#mulder the moment scully is away from him: so what if i just died

[sentientsky]

mulder wrote this, didn’t he?

[thisisbeefjerky]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thursdayinspace]

Lunch break smut? How about some jealousy? Sooo yeah, a little angsty, I guess. But hey, we know they'll be okay! Sometimes they just need to have complicated feelings. (As if they ever have any other kinds of feelings.)

“Nothing happened,” he says, for the hundredth time, and she’s sick of hearing it, so sick. He says it like it’s true. He says it like she has any right to that information, like it concerns her in some way. It has nothing to do with her.

They fucked twice. After she almost died, then after he almost died. They fucked twice, because they needed an outlet. They’re not together.

“You can do what you want,” she tells him. She’s driving and doesn’t look at him. She can feel his eyes on her. The sight of the motel parking lot is a relief.

“Scully—”

“It’s been a long day,” she says. “I’m gonna turn in early. We can go over the data tomorrow morning.”

He’s quiet as she pulls into a parking spot, kills the engine and gets out of the car. He takes a long moment before he follows her. “Okay,” he says at last, and his voice is so small, like he’s lost, and she just needs to get away.

She turns around to him and finds a smile somewhere deep inside. He can do what he wants. It doesn’t matter. “Good night.”

“What about dinner?”

“I’m not hungry,” she lies.

She leaves him standing there in the parking lot and heads for her room, breathing a sigh of relief once the door closes behind her. It’s her own fault for letting her guard down, for not smothering that tiny flame of hope the moment she felt the first sparks of it in her chest. It’s just that she’d thought she’d seen something in his eyes, in his smile… It doesn’t matter.

Getting some work done will take her mind off of it. A quick look around the room makes her heart sink… her laptop is in his room. Debating whether or not she really needs it tonight, anger rises up inside her. This is ridiculous.

He opens his door so quickly she wonders if he’d been expecting her. The thought makes her even angrier. God, this is stupid. “You have my computer,” she says.

“Oh.” He looks disappointed. “Yeah. Uh. Come in.”

She pushes past him into the room, spotting the laptop on his bed of all places, still open from earlier. “I’m gonna—”

“I wasn’t flirting with her,” he interrupts her, and she keeps her back turned to him, takes a deep breath.

“As I said. You can do what you want.”

“What I want is for you to believe me.”

“It was inappropriate, Mulder. She was flirting with you.” The words are out of her mouth before she can stop herself. “And you sure as hell didn’t do anything to discourage it.”

“I didn’t…” He breaks off with a sigh. “I didn’t notice. At first.”

The thing is, she believes him. The thing is also that even if he had been encouraging that woman, it would still be none of her business. “I should go.”

“Scully, I didn’t know,” he says quietly, and she closes her eyes and tries to calm her racing heart.

First Bambi, then Detective White, and now this random police officer in this random town on this random case. The message is loud and clear, and she has no right to be upset. “It was pretty obvious.”

“What should I have done?” he asks, and she understands what he’s asking: what reason would there have been for him to turn down a smart, attractive woman who was obviously interested in him?

“Nothing. I don’t know. It’s your life. If you want to engage in unprofessional behavior like that—”

She stiffens when she feels his hand on her shoulder. “Scully. Talk to me, please.”

When she turns around and meets his eyes, there it is again, that look. The look that cuts into her, makes her palms ache with the need to reach for him. “There’s nothing to talk about, Mulder.”

He doesn’t look away. “I think maybe there is.”

“No. There isn’t.” She just stands and breathes for a few seconds, but he isn’t moving away, and she isn’t strong enough. He whispers her name again like it’s important to him, and she snaps.

Hands on his chest, she pushes him against the wall next to the closed door before pulling him down into a hard kiss, and he lets her pin him in place, lets her devour him. She bites his lip, thrusts her tongue into his mouth, pressing against him to feel him harden against her. Unprofessional behavior. Yeah, right.

“Fuck, Scully,” he breathes between kisses, and she seals his lips with her own to shut him up.

He’s touching her, his hands on her hips pulling her closer, and she feels wild, frantic. She cups him through his pants and rubs the bulge there, and the way his fingers dig into her hips as he gasps drives her wild. “Yes?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers. “God, yes.”

She feels almost bad as she pops the button, pulls down his zipper, and pulls him free. She’s doing this for all the wrong reasons, but he’s hot and heavy in her hand, and so fucking hard. For her. She wants it too badly to be for her and hates herself for it. He’s so big and she remembers him inside of her. She’s so wet, but it’s not going to be like that, not this time.

She has never jerked him off before.

Her strokes are firm and insistent and he’s groaning and biting his lip and she feels dizzy. But when he reaches for her zipper, she stills his hand. “No.”

“But—”

“No,” she repeats, and wraps her hand around him again, going faster, harder, delighted as his hips start rocking forward into the circle of her fist. Yes, she wants to say, take it. Fucking take it. And he does, he’s panting with his eyes squeezed close, his hands landing on her shoulders, gripping hard enough to bruise, and the rush of possessiveness she feels speeds up her own breathing. Would she have done this for you? she thinks, and growls as she tightens her grip. “Come on.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Oh fuck, oh god…”

She doesn’t know what you like, she thinks. She doesn’t lie awake thinking about you at night. She doesn’t see your face when she’s touching herself. Why can’t you see it, what else do I have to do to make you understand?

And she knows the answer, she knows, she knows, but she can’t. If she’s wrong… She can’t, but she can do this instead, she can make him lose it, make him come with her hand on his cock and her name on his lips and show him, show him what it’s like to want, to crave something so badly it hurts.

“I can’t… I can’t…” he moans, and she stops to yank up her shirt, directing his hands to hold it up under her armpits before she goes back to jerking him off. His head falls back against the wall and he tenses up, and even after fucking him only twice she knows the sounds he makes.

He comes all over her and she keeps stroking him until he’s done, and her head is spinning. Would she want your come all over her? she thinks. Would she want to be marked by you like you own her?

He’s breathing hard, his eyes still full of want as he reaches for her pants again, but she shakes her head and bats his hand away. “No.”

“Please,” he says. “Let me.”

Instead of an answer, she presses in close until his thigh is between her legs and rocks into him, the pressure against her throbbing clit so good, so good. She fists her hands in his shirt and moans, wanting him to hear her, even when she can’t bear the thought of him touching her. His hands on her hips, supporting her feverish rhythm as she rides his thigh is almost too much, but she’s too close, right on the brink, and nothing else matters anymore.

Her orgasm rips a tortured cry from her throat and she keeps rubbing herself against him, shockwaves of agonizing pleasure wrecking her body as her internal muscles clench around nothing. Would she comes this hard for you? she thinks. Would she lose herself, forget her own name, would she ache for you like I do?

She lets her forehead rest against his chest, doesn’t want to meet his eyes, afraid of what she’ll see there. When he takes her in his arms and holds her so gently, she curls her fingers tighter in his shirt and squeezes her eyes closed against the pain.

“Do you really not know?” he whispers, and she doesn’t answer.

Do you really not know? she wonders?

He’s never said it either, not in words.

“What are we going to do?” he asks, and she shakes her head. If she knew, she wouldn’t feel like crying.

“Dinner.”

“Okay,” he says.

Neither of them make any move to separate. They never do. She has a feeling they’ll never be able to. If it leads them straight into disaster, then so be it.

[randomfoggytiger]

Disproving CSM's Conjecture in En Ami

CSM postulates that Scully and Mulder aren't together because she doesn't fully trust him; that, although she's drawn to powerful men, she is afraid to open herself up to them.

"You'd die for Mulder, but you won't allow yourself to love him."

The problem is, he's wrong.

Because CSM mixed up her fatal flaw with Mulder's.

Self-Denial and Self-Sacrifice

CSM's theory: Scully rules herself by denial, and Mulder offers himself up as the sacrificial lamb. How is he wrong?

Scully's flaw is self-sacrifice, putting everything she covets from life on hold to join Mulder on his quest (comedically summed up in Bad Blood's "I do it all for you, Mulder! All for you!") The Starbuck-Ahab complex she harbored since childhood-- expressing her love through devotion-- kept her in the car the first year; but the Truth soon became as much about her losses as it did Mulder's tragedies. Unlike Mulder, however, Scully strives to have a life uncomplicated by mess and trauma and the constant grind. So, she sits in the car, year after year, waiting for her partner to adapt to their changing dynamic (which he did not do for almost six of those years.) Her own fears and insecurities are placed under the bootheel of the work; but when life becomes too complicated or emotionally clouded, Scully strikes out in confused rebellion (e.g. Never Again, Milagro, and All Things.) Moreover, Scully is the one who sacrificed what she held dear-- stability, a family, something other than 24/7 monsters and conspiracies-- to bear the cross of Mulder's quest, not the other way 'round. (Her realization-- that she does want this life-- and shift does not occur until All Things, a few episodes after En Ami.)

Mulder's fatal flaw is self-denial (and self-punishment): he set aside a normal life out of a determination to find or avenge his sister. If Mulder was self-sacrificial, he would have let Scully walk out of his life a thousand times over and born that heartbreak silently, alone; instead, he stormed out after her and broke down his walls to convince her to stay. Furthermore, his self-denial is ever present even in tender moments, drawing away from emotional vulnerability once danger is past and shying away even faster if Scully draws attention to the present moment. Mulder is the one to deny himself love and a life with Scully (Home, Detour, Dreamland I, Arcadia, etc.), not the one who sacrificed everything he wanted to stay on his quest-- this is what he wants. (The change from obsessive pursuit to measured search begins in The Unnatural, changes wholly in Amor Fati and Millennium, and reaches its conclusion in Closure.)

CSM's Observations

The reality that CSM observed both agents for years and years and came to the exact opposite conclusion is baffling.

He concluded that Mulder sacrificed normalcy for the Almighty Mission, projecting his own Messiah complex onto his 'protege' and patting himself on the back whenever Mulder was, yet again, tossed to the jaws of Death for the "greater good." He also concluded that Scully stayed in the basement because of the raw power she smelled on Mulder, keeping a cold yet lustful distance because she was afraid to risk her womanly love on the all-consuming passion of his might.

How very dime store novel of Old Smokey.

Both assumptions are, of course, very wrong.

Mulder Dreaded "More" While Scully Hoped for It

Scully gave many unsubtle hints through the series that she was ready for more with Mulder: her willingness to go down with him in Tooms, her overt jealousy in Syzygy, her pointed inquiry about his family genetics in Home, her displacement and hurt in The Field Where I Died and Never Again and The End and The Beginning and One Son, her "we just keep driving" in Dreamland I, her unspoken 'secret' that was practically ripped from her chest in Milagro, her flirting in The Unnatural, her IVF request, and on and on.

Scully is by nature reticent with her emotions, fearful to fully open up lest she be hurt or become a burden; but in Mulder's case, she's reiterated over and over (Irresistible and Elegy) that their relationship falls into the latter, not former, category. In Emily she is, once again, "alone"; however, the context to her statement is vitally important. In the hospital, she hoped for Mulder to claim a place by her and her daughter's side as co-parent; but when he uncomfortably withdrew instead, it proved that he still wasn't ready for "more." Scully was alone in places Mulder couldn't fill; and so, she said goodbye to that hope, alone; then to her daughter, alone; and bore the little girl's death, alone. The burden of her fully opened heart was too heavy, she assumed, for Mulder... and in a way, she was right-- not until Fight the Future, when forced to confront "them", did Mulder finally acknowledge it. Until then, sacrificially tucking her heart back inside her chest-- for both their sakes-- was what Scully deemed the best course of action. She sticks around for her own reasons, as she says in Memento Mori; but those don't exclude the hope that Mulder will someday "settle down, live something approaching a normal life." (Her plans change in All Things-- but she's not there, yet.)

All those years, it was Mulder who was more emotionally distant. He was content with his life, happy to spin tires down the tarmac forever with his partner. Mulder was willing to deny himself into eternity if it meant not having to sacrifice an aspect of the life or career he was comfortable with and nervous to change for 'more.' It's why he was so afraid in Fight the Future and so proud of himself in The Unnatural (the warmup), Amor Fati (the big swing), and Millennium (the victorious homerun.) Scully is the only one-in-five billion he has: in the past, he could tease about passing genetic muster, about his boyish agility, about so much more, but to act on it? It took him four years to initiate a hug (post here) and seven years to approach a label of sorts for their relationship. Mulder's an overly cautious man, more pessimistic than optimistic when it comes to people sticking around; and any traditional, long-term relationship he'd witnessed had broken down or was held together by deadened respect and a few bratty kids.

Now it's Season 7, he's learned his lessons, and they're here, together.

Or were, until Scully dipped on a sketchy roadtrip with their enemy.

Conclusion

The most unrealistic part of this episode (amid a host of several others) was that Scully, despite hearing the drivel CSM peddled the entire drive, decided that he had anything worthwhile to say.

Thank you for reading~.

Enjoy!

[numinousmysteries]

The Baying of the Six-Pound Hound

For the @twocakesficfest (several months too late) prompt:

immortal / invincible queeqeg who likes to show up and mess up a case or two (probably by eating the victim - e.g. Mulder: the victim walked away, cut to a tiny dog dragging a leg away)

A very special thank you to @leiascully for catching all my nauseating tense changes, ensuring I didn't accidentally summon any evil spirits, and making me work a tiny bit more to get them smooching.

[on Ao3]

1. 

He'd been in an uncharacteristically deep sleep when the yapping woke him up, which made it all the more annoying. It was rare for him to be so fully disconnected from the waking world. Typically, he'd float just below the surface of consciousness, the smallest noise enough to rouse him. But on this night, in a narrow, single-story motor lodge wedged up in the Colorado mountains, Fox Mulder had been completely, deeply, aslumber.

He'd been dreaming, too. Not his usual fretful nightmare but a rather sweet dream that featured his partner. It wasn't the first time he dreamt about her, although those dreams were typically of a more erotic nature and would leave him waking up feeling filthy with guilt—and more often than not, rock hard. He'd dream of bending her over the desk in their basement office, burying himself in her, and hearing her soft little moans as he gripped the curves of her hips. Or they'd be on the couch in his apartment and she'd be in his lap, riding him as he watched the smooth undulation of her breasts. These dreams would send him to the shower full of shame. He'd shut his eyes and take himself in his fist, gripping his cock with a firmness that bordered on pain to break the mounting tension with enough self-punishment that he could face Scully in the morning.

But this most recent dream left nothing to be ashamed of. They were walking hand-in-hand, fully-clothed, down a Georgetown street near her apartment. The sun warmed his face and Scully's small hand fit perfectly in his. They weren't in pursuit of a suspect or off to meet an informant, just strolling aimlessly like two people in love. In a way, this mundane dream felt more illicit than his most perverse fantasies because it seemed like more than anything he deserved. He could better imagine a tense moment, even an argument between them, dissolving into frenzied sex than allow himself to indulge the idea of a happy, out-in-the-open relationship with Scully. Which was why this dream was so lovely—and why it had been so frustrating when the yapping shocked him awake.

It sounded like Queequeg. But Scully didn't bring the dog with her on cases, not since– Shit , he remembered. Scully's annoying little furball of a dog, whom she inexplicably loved (which, he considered fleetingly, might bode well for her capacity to love other irritating beings), had died on the shore of Heuvelmans Lake, eaten by an alligator, or Big Blue, depending on who you asked.

The barking must have been coming from one of the neighboring rooms. But Scully was in the room to his left and the room to his right had appeared to be unoccupied when they arrived. 

By the time he showered, dressed, and made it outside to meet Scully at the rental car, she was already waiting for him with a cup of bitter coffee from the urn in the motel lobby. 

"That dog wake you up, too?" he asked.

She arched an eyebrow at him as she sipped from her styrofoam cup. "What dog?"

"Nevermind," he said, unlocking the car door.

They snaked around the mountain to the ranger station where they'd planned to meet the park ranger who’d supposedly spotted the Slide Rock Bolter. The Bolter, according to legend, was a giant landfish with a forked tail that could pick up a lumberjack and split him in two. It also had the jaw of a whale, the teeth of a shark, and the power to cause avalanche-like rock slides, hence the name. The ranger who contacted Mulder claimed that his partner, who’d gone missing the previous week, had been swallowed whole by the Bolter.

Their interview proved to be less than illuminating and they spent the rest of the afternoon hiking the mountain on their own searching for the creature. The high altitude left them both breathless so they were slower than usual as they ascended. Mulder was annoyed that they couldn't cover more ground before the sun started to set. Their descent was even slower as neither had brought the right shoes and they found themselves stumbling down the rocks and grasping onto each other for support.

