#the drive homes so long too....

[cherulove]

I wanna go home and cuddle with my cowboyfriend i hate it here

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[telesodalite]

[He's getting a happy meal for Grimsy :) ]

[seiwas]

there is a very specific image in my head of early-mid 20’s iwaizumi hajime

[television-overload]

The Most Popular Man in D.C.

(X-Files Fanfic)

[read on AO3]

-.-.-

In the months after Scully is returned from her abduction, Mulder starts getting catcalled on the street on an almost daily basis. At first, he doesn't think much of it, but after a few weeks, he finds it odd enough to mention to her.

She walks into the basement to find him putting pins in a map of D.C., hunched over his desk in concentration.

"Mulder?" she asks with an amused look on her face, paused in the doorway with her eyebrow arched.

With a brief glance up at her, he asks, "Scully, do you think I'm attractive?" Her hand almost slips off the door handle.

Her mouth falls open to answer, but she has no clue what words might come out. What is it he's wanting her to say? He doesn't look like he's joking. In fact, he looks deadly serious.

"I–"

"I just mean, if you saw me on the street, would you—you know—whistle at me?"

His question startles a chuckle from her throat, loosening her tongue. "Whistle?" She stares at him incredulously. Where is this coming from?

"Yeah," he says. "Whistle, wave, shower me with unsolicited compliments?"

Normally, she might laugh, assuming this to be one of the goofy bits he does when he's in a good mood, but something genuinely seems to be concerning him.

"Why do you ask?" she says, brows furrowing as she enters the room fully, shutting the door behind her.

He puts another pin on the map, near the grocery store she knows he goes to near his apartment in Alexandria.

"Scully, in the last month or so, I've been catcalled by random women nearly every day, all over D.C." he begins. "On my run, at the gym, even once when I went to pick up more fish food at the pet store. All over."

"Catcalled, Mulder?" she asks.

"Yes!"

"Is that so unusual?"

His brows slant in clear concern. He needs her reassurance.

"Look, you're a... not wholly unattractive guy," she starts cautiously. "And these places—the gym, the park where you run... You'd be covered in sweat, wearing that— that sleeveless Knicks shirt you have..." She trails off, blushing profusely and hoping her hair conceals it.

"But, the PET store, Scully," he insists, thankfully too worked up to notice her pink cheeks. He gestures wildly at the map before him. "All of these pins are places where I remember it happening. All in the last month."

Oh boy. "Putting that eidetic memory to good use, I see," she says. She surveys his slightly manic appearance, gauging how worried she needs to be about his state of mind.

"There's a clear concentration in certain areas," he says, ignoring her comment. "Look: about four blocks from my apartment, see? There's a cluster of them, all near this corner."

She looks where he is pointing, and indeed, there are six pins huddled close to each other while others are more spread out.

"Do you have a theory?" she can't believe she asks.

"I was hoping you would," he says, a little defeated.

Well, if she's not about to be dragged into a wild goose chase investigation based on some theory he's concocted, then she's back to finding this entire situation hilarious again. "Why should I have a theory?" she asks, suppressing a smile as she crosses her arms and looks up at him.

"I don't know," he says, shrugging awkwardly. "You're a... a woman."

She rolls her eyes. "Thank you for noticing."

"No, but maybe you have some insight. A different perspective."

"Some kind of womanly intuition?" she asks doubtfully, challengingly.

"Well, yeah."

She purses her lips. She has no immediate answer for him, so the office falls silent. He slumps back into his chair, looking far more bedraggled than he ought to at just past 8:00 am.

No, Mulder, she doesn't have some insider secret about the female mind to explain this so-called phenomenon away, but... Man, that is a lot of pins on the map. All in the last month, he says?

Why are her toes tapping incessantly on the floor beneath the desk?

"Mulder," she starts, hardly believing the words that are about to come out of her mouth. "If you're that worried about it, maybe we should go check out some of these areas of concentration."

He looks up at her, just as surprised to hear the suggestion come from her lips.

