#xfficchallenges

[baronessblixen]

Today's prompt: 5. "You're the smartest person I know."

Fluffy-fluff set in Detour: We get to see a bit more of Scully singing to Mulder... (wc: 1,000)

tagging @today-in-fic @xfficchallenges

Fictober Day 5: If I Were The King of The World

“Joy to you and me,” Scully sings, letting the words fade away into the thicket. Even with her being quiet now, there's no silence here. Every sound is a potential danger and every snap and crackle makes her hold Mulder closer to her body. He’s warm. So very, very warm. She knows she won’t fall asleep, but she can’t help but think about how it would feel to be pressed against his warm body in other circumstances.

“Where’s the second verse?” Mulder mumbles.

“Sleep, Mulder,” she replies, evading his question.

“You stopped singing. Can’t sleep if you don’t sing.”

“You can’t hear me sing when you’re sleeping.”

“I’m not asleep yet. Come on, Scully. The second verse is the best.”

“I don’t know it,” she lies.

“If I were the king of the world,” Mulder starts and she has to bite her lip because his singing is worse than her own. “Tell you what I’d do. Throw away the cars and the something and the something, hmm, how does that go? Now your line, Scully.”

The only sound is the rustling of their outdoor gear as Mulder moves his body to get more comfortable. She waits and holds her breath. It’s just a song. The line doesn’t mean anything. She knows the lyrics by heart, having sung the song with Melissa when they were children. One day, while at the beach, her sister was singing the second verse quietly watching a group of others, and Scully, feeling brave, asked her what making sweet love even meant. Melissa smiled and kissed her hair, promising her that she’d explain it to her when she was a little bit older.

“Scully? Sing the last line.”

It has been on her mind all day. That’s a lie. It has been on her mind for many days now. Making sweet love to someone. No, not someone. To Mulder. She can admit it to herself now. Here, in the dark, damp forest, where her secret is safe among the trees. At some point in the last couple of months, her feelings have sprouted in spite of it all. Now, she can no longer bury them deep inside. She doesn’t want to anymore either. If there’s one thing her cancer has taught her, it’s that no one is guaranteed a future. When this seminar came along, her plan began to hatch. With no monsters or aliens to hunt, she figured she and Mulder could maybe, just maybe, try and catch a slice of life. But of course, they ended up here, lost in the woods, Mothmen loose and Mulder wounded.

“Did you fall asleep on me?” Mulder asks. His clothes rustle again and his elbow digs into her thigh.

“I’m awake,” she assures him. She’d tried. She’d really tried. Came to his room with wine and cheese. How much clearer could she have been? And now he wants her to sing that line. He’s good at making jokes, at flirting. The following through? Not so much.

He starts to hum the melody and then stares up at her again, making her wonder what’s going through his mind. A lock of hair is stubbornly standing up from his head, making him look impossibly young and boyish.

“It’s I'd throw away the cars and the bars and the wars,” she sings softly, correcting his earlier lyrics. The corner of his mouth twitches in amusement.

“What’s the next line then?” he asks with a voice smoother than the wine she drank without him last night.

“Make sweet love to you.” She says the words instead of singing them, hoping they’ll register somewhere in that brilliant mind of his.

“That’s it.” He sighs, burrowing deeper into her lap. He lies still and his breath is even. That’s it?

“Mulder, you’re the smartest person I know,” she says, shaking her head.

“Thank you?”

“But sometimes you just-”

“I just what?”

“Do you really not know what I was – when I came to your room with the cheese and the wine, did you really not know what I wanted?” He’s quiet for a long time, but Scully knows he isn’t asleep. They could have had this conversation in a warm, comfortable hotel room. They could have forgone the conversation altogether and just let their bodies talk. But that would have been too easy.

“I didn’t know. I figured that’s what you were doing, but… I wasn’t sure.”

“Mulder, I almost kissed you – who I thought was you – a few months ago. How can you not be sure?”

“So much for being smart, huh? What if you’re wrong about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if we… and then you decide it’s not worth it. That I’m not- I can’t risk that, Scully. I just can’t risk losing you again. I just got you back and I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize it.” Tears prick at the corner of her eyes.

“You couldn’t lose me if you tried,” she says, running her hand through his hair.

“Am I still the smartest person you know?” he asks, and she chuckles. She leans down even though her back protests and kisses his forehead.

“Yes, Mulder. You are.”

“Likewise, you know. You’re the smartest person I know. So I hope you know that I’m- I’m not not interested.”

“I know,” she says quietly. And she does know. She understands that he needs more time. She can wait for him.

“I just-”

“I know, Mulder. Now close your eyes and sleep so that we can get out of here tomorrow.”

“Will you sing me another song?”

“Any requests?”

“How about some Elvis?”

“You promise me that you’ll close your eyes and sleep?”

“I promise.” She takes a deep breath before she lets go and just sings for him.

“Wise men say, only fools rush in. But I can’t help, falling in love with you,” she sings with a steady voice and she thinks Mulder is smiling against her. But he keeps his promise and falls asleep.

#fictober23 #how much fluff can you write? me: yes #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic

[leiascully]

If I got @xfficchallenges going again for the summer, would anyone play?

#chitchat

[frangipanidownunder]

It’s Only Natural: fic

This is for @ellivia and @kega-umi who both requested  Person A has to come into Person B’s changing room and help them out of a particularly tight pair of pants, from the shopping prompts. Thank you! I had fun with this one.

It’s only natural, she tells herself. Quarantine meant lazy eating and half-hearted exercise plans that often ended up with a ‘full body workout’ (a Mulder euphemism) that, while vigorous, and (extremely) enjoyable, did not burn calories the way an hour cross-fit class might.

“You wound me, Scully,” he’d said, the first time she scolded him for cajoling her into their bed instead of the living room for a stretch and tone. His armoury included a wicked pout of his glistening lips, a lascivious wink and a wander of his fingertips along the ridge of each abdominal muscle. As she came a second time, she’d promised herself she would remove all carbs for a week. At least.

The denim slid up okay. She wiggled. She waggled. She shimmied and she jiggled. And then the jeans were up, snug at her lower back, moulded to her ass. The button was challenging but she supposed arthritis in one’s fingers was normal at her age, and the fabric hadn’t had a chance to stretch. She smoothed down the legs so the creases softened. Of course, they were too long.

Bending down to fix the stupid ruffles at her ankles was the moment she realised something was wrong. Not in the bee-sting kind of way, but in the too many just one more spoonful kind of way.

“All right in there, Scully?” he asked, nose peeking through the gap in the curtain. And she’d sent him away with a flap of her hand.

So here she is. Dana Scully, former FBI agent, scientist. Fucking. Doctor. Stuck in a pair of skinny jeans. When clearly SHE ISN’T SKINNY. The changing room is becoming claustrophobic, pressing against her limbs as she tries to undo the button and manoeuvre the pants back down. She stands up straight. Breathes. Looks in the mirror to find herself. She sees an angry old woman. Who the hell puts fluorescent strips over the mirror? Her skin is ghostly. Her hair is the rusty side of copper. A strip of silvery roots shines. Yes, SHINES. She rubs her cheeks, squeezes her eyes shut. Looks again. But nothing has changed. She could use some of Mulder’s effervescent optimism.

She turns away from the traitorous glass, shakes her hips side to side and tries to slip the jeans over the swell of her stomach but they refuse to budge.

It’s only natural. Weight gain in middle age, during menopause, is normal. It’s typical. She’s no different to any other fifty-six-year-old. Except she’s an FBI agent, a scientist, a fucking doctor. She rewrote Einstein. Yet she can’t take a pair of jeans off. She hooks her thumbs down the sides and yanks, but the jeans hold firm.

It’s only fucking natural. Rage boils in the pit of her fat gut. She stabs at the flab there. Turns back to the mirror and makes a smiley face from her navel. Does a Mulder impression. Do you think I’m spooky?

“Scully?”

“I’m fine,” she snaps.

“Right. How do they look?”

Her ass is certainly lifted by the confines of the material. From the back, she looks pretty good. But the bulge over the waistband and the ridiculously long legs make her look like a circus freak. Are there even circus freaks any more? She remembers The Enigma from that bizarre case years ago and briefly entertains becoming the ‘Dr Dana the Denim-clad Muffin Top’ for the rest of her years. Because she is never going to be able to extract herself from these pants. People might pay. There’s a porn site for every fetish.

“They’re a bit tight,” she says, wriggling again to no avail. Her sigh sounds like a fighter jet launching.

Mulder’s whole head appears through the curtains. “Ooh, hot.”

Not helpful. Not in the least. She exhales sharply and he pulls a face in response. But he doesn’t leave. “I need a bigger size.” It cuts to say it. Slashes. She’s bleeding out. Not in the heart being extracted by a psychic surgeon kind of way.

“I’ll get some for you.”

Fucking typical. He’s not even going to ask why. What is it with men? Don’t they get it? She’s known Mulder how long? Long enough for him to understand how hard it is for her to admit something like that. The least he could do is offer some comfort. “Fine.”

He leaves. Then comes back straight away. “It’s not fine though, is it, Scully?”

Fucking typical. Now the psychologist comes out. “I’m fine.”

“You didn’t say, I’m fine. You said, it’s fine. There’s a difference.” Are you shitting me? This is not how she likes her Mulder. “I’m feeling there’s something going on here but I haven’t quite worked it out.”

Before she can blast him out for his lack of investigative skills, he’s inside the changing room. There’s barely enough oxygen for one but with him in the tiny space she’s suffocating. He’s looking down on her. On to her shiny fucking roots. Her protruding gut. Her comedically short legs. Embarrassment leaves a red streak across her cheeks. Breathing hurts. Not just because the waistband of the jeans is digging in to her skin, but because her chest is tight with humiliation.

“I can’t get them off,” she whispers.

“What?” His face is so close to hers, she can feel his cheekbone scrape against her skin. Because of course he hasn’t put on an ounce of fat over the years. Just a bulk of muscle. And she’s not going to complain about that. But if he laughs. If he so much as cracks that beautiful fucking face of his…

She looks down at the floor. “I can’t get the jeans off. They’re…stuck.” Tears burn in her eyes and she feels doubly stupid. A fat old woman trying on a pair of too-small jeans and then CRYING about it.

“Hey,” he croons, lifting her chin with a gently finger. “We’ll figure it out.”

She shakes her head. The tears fly loose. She sniffs, cuffing the wet away with the heel of her hand and takes a ragged breath in. How dare he be so fucking understanding. “I’m fat, Mulder,” she says, leaning into his shoulder.

“No you’re not,” he says, kissing the top of her greying head. “You’re just giving me more to handle.” She slumps against him, half laughing then dissolving into tears again. “There’s always been too much of you for me, Scully. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

She bumps her head against his shoulder, then lifts her face to him. “These jeans are not just too small, they’re too long. They might even fit your chicken legs.”

His eyes slide down to the floor and he chuckles chestily. “I can’t believe how often I forget just how short you are, Scully. Because, as I said, you’ve always seemed so much bigger to me.”

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“Yes, you’re figuratively enormous. Huge.” He slips his fingers down the back of the jeans and wriggles his wrists.

“Vast, gigantic,” she says, jiggling with his movements. The waistband stretches over her hips and with a pop slips under her buttocks, taking with it, her underwear.

“Impressive, grand,” he murmurs, pulling away from her as the pants fold open over her upper thighs and slide, along with the pale blue panties, down to her knees, “wholly magnificent.”

She’s bare before him. Not in a what are they, Mulder? way, but in a literal, naked-from-the-waist-down-in-a-changing-room-way. And the way he’s looking at her, the light in his eyes, the slight part in his lips, the want, everything else fades to nothing. There’s no sales assistant asking politely at the curtain if everything’s okay. There’s no security camera on the ceiling flashing a red intrusive eye at them. There’s no greys, no lines, no layers of quarantine fat. There’s just him and her and love.

