#txf humor
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If Scully had an Instagram account.
#the x files#txf#dana scully#scully#msr#x files crack#crack post#scully would not be this public at all but humor me.#crying at what they could’ve had#i hate chris carter#mulder#fox mulder#if x files had an instagram
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Though I'm forever drawn to the insane chemistry and comedic timing of Craig Ferguson and his first (and reoccurring) guest David Duchovny, there's something very magical about Craig taking shots at David's fashion and David then setting Craig up for a gag:
(Compilation of these two that I watch over and over like a movie found here.)
#txf#but not#DD#Craig Ferguson#seriously I rewatch that compilation like a movie#over and over#reality is more fun to me than fiction#and these two are insanely in sync with their humor and communication#I was too late to the game and missed these types of interviews (Craig is of the best)#so I'm making up for lost time. Constantly.#catchin up on old news
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I just finished the pilot episode of the files
and I have this urge to start a new blog
#xfiles#x files#msr#fox mulder#karen mulder#agent mulder#samantha mulder#scully#txf#mulder x scully#the xfiles#dana scully#help me god#funny#jokes#pls help#shitpost#humor#lol
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"It's alright, I'm here now."
How did we get this far? We are on day 26!
Prompt #10 - "It's alright, I'm here now."
A yell echoed through the house, Scully’s Quantico training kicking in immediately. She grabbed her gun from the nightstand and carefully descended the stairs, heart pounding. She tried to regulate her breathing and vowed that nothing bad would happen to Mulder.
A myriad of terrible visions flooded her brain, most involving Mulder hurt or in imminent danger, each one more gruesome than the other. Fallen and hurt. At knifepoint, gunpoint, or even worse… already dead.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, holding her breath and waiting. All was quiet and bright with late afternoon sunlight. “Mulder?” she called.
“In the kitchen,” Mulder said.
Relaxing, Scully brought her weapon to her leg and made her way to the kitchen, where Mulder stood against the counter with a pained expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “I heard you scream.”
“There’s a spider!” Mulder exclaimed. “It’s huge!”
“It’s alright, I’m here now,” Scully soothed, rubbing his back. “Where did it go?”
He pointed to a corner on the counter, but refused to move closer. Scully took a step in its direction. It was large and fat and furry. It was a wonder Mulder was able to hunt down serial killers and monsters, but was afraid of an eight-legged creature he could easily step on.
“Oh that is a big one,” Scully said, taking a paper and escorting it outside.
“And it wasn’t a girly scream!” cried Mulder.
#the x files#txf#fictober23#scully#mulder#thexfiles#dana scully#the x-files#msr#mulder and scully#it was definitely a girly scream#comedy#fox mulder#mulder in danger#humorous fic#fictober 2023#xf fictober23#drabble#xfiles fanfic#fanfic#fanfiction#ao3 fanfic#ao3fic#ao3 author#ao3 writer#x files fanfic#fanfic writing
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🥏 TXF Fic Rec #9: "A Few Thousand Plus One" by mldrgrl
Funny, cute, and totally in character, today’s fic is our duo having a conversation in a diner, just like a few thousand times they have already done across America, but this one is a little special.
Their back-and-forth verbal dance is a chef’s kiss. Mulder is witty, charming, and determined, and Scully is her usual no-nonsense eyebrow-raising self. The ending is quite perfect.
I adore this story. It will put a delightful grin on your face.
🥏 A Few Thousand Plus One by mldrgrl (@mldrgrl)
Length: Short, 2,000+ words
Season: No Era Given
Relationship(s): M/S UST
Tags: humor, fluff
Rating: G
#x files#the x files#x files fanfic#xf fanfic#msr#nephrit's fic rec#favorite#len: short#season: no-era-given#ship: m/s ust#genre: humor#genre: fluff#rating: g#by: mldrgrl
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Breathless
Fandom: TXF
WC: 1,256
Fire. Why did it have to be fire? The flames licked at the walls, curling beautiful tendrils back down from the ceiling. The heat was unbearable, but the fear was so much worse. Mulder was frozen, unable to move. He commanded his body to run, to leave, but his body didn’t listen. He was trapped staring at the awful and powerful wall of death creeping ever closer to him.
At first Mulder was certain the terror was what kept him locked in place, but as his survival instincts kicked in, he screamed in his mind to flee. Then when he flexed a muscle, his body still did not move. It was as if some other force had placed him under a spell. He was terribly, horribly aware, yet his pleas went unanswered.
Mulder woke with a strangled gasp.
His heart was pounding in his ears and the feeling of deep dread continued in his stomach. His chest ached tremendously, and no matter how quickly he drew in a jagged breath, he could not get enough air.
The smoke. The suffocating smothering smoke. It must still be chasing him.
Only there was no smoke.
Mulder staggered into the kitchen, holding a hand to his chest as his body violently trembled.
Was he dying? Was he having a heart attack? Was he old enough to be having a heart attack? He was healthy enough, although Mulder was fully aware he did not take the best care of himself. He didn’t eat well, he didn’t sleep well, he didn’t go to the doctor as regularly as he should. Was the stress finally killing him? Was he going to die here on his kitchen floor? How did he end up on the kitchen floor?
Mulder pressed his back to the cabinets, drawing his knees in close. He couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t breathing.
He should call for an ambulance. He should call a doctor.
He dialed Scully’s number.
“Mulder?” came Scully’s sleepy voice, “What time is it?”
“I can’t breathe.”
He could hear the rustle of sheets; Scully must have sat up.
“You can’t breathe?” her voice was calm, to the point.
“I can’t breathe, Scully I think…I think something’s wrong.”
“How long has this been happening?”
“I don’t know…few minutes, I can’t…”
“Okay, Mulder,” Scully’s voice soothed, “If it’s been that long you are breathing, but you might be having trouble. What happened? Did you get hurt?”
“No,” Mulder shook his head, “I just woke up and…I can’t…Scully, I can’t…”
“Shh,” Scully cooed, “It’s okay. I can hear your breathing, you need to try to slow it down. I need you to take as deep a breath in as you can, okay?”
Mulder struggled to follow the instruction.
“Now hold it.”
Mulder’s eyes widened at the strained feeling in his chest.
“Now exhale.”
Mulder gasped out, his breathing going ragged again.
“Mulder, I think you’re having a panic attack.”
Mulder’s breathing slowed, “Panic attack?”
Mulder thought of his dream. The fire. Of course, it made sense but…is that really what this was? It was a dream, it shouldn’t still be affecting him like this. He’s awake. He’s safe. The fire wasn’t real. Why did he feel like he was drowning?
“Mulder…where are you?”
Mulder blinked, “My apartment.”
“Where?”
“Outside my kitchen…on the floor.”
“Okay…can you tell me three things you see?”
“Don’t wanna know what I’m wearing?” Mulder huffed with a shaky laugh.
A snort of laugh was returned on the line, “Three things you see.”
Mulder looked around, “Um…my fish…my couch…and a hooded figure looming in the corner…”
“Well, I’m glad your humor is intact.”
“For real, he has a knife and everything,” Mulder added, his heart rate slowing a bit.
“Can you tell me if you can hear anything?”
Mulder listened, frowning, “I can hear you a little.” He looked back to his fish, “The tank is…bubbling.” His eyes flicked to the front door, “I can hear the shitty electricity that's powering the lights in the hall.”
“What can you feel, physically?”
Mulder’s free hand touched the floor, “The floor under me…the wall to my back…my ass is a bit sore.”
“Sorry about your ass,” Scully snorted, “Okay good. Focus on the floor, on the wall, on the bubbling tank. You are in your apartment. You are safe.”
Mulder thought to crack a joke, to make fun of the moment to distance himself from the reality, but he thought better of it.
His heart rate was slowing, the dread was lessening, and the purposeful breathing of Scully on the phone was a soothing sound in the dark.
He was safe.
“Where’d you learn that? Med school or academy?”
“Neither. Missy taught me.”
Mulder smiled, “Missy?”
“Yeah, Missy’s always been more…holistic in her approaches, but damn if they don’t work. It helps with panic. Being present.”
“Yeah…yeah I’d say it works.”
Scully hummed into the phone and then let silence hover.
Mulder straightened out his legs, resting his head back against the wall.
“How are you feeling?” Scully asked.
“Better. Thank you.”
“Good, I’m glad,” Scully replied, relief pouring out of her words. “Do you need me to come over?”
Mulder’s heart squeezed at the offer. Scully, rushing out of bed and driving to Mulder’s place in the middle of night because a silly dream scared him. He was flattered and embarrassed at the same time.
“No, no, I’m okay,” Mulder smiled, shaking his head.
“Okay,” Scully replied, the sound of her settling back in bed rustling in Mulder’s ear, “Is there anything else I can do to help?”
Mulder chewed his lip, “What are you wearing?”
Scully snorted, “A hooded shroud.”
“Oh that was you? I thought I smelled your perfume.”
Scully let out a laugh, and Mulder could imagine the eyeroll that accompanied it.