"Really?"

She wants to roll her eyes again, but there's a knot of something she refuses to acknowledge as jealousy in her chest that prevents her from doing so.

"Only if you're that concerned," she says, hoping she sounds firm and not at all interested in why her partner is getting hit on by women left and right.

He fumbles his way to his feet, stabbing himself in the palm with a pin accidentally in the process. He curses under his breath and shakes his hand out while eagerly shoving his arm in his jacket sleeve. "Okay," he says. "I think we should start by my gym, that's where it happens the most."

"Fine," she agrees stiffly, trying not to picture him breathless after a workout and surrounded by his loving admirers.

She drives, because she needs something to do with her hands. He navigates. It's his steps they're retracing, after all. He knows best what direction they need to head in.

They park on the street, exiting the car and getting a feel of their surroundings.

"There's my gym," he points out. She's not exactly sure what they're looking for, but she keeps her eyes peeled all the same.

After a few minutes spent wandering near the entrance, she's about to call it quits, but then a muscular little brunette calls out from across the street, grinning from ear to ear as she shouts, "Woo! I'd pay your dry cleaning bill just to watch you work out in that suit, handsome!"

Before either of them has time to respond, or even come to terms with what just happened, the woman disappears into a storefront. A yoga studio, Scully deduces from the sign out front.

"See?" Mulder says, swinging his hand out toward the other side of the street. The suddenness of his speech startles her out of her tense posture, and she forces her shoulders to relax.

"I give her points for creativity," she says, marching primly back to the car and throwing the driver's side door open.

The next place they drive is the grocery store, just a stone's throw away from his apartment building. Once again, she parks, and they wander about, but this time, their fellow pedestrians are blissfully silent. She looks around. There's the grocery store. Beside it, a pawn shop. On the other side, a place selling herbal supplements... and possibly also other "herbal" remedies. RadioShack across the street. Not much going on at—she checks her watch—8:47 am.

"Notice anything unusual?" she asks, watching as an older couple hobbles into the grocery store arm-in-arm.

His shoulders lift in a shrug. "It's quieter than usual," he says. "I'm not usually here this early on a week day."

She nods. This stop might have been a bust, but at least she didn't have to hear another cheesy one-liner directed at Mulder.

They're not so lucky at the next, and—she decides—final stop.

About a block down from the coffee shop in Georgetown that he frequents when he has to wake her at an ungodly hour, two women loiter outside a shop advertising high-quality tattoos and piercings. One takes a drag from her cigarette, then calls out, "Let's see a smile on those pouty lips!" The other woman chuckles, puffing out a cloud of smoke.

Mulder gives an awkward smile and nod in their direction, and Scully promptly grabs him by the arm, ushering him hurriedly back to the car.

She stews in silence on the drive back to the Hoover building. She knows she has no right to do so, and yet...

"You see what I mean, Scully?" he asks. "You gotta agree that something's unusual."

Does she? He's an attractive man. YES, okay, she's attracted to him. Can she fault other women for noticing? Maybe they could do to keep their mouths shut and leave him alone, sure, but wouldn't most men kill to have that kind of attention given to them?

"I don't know," she answers, her hands gripping the wheel.

"I'm serious. I've lived here for years, and this has never happened before. Then all of a sudden..."

"You're reading too much into it," she snaps. Then, softening her tone, "I mean, if they won't leave you alone, tell them to back off. Tell them you're an FBI agent and can arrest them for harrassment."

"Scully..."

"It's not an X-File, Mulder," she says decisively. "We've missed enough work as it is. Just forget about it."

His jaw shifts like he's about to argue her point, but instead he says the words she's always longed to hear from him.

"You're probably right."

-.-.-

She tries to forget about it.

On Thursday, he cheekily informs her that he had been called a "handsome devil" that morning while stopping by the bank. Friday, the descriptive term is decidedly less work-friendly, but he saunters in looking quite pleased with himself.

