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randomfoggytiger · 22 days

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Collector's Edition: Reviving that Love

Let's have an assortment of mature, (mostly) fluffy, coupley Revival fics, shall we?

This list only scratches the surface; but hopefully it's enough to soothe a particular itch.

**Note**: Another Revival list I've done is Beefy Revival Mulder (and Other Muscular Mentions)-- perfect pairing to this, I believe.

Loose chronological order below~

@oohnotvery/the_eternal_optimist's Always Wanted

But he has a key to her place, because they’ve always had keys to the other’s place, even in horrible times. It arrived in the mail one day, sealed tightly in a bubble-wrapped envelope, addressed from her to him with a handwritten note that he hadn’t even bothered to read before crushing it up in a ball and tossing it into the trash can. Several hours later, in a fit of frustration, he had fished the note out of the trash and shoved it, unread, into a kitchen drawer.

Breakup Mulder realizes Scully has been waiting for him.

@aloysiavirgata’s (Ao3, WBM, Gossamer, LJ, Alt. LJ)

Si Hoc Legere Potes, Liberaliter Educatus

"It was very important to Deputy Director Skinner that you two meet with me. He felt that you needed some guidance before you could resume any kind of professional partnership."

I grit my teeth. You're a dead man, Skinner.

S10 Mulder and Scully run laps around the FBI recruitment therapist.

I need a fic with Scully's stolen dog Dagoo, and her wearing a Knicks tshirt.

“This is the one I ripped a piece off of for Boggs, Scully. This isn’t just my Knicks shirt. This is my favorite Knicks shirt. I’ve been looking for it!”

She pulls Tesla closer. “Stop violating the fourth amendment, Agent.”

“Stop violating the eighth commandment, Doctor.”

Post The Weremonster Mulder and Scully debate dog names and Knicks T-shirts.

What's your Mulder and Scully Thanksgiving sex headcanon?

"I'm going to die," she mumbles, her eyes half-lidded in tryptophanic stupor.

Mulder and Scully are stuffed after dinner.

@flukemen?/@pinebluffvariants/scienceandmysticism/contradictiontonature's (Ao3) Tie (prompt #1)

“Hello?”

“You know it’s me.” He did. “What are you doing?”

“I’m shopping. And I hope you’re using your bluetooth.” He could tell she was driving from the white noise over the sound of her breathing.

Mulder uses Scully's expertise to pick out a tie.

@hemisphaeric's (Ao3)

"Mulder you need new clothes"

The next day they decided to go into town and do some shopping, after Scully had had to tell Mulder for the tenth time he needed clothes and that no, he couldn’t wear those old ones just to seduce her.

Scully helps Mulder pick out new suits for his new job.

Let me carry some of the pain for you

Suddenly warm hands were touching him but he didn’t react. He couldn’t react, feeling so distant from everything. Scully was speaking, he recognized her voice, but not her words, those were like a white noise in the back of his head, which was so loudly screaming.

“I am better Scully, for real” he didn’t realize he had started talking at first, but he couldn’t stop, tears fogging up his vision.

Mulder panics, thinking Scully will leave him again.

touch.

Things had changed again in the last period though, she had come home; she had been spending time there with him more and more frequently. He understood her necessity to take things slowly, to test the territory before diving in head first, but he felt ready for it.

Mulder is glad to have Scully back.

Mulder, Scully and Elon Musk

She pushed him away and swatted at his arm. “You woke me up early to talk about Elon Musk??”

Mulder wakes Scully early for Elon's rocket news.

grumpysimon's Morse Code

He asks you for a pen. The genius always loses things. Your coffee comes and he spills a little on the napkin. He taps on the table. Morse code, maybe. You’re too tired to figure out what he’s saying to you in secret. You say his name and that smile is more crooked than ever.

Scully secretly loves Mulder's obsessive passion.

@baronessblixen/Baroness_Blixen's

Belong

He closes his eyes and counts. What will it be, he wonders. The sound of a car or their creaky door?

Another minute passes before he hears the soft squeak behind him.

Mulder tells Scully he's "done okay without her."

A few months after they're back on the x-files, Mulder's notices that his neck and shoulders are sore.

Mulder feels better and promises - with a wink - to do the same for her, she just needs to ask. She doesn't ask but Mulder knows her feet are sore a few days later, after hours of walking around. He silently starts massaging her feet while consorting in his hotel room, half-empty take-out containers on the bed next to them....

Mulder doesn't replace his chair-- which is just fine, because Scully becomes his masseuse.

Mulder giving Scully a foot massage

“Exactly. My feet hurt and I need a break. I’m not…” She trails off again as she massages her foot.

“Not young anymore?” Mulder offers and her head shoots up like a rocket, her eyes shooting daggers.

“Not used to it anymore.”

Post Ghoulie Scully's high heels finally catch up to her.

There's No Place Like Home (Ao3)

He loves her stubbornness. Once, she told him that she fell in love with him because he was stubborn. Well. That was the pot calling the kettle black. No one is as stubborn as his Scully.

AU-- Nothing Lasts Forever Mulder brings an injured Scully home.

Growing Old (with You) (Ao3)

“Just wait til you’re my age,” he jokes.

“55 looks good on you.” She proves her point with a kiss on his nose. “I can only hope to look as good as you when I turn 55.”

“You will. And I will remind you of it. If I’m invited to your birthday, that is.”

“You’re always invited to my birthday.”

Scully drops in for Mulder's 55th, assuring him his aging concerns are overblown.

A Study in Chemistry

"I didn't know you cared for this kind of movie, Scully." Mulder, sprawling on her bed, in her motel room, looks slightly disgusted at the small screen where two generic actors share a truly boring, less than passionate kiss in a typical, cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie.

"I don't," she says, returning her attention to the case report they're supposed to be working on. Despite his words, Mulder's eyes are glued to the movie and Scully can't help but smile.

Mulder and Scully bridge the gap between them-- and all because of Hallmark and memories.

Surprises Are Best Served Ice-Cold - Chapter 1

They both start towards each other at the same time, laughing.

“Mulder, I don’t remember how to stop,” she says, trying to get her skates under control.

“I’ve got you,” he says calmly and she hopes he’s right because she loses her balance, stumbles the last few steps towards him and crashes right into his chest, knocking him to the ground.

Mulder surprises Scully with a frozen over lake for Christmas.

A Day in May (Ao3)

Mulder puts on cheesy Christmas music and turns down the lights, creating a mood. They share a cup of sugary hot cocoa with mini marshmallows and whipped cream. When Scully raises her eyebrows at the cream, Mulder dips a finger in and deposits a blob on her nose.

“Live a little, Scully.”

And she does.

Mulder forgoes sleep to help Scully decorate their tree on Christmas Eve.

Night Out

"I can't breathe." Mulder is pouting. She wants to be angry with him - all of this is his own fault, after all - but he looks so miserable and yet so adorable that she feels sympathetic. She strokes his cheek and smiles at him.

"I'll make you make some soup."

"Are you sure I'm not dying?" he asks again, coughing. She offers him some tea and he sips it noisily.

Mulder gets sick after a night of Squatchin.

@wtfmulder/@momdadimpoppunk‘s (Ao3)

post-Plus One

“You reasoned your doppelgänger out of existence,” he says flatly. She smiles against his bare shoulder, nodding.

“She was a very reasonable woman.”

He laughs softly, the rumble of it caressing her cheek.

Post Plus One Mulder and Scully catch a few winks.

ficlet; twenty-six years

On her side of the desk, he has procured for her a plain blue baseball cap, a skinny caramel macchiato, and a not-skinny blueberry muffin.

She sits down as he hums and types away at something, taking a bite of the muffin and putting the cap on her head.

Scully always guesses which anniversary Mulder is celebrating.

fluff 🤢

They’re packing up the basement just one last time. They both learned early in life that saying goodbye is so much easier when it’s a choice, and the moment holds no bitterness, no fear.

Post Revival Scully finds flowers she'd once given Mulder in their basement office.

@myassbrokethefall's untitled rm9sbg93zxjz post-ep

Scully had chanced to see a picture of a blobfish on the internet some months ago and he wasn't sure he had ever, in their years and years together, seen her laugh so hard. It was one of the best things that had ever happened to him, frankly, watching the outsizedly hysterical reaction of Dana Scully MD, his serious scientist partner, to a picture of a lumpy, slimy, theatrically frowning fish on the internet. He had brought it up at every opportunity for weeks, renamed the wireless network at the house Blobfish Cove, found a way to work a reference to it into a meeting with Skinner, once printed out a picture of it and left it on Scully’s pillow, and watched in utter delight as she got the helpless giggles every single time. (Even the Skinner time. He hadn't even asked, just looked wearily at some point behind their heads for a few seconds before sighing and continuing on.)

AU-- Robot episode Mulder dreamed up the whole thing.

@onpaperfirst's (Ao3) Honey Hi

The doors slid open and Mulder wrangled a cart from the corral.

“They set up the little rooms and it makes you feel like you’re at home,” she said. “It dulls your senses. You forget you’re in public. And all of a sudden you’re in the middle of a fight about which rug matches the couch.”

