Thanks for the shoutout! Awesome company to share some zzzz’s with
X-Files Collector's Edition: Mulder and Scully Fight Insomnia
Mulder and Scully have battled many a monster in their time; but insomnia is a beast of its own. Thankfully, it's vanquished with their teamwork just as successfully.
These fics aren't set around a specific episode (that will be a future post), and sort of float around depending on your head canons.
Loose chronological order below~
@wtfmulder/@momdadimpoppunk’s (Ao3) Unnamed
""He rustles in his seat, cursing at how tight the space feels between his body and the steering wheel. With a violent jerk, he maneuvers the seat back so hard he might have launched himself into the underworld without the protection of metal and cement.""
S1 Mulder's lack of sleep makes him snap moodily at Scully during their stakeout. She sees right through him, and swaps places so his eyes can rest.
Karen D. Enriquez's November 27, 1994
""He hadn't known, then, what he knew now. He hadn't known about the Light that had held him immobile. The Light that had told him to not be afraid. The Light that had said she would return. Would it have changed anything if he'd known then?
Ignorance is bliss, he told himself. Whoever had first said it had lied.""
Mulder's dark memories of his messed-up family after the loss of Samantha leads him to roam the roads in the dark hours of the morning, unable to sleep.
Pares's (Ao3) Soporific (Ao3)
""I said, do you want a turkey sandwich?"
She smiles at him. "Turkey sounds pretty good. My father used to nap through every Thanksgiving football game. Eventually, we bought him a VCR."
Nodding, he pads into his kitchen and even with the music she can hear the way his feet stick to the linoleum, the soft suction of the fridge door opening. She listens to the crinkle of wax paper, and Mulder's experimental sniff. This is followed immediately by a sharp exhalation and finally the mangling whirr of the In-Sink-Erator over the rush of the tap. There must be something else at least vaguely edible in the fridge, however, as she hears a second foray and the clink of bottles.""
Scully is afflicted with insomnia so severe she can't sleep for three days. She drifts to Mulder's, where he runs her through his routines (including ironing all his clothes.)
@oceanofthesky/noifsandsorbees's Spiderwebs and Butterflies
""Less than two feet away her lanky partner is sprawled out on
her bed. At least she thinks it’s her bed. That’s where she fell
asleep last night. She gently lifts her head and takes a quick
inventory. Yes. Her bed. She distinctly remembers going to
sleep alone and she recognizes that her favorite black silk
pajamas are still wrapped around her.
Suddenly, fear jumps into her throat and she reaches a tenative
hand out and runs the back of her fingers lightly down his cheek
and across his forehead. She slowly releases the breath she was
holding as she realizes he doesn’t appear ill. But that only
eliminates one possibility from the mystery of the uninvited
bedfellow.""
Scully is equally surprised that Mulder sneaked into her room and that his nightmare had been about her. She insists he stay, calming his fears and lulling him back to sleep.
misslucyjane's Better Things Than Counting Sheep
""How about writing something?"
"Like . . . working on a monograph?" Scully said, glancing at her desk.
"No, not work. Just write. Like, write about what's keeping you awake. Write what you're worried about."
"Does it work for you?"
He chuckled again, lower this time. "I'm not sleepless because of unusual stress. I've adjusted to being sleepless, I just find other things to do.""
Scully can't sleep; and calls up Mulder for tips. The two chatter over late night tv, proposal what ifs, and lullabies.
@sapphicscullyy's (Ao3) Stargazing (Ao3)
""Scully stared up at the mould-covered ceiling, willing herself to fall asleep and escape the nightmare she and Mulder were living in. Her ability to fall asleep seemingly anywhere failed her at the worst moments; only when the solace of dreaming was all she desired. She sighed, attempting to close her eyes once more, it would probably find her in her dreams too.
The adjoining door between her room and Mulder’s let out a soft creak as it opened slightly, the blue glow of the television screen bathing the walls. She felt Mulder hesitate, before slipping partially through the now ajar door.""
Mulder bundles Scully out to stargaze when she can't sleep during a rough case. She privately wonders how her father would have interacted with him.
@i-gaze-at-scully's (Ao3)
Passionflower and rosehips
""He’s considering sleeping pills, just for the night, just for a reset. But where could he get them? He drives home and somewhere in the back of his mind understands how dangerous this simple act is, driving in his state. Making it home in one piece, he yanks his tie off his neck and collapses onto the couch.