“Well, you sound much better,” Scully added, but only with partial sarcasm. She sounded very relieved.
“I am…thank you.”
“Any time.”
“Well, hopefully not,” Mulder laughed, “I’ll try to remember your advice for next time instead.”
There was a stiffness to the silence.
Mulder swallowed.
“Recurring dream?” Scully pressed.
“Oh,” he shook his head, “No, it’s fine. It wasn’t even that bad.”
Scully seemed to be weighing his words, and it made Mulder fidgety.
“Was just a dream.”
“Dreams can feel very real. We can’t tell until we wake up, and even then…dreams can be a window into what’s troubling us. Our fears, our desires, conflicting wants, anxieties.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Well,” Scully sighed, “Yes. Who doesn’t have dreams that stir up strong feelings every once in a while.”
“What conflicting wants are haunting you, Dana Scully?” Mulder posited, laughing a little.
Scully hesitated, and suddenly a heat began to grow in Mulder’s chest. It was one he was becoming quite accustomed to around his partner, but not something he would ever dare acknowledge head-on.
When the silence continued, it grew deafening. The sound of Mulder’s fish-tank long drowned out.
“Just…life stuff,” Scully replied, as if this did anything to lessen the tension that was so thick that the smoke in Mulder’s dream would grow jealous.
Mulder nodded, as if he understood and accepted this answer.
“It’s late,” Scully added.
“Yeah,” Mulder agreed, “Thanks again. You’re a lifesaver.”
Mulder could hear the smile in her words, “Glad to help.”
“Have a good night, Scully.”
“You too, Mulder.”
Mulder bit his lip, considering hanging up without saying it, but he couldn’t resist, “Sweet dreams.”
For a moment he thought Scully hung up by how quiet it got, but then came a quiet, “You too.”
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Quonochontaug - Snapshots
The X-Files. MSR. Mature. WC: 8,063. Established Relationship. Post-Je Souhaite. Alternate Series Finale. Read on AO3 Tagging @today-in-fic
One of my newer pieces. The first TXF fanfic I managed to write after a seven year bout with writer’s block.
Loose Ends
He answered on the seventh ring, just as she was about to give up.
“Mulder, where are you?”
“Headin’ up the I-95.” There was a soft crack of a sunflower seed between his teeth and then nothing.
“I just spoke to Skinner. He said you called him at five o’clock this morning and requested a week’s vacation.”
His measured reserve was louder than the faint music coming from the car radio. She thought she recognized the song.
Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you. There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
“Mulder… Mulder what are you doing?”
“End of the road, Scully. Just tying up loose ends.”
She dipped her head and accepted the inevitable. She’d been afraid from the onset that his fragile peace wouldn’t last. Had felt the unsettled aura that’d enveloped him the last few months, the indigo shimmer of his dissatisfaction.
She knew it was in small part her unfortunate adventure with CGB Spender; the full details of which she’d chosen not to disclose to him. But Mulder had discerned her flimsy ploy and instead of pressing her, meted out punishment by withholding his affections. There was an end to that impasse only after she’d gone to his bed the night of his return from London; seduced him slowly with her mouth and nimble hands, dragged him back into the cradle of her thighs, made him fuck her for the first time in almost a month.
But the larger part, the root of his sadness, was what it’d always been. His proclaimed freedom after his ghostly reunion with his sister hadn’t come without a small kernel of doubt. He’d always wanted to believe – but that didn’t preclude the moments when he couldn’t.
She pulled up a road map in her head and asked, “The summer house?”
The last time he’d been there he’d had a gun tucked under his chin.
“Ding, ding, ding,” he intoned. “We have a winner.” There followed another long silence. She refused to fill it for him. Their relationship was based on an implicit and equitable give and take. He’d not been holding up his end of the deal lately. He finally gave in and told her, “I’m putting it on the market. I need to get it cleaned out before I call the real estate agent.”
“I thought you’d decided to keep it.”
“Why, so I have somewhere to spend my forced yearly vacations? Anything good about the place died a long time ago, Scully. Better to get out from under it. At least the proceeds will pad my retirement fund. Maybe we can take a trip to Mexico sometime soon. Sip margaritas, bake ourselves on the beach, get sand in uncomfortable places. Whadda’ya think?”
She caught an edge of humor in his tone and softened hers to match.
“I wish you’d called me, Mulder. I would have come with you.”
“You’ve got that thing at Quantico later this week. Wouldn’t want to disappoint all those fresh young faces waiting for your wisdom.” He let loose a sigh. “I’ll be fine, Scully.”
“You’ll call?”
“Don’t I always?”
No, not always. But enough that she didn’t feel the need to point it out.
“I’ll miss you,” she whispered, as though she were sitting in the basement office surrounded by fellow agents.
“Yeah,” he responded. “Same.” He ended the call and she sat listening to the silence on the other end, vaguely unsettled.
Chasing Ghosts
Mulder tossed the phone on the passenger seat and dug another seed from the bag resting in the console. He glanced at his watch. Tuesday morning traffic was light; three more hours should see him there. And then would begin the work of what he hoped would be a final exorcism, a purging of the last of his demons.
He allowed himself a beat or two of regret for not forewarning Scully of his plans. But in his defense his final decision hadn’t come until just hours ago, when caught in the teeth of the night’s wolf, he’d reckoned this could be the resolution he needed. If he was wrong, no need to pull her into another nightmare-scape of his creating. She’d been yanked through too many of those already. Better to put enough miles between them to serve as cushion before he spoke to her. He’d hesitated to answer the call, knowing it would be her, knowing she’d want answers. He had none to give her, not yet anyway. Still, it was incredible how their brief conversation had centered him, corrected his course. She was light and purpose. Scully was clarity.
To say he’d been distracted of late would be an understatement. Theories shuffled and tumbled through his head twenty-four-seven, rolled and bounced like pinballs; faces and memories with their jagged edges had sliced through thin skin and burned the back of his eyelids.
His father. Dead. Sacrificed on the altar of a global conspiracy of monsters.
His mother. Dead. Sacrificing herself to escape another fact too painful to admit or fight against.
His sister. Dead. Sacrificed… or saved?
Samantha.
He’d spent twenty-seven years chasing a ghost. What might his life have been like if he’d known at eighteen what he thought he knew now? What choices might there’ve been for him.
Jung believed that a persistent attachment to those lost to us could make life seem less worth living. Mulder had, aside from a few extreme moments, felt life to be worth every ounce of labor. Because if he gave up his quest, who would find his sister?
He was struggling to fit into the unfamiliar clothing of an orphan, of a solitary child, that circumstance had handed him. He felt uneasy in them, rubbed raw. He was the last one. The only one left.
He stopped just outside New Haven for gas. Took a leak and bought bottled iced tea and a couple Slim Jims. He ripped open the wrapping on one of them with his teeth and bit into it. The greasy, salty taste brought another flood of memories. He and Samantha on Quonnie Beach, skipping rocks across the water, racing down the shoreline, their skinny wet calves painted with sand as they raucously yelped like odd, prehistoric birds.
He forced down the bite and threw the rest of it onto the floorboard of the car. His hand smoothed over the weathered cover of the journal lying next to his cell before he turned the key in the ignition and got back on the road.
Creatures of the Night
“Did you know Rhode Island was once considered the vampire capital of America?”
“Vampires, Mulder?”
“Yeah. Hear me out. In 1892 on a cold March afternoon in Exeter, a group of men exhumed the bodies of the family members of a farmer named George Brown: his wife, and their two daughters. All three had died under mysterious circumstances over the previous years and his only son and the last of his children, Edwin, once hearty and hale, was now suffering from the same malady. The village doctor was convinced that the underlying cause was consumption.”
“Tuberculosis, “she interjected. Rolling over and forcing one eye open, she registered the time on her alarm clock. 1:52 A.M.
Mulder had no circadian rhythm to speak of. He just kept going until he dropped. His occasional afternoon naps in the lab area of their basement office were a long-standing secret they shared.
“Right. But despite the doctor’s diagnosis many of the country folk were convinced their deaths were caused by a much more malevolent force.”
“Let me guess. Vampires.”
“Right again. They were certain that one of the members of the family was rising from the grave and taking midnight strolls to slowly suck the life out of Edwin.”
“Mulder, these were poor, uneducated people, raised on folk tales brought over from their home countries. I mean, the Irish alone have a wide range of folklore surrounding vampires. There’s Dearg Dur, the female vampire; the Abhartach, who was purported to be a dwarf and was defeated only after he was killed for a third time and his body buried upside down.”
“I love it when you talk dirty. Keep it up, Scully, and we may have to try phone sex.”
She chuckled. “I’m sorry. Go on with your story.”
“Well, as I was saying… They exhumed and examined the wife, Mary, and the older daughter, also named Mary.”
“How original.”
“The two Marys passed muster in so far as they were moldering appropriately.” He snorted a fraction of a laugh, amused at himself. “Then they got to the youngest daughter, Mercy, who’d been interred two months previously and hit paydirt, so to speak. She was curiously well-preserved, and when they poked at her corpse with a shovel, they found it filled with fresh blood.”