It’s only natural, she thinks. And leans up to kiss his fat lips.

#txf fanfic #my fanfiction #xfficchallenges #challenge: shopping #post season 11 msr

[the-creeepier-the-better]

Playing Hooky

This is a response to the 12th Fic is Medicine challenge run by @xfficchallenges.

.......................................................................................

THWAP! Mulder threw a sharpened pencil up into the ceiling from his seated position at his desk. “Bullseye!” He mumbled aloud to nobody. He sharpened another pencil, and threw it up again. It bounced off the ceiling and landed back on his desk, nearly hitting him in the face. “Fox Mulder with a disappointing shot.” He spoke aloud again in his best sports announcer voice. He was slowly losing his mind to boredom. Scully had been working in the lab all week assisting on a murder case. Her help was only supposed to be needed on Monday, but after she found traces of a drug in the victim’s body that multiple other pathologists had missed, she’d been asked to stay on the case. There had been two new victims since then. Now it was Friday, and she was once again reporting to the lab for the day.

She’d called him early this morning to let him know that she wouldn’t be in the office today.

“I’m exhausted, Mulder. Everyone’s frantic up here, trying to find this guy before he kills again.”

“Well, thank god they have the brilliant Dr. Scully on their side. I’m a bit jealous actually.”

“Oh yeah? No one down there to prove you wrong? Must be terrible,” She replied sarcastically.

“When have you proven me wrong, Scully?”

She let out a small laugh at that.

“No. Seriously, Scully. I, uh, I miss you. I’m only half the equation down here, you know.”

Scully didn’t quite know what to say. She and Mulder had been getting closer lately. She supposed she could classify what they were doing as dating. They’d been having regular movie nights that soon turned into regular heavy petting sessions which then turned into regular sleepovers. Things were good. But she was still shocked by his bold admission. She still wasn’t used to this side of Mulder. He was clearly making an effort to be more open with her, and she appreciated it. She appreciated it a lot. She’d missed him too this week. She’d been so bogged down with this case that she hadn’t seen him all week at work or outside of it.

“I miss you too,” she said back shyly, conscious of the fact that a colleague could walk by her at any moment.

“Hey Scully, if I happened to be walking past the lab today around noon, would you be able to take a lunch break with me?”

She smiled to herself. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

So now, Mulder was throwing pencils at the ceiling counting down the hours until noon.

At 11:45, he got up from his desk, grabbed his jacket and headed upstairs. As he approached the lab door, he paused to peek through the window before entering. He loved watching Scully at work like this. She was so skilled and obviously good at her job. It made him proud to be with her. He saw her talking to an agent who he assumed was working the same case she was. He pushed open the door and greeted them both.

She perked up at the sight of him. “Agent Davis, this is my partner, Agent Mulder.”

“Nice to meet you, Agent,” said the man, shaking Mulder’s hand. “Well, you’re just in time to claim your partner back. We just caught the guy with no small thanks to Agent Scully here. Thanks for lending her to us; we couldn’t have done it without her.”

Scully tried her best to hold in her small, proud smile. “It was a group effort, Agent Davis. Everyone on the case did excellent work this week.”

Mulder couldn’t help beaming through the entire exchange. He adored this woman, and he lived to see other people recognize her greatness too.

“Well anyway,” Agent Davis started, “she’s all yours,” he said, shaking both of their hands again and leaving.

All his. Mulder liked the sound of that. He thought he caught Scully with the hint of a smile at Agent Davis’s phrasing too. He wanted Scully to be all his. The time they’d been spending together lately had been everything he’d dreamed of and more. She made him so happy. He was thrilled to have her back, both professionally and personally.

“Good work, Special Agent Dr. Dana Scully,” he said tapping her arm with his finger.

She smiled shyly again. “So where are you taking me to eat, Mulder,” she said looking up at him as she started to remove her lab coat.

He quickly took the opportunity to help her ease the coat off her shoulders as he whispered conspiratorially, “You know, I was thinking. You’ve been working like a dog this week, and I’ve been cruelly forced to be away from you all this time, and it is Friday...”

She turned to face him with a small grin starting to form as she waited for him to continue.

“Let’s play hooky, Scully.”

She pretended to consider his offer for a minute before replying, “Okay. But you still have to take me to lunch because I’m famished,” she answered, punctuating her words by poking his chest.

He smiled at her and nodded as he led her out of the room with a hand at her back.

.......................................................................................

As they ate at one of their favorite diners, she filled him in on the details of the case. It turned out that she had indeed been responsible for the successful capture of the murderer. She was able to not only pinpoint the drug he was slipping his victims to incapacitate them, but also track down the only supplier for that drug in the area, leading to the murderer’s identity. He was immensely proud of her, and he told her so. She blushed again and insisted that it was no big deal.

“I don’t know, Scully. Sounds like a pretty big deal the way Agent Davis described it. You should feel good about your work. I know I do, as much as I hated being away from you all week.”

“It’s a good thing we have the rest of the day to make up for it, huh?” She said gazing at him as she tapped his leg with her foot.

“Well, I was kind of hoping the accomplished Dr. Scully would spend the whole weekend with me. If she’s available that is. I know she’s highly sought after.”

She smiled sweetly at him, “I’m all yours.”

“All mine, huh?” He said, returning her smile.

“All yours, Mulder.”

#xfficchallenges #xf fanfic #my fic #msr

[xfficchallenges]

Challenge:  Sweet Between The Sheets

No, you don't need to put anything sugary anywhere except the mouth (we’re not about yeast infections).  We just want sweet, fluffy, cotton candy smut!  Let Mulder and Scully be happy in bed!  Let them smile!  Let them laugh!  Let them tell stupid goofy jokes and really enjoy each other, scratchy beard-style.  

Never written smut before?  Cut your teeth on something that just pushes the limits of PG-13.  Can’t write enough smut?  Come sit next to us.

Restrictions: none Word limit:  at least drabble-length (that’s 100 words precisely, because @leiascully is Old on the Internet), more eagerly accepted (feel free to use a read-more to spare people’s thumbs if they’re scrolling on mobile) Rating:  the sky’s the limit.  The higher the better, tbh Schedule:  Now until whenever we get tired of it How To Post:  @xfficchallenges and we’ll find it and reblog it!  You can also use the tag #xfficchallenges in the first five tags

#xfficchallenges

[contrivedcoincidences6]

Nothing Special

So I’m on a roll with the smut for some reason so here is my third one! It’s revival era and is just sweet. Thank you to @alittlemissfit for editing!!!  @xfficchallenges @kateyes224 @piecesofscully

There’s nothing special about the day by itself. Work was full of paperwork and re-certification tests but I got to spend it with her. At the end of the day I wasn’t ready to leave Scully so I muster up the courage to ask her over to the house for a movie.

We both know I’m thinking beyond just watching a movie, but we keep up the pretense walking out to my car and leaving the garage, turning off at our exit on the Beltway, driving into the Virginia countryside. 

Neither of us mentions that, since she left her car at the Hoover building, I’ll have to drive her back. We also don’t mention the fact that it’s been three months since Scully has set foot in what was once our home. When we arrive, make it up the winding driveway and past the gate, all the way up to the front door, after a moment of awkwardness Scully manages to make herself at home again. She doesn’t say anything about the pictures of us that are still in the same place but face down in their frames. She doesn’t comment on the pathetic lack of food or the mess of the den and the study. Instead she gets on her tiptoes and reaches in the rack above the fridge where we always kept the wine. Sure enough there is still some waiting for us. We put on a movie but end up barely paying attention to it, content to talk and drink. For the first time in easily two years I see Scully smile. I even get a laugh. A Scully laugh even during our best times was a rare occurrence. I can’t help but smile back and feel the sting of tears in my eyes.

She’s cracking up now as we think back on our case in Texas with the vampires and the buck-toothed sheriff (though Scully still denies it). She’s laughing so hard her head is thrown back and she looks so beautiful I could cry. Instead I tell her how terribly jealous I was of that vampire sheriff. She gets a kick out of that and arches a brow. “Mulder, we don’t know for sure that they were vampires. That is a bit of a leap,” she scoffs, taking another sip of her wine. We talk about Mutato and ponder the fate of the townsfolk of Albion, Indiana. I remember how right it felt to hold her in my arms as we danced to Cher.

Scully then recalls a long ago evening, a lot like this one, when she sat across the couch from Eddie Van Blundht and almost let him kiss her. That’s when I make my move.

By this point we’ve moved significantly closer to each other on the couch. Her smiling face is only inches from mine and I lean in to kiss her. I feel like I’ve come home. Everything about her is beautifully familiar and occasionally we pull back away just to look into each other’s eyes, remind ourselves this is real. She doesn’t protest when I lift her up and carry her upstairs to the bedroom. It’s a well rehearsed dance of ours but I still feel slightly nervous.

Once in bed we move slowly. Take our time to get reacquainted. Her small hands take hold my face while her manicured fingers comb through my hair. Meanwhile I’m joyfully realizing her breasts are still the perfect weight in my hands.

We’ve never been good with words so I let my fingers, lips, and tongue tell her how much I’ve missed her. My kisses down her flat stomach tell her that I love her. I’m shouting that she’s everything, my goddamn everything, as my lips wrap around to tease and suck on her clit. I beg her forgiveness each time my thumbs swipe over her pink, peaked nipples.

She responds in kind with soft moans and mewls and the scrape of her fingernails across the nape of my neck. She’s close, I can tell, but I take it she wants me close when she pulls me up to meet her, cradles me between her legs. She stares up at me and I look down, completely drunk on her until those manicured fingers come back into play. She pumps me once, twice before guiding me and I enter her in one slow push.

“I missed you,” she exhales once I’m in to the hilt. I see a stray tear trickle to her cheek, wipe it away with my thumb as I withdraw.

“I missed you too, Scully.”

One hard thrust has me back inside her and she arches her back, throws back her head. Her skin is flushed scarlet and I stare, completely mesmerized by the bounce of her breasts as we move together.

It’s been nearly a year since the last time but in the moment, it feels like no time’s passed at all. Nearly twenty years together hasn’t dulled the passion but instead made us experts.

She comes with a rush of tears and pulls me as close to her as she can. Our tears mingle. I press kisses to her lips, her face, the curve of her neck before my lips move to the shell of her ear. I tell her every lovely thing I can think of. Everything I should’ve said to her every fucking day she shared this house with me.

I don’t know how long it goes on before I begin to feel the telltale tingle. She must sense it because she pulls away enough to look into my eyes and it sends me over the edge. I call her name as I come. Collapse on top of her completely spent. In a daze I hold her, still dotting her with kisses anywhere and everywhere I can reach. At some point she frees herself, gets up to clean up and returns wearing one of my tee shirts. One of her favorites as I recall.

She climbs back under the blanket, turns to smile at me again before pressing her palm to my cheek. I take the hint, curl into her and lay my head over her heart. I fall asleep to the sound of her heartbeat and her fingers running through my hair.

#xfficchallenges #summer heat #txf fanfic #x files fanfic #txf revival

[scullyitsme]

the purest specimen of truth

this is actually for @leiascully​‘s @xfficchallenges​: the fic you’d never write. normally i don’t write “everything was beautiful and nothing hurt” william fics, let alone fics where he’s a teeeeeen! so i did that, but i was also at the science march in d.c. this weekend and obvi i had to fic an au where scully was there so. . .also, all the signs mentioned herein were actually witnessed irl haha also, the title of scully’s academic paper is based in real science but to my knowledge doesn’t exist. . .yet.

“What about I was told there’d be pie — but it’s the symbol for pi?”

Scully sighed without looking up at him, though she did admittedly choke back a smile which she wasn’t about to reward him with.

