POANG Pals Secret Santa 2024 Fic Recs
For my Secret Santa, @unremarkablehouse who loves lighthearted and comfort MSR set during the original run. I have combed through my secret Ao3 bookmarks to give you a fic rec list for the next year. 52 in total, one for each week. They don't all fit the brief exactly, there are touches of angst and UST and more than a few go beyond Requiem. But they are all wonderful stories that I hope very much that you will enjoy. With thanks to @lilydalexf , whose format for fic recs I have used as the gold standard.
For @unremarkablehouse , a fic about life in your namesake.
Title: Home, Home
Author: onpaperfirst @onpaperfirst
Summary: post-the truth, pre-iwtb, weirdo domesticity
where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day
Length: 4,699
Classification: MSR
Rating: Not Rated
Spoilers: post original run
Favorite line: He came back with a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, a red and green tree stand in a box, and some candy canes. There were eleven in the package and one in his mouth.
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Leading Conversations
An oldie but goodie that isn’t on Ao3. Does what it says on the tin!
Title: Chess
Author: Cecily_Sass @cecilysass
Summary: Friday night. Mulder and Scully play chess.
Length: 4,300 ish
Classification: UST, MSR
Rating: T
Spoilers:
Favorite line: "Scully," he said. "Are we lovers?"
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A conversation about hypotheticals evolves. Very lovely getting on the same page fic.
Title: A Perfect Storm
Author: ChaneenW
Summary: Inspired by their undercover assignment as a married couple, Mulder tries to find out what Scully wants in a husband.
Length: 3,000
Classification: MSR
Rating: T
Spoilers: Arcadia
Favorite line: “I did think of that, Scully, but she doesn’t seem to like my kindergarten antics much, either—hypothetically speaking, of course.”
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A great fic from Thursday that sees them talking their way towards each other.
Title: in conclusion
Author: thursdayinspace @thursdayinspace
Summary: “What were you thinking about?” she asks
He lets out a small laugh. “I was thinking about…you know. Human connections. What they are and how we define them. And why we need to put them into neat little categories that we specifically make up for them. Don’t you ever just wonder what makes relationships – any kinds of relationships – what they are?”
It's the middle of the night in a freezing cold motel room and they both haven't slept. The best time and place to figure out how relationships work -- theirs in particular.
Length: 3,370
Classification: MSR
Rating: T
Spoilers:
Favorite line: “You want to have an ontological discussion about romantic relationships at almost 1 a.m. in a freezing cold motel room after we both haven’t slept for a week?”
“Yes.”
"Any chance I can talk you out of it?"
"How long have we known each other?"
"I withdraw the question." She lets out a long breath.
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A much more recent conversation from Cecily, talking themselves into getting there.
Title: Negotiation
Author: cecily_sass @cecilysass
Summary: “You know, I hear they’re more than just partners,” Mulder offers in a conversational tone.
“Who?”
“Gillis and Perez,” Mulder says, cracking open a sunflower seed, gesturing out the front windshield. “That’s the water cooler gossip, anyway.”
Surprising conversation waiting in a car.
Length: 1,894
Classification: MSR
Rating: NR
Spoilers:
Favorite line: She lifts her head, and there are indeed tears pooling in the corners of her clear blue eyes. “Don’t you know me at all? Haven’t you been paying any attention?”
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Really lovely fic imagining that Scully’s reeling off of “magic” terms on the phone in Chinga was actually her quoting from a published article of Mulder’s.
Title: Upon the Yearly Renewal of JSTOR Accounts
Author: viridianvelvet
Summary: Mulder knows what it means to memorize someone's work. Post-Chinga.
Length: 1,184 words
Classification: MSR
Rating: G
Spoilers: post Chinga
Favorite line: If anyone deserves to hear the words aloud, it is Fox Mulder. Mulder, whose sharp edges ought to exist, but which have been burnished by the sheer, utter regard he has for all that is Good and Right in the world.
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Sweet fluffy fic, Scully gets hurt and Mulder gets hit by just how much he loves her.
Title: A Minor Inconvenience
Author: spooky_nerd @spooky-nerd
Summary: In which Scully gets hurt on the job and Mulder loses what's left of his sanity, probably.
Length: 2,045 words
Classification: MSR, hurt/comfort
Rating: G
Spoilers: none
Favorite line: "If this causes any temporary memory lapses, I apologize in advance," she says. Last month she'd forgotten his birthday and, unrelated, the fact that he did not like sausage on his pizza. That realization had come once she'd fully recovered, and she'd made it up to him by taking him to a viewing of 'The Thing' at a small art house theater and treating him to a 16-inch, sausage-free pizza afterwards.
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Post-ep First Times
A very sweet, soft post Pilot first time fic.
