#one coworker also said ‘mulder and scully are both such beautiful people’

[artemisiatridentata]

today a couple of my coworkers mentioned they’re watching the x files and that they’re on season 3 and they “love the chemistry between mulder and scully” and “can’t wait to see where it goes” and it took everything in me not to let out a wilhelm scream

[delphiniumblooms]

okay i figured i should put together an x-files fic masterlist. please also take this opportunity to harangue me into writing more because i have some ideas but little motivation to start (this might have to do with the fact that i haven't watched any x-files in three weeks)

anyway, here they are in order of writing. i have to mention that i started writing only having seen s1 and am now still only in the middle of s2 so these are wildly canon divergent

word count: 1101

rating: G

The part of him she loves best is his voice. She especially likes the way he says her name. ---- some reflection on mulder's sexy dulcet tones, how they get together, etc.

word count: 1181

rating: G

"Fox Mulder, you are under arrest. Anything you say can and will be held against you. You have the right to an attorney…"

"Scully," he whispers, and she raises an eyebrow at him. What is it?

"Agent Scully isn't an attorney," Skinner deadpans.

"I know. But you said anything I said could and would be held against me…that includes physically, doesn't it."

---

the two of them get in a little bit of trouble, but they'll get out of it okay.

word count: 2915

rating: M

"For…real? You must be joking, Mulder. We'd get at best reassigned and at worst fired." He takes his feet off the desk and turns in his swivel chair to face her. She can't read his face exactly — she thinks he's forcing himself to be calm and composed. Is he… nervous? She supposes it takes a fair amount of courage to propose marriage to your longtime coworker, but Mulder has always had courage in great abundance. "So we tell no one. You keep your name. We keep separate addresses. It's simple." --- they get secretly married!! Scully has some complex feelings about it but everything turns out okay

word count: 5879

rating: E

He's wanted her for the longest time, yearned for her body against his, her lips hot on his, his name in her breathy moans. He lets himself imagine for a moment him finally getting what he's dreamed of. But not like this. Not like this, with her pupils blown to such proportions that the blues of her eyes are but slivers, her skin hot and flushed, her mind not her own. It is not her. She is not doing this of his own volition, he realises, tearing his lips away from hers and moving to put the table between them. He has some idea now of how all those people fucked themselves to death or insanity. "Scully," he says. "Scully, look at me." She does, her hands reaching for him, a mournful, confused look on her face. "Mulder. I want you. Won't you have me?" "Not while you're high on this fucked up… sex pollen shit." --- wondered if anyone had written X-Files sex pollen fic, decided to write my own. this is like if the Midnight Oil plot from Agent Carter and Roald Dahl's Bitch and Gender Bender and Blood all had a baby together.

word count: 4108

rating: E

She is so beautiful. He plays back the pleasurable memories of last night as he takes the elevator down to street level, wetting his lips subconsciously. God, he could fuck her all day and night. He's so lucky to have her as a friend, as a fuck buddy. And one day, fate willing… they might be more. --- Mulder finds himself falling for his coworker-with-benefits, the beautiful and enigmatic Dana Scully, but he's convinced she doesn't return his feelings. Both of them drink a little too much and fuck a little too well. As we all know, you are your most honest self when drunk. Alcohol loosens lips, and loose lips can sink ships... or raise a fleet of emotions and secrets. Will they admit their true feelings to each other? Or will they only and always miss each other in the fog of drunken haziness and miscommunication?

word count: 2800

rating: T

She's already beginning to feel stir-crazy. The rooms are small. She and Mulder have one each, and they share one bathroom and one living/dining space. The ceilings are low and it feels as if the walls are closing in on them. Everything feels claustrophobic, too small for comfort. He's too close for comfort. --- The time passes — it would have passed anyway, but it is infinitely more enjoyable to pass it in each other's arms, knowing that they are loved and wanted. It is so good. The domesticity of it is so lovely, and she doesn't feel claustrophobic any more. It feels right to have him so close to her, to fall asleep next to him, to sit side by side and hold hands under the table when they eat. --- MSR, in the one-month quarantine they were put in after Firewalker

word count: 2792

rating: G

He cajoles her into posting a rather vintage-looking Polaroid shot of her he'd taken one night. She does look pretty good in it. It was a good shot. Not that she's going to tell him that.

trustno1 my muse. my touchstone.

