#that is 'scully was raped and mulder was tortured'

[figureofdismay]

Anyway, I'll say this on main, with the abduction as abuse and consent violations metaphor that threads through the entire X-Files plot, and I feel like we could do more to occasionally acknowledge the fact that Cancerman can very easily be seen as a subtextual groomer figure in Mulder's life. In both senses of the word. Who has been in the perifery of his life since his childhood or adolescence.

Maybe he was a twisted paternal voyeur who always watched from a distance. Maybe the implied tests and memory suppression continued the metaphor commensurate with the female victims in the show. As it did with Mulder's adult abductions.

I'm in no way denying the medical rape subtext or plot around Scully, and obviously her story is much more explicit. I just find it interesting that the consent violations Mulder goes through, and the long term directly predatory presence of Cancerman hovering over him tends to get a different, less confronting framing in the show and in fic and analysis.

I put some of this subtext into a thing I was writing, and then I took it out because I was worried it would be too dark and off-putting, and then I stopped working on the fic altogether. But whether or not I go back to it eventually, I feel like I want to do more and see more about how mulder is a survivor of having his consent and free will regularly violated, long term in whatever literal or metaphorical ways, and how it contributes to his sense of powerlessness and also his belief that everything wrong is all his fault somehow because he hasn't figured out how to stop it, and also his totally unbalanced scale of risk versus reward.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

rewatched small potatoes, and jesus christ, what a premise for your lighthearted comedy episode 😡

[randomfoggytiger]

My thoughts on the Chris Carter discourse.

I think I sit on the fence regarding the gendered violence issue in The X-Files. Yet, I also recognize CC's shortcomings-- pouring his energy into being a provocateur rather than a coherent show writer.

**Note**: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. This is mine.

The show's violence against women isn't skewered in a sexist, one-way direction to me: gendered violence is perpetrated against both sexes equally; and the male cast and crew even joked about Mulder constantly getting beat up or tortured during CC's mytharc episodes. Not only that, but children and men as well as women are kidnapped or abducted and raped (or mind raped) and tortured and killed in equal measure.

The problem begins and ends, I believe, with Chris's ego. He views his show as a SHOW, not a beloved series cherished by fans. To him, Mulder and Scully and their children are literal paper dolls he created and played (plays) with like the Sims-- lighting them on fire, putting them through insane or ridiculous scenarios, and always resetting them back to normal at the end.

The "problem" is, the fans do not see Mulder and Scully as Sims models (pardon the references, got into the game lately) but as living, breathing characters with blood, sweat, and tears poured into their portrayals. Gillian took the role seriously and wanted it to make sense; and fans felt her passion and dedication, and honored the years she put in at her own inconvenience (over and over.)

David doesn't mind following CC's creative vision-- he views art differently than GA, and that's just fine, too. The difference is (I believe): Chris Carter honors David's viewpoint because it aligns with his own; but sloughs off, ignores, or discredits Gillian's because it opposes his.

Chris Carter has an ego (he does, it is what it is); and that rubs audiences the wrong way when they contrast his actions towards DD (letting him read scripts earlier than Gillian, likely knowing David'll give a "wow, interesting" rather than outright critical remark) and GA (who sacrificed a lot to come back and was pretty much ignored every step of the way, even now.) David shrugs off what Chris writes for his character-- which is fine, that's his prerogative-- while Gillian does not-- which is also fine, that's her prerogative. Chris, however, does not treat them equally.

I say this not to hate on Chris. I dislike him, but I respect the characters, show, and world of The X-Files. All things being fair, it was his brainchild.

However: every person that will ever exist has their own perspective, feelings, and emotions regarding what they do or don't love. Fans and Gillian wanted The X-Files to make sense, to honor its characters, to craft an unforgettable journey between two unforgettable characters. Chris Carter did not-- which, again, is fine. But where he continues to fail is by throwing jabs at perspectives other than his own.

Because when you create a timeline that makes no logical sense (powered by plot twists that also make no logical sense) and expect your lead actress and fans who have spent time and energy and money on your franchise not to give you criticism or express their disappointment (and even anger)-- and, further, imply they "don't get it" or aren't "real fans" because of said criticisms-- then...

That's where you (Chris Carter) have a problem.

[deathsbestgirl]

i don't remember why i was thinking about this but i remember being surprised by some people's reactions to mulder killing people in the revival. like some situations were literally kill or be killed, and he's not letting scully die or leaving her behind. these people were all after them or their son — to me, this is growth. in the original run, both of them have pretty strong reactions to killing. they don't regret it at all when it's to save the other. but it isn't something they're okay with, they struggle with it. (i do remember seeing some opinions on scully screaming at boggs that she would 'gas him out of this life for good' if mulder died, and it being ooc but i think that's a case of not understanding how crazy scully is, how fiercely she wants to protect mulder, and her state of mind being very fragile. perfectly in character imo)

mulder didn't kill cigarette smoking man when he had the chance in the original run, or anyone in the syndicate? and idk look where it got them. he almost went to prison for a murder of a man who wasn't dead, and was trying to kill him lol he was on the run for years, completely isolated. in this, mulder & scully had a plan for home invasions. she fell asleep at the dive bar with her hand around a glock & jerked awake when the waiter approached their table. that was their normal for years, and they may be free now, working at the bureau again but for years, they were looking over their shoulder, isolated from the world with no more resources. that absolutely changed them.

in the revival, it is literally all about william. mulder is stepping up to support scully in a new way. only taking the risks she asks of him for their son. he is doing all of the things she can't. i think the revival is the only time we truly see "damsel" scully. because she is ill and weak — having seizures, in a car accident. she couldn't fight back the way she normally can and mulder is the only reason she's alive. (i know it's been said, but genuinely one of the hottest mulder moments is him slitting that man's throat.)

mulder even takes on scully's more typical paranoia, as in not trusting skinner despite vouching for him when scully was dying of cancer. literally refusing to name him, at the expense of himself. (and then correctly calling out blevins, a man who was connected to the syndicate.)

like. they've already lost william because people were after mulder and scully couldn't protect him alone. and now, they've learned william is being hunted. csm still wants him, that new group wanted him. they killed jackson's parents! they tracked him down multiple times. they nearly killed scully.

i think it makes perfect sense mulder is at a point where he won't hold back. he couldn't protect samantha, but he can protect his family. he's healthier than he's ever been — more fit, he's on medication. he's older but he's still got some scoot in his boot and he's got plenty for scully & william. even skinner!!

he's not like the syndicate. he is not abducting, torturing, raping anyone. he's defending himself and his family. i don't think there's a single wrongful killing between either of them.

like scully learned the lesson mulder already understood in unruhe, mulder has learned the flip side of that lesson, what scully already knew. the reasons people are committing heinous crimes does not always matter. trying to get answers from liars is not the right course. stopping these evil men is right. i love that these two will do whatever it takes to protect each other. not just trekking through antarctica with a bullet wound to the head, or taking government agents hostage, or autopsying your partner's mother, or beating the shit out of a medical rapist to save scully's daughter. they will kill. no one will harm them while the other is around to prevent it. if they're dying, they'll die together.

[aloysiavirgata]

For all of the anons who have asked for more in The Fisher King universe, here you go. New chapter below, main fic linked.

***

A man takes a woman and she disappears. It’s an old story.

The media will tell you she’s pretty, always. Sometimes she is and sometimes she isn’t, but she’s given the grace in her tragedy.

Dana is, though. In the way of Celtic priestesses and Roman goddesses and Renaissance women so achingly beautiful they were allowed to let their hair flow like corn. Like gold. Like rivers.

She has cheekbones like granite hillsides in winter.

Like Persephone in spring.

***

“She’s dead,” says the Captain. Says Margaret. Says Bill. Charlie calls with non-committal love from from Venezuela. Charlie calls with non-committal love from Norway.

If she’s alive she’s raped. She’s tortured, she’s broken But Catholics love the sanctified dead.

“She’s alive,” says Melissa, over an uncut celadon nested in a swirl of tarot cards..

Tara looks away in disgust. In fear.

****

Duane Barry was Mulder’s own particular monster, his brother in arms and paranoia.

An empty place in him wants to welcome Barry, wants him to fill the lacuna of Samantha. He imagines smoothing neatly over him, like spackling drywall.

But Barry takes Dana and, that, Mulder cannot forgive. He wants to hurt Barry for a long time in a way that they discuss in hushed awed voices after battlefield frenzies. He wants all of Barry’s insides on the outside, twitching and wet.

He gathers Dana’s animals to him, brings them into his home. He strokes their fur in his bed, he loves their angled predators’ faces that, like his, have eyes at the front of their heads.

***

Mulder fucks a suspect with the mindless short term satisfaction of scratching a mosquito bite until it bleeds. He hates himself and god, it’s good, the hating. He fucks her below the pagan sun and the Captain’s god and dares the universe to punish him. It’s a ripped hangnail, it’s his tongue against a toothache, it’s boxer briefs against a hardon at his desk.

He suffers with relish and, like most of the Scullys, he believes that his suffering will provoke tenderness from the universe. He bites the golden cross like an X-ray plate.

He wonders if anyone can see inside him at all.

***

He claps Bill on the back at the airport. He kisses Tara’s silky cheek, smells her knockoff Chanel #5.

Bill looks at him like a boy at Christmas, like Mulder’s the Grownup and can promise him everything.

“I love my sister,”. Bill says, as though it’s a shibboleth.

“So do I,” Mulder replies.

It’s the first time he talks about someone else’s sister and means it.

***

She turns up at the hospital like a message in a bottle. She is soft and pale and bloated and alive. He kisses her cheek like a Torah. He kisses her cheek like the earth of his true homeland.

***

Mulder holds a vigil for her as though she’s bound to Yggdrasil. Nine days and nine nights and perhaps she’s gained all knowledge. Perhaps she understands the runes.

Or maybe he does - who is the sacrifice and who is the sacrificed? Odin, spear-pierced, died for himself like Dana’s own god.

Melissa holds her sister’s hand. She holds his hand too, at the same time, her mass of red hair like ivy in the fall. She murmurs nothingness to the cold white stone of the moon.

“The moon is female,” Melissa confides to him at 2 AM over cheap wine and shrimp fried rice. “She’s the spiritual mother-guardian off all women.”

He says that he agrees, because it’s as true as any other fucking thing.

Margaret’s gaze is the sky before a shuttle launch, the Captain’s handshake the last thing you feel before your soul is ferried across the Acheron and the Styx.

