i’m gonna THROW UP look at them

Mulder Would Never Let Scully Walk Away with Words Left Unsaid

I could never understand some fics/meta where Scully and Mulder dance around their feelings until Scully feels wounded, won't communicate, and splits their relationship with silence. And the problem doesn't have too much to do with Scully (aside from the fact that she faces hardship head on with shoulders squared, not backing down from personal problems.) The problem, really, rests with Mulder's characterization.

Mulder, with all his flaws and fixations, would have too much righteous fury to let Scully walk away with words unsaid.

Not in a bad way, either:

OctoberFicFest Day 5: Serpent

This year I’m using the Spooktober prompts from ArtSeaMoni on Twitter.  Rated T for some mentions of sex.  A brief expansion on “Never Again”.

She was afraid of snakes, once.  Now she’s getting one inked on her skin.  Ed watches her with eager eyes, his lips parted.  He keeps wetting them with his tongue, the tip darting out.  The parallels are not lost on her.

Nor is the idea that the symbol she’s chosen is more associated with Mulder than with anything else in her life.  She knew of the ouroboros before she met him, she thinks.  She isn’t certain anymore: many of the things she knew have been reforged in the crucible of their shared thoughts, their origins lost in the heat of their debate.  Sometimes her mind feels like a snake, her thoughts coiled and muscular, weighty, lulled to sluggishness or primed to strike.

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INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) + letterboxd reviews insp

Just some hurt/comfort set after “Folie à Deux”. Tagging @today-in-fic

Shared Comfort

“Oh Mulder,” his name falls from her lips in a tortured whisper. He watches as she applies medical ointment to his red, chafed wrists, the scent making his eyes water. Or that’s what he tells himself anyway.

Looking at Scully, seeing her vibrant hair, her blue, watery eyes, he is filled with calmness. There‘s no sound here except for her breathing, and his own thoughts. 

“Think I‘ll live, doc?”

“Not funny,” she says with a stern look. “How are you feeling? Do you want me to give you something to sleep?”

He shakes his head. “The nurse, she… I should be asleep already.” He‘s bone-tired, his muscles aching. But how can he close his eyes? Falling asleep does not seem like an option. 

“It‘s the adrenaline,” Scully says, putting the cap back on the ointment. She continues to rub his wrist, applying gentle pressure. “It will wear off soon. You need to sleep, Mulder.”

He shakes his head and gives her half a smile. “You should sleep though.” He looks around, for the first time realizing that Scully only got them one hotel room. There‘s only one bed. “Are you- you‘re not leaving, are you?” His voice sounds shaky to his own ears. 

“I thought we could share for the night.” There‘s an innuendo stuck in his throat that he swallows.

“Thank you,” he says instead.

“Is there anything you need?” Her fingers are still wrapped around his wrist, but she‘s not trapping him; she‘s anchoring him here, to this moment. He‘s overcome by thankfulness for her. By love, too. She‘s done so much for him already. How can he ask for more, again and again?

When she became his partner, she didn‘t sign up to share his trauma, all his nightmares. This one barely scratches the top ten of what he‘s gone through. Yet, he can‘t fathom closing his eyes and losing sight of her. 

He doesn‘t have the right to ask her, but he can‘t fight his exhaustion any longer.

“Can you just… stay?” Her expression is puzzled. “Hold me?” he asks in barely a whisper.

“Of course.” Her reply is just as soft before she helps him lie down, covering him with the comforter. “I‘ll be right back,” she promises, quickly running her fingers through his hair. He listens to the intimate sounds of her bathroom routine that he knows she‘s keeping short tonight. For him. She‘s back before he‘s dared to blink.

“Promise me you‘ll try to sleep,” she says, her breath smelling of toothpaste. “I will be here.”

“I know,” he says. “You believed me, Scully.” He blinks, his eyes feeling as heavy as lead. 

“I saw it,” she admits, meeting his eyes. 

“So we‘re both crazy now, huh?” His eyes drift close but he cracks a smile.

“You‘re not crazy, Mulder.”

“Are you coming on to me, Scully?” He wonders if he‘s asleep already, if maybe this conversation is just a dream. He scoots closer to her, shamelessly stealing her warmth and her strength. But she doesn‘t seem to mind. Instead she holds him closer, her hand on his back as if to steady him. His one in five billion. Who else would hold his broken soul and cherish it?

She doesn‘t reply, but he never expected her to. Her hand finds his, her slender fingers tangling with his broken ones. She lets go of his hand and he‘s about to protest when she touches his lip where it bust open. 

