#txfic

I Spy

A/N - Thank you for the prompt! I had a lot of fun with this one, I hope you like it!

Assistant Director Walter Skinner was well and truly bored out of his mind. A man of legendary self-control, it was rare that he got to such a state even in the most mind-numbing of meetings, but he just couldn’t help it. The odds were simply stacked against him. He was currently coming into the second hour of a budgetary meeting amongst all of the ADs in the Washington D.C. area, and, as his office had been selected for this month’s meeting place, he had given his report first, being the unofficial host of the meeting. Unfortunately, that meant Skinner had spent the last hour and a half dulling his brain with reports that varied sometimes only a few hundred dollars from his own.

However, never to be underestimated, Skinner had prepared for this. In his office, there was one (1) chair at the meeting table with an unobstructed view of his outer office and hallway through the window. So, in the spirit of preparedness, Skinner had placed his manila folder at that seat and opened the blinds before the other ADs arrived, ready for as much entertainment as could possibly traipse through his office in two hours.

The ‘entertainment’ was sparse, visitors few and far between, and Skinner despaired at the thought that this very well might be the first meeting he had ever fallen asleep in. But then, in his hour of greatest need, salvation walked through his office door in the form of Agents Mulder and Scully.

They were an odd pair, if he’d ever seen one, he noted, almost cartoonishly mismatched in height. From his vantage point, Skinner could only see the pair from the waist upwards as they approached his secretary Kimberly’s desk, and with their legs obscured, they seemed to move as a singular entity. They could be an X File themselves, he thought wryly, as Scully stepped forward to speak with Kimberly. Mulder cast his eyes disinterestedly around the office, having seen it too many times to be in any particular wonder over it. They weren’t doing anything spectacular, to Skinner’s disappointment, other than standing too close to one another. He wondered, for a moment, at how his life had devolved to the point that Mulder and Scully making an appointment with his secretary qualified as ‘entertainment.’ Life, it seems, was bleak. Skinner was just about to give the two agents up as being as boring as the rest of the office population when, out of the blue, Mulder did something peculiar.

Mulder let himself into his apartment, kicking his shoes off at the door and brushing stray raindrops out of his hair. Scully was right behind him, files and laptop hidden under her coat to protect them from the rain. It was still early by Mulder’s standards, barely past 5:30, and it felt a little odd to walk into his apartment while it was still light outside (and even weirder for Scully to be with him). The skylight in their basement office had been dripping determinedly all day, and not even Scully’s above-average tinkering abilities had been able to do much to staunch the flow.

The drip, drip of the water into their office trash can had been about the most distracting thing Mulder had ever heard. By the time 5:00 rolled around, he had done approximately two hours worth of work and lost six pencils to the styrofoam clutches of the ceiling. He suspected Scully had been as distracted by him as he had been by the leak, so he was surprised when she took him up on his offer to finish their work at his apartment. He hadn’t even had to bribe her with an offer of dinner, though he fully intended to.

Now they were sitting facing each other on opposite sides of the couch, typing diligently as some poor delivery man braved the rainy streets to bring them Pad Thai. The side of Scully’s foot pressed warmly against his ankle, and frankly it was embarrassing how much he liked it. She yawned and shut her computer. “Alright, I’m done with the expense report.” Right on cue, a knock sounded at the door.

Scully got up, waving Mulder to sit back. “I’ll get it, you need to finish your report anyways.” She padded off into the entryway and Mulder turned his attention back to the screen. Then he heard something suspicious. Scully laughed.

A/N : When I originally got this prompt I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, but it turns out that answering it got me out of my 2 months long writer’s block! So thank you anon, and I’m sorry it took so long!

Succession

Scully’s apartment was quiet, devoid of noise except for the mechanical whir of the fan, which chopped at the thick air like a machete through undergrowth. The lights were off, the clock showing half past midnight, and Scully, the (not so much) woman of the hour, lay motionless in her bed. Dull waves of emotion washed over her as she stared up at the ceiling, anger and hurt and disappointment settling as an almost tangible heaviness as she thought back to that hospital room, the moment when Diana Fowley had taken Mulder’s hand, and he had let her. Scully’s distress was more of a deep ache than a smarting pain, and the urge to cry was curiously absent. In its place was the quiet thud of her heart against her chest, and it was all she could do to lie there and force herself to think on her hurt, knowing that if she thought about it until the newness and shock was washed out she might be able to face her partner in the morning. Her eyes slid closed as her own hands splayed over her ribs, seeking body heat and comfort and something to ground herself to. The movement, her best attempt at self-soothing, wasn’t nearly enough. How could it be enough, when the memories of Mulder were so vivid in her mind?

Established MSR (oh and I'm taking prompts if anyone has any :))

The stakeout- if it could even be called that- had gone on for way too long, by Scully’s estimation. Eight hours, spent in a car with cracked pleather seats and Mulder’s questionable taste in music, had forced Scully to drastic and dire measures. As much as she loved him, standing Mulder’s Elvis impersonation one more time very well might be out of her powers. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Hey, Mulder,” He looks at her like he is expecting a scolding, which makes Scully feel a little guilty, but she counts what is coming as reparations. “Do you want to play a game?”

