642stories

[642stories]

All Time Favs

I began reading fanfic in my teens during the original run of the show. There were lonnng breaks from it, but coming back to the fandom in 2017 reignited my interest. I now keep a spreadsheet as well as a "to read" list. I already have almost 600 logged (not including 5 years), so I wanted to share my top favorites. Divided into my 4 favorite genres (AU, casefic, angst + romance, and smut + romance) and in no particular order...

*Alternate Universe*

I used to wonder why someone would choose to read AU. Then I read one of these and was completely blown away.

By the dim and flaring lamps by @sunflowerseedsandscience (ao3)

Civil war AU’s are my jam and this was one of the first ones I read.  When Mulder discovers (disguised boy) Scully bathing in a waterfall by darkness and realizes what he is dealing with will remain etched in my brain forever.

In darkness by DKSculder (ao3)

What if Scully was married to Daniel?  What if Daniel was a serial killer?  What if Mulder was a VCU agent still?   This is an unfinished work, but the idea is unlike any other I’ve come across.

Blinded by the white light by DashaK (ao3)

Need I say more?  When Mulder and Scully find each other after colonization, will they remember each other and will they act on it?

The second side of light by @scapegrace74-blog (ao3)

Oregon Trail.  Mulder is leading scully and Melissa across the trail when Melissa dies.  They end up getting very close to one another on the journey.

Paracelsus by profuckslove (ao3)

Another amazing civil war AU.  When Mulder goes looking for his lost son and comes across a pregnant scully what will happen to them?

Hiareth by profuckslove (gossamer)

Wales 1215.  Scully escapes the king by marrying Mulder, the prince of wales.  Marriage leads to love and fighting off dangerous men.

Paracosm by @softnow (ao3)

This is an unfinished work.  College AU.  Mulder has a crush on the library girl, will she return his advances?

A companion unobtrusive by @slippinmickeys (ao3)

A college AU where scully is looking for a roommate and Mulder is looking for a room.  Melissa introduces them and the rest is history.

Qui Si by Trixie (gossamer)

After accepting an offer from a gypsy to go back to a life with Samantha in it, Mulder, a child psychologist, helps Scully, a PhD, get over her past.

You he did not fail by extraordinarily_ordinary (ao3)

Scully abruptly leaves TXF after surviving cancer and moves to LA to start anew.  She is dating when Mulder is assigned as a profiler to a case she is working and they have to deal with things left unsaid.

Five years and a lifetime by @monikafilefan (ao3)

Mulder is a Peds psychiatrist, scully is a Peds neurologist, they meet at a conference and have a one night stand.  What happens when they come to work together 5 years later and Scully is a single mom?

Amish country by lolabeegood (gossamer)

Mulder and Scully go undercover in Amish country trying to catch a serial rapist while navigating very traditional values and roles.

You and me by lolabeegood (gossamer)

Mulder leaves his wealthy parents to serve under Scully’s father in the military.  In order for her to stay safe, fed, and clothed she needs to marry.

The mountain man by aka Jake (gossamer)

Scully is sent from nyc (where she was becoming a doctor) to Montana at her father’s wishes.  He wants her to marry a lieutenant and not practice medicine, but she becomes intrigued with a local mountain man.

The countess/the earl by @slippinmickeys (ao3)

When scully is to be married to an old duke in order to save her family from financial ruin, a strange, alluring earl steps in to save her.

*Case*

There is nothing quite like a casefic. It's classic x-files and I am here for it. Writers in this fandom are so talented with their abilities to create a fic that rivals/trumps actual episodes.

Perchitor by @aloysiavirgata (ao3)

A little girl goes missing in the mountains with the superstition of Jenny Greenteeth to blame.  Mulder and Scully investigate while navigating a new physical relationship.

Omens by @lepus-arcticus (ao3)

I read this one as a WIP and was anxiously checking for an update every night.  There were several lines in this fic that made me gasp.  Cancer arc angst. Give me it alllll.

XII by fragilevixen (ao3)

A killer that romanticizes every victim.  His next target?  Guess who.  *coughSCULLYcough*

Hearts desire by malibusunset (ao3)

While in a small town scully runs into an old BF and starts wondering why she doesn’t prioritize her dating.  She decides to go for it.  The author makes me like Scully’s old flame.  That says something.  When the MSR convo finally does come, I thought I’d die from the slow burn.

Resurgam by opheila_interrupted (ao3)

One of the most xfiles like cases I have ever read.  Remains unsolved at the end and has our agents investigating ghosts near Mulder’s hometown while dealing with their own (Emily & Teena).

Universal invariants/laws of motion by @syntax6

Scully is engaged to Ethan throughout the first season while her and Mulder’s relationship is deepening and then consummated right before she is abducted.  How do two guys in love handle Scully’s abduction and what happens when she is returned?  

All the way home/head over heels by @syntax6

Mulder is pulled into a past unsolved VCU case of a killer with a shoe fetish while navigating a new physical relationship with scully.  When scully is targeted, Mulder has to gamble with his personal feelings while working to find the killer.

Queens gambit by Suzanne Schramm (gossamer)

Under Kersh, Mulder and Scully are assigned to a VCU case Mulder worked in Utah in 89’.  The killer was put to death and then revenge began.  Local mines and children involved.

*angst + romance*

This is my crux. Angst in any way, shape, or form. Add in some slow burn/ust and finally the rst *chefs kiss* particularly fond of Ethan fics and cancer arc.

Contact high by penumbra (gossamer)

Still feeling the residual effects of the spores post field trip, our agents try out Mulder’s new waterbed.

Early on by @sunflowerseedsandscience (ao3)

10 vignettes set during season 1.  Our baby agents are becoming close, but Ethan is still around.  How does scully navigate her relationship with Ethan while working with Mulder?

Center Mass by @kateyes224 (ao3)

Another Ethan fic set in season 1.  Mulder and Scully make an effort to get to know one another… in more ways than one.  And when Mulder gets aroused at Scully’s marksmanship it’s all over for me. 

One blue line by sarie_fairy (ao3)

IVF arc.  Scully is defeated by a negative pregnancy test.  When Mulder tries to comfort her, she suggests having sex.  I just remember wondering if I was reading or actually doing the act myself considering how detailed it was.

Salt by anjou (gossamer)

I remember reading this and being like WTF is happening to only have it all make sense at the end leaving me speechless.

Triptych by @iconicscullyoutfits (ao3)

My favorite FTF, post bee, how the f*ck did they get out of anarctica fic.

Snowbound by malibusunset (gossamer)

After missing their flight and being snowed in their rental on the side of the road, discussions lead to their relationship.  Once they’re recused they are put up in an inn with 1 room.  Dun, dun, dunnnn.

The ache by @storybycorey (ao3)

1999 Mulder has a visit with 2015 Mulder to urge him to get help with his depression and not lose scully.

Love bites by living_underground (ao3)

A review of vampirism cases throughout the years.  Hickeys from Ed.  Love bites from Mulder.

Goshen by bonetree (ao3)

Mulder and Scully are in a car accident where their car can’t be seen.  Major injuries lead to near death experiences and visions of Emily.

All that our senses can perceive by wonderland (ao3)

Mulder’s POV looking over Scully’s transformation from girl to woman and how all of his senses perceive her.

Caught in the Act I by parrotfish (gossamer)

Although the whole series is amazing, the first part is my favorite.  I love when scully lays into the review panel about being sexist.

The things she carries by @edierone (ao3)

One of my favorite cancer arc fics.  When Mulder confronts Scully 3 years later on the porch I literally stopped breathing.

Red valerian series by dashakay (ao3)

Scully looks to skinner for comfort during a grueling case, starting a 6 month affair.  Will scully ever love him or will the buried truth prevail?

Sex and Loathing by malibusunset (ao3)

Scully takes a drunk Mulder home after Roche.  He makes a move and they have terrible sex.  After 2 years of poking at each other they face things head on after Mulder almost dies in PBV.

Snakebitten by @onpaperfirst (ao3)

Set throughout season 5.  My favorite season. Say no more.

Five years and one night by Shalimar (gossamer)

I listened to this on audio fanfic pod while painting my kids rooms.  When Scully transfers to LA and Mulder finds more babies like Emily, can they work together again to get to the bottom of this conspiracy?

The letter by Shalimar (gossamer)

Post TFWID, scully goes searching for more clues to her and Mulder’s past lives when she comes across a letter in a local Apison museum she sent to Mulder.

*smut + romance*

It's hard to have just smut when it comes to MSR, am I right? these two idiots are so in love that my smut category must also be romantic.

Undercover swing by 2momsmakearight (ao3)

What if Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple interested in swinging?  Can they both keep their jealously in check?  

Be kind, rewind by OnlyTheInevitable (ao3)

To help catch a suspect, skinner requests our agents watch porn together.  While watching, conversation leads to comments and critiques about personal preferences.

Girl 77 by mojo

A stripper is found dead with Mulder’s card on her.  She looks exactly like Scully.  Scully notices and confronts Mulder about it.

Dropped call series by @phillippadgettwrites (ao3)

Phone sex, but make it “not them”

December 31, 1984 by @phillippadgettwrites (ao3)

When Mulder saves an unimpressed scully from some jerk on NYE, they end up at her apartment having a one night stand.

Damsels by @sisterspooky1013 (ao3)

Scully is sent undercover as a stripper to find a missing woman.  Mulder is kept in the dark regarding her case, but pieces together where she is and what she’s doing and sets out to find her.

[642stories]

I feel like Christmas came early this year ❤️ such a present!)

Shine On (1/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter One: Vandy

Rawlins Middle School Rawlins, Wyoming February 3, 2015

“Vandy.” Louis slams into Jackson with the force of his entire body. It’s an affectionate body slam, but also hard enough for Jackson to lose his pencil and nearly his armful of books and binders. “Did you hear? I hope it’s true. It better be true.”

“What are you talking about?” Jackson bends over to pick up the pencil, trying not to get knocked over again by the continual current of students on their way to third period.

“The police came to shut the school down. We’re getting out of here, bro.”

Jackson looks up at his friend skeptically. “Louis, what are you talking about, seriously?”

“Second period we could see the police coming into the building.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive. And I heard it was because there was a bomb threat and they’re going to close school right after lunch.”

“If it was a bomb threat, they wouldn’t wait to close school,” Jackson points out. “They’d close it right away.”

“Maybe it’s not a for sure bomb threat,” Louis replies. He looks suddenly doubtful. “Fuck, it better be true. I haven’t finished my essay yet.”

“What did you plan to do if there wasn’t a bomb threat?” Jackson asks curiously.

“Hey Vandy.” Delia Rich suddenly appears next to Jackson, and he quickly straightens his posture. Delia is so pretty: brown hair, bangs, pink cheeks, round behind. “Did you hear about the girl in seventh grade?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jackson says. His tone is considerably more polite all of a sudden. “What about her?”