“That is clever,” she said, tapping the capped end of a Sharpie against her temple, “But I was partial to your original idea.”

He chuckled, “At the start of every disaster movie there’s a scientist being ignored?”

She does smile then, peering at him overtop her reading glasses, which have slowly but surely become a permanent fixture atop her head over the last few years.

“Well, it’s true!” He bellows, playfully slapping his hand down atop the dining room table, “The Core, Dante’s Peak, The Day After Tomorrow, Twister —  that one we saw in theaters where they did an autopsy on Gwyneth Paltrow — ?”

“Contagion,” she said, uncapping a marker with her teeth, “Which was impressively accurate, by the way. Not just the autopsy scene but later, the visual showing the way in which new viruses are formed by the recombination of DNA or RNA from different species of animal hosts?”  

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, watching her squint intently down at her poster board, outlining the letters with a pathologist’s steady hand. He reached for a Sharpie, his finger grazing the back of her hand as he did. “So,” he said, flicking the cap off with his thumb, “Are you nervous?”

Her hand froze and she visibly stiffened. He immediately regretted bringing it up but as was his wont, he couldn’t help himself. 

“Yes,” she said after an agonizingly long moment of silence.“I still don’t understand why they asked me to speak,” she muttered, refusing to look up at him.

Mulder scoffed, “Scully — you fucking cured Tay-Sachs.”

“No,” she snapped, pointing her Sharpie at him, “I did not cure it. Not yet.”

“Recombiant Adeno-Associated Virus PHP.B Serotype for Cross-Correctional Enzyme Transfer Across the Blood Brain Barrier in Lipid Storage Disorders,” he recited on a single breath, “Sounds like a cure to me.”

She gave him a warm smile, “You memorized the title of my paper?”

“What can I say, I’m your biggest fan,” he grinned. She blushed, which of course only made him grin harder.

“I wish you’d look over my speech. . .” she said softly, picking up her marker again and retracing a giant letter S.

“I told you, Scully, they don’t want a speech from Fox Mulder: former FBI agent and profiler turned New York Times best-selling, National Book Award-winning author,” he said, though not unkindly, “They want a speech from former FBI agent, medical doctor, professor, surgeon, American Medical Association award-winning, guest-lecture giving, honorary degree-having, enigmatic, Dr. Dana Katherine Scully. Who also happens to be my best friend, the love of my life, and the mother of my child,” he said, “And a damn fine shot, too.”

“Oh, Mulder. . .” she tutted, shaking her head. As if on cue, they heard booming footfalls on the stairs and a second later Will skidded into the room, brandishing a poster board.

At 16, he was just about Mulder’s height and just as lanky and would probably be taller than him by the end of the summer; if his propensity for eating a week’s worth of groceries in a weekend was any indication of his basic metabolic rate and robust genetic profile.

Will cleared his throat, feigning seriousness, but his eyes sparkled with his father’s particular brand of indolence, “Brace yourselves for the unremitting sheen of my brilliance.”

Scully snorted. Mulder and Will threw her identical, indignant looks.

“I’m sorry,” she said, putting her hands up in surrender, “You are your father’s son, Will. No doubt about it.”

Mulder nudged her foot with his under the table, “Was there ever really any doubt, Scully?”

She gave him a long look, which did not get passed Will. Not much did. 

“I detect a rather abrupt change in atmosphere,” Will said, licking his finger and holding it in the air as if to sense a gust of wind.

“Son,” Mulder said gravely, not taking his eyes off Scully, “There’s something we have to tell you.”

Scully frowned, but before she could speak she saw the faintest glimmer in Mulder’s eye and relaxed a bit.

“What?” Will said, slumping down in the chair closest to his father, letting his sign drop to the floor.

“William. . .Uncle Walter . . .is your real dad,” Mulder said, his mouth twitching around a grin.

“That explains why I find you and Mom so ridiculous,” Will said, rolling his eyes in with such form that it rivaled even his mother’s practiced art.

“No, that’s just ‘cuz you’re an angsty teen,” Mulder said, ruffling his son’s hair. Will blushed at the childishness of the gesture — more so because, even as a young man, he still craved his father’s approval and affection and was relieved to be in receipt of it.

“Let’s see your sign, Will,” Scully said, capping a nearby Sharpie that was teetering precariously over the edge of the dining room table.

Will reached for the posterboard, brandishing it high above his head. With a flourish, he turned it so they could read its words as he proclaimed them.

“SCIENTISTS ARE PRO-TESTING!” He bellowed, and while he expected his father to laugh heartily and give him a high-five, neither of them expected that his mother would laugh. Certainly no so hard.

After a minute or two went by, Will and Mulder both eyed Scully with a kind of nervous fascination, wondering if perhaps they would have to sedate her.

“Have you. . .have you ever seen her like this?” Will said, his voice low.

Mulder didn’t take his eyes off Scully, who had lowered her head onto the table, collapsed like a pop-tent. Her shoulders still shaking and her muffled giggles getting lost against the polished cherrywood.

“Once,” he said slowly, “But she was drugged.”

This only made Scully laugh harder. When she finally lifted her head, her face was a hot shade of blush-pink and sallow with tear stains.

“I appreciate the encouragement, Mom,” Will said, “But there’s no need to stroke my ego that much. It’s a good sign but it’s not that good.”

Scully reached up to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her faded Quantico sweatshirt — which was older than Will by about a decade. She sighed deeply, then looked at them both through damp eyes and with a warm, almost cherubic smile.

“No, no, it is a good sign, Will. It’s just. . .” she sighed again, then drew in a long, sobering breath, “After all your father and I have been through, all that we’ve seen, the things that we’ve fought for. . .” she looked at Mulder, then. “The FBI sent me to your father because of my faith in science. They believed that science and reason would take him down. It didn’t, though. If anything it became an asset to his cause, and somewhere along the line I became — and so did the science I brought with me — the enemy.”

She lowered her eyes to her own sign, which suddenly seemed incapable of capturing everything she wanted — and needed — to say.

“The science helped sometimes,” Mulder said softly, “But you were the real strength, Scully.”

She smiled up at him as he reached across the table to squeeze her hand, “I guess I just find it preposterous that we have to protest this at all,” she said, shrugging slightly, “That the persecution we faced as a result of our pursuit of the truth has somehow become so much bigger than just us, than the X-files.”

“This whole political milieu is a freakin’ X-file,” Will grumbled.

“Nice 10-point vocab word there, dude.” Mulder said, clapping his son on the back.

“What can I say — my dad writes books.” Will shrugged.

Mulder beamed at Scully, who had rested her chin on her hand.

“Mulder,” she said, her voice hoarse from her laughing jag, “You never told me Skinner was a writer.”

“There must be almost 50,000 people out there,” Scully breathed, her nails digging into the skin of Mulder’s left hand. They could hear the roar of the crowd from beyond the stage — or possibly the rain, which was coming down in sheets. Of course, given that it was a crowd of scientists, they were prepared with slickers and umbrellas, upon which many had inscribed: “Science predicted rain today.”

“You’re gonna be great,” he said, kissing the side of her head which was damp with sweat or rain water or both.

“At least you’re not after Bill Nye,” Will offered, “No one wants to follow him.”

Scully groaned and pressed herself into Mulder’s chest.

“That’s true,” Mulder said, rubbing her back, “Plus, if you screw it all up, no one will remember because they’ll just remember Bill Nye and the fact that Thomas Dolby is gonna sing She Blinded Me With Science.”

“Wait, what song is this?” Will said, digging his phone out of his pocket presumably to YouTube it.

“It’s about your mother,” Mulder said, “Especially the lyric: she’s tidied up and I can’t find anything.”

“Mulder, I want a divorce,” Scully said from somewhere under Mulder’s chin.

“We’re not married, Scully.”

She pulled her head back from his coat and looked up at him, “Fox William Mulder, will you marry me?”

“Sure,” he grinned, running his thumb along her chin.

“Ok,” she said, pressing herself back into his chest again. Then, “Mulder—?”

“Yeah, Scully?”

“I want a divorce.”

The gray sky opened up over the undulating crowd.  If anyone looked up, they’d drown.  

“She looks — ” Will said, standing next to his father backstage, watching his mother at the podium.

“Brilliant? Amazing? Powerful? Divine?” Mulder finished.

Will snorted, “I was gonna say scared shitless.”

Though her voice was steady and clear, from his vantage point Mulder could see what the audience could not: how Scully was anxiously lifting and lowering her stockinged foot from her sleek high heel, running the front of her toes along the back of her calf.

God, he was proud of her. God, he loved her.

“. . .to shed light on what has typically been sequestered away to labs and libraries and lecture halls. To put on full display the humanity that has for centuries stoked the fire of scientific inquiry, refined it, rejoiced in its revelations and more often, endured the frustrations of its arcanum.”

She looked up from her notes, then, and not out at the audience — but to her right, to him and to their son. The next words she spoke, he understood, she had not written for the masses, or for history — but for them.

“The truth exists whether we believe it or not. It endures even the most violent scrutiny and ruthless persecution. As we persist in seeking it, may we find solace in knowing that there is no person, no institution, no government, with jurisdiction over it. It can be suppressed, hidden, censored, altered or misappropriated, refuted and denied,” she paused, looking back to her audience who waited on baited breath, “What those who try to manipulate it beyond recognition, who try to eradicate it and replace it with calculated imitations, fail to recognize is that when all of those measures fail – and they will fail — what remains is the purest specimen of truth.”

She looks back at Mulder, then. At their son. And she smiles, “And it is those of us who want to believe such a truth can be revealed to us who will one day find it, and bring it into the light.”

#xfficchallenges #xf fanfic #xfchallenge #leiascully #The X-Files #X-Files #XFiles #TheXFiles #The X Files #Mulder #Scully #Mulder and Scully #Mulder & Scully #MSR #Gillian Anderson #David Duchovny #OTP #OTP: my one in five billion #OTP: moose and squirrel #moose and squirrel #xphiles #william scully #au #science march au #is that a thing

[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Calling Bluffs

Post-ep for Pine Bluff Variant, with heavy doses of Redux II/season 5

This is for @whatfallsaway and @damselindistressmya who wanted a PBV post-ep, and also for @xfficchallenges as an entry for “The Fic You Never Write.” I have been writing a large amount of fluff and smut over the past few months, and not nearly as much USTy angst. And I don’t think I’ve ever written an MSR fight, so, here ya go.

Rated R: for language and a lot of talk about death

“Mulder, what happened?”

“Forget about it, Scully.”

“What did they do to you?” Her voice softens.

“I said, forget about it.” Mulder doesn’t turn his head, just grips the steering wheel tighter and navigates them through the crush of flashing cop cars and barricades around the bank. “You can read the report.” He tosses that last sentence at her like discarded evidence, the sharpness of his tone conveying just how little he wants to discuss the past few days with her.

Scully purses her lips and turns toward the passenger window.

“You should have let me drive,” she counters after a few minutes of silence. “Your hand…”.

“I’m fine.”

Anger and frustration radiate off him in waves, choking the small cabin of the fleet sedan. His hand taps frantically against the wheel at a light that won’t turn. And moments later he smacks his palm violently against the dash.

“Goddammit!” Mulder yells at nothing in particular. “Those bastards! Those smug bastards and their tests. Their lies!”

“Mulder, you have to calm down!” Scully exclaims. “Despite what I said about this toxin coming from our labs, we don’t know anything for sure.”

“Scully, you know this was an inside job! You heard what that man said. They’re cleaning everything up, making everything go away. Sound familiar?”

She swallows slowly, the locus of his anger becoming clearer. They’re here yet again, staring at the mounting evidence of the evils the government is capable of, the level of deception it can achieve.