She smiles, but doesn't like the comment.

langly_ringo23 @trustno1 coworkers do NOT talk to each other like this

She's scared for a moment that Ringo's guessed that they're together. She's halfway through typing a DM to him to beg him not to rat them out when she stops, rereads the comment, and decides to leave it.

At least he knows they're supposed to be just coworkers.

---

Fox and Dana's journey after getting together in fuck, i'm lonely, chronicled in photo posts on Scully's Instagram page.

word count: 160

rating: G

what happened in the elevator in Paper Clip!

word count: 1367

rating: G

She is here; she is safe. He's found her. He pushes away the urge to sob in relief and focuses on taking care of her, freeing her bound wrists, explaining to her how he'd found her.

---- hurt/comfort post-Irresistible, plus an important conversation about protecting each other

[sisterspooky1013]

Damsels, Chapter Eight: They Don’t Want to be Found

By SisterSpooky1013 / Read previous chapters here

Rated E / Tagging @today-in-fic

Mulder calls in to work the next day, too sleep deprived and mentally exhausted to function. After sleeping until nearly noon, he gets back in his car and returns to Philly. He checks into a hotel that’s just a few blocks from the club and then spends the next several hours trying to watch TV, trying to read, and jacking off picturing Scully topless. A short time later, he jacks off again, this time imagining what he’ll see tonight.

He isn’t really sure what he’s doing or why he’s here. The best excuse he can cook up is that she doesn’t have a weapon and he’s protecting her, but realistically he knows she can take care of herself. Is it really just perversion, that he wants to see her…exposed? What will he say if she spots him? He can imagine her level of mortification if she knew he was here, that he’d seen her, and he feels guilt churn in his gut. She might never forgive him for this.

He knows it’s wrong, but he can’t seem to stop himself from going back. He has to see her again.

Scully had lay awake for hours after Angel left, thinking about what had happened, wondering how it happened in the first place. She’s on a case, how stupid could she be? What if it comes to light that she’s become involved with a witness in the case? She might be suspended. At least then maybe they’d never ask her to do something like this again. What if Mulder finds out? Would he feel betrayed somehow? Would it turn him on?

Somewhere around 6 am, she had finally caved in and slid her hand down the front of her panties, groaning when she felt how wet she was. She swirled her finger around her clit, using her own arousal as lubricant, and imagined what might have happened if Angel’s phone hadn’t rung. Would Angel have touched her? With her hands, or her mouth? Maybe both. Would she have touched Angel? She was approaching the brink just thinking about it. She stopped suddenly, remembering something, and grabbed the bullet vibrator from her bedside table, switching it on and pressing it to her clit as she plunged the middle finger of her other hand as far inside herself as she could reach. Within 30 seconds she was unravelling, images of Angel and Mulder dancing in her head as her walls clamped tightly around her finger. Finally, she had slept.

She manages to sleep until nearly three in the afternoon again, then spends the day getting her nails done, reading, and devising a plan for how she might look through the files in that closet. Without knowing what’s in them, she has no way of gaging whether Ricky is likely to notice if she takes a few at a time and returns them later. Worse still, Lexie is working tonight and that gives any risk she takes the potential to blow the whole investigation. She’s positive that given one more red flag, Lexie will sing like a canary. The silver lining is that Angel won’t be at work for the next three days, so they can get some space from what happened between them.

The evening is mostly business as usual, and she’s a bit horrified to realize that this is becoming as dull and predictable as any other job. She lets her mind wander while she flexes and rolls over horny married men, wondering what Mulder is up to, whether he’s worried about her or even misses her. Part of her wonders if he might realize that his life is less complicated without her, and that he prefers it that way. She feels an ache in her chest, a bit further north than she has grown accustomed to, and realizes how much she misses him.