Mulder looks at her in surprise. “Uh, sure. What did you have in mind?”

Scully shrugs, running her fingertips along the seam of her seat. They catch on the split fabric, a distraction from how badly she wants to hold his hand. She softens unexpectedly, something that’s been happening more and more often when it’s just the two of them. “You can pick, actually, I just don’t want to hear Elvis anymore.”

Mulder screws up his face like he is about to impersonate The King again, but he seems to think better of it and stops himself. His head lolls against the seat as he turns to look at her, and Scully mirrors him, annoyance fading quickly. Who could stay mad at a face like that?

“There was this game that Sam and I used to play. We’d call each other every name we could think of, then, once we ran out, we’d make up the funniest imaginary ones we could.”

Scully tilts her head quizzically. “No offense, Mulder, but I don’t think calling you names counts as a game. I can do that all on my own.” She smiles, tightlipped and cheeky, up at him. Her eyes glimmer dimly, the only light a streetlamp at the corner of the block.

Mulder stretches and moves in his seat to face her better. “Oh really? And what would you call me?”

Mulder yawned sleepily as he set the kettle to boil on the stovetop, scratching his chest through his cotton t-shirt. Scully was still in bed, decidedly not a morning person, especially in light of their late night, which had Mulder smiling as he remembered it. He was getting out a cup when a knock sounded at the door, and his ears pricked at the sound, dually curious and cautious. Who could it be? After a brief moment of anxiety, he reasoned that if the person knocking was a threat, they probably wouldn’t bother with knocking in the first place. He waited for a second, trying to hear if Scully might get up to answer the door, but a second knock encouraged his curiosity to get the better of him, and Mulder padded to the entryway to investigate. Scully’s front door opened noiselessly.

“Oh, hello Fox.”

Mulder blinked owlishly back before remembering himself. “Good morning, Mrs. Scully.” He said, like it was a common occurrence for her to find him at her daughter’s apartment every Saturday at 8:30 in the morning.

Mrs. Scully, for her part, looked nonplussed and unsurprised to see him, though Mulder knew Scully hadn’t told her about them yet.

“Fox,” she prompted him with a meaningful look, and Mulder stepped back from the door a little awkwardly. “Would you like to come in?”

The kettle whistled and he jumped a little, casting a look in the direction of the bedroom, unable to decide if this would be less awkward if Scully was awake. It was a toss up. He sent a nervous smile in Mrs. Scully’s direction. “Tea?”

—

The spoon clinked against the rim of his cup as he stirred in sugar, bringing it close to his face so he could smell the soothing aroma, and he almost scalded his nose as he jumped when arms wrapped around his waist from behind. Mrs. Scully had him on high alert. “I heard the kettle.” Scully murmured, and his shirt was so thin that he couldn’t tell if he was imagining her lips moving against his back or not. The sweetness of barely-awake Scully was unlike anything Mulder had known, with her inhibitions lowered and her touch gentle against him. It was almost perfect, except Mrs. Scully was standing barely ten feet away and Scully didn’t know it yet.

“Scully, your-”

Mulder was cut off by Mrs. Scully’s amused chuckle. “Good morning, Dana.”

Mulder felt Scully freeze, knowing how she only touched him like this when it was just the two of them, reserved to the very end. He could tell that even Mrs. Scully seeing this side of her was rare and a little uncomfortable, at least for the Scully that was latched onto him like a sleepy koala.

“Mom?” Scully’s voice was girlish and endearing and Mulder thought, not for the first time, that he was in love. He pressed the warm porcelain of the teacup into her hands to give her something to do other than hold onto his shirt. He had made the tea for her anyways.

In which Mulder and Scully get a little bit domestic

It was 7:36 in the morning when Mulder used his keycard to get into Scully’s room. He just barely avoided a spill when he awkwardly cradled two coffee cups in one hand to get the door open. A drop or two leaked out onto his jacket, but Scully didn’t have to know that. Now inside, he saw the bathroom door was ajar, the last remnants of steam wisping out into the cool room. Scully, fresh-faced from her shower and half dressed, barely looked at him when she relieved him of his burden. He didn’t look at her either, unceremoniously continuing further into the room without a word other than the preliminary “Good morning.” He had learned the hard way that an uncaffeinated Scully was notoriously hard to please, so he sat at a table so tiny it could double as an apple box and began to flip through their current case file.

Scully disappeared into the bathroom, as expected, to do her makeup. He waited patiently, sipping his coffee and reading the case over like it was the morning paper until he’d seen her apply her foundation in the bathroom mirror take at least three large sips of coffee. She set down the coffee cup after her fourth drink, and that was his opening.

Mulder laid out his plan for their day like a vigilant secretary, watching as Scully listened and nodded along as he rattled off witnesses that need interviewing and town records they needed to look up. He mentioned a restaurant he had spotted when they drove in the night before. Maybe they could eat lunch there? He saw her eyes flick to his in the mirror as he spoke.