He sleeps until the knock at the door, the thunder in his ears, an acute electric volt restarting his slumbering heart. His skin crawls as his body unwillingly, begrudgingly returns to consciousness.
“Mulder?” Scully calls, and he tastes blood as he bites down hard on his lip to keep from screaming.""
Mulder can't sleep-- culminating in him taking his rage out on Scully. He swiftly apologizes, describing his dire situation. She helps him calm, and helps comfort him after nightmare.
Unnamed
""Scully hums and nods, working her fingers around the hairline behind both his ears in tandem, repetitive motions. Slow swirls, lazy loops. He tries to move but she steadies his head, lets out a soft shushing noise.“ Sometimes it’s almost paralyzing, like a benign form of locked in syndrome,” he continues, sighing deeply. “I get hungry but can’t get off the couch to eat. I get bored but can’t figure out what to watch, what to do. The pervasiveness of being tired and unable to sleep eats at the rest of me, you know?”
“Mm,” Scully agrees....""
Mulder companionably describes his "wired but tired"; but Scully's temple massage wins the standoff with insomnia.
janewaystolemyheart's Demons
""He was leaning against the doorframe, a lost look at his face, his eyes red and endlessly tired. He looked like he hadn’t slept in at least 36 hours.
“Mulder, what...” Scully began, and lifted her hand to softly check his forehead for a temperature, but he seemed to be fine, physically.
“I can’t sleep, Scully.”
“Can you ever?” She asked jokingly, but the look on his face wiped away her smile within a second. Something was weighing heavy on him, something big, that a little joke on her side could not get rid of.""
Mulder's insomnia is intensified by personal demons and nightmares. Scully tries to help by sharing her motel room, soothing his tears.
DanaScully77's Night Hags and Restless Sleep - Chapter 1
""Lost in her dreams, Scully growls as reality creeps in, ripping her from the peaceful thoughts. She bats away a hand that’s nudging her shoulder, mumbling to ‘go away’ before she becomes fully conscious.
“Sorry, Scully, but you said to wake you if I was still awake.”
The pure desperation and agony in his voice snaps her out of her haze and Scully’s blue eyes open in a look of concern. “Have you slept at all?” Doctor Scully is instantly in effect, pushing the covers back to hold onto one of his wrists, reading his pulse. A shake of his head indicates no and she frowns at the higher-than-normal heart rate.""
Scully realizes how desperate Mulder's latest bout of insomnia is-- so desperate that not even medication is working. She tries a last-ditch effort before he might have to be put into an emergency coma.
@lokisgame’s (Ao3) New Dawn
""I can’t leave now, time is working against us.” He didn’t shake her off so she turned around, slipped her hand down to take his hand. She looked him straight in the eye, soft expression asking for his trust.
“You have to,” she said, gently squeezing his hand, before letting go and walking out. Mulder followed.""
Scully carves out a nap time for Mulder on a rough profiling case, which then becomes a regular practice for the two of them to snatch sleep together.
BWJournal's The Moon and The Sun
""Six painful years.
Six years of her shape a gorgeous shadow against the light coming through a window. A stoic shape. A statue of her own making. Sometimes larger than life… and others, heartbreakingly vulnerable.""
S6 Mulder's insomnia gives him front-row seat to Scully's sleep walking. Both badly cope with their traumas in very different ways.
Tesla's (X-Libris) Get Up, Mulder
""Get up, Mulder."
Why wouldn't she let him sleep? She wouldn't like it if he suddenly started pounding on her bedroom door. "There better be a fire, Mulder," she had grumbled one time, when he'd tried to get her out of a hotel room for an early breakfast. Like this fertilizer detail was so urgent.
And then the time after the tornado in Kroner. He had been afraid to move on his roll-away cot. Afraid to breathe. Afraid not to breathe.
He preferred thinking about the long ride back from Antarctica.""
S6 Mulder just wants to sleep. Life and a good-natured Scully intervene.
@broadcastnews1987/audries/@kennedyandheidi/inkspl0tchess (WBM 1/ 2/ 3)
the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
""Since San Diego, he’s been spending a lot of time not sleeping. A lot of time thinking about doll-eyed little girls and skinned knee boys and the weight of Scully’s fever-warm daughter across his chest.