Gee, she sure is glad she told him not to worry about all the attention he's getting. Now, he actually seems to be enjoying it.

The weekend can't come soon enough. At 5:00 on the dot, she bids goodbye to his boyish smile and wishes him a good weekend. At home, she finishes off half a bottle of wine and watches some trashy reality TV until it's bedtime, and she promptly passes out.

-.-.-

Saturday, she wakes up feeling stupid. After popping a few advil, she deep cleans her kitchen, tossing out the now empty bottle of wine and even dusting on top of her cabinets, a task that requires standing precariously on the countertop with a featherduster in hand.

As the clock ticks closer to noon, though, she begrudgingly pulls herself away from her work and readies herself for her afternoon commitment with her sister. On the way to Melissa's dumpy—temporary—apartment, she picks up lunch from her favorite Chinese place. It's been months since Melissa came to town. She's not the kind to stay put in one place for long. If Scully hadn't been abducted, or whatever it was that happened to her, Missy wouldn't have been there in the first place.

The apartment is one she'd found on short notice when she heard what had happened, and came to support their mother throughout the ordeal. It pays by the month, and has a serious ant problem in the kitchen, but otherwise isn't the absolute worst living situation Scully could fathom. She liked having her sister nearby, even if it was only for a while.

Now, the ceaseless call of adventure summons Melissa once more, and it is time to go. Scully had promised to help her pack her things this weekend, and now the day is here.

"You sure you don't want to stay?" she asks, loathing how the sentence makes her sound like her 15 year old self when Missy had first left home for her first (and only) year of college.

"You don't need me, Dana," her sister says. "Besides, you know I can only handle so much of Mom telling me what I should be doing with my life."

"She means well," Scully assures her.

"I know she does," Missy says with a smile. "And I know you're no stranger to doing the complete opposite of what she tells you, too."

Scully breathes out a laugh.

"Come on, help me take these boxes down to the moving truck." Melissa shucks her jacket off, tying it around her waist in preparation for the physical labor it would take to carry multiple loads of boxes down four flights of stairs. One of the worst features of this apartment building is it's permanently broken elevator. Moving in must have been a nightmare.

Bending to pick up her first box, Scully catches a glimpse of something on Missy's right wrist, visible now that her jacket has come off.

"What's that?" she asks, brows furrowing.

"Hmm?" her sister asks. Her eyes follow Dana's to the marking on her skin on the underside of her arm. "Oh, I got that while you were in the hospital. You're like 90% of my impulse control, Dana."

Her teasing tone does not negate the heaviness that comes from mentioning that horrific time for her family. That time when she was all but lost to all those who knew her.

"What is it?" she asks.

Missy sets her box back down, and Scully does the same. "Check it out," she says, drawing closer so Scully can see.

On her wrist is a small cross tattoo, remarkably similar in shape and size to the cross Scully wears around her neck.

Strange. She's fairly certain Melissa hasn't been to mass in years, much to their mother's chagrin.

"Why?" she asks, genuine confusion lacing her voice.

"Don't go all 'Mom' on me, Dane," Missy jokes, smacking her in the shoulder. "It's just a tattoo."

Scully shakes her head. "No, I mean, why that? Why a cross?"

"Oh." Melissa looks down at her wrist in thought, then back up at Dana. "It just... seemed to be the thing to do."

"Something to remember me by?" Scully tries to joke, though she's aware of how morbid that sounds, to live to see the way her sister planned to memorialize her.

"Actually, no," Melissa corrects. "It was your partner."

Huh?

"Mulder?" Scully asks, wondering how on earth her necklace—the symbol of Christianity—relates to her unbelieving partner.

"Yeah, it was— Look, it's not really my place to tell, but I saw the way he relied on that necklace of yours for strength while you were gone. Not once did I see him take it off. It was like, if he didn't let go of it, then he wasn't letting go of you. I admire that."

Scully still doesn't understand. "So, the tattoo..."

"Is a reminder to have hope," Melissa finishes. "To have that same belief in others that Fox had for you, even when things looked hopeless and we almost gave up."