Title: Lost Together
Author: MarjorieWilliams
Summary: Scully and Mulder come together after Bellefleur, lost but not alone.
Length: 1,803
Classification: MSR
Rating: M
Spoilers: Pilot
Favorite line: She turned her hand in his, and their fingers laced together like pieces of a precision-made puzzle.
He stood, tugging her with him, and guided her to his bed.
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Hoo boy. Extremely hot Ice replacement for the inspection scene.
Title: what does it take (to get you off)
Author: coppersunlight @mulderno
Summary: Anyone else would likely regard her resulting gasp as nothing more than an expression of surprise, but this is Fox Mulder—star profiler, and prodigious interpreter of all things Scully.
“You liked that?” he asks quietly, dangerously—a skilled observation disguised in the tone of a question.
Inspired by the question, "How does Scully feel when he bends down like that to get directly in her face" during the supply closet scene in Ice, and by Scully's highly incriminating gasp in Never Again.
Length: 3,353
Classification: MSR, first time
Rating: E
Spoilers: Ice
Favorite line: He nibbles at the lobe of her ear. “You like this,” he repeats, his tone cocksure, definitive, fascinated.
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I’ve got this bookmarked as a great post The End first time with Gibson being a little chaos agent.
Title: Enders Switch
Author: gypsymuse
Summary: What do you do when everything you are lies in ashes at your feet? Post-ep for The End (5X20).
Length: 14,046
Classification: MSR, adventure
Rating: M
Spoilers: The End
Favorite line: He drove easily, left hand on the wheel, right hand fiddling with the radio, a soda bottle, my knee. Still rumpled from our abortive romp, his hair was spiky, his shirt wrinkled, in all resembling the unmade bed we left behind. Nothing and no one has ever looked better to me. My feeling for him was so enormous I wondered that I could contain it.
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Hot off the presses, an absolutely lovely post-ep first time for How the Ghosts Stole Christmas. Roz blesses us with fic as well as art!
Title: O Holy Night
Author: rosenkranz_isnt_dead @rosenkranz-isnt-dead
Summary: When Mulder decided to go ghost hunting, being insulted by said ghosts was not what he had in mind. But they were right, he had dragged her into a haunted house with him, and he had stolen her car keys. Instead of spreading holiday cheer, she nearly died because of him. Again.
Length: 3,075
Classification: MSR
Rating: M
Spoilers: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
Favorite line: Scully, he thinks, all coherent thoughts abandoning him except for her dear, familiar name. Scully.
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First time fic post Monday. Beautiful day by day build up until he finally kisses her and the dam breaks.
Title: The Next Week
Author: SlippinMickeys @slippinmickeys
Summary: She’s placid in his bed. Warm, willing. She has a sleepy smile on her face and the morning sunlight coming through the window catches on her carmine hair, practically burns his eyes.
Length: 2,962
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: post-Monday, pre-Arcadia
Favorite line: “I…” He starts, but how do you tell your partner of almost 7 years that that you’re insanely in love with them and have been since almost day one and would they mind terribly if you fucked their brains out because that’s all you want to do whenever they’re within a foot of you?
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Post Milagro first time fic, he takes care of her and she lets him.
Title: Hearts Entwined
Author: Donna
Summary: In response to a challenge
Length: 3,429
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: Milagro
Favorite line: "Shh. Just lean on me." He stepped into the shower wearing only his boxers and let the warm water envelop them. She rested her head on his chest and made no protest.
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She counts their kisses and it leads to their first time in this absolutely lovely post Millenium fic from Sagan_Starstuff.
Title: Counting
Author: sagan_starstuff @sagan-starstuff
Summary: What happens when Mulder and Scully leave the hospital after New Years 2000?
Length: 7,338
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: Millenium
Favorite line: Sometimes he's so obtuse she wants to shake him. “I love you. Don’t tell me I don’t need to say it - I get to decide that, and you , Mulder, deserve to hear it. You deserve love.”
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Beautiful first time all things, acknowledging the depth of want and feeling as well as the inherent complications in their relationship.
Title: Stay
Author: Samantha1013
Summary: Mulder and Scully's first time together, from Scully's POV. Takes place between the closing and opening scenes of all things.
Length: 2,573
Classification: MSR, first time
Rating: E
Spoilers: all things
Favorite line: “Is this going to work?” He asked halting, brow furrowing.
It took her a second to comprehend. She responded flatly “Yes Mulder, the vagina is one of the most malleable and fastest healing organs in the body, second only to the tongue and cornea.”
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First Time Somewhere in Time
When I first read Regular People, I didn’t know there was a sequel and I was distraught. There’s something very quiet and beautiful here, when they have the space to breathe.