Then, he saw it. A flash of auburn darting between a row of skeletal aspen trees. He gasped. 

"What is it?" she asked, turning back to face him. 

"I saw something," he said. 

"The Slide Rock Bolter?"

He frowned and shook his head. "Probably just a fox. Maybe a coyote.” Although, if he were being honest,  it kind of looked like a small dog.

Scully shrugged, turned away from him, and started heading back down the mountain. 

2.

He didn’t want to say anything, but Scully's apartment smelled bad. It normally smelled nice. Like the candles she lights or even freshly baked bread, even though he knows she doesn't bake bread. But now, it smelled like wet dog. He specifically wouldn't bring that up because she hadn't owned a dog in nearly a year now. For reasons that might have been, depending on who you asked, his fault.

He tried to hide his disgust as he spread open a file of photographs on her kitchen table, but the odor was truly overpowering. It was as if Queequeg—or let's say any anonymous dog who had not been eaten by, depending on who was telling the story, Big Blue or an alligator—had been mucking around in sewer water after not bathing for several weeks.

"Sorry, Scully, but what's that smell?" he asked finally. He felt his stomach contents rising to his throat, and it wasn’t because of the gruesome crime scene photos on the table.

She paused and tilted her chin up to the ceiling. He watched as she sniffed the air in sharp, short inhales through her perfectly proportioned nose.

"I don't smell anything," she said. 

"Really?" he asked, stunned. "It smells like—and I don't mean to bring up any unpleasant memories—wet dog in here."

She sniffed again, then shrugged. "I really don't smell it," she said, shaking her head. "But I can open a window if you want."

"Nah, it's okay."

He tried to run through his explanation of the case as quickly as possible. Three victims found without tongues, but no evidence of any procedure or act that would've resulted in the loss of said tongues which, their friends and family members insisted, were surely present before their deaths.

"The killer could be a surgeon and have access to fine tools or even lasers for seamless cuttage," she said, examining the autopsy photos.

"Mmmhmm, mmhmm," he nodded, trying to open his mouth as little as possible to keep the scent out. "But there's no sign of cutting or scarring. Which there surely would be if the procedure was performed so recently? None of the victims were missing for more than 24 hours—and all had been seen, with tongue no less, within a day. No wound could heal that fast, right?"

"So, what's your theory?" she asked. "Cat got their tongue?"

She was pleased with her little joke and gave him a rare, precious Scully grin. He wanted to at least humor her with a laugh but the mention of a cat—so close to a dog that smelled like crap—made his stomach gurgle yet again and he had to swallow sharply to keep the acidic bile down.

"You okay, Mulder?"

"Yeah, it's just...that smell. It's nauseating."

She shook her head again, that long neck taunting him. "I'm a little concerned," she said. "Are you feeling alright? A sinus infection could cause phantosmia. Or a head injury. Although you weren't banged up much on our last case."

"I'm fine," he said. "Anyway, it's not a cat I'm thinking of, but a cannibalistic spirit documented by Algonquian-speaking Native American tribes in the Northern US and Canadian wilderness.” 

"A wendigo?" she asked, eyebrow arched and ready to fire.

“Very impressive, Scully,” he grinned. “Although you should know that merely saying the spirit’s name is considered taboo. Some believe doing so could summon it into being.” 

She rolled her eyes.

He swallowed hard, and continued. “The spirit possesses a man, who then becomes unable to resist the temptation to eat human flesh. Specifically, the delicacy of the tongue."

"So you think a possessed person ate the victims' tongues?"

"Perhaps," he says. "And the legend goes that because it's actually the spirit feasting on human flesh—not the killer himself—there are no wounds where the tongue is removed. It also explains how these victims lost more than half their blood volume with no signs of trauma."

"It could be severe gastrointestinal bleeding," she said, ignoring his theory. "Perhaps as the result of a communicable illness which would explain why three members of the same community died in the same manner."

"So you think they shat out all their blood?"

"It's not unheard of," she shrugged. “Have any of the victims traveled to a region where ebola is endemic?” 

It was all making him nauseous now. He thought he'd gotten used to it after being in the room for a few minutes but the smell, if anything, was getting worse.

He felt vomit rising into his mouth and cupped  his hand over his lips. "Sorry, Scully. I gotta--" he started before bolting to her bathroom and puking into the toilet. 

"Are you okay?" she asked when he re-entered the room, eyes bloodshot.

"I think I'm coming down with something," he said. "Listen, why don't you take a look at those photos and we'll discuss more in the office tomorrow. I better get going."

"Jeez, Mulder, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were pregnant, between the heightened sense of smell and the vomiting. But that sounds like one of your theories, not mine."

"Very funny, Scully," he said, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair and heading to the door.

In the hallway, he gasped a sigh of relief. Whatever disgusting dog odor permeated Scully's apartment fortunately hadn't made its way out here. 

3.

At first, he thought the sharp prick at his heel was Scully's toenails. He was about to tease her about trimming them when he realized she was sitting beside him on her couch with her feet tucked underneath her. They were back at her apartment a week later debriefing their previous case. He hadn’t been able to prove the existence of a cannibalistic spirit and she hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible scientific explanation so they were left in their typical stalemate. Although the animal smell had dissipated, he couldn’t shake the sense that something was off. 

He was listening to her recount her autopsy findings when— fuck , there was that sharp biting sensation again. He involuntarily kicked out his foot as if fending off an invisible ankle-height assailant. 

"What's wrong?" Her eyes popped open. 

"Shit, sorry Scully," he said, trying to settle back down. "I could've sworn something was biting my ankle.”

"Biting?" she asked skeptically.

"Yeah," he trailed off, folding in half to examine the carpet underneath the sofa. "Almost like a little dog."

"Like Queequeg?" She smirked. 

"Actually, yeah, I think that's exactly what it was like. Like that fur ball was nibbling at my heels.” 

“I don’t have to tell you that’s impossible.” He detected a hint of sadness in her voice and his heart sank, not for the first time, for all that their work had taken from her.

He opened his mouth to tell her about the other recent events—the barking sound, the flash of auburn in the Colorado wilderness, the wet fur smell of her apartment—but he knew she’d just dismiss it all.

“What?” she asked, sensing he was on the verge of revealing something. As if they were on a case and he was holding back a vital piece of information. Something he had been guilty of doing in the past, he knew, but he usually had a valid reason. 

“It’s nothing.”

“Mulder….” She dipped her chin down as her eyes bore into his.

Powerless against her, he told her everything. "Maybe he's haunting you," he concluded.

"Oh, no, Mulder," she said definitively. "I don't think it's me he's haunting."

4.

They decided to hold a seance the next day. Scully sneered at first but ultimately went along with it without needing too much convincing. She still had Queequeg’s leash and collar, so they set up a small shrine on her coffee table. She gathered a mismatched array of candles from the bathroom and living room and put them around Queequeg's memorabilia.

"How does this work?" she asked. 

He considered reminding her that she'd demonstrated the ability to transcend the boundary between the living and the dead in the past, but that would have required bringing up her father, which would have put a damper on this otherwise delightful evening. Scully felt warm next to him and they were essentially hanging out without the pretense of a case. Sure, they were having a seance for a dead dog, but how else would the two of them bond after hours?

"Let's just close our eyes, hold hands, and try to summon his spirit."

"Is this just an excuse to hold hands, Mulder?"

"Any excuse I can get," he said, as he reached out to take her hand in his. He hoped it came off as a joke, but he really did mean it. It felt so good to hold her hand when neither of them were near death. 

"Mary Todd Lincoln used to host the nation's most renowned spiritualists at the White House for seances to speak with her late son," Mulder said, trying to lend an air of legitimacy to their makeshift session. "Even honest Abe would sometimes make an appearance."

"Don't we need a medium?" Scully asked, keeping a firm hold on his hand. 

"I figure you could play the role, Madame Scully," he said, tipping his chin in her direction. She smiled. He liked making her smile. Her smile always had the effect of flicking a switch deep in his belly that felt like the delicate flutter of a butterfly's wings.

"I think Melissa and I had a Ouija board back in the day."

"Pfft," he snorted. "The Ouija board is a purely commercial invention. I don't think anything made in the same factory as Chutes and Ladders can be trusted to commune with the dead."

Scully smirked. "I assumed Ouijia boards would fit right in with the Fox Mulder cosmology."

"Then, Scully," he said, shaking his head, "I don't think you know me at all."

He grinned at her and she smiled back. 

"So, how do we start this thing?" she asked.

"First, we have to close the circle." He extended his free hand to hers and she squeezed tightly onto it.

They stood silently for a beat, facing each other, holding hands. He wasn't actually sure if there was a spiritualist reason for creating the closed circle, but it had to have roots in ancient concepts of energy channeling. He'd done silly little seances in college, typically led by witchy girls with dyed black hair and crystal jewelry, and they always stressed the importance of not breaking the circle. Once he had taken the time to dive into the occult and 19th century spiritualism—the heyday of the modern seance—he couldn't find anything on the importance of maintaining a circle. But then again, if holding one of Scully's hands was nice, holding both of them was even better.

He closed his eyes and, without saying anything, sensed that she'd closed hers, too. He relished the trust she placed in him, listening as her breathing slowed and deepened. He inhaled the heady mix of candles they'd gathered from around the apartment. Vanilla and eucalyptus mingled in the air with musk and gardenia and he suspected these weren't all supposed to be lit at once, but somehow it worked. 

"Do you want me to say something?" she asked, her soft voice drifting over to him in the dark.

"Um, if you want," he said.

She paused, then began. "Queequeg, we welcome your spirit into our circle. If you're near us, please make your presence known."

"Not bad, Scully," he said, giving her hands a squeeze.

"Melissa used to do this crap all the time."

"Hey, don't rain on my parade over here."

"Sorry," she said with a giggle that set his soul aflame.

"We miss you, Queequeg, you were a good dog," she went on. "You didn't always smell the best, especially when you were flatulent, which seemed to be more often than not—"

"What were you feeding that dog?" Mulder interrupted.

"Shut up," she said. "But no matter how poorly you smelled at times, I loved you very much and truly enjoyed the time we spent together. If you've come back because you're angry at Mulder for leading you to your demise at the hands of an alligator—"

"Or Big Blue," he piped up.

She tugged on his hands and ignored him. "If you're angry at Mulder, he'd like to take this chance to apologize and request your forgiveness so you can transition on to the next plane in peace."

"Scully, this isn't half bad," he said, genuinely impressed. 

"It's your turn now—go on, apologize."

"Are you serious?"

"Do you want him to stop haunting you or not?"

Mulder smiled and tried to convey his happiness through their grasped hands.

"Queequeg, this is Mulder speaking. I want to apologize for calling you names and dragging you out to Heuvelmans Lake where you met your untimely demise. I wish we could have spent more time together with Scully—” 

She cut him off with an adorable snort of a laugh.

"—listening to Scully talk. And have Scully check us for fleas and ticks."

Her giggle was a full-blown laugh now. He was desperate to open his eyes and see her face light up. but he’d bought into this seance, so he wasn’t about to break it now.

"I checked you for ticks once , Mulder," she said. "And that was because we'd just spent the night in the woods."

"Well, you're welcome to check again any time."

"I think we're getting off topic," she said, collecting herself. "Keep talking to Queequeg."

5.

There was no gust of wind, flickering light, or even jingling collar bells ringing through the room after he finished speaking, but they both sensed a change. It was as if a six-pound weight had been lifted. 

"I think his spirit is free," Scully whispered to him, solemnly. 

"Run free, Queequeg," he said. He gently opened his eyes and found that hers were open too, and she was looking at him warmly. Despite her reputation for being cold and closed off, he knew that Scully emanated warmth. Once she let someone into her life, she’d hold them in her warmth and protect them with her loyalty. He was only slightly peeved that she had opened herself up to Queequeg before him.

She loved with a fierceness and dedication outsized for her tiny frame. Then again, everything about Scully was larger than her small size would suggest. Her brilliance, her strength, and yes, her love, all seemed like they should overwhelm someone so tiny, but Scully managed to contain it all in just a few inches over five feet.

In that way, she was  like Queequeg. An outsized force stuffed into a small package, with a tuft of auburn hair, who would bite if necessary. He wouldn't dare compare her to Queequeg out loud, though.

Instead, he said, "He was a good dog."

"I thought you couldn't stand him."

"I don't know if we ever saw eye to eye, per se, although that might've been more of a height issue." He gave her a crooked smile. "But I know you liked him, that he kept you company."

"That makes me sound pretty pathetic," she sighed. 

"I didn't mean that. Just that—" he paused to choose his words carefully—"it's nice to come home to someone. I know fish aren't really the same as dogs, but sometimes it's soothing to see them after a long day of the shit we deal with. It just helps me put things in perspective—I'm dealing with lies and gaslighting and conspiracies, and they're just obliviously swimming along and enjoying their lives. A dog must be similar, I imagine."

"Yeah," she nodded. "It was like that with Queequeg. Whenever I'd get frustrated with work or with you"— he gasped in mock outrage and she just smiled and continued—"he'd always be here and look so excited to go for a walk or get his dinner. The consistency was comforting. And he was good at cuddling. He'd get so warm, like a little ball of heat."

"You know, Scully," he started, "I'm available for cuddling if you're ever feeling cold."

“I’ll keep that under consideration.” She smiled. “For now, want to stick around for a glass of wine?”

“Sure,” he said, and she disappeared into the kitchen to fetch a bottle and glasses. 

"I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to speak with Queequeg's spirit," he said when she returned,  accepting a glass of red wine from her. 

Settled into the opposite corner of the couch, Scully sat with her legs scrunched up underneath herself with her own glass of wine. He couldn't deal with how precious she looked—nor with how far away she sat.

"Get over here, Scully," he said, patting the cushion next to him.

She smiled, untucked her legs, and moved to scoot over next to him. He transferred his wine glass to his left hand so he could drape his right arm over her shoulder. 

"Maybe Queequeg just has to realize that I'm not a threat to you," he said. Emboldened by her lack of response to his arm over hers, he started lazily tracing circles on her tricep. "Then he'll stop haunting me."

"You're not a threat to me," she said, seriously.

"Come on, Scully." He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I'm responsible for so much shit that's happened to you over the years. If I were a little Pomeranian in love with you, I'd do everything in my six-pound power to make this Mulder guy's life a living hell."

She raised an eyebrow. "You think Queequeg was in love with me?"

"How could he not be?" he spit out without even thinking. "I mean—" he tried to recover—"you took good care of him."

Scully just gave him a Cheshire cat grin. She wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily.

"You think that's all it takes to fall in love with me? If I take care of you?"

"Well, there are lots of reasons a guy—or a dog—could fall in love with you. You're loyal, kind, and caring. You're fucking brilliant. And you're not half-bad to look at either."

"’Not half-bad,’” she repeated, frowning. “I’m flattered, really.” 

“Give me a break. I’m trying to play it cool here,” he admitted. 

She blushed and took a sip of her wine. He did, too, as if trying to use the alcohol to mask his sudden confession. Although it was his first sip and he'd been drunk in love with her for longer than he cared to admit.

"Oh, fuck it," he said. He leaned forward to set the wine glass on the coffee table and pivoted to face her. Bravely, he delved into uncharted territory. "You're breathtakingly beautiful, Scully. I'm not about to speculate on what got Queequeg's gears going, but if he's anything like me, he wouldn't be able to resist you. Frankly, I'm jealous of how many nights he got to spend in your bed."

"I didn't allow him in the bed."

He smiled wide. “Of course you didn't," he said. "Because you know about things like pet dander and how sleeping with a dog in your bed can interrupt your REM cycle and that's another reason why you're so lovable.”

“You’re making me sound more anal-retentive than lovable.” She looked up at him with sad eyes before quickly glancing down again. 

“Oh, Scully, you know that’s now what I mean.” He leaned forward to nudge her shoulder with his. 

“What do you mean?” She asked, her eyes still downcast. 

“Just that—” He paused, struggling to find the words. “You’re so you , Scully. You’re so fully realized, so completely yourself, but not in a way that makes you predictable or boring. It just makes it all the more thrilling when I learn something new about you that somehow both surprises me and fits into the puzzle of what makes you you.”

“And that fact that I didn’t let a dog sleep in my bed somehow makes me more lovable?” 

“It does to me.” He brought the tip of his pointer finger to her chin, softly encouraging her to look back toward him. “What I’m trying, and apparently failing, to say is that I love everything about you. I love that you’re particular and exacting. I love that you force me to be honest and vigorous in our work, and I love that you’re part of my life outside of work, too. And while there’s nothing I value more than our friendship, I hope I’m not being too presumptive to say that I’m getting the feeling we’d both like to be more than friends.”

