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phillippadgettwrites · 20 days

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The First Time, Every Time: E.B.E.

Rated X / 2105 words / Tagging @today-in-fic / Posted on AO3

He makes it to the front doors of her apartment building before he turns back, the photograph that she just insisted is a fake clutched tightly in one hand. He’s irritated and angry, in part because she’s always pushing back on him, and in part because she might be right. He does tend to overlook contradictory evidence when he’s hot on a lead like this. He does want to believe Deep Throat badly enough that it’s possible he’s not thinking clearly.

She said she trusted him. More than that, she said he’s the only person she trusts. But her trust isn’t given blindly, and he can’t decide if that’s something he resents or appreciates. He just doesn’t know what to think.

When she answers the door, his anger immediately wanes. Her eyebrows are all pushed together and she’s scanning his face for clues as to why he’s back already, and he’s still not used to someone looking at him like this all the time. Like they care.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, opening the door wider and stepping aside.

Mulder walks into her foyer and turns to face her. Truthfully, he has no idea why he came back. The conversation just felt unfinished somehow.

“Why is it so hard for you to believe? Even after the bugged pen?” he asks, more frustrated than anything.

Scully closes the door and sighs, then props her hands on her hips and levels him with an icy stare. How she manages to be intimidating at five foot nothing and with that pretty face is an X-File in itself.

“I’m a scientist, Mulder. I don’t believe anything without irrefutable evidence. A bugged pen is not evidence that your picture isn’t a fake,” she says sternly, with a nod to the envelope in his hand.

Mulder huffs and shakes his head, though he can’t disagree with her.

“I just wish you could be a little more open minded,” he says, and Scully presses her lips into a tight line.

“Your skeptical partner,” she says under her breath, and he feels a little flash of embarrassment at the memory of Langly’s comment. He may have vented to them a bit shortly after Scully started working with him, but he could also tell during their brief introduction that the Gunmen liked her. A lot. “You know what, Mulder, I wish that you could be a little more open minded,” she says sassily.

Mulder scoffs.

“To what, exactly?” he asks, tossing the envelope onto her kitchen table and taking one step towards her. She lifts her chin defiantly, and he has the overwhelming urge to kiss her, which catches him off guard.

“To the possibility that you’re being manipulated,” she tells him, her eyes locked on his. “To the possibility that you’re wrong.”

“What if I’m not wrong?” he asks, moving even closer, craning his neck down to bring his nose inches from hers.

Scully blinks rapidly, unmoving aside from the labored rise and fall of her chest. It’s something he’s noticed about her, a tell that she’s emotionally activated even when all other signs indicate calm. He watches for it now, listens for it on the phone. Her breathy, “Mulder, it’s me,” tells him everything he needs to know.

“If you’re so confident it’s real, why won’t you have it analyzed?” she asks, practically panting.

Mulder slips his hand into the space between their bodies, and she startles when his knuckles brush against her chest just beneath her clavicle. He fingers the gold chain around her neck, fishing the tiny cross that hangs from it out from beneath the hem of her shirt, though his eyes never leave her face.

“I have faith in my source,” he says, his voice low, and she draws in a shuddering breath.

“A faith too fragile to be questioned is hardly faith at all,” she retorts.

He has two concurrent realizations, with the backs of his fingers resting against the satiny skin of her breastbone and his face so close to hers that he can smell the wine on her breath: she is the most maddeningly stubborn person he has ever met, and he finds her immovable nature wildly arousing.

He tells himself that he absolutely cannot kiss her at the exact same moment he realizes that he already is, and he pulls away sharply, terrified. Her eyes are wide and her lips slightly parted, and she looks just as likely to slap him as she is to kiss him back.

“Sorry,” he stammers, taking one step away from her. “I don’t know why I did that.”

His head is hung in embarrassment, so he doesn’t see her moving closer. He feels the painful press of her fingernails digging into the back of his neck, and when he looks up her mouth immediately covers his. She’s teetering on her tiptoes, anchoring herself to him with an arm slung across his shoulders, so he stoops down a bit to compensate for their mismatched statures. Her hands move to his face and her kisses grow hungrier, soon accompanied by little whimpers that make his head spin.

“Scully,” he tries to say, but she swallows the sound of her own name and shakes her head with a muffled “Uh-uh.”

What does that mean? Is he supposed to stop her? Should he let it happen?

Her fingers brush over the fly of his slacks and he jumps, grabbing her hand to still it and pulling his head back, just out of reach.

“What are you doing?” he asks breathlessly, very aware that she just made full contact with his very hard dick.

She just stares at him for half a second, her expression unreadable.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking mildly shocked. “Should I stop?” she asks, flashing her eyes to his groin.

Mulder’s jaw tenses. He knows what the right answer is, but he can’t bring himself to say it.

“I don’t know,” he parrots back to her.

A beat passes wherein they look at each other, his hand still wound around her wrist. He knows she won’t keep going unless she’s absolutely sure he wants this. He can feel his heart beating in his cock, and in his periphery he can see the generous tent it’s creating at the front of his slacks. Scully’s tongue slides across her bottom lip and his cock jumps, making up his mind for him.

“No,” he says suddenly, tugging her closer by the arm and sending the front of her body colliding with his.

After that initial hesitation, things move exceptionally quickly. She pushes his suit jacket off his shoulders and then strips off his belt so aggressively that the leather snaps loudly, setting off gooseflesh all over his arms. He manages to get her top off before she slips her hand under his boxers, and he struggles with the clasp on her bra as she drags her fingernails over the papery skin of his scrotum. They’re still standing beside her kitchen table, and all the lights are on. He truly has no idea what will happen next.

Cool air slides over his legs when she pushes both his slacks and his boxers off his hips and they puddle on the floor around his feet. The sound of his heart pounding in his ears is so loud that it drowns out any rational thought. The only one that makes it through is sex . Sex and Scully , two words that he has carefully compartmentalized but are suddenly forcing their way into the very same box as she strokes him firmly with one hand and pops the buttons on his shirt with the other. Meanwhile, he’s got two handfuls of her perky little tits and is working up the nerve to divest her of her pants.

It doesn’t feel even a little bit real. Not when he takes her by the shoulders and guides her back to the table, not when his palms run down the length of her naked thighs as he removes her panties, not when he hoists her up and sets her bare ass down right on top of the manila envelope that brought him here in the first place.

“You’re sure?” he asks, though the fact that she’s got her hand wrapped around his shaft and is guiding him into her wet heat makes the question somewhat rhetorical.

Sex. Scully. Sex. Scully.

She takes him in with a gasp, and his knees wobble when she immediately quivers around him.

“ Shhhhiiiiit ,” he hisses under his breath.

He isn’t prepared for this. It’s been a few days since he jerked off, and under normal circumstances he’d spend as much time as necessary to make sure she got off before he even entertained the idea of coming himself. But it’s Scully, and she’s naked, and her little tits are perfect, and her cunt feels like heaven, and he’s so jacked up on all this E.B.E. shit that he’s operating on a hair trigger as it is.

Baseball. Parking tickets. Budget meetings. Airport security. He imagines something banal with each thrust, trying not to notice the slick sounds of just how wet she is.

It’s not working. Her hips jump up off the table as she slams herself into him, holding steady with one hand on the back of his neck and the other planted on the tabletop. They hold their faces close together, not quite kissing but not giving enough distance that they might meet eyes and realize how stupid this is. Mulder closes his eyes to block out the visual input of her tight pink nipples bouncing on every thrust and holds on for dear life, determined not to make this both a mistake and a disappointment.

“Oh god,” Scully shouts just before she clamps down on him.

Stars burst behind his eyes and he quickly goes from on the edge to careening over it, coming so hard he can barely stay standing. Scully throbs powerfully around him, moaning beautifully in his ear while her cunt strokes every last drop of cum out of him. By the time they’re both finished, she’s on her back and he’s draped over her, listening to her heart slow and wondering what the hell will happen now.

“There’s a roll of paper towels on the counter there,” Scully says, pointing just over his shoulder.

Mulder slowly stands and pulls out of her, and they both politely avert their eyes while he grabs the roll of towels and rips one off before handing it to her. After pulling his pants back up, he quickly retrieves her clothes from the various places they landed and turns his back while she dresses. The manila envelope is now sporting a wet spot in the shape of a wide “V,” which he carefully wipes away. Only then does it occur to him that they didn’t use a condom.

“I’m on birth control,” Scully says, as though reading his thoughts. He turns and looks at her just as she’s tucking her shirt back into her slacks, offering her an awkward smile that she returns.

“That’s reassuring,” he says.

He taps the edge of the damp envelope against his palm, trying to think of something to say that won’t come across as flip or crude.

“I’m sorry,” Scully begins, giving him only quick glances. “That was very unprofessional.”

Mulder laughs, and she looks at him sharply with a mildly bemused expression.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “Pretty sure it was a mutually unprofessional indiscretion. Takes two to tango, as they say.”

Scully smiles bashfully. “Right,” she says with a nod.

“We got a bit carried away. Happens,” he offers, and he sees her relax.