Title: Regular People and Regular People Still
Author: Chimerical1975
Summary: Thwarted Christmas plans, impulsive decisions, and unexpected visitors make two extraordinary FBI agents into regular people.Set in December, 1998. For the purposes of this story, HTGSC didn't happen.
The sequel to the story started in Regular People. We're back in 1998 where Mulder and Scully are continuing their sojourn. This leads to issues and discoveries large and small, lots of sex, some laughter, some sadness, and a touch of urgency as they are fast running out of time to be regular people.
Length: 16,724 and 36,760
Classification: MSR
Rating: M
Spoilers:
Favorite line: "I did get to go home to my family for Christmas, Mulder," she whispered.
"Scully--" Mulder started, but then he just settled on a single word as he nodded. "Yes."
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Scully comes over after painting her mom’s study and Mulder tells her she’s beautiful. Diz knows what she’s doing.
Title: She Tastes Like Candlelight
Author: mizdiz @xf-cases-solved
Summary: Mulder isn’t sure when exactly he fell in love with Scully.
It’s possible that there wasn’t a specific moment at all. Maybe the transition from friendship was so smooth that one day he just woke up and realized he’d been looking at Scully the same way he looked at the night sky—like an intricately tangled mystery, full of beauty and questions and Truths, of which he may never know the extent of. Somewhere along the way, she had become his greatest X-File.l
Length: 8,596
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: post Millenium
Favorite line: Scully smiles slyly, leaning in even closer to Mulder now, and says, “so I’m hot now? I thought I was beautiful.”
“Please,” says Mulder, surprised by how low his voice registers. “You’re the smart one, you should know that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
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Mulder has to go to three therapy sessions and it ends up pushing him into truly communicating with Scully.
Title: Normal Conversations
Author: Soronia
Summary: It always bothered me that Mulder had a degree in psychology but only seemed to use it on other people. Also I know it was the 90s, but everybody in this show needed a minimum 400 years of therapy. And yes, there’s eventually sex.
Length: 10,785
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers:
Favorite line: Her face was always so transparent, and he watched it fill then with an emotion he couldn’t place at first. Not contempt, or hesitation. Her whole expression filled up with glory.
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Cute first time after they've been undercover and Scully is used to holding hands so she grabs his hand in a meeting which leads to hot first time sex later that night.
Title: Record Scratch
Author: Skinfull
Summary: After spending a month undercover posing as a married couple on a farm in Iowa, Scully is struggling to get back into the non married view of her relationship with Mulder.
Length: 12,156
Classification: MSR, first time
Rating: E
Spoilers:
Favorite line: I do the only thing a self respecting modern day woman who is desperately in love with her best friend would do. I ignore it completely.
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I love this writer, she delivers on very hot smut with lots of lovely happy feelings. This was the first of hers I read, I hope you like it as much as I do.
Title: I’m on Fire
Author: Spark_a_Flame1013
Summary: A casual night out turns into everything.
Length: 5,754
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers:
Favorite line: “Agent Scully?”
They both turned and there stood an agent from white collar crimes. Agent Jones? Johnson? Jordan? Mulder couldn’t remember but figured it would be in the police report after he broke the guy’s jaw for probably destroying the moment. All the man said, though, was “Don’t forget your bag.” He nodded to the table where Scully's purse and suit jacket still sat. She went to get them, leaving Mulder and Agent J-something alone.
They stared at each other for a moment, and then Agent J said, mildly, “You lucky fucking bastard.”
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Emily But Not Tragic
One of the author’s tags is “speedrunning two whole seasons of mulder character development as one does” so there you have it.
Title: the driver’s side door and other affairs of the heart
Author: cabbagesandqueens @benoitblanc
Summary: There is no casket full of sand, and Mulder gets out of the car.
Length: 2,970
Classification: MSR
Rating: G
Spoilers: Emily
Favorite line: The X-Files, his X-Files, have always been about lost little girls and the people they leave behind.
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Oh so sweet scenes of Emily in their lives. Read when you need to fill your heart with some joy.
Title: close to knowing
Author: o666666 @o6666666
Summary: Vignettes about Mulder and Emily, and Mulder and Scully, in (mostly) nonchronological order.
Length: 8,831
Classification: MSR
Rating: T
Spoilers: Emily AU, Kitsunegari
Favorite line: As they return to the car, Scully watches a toddler girl across the street trip on the pavement. The baby cries, and her father picks her up.
“Mulder, pick me up,” Emily asks, having followed Scully’s gaze. “Pick me up, please?”
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William, At Home
This was from Fictober this year. Four separate stories, all of them lovely. She hooked me with the first one. For when you need warm fuzzies.
Title: “That was good work.”