Delia leans toward him seriously and lowers her voice. “She killed her parents and herself and the police are here to question everyone.”

“Naw, the police are here for the bomb threat,” Louis says dismissively, shimmying to the side to avoid a group of loud and oblivious sixth grade girls walking past them.

“Who told you about that?” Jackson asks Delia, frowning.

“Hannah R. in 8C,” Delia says, shrugging. She seems to think of something else. “Oh, Vandy.” Her eyes widen and roll dramatically. “Did you study for algebra? Oh my god, it was awful.”

“Yeah.” Jackson nods, but he’s distracted, even from a conversation he would normally be thrilled to be having.

“I spent three hours last night on quadratic equations,” Delia says. “I’m not even exaggerating. I should have asked you for help.”

“Because he’s such a fucking nerd?” Louis adds helpfully.

“No, because he’s really good at helping with math,” Delia says to Jackson, bumping into him a little. “Can you quiz me before class?”

Over Delia’s shoulder, Louis begins to raise his eyebrows up and down significantly like a maniac. Jackson studiously ignores him.

“Yeah, but I, uh, gotta stop in there first,” Jackson says, gesturing vaguely behind her.

“Stop in where?” She looks around the hall.

“Restroom,” Jackson says, irrationally embarrassed.

“Oh, right.” Delia turns back around. “I’ll see you in a few minutes then?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, attempting the most winning smile he can muster as she darts across the hall into the classroom.

Louis immediately shoves his shoulder. “What are you doing, dumbass? I thought you liked her.”

“I do,” Jackson says pathetically. “But I have to use the restroom. For real.”

“Jesus, you have absolutely no game.”

Jackson decides not to bring up his friend’s own unsuccessful record with girls. “I’ll talk to you later, Louis.” He begins to make a beeline for the boys’ room.

“Wait, are we playing GTA after school?” Louis calls as Jackson begins to walk away.

“Uh, no,” Jackson calls back. “I can’t today. My parents stayed home to meet the guy delivering our new washer and dryer.” Jackson’s mom hates Grand Theft Auto, so he can only play when she’s out of the house.

“You’re a loser,” Louis responds good-naturedly. “See you later.”

Jackson flees, weaving in and out between students hurrying to make it to class on time.

As soon as Jackson is inside the restroom, he heads directly for the third stall, the only one with a fully functioning lock on the door.

By some miracle, it’s unoccupied. Actually, the whole bathroom is empty. He hurries inside and fastens the latch as quickly as possible.

And then for a moment he stands there, clutching his books and trying to catch his breath. He stares at the back of the stall door. It is covered in scrawled “suck my dick” and “turrrn uuup” in black marker.

Jackson’s not sure why the news of the police coming to his school has him so worked up, but it did. He can still feel his heart racing. Every muscle in his body is tense.

Calm down. Calm down.

He places a hand on his chest and counts to four as he breathes in, then holds his breath for a count of seven, then breathes out. It’s a technique his therapist likes to recommend to him. He’s slightly skeptical that it really works, but he tries it anyway. When he’s getting worried or irrationally fearful, when his emotions start to betray him, he wants anything that will help.

After a minute, the bell rings. Now he’s officially late for algebra. And they’re having a test, one he’s prepared for.

He should leave this bathroom.

He should go to class right now, take his tardy gracefully, sit down, smile at Delia, get out his pencil, and take his test.

Still, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even begin to move. Every instinct is telling him not to move.

Instead, he closes his eyes and empties his mind.

Hesitantly, he begins to push out cautious little tendrils to probe around him in the school. He doesn’t really want to do this, but something deep inside tells him it’s important. That he needs to.

People’s minds feel different, have different textures to them. Right now, as he shines into people, as he gently touches the minds closest around him with his own, he can tell that most of them are kids, his friends and classmates. Kids’ minds are usually sort of bright and loud and flashy, like commercials for kids’ cereals. Every once in a while there’s a kid mind that’s very sad, unusually sad, but even then it’s sad in stark, dramatic colors, clear and tragic and obvious. Kids don’t hide things well.

But he brushes against adult minds in the school, too: teachers, mainly. Adults’ inner lives are so much more complicated than kids’. Harder to get into. Some of them are complex and curlicued, like honeycombs, and others are like smooth stones you find on a riverbed. Some are like an animal carcass rotting, full of holes you don’t want to shine into too deep.

It’s because of adults’ minds that Jackson doesn’t like shining into people’s heads very much. He’d prefer to stay out of other people’s minds as much as possible.

He peeks into the teachers’ minds just enough to identify them, to see their memories: their own faces in the mirror, their classes back up at them, bored faces staring from desks. He’s not looking for a teacher, so he moves along quickly. He doesn’t want to see any of their secrets.

Finally he’s found something different: the front office, a group of minds clustered together, a cloud of anxiety shared among them. One of them he recognizes must be his principal, Mr. Werther – he can see in his memories speaking into the intercom for the morning announcements today. Mr. Werther is feeling very troubled about something right now. His thoughts are racing. He’s wondering what the right decision is. He’s wondering whether he will be blamed if something goes wrong. His mind feels like a soda bottle shook up, ready to burst.

Quickly, Jackson switches his shine to another mind in the group, someone calmer. This mind is sharper, metallic-feeling, and he realizes that it’s a police officer, someone in charge, someone named Davis. He pushes further into Davis’s mind, into his current consciousness, and he sees that Davis is trying to explain the situation to Mr. Werther, trying to assure him that everyone will be safe, trying to let him know that there is back-up waiting right outside the school. Davis doesn’t think Mr. Werther is very smart.

Dimly, Jackson is aware that he is tightening his grip on his books, his anxiety rising. Something is very wrong here. He feels it in Davis’s thoughts. He sees flashes of himself.

He prods the shine deeper into Davis’s mind, pushing back thin layers that seem a little like aluminum foil.

In Davis’s recent memory, there is an image of something horrible: a crime scene. Bodies, shot, a man and a woman. Lying on their kitchen floor in a pool of blood, their faces vacant. Davis stands over them, shaking his head, writing notes.

The bodies’ faces are familiar. They’re Jackson’s parents.

Jackson feels himself start to breathe faster.

As though seeing light behind a dirty window, he starts to see what Davis thinks happened.

He thinks Jackson shot his parents before he went to school that morning. Davis pictures it happening: Jackson, shouting, lifting a gun and shooting first his father and then his mother. Davis thinks he possibly has a gun on him now, at school. The police want to apprehend him safely, with no one being hurt.

“We need to consider him dangerous,” Davis’s voice is echoing through his thoughts. “But we can do this in a way that makes sure no one gets hurt.”

All at once Jackson opens his eyes, falling back into his own consciousness, feeling short of breath.

He realizes he’s trembling. Mom. His parents.

Are his parents really dead? How could they be? He saw them just this morning. His mom had reminded him about his therapy appointment tomorrow and his dad had told him to stop leaving lights on. He hadn’t kissed his mom good-bye. He had been in a hurry.

Jackson feels sick. Mom. Mommy.

It’s impossible. He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants his mom. He wants to throw up.

There is a crackling sound echoing through the bathroom, and then the sound of a tinny voice speaking over an intercom. “Students and teachers, please pardon the interruption. Jackson Van De Kamp in eighth grade, would you please come to the main office? Jackson Van De Kamp in eighth grade, come to the main office.”

Jackson tenses his whole body behind the door of the bathroom stall, ready to push through, an instinctive defensive maneuver.

They’re really going to try to arrest him, he realizes. They really think he killed his parents.

He feels panic rising in his stomach, seriously threatening to make him lose his breakfast. They think he’s a killer.

You don’t have to worry. Not you. You can protect yourself. Stay calm.

He closes his eyes again and carefully shifts the perception of all minds around him, giving himself a thirty foot perimeter of altered reality.

It’s a big effort for him — bigger than his usual modest experiments — but he doesn’t feel any headache. Maybe it’s the adrenaline.

Walking like he’s in a dream—like he’s in a nightmare, really—he cautiously steps out of the bathroom.

Anyone looking in the hall simply sees Louis.

Jackson, as Louis, walks down the hallways of his school at the same slow pace, so as not to attract attention. It’s an effort to keep the minds around him altered and his own posture casual and unassuming. He walks past classrooms, watching all around him with his peripheral vision and the little fingers of his mind. Louis, please don’t happen to come out in the hall to use the restroom at this exact moment. Please.

He heads towards the entrance of the school, which means passing the front office. As he approaches, he sees that now there is actually almost no one around the front office at all. That seems weird—usually there are tons of students and teachers congregating near it.

Just keep walking, he thinks. Hopefully you’ll be unnoticed.

As he’s stepping past the door, two policemen emerge, moving quickly.

“Where are you headed, son?” From a quick tap of his mind, Jackson recognizes this man as Davis, the officer apparently in charge.

“My mom’s car. Dentist appointment,” Jackson mutters.

Davis glances out the door, where there is fortunately a car in the parking lot that looks plausibly like a waiting parent. “All right, go quickly. Don’t hang around. We need all students out of this general vicinity.”

Davis waves him out, and Jackson eagerly follows in the direction of his gesture out the door.

The February temperature hits him like a slap in the face. Regretfully he realizes his good winter coat is in his locker, back inside the school.

He keeps walking casually down the steps of the school and down the driveway, already beginning to shiver uncontrollably.

When he gets to the road, out of easy eyesight of the school, he drops his books on the ground and begins to jog. The school is on a wind blown, gray, desolate-looking Wyoming road, with little traffic except for those coming to the school. He drops his Louis perception filter. There’s no one to see.

And after he does, he discovers to his surprise that he’s crying.

He has no idea where he’s going now.

He has a vague idea that he should get out of town—maybe to a big city, like Cheyenne or Denver—but he isn’t sure how to get there. He has no money. He could hitchhike, but the idea of hitchhiking scares him, which makes him feel ashamed.

It’s just he’s too familiar with the kinds of things that adults think about. And after all, someone just killed his parents.

Why did someone kill his parents? Who would do that? His parents never did anything to anyone. They weren’t drug dealers or thieves. They were Lutherans. His mom made casseroles, and his dad carved wooden ducks. They were cheerful, optimistic, the type of people to see the good in everyone. Sometimes Jackson felt like he didn’t have much in common with them— like they saw the world very differently from him— but he loved them. He could never have hurt them. And he hates to think of what they thought, in the moment they died.

He finds himself crying harder as he jogs. He shouldn’t do this now; it’s too cold for tears. He tries to wipe them off with the sleeve of his sweater. But it’s hard to stop crying once he’s started.

He tries to jog faster. Turns it into a run. Maybe this will snap him out of it, clear his head. He’s always been good at running. At the very least it will warm him up.

