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postmodernbeliever · 12 days

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Thoroughfare- Fox Mulder x Female Reader

Chapter Four: Best Gravy in Town

^^ guys if anyone knows a better way to make gifs than giphy or capcut let me know.. cant deal w this atrocious quality anymore

table of contents <3

if you’d prefer my ao3 | word count: 4,813

dedicating this one to @sp00kybas ;) <33

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You’d stayed in your fair share of motels. You once road-tripped it with a few girls from college down to the Carolinas for spring break, and the few times you went with your father to visit your family for Christmas after moving out tended to stretch into staying at the dumpy Seafairer nearby to escape the week-long chaos at nights. You were aware of their atmosphere, the lack of amenities and comfort– but this motel was not like the others. This one felt like the room you watched horror movie protagonists stalk into suspiciously, where you scream at the television screen, “Don’t go in there, that’s clearly a trap, dumbass!” But here you were, in it anyway. Fox struggled to find the restaurant that Sheriff Hale recommended on the drive to the motel, so he dropped you off apologetically and set back out to find some food for you both. The agent helped you check in and he was kind enough to carry your bag inside for you, even he made a face at the vibe of your room, which was all the more disconcerting; but he promised he wouldn’t be gone long, and so you felt alright with being alone. You were a big girl, right? You could handle it.

Everything was going smoothly. You’d hung up the few spare suits and dress pants you’d curated for your first-ever go-bag, and you laid out your toiletries neatly in the bathroom. You placed Liane’s rock on the nightstand beside the bed. The Kansas sky was a deep black you’d never seen on the East Coast, so after admiring the clearest view of the stars you’ve ever seen, you flicked on every available light and tried to soak up the yellow warmth of the offputting space. You sat around for nearly forty minutes awaiting Fox’s knock at the door. You flipped through all the television channels, getting stuck on the adult videos for a minute before snapping yourself out of curiosity; when he still didn’t show up, you decided to step into the shower and rinse the day off. You triple-checked the lock on the door and shut yourself in the dingy bathroom, trying not to think about the last time it was really cleaned. There was dirt caked in the grout of the floor, and the mirror had all sorts of suspicious water stains, but the bathtub was clean enough and you tried not to nitpick. You stripped down, popped out your contacts, and cranked the faucet to the hottest temperature it would reach. The water pressure from the showerhead was abrasive, but you didn’t mind; it beat against your back like a drum, and for the first time all day, you were comfortable. You took your time massaging shampoo into your hair, which had shrunk into a frizz ball by the end of the day, and you took deep breaths, trying to push all images from work out of your mind. You would’ve succeeded at finally winding down if it weren’t for the tapping sound you heard, incessant against what sounded like glass.

You peeked from behind the shower curtain, finding nothing in the bathroom but your soiled clothes on the toilet seat. It was then that you gazed up and found a small window, barely a foot wide, stationed above the shower. There was no curtain covering it, no blinds, and you instantly panicked. There was no way to see out of it without standing on something to elevate yourself, and you couldn’t risk balancing on things in a running shower, so you rushed to turn off the water and wrap up in a towel. Tracking wet footsteps onto the shag carpet, you shuffled the spare desk chair from your room through the doorway and lugged it into the shower, carefully stepping onto the seat. You mulled over what to do when you did discover the source of the noise: if it was some peeping Tom, you’d have to get your gun, simple as that. If it was the wind, you’d probably laugh at yourself for being so easily afraid. If it was a branch, you would promptly feel like an idiot. But as you pressed up on your tip-toes and looked out the little window, you found none of your options. Instead, you found rain. Round, heavy raindrops battered the glass in droves, so hard in fact you feared they might shatter the window. You dropped your head in slight embarrassment because you should’ve known– heat frizzes your hair, but humidity turns you into the Einstein you resembled minutes ago. You ignored the most obvious sign. You hopped off the chair and pulled it out of the shower, trying not to beat yourself up.

After you finished the bathing that was so childishly interrupted, you felt much better. You shimmied into a fresh pair of pajama pants and an old t-shirt that donned your high school mascot and plopped on the creaky motel bed, running a comb through your hair. And finally, a shower and a scare later, a knock sounded on the other side of the door. You rushed to open it, only to find a drenched agent on the other side shielding a greasy brown bag beneath his suit jacket, duffle bag in hand.

“Oh, God!” you exclaimed, “Come on, come inside!”

“I wish I’d checked the weather forecast,” Fox groaned.