Author: Sammie1million @youreneverjustanythingtomescully
Summary: Fictober 2024
Length: 3,352
Classification: MSR
Rating: G
Spoilers: William Scully, post series kid
Favorite line: Mulder handed her the plastic submarine. "Want to help me find Nessie?" he teased, and Scully couldn't resist the playful invitation. She dipped the yellow sub into the water, watching it dive and resurface with a grin. William's eyes followed it intently, his laughter echoing off the tiles.
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I cannot express to you just how beautiful I find this fic. This is their family, the way it might have been.
Title: like real people do
Author: chasingfictions @chasingfictions
Summary: in which mulder is a stay at home dad, and scully is getting used to the idea that they’re allowed to be this in love.
“You know, you could run out and get diaper cream too, Mulder.”
“Ah, no can-do, Scully. We’re deep in blanket fort construction over here. And the boss is real uncompromising on the schedule. If I don’t get us to story time under a fuzzy blanket soon, my head’s on the chopping block.”
Length: 4,347
Classification: MSR
Rating: T
Spoilers: Season 9 AU where they keep William
Favorite line: But then she remembers that they are in their bed, in their home, that their son has woken up in the other room, but they can hear through the baby monitor isn’t crying yet, is only gurgling, cooing softly, she remembers that he is touching her, holding her, that he was gone and he was dead and now he is alive and warm in her bed, that he will never leave her bed again, she won’t let him. She remembers, from the way he is kissing her now, warm and hungry and loving her, his mouth on her neck, her clavicle, her shoulders, her mouth, that this is theirs. That he is hers.
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On the Run
I’ve got it bookmarked as “an absolute stunner.” Just a beautiful look at a period of their time on the run.
Title: A Cabin In The Woods
Author: leiascully @leiascully
Summary: Mulder and Scully, on the run, stay for a while in a cabin in the mountains in Montana. A series of interlacing vignettes.
Length: 13,768
Classification: MSR, domestic fluff
Rating: T
Spoilers: post original series, on the run
Favorite line: When they wake and dress and stretch to the extent the tent allows, frowsy with sleep and disheveled and staticky, she looks at him and feels a pang of pure, unadulterated happiness, the joy that cuts like a knife. After everything, she can still be happy, if mostly in moments like sudden beams of light on a cloudy day, Jacob’s ladders set against a backdrop of storms.
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Wonderful old school series where they get William back and are able to rebuild a life together as a family while fighting the future. A real comfort read for me.
Title: Ghosts series
Author: Anjou
Summary: An early December 2002 tale, originally supposed to be a drabble, totally spun out of control. A post-series 'what if' where Mulder was irrevocably altered, replicants were the new reality, and the clock was ticking down to 2012.
Length: 33,710 words over three works in the series
Classification: MSR, character death (not our main family, but there are ghosts)
Rating: G, T, M
Spoilers: Post original run
Favorite line: Mulder could feel the love pouring out of him in waves and knew he was barraging William with too much emotion, but couldn't seem to pull it back; he had never consciously acknowledged how much he wanted this, to be a family with Scully and their child. Now that he was actually confronted with what he had long hoped for, he was overcome.
"Oh," William said. He giggled, as if Mulder had tickled him. "Hi," he said to Mulder.
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Reunion sex that matches the wallsex gifs
Title: shaking all over
Author: kittenscully
Summary: Below her chin, the expanse of his skin is warm in the growing light. He is bedding down in her, his leg shifting to cover hers, and she knows that he could sleep, now, for awhile. But there is so much of him, heavy and beautiful and unmarked, and it’s been so long, and she doesn’t want to let him drift away.
Length: 2,222
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: post The Truth
Favorite line: Tugging his head to the side, Scully latches onto his neck, thick tendons and the beat of his pulse. He groans, surprised. Before, he’d never liked pain, hissing even at the drag of her nails down his back. But they have both changed, and as she nips at him, his cock twitches against her leg.
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Original Run (and Beyond)
Charming pair of stories from the POV of Mulder’s neighbours who get extremely invested in the relationship between “agent Smolder” and “Sally” over the years. It’s a lot of fun.
Title: Kevin & Devin series
Author: admiralty and DanaScullyMakesMeFeelAutopsyTurvy @admiralty-xfd, @scullymakesmefeelautopsyturvy
Summary: *There was something going on between these two, or else there was something not going on, when there clearly ought to be.*
There’s never a dull moment when your neighbor is Special Agent Fox Mulder.
Length: 48,789 words over two works
Classification: MSR, humour, original characters
Rating: T, G
Spoilers: Follows along with the original run
Favorite line: Devin leaned his ear against the wall in a brazen absence of shame.
