Collector's Edition: Never Again and the
Endless Line
Got some Never Again angst for the phile populace. Step right up and take a whirl!
Loose chronological order below~
Beshter's Seasons: Fourth
Scully watched Mulder whip around the doorway to the office, bag in hand, partly envious of his time off, partly irritated. He wouldn't be taking it if he didn't have to, she knew that, and it was disgusting that he was forced to it. Mulder had no concept of "vacation." She wasn't much better. What was she doing instead of vacationing? Checking up on Moose and Squirrel? Is this what her life had devolved into, back and forth, up and down, her life in a standstill chasing one false lead after another, and all the moments of life passing her by. Her fingers slipped into her coat pocket, pulling out the delicate rose petals she found the night before. They looked even more ephemeral in the wan, florescent light of the dim office. She felt as dry and desiccated as they were, fragile and empty.
Part of Beshter's fill-in series: post-Kaddish Scully begins to examine her life, its choices, and consequences... and (momentarily) runs away from the endless line.
Stephanie Davies's Insufferable Sting
It was as she was pulling up behind her brother's Volvo that she felt it: a cold tickle on her upper lip. And her fingers came away bloody.
Pre-Never Again Scully's questions about her desk and that endless line began at her brother's birthday party.
Anne Haynes’s (Gossamer) Ishmael
What smacks me in the face is that, no matter how much I tried to distance myself from him and his influence in my life, no matter the uncharacteristic lengths to which I went in my quest for rebellion, I am less free of him than I was before we parted.
Never Again Scully is consumed by her partner.
@scenes-in-between/@scullywolf's (Ao3) Never Again
Telling Mulder would make it real. And she wasn’t ready for that, not yet.
Post-Leonard Betts Scully's fear drives her to Philadelphia.
Chibiness87's Transient
Following a suspect into a tattoo parlour dressed as she is may appear a little unwise, but she is intrigued despite herself. The design of the ouroboros calls to her; a direct contrast to what she claimed in the office the previous day about life. Here the snake is constantly reborn, life continues on forevermore, a constant loop.
A symbol of infinity.
Of permanence.
She likes it immediately.
Never Again Scully wonders if she has cancer.
Clementinewoolysocks369's The Problem - Chapter 1
Maybe she just wants to take a normal risk for once. Maybe she just wants to reassure herself she’s alive. It’s a side effect of being one of the few people her age who has had the privilege of seeing her own gravestone. “Dana Scully. Loving daughter and friend.” Her life summed up in a few words.
Post-Leonard Betts Scully feels disconnected from life.
@bakedbakermom/lonegunga1's Ouroboros (Ao3)
It was the first place Mulder ever really touched her, on that first case in his dark Oregon motel room with rain sheeting down outside, as Scully stood trembling in the candlelight and the tiny flame flickered in the warm cloud of his breath. She had trusted him enough, even then, to bare her body, and he in turn trusted her enough to bare his soul.
It is still the place he touches her the most, the place she has come to think of as “his.”
Never-Ever--Again
This is a moment of truth. Another, and so soon after the last. My life is crowded with them these days. I stand outside our office, ready to enter for the first time since returning from Philadelphia.
All the delicious heat I'd felt when I was close to Ed Jerse was, it seems, a mere precursor to his nearly incinerating me, then toasting his own arm.
Never Again Scully ruminates on her avenging anger.
After
For the tenth time, she wondered what they were doing here. It wasn't as if blood was allegedly pouring from human flesh, and she doubted that Skinner had assigned the case. Where was the *crime*? Had Mulder brought her to Philadelphia to watch her squirm? Had he chosen this bogus- looking religious case purely to poke fun at her faith? Was he really that cruel, and were they that far gone? She tried to shake off the depression this thought spread over her like a pall.
Pre-Never Again Mulder and Scully fell into bed, never talked about it, and are now grappling with her Philadelphia weekend-- in resentful silence, on a case.