“Oh, Mulder, come on.”
“No, no, no, listen. They removed her heart, burned it to a crisp on a nearby rock and then mixed the ashes into Edwin’s medication, hoping to stop the curse and cure the boy.”
“And did it?”
“Of course not. He died a few months later. But the tale spread and soon Rhode Island was considered a hot bed of vampiric activity. As a matter of fact, it still is.”
“And you called to tell me this, why?”
“I just find it interesting, the obstinacy of the human mind. People will latch onto the most farfetched idea and convince themselves that it’s true, even when all evidence points to the contrary.” He went quiet and she considered the scrap of insight handed her, a piece of a puzzle he’d been trying to solve. A large piece, if she was reading him correctly.
“Don’t you find that interesting, Scully?”
Prod, or no? She landed on a subtle approach. “How are you, Mulder, really?”
“Hanging in there,” he murmured. “I decided to call an auction house, have them do an estate sale, take care of the furniture and stuff. That way I don’t have to fuck with it. I just need to go through the papers and personal things. My folks bought this place just after I was born. Living large, y’know. It’s amazing how much shit accumulated over a few decades of summers.”
A noisy yawn came through the line and crept in her ear. She shifted and settled deeper into the bed, comforted by his familiar nocturnal sounds.
“Well, I guess I better let you go,” he said. “It’s getting late.”
“Getting?”
He snickered softly. “You got me there. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your beauty sleep.”
“It’s okay. It’s good to hear your voice. I thought you might call sooner.”
“Up with the sun, gone with the wind,” he sang off-key. “Just have a lot to do.”
“I know.”
“I miss you, Scully.”
She’d never understood how he managed to slip right under her skin with a few simple, whispered words. She pressed her eyes tight against the burn of sudden tears.
“Same here.”
“Sweet dreams, hon’.”
Her bed was too empty and sleep returned slowly, stepping in on reluctant tiptoe.
Darlene
The Blue Whale Diner was an institution, open long before he was born and likely to outlive him. The smell of strong coffee and bacon grease engulfed him like a wave when he came through the door, the bell hung above it chiming his arrival. The place was half-empty, a lull between breakfast and the lunch rush. He contemplated a stool at the counter amongst the old men sipping coffee and talking shit and a couple pimply teenagers ditching school, grabbed a booth against the back wall instead. He slid across the faded and cracked red leather and gazed out the window. There wasn’t much going on in the street this time of day, either. He’d forgotten how small the village was, remembering instead the hustle and bustle of the summer people, the tribe he’d been part of.
How many times had he sat in this diner, first with his family intact and later just him and his mom? How many cheeseburgers and pieces of fried chicken, how many sticky ice cream sundaes and fresh slices of strawberry pie had he downed here? How many kicks under the table delivered to Samantha and retaliatory smacks across the back of his head from the old man? They used to talk then, the four of them. Making plans for the day or taking a break from the unrelenting heat of the little summer house, back before it was air-conditioned.
Simple times. Effortless and carefree. When the days went on forever and the nights were spent under the stars in the cool grass just off the back deck; foregoing the loft he’d shared with Samantha, too ungodly hot to sleep under the eave of a roof that’d soaked up the sun.
“Hi there.” Mulder looked up as a laminated menu was laid down in front of him and the upturned cup beside him was righted on its saucer. “Coffee?”
He saw kohl-rimmed hazel eyes and round cheeks, curly dishwater blonde hair pinned in a messy bun; the face of a pretty woman a few years younger than him. Ample curves filled out faded jeans and a green t-shirt above a food-stained white apron informed him that ‘Life’s a Beach’. She had an order pad in one hand, a pot of coffee in the other, and an inquisitive tilt to one eyebrow.
“Yeah, please.”
“Sugar’s right there next to you. You need cream?”
“No, no thanks. Are you still serving breakfast?”
She worked a wad of gum tucked in her cheek before answering. “All day long. You need a minute?”
“Nah. Two eggs over easy, double order of bacon, toast, hash browns.” Scully chattered deep in his brain, reminded him he was getting too old to eat like a college kid. He shushed her. “Some ice water, too?”
“Comin’ right up, darlin’.”
She spun away and sashayed toward the narrow order window behind the counter, stopping after a few steps and throwing him a quick look over her shoulder. Mulder grinned into his coffee and took a cautious sip.
He made a few calls while he waited for his food, glancing up now and then and catching more sidelong looks from his waitress. She came around to refill his cup, bring his water, and he focused on his phone, not wanting to encourage whatever had captured her attention.
Scully’d told him once that he was like catnip to women, and she couldn’t believe he wasn’t more aware of it. He’d been rewarded with a stinging slap on his bare ass when he’d responded that the only pussy he was interested in attracting was hers. That brought back his grin. He was still wearing it when his breakfast was placed in front of him.
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Uh, no,” he glanced at her name tag, “…Darlene. I used to spend summers here a long time ago. My folks have… had a place on Quonnie Beach.” He salted and peppered his eggs, splattered the hash browns with Tabasco. “I’m out there now, getting it ready to go on the market.”
“I know you,” she declared. He stopped, a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth, and shifted his attention from his breakfast to her. “I grew up on the Quonnie.” She gave him another long study before announcing, “I remember who you are. You’re Samantha’s brother. What was your name? It was a weird one.” She snapped her fingers a few times and he flinched with each crack. “Fox, that’s it! You’re Fox Mulder, aren’t you?”
His fork hit the plate and he gave her a tight smile. “Guilty. How’d you know; was it…?” He tapped the side of his nose.
“Oh, no, darlin’, it’s that mole right there on your cheek. I remember that. I used to have such a crush on you. Your sister and me are the same age. We used to play together when you folks were here. Don’t you remember me? I lived just down the road. I was at your place just about every day. ‘Course I was a hell of a lot younger and skinnier back then.”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Well, that’s okay. It was a long time ago. I sure felt bad when I heard what happened. She was a peach, your sister, just a sweet girl; never hurt a soul. I remember her spending the night once or twice a summer. We’d have sleepovers, y’know? We’d stay up half the night gigglin’, making up stories, braiding each other’s hair. Yeah, she was my best friend those summers. It’s a shame what happened. Did you, did she… did she ever turn up?”
He pushed his plate aside and ducked his head, throat gone tight, and muttered, “Uh, no... no, she’s gone.”
His teeth latched onto his bottom lip when she cupped his shoulder. “Oh, sugar, I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing.”
A benign Pandora’s box beckoned him with the promise of solace too seductive to ignore. Standing there in front of him was someone who remembered Samantha, who’d known her the way he had, in that innocence of childhood and long summers. He’d thought he was the only one.
“Darlene, will you sit with me for a minute while I eat, maybe take a break? I’d like you to tell me about my sister.”
Possessions
He’d stopped at a grocery store after breakfast and begged some cardboard boxes from the kid stocking produce, bringing them into the living room to start sorting the detritus within the brown clapboard house. Black trash bags for things he’d toss in the burn barrel out back, boxes for smaller items to be sold, another for things to keep.
He worked steadily through the afternoon, at first carefully sorting through stacks of old utility bills, appliance manuals, scraps of note paper; words written and forgotten long ago, their significance lost to time. Grocery receipts, Mom? Really? he’d thought once, finding stacks of them two and three inches deep, neatly bundled with rubber bands that disintegrated when he tried to remove them. And then the day grew late, twilight stretching fingers of russet and gold across the sky outside the grimy windows. His patience waned with the sun, and soon he was stuffing trash bags and boxes indiscriminately, not really seeing what he held in his hands.
Twice before he’d labored at this sort of task. The first at his father’s house in West Tisbury, the second not long ago, caught in a miasma of anguish as he’d waded through the leftovers of his mother’s life in her small, meticulously kept condo. She’d given up the house in Greenwich a few years earlier, overwhelmed by the weight of meaningless possessions and advancing age. She’d taken on the culling in Greenwich by herself; his time and attention then focused solely on Scully and the work.
He found himself wondering if people were creations of what they’d chosen to surround themselves with or if those things were simply a reflection, a way for others to remember you. What memories would he trigger, then? He once bore a singular obsession, driven to find the truth, to learn everything there was to know about everything, a curiosity fueled by a mind hungry for knowledge. That aspect of himself had become blunted, worn down with the passage of years and the gradual discovery that not all he’d sought to know had brought him satisfaction. Most times it’d offered only pain.
But there remained an unquenching passion in him. For justice, for a measure of peace, for smaller truths that’d become ever more precious. Passion and need for simpler things, one in particular: his partner, his love. The sound of her girlish laughter, the sharply honed edges of her intellect scraping along his, the sparkle of her eyes. Scully’s silken skin beneath his hands, the scent of her, the taste of the delicate folds between her legs. He wanted to tuck her in his pocket and slip away with her, go be with her somewhere else, in another life, safe and mostly whole.