Her cancer, specifically her recovery, had confirmed for him the falseness of his own memories, about Samantha, about her abduction, about everything -- his worldview left in tatters. This is why the Spartans chose him in the first place, for the doubts he aired in public.

So he has me back, Scully had thought a number of times since her final days in the hospital, but at the cost of his beliefs. Sometimes she catches him looking at her like the exchange has not been worth it.

“We’ll have to prove it,” she ventures quietly.

Mulder snorts in exasperation and rolls his eyes.

“And he’s right,” Scully continues. “What can we do with this information anyway? How does sharing this make anyone safer? How does the truth matter if it’s not going to help bring about justice?”

“Scully, how can you say that?!” Mulder erupts in response, the tires squealing as he jerks the car toward the curb and throws it into park. “And that’s certainly not what you said in front of Skinner!”

“All I mean is,” Scully turns toward him, the seatbelt strap cutting uncomfortably into the side of her neck, “his methods are abhorrent, but he’s not wrong. There are some truths that might do more harm than good. We’re not the ones who get to decide what’s best for the public, are we?”

Mulder’s face reddens and he bites his lip so hard the color drains from it.

“Get out of the car, Scully.” His tone is measured, holding back a torrent.

“What the hell, Mulder!” She exclaims, “I’m just saying…”.

“Get. Out. Of. The. Car.” He breathes through his teeth. “Before I do something I’ll regret.”

Scully stares at him, his widened eyes, the angry set of his jaw, the clench of his fists. Then she reaches beside her and pulls the handle, not moving her gaze from his. As she opens the door, he gives a stiff nod. She pauses, waiting for some sign of de-escalation and then she unbuckles the belt and swings her legs out onto the curb.

“I’ll call you.” She throws the words over her shoulder as the door slams behind her. She thinks she hears him mutter, “don’t bother” as he swings out into traffic to the sound of honking where he’s cut someone off.

Scully is stunned and watches him squeal away, her mouth half open. In the thousand arguments they’ve had over the years, he’s never made her get out of the car before. She thrusts her hands angrily into her coat pockets, searching for her phone to call a cab.

She jabs a few numbers on the keypad, but she’s too distracted to remember who she’s trying to call. The Hoover building isn’t far. She needs to walk. She needs airspace away from Mulder’s anger and frustration.

She doesn’t know at what point the word truth became their weapon. It used to be their mantra, their common cause. But lately they swing it at each other like a bludgeon, daring the other to duck, letting the force of accusations sting.

She wonders how much she even knows him anymore. There had been moments just a few months ago, lying in her hospital bed when she felt every wall between them melting away, when she could just think a thought, let it glimmer in her eyes and he could look at her and know. She remembers the warm scruff of his cheek against her pale skin when he had bent to kiss hers, the warmth of his desperate breaths against her cold hands on nights when he had come to sit with her.

Most of all, she treasures the softness of his face on the day she had called him into her room and told him she was cured. His eyes had brimmed with tears, as had hers, and he had rushed to hug her, gathering her against him with a ferocity that had taken her breath away. When he had pulled away, grasping her hands in his, she saw the storm behind his eyes dissipating as if her own life were a burst of sun burning off a bank of cloud.

Everything vibrating between them seemed self-evident by then -- the nurses had long since stopped asking if he was family or bothering about what right he had to visit after hours. Then Father McHugh had arrived with her mother as Mulder sat there on her bed, their expressions making promises that neither of them had since put action to.

But he hasn’t looked at her like that in months.

Whatever emotions he had felt at her recovery, they’ve long since been consumed by his disillusions. Deep down she knows in moments like this one -- when he’s left her standing on a curb, when he has gone behind her back, when he has doubted the memories she uncovered by hypnosis -- it’s not that he is angry at her. He is angry at the larger forces beyond his control. It’s just easier for him to vent at her because she’s right in front of him, countering him, challenging him. She knows this, but today it stings more intensely than it has all year.

How could he possibly have thought I wouldn’t know he was lying? she thinks, angry for not the first time that week that he’d gone along with Skinner’s advice to keep her in the dark about his undercover role. They have been able to read each other, easily, from the very beginning. He knows that. He can’t have imagined she wouldn’t catch on to his bluff. But this is where they are now. He is doing what he can to push her away.

She is walking faster now, the Washington streets a blurry backdrop to her strident gait. She’s walking as if she can out-walk the chasm yawning between them, as if she walks fast enough, she can leap it and find themselves back on the same side. She walks through the front entrance of the Hoover building and winds her way down to their offices, half-expecting him to be there, feet propped up on the desk, chewing a pencil and ready to dive into another case. That’s how it so often is with him -- sharp words one day, and an unquestioning acceptance of her the next.

But the office is dark except for a patch of light cast by her desk lamp. She gathers a few personal things, her car keys and a stack of files about the Pine Bluff labs. There she sees a hastily scrawled post-it stuck to the back of her chair. “S -- I just need some time -- M.”

So in his haste, he had beaten her back to the office, gathered his things and cleared out. She rips the post-it off the chair with more force than necessary and swats at the push-button light switch on the desk lamp. It clicks off and leaves her alone in the dark, the thump of her heartbeat still hurried by the pace of her walk.

She doesn’t see him for 4 days.

He’s allotted a some personal leave due to his involvement in what the report simply lists as “a stressful and traumatic situation.” Then it’s the weekend and her phone still hasn’t rung. Despite saying she’d call him, she hasn’t, taking his post-it non-apology as a request for radio silence. Her fingers have itched constantly with the urge to press speed dial. Calling him is a reflex, one she didn’t know was so potent until going cold turkey.

Skinner has been vague about what happened to Mulder, and she’s not even sure Skinner knows the whole story. The parts of the report detailing his time with the Spartans are almost immediately classified or stricken from record, leaving only her own bare-bones understanding of his involvement. Knowing what they did to his finger, and watching the surveillance tapes of the bank heist, she imagines the worst. Humiliation and hazing rituals and any other number of unsavory details she would rather not know. Her stomach had turned over on itself at the sight of him brandishing a weapon at the civilians in the bank. She imagines things he doesn’t want to tell her. She doesn’t sleep well.

Sunday night she begins to wonder whether she’ll show up Monday morning to a vacant office and a resignation letter. She’s washing up dishes and setting out clothes for the morning when she hears the knock on her door.

In the time it takes her to wipe her dishwater hands on a towel, she feels herself move from relief at the realization he’s come to make amends to a suddenly searing hot anger at the presumption that she’ll just dutifully open the door and let him back in. She’s spent the four days wishing he’d talk to her, and now she is right back on that curb, furious at how he pushed her away.

These de’tentes always come on his terms. Because you let him, her brain taunts her. She makes a determined pace toward the door. He knocks again.

“Scully, it’s me. Open up.”

The way he’s demanding stokes her resolve. She cracks the door, the security chain hanging between them as if demarking a military no-fly zone.

“What is it, Mulder?” She answers, letting her annoyance coat every word.

“Scully, let me in.” He pushes against the door with his shoulder, oblivious to the chain in the lock.

“Mulder, it’s late. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” She moves to shut him out, both wanting to wound him and wanting him to try harder, but he wedges his heel between the door and the doorframe.

“Scully, don’t be ridiculous.” He sighs exasperated, pushing further into the sliver of apartment his toe can access. “We need to talk.”

“I’m not the ridiculous one, Mulder!” She exclaims. “I’m not the one who made you get out of a car on the side of some random road! I’m not the one who left some stupid post-it note on your chair and didn’t call for four days! I’m not the one who took an undercover assignment and didn’t tell you about it, who made you look stupid in front of a joint task force, who…”.

“You’re right.” He cuts her off just as her momentum gets going, as she begins to dig deeper into the deep well of slights and injuries built up over the past few months. “You’re right,” he says again with a sigh, “that was me.”

She looks at him, her mouth still open with all the things she wants to throw back in his face, but she hadn’t expected him to cave so quickly.

“I’m sorry.” He can’t quite look at her. “Please just let me in?”

She steps back from the door and slides the chain from its groove and he quickly angles his way in before she can change her mind. Scully doesn’t move toward the couch or even the kitchen. She stands still in the entryway, her arms crossed, waiting.

Mulder opens his mouth and swallows a few times, trying to figure out where to start, what the best way of disarming might be. He looks at her slowly, catching the combination of worry and anger in her eyes.

“You asked me what happened,” he begins.

“What happened?”

“I had a gun to the back of my neck.” He tries to control his breathing, but the memory of that moment, his hands helpless behind him, raises his blood pressure and his words come out quickly. “They took me out behind this tattered warehouse and forced me down into the dirt.”

Scully’s eyes flare in concern, but her arms stay crossed.

“They had proof I was crossing them.” Mulder gulps. “A recording from my apartment the night you were there. They had me under surveillance. They heard everything.”

“How - ?” Scully reaches a hand toward him.

“How did I get away?” Mulder finishes her thought for her. “Bremer let me go. I don’t know why. I think he’s deep cover or something.” Mulder shakes his head, the adrenaline from the memory still flooding him. “I thought for sure that was it. That after all this time, everything I’ve done, some stupid thug would put a bullet through my head.”

Scully nods, her features softened now by the distress in his voice.

“The worst part was, I wasn’t even surprised. It felt fitting.” He is rambling now and she loosens, moving toward the kitchen, letting him talk as he follows her in. “It was so depressing. If I’d have had to guess what my last thoughts would be, I would have guessed them to be much more poignant than they were, you know.”  

Scully fills a kettle with water and turns on the gas flame, pulling mugs off their hooks over the stove. “You think it’s going to be all regrets or worries about the chances you didn’t take or your failures.” Mulder paces a little around her table, pausing to grip the top of her chairs as he shifts into stream-of-consciousness, the way he sometimes does when he’s unspooling the evidence for one of his cases. “In reality, it’s much simpler. More selfish.” He grimaces. “All I could think about was, how much will this hurt? Will I know I’m dead before I die? Will my last image be of this shit-pile? I was too terrified to even get angry.” He stops moving and takes a long breath.

“Do you know what it’s like to know for certain you’re going to die?” He looks at her with a deep gravity in his eyes.

Scully nods slightly, and says in a low voice, “Yes.” She pauses, fixing him in her gaze. “I do.”

Mulder’s eyes flutter closed and he shakes his head. “Shit. Of course you do. God…” he trails off. She can see the self-loathing settling over him as he realizes she had been right where he had, staring not down the barrel of a gun, but the long march of incurable cancer. “God, Scully, I’m sorry. I never even asked you…”.

“It’s okay, Mulder.” She shakes her head. “It’s okay. I don’t think I would have known how to talk about it anyway.”

“But I should have asked,” he says. “I should have at least tried to listen.”

“You’re right though.” She doesn’t look at him as she rips open the tea bags and drops them into the cups. “At the end, there wasn’t much more than the pain. And fear.”

Mulder moves toward her and leans against the counter across from the stove.

“I remember wishing I were a better person. That my faith would have been stronger than my animal brain, that it would have steadied me more.” She pours the steaming water over the tea bags. “But underneath, that’s who we all are, you know?” She looks up at him and hands him a cup. “We’re bodies clawing for self-preservation. Everything else falls by the wayside.”

Mulder nods again and blows ripples across the surface of his tea. “I remember the strangest things,” he says. “Like, they walked me through these sheets of torn plastic. I remember thinking, they look like long flapping angel wings.”

Scully curves her hands around her mug and stares at a spot somewhere behind him. “I remember the color of my hospital gown. It reminded me of this old plastic nativity set we had growing up. The Mary doll wore this robe, it was the exact same color, aquamarine or something.” Mulder nods. “It was the strangest thing to remember. Like, why would my mind make that connection then?”

She looks up at Mulder who has grown quiet. “Mulder, why are you here?”

“I’m sorry, Scully,” he begins. “I’m sorry I made you get out of the car.”