“Let’s not fight in Ikea, Scully. It’s so bourgeois.”

Part II to Home, Home, Mulder and Scully's romantic life is examined through the lens of perfectly balanced humor... and their IKEA trip.

@ghostbustermelanieking's (Ao3) bearing north (Ao3)

“The cops out front will stop him,” Mulder says comfortingly.

She nods. Her skull is still pounding, but she feels limp in his arms, safe. “I tried to fight him off,” she says. “I almost did. But he got angry and shoved me into the pool. I hit my head.”

Mulder takes Scully home after she's injured while pursuing a perp.

"You’re beautiful, you know that?” (Ao3)

She turns her eyes up to meet his, burning blue eyes in the night. “You’re… all I have left now, Mulder.” Names are left unsaid between them, but they all register in his brain, like a knife. “I think my leaving was for the best, but I’m ready to come back. You’re my family, Mulder.”

Scully proposes to her Mulder.

@settle-down-frohike's Headcanon: It started after her first disappearance, on a flight to nowhere North Dakota.

It started after her first disappearance, on a flight to nowhere North Dakota. She was flipping through a dossier and he was dozing, as per usual. She heard a mumbled version of her name and threw a distracted “Hm?” his way without glancing up. “Scully.” Firmer, more forceful this time. She looked over, annoyed, and spat “What Mu-“ and realized he was still asleep, but fitfully so.

My Struggle II Scully hopes she can comfort Mulder once more.

@lilydalexf/LilydaleXF 's My Andromeda

He looks back at the road and answers honestly, "I didn't watch many shows. The ones I really wanted to see I wasn't allowed to watch. Except after excessive begging."

"And on nights you could successfully sneak into the TV room after your parents fell asleep." It's a statement, not a question.

"You know me so well, Scully."

Mulder and Scully imagine a night of stargazing.

Eternity Awaits

"Mulder…. We need to go to bed."

"You don't want to freeze together?"

"Not on this decrepit couch I don't."

Post This Mulder and Scully discuss their eternal conversations.

Apostrophic/@mappingthexfiles's

This

Mulder said Push a third time and they both groaned with the effort of heaving the massive piece another three feet, barricading it firmly against the bedroom door.

“What does this,” he gasped, “remind you of?”

Scully, drawing in deep gulps of air, pushed herself up on her elbows, propped on the edge of the chest. She did not say the fleeting thought that had gone through her head: maybe it was not a bad thing Mulder had not been present at the birth of their child.

“Um,” Scully said.

“Yeah,” Mulder said. Panting out, “Towers of furniture.”

Post This Mulder and Scully move their furniture back into place.

The Scully Treehouse of Horror

The automatic taps don’t turn on and off for him. He’s invisible to its sensors. The alarm, on the other hand, blares every time he walks in the door. Sometimes, even, once he’s inside the door and has been for some time. He’ll get up at night for a drink of water and Scully gets jarred out of postcoital bliss by the klaxon siren of intruder alert, intruder alert, Mulder cursing at the sink in the kitchen, yelling for Scully....

If she yells back for him to punch in the code, he does the wrong birthdate or botches the spelling of Queequeg. More often than not, she pads out in bare feet, tying her robe, entering the right code, filling the glass with cold water, sleepily herding a grumbling Mulder back to the warm bed.

Scully's house hates Mulder; and she loves him all the more for it.

Lapsed_Scholar's Wake-Up Calls

On their way into work, his phone rings. It’s just a wrong number, and the other commuters don’t really take any notice, but Scully arches her eyebrow.

At her questioning look, “Do you recognize this theme?”

“Vaguely. Should I?”

“It’s our theme song, Scully! And I think it suits us. Kind of spooky.” A beat. “Don’t you remember our movie?”

If possible, her eyebrow climbs higher.

Mulder always ratted he and Scully out to people-- and still does now, years and years later.

@slippinmickeys/SlippinMickeys's

Prompt: ballet slippers, chocolate pudding in a can, Wyoming

It was like a Carlton Varney fever dream; like a brothel with aspirations. Mulder actually paused in the doorway and leaned back out to double check the address number on the side of the house.

“Wow,” Scully said, daintily setting down her suitcase a few feet inside the door. She wanted to make a joke, but Mulder looked appalled.

Mulder books a truly terrible vacation spot.

Prompt Drabble Collection - Chapter 12

“I want something I can’t make.”

It was Day 18 of self-isolation and if you looked at quarantine like the stages of grief, they had rolled easily past panic and guilt, skipped loneliness altogether and were deep in the grip of isolation.

Scully shot him a look.

Mulder and Scully are sick and tired of COVID quarantine.

Prompt: Mulder & Scully vacation Christmas/Hanukah at the Quonochontaug cabin post season 11

“When was the last time you stayed here?” she asked, wrinkling her sensitive nose at the smell of dust, of mildew.

One suitcase on the floor at his feet, one still in his hand, Mulder closed the door behind him, his face ponderous. “Overnight?” he clarified. “I think I was nineteen?”

Post Revival Mulder and Scully spend the New Years in the old Mulder summer home.

outsquatchin94's Joy to You and Me

“Those hipsters… But Scully, that was such a look. Also, I hate to break this to you, but I’m quite sure it’s in the back spare room somewhere in a box.”

For a moment, he thinks she’ll spring off the couch and go find the offending object. She doesn’t though, she only smiles a little.

“I think we turned out okay in the end, even without the sleeping bags.” And Mulder has to agree with her.

Mulder and Scully discuss her old jacket.

@msrafterdark/msrafterdark's A concept : slow dancing on an ill lit front porch late in the evening while it’s thundering and maybe just starting to rain?

When they’re like this again, as though no time has passed, the pleasure of the familiarity is so good it almost hurts her. To have him well again, to be safe and wanted and in his arms is only made sweeter by the fact that the knocks and falls they have taken ultimately only made them stronger.

Mulder and Scully, the Unremarkable House and dancing.

@tofuttim's Comfort and Chaos (Ao3)

The rain pelted relentlessly against the windows of the small cabin. The night air was cold, but inside the cabin, a fire and a shared bed with Mulder kept her warm. The sound of the storm thrusted her thoughts back to the beginning.

The beginning of forever.

Scully asks Mulder what he remembers about their first case.

@defnotmeyo's (Ao3) The Cost of Living is Just Right

The beds are wrapped in white and light grey sheets with sky blue pillow cases on the spare pillows. The tables all look like something you would have seen on the Jetsons.

It takes a bit of time for Mulder to feel comfortable at Scully's apt.

Ingot Silver

“Birthday time, huh? We could go uh,” he licked some sauce off his finger as he moved a dish over to the sink, “we could go squatchin’.” He turned and winked at her.

Mulder learned plans an evening dinner for he and his Scully.

the “before i even needed glasses” line

Then, on days he doesn’t hate himself (and those days are multiplying and growing closer together all the time), he remembers he has a son, healthy and alive. He has the love of his life and while she’s not home yet, her toothbrush is back in his bathroom.

Post Cathedral episode Mulder isn't letting his homie get away ever again.

It really looks like Mulder when youre seeing two of everything.

“Mulder… you… you hurled a raccoon down our stairs.”

He shrugs, sheepish as ever.

“Like… you hurled him.”

“It was for Daggoo!”

A raccoon holds the Mulder-Scully household hostage.

I always laugh at that bit in detour where mulder is like “if ur lucky u get seventy-five (75) yrs. if ur rly lucky u get eighty

She refrains from rolling her eyes, instead slides in front of him and slinks an arm around him, patting that soft of his oblique threatening to turn into a love handle.

“Charlie has a decent head of hair,” Mulder mumbles.

“Charlie is four years younger. And you made it passed 50, Mulder. You won.”

Scully reassures Mulder he still looks gooooooooood.

BONUS (HAD TO INCLUDE THESE FOR THE MSR)

@monikafilefan/MonikaFileFan's

Language of Love: Prompts of Angst and Romance - Chapter 6

A sudden rise in emotion crests in her throat when she sees the wondrous look of awe and admiration seize the love of her life.

It’s the exact look she saw grace is face eighteen years ago.

“Mulder…” she whispers, raking her fingers through his silky hair as he grins up at her with a trembling chin.

Post Revival Mulder feels his baby move during the witching hour.

39 and 82 from the prompt list 😁/Just Breathe

“She’s here and she’s beautiful, honey, she’s just—”

“What, Mulder?” Scully shot up onto her elbows with her heart in her throat. “She’s just what?”

“It’s fine. She’s fine, Scully. She just looks like a he.”

Her jaw dropped. “What are you—are you sure?” Their slippery, pink baby covered in layers of vernix and blood mewled in protest as Mulder lifted the tiny bundle away from the comfort of his warm chest and pointed wide-eyed between its legs.

Mulder and Scully and unexpectedly fast Halloween baby makes a chaotically competent three.

RoseThornhill's

Spooky Mulder: The Revenge

Excited dad!Mulder wants a spooky theme for his Halloween daughter's name.

Alice is a Punk Rocker

Mulder, Scully, and their Halloween baby are happy together, despite a few bumpy patches.

