#he gives SCULLY what she needs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

television-overload · 20 days

Text

of our own making

(an X-Files fanfic)

Chapter 12/34 - empty suitcase

[Read on AO3]

His only thought as he holds her in his arms while they wait for the police to arrive, is just how much he’s failed her as a husband already. Sure, their marriage is mostly for show, but replace “husband” with “partner” and the statement still rings true.

He almost lost her. Again.

He knew something wasn’t right the moment her phone went to voicemail. He had been the one to assure her that things were okay—that the case was over. It was his fault that she let her guard down, and look what it got her.

When Pfaster’s body hit the floor, the first thing he did was take the gun from her hand and pull her away to where she couldn’t see him anymore. She was in shock, that much was obvious, and he scarcely had the time to take in the wreckage of her apartment in his haste to make sure she was okay. He cleaned the blood leaking from her nose (an unpleasant reminder of days past) and applied some cream to the burns on her wrists, and they waited.

The only thing he tells the police when they arrive is that she acted in self defense. If they want anything more than that from him, he has a shiny new ring and some spousal privileges he’s more than willing to wave around and refuse to testify. Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that. It seems the police are happy to believe whatever it is that wraps things up as simply as possible—no one will miss that wretched creature of a man.

It’s well into the night by the time the detectives clear them to go, promising to follow up soon. Arrangements have been made to get her apartment back in order in the next few days, and until then…

“Excuse me,” Mulder says, giving a parting nod to the local law enforcement officers. They wave him off, returning to their various duties around the living space, cataloging every shred of evidence.

Evidence that, when he looks at it, shows how Scully had been forced to fight for her life again, all alone and hopeless.

When he turns, she wanders out of the bathroom like a specter, a white knit blanket flowing behind her in an almost ghostly form. The door to her bedroom shuts behind her unceremoniously, and his heart constricts.

Sucking in a deep breath, Mulder glances up at the ceiling, willing the angry tears forming in his eyes to go away. Scully needs him. His wife needs him. Not his self-directed anger and loathing, or thoughts of would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

He starts toward her room, knocking lightly on the door before opening it.

“Scully?” he says, poking his head in. He finds her sitting on her bed facing the wall on the far side of the room, staring at nothing in particular. He swallows past the lump in his throat and enters. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”

She doesn’t react, not that he’d expected her to. He finds an empty suitcase in her closet and splays it open on her bed, tossing in a few items he knows she’ll need. Her comfy slippers. Silk pajamas. A blanket. A few of her medical journals from her to-be-read pile.

Her Bible.

He leaves the shampoo and hair products where they are. She can use his, tonight.

“Scully,” he tries again, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder and bending to meet her eyes. She flinches, but softens at the sight of him, which is an immense relief. “They’re letting you go,” he says. “Can I take you home?”

She nods wordlessly, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. He lets her keep the blanket wrapped around her for comfort, hoisting her now packed bag into one hand while guiding her gently with the other. The officers spare him a glance and a nod as they make their escape, an odd sense of understanding and respect passing from one man to another.

He’s not sure if he’s just that obvious about it, or if it’s some innate caveman sense of duty that has activated in their brains, but either way, he’s thankful for the ability to attend to his partner without judgment or pushback. A few neighbors peek their heads out their doors at them as they pass, and it causes him to pull her closer, shielding her from their wandering stares.

She rides in silence in the passenger seat of his car, kept warm by the blanket she wears. The night is crisp and clear and way too quiet, but he’s used to that by now. Life changing events happen, and the world goes on none the wiser, that’s just how things go. The pinpricks of stars in the sky shine whether you want them to or not. It’s not like the movies (or like Kroner, Kansas). It doesn’t rain just because you’re sad, or storm because you’re upset. Sometimes the night is as beautiful as ever and you just have to face the fact that you’ll never be the same again.

He wishes it didn’t have to be that way.

When they arrive, he unlocks the door to his apartment for her, pushing open the door to number 42. The keys get tossed on the kitchen table, to be dealt with properly another time. Right now, there are more important things to take care of, like the woman standing in the middle of his entryway as if she had never stepped foot in there before.

Recognizing that she’ll need him to take the lead, Mulder guides her further into the space, wordlessly ushering her into the living room where he sits her down on the couch. He disappears into the bathroom to get things ready for her; a clean towel, a brand new toothbrush, a disposable cup for water. He gives the small room a once over to make sure none of it resembles Pfaster’s preparation of her bathtub hours earlier, and nods in approval.

“Dana,” he says tenderly, crouching in front of her at the couch. She looks up at him, and he nods toward the bathroom. “You want to get cleaned up?”

“I– yes,” she agrees, nodding feebly. He offers his hands to help her up and pulls her to her feet.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” he says, sending her off on her own while trying not to hover or act too worried about her.

He hears the heavy wooden door shut behind her and lets out an exhausted sigh, his shoulders slumping. He takes a moment to gather himself before trudging into the bedroom, digging some rumpled but clean sheets out of his closet and starting the process of stripping and remaking the bed for her. He leaves a lamp on, just in case she wants it, and sets her suitcase on the bed.

Only then does he notice that there hasn’t been any sound of running water since she went in there.

“Mulder?” he hears, her voice muffled through the closed door. He nearly trips over himself in his haste to get to the bathroom, stopping halfway through shoving a fresh pillowcase on a pillow. He stands outside the doorway, his hand hesitating over the knob.

“I’m here, Scully,” he says, holding his hand up to the door. His forehead almost presses against the wood, and he listens intently for her to speak again, wondering for a moment if she even will.

But then he hears her uncertain voice come through again.

“Can– can you come in here?”

His hand finds the doorknob and turns, the door creaking open slowly so as not to startle her. She’s wrapped in a towel and standing in front of the shower, but that seems to be as far as she’s made it. Her clothes are neatly folded on top of his sink, splatters of blood still visibly dotting the hem despite her attempt to hide them. Her feet are bare and probably freezing on the cold tile, but that isn’t what’s bothering her.

She stares at the bathtub like she’s seeing a ghost.

“What can I do?” Mulder asks. Not ‘what’s wrong?’ because he knows. That’s plain enough to see.

“Stay– stay in here?” she asks, sounding shy and ashamed, all things she doesn’t have to be. Not around him.

“Of course,” he says, because of course he will. He’ll do anything—whatever he can to make this easier for her.

She gives a shaky nod, not even casting a glance back in his direction, and takes a bold step forward.

Mulder finds a seat on the closed toilet seat lid and closes his eyes, offering her some semblance of privacy despite the circumstances.

“Talk about something,” she says, the sound of the shower coming on audibly marking her progress.

He thinks, frantically filing through a list of safe topics in his brain before finally settling on one.

“I had a dream,” he starts, picturing it in his mind as he speaks. “Skinner was holding up a piñata on a rope, shaped like an alien. And there was this kid, maybe four years old? I knew it was her birthday, and she started yelling about how the alien was the wrong color, except it was supposed to be rainbow colored, not gray. It was completely unrealistic.”

Scully doesn’t respond, but the scent of his body wash wafts through the curtain, so he knows she’s doing okay so far.

Encouraged by this, he continues. “Suddenly she has a baseball bat—a real Louisville Slugger one, not a cheap one. And she takes this massive swing and lands one straight in Skinner’s– well, you can imagine where.”

He smirks at this, the memory just as amusing as it had been when he woke up that morning.

“Skinman obviously drops the rope, and Mr. Alien goes for a dive. It practically explodes on impact, and there are sunflower seeds absolutely everywhere. I’m talking way more than can feasibly fit into a piñata, Scully, not that anyone in their right mind would put seeds into a piñata.” He’s not sure why this detail is important, but it seemed like it at the time.

In any case, it adds to the absurdity of the dream, which is the whole point of the story. Distract her from her troubles by sharing something utterly stupid and meaningless.

“And then we all just laid down and made sunflower seed angels on the ground until I woke up.”

He lets his tale trail off there, the bathroom returning to silence save for the constant trickle of water down the drain. He can’t tell if his distraction worked or not, but he listens anyway, hoping for some sign that she’ll be okay.

And then:

“That’s ridiculous, Mulder.”

The tight squeeze of his heart loosens immediately at the sound of her voice. Her voice. Laced with the usual loveable skepticism that he’s come to expect from her.

He’s never been so happy to be called ridiculous in his life.

“I didn’t say it was a reasonable dream, Scully,” he teases back carefully, smiling in spite of himself.

She doesn’t ask him to speak again for the rest of her shower, but the mood has lightened significantly, and for that he’s grateful.

Eventually, he hears the sound of the curtains getting pulled back, the faucet dripping now that the shower has been turned off. He’s getting tired, if he’s being honest. The sound of the water combined with the darkness of having his eyes closed for the past ten minutes has combined to form the perfect conditions for sleeping, not to mention the bone-deep exhaustion the day had leveled on him. It’s only the responsibility of looking after Scully that keeps him lucid. Otherwise, he might have conked out right there on the toilet seat before she was even done.

She asks for pajamas to borrow, the silk ones he'd packed in her bag too close to what she wore when Pfaster attacked. He gladly hands over some sweatpants and a t-shirt, helping her to roll the hem to fit her much shorter frame. It dwarfs her, but she doesn’t complain in the slightest.

“I, uh– I made up the bed,” he says, hovering awkwardly around his bedroom, fussing needlessly with the sheets. “I'll just be out there,” he adds, pointing to the living room. “If you need me.”

He starts toward the doorway, ready to collapse on his leather couch for what is sure to be a fitful night's sleep. She'll be fine, he tells himself. He'll just throw her clothes into the washer before bed, then leave her be.

“Mulder?”

He turns, worry creasing his brow.