@syntax6's (Gossamer, FFN, omniscribe) 20 - Chapter 4
Snow is falling again when he picks her up from the hospital. Tiny little flakes drift from the silent sky, illuminated briefly by the yellow street lamps before settling softly on the cold white world around them. Scully shivers insider her coat as she waits for him to open the locked car. Snow catches on her black shoulders and dull, burnished hair, and he barely recognizes her. The red seems muted to him now in the wake of all those pictures - her body and Jerse's, catalogued as evidence.
Never Again Scully, injured, asks for help.
defnotmeyo's It's My
And it’s the with who that driving you particularly crazy, right? Because you kind of think that maybe if Ed Jerse wasn’t completely off his rocker, he might be a little bit better than you. He was certainly more stable, outwardly, despite the failed marriage. He was certainly suaver, getting her to open up to him. He was certainly at least as good looking as you, a little more ripped, a little bulkier.
That goads you, doesn’t it?
Never Again Mulder can't finish his sentence.
@mldrgrl's (Ao3) Seeing Red
“Get out, Mulder,” she mumbles, trying not to move her lips too much. Blood seeps into her mouth anyway and she grimaces at the coppery tang on her tongue.
“Keep your head back,” he answers, as though he didn’t hear her. He turns the faucet on and turns to the paper towel dispenser.
“I said get out!” she says again, and the force of her voice causes the blood on her lips to splatter on the sink and mirror.
Mulder freezes with a paper towel fluttering in his hand.
Post-Never Again Scully has a nosebleed (in front of her partner.)
@thursdayinspace's (Ao3) fic: five times Mulder doesn't ask Scully out on a date (and one time he does) (Ao3)
She’s right to be mad at him. He deserves it. He’s mad at himself. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been angrier.
Amongst other opportunities thoroughly fumbled, Mulder misses a glaring one during Never Again.
@incidental-ao3/incidental's
Febuwhump 2023: The Truth is Out There (And the Fic is In Here) - Chapter 8
But eventually, the yawn came, unbidden, and he reached for the remote.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said hurriedly. He had already flipped it off.
“Nah, you need your beauty sleep,” he joked. He turned his lamp off, but she hesitated.
“Uh, Mulder, can I… can I confide something in you?” she asked, setting her book aside. He propped himself up on his elbow, brow crinkled.
Post-Never Again Scully is plagued by night terrors.
Nothing Else Matters
“You… are all that I care about, Scully. All. Nothing else matters without you.”
“Oh,” was all she could manage to say in response. It was disarming, how quickly the energy between them had changed.
AU-- Post-Never Again Mulder and Scully yell out their anger (and finally, finally communicate.)
Diana Alexander's The Vain Shadow of the Past
He walked over to Scully's desk, and she looked up at him as he spoke softly. "I'm sorry, Scully."
Post-Never Again Mulder reflects on their complicated relationship.
@frogsmulder/Brynstein's Love Me Tender
The shadow of Phoebe Green was his ghost. He had collected others since, they always seemed to follow him, stitched to his heel. But Phoebe had been his first. In every sense of the word. When they had been together she had completely and utterly shattered him. In a way that was both exhilarating and terrifying, but now it was just terrifying. Or so he tried to tell himself.
Post-Never Again Scully realizes Mulder is afraid.
@jessahmewren's (Ao3) Mulder & Scully, #15
Scully watched he scenery slide by in green/blue flashes. They’d been driving for ages. Her tattoo itched, but she couldn’t discreetly scratch it without Mulder noticing, and it was still a sore spot for him.
Ed Jerse was a sore spot for him.
Post-Never Again Scully is ready for a fight.
@suitablyaggrieved/ScullyLovesQueequeg's #4 Come Here, Let Me Fix It For You
“Thank you,” She said that lowly, as if forbidden, and that’s when Mulder noticed it. Her cross was not on her neck.
“Scully, what happened to your necklace?” He asked.
“It broke. After all these years, and you wearing it some, it finally broke."
Post-Never Again Mulder does his best to fix things (literally.)
@just-a-donut-who-reads/just_a_donut_who_reads's Unnamed
Pacing done, she stands on her toes, arms above her head, stretching her shoulders and mid-section and twists at the waist, allowing the tension to seep out of her body. The action makes her cropped sweatshirt ride up, and from the corner of her eye, she can see Mulder's eyes following its hemline. Suddenly, he looks away, and his hands tighten almost imperceptibly on the cushion he's holding. Scully lowers her arms and turns to him.
