#+ust

In this version of the Underground, Monster Kid spends his time exploring abandoned areas, mapping forgotten routes, and collecting stories about monsters who disappeared long ago.

He isn't the strongest, smartest, or bravest monster around. But he refuses to stop looking for those who have been lost.

One of the few characters who still believes things can get better.

"Yo! It'll be okay. It has to be... right?"

Prologue: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/228442701#workskin

Chapter 1: Incubation: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/228519136#workskin

Chapter 2: Splicing: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/228850611#workskin

Chapter 3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/228956106

Chapter 4: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/229144266#workskin

https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/229144266#workskin

Chapter 5: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/229527436

Chapter 6: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/229666841

Chapter 7: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86355416/chapters/229826936

Swap-role AU? Apparently still alive and well. I was given permission and immediately chose violence (affectionately).

Got the green light and went to emotionally rearrange someone else’s characters a little just dropping this here — lore jokes, inside memes, and all- all

byers: why dont you tell scully you love her?

mulder: i cant, she'll think im only saying it because were having a baby.

They’re eating wings at Kislings in Baltimore. Langley won’t touch blue cheese, something about spores and a fungal internet, so Mulder had to order ranch as well. Like a fucking pussy.

Frohike crunches hard on a log of celery. “You talk to her yet?”

Mulder scowls. “I observed that she would look like a bowler hat if turned sideways. She declined to be amused.”

Frohike groans. “Jesus. Did you really?”

Mulder scowls with increased vigor. “Dear Abby never covered this particular situation, my apologies. Should I approach the lady in white tie or a morning suit?”

Byers pokes at a pile of discarded chicken bones. “Have you tried being honest with her?”

For a man who has spent most of his adult life in pursuit of the truth, Mulder looks deeply disgusted.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Even Langley is contemptuous at this. He rises, disappearing into a darkly recessed corner that houses Ms. Pac-Man.

“You’re an idiot,” Frohike observes into the mound of chili fries. “UPenn, Oxford. The dumbest motherfucker I know. I’ll marry her tomorrow; when do the courts open? Mulder, with all due respect and forgetting the rest of it? HAVE YOU SEEN HER?”

“Shut up,” Mulder says, weary.

Byers, ever gentle, squeezes his friend’s shoulder. “Why don’t you just tell Scully you love her? She knows, or she wouldn’t have asked. And you know, or you wouldn’t have agreed.”

Frohike snorts around a mouthful of fries. “He’s hopeless, that’s why.”

Mulder glares into the middle distance. “I can’t. She’ll think I’m only saying it because we're having a baby.”

Byers, with his deep, wise eyes. Byers, with his own human credential. “I know,” he says, soft. “I know why you feel safer to say that. But Christ, Mulder. You two aren’t teenagers. It’s not a Cracker Jack engagement ring and a quickie wedding. You could have something here.”

Mulder looks back at his friend. At his friends. Behind Langley’s absence is his love for Scully; for Mulder. Frohike’s gnomish tenderness, Byers’s deep, endless honor.

Mulder imagines himself at 17 - a pregnant Catholic girl, a debt of honor. Imagines how his parents would throw money and secrecy at it all without ever once considering the people involved.

He throws a hundred on the table.