And then he wondered if such a thing was even possible.
After a dinner of take-out pizza and Shiner Bock he moved to the loft, pulling boxes from the small closet where he and his sister had kept their summer things. There was an old baseball glove, the leather cracked from disuse. Samantha’s Barbie dolls, draped in dust and cobwebs, clothed in the last things she’d ever chosen for them to wear. Board games, frisbees, stuffed animals, 500-piece puzzles. Handfuls of Webbles, Matchbox cars, and G.I. Joes. Then he found a banged-up shoebox covered in colorful wrapping paper and Day-Glo stickers jammed in the back corner of the closet. Sams Stuff. Keep Out! was scrawled in pale red magic marker on the lid.
Mulder retreated until the edge of one of the twin beds stopped him and he staggered, reaching with one hand to steady his clumsy descent onto the bare mattress. With reverence he slipped the lid from the box, twisting on the bed until the angle of the overhead light fully captured and presented its contents to him.
Small seashells, a dozen or more. Samantha had favored the rounded clamshells, mottled with smears of soft silver, ivory, and gray. A few rocks, none of which seemed particularly unique to his eyes, except that she’d seen something in them that warranted squirreling them away. A desiccated bottle of what had once been bright pink nail polish. Plastic purple and green butterfly hair barrettes. Ponytail elastics, one with several strands of dark hair still tangled around it. A corner of red construction paper with an angry stick figure head and I hate my brother! written on it. He flipped it over to find a smiling moon face and I love my brother! there.
His next trip into the box brought up a short stack of faded Polaroids. There were a few of him: skinny with angular arms and hairpin legs, shirtless and crouched on the beach in his swim trunks, poking at the sand with a stick. One taken from behind, his back tanned to dark honey, his long legs hanging over the edge of a dock.
There were several of Samantha and a girl he knew instantly was Darlene. They were laughing in one, sticking out their tongues in the next. In a third, their arms were around each other’s necks, heads pressed together, sporting delighted gap-tooth smiles. He’d never seen these. That there could be photos of his sister that’d existed without his knowledge shocked him, though it shouldn’t have. She’d had a life that was bigger than just him and his memories of her.
He didn’t realize he’d been weeping until he couldn’t breathe through his nose anymore. He tugged the hem of his t-shirt up his belly and used it as a snot rag.
The last two photos were of his parents. In one they stood peering out the front window of the house, side by side and shoulders back, their profiles immutable, young in a way he could barely recall. The last, he recognized, taken from behind the loft’s open railing. His mother was on the couch, eyes down and hands folded primly in her lap. His father was on his feet at the opposite end, shoulders hunkered forward, a stiff finger pointed at his wife. He might not have remembered Darlene, but moments like the final photo were etched deeply in Mulder’s cerebral cortex. Especially the ones after Samantha was gone.
He glanced into the box at what the photos had uncovered and took the stairs three at a time, grabbed the baluster at the bottom, swung around and centrifuged his way into the living room. A few moments later found him panting under the roof’s eave, a journal in each hand.
He and Samantha had been gifted one every year on their birthdays, their first arriving as soon as they could print. Their mother had been the list maker, the storyteller, the one who was always with a pen in hand, encouraging them to write something every day. He’d known all along that those journals hadn’t been their father’s idea.
Except that maybe one had. The one he’d found behind a bookcase at April Air Force Base. But how… and why? And which father?
He thumbed the latches, opened the journals, and got to work. Mulder had seen enough handwriting comparisons at the bureau to know they were from the same hand. One rounder and more effortless, redolent with premature wisdom, doused in anger and pain, in confusion. The other the sloppy but earnest scrawls of an eight-year-old whose life was about to become hostage to a cabal she neither knew existed nor could ever understand.
So, there it was. His proof irrefutable. The truth. Samantha Mulder was well and truly gone. And had been for twenty-one years. He sank slowly onto the bed as he pulled his cell phone from his back pocket.
“Scully?” He swallowed a sob when she responded with his name. “I need you.”
He went down like a snapped tree limb, curling in on himself when she promised, “I’m on my way, Mulder. I will be right there.”
Immutable
She was on a flight to Providence within two hours of his call. In a rental car by midnight. Less than an hour later sprinting up the uneven cobblestones leading to the little house, and straight into his needy arms.
She cradled him on the couch, surrounded by papers and boxes in the dark, half the furniture still draped in ghostly sheets of plastic. He wept a tidal wave into the front of her jacket, his face folded up in an origami of grief. She didn’t speak and neither did he. He just cried, strangled howls leaking from him like helium from a balloon. She was tremulous under the weight of his anguish, holding fast to her barb-wired core so she wouldn’t tumble into the depths with him.
She didn’t know precisely what had happened and thought to herself that it didn’t matter anyway. Something had broken in him and would need repaired. The part she would play in that reconstruction wasn’t apparent to her; not yet.
Scully ordered him to the bedroom when he eventually ran out of steam, tears transforming to ragged sighs against her neck, the tremors rolling through him lessening in frequency and strength. She pulled herself out from behind him and grabbed his hand, guided him down the hall like a sleepy toddler. Undressed him in the dark and tucked him into threadbare cotton sheets. He rolled onto his side and was out not a minute later.
She sat at the kitchen table, dunking a twenty-year-old teabag into a mug of hot water, staring out at the darkness beyond the window. Something was coming, she knew. Things were soon to change. What she perceived of that within herself was elemental and absolute; what was without remained unknown. But the immutable would always be Mulder.
He lived in her. He’d seeped down through her skin, her muscles, blood and bone. Coiled himself within her brain and nervous system, reached graceful tendrils like fingers into the messy viscera where hidden was the heart of her. Mulder had taken it in his hand, and she’d let him.
She’d fought so hard not to want him, not to give in. In doing so she’d discovered, when she finally stopped fighting, that the wanting of him had become a need. A vital element of who she was.
He was an acerbic bastard a lot of the time. But curious and whip-smart, with a sense of humor as dry as a martini. He was self-absorbed and arrogant. Generous, compassionate, kind to children and the elderly. He suffered from tunnel vision and bore a lofty sense of entitlement. But he also spent long nights enchanting her with stories only so he might be rewarded with her rare, belly-deep laughter. He could be a selfish lover sometimes. Then again, so could she. They used each other that way and never felt the need to apologize or explain.
But when things were good, which had been more frequent of late, when nothing dark or angry festered between them, Mulder was magical. She could find no other word for it. He played her like an instrument, knowing just where to pluck, to strum, to make her sing for him. He was beautiful and repulsive, an Adonis and a selfish beggar, astonishingly violent and endlessly tender. And she loved him beyond measure.
She washed her face and brushed her teeth, slipped into pajamas and joined him in bed. He didn’t rouse when she pressed herself against his back, weaving her arm under his to place a hand over his heart. This night, she’d hold his. This night, that was how she’d begin to fix him.
Ahavah
She woke slowly to sunlight leeching through her eyelids, grudgingly forced them open and found Mulder on his side next to her, mapping her with familiar scrutiny. There was a moment or two of discomfort; waking to his penetrating gaze wasn’t something she’d ever grown used to. She scrubbed hair out of her face and rubbed gummy eyes. “G’morning.”
His mute observation continued, and he lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. Even rumpled with sleep, face shadowed with two days of stubble, eyes swollen and red-rimmed, he was infinitely stunning.
“Thank you,” he eventually whispered, “for last night.”
“You’d do the same for me.” He nodded in answer as his fingers combed through her hair and curled around her skull, pulling her close as he leaned in. “Mulder,” she whined, twisting away. “Morning breath.”
“Hush now... it’s like garlic. As long as you both have it, it’s okay.”
“Mul –“ He slid his mouth across her lips and prodded them open, silencing her. He tasted of salty tears and bitterness as his thick tongue brushed across hers, warm and inviting. She took his offering and allowed his curious hands a short journey before rolling away and standing. He groaned his disappointment behind her.
“Bathroom first,” she explained over her shoulder.
“No tooth brushing while you’re in there,” he warned, and she grinned because she knew he wouldn’t see it.
She emptied her bladder and cleaned up, splashed water on her face and slipped out of her pajamas. She presented herself in the frame of the bedroom doorway wearing only panties.
He lifted a hand and beckoned her with a wolfish smile. “C’mere, Scully. Lemme show you how beautiful you are.”
She went to him, and he did.
He was markedly gentle with her. He touched her as if she might shatter. Sipped at her mouth and tenderly bathed the peaks of her breasts with his pliant tongue. Skimmed his palms up and down her ribs and arms, her legs, back, and bottom. Carefully opened her thighs and slid down to lap at her with the flat of his tongue. Her orgasm, when it came, was in direct contrast to his delicate ministrations: it violently roared to life, sudden and overwhelming, and left her dizzy and gasping for air. He eased up over her and shared the essence of the ocean and musk of her in a long, wet kiss. He wrapped his arms around her, rolled and brought her atop him, and she gratefully reached down and sheathed him within her soft and humid sex.