“Shouldn’t happen again, though,” she says, and he detects a hint of a questioning inflection.

“Right,” he agrees. “Well, I better get going,” he says as he moves towards the door. “Need to see a man about having a photograph analyzed.”

Scully’s expression of surprise quickly gives way to amusement.

“So that’s all it took to convince you, then,” she observes, clearly mildly embarrassed by her own joke.

“I am but a man,” he teases back, delighted by her genuine smile. “We’re um…we’re good?” he asks.

She meets his eye and nods. “Yup,” she says, seeming confident that they can move past this, if not still a bit chagrined that it happened in the first place.

“See you in the morning,” he says as she opens the door to let him out. He takes one step beyond the threshold, but then turns back and leans down to bring his lips to her ear. “I think it’s remotely plausible that somebody thinks you’re hot,” he whispers, then presses a kiss to her cheek before he turns and leaves.

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

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aloysiavirgata · 17 days

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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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atths--twice · 5 months

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A friend posted this picture on Twitter and I couldn’t resist writing a little something. ❤️

They had to fly out to a San Diego for a conference.

“A thought,” Mulder said after William had been put to bed.

“What’s that?” Scully asked.

“What if we stretched the conference into a mini vacation? Your mom could fly out with William?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a smile.

Mulder’s conference ended sooner than hers, and he hurried back to the hotel to change and collect Maggie and William to go to the beach.

Scully had no thoughts of changing, only of seeing her boy enjoying the Pacific Ocean as she had done as a child when she met up with them.

Maggie took picture after picture of them, laughing as William squealed in delight and splashed in the waves, stood with his toes squishing into the wet sand, and toddled after the seagulls, all of them laughing when they took flight and he froze in surprise.

The last picture taken was of the back of them at the shore as Mulder held William in one arm and Scully’s hand with his other hand. Her blazer had long since been discarded and her pants were rolled up. The waves hit their feet and they smiled as they looked at one another.

#xf fanfic #the x files #msr #love #just a little ficlet

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cecilysass · 2 months

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Milagro Fic Recommendations

These are good for any time of year, of course, not just February 14. But here are my favorite fics related to the season 6 episode Milagro, a long time favorite. (And @sisterspooky1013's favorite episode of all time: happy VD, girl!) I’ve been reading and sifting through these for some time, and I have tried to include some from all eras: newer AO3 fics, some written right after the ep aired, etc. But I'm sure I've missed some, so hit me with your own faves, please.

Because of Milagro's ending, this entire genre of fic tends to be heavy on the hurt/comfort and angst (which is fiiiiine by me), but that’s not all that’s here. Many of these are smutty, but not all.

Adagio - Terma99 A meditative, peaceful take on the aftermath of Milagro by a veteran author that includes both agents realizing something they had learned. Lovely.

Alma - 6hoursgirl (@sixhours) A lovely hurt/comfort Milagro piece. This one is Mulder POV, which is a little less common for post-Milagro, I think, and I like this characterization of Mulder as desperately wanting to help Scully, desperately wanting to protect her, but also a tiny bit scared of the intimacy and relationship he feels they’re on the cusp of. He’s so good-hearted and also a little dysfunctional here, and I love it.

Bated Breath - dreamingofscully (@dreamingofscully) This one has an original take on Scully's experience; it leaves Scully with clarity and new direction in her relationship with Mulder. DreamingofScully tends to write a more confident, in-charge Scully in the MSR than some do, and I appreciate it.

Beyond the Strokes of a Typewriter - storybycorey (@storybycorey) When Scully is stricken and ashamed that it’s been so long since anyone has seen her as a woman as Padgett did, Mulder is pushed to revelations. Mulder 3rd person POV. Very good smut build up. And nobody does a gorgeous feelings reveal from Mulder like storeybycorey, man.

I Believe - Diana Battis There are a lot of lovely, heartfelt hurt/comfort fics about the aftermath of Milagro (for obvious reasons), but this one is especially well done. Viewed from Scully’s third person point of view, it focuses on Mulder’s capacity for tenderness and guilt. Plus some smut.

Don’t Look Up - ArtemisX5 After Padgett's hallway revelation, Scully is horrified that she has no secrets left. But you know, Mulder is much slower on the draw than she gives him credit for. There is also such moving hurt/comfort in this.

Intimacies with Strangers -mldrgrl (@mldrgrl) This mid- and post- Milagro piece has Mulder and Scully simmering in tension and then boiling over. Their relationship is complex and painfully entangled, and I love how it plays out. There is also excellent Scully characterization. This one helps me to get more fully why she might have been drawn to Padgett initially, something I struggle with in the episode.

La Madrugada - h0ldthiscat A carefully told tale of RST that takes both characters seriously and is sincerely moving. Excellent.

Lacuna - Aloysia_Virgata (@aloysiavirgata) This is a longer work, not really a classic post ep per se. But I love this moody, angsty casefile set right after Milagro. This Scully has not come to terms with her emotions, is thoroughly freaked by how she reacted to Padgett, and hasn't even entirely worked out how she feels about Mulder. There is Scully/other here, but the ship is steering home. The end of this is so moving, but cw: dark themes in the casefile, extreme violence against children, traumatized agents.

Still Life - Seek_Its_Opposite (@seek-its-opposite) Ah, this is such a thoughtful and exquisitely written Scully character piece — and it contains some truly beautiful insights about Mulder, too. It suggests the heartbreaking idea that Mulder’s way of showing Scully respect (giving her distance) is continually hurting her. So tragic (and consistent with canon, e.g. Never Again.) One memorable line: “Every one of their fights is about how to care for one another, every last one.”

Alma Gemela - matchingfabric (@matchingfabric) After the events of Milagro, Scully (and Mulder) get accustomed to platonically sharing a bed for comfort. This is a slightly different take on post-Milagro. Exceptionally, irresistibly sweet. Oh, and smutty.

What did I miss? Tell me. And yes, I'm working on my own short Milagro fic that will be coming soon-ish.

#x files fanfic #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #milagro #fic recs #fic rec list #love fic recs #season 6 #xf valentines day #valentines day

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lilydalexf · 24 days

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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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bakedbakermom · 7 months

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Good Morning

Rated X // 2300 words // Read on A03

tagging @today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr

Summary:

He loves her first thing in the morning.

Notes:

A little smutbiscuit for Kinktober 2023. Prompts: morning sex, frottage, (light) somno. I was 3 or 4 days into writing this fic when the painfully talented @msrafterdark posted this piece and it was like fate and the universe had come together.

He loves her first thing in the morning.

Well, he loves her all the time—volleying theories back and forth across the office over burnt coffee and crappy photocopies, singing along off-key to whatever radio station comes through the static three hours into a road trip from one corner of nowhere to another, lounging on a tiny motel bed with sharp springs and a pile of reports spread out like snow across scratchy blankets. He loves her on his couch sharing a beer after a long day, in her kitchen as they dole out boxes of takeaway (broccoli beef extra spicy for him, kung pao tofu for her, and she always nabs the carrots from his shrimp fried rice), nestled against him with her tiny feet propped up on the coffee table and a bad movie on TV. He loves her when she presses her sweet lips to his and breathes hot into his mouth, when she wraps her smooth white legs around his waist and whimpers “more,” when she clenches around him in the dark as she shatters on a gasp of his name. Oh yes, he definitely loves her then.

But he especially loves her first thing in the morning.

It’s something about how soft she is. Agent Scully is all crisp lines and barbed tongue, the creases of her suits pressed sharp enough to kill a man as she slices through the hallways of the Hoover Building like a red-headed sword of justice, eyes flashing blue steel. Agent Scully can unman the most cantankerous and blustering small-town sheriff with the twitch of one razored brow, can force Death itself at scalpel-point to surrender the most intimate secrets of the grave.

Agent Scully flashes through her days like a machete, too sharp to touch and so blindingly bright it hurts him to look at her sometimes. But Morning Scully. Oh Morning Scully…

Her edges blur in the evening, melting under his words and his mouth and his hands, but it takes until morning for her to grow butter-soft and creamy between the rumpled sheets of their bed—her bed or his, both are theirs, though this particular morning they’re secure behind door 42, the honeyed sunlight of a rare empty Sunday drizzling through the blinds and illuminating the intricate dance of the little dust motes that hang in the air. She sleeps on her side with her back to the window, the light catching her crimson hair in a nimbus that he thinks would inspire a better man to painting or poetry, but reduces him to gibbering wonderment.

He watches her sleep with something like awe. Her lips slack and slightly parted, still plump and red from kissing. Freckles sprinkled like cinnamon across her sleep-pinked cheeks, hair in a delightfully tousled disarray that makes him think of sunset clouds and cotton candy. There’s a little crease between her eyebrows as if she’s dreaming of something unpleasant, and he smoothes it oh so gently with his thumb. He doesn’t want to wake her; he’s not done looking yet.