Odin gave up his eye for the deep knowledge. Mulder would give up his eye for surety of her safety. He’ll give up both for what he brought to her. He understands why people suffer for communion with their gods now.

He understands why they surrendered hearts to bleed down the stones. He understands that prayers are a way to articulate fear.

***

Dana opens her eyes like a Marian apparition.

“Mulder?” she says, frowning.

He feels her voice the way magnets feel true north. “Hi,” he breathes, after days of planning the perfect response for this moment.

She blinks. “Did I fall asleep?” she mumbles. “Where are we? What happened?”

He kisses her knuckles, the delicate papyrus inside of her blue-tinted wrist. He marvels at the engineering of her thumb.

“You took a nap,” he says, rather breathless. Rather choked.

“Mmmm,” Dana says. She laces her fingers through his, she curls onto her side. She takes in the hospital room, frowning.

Then she seems to remember. “Ohhhh,” she whispers, eyes wide. “Am I okay?”

He nods. “Nothing serious.”

Mulder watches her breathing, watches her come back to life. He’ll press the call button in a moment, will alert the cavalry. He will make the Appropriate Telephone Calls.

Through the open blinds he sees the moon peer in. He says a prayer of thanks to its blank silver face, just in case Melissa is right.

[amplifyme]

Oooh, I'm incredibly curious about your En Ami thoughts (if you don't mind sharing.) I loved that episode, and never associated WBD w/ the creepiness of CSM because he was writing for a creepy character (and you KNOW CSM would do everything he did in the episode because, again, he's a creep with a low moral threshold.) Maybe it's because I like to dip into the unspoken taboo topics to explore them and see morals shine through... I dunno, bias perhaps? Or maybe there's something that I'm missing that would ruin the entire episode for me. I'm willing to hear it all! :))))

Well, there's quite a bit to unpack here and I'm not sure how deep I'm willing to dive into it. But a few highlights (or lowlights) for me:

~ WBD has stated publicly that he considers CSM to be the true hero of TXF. Let that sink in for a minute.

~ The entire premise is way OOC for Scully. She knows that CSM is likely behind her abduction, the tests that were done on her and the results of that, and the significance of the chip in her neck. She was used as a bargaining chip (there's that word again) to try to turn Mulder to the dark side on more than one occasion. She's knows there's absolutely no reason to trust him. And yet she goes along with CSM, even after she wakes up not knowing where she is or how she came to be dressed in pajamas, that he had to have drugged and undressed her and who knows what else. And yet she still does his bidding. There are red flags popping up everywhere and she ignores them. And though I believe she's altruistic to the bone, she aligns with the mantra of "Trust no one," far more than Mulder does. This man, who's used her and Mulder as pieces on a chess board many times before, is blithely offering her a cure for all cancers and she's willingly buying into it? That’s not my skeptical Scully.

~ WBD lost any respect I might have had for him after the things he wrote about DD & GA and working on TXF in his book. This episode just exacerbates those bad vibes for me.

~ The whole thing is just creepy. From the fact that he wrote this script and put the main characters (M & S) into this situation just squicks me out. Not to mention CC giving him the opportunity to put this on our TV screens.  It’s just, well, none of this should’ve happened. It added nothing to the overall storyline (as least as far as we knew it to be at the time) and was a poorly executed indulgence and nothing but badly disguised Scully Torture. Did she really need to be medically raped again??

[randomfoggytiger]

I sent off an ask already so I won't repeat those points here; but I had a thought an came back:

I think it's easy to grade Scully's traumas as "worse" than Mulder's because of the way they express trauma; but more to the point, Scully is given closure for hers to a degree that Mulder isn't:

Her father died with their relationship broken; but he was able to speak to her while she was in her coma (vs. Mulder who had a healing conversation with his dead father in The Blessing Way BEFORE he was gut punched by his dad's Nazi alliances past and other Consortium activities.)

While Melissa's killer was never brought to justice, he was caught and Scully was able to prove to herself she wasn't consumed by vengeance. She remembered her sister fondly in S5, was led by her ghost, and was able to find her daughter.

Emily was found, and Scully was given the agency to choose what was best for her daughter. Her fertility was taken, but Mulder recovered her ova and she chose to ask him to do a round of IVF later. The IVF failed, but she confronted her rigid scientific beliefs in Biogenesis/The Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati and was (possibly) healed by the spaceship in Africa (or CSM rebooted her in En Ami, which is a less favorable option but would at least be one good outcome from that awful trip she chose to make.)

Her son? ...That's the fumble; but he's alive and had a good childhood? She can hold onto that.

Scully's traumas were painful and would last the rest of her life; but there were good moments she could draw from them that Mulder couldn't (until Closure for Samantha, at least.)

Mulder, meanwhile, wasn't affected by torture or rape (physical or mental) like Scully was as that's not his character (thanks for pointing that out, I 100% agree!) His was having to SIT, unable to help or stop trauma or tragedy from occurring, and having to listen to the horror stories of his loved ones as they related or relived those tragedies he couldn't prevent. AND we see him collapse and give up continually when CSM or some other malevolent actor (or the events of S8) convinces him that he's useless. The "sacrificial lamb" is not a part of Mulder's nature-- it's a construction CSM projects onto his 'son.' Mulder is a man who doesn't look over his shoulder, not someone who nails himself to a cross. Righteous rage and determination, not guilt and self-sacrifice, drives him (his speech in Fallen Angel, for instance. He fell apart over Samantha in Sein und Zeit/Closure not because what happened to her was all his fault-- it was because he couldn't save her all those torturous years.)

Perhaps that's my bent as well psychologically: bodily horrors and restraint of my autonomy would pale in comparison to being prevented from helping those I love or care about. And perhaps that's a bias towards Mulder. But I believe both are equally terrible; but that Mulder's recovery and readjustment took longer than Scully's because Scully was able to have normalcy longer in her life than Mulder. He is a man without a "normalcy" switch to flick on; and Scully recognizes her limitations (though she doesn't admit to them, and she will go to therapy for them) while Mulder crashes on ahead, reopening his festering wounds over and over.

Perhaps that's why I never saw Scully as the one with more wounds: hers were fresh and overwhelming; but as magnanimously as CC took away he gave back (though not in the best written ways.)

I've never written a "never again" fic, but god, it is THE episode. it's a little key to scully's whole brain, i'm just so pissed that it's example #1 of her being punished (again and again and again) by the narrative for expressing desire (for sex, for autonomy, for respect). or like. "she only wanted to fuck because she thought she was dying."

No that's not it, that is missing the point.

[danascullysjournal]

If You Will Let Me

Chapter 13: Alone

X-Files Post- Milagro Fic

Rated: M

TW: Implied torture and rape, medical torture, demons, human remains.

____________________________

Full fic available on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37928683?view_full_work=true

____________________________

The bathroom was empty.

The way the dark shadows had goaded him, Mulder had not expected her to be there.  Still, he couldn’t stop himself from trudging through the swirls of ebony fingers to look.  Just  in case. 

“Where the hell did you put her?”  Mulder’s anger swelled, and he kicked blindly at the swirling ebony smoke surrounding him.  “Tell me!”  He thought for a brief moment that Scully would have laughed at the scene he made, kicking and fighting air.  Except, this wasn’t funny.  Losing her, the one person he cared about, had him frenzied.  Violent. 

He was answered by scuffling sounds down the hall, and the mist swelled up, parting in places to allow him down the corridor, turning into an open space.  A bedroom.  Mulder could make out two shadowy forms in the corner behind a bed, one speaking in a low voice.  One silhouette was shaped just like Scully, head down, arms folded protectively.  The one speaking was a man. 

Through the darkness, the little girl’s voice whispered into his ear. “You love her, Fox?”

Yes, Mulder thought.  She already knew as much. 

“You love her,” the voice of almost-Samantha continued, “more than me.  Fox?  More than me?” 

“No,” he blurted.  “Yes I love her.  But not more than y-“ He stopped himself.  This was not his sister.  “I do not love her more than Samantha.” 

“Then stay.” The voice pleaded. 

“You aren’t my sister. And I couldn’t…”

“But you let me go...  Oh Fox, see?  You love her more.”  The voice changed, deepening again, becoming a chorus of dark whispers.  “You love her, but so does he.”

“Shut up!” Mulder hissed, loud enough that the man standing near Scully turned to face him.  Mulder’s brow twisted in bewilderment.  He felt his muscles tense.  It couldn’t be. 

He pulled his legs through the grasping, murky lake of shadow toward Scully and the other form.

“You’re dead,” Mulder spat out, his anger swelling at what he knew was no longer a living being.  Glowering, Padgett stared back at him. 

“Am I?” Padgett leered at Mulder under his brow. “I don’t feel dead, Agent Mulder.  And if I was dead, could I do this-” his hand reached back to Scully’s head, fingers snatching her hair.  She grimaced and yelped.  He pulled her forward, his arm outstretched to avoid her swinging elbow.  Stumbling, she teetered against the edge of the bed, arching her back to keep from falling forward. 

“Get off her, you bastard!” Pulling against fingers that tore, Mulder tried to get close to her, driven by the fear he saw in her eyes.

“She says she loves you, Agent Mulder.  You, the man who always puts her in danger.  Who always drags her on crazy hunts to support your insane theories.  Look at yourself- You’re doing it now!  Another case, another hunt, here she is!”  Padgett turned his head to Scully, leaning close, breathing in her ear.   “You think he’s the one?  You pick him over me, huh?  What if I got rid of him?”

She choked a sob and shook her head violently. 

“Unless.  You give me what I want.” 

With his free hand, Padgett reached around her, tracing his finger across her neck, over her sternum, down to her skirt.  He began to pull it down. 

She shuddered, then nodded, glancing at Mulder helplessly, then looking down to the bed. 

“Scully, no!” 

Padgett smirked. “Oh, look, Agent Mulder.  She wants to save you.”  

He clutched her shoulders, spinning her body with no regard, pushing her roughly down onto the bed.  His eyes bore into Mulder’s, daring him to act.  Knowing that he was held fast by the beings in the darkness.

Glassy, Scully’s eyes met his, and gazed through him as her terror, heartbreak and surrender ran down her cheeks.  

The tendons in her neck strained. Her silent sobs tore at Mulder’s heart, and the sound of clothing rustling, ripping, filled him with rage.  He pulled at his legs, straining against the iron fingers of darkness, but he couldn’t move.  The unseen beings held him fast, swirling around his torso, binding him.  Padgett leered at Mulder from across the room, his body hovering over her, one hand pressed hard against her throat as the other pulled at her shirt. 