The man stumbled inside and you awkwardly wiped the rain from his cold shoulders, gratefully taking the paper bag from him. Your stomach was growling. Setting the food down on the desk, you rushed to tidy up after yourself. Your old clothes were still strewn across the bathroom, and you left a trail of tissues and wet towels behind.

“Do you, uh,” Fox paused, the squelching of socks in his shoes interrupting him, “Do you mind if I hop in your shower real quick?.”

Your lips turned down in a sympathetic smile. The agent was shaking. You could only imagine how cold he felt. “Of course, go ahead. Go warm up, I’ll get the food out for when you’re done.”

Fox’s eyes squinted in a kind smile and he shuffled through the room, trying to avoid dripping as much water on your carpet as he could. He locked himself in the bathroom, duffle bag and all, and when you heard the shower head creak, you went back to clearing the room of all your junk. You zoned out to the sound of the muffled water running, and every so often you’d hear a squeak of feet against the bathtub, and you’d blush. Fox Mulder is showering in my room, you thought, my work partner is naked in my motel room. You did everything to avoid the picture in your head as you ripped the brown bag open and spread it across the desk, creating makeshift plates to eat the food he worked so hard to procure. There were two double cheeseburgers, a big box of tater tots, a soup cup full of what looked like brown gravy, and about one hundred ketchup packets. You chuckled softly as you dealt the food out. You shoved the recliner by the front door over to the desk, beside the wooden chair you climbed on not long ago, so he’d have somewhere to sit. Resolving to finish packing away your things and find a place to throw your dirty clothes, you continued to not think about who was in your room, and what he was doing.

When Fox opened the bathroom door, soft curls of warm mist spilled out behind him, humidifying the corner of the room. He found you resulting to throwing your dirty outfit on the floor in a huff when you couldn’t locate a laundry basket.

“Woah,” the man chuckled, walking behind you and setting down his bag by the window across the room.

“No hamper!” You pouted.

“I wonder if I’ve got one next door. I left my clothes hanging over the shower railing, by the way, I hope that’s okay.”

You turned around to find your partner standing by the door in real clothes, regular ones, and it never crossed your mind he was a person, like you, until now. Fox had on a pair of sweatpants, likely old ones by the fraying at the knees, and a boxy blue hoodie missing its strings. It looked like it once fit him but now was too big. His hair was wet and spiky, and it fell haphazardly over his forehead– he probably wiped it with a towel before he came out, yet neglected to brush it, leaving it a mess. You wondered if he ever brushed through that hair, or if running his hands through it was enough. You also wondered about how often he looked like this; if he was this comfortable at home, or with his friends, or if you’re seeing a rare version of a man that tends to fall asleep in his dress shirts. You wished you didn’t pick him apart so often, but there was so much to see, and you were so unbelievably curious. His gaze softened at the sight of you in normal people clothes, too, and he hoped it didn’t show on his face. Since he met you he wondered if he’d get the chance to see you out of uniform at some point. He liked this you, the you with no lipstick or collars. You looked your age, with your glasses sitting just so on your bare face.

“Yeah, yeah, of course, that’s fine. I’m… sorry you got stuck in the rain,” you consoled, starting to feel vulnerable with just him in the room this way.

“It’s okay, it’s just a little water. Thanks for letting me clean up.” Fox’s eyes darted to the bag behind you, and he said, “I’m starving, how about you?”

“Oh, yeah. Me too.”

You moved to sit in the desk chair, but Fox tutted, “Hey, no, take the recliner.”

“Why? This chair’s fine,”

“Just sit in the comfy one. You still look tired.”

You didn’t really know what to say. Those two sentences seemed like different points, but something in his face connected them. He wanted you to relax, and you couldn’t do that in a hard chair. So you obliged his request and settled into the mothball-scented recliner, which creaked under the pressure of you. You tucked your legs into a criss-cross position and reached for one of the foil-wrapped burgers, fingers working fast to peel it open. You sunk your teeth in hungrily, which you were. You haven’t had a proper meal since yesterday. As you took another big bite before finishing the first, you caught Fox staring at you with a goofy expression, eyes wide.

You wiped the corner of your mouth where you felt burger sauce dribbling, and you asked, “What?”

“You can eat!”

You shrunk into the chair a bit, all of a sudden feeling the extra weight in your stomach and thighs like a brand. “I haven’t had anything today.”

“No, it’s not a bad thing,” the man added quickly, “I know you’re hungry. It’s nice to see you eat. Don’t hold back, please.”