The sheets have shifted as they slept, revealing the hourglass curve of her side, the mole cradled just inside the firm crest of her hip. She had whimpered last night as he tongued it, a long detour on his slow journey to the oasis between her thighs. Her body is ripe with secrets to explore, his mental map of her slowly filling in as he traverses every hill and valley. He writes “here be monsters” beneath her ribs where she is too ticklish to touch, “here be angels” on the curve of her breast where the gentle scrape of his teeth makes her breath hitch. He finds heaven in the cradle of her hips, nirvana in the fragrant skin of her neck, paradise in the lush press of her lips.

Morning Scully may be soft, but Morning Mulder is getting decidedly less so by the minute.

She stirs slightly and rolls onto her back, the sheet slipping down the slope of her breast. One rosey nipple emerges into the cool morning air, pebbling quickly into a tantalizing peak, and he can’t resist anymore. He leans over her and circles it gently with his tongue, then pulls it into his mouth. He licks and sucks, feeling her flesh tighten even more, and when he scrapes his teeth against it, her chest jumps beneath him. She sucks in a breath, and her hands come up to card slowly through his hair. “Morning, Mulder,” she murmurs, her words still slurred with sleep.

“Good morning, Scully,” he answers as his mouth slides wetly to her other breast, on which he lavishes the same attention as the first, the slow and thorough consideration of his lips and teeth and tongue. Her breathing quickens, her pulse jumping visibly beneath the soft skin of her throat, and she moans low and long. He runs one hand up her leg, and her thighs part with a contented sigh; his fingers move higher until they brush against the curls of her sex, parting them to reach the hot, slick slit beneath. Morning Scully is always putty in his hands, her limbs loose and heavy, making love to him like something from a dream. “Sleep well?”

“Mmmhmm.” Her hips move in small circles as he plays between her legs, right on the line between soothing and arousing, and a blush blooms across her chest. “Wh-what time’s it?”

“Late.” He kisses his way up her neck, suckles on her earlobe until she whimpers softly. She still hasn’t opened her eyes. “I let you sleep in as long as I could stand it. Sorry.”

“S’okay.” His fingers skim her entrance and she twitches beneath him. “This is a nice way to wake up.”

“Do you want to go back to sleep?”

Her face scrunches adorably, and she makes a grumpy whining sound in her throat. “Maybe?”

He smiles into her skin, presses his fingers just barely inside her. “Do you want me to stop while you figure it out?”

Eyes still closed, lower lip between her teeth, she smiles and shakes her head.

Her body is sleep-warm and limp as he drags her thigh over his hip, opening her to him. His erection presses into the firm flesh of her ass as he strokes her, coaxing her arousal slowly to life. He slides his fingers through the slick folds of her sex, coating them in her wetness; some of it must be from last night, when he had pressed her into the cushions of the creaking leather couch and come inside her with a cry that made the upstairs neighbor bang on the ceiling—and then again, in this bed, as she rode him like a prize pony until they both came apart at the seams. She clenched around him like a vise as they came together, and the way he spasmed inside her only set her off again, until their orgasms seemed to feed off each other in an ouroboros of pleasure that felt endless and left them both gasping, shaking, too exhausted to even roll off the wet spot, let alone clean up properly.

She’s slick halfway down her thighs.

“Fuck, Scully, you’re so wet. You feel so good.” He slides his tongue into her ear and one finger into her slippery, aching heat, and her neck arches off the bed. “You felt good last night, too, especially the second time”—and now he scrapes his teeth along the shell of her ear, slides a second finger alongside the first—“when your pussy was already full of my cum, when I could feel it leaking out of you as I fucked you.”

“Jesus, Mulder,” she gasps, and spreads herself open even more, hooking her leg behind him and shifting a little onto her side. He holds her across her stomach and gathers her partly on top of him; her head falls back on his shoulder so he can tongue the soft column of her throat, nibble the sweet ridge along her collarbone. He ruts against her as his fingers pump slowly in and out, her clit hardening beneath his thumb. One arm is still trapped against the mattress, and he wriggles it free as best he can to fondle her breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers.

She moans, squirming against him and pushing her ass deliciously against his hard length, begging for more. A quick shift of her hips, an awkward moment of fumbling, and then his cock is no longer trapped between their bodies but gliding between her slickened labia, and she brings a hand down to press him more tightly against her. He thrusts languidly, trapped between her hot little fingers and her even hotter cunt; he skims across her entrance with each stroke, rubs the head of his cock against her clit, her hips rolling in counterpoint to his sweet, unhurried rhythm. She reaches backward to grab his hair, whimpering, and his newly unoccupied hand busies itself at her other breast, groping and tweaking them in tandem.

“I love making you feel good, Scully.” His voice is velvet and gravel, his cock almost painfully hard against her molten core, and he talks to keep from embarrassing himself by coming before he’s even gotten inside her. “I love making you wet, feeling your clit pulse under my fingers, my tongue.” He licks her from shoulder to ear, leaving a glistening line of saliva along her skin, then sucks on the sensitive little spot where her jaw meets her throat. Soft little oh s spill from her lips as she grinds harder against his cock, and stars crowd his vision. “I love making you come, over and over. The sounds that you make, the way you smell, the way you squeeze me with your tight, wet cunt. ”

“Oh God.” Her whole body shudders and he feels a warm trickle of arousal coat his cock. Her face turns into the pillow, muffling the increasing volume of her moans. Greedy for the sound of her, he cups her jaw to pull her into a long, sloppy kiss, swallowing each whimper as she writhes against him with growing desperation.

“Are you awake yet, Scully?”

“Yes,” she pants helplessly against his mouth, his cock gliding between her soaked folds with almost no resistance. Soft, wet sounds fill the room, broken only by her breathy moans, his desperate panting. “More,” she manages to gasp. “God, more.”

His arm tightens around her stomach, and in one smooth move he drags her fully on top of him and scoots until his back is against the headboard. Her thighs fall to either side of his and he spreads her wide, his thick cock still thrusting along her slickened sex. She drops her head back against his shoulder and he growls, “Touch yourself,” into her ear.

A moment of hesitation, a deepening blush in her cheeks, and then she obeys. He watches her hand moving in quick tight circles over her clit, brushing the head of his cock as he slides it up and down the length of her. He slips just barely inside and she cries out, chasing him with her body when he withdraws, teasing her again and again. She gasps his name between casual blasphemies, notes in a symphony of moans and whimpers. “I want you inside me,” she finally begs. Her hand is slick with her own arousal as she wraps it around his cock, pumping him slowly, holding him against her entrance. She arches back to kiss him, plunges her tongue into his mouth, unable to stop the embarrassingly high-pitched whines coming from her throat. “Fuck, Mulder, I need you inside me when I come.”

“I live to serve,” he purrs against her mouth, and thrusts firmly upward, impaling her in one smooth motion. A loud cry pours from her throat—the neighbors are definitely going to complain again—and then she’s riding him for all she’s worth, her hips rolling and the muscles in her thighs clenching as she gallops toward release.

“Yes, oh God, Mulder, yes,” she gasps again and again, breathless and wanton, her tits bouncing in his hands as he pinches her nipples and her fingers making ever-more-frantic circles over her clit. “Close, so close, harder—”

Her words melt into a loud moan as he begins to plunge into her from below, his feet braced against the bed for leverage and his cock bumping against her cervix with every stroke. “Yes, Scully,” he hisses into her ear. “I want to feel it. Fuck me until you come.”

She’s tight and clenching around him, hotter than hell and slicker than sin, and his hand leaves her breast to join her fingers, stroking her clit together. He bites her nape, hard, and with a startled “ Oh! ” she shatters, her inner walls squeezing his cock in strong, rhythmic flutters as she gushes around him.

“Christ, Scully, did you just–?! Oh my god–!” Before she has a chance to answer or even catch her breath, he squeezes her tightly against his body and thrusts hard and fast, unable to hold back any longer. His ass lifts off the bed as he pistons in and out of her, desperate for release, and when she tightens around him again he comes with a roar—someone next door bangs on the wall—spurting hot inside her until his eyes roll back in his head and his vision goes red at the edges.

He comes down to find himself spooned against her, her ass cradled in the bowl of his hips as he softens inside her. They’ve made quite a mess, but his legs are burning like he’s been running for miles, and she’s gone completely limp against him; the last thing he can imagine is getting out of bed.

Still, he tries to be a gentleman.

“Want me to make some coffee? Then maybe a shower?”

She shakes her head against the pillow and pulls his arm tighter around her body. “I think I might be falling back asleep.”

He smiles into her hair. “Want me to wake you up a little later?”

“Absolutely.”

Hope you enjoyed! As always, comments will be printed and pasted into my little self-esteem scrapbook <3

#my writing #my fanfic #msr #msr fanfic #x files fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #the x files #txf #xf fanfic #kinktober 2023 #good morning

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television-overload · 3 months

Text

chance encounter

an X-Files Fanfic

Read on AO3

Summary: "Six months after becoming fugitives from the US government, Mulder and Scully have a chance encounter with someone that is very important to them."

