Prompt: Mulder and scully are at scullys family for the holidays (au where Melissa and Charlie are both there) as well as the rest of the family + their partners and children M+S are in a relationship but haven’t told anyone, they think that they are being subtle but at different times during the visit unbeknown to them all the scully family catch them together
MELISSA.
Melissa couldn’t say she was surprised. A little hurt at the secret keeping but not surprised. She saw after all the way Fox looked at her little sister like she hung the moon, the way Dana would fuss over him, always checking in. Melissa would’ve been more surprised if the two hadn’t ended up together.
“Danaaa,” she whines with excitement, after cornering her sister in the excluded kitchen. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Dana asks.
“About you and Fox- I mean, Mulder. I had to hear it from Mom of all people. I get not wanting to tell her, or Billy, but not telling me, Dana? Me?” Melissa throws her sister a feigned hurt look. “We used to tell each other everything.”
Dana lets out a nervous laugh. “Tell you…? What has Mom been telling you?”
Melissa looks at her pointedly. “About you and Mulder. How she caught you two upstairs. Together. Alone.” She wiggles her eyebrows in code. “I mean, you could’ve given me the heads up beforehand.”
But Dana shakes her head. “No it wasn’t like that.” She looks around the deserted kitchen. “Who exactly is Mom telling?”
Melissa shrugs. “Anyone who will listen. You know what Mom…” But Melissa doesn’t get to finish her sentence before Dana is squeezing through the gap between them and running off towards the front of the house yelling for their mother.
MAGGIE.
Maggie was surprised when Dana turned up with Fox standing behind her.
“It was a last minute decision,” her daughter tells her. “Decided this morning.”
“Oh,” Maggie says, not put out in the slightest. There were going to be plenty of people over the next few days, one more never hurt. “Of course. You’re always welcome here, Fox.”
“Mulder,” Dana corrects under her breath as she slips inside.
“Thank you, Mrs Scully,” Fox says. Maggie doesn’t bother telling him once again that he can call her Maggie, she just steps to the side and lets him enter, before closing the door and following her daughter into the living room. Dana was always the first to arrive.
“Bill Jr will be here later,” Maggie says in the way of warning, giving the slightest glance towards Fox.
Dana gives a non chalant shrug. “If he can’t accept I’m an adult with my own thoughts and opinions then I won’t be the one ruining Christmas, he will be.”
Maggie hoped no one had any intention of ruining Christmas this year. With how disastrous the one before went followed by Dana declining her invite last year, she hoped everyone would remember this was a time for family and religion and would put their warring opinions aside for a few days of being together.
They did. If one could count ignoring glares and stares as it going well then this would be one of the better years as a family.
She hadn’t intended on going looking for her third child. Truthfully, she hadn’t noticed she was even missing, that they both were. She knew all her children plus Fox would be sleeping in the house. She was just trying to get ahead of the night, putting the sheets and blankets in the guest rooms ready for when everyone would retire. When she opened the door to the final room, she had no idea Dana and Fox would be behind it.
“Oh, Dana!” Maggie cries, caught unawares. She closes the door over slightly allowing them privacy for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she apologises. “I didn’t know you were in here.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” she hears Dana say and Maggie pushes the door open again.
They’ve parted now. Fox standing up beside the bed as opposed to sitting and Dana seeming to be as far away from him as possible. They were only kissing and while Maggie doesn’t have any shame towards it she knows how private Dana can be especially with something such as intimate moments.
Still, she can’t stop the grin appearing on her face. Fox and Dana, she thinks. That was the reason Dana invited him.
“You found a guest room,” Maggie says and Dana nods.
“We’ll be back down now.”
Maggie places the sheets down upon the dresser.
“Dinner will be served soon,” is all she says before retreating out the room and closing the door behind her.
BILL.
He waits until everyone has gone home for the night, until it is only family left (family and him) before he hunts Dana down.
By God does he wish that man would just leave with the rest of them. Instead he is like a plague upon this house, upon Dana, and his younger sister is too awestruck to see it.
“Leave it, Bill,” Melissa tells him as he starts up the stairs to where they’ve disappeared off to for the tenth time that night. “Dana’s 35 years old, she can make her own decisions.”
Bill wheels around on the second step, towering above his twin sister but Melissa doesn’t back down.
“Of course you condone this,” he says to her, shaking his head. “Do you not know what he has done to her over the years?”
