#txf ficlet

[sentientsky]

tiny little msr s6 angst drabble i wrote a couple years ago and never posted <3

There’s a game she used to play as a child, in the basement of the church, when the Sundays seemed to stagger on endlessly. You begin by lacing your fingers together, thumbs pressed in parallel. Here’s the church and here’s the steeple. You then turned your wrists and opened your palms. Open the doors and see all the people. 

A church. A steeple. A holy ground made of flesh and bone. And Scully—for all her prayers and scuffed knees and adamantine hymns whispered into the hushing dark—is a cathedral made empty. The sermon leaves the mount, the congregation slips behind the altar to a place she can’t follow. 

Her father. Jack. Melissa. Emily. 

And now Mulder. Not dead, but hollowed out somehow—Orpheus peering into the mouth of Tartarus and deciding it’s not worth it. That she’s not worth it. 

Five years of his shoulder brushing hers, of phone calls and close calls and his mouth pressed against her temple like a prayer. 

She’s trembling already, and when the light finds purchase on their clasped hands, Scully would swear there’s blood in her mouth. She wills Mulder to look at her, to see her. 

But they’re standing in a room that she can’t reach, a porous barrier made solid. Mulder has drawn a line in the sand that she can’t cross.

Really, it’s a liminal sort of space—the distance between two heartbeats (the time it takes to break one of them). She breathes in, and the only thing holding her up is inertia. A body in motion remains in motion, remains steady and unshaking until she can find a way back to her car. Until the sun goes down and the sentinel guard of her heart can lay down its shield and she can let herself break. Just a little bit. Just until the light of the morning cuts through the glass and drags her forward. Towards Mulder, always towards Mulder—some cosmic force, a gravitational pull that always calibrates to the iron in his blood. 

[actual-changeling]

ao3 is down so have a snippet from the 'scully having a migraine fic' i've been (very) slowly working on. might actually lock in and finish it if people wanna read the whole thing.

— ~ — ~ — ~ —

Now, his hand hovers between them in the air, and she wants him to touch her, needs him to, so maybe they can pretend for a single moment as if everything's still okay.

Caught out of time and in the dark, honesty comes easier, so she nods her consent, waiting for him to move. It softly settles on her shoulder, and as if on command, her eyes fall shut and the tension begins to bleed out of her body. Scully deflates, swallowing tears, and is unable to keep herself from gravitating towards him.

"I'm out of my meds," she whispers, feeling his knuckles against her cheek as her head falls, and suddenly she's two years younger and has never heard of Diana Fowley. "Pain killers should kick in soon enough."

His skin is comfortably cold, and in a pain-muddled moment of vulnerability she adds, "Sorry 'bout the case, you'll have to work alone at least for a day or so. Might be able to do an autopsy tomorrow if-"

"Hey hey hey, no, don't." Mulder gently interrupts her, his fingertips tracing the back of her neck until he finds the bottom of her skull. "Not happening. The locals will manage this one, it's more of an interest of mine than a real case anyway."

It takes him a second or two to localise the exact spot he's looking for, and when he does, he carefully presses down, massaging it with slow circles. The annoyance over the fact that he's obviously lying quickly fades as the relief hits her like a truck, and she emits a hoarse moan she'd otherwise be deeply embarrassed about.

Nothing fully gets rid of the burning pressure plaguing her head, but it soothes the nausea churning in her gut, and, somehow more importantly, covers the hole in her chest.

"You- ah, fuck, you're lucky this part came back to you, or I'd be a lot more upset right now."

Mulder's chuckle is more felt than heard, and without moving his hand, he sits down next to her with his back to the door.

"I remember everything, it just took me a minute to get there again."

[actual-changeling]

Tried to write some more and ended up with this. One of my favourite tropes is the two of them sleeping together in an "if we don't acknowledge it, it's not real" kinda way until they eventually crash and burn, so that's what this turned into.

—-—-—

It's become a habit, somehow, to reach over and touch his side of the bed before she even opens her eyes. Muscle memory, a reflex that lives in thin motel sheets and uncomfortable mattresses; never at home, though. The sanctity of that remains intact.