When he enters the club, she’s at the bar. Half her torso is resting on the bar top as she shouts to be heard by the bartender, who’s laughing at whatever she’s saying. The position she’s in pops her barely covered ass out prominently behind her and his eyes go big at how exposed she is, and how comfortable she seems with it. Her bare breasts are smushed against the lacquered countertop and he feels his cock twitch thinking about how hard her nipples will be when she stands up. Unfortunately, it would be too risky to stick around and find out, so he tugs his ball cap lower and finds a table in the back. The dancers never seem to come back here for some reason.

He keeps his head trained towards one of the other dancers at all times, while his eyes follow Scully’s every move. If he knows one thing, it’s that Scully can feel his eyes on her, so he needs to be careful. His disguise is painfully basic and all it would take is one solid look for her to know it’s him. He watches her give a lap dance to a blushing young woman, a soft smile on her face the whole time, and he can’t decide if he’s more turned on or touched by how hard she’s working to make the woman feel comfortable. The aching hard-on in his jeans suggests the former.

This time he’s mentally prepared for her stage set, and also realizes she can barely see beyond the tip rail with all the stage lights on her, so he lets himself enjoy it. He’s known from the moment he met her that Scully is beautiful, sexy, incredible in every way imaginable, but he never could have imagined her moving like this. She’s so graceful and captivating. He lets himself block out all the other jerks who are leering at her, stuffing bills into her underwear, and just watches her. His Scully. She’s ethereal.

“Seems like you’ve found your ATF,” a voice to his left startles him from his reverie.

“Huh?” he turns to see the same waitress who’d served him last night, clad in a fishnet body suit.

“You were here last night, right? You like Desi?”

He panics. “No! I mean, yes. But, don’t send her over here or anything.”

She nods in understanding. “You like to watch. That’s cool, whatever floats your boat, man. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yeah, can I get a Captain and Coke?” He walked here, why not enjoy himself, right?

Four drinks for him and ten lap dances for her later, he stumbles into the balmy night and back to his hotel room where he jacks off again. Twice.

Everyone is trickling out slowly at the end of what has been a busy shift. Scully takes her time counting her tips, sharing a cut with her bird dog and the bartender on shift tonight. While she would not say that she likes working here by any stretch of the imagination, her coworkers at the club are her only source of socialization and (with the exception of Lexie) she truly enjoys their company. She’s helping one of the custodial staff, a wiry young man they called Don Juan, put up the chairs on the club floor so he can mop when Ricky approaches her.

“Desi, can I see you in my office, please?” He has a somber demeanor that concerns her.

“Um, sure, of course.” She bids the young man farewell and follows Ricky down the hall. He closes the door behind them and she feels her heart start to race.

Ricky sits down behind his desk and motions for her to take a seat across from him. She’s reminded of her first day here and the feelings of fear and anticipation.

“I need to ask you something, Desi, and I want to make sure you don’t mention it to the other girls.”

“Okay,” she responds, taking shallow breaths to obscure the fact that she’s afraid.

“Angel told me what happened.”

Her mouth falls open but no words come out. Is she in trouble for kissing Angel?

“That’s why she was so upset the other night, when you saw her in here. She told me that she’d talked to you about her past a bit,” he shakes his head ruefully. “Some gall those dirtbags have, shaming her for being sexual in any way, then coming to a titty club on the sly.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Right, yes, the people who came in. She was very upset. “

“It was really nice of you to spend some time with her after work. Anyway, I gave her a few nights off. She needs a break.”

Scully nods. “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Right! So, Angel is my right hand gal, she helps me with a lot of stuff around here. With her being out, I wanted to ask you to kind of be her backup, if you will.”

For a moment she’s afraid Ricky is asking her to perform some kind of sexual favor, but she recalls that Angel had said he’s gay. “What did you have in mind?” she asks hesitantly.

“Well mostly, I wanted to give you a set of keys for the club. Angel has one, in case something happens to me and I’m not here to open and close the doors, stuff like that.”

A set of keys? Scully feels a flush of adrenaline. “Of course, I can do that.”

“That’d be great, Desi. I know you haven’t been with us all that long, but you seem pretty trustworthy, at least compared to the other girls. Like I mentioned, I’m hoping we can keep this between us, just so there are no hurt feelings from anyone who’s been here longer than you.”

Her heart is pounding with excitement at the opportunity to gain access to those files. “Is there an alarm code or something I should know about?” She recalls a sign on the door for ADT.