He let her set the pace when she’d settled fully onto him and rolled his hips up against her in encouragement. She mirrored him, pulling back and then rocking up, swiveling her hips on each stroke. Mulder barked a delighted laugh. He braced her hips and helped her along, bent his knees up and splayed his thighs wide, and she was enclosed by the cradle he’d made for her.
She rode him slowly for a while, until she could see the need flaring in his eyes, and his hands slipped to her waist, lifting so he could slam her back down again. Prying his fingers away she raised his arms to bracket his head, holding him there by the wrists and grinding her breasts against him. She dropped her forehead to his and rocked in measured strokes as he began to moan deep in his throat. Then she sped up and dipped low, fingers digging into the forearms she braced against.
She could feel the spiraling tension in him, knew he was close, lifted from his chest and waited. Kaleidoscope eyes opened to hers, dazed with arousal, gray-green and speckled with gold. Mulder blinked slow and she fell into the small universe there and gave him what he needed. Lifting her head from his shoulder when she could breathe again, Scully kissed the tears from his eyes.
Later, he pulled her from the bed and took her to the loft to show her what he’d found.
Persuasion
They spent most of that morning in sloth mode, drinking coffee in the sun-dappled kitchen while he made breakfast. He’d picked up a few provisions when he’d gotten the boxes and managed to whip up decent plates of scrambled eggs and toast. He taunted Scully into splitting a Pop Tart as dessert and couldn’t keep his enjoyment hidden as she tongued sugary icing from the corners of her mouth, her expression bordering on orgasmic. Then he took her back to bed and made sure she made that face again.
Cliché as it sounded, Mulder felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. Maybe part of it was allowing himself to grieve so fully in her arms the night before. The simple act of sharing his sister’s treasures with her had been freeing as well. Now there would be another person who knew these specific things about Samantha; he didn’t have to carry it all by himself. He’d encouraged her to compare the journals and fidgeted like a streetwise junkie until she finally looked over and told him the handwriting would need to be analyzed but she was fairly certain he was on to something. He hadn’t expected anything more than that. She was his Scully, and she would always hedge her bets until she had absolute proof. He depended on her for that.
He impulsively called Skinner mid-afternoon and requested another week off. Slotted his phone in his pocket and declared, “Your turn.”
She was poking through his mom’s cookbooks setting aside the ones she wanted to keep, and it took her a second to reconnect. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Why don’t you call Skinner, request vacation. He’s in the office. Jesus, you’d think the guy would learn how to take a weekend off every once and a while.” His attempt at self-aware humor fell flat.
“Mulder, I can’t,” she said, turning to him.
“Why not?”
“Well, because.”
“Have we got anything going on next week other than the usual? Any reports due, paperwork to file, meetings scheduled, unexplained phenomenon requiring our immediate attention?”
“Well, no, but… “
“Do you have anything penciled in on your personal calendar that can’t be postponed?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You just want free labor.”
He shot her a toothy grin.
“Mulder, I can’t call Skinner and ask for time off now.”
“Why not? I just did.”
“Exactly! What’s he gonna think if I call him right after he gets off the phone with you?”
“Probably the same thing he’s thought for going on a year now.”
She looked aghast and gave him an owl-eyed face. “You think so? But, but we’re always so careful.”
“The man’s not stupid, Scully, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“What, you didn’t bring a bag?” he asked innocently.
Deep pink spots of color flooded her cheeks, and he knew he had her.
“C’mon, Scully, it’ll be fun. And if you get tired of me you can always hop in your rental car and leave me behind.” He sidled over and pulled her into a loose hug. “Pretty please with sugar on top? You know you want to.”
She impatiently pushed him away. “I’ll think about it. Now get back to work; there’s still a lot to do around here.”
“You got it, G-woman.”
She called Skinner a couple of hours later and then went on sorting and packing, sporting an interesting flush. She didn’t tell him what Skinner’d had to say other than his approval for the time off, and Mulder didn’t ask.
Keeper
Both freshly showered and in clean clothes, he took her to the Blue Whale for a late dinner. They had the place to themselves, and he led Scully to the booth he’d taken the last time. She chose to sit across from him, her back to the door. They heard the banging of pots and pans from the kitchen, two or three voices joined in laughter, but no sign of any wait staff. Hungry and impatient, he started to rise to investigate just as the door to the kitchen swung open and Darlene stepped through. Mulder was surprised to see her. He’d figured she worked the day shift. Then again, his food service labor-related knowledge was sorely lacking.
“Well, look who’s here,” Darlene chortled, headed toward them. “Couldn’t get enough of me the first time, darlin’? Had to come back for more?” She cut her eyes at Scully as she reached the table. “I see you brought somebody along this time.” The two women sized each other up and he felt obligated to make introductions.
“Uh, yeah. Darlene this is… this is Dana. My partner.”
“And friend,” Scully added.
“Yeah, absolutely.” He lifted an open hand. “Dana,” he said formally, “this is Darlene. She’s the one I told you about this morning.”
“Well, aren’t you just the prettiest little thing,” Darlene chirped. “I can see why Fox looks better than he did last time he was in here.” She shifted her eyes to him. “You were in rough shape, my man.”
He could only nod in agreement, feeling weirdly tongue-tied. Scully stepped up and saved him further embarrassment. “It’s nice to meet you, Darlene.”
“You too, sugar.” She glanced back toward the kitchen. “I’d bring you menus, but we had a nice little dinner rush. Not a lot to choose from right now. Why don’t you tell me what’s soundin’ good and I’ll see what we can do.”
He decided on a burger and fries and Scully a turkey club, no mayo. Darlene set them up with coffee and hot tea and left them alone.
He propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand, angled a look at her. “Are you jealous?”
“Oh, please,” she groaned into her tea.
“’Cause I think I might have a shot with her.”
“Mulder, statistically speaking, you have a shot with just about anyone you set your sights on. All you have to do is bat those eyes and you’re in.”
“I do not bat my eyes, Scully,“ he huffed. She offered a tiny smile. “Although now that I think about it, Darlene did say you were pretty. Maybe she plays for the home team.”
“Maybe she plays for both,” she mischievously suggested, one sleek brow creeping up.
“Oooh, now I’m intrigued. Do you think she’d be interested in a– “
“Don’t. Not a chance. Don’t even say it.”
“Not even for me, Scully? Just once?”
“What has gotten into you, Mulder? You’ve been bordering on giddy all day.”
That set him back in his seat a little. Because he had been, he was. And the odd part was that it’d been so long since he’d felt that way that he almost didn’t recognize it. He leaned up, reached across the table and took her hand, waited until he had her full attention.
“I guess…” he hesitated. “I think I’m just happy. I’m just really fucking content.”
It started in her eyes and moved down to become a lazy, brilliant smile, with teeth and everything. “Well, we can’t have that now, can we? Whatever would I do with a happy Mulder?”
He didn’t get a chance to answer. Darlene delivered their plates with some small talk directed at Scully that he only halfway paid a mind to, and then remembered just as she was walking away.
“Oh, hey, Darlene,” he called out, reaching in his jacket, “I almost forgot. I’ve got something I want you to have. I was gonna leave it for you. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
She turned around and eyeballed the small manilla envelope he extended. “Darlin,’ I’m here all the time. Me and the old man bought this place about five years back. Might as well sleep here for all the free time we get. Now, what’s this?”
He watched as she opened the envelope and reached in, pulling out one of the Polaroids he’d found, the one of her and Samantha embracing. Darlene’s eyes flitted from the photo to him and then back, and he saw that they were damp.
“I found it yesterday, going through things at the house. I thought you might like to have it.”
Her eyes slid back to the photo. “She was such a sweet girl,” she whispered. “Thank you for this, I’ll treasure it. And you, you’re a good man, Fox Mulder.” Then she leaned across the table and grabbed him by the cheeks, planted a sloppy kiss on his mouth. “You take care of this one, Dana,” she directed Scully. “He’s a keeper.”
He couldn’t do anything but smile at Darlene’s back as she walked away. Scully plucked a fry from his plate as he shifted in his seat and found her soft gaze on him.
“She’s right, Mulder. You are a keeper.”
He let her steal more of his fries and managed to eat the burger despite the goofy-ass grin he couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Closure
By Wednesday the following week they had everything wrapped up at the house. The broker had a key, and the estate sale had been scheduled. Mulder had been shocked when told he would likely get considerably more for the house than he’d thought possible. Ideas for the windfall slowly coalesced over those last few days.
They planned to leave the following morning. The back seat of his car was loaded with two cardboard boxes, one containing books and a few other items that’d caught Scully’s eye; the second smaller one held Samantha’s shoebox and a file of loose papers he’d deemed important enough to hang onto. And that was it. Almost forty years condensed to two boxes. It felt good to him. It felt right.