“Scully no!” Mulder screamed, his face contorted in anguish.  “Fight back!  No, no, no, it can have me instead!  It can have me!”  His panicked eyes darted around to find the charcoal, ephemeral forms that swirled in his peripheral vision.  “Don’t you hear me?  Take me and let her go!  She doesn’t deserve this!  She… doesn’t…”  His words dissolved into panicked sobs, and he crumpled to the floor. 

“We could take you…” the voices hissed around him, threading through his hair and breathing cold on his cheek.  “Is that what you want?  Are you ready?  We will take you… both…” 

He was deaf to their whispers through his tears, watching her helpless.  Broken.   All he had wanted for them, and all his promises to care for her, were empty.  Hollow.  Worthless.  She was being stripped away from him, just like Samantha before her.  

All because he wasn’t strong enough to save her.

He simply wasn’t enough.

“Scully, I’m so sorry…” 

Her eyes stared through him, her brow contorted.  Mulder drew in a shuddered, ragged breath, and closed his eyes.  He wouldn't, couldn’t watch this.  Why wasn’t she fighting?  She would never just let anyone, anything, do this to her.  This wasn’t his Scully.  

Suddenly it made sense.  

This wasn’t his Scully.  

“This is another lie, isn’t it,” Mulder whispered, disgust and relief simultaneously washing over him.  He wiped his eyes.  “You're not Scully.  And you’re not Padgett, you’re-” he stopped as the bodies on the bed contorted. They bent, twisting wormlike on the bedspread. 

 As soon as the words escaped his lips, the forms in front of him shifted.  The masquerade was over, and Scully’s body writhed before his eyes, curling in on itself before gathering into a heavy cloud of black smoke.  It poured over the side of the bed, pooling in a charcoal mist before him.  Padgett became nothing more than an undulating mass of ebony that began to swirl and swell.  The shadows murmured and hissed their displeasure at their failed attempt. 

“What the hell are you anyway?” Mulder screamed as loud as his lungs would allow.  He stumbled to his feet, attempting to stare down the living black masses of smoke.  Quivering, the dark mist that filled the old farmhouse pulled itself up into undulating monoliths.   Eight.  Sixteen.  Thirty two.  They continued to divide and grow, filling every corner of the bedroom, pressing onto the cracking ceiling.  Many.  That was what the old woman had said.

Mulder grimaced, considering his next move.  There was no way out that he could see, but he knew he had to try.  He had to find Scully.  From the inky swell at his feet, the shadowy form of Samantha began to materialize.  

The sickening displeasure of seeing her face, which had once brought him such joy, cut him to the core. 

“You said we could have you, Fox.”  She smiled, tipping her small chin up in victory. “You said.”

Mulder watched her eyes begin to shine with an unearthly light, and he stared in abject horror.  Pinholes of glowing eyes revealed themselves, from floor to ceiling, surrounding him.

“Do you know what a legion is?” her voice wavered and began to deepen, vibrating from all corners of the bedroom, filling his head.  “Are you ready to join us?”

“No.  You aren’t my sister.”  His response was barely audible against the rushing sound of the souls surrounding him.  They laughed, a cacophony of rumbles and shrieks resonating through the walls, shaking the floor.

“What are we, then, Fox?”

“You are not my sister!”  His scream rose above the torrent.  Delirious with fury, Mulder kicked and clawed at the formless creatures that held him fast. They were at once solid and immaterial, passing through planes of existence and matter, binding, choking, and pulling.  His fingers strained against tendrils that pulsed.  Pressed. Squeezed.  The hazy forms closed in on themselves as they spiraled, roaring around him, through him, it seemed. They were a torrent of darkness.  Of death.  His breath was waning… But Scully.   He couldn’t stop fighting now.  Not for himself, but for Scully.  His frenzy began to weaken the floorboards of the ancient house, and he felt it giving way beneath him. 

A shattering crack. 

He fell.

_____________________________

Dust particles drifted listlessly in the thin strip of dim light above.  Scully’s eyes strained to focus, watching the minute specks dancing over her, hemmed in by darkness on all sides.  Her neck ached, her head throbbed, and she couldn’t remember why.  

She was lying flat.  She knew that much.  Slowly, she stretched her fingers where they lay at her side, nails trailing on fabric beneath.  Moving to sit up, she instantly regretted the decision.  Her head reeled, and she fell back gracelessly.  The creak of muffled, rusted bed springs protested her movement. 

Where was she? 

They had been on a case.  A security check.  And…  she struggled to recall.  Grimacing, she blinked and tried to clear the fog from her mind.  Cornfields, she knew.  And then… she sucked in her breath.  The farmhouse.  The dark, sentient smoke.  Mulder, only it wasn’t...  and Padgett.   It all flooded back through her synapses.

She turned her eyes tentatively toward the darkness and squinted.  There was nothing.  Nothing but shadows.  Searing pain rushed through her cervical spine as she rotated, millimeter by millimeter, to turn her head toward the black space around her. 

“Ah.  Awake.”

Her stomach lurched. 

Solid footsteps on creaking wood planks thudded a cadence, coming closer.  The darkness before her seemed to breathe, parting to show the familiar form of Padgett, gazing down at her.  His face was stone.

“Special Agent Dana Scully… I loved you,” he said, his voice low.  Solemn.  He tilted his head, furrowing his brow, and let out a small dry laugh. He leaned down toward her.  “I loved you and what did you do, Dana?”

“You.  You sent something to kill me.”  She strained to press herself up, wedging herself on elbows to brace and support her aching back.  Her vertebrae burned.  She ignored it.  

Padgett lowered his face to hers.  Dangerously close.  His large eyes bore into her, and Scully felt the cold, clammy sweat on her palms.    

“I studied you, for so long,” he whispered.  His breath was cold against her cheek.  “I knew you.  I know you better than you have ever known yourself, Dana.  I wrote you fantasies, I learned details of your religion to impress you…  I watched how you move… I know what turns you on…  I know what you wanted me to do to you-”

“You wrote that,” she spat back.  “That was not me.  And you know it.”  She glared at him, defiant.

“Is that true?”  Padgett placed his hands on the small bed, one on either side of her hips.  Closing in.

“It doesn’t matter, you’re dead!”  Scully’s voice was frantic.  She scrambled back, attempting to pull herself away from him, but he leaned closer, snatching her throat in his hand.  He pressed hard on her larynx.  She whimpered and choked, faltering, and fell back to the old mattress. 

“I’m dead,” Padgett whispered in her ear, grinning.  “But that isn’t stopping me, is it?  That’s what you fear most, isn’t it, Dana…  That I won’t ever stop.”  Effortlessly, he pulled himself up, his legs straddling her.  Sitting back on his haunches, he looked down.  He was icy through the fabric of her skirt, and his weight bore down on her pelvis like lead.  A gloating smirk was plastered on his thin lips, but then his face sobered.  His eyes burned into hers.

Scully trembled, watching him unbutton his shirt. 

Unable to move.

_____________________________

Falling into pitch black, Mulder braced himself for impact… or eternal plummeting.  He wasn’t sure. 

Clattering objects and falling debris gave way to the weight of his body, and he groaned.  The thrumming, roaring swirl of souls above him was present, but they didn’t follow.  

He heard a light, airy laugh above the din of the swarm. 

The little girl’s voice whispered from above.  “Now you’re home…  I’m so happy….  Stay.”

“No, thank you,” Mulder muttered.  He heard her giggle in response.  Heard the steady wind of the beings above him.  It felt they would never stop, never relent until he was part of them, like not-Samantha had said.  Maybe he already was.  He tried to shake the worry from his mind, to focus on getting up.  Fumbling in the darkness, he tried to press himself upright and recoiled his palm in pain. 

Carefully, he traced his fingers along his hand.  

A deep gash. 

Warm blood.  

He cursed under his breath, but reached his other hand tentatively to his side, trying to determine his surroundings. He craned up toward where he had fallen.  Pitch black.  In the darkness, he knew they were there, watching, waiting to see what he chose to do next.  There was no use in climbing back up, he realized. The souls, beings, whatever they were, had pressed him here. They wanted him here.  And he had learned that they were too many to even consider fighting outright.

He needed a different way out. 

His fingertips brushed over smooth bumps, gritty wrinkled surfaces.  It didn’t make sense.  The air around him hung heavy, choked with earth, dust and mold.  A century or more of disintegrating floorboards.  Rotting wood.  And something else, something saccharine.  Mulder squinted in the darkness as his hand searched the uneven surfaces, tracing a smooth shape.  It felt like a bowl, or an old planter, perhaps.  Until his fingers rounded to the other side. 

Then he felt the teeth. 

He stifled a gag.  His palm ran down the surface, to be sure, and confirmed what he feared.  The voids of eye sockets… and next to this, a rough patch… leathered skin.  Bone.  Fabric.  Old hair.  

The sick sweet smell was decay.  

He recoiled, turning to crawl away, and his fingers discovered another mass.  Dried skin clung to it, desperately clutching itself to what had once been living. Breathing.  Just like him. 

Mulder felt the last fragment of his hope dashed to minute shards. 

He was in his own grave, with all who had fallen before him. 

————————————————

The loose shirt fabric swayed, mimicking the loose flaps of skin that hung like two pale curtains from Padgett’s autopsy incision. 

He gazed at her with derision.  

“Do you know what a y incision feels like, Dana Scully?” 

She stared at the fleshy void before her.  The ribs she had cracked through.  The lungs she has parsed and measured.  The flaking, black blood and tissue surrounding the gaping hole where his heart should have been. 

“Well?  You do this all the time don’t you, doctor.  To all the dead…” he tipped his chin down to examine himself.  “I was different from your other bodies, Dana.  I loved you…  and you cut me into pieces.”  His eyes shot back to hers, piercing her.  “Like meat.  Do you know what that feels like?” His voice was low, but intense. Filled with hate. 

Slowly, Scully swallowed.  “No,” she whispered finally.  “I don’t.”  Her mouth was cotton.  

“No.”  Padgett shifted his weight on top of her, moving closer to her face.   His flayed skin rested on her chest.  “You don’t.  Yet.” 