“I need you.”

She sits on the bed, looking so small and helpless in his oversized clothes. Even during her cancer treatments, she found it hard to admit her need for help. But things have changed since then.

He sets her bloodied clothes aside and crosses to her, his eyes searching hers, asking what she wants him to do.

She pulls back the covers on the other side of the bed, and suddenly, he understands.

Glancing down at his own bloodied clothing, he sends her an apologetic look. “Give me a few minutes,” he says, his eyes meeting hers intently, as if she might disappear the second she's out of his sight.

Reluctantly, he tears himself away long enough to take a quick shower and slip into some comfortable sleep clothes. He wonders if this is wise, if having a man in bed beside her will trigger some kind of post traumatic stress, but she asked him, so he will gladly do it anyway. He'll just be cautious, let her take the lead. Give her as much or as little space as she needs.

He exits the bathroom, taking his clothes and hers and tossing them in the washer along with the blanket she'd worn on the ride over.

He re-enters the bedroom as quietly as possible, and can tell by the uneven rise and fall of her chest that she's still awake. With a boldness he doesn't quite feel, he slides onto the bed beside her, adjusting the sheets over his chest.

He doesn't want her to think he's uncomfortable with this, because he's not. He just worries that he'll scare her, that the unfamiliar surroundings will be too much, too soon, and she'll panic or run screaming away from him.

He stares listlessly at the ceiling for a few minutes before she speaks.

“Can I ask one more thing of you?” she says, her voice a whisper in the dark.

He turns his head toward her, staring at the back of her hair. Her shoulders are hunched in on themselves, her body stiff and unmoving.

“Anything, Scully,” is his answer. If she asks him to get lost, leave her alone because she changed her mind, he'll do it. But that's not what she does.

Instead, she turns and faces him, her expression defeated. Her request isn't spoken with words, but instead in the way she inches toward him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest.

It takes his brain a second to catch up with his body, but when it does, he circles his arms around her, burying his nose in her freshly cleaned hair, potent with the scent of his shampoo.

She doesn’t cry, like he might expect. But she doesn’t pull away, either. He holds her close, reveling in every second of being allowed to comfort her in this way. If this is his only opportunity to hold his wife in his arms, he’ll make the most of it. His fingers tangle in her hair, cradling her tightly to him in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. She’s safe here, he needs her to know that.

They lay there for a few minutes, the room silent except for the sound of a ticking clock and the heater kicking on. He starts to wonder if she’s fallen asleep, but then he feels her hand brush up his chest, palm flat against him. Her fingers pause over the circular object tucked beneath his t-shirt, tracing the outline of it thoughtfully.

Oh, Scully.

Though he’s loath to part with her, he leans back a little, creating some space between them. With one arm, he pulls the chain from around his neck, unclasping it and removing the ring from its hidden place.

His eyes meet hers, heavy with meaning, as she lays back on the pillow looking up at him, and he slides it on his finger, his gaze never wavering.

A single tear slips from her eye, dissolving into the fabric of the pillow.

Tonight, she doesn’t need her partner. She doesn’t need her friend.

Tonight, Dana Scully needs her husband. And that’s exactly what he’ll be.

Without a word, he scoops her back into his arms, this time pulling her so his front is curled around her back, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. Her hand finds his left one, her fingers taking a moment to brush over the cool metal band before resting atop it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” he says into her shoulder, his voice straining against the emotion constricting his vocal cords.

“Why did I do it, Mulder?” she speaks, whispered like a dark secret into the night.

He doesn’t have an answer for her beyond what he’s already said.

“Because you are good, Scully,” he says. “That kind of evil doesn’t belong in this world.”

He knows his words won’t be enough to put her mind at rest. Not yet. But he’ll keep saying them until she believes him. As many times as it takes.

“Sleep, sweetheart,” he says, the endearment falling easily from his lips. He presses a kiss to the side of her head and curls in tighter, providing much needed comfort and security to the both of them.

She does, and he follows soon after, drifting off into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

-.-.-

He wakes the next morning to the sound of his phone ringing in the living room. It’s cruel, to be forced to leave the warmth of the bed without getting to savor the last few minutes of peace while she sleeps, but he drags himself away anyway, creeping out of the room as quietly as possible. With one last glance back at her, he sees her roll into the divot he’d left in the mattress, wrapping her arm around the pillow he’d vacated.

His heart tugs painfully. Go back to her, it says.

The phone call turns out to be Skinner, asking after Scully and wanting to know how she’s doing. He’s not sure whether the Assistant Director had guessed where she was, or if the police had said something to him, but either way, it doesn’t seem to surprise him that he’d taken her home with him.

Their boss is generous, giving them a few days off to recuperate. Scully needs it, whether she’d admit to it or not. He thanks the man and hangs up the phone, contemplating how best to fill the free time they both suddenly have.

He starts some coffee brewing in the kitchen and moves their laundry into the dryer, then drifts back to the doorway leading into his bedroom, pulled like a magnet back to her side.

He hates to wake her, but it’s been hours since she’s eaten anything. He perches on the edge of the bed and tucks her hand into his, holding it gently as he sits mesmerized by the soft fluttering of her eyelashes.

“Scully,” he says softly, running his thumb over her knuckles. He repeats her name and she shifts slightly, slowly coming to consciousness.

“Mmm—Mulder?” she asks, her brows furrowing, eyes still closed.

He smiles softly. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he says. “How do you feel about breakfast?”

-.-.-

It feels dreadfully normal to be sitting across from her at his kitchen table, the newspaper open to the funny pages while they nibble on slightly rubbery scrambled eggs and steaming coffee. He’s still not used to the clink of his ring against the ceramic mug when he picks it up, but it just adds to the perfect picture of domesticity, one he’d never thought he’d experience again after Diana left him, and that was never so perfect in the first place.

Scully is doing well, this morning, all things considered. He tells her that Skinner called, a gesture he knows she’ll appreciate. Now the question is what to do with the rest of their day, and the days that follow.

He has some ideas about that. The only concern is whether she’ll be receptive to them.

The television is tuned in to a channel playing reruns of I Love Lucy when he approaches her on the couch, setting a stack of flattened cardboard boxes on the floor by the coffee table.

He can’t believe he’s about to suggest what he’s about to suggest, but he can’t deny that it makes sense. Pfaster was the final straw, the one that pushed him over the edge. Bad things happen when they’re apart. If the last seven years with her have taught him anything, it’s that.

He’d told the adoption agent he was planning to take a step back from the X-Files. The events of yesterday merely solidified his belief that it was the right decision. He’s ready if she is.

He sits beside her on the couch.

“I was thinking,” he starts, focusing his eyes on the scene playing out between Lucy and Ricky Ricardo on the screen. “It might be good if I move in before they do a home visit—hypothetically, of course. If we get approved.”

She turns to look at him, surprise—not unpleasant—lacing her features.

“I mean—” he fumbles with his words. “I have a good feeling we will get approved. So, if you want…”

“Yes,” she says simply.

He blinks, astonished that it was that easy.

The home visit ‘deadline’ is just an excuse, and both of them know it. But she still says yes, and once again he feels a thrill at all the drastic life changes they’ve made with comparatively little thought in the last several months.

It’s all worked out well so far, so why shouldn’t this too?

He fights back a grin, nodding calmly in response.

Okay.

“Uh, I figured we could start with the small stuff first,” he says, focusing intently to keep his voice from shaking. “Decide what to donate, what to keep, what to throw away…”

“Sounds fun, Mulder,” she says, a hint of the old Scully finding her way back into her speech.

Oh, yes. This is the right decision. He’s sure of it now.