His unfamiliar sense of contentment hadn’t waned, as he’d thought it might. Instead, it seemed to spread even deeper within him. He’d realized a few nights back, lying in his parent’s bed with Scully softly snoring in his arms, that he hadn’t thought about work in days. He’d even begun to send calls straight through to his voicemail, Chuck Burke’s and Langley’s among them. That, too, had felt right, at least for the time being. Unfortunately, Scully’s cell had taken the brunt of it, people reaching out to her when they couldn’t get to him. He’d eventually suggested she turn it off. She eventually had.
He sensed the change in her, too. She’d become looser in the days following her arrival, was less tightly wound, less fundamentally rigid in her bearing. She laughed more and took frequent naps and was even adapting her diet to include more of his questionable favorites. She didn’t bring up the work, either. Instead, she was simply his constant and steady companion, his partner in all things, in all the ways that mattered.
He had come to Quonochontaug seeking answers and the hope of laying down burdens he’d carried for most of his life. But he’d come to know that he’d unconsciously been seeking more than that. He’d needed a path forward. He couldn’t live in the past any longer. It was time to plan the future.
They took a walk on the beach after dinner and watched the seagulls swoop and dive as the sun made its slow crawl down to meet the horizon, painting the sky in smears of vivid pinks and oranges. He lifted their clasped hands and kissed her chilly knuckles.
“I’ve been thinking, Scully.” He didn’t have to look at her to discern the face she was wearing. “I know, I know, but bear with me, okay?” He stopped and turned to her, waited until she faced him, took her other hand so he was clasping both. Her eyes were startlingly blue. “You know I love you, right? But do you know how much? That’s okay, I didn’t either, not for a long time. But I do now. And I think… I think it’s time for both of us to get out of the goddamn car. It’s time for you to go be a doctor.”
“Mulder,” she breathed.
“No, no, just listen. I’ll be fine, better than fine. I can teach, pick up consulting gigs, write a book. I can write two. And you can finally do what you were meant to do, what you’re so good at. No more mutants, no more flukemen, no more alien conspiracies, no more autopsies in the middle of the night. No more hopping on a plane with an hour’s notice and sleeping on bad motel beds and eating shitty food and dealing with hostile local law enforcement.
“No more risking your life at the beck and call of a crazy man howling at the fucking moon who’s convinced that nothing’s more important than getting answers that aren’t his to find anymore. I don’t want to be that man. I’m not that man anymore. I want you. That’s all. I want peace and a place to call home and I want you there with me. Let’s build a new life, Scully, anywhere you want. I got more money now than I could ever spend. Let’s have that life. Let’s make ourselves a home.”
He leaned in and kissed the wet spots on her cheeks, kissed her runny nose, kissed her forehead and laid his against it. “Just think about it, okay? Take as much time as you need.”
She sniffed and nodded, pulled one hand loose so she could wipe the edge of it across her nose. She patted his chest and fiddled with the buttons on his jacket. Ducked her head so he had to follow her down to get a good look at her. Her features were hidden in shadow.
“Mulder,” she whispered, “you are the smartest person I have ever known. But sometimes,” she lifted her face and locked her laser-beam eyes onto his, “you can be the stupidest, too.”
“Yeah,” he gulped.
“Oh, Mulder, you didn’t have to say anything after ‘get out of the goddamn car.’ Let’s do this thing. I’m all in.”
He lifted and spun her as she squealed in his ear and wrapped her arms around his neck. He got dizzy and tangled up in his own feet, and they dropped like wet sacks onto the beach.
“Is this where I get sand in uncomfortable places?” she asked when they finally stopped laughing.
“No, that’s gonna be our first stop after we put the X-Files to bed. You, me, Cabo San Lucas.”
“You’re a very smart man, Mulder.”
“I know I am. I fell in love with you, didn’t I?”
He worried just a little, as he followed her to the airport to return the rental car the next morning. What if she’d changed her mind? He wouldn’t blame her for backing out on him. He wasn’t easy to put up with, he’d be the first to admit it.
They were several miles down the I-95 heading home when she reached over and turned off the radio, slipped her fingers through his.
“I think we should look for a place in the same area we’re in now,” she declared. “Maybe still in Virginia but smaller, somewhere rural but close enough to drive to civilization. How does that sound?”
He glanced over at her and that damned goofy grin of his settled back into place.
“Nothing’s ever sounded better, Scully. I’m all in.”
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Idk if anyone else agrees with me, but imho, quagmire does not get enough love from txf fandom. It’s suchhhhh an underrated ep. Perfectly setting and storyline, beautiful characterisation and subtle humour woven throughout. That convo on the rock 🥹🥹🥹
(RIP Queequeg though, gone before your time)
omg so!! i think people appreciate cotr but the episode as a whole, i don't think i see a lot about. it's funny though, because when i was watching with my wife, i think it was an episode i didn't remember that well. and now i've probably watched it 25+ times this year 😂 and i apparently wrote three separate posts about it!! i don't even remember the first one.
i think quagmire has *everything* motw, humor. m+s have pretty real conversations. mulder wants something tangible and he's completely wrong about what's killing people. scully agrees with him. scully backing up mulder with the local police (or whatever division they are). their boat sinking. scully teasing him. discussion of cannibalism 😂
it's all just so good!
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11x01 My Struggle III
The one where... the previous finale was all a vision sent to Scully from William, and CSM makes BS claims about William to Skinner.
Tagline: I Want to ..LIE..
Best: -
Worst: I’ve been putting off rewatching this episode for (checks watch) 4 years because the first time I saw it I found it to be:
A. a terribly written, boring episode to watch - is this an episode of txf or a car commercial?;
B. full of CC’s worst mytharc exposition monologing impulses;
C. frustrating because after 2 years of waiting to see how they would resolve the cliffhanger from the season 10 finale instead everything’s wiped away so that we can go back to the case of the week status quo; and
D. viscerally upsetting - this episode of my favorite show made me feel BAD. I can count on one hand the times I’ve been this emotionally disturbed by a piece of media. Yes, after 20 years I am overly emotional invested in this fictional universe and particularly in these characters, but this isn’t something that should be treated as a cool plot twist, especially when Scully’s bodily autonomy and relationship to motherhood is handled as badly as it has been on this show.
I powered through this rewatch - see below for a more detailed list of things I hated! - and I’m never watching this awful episode again.
❌ Flashlights
❌ Woods/Desert
❌ Slideshow
❌ Autopsy
❌ Evidence Disappears
❌ Scully Misses It
❌ Mulder Ditch (I mean, not exactly)
❌ Sunflower Seeds
✔️ Voiceover
✔️ Catch Phrase (IWTB: tagline)
✔️ Scully is a (Medical) Doctor
❌ Mulder is Spooky
❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!
❌ Fox/Dana
✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)
❌ Casual Scully
❌ Casual Mulder
❌ Trench Coats
❌ Bad Tie Watch
✔️ Glasses Watch 😎
✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Mulder & Scully
50 States: South Carolina x3 & DC x106 (44/50)
Investigate: Together & Apart
Solve Rate: 57%
✔️ Bechdel Test
MSR: 🐝🐝🐝
Goriness: 👽👽👽
Creepiness: 👽
Humor: 👽
Rewatch Thoughts:
William check-in: Look, CSM’s a known lier, Mulder is William’s father. Here are my En Ami thoughts and my pregnancy timeline thoughts. Any other explanation’s bad for my mental health, so that’s what I’m sticking with. Besides, see the tagline.
Break-up check-in: Everyone treats them like significant others, they treat each other that way, I guess that’s that?
Things I hate:
1. This time we get CSM’s struggle 🤢 - why is CC so obsessed with him
2. The frantic cutting and editing
3. That I’m not immune to Mulder and Scully’s close talking, even when what they’re saying is absolute nonsense
4. That we’re still doing the Monica Reyes character assassination from MSII
5. The Mulder voiceover - I don’t think we’ve ever gotten internal monologue voiceover like this before and it doesn’t feel right
6. The car chases - WTF is this
7. It was Jeffrey Spender that arranged William’s adoption??? Is that a retcon? Why would Scully have trusted him with that even if she did believe that what he did to the baby in the episode William took away his alien abilities (which it clearly didn’t, at least not permanently). I start think about any of this and immediately spiral into WTF are we doing here 😫
8. CSM and Reyes discussing plot holes 🙄
9. “your desk” 😑
10. Driving, driving, driving
11. Scully, a Medical Doctor - as she reminds us so often - signing herself out of the hospital AMA after a seizure, suffering another one, then getting in the car and causing an accident that could have killed her or someone else!! She’s clearly not in her right mind but this just doesn’t feel in character to me.
12. Hand waving away the alien invasion, I guess because we’ve destroyed the planet in last 20 years and they don’t want it any more?
13. This new duo’s plan. CSM won’t expect Mulder? The man who’s shoved his gun in his face countless times and demanded the truth? I mean, Mulder’s never pulled the trigger so I guess he wouldn’t expect him to actually kill him (if anyone can - remember when CSM’s face exploded, I do!)