She could hear her pulse thundering in her ears, her gut twisted sick with terror.  She wondered if he would ever stop.   If she could ever go back to the motel room bed, held fast by the one she loved, instead of held down and tormented by a man who was dead.  Shaking, she tried to wall off the saline that threatened to pour from her eyes.  To suck in her breath, barricade her emotion, and fight.   But the tears came.   They slowly, silently traced streaks that glistened in the darkness, and she bit her lip to stave off the cries.  After how far she had come, with Mulder by her side, to be pulled back to this helplessness… abandoned… held fast by a monster that, logically, should not exist.  Yet here he was, the corpse that she had autopsied days before, gloating over her.  

Her mind reeled. Nothing made sense.  And Mulder, where was he?  Her protector, her rock, was nowhere to be found. Trapped, like her… or worse. 

She felt utterly alone, afraid. 

Hopeless.

Padgett’s eyes were bright, taking in her terror.  Feeding off it.  He licked his lips.  “Your fear is misplaced, you know, Dana.  I will stop, like any good writer would.  When we finish your story.”  He grinned sadistically.  “I’ve written an ending fitting for you.  Are you ready?”

He seized her shirt collar.

“No!” 

She tried to pull her arms up to stop him, but something held her fast.  She could see the darkness undulating in her periphery, its fierce pressure on her arms.  Pulling.  Binding.  It was impossibly heavy, and it continued to mount, spreading over her as the smoke thickened.  Padgett’s fist pulled the fabric up, straining against it till the buttons gave way.  He sighed his satisfaction. 

Scully knew what the glint of metal meant before her eyes registered the form. 

The chill of Padgett’s lifeless finger on her chest made her wince, and she bit her lip hard.  She wouldn’t let him hear her cries, wouldn’t allow him to hear pain.  No matter what.  The snap of her bra as the scalpel cut through it shocked her, and she bit harder, tasting blood. 

“It’s exciting, Dana.  Seeing a story unfold,” Padgett whispered. “I wonder how many times you’ve done this.  I wonder if you ever considered your own body, as you cut the bodies of others?” 

He set the blade beneath her clavicle and began to press. 

——————————————-

Mulder crawled and clattered through the bones, pulling them behind him with arms sweeping like an awkward swimmer.  He didn’t let himself consider how many had been thrown into this space before him. He couldn’t.  

They didn’t survive, and he… he didn’t have that option.  Not if there was any hope in finding Scully.  Whether he made it out of the mass grave or not, he refused to stop searching for her until he found her, or he was dead.  

He had wormed his way through the piles of dry bone and skin enough that he was, he considered, perhaps twenty feet from the hole he had plunged through minutes before.  Each minute was precious… Mulder knew that.  He was well aware that these beings wanted them both dead.  With Mulder buried, they would certainly turn their attention to Scully.  

Time was running out. 

The gash in his palm burned, filled with dirt and sediment.  He grimaced, reaching his good hand out again, ever forward, ever searching.  He expected more leather skin.  A bone fragment.  A skull gaping, or brittle hair and cloth fragments.  But this time, his fingernails scraped on crumbling stone.

Mulder sighed into the darkness, and coughed at the particles that stirred from his breath.  It was just dirt, he tried to tell himself.  But one hundred or more years of people decaying… he knew better.  His stomach turned, and for a brief moment he felt a surge of panic.  He needed out.  Now.  Suffocating slowly on crumbled particulates from decomposed corpses sounded like a horrible way to go.

Fumbling fingers found a smooth cranium, its mandible long lost in the darkness surrounding him.  He cupped it in his hands and began to beat it against the worn, disintegrating foundation stones.

Mulder wasn’t one to pray, but he found himself pleading.  Begging whoever might listen for a way out.  A way to Scully.

______________________________________

[scullydubois]

Only the Light Ch. 13

13/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, occasional fluff | currently: Christmas Eve 1994 | T | 5k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic <3

As Scully copes with her diagnosis, Mulder joins her for the Scully family Christmas dinner. Plus, Melissa's girlfriend meets the family.

TW for disordered eating, cigarette smoking, references to abduction/medical rape.

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

Self destruction is a natural impulse for Dana Scully, though she’ll try to deny it. Take one unexplained abduction, add a dash of premature menopause, and sift out time spent proving Mulder wrong, and you’ll get a struggling Scully.

She can tell she’s entering a bad mental state when food becomes a suggestion rather than a necessity. Every bite is either earned according to whatever trivial rules she’s set for herself in that particular moment, or is not deserved and therefore not eaten. It’s a game where she’s the coach, player, and referee, yet she still loses every time. Nourishment is both prize and punishment, feeding her hunger but vacating her control.

This habit started when she was a teenager and wracked with feelings her petite frame couldn’t contain. It felt much safer than the route her siblings had taken of sneaking out in the middle of the night or using fake IDs to buy alcohol or skipping church on the regular. As far as fifteen-year-old her was concerned, she wasn’t bothering anyone by foregoing some meals. Her mother disagreed and called her out every time, humiliating her into her second coping mechanism, smoking.

There were the times when Scully was really young and enticed by her sister’s cigarettes, but that was simple preteen rebellion. What developed when Dana was seventeen was something different entirely. A survival mechanism with poison inside, snuffing herself out while keeping her alive and sane. She would walk to the gas station and buy packs of Marlboros with coins from her piggy bank. The laws were lax in the 80s, the prices too. She would blow rings of smoke while walking home, then hide the pack in her bra and swish some mouthwash. She’d repeat the process to and from school, steadily acquiring a nasty nicotine habit. It continued until the summer before college, when she made herself go cold turkey so as not to take the habit with her. As far as she knows, neither her parents nor any of her siblings ever knew about it.

It resurfaces in times of stress, though normally for no more than a single pack. Lately she’s accustomed to keeping a pack and a lighter with her at all times. Her building is smoke free so she steps outside, but her car is off limits because she doesn’t want the smell to cling to her. It is a hassle, but then again, so are most things.

Missy knows about the poor eating habits--those are hard to hide from someone who shares the same space as you. Nevermind the fact that the scale shows six less pounds than before, and that adds up when the number’s not that large to begin with. Scully’s edges protrude now...that can’t be hidden.

Missy never says a word. She remembers Dana complaining about their mother’s condescending comments about her weight, and she knows the damage that does to a young psyche. Instead, she offers. Healthy meals, guilty pleasure meals, all her sister’s favorites. She cooks more than she ever has before, well aware that her sister will struggle to refuse her.

“I recognize what you’re doing,” Missy told her sister when she tried to turn away a caesar salad, of all things. “I’ve been known to do that too,” Missy admitted. “Eat. You’re hungry, you just think not eating will give you some form of control over your body, or your life...but wasting yourself away is letting the bastards win.”

And so she did, that time at least. Scully has enough shame regarding her habit to push it aside whenever confronted---that’s how she insists to herself that it’s not an eating disorder. She can stop on command. That makes it okay, right?

Getting back into the office helped her a lot---you can’t starve yourself and function as an FBI agent. Besides, she would dissolve into thin air if Mulder figured out what she was doing. He was the one who batted around the idea of Scully helping prep each case and supervising any tests he might need the crime lab to do while he’s in the field. He understood that in lieu of therapy, she needed something to take her out of her own mind.

It was as much for him as it was her; at this point, it’s almost incomprehensible to him that the X-Files had existed before her. Of course he was the laughingstock of the FBI! He had huddled in the basement by himself with UFOs and blurry Bigfoot sightings pinned on the wall like a shrine to his own delusion.

Her fall from grace was his absolution. He’ll make an angel of her, somehow. Even if it means he has to meet the devil.

Scully has no interest in becoming an angel, though she’d sure like to avoid hell, and that hasn’t worked out too well. Locker room jokes are one thing. Underestimation another. But assault? Rape? Trauma and torture because she is who she is doing what she does? She is not a quitter, and that is killing her.

Her barrenness haunts her because it was bestowed upon her as punishment, an implication that she only has worth as a walking womb. She wants to be seen as a person, not a pawn.

The arrival of the holiday season is another weight on her shoulders. It used to be Scully’s favorite time of year; now the sight of carolers makes her want to poke her eyes out. It’s the first Christmas without her father, and that is simply unimaginable. Her and Missy spent a quiet Thanksgiving with their mother---small portions and whispered thanks--in preparation for an elaborate family Christmas. Bill Jr. and Tara are flying in from California for the annual Christmas dinner and midnight mass. They will all try to move forward, pretend it’s just like any other year, but it’s not and it never will be again. Happy Christmases are over for the Scully family.

And yet, they will try to enjoy the moment. Missy told her mom that she’s bringing a friend, which is completely true. Trinity is her closest friend that she doesn’t share blood with. That said, she plans to use the occasion to introduce Trinity as her girlfriend, come what may.

Then there was the suggestion that their mother made, which caught her youngest daughter completely off guard. “Why don’t you bring Fox?” Margaret Scully proposed demurely during their weekly phone call. “I’m making a zoo’s worth of food, I could use another mouth to feed. I hate to see any of it go to waste.”

“Mulder’s spending Christmas with his family, I’m sure,” Scully had replied. “But I’ll pass along the offer.”

That was how Scully learned that Mulder’s family isn’t much for celebration, that he usually spends the holiday flipping between It’s A Wonderful Life and the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story, and that he has a particular fascination with the idea of midnight mass.

“I just don’t get it,” Mulder mused. “You believe that a jolly old man with flying reindeer leaves presents in your house, but you think he waits until after you’ve gotten home from celebrating Baby Jesus’ birthday? Didn’t you ever look for his sleigh in the sky on the drive home?”

“No, Mulder,” Scully sighed. “I just believed that he knew when we were tucked in bed. Santa’s all-seeing, you know,” she teased.

Mulder chuckled. “Kind of presumptuous to assume he functions on your schedule, huh?”

Ultimately, Mulder said yes. He figured attending the Catholic equivalent of Jesus’ birthday party would be another check off his supernatural bucket list, though he did not say this part out loud for fear of Dana Scully’s wrath. Besides, what else was he gonna do on Christmas Eve? Shake the shoebox of junk he stuck under his mini-basketball hoop so he felt like he was getting a gift?

And so the fateful day arrives. Mulder flips his Garfield page-a-day calendar to December 24th, chuckles at the comic strip of the orange cat eating all his owner’s Christmas cookies, and makes his way to his partner’s increasingly familiar doorstep. The sun has already slipped behind the trees by the time he arrives. It gives up easily in the winter.