Terrified, he searched her eyes for confirmation, any sign that his feelings were reciprocated. But she simply stared back at him, her chin wrinkling as she considered his words.

“Although, I suppose, sharing your bed with a creature a lot larger than a Pomeranian might be much more disruptive to your sleep cycle,” he added. 

“I might not mind the interruption,” she said finally, her voice low and breathy, her eyes still locked on his.  

“Even from your defiant, alien-chasing, nutjob of a partner?” 

“Do you mean my incredibly tenacious, intelligent, and loyal partner for whom I might just harbor similar feelings?” 

"Do you think Queequeg would approve?" he asked.

"Let's find out," she said. Before he could question her, Scully's lips were pressed against his. She tasted like tannin-rich wine but also something deeper and more Scully-like: warm and tangy with other unidentifiable undertones that he could drink from his whole life and never get enough of.

He took her wine glass from her and placed it next to his on the coffee table. With both hands free, she felt her way up his arms to frame his face. His own hands wandered wildly, up her back, through her hair, on her soft and tender cheeks. She opened her mouth to him and he tasted her tongue with his. He felt his body responding to her kiss—and judging on how she was squirming and shifting her hips towards him, he knew she was responding as well.

Just as he was about to slip a hand up and underneath her feather-soft sweater to caress the even softer skin underneath, he heard a low, deep growl off in the distance.

He pulled away and faced Scully, puzzled.

“That couldn’t be—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I heard it, too. I think my neighbors down the hall got an English bulldog. It’s not a ghost.” 

“Good enough for me.”

“I should kiss you more often if it gets you to agree so easily.” She smiled at him, inching even closer on the couch.

“I think you should test that theory, Agent Scully.” 

She leaned in again. This time, there were no howls or growls interrupting them.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite mulder moments from s5

breaking into the labyrinth of the department of defense in episode 1 to find the cure for scully, finding only a vial of water, and the ensuing devastation that crosses his face

in the beginning of episode 2, scully is in the hospital, and he reveals that he faked his death to come visit her (“you move pretty good for a dead man”, skinner says, to which he replies “i’m only half dead”). he's going utterly ballistic, screaming “i’ll calm down when i have a reason to calm down!”, and then nearly collapses as he sees her sick in bed. only skinner's threat of arrest after they come to blows can make him see straight

he sees CSM in the hall of the hospital where scully is recovering, and spits at him “please tell me you’re here with severe chest pains” <-LMAOOOO

and when CSM tries to win him over to the dark side through scully’s cure and showing him his “sister”, he absolutely refuses, saying “you murdered my father. you killed scully’s sister, and if scully dies, i will kill you. i don’t care whose father you are, i will put you down” (LOUD CHEERING!!!!!!!)

enduring bill scully's horrible attacks on his character, trying to sympathize with his pain despite how awful he is being because he knows what it feels like to lose loved ones for the Truth. he tells this man that is being so awful to him that he lost his father and sister in his quest for answers, so he can relate to the pain he feels- only to be met with more scorn

he comes into scully’s hospital room again later on, where she is sound asleep, and he lays his head next to her and sobs

defending scully in her absence at his big important hearing; explaining how she was sent to spy on him, but “that agent scully did not follow these orders is a testament to her integrity as an investigator, a scientist, and a human being” <3

and then he SOMEHOW guesses correctly that the mole is section chief blevins, who had been on the payroll of the biotech company for years... i want to unpack if he figured it out subconsciously or was just equal parts lucky and confident, but i feel that we will never truly know

he tells skinner that scully’s cancer is in remission, saying it is the best news he has ever heard, then cries in the hallway of the hospital, holding the bloody photo of him and samantha as kids

he meets frohike for the very first time in 1989 in episode 3 and declines his offer of bootleg cable by saying “no thanks, handsome”, which prompts frohike to call him "a man of taste". thus began his long tradition of flirting with the boys

he was RACING back to the motel room at the end of episode 4, banging on the door, telling scully to get in the car NOW, and narrowly saving her from the florida mothman who was hiding under the bed!!!! i <3 protective mulder!!!

in episode 7, he flies down as soon as he can to vouch for scully's capability to adopt emily. scully introduces him to her as “a friend”, and he starts making funny faces to get her to laugh right away. he points out that the girl’s adoptive parents were both murdered, and when scully says that she can protect her, he asks “yeah, but who’s gonna protect you?”; he testifies on her behalf, even though he says he shouldn’t, because he knows it’ll put her in danger

later, he confronts the doctor who refuses to transfer over emily’s medical files. he pulls out his gun, points it at the doctor’s head, and asks “why don’t you tell me whose life is worth saving, yours or hers?” - he's so quick to adjust to scully's news of having a child and so quick to draw blood on her behalf

they’re bickering about the case in episode 8, so mulder, in a rare moment of clarity, steps back to ask what they both agree on and says they can work from there. i was shocked! in a good way! after 5 years, he finally learned to manage their opposing viewpoints in a way that can get things done! (i am sure this will never happen again)

his tree climbing detour in episode 9, plus the legendary line “hey scully, is this demonstration of boyish agility turning you on at all?” (and then bonus points for his sad descent as he is needed back on the ground right after he got up there)

his complete inability to function without scully while she is on vacation in episode 10- he actually TWIRLS the phone line while calling her!!!

and when he calls her for the 800th time, he greets her saying “morning, sunshine!” while loudly thumping his basketball up and down until she has to ask him wtf that noise is... so he lies, saying there is construction outside his window, and yells, telling the nonexistent construction worker to quiet down <- LMAOOO it killed me!!! (his basketball thumping has always been used to indicate his inability to relax... truly there is no peace for him without the bestie in town)

he’s SOOOO jealous when scully thinks the cowboy sheriff in episode 12 is cute (he recalls him having a thick southern drawl with huge teeth, so when they have to fly back down, she points out that they are totally normal-sized, and he still disputes this fact until the very end of the episode)

in episode 14, he sprints to find scully after she was present for the mass burning; he runs his fingers through her hair when she is in the hospital for vasogenic shock

post-krycek breaking into his house and beating him up, warning him that the end of the world is coming, scully finds him in his apartment sitting in the dark. “what are you doing sitting here in the dark?”, she asks. “thinking” “about what?” “oh, the usual- destiny, fate, how to throw a curveball… the inextricable relationships in our lives that are neither accidental nor somehow entirely in our control, either”

calling scully back from a payphone in the pouring rain in episode 17 to help get her some information on her personal case <3

(he also really nerds out in that episode about eye imagery in the bible, apocrypha, and references jesus christ superstar... a man of culture)

((and he was SO protective of scully- he stepped in when the priest was being all shady, tried to advise her not to let him get into her head, and we got to see some incredibly rare emotional communication when he said “i’ve never seen you more vulnerable or susceptible or more easily manipulated, and it scares me because i don’t know why”. he was grabbing her shoulders and pulling her in close, telling her she should step away when she mentions the visions of emily… god. he was SO worried!!))

when he’s being tortured in episode 18, he tells the man hurting him over and over again that he will kill him, which i thought was really fascinating

being willing to risk all of the x files in episode 20 because he fully believes that scully is correct about gibson being the key to explaining them, even though skinner warns against it... that is complete trust <3

[sigritandtheelves]

Moment of Hope

1.5k wds | PG13 | msr, scenes in between, season 9, “Trust No 1”

God help me because I HATE season 9, but I watched “Trust No 1” last night (there was some factoid I was after in the “Dearest Dana” letter exchange), and I got mad about it all over again. This ep is especially cruel when you consider where the rest of the season goes (“Some day you’ll ask me, my son…” etc.) but I’m not ever going to deal with that except in fix-its. Anyway, it occurred to me that at the end of the ep, both Mulder and Scully are in the quarry. We don’t see how either of them gets out, so presumably… they could have found each other there, at least temporarily.

Indulge me. 🤷‍♀️

—

In the presence of the quarry’s iron, whispers of an old gift come back. He can hear her fright: mortal terror in the face of a monster worse than anything they ever hunted together. But the mind of the thing that follows her is an echoing void—like a high-pitched whine. She’s screaming at it, demanding answers, which Mulder can hear with both his mind and ears—she's some yards away, in the box canyon made by the digging.

The thing will kill her, without hesitation, to get to him. How stupid he was to think they could possibly be safe. It’s suicide, but he runs toward her, toward the danger that wants him dead. Between her death and his, there isn’t even a choice.

And then, something strange. The whine gets higher-pitched, begins to vibrate like a string pulled tight and plucked. The tension builds until, like a bowstring released, there's an explosion of rock and dust. The vibration is gone. The monster is dead.

Mulder listens for any others, fellow soldiers who might be following—hunting him. But there’s nothing. He sprints through the flat plane of rock, through the hulking monoliths of digging equipment and trucks. He hears her footsteps and they are so close—she is so close. “Scully!”

The footsteps stop. “Mulder?”

“I’m here!” He jogs toward her voice, and suddenly there she is—stunning, perfect, beautiful, his Scully. They crash into each other, and he throws his arms around her. She is sobbing against him, gripping his coat, shoving her face against his shirt.

“Oh god,” she chokes out. “Oh, Mulder.”

He can’t speak. He can hardly breathe. Instead he squeezes his eyes closed and presses his lips to her hair. It’s longer now. He lets his fingers slip through it, cup the back of her head. He puts only enough room between them so he can bend his face down and kiss her.

Theirs is the desperate love of the perpetually endangered, and this kiss is no different. He swallows her fear as best he can, devours the anguish of their terrible separation. Being away from her is the worst and hardest thing he’s ever done. “Scully,” he says into her mouth. “Dana.”

She lets out another little sob, then brings her hands to his face. She holds his cheeks, looking at him in the dusty moonlight of the quarry. “You’re really here,” she says.

He drops his forehead to hers. “Scully, are you safe? Are you okay?”

“I think so. That thing, that man—he was going to kill me, I think, or he wanted to kill you. He said either you or William has to die, which doesn’t make any sense, Mulder.”

“It might,” he says. “Because of the rock. The iron.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He died, right? The rock wall of the quarry killed him.”

“I—yes. He just kind of exploded into the rock, like it was a magnet. It pulled him into it.”

Mulder nods. “The iron does something to me, too. When I’m near it, I can hear thoughts again. I can hear yours.”

Her eyebrow goes up. “Right now?”

Another nod.

“What am I thinking?”

He listens for a moment, and then smiles. “You’re thinking, Mulder you’re crazy.”

She bites her lip. “What else?”

“You’re crazy, but I love you.”

Her smile is the best thing he’s seen in months. Then her expression shifts, brow furrowing. “But what does that mean, Mulder? What does it have to do with William?”

“I could hear the supersoldier, too, Scully. Not what he was thinking, but the sound of him. Like a…” He holds his hand beside his ear and twists it back and forth. “A kind of vibration. And I think William will be able to do the same, maybe even without being near the rocks. That’s why we’re a threat to them.”

“William can do those things because of you?”

“Because of both of us.” He drags a thumb over her cheek. “You had the vaccine too. You touched the artifact, the ship in Africa.”

“William is different,” she confesses. He can see how hard it is for her to say and thinks maybe she’s never said it out loud before. He watches a crestfallen tilt emerge on her lips and brow. “So he’ll always be in danger, won’t he? You both will.”

This, it seems, is the impossible choice, the terrible price they have to pay for keeping them all alive: that they will never be together as a whole family unit.

But now they have something they didn’t before. “I don’t think that’s necessarily true, Scully.” She tilts her head, a look of both despair and expectation on her face. “Now we know how to find them,” he says. “And now we know how to kill them.”

At that moment, more footsteps come barreling toward them across the gravel, so they pull apart quickly, preparing for a fight.

“Agent Scully!”

But it’s only Monica and John.

“Over here,” Scully calls before holstering her gun and falling back against Mulder’s chest. He hooks his arm around her waist, kisses the top of her head.

“Mulder!” Monica cries. Both of the other agents look surprised to see him. "Why are you still here?"

“It's the safest place to be. Maybe the only safe place to be.”

Doggett and Reyes look at each other in confusion.

“The Shadow Man is dead,” Scully says. “We might have found a way to kill them.”

It’s good news, and Mulder should be happy about it. But standing here beside Scully is breaking his heart because the longer he stays, the harder it will be to leave again. There may be no more of these monsters in the quarry, but there are hundreds of them in D.C.

Scully digs her keys out of her jacket pocket. “I’ll explain in the car,” she says, walking toward the sedan parked near the site’s entrance. When she notices that Mulder isn’t following, she stops. Now she’s standing with Doggett and Reyes, and he is apart from them, clenching his jaw, his fist, every muscle in his body, it seems. “Mulder?”

He doesn’t want to do this again. He can’t. A steady stream of no no no no no goes through his head and they’re still in the quarry so he can hear Scully, too—figuring it out, realizing, shifting from hope to dread.

Oh no. No no. Mulder, please come with me, I need you, I can’t do this anymore, please please I need you, I can’t, no no, you have to stay you have to come with me you have to see William he needs you too and I’m so lonely, god please I love you Mulder you have to stay don’t do this to me again—

And it almost breaks him, cracks something inside him, and he has to turn away from her to speak. “I can’t, Scully.”

She’s rushing back to him, pulling his arm, turning him so he has to see the pain on her face. “Mulder, please. You said it yourself, we know how to find them now. We know what kills them.”

He’s shaking his head, but it’s so painful to refuse. “It’s not safe. I don’t want to get you hurt.” He takes her face in his hands and bends down to kiss her again. He pours all of his love into it, all of his hope that they will be together soon. When he’s alone again in a run-down trailer in the middle of nowhere, when he’s missing her so much that it physically hurts his chest, maybe he can draw from this. He feels the love pouring off of her not in words but in waves and waves of emotion. He feels her fear and her desperation and her sadness too, but mostly her love.

She breaks the kiss this time because she’s crying, and her breath hitches. Monica and John have turned away to give them privacy, but Mulder glances over at them. “You three have the tools now,” he says. “It's time to figure out a weapon, and when we know how to fight them, you come find me. Look for the iron, Scully, and that’s where I’ll be. That’s where the fight will be.”

She nods her head, but he can feel how much it hurts her to agree. “It’ll be soon, Mulder. We’ll work fast. I can’t do this for much longer.”

“Neither can I.” He wipes another round of tears from her cheeks. “I love you, Dana.”

She reaches into her pocket before he can force himself to back away and says, “Wait.” She’s holding a flat square of paper. “This is for you.”

He takes it from her. It’s a photo of William, chubby-cheeked and smiling in her arms, though her face is not quite visible in the frame. He bites his tongue until it bleeds to keep from crying, from giving in and saying he will stay. “Thank you,” he manages.

Scully looks at him like he is ripping her heart in half, which he supposes he is. I love you, she mouths silently.

He begins to back away and tries to smile, but it falls flat. “Write me another email,” he says. “They’re monitoring everything. Make them think I never saw you, okay?”

She nods, tears streaming freely down her face now. He turns, and he leaves half of his own heart behind.

— End —

Okay, that was way sadder than I thought it would be—initially I thought I’d write some kind of smut against the quarry rocks fic, lol, but that seemed slightly out of character. Anyway IN THIS UNIVERSE THE EPISODE “WILLIAM” NEVER HAPPENS and the show follows a logical plot line around the supersoldiers in which the X-Files team actually studied the iron and figured out how to kill them (why didn’t they do this on the show???) and Mulder could come back. Because honestly what the fuck was going on the rest of the time in that season?

TY for reading my middle-of-the-night word puke. 🛸❤️

[carefulfears]

top ten mulder moments <3

DREAM ASSIGNMENT, UNHINGING MY JAW, ETC. buckle up babes!

1/ oubliette

all of oubliette really but there’s this one moment where he’s in the police station and he’s watching the video of lucy when she was 13 after escaping her kidnapper and she’s writhing around on the floor screaming and she can barely speak full sentences and she’s afraid of the light. and in the present day, she’s an addict living in a halfway house with convictions for drug possession and prostitution.

and he’s watching this tape and scully comes in and he says “it’s amazing she’s gotten anywhere in life” and scully says “by most yardsticks, she hasn’t.”

she has, though. she’s alive and she’s trying and she’s clean and passing her drug tests and she has a job. and that’s how he sees her, and that’s how he treats her throughout the episode. he tells her that she’s “the strong one” and he asks for her help and her opinion, he tells her that he just wants to know what she’s going through. he defends her to law enforcement and believes her when everyone else thinks she’s an accomplice. he weeps over her body when she dies, grieves the loss of her life.

it would be easy for him, as someone whose sister was kidnapped at the same age lucy was, to see her as a nightmare. she’s struggling and she’s traumatized and she’s an addict and a felon. but he doesn’t, he views her as hopeful, and you can tell that he respects her. he views her as having gotten somewhere in life, just because she’s still alive. and that more than anything really means a lot to me.