Word Count: 6,556

Tag List (let me know if you want taken off or added!): @today-in-fic @agent-troi @baronessblixen @captainsolocide @cutemothman @edierone @enigmaticxbee @figureofdismay @frogsmulder @hippocampouts @invidiosa @mulderscully @perpetually-weirdening @randomfoggytiger @skelavender @slippinmickeys @teenie-xf @whovianderson

It was him.

There was no way to explain how he knew, but he did.

The little baby sitting in the puddle deep water at the end of the pool was William.

His hands, still chubby like they had been in his infancy, splashed excitedly, and Mulder could hear his squeals of delight over the sounds of the other children playing. An electric yellow swim shirt paired with a dinosaur-patterned bucket hat kept him shielded from the hot California sun, and he wore striped yellow and blue swimming trunks.

Mulder thought he'd never seen a swimsuit so small.

What were the odds that of all the places they could have traveled to, he was here?

They'd been on the road for 6 months, stopping at unremarkable motels and campgrounds all the way, never staying in one place for more than a few days at a time. It was a fluke they were even here at all.

Perhaps fate.

The hotel was certainly a step up from their usual accommodations, but Mulder had insisted. It was their anniversary, he said. Anniversary of what, Scully wasn't sure. The progression from coworkers to friends to lovers happened so gradually that it was hard to pin down a particularly important date for anything. But he wanted to celebrate, to find a brief reprieve from living in darkness, so they splurged a little on this modest, if slightly run-down, hotel by the ocean.

Where their son and his new family just happened to be vacationing.

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about this possibility. In those nights where Scully was extra quiet, eager to fall asleep at the end of a long day, of course he'd lay awake and think, what if.

What if we found him? What if we saw our son again? What would we do?

The idea was so far-fetched that he hardly gave it any real consideration. His thoughts ranged from “steal him back, take him with us” to “pretend you never saw him and flee town.”

The urge to do the latter was strong. It was not safe here. They'd given him up for this very reason, what would be the point if their being here got him injured or worse? Was it really worth the risk to William? To Scully?

His next thought was 'Should I tell her?' Should he tell Scully he'd seen him? Would she want to see him too, even if from a distance?

The loss of their son had broken her heart. Broken his too, but not in the same way. She had spent months with him, almost a year, only to be forced to give him away with little time to prepare.

He knew she felt the loss like a phantom limb. Even all these months later, she still awoke with his name on her lips, panic written on her face as she looked around for him. It drove a stake through his heart every time, yet part of him felt he deserved it after leaving her to deal with it herself.

He watched the boy.

He'd only come out here to enjoy the sun, sit on one of the loungers for an hour or so while Scully took a nap in their room. It was a much more comfortable bed than they've had in a long time, though that wasn't saying much.

He hadn't bargained on having his whole world tipped upside down in the short time they were apart.

As stressful as it was, life on the road lended itself to relatively simple decisions. Fast food or canned? Motel or campground? Will you drive, or should I?

This was different.

Should he tell Scully?

The thought of keeping this from her made him feel sick. He couldn't do that.

Then again, would it hurt more to know? Ignorance is bliss, they say.

Mulder had never believed that, though.

The Truth, with a capital T, was the one thing that connected him and Scully. Though their beliefs and methods differed, they valued the Truth above all else. That was what drew them together. That was what propelled them forward, even now.

She had to know. She had to know her son was here, even if knowing might hurt.

She could make the decision for herself, whether she wanted to see him or get as far away from here as possible. It might be the last decision she makes as a mother, who would he be to keep that from her?

She might never forgive him.

Swallowing back emotion, Mulder stood to his feet, trying not to draw attention to himself as he made his retreat. His sunglasses thankfully hid the redness of his eyes, a small mercy in this endlessly unfair life.

He stole one last glance back at William. There was a chance this was the last time he'd ever see his son, his baby boy. If this was it, he'd treasure this moment for the rest of his life.

A woman dropped down beside William, showing him how to cup the water in his hands and throw it.

'A quick learner,' Mulder thought, watching as he gleefully tossed small handfuls of water in the air, giggling as it rained back down on him.

Okay. He could do this.

Find Scully. Tell Scully. Find Scully.

He rushed into the moldy-smelling hallway of the hotel, not bothering to take the elevator up to their floor. Instead, he took the stairs two at a time, finding himself out of breath by the time he reached the 4th floor.

He nodded politely at a passing family decked out in beach gear, not wanting to draw suspicion. Once they were gone, he gave a quick rhythmic knock on the door to let Scully know it was him, then slipped his key card into the slot to unlock it.

The room was still dark, the curtains drawn tight to block out the midday sun, and he could hear soft breaths coming from the lump on the bed.

His heart twisted involuntarily as it so often did when he looked at her.

“Scully,” he whispered, approaching the bed. “Honey, wake up.” He settled on the side of the bed, placing a gentle hand atop her shoulder and jostling her just so.

“Mm,” she hummed, curling into her pillow. A good nap, then. That was nice, at least.

He shook her again, saying her name a little louder. “Scully, you need to get up.”

This time her eyes opened, sensing the serious undertone to his words. He could tell she was waiting for bad news, for him to tell her they needed to leave again. Wanting to put her worries at ease, he tried to smile.

“What is it?” she asked, blinking at him in confusion.

“Uh—” he hadn't gotten this far in planning what to say. But she was waiting for him now, so he needed to say something quick. “Scully, I saw some people outside...”

“Government people?” she asked, sitting up suddenly, ready to start packing.

“No, not the government,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders soothingly. “Scully—it's William.”

He could see the moment his words hit her. She blinked, like she might think she was still dreaming, but she saw the truth in his eyes. Her expression shifted.

He wasn't sure what reaction he expected, but his first guess wouldn't have been anger.

“Did you know he would be here?” she asked, her voice laced with hurt and betrayal. “Mulder, I told you not to look into it! Why—Why would you...”

“I didn't know,” he promised, begging the tears in his eyes to keep from falling. He clasped her hands in his, pulling them from their grip on the fabric of his shirt. “Scully, I swear I didn't know. I was just out at the pool, and—”

“You're sure it's him?”

His heart broke looking at her. Equal parts hope and dread, she didn't deserve this.

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.”

She let out a shuddering breath.

“What do you think about that coincidence, huh?” he said, hoping to lighten the mood.

She shook her head.

“Mulder, we can't see him. It's not safe, it's not—”

“I know.” He didn't like interrupting her, but he didn't want her worrying unnecessarily about things she shouldn't. They had enough of that already, these days. If she didn’t think it was a good idea, he’d be okay with that. “We can leave, if you want. I just thought you should know.”

Her blue eyes met his, brimming with unshed tears.

“Is—Is he…?”

“He's beautiful, Scully,” Mulder answered her unspoken question. “He looks happy.”

She choked out a sob, and he immediately enveloped her in his arms, holding onto her tightly. She clutched at him like a life raft, and he ran his hand over her back in comforting circles, murmuring soft words into her ear.

“What do you want to do?” Mulder asked, knowing that time was ticking, and the little family might not stay out there much longer.

Scully sniffed.

“We could—we could go see him,” she said uncertainly, looking at him to decipher his thoughts on the matter. “From a distance.”

Mulder nodded, then stood, helping her to her feet.

“I'm with you,” he reminded her, grasping her hands tightly in his. “It'll be okay.”

With an arm slung around her shoulders, he led her out the door, this time opting to take the elevator down to the ground floor. Scully seemed nervous, almost frightened, and he didn't blame her. He tried to picture how he would feel if their positions were switched, and he couldn't imagine that he'd take it very well. Eventually, they reached the glass doors leading out to the outdoor pool, pausing for a moment.

“They can't see us,” Scully warned, looking anxious and ready to bolt, but she was glued to his side and scarcely able to move without his guidance. He nodded and took her hand, leading her out to a couple chairs in the corner, hopefully obscured enough by the shadow of the fence that they wouldn’t be seen. That bright neon shirt was still there, easy to spot, and Mulder felt tears rising to his throat again. This was the first time they had all three been in the same vicinity since those first few days when he was born.

He squeezed her hand, checking one last time to make sure she was okay. She searched his eyes, trusting him wholeheartedly, and he was certain he had never loved her more.

“Over there,” he said in a low whisper. “With the little hat on.”

Scully followed his line of sight, gasping when her eyes settled on the playful baby in the water.

What followed next was a sob, and he quickly lost his battle with the tears that stubbornly refused to go away. He wrapped his arms around Scully, offering her what solace he could, while his own chin wobbled miserably.

She alternated between sneaking glances at her son and crying into his shirt collar, muttering “Mulder,” desperately as he rocked her back and forth, his hand smoothing out her hair for her comfort as much as his own.

He couldn’t watch anymore. Seeing her like that... it made it hard to stay strong, but he needed to be. For her. He closed his eyes, pleading with the universe never to give her this kind of pain ever again.

When he opened them again, his stomach dropped to the floor.

The woman he'd seen earlier was looking at them, her eyebrows pinched in concern.

He cursed under his breath, his arms tightening around Scully. She was in no state to leave. The best they could do was avoid eye contact and keep to themselves.