“Okay,” she says lowly.

“I wasn’t ready to talk. I was angry at all of it, the way we’d been played, the way they’d treated those lives -- my life -- like collateral. It was just a reminder…”.

“A reminder that we still don’t know who’s behind all this,” Scully finishes for him.

“I was going to say, a reminder that I don’t know what I believe anymore.” He looks away, slumping into a familiar posture of defeat.

Scully reaches out a hand and smoothes her palm back and forth over his forearm. “We’ll figure it out. I believe we will.” She tries to sound reassuring, but it comes out flat.

Mulder sighs and settles a hand on top of hers. “Scully, your belief in me is all I have left.” He looks at her with pain in his eyes. “But I confided in you so easily, it almost got me killed.”

Scully nods, comprehending a little more now what is bothering him. This thing between them is a liability. Whatever it means or doesn’t, their entanglement put him at risk.

“But I need you.” He squeezes her hand and then reaches to brush a tendril of hair behind her left ear, letting his warm hand linger against her neck. She sets down her tea and leans into him, wrapping her arms beneath the coat he’s still wearing, pressing her cheek against his chest. She lets out a long breath.

“I know.” She whispers.

Mulder rests his chin on the top of her head and runs his hands along her hair before tightening their embrace. Neither of them say anything for long minutes until Scully feels lulled by the steady rhythm of his pulse in her ear. She pulls back and looks up at him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” She questions with a slight smile.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Mulder smiles back.

“What’ll it be this time,” she teases. “Bigfoot? Nessie? Or some other monster of the deep?”

“I guess you’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” he grins, their equilibrium reestablishing itself in their banter.  “Thanks for the tea.” He knows their familiar dance and moves toward the door to make his exit.

“Anytime.”

When he’s gone and Scully turns back to her empty apartment, she feels the chasm between them receding. She thinks about what she didn’t tell him of her thoughts those last days in the hospital, the thoughts she had time to ponder in those moments before she was discharged, after her mother and Father McHugh had left her and the memory of Mulder’s weight titling the side of her bed brought a flush to her face. She didn’t tell him about how, once the fear settles down and the animal brain is quiet, what you’re left with is a visceral clarity. She had known she’d have died loving him, known it would have been his face she would see her last moments, known without a doubt that he felt the same.

Out in his car on the drive home, Mulder thinks too. He hadn’t told her everything either. He hadn’t told her how it’s not until after you get away, the gun smoke clearing from the chill air, the blood in your chest propelling you over the ridge and into the getaway car, that your mind catches up with your body. How it’s afterwards you think the thoughts you thought you would, the ones about devotion and regret, the ones about apology. The ones about love.

#xfficchallenges #post-ep #Pine Bluff Variant #xf fic #xf fanfic #x files fanfic #mywriting

[greekowl87]

Fic: Flowers

Disclaimer: The usual, I own nothing, merely borrowing. Obviously, I don’t own the dialogue of ‘Memento Mori’

A/N: I think there was a challenge awhile back by @leiascully or @xfficchallenges about ‘May’.And I attempted it. While not a 100 percent sure I have the right challenge, I wrote something. This is it. Transcript help here.

Flowers. It began with flowers. Something about April showers brings May flowers. New life and rebirth after the dead of winter.

He remembered getting her call. He didn't remember what he had been doing though. He just remembered getting her call.

Mulder, it's me. I need to talk to you. It can't wait. Can you get here in the next hour? No. I'm not dying. I just... Mulder, please just get here quickly. You're the only one I've called about this.

He closed his eyes as he sat in his car and pulled the keys out the ignition.

No. I'm not dying.

Those words ringed in his ears.

Just like that. I'm fine, Mulder.

Mulder's hunches were never wrong. Almost never. But he had a hunch that something was wrong. Very wrong. He looked at the poor excuse of flowers he bought at a 24-hour pharmacy. Why did he bring her flowers? Flowers was something you brought for happy occasions like a celebration. Or a funeral. He closed his eyes tightly. Scully wasn't dying. The thought without her in his life terrified him. He did not want to even fathom it.

Four years ago she had marched into his life, on orders, to debunk his life's work. He thought she was a spy. But she was so much more.

Did he love her?

He opened his eyes and closed them again, pinching the bridge of his nose. Not now, he groaned inwardly. Scully needed him. He remembered her message.

You're the only one I've called--

He sighed and grabbed the poor excuse of a bouquet of flowers. He locked the car and squared his shoulders. He could do this. He had to do this. Finding his way through the hospital was not hard. He had been in a thousand before. All he had to do was flash is his badge and say Scully's name. But it probably looked weird carrying the flowers.

Oncology.

He hesitated at the door. Cancer. Cancer. His mind raced. Scully had cancer. He thought of the stereotypical cancer patient, frail, weak, and hairless. No. His Scully was stronger than that. Stronger than him. He took a deep breath. Pushing the double doors open he followed the room numbers to where Scully was. The flowers were clutched tightly in his hand and decided at the last minute to put it behind his back but hesitated at the last moment.

"Scully? I uh, stole these from some guy with a broken leg down the hall. He uh, won't be able to catch me." He paused, looking beyond her at the x-rays illuminated against the wall. "How ya doing?"

"I guess that's the question. Actually, I feel fine."

Fine. That damn word. That damn adverb.

"What uh, what exactly are we looking at here?"

He resisted the temptation to touch the x-ray and then her face as if confirming the inevitable truth.

"It's what's called nasopharengeal mass. It's a small growth between the superior conchea and the sinoidal sinus."

Medical terms. He inwardly cringed. She was on the defensive.

"A growth?"

"A tumor. You're the only one I've called."

Tumor. He was the only one she called. He resisted touching her again against the cheek bone, almost wishing the tumor away. He cast a brief glance at the flowers; May flowers bring life...April rain. She had to live through this. There had to be a way.

"Is it operable?"

"No."

"But it's treatable."

"The truth is that the type and placement of the tumor make it difficult, to the extreme."

He felt his hope crumbling.

"I refuse to believe that, I.."

"For all times I have said that to you I am as certain of this as you have ever been. I have cancer. It is a mass on the wall between my sinus and cerebrum. If it pushes into my brain statistically there is about zero chance of survival."

Zero chance.

"I don't accept that. Th..there must be some people who have received treatment for this, we..can...."

"Yes, there are."

He didn't remember the last few moments after that until they exited the room. She clutched the flowers in her left hand. They walked in sync with each other, honed after four years of practice. Scully paused briefly as if trying to disguise something wrong, but she grasped his free hand and held tightly with her right hand. The event did not go unnoticed. She looked at her heels, then the flowers, and then Mulder himself.

"I'm glad you're here, Mulder. Thank you."

Mulder squeezed her hand before pulling her into a tight embrace. "I'm always here for you, Scully," he breathed.

She relaxed briefly against him, accepting the hug. Mulder's eyes flickered to the flowers in her hands.

April rains bring May flowers. He only hoped his flowers kept her alive for one more day.

#xfficchallenges #leiascully #cancer arc #pre cancer arc #xfiles #xffic #msr #mulder #scully #may #this got depressing

[babyphilewriter]

Nighttime Routine

This is my entry for the @xfficchallenges "fic you'd never write" challenge. I am pretty new to the world of fanfic but so far i have tried quite a few different types of fics (you can check put my Ao3 account to see everything ive written). One thing I never thought I'd try though is a William AU fic, so here you go! It is pure family fluff with a little side of msr smut... Scully stood hidden in the doorway watching, as she did every night. Mulder was seated in William’s bed, his legs dangling off the end and his arm wrapped around his son’s small body. William’s head was laid on Mulder’s chest and his eyes never left his father’s as he talked. Mulder tried to tell Will a new story each night but almost every night Will requested the same story about the Frankenstein-like creature known as the Great Mutato, who just wanted to find love. Even though Mulder told his young son the same story every night, he made sure to make small variations but he kept the voices of the main characters, the Mutato and Agents Moldy and Scullbag, the same. And every night Scully had to stop herself from laughing at Mulder’s silly voices, so she did not blow her cover. Tonight, instead of ending the story as Mulder usually did, with The Great Mutato dancing on stage with Cher and the crowd going wild, he gave it a more romantic flair. He ended it with Agent Moldy asking Agent Scullbag for a dance and them sharing a kiss as “Walking in Memphis” played in the background. Will let out a small “yuck” at this new ending but Mulder just smiled and lightly shushed his son, while Scully beamed from her hiding spot. Mulder slowly got up from Will’s bed to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight and Scully retreated from the doorway. She knew that Mulder would go out into the living room to find Scully and ask her to go say goodnight to their child, and Scully had to pretend to be sitting on the couch reading. Their nighttime routine was Scully’s favorite part of her day. Whenever she was feeling down at work she would think about the look of pure fascination on her son’s face as he listened and Mulder’s pure joy as he would tell his son a bedtime story. Scully had spent so many years thinking that her dream of having a family was over and she had even come to except it. But now that it was a reality she swore to herself that she would never ever take it for granted. Even after five years of perfect familial bliss, the thought of Mulder as a father still could bring tears to Scully’s eyes, and she hoped that feeling would never cease. Scully had just made it to the couch and opened her book as Mulder walked out of Will’s room. He walked behind the couch and wrapped his arms around Scully, placing a kiss on her head. “Will’s ready for his bedtime kiss.” Mulder whispered in Scully’s ear. Scully slowly put her book away and got up from the couch. She hugged Mulder and gave him a quick kiss before heading into Will’s room to wish him goodnight. He had been having a bit of trouble sleeping lately but both Scully and Mulder didn’t mind that he almost always ended up in their bed by morning. Luckily, they had bought a king bed and Will was still small and young enough that he did not take up too much space. Scully returned to the living room, surprised to find Mulder nowhere. The next part of their nighttime routine was always that they would cuddle on the couch and watch their favorite show, Dexter, and Mulder was always ready and waiting when Scully returned. Scully figured that Mulder had maybe run to the bathroom but when he didn’t return after a few minutes, Scully decided to go investigate. She checked, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the office but he was nowhere to be found until she finally checked their bedroom. There, sprawled out on their bed, wearing nothing but his favorite pair of UFO boxers, was Mulder. Scully burst out laughing, “Mulder, what the hell are you doing?” “I am wooing my wife.” “Mulder, we’re not married.” “Oh right, I forget that we’ve just been living in sin for the last decade.” “You really think your UFO boxers are the way to my heart?” “Well, yeah, but I also wanted to make you laugh.” “Fine, you win.” Scully joined Mulder on the bed and placed a passionate kiss on his mouth. She then began working her way down his body, kissing his neck, torso, stomach, and down to just above his ridiculous boxers. She could clearly see how hard he already was, a sight that never ceased to impress her. Scully was just about to dig in when a couple of thoughts interrupted her desire, “Mulder we’re gonna miss Dexter! And also, what if Will comes in?” “Well Scully, thanks to the wonders of technology I am recording Dexter and I’ve timed it and Will always waits at least 20 minutes after we put him to bed before coming out to find us.” There was a slight pause as Scully thought about Mulder’s response, “So, c’mon G-woman, let’s get it on!” Mulder slightly thrust his hips up towards Scully as he spoke and she decided to give in. Scully pulled Mulder’s boxers off and took his dick in her hands. She spent a couple glorious minutes giving the love of her life a blowjob before Mulder insisted that she “get inside of him, now.” So, Scully moved back up on the bed and gave Mulder a few more kissed before she got on top of him and slowly sank down onto his length. The one downside to the family and nighttime routine that Scully loved was that sex was almost never included in it. Scully would never give up her steady life to go back to fucking Mulder in their basement office every day but she did terribly miss the physical intimacy in their relationship that was always so perfect. Scully couldn’t even remember exactly the last time they had had sex but she knew it must have been awhile based on how tight she was. Yet it wasn’t long before she was once again accustomed to Mulder’s size and she began thrusting him harder and harder into her. She could never ever get tired of this; Mulder’s soft grunts, the warmth of his entire body, the smell of their arousal, and the vibrations she felt all over, every time Mulder’s dick hit just the right spot. Scully tried to make it last for as long as possible but eventually it became too much and her world burst with Mulder right behind her. Once the sensations ceased Scully curled up beside Mulder, the two of them allowing their breaths to return to normal. Scully was the one to finally break the silence, “Mulder, maybe we could add this into our nighttime routine.” “We could, but I know how you like to be in bed by exactly 11” “I’d be okay with pushing it towards 11:30, would you?” “That would be very okay with me.” “Hey, Mulder?” “Yes.” “Are you okay with the fact that we’ve become those people with strict routines?” “I love our routines. “You do?” “Yeah, I really do.” “Which one’s your favorite.” “Our nighttime routine.” “Me too. Especially now that we’ve added this new component. But you do know that the UFO boxers don’t have to stay.” “The UFO boxers definitely have to stay.” Mulder ended their discussion with one final kiss before they got dressed in their pajamas and headed out to the living room to watch Dexter. Ten minutes later Will came out from his room and cuddled in between his parents on the couch. When Mulder and Scully were done watching TV, Mulder picked up the sleeping Will and took him back to bed. The next morning Scully awoke to find Will squished in between herself and Mulder. In just a couple minutes their alarm would sound and the day would begin. Scully somehow always managed to wake up a few minutes early and enjoyed staring at her boys as they slept peacefully. If there was anything that came close to Scully’s joy for her nighttime routine, it was these few minutes in the morning. Just another small piece of her new quiet life that Scully knew she would never ever take for granted.