2/ paper hearts

in paper hearts when they find the 15th victim’s body and they think it’s samantha. and he’s standing there over it, shaking, looking down at what might be his baby sister’s corpse. what might be the end of the road.

and it might all be over, in this moment. he might not be able to search anymore, to hope anymore, to do the only thing he’s ever done every day for 24 years anymore.

and you just feel the crushing weight of it all, and then scully comes in with the lab results and says that it isn’t her. and he just buckles for a moment and takes a breath.

before standing up and saying, “it’s somebody though.”

it’s such a testament to his character to me, that he can’t sit in that relief for even a minute. it might not be his baby sister, but it’s somebody, and he grieves for them.

(not “somebody’s sister/daughter,” but somebody)

3/ one breath

the shot of him crying on the floor of his ransacked apartment.

he was offered a choice between staying there, waiting to see the bad guys, finding the only thing he’s ever wanted, the answers…and going to sit by scully’s hospital bed, when it might be the end.

and he left that apartment and held her hand.

as moving as that scene is, it’s the aftermath that always gets me. it’s the consequences. it’s the price that you pay for choosing to stay soft, the way that mr. x looks at him in this same episode and tells him that he’ll never win, he doesn’t have the heart.

so he walks away from the battle and comes back to the wreckage, and all he can do is sit down on the floor and weep.

(also if i think even a little about him giving scully the superstars of the super bowl tape, i’ll literally make myself ill crying)

4/ sein und zeit

when, after spending the entire episode obsessively insisting to everyone who will listen that the missing little girl is “not dead,” he says that they should just go home.

that they are not going to find those people’s daughter alive, that he is too close to this case to make a sound judgement, and that he wants to take some time away from work.

seven years after scully chased him into the street and yelled for him to “stop running after” samantha, and a day after she followed him into a hallway to tell him to not go looking for something he doesn’t want to find, the person whose “relentlessness” has kept him searching for nearly 30 years, just wants to go home.

he’s depended for so many years on the delusion, on the hope, on the belief that every child to go missing from their home is “not dead.” and now he stares at the ground in front of two people who love him, and admits to being wrong. to needing a break.

it’s one of the saddest moments of the series to me, but there is such an acceptance in admitting defeat, and it’s a subtle precursor to his decision in the following episode that he’s ready to know the truth about what happened to samantha. the delusion isn’t helping anyone. not him, not samantha, not this missing little girl. and it’s devastating and freeing at the same time.

5/ je souhaite

his genie wish. i have the softest spot in my heart for je souhaite mulder okay!! this is the mulder that called the jersey devil “beautiful” and ran through the woods to try to save it. the mulder that couldn’t bear to add to the soul eater monster’s suffering, even when it would’ve saved his own life.

i love that the first thing he does is ask the genie what she would wish for, just because he wants to know. and you can see how much 500 years of being a slave to people’s selfish desires has weighed on her, in the way she tells him that she would just want her days to be her own. to sit and have a cup of coffee.

i love that he tries to win at the genie wish, to save the world. tries to construct the perfect wording and all-encompassing fool-proof plan. throws around words like ending “tyranny.” and in the end, just deletes it all, and wishes for the genie to be free. that ending shot of her, finally her own person for the first time in 500 years, sitting having a cup of coffee, is one of my favorite moments of the series.

i love the lesson in this episode too, for someone who spends his whole life trying to make up for the fact that he lived when his sister didn’t, that he doesn’t have to figure out how to save the entire world. he can call his best friend and sit on his couch and watch caddyshack. but he asks the genie what she would wish for, because he genuinely cares, and he chooses to use his wish to give it to her, because he can do that.

6/ pilot

these tags: “this man is overflowing with reverent tenderness.”

the Moment™️ in his motel room…this is when you can see it. this is when both scully and the audience understand something. this is when it’s all over.

they’ve both been kind of concealing so much, behind sarcasm or professionalism. they really like each other. they want to trust each other. but she was sent to spy on him, to debunk him, and neither of them have any reason to believe it’ll be more than that.

when the power goes out and scully feels the marks on her back, she is just so scared. she is so young, and this is her first job, and she’s becoming exposed to things that she had never considered. when she walks into mulder’s motel room in only her robe, and then drops it, she’s afraid, and also acutely aware of her own vulnerability.

the way the camera hangs on his face (he’s the focus, not her exposure, what is he seeing?), in the candlelight, as she exposes her body to him and he just checks to make sure she’s okay.

what he’s seeing is her vulnerability, and he responds by both sheltering and matching it; he wraps her up and gives her the bed, sits below her on the floor. he tells her about sam. he tells her about what “matters” to him. and it isn’t something that he tells people, but anxiously walking mostly-naked into the room of your new assignment isn’t something that she does either, and he understands that.

it’s 2 episodes later in squeeze when scully makes her decision, she’s “on the side of the victim,” on the side of the vulnerable. but it’s a motel room in bellefleur where she learns what that side is, where that work is being done.

(related, conduit: the way that he shuts scully's concerns about him down, then validates them quietly, when they're alone. tells her what his life actually is. that it's "walking into that room," every day, feeling like maybe one day he'll open his eyes and his sister would be there. you really get the sense that he's never told anyone that before, but that it's something he turns over in his mind, something he's always aware of. he's saying: you're right, this is what i do, but i don't know how to do anything different. how am i meant to do anything different? it has always been this way. and it's the only thing that you need to hear him say to really get it. it's the only thing that scully needed to hear him say. this is the most vulnerable revelation that he ever makes, a month into their partnership. she never forgets it.)

7/ anasazi

just a little moment that i think about a lot is the way that after mulder sees his dad in colony and tries to hug him, and gets cut off with a handshake, the next time that he sees bill, in anasazi, he reaches out to shake his hand.

he notices everything, he internalizes everything, he only wants to give what he understands as wanted from him.

he knows that his dad does not want to hug him, and he still reaches to him first, offers that connection that bill is comfortable with.

(it always makes me think of the first time he met jackson. the way that the first thing he did after “my name is mulder, i’m your father. i know it must seem strange to you.” was hug him… “became a father while i was still a son,” or whatever the national said.)

8/ emily

you guys. you guys 🥺. this whole episode just really gets me so bad. the way emily is “shy” and doesn’t speak or really look at anyone, and the only time we see her smile is when mulder makes her laugh, as soon as she met him. him yelling at the doctor (i love that the show, through mulder, actually says the term “medical rapists.” like yes let’s call it what it fucking is!) and saying he wants everything that could help her. when emily's sick, and mulder instantly picks her up to hold her.

but the moment to me, the one that stays with me, is the very end. it's the funeral. it's when all is said and done. and scully asks...who could do this? who could bring a life into this world whose only purpose is to die? and mulder answers, "i don't know. but that you found her, and had a chance to love her...maybe she was meant for that too."

he looks at a person who was created to be used for other's gain, literally manufactured intentionally to suffer and then die, and he believes...maybe that's not all that she was meant for. maybe she was still meant to be known, to be found, to be loved. and they did love her.

(the way he shows up late to the funeral, but scully knows he's coming to get her, tells her mom she's going to ride back with him. the way he turns away from the casket, never able to look loss in the eye, but turns back so scully isn't in it alone. the way he brings flowers, like he brought flowers to the hospital when scully was diagnosed, like he stopped to bring flowers to missy's grave.)

9/ beyond the sea + lazarus

my father is dead (long live my father!)

y’all ever think about how sparingly and intentionally mulder says “dana”? y’all ever think about how she’d only ever been “scully,” to him, until “how are you, dana?” the day of her father’s funeral? the way she looked up at him, as he gently touched her cheek.

the first thing that scully does after her father dies, is tell mulder that she believes in a psychic. (“i thought that you would be pleased that i opened myself to extreme possibilities”).

the first thing that mulder does is sit down, lower himself beneath her, (he has done this since the motel room in bellefleur, the day they met), and look up to her to ask: “does this have to do with your father? you said that he didn't approve of you becoming an FBI agent. now, if being on the job now makes you feel guilty or uncomfortable or uneasy, i think you should back away. because if it’s clouding your judgment, you’re putting yourself in danger.”

(he is always listening, he is always more aware than people think. he perceives her attempts to “please” him as dangerous, or uncomfortable for her. encourages her to step back.)

when she starts to cry and walks across the room, she’s dana again. she’s not her father’s “starbuck,” she’s not mulder’s “scully.”

“dana…open yourself up to extreme possibilities, only when they’re the truth.”

in lazarus, it’s only 2 episodes later (2 episodes after “i’m afraid to believe”) when jack willis dies. (“along the way, there are other fathers.”)

mulder spent that whole fucking episode doing his lil tricks and tips and pulling out his lil experts trying to convince her that jack had been body-swapped, including the story about watches stopping at time of death. when jack dies, and all that’s left is the watch she had given him, stopped at the same time as his heart, she looks up to mulder for answers so softly.

and his response: “it means…it means whatever you want it to mean. goodnight.”

he spends his life begging for belief, but never at the cost of her integrity, her peace. he cannot be “pleased” by a forgoing of self, a forgoing of what she’s ready for.

(looking at this now, it also reminds me of irresistible, and the way that he told her that it’s understandable to be upset, to be affected. “i’ve seen agents with 20 years fall apart on cases like this.” it’s not because she’s young, it’s not because she’s inexperienced, it’s not because she’s traumatized. it’s because she’s human. and it’s good, it’s right.)

10/ redux ii

my favorite moment of this episode is when scully sees mulder through the window of her hospital room for the first time, and he plasters that smile on his face, comes in to sit on the bed and hold her hand and kiss her cheek. and she keeps trying to ask him about the conspiracy, about what happened at the pentagon, about who the inside man at the FBI is, and he just keeps quietly telling her that he's not there to talk about that. and she keeps pushing questions until he leans in to her and smiles and says... "hey, scully, how 'bout those yankees?"

hey, scully, it's not about that. for as many years as he's gone doing nothing but obsessing over conspiracies to anyone who will listen, he isn't there to talk about conspiracies. he's there to hold her hand, to keep that smile on his face so maybe she won't worry, to break down by her bedside as soon as she's asleep. he just wants to spend time with her. in reduxes, they aren't ahab and starbuck. they aren't charging forward or dutifully shepherding on. they're buckling in hallways. they're clinging to a hand through tears.

there is just no room: for their roles, for their pretenses, in the end. in this moment, he isn't the "mad captain" who cares about nothing more than the quest. he's the man who walked away from the fight so that he could sit next to her, who gave up all of his answers so that she could see her sister one last time. he's the man who "refused to believe" that she was dying, but still celebrated her birthday that year for the first time ever, just so that she would have it. and in that hospital room, at the end, through teary eyes and shaky smiles, it just isn't about anything bigger. she doesn't have to die as dutiful to the cause, for him to be there with her.

(the final shot of this episode is one of my favorites too. when scully is cured, she is going to live, her family is in her room celebrating with her, and mulder is crying alone in the hall.

these tags: "all his open love and loneliness and numbness and fear of loss. he's such a gentle man. he kills but he is gentle in his heart. he takes so many beatings and he listens quietly and has no shame. it's hard for him to play the games men play. this ending. he just found out scully is going to live. and everyone else is in there with her. and he has to sit outside. and it all hits him in one go. his sister. his parents. scully. his wasted years. his stupidity and arrogance. how many times has this happened to one of us. you grit your teeth and get through unimaginable difficulty. and then when it's all over you can't celebrate. it hits you on your own in a terrible way."

i always think of that. i always think of superstars of the superbowl. i always think of how ill-equipped and in-adequate we are, when it comes down to it, to deal with grief and trauma and loss. how "we bury our dead alive." and in the end it's "the best news" he ever could've heard, and that steady smile is reduced to sobs.)

honorable mention from paper hearts: i fear that i simply have to talk about him shooting roche in the head...did everybody see him shoot roche in the head? i thought him shooting roche in the head was lovely. you can watch it tear him apart, leading up to the moment. roche sitting in front of him, taunting him. how sure are you? you'll never know without me. but ultimately, he looks over at caitlyn, and he can't risk it. he had told caitlyn, "my name is fox, i'm gonna take you home." and then he did, even when ensuring she was found safe and well, meant sacrificing everything he'd been looking for.

the transition from that moment on the bus (roche's blood on the windows, caitlyn's screams, mulder's gun) to the walls of the basement office...the way the camera slowly pans over the UFO articles. the "i want to believe." the mysteries. all of that wishful thinking (as roche had said earlier: "it's like you think your world will be okay as long as you can believe in like...flying saucers") contrasted to the flesh and blood of the evil he's trying to escape. and, in the end, all there is left is one heart in front of him. one last victim that he'll never know the truth about, because he wasn't willing to risk the price paid for answers.

(and then scully says...but we will find her. how? "i don't know. but i do know you.")

honorable mention from oubliette: my top 2 episodes do be my top 2 episodes but there are few moments in this series that just make my heart sink to my stomach more than the image of mulder crying over lucy's body...that triptych line: "mulder who still grimaced at cadavers and cried over the bodies of dead women where most men she knew couldn't muster the wherewithal to appear disturbed."

lightning round appreciation for my favorite little tiny moments we don't talk about enough: casually giving his hotel key to the unhoused man in the jersey devil; holding kevin and telling him he knows he just wants his sister back in conduit; helping roland pick out a shirt to wear ("i think this one would look stylin' today, what do you think?") in roland; going back in for the kids even though he's afraid/had failed before, in fire; marty saying she "just knew" he would be at her sentencing, even though she couldn't see him, in mind's eye; taking scully to the liberty bell, after she complained about wanting a life outside of work, in shadows; when cassandra told him that reading news stories about him saved her life, because no one would ever believe her, until she found out about him, in patient x; telling skinner to get marita off the stand, "no. let her go," even though her testimony was the only thing that could save him, in the truth; telling off the sheriff in conduit who said it was "only a matter of time" before "something bad" happened to ruby because she "was no prom queen"; telling scully that he doesn't care if she comes with him or not, but he's not giving up on ruby "until they find a body."

[slippinmickeys]

Fic prompt - Scully goes on a date with the Perfect guy. Mulder is angry, decides to go to a bar to find a one night stand. He just gets drunk and TLG bring him home where... He finds Scully sleeping on his bed

I started this forever ago, but could never really get it to flow and didn’t know how to end it. Reading through it now… it’s a little uneven, has not so much as whispered in a beta’s ear, but I kind of like where I left off and… I have so many unfinished works sitting in docs I’m letting this one fly free. Thanks for the prompt so long ago, Anon.

Dale. The guy’s fucking name was Dale. Who named their kid Dale, anyway? Perfect smile, perfect teeth, perfectly coiffed hair, polite, a doctor, and so damned charming that even Mulder had trouble not liking him.

He had a sailboat. He was taking Scully out on it. He was somehow more Vineyard than Mulder himself – a guy from fucking Chilmark. And Scully was eating it up. She was excited about the date, had been talking about it all day, ad nauseum. Well, he was pretty sure she had. He’d had to tune her out for his own mental well-being.

You’d drink, too, he’d said, maybe out loud, and it took him a moment to register the warm hand that clapped his back, the presence next to his barstool.

“I know, buddy,” Frohike said, eyebrows like caterpillars crawling across his brow, his hand squeezing Mulder’s shoulder.

“Frohike?” Mulder asked, surprised as all hell to see his friend standing there.

“Thanks, Nadine,” Frohike said to the barmaid, who handed over Mulder’s cell phone and credit card, both of which Frohike slipped into Mulder’s sport coat pocket. “Let’s get you home.”

Mulder stood woozily, and the older man had to occasionally correct his trajectory as he stumbled past the billiard tables that Casey had pulled three booths to squeeze into the back room of the bar.

The Vanagon was idling out front, Byers behind the wheel. Langly was riding shotgun, rubbernecking out the window and snapping a tight knot of green gum. The valet looked pissed and said something to Frohike that Mulder couldn’t make out as the little hacker tried to maneuver the much taller man through the open door.

“Keep your pants on, key jockey!” Frohike clapped back as he slid the big door closed. Mulder slumped against the window, miserable, sliding down the vinyl seat as Byers pulled away from the curb.