@myownsuperintendent/MyOwnSuperintendent’s Renewal

She tries to shift in the bed, to touch him too, and he stops and pulls back. “Don’t try to sit up,” he says. “They made me promise I wouldn’t disturb you.” He’s trying to smile at her through the tears in his eyes. “You’re all right,” he repeats. “Please don’t scare me like that again. Not ever again.”

Post Revival Scully loses a lot of blood during delivery, which helps convince Jackson to stay with his family and new sister a bit longer.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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muldermuse · 6 months

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Plus One (Fox Mulder X Reader)

This is based on an ask I recieved <333 thank u for sending it through

Scully is unable to attend an event so Fox asks you to be his plus one.

“It means a lot that you’re coming tonight, I’ll uh- I’ll pick you up at your apartment at 6? Have a chat about the mission in the car and then go from there…I’m looking forward to seeing you…Scully said your dress looks good and you know that she knows more about that stuff than me *laughs*. Um, okay well this is a long voicemail so uh-right, I’ll see you in a few hours. Oh! This is Fox by the way.”

It definitely was not your usual practice to have a glass of red wine before getting ready for a mission but you had to admit that you felt nervous about tonight. It was standard for Mulder and Scully to do something like this. To get intel about a case, they’d dress up and rub shoulders with people unknowingly involved in an X File. Sometimes they’d pose as a couple and other times they would pose as two singles trying to seek out a partner for the evening. They would collect as much intel as possible and within the following weeks; the case would undoubtedly be solved.

This was a huge case so Scully was in another state, sleeping in her car to avoid the bed bug-ridden motel that Skinner had put her up in. Fox was too nervous to ask you so you got a call from Scully late last night. The key contact Fox had been trying to speak to about this case was attending a Gala in Washington. The contact was old school, any guest to the Gala had to have a date for the evening, and of course; it was a black tie event. You were reluctant and Scully knew you would be. “Listen, if you want to fly out and take my place in this crappy rental car, which stinks of fries for some reason- I would thank you for it. But, you’ll have a great time and I know you have that black dress that you’re looking for an excuse to wear…”.

So here you are, pouring a large glass of red wine and listening to the Spice Girls as you try to focus all your nervous energy into applying your make up and curling your hair. You slip your dress on at quarter to 5. The dress was expensive and it looks it. It’s black and shimmering under the fairy lights strung over your bookshelf. It’s hugging your curves, it’s hiding any insecurities and you have to admit- you look amazing. The remaining wine in the glass slides down your throat and gives a final rush of adrenaline. Fox knocks at the door at exactly 6 o’clock.

***

He's wearing his glasses. That’s the first thing that you recognize. Not the bouquet of flowers tightly clutched in his fist, not the perfectly tailored suit or the nervous expression covering his face.

“You’re wearing glasses, I’ve never seen you wear them outside of the office.” You smile at him and he smiles back but he seems distracted. He doesn’t reply for a few seconds and as the awkward energy fills the air; he thrusts the flowers towards your hands.

“Yeah, I think they make me look smarter” He awkwardly laughs. “These are for you...obviously…you usually have peonies at your desk on special occasions so I thought you’d like them.”

“They’re beautiful, I didn’t realise that you noticed stuff like that. Maybe you’re a better agent than I suspected Fox” you wink as you go back into your apartment and place the flowers in the sink with some water. You take the moment with the faucet running to compose yourself.

God.

He looks so fucking good.

The nerves that have slowly dissipated over the past hour are suddenly back without warning. He looks so good- do you look alright? Oh god, are you not dressed up enough? Does he think you look okay? I bet he wishes that Scully was here right now, you could potentially jeopardise this entire case and you know how hard they’re both working on it.

You’re too lost in your own thoughts to hear Fox cross the room and place a warm hand against your lower back. The tension zapping through your body streams out with a deep exhale.

“I have a car waiting downstairs, we should probably go”. He holds his arm out for you with a grin and he guides you downstairs. He holds the car door open for you. Whilst you have a moment alone; you whisper to yourself an affirmation that tonight will go well.

You have no idea that Fox is doing the same thing.

***

Fox has liked you for a while and he suspects that this occasion is all Scully’s doing. There was no real reason for her to travel to Wyoming, it was some anonymous call which Fox completely doubts the validity of. When it comes to the X Files and his career, Fox is a ‘do-er.’ He wants to get out there, prove the importance of his work and save lives.

However, when it comes to his relationships. At the minute, Fox is less active.

The moment he saw you smiling; you had never been far from his thoughts. Scully struck up a friendship with you through a mutual love of the same sandwich served a local deli. Fox would sit in on your lunch dates together, he’d always try and make you laugh- feeling an immense sense of pride when he did.

Scully had disclosed to him her feelings on your boyfriend, Jason. You had so much love to give and he seemed to be the opposite. Closed off and cold. Scully told Fox you’d been arguing more and were getting close to breaking up. When you did, Fox watched from afar as your usual bright smile never reached your eyes.

***

The car ride is filled with idle chat. The tension in the air seems to mount as you both try desperately to ignore it. Fox tells you about the Gala and what to expect. It’s more of an occasion to scope out the group rather than to gather intel on a specific target.

You don’t realise that as the car drives closer to your destination that your knee begins to bounce and your fingers fidget with the tassle on your handbag. Fox rests his hand on your knee and his thumb rubs calming small circles on your soft skin.

“You look amazing, thanks again for doing this.”

Before you can thank him or compliment him back, the car pulls to a stop and the door opens.

***

The room is grand and glamourous. It’s a decadent affair with rich red velvet curtains and carpets decorating each room. The different perfumes and aftershaves blend together to create a sweet floral scent that lingers as every person passes. It’s a crowd of black tuxedos and billowing ballgowns, everyone smiling politely with a clear hint of judgement to every passerby. The sound of the band is lost over the exchanging of pleasantries and the distinctive pop of champagne corks, followed by a polite cheer.

It's completely unlike anywhere else you have ever been or anywhere you are likely to ever go.

“I think I’m the poorest person in here by about three million dollars, Fox”

“Oh no, it’ll be way more than that,” Fox says with a wink as he hands you a glass of champagne. He moves in close enough to whisper to you and you try to ignore the sensation of his breath fanning your neck.

“See that guy over there with the red suit, he has a huge interest in extraterrestrials. It’s massive so much so that he spends around five and a half million dollars a year trying to prove they’re real. He’s got that much money it’s basically a game.”

The bubbles of champagne trickle down your throat as you move closer into Fox’s hold. He holds your waist and rotates you to look at another corner of the room. His breath remains hot on your neck and you’re not sure if it’s the alcohol coursing through your veins or his presence that is making your head feel fuzzy.

“That lady over there with the huge hat, like, ridiculously big hat.” You nod at Fox without taking your eyes off her. “The Lone Gunman guys suspect that she gets all her money from selling UFOs that crash, on the black market. She only leaves her guarded house three times a year and this is one of the occasions.”

“Suspect? So it could be something completely different.” You smirk up at Fox, he grabs another two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and hands one to you. “Who knows, maybe she makes her money selling really big hats.”

“Or maybe, the reason her hat is so big is because it’s broadcasting a message to a UFO flying over Washington”. His grin matches yours.

You clink the glasses together and without the other knowing, both of you acknowledge the butterflies fluttering in your stomachs.

***

Neither of you speak to anyone else, you find a quiet corner tucked away in the hall room and chat. You sip on a glass of wine and Fox holds a tumbler of whiskey but both drinks go warm as you get lose in the conversation with each other.

It dawns on you that before tonight, you’ve never really spoken to Fox as it’s usually a group environment or a passing hi-goodbye as you both make your way home at the end of the day.

He tells you about his family, he tells you about his favourite cases and more importantly than all of the things he’s saying to you- he’s present with you the entire time. Conversations with your ex were one sided and that was something that took months to admit. You realized your relationship with Jason was over during a conversation. You’d just got the promotion that you’d spent months working on and he asked one simple question that felt like a knife to your pumping heart.

“When were you going to tell me about that promotion?”

You had told him; of course you had. You’d told him when you first heard about it, you’d told him the planning you’d spent weeks organizing and you told him the morning of the interview.

He hadn’t heard any of it.

You’d been together over a year. You had met each other’s family, met each other’s friends, you’d fallen in love and within that conversation; you realized how far from love you both had fallen.

The big band music was gradually playing louder and louder. You’d both been straining to shout over it to keep the conversation going. Eventually, you realized a way you would be able to hear Fox better, you grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor.

***

The music was soft, flowing through the air as the lights began to dim slowly and the illuminated table decorations filled in the dark spaces. You placed your arms around Fox’s shoulders as his large hands slid down to your waist. Your heart was beating the steadiest that it had all night.

“How did you know about the peonies? I’ve never told you or Scully about that.” Your hands remained interlocked around his neck as you fought the urge to run your fingers through his hair.

“Well, I know your birthday and you had peonies on that date. When you got that promotion, you had peonies, and when uh…yeah, you have peonies.” A nervous look flashes across his face. You know what he was going to say.