Just keep running, he tells himself. He smiles a little, because it reminds him of a line from one of his favorite movies when he was a kid, Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming. His mom would repeat the line to him as a joke when he was learning to swim.

He blinks back the tears again and runs harder.

He wonders if Louis will think he really did kill his parents. He wonders if Delia will. He wonders if the other kids at school will all talk about it: Jackson Van De Kamp, the psycho kid who shot his family and was planning on shooting up the school. If they will make up stories about why he was going to do it.

A car passes on the road, and he quickly slips a filter into the driver’s mind: he’s a nice old lady picking up trash along the side of the road.

When the car passes, he continues running and considers his options. He doesn’t have a phone. His parents were waiting until high school to get him one. Even if he did, he couldn’t use it now anyway—the police would track him.

Shelter is an immediate problem. There’s a Frontier Museum in downtown Rawlins. He wonders if he might go inside and find a place to hide overnight, at least until he has a better idea. But the museum costs money to get a ticket, and he doesn’t have money.

He could try to contact his Uncle Wyatt to see if he would help him. But what if Uncle Wyatt believes the story and thinks Jackson killed his parents? Uncle Wyatt has always found Jackson annoying, ever since Jackson threw that basketball into his flatscreen TV when he was six. He could very well decide to turn his nephew in.

Then there is his birth mom. Jackson wishes he could ask her. He thinks he’s seen her, once or twice, in his occasional visions that come in fast and bewildering flashes. At least he thinks it’s her. It’s a woman he has some very close connection to, a red-headed woman, who is always very sad. He wonders if she would help him. He likes to think she would. But that’s a childish fantasy, because he has no clue where to find her. He can’t reach out and try to shine every mind in the whole world to try to locate her. He needs to stick with practical ideas right now.

He’s been walking and running for three miles, the wind biting incessantly into his clothes, when he hears another car coming down the road. With the fingers of his mind, he reaches out towards the driver’s mind to tweak their perception.

But strangely, he finds he can’t. Something in the driver’s mind is pushing back, keeping a wall up so that Jackson can’t change what they see.

He feels a stab of panic. He didn’t know this was possible. He’s never seen this before. Some paranoid part of him wonders if this is the person who killed his parents.

The car is sleek and black, with mirrored windows. It slows down right next to him. Jackson looks wildly back and forth for somewhere to run and hide, just in case there is someone inside with a gun—but there is nothing around him but open land, no possible shelter for miles.

He finds himself doing nothing but standing there stupidly, an open target, his eyes widening as the window rolls down.

“Jackson Van De Kamp?” a female voice says.

“Yeah,” Jackson manages, his voice scarcely a whisper.

It’s a woman: a surprisingly young woman wearing mirrored sunglasses, her blondish hair pulled back in a ponytail. She doesn’t look like a killer. But Jackson knows very well that evil people don’t always look evil.

“It’s come to my attention that you might need some assistance.”

He can’t think of anything to do but bob his chin up and down in a nod.

“Why don’t you get in the car, and we’ll talk?”

It looks so warm inside. He has nowhere to go. She dangles the promise of information, something important he doesn’t know.

Still, some sense of self preservation keeps him from stepping forward. Desperately, he tries to noodle a shine into her mind, trying to see what she’s all about. But he can’t. It’s like it’s boarded up.

She smiles a little at him in a guarded way, not showing her teeth. He has the weirdest feeling that she knows exactly what he is trying to do.

“W-who are you?” he says hoarsely. “Do I know you?”

She sighs, as if she expected this. “If you get in the car, I promise I’ll explain, Jackson.”

He hesitates. Then, taking a deep breath, he starts to make his way toward the passenger door.

Really, what other choice does he have?

***

[642stories]

My Encyclopedia of My X-Files Fic Lists, Analyses, Fan Vids, and Fan Fiction Resources

So, I pushed all my little anthills into one dust pile because I got sick and tired of having to manually search through my colonies to find that ONE drone. 

~~~X-Files Collector’s Edition~~~

Overview

The Fics That Started It All 

Meet the Mulders

Car Accidents, Injuries, and Fluff- Oh My!

Creepy and Cozy Cabins

Redux II Samantha Was Real

I Want To Be Leaves (Fall Fics) 

 Mulder’s Early or Late Birthdays (Season 1)

Mulder’s Early or Late Birthdays (Angst)

Amor Fati(gue) 

Amor Fati(gue) AUs

Time Travel, Time Loops, and Just Wrong Timing 

Happy Halloween with the Mulder-Scully Family  

Many Mondays and “The Creeps”

Ghostly Hauntings and Experiences- AUs 

Thanksgivings Are Better Twofold 

Flying for Christmas 

Christmas and Emily’s Fate 

New Year, New Relationship   

Canonical-Esque Crack Fic {Edited}

Off-The-Wall Crazy Crack Fic  

Coming Home to Their Unremarkable House 

Little Samantha’s Life in Capture 

Car Wrekt  

Friendship Fix (According to Various Authors) Part 1 

Friendship Fix (According to Various Authors) Part 2  

Valentine’s Day, the Platonic Way

MSR Kicks Platonic Valentine’s to the Curb

Mulder and Scully Fight Insomnia  

Scully’s Arcadian Birthday 

The X-File That Started It All 

Diana Fowl(ey) Play– All Parts 

S9 Mulder Stays or Returns While the Mytharc Barrels On

Anasazi– Shot and Emotionally Fraught

Pranks and Other April Fics

Celebrating Passover and Easter 

Poll Results: Fic Niches and Polls 

Fics That Deserve More Comments (Part I) 

Fics That Deserve More Comments (Part II)

Fics That Deserve More Comments (Part III)

Fics that Deserve More Comments (Part IV)

Fic Moments That “Hit Different” 

Fics That Fit My Niche “Dad!Mulder” Likes

MORE Fics That Fit My Niche “Dad!Mulder” Likes

Dad!Mulder, His “Mini Me"s, and Sports 

Fight the Future Fics (Part I)

Fight the Future Fics (Part II) 

Crazy X-Cops (and Watching the Tragic Ep. Later)

S9, The Season of Secret Dad (Long Fics) 

MOTW but Rinse and Repeat 

The Field Where I Fix-It Fic-ed

Beefy Revival Mulder

S8 Mulder Resurrects to a Miracle 

X-Files Collector’s Edition: Mulder, Scully, and Scents

A Short Fic Tribute to Samantha’s 50th Anniversary

Mulder, To Jew or Not to Jew

It’s the Most HTGSC Time of Year

Mulder and Scully and Dancing

Sins of the Eaten Flesh

Mulder, Scully, and Courthouse Weddings

~~~Curated Authors Collection / Short Entries~~~

randomfoggytiger’s Son of Egypt

randomfoggytiger’s Fictober Wrap Up

randomfoggytiger’s Chariots of Fire 

Eight Nights of Mulder 2023 

randomfoggytiger’s “Mr. Mulder, I Know Something About You”

randomfoggytiger’s “You Up For Joining Us?” 

randomfoggytiger’s “Think He’ll Call You Tonight?”

randomfoggytiger’s ”You’re Not Here, Dana– You’re a Million Miles Away”

randomfoggytiger’s The Hospital Where You Slept

A Happy Family (Curated Baroness Blixen’s S9)

Curated Baroness Blixen’s Millennium Fics  

Curated Jamie Greco 

Alligator Moon by jordan  

Still Waters by XP1 

Everything But the Kitchen Sink by Amy Schatz

Morse Cody by grumpysimon 

Fox’s Den I/II/III by Thalia D’Muse 

Curated suitablyaggrieved/ScullyLovesQueequeg’s Cancer Arc Fics

Haze and necromance by astronaught 

fragility by homecomingserf 

Just Another Day on the Oil by Vickie Moseley  

Skyland Mountain (AU) by JenAndrews 

My Favorites Curated Fics and Quotes by suitablyaggrieved 

X-Files Fic That Irons Out the Mytharc… by touchstonea

Curated muldertxf Fics 

Curated melforbes Fics

Curated settle-down-frohike Fics

~~~X-Files Fan Fiction Resources~~~

Collected Resources

~~~Analysis~~~ 

Mailboxes in Arcadia: Allegory, Leitmotif, and Chekhov’s Gun

Arcadia Analysis: Scully Was Enjoying Herself Immensely 

Arcadia Analysis: Mulder’s Struggle

 Arcadia Analysis: Their Worst Nightmares and Trauma Responses 

Babylon Dance: An Alternative

Mulder Did Not “Lose Himself” in His Early VCU Days 

Biogenesis’s BIG Problem with the Alien-Human Hybrid Virus 

One Son: An Intense, One-Shot Analysis of “You’re Making This Personal”  

Never Again: An Intensive Essay 

Mulder: Sick Fic Vs. Reality

MSR Communication Summed Up

Mulder and Scully’s Most Defining Moment– “You. Help. Me.”

Charlie Scully in Beyond the Sea

S8 Scully Would Not Have Let Essence and Existence Happen

Mulder Would Never Let Scully Walk Away with Words Left Unsaid 

Mulder’s Necessary Emotional Growth in One Breath 

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part I): Colony and End Game

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part II): The Past Is Important to the Present

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part III): Dissecting the Dynamics in Demons

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part IV-1): The Death and Redemption of the Man Who “Threw In”

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part IV-2): Bill Mulder’s Tainted Legacy

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part V): Tena Mulder’s Relationships Begin to Change

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part VI): Talitha Cumi and Tena’s Lies

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part VII): Childhood Damage in Herrenvolk

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part VIII): Tena, Amor Fati, and Who’s the Daddy

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part IX): Tena Mulder’s Suicide and Saving Mulder from Himself

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part X): Samantha, Spitfire and Stardust

Mulder Was a Father, Even in the Desert 

S8 Scully Healing Before Deadalive

We Don’t Value Skinner Enough 

Scully’s Complete Change From One Breath to Herrenvolk

S5 Is a Pretty Dark Time for Mulder

The Glaring Ideological Difference Between Mulder and Scully

I Wish: Post Three Words and Mulder

Mulder– Alien Community Big Wig and Thoughts on Colonization AU

Ascension: Mulder and Maggie’s Bond

Mulder Saw That Scully Was Alone in Redux II 

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part I): Childhood and The Pilot

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part II): The First Christmas Death

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part III): A Facade and a Funeral

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part IV): Luthor Lee Boggs, Love, and Letting Go

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part V): Miracles, Lyle Parker, and Psychic Charlie?