You wanted to believe he wasn’t seeing you through the lens you saw yourself. With all the chaos of the past two days, you hadn’t had much time to ponder on how he perceived you. But you knew you weren’t stick-thin, and you knew you weren’t as pretty as half the women you passed in the J. Edgar Hoover building just on the way down to the basement. Fox had been nothing but kind, but almost too kind. Maybe he pitied you, or he knocked you directly into some category in his head where he stores all of the girls he could only ever see as the sweet one, the chubby one, the forever friend. You took a smaller bite of your burger as he shoved nearly half of his into his mouth at once. He had burger sauce on his lip, too, and when he looked at you, you motioned for him to wipe at it.

“Hm?”

“You’ve got a little something.”

“Where?”

“It’s- uh,” you moved to show him again, pointing at where your bottom lip curved. His eyes followed your finger, and he stared for a moment. “Right here.”

Fox wiped his lip with his thumb and then licked the residue clean off. He smiled bashfully. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

You took another small bite of your burger and watched him flip open the box of tater tots. He eagerly uncapped the gravy and made a starving grumble. “The lady said they had the best gravy in town, y’know. Swore we had to try it.” He gingerly dipped one into the cup and popped it into his mouth, and it took mere seconds for him to smile. “Oh, you’ve gotta taste this.”

You reached your palm into the box and picked a tot, and you dipped it generously into the gravy, counting on its good review. But when you took a bite, you tasted nothing but package gravy- maybe even worse than when you’ve made it at home. You scrunched up your nose and said, “This tastes like I got it at the grocery store.”

“I know it does.”

“Why’d you act like it was good then?”

“Because,” Fox giggled, “I don’t know, I thought it was funny.”

“You’re a dork,” you blushed, swallowing the tater tot and deciding you’d have them with ketchup from now on.

It took Fox about three more bites to finish the entire burger, and he dove into the box after that, plowing through the tater tots and shitty gravy he paid good money for. He ate like a teenage boy, dripping sauce and leaving crumbs behind, wiping greasy fingers on a napkin every two bites. It was a little gross, but it was endearing in a way, too. He wasn’t trying to come off any other way than how he was naturally in front of you. You wished you had the same freedom. As you nibbled at your food, Fox noticed how he’d scarfed down half the potatoes and you hadn’t even had another.

“I thought you were hungry.”

“I am,” you sighed.

“Then eat! Eat more! Come on, I saw you take that big bite before,” he chuckled, “What, is it not good? I can get something else if you don’t like it.”

“No, it’s not that. It tastes fine.”

The room fell silent for a minute, and Fox stopped himself from asking why. He graduated with a degree in psychology. If he thought for a second, it would be clear to anyone why you weren’t eating. He leaned back against the desk chair and opted for a soft, “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t care how you eat, or how much. You’re hungry, so you should eat the whole thing. I don’t care.”

You shifted anxiously in the recliner, twiddling with the foil wrapper. “Well, I-”

“This is about your weight, isn’t it? That’s what’s bothering you?” Fox pushed.

“I mean...”

“Put that out of your mind. You’re exactly what you should be, and if you looked any different, you wouldn’t be the girl who just got assigned to my shitty job. I like you as is.”

Truth was, he really did like you as is. A pound less wouldn’t be right. You took up just enough space. You were soft at the edges, and your suits looked pretty on you, and he couldn’t imagine you in any other form. To think you thought of yourself as undeserving made a switch flip in his chest.

“You know, nobody told me how nice you are,” you muttered.

“Yeah, well, I’m not really Miss Popularity around the office.”

Taking a bigger bite out of your burger, and making him smile, you asked, “What does that mean?”

“I find it hard to believe you got assigned to the X Files and nobody mentioned anything about me.”

“Well, they mentioned you were a bit odd , but I didn’t question it, I guess.”

Fox leaned back against the rigid chair and closed his eyes, wondering if it was worth going through it all again. He’s tried to explain himself before, but it always ends in confusion, misunderstanding, or worse. But you were going to learn about him whether it was by working alongside him or hearing gossip elsewhere; God forbid people start to lump you in, too, and misjudge your character or your beliefs simply by association. He would hate to see you get stuck in the basement of the FBI all because he’s distinguished himself as the resident loser of the institution. But what’s worse- to hear it from the source, or to find it out later than you wanted to, before you could change it? He didn’t want to take away your choice, but he also didn’t want to lose you. He just got you. Somewhere in his gut, though, there was an inkling, and it was on that that he acted.