Armed with packing tape, permanent markers, and bubble wrap, they take to the apartment with gusto, smiling infectiously whenever their eyes meet over the top of cardboard boxes and piles of his belongings, on their way to a new home.

~~~

Lovely tag list ♡: [if you would like to be added or removed, let me know!]

@today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr @agent-troi @angegova @baronessblixen @calimanc @captainsolocide @clo-thespin @cutemothman @danasculls @deathsbestgirl @edierone @enigmaticxbee @figureofdismay @frogsmulder @gillian-anderson-in-the-tardis @hippocampouts @invidiosa @monaiargancoconutsoy @numinousmysteries @primrose19 @randomfoggytiger @skelavender @skylarksong @stephy-gold @teenie-xf @the-redhead-in-a-dress @vincentsleftear

#orison #msr #txf #x files #xf fanfic #mulder and scully #my fanfiction #fox mulder #dana scully #of our own making #ooom #msr adoption fic #adoption

59 notes · View notes

phillippadgettwrites · 4 months

Text

Sensitive

Rated X / 1401 words / posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

“Can I, please?” he asks, looking up at her from between her legs.

He pins the hem of her panties between his teeth and tugs, then brushes his nose across her clit over the cotton gusset, making her squirm.

“Come here,” she says, reaching for him. Encouraging him to crawl back up the bed.

He reluctantly does so, nestling his hips between her thighs and grinding against her while they kiss.

“I don’t want to pressure you,” he says quietly, kissing a trail from her jaw to her ear. “But is there a reason you don’t want me to?”

It’s still new. Not so new that she feels bashful about their nakedness, but new enough that she’s been able to artfully distract him from his attempts to get his mouth on her cunt without actually addressing it.

“I’m just not a big fan,” she says, turning her head to the side to give him better access.

“I promise I’ll do a good job,” he says, his breath hot and damp against her ear.

He makes it sound so appealing she almost wants to say yes.

“It’s not that,” she says. “It’s just…too intense. So much so that it’s not enjoyable.”

“Hm,” he hums. “You’re so sensitive.”

That much he’s already learned. She loves him inside her—his fingers, his cock. But direct pressure on her clit is almost unbearable.

They kiss, and play. The indirect brush of his cock over her panties is delicious, as is the attention he lavishes on her breasts. He makes his way back to her ear, scraping his teeth over the lobe tenderly.

“What if I don’t touch your clit?” he asks, which confuses her.

“Sounds perfect,” she says lightly, as this is generally what she has asked him to do (or not do).

Suddenly he’s kneeling between her open legs on the mattress, tugging her panties off her hips, but it’s only when he gets down on his belly that she understands.

“Mulder, no,” she says, sitting up to touch his chin. “I didn’t mean that.”

He pushes his bottom lip out into a full on pout.

“Can I please try? If it’s too much, just tell me and I’ll stop,” he says.

Scully flops back onto the bed.

“Proceed,” she says, not expecting much.

Her distaste for cunnilingus is not typically an issue. Most men she dated in the past were either indifferent to or grateful for her request that they skip it, but not Mulder. She should have guessed that someone so orally fixated would have a proclivity towards eating pussy, but if he needs to prove it out before accepting that it’s just not on the table, then so be it.

She lets her mind wander while he dapples the inside of one thigh with kisses, and then the other. She thinks about a particularly memorable exchange they had a few nights ago wherein she sat up while he was fucking her from behind. With her legs spread over his lap, his arms wrapped around her waist to hold her steady, and his cock pistoning into her at a punishing clip, it was some of the most primal, animalistic sex she’s ever had.

Mulder continues pressing his lips against her skin in a soft constellation: the crease of her leg, then her hip bone, then the underside of her ass cheek. It’s nice, but she still predicts that he will become overzealous and she’ll need to tap out. She feels the wet of his tongue flash just alongside her opening and and her clit stirs, interested. She pulls in a breath and tries to relax rather than tensing up in anticipation of being overstimulated.

The sex has been surprisingly good. Not that she didn’t think it would be good, but she couldn’t have predicted it would be this good because she’s never had sex like this before. She thought she’d had great sex in the past, and would have defended that fact vehemently, until Mulder practically split her in two and made her come so hard she almost cried. Now she’s left to wonder if it’s possible that it could get even better.

His kisses are growing increasingly wet, open-mouthed smooches accentuated by his tongue all around her vulva. She feels the brush of his cheek against her pussy lips, but never his mouth. The more he lavishes her with hot, wet kisses, the more her hips shift impatiently, wanting more. She’s afraid to tell him this, though, lest he make a beeline for her clit and ruin it. He’s doing such a good job not overwhelming her, and that care and consideration only enhances her experience.

God, he’s attentive. At first it made her feel embarrassed and greedy, but she was finally able to accept that he does it for his own enjoyment as much as hers. If he’s in the apartment when she showers, no matter his place or hers, she’s come to expect that he’ll sneak in and slip his hand between her legs under the guise of helping her wash. After making her come he steps out, his cock stiff and dripping wet, and leaves her to wash away the slickness between her thighs.

His nose nudges the side of her hood, just barely, and she gasps.

“Too much?” he asks, not lifting his head.

“No,” she answers truthfully. “That was okay.”

He continues his slow exploration of the terrain of her cunt, working around her clit like a reverse game of hot and cold. He moves closer and she tenses, so he backs off until her hips cant up towards his face. He laps at her opening and she shudders, letting out a breathy, “Oh.”

“Good?” he asks, sucking one of her labia between his lips.

“Yes,” she says, pleasantly surprised.

He kisses the skin between her pussy and her asshole and she startles a little, but it quickly dissolves into a moan when his wet tongue slides back up to her opening, dipping just inside. She reaches down and touches the back of his head in encouragement, and she feels the vibration of his groan in her pelvis.

His tongue moves up, gliding between her swollen lips, and she’s about to tell him not to go any further when he reverses the motion and heads back down. His tongue swirls, and swirls, and swirls around her opening, and she is panting and wriggling, unexpectedly desperate for him to put his mouth on her.

“Oh, please,” she finally whispers, and he suddenly stuffs his tongue inside her as far as he physically can, until his chin is pressed firmly against her asshole.

Her thighs clamp down over his ears and she involuntarily thrusts against his face. It feels unexpectedly amazing, and she’s so surprised by her own quickly approaching orgasm that she sits up on one elbow and looks down at him, somehow compelled to bear witness to this cardinal event. She has never had an orgasm essentially on someone’s face, and that someone is Mulder, and it’s overwhelming in a way that she couldn’t have predicted.

“I’m coming,” she announces, and his eyes flash up to hers.

Everything below the tops of his cheeks is buried in her cunt, but his eyes are on her face and she’s coming around his tongue, and it feels So. Fucking. Good. She can’t look anymore, so she collapses back onto the bed and grinds against him for as long as she can stand, until the pleasure starts to border on pain and she pushes his head away.

He crawls back up the bed with an unabashed shit-eating grin on his face, and she smirks at him mirthfully.

“You must be quite pleased with yourself,” she says as he wraps himself around her, his erection lying neglected against her hip.

“Are you not pleased with me?” he asks, and she hears the genuine request for validation behind his defensive snark.

“I am exceedingly pleased,” she says, raking her fingers through his hair. “I should think you’d know that, given your front row seat.”

He lifts his head and gives her a long look.

“Please tell me that wasn’t a one-time deal,” he says hopefully, and she smiles.

“I sure as hell hope not,” she says, and his eyes roll back in his head with a mouthed thank god.

He has his tongue in her cunt again thirty minutes later.

#x files fanfic #the x files #xf fic #xf fanfic

116 notes · View notes

samanthamulder · 11 months

Text

director Rob Bowman on the hallway scene in The X-Files: Fight the Future (1999 DVD audio commentary) — “ 'I need you, I need you.' That’s a theme of the movie – Mulder needs Scully. And never before has he come to that understanding quite so strongly as he does in this story. So she’s running because she’s afraid that he’s going to talk her out of it, and so the best thing she can do is hit the elevator button and go, go, go. She never makes it. That’s her first mistake.

And Mulder also knows that that’s where she’s headed, is out the door. So he’s got to tell her why it is that she’s so important to him, and tell her once and for all that in fact the whole time that the two of them have been together that she has made him better, that she has made him feel not like an outcast, not like discarded FBI trash, but somebody worthy of her friendship, and that, as he says, has made him a whole person. So in a scene filled with such virtue, people expressing their highest thoughts and feelings towards each other, you come to a sort of pinnacle of respect and mutual admiration that it leads to an intimate moment that neither of them expect, or were working towards. It just sort of happens. You just keep arguing and arguing, then suddenly it’s not an argument, it’s 'We’re for each other, we’re for each other.' And we come to the opportunity of the kiss for the first time. But it’s not out of lust, it’s not out of any of the obvious reasons, or typical reasons. It’s out of just absolute overwhelming respect for each other. Out of that respect becomes an emotional response, where you transcend logic and thinking and it becomes more visceral and human.

The only place for him to go, in my mind, to express the next thought is to kiss her. And how do we do that in The X-Files fashion? Which is, you never give them anything that they want. You just lead them down the road and say 'Ah, that’s all you get.' And then, because of the bee, the moment is abrupt and abbreviated and stops short of the zenith that the audience is wanting. But we don’t want to end by cheating the audience. We’d like to at least add up in parts a kiss. So there’s the idea, in the spaceship where Mulder is trying to rescue Scully, and just when they get to the vent exit, she collapses again, and she passes out and she’s not breathing. What do you do when somebody’s not breathing? You give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. So you’ve got the intention of the kiss and the physical act of them touching mouths. I believe in Chris’s mind the idea was you take those two, add ‘em together, that’s a kiss. Sort of in frustrating X-Files fashion that’s a kiss. And I think obviously there’s more gained for the audience out of the hallway kiss, and I don’t think anybody really walked out thinking, 'Well, they sort of did, because if you add the two together…' but it doesn’t matter because the idea is they were going to. As a story point, that counts as the kiss. They didn’t stop themselves, something else entered the scene and interrupted them, so…"