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part VI): Maggie Scully and Mulder Meet

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part VII): Mulder, Maggie, Melissa, and the Snake

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part VIII): Maggie Calls Mulder “Fox”

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part IX): Mulder and the Two Scully Sisters

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part X): One Breath and the Scully Men

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XI): The Last Conversations of One Melissa Scully

Spooky Jr. Was Born in a Ghost Town

Mulder Is a Brooder; and Scully Is His Concluder

Scully and Christmas Ghosts

I Love the Unanswered Questions of the X-Files

Mulder Respects Scully’s Medical Choices in the Most Baffling Ways

Scully’s Failures and Her Villains

Mulder Has Max Fenig’s Cap in Beyond the Sea

Scully Is the Conduit Conductor and Mulder Is the Dancer

Mulder Didn’t Use Scully’s Apartment Key Until He “Belonged”

Frohike is THE Man

Mulder and Scully Picked Exes With the Most Red Flag Names Possible

Mulder, the Arcadia Trophy Husband

Mulder Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn?

Scully Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn?   

Arcadia Mulder and His Pillows

How Scully Taught Mulder to Hug

Alpha In-Depth: All Parts

Mulder and Dreams

Milagro In-Depth: All Parts 

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas In-Depth: Full Analysis

Scully’s Speech in HTGSC Proves Mulder Is Her Ouroboros

Mulder and Scully Didn’t Want a “Network” Outside of Each Other

All Souls, Lost Girls, and Grief

Mulder’s Alien Baby Baby Trauma In-Depth (Part I): Waking Up to Miracles 

Mulder’s Alien Baby Baby Trauma In-Depth (Part II): PTSD and Guilt

Mulder’s Alien Baby Baby Trauma In-Depth (Part III): “Processing” How to Fit Back into a Healing World

Mulder’s Alien Baby Baby Trauma In-Depth (Part IV): Passive Mulder Turns Passive-Aggressive

Mulder’s Alien Baby Baby Trauma In-Depht (Part V): The Mutual Pain of Reconnection

Movies Were Mulder’s Comfort Placebo Pre-Scully

Mulder and “Killing” Scully

Scully, Snakes, and Reincarnation

CSM Inflicted Insanity On the Syndicate

Mulder’s Little Smile in the Paper Hearts Morgue

Mulder and Scully and the Graves of Many Little Girls

Elegy: A Lie Between Two Truths

Mulder and His Nests

Mulder’s Dichotomy in Three Words

Skinner’s Regrets

Fire and False Romance, Ice and Love

All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium

X-Cops and Vince Gilligan’s Mulder

The Cancer Arc and Scully’s Reliance on Mulder’s Strength

Tomboy Scully and Pretty Boy Mulder

Mulder and Scully’s Love Story: Season 1

You’re a Magician, Scully

“Proving” Mulder Knew He Was the Father of Scully’s Baby

Mulder and Scully Broke Each Other’s Patterns

AU Samantha and Schizogeny Thoughts

Explaining the Never Again Script

Dreams, Alternate Realities, and Agency

One Breath Walked So Firewalker (and Episodes Proceeding It) Could Run

The List: Setting the Stage for Scully’s Loneliness and Mulder’s Panic

Elegy Explanation (and Realization)

Scully and Matters of the Heart: S1-4

Gethsemane, Bill Scully Apologia, and Maggie the Emergency Contact

Mulder: Jewish or Religious References (and His S8 Funeral)

Little Green Men and Teliko Parallels

I Want to Believe: A Character Study in Disordered Writing

HTGSC: Old Tricks and New Lessons

Mulder and Vulnerability

Developed Psychic Ability and Death

Psychics Developed Their Abilities Through Alien DNA

Attractive Monsters and Mulder

Disproving CSM’s Conjecture in En Ami

An Evolution of Mulder and Scully’s Forehead Kisses

Bill Scully Kept Melissa Scully’s Photo in Baby Matthew’s Room

Update: The Therapist in The Red and the Black

Scully’s Abduction, Emily Sim, and the Lost Scully Baby

~~~Typing~~~ 

How to “Type” Personality Types: An Ultimate Resource 

MULDER, The Spooky INTP 

{{Extraction: Proving Mulder Is Not an INFJ/INFP}} 

SCULLY, The Enigmatic ISTJ

Mulder and Scully: Love and Touch for INTPs/ISTJs 

Dissecting ‘One Son’ (Part I)   

Dissecting ‘One Son’ (Part II) 

‘Never Again’ and Fear 

KRYCEK, An Unstoppable Manipulator

INTPs In Their Own Words 

SKINmanNER, The Bald and the Beautiful 

MAGGIE, The Passionate Scully

MELISSA, The Soulful ISFP

BILL SCULLY, Junior and Senior (and Charlie?)

~~~Musicals/Fan Vids/AMVs~~~

Fight Club (Finale)