He rings the bell and hears Scully’s dainty footsteps on the other side. She’s snuck up on him enough times for him to have developed a keen sense of her light footing--no more jump scares for him.

“Hey Scully,” he stammers as she opens the door. She had told him to look “festive,” so he donned his nicest green sweater (a gift from his mom from J. Crew...he had never worn it) and slacks. Scully rounds out their show of holiday spirit with a velvet red blouse and black trousers.

“You look lovely,” Mulder says reflexively, unsure when he started using such a word. Scully pulls at her shirt, obscuring the bit of cleavage that has revealed itself. “Thanks Mulder,” she mutters, ushering him inside.

He holds up the shiny silver gift bag he hastily stuffed with tissue paper. “Some candy canes I picked up at the gas station. I figured the whole family could enjoy them.”

Scully nods, amused by his feeble attempt at gifting. “I’m sure they won’t go to waste.”

A fire crackles in the fireplace. It’s so hot in the apartment that Mulder is surprised it hasn’t melted the snow outside on the sidewalk.

“Where’s Melissa?” he asks, hoping they will hit the road sooner than later.

“She’s picking up her girlfriend from the airport. She couldn’t get an earlier flight.”

“Dulles?” He sure hopes not. It’s all the way across town.

“No, Reagan.”

Whew. Much closer.

“She should be back any minute now,” Scully continues. “Trinity’s flight got in at 3:30.”

Mulder rolls his sleeves up. “So your family doesn’t know about Trinity?”

Scully shakes her head.

“Do they know that Melissa’s…” He gestures, unsure which word to fill the space with.

“Bi? No.”

“So she shows up with Trinity, and then what?”

Scully shrugs. “She introduces her as her girlfriend. Mom already knows Missy is bringing a guest so she’ll have a plate for her.”

“You’re not worried about how the family’s gonna react?”

“Well, I’m sure Bill is gonna be a dick about it, but that’s normal. We only see him once a year, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Bill’s your brother?”

“Uh-huh. And Tara is his wife. They got married about a year and a half ago.”

Even as he pushes into his thirties, it still surprises Mulder that anyone close to his age could be married. He doesn’t even sleep in a bed.

“You think your mom’s gonna be cool with Trinity?” he asks.

“I think she loves her daughter enough to be.”

“Mmm.” Mulder sticks his hands in his pockets. If only he had dilemmas like this. He imagines him and Samantha speculating about their mother’s reaction to Sam’s nose piercing or dyed hair or...anything really. He would give so much to have someone to laugh about his uncle’s sideburns with.

His emotional deep-dive is promptly cut off by the entrance of Melissa and a brunette woman whose bangs graze her eyebrows, her hair falling just below her shoulder. “Hi!” she chirps, taking in the magnificence of Dana Scully. “Dana, I presume?”

Scully nods.

“May I hug you?” Trinity asks, hazel eyes shining.

“Sure,” Scully says, feeling the brisk air against Trinity’s coat as she’s pulled in.

Scully lets go first, and Trinity takes that as a cue to pull away. “You look just like Mel, wow,” she remarks, fighting the urge to run her fingers through Scully’s hair.

Scully smiles softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, it is,” Trinity assures, exchanging a gooey gaze with Missy. Next, her attention falls upon Mulder, who does an awkward half-wave. “Hello!” She points between Mulder and Scully. “Boyfriend?”

Mulder chokes. Scully picks up his slack--”Oh, no. This is Fox Mulder, my partner at the FBI.”

“Ahh,” Trinity smiles knowingly. “Yes, I’ve heard about you. I didn’t know you would be joining us for Christmas.”

“Christmas is not exactly my family’s cup of tea, so I figured I’d get an authentic experience with the Scullys.”

“Same! I’m looking forward to Mama Scully’s ginger snaps. I’ve heard fantastic things about them.”

Mulder elbows his partner playfully. “Damn, Scully! How could you leave me in the dark about ginger snaps?”

Scully rolls her eyes but smiles. “I apologize, Mulder. Though for the record, the fruitcake is better.”

“Says no one, ever,” Mulder teases.

She grins. Now this is Christmas.

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

Taking a seat at Margaret Scully’s dinner table feels like existing inside a Christmas movie, in Mulder’s mind. Fancy china, green and red serving platters, paper mache snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, and a porcelain nativity scene; the dining room has it all. Not to mention the heaping piles of food there for the taking...if this is Christmas, Mulder wants in every year.

Scully does not share his cinematic fantasy. She knows better, having actually attended one of her family’s dinners before. Bill will get too drunk and start saying whatever comes to mind, their mother will laugh along like he’s still a five year old babbling about nothing (as opposed to the thirty-something spewing bullshit that he actually is), Missy will attempt to debate him to get him to shut up (which never works), and she will sit there and wish to be somewhere, anywhere else. And all without their father to hold the reins and keep a fight from breaking out.

The night has gone smoothly enough, Scully supposes. Missy introduced Trinity as her girlfriend in a very non-ceremonial way, forcing Bill and their mother to nod and accept it, in the moment at least. Mulder received a hug from Margaret and a pat on the shoulder from Bill, so pretty much the highest token of approval. Mulder’s candy canes earned a place in the center of the dessert table, which gave him way more satisfaction than it should have, and he couldn’t help but feel that if they were to vote on favorite man at the party, he would win. A room with Bill Jr. in it is probably the only place he would ever earn this honor, and he’ll take that.

Yet everything unwinds as Scully suspected. Bill waits until everyone has packed plates and full mouths to unleash his particular hyperfixation for the night.

“Trinity?” he questions, raising his fork diagonal across the table toward her. “Is that your name?”

Trinity smiles and nods, oblivious to what she’s in for.

“And you know Melissa how…?”

She pats a napkin to her mouth. “We worked at the same restaurant in Oregon.”

He chuckles gruffly. “What was it, one of those gay bar things?”

“No, an Italian bistro,” Trinity continues calmly.

Missy, however, is not so calm. “Gay people can go places other than gay bars,” she retorts. “We’re not segregated. Though I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Bill sets a fist on the table, clanging his silverware. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Why the hell do you insist on being so politically correct all the time? I’d shoot myself.”

“Gee, maybe you should try it sometime.”

“Now Melissa…” Margaret Scully’s voice rises above the clamor.

“I have the right to defend my girlfriend and I against Bill’s thinly disguised homophobia,” Missy responds.

“You act like I give a damn what you and your friend do,” Bill sneers. “That’s not my business.”

“Then stop pretending like it is.”

“Oh boo-hoo, little Missy thinks the world revolves around her.”

“Bill, honey, I think that’s enough,” Tara says, laying a protective hand on his arm.

“You’re right.” He raises his can of beer toward Mulder. “Whaddya doin here, hot shot? Trying to seduce my sister?”

Scully frowns, but doesn’t say anything, pushing food around on her plate.

Mulder seems rather unbothered by Bill’s advances. He chuckles. “Actually, I think it’s the other way around.”

Bill snorts. “That’s a likely story.”

“You don’t think I’m worth your sister’s time?”

“I don’t think Dana thinks you're worth her time. You’re not her type.”

“I am sitting right here, you know,” Scully says, staring daggers at her brother.

“Then tell us Dana! Is hot shot here your type?”

Her eyes brush Mulder’s face. His cheeks flush, reddening like a stormy sunset. She wishes she could read his mind. The safe answer and the true answer are not often the same. “I think Mulder is a wonderful man. I’m very lucky to know him,” she answers stiffly, her annoyance aimed at Bill.

“Oh, the old run-around!” Bill scraps his fork against his plate. ”Typical.”

Scully grabs her now empty canned cocktail and sulks into the kitchen, leaving her chair pushed away from the table. Everyone watches her go, but Bill gives off the only visible reaction. He laughs. “Scared her away. Thought it would take more.”

Mulder and Melissa exchange a glance. She nods, granting him permission to play knight-in-shining-armor. Quietly, Mulder slips out of his chair and pushes it back into place. He catches the kitchen door as it swings closed behind his partner.

Her anger concealed from the rest of the family, Scully drops her can in the recycling bin with a bang. She ignores Mulder, instead opening the refrigerator and pulling out another cocktail, saying nothing.

“What is this, your fifth drink?” Mulder brushes his hand over her shoulder, and she recoils. “Leave me alone, Mulder.” She slams the fridge and tries to turn around, but he’s cornered her.

“C’mon Scully, Bill’s harmless. He doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s not fucking about Bill,” she fumes, alcohol fizzing through her bloodstream. She inhales, trying to keep it together in front of the man who has done nothing wrong to her. “Please get out of my way.”

“What’s wrong?” He frames her shoulders with his hands, creating their own little bubble.

“Don’t touch me!” she growls. Mulder knows as soon as hears it: he will never forget the pure anguish in her voice. As she retreats to the corner, he looks down at his palms, the stovetop that burned her...he would cut them off if he could.

Unfortunately, the commotion attracts the Scully’s like a dog whistle. Bill leads the charge into the kitchen, getting a full view of his sister hunched over by the back door while her partner stands by the fridge like an idiot. “Ooo, a lover’s spat!” he exclaims, only nominally concerned about Dana’s well-being.

“Shut up, Bill,” Missy hisses. To everyone’s relief, he does.

Mrs. Scully comes forward, maneuvering around Mulder to get to her daughter. “Are you alright, Dana?”

Scully keeps her back to the crowd. “I just need a minute.” She taps her pocket, confirms that she slipped her pack of cigarettes in. “I’ll be outside. Everyone can go back to dinner, please.”

She twists the doorknob and steps onto the back deck without waiting for any response. Mulder feels the tug of tears in his throat, like a dormant animal waking up in him. He is used to being hurt (though not by Scully, never her), but inflicting the hurt is a whole other beast. He doesn’t know what he’s done, but he doesn’t need to. The look in her eyes, put there by what he thought was a harmless touch, made his heart tremble. He is frozen in place, grateful when Melissa appears at his side as the rest of the party returns to the dining room.

“I didn’t mean to upset her, I was trying to make her feel better about Bill…” he laments.

“I’m sure, I’m sure. It’s not you specifically, she’s going through a lot right now--you know.”

Mulder rubs his neck. “I don’t know if I do.”

“She hasn’t shared her diagnosis?”

His eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “Diagnosis?! Is she okay?”

Missy sighs. “I think you two need to talk. If she gets pissed, tell her I sent you.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Tell me if she’s okay.”

“She’s okay. It’s not fatal or anything.”