#''in frustrating x-files fashion'' do u hear me laughing? no? that's because I'm not #anyway. I do like what he says here tho <3 #about the moment creeping up on them unexpectedly. the respect for each other as the base of their love. they didn't stop themselves etc.#and in all honesty. 'you never give them what they want' IS the x files fashion. and that's why the scene works this way #'they' being mulder and scully. they don't get what they want (the truth) only little bits of it without real resolve. and #that's why it's good that they didn't truly kiss and I will die on that hill i guess sfkfjs #txf #fight the future #*

234 notes · View notes

numinousmysteries · 3 months

Text

Handfesta

He wants to marry her in a primeval fashion that transcends man and law and God.

MSR/S7ish/Explicit

@today-in-fic [on Ao3]

Although they’d been involved, entwined, inseparable, cosmically linked (take your pick, really) for years, he feared actually being with her would mean making promises he couldn’t keep. He’d want to give her the world: A husband who didn’t feel the urge to drive across the country at the mere suggestion of strange lights in the sky. A home to fill with as many blue-eyed babies as she wanted. Or, at the very least, a dog.

But he can’t marry her. They can’t live together. The babies are a moot point—an especially painful one after their failed IVF attempt. And look what happened to poor Queequeg.

In the end, though, pretending he didn’t love her proved more painful than admitting that he did.

***

If the world didn’t end in the early hours of the new millennium, it certainly shifted on its axis. The sun had yet to rise on the first day of the year and Dana Scully had already let him kiss her, insisted on staying the night at his apartment on the flimsiest of pretenses (to look over his barely fractured radius), and is now—assuming he isn’t hallucinating—naked, astride him, and riding his cock.

He isn’t ready to rule out a drug-fueled hallucination quite yet, although this feels pretty fucking real. Underneath the fingers of his one useful hand, the delicate skin on her hip feels soft and warm. Her scent envelopes him like a halo. Moving his thumb to the wet bud of her clit elicits more of the breathy moans that he could listen to for the rest of his life.

She throws her head back, exposing her pearlescent neck. Earlier on his couch, he lavished the skin there with hungry kisses as he fumbled with the buttons on her blouse. She pulled away briefly to put him out of his misery by freeing herself from her clothing. Then she dragged him by his good arm into the bedroom. She helped him out of his jeans but they didn’t bother getting his t-shirt off with his sling in the way so he kept it on as she got on top of him. The thin gray fabric covering his chest makes him feel oddly chaste like an actress who kept her bra on during sex scenes.

There’s nothing chaste about the way Scully is writhing above him, though. She’s so wet that he’d be nervous she'd slip off of him on each upstroke if she wasn’t also clinging to him so tightly. They shouldn’t fit together this well—fuck, they shouldn’t even get along—but they’ve seen phenomena far more difficult to explain than this, so why not?

She folds forward to kiss him and he sucks greedily at her mouth. Her lips are plump, swollen from the barrage of kisses he assailed her with the moment the apartment door shut behind them. Their New Year’s kiss at the hospital had been restrained, but it was enough to crack open the floodgates between them. They barely spoke on the drive back to his place, both sharply attuned to the new dimension of their partnership. He’d become an expert at reading her moods from across a car’s center console. He knew when she was angry or tired or hungry. Now he knew how it felt to sit beside her and feel raw need emanating off of her. And he knew she sensed it from him as well.

He wants this to last forever, to live in an endless time loop of watching her perfect breasts bounce in sync with the rhythm of her hips and her face contorting in pleasure. He wants to take up permanent residence here and have all his mail forwarded in care of Dana Scully’s glistening, velvety vise of a vagina (although she’d certainly shoot him again if she heard him say anything of the sort out loud). But they’re both so close now and when she arches her pale belly toward him and reaches back to stroke the seam between his rigid balls, he lets go. Seven years of pent up desire rush out of him in desperate hot spurts. She comes in stride, squeezing him dry as her inner walls frantically contract in pleasure.

Once he feels all of her muscles surrounding him relax, he half-expects she’ll disappear like a phantom in the night, the delirium of a love-starved man. She lifts up her hips and rolls over next to him. With her chest flush against his side he can feel the hammering of her heart. Alive, alive, alive is all he hears with each beat. He’s come too close to losing her too many times. The simple mechanism of blood pumping through her body is a holy sound to him. A prayer, an incantation, a vow.

“Let’s get married,” he says, testing his luck.

He suspects she’ll blame it on the painkillers, the orgasm-induced euphoria, the sudden rush of blood away from his brain, but instead she says, “Okay.” Her voice is quiet yet resolute and he questions if he’s been propelled into an alternate reality.

“Okay?” he asks, turning to her and squinting in disbelief.

“That surprises you?”

“Scully, I’ve seen you take more time deciding what you want from a vending machine.”

She shrugs. “You’re my best friend. The only person I’d want to spend every day of my life with. We’ve already made it through the sickness and health part more times than I’d like to count. And we love each other.”

She ticks off the reasons with the same confidence she’d use to explain why a pair of tracks in the woods couldn’t possibly belong to a sasquatch. She loves him. In the first two hours of the new millennium Dana Scully has kissed him, fucked him, and said she loved him. Now he’s even less sure he isn’t hallucinating.

“You know we can’t…really…” he trails off, feeling the heft of reality settle back over him like a dark cloud heavy with rain.

“I know,” she says. She bites her lips and glances down. “But we can be married in all the ways that count.”

“You don’t want a big church wedding? A cake with fondant flowers? A taffeta gown?”

“Taffeta, Mulder? Really?” she smirks.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he says. “I haven’t been to a wedding in at least a decade. I suppose bridal fashion has evolved.”

“Clearly.” She smiles. “But I’m serious. Marriage is a union based on love, companionship, and trust. We have all of that. I don’t care about the window dressings.”

“We’ve even consummated that union,” he says, trailing his fingertips along her upper arm.

“Yes, we have,” she responds. She rests her palm on the flat of his abdomen just below his t-shirt hem. “For what, I hope, will be the first of many, many times.”

“Wait ‘til you see what I can do with two hands.”

“You were married before,” she says, somewhere on an empty stretch of highway. Of course she brings it up when he’s stuck behind the wheel and can’t escape.

“How did you—”

“The Gunmen told me.” She’s staring shyly at her hands. It’s the first time they’re speaking about Diana since her death.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Scully. I should’ve told you. But it only lasted a few months. I was young and stupid. I convinced her to go down to the courthouse mostly because I was terrified she would leave me. Not that it made a difference. I only told my parents after she fled to Berlin and I needed help from their lawyers to get an annulment. They were scared she’d try to get a big settlement, but I just wanted to forget about it.”

“It’s okay,” she says, still examining her lap and not looking at him. “We met as adults. We’ve been in serious relationships before. There’s no reason to be ashamed.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Honestly,” she turns to face him now. “Not as much as I thought it would.”

“Scully, what we have is so much more—” he pauses to find the words but comes up short.

“I know,” she says, bringing her hand to rest on his thigh. “I know.”

After a few miles of silence she asks slyly, the corners of her mouth arcing into a smile, “Did she wear taffeta?”

“I don’t remember,” he says, and it’s true. An eidetic memory and you’d think he’d remember what his bride wore on what was supposed to be the most important day of his life, but he draws a blank. All he can picture is staring at the gold band she slipped on his finger and trying to convince himself it meant he’d never be alone again.

She has to know he’s up to something when he starts applying his Socratic style to global wedding traditions instead of astral projection or lizard-eyed cryptids.

“Did you know the bouquet toss originated in medieval times and was meant to serve as a distraction so the bride and groom could slip off to their private chambers unnoticed after the ceremony?” He asks her on an airplane on the way back from Chicago.

“I know my cousin Nora once elbowed Missy in the gut to push her out of the way so she could catch one.”

“Ouch,” he winces. “How’d that work out for Nora?”

“She actually did get married the following year to some guy she met on a singles’ cruise. Last I heard, though, he ran away with his secretary and left her with reams of credit card debt,” she says. “And he went bald.”

“You win some, you lose some,” he says. “Did you know wedding rings are traditionally worn on the fourth finger because of the belief that a vein in that finger ran directly to the heart?”

“Well, that’s just inaccurate,” she asserts with a smug smile.

“Did you know that Congolese newlyweds aren’t allowed to smile for the entirety of their wedding day? Or that brides in ancient Rome used to paint their faces red?”

“I did not,” she says, scooting closer to him.

“In the Chinese Yugur culture, the groom shoots his bride with three headless arrows before the ceremony then breaks the arrows in half to symbolize unbroken love.”

“I already shot you once, I don’t think you need to return the favor.”

He playfully reaches for his shoulder and winks at her. “Jews, of course, break a glass for the same reason, while the Greeks smash plates. Did your parents do the whole full Catholic mass hoopla?”

She shakes her head. “My father’s commanding officer married them on base in Norfolk. We pretend not to do the math, but it was only six months before Bill was born.”

Mulder whistles. “Oh, Maggie. Remind me to thank her again the next time I see her.”

“For what?”

“For everything. For you.”

“What about your parents?” She asks.

“Oh, the Kuipers-Mulder wedding was the social event of the summer of ‘59. I think some distant Kennedy cousin even showed up. My mother’s parents didn’t like that he was nearly two decades older than her, and my father’s parents didn’t like that she was Jewish but they had enough money to throw a nice party so it all evened out. Not that any of that pomp and circumstance did them any good when the shit hit the fan.”

“And yet you still believe in marriage,” she ponders.

“I believe in marrying you.”

Even though they have a row to themselves on the plane and everyone around them seems to be asleep or absorbed in a book, he’s still surprised when she leans over to kiss him on the lips. It’s a quick, close-mouthed peck but still more than she’d typically allow in public. They interlock their fingers under the arm rest and he wonders what he ever did to deserve her.

They’re curled toward each other on the motel bed like a pair of parentheses, too wired to sleep. He tells her about seeing the spirit of his sister in a field of dead children. She kisses his brow and pulls his head into her chest. She thankfully doesn’t suggest his vision is the result of a mind warped by grief and stress. The silk collar of her pajama top darkens with his tears and she holds him closer. He’s been cold for so long and her touch is thawing him.