Scully's heart twists painfully.

This marking on her sister's body is tangible proof of what Scully has known all along:

That her partner is something special. That his uncommon belief in the unbelievable leaves an impact, not just on her, but on others whom he interacts with.

She still finds it hard to fathom that there had been weeks and months where Mulder was out there, spending time with her mother and sister while she was missing, or lying comatose on a hospital bed.

"When you came back, and when you got better, I knew it was him that saved you," Missy says softly, as if she can hear her thoughts and doesn't want to disrupt them. "I know it's him."

Her sister's piercing eyes meet hers seriously, and she turns away, lifting the box back into her arms to serve as a distraction.

"We don't want to keep the movers waiting," she says, forcing her thoughts away from Mulder. Away from the dangerous thoughts that had filled her head all week.

Missy's eyes brighten, and she grins.

"Don't keep him waiting," she warns.

-.-.-

Scully hands her sister the last of the boxes, and Missy stands up in the back of the truck, brushing the dust off her hands with a satisfied sigh.

"That's the last of it," she says proudly. "Oh, wait—"

She turns quickly, rummaging through a few boxes before triumphantly extracting a small piece of paper.

"Here, give that back to Fox, will you?" she says, handing it to Scully.

"What's this?" she asks, turning the glossy paper in hand to look at it properly.

In her hand, she holds a photo of Mulder from one of the times he'd been locked up on trespassing charges that ultimately wouldn't hold. He'd gotten a kick out of getting his mugshot taken, and so had requested a copy of it upon his release, and the small sheriff's department in Idaho had granted his wish.

But why did Melissa have it?

"I stole it from his apartment," she says, answering her unspoken question. "Made some copies, spread them around."

"You— you did what with them?"

"Just gave them to some friends," she says, smirking as she plops down on the edge of the truck bed. "You know I make friends wherever I go."

"Yeah, but why?"

The conspiratorial smile on her sister's face comes straight out of their childhood.

"Has Fox been getting an unusual amount of attention when walking around D.C. lately?" she asks nonchalantly, concealing a wider grin.

"Missy, you didn't!" Scully says, her jaw dropping.

"You didn't see him, Dane! He needed a pick-me-up!" Melissa raises her hands in defense, smiling at her sister's reaction.

Scully scoffs, but only to prevent a burst of astonished laughter from escaping. "A pick-me-up, not someone to pick him up," she says in as chastising a voice as she can manage.

Only Melissa would do something like this. She should have known.

"So it did work after all," Missy surmises. "Good. He needed a confidence boost. Has his ego inflated terribly?"

This time, Scully does laugh. "Sure, maybe after he got over the paranoia of suddenly being the most popular man in Washington, D.C."

"I guess it would come as a shock," Missy says, eyes bright with mirth.

Scully smacks her sister in the arm. "He was convinced it was some kind of conspiracy!"

"Oh, well," Missy says. "The real conspiracy is how you won't hit on that man yourself."

She's going to miss her sister, she reminds herself. Just be glad she's been in town this long.

Nope. She still wants to throttle her.

She shakes her head.

"Melissa..."

-.-.-

The compliments—because Scully refuses to call them catcalls—continue for the next few months, though with decreasing frequency.

After thinking it over for the weekend, she decides not to tell him. Maybe some day, years from now, when they can laugh about it.

For now, she lets other women say her thoughts aloud, and delights in the way his cheeks turn rosy when she's with him to hear their cheesy pick-up lines.

She wonders how she didn't notice before, the way these women look just like people Melissa would hang around with. Choker necklaces around their necks, Doc Martin shoes... Mulder was onto something with his map. The gym: across the street from a yoga studio that Missy had gone to a few times. The herbal supplement place, one that Missy had definitely stopped by on occasion. The tattoo parlor. Self-explanatory.

Now that she's in on the secret, whenever it happens, it's like Missy is there for a second. It makes her feel less far away. She thinks of these women being handed a photocopied flyer with Mulder's face on it, and wonders what on earth Missy had specifically told them to do.