14. More driving!!
15. Seeing Scully brutally attacked and fighting for her life - again
16. That I find Mulder slitting a man’s throat to save Scully in any way hot
17. Wait, who sent the assassin and why? Eh, who cares
18. That we’re going back to the distrusting Skinner well yet again
19. Mulder and Skinner’s stupid little fight - you’re grown men, use your words!
20. I already disliked the episode En Ami… but to imply via flashback 18 years later that our protagonist was - unbeknownst to her or the viewers - either raped or medically raped… The ending to this episode is upsetting on so many levels.
21. The term impregnated her with science WTF
22. I…
Things I don’t hate:
1. Mulder’s silver stubble
2. Mulder telling Skinner that where he’s needed is at Scully’s bedside
3. Scully: You need him, and I need you. She hasn’t looked for William for all these years for his own protection, however much that must have hurt her, but for Mulder she’ll do it.
4. The thigh grasp handhold
5. Again, Mulder looks fucking hot - just watch a couple gifs and skip this absolutely garbage episode
#xf rewatch#xf fanart#msr#my struggle iii#msiii#the x files#the xfiles#thexfiles#xf#txf#xf mytharc#i want to believe#truth is out there#xf review#11x01#revival#cw rape
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About Me
Hello ♡ I'm Mina and I'm 25+. I'm an INFJ Virgo/Very obnoxious true to form introvert! I love Naruto, Darling in the Franxx, AOT, GOT, HOTD, ASOIAF, The Strain, TXF, The Crown, Lucifer, Genshin Impact, Silent Hill, Minecraft, and I love Fanart and Comics, Manga, and Vampires. ☆ Naruto is my main anime and I shipped SNS since Shippuden first aired. ¤ I love Itachi and Aemond Targaryen.♡ I have a *son* with itachixanon his name is Arashi. ☆ I love writing character ships and I tend to stick to canon but I do stray into AUs. ◇ I can have a very sharp sense of humor and write parodies but I love writing angst and dark themes. ¤ I'm a bit of a chaos demon..♤ What you will find here is fanfics and HCs by me, collabs with friends, quotes, and *simping*. ☆ I'm currently only fixated on Naruto, HOTD, and The Strain. ◇ I love to discuss themes and theories and just laugh so feel free to Inbox/DM me! ♡
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✨🧣🍓
alright you get three different WIP discussions bc you gave three different emojis and also I love you (/p) shdhdhsjw
✨- "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," a joke that mayhaps I don't need to make but it's literally a joke that Mulder and Scully have canonically made with each other (referring to working theories on a case shdjsjsks). in this case, it's referring to uh... literally checking each other for mind-controlling alien parasites. basically, I'm rewriting part of the episode "Ice," which is very early on in the series and the first real test of their tentative trust. I also like to refer to it as "the Alaskan Bull Worms" episode, so the dark vibe of this fic may end up having more humor than it has any right to shsjsnsk.
basically I'm just like... what if instead of walking away and going their separate ways after the first sign that something is Wrong, Scully and Mulder instead stuck together and talked through their emotions (*gasp* communication?!). like, how would that change the events of the episode and also their relationship in that early stage. they're both SO scared in Ice, and it both pushes them apart and ties them together. idk, I just like exploring very early MSR lol
🧣- I'm working on another TXF fic also, based around the idea of Mulder's sister Samantha actually surviving and growing up way differently than what's established in canon. I made a post about it a couple months ago on a whim bc I was thinking about it, and how much I like the actress who plays the idea of an adult Samantha in a few episodes (Colony, End Game, Redux II, and Amor Fati), and it turned into this whole fic concept. I was just trying to write her based off of that actress in the show but I think I ended up developing her in a way that reads as like.. probably autistic, tbh. the entire fic is based around some metaphors involving fae and changelings, just because... a child is taken, a child is returned, but Different, ya know?? Samantha is so lost and searching and not exactly who she once was. she has questions and she wants them answered.
🍓- lol I'm halfway working on an actual essay on Heathers (like, the film mainly, which means I probably need to watch it... 😅) based around the concept of it being in a lot of ways a Shakesperean type of story. like, a lot of stuff parallels very closely with Macbeth — Veronica as Macbeth himself and the Heathers as the three witches (as well as Heather Chandler probably also filling the role of Duncan, but I need to read Macbeth again to really figure it all out). JD as Lady Macbeth, instigating and guiding the darkness Veronica/Macbeth falls into. if I remember right, though, Shakespere's Macbeth is a tragedy, while Heathers is technically a dark comedy??
idk I just have this thought in my head that won't let go, that it's still tragic (though mayhaps this is the little voice of Barrett Wilbert Weed in my head, singing that broken broken refrain of the Dead Girl Walking reprise, talking), that even though unlike Macbeth, Veronica doesn't die in the end, but maybe a part of her has. in the film, she winds up far closer to the cold person she calls JD than in the musical where she turns more into a blazing fire or raw open wound; she seems not to care as much in the film, which probably has to do with the semi-flippancy of the genre and the way musical adaptations tend to lean into deeper looks at humanity and angst (lol), but it does seem as if a part of her has either died or irrevocably changed.
send me an emoji and I'll ramble about one of my WIPs!
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🥏 TXF Fic Rec #1: 'Love and Bearclaws' by Edie Rone
I first discovered the X Files belatedly in early 2022. Since then, the show and its fan fiction have sucked me in like none other. It’s been an obsession that is dubiously healthy but exceptionally salubrious as my way of self-care. Indulging in fics gives me so much fun and comfort in times of need. It’s no exaggeration that this hobby changed my life for the better.
I am awestruck by the breadth and quality of fics in this fandom, an accumulation of our fanfic writers’ immense talent over all these years. I’ve saved the ones I liked in my ‘would reread’ bookmark, and I want to share my collection here with recommendation blurbs and use my posts as a personal database. I love writing about the fics I read and reading about other people’s thoughts on fics!
~~~
Ok, let's start with a very short one, one of my favorites.
A delightful morsel of fluff in only 496 words. Just the right amount of cuteness and humor, and perfectly in character!
🥏 Love and Bearclaws by Edie Rone (@edierone)
Length: Ficlet, 400+ words
Relationship(s): M/S UST
Tags: Fluff, Scully-POV
Rating: G
#x files#xf fanfic#nephrit's fic rec#favorite#len: ficlet#ship: m/s ust#genre: fluff#Scully pov#rating: g#by: edie rone
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Fictober22 — Day 31
Fandom: TXF
WC: 1177
Mulder had been antsy all day. It wasn’t unusual for him to be, Scully was learning, but he was antsy even for him. The nervous energy had been bristling all day, and it was beginning to grate.
A number of months into their partnership and Scully was becoming accustomed to his boisterous energy when she arrived at the office. She could barely get a greeting in before he was bouncing off the walls, turning the lights off before blinding her with the slide projector.
She’d barely had a sip of her coffee before he was suggesting flights out to god knows where.
“Mulder, the Bureau isn’t going to cover international flights…” she sighed.
“I know, I already tried,” Mulder explained, “But we could still go on our own.”
Scully heaved another sigh, crossing her legs in her chair before processing his response.
What was he thinking trying to get it approved? They’d never say yes to such a request.
“Mulder,” Scully began slowly, “We are not going to Ireland.”
Mulder let out a huff but didn’t seem deterred.
“I thought you might say that,” he replied, clicking to the next slide to show a drawing of what had to have been a joke—a large crudely sketched picture of bigfoot.
“West Virginia has—“
“Mulder, no,” Scully sighed, “Is there even a case to go with this?”
Mulder paused, “A source has a new cluster of sightings and—“
“Mulder,” Scully cut in again, “Bigfoot?”
Mulder pursed his lip, clicking rapidly through a handful of slides before landing on a picture of the welcome sign for Salem, Massachusetts.
“Hear me out,” Mulder began, not put out by Scully’s eyeroll, “Witnesses report seeing mysterious lights in a field outside of Salem. The descriptions match an X File from 1974 where—“
“Mulder, do any of these come with a crime?”
Mulder stopped.
“Point out to me where the case is in this and how we’d explain the expenses to the Bureau and I will humor you,” Scully told him, “We have cases in the DC area we haven’t closed, why are you trying to run off after things that wouldn’t get Bureau approval?”
Mulder bit his lip, looking a bit downtrodden.
Scully immediately felt like she had overstepped, and tried to retract.
“It’s the 31st, Scully,” Mulder told her quietly, his eyes twinkling.
Scully’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Halloween,” Mulder clarified, “I don’t wanna miss the action.”
Scully stared back at Mulder with a mix of surprise and disbelief.
“What?”
Mulder clicked off the projector, rushing to flip the lights back on, “It’s Halloween,” he repeated, “All Hallow’s Eve. Spooky Season?”
Scully blinked, “What does that—“
“It’s prime time for strange happenings, peculiar goings on—the unusual, the unexplained.”
“And you’re worried you’re going to…miss something?”
“Hopefully we won’t.”
“Mulder,” Scully pressed, “We don’t get off for bank holidays. This isn’t even a bank holiday. If you’re trying to find something fun to do…”
“No,” Mulder cut in, “It doesn’t have to be fun.”