If he’s honest, it started before that. Before Florida, even. After Bill and Maggie and Skinner and the priest had all left the room in a bustling, confused mass of prayer and benediction, Scully had slept long hours in her hospital bed. As she’d left the room, her mother had caught his shoulder in her navy-wife grip and suggested he go get some rest in the same firm, no nonsense way Scully liked to use to suggest his theories were wrong. He’d gone home and slept in half-hour bursts. Patterns of oblivion broken up by the imagined ringing of the phone. It was rare that he felt unable to tell dream from reality. He wondered what was a polite length of time to wait to call Scully at the hospital and say, “Hey, I had this crazy dream about miracles. Also, are you really alive?""
Mulder reflects on his insomnia and Scully's ability to sleep anywhere. That changes over time as she has some traumas of her own; but in the end, it allows her to open up about Melissa (and to pull relationship some moves on Mulder.)
A. Kelley Nolan's Losing Sleep
""Most often it is Scully who knocks. His sleeping habits are so poor he doesn't dare seek her company every time, and she can always be fairly certain that he will be awake when she is. She knocks, or pushes open the connecting door, and waits for the smile of invitation. The next hour or so follows an almost invariable pattern. They may chat, but more likely they watch TV quietly, until she steals a pillow and finally drifts off to sleep. When he realizes she is out he sits and watches her, sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes nearly until dawn breaks, and then softly slips into her room to catch as much sleep as he can in her bed. He's not sure he could handle waking up next to her, and he sleeps best when he can burrow down into cool sheets that are brushed with her scent.
Mulder knocks less often, because there aren't nearly as many times when he can be sure she is awake. He knows that her insomnia is tied to her body's natural cycles, and he has learned these rhythms by heart.""
Mulder and Scully always talk late into the night at motels, regardless of sleep patterns, food, or current cases. Their deepening relationship slowly develops through these moments, culminating in moves being made and their relationship getting furthered.
Havisham/Billie Reid/Billie1 's (FFN) Midnight Phone Call, After Midnight
""As if on cue, the phone rang and a smile crept on my face. "Hey," was all that I managed to say without subconsciously inserting inappropriate phrases.
"Mulder, do you ever sleep?" she asked and I heard sheets rustling. She must have been calling me from her bed. I wanted to ask her what she was wearing, but chose wisely not to.
"Speak for yourself. I don't think either of us even got a chance to sleep in the past 48 hours," I said....""
Mulder can't sleep and is happy when Scully calls for a bedtime story. He accidentally drops an "I love you"; and Scully picks up that topic the next day after shopping.
IStanYouStan5676's Promise?
""Are you sure you don’t want me to tag along?” This time his voice was softer.
“Mulder what’s going on with you?” Her tone also softer but laced with concern.
“Nothing Scully, I just thought you’d like some company.”
“When have you ever willingly gone to a conference?”
“The Smokey Mountain Bigfoot Conference for starters.""
Mulder can't sleep because of nightmares. He warns Scully-- who is out of town-- NOT to drive to D.C. on the day she plans. While she initially agrees, a creep at the convention makes her change her mind, propelling her into the very scenario of Mulder's dream.
@rationalcashew's (Ao3) And, You Thought You'd Never Stand Out
""Yet, she always answered the phone when he called.
Why was that?
She always knew he was the one calling, too. Mulder wondered if that was a good or bad thing. He didn’t want to be an annoyance to her. She was the one who helped him clear his head.""
Insomniac Mulder loves to call gf Scully to hear her voice at night.
@purrykat/mylifeinshadow's Day 20
""You’d never been a good sleeper. As a kid, your parents had praised Samantha for being such an easy baby, for sleeping through the night from nearly the beginning. ‘It wasn’t like that with Fox’, they’d say, 'he kept us up until he was well over a year’. Even as a child, you’d felt that there was something you were missing in the late hour.""
Mulder is amazed that having Scully for a girlfriend has very effectively quelled his insomniac nature.
stellar_dust’s (Ao3) The Red-Headed League
""Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table."
Mulder turned around in his chair, grinning. "You trying to tell me something?""
Scully banters with her Sherlock to get him to sleep after 3 days awake. He's amused, and succumbs to sleep.
@atths–twice’s (Ao3, Alt. Ao3, FFN) Sleepy Confessions
""And why did you come over? I don’t need to get up to chase some monster in the dark at two thirty in the morning, do I?” He laughed softly and she smiled.
“No. Nothing so inconvenient.”
“Good.”
Silence fell and she heard the wind blowing outside her window, a low rumble of thunder in the distance.""
Mulder can no longer sleep without Scully around. She's amused and touched.