But it looked like that wouldn't be enough.

The woman, William's adoptive mother, whispered something to the man she was with, nodding in their direction. His concerned face matched hers, and he nodded. With a sickening lurch, Mulder realized she was getting out of the water, wrapping herself in a towel and heading toward them.

It was too late. They'd been made.

“Scully,” he said, alarm creeping into his voice. She only had a moment's warning before the woman was there, glancing down at them with a worried frown.

“Is she alright?” William's mother asked, empathy oozing from her.

Mulder hurried to compose himself, knowing Scully was a lost cause at this point. It would be on him to get them out of this.

“She's fine, sorry,” he managed to speak, wracking his brain for a believable excuse. Best to stick close to the truth. “We—We can't have children, so—” he nodded toward their son, hoping she could fill in the blanks.

Looking behind her at the boy in the water, her face eased into one of understanding.

“Oh, I know how that feels,” she said, smiling consolingly. “Our son over there is adopted. Every day we thank God for blessing us with him. He's our little miracle.”

Scully grips him tighter, barely restraining a mournful wail. His heart sinks, knowing this interaction isn't going well at all.

He presses a desperate kiss to her hair, wishing he'd never exposed her to this pain. Wishing they were alone in the confines of their hotel room or car so she could let it all out without arousing suspicion. Wishing this woman, as kind-hearted and friendly as she seemed to be, would leave them alone.

“Are you sure she's okay?” she asked Mulder, brows furrowing again.

His hand rubbed up and down Scully's shoulder, and he nodded. “She will be. This is—hard for her.”

“Okay,” the woman said, not sounding fully convinced. “Let me know if there's anything I can do. Like I said, I've been where she is.”

“Thank you,” Mulder choked out, eyes flitting about, looking for their escape.

Through the gate. Through the hotel. Down to the beach.

“Oh, sorry,” William's mother spoke, turning back instead of leaving. “I never introduced myself. My name is—”

“No!” Scully stopped her, looking suddenly panicked and alert.

The woman startled at the outburst, jumping back slightly.

“Mulder, we can't know,” Scully said, looking pleadingly at him. “We can't know anything, we can't!”

“It's okay,” he said softly, coaxing her back from the edges of a total breakdown. “It's okay.” He looked back up at William's mom, smiling an unconvincing smile. “I think we'd really better get going. It was nice talking to you,” he said as he helped Scully to her feet. “Come on, hon, back to our room.”

It was hard to move quickly with Scully desperately clinging to him, but it wasn't the first time they'd been in this position. Once they got back inside, he'd run her a nice warm bath and apologize over and over for everything he'd ever done to hurt her.

They just. Had to. Get. Through—

“Wait.”

He froze.

“You're—You're his parents, aren't you? The ones who gave him up?”

Ice water filled his veins. He could feel Scully shaking like a leaf under his arm.

“We really should be going—” he tried, refusing to turn back around.

Her voice was closer now. “You are. I—there's so many things I've wished I could ask you. At least let me thank you. Please.”

Against his better judgement, he risked a glance back.

“Mulder, we have to go,” Scully begged, now standing on her own and pulling him by the hand. His feet were rooted to the ground, unable to take a single step forward or back.

“Just wait a minute, Scully,” he said, his brain running a mile a minute to calculate the amount of danger each potential course of action held.

He met the woman's eyes, serious.

“Look, this is not easy for her. For us. Our situation right now is—” his eyes scanned around for anything out of place, “We—We really shouldn't be talking to you.”

The woman stepped closer still, a pleading expression on her face.

“It was a closed adoption, I know. But—”

“I'm sorry. We can't.”

Scully looked exhausted, frightened, and sick all at once. Every second they stood there chipped away at her, the anxiety sinking deeper and deeper into her skin.

“You're right about one thing,” Mulder conceded, glancing over at his son and drinking in his unconcerned, innocent features.

The next words nearly choked him with sorrow.

“He is a miracle.”

They were meant to be parting words, a reminder to this woman to never take what she has for granted, but before he could move, a hand landed on his forearm, effectively stopping him.

“We'll let you see him,” the woman offered desperately, near tears herself. “Please. Just a few moments.”

And with that on the table, Mulder was torn.

On the one hand, this woman had offered them something invaluable: a chance to say goodbye, something they hadn't been able to do properly the first time.

On the other hand, it would be selfish. To put their son and his new family in danger simply because they got caught in a moment of weakness... it was unfathomable. He couldn't be responsible for more suffering. He didn't think he could bear it.

“Please?” the woman said again, squeezing his arm.

He had a decision to make. Glancing once more at Scully's crumpled face, he caught sight of the slightest hint of hope. A barely-there gleam that he'd tear down earth and heaven for the chance to brighten.

His decision was made for him.

Cursing his lack of willpower, he turned suddenly to meet the woman's eyes.

“Not here,” he whispered sternly, pointing in her direction. “Give us half an hour, then come to room 409.”

“409,” the woman repeated, nodding. “We will.”

Mulder hardened his jaw, giving one final nod before collecting Scully and hurrying off into the building without another glance back.

“This is dangerous, Mulder,” Scully said worriedly as they passed through the hall, though he knew deep down she was relieved that she might get to see her son again. He only hoped that this risk would be worth it, that they'd be able to find some semblance of peace here and leave feeling less like a part of them was missing when all this was over.

As soon as they entered their room, Scully broke down.

“Oh my god, Mulder,” she gasped, crouching low to the ground and covering her face with her hands.

He immediately dropped to his knees to help her up, ushering her over to their bed.

“Did you see him? He's gotten so big.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, a mix of happy and sad, and though he'd known Scully and her nonverbal cues for so long, he still wasn't quite sure what she needed right now.

“Yeah, I saw him, Scully,” he answered, pulling her into his lap and rocking her gently.

“Do you think they'll really come?” she asked, hopeful, but hesitant.

“We need to be prepared in case they don't,” he answered realistically, thinking of an entire squad of police cars surrounding the hotel with their flashing lights and sirens. “I can pack up the toiletries, you got the suitcase?”

She nodded, grateful to have something physical to do.

Mulder checked his watch. Twenty-five minutes. If they didn't come in twenty-five minutes, it was time to get out of dodge.

“I love you,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and then her lips. “I love you, Scully.”

“I love you too,” she answered, breathing deeply to calm herself. Checking one last time to make sure she was okay, he nodded and released her, each to their own assignments to ensure they were ready to make a quick escape if need be.

As the minutes passed, they became restless. They watched the clock, counting down the seconds until they should have arrived.

Their cutoff time came and went. Mulder was about to call it and give the signal to run, already gathering bags and suitcases, but the subtle knock on their door stopped him in his tracks. He held up a finger to his lips, gesturing for Scully to stay quiet while he checked the peep hole.

The sight before him caused his shoulders to slump in relief.

“It's them?” Scully asked hopefully, reading his body language.

He gave a cautious smile back, then unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.

There they were, William’s adoptive parents.

And William.

It nearly took his breath away.

This close. They were this close to him, after thinking they’d never see him again. He felt like a dehydrated man in a desert stumbling upon an oasis when he was sure he was going to die.

“Hi,” the woman said, looking more uncertain now that they weren’t out in the open. Her husband looked similarly guarded, but they were here, that was all that mattered.

“Uh, come in,” Mulder said, finding his voice.

He stepped aside to allow them entrance, and Scully immediately stood from her seat on the edge of the bed, wringing her hands in front of her.

“I promise we’re not here to take him,” he assured them, closing the door behind them. “As much as we wish we could.”

Once the door was secure, he went to stand by Scully, placing a hand on her back.

“We were just passing through, I couldn’t believe it when I saw him sitting there in the pool.”

The woman nodded, still a little tense, but wanting to believe him.

“Small world,” her husband said, standing protectively next to his wife and child.

Mulder nodded.

“Look, there’s not much information we can give you. For his safety and yours, this is the way it had to be.”

“I always wondered where he came from,” the woman said. “I thought maybe a teen mom, or someone who just couldn't take care of him, but, you—”

“He was always wanted,” Scully spoke, finally able to speak for herself. Her voice came out strained, gasping for air between words. “I prayed for him for so long.”

Mulder's hand found hers, giving it a squeeze to lend her some of his strength.

“He was our miracle.”

The woman looked down, saddened by this news.

“But you were right,” Scully continued, steadying her voice. “We couldn't take care of him. Our life—it isn't stable enough for a child right now. It might never be again. So, I gave him up.”

“Didn't you have a family member who could have taken him? A friend?” the man asked. “Why a closed adoption?”

Scully shook her head, looking down at her feet. How she had wished she could have sent William to live with Bill and Tara, maybe even Charlie. But it wouldn’t have been enough. It would have only endangered more people she cared about.

“That's something we can't disclose,” Mulder answered for her. “But someday, when he asks, I want him to know...” He breathed, summoning the strength to form the words. “I want him to know that we loved him... so much.” With each breath he took, tears filled his eyes, clogging his throat until he wasn't able to speak anymore.