“She would tell me, if it was...wouldn’t she?”

Missy bites her lip. “I don’t know, Fox---Mulder. I would hope so, but I was under the impression you already knew about this, and you see how that’s gone.”

Mulder turns toward the back door, desperation living in his voice. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta check on her.”

Missy nods. “Don’t let her weasel her way out of this one. I’m expecting a heart-to-heart, mushiness and all.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

He turns the back doorknob and slips through the door, trying to imitate his partner’s ninja skills. The old wood on the door frame shakes as he shuts it. He winces--so much for the sneak attack.

Mulder follows the arc of the deck, winter’s bite colliding with him. He didn’t have a chance to grab his jacket, and now that he’s thinking about it, Scully didn’t either. He can grin and bear it but she is all skin and bones, now more than ever. It scares him to see her like that, but it’s none of his business, he feels, to comment on her body. He can break her fall, but he must not provide an extra push.

The wind has no friends to protect nor foes to defeat, so it will give away anyone. It carries the unmistakable tarnish of smoke to Mulder’s nose, an ashy haze that has come to remind him of Skinner’s office and the shadow lingering in the corner. He almost expects to find him there with his Morleys and his sadistic laugh. Instead, he finds a redhead and her Marlboros shrinking against the December cold snap.

“Bum a cig, ma’am?” He scoots up to her, ready to retrieve his own smoke from her long, slender fingers.

“Mulder!” She pulls the cigarette away from her, holding her last puff captive in her lungs.

He wiggles his fingers like an impatient child. “We’re all gonna die someday, right?”

Her jig up, she rolls her shoulders back and releases the smoke with a great rise and fall of her chest. It mingles in the air with the chill of her breath, becoming one and the same as they leave the contours of her body. Head tilted back and lips parted, she is alive with nicotine’s ease and intoxication’s freedom.

It is better than porn, according to one Fox William Mulder. He’ll keep this observation to himself for now.

“Did your parents never teach you that sharing is caring?” he rambles. “C’mon, give me a light!”

“It’s a nasty habit, Mulder.”

“I’m a connoisseur of those,” he replies loosely. “Now, you’re not gonna make me put you in a headlock are ya?”

Scully rolls her eyes. She’s never felt less threatened in her life. “You’re exhausting, do you know that?”

“I’ve heard it a time or two.”

She pulls a cigarette from her carton and slips it into his fingers. They are warm; hers are ice-cold. “I wanted to be alone.” She hands him the lighter, watches as he generates heat from thin air.

He lights his cig and sticks the lighter in his pocket rather than handing it back to her. “According to my calculations, you should be very drunk right now. Other than your Oscar bait performance back there, you’ve got things pretty under control I’d say.”

Scully gestures at her cigarette smoking, teeth chattering self. “Yeah, I’m the picture of health.”

“Do you have some exceptional alcohol tolerance I should know about, because that’d make you very valuable in undercover work.”

Scully gazes out into the distance. She’d smile if she were to look at him right now, and that doesn’t feel right for the situation. “Those drinks have low alcohol content, Mulder. You can buy them at Dollar General.”

“You ever looked at their hand sanitizer? It’s like 95% alcohol.”

“Well, now I know where you go to get your fix.”

He chuckles. “You got me.”

She stuffs her hands in her pockets and he wishes, god he wishes, that he had grabbed his jacket. He’d take off his sweater if she wanted him to--stand there with his bare chest to the cold--but he has a feeling that would only exacerbate the situation.

He tries a more gentlemanly route. “Do you want me to grab your jacket? I won’t give away your trade secrets.”

She folds herself together. “No, it’s okay. It’ll make me get a move on at some point.”

They stand united in their rebellion, blowing smoke and freezing their asses off. Who needs Christmas cheer when you’ve got Christmas resentment?

Mulder sways a bit to keep his blood circulating. He is careful not to bump her. “You wanna tell me why you’re out-Scrooging Scrooge this year?” he prompts as gently as he can.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it hasn’t exactly been the best year of my life.”

“I gathered that, yeah.”

“And it’s the first Christmas without my father…” her voice warbles.

“Shit, right. I’m sorry,” Mulder murmurs.

“...So it just doesn’t feel very celebratory.” She takes a long drag. Mulder can tell that this secret smoking habit is not new to her, and he wonders when she picked it up, how long she has kept it from him.

He takes a deep breath, watches as it is written in the air. “Melissa told me you received a diagnosis, and I think we’ve already established that sharing is caring…”

Scully looks him in the eyes for the first time since he joined her. It has the sudden intensity of a black-and-white film, Scully the 1940s scarlet and he the leading man who pales in comparison to her. There is no one he’d rather be overshadowed by.

“It’s humiliating,” she croaks. “Missy and my mom are the only ones who know.”

“I’ve got the monopoly on humiliation in this partnership, so I wouldn’t worry about that,” he says, flicking some ashes to the ground.

“This is a particular form of humiliation you can’t experience, I’m afraid. Or at least, it wouldn’t impact you the same way.”

“Let’s hear it.”

She sighs. “My abductors removed all of my eggs, causing my menstrual cycle to shut down and me to enter perimenopause.”

His breath catches in his throat. “Jesus christ.”

“Uh-huh.”

He throws his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out, though it could have burned longer. “That’s fucking horrifying, Scully. You’ve got to inform the Bureau. We’ve got to catch these--whatever they are. We’ve got to make them pay.”

“No, Mulder. It’s too much. I don’t want to keep reliving it, I want to be able to move on with my life.”

“How can you move on when they’re still out there, probably doing it to more women?”

She shakes her head, feeling the snag of tears and holding them back for fear they might freeze on her face. “I don’t know, but I can’t think about it like that. It sort of...shatters everything, the idea that this could be a phenomenon happening to other women in secret. I wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t happen to me. I still don’t believe it.”

Mulder shudders. He can’t discern whether it’s from the cold or their conversation. “Do you think it was men who took you? Or do you believe Duane Barry?”

“It seems like a level of monstrosity that only man could achieve. It requires a certain understanding of society, gender roles...dehumanization that only humans could perpetuate.”

Mulder nods. Her reasoning tracks, but the thought of him failing to outsmart humans who stole away his partner is something he cannot fully process. It makes sense that he couldn’t find her if she was in space, but if she was on the face of the Earth, he had no damn excuse.

“You were just gone, Scully...you were just gone.” His aching is so palpable, his voice a cliff’s edge they could both tumble down.

“I know I was.” She takes one last puff, then lets her cigarette fall to the ground. She crushes it with her heel, her force premeditated and brutal. That pain is for the ones who took her, the ones who have obviously never loved a thing at all.

Head bowed, she moves toward the door, but not without grasping for Mulder’s elbow, assuring that he is following behind. He is and he will be, for as long as she lets him.

Inside, the home’s manufactured warmth hits them, unreal in comparison to the cold they have known. The kitchen is as quiet as it was before their ordeal, the dining room empty aside from Mrs. Scully clearing serving platters.

“Where did everyone go?” Scully asks, momentarily alarmed that she may have ruined the entire gathering.

“We’re going to drive around and look at lights before mass. Everyone’s getting ready.”

“Oh.” She looks to Mulder, as if to check that he hasn’t left her stranded. “I think I’ll stay here,” she tells her mother. “Make a cup of hot chocolate and relax for a bit.”

“Well, you’ll be missed. Fox, would you like to join us?”

He takes a leap, hopes he’s got the right idea. “I’ll stay here, but thank you.”

“As you wish,” Mrs. Scully says with a slight smile. Mulder had never noticed her resemblance to her daughter until that moment. It was like looking at a sketch of a famous painting; the lines are there but the colors missing.

Soon enough the crowd leaves and Scully and Mulder settle on the couch with mugs of hot cocoa. Margaret Scully’s tree forms the centerpiece of the living room, and it’s hard not to admire its gold and red decorations and the shiny angel on top.

“That’s gorgeous. Does she do it every year?” Mulder asks, ignoring the steam rising out of his mug and going right in for the kill.

Scully nods. “Every year since we were kids. There used to be a lot more homemade ornaments, but I guess she swapped those for a more elegant look now that we’re grown.”

“Well, it’s beautiful.” He looks at her, curled up with the glow of the fireplace falling upon her, and he feels warmth and safety like never before. It would be so easy to slip in “and so are you,” it is practically begging to be said. But she wouldn’t believe him if he said it now; she would think it was a pity compliment. Instead, he mouths the words, and she is not looking, and that is okay.

She snuggles deeper into the cushions, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander. She is the most at ease she has been in months--here in the house she lived in during high school with the fireplace crackling and her partner by her side--and that’s not what she expected from Christmas Eve. Heaven strokes her skin, and she blinks her eyes open to find Mulder tucking her in with her mother’s microfiber blanket. She smiles her soft Scully smile. “Thank you,” she coos, burrowing herself deeper into the blanket’s embrace.

“You’re welcome,” Mulder whispers into her ear. His fingers tangle in her hair as he pulls her toward him, his lips meeting her temple. She catalogues the feeling for her memory bank: chapped but carrying the hot chocolate’s warmth. She will spend the next while convinced that it was a dream, a fleeting image in the moments before sleep, but she will carry the feeling until she feels it again.

[settle-down-frohike]

How can you say Mulder’s trauma is equal to Scully’s?

You know. I hate that it’s a contest in this fandom. :-/ Given the fact that they both are subject to...gosh. And unreasonable amount of trauma both. Because how do you measure it? Amount? Severity? You seem to have a firm grasp of Scully’s so I will list Mulder’s here and you can compare if you like.

Kidnapped and assaulted twice in season 1 alone. Mulder was actually the first in the series to be abducted.

Also near death shooting in s1

Parental abuse as both a child and as an adult

Imprisoned and Used as a test subject

Raped by Diana Fowley

Loss of one parent to murder, the other to suicide

Loss of sibling to kidnapping

Surgery without consent

Loss of a child to adoption without knowledge or consent

Abduction and torture

Multiple druggings

Multiple assaults

Emotional abuse from significant other (Phoebe/ possibly Diana)

These are not in chronological order. I’m just hitting the key notes. Scully’s abduction/cancer was absolutely traumatic but it was shared trauma so it’s not listed here, as well as the many health scares at the hands of antagonistic characters that one would assume are part of the job, although each one would come with their own lasting effects. Scully endures much of that as well. I also think it’s forgotten a lot that Mulder is introduced to us as traumatized. We never see him in any form of innocent to traumatized person, because he had already endured so much by the time we meet his character. I certainly don’t think he “wins” (ick) this contest. I just get very confused when he’s displayed as less.

