO3

Rain taps on the pane of his window, the occasional rumble of thunder or rush of a car churning through the wet street below. Across the bed, light scatters through the leaves of the tree blustering about outside, casting dancing shadows across her hand as it traces patterns up and down the bare shoulder beneath.

As the clock on his nightstand flicks over to five, she unfurls herself from his coiled embrace, slips from the musky warmth of his bedding into the cool air of his apartment. She finds her sweater and skirt with relative ease, but her bra and panties are more of a challenge to find, and she gives up on the search for her hose altogether.

His faucet leaks, a regular drip that syncopates with her heartbeat, a meditative rhythm that reminds her of him in a way: a constant. She thinks she should be panicking, that the raw ache between her legs should have her chest clenching with anxiety as she worries over the impending future and the potential that it will all blow up in their faces, but she’s eerily calm, settled, as if she knows, deep down, that they were waiting for the right time, and now they’re there, and everything’s going to be okay.

She leaves a note, short and sweet, loopy cursive telling him she’s gone home to shower, that she’ll get coffee and breakfast for them and see him in the office. She signs it with an S, and before she can second guess herself, she scrawls a little heart in the corner. She leaves it on her pillow, and presses a kiss to his temple, runs her fingers through hair that’s finally starting to grow out after his ordeal months ago.

It was the right time. The right place. Peace had fallen.

Tagging @today-in-fic

Send me one word prompts to get my creativity jump started

[actual-changeling]

Hey, have you ever thought about the fact that Scully's birthday was the day before they started their undercover case in Arcadia? She states the date as the 24th of February at the beginning of the recording—her birthday is on the 23rd.

Because I thought about it, at length, and now I can't stop.

Everything was far from okay at that point, but after thinking that the one when she was dying of cancer would be her last, you can't tell me that Mulder forgot.

He remembered, maybe he'd already gotten her a gift weeks or even months ago, and he had been looking forward to seeing her reaction. To giving her something that might seem silly on the surface yet holds a deeper meaning only the two of them understand.

He's not going to give it to her now.

In part, he's scared she'll get overwhelmed and retreat even further from him; the space is already nauseatingly wide. Then there's the guilt, the self-loathing, the constant "does she want me to acknowledge her birthday?"

Does she? Does she want him to put just how personal their relationship is on the table, wrapped in paper and a bow, and apologise until his voice dies?

If it ends badly, they'll be stuck in the murderous suburbs playing house for god knows how long, and he doesn't want to do that to either of them. They can fix this, he knows hopes they can, and he'll go at whatever pace she decides.

Despite deciding to keep the gift for now, he carries it with him to work that day—just in case. Just to feel the weight of it in his pocket as he watches her live, breathe, exist.

Neither of them broaches the topic the entire morning, and they work like they've done for the last couple of weeks. Silently, a little awkwardly, and with the unsaid surrounding them, it almost becomes hard to breathe at times.

Still, Mulder wants to say something, if only to show her that he remembered, that he values her, and their relationship. That he was wrong, and it is personal.

At some point, they're collecting files to take to Arcadia with them, and she passes by him (not as close as she used to). Mulder gently reaches out and stops her by touching her shoulder, swallowing heavily when she flinches before freezing on the spot.

Scully is scared, tired, lonely, and she wishes things weren't the way they are. Sometimes she can barely remember how good they were together, how good it felt to be around him, with him, touching him. He's touching her now, and it burns like frostbitten skin being exposed to even just a flicker of warmth. She's been staring at his last birthday gift more than she should, tracing the words with her fingertips and trying to remember the way he smiled at her.

Mulder slowly squeezes her arm, lingering because, for once, she allows him to, and quietly says, "I didn't forget."

Then he lets her go.

Scully can't look at him for the rest of the day.

[thursdayinspace]

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.

[baronessblixen]

Little Sanguinarium prompt whenever you feel like it: Mulder to Scully: "Well, not everyone can say they're the most beautiful wherever they go."

UST-filled post-ep fic: Mulder thinks Scully is the most beautiful person wherever she goes. She doesn't believe him so he tries to make her see it his way. (wc: 1,258)

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2023

Fictober Day 18: Beautiful In My Eyes

They’re working on their case report. At least in theory. Mulder is clearly not typing, his thoughts elsewhere. She’d like to be elsewhere too. It’s after 4 p.m. and she’s tired and hungry. Maybe a bit cranky. And much like Mulder, her thoughts aren’t at all on their most recent case. The one Skinner wants a report on. She sighs and Mulder’s head shoots up, his interest immediately piqued.

“Bored?” he asks.

“Tired,” she says.

“We can finish up tomorrow.”

“Something else might come up tomorrow. Mulder, I hate this as much as you do, but procrastinating is not going to help.”

He makes a noise and leans back in his chair, his hands behind his head.

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“Thought about what?” she asks, trying to make sense of what she’s already written.

“Getting plastic surgery.”

“Not seriously,” she says, thinking about the time she wanted to have bigger boobs. She was younger then. Much younger. “Have you?”

“With a nose like mine? Of course.” He holds his pen up to it as if trying to see how the two compare. She narrows her eyes, watching him.