“When I broke up with Jason, someone in the office got me peonies and left them on my desk. It was the only thing that made me smile that week”. The memory still makes you emotional, the week was relentless sleepless nights and non-stop crying. On the last day of the week, there was a gorgeous bunch of peonies in a vase on your desk. No note, no name- nothing.

His hands tighten around your waist as he rests his forehead against yours, “I’m glad you liked them…it was hard to see you look so sad”.

Of course it was him.

It always was.

It always is.

Before you can carry on speaking or stop the tears trying to fill your eyes. He tilts your chin to meet your eyeline with his thumb and forefinger.

“I don’t think I’ve told you how beautiful you look tonight or thanked you for this…I mean thanked you properly."

You place your head against his chest and wrap your arms around his waist, continuing to sway to the music; you hear him take a breath before carrying on.

"I've liked you for a while and god, does that sound childish to say. This means a lot to me and you being here means even more. I'd like to take you out, I can't always promise it will be this fancy...actually, I can guarantee it never will be but I want to spend time with you. In any setting, I possibly can."

He doesn't look at you and you don't look at him. It felt like a confession he needed to make but perhaps didn't have the confidence to say it to your face. Which is amazing to you because Fox Mulder doesn't strike you as someone who struggles with anxieties.

"I think this place is a bit too fancy for me, maybe we can chat more at the 24 hour diner near my apartment? I think we'll look a bit different from the usual patrons" You gesture at your black gown and his tuxedo. He smiles as he takes your hand and leads you to the exit.

Before you get back into the car, you press a kiss to his lips and thank him for the evening. For the entire journey to the diner; you hold each other's hands tightly.

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cecilysass · 9 months

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XF Fanfic Writers Who Went On To Professional Writing Careers

Clearly these are just the folks I know.

Johanna Schaffhaussen (@syntax6) - She wrote fanfic as Syntax6 and is now a crime novelist. Check out her fanfic (very, very good casefiles). Check out her novels.

Claudia Gray (@claudiagray) - I don’t hear XF fandom bringing her name up as much, but I heard her talk once and even mention her background in fanfic. She wrote XF fic as Amy Vincent and now does paranormal YA romance / Star Wars novels as Claudia Gray. (Side note: CC said in a podcast interview last year that an author who had written Star Wars novels approached him with an idea for an XF novel, and he liked it and approved it. I really hoped it might be her, but I never heard more.) Check out her fanfic. Check out her Wikipedia page. Check out her novels.

Laura Bontrager (@writingwell) - I mentioned her recently because @randomfoggytiger is such a fan! She wrote XF fanfic as RocketMan, and she's gone on to write romance / mystery novels. Check out her fanfic. Check out her novels.

Sonny Whitelaw - She wrote as Spider and became an ecothriller / speculative fiction author. She apparently also teaches classes at the New Zealand Writers' College. Check out her fanfic. Check out her Wikipedia page. Check out her novels.

Y'all, I bet there are more. There are probably anonymous authors we'll never know. But add to the list if you know some. Including yourself, obviously.

#xfiles fanfic #x files fanfic #the x files #fanfic #fanfic history

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lilydalexf · 2 months

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👽 X-Files Season 7 Fic, Part 11

There are so many great stories set in season 7 of The X-Files! Here are even more, following seven prior sets of season 7 fic recs. There are a lot of good season 7 stories. Enjoy! Parts 1 ** 2 ** 3 ** 4 ** 5 ** 6 ** 7 ** 8 ** 9 ** 10 Aquinnah by Anjou Axiom by allimarie Birthday Series by @syntax6 Hallowed by OnlyTheInevitable (@gaycrouton) Harmonice Mundi by @aloysiavirgata Into the Light by @msrafterdark keeping count by scullyism Learning Curve by JLB Mezzo Luna by msk Secret Spots by @baronessblixen Strangers and the Strange Dead by Kipler throat, eye and knucklebone by audries (@audriesfic) Untitled by @aloysiavirgata Untitled by @aloysiavirgata Untitled "Millennium" fic by @aloysiavirgata Untitled "Orison" crossover fic by @aloysiavirgata Wishes by @baronessblixen

#fic rec #roundup #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #season 7 #new post

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platonic-activity · 3 months

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Mulder has always been the weird guy. The Spooky guy who wrote profiles too accurate for everyone’s comfort and said wild shit either because he believed it or to push people away and no one could ever decide which was worse. Scully came to work with him as some sort of tether to reality. A person who wasn’t weird and could push him to explain his theories in a more scientific manner. They were at odds even though he genuinely liked her and they got along just fine. He didn’t feel like he needed to push her away but he didn’t think she would ever feel like a true partner until…

He was sitting on the counter in a small town medical examiner’s office while she rattled off that the stomach contents were pineapple fried rice and chicken. When they left he asked if she wanted to grab dinner and she said she wanted Chinese food. He put two and two together and looked at her with such disgusted horror and she just smiled. He realized they were both deeply strange people that night and he thinks about that moment every time she requests Chinese food. That was the moment they became partners. He roundly refused to eat Chinese food on that particular night.

#head canon #mulder #mulder x scully #xfiles #the xfiles #Scully #fanfic

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bakedbakermom · 2 months

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they are all things (read on ao3)

post-ep for "all things" // T // 535 words tagging @today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr

Mulder stirs when Scully slips into bed beside him – a pleasant surprise, though not a wholly unexpected one. They’ve been slipping into each others’ beds for a little while now.

#holy shit the pipes have been clogged for months but i finally wrote something.#bird by motherfucking bird indeed #please note that due to tumblr admitting they will allow content scraping i will no longer be posting my fics here in their entirety #i opted out but i don't trust any of these ai companies to abide by that #my fics are on ao3 and require an account to read.#x files fanfic #the x files #xf fic #xf fanfic #dana scully #fox mulder #msr #xfiles #the xfiles #mulder and scully #my fic #my writing #dailytxf #they are all things

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numinousmysteries · 2 months

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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

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oohnotvery · 3 days

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Edges of the Night (Chapter 16)

**tw/cw implied suicidal thoughts**

Thank you so much for keeping up with this story  I loved writing that last chapter but truthfully, I haven’t had the stomach to read the comments yet because I’m scared!

In other news, one of my favorite characters to write is angry, outraged, incensed, deranged Scully. I think those were Gillian’s best moments on the show, and I can just picture her seething and frothing with fury here. I hope you enjoy my iteration of Angry Scully.

She didn’t mean to do it.

She didn’t mean to fall asleep.

She knew better than to let her guard down, not while Mulder was spouting off crazy things like your life will be better without me. But he had settled them so comfortably in the bed, forehead to forehead, and his arms had felt so good around her shoulders, and his breathing was so slow and steady in her ear, and her body was so exhausted from fighting for so long . . .

The moment she opens her eyes, Scully knows what he’s done.

She sits up so fast her vision blurs. She whips around to the other side of the bed, finding his place empty, gone cold many hours ago.

Panic, then fear, then anguish hit her like tidal waves, and then she’s sprinting through the upstairs rooms. He’s not anywhere to be found, so she flies downstairs, tripping over the last step. Alan appears out of nowhere and reaches out to steady her but she shakes him off.

She zeroes in on Frohike, who looks awfully suspicious leaning against the front door.

Indignation swells in her chest and she storms over to him, reaching out to yank him away. Her fingertips are just brushing the edge of his jacket when Byers throws an arm in between them, blocking her. Without thinking, her hand flies out and she smacks him across the cheek. Byers stumbles backward in shock and she gapes at him, surprised by her own actions.

A long moment passes where the entire room falls still with anticipation. Scully’s gaze locks onto Byers’ bewildered look, and as a red mark slowly starts to bloom across his cheek, she blinks.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathes.

He shakes his head slowly and raises a palm to his face, as if to check whether she really did slap him. His eyes turn somber. “No, we’re the ones who should be apologizing, Agent Scully.”

She glances around at Frohike and Langly, who are studying her with awkward, guilt-ridden looks. Sensing Alan and Skinner nearby, she twists around, seeing them standing shoulder-to-shoulder like a pair of soldiers. A low, boiling sensation curls hot in her belly.

Each and every one of these men betrayed her.

Each and every one of these men helped Mulder leave her.

“You have to tell me where he went,” she warns them all darkly, her voice trembling with rage. If Alan is put off by her intensity, he doesn’t show it.

Byers shakes his head remorsefully. “We don’t know.”

She turns on Frohike, stabbing a finger at his chest. “You have to know. If he were going to tell anyone where he was going, it would be you.” Her chest heaves and she sees a flutter of acknowledgement in Frohike’s eyes. She seizes on it. “You do know where he went, don’t you?” Her eyes turn feral, accusatory. She steps forward, pushing Byers aside. “Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to shake it out of you?”

The little man looks momentarily alarmed, but then his face assumes a mask of composure. “I—I don’t know where he is,” he says weakly, “and I would do almost anything to take this pain from you,” he adds with sincerity. His brow creases in agony. “But I—I don’t know . . . .”

“You’re lying.”

He shifts uncomfortably and she wonders if she really has it in her to hurt him, if she’s really willing to do that to get to Mulder.

“I won’t—I can’t—I don’t know where he is,” he repeats defeatedly, but he is unwilling to meet her gaze.