Whatever it was, it had been effective.

Funny. She never really pictured introducing her sister to her partner, but now she wonders how she didn't see it before. She's glad Missy stepped in to look after him while she was gone, even if it involved a prank of questionable taste. She wouldn't have expected any less from her sister. And maybe that was just what Mulder needed.

She tells him at the funeral.

It's too early to find the humor in it, like she'd hoped they would someday. But his lips do curl into a small smile. Remembering.

It still happens on occasion after that. And when it does, Mulder takes Scully's hand and whispers, "See? She's never really gone."

Melissa Scully had left her mark on Washington, D.C., even in the short time she'd been there. She left her mark on Mulder in the same way.

Years down the line, when the number of Mulder's admirers has dwindled to one, Scully lies awake, picturing his face as he whispered sweet words to her. His constant. His touchstone.

"You were right, Missy," she breathes into the still air of her lonely apartment. Sometimes it feels haunted by her ghost. Tonight, that brings her comfort. "You were right."

She thinks she hears the echo of a sultry whistle.

-.-.-

Tagging: @today-in-fic @agent-troi @baronessblixen @captainsolocide @cutemothman @deathsbestgirl @edierone @enigmaticxbee @figureofdismay @frogsmulder @hippocampouts @invidiosa @randomfoggytiger @skelavender @teenie-xf

[lyhil]

Nightmares and Dreams that Haunt the Night Commander Harukehn - @harukehn

[safyresky]

"work wife"???? But not actual wife??

LOL no not actual wife! Both the work wife and I have actual husbands instead 🤭🤭 And my husband is JUST as crazy as I am and WILL do farther daytrips like the absolute insane mans he is! Which is one of the MANY reasons I married him--his weirdness matches my weirdness 💖💖💖💖💖

As a fun fact, the craziest day trip/road trip we have done: we went to IKEA about two ish hours away. Came home, realized upon unloading new bedframe that he had misplaced his wallet somewhere. So what did we do?

WELL IKEA was closed but you bet your ass we got BACK in the car and drove BACK to the pit stop (an hour?? ish?? away??) that VERY night and checked the trash there and asked the people inside (who were sups friendly! They checked the tapes for us and everything!) if they'd seen it. They hadn't! So, we drove BACK home and the next day, after work, we yeeted ourselves into the car and drove BACK to ikea to see if they had it

AND THEY DID!

He was so relieved and then we had IKEA hot dogs for dinner, his treat bc he had his wallet again 🤭🤭🤭 (they are pretty good but costco ones I think deffs are better!)

BUT YEAH. My actual spouse is just as unhinged as I am and I love him about it 😍😍😍😍😍😍

[moveslikekeithrichards]

its so hard to talk about how traumatic it is to watch somebody be claimed by dementia without going "well i cant complain because at least i wasnt the one losing my mind (for now)" but that shit fucks you up so much. that ghost is going to haunt me for the rest of my life and all i can do is hope it Stays a ghost

[chronicpaingirlie]

-

[compacflt]

what are bradley’s earliest memories of ice and mav? the bits of his perspective on them that you’ve written are so fascinating

fairly unsurprising answer but: ice: when he came to see Carole to apologize for killing goose in ch 2 of wwgattai (sets the tone of their relationship)

mav: something very benign like mav doing magic tricks for him as a little little kid. you know how your earliest memories are always a little fuzzy and always afternoon sunshine? imagine a desaturated maverick sitting crosslegged in the grass in pale afternoon southern california sunshine showing Bradley how he can detach his thumb from his hand and then put it back again. no blood, no bone, no pain, and he’s got this daredevil grin like he’s enjoying separating his thumb from his hand. can’t see his eyes behind his aviators. the best magicians are the ones who can make even their pain disappear. or, playing “got your nose,” holding Bradley’s nose up so he can see it right in front of his very eyes, NO PAIN!, and then making it disappear. “where’d your nose go, Gosling? oh, my gosh, I lost your nose!! how’re you gonna smell? i bet you’re gonna smell bad. get it? get it? —here it is, i found it, don’t worry, it’s all good!” and putting his nose back so everything’s ok. that’s Bradley’s earliest memory of mav.