Fight Club: Finale Redone with Less Kathy Griffiths

TINH: Scully’s Solo

S2 Abduction: Mulder’s Torment 

Drivin’ Right Along

Hungry: Everything Is Food

Our Town: Everything Is Food

Krycek and Marita: You’re My Little Choochie Face

Syzygy: Everything You Can Do I Can Do Better

Mulder and Samantha: Miracle of Miracles

Amor Fati: If I Never Knew You 

Arcadia: People Will Say We’re in Love 

Scully, Far from the Home She Loves

CSM and Diana: The Riddle  

The Mulders: Sunrise, Sunset

HTGSC: Christmas Can Can

Melissa: Mother Earth and Father Time

Monday: There’s Always Tomorrow

Memento Mori: I Bring You a Song

Pilot: I Ride Alone

Milagro: Hellfire

~~~Extras~~~

React: “Return to Me” from the POV of Someone Averse to RomComs

Personality Typing: Return to Me

Personality Typing: Bringing Up Baby

React: Watching I Want to Believe for the First Time (and Losing My Mind)  

Personality Typing: Hank Moody, Maggie Scully, and ESTPs

What Happens Later: Misdirection and Miscommunication

What Happens Later: ESTJs, ESFPs, and Building Back Love ‘N Trust

[642stories]

Abandoned buildings

Stewart, BC // Hyder, AK

30.09.2015

[642stories]

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.

[642stories]

@Fanfic writers:

My friend send me this link, is a series on a profile on Ao3 (tumblr) that has different tutorials to insert things to fanfics via html code, I thought I would share bc it’s really cool

Lists of tutorials:

How to make images fit in mobile browsers

This is a tutorial/live example on how to make large images fit on mobile browsers but remain normal size on desktop browsers.

How to mimic letters, fliers, and stationery without using images

This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic the look of letters, fliers, and stationery (as well as other forms of written media) without using images. For all your epistolary fic needs.

How to make a “choose your own adventure” Fic

This is a tutorial/live example on how to create a "Choose Your Own Adventure" fic. While this has been explained before (see here), this particular tutorial shows you how to use a work skin to hide the next parts from the reader until they click through to get to them.

How to make linked footnotes on Ao3

This is a live example of how an author can create linked footnotes in their work with only a little bit of HTML and no workskins required. This is best viewed by clicking "Entire Work". While I've included the actual coding in bold and italic once you click "Hide Creator's Style", there's a more detailed explanation here.

How to change text on Ao3 when the cursor is hovering over it (or clicked on mobile)

This a tutorial/live example on how to have text change or appear once a cursor is hovering over it. Helpful for pop-up spoilers, language translations, quick author's notes, etc.

How to mimic author’s notes and Kudos/Comment buttons

Anonymous on tumblr: do you have a skin that would mimic the author’s notes and review/kudos buttons section from the end of a fic? the desired effect being that the fic could go on after the “end” of the fic, so after the author’s notes and review/kudos buttons

Here's a tutorial/live example to do just that, with some of the buttons actually functioning. I'll explain more inside!

How to wrap text around images

This is a tutorial/live example on how to align images to the left or right of the screen and have text wrap around them.

How to mimic email windows

This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic email windows on AO3 without the need to use images.

How to make ios text messages on Ao3

This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic iOS text messages on AO3 without the need to use images. There's also a chapter on how to have emojis displayed on AO3 as well.

How to make Customized page deviders

Bored with the default page dividers? This is a tutorial/live example on how customize your page dividers with no images needed (though I do show you how you could use images if you wanted to do such a thing).

How to make invisible text (That can be highlighted)

This is a live example how to make invisible text that can only be seen by highlighting the text. Tutorial is included in text, and you can always leave comments about questions you may have.

MOBILE USERS: Sadly, this probably won't work for you, since highlighting in a mobile browser is different than web. I've tried correcting this, but have yet to find a solution.

How to make a rounded playlist

Original coding and design is from layouttest. I make no claims for it, just tweaked it so it will work on AO3.

How to create notebook lined paper on Ao3

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of lined notebook paper in their work. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

Sticky notes on Ao3 without using images

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of sticky notes (aka Post-Its) in their fic. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

How to make deadpool’s thinking thinking boxes on Ao3

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of Deadpool's thinking boxes in their fic. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

How to make newspaper articles on Ao3

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of a newspaper article in their work. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

[642stories]

Best Prompts of 2023!

Prompt #1025: "You told me you loved me." "Yes." "While you thought I was dying in your arms." "Yes." "Well, I’m still alive. Care to repeat that?"

Prompt #1011: "I sometimes miss that little girl you once were." "I don’t, she was a coward."

Prompt #1018: "Shut up, I’m trying to confess my love to you."

Prompt #1026: "I thought a few candles would be very romantic." "You almost burnt down the house."

Prompt #1037: "Sometimes you annoy me so much that I want to start planning our wedding, just so I can very publicly divorce you."

Prompt #1016: All their kisses so far had been full of anger. Too rough, too desperate. This one was their first kiss that was soft, without urgency.

Prompt #966: "Why did you never tell me?" "It was a personal issue." "You being in love with me kind of also involves me."

Prompt #1023: "Why do people keep saying I’m doing well considering the circumstances? I’m feeling awful!" "Since the circumstances were you almost dying, I would say you are doing quite well being able to whine to me about it."

Prompt #1057: "Just admit it, you have feelings for them." "Only the worst ones."

Prompt #1050: "Can you feel it?" "Can I feel what?" "My disappointment in you."

Goodbye 2023 and hello 2024! I wish you all a wonderful start into the new year!

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! 🥰

[642stories]

Story #51, Winter Ficlets 12/26

Under the mistletoe

Read it on AO3

Scully sits behind the microscope studying the samples from their recent case. She’s in her white lab coat with her hair in a low ponytail, adjusting the lens now and again and checking the data on the screen next to her. She’s all business now, and when a heavy hand lands on her shoulder, she, by all means, should be alarmed and panicked; regardless, she doesn’t even stir. Having worked side by side sixty hours a week for six years straight makes her recognize Mulder with her eyes closed by his smell only. She smirks, not even bothering to tear her eyes away from the task at hand.

“Hi, doc,” he greets her and immediately begins to massage the knots in the back of her neck. He acts casually as if he does it all the time, and Scully doesn’t allow herself to read anything into his actions. It’s a mere comfort rub for a friend who’s been hunched over the substance analysis since the early morning as a favor for him. He’s just being grateful and attentive. 

“Hi yourself,” she sighs contentedly and bends her head lower, so her chin almost touches her chest, granting him better access. When he stops, she smiles at him and nods at the paper bag that rests on the desk next to a big cup of coffee. She’s fairly positive both weren’t there before.

“I see that you came with gifts.”

“Well, I thought since I’m the reason you are stuck in the lab, it’s the least I can do to cajole you into helping.”

“That I won’t argue with.”

“So I bore gifts, now you bear tidings.”

“I do have something for you. Look here.” Scully hops off her stool and motions him to come closer to look at the sample she was studying before. As Mulder is about to take a step, he almost jumps at the booming voice behind him.

“You gotta kiss her!’ He pivots and scans the room for the source of the sudden dissonance. At his right he spots Marcy, grinning ear to ear, a lab technician, who Scully once labeled as both her savior and wingman when it comes to lab work.

“Huh?” Mulder murmurs, acutely aware of the crowd staring at them.

“Mistletoe”, Marcy points somewhere above their heads, and both Mulder and Scully raise their eyes up to see the proverbial green leaves with a red ribbon tied around.

“Oh, come on, Mulder, don’t be shy,” someone else goads, whose voice, let alone the name, he doesn’t know.

He can feel his face flushing and notices that Scully’s pale cheeks turn all pink too. She probably curses her Irish roots now, but he secretly loves it. Not like he’s ever going to tell her that.

For about a minute, he contemplates giving her a chivalrous way out, but as soon as his eyes land on her mouth, he dismisses that thought. The pink tip of her tongue runs over her lipstick-clean lips, an unconscious gesture of nervousness and excitement at once. She’s biting her bottom lip, and in a matter of seconds, he finds himself leaning closer and catching that plump beckoning lip briefly between his teeth before locking their mouths together. Swaying, she lifts her arms and wraps them around his neck, and Mulder grabs her by the waist to steady them both. It’s a chaste kiss that lasts only a few seconds, and Mulder wishes he could kiss her again, and then some more, without all these people whooping and hollering. He can’t help but suppress a smile, and as Scully’s eyes flutter open, he notices that she is smiling too.

“Wow,” Marcy whistles. 

She pats Mulder playfully on the back, then steps in between so no one else can hear the three of them and whispers surreptitiously. “Get a room, guys.”

Taking a step back, Marcy waves at the crowd “OK, everyone, the show is over! Get back to work.”

While Mulder is reaching up to clear the space above off a green-leaved and red-ribboned offender, Scully gathers her wits and slips back into her full agent’s mode. She grabs a coffee he brought earlier and hides her burning face behind the cup. She takes a sip, clears her throat, turns back to the microscope, and then gestures for him to join her.

“Well, getting back to the blood sample you asked me to check, there’s something I wanted to show you.”

[642stories]

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

[642stories]

hi! do you know of any fics where mulder or scully (i think this fits either of them well) ask the other "can i kiss you?" ? its my favourite fic "trope" but i think ive only found one xf fic that does it and i cant even remember it, please help!

Thank you for this ask! I have (many) older asks I maybe should've answered first, but it was very fun compiling this rec list of fics where one of Mulder and Scully asks the other "Can I kiss you?" Enjoy! Anamorphosis by Megan Reilly Assigned to find a horrifying serial murderer, Agent Scully discovers things about herself and her past that she never suspected. City of Light by Bonetree On the run through the American Southwest, Scully and Mulder flee the shadowy forces of Owen Curran and Padden's government agents, who threaten their freedom and their lives. On the way, they must also struggle with their own demons, which threaten to tear them apart. (Part of the Goshen universe) Eleventh Hour by Rachel Anton Some feeling defy the confines of time. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy by Jenna Tooms Scully comes to Mulder with a wound only he can heal. general conundrums by @intrepidment Nonsense fluff. Impulse by Suzanne Schramm Mulder and Scully investigate some strange doings in a little town where people seem to have no control over their actions. Let's Bee Together by @baronessblixen Set during IWTB: Scully comes home from the hospital to find a bored and restless Mulder has picked up an interesting new hobby: apiculture. Little Notes by aRcaDIaNFall$ Mulder and Scully are bored in a meeting and start passing notes... The Mad Physicist & The Lab Rat by littlemisfit5290 (@alittlemissfit) "Who said I was even going to the party?” “I said you are if you plan on knowing whether I dressed up as a sexy alien or that beast woman.” MSR, pre IWTB, Halloween fluff. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Baroness_Blixen (@baronessblixen) For the first time ever, the FBI is doing a secret Santa exchange. But what do you do when you're not paired with the only person you can imagine exchanging gifts with? You do everything in your power to rig the game. Nuptiae Sub Rosa by SisterSpooky1013 and XFMaweezy (@sisterspooky1013 and @xfmaweezy) A series of canon-compliant missing scenes showing that some dynamics of Mulder and Scully’s relationship may have changed much earlier than previously thought. radiant by kittenscully (@kittenscully) Under normal circumstances, her vulnerability would shock him. But things are different now, the shift tectonic and undeniable. He owes her the same trust that she’s showing him. Saying the Words by Karen Rasch Mulder and Scully finally confront their feelings for the first time. (Part of the Words series) Tender Intent by A.I. Irving When Scully returns to work after recovering from her illness, Mulder discovers that she isn't quite the changed woman she claims to be. Untitled by @baronessblixen “I’ll kick his ass if you want me to.” / “Why do you only kiss me when I’m sleeping?” Untitled by @broadcastnews1987 a “what if one breath never happened au.” Untitled by @msrafterdark scully puts the moves on mulder post-millennium. What Happens In Vegas (Sometimes Finds Its Way Into Official Documents) by tiredmoonlight (@myshipsintheharbor) When some interesting news about the marital status of two agents finds its way to back to the FBI, questions are raised, the main one being that the agents don't actually remember getting married. While You Were Sleeping by Skinfull Mulder falls for an intoxicating red head he spots in the park, then saves her life but not before she is injured and put into a coma, then he meets her sister! Den den dehhhhhh! Seraphim by chekcough (@chekcough) After Mulder returns from the dead, Scully tries to pick up the pieces. AU, with Mulder/Scully relationship pre-established after FTF. Implied character suicide.