“Then you are dead to me,” she spits. Frohike’s eyebrows shoot up and she steps in closer, lowering her voice. “You think you know what’s best for Mulder? Or for me? Do you think Mulder gets to decide what’s best for my life? When am I going to get to make my own goddamn choices?” She whips around to face the rest of the room. “When are any of you going to realize that my life isn’t yours to manipulate?”

“Dana,” comes Alan’s soothing voice, and she draws in a lungful of air, willing herself to breathe. But there’s no air in this room. No air, no life, no hope. She turns over her shoulder to glance back at Frohike, whose face has turned pale with shame.

“I don’t know, Dana,” he finally whispers, and a flicker of doubt slides down her spine.

If Frohike isn’t lying—if he really doesn’t know where Mulder is—then there is no hope of ever seeing Mulder again.

Despair slips into her bones, begins to paralyze her muscles. Her vision spins and she takes a staggering step forward, pushing past Frohike to open the front door. Wintry air blasts her face as she stumbles down the porch steps and into the shelter of a grove of pine trees. She glances up at the darkening sky through tired eyes and prays for night to consume her. And then she turns her back on the house and throws up.

The plan is simple.

Skinner delivers the details to her a few hours after she storms out of the house, but only after trying and failing to get her to eat. He doesn’t bother apologizing or even acknowledging her anger. Instead, he is all FBI boss, briefing her on the facts and only the facts.

In the morning, he will drive her and Alan to the nearest regional airport, where they will board a plane for San Diego and, as Skinner shares through gritted teeth, “return to your normal lives.” To appease friends, family, work, the media, and the shadowy cohort of villains that has done this to her, Scully will sit for one short press briefing about her recent experience. She will tell the world that Fox Mulder kidnapped her and that once he was apprehended, he took his own life. If asked about her own gunshot wound, she will say Mulder inflicted it upon her.

She closes her eyes at this detail. It is beyond excruciating to think about publicly blaming Mulder for her suffering.

Skinner, she learns, is expected to return to the FBI as if nothing happened. He doesn’t offer up the details of his own experience and she doesn’t press.

She doesn’t really care, not about him, and certainly not about the Gunmen. When they try to bid her goodbye the next morning, she refuses to acknowledge them beyond a curt nod. She knows she should thank them for saving her life, for helping them get to safety, for providing a safe house in Montana, for coming to her rescue in the hospital . . . but she can barely look at them, much less speak. She’s afraid if she does open her mouth, it’ll be just to blast them all with another angry tirade.

But she’s operating on pure tunnel-vision. All she can see is Mulder, alone in this great vast world, alone in his suffering, never to see her ever again.

It’s Scully’s fifth time going down to the beach this week. She’s exhausted and her body needs rest, but she every time she closes her eyes, she sees Mulder. It’s been a week since she left the house out in West Virginia, a week since she and Alan flew back to San Diego.

Her life has been intolerable since returning: an unbearable press conference followed by a visit from her mother, an awkward phone call with her boss about taking leave. Oh, and then whatever happened last night.

Alan has visited her apartment every day since they returned to the west coast. He’s been good to her in a way that she hadn’t anticipated, especially since her behavior has been objectively unpleasant. First, the poor man was an unknown onlooker during her heartfelt reunion with Mulder; then he witnessed her enraged outburst at the house; and now that they’re back home, he’s got a front-row seat to her complete physical and emotional withdrawal.

But it hasn’t stopped him from bringing food over every night, or from running to the store for pain meds when her shoulder injury brings her to tears, or from filling her prescription antibiotics, or from driving her to the press briefing, or from changing the channel anytime the news mentions Mulder.

He hasn’t pressed her for anything, not for reciprocity, not for physicality, not for intimacy, not even for conversation. She assumes he’s anxious to return to the way things were between them, but her body feels more closed off than ever. Every night after he leaves, she cranks up the shower and slips inside to cry. Alan hasn’t so much as touched her hand since they left the home in West Virginia.

But tonight as he was preparing to leave, he took a step into her and gave her a quick, friendly parting hug. Their bodies didn’t even touch; just a brief touch of his arms around her shoulders. But it startled her so badly that she jerked away, and then watched with a sense of uncertainty as he apologized, then left.

Simply put, she isn’t ready for another man to touch her body. She’s relieved he hasn’t tried to kiss her. Even though she knows it’s absurd to want this for the rest of her life, she wants Mulder’s lips to be the last hers ever touch.

After Alan leaves, she debates slipping into the shower and giving into the desire to purge her emotions with a long cry. But tonight, the hug seems to have left her bereft, and a shower sounds emotionally exhausting. Instead, she tries to sleep, but like every night, rest doesn’t come easy. She’s considering taking a dose of the sleeping pills she used to rely on so heavily, but something about the prospect of drugging herself has been off-putting since she returned. So instead, after an hour of tossing and turning, she slips into sandals, loose pants, and a sweater, and heads down to the beach, just like she has every night for the past few days.

Her emotions confuse her as much as they overwhelm her. She knows, logically, that her brain is trying to process trauma. She recognizes the symptoms, knows that this vacillation between numbness and hyperarousal is normal. She recognizes that the ping-ponging between disconsolate grief and gut-wrenching anger is also normal. She also recognizes that her anger feels better than her grief, and so she nurses the anger whenever it comes up.

As she stomps down the sand towards the ocean, she feels overcome with fury. Fury towards Mulder, who once again decided he knew best. Fury towards Skinner and Frohike for the same reason. Fury towards Alan for touching her tonight. And most agonizingly, fury towards herself for falling asleep the day Mulder left.

Here on the beach, her muscles tense as that fury washes over her, as it burns through her system. It leaves her gasping aloud and clenching her fists so tightly that her skin breaks under her sharp nails.

The fury sings through her so fast and so feverishly that she keels over, clutching at her aching stomach. She knows she can’t go on like this. The rage inside her is exhausting.

She’s staring down at the waves lapping at her feet when it hits her—for the hundredth time this week—that she may never see Mulder again. That, even if she spent the rest of her life searching for him, she may never find him. As this thought overwhelms her, her anger slowly starts to morph into agony. She pushes at that feeling—no, go away—because while the anger is exhausting,the heartache is literally unbearable. She knows she cannot let herself give into her anguish. But before she can tame the thoughts and feelings whirling in her mind, her body catches up to her grief, and sweat breaks out along the back of her neck. She collapses to her knees. Waves crash around her legs and waist and saltwater stings at the small cuts on her palms. Her eyes burn.

How is she supposed to go on? What does life even look like without Mulder?

A strangled laugh escapes her. Hell, just a few weeks ago, there was a perfectly clear, perfectly pleasant answer to that question. Life without Mulder looked like Alan, and beach life, and a stable job, and California. Life without Mulder looked like sleeping pills at night, a mental blockade in her mind, and a heart that was partially stonewalled.

And then Mulder re-entered her conscious mind, and now here she is, as bereft as a grieving widow, lonely, heartbroken, angry, disconsolate. A large part of her wishes that he had never tried to save her life in the first place.

What is my life without him in it?

Scully stares out at the sea and her thoughts drift to another lifetime, to all the times she watched her mother valiantly hold back tears as her father sailed away. Her father dictated her mother’s life and emotions for so long. He called the shots with his comings and goings. And Maggie Scully was always expected to accept his choices.

A wave laps at her wrists and Scully’s mind starts to shift, to turn. Why is she, too, letting these men control so much of her life? What if she told them—all of them, Skinner, Mulder, the Gunmen, the super-villains who wanted Mulder dead—that her life is her own? That her choices are hers to make? That she’s in control of her own narrative?

Fuck you, living out the “normal life” that Mulder so desperately thinks she needs.

Fuck you, California and Alan and a prosperous career as a doctor.

Fuck you, a life built on choices other people made for her.

She stares out at the deep, dark, ocean, and begins to imagine the weight of the waves gliding over her body, begins to fantasize about the calm, peaceful pull of the sea as she slips down, down, down.

She could do it, right here, right now. She could wade out into the ocean and make her own fate. This time, the choice could be hers. Slowly, she rises to her feet and takes a step deeper into the sea. The waves pull at her knees, like they’ve heard her thoughts and relish the idea of this sailor’s daughter joining them in the saltwater depths.

How else can she take back control? she thinks erratically. Is this really the only way?

She stands in the breakers for a long time, so long that the moon rises above her head and tiny fish start to nip at her ankles. Everything and nothing pass through her mind. The hopelessness of her future, the grief that will follow her wherever she goes.

Will her life be bearable?

Grief is a noose around her neck, dragging her deeper into the water. And then, out of nowhere, she feels it. The tiniest, most insignificant trickle of hope.

Because Mulder isn’t dead, nor are they estranged. He’s out there in the world, alive and in love with her, and that means she can find him. As long as she’s alive, she can spend the rest of her life looking for him. And for a few critical moments, this faint sliver of hope is enough.

With one last look at the sea, she drags her feet out of the heavy, wet sand and slowly, resolutely walks back to the beach.