“You surprise me sometimes,” she says. “Have you looked in a mirror?”

“Every once in a while,” he replies with a grin. “Are you saying I’m good-looking?”

“You know you are.” She clears her throat and hopes she’s not blushing too furiously. With her complexion, the slightest flush of her skin can reveal her true feelings. In high school, she could never keep her crushes a secret for long. Melissa always got it out of her because eventually, little red splotches would appear on her skin and make it obvious.

“And anyway,” she goes on, hoping Mulder will just let it go, “I think everyone wonders sometimes. What would it be like to be more beautiful? Just look at the cosmetic surgery industry. For some people that’s all that matters: to be the most beautiful person wherever they go.”

“Well, not everyone can say they're the most beautiful wherever they go,” Mulder says, cracking a sunflower seed between his teeth. “Not when they’re in a room with you.”

“Right,” she says, not taking him seriously at all. “We really need to finish this report, Mulder. Otherwise, we’ll never leave this office.”

“Did you hear what I said?” he asks. She’s staring down at the file, so she hears rather than sees Mulder round the desk and stop in front of her. She gets a whiff of his scent and wonders for a moment how he can still smell so good after a day at work.

“Scully? Did you hear what I said?” He’s not letting it go. Sometimes he’s more stubborn than a mule.

“I heard you,” she says, but doesn’t look up.

“You don’t believe me.” He’s not even asking; he knows.

“Mulder, I know I’m an attractive woman.” She finally meets his gaze. “But the most beautiful person? That’s a bit much.” He shakes his head, not once looking away from her.

“You are.” There’s more to what he’s saying, but it hangs in the air between them. She’s scared to reach for it.

“Can you drop this? Please? We need to finish this report.” That damn report. That damn case, too. That’s what brought his question on in the first place.

“In a second,” he says. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“I believe you, okay? Can we work now?”

“Your eyes,” he says, his voice so soft that it takes her breath away. “Before I knew you, I’d never seen eyes like yours. They’re so big and round. And Scully, they’re so blue. When I first met you, I thought of ice. But your eyes aren’t ice at all. They’re the color of the ocean you love so much.” She swallows hard, her mouth hanging open.

“Then there’s your nose. Did you know that the tip of your nose moves when you talk? Sometimes I can’t listen to anything you say because of it. But that could also be because of your lips.” He’s come closer and has crouched down. He’s level with her now and she feels frozen in place. For a moment she thinks, almost hopes, that he’s going to touch her. But the only part of him touching her are his eyes. She watches him as they wander to her lips. Instinctively, she licks them and sees a smile appear on his face.

“Hmm, yeah. That’s all I’m gonna say. And that’s just your face, Scully.” His eyes meet hers and she sees the honesty in his. Vulnerability. He’s letting her see a side of him she hasn’t seen before. He’s opening his heart to her. “If I wrote poetry, I could fill volumes with how beautiful you are. Your face, your body, and your mind. Oh, your mind. That might be the sexiest of them all."

“Because men are so attracted to intelligence."

"Well, I am." He's looking at her and not even blinking.

Mulder,” she whispers. “What are you doing?”

“Telling you the truth.” He shrugs. They don’t do this. They never do this. There have been moments when she thought about the two of them as more than partners. Sometimes out of fear or desperation. Many, many times out of sheer attraction. She knows they’re attracted to each other. She’s seen him look at her from time to time. But mostly, she’s chalked it up to her being around him every day.

She knows about the videos he watches and has seen the actresses that star in them. They’re tall and brunette. Sometimes blonde. Not once has she seen a redhead. She’s also seen him check out women while they were having lunch, or on case. Never a redhead there either. All of that makes her want to dismiss what he’s saying. Maybe he’s only doing this to flatter her so she’ll write the report on her own. If it weren’t for his eyes. She knows Mulder. Has had years now to study and get to know him. More than that, she knows the tell-tale signs of attraction. And right now, while Mulder is looking her in the eyes, his pupils are dilated.

“Are you doing this to get out of writing this report?” She just has to know.

“That thought never crossed my mind,” he says with a sweet smile. “Would that have worked?”

“No.” Mulder laughs and she’s tempted to give him a taste of his own medicine. Because she, too, could compose sonnets about how beautiful he is. Starting with his mind. Beautiful, brilliant mind. Then there are his puppy eyes, and his pouty, luscious lips.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“The case,” she lies.

“Liar," he says, his face so close that the tip of his nose touches her. "Why would that case make you blush?” Now he's grinning at her. “Don’t worry,” he says, moving in even closer so that their mouths are only a hairsbreadth apart. “I won’t call you out on starting at my lips.”

“I wasn't,” she says with a gasp, despite having done exactly that.

“If you say so.” The moment breaks and he gets up to return to his own chair, to his part of the report. “Let’s finish this and I don’t know about you but I’m starving. Wanna join me for dinner?”

She’s definitely hungry. And she knows her hunger could be dangerous. Especially after everything he’s just said. And yet, she doesn’t even need to think about her answer.

“I’d love to.”

[catharsisxf]

The Second First Time

Author: catharsisxf

Summary: This time was different.

AO3 link

[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.