@scullyphile‘s (Ao3) Unnamed
""I’m asleep,” she says, her voice pouring out of the darkness like warm milk.
“You don’t sound like you’re sleeping,” he counters, crawling in with her. He feels drowsy; he feels like giving in, but he’s got so much more research to do.""
Mulder leaves his research in favor of joining a sleeping Scully.
@wexleresque/hllsteeth’s Fictober 2021 - Chapter 21 (Ao3)
""Scully,” he whispers, nudging her gently. “Are you awake?”
“Mmph.” she tells the pillow she’s currently digging her face into in search of more sleep. It had been such a lovely sleep, dreamless and restorative. She aches for it already.
“Oh, good,” Mulder says obliviously, wrapping his long arms around her from behind and cuddling up to her. It’s sweet at first, but then it becomes less sweet when she realizes that he’s getting closer so he can talk directly into her ear. “I’ve been thinking.”
She says nothing and considers feigning a snore.""
Mulder has an annoying habit of waking Scully to monologue about his newest crazy idea or conspiracy theory.
@conversationinthehallway/hallwayperson's (WBM, Alt. WBM)
The End of the Night
""This is how it ends,” I tell him on a crisp October night, him trapped in the claws of anxiety once again. His breathing is shallow and the shaking insistent. His back is cold and clammy pressed to my chest as I hold him the best I can while caressing his arms. “It ends with you and me. It always has and it always will.”
He’s reaching for my hand, our fingers intertwining in an unbreakable seal.
“Scu… Dana,” he mutters meekly. My name reserved for these fleeting moments only. An assurance that it’s really me. It’s a promise more than anything. By now, he understands that I’m not going anywhere.""
S11 Scully reflects on the strong but tender Fox Mulder; and how she had always patched him back together in the shaky hours of the morning.
@mldrgrl’s (Ao3) The Night Watchman
""It’s two in the morning, she’s wide awake, and Rip Van Mulder is passed out next to her with his mouth dropped open. He was much more attractive when he used to be a light sleeper. She supposes she should be thankful that hasn’t become a snorer.
She rolls over, huffing loudly as she punches her pillow flat. He doesn’t even flinch, which annoys her. There was a time when just a little bit of restlessness on her behalf would have him up and ready to fight whatever demons were keeping her awake. After some shifting and wiggling, she flips onto her back with a sigh.""
S11 Scully lies awake; and her initial irritation turns to grateful pondering that Mulder is finally getting his well-deserved rest.
TheProdigalSappist's Scully Can't Sleep
""It's getting harder and harder to pretend this isn't happening though, especially as the fainting spells are back. This time her Mulder is there to catch her. He's honed his talent for spotting when she's going to go and he's there before she hits the floor, stroking her hair and kissing her awake. She feels so loved, so protected.
And she has never felt so guilty.
She is carrying his child but refuses to acknowledge that it even exists.
What is she doing???
No, she can't let him be excluded again. She can't do this to the man she loves.""
Post Finale Scully is torn over her miracle pregnancy. She ignores it as much as possible until rationality breaks through her fear, prompting her to share this new experience with Mulder. He continues to be her silent, supportive rock.
OnlyFoxMulder/FoxyFoxMulder's Fiction Turned to Truth Chapter 9
""Scully was exhausted. Each morning, he could see it in the dark circles forming a permanent shadow beneath her blue eyes; even the color of her irises had become slightly dull with exhaustion. Her lethargy was further evident in the labored walk she’d taken to in recent weeks, a hand permanently affixed to her lower back as she shuffled.
This morning, his own uncontrollable and selfish need to help and coddle her only seemed to make things worse and she stomped out in a huff to her car without as much as a goodbye. This was another change he’d noticed in the past couple of weeks: her mood swings.""
Post Finale Scully can't sleep-- and Mulder reassures her that feeling terrible and complaining about it is just fine. She apologizes for snapping; and he helps her relax and get a nap in.
AUs
@iwtbscully/@jewish-mulder/@anders-hawke/BananaChef‘s
wip asks: mulder is a profiler w issues
""We can catch them without this level of self-sacrifice, Mulder.” She keeps her voice soft, almost a whisper, and—against her better judgement—reaches up to palm his jaw.""
AU Scully is assigned to reign in the VCU terror and golden boy Mulder. She is able to get him to take a break for food and rest, even calming him down when he explodes about the case.
Enjoy!
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