Kevin took another surreptitious glance behind him. “Devin,” he said. “That is such an invasion of-”
“I can hear them.” Devin interrupted.
Kevin’s ear was against the wall almost before Devin had finished his sentence.
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This is such a gem of a fic, wtfmulder has tagged it as “crack but kind of not” and as goofy as it sounds (they are literally looking for a big bird) it is beautiful and dreamlike and everything good. The sunglasses are a thing throughout and I just love it.
Title: big bird
Author: wtfmulder @wtfmulder
Summary: Our duo are on a journey to see a huge fucking bird. Drabble series.
Length: 11,468
Classification: early MSR, UST, casefile
Rating: G
Spoilers: season 2, post abduction arc
Favorite line: The sun touches Scully’s hair and the effect is magnificent. But it also touches her eyeballs, because Mulder is still wearing the sunglasses.
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This is just so much fun. I had the best time reading this fic. It’s season 1 so it’s not MSR as such but there is vulnerability and care.
Title: vulpes mulder
Author: eggschiptune @eggschiptune
Summary: Mulder and Scully set out to attend a conference in Oregon: simple, easy, and a chance to get away for a weekend on the FBI'S dime. Mulder has other ideas-and Scully winds up with those complicated feelings about her father resurfacing, a woman who swears she was transformed by God into a German Shepard, and a little red fox following her around with its nose in a bag of sunflower seeds.
Length: 32,630
Classification: casefile
Rating: G
Spoilers: season 1, post Beyond the Sea
Favorite line: “I don’t think I need to tell you this, but you’re a little shit. What were you thinking?”
Significantly less gentle than she could have been, Scully set the fox on Mulder’s desk. He scratched his head idly with a black foot.
“You bit the assistant director.”
The fox rolled his eyes and made a very small biting motion with his front teeth.
“What do you want me to say? You nipped the assistant director? Like that’s better?”
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This isn’t straightforward MSR, it’s a post-ep for Paper Hearts that sees Scully reflecting but for me it’s there between the lines. Just like the show. It might sting a bit but it’s beautiful and worth it.
Title: Paper Thin
Author: saintscully @therealsaintscully
Summary: She doesn’t know which scares her more: that he’ll never find the answer, or that he might.
Length: 5,167
Classification: character study, loneliness
Rating: G
Spoilers: Post Paper Hearts
Favorite line: Gone for reasons as natural as they are cruel—another casualty of a world that shows no mercy to little girls and offers no answers to those who love them.
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Short but packs a punch. They’re thick as thieves, up to shenanigans.
Title: hall of mirrors
Author: seek_its_opposite @seek-its-opposite
Summary: “Come on, Scully. Who doesn’t want to be Tom Sawyer at his own funeral?” (early season 4)
Length: 956
Classification: UST, Fluff
Rating: G
Spoilers: set in early season 4
Favorite line: Scully puts her finger to her lips and continues, “His ego is so visible I can almost watch it grow.”
Mulder feigns being shot through the heart.
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Don’t be put off by Diana! Anika makes sure everything is as it should be. I absolutely adore the detail about not wanting Mulder to be cold after their experience in Antarctica.
Title: Making Progress
Author: Baroness_Blixen @baronessblixen
Summary: Takes place during "Arcadia": Scully gets up one night to give Mulder a blanket and she catches Mulder talking to Fowley.
Length: 1,080
Classification: Fluff with a whiff of angst
Rating: G
Spoilers: Arcadia
Favorite line: He took a pillow with him, but he forgot the blanket. Whether he did it deliberately, or simply didn’t think of it, she doesn’t question. No matter how irritated she may be with him, she doesn’t want him to be cold. Even now, so many months later, she sleeps with more than one blanket herself. The fear of cold now ingrained in her bones. She doesn’t know how Mulder feels about it; one of the million things they haven’t talked about after Antarctica. She doubts they ever will. But she knows she can’t let him shiver and freeze down there on the couch, no matter what.
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Absolute married behaviour here. And a love confession. And a thwarted first kiss.
Title: Laughing Gas
Author: thatfragilecapricorn @thatfragilecapricorn30
Summary: Mulder gets dental surgery.
Length: 1,306
Classification: Humor, fluff
Rating: G
Spoilers: none
Favorite line: Mulder appeared deep in thought and then exclaimed, “The most beautiful president America has ever elected!”
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Really lovely. Five ways Triangle could have ended. The last one takes us back through FTF and sends them through Australia which gives them time to deal with the hallway.
Title: The Congruence of Triangles
Author: LibbyT @libbytxf
Summary: The final scene of Triangle, told five ways.