"What?" She asks, examining her abdomen. He shakes his head but she continues, lifting up the back of the sweatshirt and twisting to look at her back.
Oh.
Post-Never Again Mulder glimpses his partner's tattoo.
@scullysexual/PostApocolypticAlien's
30 Ways To Say "I Love You" (1/30)/How It Was Before. - Chapter 1
You return from the little café down the road and venture over to her area.
“It was two sugars, right?” you ask.
Startled, she glances up at you and the coffee cup in your hand.
Post-Never Again Mulder apologizes.
A Ghost Inbetween
It's a tiny dab of red. You could of easily missed it, would of if you were anyone but yourself yet, either way, you wouldn't miss anything when it relates to her, especially recently. Recently something had been very off with her if the last case was anything to go by.
Post-Never Again Mulder sees blood on Scully's shirt.
Michelle Kiefer's The Bar Scene - Race the Wind
When she raised her eyes, Mulder's smug look had been replaced with concern and perhaps a little guilt.
Post-Never Again Scully and Mulder aggravate each other on their next case.
@aloysiavirgata's Snow Carefully Everywhere Descending (LJ)
Mulder eyes her sidelong; her height requires her to shimmy to the edge of the tall stool and hop down in an undignified fashion. He watches her stride through the room - linoleum the color of old computers, of old bones - and resents the pairs of eyes that follow her dark, trim figure. They have no idea about her, he thinks. They can’t possibly begin to imagine her, the complexity of the brain cloistered behind that bruised and lovely face. They cannot fathom the things her sea-deep eyes have watched unfold.
Post-Never Again Mulder and Scully, prickly still, begin to slowly
open up.
@h0ldthiscat's (Ao3) 7 (things you said while we were driving)
She shoves the sunshade back up and clears her throat. “Can we go?”
He notices for the first time that her eyes are wet, that her chin is quivering despite her best attempts to control it. Remorse and guilt wash over him as he remembers an offhand comment from earlier in the week that explains her makeup, her nicer-than-usual suit, the set of her jaw."
Post-Never Again Mulder realizes Scully feels used.
AUs
@seepunkrun/Punk/runpunkrun's (site, Gossamer) Across a Desk (Ao3)
She waited to see what he would do. It occurred to her that he wasn't going to say anything on his own. She had to decide if it would be worth it to flush him out of his hole.
Foxhole.
Something in her appreciated how much that remark could hurt him. She held that power inside of her: She could hurt Mulder.
AU-- Post-Never Again Scully's tattoo can talk.
@writingwell/RocketMan's (site) I Hurt
"Scully, did you hear me?"
I shake my head no. I hurt, I hurt, I hurt, I hurt
"Scully, would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" he asks.
AU-- Post-Never Again Scully, still saddened from the Tunguska-Terma fiasco, is shocked by Mulder's question.
Brandon D. Ray's (Gossamer, xffics) No Place Like Home (Gossamer)
"Tell you what, Scully," her partner said as the chuckles finally died down. "You ever decide you DO want a tattoo, give me a holler and we'll go get one together, okay? We need to spend more time social time together relaxing, anyway -- the stress is getting to both of us."
AU-- Never Again was all a dream.
@swinging-stars-from-satellites/bravest_person_in_Wonderland's even more of exactly the same (Ao3)
It might hurt too much to acknowledge that she walked away from her best friend of four years over a stupid fight, a pointless desk and the point of a needle dripping ink into her skin. A part of her misses him, the part that wakes up panicking and praying she won't find blood on her pillowcase, but another part is still angry.
He has no claim on her. She has no claim on him. That makes her sad.
AU-- Post-Never Again Scully leaves without a goodbye... and calls again after her diagnosis.
BONUS
@kateyes224's Mulder’s real panic face.