“What happened?” Langly asked, turning around and peering at Mulder through smudged glasses.

“Scully’s on a date,” Frohike said carefully. Byers’ eyes flicked to Mulder’s in the rearview, but he said nothing.

Langly nodded knowingly. “She been dickmatized? Is this dude some kind of punk?”

“No,” Mulder burped, righting himself in the seat as the contents of his stomach sloshed. “He’s actually a really nice guy.” He directed his comment to Langly’s second question, adamantly refusing to acknowledge his first.

“Let’s just get Mulder back to headquarters,” Frohike said, glaring at Langly. “Let him sleep it off.”

Mulder grabbed onto the side of the van as his head began to spin, and the thought of sleeping on the guys’ lumpy couch surrounded by the close-quarters smell of hot circuitry and day-old nachos triggered a violent urge to propel the contents of his stomach out the window beside him. He took a deep breath and steeled himself.

“No!” he burped again. “Take me home please.”

When Byers’ took the exit for Old Town, Mulder unclenched, and that’s when the urge to puke turned into a biological inevitability.

The look on his face must have conveyed some real urgency, because the next thing he knew, the van had swung over to a curb and Frohike already had the door open. He fell to his knees on the floor of the Volkswagen and hurled an arc of vomit onto the sidewalk outside the van.

“Whoa,” he heard Langly’s nasally voice pipe up when his coughing and gagging had died down considerably. “That’s some serious upchucking. I think he shot it past the fire hydrant.”

He spit once and then looked down in his hand to see a wad of Burger King napkins that Frohike had pressed into it. He mopped his face as the other man slid the sliding door closed and Byers merged back into traffic.

Mulder settled himself gingerly back onto the big bench seat.

“I feel a lot better,” he said pathetically, the sweat on his forehead cooling.

“Well you smell a lot worse,” Frohike replied, scrunching his nose in distaste.

“Bet Dale can’t hit the fire hydrant,” Mulder said.

“Dale can probably hold his liquor,” Frohike grumbled, and the puke-induced euphoria he felt withered, replaced by a humble misery. He wondered where Scully was now, if Dale had let her take the helm. He wondered how big the boat was, if it had a sleeping berth. If Dale and Scully had ever used it.

“You’d drink too, if-” Mulder started, but his words died on his tongue as it came to him what he was about to say. Out loud. To the guys.

The cab of the vehicle took on an embarrassed silence and after a long moment he looked up to find Langly reaching a hand back to him, a foil-wrapped stick of gum on offer along with a look of knowing sympathy.

Mulder took the gum with a nod of thanks and stuck the sheet of spearmint in his mouth, chasing out the taste of bile and sick and rampant jealousy.

When Byers pulled the van in front of Hegal Place, Mulder had trouble meeting anyone’s eye. Frohike was on the sidewalk waiting for him when he tipped himself out of the back of the van, sobriety duking it out with whatever liquor still swam through his bloodstream.

Frohike looked up at him with a kind and steady hand on his arm. “You want me to walk you up?” he asked.

Mulder felt around his pockets for his keys, locating them after a quick search. “No,” he said. “I got it from here.”

Frohike nodded and patted him one more time. “Put a trash can next to your bed, huh? Drink some water.”

Mulder thanked him and turned on his heel, missing the look the three guys gave each other before watching him ascend the stairs and fumble his way through the front door of his building. Eschewing the elevator and up the stairs because moving was better than standing still, down the hallway – where he’d thought he’d told her he loved her in as many words as he could, and still she went out with Dale – and through his front door. He had it bad, he realized, as he stepped through his door and into his apartment. He had it so bad that he thought he could smell a trace of her perfume – the expensive stuff she kept in her sock drawer – when he walked through the door of his own apartment. Christ.

He toed off his shoes and made immediately for the shower, catching the alleyway stench of whatever vomit hadn’t made it all the way to the sidewalk. Standing under the hot spray, he rethought some of his more recent choices.

If he were honest with himself, he’d gone to the bar tonight to pick up a woman and take her home. It had felt like a wild, righteous idea at the time, made on an indignant huff just as Scully was waving goodbye and Dale put his hand on her back to lead her through the double doors of the Hoover building. A decision made with jealousy boiling through his veins, but abandoned when he sat down at the bar and pictured another woman with her head thrown back on his sheets. Anonymous sex didn’t hold the appeal it once had for whatever reason, and he’d ordered a drink instead. And then a second, and a third and on down the line.

What would he say to Scully if she were here now, he wondered, toweling himself off. What do you see in him? That was obvious. He bent over and drank water directly from the faucet, slurping until the headache he felt coming on was assuaged. He looked at himself in the mirror. Why him and not me? He thought, and sighed, padding naked into his bedroom – not bothering to turn on the light – and sliding on a pair of pajama pants he pulled from a drawer.

He lowered himself into the bed, dejected, tired, still a little woozy, when a sound – a quick inhale of breath – sent him shooting back up to standing, heart pounding, instantly sober.

“Mulder?” came a groggy voice from the other side of his bed, and it took him a moment to reconcile his partner’s voice and its place in his dark bedroom.

“Scully?” he said, his voice sounding two octaves too high. “Jesus.”

He reached over and switched on a bedside lamp.

“I’m sorry,” she said breathily, blinking rapidly. She scooted up on the mattress and back into the pillows. Her hair was mussed and she wore a shell-shocked look. “What time is it?”

Mulder was still so surprised to see her that he couldn't put together a coherent answer. “I-what are you doing here?”

Scully looked over at him, took in his pajamas and his bare chest, his still-damp hair, and a look of profound embarrassment washed over her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I was waiting for you and then-”

Maybe Mulder wasn’t entirely sober yet, because his brain still felt absolutely befuddled. “Where’s Dale?” he asked, sounding rather like a simpleton, like he expected Dr. Dale to come sauntering into his bedroom at any moment, wearing one of Mulder’s robes, handing over a cold martini to Scully and saying ‘great bedroom for a shag, thanks for letting us use it.’

“Out on his boat, I imagine,” she said, not meeting his eye.

“But why are you not… on his boat?” Mulder lowered himself back onto the mattress, perching on the edge. “Wait, did he try something? Are you okay?” He leapt back up to standing.

“It's fine, Mulder, he didn’t do anything. I…got seasick,” she said, finally turning to look at him, a dubious, slightly jokey look on her face.

“But you don’t get seasick.” He was still standing.

She gave him a look like he was being deliberately obtuse. It started to occur to him that she was here on purpose, not because something calamitous had happened.

“But you were excited about it,” he said, lowering himself once again back to the bed. “You kept talking about it.”

“Mulder…”

“Scully?”

She thunked her head back against the headboard.

“Maybe I was hoping you’d talk me out of it.”

“You we’re hoping I’d-“ his heart soared momentarily, a bird taking flight. And then it fell out of the sky.

“Where have you been?” Scully asked, head tilted to look at him, her brow creasing, eyes narrowed.

“I was… at a bar.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks turned scarlet in the warm yellow light of the lamp and a look came over her face like a dawning realization. “Were you… there for someone?”

His life flashed before his eyes. Scully could tell when he lied to her, and he had gone to the bar with the intention of picking up a woman.

When he didn’t answer, Scully’s eyes widened and she stood suddenly. “I have made,” she said, looking around as if for a purse or a set of keys, “an appalling miscalculation.”

Mulder wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or herself, but suddenly she was on the move, darting through his bedroom door in a rapid exodus.

“Scully wait!” he called out, following her, just hoping to catch her before she got to the door. He felt like if she went through it, there was a real chance he might never see her again. Dana Scully didn’t do embarrassment well.

But he almost stumbled into her when he reached the hallway. She had pulled up short next to his billiard ball coat rack, her nose scrunched up in a look of minor revulsion. He had left his discarded clothes and shoes in a rumpled trail from the door to his bathroom, and the fumes coming off of them were sour and unpleasant.

“Mulder, it smells like vomit.”

He doubted she could see his chagrined expression, backlit as he was by the light spilling from his bedroom, but he shrugged.

“I… may have tied one on,” he admitted.

“You went out drinking?” Her face looked like she was working on a very hard math problem. “Alone?”

“Well, the Gunmen came and got me.” While he was sure she was glad he hadn’t driven drunk, he knew that’s not what she was getting at. “I was upset,” he finally admitted.

“Upset?”

He took a hesitant step toward her, watched her eyes slowly climb up to his face the closer he got to her.

“Jealous.”

Her gaze was moving rapidly back and forth between his two eyes. “Jealous?” Her voice barely above a whisper. His stomach did a loop, like a swallow over a corn field.

“You wanted me to talk you out of your date?” She smiled and sighed, looked down and away from him. “What’s wrong with Dale?”

Her gaze climbed back up, lingering a little, he thought, on his bare chest.

“Nothing’s wrong with Dale. That’s the problem.”

Mulder reached out a hand, wanted run it through her hair, but grazed her shoulder instead.

“You looking for a fixer upper? I know at least five different-“

“Mulder,” she said, exasperated. “Shut the fuck up.”

He did so immediately.

[deathsbestgirl]

for the least favorite eps: Arcadia, PVB

okay let's go!!!

arcadia.

i watched this one last night and i felt like i had nothing to say. generally speaking, i think a few others have talked about it better than i can lol and they've kind of covered why i love it! and for me, i really have to step back from the general fandom view of it. this is one i have to look at the broader context of season six. if you just watch arcadia, i don't think it hits right at all. (also i think i need to dig into other episodes it reminds me of, but that might be a later separate post. we'll see. usually the connections i find make me love an episode more.)

season six is at one time one of the most msr seasons but also so tense. in the end, diana fowley shows up and it twists scully inside. this woman she knew nothing about, who was there when mulder found the x files & worked on them with him, who's been with him in the way she never has, and she shares mulder's beliefs. right into fight the future, where she may be absent but shes heavily impacting scully. to the point she's ready to walk away, believing mulder doesn't need her & she's only held him back. he gives her this whole speech, telling her how important she is to him, she saved him, made him a whole person. they almost kiss, before everything shatters & she nearly dies. but she's drawn back in. in the beginning, mulder's mad that that she couldn't hand over proof to the fbi, that she won't believe and she clings to what he told her in his hallway.

season six is very tropey, but most of it is also erased, they don't remember the events of dreamland or monday, triangle is a dream/the past. arcadia specifically, is taking a trope fandom usually makes fun or to bring two characters together, and uses it more like mulder & scully are working out some issues.

as kae says, mulder is peak annoying. almost insufferable. but it's these moments that tell us a lot. mulder says at the beginning that 'this isn't an x file.' he's not thrilled with the assignment, he's excited to get back to their work. scully disagrees, tells him 'it's unexplained,' and teases him. but it's tense. i think at other times it would have just been. funny. but he's making marriage jokes, 'not taking the case seriously,' and taking jabs at scully about 'fitting in here' — which is actually misunderstanding what it is that she really wants.

scully was also excited to get back to their work. she was just as bored without the x files, especially with the work they were forced to do. and maybe she did want to 'play house' but i think mulder ruined any fun she was having and her walls went up. so she started being annoying too lol

i love that this episode is tense, a little angsty. but their work partnership is still intact, even if a little strained. they go about their investigation in a fairly typical way, although mulder just tries to piss off the neighbors thinking this is simply human for most of it. i honestly love the way he tries to shake up the neighborhood. it's similar to mr. kline and is ultimately what got him & his wife killed. so he's on the right track (what a surprise). (and even when scully's right that it's an x file, i don't think she's right about anything else lol so classic.)

i always really liked @randomfoggytiger 's mulder analysis & this post lol, and i love the way kae connected the theme of this episode to a common theme running through the show.

i think fandom tends to view this through an msr lens, and not that isn't but it isn't the very in love & together phase of season seven episodes. it's them figuring out how to get there. not understanding what the other thinks or wants, what a relationship between them would like, or what it would mean for their work.

now for some scene specifics that i LOVE.

i love the way mulder reflects the man murdered in the beginning. mr. klein? is so fed up with the ccnrs & the uniformity. he's annoyed by win painting his mailbox. he's excited to get that weird lawn ornament. his wife is very accepting of his bothers, though she doesn't seem to care personally. it's just. it's very reflective of m+s through this episode.

and THIS moment. the way scully puts her hands up to be like 'okay enough, back off.' it's so funny. like. mulder & scully are affectionate. but it's mostly gazing, lower back / arm touches, hand holding...hugging is rare, it's reserved for deeply emotional & vulnerable moments. not just because. but here they have to. and i think that's uncomfortable for them even as they're soaking it up.

then after they're all moved in, as soon as they're alone:

this part says to me they were excited (personally) for this case, at the very beginning they're having a great time. i think scully is even amused by his "honeymoon" tape joke & his (bad) sandwich joke, i love when she throws the gloves at him lol

it's also just funny to me to see how they play these roles. like they just aren't good at it, they're not very subtle. but these people don't know them so it works. the neighbors are overly friendly and overly concerned, and mulder & scully are trying to find out why but they're not the easiest group to crack. despite the intense fear & worry cami clearly feels.

i also think this episode sets mulder up as a house husband, which is soooo fitting. i actually think this is closer to what he talks about in home than he's willing to think about. it's got a small town feel, close knit community, safety. it's just ... extremely suburban with too many rules. and he likes breaking rules atp more than following them. and this time, it actually is his job to break them. this was a perfect case for mulder, with or without the monster angle.

i think i've said this before in other season six talk, but from the moment i saw someone talk about how m+s don't have a blueprint for their relationship, it's the lens i see season six through completely. they start trying to communicate more clearly, not well but they're getting closer. here they're in a very particular limbo (especially after two fathers/one son), where neither of them can deny their feelings (but scully's are "the problem"), and their trust & partnership has been tested. agua mala was about reaffirming their trust & partnership and some off the clock bonding. arcadia is their first on the clock test, which undercover as a married couple is probably also kind of a nightmare for them given their circumstances lol

BUT GENUINELY they were both enjoying it at the beginning, and they have different moments throughout where one is and the other isn't.

one particular thing i love is the way scully puts up boundaries. because i think after a few jokes, and mulder telling her she fits in perfectly...she feels she has to. mulder isn't ready and he doesn't understand, it makes her retreat.

like after mulder sees the monster...scully asks him if he cares to hear what she thinks. he pauses, looking at her, before he tells her "always." they really getting back into step with each other but after hurt & confusion, all the tension...it takes time. they need to hit certain beats to get there and i think this episode does that very well. the moment when mulder thinks scully's been attacked by the creature, that he's about to find her eviscerated. it before that when he's searching the hole they dug, and she comes out speaking quietly & gently, telling him to come in and "call it a night." this is so domestic and partnerly it kinda kills me. he really does always listen. scully is the only person who can pull him back, keep him grounded. and she always give him the space to explore his theories and she investigates them seriously.

the way mulder is terrified when he sees the door and walks into the house. it's every time he's almost lost her flashing before his eyes again, not that long after tithonus. after he could have died in agua mala, before they even patched things up. to me, agua mala, arcadia & alpha build up to milagro, open the door for the unnatural & field trip. it's the perfect set up for biogenesis, the sixth extinction and amor fati. the final hurdle mulder needed. all of these things slowly build scully's confidence back up so that she's ready too. even though she still won't make the first move.

[oohnotvery]

Hand To Your Heart (Chapter 3)

Hi, friends. Thank you so much for your incredible patience with me on this chapter. When I started writing this story, I had noooo clue that I’d unexpectedly be stepping into a new chapter of life at the exact same moment. I don’t really want to delve into details yet, but I hope to give you the full story someday soon :) Like all of life, it’s a mixture of good and bad, but mostly good.

As always, please trust that this angst-fest will have a lovely resolution.

-E.

tagging @today-in-fic

Present Day

Scully isn’t sure what exactly she expects from Mulder after that awful night in his apartment. Apart from their slightly tipsy decision to become friends with benefits many weeks ago, they have never openly addressed their sexual arrangement. It is a frail, vulnerable thing. To put words to it would surely break it.

But after slipping out the door of his apartment, she does half-expect to receive a phone call later that evening. Hey, Scully, sorry I fell asleep, and sorry about . . .

Sorry about what? He fucked her, which was the agreement they made. No one ever promised anything about making sure the other person enjoyed it. For all intents and purposes, Mulder did nothing out of the ordinary. He can’t ensure she comes every single time they have sex; hell, he may not have even realized she didn’t come. In his mind, there’s probably no issue at all.

But Mulder isn’t any old caveman who sticks it in and finishes without thought to his partner’s pleasure. In fact, every single other time they’ve been together, he’s lavished her with attention, usually pulling one or two orgasms from her before he even begins to think about tending to his own needs.