[ilonacho]

pompeii bastille fills me with such longing for days that are long gone

[rapha-reads]

Theoretically, I knew organising funerals was a big, complicated thing. As reality is, I would very much like to run away screaming into a dark forest.

Edit: i'm a bit tipsy and the tags are full of typos. Don't pay attention.

[lieutenantselnia]

Yesterday I've been doing some proper physical exercise for the first time since last year and I'm just imagining how proud my f/os would be of me🥹

[ow1et]

came home a day early and i already miss it !

[theimpossiblescheme]

Possibly controversial Doctor Who take: UNIT should never have been a military organization. I've always hated the idea of the Doctor becoming a stooge for human governments, and it's only gotten grosser as time's gone on... I think UNIT would be much more interesting as an independent research organization (hell, more of a glorified clubhouse full of nerds) rather than a defense taskforce.

Picture this: we start with Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, shortly after his encounter with the Second Doctor and the robotic yeti. The whole affair's opened his eyes to a much wider world than he previously thought, and he's taken an interest extraterrestrial life and technology. At first, he thinks only of how this knowledge can be used to England's advantage, but soon it turns into curiosity for its own sake and a genuine urge to learn about other worlds. When another alien creature comes to Earth, Alistair just wants to talk to them if he can. So instead of shooting them on sight like the rest of his regiment, he goes out of his way to defend the alien. Alistair is dragged in front of a court martial for it, and even though he refuses to back down--the creature wasn't threatening anybody, and even if it was, it was still a cowardly move since they outnumbered it seven to one!--he's discharged from the army in disgrace. Severely disillusioned and having done some soul-searching for why he ever worked with those bastards to begin with, he starts to seek out like-minded people. People who are both disgusted with the military and curious about worlds beyond Earth. This leads him to Liz Shaw, John Benton, Jo Grant, and maybe a couple of honest-to-God aliens who've been going about their business unbothered. Maybe the alien whose life Alistair saved decides to join in as well. Together, they pool their knowledge, funds, and resources to found their own private research base to learn about all things paranormal and/or extraterrestrial. It's not a fancy or expensive affair--they're based out of Liz's house, and there's a big hand-painted KEEP OUT sign out front--but it serves their purpose. They don't bother gathering weapons or anything like that since they want to learn about visitors to Earth, not drive them away. The government and the greater Ivory Tower scientific community thinks they're naive at best and idiotic at worst, but they're long past giving a fuck. And when the Third Doctor is unceremoniously dumped on Earth by the Time Lords, the newly-formed UNIT shelters them and offers them a position as scientific advisor. Alistair might even be able to commiserate with them on "Oh, you were strung along by a bunch of close-minded shitstains who'd rather murder something new than try to understand it? Me, too, bud, let's go get drunk about it sometime."

And thus begins a grand, regeneration-spanning saga of protecting new aliens, sabotaging the military, recruiting old companions who want to carry on the Doctor's work, and giving both the Queen and the Time Lords an industrial-grade migraine. Because they're not soldiers--they're "idiots" with some books and a screwdriver, passing through, helping out, and learning as they go.

[mxtx-purist]

I take all of mxtx's works like gospel, and think that they represent soul mates and are a manifestation of what true unadulterated love looks like, especially when you look at all her works and not just one of them as a sole incident.

So, it stands to reason that I absolutely despise every and any ship involving one of the main characters with anyone else other than their intended(which is also what MXTX asked of us- to never ship her characters with anyone else) because to me that's like denying their very meaning.

But Liushen is a little bit of an exception for me. Like, I don't ship it, but I also do understand where ppl come from in a tragic unfortunate sort of way, so it doesn't bother me like others do. Does that make sense?