Whatever you do, do not think about how Mulder had answered Scully’s phone call early that morning with one of his usual pithy Mulderisms, eager to regain a tenuous balance with her after she had reduced him to ashes and unfinished sentences in the wake of the Ed Jerse case. Don’t think about how Mulder’s face fell as the words “Can you meet me at the oncology ward?” slowly floated into his ears, his smile fading, as it took his brain several long moments to play catch-up before the words actually made sense.
Post-Never Again Mulder is given bad news.
Meredith's Backhand
Her life was his as much as his was hers. And she was waiting to tell him until after she was dead.
Two and a half days of nonstop searching and five hours in a variety of uncomfortable chairs had brought him to his knees. He had been moving so fast for so long that the reality of the situation hadn't sunk in; his brain had been processing the facts nonstop since Scully's call back in D.C., but his heart hadn't been able to keep up.
Memento Mori Mulder understands Scully's Philadelphia excursion.
@cecilysass's We’re Not Here To Get Involved in Personal Problems - Chapter 6
“Blood-related sexual activity!” Scully finds herself getting belatedly frightened and angry. “Mulder, did HIV/AIDS cross your mind?”
“I guess I probably forgot to review the pamphlets that night. Hey, maybe you can tell me for the future, Dr. Scully, how safe are kinky contaminated tattoo needles?”
Scully notes by the bright quality in his eyes that he is a little angry, too, and she questions if Mulder’s fear monster theory is right after all.
Post-X-Cops Mulder and Scully walk the neighborhood, eat mangoes, and delicately discuss past trysts.
@leiascully's tattoo
He grazed the snake on her back with one fingertip. She could hear the question in his quiet.
Hearts now open to each other, Mulder and Scully discuss her tattoo.
I need you to know that every time I hear “Escape From Hellview”, I think of you. Random as all hell, but you posted a piece inspired by it and now I just associate you with that song 😂
that's actually so cool, though. That really makes me happy. Love CKY and I've always associated that song with RE1. I've always wanted to do an animactic to the song, and I need to knuckle down on that this year tbh
I think that you're never too old or there isn't a specific timetable to follow in going to college or university. Some people go to college straight out of high school but there's nothing wrong with working for a few years and going back once you know what you want it do/have saved up for tuition/are retired and have more time to pursue an education. Education does not need to be a straight line.
Sweet, fluffy, and relatively short. A post-ep for “Millennium”. Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober
Fictober Day 5
“Scully?” The tone in Mulder’s voice makes her glance over at him sitting in the passenger seat, his good arm awkwardly holding his hurt one. “I’m tired.”
“Well, thank you for telling me,” she says and bites her lip to keep herself from laughing.
“Is that normal? The painkillers,” he says. “Should they make me tired?” She struggles to remember what they gave him but she knows it wasn’t anything too strong. He’ll live on Tylenol the next few days but that’s nothing new.
“It’s normal, Mulder. We’re almost there.”
“Um, Scully, I know I said I’m tired, but I know where I live. It’s not here.”
“It’s where I live, Mulder. Thank you for noticing.”
He’s quiet after that; too quiet. She unbuckles his seat belt for him and helps him inside her building, even though neither his legs nor his feet are injured. Another thing they don’t talk about. Scully doesn’t even think about it. The big It. The thing they don’t mention but that definitely happened less than thirty minutes ago.
Their kiss.
“Scully?”
“Yes, Mulder?”
“You want me to sleep… here?” He’s looking at her couch, then back at her. It’s too small for him on good days and today isn’t a good day. He’s slept there plenty of times but never with an arm in a sling.
“It’s a new year,” she says, winking at him. “You get to sleep in a bed tonight.”
“Uh, Scully,” he says, following her and stumbling over his own feet. “This year is starting out go-ood.” He grins at her, his eyes small and red. A wave of tenderness washes over her. He’s too cute for his own good. He’s also high on painkillers and ready to fall asleep on his feet if the soft swaying motion is any indication.
“Go, um, go change in the bathroom,” she pushes at his chest.
“I don’t have any clothes to change into,” he muses as Scully shuts the door behind him. She quickly rummages through her closet, finding sweatpants and a shirt Mulder left here years ago. But before she can knock and hand him the clothes, he’s already out again, looking at her with a curious look on his face.