[642stories]

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?

[642stories]

Story #85 is the poem "A Ballet Dancer"

Put your pointe shoes on

And get to the barre,

It’s your stage for tonight,

You’re a soloist.

Keep your balance,

Assemblé, 

Attitude derrière,

Show bravura,

S'il te plaît

You’re not made of wood.

Half turn here,

Half turn there

Right leg extended in alongé

Left foot strong

With your foot en pointe --

Hard?

Demi-pointe it’s then.

Face your audience

Return to the first position

Grand plie,

Grand jete,

Pas de chat.

It’s your stage for tonight

You’re a soloist.

#writing in english #creative writing #english is my second language #writing for the sake of writing #poem by me #poem writing

[642stories]

Story #84 "A Long River Running" 5/5

This is an X-Files fanfiction story.

Read it on AO3

Chapter 5

She would expect their first kiss to be no more than a whisper-light peck. A chaste brush of his lips along the line of her jaw while his thumbs stroke her cheekbones almost imperceptibly. 

Instead, Mulder answers with a growl and a tongue in her mouth. One of his hands sinks deep into her hair, as the other covers her breast. She doesn’t hesitate to put her own arms around his neck to draw him closer. 

In one swift move, he grabs her hips and pulls her down on the couch climbing on top of her, his legs straddling her hips, their upper bodies pressing against each other — not an inch in between. The sharp edge of the remote is digging into the small of her back, and as if their minds are working in sync, Mulder skims his hands down from her waist, lifts her hips, and tugs an offending piece of plastic from under her lower back. It lands somewhere on the floor. 

He doesn’t stop kissing her for a second, their tongues engaged in a constant battle. With greedy hands, Scully untucks his t-shirt, her fingers moving upwards under the soft cotton — stroking, fondling, rubbing, groping like there’s no tomorrow. She wraps her legs around his waist — he’s hot and hard in all the right places, under her palms, and against her core, panting into her mouth and pushing her deeper into the cushions.

He wants to succumb to temptation and just kiss her. Fuck her senseless right there on the floor in her living room and make sweet love to her in her bed. They are really doing it. There’s no way to reverse it back. 

Her eyes are heavy-lidded and her hands run frantically along the smooth expanse of his back under the black tee. With little nimble fingers, she starts working on the buckle of his belt. At the feel of her cool hand sneaking under his pants, he jerks back and, overwhelmed, draws his face away from her lips and buries it in the crook of her neck. 

“Jesus,” he takes a moment to catch his breath and then cups her face in his hands. 

Scully nudges the tip of his nose with her own when his forehead falls forward against hers, fingers running over the stubble of his cheeks. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he says and she gives him a dazzling smile, her eyes are large and luminous. 

“Tell me that you want it. Tell me that you won’t regret it,” he pleads and she rolls her eyes fondly at him. 

“You have too many clothes on, Mulder,” she says, twisting her hand in his hair and pulling him closer for another kiss. 

That’s all the confirmation he needs.

With newly awakened ferocity, his mouth starts ravishing hers. Scully arches her back, and he shoves his hand roughly up underneath her shirt and bra, craving for skin-on-skin contact. Everything around them is buzzing. Her head is buzzing, the whole apartment is buzzing, maybe even the whole neighborhood. She feels fevered like she teeters on the brink of the parapet, almost falling into the abyss of insanity. What that man is capable of — he is going to be her undoing, and she isn’t about to stop it.

Scully squeezes her thighs tighter around his waist and the next moment she’s on the top, sitting on Mulder’s rod steel erection. Not a modicum of reserve is left in the room at that point. That couch is all ready to be defiled.

There’s a fleeting thought in Scully’s mind that they should probably be quieter — it’s two in the morning and the walls in this building are literally made of cardboard. She would never describe herself as a loud type but maybe tonight she’s going to let herself be heedless of what her neighbors may think. A good thing about it is that whatever they might think, it will probably be deserved. She doesn’t give a damn. This night is about love.

Love.

The feeling she could swear was unnamable only a couple of hours ago, is pretty much the one Scully marks now in her mind as love, sparked by lust and fueled by their emotional volatility.

“May I take this off?” Mulder peers up at her and tugs at her shirt. 

She smirks and lifts her eyebrows playfully. It doesn’t take long for their clothes to end up on the floor, not far from a long-forgotten remote. 

When she opens her eyes a few hours later, Mulder lies on his side, his face oriented nose to nose to hers on the pillow. If he weren’t so hypnotized by her eyes blinking sleepily at him, he’d see the stars - backlit by the approaching dawn - disappear into the first rays of the sun. 

There’s a much more interesting sight to behold in front of him.

“Why are you awake?” Scully’s voice creaks and she moves closer, fully determined to burrow herself into his side.

“Can’t take my eyes off of the beauty I have here.” He kisses the top of her hair, his voice an intimate whisper. 

“Go back to sleep,” Scully hums into his chest, stroking it tenderly.

“Having any regrets?” At his offhand question, she tightens her arms around him.

“None.”

“Good,” he nods, his lips brushing her temple.

The comfortable silence falls between them, and then Scully mumbles sleepily. “You know, I read lots of poetry back at university. There’s one thing in particular that comes to mind when I think of you.”

“I’m intrigued,” Mulder sounds truly interested.

Scully props herself up on one elbow, her chin resting on her hand.

“Love between us is

speech and breath. Loving you is

a long river running.” Sonia Sanchez.”

“Impressive.”

“Loving you is a long river running, Mulder.” She beams at him, and there’s so much sun in that smile that for a moment he thinks he might fall totally blind. He doesn’t mind at all.

“Why is that?”

Scully lays her cheek back on his chest and runs her fingers through the coarse hairs on his chest. “The long river never expires.” 

Again, he doesn’t say a thing but Scully thinks she can hear him sniffing discreetly. 

“You are not crying there, are you?”

Mulder lets out a muffled laugh and pulls her even closer “Only happy tears.”

#writing in english #creative writing #x files fanfic #agents clubbing #Scully has a life #jealous Fox Mulder #MSR #xf fanfic #english is my second language

[642stories]

Story #83 "A Long River Running" 4/5

This is an X-Files fanfiction story.

Read it on AO3

Chapter 4

“Coffee? Tea?” She asks as the door shuts behind them.

“Coffee would be nice. Why don’t you go and lay on the couch while I run the coffeemaker?”

“No, I want to help.” She steps past him toeing her shoes off along the way.

Mulder escorts her to the kitchen. As Scully busies herself with measuring out coffee grounds into the paper filter, she keeps musing aloud about things she normally keeps to herself. Whether it’s alcohol talking or she is finally ready to open up to him, he’s all ears for her.

“You know, I used to date before.”

“Oh, I’m sure many a lucky guy had their heart broken by you.”

“Thank God, you never had a chance to go over my love life with my mother. She’s certain, someone’s put an evil eye on me. Like, I’m 34, work 24/7, not married and all.”

“I think I could see a guy who tried to strike up a very heated conversation with you earlier.” Mulder nods to her words and Scully shakes her head.

“I’m afraid a conversation is not everything he was hoping to strike.”

“Maybe too much alcohol made him a tad overeager. Or maybe you.”

She looks at him sharply, a mixture of hurt and curiosity in her look. “Is that what I look like to you, Mulder? A tad overeager?”

“To me, you look kind, playful, and absolutely dazzling. I mean, you look incredible, Scully.” He gives her a sincere smile. “Wanna put that outfit on for the office?”

When she doesn’t return his smile, he relents.

“Sorry. It’s just… seeing you like that, Scully, that was the kicker. It’s not about that guy or the outfit, it’s just…You were… free. The way you danced. The way you moved your body. You were amazing. Captivating.”

“I wasn’t going to be some random guy’s easy lay, Mulder.”

“I know that. That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s not one of my idiosyncrasies, you know, putting on a skimpy dress, fuck-me shoes, and picking up guys in clubs.”

“I loved the shoes.” Mulder grins at her, successfully easing the tension.

The brown liquid in the pot starts bubbling and Mulder grabs two elegant matching mugs from the cupboard above Scully’s head. He fills them up and takes them out to the living room.

“Why don’t we sit on the couch?”

Their eyes connect and he holds her stare for what feels like forever, until Scully drops her gaze, unable to bear the weight of emotion she sees in his eyes. 

They sit on the sofa like a couple in the marriage counselor’s office, in different corners, as far from each other as the couch allows. Overwhelmed by the silence but too scared to strike the conversation first, Scully reaches out for the remote. Mulder seizes the opportunity to intercept the motion and grabs her hand. His grip is tender, mindful of their apparent size difference, but firm nonetheless.

When he starts speaking, his voice is hoarse.

“I’ve always thought there was something more between us. But I also thought it’d be you who would take that first step. That had to be you.” He scoots closer, their hips and shoulders brushing, and, regardless of him literally breathing down her neck, Scully has to strain her ears to catch the last phrase.

“Had I not interrupted your date inadvertently, you would be doing some naked pretzel now with the guy. I know it’s none of my business, but the fact that you’re sitting here with me now, not with him, feels like a tremendous relief.”

Scully doesn’t move away but she looks downward, denying him the expression on her face. Her hair works as a curtain that hides her effectively. Mulder catches a strand lock and, with a familiar gesture, he tucks it behind her ear.

“I was jealous, Scully.” A pause, and a moment later, “I am jealous.”

There, he said it.

Brutally honest.

No turning back.

His heart skips a few beats, and then he feels her small cool hand brushing against his and squeezing his fingers lightly. Reassuringly.

“It’s not easy to be a woman in a male-dominated environment, Mulder. I mean, in our line of work the bar is always set high, but when you are a woman there are moments when it seems almost unreachable. So you have to be tough. Always go the extra mile. Always put your best foot forward. I poured blood, sweat, and tears into my medical career only to give it up to become an agent the moment the opportunity presented itself. And I was dead set on getting everything it would give me. I just had to play my cards right, and work-work-work hard.”

She exhales heavily as if the monologue took all her strength away.

“Work is my everything. And with all the traveling we do, it’s the only thing I have time for.”

“Scully, I know we live out of a suitcase and the allure of it is questionable…”

“Mulder,” she sighs tiredly and turns fully to her partner. “I think I forgot how to be a woman at that point.” 

“Scully…” 

“But I want you to know that I’m not put off by the idea of you and me together. I can’t deny the attraction we have. It appeared there the moment we were partnered, and it’s been there ever since. You’ve been a good friend to me. The best one. But the effect you have on me… Mulder, it scares the shit out of me.”

Jesus fucking Christ, does she think their relationship has run its course even before he plucked up the courage to gun for anything more than her friendship?

“Sometimes I just need to be touched and reminded of the woman inside.” Scully sets her mug on the coffee table and sighs heavily trying to explain herself.

“With other people…” Men, Mulder wants to correct her, but manages to keep his mouth closed. “There are no names, no obligations, nothing. It’s easier this way.”

“Am I scaring you, Scully?”

“Not you. The power you hold over me. I trust you with my life, Mulder. Can I trust you with my heart?”

Can she? He so wants to believe that. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to gain Scully’s full trust. He wants her to trust him with her life, her heart, her everything. She is everything. And so he says it.

“You can trust me with your heart, Scully.”

“I want to believe that.”

Neither says a thing anymore and frankly speaking, Scully is glad they don’t. She wants her voice of reason to shut up and her body finally to claim its right to guide her heart. To reap the benefits she willfully stripped herself off. To have a right to touch him and be touched.  

Mulder looks at her with those dark, intense eyes, his gaze traveling over her body. When his heavy hand cups the back of her neck and his mouth covers hers, she accepts the kiss eagerly. 

Oh, how she wants him. Has always wanted him. At last, she can have him. 

“I want to believe that.” She whispers her previous statement right into his lips.

#writing in english #creative writing #x files fanfic #agents clubbing #Scully has a life #jealous Fox Mulder #MSR #xf fanfic #english is my second language

[642stories]

Story #82 "A Long River Running" 3/5

This is an X-Files fanfiction story.

Read it on AO3

Chapter 3