“Well, y’know, the work I do on these unexplained cases runs pretty deep. You haven’t really had time to see the extent of the stuff I investigate. People don’t respect my work, they think it’s a waste of time and resources. That I’m some freak who runs around chasing monsters,” Fox began.

“Monsters?”

“Monsters, cryptids, spirits. Aliens. Every case file I have has some kind of element to it that reaches beyond the realms of what logic and hard science can explain. I’ve come across vampires, shapeshifters, people who possess unexplainable psychokinetic powers or seemingly religious divinities. I’ve shot men only to see them bleed green, and yet after all of these experiences, I still can’t seem to prove that it all exists. The trail goes cold or disappears completely, making me look crazy. And I know these things exist, the proof is in my work and the people whose deaths will never be reconciled, but they don’t exist on paper, and if I can’t submit it in a report then the bosses just laugh. There are so many dark forces you haven’t seen yet in my work, and I’m sure you don��t or won’t believe in them, but this is what I do, why I’m banished to the bottom floor.”

Silently, you polished off your burger. The agent sat across from you like a nervous wreck, eyes searching your face for some hint at how you took him. But all you did was wipe your mouth and hands and tuck your half-dry hair behind your ears. Once you mulled it over, you asked, “Why do you do it, then?”

Without hesitation, he said, “My sister.”

By the somberness that overtook him, you knew it was time to tread lightly. “What happened to her?”

Fox rose from the chair and tugged at his sweatshirt, walking past your chair and toward the window. You turned to lean against the back of the recliner and watched him stand before it, taking stock of how the rain smacked against the window like it wanted to take shelter inside the room.

“She was taken when I was twelve. Abducted.”

“By who?”

“Well, that’s where it gets tricky,” the man laughed, but it didn’t make you smile. There was a weight to it that sank in your stomach. “I believe- I know that it was aliens. Or people working with the aliens. I mean, I watched her get taken through our living room window. She was in her pajamas, and a blinding light burst through the house, and everything shook, and she just floated up into the air and… poof . She was gone. I’ve never been able to find her, no matter how hard I look.”

Resting your chin on the back of the chair, you believed every single word he said. You couldn’t understand why, but you just did. Maybe it was how his voice slightly shook as he confided in you, or how he kept his back to you so he wouldn’t have to see the judgment on your face. But you knew he was telling the truth, whether or not the events were fact. He believed it, so you believed him.

“I wanted to work on the X Files because I believe there’s more to what happened to my sister,” Fox continued, “I think somebody, somewhere, knows what happened to her. And I want to find out what that is. And if it really was aliens, which there is endless but intangible proof of, then who’s to say all the other highly contested beings humans have been dreaming up and swearing sightings of for thousands of years don’t also lurk in the darkest corners of our world, where they live in secret? Hiding in shadows, taking people, surviving in their own way? I need to give everyone a chance. I've had my story invalidated over and over, I can’t do that to other people. There are people out there who believe in ghosts and monsters, and who have lost family to circumstances that no one else will give the time of day, Ro. I can’t stand by and let these people suffer. I want them to be heard the way nobody hears me. I want to make people feel safe, to stop the monsters.”

If God was truly real, this would be the moment you believed He was at work- within Fox. He didn’t need to be as articulate or intelligent as he was to make you believe it. The man’s body glowed with his belief and devotion. His eyes were glistening with tears and the fear of letting you know what he stood for. You saw it in the way he shoved his hands in his pockets, how he looked at the ground, how his chest rose and fell like he’d just confessed to murder. That man was shouldering a burden beyond your comprehension, yet he gets up every day and helps other people who struggle as he does, all on top of being scrutinized by everyone in his field. You thought of a young boy who lost his sister, a young boy who needed help and spent the rest of his life ridiculed for searching for answers, and your eyes began to glisten, too. They glistened with a lot of things as you looked through him.

“You used the name.”

“Huh?”

“Ro. You called me Ro.”

Fox turned his back to the window, looking considerably more tired than he had before. “I guess I did.”

You untangled your legs and stood up, face hot, walking over to the window. Fox saw the raindrops in the reflection of the streetlights outside freckling your smooth skin, and he took a step closer to look out alongside you.

“What you do is important,” you affirmed. “You give people hope. You hold onto it even when you’re met with nothing at every turn. You’re not in the basement because you’re an outcast, you’re in the basement because they want to keep you down there where people can’t see the truth about you. You’re not somebody who takes orders, you give your own. You question their every move, don’t you?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, if you do, then so do I.”