[shyanwritingevents]

~ What is the Shyan Week?

A fan event in which participants will create fan works of their own based on a prompt given to them daily for seventh days. They will be able to chose between three options a day, posting their stuff under the tag #shyanweek2k19 for other people to check out.

More details under the cut!

~ Event Rules

Everyone can participate in this event as long as their work is based in one of the three prompts given on the day they are posting.

The work’s main pairing should be shyan, otherwise it won’t be accepted as part of the event. Side pairings are allowed.

This event is for works written in English. Anyone from any part of the world can enter, but English is necessary. It needs to have the necessary beta work done before posting. Fanfictions must be reasonably edited and readable, we are NOT betaing works for authors.

Original works created for the event ONLY.

Works including rape/non-con/torture-porn/underage are not allowed as part of this event! This is not a ban on dark material. You may address related themes in your works, but graphic scenes should be avoided. But material of the kind between the couple will not be allowed.

~ Rules for posting

Fanfics must be posted on AO3 with the tag Shyan Week 2019. You can crosspost to Tumblr, Wattpad, etc but it must be on AO3 as well. That will be our archive. You can also post your art over there.

Add your work to the AO3 collection, HERE.

When posting your work on tumblr, you have to use the tag #shyanweek2k19 in the first five tags of your work. You can also tag the blog with #shyanwritingevents, if you want. But the week’s tag is necessary.

In your post, there must be something that indicates it is for the Shyan Week 2019, what day it is for and with what prompt.

~ Restrictions

No participants under the age of 18 are allowed to do explicit stuff.

No WIPs (works in progress) allowed, only finished stories and art.

No underage sex and/or noncon/rape allowed.

No racism and/or racist language. No hate speech of any kind.

No bashing different dynamics/preferences when it comes to the ship. (Meaning, no bashing/mocking Bottom!Ryan, Bottom!Shane, switching, and so on, dom/sub dynamics, none of that shade.)

No bashing of any kind to the family, friends and significant others of the boys. Be respectful. If you need a villain to your story, we suggest you to create an original character.

Works that are not tagged under Ry*n B*rgara/Shan* M*dej and Shya Week 2019 on AO3 will not be added to the collection nor allowed in the event. If you have doubts about AO3′s tagging system, please message us.

Got any questions? Ask away!

~ Schedule

Week: From January 28 to February 3.

Day 1: Getting Together | Favorite Moment | If Ghosts Are Real

Day 2: Meeting The Family | Quote(s) | Heart Eyes

Day 3: PDA | Favorite Non-BFU Video(s) | Like Mulder & Scully

Day 4: Coming Out | Favorite Little Detail | A Love Without Measure

Day 5: F R E E    D A Y 

Day 6: First Meeting | Social Media | Alternate Universe

Day 7: Day After Day | Looking At Each Other | If It’s Just The Wind

~ What kind of works does this event accept?

Fanfictions (no less than 300 words, only finished works)

Fanart (finished or doodle)

Graphics (including posters)

Gifsets (3 gifs or more)

Fanmix (min 8 songs)

Fanvideo (no less than 1 minute)

Got any questions? We will be happy to answer them! Just shoot us an ask, or message us. And please help spread the word so we can reach as many authors and artists as possible!

Thank you and have fun! ~

[cultureisdarkbeer]

Carter's Pitch to Fox/Disney Execs

Exec: Mr. Carter. You’re here to present the future of the X-Files franchise. What do you have for us today?

Carter:  I was thinking the next stage in the X-Files should be around the Kennedy assassination.

Young Exec: Kennedy Holmes was assassinated?

Carter: The conspiracy around John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family.

[The execs exchange looks and shake their head.]

Exec: I’m not sure they’ll be much interest. What else do you have?

Carter: We could go back to the origins of The Project. Have a series around Bill Mulder and the original Syndicate.

Exec: That might spark ratings. You would uncover answers from the original run of the X-Files? Bring light to the mysteries behind Samantha Mulder, black oil, the spaceships, the incubating aliens?

Carter: Well no. Mostly scenes with powerful men in rooms engrossed in vague arguments, but we’ll include some incredible cinematography.

Exec: What about a continuation of The Revival?

Carter: William/Jackson could search for the truth of his origins.

Exec: The show would be centered around the aliens then.

Carter: No, abortion clinics. CSM would be resurrected of course..

Exec: CSM is beginning to troll like Michael Myers in Halloween.

Carter: Right but instead of chasing Jamie Lee Curtis threatening to kill her he’s running around with a syringe attempting medical rape. It will be terrifying.

Exec: Wasn’t that actor who played William/Jackson in the latest installment of Halloween?

Carter: Yes, he died in it. killed by Myers.

Exec: Good. Let’s keep him that way.

Carter: There’s the new baby. They could continue their father’s work..

Exec: What about Mulder and Scully?

Carter: Mulder would make appearances..

Exec: Scully?

Carter: She would have died during childbirth..

Execs: No

Carter: Abducted by aliens?

Execs: No

Carter: Taken by the new Syndicate?

Execs: No

Carter: Tortured by Pur..

Execs: No

Carter: What if she returns to the hospital, but her and Mulder are separated and don’t talk much.

Exec: She could be continuing her work at the hospital, but they would be married, not separated.

Carter: No. Mulder and Scully never marry, they’re platonic.

Exec: You had them have sex last season.

Carter: Yes, but it was platonic sex.

Execs: Would you be interested in directing an installment of Star Wars?

[A knock came at the door and a short young man entered]: Netflix is here sir

Exec: Send them in. [Exec addresses Carter]: Mr. Carter we’ve decided to go in another direction.

[Vince Gilligan enters cheerfully embracing Carter.] Carter backs off in terror: No, he’ll satisfy the shippers. Please no.

Exec to the young man: Bring her in

[On a hand truck dolly they wheel in Gillian Anderson in a straight jacket with secured straps. They carefully set her on her feet.]

G smiles at Carter and speaks to him in received pronunciation:  

“Good-bye Carter. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?”

I'm thinking the X-Files ride at Disney should be a cross between the haunted mansion, men in black, avatar, and a working tower of terror. At the end of the ride Mulder and Scully are sitting next to you hitching a ride home.

[deathsbestgirl]

Saw your tags-- agree w/ your thoughts! :DDD

I put my fleshed out ideas... somewhere? in an additional post; but I meant (and didn't say very eloquently) was that Mulder's trauma is psychological while Scully's was physical. We see him on more mental collapses over the series than Scully, whereas her arc revolves around her bodily autonomy being violated. Both are tragic; but Scully was given something back for everything CC took away from her (abduction = coma to have a goodbye from her dead father/peace, Melissa died = led her to Emily to give Scully autonomy over her daughter's peace, infertility = IVF = failure = confronting her own scientific reluctance in Amor Fati arc = alien ship healing = journey's end in all things = miracle pregnancy, etc.) Whereas Mulder's tragedies has no good thing to come from them EXCEPT closure for Samantha (his mom's suicide will always weigh on him, and his dad's "hi son" in Anasazi was butchered by Mulder learning about his Nazi dealings in Paper Clip, etc.)

Scully is able to seek help, stability, and normality regardless of her sufferings (even going to therapy when her mental health in untenable); Mulder, however, collapses far too easily without his dilapidated quest (until The Unnatural-Closure.) His trauma is psychological: being too late or too frozen or too incompetent to help others (Max in Fallen Angel, Samantha pre-show, his parents' deaths, Scully's abduction, her cancer and chip control, missing his son's birth, etc.) And his torture in S8 was never addressed, he was competently replaced by Doggett (who had a great solve rate), Scully would have been a good parent without him, Skinner/TLG advocate for his replacement (silently), etc. He had to suffer another loss-- his job, his files, to get a modicum of peace... and even that was robbed by his fear of his child's paternity. And he missed his son's birth (while Scully suffered another physical trauma with Reyes, so both had an awful time of it.)

Their tragedies are incomparable; but Mulder isn't hit hardest by physical violence while Scully is, hence her abduction/infertility being a pillar of trauma for her. For Mulder, it's psychological failure that haunts him the most.

Went on a long-winded spiel there, but I tried to consolidate it all down! :DDDDDD

thank you for this message !! so i tried to start it last night, but honestly was too tired to continue trying lol my issue isn't that i disagree with you at all, but the whole discussion ended up bringing out my anger toward the show 🤣

so i'm finding it hard to talk about their characters in the context of the show when i'm mad about the writing choices.

because. in oubilette (i love this episode), they give a minor the space to have such intense emotions after she'd been kidnapped, raped & abused. and it's SO frustrating that they make scully just bury it. i guess we can assume that because we see her go to therapy, she may go more than we see. and i think you're right to credit her more stable family background for how she's able to heal. but i just don't think being abducted for three months & having no memory and later learning you were medically raped when she was terrified to do any kind of therapy that could help her remember.

so i just don't think she ever dealt with it well, she internalized and tried to bury it and just move forward. or rather, she dealt with it by working on the x files with mulder. cuz maybe she'd eventually get some answers when she was more ready. and she'd already dedicated herself to him.

which i think is another part of the "problem" for me. because they did this with scully, and the way the show is continually about mulder's trauma, i think it just pisses me off. and like. i just can't be sure these were decisions the writers made intentionally, to be part of her character (which when i rationalize it, scully doesn't want to be weak in front of mulder, become another reason for him to feel guilty, another reason for his quest. she's strong & rational and he needs her to be okay. she wants his trust & his pride, to feel worthy. not necessarily because of anything mulder says/does but because of her own psychology & issues...) or if they were lazy & GA worked with what she had as they focused her on mulder.