“Scully, why are rubber ducks yellow?”
“What?” she asks automatically, clutching his change of clothes instead of handing them to him. He’s standing there in his boxers and his arm sling and nothing else.
“You have a rubber duck in your bathroom – I really thought you had more taste than that – and it’s yellow. They’re all yellow. Have you ever seen a yellow duck, Scully? I haven’t. Should we open an X-File on this? Why are rubber ducks yellow? That doesn’t even make sense. They should be brown or green. Why do you have a rubber duck?”
She’s staring at him, torn between a laugh and a sigh. Only Mulder, she thinks, wondering if she should check up on what kind of pain medication they gave him after all.
“Go lie down.”
“But the yellow ducks,” he complains.
“Lie down and I’ll explain it to you.” She puts his change of clothes on her armchair, knowing he won’t wear them tonight.
Seeing Mulder in her bed should feel strange. But it doesn’t. It looks, and feels, right. He’s waiting for her and she knows they won’t do anything tonight. Nothing but sleep, that is. Like they’ve done so many times before. Yet, tonight is the start of a new beginning. It’s in the air. Tomorrow, or maybe the day after, they will reach for it. Tonight, she’ll try to stay on her own side of the bed, and tell him about rubber ducks.
“There are no yellow ducks, Scully.”
“There are yellow ducklings, though, Mulder,” she replies, waiting for his beautiful, albeit drug-addled mind to catch up.
“I just remembered that some of them aren’t yellow. I’ve seen blue rubber ducks. Blue, Scully. I think I’ve seen one wearing a tux. Where can you see a duck wear-“
She can’t say what makes her do it, what makes her lean over and press her mouth against his. Their second kiss is just as new, just as soft and careful as the first one. And just as addictive.
“This is an effective way to shut you up,” she says after, not moving away from him. “Can we have this rubber duck conversation tomorrow?”
“Can we kiss again tomorrow, too?” His eyes are hopeful.
“Maybe,” she says, meaning yes.
“Then the rubber ducks can wait.”
Scully turns off the light and lies down, a soft smile on her lips where she can still taste Mulder.
“But there really are no blue ducks, Scully. It’s science.”
General, 20. “Is that vodka? At 7 in the morning?” Thank you!!!
For reference, this is immediately post “2Shy.”
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport
7:00 A.M.
“Is that vodka? At 7 in the morning, Agent Scully?”
Cutting Mulder a sidelong look, Scully stirred the screwdriver with a little plastic stick and then gave it a taste. Whatever well vodka the airport bar carried tasted like it could double as paint thinner. Her throat burned, but the drink would probably take the edge off. While she was long past her day drinking college days, this case had done a number on her nerves. Between the sexist detective and his “honesty” and the … well, she wasn’t sure what to classify Virgil Incanto as. The images of the damage caused in order to satiate a hunger for human fatty tissue were burned into her memory, possibly forever.
“Mulder, I’ve earned this along with a very long, very hot shower when I get home.”
She drained the rest in one go, swallowing hard with a slight wince afterward.
He nodded and then turned to the bartender. “Just put that on my bill.”
Send me a prompt / message if you’re curious about what fandoms I’ll write for (tbh too lazy to write them out here)
@suitablyaggrieved replied to your post “I’ve been thinking about the interesting phenomenon of being Known on...”
It’s honest, and I like it.
Thanks. It’s hard to know what this kind of influence means, you know? Nothing, but definitely not nothing. And it isn’t something I earned: it was given to me. Yes, I’ve put in decades of work to be able to create the things I create, but there are plenty of people whose artistic endeavours are just as deserving of attention as mine, if not moreso. And I also need to acknowledge that I came from a household where I always had nourishment and internet, and I have a job that theoretically only takes 40 hours of my week (haha), so I’ve always had the luxury of time and space for creating because my brainpower wasn’t all used up on surviving.
Anyway. I don’t know. It’s so weird and wonderful to be in a place where I make things that mean something to people, because I know what it feels like to hold a story in your heart and make it a part of yourself.
