#my grandparents bought one on vacation awhile ago and now that I’m an adult they let me mess around with it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

poeticsandaliens · 6 years

Text

Making Wonderland

Rating: G, minus Will’s penchant for crass language

Summary: Set thirteen years after MS IV, Will makes a strange request of his sister. Mulder and Scully are in love, Alice Mulder-Scully is a teenager, and grown-adult William is about as straight as I am (not very, if you needed a hint.)

I’m writing more than I have in weeks right now. It’s my final vacation day, and I don’t expect to write much in the next month so I guess I’m joining the fic-storm while I can.

Tagging @today-in-fic.

By the time Alice was twelve, it became very obvious that her parents were not normal in any sense of the word. She saw it in the little things—Her friends came back from summer vacation with an onslaught of beach selfies and family photos in brightly colored straw hats, while she returned with pictures of her parents making faces in the glare of heavy duty flashlights, blurry cryptids captured in a split second on camera. She had half a dozen videos of her brother making fireflies spell her name in the woods.

That was another thing—her thirty year old brother who spoiled her the way other kids’ grandparents did. In fact, when she was younger he’d shown up to her school on grandparents’ day in the body of a white-bearded seventy-nine year old in a fedora and pink button-up shirt. He’d confessed to her later that he chose the look because it reminded him of Ian McKellen.

But perhaps the biggest indicator of her family’s undisguised strangeness was the way no one seemed to get older. She knew her parents were older than most of her classmates’, but they looked fifteen years younger than they were. They looked exactly the same as they had in her baby pictures. Will, too, didn’t look a day over twenty-one. She had read Tuck Everlasting in fifth grade, and it had sent shivers down her spine.

The unfortunate side of her brazen magic brother? Her friends thought he was just “sooooooooo handsome.” When her phone buzzed after school, Emma grinned and batted her lashes and asked her, “Is that Will?”

Alice wrinkled her nose, glancing at the screen. “Yeah. And don’t talk about my brother like that; it’s gross.”

“He’s cute.”

“He’s thirty, Emma, and he has a boyfriend,” she muttered like she didn’t have a Harry Styles poster plastered over her bed. She answered the phone.

“Hey Will. Are you coming to get me today, or is the fruit stand busy?” Five years ago, bouncing between jobs with a different face at each one, Will had bought a nearby tract of land on a whim. He’d turned it into a cabin and a little field of cherry trees. She camped there some summer nights with him, flashlights peeking into the woods, waiting for something. Deer, a family of owls, maybe a Mothman or two.

It’s pretty busy, but Jace is coming to get you. Dana’s working late, and Mulder left for the book tour, so you’re coming back to the farm for awhile this evening.

“Sweet,” she said. “So why the call?”

I have a favor to ask you. His voice dropped half and octave, and her heart jumped into her throat.

“Did you do something crazy Will? Like, with your…” she waved her hands in the air and whispered, “powers,” into the phone with a sidelong glance at Emma.

No, no, it’s not about that. But before I ask I need to warn you—this isn’t something you can tell Mulder and Dana, okay? Not yet, anyway, and it’s a little risky. Which is why you should think long and hard about it before you answer. Got it?

This gave her pause. Will was an adult; there weren’t many secrets he had to keep from their parents. A few things—where he’d gone while on the run before she was born, the places he’d seen—he reserved for his sister’s ears only. His relationship with their parents was different from hers, and not just due to his age. He called them Dana and Mulder, for God’s sake. She’d gotten used to it a long time ago.

“Okaaaaay,” she said, drawing it out on her tongue suspiciously. “My lips are sealed.”

Will cleared his throat. It’s about Jace.

“Ohmygod you’re going to propose aren’t you. Do you need help planning something? I promise I won’t tell Mom and Dad about it until he says yes. Cross my heart. Please tell me you’ll ask him to marry you. It’s been five freaking years,” she gushed.

Beside her, Emma raised her eyebrows. “What?” she whispered.

She covered the speaker and turned to Emma. “I think Will might finally propose.”

Emma squeaked. “About time!" and elbowed Alice playfully. "Guess I don’t have a chance then.”

Alice swatted her, then returned her attention to her brother. “So?”

I told you, I’m not proposing until Jace graduates medical school, he said, but she could hear the lopsided smile in his voice.

She tried to hide her disappointment. “So what is it?”

You know how I still get carded at liquor stores?

"Because they think you're a rebellious high schooler."

Yeah. The phone went silent for a moment. Then— I’m not really getting older anymore. I mean, I am, just like half as fast as everyone else.

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed. Kinda figured out we had messed up genetics when Mom and Dad broke the headboard in their sixties.”

Jesus. That must’ve been awkward.

“You have no idea. Now go on.”

You know I used my blood to keep Mulder from aging faster than the rest of us. You know, so he won't have a heart attack at your graduation.

She snorted. It'd taken her a long time to reach the point where she could joke about the unexplainable science that ran rampant through her life. It helped to see Will use his powers to make the TV remote float to her across a room, or re-heat her hot chocolate on the counter—the mundane things.

Will continued, Dana can’t give him blood, but I can. And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where I want to be with Jace in twenty years, and Alice I don’t want him get old without me. I sound like a fucking sap— sorry, don’t tell Dana I cursed in front of you—

Alice rolled her eyes and adjusted the phone against her ear. “No worries.”

And I realized, I can’t give Jace blood, but you can. Would you be willing to do that, so he can be part of our family? A pregnant pause. Please remember, it’s entirely up to you. It’s super under the radar and I don’t want to get you into trouble. Just… it’s your choice. It’s your body and your blood, and I know it’s a lot to think about.

She squared her jaw. “I’ll do it.” It wasn’t a lot to think about—Will was her brother. Jace felt like her brother. They deserved the kind of happiness her parents had; they deserved a life together that her family’s genetic peculiarity couldn’t mess up. She was thirteen, and she had two models of love in her life she hoped she’d one day live up to.

Oh. He sounded shocked, and she tried not to be insulted by it. Well, um, it wouldn’t be for another couple of years, but we’d have to run a couple of tests before then.

“Just… promise me you’ll ask him to marry you. It took Mom and Dad seven years to even get together and another twenty to get married. It took me for them to get married, in a freaking courthouse. I want to see a wedding ceremony.”

She was only kind of kidding.

#fox mulder #dana scully #the x-files #txf fanfic #william scully #jackson van de kamp #msr fanfic #stupid mid-life miracle baby #xf fic #today-in-fic

68 notes · View notes