He first told her about his sister in a motel room not unlike this one. Even then, Samantha had already been dead. She’d already been dead when Scully embraced his quest as her own. She’d already been dead when Scully was abducted, when Scully lost her chance at motherhood, when Scully nearly died in a hospital bed from a cancer that had been given to her. He finds it’s this that stings the most—that he made her suffer for nothing.

“She’s been gone this whole time,” he whispers into the hollow of her throat.

“I’m so sorry, Mulder.” She presses her warm lips to the crown of his head, her words muffled in his hair.

It’s been a long day and he can smell her skin and sweat through faded layers of powdery deodorant and woodsy perfume. He likes that she chooses to smell like a forest and not a flower. He likes her natural scent even more.

He’s an orphan now. The last of his kind. And yet, cradled in her arms, this moment feels like a beginning and not an ending. The ties that held him to this earth have been severed and it’s only her firm grasp that’s keeping him from floating away.

“Be my family, Scully,” he says, raising his head up to the pillow so he can meet her gaze.

“Always,” she swears. Her lower lip is quivering and her eyelids are heavy. New tendrils extend, stretching between them, twisting around and around each other, serpentine. They’re interwoven and he never wants to break away. He can stand to lose anything except her.

He kisses her lips softly and feels her starting to cry. Tears stream down their cheeks and it’s impossible to tell which are hers and which are his. She is his home and everything about her feels right. Deepening the kiss, he rolls on top of her.

She brings one small hand to his chest to stop him. “Are you sure, Mulder?”

She asked him the same question in his apartment after autopsying his mother. That night he was seeking numbness and she, rightfully so, wouldn’t give it to him. She bore witness to his pain, holding him as he wept and slipped into a fitful sleep. Tonight, though, he is sure. He’s coming to her purely out of love, to rededicate himself to her.

He nods solemnly and she brings her hands to either side of his face, pulling him in so she can probe his mouth with her tongue. The taste of diner coffee lingers under the artificial mint of her toothpaste.

He takes his time unbuttoning her pajama shirt, revealing the milky skin of her chest. Tracing a trail down the valley between her breasts with his tongue, he pauses at the scar on her abdomen. It’s a reminder of her fragility and her strength. He kisses it to pay tribute to the duality of her nature.

She gasps when he reaches the hem of her pajama bottoms. Lifting her hips up, she lets him ease the silk down her legs and slim ankles. Her presence feels so powerful and all-encompassing that he sometimes forgets how small her actual physical form is. Her feet are so delicate he can’t believe they have the endurance to carry her to crime scenes and autopsy bays and wherever he asks her to follow him. He kisses the arch of each one in gratitude and then lets her pajama pants drop to the floor.

As he works his way back up, she starts spreading her thighs apart in anticipation. He can feel the heat of her sex radiating on his face like the sun before he even reaches the space between her legs. He inhales deeply and takes in her intoxicating essence before dragging his tongue up from the folds of her labia to the nub of her clit. Her thighs tighten around him and she rakes her nails through his hair.

“Mulder,” she begs of him quietly, his name an invitation on her lips.

He answers by latching onto her sex with his mouth, sucking and releasing her clit with increasing speed and intensity. Breathing feels unnecessary when he’s devouring her like this. He can’t be sure if the swirl of dizziness in his head stems from a lack of oxygen or a surge of adrenaline. Either way, he doesn’t come up for air until he sees her clenching the sheets between her fists in his peripheral vision and hears the high-pitched whimper from the back of her throat that lets him know she’s close. He loves making her come this way, knowing he’s able to give her this much-needed release, but now she’s tugging on the sleeves of his t-shirt, pulling him up to meet her.

Rising to his knees, he sheds his shirt and peels off his boxers, freeing the erection that’s been throbbing to the beat of her moans. He pulls a pillow from the other side of the bed and slides it under her hips.

She reaches down between them, taking his length in her hand and confidently guiding him inside her. They’ve done this 12 times in his bed, nine times in hers, thrice on his couch, and now in their sixth motel room (the eidetic memory works when it counts) and yet each time feels like a new discovery.

Tonight feels endowed with a singular significance. He has finally laid his sister, and therefore his quest for her, to rest, and can give himself to Scully fully. The rules feel like loose suggestions now. Why not quit the bureau and run away with her? Why not stake his claim to her in the light of day and marry her in front of everyone they know?

But he’s getting ahead of himself. Right now, there is only this moment—only their bodies gliding together in this timeless dance. They are prehistoric cave dwellers mating on a pelt of wolf fur. They are medieval peasants copulating under the thatched roof of their cottage. They are federal agents making love on the polyester duvet of a budget motel room in Sacramento, California. Plunging into her, he knows he has loved her in every lifetime.

Their bodies find a rhythm that feels as natural as their age-old verbal tête-à-tête. Perhaps after all this time it shouldn’t be such a surprise that they’re so good at this.

“What?” she asks, breathily, and it tears him from his stream of consciousness.

“Hmm?”

“What are you smiling about?”

He must’ve had a shit-eating grin on his face by the way she’s staring at him. It makes him laugh and he collapses on top of her and chuckles into the side of her neck.

“I just can’t believe how lucky I am,” he whispers into her ear.

“We finally found something you don’t believe in,” she says.

He doesn’t know if he wants to smile or cry or keep thrusting into her. Somehow, he manages to do all three and soon they’re both coming hard and likely earning a noise complaint in the process. Fuck it, he thinks, let everyone hear.

After he slides out of her, they’re too mentally and physically exhausted to move so they stay lying atop the covers side by side. The window air conditioning unit kicks on, cooling the damp sweat that coats their skin. Feeling the goose pimples rise on her skin, he maneuvers them onto their sides so he can hold her from behind.

“I officiated a wedding for two of Sam’s Barbie dolls once,” he tells her. The scene surfaces from the hazy sea of his memory. It was months before her disappearance. They’d heard their parents fighting nearly every night that summer and he imagined Sam’s precocious mind grappling with the knowledge that marital bonds could be so brittle.

“Yeah?” she asks hesitantly.

He wants her to know that it’s alright, that talking about his sister feels lighter now.

“Well, I started anyway but I wasn’t taking it seriously so she made me stop and kicked me out of her room.”

“She couldn’t have asked for a better big brother,” she says. He wraps his arms around her and chooses to believe.

His lungs are mostly healed, although he isn’t cleared for active duty yet, when he insists they head back to North Carolina for a “personal mission” over the weekend. She doesn’t want him to risk flying so she agrees to let him pick her up early on Saturday morning for the long drive. They’re on the road before the sun rises.

“I know you’re feeling better, Mulder, but you’re really not up for anything too vigorous,” she says as he steers the car south.

“Well, it’s up to you how vigorous you plan on being on our wedding night.”

He looks over to find her eyebrows predictably raised.

“Open the glove compartment, Scully.”

He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to watch her remove the pamphlet for the Irish-themed bed and breakfast in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the braided ivory rope he’d sent away for.

“What is this, Mulder?” Her skeptical tone is replaced by a light, hopeful voice as she examines the rope.

“It’s for our handfasting ceremony.”

Looking over at her again, he sees even more questions in her eyes.

He doesn’t tell her he’s chosen this because their bond is so pure and elemental that he wants to marry her in a primeval fashion that transcends man and law and God; that he wants to tie his soul to hers like the stars are tethered to the sky; that he needs to know that even when their bodies have long decayed and reverted back to base matter, even when the sun has burned out and the universe has collapsed back within itself, that their essences will still be bound together.

He only shrugs and says, “It’s Celtic. Like your ancestors.”

Her smile breaks his heart wide open and he knows she understands.

“We missed May Day—you know, the feast of Beltane, the lusty month, and all of that—but Ewan says the old Neolithic hunter gatherers weren’t too picky about auspicious dates.”

“Ewan?”

“Byers’ cousin. He owns the B&B and does these things from time to time” he says. “But don’t worry, the other two Stooges don’t know anything. I didn’t want to hear Langly’s spiel about the evil capitalist roots of marriage—nor did I have the heart to let Frohike know you’re officially off the market.”

“I appreciate that,” she says with a toothy grin.

“I hope you’re not upset I sprung it on you like this,” he says.

“Oh, Mulder,” she sighs. “A pagan ceremony preceded by a mysterious seven-hour road trip with a 5 a.m. wakeup call is the only way I would ever expect to marry you. Truly, if you got down on one knee with a diamond ring after a candlelit dinner I’d probably immediately order a CT scan to check you for a cerebral hemorrhage.”

The old stone home that houses the B&B looks straight out of a fairy tale. It’s drizzling when they pull up and he starts humming a few bars of Alanis Morisette. She catches his eye and he winks at her.

“Rain is considered good luck in Italy and India,” he says.

He fetches their luggage from the trunk of the car and follows her inside. There’s no check-in desk, just a cozy living room with overstuffed floral furniture, a wood-burning fireplace, and Ewan waiting for them.

He’s only a little disappointed when Byers’ cousin turns out to be a gentle-looking older man dressed in a flannel shirt and hiking boots and not a bearded druid priest clad in white robes and a crown of antlers.

“Agents Mulder and Scully,” he says, shaking their hands. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you. John has told me so much about you. I’m honored to be a part of your sacred day. Why don’t I show you to your room and give you some time to freshen up before the ceremony?”

He leads them up a creaky flight of stairs to their room. It isn’t much larger than their standard roadside motel room but has far more character. A linen bedspread with Celtic knots woven in emerald thread covers the four-poster bed and there’s a wooden rocking chair in the corner that looks like it’d made the journey from the old country.

“Take your time,” Ewan says as he heads out. “You can meet me downstairs whenever you’re ready.”

After he closes the door behind him, Scully crosses the room to envelope Mulder in an embrace, resting her head under his chin.

“This is perfect,” she mumbles against the fabric of his sweater. “Thank you.”

They take turns using the bathroom and then head back downstairs. Ewan leads them through the B&B’s tidy eat-in kitchen and out the back door.