Ricky dismisses her concern with a flick of his wrist. “No, nothing like that. I should get one, but I just pilfered those signs from my buddy to scare off vagrants.”

She nods in understanding.

“Ninety-nine percent chance nothing will happen and there’ll be no need, but thanks for being on deck, just in case,” he says as he hands her a playboy bunny shaped keychain with a single key dangling from it.

Scully smiles at him. “I’m more than happy to help.”

After she leaves the club, she first goes home to stash her tips and change into comfortable, dark clothes, and then gets a big cup of coffee and a disposable camera from the 7-11 near her apartment.

By the time she’s lurking in the corner of the club’s parking lot, watching the door, it’s nearly 4am and there’s still a light on inside the foyer. She sips her coffee and waits, shuffling her feet to keep warm. Finally at 4:50, Denny and Ricky emerge, locking the door behind them. After they leave the parking lot, Scully waits another 20 minutes before she creeps around the perimeter of the lot and approaches the door. Glancing around to be sure no one is watching her, she turns the key and steps inside, locking it behind her.

The quiet stillness is eerie in contrast to the throbbing hive of activity it had been earlier in the night and she flicks on her flashlight, making her way to Ricky’s office. She fits the same front door key into the lock and sighs in relief when it turns. Ricky’s security standards aren’t incredibly high, apparently, but in this case it’s to her advantage. She tries the key on the hallway closets just in case, to no avail, and returns to the office. Navigating to his desk, she pulls open drawers quickly, scanning their contents. Nothing is of interest, and she’s disappointed though not surprised that his keys to other areas of the club aren’t in here. That makes things more challenging, but not impossible. She’s spent her days off at the library researching how to pick locks, including buying a lock picking kit and some padlocks at the local hardware store to practice with, and she feels relatively confident she can get this door open without a key. She might just have to be the one to pick the lock next time she and Mulder have the need. She smiles to herself knowing how impressed he’d be.

Back in the hallway, she pulls the small lock picking kit out of her back pocket and kneels in front of the door, the pen light perched between her teeth. She studies the lock and then inserts a torque wrench at the bottom, turning it slightly to put resistance in the direction it will spin when unlocked. From the kit, she selects a straight, flat pick and runs it from back to front at the top of the keyhole a couple times. Next she exchanges it for a pick with a curved end, pushing it as far back and high as she can reach as she holds her ear close to the lock in the stony silence of the hallway. Bumping against the pins inside the lock, she listens and feels for a small click or give that indicates the pin has settled in its unlocked position. She continues this until she counts five pins clicking into place, then removes the pick and turns the torque wrench.

The lock releases with a soft click and she laughs out loud as the door swings open, beyond pleased with herself. Stepping into the closet, there’s enough room for her to close the door behind her and she does so, pulling a cord to turn on the overhead light. Taking stock of the beige bank of file cabinets, she works top to bottom, left to right, and immediately feels her heart sink when the first four drawers she tries are empty. Would this be yet another dead end? When the fifth drawer snicks open, she sees a small set of files hanging towards the back. She quickly checks all the other drawers so she’ll have a good idea of how much material she has to review, but they’re all empty.

She pulls the files out and sits down with them on the floor, setting the disposable camera near her thigh. There are eight folders nestled inside the hanging file, each one with a set of initials on the tab. The first one is marked “G.A.” and inside she finds an intake form, a personal statement that’s filled out by hand, and a release of liability form. The intake form is sparse and includes nearly no identifying information. The name is listed as simply GA and the fields below it include “entry date,” “exit date,” “reason for sheltering,” and “responsible individual.” On the form for GA, the entry and exit date are both a year and a half prior, about six months apart. Reason for sheltering is listed as “threat of violence-domestic,” and the responsible individual reads “brother.” She turns to the second page, which contains GA’s personal statement.

Continue Reading Here

[gaycrouton]

A Collection of Constants

msr / collection of drabbles / multi-season

This work is a huge, belated thank you to the wonderful Don'tPanicFace who was so, so, so kind to me at X-Fest! So sorry it's so late, but I hope you enjoy it and I am oh so thankful. I also went a slightly weird way with the prompt, but I hope you'll like it! Prompt: "Mulder once told Scully he liked her freckles as she was covering them with makeup, & she scoffed. He said he loved every single one, & it became a thing that he's cataloguing all the freckles on her body."