#mulder x scully #dana scully #the x files #x files fanfic #fox mulder #xfiles fanfic #x files #msr fanfic #msr #txf

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benoitblanc · 2 months

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everywhere is the middle of nowhere when you're losing your lover

on the road. hostess snoballs. nosebleeds. the interrupting mothman.

read middle of nowhere on the ao3 or below the cut:

“Hey, Scully.”

“...”

“Scully. You awake?”

“Well, I am now. What is it?”

“Knock knock.”

“Mulder, I swear, if you woke me up just to tell me a knock knock joke—”

“Humor me. Knock knock.”

“...Who’s there.”

“The interrupting mothman.”

“ Mulder .”

“Come on, Scully, haven’t you ever wondered what noise the mothman makes?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Well, today could be your lucky day.”

“Where are we?”

“About one level up from the middle of nowhere. You’ve been out for a while. I stopped at a gas station, got you one of those godawful pink coconut things. Seriously, Scully, I don’t understand how a medical professional such as yourself can in good conscience put that crap in your body.”

“Says the man who ate a full sleeve of Oreos for dinner last night.”

“Touche.”

“Thanks anyway. I’m not that hungry.”

“You said that last night too. When was the last time you ate?”

“I’m fine.”

“Scully—”

“I’m fine , Mulder, quit asking me if—oh, damn it.”

“Tissues in the glove compartment.”

“Thanks.”

“...”

“Scully.”

“Don’t look at me like that. The doctor said there was no change from my last scans.”

“Would you tell me if there was?”

“What do you want me to say, Mulder?”

“Ideally ‘yes, of course I would, because I understand that you as my partner care about me, and I also understand that I don’t have to prove anything to anyone by doing everything all by myself.’”

“...”

“Ah, jeez, Scully, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you—”

“It’s fine.”

“I swear to God—”

“No, it really is fine. I just—Mulder, of course I know that. It’s just… it’s hard.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Scully, I know you better than anything. Take all the time you need, okay? I’ll be here, however you need me, whenever you’re ready.”

“...I know.”

“...”

“The interrupting mothman who?”

#arwen writes #the x files #txf #the x files fic #xfiles fanfic #txf fic #msr #fox mulder #dana scully #todayinfic #userscully #i wrote this in ten minutes as a prompt fill in creative writing today. how are all of you doing

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sisterspooky1013 · 6 months

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Gaslight, Chapter 48/48: Epilogue

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

May 29, 2001

Tonight we bring you an update on the conspiracy that continues to rock the States. Ten months after exposing the major players behind the now defunct Spurious Project, three men identified only as “The Lone Gunmen” were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with one of the three men being awarded the medal with distinction due to injuries sustained during an attempted assassination by Spurious operatives.

As millions of Americans continue to line up to have microchips containing false memories of a global pandemic removed from their necks, the search continues for the individuals at the heart of the project: identified only as ‘subject 101-1’ and ‘subject 101-2.’ While their precise role in the project remains unclear, sources state that they should be considered victims.

The Spurious Project is purported to be the largest and most well-orchestrated attempt to mislead the public in recorded history. Any Canadian citizen who visited the States between February and March of 2000, or who received a vaccination for the Manatua Virus, should see their doctor as soon as possible to be scanned for a microchip and have it removed if necessary.

There’s a knock at the door, and Frenchie barks sharply as she skitters across the hardwood. Scully turns the TV off before hoisting herself out of her armchair, fruitlessly attempting to quiet Frenchie with verbal commands. Halfway to the door there’s another knock, and she calls out, “Just a minute!” as she shuffles the rest of the way, already out of breath. On the other side she finds a little boy with messy blonde hair and an RC car hanging from his fingertips, the remote tucked under his arm.

“Can Zack play?” the boy asks without preamble.

“Sure,” Scully huffs, then turns to shout down the hallway. “Bear! Micah’s here!”

A moment later Peter trudges down the hall, his own RC car in hand. Scully grabs him by the back of his shirt collar as he prepares to wordlessly walk out the door, and he stops and tips his face up to look at her. His body has softened in the intervening months, rounding out his face and padding his hips beneath his sweatpants.

“Watch for the car please, okay? Daddy and Bunny will be back from the airport soon.”

Peter nods, and she takes his chin in her hand and kisses his forehead before sending him outside. She watches him walk shoulder-to-shoulder across the lawn beside Micah and tells herself that he’s a typical little boy. One who is fiercely independent because he subconsciously doesn’t expect the adults in his life to meet his needs. One who struggles to stop eating when he’s full because his body remembers a time when his next meal wasn’t guaranteed. One who hoards everything from Q-tips to granola bars in his room, just in case. But he fits right in with the kids in the neighborhood, and is excited to start kindergarten in the fall. Typical, considering all he’s been through, and she’s grateful for it.

The oven timer beeps and she makes her way to the kitchen, the warm vanilla smell in the air making her mouth water. It’s just a boxed cake, nothing fancy, but she feels emotional as she sets it on top of the oven to cool and gets out supplies for decorating.

Her life now would be completely unrecognizable to the person she was a year ago, a fact that both relieves and saddens her. As difficult as that time was, it wasn’t all bad. There were happy memories made, and there are people she still misses, as well as places. But the home they’ve made here is a permanent one, both for the sake of the children who have enough to contend with without another international move, and because the risk of returning to the States is simply not one they are willing to take.

She hears the crunch of tires on gravel and her belly does a nervous little flip, which strikes her as silly. She can’t decide whether to meet them on the front porch, or in the driveway, or maybe just stay here in the kitchen. She’s still pondering this when the screen on the back door snaps and Abby walks in, eyeing Scully curiously as she examines the sweet-smelling cake.

“Are you okay, Mommy?” Abby asks, and Scully forces herself to smile.

“Yeah, sweetpea, I’m just a little nervous,” she says, reaching out to run her hand through the child’s short-cropped hair, now devoid of blonde. Abby tenses reflexively at her touch, but Scully ignores it. “Did you have fun going to the airport with Daddy?”

Abby nods, watching Scully’s face. She’s always watching her, measuring her mood and anticipating her reactions. The casual observer would deduce that they’re incredibly close, based on the way Abby never lets Scully out of her sight, but the truth is much more complicated than that. Abby can’t relax unless she knows that Scully is relaxed. She cannot feel safe in a place where Scully is present unless she has taken steps to prophylactically placate her. The outside world sees a little girl who dotes on her mother, but Scully sees a little girl who perceives her mother as a potential threat that she must constantly monitor. It gets better week over week, month over month, and Scully has faith that someday Abby won’t flinch when she reaches for her.

“Oh my god.”

Scully turns away from Abby and towards the sound of her mother’s voice. She’s standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her hands held over her mouth and her eyes shining.

“Mom,” Scully says, rushing towards her, tears already pooling in her eyes.

They embrace awkwardly, both laughing, and just the smell of her mother’s skin, her laundry soap, her shampoo, makes Scully feel like a little girl again. She wishes she could crawl into Maggie’s lap and tell her how hard it’s been, and how much she’s needed her.

“Look at you,” Maggie says, leaning away and laying a palm on the tight drum of Scully’s stomach. “You look beautiful.”

Scully laughs uncomfortably. “I feel like a whale,” she says. “Sorry I didn’t come to the airport. I can’t sit down for more than twenty minutes without my sciatica acting up.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie says, beaming as she looks between Scully’s belly and her face. “I’m just glad I was finally able to come see you.”

“How long are you staying, Maggie?” Mulder asks as he lumbers in with a bag in each hand as well as one under each arm. “I think you packed for the apocalypse.”

“Oh, half of that is gifts for the kids,” Maggie says, taking two of the bags. “I have a lot of missed spoiling to make up for.”

After dinner, Scully brings out the carefully decorated cake and sets it on the table. The mood shifts to something somber as she props up the only two photos they have of Cal against the cake stand: the one of the four of them that Maggie gave her that first day when she woke up in the hospital in Baltimore, as well as the ID Byers had created when they thought Cal would be traveling with them to Canada. She’d secreted them across the border in her luggage against Tom’s direction, unwilling to risk the children forgetting him completely, which she is now exceedingly grateful for.

“Happy Birthday in Heaven, Daddy,” Abby says as Scully lights the lone candle.

They sing a low-energy rendition of the birthday song, and the kids blow the candle out together. Their memories of Cal are hazy and don’t feel nearly as significant to them as they do to Scully, but she is steadfastly committed to ensuring that they never forget how much he loved them, all three of them, and that he is remembered for the good he did in this world.

Scully does the dishes, smiling to herself as she listens to Maggie quiz the children on their lives in the next room. Despite losing their implanted memories of their grandmother, both Abby and Peter seem very comfortable with her, which is a relief. She hears Mulder’s feet on the linoleum before he steps up behind her, running his hands in wide circles over the sides of her belly.

“Seems like everyone’s getting along,” he says, resting his chin on the crown of her head.

She feels a flash of foolishness remembering how she cried to him the night before, terrified that the children would receive her mother as a stranger, or that celebrating Cal’s birthday would trigger one of Abby’s flashbacks, or a myriad of other things that would create tension and stress so close to the baby’s impending arrival. Pregnancy has made her feel like an imposter in her own body, betrayed by her unpredictable emotions, and Mulder has been exceedingly patient and supportive with both her and the kids as they adjust to their new circumstances.