Another case, another night they don't talk about, and her fingertips find only the cold. Considering he's always gone by the time she wakes up, Scully shouldn't be hit with a wave of disappointment, but she is. Twined around that, relief. She turns to lie on her back and stares up at the uneven ceiling, Mulder's body a memory that is erased by the daylight breaking through the blinds.

The only warmth she will get from him is the coffee cup he will press into her hands, and they will both pretend his touch doesn't linger.

Sleep well? Is always the first thing out of his mouth, and they will both pretend the shape of it isn't still staining her skin.

Somewhere along the way, they have convinced themselves it doesn't count if they don't kiss, if they turn off the lights and swallow any noise that is shaped too much like a name.

Sure, she'll respond, and decide not to mention the smudge of lipstick near his temple. They belong to each other as much as they belong to the dark, and the early winter sun is too bright for honesty.

Stress relief, is what she tells herself every single time they fall back into bed in a place where nobody knows them—except it has the opposite effect. Scully is still angry, about Diana, about being left to fend for herself more days than not, about how much she misses him most when there's not an inch of space between them.

One last sigh, and she locks up the memory of last night in the back of her mind; she'll catch herself opening it anyway, a bruise she cannot stop touching. Even if she wanted it, them, to stop, she doubts she could stick to it now that she knows just how good they can get.

Scully leaves the blanket in a messy heap on his side, and gets out of bed to put her armour on before the knock on her door arrives.

He will take it off of her once the sun sets.

[actual-changeling]

part 1 || part 2 || part 3

———

scully just keeps walking. without looking. walking faster in heels than anyone should be able to. her coat is a bellowing shadow behind her, and her hair a flickering wildfire as cars rush by.

it's a busy street, he knows it's a busy street, he should have known better than to push until she fled. everyone around her is unreal, dizzyingly blurry, and she is sharp and bright in a painful kind of way, like an open wound bleeding wet onto the asphalt. like the sun suddenly breaking through the clouds, blinding you as it burns itself up to live.

he cannot take his eyes off of her, her rage smudging her outline like charcoal, her tears finding tracks through the pain covering her skin like ash.

mulder is right behind her—he has to be—with one hand stretched out, his fingertips gaining form as they reach for her. he is afraid he will run through her like smoke, that he will watch her disappear from the world in a cacophony of screams and screeching breaks, that in running from him he chased her to her death.

she turns in the middle of the crossroad, stopping and becoming a stone in a white water rapid; the crowd parts around her like the sea in front of moses.

to him, she is everything, should be everything. to the world, she is nothing.

to herself, she's a figure of broken glass struggling to keep itself whole.

when his hand wraps around her wrist, he feels her pulse beating desperately to escape, but she doesn't move, doesn't speak a word, simply watches him watch her burn.

"i'm sorry. i shouldn't have—"

they're a car crash waiting to happen.

"yes, you shouldn't have."

except that he did, again and again and again.

i love you.

too late, too early, too loudly and not loud enough. wrong place, wrong time, never to be said at all. he told her a week ago with saltwater in the back of his throat, and she disappeared into the sea then, too.

the street empties, and she slips from his grasp, slowly and then all at once. silently, mulder follows her just closely enough to die with her if the world were to turn on her.

———

me? writing angst? exactly what i should be doing, it's been too long.

[sentientsky]

i'm just gonna post my x files wips cause i'm too tired to finish them properly lmao

[actual-changeling]

Hey, have you ever thought about the fact that Scully's birthday was the day before they started their undercover case in Arcadia? She states the date as the 24th of February at the beginning of the recording—her birthday is on the 23rd.

Because I thought about it, at length, and now I can't stop.

Everything was far from okay at that point, but after thinking that the one when she was dying of cancer would be her last, you can't tell me that Mulder forgot.

He remembered, maybe he'd already gotten her a gift weeks or even months ago, and he had been looking forward to seeing her reaction. To giving her something that might seem silly on the surface yet holds a deeper meaning only the two of them understand.

He's not going to give it to her now.

In part, he's scared she'll get overwhelmed and retreat even further from him; the space is already nauseatingly wide. Then there's the guilt, the self-loathing, the constant "does she want me to acknowledge her birthday?"