2016

“You have some new ones,” he stated, the sentence tumbling from his lips without a second thought as he watched her work. His case report on the Man-Lizard (formerly titled Lizard-Man) laid unfinished in front of him as his eyes wandered to their favorite destination.

“Hmm?” she replied from the back of her throat, not bothering to look up.

Her suit jacket had long been discarded to the seat behind her and her bare arms rested gracefully on the desk in front of her. Even from here, even with his bad eyesight, he saw a few new tan freckles littering her arms, kissing the skin gently like he had all those years ago. 

“You have new freckles on your arm,” he murmured, leaning forward to tap her arm in four different places all while lingering a beat longer than necessary.

Either the touch or its duration caused her to look up at him with a raised eyebrow as she looked back down at her arm. “I don’t know,” she shrugged, passing it off as a question when they both knew it wasn’t.

“No, you do. I’m certain,” he teased, pointing to two more on her other arm.

“Mulder,” she replied sternly, her voice a gentle warning to knock it off.

It wasn’t that she was ignoring their prior relationship, no - but every time he made a referential comment or innuendo, she put her walls back up. In his worst moments, he feared it was her wanting to shut him down before he could get his hopes up for a relationship she had no interest in rekindling. In his best moments, he thought she didn’t want to get her hopes up that he was better only to be let down. 

But he was better. Is better. And he was going to do everything he could to let her know that.

He’d spent years gaining Scully’s trust, her faith in him - in them.

He raised his hands in gentle concession. He’d listen better this time around. He gave her a small smile as he scooted forward towards his desk, picked up a discarded pencil, and started working. 

1995

It was a beauty mark.

What made a beauty mark different than a mole, he wasn’t necessarily sure, but what he did know was that impromptu shower in the high school gymnasium took off her usual cover up and revealed a light brown spot on her upper lip.

He’d suspected probably everything under the sun: a raised bump, freckle, a mole, a patch of dry skin that caught her foundation, he’d even considered it was a beauty mark, but he couldn’t guess why she’d cover it up.

They always say that near-death experiences make you grateful for the little things you take for granted, and right now he was irrationally relieved he lived through an attempted sacrifice at the hands of crazy cultists to finally find out what was on her lip.

“Mulder, why do you keep staring at me?” she asked, running her hands over her damp hair for the umpteenth time as if that alone would prevent the curls in her hair from fully forming. 

“I like your beauty mark,” he replied, lifting his hand and gesturing to her lip, resisting the urge to let his finger graze it.

She touched it in his place with the slight roll of her eyes. “Thanks,” she muttered with sarcastic enthusiasm.

“What, don’t you like it?” he asked, his brows furrowing. 

The flashes of crime scene cameras followed by their gentle whirrs created a strange juxtaposition to their mundane conversation, but Scully didn’t seem to be put off by his line of questioning and he figured she was grateful for the respite from the events of the night. “I just always have,” she shrugged, pursing her lips.

“Marilyn Monroe had one,” he offered. 

“On her cheek,” Scully corrected.

“Cindy Crawford has one on her upper lip. I think Madonna has one right where you do.”

Scully looked at him with a cocked eyebrow and he realized his attempt to make her feel better may not have been working as he’d hoped. “You sure seem to know a lot about beauty marks,” she deadpanned.

He shrugged self consciously and emitted a half-hearted chuckle. “I think they’re called beauty marks for a reason.”

She smirked for half a second before suppressing it. “I’ve always been told it looks too big for my face,” she admitted honestly.

“They were wrong.”

1997

It wasn’t like he’d never seen them before. The makeup she used might’ve boasted ‘24 Hour, long lasting, Smudge-proof wearability’, but a day in the life of Scully and a day in the life of the average Covergirl consumer were vastly different. Sometimes he’d catch her in her motel room after she’d washed her face and it was adorned with more freckles than normal. Sometimes he’d wait to say goodnight to her just in the hopes of catching a glimpse of them.