It’s not like she was going to paint the town red or something. She just didn’t feel like spending another night in, even with Mulder all eager to brighten up her evening. So as soon as the door closed behind his back, she took a shower, dressed in what would probably be the most revealing outfit in her closet, and headed off to Eden.

Just a beer or two, Scully told herself.

At some point she found herself gulping one tequila shot after another until her brain began buzzing to the beat of the music. She was totally wasted. But damn did it feel good. She hadn’t been so bombed since college. And even then, she didn't drink that much. 

Such a late bloomer, Melissa used to tease her. ‘Just leave me be,’ she would answer, and then get up late at night, steal a cigarette from her mother’s purse, hide in a gazebo in the backyard, and take a puff. She didn’t enjoy it. But the longer she sat there dragging on her cig, the more powerful she felt. For she had known that if her dad had caught her smoking, he would’ve killed her. And that was an act of rebellion in itself. It rushed the blood to her head and made her go dizzy. And then do it again. Repeatedly. Dana Scully was the person who wanted to have things done on her terms. Consequences be damned.

She wishes she could pinpoint the exact moment when things went downhill. One moment she was leaning with her back against the bar counter, eyes closed and hips swaying suggestively out of tune, a row of empty tequila shots with the lipstick stain behind. And the next, a Malibu macho-like guy in his late 20s was whispering something into her ear, his lips sliding across her earlobe, his tongue flicking at the tender skin.

She kissed him on the dance floor and like hormonal adolescents they traipsed through the crowd to the nearest toilets, where she saw Mulder — looking heartbroken, shocked, and aroused at once.

Scully nods at the bartender and two more shots appear in front of her. If everything has gone down the shitter tonight, she might as well booze herself into numbness. She reaches out to grab a saltshaker when another hand snatches it right from under her nose. A male hand. Please, not again.

For a brief moment, she is unable to avert her gaze from the damn saltshaker and the stranger’s long fingers clutching it tightly. She notes his tanned shapely forearms, and immediately her mind conjures up an image of another pair of arms in a white dress shirt with sleeves carelessly rolled up, which annoys her even more. 

She lifts her gaze to the stranger’s face, a sharp “fuck off” is on the tip of her tongue, and then her eyes widen in shock and her back goes ramrod straight. She pulls her hand away as if burned and clutches her fingers tightly on her lap.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk?” Her voice is dripping with acid, caustic and sharp. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Still holding a saltshaker, Mulder brings one hand to his mouth, flicks his tongue to moisturize the skin between his thumb and forefinger, and shakes a bit of salt on the spot. Taking the glass in another hand, he licks the salt off, swallows the shot in one go, and finishes by sucking on a wedge of lime. Closing his eyes, he takes a moment to savor the taste and aroma of the drink before turning to Scully. 

With eyes wide open she regards him, her lips pursed. Mulder shifts closer and puts a hand on her shoulder, their foreheads and knees almost touching. She ducks her head and he brings his thumb to lift her chin to hold her stare. Her skin is incredibly soft, almost translucent in the blinding white darkness of the room, and he longs to stroke it gently. He doesn’t.   

“I’m sorry, Scully. Please, let me take you home.” He doesn’t ask about her boyfriend, not willing to upset her even more. It’s obvious to him that she’s not taking anyone back home tonight as the evening has already been ruined. Mulder might have played a big part in it, (no shit, really), but he doesn’t want her to sit in a bar alone drinking all night long.

Not moving, she stares him down firmly, her mouth sealed.

“I told you the truth. I didn’t follow you here. Just let me take you home, so we can talk.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk.” She echoes her previous words stubbornly.

“I do. I think I do.” He pleads, his tone dead serious. “And I think you do too.”

Music, loud and repetitive, with lyrics impossible to fathom, envelops her and Scully thinks that it is not the place to talk. The music prompts her to channel her thoughts into feeling, not talking. Isn’t it why she came here in the first place? To feel something? To let go?

Two bottles of still water appear in front of them and Scully grabs one, uncaps it, and takes a long sip. 

“You know Mulder, there are two kinds of people in this world," she slurs, pausing to take another artless swig. "Those who always think they know better, and those who don’t know a damn thing.” She glowers at him, only to shoot him point-blank with her next question. “Which one are you now?”

Her voice is clipped but there’s almost palpable hesitation in her stance, and it gives him a flick of hope. Mulder grasps at straws. 

“Please, Scully. Just let me take you home. I won’t be able to sleep if I leave you here alone.” A tinny smile tugs at her lips.

That she knows how to do. That is the familiar vibe of her beloved overprotective Mulder. The safe ground they can both tread upon lightly, where she acts all independent and in control, and he just wants to make sure she will be okay.

“Come on. Let’s call it a night and get you tucked in your bed.”

With one hand Mulder signals the bartender for a check while tagging Scully’s jacket off the back of her stool with another. In a gesture of chivalry, he brushes a mass of wavy shoulder-length hair from her neck so it wouldn’t get caught in the collar as he helps her in the arms. Her skin is so soft and beckoning that he can’t fight the urge to bend a little and smell it. Inhale her like the sweetest of the perfumes. His Eau de Scully. His Eau de Love. Mukder stops short of placing a kiss there, the action hardly noticeable but she shivers under his near-touch nonetheless. 

They set off on their meandering walk to her apartment building.

It’s a warm summer night and Scully’s place is just a few blocks away to call a cab. In the open air, out of the lumbering knots of partygoers and the pounding beats of music, in quiet whispers of the night, Scully starts talking, her voice uncertain.

“I don’t really date, Mulder. Well, you know that.” She chuckles but her voice is devoid of any humor. “Sometimes I wish I did.”

Around them, the night is humming with sharp taxi horns and distant sirens, the sounds the city never stops making even when the darkness falls – the ones they both are way too familiar with. So often they find themselves awake long after midnight, pursuing either criminals or their worries and fears. We are Sleepless in Washington.

Mulder feels torn — he wants to apologize for ruining her date and admonish her for keeping it secret. Who’s that guy? Where did she meet him? How long have they been together? Why wouldn’t she tell him? The last question is what bothers him most. Yet, sensing Scully’s need to have it all out, he doesn’t dare to interrupt her and remains silent.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“He wasn’t?”

“No,” Scully shakes her head softly, and relief washes over him at her words.

“I didn’t even know his name. Or maybe I just don’t remember. I just felt like… I don’t know… I wanted… to be touched?”

She’s swaying on her four-inch heels and Mulder grabs her by the elbow, afraid she might trip over the tiniest bump. Trying to gain some equilibrium, almost of its own volition his hand snakes over her waist, the bare patch of skin cool and slick under his fingers, still sweaty from all the dancing she’s done. Absent-mindedly, he circles her tattoo, their eyes locked.

“Don’t you want a woman’s touch sometimes, Mulder?”

Here she is, standing right in front of him — his beautiful strong tour de force Dana Scully. He doesn’t know how or if, but he wants to believe she’s his. Somewhere deep down.

“I do.” They keep walking down the street, Mulder’s arm never leaving her waist, and he thinks if that’s the night of candor and confessions, he’s going to be as open with her as she is. 

“I actually didn’t recognize you at first. And I was kind of going to charm you with my moves, and hopefully take you back home. Well, not you — the woman that I thought looked like you.”

He doesn’t tell her that the touch he craves is her touch, but he tells her enough to let her figure it out on her own.

Their leisurely stroll doesn’t take long and soon Scully sees that they made it to her place safely. Opening her clutch, she starts rummaging through its contents in search of keys, and Mulder spots a pack of cigarettes, cosmetics, and god knows what else, but he’s pleased not to see any condoms. The Scully he knows is not a reckless type of girl. Nothing of what happened tonight was planned. 

Her hand comes back empty.

“Here, let me.” Gently, he takes her purse and fishes out a familiar ring of keys to unlock the door to her building. Together they make it to the elevator and then to her apartment. All the way there she’s hanging on his elbow.

#writing in english #creative writing #x files fanfic #agents clubbing #Scully has a life #jealous Fox Mulder #MSR #xf fanfic #english is my second language

[642stories]

Story #81 "A Long River Running" 2/5

This is an X-Files fanfiction story.

Read it on AO3

Chapter 2

The man behind Scully reaches out and snakes his hand around her waist, an action she visibly stiffens at and shakes his limb off like an annoying fly buzzing around.

“Mulder, what the hell?”

There’s a whole range of emotions on her face from anger to horror to disgust, and Mulder’s breath hitches. He’s afraid to exhale and thinks if he does, he might start choking as if he gulped a whole glass of water in one go and it went down the wrong pipe. He’s pretty sure that his face is fifty shades of red now, and he closes his eyes dismissively. 

Don’t look at her. Don’t you dare look at her. It’s just too much right now — Scully is all soft curves and skin, beckoning and irresistibly touchable.

“Did you follow me here?” she shouts. Her clipped voice bounces off the walls, but the last syllable dies down in the roar of the hand dryer.

As if the spell has been broken, all three heads turn to the little man, drying his hands by the sinks. The little runt takes off his spectacles and wipes them with a paper towel. The buttons of his shirt seem barely to hold two parts together and Mulder can see the man’s body hairs escaping through the holes. Observing lazily the performance being played in front of him, the shorty gives Scully a thorough once-over, smirks, and saunters toward the door muttering under his breath:

“Plot thickens.”

There’s so much infuriation in Scully’s gunmetal-gray gaze that, if looks could kill, their unwelcome intruder would drop dead at the very same moment.  

“Fuck him.” She turns back to Mulder. “Answer me! Did you follow me here?”

“God, no! It’s a coincidence!” His eyes flicker to hers and he feels a rush of arousal at the sight of her swollen, thoroughly kissed lips and all the skin she shows.

“I just didn’t feel like going home, and so I came here.” He runs one hand through his hair and lets out his breath slowly. “It was close to your place. I had no idea you would come here. You told me you hadn’t felt like hanging out.”  Mulder grimaces. There’s an accusation in his tone he doesn’t really mean. He reasons it’s time for him to leave and makes an attempt to brush past her to the door.

“I won’t interrupt you,” he adds as he goes.

“Mulder!” Scully exclaims, her face tight. “You can’t just leave. We have to talk.” She grabs his arm firmly and notices how Mulder’s eyes narrow dangerously, not at her, but at the sight behind her back. Scully’s boozy long-forgotten date bends over her shoulder to nuzzle her neck and bite at her earlobe.

The action brings her back to the fact that it’s not just the two of them here. It doesn’t escape her attention that Mulder seethes with anger, his fists clenching at his sides ready to punch the man in the face. She turns on her heels swiftly and puts a hand on the other man’s chest – not to caress but to set some distance.

“I’m sorry, could you give us some time alone? I have to talk to him.”

Scully’s sandy-haired date shrugs and pulls away, a look of disappointment on his face. 

“I’ll see you around,” he throws her way, before stepping out into the hall, and Scully returns her attention to her partner. 

“Mulder.”

“I’m sorry Scully. All that… It's so weird. I didn’t mean to ruin your night. I better go.”

She huffs a sad laugh, and Mulder thinks he can hear pleading notes in the words that follow.

“You can’t leave, Mulder. Please.”

“Listen, it’s none of my business.”

“You’re right, it’s not but…” She stops abruptly, and he’s left to wonder what her “but” means. They’ve been there before, haven’t they? 

He puts his big hand over her smaller one, brushing her knuckles slightly, and then tenderly unwraps the fingers gripping his arm tightly, before dropping her hand altogether. He wants to stay with her, pull her to his chest, and wrap his arms around her. He wants to kiss the crown of her head and breathe in the subtle wisps of her perfume and alcohol. He doesn’t do any of these things.

“It’s not,” Mulder says instead, and his voice sounds like he’s a soldier on the battlefield hopelessly raising a white flag. 

“Mulder, please, don’t leave.” She looks at him with those wet blue eyes, her voice is on the verge of tears. 

Mulder raises a hand to brush her arm soothingly – his touch is far too short to register in her mind. 

“Have fun, Scully. I’ll see you in the office on Monday.”

He tells himself it’s okay as he backs out of the room – he’s not leaving her there alone. She can return to the dance floor, find her boyfriend, and finish what Mulder accidentally interrupted. On Monday, she’ll probably explain that she was just waiting for a good moment to tell him about the man, and probably add that he can’t just show up unannounced at her door anymore. She has a life. And what a life it is! They’ll ignore any further discussion and just pretend nothing has ever happened. After all, it’s none of his business. 