Scully shot him a look.
“I’m not trying to chase gimmicks and your average holiday merriment. I’m talking about the thinning of the veil, the influence of the moon…”
“Ah, the scientific method,” Scully mused.
Mulder rolled his eyes, “Tonight is a night where strange things happen and I don’t want to be stuck pursuing just any old case.”
Scully guffawed, “How is our current case ‘any old case’?”
Mulder stood quietly before shrugging.
“Is it because I’m right and you’re wrong?” Scully asked with a laugh.
Mulder frowned, “I’m still a little right.”
Scully snorted, “How? How are you right?”
“I said that Tamison was suspicious.”
“Mhm,” Scully smiled, “And why did you think he was suspicious?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mulder replied, setting the projector control back down.
“Oh no,” Scully laughed, rising from her chair, “You don’t get out of this that easily. What did you think Tamison was, Mulder?”
Mulder shot her a look.
“Hmm?” Scully pressed smugly.
“A shapshifter,” Mulder said quietly.
“Oh yes, that was it, and what did I say?”
“Okay, okay,” Mulder groaned, “You’ve made your point.”
“No, no, what did I say, Mulder?”
“You were right, okay?” Mulder laughed, “You were right.”
Scully let her head lull back and she let out a groan, “Mm. Say that again, will you?”
Mulder huffed a laugh, “Hey, I can admit when I’m wrong.”
“No you can’t.”
“Yes I—“
Mulder paused, catching Scully’s mischievous eye.
“Fine,” he told her, flopping down at the desk.
Scully let out a laugh, shaking her head. “Come on, we’ve got work to do today, that doesn’t have to do with ghosts and ghouls. You can’t be pouting.”
“I’m not pouting,” Mulder pouted.
“Sure you aren’t,” Scully laughed, heading for the filing cabinet.
——
As the day drew to a close, Mulder couldn’t help feel a little deflated. The night was still young, though. He could check some things out on his own once they left.
Mulder unlocked his car but was surprised to hear Scully approaching.
“Hey Mulder,” Scully called, “Follow my car will you? I wanna show you something.”
Mulder raised a brow, “Everything okay?”
“Just humor me,” Scully told him, turning and walking back to her car.
Mulder did as told, pulling his car around to her spot and waiting for her to leave. He followed her car, his interest increasing as they left the city.
When Scully pulled into the turnoff for Prince William Park, Mulder’s excitement began to spike.
What was she doing?
Scully pulled into the lot and turned off her car. Mulder did the same. He could barely contain himself as he rushed from his car, coming to a slight skidding stop in front of Scully.
“What is this?”
“Your park.”
“How did you know I…”
Scully shot him an incredulous look, “Mulder, you’ve been talking about something weird going on in this park for two weeks now.”
Mulder pursed his lips, “I didn’t know you were listening.”
Scully snorted, “Give me a little credit. I do listen to what you say.”
Mulder paused, unsure.
“Well?” Scully asked, nodding toward the entrance.
“What are we doing here?”
Scully looked back at him with a smile, but the smile began to wane.
“You said you wanted to check out the park. We’re checking out the park.”
Scully began walking, looking back over her shoulder, “Come on.”
Mulder smiled widely, the excitement returning. He expected a punchline. For Scully to yell that he had been part of a prank. That the moment he let himself believe that Scully was indulging him he had been a fool to let his guard down.
But she hadn’t.
She didn’t believe anything would transpire here—Mulder wasn’t silly enough to think she thought it would. But she was willing to humor him. Go along with it for now.
She didn’t believe what he believed, but she knew it was important to him. She supported him already.
Mulder didn’t know how long this partnership would last, but he would take as many of these moments as possible while he could.
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Writing Patterns
I was tagged by @randomfoggytiger. Thanks for always thinking of me! ❤️
Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!
FYI: I've been posting lots of my writing mentor's fics on AO3 over the last year. I'm excluding those and listing only my own works.
Between the Shadow and the Soul: She didn’t know why she hadn’t realized it before. The evidence was right there in front of her, had been the whole time. It’s what she was paid to do, for Christ’s sake! Latch on to the details and make them all fit, make sense of the insensible. (BATB)
Life Songs, Book One: Come and Go: Diana stood it as long as she could before she wheeled around in her chair and pinned Vincent with a look. His eyes had been boring holes in her back for the last five minutes.
"What?" she snapped. (BATB)
Squirm: He doesn’t wait for an invitation to come in, just pushes through the open door and past her, coming to a stop in the casement opening between the living room and kitchen.
“Mulder, what are you doing? It’s almost midnight.” (TXF)
MN 1068 - 06: He’d said as he dropped a kiss on her brow: “I’m gonna grab a shower. My wallet’s on the coffee table if I’m not out before the food gets here.”
He wasn’t. So she answered the door and paid the kid, tipping him more generously than she knew Mulder would’ve. She gathered forks and paper towels and made it through the doorway into the living room before she lost her grip on his wallet. It fell open at her feet, spilling out the bills she’d haphazardly stuffed back into it. She emptied her hands and squatted to retrieve it. (TXF)
Promise: “New year’s resolutions?”
Mulder looks over at her with one of his sidelong, appraising glances. “Do I look like the type who makes resolutions?”
“Come on, Mulder. We’re stuck in this car on New Year’s Eve on what is most assuredly a dead-end stakeout all because you’re convinced that one Herman Jiménez is preparing to escort his family to a new home somewhere in the heavens, compliments of a spaceship steered by little green men. Humor me just this once and play along. And yes, I do think you’re the type to make resolutions.” (TXF)
A Necessary Evil: So it’s time to fess up. To lay bare the part of himself he’s not so proud of. Here goes: Fox Mulder is skilled at seduction. He always has been. From as far back as middle school, he’s known. He looks at himself in a mirror and sees only the flaws. The ridiculously large lower lip. The small triangular eyes. The undersized chin with not enough room between it and the aforementioned lip. The overly broad and large-scale nose. But for some reason beyond any logic, and put all together, those features have had teenaged girls, and then women, falling at his feet for as long as he can remember. It’s as simple as his attentive gaze aimed in their direction. (TXF)
Third Time's a Charm: He rolls over onto his side and finds her looking back at him in a mirrored position. They’re both still struggling to catch a deep breath. His bedroom smells of sheets a week past needing changed and just concluded sex. How does one describe that particular aroma? He thinks about it for a second and decides that mutual insanity fits pretty well right now. Folie au deux. (TXF)
Roghnaíonn Mé Tú: She doesn’t know why she has to say it now, five years after the fact. She’s heard it often enough in her head, her heart, on many occasions over those years. Sometimes as a reminder, sometimes a plea, even now and then in anger and carrying with it a desperate need to blame. But she’s never said it out loud. Not until now.
“You chose me,” she tells him. (TXF)
Gimme Shelter: They hide out in the woods behind the Strughold mine until the hit squad finally gives up and leaves in a great cloud of dust and skidding tires. A brief conversation follows, and they both agree that going back for the car would be a mistake. Mulder hadn’t stopped moving long enough to count their number when they’d piled out of their black vehicles with rifles in hand, and he figures they might have left one or two assassins behind. They aren’t willing to risk becoming easy pickings just for the convenience of four wheels and a quicker escape. Instead, they hike east until they come to the rural two-lane blacktop that’d brought them to the mine hours earlier. (TXF)
All That Our Senses Can Perceive: 1.) It starts with sight, doesn’t it? Unless we are born into blindness, it all comes in through the eyes first. We see, we process, we create visual memories; we integrate miniscule pieces into a larger whole.
Scully was young and full-cheeked the first time he’d laid eyes on her. Cute. With all the connotations that description carries. Mulder hadn’t ever been a fan of cute. He’d liked dark and mysterious; slightly dangerous. And look where that had gotten him. (TXF)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, yeah, so there's a definite pattern, pounded into my head by my previously mentioned mentor, the late, great Nan Dibble. In media res. Always start in the middle of the story. You can fill in the pertinent details as you go.
Once again, I've broken the rules and listed not only the first line, but the next few (or several) that follow it. Just feels more complete that way.
Also. I haven't posted a new fic since mid-October of last year. My muse hates me. 😢
I'm not going to tag anyone in particular. Play if you want to!
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#the x files#x files#txf#fox mulder#alex krycek#agent mulder#spooky mulder#funny#funny content#txf humor#txf memes#txf meme#fox mulder memes#meme#memes#david and gillian#david duchovny#gillian anderson#dana scully#funny pictures#tumblr meme#tumblr memes#tumblr funny#txf scenarios#pov#john doggett#monica reyes#walter skinner#the lone gunmen
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my aesthetic this autumn is going to be warm apple cider, cozy sweaters, and the x-files🖤🧡🖤
#txf rewatch#the x files#mulder x scully#fox mulder#dana scully#david duchovny#gillian anderson#gillian and david#txf humor#autumn#autumn aesthetic#fall#fall aesthetic
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