She’s not crazy, then. That night was an anomaly. So what possible excuse could he have for treating her the way he did? She ticks off the possibilities:

Maybe he was drunk. She’s fairly sure she tasted alcohol on his breath, and she knows that even for a man his size, he has a relatively low tolerance. Or maybe he was getting sick. Maybe he was feeling bad. Maybe he just couldn’t stop thinking about his burning office.

Can she forgive him for it? If he comes to her and apologizes, will it be enough to lure her back into his bed?

Although her logical mind says no, no way, I won’t put myself in that position ever again, her emotional brain knows the truth. She would slip back into his arms like water cascading over sharp rocks. Although their arrangement hurts her, she loves it too much, even when it’s awful. She loves that she is the woman Mulder chooses to bring to bed. She loves that she is the person who gets to touch him and taste him. She loves that she is the one who gets to stare into his eyes as he comes.

When she leaves his apartment, she is full of fury and humiliation, but when she wakes the next morning—physically sore and emotionally wounded—some of that initial anger dies. She knows she has a tendency to forgive him too quickly, and that this tendency is borne from a deep-seated terror that he will stop wanting and needing her.

She wants so badly to be hard and cold towards him. She wants so badly to demand an apology, to stand up for herself and her dignity.

But when he walks into work the next morning and takes his place at his desk, everything inside her seizes up. If I bring this thing to light, she reminds herself as she watches him shed his suit jacket, I give myself away. Once he knows that I care, it’s all over.

And so she stays quiet, and apart from a quick hello, Mulder does too. In fact, for the rest of the day, he hardly acknowledges her. Days pass in this way and she starts to grow more and more concerned that she’s done something wrong. That maybe he fucked her like that because he’s angry at her.

Should she ask him?

She nearly works up the courage to demand answers, but distraction in the form of a bomb threat in Texas arrives. The distraction does its job, balancing out their equilibrium, lowering Mulder’s low-simmering frustration and softening Scully’s hard edges. Some of their normal camaraderie even returns. Mulder turns playful, a bit jokey, excited to get out of D.C. and turn his mind from the excruciating loss of the X-Files.

When they return to D.C., Scully swears she sees a new page turning for them. He almost kisses her right there in his hallway, and though they’ve done this act dozens of times before, this time feels different. Its approach is slow, deliberate, and weighty, and the affection in his gaze disarms her. Maybe sex isn’t all there is between them. Maybe Mulder does feel more for her than lust.

And then there’s a bee and an impossible journey to Antarctica. If anything were going to repair this broken relationship, it would be Mulder’s dazzling heroics.

And yet.

They return to D.C., frostbitten and exhausted, and Mulder turns angry and moody and inaccessible once again. He’s livid when she waffles on whether they saw a spaceship in Antarctica, and he’s furious to find out that Jeffrey Spender and Diana Fowley have been assigned to the X-Files.

Relegated to the bull pen, they interact less and less. A few weeks ago, humiliated and angry and unsatisfied, she vowed never to sleep with him again. But now, even if she wanted to engage with him in that way, there would be few chances to do so. All their earlier pretenses for getting together disappear. Without the X-Files, he no longer has a reason to drop by her apartment to “go over a file.” She no longer has a reason to invite him out for drinks to discuss autopsy notes. They stop traveling frequently, so there’s no conjoining rooms.  

Her heartbreak processes slowly. It’s been weeks since he fucked her like he didn’t want her, but she’s just now starting to feel like her world is falling apart. Because even though she will not pursue him, the sad reality simmers in her subconscious: she wishes he would pursue her. But weeks pass and time stretches between them, and he doesn’t make a move. There are days when she can convince herself that Mulder is just bored and unhappy and unmotivated, and that he doesn’t have the energy to work up a sex drive. But on other days, her steadfast sense of rationalism kicks in, and she is smart enough to discern that he simply doesn’t want her anymore.

It hurts. It hurts, but she doesn’t let it show. She dons a cold mask and watches as they grow more and more distant from each other.

Everything’s fine, she tells herself on repeat, day after day after day.

But at night, when she’s alone, she drops her face into her hands and cries. Because they’re broken. She’s broken.

And everything is not fine.

**

It is a hot, cloudless summer day when the elevator door slides open and Scully spies Diana Fowley walking through the bull pen. It’s been weeks since their paths have crossed, although Scully occasionally spies the other woman at security checkpoints during the morning rush hour. It is rare, however, to see her up on this floor.

Distracted, Scully forgets to exit the elevator car and has to lunge to catch the closing door. The hot coffee she’s holding in a flimsy paper cup sloshes down her wrist and forearms and she curses as she steps out into the hallway.

“Careful,” comes a disapproving voice, and Scully’s head snaps up. Diana brushes her shoulder as she sashays into the elevator, mouthing ouch as her lips curl into a twisted little wince.

Cheeks flaming, Scully scowls and continues down the hallway towards the bull pen. Diana Fowley never brings good news, so she’s not exactly surprised to find that Mulder is already starting to pack up for the day.

“Going somewhere?” she asks, glancing casually at her watch. It’s not even noon.

He flashes her a neutral look, nodding. “Maryland.”

She bites her cheek. “With Agent Fowley?”

If Mulder is surprised at her guess, he doesn’t show it, just yanks his suit jacket from his chair and swings it over his arm. “Yep.”

Scully frowns, stepping around the desk to block him from leaving. He sighs irritably and runs a hand across his jaw.

“What is it, Scully?” he asks with an impatient glance at the clock.

She tamps down the pesky surge of hurt that flashes through her. “Is there a case?”

“Yep.”

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

“It’s X-Files business,” he replies evasively.

“You aren’t on the X-Files anymore, Mulder.”

He shrugs. “Diana’s requested my expertise on this matter.”

“Just yours?”

“She doesn’t need a scientist around, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replies, finally making eye contact with her. “This is an investigation into a paranormal event. It’s not really up your alley.”

She balks, her eyebrows flying to her hairline. “Not up my alley? Really, Mulder?”

“You know what I mean,” he huffs aggravatedly. “Don’t take it the wrong way.”

But her hands are beginning to tremble. “Might I remind you that I was an equal partner on the X-Files for nearly five years, Mulder? That all we did was investigate the paranormal and the unexplained and the unsolved phenomena of our world? In fact, you might even be able to say that the paranormal has been my bread and butter for nearly half a decade.”

He rubs at his eyes so hard that she’s tempted to reach out and stop him. You’ll get wrinkles, she would have chided him a few months ago. Now, she simply stays silent.  

“Fine, come if you really want,” he says with a half-hearted shrug.

“Gee, what a warm invitation,” she snaps. She digs her fingernails into her palms, trying to tamp down her rising indignation. But it’s been building and building and building for so long, for so many weeks, and she’s not sure she has any control over it anymore.

Refusing to take the bait, he sighs. “Come if you must, Scully, but like I said, there’s no need. It’s just going to be me and Diana on this. Don’t waste your time on something that doesn’t involve you—”

“But I’m your partner—”

“We’re not partners,” he retaliates, so loudly that several people look up from their desks.

It’s a low blow, and the regret that briefly flashes across his face tells her that he knows it too. But he’s mostly right. They aren’t really partners, not anymore. Not in the way they were when they were investigating the X-Files.

Crossing her arms protectively across her chest, she lifts her eyes to meet his gaze. “So you have a new partner then?” She just barely resists adding, “someone leggy and buxom and brunette, perhaps?”

His jaw twitches. “Oh, don’t do this, Scully.”

“That’s not an answer, Mulder.”

He shakes his head and takes a step closer, dropping a large palm heavily across her shoulder. “You know Diana has been consulting with me since she took over the X-Files,” he says, speaking to her like she’s a child. Her stomach turns and she bites back the words she wants to say: no, I didn’t know that. “Those files mean everything to me, Scully, and you know that. I can’t say no to the opportunity to work on them just because that opportunity doesn’t involve you. Don’t hold me back here.”

The breath leaves her body. Stunned, she steps back, letting his hand slide off her shoulder. In her mind’s eye, she’s suddenly back in his hallway, many weeks ago. I’ve just held you back, she hears herself telling him. But you saved me! he replies earnestly. As difficult and as frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You’ve kept me honest . . . you’ve made me a whole person.

Did he mean any of it? Or was all of it just to keep her under his control?

Turning away from him, she tries to ignore the infuriating sting of tears building in her eyes. And if Mulder notices her pain, he doesn’t say anything. After a few seconds, when she’s sure she can look at him without crying, she tips her face up to his. Her mouth parts and she tries to speak, tries to say anything to recover her dignity. But emotions choke in her throat and she just drops her head again. She feels him step in close and this time, she can’t stop the tears that break over her lashes.

“Scully, come on, stop, I didn’t mean it like that,” he says earnestly, his palm falling to her back, his lips to her ear. In her mind, he is fucking her too roughly, too emotionlessly, too distantly. In her mind, he is falling asleep before she even has a chance to come. In her mind, she is sitting in the car crying as her body burns with pain.

“I’m sorry,” he continues, slipping his hand down to squeeze her waist. It is too familiar, and she flinches. “You don’t hold me back, Scully, you know that. But this case has potential and I’m finally feeling motivated about something. This is important to me.”

What he doesn’t say is plain enough: you’re no longer important to me.

She nods, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood. The taste of iron reminds her of the nosebleeds she used to get when the cancer was ravaging her body. If she had died then, would Mulder respect her more? She would have become like a martyr to his cause, someone to be revered and worshipped the rest of his life, like Samantha. If only she had succumbed then, maybe he would love her now.

“Scully,” he tries again, and she shakes her head.

“It’s fine,” she says a little too brightly, plastering on a fake smile and glancing up at him for good measure. All she knows right now is that he can’t see how badly he’s hurt her. To admit to that would be to admit that she cares about him far more than he cares about her. It is self-annihilation.

“It’s good,” she continues, her voice rising. “It’s good that you’re happy. That’s all I—that’s all I want, Mulder.”

And to her astonishment, he bends down and presses a quick kiss to her cheek. She recoils, shrinking towards the desk. By the time she recovers from her shock, he is already out the door.

[unremarkablehouse]

Thoughts from my FTF Day rewatch:

I would be passed out by the 20min mark if I followed the drinking game rules

Both Mulder and Scully have amazing hair in this movie

Scully evacuating the entire building in less than 5 minutes is awesome

Mulder thinks the building is about to explode and his instinct is to try and run back in, smh. Scully yelling at him ‘no’, like a bad puppy, only to have him listen is an underrated shipping moment

I know this is fiction, but I’m offended they’re trying to scapegoat Scully. If they hadn’t found the bomb everyone in the building would have died, I’m not following the logic of how they can be blamed.

Scully handing Mulder his suit jacket before his OPR hearing is such a wife move…

‘One is the loneliest number’, Mulder’s lack of game is adorable

Mulder shows up to Scully’s drunk at 3am and begs her to put clothes on. Worst. Booty call. Ever.

Also Mulder’s deflection “what are you implying?!” when Scully calls him on the fact that he’s shown up to her apartment drunk at 3am

“Take away that which he cannot live without…” so nice foreshadowing that you’re going to abduct Scully… but the bee was a total fluke, the consortium got lucky. This movie is confusing

Mulder and Scully talking to kids never fails to amuse me. Mom and Dad vibes all the way.

Tanker Trucks is said so many times in this movie it loses all meaning

Am I the only one distracted by how long Mulder and Scully go without changing clothes in this movie? Admittedly, I love that Scully went to her OPR meeting with corn husks in her hair and Skinner just looks at her like she’s doing the walk of shame…

It’s weird watching the hallway scene without them making out

Mulder’s so sweet when he’s rubbing Scully’s bee sting. His little apology when he thought Scully pulled away is such a cute vulnerable moment

Wait, if Mulder and Scully were both infected with the virus and then given the same vaccine, why was Mulder the only one affected by the artifact? The mythology arc is so confusing.

I feel ripped off that we never get to see how Mulder got to Antarctica.

It’s alarming how many times they inject each other with unknown substances on this show

‘I had you big time..’ ok, cute call back but does that mean Scully faked dying to get mouth to mouth?

Scully totally said ‘I see it..’ when the spaceship rose up

Aww, Mulder and Scully handholding got me in the feels

Happy FTF Day!!

[scullysexual]

You're Never Just Anything To Me (1)

@today-in-fic | ao3 | Prev. Chapter

A look into Mulder and Scully's relationship starting from Millennium going all the way up to Requiem.

I. Millennium.

His lips still tingled with the feeling of their kiss. Their first kiss. Mulder always imagined their first kiss would be when one of them was near death. He always imagined it to be sad, angsty, a moment too late when all was about to be taken away from them.

In the back of that truck, clutching tightly to her hand, the fungus eating away at his mind, believing he was going to die that he wishes they had kissed. A whole life gone by, a new turn in their relationship and he hadn’t even got a chance to kiss her. Somehow it made perfect sense.

But they hadn’t died. They had recovered. They were alive and together but Death still lingered around every corner, ready to take them at a moment’s notice. If they wanted to make the most of each other then they were going to have to go a little quicker. One night they agreed, Scully agreed, take the next step.

Until Cancer Man reappeared. Until Scully was suddenly in Africa and he became miles away. Maybe there wasn’t a next step, not for them. Every time they tried something happened, something got in the way.

But not tonight. Not tonight at 12am on the 1st January 2000. Tonight, Mulder was going to take the next step. What else could happen, he wondered. If the world was going to end let it happen while he kissed Scully.

The world didn’t end. Not theirs anyway. Scully had smiled and he knew then that their world was just beginning.

At 12:07 on the 1st January 2000, he leans, grinning to himself like an idiot, against the passenger side door clutching at his arm that was beginning to throb slightly in the background.

“So any big plans for tonight?” Mulder asks as Scully presumably drives him home.

“What do you mean?”

“Usually I won’t see you again until the 2nd. What do you normally do on New Year’s Eve. Or New Year’s Day?”

“Oh, uh…Well, normally I’ll go to my mom’s- Or Bill’s- for Christmas and stay there for New Year. We’ll celebrate and then I’ll drive home on New Year’s Day ready for work the day after.” She pauses, frowning. “What about you? What do you usually do?”

It dawns on the both of them that they have never had this conversation before. Mulder knew, to some extent, that Scully spent the holiday season with her family but he never knew she stayed that long. It made sense, her father’s dead was tangled up in the same week (With Emily’s not too far after), of course she would want to stay around her family as long as possible. He felt guilty for depriving her of that. The unplanned ghost hunting had her behind schedule by two days and while she went to her mother’s on Boxing Day she had returned on the 29th to him and an unofficial X-File case.

Mulder shrugs. “Watch some movies, maybe go after an unofficial X-File case. With everyone indoors it’s nice to feel like the only person on the planet.” He misses out the part where he says he wishes she had been with him during that time. Crouched in some forest in Nowhere, USA was lonely without his partner beside him.

“Oh, Mulder…” Scully says with a hint of sadness. “And you do that every year?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

There’s a pause then. Before Scully asks. “And what about this year?”

“What about it?”

“Is that your plan? Are you going to go off on some adventure tomorrow- later today?” There’s a hint of something in her voice, something Mulder can’t quite make out.

“Well usually I don’t have a broken arm at this time,” he says with a smile. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t think I was planning to go anywhere later today.”

An energy hangs in the air between them. Here they both there, annual plans changed, both in the same state, in the same city, at the same time.

Scully takes a sudden turn unexpectedly, bashing Mulder’s bad arm into the side of the door. He grimaces, looking around.

“This isn’t the way to my apartment,” he says as if he needs to say it at all.

“No. It’s the way to mine.”

…

A wine bottle clenched between her legs, Scully pulls the cork free gently, careful not to spill any of the wine. Music plays from the radio and a sense of déjà vu overcomes her. She was in this exact scenario almost three years ago but instead of a shape-shifting rapist on her couch, the real thing sits there. She smiles, watching him clutch at his arm and look around her apartment like it’s the first time he’s ever been there.

Scully pours two glasses and then makes her way back over to the couch. It’s late, almost 1am. Once upon a time she would’ve gone out, drank and danced until the very early hours of the new year, stumbled home and woke up with a hangover from hell the next day. Now it consists of being with her family and driving home on empty, lonely roads. She thinks of Mulder, of him traversing some random town in search of Bigfoot, an alien, the truth. She almost wishes she could’ve been there with him.

She coughs, catching his attention.

“I probably shouldn’t be giving you this,” she says holding the glass of wine out towards him. “You’re not supposed to mix alcohol and pills together.”