"It is at this moment, the moment of having felt the truth and the succor of her belief in him, that he realizes he is in love with her. He has felt every constituent part of this feeling before, the friendship, the attraction, the excitement, the certainty, the desperation, the almost irresistible urge to kiss her, but never all at once. It coalesces in a sharp and sudden realization, the obviousness of which is almost insulting to him, in a certain light. How has he never managed to articulate it to himself in this way? How has he resisted this so long?"
Length: 5,373
Classification: MSR
Rating: G
Spoilers: Triangle, FTF
Favorite line: A new nurse is on duty. “Are you family?” she asks.
“I’m his partner”, says Scully, nodding, wilfully participating in a campaign of misinformation. She does not feel the lie in it.
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Mulder gets trapped with Scully and Diana and realises he’s able to read their minds.
Title: Dissonance
Author: suilven @suilven19
Summary: Canon divergence during Biogenesis. Mulder and Scully find themselves in an elevator with none other than Diana Fowley just as Mulder's burgeoning abilities begin to manifest.
Length: 4,471
Classification: UST, jealousy
Rating: T
Spoilers: Biogenesis
Favorite line: It was simply the whispered thought of his name, but he was very sure she’d never said it aloud quite like that before. The warmth radiating from her as she squeezed his fingers back made his heart stutter in his chest. Sure, he’d been a little loopy from the drugs they’d given him when he’d stupidly blurted out that he loved her, but damn if he didn’t feel the same way in that moment as Scully appeared to be feeling right now.
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I love this one. Mulder gets drugged and there’s an axe and he feeds her a banana.
Title: instinct
Author: light_loves_the_dark @queeenpersephone
Summary: “Move,” Mulder orders, his voice low and gravelly, wrapping a large hand around Scully's bicep and pulling her aside.
She struggles against him, mentally reviewing the profile, desperate to think of a way to stop this. The other victims hadn’t been violent for violence’s sake. Reduced to their basic instincts, they had fallen back to protect what they had considered theirs.
She needs to get Mulder out. And as much as she hates appearing weak, she knows exactly how to do it. She knows exactly what Mulder considers his.
aka the one where mulder is drugged and reduced to his basic instincts, and no one needs three guesses to figure out who those instincts get directed towards
Length: 15,401
Classification: MSR
Rating: T
Spoilers:
Favorite line: She exhales, trying to give him a shaky smile, when he steps into her body and presses his mouth against her temple. Her hands reflexively clutch at his shirt. He breathes in, wet and close and primitive; he’s not kissing her skin, but the open mouthed press of his lips is almost more intimate. He inhales once more, slow and deliberate and long, his free hand coming up to cup the back of her neck. His hand is large enough to cover her skin from her first thoracic vertebrae to her hairline, and she shudders at the sensation. It feels primal. Possessive.
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Wonderful look at what it might have been like when Mulder could read minds.
Title: The Restless Heart, The Promised Land
Author: incidental @incidental-ao3
Summary: Someone on twitter wondered what Mulder would've heard in Scully's head during The Sixth Extinction when he was still able to read minds. This is my take on that. Could be canon compliant, since we have no canon answer to a lot of the timeline of their romantic relationship. Inspired by twitter and The Killers.
Length: 5,100
Classification: MSR love confession (unintentional)
Rating: T
Spoilers: The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati
Favorite line: I love you so much, she thought, and he smiled again, truly amazed. He didn’t think he was hallucinating this. God, I’m so glad you’re alive.
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An explanation for Mulder’s terrible season 7 haircut.
Title: Unscrupulous
Author: Narida Law (sarea)
Summary: Mulder's haircut is, quite simply, the result of one woman's possessive nature.
Length: 2,424
Classification: MSR UST
Rating: T
Spoilers:
Favorite line: She didn't need to walk anything off. She just had to keep those women at the requisition desk from ogling what was hers.
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The prompt from fragile vixen includes the words voyeurism is encouraged... I love it when they can't help themselves.
Title: Blind Spot
Author: alienqueequeg @alienqueequeg
Summary: After a long day working on a pointless assignment, Mulder and Scully start to get frisky in the records room of the FBI Headquarters.
Length: 3,580
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers:
Favorite line: Mulder bends his neck down, pressing his lips to her neck. A quick study to all her favorite spots, he executes his move with the precision of a predator going in for the kill. She clenches her thighs and mentally curses him.
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Very sweet destined-to-be-together fic following the path laid out by the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s song Mastermind.
Title: Mastermind
Author: Katy_KT_Katie and tofuttiM @katy-kt-katie and @tofuttim
Summary: What if we told you none of it was accidental? That once Dana Scully met Fox Mulder she knew she had to force them into a partnership, a friendship and a relationship. Fic looking at their relationship from first meeting through the Revival. Canon Adjacent.