They would always love him, for as long as they lived. Giving him up wasn't going to change that.

“Well,” William's new mom said through tear filled eyes. “I can't tell you how much it means to us to have him.” Scully bowed her head, nodding along with a steady stream of tears. “I promise to take good care of him. He'll be safe and happy with us.”

“Thank you,” Scully whispered, unable to look the man and woman in the eyes.

“We've been worried about him,” Mulder admitted, “hoping he was alright...” He checked in with Scully, reading her like he was so good at doing, before deciding it was safe to speak for them both. “I think, seeing that he is... is a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.”

Scully gave a nod in agreement, looking up at Mulder with something of a promise. A promise that they would be okay, eventually.

“I can't imagine what you must have gone through,” the woman said. “But we are so thankful. He—I don't suppose you want to know his name?”

“No,” Scully said quickly. “I—we can't. I couldn't handle the temptation.”

The temptation to track him down, just for the chance to see him again. That was a dream that could never be.

“What did you call him?” the woman asked, and Mulder squeezed Scully's hand again, letting her know it was okay. It was a common enough name, there couldn’t be any harm in telling her the truth.

“William,” she answered. “His name was William.”

To hear it spoken aloud after all this time was a relief. It had been almost taboo the past six months, too painful a word to be uttered. But now, there was something freeing about letting his name hang in the air.

Letting go, Mulder realized. They had to let him go.

“Well...” the woman began again, smiling at them reassuringly. “William is such a bright and curious child. He loves building towers out of blocks and throwing things at it to knock it down. He—He has this stuffed fox he takes everywhere. They're practically inseparable. His first word was 'mama'. He likes watching baseball and hockey with his dad. He—He's everything we could have hoped for, and more. So, thank you. Thank you for making such a beautiful child for us to love.” Her eyes shone with happiness, the kind which Scully wondered if she’d ever felt. “I knew you had to be remarkable people, because he's a remarkable child.”

“And now we know where he gets those lips and that hair from,” the father added, lightening the mood as much as possible, under the circumstances. “He's covered in sunscreen, must be your genes,” he said, nodding at Scully with a smile. And wonder of wonders, she laughed, a sudden, unexpected thing, and leaned into Mulder's side.

“We should let you go,” Mulder said after a moment, hating that it had to be done. “We'll need to be heading out soon.”

“To where?”

“We can't tell you that.”

Will's adoptive father's eyes met those of his biological one, and a look of understanding passed between them.

Adjusting her hold on William, the woman spoke, glancing between them as she did.

“I wouldn't feel right if I didn't give you a moment with him.”

Scully's head snapped to attention.

“You've already sacrificed so much,” she continued, “And I trust you. You're doing what's best for—for William. I know you have his best interests at heart.”

Mulder wished, wished, wished he could honestly say it was in William's best interests to be with him and Scully... but it wasn't. The truth of their reality was such that it could never be. Not through any fault of their own as parents—but because of external forces working against them, desperate to tear them apart and leave them with nothing.

But they had failed.

Because what they had was more than nothing. They had each other. And though they would have to live with the knowledge that a part of them was missing, maybe after today they would be able to make peace with what they do have. To live life to the fullest given the circumstances they've been forced to survive in.

In truth, he hadn't felt this hopeful about the future since the moment Scully first placed his son in his arms. There was still a mountain of hardships to surmount, but it didn't seem quite as impossible as before. And it was all thanks to a chance encounter with their son, at the precise moment they needed him most.

“We'll leave you be,” Will's mother spoke, checking with her husband to make sure he agreed. “If you need us, we'll be downstairs having some coffee.”

Scully's brows slanted in worry. “You don't have to go, it's okay,” she said, wanting to stop them.

“You deserve some time alone,” the woman said kindly, shaking her head. “I can see how much you need it, dear.”

Scully's chin wobbled, dangerously close to another round of tears.

And then she was coming toward them, William perched on her hip. She deposited him right into Scully's disbelieving arms, and Mulder immediately felt his throat close, the sight one he'd seen almost every night in the most heart wrenching of his dreams.

This was what he'd hoped to come home to after his time in the desert. This was what kept him sane between bouts of torture in a prison cell. To see it now was equal parts fulfilling and painful.

“I can give you something, a guarantee we won't run off with him,” he choked out, working to free his wrist from his moderately expensive watch. William's dad reached a hand out and stopped him.

“We trust you,” he said with a sad smile. “We'll be back in an hour. Please, take all the time you need.”

And with that, they left the room.

As soon as they were gone, Scully's head dropped to rest against the strawberry blond locks of their son, and she let out a sob.

“William,” she breathed, pressing her lips to his head. He seemed unfazed, and part of Mulder wondered if he still remembered her. If deep down, he knew this was the woman who had once fed him from her own body, sung him to sleep in an off-tune melody, soothed him when he had nightmares...

It wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

The same couldn't be said for him, however.

“I can't believe this, Mulder,” Scully cried, her tears falling into his downy-soft hair. Mulder led her back to the bed, sitting beside her with their son on her lap. “Did you hear what they said? He's so much like you, watching sports on TV, knocking his blocks down... He'll be throwing pencils at the ceiling in no time.”

That brought a small smile to his face, and he leaned to his right to press a kiss to Scully's forehead, his hand falling into place on their son's back.

William leaned away, taking in the new faces with a curious tilt to his head.

“Hey, bud,” Mulder said, offering him a finger to hold. For all the time he'd spent thinking of what he'd say to his kid if given the chance, he was coming up short now that he was face-to-face with the reality. “I missed you so much,” he managed to say, “And look how much you've grown!”

William reached out, holding his hands up in front of him, and Mulder's heart leapt. Glancing at Scully for permission, he slid his hands under his arms, lifting him to his chest and nuzzling him close.

“Oh, Scully,” he said, beginning to cry again, feeling the weight of William on his chest, real and tangible. “Sometimes I thought it was all a dream. But we have a son.”

It was hard to think of him out in the world, when he was hardly more than an idea. But now—he had face to put to the name, a personality to remember. He had a son.

She nodded, watching them with a watery smile. He pulled back just to look at him again, to memorize those chubby cheeks and the way he smelled. The precise shape of his eyes, their color, still the same as his mother's.

“I'm so glad we stayed here, Mulder,” Scully whispered. “To think I tried to talk you out of it...”

“Fate was working its magic, Scully,” he said, cutting her off. “This was meant to be.”

For the next hour, they played on the floor together, using Mulder's keys as a toy to hold William's attention. He was walking now, and took turns toddling between them, excitedly holding the TV remote in one hand and squealing when they praised him for successfully making it without tripping or falling.

For a while, they could almost forget this wasn't real. That they weren’t on borrowed time, already risking things they shouldn't be for this blissful moment of being a family.

Mulder got to see Scully as a mother. She saw him as a father. Finally, they had the chance to step into those roles, feeling fulfilled in ways they never could have imagined. It went far beyond any truth that once lay hidden in the X-Files. Nothing in that office of theirs could have given them purpose like this. Only each other, and the life that was formed out of the love that was sparked right there in the basement of the Hoover building so many years ago.

Mulder had always wondered how it would sound to hear the words “da da da” come from a child's mouth, and to know they meant him. Though his babbling wasn't intentional, merely a repetition of the same syllables “da” and “ma” over and over again, he was soaking it in. Committing it to memory. Praying—because only something like this could drive a man like him to prayer—that his son would think about him. Would think about his mother. That he'd grow to know and understand and appreciate the heartache they suffered at giving him away.

That maybe he'd love them too, despite never knowing them.

And maybe.

Maybe.

One day, they'd see each other again.

It was getting late. Scully could tell it was past William's bedtime. She laid him on their bed, and laid down beside him on her stomach, content just to look at him and be near him for however much time they had left.

Mulder joined her on the other side, resting a hand on top of William's gently rising and falling belly.

“I love him more than I ever knew was possible,” he whispered, and noticed as Scully wiped away a tear.

“It hurts, knowing we have to say goodbye.”

Mulder nodded, reaching a hand over William to rub circles on Scully's back.

“But not as much as it hurt before.”

Mulder remembered how Scully screamed, when he first found her in that dirty, abandoned house in Georgia.

“Don't take my baby. Please don't take my baby.”

It was different now.

This time, it was on their own terms. Their curiosities were satisfied, the things they always would have wondered about.

Who he resembled more. What his voice sounded like. His smile and his laugh when he was happy. The way he scrunched his face when he wasn't.

But above all else: would he be okay?

And now that they knew without a doubt that he was? They could let him go.

As much as any parent could let go of a piece of their soul, their own flesh and blood.

He would always be a part of them. They would always wish things could have gone differently. But at least now, Mulder had had a chance to say goodbye. At least Scully wasn't being forced to leave him with little warning, worrying that she was abandoning him to an unknown fate.

A blanket of peace fell over this humble, outdated hotel room. And for the last few minutes they would spend as parents together, Mulder and Scully counted themselves lucky. For this time was a gift, far more than they could have ever hoped to receive.