Does she? Does she want him to put just how personal their relationship is on the table, wrapped in paper and a bow, and apologise until his voice dies?

If it ends badly, they'll be stuck in the murderous suburbs playing house for god knows how long, and he doesn't want to do that to either of them. They can fix this, he knows hopes they can, and he'll go at whatever pace she decides.

Despite deciding to keep the gift for now, he carries it with him to work that day—just in case. Just to feel the weight of it in his pocket as he watches her live, breathe, exist.

Neither of them broaches the topic the entire morning, and they work like they've done for the last couple of weeks. Silently, a little awkwardly, and with the unsaid surrounding them, it almost becomes hard to breathe at times.

Still, Mulder wants to say something, if only to show her that he remembered, that he values her, and their relationship. That he was wrong, and it is personal.

At some point, they're collecting files to take to Arcadia with them, and she passes by him (not as close as she used to). Mulder gently reaches out and stops her by touching her shoulder, swallowing heavily when she flinches before freezing on the spot.

Scully is scared, tired, lonely, and she wishes things weren't the way they are. Sometimes she can barely remember how good they were together, how good it felt to be around him, with him, touching him. He's touching her now, and it burns like frostbitten skin being exposed to even just a flicker of warmth. She's been staring at his last birthday gift more than she should, tracing the words with her fingertips and trying to remember the way he smiled at her.

Mulder slowly squeezes her arm, lingering because, for once, she allows him to, and quietly says, "I didn't forget."

Then he lets her go.

Scully can't look at him for the rest of the day.

[actual-changeling]

partly inspired by my own meta post that i wrote about it a while ago. i thought about the love confession at the end of triangle for too long and somehow managed to uh. make it hurt even worse. sure, i could have fixed it BUT i can also write the equivalent of making us all chew glass so that's what i did.

800-something words of bittersweet angsty hurt/comfort

———

"Hey, Scully."

Her feet are aching and her body is screaming for rest, and yet she returns to his bedside when he calls, exactly like she always does. The day is heavy on her bones, eating away at her composure and leaving her raw, with her nerves exposed. It feels like she hasn't slept in a week, and all she wants is to go home, have a hot bath, and probably cry for a good hour or two. 

Mulder pushes himself upright, and with her hands grasping the railing, she leans in closer than she probably should; she can still see him floating in the water, no matter how hard she tries to expel the memory.

"Yes?"

Scully can't say what she expected—a 'good night', maybe, or a 'thank you for saving my ass again'. 

But when Mulder looks at her with an unflinching gaze and says, "I love you,"  she breaks. Easily and all at once, a dry twig snapping underneath her heel, a ripe peach bruising as it rolls from the kitchen counter. Her eyes flutter close, her next inhale shakes almost violently, and she falters. The white-knuckled grip she has on the plastic railing is the only thing keeping her upright.

Scully cannot look at him, can't face the determination, the hope she knows she'll find. After a minute of tense silence, she speaks with a quiet, tortured voice, and clings to the last remnants of her self control.

"Don't—don't do that to me, please. Not today."

Mulder's hand lands next to hers, and she stares at the inch of distance between them as hers begins to tremble.

"It's not drugs talking, Scully, I mean it."

I know you mean it, she doesn't say. That's the problem.

God, she's tired. She just wants to go home and forget about all of it, and now he cannot even give her that one last respite. The tears pricking in the corner of her eyes are born of overwhelmed exhaustion, and her strength fizzles and burns out as she attempts to hold them back. She does not want to cry in front of him, never has, and the hot trail running down her cheek feels like a dagger pointed at her chest.

When Mulder sits up and leans in, she squeezes her eyes shut and is about to turn away when his fingertips brush along her jaw. He slowly, hesitantly, traces the lines of her face until he cups her face with his right hand and wipes at the tears with his thumb. 

It's everything she wants at the wrong time, and yet she helplessly sinks into the touch. After a few moments of her allowing the gesture, his other hand comes up, too. Mulder is close enough for her to feel his warmth against her skin and his breath ghosting over her lips.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and she doubts either of them knows what exactly he's apologising for. 

Saying it. Not saying it earlier. Saying too many things he shouldn't have. Almost getting himself killed again. All of it and more.