Length: 19,836
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: runs over the course of the whole show
Favorite line: She reflected on how much she had changed while working with Mulder. Her mind was more open but so was her heart. She’d never loved anyone as fiercely and completely as she loved him. He was her perfect opposite and the pull of them towards each other made them both better, made them both whole people. Even if their relationship never progressed, she didn’t care, she needed to be with him, needed him by her side always.
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Does what it says on the tin. Extremely lovely look at mornings they share over the years.
Title: days sweetest moments are at dawn
Author: catharsisxf @catharsisxf
Summary: A glimpse at various mornings they spent together from Arcadia onward.
Length: 8,304
Classification: MSR
Rating: Not rated but some chapters are explicit
Spoilers: Arcadia on
Favorite line: She notices Dana hovering with a nervous energy, her hands fidgeting like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. As she puts away the last of the leftovers Maggie turns to her with a smile then freezes. Glancing towards the living room she spots a black leather jacket tossed on the back of the sofa. Looking a little more closely she spies a man’s shoe under the coffee table and a silk blouse hanging off the armchair.
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This happens to be a beautifully written look at them together discovering more about one another, enjoying the closeness that they've found as they've entered into a romantic relationship. Chapter 2 also happens to be "extremely hot monkey sex" as Mulder puts it. I love how Darwin writes them.
Title: Close through the Dark
Author: Darwin_xf @darwin-xf
Summary: A long time ago in a galaxy much like our own but with no smartphones, Mulder and Scully explore the vicissitudes of family, the metaphysics of sex, the intersection of desire and power, the motives of Skinner, the confines and conventions of gender, the inadequacy of language, a deep dark secret or two, and—most importantly—each other. Basically, nothing happens.
Length: 9,193
Classification: MSR, E
Rating: E
Spoilers:
Favorite line: “Maybe we should close the windows,” she said.
“It doesn’t bother me. For once I’m about to curl up with my favorite warm body and someone else is acting like a lunatic and going home alone.”
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Really beautiful and gentle story of their love for each other with a bit of a gut punch at the end. But it's OK! Num said: Just know in this universe Mulder does make it back and William isn't put up for adoption. It's just a bump in the road
Title: Handfesta
Author: numinous_mysteries @numinousmysteries
Summary: He wants to marry her in a primeval fashion that transcends man and law and God.
Length: 5,056
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: Season 7
Favorite line: “Oh, Mulder,” she sighs. “A pagan ceremony preceded by a mysterious seven-hour road trip with a 5 a.m. wakeup call is the only way I would ever expect to marry you. Truly, if you got down on one knee with a diamond ring after a candlelit dinner I’d probably immediately order a CT scan to check you for a cerebral hemorrhage.”
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I am obsessed with this fic. Every time I read it I am staggered by the prose. Absolute stunner. Beautiful love story from Scully's perspective over the course of season 7 with sharp edges. Rings so true and is heartachingly good.
Title: ālea iacta est
Author: brenayla @brenayla
Summary: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, and for Scully so loved Mulder that she’s cracked his ribs to restart his heart and dug bloodied fingers into his mangled thigh to slow the gush of his femoral artery.
If her unfettered belief in Mulder was enough to give him eternal life, the sun would burn out first.
Length: 11,628
Classification: MSR
Rating: E
Spoilers: Season 7
Favorite line: They are all my favourite line so here's one of them: Sometimes when he looks at her, Scully is struck with the staggering realization that that greedy, sweet thing she feels for him? God, he feels it right back.
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Something Different
Something truly magical here. The world as they know it ends and they find a little girl who is something more. Don’t want to spoil too much, they do absolutely go through it but it still has that sense of magic to it and ultimately feels hopeful.
Title: the sprite universe
Author: audries @audriesfic
Summary: On the last and final day, God created little girls. On the last and final day, from Scully’s true rib on her right side, God created daughters without mothers and mothers without sons and so on and so forth. Amen Amen Hallelejuah.
prompt from @enigmaticdr on tumblr: AU post-2012, dystopian, a hardened Mulder and Scully find an abandoned child at the side of the road.
Length: 5,114 over two works
Classification: Post series AU
Rating: G
Spoilers:
Favorite line: “She’s just a child,” Scully is saying, almost too quiet, and he has no idea why she’s saying it at all, except for the careful way the woman had stepped away, her eyes on the Sprite and not the gun. Like there was only one thing she was scared of and Scully wasn’t it. “She’s just a little girl.”
The woman grins, dazed and toothless, as she backs into the crop of trees off the side of the lot, away from them. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” she sniffs, wipes her wrist across her mouth, leaving a hard line instead of a smile in its wake. “But you have no idea what she is.”