The same knock from earlier sounded, and a heavy feeling settled in Mulder's chest. He dragged himself away from the bed, while Scully lifted the sleeping William into her arms and held him close.

“How did he do?” their son's mother asked, looking perfectly at ease in a way that calmed and reassured him.

“Great,” Mulder answered. “He—He's perfect.”

The time had come. Scully knew it too. They'd already stayed longer than they should have. He knew there was a long night of driving through pitch darkness ahead of them, and he really, really didn't want to go.

But he had to do what was right for his son. That was all he ever wanted to do, as a father. He just didn't want to be the one to break Scully's heart all over again.

“I guess this is it,” Scully said, sounding calmer than he would have expected. He knew her, though, and he could see the emotions brewing beneath the surface.

It would be a tearful night for both of them.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” she said to William's new mom, stepping fatefully toward her. But before she could pass him over, she paused, looking down at him for the last time in her own arms. “William?” she spoke, her voice strained. “Mommy loves you.”

“Daddy loves you too, baby boy,” Mulder said, never having referred to himself as such before, but wanting to know how it felt.

He cupped the sleeping child's head, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and then another, not able to convince himself that each would be the last.

“I'm so sorry, William. Be good for your mom and dad, okay?”

Scully leaned against him, her strength beginning to wane.

“Goodbye,” she said, kissing him desperately all over, playing with his socked foot and each of his tiny fingers. “I want to believe I will see you again someday.”

As they passed him over, together this time, William's new parents smiled tearfully.

“If—If he suddenly gains an interest in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster,” Mulder began in a worried, cautionary tone, “just buy him some picture books. He'll be okay.”

Though it easily could have been a joke, no one laughed. In fact, the man and woman nodded, taking his advice to heart. He felt better knowing their son would be accepted, no matter who he grew up to be. The child of the FBI's most unwanted was sure to be a bit of a loner.

“And tell him he'll grow into his nose. Sort of,” he added, this time eliciting a small smile from Scully.

“I promise, we'll tell him every day how loved he is,” the woman vowed. “I'm glad we met you.”

“I'd call it a God-given miracle,” the man said, and he reached out a hand to Mulder to shake. “Stay safe,” he said, then catching sight of Scully's necklace. “We'll be praying for you.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

Mulder's arms suddenly felt empty. He could see Scully felt the same, wrapping hers around her own torso just for something to hold. He enveloped her in an embrace, holding tight to keep both her and himself from chasing after them.

“Bye,” the woman said over her shoulder, her worried eyes unwilling to turn away from the sad couple they'd met. She gave a small, consoling smile, and lifted William's pudgy hand to wave goodbye.

Mulder and Scully waved half-heartedly in return, smiling as genuinely as they could, and watched as they disappeared through the door.

Once they were gone, Scully turned into Mulder's chest and held tight. His cheek rested on top of her head, and they swayed, silent but for the sound of the ocean nearby.

“We're gonna be okay,” Scully said at last. “Mulder—”

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes with sincerity and love.

“We're gonna be okay.”

#x files #txf #xf fanfic #my fanfiction #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #msr fanfic #post-series #the truth #william mulder #jackson van de kamp #chance encounter

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numinousmysteries · 2 months

Text

Handfesta

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

MSR/S7ish/Explicit

@today-in-fic [on Ao3]

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That surprises you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Taffeta, Mulder? Really?” she smirks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How did you—”

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

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

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

“Does it bother you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For what?”

“For everything. For you.”

“What about your parents?” She asks.

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

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

“I believe in marrying you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hmm?”

“What are you smiling about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah?” she asks hesitantly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looks over to find her eyebrows predictably raised.

“Open the glove compartment, Scully.”

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

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

“It’s for our handfasting ceremony.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Ewan?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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baronessblixen · 9 months

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I love reading fan fics but the only site i known are AO3, The nursery Files, i love the content but there’s another site where i can read fics?

I love ur fics 🤍 in AO3

Glad you're enjoying fic reading so much 😊

You should check out Gossamer because it has plenty of fic. It hasn't been updated in many years, but you'll find many classics and amazing stories there.

Does anyone have any more links?

#lovely asks #xf fanfic #gossamer has the classics #xf really has amazing fic and writers

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fine-nephrit · 3 months

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🥏 TXF Fic Rec #9: "A Few Thousand Plus One" by mldrgrl

Funny, cute, and totally in character, today’s fic is our duo having a conversation in a diner, just like a few thousand times they have already done across America, but this one is a little special.

Their back-and-forth verbal dance is a chef’s kiss. Mulder is witty, charming, and determined, and Scully is her usual no-nonsense eyebrow-raising self. The ending is quite perfect.

I adore this story. It will put a delightful grin on your face.

🥏 A Few Thousand Plus One by mldrgrl (@mldrgrl)

Length: Short, 2,000+ words Season: No Era Given Relationship(s): M/S UST Tags: humor, fluff Rating: G

#x files #the x files #x files fanfic #xf fanfic #msr #nephrit's fic rec #favorite #len: short #season: no-era-given #ship: m/s ust #genre: humor #genre: fluff #rating: g #by: mldrgrl

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randomfoggytiger · 2 months

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I started watching X-Files a couple of months ago and finally finished the whole show, plus the movies and revival. Jesus. I started looking at fanfic but am totally intimidated by HOW MUCH OF IT there is. Like. 30 years worth of it? Where do I even start? Do I read old stuff or new stuff? Are there any authors that have been writing since the 90’s? Who’s stuff should I be reading? What should I be reading? There are so many different kinds! (Okay, but not fluff, because The Ick.) (and only the shippy stuff because I am not a monster.) Where does one even start in this fandom?

Thanks for coming here, Anon-- I'll do my best~. ;)))

TLDR: If you want to read the classics-- the multi-chapter beasts hailed across The X-Files fandom-- I'd go to @lilydalexf's page and sort through her pinned Masterpost of recs; if you want my personal favorites, I've got my own complied Masterlist pinned, as well. If you want author suggestions, I listed a few below (but not all-- even of my personal favorites.) Older fics have a more "walled-off" approach to Scully and an edgier, distant approach to Mulder; newer fics have a more open approach to their exchange and dynamic. I prefer the latter, but that's likely because I was able to watch the show as a whole rather than episode by episode with a lot of guesswork in-between.

It's hard to pinpoint where to recommend you since I don't know your preferences; but here's a very loose attempt to do so:

I'm more of a short fic reader, but I'd recommend @melforbes, @slippinmickeys, @cecilysass, and @wexleresque for long chapters; @teethnbone, @leiascully, @aloysiavirgata, @enigmaticdrblockhead, @dreamingofscully, and @sarie-fairy for "atmospheric" writing; @baronessblixen, @welsharcher, @agent-troi, @television-overload, @invidiosa, @swinging-stars-from-satellites, @thescullyphile, @msrafterdark, and @edierone for well-balanced fluff/angst/humor/comfort fic/etc.; @o6666666, @ghostbustermelanieking, @mappingthexfiles/Apostrophic, and Lapsed_Scholar for their wonderful shorts (but especially Lapsed's Requiem AU compilations); @settle-down-frohike, @suitablyaggrieved, @amplifyme, @wtfmulder, @freckleslikestars, @lyndsaybones, @numinousmysteries, and Jenna Tooms/misslucyjane for their focus on Mulder and Scully as a "mature"-- for lack of a better word-- couple (no matter when their fics are set); @xxsksxxx and @writingwell write long-chaptered casefiles (my writingwell fic recs here might help?-- sorry for the codes, I was rushing out those notes); and if you want the authors everyone recommends, then @mashnotesofthemythopoeic/Penumbra (Masterlist) and prufrock’s love/plenilune (@lilydalexf links/descriptions here) are two of the many that fit the bill.

Other fic recs you might be interested in: @cecilysass's write more of these and Milagro recs, @enigmaticxbee mytharc and Scully family recs, @pennyserenade's reading recs, @two-microscopes shorter fic rec list, @nachosncheezies's slightly psychic Scully recs (describes three of the big x-files fics), etc. You want beautifully short poeticesque ficlets written and recced by @leiascully? Boom. You want Deadalive fic reccs? Kachow. You want opinions from the OGs? The aforementioned aloysiavirgata, amplifyme, baronessblixen, leiascully, suitablyaggrieved, cecilysass, settle-down-frohike, dreamingofscully, msrafterdark, as well as @iconicscullyoutfits and @myassbrokethefall (who write amazing meta, btw.)

Are you interested in AUs that write in Gillian Anderson's pregnancy? That have a storyline sans baby all together? That stick to canon all the way through the Revival? That stick to canon mostly, except for a bit of branching off here and there? Multiple Monday fics? Post Pine Bluff Variant processing? Mulder or Scully PTSD or panic attacks or hurt comfort? The many different flavors of Mulder's abduction or return? Casefiles (admittedly I stink at those)? My own fics (also in my pinned masterpost)? An author whose style you're interested in but would like a description of their work before making a long-term commitment? Lemme know~! :DDDD

Gotta run! Hope you like! (And sorry for any spelling errors~.)