"I can't do this, Mulder. Not when—when you could change your mind and take it back."

She can sense him scrambling to respond, and she finally opens her eyes to stop him in his tracks. Not unkindly, she softly shakes her head.

"You will promise not to, but it already happened. You meant what you said until you didn't. You wanted me around until—well." The laugh bursting out of her throat is weak and humourless.

In a flash of panic, Mulder's grip on her face tightens, not uncomfortably so, just enough to cause her hands to shoot up and wrap around his wrists in return. Keeping him in place, pulling him away, she doesn't know. Both. Neither. He does not want her to walk away, and, deep down, she wants to stay despite knowing she can't. 

"Never again," he pleads, an edge of desperation to his voice she heard once before; another missed chance hidden badly from view. "Never again, Scully, I swear."

She's shaking her head before he finishes his sentence, squeezes his wrists once, and then slowly leads his hands away from her face. Immediately missing the warmth, she lingers and keeps them in her grasp. After everything they went through, he's still Mulder, the one person in the world she knows would never willingly hurt her despite having done so before. She still trusts him, no matter how hard she tries not to.

Regret is dripping from her words, and she smiles, if only to soften the blow. She doesn't want to make the situation worse than it already is, but she can't do this. She can't. Not now. Not like this.

"I want to believe that, I really do, but it's not enough. Words aren't enough."

She slowly slides her hands upwards until she can unfurl his fists and press a kiss to his palms. Then she lets go and steps back.

"Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow." 

Scully feels his eyes on her for days, no matter how many miles stretch between them. He does not say it again. She didn't expect him to—somehow, it still hurts.

[actual-changeling]

any moment now

a season 5-ish ficlet that just kinda. spilled out of me while trying to write something else. pretty much just very emotional angsty hurt/comfort

content warnings for discussion of the cancer arc & mulder-typical suicidality

tagging @today-in-fic

———

Look, she didn't mean to keep it from him, and she never lied because he never asked, and maybe she would have if he had. Maybe she wouldn't have. Is it still a lie if the truth behind it is the same?

She's fine. She is truly, completely fine, except for the moments when she looks at him and sees a gun pressed to his temple. except for when she passes out on the plane and wakes up with her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, and she wants to fall out of the sky.

Immortality isn't not dying; it's finding a moment worth living in and then never leaving, and that is the crux of the problem, isn't it? The "never leaving". The "finding a moment worth dying for".

Worth dying in.

She knows how to die now, and it doesn't scare her anymore, but it scares him, and she is scared of his fear. So, sure, she is afraid of dying and of what will survive, and for how long. There is no moment without him, and she knows he won't hesitate, just like he didn't hesitate trapped in a hospital room. Crumbling on the floor of his childhood home.

Crying next to her in the middle of the night, kneeling and twisting his sorrow into a prayer, and God did not hear him, but she did.

Some days, she wants to leave behind their guns and run away. She wants to take his hand and make sure he holds hers, always, never a weapon. Never something that might kill him, but she might kill him too, and she cannot tell if she's the gun or the bullet or the finger pulling the trigger.

If she really wants to stop him from following her, knowing there is nothing left to find alone.

An hour until we land, and she closes her eyes again and doesn't move. Neither of them moves anymore, they're done dancing. His lips are in her hair, and every turbulence is a spark of hope. They're burning up or dreaming that they are, or maybe this is her kneeling next to him with no prayers left.

They could fall out of the sky, and he would still put himself between her and the world, no matter how futile. He always will, unless the world is inside of her and killing her on its way out. He tried to dig up the truth marking her for death, having found it just to wish he had never started searching at all, pleading with nothing to allow him to take her place.

Her not him, him not her, and they keep wrapping the same ribbon around their hands—standing in front of the desk that is their altar, the office turned sacred ground turned graveyard dirt.

Let me save you on my way to the grave, as if they aren't going to be buried in the same coffin, the same earth. Not a moment worth dying for, but a person, a life imagined and lived over and over and over. Maybe this is the time they got it right. Maybe they always have. Maybe that's their immortality, a shared life worth dying in.

Any moment now, she thinks, and he thinks, and she takes his hand, even though it's not the flying that scares her anymore.

It's the landing.