It’s none of his business.

It’s not, the thought keeps spinning in his head. All the it’s not he has said by the age of thirty-seven.

It’s not my fault, he said to his mother when he was ten, and she took Samantha and him to the shopping mall to buy some clothes for the season. Mrs. Mulder used to take her kids shopping all the time, but he remembered that particular occasion not for the fancy outfits they bought but for the dread of the predicament they found themselves in. It’s not my fault, Mom.

He was sitting on the plush bench next to the fitting rooms and reading a book about dinosaurs he had grabbed from the book section of the store while his mother rummaged through the piles of clothes and raided the racks.

“Samantha, honey, let’s try these on,” Teena Mulder pivoted to the bench where her children were supposed to sit together, her hands full of pieces of clothing of all colors and styles. 

“Samantha?” Teena repeated a tad louder and little Fox got off the bench to stand next to his mother.

It took the woman precisely three seconds to drop a huge colorful motley heap of clothes on the floor and stride toward a neat row of fitting rooms. Without a hint of hesitation, she pulled the curtains back, one by one, revealing a few confused kids with their equally confused mothers.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled apologetically, “I’m just looking for my daughter.” She turned around, her head lolling helplessly from one side to another, trying to catch a glimpse of a dark-haired braided head.

“Fox, where’s Samantha?” Confused, she eyed her son as if looking for help only a ten-year-old could provide.

With the mixture of desperation and horror that was reflected in his mother’s eyes, the boy looked around helplessly and muttered, “I don’t know.”

“Samantha?” She whispered.

“It’s not my fault, Mom.”

And then his voice broke into a loud cry.

“Saaaaammmmm.”

Growing up, Mulder forced that memory out of his mind, refusing to view it as an early harbinger of what happened to his sister later. But now, looking around and scanning the crowds of people, multiplied by illusions in the mirrored walls, he can’t stop thinking of his mother and the quiet dread of her voice.

There’s another girl somewhere here, so dear to him – the girl that begged him to stay. Begged him not to leave her alone. 

Suddenly it doesn’t matter that she’s not alone there but with her date. He has to find her and make sure she’s safe. She can roast and ridicule him later, but he’s not leaving now. He can’t lose her. 

“Scully,” he whispers, only breaking into a loud cry a second later.

“Scullyyyyy.”

His voice drowns in the roar of music silencing his desperate pleas as if nothing has ever happened.

#writing in english #creative writing #x files fanfic #agents clubbing #Scully has a life #jealous Fox Mulder #MSR #xf fanfic #english is my second language

[642stories]

Story #80 "A Long River Running" 1/5

This is an X-Files fanfiction story.

Read it on AO3

Tons of gratitude to @cecilysass who did really amazing beta work here!

Chapter 1

On a Saturday night Mulder all of a sudden finds himself in a club. For the umpteenth time this evening, he wonders how he’s gotten there. Just a few hours before, he was reclining languidly on Scully’s couch, munching on a mushroom and pepperoni pizza, with a stack of long overdue reports successfully finished and waiting to be submitted first thing Monday morning. He suspected that such an unexpected urge to pull his weight on work was just an excuse. He suspected that Scully suspected it too. He didn’t really know whether he just wanted to avoid another lonely night or just missed seeing his lovely partner. Maybe a bit of both.

At some point, just a little over after ten, he asked if she wanted to watch a movie together and was rendered speechless by her straightforward “no”. He was so genuinely shocked that didn’t even realize how deeply her rejection hurt. Not until he heard the door latching behind him.

Ouch. Apparently, Scully’s perfect weekend night didn’t include his pathetic company. Then again, she probably just planned to take a bath and have an early night. After all, it was one hell of a week and it took its toll on her. He could see it in her tense posture and a dog-tired look on her face—her eyes, normally bright and sparkling, turned almost colorless. The makeup over the beauty mark above her upper lip, which she tended to cover with the meticulous precision of a pathologist, was half-smeared, and somehow the fact that she didn’t bother to fix it spoke volumes.

Normally an introvert through and through, tonight Fox Mulder desperately wanted to surround himself with other human beings. That said, returning to his sad bachelor’s dwelling wasn’t an option, so he strolled to the nearest club. The “Eden” sounded appealing. He’d heard of the place before. Just a few blocks away on foot. He walked.

Now that he’s inside though, he gives up on the whole thing. Somehow, it feels terribly wrong to drink himself into oblivion over something as mundane as Scully’s bubble bath. Is there anything else besides her bath routines and an occasional glass of wine she does to unwind? It strikes him like lightning—he has no idea how Scully spends her time out of the office. It’s not like she has any time to spend out of the office, Mulder chides himself. And if she did? Would she rather stay home and have a quiet night in or consider the invitation to join him in a club? In a new uber-hip fancy club in Georgetown. He had a feeling she’d like the place. 

Inside, it’s dark but also blindingly white, with red accents popping here and there, and he catches the reflection of dozens of other Mulders in the mirrored walls around. There’s the longest bar he’s ever seen, across both sides of which are quirky bed-like leather booths. Barely dressed ladies are tangled around their sick-guns-6-pack-dreamy eyes gentlemen. The place is hyper-modern and everything screams “luxury”—from the futuristic décor of the bar to the obscenely huge but somewhat intimate, like a walk-in shower of a hotel’s suite, dance floor. In this upmarket night escape, wearing his jeans and a plain black t-shirt, Mulder feels ridiculously small and cheap.

The music is deafeningly loud, but he enjoys the repetitive boom-boom beat in his ears and lets his eyes wander to people on the dance floor. As he takes another swig of beer his gaze lands on the diminutive redhead and he almost chokes, immediately drawing a parallel with Scully. She’s a good few feet away and from where he stands, he doesn’t really see anything but a bit of her backside; still, the resemblance is uncanny. Mulder’s got to perch on the footrest of his barstool to get a better look, and when he does, he finds it nearly impossible to look away. He can’t not stare. It’s steaming hot and everything around him is in motion but at that moment he couldn’t care less. 

For Mulder, time stops. 

His eyes are glued to the woman moving with reckless abandon in the center of the white mirrored arena, and he’s mesmerized—by the cap of her hair flashing brightly under the ceiling lights, by how attuned to music her body is. In his mind, he can easily envision her as his gorgeous partner – looking at him sternly and playing by the book in the confines of the Hoover building, and secretly letting her hair down and going wild off the hours. A millisecond-long thought that it might actually be Scully springs to his mind, and Mulder feels himself harden against the denim fabric of his jeans. 

He growls in frustration—it’s too dangerous of a feeling, multiplied by the combination of loneliness and boredom. He hardly ever allows himself to think of Scully this way. He has to remind himself time and again—he has no claim over her. She’s not his. Never been. Probably never will. However, as the seed of curiosity has already been sowed, he’s eager to take a chance with a beautiful stranger and let himself forget.

When Mulder first came to England and became a freshman at Oxford, he thought he had finally gotten free of his father’s silent blame and his mother’s inconsolable grief. As easy as it was to escape his parents’ judgmental looks, to assuage the pain of his own was anything but child’s play. Guilt-ridden and prone to self-flagellation, but also emboldened with the new-found freedom, Mulder swung between extremes. 

On more occasions than remembers he found himself waking up in strange beds with women he barely recognized, in houses full of other broken souls smoking and drinking themselves into oblivion in a futile attempt to forget. Or forgive. Maybe a little of both. Restless and eager to unleash the beasts within the dusk, they looked pathetic and miserable in the first rays of the sun. And he was one of them. One sorry son of a bitch.

Mulder doesn’t want to contemplate his choices now and be reminded of what he doesn’t have. Can’t have.

That woman might not be Scully, but he can pretend she is Scully enough to make tonight special. Gulping what’s left of his drink, Mulder knocks the bottle back on the counter and starts moving towards his fiery-haired goal.

There are couples everywhere he turns—touching and grinding against each other in rapturous delight, but his mysterious lady sways on the dance floor seemingly alone. Her shirt clings like the second skin to her body, baring the slender curves of her shoulder blades and a strip of skin of her lower back. 

As she lifts her hands to pull the red locks off her sweaty face Mulder catches a glimpse of the reddish ink carving a circle on the most perfect of canvases—the woman’s pale back. He’s seen it before. He knows it all too well. 

An ouroboros. The Ouroboros. A painful reminder of how reckless Dana Scully can be. Right on the spot he’s all too familiar with. The spot he claims to be his.

“Scully.” 

Mulder’s heart somersaults in his chest, jubilant at the beautiful vision in front of him, and he starts moving faster, fighting his way through the milling crowd of sweaty bodies. He’s never seen her like that — uninhibited, careless as a child, and weightless as a bird. 

And for fuck’s sake, wearing the snuggest leather pants he’s ever seen! Jesus, he would have never pegged her as a clubber. His all buttoned-up and don’t-mess-with-me agent Scully in their dimly lit basement turns leather-pants-and-fuck-me-shoes Scully when the night falls. How come he never knew? They work together sixty hours a week—eat lunches, spend nights in adjoining rooms of cheap motels all over the country, and hang out at each other’s for movie nights and fucking reports. Hell, they are practically joined by the hip. Yet, he never knew. Apparently, once in a while, Dana Scully likes to take it easy. And that must be how she likes it. 

He can’t stop wondering what else she’s been holding out on him. It stings that Scully kept her plans secret. It’s not like she lied to you, Mulder tries to reason with himself. Is it a girls’ night out? How often does she come here? What other provocative items may he find in her closet? Will she let him join him? Now? Ever? The questions keep piling in his head, not helping in any way but making him acutely aware of what a mystery Dana Scully is. Even after six years together, she keeps him guessing.

He’s almost there, so close that he imagines she can hear him over the roar of music if he’s loud enough. He takes another step — dancing bodies flowing around—and then stops dead. And so does his heart. 

All of a sudden the balance of the entire universe has gotten upset. The blood in Mulder’s veins goes cold, his heart makes another spin and dives in. It doesn’t land gracefully like an elegant trampoline jumper but rather crashes into pieces, turning into an ugly mass and splotching everything around in bloody drops. If he bothers to check the watch on his wrist, he’ll see that the second hand, usually moving with fluid sweep, got stuck and convulses in agony.

He doesn’t. He can’t take his eyes away from Scully.

She dances with her face to him but looks somewhere over her shoulder, and Mulder watches fascinated as a strong male hand creeps from behind her back and moves unrestricted over the bare skin of her stomach. Possessively. 

Scully. A second ago she was merely steps away; a second ago, she was his. Now she’s miles away from his reach – achingly unattainable, someone else’s woman. 

She half turns her head to the stranger behind and covers his mouth with her lips, her right arm goes around his neck, encouraging the guy to get even closer. As if it is fucking possible. The bile starts rising in the pit of his stomach, and Mulder turns away and strides in the direction of the toilets. 

There’s a white gender-neutral bathroom with a row of neat white stalls, and Mulder yanks the first door open, relieved to find it unoccupied. He plunks himself down on the toilet seat, squeezes his eyes shut, and presses the heels of his palms over them. 

He doesn’t know what to do or think. A man. Dana Scully has a man. She looks like she wants to get laid. She wants to get laid. And not with him. The liquified ache pools over the glass of his heart, and Mulder’s urge to wallow in his misery and sink his pain in the bottle returns with a new passion.

He’s gotta get out of here. Now. One minute to relieve himself, another minute to splash cold water on his face. Just as he gets out of his stall and takes a step towards the exit, the door bangs to the wall and a kissing couple rolls into the room. 

Giggling drunkenly, the woman almost trips over the guy’s long legs causing him to break the kiss. She starts checking the doors for an unoccupied and relatively clean stall, oblivious to someone else’s presence in the room. One of the doors jerks open and a short plump man comes out, bumping her with his shoulder on his way to the sinks. The woman shoots him an incredulous look and then finally notices another person — a tall guy, watching her intently over the shorty’s head. Her eyes go wide and her mouth drops open. Her voice, when she finally finds it, is barely a whisper.

“Mulder.” Fuck.

P.S. The "Eden" club was inspired by the real place. Here it is :)

#writing in english #creative writing #x files fanfic #agents clubbing #Scully has a life #jealous Fox Mulder #MSR #xf fanfic #english is my second language