Fox looked down at you, feeling that same fluttering warmth he felt when you set up your desk, and when you fell asleep on the plane, and when he almost crashed the car. “That’s a big commitment to make to a guy you met yesterday.”

“Well, I don’t know enough about aliens or vampires to chime in, but I believed in Santa until I was fourteen. And if you’re honest about everything you’ve seen, who am I to tell you that you didn’t see it? This is your world, Fox, I’m only just joining it,” you confessed. “And if they put me in the basement to stop you, they hired the wrong person. I’ve made a career out of chasing monsters, too.”

Your partner was at a loss for words. He’d never been in this position before, where someone met him halfway and promised to believe him. He was ready for you to tell him he was crazy and kick him out of the room; he was imagining a world where tomorrow he wakes up and you’re gone, back to Washington, begging to be reassigned to a unit where there aren’t psychopaths running the operation. But you were alone with him, comfortable, and you saw right through to his heart, just like you did the first minute you spoke to him. That was when he knew.

“Well, if I told you I have reason to believe the killer we’re out here looking for is harnessing some kind of biblical power, would you believe me then?” Fox proposed, a smile finally interrupting the stagnant look he held.

“I think I’d need a little more detail, but sure,” you nodded, “You know, it sounds like this job isn’t going to be boring.”

“What makes you say that?”

A loud laugh bubbled up in your throat, and it hung in the air like a drug. You leaned into his side in a moment of urge, and he held steady for you, pushing back with pressure. When your body began to run hot, you rocked back on your heels and shuffled over to the edge of your stiff motel bed, falling back-first onto it. Fox waddled over to the recliner and pulled it to the foot of the bed, collapsing into the cushion.

“Can I ask you something?”

You propped yourself up on your elbows and locked eyes with him. He had a tendency to make severe eye contact, but something about it was hard to resist. “Sure.”

“You handled a lot today. I mean, all that anxiety on the plane, the stress of starting your first case and meeting all those people. The crime scene. You just seemed so… I don’t know, overwhelmed by it all by the time we got back here. And now, after I gave you my spiel, it’s like you don’t have a care in the world. I would’ve thought you’d be completely overloaded.”

Tilting your head back to gaze up at the ceiling, you figured if he was going to be honest with you as he has, then you need to repay the gesture. Partners can’t hide things from each other.

“It’s been a lot, sure. I have issues keeping my anxieties under control. But you’re a calming presence, I guess, or at least you remind me I’m still in the real world when I feel like I’m losing my grip. And because of that, I guess I just… trust you.”

“You don't even know me,”

“You don’t really know me either, do you? Yet you just told me the purpose behind your life’s work.”

Fox grinned and slouched in the chair, throwing his feet up on the edge of your bed. “Got me there.”

“Hm,” you scrunched your nose in triumph. “Then again, maybe I shouldn’t trust you. Maybe you’re some weird, spooky guy that everyone thinks is crazy and really is. But I need a job, and I need someone to teach me how to do it, so I’ve got no choice.”

“Are you sure no one told you?” Fox gave you a suspicious glance at the mention of his very nickname.

“Told me what?”

“That they call me Spooky Mulder back in Washington. And you should know they’re gonna think you’re insane for working with me.”

“Let them,” was all you gave in response.

You couldn’t describe the expression on the man’s face, but you liked it. It suited him, to have his big eyes shining, and the apples of his cheeks dusted pink. You watched him get up and bustle over to the desk, collecting the discarded leftovers and swiping them all into the trash, Then, he pushed the recliner back over towards the door and swiped his bag.

“We’ve got work to do tomorrow,” Fox stated, “You should get some sleep.”

“God knows if I’ll fall asleep in this place,” you scoffed.

“Well, I’m right next door if you need me, Piglet.”

As he swung your front door wide, you pleaded, “Hey, can’t we go back to Ro? That was nice!”

Fox looked over his shoulder with a smile that made you thankful you were sitting down, and he silently vetoed your suggestion. “Goodnight.”

You pouted, but it just turned into a grin. “Goodnight, Spooky.”

He shut the door behind him in a hurry, so as not to flood your motel room, and you were left in a quiet space that felt starkly colder. You blamed it on all the rainy air he let in and fell back onto the mattress, hoping that by the time you woke up tomorrow, you would have shaken the gentle ache in your bones.

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