There are still holes in the patchwork of his memory, some pinpricks and some gaping. He’s himself, but a slightly less restless version than she knew before their lives were stolen from them and returned in increments. Still searching and endlessly curious, but not quite so tortured by the unanswerable questions as he once was. Still busy and preoccupied, but not to the degree that he can’t set his current fixation aside and be present with his new family. It’s difficult to say whether the change in him is due to how completely his life has been turned upside down in less than a year, or if maybe some of the memories he never recovered were the ones that haunted him the most. Regardless of the reason, she’s been pleasantly surprised by how easily he’s fallen into the roles of husband and father.

He bends down a little, hooking his chin over her shoulder and slipping his hands under the water alongside hers. Scully smiles and glances toward the living room, then pushes her backside against him to the greatest degree that she’s able, given her belly and the obstruction of the countertop.

“Are you trying to start something, Mrs. Manningham?” he asks playfully.

Scully tilts her head to the side and Mulder kisses her neck.

“At first I thought it was infatuation,” he sings quietly, brushing his lips across her skin. “But oooo it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home.”

Scully closes her eyes and sways back and forth, feeling so happy it almost hurts. Then the tears come, as they are wont to do, running down her chin and leaving wet splotches on the gray cotton T-shirt stretched over her belly. Mulder doesn’t ask her what’s wrong or make a fuss over it, he just dries his hands and then her cheeks, then kisses her and tells her to go visit with her mom while he finishes in the kitchen.

By the time the kitchen is cleaned up and the children are in bed, Scully is too exhausted to socialize any further, and she excuses herself to take a bath while Mulder and Maggie share a bottle of wine. In the tub, she wets a washcloth and lays it over her belly for warmth, more relaxed than she can remember feeling in quite some time. She hears her mother laugh from the living room and she smiles and closes her eyes. She must have started to drift, because her belly is suddenly cold and Mulder is crouched beside the tub, brushing his index finger down the bridge of her nose.

“I thought we agreed to no sleeping in the bath,” he admonishes her lightly, the sour smell of wine on his breath.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she mumbles, sitting up and taking his hand as he helps her out of the tub.

They both get ready for bed and he curls himself around her beneath the covers, one hand resting on her belly.

“How do you feel?” he asks quietly.

“Hmmm, tired,” she says on a yawn, hoping he takes the hint.

“I mean emotionally. Having your mom here, Cal’s birthday. You holding up okay?”

With great effort she rolls to her back, her belly protruding towards the ceiling like a mountain summit. The baby squirms, jabbing her rib cage uncomfortably, and she grabs Mulder’s hand to lay it over the place where he might be able to feel movement.

“I’m really good, actually,” she says. “It feels like…closure, maybe. Or something similar to that. Like we can finally start moving forward.”

Mulder nods, giving her three quick kisses before she rolls back to her side. She falls asleep quickly, no longer afraid that someone is about to break the door down and take away everything that matters. No longer feeling like her life is not her own.

She dreams that dream again, the one with the green countertops and Mulder spinning her around in his kitchen. The one of a love so strong that neither man nor science could destroy it. The one that she simply wouldn’t forget, no matter how hard they tried to make her.

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

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aloysiavirgata · 1 month

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(if you are accepting prompts!) what iffffff you wrote a soft gentle little fic in which Scully has a spectacularly unlovely head cold and after some grouching Mulder looks after her? There are so many moments of peril on x files that sometimes it’s nice when the enemy is just a simple rhinovirus, lol.

He doesn’t even attempt to make it himself. Calls ahead to Loeb’s with his order, which he accepts from a stylish young Mexican man whose name tag reads Pierre.

“A sheynem dank,” Mulder says, echoing the grandmother who called Samantha a shaineh maideleh.

Pierre nods. “Bitte, baby,” he says. “De nada.”

***

Mulder clomps up her stairs with Puritan determination. He feels that since he did not cook the food himself he must exert some other effort for it. His soul is at eternal war with itself.

He doesn’t knock; lets himself in with the Home Depot key Scully had made for him around the time that Tooms wanted into her pants for all the wrong reasons. It sticks a little still, even after so many years. He’s rarely had to use it - when aren’t they together?

A hacking noise from her bedroom, something wet being coughed. Spat.

Mulder helps himself to a bowl, a plate, a spoon.

“I’b arbed,” she rasps from down the hall. “I’b a Federal Agent.”

“Don’t shoot,” Mulder calls back, hunting down a napkin. “I am a poor boy from a poor family.” Her mother wears Revlon and his wears Guerlain.

He tips some soup and two of the matzo balls into a bowl, wedges one of the challah rolls next to it. He puts the leftovers in the fridge.

Mulder carries the plate down the hall, the nearly-full bowl sloshing dangerously atop.

He enters Scully’s bedroom. She’s been upgrading over the past couple of years, replacing her IKEA basics with good secondhand finds in cherry and walnut. The candle she’s lit smells like white flowers with thick, creamy petals.

Scully is tucked into bed like an Austen heroine, all delicate pallor and genteel unhappiness. Her nose is pink-tipped and raw, hair in a ponytail. She’s wearing a gray sweatshirt instead of her usual pajamas.

Mulder sets the food down on her nightstand, next to a vase of dried roses and her Yaqui slide holster. A speed loader. There’s a well-framed Monet print over the bed.

Pat Conroy’s Beach Music is open face down on her lap, surrounded by crumpled tissues. She doesn’t look happy to see him, her purple-shadowed eyes narrowing a bit.

“Go away,” she says. Sneezes.

“Brought you some soup,” he says, unnecessarily. Points at it, also unnecessarily.

“Bulder,” she sniffs. “Go hobe. I don’t like being fussed over. I hab a cold, dot Ebola.”

“Too bad,” he says. “I’m going to. Do you have Vick’s Vapor Rub? You really should have Vick’s Vapor Rub.”

She closes her eyes. Pinches the bridge of her nose, centering herself. “It’s dot your fault I’b sick,” she says, looking back over at him after a moment.

“I dragged you into the woods again. You fell down a hole full of corpses! You’ve been in remission for like…twenty minutes.” He jabs the spoon at her.

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t get a cold frob being in the woods. Or frob being chilly. You get a cold frob a virus.”

He feigns outrage. “Excuse me, but are you contradicting noted excellent mother-slash-world-class-epidemiologist Doctor Teena Mulder MD?”

This sends Scully into a flurry of coughing. She swats at him in annoyance. “Ugh,” she says at last. “You see why I can’t hab you here, you’re a lousy durse.”

Mulder takes her hand, pale as a kid glove. He shoves the spoon into it, squeezes her fingers about the handle. “Eat the soup or I’m calling your mom. I’m calling BILL.”

She narrows her eyes again. “You wouldn’t.”

“I think you’re well aware that I’m capable of being overly dramatic when the wind is southerly and the fancy strikes.” He holds the plate before her like an offering to a goddess.

Scully considers him. “You did get us out ob the teabwork sebidar,” she observes. “Techdically.”

“I did,” he agrees.

“You bade be sing,” she adds. Reproachful.

He grins. “The angels all were singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two.”

Scully looks at the spoon in her hand for the first time, as though wondering how it got there.

“Byron,” she says, a little smile. She picks up the roll, examines it. Peers at the soup. Sneezes again. “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

“Caroline Lamb,”Mulder replies. He doesn’t point out that Caroline Lamb had been Byron’s lover, that she’d sent him a clipping of her pubic hair in the mail. He certainly doesn’t think of the juncture between Scully’s thighs at all, whether it matches the drapes, whether it tastes like kettle corn and Vineyard whitecaps in July. Lobster rolls and saltwater taffy.

He’d meant it, about the sleeping bag. He wishes there had been a sleeping bag and he is so, so grateful there was no sleeping bag.

Scully sniffles again, defeated. “You got be batzo ball soup?”

He thumbs an escaped tendril of hair back from the sweep of her extraordinary cheekbone.

“I did,” he murmurs back. He sets the plate down between them. He peels the roll open, yeasty and fragrant, and dunks it into the golden broth.

He raises it to her mouth.

Scully sucks at it, draws it past her lips. She bites. Chews, swallows. She holds his eyes with hers. She catches an escaped droplet with her tongue.

“Good,” she mumbles. Watches him dip the dry part back into the bowl. “Thank you.”

He feeds her another bite. Her mouth opens like a snapdragon, like an oyster in the tide. She drops her gaze this time. Her guard.

They complete the entire roll this way, and one matzo ball. Silent, slurpy. Scully’s lids droop, her lashes brushing her cheeks.

“Sleepy,” she mumbles, curling onto her side. Her paperback falls to the floor.

Mulder returns the food to the night table. He strokes her hair until she’s out cold, snoring a little. He curls into the bed as well, his nose to hers. He touches her philtrum with his pointer finger. He traces the tender pink whelk of her ear.

They sleep for hours until she coughs awake, gasping, her thin chest heaving. Mulder rubs circles between her scapulae.