“Did any ancient mystics speak of the significance of a bride wearing jeans?” Scully whispers to Mulder as they follow Ewan to a clearing in the woods.

“I’m sure if any of them ever got a chance to see what your ass looked like in that pair, white dresses never would’ve made the cut.”

They’re walking hand-in-hand and she gently nudges his upper arm with her shoulder. After months of playing platonic in public, getting to touch her out in the open like this—even with the woods and John Byers’ cousin as their only witnesses—feels like taking a deep breath after being submerged underwater for too long.

“We’ve made it,” Ewan says, leading them to the center of a circle made from small stones. He guides them to stand face to face and take each other’s right hand.

Mulder recalls the first time they touched—shaking her hand on the morning she entered his office. He remembers her fresh-faced energy and how she met all his theories and hunches with fully formed counterarguments; how they improvised the steps of a dance that would become second nature over the years. Locking eyes over their hands, she smiles at him and he knows she’s reliving the same moment.

Despite whatever attempts she made to tame her hair into submission back in DC, the humidity and light drizzle in the woods bring out the soft frizz he loves to run his fingers through. He thinks of a downpour in an Oregon graveyard, the first time the peal of her laugh struck a chord in his soul.

He hands the rope over to Ewan who starts wrapping it around their linked hands and explaining the meaning of the ceremony. The words—commitment, love, intention—wash over him. He knows he could spend years studying the OED, the works of Byron or Neruda, and still never find a combination of letters that describe how much he loves the woman standing in front of him. For two people who rely on words to explain, argue, dispute, and affirm, they’re shockingly bad at expressing what they mean to one another using language. Or perhaps they’d reached as far as words could take them and only stumbled when they had to take the next step without any.

Ewan has looped the cord around their wrists and tied it in a string of nautical-looking knots that make Mulder wonder if Scully is reminded of her father. Ewan has them repeat a series of vows to each other. The words echo through their lips but Mulder knows they can only begin to encapsulate the commitment they’ve already made to each other. There’s no point in the ceremony where they’re instructed to kiss, but he does it anyway when Ewan stops speaking, leaning in to open her lips with his and feel the slick warmth of her mouth. Does it feel different now that they’re married (at least in some spiritual sense)? He isn’t sure, but he plans on conducting more experiments once they’re back in their room alone.

They break apart and Ewan looks up from the ground where he’d been staring in respectful silence.

“A first handfasting represents an engagement or a trial marriage. The ceremony is repeated in a year and a day to formalize the union,” Ewan says. “It’s tradition, I promise. Not just a way to stir up repeat business.”

“Well, same time next year, I suppose. Put us in the books,” Mulder says, looking down at their bound hands and then up at Scully’s wet eyes. She gives him the softest smile and a gentle laugh. A year, a day, and a millennium from now and, he knows, they will still be tied together.

They wear no rings. They sign no papers. Their union isn’t documented in any official records. By the time they get back inside and warm up with cups of coffee, the faint lines left on their wrists by the cord have faded. The interstitial fluid under the skin has redistributed itself, restoring equilibrium, but their internal balance has been forever recalibrated.

***

A year and a day passes. He dies and she brings him back to life. She gives birth to their son and then begs him to leave.

Their anniversary does not find him reunited with her in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains but alone in the desert of New Mexico. Of the few personal belongings he took when he fled, the one he holds most dear is the braided ivory rope she pressed into his hands on their last day together. I’ll bring it back, he vowed.

The cord is yellowed from the oils of his fingertips constantly worrying over it and the dust of the desert, but he holds it tighter on this day. He doesn’t know when he’ll be able to safely return to her and to William, but he intends to keep this promise.

#xfiles #txf #the x files #msr #xf fanfic #xfiles fanfic #x files

75 notes · View notes

thursdayinspace · 2 months

Text

Doing an X-Files rewatch again, and I'm having so many thoughts about the pilot. It's so incredibly well done. And having just done a (very fast) rewatch recently with the last episodes fresh in mind, it's amazing to me to see how well these characters were formed right from the beginning. Their whole dynamic.

One thing I find interesting is how we're set up to believe that Mulder is the one who doesn't really give a crap about authority, but it's really Scully in the first episode who goes against everything they expect from her. She is supposed to invalidate Mulder's work. Instead she goes off with him to fight crime, sees things she can't explain, and decides that yes this guy is crazy, but she really wants to know what's going on.

I love how she isn't for a second intimidated or even put off by his initial attitude. She stands her ground at their first meeting, he immediately puts her to the test by showing her slides of weird marks on victims and asking her opinion, and then goes on about aliens, challenging her to tell him he's insane. And the really beautiful thing? When she argues her point, Mulder argues back, but from the start, there is respect between them. He knows she's been sent to spy on him. But there is no hostility there, not from either of them. We get such a clear idea of those two are right from the start. They're basically really nice people.

And then there is the motel, Scully finding those marks on her back... They took that moment that could have been used to merely objectify her while giving him reasons to exploit her fear and treat it as weakness -- and instead they used it to establish even further the respect and the first sparks of trust between them. He laughs initially until he realises that she was actually afraid, and then his laugh fades right away and he takes her seriously. More than that, she stays and they talk, and he tells her his story, in more personal detail than he probably needed to. And she listens. Trust is met with trust.

They work *together* throughout the whole episode and manage to use their individual beliefs to challenge each other. Not to be right on principle, but to get to the truth. I love how that's a thing right from the first episode. Their partnership develops so naturally. Through respect and through their willingness to listen. Not to agree, but to argue their points and push each other closer to the truth.

The chemistry between them is so off the charts, and to a large extent that's really due to all of this. They are willing to find a common ground, and they find each other fascinating enough to want to know more. I love that so much. It's such a good episode.

#the x files #txf #mulder and scully #I love them a lot #I love this show a lot #thursday's x-files rewatch

290 notes · View notes

unremarkablehouse · 11 months

Text

One of my favorite scenes in DPO is at the morgue with the sheriff. Scully is questioning the coroner on his autopsy and the gruff sheriff comes in and undermines her, the Asher immediately looks to Mulder as if he’s her boss, but Mulder backs away quietly- the Morgue is Dr Scully’s area of expertise. As the sheriff gives her a hard time, Mulder stays quiet and (proudly) watches Scully go toe to toe with this man.

After the Sheriff leaves Scully makes a sarcastic comment about Mulder not jumping in to help, and he simply answers “you seemed to have it covered.”

That moment is a Scully lightbulb moment where she realizes that this man truly respects her. He doesn’t need to defend her honor, she is the subject matter expert and in the morgue her opinion is the only one that matters- regardless of what a chauvinist male trying to intimidate her thinks. Think about her other relationships, Daniel or Jack certainly would have intervened and that would have perpetuated the cycle that a man needs to be involved to validate what she is saying. Don’t get me wrong, Mulder is quick to defend Scully when necessary, but not at the cost of her agency.

At the end of the episode Scully is able to earn the respect of the sheriff, and that relationship and interaction is all her own. It is a powerful arc that is played out well and really speaks to the crux of the MSR dynamic.

#the x files #txf #txf meta #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #gillian anderson #david duchovny #mulder and scully

214 notes · View notes

precedex-files · 4 months

Text

@xxsksxxx commented the above.

I don’t disagree with it, despite my position that “Existence” would have been an ideal end to the original Mulder and Scully storyline. I think that as long as Mulder and Scully are alive they are always out there looking for the truth. But part of that is also recruiting others on that quest. Mulder does that to Scully during the series, and together they get Skinner invested. By the end they pass the torch to Doggett and Reyes. The Apollo 11 keychain is symbolic of this and the fact that no one gets there alone. Mulder gifts it to Scully, who in turn passes it to Doggett. (As an aside, I thought it was weird for Doggett to give it to Leyla Harrison so quickly, but I realize that by doing this they are giving the Apollo 11 keychain to us, the audience. That we are part of the team that made the show a success.)

I don’t see the rather simple and domestic ending of “Existence” as mutually exclusive from the search for the truth. I see it as a resting point for our weary heroes, who certainly deserve it. We all know that Mulder can’t ever give up and that Scully will always choose to follow. Besides, the darkness does have a way of finding them. So whatever new conspiracy needs uncovering they will always be ready to jump in and help down the line. All the stuff that happened post-Existence could still happen. William could still be under threat, alien super soldiers could still need stopping, colonization could still be thwarted, they could still hunt down pedo-Priests and human medical experiments, all of the revival could still bring them back to the FBI. Existence would just have been a good, clear demarcation of Mulder and Scully stepping aside for a little while. Also it is heavily implied by the ending that the real truth to be found in everything is love - of family, both the ones we are born into and the ones we choose.

I liken this all to what they did in the most recent Doctor Who. David Tennant’s bi-generation into himself and Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor effectively passes the torch on to Gatwa. DT goes on to live an idyllic life with Donna, which he deserves. But we all know that the Doctor would never shy away from where ever he or she is needed. So when the time comes and it is necessary (for ratings lol) to pull DT’s Doctor from that life, you know the Doctor will answer the call. And so will Mulder and Scully.

#the x files #x files #fox mulder #dana scully #mulder and scully #doctor who #fourteenth doctor #fifteenth doctor

62 notes · View notes

deathsbestgirl · 11 days

Note

So Never Again. Just saw this post and the way she looks up at him there is on a level with Mulder’s famous Fallen Angel eyes and his reaction to her? He doesn't melt? He chooses violence and being a dick? Please tell me why.

i LOVE this question because it is so easy to see it from scully's perspective. it's her episode. but you really have to think about mulder's perspective.