Now, he could see them all on display as she lay bare-faced and sleeping in the hospital bed. He couldn’t see himself, but he knew his face was blotchy and red, as if he’d absorbed all the color the cancer had taken from her.

His knees ached from kneeling on the hospital floor next to her, but this was a vigil he couldn’t find the heart to move from. She still hadn’t woken up, despite his sobbing right next to her for the better part of an hour. Probably a result of the heavy meds they were using to keep her free from pain, to make this all easier for her.

He felt a fresh wave of tears sting his eyes, and he looked upwards towards the ceiling to blink them away. He felt like he was trying to swallow a rock, but he didn’t want to wake her on accident. He’d rather be careful than acknowledge it’d take a lot to wake her up now. 

He sniffed as quietly as he could and looked back down at Scully. Her small frame was lit up by the moonlight streaming in through the blinds. Her dainty hand was still in his, next to the slowly evaporating, large wet spot where his face had just lain.

The occasional flickering behind her eyelids and the gentle rise and fall of her ribs were his only indication she was alive. She is alive. His throat tightened back up as the world blurred. 

Figuring it was a fruitless effort, he let the tears fall down his cheeks as he stared at the ghostly white version of the face he’d been looking at for four years. He let out a small breath through barely opened lips as his eyes caught sight of her uncovered beauty mark, now darker against her alabaster skin. 

There was another, much smaller, dot on her cheek - a dark freckle normally covered up by makeup, she had another prominent one on her forehead near her hairline, but without a doubt, she had the most on the bridge of her nose. Some of those were so close they almost became an indistinguishable clump of amber.

Eighty eight, that he could count, of course. And that was just on her face. Some of them were chocolate brown, others were a faint tan color, imperceivably different than her skin. He was certain that he’d seen more during their summer cases when she valued sunscreen over moisturizer and the sun had darkened them. 

His face was still hot, there was still the uncomfortable pressure at the front of his face, but the tear tracks had finally dried. The rhythmic counting of her freckles had acted like a gentle metronome to center him. He had no idea what to do, but he had a mental map of all the small details of her face, and just that soothed him ever so slightly. Even in her sleep, she could still comfort him. 

Letting go of her hand as gently as he could, he stood upright on sore legs and roughly wiped his face with the palms of his hands.

He had work to do. He had to fix this.

1999

He was bolder. They both were. This thing between them didn’t have a name, but it had a feeling. A feeling of melancholy when Friday rolled around and they hadn’t made plans yet, the prospect of a weekend without the other sounding suspiciously miserable for two coworkers. A feeling of butterflies when “Hey it’s me” was followed by “Do you want to come over?” A feeling of intense longing when body heat was shared from sitting too close on a couch. A feeling that it still wasn’t close enough.

While she was a bit bolder in physical touch, he was a bit more blunt with his words. 

“Why do you cover up your freckles?” he asked one morning when she was doing her makeup in a motel mirror. That was new too. He’d get up early just for the chance to sit on her bed and watch as she did her morning routine, usually under the guise of bringing her coffee and then overstaying his welcome. 

She turned to look at him, face still bare minus the sheen of makeup being applied to her skin. “I like them,” he followed up, seeing a few of them peeking out in areas she hadn’t covered yet.

She scoffed goodnaturedly before returning to the mirror, rubbing circles against the skin of her face. “Did you know people are less likely to take women with freckles seriously than those without?” she asked.

His brow furrowed as he tried to recollect the women in his life who had freckles. She took his silence as a ‘no’ and continued, “It makes women look young. Men don’t take young women seriously. I work in two male dominated fields, and with my freckles I look like a co-ed. Consequently, I cover them up.”

“That’s a shame,” he murmured honestly. She looked back over at him as she picked up a brown tube of eyeliner, shrugging her shoulders as if it was just something she’d come to accept. “I love every single one of them,” he smiled at her.

She looked down as the corners of her mouth quirked up. Even through the layer of makeup, he could still see her turning pink.

“Thanks, Mulder.”

He knew the thing between them wasn’t really nameless. It started with L, ended with E, and had a lot of fear in between. But he’d conquered much scarier things with Scully by his side before.

2000

Two on her left shoulder blade.

One on mid-back.

Two on her lower-back.

Three on her breasts.