Mulder reaches for it anyway. “That was three hours ago, my arm is hurting. I promise I won’t take any pills until the alcohol is fully out of my system.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Scully says seating herself down on the opposite end of the couch.

They take a drink and Scully lets the wine warm up her body, filter itself all the way to her brain. She settles back, letting the warmth and the music and the alcohol consume her.

“So what’s this about?” Mulder asks.

“Hmm?”

“You were gonna take me home,” Mulder clarifies. “What changed your mind?”

“Here we are together on New Year’s Day for the first time.” She takes another sip of her drink. “Together,” she emphasises and Mulder quirks up an eyebrow, grinning. “It just felt right to spend it…together.”

Mulder nods taking a sip of his own drink.

“And we’ve never actually done this,” Scully adds. “Not…me and you anyway.”

Mulder looks at her and a smile crosses his lips. He too is thinking of Eddie van Blundht.

“I’m glad you changed your mind, Scully.”

She smiles behind her wineglass knowing he wasn’t just referring to her inviting him around tonight.

“Me, too,” she says her lips still tingling with the remnants of his kiss. She wants him to do it again. Then she remembers she can do it too.

But she doesn’t. She takes another sip of her wine, the last drain and when she finishes it, gets up to grab herself another one- remembering to bring the bottle over with her when she comes back.

....

They are three glasses of wine in and a fourth sits in their hands. It’s approaching 4am, the CD has stopped playing and Scully’s feet are bare and his in lap, he keeps his arm away from her jostling feet as he listens to stories from her childhood of the new year.

He feels warm and fuzzy, the pain in his arm long gone, lulling himself into a trance, watching his finger trace up and down the arch of Scully’s foot.

Scully has suddenly gone quiet and he looks over at her. Her head rests on her hand, her eyes hooded but looking at him in that alcohol-induced tired way.

“Sleepy?” he asks.

Scully nods letting out a tired sigh. “I’m usually in bed by 10pm. 10:30 if you decide to call.”

Another bout of guilt courses through his body. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he grins letting him know she’s joking. “I like it when you call.”

Love and happiness blooms in his chest. He smiles at her and she is smiling back. Then his eyes fall to her lips and he’s overcome with the desire to kiss her. He reminds himself that it’s okay to kiss her now but he still teeters on the edge of uncertainty.

Mulder swallows. “Scully, can I…” He sees her watching him, her breath caught in her throat. “Can I kiss you?”

“Please,” she barely says. It falls from her mouth like a whisper.

She removes her feet from his lap as he hovers, one-handed, over her, lower part of her body resting between the V of her legs. His lips descend on hers, tasting the wine on her lips and on her tongue. He drinks her in, craving more. Her arms wrap around his torso, her hips lifting off the couch.

She jostles his arm and a searing pain shoots through it. The kiss is broken and Mulder yelps out in pain, grasping his arm. Scully sits up, a worried, sorry look on her face.

“I’m sorry. Maybe we should wait,” she says.

Mulder shakes his head, the pain in his arm subsiding, the semi in his pants making itself known. He doesn’t want to stop. He’s tasted her now and he wants more.

“It’s fine, we’ll figure out a way.” He stops then. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself. They only just got to the next step, what if he was moving too fast.

But one look at Scully and he knows she’s on the same page.

“I’ll be careful.”

…

This is Mulder, she thinks over and over again as he kisses her.

It’s 4:30am on New Year’s Day and Mulder stands in her bedroom, a head full of wine, sleep fog skirting the edges of her brain. What if what they’re doing is wrong? What if this changes everything? What if this fucks up their partnership? Would they even be able to recover.

Mulder pulls away, frowning. “Are you okay?”

She looks up at him then. Mulder. Her one in five billion. Her constant. Her touchstone. This could never be wrong, she thinks.

“Yes,” she answers and she kisses him again, careful not to catch his broken arm.

Tiredness of alcohol propel her forward. Without breaking their kiss she tugs at his t-shirt, helping him manoeuvre it around his sling. He chucks it to the side and then makes a start on her sweater. When it’s off he stares at her in awe. Why, she has no idea. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before; their first case, the countless times he’s walked in on her mid-dressing because he refused to knock on their adjoined door (to be fair, she could’ve locked it but she’d be lying if she said the thrill of him walking in on her didn’t turn on her) In those instances, he’d quickly averted his gaze, muttered a trail of apologies and he spun around. Now there was no need to apologise, now he could stare until his heart’s content.

While he does, Scully’s attention turns to his sweatpants. Unchartered waters lay beyond two pieces of clothing. She places her hand on his hips, testing the water, trails her fingers along his waistband. Mulder waits, allowing her this time, a gentle nod to say it’s okay.

A lip caught between her teeth, she pulls at the waistband, yanking his sweatpants down, boxers too.

She gasps when his cock springs free, her mouth suddenly dry, and hands itching to reach out and touch. Not yet.

Scully’s hands go to the button of her jeans as Mulder pulls his own pants off him completely. He stands there, completely naked, in her bedroom. This is Mulder, she realises once more.

Not before long, they both stand there naked in the moonlight aside from his sling. Mulder sighs, falling down to his knees as he pulls her closer, inhaling the skin at her naval.

“Scully…” he says looking up at her, his chin resting just under her stomach. “I need…Can I…?”

It suddenly dawns on Scully just what he’s asking. She lets out a surprised “Oh!” suddenly feeling like an inexperienced teenager. “I guess so…If you want to…?”

Mulder wastes no time. He guides them back towards her bed, pulling her gently down atop of it. Once she is seated, he kneels between her legs, his face millimetres from her centre.

Scully waits, holding in a breath, as he leans forward and…

She clutches the bedding, a moan escaping her lips as Mulder’s tongue slides through her folds. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt anything like it. Her body falls back onto the bed as Mulder moves up towards her clit. He bites it like one of his sunflower seeds, trying to break the shell, then he soothes it with his tongue, sucks it with his mouth. Scully’s breathing becomes more erratic, she can’t stop the gyrate of her hips.

Her orgasm breaks like a dam, she feels it through her entire body. It surges through her and escapes from her mouth as a cry. She hopes her neighbours are out tonight.

Mulder gently guides her through the aftershocks, knowing to stay well away from her clit as he helps her ride the lingering effects of her orgasm. He kisses his way back up her body, coming to lay down next to her, the effects of her post-orgasm making her twitch every so slightly. He kisses her shoulder, rests his chin against the spot.

“Was that okay?” he asks sounding so unsure, as if she hasn’t just had the most mind-blowing orgasm of her life.

Scully rolls towards him with a bewildered smile across her face. Hazy, and sleepy, and drunk, her orgasm still sending little tremors through her body. “Are you kidding me?” she asks and then she is kissing him. The taste of herself and the wine making her want more as she rolls him fully onto his back.

“How’s your arm?” she asks, hovering over him.

“Fuck my arm,” he answers simply, his mouth devouring her again. Scully laughs, pulling away.

“I can think of fucking something better.”

She grasps him by the base, not harshly, slowly pumping her hand up and down. His free hand tightens around the hip.

“I wish I could hold you with both hands,” he says with longing.

“Give it 6 to 8 weeks and you can.”

Her cock beneath her, she slowly sinks herself onto it.

“I can’t wait—Fuck, Scully…”

His nails bite into her side as Scully lets herself adjust around him, wincing at the slightest of pain as she stretches to accommodate him.

“You okay?” he asks, looking at her with concern.

“Yeah just…give me a second.”

“Sure.”

She clenches around him, trying to ease the sting.

“If it helps, you feel fucking amazing.”

Scully reopens her eyes, looking down at him. His hand is squeezing her side and she realises how hard he’s trying to not move. She smiles at his patience and his care, feeling a sudden burst of love and appreciation for him surge through her.

She chances moving, slowly at first, feeling the pull and the release. Eventually the stinging eases, making way for the pleasure that blooms through her core.

“Are you close?” Mulder asks through gritted teeth.

And she is, she is right there, there’s just something missing.

“Nearly. I need…”

She doesn’t need to finish her sentence; Mulder knows. His thumb against her clit, he circles at a fast pace. She’ll show him how she likes it one day, perhaps not tonight, but another time, they have a lifetime. For now it works, she falls over the edge and three thrusts later Mulder in following her.

It's 05:17 when they finally fall asleep. She’s peed and cleaned and lays snuggled between her sheets, her head resting against Mulder’s good arm. She feels satisfied, sated in a way she hasn’t felt for years. Mostly she feels safe and happy, secure in her bed, in Mulder’s arms.

…

Sleep still curls around the edges. There’s a pleasant ache between her legs, the feel of cotton sliding against her bare skin. Memories of New Year kisses, wine, and a distinct smell of sex come to her and she is reminded of Mulder’s presence.

Scully rolls towards the other side intending to find a sleeping Mulder, to snuggle up into his warmth and fall back asleep.

What she is greeted with instead is an empty side and cool sheets. A panic grips her. Did he go home without telling her goodbye?

“…Yeah, I’ll call her as soon as and tell her.” Mulder’s voice drifts through the partially open door. “Of course. Happy New Year to you too, sir.”

Scully opens her eyes slightly to find a shirtless blurred Mulder standing in her doorway. She smiles happily.

“Morning Sunshine,” he says as he places his cell phone on the dresser and wanders towards her.

“Morning,” she answers croakily. She lays back down, diagonal, her head on the pillow Mulder slept on. She feels the bed dip beside her, an arm wrap around her pulling her closer. She inhales the clean detergent smell of Mulder’s sweatpants.

“How’s your arm?” she asks eyes still closed, arms wrapping around his waist.

“Better,” Mulder answers. “I took some more painkillers so I should be okay for some time. How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”

“Yeah, late night last night, huh.” She hears the grin in Mulder’s voice.

“Who was on the phone?”

“Skinner. He’s got a case for us.”

Her heart sinks. “Today?” Today was their day off, she had zero intention of spending it anywhere other than this bed. Preferably with Mulder in it.

“No, silly.” His hand cascades through her hair, playing with the tresses. “It’s not urgent. It’s on our desk for tomorrow.”

His ministrations are half lulling her back to sleep.

“What are you doing today?” Scully asks. She waits, barely daring to breathe, awaiting his answer.

“Well unless you’re planning on kicking me out, I was gonna stay here. Watch a movie, hang out with you.”

“Just hang out?” Her eyes are open now, looking up at him.

“Well,” he answers with a grin. “I wouldn’t mind doing some other things.” His hand starts to trail downwards, venturing as far as he can reach which is around her mid back. “And then maybe order some food. Unless you’re sick of me then feel free to get dressed, drive me home, and then I’ll leave you to your day.”

She had no intention of leaving this bed for another hour much less kicking him out, getting dressed, and driving him home. She makes her point clear by snuggling deeper into the sheets and into him.

“Later maybe,” she says with her eyes closing. “I’m still tired.”

“Don’t let me interfere with your sleep habits.”

Scully starts to drift off again to the lull of Mulder’s fingers grazing her back and his spicy, sleepy scent flooding her nostrils.

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

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Season Three Master Post

We’ve come to the conclusion of a momentous season! From some of the most iconic episodes to some of the most beloved characters, season three was full of intense chapters!

Check out this thread to see all the characters we got to meet!

3x01 | The Blessing Way - The Well-Manicured Man (@fridaysat9

They were all living on the precipice of the end of the human race, but they were only concerned with jobs, school assignments, and playdates.

Life, as it should be.

3x02 | Paper Clip - Victor Klemper (@monikafilefan)

The offspring of a rebel syndicate member unearthing truths Victor has spent decades trying to bury beneath buttercups and begonias has marked him for certain death.

3x03 | D.P.O. - Darin Peter Oswald (@gaycrouton)

His friend was scared of him, and it made Darin feel powerful.

3x04 | Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose - Clyde Bruckman (@fridaysat9)

A funny thing happens when you see your own death. At first you try to make sense of it– what could it mean, why the tears, why her? Then you try to change it.

3x05 | The List - Dr. Juan Ullrich (@monikafilefan)

Juan fidgets with an evidence bag, trying not to blatantly stare at the agents holding an entire conversation with their eyes while systematically categorizing every sway of their bodies, every touch of her hands.

3x06 | 2Shy - Lauren MacKalvey (@gaycrouton)

2SHY > You have no idea how beautiful I think you are. I must confess… I feel inextricably drawn to you. I can’t stop thinking about what you said the other day… You don’t deserve to feel lonely, Lauren.

3x07 | The Walk - Leonard 'Rappo' Trimble (@admiralty-xfd)

Every night, he walks again. And every morning he wakes in the same bed with the same phantom pain. Every day he wishes he’d just died; that explosion that didn’t quite kill him cost him his life, anyway.

3x08 | Oubliette - Lucy Householder (@monikafilefan)

She has to go. It’s all so clear now. She has to go back. Through the woods, through the house — into the dark. Maybe she was never meant to leave it at all.

3x09 | Nisei - Penny Northern (@gaycrouton)

It was the strength of these women that got her through those experiences, and it was the strength of these women that would help her embark on this dark path they were all destined to walk.

3x10 | 731 - First Elder (The Well-Fed Man) (@admiralty-xfd)

The one thing that can be manipulated more effectively than any other is her fear of the unknown… of what happened to her last year.

3x11 | Revelations - Owen Lee Jarvis (@fridaysat9)

He gave of himself, abandoning what little life he’d had, to honor God’s words and do as he had been called.

3x12 | War of the Coprohages - Dr. Bambi Berenbaum (@gaycrouton)

Bambi felt a flush spread across her chest as his hypothesis brought a smile to her face. Hearing that he hadn’t been merely indulging her earlier was a refreshing change of pace.

3x13 | Syzygy - Detective Angela White (@admiralty-xfd)

Detective White stops as Agent Scully finally glances over at her, somewhat defensively. And then she gets it. Everything about the way she’s been treated since the agents arrived makes perfect sense.

3x14 | Grotesque - Agent Bill Patterson (@fridaysat9)

Patterson figured that Mulder might have a theory about a potential copycat killer, but no; he’d been researching gargoyles and goblins. Monsters recorded in dusty old tomes pulled from the library shelves.

3x15 | Piper Maru - Kimberly (@monikafilefan)

Kimberly Cook is good at her secretarial job. So when the man she’s been working closely with for two years is troubled, she refuses to let him file the feeling away like some confidential case in his cabinet.

3x16 | Apocrypha - Luis Cardinal (@admiralty-xfd)

The Scully woman is not simply angry, she’s unhinged. And there’s a small part of him that understands; it’s the part of him that, prior to working for the Smoker, had never been asked to shoot an innocent woman before.

3x17 | Pusher - Agent Frank Burst (@fridaysat9)

Frank doesn’t care if he has to tell him his mother’s maiden name and his favorite breakfast cereal if it means getting his location.

3x18 | Teso Dos Bichos - Officer (@monikafilefan)

He doesn’t get paid enough for this shit.

3x19 | Hell Money - Hsin Shuyang (@gaycrouton)

The gods might not be listening, but the devil was waiting for him down the street, ready to play a game with all the men whose American dreams had turned into nightmares.

3x20 | Jose Chung's From Outer Space - Detective Manners (@fridaysat9)

That's a bleepin' dead alien body, if I ever bleepin' saw one.

3x21 | Avatar - Carina Sayles (@monikafilefan)

She can tell he doesn’t do this. Doesn’t drink alone in a bar, letting a stranger slowly seduce him.

3x22 | Quagmire - Queequeg (@gaycrouton)

Queequeg was loved.

3x23 | Wetwired - 'Doctor' Stroman (@admiralty-xfd)

Another town, another test, another shitty motel room… but always the same boss.

3x24 | Talitha Cumi - Teena Mulder (@monikafilefan)

If only Bill had known back then that the untrustworthy person he was referring to would sleep with his wife and father his son.

Stay tuned for more perspectives coming in Season Four!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

[randomfoggytiger]

X-Files Collector’s Edition: Fics That Deserve More Comments (Part III)

Here we are again: Part III, a list dedicated to all the fics that are (unfortunately) not given enough attention for their different achievements.

Loose chronological order below~

@pilotinthestars's (Ao3) a green nursery (Ao3)

The convenience store worker said and did nothing but eye him up and down. He supposed most tuxedo-clad men didn’t come into this establishment for the purpose of buying pregnancy tests for the little black dress-clad women they had brought with them.

AU-- Hollywood A.D. Mulder realizes Scully's new symptoms add up to pregnancy. He convinces her to take a test; and both are relieved and delighted that the night ends-- literally-- on a positive note.