for mulder, this seems out of nowhere, and in his mind she was extremely inattentive with his informant on a case he's taking seriously. he doesn't understand what she's really asking or what the problem is, and a big part of that is she doesn't exactly either. it's almost like she's blaming him for the stand still in her life, but at the same time wants to be seen & appreciated (in a way that she understands, can feel, can see). and i don't think she could have figured it out the way she needed to with mulder. she needed the safety of talking to a stranger, someone inconsequential to her life. (like there's no way she could have that "other fathers" conversation with him lol) so ed jerse is the one to give her that. (she does with ed what she can't yet do with mulder. something neither of them are ready for and she isn't brave enough to do yet. and like. idk i just think she needed this! regardless of mulder lol)

like: "this isn't about you. or maybe it is, indirectly. i don't know." the one thing she got right is "i don't know" lol so of course mulder is confused!!

if you place leonard betts first, she's contemplating what she's leaving behind. has she had any impact working on the x files? on mulder? who is going to remember her? what evidence of her life will be left? in that office...it looks like she's had very little effect. (but i do not subscribe to this one.)

if never again is first, which i like better lollll (it makes more sense to me. i understand why people like lb first, it's more clear cut. it puts a reason behind her behavior. but i just don't think it quite fits. scully literally doesn't know what's wrong. if she was already worried about cancer, i think it would come across differently. but she's frustrated & confused and she wants for something she can't admit, express, pinpoint, articulate? idk what word i'm looking for lol) scully's just hit that point in her pattern again, her cycle...it took her four years, and after some rough cases (paper hearts – she couldn't help mulder despite how she tried, el mundo gira – a dead end. and idk, so many of their cases. and she's always wrong, he always does the crazy thing, he's always hurt)...well anyway, at the end he's still asking "all because i didn't get you a desk?" he still isn't quite understanding, until she says it's her life and he almost says "yes but it's become mine." he doesn't say it, they sit in silence, and in leonard betts, he tells her she did a good job & should be proud. all his little jokes like he's trying to make her laugh, to get back to their usual banter. because he wants to make her smile. so he understood at least a little by leonard betts. but they also come to a silent understanding. i just love the way kae talks about it. and i think the end is kind of the explanation for the beginning. the end is the real answer to the whole episode, and what it took to get there...and this post here, kae just understands him and talks about him in a way that i feel. it's exactly what i see in a way i could never articulate. (and she does my favorite thing!!! connects different moments. the characterization is so good.) and she has such a special insight to both of them, different patterns, but to me two sides of the same coin.

and so, either way, at the beginning of never again, he's completely thrown because he doesn't know. this is when their bad verbal communication and personal issues/insecurities/fears take hold. they're both so good at taking too much responsibility.

we're seeing into scully's mind a bit, but we aren't really seeing into his. but he's afraid, he doesn't want her to leave (something he's feared for a long time), he thinks space is the answer to whatever's going on. but he's also kinda needy and he can't just say that. so he calls her and they misunderstand each other again and she makes a date. he isn't trying to be an ass but he's scared & defensive, and he gets like that when she makes him nervous. like whenever she believes (beyond the sea, revelations, all souls, en ami). it feels like that to me. he's afraid, but this time he thinks he's the problem, their work is the problem. and he kinda said the worst thing he could say to her at that moment. "you were just assigned" — he has no idea how she understood that, how it hurts her. (and she's not thinking about how he means it, what he thinks/feels/fears.) and really, it's because she sucks at just saying the thing as much as he does. it takes them a long time to work out their direct communication. their unspoken communication, the way they work on their cases doesn't translate to their personal relationship. as intimate as their partnership is, working through their own issues takes time and it's those things that hinder them moving forward for so long. ya know?

i think @randomfoggytiger talks about it beautifully here — in depth essay on never again. here they touch on mulder's fear/walls & scully's insecurities/needs. it's a journey!! which they talk about here. and i forget what this one was (lol) but i'm sure i saved it for a reason: a little master post. i love the way foggy breaks things down, especially visually. it's something i could never do.

i also reblogged some other never again posts. not completely on topic but it's all connected!! (you can definitely go through my never again tag to see more probably too!)

#calimanc #asks #never again #dana scully #fox mulder #LITERALLY I DONT SAY ANYTHING #READ THE LINKED POSTS #lmaooooooo #my brain is an ouroboros tbh #mulder and scully #the x files

49 notes · View notes

cecilysass · 2 months

Text

Shine On (7/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 7: Across the Parking Lot

Stern’s Bakery Arlington, Virginia February 22, 2015 3:30 pm

Inside, the bakery is warm and smells of yeast and vanilla. It’s an old-fashioned looking place, with chrome tables, a glass counter and specials hand-written on a chalkboard. An older man is sweeping as they come inside, and he gives them a friendly nod. He leans his broom against the wall and walks behind the counter, seeming to anticipate their order.

“Why don’t you grab a place to sit, Scully? I’ll order for us,” Mulder suggests, although they’re the only customers, so there are plenty of tables. He lowers his voice for the benefit of the employee. “Doesn’t seem like this is the type of place to have lattes though.”

“I’ll just have coffee,” Scully says, as she turns for a table. Mulder doesn’t like the wooden expression that is still plastered across her face. She’s not acting like herself.

“Good afternoon,” the man says. He’s got thinning gray hair and an impish smile. “Welcome to Stern’s. You should try the doughnuts.”

“Thanks,” Mulder says. He’s eyeing the pastries in the case. It’s late in the day, so they’re pretty picked over, but he’s tempted anyway. “Two coffees, two of those maple doughnuts please. No—three. Three doughnuts.” He turns around and looks at Scully, who is sitting at a table next to the window, watching the car across the lot. He lowers his voice. “And… do you have a cake? Like a birthday cake? Chocolate maybe?”

“Of course,” the man says jovially. “We have chocolate birthday cake. Would you like something in particular written on it?”

Mulder frowns. “Sure.” He picks up a pen on the counter and writes “Happy birthday, Scully” on a napkin. “Can you do that?”

“No problem. Piece of cake.”

Mulder acknowledges the corny joke with a lukewarm smile. “When you’re done, can you just box it up so I can take it with me?”

“Of course.” The man leans forward conspiratorially. “Smart idea, picking up the wife a cake.”

Mulder shrugs. “It wasn’t mine.”

Before coming into the bakery, Mulder had walked back to the car to hand Jackson his coat. He knew it’d be cold in the car with the engine off, and he might need an extra layer. Scully had walked ahead, and Mulder knew she was upset. He couldn’t help but worry about it, even though he was dimly aware Jackson could be reading his thoughts.

“We can’t stay long,” Mulder had said to Jackson, tossing him the coat. Jackson spread it over him like a blanket. “If you get too cold, come find us.”

“Yeah,” Jackson had said blearily, as though that wasn’t very likely.

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” Mulder had added.

“Get a cake,” Jackson had mumbled, flopping down, his eyes already closed.

“A cake?”

“Birthday cake.” Jackson, opening his eyes a sliver, gestured a little in the direction Scully walked in. “It’s a bakery, right?”

Mulder had been surprised. “Right.”

“She was hoping you were surprising her for her birthday. She was hoping you called her because of that. Not bringing her a long lost kid.”

The words appear in Mulder’s mind from nowhere. She imagined reservations at a restaurant.

Mulder leaned over to meet Jackson’s barely cracked open eyes. He spoke very deliberately. “I don’t believe for one second that you saw in Scully’s mind … any disappointment. No fucking way.”

Jackson had stared back at him a second. Those green eyes that could see right into you. Literally.

Then he lay his head down and closed his eyes again.

Now, as Mulder carries two hot coffees and a bag of doughnuts back to their table, he can’t help but marvel at the idea that Scully might have been hoping he would surprise her for her birthday. What could that possibly mean? They aren’t together. Spending time together, celebrating birthday dinners together—that definitely isn’t what she acts like she wants from him. What does that imply? Is she holding things back? Is he maybe not getting the full picture?

It’s not really the most important issue right now, Mulder supposes, but it’s on his mind. And possibly Jackson’s, too, if Mulder dwells on it too long.

“Coffee,” he announces to Scully as he places her cup down in front of her. “With cream. And here is your nasty sweetener.”

“Thank you,” she says, stilted, pulling the cup and the small yellow packets of sweetener towards her.

“I got you a doughnut,” Mulder says as he sits across from her. “They’re maple. They look really good.”

He withdraws his own doughnut from the bag with a piece of butcher paper, then holds the bag out towards Scully invitingly. She stares at it blankly.

“No, thank you,” she says.

He shrugs, and takes a big bite of his. It is good, yeasty, light and chewy, with a generous slathering of maple glaze.

“So,” he says, through his mouth of doughnut. “There are a couple of things I need to fill you in on.”

“How did he find you?” Scully asks. “How did he know to come to you?”

“That’s one of them,” Mulder says, chewing. “It seems that someone helped him find me, but he won’t say who.”

“What?” Scully sits up like a rocket, and Mulder knows her well enough to be able to observe the muscles in her neck and shoulders tensing. “Mulder—”

“I know,” Mulder says, nodding. “I know. It scares the shit out of me, too. It means someone knows who he is, someone likely knows what he can do, and someone knows his connection to us.”

“We’ve got to make him tell us,” Scully insists. “It’s too important. He can’t keep it a secret.”

Mulder takes another bite of his doughnut and regards her skeptically. “Do you remember being thirteen, Scully? It’s not as easy as ordering him around.”

“But Mulder, this is a life or death—”

“You don’t make kids that age do anything.”

Scully stops, then seems to slowly deflate. “You’re right,” she says mechanically. “You’re right.” Her shoulders slump. “Especially if you aren’t really their parents.” She grips her coffee tight, and her eyes drift back out toward the parking lot.

Her defeated expression makes Mulder want to punch a wall. Once again he’s awash in the same old corrosive feelings about William: guilt, regret, heartbreak. The same feelings that he knows all too well can take him down, make him give up entirely.

But he can’t do that now, can he? The kid is here. He needs him right now. At his Agent Mulder sharpest.