One on her abdomen.

One on her outer labia lip.

He got a little distracted after that, but just like the sentiment Scully had been screaming, he knew there were more.

His hands were on her warm back as she raised up and down in time with his breathing, her own even breaths coming out hot on the skin of his neck. “The freckles on your back look like Cassiopeia,” he murmured, running his hand up and down her spine. 

“We tried a new position and you were staring at my freckles?” she teased, his theory she was falling asleep evident in her tone.

“I was staring at a lot of things, Scully,” he cooed in reassurance. As he said this he let his hand slide further down her spine so he could cup her left cheek. His spent member stirring ever so slightly inside of her.

She laughed lightly and he could feel her roll her eyes. “You’re insatiable,” she murmured.

“I think I could say the same about you,” he laughed, looking at the discarded shirt on her vanity that was now missing several buttons. He felt her nuzzle impossibly closer to him, her breast plastered to his bare chest, and it made a smile spread across his face. This was real. The warmth of her skin and the smell of sex still lingering in the air was proof enough.

He raised his hand back up the slope of her spine as he moved to press his index finger into the top freckle on her shoulder-blade, tracing a delicate line to the next until he’d created a connect-the-dot pattern on her back from memory.

“Was tha’ Cassio-peia?” she mumbled, barely clinging onto consciousness.

He gently grabbed the quilt tangled at his side and spread it out on top of them the best he could without jostling her, earning a contented hum.

Crunching his neck upwards, he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and whispered, “Yes. Cassiopeia, the Queen.”

There was no response as her breathing evened out completely. Enjoying the weight of her on his chest, he smiled sweetly to himself. He’d spent years trying to find answers in the stars and now he had a constellation lying in his arms. 

2001

“I have to be honest, I was really expecting a head of bright red hair,” he whispered, not wanting to wake the newborn on his chest. 

Scully was reclined next to him, propping herself up on an elbow to look at her boys. “He looks like his dad,” she murmured with a smile, a playful twinkle in her eyes. 

“Is that why he doesn’t have any freckles?” he asked, stroking the few brown hairs on the baby’s head into a mohawk.

Scully laughed softly at his attempt and answered, “No, he doesn’t have freckles because freckles don’t develop until the ages two to four.”

“I bet his first one will be right here,” he whispered, faintly pointing to the upper bridge of his William’s little nose.

Scully rolled her eyes, but played along nonetheless. “I’ll place my bets here,” she replied, pointing to William’s cheek, indulging just a little to stroke the soft skin.

“Oh really?” Mulder challenged playfully.

She nodded before leaning closer to him. “Like I said, he looks like his dad,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his own light beauty mark laid against his stubble.

His cheek pressed against her lips as he smiled, and he turned to catch her lips instead. This was what serenity felt like. 

“I don’t know, Scully. The piercing blue eyes, the fact he willingly wants to be near me. Those traits alone make him unquestionably Scully,” he explained.

She closed her eyes and let out a little exhale laugh through her nose before scooting even closer to him, laying flush to his side as they both stared at the little sleeping baby. “Just wait, he’s going to be towering over me spouting off conspiracy theories in no time,” she replied wistfully.

2002

“Do you know what that is, Gibson?” Mulder asked, pointing up towards the night sky. He’d been upset with himself all day and he finally convinced himself to go outside for some fresh air.

Dearest Dana.

He’d most likely put his family in danger because he couldn’t contain how much he missed them. Gibson let him go through his miscellaneous magazines and he’d come across an old “Best of the 80s” edition of Rolling Stone. He went from blissfully distracted with a Bob Dylan feature to feeling the wind knocked out of him with a picture of Madonna from her “Like a Virgin” days.

A beauty mark on the upper lip. 

She was everywhere.

“It’s Cassiopeia,” Gibson replied immediately.

Mulder glanced over at the kid who was drawing in the sand with a stick, focused on his task. “Did you actually know that or did you hear me?”

“You’ve thought about it a lot. This is the first time I’ve seen it in the sky though,” he replied pointedly.

Mulder cringed in embarrassment that wouldn’t ease no matter how many times it happened. “Sorry.”