@enigmaticdrblockhead's

Mountains Crumble to the Sea

...I’m scared.

God?

//God is a spectator-//

Ah, right, I remember. Is He watching, are You watching, is anyone watching? //He just reads the box scores.// Baseball, I loved- no love, baseball; I’m not dead yet.

But I can’t remember and it hurts. I can’t remember what your voice sounds like, it hurts so much. I can’t remember what anything sounds like. All I can hear, is pounding in my head. Loud and slow, once methodical but now erratic.

What will happen to me after this?

TINH Mulder is relentlessly tortured, thoughts rambling away as his body slowly "dies."

AliveDead

He is nothing but empty pockets. Leaning against the stone building he sits and watches them go by. Moving forward and walking past, they ignore his plight and give only isolation....

His right hand almost seems stiff. Fingers are curved upward to show a gray palm. He begs for whatever they can give. He is never lucky.

AU-- Deadalive Mulder is returned, sick and amnesiac, to wander the streets without knowing where to go.

Darkness (brief)

I feel like I’m falling down to earth and floating up to the heavens at the same time.

I’m tempted to blame someone but I can’t. My training exposed me to this, but like most things I chose to ignore it.

Three Words Mulder has risen from the dead horrified, not awed.

Ascension

He must be weak, either that or they drugged him. His feet drag towards me and his masked face hangs low. He trips on a bump in the carpet and tumbles at my feet. The father kneeling before the son....

The way his body lunges forward every second or two, tells me that he’s out of breath or perhaps he’s in pain. The blanche, plastic mask with small slits fixates on me. It doesn’t stop and he doesn’t struggle. He isn’t shaking or attempting to break free like all the others. He just breaths and watches me. 

Stop it. Stop watching me. Look down. Look away. Don’t watch me in this moment. The moment where I kill you.

AU-- Colonization was thorough and unyielding; and Will, like all other children under the regime, must kill his father to "ascend."

Looking Forward to the Abyss

“People think when you die, you go to heaven or hell. But people never think about what happens if you come back.

“Well, Mrs. Scully…I do. Because I did die, on a case. They killed me, and they foolishly thought to bring me back. They were religious too…although…”

He couldn’t help but smile now. It was a joke and he knew the punchline. How could he not smile.

AU-- Mulder, demonic and unrepentant, recounts the horror he was forced to inflict on Scully... and the unhinged revenge he doled out afterward.

@spookytheory's Fire, But Better

Fox Mulder’s sharp smile strikes across Dana. She ignites, the flames spelling out her new titles: FBI Agent. Spy. Scully. Scully emerges from the fire, brushing the ashes of deference from her shoulder pads.

Pilot Scully is trying to put Daniel Waterston and her past behind her, easing into the newness of being referred to constantly by her "father's" name.

@fabulouspatsystone's

I don't want that anymore

His heart sinks into his entrails and becomes heavy as stone. Who is she talking to and, even more important, what is she saying? The air around him seems to disappear and all he can hear is a distant muffled humming. He feels like he’s under water and everything just rushes by. All he manages is to hold on to the mail he collected with a tight grip.

S1 Mulder overhears and misinterprets Scully's phone call. He fumes, then silently figures it out.

Unnamed

She was gone all day. They hauled her off to Quantico early this morning leaving him with a short message on his answering machine that she will not be in today. She sounded sleepy and a little cranky, probably hadn’t have her coffee yet. And she sounded adorable.

Mulder, bummed after a case, thinks about his love for Scully's smiles, notes, and little quirks and habits.

Unnamed

Mulder’s voice sounded way to chipper for this hour. He pretended and she knew.

Mulder messed up the filing system; and successfully bribes Scully to help him out later.

Something Better

“A curious fella you got there, sweetheart. And very handsome...how do you get anything done?”

“Excuse me?” The surprise about this question made her choke on her last bite.

Even the old lady handing out gingerbread cookies asks why Scully and her young man are investigating Christmas trees instead of enjoying each other's company.

On the Outside

He walks by her apartment. Not by accident or by chance, but on purpose. He's never been in there but he's been here on this side of her street looking up. It is usually dark, no sign of life, just glass windows that hide her loneliness behind closed curtains.

Breakup Mulder roams to Scully's, surprised to note how dull and Christmas-less it looks.

@pedalinginhummus's

Happened Before

"Oho, Scully!” He said as he lifted her arm by the elbow towards the ceiling. “Don’t get too comfy as the medical doctor on this team. I think I can give you a run for your money with this,” he said proudly, admiring his work.

Mulder helps Scully bandage her wound; and the two start their tradition of thumb warring after injuries.

Unnamed

With a muffled voice she says “If only you could grow another hand out of your chest,” aching to feel pressure at every angle.

Mulder chuckles. “Kind of like in Alien?"

Post Memento Mori Scully has a headache; and allows Mulder to massage it away.

@blackcoffeeandteardrops’s (Ao3)

XF episode: Die Hand Die Verletzt?

“The human mind can be very persuasive, Scully. There are documented cases of people under hypnosis or otherwise suggestive activities doing things they report they normally wouldn’t do. Things like driving a car four hours away in the dead of night, buying an excessive amount of cheese, and in one case, even getting married,” he said, not missing the way she sighed.

Post Die Hand De Verletzt Scully calls Mulder, nervous about Mrs. Paddock out and about.

I know it’s probably been done before but Three Words for your episode prompt

There’s a silence that settles between them, a solid weight that somehow does not feel heavy. For a few moments, Mulder swears his ears are ringing. “In Oregon,” he replies, leaning in. He furrows his brow, slowly putting the pieces together.

AU-- Three Words Mulder wants space but goes to Scully's apartment with a frog blanket, anyway. He has no memories of his torture; and is thrilled to find out that the baby is his.

Home To Me

“Hi baby,” she said, planting a kiss against his hair. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled him close, drinking in the scent of of his No More Tears Shampoo. She tucked the tag of his pajamas back in and carded a hand through his auburn curls, preemptively mourning the day his hair would straighten out. They did the best they could with him, but she knew they couldn’t keep him young forever.

AU-- Mulder, Scully, and Will enjoy life as a family, bedtime stories and Quantico opportunities included.

Better Now (Ao3) 

“I know it sounds odd, Mulder, but considering everything we’ve been through, I’m glad to see us facing something so...normal.”

“Be that as it may,” Mulder replied, setting the bowl of soup in his lap. He held a spoon of broth to his lips, blowing on it before taking a taste.

AU-- Scully catches a cold; and Will brings her purple flowers.

Dulcet (Ao3)

Beside her, William gasped, his eyes honing in on a water gun that had been left on the ground a few feet away. He sprinted to get it and ran right back to Scully, shaking it near his ear, listening for the sound of water sloshing around inside. “Here, mom, it's still got water in it,” he said, his cheeks red and his breathing heavy from the exertion of running. “Get him!”

AU-- Will's 5th birthday: water balloons and Toy Story reruns.

Reprieve

Tucked between the pages of the books was a picture of William and Scully, one he’d taken the day before he left. He knew it was in the book, knew it because every night before he fell asleep, he’d hold the picture and stare at their faces, and he’d hope he’d see them soon. The picture had been a source of comfort before, a talisman that kept him grounded and reminded him why he had to keep fighting, but seeing it again filled him with something kin to sadness mixed with anger. He closed the book as the bus took off, and he stared out the window, trying to convince himself the anger wasn’t at Scully, but rather at the impossible situation they’d been faced with.

AU-- Post William Mulder calls up Skinner for information, tracking down Will just in time to save his son from murderous operatives. Scully panics, angered, at first; but the two eventually reconcile.

Small Steps

 Still, the ice between them had been thawing, especially since they’d returned to the FBI together, but Mulder remained afraid that he’d somehow be overstepping his bounds. He turns to offer something lighthearted instead, but stops, reaching out to grasp her arm & get her to stop walking. “Scully, you’ve got a little something--” he trails off, free hand gesturing up to his own face.

Revival Scully's nose bleeds after she and Mulder conclude a case. He panics, dabbing at it with his tie. Both hope it's just the high altitude.

Mashed Potatoes

“My mother used to make mashed potatoes every year. Some of the other side dishes would change, depending upon what ingredients were available or how many people would be present, but her mashed potatoes stayed the same,” she said, worrying the surface of the coin as she stared off into the distance. She didn’t come to until she felt something pressing against her waist, not realizing at first that William had crossed the room to pull her into a hug.

AU-- My Struggle II William and Scully talk about their individual losses fondly, eventually waking up a recovering Mulder.

Enough For Now

When Scully brought in the flyer advertising for the local county fair, she never expected anything to come of it. She’d laid it on the table with the other junk mail she’d go through whenever she had the time, taking care to save any coupons that might prove useful. But when William sat at the table one night for dinner, he pulled it from the stack, talking about how back in Wyoming they’d go almost every year when he was a kid, and she knew before he even asked that they’d go.

AU-- My Struggle III Mulder, Scully, and William start bonding as a family while visiting the fair: basketball, roller coasters, and pizza.

Keep On Wanting

 Mulder reaches for her seatbelt, unclipping it, and when he gets out to open her door, she lets him lead her inside.

Mulder takes her coat, hanging it on the rack by the door, before doing the same thing with his own, even though it’s still caked with blood. He’ll handle it later, either by having it cleaned or burning it, he’s not sure which. 

Post My Struggle IV Mulder calms a chilled, anxious Scully. Both feel hopeful after a good night's rest.

Livewire (Ao3)

“Who says I need protecting? I was just shot because that creep thought I was you,” Jackson replied, trying but failing to push away from him.

Any other time, that response would’ve pained Mulder more than it did, but he looped an arm around his son’s shoulders and started wading back toward the docks, determined to get them there with or without Jackson’s help.

AU-- Post My Struggle IV Mulder drags Jackson out of the water, refusing to let his son leave before they've all ironed things out.

Commonplace

He couldn’t see her face, but if he could, Mulder was almost certain there would be tears in her eyes. After everything they’d been through in the last year, that fact wouldn’t be a surprise. “I’m just as concerned as you, Scully. The best thing we can do for him now is to work as hard as we possibly can to keep him safe. To protect the best thing that’s ever happened to either of us.”

Post My Struggle IV Mulder and Scully are delighted to have Jackson around, lightly parenting him about bedtime and schooling.

Little By Little

Despite the added inch or two the skates gave her, as Scully caught up to William and he laid a hand on her shoulder, it occurred to her again of how much taller than her he was. “Are you having a good time? If you want to go faster, you don’t have to wait for me or Mulder, you know. Just be careful,” she said, though she secretly hoped he wouldn’t.

Post My Struggle IV Jackson bonds with his parents over ice skating and last names.

Signs of Light

 It wasn’t until several months passed, until they’d begun to creep past the awkwardness that came with getting to know the teenage son whose entire life they’d missed, that she even mentioned the headaches.

It’s nothing, Mulder, I’m fine, Scully had said, pinching the bridge of her nose and fanning her face with a file as they sat outside a warehouse, waiting on a suspect to exit the building. 

AU-- Revival Scully's cancer returns. Mulder refuses to promise to stop searching for a cure; and Jackson slowly starts hanging around, warming up to his parents.

@mchalowitz​’s (Ao3)

fic; un-mulder

It’s so un-Mulder, embellished with white detailing, small pine pones. There’s little gifts attached and a few are just hanging swatches of metallic paper, the clear result of curious fingers in years long past. 

The wreath rustles against the door as it swings open. There’s a bright smile on Mulder’s face. 

Pre-TGTSC Mulder surprises Scully with a Christmas door wreath.

after

Being the believer in the office is exhausting. 

Scully is telling him as much, even giving some actual merit to being one with the unbelievable views, when she notices Mulder is sleeping upright, his head propped up with his hand.

She slides herself to the edge of the couch to push herself up but feels his hand on her arm. 

“I’m awake,” Mulder insists, “I was listening.” 

Post Vienen Scully is glad Mulder is back, even if he is pushing and pulling away from impending parenthood like a pendulum.

34 + 28 msr for the OTP prompt List 💚💚

Remain calm. That’s what all the pregnancy books say.

AU-- S8 Mulder and Scully are horrified over a pregnancy complication.

hack job

Scully’s rarely frantic. The peaceful foil to her overwrought partner. Russians seized their home and she careened over the side of the porch level headed. 

She’s pulling drawers open so hard they’re coming off their tracks. They crash to the floor. She finds a pair of scissors in the third one. They’re not for hair cutting but they’ll have to work. 

Revival Scully gives herself an emergency haircut while Mulder burns critical evidence.

fic; a little snow

She heads down to start the coffee maker and adjust the finicky heater. Every morning she descends those stairs, thinking the man she loves will have returned to her.

Pre-IWTB Scully, though worried for her partner, is heartened a little when Mulder warms up her car and shovels out the driveway.

@lovesicks4pphic's (Ao3) Effective Communication (Ao3)

“Sir, you can’t seriously think this is a good use of our time?”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t think, Mulder. Besides, I know full well the two of you bailed on the last seminar you were supposed to attend.” 

Scully felt Mulder’s eyes dart in her direction. 

AU-- Post Triangle Kersh forces Mulder and Scully to attend a conference, which causes Scully to unduly overthink in anguish. Mulder is clueless; but the two work it out and take their relationship to the next level.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[baronessblixen]

Hi Anika! What are your top 10 or top 20 favorite TXF episodes? If you have time, maybe you can briefly say why you like them? I love hearing your thoughts.

Hi anon! There are so many good episodes. I have a few core favorites and a few that seem to change around a bit. They're in no particular order - and my thoughts are basically "Mulder and Scully are hot/cute/adorable" 😁

The Pine Bluff Variant - it's so good. I feel like it's underrated. Mulder trying to keep a secret from Scully! Mulder running! Scully setting his finger! Her following him!! It also has the whole "evil government" aspect to it.

Wetwired - another underrated episode! It's a monster-of-the-week episode but with mytharc elements. Scully being affected and becoming paranoid is amazing. And Mrs. Scully is in the episode too, of course!

Bad Blood - I mean that's a given, right? I like the comedy of it and I love the whole he said/she said spiel. It's a very fun episode.

Rain King - another fun episode. As a huge rom-com fan this one has to make my list. It's cute. I love Mulder and Scully being mistaken for a couple by *everyone*. Not to mention the room sharing and Scully's speech.

Pilot - I think this episode sets the show up so well. Mulder and Scully as baby agents meeting for the first time and bonding and clashing immediately. What's not to love?

Redux 2: I can't tell you why I love this episode so much. Or the whole three parter really. All I know is that for a while when I was a kid I watched it almost daily. It's Mulder crying at her hospital bed and both of them fighting their own fight and Scully going into remission.

Colony/End Game - I often forget about this episode but the mytharc in the early seasons was really good. Fake Mulder hurting Scully and then real Mulder choosing Scully over (fake) Samantha is so much drama and I LOVE it. The whole Mulder and his family part is heartbreaking.

Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip - I cannot tear these episodes apart. They belong together. From Mulder being drugged to Scully shooting him and driving gim across country, being a total badass, to thinking he died and then losing her sister. There's so much here.

Squeeze - I just enjoy season one so much. They're all comfort episodes to me (except Space. That episode can fuck off). I love the case, I love Scully's answer when Colton asks her whose side she's on. Scully saying Mulder is territorial. I know it's not a two-parter per se, but I have to mention Tooms here, too, cause technically I like that one even better (that MSR moment in the car alone!).

Memento Mori - it's as heartbreaking as it is brilliant. Gillian is amazing in it and Scully choosing to fight is everything to me. As is that hug at the end. And Mulder watching her walk away. That one's just sad.

Demons - one of my absolute favorites. Yes, psrt of it is Mulder being a burrito at the beginning and him being insanely hot in jeans and a white t-shirt. But I also like seeing how far he's willing to go for this quest. Scully being worried sick (and she IS sick in late season 4 😭) is a bonus.

Je Souhaite - another fun episode. No one is dying. Well, Anson Stokes dies, but he doesn't count. Scully and her invisible man are so precious. The ending of course. Mulder being a sweetie, asking for world peace and then looking for Scully.

Detour - I love the case and suspense with person after person going missing. The beginning with them and the other two agents in the car is so funny. The singing of course and the whole raining sleeping bags thing. My personal favorite though is Mulder jumping into that hole to be with Scully.

I'm gonna stop here and do a few honorable mentions: The Jersey Devil, Dreamland 1+2, Jose Chung's From Outer Space, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, War of the Coprophages, Ice, Pusher(!) and Aqua Mala.

This got long. This show has way too many good episodes! I know I forgot several that I love.