“Go hobe,” she says, knees drawn, leaning against his chest. “You deed to sleep.”

He puts his arms around her, drops a kiss on her tangled head. “Okay,” he agrees.

She’s out again in moments. He holds her upright until he drifts off as well.

They sleep until morning. He feeds her soup for breakfast, calls into work with a case of Ebola.

#xf fanfic #xfiles fanfic #msr #my fic #sick fics #detour post episode #fluff #inbox #prompt

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randomfoggytiger · 1 month

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Do you have a list of comfort fics? Not them comforting each other but for when you're feeling wrecked and you just need something lovely to make it better?

randomfoggytiger's Comfort Fics

I'm not joking: I've reread more fics than I'll ever read new ones. My usual routine is to pop open Google docs, select an author, and mow down their list.

These three pieces were the ones that started it all; but I forgot to include @seek-its-opposite's photosensitivity. A+s, all of 'em.

Authors that I can't single out comfort fics from and can't tag because Tumblr is restricting my tag options: @baronessblixen, @settle-down-frohike, @onpaperfirst, @markwatneyandenesemble, Lapsed_Scholar, Apostrophic, @ghostbustermelanieking, @o6666666, touchstoneaf, @welsharcher, @scenes-in-between, @mldrgrl, @spooky-nerd, @melforbes, etc.

**Note**: Will ghost edit later~

PART I

Bittersweet Comfort Fics

misslucyjane's Scully seeks insomnia advice from Mulder, and Mulder dies, then lovingly watches Scully live the rest of her life

Kipler's cancer arc set casefile involving WWII vets and letters

melforbes's cancer arc Mulder takes his new bride to the sea for her last spring, and Pre-IWTB Mulder and Scully finally have a home

MldrItsMe's AU Redux II Scully is REALLY suffering, and Sein und Zeit Mulder's suicidal confessions

@discordantwords's Mulder and Scully are almost killed by the Fiji mermaid

mixiz877's Mulder and Scully fight off a gryphon

@fbismostunwanted1158's Scully is beaten down ala Stella Gibson in The Fall

Joyce's S5 AU Mulder is killed, comes back to life to save Scully, and Mulder dies but stays as Scully's partner solving cases with her (Part 1, Part 2, and-- my favorite of the three-- its Halloween sequel)

@teethnbone's post Travelers fic with Mulder and Scully

@sarie-fairy's AU Tithonus love confession, Post Milagro Scully realizing what it feels like to be Mulder, and Post The Unnatural Scully is bleeding out on a failed Sasquatch hunt

@sigritandtheelves's Post Monday Scully remembers Mulder's death

whatliesabove's Post Milagro Scully stays dead (or does she?)

ChaneenW's Pre-IVF arc Mulder is shot into a parallel timeline, reliving the Small Potatoes adventure with Scully

dee_ayy's post Amor Fati recovery fic (with baseball)

@bohoartist's Sein und Zeit through Scully's eyes, and Post Closure Scully rescues a photo of baby Mulder

Lolabeegood's AU where S8 Mulder is returned with false memories (would also recommend Lolabee's IWTB era fics, btw.)

@dreamingofscully's AU S9 Skinner entices Mulder back into profiling... and it doesn't end well

@television-overload's Pre-IWTB Mulder surprises Scully with a baseball field (and his old self again)

@queeenpersephone's AU where IWTB Scully stuck it out with Mulder

@danascullysjournal's Post IWTB bonding fic between a discouraged Mulder and uplifting Scully

@kateyes224's Mulder and Scully content in their UH, and Mulder sells the UH, and Scully buys it

@realmofextremepossibility's Breakup Mulder waiting for Scully's return Part I and Part II.

vulcanscully's Post Breakup Scully stops hearing from Mulder and assumes the worst

enigmaticdr's AU post IWTB Scully thinks she has cancer again (she's pregnant), Breakup Mulder is defeated at their anniversary dinner, AU where Revival Scully gets cancer, and The Revival baby laughs for the first time

prufrockslove's AU Mulder is a Welsh prince, Scully is his betrothed bride, and lots of Prince John high court drama ensues (part I of a sweeping, interconnecting AU series)

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

#txf #fic #randomfoggytiger's Comfort Fics #asks #calimanc #Comfort Fics #xfiles #x-files #the x files #xf fanfic #mine

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muldermuse · 6 months

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Hallöchen!

Will it be okay for you to write a nsfw sequel to “reader gets jealous of Fox’s new coworker” headcanon? That ending was perfection 🤌🏼

PS Love love love your writing and can’t wait for spooky season fics 💗

the fact that i will never get to make out with Fox Mulder in his dingy basement </3333

nsfw belowwwwwww

(also this is the hc that was referenced in the ask!!! i love u all tysm for sending things through)

Fox had been working a new case, Scully was off so he had this new agent with him…and god, she was gorgeous. A bright smile, beautifully styled hair and her shirt and skirt combo was pressed within an inch of it’s life. She was called Amber and yes, she was gorgeous- she was also rude. A rude person. A rude person who was currently staring at your fiancee like he was a slice of cake.

You brought her and Fox a coffee (you’d learned from your interactions with Agent Wilson), Fox smiled and thanked you as he took a sip of his usual flat white. Amber didn’t take a sip, she politely smiled but did not make eye contact with you. She didn’t thank you. A lot of these things may sound petty but in this moment; you decided you had to do something.

You manage to leave your desk early so you can be there for when Fox and Amber are leaving the basement. She confirms with a wink that she’ll be there for 9am sharp and Fox politely agrees with a smile as he wraps you into his arms and asks you about your day. You do not miss the way Amber’s eyes track your body up and down before she leaves. You can practically smell the jealousy coming off her body.

To be honest, it kinda makes you feel primal. He’s your fiancee, you wear your engagement ring every day, Fox’s desk has two framed pictures of you and Amber definitely knows about your relationship. So, even though you have already made your relationship clear to one co-worker, you realise you need to go nuclear with this one.

***

The plan starts in the morning, whilst Fox is showering and brushing his teeth, you apply your dewy make up and put his favourite lipstick on. You time it perfectly to ensure that when Fox is leaving the shower (with a towel hanging loosely around his waist) he sees you bent over your vanity in your garter and suspenders. Fox has never been shy about how much he loves them, when he goes down on you he asks if you can put just them on with no underwear so he can feel the nylon of the tights pressed against his ears. You clock his expression in the mirror as he realises how you’re dressed. Before he can see your smirking reflection in the mirror, his naked body is pressed against you.

“Baby, you can’t do this- we have to go to work” He presses slow kisses to the back of your neck as you continue to dab on your lipstick “How am I supposed to work knowing you’ve got this on all day”.

You know the plan is stupid. Really stupid and like something from an awful porno- but as Fox slept soundly last night, you ran through the plan in your head and you’re fully committed to it.

You run your hands through his damp hair and press your chest close to his; feeling his heart rate accelerating with the skin to skin contact. You move your hands down to his waist and run your fingers lightly over his towelled waist.

“I’m not sure baby…you’re just going to have to try really really hard” You softly bite his neck and push his towel down, your hand passes gently over his hard dick. He moans into the touch and kisses you deeply. You make eye contact with a smirk.

“I need to get to the office early today so you’ve got 5 minutes” You press a quick kiss to his lips as you scamper off. Fully aware of how great your ass looks with the garter and suspenders. You know you have Fox wrapped around your finger at this point.

Fox drives to the office and the tension is high, he keeps his hand on your thigh throughout the drive and keeps rubbing his thumb higher and higher. You can’t help as you move in your seat and moan softly into his touch. As he parks up, he kisses you and gently slips his tongue into your mouth. He goes to open his door but before he can leave, you kiss the side of his face and whisper into his ear that you forgot to put panties on this morning. Fox looks at you dumbstruck as you exit the car and head to the elevator to take you to the basement.

***

All this planning had lead to the moment that Amber walks in. You’re obviously not fucking over Fox’s desk (although it was highly tempting, it was also a lil bit unprofessional) but to be honest, the scene she walks into is just as intimate. Fox’s shirt and your skirt have been thrown onto the ground as you straddled him on his office chair. You were pressing deep kisses to his neck and feeling his moans leave his mouth. He has one hand grabbing your ass and the other one tangled in your hair to push you deeper into his neck.

It’s highly compromising.

It’s private.

It’s fucking perfect.

You know it’s Amber by the gasp and the sound of two disposable coffees being dropped on the floor in shock. “Oh my god-Fox I’ll give you a minute”. The door quickly slams shut as Fox kisses you in apology.

“Fuck baby, I’m so sorry…I knew she was coming in early just…time got away from me I suppose” He grabs your skirt from the floor and throws it at you, both of you trying to hold back giggling as you quickly dress in an attempt to look professional- despite what you’ve both just been caught doing.

Fox pulls you into a kiss before he goes to sit down, he goes to wipe the smudged eye make up from your under eye but you stop him before he gets chance. The smirk on your lips seemingly reveals your sordid plan. Fox smirks back at you, he pulls you into a deep kiss as he grabs your ass with both hands, he murmurs against your lips “Pretty good revenge plan baby”.

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