#xfficchallenges #txf fanfic #i wrote a thing #family fluff #msr smut

[baronessblixen]

Here’s my “shopping” fic for the @xfficchallenges challenge! Set after “The Goldberg Variation”.

Also tagging @today-in-fic

Ready

Mulder has never put much thought into grocery shopping. In and out in under twenty minutes, buying whatever he could grab the quickest and happy as long as he had orange juice and sunflower seeds. That’s him. Until today, that is. He’s standing in the produce department, leaning over his cart, staring at Scully. Yes, they’re grocery shopping. Together. Sharing a cart and all. What are the odds of that?

They got back from their latest case in Chicago where they left one Henry Weems to his luck. Their own running out, he thought, as they didn’t get to sit next to each other on the plane. They found each other after, Scully rubbing her eyes tiredly and Mulder wondering whether she’d used a stranger’s shoulder as a pillow. 

She didn’t have her car and so he offered her a ride. Good partner that he is. Until she remembered that she needed to go grocery shopping. Right now? Yes, right now. That is why he’s in the produce department, between the carrots and the apples, one half of a pair.

Scully is squeezing the tomatoes, scrutinizing them. He’s never seen her like this, in a grocery store. What an odd, strangely intimate moment to observe. He’s seen her naked, scared and hurt, but seeing her bagging tomatoes and licking her lips while doing so is a sight he’s unaccustomed to and wildly unprepared for. As if noticing his stares, Scully turns to him and carefully puts the bag of tomatoes in the cart. Their cart.

“You have to check them,” she says, giving him a side glance, “for ripeness.” She wanders off, knowing he will follow. As he does, one wheel spinning wildly, squeaking madly, he can’t help but wonder one thing:

Are they - him and Scully - ripe, too?

They make it through the aisles, a maze built out of products, barely speaking a word. From the outside, they must look like they do this every week. Exhausted couple goes grocery shopping before the weekend. Mulder looks around, sees other men like him, women like Scully, variations of them both. But are they a couple? Is this why he’s here? 

“Don’t you need anything?” Scully asks him as she puts a bag of flour into the cart. He stares into it, sees the small empty corner that he figures must be reserved for his purchases.

“Uhm,” he says, staring at the shelves. What is he supposed to do with flour? He briefly considers buying a bag anyway, just to make Scully happy, but decides against it. They move on, Scully occasionally stopping to load their cart. Mulder makes eye-contact with a father of two small children, who fight over what cereal to buy. He gives him a small nod in acknowledgment and grabs a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for himself.

“Look,” he says to Scully, “I’m buying something.” He half expects her to give him a lecture about how cereal is just sugar and wheat, both of which are not good for him. Instead, she gives him a smile and says, “we need milk.”

We.

Not “you need milk”, not “I need milk”. It’s “we need milk”. Mulder quickly glances around, looking for witnesses. Did anyone else hear her say it? She said “we”! In his euphoria, he almost loses Scully. He quickly makes his way through the aisle, wanting to catch up with her. His cart crashes into someone else’s and he gets a dirty look. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the fact that they need milk.

He’s beginning to think they are as a ripe as the tomatoes Scully bought. Or even overripe.

Scully buys rice, pasta, yogurt and all kinds of reasonable food Mulder hasn’t had in his cupboards for years. If ever. He buys eggs and fresh orange juice, his purchases slowly tipping over to her side of the cart. Scully hands him two bags of sunflower seeds and he takes them from her, his fingers brushing hers in a silent thank you.

He’s lost all sense of time and space. They’re closer to the exit now – he thinks. Only a few aisles remain. Scully dashes into one and he follows, staring at shelves of feminine hygiene products. They’ve come a long way from fruits and vegetables to tampons. Mulder moves on slowly and finds himself in front of condoms. He stares at the colorful selection in front of him. Blue, green, yellow – condoms that glow. It’s been a long time since he’s had to even think about buying a box of condoms. 

“Mulder?”

“Hm?” Scully is next to him, her eyes darting between him and the condom selection.

“I’m done here,” she says, the words drawn out. “Do you need… these?” He can’t look at her. She’s pointing at one of the boxes that reads “x-tra large”, waiting for his answer. 

“Do I need these?” He parrots back and dares to look at her. Now he definitely feels like a tomato. Ripe or not, he knows they’re a matching color. 

“How would I-,” but she stops herself. They’re almost there. He can hear the incessant beep-beep of the checkout counter. “You don’t need them,” she says, meeting his eyes.

“I don’t.” 

Scully shakes her head. “Unless you have plans this weekend that don’t include me.”

“No plans,” he interrupts her. “No plans other than… this.” He makes a hand gesture towards the shopping cart. He can no longer say which items are hers and which are his. He’s beginning to realize that Scully never planned to keep them apart. They’ve been inching towards the inevitable since New Year’s Eve and his half-drugged, tender kiss. Maybe even before that. Ripe, he thinks again. They really are.

“Then we don’t need them.” The “we” is back and he likes this “we” - and its implications -  even better. 

“Or we could try out the glowing ones.” He beams at her. Not because of his joke. Well, not entirely. It’s because he understands now. He gets to go home with her. He gets to be with her. In every way. 

"Maybe next time,” she says. “Ready?”

“I am,” he says, swallowing hard. Scully puts her hand on the cart next to his. They push it towards the checkout together, their pinkies touching in a gentle promise.

#xfficchallenges #i wrote this! #it is DONE #not exactly the way i wanted it #but i still like it okay #hope you guys like! #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic

[leiascully]

Fic:  April 25th Is The Perfect Date

For the Fic Is Medicine Challenge prompt “Mulder keeps trying to ask Scully out on a date”.

They emerged from the airport frowsy and rumpled, squinting into the gold sunset.  Mulder jerked his chin toward the parking.  “Come on.  I drove.  I’ll take you home.”

“Mulder, you don’t have to drive all the way to Maryland,” Scully protested.  “I’ll just get a cab.”

They looked at the line.  Scully looked back at Mulder.  “Maybe you could drop me in the city.”

Their bags rattled on the asphalt as the wheels caught.  Mulder put them both in his trunk.  They climbed into his car, the familiarity of it tempered by the unease of transit.  The couch: that would be where they truly landed.

“Dinner?” Mulder suggested.  “I know a great little Cuban place.”

“I have some frozen meals,” she said absently, looking out the window.  “I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said, and cracked a sunflower seed.  

+ + + + 

“Hey, Scully, I got tickets to the football game and Danny can’t make it,” he said, waving two slender pieces of paper in her face.  “What do you say?  America’s favorite game?”

“That’s baseball,” she said absently, tapping away at the keyboard.  “And thank you, but no.  I need to finish this report.”

“Game’s not until tomorrow,” he said.

“Maybe next time,” she told him.  “My new issue of JAMA came in and there’s an article I’m really interested in.  Plus, my sister is coming to town.  Maybe Pendrell would want to go?  Or Skinner?”

“Hah,” Mulder said.  “Next time.”

+ + + +

“Baseball tickets,” he said.  “You.  Me.  Hot dogs.  Beer.  And before you ask, no, neither of the teams have a racial slur in their name.”  

“That’s a relief,” she said.  “But I really need to clean my apartment this weekend.”

He stared at her.  “Baseball, Scully.  America’s favorite game, actually.  The sport of kings.”

“That’s horse racing.”

“I promise it’ll be more fun than scrubbing your bathtub,” he said.

“Unless you’re offering to scrub my bathtub, I can’t make it,” she said.  “And I hope that’s not a euphemism.”

“My euphemisms are better than that,” he said, affronted.

+ + + +

Concert tickets to the symphony, courtesy of his friend in the Senate.  Dinner.  Drinks.  The new niche film.  The summer blockbuster.  The art gallery.  Every time, she turned him down with an absent smile.  Scully would go with him to the most ridiculous places, but it was never anything he could call a date.  There was always some kind of link to work, some plausible deniability.

“She’s too smart for you,” Frohike said.

“I know,” Mulder told him ruefully.

“Maybe you should just let her know how you feel?” Byers suggested.

“Ugh,” Langly said.  “Or not.”

“Thank you, boys,” Mulder said, scraping his fork through the remains of a plate of huevos rancheros.  “Very helpful.”

+ + + + 

Years later, when they were together, he pulled her close in the bed and nestled his cheek against her hair.

“Can you believe our first date was at the baseball field?” he murmured.

“That wasn’t our first date,” she told him.  

“What?” he said.  

“Mulder, we’ve been on hundreds of dates,” she said, rolling over in his arms and gazing at him.  “Diner dinners.  Midnight milkshakes where we didn’t even bother with two straws.  Every time we shared a piece of pie.  Not to mention that haunted house on Christmas.”

“That was all work,” he protested.

“There was clear intent,” she teased.  “I saw how you licked that whipped cream off the fork before you handed it to me.  It was clearly foreshadowing of your lingual abilities.”

“I am fluent in tongues,” he said smugly.

“Every blatantly unnecessary trip to the Smithsonian,” she continued.  “Every rendezvous by the Potomac under the cherry blossoms.  Every time you came over to my place and passed out watching a movie or staring at a photograph.”

“Hollywood,” he suggested.

“Well, by that time, it should have been obvious that it was a date,” she said, her hand sliding along his back.  “But yes, everything we did in Hollywood was a date.”

“A Skinner-approved date,” he said thoughtfully.

“A Skinner-mandated date,” she corrected, and they both looked at each other.

“Huh,” he said.  “I did not see that coming.”

“Apparently Skinner did,” she said.  

“That’s why he has the big office,” Mulder told her, nuzzling at her.

“We should have sex on his desk,” Scully said in a husky voice.  “After all, he is partially responsible for this situation.”

Mulder paused.  “I’m sure you didn’t actually mean that, but I’m into it anyway.”

“I knew you would be,” she said, and he pulled her on top of her as the conversation moved into a much more kinetic vocabulary.