The first free weekend Mulder had after Scully was diagnosed with cancer was spent in the medical section of his local library. He created a mental filing cabinet on everything he could think of that might be useful. Cancer, cell multiplication, the science behind chemotherapy, radiation, and their side effects were all included in his fervent search. Any text that so much as mentioned the name ‘nasopharyngeal tumor’ he hoarded jealously, disheartened at the growing list of ailments that were linked to the mass growing in Scully’s head but determined to put on a brave face.

He has his suspicions, of course, when he notices she is squinting all the time. As big as her eyes are, even as they seem larger since the flesh of her face has been hewn away by chemotherapy, the furrowed look on her face is hard to miss or misinterpret.

It still takes him days to work up his courage to ask her about it. The car humming under his hands is the only accompaniment to his quiet voice. “Scully, do you- are you having trouble reading? Blurry or double vision?”

Her knee-jerk reaction is to shake her head and declare she’s fine, which she does, but the ensuing skeptical silence makes her reconsider. “It’s just...Well, it’s not really ‘just’ anything, is it?” His scrutiny makes her accurate to a fault, and she chooses her words with deliberate precision. “If you must know, Mulder, I’ve been having trouble reading lately. Frankly, it’s difficult to focus my eyes on anything that small for a long period of time.”

Mulder looks at her, tiny in his passenger seat, and it feels like his world has been put on pause. He knew this was a possible side effect, but the literature had all but glossed it over. ‘An effect of the late stages of a nasopharyngeal mass.’ The late stages. For a horrifying minute he processes just how little time he has left with her, and he falls silent.

Scully, for her part, is quick to reassure him. “Don’t worry, I’m still good to work. You don’t have to worry about it.”

How could he not worry about it? Mulder nods and keeps his eyes on the road, not trusting himself to not cry.

Later that night, now checked into their motel, Mulder pads into Scully’s room with two files in hand. She stares at him and the files, little silk pajamas already on, and dips her head apologetically. “I’m sorry Mulder, I just can’t read those tonight.”

He is undeterred, walking over to her bed a little shyly. “I could read them to you, if you want. Out loud.”

She is caught between embarrassment and affection and luckily for Mulder, she acts on the latter, scooting over and patting the bed next to her. “Alright, but I don’t want you falling asleep on me.”

She is asleep just minutes before he finishes reading the second file, his lullaby of autopsy details apparently working like a charm. Mulder watches her a moment, heart feeling fond, before he slips back to his room for another sleepless night.

He isn’t so cautious the next day, plopping on her bed with files in hand and a smile on his face while she’s brushing her teeth. The third day, too, goes much the same, and he finds himself a little sad when the case is solved. Not to be deterred, though, he goes to her room to type up their report.

Scully is quiet as he works, what he assumes is a byproduct of a busy week, so Mulder keeps talking in low tones about what he’s typing because he’s never met a silence he can’t fill, and Scully is famously reticent.

When Fox Mulder was a child, the only thing that could calm him was his mother’s touch. Sweet words and threats both disregarded, his hiccuping sobs only slowed when his chubby little hand was fit within hers. When he was five he asked Santa for the world’s biggest hug. To be loved was to be held. Then Samantha disappeared. His already distant father all but vanished, his mother retreated within herself, and Mulder was left with an empty house.

--

It didn’t take Mulder long to start touching her. Barely a week in and his hand had found its place on the small of her back, fastened itself genially to her shoulders, a friendly rudder to her guiding compass. He didn’t realize that the fact that she let him touch her was a miracle in itself. She never paid him back in kind, but she stood closer than she would have, and for him, that was enough. Scully was the first to withstand the flood of his adoration, prickly and a little uncomfortable for both parties from its obvious disuse. Brushing their hands together became a love sonnet, helping her into her coat a declaration of undying affection. She was the only vessel to receive him, the only one willing to welcome his overflowing devotion.

After her abduction, he sat next to her and felt leaden. His eyelashes weighed heavily against his lids, beautiful and solemn, and he couldn’t tear himself away from the sight of her. What would she do if he linked their arms, lay his head on her shoulder? He was a little boy again, looking for reassurance that she wouldn't disappear again, his own family out of the question. Teena Mulder had been absent for far longer than she had been a mother. He had still kissed her goodnight until he left for Oxford, but when he came back, she seemed farther away than Samantha. His love was sent into the void, and the void sent nothing back in return. When his head found itself on Scully’s shoulder, his arm wrapped around hers, she let him be, rested her head against his briefly. She didn’t mind.

Other people thought them touchy, Scully knew. His hand on her back caused rumors to take deep root at the Bureau. She wondered what they would think if they could see behind closed doors, where Mulder didn’t try to maintain any pretenses. He lived to hold her, when she let him, had to shove his hands in his pockets when he walked her to her car. Mulder had entangled them so thoroughly throughout the years there were times that she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. But one look at his hazel eyes and she couldn’t deny him, didn’t want to.

So, it seemed, he had found a home within her. His foot tapped against hers like a knock, the small of her back was the entryway. His hands climbed the staircase of her vertebrae, her face was the hearth, home of her bright smiles and furious blush. Her stomach, hiding her barren womb, was off limits like a piano was to a small child, forbidden and begging to be touched. It whispered for him to wait, not yet. Someday, perhaps.