“Kiss it better?“ He jokes, wondering how many innuendoes he has to throw out until she bites.

“Will it hurt if I do?” 

He must have reached the magic number. His eyes open and he can barely make out her face. 

“I don‘t know,” he says, staring at her. The sheets rustle as she leans over and presses the lightest kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Did it hurt?”

“No. No pain.”

“Good. Try to sleep now, Mulder.”

“Hmm,” he hums. He wants to say more, needs her to know that he needs her here. That her arms are holding him together and safe from the nightmares. 

“I won‘t let go,” she promises, tightening her grip on him. But he doesn‘t need to say anything because she already knows.

msr + tenderness | redux 2

Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic Ch. 9: Stubbed Out

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

Even being a coward takes effort.

Mulder’s been stressed for days, trying to forget his phone conversation with Mark and attempting to hide his agitation from Scully. It’s not going well. He hasn’t successfully kept many secrets from her since they met, and at this point it’s practically impossible. If Mulder acts at all furtive or suspicious, she catches on like a shark smelling blood in the water and circles him until he surrenders.

Maybe she’s deeply perceptive; maybe he’s just not that subtle.

His resolve to keep his mouth shut lasts until Wednesday, just after lunch.

He’s built himself a fortress of stacks of newspapers on the desk, leafing through them with a magnifying glass. Scully’s in the annex, looking at some fibers under the microscope. They’ve got a case, which usually sucks up all his attention, but the phone call from a few days before is still buzzing in his ears.

“Hey, uh, has Mark mentioned the cafe incident?” he asks from across the room.

Scully keeps her eyes on the microscope. “No, he hasn’t, actually. It was hardly an incident,” she adds, switching out the slide. “You need to relax.”

Clearly, she’d picked up on his nervous energy. For once, he wishes Scully could just read his mind. Then I wouldn’t have to figure out how to tell her, Mulder thinks.

There’s no easy way out of this.

Mulder and Scully + touch for @danjlevy

Mulder and Scully through the seasons + hands 

When We Drive

MSR, rated M- 11.3k words - AO3 Link

Hundreds of hours, thousands of miles, and the conversations Mulder and Scully have in between.

Ch. 1: Corn Fields, High School, and Sexual Debuts

Ch. 2: Early Flights, Used Tissues, and a Swan

Ch. 3: Mars, Mercury, and An Asshole

Ch. 4: Ginger Ale, Saltines, and Shifting Shapes

Ch. 5: Motel Wine, Bushwhacking, and Body Tetris

Ch. 6: Ghost Ships, Bruises, and a Pretty Damn Good Kiss

Ch. 7: Domestic Disputes, a Highway Reverie, and Nachos

Ch. 8: Seven Seconds, Seven Years, and Day One

Ch. 9: Alarm Clocks, Discretion, and Shared Soap

Ch. 10: Resurrection, Gestation, and Frozen Casseroles

Ch. 11: Birth Coaching, Physical Enormity, and Dad

Ch. 12: Getting Out of the Car

When We Drive, Ch. 10: Resurrection, Gestation, and Frozen Casseroles

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, Rated M

Alexandria, Virginia

April 7, 2001

He’s alive.

Scully can’t decide what feels more unreal; the past six months without him, or the fact that he’s back from the dead, buckled into the passenger seat of her car.

Her belly is cumbersome in its fullness and thrumming with life, and her lower back aches; but she hardly cares. Because Mulder, her Mulder, is breathing and healing and living right next to her.

She looks at him frequently, at safe intervals as she drives. Her eyes graze over the healing scars on his cheeks, the bags under his eyes, his messy crop of hair, and he’s so beautiful she fears she might cry. Again.

When We Drive, Ch. 7: Domestic Disputes, a Highway Reverie, and Nachos

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated M

Interstate 15, San Diego County, California

3:02 PM PST

March 1, 1999

Scully is mad at him.

She’s stiff in the passenger seat of their stupid undercover minivan, fiddling with a loose thread on her robin’s egg blue sweater set. She looks beautiful in that color, and he almost wants to tell her, but her mood is so sour that he does’t feel like. She’d probably just snap at him again.

He got to spend six days being fake-married to Scully, and not once did they get to enjoy any of the perks of the arrangement. It was a long shot, but Mulder is nothing if not a believer in improbable odds. They spent all of one night in the same bed, but Scully banished Mulder to the couch the next morning after he casually mentioned the fact that she snored. She’d insisted it was allergies due to the premature springlike weather in Southern California, but if it bothered him so goddamn much, he was welcome to take the sofa in the living room from then on.

It was all downhill from there.