He looks at Scully tentatively, wondering how to coax her back to her sharpest, too.

“You know,” he says to her. “It sounds like he had good parents. Like they did a pretty good job.”

Her eyes lock back on him. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he says. He thinks of Jackson’s eyes, the feeling of warmth when describing his dad’s woodworking and his mom’s preschool. “He was loved. He felt loved.”

Scully stares back at him, and he waits, watching her eyes well up with glassy tears. He knows that Scully crying is an act that needs to be given its own space, an act that can neither be rushed or stopped. He reaches forward and envelops her hand in his.

“That’s so… I’m glad,” Scully says, her voice barely more than a whisper. She picks up a paper napkin with the Stern’s logo on it and dabs her eyes with the hand that isn’t holding Mulder’s. “But they were murdered, Mulder. What if the people that murdered them are the same people that brought him to you? What if they have an agenda we don’t understand? And what will become of him now? He’ll have so much trauma.”

“Well…” Mulder finds he can’t quite speak aloud his little fantasy, that Jackson might come live in his house, at least some of the time. That he might get to be a dad to a teenage boy, at least a little, and help him heal. That Scully might get to know her son, too. He knows it’s probably childish and unrealistic, and he isn’t sure of the effect of sharing it with Scully. “I don’t know,” he finishes. “But he has us now. We can watch out for him. I think we need to, given the unknowns.”

“You said you were certain he wouldn’t run off,” Scully says, releasing his hand, tilting her head and scowling. She knows him well enough to know where there is more to find out. “What else is there you haven’t told me?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says. He takes his last bite of doughnut, nodding slowly. “There is another thing.” He takes a swig of his coffee, considers his words carefully. “The telepathy I experienced, after I touched the artifact back in 1999… it seems to be back. In some form. Around him.”

Scully stares at him. “What are you saying? You’re reading thoughts?”

“Not everyone’s thoughts,” Mulder says. “Not like before. Just his. And not just his thoughts, but his feelings, too.”

Scully seems to be speechless.

“At first I thought it was my imagination,” Mulder says. “I thought since he was reading minds, I was remembering what that was like. And you know, I was trying to imagine what he was feeling. How scared he was. How overwhelmed, by all this big emotional stuff he was having to deal with. But then I started to understand. It wasn’t my imagination, and it wasn’t just empathy. I’m definitely hearing flashes of what he’s thinking, and feeling what he’s feeling. At least sometimes.”

“Have you… told him this?”

“No,” Mulder says. “No, but I’m going to have to. Obviously. Hard to keep secrets from a mindreader.”

Scully’s lips draw together tightly. With a jerk she tugs on the bag of doughnuts and fishes one out. She starts violently ripping off pieces and eating them. “And you’re not feeling sick, Mulder? Your head isn’t hurting?”

“No,” Mulder says. “Not like before. Not at all.” He watches her anxiously devour the doughnut. “I’m not as good at it as he is. For me, it’s just every once and a while. I think I’m feeling it when it’s especially intense for him.”

“Give me examples.”

“Well, I was just … he was walking upstairs in the house. Up to the guest room. And it just appeared in my head, his thought: I wonder what it would have been like to grow up here.”

She stops chewing, her eyes wide. “He thought that?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says.

Her lip trembles again. She places the doughnut back on top of the paper bag, looks down at it.

“Scully,” he says. He reaches out for her hand again, but she slides it away.

“So he can read my thoughts and feelings, and you can read his,” Scully says in a rough voice. “And I’m in the dark.”

“Scully,” he tries again.

“No,” she says shortly. “No. I know I’m being ridiculous.”

“It’s only natural for you to feel—”

“No. Forget it.” She shakes her head, smooths back her hair, and she seems to transform before his eyes into the respected doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows. “We need to pay attention to you, how you’re feeling,” Scully says, all business. “The last time you had this ability, it didn’t end well.”

“It doesn’t feel like that now.”

“Don’t hold anything back from me,” she says firmly. “If you’re in pain, speak up.”

“I will,” Mulder promises.

“Why does he have that effect on you?” Scully wonders.

“I don’t know,” Mulder says. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

“He didn’t when he was a baby.”

“Or maybe he did,” Mulder says gently, “and I didn’t notice. When we were all together, he was so small, and everything was so emotionally intense. I might not have realized that his feelings weren’t my own or that I wasn’t simply guessing what he wanted.”

And I wasn’t around long enough to really find out, Mulder thinks. He can tell the same thought is passing through Scully’s mind, because her eyes drop again.

They’re both quiet a moment.

“We should contact Skinner about how his parents’ case will be investigated,” Scully says. “Hopefully he can get the Bureau to look into it. We need to make sure there is someone we can trust on it. And if we can, it would be good to get access to the local law enforcement’s notes on the case.”

“We’d be able to get more access as F.B.I. agents,” Mulder points out.

Scully regards him warily, sipping her coffee. “What are you saying, exactly?”

“We could ask to be reinstated.”

“On the X-files?”

“Sure,” Mulder says, “or anywhere. So we can be back in the game. Find out what we need to know. It would also give us more reason to hold Jackson in our custody.”

He’d expected Scully to scoff at the idea, but to his surprise, she doesn’t. She nods slowly, picking up another piece of doughnut and nibbling at it.

“It’s a possibility,” she says, after a moment’s deliberation. “We’d have to talk to Skinner and see what he thinks.” She looks sideways at him. “And we’d be partners?”

“I can’t imagine a new partner would put up with you, Scully,” Mulder says, shaking his head in mock disapproval. “You’re very eccentric.”

To his great relief, she smiles a little. He can’t believe that she’s even entertaining the notion at all: of going back to the FBI, of going back to the X-files, of possibly being partners again. His heart aches to think of it. He’ll never be able to keep these kinds of thoughts under wraps from Jackson.

“When we finish our coffee, let’s take him back to the house,” Scully says. “Maybe we can call Skinner there.”

Mulder nods. “Agreed.” His eyes study her. She’s gazing out the window again absently, looking towards the car, her long hair winding around her face. She looks like a woman in an Italian fresco, pensive and luminous, he thinks with a lump in his throat. He’s never known anyone more beautiful.

“Mulder,” she says, her voice wobbly, still staring outside, “is he …okay? From what you’ve seen?”

He considers how to answer the question. “He’s a good kid. He has good instincts, I think,” he says. “But he’s hurting. Grieving. Scared. And thinking about you and me—what we mean in his life—is a big bunch of extra shit to deal with.”

“Especially me,” she says softly.

“Especially you,” he agrees. “But that’s in part because he’s thought about you for a long time, Scully. He’s seen you before—in visions.”

She looks at him again, surprised. “What kind of visions?”

“You’re going to have to ask him. But he mentioned you calling out for him.”

He sees her react, pulling back slightly. She takes a sip of her coffee, nodding stiffly.

“Are you okay, Scully?”

“I’ve had dreams like that before,” she comments. “I wonder if he was seeing my dreams.”

“Maybe he was,” Mulder says in wonder. And the curious part of his brain can’t help but give that some thought, because what a fascinating thing: that Scully’s dreams would be picked up by a telepathic biological son all the way across the continent like a ham radio.

“I wish I’d had regular visions of him,” she says. She turns again to look out the window. “All those years… I would have liked to have seen him in my dreams. Gotten updates.”

He knows she would have. He knows it intimately: the sting of her longing for William, her bottomless regret.

His instinct is to climb around to sit next to her, to put his arm around her to comfort her, but he doesn’t know if she wants that from him anymore. He wishes she would ask.

He wishes she would say his name and pull his arm around her and rest her cheek against his chest. He wishes she would let him hold her for an hour, for longer, for all night. He wishes he could read her mind.

***

In the car, Jackson is breathing in, counting to four, holding for seven, breathing out. He tries to do it exactly like his therapist said, but he knows this probably isn’t the kind of mental distress his therapist had in mind.

He presses his eyes shut and tries to quiet down his shine. If he wanted to, he knows he could shine into their thoughts with no problem—the bakery isn’t that far away—but he has no desire to. He wants quiet. He wants peace.

Even so, it’s not entirely quiet and peaceful in the car. There are steady low level emissions of emotion from Scully even from across the parking lot. A constant background hum of anxiety and tension.

Jackson understands anxiety, obviously. The part of him that’s teetering on adulthood understands why she is anxious. He can even sort of sympathize. The part of him that’s still a little kid can’t help but wish she felt more … joy.

Isn’t she happy at all to see him? Mulder said she had really wanted to for a long time. But instead, every emotion she has about him—every thought, every memory—is twisted up with a kind of pain Jackson can’t even comprehend. He knows her life has been difficult; he has seen enough in her memories and Mulder’s to grasp that.

He just wishes she could somehow see him separate from all the sadness.

He sits up on the seat, Mulder’s coat tucked around his legs. He knows he needs help. He just hopes he can get it.

He massages his own temples with his fingers and tries again to relax, clear his mind.

Hey. Hey. Are you there?

He tries to project his thoughts outward in the way she taught him, thinking of them like they were radio waves.

You told me to check in. I’m checking in.

He wonders if there will be any sign whether this is working. He pauses a moment, and only hears a horn honking somewhere on the street behind him. Of course not. A sign would be too easy.

I need help. I’ve done everything you’ve said. I haven’t told them anything. But I need your help.

He waits, clearing his mind again to prepare, to make room for any response. He listens to the sounds of the busy road, to engines whirring past, tires screeching. Dimly his shine is aware of minds in each of the cars, busily going about their lives.

There isn’t an answer.

Are you getting this? Are you there?

I need help, Rose.

Rose?

He curls back down on the seat under the coat, frustrated. Maybe she can’t talk right away. Maybe the answer will come later.

He closes his eyes and enjoys the relative quiet, listening only to the sound of his own inhale and exhale.

Even in the stillness, from across the parking lot he feels the continuous thrum of Scully’s worry, a low droning buzz like a bee hive.

As he breathes in and out, he realizes it’s not just her worry he’s feeling. It’s shot through with something else, some different emotion. Something deep and fierce and glowing hot. Something he suspects must be the way Scully loves.

***

#xfiles fanfic #the x files #x files fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #x files #xf fanfic #msr #jackson van de kamp #x files revival

46 notes · View notes