#xfiles fic #the x-files fic #the xfiles fic #msr #xfficchallenges #my fic

[frangipanidownunder]

So you simply can't post a list of kiss prompts and expect me NOT to ask you for one. Do you not even KNOW me? Please consider a ficlet (or more!) for #11-Reunion kiss. But maybe pre-breakup. A reunion after being apart for some other reason? This could easily be combined with another kind of kiss - first, shy, etc. (And I am holding my breath for your maid/master AU!) Fic is Medicine Anon

A Lifetime Ago: Fic

Fat blossoms, serrated petals, marshmallow pink, weighted the branches on the tree in the courtyard of her block. Sun heated the top of her head, lifting the hair from her scalp, and the interior of the car smelled of warm leather and dust. Motes danced as she laid her jacket on the passenger seat. 

When Mulder got in, he moved the jacket. Of course. She’d become so used to driving alone. More dust sparkled in the shaft of sunlight that shot through the glass. A glitter welcome party. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, lost in the weird sense of the strange and familiar, the old and the new. He looked at her oddly. 

It made her blush, the intensity of his scrutiny. But the house looked pretty in the rearview mirror. Climbing vines over the fence, vivid green leaves bushy on the trees and shrubs. She could see a row of stakes just by the shed.

“Tomatoes?” she asked, nodding over her shoulder.

“Dirty Girl, Super Snow White and Ruby Gold.”

She drove over the gravel towards the road. “Sounds like one of those movies you used to watch.”

His chuckle was chesty, and she caught his full smile out the corner of her eye. He looked well. He looked good. He’d been looking better each time she’d seen him over the past few months, as though he’d turned some corner in his mind and life was no longer the bitter drag it had been. If tomato plants with exotic names were the key to this change, she’d take that over Prozac and desperate, begging midnight phone calls.

Years before she had loved those quiet, murmured conversations. When they meant connection, trust. But the FBI was a lifetime, a lost child and a break-up ago. Now, phone calls were made in office hours, more recently, she realised, when she was already on her way to see him.

“Where are we going again?” he asked, winding the window down and resting an elbow on the sill. “I admit I was surprised when you called. It kind of felt like you were asking me on a date.” He looked across at her and the fresh blast of air saved her from blushing again. “Is this a date?”

Chuffing, she fixed her eyes on the road. “When was the last time you went out, Mulder?”

“I go out,” he said, indignant. 

She snorted. “Running at three in the morning does not constitute going out.” 

“I’ve become friendly with the guy at the nursery.”

“Friendly?”

“Don’t give me that look. I can be friendly, Scully.” She remembered his friendly as either empathetic, nerdy or flirty.  “He orders heirloom produce for me, teaches me about companion plants and has a fascination for UFOs. Funny how life works out, huh?”

“Huh,” she said. Nerdy.

A colleague at the hospital had married at the winery last fall and Scully had been struck by the setting, the ambience. Now she looked around and saw its precise beauty, high vaulted ceiling, wide landscapes on the silvery walls, starched white linen, gold embossed menus, cut crystalware. It was over the top. God, she’d misjudged this. Why didn’t she just go for Clint’s Diner where the talking point was the font used to spell the name, so that the L and the I were joined to form what looked like a U. Asking for the cunt’s special was Mulder’s favourite joke.  Even the Italian bistro with the red and white checked plastic tablecloths and fake tealights in jam jars would have been a better choice.

“So it is a date,” he said, but behind his broad grin there was a look of trepidation. He went to hook his thumbs in his belt loops but he wasn’t wearing shitty jeans. Instead, his fist curled into his pants pocket and he stood, uncharacteristically insignificant, in the magnificent room.

Guilt flared in her chest. Mulder had been a recluse for years, pummelling his chest with his self-hatred and lacing all their interactions with accusations and blame, and now, because he was growing fucking tomatoes, she’d decided he could cope with a three-course degustation lunch and two glasses of Pinot Gris?“This is not what I…” But she was cut off by the Maitre D who swept over and checked the booking. “Dr Scully, yes, that’s right.” Why had she chosen that salutation when she called. It made it sound like a business lunch.

Their table was on the terrace under heavy-scented purple wisteria. The waiter unflapped serviettes like he was cracking a whip. He placed glasses, crockery and cutlery with the precision required for surgery. Mulder remained quiet the entire time, but regarded her, not the waiter. His expression softened when the waiter left and dappled light filtered over his skin.

“This is not what I expected, Scully. But it’s a step up from chilli dogs and Shiner Bock.”

Ugh. Now she was craving an evening on the couch watching him watching the game. “I’m sorry, Mulder. This feels all wrong.”

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward, sliding his hand over the table top, but careful to leave his fingers just an inch from hers. “It’s fine. I kind of love being wined and dined. It makes me feel special.” His fingers crept closer, close enough for her to see the white fleck on his left index nail, the light abrasion on his ring finger knuckle, close enough to remember what those elegant digits used to do to her.“As long as you don’t expect me to put out, Scully.” He grinned suddenly. “You should know up front that I’m not that easy.”

No, she thought, you’re not. We were never easy, you and me. She laughed at his joke anyway, his smile urged her to indulge him. The waiter brought the wine and Mulder sniffed, swirled and sipped it before giving it his approval. They chose entrees and mains and he chatted amiably, telling stories about the nursery dude and his collection of blurry photos of cigar-shaped crafts.

“I hadn’t the heart to tell him it was all BS, Scully. Why burst his bubble? He gets a lot of joy out of it.” Ah, empathy.

“And you get free seeds. Sounds like a fair exchange.”

He sat back, arms behind his head, before realising where he was and sitting upright, hands on his lap, much more respectable. “I’ve missed you,” he said, out of nowhere. “But this was nice. Unexpectedly so. A nice date, if I may be so bold as to describe it so, Doc.”

Flirty. She chuffed, cheeks aflame. The wine, she thought. It was always the wine. “It’s good to see you so relaxed, Mulder. It’s been a while.”

“Was I ever relaxed, Scully?” he asked, genuinely. “I look back now and see how tightly coiled I was. Have been.” His head bobbed down, but his eyes lifted to hers. “Am.”

The first time she visited him after she left, he was cowering under the kitchen table, shards of glass and ceramic scattered across the floor. He didn’t speak for an hour. She sat at a chair six feet away from him, listening to his tight sobs, watching his shoulders bunch, while she embraced her old friend, guilt.

“You’ve been through a lot, Mulder. We both have. It’s been a difficult…”

“Life?” he supplied.

“I was going to say time, but yeah. That too.” She laughed and so did he. His fingers edged forward again, touching hers this time. Heat sparked. He felt it too, he almost recoiled in shock, but pressed on, covering her hand with his. He clasped it gently, lifted it, nuzzled her knuckles, eyes closed so she could admire the length of his lashes and the furrow between his brows. A lifetime of pain in two creases. She had an urge to kiss them, run her tongue along the downy lines of them, taste his familiar skin.

“We should go,” she said, after a time. 

He held the door open for her and stooped inside the car, dazzling her with his smile. “Just remember, I don’t go all the way on first dates.”

“What about first base?” she said, after he’d already shut the door.

They drove back, listening to an 80s radio station that Mulder found with ease. He belted out Living on a Prayer and other big ballads, air guitar and all. She smiled all the way to the house. When she parked, Sinead O’Connor’s singular voice introduced Nothing Compares 2 U. She went to turn the radio off but he held her wrist.

“I love this song,” he said. “Prince’s masterful lyrics. And that video clip.”

“It was a powerful statement,” she replied and let his fingers curl around hers. 

“I really did enjoy this, Scully. Going out, you know, where people are…out there. It’s hard sometimes. I…don’t…I haven’t done it often because it feels like I’m a trespasser, that I don’t belong.”

“You never did. We never did, Mulder. We were always on the outer.”

“But with you,” he said, snugging her single hand in both of his. “I always felt braver in company.”

Heat spread in her chest, her heart pinged. She didn’t know what to say. Literally no words formed, despite her mouth falling open. Tears burnt at her eyes but she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. 

“What about that first base, Scully?” His smile was a little hopeful, a lot wobbly.

She nodded. He captured her open lips and closed them between his. It was strange and familiar, old and new again. Sparkles glittered behind her eyes, just like those dust motes. When was that? Just a few hours ago? Surely not. That glitter welcome party was a lifetime ago.

#txf fanfic #my fanfiction #xfficchallenges #challenge: social gathering #a lifetime ago #msr

[piecesofscully]

The Voicemail

Written for @xfficchallenges Dialogue Only Challenge.  

Timeline: Pre-Revival Rating: R Author: @piecesofscully A/N: Sorry in advance? And thank you to my beautiful baeta @kateyes224 for always making my words pretty, pushing me to continue that thought, and encouraging me with a lot of expletives to write this.

“...sent me to voicemail?  Shit.  Uh, hey.  Hey, Scully.  It’s me.  Uh, Mulder.  You probably knew that.  I mean, who else would be calling you at, um, it’s 3:07.  3:07 in the morning?  Does someone else call you at 3:07 in the morning?  Don’t answer that.  S’better than showing up at your door three sheets to the wind in the middle of the night.  Trousered, almost shit-faced, nearly tanked.

“Ha, remember the last time I did that, Scully?  Las’ time you called me out for being drunk.  I have a confession, Scully.  I was drunk.  So drunk, in fact, that the pretty little barmaid cut me off.  86 was my lucky number, she’d said.  Pay the tab, and call a cab.  It’s a good thing I’m home now, no tabs t’pay, no cabs that smell like the vomit from the last drink-  er, drunk guy.  

“Just an empty couch that still smells like that perfume I bought you three years ago...

“I told her one was the loneliest number, and ya know what?  Scully, you know what?  I was wrong.  I know you like to hear me say that, so I’ll say it again.  I. Was.  Wrong.  The loneliest number’s two.  Two that’s still two, but half of it packed up its bags and walked out the front door.  You forgot to slam the door when you left, Scully.

“Fuck, I miss you.

“I miss you sticking your cold feet under my legs before falling asleep.  And that breathy sigh you make when you first wake up, and that awful tuna casserole you make on Fridays.  Fish on Fridays, like a good little Catholic. That stuff is really terrible, Scully.  Tastes like a burnt noodle coated in expired tuna.  But I ate it anyways, cause you made it.  

“You knew I didn’t like it, and you still made it, and I still ate it.  You know what I think?  I’m gonna tell you a secret.  I think that you liked to punish me, and I liked being punished.  Maybe you were right, maybe I’m a masochist.  That you enjoy dishing it out, though, makes you the sadist to my masochist.  Sadistic Scully. Has a ring to it, dontcha think?  I miss the way that you hated me, Sadistic Scully.  Meant you loved me.  Can’t have hate without love, right?

“You loved me so much then, and I could feel it, your passion.  These days I get sent to voicemail, but I miss the fighting.  The way your face gets all red when you’re screaming at me, and how punctuated your words get.  How you would blame me for everything; the washer breaking down, the world not ending, us not being able to raise our son.  You couldn’t say the words, Scully, but I know you blamed me.  

“Now it’s your turn.  You always kept secrets from me Scully, but you can’t keep this one any longer.  It’s in your eyes when you say his name, stabbing daggers into my heart.  They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but they didn’t know about Dana Scully, MD.  Ya see, Dana Scully, MD, she doesn’t fuck around; she goes straight for the aorta, words are her scalpel and those piercing glares are her steady hand.  

“But I needed to feel the pain, Scully, because the pain was better than the feeling of failure.

“It was better than just going through the motions, ya know?  Faking it, pretending it didn’t exist.  Pretending he didn’t exist.  You wouldn’t let me, anyway, even if I wanted to.  I deserved the pain, and you dished it out.  God, Scully, you sliced and diced, and I loved and hated every second of it.  

“I loved it because I needed it, and I needed it because I deserved it.  Is this what they call poetic justice, Scully?  