ANYWAY. all this to say both of their traumas are so so bad. his lead to so much pain, abuse, estrangement and his beautiful beautiful empathy. i think i just care more about scully's because we actually ~see much more of mulder's. half the cases are about his trauma. the whole show is about his trauma. and scully's, i have a harder time talking about because medical rape is too real & scary. losing children is heart wrenching & tragic. the assaults she suffered from obsessive, crazy men are a very present fear for women. we lose people to cancer all the time and it's worse than i could ever put into words (which that aspect of cancer is more about mulder) and i just don't think a lot of that can get better exactly? it's things that stay with you even if you had a loving, stable family, even if you've "worked through it" & "healed" & manage to move forward. there isn't really a choice when a child involved. and there isn't really a choice when you're the one left behind. (not good choices anyway)

(and gods it's so frustrating the way they suck at communicating directly. they really do know each other so well that they can understand so much with looks & touches because they've learned how the other's mind works, though, clearly only to a degree because neither of them can truly fathom how the other struggles when they're abducted & there's nothing they can do except waiting & looking & praying & just doing what they have to as life keeps going because that's how the world works. BUT COMMUNICATING MATTERS. they can't rely on the other just ~getting it, because clearly they can't always get it lol)

(and oh god there's something here about the way mulder is so self sacrificial that any bodily harm that comes to him doesn't matter. and there's also something about the loss of autonomy scully faces repeatedly...)

[baronessblixen]

All of Prufrock's stories are great except the one where Scully is kidnapped, tortured and gang raped so Mulder can feel sad.

Omg, I don't remember reading this one. Which one is that?

[loveinthekeyofx]

With all the excitement going around over the ten year anniversary of IWTB (and the memes and the gag reel shots and the screencaps, etc.) I kinda wish someone (other than me) would point out that the film’s plot, while an interesting monster-of-the-week episode and a chance to spend a couple more hours with Mulder and Scully was, at best, a misrepresentation of the transgender community or, at worst, blatantly transphobic and homophobic.

The story perpetuates the “his touch made me gay” myth, the old (and disproved) notion that boys who endure sexual abuse by men invariably grow up to be gay. It also infers that trans people will “do anything” to become the opposite gender, including do harm to others, another myth. 

Now before you raise your pitchforks and torches, I am a HUGE fan of The X-Files. I saw this film five times in theaters because I desperately wanted it to make enough money to green-light a third movie (and get a much needed Scully-fix too). But as a gay woman, I was shocked the first time I saw the ending. It felt like such a slap in the face to the LGBT+ community. But I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. I told myself that I was the one in the wrong; that I had to be overreacting! My precious X-Files couldn’t be so myopic!

Sadly, it didn’t get better on subsequent viewings and I could find no redemption anywhere in the story. As the film churned toward its inevitable conclusion I would cringe in my seat, knowing what was coming, powerless to course-correct.

This is not to say that gay people or trans people are incapable of murder. The ability to commit a criminal act is not the point, the overused stereotypes are. And this is Chris Carter we’re talking about - the man whose bumbling misogyny resulted in the systematic torture of his female protagonist and culminated in a ham-handed attempt to justify rape by claiming CSM made Scully “pregnant with science.” He may just have been clueless about this subject as well; it wouldn’t be the first time.

Maybe it’s because I grew up with movies like Cruising and Basic Instinct but IWTB hit a nerve back then, and as much as I love Mulder and Scully, the nerve still stings.

[gentlenina]

A Chronological List Of My Favourite X-Files

“What X-File I Watch?” you ask.  I curate list.  You watch.  You.  Watch.  Especially the Darin Morgan episodes.

Season 1 (Think Of It As A Really Long B-Movie)

1-1 Pilot When Mulder met Scully 1-2 Deep Throat Not porn 1-3 Squeeze Scary contortionist liver harvester 1-8 Ice Field trip to Alaska featuring ear worms 1-11 Eve Clones, clones, clones 1-13 Beyond the Sea Scully’s first big loss of MANY 1-17 E.B.E. Meet the Lone Gunmen 1-20 Darkness Falls Scary invisible bugs take over the North Shore 1-21 Tooms Return of the liver harvester 1-24 The Erlenmeyer Flask Look how pregnant Gillian Anderson is

Season 2 (When The Show Got Really Fucking Good)

2-1 Little Green Men Aliens!  Puerto Rico! 2-2 The Host Darin Morgan as… FLUKEMAN! 2-3 Blood Darin Morgan tells us about subliminal messaging 2-5 Duane Barry Mulder goes for a swim, meets Krycek 2-6 Ascension Red Speedo part 2: Scully’s alien abduction

2-8 One Breath Red Speedo part 3: Scully’s return 2-9 Firewalker It’s basically Alien, right down to the chest bursters 2-10 Red Museum Fucking vegans 2-11 Excelsis Dei Ghost rape 2-12 Aubrey “I’ve always had a thing for girls named BJ” 2-13 Irresistible Sometimes the monster of the week is just a serial killer 2-14 Die Hand die Verletzt Evil teachers 2-15 Fresh Bones Haitian zombies 2-20 Humbug Darin Morgan writes another gem, Scully eats bugs 2-21 The Calusari Evil twins 2-24 Our Town Mad chicken disease

Season 3 (The One Where Mulder Dies And Is Resurrected For The First Time)

3-3 D.P.O. Jack Black runs an arcade 3-4 Clyde Bruckman Psychics, Darin Morgan, need I say more? 3-6 2Shy Internet dating culture in 1995 3-8 Oubliette Jewel Staite gets kidnapped 3-9 Nisei Aliens on a Train 3-10 731 Aliens on a Train pt. 2 3-12 War of the Coprophages Darin Morgan’s cockroach friends 3-13 Syzygy “Hate him, wouldn’t wanna date him.” 3-17 Pusher Brain tumors = psychic abilities 3-18 Teso dos Bichos Attack of the kitties 3-19 Hell Money Lucy Liu-kemia 3-20 Jose Chung's Scully doesn’t swear, according to Darin Morgan 3-21 Avatar Skinner kills hookers 3-22 Quagmire Darin Morgan’s Ogopogo kills Scully’s dog 3-23 Wetwired Mulder is colour blind 3-24 Talitha Cumi Meet Jeremiah Smith and the alien bounty hunter

Season 4 (Don’t Worry, Scully Is Immortal)

4-1 Herrenvolk So many Samantha Mulders 4-2 Home Incest: too hot for TV 4-3 Teliko Delicious pituitary glands 4-4 Unruhe German dental torture 4-6 Sanguinarium Plastic surgery featuring Satan 4-7 Musings of a CSM CSM kills everyone important 4-12 Leonard Betts Nomnomnom, cancer 4-13 Never Again Your Jodie Foster tattoo is talking to me 4-14 Memento Mori Aliens give Scully the gift of brain cancer

4-15 Kaddish Hasidic Jews 4-20 Small Potatoes Darin Morgan fucks all the bitches 4-21 Zero Sum ‘Member killer bees?  I ‘member. 4-22 Elegy Mulder & Scully go bowling 4-23 Demons Mulder starts flipping his shit 4-24 Gethsemane Mulder dies, again

Season 5 (The Season Everyone Liked)

5-1 Redux Jokes, Mulder is alive; Scully might die 5-2 Redux II Jokes, Scully’s fine - probably immortal 5-3 Unusual Suspects Lone Gunmen origin story 5-4 Detour Scully sings to Mulder in the forest 5-5 Post-Modern Prometheus Frankenstein’s monster loves Cher 5-6 Christmas Carol Scully has a child? 5-7 Emily Let’s kill it off and do it again come season 8 5-10 Chinga Stephen King and the Lynn Valley Dairy Queen 5-11 Kill Switch Upload yourself to the internet 5-12 Bad Blood Pizza and vampires, can you dig it? 5-17 All Souls Polydactyl quadruplets vs. the Catholic church 5-18 The Pine Bluff Variant Biological weapons in the movie theater 5-19 Folie a Deux Everyone is insane and there are giant bugs 5-20 The End As in the end of filming in Vancouver

Season 6 (80% LOLs, 20% Bullshit, 100% California)

6-1 The Beginning Welcome to California. 6-2 Drive Before Breaking Bad, there was X-Files 6-3 Triangle Mulder and Scully do “Titanic” 6-4 Dreamland Mulder gets a water bed 6-5 Dreamland II Mulder gets his body back 6-6 How Ghosts Stole Xmas Haunted Christmas house with Miss Frizzle 6-7 Terms of Endearment Ash from Evil Dead wants children 6-13 Agua Mala Florida is fucking ghetto 6-14 Monday Groundhog Day starring David Duchovny 6-15 Arcadia “Woman, get in here and make me a sandwich” 6-18 Milagro A creep stalks Scully and writes her a fanfic 6-19 The Unnatural Ice cream, baseball, aliens, and the KKK 6-20 Three of a Kind The Lone Gunmen drag Scully to Vegas 6-21 Field Trip Mulder and Scully do shrooms

Season 7 (Enjoy Mulder While He’s Still Here)

7-3 Hungry Meat is murder, for reals 7-6 The Goldberg Variation Shia LaBeouf needs a lucky liver 7-7 Orison Donnie Pfaster returns 7-8 The Amazing Maleeni Twin magicians 7-9 Signs and Wonders Snakes for Jesus 7-12 X-Cops Probably the most 1999 crossover 7-13 First Person Shooter Mulder and Scully play very early, shitty VR 7-15 En Ami CSM is a gross fucking rapist 7-17 all things Scully meets some nice holistic lesbians 7-19 Hollywood A.D. X-Files starring Tea Leoni and Garry Shandling 7-22 Requiem Mulder gets abducted by aliens, Scully is pregnant

Season 8 (The One With The Baby)

8-4 Roadrunners The cult of the back slug 8-5 Invocation Time traveling ghost babies 8-10 Badlaa The little man that hides in your ass 8-12 Medusa Spooky tunnels 8-13 Per Manum Alien fetuses are the only reason I watched S8 8-14 This is Not Happening Mulder is dead!  Again. 8-15 DeadAlive Did I say dead?  Jokes.

8-19 Alone This is basically a self-insert fanfic 8-20 Essence Supersoldiers want Scully’s baby 8-21 Existence Scully has the baby, Reyes becomes her wife

Season 9 (X-Files With Doggett & Reyes)

9-5 Lord of the Flies Jackass featuring actual flies 9-11 Audrey Pauley Reyes’s coma adventure 9-13 Improbable If man is 5, then the devil is 6, and God is Burt Reynolds 9-14 Scary Monsters Children are awful 9-15 Jump the Shark The one where they murder the Lone Gunmen 9-16 William Mulder and Scully give up their not-so-alien baby 9-18 Sunshine Days This dude *really* loves the Brady Bunch 9-19 The Truth It’s not good, but it’s “the end” 9-20 The Truth II

Season 10 (Dear God, Why?)

10-2 Founder's Mutation Some X-Men shit 10-3 Were-Monster Welcome back, Darin Morgan 10-4 Home Again Tim Armstrong is the Trashman