#asks #anon #fandom #touched you came here-- thank you~!#though I don't know how helpful or clarifying this was for you XDDD #xf fanfic #txf #fic #rec

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phillippadgettwrites · 3 months

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Sensitive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hm,” he hums. “You’re so sensitive.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scully flops back onto the bed.

“Proceed,” she says, not expecting much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” she says, pleasantly surprised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He lifts his head and gives her a long look.

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

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

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

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

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atths--twice · 7 days

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This was far too good of an idea to pass up. Hope you enjoy. ❤️

Seeing Ghosts

Scully sat on the end of her bed, staring at the wall on which Mulder was on the other side of. She sighed as she shook her head, the concern she felt for him causing her heart to ache.

They had left the home of Arbutus Ray in near silence, only the sound of Harold Pillers’s soft cries filled the car. Scully had glanced repeatedly at Mulder, but he had stared resolutely out his window, not seeming to be aware of anyone around him.

They had arrived back at the hotel, Harold leaving without a word. Scully had been about to suggest some food, or maybe a coffee, when Mulder finally spoke.

“I’m tired,” he had said softly and she made to reach for him, to offer him some comfort, when he opened the door. “I think I need to sleep.”

“I could sit with you for a bit-”

“No,” he had interrupted, shaking his head, his eyes downcast. “I just…”

“What did you see out there, Mulder?” she had asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“The truth,” he had said in the same tone.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’ve been chasing a ghost for the majority of my life. That I’ve… that she was never…” He had sighed and then drawn in a ragged breath. “I’m tired.”

He had pushed the door open and taken off his seatbelt, leaving the car before she could say another word. He had entered his hotel room before she had even gotten out and she had known he would not welcome her company.

Now she sat, wanting desperately to help him, but knowing this was a pain he must face on his own.

At least for the time being.

With a great sigh, she stood up and paced from the door to the bathroom and back again a few times before stopping and closing her eyes, exhaustion suddenly settling in.

She changed into her pajamas and used the bathroom, her thoughts still on Mulder. Turning out the light, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

When she turned off the overhead bedroom light and began to walk to the bed, she stopped with a gasp, chills covering her from head to toe.

A young woman stood in front of her, opaque and still. She stared at Scully, her head tilting slightly to one side.

“Oh,” Scully whispered. “I…” She shook her head as she took in a deep breath, her heart racing. “Samantha?”

The young woman smiled and nodded her head once.

“Your brother, he…” Scully glanced quickly to her right, wishing Mulder could materialize into the room. Looking back at Samantha, she stepped forward and then stopped.

“I’m so sorry,” Scully whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I’m sorry for the pain you suffered. I’m sorry you were taken from your family. That you…” Her tears spilled over as she drew in a breath. “Your brother loved… loves… you so much. I’m sorry you were taken from him. From knowing him. I’m so sorry for the tests and pain you went through.” She wiped her tears away almost angrily, finding them a hindrance in the moment.

Samantha stared at her, her mouth opening and then closing, before she shook her head. She looked towards Mulder’s room and then back at Scully as she placed both of her hands over her heart, the left on top of the right.

She stepped closer to Scully and Scully held her breath. Samantha reached out a hand and placed it above Scully’s heart, though she did not touch her.

But there was no need for actual contact as Scully could feel her touch without it. It was warm and comforting, something she had not been expecting or anticipating.

They stared at one another, Samantha smiling gently. She nodded, moved her hand, and then she was gone.

Scully let out the breath she had been holding, shivering at the loss of warmth, her hand covering her heart. She could feel it racing, but beyond it she felt something else. Something…

A knock sounded softly at her door and she jumped. Swallowing, her throat dry, she wiped at her tears again and walked to the door. Looking through the peephole, she saw Mulder standing there, his head down.

She quickly unlocked the door and opened it, wanting to tell him about Samantha, but then hesitating with uncertainty as to how he would take it.

“Does the offer of company still stand?” he asked, his voice raspy and eyes red rimmed when he raised his head and looked at her.

“Of course,” she said, stepping aside to let him into her room.

He walked in and she shut the door, locking it as he stopped and stood where Samantha had just been.

“I thought I wanted to be alone, but then I realized that I am. That I always will be. Everyone in my family is gone.” He shook his head and looked at her. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not,” she said, stepping close and taking his hand.

“Yeah,” he agreed, squeezing her hand and then letting it go. “But it’s different now. It feels different. There’s a finality. But also…”

“I saw her,” Scully blurted out, unable to hold the words in.

“What? Who?” he asked with a frown.

“Samantha,” she breathed, staring at him. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I saw her.”

“Where?”

“Right there.” She pointed at him. “Right where you are standing.”

“When?” he asked, looking around the room.

“Just before you knocked on the door.”

“Just…” He looked toward the room and let out a harsh breath. “I… I was debating coming over here. I… she…” He stopped and closed his eyes, shaking his head. “She wasn’t here for me. She already told me goodbye. Gave me my closure.” He opened his eyes and stared at her. “She was here for you.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, letting out a long breath, his shoulders drooping. “What happened?”

“I came out of the bathroom and she was there. Just… right there.” She gestured to where he was standing, shaking her head.

“How did she appear?”

“Like… like…”

“Ethereal?”

“Yes,” she admitted, her hand moving to her heart. “She… she couldn’t speak to me, but she was here. She… she…” Rubbing small, slow circles above her heart, believing she could still feel the warmth there, she shook her head. “You saw her too?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod.

“That’s what you saw in the woods,” she said and he nodded again.

“She found me. Came to me.”

“To say goodbye,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

“To give you that peace,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes, still rubbing her chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he watched her fingers moving.

“She…” she whispered. “She did something to me.”

“Scully…”

“I know how it sounds. Especially from me. But… I know what I saw. What I felt.”

“What did you feel?”

“I don’t know if I can describe it,” she said, shaking her head.

“Try,” he said softly.

“She was here. I… I told her I was sorry for what happened to her. For… you and her losing each other.” He sighed and closed his eyes for a second before looking at her again. “She put her hand out, over my heart, and I…”

“What?” he asked, as he watched her fingers slowing.

“I felt… warmth. Comfort. And I… I know that it’s not possible.” She stopped rubbing her chest and held both of her hands to her heart, just as Samantha had done to herself. “I know it is, but I also know what I saw and how I felt.” He raised his eyes to hers and she sniffled, shaking her head.

“Can you still feel it?” he asked in a whisper.

“Kind of.”

“Can I… can I…?” he asked, taking a step toward her, his hand outstretched.

“Yes,” she said, also taking a step and reaching for his hand. Stepping even closer, she placed his hand over her heart and held it there, her eyes watching him. “Can you feel it?”

“I can feel your heart beating,” he said, his thumb rubbing softly.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered, and he looked at her before closing his eyes with an exhale. She closed hers too, slipping two fingers between his thumb and index finger, his thumb holding onto them.

They stood in silence for a few seconds, each of them taking deep breaths.

“Do you feel anything?” she asked and he sighed heavily.

“No. I don’t feel anything that you say you felt.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t feel it much anymore either. But I… I know it was there.”

He sighed again, releasing his hold on her hand and removing his hand from her chest as they opened their eyes.

“I’m so tired,” he said, shaking his head.

“You need to sleep,” she said softly, placing her hand on his cheek.

“Yeah,” he agreed, with an almost bitter chuckle, as he leaned into her touch. Sighing, he pulled away. “I’ll… I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You don’t…” she said. “Don’t need to leave. Stay.”

“Scully,” he said, shaking his head.

“Stay, Mulder,” she said. He stared at her, the weariness of the last few days weighing heavily upon him. He nodded once and she smiled softly, taking his hand and leading him to the bed.

He took off his shoes as she pulled back the covers, waiting for him to lie down. When he had, she covered him, brushing his hair back as he closed his eyes.

She walked to the other side of the bed and lay down beside him, adjusting the covers as she turned onto her right side and closed her eyes.

“Good night, Mulder,” she said quietly and he hummed in reply.

The bed creaked as he shifted, his arm going around her. Tears pricked her eyes as she pulled his hand closer, her lips pressing to his fingers.

“Good night, Scully,” he whispered and she nodded, squeezing his hand gently.

Within minutes, they were both asleep, wrapped in the comfort the other provided.

Neither saw Samantha return, smiling at the sight of them as she moved closer to the bed. Bending slightly, her mouth close to Muder’s ear, she closed her eyes as she spoke words that could not be heard.

Standing up, she watched and waited.

And then, he smiled in his sleep and she knew he had heard her. She nodded and slowly disappeared, knowing she could finally move on.

“Hmm,” Mulder hummed, pulling Scully closer.

He dreamed of Halloween nights spent running through the neighborhood, days at the beach digging up giant rocks and seashells, and riding bikes down steep hills.

Every moment of his dreams was shared with a dark haired little girl, her laughter dancing in the wind, as she called out to him to chase her.

#xf fanfic #the x files #msr #angst #caring #season 7 #closure #worry and concern

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