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Heavy Hitters From OG Writers
This fic is a stone cold classic. I spent decades away from the fandom and this fic and Lydia Bower stuck with me as the ultimate in xf fanfic.
Title: Dance Without Sleeping
Author: wonderland/Lydia Bower @amplifyme
Summary: Scully learns to live with her cancer and take back control of her life. Meanwhile, Mulder works on fulfilling a wish list.
Length: 30,621
Classification: MSR, cancer arc
Rating: M
Spoilers:
Favorite line: He peers down at me, his eyes dark and sleepy. He sighs, a deep, shuddery sigh and pulls me tighter against him. "If you had any idea what you mean to me," his voice drops to a gravely whisper, “you wouldn't have to ask."
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There’s nothing I can say about this fic that will be sufficient. It’s Penumbra writing as The_Mythopoeic. It is poetic and epic and bracing and absolutely gorgeous.
Title: Heuvelmans' On the Track
Author: The_Mythopoeic/Penumbra @mashnotesofthemythopoeic
Summary: In which Scully becomes a Consortium doctor, and Mulder moves heaven and earth.
Length: 81,392
Classification: MSR
Rating: M
Spoilers:
Favorite line: It’s Penumbra so all of it, but this really stuck with me: Keagle, who had said nothing until now, turned and studied Scully openly. She lifted her chin slightly, and their equally blunt gazes exchanged a grudging recognition.
Keagle nodded. 'She would have got out,' he said.
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This is a post Never Again fic that sees them working a very compelling case with a great original character. There is conflict and MSR and it’s just fantastic.
Title: The Common Fate of All Things Rare
Author: Aloysia_Virgata and Scarlet
Summary: Ever wonder what happened between the silence of Never Again and the flowers from Memento Mori? Ever wonder if Scully's night with Ed Jerse affected her relationship with Mulder in any way? Ever wonder what pushed Scully to go to the hospital and find out about her cancer in the first place? Ever wonder how her illness might have affected her work or if she ever thought about Leonard Betts' words?
Well, we did...
Length: 46,702
Classification: Casefile, MSR, cancer arc, angst
Rating: M
Spoilers: Never Again
Favorite line: "Now, listen to me very carefully. You two clearly have some personal problems that are interfering with your focus on this case. So here's what you're going to do: you're going to drive to your hotel and fight or fuck or snort an eight ball of blow - whatever you do to get functional - and then we're going to find this guy. You come back here with a game face or you go home. Do you understand me?"
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JET is such a unique, gifted writer. Her voice is entirely her own. An all time great. Small Lives Awaken is a banger but this one– a case after Amor Fati where they meet star crossed lovers, one of whom can read the other’s mind– is a thing of beauty too.
Title: Silence Waiting
Author: Jesemie’s Evil Twin (JET)
Summary: "I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand
shadowless like Silence, listening to silence..."
Thomas Hood
Or, The First Nine Days.
Length: 18,600ish
Classification: MSR, Oddness
Rating: E
Spoilers: Through Amor Fati
Favorite line: He said some things a few days ago, but they were just words in that cloaked, measured way he always seems to be speaking to her in his hallway -- if he can hold her in his arms for thirty seconds at a time, once every two or three years, if he can say 'saved' and 'touchstone' and 'whole person,' eventually, decades from now, he might also finally string together enough of those words to fully explain what she means to him.
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Listen. I don’t like to pick favourites because we are so incredibly lucky to have some of the best writers in the world writing xf fanfic, but this one by Revely might just be it for me. Definitely top 5 of all time. Mulder is returned in Oregon after a year. This is their drive back across the country. It is utterly beautiful.
Title: The Unfinished Universe
Author: Revely
Summary:
Length: Around 17,700
Classification: MSR
Rating: Not rated
Spoilers: This is an alternate post abduction Mulder universe
Favorite line: She writes, "I do not want to be buried without you. Who will hold my hand?"
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Another all time favourite of mine. This is a great casefile but what I really love about it is how realistic the balance of their romantic and working relationships feels here. It’s satisfyingly mature and very recognisably them.
Title: Seeds of Synchronicity
Author: mountainphile
Summary: Six years after the events of "Aubrey," Scully and Mulder revisit the Missouri town to confront old demons and lay new ones to rest.
Length: ~92,350 words (as per @lilydalexf here)
Classification: MSR, casefile
Rating: E
Spoilers: Aubrey, Emily set in season 7
Favorite line: "This is different. New game, new rules..." Sighing, she knows her words sound cliched and inane in the warm heady space they inhabit on the bed.
"No, no games." His eyes so close, commanding her gaze, he the only one alive who knows her best. "Just reality. The truth."
"Which is...?"
"That we love one other, no matter what."
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Happy holidays @unremarkablehouse!