A silence fell between them as Mulder looked back up, his eyes going to every individual star that comprised the constellation. “You’re doing it again,” Gibson muttered.

He let out a long sigh and looked at Gibson. Most middle school boy’s experience with the female form came from Playboy or Penthouse, but Gibson now unfortunately had his classmates beat, all thanks to Mulder. “Would you mind…” he trailed off, looking back to the opening of their hideout.

“Sure,” he agreed, letting the stick fall soundlessly to the ground as he turned to walk away. Mulder heard the sounds of him walking, but stopping short of the door. “It was just an email. I doubt we can be found just through that alone. Besides, I bet it meant a whole lot to her.”

He’d long learned it was useless to placate the boy by trying to agree when his heart wasn’t in it. He respected him more than that. All he could offer was a small smile and a thanks, which Gibson reciprocated in kind.

Turning back to the sky, he was reminded of his own queen. Was she safe? Was William safe? Was this as hard for her as it was for him?

He knew it was. He just hoped this was all worth it in the end.

2003

“This one is my favorite,” he murmured, kissing the crook where her neck met her shoulder.

She let out a breathy, shaky laugh as she trembled in his arms. He’d spent the better part of an hour trying to find every single freckle and mark on her body. He hadn’t taken the time to do this inventory before, and it pained him immensely while they were apart. He wouldn’t take it for granted again. He wanted to know every intimate, minute detail of Scully’s body.

She was giggling when he started the journey with his fingers, but the giggling died down when he started using his mouth. Now she had the motel bedsheets in a white knuckle grip as she lay naked with him hovering above her. “Oh really?” she panted, not succeeding in feigning interest in discussion that didn’t pertain to her impending orgasm.

“And I like this one,” he murmured, suckling the one on the underside of her left breast. 

She gently arched upwards, making the skin of their lower abdomens rub against each other. He gasped with a laugh and moved down. “And I like this one,” he repeated, licking the two freckles on her prominent hip bone lightly.

“More,” she whispered breathlessly.

“This one,” the words tumbled from his mouth as he scooted backwards so he could kiss her inner thigh with ease.

She took her turn moving on the bed and readjusted herself so that it was her dripping arousal in his face instead of her thigh. Point taken.

“Especially this one,” he growled, using his thumb to press onto the labia freckle while his mouth went straight to her clit.

She seemed to like that one too.

2018

He could look now. 

When he’d mentioned a few new markings on her arms after the Guy Mann case, he’d been shut down. Now, he felt empowered. The same serotonin rush he would get all those years ago when she’d coyly accept his invitation to his apartment was back in full swing. 

She was still nervous, he could tell that from the way she seemed to get quiet after indulging in an overly intimate comment. As if she was reflecting on if she should or shouldn’t have said it. But it was different than it was when they first started working on X-Files again. The trepidation had been replaced with something that looked like hope. It was an expression he was all too familiar with as he saw it every time he looked in the mirror. 

He’d never press her too much - the best things in life come to those who wait, and he’d wait an eternity if that meant he could spend his life with her. She’d made the first move then, and he’d correctly suspected she’d make the first move again. 

Last night the fantasy he’d been playing in his head for the past four years fantasizing about finally became real. The fact it was technically fraternizing on the job was just an added bonus. It hadn’t been exactly how he’d dreamed; he didn’t get to say all the sentiments on his mind, the lights were off, and he had to leave in fear in the middle of the night instead of waking up with her in his arms. But she had given him hope.

Come back to bed.

And less than 24 hours later, they were back in bed. Though sleeping was the last thing on either of their minds.

He’d always loved unwrapping presents. Ribbons, bright colored paper, the buttons of silk blouses - whatever it may be, as long as it came from Scully, always brought a smile to his face. 

“What?” she asked with a breathy smile. 

“I wasn’t able to see all the new freckles you had last night, it was too dark,” he stated with a grin.

She rolled her eyes and laughed at the enthusiasm in his voice. “Are you going to do that thing with your mouth again, because I think I have too many for that now,” she laughed.

“Is that a challenge?” he murmured before sucking on the bend of her neck. 

She was silent for a moment, shifting under him in an effort to rub against his appreciation for her. After a beat, she answered in a playful and lust filled tone, “Yes. It is.”