“Mulder hasn’t done anything,” Melissa argues you back and Bill scoffs. “Dana could have left that assignment at any time and you know that.”
“So you’re blaming Dana?”
Melissa lets out a loud sigh. “Of course not! Bad things were done to her but that doesn’t make it Mulder’s fault.”
Bill shakes his head. He doesn’t want to listen to this.
“You weren’t there when she was in that coma. He never left her side.”
“Yeah, that’s called guilt.”
Done with this conversation, Bill turns around to go up the stairs only to be stopped by Dana standing at the top, her eyes blazing with fury. She meets him on the staircase, standing the step above so now she’s towering over him.
“I’ve told you this before, William; what I do with my life and my body is my business.”
A door opens and Bill can see him peering out of it. A rage like no other fills him up inside.
“Well, when it’s under this roof it becomes my business.”
Dana turns sharply. “This isn’t your house. You’re not—“ The words die abruptly on her tongue. Their mother lets out a whimper and he can feel Melissa’s eye roll.
There it is. His weakness, unspoken words they all hear. No, he is not their father and no matter how hard he tries he’ll never fit those boots.
“Maybe not but you know he would never allow this.” He looks towards Fox Mulder and the other man at least has the decency to retreat.
When Dana looks back at him there’s hurt in her eyes. “I guess we’ll never know,” she says and disappears behind the same door as Fox Mulder, the wood slamming shut.
Bill turns back around to the waiting looks of the rest of his family.
“Nicely handled Bill,” says Melissa. She pushes off from the wall and into the living room.
He looks to their mother who has tears in her eyes and regret fills him instantly. Another Christmas ruined.
“I love this family,” is all Charlie has to say. His first Christmas back and how different it all is.
Bill decides to leave that night. He packs up his stuff, tells Tara to pack her things. No one asks him to say. Dana doesn’t come downstairs. Mom and Missy say bye to Tara and Matthew, his mom hugs him, wishes him well, Charlie waves. All he gets from Melissa is a “You fucked up here, not her.” And he knows that is true but there isn’t a house big enough to fit both him and Fox Mulder.
MULDER.
He hears the door shut, the sound reverberating throughout the house and twists onto his back, looking up at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry I ruined Christmas Scully,” he says.
Scully is leaning over him. “You didn’t ruin anything. Bill has a stick up his ass, he has since Dad died.”
“But still. I can leave and your brother can come back—“ She silences him pressing her lips to his and he immediately melts into it.
She pulls back, her thumb gently stroking his cheek. “If Bill can’t be civil to you then I don’t want him here.”
He knows she means those words but he hates getting between her family. Scully’s family means everything to her.
“But if I stop you from having a good relationship with him…He’s your family.”
“You’re my family, too,” she says. Then she sighs and sits up. “I wish I could have a good relationship with him but if he’s not willing to put his feelings about you aside then…” she shrugs.
He touches his hand to her hip. “Is this why you didn’t tell them about us?”
She nods. “I wanted to ease them in gently. Have you around them a bit more, let them get to know you.”
“I guess not everyone can love me,” he says jokingly.
Scully laughs. “I guess not.” She moves next to him again, hovering above once more. “I do, though.”
Mulder moves her so she’s laying atop of him, her weight anchoring him. “How much?” He asks, nipping at her jaw and drawing out that sweet little smile she’s hidden away from him for so long.
“A lot. But it’ll have to wait until we’re home and I can show you just how much.”
Mulder hums, his hands moving all over his body. “Why not now?” He asks, capturing her lips and pushing his growing erection into her centre.
Scully moans into his mouth and he thinks he might have won her over when there’s three resounding knocks upon the door.
He chuckles as Scully lets out a groan into his neck. “That is why,” she tells him and three more knocks sound again. “Christ, it’s like I actually live here again.”
“Dana, I don’t care what condition you’re in. If you don’t open this door and tell me what is going on with you and Mulder I’m coming in there,” Melissa says through the door.
“Go on,” Mulder says, tapping her on the waist. “Go spend time with your family.” She slides off him, albeit very reluctantly. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. You can give me a Christmas present then.”
She throws him a sarcastic laugh but he knows she doesn’t mean it. He watches as Melissa drags her into the hall before she shuts the door. He gets into bed properly, laying awake and listening to the occasional laughs that sound through the adjoining walls, smiling to himself and falling asleep to the sound of Scully’s hushed laughter.
@today-in-fic