“I, uh, well, I just called to tell you, you win.  You hear that, Scully?  You won this one.  I’m here drunk on our couch that still smells like you, waving the white flag, surrendering.  You’ve taken everything that I had left, packed it into your discount luggage, and walked out that front door with it, leaving me behind with nothing.  It’s over, the end, finito.  

“I pushed you away, and you walked out.  See that Scully?  You needed the pain as much as I did.  Because I think deep down, you hate yourself as much as I hate myself.  You made that crystal-fucking-clear to me all those years ago when you fucked that homicidal psychopath, Jerse.  So, what is it?  What is it that keeps you up at night?  

“Could it be...allowing your only daughter, the child who was never meant to be, die all those years ago?  Knowing there could be a way to save her, but letting her die anyway?  I never told you this, Scully, but do you, do you remember when I asked you if there was a way to save her, would you have done it?  I could have, Scully.  I had the cure in my pocket.  And you still said no.  Did that make you feel justified, Scully, telling yourself you were doing it to be merciful?

“You can’t even say her name anymore.  Emily.  Her name was Emily, Scully.  

“Here’s another confession for you: Did you know that I still visit her grave?  I know you don’t, because I don’t tell you.  If I did, you would cry and cry, telling me that it’s too hard for you, and that she was never mine to mourn.  That you feel like you let her down, and I’d tell you that you did the right thing, but we both know that’s a lie.  You did let her down. We both know that now.  The treatment was in my hands, it was right there, and I would have given it to you, but you were too much of a fucking coward to give her that.  It was easier for you to snuff her out then, than to have to possibly fail her later.   

“And I know you haven’t visited her grave in years, because it’s always only my dead flowers in front of her headstone.  Christ, and you said Teena was cold and disconnected...

“But maybe it’s not failing your daughter that haunts you.  No, maybe it’s the fact that you failed your father, the illustrious Ahab.  Failure is my forte, Scully, I can smell it a mile away.  You tore his dreams for his precious Starbuck to shreds to make a difference in the world.  You were going to prove him wrong, make him proud.

“But did you, Scully?  

“All those years spent chasing monsters in the night, the endless hours of running in those ridiculous heels, wielding a Glock, backing your spooky partner in Podunk, Missouri.  All of the miles in rental cars, the arrests, and cases solved.  Was it worth it?  Let’s weigh the costs, hmm?

“Your daughter.  Your sister.  Your reputation.  Hell, Scully, even you nearly died.  And the biggest cost of all.  Giving up your only son - my son - to strangers just to spend years on the run from the government you used to hold in high regard.  

“All of that to wind up sleeping alone in a D.C. apartment while working as a doctor in a hospital.  Did you prove him wrong, Starbuck?  Did you change the world and make Ahab proud?  Or did you fail?”

“You see, Scully, that’s the thing about failure.  After so much of it, you eventually lack the ability to care.  You become reckless, heartless. Cold, Scully.  You’ve become as cold as one of your corpses.  And when you- ”

“If you’re satisfied with this message, please press 4.”

“Satisfied?...satisfied...not in years.”

#my writing #xfficchallenges #dialogue only challenge #inebriated confessions

[edierone]

There Were Others;

an @xfficchallenges submission for the dialogue-only prompt.

“He wasn’t the only one, Mulder. Just the only one where I got caught.”

“What? Who? I don’t know what you’re--”

“No, not caught — that implies I’ve done something wrong, which I have not. I mean — the only one in which my privacy was breached.”

“Which — which exit are we supposed to take —”

“Exit 42, it’s not for miles and miles. I’m not — I know this may not fit with the way you see me, but I’ve never been cut out for celibacy. I have needs, and I’m not ashamed of that.”

“So — what, you just rack up an endless list of one-night stands? Every time you get the itch, you expose yourself to all that danger —”

“Not that this should matter to you, but it’s not an ‘endless list,’ Mulder. Fewer than ten since I’ve known you. And thank you for your concern, but I am very, very careful—”

“Until last week, yeah.”

“I’m going to let that go right now, because you’re trying to distract me, and I need you to hear this.”

“Forgive me if I don’t want to hear a blow-by-blow recitation of your secret sexual escapades—”

“Stop.”

…

“Neither of us need me to go into the details. But the thing is, Mulder — the energy can only build for so long before I have to do something about it —”

“So why don’t you just — get a boyfriend or something? Some nice stable asshole with a nice stable job who won’t try to KILL YOU when —”

“That’s my point. That’s exactly my point. I don’t want a nice stable asshole hanging around my apartment, or anybody else even semi-permanent, I’m already com— look, I find men, partners, for sex, when I’m sick enough of my own imagination, not to mention my own hands. And it’s fair to say I have a type, do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You — you just want sex, nothing else? No — no conversation, no watching movies on the couch, no waking up late and going to find bagels?”

“It’s EXACTLY the ‘everything else’ that I’m … goddammit, you’re dense.”

“Oh — hey, why are you crying? Here — shit, here take this —”

“Frustration! GOD. How can you not understand this? I want what I can’t have, so I take what I can get. I don’t want to tangle up my physical needs with the rest of it, not with them! Because …”

“Because what? Why not, Scully?”

“Here, let go of my hand — that’s our exit coming up.”

#xfficchallenges #this is bad but i was thinking about it last night and couldn't let go #my fic #msr is a fucked up road ain't it

[contrivedcoincidences6]

Boyfriend

Finished story number two for @xfficchallenges bingo! (Because writing mindless smut is fun for me) Edited by @alittlemissfit Thank you @kateyes224 and @piecesofscully

It’s not that I don’t find him annoying, because I do. But he’s charming, he’s brilliant. Witty, tenacious, attractive…. But I have a boyfriend. I’ve been repeating that a lot the past few days.

Maybe it’s because Ethan just started getting serious, or because lately I’ve had some doubts. It can’t be because of Fox Mulder though. This isn’t a real attraction because if it is I’ll have to commit myself. I remember our late night conversation in the motel room. The one that caught fire along with my laptop. I was lying on his bed and he was telling me about his sister. It was all so intimate. I remember his passion. The intensity with which he spoke. There were a few moments where I considered moving closer to him, just a little bit. Just enough to press my lips to his. They looked so damn soft, so kissable. He looked at me with those gorgeous dark eyes and I felt like I was the only person on the planet. He drew me in fully, had me beginning to believe in things I’d never even considered before.

The knock at the door jerks me out of my thoughts. “Who is it?” I already know who it is and expect a funny, snappy response like before. Instead I get a solemn, “It’s me.” When we’d left each other after finding Billy Miles we were both running on adrenaline. The walk back to the car we never broke physical contact. His hand was on my back, mine was on his arm. Our fingers brushed as we walked. We’d said goodnight, reluctantly, a few hours before but I wasn’t surprised to see him at my door. I open the door, see him standing in sweatpants and a tee shirt and arch an eyebrow at him. “I heard your TV. I couldn’t sleep either.” Stepping aside I let him in and he glances at the TV. “Infomercials, Scully?” We both give a small, awkward, laugh. “It’s the only thing on this time of night.” Mulder moves to the bed. Sits on the edge like he belongs there. “What are you going to say in your report?” He asks, looking at me intensely. I shrug, move to sit next to him. “I don’t know Mulder. There’s no evidence, no documentation, and I’m not even sure what the charges will be. Not to mention I lost my computer and can’t make a report til we get back.” He stares at me then like he’s trying to figure me out and we shift closer together. I can feel his warm breath on my face. “But what will you say?”

His voice is low and I find myself repeating the mantra again. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. Neither of us has slept more than a few hours in the past few days and I know that has to account for the dizzy feeling I’m experiencing. The lack of sleep also accounts for why I kiss him. It’s the only reason that makes sense. His lips are delicious against mine and I sink into it. He seems taken aback for only a moment before kissing me back. One of his hands moves to my waist and the other to the side of my face. Meanwhile my arms wrap around his neck and I bury my hands in his hair, which I’ve been dying to do. He’s soft and hard at the same time. My fingers trail along his jawline and his move through my hair tracing over my scalp in a way that makes me shiver. We pull apart with a gasp and stare at each other for a moment. Maintaining eye contact my body seems to move on its own and I’m straddling him. His eyebrow goes up and his hands slide beneath the large tee shirt I’m wearing, grip my hips. “Don’t you have a boyfriend, Agent Scully?” he asks in a husky, somewhat sarcastic voice. I lower myself a bit and feel his half hard cock as I nod my head, slowly grind against him. “Does that bother you?” The voice leaving my mouth doesn’t even sound like my own. I’m starting to believe that this is all a dream. Instead of answering Mulder thrusts up and kisses me. The contact causes me to moan and I’m thrown off balance but he holds me tight. I grab at his hair and he pulls me down harder. We grind against each other for some time as our hands search each other’s bodies. The crotch of my pajama bottoms are soaked due to my lack of underwear. After a couple minutes we find a rhythm and each time I rub against him I moan a little louder. “Do you have a condom?” Mulder asks, sounding dazed as I slow down for a moment. His hair is tousled, his lips are wet and swollen, and his eyes find a way to cut right through me. Of course I don’t have a condom. I have a boyfriend at home which is where my condoms are. Under what circumstances would I need to bring them with me? Aside from these circumstances. Bitterly I shake my head.

“Do you?” I ask, getting a no.

“Damn it.” I say, feeling my mind begins to adjust. It’s alright. It’s probably better this way. Before I can move though Mulder grinds up against me again and I feel a shiver run through my body. He continues moving against me and the friction feels exquisite. He watches my reactions to his ministrations with the eye of an investigator. In a quick move he flips me over, moves between my legs where he continues to move against me. I haven’t dry humped since high school and the thought of it would make me laugh if it didn’t feel so amazing.

Mulder rids himself of his shirt and I admire his slim muscular frame. Before I am able to really take him in his deft fingers make quick work of my shirt. Soon his lips are around one nipple while his fingers gently pinch the other. I lift my hips to move against him, making soft noises of pleasure that don’t even sound like noises I’m capable of. The small part of my brain still capable of thought reminds me this is still considered cheating, but rather than making me want to stop it makes me hotter. I’m going to hell, but in that moment I don’t care. His cock feels long and hard against me and I realize that I haven’t even seen it yet. There is something strangely erotic about all of it. Mulder is making grunting sounds against me and I wonder if we are going to finish this way. I move my hips at a different angle and my orgasm takes me off guard. I shudder and shout something as I grab at Mulder’s well muscled back. The erotisism has me feeling light headed. I feel the vibrations of his own orgasm as he follows me over the edge. He moves against me until he is soft and then I feel the warm wetness between us. It’s in that moment that I realize what I’ve done. Mulder seems to sense this because he tightens his hold on me.   “Don’t Scully,” he murmurs against my neck. His breath is warm and I shiver at the feeling of his lips moving. I realize that he’s been calling me ‘Scully’ and I’ve been calling him ‘Mulder’ this entire time. The obscurity of the situation makes me laugh. Mulder pulls back a bit to look at me in confusion. I just shake my head and enjoy the feeling of his skin against mine. He gives me a lopsided smile and moves his face back to my neck where he nuzzles close to me. There is something about him that draws me in and the way he holds me so tenderly makes me want to cry. The wetness between us begins to get cool and sticky when he finally lets me pull away. I go to the bathroom and feel his eyes on me the whole time. Once inside I turn on the tap and sink to the ground to cry. I’m not sure what exactly I’m crying about. It could be that I just cheated on my boyfriend of two years or because there is something so intoxicating about Mulder or it’s because this entire case has been exhausting but I know I want to be apart of the X files. I clean myself up and calm down before facing my new partner again. When I emerge a few minutes later, cleaned up and prepared to talk things out, not surprisingly, he’s gone.

#txf fanfic #xfficchallenges #summer heat #x files fanfic #the x files